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THE annual mourning for Zein al-Abdin al-Sajjad, an eighth century martyred Shia Imam, is a relatively minor event, even in Iran where Shias hold power. But in the little island kingdom of Bahrain, where the Shia majority chafes at their subjugation under a Sunni ruling family, the Al Khalifas, it has become another excuse to reclaim the streets. “We celebrate the most minor festivals now, even more than Iran,” says Jasim Hussein, a former parliamentarian of Wefaq, a Shia party seeking a negotiated end to the pro-democracy uprising that erupted in February 2011. The political process has been frozen for the 22 months since the government launched a ferocious clamp-down, backed by troops borrowed from across the causeway to Saudi Arabia, that has left some 90 people dead—a grim total given that native Bahrainis number just 600,000, out of an overall population of 1.3m. Mass arrests, show trials, harsh sentences and incitement to sectarian hatred have blunted the opposition’s momentum. Crucial support from liberal-leaning Sunnis has waned, and much of the business community would like to forget the troubles and move on. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. But Shia religious activism is more visible than ever. On a balmy night in the old souks of Manama, Bahrain’s capital, muscular, black-clad youths chant dirges and chest-thump past shrines adorned with dramatic tableaux of Shia saints. Yet the spirit is festive. Men feast on sweetmeats and hot, saffron-infused sheep’s milk freely distributed in stalls. Not a policeman is in sight. “What’s there to mourn about,” asks a civil servant, who covertly supports Amal, an anti-monarchy group, “when time is on our side.” Such bravado is still widely shared among working-class Shias. On December 14th, a coalition of opposition groups mounted a daytime protest march joined by tens of thousands, defying a ban on public gatherings of more than five people imposed in October. In the mostly Shia villages west of Manama, activists taunt the security forces relentlessly, some nights with slogans, others with crude petrol bombs. Despairing of Wefaq’s trust in a constitutional process, activists from a growing grass-roots youth group, the February 14 Movement, mask their faces and mount makeshift stages to rouse the crowds with calls to topple the Al Khalifas. Images of detainees hang by the dozen in a mock cage erected in the central square of Diraz, a Shia coastal town. Nearby stands a billboard with gruesome photos of babies allegedly asphyxiated by tear gas. Here, unlike in Manama, the authorities have tired of blacking out graffiti. The walls declare “Death to Hamad”, Bahrain’s self-proclaimed king. Repression continues, albeit less violently than when the uprising started. In a sign of relative leniency, an appeals court on December 11th reduced the sentence on a prominent human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, from three to two years, still a remarkably harsh retribution for organising and joining “illegal gatherings”. Security forces have ostensibly been retrained to curb their excesses, but still regularly conduct house-to-house raids in Shia villages. Authorities have rebuilt only five of the two dozen Shia shrines they destroyed during the worst days. In a disturbing new tactic, the government in November summarily stripped 31 Bahrainis of their citizenship. Half those affected already live in exile, but the fate of the others, some of whom appear to have been singled out because of Iranian ancestry, remains unclear. Last year, Bahrain’s rulers appeared to open a door to compromise by accepting, with reservations, the rulings of an impartial international inquiry that they had invited. POMED, a Washington-based advocate of democracy in the Middle East, reckons that Bahrain has implemented only three out of its 26 recommendations. But Saudi tanks have disappeared from the main roads, and some unionists who joined the protests have recovered their jobs. In contrast to the region’s harsher security regimes, opposition leaders brief journalists in hotel lobbies. More tellingly, Sunnis are no longer mere cheerleaders for the Al Khalifas. Inter-sect marriage rates are still sharply down, but the boycott Sunnis waged on Shia merchants is petering out. Sunni thugs who went on pogroms armed with swords have retreated back to Muharraq, an island suburb of Manama. And many Sunnis are increasingly voicing the same socio-economic grievances as Shias. They gripe about the lack of affordable housing, the low pensions, utility hikes and the ruling family’s penchant for grabbing land and power. “We feel the Al Khailfas are defending their own interests, not Sunnis,” says a member of the National Unity Gathering, a Sunni caucus. Ten of the 22 cabinet posts are filled by royals. The country’s prime minister, an uncle of the king, has spent 41 years on the job, longer than even Libya’s late Colonel Qaddafi. So nervous do the Al Khalifas seem of their people—Sunnis and Shias alike—that they disinvited both from a security studies conference held earlier this month in the capital. The organisers opted for pliable migrant worker drivers to ferry delegates, not local ones who might speak their minds. And while giving the podium to Syria’s Sunni opposition, they kept Bahrain’s Shia ones safely away with road-blocks defended by armoured cars. Fittingly for a conference called the Manama Dialogue, Bahrain’s supposedly reformist Crown Prince launched the event with an appeal for an internal dialogue as “the only way forward”. But given that few of his subjects were present, it seemed primarily aimed for international consumption. Even that seemed too much for some hardline royals. “No to dialogue with treacherous terrorists,” tweeted a rival prince. Fearing he might be considered a rogue, the king’s advisors quickly backpedalled. He meant dialogue between Sunnis and Shia, they said, not government and opposition. Fearful of backstabbers, the Crown Prince—who was sidelined after the arrival of Saudi tanks torpedoed an earlier, aborted attempt at US-brokered negotiations—profusely thanked the British government for its support, but pointedly not the more openly pro-reform Americans. While William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, declined to meet Bahrain’s Shia dissidents, American officials who attended the conference rushed after them. America's assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, Michael Posner, appealed to the Al Khalifas to drop charges against non-violent protestors. Three days later he received an answer, with the sentencing of Mr Rajab.
Robert Ace Barbers' House Bill 5359, seeking to postpone village and youth polls and allowing the President to appoint OICs, contravenes the Constitution on at least 5 fronts Published 9:00 AM, March 29, 2017 Surigao del Norte Representative Robert Ace Barbers filed House Bill 5359 on Monday, March 28. It seeks to postpone the October 2017 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections to the 4th Monday of May 2020. While the postponement of barangay and SK elections has been done many times before, Barbers’ bill is unprecedented as it authorizes the current president to fill up all barangay posts with “officers-in-charge” (OICs). Unlike the previous cases, where the incumbent gets to remain in office by “hold over,” the Barbers bill terminates all incumbent officials upon effectivity of the proposed legislation. It allows President Rodrigo Duterte to appoint OICs as replacements. The blunt explanatory note of the bill reveals the motive behind it: “President Duterte said that he wants the October 2017 barangay elections postponed because he does not want those financed by drug lords to win. He further said that if the barangay elections would proceed as planned, the winners might be financed by drug money.” Representative Barbers, in other words, proposes to cancel the election because the President wants to prevent bad people from winning. Even if we disregard the debatable wisdom and the speculative premise of the proposed legislation, its defect goes deeper. The language of House Bill 5359 is so careful that it uses “officers-in-charge,” as opposed to an appointed punong barangay (village head), hoping to deflect legal complications. But the bill’s very obvious intention is to design a scheme where the President picks and appoints punong barangays, instead of having them chosen by the people in a popular election. This contravenes the Constitution on so many fronts. First, under the 1987 Constitution, local government positions, including those in the barangays, are by design to be filled by election. While there is no such express declaration in the Constitution, such intention is indisputably apparent in many of its provisions, such as these: Article IX (C) Section 2.2: "Exercise exclusive original jurisdiction…and appellate jurisdiction over all contests...involving elective barangay officials decided by trial courts of limited jurisdiction." Article X, Section 8: “The term of office of elective local officials, except barangay officials, which shall be determined by law, shall be three years and no such official shall serve for more than three consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term for which he was elected.” Second, this mode of filling in barangay positions cannot be changed from elective to appointive by mere legislative enactment. It needs a constitutional amendment. Adopting this appointment scheme would also render inutile related constitutional provisions, like the trial courts’ jurisdictions over questions relating to the elections, returns, and qualifications of all elective barangay officials and the Commission on Elections' related appellate jurisdiction. How can we also reconcile the term of appointed barangay officials with the constitutionally-imposed 3-term limit rule? Third, it is clear in Article X (Section 8) of the Constitution that the only discretion of Congress as regards the “term of office” of barangay officials is the determination of its length. This means that in the case of elective barangay officials, Congress can either lengthen or shorten the default 3-year term, but certainly this power does not include the greater discretion to scrap these term limits altogether. Fourth, the proposed legislation is a threat to the 1987 Constitution's policy of decentralization. Article II (Section 25) obliges the state to “ensure the autonomy of local governments.” In relation to this, Article X (Section 4) states that “[t]he President of the Philippines shall exercise general supervision over local governments.” This provision is two-pronged. It is not only an express grant of such supervisory authority to the President, but it also sets the limit of the extent that the central government, acting through the President, can meddle with local governments. In Bito-onon vs. Judge Yap-Fernandez (GR Number 139813, January 31, 2001), the Supreme Court defined the President’s power of supervision only to mean “the power of a superior officer to see to it that lower officers perform their functions in accordance with law.” The same ruling clarified that: “[T]he Chief Executive wielded no more authority than that of checking whether a local government or the officers thereof perform their duties as provided by statutory enactments. He cannot interfere with local governments provided that the same or its officers act within the scope of their authority.” House Bill 5359 is a clear attempt to significantly expand the President’s power beyond general supervision at the expense of the autonomy of barangays. The President’s proposed power to appoint or designate barangay OICs necessarily implies the power to fire the same official at will. Putting all barangay officials at the full mercy of the President is clearly beyond even the most liberal interpretation of “general supervision”. If we go further, following Representative Barbers' and President Duterte’s logic, what is there to stop them from expanding the scheme to higher local government posts and have all of them simply appointed? None. This is a dangerous precedent as it would not only effectively lump the supposedly decentralized local governments to the executive department, but will put too much power in one person, the dangers of which this country is too familiar with. The 5th and the most important objection to House Bill 5359 is that it is not only a threat to, but a direct assault on, democracy. It is undisputed that the power to choose barangay officials exclusively belongs to the people. Article II (Section 1) of the Constitution reiterates that “[s]overeignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.” While, in theory, the people, in approving the Constitution, delegate the exercise of most of its sovereignty in favor of the government, the power to elect public officials is a portion of that sovereignty it reserved to itself and withheld from the government. House Bill 5359 is an attempt of Congress to wrestle this remaining sovereignty from the people. Unfortunately, this power is not for Congress to give to the President, for the simple reason that it cannot give what it does not have in the first place. – Rappler.com Emil Marañon III is an election lawyer who served as chief of staff of former Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. He is candidate for LLM in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice at SOAS, University of London, as a Chevening scholar.
