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On the popular website Reddit, where users submit and share content, a member of a forum called "creepshots" was handing out advice last week. His subject? How to photograph women surreptitiously. "Don't be nervous," he wrote. "If you are, you'll stand out. Don't hover too much, get your shot and move on if you can ... You'll look less like a creep if you have photos of things other than just hot chicks' asses." He offered this advice in the comment stream attached to a gallery of photos of women snapped unawares at airports. Those images joined hundreds posted by group members of women waiting for trains, packing groceries, standing on escalators; the camera homing in on their bottom, crotch or breasts. And they joined thousands more on creep websites as a whole, a large, thriving online subculture. The point is to catch women unawares, lay claim to something off-limits, then share it around for bragging rights and comment. Erin Gloria Ryan, a writer for popular women's website Jezebel.com, was alerted to the forum by concerned Reddit users who are trying to get it closed, partly because some of the pictures appear to have been taken in schools. The content on the creepshot forum isn't pornography, says Ryan, "but it is using people's images in ways they definitely wouldn't want authorised". For group members, she says, it seems to be precisely women's lack of consent – the violation of their privacy and agency – that is appealing. The issue of women's pictures being taken and shared without their consent has been in the spotlight for more than a week now because of the furore around topless images of the Duchess of Cambridge. I suspect the most arresting photograph of the scandal will actually prove to be the one that shows where the photographer was apparently standing. An 'x' marks a spot on a public road, so far from the chateau where the couple were staying that you can barely make out the building itself. The perspective makes any argument against the right to privacy seem laughable, yet they continue. The editor-in-chief of Denmark's Se og Hør magazine, which published a 16-page supplement of the photos, has implied Kate must accept some responsibility for "willingly revealing her breasts towards a public road". The story prompts questions about why there is such a market, and therefore audience, for these pictures. As others have pointed out, it is not as though there is any dearth of bare breasts, consensually exposed and shared, on the internet. The answer involves a familiar combination of desire and humiliation. There is an interest in seeing not just any breasts, but all breasts, a sense that female bodies are public property, fair game – to be claimed, admired and mocked. Paparazzi culture has been a problem for decades, but it has taken on an especially sinister, sexualised hue in recent years. In 2008, for instance, a photo agency announced that Britney Spears definitely wasn't pregnant – by posting pictures of her in period-stained knickers. Emma Watson has said that on her 18th birthday she realised that "overnight I'd become fair game ... One photographer lay down on the floor to get a shot up my skirt. The night it was legal for them to do it, they did it. I woke up the next day and felt completely violated." At the Leveson inquiry, towards the end of 2011, Sienna Miller said that for years she was "relentlessly pursued by 10 to 15 men, almost daily ... spat at, verbally abused ... I would often find myself, at the age of 21, at midnight, running down a dark street on my own with 10 men chasing me". While we associate this experience specifically with celebrities, we arguably all live in a paparazzi culture now. Cameras are ubiquitous, as is the technology to share and publicise pictures instantly. The throb of surveillance plays out in different ways. On the more benign side are the mild nerves many people feel when an email pops up to tell them they have been tagged in a Facebook photo, an image that could be from any moment in their life – recent or historical – now public, and open for comments. But it also plays out in more insidious ways. This includes the creepshot websites, and others where people collect images of ordinary women they have culled from around the internet. Julia Gray, co-founder of anti-street harassment group Hollaback London, says she was horrified when a picture of her ended up in one of these groups, an image of her at her best friend's birthday party. "We were really drunk, I fell over, and my friend took a picture that happened to capture my boobs down my shirt." When she saw it in her friend's Flickr album online, she was completely relaxed about it; in that setting it was just an innocent, funny image. But then it was appropriated, "and in the context of all the other pictures – upskirt shots and down-top shots – it became incredibly creepy. All of a sudden it was this weird, voyeuristic thing, and I felt really preyed upon." Then there is the evidence that young women are being coerced into taking suggestive pictures by their male peers, badgered in a way that is distinctly paparazzi-like. Teenagers today have grown up in an environment filled with both paparazzi pictures and images of ordinary women with their tops off. We live in the land built by gossip and lads' magazines over the past decade. Heat magazine ran its Circle of Shame feature for years, encouraging young women to look at their female peers, deride them for ugliness, and simultaneously police their own appearance. Nuts magazine went into nightclubs and asked women to flash for them. Zoo magazine asked readers, "What kind of tits do you want for YOUR girlfriend?" in a 2005 competition that offered £4,000 worth of surgery in return for pictures of readers' girlfriend's breasts. This has been the formative environment for today's teenagers, and in a small-scale but fascinating NSPCC study published this year, researchers spoke to 35 students at two London schools, and found "peer surveillance and recording was normalised to the extent that many young people felt they had few friends they really 'trusted'". A girl in her second year at secondary school whom the researchers spoke to reported that the demand "Can I have a picture of your tits?" occurred daily. If boys managed to get these photos, they immediately became a form of currency for them, and potential humiliation for the girls. Male interviewees spoke about posting these pictures to "exposure sites" on Facebook, profiles set up especially for this purpose. Allyson Pereira, an anti-bullying advocate from New Jersey, has had that experience first-hand. Now in her 20s, she was 16 when her ex-boyfriend – the first boy she had dated – said he would get back together with her if she sent him a topless picture. She did, and he immediately "sent it to everybody in his contact list," she says, "and it just went viral". She found out when everyone started laughing at her, and calling her a whore. Her mother initially said they would have to move, former friends called her disgusting and teachers made jokes about it. Six months later, Pereira felt so lonely that she attempted suicide. Having planned to become a teacher herself, she abandoned the ambition, because: "I would have had to explain to every single [employer] about my past, because you never know when a picture like that is going to resurface." She didn't go to university, because she felt too vulnerable. The photo is still out there, she's sure, and although her anti-bullying work gives her pride, feels her life will always be tainted. "I don't like public places," she says, "I'm still bullied sometimes now if I go out. I have people who call me a whore." In recent years a genre of websites dedicated to sharing humiliating pictures of women – and occasionally men – has cropped up, known as "revenge porn" sites. The idea is that vengeful people can post humiliating, sexual pictures of former partners, photos often clearly intended for personal use only, if they were taken with consent at all. Charlotte Laws first encountered these sites in January this year, after her daughter Kayla, who is in her mid-20s, had her computer hacked. In Kayla's email account was one topless photo she had taken of herself – it hadn't been shared with anyone – which was then posted on a notorious revenge porn site, Is Anyone Up. She was distraught, and Charlotte, an author and former private investigator, spent 11 days, non-stop, working to get the picture taken down. One of the nastiest aspects of the site, which has since closed, was that humiliating photographs would be posted alongside details of the person's social media accounts, so they were immediately identifiable. Laws wanted to find out more about the experiences of those whose images ended up on the site, so began an informal study. She called 40 people – a few men, but mainly women, reflecting the site's make-up – and says that 40% had had accounts hacked, while others were victims of vengeful exes. She spoke to three teachers, one of whom had lost her job due to the site, and another whose job hung in the balance. One woman was terrified the photos would be used against her in a custody battle. Another had seen her business ruined – even though the nude images the site ran alongside her social media profiles weren't actually of her. There was a woman who had taken pictures for her doctor, of her breasts bandaged after surgery, and those had been hacked from her computer and posted. All the pictures were open to biting discussion of looks and desirability. Laws has been researching possible legal routes for victims of such sites, which has brought her into contact with Mary Anne Franks, associate professor of law at the University of Miami. "What unites creepshots, the Middleton photographs, the revenge porn websites," says Franks, "is that they all feature the same fetishisation of non-consensual sexual activity with women who either you don't have any access to, or have been denied future access to. And it's really this product of rage and entitlement." Franks finds it interesting that the response to these situations is so often to blame the woman involved. Ali Sargent, a 19-year-old student and activist, says in her school years there were a few incidents of girls being filmed in sexual situations, without their knowledge or consent, and the attitude of other girls was dismissive at best – displaying that dearth of sympathy that distances people from the thought that it could ever happen to them. "It was mostly just, 'well, she was pretty stupid,'" says Sargent. Franks echoes this. She says the argument goes: "'You shouldn't have given those pictures to that person', or 'You shouldn't have been sunbathing in a private residence', or 'You should never, as a woman, take off your clothes in any context where anybody could possibly ever have a camera'. That's been shocking to me, that people aren't just outraged and furious about this, but they're actually making excuses for this behaviour, and blaming women for ever being sexual any time, at all. "Even in a completely private setting, within a marriage – it couldn't be any more innocuous than the Middleton situation – and yet people are still saying things like: what was she expecting, she's famous and she's got breasts, and therefore she's got to keep them covered up all the time. I do think it's a rage against women being sexual on their own terms. We're perfectly fine with women being sexual, as long as they are objects and they're passive, and we can turn them on, turn them off, download them, delete them, whatever it is. But as soon as it's women who want to have any kind of exclusionary rights about their intimacy, we hate that. We say, 'No, we're going to make a whore out of you'."
Democratic members of Congress apparently aren’t going to be satisfied until American citizens are completely and utterly defenseless. Representative Mike Honda (D-CA) has introduced a bill for consideration of the new Congress which would prohibit the ownership of certain types of body armor for civilians. H.R. 378 would make it a crime to own Type III body armor which would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Yeah, 10 years in prison. Of course, there are carve outs in the bill for state/federal employees and agencies. The bill does also include a grandfather clause for people who currently own this type of armor. Fortunately, with the GOP solidly in control of both houses of Congress this bill will likely never see the light of day. That said, it’s a great insight into how little some members of Congress care about the personal safety of their constituents. The bill is co-sponsored by Representatives Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL), Robin L. Kelly (D-IL), and Danny K. Davis (D-IL). The bill is currently sitting in the House Committee on the Judiciary.
When the haze dissipates in the late afternoon light, and when the last unfortunate souls hurry across the open space, running in a zigzag pattern, hunting season begins on Cairo Street. There is random shooting all day long at this spot, but from this moment on the shooting becomes targeted. A few people make it to the other side on this day, but one does not. He screams and falls to the ground as he is hit. He was carrying a loaf of bread, something that was no longer available on his side of Cairo Street. Pedestrians are rarely targeted in the morning. But beginning in the afternoon and continuing throughout the night, the wide, straight street that separates the Khalidiya and Bayada neighborhoods becomes a death zone. That's when they -- the snipers working for Syrian intelligence, who are nothing more than death squads, and the Shabiha killers, known as "the ghosts," mercenaries who are paid daily wages and often earn a little extra income by robbing their victims -- shoot at anything that moves. The map of Homs is a topography of terror these days. Entire sections of Syria's third-largest city are besieged. Hundreds of thousands have become the hostages of a regime whose president, Bashar Assad, insisted with a chuckle in an interview with America's ABC News, that only a madman would order his forces to shoot at his own people. What began nine months ago as a peaceful protest against the dictatorship of the Assad dynasty has since become a campaign against the people by the regime -- a regime that, for 41 years, was accustomed to using brutality to enforce submission. Since it realized that this brutality was no longer sufficient, it decided to use even more -- and then even more when the resistance continued to grow. There are no negotiations. In the heavily guarded downtown section of Homs, where the regime feigns an eerie mood of normality for foreign visitors, it has put up signs that read: "The continuation of dialogue guarantees stability." Random Targets On Monday, the regime officially yielded to demands by the Arab League, announcing that it would now allow independent observers into the country. But Assad had already promised an end to the violence months ago, and nothing changed. On Tuesday, his forces bombarded Homs with rockets. Many cities in Syria have become combat zones, and now the uprising has even reached the suburbs of Damascus. But, in Homs, anywhere from five to 15 people die every day, most as the victims of snipers. The insurgents have counted more than 200 sniper positions in Homs, from which people are being shot arbitrarily and without warning -- not because they are protesting, but merely because they are there. One was the man who crossed the street to buy bread, who a few courageous bystanders pulled out of the line of fire and took to a field hospital the insurgents had set up in Khalidiya. But the victim was removed from the hospital within minutes. "He was shot in the head," a pale doctor says tersely. "We could do nothing for him and we need the space." A young teacher, now filling in as a nurse, says: "Help us! We need medication, weapons, everything!" In the next room, a doctor is using a thin, folded prayer rug to teach five women how to suture deep wounds. In another room, a man is doubled over in pain as doctors amputate part of his foot after a gunshot wound became infected there. According to an announcement coming from the loudspeakers of a nearby mosque, the pedestrian with the bread has just died. Outside, in the bluish light of dusk, a vegetable truck drives by loaded with his corpse and the body of another person who was shot earlier in the day. A couple stands in front of their house, shaking in anger and despair, watching the truck disappear down the street. The woman, who is veiled, says: "Why can we simply be killed like this? Why is no one helping us? Where is the Arab League, and where are France, Germany, America?" She screams in exasperation. She tells us about an old man around 70 years old who was hit by two bullets in front of her house. "We couldn't get him out for an entire hour. When we had finally moved him into the house, we were so afraid that we tried to rinse away the blood, so that the Shabiha wouldn't attack us. Under these conditions, what does it matter whether we live or die? I'm going to the checkpoint! I'm going to put on an explosive belt, so that at least I can take them with me!" Homs is a complicated city, a microcosm of the country. More than half of its 1.5 million inhabitants are Sunnis, a little more than 10 percent, respectively, are Christians and Alawites, and the rest of the population is distributed among smaller minorities. The protests against the regime have inevitably developed their own dynamic. President Assad, the highest-ranking generals and the heads of the intelligence agencies are Alawites, as are most of the men in the death squads and the Shabiha militias. Their victims are almost exclusively Sunnis. Soldiers and members of the intelligence agencies who have defected say that the regime has also deployed forces dressed in civilian clothes to attack Alawites in the name of the Sunnis and Sunnis in the name of the Alawites. Peaceful protesters are being painted as Islamist fanatics who have come to rape Christian women. 'They Kill Everyone' There have been unsolved kidnappings and murders in Homs, and there are reports of beheadings. And even though life is still relatively normal in the Alawite neighborhoods, the tension is building. "The fear of a civil war is prompting other countries to hesitate before helping us," says one of the young coordinators of the Revolutionary Committee in Homs, who says we should call him Ahmed. "But the longer it takes, the greater the risk of civil war." Ahmed guides us to a meeting of Alawite activists in the Bayada neighborhood. He wants to show us how they are trying to prevent the tension from escalating. The route takes us across Cairo Street, which is still quiet on this morning. It passes through houses where walls have been broken down to create new paths out of the snipers' range of fire. And it leads past knee-high piles of garbage and families fleeing with their suitcases, hoping to make it to other cities, where the situation is hardly any better. We finally arrive on Wadi-al-Arab Street in Bayada. Different rules apply here than only a few blocks away. The shooting is constant. People gather on both sides of the street, where bullets whip across the asphalt every few minutes on this morning. To get food and medication into the neighborhood, a few brave souls summon up their strength and throw bread, noodles, cigarettes and diapers across the street. Then, using wire snares, ropes and hooks, they try to pull to safety whatever has been left lying in the street. An old woman stands weeping in front of a building wall. "It's been like this for two months now. This is a prison. Even worse. I live over there (on the other side of the street). But I can't run so fast anymore. They'll kill me if I try to go home. They kill everyone. Katl, katl," she says, repeating the Arabic word for "kill." As the tears run down her cheeks, she sobs for a moment, then rubs her eyes with the back of her hand and says: "Excuse me." Waiting for an Attack After half an hour, a small, white delivery van arrives -- the taxi of madness. Those who wish to ride in the makeshift taxi say goodbye to the others and whisper quiet prayers. A man shouts: "And if we die, we die -- for a piece of bread!" Then they get in, first the old woman, her eyes shut, mumbling her prayers. An old man, carrying heavy bags, follows suit, then a few boys who try to lie down between the others, making themselves as small as possible. The people standing around the van step back. The driver puts it into reverse, gets a 30-meter (98-foot) running start, floors the accelerator and rushes across the street. He almost hits a parked car on the other side before coming to a stop amid cheers from the crowd. No shots were fired this time. Three other cars perform the same daring stunt, and everyone makes it. Prominent Alawites and a Christian from different cities have gathered in the house of a Sunni sheikh on the other side. They are planning demonstrations in relatively safe neighborhoods to protest the government's attempts to incite religious violence. "The world should know that the civil war is Assad's propaganda," one man says to murmured assent from the others. The problem, Ahmed explains, is that both of the sniper positions at the two ends of Wadi-al-Arab Street are in Alawite neighborhoods and are flanked by militias from the neighborhood. "The Alawites are the last bastion of the regime," he says. "The Sunnis are the victims, no matter what we say." But this, he adds, is a rather theoretical debate, since it is questionable whether they will even be alive in a few days. Some 200 to 300 tanks of the "Assad army" have been posted outside Homs for weeks. Residents anticipate an attack any day now. Everyone wonders what is making Assad hesitate, hoping that it is the mistrust of generals in his own army. The highest-ranking officers may be Alawites, but most of the soldiers, non-commissioned officers and lower-ranking officers are Sunnis. If they are forced to attack, men from the militias and the intelligence services will be standing at their backs to force them to shoot -- by threatening to shoot anyone who refuses to kill.
THE INTERNET — The same stock photo of a female officer was used for another article about women in the military, internet sources report. The sources also allege that the woman in the photo “is kind of hot.” The photo, a female lieutenant (junior grade) unfortunate enough to be photographed making a crisp salute, has been in almost constant use since it was taken in 2008. Plastering her photo on articles about sexual assault, the difficulties of gender integration, and how the Navy sucks has reportedly done the officer wonders throughout her career. “Some articles with this picture have gone viral,” the latest writer to use the picture said. “We hope to piggyback on their success instead of writing something insightful that people will want to read.” Comments on the article ranged from “would” to “totally would.” One commenter said he “[has] a friend who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows her, and they dated.” The article was shared more than 200 times on Facebook, all with someone tagging a friend and asking ‘Don’t you know this chick?’ This comes on the heels of a new recruiting poster which includes the pictures of a female rescue swimmer in a wetsuit holding her fins and a smiling woman in a flight suit and cranial helmet standing with her arms crossed. Both pictures have been in use for the past seven years. The Marine Corps has begun preparing a press release about women in combat and are considering photoshopping a Marine uniform onto the naval officer’s photo. At press time, an All Hands photographer was taking pictures of attractive female sailors standing in front of something cool. One is slated to be the cover photo of next month’s magazine along with a story about something everyone in the Navy already knows.
Would evangelical Christians say that black lives matter? Of course they would. Would evangelical Christians support the #BlackLivesMatter movement? Now things get more complicated. Because the movement is more closely tied to liberal politics, because it involves supporting LGBT black lives, because it’s critical of law enforcement, conservative evangelicals are having a tough time getting on board with an idea that supporters would say is simply about civil rights and fighting against institutional racism. Mark Oppenheimer writes in today’s New York Times about the struggle facing these Christians and the reactions from both sides after a supporter of the movement spoke at a major Christian conference. I’m sure a lot of evangelicals are wrestling with this issue, but their hesitation speaks volumes to everyone else. And this isn’t the first time they’ve been caught in this position. Remember: Bob Jones University didn’t drop its ban on interracial dating until the year 2000. As we speak, Wheaton College in Illinois may fire one of its only black professors over a theological disagreement after she said Muslims and Christians worshiped the same God. And we know how prominent evangelicals in the Republican Party have made it their mission to block damn near everything President Obama wants. I can see why black people might think evangelicals don’t have their best interests at heart. Their actions and political positions are a dead giveaway. It’s no wonder their message is so unappealing to those of us who really do care and aren’t afraid to show it. (Image via Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com)
I'm sure there are plenty of cycling enthusiasts out there who think that $15 is a small price to pay to view the Tour de France from their mobile device. I don't happen to be among them, so I'll take NBC's claim that its new app can stream "every stage LIVE on your Android handheld or tablet device" for granted. The app is available now in the Play Store for all Android devices running Gingerbread or higher, though it's almost certainly limited to users in the United States. In addition to live video and always-on replays, the app will let your track teams and cyclists in real time via the map view, read general news with video updates, check out rider profiles, and see results and standings. Though the non-streaming interface is pretty dull from a visual perspective, it's got a ton of information to deliver, and I get the impression that this is exactly what cycling fans want. The price is steep, but not onerous for an event with the cachet of the Tour. What's mildly annoying is the fact that NBC is selling separate access points for the web version of its Tour de France coverage ($29.95 for the whole thing, or $4.99 a day) and mobile platforms. There's no discount for buying both, and if you happen to have an iPhone or iPad that you also want to use, that'll be another $15. A centralized login system would have been easier for multi-platform users, to say nothing of a possible reduced cost.
Tampa man arrested after trying to meet underage girl for sex in Seminole County A 51-year-old Tampa man was arrested Tuesday after he showed up to have sex with an underage girl a a Seminole County hotel, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Kenneth Lee Strawn was texting with a girl via an app when he asked for sexually explicit images from the teenage How George Allen’s chief of staff inspired legislation to make it easier for gay couples to raise children The bill passed the Virginia General Assembly with significant Republican support. Orange County firefighter relieved of duty following his arrest on exhibition charge An Orange County firefighter was arrested on a lewd and lascivious exhibition charge Tuesday morning, according to the Osceola County Jail’s website. Edward Negron, 52, had been relieved of duty last week before the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office arrested him Tuesday, OCFRD spokeswoman Carrie Florida beaches listed in TripAdvisor world's best beaches for 2019 Plan some fun in the sun with the winners of TripAdvisor's 2019 Travelers' Choice awards for beaches. What is socialism? We want to know what that means to people in Wisconsin Take our quick survey.
Up until Ray Kurzweil's announcement that he was joining Google as Director of Engineering, I had been thinking about the search giant as two discrete companies in one skin. Now, I'm thinking it is actually three. Google has been successful beyond any reasonable expectation at becoming a ubiquitous, daily utility to a large share of the world's population. The value that the company provides as a service to internet users is vast and perhaps unmeasurable. It's service to marketers is easier to quantify and has been transformative, as well. The third leg of the stool—the reason Kurzweil signed on—is the company's pursuit of an artificially intelligent future. Each of these elements have pitfalls as well as virtues, but to what extent are they at odds with one another? I am not on the inside of Google, so it is possible that these distinctions are very explicit in the company's day-to-day operations, but each one of these functions could be a robust company itself. Would users be better served if they were? User Services The core of Google, its search product, has insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of the internet, from the web to the app-o-verse. Although there has been some heavy-handedness along the way, it has mostly done this by being excellent. The triumphant return of Google Maps to the iPhone—and the dogging of Apple's Maps app—was a clear signal that great data plus simple design is a winning formula on mobile, and everywhere. Google's explicit push to make better iOS apps than Apple itself is a testament not only to the company's competitiveness but also of its superior understanding of users' needs. The challenge for Google, and really all of the internet companies that offer their products for free, is how to keep the user's interest first and still get paid (by someone other than the user!) As Andrew Lewis (writing as Blue_beetle on MetaFilter in 2010) formulated it, "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." The conditions of that sale, of course, are far from explicit, but Google has made it virtually frictionless. Who would begrudge a friend who tells you they can solve your problem and make a little money for themselves in the process? As long as the self-interest seems secondary to the service, consumers are good to go. But as we can see from Facebook's far less successful attempt at monetization, when a company ratchets up the marketing more than the service, there is room for consumers to question the equation. But since, in advertising terms, desktop nickels are mobile pennies (compared, of course to TV or print dollars), the pressure to up the invasiveness of marketing messages—particularly on your phone—is getting intense. Advertising The FTC's ruling on Thursday in Google's favor (with a few minor constraints) is a clear signal that antitrust issues will not prevent the company's future expansion into "pay-for-play" listings in its search results. The commission did not find any appreciable harm to consumers in the way Google prioritizes and labels its commerce related listings. This is great news for the search giant, but less so for its competitors. As Google improves its delivery of relevant information across its suite of products, from desktop to mobile to TV and your car, many niches will be harder to break into for startups and big tech companies alike. And all of those products return ad revenues to Google—and take them away from its competitors. In general, consumers are happy with the bargain that Google is offering. In the new Google Maps, the speed with which the app recognizes what you are trying to type based on all kinds of contextual clues is uncanny. The fact that you may be exposed to contextual advertising in the process seems (correctly) incidental. But as the relevance improves, the "filter bubble" (to use Eli Pariser's brilliant coinage) can become more obvious. At what point does the question, "How do you know that about me?" introduce paranoia into the act of searching? The Future Enter Ray Kurzweil. In a conversation with X Prize Chairman Peter Diamandis at Singularity University on Thursday, the futurist said that "at Google, he will be working on advanced implementations of AI [and] will have unlimited resources," according to a live tweet by Vivek Wadhwa. "Kurzweil envisages creating tech that really understand human language [and] real meaning at Google," Wadhwa also reported. Kurzweil shares with Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin a personal investment in the idea of “the singularity.” Wishing for the day that artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence runs the risk of fetishizing the machine—at the expense of our humanity—but this too is part of Google's tripartite DNA. Kurzweil has been right before, notably by predicting that exponential rate of innovation would allow for the sequencing of the human genome. In his announcement about joining Google, Kurzweil adds that, “In 1999, I said that in about a decade we would see technologies such as self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions, and people criticized these predictions as unrealistic. Fast forward a decade—Google has demonstrated self-driving cars, and people are indeed asking questions of their Android phones." Exponential growth and power curve distribution are a fact of life, particularly in technology, hence Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns. But tech growth is the result of successive S-curves stacked upon one another such that a new one rises as the last is flattening out [Peter Diamandis apparently said something similar on Thursday's event, according to Wadwha, but the S-curves were incorrectly described as rising and falling, which would be a bell curve!] That has certainly been the pattern of Apple's success, with its succeeding waves of product lines from iPod to iPhone to iPad, but Google has struggled for growth beyond search and its attendant advertising. Google's alliance with Kurzweil represents, perhaps, an all-in for super-intelligent search as the continued cornerstone of its business. Who does this aggressive pursuit of the future benefit more, internet users, advertisers or "the singularity" itself? My concern, as a user advocate, is that we know the terms of the bargain and have ways to opt out if we no longer like them. The success of Google's whole enterprise—the reason why its products are better than its competitors—is because of its user-centricness. Can the company provide Kurzweil and its other futurists with the "unlimited resources" they may require to achieve their lofty goals without turning the advertising knob too loud for users' comfort? One, admittedly far-fetched, option to ensure this protection would be for the company to subdivide into its three component parts. Let the search and other user services become quasi-public utilities, Let the advertising platform pay the service platform of access to its users and underwrite the futurist program as high-level R&D. The strange thing here is that, from a business perspective, the singularity quickening is the harder sell. Is the function of the unified company not, in fact, the service of its users and advertising customers, but the service of the future itself? – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – To keep up with Quantum of Content, please subscribe to my updates on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.
The Turnbull government has rejected the need for federal laws to clamp down on unscrupulous middlemen at the heart of a network of foreign worker scams, with new Employment Minister Michaelia Cash opting instead for industry self-regulation. Asked specifically if there was need for action against labour hire middle men in the light of Fairfax Media revelations about systemic exploitation of temporary foreign workers, Ms Cash said: "Any proposal to regulate the operations of labour hire companies is best driven by the industry." Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash said the Turnbull government "does not tolerate underpayment or exploitation of employees". Credit:Graham Tidy Ms Cash pointed out that the labour hire industry body the Recruiting and Consulting Services Australia (RCSA) had released a proposal for an industry code. It is not yet clear if such a code would be voluntary or mandatory. On Thursday Fairfax Media published the findings of an investigation with Monash University that revealed hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers at any one time in Australian were being illegally exploited and underpaid in what has become a widespread black economy for jobs.
The original Spurs cockerel Tottenham Hotspur F.C. is an English football club based in Tottenham, London that came into existence in 1882. Formed as Hotspur Football Club by a group of schoolboys, it was renamed Tottenham Hotspur F.C. in 1884, and is commonly referred to as Spurs. Initially amateur, the club became professional in 1895. Spurs won the FA Cup in 1901 before joining the Football League, becoming the only non-League club to achieve the feat since the formation of the League. Since then, the club has won the FA Cup a further seven times, the Football League twice, the League Cup four times, the UEFA Cup twice and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. The Cup Winners' Cup in 1963 was the first UEFA competition won by an English team. In 1960–61, Tottenham became the first team to complete The Double in the 20th century. Tottenham played in the Southern League from 1896 until 1908, before election to the Football League Second Division. The club won promotion into the First Division the following year, where it stayed until the late 1920s. The club languished mostly in the Second Division until the 1950s, when it enjoyed a revival, reaching a peak in the 1960s. Fortunes dipped after the early 1970s but resurged in the 1980s. Tottenham has remained a member of the Premier League since its formation in 1992, finishing in mid-table most seasons. Of the club's thirty-two managers to date, John Cameron was the first to win a major trophy, the 1901 FA Cup. Peter McWilliam added a second FA Cup win for the club in 1921. Arthur Rowe developed the "push and run" style of play in the 1950s and led the club to its first league title. Bill Nicholson oversaw the Double winning side as well as the most successful period of the club's history, in the 1960s and early '70s. Later prominent managers include Keith Burkinshaw, the second most successful in terms of major trophies won, with two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup, and Terry Venables, under whom the club collected another FA Cup in 1991. Spurs played their early games on public land at Tottenham Marshes, but by 1888 they were playing on rented ground at Northumberland Park in Tottenham. In 1899 the club moved to a site that became known as White Hart Lane, where a stadium was gradually developed. Spurs remained there until 2017. A new stadium, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, is currently being built at the same site; home matches have been played at Wembley Stadium during construction. Formation [ edit ] On the 5th of September, 1882, the subscriptions to the club were commenced to be received, and the same, augmented by a small sum from the Cricket Club, were expended in purchasing wood for goal and flag posts, material for flags, tape (there were no cross-bars then), stationery and stamps, and later, a ball. The goal posts, one of which is still in existence, were of amateur make and made by Mr. Casey, the father of two of the members, and painted blue and white; the first ball was given by the big brother of the same two members, and he had some time back suggested the name of 'Hotspur' when the Cricket Club started. The actual founders of the Football Club were:—J. Anderson, T. Anderson, E. Beavan, R. Buckle, H. D. (Sam or Ham) Casey, L. R. Casey, F. Dexter, S. Leaman, J. H. Thompson, Jnr., P. Thompson, and E. Wall. R. Buckle was captain, H. D. Casey the vice-captain, J. H. Thompson, Jnr. the secretary, and L. R. Casey the treasurer. A Romance of Football: The History of the Tottenham Hotspur F.C. (1921) The Hotspur Football Club was formed in 1882 by a group of schoolboys from Saint John's Middle Class School and Tottenham Grammar School. Mostly aged 13 to 14, the boys were members of the Hotspur Cricket Club formed two years earlier. Robert Buckle with his two friends Sam Casey and John Anderson conceived the idea so that could continue to play sport during the winter months. Club lore states that the boys gathered one night under a lamppost along Tottenham High Road about 100 yards/metres from the now-demolished White Hart Lane ground, and agreed to form a football club. The date of their meeting is unknown, so the Hotspur Football Club is taken to have been formed on 5 September 1882, when the eleven boys had to start paying their first annual subscriptions of sixpence;[4] by the end of the year the club had eighteen members. Although the name Northumberland Rovers was mooted, the boys settled on the name Hotspur. As with the cricket club, it was chosen in honour of Sir Henry Percy (better known as Harry Hotspur, the rebel of Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 1), whose Northumberland family once owned land in the area, including Northumberland Park in Tottenham. The boys initially held their meetings under lampposts in Northumberland Park or in half-built houses on the adjoining Willoughby Lane in Tottenham. In August 1883 the boys sought the assistance of John Ripsher, the warden of Tottenham YMCA and Bible-class teacher at All Hallows Church, who became the first president of the club and its treasurer.[7] A few days later he presided over a meeting of twenty-one club members in the basement kitchen of the YMCA at Percy House or its annex on the High Road, which became the club's first headquarters. Ripsher, who continued as president until 1894, supported the boys through the club's formative years, reorganising it and establishing the club's ethos.[8] The stability he provided in the early years helped the club to survive, unlike many others of the period that did not. Ripsher found new premises for the club when the boys were evicted in 1884 after a YMCA council member was accidentally hit by a soot-covered football: first at 1 Dorset Villa on Northumberland Park where they stayed for two years, then to the Red House on High Road in 1886 after they were again asked to leave, this time for playing cards in church. The Red House, which stood beside the entrance gate to White Hart Lane but was demolished in 2016 during the ground's redevelopment,[11] was the club's headquarters until its move to 808 High Road in 1891 and later to White Hart Lane. In April 1884, owing to letters for another established club London Hotspur being misdirected to North London, the club was renamed Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to avoid any further confusion.[13] The team were referred to as "Spurs" as early as 1883, and they have also been called "the Lilywhites" after the white jerseys they have worn since the late 19th century.[16][17] Early years [ edit ] Spurs' first and second teams in 1885. Club president John Ripsher top row second right, team captain Jack Jull middle row fourth left, Robert Buckle bottom row second left The boys played their early matches on public ground at Tottenham Marshes, where they needed to mark out and prepare their own pitch, and on occasions had to defend against other teams who might try to take it over. Local pubs were used as dressing rooms. Robert Buckle was the team's first captain, and for two years the boys largely played games among themselves, but the number of friendly fixtures against other clubs gradually increased. The first recorded match took place on 30 September 1882 against a local team named the Radicals, a game Hotspur lost 2–0.[19] The first game reported by the local press was on 6 October 1883 against Brownlow Rovers, which Spurs won 9–0. The club played its first competitive match on 17 October 1885 against St Albans, a company works team, in the London Association Cup. The match was attended by 400 spectators, and Spurs won 5–2. In the early days Spurs were essentially a schoolboy team, sometimes playing against adults, but older players later joined, and the squad strengthened as they absorbed players from other local clubs. Some of the early members such as Buckle, Sam Casey, John Thompson and Jack Jull stayed with the club for many years as players, committee members or directors; for example Jull played until 1896, while Buckle served in various roles on the club committee and was on the first board of directors of Tottenham formed in 1898 until he left in 1900.[21] The club's matches began to attract the interest of the local community, and the number of spectators grew to 4,000 within a few years. As their games were played on public land, no admission fees could be charged for spectators. In 1888 Tottenham moved their home fixtures from the Tottenham Marshes to Northumberland Park, where they rented an enclosed ground and were able to charge for spectator admission. The first match there was in October 1888, a reserve match that yielded gate receipts of 17 shillings. A week later they were beaten 8–2 by Old Etonians in their first senior game at the ground. Spectators were usually charged 3d a game, raised to 6d for cup ties. By the early 1890s, a cup tie may have a few thousand paying spectators. In the early days there were no stands except for a couple of wagons as seats and wooden trestles for spectators to stand on, but for the 1894–95 season, the first stand with just over 100 seats and a changing room underneath was built on the ground. The club attempted to join the Southern League in 1892 but failed when it received only one vote.[23] Instead, the club played in the short-lived Southern Alliance for the 1892–93 season. Spurs initially played in navy-blue shirts with a letter H on a scarlet shield on the left breast and white breeches. The club colours were changed in 1884 or 1885 to light blue and white halved jerseys and white shorts, inspired by watching Blackburn Rovers win the FA Cup at the Kennington Oval in 1884, before returning to the original dark blue shirts for the 1889–90 season. From 1890 to 1895, the club had red shirts and blue shorts, changed in 1895 to chocolate brown and gold narrow striped shirts and dark-blue shorts.[27] Finally, in the 1898–99 season, the strip was changed to the now familiar white shirts and navy-blue shorts. Professional status [ edit ] The club became unwittingly involved in a controversy known as the Payne Boots Affair in October 1893. A reserve player from Fulham, Ernie Payne, agreed to play for Spurs but arrived without any kit as it had apparently been stolen at Fulham. As no suitable boots could be found, the club gave him 10 shillings to buy his boots. Fulham then complained to the London Football Association that Tottenham had poached their player, and accused them of professionalism breaching amateur rules. On the latter charge, the London Football Association found Tottenham guilty, as the payment for the boots was judged an "unfair inducement" to attract the player to the club. Spurs were suspended for a fortnight and as a result were eliminated from the FA Amateur Cup, as they had to forfeit their second-round match against Clapham Rovers. Despite the punishment, the controversy had an unexpected positive effect on the club. Press coverage of the incident raised the national profile of what was then a local amateur club, and gained them sympathy for what many thought was unfair treatment. Invitations from other clubs to play games increased, and attendance at Spurs' matches rose. The publicity also brought on board two individuals who went on to run the club: Charles Roberts and local businessman John Oliver, who also provided funding.[31] With an increasing number of teams to play against, the quality of Spurs' opposition also improved. To compete against better teams, the club committee, led by the second president of the club John Oliver, agreed that the club should turn professional. Robert Buckle made the proposal at a meeting on 16 December 1895, which was accepted after a vote, and the club gained its professional status on 20 December 1895. Spurs made a failed attempt to join the Football League, but were admitted to Division One of the Southern League in mid-1896. Later they also participated in other leagues, including the United League and Western League, in which they did not always field the full first team. The team was almost entirely rebuilt over the next two years; the first two professional players, Jock Montgomery and J. Logan, were quickly recruited from Scotland, and in 1897 the club also signed its first international, Jack Jones. On 2 March 1898, Spurs decided to become a limited company—the Tottenham Hotspur Football and Athletic Company—to raise funds and to limit the personal liability of its members. Eight thousand shares were issued at £1 each, but only 1,558 were taken up by the public in the first year.[33] A board of directors was formed with Oliver as chairman, but he retired after the company reported a loss of £501 at the end of the season in 1899. Charles Roberts took over as chairman and remained in the post until 1943.[34] On 14 March 1898, soon after the club became a limited company, Frank Brettell was appointed the first manager of Spurs. He signed several players from northern clubs, including Harry Erentz, Tom Smith, and in particular John Cameron, who signed from Everton in May 1898 and was to have a considerable impact on the history of the club. Cameron became player-manager the following February, after Bretell left to take a better-paid position at Portsmouth, and led the club to its first trophies: the Southern League title in 1899–1900 and the 1901 FA Cup. In his first year as manager, Cameron signed seven players: George Clawley, Ted Hughes, David Copeland, Tom Morris, Jack Kirwan, Sandy Tait and Tom Pratt. The following year Sandy Brown replaced Pratt, who wanted to return to the North despite being the top goalscorer. They, together with Cameron, Erentz, Smith and Jones, formed the 1901 Cup-winning team. Move to White Hart Lane [ edit ] First game at White Hart Lane, Spurs vs Notts County for the official opening on 4 September 1899 On Good Friday 1898 a match was held against Woolwich Arsenal at Northumberland Park, attended by a record crowd of 14,000. In the overcrowded ground, fans climbed up onto the roof of the refreshment stand to get a better view. The stand collapsed causing a few injuries, which prompted the club to start looking for a new ground. In 1899 the club moved a short distance to a piece of land behind the White Hart pub.[37] The White Hart Lane site, actually behind Tottenham High Road, was a nursery owned by the brewery chain Charringtons. The club initially leased the ground from Charringtons, but development of the ground was restricted by the terms of the lease. In 1905, after issuing shares towards the cost of purchase, Spurs bought the freehold for £8,900 and paid a further £2,600 for a piece of land at the northern end.[38] By then the ground had a covered stand on the west side and earth mounds on the other three sides.[39] The ground was never officially named, but it became popularly known as White Hart Lane, also the name of a local thoroughfare. The first game at White Hart Lane was a friendly against Notts County on 4 September 1899 that Spurs won 4–1,[41] and the first competitive game on the ground was held five days later against Queens Park Rangers, a game won by Spurs 1–0.[42] In 1900, Tottenham won the Southern League title, the first trophy won by the club. After the win, the club was dubbed "Flower of the South" by the press. 1901 FA Cup [ edit ] In the 1901 FA Cup, Spurs reached the final after beating Preston North End, Bury, Reading and West Bromwich Albion; all apart from Reading were Football League Division One teams of the 1900–01 season. The final was played at Crystal Palace against Division One Sheffield United, and was attended by 110,820 spectators, at that time the largest crowd ever for a football match. The game ended in a 2–2 draw, with both of Spurs' goals coming from Sandy Brown, and a disputed goal from Sheffield. The final was the first to be filmed, and it contained the first referee decision demonstrated by film footage to be incorrect, as it showed that the ball did not cross the line for the Sheffield goal. In the replay at Burnden Park, Bolton on 27 April 1901, Spurs won 3–1 with goals from Cameron, Smith and another by Brown. By winning the FA Cup, Spurs became the only non-League club to have achieved the feat since the formation of the Football League in 1888. The win started a trend for Spurs' success in years ending in a one, with further FA Cup wins in 1921, 1961, 1981 and 1991, the League Cup in 1971, the league in 1951, and in 1961, which is the double winning year.[46] The club also inadvertently introduced the tradition of tying ribbons in the colours of the winning team on the FA Cup when the wife of a Spurs director tied blue and white ribbons to the handles of the cup.[47] Following the 1901 Cup win, Spurs failed to repeat the success in the next few seasons but they were runners-up in the Southern League twice, and won the London League in the 1902–03 season as well as the Western League in the 1903–04 season.[49] They went on their first overseas tour, to Austria and Hungary, in May 1905. Cameron left on 13 March 1907, citing "differences with the directorate",[51] and he was replaced by Fred Kirkham in April 1907. Billy Minter was signed in the 1907–08 season; in 1919 he became the first player to score 100 goals for the club.[52] Kirkham was disliked by players and fans alike, and he left on 20 July 1908 after a year as manager. [54][55] Chart of Tottenham's table positions since joining the Football League. Tottenham resigned from the Southern League in 1908 and sought to join the Football League. Their initial application was unsuccessful, but after the resignation of Stoke from the league for financial reasons, Tottenham won election to the Second Division of the Football League for the 1908–09 season to replace them. As Spurs had no manager following Kirkham's departure, the directors took on the role of choosing the team, while the club secretary Arthur Turner was tasked with overseeing the team's affairs. Spurs played their first league game in September 1908 against Wolverhampton Wanderers and won 3–0, their first ever goal in the Football League scored by Vivian Woodward.[58] Woodward was also instrumental in the club's immediate promotion to the First Division after finishing runners-up in their first year. Before the start of the following season, Woodward left football to pursue other interests, although he later returned to the game and joined Chelsea. Spurs struggled in their first year in the First Division, but avoided relegation by beating Chelsea in the last game of the season with goals from Billy Minter and a former Chelsea player Percy Humphreys, sending their opponents down instead. Spurs cockerel in a 1910 official programme The club started an ambitious plan to redevelop White Hart Lane, beginning in 1909 with the construction of the West Stand designed by Archibald Leitch. The North and South stands were built in the early 1920s, and the East Stand completed in 1934; the finished stadium had a capacity of almost 80,000.[38] A bronze cockerel was placed atop the West Stand in 1909. The cockerel was adopted as an emblem because Harry Hotspur, after whom the club was named, was believed to be fond of cock-fighting.[27] Tottenham had initially used spurs as a symbol in 1900, as Harry Hotspur was said to have gained the nickname as he charged into battles by digging in his spurs to make the horse go faster, a symbol that evolved into a fighting cock.[60] In April 1912 Jimmy Cantrell, Bert Bliss and Arthur Grimsdell arrived at the club. Late that year Peter McWilliam was appointed manager. He became a significant and popular figure at the club, managing the team in two separate periods, both interrupted by world wars. The first significant signing by McWilliam was winger Fanny Walden, who was signed for a record £1,700 in April 1913, later signings included goalkeeper Bill Jaques and right-back Tommy Clay. McWilliam's record in the early years was poor, and Tottenham were bottom of the league at the end of the 1914–15 season when league football was suspended owing to the First World War that had started a year earlier. During the war years, White Hart Lane was taken over by the government and turned into a factory for making gas masks, gunnery and protection equipment.[64] The London clubs organised their own matches, and Tottenham played their home games at Arsenal's Highbury and Clapton Orient's Homerton grounds. When football resumed in 1919 the First Division was expanded from 20 to 22 teams. The Football League offered one of the additional places to 19th-placed Chelsea, who would otherwise have been relegated with Spurs for the 1915–16 season, and the other, controversially, to Arsenal, who had finished only sixth in Division Two the previous season.[66][67] This decision cemented a bitter rivalry that continues to this day,[27] a rivalry that had begun six years earlier when Arsenal relocated from Plumstead to Highbury, a move opposed by Tottenham, who considered Highbury their territory, as well as by Clapton Orient and Chelsea. Interwar years [ edit ] In the first season after the war McWilliam took Tottenham straight back to Division One when they became Division Two Champions of the 1919–20 season. They won with what was then a league record of 70 points, losing only 4 games all season with 102 goals scored. Two players signed that season, Jimmy Dimmock and Jimmy Seed, became crucial members of the team together with Grimsdell. Other notable players of the period include Tommy Clay, Bert Smith and Charlie Walters. The following year Spurs reached their second FA Cup Final after beating Preston North End in the semi-final with two goals from Bliss. On 23 April 1921, in a game dominated by Walters, Spurs beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 1–0 in the final at Stamford Bridge, with 20-year-old Dimmock scoring the winning goal. They also won their first Charity Shield. Spurs players started to wear the cockerel emblem on their shirts in 1921, following their FA Cup victory that year.[27] At McWilliam's instigation a nursery club was established at Northfleet in about 1922, an arrangement that was formalised in 1931 and lasted until the Second World War.[73] Thirty-seven Spurs players, nine of whom became internationals, started their playing career at Northfleet. They include Bill Nicholson, Ron Burgess, Taffy O'Callaghan, Vic Buckingham and Ted Ditchburn. In the 1921–22 season, Spurs finished second to Liverpool in the league, their first serious challenge for the title. After the success of the two post-war seasons, Spurs only managed to finish mid-table in the next five. The team had begun to deteriorate, and new signings Jack Elkes and Frank Osborne could not overcome weaknesses in other positions. They were in first place for a while in 1925, until Grimsdell broke his leg and they dropped down the table. McWilliam left for Middlesbrough in February 1927 when Middlesbrough offered him significantly better pay (and the Tottenham board had refused his request for a smaller increase). Billy Minter, who had first joined the club as a player in 1907, took over as manager, but his first full season in charge saw Spurs unexpectedly relegated at the end of the 1927–28 season. One factor may have been the sale of Jimmy Seed to Sheffield Wednesday. Wednesday had looked certain to be relegated, but Seed helped them escape, beating Tottenham twice along the way, and they went on to win the League Championship title in each of the next two seasons. Minter struggled to return Spurs to the top flight despite signing Ted Harper, a prolific goalscorer in the few years he was at the club, in February 1929.[77] The stress of being manager affected Minter's health; he resigned and was given another position at the club in November 1929. Percy Smith was appointed manager at the start of 1930, and he strengthened the team with imported and home-grown talents including George Hunt, Willie Hall and Arthur Rowe. The team, nicknamed the "Greyhounds", raced up the Second Division from near the bottom of the table in the 1932–33 season, and won promotion after finishing second to Stoke City. Spurs only managed to stay in Division One for two seasons; injuries (especially to Rowe and Hall) left the team weakened and at the bottom of the table in the 1934–35 season by April 1935. Smith then resigned, claiming that the club's directors had interfered with his team selection. Jack Tresadern took over from caretaker manager Wally Hardinge in July 1935, but failed to lift the club out of the Second Division in the three years of his tenure. He promoted centre-forward Johnny Morrison in place of fans' favourite George Hunt, and decided to sell Hunt to rival Arsenal in 1937, which made him unpopular. He left in April 1938 for Plymouth Argyle when it became apparent that he would likely be sacked. Peter McWilliam was brought back as manager, and he tried to rebuild the team by promoting young players from Northfleet including Nicholson, Burgess and Ditchburn, but his second stint at the club was again interrupted by world war. Spurs also failed to advance beyond the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in the 1930s, getting that far three years running from 1935 to 1938. Despite Tottenham's lack of success in this period, 75,038 spectators still squeezed into White Hart Lane in March 1938 for a cup tie against Sunderland—the club's largest gate until it was surpassed in 2016 when more than 85,000 attended the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League home match against Monaco held at Wembley Stadium.[83] War and post-war lull [ edit ] On 3 September 1939 Neville Chamberlain declared war, and league football was abandoned with only three games played. Nevertheless, matches continued to be arranged and played during the Second World War. The London clubs first played in the Wartime League and Football League War Cup, and Spurs won the Regional League South 'C' in 1940. After a reorganisation in 1941, they also competed in the Football League South. Owing to the difficult wartime conditions, Spurs along with other London clubs refused to travel long distances for the matches drawn up by the Football League and decided to run their own competitions: London War League and London War Cup. They (eleven London clubs and five other clubs from the south) were temporarily expelled from the Football League; after paying a £10 fine they were readmitted, but they played in the Football League South in the way the London clubs had suggested. McWilliam went back to the North during the war and the team was managed by Arthur Turner; under him Spurs won the regional league twice. Charles Robert who had been chairman since 1898 died in 1943, and he was replaced by Fred Bearman. As it was difficult to field a full squad in the war years, many young players, among them Sonny Walters, Les Medley, Les Bennett and Arthur Willis, gained their first playing experience for the club in this period. Spurs also shared White Hart Lane with Arsenal when Highbury was requisitioned by the government and used as an Air Raid Precautions centre.[87] After the war ended, McWilliam decided he was too old to return to the club, and Joe Hulme was given the job of managing Tottenham. Hulme failed to win promotion for the club, although Spurs managed to stay in the top half of the Second Division for the three seasons he was manager, and they reached the semi-final of the FA Cup in 1948. Players who joined the squad under Hulme include Eddie Baily, Len Duquemin, Harry Clarke and Charlie Withers. Football was popular in the post-war era, and although in the three post-war seasons during which Spurs languished in the Second Division, some games still drew large crowds, particularly for cup ties. Hulme was sacked after he rejected a suggestion to resign following an illness in March 1949. Arthur Rowe and title win (1949–1958) [ edit ] League title [ edit ] In May 1949 Rowe became Spurs manager at a salary of £1,500 a year. He inherited the squad assembled by Hulme except for the one crucial signing he made when he took over, Alf Ramsey. Rowe introduced a new style of play that proved to be highly successful. He started his tenure as a Spurs manager in the 1949–50 season with a 4–1 victory at Brentford, the beginning of an unbeaten run of 23 League and Cup games between 27 August 1949 and 14 January 1950. The team secured promotion with six games yet to play, and won the Second Division convincingly by nine points, elevating them back into the top flight.[92] After a shaky start to their 1950–51 season when they were trounced 4–1 at home by the Blackpool side of Stanley Matthews, Tottenham won eight consecutive games in October and November. They finished the season ahead of Manchester United by three points, having won their First Division Championship title in the penultimate game of the season by beating Sheffield Wednesday. That was Tottenham's first ever League title, and some considered the team that won it to be the best in Tottenham's history. The regular starting eleven of the season were Burgess (captain), Ramsey, Baily, Bennett, Medley, Withers/Willis, Clarke, Ditchburn, Duquemin, Walters and Nicholson. Spurs Way [ edit ] The tactical style of play developed by Rowe that was successful in his early years as manager is known as "push and run".[96] Rowe credited McWilliam for learning to play a quick passing game, which he developed into a style involving players playing in triangles, quickly laying the ball off to a teammate and running past the marking tackler to collect the return pass. Keeping to Rowe's maxim of "make it simple, make it quick", this method proved an effective way of moving the ball at pace with players' positions and responsibilities being totally fluid. It became an attractive fast-moving attacking style of play regarded by Tottenham fans to be the Spurs Way, which was adjusted and perfected in the later period under Bill Nicholson. The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom. Danny Blanchflower, 1972[98] Spurs finished second in the 1951–52 season, beaten to the title by a young Manchester United team. A bad winter and the poor state of the White Hart Lane pitch were contributory, as the "push and run" style of play required a good firm playing surface. The following years witnessed a period of decline, as great players aged but younger players such as Tony Marchi and Tommy Harmer were not yet experienced enough, and with injuries and other teams adapting to Spurs' revolutionary style of play, it meant a struggle for the once-dominant team. Spurs could only finish tenth in the 1952–53 season. The "push and run" team also started to disperse; Medley, Willis, Bennett and Burgess left to join other teams while Nicholson moved into coaching. In 1954 Rowe signed future captain Danny Blanchflower for a club record fee of £30,000. Blanchflower won the FWA Footballer of the Year twice while at Tottenham.[100] The stress of managing the team had affected Rowe's health, and he suffered a breakdown in 1954; he resigned after falling ill again the following year. Rowe's assistant and long-time club servant Jimmy Anderson stepped into the breach as manager, but the season ended with Spurs in the lower half of the table.[101] With Blanchflower in the team, Ramsey was dropped from the line-up, and he soon left to start his managerial career with Ipswich Town, later guiding England to a World Cup win. Spurs were almost relegated at the end of the 1955–56 season, finishing just two points above the drop zone. In the 1956–57 season, under the guidance of Bill Nicholson as coach, the creative pairing of Blanchflower and Harmer, and the scoring prowess of Bobby Smith, the club experienced a revival and finished in second place, albeit eight points behind the winners, the "Busby Babes" of Manchester United. Tottenham also fared well in the following season, finishing third. As manager, Anderson started to build a new team by signing, bringing in or promoting some of the players who became members of the team that saw major success later: Cliff Jones, Terry Medwin, Peter Baker, Ron Henry, Terry Dyson, Maurice Norman and Smith.[105] Bill Nicholson and the glory years (1958–1974) [ edit ] In October 1958, with the pressure of a poor start to the season and failing health, Anderson resigned, to be replaced by Bill Nicholson. Nicholson had joined Tottenham as an apprentice in 1936, and the following sixty-eight years saw him serve the club in every capacity from boot room to president. He became the most successful Spurs manager, guiding Tottenham to major trophy success three seasons in a row in the early 1960s: the double in 1961, the FA Cup and European Cup semi-final in 1962 and the Cup Winners' Cup in 1963.[107] In Nicholson's first game as manager, on 11 October 1958, Spurs beat Everton 10–4, their then record win, but the team finished 18th in the league in his first season in charge. In the following 1959–60 season, Spurs improved to third place in the league, two points behind the champions Burnley. They also beat Crewe Alexandra 13–2 in the 1959–60 FA Cup with five goals coming from Les Allen. It remains the highest scoring FA Cup tie of the 20th century and is still the club's record win. In his first two years in charge, Nicholson made several signings—Dave Mackay and John White, the two influential players of the Double-winning team, as well as Allen and goalkeeper Bill Brown. Double winners [ edit ] The 1960–61 season started with a 2–0 home win against Everton, the beginning of a run of eleven wins. The winning run was interrupted by a 1–1 draw against Manchester City, followed by another four wins before the unbeaten streak was broken by a loss to Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough in November. It remained the best ever start by any club in the top flight of English football until it was surpassed by Manchester City in 2017.[114] The title was won on 17 April 1961 when Spurs beat the eventual runners-up Sheffield Wednesday at home 2–1, with three games still to play. In this Double-winning season only seventeen players were used in all forty-nine league and cup games. The team was built around the quartet of Blanchflower, Mackay, Jones, and White; completing the side were Smith (top scorer of the season), Allen, Henry, Norman, Baker, Dyson and Brown, with Medwin, Marchi, and a young Frank Saul among the reserves. Spurs reached the final of the 1960–61 FA Cup, beating along the way Sunderland 5–0 in the sixth-round replay and Burnley 3–0 in the semi-final. Spurs met Leicester City in the 1961 FA Cup Final and won 2–0, helped in part by Leicester being effectively reduced to ten men owing to injury (no substitutions were allowed at that time). Spurs became the first team in England to win the Double in the 20th century, and the first since Aston Villa achieved the feat in 1897.[117] First European triumph [ edit ] Danny Blanchflower with the Cup Winners' Cup trophy in 1963, carried by other Spurs players Tottenham competed for the first time in a European competition in the 1961–62 European Cup. Their first opponents were Górnik Zabrze, who beat Spurs 4–2. After the match the Polish press described Spurs players as "no angels"; in response, in the return leg at White Hart Lane, some Spurs fans dressed up as angels holding placards with slogans such as "Glory be to shining White Hart Lane", and other fans joined in by singing the refrains of "Glory Glory Hallelujah". Spurs won 8–1 to the sound of fans singing "Glory glory hallelujah, and the Spurs go marching on", which became an anthem for Tottenham from that night onwards.[118] Spurs eventually lost in the semi-final to the holders Benfica, who went on to win the competition.[119] A month later Spurs won the FA Cup again after beating Burnley in the 1962 FA Cup Final.[120] The first goal of the game was scored by Jimmy Greaves, who was signed in December 1961 for £99,999 (so as not to be the first £100,000 player). Greaves became the top goal scorer for Tottenham with 220 league goals and 321 goals in all appearances for the club, and the most prolific scorer ever in the top tier of English football.[122] In the 1962–63 European Cup Winners' Cup, Spurs reached the final, beating Rangers 8–4 on aggregate, Slovan Bratislava 6–2, and OFK Belgrade 5–2 on aggregate. Spurs' 5–1 win in the Cup Winners' Cup Final against Atlético Madrid in Rotterdam on 15 May 1963, during which Terry Dyson scored a goal from 25 yards out, made Tottenham the first British team to win a European trophy.[123] Continuing success [ edit ] By 1964 the Double-winning side was beginning to break up owing to age, injuries and transfers. Captain Danny Blanchflower hung up his boots that spring at the age of 38, troubled by a knee injury, and Dave Mackay was sidelined for a long period with his leg broken twice—the first occurred during Spurs' defence of the Cup Winners' Cup against Manchester United, resulting in the 10-men Spurs being eliminated from the competition. John White was tragically killed by lightning on a golf course the summer of 1964. Nicholson rebuilt the team with new players, most of them imports, including Alan Mullery, Pat Jennings, Cyril Knowles, Mike England, Terry Venables, Jimmy Robertson, Phil Beal, Joe Kinnear, and Alan Gilzean who formed a goal-scoring partnership with Greaves. The rebuilding culminated in a win at the 1967 FA Cup Final over Chelsea with goals from wingers Robertson and Saul, and a third-place finish in the league.[127] The team failed to make much of an impact in the following two seasons, reaching only in 1969 the semi-final of the League Cup, a competition created in 1960 but one in which Tottenham did not participate until 1966. Mackay, Jones and Robertson left the club in 1968, followed by Venables in 1969. In their place came the home-grown players Steve Perryman, Ray Evans and John Pratt, and new signing Martin Chivers. Martin Peters also arrived from West Ham United for a record fee of £200,000 in 1970, in part-exchange for a reluctant Greaves,[130] while Ralph Coates was signed in the summer of 1971 for £192,000 from Burnley. Gilzean recreated the goal-scoring partnership with Chivers that he had with Greaves, this time aided by the blindside runs of Peters. The revitalised team reached the League Cup final in 1971, where they beat Aston Villa 2–0 to win their first League Cup with Chivers scoring both goals. They won the League Cup again in 1973 after beating Norwich City in the final. Coates scored the only goal in the game. The 1971 Cup win and a third-place finish in the 1970–71 season earned Spurs a place in the inaugural UEFA Cup. They reached the final after a battling performance to draw against A.C. Milan at the San Siro stadium, winning 3–2 on aggregate in the semi-final. In the first leg of the UEFA Cup final against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Chivers scored twice to give Spurs a 2–1 lead. In the return leg at White Hart Lane, team captain Mullery headed in a goal in his last game for the club to give Spurs a 3–2 win on aggregate.[136] With this victory, Spurs became the first British team to win two different European trophies. In total Nicholson had won eight major trophies in sixteen years; his spell in charge was the most successful period in the club's history.[107] Decline and revival under Keith Burkinshaw (1974–1984) [ edit ] Although Tottenham managed to reach four cup finals in four years and winning three of them from 1971 to 1974, the team began to decline as Nicholson was unable to sign the players he wanted, in part because of his refusal to meet the demands for under-the-counter payments. The early seventies was also the beginning of a period of increasing football violence; rioting by Spurs fans in Rotterdam in their loss to Feyenoord in the 1974 UEFA Cup Final added to his disillusionment. Nicholson resigned after a poor start to the 1974–75 season and a 4–0 loss to Middlesbrough in the League Cup, but his tenure ended on a sour note. He had sought to be succeeded by Blanchflower as manager and Johnny Giles as player-coach, but the chairman Sidney Wale was angered by Nicholson contacting the pair without informing him first. The club then severed all ties with a £10,000 payoff, even though Nicholson had wanted to stay on as an advisor, and refused him a testimonial (Nicholson was later brought back as advisor by Keith Burkinshaw and was only given a testimonial in 1983 under a different chairman).[139] Terry Neill was appointed manager by the board, and Spurs narrowly avoided relegation at the end of the 1974–75 season. Spurs performed better the following season, in which Glenn Hoddle played his first game for the club. A former Arsenal player, Neill was never accepted by the fans, and he left to manage Arsenal in mid-1976, replaced by his assistant Keith Burkinshaw whom he had recruited the previous year. Relegation [ edit ] In Burkinshaw's first year as manager in the 1976–77 season, Tottenham slipped out of the First Division after 27 years in the top flight. Many of the early '70s Cup-winning team had by now left or retired. This was followed in the summer of 1977 by the sale of their Northern Ireland international goalkeeper Pat Jennings for a bargain £45,000 to Arsenal as Burkinshaw had started to use Barry Daines, a move that shocked the club's fans and one that Burkinshaw later admitted was a great error. Jennings played on for another seven seasons for Spurs' arch-rivals.[142] Despite relegation, the board kept faith with Burkinshaw and the team immediately won promotion to the top flight, although it took until the final league game for them to be promoted. A sudden loss of form at the end of the 1977–78 season meant the club needed a point in the last game at Southampton. To Tottenham's great relief, the game ended 0–0 and Spurs returned to the First Division. Early in the season, Spurs had won 9–0 at home to Bristol Rovers, with four of their goals coming from debutant striker Colin Lee. The glut of goals proved significant later on as Tottenham won promotion through goal difference. Cup wins and European success [ edit ] In the summer of 1978, Burkinshaw caused a stir by signing for £750,000 two Argentinian internationals Osvaldo Ardiles and Ricardo Villa—players from beyond the British Isles in English football were rare at the time.[145] This was also a period of rebuilding as young players were brought in from the youth team, such as Mark Falco, Paul Miller, Chris Hughton and Micky Hazard, as well as other players signed from other clubs such as Graham Roberts, Tony Galvin, and in particular the twin strike force of Garth Crooks and Steve Archibald. Spurs opened the 1980s by reaching the 100th FA Cup Final in 1981 against Manchester City, and won the replay 3–2 in a match notable for the winning goal from Ricardo Villa.[148] They lifted the FA Cup again the next season, beating Queens Park Rangers in the 1982 Final. Although they were also in contention for three other trophies that season, they finished fourth in the First Division, lost to Liverpool in the League Cup final in extra time, while Barcelona won at home in the Cup Winners' Cup semi-final after a 1–1 draw at White Hart Lane. The club began a new phase of redevelopment at White Hart Lane in 1980, starting with the rebuilding of the West Stand initiated by a new chairman Arthur Richardson. The West Stand was demolished and a new stand, which took 15 months to complete, opened in 1982. Cost overruns on the project, which rose from £3.5 million to £6 million, as well as the cost of rebuilding the team in the return to Division One resulted in financial difficulties for the club. Property developer and Spurs fan Irving Scholar began buying up shares in the club. He took advantage of a rift in the boardroom between Richardson and former chairman Sidney Wale, and persuaded Wale to sell his shares. Scholar bought up 25% of the club for £600,000, and with the help of Paul Bobroff who had bought 15% of shares from the family of previous chairman Bearman, took control in December 1982.[152] Scholar inherited a club in debt to the tune of nearly £5 million, what was then the largest debt in English football, but a rights issue after he took over brought in a million pounds. In 1983, a new holding company, Tottenham Hotspur plc, was formed with the football club run as a subsidiary of the company. With a valuation of £9 million, the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange, the first sports club to do so.[154] Together with Martin Edwards of Manchester United and David Dein of Arsenal, Scholar transformed English football clubs into business ventures that applied commercial principles to the running of the clubs to maximise their revenues, a process that eventually led to the formation of the Premier League.[155] In 1984, Spurs won the UEFA Cup after beating Anderlecht on penalties in the final, the third of the major trophies won by the club under Burkinshaw in the 1980s. Several weeks before this victory, Burkinshaw announced that he would be leaving at the end of that season after disagreements with the directors and becoming disenchanted with the club.[156][157] Shreeves and Pleat (1984–1987) [ edit ] Burkinshaw was succeeded as manager by his assistant Peter Shreeves in June 1984. According to Scholar, Aberdeen manager Alex Ferguson, who joined Manchester United two years later, had reneged on an agreement to take over.[158] Tottenham enjoyed a strong start to the 1984–85 season and looked poised to win the league title by the winter, but a series of poor home results in 1985 resulted in the team being leapfrogged by eventual champions Everton and runners-up Liverpool. Their final position of third place in the league should have secured them a UEFA Cup place, but the Heysel disaster on 29 May 1985, which saw 39 spectators crushed to death when Liverpool fans rioted at the 1985 European Cup Final, resulted in all English clubs being banned from European competitions. Perryman departed in 1986 after 19 years at the club (17 years in the first team) and a record 655 league appearances.[160] Also in 1986, the club training ground at Cheshunt that Spurs had owned since 1952 was sold for over £4 million.[154] Although Chris Waddle and Paul Allen were signed, the 1985–86 season proved disappointing, and Shreeves was sacked at the end of the season. Luton Town manager David Pleat was appointed the new manager following Shreeves' dismissal. For much of 1986–87, Spurs played with what was for that time an unusual five-man midfield formation: Hoddle, Ardiles, Allen, Waddle and Steve Hodge. The lone striker Clive Allen scored 49 goals in all competitions that season, still a club record.[162] Tottenham remained in contention for all three major domestic honours throughout the season, though finished empty-handed. In the League Cup, Tottenham lost to eventual competition winners Arsenal in the semi-final.[163] Spurs also missed out on the First Division title to Everton, and stumbled to a 3–2 loss in the FA Cup final to Coventry City, whose winning goal was deflected off Gary Mabbutt's knee as an own goal in the final minutes.[164] The close season of 1987 saw the sale of Glenn Hoddle to Monaco after a decade as the driving force in Tottenham's midfield. Terry Venables (1987–1993) [ edit ] In October 1987, Pleat quit the club following allegations about his private life. He was succeeded by former player Terry Venables, who had by then built up an impressive managerial record. He inherited a Spurs side that was struggling in the league with a quarter of the 1987–88 season played. Earlier in the season veteran goalkeeper Ray Clemence had to retire after suffering an Achilles tendon injury,[166] and new signings by Venables Terry Fenwick and Paul Walsh failed to lift the team, which only managed a 13th-place finish. Striker Clive Allen was also less prolific in attack in this season, and he was sold to French club Bordeaux in March 1988.[168] To invigorate the Tottenham side, Venables paid a national record £2 million for Newcastle midfielder Paul Gascoigne in June 1988, and also signed striker Paul Stewart from Manchester City for £1.7 million.[169] Spurs made a shaky start to the 1988–89 season; incomplete refurbishment of the East Stand caused the postponement of the opening game against Coventry just a few hours before kickoff, which earned the club a two-point deduction (later replaced by a £15,000 fine), followed by a string of losses in October.[170] They were second from bottom at the end of October but improving to ninth place by the turn of 1989 and finishing sixth in the final table.[171] Cup win and boardroom drama [ edit ] By the end of the 1980s and the beginning of 1990s, Spurs had become mired in considerable financial difficulties, with a debt reported to be £20 million in 1991.[172] The East Stand was refurbished in 1989 but its cost had doubled to over £8 million, while the company's attempts to diversify into other businesses such as the clothing firms Hummel UK and Martex failed to generate the income expected and were in fact losing them money.[154] July 1989 saw the arrival at White Hart Lane of England striker Gary Lineker from Barcelona for a fee of £1.2 million; however, the cash-strapped club was unable to pay Barcelona in full even though Waddle was sold days later to Marseille for £4.25 million. Scholar had to organise a secret £1.1 million loan from Robert Maxwell, which caused an uproar and resulted in an attempt to oust Scholar from the boardroom when it was revealed. Maxwell, who first owned Oxford United and then Derby County, became interested in the club, putting Derby County up for sale so that he could acquire Tottenham.[154] Venables, who had previously attempted to buy the club but failed, then joined forces with businessman Alan Sugar in June 1991 to forestall a takeover by Maxwell and gain control of Tottenham Hotspur plc, buying out Scholar for £2 million.[152][175][176] With Lineker and Gascoigne in the team, Spurs finished third in the 1989–90 title race won by Liverpool.[177] In the following 1990–91 season, they began the season unbeaten in ten games, but failed to rediscover their earlier league form in the second half of the season, eventually finishing tenth in the final table.[179] Despite the middling ranking, this season remains a highlight for Tottenham for their performances in the 1990–91 FA Cup. A 3–1 semi-final win over Arsenal featured a 30-yard free kick from Gascoigne considered to be one of the best goals ever seen in the competition.[180] In the final against Nottingham Forest, Gascoigne suffered serious cruciate ligament damage in his knee when he made a reckless tackle on opponent Gary Charles.[181] Winning the match 2–1 after extra time, Spurs became the first team to collect eight FA Cups, a record later surpassed by Manchester United in 1996.[182] The excitement in North London over the win also had the unexpected result of prompting Sugar, who had little knowledge of the club's history (and was alleged to have asked "What Double?" when someone mentioned Tottenham's Double),[183] to contact Venables and jointly buy the club. Gascoigne was a transfer target for Italian club Lazio, but his knee injury (aggravated later in a nightclub incident) meant that he missed the 1991–92 season, and his transfer to Lazio was put on hold. By the summer of 1992, his knee had recovered and he completed his move to Lazio for £5.5 million, reduced from the £7.9 million fees agreed before his injury. Gary Lineker then announced in November that he would be leaving Spurs at the end of the season to play in Japan, while Paul Walsh and Paul Stewart also left the club. In the 1991–92 season, Venables became chief executive of the club, and Shreeves again took charge of first-team duties. During the summer of 1992, Venables decided to return to team management; Shreeves was sacked, and a European style of management was instituted with Doug Livermore the head coach and Clemence the assistant. Although Sugar and Venables began as equal partners with each investing £3.25 million in the club, Sugar's financial clout allowed him to increase his stake to £8 million in December 1991, thereby gaining control of the club. In May 1993, after a row at a board meeting, Terry Venables was controversially dismissed from the Tottenham board by Sugar, whose decision was overturned in the High Court but reversed on appeal.[185] Despite being initially seen as a saviour of the club, the ousting of a popular figure, later aggravated by a perceived lack of investment in the club, earnt Sugar long-lasting animosity from some fans who repeatedly called for his resignation.[186][176] Spurs were one of the five clubs that pushed for the founding of the Premier League, created with the approval of The Football Association to replace the Football League First Division as the highest division of English football.[187] To coincide with the massive changes in English football, Tottenham made major signings, including winger Darren Anderton, defender Neil Ruddock, and striker Teddy Sheringham for what was then a club record £2.1 million from Nottingham Forest. The Sheringham transfer was later the subject of allegations of "bungs" against Forest manager Brian Clough.[188] In the first ever Premier League season—Venables' final year as Spurs' manager—Spurs finished eighth. Teddy Sheringham was the division's top scorer with 22 goals, 21 of which were scored for Tottenham.[189] Ardiles, Francis and Gross [ edit ] The departure of Venables saw Tottenham return to a conventional management setup after two seasons of a two-tier structure. Former player Osvaldo Ardiles took charge of the first team. In the 1993–94 season, Sheringham's injury in October 1993 impacted on Spurs' performance, and relegation became a real possibility. In the end, the club managed a 15th-place finish, its survival only guaranteed by a win in the penultimate game of the season. By this time Spurs had come under investigation for financial irregularities alleged to have taken place in the 1980s while Irving Scholar was chairman, and in June 1994 the club was found guilty of making illegal payments to players. Spurs were fined £600,000, had twelve league points deducted for the 1994–95 season and were banned from the 1994–95 FA Cup. Following an appeal the number of points deducted was reduced, but the fine was increased to £1.5 million. A further arbitration (after Sugar threatened to sue the FA) quashed the points deduction and FA Cup ban, although the fine remained in place.[192] Despite the penalty, the club aimed to have a successful season in 1994–95, and signed three players who had appeared at that summer's World Cup: German striker Jürgen Klinsmann and two Romanians, Ilie Dumitrescu and Gheorghe Popescu.[193][194] Forward players in Spurs line-up already included Sheringham, Anderton and Nick Barmby, and Ardiles chose to play five attacking players, dubbed the "Famous Five" of Klinsmann, Sheringham, Anderton, Barmby, and Dumitrescu.[195] Their debut in the 1994–95 season against Sheffield Wednesday in August 1994, which Spurs won 4–3, was described as a "breathtaking exhibition of football", but the imbalance in the team also leaked goals (33 in 15 games).[196][197] Spurs struggled in September with a series of defeats, and after the team lost 3–0 in the League Cup in October,[198] Ardiles was dismissed. At that time Spurs were just two places above the relegation zone, although they would have been 11th in the table with the deducted points that were later restored.[197] Ardiles was replaced by Gerry Francis, who alleviated relegation fears and oversaw the club's climb to seventh place in the league, just missing out on a 1995–96 UEFA Cup place. When the FA Cup ban was lifted, Spurs reached the FA Cup semi-final where they were defeated 4–1 by eventual winners Everton. Klinsmann was top scorer at the club with twenty-nine in all competitions, but he felt that Spurs would not be able to challenge for the title in future seasons, and returned to his homeland to sign with Bayern Munich.[201] Barmby, Dumitrescu and Popescu also departed, and Francis signed the likes of Ruel Fox and Chris Armstrong for more than £4 million each but spurned the chance to sign Dennis Bergkamp who was a fan of the club and was interested in joining Spurs. Other signings include future captain Ledley King who did not start in the first team for a few years. Francis' transfer dealings failed to deliver European qualification or higher, and Spurs finished eighth in 1996 and tenth in 1997. Sheringham left in the summer of 1997 for Manchester United while Les Ferdinand joined the team for a record £6 million and David Ginola for £2.5 million from Newcastle. Ferdinand was soon hit by injury, and in November 1997, Francis decided to resign after Spurs were beaten 4–0 by Liverpool. Christian Gross, coach of Swiss champions Grasshoppers, was chosen as the successor to Francis. Gross failed to turn around the club's fortunes in the 1997–98 season, and the team battled against the drop for the remainder of the campaign. Klinsmann returned to Spurs in December on loan, and four goals in a 6–2 win away to Wimbledon in the penultimate game of the season was enough to secure survival. By the end of the season, the renovation of the White Hart Lane stadium was completed. White Hart Lane was converted into an all-seater stadium in the 1990s, the South Stand was rebuilt, and a new tier added to the North Stand, leaving the stadium with a capacity of about 36,240.[38] The stadium remained in this form bar some minor changes until 2016.[38] George Graham and League Cup win [ edit ] After losing two of the first three games of the 1998–99 season, Gross was sacked, and former Arsenal manager George Graham was hired to take over.[206][207] Graham signed Steffen Freund, who became a fans' favourite, as well as Tim Sherwood.[208] Fans were critical of Graham due to his association with Arsenal and disliked his defensive style of football, especially when Arsene Wenger was starting to achieve major success at Arsenal with an attacking football style previously associated with Spurs. Nevertheless, in Graham's first season as Spurs manager, 1998–99, the club secured a mid-table finish and won the League Cup. In the final against Leicester City at Wembley Stadium, full-back Justin Edinburgh was sent off after an altercation with Robbie Savage, but the ten-men Spurs secured a dramatic victory through Allan Nielsen's diving header in the 93rd minute of the game.[211] To cap a good season, David Ginola won both the PFA Players' Player of the Year and Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year awards in the year Manchester United won the Treble.[212] The club finished mid-table the following year. In May 2000, Tottenham signed Ukrainian striker Sergei Rebrov from Dynamo Kyiv for a club record £11 million. But Rebrov was not a success at White Hart Lane, managing just ten goals over the next four seasons.[214] New ownership and Glenn Hoddle [ edit ] In late 2000, Sugar decided to sell his share holding in the club,[215] a decision he blamed on the hostility of fans towards him and his family,[216] and stepped down as chairman in February 2001.[46][217] 27% of his 40% share holding in Tottenham were sold for £22m to ENIC Sports PLC in 2001,[218][219] with the rest sold in 2007 for £25m.[220] ENIC, owned by Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy with Levy responsible for the running of the club, would eventually acquire 85% of Tottenham.[221][222] The club was transferred into its private ownership in 2012.[223] A month after Levy took over as chairman, George Graham was sacked as manager for alleged breach of contract by vice-chairman David Buchler after Graham commented on the financial position of Spurs.[224] Team management passed to former Tottenham player Glenn Hoddle, who took over in the final weeks of the 2000–01 season from caretaker manager David Pleat. His first game was a defeat to Arsenal in the 2001 FA Cup semi-final. That summer, club captain Sol Campbell joined Arsenal on a Bosman free transfer. The loss of a transfer fee by Spurs, the move to their bitterest rivals, and the perceived underhanded fashion in which he negotiated his move (claimed to be a record £100,000 per week)[226] led to long-term enmity towards Campbell from Spurs fans.[227] Hoddle turned to more experienced players in the shape of Teddy Sheringham who returned to Spurs in May 2001, as well as new signings Gus Poyet and Christian Ziege. Spurs played some encouraging football in the opening months of his management, but they ended the 2001–02 season in ninth place. They reached the League Cup final, where they lost to Blackburn, despite being seen as the favourites after their 5–1 defeat of Chelsea in the previous round.[228] The only significant outlay before the following campaign was the £7 million signing of Robbie Keane, who joined from Leeds United. Jamie Redknapp also joined earlier on a free transfer. The 2002–03 season started well, with Tottenham top of the league after three successive wins, and Hoddle voted manager of the month in the division for August. They were still in the top six as late as early February, but the season ended with a tenth-place finish, the result of a barren final ten games of the league campaign that delivered a mere seven points. Several players publicly criticised Hoddle's management and communication skills. In the following 2003–04 season, Spurs started the season poorly, gaining only four points out of six games. With Spurs struggling third from bottom at the table, Hoddle was sacked by Levy, and Pleat again took over as caretaker manager.[231] Resurgence and the Champions League (2004–2014) [ edit ] In June 2004, Tottenham appointed French team manager Jacques Santini as head coach, with Martin Jol as his assistant and Frank Arnesen as sporting director.[232] In early November, after only 13 games in charge, Santini decided to quit the club, making his the shortest stint by any Spurs manager.[233] Santini was replaced by Jol,[234][235] and the team managed to secure a ninth-place finish in the 2004–05 season. In June 2005, when Arnesen moved to Chelsea, Spurs appointed Damien Comolli as sporting director. Among the players signed by Jol were Edgar Davids in 2005,[236] Dimitar Berbatov in 2006,[237] and Gareth Bale in May 2007.[238] Players who left included Michael Carrick, who went to Manchester United in 2006.[239] During the 2005–06 season, Spurs spent six months in the top four. Going into the final game of the season, they led Arsenal by a point, but were defeated in their final match—away to West Ham—after many players including Keane and Carrick succumbed to food poisoning from a meal they had the night before.[240] Spurs were pipped to a UEFA Champions League place, but gained a place in the UEFA Cup and achieved their highest finish for 16 years. In 2006–07, they finished fifth for the second-straight year.[241] The 2007–08 season saw the club win only one of their first ten League matches, their worst start in 19 years. Jol was sacked, learning of his removal just before a Uefa Cup game on 25 October 2007.[242] Juande Ramos, formerly of Sevilla, then replaced the Dutchman as manager. Captained by Ledley King, Spurs went on to win the League Cup, beating Chelsea 2–1 in the League Cup Final in February 2008.[243] Luka Modrić was signed towards the end of the season,[244] but Berbatov and Keane were sold to Manchester United and Liverpool respectively in the summer as both wanted to leave.[245] Tottenham made their worst start to a season in the club's history in 2008–09, their failure to register a win in eight League games leaving them bottom of the Premier League. Ramos and Director of Football Damien Comolli were dismissed on 25 October 2008, amid Levy's criticism of the failure to recruit suitable replacements for Berbatov and Keane.[246][247] Harry Redknapp [ edit ] Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp was appointed as Ramos' replacement, and Tottenham reverted to a traditional setup with Redknapp responsible for both coaching and player transfers.[246][248] Redknapp took the club out of the relegation zone by winning 10 out of the 12 points available in his first two weeks in charge, and finished the 2008–09 campaign eighth in the league table. The January transfer window saw the return of Keane and Jermain Defoe to the club after spells at Liverpool and Portsmouth respectively,[249] later joined by Peter Crouch signed in the summer,[250] and Rafael van der Vaart in 2010.[251] The team's performance improved in the two following seasons. Notable matches in the 2009–10 season include the 9–1 home win against Wigan Athletic, with Defoe scoring five, a record win in the top flight for the club,[253] and a 2–1 against Arsenal, with goals from Bale and debutant Danny Rose, giving them their first Premier League victory against their rivals.[254] Spurs finished the 2009–10 season in fourth place, and reached the qualifying rounds of the Champions League for the first time in their history.[255] In the 2010–11 season, they qualified for the group stages of the Champions League,[256] came top of their group and went on to beat A.C. Milan 1–0 on aggregate in the knock-out stage.[257] At the quarter-finals, Spurs suffered a heavy defeat against Real Madrid after Crouch was sent off early in the game, and the 10-men team was beaten 4–0 at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, and 5–0 on aggregate.[258][259] Earlier in the season they won at the Emirates with goals from van der Vaart and Bale, their first win at Arsenal in 17 years.[252] At the start of the 2011–12 season, the home league game to Everton was cancelled because of rioting in Tottenham a week before the game, and Spurs then lost the next two games.[260][261] Tottenham managed to record ten wins and one draw in their next eleven Premier League matches,[262] and finished the season in fourth place in the Premier League but failed to qualify for the Champions League.[263] On 13 June 2012, following brief contract renewal talks during which Redknapp and the Tottenham board failed to agree terms, Redknapp left the club.[264] Villas-Boas and Sherwood [ edit ] Following Redknapp's departure, the club appointed former Chelsea and Porto coach André Villas-Boas as manager. Shortly after his appointment, the club pipped Liverpool for the signature of Swansea City midfielder Gylfi Sigurðsson. Several days later, the club also resolved the protracted transfer saga surrounding Ajax defender Jan Vertonghen.[265] They were soon followed by Hugo Lloris and Mousa Dembélé, while Modric left for Real Madrid. In the 2012–13 season, they finished fifth. Despite winning a dramatic match against Sunderland with a goal from Gareth Bale in the final match of the season, Arsenal won their last match to take the 2013–14 Champions League spot, and Spurs dropped to the Europa League for the second successive season.[267] In their concurrent 2012–13 Europa League campaign, they were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Swiss side Basel on penalties.[268] At the beginning of the 2013–14 season, Bale moved to Real Madrid in September 2013 in what was then a world record transfer fee of €100.8 million (£85.1 million).[269] This money paid for several players signed in that transfer window, including Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela. Following a 6–0 defeat against Manchester City and a 5–0 defeat against Liverpool, André Villas-Boas was dismissed from his role on 16 December 2013.[270] A week later, former Spurs player Tim Sherwood became Villas-Boas' replacement as manager, but only as a stopgap measure. Although Sherwood led Spurs to a sixth-place finish in the Premier League,[273] his results against the top teams were disappointing, and he was sacked on 13 May 2014.[274] A new era under Pochettino (2014–present) [ edit ] Mauricio Pochettino was appointed Tottenham manager on 27 May 2014, on a five-year contract.[275] In his first season Spurs finished fifth in the 2014–15 Premier League with 64 points, and were runners-up in the 2015 Football League Cup Final. Pochettino chose to promote young players, and in his second season in charge, Spurs had the youngest team in the Premier League.[276][277] A new generation of players that included Harry Kane, Dele Alli, and Eric Dier were all aged 22 or younger that season.[278] Spurs had a much improved 2015–16 season, but their title challenge ended with a 2–2 draw at Stamford Bridge on 2 May 2016, and they finished third behind winners Leicester.[279][280] The following 2016–17 season began with a series of 12 unbeaten league matches, but the team performed inconsistently during the first half of the season.[281][282] They put in a much better performance in 2017, including a win in the North London derby that ensured a higher finish in the Premier League than their rivals Arsenal for the first time in 22 years.[283] Their early inconsistency meant that Spurs were unable to overhaul the lead of the eventual champions Chelsea in the league table (13 points over Spurs at one stage in March),[284] and finished the season in second place with 86 points, their highest ever points tally since the Premier League began.[285] This is their highest ranking in 54 years since the 1962–63 season under Bill Nicholson,[286] and the team also achieved their first unbeaten home run in 52 years since the 1964–65 season.[287][288] New stadium [ edit ] The construction of a new stadium was initiated at White Hart Lane in 2015, and scheduled to be completed in time for the 2018–19 season.[289] The new stadium has a seating capacity of 62,062, considerably greater than the old stadium's 36,000. A section of the North Stand was removed to allow building work on the new stadium to proceed next to the old stadium.[290] The removal of part of the stand reduced the capacity of the stadium, and European matches were held at Wembley Stadium for the 2016–17 season to comply with the ticketing requirement for European games.[291] A club attendance record of 85,512 spectators was reported for the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League game against Bayer Leverkusen, which Spurs lost 1–0.[292] Spurs played their last game at White Hart Lane on 14 May 2017, a 2–1 victory over Manchester United that secured their second place in the Premier League.[293] In the 2017–18 season all Tottenham's home games were played at Wembley, as White Hart Lane had been demolished for the rebuilding.[294] As the stadium has a higher capacity, this season saw a series of record attendances for Premier League games, the highest at the North London Derby on 10 February 2018 when 83,222 spectators witnessed Spurs' 1–0 win over Arsenal.[295][296][297] Tottenham failed to make any new signings in the summer transfer window of 2018, the first club not to do so in the Premier League.[298] They nevertheless had their best start in the Premier League in the 2018–19 season,[299] ended by a home defeat against Manchester City.[300] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ]
Ferry operators in Larne and Belfast are engaged in crisis meetings this evening after the Isle of Man broke free of its moorings in high winds and drifted north, before becoming wedged between Northern Ireland and Scotland. The problems began this morning after a rope tethering the cat infested island to the bottom of the Irish Sea was severed by a passing Russian submarine. Fishermen attempted to anchor it back in place using nets but by then it had already drifted over 40 miles and the situation was hopeless. Eyewitness Billy Halbert told us what he saw as it passed the Ards Peninsula. “I was looking out my kitchen window to see if the postman had been and the next thing I saw this huge lump floating past out at sea.” “At first I thought nothing of it,” he continued, “but then I noticed it had a wee flag with three legs on it, and I realised that it wasn’t Nolan taking swimming lessons – it had to be an accidentally dislocated land mass that would, in all likelihood, end up wedged between here and Wigtownshire.” Engineers and geologists were immediately called to the scene in the hope of loosening the Manx island, but despite slootering no less than 47 tonnes of butter around the edges it remained firmly lodged in place. “We may as well make the best of it,” said bridges expert Sydney Harbour. “Instead of towing it back, we’ll build a road onto it and slash the cost of getting to Scotland.” With the Assembly suspended there has yet to be a response from Stormont, but it understood that the main political parties have already dispatched canvassers to the former island to see if the new voters will be usuns or themuns. Enjoying the Ulster Fry? Facebook are changing the rules soon, so you'll see less of our stories in your newsfeed! to see exclusive memes, jokes and nonsense (that we don't even post on our page!) Facebook are changing the rules soon, so you'll see less of our stories in your newsfeed! Join Our Facebook Community to get new story notifications and(that we don't even post on our page!) 45.01K Shares Comments
Pot kills crippling pain, cancer-suffering medical marijuana user Paul Lawrence says Updated Cancer-sufferer Paul Lawrence says he survives crippling daily pain with medical marijuana, including a breakfast marijuana smoothie, joints and hash oil throughout the day. The 52-year-old from Wollongong underwent a world-first operation in 2010 to remove a chordoma, a rare spinal tumour, the size of a football. At the time he was given just months to live and told there was a high likelihood he would die during surgery. The operation required removing three vertebra and rebuilding his spine with ribs, a leg bone and more than 55 pieces of titanium. "That's why I'm always going to be in pain, because people think my back's sore all the time," Mr Lawrence said. "My back isn't sore all the time. I can permanently feel all the structures in me. "It's uncomfortable but it's not the agonising part. Where my bones are missing, that hurts like hell." For the first four years Mr Lawrence relied on a daily cocktail of painkillers including tramadol and endone and sleeping tablets like valium. It left him bedridden, and about nine months ago he switched to medical marijuana. "After about a month of not taking the medications it was like a fog started to clear, and I just looked back at what I'd not been doing for the last four years and thought 'this is ridiculous'," he said. "Since I've given up pain meds I ride a push bike, I get in the water and try and swim." 'If he is getting benefits... he has my full support' A recent study by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) reported a number of other sufferers of chronic pain believed marijuana was an effective treatment. Neurosurgeon Dr Ralph Mobbs performed the operation on Mr Lawrence. It was so complicated he had a paper published on it so others around the world could learn from it. "We did try some techniques that we hadn't come across before," Dr Mobbs told 7.30. "We used pieces of his ribs that were so-called vascularised grafts and pieces of his leg bones that we had to plug into vessels in his abdomen so that they would stay alive. "So a lot of what we tried we really couldn't find had been attempted before or at least on that order of magnitude." Dr Mobbs gave Mr Lawrence his blessing to use medical marijuana for his pain and said modern medicine was running out of options to continue treating him. "We don't have much to offer him," he said. "With his ongoing symptoms, if he gets benefit out of pursuing alternative medicines, if he is getting benefits, whether it's real or perceived, if he is getting benefits then he has my full support to pursue them." Dr Colin Chen from Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital is Mr Lawrence's oncologist and said he was amazed by his resilience through a gruelling schedule of radiotherapy after the operation. "He's amazing," Dr Chen said. "He travelled daily, obviously, from Wollongong, some days he came with his partner but some days he came by himself on the train. "Never complained - he had a huge pain threshold." Dr Chen said there may be a small group of patients for whom marijuana is effective for pain relief but warned of potential side effects of lung and mental health problems. "I like to be open minded about this," Dr Chen said. "Certainly, I can see it seems to work really well for Paul. "I think on a larger scale the best thing to do in this situation is to have a clinical trial." Do you know more about this story? Email 7.30syd@your.abc.net.au Side effects can include psychosis, anxiety, depression Pharmacy expert at the University of Sydney Dr Niall Wheate said there was already evidence marijuana could have a role in pain relief. "It's definitely a potential alternative. There have been several studies in the US already that have shown that in states that have legalised cannabis that overdose deaths from opioids have actually dropped significantly, up to 30 per cent," he said. But he said the long list of potential side effects could be very damaging. "The side effects can be quite disastrous; there are a lot of studies that have shown long term side effects from cannabis use, psychosis, anxiety, depression and impairment of both cognitive function and judgement," he said. The NSW government has begun an Australian trial of medical marijuana in conjunction with Victoria and Queensland, with patients to be selected in the middle of 2016. The results of the trial are expected within two to five years. Topics: cannabis, health, medical-research, cancer, sydney-2000, wollongong-2500, the-university-of-sydney-2006 First posted
The Bristol Cable Nightclubs and music venues increasingly under threat from new developments, experts say Bristol can take a leaf out of London’s book. Photo: DHP Family Venue owners and industry figures have called for a Night Czar and Night Time Commission to help safeguard Bristol’s nightlife amid fears of its future and venue closures. At a public meeting held at Thekla on Wednesday as part of the campaign to save the iconic music venue, local figures from Bristol’s night-time economy urged councillors, council planning officers and developers to work with venues to find ways to coexist. Alan Miller, Chairman of the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), who led the discussions, said: “I think we need to make a point about urban master plans, where everyone sits down and thinks ambitiously again about our cities of the future. “This should involve having a Night Time Commission with key stakeholders from Bristol as well as a Night Czar to work alongside Mayor Marvin Rees and Councillors to ensure everyone gets to maximise the benefits of our much-loved venues while mitigating any costs” Mayor Sadiq Khan appointed Amy Lamé as London’s first ever Night Czar last year, and there is now growing consensus that she has galvanised the campaign to protect the capital’s nightlife. “Now we’ve got a situation in London, it’s not a panacea or utopia, but we have someone who’s talking to the different councils- a champion of some kind,” Miller said. The panel event came after a campaign was launched to protect Thekla from a residential development across the water at Redcliffe Wharf, which was recently granted planning permission despite a noise survey being deemed inadequate. Julie Tippins head of compliance for Thekla’s owners, DHP Family, said she wanted the second sound report to be “robust” so that it “protects us and the residents”. “We’re still not in a good place, but I am more hopeful now than I was. We will continue with the campaign until we have definitely protected the Thekla,” she said. A Night Czar would be a “good focal point”, who could speak on behalf of all venues, she added. Also on the panel were Tom Paine (Love Saves The Day); Leighton De Burca (Nite Watch Placemaker Bristol) and John Hirst (Bristol BID). Tom Paine said: “The safeguard we’re looking for is someone at the council to support our industry. We need someone who understands what we do and will fight our battles with us.” He also called for a more united front between venues. “Bristol has an amazing reputation for the whole independent success of what we do, but part of the problem has been that by being independent we’ve also been quite fractured.” Leighton De Burca urged people to get involved in strategic planning in the city, because the night-time economy isn’t written into most future plans. Agent of change principle There was also widespread support for another measure being implemented in London – the agent of change principle, which would force developers to soundproof new properties when building next to night-time venues. Paul Gray from the Musicians Union, who was in the audience, spoke of how agent of change had been embedded into Welsh planning policy after campaigning for four months to save a Cardiff venue from a nearby development. There was consensus that with an increasingly densely populated city centre, residents needed to accept everything that comes with that, including noise from night-time venues. Tippins said: “There are going to be more developments and I want the council to wake up to this and start thinking about how we can build better plans so we can coexist.” Discussions focused on the tension between the business arguments for the night-time economy and the cultural value of nightlife that means so much to people. Paine said: “None of us got into this industry to make money, we got into this because we love music and bringing people together, but the council only started listening to us when we started talking about money and economics.” There were also reminders of the difficulties that venues are constantly facing. Daniel Cleary, owner of Fiddlers in Bedminster, a music venue of 23 years, revealed the he has just received a planning application for nearby flats. He said that residents’ committees had been consulted, but until recently he had not. Since the meeting, The Fleece, a much-loved venue that has also had to contend with a nearby development, announced huge increases in what it pays in business rates, which is yet another factor threatening the survival of many night-time venues. Paine said that prominent figures needed to use their voices more to make an impact. “Campaigns like Save Fabric, Save Nightlife and Save Thekla have woken us up to the power that we have to reach people to help support worthwhile causes.” Julie Tippins said: “I was totally surprised by the amount of public support for the Thekla campaign. If you go out and ask the public to support you, you can change people’s attitude and change policies, but we have to do that together.”
Since it's nearly the Fourth of July, we might as well discuss a rumor that popped up earlier this evening involving America's latest next big thing. Roma and Genoa are reportedly working in tandem to bring U.S. defender DeAndre Yedlin to Italy. Yedlin, soon to be 21-years-old, was one of America's break out players during their run to the round of 16, captivating viewers the world over with his speed, athleticism, and willingness to commit as much to defense as he does to attack. Yedlin impressed so much that he was reportedly a topic of discussion at a recent dinner between Roma and Genoa executives, with the latter keen on his immediate services and presumably needing the more moneyed and reputable Roman name to seal the deal, as reported by Gianluca DiMarzio earlier this evening. According to DiMarzio, Roma will technically acquire the Seattle Sounders fullback, immediately sending him on loan to the Grifone for an undetermined amount of time. Granted, this is, as yet, an unsubstantiated rumor, but DiMarzio is about as reliable as Serie A rumor mongerers come, so it bears repeating. Obviously, this rumor comes stamped with a gigantic asterisk, as Yedlin could simply be the latest in a line of American youth to fall prey to the hype machine. We've seen it with Freddy Adu, Oguchi Onyewu, Eddie Johnson and, to an extent (at least in Europe), Landon Donovan, so you'd be right to restrain your emotions. Not only that, his entire professional career amounts to less than 50 appearances, so despite his impressive form in Brazil, he is very much a project. But, there is a reason we're discussing this, Yedlin is an extremely intriguing prospect. If you only caught a minute of the U.S. the past few weeks, you probably still noticed the somewhat small, but incredibly built young man bombing up and down the right flank, making opponents appear as if they were caught in quick sand. Yedlin was far and away Jurgen Klinsmann's most effective weapon against Belgium on Tuesday, blowing past the Red Devils to the tune of five dribbles and three key passes, while also serving up eight crosses and managing four clearances. Quite simply, Yedlin has an incredible base upon which to build; he's fast as hell and shows little hesitation in using that to his advantage, no matter the opponent. Furthermore, based on his MLS stats, he's not nearly as inept at the defensive side of the game as we're led to believe. Besides which, at only 21-years-old, Yedlin is already emerging as one of, if not the star, of what many believe will be the first generation of American talent to make a genuine and widespread impact on the international stage, which is sure to make Roma's P.R. department salivate. This was just a one-off rumor, so we're miles away from this picking up any steam, but one would imagine this would be a symbiotic move for all three parties, one that should easily fall within Roma's plans, both financially and tactically. For much, much more on what Yedlin brings to the pitch, check out this piece from our Sounders site, which address Yedlin's tactical abilities in greater depth.