The title of my post could be perceived as some random pop psychology quote, but let me explain, I do not mean it that way at all. Or I don't know, maybe I mean it that way, you decide! First of all it would be fantastic if we could define failure. What failure means for me might not be the case for you. And it could come in a lot of ways. I could fail as a parent, I could fail at my job, I could fail to please my parents' expectations, I could fail to pass a test or get into what university I would like. Failure comes in a lot of ways, pretty different for each and every one of us. But it's there and it's something most of us don't seem to handle easily. I have not ever taken failure easy, not as a kid, not as a grownup. What is it in failure that makes us so upset? I mean ok, if you try things you may as well fail now and then. My dear Woody Allen says If you don't fail now and again, it's a sign you're playing it safe. It is true, isn't it? Ok sometimes, it may be your fault that you failed. You may not have studied hard enough for example. Again, it's ok. I don't say you shouldn't try or something, in fact I'm saying the exact opposite. Try once more. Yes, not succeeding sucks but not succeeding isn't always the same as failing. And even if you are indeed failing, what's the big deal? Who says we should always be ultra successful at everything we do? I actually think life is full of hardness and possible failures (ok, some sweetness too) but we're not exactly prepared for that. Maybe it's our parents' fault (way to go personal responsibility, hehe) for not training us well enough to accept that it's all right if we fail. It's possible. The world won't come to an end and in the very case that a failure is an end to something then it could as well be a new beginning for something else. Let me go back to parenting a little bit. It is hard for parents to see their children struggle and strive. We (and I say we even though I don't have a kid, but I'm sure it would be difficult to just let her/him be when the road is tough) don't want them to suffer, and sometimes we even fight their battles for them. Well, I can't think of a worst way to teach your kid about self-esteem and confidence. If we're constantly fighting for them how will they ever get up and fight for their own? It's not only that we don't teach them how, but it's also that we make them believe they're not capable of doing it on their own. I read an article the other day (The gift of failure) and I definitely agree with what the writer says: By protecting our children, we do them a double disservice. First, we insulate them from experiences that can facilitate growth and resilience. Second, by actively protecting them, we send them the message that they are not capable of coping on their own. I'm not saying let them be and don't worry about them, I'm just proposing teach them how to fight! And teach them to accept failure by accepting it yourself, by making it a deal but not a hell of a deal. Failure could be a way to do something differently, to be creative, or even to damp something forever. Whatever it brings I'd like to be open about it. Now that I'm saying all these "teach yourself to blah blah" I come to wonder who taught us being ok with failure? What if nobody ever taught you that? Well, maybe it's high time we learned that by ourselves. Sometimes I'm so afraid I'm gonna fail I don't even try. How many opportunities have I missed really? So... I guess what I'm saying is... I failed because of my fear of failure? Yes. I guess pretty much that's it. image by CassieStarFox
The Internet Archive is working on two projects—the U.S. Medical Heritage Library and the U.K. Medical Heritage Library—that is intended to scan millions of pages of medical knowledge gleaned over decades and make it accessible to anyone over the Internet. Admittedly, the U.S. and U.K. Medical Heritage Libraries are more “heritage” than “medical” these days—it’s unlikely that they will contain any information that would supersede the medical knowledge we have today. That said, it’s fascinating to see how people gradually put together the medical knowledge we now have. The project has been funded by grants. The Medical Heritage Library also features a Twitter feed that shares several items per day from the collection. Both libraries were put together by combining the collections of several other libraries. The project started in 2009 and was first put online in 2010. It began with participants including the National Library of Medicine and the libraries of Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Universities, writes Kevin O’Brien in the Journal of the Medical Library Association. The U.K. Medical Heritage Library began in 2013 with libraries from the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, to which have since been added UCL (University College London), the University of Leeds, the University of Glasgow, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, King’s College London and the University of Bristol, according to the Wellcome Library, which is sponsoring the project. It is intended to be complete this year. “The MHL, modeled on the highly successful Biodiversity Heritage Library, is a collection of scanned public domain books on medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and allied areas,” O’Brien writes. “Its curators maintain a regularly updated home page and a Facebook page featuring news about the project, images from recently released books, and links to articles concerned with the history of medicine. MHL book scans are contributed by the participating institutions and are made available for in-browser reading and file download in a dedicated section of the Internet Archive. Basic metadata for each text is included, and downloads are available in portable document format (PDF), Kindle, and a variety of other file formats.” The “allied areas” cover a broad variety, including consumer health, sports and fitness, as well as some more arcane aspects of medical practice, ranging from phrenology (diagnosing someone by the shape of their head) to hydrotherapy, which uses water for pain relief and treatment. Works on food and nutrition will also feature around 1400 cookbooks from the University of Leeds. The UK books have been scanned by hand by a group of a dozen people at a rate of 800 pages per hour, writes Victoria Turk in Motherboard. The project is expected to include more than 15 million scanned pages by the time it’s completed. “The books arrive in orange crates, having been pre-checked to make sure there are no duplicates already online,” Turk writes. “Each is given a stable URL from the start as a unique identifier. Some really thick tomes won’t work, as the scanner can’t reach right into the “gutter” of the pages, leaving words chopped off. Many have a bandage of white ribbon holding their pages together so they don’t crumble apart.” And some, she adds, have uncut pages: After all this time, they’ve never been opened. Unlike typical scanners, the scanners use a special machine, Turk writes. “The book scanner puts a book, open, on a V-shaped platform, then uses the foot pedal to lift it to a V-shaped glass plate,” she writes. “Two Nikon cameras snap the two pages at once.” The scanners use LED light to prevent any ultraviolet damage, she adds. Once the books are digitized, readers can search for a particular word, book title, and book author, as well as subject and keyword, O’Brien writes. The scanned material also features high-quality images, including the colors used in the original books. As well as making all the information available over the Internet to anyone who might want it, the project serves another purpose as well that is applicable to a broad range of libraries, writes Simon Chaplin in the Guardian. First of all, it helps reduce duplication. “By matching against the archive’s existing holdings, as well as each other’s, the UK Medical Heritage Library partners can avoid scanning the same book several times,” he writes. Second, working together helps libraries decide which books to keep. “Matching of catalogues against one another also means that, for the first time, libraries will start to get a picture of how much overlap there is between their collections,” Chaplin writes. “By working together, they can reduce duplication while ensuring that enough physical copies survive in sufficient geographical locations to provide security for the future. The net result is that a greater number of different books are preserved.” Finally, comparing how widespread particular titles are helps researchers determine which books were more canonical, and the spread of medical knowledge, Chaplin writes. “It will be interesting to see whether matching the collection of, say, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh against that of the Royal College of Physicians in London will show that doctors in Scotland and England had broadly similar views of what was important to read in the 19th century,” he writes. “This kind of understanding isn’t applicable solely to medicine; we’re well-placed to beat a path for others to follow.”
After formally announcing that the Dodgers have signed Manager Don Mattingly to a contract extension, General Manager Ned Colletti said Wednesday he has reached out to the agent of prized Japanese right-hander Masahiro Tanaka. Tanaka, who is on the radar screens of a number of teams, is represented by Casey Close, who is also the agent for Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. “Obviously, Casey and I go back quite a while,” Colletti said. Colletti described the conversations as preliminary in nature. “They’re in the feeling-out process,” Colletti said. “They’re trying to learn a lot about different cities, different markets, different teams, how teams are constructed. It’s a big decision for the player too. “We’ll continue and see where it goes.” Tanaka is expected to a sign a contract worth more than $100 million. In addition, the team that lands him will owe $20 million to his Japanese league team, the Rakuten Golden Eagles.
By Willem Levelt How do we speak and how do we understand language? It is widely believed that the scientific study of these uniquely human abilities was launched during the 1950s with the advent of Noam Chomsky’s generative linguistics. True, modern psycholinguistics received a major impulse from this “cognitive revolution,” but the empirical study of how we speak and listen and how children acquire these amazing skills has its roots in the late 18th century. By the end of the 19th century the psychology of language was an established science and the field was booming up to World War II. Empirical psycholinguistics emerged from four roots. The Viennese engineer Wolfgang von Kempelen spent 20 years constructing a “speaking machine”. His 1791 book contains a precise construction manual. Copies have been built and indeed, the machine can articulate complex utterances such as Leopoldus secundus. It is the first serious working model of the vocal tract. During the 19th century the study of speaking became an experimental endeavor. It became possible to exactly measure the “mental durations” involved in naming pictures, colors, or numbers. Wilhelm Wundt’s psychology laboratory in Leipzig, the first of its kind, became the cradle of experimental psycholinguistics. Franz Joseph Gall, also in Vienna, was the first to develop serious brain anatomy during the final two decades of the 18th century. His dissection classes there and later in Paris attracted some of the best medical students. Gall proposed the theory that mental faculties such as the memory for words were localized in specific regions of the brain. The stronger such an innate ability, the larger the corresponding brain region. This idea was never entirely lost in neuroscience. Paul Broca’s advanced brain anatomy made it possible in 1865 to localize an important region involved in the production of speech in the left frontal lobe. With Carl Wernicke’s localization of a second region, involved in speech understanding, the study of language in the brain had become a mature chapter of psycholinguistics. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile of 1762 pleaded for a reform of education, a “natural” education without drill. Rousseau’s plea for the careful observation of children initiated the keeping of diaries by parents and teachers. Philosopher Dietrich Tiedemann was the first to publish a diary, in 1787. It follows his son’s development during the 30 months since his birth and includes a number of observations on Friedrich’s acquisition of speech. More diaries followed during the 19th century, but diary studies became a real boom after Darwin (1877) published his own observations on son William’s early development. Studies of language acquisition, for a variety of languages, kept appearing till the present day. They became an important database for theories of language acquisition. Sanskrit scholar William Jones formulated the lexical affinities between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin in his 1786 lecture for the Asian Society of Calcutta. Such affinities among Indo-European languages had been observed since medieval times, but the budding Romantic notion of evolution became the impetus of explaining these affinities from a common origin of these languages. There must have been some proto-language from which all languages in the family evolved. This raised the question of how primordial human beings began to speak such a simple proto-language. This, one realized, was a psychological issue. Ever since, the empirical study of language origins and language functions in human communication has been an important chapter of psycholinguistics. Studying the emergence of language, in particular of sign languages, is still a rich chapter of psycholinguistics. Peace did not always reign in the community of psycholinguists. Major controversies arose around World War I. In the European tradition it had always been a matter of course that language use is a mental phenomenon. But this was anathema for emerging American behaviorism. Speech acts are mere responses to stimuli; there is no mind mediating between the two. But peace was literally and seriously disturbed during Hitler’s regime. European leaders in psycholinguistics emigrated, mostly to the United States, in two waves. First, right after Hitler came to power in 1933, almost immediately ordering the dismissal of Jewish staff at German universities. Second, after the Austrian Anschluss in 1938 and the following invasions all over the European continent. It was only after World War II that the four roots of psycholinguistics sprang to live again as an interdisciplinary theory of human communication. Willem Levelt is the author of A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era. He is director emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, which he founded in 1980. He is also emeritus honorary professor of psycholinguistics at Nijmegen University. He has a PhD in psychology from Leiden University (1965), was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University, a visiting professor at the University of Illinois, full professor of psychology at Groningen University, member at The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1971-1972), professor of experimental psychology at Nijmegen University and, since 1980, scientific member of the Max Planck Society. He has published widely in psychophysics, mathematical psychology and psycholinguistics. His books include On binocular rivalry(1965), Formal grammars in linguistics and psycholinguistics (3 Vols, 1974, republished in 2008) and Speaking: From intention to articulation (1989). Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS. Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS. Image Credits: (1) Dr. Joseph Francis Gall. Print Collection portrait file. Source: NYPL Digital Gallery (2) Sir William Jones. Print Collection portrait file. Source: NYPL Digital Gallery