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a figure well known to Catoites, is among the few members of Congress for whom the description “libertarian” does not seem like a stretch. Chair of the House Liberty Caucus, Rep. Amash is famous not only for his strong stands on behalf of limited government and for leading left-right alliances on such subjects as NSA surveillance but also for explaining publicly the reasons for each vote he takes in the House, which he seeks to derive from the language and principles of the U.S. Constitution. Inevitably, some Republicans as well as Democrats are not happy with what he’s up to, and financial consultant Brian Ellis has launched a primary challenge against Rep. Amash in his Third Congressional District. Ellis says western Michigan “is not a libertarian district, and I’m willing to stake my campaign on that.” Some GOP businessmen in and around Grand Rapids are backing Ellis’s challenge, though many others side with Amash. Now the Weekly Standard is out with a piece by Maria Santos profiling the primary fight, which caught my attention with the following quote from Ellis: “He’s got his explanations for why he’s voted, but I don’t really care. I’m a businessman, I look at the bottom line.” He has no use for Amash’s constitutional scruples, remarking, “If something is unconstitutional, we have a court system that looks at that.” The first two sentences, at least as I would interpret them, basically amount to: “If you want someone to represent you who votes on principle and can explain his reasons, go ahead and stick with Justin because I don’t intend to decide on votes that way.” But it’s the follow-up that really caught me in mid-breath. As the House Clerk’s site explains, under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, each member of the U.S. House on assuming office takes an oath pledging to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” and to “well and faithfully discharge” the office’s duties. There is a structural reason why the Constitutional oath is required of officers in the legislative branch, and not merely of those in the executive and judiciary. It is that lawmakers are just as capable of breaking faith with the Constitution as members of those other branches. The main way they do so is to vote, knowingly or through inadvertence, for bills that overstep its provisions. In other words, it sounds as if Mr. Ellis has chosen to kick off his campaign by promising to violate his oath of office.
Spread the love Detroit, Mich. – A family scrap metal shop was illegally targeted according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Monday. The suit is filed against the City of Detroit and the Detroit Police Department, as well as Sgt. Rebecca McKay, Mayor Mike Duggan and Police Chief James Craig. Dearborn resident Joseph Fawaz, whose family owns Southwest metals, accused a Detroit police sergeant of planting evidence, lying to prosecutors, attempting to bribe witnesses, and arresting employees in a multi-year vendetta. The suit claims Detroit Copper Theft Task Force member, Sgt. Rebecca McKay, was caught on the scrap metal shop’s surveillance camera planting evidence during a raid of Southwest Metals. “Southwest Metal’s security surveillance system recorded footage of what clearly seems to be Sgt. McKay planting underground ‘greasy or sticky’ wire at Southwest Metals in Detroit,” the lawsuit claims. “In essence, Sgt. McKay appeared to plant evidence in a desperate attempt to gain evidence against Plaintiffs.” In an effort to combat post-bankruptcy blight and stem emerging black market rackets, Detroit has attempted to crack down on copper and metal thefts by forming a Copper Theft Task Force. The lawsuit highlights the extremely desperate situation Detroit finds itself in after filing for bankruptcy protection. Attorney for the family, Nabih Ayad, claims that the city was attempting to harass Fawaz because his company is Arab-American operated and Muslim-owned, as well as one of the smallest shops in the city, according to the Detroit News. “He is the small sheep they are going after — the weak party to make an example out of,” Ayad said. “Once the city takes their license away, they’re dead.” According to Fawaz his problems began in May of 2013, with McKay’s arrival on the Copper Theft Task Force. A man was accused of selling wire stolen from DTE energy to Southwest Metals. Prior to the industry-wide alert going out to notify scrap dealers that wire had been stolen, Southwest Metals had already purchased the materials. Fawaz then fully cooperated in the prosecution of that case, the lawsuit alleges. “He’s helped the city in more than 20 prosecutions,” Ayad said. In spite of Fawaz’s assistance, McKay began an investigation into Southwest Metals and its employees, according to the lawsuit. The suit goes on to claim that Fawaz and two employees were subsequently arrested after the Detroit Police Department unlawfully obtained a warrant. According to the lawsuit, Fawaz plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge to avoid a felony conviction. “Sgt. McKay has continually attempted to intimidate and bully Mr. Fawaz and Southwest Metals in an attempt to put Southwest Metals out of business,” the suit claims. There was no probable cause for McKay to obtain the warrant she used to search Southwest Metals, and she was allegedly captured on the company’s surveillance camera as she “appeared to plant evidence,” according to the court filings by Ayad. According to the suit, McKay can be seen in the video walking into a storage room without finding any contraband, only to return to the same room “and look(s) both ways as if to see if anybody else is in the area.” “Sgt. McKay then immediately and quickly walks to the back corner of the room, a location she had already been,” Ayad wrote. “She then squats in the corner and miraculously returns with a very small piece of wire.” McKay claimed that the wire she allegedly found during the search was stolen, according to the lawsuit. Fawaz attempted to rectify the situation by contacting the department’s Internal Affairs Division, which is currently investigating McKay, the suit alleges. The department has since proceeded to file 40 citations against Southwest Metals and launched proceedings to revoke its business license in what Fawaz claims is retaliatory action. As usual the city denied any responsibility. “We have carefully reviewed this complaint and have found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Sgt. McKay,” Detroit Corporation Counsel Butch Hollowell told WDIV, Channel 4 News in a prepared statement. “The city is committed to protecting homes, businesses, schools and other public assets from metal theft.” Jay Syrmopoulos is an investigative journalist, freethinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has previously been published on BenSwann.com and WeAreChange.org. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.
WASHINGTON -- A new kind of genetically modified crop under the brand name of "Enlist" -- known by its critics as "Agent Orange corn" -- has opponents pushing U.S. regulators to scrutinize the product more closely and reject an application by Dow AgroSciences to roll out its herbicide-resistant seeds. The corn has been genetically engineered to be immune to 2,4-D, an ingredient used in Agent Orange that some say could pose a serious threat to the environment and to human health. Approval by the United States Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency would allow farmers to spray it far and wide without damaging their crops, boosting profits for the agribusiness giant. Dow and its allies have insisted that their product is well tested, while industry regulators have so far overlooked critics' concerns. "This is going to be a solution that we are looking forward to bringing to farmers," Dow's Joe Vertin told Reuters. More than 140 advocacy groups have participated in a letter writing campaign calling on U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reject Dow's regulatory application for the herbicide and herbicide-resistant crops, submitting more than 365,000 missives ahead of a public comment period that ends April 27. "The scientific community has sounded alarms about the dangers of 2,4-D for decades," wrote opponents in their letter to Vilsack. "Numerous studies link 2,4-D exposure to major health problems such as cancer, lowered sperm counts, liver toxicity and Parkinson's disease. Lab studies show that 2,4-D causes endocrine disruption, reproductive problems, neurotoxicity, and immunosuppression." Some farmers have argued that the new herbicide, a combination of 2,4-D and glyphosate -- the active ingredient in Monsanto's bestselling Roundup weed killer -- is necessary to combat weeds that have become resistant to glyphosate alone. Glyphosate has also come under considerable public scrutiny in the wake of scientific findings that demonstrate the chemical causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals. Health professionals contend that 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), an ingredient in the Vietnam War-era defoliant that's been blamed for public health problems both during and after the war, poses its own risks. Agricultural consultant Steve Savage accused Dow's opponents of resorting to scare tactics, writing on his blog, Applied Mythology, that what the victims of Agent Orange "don't deserve is to have their tragedy exploited in an irresponsible way." While most the the public health problems associated with Agent Orange have been attributed to a different ingredient, (2,4,5-T), as well as to dioxin contamination -- a number of studies have indicated that 2,4-D has significant health risks, too, according to Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, and Mae Wu, a health attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Many studies show that 2,4-D exposure is associated with various forms of cancer, Parkinson's Disease, nerve damage, hormone disruption and birth defects," said Hauter in a statement. "USDA must take these significant risks seriously and reject approval of this crop." Thirty-five medical and public health professionals have signed on to a letter to the USDA warning of health threats that could accompany the huge an increase in 2,4-D use that is expected to result from approval of the genetically engineered seed. It isn't just scientists who have concerns.
Mexico’s active Popocatepetl volcano has registered a massive explosion spewing ash and incandescent rock almost 4 kilometers high. Authorities have warned that winds could blow the ash cloud as far away as Mexico City. Inhabitants of villages up to 25 kilometers from Popocatepetl (colloquially known as ‘Don Popo’) rushed out of their houses when the massive explosion reverberated through their homes. Esther Matinez, resident of Amecameca municipality, told Mexican publication La Jornada that the blast was like a rocket explosion. Around 4.5 million people live within a 50-kilometer radius of the active volcano, 650,000 of whom are considered to be at high risk. According to authorities in the state of Puebla, where the second-tallest volcano in Mexico is located, the incandescent fragments released in the blast fell as far as 2 kilometers from the crater. Director of Puebla’s Civil Protection department Jesus Morales said that burning rocks sparked small fires around the volcano. “There were clouds at the time of the eruption so it was possible to observe the large shock wave accompanied by a plume of ash and incandescent material,” Morales said. Mexico's National Center for Prevention of Disasters (Cenapred) said the volcano had returned to its previous activity level, and that the volcanic alert level would remain at ‘yellow phase two.’ In addition, volcanic ash that was blown up to 4 kilometers into the air could be shifted by wind currents and then fall on Puebla, or even as far away as Mexico City, Cenapred warned. Popocatepetl had previously been in phase two after breaking the record for the most volcanic emissions in one day – the 5,452 –meter-tall giant gave off 300 emissions in just one day in May. In December 2000, the volcano registered one of its largest eruptions in recent history, prompting the mass evacuation of the surrounding countryside. The name Popocatepetl originates from the native Mexican Nahuatl language and means ‘smoking mountain.’
Do you have a Tesla but you miss the experience of having to go to a gas station? We have all been there. A gas company in the Netherlands thinks it has the solution. They claim to have converted a Tesla Model S to a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain and they want to sell the conversion package. The Holthausen Group, better known as a gas supplier, is also dabbling with hydrogen stations and fuel cell vehicles. Stefan Holthausen, the company’s founder, announced last week at the ‘Founder Talks‘ in the city of Groningen that they have hacked a Tesla Model S to replace the battery pack with fuel cells and hydrogen tanks. He claimed that it doubles the range of the car: “We managed to hack a second-hand Tesla so that it can drive on hydrogen. With this we can more than double the action range.” At its core, a fuel cell vehicle is an electric vehicle like a Tesla. Instead of a battery pack feeding electricity to an electric motor, like the Model S, hydrogen is fed into fuel cells which create electricity and power an electric motor. Holthausen claims his company managed the conversion with his cousin who hacked Tesla’s operating system to work with the fuel cell powertrain: “This allows the range to easily be doubled up to 1,000 kilometers. The hydrogen tanks are placed in cavities, which means that there is almost no loss of comfort and space.” That’s ~621 miles. Let’s assume that’s based on NEDC since they are in the Netherlands. Tesla’s Model S 100D has a NEDC-rated range of 632 km (393 miles). They are calling the car “Hesla” and they plan to launch it soon as a 50,000-euro ($58,000) conversion package. They claim that there’s already interest in the product: “We have already received a lot of requests from home and abroad.” The timeline for a launch is unclear at this point. Electrek’s Take We have shared our opinion on fuel cells before. In short, we think it makes no sense for passenger car applications. The physics of fuel cell vehicles make little sense compared to battery-powered vehicles. Between hydrogen production, distribution, and storage, a fuel cell vehicle ends up being just a third as efficient as a battery-powered vehicle getting its power from the same grid as the electrolysis plant making the hydrogen. In this case here, we are talking about the only advantages being a little faster refueling time and potentially a longer range (I am skeptical about the range claim here, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt). For that, you are paying 50,000 euros more on top of the price of the Tesla and you are giving up a full charge every morning due to overnight charging. You are also likely going to have to pay more for hydrogen than you do for your electricity – though electricity rates are quite high in some European markets. What am I missing? Anyone see a reasonable use case for this? Let me know in the comment section below. Featured image by 5 hour Ahead.
Story highlights The Senate floor schedule is unclear now that health care is on hold House Republicans are planning to unveil their budget (CNN) The fate of the long-sought Republican Obamacare repeal and replacement bill is on hold now that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has delayed votes until Republican Sen. John McCain, who had surgery for a blood clot Friday, returns to work sometime after this week. The delay could be a blessing or a curse for McConnell, who faces stiff resistance from several of his members on the right and left. The extra time could allow him the chance to convince those senators to get behind the bill or it could allow opposition to harden. The Congressional Budget Office said Sunday its analysis of the revised Senate bill will not come out Monday as expected. There was no reason given but it was known the agency was scrambling to complete its analysis of the bill, especially a complicated amendment by conservative Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who wants to allow stripped-down insurance plans to be sold. The Senate floor schedule is unclear now that health care is on hold. McConnell previously announced the Senate would stay in session for the first two weeks of August to tackle backed-up nominations, the Food and Drug Administration re-authorization and the annual defense policy bill. That last bill can't get done with McCain out, since he's the chairman of the armed services committee. But this week does give Republicans extra time on nominations and to consider government spending bills and a debt ceiling increase, the deadline for which is now October. Read More
The following setting is actually a micro setting I made for an arc inside the shared world of a group of friends. I wanted it to be tucked away and insular from the main happenings of the shared world (which has a long and rich history of longer than a real life decade), and decided the best way to do that would be to make the figurative literal and make it an island setting. I drew from real life sources for a lot of the setting (the main two being Southern India as well as Polynesia), as well as fictional (the main two of that being the Earthsea novels as well as the video game Chrono Cross). One big motivation for this setting was wanting to do something that was exotic, and that was also sand-boxish in that the party could travel the islands on their own little vessel. The arc didn’t last very long, but I always enjoyed what I had made, and have decided to present it to you (with additions) as a setting idea that you can hopefully take and run with. Rather than a well developed setting, I want to provide it as more a skeleton that you can add on to. So, tucked somewhere in the subtropical zone of your campaign world, there may be a set of islands. Far away from civilized kingdoms, separated by leagues of cerulean ocean, they lay spread out like green crystals across a blue table. There are many of them, some as small as a little hill in the water. Others are large, hosting great mountains, forests, and jungles. The southern islands are rimmed with bright white sand, and throughout the whole of the kingdom the smell of spice and fruit permeates like an exotic perfume. Here is Adosh, archipelago of the joyful fat dragon. The Adoshen Archipelago A Campaign Setting Idea Overview The islands of Adosh are a large spread of many miles, and the southern isles tend to be more tropical than the northern ones, which seem to be bigger. Geographically, the islands are subtropical and tropical to the south. The larger islands tend to have large forests and jungles as well as mountain formations in their centers, though some islands are ‘bald’. The waters around the islands maintains a very vibrant blue color that becomes almost violet during dusk and dawn. The inhabitants of the island are exclusively from two races: the dragonborn, and kobolds. Thus, the natives of the island are primarily from draconic heritage. The kobolds tend to be subservient to the dragonborn. Culturally, the islands are loose knit group of tribes with cosmopolitan cities providing centers for trade between tribes and with other civilizations who have come by sea. The islands and tribes are ruled over by a being that is called both a god and a king. A golden dragon, that lies among his riches in an open palace on the center island. There he is served and coddled by loving worshippers as he slumbers and mumbles in his sleep contentedly. His name is Adosh, and it is said that the islands were named from him. Their religion and laws all seem to stem from this center, and the palace acts as both seat of power and temple. The natives describe Adosh as joyful and pleasant, a being that sees his wards as children that he dotes on. Though he spends much of his time simply enjoying the pleasures of life, all of the inhabitants revere him and believe all of their happiness and fortune stem from him. The islands are abundant in a number of resources. They host many different kinds of lumber, a large number of spices and fruits, tea, as well as an abundance of seafood. Locally made wares are also a trade a resource. All in all the islands and tribes, especially with the advent of maritime trade with the larger continents, have been very fortunate. Their main danger lies in a confederation of trade guilds from kingdoms to the north-west. The guilds were separate trading and seafaring guilds from a number of kingdoms, but once new lands were being discovered to the east, they combined wealth and power to become a company. Due to their great sway on sea trade, they are able to operate outside of the sovereignty of any kingdom. They call themselves The Eastern Trade Confederation, or ETC. Many islands have fallen under their control, and when Adosh entered into the trade network, their eye turned toward them quite greedily. It is not easy, however, to occupy and wrest control of an island kingdom when the king is a dragon. Culture The Dragonborn and Kobolds of the Adoshen Archipelago live in tribes. The tribes aren’t race based, and you will find both dragonborn and kobolds all throughout the islands. The kobolds do tend to be naturally subservient to their larger cousins, though some have cunning and skill that put them on equal footing. Islands tend to have one tribe per island, except for the very big ones with cities on them. The chieftain of the tribe thus governs the island, and pays tribute to Anderad, the main island. The peoples of the islands dress in light and airy clothing, preferring things like silk robes, open chested vests, and turbans and veils. Priests, who are the emissaries of Adosh, wear bright yellow robes and golden bands around their heads. The poorer tribes wear whatever they can make from simple materials, and some in the south even go without due to the heat and humidity. There seems to be a class system in place, involving usefulness to the tribe and to Adosh. Merchants and craftsmen sit near the top, whereas fisherfolk, farmers, and kobolds sit near the bottom. The class pyramid is very shallow, however, and not as oppressive as some of the feudal areas of the main kingdoms. Still, some of the lower classes are treated unfortunately by certain individuals, though kindness is one of the main teachings and tenets of Adosh the joyous. Islands of Note Anderad Anderad is the center island of the archipelago, and the seat of Adosh the golden dragon. It is shaped like a very fat horseshoe, and the main city of Onnadi is spread across the bottom edge. Onnadi is a large port city of many levels and sections. The levels of the city stack into step pyramid shapes, giving the city a formidable appearance. The palace of Adosh is a huge complex of a building with very many gardens, many of them on upper levels, with the exotic plants vining down the sides of walls. Hundreds of thousands of worshippers flow into and out of the palace at all times, for to gaze upon the slumbering form of the fat dragon (as he is sometimes called informally) is considered great luck. Many of the poorer tribes of the outer island will raise funds and resources to send a designated person once a year, to ask for luck with fishing and crops. Adosh is always quick to give that luck with a slow smile, and a grunt. Many adventures find their way here as a stopping point before going to explore the ruins and emptier islands of the archipelago. Ma’nan Ma’nan is also called the island of sorcerers. It is one of the ‘bald’ islands, being grassy and rocky. It is very near the northern edge of the islands. On the island exists a group of sorcerers, generally a group of seven apprentices and one master. There are no great cities or temples on this island; only a few fishing villages and the house of the sorcerers, built atop a large rocky outcropping. They rarely receive visitors, unless it is to advise in manners arcane or to interview possible apprentices in the event that one leaves. The waters to the south of this island are home to a large complex of ruins, much of which is said to be under the floor of the water and to hold in trapped air. Ganshis Ganshis is the largest southern island, and hosts a large city named Nadderis. Nadderis is called The City of Fountains, because it is built over a small mountain from which a wellspring of water streams out in all directions, giving the city it’s many canals and fountain structures. It rises up out of a deep jungle that is dotted with stone ruins. This is a hot spot for fortune hunters, for the island, the ruins, and even the ancient city itself is said to hold a thousand secrets. Unfortunately, the deep darkness of the jungle hides many deadly threats as well. Melishtar Melishtar is a desert island and is the island farthest to the south. There isn’t much on the island, and it is only significant because of a giant statue that sits on it. The statue seems to be that of a dragon, though it is weathered and broken with age if not some other past event. The dragon doesn’t seem to be Adosh, for it is slim, and seems to have wings (which Adosh lacks). The statue is a mystery, though many inhabitants find themselves feeling forlorn when they come near here. Hulphet Hulphet is an eastern island that is oddly donut shaped, and completely round. The middle of the island is a round lake, upon the center of which sits the great treasure of the island: a giant growth of crystal that juts right out of the placid waters. The crystal is a variety of purple hues. This is significant due to the large amount of purplish crystal that seems to permeate the islands caves and ruins. The city of Narletshef sits on the shores of the lake, and protects the crystal, which has been deemed holy by the palace of Onnadi. The ETC has taken great interest in the purple crystals of the island, especially the Hulphet stone. Travel Due to the close distance of the islands, travel by small vessel is the most common form. There are many well used routes, often patrolled by the Zahhakir to prevent piracy and sea monster attack. Adventurers tend to pool money to buy a small vessel, and supplement their treasure hunting gains with bringing trade to the smaller villages that happen to be near where the most ripe ruins lay. Significant Groups The Emmerad The Emmerad is the entire temple structure of the islands; the yellow robed priests who spread the teachings of the fat dragon and perform administrative duties as is needed. They are welcome near anywhere, and usually never have to worry about paying for food and lodging. They never take positions of direct power, preferring to instead advise and act as paternal and maternal figures to the children of Adosh. There are no kobolds in the priesthood. The Zahhakir The islands of Adosh are not without dangers, and dangerous as well as pirates are a common occurrence especially out away from the more populated islands. A great dragonborn warrior who was also pious thus organized a group of warriors to protect traders and pilgrims who traveled to visit the palace to gain a blessing for their villages. These warriors became the Zahhakir. The Zahhakir are a well organized order of warriors who subsist on the charity of the islanders, and sail the routes to find people to escort and to root out dangers. They are said to find great joy in honorable battle, and have great hearts especially toward the poorer folk. They tend to wear blue turbans as their uniform, and wield great scimitars in battle. They have often been compared to the knighthoods of the mainlands. The Sorcerers Called simply “the sorcerers”, this is a group of eight arcane magic users that live on the island of Ma’nan. They explore mysteries, and are often found exploring the ruins as well as studying the purple crystals of the archipelago. They have a tenuous relationship with the Emmerad, who find them prying and irreverent of the fat dragon. The group consists of seven apprentices and one master. The master generally names an heir out of the apprentices in secret, giving the group his sealed decision before his death. Why they are structured like this is a mystery, as well is their origin or even point. They rarely speak with outsiders, though they do sometimes hire adventures to search the ruins. Whatever they are looking for, however, they keep quiet. The Eastern Trade Confederation It is no quiet rumor that the ETC greatly wants the islands of Adosh; indeed many of the islands to the east of their kingdoms have been claimed by them. However, the archipelago is a significant power, so for now the ETC has remained hands-off. They conduct trade into the islands for the main kingdoms. Indeed they command all trade to the east, so they have become a necessary evil. The inhabitants of the island dislike the ETC, and the friction is palpable in many of the port towns and cities. The ETC is headed by a council of six guild masters, though the martial arm of the group is lead by a single admiral; a Half-Elf named Laravale Seasprite. Her naval expertise is world renowned, as well is her lack of mercy. She is said to often clash with the council of six, whom she believes over complicates things with their negotiations and bureaucracy. Religion Rather than merely ruling the islands, the joyous dragon Adosh is also the center of worship. According the Emmerad, he came across the islands one day while flying the newly created world. Finding them splendid, he landed upon the middle island and blessed the whole of the kingdom, bringing prosperity and happiness to all. Where he landed is where he now lays, getting fawned over by countless admirers. He speaks very little, and only in the dragon tounge, which only the Emmerad really speaks. He does tend to smile and make appreciative noises toward his well-wishers, however, and many still speak of an incident ten years ago where he nuzzled a young dragonborn child affectionately. The child has since grown into a powerful chief. The tenets of the Adoshi religion are based on Joy, Kindness, and Servility to others. Art is often based around the dragon as well, with many popular carved figurines and statues depicting him being sold all of the islands. They often depict the fat dragon curled up, or laying on his back. Adventure Ideas This setting is set up really to be a bit of a sandbox. I would find it best to give your adventurers a boat and some scraps of information, and let them use that to explore. Facilitate trade with them as well; they can buy cheaper wares in the bigger cities and bring it out to the smaller villages to trade where it will be more valuable. Making it a true sand box setting would require significant fleshing out beyond what I’ve done here, but using the sources I’ve drawn from you might find it a rewarding experience. The ETC The big antagonist of this setting is the trade confederation. While not evil per se, they do seek the wealth and bounty of the islands, and will eventually try to make a move toward that. Will Adosh rise from his revery to protect the islands? He has not moved from the palace in many many years. The ETC may think that he has grown old and decrepit. The Crystals Throughout the islands are found purple crystals, usually in caves or in the ruins, obviously carved and horded by whoever had settled the islands previously. They hold some signifigance, but what? The large crystal on Hulphet may provide clues. Do they have something to do with the near uncanny fortune that the natives enjoy? The Sorcerers definitely seem to have an interest in them… The Ruins Speaking of the ruins, what are they? Who was here before the natives? Were they here before even Adosh, who the islands were named after? Maybe some intrepid adventurers can unearth some clues. Maybe the ETC themselves seek answers to those sorts of questions, in order to gain a foothold on the islands… The Statue The dragon statue on Melishtar is said to give anyone who looks upon a feeling of profound sadness. Who is it? Someone related to Adosh? Perhaps it is connected with the ruins, or the crystals? Conclusion I hope I’ve at least provided enough to facilitate your creativity. I really enjoy thinking about this setting, and love the idea of sailing around in a boat, looking for exotic ruins and visiting native locales. Is there anything you think I should add? Any ideas of your own? Feel free to add to it, and tell me about it!
Maybe there was not much more communication going on in the good old days when people were travelling without staring into their mobile devices. Maybe people did not talk or communicate nonverbally with one another then either. But the mind was allowed to wander, unintentionally, unfocussed. We might look out of the window – yes – the same scenery every morning but different weather and light. The soul jumps onto one of these clouds and rides them for a while, looking at life with the perspective of a traveller. If we close our eyes we might hear the sound of wheels, with the occasionally outburst of laughter or children’s cry. We are part of this – somehow distant but fully aware. What happens if we don’t limit our world to the small space of a mobile phone? We might be open to perception. I believe we need boredom and daydreaming in our lives to be creative. And I wish children were allowed to feel boredom too without us adults finding things for them to do all the time. photo credits
Adult Swim has announced the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special 3: Magical Friendship will air on Oct. 18 at Midnight E.T. The Robot Chicken DC Comics Special 3: Magical Friendship surrenders DC Comics' multitude of Super Heroes and Super-Villains to the demented whims of the award-winning Robot Chicken for a triumphant third time. This time around, Batman and Superman’s bromance takes a competitive turn and the fate of the universe somehow hangs in the balance! The all-star cast includes Seth Green, Matt Senreich, Breckin Meyer, Alfred Molina, Nathan Fillion, Weird Al Yankovic, Alex Borstein, Giovanni Ribisi, Jonathan Banks, Mae Whitman, Hugh Davidson, Dee Bradley Baker, Zeb Wells, Kevin Shinick, plus Adam West and Burt Ward. Check out the trailer below: Robot Chicken Season 8 will premiere on Adult Swim the following week, Oct. 25.
Spokane police haven’t busted a methamphetamine lab in at least three years, almost the same amount of time “Breaking Bad” and its meth-cooking protagonist have been off the air. But methamphetamine is contributing to more drug overdose deaths than any other drug in Spokane County, and that number rose significantly in 2016. That’s according to a Spokane County Medical Examiner’s office report on 2016 deaths released Tuesday, which found an increase from 29 fatal overdoses involving methamphetamine in 2015 to 49 in 2016, a 69 percent jump. Overall, accidental overdoses in Spokane County rose from 82 in 2015 to 115 last year. Fatal heroin and opioid overdoses are the usual focus of conversations about drug use and deaths, but methamphetamine is a rarely-discussed contributor to soaring overdose death rates in Washington. In many cases, public health officials say that’s because people are using opioids in combination with methamphetamine. Methamphetamine is a stimulant and can cause fatal overdoses by putting strain on their heart or circulatory system. The drug elevates core body temperature and usually kills by cardiac failure. Fatal overdoses on opioids are more common. Those drugs are depressants that can suppress breathing, leading to fatal respiratory failure. “When you do both at the same time you compound the effects of both drugs. One doesn’t counteract the other,” said Mike Lopez, medical services manager for the Spokane Fire Department. The medical examiner report says how many times a drug was listed on death certificates in 2016, but it doesn’t provide a clear picture of how people are using those drugs. People often overdose and die with more than one drug in their system, so without the details of individual death certificates, it’s impossible to say if most local methamphetamine overdoses also involved an opioid. The medical examiner’s office had not responded to a request to provide more detailed data by Wednesday evening. A 2015 survey by the University of Washington’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute of 22 Spokane needle-exchange users found 91 percent had used meth in the past three months, and nearly one-third had used both methamphetamine and heroin together. Statewide, it’s clear people are mixing the two. The Washington Department of Health collects data on fatal opioid overdoses, which lists every drug found on individual death certificates. Though it’s not an opioid, methamphetamine was the second-most commonly listed drug in 2015, contributing to 155 opioid overdoses. In 2010, methamphetamine was present in just 44 opioid overdoses and ranked well behind common painkillers like oxycodone. Rates of people using only methamphetamine also appear to be going up, said Caleb Banta-Green, the principal research scientist for the institute. Overdose deaths have increased in King County after holding steady for nearly a decade, he said, and that appears to be a trend across the state. The institute is releasing a report on rising methamphetamine use in Washington in a few weeks. As public attention has been focused on responding to an opioid overdose epidemic, there’s less talk about methamphetamine. After a crackdown on the cold medications used to make the drug in the United States, production shifted largely to Mexico. Use declined for a few years, Banta-Green said. But its gradual increase over the past few years has gone largely unnoticed because it doesn’t come with the dramatic spectacle of police raiding meth labs. Crackdowns on prescription pain medication over the past decade have made it harder for people addicted to opioids to get drugs legally. In response, drug traffickers used the same routes they set up for methamphetamine to bring more heroin into the country, Banta-Green said. Treatment programs created in response to soaring opioid overdose deaths often have few options for people who also use methamphetamine, benzodiazepines and other drugs, Banta-Green said. In many cases, providers refuse to treat them at all, “which really means we’re only saying we only want to treat half of heroin users,” he said. The state health department publishes data on opioid deaths, but not methamphetamine overdoses. “There’s never been a statewide discussion about it,” Banta-Green said. This article was updated on April 27, 2017 to clarify that the Washington Department of Health does not publish data on methamphetamine overdoses. The department does collect data on all drug overdoses.
Glenn Beck's antics have always proved to be great fodder for the "Daily Show." Lewis Black took it a step further with an entire segment mocking the Fox News host for his tendency to make everything Nazi-related. Black was set off by Beck's recent complaint that critics of Arizona have played the Nazi card. Incapable of believing that Beck thought this was going too far, Black exclaimed,"This is a guy who uses more swastika props and video of the Nuremberg rallies than the History Channel." Black went through clip after clip, showcasing how easily Beck transitions from a seemingly tame subject (like Al Gore or the Peace Corp) to Nazi analogies. He joked that it's like playing 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," except "there's just one degree and Kevin Bacon is Hitler." The only reasonable explanation according to Black? "Glenn Beck Has Nazi Tourette's."
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has accepted the Nobel Peace Prize of 2016 at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the prize to Santos for his resolute efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to an end. The war has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people. "It is much more difficult to achieve peace than to wage war," Santos said in a speech after receiving the prize on Saturday. "The real prize is the peace in Colombia." He said the agreement reached between the government and FARC fighters offers a template for solving conflicts from Syria to South Sudan. "The Colombian peace agreement is a ray of hope in a world troubled by so many conflicts and so much intolerance," he said. "It proves that what, at first, seems impossible, through perseverance may become possible even in Syria or Yemen or South Sudan." The audience included victims of war as well as Norway's King Harald and his family. Santos was named the Nobel Peace Prize winner on October 7, just four days after the people in Colombia in a referendum narrowly rejected a peace deal his government had reached with the FARC. Despite the setback, Santos said at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo on Friday, he concluded that "all wanted peace. "Four days later the Nobel Prize award was announced, and it came like a gift from heaven because it gave us a tremendous push," he said. "People in Colombia interpreted it as a mandate from the international community to persevere." Al Jazeera's Laurence Lee, reporting from Oslo, said that in a year of "gloom", Santos's speech offers an "uplifting" message that peace is attainable. The recipients of the Nobel prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry and economics are also to receive their awards. The ceremonies for these prizes will be held in the Swedish capital, Stockholm.
Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world The government in Cyprus has approved a bill allowing for same-sex civil partnerships. The long-awaited bill has gained the approval of the Cabinet, and now passes to the Parliament where it will be voted on. The bill gives couples in civil partnerships all the benefits of marriage – with the exception of joint adoption. Accept-LGBT Cyprus, an advocacy group, said: “The government is living up to its promises, taking the first step towards modernising the state’s institutions. “We also welcome the efforts of all parliamentary party representatives that took part in the group that worked towards promoting the legislation to the government and to their respective parties.” Director of ILGA-Europe, Evelyne Paradis said in a statement: “We sincerely welcome today’s move by the Cypriot government. This bill was promised by politicians two years ago already and we call on to the parliament to support this important piece of legislation without delay. “This bill is designed to ensure all families are protected and enjoy their human rights. “The European Court of Human Rights made it clear that family today is understood not as only a union between married man and woman and their biological children, but include a whole variety of arrangement’s, including families of same-sex partners and their children.” It comes a year after Cyprus held its first ever Pride event.
Washing Baltimore’s laundry since 1932 24 Photos Members of the Tsao family have been faithfully washing Baltimore’s shirts, blouses and linens at the T.C. Wing Chinese Hand Laundry in Roland Park since 1932. This is the city’s only remaining Chinese laundry. Chak Wing Tsao, an immigrant from China, started the business. Since his retirement in 1978, grandson Ricky and his wife Shirley have been carrying on the tradition of customer care and personal attention. Each garment is carefully cleaned and ironed, then wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Shirley Tsao is the friendly face behind the counter, who considers her customers members of her family. “I am so fortunate to have the most wonderful customers,” she said. Over the years she has visited them in their homes and attended weddings and special events for 5 generations of families. Shirley quips that one day, if she ever gets to retire, she’s going to write a book about all the small-town Baltimore stories she hears from her customers. She has the title, but needs time to write the novel. “Dirty Laundry,” is what it will be called, she says with a laugh.
Forward by Mark Settle Sam Hulley is a new name around these parts. I wasn’t looking for an intern, but up popped his name in my Facebook messages asking if I had any positions for the uni summer break. I hadn’t given the idea any thought, but seeing as he’s had the nouse to ask, I decided that I should give him and the wider idea of an intern a go. And I couldn’t be happier. Sam has quickly proved himself as a valuable member of the team. Interns generally get to do the crappy jobs that the bosses don’t want to do. But right from the start, he’s proved himself clearly capable of more than just making tea, although I did have to show him how not overfilling the cups makes them easier to carry. While playing around with this DJ Tech Dragon Two unit, he seemed genuinely interested and appeared to like the experience. So I figured the best way for him to learn is to chuck him in at the deep end of reviewing, with the safe knowledge that he starts on a positive footing. I did of course, as any good editor does, point him the right direction with a few pointers about what to look for from such a device. And what has come back is a review that really represents the product very well indeed. Good work Sam! Introduction DJ Tech has recently been shaking things up within the DJ market with the release of the DJ Tech DIF-1S. This 2 channel battle mixer injected with a mini innoFADER demanded the term ‘value for money’, and with DJ Qbert giving it the thumbs up with a Thud Rumble Edition, this seemed a no brainer for a lot of people. Showcased at NAMM 2012, the DJ Tech Dragon 2 managed to make its way inconspicuously into to general market without receiving much attention from the public. Currently marketed at $289 this slips into the price range of the Numark Mixtrack Pro 2, although after playing with this unit, it is clear that more suitable comparisons should be made with the Native Instruments Kontrol S2 and other more expensive units. In A Nutshell The DJ Tech Dragon 2 is a 4-deck controller with a built-in 2 channel analogue mixer that ships with Virtual DJ LE 4-deck edition. Covering all the basics comprehensively, this unit doesn’t stray far from the beaten track, managing however to include some neat little features within a fairly familiar layout. First Impressions Not all black. Recently a stream of sleek looking, predominantly black controllers have floated their way into the market, so seeing a unit with a nice light finish was actually refreshing (we won’t talk about the Native Instruments “esque” piano black mixer section collecting dust and finger prints as I write this). The contrast between the dark controls and light faceplate gives great visibility in even the darkest booths, supplemented by all buttons being backlit. Headphone tone control. I have never seen this included on a mixer before and is a smart little addition by DJ Tech. Build and Layout Build wise, this is all-metal and feels genuinely solid. Unfortunately the faceplate has been secured by screws that are not only very visible, but don’t all fit flush with the unit. All the knobs sit on metal pots so will stand up to a substantial amount of abuse, and nothing on this unit feels like it is going to fall apart in your hands. Jog Wheels Solid pair of 4” jogs with a touch sensitive platter and a red light that travels around the jog as the music plays. The sensitivity of the platter can be altered using a knob on the back of the mixer to tailor these to an individual’s needs. Tight integration with VDJ allows the jogs to be very responsive, although my personal gripe with these is that they are not easy to grip and I found my fingers sliding around when using them. Mixer Section EQs and Gain – Well-spaced full kill EQs with a nice centre detent and a lot of resistance. These are not going to be moved accidentally when reaching for something else. Surrounding the EQs with an LED ring is also a nice touch by DJ Tech to increase visibility in a dark booth. Confusing me slightly however is the fact that all the knobs except for the EQs and gains have a light rubber coating on them, marginally adding to the tactile feel. I can’t understand why this isn’t standard across all the knobs. Strange… Filters – Dedicated filters for each channel is quickly becoming one of the most desirable qualities of a mixer. Not only do the Dragon 2 filters play nicely with software, they also double as analogue filters for when using as a stand-alone mixer. The filters are pleasant sounding, albeit they are pretty ineffective between 11 and 12 o’clock. My favourite characteristic of the filters is that of the lights surrounding them. When the filter is engaged and not at neutral position, the surrounding amber light gently flashes. Perfect for me as I am a sucker for forgetting my filters are left on when bringing in a track. Faders – Line faders have a slight resistance and unfortunately have a fixed curve. In this price range however I don’t think much else could be expected. In terms of the cross fader, this is another story. Adjustable curve, smooth feel and a short cut in, will appeal to scratch DJs out there. A little switch on the front of the unit gives the option to allow the cross fader to send midi. DJ Tech advertise this as perfect for VJays who may want to use the cross fader to perform smooth video transitions. I can’t see the average user using this function much; even so it’s always nice to have the option. Deck Switches – Stiff metal switches allow the user to change from decks A and C to B and D. A change in the EQ lighting visually lets the user know which decks the mixer section is controlling at that moment in time. Soft takeover and controlling 4 decks using 2 sets of EQs is still something that I am not convinced by. I am sure many do this seamlessly, but for me it is just awkward (agreed Ed). Pitch Faders These are fairly stiff with a centre click, this pitch fader sits very firmly in the “it’s a pitch fader” category. Located directly below are pitch bend buttons personified in small rubber squares with a very pleasing ‘click’ when pressed. They change pitch and bend it, so no surprises here. Sampler and Effects The sampler and effects section is located on the top left of the unit. 4 knobs and 4 buttons give enough of a control surface to effectively use both the sampler and effects in VDJ. Each button launches a different sample, and then the knobs control and trigger different effects (2 knobs per channel) by rotation or being pressed. The shift function also unlocks another layer of controls, increasing the functionality. Hard plastic buttons are employed here, and although feeling a little cheap, they do the job, assisted by blue backlighting. Pads 12 performance pads dominate the area underneath the jog wheels, natively used for transport controls, 4 hot-cues, 3 loop controls, shift and last but not least SYNC. Backlit and large, these easy to hit pads feel nice to use and the spacing between them decreases the risk of accidentally hitting the wrong pad. A good few minutes of scratching and attacking these buttons with my nails and other implements left absolutely no sign of visual wear and tear, proving again that DJ Tech have built the Dragon 2 to last. Loop Encoder Each channel is equipped with an endless encoder for assigning and implementing auto-loops. Visual aid is given by a ring of LEDs around the encoder and allows for quick manipulation of loop lengths on the go. Twist to change length, click to activate, simple! Ins and Outs The DJ Tech Dragon 2 has a choice of unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR master outs, with the option of an RCA booth out. Phono and Line inputs are available for each of the analogue channels to accommodate for Turntables, CDJs and other media players. The now fairly standard choice of jack or minijack headphone socket is expected, although a lovely feature included is a tone knob to tailor the sound to personal preferences. Little additions like this are nice to see, and gives off the vibe that some real thought has been put into this product and not just trying to sell a carbon copy of everything else on the market. Microphone input is located on the front of the unit for ease of access and again features a tone control. Off, on and talk over are the three options when it comes to using the microphone which will please mobile DJs immensely as well as anyone else who likes to make an announcement every once in a while. As someone who rarely uses the mic, talk over mode actually makes the process very painless without having to guesstimate how quiet I should make the music to allow myself to be audible to the audience. Unlike Booth, Master and Headphone (where the volume knobs are located on the face of the mixer) the microphone volume is placed on the front of the mixer next to tone control. Software Integration Shipping with VDJ LE 4-deck edition you would expect the unit to play nicely with the software. Fortunately, this does not disappoint. As a VDJ controller this leaves little else to be desired. Good LED feedback. Dedicated buttons to navigate VDJ’s various view options. Direct control over one effect per channel. Four sample triggers and access to 4 decks at the flick of a switch. Any gripes users will have are going to be with the software and not the controller. I had a brief play mapping the Dragon 2 to use with Traktor Pro 2, and this can be done relatively easily and works fine. There isn’t currently a Traktor mapping available for download so Traktor users will have to get their paws dirty with this one. In Use Software – As already alluded to this unit works very tightly with Virtual DJ. Not being a regular user of VDJ I actually really enjoyed playing about with the software, and everything seemed to work smoothly and efficiently. I struggled to get to grips with soft takeover when using 4 decks, and the fact when switching between decks A and C (or B and D) the headphone cue also switches. This is a tad frustrating, as I wanted to cue decks A and C simultaneous but this cannot be done without touching the laptop. Minor issue, and to be honest the only fault I could find. Analogue – Using CDJs as inputs I thrashed out a good few sessions utilizing the Dragon 2 as a stand-alone mixer. Everything performed as it should, and I really liked the filters. The meters showing levels for each channel and the master output seemed to linger too long on the previous peak for my liking, but again this should not be a deal breaker. Summary All things considered, the DJ Tech Dragon 2 is a quality outfit. Virtual DJ fans are going to love this, and for the price, you are getting a lot for your money. The soft take over when using 4 decks can be awkward, but as an excellent controller as well as a very capable stand-alone 2-channel mixer, the Dragon 2 ticks a lot of boxes. Ratings Quality With a solid metal build, durability should not be a concern with the DJ Tech Dragon 2. Controls all feel suitably sturdy, although plastic buttons feel a little, well, plastic. Features Happily jumps between being a 4 deck Virtual DJ controller, and a stand-alone 2-channel mixer with hardware filters. Vue meters are average, but a tone knob for headphone monitoring, and talk over mode for the microphone input are nice little inclusions. Value The category in which the Dragon 2 excels. You would be hard pressed to find another unit (even second hand) that can compete on both price and features. A Second Opinion from Mark Settle Well done Sam. He’s hit just about everything that matters and painted a solid picture of what the Dragon Two is about. My own experience shows it to be a very solid unit, capable of providing an extensive cross section of all that is good in the DJ world right now. Readers should consider this as the last remnants of DJ Tech v1, the one that put out some pretty crazy ill-thought products as well as some really solid ones. The Dragon Two is certainly the latter, and has been rereleased at a cheaper price to underline the end of that particular era, and moving forward into a newer more focussed one. If you’re in the market for a does-everything DJ box of tricks, the Dragon Two will serve you well. It’s cheap yet good quality, and has a liberal scoop of all that is good in the analogue and digital DJ worlds. The one we have here will certainly be seeing some action for sure. Gallery
INS Vikramaditya will be taking part in the drills over the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Highlights India-US-Japan holding naval drills or "Malabar Exercise" Warships and aircrafts arriving in Bay of Bengal "Hope not aimed at third nation," says China As the United States, India, and Japan gear up for the annual Malabar series of naval drills in the Indian Ocean on Monday, China said that it hopes the naval exercises aren't aimed at "a third nation".The 10-day drills in the Bay of Bengal include warships from Japan, the US and India, which has deployed its largest-ever fleet. The warships began arriving on Friday."We hope that this kind of relationship and cooperation will not be directed against third country and that it will be conducive to the regional peace and security," said a spokesperson for the Chinese government at a time when the Indian and Chinese armies are locked in a stand-off at the Sikkim border.The Malabar exercises started out as India-US drills in 1992 but have included Japan every year from 2014. Australia was refused permission to join this year because of fears of antagonising China. The exercises are held in the Indian Ocean as well as close to the disputed South China Sea, which Beijing claims as its own.Dozens of warships, submarines and aircraft will take part in the drills, which are aimed at getting the three powerful navies used to working together including for possible joint patrols across the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.India has been concerned about at least six submarine deployments by China in the Indian Ocean since 2013 and with Chinese submarines docking in Sri Lanka and its long-time ally Pakistan to signal Beijing's increasing influence in India's immediate neighbourhood.India and China have both refused to back out of a confrontation that began last month. China says Indian soldiers crossed Sikkim into its territory of Donglang (Doko La for India) and stopped the construction of a road. India and Bhutan say the land where the road is being built belongs to Bhutan. The last few weeks have seen Beijing issue near daily warnings including of "serious consequences" if India does not withdraw its soldiers.The disputed area lies in a part referred to as the "tri-junction" of India, Tibet and Bhutan. India has said the new road is a serious security concern because it lies near the so-called Chicken's Neck, a thin strip of land that connects India to its seven northeastern states. Today, the tension was somewhat defused in Germany where Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines the G-20 summit. Despite China yesterday stating aggressively that there would be no bilateral meeting -India retaliated that it hadn't asked for one - the leaders talked informally at a session of BRICS which groups the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Chris Berman Leaving As Host Of NFL Shows, But Staying At ESPN With New Multiyear Deal Chris Berman will step down as the host of ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown," "NFL PrimeTime" and "Monday Night Countdown" after this year’s Super Bowl, ending a 31-year run as ESPN's primary NFL studio host, during which time he became the net’s most recognizable face. Berman, who has been at ESPN since '79 and has been an instrumental part of the net’s growth over the past three decades, also will stop hosting such marquee events for the net as the NFL Draft and Home Run Derby. The moves come as part of a new multiyear deal that will keep 61-year-old Berman at ESPN in a reduced role. He will continue to appear weekly on “Monday Night Countdown,” where he will conduct taped interviews and host historical segments about the league. His new deal also calls for him to host “NFL PrimeTime” twice a year -- once after the Super Bowl and once after the conference championship games. Berman also will do play-by-play for ESPN Radio on MLB LDS games. He additionally will be part of the ESPYs. “I like to think of myself as an ESPN lifer,” said Berman. “There really wasn't any thought of doing anything else. ... We’ve had a great working relationship extending 38 years.” Berman’s longtime agent Lou Oppenheim represented the anchor through the negotiations. ESPN Senior VP/Event & Studio Production Stephanie Druley said the new deal came after months of talks. “It’s always been about finding the best fit, and Chris has had a say in every part of that,” she said. “By no means are we pushing him out the door, or even easing him out the door.” NO REPLACEMENT CONSIDERED YET: Druley said that she has not begun to consider a replacement host yet and no names have been floated publicly for what is the highest profile on-air position at ESPN. The show went through significant changes this season, replacing mainstays like Tom Jackson and Mike Ditka with younger former players in Randy Moss, Charles Woodson and Matt Hasselbeck. Berman remained as host, and Druley remarked that he quickly developed a rapport with his younger cohorts. In an emailed statement, ESPN President John Skipper said, “Chris is one of a kind. His innovation, passion, preparation and on-air acumen have helped define ESPN. He wrote the book on delivering highlights which still serves as the standard to this day. ... We look forward to Chris’ continuing contributions while understanding that his place on our Rushmore is assured.” AGE IS JUST A NUMBER: Berman in June spoke with THE DAILY about the possibility of retirement, saying at the time, “Retirement is a weird word. But I’ve got to say, the last few contracts have stopped on a given birthday. When it expired at 55 ... I wasn’t retiring at 55. Then 59. This is a three-year deal, so now it’s 62. There’s a reason I did it on my birthday. You still get paid on your birthday and the day after you don’t. You ought to get a cake out of it.” Steve Bornstein, who served as ESPN President through the '90s and remains one of Berman’s close friends, said, “Chris Berman, to me, represents all the positive values of ESPN. You see what you get. He’s the same person on the screen and off the screen. He really works hard. A lot of people don’t appreciate the research and time that all those guys and gals who are on the air go through to be very good. He puts in the effort. He always took the subject matter seriously. He took sports seriously. But he never took himself too seriously.”