It’s not just outlawed biker gangs and other hardened criminals using digital currencies for illicit activity. “Mums and dads” are also using them to purchase illicit narcotics and synthetic drugs, according to testimony by the Australian Crime Commission at the senate inquiry on digital currencies, reported the Sydney Morning Herald. “…You are seeing large volumes of mums and dads purchasing illicit commodities over the internet and we’re seeing organised crime groups such as [outlaw motorcycle gangs] in recent media reporting using bitcoin as a standard way to move value,” said Dr. John Moss, national of intelligence at the Australian Crime Commission, at a meeting of the senate inquiry on Wednesday. Apparently surprised by Moss’s statement, Nationals Senator Matthew Canavan asked him to confirm that “mums and dads” were indeed buying illicit goods using digital currencies and the types of goods and services they were obtaining, reported the Herald. “The primary detection is around narcotic importation [and] new synthetic drugs,” Moss said. Asked for further evidence from Fairfax Media, Moss said he was talking about “everyday” Australians using Bitcoin for illicit activity. “Clear evidence of this can be seen by the nature of illicit drug purchases from illicit marketplaces on the dark-net,” he said. The Herald reported that law enforcement agencies have told the inquiry that cryptocurrencies being used for illicit activity were making their investigations into criminal matters more challenging. “The main challenge for the [Australian Federal Police] operationally is the anonymity associated with bitcoins and the lack of regulation,” stated Jarred Taggart, team leader of the Australian Federal Police’s Criminal Asset Confiscation Taskforce, who noted there was a real challenge in determining the actual owners of Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. “So…while [that] may not be something that is a significant issue for us at the moment, it’s more in the future space where things like this, if there were predictions that say [these currencies] may become more popular and more user friendly, [then] that could become an issue if there wasn’t an ability for us to understand the true ownership behind bitcoins,” Taggart said, as reported by the Herald. It’s not only digital currencies that are preventing investigations, said Hamish Hansford, national manager of strategic intelligence and strategy at the Australian Commission, to the inquiry. “I think it’s fair to say that across a whole range of different areas it’s becoming more and more difficult to investigate and prosecute crime and this is just another type of encryption…on a whole range of different areas,” said Hansford, noting the use of encrypted ways of communicating and the use of “darknets,” which make it challenging to identify offenders. “So the way in which law-enforcement responds to a digital currency issue needs to change over time and…it’s becoming more difficult to investigate with the higher levels of encryption,” Hansford said. The Herald reported that Daniel Mossop, director of the Attorney-General Department’s financial crime section, told the inquiry that it was important to try to regulate digital currencies in a manner that did not “stifle their growth.” “We do realise that there is a range of useful and worthwhile purposes for digital currency,” said Mossop. “It obviously has…the ability to vastly increase the financial inclusion for people who are currently unbanked [without bank accounts]. It’s [also] a relatively cheap and effective way for people to hold and store value and more it around easily…with relatively limited feed. So it’s something that we would like to see used in a positive way but also in a way where we can try and mitigate those risks [of criminal activity occurring with their use].” Kate Preston, who is the general manager for the Australian Treasury Department’s Revenue Group, also testified before the inquiry hearing Wednesday, stating that the current tax treatment would suffice while digital currencies are still in their “infancy,” reported ZDNet. “I would say that we have no issues with the way that the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) has dealt with it,” said Preston. “I think we will continue to assess the environment, but I would stress that it is an industry, if you like, that is in its infancy.” Preston added, “To jump in and suggest there should be changes to the tax law to accommodate it is a little bit early in that process.” ZDNet reported that Preston was responding to comments made by committee chair Labor Senator Sam Dastyari, who asserted that local Bitcoin companies are likely to move offshore in order to get around the ATO’s current tax regime for cryptocurrencies. Last summer, the ATO published its guidance on the taxation treatment of digital currencies in Australia, treating Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the same manner as barter transactions with similar taxation consequences, unless it is for business purposes. The treatment of digital currencies as a commodity rather than as a currency effectively sees it double taxed: when it’s sold and again when it’s bought. It is a treatment that Australians who work with Bitcoin have said is already pushing some business to move their operations overseas, said ZDNet. “It could result in driving the digital currency business that [are] emerging in the sector offshore and potentially underground,” said Ronald Tucker, chairman of the Australian Digital Currency Commerce Association, told the committee last November. But Preston stated Wednesday that any changes made to the Australian government’s approach to digital currencies should start with its regulatory or legislative framework, rather that its taxation treatment. “The Treasury view would be that, taxation is not where you start.” ZDNet reported that Brett Peterson of the ATO’s Tax Council Network told the committee that under the present definition of the term “currency” in the taxation laws, if another nation unilaterally adopted Bitcoin as its official fiat currency, then it could be treated locally as foreign currency and taxed appropriately. “But that’s not a new notion,” Peterson said. The news outlet also reported on comments from Australian National University professor Rabee Tourky, who suggested the Australian government would be better off issuing its own official digital currency as the nation moves toward a cashless society. “In 10 years’ time, there won’t be any paper cash,” Tourky said. “The big questions is what’s going to replace it in Australia? Will it be bitcoin? I don’t think so. Most likely, it will be ‘AusBit’, an Australian government-issued digital cash. It’s quite clear that the central bank in Australia is going to have to issue electronic cash.” But in echoing Preston’s comments, Tourky warned that sound infrastructure would need to be developed before the government could start treating digital currencies like cash. “Before we start discussion [about] things like taxation on digital currencies, we need infrastructure around it, “said Tourky to ZDNet. “I don’t think we’ll see infrastructure emerging around bitcoin that will be stable. [But] I have absolutely no doubt that in the foreseeable future, we will see a government-issued digital currency.” Bitcoin “guru” Andreas Antonopoulos also appeared before the committee Wednesday to make the case for Bitcoin. As reported by CoinDesk, he said Bitcoin’s unique architecture and payment mechanisms have significant implications for network access, consumer protection, regulation, innovation, privacy and individual empowerment. “Bitcoin can introduce much needed competition in the retail payments industry, undercutting the expensive systems offered by credit and debit cards, whilst significantly improving security and privacy for consumers,” Antonopoulos said. He added that “the bitcoin industry can establish Australia at the forefront of the next wave of innovation of financial services. A wave that can extend financial services to more than two billion people throughout Southeast Asia, who are currently unbanked.” Australia is already home to a thriving Bitcoin industry, said Antonopoulos, who talked about its potential to “become a leader in the region and the world.” As reported by CoinDesk, he compared the centralized banking system to Bitcoin’s decentralized offering, highlighting Bitcoin’s security levels. “If a bad actor infiltrates a traditional financial network, the network itself and all of its participants are at risk. In contrast, if a bad actor has access to bitcoin network, they have no power in the network itself and they do not compromise trust in the network. Antonopoulos added, “Contrary to popular misconception, bitcoin is not unregulated. Rather, several aspects of the bitcoin network and financial systems are regulated by mathematical algorithms. The algorithmic regulation in bitcoin offers predictable, objective, measurable outcomes.” He concluded, “Algorithmic regulation provides certainty without nationalist or geopolitical influence. In a time of unprecedented currency wars, mathematical neutrality is a save haven.” Images: File photos
After finishing 45th in the Amstel Gold Race and 56th in Flèche Wallonne, Carlos Betancur prepares for Liège-Bastogne-Liège where he finished fourth two years ago. The Colombian is confident for his future goals, including the Giro d'Italia. "Since the beginning of the Ardennes Classics, I am getting better," he said. "On Sunday, I was able to finish the Amstel Gold Race for the first time since joining the team. For me it is an important sign. In Fleche, the team worked for Alexis Vuillermoz . It is good to see improvement. For some time, I have felt better on the bike. That reassures me for the Giro. "I've finished fourth in Liège-Bastogne Liège in 2013. It is a difficult time but we will have a very strong team with Romain Bardet and Domenico Pozzovivo . After Liège, I will finish my preparation at the Tour de Romandie. Obviously, I want to do well at the Giro. I have many goals. It will still be very difficult. I want to be 100% but remain careful." AG2R La Mondiale for Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Carlos Betancur, Domenico Pozzovivo, Jan Bakelants, Matteo Montaguti, Mikael Cherel, Rinaldo Nocentini, Romain Bardet, Sébastien Minard
Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2016/376 In this work, we report the results of a thorough independent analysis of the ScreenOS randomness subsystem, as well as its interaction with the IKE VPN key establishment protocol. Due to apparent flaws in the code, Juniper's countermeasures against a Dual EC attack are never executed. Moreover, by comparing sequential versions of ScreenOS, we identify a cluster of additional changes that were introduced concurrently with the inclusion of Dual EC in a single 2008 release. Taken as a whole, these changes render the ScreenOS system vulnerable to passive exploitation by an attacker who selects Q. We demonstrate this by installing our own parameters, and showing that it is possible to passively decrypt a single IKE handshake and its associated VPN traffic in isolation without observing any other network traffic.
NEW DELHI: Ditching their usual ramrod straight postures, soldiers are now getting ready to contort into different poses never specified in their military drills. From the top brass on the majestic Rajpath in New Delhi to warship sailors on foreign shores, the armed forces are ready to go the whole hog on International Yoga Day this Sunday.Sources say a flurry of directives have been issued by the defence ministry as well as the Army, Navy and IAF headquarters to all their commands and units spread across the country to put up “a good show” on June 21 in tune with PM Narendra Modi’s initiative on yoga.A battery of generals with around 3,000 soldiers, sailors and air warriors will be on hand to take part in the mass yoga demonstration on the Rajpath to be led by Modi, for which the Ayush ministry is leaving no stone unturned to ensure the presence of around 35,000 participants to break the existing record in the Guinness Book of World Records.Concomitantly, many military personnel around the country will also exhibit their physical versatility to mark the day, with “specialists” already holding yoga classes for them and their families. Interestingly, all Indian warships at foreign harbours and ports on overseas deployments have also been instructed to showcase yoga wherever possible on that day.Incidentally, Modi on Tuesday night tweeted a pic of sailors doing yoga on a warship deck. “Yoga across oceans…remarkable, innovative and appreciable effort by our Navy for #YogaDay”, he saidHolding that the “over 6,000 years old physical, mental and spiritual practice having its origins in India aims to transform body and mind”, a Service headquarter has instructed its different formations and stations to plan “a minimum of 2-3 hours of activities” in consonance with “the objectives stipulated by the government” on June 21.Though the communication makes it clear that it’s “not compulsory to participate in such yoga camps”, it does hold that “all-out efforts should be made to encourage maximum participation of personnel and their families” in the endeavour. Most military personnel will of course not have to huff-and-puff like portly bureaucrats to undertake the “simple and easy Yoga Asanas” specified through booklets and DVDs.The government is very keen to establish the new world record, as is evident from the letter written from cabinet secretariat to all ministries and departments. Holding that the Ayush ministry had applied for the record in the category of largest yoga demonstration at a single venue, it warns: “If some officials turn up without practice and their performance is not up to the mark, we will run the risk of the record claim being affected.”
All data is from the 2009-2013 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.[1][2][3] State income levels and income data for the United States as a whole are included for comparison. Note that county-equivalents in Louisiana are called "parishes" and in Alaska are called in "boroughs," and also that in Alaska census areas in the Unorganized Borough are county-equivalents. For states where independent cities are county-equivalents, the word "city" is included to identify the independent cities and to differentiate them from counties with identical names; the counties with the identical names have the word "county" following them. The word "county" is included in the names of counties that have names identical to the names of U.S. states or cities to differentiate them. Counties in the United States by per capita income. Areas with higher levels of income are shaded darker.
Adding roller skating to an exercise program offers several health benefits. Skating offers an effective cardiovascular workout, endurance training, and strength training to build strong muscles in the pelvis and legs. Balance and coordination can also be improved by regular skating. Aerobic Benefits Even at moderate speeds, roller skating can provide an aerobic workout that improves cardiovascular health. According to Roller Skating International, the aerobic workout provided by roller skating equals that provided by running once your speed reaches 10 mph or more. Skating also causes less stress to the joints than running. Skating's low-impact quality also allows people with joint injuries or chronic joint problems to enjoy a fun and thorough aerobic workout. Strength Benefits According to GetRolling.com, roller skating helps build strength, especially in the muscles of the lower body. The thigh, hip, butt and calf muscles work together during skating to propel you forward and maintain balance. Stronger muscles and better coordination work together to prevent injuries and keep you active and limber as you age. Endurance Benefits In addition to increasing muscle strength, roller skating can help increase muscle endurance, according to GetRolling.com. Adding a few uphill climbs to each skating session trains your muscles, along with your cardiovascular system, to use the body's energy stores more efficiently. This means you can skate longer distances without becoming exhausted. Weight Loss According to Roller Skating International, roller skating helps encourage weight loss by burning calories and by toning muscles, which burn more calories than fat even in their resting state. Roller skating for 25 minutes three times a week can burn up to 750 additional calories for the week. Adaptable Workouts Roller skating can be an option if you're new to exercise or returning after a long period of inactivity because it allows you to exercise at your own pace. Even slow skating increases the heart rate and taxes multiple muscle groups. The length of time and speed at which you skate can be increased gradually. Also, roller skating can be done indoors or out. Remember to wear safety gear, such as a helmet and elbow, knee, and wrist guards to help prevent injury.