Glenn Greenwald / Laura Poitras / The Guardian / Reuters Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, in a still image taken from a video during an interview with the Guardian in his hotel room in Hong Kong on June 6, 2013 As the international manhunt for alleged NSA leaker Edward Snowden spanned continents on Sunday, U.S. officials struggled to explain how the 30-year-old former intelligence contractor slipped an extradition request, reportedly to seek asylum in Ecuador. “The U.S. is disappointed and disagrees with the determination by Hong Kong authorities not to honor the U.S. request for the arrest of the fugitive, Edward J. Snowden,” a Department of Justice spokesperson said on Sunday evening. Authorities in Hong Kong, where Snowden had been hiding out since he leaked documents on NSA surveillance programs to media outlets, said on Sunday that they found the extradition request insufficient, a finding a Department of Justice spokesperson said the U.S. finds “particularly troubling.” American officials detailed an elongated back-and-forth with authorities in Hong Kong, beginning on June 10, when officials learned Snowden was hiding out there. Officials from the Department of Justice, the State Department and the FBI have “repeatedly” been in contact with their counterparts, according to officials. A senior Administration official delivered a terse statement to Hong Kong on Saturday about Snowden, saying, “If Hong Kong doesn’t act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong’s commitment to the rule of law.” According to the Department of Justice, Snowden was charged on June 14 in a Virginia federal court with unauthorized disclosure of national-defense information, unauthorized disclosure of classified communication intelligence and theft of government property. A warrant for his arrest was issued that day. U.S. officials requested Snowden’s extradition from Hong Kong on June 15. They maintain that the request was complete and included all information needed to arrest and extradite Snowden to the U.S. Two days later, Hong Kong officials acknowledged the request, according to the Department of Justice, and, despite multiple U.S. inquiries, did not ask for any more information about the Snowden case. “The request for the fugitive’s arrest for purposes of his extradition complied with all of the requirements of the U.S.–Hong Kong Surrender Agreement,” the DOJ spokesperson said. “At no point, in all of our discussions through Friday, did the authorities in Hong Kong raise any issues regarding the sufficiency of the U.S.’s provisional arrest request. In light of this, we find their decision to be particularly troubling.” On June 19 (or June 20 in Hong Kong), Attorney General Eric Holder called Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen and encouraged him to comply with the U.S. request for Snowden’s extradition. A day later, Hong Kong authorities requested additional information about the U.S. charges and the evidence against Snowden. U.S. authorities were in the process of responding to the request when Hong Kong authorities allowed Snowden to fly to Moscow on Sunday. Later that day, U.S. officials were notified that their request for Snowden’s extradition was found insufficient. Snowden is believed to remain in Moscow where he is awaiting a flight to Cuba, as he requests asylum in Ecuador. U.S. officials questioned Snowden’s motives and travel to countries with rough, if any, ties to the U.S. government, with one senior Administration official saying it may betray a motive to harm national security. “Mr. Snowden’s claim that he is focused on supporting transparency, freedom of the press and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen: China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador,” the official said. “His failure to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the U.S., not to advance Internet freedom and free speech.” Snowden’s passport has been revoked, and according to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, he should not be allowed to travel except to return to the U.S. “As is routine and consistent with U.S. regulations, persons with felony arrest warrants are subject to having their passport revoked,” Psaki said in a statement on Sunday. “Such a revocation does not affect citizenship status. Persons wanted on felony charges, such as Mr. Snowden, should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States.” But there has been no indication from Moscow that they will honor the U.S. request, as the round-the-world manhunt continues. UPDATE: Monday June 24, 12:05 AM: National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden issued a strongly worded statement early on Monday criticizing Hong Kong authorities as well as the Chinese government for allowing Snowden to flee the country. Additionally, Hayden invoked recent U.S.-Russian cooperation on security issues to encourage the Russian government to detain and extradite Snowden. The full statement:
This post contains affiliate links which means I receive a small compensation for any purchase made through these links. Please read my disclaimer for more information. In September of 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show began broadcasting all across the United states. Top Gun, Stand By Me, and Crocodile Dundee topped the box office chart, while the love song from Top Gun, “Take My Breath Away” made number one on the Billboard list. Beloved shows like Cheers and Golden Girls were making us laugh hysterically from the comfort of our own homes. September 23, 1986 was the official first day of fall, and leaves on the trees were turning red, yellow, orange, and brown in the small New England coastal town of Norwalk, Connecticut. On this same day, 11-year-old Kathleen Flynn attended the Ponus Ridge Middle School until school dismissed at 2:40 p.m. Afterwards, she headed for the paved path through the woods next to her school to walk the short distance to her house. Kathleen never made it home. At 3:30 a.m. the following morning, the young girl was found dead. She had been raped and strangled. At the time she was last seen walking into the woods, soccer and field hockey teams were practicing nearby at the school’s athletic fields, and hundreds of students and parents swarmed the school grounds. Not one person saw or heard a thing. Hundreds of tips came in. The hottest lead came from a student, who told detectives he saw three men confront Kathleen in the woods. He provided a detailed description of two of them. Months later, detectives confronted the boy with their suspicions that the story was made up. He admitted the lie. The FBI was called in within days of the killing to compare the crime against a national database of violent crimes. Local detectives tracked down every known sex offender and determined their whereabouts on the afternoon of Sept. 23. In all, detectives interviewed about 50 men who were suspects, in the loosest sense of the word. Police in nearby Westchester, N.Y., forwarded a thick file on their sex offenders. It included details on men arrested for everything from rape to public urination (Pazniokas, 2000). None of it led to an arrest. Police announced in 2000 they had a suspect, but did not release the person’s name. They also announced mitochondrial DNA testing of hairs found at the crime scene would be performed. It is unclear what the results were from that testing. There has not been any new information since that time and the case remains unsolved. As far as I can tell, Kathleen’s parents, Jim and Esther Flynn, are still alive and reside in the same house they shared with Kathleen and their son, James. True Crime Diva’s Thoughts One thing that stands out to me is the boldness of the crime – committed with many people nearby in broad daylight. The killer was not worried about anyone finding them. He must have been one hell of a cocky asshole. Didn’t other kids who lived nearby walk this path? It is a wooded area so he probably took her off the path and into the woods where they could be hidden from view. If there were other children walking this route, how did the killer manage to grab Kathleen without being seen? Could she have known her killer? Did the killer single Kathleen out or was he just lying in wait for any child to come along on the path? Did he live in the same neighborhood as Kathleen? Was there more than one killer? Whoever killed her knew when school let out so did he live in the area? Have a kid at the same school? At the time of Kathleen’s murder, her father, James, owned a restaurant in Rowayton, CT called Cap’n Henry’s. Maybe the killer saw Kathleen there and stalked her. I did read that Kathleen and her older brother, James, worked at the restaurant from time to time. I also read that Kathleen normally did not walk through the woods on her way home from school, so why did she do so this time? And if she didn’t, and she was singled out, how did her killer know she would be walking that way?Maybe she was lured there somehow by her killer. I couldn’t find any recent articles on this case. The newest was from 2000, so I found nothing on the testing of the DNA. There isn’t a lot of info on this case, but I felt like it really needed to be on here. Kathleen cannot be forgotten and I hope there is justice for her one day. This case is very similar to the Michelle Norris case I published on February 23, 2016 . In fact, when I started writing about Michelle, I thought I had already written a post on it. I had not. I wrote about Kathleen. I think these two could be related. Source: Pazniokas, Mark. ‘Girl’s Death Leaves Only Questions, Grief’. tribunedigital-thecourant. N.p., 2007. Web. 16 July 2015. Similar Posts: (Visited 10,943 times, 1 visits today)
Man is run over and killed by his dog after it hits accelerator and reverses over him Pet Boxer bulldog jumped into car's foot well and hit the accelerator Car crushed Mr Campbell under wheels as he was opening gates to house A man was killed after his dog pressed down on the accelerator of his car and ran him over. James Campbell, 68, had got out of his car to open metal gates at the driveway to his Florida home when the accident happened. As he stood by the gates his pet bulldog jumped into the well of the driver's seat and pressed down on the accelerator. James Campbell, 68, was killed after getting out of his car to open the gates to his Florida home and his pet boxer bulldog jumped into the car's foot well, hit the accelerator and ran him over. (File picture of a boxer dog) The vehicle surged backwards and trapped him under its wheels. The victim's partner 56 year old Iris Fortner had desperately tried to stop the car before it backed into Campbell. She was in the driver's seat but was unable to prevent the accident. Florida Highway Patrol officials said the accident took place outside the couple's home in Cantonment in Florida's Panhandle. Campbell and Fortner were backing into their driveway when he got out to open their gates. When Fortner opened her door to see where Campbell was standing police said their large boxer bull dog jumped into the car and pressed the accelerator. The car was engaged in reverse gear and shot backwards hitting Campbell who was pronounced dead at the scene by Escambia County Emergency Medical Services. Fortner has not been charged.
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration reversed a decision late on Thursday and said fiancés would be considered close family members and therefore allowed to travel to the United States as its revised travel ban took effect. Retired engineer John Wider, 59, holds up a sign reading "Welcome Muslims" as international travelers arrive at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake The U.S. State Department concluded “upon further review, fiancés would now be included as close family members,” said a State Department official who requested anonymity. The Trump administration had previously decided, on the basis of its interpretation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, that grandparents, grandchildren and fiancés traveling from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen would be barred from obtaining visas while the ban was in place. The 90-day ban took effect at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT Friday), along with a 120-day ban on all refugees. On Monday, the Supreme Court revived parts of Trump’s travel ban on people from the six Muslim-majority countries, narrowing the scope of lower court rulings that had blocked parts of a March 6 executive order and allowing his temporary ban to go into effect for people with no strong ties to the United States. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, who also requested anonymity, said it would be updating its guidance to state that fiancés would not be barred from obtaining visas while the ban was in place. The Supreme Court exempted from the ban travelers and refugees with a “bona fide relationship” with a person or entity in the United States. As an example, the court said those with a “close familial relationship” with someone in the United States would be covered. The state of Hawaii asked a federal judge in Honolulu on Thursday evening to determine whether the Trump administration had interpreted the court’s decision too narrowly. Hawaii said in a court filing that the U.S. government intended to violate the Supreme Court’s instructions by improperly excluding from the United States people who actually have a close family relationship to U.S. persons, echoing criticism from immigrant and refugee groups. Hawaii called the refusal to recognize grandparents and other relatives as an acceptable family relationship “a plain violation of the Supreme Court’s command.” Hawaii’s Attorney General Doug Chin asked U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu, who blocked Trump’s travel ban in March, to issue an order “as soon as possible” clarifying how the Supreme Court’s ruling should be interpreted. Watson ordered the Justice Department to respond to Hawaii’s request by Monday, and said he would allow Hawaii to reply by July 6. ‘KEEP FIGHTING’ A senior U.S. official did not answer directly when asked how barring grandparents or grandchildren would make the United States safer, but instead pointed to Trump’s guidance to pause “certain travel while we review our security posture.” The U.S. government expected “things to run smoothly” and “business as usual” at U.S. ports of entry, another senior U.S. official told reporters. A handful of immigration lawyers gathered at Dulles International Airport outside Washington on Thursday in case of any problems. “We’re going to keep fighting this ban, even if it applies very narrowly,” said Sirine Shebaya, a senior staff attorney at Muslim Advocates. “It’s still a Muslim ban, and its still trying to send a message to a whole community that they’re not welcome here.” The administration said refugees who have agreements with resettlement agencies but not close family in the United States would not be exempted from the ban, likely sharply limiting the number of refugees allowed entry in coming months. Hawaii said in its court filing it was “preposterous” not to consider a formal link with a resettlement agency a qualifying relationship. Refugee resettlement agencies had expected that their formal links with would-be refugees would qualify as “bona fide.” The administration’s decision likely means that few refugees beyond a 50,000-cap set by Trump would be allowed into the country this year. A U.S. official said that, as of Wednesday evening, 49,009 refugees had been allowed into the country this fiscal year. The State Department said refugees scheduled to arrive through July 6 could still enter. Trump first announced a temporary travel ban on Jan. 27, calling it a counterterrorism measure to allow time to develop better security vetting. The order caused chaos at airports, as officials scrambled to enforce it before it was blocked by courts. Opponents argued that the measure discriminated against Muslims and that there was no security rationale for it. A revised version of the ban was also halted by courts. The State Department guidance, distributed to all U.S. diplomatic posts on Wednesday evening and seen by Reuters, fleshed out the Supreme Court’s ruling about people who have a “bona fide” relationship with an individual or entity in the United States. Slideshow (13 Images) It defined a close familial relationship as being a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling, including step-siblings and other step-family relations. A department cable said grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancés, “and any other ‘extended’ family members” were not considered close family. The guidelines also said workers with offers of employment from a company in the United States or a lecturer addressing U.S. audiences would be exempt from the ban, but that arrangements such as a hotel reservation would not be considered bona fide relationships.
UTSA scored touchdowns on its first seven possessions for the first time in school history and held Southern to just 149 yards of offense in cruising to a 51-17 victory against Southern on Saturday night at the Alamodome.The Roadrunners ran their record to 2-0 on the season for the first time since 2012, when they started 5-0, after winning their second straight home opener.UTSA racked up 502 yards of offense, including 335 through the air and 167 more on the ground.completed 19-of-22 passes — a school-record 86.4 percent — for 292 yards and matched the program's single-game mark with four touchdown passes. The senior from Goliad finished the game with a school-record 257.9 passing efficiency rating and he added 35 rushing yards and a touchdown on just four carries.led the receiving corps with five catches for 75 yards and a touchdown.hauled in three passes for 65 yards andadded three for 50. Tight endalso caught three balls for 43 yards and two scores.Meanwhile, the Roadrunners held the Jaguars (1-2) to just 149 yards, breaking the school record for fewest yards allowed in a game and marking the fourth straight opponent that has failed to top 300 yards. UTSA's defense racked up six tackles for loss, five sacks, seven quarterback hurries and three interceptions, as Southern's QBs combined to complete 9-of-26 passes for 65 yards.andled the Roadrunners with six tackles apiece. Curry also registered a team-high 2.5 sacks, while Maruo had 1.5 TFLs.added five stops and his first career pick, whileandalso recorded INTs.had three of the seven QB pressures — all in the first quarter — moving him atop the program's career chart with 18.The Roadrunners piled up 157 yards of offense and held the Jaguars to just 18 in the first quarter in building a 21-0 lead.Sturm hit a wide-open Thomas Jr. for a 30-yard scoring strike on the Roadrunners' first possession. That marked the school-record 15th receiving touchdown of the senior wide receiver's career.UTSA opened up a 21-point advantage after back-to-back rushing touchdowns from, who carried 10 times for 61 yards, andlater in the opening stanza.Sturm connected with Williams for a pair of TDs in the second stanza. The first was a 17-yard pass early in the frame. After an 8-yard keeper by Sturm pushed the lead to 35-0, the senior signal caller hit his senior tight end on a corner route to help put the home team up by six touchdowns with 2:42 left until halftime.With time running out in the first half, Sturm foundover the middle for an 11-yard TD pass to help give UTSA 48-0 lead at the break.The Jaguars got on the board early in the third quarter when Danny Johnson picked off a UTSA pass and returned it 61 yards down the right sideline for a score.The two teams then traded field goals, with UTSA'ssplitting the uprights from 28 yards out late in the third and Cesar Barajas drilling a 45-yarder with 12:37 left to play to make it 51-10.Southern added a late touchdown when Tevin Horton raced down the left sideline 24 yards to paydirt to provide the final tally.The Roadrunners will make the short drive to San Marcos next Saturday, Sept. 23, to face Texas State (1-2) in the H-E-B I-35 Showdown. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. and the game will be televised on KMYS-CW 35 in San Antonio and KEYE-TV in Austin.
Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam prior to a preseason game last year. (Photo: Andrew Weber, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Haslam apologizes to Browns fans for being a distraction, promises to bring Cleveland winning team Haslam embarrassed by a federal investigation of fraud inside his truck-stop company Haslam did not answer any questions during a 10-minute meeting with local media WESTLAKE, Ohio (AP) — Jimmy Haslam shook hands, shared laughs and talked some football with his newest customers. After some troubling weeks, the Browns owner finally got a chance to tell Cleveland fans he was sorry that he had let them down. Embarrassed by a federal investigation of fraud inside his truck-stop company, Haslam apologized Monday night to Browns fans for being a distraction and promised to bring Cleveland a winning team. TROUBLE: Browns rookie charged with DUI Haslam, who bought the Browns last year from Randy Lerner, was the featured speaker at the Northeastern Ohio Chapter of the National Football Foundation's 25th annual scholar-athlete banquet. It was one of Haslam's first public appearances in Ohio since the FBI raided the headquarters of Pilot Flying J, his family's business, last month as part of an investigation into an alleged fraud scheme. From a dais that included Ohio State coach Urban Meyer and former Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel, Haslam spoke to a packed banquet room and then held a brief news conference afterward when he offered his regrets about his recent legal troubles. "I apologize to the city of Cleveland, Northeastern Ohio and all Browns fans because the last thing we ever wanted to do as a new owner was detract from football and the Browns and just what a great football area this is, and so I apologize for that," Haslam said. "We feel badly about it and we're very comfortable we'll work through this situation." Following the speech, Haslam did not answer any questions during a 10-minute meeting with local media members. He was pressed about his knowledge of the purported fraud at Pilot Flying J, a company founded by his father 54 years ago, but politely declined to answer. Haslam spoke with a few Browns employees, exited the building through a rear entrance, climbed into a waiting SUV and left the banquet facility more than an hour before the event concluded. It has been a trying few weeks for Haslam. 'CAN'T TIVO TEBOW': Weird radio pitch to Jaguars Federal agents raided Pilot's headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn., on April 15. A few days later, the FBI released a 120-page affidavit that alleged members of Pilot's sales team deliberately withheld rebates to boost profits. Haslam said he was unaware that any of his employees were scheming customers and was deeply troubled by the assertions, calling them "sickening." Haslam reviewed the steps he has taken while the probe continues and reiterated he's doing all he can to gain back the trust of Pilot Flying J's customers. He said he has personally spoken to "between 250 and 300" trucking companies and that some customers have been paid money they were owed. "The important thing is to get it right," Haslam said. "I'd like to get it wrapped up by the end of the month, but if it takes until early June, early July, we're going to get the numbers right and if we owe X, Y, Z trucking company, we'll write them a check on the spot. " An NFL spokesman said the league has no plans to ask Haslam to relinquish control of the team during the investigation. During his remarks to open the banquet's program, Haslam praised the Browns' new coaching staff headed by Rob Chudzinki and raved about the team's recent picks in the NFL draft. Haslam was at the team's facility during the draft and was pleased to see how well his new front office of CEO Joe Banner, general manager Michael Lombardi, assistant GM Ray Farmer and Chudzinski interacted. "I know there have been some comments that maybe it's not great teamwork but I've never seen four people work together in a positive manner better than those guys did," he said. "It was great to see it. And it wasn't all agreement. There was a lot of disagreement, a lot of conversation going back and forth." Haslam told the audience he was excited about the upcoming season, and vowed to turn the Browns into contenders. "I want to win because we're competitive and anybody that's competitive wants to win, but having been in this area, I want to win more for you all, the fans of Cleveland, because I've never seen fan support like this in the Cleveland area," he said. "It's incredible. I pledge to you we're going to do everything we possibly can to bring a winner to Cleveland and Northeast Ohio because this area deserves it." Later, Haslam wouldn't make any predictions for 2013, but expects the Browns to make significant progress. "I think we'll have a better football team this year," he said. "We're going to do this the right way. It's not going to happen overnight. You don't go from winning 14 games in three years to winning 14 games in one year. But we will have a better team this year and we'll be better in 2014." Haslam plans to return to Cleveland later this week, when the team will hold a minicamp for rookies and undrafted free agents. Before leaving the dais, Haslam offered some advice to some of the young football players being honored. "Most of the lessons that I've learned in life, candidly, came through athletics and I think particularly football," he said. "The great thing about football is it's the ultimate team sport. No matter what position you play, if you don't do your job, you're going to let the team down. Candidly, that's the way life is, that's what business that we play in, and you've got to count on everybody on your team." Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
WARNING GRAPHIC LANGUAGE Benjamin Levin was consistent and “realistic” in his descriptions of sexual assault of children during online chats and never once stressed that it was all for fantasy, the Crown argued during day two of his sentencing hearing on child porn charges. Crown counsel Allison Dellandrea read aloud several extremely graphic chat exchanges the former Ontario deputy minister of education had with undercover officers he believed were submissive mothers interested in having sex with their own children. The 63-year-old married father of three repeatedly and consistently claimed to have had sex with his own daughters, starting at age 12 (though, as he told one of the officers, “I wish we’d started younger.”). Levin — who was a member of Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne’s transition team — has pleaded guilty to the making of written child pornography, possession of child pornography and counseling to commit sexual assault on a child. He has not been charged with actually carrying out a sexual assault on a child. But the Crown worked hard to convince Justice Heather McArthur that through his persona as a “master, or even a mentor” on adult “alternative sexual lifestyle” incest chat rooms, he had significant influence in counseling to commit. Dellandrea asked the judge to consider a prison sentence of 3 1/2 years — one for the making child pornography charge, six months for possession and two for the more serious counsel to commit. Defence is asking for just two years in prison. Dellandrea took the court on a tour of the “depraved” online world the formerly well-respected education expert inhabited, suggesting he “wasn’t just dabbling in the child sexual abuse online world, he was a leader” there. “[Levin] essentially boasted about having achieved sexual contact with all three of his children and successfully gotten away with it as had his wife,” Dellandrea said. “That’s an extraordinary feature of the counsel to commit.” Levin’s wife, Barbara, whom he referenced often in his online exchanges — and even claimed his online profile that she was just involved in the child sex play — knew nothing about her husband’s activities online. It’s rare in child porn cases to see such frequent descriptions of sado-masochistic sexual acts carried out on children, Dellandrea said. And yet they were all over Levin’s chats with undercover officers. “‘I pushed two fingers in her mouth” one undercover officer told him of her fictional daughter. “Make her gag on them…I want to make her suck cock,” Levin wrote back. When the undercover officer wrote that she stopped when her daughter began to gag, Levin wrote “Why are you stopping?” He also suggested the officer kiss her daughter “between blows.” This child was described as being 10 years old. Court also learned that Levin engaged with at least one more fake persona created by Toronto Police child exploitation unit officer Detective Constable Janelle Blackadar. Her exchanges with Levin led to the counsel to commit charge. He raised many examples with Blackadar of his experience sexually assaulting his own daughters. “We had many wonderful years,” he said when he told her their sexual activities together faded out. “Wish we had started earlier.” There was also discussion of “sharing” children for sexual abuse purposes. Levin even expressed interest in possibly one day sexually abusing his future grandchildren. As the sentencing got underway Tuesday, so too did a protest against Ontario’s revised sex-ed curriculum at Queen’s Park downtown. Critics of the Liberal government’s update to what students will learn in school about sex believe Levin’s pedophilic interest influenced the update — a charge the government denies. The court received one new exhibit Tuesday — letters submitted by the general public expressing “vitriol and hatred” against Levin, who pleaded guilty to three child pornography charges out of seven initially laid. Many of them were form letters distributed by the “pro-family conservative women’s movement” REAL Women of Canada, Crown co-counsel Patricia Garcia said. While the Crown tried to keep them out of evidence, Levin’s defence lawyer Clayton Ruby argued they should be filed as an exhibit because the clear “stigma” against his client matters in the course of sentencing. The judge agreed. During the first day of sentencing Monday, court heard from defence witness Dr. Julian Gojer, a forensic psychiatrist who had treated Levin and deemed him “low risk” of re-offending. Ruby also pointed out that of more than 2,000 pornography images seized from Levin’s two laptops and a hard-drive, only 15 of them are child pornography. The Crown called into question a meeting Levin had at the Amsterdam airport with a British parent he’d met on the incest chat site. Levin had discussed the sexual abuse of this man’s three children with him and had photos of these children. The sentencing continues.
This is an edited, pre-print excerpt of Ann Brower's paper, which is set to be published in the US-based earthquake engineering journal, Earthquake Spectra. The final published paper will be available online from November at www.earthquakespectra.org. By Ann Brower for Star.Kiwi At 12:51pm on 22 February 2011, 12 people died beside me. The parapet and facade of an unreinforced masonry building on the main street of Christchurch, New Zealand, crushed the bus that I was riding. I'm the only one left, the lucky 13th. My leg, my hand, and my soul will never be the same. I broke more bones than the surgeons were willing to count, spent two months in hospital, and most of a year off work. I walked, slept, and dreamed in a fog for four years. It cost half a million dollars to save my left leg. I treasure that leg, scars and all, but still feel the earthquake in every step. In this article, I share my story - from the earthquake, to the Bright Light, to the Dark Place, to the hospital, to the Dalai Lama, to the halls of Parliament. I also share the story of a nation coming to grips with its home on the Ring of Fire. The story ends on 8 May 2016, when Parliament passed the new Building Act, complete with a ministerially-titled "Brower Amendment" that halved the remediation time for unreinforced masonry parapets and other falling hazards. I conclude with the lessons I've learned on making a difference. Advertisement Introduction Ann Brower was the sole survivor of 13 people who were crushed in a bus on Colombo St during the February 22 earthquake. Photo / Martin Hunter It's not normal to feel your pelvis break. It's less normal to feel brick after brick land on your left hip, and wonder how long you'll last. It's most unusual to be dug out from under a collapsed building by strangers, and taken to hospital in the back of another stranger's truck. It's decidedly abnormal to plead with those strangers who are risking their lives to save yours to get the others first, only to find out that there are no others. It's extraordinary to discover you're the only one left. Such an experience tends to be life-changing. It changed me from an economically-oriented political scientist focused on land and the environment into a reluctant activist for science-informed law reform of unreinforced masonry buildings in New Zealand. Before the earthquakes, as a Fulbright scholar with a newly-minted Berkeley PhD, I had accidentally instigated a science-informed national land law reform in New Zealand (Brower 2008). So I had a few tricks up my sleeve, ready for action on building safety. I was also not alone. Engineers, geologists, and others renewed and amplified calls to acknowledge the island nation's home on the Ring of Fire. In this article I share our story - from earthquake to Building Act - and conclude with some lessons from Christchurch on making a difference. The story begins while reading The Economist on a bus on the main street of Christchurch, New Zealand. Before the quakes, Colombo Street looked like any other main street in NZ. It was full of precariously perched parapets, loosely tied awnings, and blissfully unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, of which there are thousands across New Zealand (Russell and Ingham 2010; GNS Science 2014), Oregon (Paxton et al 2015), Washington state (Gilbert 2016), British Columbia (Paxton et al 2017), and even California (Paxton et al 2015), and beyond. URM buildings did not fare well in Christchurch (Moon et al. 2014). Those of us next to these buildings fared even worse (Giaretton et al 2016). Sixteen people died and one person was paralysed on one block of Colombo Street, the main street of Christchurch. Twelve people died on or beside a red bus travelling from my seaside village of Sumner (Figures 1, 2). I was the lucky one. It only took me 2 months to get home, and another 18 months to get back to running, jumping, and playing the fiddle. The earthquake is an indelible part of my left leg, and of my life story. Part 1: From the earthquake to the Dark Place The bus stops, jumps in an aftershock. I look up from The Economist. Never having been in the city centre for a shake, I think "Cool! This time I want to watch." I look out the window, see bricks fall. This is definitively no longer cool. I see buildings all along the other side of the street crumble. I hear buildings on our side explode into the street, ejecting bits onto the footpath, into the street, and onto our bus. Bricks hit bus. One by one, by 10, by 50, by 100. They stop. They start again. No. Not bricks, chunks. Windows. Bus seats. The sounds stop. I don't hear chunks, I feel them. On my left hip. Chunks don't clatter or clunk. They push. They press. They crush. The bus roof and my left hip fuse, become one. Pelvis breaks. More than once. All sounds, all scents, all colours fuse. Pain. Lights. Flashes. Bright Light. I float. I watch. No. This is not my life. This is not me. This is not an acceptable situation. I am not OK with this. This is not my story. No. Bright Light fades. Dark Place arrives. Part 2: From Dark Place to first surgery In the Dark Place, I feel the involuntary death throes of a 14 year old boy, a 78 year old woman, and 10 others in between. My leg, my hand, and my soul will never be the same. When I enter the Dark Place, I do what any rational person would do. I scream at the top of my lungs. A sizeable gang of kind souls have already started clearing the rubble off the collapsed roof of the bus. When I scream, they stop. Ann Brower being rushed to hospital after being freed. She was the sole survivor of 13 people who were crushed in a bus on Colombo St. Photo / Martin Hunter They already knew I was alive, but the scream confirms it in spades. It also attracts Rick and Paddy, an ex-cop and a tunnellist, to the rescue effort. Rick heard it from 2 blocks away. The gang quickly sends down an emissary to ever so politely ask me to please shut up. That's when Mike appears outside my window. He repeats over and over "we're going to get you out. We're going to get you out." And they did. None of my rescuers was a professional first-responder. But they did an extraordinary thing that day. Doug and the gang dug a meter of bricks and concrete off the collapsed roof of the bus and ripped the roof off with their bare hands. Rick and Paddy crawled into the bus, and freed my left leg from the bus seat that was crushing it. They lifted me through a broken window. Scotty held my hand as I lay in the middle of Colombo Street. Josie splinted my left leg. Garry flagged down a truck, convinced the driver to take us to hospital, parted the already gridlocked traffic, told me jokes and stories, and delivered me to hospital. Garry stayed with me in the Emergency Department for hours, through aftershocks, sirens, power outages, and the reassuring calm of the doctors and nurses. I nearly broke his hand when they reset my leg. When the hospital kicked Garry out, he gave careful hand-holding instructions to a medical student, Adele, who stayed as I floated into and out of shock. When they took me off oxygen, she explained "They have to ration the oxygen for the second wave of survivors." She took me up on the bet that my leg wasn't broken. I lost. When surgeons took me away, she went home to check on her flatmates. The rest of Christchurch had to wait for Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) to mobilize from all round the world. I had my very own Ann Search and Rescue, or ASAR for short. During two months in hospital, nearly every member of ASAR came to visit. For some it was as much for them as for me - in the hopes of easing the night sweats and incessant replays. Two sent their mums to visit, with brownies. In August 2011, I hired a band and a pub, and threw a Rescue Party to celebrate the kindness of friend and stranger. Despite the cold winter rain and All Blacks-Wallabies match on that night, a festive crowd including many of my rescuers, nurses, and physios turned up. A good time was had by all. And we mustn't forget Rob. As the others were clearing the rubble, he crawled into the bus and took it upon himself to hold my hand. The dark shadows in his bright blue eyes told me in no uncertain terms that I mustn't look around me. So I didn't. I looked only at Rob, who had somehow crawled into my small pocket of crushed-ness. When they took me off oxygen, she explained 'They have to ration the oxygen for the second wave of survivors.' SHARE THIS QUOTE: Rob quickly ascertained that I was a keen tramper, and a general lover of the outdoors. So he told me his favorite fishing stories while we waited to be dug out. When Rob grabbed my hand, I went from being crushed, trapped and alone, to just being crushed and trapped. It's an incredible gift they gave. When I think back to the earthquake, I do not see the horrors of Colombo Street. All I see is my rescuers. And I smile. It's a wet and salty smile, but a smile all the same. Part 3: The Dalai Lama Less than a week after getting off crutches in June 2011, I received a text message from the hospital. His Holiness the Dalai Lama was requesting the honor of my company in Ward 20 of Christchurch Hospital at 2pm that afternoon. I skipped physio that day. The Dalai Lama's visit helped me and five other seriously injured survivors start to make peace with the pain. Three were in wheelchairs, one was still on bedrest. His Holiness told us to let go of the shoulda-woulda-couldas that haunt survivors. The point isn't that we could've died; it's that we didn't. Strongly and gently, the Dalai Lama empowered us to give something to the world. We all had something, he assured us, but we needed to traverse the pain and anger. If we allowed the pain to become part of us, the anger would subside. That would leave room to each give our something to the world. Part 4: Royal Commission Inquiries Also in 2011, the government commissioned a Royal Commission of Inquiry into building performance in the Canterbury earthquakes (CERC 2011). I was invited, but not required to testify. In preparing to testify, it became clear to me that the thirteen of us who were crushed suffered not from a sin of commission, but from manifold sins of omission. In reading the evidence about the building that collapsed onto our bus, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that Parliament, the building owners, and the City Council had, each in their own way, left us there to die. The dark shadows in his bright blue eyes told me in no uncertain terms that I mustn't look around me. So I didn't. I looked only at Rob, who had somehow crawled into my small pocket of crushed-ness. SHARE THIS QUOTE: The six-inch pile of evidence compiled by the Royal Commission made it searingly obvious that there was nothing natural about the disaster that befell the thirteen of us. It wasn't the earthquake. It was the building, decisions made about the building, and the failure to enforce those decisions. This building, and hundreds like it, had been deemed "earthquake prone" for 30 years. At the time, the newspapers were saying we should label unsafe buildings, to let the market squeeze them out of existence or into compliance. I'd seen such plaques in California, and watched as they were politely hidden and universally ignored. Market-induced voluntary compliance would have done nothing to protect us because most of those killed and injured by brick buildings were on the footpath or in the street. All of my training in public policy told me that this is precisely the type of market failure where central government should step in. In the Royal Commission hearings, the owner of each building that caused death testified. The building that collapsed on us was divided into 4 addresses, owned by 2 owners. The owner of the first 3 addresses wasn't required to tie back the parapets and façade after the September 2010 earthquake, so didn't. The owner of the 4th address strapped his building after September. Bits of it fell onto another bus, but no one was hurt. Strapping his building cost $180,000 he said. At the tea break in the hearings, the families of the dead and I could not contain our rage. If anyone had had the courage to require tie-backs, not just encourage them, many of the 12 who died beside me might still be alive. Being a numbers type, I went straight home and issued an Official Information Act request to the national health service asking about my medical expenses. They answered, that saving my left leg had cost taxpayers $504,000.54. Approximately. Part 5: From Royal Commission reports to Government proposals In late 2012, the Royal Commission recommended that the Government change the Building Act in ways that would do the following, among other things (CERC 2012; Holmes, Luco, Turner 2014): 1) bring all existing buildings into the national Building Act instead of leaving decisions about earthquake prone buildings to the local authorities as the Building Acts of 1991 and 2004 had done; 2) create timelines for retrofitting all earthquake prone buildings to bring them up to 34% of "New Building Standard" within 15 years; and 3) fast-track the retrofitting of parapets and other unreinforced masonry components that may fail out-of-plane, to bring these non-structural bits up to 50% of code within 7 years. This 3rd recommendation was already a watering-down of engineering advice to the Commission. During the Royal Commission hearings, many of us had begun a journey of trying to inspire a policy change. The team, loosely organized at best, comprised engineers, geologists, families of the dead, and me. Perhaps not surprisingly, I started my journey from a place of anger for those who died beside me, sorrow for my own pain, and terror of brick buildings. I expressed that raw anger in newspaper opinion pieces calling URM more risky than valuable (Brower 2013), and decrying the city council for failing to secure falling hazards before re-opening the city streets after September. The day after the Royal Commission published its recommendations, the Government issued its proposed changes to the Building Act (MBIE 2013). To my eyes, of the three main recommendations about URM, the government proposed to do 1 and 2, but not 3. The Minister of Building and Construction admitted the Royal Commission's recommendations did "go further" than the Government's proposals (Williamson 2012). I felt ill for a day. I had no place in the world; and the world had no place in me. Part 6: Parliamentary hearings, round one As the proposals continued towards Parliament, I replaced the anger with pragmatism and efficiency. In other words, I forced my angry heart to step back and let my science-informed-policy head take over. I looked again at the Royal Commission's research (Ingham and Griffith 2011a,b) and recommendations (CERC 2012). Following their lead, I started to soften my stance. To acknowledge our seismicity, NZ should prioritise fixing the riskiest bits of the most exposed buildings. Allowing falling hazards to remain unattached was inadvertently using NZ's public health system to subsidise building owners. In New Zealand, the public is invited to submit our ideas on proposed government policies at least twice - when the Ministry publishes a proposal, and then when the Parliamentary Select Committee considers draft legislation. This is similar to the US's process called "notice and comment" (Yackee 2005). NZ's Ministry for Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) handles the buildings portfolio. Currently the Minister for Building and Housing is the Honourable Dr Nick Smith, who is also Minister for the Environment (see Part 7). In October 2013, USGS and its NZ equivalent GNS Science, invited me on a study tour of American cities with under-appreciated seismic risk - Seattle, Memphis, Charleston, and Washington, DC. I used it as a crash course in structural engineering, seismology, and risk. It also served as a team-building event for those of us quietly advocating seismic retrofitting. So I combined what economic data I could gather with what I had learned on the study tour to write the best submission to Parliament that I could. I heeded Olshansky's (2005) lessons of offering clear solutions to identified problems to an appropriate audience within an optimal window of opportunity. Following the Royal Commission's lead (Ingham and Griffith 2011a,b; CERC 2012), I suggested fixing the parapets, chimneys, and other "fally-offy" bits of URM first because they appeared to be the cheapest to fix, the first to fall, and the deadliest when they do fall. I noted that the Ministry's research on earthquake-prone buildings paid close attention to (1) the cost of retrofitting, borne by building owners. It paid less close attention to (2) the cost of failing to retrofit, borne by the public. It paid no attention to (3) the value of the buildings in question (MBIE 2013). So I used government property valuations to re-frame the question from the costs of retrofitting to the costs of failing to retrofit URM buildings (Table A2, Appendix 1). The building that collapsed onto our bus was valued at $30,000. Much of the modern scholarship on good governance and science-informed policy states or implies that governments should aim for the 3 Es - efficiency, effectiveness, and equity (Andrews and Entwistle 2010). I added 3 more Es - using economics to talk about efficiency, engineering to talk about effectiveness, and emotion to talk about equity (Brower 2014). I used the three additional Es and the aforementioned tricks up my sleeve to be strategic. In public policy classes at Berkeley, they taught us never to fear speaking truth to power. But they also taught us to be cunning. Though I tried to ground my submission in cold hard logic, I did not shy away from pulling at heartstrings. I will even admit to consulting Riker's (1986) "art of political manipulation" to counter the building owners' inevitable argument that full retrofits can cost more than the building's worth. I was not alone in this. Parliament received many other submissions supporting strengthening from many quarters: 24 community groups, 40 local and central government agencies, 17 engineering and geology firms or organisations, and 28 individuals. They also received submissions opposing further regulation, including 4 building owners' collectives and 5 businesses. Further, many of my rescuers on Colombo Street were engineers and builders. Many of them knew and shared my passion for changing the law. Many engineering firms and the professional associations of earthquake engineers were preparing submissions, and many shared my interest in prioritizing URM. So several of my rescuers who worked for engineering firms asked if their firms could use parts of my submission in theirs. The city of Christchurch also asked. Building owners were already arguing that the costs of the new legislation would outweigh the benefits, though they seemed to count only risk of total building collapse in a large earthquake, rather than the higher likelihood of URM failure in a moderate earthquake (Tailrisk Economics 2014); the Property Council argued the government should subsidise any mandatory remediation; and heritage advocates argued for longer timelines (http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/216415/govt-grants-extension-for-quake-strengthening). Given the contested political landscape, I shared my submission early and often with anyone who asked and even many who didn't (Brower 2013a,b; 2015a,c,d). In New Zealand, anyone who submits to Parliament can speak their mind, in five minutes or less. For my five minutes, I used cold-hearted political strategy thinly wrapped in emotion. I told the Parliamentary Committee that I did not envy their task. They would hear lots from the economic interest of building owners, but the voices for public safety will always be quieter (Wilson 1989; Olson 1965). They were not likely to hear from many of the victims of the quake because being crushed by a building is not an empowering experience; it doesn't do wonders for the confidence. The voices of the dead and injured would be quiet at best. So I pleaded with the Committee to listen to the voices that they will never hear, and to hear those who have no voice. Sometimes, those least able to speak have the most to say. When the Select Committee reported out the changes they'd made to the Bill in the autumn of 2014, there was still no special provision for URM and falling hazards like parapets. I first heard about it from a reporter, as I was walking in the sharply volcanic hills above Lyttelton Harbour where I live. "Ah well," I thought, "at least I tried." Part 7: Parliamentary hearings, round two The following week, there was an earthquake in Dunedin, about five hours south of Christchurch. Two of my colleagues at university told me I simply must write another opinion piece. "It's done," I said, "there's nothing left to say." "Doesn't matter," they said. "Write it anyway. Tell Parliament they're wrong," they said. So I did (Brower 2015a). New Zealand being a small country, I bumped into my local Member of Parliament (MP) at the farmers market that weekend. She had read my opinion piece. She told me in no uncertain terms that I must send that opinion piece to Clayton (another Christchurch MP). "He's on the Select Committee," she said. "But Ruth," I said, "it's done; there is nothing left to say." "Ann," she said (rather sternly, if I'm honest), "it's not done; there is more to say. Send it today, not next week." If you've ever met the Honourable Ruth Dyson, you will know that she is not to be disobeyed. So I sent it. On Tuesday, the Select Committee announced another round of submissions, hearings, and consideration. Having taught a first year undergraduate course about NZ Government to undergraduates for years, I knew this was rare for Parliament. The only people who could submit in the second round were those who had submitted in the first round. Again, our loose national team of engineers, geologists, and others advocating seismic upgrades worked together on submissions. We all drilled in on our most important points, while applying them to the changes already proposed. This time I tried to push emotion to the side, and focus on pragmatism. In looking at the benefits of reinforcing masonry (Ingham and Griffith 2011b), I marveled that a safety conscious and fiscally conservative centre-right government would do anything other than fix the most dangerous bits first and leave the rest for later (Brower 2015b). The second round of Select Committee hearings fell right in the middle of the university semester when I teach first-year Introduction to Government. We have MPs from all seven parties in Parliament give guest lectures. Many of the local MPs were on the Select Committee considering the Building Act amendments. So following Riker (1986), I abused my access and asked each and every one what was happening behind-the-scenes. They said the opposition parties were very much on the side of prioritizing URM and falling hazards, but the Minister wouldn't move. In NZ, if the Minister won't move, his party colleagues can't either. So once again I spoke to the Select Committee for five minutes, by phone this time, between classes. I crossed my fingers, but did not hold my breath. Part 8: Five minutes with the Minister A month later, and two weeks before the Select Committee was due to report out a second time, I got a phone call from a business reporter at the National Business Review (NBR) weekly newspaper. She was all fired up, and had been writing a series of articles about the Building Act saga. With a speck of hope, I rang a friend in Wellington to see if the Minister was coming round to our side following NBR pressure. Not a chance, he said. With a slightly bruised speck of hope, I noticed that the Minister of Building, Housing, and Environment was to speak at an environmental conference in Auckland the following Friday. New Zealand being small, I was to speak at the same conference. It was a snowy August weekend and I had no plans. So I dusted the bruises off the speck of hope, and wrote one last opinion piece. I said the same thing that I and many others had said many times before, in slightly different words. Both Christchurch's The Press and Auckland's NZ Herald published it two days before the conference (Brower 2015a,b). I knew the Minister's private secretary for environment from previous work on the land law reforms. So at the conference, I asked for five minutes with the Minister. "You want to talk to him about buildings don't you," he said teasingly. "Yep," I replied. I got my five minutes. The Minister empathized with the idea of equity, he said. Parapets are a danger to those outside, not inside; and that's not fair. My hopes rose, only to fall flat when he went on to say that he didn't see a difference between a parapet and an "aircon" unit. I gulped and responded, "well Minister, I'd rather get hit by an air-conditioner than a parapet because air-conditioners are smaller and parapets fall further." My hopes also rose when he said that he had an "open mind," only to fall flat when he said "open mind" approximately 47 times in his 30 minute conference speech. "Ah well," I thought, "I tried." The following week, I got a call from the Minister's private secretary for buildings. Might I have time to have coffee with the minister on Friday? "Oh yes," I said, "I think I can fit that into my schedule, thank you." On Friday, I had an hour-long meeting with the Minister in an inner city café. He told me about the changes he had made to the bill. He had halved the required time for fixing parapets and other URM falling hazards in the high and medium seismic zones of the country. The Select Committee was going to report out the following week, and might I be available to announce the changes with him? I hadn't got all I wanted, but I had got most. So I invited a couple of my rescuers to join me, to meet the Minister and announce the changes (Smith 2015; Otago Daily Times 2015). I had to miss an hour of class. On 8 May 2016, I watched Parliament pass the Building (Earthquake Prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016, complete with the section the Minister calls the "Brower Amendment". After festering for years with neither cross-party nor public support, the changes from both rounds of Select Committee hearings transformed a contentious bill to one that passed 120-1. MPs who spoke to the Bill were visibly proud to work together and listen to the public they serve and the scientists they fund. During the Parliamentary dinner break, the Minister bought me dinner in the Beehive cafeteria. We had sticky date pudding for dessert, just to celebrate. Part 9: Larger policy questions It is easy to say that since 13 of us were crushed by a building, that building should have been fixed. It is much more difficult to know whether the new Building Act would have prevented all of the deaths in the streets due to falling masonry. If all of the following were true, then fewer facades and parapets would have fallen on people and vehicles: 1) the next earthquake had waited for the allowed remediation time to pass; 2) the central government had enforced the inspection timeframes on councils; 3) local councils had rigourously enforced the remediation timeframes on owners; 4) owners could organize finance and repairs within the timeframe; 5) there are enough qualified engineers and builders in NZ to carry out the inspections and repairs; 6) all the repairs were done well. That is a lot of "if"s. Indeed in January 2017, central government decided to mitigate items 1-4 by drastically shortening the remediation timeframe to 12 months and subsidizing repairs on URM buildings (Beehive 2017; MBIE 2017) within the Kaikoura M7.8 (14 November 2016) aftershock zone (Bradley et al 2017: p. 7), which contains the nation's capital of Wellington. Hindsight aside, there are economic reasons why buildings like the one that crushed the 13 of us had not been fixed. And there are political reasons why URM buildings are often left out of modern building codes (Olshansky 2005). In 2011, New Zealand had thousands of URM and other earthquake-prone buildings, many in struggling provincial towns with low building values. As Tables A1 and A2 in Appendix 1 suggest, full retrofits might not make sense if the costs exceed the value of the building. There are a few ways to think about how much of whose money to spend fixing which parts of what buildings. At the centre of such questions are considerations of public vs. private in risks, costs, and benefits. One idea is to prioritise public benefit from culturally significant buildings. We could ask local councils to identify the most culturally significant heritage buildings, subsidise their retrofits, remove the heritage status from the less outstanding buildings, and make it easier to remove falling hazards (or entire buildings) previously protected with heritage status (Crampton and Meade 2016). Another idea is to prioritise mitigating public risk. Parapets and other URM falling hazards are a public problem because the public bears the physical risk as parapets and facades pose a threat to passers-by more than inhabitants. Under NZ's accident insurance scheme, public also bears the financial risk because the government absorbs all liability, no matter who is at fault. Owners of falling hazards thus receive an indirect subsidy. This can create a moral hazard, unwittingly encouraging risk by cheaply insuring against it. If there are to be subsidies, it is better to subsidise safety than risk. If there are not subsidies, then a national standard that prioritises fixing the most dangerous bits first and leaving the rest for later is another way to allocate limited resources efficiently, effectively, and equitably. Part 10: Lessons from Christchurch Changing New Zealand's Building Act to prioritise "fally-offy bits" of buildings was not in my life plan. But extraordinary events can change ordinary life plans. I share the lessons I've learned on how the Little Guy can make a difference Lessons from Christchurch on Making a Difference Politics is an exercise in strategic hypocrisy. Choose your battles. The Little Guy can make a change, sometimes. What happens after the change is up to the public. If we revert to apathy, old patterns re-emerge. Write your point clearly, and share it. Early and often. To make a change, carefully seek and forcefully proclaim the truth as you see it. And never, ever, ever give up. Politics is a team sport. Catalysts do achieve change But almost never alone Politics is an exercise in strategic hypocrisy. Don't be afraid to change your position if it becomes necessary. And don't be afraid to state things a bit too confidently or a bit too simply. In my successive newspaper opinion pieces, I changed both tone and message radically. I started with angry absolutism and ended with cold pragmatism. Similar to Olshansky's (2005) findings, the more pragmatic the solution offered, the more positive the response I received. Decisions are often not rational, and they often ignore technical advice (Stone 2001). Knowing that, as professionals interested in seismic preparedness, you've got to choose your battles carefully. There's an optimum ratio between sleeping, trying, and failing. The battles you need to fight are those where you can't count on sleeping if you failed to try. There's a big difference between trying but failing, and failing to try. Ability to sleep lies in the balance. In the 11th hour of the Building Act saga, I learned that the Little Guy can make a difference and MPs do listen, sometimes. But we Little Guys must team up, and play all the cards we've got very strategically (Pralle 2006). Previous experience had taught me that we Little Guys have to remain vigilant even after a change occurs. If we spend too much time with the champagne after our victories, old patterns re-emerge (Brower 2008). If we Little Guys stop watching, we allow the Powers that Be to give the rhetoric to one side but the victory to the other (Edelman 1960). In other words, if we don't participate actively in the implementation of NZ's new Building Act, the rhetoric might favour safety while the decisions on individual buildings favour letting it slide. This is neither conspiracy nor government malfeasance, just power imbalances. The decks are stacked against public interest groups. The economic interests behind the desire to avoid retrofitting will usually be stronger than the public interest behind the desire for safety (Olson 1965). It can feel uncomfortable purporting to know The Way Forward for The Nation. To me, it felt arrogant and presumptuous. Who was I to impose my will on the nation? But when other people imposed their will, I realized it was well within my rights to do the same. In the end, it's up to Parliament to decide. All I did was ask Parliament to consider a few things. People often say that politics is a game, and it should get out of the way of rational decisions. But politics never gets out of the way (Stone 2001). For engineers, geologists, and other earthquake professionals reading Earthquake Spectra, it's worth considering whether activism in some form is part of what you signed up for (Olshansky 2005; Porter 2016). In other words, earthquake preparedness at its best is more about people than models. Conclusion You might wish to take this as a Call to Arms. I will leave that up to you. But I will say that you create your world. Others will try to shape the world according to their vision. So it is your right, and perhaps your responsibility, to at least try to shape your world to your vision. Trying but failing is better than failing to try. I have no wish to tell you what your vision for the world should be, but I hope the lessons I've shared might help you to realise it. In realizing your vision, consider taking a page from Margaret Mead. She is reported to have said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Star Kiwi
Photo Credit: ABC is arguably one of the best dramatic shows currently on television. It is also one of the most groundbreaking TV shows because its African-American female lead, Kerry Washington’s character, Olivia Pope, is neither streetwalker nor drug addict. Pope is educated, glamorous, and the owner a successful company. She is a sought-out expert in her field. However, like most of us, she is flawed. She is in love with a married man, who also happens to be the President of the United States. And he is white.Many African-American men vehemently oppose her involvement with a white man. And for the past two seasons she has been in a love triangle involving not one but two white men. I have read blog after blog, article after article, and had conversation after conversation about this topic. It generally leaves me angry and frustrated. It mirrors a greater issue within our community concerning black women involved in relationships with non-black men. And some of the most vocal offenders are the same men that prefer women of different ethnicities. A friend of mine was called the “b-word” by a black man, when she was out with her Caucasian boyfriend. Ironically the man was hugged up with a Caucasian woman when he said it.When I watch, I see a cast of characters that are multi-layered and complex. Nobody is clean. Everyone has a skeleton in their closet. This isn’t the show to watch if you plan to make moral judgments. It is a political drama. Scandal brings to the life the cliché about politics being dirty.Many Black men refuse to recognize this. They zero in on the affair and often refer to Olivia Pope as a white man’s whore. This is then followed up with some comment about how women never support cheating any other time, but we cheer for the mistress in this instance. They also don’t acknowledge that we cheer because her story is dramatic fiction. Essentially the characters are star-crossed lovers in an impossible situation, and that dynamic is a classic element in fiction.has garnered the same level of criticism of Viola Davis’s character, Annalise Keating. She is married to a white man, and is having an affair with a black man. Unfortunately the residual effect of our history makes some of us intensely uncomfortable with interracial couples. It is still far more common to see black men with women of other cultures than it is to see black women with non-black partners. Given the tendency for successful black men to worship at the temple of the ‘cult of blonde beauty,’ why is it so reproachable for us to choose non-black partners as well? It seems as though black men can fully and freely have relationships with whomever they want, and “race” is not a barrier. Why should black women be denied the same freedom?Some black women are hurt about black men dating white women. It has been drilled into our heads that only a black man can love us and understand our struggle. We were taught that White men specifically aren’t generally attracted to us, and if they are it is just as a sexual curiosity. So if less black men are available where does that leave us? Mainstream culture has mostly portrayed us as peripheral characters—sassy mammys, magical negresses, and, more recently, asexual best friends. We have never been the main love interest. Until now.As much as we don’t like to admit that we are impacted by what we see, Fitz and Olivia’s chemistry on screen awakens something within us. Despite their complex situation, fans of the show know that Fitz desperately loves Olivia, and this is what attracts us to the show. It’s refreshing to see a man so in love with a black woman, that he would do anything for her. It’s not so much about the fact that he’s a white man; it’s about the fact that we rarely see men of any race show this kind of devotion and deference to a black woman on TV.We understand thatandare fiction. We understand that Olivia and Annalise do not represent all black women—anymore than any other fictional character is a total representation of their racial or cultural group. However, these characters do represent an important change in how black women are viewed on TV. Olivia and Annalise are educated, powerful, and in control of their sexuality. They are the complete opposite of how black women have historically been portrayed.Rather than bemoaning the fact that these black characters are involved with white men, let us celebrate the fact that Olivia and Annalise are leading black female characters on network television that defy stereotypes.It’s about time.