Britain's public libraries, for generations a source of enjoyment and education to millions of children and adults, will become the focus of bitter political battles and legal action this month as users fight to prevent mass closures. More than 400 libraries from the Isle of Wight to South Wales and Yorkshire face the axe as councils make difficult choices about the future of local services to meet government demands for £6.5bn of savings over two years. The number could double as half of all councils are yet to announce their money-saving plans. Campaigners, who include Joanna Trollope, Philip Pullman and Tony Christie, are demanding a public inquiry into the cuts which they say amount to an attack on Britain's cultural and knowledge base. They claim Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, could avert expensive local legal challenges by ordering an inquiry into the legality of the planned closures. Join Independent Minds For exclusive articles, events and an advertising-free read for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent With an Independent Minds subscription for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent Without the ads – for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Encouraged by David Cameron's Big Society philosophy, councils across the UK say volunteers must replace paid staff if libraries are to be saved. This week the Government will unveil its plan to give communities the right to bid to take over state-run services. But experts say that politicians have failed to understand the social, cultural and educational importance of libraries, and the role librarians play in providing services. The Labour leader Ed Miliband said yesterday his party would back campaigns to save libraries as "a place where community is built, as families get to know each other and form friendships". A national day of action is planned for 5 February in libraries serving poor and affluent areas, countering claims by a quango leader that libraries are the preserve of the "privileged, mainly white middle classes". Lib Dem and Tory ministers have privately expressed concern about the threat posed to libraries, but remain anxious to make clear that under the coalition, local decisions are taken without Whitehall interference. Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, has warned councils repeatedly against cutting frontline services without first looking for savings elsewhere. "The Government has delivered a tough but fair local government settlement that ensures the most vulnerable communities are protected," a spokesman said. However, Ed Vaizey, the Tory culture minister, has been singled out for anger because of his high-profile opposition to library closures while in opposition. Critics say Mr Vaizey, who referred to library closures as "cost-driven vandalism" in 2009, has become "impotent" in a department "frozen into inactivity". Mr Vaizey dismissed these accusations as "wrong" and told The Independent on Sunday that he has been "very active" as libraries minister. He rejected calls for an inquiry into the closures but said every council decision would be checked to ensure statutory obligations were still met. His Future Libraries Programme will report on alternatives ways of providing library services later this year, but this will come too late for many libraries. Desmond Clarke, former director of Faber & Faber publishers, said: "There is a leadership void at a time of major crisis. We need someone more senior than Ed Vaizey to intervene immediately as the wave of rebellion among people in towns and communities is growing. The impact on local communities will be devastating, the savings relatively small." Annie Mauger, chief executive of Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip), said: "This is not just about what libraries do, it is about what they represent: free access to knowledge and information for everyone. It feels Orwellian that we'll wake up one day and a third of all the libraries are gone. Is that the type of society we want?" Across England and Wales, libraries face cuts of 20 to 30 per cent, which means as many as one in five libraries and one in four full-time librarian jobs are at risk, according to Cilip. This comes despite the fact more than 300 million books were borrowed last year. Tens of thousands of people use the internet in libraries every day. Library users in Oxfordshire, Lewisham, Doncaster, Somerset and Gloucestershire are among those who have sought legal advice about challenging local closures of about 50 per cent, which they say will make it impossible for councils to provide "comprehensive", "efficient" and "improving" library services required under the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act. The Local Government Association said councils were being impeded by the "badly outdated" legislation which was drawn up before the arrival of the internet. Oxfordshire County Council has earmarked 20 out of 43 libraries for closure. It is unlikely to help Oxford's attempt to become Unesco's World City of the Book in 2014. Within the largely affluent county is one of Europe's biggest housing estates, Blackbird Leys, which is in the bottom 10 per cent of areas for educational achievement. Its library is at risk; the main libraries used by Mr Cameron and Mr Vaizey's constituents in Witney and Wantage are safe, although smaller branches are threatened. In Somerset, 20 out of 34 libraries are under threat, but the council is considering charging membership fees to save some. London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, last week announced plans to establish a trust of volunteers to run the capital's libraries, a third of which are under threat. A DCMS spokeswoman said: "Legal challenges mounted against local authorities are a matter for the interested parties and the courts and outside the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State... It is premature to consider intervention at such a stage." What the users say: 'Losing ours would have a big impact' Marion Pagan, 86, regularly uses Hester's Way Library in Cheltenham. An avid reader, she has been a member for nearly 40 years, and will find it difficult to get to Cheltenham Central library. "They never closed libraries during the war, so it seems drastic now. It would be a big loss to me if it closes. It makes a big difference to me, especially because I'm old, and I would really miss it." Rose Stephenson, 44, a community development worker in Somerset, has two teenage children who use the library. "The local Martock Library is a three-minute walk away. I would have to drive eight to 10 miles to the next nearest library, which would take much more planning. And the village youth centre, which used to provide facilities and activities for teenagers, is closed, so losing the library would have a big impact." Isabel Anderson, nine, suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and has been off school for over a year. Her local library in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, has helped her not to fall behind in her school work. She is too tired to travel further away. "I use my library two or three times a week for books, DVDs and story tapes. When I was really ill, libraries provided me with something to do and helped me to keep up with school." Ruth Corboy, 42, is a mother from Milton Keynes and a regular user of Stony Stratford Library, where members have emptied the shelves in protest. "Our library is one of the few community spaces that mothers still feel safe sending their children. It has been critical to my daughter's education, and she frequently uses it. Visits from authors and teachers provide entertainment and inspiration that supplements their schooling." Mily Newton, 10, from Blockley in Somerset, who wants to be an author when she grows up, said: "I love to read, so I am very upset about the library cuts. I use the mobile library lots as my mum and dad work, so we don't have time to visit the local library. On the small close where I live there are 18 or more children who always go to the library bus." A treasured part of British life Charles Dickens described libraries as a "source of pleasure and improvements in the cottages, the garrets and the ghettos of the poorest of our people", at the opening of Manchester's first public library in 1852. This came two years after the Public Library Act was introduced to "raise educational standards throughout society". At first, Tory sceptics argued that Britain's wealthier classes should not pay for a service that would predominantly benefit the working class. But donations from wealthy entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie helped to finance hundreds of public libraries. They became a gateway out of social exclusion and a treasured aspect of cultural life. By 1997, more than half of Britons had membership cards. In 2001, Labour introduced the first national standards which led to longer opening hours and internet access. Now the challenge is to tackle falling book prices and government cuts that have eroded library membership.
This press release is available in German. Rechargeable lithium ion batteries provide portable devices that require a lot of energy, such as mobile telephones, digital cameras, and notebook computers, with power. However, their capacity, and thus the running time of the devices, remain somewhat limited. A notebook computer thus usually runs only about two hours. The reason for this is the relatively small capacity of the graphite anode in these batteries to absorb lithium ions. A team led by Jaephil Cho at Hanyang University in Korea has now developed a new material for anodes, which could clear a path for a new generation of rechargeable batteries. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, their new material involves three-dimensional, highly porous silicon structures. Lithium ion accumulator batteries produce current by moving lithium ions. The battery usually contains a cathode (positive electrode) made of a mixed metal oxide, such as lithium cobalt oxide, and an anode (negative electrode) made of graphite. While the battery is being charged, lithium ions migrate into the anode, where they are stored between the graphite layers. When the battery is being discharged, these ions migrate back to the cathode. It would be nice to have an anodic material that could store more lithium ions than graphite. Silicon presents an interesting alternative. The problem: silicon expands a great deal while absorbing lithium ions (charging) and shrinks when giving them up (discharging). After several cycles the required thin silicon layers are pulverized and can no longer be charged. Cho's team has now developed a new method for the production of a porous silicon anode that can withstand this strain. They annealed silicon dioxide nanoparticles with silicon particles whose outermost silicon atoms have short hydrocarbon chains attached to them at 900 °C under an argon atmosphere. The silicon dioxide particles were removed from the resulting mass by etching. What remained were carbon-coated silicon crystals in a continuous, three-dimensional, highly porous structure. Anodes made of this highly porous silicon have a high charge capacity for lithium ions. In addition, the lithium ions are rapidly transported and stored, making rapid charging and discharging possible. A high specific capacity is also attained with high current. The changes in volume that occur upon charging and discharging cause only a small degree of swelling and shrinking of the pore walls, which have a thickness of less than 70 nm. In addition, the first charging cycle results in an amorphous (noncrystalline) silicon mass around residual nanocrystals in the pore walls. Consequently, even after 100 cycles, the stress in the pore wall is not noticeable in the material. ### Author: Jaephil Cho, Hanyang University, Ansan (South Korea), jpcho@hanyang.ac.kr Title: Three-Dimensional Porous Silicon Particles for Use in High-Performance Lithium Secondary Batteries Angewandte Chemie International Edition, doi: 10.1002/anie.200804355 Copy free of charge. We would appreciate a transcript of your article or a reference to it.
ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Matthew Stafford still has "no timetable" on when he might sign a new contract extension with the Detroit Lions, but the quarterback said Wednesday that he isn't concerned about what happens with Oakland quarterback Derek Carr and Washington's Kirk Cousins. "I'm not too worried about what those guys do," Stafford said after minicamp Wednesday. "I'm just worried about trying to get better out here. That's pretty much all I can say. This time of year, to me, is football time. "I'm out here, playing football trying to get better to help this team win." Stafford wouldn't answer whether he would actually sign a deal before Carr or Cousins, saying he had no timetable for a deal when asked whether he would get one done before them. One of the three quarterbacks -- depending on who signs when -- could end up signing the richest per-year deal in NFL history. The 29-year-old Stafford, according to rumors, could end up with an average salary of more than $25 million per year -- which would be a first for an NFL quarterback. Lions QB Matthew Stafford has set almost every franchise passing record, including career passing yards (30,303) and touchdown passes (187), since being drafted with the No. 1 overall pick in 2009. AP Photo/Seth Wenig He said Wednesday that it's not something he thinks about, though. Stafford, who is in the final year of his deal, will have made $127,278,969 over the lifetime of both of his contracts at the end of 2017. "The only time I ever talk about it or think about it is when you guys ask me questions about it, honestly," Stafford said. "I just go out there and play ball, try to be aggressive and play better." In April, Stafford said he "would love to" stay in Detroit and get a long-term deal done with the Lions, who drafted him No. 1 overall in 2009. Since then, he's set almost every franchise passing record, including career passing yards (30,303) and touchdown passes (187). Stafford has also said in the past that he has watched teams give quarterbacks lucrative contracts and still put competitive teams on the field. "I know every year teams find ways to put good teams around good quarterbacks," Stafford said in April. "You see it every year. So I'm not too worried about that. I know salary caps and all that kind of stuff is as malleable as you want it to be. "So I think you just go and try to make a good decision not only for the player but the team and go from there." Lions general manager Bob Quinn has said multiple times he would like Stafford to be the franchise's quarterback in the long term.
This has been by far the best experience I have had with /r/Vinyl and/or redditgifts to be honest with you. From the get go my gifter was in great communication with me and letting me know I was getting something he knew I really wanted! After a few days of waiting he got it in the mail, and sent it off to me. And of course, both of us being from Ohio, one might think the package could go from one city to the other. But instead it travelled from Cleveland, to Pittsburgh, to Cincinnati, then Columbus! It travelled more than I did for my labor day weekend! Finally got the package when I was away from home on Saturday, so I didn't get a chance to open it until today, but it was worth the wait! I got shitty art, stickers, another button for my messenger bag I take to conventions, and a great note! Ohio FTW!