The hippest of haircuts in Kiev \| Inna Lobas. Kiev’s hipster revolution With Russia breathing down their necks, the young seek refuge in ramen burgers and beards. KIEV — A disc jockey spins a remix of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” on a stage by the river, while scores of young fashion brands that have sprung up in Ukraine’s capital since the revolution hawk their wares in a carnival atmosphere. T-shirts decorated with slogans like “Putin is a Dick,” “Pray for Ukraine” and “Separatist Buyer’s Club,” flap in the cool summer breeze, alongside harem pants in folk patterns, hoodies emblazoned with the Ukrainian trident, and tons of other creative knick-knacks. A vivacious girl in lensless granny glasses hands us a free cupcake for our “good vibrations” while a bearded barber from the “Tommy Gun Barbershop” offers free shaves. It’s just past noon on a summer Sunday, but Kiev Market is pumping, hipsters jostling against each other to sample the wares. The flea market was launched just over a year ago, but has already become a fixture of the city’s booming hipster scene that has emerged since the country’s Euro Revolution. “This European youth movement started with the Maidan. Young people realized that they needed to do something for themselves, and not depend on the government,” says Kiev Market founder Miriam Dragina, a former journalist who launched the market last year to raise funds for the Ukrainian army. She had the idea for the market while visiting Amsterdam last year, and modeled it on street markets in Europe. “We were inspired by Moscow in the past, but now we’re moving closer to Berlin style,” she adds. * * * Ukraine’s capital — once known for its glamorous nightclubs and high-heeled, overdressed women — is indeed fast turning into an “Eastern Berlin.” I remember being one of the brave few to ride a bicycle down the city’s busy streets when moving here six years ago. Now biking is the new “cool” and many bars and restaurants have bike stands; hundreds gather for midnight bike rides through the city on the weekends. Bars, which were once a foreign concept, have sprung up like mushrooms in the past year. I tried keeping track of the new bars last fall, but there are now so many Brooklyn-style watering-holes and artist hangouts that it's impossible to keep up. One of my favorites is Druzi (“friends” in Ukrainian), a brightly-lit, open-plan bar with large plate-glass windows, stylized graffiti on its walls and... a bicycle hanging over the bar. Hipsters lie on the grass outside the bar beside their bicycles, sipping beers and mojitos and playing the occasional game of Frisbee. It’s easy to forget after a few Obolon beers that we’re in a country wracked by a war with Russia in the East. Okno, which means window in Russian, set inside the courtyard of a building in the city center, is another cult bar: Regulars lounge on beanbags, and watch the action on the ping-pong table that dominates the space. The bar’s Old Fashioned cocktail is supposed to be so good that the bartender advises against drinking it with a straw and spoiling the taste. There’s also Hashtag Bar, the rooftop Barbara Bar, Atlas, Otel, Closer, and countless others. It’s easy to forget after a few Obolon beers that we’re in a country wracked by a war with Russia in the East. Dogs and Tails, a SoHo-style bar-restaurant with large beams and big windows exclusively serves gourmet hot dogs, priced around $5 each. Many of the Kiev fashionista choose to eat their hot dogs with champagne. Ditto at The Burger, a stylish burger joint in the center of Kiev, where regulars wolf down New York Burgers with stylish Negroni cocktails. As banks go bankrupt, and Western retail chains that entered Ukraine in a blaze of publicity close up shop, the center of the city is full of empty storefronts. Hipsters and others have taken over those spaces, turning them into bars, co-working spaces, and showrooms for boutique fashion brands. “Even smaller fashion brands can now afford to open showrooms in the city center,” says Dragina from Kiev Market. “It’s the cheap rents that are driving this trend.” “Kiev has changed so much since the revolution that it’s almost unrecognizable,” says Diana Lyubarskaya, a young actress, who now skateboards around town to various castings. “I used to want to move to Europe, but Europe has come to us instead.” * * * Hipster bars and cutting-edge restaurants are just the sharp wedge, however, of the European movement shaking up a city emerging from its post-Soviet slumber. I visited Platforma Art Zavod last weekend, a formerly abandoned Soviet factory on the edges of the city that has been converted into an ambitious creative space, with galleries, artist studios, performance venues and co-working offices. A street food festival takes place there every weekend in summer and the space was packed to the gills with curious locals trying out ramen burgers, organic hot dogs, Malaysian noodles, gelatos and other nouvelle foods once associated with Brooklyn’s “Smorgasburg” food festival. Bearded hipsters lounged on beanbags in the various cafés, while some tried surfing in a shallow wave pool on the edges of the factory. Others lazed in hammocks strung between trees, or wandered the exhibitions in the factory’s refurbished halls. It felt very much like Berlin, except that the women were prettier — gorgeous, in their shorts and brightly colored trainers. It’s still Ukraine after all — a Slavic country with a flair for glamour and the high life. “You should come back here alone with your male friends,” suggested my (hipster designer) girlfriend. “You’ll have a better time.” Hipsters are seen at the forefront of the city’s shift towards European values. Though Kiev hipsters, like their counterparts in the West, are more affluent than common Ukrainians — culled as they are from the city’s creative classes — they’re not yet as grungy as “Western” hipsters. In Berlin, its hipster scene dominated by legendary clubs like Berghain, the dirtier and freakier the better. Kiev’s hipsters are clean and well-behaved; fewer dogs, fewer joints, fewer unattractive piercings. Their beards are perfectly trimmed, their loud T-shirts are often ironed, and they shower every day. Kiev's hipsters are often more arrogant and less friendly than the city's fast-shrinking “glamour” crowd, and are openly disdainful of what they consider the Moscow-of-the-90s inspired class, with their Porsche Cayennes and designer handbags. There are fewer wannabes among them: Hipsters are seen at the forefront of the city’s shift towards European values. “This is all due to our mayor,” said a waitress at one of the food stands. “He’s encouraged this movement to take root.” It’s indeed true that Kiev has a new civic consciousness under its pugilist mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, who was once the world heavyweight boxing champion. The parks have been cleaned up, new benches installed on city streets, and roads repaired. There’s even a new black-clad police force about town, nicknamed “bunnies” by the locals, since they are so nice and cuddly, in contrast to the rude cops of yore. I even spotted Klitschko at The Bar a few months back. It’s the most well-known hipster bar, and is famous for its hammocks, Polaroid photo booth and steam punk design. Meanwhile, the Kiev market has spawned tens of imitators in the past year. There’s a music market, an organic market, a bike market, Union Square-style farmer’s market, and many others. There was even a yoga market a few months back, and a VedaLife Festival on an island in the city last week that went on for five days, with hippies shacked up in tents, meditation and yoga classes, tabla and bongo classes, reggae bands in the evenings, and much more. “It was more like a Goa freak festival than a true Vedic experience,” complained a friend who’s also a Hare Krishna devotee. Buro 24/7, a popular online magazine, reported recently that 20 more “hipster” bars are set to open in Kiev this fall. It attributed the rise in bars to the devil-may-care attitude of people who have nothing left to lose. There’s more than a grain of truth to their observation: With Russia breathing down their necks, a frozen conflict in the East, and the country caught in an economic death spiral, it makes sense to drink the nights away. With their finances shrinking, many young professionals are ditching their suits and expensive cars for a bike, a beard and a tattoo. The hipster movement flourishes in the impoverished neighborhoods of the West’s high-rent metropolises. In Ukraine’s war-ravaged capital, it has come home to roost. Vijai Maheshwari is a writer and journalist. His novel White God Factor, about Moscow in the 1990s, was published by London’s Coptic Press. He also publishes a magazine, B.East, about trends in the East, and was editor-in-chief of Playboy Russia. Authors:
The subprime mortgage problem has now yielded a full-blown credit squeeze on Wall Street with securities firms' stock prices at fire-sale levels. The new fire-sale buyers are the so-called sovereign wealth funds, and China's are the most prominent. With the world's largest trade surplus, China is accumulating foreign exchange reserves of about $1 billion per day. Rather than holding these reserves in low-paying Treasury securities, China recently created a new sovereign wealth fund--China Investment Company (CIC)--to invest these funds more profitably. Market participants, pay attention. The West worries about whether these sovereign wealth fund investors will act like conventional rate-of-return focused investors or will have a different agenda in mind. Two points: First, if the sovereign wealth fund investors are rate-of-return motivated, they might have a much longer time horizon than the typical short-term-focused U.S. institutional investor. I am an optimist on this--increasingly disgusted during my many years in the investment world at the ever shorter term focus on stock prices. To me, anything that extends investors' time horizons would be positive, allowing companies to plan and act for the long run. But second, if the sovereign wealth fund's agenda even borders on the geo-political, or may set up a sequence of events that is uncomfortable to the host country, then such funds' investments are going to be rejected in many parts of the world. China says it wants " ... to be treated as a common investor in financial markets and will follow international practice regarding disclosure." Fine. But China is a non-market economy that is dominated by the state sector. It is understandable that foreign governments are guarded, given that explicitly stated policy in Beijing is to develop centrally owned state enterprises into positions of global dominance. It is hard for many to accept that CIC would have a less-expansive or less-strategic view. Beijing's CIC has agreed to invest $5 billion in Morgan Stanley , which is troubled by the credit mess. CIC's investment can be converted into a 9.9% stake to Morgan Stanley in a few years. Morgan Stanley's stock had fallen from $73 to about $49, a fire-sale price in CIC's eyes, though it has rebounded to $54 since the announcement of the Chinese investment. CIC gets a bargain, but no board seat and no say in Morgan Stanley's management--a passive investment. I think this is a win-win deal. Morgan Stanley, a player in China's financial sector since 1994, gets a sizable cash infusion from the best buyer imaginable. An investment in any foreign company by CIC is like a "Good Housekeeping" seal of approval in China. Morgan Stanley's people now can travel China with business cards saying they are partly owned by the prestigious CIC. The way business and government are intertwined in China, few would dare to refuse talking to a Morgan Stanley representative at the door. CIC, in turn, gets a seat at the table of one of America's premier investment banking firms--admittedly after it has just stubbed its toe. But it is easy to see Morgan Stanley's stock price recovering all it had lost in the subprime debacle-- a return that likely would make CIC or most any other investor happy. Most valuable to CIC (and to all of China) is head-table acceptance in the global securities industry, the chance to understand modern financial practices and technology in the west and to meet talented financiers who would otherwise be out of reach. Despite China's stunning economic growth record, its financial sector remains weak and primitive. Every step, like this one, that modernizes China's financial sector is a plus for China and for the global economy. Remember also that CIC invested $3 billion in the June 2007 IPO of Blackstone , a top New York-based private equity firm. This also was a passive investment-- no board seats, no management input. CIC is not happy that the stock is down about 30% from its IPO price, but not to worry. Beijing knows that private equity is going to be very important in China during the coming years. To me, far more significant than any anticipated investment returns is the chance to learn private equity from the best. And Blackstone, with the CIC imprimatur, has a great advantage in China over their competitors. Just two months ago, Bear Stearns , another respected securities firm weighed down by subprime missteps, sold a stake in CITIC Securities, a predominantly state-owned Chinese firm. CITIC bought into Bear at a big discount. Bear got the cash, but now enjoys bragging rights in China that are pale compared to those that would have accompanied a CIC investment. One last historical point. In 2005, CNOOC of China (a big state-owned oil and gas firm) attempted to buy Unocal but met considerable resistance in Washington, on geo-political grounds, and soon pulled its bid. China would have gained controlling interest in Unocal, a no-no to many in Washington and in many countries in the world depending on the size of the acquisition and the sensitivity of the sector. So now CIC has a new strategy--to buy passive stakes, usually with no board seat and no control. This Chinese investment vehicle, therefore, represents no threat to the status quo, but it's learning how a modern economy operates and hopefully will earn top equity market returns.
Hey there! How 'bout some space goodness to brighten up that Monday? Yes? Well then, I've good news on the space goodness front: Octember was big. We're getting ever-nearer the event horizon of total-gameplay-focus, hastened by major improvements to supporting systems, and we've even picked up a new team member who's in the process of overhauling some of the procedural generation algorithms! I feel it's going to be an exciting recap :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lindsey Joins The Team Promises "At Least 300% Reduction in Ship Boxiness!" Sean's departure left a noticeable emptiness in the office. For a while, it's been home to only Adam and I in our quest to bring LT to life. The abandoned corner desk brought to mind warm memories of AI sandboxes and colony mechanics. While we can never hope to replace Sean's zeal for flow-field AI, I'm very pleased to announce that this desk has found a new occupant: Lindsey Reid, technical artist extraordinaire! Lindsey is a hybrid programmer/artist who comes to us from a major AAA studio at which she worked as a software engineer (making her, indeed, the only one of us to have worked in 'the big leagues'). When she approached me with a desire to help craft better generation algorithms for stations and ships, it was hardly a difficult choice...especially in light of recent 'concerns' about the so-called 'boxiness' of certain PCG algorithms for which I may or may not be to blame :S When it comes to working on procedural algos, Lindsey can do something I can't: she can build spaceships and stations on paper, generating them manually while simultaneously analyzing her own creative process and translating it into code. I, much to my chagrin, can only draw very simple, boxy ships on paper. Perhaps we have found the root of the aforementioned concerns... At any rate, I have always asserted that, when it comes to procedural algorithms, failing to produce great results is never the failure of proceduralism itself, but rather of the one doing it. Lindsey, having been with us for little more than a month, is already showing this to be true with the highly-interesting shapes stemming from her foundational work. Personally, I'm overjoyed to have someone with artistic capability working on generation in LT. Proceduralism is such a major part of LT's aesthetic and feel; I'm glad it's getting the dedicated attention it deserves as I focus mine elsewhere. Lindsey has already posted two devlogs detailing her progress and thoughts, so do check them out if you're interested in meeting her and seeing some truly-otherworldly geometries! Related Logs: Lindsey's Geometry Library in Action Alien Geometry formed with Lindsey's Stellation & Extrusion Algorithms Icosahedra now a part of the PCG Library You Shall Not Pass. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bernanke said the spending bill would cost 'about a couple hundred thousand jobs.' Bernanke: GOP's plan will cut jobs Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that House GOP’s 2011 spending plan would likely cost “a couple hundred thousand jobs,” a number he called “not trivial.” Bernanke’s testimony Wednesday was more specific than what he offered Tuesday before a Senate committee, in which he said he couldn’t put a number on the number of jobs the GOP spending package would eliminate. Story Continued Below His comments buttress House Democrats’ warnings that the bill will put people out of work. “Our sense is that the 60 billion dollars cut spread out in the normal way would reduce growth. But we think given the size it’s one to two tenths [of a percentage point reduction to gross domestic product], about a couple hundred thousand jobs,” he told the House Financial Services Committee. “It’s not trivial.” Bernanke has been cautious in trying to estimate how the Republicans signature measure will affect jobs. He told the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday that the measure would reduce the country’s gross domestic product, but not in the drastic way that some economists have predicted. Moody’s economist Mark Zandi said the bill would slash 700,000 jobs, while Goldman Sachs estimated it would cut GDP by 2 percent. Democrats seized on those numbers. “We have been in session about seven weeks,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday. “Republicans are losing about 100,000 jobs a week by their own legislation.” Speaker of the House John Boehner’s office dismissed the Moody report. “The fact that a relentless cheerleader for the failed ‘stimulus’ - which the Democrats who run Washington claimed would keep unemployment below eight percent - refuses to understand that ending the spending binge will help the private sector create jobs is sad, but not surprising,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.
BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Ohio has ordered state officials there to recognize the Maryland marriage of a terminally ill gay Cincinnati man on his state death certificate. The man and his husband, who were wed in Maryland, where gay marriage is legal, expect he will die soon. The decision by U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Black to grant John Arthur and his husband, Jim Obergefell, a temporary restraining order against the 2004 Ohio law banning recognition of gay marriage came despite a warning from the state’s attorney general that it could contribute to a broad rewriting of Ohio law in favor of such unions. Arthur and Obergefell wed this month in a special medical jet on a tarmac at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Hanover, Md. Arthur suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, and can’t travel without medical support. Family and friends helped fund the expensive flight. In their lawsuit against Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine and Camille Jones, Cincinnati’s vital statistics registrar, the couple acknowledged Arthur was likely to die soon, and said the state’s refusal to recognize their marriage, including on Arthur’s death certificate, would cause them severe harm. In his decision Monday, Black wrote that his order restraining the state from enforcing its laws applied to Arthur and Obergefell only, through Aug. 5 or as extended by the court. It will not affect Ohio or its other citizens, the order said. For more on this LA Times story, click here.
For those tech-minded, here's an account of what happened. I record in fairly high bitrate. It's not lossless but it's much closer to lossless than what a lot of captures cards or software like Xsplit push out, which is very lossy in formats not really designed for editing. A lot of people on Youtube make the mistake of recording their original footage lossy, then they lose detail again when they encode it and then AGAIN when they upload it to Youtube. You generally want to start with the footage that is closest to what you're trying to capture as possible and then minimise the number of steps down in your transcode. So prior to this I was using Lagarith in multi-threaded YUV12 mode with DXtory as the capture program. At 30fps this is totally fine and completely reliable. No drops ever and unlike fraps it doesn't have the annoying habit of saying "oh, game dipped to 59 fps? ROUND DOWN TO 30 THEN!", which is the reason I stopped using FRAPs to begin with. Framerate impact overall was like 2 or 3, never anything bothersome. What I found was that when moving up to 60, in high detail games it was dropping frames, so instead of capturing at 60 it was varying between around 52 and 58. Not good, that variance is noticeable on video. I first thought it might be my harddrive not being fast enough to keep up with the sudden increase in MB/s write, but that turned out not to be true, benchmarking the drive indicated it was adequate and filming to my SSD which was benchmarking as 5 times faster, had the same results, so it clearly wasn't an i/o issue. I messed with Lagarith encode settings to no avail, there's not much you can really change with that codec in DXtory outside of a few presets and none of them worked. My conclusion at that point was that there must be some ineffeciency in the way that DXtory is encoding which is preventing it from hitting 60 all the time (it was able to hit 60 in Hearthstone, but that is a much less visually complex game so there's less to encode per frame). I checked cpu usage, changed affinities and priorities, no dice. At that point my decision was to try another codec. I did some research and happened upon UTVideo YUV422 BT.709 - it was touted as being faster on the encode than Lagarith was, downside is it takes up more space, but that's fine. It also gives you an option to prioritise decode speed over compression ratio, which is again fine, because I have plenty of spare space, but I need it to encode at consistent 60 and not drop frames and I also need it to work smoothly with Premiere. So I benchmark it in several games and to my delight it's staying at 60, even in very intensive games like Lords of the Fallen. The filesize per second is more than double that of DXtory, clocking in at about 400GB per hour of footage, but that's entirely fine. I can't playback the source files in VLC but I couldn't do that with Lagarith either and Premiere accepts the file no problem. I've even noticed that it encodes it faster in the final product than it did for Lagarith, even at 60fps. So there's my little techy tale in regards to codecs. The Ziggurat clip I showed you was with Lagarith, the Borderlands clip was with UTVideo YUV422 BT.709. With Borderlands I upped my final encode from my regular which is target 12 max 14 VBR 2-pass at max bitrate max quality, to target 16 max 20 2-pass with the same settings. This results in a larger file but that has to be the case to give each frame enough space to properly fill out its data without artifacts. Since I upload overnight these days, it shouldn't really delay uploads and the encode time was surprisingly speedy. So yeah, those are my settings and software for reliable 60fps software capture with good quality results. Your mileage may vary depending on the power of your setup.
CLOSE Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has resigned. His successor will have to manage a myriad of troubles for the company. USA TODAY The tech industry has raised awareness that there's a problem but hasn't helped tech workers understand how extensive the problem is, particularly when it comes to the chronic exclusion of underrepresented minorities and women, says Aubrey Blanche, global head of diversity and inclusion at Atlassian. (Photo11: Atlassian) SAN FRANCISCO — On Sunday, Justin Caldbeck's venture capital firm announced he had resigned after six women accused the Binary Capital partner of sexually harassing them. Caldbeck's quick ouster signaled the growing backlash against sexism and discrimination in the male-dominated technology industry that began in February when Susan Fowler, a former Uber software engineer, publicly detailed her experiences at the ride-hailing company. Fowler's blog post set into motion the resignation of Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick and the firing of more than 20 employees. "I think we are at a tipping point in the industry," said Kate Mitchell of Scale Venture Partners, who chairs the diversity task force of the National Venture Capital Association. "I am hoping that we will not only see more women come out and be heard but also that men will stand up and say: This isn't tolerable." For years overt sexism and gender bias were an open secret in Silicon Valley. Women rarely broke their silence, worried that coming forward could damage their careers. Ellen Pao brought national attention to the challenges faced by women when she unsuccessfully sued her former employer, prominent venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for gender discrimination. Women were riveted by the 2015 trial. Former Yahoo President Sue Decker wrote an essay for technology news website Recode that she obsessively followed the developments and took her daughters out of school to hear closing arguments. "I, and most women I know, have been a party to at least some sexist or discriminatory behavior in the workplace," she wrote. A survey of 210 women in Silicon Valley found that six out of 10 had experienced unwanted sexual advances. Yet it wasn't until Fowler came forward that "women began to feel much more empowered," Mitchell said. More: For all of its bravado about changing the world, the tech industry is very much a man's world. Seven out of 10 workers at major tech companies such as Google and Facebook are men. Women comprise 20% or less of technical staff. Few women reach the senior executive level or the boardroom. And they don't fare better as entrepreneurs. A sliver of venture capital funding goes to women and a small percentage of venture capital investors are women. Last week technology news website The Information published allegations from six women entrepreneurs that Caldbeck subjected them to unwanted sexual advances and other inappropriate behavior, often when he was in a position to help them financially. Caldbeck specialized in early-stage consumer tech companies, leading investments in GrubHub and TaskRabbit. Three of the women permitted the use of their real names in the article despite fears of reprisal. Ellen Pao, whose discrimination lawsuit against her former venture capital firm drew attention to the treatment of women in the tech world, is now an investment partner at Kapor Capital and the chief diversity and inclusion officer at the Kapor Center for Social Impact. (Photo11: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images) Niniane Wang, founder and chief executive officer of start-up Evertoon, alleged Caldbeck made unwanted sexual advances while recruiting her for a job. She says she came forward to keep Caldbeck from harassing other women. Susan Ho, co-founder of Journy, a travel agency for millennials, said the Binary Capital partner sent her text messages in the middle of the night suggesting they meet up while discussing a job at a start-up he was planning to fund. Leiti Hsu, also a co-founder of Journy, said Caldbeck grabbed her thigh under the table at a bar when they were talking about funding her start-up. Last week Binary issued a statement saying allegations that Caldbeck engaged in "improper behavior" with women entrepreneurs was "false." Venture capitalist and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman reacted with outrage on social media. "This is entirely immoral and outrageous behavior. And it falls to us to stand with you, to speak out, and to act," he wrote in a LinkedIn post that called on venture capitalists to sign a #DecencyPledge. By Sunday, Binary's treatment of the report had reversed. The San Francisco venture capital firm broke ties with him and said it had retained law firm Gibson Dunn to conduct an independent investigation. It said venture capitalist Matt Mazzeo, who had recently joined the firm, had also resigned. "I trusted my partner and it is clear that I shouldn’t have," Binary Capital managing partner Jonathan Teo said in a statement. "The predatory behavior Justin has been accused of is deplorable, and there will be zero tolerance at our firm of any conduct that is demeaning to women." Teo also apologized "for our initial response to these allegations." Caldbeck initially denied the women's allegations, then said he was "deeply disturbed" by them, then announced he would take an indefinite leave of absence from Binary Capital, the firm he co-founded. Caldbeck told Axios he would be "seeking professional counseling as I take steps to reflect on my behavior with and attitude towards women." Binary Capital has delayed closing its second fund, Axios reported. The venture capital firm raised $175 million for the fund last summer, but was seeking additional capital. It's not rare to find a women in technology who has a story of an unwanted advance or remark. But few have agreed to have their names published, held back by fear that in the clubby atmosphere of Silicon Valley, accusations would cut off access to capital and partnerships. "Most men in the start-up world won’t speak on the record about a VC who treats them poorly," tech journalist Sarah Lacy wrote in technology news outlet PandoDaily. "For three women to do so and risk the industry’s retaliation shows not only their courage, but the giant shift that’s taking place in Silicon Valley." Hsu and Ho are building their personal travel planner company. Hsu says they'd much rather focus on Journy but "we're glad that the community is addressing this." "Let's hope in the future that this doesn't happen. Or if it does, it doesn't take years for this behavior to be reported. And that initial responses from the firm and LPs (limited partners) are of outrage, not lukewarm denial," she said. Women speaking up, and men supporting them, are both crucial to improving conditions for women in Silicon Valley, says Aubrey Blanche, global head of diversity and inclusion at Atlassian and co-founder of Sycamore, which aims to fix the venture capital funding gap for underrepresented founders. "It is clear that more women are speaking up and will continue," Blanche said. "Men are also speaking out more in support, which is crucial as they still hold the majority of positions of power." More USA TODAY coverage of diversity and inclusion in the tech industry Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2u25rSB
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue to look at Saudi Arabia’s execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 others, which could have major repercussions in the region. We’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Ali al-Ahmed, the founder and director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, one of Saudi Arabia’s youngest political prisoners, detained when he was 14. Also joining us from Rutgers College—Rutgers University in New Jersey, Toby Jones, an associate professor of history and director of Middle East studies there. He’s author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia. And here in New York, Bill Hartung is with us, senior adviser to the Security Assistance Monitor, also director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy; his latest book, Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex. I want to bring Toby Jones into this discussion. Talk about the significance of this mass execution, this leading opposition figure in Iran, as well as 46 others, and what it means for the United States, a close ally of the Saudi regime. TOBY JONES: Good morning, Amy. Thanks. I’m going to say two things about this, very broadly. One is that reading this through the lens of geopolitics and the regional sort of relationship, Saudi Arabia and Iran, is, of course, critical, and it’s important, especially as relations sour and things tend to fall out. But this was also about domestic politics in Saudi Arabia. Last week, Saudi Arabia announced a new budget, in which it forecast a significant budget shortfall as a result of declining oil revenues. When revenues start to fall like that in Saudi Arabia, there’s pressure on the social welfare state, and Saudi Arabia anticipates that there might be pushback and opposition from within society, as Ali al-Ahmed’s suggested earlier. Killing a Shiite cleric goes a long way in deflecting attention away from political, economic pressures. Sectarianism is at an all-time high, and has been over the last decade or so. And so the Saudis are seeking to capitalize, I believe, symbolically, on the killing of al-Nimr as a way to buy a little bit of time to figure out how to negotiate its way through an economic crisis. And, of course, there’s also the war in Yemen and justifying a continued failing project there. Using sectarianism as a way to achieve goals there is important, too. With respect to the U.S. relationship and how all of this figures in—and I think the U.S. is probably caught a little bit off guard here. Al-Nimr has been on death row for quite a long time. I don’t think any of us really expected that the Saudis would carry through with this. It raises all kinds of questions about timing: Why now? Why kill al-Nimr alongside a bunch of al-Qaeda terrorists, as well as some of those other young Shiite men who were executed on Saturday, as well? So the U.S. is caught off guard. It’s called for calm. It’s called for dialogue. These are odd expressions and demands from the United States. I mean, the U.S. knows that the Saudis are not interested in dialogue with Iran. Saudi Arabia sees itself as in a tense and fraught relationship with its neighbors across the Gulf. And the U.S. also understands very well that it’s precisely crisis and it’s escalation of tension between Tehran and Riyadh that plays into Saudi Arabia’s ways that they talk about insecurity, their regional phobias and fears. They frame everything around escalating series of crises. The U.S. understands this very well. I mean, the Saudis are masters at manipulating that kind of language in order to keep the Americans in a certain geostrategic position. But, to be clear, it’s also a position that I think the United States is happy to play. AMY GOODMAN: Bill Hartung, if you can talk about the U.S.-Saudi arms relationship? I mean, hasn’t, in the last year, the U.S. been involved with the largest arms sales in their history, this to the Saudi regime? WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yes, throughout the Obama administration, we’ve seen $50 billion in new arms sales agreements with the Saudis, which is a record for any kind of period like that. And so, they’re all in behind the Saudi military. They’re providing logistical support, bombs, refueling for the war in Yemen, U.S. companies training the Saudi National Guard, which is their internal security force. We’ve trained 10,000 Saudi military personnel in the last 10 years—five years, rather. So, you know, my belief is if the Obama administration wants to show displeasure with this execution, try to bring an end to the war in Yemen and so forth, there’s got to be a distancing from Saudi Arabia, beginning with cutting off some of these arms supplies. AMY GOODMAN: Aren’t U.S. weapons manufacturers in their heyday right now, making record profits? WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yes, and this is a huge boon to them, the Saudi market. They just announced a major combat ship sale, which will benefit Lockheed Martin. Boeing fighter planes are in the mix, Boeing helicopters. General Dynamics is keeping a whole tank line open through sales to Saudi Arabia. So there’s both a dependency on the U.S. arms industry on Saudi sales and also huge financial benefits keeping this—you know, this gravy train running for them. AMY GOODMAN: And how Saudi Arabia is using these weapons in Yemen? WILLIAM HARTUNG: Well, there’s been a humanitarian catastrophe of the highest order there. They’ve been bombing markets, hospitals, refugee camps—more than 2,000 civilian casualties, most of them from the Saudi bombing. Basically, the Saudis, many believe, are engaging in war crimes in Yemen. And the U.S. logistical and arms support is facilitating that. AMY GOODMAN: Ali al-Ahmed, what could the U.S. do? And what—how do you assess the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia? ALI AL-AHMED: This is a complex relationship that really is led and dominated by the Saudi ability to buy silence and support. If you look at the reaction of presidential candidates, for example, you don’t see any of them speaking out against these executions. It’s odd that, for example, Mr. Ben Carson would say that the Saudi government is an ally of us and we should support it, at the same time that the Saudi monarchy prevents black people from becoming diplomats or judges because they view blacks as slaves. So, really, here you see a contradiction of the—what we know as American values, is that the Saudis have been able to buy their way by giving money to a lot of politicians, to their foundations, like the Clinton Foundation, the Carter foundation, and shaping their opinion. And, unfortunately, because in America politics works on money, the Saudi monarchy has really broken that code and understood how to use it. The United States can do a few things, really, right now. They can first, for example, stop the U.S. taxpayers spending money on protecting the Saudi monarchy and Gulf monarchies. Professor Roger Stern of Princeton has a study that says that the United States has been spending over $200 billion a year in military expenditure in the Gulf. That is the largest military expenditure abroad. It is to—the effect is—the default effect is, it’s protecting these monarchies. The U.S. should not be spending that money. The monarchies can spend their own money defending themselves. Secondly is, for example, I would urge the U.S. government to intervene to ensure that the Saudi monarchy will return the body of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr to his family, because they refused to do so after the execution. I think that would be a great example of how the U.S. can use its power to bring some healing to this process, because the Middle East might implode, Saudi Arabia itself might implode, because of this. So, I think they should take some, you know, serious steps. And I really met with the State Department over the past few weeks, and I told them—and I wrote an article about it—says, “You must take steps now. Don’t wait until the executions take place,” because we knew that these executions were happening. It’s important to prevent any ignition in the region before it happened. But unfortunately— AMY GOODMAN: And do you feel that the State Department took your advice? ALI AL-AHMED: No, they didn’t. They didn’t. I mean, this— AMY GOODMAN: So, Toby Jones, we have 30 seconds. Why is the U.S. not being more vocal in its criticism of Saudi Arabia? TOBY JONES: Well, the U.S. is stuck. I mean, aside from questions of profit, the U.S. is also beholden—you know, and it’s partly the product of its own making. I mean, this is a generational commitment to Saudi Arabia, in which for over three decades we’ve committed ourselves. Now, whether this is true or not, we’ve committed ourselves to protecting the flow of energy out of the Persian Gulf. It’s the largest producer of oil on the planet in this one area. And the United States has tied its military fortunes, in many ways the pocketbooks of its gunmakers, as well as the Pentagon, to what comes in and goes out of the Persian Gulf. If you think about it critically, that’s what needs to change, but it’s also the hardest thing to re-engineer, this breaking away not only from oil dependency, but also from the massive financial and military investment that the U.S. has made in the region. AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have— TOBY JONES: But the bottom line is, it’s not stabilizing. It’s destabilizing. AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. Rutgers University professor Toby Jones, arms expert Bill Hartung and Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, thanks for joining us. When we come back, an exclusive extended interview with the jailed American activist, just recently back from Peru after 20 years, Lori Berenson.
Re:CREATORS is a story about fictional characters meeting the people who created them, but just how far does its metafictional rabbit hole go? This week in anime, Micchy and Steve follow Sota and Altair's tale all the way to the end to discover what it has to say about fandom and the creative process. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network. Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead. Steve Hey Micchy! I just finished watching Re:Creators and I gotta say, I think it took the whole "death of the author" thing a bit too literally. Micchy Steve. :D But honestly, I can't believe Re:Creators turned out to be both the Atonement and the Marvel Cinematic Universe of anime. Definitely not what I expected! Yeah, it's pretty weird! Half of it is a battle royale between a dozen different anime archetypes, and the other half is a series of extremely meta conversations about the nature of art and creation. Naturally, I liked the meta talky bits the most, so let's dive into that! So for me, the most interesting example of storytelling-as-communication in the show was Altair. Since she's more or less grimdark Hatsune Miku OC, her powers are basically unlimited. she is A Lot Her entire character exists not in an established canon, but in the minds of a collective fanbase. Yet despite being so crowd-constructed, she's still devoted to her original creator. It's an interesting view of how storytelling can be cobbled together this way today. It's a cool concept for a character, and it gets at the heart of one of the show's main ideas, which is the intertwined relationship between stories, storytellers, and their audience. And how the barriers between these groups are becoming increasingly blurred in the internet age. What role does the author play when the fandom quietly decides on one headcanon or another? It's a truly symbiotic relationship, since the author relies on the fandom to consume and propagate the story, while the fandom relies on the author to provide them with the story in the first place. You'd think the author would have the AUTHORity in this exchange, but Re:Creators presents it as much more give-and-take. The Creators are constantly worried about audience approval, and ultimately they can't even do anything if the audience doesn't accept it. It's not enough for them to rewrite the settei (backstory/character description) willy-nilly; the authors depend on their audience approving any development as a logical progression of the story for it to work on Creations. The internet naysayers yelling about how so-and-so's new book reads like a fanfic have the power now! This has always been true to some extent, but a story like Re:Creators could only exist as a direct result of how the internet has changed how people consume and react to media. I mean one of the plot points is that Twitter saves a character's life. Now that's Relatable Content in the year 2017, I applaud greatly. It's hard to imagine Twitter doing anything good, mind you, but it's nice to dream! On the other side of things, there's how the Creators interact with their works themselves. Some are protective of their creations, some find inspiration in their characters, and some write for the love of writing. And true to life, of course, some are just horny. of course But I do think one of the most interesting things about the show is how antagonistic most of the relationships between the Creators and their Creations were. It makes sense, since most stories, especially popular ones, put their characters through varying degrees of hardship in order to further the story and engage the audience. Well, it's not easy to get along with the guy who wrote your friends' deaths into your universe's history. Right! But how far is too far? Is it even possible to go too far? People latch onto those kinds of stories because they're relatable and inspiring. But I think also, making your characters suffer past a certain degree makes the integrity of the story suffer. Also true! It's about maintaining tension in a narrative without getting excessively self-indulgent. That's the Creators' struggle. Like how Selesia laments that her world never had coffee or stories of its own, because those didn't fit into the plot Matsubara was trying to develop. It resulted in a world that wasn't as fully realized, but Matsubara realizes this shortcoming in the end and promises to write those details in. That kind of worldbuilding can be just as important as the overarching plot. The more that characters act and feel like real people, the more the audience can relate to them. On the other hand, Suruga is one of my favorites in the show, and she's COMPLETELY unapologetic about the bullshit she makes Blitz go through. Suruga is The Best. She's the Creator who writes just for the hell of it, and maybe that makes her cruel to her Creations, but she sure does write interesting stuff! Still manages to bring Blitz's daughter back in a crossover story though, bless her heart (maybe). BIG maybe But for her, stories are very much a symbolic thing; she's not one to get excessively invested in making her characters happy over sending them on a satisfying emotional journey, which is a totally valid way to approach storytelling. Her ruthlessness also stems directly from her own struggles to write. She tells Blitz how much she cried and despaired and failed before she was able to come up with his character and story. Writing, drawing, making art, all of it is also its own kind of suffering. Her struggles are very much paralleled in the kinds of stories she chooses to tell, as it turns out. Life really sucks sometimes! And she's not one to gloss over that in her writing. Blitz is really a part of her reflected on the page, I guess. The pain, the struggle, all of that is real. Yeah, despite my awful death of the author joke, Re:Creators is about anything but. The authors and their characters are all inextricably connected in this story, even the ones that die. RIP Magane's Creator, hope it was worth it! And Altair, the villain, is a personification of the despair of her creator failing, of the audience turning against her and not accepting her story. Ironically, it's the audience accepting Altair as a fan character, divorced from her original creator, that gives her the power to destroy the world in the first place. So despite her intentions, Altair nevertheless becomes a vehicle for Setsuna's legacy. Which brings us to the final confrontation between Altair and Sota's version of Setsuna. Setsuna's distilled anger vs. Setsuna's everything else, who would win? Answer: yes I had plenty of ups and downs with Re:Creators along the way, but honestly, that final confrontation is one of my favorite conclusions to any story ever. I suppose it's a bit underhanded to essentially deliver Sota's voice through Setsuna's likeness; on the other hand, this is his attempt to faithfully recreate her as she was in life. It's super fucked up when you think about, but it's also beautiful and life-affirming. After all, that's what creating is about: making something that resonates with people And it also shows how art can be one of the most powerful ways that we honor the dead. Sota's Setsuna speaks to Altair, who speaks to a wider audience, it's all connected. Giving our loved ones a second chance the only way we can, by honoring their memory. Art is really the only way we have to cheat death, creating beautiful things that will outlive us and reach generations of people we will never meet. We leave our mark on the world, proof that we existed and have something to offer future generations. Even if we try to separate the author from their work, their mark is still there; art can be, among other things, an expression of self. Or many selves, as it happens. Or selfcest! She's just Very Good Friends with herself, promise. Though that really is the perfect conclusion to this show: Setsuna's personified anger learning to love herself, warts and all. Re:Creators is ultimately a celebration of all kinds of storytelling, both the high art and the low trash. Never underestimate horny visual novels' power to reach someone, I guess, even if it is mostly through thirst. It's interesting that the two Creations who are most like Creators themselves are the ones who end up living with us in our world: Meteora and Magane I'd be 100% down for a Meteora spinoff where all she does is wear cute writercore hipster outfits, for the record. Absolutely same. She represents a complete love of stories and storytelling. They're the closest thing to magic we have in our world, so naturally, when her magic disappears, she becomes a writer. She believes stories help both their creators and their audience better themselves, and that stories have the power to save the world. Quite literally, in this case. It's really quite poetic and heartwarming when she and Sota offer each other mutual encouragement to keep creating, keep trying to reach other people through the stories they tell. Stories are human, after all. I love that Meteora basically ended up being the main heroine. Although, because i'm extremely predictable, my favorite character is Magane. meanwhile I'm here nodding at Marine like same EXTREMELY SAME Marine did good Bless Marine, perfect blend of artistic ambition and self-indulgent thirst. But I love Magane because she also loves stories! By which I mean she loves lying, but storytelling is really the ultimate form of lying. After all, she's the one who gives Sota's Setsuna that final push to come into reality. Honestly the perfect role for her to play in this story. If Meteora is all about stories as an art form that can accomplish anything, Magane is all about stories as pure entertainment. The audience must be engaged and surprised, and anything that gets in the way of that is anathema. Fun is her number one priority. And yeah, I love that Sota needs both her and Meteora's help in order to save the day in the end. Both Meteora's and Magane's approaches are important! Pop culture combines them in ways that make people rally around stories that are both fun and moving. Neither perspective on art is more correct than the other. Stories can be both staggering works of genius and page-turning fluff. Both are equally valid and important! Ultimately, I think that's Re:Creators thesis: art can be both ambitious and entertaining, and the fun comes from striking that balance. It's no accident that all the Creations introduced are characters from the nerdiest, most lowbrow fiction. But they speak to people, and that's why they're popular. Anime Will Save The World (or destroy it) Tired: when is somebody going to save anime Wired: actually, anime has definitely saved people I think we all have works of art, high and low, that have spoken to us and helped us in times of need, and the grand finale of Re:Creators is a celebration of that. So really what I'm saying, as always, is that Trash is Good Actually. Is it a little self serving for an anime to celebrate anime? Sure, but like you said, Trash is Good. Now for a twelve-page discussion of Heybot! You see, it all begins with a screw--
Beginning tomorrow, residents of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and the Florida Keys will become part of what feels like a never-ending experiment in pricing by America’s No. 1 broadband provider. Comcast plans to implement what it calls a new data usage trial. Everyone else calls it a data cap. Under the plan, customers who use more than 300 gigabytes of data in a month will pay $10 to buy 50 additional gigabytes or $30 for unlimited data use. Comcast (CMCSA) is testing a variety of such plans across the country with a common goal—to bring the per-gigabyte pricing prevalent in wireless smartphone contracts to broadband Internet. Its rationale for such a move? To ensure that it can preserve its income as more customers drop classic cable TV service in favor of broadband Internet and the data-devouring TV services (known as “over the top” or “OTT”) from Netflix (NFLX), Hulu, Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), and others. Rich Greenfield, managing director and media and technology analyst at BTIG, believes this is an important strategic move for Comcast. He also believes it’s one that Comcast rival Charter (CHTR), which is poised to merge with Time Warner Cable, is giving up on. “As video shifts to broadband, charging a premium for usage is critical, especially if [alternative video services from non pay TV providers] take off, spurred by Apple and others in 2016,” Greenfield says. Comcast can maintain its revenue in several ways. It can increase the amount that people pay for broadband. It could also invest in over-the-top content of its own—a move that could complement or extend activities in its NBCUniversal division. (Earlier this month Hulu, in which Comcast owns a stake, began offering two tiers of Hulu Plus service: one without commercials for $14.99 per month and another with them for $7.99 per month.) Comcast can also do its best to provide economic incentives for customers to maintain their cable television service (and therefore maintain its leverage when it negotiates with TV content providers). It’s certainly trying. In Florida, for example, the cost of a 75 Mbps (as in “megabits per second,” a measure of data download speed) standalone broadband package costs $80 per month but comes with a limit of 300 gigabytes per month—not unreachable for a family of four that streams Netflix or Hulu on a regular basis. (Overage costs $10 per 50 gigabytes.) Opting for the $30 unlimited option brings that monthly bill to $110—right between the $99 per month for a basic Comcast “triple play” bundle (voice, video, broadband) and a premium bundle with dozens more TV channels. Faced with those options, buying broadband by itself seems like a bad deal. Even if you swim against that tide, consider: Standalone broadband (and voice delivered over it) is wildly profitable for cable companies. Analysts estimate the business enjoys gross margins of about 90%. And if that sends you running back to the bundle, just remember that those typically lock you into a two-year contract. (And you’d still pay an overage fee if you use more data than the plan allows for.) Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesman, argues that its wireless-style plans aren’t a cap. A true cap, he argues, was what Comcast implemented in 2008 when it told users that if they used more than 250 gigabytes per month they would be first warned and then cut off from service. That plan ceased in May 2012. Comcast insists that its offering since then is better described as a “data usage plan.” “We don’t call it a cap,” Douglas says. “We call it a data plan just like wireless companies have data plans.” Why would a company that has plenty of capacity on its network need a data plan? It’s not a matter of capacity, Douglas argues, but fairness. “Ten percent of our customers are consuming half of all of the data that runs on our network each month,” Douglas says. “So part of the rationale for all of these trials is this principle of fairness. Those who want to use more pay more, and those who want to use less pay less.” Here’s the rub: Businesses don’t generally care about fairness; they care about profits. With its new pricing structures, Comcast sees a way to make money, says Matt Wood, a policy director at Free Press, a consumer advocacy organization in Washington D.C. “They just want to monetize their network in new and creative ways,” says Wood. “They are effectively charging people two or three times for the same usage when they impose a cap.” When Comcast charges customers more for a higher speed tier, he argues, it is charging them for using more data since increased data transfer speeds give them the ability to download more information over the network. That is true. It would be almost impossible to, for example, reach a 300-gigabyte monthly cap using a 1 Mbps connection, which is only about one-tenth the speed of the average U.S. broadband connection of 11.7 Mbps, according to Akamai. But with a 100 Mbps connection, speedy enough to cost a premium, you could easily exceed the limit—and get charged for the overage. (According to Netflix, an hour of television in 4K resolution—the latest high-definition video standard—consumes 7 gigabytes per hour. That means you would exceed the cap after 43 hours of 4K TV.) “A monthly limit on broadband is a good way to discourage people from using broadband, but it doesn’t help them pay for using the resource,” says Wood. “It is a way to penalize heavy users and discourage people from uses Comcast doesn’t like as much,” such as streaming video. The U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report on the impact of data caps in Nov. 2014 and concluded that the FCC should keep an eye on the issue and that consumer education was needed. Comcast has been testing wireless-style broadband plans for several years. In 2012, Comcast gave select users in Nashville a 300-gigabyte cap and charged $10 for every additional 50 gigabytes. The same year, it tried pairing larger caps with higher speed tiers (e.g. 105 Mbps speed and a 600-gigabyte cap) in Tucson, Ariz. It tested the opposite approach—low speeds, low caps, low cost—in Fresno, Calif. in 2013. It ceased launching new trials when it announced plans to merge with Time Warner Cable in February 2014. With that deal dashed, it has resumed nationwide testing. According to Douglas, about 8% of Comcast’s users today consume more than 300 gigabytes of data per month. That share has quadrupled in two years’ time. The national median among Comcast customers is 40 gigabytes per month, he added, up significantly from between 16 gigabytes and 18 gigabytes two years ago and 20 times the amount observed seven years ago, when it first implemented a cap. As for Florida, consider it only the latest step for Comcast, which plans to continue tinkering with different broadband plans across the U.S. Is this the beginning of the end for always-on, unmetered broadband Internet? Possibly—in which case we’ll look at the decade between 1998 and 2008 as the Internet’s Golden Age, a time when companies like Skype, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Spotify and others came into being because of an economic anomaly that was all too brief. Subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the business of technology. For more on Comcast, watch this episode of Fortune Live:
Bruce West, Minnesota State Fire Marshall, says they are “on record pace for having the lowest number of fire deaths in Minnesota”. There are currently at 24, compared to 49 at this time last year. Death by fire has always been a major problem in Minnesota, but this year is different! Fire deaths have taken a massive plunge in the state this year compared to the previous years. As reported in the Insurance Journal There are currently at 24, compared to 49 at this time last year. West mainly attributes this to the number of people who have switched to VAPING instead of smoking! He claims that the number one identified cause of fire related deaths is due to careless smoking. As the weather gets colder, people start bringing out the space heaters and other forms of heating sources. These sources are generally used with propane, an extremely flammable substance. With less people lighting up, there is less of a chance of careless smoking accidents. Plus, almost all He claims that the number one identified cause of fire related deaths is due to careless smoking. As the weather gets colder, people start bringing out the space heaters and other forms of heating sources. These sources are generally used with propane, an extremely flammable substance. With less people lighting up, there is less of a chance of careless smoking accidents. Plus, almost all new vape devices have safety features built into them to insure safe charging and use. Along with mentioning vaping, West states that the fire departments are being more proactive with emphasizing fire safety and prevention. HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: E-Cig Accessories and Their Benefits
China has one of the lowest rates of organ transplants in the world — 2.4 or fewer transplants per million residents in 2012, compared to 75 or more transplants per million residents in the US, Spain, and Norway. Even Party officials concede that 20 or more transplants are needed for every one that takes place. Amid the shortage, China has used organs from executed prisoners for transplants. As of the end of 2012, some 64% of organ transplants in China were from executed inmates. That practice is a controversial one on ethical grounds. And this week, Chinese health officials and surgeons signed a resolution to stop the use of prisoners’ organs. In March, China launched its first official organ donation registration site. But making up for the even-larger organ transplant shortfall will mean changing Chinese views of death and distrust of a system that has been rife with corruption. Chinese tradition holds that a person’s body must remain intact after death so that their soul can be reincarnated. Taboos surrounding speaking about death and organ donation are another obstacle. In one study of 298 adults, 88% said they did not want to talk about their organ donation preferences with family members. Without knowing their relatives’ preferences, families of the deceased are more likely to reject requests for organs, experts believe. Chinese officials have made progress in updating other traditional customs surrounding death, like promoting sea burials to save space. To promote the practice of organ donation, state-run media cover donors and their stories extensively. This week, three Chinese party officials promised to donate, after a directive was circulated encouraging party members to lead the way in reform and donate their organs after they die. Views toward death may be changing. According to a poll in 2012 (link in Chinese) of 1,012 residents in Guangzhou, 79% of them said that “organ donation after death is noble.” But many more are still put off by China’s underground trade in organs—kidneys can sell for as much as 200,000 yuan ($32,000)—and a lack of transparency. The Red Cross Society of China, which is helping run the country’s organ donor system, is wildly unpopular after it was accused of misusing funds. In the Guangzhou poll, 81% of respondents said they worried that their donated organs would wind up traded for money.
With 2011 finally consigned to memory, it's time to look ahead to what the next 12 months might hold in store. On paper, 2012 is a tantalising prospect - fat with the promise of new hardware and, mercifully, relatively thin on zombie FPS sequels. We've got revered franchises returning after long absences (Diablo 3, Max Payne 3, Hitman: Absolution, Luigi's Mansion 2), blockbuster sequels to current-gen perennials (Uncharted: Golden Abyss, BioShock Infinite, Mass Effect 3) and, whisper it, even the odd new IP to get in a lather about (Dishonored, Fortnite). On top of that, will the Wii U finally throw up a substantial new Nintendo IP? Will The Last Guardian emerge from its excruciatingly protracted incubation? Is this the year we get to see what Bungie, Respawn and Blizzard have been beavering away on in their top-secret high-security bunkers? Will whatever game you're most eagerly anticipating match your expectations or leave you sobbing bitter tears into your control pad? With all those unknowables buzzing around our heads we rang round various game developers to find out which titles, other than their own, they're most looking forward to playing in 2012. Here's what they said. BioShock Infinite (Irrational Games/2K) Greg Kasavin, creative director of Bastion at Supergiant Games: "My most anticipated game of 2012 shouldn't come as any surprise: it's BioShock Infinite, the successor to one of the best, most memorable games I've played in years. "BioShock is an important game to me and is indirectly responsible for why I finally gathered up the guts to get into game development about five years ago. I was just blown away by everything about it when I first saw it at E3 2006, and the finished game lived up to all my expectations. I have similarly high hopes for Infinite and can't wait to explore all the intricacies of that world." Matthew Prior, associate producer of FIFA Football at EA Sports: "BioShock Infinite looks great. I loved the previous games and the atmosphere they created, particularly the first one. Clearly the next one is going to have a very different feel due to the airborne setting so it will be interesting to see what they do with the new story and environment." Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda) Ivan Buchta, creative director at ArmA 3 developer Bohemia Interactive: "Let me pick Dishonored. The screenshots suggest the graphics would be very imaginative, which is something the explorer in me always appreciates. What I've seen so far promises some pleasant surprises." Gallery: One of the most interesting new games unveiled during 2011, Dishonored has elements of Half-Life 2, BioShock and Thief at its core, along with some of their creators. Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/EA) Lee Perry, lead designer of Gears of War 3 and Fortnite at Epic Games: "The game I'm most looking forward to in 2012? For so many of the same reasons I loved Skyrim... Mass Effect 3. I wish I had some artsy-fartsy off-the-radar pick that would enlighten gamers everywhere, but the truth is that Mass Effect is what I thought games 'would be like in the future' when I was growing up. The team is amazing, and they pull off some of the best characters in the industry." Diablo 3 (Blizzard) "I'm a Diablo whore." Ken Levine, Irrational Games Ken Levine, BioShock creator and co-founder of Irrational Games: "I'm a Diablo whore. I'm going sink my teeth into that sucker. It's just that loot cycle. I am the monkey pressing on the buttons to get the grape. I am proud to be that monkey and I will be that monkey forever. I've been in that particular skinnerbox for many many years and I'm happy to remain there. "I just enjoy it. They just keep improving their formula. Blizzard always delivers something beautiful and something polished. I'm just really looking forward to that. There are a million things I'm looking forward to playing, but that's probably right now my number one." Richard Garriott, industry veteran and creator of Ultima: "Blizzard rarely falters plus Diablo is also a franchise I always love and learn from!" Gallery: Ken Levine, Richard Garriott and Brad Muir all opted for Diablo 3 as their most anticipated game of 2012. Not bad going! Brad Muir, design lead on Iron Brigade at Double Fine: "I just played the beta and it's just like... wow. It's like pure cocaine in a hyperdermic needle injected into my brain. I absolutely love that game and playing it feels like they're doing everything right. It's so mechanics-focused, it's so loot-focused. It's about clicking s*** and getting loot, and levelling up and, man, it's just such an awesome experience. "And if I wanted to be snooty I'd probably say BioShock Infinite too. That's going to be awesome - I've gone media-dark on that one so I can just experience it fresh. I'm really looking forward to that." Darksiders 2 (Vigil Games, THQ) David Jaffe, Twisted Metal co-creator and Eat Sleep Play boss: "The first Darksiders was one of my favourite games the year that released. I just love that game. Darksiders 2 is the only game I've ever done the geek media blackout for. I won't look at screenshots and I won't click on links." Kinect Star Wars (Terminal Reality, LucasArts) Craig Duncan, senior studio director at Rare: "Lots of awesome features like manipulating the force with your hands and being a Jedi, driving a pod and controlling a Rancor with your body, just being able to play in the immersive universe of Star Wars and its amazing characters like never before is a hugely compelling draw for me as a gamer and fan of the Star Wars universe." Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar Games) Peter Molyneux, creative director of Microsoft Game Studios Europe: "I guess it would be GTA5, although the curious thing about what's coming up next year is that I'm not sure if I'm not more excited about the promise of some non-triple-A games. With so many new ways to play on so many devices it's going to be a really interesting year." Stewart Gilray, boss of Leeds-based Just Add Water, developer of Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD: "This was quite a hard choice, but the mass market geek inside me has won: GTA5 all the way. For a chance to revisit San Andreas and Los Santos again, but this time in a much more in-depth fashion than the PS2 outing. The teaser trailer more than got my excitement levels up through the roof, so unless Rockstar North muck it up I don't think there will be much that has a chance of beating this. Yes it's a sequel, but it's a sequel with a true pedigree, unlike the CODs etc of the world." The Last Guardian (Team Ico/Sony) Dino Patti, founder of Limbo studio Playdead: "There has been a bad trend, where most game teasers and trailers are misleading pre-rendered movies. Also too much is often shown so when I've decided to play a game I stop reading the excessive news which is often released and just buy and play the game when it launches. With that said, I'll buy and play The Last Guardian, which I hope releases in 2012." Geremy Mustard, technical director at Infinity Blade and Shadow Complex developer Chair Entertainment: "I am most excited for The Last Guardian, which will hopefully come out [in 2012]. It looks amazing, and has already captured my imagination. I actually had an emotional attachment to my horse by the end of Shadow of the Colossus, and I can tell that Team Ico will probably accomplish that rare feat again with The Last Guardian. I can't wait!" Something that isn't a sequel "I'm tired of sequels, so give me something new." Dylan Cuthbert, Q-Games Dylan Cuthbert, founder of PixelJunk studio Q-Games: "I'm tired of sequels, so give me something new. I'm not sure when Naughty Dog's new IP comes out but that certainly excites me, and Command & Conquer: Generals 2 deserves a mention even though that is my anticipated title for 2013 and not 2012 so it gets away with being a sequel. Wouldn't it be nice to see a year which has no sequels! It would cause people to actually have to think about what game they want to buy instead of buying the same thing again because that's what they know."
Abstract Ensuring that advances in genomics are applied to the health improvement of people living in developing countries is an important contemporary challenge. In the near term, such advances are likely to alleviate infectious diseases, with longer-term benefits envisaged for chronic disorders. To ensure that benefits are shared by developing countries, attention must be paid to complex ethical, legal, social, and economic issues, as well as to public education and engagement. Creative and equitable international mechanisms and goodwill are needed to turn high hopes into reality and allow the use of genomics to reduce health inequities between rich and poor nations. (Am J Public Health. 2002;92:1077–1079) THE ONGOING GENOMICS revolution, highlighted by the sequencing of the human genome, promises to change how diseases are diagnosed, prevented, and treated. It has tremendous potential to improve health globally. Despite the flush of excitement about its potential, drugs and interventions derived from genomics are likely to be expensive, and of particular interest is how these advances will affect the health of people living in the developing countries. The reality is that many of the advances in genomics were made, and in part are owned, by the developed world, and this has given rise to the concern that a “genomics divide”1 will be created that will further widen the equity gap in health between rich and poor nations. Instead, genomics and related technologies should be used to narrow the existing unethical inequities in global health. A report recently released by the World Health Organization focuses on this inequity. It points out, for example, that approximately 80% of investments in genomics in 2000 were made in the United States, and 80% of the DNA patents in genomics in the period 1980 through 1993 were held by US companies.2 Of the 1233 new drugs marketed between 1975 and 1999, only 13 were approved specifically for tropical diseases.2 POTENTIAL FOR HEALTH IMPROVEMENT In recent years the genomes of nearly 50 microbial pathogens have been sequenced, and ongoing efforts to sequence the genomes of mosquito vectors (e.g., Anopheles gambiae, the malaria vector, and Aedes aegypti, the main vector for dengue fever) promise benefits in the shorter term for the control of communicable diseases.3 Fosmidomycin, originally developed for treatment of recurrent urinary infections, showed effective anti-malarial activity when genome sequence information from Plasmodium falciparum revealed a common biochemical target, present in the parasite and not in the human host4; the drug has gone into clinical trials in less than 2 years. Clinical trials have also begun in Africa of a preerythrocytic DNA-based vaccine that gave significant protection against natural P falciparum infection.5 Although the benefits of alleviation of infectious diseases are obvious, it is now believed that the information generated by genomics will, in the long term, also play a major role in the prevention, diagnosis, and management of many diseases which hitherto have been difficult or impossible to control, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, the major psychoses, dementia, rheumatic disease, and asthma.6 From a public health perspective, the genomics revolution may present new opportunities for the prevention of these diseases, but before these opportunities can be realized we will need to know more about what combination of genetic and environmental factors predispose people to such diseases.7 New approaches to population-based epidemiological studies, such as “genomic epidemiology” to chart the molecular, metabolic, and disease profiles of thousands of subjects, may be the path to the future. A new consortium has been formed to pursue this approach, which aims to scale the relevant technologies to sample sizes appropriate for epidemiological studies.8 The initial focus will be on diabetes and cardiovascular disease, but the goal is to develop generic tools and protocols that can ultimately be applied to other diseases. The recent announcement of the genome sequences of 2 varieties of rice, indica and japonica,9,10 marks another milestone in the genomics revolution with tremendous potential implications for health. Three billion people, mainly in the developing world, depend on rice as their staple diet. The sequencing of the rice genome may pave the way for better strains of rice with enhanced yields, nutritional value, and disease resistance. IMPLICATIONS AND CONCERNS Aside from the complex scientific and technical problems of bringing genomics to the clinic, ensuring that its benefits will be reaped by developing countries will require attention to many equally challenging issues. Genomics brings with it complex new ethical, legal, social, and economic implications, as well as concerns about risks and hazards.11 Issues of confidentiality, stigmatization, and misuse of genetic information are high on the list of concerns, particularly the potential for creating a genetic underclass that may be denied medical insurance as a result of genetic testing and screening. Genomics has also been associated with the prospect of “designer babies,” and there is a concomitant concern about creating a genetically engineered overclass and a disease-prone underclass; the higher likelihood of the former being associated with richer people in the developed world is obvious. Issues of intellectual property rights associated with DNA sequences12 and the potential exploitation of developing-country populations by creating genetic databases, often at the behest of companies based in the developed world,13 are other areas of concern. While industry believes that without strong and effective global intellectual property rules, the gap between developed and developing countries will only grow in the future, there are plenty of concerns about the patentability of DNA sequences and the applications derived from them, and what implications this will have for the developing countries. Most important, the relatively rich product pipeline of genomics-based drugs will mean a tremendous increase in the demand for clinical trial sites, many of which will be in the developing countries; this area represents an ethical minefield relating to issues such as informed consent, standard of care, and continuing availability of the drug being tested, the price of which is often beyond the reach of poor people.14 Finally, in the aftermath of the tragedy that took place in the United States on September 11, 2001, the utilization of advances in genomics for acts of bioterrorism and biological warfare similarly occupy the minds of many. INTEGRATION WITH RESEARCH AND PRACTICE Despite the tremendous potential and promise of genomics, it is very difficult to predict when its benefits for health will be realized; there are so many critical things we do not yet know about how gene products interact. Many people were surprised to learn that we have only twice as many genes as a fly or a worm.15 Hence it is vitally important for the developing countries to maintain focus on the basics of what can be done now, particularly in the fields of public health and the development of more functional health care systems. The main message of the World Health Organization report2 is that medical practice will not change overnight as a result of new technologies spawned by genomics, but the long-term possibilities are such that both developing and developed countries must prepare themselves for this new technology and carefully explore its possibilities, always looking at its cost-effectiveness compared with more standard approaches to medical care. It is also vital that genomics research not be pursued to the detriment of the well-established methods of clinical practice and clinical and epidemiological research. Indeed, for its full exploitation it will need to be integrated into clinical research involving patients and into epidemiological studies in the community. It is crucially important to maintain a balance in medical practice and research between genomics and these more conventional and well-tried approaches. In addition, it is crucial to increase the quality of education in genetics and genomics at all levels of society. If this is not achieved it will be impossible to develop an informed debate about the various issues involved, and there is a danger that those who administer health services will be unable to distinguish between hyperbole and reality in a new, uncertain, and rapidly expanding research field. STRATEGIES FOR EQUITABLE Sharing What strategies and actions are needed in the future to ensure that the benefits of the genomics revolution are shared by the developing countries? Strong international leadership by the scientific community, international organizations, governments, and industry is required through promotion of innovative partnerships and cooperation strategies. A key issue in the postgenomics era will be who will pay to test, develop, and deliver important vaccines, drugs, and diagnostic procedures for diseases of the developing world, and who will ensure equitable access to those who need it most. The “Millennium Challenge Account” to improve health in the developing world, discussed at the recent Monterrey summit on financing for development,16 could be partly used for this purpose. Given the ethical concerns associated with many of the key issues and the significant commercial interest, a proposal has also been made for a Commission on Global Genomics Governance to make recommendations for genome-related issues and activities.17 At a higher political level, the potential of genomics to generate economic and health benefits for developing countries should be highlighted to the world's leaders. Attention to these problems at the June 2002 meeting of the G8 (the world's wealthiest nations—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—and Russia), which is to focus on Africa, would be a visionary move on the part of these countries. Such a call for action acknowledges that while most of the incentives to develop new drugs and vaccines are primarily of interest to markets in the industrialized world, there are enormous opportunities to apply knowledge of the genome to diseases of the poorest people as well, and that we all have a responsibility to help make these opportunities into realities. In particular, the medical profession in the developed countries has a vital role to play. Many of the important infectious killers are being encountered with increasing frequency in richer countries and, as the provision of basic health care improves, many poorer countries are making the epidemiological transition toward a pattern of disease similar to those of the developed countries. Globally, heart disease is now the most common cause of death. The globalization of disease is a message that must be clearly understood by medical schools, research funding bodies, industry, and governments of rich countries. The development of effective and equitable research partnerships between developed and developing countries will not only help to combat the global inequity of health care, but will also be of enormous mutual benefit to both parties. As Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, aptly and succinctly put it, “What can First World science do, not for the West, but for the Rest.”18 Notes Peer Reviewed
CARSON CITY, MI—Nearly a week after the dishes vanished from the kitchen cabinets, authorities reported Wednesday that a collection of missing plates and glasses were found filthy but safe in roommate Brian Massoud’s room. “We are pleased to announce that the three missing plates and five glasses were located on the floor next to Brian’s bed, absolutely disgusting but now, thankfully, out of harm’s way,” said Michael Sanders, who had led the exhaustive search of the three-bedroom apartment that had seemed hopeless until a tip from Massoud’s girlfriend directed authorities to a dinner plate crusted with melted cheese and a tumbler with fingernail clippings floating in an inch of rapidly spoiling milk. “Unsurprisingly, given what they’ve been through, it will take some time before these dishes will be able to handle any contact with food or drink. But with the proper rehabilitation, we are optimistic that they can be reshelved and resume a normal life.” At press time, the dishes had all been placed in the kitchen sink, where they were reportedly soaking comfortably. Advertisement
A federal judge declared a mistrial Monday for four men accused of participating in the 2014 armed standoff at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada. Federal Judge Gloria Navarro ended the case after the jury told her they were “hopelessly deadlocked” on charges against the four defendants, even after she told them to return to deliberations hours earlier, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported. On Monday morning, the jury found two other men guilty of some charges. They convicted both former FBI informant Gregory Burleson and Idaho resident Todd Engel of obstruction of justice and interstate travel in aid of extortion, the Review Journal reported. Jurors also convicted Burleson of assaulting a federal officer, threatening a federal officer and various firearms charges. Those convictions will stand despite the mistrial. A new trial for the four other men will start June 26, the Review Journal said. The trial came more than three years after the tense standoff between scores of self-styled militia members from around the country and federal law enforcement officers. Bundy owed more than $1 million in fees and penalties for grazing his cattle on federal Bureau of Land Management property for decades, and officials tried unsuccessfully to remove his cows, prompting the standoff. The government eventually backed down, though later arrested various people involved. It was supposed to be the first of three separate trials scheduled in the case, but the retrial will now happen before the others. Bundy himself and his sons Ammon and Ryan will face trial later. Ammon and Ryan Bundy were accused of being among the leaders of the early 2016 armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. They were both found not guilty of various charges related to that takeover. - This story was updated at 5:37 p.m.
Dinosaurs engaged in mating behavior similar to modern birds, leaving the fossil evidence behind in 100 million year old rocks, according to new research by Martin Lockley, professor of geology at the University of Colorado Denver. Lockley, a paleontologist, led an international research team that discovered large ‘scrapes’ in the prehistoric Dakota sandstone of western Colorado. These ancient scrapes are similar to a behavior known as ‘nest scrape display’ or ‘scrape ceremonies’ among modern birds, where males show off their ability to provide by excavating pseudo nests for potential mates. “These are the first sites with evidence of dinosaur mating display rituals ever discovered, and the first physical evidence of courtship behavior,” Lockley said. “These huge scrape displays fill in a missing gap in our understanding of dinosaur behavior.” The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group) on January 7, 2015. Lockley, a world-renowned expert on dinosaur footprints, found evidence of more than 50 dinosaur scrapes, some as large as bathtubs, in an area where tracks of carnivorous and herbivorous dinosaurs have also been confirmed. The display arenas, also called ‘leks’ were found in two National Conservation Areas (Dominguez-Escalante and Gunnison Gorge) on property permitted by the Bureau of Land Management near Delta, Colorado. Lockley also discovered evidence of mating areas at Dinosaur Ridge, a National Natural Landmark, just west of Denver. This new fossil evidence supports theories about the nature of dinosaur mating displays and the evolutionary driver known as `sexual selection.’ Since prehistoric times, males looking for mates, have driven off weaker rivals. Females, meanwhile, have chosen the most impressive male performers as consorts. Similar sexual selection behaviors are common in mammals and birds. But until now scientists could only speculate about dinosaur mating behavior, assuming it might be similar to that of their modern relatives, the birds. “The scrape evidence has significant implications,” said Lockley. “This is physical evidence of pre-historic foreplay that is very similar to birds today. Modern birds using scrape ceremony courtship usually do so near their final nesting sites. So the fossil scrape evidence offers a tantalizing clue that dinosaurs in ‘heat’ may have gathered here millions of years ago to breed and then nest nearby.” Lockley and his team were unable to remove the scrape marks from the gigantic slabs of rock without damaging them. Instead, they created 3-D images of the scrapes using a technique of layering photographs called photogrammetry. They also made rubber molds and fiberglass copies of the scrapes that are being stored at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
Story highlights Benjamin Jealous: Rand Paul's attempt to heal rift between blacks and GOP fell short He says if GOP wants to draw black votes, it can start by committing to civil rights One way is criminal justice reform, Jealous says Jealous: Sentencing reform, education would bring down spending. GOP, get on board Earlier this month Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) visited Howard University to take a swing at repairing relations between African Americans and the Republican Party. As famed sportscaster Harry Kalas would have said, it was largely a swing and a miss. Paul struck out when he tried to equate today's Republican Party with the party of Abraham Lincoln, while ignoring much of the 150 years in between. (He even acknowledged his mistakes shortly after). But his willingness to step up to the plate can provide a lesson for a GOP struggling to get on top. Republicans will not win black votes by paying lip service to party history while attacking social programs and voting rights. But they can make inroads by showing a commitment to civil rights, something Paul managed to do briefly in his remarks. Paul received applause when he told the Howard crowd, "We should not have drug laws or a court system that disproportionately punishes the black community." He illustrated using one issue where the GOP can connect with black voters: criminal justice reform. Just before the 2012 elections, the NAACP took a nonpartisan survey of black voters in key swing states. We found that 55% of African Americans believe Republicans "don't care at all about civil rights" while another 32% think the party "just says what minorities want to hear." But 14% said they would be more likely to vote for a Republican in the future, if they found a candidate who demonstrated a strong commitment to civil rights. Benjamin Todd Jealous Mass incarceration is a fundamental civil rights issue. African Americans make up 40% of the 2.4 million people in America's bloated prison system. That includes the vast majority of those in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his life. As Paul demonstrated, mass incarceration is also a fundamental conservative issue. State spending on prisons has tripled over the last 30 years, reaching $70 billion in 2008. Federal prisons are at 139% capacity, often thanks to harsh mandatory minimum sentences. And who pays for all these guards, beds and three square meals a day? Taxpayers. In fact, some red states have led the way on criminal justice reform. In Georgia South Carolina and Texas , Republican legislatures have teamed up with progressives to increase options for parole and reduce mandatory minimums. In Texas, the NAACP and progressive activists worked with leaders of the Tea Party to pass a dozen reform measures. Last year, Texas scheduled the first prison closure in state history. Rand Paul is not the first national Republican leader to speak up, either. Newt Gingrich and Jeb Bush are both members of the conservative think tank Right on Crime . And in 2011, Gingrich joined Grover Norquist and other unlikely allies - including Mike Jiminez, the president of California's prison guard union -- to endorse the NAACP's report, Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate. The report revealed how the rise in prison spending has caused states to spend less on education. These alliances should draw the attention of Republican leaders. Many Democrats shy away from talking about criminal justice reform, for fear of being labeled "soft on crime." According to the NAACP's election survey, 42% of African American voters believe the Democratic Party is failing them on criminal justice. The GOP has a chance to fill the leadership vacuum and demonstrate their civil rights bona fides. Paul is poised to lead the conversation on criminal justice reform. At Howard he touted the "Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013," which he recently introduced with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, the Democratic senator from Vermont. The bill would allow federal judges to bypass federal mandatory minimum sentences if the sentence is too lengthy or if it simply does not fit the crime. Paul told students that his friends called him "either brave or crazy" for showing up at Howard University, a statement that says more about his friends than the audience at Howard. Nonetheless, Paul and his Republican Party would display true bravery, and political savvy, by taking this opportunity to walk Lincoln's walk and take on the new Jim Crow. Moving from "tough on crime" to "smart on crime" would be good for this country. It would also be a smart move for the Republican Party if they ever hope to get on base with black voters.
Photo Even in New York Times headlines, they were known as “Izzy and Moe.” Their very presence could make bartenders faint. They possessed a keen sense of smell and a theatrical flair that included disguises as fruit peddlers and football players. Stumpy Izzy, who had rejected a career as a rabbi, and his partner were credited with 4,392 arrests in five years, including one in a Manhattan meatpacking district club where Izzy posed as a turkey salesman and found bottles of booze concealed in a huge stuffed bear. Unfortunately, these two Prohibition agents make only brief appearances in Marni Davis’s “Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition.” In real life, they were heavily outnumbered by Americans of all religions who cheerfully flouted the 18th Amendment during the Roaring Twenties. In this book, they are outgunned by sociologists and other detached observers whose sober reflections on a bombastic chapter in American history are sufficient to drive a frustrated reader to drink. It’s not the author’s fault. Blame the beguiling title, which sets the reader up for a fall. With rhyme and reason, “Jews and Booze” ought to evoke “Boardwalk Empire,” “The Untouchables” and the recent Ken Burns documentary on Prohibition. Instead, this book by Davis, an assistant professor of history at Georgia State University, is, proverbially, what it is: a thoughtful, instructive and often insightful dissertation that is much drier than it needs to be — even drier than the nation as a whole (including Jews) was during America’s failed “noble experiment.” Prohibition presented a dilemma. “Should Jews insist on ‘special rights’ for the sake of their own historical continuity, or break with the past for the sake of assimilation?” That dilemma, Davis writes, meant that “in the years leading up to and during national Prohibition, Jews who made a living selling liquor, or who defended alcohol’s legal availability, unwittingly acted as flash points for American anxieties about immigration and capitalism.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story But the more scholarly challenge Davis faces is making a case for Jewish exceptionalism when it comes to the temperance movement and America’s response to it. She prudently avoids conclusive findings, gingerly pointing out that while Jews generally opposed Prohibition, class, cultural and denominational divides reflected a profound ambivalence. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Jews usually defended their exemption for sacramental wine, but so did Roman Catholics (although she aptly notes that Catholics consumed their wine in church, while Jews were allowed to drink at home, leaving a lot more latitude for bootleggers). Anti-Semites like Henry Ford blamed Jewish distillers for poisoning the flower of American youth, but, Davis writes, “the populist movement cannot conclusively be described as either indifferent or hostile toward Jews.” Similarly, “while many regarded Jewish bootlegging as proof that Jews were incapable of conforming to American values,” she adds that “one might instead regard it as evidence of Jewish acculturation, since the flouting of Prohibition law was practically a national pastime.”
Dearest Abigail, The sons of Indiana are no strangers to hard service required of the modern cavalry regiment. Rare is the moment that the horse soldier rests his legs behind the battlements of garrison life. On Sunday afternoon the trumpets called. We successfully defended the garrison at Lucas Oil from a battalion of Cincinnati-born marauders straying far away from their border country barracks nestled upon the hotly contested Ohio River. And what strange brigands opposed us! They were led by one Major Dalton, who has won many campaigns in his years as a leading plunderer, but his offenses have stalled in the winter months, leading many back East to question his bona fides. But I shall not question such a valiant warrior! I too know this feeling. Tis one thing to fend off a gregarious bunch of Chiefs with a rally. It is quite another matter itself to hold off a whirlwind of devils such as these! Our efforts were compromised after early success when a Georgian -- one who trained with Spartans in Michigan no less -- breached the wall with a frontal assault on Boom Herron's John Thomas causing our lines to shift rather backwards after we'd carried considerable momentum. Can you imagine such vicious fighters! I can know nothing more unlike the picture of how a battle given by the authors and artists at the broadsheets. As if you could simply navigate these conditions with simple pencil lines on the Surface scrolls the peddlers carry. It is a might bit more complicated indeed when a wild eyed gentleman named Pacman has been promised your heart on his mother's best silver serving tray. Still, we muster ourselves forward with the enthusiasm of a jolly whaling crew on its maiden voyage through the blue waters of the south seas. I have seen the writers appropriate my name for their pulp. It does flatter the weary soul, but I fear my comrades are not getting their due in these difficult efforts. Donte Moncrief immigrated here from enemy country in Mississippi. He fights side-by-side with us, and it was his hands that scored a mighty blow against these orange devils that finally allowed us greater purchase in our home defense. And I have become great allies with T.Y. Hilton. He is a reliable adjunct in our fight and a man who has embraced these Indiana plains as his own, despite deep roots in the foreign swamps of Florida. In spite of harvesting such great bundles of sorrow, we have not been more made into evil men. I feel most fortunate that these lads and I must continue this campaign. And when we are finally asked to harness our sabers for good, I fear loitering about the farms and shops and offices of fine villages will no longer carry the same appeal it did before this campaign began so many harvests before. But there is no time to ponder such a future, not with the guidon still flapping about in the face of these western winds. Forward we ride! Our gallup upward into the heights of the Western lands backed by the mountains of Colorado territory. Our blue jackets next clash with horse soldiers riding under orange banners -- William the Conquerer should have had so many orange devils on his side! Take my love to mother. I know these ongoing hostilities weigh heavy on her heart, especially with father tied up in his own skirmishes. And please care for yourself, oh sweet darling. I carry your song with me wherever we ride. All of my love, Brig. Gen. Andrew Luck
Poor little birdie. Earlier this week, a bummed out owl was rescued after getting its wings stuck on a barbed wire fence in Colorado. The Fremont County Sheriff's Office shared photos of the incident on Facebook, which shows the progression of the rescue. According to the post, deputies were dispatched to the scene after a kind passerby reported the stuck owl. SEE ALSO: Watching these caterpillars strutting in a conga line is weirdly enchanting When deputies arrived, they requested that Division Of Wildlife Officer Holder to lend a hand. While the owl definitely looks a little defeated stuck in the fence, Officer Holder clearly got its attention. The two then rode off into the sunset together, and the owl was brought to a local rehab center. Bonus: 100 Years of Kitten Beauty in 60 Seconds [h/t: UPI]
Macedonia sent back hundreds of refugees to Greece on Tuesday, a day after they bypassed a border fence in a mass push to continue their journey north to Europe's prosperous heartland — a move Greece blamed on "criminal misinformation" possibly spread by volunteers working with them. Interior Ministry spokesman Toni Angelovski told The Associated Press the migrants "have been returned to Greece." About 1,500 people, frustrated at being stuck for weeks in a waterlogged tent city outside the closed crossing of Idomeni, pushed their way into Macedonia on Monday through an unguarded section of the border. They walked about 5 kilometers (3 miles) and forded a swollen stream near the Greek village of Hamilo. A Macedonian official said 700 migrants who had been detained overnight were deported to Greece through the same location they entered. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the press, also said about 50 journalists and volunteers detained with the migrants were released after paying fines of 250 euros ($280) for illegally entering Macedonia. Greek police said groups of migrants were seen coming back to Greece from unguarded sections of the border east and west of Idomeni — although Greece says it received no official notification or repatriation request from Macedonia. A spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency in Idomeni, Babar Baloch, confirmed that many had returned to Idomeni. About 200 people who had camped overnight near Hamilo went back to Idomeni on Tuesday, while Macedonian police guarded the area. It was not possible to account for all the migrants. Despite repeated Greek appeals for them to move to available organized shelters, about 14,000 people are stuck in the Idomeni tent city in swampy conditions after days of heavy rain, and hundreds were queuing under a shelter Tuesday for food handouts. "As long as (refugees) still believe that there is a chance of getting through (to Macedonia), this will continue," Immigration Minister Ioannis Mouzalas said. "There is no way the border will open." For months, hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East and Africa flowed through Idomeni, on their way to seek asylum in central Europe. But a tightening in border controls that started in Austria and extended down the Balkan migration route ended in a total border closure last week. Now, about 44,000 people are stranded in Greece, after crossing from nearby Turkey in flimsy smugglers' boats. The European Union's commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos — a Greek politician — visited Idomeni Tuesday and deplored the "tragic, unacceptable" conditions he saw. "This tests the principles and values of the civilized world, and Europe," he said. "This situation must end immediately." Avramopoulos also appealed to EU countries to honor the bloc's commitments to share out asylum-seekers. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras blamed Monday's mass move to circumvent the border fence on misleading leaflets distributed at Idomeni, which encouraged the refugees to make a concerted push north. Tsipras said "unknown people, perhaps groups that call themselves volunteers," handed out leaflets advising migrants to cross the border by bypassing the fence and warning that if migrants left the overflowing Idomeni camp for shelters in northern Greece, they would be imprisoned there. "This is criminal behavior toward people who face great hardship," Tsipras said. "This must stop." Greek police are investigating the incident. Tsipras urged the refugees to leave Idomeni for the shelters, and called on volunteers working with them to help scotch false rumors. Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, in a statement, said only a "united and humane" response from the European Union can solve the continent's migration problem. "More migrants in deteriorating tent cities at the border only encourages (people) smuggling," Poposki said.
Donald Trump isn't being petty by not giving up stage and air time during the Republican National Convention to former candidates who couldn't be trusted to keep their pledges on whether to support him as the eventual nominee, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says in a strongly worded opinion piece for Politico. "Breaking News! If Ted Cruz, John Kasich and others don't endorse Donald Trump, they won't be invited to speak at the Republican National Convention!" Huckabee, who dropped his own bid for the GOP nomination wrote. "So the anchors all urgently reported earlier this week. That's not breaking news — that's breaking wind."Huckabee has spoken at every GOP convention in some capacity since 1992, and writes that all the presidential nominees in those conventions, including George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney, controlled all details of the convention, including who sang the National Anthem to open it and who closes it in prayer.But Huckabee said the bigger story is being missed, because nobody is talking about the "outright lie" many of his other former contenders said on national TV in the first debate last August, when they promised to support the eventual nominee.at the time, Trump would not agree, saying he wanted to be sure the Republican National Committee would treat him fairly,. After RNC Chairman Reince Priebus met with Trump, the now-presumptive GOP nominee also said he'd agree to the pledge.Trump has invited Cruz to speak, but if he can't use the speech to honor his pledge to support Trump, then he should decline the invitation, said Huckabee.Huckabee admits that Trump was not his first choice for president: "I was my first choice."But for reasons Huckabee said he doesn't and won't ever fully understand, Trump won the nomination "the old-fashioned way" by getting the most votes, tallying up far more votes than any other Republican.That includes the "utterly discredited Mitt Romney," said Huckabee, "who has shamefully and sadly shown his petulance as he leaves the political stage in disgrace, having gladly accepted Trump's money and endorsement in 2012, only to become a "Never Trumper" and de-facto Hillary Clinton champion in 2016."Huckabee said he was not happy to walk away from his good income as a Fox News host, and to give up a year of his life. Huckabee said it was "frustrating to know that the message I championed about trade, the decline of the middle class, the need to manufacture in the United States, support for veterans and a more innovative approach to health care that focused on prevention rather than expensive intervention was mirrored by Donald Trump."The difference was that the television networks focused on Trump, Huckabee said, while ignoring him and the others "because of our unwillingness to engage in the blood sport of trashing the other Republicans on the stage, including Trump."But the candidates agreed they'd support whoever survived the "cage match," said Huckabee, and he is gladly supporting Trump "because I respect the voters and the process and accept the verdict."
Description Black clouds filled the sky on a full moon night and my brother, a nature enthusiast, sent me a pic of the beautiful sky and said "doodle this!". Thats what inspired the creation of this piece. I wanted the clouds to be fluid, appear to have life and create movement while I kept with my black and white signature style. This is my original artwork done with black fine-liner pens on paper. -------------------- If you want to add a touch of color to coordinate it with your wall/room, you can choose a color mat of your choice (as a border) when you click on "Framed Print". ----------------- "Full Moon on a Cloudy Night" has been featured in the groups: Pleasing the eye Abstract Art 3 a day AAA images Appreciating works from all mediums Black and White Out of the Ordinary Divine Uplifting Artwork Artists for Nature Images that excite you 1 a day waiting room Created by my hands Weekly Fun For All Mediums and many many more..
JOHN Longmire would have been disturbed by one key statistic in the wake of the Sydney Swans' nail-biting defeat against Hawthorn. A non-negotiable for the Swans coach is that when his players lay tackles, they stick. It's a pointer to intent and when the Swans do that well, it goes a long way to them winning matches (AFL's No.1 tackle efficiency in victories, 74.1 per cent). But against the Hawks, that key area – measured by the percentage of physical pressure acts that lead to effective tackles - was the second-lowest it has been for the Swans all season (62.2 per cent). The only game it was worse? When Sam Lloyd drilled an after-the-siren bomb to steal a one-point win for Richmond in round eight at the MCG. Every side has key performance indicators they value above others. As we now know, Alastair Clarkson doesn't "give a toss" about Hawthorn's contested ball count. But part of the Hawks' modus operandi is reliant on scoring from turnovers, especially in attack. Their forward pressure is elite with terrorising trio Cyril Rioli, Paul Puopolo and Luke Breust buzzing around and rushing defenders into errors. Hawthorn launches almost a quarter of its score from inside attacking 50m when it wins, but that League-high number dips to become the worst in the competition when the Hawks lose (13.2 per cent). West Coast is slightly different, aiming to feed a potent group of goalkickers with repeat 50m entries. With a savage forward press designed to lock opponents in defence on the narrow confines of Domain Stadium, the Eagles have a hefty reliance on time spent in their attacking half. Adam Simpson's side keep the ball forward of centre for an outstanding +11:50 minutes when they triumph, but lose the territory battle in defeats (-7:39 minutes) and have been criticised for their ability to defend wider grounds like the MCG. Winning the midfield battle is imperative for every club, but some teams rely more heavily on the engine room than others. Led by star ruckman Todd Goldstein, the Kangaroos are a much better team when they can hit the scoreboard from centre clearances. On average, North Melbourne outscores opponents by eight points a game in victories. However, that figure plunges to negative territory in defeats (-0.8) and it seems more than a coincidence that a hobbled Goldstein has been below his best in the Roos' slide down the ladder. STATS QUIRK OF THE WEEK: Brent Harvey will equal fellow 400-club member Dustin Fletcher on 234 wins if North Melbourne defeats Collingwood in 'Boomer's' record-equalling match this Friday night. Hawthorn champion Michael Tuck, whose 426 games record Harvey will match, has played in the most victories in AFL history (302), followed by Kevin Bartlett (260) and Bruce Doull (238). • Read more from the Stats Files
Share. An ESRB rating outs the good news. An ESRB rating outs the good news. With so many PSX-era Square titles getting dumped onto the PlayStation Network recently, many gamers were left wondering when an SNES-era favorite might join the party. We're of course talking about Chrono Trigger. Originally released on the Super Nintendo in 1995, Chrono Trigger saw re-release on the PlayStation in 2001, packaged Stateside with Final Fantasy IV in the compilation known as Final Fantasy Chronicles. Other SNES-turned-PlayStation Square RPGs have recently been announced, such as Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, adding fuel to the fire that Chrono Trigger had to be right around the corner. Well, now we have confirmation. The ESRB has rated Chrono Trigger for release on PlayStation 3 and PSP, signifying that Chrono Trigger will arrive sometime soon on the PlayStation Store as a PSone Classic. Unfortunately, there's no word yet on a release date for Chrono Trigger on the PSN.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption President Obama: "Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe... it is a recruitment tool for extremists; it needs to be closed" US President Barack Obama has pledged a new push to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amid a growing prisoner hunger strike there. At the White House, Mr Obama said the detention centre was "contrary to who we are" and harmful to US interests. He cited recent convictions of terror suspects to argue the civilian justice system was adequate for such trials. Congress has blocked efforts to close the prison, but Mr Obama said he would renew discussions with lawmakers. Mr Obama told reporters he had asked a team of officials to review operations at Guantanamo Bay and said he was not surprised there were problems there. "It is inefficient, it hurts us in terms of our international standing, it lessens co-operation with our allies on counter-terrorism efforts, it is a recruitment tool for extremists, it needs to be closed," Mr Obama said. 'No longer necessary' He described the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as a "lingering problem" that would worsen if it remained open. "I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe," Mr Obama told reporters. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Jonathan Beale said there are no signs the prison camp will be closed down He said that with the war in Iraq over and detention authority in Afghanistan transferred to Afghan forces, the facility in Cuba was no longer necessary. Mr Obama said he would need the help of Congress to devise a long-term legal solution to the prosecution of detainees. The president's comments come amid a hunger strike that has spread in recent weeks to include more than 100 of the 166 inmates at the facility. They are protesting against their indefinite detention. Most are being held without charge. UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay has said Guantanamo Bay should be shut immediately. The UN has called the continued detention of so many people without trial a clear violation of international law, though it understands Congress has blocked Mr Obama from closing the prison, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes says in Geneva. Aid agencies are convinced the situation there cannot go on. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the only agency with access to individual detainees, says there is now an unprecedented level of desperation at Guantanamo, our correspondent adds. Image caption A medical officer at Guantanamo holds a feeding tube in 2007 On Tuesday, a UN spokesman said the force-feeding of prisoners was also a probable human rights violation. "If it's clearly against the will of the people who are being forcibly fed, then in a view of the World Medical Association and indeed our view, this would amount to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment which is not permissible under international law," said Rupert Colville, the UN spokesman on human rights. In his remarks, the president seemed to support the US practice of force-feeding some hunger-strikers. "I don't want these individuals to die," he said. "Obviously the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best we can." The US has had to reinforce medical staff at Guantanamo Bay, with about 40 nurses and other specialists arriving at the weekend, according to a camp spokesman. Cleared for release The strike began in February but spread in recent weeks to include more than 100 of the 166 people held at the facility. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Two commentators joust on whether Guantanamo should be shut Guantanamo officials deny claims that the strike began after copies of the Koran were mishandled during searches of prisoners' cells. A spokesman for the detention camp told Reuters news agency that 21 prisoners were being force-fed through tubes inserted through their noses, while five had been brought to hospital for observation but did not have life-threatening conditions. Shorter hunger strikes have happened at Guantanamo since early 2002, when the US began bringing al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners there. Violence erupted at the prison on 13 April as the authorities moved inmates out of communal cellblocks where they had covered surveillance cameras and windows. Some prisoners used "improvised weapons" and were met with "less-than-lethal rounds", camp officials said, but no serious injuries were reported. Nearly 100 of the detainees have reportedly been cleared for release but remain at the facility because of restrictions imposed by Congress as well as concerns of possible mistreatment if they are sent back to their home countries. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to National Security Council Director Tom Donilon last week asking for the administration to "renew its efforts" to transfer the cleared prisoners. Sen Feinstein and another committee member had earlier asked the Obama administration to temporarily halt the transfer of 56 cleared Yemeni nationals after an attempted bombing claimed by al-Qaeda in Yemen in December 2009. Soon after his election, Mr Obama made closing Guantanamo Bay a top priority for his new administration, pledging to close it within a year of his inauguration in January 2009. But his plan to transfer prisoners to maximum security prisons in the US and try some detainees in the civilian justice system met fierce resistance from lawmakers of both parties.
When the 49ers started 0-9 to begin Kyle Shanahan’s tenure – the worst start in franchise history – there were a few silver linings the team could hang its hat on. First – They were still competitive, in most cases. From Week 2 to Week 6, the 49ers became the only team in NFL history to lose five straight games by three points or fewer. They were a play or two away in each game from getting that elusive win. Second – They were developing a young roster. Rookies like quarterback C.J. Beathard, tight end George Kittle, receiver Trent Taylor, running back Matt Breida, cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon, defensive lineman Solomon Thomas and linebacker Reuben Foster were all getting valuable reps. Some of those players might not have gotten that seasoning if aging veterans were kept around during the first year of a roster-wide rebuild. Third – The 49ers were strengthening their bond. They became hardened by losing. They didn’t fracture like they might have in recent seasons. That much is a testament to Shanahan because those are the unknown factors facing first-time coaches. Shanahan is one of the most respected game planners and play callers in the NFL. But could he galvanize an entire team? The 49ers could only guess before hiring him in February. During the team’s recent four-game winning streak, its first since 2013, the answer seems to be a resounding, “yes.” “I believe, it was hard when we went through it (starting 0-9), but the fact that we were able to get through it and still find a way to get some wins here recently, I think it made our team stronger,” Shanahan said Tuesday in a conference call. “When you go through some really hard things with each other and you make it through there, I feel you get stronger from that stuff. I think our team has gotten tighter through it, they’ve gotten stronger, and that’s led to us starting to win a few games and having more confidence.” Much of that confidence is coming from Shanahan’s new quarterback, who has dramatically altered the state of the franchise in just a few weeks. Jimmy Garoppolo has the 49ers feeling like a team that could hang with any in the NFL after taking down AFC playoff contenders in consecutive games, including the 44-point performance Sunday against the Jaguars, who had the league’s top-ranked defense coming in. Suffice to say, Garoppolo might not be enjoying his level of success if he joined a locker room that was broken by losing earlier in the season. The 49ers found a way to turn their bad start into something promising heading into another crucial offseason. “I believe our team feels that they are tough enough mentally to get through anything,” Shanahan said.