Guangzhou are coached by Paulinho’s former Brazil manager Luiz Felipe Scolari and have already agreed to almost double the 26-year-old’s wages. Paulinho has been earning around £55,000-a-week at Spurs, but his salary will jump to £90,000-a-week if the deal with Guangzhou goes through. The two clubs are yet to settle on the exact terms of the fee, but Tottenham hope to recoup £12m on 26-year-old Paulinho, who they signed for £17m two years ago from Corinthians. • Charlie Austin fears £15m price-tag is putting off buyers Although that represents a £5m loss, Spurs will be delighted to get such a big fee for a player who has made little impact since moving to England and it will be a record signing for Guangzhou. Paulinho arrived at White Hart Lane with a big reputation after his performances for Brazil, but struggled to adapt to England and the style of football. • Transfer rumours: Top 100 players in the summer window He made 30 appearances for head coach Mauricio Pochettino last season, but was told he is not in the Argentine’s plans for next term. Watford were interested in offering Paulinho the chance to stay in the Premier League, but it appears the player favours linking up with Scolari again. • Lloris and Kane to be handed captaincy positions Guangzhou are one of the biggest clubs in Asia and already have four Brazilian players on their books.
"It is my professional belief that Ben Needham died as a result of an accident near to the farmhouse in Iraklis where he was last seen playing. Speaking at the scene, Detective Inspector Jon Cousins said: "My team and I know that machinery, including a large digger, was used to clear an area of land on 24 July 1991, behind the farmhouse that was being renovated by the Needhams. Kerry broke down in tears on Sunday as the three-week long search for the missing toddler ended. And officers then showed it to Kerry, 43, who confirmed her 21-month-old son was playing with it on the day he vanished – according to The Sun. Police have revealed that the toy was unearthed on Saturday near the farmhouse where the family were staying. Cops involved held a press conference have revealed during their stay on the island they found a toy car on a second site on the Greek island of Kos. SEARCH: Police found a Matchbox car at the site of the Ben Needham dig TOY: Ben was playing with a car at the time Here is a timeline of events charting the disappearance of Sheffield toddler Ben Needham on the Greek island of Kos 25 years ago. – July 24 1991: Ben Needham vanishes while playing near the grounds of a farmhouse in the Iraklis region of Kos, which his family are renovating. His mother, Kerry Needham, and grandparents raise the alarm with local police and conduct a full search of the area. – July 26 1991: Eyewitness reports claim a boy matching Ben's description was found at the local airport on the day he disappeared. That boy has never been traced. – September 1991: The Needham family return to England due to illness, but vow to continue the search. – June 2003: The Metropolitan Police issue an image of what Ben might look like at age 12-14 years old. – 2004 An anonymous businessman offers a reward of £500,000 for information leading to Ben's safe return. – October 2010: Another public appeal is made by Ben's mother in the run-up to what would be his 21st birthday. – May 2011: The BBC airs a programme called Missing 2011, which includes a piece on Ben's story and the campaign to find him. – September 2011: Greek police on Kos officially re-open the case and grant the family a face-to-face meeting with the island's prosecutor. – October 2012: South Yorkshire Police in Kos begin digging up mounds around the property where Ben went missing to look for his remains. – December 2013: Ben's mother accuses then-prime minister David Cameron of not giving her case the same backing as he gave the parents of Madeline McCann. It comes as a dossier is produced containing reports from eight witnesses, none of who know each other, who all saw a boy possibly matching Ben's description with the same Greek family. – December 2014: Lawyers representing Ben's family say they may take legal action to try to force the Government to make a decision about funding a new police investigation. – January 2015: The Home Office agrees to fund a team of British detectives to help search for the toddler. – March/April 2015: Three generations of Ben Needham's family travel to Greece to follow up a "strong" lead that a man living there believes he may be the missing Brit due to having no photographs of himself under the age of two and no knowledge of where he was born. The man is later ruled out. – May 2015: Ben's family make a fresh appeal on Greek television for information regarding the disappearance. – May 2016: The Sun newspaper publishes a report that members of the police operation go on an "eight-hour booze-up" in Kos during the latest stage of the investigation. – September 2016: Ben's family are told to "prepare for the worst" by detectives leading the investigation, amid the belief the 21-month-old was crushed to death by a digger - the driver of which died in 2015. It comes as police arrive in Kos to begin excavation work in the belief the boy's remains may be buried near the farmhouse – October 16 2016: Officers formally end a three-week search of two sites on Kos. Detectives said they had accumulated more than 60 items of interest that would be brought back to the UK for forensic testing. – October 17 2016: South Yorkshire Police announces that it believes Ben died as a result of an accident near to the farmhouse where he disappeared.
In Moscow's Local Elections, Opponents Of Putin Find A Glimmer Of Hope Enlarge this image toggle caption Lucian Kim/NPR Lucian Kim/NPR Being a member of Russia's democratic opposition has long meant coping with failure and irrelevance. In the carefully choreographed public life of Vladimir Putin's Russia, political campaigns lacking the Kremlin's blessing have usually failed. But in early September, Russian democrats finally had something to celebrate: Almost 300 opposition candidates surprised everyone by winning majorities in 30 of Moscow's 125 local district councils. "I believe it's a really important political statement and signal to the Russian government and mayor of Moscow that people are thirsty for change," said Vitali Shkliarov, 41, one of the brains behind a little-noticed campaign to field 1,000 independent candidates to fill the city's lowest elected offices. Dmitry Gudkov, a former member of Parliament who opposed Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, organized the campaign and hired Shkliarov to build a citywide base for his bid to run for Moscow mayor next year. His website became the virtual campaign headquarters for hundreds of political novices challenging establishment candidates — part of an effort by Putin's opposition to embrace grass-roots politics and the Internet in a political landscape where the ruling United Russia party can marshal vast financial resources and the national TV channels are all under government control. Shkliarov's job was to apply his experience working in U.S. political campaigns to turn around the fortunes of Moscow's luckless democrats. A native of Belarus, Shkliarov became hooked on politics when he heard then-candidate Barack Obama speak in Berlin in 2008. "I became a political junkie," said Shkliarov, who was studying in Germany at the time. "I fell in love with politics because I saw for the first time a different type of candidate — a different type of politician — someone who is young, energetic, not the typical political actor I knew from Communist and Soviet times." Shkliarov ended up moving to the United States with his American wife and volunteering for Obama's re-election campaign. Then Shkliarov worked to get Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay U.S. senator, elected in Wisconsin. Last year, he was a campaign manager for Bernie Sanders at both the state and national levels. Enlarge this image toggle caption Lucian Kim/NPR Lucian Kim/NPR In Moscow, Shkliarov trained candidates on how to approach voters. "He was one of the people who was telling us: 'Don't try to talk to people on Facebook, do it personally, go from flat to flat, otherwise you will never be elected,'" said Anastasia Romashkevich, one of the successful first-time candidates. A 44-year-old magazine editor and bicycle enthusiast, Romashkevich found that Gudkov's website made campaigning as easy as a video game quest. Candidates could file legal documents, upload campaign photos and order flyers directly from their smartphones. The bundling of hundreds of campaigns reduced the cost per candidate to the equivalent of just a couple of dollars per day. In Romashkevich's central Moscow district, 10 of 15 seats went to the opposition. The United Russia party didn't win a single seat in the district where Putin cast his vote in the Sept. 10 election. "We won something," said Romashkevich. "People see that something can be done: You can start from scratch and win. I think it's a big thing and very inspirational for some people." Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption activist who plans to run for president next year, has also relied on the Internet to raise funds, organize a national campaign and get out his message railing against Putin and the powers that be. Four years ago, Navalny ran for the Moscow mayor's office, coming in second against Putin ally Sergei Sobyanin, with 27 percent of the vote. Putin himself failed to win even half the vote in Moscow in the last presidential election in 2012. That's why the opposition is redoubling its efforts to wrest control of the capital from Putin. But the size of the democrats' September victory is a matter of debate. Apathy is one of the opposition's greatest hurdles. In the Moscow vote, turnout was about 15 percent, and on election night, Gudkov was tweeting that in some districts, opposition candidates had lost seats by only a handful of votes. After the final tally, United Russia still took three-quarters of the district council seats citywide. "This is not the beginning of a democratic revolution, but it is an important indicator of movements within our society," said political analyst Kirill Rogov. "There's a huge demand among young people to go into politics, and there's an understanding of how to do it." Rogov says the political newcomers are a motley crew compared to the Kremlin's well-oiled political machine. "They're facing a powerful mafia that is very motivated, very rich and will do everything to divide, buy and intimidate them," he said. But those challenges don't faze political operative Shkliarov. He says the Moscow campaign shows that politics today can be run like a start-up to get many people involved, both as candidates and voters. "The barrier to enter politics in Russia is unbelievably high. The only way to go over it is to create a system that is affordable and scalable," said Shkliarov. "We have to create a political Uber." Shkliarov says that's a model not only for elections in other Russian cities, but everywhere people feel their politicians are out of touch.
iExec joins the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance Press Release: iExec, the distributed cloud platform for the future internet is joining the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance today. Gilles Fedak Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 11, 2017 July 11, 2017, Lyon France — The distributed cloud computing platform, iExec is joining the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) seeks to augment Ethereum, enabling it to serve as an enterprise-grade technology, with research and development focused on privacy, confidentiality, scalability, and security. EEA will also investigate hybrid architectures that span both permissioned and public Ethereum networks. Ethereum is a blockchain-based, general purpose decentralized application platform, enabling smart contract functionality. This technology facilitates more efficient and secure transactions without centralized intermediation. Notably, the Ethereum blockchain technology will improve banking trade settlement latency, increase transparency in supply chains, and create peer-to-peer markets without intermediaries. iExec stands for “I Execute”. It aims at starting off as a fully distributed Blockchain-based cloud platform. Headquartered in Lyon, France, iExec is a spin-off company from INRIA, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science. iExec aims to create a decentralized cloud and set up a marketplace for computing resources. It is designed for distributed Blockchain-based applications (DApps) with plans to evolve into a market network for decentralized computing products and services. The iExec system works by tethering computers together to create one giant network of computing resources. The Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts, act as a management system for the iExec network. It allows users to monetize their participation, automating payment transactions for the give and take of services. Unlike existing cloud providers, business on the iExec cloud is an open network allowing any companies to start their decentralize Cloud businesses. The iExec market network will be designed for various developers and enterprises of the distributed computing ecosystem. It will enable them to do business with each other to better monetize their products and services. CEO and co-founder Gilles explains the benefits for both iExec and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance: “The simple truth is that centralized cloud services are falling behind current demand for computing resources. The iExec team knows this through our work at the leading edge of distributed and cloud computing. With Ethereum we see how a new paradigm of cloud computing is not just possible but absolutely essential, to meet the current needs of cloud SaaS, PaaS and IaaS markets, and to meet the needs of the next wave of innovation such as High Performance Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Blockchain Computing and other forms of distributed business. iExec is proud to join the EEA to establish collectively the next generation IT infrastructure that will power Ethereum Dapps and beyond.” Website: http://iex.ec White paper: http://iex.ec/whitepaper Newsletter: goo.gl/cYltLJ Slack: http://slack.iex.ec Media Contact Contact Name: Gilles Fedak Contact Email: team@iex.ec Contact Location: Lyon, France
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A timetable for the bench return of Steve Kerr remained unknown Saturday night after the Golden State Warriors recorded a come-from-behind playoff victory without their ailing coach. The Warriors announced Saturday afternoon that Kerr would be forced to skip Game 3 of Golden State's first-round series with the Trail Blazers because of illness, with lead assistant Mike Brown taking his place. But specific details about Kerr's condition were scarce on Saturday, with league sources saying the specific cause of the illness ‎is not yet known. Editor's Picks Warriors overcome 17-point deficit to win Game 3 in Portland The Warriors got huge games off the bench from Andre Iguodala and JaVale McGee to comeback from a huge deficit in Portland and take a 3-0 series lead. The Warriors, sources said, have yet to determine whether Kerr's symptoms are related to the headaches, nausea and other complications he has endured for much of the past two seasons since his back surgery in July 2015 caused a fluid leak in his spine. Sources told ESPN.com that Kerr felt well enough Saturday morning to address the team, though he did not attend the Warriors' pregame shootaround. But sources said he also needed to have his fluids replenished Saturday before staying behind at the team hotel while the Warriors -- after falling behind by 17 points -- rallied to a 119-113 triumph over the Blazers to seize a 3-0 series lead, despite the absence of injured All-Star forward Kevin Durant (calf) for the second straight game. Brown, coaching his first playoff game since 2012, when he was the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, is scheduled to stand in for Kerr in speaking to media members on Sunday in advance of Monday night's Game 4 in Portland. ‎Sources said Kerr had been feeling ill all week. Late in Wednesday night's Game 2 victory over the Trail Blazers at home, Kerr appeared to give a glimpse of the discomfort he has been coping with by removing his suit jacket to finish out the game. Ties are not mandatory for NBA coaches, but sport coats or suit jackets are. After scoring Golden State's final nine points in Saturday's win, Warriors All-Star guard Stephen Curry told ESPN's J.A. Adande that he grabbed the game ball following the final buzzer to present to Kerr. "‎Our coach is going through a lot right now, physically," Curry told Adande. "He told us this morning this is a situation where we need to rally and go out and win a game for him. But we felt that the way the game had gone, we had to fight and do it for him ... and the way that he said it was that we had to win one for the Gipper. So, shout out to Coach Kerr.‎" Sources later told ESPN that Kerr actually told his players not to make the game about him or rally around his situation, but Curry was clearly moved to pay tribute to his coach after the win. In subsequent comments at the postgame podium, Curry said: "He's obviously going through a lot physically, and that's first and foremost for him to take care of himself, make sure he's on the road to recovery and feeling like himself. "We've got his back. We've had certain situations all year [and] previous years where players are down and you've got the 'next man up' philosophy. Same with Coach Kerr. He's done a great job of implementing a philosophy and a strategy and an identity of how we play Warrior basketball. And even in his absence, we want to kind of live up to that. "Coach Brown did a great job of stepping in -- [and] the whole coaching staff -- and that'll have to continue until he's back. But us as players, we have an opportunity to keep fighting, keep playing and keep pushing to our goal." Kerr was forced to sit out the first 43 games of the Warriors' title defense in 2015-16 because of complications caused by the back surgery months earlier. But he made it through all 82 games this regular season, missing only one morning shootaround during that span.
The Washington City Paper has officially decided to call the Washington Redskins football team the “Washington Pigskins,” ostensibly because some consider the term ‘Redskins’ to be an offensive term for Native Americans. The outlet held an online poll to “rename” the team, giving voters five different options to replace ‘Redskins.’ The choice was between the Washington Bammas, Washington Monuments, Washington Half-Smokes, Washington Pigskins, and the Washington Washingtons. In Nov. 2010, the City Paper published an article entitled, “The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder,” which centered on what the paper called the failings of Redskins owner Dan Snyder. Synder sued the paper the following February, but dropped the lawsuit in Sept. 2011. The City Paper isn’t the first publication to take aim at the Redskins. The Kansas City Star also decided to avoid using the term ‘Redskins’ in print to refer to the team. Follow Sarah on Twitter
Poet Laureate of Brooklyn Tina Chang has a message for politicians: "We need fewer walls and more book awards." In a stirring speech delivered at the 2016 PEN Literary Awards ceremony, Chang decried the current political climate's position on diversity. SEE ALSO: Here are the winners of the 2016 PEN Literary Awards "We need less punishment for what women choose to do with their bodies and recognition for what they accomplish with their intellect and will. We need not take back America and instead give abundantly and fairly to the communities that have built this country," she said. While Chang didn't name any specific presidential candidates in her speech, she did clarify to Mashable after the ceremony, "We all knew who I was talking about." Chang, who was the host of the evening, called out the presidential race as she announced the winner of the PEN Open Book Award, a prize given every year to an exceptional book length work of literature published by an author of color. Check out the full speech below: My children are Asian American and African American. My brother is Muslim and so is his family that he married into, who are largely from Afghanistan. Much of my extended family is also Latin American. We are like any other American family. When we get together for gatherings, my brother is very quick to turn on the television, and he has to have a Jet's game on in the background. My children and nephews are playing two hand touch in my living room much to my dismay. We couldn't be any more typical. But taking my background into consideration, we would be most unpopular with certain presidential candidates and I don't give a hoot. Nobody says "hoot" anymore but I couldn't say "damn" so I said "hoot." I imagine that in someone's concocted world, they would build walls around us, create laws to keep us out of the country and find ways to silence us. And I think we need fewer walls and more book awards. We need less punishment for what women choose to do with their bodies and recognition for what they accomplish with their intellect and will. We need not take back America and instead give abundantly and fairly to the communities that have build this country. It is due in part to my background that I search for diverse stories and characters of color wherever I go. As I visit bookstores and libraries with my children, one thing becomes pretty apparent, pretty quickly and that is that there are so few books for children of color. And for a child, this is devastating, as they quickly learn to devalue themselves as they do not see a positive semblance of themselves anywhere. As one moves into adulthood and sees the trend continuing, one begins to wonder: who's at the helm, why aren't things changing and what force will turn the tide of privilege. My hope is that in the not too distance future, our books will reflect the true demographics of America. PEN is a tremendous part of that vision, as it promotes ongoing dialogue about publishing and diversity. As it works for equal representation so that writers of every background feel that they have a rightful place in the American literary landscape. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
James Warren "Jim" Jones was born on May 13, 1931 to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones's father was a Warld War 1 veteran. and Jones's mother "believed she has given birth to a messiah." Jim Jones was born in a rural area of Randolph County, Indiana, near its border with Ohio. He was of Irish and Welsh descent, and later claimed partial Cherokee ancestry through his mother. During the Great Depression the Jones' family left Randolph County for Lynn in 1943. It is there that he grew up in a shack with no plumbing. It is said that Jones' father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. His (Jim's) friends described him as "weird" and "obsessed with religion and death." His friends from childhood reported that he would hold funerals for small animals and had once stabbed a cat to death just to hold the funeral. Jones heald great interest in Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler, and was quick to notice all their strengths and weaknessses. Jim's parents seperated while he was in highschool and he lived with his mother in Richmond, Indiana. Later he graduated from Richmond High School early and with honors in December of 1948. While working in a hospital, Jim Jones met Marceline Baldwin who was a nurse. Jim and Marceline were married in June of 1949.After being married the Jones' moved to Bloomington, Indiana. The two had one child together, in 1959 naming him Stephan Gandhi Jones. They also adopted several children of various ethnicites. Jones often refered to his family as "rainbow family" and was proud of it. The couple adopted three children of Korean-American ancestry named Lew, Suzanne and Stephanie. They adopted a child who was partly Native American named Agnes. In 1961 the Joneses became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, Jamed Warren Jones, Jr. He urged others to adopt interracially.The Joneses also adopted another son who what white named Tim, originally named Timoth Glen Tupper. Tim's mother was a member of...
Texas Politicians And Businesses Feud Over Medicaid Expansion Dallas's Parkland Hospital treats a lot of people without health insurance. On a November day in 1963, emergency room doctors at this county hospital frantically tried to save an American president who could not be saved. These days, emergency room doctors frantically try to treat 240,000 patients every year. "So you can see we have every treatment area filled up. Beds are in the hallways and the rooms are all full," says Dr. John Pease, chief of emergency services. Enlarge this image toggle caption Rick Wilking/Reuters/Landov Rick Wilking/Reuters/Landov In Texas, about 1 in 4 people is uninsured. By federal law, the county hospital's emergency room cannot turn sick patients away, no matter their ability to pay, so Parkland opens its arms. Last year it cost Parkland Hospital three quarters of a billion dollars to provide what is called "uncompensated care" — mostly treating patients without health insurance. Parkland is hardly some 90-pound weakling, but $765 million of red ink will strain any hospital. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who oversees the county hospital, says it doesn't have to be this way. "A huge chunk of that could be paid for," Jenkins says. "It's about $580 million a year that would be brought in by the Medicaid expansion monies." Expanding Medicaid was intended to be a key element of the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid expansion covers uninsured adults, mostly working poor, who don't make enough to buy health insurance on the exchanges. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have taken up the charge of Medicaid expansion. But when the U.S. Supreme Court gave the individual states the option to opt of Medicaid expansion, then-Texas-Gov. Rick Perry could not opt out fast enough. Texas hospitals had to eat $5.5 billion in uncompensated care last year. The reason is this: After the Affordable Care Act passed, the amount of money the federal government provides to hospitals for uncompensated care was significantly reduced. In 2013, while contemplating a second run at the presidency, Perry had a message for Tea Party conservatives across the nation. "Thank you all for being here," he started. "The first day of April. Seems to me an appropriate April Fool's Day — makes it perfect to discuss something as foolish as Medicaid expansion and to remind everyone that Texas will not be held hostage by the Obama administration's attempt to force us into this fool's errand of adding more than a million Texans to a broken system." Perry's speech was a clear message to the Republican-dominated state Legislature: Medicaid expansion is part of Obamacare, and Texas hates Obamacare. The problem is that in hating the Affordable Care Act, the state is leaving on the table as much as $100 billion of federal money over 10 years — money that could pay for health insurance for more than 1 million of its working poor. This is driving many in the state's business community bonkers. "It's our money that we are sending to Washington, D.C.," says Bill Hammond, CEO of the Texas Association of Business, which includes many of the state's richest and most powerful business owners. "We are not getting it back," he says. "We pay for it with corporate income tax, we pay for it with our personal income tax and we pay it in the fact that our premiums are higher than they would be if everyone was insured." Texas has the second-highest health insurance premiums in the country, right behind Florida. And Texas has the third-highest property taxes in the country. In Dallas, for example, more than half of property owners' county property tax bill goes to reimburse Parkland Hospital for the uncompensated care it has to provide. "Texas businesses pay almost 63 percent of all state and local taxes," Hammond says. He says if the state expanded Medicaid it would save Texas business billions of dollars a year that could be invested in upgrading equipment, hiring new employees, providing raises and rewarding shareholders. For every dollar the state would pay into Medicaid expansion, it would earn back $1.30 from the economic activity created, according to an analysis by Ray Perryman. He's an economist who has consulted for the Texas Legislature and six governors. That economic activity would top out at $3 billion in 10 years, creating 300,000 new jobs each year, he says. "It's infused in some areas that have direct impact on the economy in a lot of fundamental ways that extends beyond the year in which it occurs," Perryman explains. "You may be prolonging someone's work life 10 or 15 years, or maybe solving a chronic illness problem that's going to drain hundreds of thousands of dollars from the system over time that's avoidable if people get health care earlier." Totally aside from the health benefits, Perryman says, when you look at the numbers, "You look at them and you say, 'This is a no-brainer. We need to be doing this.' It's really an apolitical situation. It's just math." But it's much more than just the math. As the 84th session of the Texas Legislature comes to a close, there's been no debate at all about Medicaid expansion. The issue seems to be settled and the answer is an unqualified no. "We've got a very conservative Legislature which would like to prioritize tax relief over meeting some of the infrastructure needs of the state," says John Hawkins, a vice president with the Texas Hospital Association. Hawkins says the state's uncompensated bills cost everybody. The hospitals can't eat that kind of loss, so they shift some of that cost to their insured patients. "Probably $1,800 of the family premium each year can be attributable to the cost of the uninsured in the state," he says. It's fair to say that Texas Republicans are not big on entitlements. Nevertheless, $100 billion is a lot of money to turn your back on. Republican Rep. John Zerwas is himself an anesthesiologist who represents a conservative suburb southwest of Houston. Like all his Republican colleagues in the Texas House and Senate, Zerwas opposes the Affordable Care Act. Nevertheless, he's trying to find a way for Texas to take the Medicaid expansion money by reclassifying it as something else, like a federal block grant or something other mechanism — anything that's not called Obamacare. "I try to argue that when you look at where those monies are invested and how that translates into job growth and economic growth, the health care sector is a very good place for that investment to be made," Zerwas says. But some very politically powerful people in Texas don't believe it. "Expanding government programs doesn't create jobs," says John Davidson, director of the health care policy center at the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, a conservative think tank. "The government can't create jobs. So it's fundamentally flawed from an economic point of view." Davidson and the Texas Public Policy Foundation not only say no to Obama's Medicaid expansion, they want the administration to give Texas more control over regular Medicaid so the state can toughen standards. "Personal responsibility, work requirements, narrower benefits, penalizing inappropriate use of the ER," Davidson says. "These [are the] kinds of things that we and other conservative groups wanted to bring into the Medicaid program to try to incentivize certain behaviors on the part of the patients." This is precisely the position the new Texas governor, lieutenant governor and Texas Senate have taken. And Republicans in the Texas House and Senate who are open to Medicaid expansion fear if they support it, it will earn them the wrath of Texas Tea Party Republicans. Zerwas says he hears this a lot. "Generally the issue comes as politically, how is this going to affect me in my next election?" Zerwas says. "Anything that is seen to be taking advantage of a provision in the health care law is going to be seen as something that's propping up Obamacare." Political districts in Texas are now so heavily gerrymandered and turnout so low that Tea Party voters can have outsized influence. Last election, for example, more than a half-dozen Republican incumbents in the Texas House were beaten because they were deemed not conservative enough. For now, Medicaid expansion in Texas is dead. But if Texas won't consider taking the money, other states will. A growing number of Republican legislatures — Arkansas, Arizona, North Dakota and Montana — recently voted to accept Medicaid expansion money. Utah, Florida and Alaska are discussing it.