Image copyright BBC news grab A former chairwoman of Labour's ruling National Executive Committee says she has left the party to support UKIP at the general election. Harriet Yeo, a councillor in Kent, said she had become "disillusioned" with Labour's stance on Europe. She said she only trusted UKIP to offer a choice on the UK's membership of the EU. But she will not join the party. Labour said it was united on Europe and that an EU exit would "cost British jobs and influence". Ms Yeo claimed the majority of Labour's shadow cabinet wanted a referendum on the EU, but "are being told to keep quiet", adding: "I cannot support this approach." "It is time to decide whether we remain in the EU. The only party I trust to offer us that choice is UKIP," she writes on the Telegraph website. 'Not a swipe' A Labour source said Ms Yeo had been removed as group leader on Ashford Borough Council last week after being accused of non-attendance at meetings and a failure to undertake casework, and had just been deselected as a local election candidate. Asked about this, Ms Yeo told the BBC she had struggled to make some council meetings because of working full-time, while others were at "more awkward times". She also said she had found campaigning difficult due to recent operations that left her struggling to walk long distances. "There have been a couple of slip-ups but I have just had another operation", she said, adding: "I have been talking to UKIP way before this." Image copyright AP Image caption Ms Yeo believes a debate over Britain's future in Europe will be "healthy for democracy" Ms Yeo, who chaired the NEC in 2012-13 and is a former president of the TSSA transport union, was Labour's candidate to be police and crime commissioner in Kent in 2012. She will now sit as an independent councillor. Ms Yeo said she would not become a UKIP member because she wanted to judge things from a voter's perspective. She made clear that her decision was not a "swipe" at Labour leader Ed Miliband, whom she described as a "principled leader". But she said she did not share his view that a referendum "is not the right step for our country". A referendum, she said, would pave the way for an "exciting and meaningful debate" about Britain's future. Party 'united' On Twitter, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said he was "delighted" to have Ms Yeo's support, and a party spokesman said she would be "very publicly and loudly" supporting the party. Ms Yeo said she had not been asked to campaign for UKIP, and had not decided what to do, saying it would be "very difficult" for her to knock on doors due to her recent operations. Image copyright AP Image caption Mr Farage's party wants Britain to leave the European Union A Labour spokesman said the "vast majority" of the party were united behind its position on Europe. He added: "The truth is UKIP are a party of Tory people, Tory policies and Tory money - they are more Tory than the Tories." Labour has resisted calling for an in/out referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, arguing that an EU exit would be disastrous and cause uncertainty for business. David Cameron has pledged to hold such a vote in 2017, following a period of EU renegotiation, if the Conservatives win a majority at May's general election.
Preparation 1. Combine your quinoa and water in a saucepan and place over high heat. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cover. Let simmer for 12 to 15 minutes or until water is absorbed. Remove from heat, fluff with a fork and set aside. 2. Heat your barbecue over medium heat. Toss red pepper and zucchini in a splash of extra-virgin olive oil and season with sea salt and pepper. Grill your red pepper and zucchini for about 5 minutes per side. Note: If you don't have a grill, you can roast your vegetables in the oven at 420°F for 10 to 15 minutes per side. 3. While your veggies cook, prepare your dressing by combining the sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, garlic, apple cider vinegar, and oregano in a blender or food processor. Add ½ cup warm water and blend until smooth. 4. Massage your kale in a bit of extra virgin olive oil and sauté in a frying pan over medium heat just until wilted. Remove from heat immediately. 5. Transfer your vegetables off the grill and coarsely chop. Divide quinoa into bowls and top with grilled veggies. Add wilted kale, diced avocado, and sprouts. Drizzle with desired amount of sun-dried tomato dressing. Photo courtesy of the author
$ 5.50 Fast times Ramones worship punk. Dark Thoughts finds some separation from the pack that’s linked above by virtue of being effectively straightforward in a genre that tends to grow stagnant whenever anyone’s foolish enough to attempt the feat. So many bands have tried and failed miserably at songs that are frequently (and unfairly) categorized as Ramones-core and while Dark Thoughts certainly embraces an archetype, it does so with an infallible mixture of venom and pure feeling. Every song on Dark Thoughts would be a worthy single but the record functions its own standalone entity as well; Dark Thoughts is a sublime piece of insanely well-informed genre work that skews as close to Fix My Brain as it does Rocket to Russia 12 songs in a little over 19 minutes. <a href="http://getbetterrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dark-thoughts">DARK THOUGHTS by DARK THOUGHTS</a> Click label name for other Get Better titles.
“Living a Good Life” is a formidable phrase. “Being a Good Person” is a gentler way to put it, maybe- the operative words are more obvious to me, anyway. If it’s a lossy translation, I’d at least have to work out why. The problem with [the phrase] “Being a Good Person” is that its familiarity breeds an unwarranted illusion of clarity, too. What is a person? Why should persons (or, er, “people”) be good? And how? Kevin Simler at Melting Asphalt recently wrote a great piece on his view of “personhood” that I advocate. When I think about human social interactions, I often think about specific relationships and the roles that they entail: husband and wife, citizen and representative, superhero and sidekick, BFFs. But today I want to talk about the most generic relationship — the one that exists between any two members of a society. What is the nature of that relationship? As an implicit social contract, what are its expectations and obligations? I think it makes sense to call this generic social contract “personhood,” and those who abide by it “persons.” […] The idea of a “person” that I’m going to use today is most similar to the idea of a “lady” or “gentleman” — without the gender connotations, obviously, but in the same sense of being a label or status earned through proper behavior (which then creates an obligation for others to treat us nicely in return). There are several reasons that I like this conception of Personhood. Personhood here is transactive and iterative, like the definition of “species” is in my previous post, and reminiscent of the logic of art appreciation in an earlier thread of this blog. It is sufficiently detailed, actionable, and “measurable” (if not precisely). Personhood is metaphysically lean- no magical priors. Personhood is not an essence. Personhood is a social invention that serves a purpose. You can be more or less of a person. Some rituals and games require a mask, or some other exception to the stipulations of personhood. An individual’s personhood can be adjusted, or perceived differently from different parties. Non-human agents may apply for varying degrees of personhood. If “Good” means adequate or preferable, a Good Person is one whose social interface is nearly always considered appropriate: a human that you’d have difficulty considering as the noisy sack of meat that (s)he is. To paraphrase another great article by Simler: Through considerate and well-designed interfaces, “good software” tries to convince you that it is more than an application on some complex arrangement of silicon, so that you might trust to interact with it. Through considerate and well-designed behavior (i.e. etiquette), “good people” ought to convince you that they are more than the product of some complex arrangement of carbon, so that you might trust to interact with them. This is a godless and unflattering view of the civilizing process, but I think that is a merit of this perspective. This view doesn’t disqualify questions of the rules of interaction, but I feel that this view does allow me a level of grounding. Living well is (at least?) living socially and pro-socially. Advertisements
Photo credit: @soytrupadrefriki \| Twitter Law enforcement from the Austin Police Department say that a shooting broke out in North Austin at a Halloween party. What was supposed to be a fun-filled event turned into horror as four people were shot by a gunman wearing a Santa Claus outfit. An emergency 911 caller reported the shooting and officers were dispatched to a home at 5500 Avenue F, in Austin, Texas. <iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d3444.084705273394!2d-97.72211258487837!3d30.32010838178293!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x8644ca14d532511d:0xbb667a50234ce07e!2s5500+Avenue+F%2C+Austin%2C+TX+78751!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1509310886616" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Austin Travis County EMS say they also responded to the scene and transported four people to a nearby hospital with gunshot wounds. At least two of the victims are reported to have life-threatening injuries, with a female victim suffered life-threatening injuries, a male victim suffered potentially life-threatening injuries and another female suffered serious injuries, according to officials. Austin Police Department Det. Lee Knouse said that the shooter was taken into custody without incident. Specific charges against the gunman or his identity has yet to be released. Sources: http://www.kvue.com/mobile/article/news/local/four-shot-by-santa-claus-at-north-austin-halloween-party-police-say/269-486991639 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/austin-shooting-suspect-dressed-as-santa-claus-halloween-party/ —<i>[email protected]</i> <i>On Twitter:</i> <a href="https://www.twitter.com/IWillRedPillYou">@IWillRedPillYou</a> Tips? Info? Send me a message!
NEW YORK – If you're among the tens of thousands of people waiting for a Chevrolet Volt or Nissan Leaf, Hertz might be able to get you some seat time in one before the dealers can. The world's largest auto-rental outfit said New York will be the first market in its global initiative to bring plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles to the Connect by Hertz global car-sharing operation. Hertz is getting behind cars with cords in a big way, offering them to customers in New York on Dec. 15 and in San Francisco before long. More will be added through 2011. Although Enterprise also plans to roll out some electrics, Hertz claims it is the first to put such cars into rental and car-sharing programs. "Hertz is the first to provide consumers with electric-vehicle access on a global scale," Mark P. Frissora, chairman and CEO, said as the company made its announcement in Times Square. "By introducing EVs in New York, Washington and San Francisco, we're the first to make tomorrow's driving experience available to consumers today and we look forward to continue building out our EV platform, making electric mobility a reality for consumers worldwide." If you're not familiar with Connect by Hertz, it’s essentially the rental-car juggernaut’s answer to Zipcar, Flexcar and other car-sharing services. Users pay a fee, either monthly or annually, for access to a fleet of urban runabouts they can borrow for as little as $8.50 an hour. Using a car with a cord won't cost you any more than the gasoline models. Rental and car-sharing locations will serve as home base for the vehicles and their charging stations, and will tap into Hertz's fleet-management tools, customer navi systems and other tech to help form an EV network and charging infrastructure. Beyond working with the likes of Nissan and General Motors – both of which begin delivering the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt this month – and reaching out to startups like Coda Automotive, Hertz is teaming up with charging station providers, city governments and others to make this plan work. Hertz says it has ordered "hundreds of vehicles" from Nissan, GM, Toyota, Smart USA and Mitsubishi. (Toyota, Smart and Mitsu all promise electrics by 2013.) It is working closely with Texas energy giant NRG, which plans to blanket Houston with public charging stations. We know what you’re thinking, and, no, people will not be running extension cords from their hotel rooms to the parking lot. Hertz tells us that people expected to rack up a lot of miles on their rentals will get a conventional car or, when inventory allows, a plug-in hybrid like the Chevrolet Volt. The electrics will be for car-sharing or short hops. By tapping its network of 200 car-sharing and 8,500 car-rental sites in 146 countries, Hertz can put a whole lot of EVs on the road in very little time. That will provide a market for the cars – spurring automakers to build more of them – and let the public see and experience them. It also creates further incentive for companies like NRG, Ecotality and Coulomb Technologies to roll out more charging infrastructure. Photo of a Nissan Leaf being ogled during the Hertz announcement in Times Square: Hertz See Also:
Sprint Planning is one of the well-known “ceremonies” within the Scrum framework. While at Pragmateam we absolutely see the value in planning, we typically approach Sprint Planning from the perspective of flow. The question we want to answer during sprint planning: How do we use the weekly/fortnightly conversation to continue the momentum of the previous sprint? Problem we are trying to solve: Sprint planning sessions often take too long or end up with unclear priorities. Reasons for this may be due to sessions being used to: Deep-dive - discuss solutions to problems the team didn’t even know it had Wordsmithery - refine the wording of user stories instead of having the right conversations about the intent of the user stories Death by tooling - work around perceived restrictions imposed by the tool being used (be it JIRA, Trello or post it notes) rather than having a good discussion about meaning, priority and complexity. Inputs into Sprint Planning: A key ingredient of Sprint Planning is the longer term plan, providing the team with a guiding star: Understanding of longer term objective and milestones, longer lead times Ensuring the right people are in the room to judge complexity Provide the team with a sense of priority Guiding Principles: We have a few guiding principles which we use to structure the planning sessions: It’s all about the conversation Be clear on the priority Experiment and continuously improve your process Don’t make it about the tool Physical attendance over Video over Voice dial in In practice, my planning sessions often look something like this: 1. Celebrate The team usually plans in the morning, so we skip the daily stand up. We walk the wall from right to left. Everyone gives an update on what they achieved and moves any remaining items to 'Done' - mostly accompanied by celebratory clapping. Some teams also estimate the work, so we count our story points, and talk about our velocity compared to the previous sprints. What has been achieved? What hasn’t? What have you learned about your velocity? 2. Reorientate to the longer term plan Celebrations are important. The next step is to look at the longer term plan to understand how far we have progressed along it with the previous sprint. Where are we now? Where are we heading? Are we still heading in the right direction? What did we learn that impacts our longer term plan? 3. Define your goals Sprint goals are a great way to focus the planning session. They help prioritise and say ‘No’ to incoming requests or to discussions that derail us, e.g. “And what about this one?" . It’s usually the Product Owner who shares their 2-3 sprint goals first. Everyone chimes in and clarifies the goals until the team agrees on priority and potentially also stretch goals.
A couple of years ago I got the opportunity to write a screenplay, Rome Sweet Rome, for Hollywood (based on a Reddit comment!). That was an incredible adventure. But: to have that adventure, I had to give up a lot of control. I’ve been working on a new story, and there’s been a lot of interest from publishers. To go through them and get this story out there means years of work yet and, again, major changes. That's why we're here today. My new novel, Acadia, takes place a century in the future. It’s a story about the beginning of space colonization, the rise of artificial intelligence, and a dozen other revolutions bearing fruit. It’s about the choices humanity (and its AI children) will have to make, and the personal journeys of a small group of people that find themselves at the center of history. You can read a preview of Acadia here. On top of that, I’m working with the fine folks at Breadpig, Inc. – the team who helped Ryan North create To Be Or Not to Be and midwifed several projects from Zach Weiner. They have helped me create a really exciting campaign with tons of extras – you will have the opportunity to pledge for some (or if you are extremely awesome and rich, all) of the following rewards: ---DRM-free PDFs ---Signed Copies ---Hardcovers ---Special Thanks IN ALL COPIES OF THE BOOK! ---Prints of Selected Illustrations A Couple of Prints You Could Get as a Backer Reward! ---A NASA-style mission patch for USS Acadia ---A pass to the book’s launch party in New York with myself, Alexis Ohanian and the Breadpig team, and OTHER AWESOME PEOPLE ---The opportunity to name a character! We’re setting our initial goal at $10,000 – this will meet our production costs and get everyone their books. If we go over this goal we do have a plan for some... MET - $12,500: We’ll release illustrations as wallpapers, suitable for inspiring envy in coworkers and roommates. Plus Mobi/Epub versions of the books as an option! MET - $15,000: More illustrations $20,000 - Audiobook to All Backers $30,000 - Foil Stamping on Covers of Both Editions + Hardcovers get Ribbon Bookmarks! ?????? : We have more surprises planned, and I'm excited to share them with you. Cover Image by James Gilyead - http://hustlersquad.net/
We Energies is canceling a program that funded small-scale renewable energy development, including projects that resulted in solar power being generated at GE Healthcare and smaller projects at churches and nonprofits such as the Urban Ecology Center. The utility announced on its website Friday that it has decided to terminate its Renewable Energy Development programs. The utility had committed in 2002 to spending $6 million a year on renewable energy development initiatives but has decided to end that program, utility spokesman Brian Manthey said. The company is no longer offering grants for nonprofits and will continue education and training programs "until committed funds are depleted," the utility's message said. The announcement came weeks after the company reported record quarterly earnings and the same month that the utility plans to file a plan to increase rates for its electricity customers next year. The utility's customers have seen bills rise by more than 5% this year, with a typical residential customer now paying $105 a month for electricity. The power company said its decision is based on its increased investment in building renewable energy projects to meet the state's 10% renewable energy target. Total spending in renewable energy, including two large wind farms and a portion of its investment in a $255 million biomass power plant in north-central Wisconsin, will exceed $800 million by the end of this year, Manthey said. "There's an awful lot going from customers to pay for renewable energy both for the projects as well as funds for the Focus on Energy program," he said. Focus on Energy is a statewide initiative funded by utility ratepayers that provides incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy. The utility's $800 million estimate includes $120 million that would be spent this year on the biomass project the utility has proposed to build in north-central Wisconsin. As of Friday, however, the utility had not decided whether to build that project because it and Domtar Corp. were still reviewing whether they can accept conditions imposed by the state Public Service Commission that aim to bring down the overall cost of the project to customers. A leading state renewable energy advocate said Friday that We Energies was backing away from a $60 million commitment with only about half of the money collected. Renew Wisconsin, a group that worked with We Energies and other groups on a renewable energy collaborative, agreed not to object to the utility's plan to build new coal and natural gas-fired power plants as part of that commitment, said Michael Vickerman, executive director. "We looked at it as a commitment. They looked at it as a commitment, until a couple days ago," Vickerman said of We Energies. "Now that the coal plant is up and running, it appears that the program has outlived its usefulness to We Energies." The 12.7% profit the utility earns on its investment in the $2.38 billion coal plant has been a key driver in record profits the utility reported in 2010. With the second unit of the coal plant completed in January, 2011 will be another record year for Wisconsin Energy Corp. To Vickerman, the announcement is the latest in a string of setbacks for efforts to develop homegrown renewable energy and stem the flow of energy dollars out of the state. That includes Republican Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to make it more difficult to build wind farms in the state and a GOP-sponsored bill to be considered in the Legislature next week that would allow utilities to import hydro power from large dams in Manitoba to meet the state's renewable energy mandate. Manthey, of We Energies, says circumstances have changed since its commitment, including the 2006 state law that requires 10% of Wisconsin's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2015. The utility says its projects are a significant investment in the state's economy. When completed later this year, the Glacier Hills Wind Park in Columbia County will be the state's largest wind farm, and its Blue Sky Green Field project is the second biggest renewable project in the state, Manthey said. A recipient of funding from We Energies was disappointed with the utility's decision. We Energies provided $30,000 toward a $160,000 solar and energy efficiency project at the Unitarian Universalist church on Milwaukee's east side, said Tom Brandstetter, who led the project. Without the utility's help, completing the project "would have made it much more difficult," he said. Plus, he said, the program helped the utility's image that it was committed to green power at a time when it was building new coal plants. "We're going in the exact opposite direction that we need to," Brandstetter said. Manthey said the utility's shift on the renewable energy development program would have no impact on its Energy for Tomorrow initiative, a green-pricing program under which certain utility customers agree to pay more on their monthly electric bills to support renewable energy. By the end of the month, the utility is expected to file a detailed plan with state regulators to raise bills in 2012 and again in 2013. The funding plan would pay for the wind farm now under construction northeast of Madison as well as environmental controls being installed at the original Oak Creek coal plant.
7 Sandra Bullock in All About Steve "Mary, why do you wear those stupid red boots all the time? You wanna know why? Because it makes my toes feel like ten friends on a camping trip, that's why." All About Steve is a Razzie Award winning film (yes, film) about a woman who's convinced a CCN (which, for legal purposes is NOT CNN) cameraman is the love of her life. She's a weirdo who is, for some reason, allowed to walk around in public amongst children, the elderly and other people who aren't a detriment to humanity. Mary Horowitz is the kind of quirky that not too long ago got you treated with institutionalization and electroshock therapy. After one blind date, Mary is inexplicably drawn to the aloof charms of the uninterested Steve. In fact, despite his rebuffs of her advances, Mary is unable to stop thinking about Steve long enough even to do her job. Her resulting unemployment gives her the perfect opportunity to hitchhike around the country, stalking Steve and terrorizing the handicapped. When she finally gets Steve's attention, she inadvertently falls into a mine, rescuing a deaf child who was trapped there after the mine collapsed. She gives credit to a guy who throughout the movie is kind of a scumbag so he can get a promotion. Because of her actions, Steve realizes she's a beautiful person afterall. Unfortunately Mary also realizes this and then decides she doesn't need Steve to be happy. "If you love someone, set him free; if you have to stalk him, he probably wasn't yours in the first place." What This Teaches Us: No matter how hard someone doesn't respond positively to your romantic and sexual advances, you should by all means quit your job and follow them across state lines because if you're attractive enough, criminal behavior is perfectly acceptable. Also, you should endanger handicapped children, other people, and your own life in the pursuit of self discovery.
Liverpool are on the verge of completing deals for five new signings – taking the total number of new recruits to seven this summer already. The five are Sevilla’s Luis Alberto, Porto’s Christian Atsu, Sunderland‘s Simon Mignolet, Sporting’s Tiago Ilori and Shakatar’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan. On Alberto, The Independent report: Liverpool expect to have wrapped up a deal within 48 hours to sign the 20-year-old Spanish winger Luis Alberto from Seville for around £6m. On Atsu, The Guardian write: Liverpool’s extensive summer recruitment programme is increasingly likely to include a cut-price transfer for Porto’s Ghanaian international Christian Atsu after a significant breakthrough in negotiations. A £3m move for Atsu is reported in The Times and Mirror also. The 21 year old, available due to a contract dispute, is described as “a quick, talented but sometimes erratic winger.” Presumably a replacement for the expected departure of Oussama Assaidi. On Mignolet, The Sunderland Echo report: Mignolet is expected to seal a £10m move from Sunderland. On Mkhitaryan, The Mirror report: Mkhitaryan is expected to fly to England before the end of the week. Armenia’s national news agency reported that Shakhtar have given the 24-year-old permission to discuss terms with Liverpool and undergo a medical. Meanwhile, The Mirror report Fulham’s interest in taking young defender Andre Wisdom on loan next season. Such a move would make sense for all parties, provided Liverpool bring in their defensive targets this summer. Andy Carroll’s permanent move to West Ham should be confirmed today after he completed his medical and agreed terms on a six year contract last night. The £15.5m initial fee won’t be sat in the bank long with deals in place for all of the five named above, according to reports. With attacking options seemingly strengthened, it is now expected that Liverpool will move on to defensive re-inforcements, with Toby Alderweireld still a possibility having not concluded a protracted deal with Bayer Leverkusen yet. Liverpool are certainly showing they are keen to ensure the mistakes of last season’s transfer window aren’t repeated, with the newly installed transfer committee proving their effectiveness thus far. [table id=14 /]
I'm not talking about annual reviews (which are stupid). I'm talking about how you work as a client for a project that needs to make something. It might be an internal team developing a website or it might be an outside designer working on a logo. Regardless of the team's make up, as their client, you walk a fine line. On one hand, you want their best, most creative insight, delivered with passion. On the other, you want the people you represent (your boss, the customers) to be happy with what gets made. Which leads to the feedback part. (Not criticism, feedback). What do you do when the work that comes in is no good? When it's off target or needs tweaking or even an overhaul? In my experience, there are three different ways to structure the project. Each leads to a very different feedback loop. 1. The goal of the team is to please you. 2. The goal of the team is to make a product that they love and are proud of building. 3. The goal of the team is to build a great product. There's more difference between #2 and #3 than it appears. The first scenario is quite common. It leads to mindreader syndrome, in which alert team members work hard to get you to tell them what you want. If they can read your mind, they'll be successful (and done) that much sooner. The real problem with this approach is that the team has rarely bought in to the project. They don't take ownership because, after all, the goal is to make you happy. They won't give you more than you expect, because they're trying so hard to give you exactly what you expect. This is especially problematic when the team thinks you're an erratic, egomaniacal nutcase with little or no real world chops. The second scenario is common with well-known freelance help, or agencies or other creatives that bring ego to the table. In this situation, anything you say about the project appears to be a personal attack. That's because, in the eyes of the person that came to you saying, "here is our work," it is a personal attack. If you don't like my logo or strategy or code, well, of course I'm going to be defensive. You can work with people like this successfully, but to do so involves giving them a clean sheet of paper, not being part of the development process. The third scenario is the one in which all sides want the best possible project and the team believes that you have valuable insight on how to make that happen. This only works if there's mutual respect around the table. They have to hold you in esteem and trust your judgment (not organizational judgment, but judgment about what makes the project great). That means that, "because I said so," is not effective feedback. I've seen all three work. The first scenario is really efficient if you are truly in charge, you know what you want and you don't have a lot of time. The second scenario works if you absolutely trust the team and want them to push the envelope. And the third scenario works when you have mature people, a dedicated team and enough time and mutual respect to work it through. How do you develop the trust and esteem you need in the third example? Sit with the team and jointly criticize other work. Before you start developing, spend time giviing feedback on how someone else could have done a better job (on a design, on the foley in a movie, on a logo). By earning the right to give feedback externally, you make it more likely you've got the right to do it internally.
Chelsea and England footballer John Terry is in court facing a charge of a racially-aggravated public order offence. This relates to a comment allegedly made by the Chelsea captain to the QPR defender Anton Ferdinand when the teams played at Loftus Road last October. Mr Terry denies the allegation. Here is a summary of the accounts which have emerged so far about what was said between the two men, based on what the court has heard. (Warning: Contains repeated use of very strong language) On the pitch The game took place at QPR's Loftus Road ground in London on 23 October 2011. Chelsea were down to nine men in the game, and Mr Ferdinand and Mr Terry began trading insults over a penalty claim, the court heard. The QPR defender said he was angry at Mr Terry trying to get a penalty and "he barged me in the back for no reason". Mr Ferdinand told the court Mr Terry insulted him with sexual swear words and made a gesture as if to say his breath smelled. I was very angry and I was upset John Terry Terry 'angry' over racism claims Mr Ferdinand said he asked how Mr Terry could say that, because "you shagged your team-mate's missus" and he then swore back at the Chelsea player. This was a reference to Mr Terry's alleged affair with Wayne Bridge's ex-girlfriend, Vanessa Perroncel. The court heard that Mr Ferdinand then jogged down the pitch, while making a fist gesture, intended for Mr Terry, to imply sex. It also heard that Mr Terry has accepted how, when both players were around the half-way line of the pitch, he used the words "fucking black cunt". But the court also heard that Mr Terry maintains he was only sarcastically repeating what Mr Ferdinand incorrectly thought he had said. During Mr Terry's testimony in Westminster Magistrates Court, he said that as the pair traded insults, he heard Mr Ferdinand using this racist phrase. Mr Terry told the court he thought Mr Ferdinand was accusing him of using the phrase. "I was very angry and I was upset. I replied 'a black cunt, you fucking knobhead'". After the match After the match, Mr Ferdinand told the court, Chelsea defender Ashley Cole told him: "You can't talk to JT [John Terry] like that." George Carter-Stephenson QC, defending Mr Terry, gave the court further details about the exchange between Mr Cole and Mr Ferdinand. This included Mr Cole asking Mr Ferdinand: "Did you think JT called you a black cunt? You know he isn't like that." It's handbags, innit - it's what happens on the pitch Anton Ferdinand Immediately after the match, Mr Ferdinand did not think that Mr Terry had used racist words, the court heard. Later, Mr Terry asked a steward to get Mr Ferdinand from the QPR dressing room. "Mr Terry said, 'Do you think I racially abused you?'. I was like, 'No'," Mr Ferdinand told the court. "I said 'No, that never came out of my mouth'. Then Ashley Cole popped his head round and said: 'Yeah, didn't you say that to me?' I said: 'I didn't say that at all'." Mr Ferdinand told the court: "It's handbags, innit - it's what happens on the pitch," and said he shook hands with Mr Terry. Video footage Later still after the match, Mr Ferdinand's then-girlfriend showed him a clip of the exchange with Mr Terry, which was posted on YouTube. It was then that he believed Mr Terry had used a racist term. Mr Ferdinand told the court that if he had realised this at the time he would have told officials. He said: "I would have been obviously very hurt and I probably wouldn't have reacted at the time because, being a professional, you can't do that. I probably would have let the officials know what happened and dealt with it after the game. "When someone brings your colour into it, it takes it to another level and it's very hurtful." Terry's statement Mr Terry made a statement to police last November, in which he said he was offended by the accusation that he had used racist language. He said his words to Mr Ferdinand were meant to make it clear that he had not used a racist insult. The statement read: "Whilst footballers are used to industrial language, using racist terms is completely unacceptable whatever [the] situation. "I was completely taken aback by this remark as I have never been accused of something like that and I did not take his remark lightly at all, and took strong offence to his suggestion."
This news report is entirely in Japanese but is worth watching even if you don't speak the language. It explains a fascinating concept: that the position of Shinto shrines along the Tohoku coastline encodes information about tsunami safety zones. The vast majority of these shrines escaped the inundation virtually unscathed, in some cases while the towns around them washed away. In the image above, the light blue area represents land that was dry prior to the quake; that is how far inland the tsunami waters washed. Note how the shrines sit almost exactly along the line where the floodwaters finally broke. What might at first seem like a miracle of divine intervention is even more interesting in reality. Several of the shrines actually venerate tsunami (Shinto being a religion of nature-worship), and in fact represent a historical record of where many previous tsunami floodwaters broke. It is not for nothing that Shinto shrines are generally built on high ground. One resident interviewed in the piece relates how local lore, handed down from parent to child, said to take refuge at the local shrine in the event of a tsunami. It proved true during the disaster, saving many lives. Like the "tsunami stones" and folktales found throughout the region, these shrines represent an attempt from those who lived long ago to communicate the dangers of tsunami to future generations. It seems likely that's precisely why they were built in these specific locations. Being "holy ground" that typically remains undisturbed even in modern times, you could say the shrines are an encoding system. They convey information about safe areas without relying on the frailties of human memory or documents. You can seem a similar idea in modern-day attempts to devise a "10,000 year marking system" to ensure that nuclear waste sites remain uninhabited even long after the civilizations that created them have fallen. What other sorts of traditional sites might encode useful information? It's an open question, as is their actual utility. For all the effort the people of the past put into warning us, we still decided to build nuclear power facilities on land known to be prone to devastating tsunami.
Like Donkey Kong. Ted Cruz scored a surprising third-place finish in New Hampshire in yesterday’s first-in-the-nation primary, and now it looks like he’s going for a knockout before South Carolina. Cruz tweeted out the campaign’s latest web ad after his victory, one that takes aim at the winner, Donald Trump. The ad depicts children playing with their new “Donald Trump action figure,” and says what he does most is “pretend to be a Republican”: It’s a tour de force of counter-Trump arguments. The ad manages to mention Trump’s friendship with Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid (and adds in a shot at Anthony Weiner, too). Bailouts and Too Big To Fail get mentioned, but it’s Trump’s support for eminent domain that gets most of the attention: GIRL DOLL: Check out my house, Mr. Trump! TRUMP DOLL: That’s a lousy house! I’m gonna take your house with eminent domain — and park my limos there. KIDS: [while destroying dollhouse] Eminent domain! Eminent domain! VOICEOVER: We wouldn’t tolerate these values in our children. Why would we want them in a president? Ridicule can be a powerful tool in politics, and it might be the only kind of attack that will work on Trump. His supporters don’t appear to care much about Trump’s lack of policy substance and consistency; they like his attitude and his ability to shift the Overton window on acceptable debate. Trump has a thin skin, though, and Cruz does not. If he can force Trump to demonstrate that thin skin, it might undermine the perception of Trump’s toughness, while still appealing on policy grounds to other voters. This still holds some risk. Some voters might not appreciate the use of children to make these points (perhaps especially the reference to Anthony Weiner, considering the context). Cruz got some media heat for using his own kids in a Saturday Night Live skit, which was ludicrous, but this might reopen that debate. Trump and his supporters will complain that it’s a low blow, but since Trump himself often ridicules his opponents with personal attacks, that’s a non-starter. In fact, Cruz might be counting on that reaction to counter Trump’s recent attack on him as a “pussy,” to demonstrate that Trump might be suffering from a case of projection. It’s a good time for Cruz to go on the attack. It got lost in the John Kasich shuffle last night, but Cruz far outperformed expectations in New Hampshire, beating out Jeb Bush for third place. Combined with his win in Iowa, Cruz has significant momentum, and is aiming to take over the race by beating the other leading candidate rather than punching downward or sideways, as Team Jeb is doing. This ad could steal some of the post-primary buzz from Kasich, and set up a real fight in South Carolina.
Posted by Melissa Tan, April 14, 2014 Email Melissa Tan Twitter: @page1of1 Read this on your iPhone/iPad or Android device Fifteen Canadians are rostered for the sophomore season of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), which begins this weekend. Here’s a breakdown on where CanWNT members will be playing. BOSTON BREAKERS are the only team that selected a Canadian in the 2014 College Draft. • Making her professional debut is Nkem Ezurike, who was drafted eighth overall. She set University of Michigan records in goals (49) and points (118) and captained the team in her senior year. • Also starting her professional career is Chelsea Stewart. The Vanderbilt University (2009) and UCLA (2011-2013) midfielder was allocated to Boston in January. • Kaylyn Kyle was traded to Boston - after spending the inaugural season with the Seattle Reign - in exchange for Carmelina Moscato. Leading the league with the most CanWNT players are the CHICAGO RED STARS. • Karina LeBlanc, last season’s winningest goalkeeper (11 wins) and third in shutouts (7), was traded from the Portland Thorns when they acquired German international and reigning FIFA Women's World Player of the Year Nadine Angerer. • It was crucial for the Red Stars to fill the goalkeeping void left by Erin McLeod when she was dealt to the Houston Dash. In exchange, the Red Stars strengthened their frontline with Melissa Tancredi. Tancredi is returning to professional soccer in June as she completes chiropractic school. • Adriana Leon and Rachel Quon are back with the Red Stars. Leon spent the first half of the 2013 season with the Boston Breakers before being traded. Lake Forest, Illinois native Quon, Chicago’s second round draft pick last year, finally received FIFA clearance to play for Canada, making her national team debut at the Cyprus Women’s Cup against Finland in March. Expansion team HOUSTON DASH are hoping to see similar successes as the Portland Thorns, both of whom belong to MLS franchise owners (the Dynamo and Timbers, respectfully). • McLeod is serving as the captain in their first NWSL season. She’s the lone Canadian while Lauren Sesselmann is recovering from an ACL tear suffered during Cyprus Cup training. When national team allocation spots were announced in early January, Sesselmann was rumoured to be in negotiations with clubs overseas. Despite that, the Dash selected her from FC Kansas City in the Expansion Draft. FC KANSAS CITY and WESTERN NEW YORK FLASH are the only teams without Canadian players. • FC Kansas City were initially allocated Sesselmann and Desiree Scott, returnees from last season. As speculated, Scott ended up signing with Notts County Ladies of the FA Women’s Super League (FAWSL) in England. The Notts County Ladies begin their season April 16 against Arsenal Ladies FC. PORTLAND THORNS are looking to repeat in on-field performance and attendance records. • If a team only has one Canadian, it might as well be Christine Sinclair. While scoring 8 goals, Sinclair captained the Thorns to a third place finish in the 2013 regular season. They eventually stormed back to defeat Sky Blue FC and FC Kansas City in the playoffs before capturing the championship against the Western New York Flash. • The Thorns led the league with an average of 13,320 fans per game (also benefitted from a doubleheader with the Timbers) compared to the second highest overall average of 4,626 in Kansas. SEATTLE REIGN are trying to live up to high expectations. • They were projected to be top contenders last season, yet finished second last in the standings. With the misfortunes of missing their US allocated players for a large portion of or the entire season and being victims of a few arguably phantom penalty kicks, the Reign are certainly hoping to get the most out of their allocations. However, Moscato, who’s on her third NWSL team, won't be playing this weekend due to a “right foot stress reaction”. SKY BLUE FC: underdogs. • Despite playing last season in front of an average of 1,666 fans, the New Jersey based team did just enough to secure the fourth and final playoff spot. • Sophie Schmidt was second in the team’s scoring with 7 goals (and shares a dubious honour with Sesselmann as Canadians who were red carded in the NWSL). • Jonelle Filigno of Rutgers University will soon be playing her first professional match, but is bringing along a wealth of national team experience: 6 years since she debuted for Canada at the age of 17. WASHINGTON SPIRIT are battling their way out of the league basement. • After an abysmal 2013 with 3W-14L-5T, scoring the fewest goals (16) and allowing the most (39) in the league, the Spirit are looking to rewrite their history. Returning are Diana Matheson, the team’s top scorer (8 goals), and Robyn Gayle, both of whom interestingly enough lived in a local retirement community last season. Gayle is listed as “probable” for Sunday’s match due to a left quad strain. Canadians having little influence for the WESTERN NEW YORK FLASH. • In the inaugural season, rookies Bryanna McCarthy (West Virginia University) and Jodi-Ann Robinson (University of West Florida) merely played 1 and 13 matches, respectfully, for the Flash. Neither received allocation spots for 2014. • This year, a Canadian international will not be playing for the Flash as Selenia Iacchelli is rehabbing a patellar tear. As reported by Steven Sandor, Iacchelli wasn’t able to “pass the mandated physical and NWSL opted not to sign her for the 2014 season”. However, the 27-year-old midfielder is seeking playing options in England upon her recovery. Fourteen out of 16 allocated Canadians (plus one draftee for a total of 15) will be in action this season. The two allocation spots vacated by Iacchelli and Scott are not being reassigned. In addition to McCarthy and Robinson, other Canadians who previously played in the NWSL but are not returning include Melanie Booth (retired), Candace Chapman (waived by the Washington Spirit), Rhian Wilkinson (personal decision; she was also appointed to the FIFA Strategic Committee) and Emily Zurrer (signed with Jitex BK in Sweden’s Damallsvenskan). Fans from around the world can catch NWSL action in HD as the league announced that all regular season games will be streamed live on YouTube for free and will be archived. Links are available on NWSLSoccer.com and through each team’s YouTube account.
This article was written by a LIVEKINDLY contributor. If you wish to contact the author directly, please email us at hello@livekindly.co [et_pb_section bb_built=”1″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text] The Yulin Dog Meat Festival is an annual event held in China, where street vendors and restauranteurs partake in the sale of meat from dogs and other “domesticated” animals. In an effort to bring an end to the mass slaughter of these animals, the Yulin authorities have initiated a plan to prohibit the exchange of money in return for their meat, which is reportedly due to come into effect on 15 June this year (the festival taking place shortly after, on 21st). The Express has noted that according to government officials, “the event has no official backing” and have insisted that “it is staged by private businesses”. The ban is said to be strictly enforced, and anyone found participating in the sale of dog meat will be faced with arrest and potential fines of up to 100,000 yuan. Since the launch of this event in 2010, approximately 11,000 cats and dogs have been bred, killed and eaten each year. Participants of the event claim that eating dogs is part of an almost 500 year old Chinese and Korean tradition, and insist that the way in which the animals are killed is “humane”. But does “tradition” excuse immoral behaviour? What is “Humane Slaughter”, and can one really take part in the act of un-willful killing of another and deem it as humane? Their opposing definitions would suggest not and many animal rights activists would argue that the way Western cultures treat cows, pigs, chickens and sheep is of no difference to the dog-meat festival. In fact, the consumption of cows and pigs may even be seen as barbaric by other cultures. Peter Li (China Policy Specialist of the Humane Society International) said: “The Yulin dog meat festival is not over just yet, but if this news is true as we hope, it is a really big nail in the coffin for a gruesome event that has come to symbolize China’s crime-fuelled dog meat trade…. As opposition to this trade has grown within China and across the world, much focus has been placed on the Yulin festival and so it is significant politically that the authorities are taking the outrage to curb this cruelty seriously.” Ultimately though, this is undoubtably a step in the right direction and may help bring awareness and new perspectives in those who signed the petition against the festival yet continued to consume the bodies of other animals. [/et_pb_text][et_pb_social_media_follow _builder_version=”3.0.53″ saved_tabs=”all” link_shape=”circle” url_new_window=”on” follow_button=”on” background_layout=”light” global_module=”4820″] [et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”facebook” skype_action=”call” url=”https://www.facebook.com/livekindlyco/” bg_color=”#3b5998″] Facebook [/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”twitter” skype_action=”call” url=”https://twitter.com/livekindlyco” bg_color=”#00aced”] Twitter [/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”instagram” skype_action=”call” url=”https://www.instagram.com/livekindlyco/” bg_color=”#517fa4″] Instagram [/et_pb_social_media_follow_network] [/et_pb_social_media_follow][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
There are plenty of things about the way the brain works that remain a mystery to us. Where does a memory live? Do we actually have free will? Why do I sometimes worry that I’ve lost my phone because it’s not in my pocket even though it is clearly in my hand? While science doesn’t have answers to any of those questions yet, researchers have weighed in on a long-standing mystery of neuroscience, shedding light on how the brain disposes of waste and keeps itself clean. In doing so, they’ve discovered a whole new plumbing system that seems to shadow the arteries and blood vessels in the organ. Cleaning and disposal in the body is managed largely by the lymphatic system, which doesn’t make an appearance in the brain. That has had researchers pondering how the brain disposes of molecular waste material. Now they have their answer. Cerebrospinalfluid, or CSF, has long been a suspect in the brain’s garbage pickup, and it turns out that instinct was right. CSF filters through the brain collecting unneeded matter, and then drains out through tube-like structures that are wrapped around the blood cells in the brain. These structures operate under a surprising amount of pressure, flushing away more debris from the brain and doing it at a faster rate than anyone suspected. Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have dubbed the new series of brain drains the “glymphatic system” for its simliarity to the lymphatic system that filters and recycles blood plasma in the rest of the body and the fact that its operation seems to be governed by a class of brian cells known as glial cells. If you’re wondering how a whole system of plumbing in the brain could have gone undiscovered until now, you’re not alone. Because the glymphatic system only functions in intact, living brains, it’s not easy to find in traditional images of the brain, or even during dissections. However, using a recently developed imaging technique known as two photon microscopy, researchers were able to sneak a peek inside a working mouse brain to get a look at the CSF disposal process firsthand. Given how similar mice and human brains are, it’s a safe bet that daily trash pickup in our brains operates on the same principles. New information about how the brain disposes of waste and keeps itself in working order is far from an academic concern, though. The research could have implications for treating brain diseases like Alzheimer’s which are linked to buildup of damaging plaques around brain cells. (via Wired Science) Relevant to your interests
It's one thing to buy a Raspberry Pi for your own tinkering, but it's another when you need to buy a lot of them for your company -- you aren't going to tweak thousands of boards by hand. Thankfully, you don't have to. Raspberry Pi is teaming up with Element14 on a customization service that lets organizations order 3,000 or more specially-made boards at once. You can use the service to add or remove connections, rejigger the layout and otherwise get the exact mini computer you want. This is helpful if you're going to sell a Raspberry Pi-powered device (particularly important for appliances and other connected gadgets), but it should also be handy for education and other fields where an off-the-shelf board might not cut the mustard. It'll take up to three weeks before Element14 starts designing your custom board, let alone shipping it, but that could be a small price to pay if you're determined to get the right mix of circuitry.
Ten protesters were killed in Syria on Friday during anti-government protests across the country, the Al Arabiya television network reported. Arab media is reporting that protesters were killed in the cities of Daraa, Latakia, Homs, Kamishli, and in Damascus. Syrian anti-government protesters march in the northeastern town of Qamishli on April 1, 2011 AFP Witnesses said that Syrian security forces killed at least three protesters on Friday in the southern Damascus suburb of Douma. The three were among at least 2,000 people who chanted "Freedom. Freedom. One, one, one. The Syrian people are one," at Municipality Square in Douma when security forces opened fire to disperse them, they said. Syrian security forces and President Bashar al-Assad loyalists attacked protesters with batons as they left the Rifaii mosque in the Kfar Sousseh district of Damascus after Friday prayers, a witness said. Around 200 worshippers chanted slogans in support of the southern city of Daraa, where protests erupted against Baathist rule two weeks ago. At least six protesters were arrested and dozens were beaten as they made their way out of the mosque, the witness told Reuters by telephone from the mosque complex. Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter Email * Please enter a valid email address Sign up Please wait… Thank you for signing up. We've got more newsletters we think you'll find interesting. Click here Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. Try again Thank you, The email address you have provided is already registered. Close The arrests came after Syrian security forces stepped up their presence in the capital and across Syrian provinces Friday in anticipation of the planned demonstrations to honor those killed in two weeks of protests demanding reforms. In Daraa, hub of the Syrian protests, an eyewitness told The Associated Press up to 5,000 people took to the streets shouting "We want freedom! The blood of martyrs is not cheap!" Syrian activists called through social network sites for massive demonstrations following Friday midday prayers across the nation. They have dubbed the protests "Friday of Martyrs" in reference to more than 70 people who died in the government crackdown on protesters. The protests erupted March 18 in the impoverished and drought-stricken south and spread quickly to other areas. President Bashar Assad dashed expectations he would announce sweeping reforms this week and instead blamed the popular fury that has gripped Syria on a foreign conspiracy. He set up committees on Thursday to investigate the civilian deaths and the possibility of replacing decades-old emergency laws. The wave of protests has presented the 45-year-old leader with the gravest challenge since he inherited power 11 years ago from his father, taking the helm of one of the Middle East's most authoritarian regimes. Scores of plainclothes security agents deployed Friday in Damascus near the historic Umayyad mosque, where only last week, pro- and anti-government crowds clashed, hitting each other with leather belts. As people began leaving the mosque earlier Friday, a crowd of about 300 people carrying Syrian flags and pictures of Assad broke out into clapping and chants of "Allah, Syria, Bashar!" Security forces made no attempt to stop them. An eyewitness in the restive southern city of Daraa said troops were surrounding the city in an effort to head off planned protests.
Even though it is barely a month old, Pokemon GO has been taking the world by storm—for better and for worse. One recent video from an otherwise quiet Minnesota city has certainly highlighted the “worse” category. Veterans Memorial Park in Winona, Minnesota is a wide open, tranquil green space where area residents could enjoy a day in the sun and also reflect on local veterans’ contributions to the U.S. Armed Forces. Once Pokemon GO launched, however, it became one of the city’s unexpected hotspots of gaming activity, with players of all ages congregating on the grass hoping to catch and battle Pokemon while at the same time replenishing their item counts. This didn’t seem to sit so well with a handful of local Vietnam War veterans, who apparently didn’t take kindly to the fact that the memorial park was being taken over by gamers 40 years their junior congregating to capture an Eevee. In a profanity-laden video shot by YouTube user Brxdon, we see the two generations clash—sometimes physically—over a Pokemon Go event held at the park. Since its July 29 upload, the video has been viewed over 65,000 times and has made the front page of Reddit’s r/videos subreddit. Tensions got just as heated in the respective sites’ comments sections, with some users vehemently defending the players and others just as agitated as the grizzled war veterans. “This is disrespectful,” wrote YouTube user Connor Guyman, simply. “Those veterans died for those kids right to play Pokemon Go wherever they want. Also they should be HAPPY that they are visiting the memorial, I have never considered visiting and I’m sure these kids haven’t either before the game. Seriously, we show reverence by being alive, not by treating a piece of land like a holy site,” wrote redditor SC_Druggie. If one city ordinance passes this week, however, both the veterans and players alike may no longer be using the park as an impromptu battleground—in real life or otherwise. According to the Winona Daily News, a hearing is scheduled for August 1 that would limit Pokemon GO activity in the park. Additionally, the game’s creators themselves are actively working on an ability for unwilling Pokemon GO locations, be they PokeStops or otherwise, to “opt-out” of the game, leaving them of little interest to the player passing by staring down at their phone.