How The Death Of A 12-Year-Old Changed The City Of Dallas Forty years ago, thousands of Mexican-Americans in Dallas, Texas came together for a protest at city hall. Four days earlier, a white police officer had shot and killed 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez. The death of Rodriguez sparked a riot. Eventually, it later spurred change that led to political representation and more Mexican-Americans on the police force. Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of the Dallas Mexican American Historical League Courtesy of the Dallas Mexican American Historical League On July 24, 1973, Santos Rodriguez and his 13-year-old brother David were pulled from their home, handcuffed and put inside a police car. Officers accused them of robbing $8 from a vending machine at a nearby gas station. They denied it. Officer Darrell L. Cain decided to play a game of Russian roulette to force the boys to confess to the crime. Nothing happened the first time the officer pulled the trigger on his .357 Magnum. The second time, the gun fired. Twelve-year-old Santos died in that squad car, his blood soaking his brother's feet. Cain was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to five years but was released after two and a half years. The Mexican-American Community Responds "The killing of Santos Rodriguez galvanized our community," says Albert Valtierra, president of the Dallas Mexican American Historical League. In the mid-70s, there were about 80,000 Latinos in Dallas. Valtierra says at the time, the Latino community was just getting established. "We were buying houses, getting good jobs," he says. "But there was still resistance from the powers that be, so we had to go out and claim the power for ourselves." Four days after Santos died, activists came together for a protest march to Dallas' old city hall. "This was really the first time Mexican-Americans had organized to have a protest," says Rene Martinez, who was 25 at the time. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the temperature was in the triple digits. Thousands of Mexican-Americans marched and shouted, in Spanish, "justice for the people." What began as a peaceful march turned violent. Martinez remembers watching people throwing bottles, squashing a squad car, and lighting a police motorcycle on fire. Five officers were injured, and more than 30 people arrested. Martinez, who is now president of the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, says the riot was ugly, but that it pushed city leaders into action. "These were men that said, 'We've had this tragedy, we're having protests, we've got to change,'" he says. In the decades that followed the shooting, Mexican-Americans in Dallas grew from a small minority to more than a third of the city's population. They began to win seats on the city council and the school board. The biggest transformation, however, was in the Dallas Police Department. The Dallas Police Department Gets A Makeover Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of the Dallas Mexican American Historical League Courtesy of the Dallas Mexican American Historical League In 1975, Cynthia Villarreal became the first Latina to put on the Dallas Police uniform. This was two years after Santos was killed. "It was a time when they were trying to hire as many women as they could, as many Hispanics, blacks, you name it," says Villarreal, who now ranks second only to the police chief. Dallas was just beginning to desegregate its schools and integrate its police department. It eased height and weight requirements that had shut out people like Villareal, who is 5 feet 2 inches. Recruiters worked to persuade her to join the forces, but it was Villarreal's family in south Texas they had to convince. "When they found out I was applying to Dallas they said, 'Oh no, they don't like Hispanics there, they just killed a little boy over there,'" Villarreal says. "My grandfather thought there were all kinds of problems up here in Dallas." Villareal says it took decades to improve the relationship between Latinos and the police. But today, almost half of the force are minorities. She says the killing of Santos helped drive the transformation of the Dallas Police Department. Here is an excerpt of KERA's 1982 documentary 'Pride And Anger: A Mexican American Perspective of Dallas and Fort Worth.'
A whopping 72 percent of Airbnb’s listings in New York are illegal, according to a new state report, and together with city regulators, the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is actively cracking down on the room-rental service. Covering four years of data provided to the attorney general after a court battle, the report indicates that more than a third of the listings posted on the online marketplace are run by large-scale operators, not permanent residents, and generate more than a third of the revenue. In New York City, laws are in place to prevent people from renting out their residences for less than 30 days, unless the tenants are also home. Schneiderman is looking to shut down these operations, which are essentially run like hotels. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Bebeto Matthews / AP The findings run counter to Airbnb's previous claims on how people use its service. It prefers to paint its marketplace as a way for individuals to "share" available rooms with others. In September, it proudly announced that 87 percent of Airbnb hosts in New York actually share the home in which they live. But this hardly tells the whole story. According to the New York report, six percent of Airbnb hosts made 37 percent of the revenue in New York City, amounting to $168 million. Within this pool, hosts posted three to 272 units on the home rental service. The person who had listed 272 units has made as much as $6.8 million in revenue. Airbnb has not publicly denied the figures. But last week, in San Francisco, the company wholeheartedly embraced new regulations that were put into place to address the risk of hosts renting out properties as if they were full-time hotels. Now, at least officially, only permanent San Francisco residents can offer their homes for rent, entire homes can only be rented out for a maximum of 90 days per year, hotel tax is collected, and each rental must carry $500,000 in liability insurance. Yes, New York's report makes Airbnb look rather disingenuous. But it also shows that all cities need regulations along the lines of those in San Francisco. Room sharing is one thing. A hotel business is another. What needed is a way of distinguishing between the two.
If you have not reviewed the intentionally vulnerable plugin, then I suggest you do so before reading on. The intentionally vulnerable plugin demonstrates a range of security vulnerabilities that are commonly seen in WordPress plugins. In this post I aim to go through each vulnerability giving a little background on why it is dangerous and how it should be fixed. SQL injection This is a rather famous vulnerability that can be exploited by an attacker to modify database queries. This can allow the attacker to read sensitive information from the database, modify data stored in the database, and possibly even execute commands on database server, among other things. The basic idea is that if untrusted user input is included directly in a query then maliciously formatted input can be used to alter the query’s syntax. The first SQL injection vulnerability is caused by the incorrect usage of the wpdb::prepare() method on line 42: $wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare( "INSERT INTO login_audit (login, pass, ip, time) VALUES ('$login', '$pass', '$ip', '$time')" ) ); When using the prepare() method placeholders, such as %s and %d , should be used in the query string which is the first argument of the method — the method is not magic, it cannot parse the query to determine what was user input! The variables are then passed in as separate arguments so that they can be escaped properly before being included in the query. This rather common error has been made more obvious since the release of WordPress 3.5 which required more than one argument to be passed to the method. The correct usage, and the fix, is: $wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare( "INSERT INTO login_audit (login, pass, ip, time) VALUES (%s, %s, %s, %s)", $login, $pass, $ip, $time ) ); The other two SQL injection vulnerabilities, on lines 102 and 127, are caused by incorrectly escaping user input that is not used in a quoted context of an SQL query. The esc_sql() function can only be safely used to escape input that will be used within quotes. However, the two queries are using input as a numeric argument that is not enclosed within quotes: $log = $wpdb->get_row( "SELECT * FROM login_audit WHERE ID = " . esc_sql( $id ), ARRAY_A ); // ... and ... $wpdb->query( "DELETE FROM login_audit WHERE ID = " . esc_sql( $_POST['id'] ) ); To fix this you should use the prepare() method with a %d placeholder: $log = $wpdb->get_row( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT * FROM login_audit WHERE ID = %d", $id ), ARRAY_A ); // ... and ... $wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare( "DELETE FROM login_audit WHERE ID = %d", $_POST['id'] ) ); It is also possible to sanitize numeric input by casting to int or using the absint() method. Cross-site scripting Cross-site scripting (XSS) is one of the most prevalent security vulnerabilities in web applications. XSS is also commonly found in WordPress plugins, so it features heavily in the intentionally vulnerable plugin. XSS is often classed as either “persistent” or “reflected”. An XSS vulnerability is persistent if the unsafe user input is stored in the database, and then output to other users in future requests. It is known as reflected if the unsafe user input is output immediately in response to a request containing the dangerous input. To exploit a reflected XSS vulnerability the attacker would have to convince a victim to click on their specially crafted link that triggers a malicious script. However, a persistent XSS vulnerability will allow the attacker to input their malicious script themselves and then wait for unsuspecting users to visit or click on benign looking links. There are two instances of persistent XSS in the intentionally vulnerable plugin, in dvp_view_all_logs() and dvp_view_log() . Both of these functions output data straight from the database without escaping it. All of this data originated from the user in dvp_log_failed_login() . For example, an attacker could purposefully fail a login attempt using a password of <script>alert(1)</script>. The fix for this would be to use an appropriate escaping function, such as esc_html() or esc_attr() when outputting data from the database. Data can also be sanitized when being stored in the database using KSES, or strip_tags() when no HTML is expected, in addition to escaping on output. There are also multiple examples of reflected XSS. On lines 104 and 115, the $id variable, which was originally $_GET['id'] , is output without any escaping. Line 104 should be fixed with esc_html() , and line 115 should be fixed with esc_attr() . Another problem is the use of $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] on line 116 to get the current URL. This is an extremely common problem that allows XSS since an attacker can control its value and include malicious HTML that will break out of the attribute and execute a script. This should be fixed by using a WordPress function, such as menu_page_url() , to get the correct URL. Cross-site request forgery Another extremely common vulnerability in web applications is the failure to prevent cross-site request forgeries (CSRF). This type of attack exploits a request handler that checks authorisation, but not intention. A malicious website is able to send a request to another site that the user is authenticated to. The vulnerable target site will accept this request since it is sent with valid authentication cookies. However, the user did not intend for the action to be performed. WordPress plugins can defend against this type of attack by using nonces. These are action dependent random strings that cannot be predicted by an attacker, but can be verified by WordPress. So, if a request does not include a valid nonce then it is rejected. The intentionally vulnerable plugin looks as if it makes use of nonces to defend against CSRF, but the author has made a couple of mistakes that leave it exploitable. Firstly, the use of nonce generation and verification functions without passing the $action parameter is insecure. Lines 114 and 123 should be edited to add the use of an action. Note that this mistake would be caught when developing with WP_DEBUG enabled as this use of check_admin_referer() raises a notice. The second mistake is more subtle. On line 137 the following check is made: if (isset($_REQUEST['nonce']) && ! wp_verify_nonce($_REQUEST['nonce'], 'dvp_settings')) // ... failed nonce check The problem with this check is that it requires the nonce request parameter to be set to ever evaluate to true. This means that an attacker can simply omit this parameter to bypass the nonce verification. This type of logic error means that it is highly recommended that you use check_admin_referer() instead of wp_verify_nonce() directly. Missing capabilities checks The lack of capabilities checks in the log deletion handler allows for a privilege escalation attack. Any logged in user is able to delete rows from the login_audit table since there are no privilege checks. Note that unauthenticated users cannot exploit this because the handler is not hooked into a _nopriv admin-post.php action. However, this is still a serious security failure. So, always remember to use the appropriate current_user_can() capabilities checks on your admin pages and privileged request handlers. Failure to exit after a redirect When a script redirects the user to another page execution will actually continue on the server side until it exits. This means that it is almost always desirable to make a call to exit or die() when making a redirect. The failure to do this on line 140 means that the capabilities check and CSRF defence (even if it didn’t have a logic error) are rendered useless as a forged request or request made by a low privilege user will actually cause the settings to be updated even though the conditional triggered a redirect. (Note that using check_admin_referer() would have also nullified the problem for a forged request since it calls die() on failure.) The other locations where redirects are used are not vulnerable in the same way because they are called at the end of script execution, but it would be good practice to add exits there as well. This vulnerability is exacerbated by the fact that the plugin has a ridiculous update loop that would allow a successful attacker to update any option in the database. Instead a plugin should know which options it is in charge of and only modify those whitelisted options. Open redirect On a redirect related note, there is an open redirect vulnerability in the deletion handler on line 130. In this plugin the intention is to return the user to the list of failed login attempts, so wp_safe_redirect() should have been used instead of plain old wp_redirect() . However, in this situation it would be even better to redirect to a hardcoded URL using menu_page_url() or admin_url() and then remove the ability to specify the redirect through the request parameters. IP forgery The dvp_get_ip() function can be tricked into logging an incorrect IP address since the X-Forwarded-For header is user controllable. This is bad news for a variety of reasons. For security logging purposes it degrades the utility of the audit trail as an attacker pretends to be coming from a legitimate address. If it were used for securing access then it is trivially by-passable. In the case of this plugin this can also lead to SQL injection and persistent XSS. Conclusion There are many things that plugin authors can do wrong! The number one rule to remember is that the user is not to be trusted. Always validate and escape anything that could be controlled by a user. I hope that participants found this to be a useful exercise and that this review post has helped your understanding of plugin security.