By Caleb Fenton - It’s widely agreed in the industry that simple byte signatures aren’t enough to reliably detect malware anymore. Instead, modern anti-virus products heavily rely on some combination of static and dynamic analysis to feed features into predictive models which determine if a particular file is malicious or not. Until recently, we’ve been entirely focused on dynamic or behavioral analysis, rather than static or file-based analysis because we believe dynamic has the most potential long term and is better at detecting novel and unknown threats. Some time ago, we started researching and developing a static-based anti-virus feature and now we’re starting to roll it out to customers. In this post, I’m going to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of static analysis and give an overview of how we use machine learning and static feature extraction to determine if a file is malicious. Strengths and Weaknesses of Static Detection Generally, dynamic analysis is watching what a program does when it’s executed and static analysis is examining what a file looks like when it’s not running. Detecting malware using dynamic analysis involves heavily instrumenting the operating system and watching programs as they run for suspicious or malicious behaviors and stopping them (i.e. run it and see what it does). Static analysis, on the other hand, just looks at the file itself and tries to extract information about the structure and data in the file. Unfortunately, many free tools exist which malware authors use to pack, encrypt, and obfuscate a file’s data and code. However, it’s not possible to entirely encrypt an executable’s structure since it must be interpreted by the operating system. This structure is fairly easy to parse and contains information about how the program was created and how it may behave. For example, you may be able to determine when the program was compiled, what compiler was used, and what API calls it might make. You can see from the picture below the structure that Microsoft’s Portable Executable format contains a great deal of information: One of the major benefits of static-based detection is that it can be performed before the file is executed (or pre-execution). This is obviously useful because it’s much easier to remediate malware if it’s never allowed to execute. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A corollary of this benefit is that even corrupt and malformed executables which won’t execute can still be detected statically. Of course, any sort of detection which is mostly based on behavioral analysis will fail to detect these same samples because they don’t generate any behavior. It’s questionable if these types of files should even be considered malicious. Even still, there may be some value in detecting and removing malware which can’t actually harm you simply because it brings peace of mind and suits existing policies and procedures. Even if malware can execute, it’s often the case that it is impotent because vital command and control (C&C) servers are quickly taken down after initial discovery. Many malware families rely on instructions or additional payloads from C&C servers to operate and thus actually behave maliciously. As with corrupt files which fail to execute, it can be argued that these files are only nominally malicious, but removing them is still desirable because it removes a potential source of uncertainty to the standard operating environment. As for disadvantages of static detection, it’s more difficult to detect completely new and novel threats that are sufficiently unlike any files you’ve seen previously. One reason for this is that it’s much easier to manipulate the structure of an executable than it is to alter the behavior. Consider the behavior of ransomware. A legitimate app can be modified in a way such that it doesn’t appear to be malicious, yet it acts like a ransomware. If you’re just looking at file structure, you’ll know about what functions it imports, but you won’t know if or when they’re called or in what order. Since most of the app’s code and structure is legitimate, it may be hard to detect particular file depending on the sophistication of your static analysis. However, even with simple dynamic analysis, you’ll see a program opening many files, calling cryptography functions, writing new files, and deleting existing files soon after starting. This behavior looks highly suspicious and is mostly endemic to ransomware. In summary, the advantages of static detection are: can be performed pre-execution works on samples with dead C&C servers works on invalid executables computationally inexpensive While the major disadvantages are: doesn’t reliably determine behavior doesn’t detect what happens in memory less likely to detect novel threats easier to develop counter-measures Machine Learning Overview Machine learning is a vast and ever-changing field and what I’ll be describing here is generally concerned with how machine learning applies to the anti-virus industry and specifically how we are using it to predict if a file is malicious or benign. Creating a predictive model starts with collecting a huge number and variety of malicious and benign files. Then, features are extracted from each file along with the file’s label (e.g. malicious or benign). Finally, the model is trained by feeding all of these features to it and allowing it to crunch the numbers and find patterns and clusters in the data. Depending on how good your hardware is, this may take many hours or days. In this way, when the features of a file with an unknown label are presented to the model, it can return a confidence score of how similar these features are to those of the malicious and benign sets. After we create the model, we can deploy it to our customers and our agent can use it to scan any new files it sees: For various reasons which I’ll describe below, we settled on using a Random Forest for our model. Random forests are almost unreasonably effective and work decently well out of the box without much tuning, even with very large numbers of features. To help illustrate how random forests work, I have contrived an absurd example involving feline and canine husbandry that I hope makes up for it’s lack of rigorous math with humor and pictures. Let’s say you own a vast ranch full of cats and dogs and you’ve built a robot which will help you take care of all of them. The robot needs to be able to determine if an animal is a cat or a dog so it knows which protocol to use when treating the animal. Of course, anyone who’s owned or operated a cat knows they are special snowflakes which require slightly different handling than dogs. Now, let’s stipulate the robot can extract the following features from an animal using various tactical and visual sensors: number of legs covered in fur sometimes goes outdoors loves you lives outdoors exclusively has sharp teeth sometimes wears a leash falls asleep in odd places attacks without warning excellent sense of smell You’ll notice that features #1 and #2 are both always true for all animals, assuming they’re healthy and normal. These features do not add any useful information so random forests will ignore them. To train your random forest, you’ll first need to extract the features for each animal on your bizarre ranch and record them in something like a spreadsheet: # number of legs covered in fur sometimes goes outdoors loves you … 1 4 1 1 1 … 2 4 1 0 0 … 3 4 1 1 0 … 4 4 1 0 1 … 5 4 1 1 1 … And for each row of features, another spreadsheet contains the label (cat or dog) for that animal: # label 1 dog 2 cat 3 cat 4 cat 5 dog The process of training a random forest is really a process of creating many decision trees where each node in the tree represents an if-else of some feature value. In a random forest, the features for each decision tree are determined somewhat randomly, but in this example every feature is used for simplicity. As the decision tree is trained, each row of features is run through the decision tree by following all of the conditionals. The leaves of the tree contain the probabilities that a particular label would reach that particular leaf. Here’s an example decision tree of the above features. The leaves contain two probabilities one for C (cat) and one for D (dog). One way of computing the total score is to run the features through each decision tree in the forest and average the scores together. To complete the analogy between real life and this animal ranch, you can always invest more time in developing ways of extracting more meaningful features to improve the accuracy your model. For example, you may intuit that the following features are useful: likes to go outside learns new tricks easily loves you only when it’s convenient assumes you’ve abandoned it forever whenever you leave Unfortunately, these features are much more complex and will require a lot of additional effort to extract. So, you keep a list of all the fancy features you’d like to have and save them for version 2.0. Extracting and Selecting Features We wanted to detect Windows executable malware so we started by experimenting with pefile which is a library for parsing Portable Executables. It gave us a good number of features. For example, this is the output of analyzing kernel32.dll. We scanned each file to produce a large set of raw features. Some features had values which were strings, such as section names ( .text , CODE , .bss , etc.), while others were either a floating point number (entropy), or were binary (0 or 1). Many learning algorithms only work with features which have numeric values. If you want to use strings, you have to vectorize your input data. Vectorization converts your raw features, which may include strings, into a nice, clean, easily-machine-readable bit vector. For example, this is a list of raw features which includes entropy, file size, and strings of PE section names: sha256 features 34973274ccef6ab4dfaaf86599792fa9c3fe4689 sect0: ‘.text’, sect1: ‘.data’, entropy: 3.1415926, size: 1234 aa6c73ce643102b45ed60d462cfc8d9eb771677a sect0: ‘CODE’, sect1: ‘.data’, entropy: 2.71828, size: 256 c8fed00eb2e87f1cee8e90ebbe870c190ac3848c sect0: ‘.bss’, sect1: ‘.text’, entropy: 1.6180339, size: 512 After processing, this is the bit vector or feature matrix: sha256 sect0_.text sect0_CODE sect0_.bss sect1_.data sect1_.text entropy size 34973274ccef6ab4dfaaf86599792fa9c3fe4689 1 0 0 1 0 3.1415926 1234 aa6c73ce643102b45ed60d462cfc8d9eb771677a 0 1 0 1 0 2.71828 256 c8fed00eb2e87f1cee8e90ebbe870c190ac3848c 0 0 1 0 1 1.6180339 512 Each column represents a feature or a dimension. As you can see, the original number of raw features (excluding sha256 ) is only sect0 , sect1 , entropy and size , but the number of dimensions in the feature matrix is 7. In our case, we started with about 60,000 different raw features but when vectorized the number of dimensions grew to over 1,000,000. Many machine learning and clustering algorithms work by determining spacial relationships between data points. Having many dimensions increases the noise and complexity of the data set (you try and visualize 1,000,000 dimensions!) and it’s usually good to reduce the number of dimensions using principal component analysis (PCA), feature agglomeration, and feature selection. These steps can improve both training time and predictive accuracy because there’s less noise in the training data. PCA works by projecting a high dimensional graph of the features on to a lower dimensional space in a way that preserves the most information possible for a given number of dimensions. For a much better and more detailed explanation, check out Kernel tricks and nonlinear dimensionality reduction via RBF kernel PCA. Feature agglomeration works by clustering highly correlated features together. Feature selection is often done by training a model with all features and scoring the usefulness of each feature. In subsequent trainings, you can drop features which are not deemed useful enough. All of these require a lot of experimentation and tuning to get right. We experimented with PCA and feature agglomeration but we got the best test results by only using only feature selection. Before performing feature selection, we removed all invariant features or features that were the same for every sample. Then, we calculated the ANOVA F-value for each feature and dropped all features below some threshold. We determined the optimal threshold by inspecting the F-values and finding that a sizable number of features were above a certain level and most features were far below that level. In the end, we had a feature matrix with about 31,000 features. As we continue to develop our static detection engine, we’ll have to continue to collect new malicious and benign samples. As our sample set grows, so to does training time. Many files are highly similar, so it will eventually become important for us to experiment with different feature selection methods that can be used for quick and accurate sample clustering. By using clustering, we’ll be able to limit the size of our training set without negatively affecting sample diversity. We want the most diverse set possible so that our model remains accurate even when used on files we have never seen before. Choosing and Tuning a Model We experimented with many different models for the original proof of concept. Because of the high number of dimensions, or perhaps of limitations of the library some other mysterious reason we couldn’t fathom, models which worked by determining decision boundaries on the vector space such as Linear SVM and Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP) neural networks performed badly. Eventually, we settled on decision trees even though I fought very hard to avoid using decision trees because I thought they were boring and not cool and I wanted to use something hip and flashy that sounded smart when I talked about it to my friends. But despite this, we went with decision tree based models and eventually settled on random forest which is just an ensemble of decision trees. After some initial promising results with random forests, we needed to determine the best hyper parameters for training. The parameters we focused most of our attention on are: number of estimators (decision trees) quality criterion maximum features per split minimum samples per split maximum tree depth out of bag scoring It’s impossible to know a priori the best way to tune a learning model. The only way to know for sure is by trying every permutation of certain parameters. This technique is called grid searching. In our case, we simply gave a range for each of the above parameters for building a random forest and ran a grid search for a few days. Each iteration of the grid search trained a random forest using all of the input data from our sample corpus and then did a fast, 3 fold cross validation and recorded the accuracy. Then, we plotted the results to see how well the features performed at different values and to predict how one feature might be better if we continued tuning it beyond what we initially set as the bounds of the grid search. Here’s what one of the graphs looked like: The y-axis is model accuracy and the x-axis is the number of estimators. If you have very good eyesight or you expand the image, you can see that the green circle line performs the best. This line represents max_features of 0.3, min_sample_split of 1, and oob_score of True. At around 255 estimators, it performed the best, but as the number of estimators was increased, other parameters eventually overtook and eventually out-performed it. We eventually settled on the orange octagon ( max_features =0.3, min_samples_split =4, oob_score =False). In case you’re curious, here is the code for generating the above graph: graph_gridsearch.py. There is already ample research on machine learning for use in the anti-virus industry. Reviewing existing literature helped me understand which features and models were most likely to work well and, most importantly, build some intuition as to why they would work. However, in my opinion, there are two major caveats to keep in mind when reading academic studies: sample selection and test scores vs real world scores. With regards to sample selection, many studies used fewer than 100,000 samples and there often isn’t a discussion of the diversity or freshness of the sample set. I don’t think this is due to ignorance or laziness but it’s a lot of extra work and the consequences of a small, stale sample set are subtle and not felt strongly until you arm your model with the ability to delete files and deploy it on thousands of machines in the real world. Similarly, many papers cited test results with model accuracies exceeding 99.9% accuracy–meaning false negatives and false positives together were less than 0.1%. When evaluating our own models with the standard 10 fold cross validation we also had similar scores. However, if we downloaded several thousand new malicious and benign files which had not been trained on, our model accuracy would drop by 0.5-5%. This means you shouldn’t be overly impressed by cross validation scores and you must also test against samples from various sources not in the training set. We solved this issue by simply increasing our training set size and diversity. Conclusion I hope you’ve learned something reading this and that you have a better understanding of machine learning in general and how it applies to the anti-virus industry. I believe that this new static-based detection feature nicely compliments our dynamic engine and our customers will be better protected with it.
Judiciary Operations Continue After Funding Extension is Granted - Wednesday, January 30, 2019 A new continuing resolution that was signed into law last Friday will fund the Judiciary's fiscal year 2019 operations through Feb. 15. Federal courts had sustained funded operations, since the partial shutdown began in December, using a multi-pronged strategy of deferring non-critical operating costs and utilizing court filing fees and other available balances. The Judiciary had expected to run out of money on Feb. 1, and officials are studying how long funded operations could continue if another shutdown occurs after Feb. 15. Similar to how courts operated from Oct. 1, 2018, through Dec. 21, 2018, courts have been advised to limit obligations to those necessary to carry out their mission and maintain current operations. Payments to lawyers appointed to represent clients under the Criminal Justice Act, which were suspended beginning Dec. 24, 2018, will resume. General Order 2019-1: In Re First Step Act of 2018 Retroactive Application of Fair Sentencing Act - Monday, January 14, 2019 Pursuant to the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act, Title 18, U.S.C. § 3006A(a)(1) and (c), the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Colorado is hereby appointed to provide an initial advisement of the application of the First Step Act to all defendants convicted in this District who may be eligible for retroactive relief under Section 404 of the Act, and may pursue relief on behalf of eligible defendants. GO 2019-1 is available HERE. Biennial $50 Fee Update - Monday, December 31, 2018 Beginning Monday, Oct. 1, 2018 through Monday, Dec. 31, 2018 AND EXTENDED THROUGH JAN. 31, 2019, the U.S. District Court will begin collecting a $50.00 fee from all USDC members admitted before Oct. 1 (this includes US Bankruptcy Court bar members) that will be imposed every two years. The fee will be used to fund the Federal Pro Se Clinic (see Aug. 16, 2018 Press Release). Please note that the fee is waived for attorneys employed by the United States government and serving in a legal capacity for it. For more information on how to pay the fee, how to determine if you are a bar member, or other bar membership matters, visit the Attorney Services Portal page of this website. Notice - Thursday, December 06, 2018 Effective January 1, 2019 The Clerk’s Office will only accept up to $5.00 in loose or rolled coins for payment of fees related to federal cases or any other office business.
May used the Human Rights Convention she scorned as a means to halt the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the US - while allowing that of Talha Ahsan. Both had Asperger’s Syndrome. Both were charged of roughly the same crime. But Ahsan was a Muslim Today, we will see the UK’s first female Prime Minister in the 26 years since Margaret Thatcher. Perhaps this is why she was referred to, in one tongue-in-cheek article circulating online, as Thatcher’s final Horcrux. The damage May has done to the liberal freedoms of Muslims in the UK, after all, could only beg a Voldemort-like comparison. Few politicians have excelled at damaging entire communities as Theresa May has. While paying lip service to the “promotion of British values” as a strategy to tackle extremism, May failed to recognise the irony of the draconian Counter Terrorism and Security Bill 2015. The policies that arose from this bill taped shut the mouths of Muslim university students to voice their opinions in lectures and seminars for fear of being deemed extremist, making a mockery of that “British value” of freedom of speech. It became clear soon after that the Bill gives people permission to be Islamophobic, framing as it does terrorism as a “Muslim problem”. Although it now humorously forgoes common sense to the extent that nursery age kids are suspected to have radical views (one four-year-old boy was almost referred to a counter-extremism programme, according to his mother, because he drew a cucumber that teachers mistook for a “cooker bomb”) the effects of CTS Bill remain chilling. It is the mandatory presence of Prevent officers in public spaces, acting effectively as spies, which alienates Muslims, rather than anything to do with their religion. May claims that she has “strengthened the response” to terrorism since becoming Home Secretary, resulting in a safer country for everyone, but she really just made fewer British Muslims identify as culturally British. One major success of her candidacy as leader of the Conservative Party was the deportation of Abu Qatada, a move almost blocked by the Human Rights Convention. In that case, May was scornful of the meddling HRC. Strange, then, that she used the Human Rights Convention as a means to halt the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the US - while allowing that of Talha Ahsan. Both had Asperger’s Syndrome. Both were charged of roughly the same crime. The difference was that Talha Ahsan is a Muslim. In doing this, she gave us a clear message: there is one rule for white people in Theresa May’s Britain, and another for the Muslims that reside there. As she aims to prove herself the Iron Lady of modern day Britain, I fear that Theresa May’s track record as Home Secretary will result in the extended isolation and denigration of the British Muslim community. Awarded the Islamophobe of the Year award by the Islamic Human Rights Commission in 2015, her rise to prime ministerial power is hardly cause for celebration if you’re a British Muslim like me. It’s starkly evident that May’s actions as Home Secretary created an atmosphere where hatred and violence toward Muslims became a social norm. When it was announced that she was to become Prime Minister by default, I pictured 3 million British Muslims on an iceberg being violently prodded by May to move further away from their faith. We used to think “British Muslim” wasn’t a contradiction in terms. Now we fear the two words can never seem compatible in the eyes of the white British public or, increasingly, in the eyes of the Muslim community.
Before the World Cup draw on Friday, there was reason to suspect that Russia would get off easy. As the host country, it was slotted into Pot 1, which made it impossible for them to be grouped with a powerhouse like Brazil or Germany. But it looks like the Russians also had a little luck on their side. In fact, by one metric, Russia’s Group A is the weakest group in modern World Cup history. Based on Elo ratings — a measure of a team’s quality that takes into account factors such margin of victory, game importance and game location — Russia’s group with Uruguay, Egypt and Saudi Arabia has an average rating of 1720, which is 98 points worse than the average of all World Cup teams. That’s the largest gap between group strength and the World Cup average for any group in the World Cup since the expansion to the modern format in 1986. Luck of the draw? The easiest groups in expanded World Cup history based on the difference between average Elo rating of group and the average of the tournament, 1986-2018 YEAR GROUP TEAM 1 TEAM 2 TEAM 3 TEAM 4 AVG. ELO RATING DIFF. FROM TOURNAMENT AVG. 2018 A Saudi Arabia Egypt Russia Uruguay 1720 -97.8 2014 H Algeria Belgium South Korea Russia 1734 -92.0 2010 F Paraguay Italy Slovakia New Zealand 1713 -66.9 2006 G France Switzerland South Korea Togo 1732 -57.2 2002 B Paraguay South Africa Spain Slovenia 1749 -53.0 1998 B Austria Cameroon Chile Italy 1747 -52.3 2002 C Brazil Turkey China Costa Rica 1750 -51.8 1986 B Belgium Mexico Iraq Paraguay 1757 -45.0 2006 H Saudi Arabia Tunisia Ukraine Spain 1744 -44.7 1994 D Argentina Greece Nigeria Bulgaria 1757 -43.6 The Russians avoided a whammy each time a pingpong ball was selected. After Uruguay joined them as the group’s Pot 2 team — Uruguay is middle of the pack, with an 1849 Elo rating — things really started going Russia’s way. Egypt, which has the second-weakest Elo of any team in Pot 3, was drawn, and the group was rounded out with Saudi Arabia, which has the lowest Elo in the field of 32. Compared with all of the potential ways Russia’s draw could have played out, its group ended up being among the easiest 2.2 percent of all possible combinations, according to the average Elo rating of its members. (Of course, this is even better news for Uruguay, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, because they get to face Russia — the worst Pot 1 team by a wide margin — in addition to one another.) While Group A is the easiest when compared to the 2018 World Cup field, it actually doesn’t hold the claim for lowest raw score among all groups since 1986. That distinction belongs to Group F in 2010, which featured the defending champion Italy, Slovakia, Paraguay and New Zealand. No team from this group would make it past the quarterfinals. That said, Russia should stroll into the knockout stage. Indeed, FiveThirtyEight is giving Russia a 74 percent chance of advancing that far, with Uruguay followed closely behind with a 72 percent chance of reaching the knockouts. Using Elo averages, no group in this next World Cup cracks the top 10 most difficult since 1986, but all are obviously tougher than Group A. Here’s a look at which teams should advance from each: Group B is projected to be the strongest in the tournament, according to FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index, and will be headlined by an early game between old rivals Portugal and Spain, which will face off for just the second time at a World Cup. The Iberian Peninsula neighbors met for the first time in 2010, when the Spaniards won 1-0 on their way to the country’s first ever World Cup victory. And the duo could meet again on the grandest stage of them all: They have the highest combined chance of making the final of any two teams in the same group. Powerhouse France, coming off a loss in the finals of the 2016 European Championship to Portugal, will be looking to move through and claim its second ever World Cup trophy. Peru owns a 47 percent chance to make its second-ever knockout stage appearance and first since being defeated by Pelé’s Brazil in Mexico in 1970. After scraping through the qualifying stages, Argentina is the clear favorite in Group D, with a 74 percent chance of advancing. But all eyes will be on Iceland, which famously beat England in the 2016 Euros on their way to the quarterfinals, to see if the country of just 330,000 people can go on another magical run. And they may be ready to shock the world again: Iceland’s chance of advancing to the knockout stage is just 33 percent, which will likely become even smaller after they face the Argentines in its first game. After its heartbreaking 7-1 defeat by Germany in front of its home fans in the 2014 World Cup semifinals, Brazil will be out for revenge in Russia. The way the tournament’s bracket is set up, Brazil and Germany could be on a collision course to meet in the final if they both win their respective groups. As it stands, Brazil and Germany have the highest and third-highest chances of making the final in 2018. Group F is in the mix for being this tournament’s “Group of Death” as reigning champions Germany will be joined by Mexico and Sweden. The Mexicans’ and Swedes’ qualifying chances are separated by just 3 percentage points, which is the smallest difference of any teams drawn out of Pots 2 and 3 in the same group. Rounding out the group is South Korea, which famously made it all the way to the semifinals in 2002, when they co-hosted the tournament, and currently have the third-worst SPI rating of any team traveling to Russia. The prize for second place in Group F? A possible date with Brazil in the Round of 16. Good luck. Belgium and England will be extremely pleased with how the draw turned out for them, as they’re combined chances of making it out of the group stages are the highest of any two teams in the same group. What’s more, they don’t play each other until the final round of group-stage matches, so depending on how they fare against Tunisia and Panama, the Belgians and English could have already qualified by the time they meet. The Polish could be the most likely team from Pot 1 to fail to qualify for the knockout stage, as they currently have the second-lowest SPI rating of any team from Pot 1. They’ll be joined by Colombia and Japan, which have a 70 percent and 49 percent chance of advancing to the knockout stage, respectively. This means that Group H is the only group that has three teams with at least a 49 percent chance of making it out of the group stage. With the Colombians ranked the ninth-best team in the tournament and the Japanese being the highest-ranked team of any from Pot 4, Poland faces one of the toughest tests of teams from Pot 1. Additional contributions from Neil Paine and Dean Strachan. CORRECTION (Dec. 4, 10:50 a.m.): A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Colombia’s and Japan’s chances of making it to the knockout stage of the 2018 World Cup were 2 percentage points apart. Poland’s and Japan’s are 2 percentage points apart.
By Paul Bremmer Ten states now have taken the first step toward limiting the power of the federal government. Officials from Arizona, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Carolina, Virginia and Wyoming have filed resolutions calling for a convention of states that would propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution with the express purpose of limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government. Article V of the Constitution gives the states the power to call such a convention. The article reads, in part: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.” Mark Meckler, president of Citizens for Self-Governance, co-founded CSG’s Convention of States Project, which is currently working to convince the necessary 34 state legislatures to pass bills calling for a convention of states. As long as all of the applying states call for a convention to deal with the same issue, Congress must call the convention into session. Meckler said that, in addition to the 10 states that have already filed, he expects another 15 to 20 states to file resolutions for a convention in the next few weeks. “We will have legislation introduced in enough states to get to 34,” Meckler said. He made it clear that filing a resolution is not enough; a state legislature must vote to pass it in order to make it official. CSG is employing a grassroots-based strategy to gain support for a convention. The organization is trying to build a political operation in at least 40 states, getting 100 people to volunteer in at least three-quarters of each state’s legislative districts. The organization reported just days ago that volunteers had submitted convention of states petitions in 95 percent of all state house districts in the U.S. Meckler said the need for the states to limit federal power did not suddenly arise overnight. He believes a convention like this should have been held years ago. But he thinks people are only now beginning to understand the power that Article V gives the states. “Frankly, most people just didn’t understand that the sovereign citizen had retained that power in the Constitution, and so I think that knowledge of the power that the people have under Article V is just now reaching critical mass,” Meckler said. Randy Barnett, professor of legal theory and director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, said it’s about time for a convention of the states. “I think it’s one of the means that the Founders gave us to constrain the powers of the federal government, which is not about to constrain itself,” he said. Get your own copy of the U.S. Constitution, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution,” and more at the WND Superstore. Barnett said if the states can agree to have a convention, they should be able to agree on some amendments as well. The professor mentioned two things he would like the convention to do – impose term limits and give states the power to repeal federal laws. “There are a lot of good ideas that have been circulated, but it’s going to be a give-and-take like all deliberative assemblies are,” Barnett said. Meckler agrees that a convention would be able to agree on certain fundamental reforms that members of both parties support. “Contrary to what the politicians pitch us on, and what the media tends to pitch us on generally, the nation is not as divided as they would like us to believe,” Meckler said. He mentioned three amendments that he believes the convention would agree on. The first is term limits for congressmen and senators, the second was a balanced budget amendment, and the third was a single subject amendment, which would mandate that every bill Congress passes contain only a single subject. He emphasized that all three of those proposals have broad bipartisan support from the American public. “So I think what comes out of a convention are things that are what I would describe as very mainstream, non-radical, that the vast majority of Americans will agree upon,” Meckler said. Still, Meckler realizes some people will oppose a convention of the states. The John Birch Society, for example, challenged the wisdom of an Article V convention in a series of 16 questions. But Meckler is untroubled by the opposition so far. “We’ve met some resistance, but it’s so far relatively minimal, and the resistance has come from folks who love the Constitution and some folks who mistakenly believe that somehow this opens Pandora’s Box,” he said. Meckler said he has not yet faced any resistance from establishment politicians in Washington. However, he thinks that’s only because they aren’t paying attention to his movement yet. “I think that pushback from the establishment will come, because they like the perks and the benefits of centralized power, and we’re trying to disperse that power back to the people where it belongs,” he said. If the states do end up calling a convention, the historical weight of the moment will not be lost on Meckler. It would be the first time the states had ever exercised their right under Article V to call a convention to amend the Constitution. “This is a tool that was given to us in 1787 in the Constitutional Convention, and it was literally drafted for moments such as this, when the American public felt that the federal government had exceeded the bounds that were intentionally placed upon it by the founders,” Meckler said. He continued, “And we’ve never used it before, which is really extraordinary. And so to use it for the first time, to actually call a convention of states, I would say it’s in the top tier of historic moments in American constitutional history.” Get your own copy of the U.S. Constitution, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution,” and more at the WND Superstore.
Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon has ordered a special commission to oversee an "appropriate" dress code for both men and women. This decision followed his Mother's Day speech in March in which criticised women for wearing "foreign" black clothing. The president was referring to the black Islamic dress that has become increasingly popular in Tajikistan despite his previous condemnations of it. His first criticism was voiced in 2015 after which a campaign against the hijab began with heads of institutions demanding that their employees not appear at work wearing one. Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic with a population of about 8 million, is a predominantly Muslim nation. Rahmon, himself a Muslim by upbringing, is secular and has tried to curtail religious freedoms by linking religiosity to extremism. OPINION: Tajikistan: The success story that failed The measure should, therefore, be seen in the context of the president's attempts at tightening the noose on the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), which he has almost completely dismantled over the past five years. President Rahmon, who has been in power since 1992, has grown increasingly authoritarian over the years, limiting private life and political expression in the Central Asian republic. "Wearing the hijab and blindly copying a culture that is foreign to us is not the sign of having high moral and ethical standards for women," the president said back in 2015. The hijab is a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion. The new commission is tasked with combating this "alien" culture. It will design clothes "taking into consideration Tajik traditions" and "modern" life, the Culture Minister Shamsuddin Omurbekzoda has said. The ministry is preparing samples of national women's clothing, "in order to avoid wearing foreign clothes", he said. "No one knows the people who hide behind these covers," said the minister, calling women in black religious dress "imitators of alien fashion". The Tajik president's nervous disposition toward clothing is the result of increasing religiosity among the general population after the breakup of the Soviet Union. New mosques have been built attracting more people for prayer, more Islamic study groups have appeared and more women and men have donned Islamic-style dress. At the same time, Islamist armed groups have been active in the border areas of Tajikistan and Afghanistan. In 2015, Russia even suggesting sending Russian border guards to take control of Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan to fend off "militants and terrorists". The political message of a dress code is quite clear. It is to control an important element of people's private lives and impose a set of centrally designed uniforms on the masses. But research by the British think-tank, Chatham House, into Central Asian Muslim radicalisation has shown that "there is little or no evidence of significant levels of Islamic extremism and political violence in Central Asia". If there is, it is isolated, localised and inhibited by secularisation. The paper argues that claims about general Muslim radicalisation in the region constitute a myth not supported by evidence. "The myth acts as a legitimating device for the militant secularism of weak regimes," the paper says. And indeed the repressive measures taken by Tajikistan's president demonstrate that his secularism could be more dangerous than violent extremism. The terms used in official speeches by the president and the culture minister are, moreover, contradictory, controversial and at times outright insulting. To start with, it is unclear how the clothes could at once be in line with Tajik "traditions" and yet "modern". In the Soviet era, tradition referred mainly to Islam. It was held by most political scientists that tradition diminished as modernisation and secularisation gradually spread. It is also not clear what is meant by "traditional" clothes. With over 90 percent of the population being Muslim, traditions have always been predominantly influenced by Islamic culture in any case. Even the mighty Soviet machinery of control and secularisation did not deter the people from carrying on their Islamic traditions. READ MORE: Tajikistan - Indefinite autocracy takes hold In his speech, the culture minister clarifies that what he means by "alien" is "Arab". That doesn't help either, since it is not clear how he makes a distinction between Islamic culture and Arab culture. Then he uses another ironic excuse saying the Islamic hijab is not suited to the hot climate of Tajikistan and it is, therefore, "unhygienic". The political message of a dress code, however, is quite clear. It is to control an important element of people's private lives and impose a set of centrally designed uniforms on the masses. We've seen it in many other states, new and old, Islamic and non-Islamic, but always authoritarian. While the dress code in Iran, for example, specified by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance orders women to wear full Islamic cover including scarves of pre-defined length and colour, the dress code in Tajikistan wants to remove all that and replace it with a "traditional" uniform. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, the morality police would ensure that women followed the dress code, in Tajikistan, the new commission will enforce "modern" Tajik fashion. The dress code in Tajikistan is the last in a long line of measures to impose secular appearances. "The Almighty is known by the mind and worshipped in his heart, not by the garment, satr, hijab, turban and beard," the Tajik president has said. That may be plausible to some, but then it could be regarded as insulting to those who choose the Islamic style. And the insults are at times fabricated to justify the forced secularisation. Eurasianet reported that Tajik official TV aired a programme in which women wearing the hijab were portrayed as sex workers, saying they earned more money by wearing the full Islamic cover. In authoritarian states, individual freedoms are subordinate to the centralised power, which is maintained by political repression and the exclusion of potential challengers. READ MORE: Trouble in Tajikistan The aim in Tajikistan is clearly the exclusion of IRPT, whose activity has been banned and whose members are all in prison or in exile. The 1997 peace deal between President Rahmon and IRPT promised the opposition 30 percent of ministerial posts. This year, for the first time, the party has no representation in parliament. It could be argued that IRPT has posed no security threat. True that its members have gone against some clauses of the peace agreement by making political statements in mosques and encouraging people to guard their Islamic traditions, but that's a far cry from actually posing a threat or having a connection to militant groups. And on the other end of the scale, President Rahmon has used all state institutions to turn his tenure from five years to life and turn his presidency into a hereditary monarchy in which his son is the next in line. His wish to secularise Tajikistan will, however, have little or no impact unless the political process connects with the public. After 25 years in power, he has failed to create any real change in the hearts and minds of the people or in the fabric of the society. Massoumeh Torfeh is the former director of strategic communication at the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and is currently a research associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science, specialising in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
It's moving day for PC Gamer. Our US team is migrating to a new office, which means we're making some hard choices, like departing with a big chunk of our dearly beloved old game archive. But our tearful loss is your gain: if you've ever dreamed of having a decade's worth of PC Gamer demo discs, this giveaway is for you! We're giving away one big ol' box containing hundreds of US PC Gamer demo discs. There are some real gems: the full version of Baldur's Gate! The full version of Duke Nukem! These discs span much of the run of PC Gamer and contain more than just demos. They contain a decade of wonderful memories. Awwww. Also, mods and minigames and strategy guides and some very, very low resolution wallpapers. We're also giving away one box of old PC games, still in their jewel cases. They're not all great (okay, a few of them are terrible), but this box is still packed to the brim with classics. Thief: The Dark Project, Star Wars: Battlefront, Terra Nova, Rise of Nations, Half-Life, The Pandora Directive...Basically, if you still like physical media and really want to own a copy of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, this could be your lucky day. To enter the contest, all you have to do is retweet this tweet. We'll pick two random winners from the retweet list and ship you one of the boxes. You won't know which you'll get until it shows up on your doorstep, so only enter if you want to win! Sorry, international fans: this giveaway is limited to those 13 and older in the continental United States.
There’s really only one thing young people need know about money: Save for retirement, starting now. Yes, at some point you’ll want to pay off your debt, have an emergency fund and buy a home. Right now, though, you’re burning through your most limited resource, which is time. You can’t make more of it, you can’t get it back when it’s gone, and you have a limited window to harness its power. One way to illustrate this is with the story of Aadik, Fisayo and Amrita: Fisayo starts contributing $5,000 a year to a retirement plan at age 25 and then stops contributing after 10 years. Aadik, meanwhile, waits until age 35 to start and then contributes $5,000 a year until age 65. Even though Fisayo contributed for far fewer years — 10 years, compared with Aadik’s 30 — his early start means he winds up with more money by the time they’re both 65: about $526,000, compared with Aadik’s $472,000. Their friend Amrita catches on even earlier. She starts contributing at age 21 and stops 10 years later. At 65, she has $689,310 — 31% more than Fisayo and 46% more than Aadik. These examples assume 7% annual returns, but the result is the same regardless of the return and contribution assumptions. The earlier you put your money to work for you, the more time you have to benefit from the magic of compounded returns. Your returns earn their own returns, which earn still more returns, in a virtuous cycle that accelerates the more time the money has to grow. The longer you wait, the worse it gets Another way to illustrate the same point is to take away the tailwind that an early start gives. The less time you have until your goal, the less help you get from compounding. You have to do more of the heavy lifting by saving more of your income. Let’s say you want to replace 80% of your $60,000 annual income in retirement, including Social Security benefits. The amounts you have to save climb sharply the longer you wait to begin, according to national savings rate guidelines developed by Roger Ibbotson, a retired Yale University finance professor and founder of hedge fund Zebra Capital. (For data geeks: The study uses Monte Carlo simulations and returns forecast by the research firm he founded, Ibbotson Associates, to come up with its numbers.) The guidelines found that: If you start saving at age 25, you’d need to save 12% of your pay. Start at age 35, and the proportion rises to 19.6%. Begin at age 45, and you’ll need to set aside 35%. Wait until age 55, you would have to save a whopping (and completely unrealistic) 79.8%. A less ambitious goal would be to replace 60% of your income. Even then, the early start gives a decided advantage. You’d need to save 19.4% of your income if you start at 45, or 43.8% if you begin at 55, to match what you’d accumulate by putting aside just 6.4% of your pay every year commencing at age 25. Why saving is a higher priority than debt Investment returns aren’t guaranteed, of course, while the returns from paying off fixed-rate debt typically are. That leads some people to prioritize paying off student loans or mortgages rather than saving for retirement. Here’s what they’re missing: Your return is lower when you pay off tax-advantaged debt. You can deduct up to $2,500 of student loan interest if you’re single and your modified adjusted gross income is under $80,000, or $160,000 if you’re married filing jointly. That lowers the effective interest rate on federal direct loans from the current 3.76% to just 2.82% if you’re in the 25% federal income tax bracket. You get similar results with a mortgage if you can itemize your deductions. Historically, investors have gotten better returns over time even with low-risk options such as U.S. Treasury bonds. You get a tax boost from retirement contributions. If you’re in the 25% tax bracket, each $1 you contribute to most retirement plans saves you 25 cents in taxes. If you’re lower-income, the payoff can be even higher. The Savers Credit can cut your tax bill by up to 50 cents for each dollar you contribute. You should never, ever pass up free money. Most 401(k) plans offer a match, according to benefits research firm Aon Hewitt, and the most common one is dollar-for-dollar up to 3% of a worker’s pay. That’s an instant 100% return on your money. Even smaller matches typically offer 25% to 50% returns. So even if you’re carrying high-rate credit card debt, you should contribute at least enough to get the match before you start paying down those balances. You lose financial flexibility when you prepay some debts. Your student loan provider won’t send your payments back to you if you need money in an emergency. A retirement fund, on the other hand, can be an important backstop if you face a disaster such as prolonged unemployment or a serious medical emergency. Ideally, you’d leave retirement money alone for a retirement, but a healthy nest egg can see you through a big financial setback. Not having access to a workplace retirement plan doesn’t let you off the hook. You can open an IRA at a number of discount brokers that have low or no account minimums, low fees and commission-free investment options. One final piece of advice: Once you start saving for retirement, don’t stop. Amrita and Fisayo may have small fortunes set aside after just 10 years of saving, but they — and you — will need a fairly large fortune to afford a truly comfortable retirement. To see how much you’ll need, check out NerdWallet’s retirement calculator. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Liz Weston is a columnist at NerdWallet, a personal finance website, and author of “Your Credit Score.” Email: lweston@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lizweston. This article first appeared at NerdWallet.
A man who builds replicas of cars featured in movies and TV shows says an attempt to block him will have "a significant impact on automobile makers and manufacturers." Later this month, the original Batmobile will be up for auction. The car, designed and built by George Barris for the 1960s ABC series Batman, is expected to fetch millions of dollars. The Batmobile is not only famous and worth a lot, but also on the verge of revving up some legal noise. At the same time that the original automobile gets auctioned off, Warner Bros. is pushing a challenging lawsuit against a California resident named Mark Towle, who operates Gotham Garage, which specializes in customizing replicas of automobiles featured in various films and TV shows. Towle has sold two replicas of the Barris-designed automobile -- one Batmobile sold for $90,000 and the other for $80,000. He has also sold a replica of another version of the Batmobile from the 1989 Batman film. For selling these cars, Towle is now defending a nearly two-year-old lawsuit that he has violated copyright and trademarks owned by Warner subsidiary DC Comics. The case is provocative. Last week, both sides submitted motions for partial summary judgment. The plaintiff attempts to score a win by arguing that copyright protection extends to the overall look and feel of the Batmobile and that Towle has violated its exclusive rights of reproduction and distribution. But Towle has refused to back down, and in court papers, wonders what might come about if DC Comics is able to prevail. "This is a very important case that has far-reaching implications," says Towle's motion. "While it is true that this case is ostensibly about the Batmobile, which some may find to be trivial, the fact is that the issues that will be decided will have a significant impact on automobile makers and manufacturers." Batman first appeared as a comic book superhero in 1939. His famous gadget-laden ride was introduced to comic book fans in 1941. Since then, the car has undergone many transformations. When it came time for Barris to create a car for the 1960s TV show, he used a 1955 Lincoln Futura concept model as his base. STORY: Christopher Nolan: Superman Is More Challenging Than Batman In legal papers submitted to the court, Jay Kogan, DC's vice president and deputy general counsel for intellectual property, says the comic book publisher reserved copyright, trademark and merchandising rights to the Batmobile. He says when Barris was commissioned to create the 1966 Batmobile, it was "based on the evolution of the Batmobile Vehicles over the course of the comics." Additionally, certain specifications were outlined in an agreement between various parties, including Barris and Twentieth Century Fox Television, about what was "required to be included in the construction of the 1966 Batmobile." But just what exactly is the Batmobile? Is it a car or is it something more? J. Andrew Coombs, an attorney for the Warner Bros. subsidiary, argues in legal papers that the Batmobile incorporates trademarks with distinctive secondary meaning and that by selling an unauthorized replica, Towle is likely to confuse consumers about whether the cars are DC products are not. Coombs also presents the Batmobile as being an important element of the Batman franchise -- a character in its own right with a "look and feel" that is protectible by copyright. Coombs writes: "These are not merely vehicles with customized paint and trimmings; these are interactive, highly advanced automobiles equipped with futuristic gadgetry and aesthetics uncommon to vehicles of their time. The Batmobile Vehicles are never referred to simply as 'cars' but rather always by name -- BATMOBILE. They interact with the Batman and Robin characters and serve as integral parts of the stories being told by the respective comic books, television programs and motion pictures in which they appear." Towle, represented by attorney Larry Zerner, argues that automobiles aren't copyrightable. According to the defendant's argument: "It is black letter law that useful articles, such as automobiles, do not qualify as 'sculptural works' and are thus not eligible for copyright protection. However, despite this clear, bright line standard, DC believes that there is an exception to this rule. The exception being that if a different version of the vehicle (not even the same version that Defendant sells) once appeared in a comic book, then the rule does not apply. The implications of a ruling upholding this standard are easy to imagine. Ford, Toyota, Ferrari and Honda would start publishing comic books, so that they could protect what, up until now, was unprotectable." The big question here, as the judge noted last year, is whether the design elements of the Batmobile are "useful" or something more. One can't copyright the basic hood of the car as it has a clear purpose -- for example, to protect people from getting wet when it rains -- but in theory at least, it might be possible to protect a unique pattern on the hood if it has no purpose but merely to look cool. In short, can elements from the Batmobile be physically or conceptually separated from its being as a functional automobile? The plaintiff argues yes, but Towle disputes this: "DC may argue that they are not seeking protection for the entire design of the vehicle, only the separable, non-functional, artistic elements. This is a lie. Because when asked which parts of the car it considered to be separable, non-functional and artistic, it did not limit its' answers to one or two design features. Instead, DC listed every visible part of the car from the design of the front grill, to the fenders, to the wheels, to the fins, the cockpit, and the exhaust pipe. DC even claims that the color of the Batmobile is copyrightable." Towle says such a theory would "completely upend existing copyright law." As his lawyer suggests, a decision to affirm copyright elements of automotive design features could be exploited by the likes of Ford and Honda in the manufacturing and distribution of automobiles. Towle presents other challenges to the plaintiff's position as well, including that the Batmobile wasn't entirely original as it emanated in part from the pre-existing 1955 Lincoln Futura and that there is a lack of evidence that Barris or the 1989 film production designer Anton Furst assigned their rights to DC Comics. Here are the motions for summary judgment in full: The argument by DC Comics that the Batmobile represents a piece of intellectual property being unfairly exploited and unlawfully distributed. And the argument by Towle that an automobile is an automobile -- and that an entertainment studio doesn't have the ability to stop someone who is customizing replicas. E-mail: eriq.gardner@thr.com; Twitter: @eriqgardner
A young farmer who fired a shotgun to protect his mother from being run over by intruders is suing a controversial crime tsar who claimed he endangered the public. Bill Edwards, 23, has accused North Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan and North Yorkshire Police of smearing him – then squandering tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to fight the £50,000 libel case at court. He claims remarks Mrs Mulligan made in a radio interview – based on police advice – were libellous and have led to him being shunned by potential employers. Bill Edwards, 23, (pictured) has accused North Yorkshire PCC Julia Mulligan and police of smearing him Former public schoolboy Mr Edwards was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder in August 2012 after catching two burglars red-handed as they tried to steal tools, furniture and scrap metal from his family's property. As his mother, Louisa Smith, frantically dialled the police for help, one thief fled on foot while the other jumped into a Ford Transit van and accelerated towards her. Fearing for their lives, Mr Edwards fired his legally-held shotgun at the vehicle as Mrs Smith screamed: Shoot out the tyres.’ Mr Edwards hit the windscreen and bodywork — but nobody was hurt. They then gave chase, with the farmer driving while his mother gave a running commentary to police on her mobile phone. Police eventually caught culprit David Taylor a few miles away. North Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan (pictured) is being sued by Mr Edwards over remarks she made during a radio interview in January 2013 Despite the terrifying ordeal at the isolated woodland property near Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Mr Edwards was arrested, locked up overnight and had his guns confiscated. In December 2012 – after languishing on bail for four months– police dropped the charges after prosecutors concluded he used ‘reasonable force in self-defence’. Meanwhile, Taylor, who claimed he had been ‘traumatised’ during the break-in, was charged with theft and escaped with a paltry £100 fine – prompting Mr Edwards to tell his story to the Daily Mail. Mr Edwards (pictured left) fired a shotgun to protect his mother, Louisa Smith (right) from being run over by intruders But in January 2013, Mrs Mulligan gave an interview to BBC Radio York claiming there were ‘exceptional circumstances’ which had led to his arrest. Despite being completely exonerated, the Tory crime tsar – under fire for spending £10,000 on ‘branding’ including a new logo at a time of crippling police cuts – suggested Mr Edwards had not told the truth, according to court papers. She told listeners there were ‘aspects of this case that are quite serious and I think that those details are not in the public domain… We cannot let people get the impression that they can take the law into their own hands.’ Mr Edwards (pictured) is also challenging the police over a decision to confiscate his legally-held shotgun and other firearms which he used to control pests on farmland and revoke his license Court documents claim the PCC was wrongly briefed by senior North Yorkshire Police officers that Mr Edwards tried to shoot out the thief’s tyres during the high-speed chase – rather than while he was standing in the farm’s yard. In its defence to the lawsuit, North Yorkshire Police admitted Acting Assistant Chief Constable Ken McIntosh had ‘apologised’ for passing ‘inaccurate information’ to the crime tsar. It ‘extended’ the apology to Mr Edwards, but insisted this was ‘without any admission of liability for defamation’. Mr Edwards said Mrs Mulligan’s remarks were defamatory and that it is hard for him to find work because farmers in the community now think he is a liar. The ordeal took place at an isolated woodland property near Scarborough, North Yorkshire He is also challenging the police over a decision to confiscate his shotgun and other firearms which he used to control pests on farmland and revoke his license. He said: ‘After the thief was fined they had me on the news and radio and then they had the police on. That should have been the conclusion of everything. ‘But [Julia Mulligan] went and made these statements that destroyed everything. My boss came out and told me to leave work because he heard that on the radio and sent me home. ‘I went from being a hero who saved my mum’s life while standing up to a thief, to people thinking there was something I was hiding. Their assumption was, “What is he not telling us? What is he hiding?” ‘It is a huge burden because people who I used to work with think I’m a liar who has not been telling the truth. Court documents claim the PCC (pictured) was wrongly briefed by senior North Yorkshire Police officers that Mr Edwards tried to shoot out the thief’s tyres during the high-speed chase ‘Farmers have tens of thousands pounds of equipment and machinery and why would they trust me on their machinery? You're finished if something happens and they don't trust you. ‘I was hoping for an on-air apology to rectify what she had said because it has had a huge effect on me, but she has refused.’ A court hearing is pencilled in for Leeds High Court in January, where the commissioner – elected to hold the force into account – will be represented by the same legal team as the police, prompting concerns about a conflict of interest. Solicitor Andrew Gray, who represents Mr Edwards, said: ‘My client's life has become a living hell, due to the actions and failures of North Yorkshire Police and its Police and Crime Commissioner. Bill is a hero, not a villain, and he should be have been treated accordingly.’ The case is understood to have cost North Yorkshire Police around £40,000 of taxpayers’ money. The force claim it would be ‘inappropriate’ to comment on the case.
George Brandis is continuing his slash-and-burn. Credit:AFR It has carriage of a system which it knows is faulty. But it is also refusing to fund appropriately the very legal services which help those hounded by debt collectors. Community legal centres, welfare rights centres, all of these are already on the financial edge. Briefly, when the Abbott government was first elected, Brandis removed what was called the Dreyfus money – funding provided by the previous Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, for these centres. And it's not some strange progressive fantasy to fund these centres – in 2014 the Productivity Commission recommended an extra $200 million for legal assistance. What do these community legal centres do? They provide legal assistance for those who can't afford to pay for it. They advocate for the powerless – and they do extraordinary work in the domestic violence sector. A striking campaign by former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty oversaw a brief respite for the CLCs. And that was when, briefly, domestic violence was "in fashion" with this government. I doubt strongly that this government will ever consider the needs of welfare recipients because they are a group of people never central to the concerns of a conservative government except to demonise them. They are, in the words of a former treasurer, "leaners". To paraphrase the unmourned Joe Hockey – No-hopers. Bludgers. From this July, nearly a third of the funding for these services will disappear. There can only be suppositions as to why Brandis is continuing his slash-and-burn. But one thesis is that his ideological position opposes advocacy of any sort – and certainly advocacy funded by the state. But who will advocate for the unemployed or for those who have a disability? They have no jobs queen, no mining magnate, no oil czar to stand up for them, to lobby on their behalf. Halfway through 2015, the National Association of Community Legal Centres (NACLC) ran a census of its member organisations. More than 150,000 people were turned away in that year because the CLCs didn't have the capacity to deal with demand. <!--[if gte mso 9]> 0 0 1 38 203 UTS 3 1 240 14.0 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-AU JA X-NONE <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <![endif]--><!--StartFragment-->Dan Stubbs, of NACLC, says it's frustrating that yet another arm of the Commonwealth government is making the "turnaway problem" even worse. "We will be turning away more people from July and right now we have very stretched welfare rights centres," he says. Already this year, welfare rights centres, specialists in dealing with social security and part of the community legal centre network, have been flooded with people needing desperate help. Dan Nicholson, executive director of Civil Justice, Access and Equity, at Victoria Legal Aid, says demand has soared. "We had more demand in the seven working days of this year than in all of January last year so we are on track for triple our usual demand. That's overwhelmingly because of automated debt notices," he says. And the situation is dreadful in NSW as well. Polly Porteous, of NSW Community Legal Centres, says its members are already experiencing a spike in demand. "This is likely just the tip of the iceberg – we are expecting an increase in demand as people move through the Centrelink appeal process." Gerard Thomas, of the NSW Welfare Rights Centre, also says services are stretched. "[Claimed] overpayments have always been a core area of our work at the Welfare Rights Centre, but we are seeing an unprecedented number of people calling us about debts. Our phones are ringing off the hook." Last week the service received a call from a Centrelink client undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy for advanced melanoma – all the while trying to gather payslips to challenge the decision. "This automated debt system is having a terrible impact on some very vulnerable people and we urge the government to suspend the system." Here is the horror and the sheer pettiness of this government. Thomas says: "As a result of funding cuts we can only operate three advice shifts a week, for 3½ hours each. We are extremely concerned about the impact of the Commonwealth's 30 per cent funding cut to the community legal sector. "In NSW the funding cut is $2.9 million, a tiny amount from a Commonwealth perspective but it can make a real difference to people's lives." But these aren't the lives of people this government cares about. The victims of Centrelink aren't famous. They don't have status or cultural capital. They don't go to racing days. They don't travel on yachts. They aren't the partners of ministers. They don't get to accompany their partners to luxury resorts for a little break from the hardships of life. They haven't sought or bought influence. They have nothing and they will now face dealing with complex legal issues on their own. Even Matthew Butt, a lawyer and now the executive officer of the National Social Security Rights Network, says he has spent hours trying to unravel the complexities of the system; and it is a core part of his work. "This kind of conversation takes longer, we need to spend more time with people . . . it requires a high level of service," says Butt. And that time, that service, that ability to help those in need, will wither away come July. Loading @jennaprice facebook.com/jennapricejournalist

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