Architects of President Obama's 2008 victory are braced for potentially sizable Democratic losses in November's midterm elections. But they say voters' unease about a GOP takeover will help their party maintain congressional majorities. "I think the prospect of a Republican takeover -- while not likely, but plausible -- will be very much part of the dynamic in October, and I think that will help us with turnout and some of this enthusiasm gap," said David Plouffe, who was Obama's campaign manager two years ago and is helping to oversee Democratic efforts this fall. Still, he put all Democrats on notice, saying: "We'd better act as a party as if the House and the Senate and every major governor's race is at stake and in danger, because they could be." Plouffe and other Democratic strategists say Obama will play an important role in making the case that the Republican Party is one of obstruction and indifference. But they think the outcome in November will depend as much on the skill of candidates in mobilizing potential supporters who are now disinclined to vote. Struggling economy Independent projections show Republicans in range of winning the 39 additional seats they need to regain power in the House. Taking control of the Senate appears more difficult: Republicans would have to win virtually all the competitive races. But Democrats still are likely to return in January with their majority in the Senate significantly diminished. Economic discontent remains the biggest threat to the Democrats' political prospects this fall. The issue has become more acute with growing fears that the economy has lost steam in recent weeks. Friday's unemployment report will provide more evidence. "I think that as long as the economy is struggling, the economy is going to be a decisive issue," White House senior adviser David Axelrod said. "The question is whether people believe at the end of the day [that] turning backward to the policies that got us into the disaster is really the answer. That's a debate we're going to have." Obama provided a taste of that on Wednesday in Racine, Wis., when he chastised House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) for saying that the financial regulatory reform bill was like "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon." The president will step up his political activity later this summer. His team also said it must aggressively rebut Republicans' arguments that the president's policies have led to excessive growth of government spending and regulation. "If we allow a Republican Party that took a $237 billion surplus and turned it into a $1.3 trillion deficit over eight years to masquerade as the party of fiscal responsibility, then shame on us," Axelrod said. Obama's strategists have been analyzing the state of the electorate and have concluded that the path for Democrats is treacherous but that there is room for improvement before November. They must woo back some independent voters who have defected since 2008 while boosting turnout beyond historical patterns for midterm elections among the millions of new or irregular voters who were energized by Obama's campaign. At this point, GOP voters are significantly more motivated to cast ballots in November. Plouffe said that, because there is little likelihood that Republican enthusiasm will wane before then, "we have a lot less margin for error." Still, Obama strategists see a variety of ways to offset the GOP's current advantages. Democratic incumbents have yet to tell their stories fully to voters in their districts, and most have not begun to challenge their GOP opponents directly. They also believe that the intensity of opposition to the new health-care reform law is slowly diminishing. Maximizing victories Obama faces questions about whether he and his team are more focused on his 2012 reelection bid than they are on ensuring his party maintains as much strength in Congress as possible. His advisers say he is fully committed to maximizing Democratic victories in November. "I think by the time this thing is through, no one's going to say, 'Gee, I don't think he put a good effort into it,' " Axelrod said. The president plans an extensive round of fundraising for Democrats this summer. He will also ramp up his activity as the party's chief politician. But the weight of holding the party's majorities may fall more heavily on candidates. The Democratic National Committee has begun a program designed to increase turnout in November among the first-time and irregular voters who backed Obama in 2008. But advisers say many of these voters won't show up in November unless candidates make personal connections with them. One way will be by raising the prospect of a GOP takeover. Unlike 1994, when Republicans took control of the House for the first time in 40 years, "it's not hard to remind people of what the Republican experiment will be," Plouffe said. "It's very fresh in their mind." Democrats plan to highlight success stories, but they are being told they also must make the case against their opponents. "The key is to go into these districts, these battleground districts, and win them on the ground, win them on the attack with aggressive campaigns, win them in field, one by one," Axelrod said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in Congress are getting ready to answer an election-year question that has dogged the party’s campaign for months: How would it replace President Barack Obama’s healthcare law if the measure is overturned or repealed? U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner (2nd L) and Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R) lead the Republican members of Congress into Statuary Hall on the way into the U.S. House of Representatives chamber to begin the vote on health care reform on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 21, 2010. REUTERS/Larry Downing House Republicans are working to create a legislative blueprint they can sell to voters after the Supreme Court rules on Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the nation’s most sweeping healthcare legislation since Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. Lawmakers and their aides say a Republican plan would focus on controlling healthcare costs and allowing people to retain coverage while changing jobs. They will avoid Obama’s comprehensive approach to extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. The aim is to lay out a prospective agenda for the newly elected political leadership in 2013, based on a “step-by-step” approach consisting of separate bills that address specific problems within America’s $2.6 billion healthcare system. But if the high court justices struck down the entire law, Republicans could try to salvage some of the Affordable Care Act’s provisions that are already in force and have proved popular with voters. Representative Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House Republican Policy Committee, said stopgap legislation could be crafted for 2012 if the court ended health insurance safeguards for young adults and children with pre-existing medical conditions. “That would present a significant void and vacuum in health policy,” Price said. “There will be a need to have some things to fill that vacuum.” But a Senate Republican aide said there would be no need for Congress to act this year if necessary adjustments could be achieved by the administration alone or by industry. “There’s a lot of shadow-boxing going on,” said one healthcare industry lobbyist. Closed-door discussions have not yet turned to specific legislative options, which may be drawn from a swath of previously proposed Republican legislation. But some say a consensus between leaders and key committee chairmen could emerge as early as the May 28 Memorial Day holiday, weeks before a Supreme Court ruling widely anticipated for June. “When the Supreme Court acts, we will be ready with plans that actually work to lower the cost of care and to help people keep the care they want,” said Republican Senator John Barrasso, another orthopedic-surgeon-turned-legislator who is Price’s policy counterpart in the Senate. A DEMOCRATIC PLAN, EVENTUALLY The Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature domestic achievement, introduces new consumer protections and encourages market innovations intended to improve the quality of care while eventually lowering costs. But 26 states and an independent business group asked the Supreme Court to overturn the law on grounds that it exceeded the federal government’s constitutional authority by requiring most Americans to buy health insurance and imposing a dramatic expansion of the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor. The court’s impending decision, which would land in the middle of the 2012 campaign battle for control the White House and Congress, could strike down all or part of Obama’s reform act, or leave the two-year old package in place. Whatever the outcome, the decision is expected to kick off an aggressive new chapter in the election campaign that will spotlight healthcare far more prominently, according to analysts and lobbyists. There has been no word on whether House Republicans are consulting with the party’s presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has proposed his own set of market-oriented healthcare reforms and has vowed to kill Obama’s healthcare law. Up to now, Republicans on the campaign trail have chiefly attacked “Obamacare” and vowed to repeal it, leaving them vulnerable to charges the party has no credible reform plan of its own. “They need something positive. ‘Repeal’ alone is negative, and people want consequential health reform that solves real problems that are facing them,” said Robert Moffitt of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has contributed reform ideas to both sides of the partisan aisle. Moffitt and James Capretta of the conservative American Enterprise Institute advocate an approach they say would make consumers more cost-conscious. It would move away from the current tax break for employer-sponsored healthcare, in exchange for fixed tax credits that would help cover the cost of individual plans sold in a competitive marketplace. Consumers would have to bear any cost over the fixed tax credits. In an article titled “How to Replace Obamacare,” in the current edition of the quarterly journal National Affairs, the two analysts also call for changing existing laws to protect people with pre-existing conditions and adopting policies that would better encourage reform initiatives at the state level. Similar ideas and others have been circulating for years in Republican legislative proposals that have never become law. Some call for insurance reforms allowing individuals to buy insurance from other states or for letting small businesses, churches and civic organizations form new insurance pools. Proposals also would protect doctors and other healthcare providers from malpractice suits and convert Medicare into a program that provides vouchers to help the elderly and disabled meet the cost of purchasing private insurance. But some of those ideas have been found wanting in the past. In 2009, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office examined a Republican proposal that sought to allow the interstate sale of insurance, imposed medical malpractice reforms and offered incentives for state-level reforms. The CBO found the plan would cut the deficit by $68 billion over 10 years, extend coverage to only 3 million uninsured and raise insurance rates for some, including those less healthy. By contrast, the CBO has said the Affordable Care Act would reduce the deficit by $132 billion through 2019. The Obama administration is also showing signs of thinking about what to do if the Supreme Court’s ruling proves unfavorable. Officials still say they are confident the Affordable Care Act will be upheld and that their focus is on implementing its provisions. But references to “a plan” have begun to emerge in recent comments by the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services. “We will eventually, I’m sure, have a plan. But that really isn’t where all the time and energy is focused right now,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Reuters after a recent speaking engagement.
If you’ve ever argued with your team about the way your JSON responses should be formatted, JSON:API can be your anti-bikeshedding tool. By following shared conventions, you can increase productivity, take advantage of generalized tooling, and focus on what matters: your application. Clients built around JSON:API are able to take advantage of its features around efficiently caching responses, sometimes eliminating network requests entirely. Here’s an example response from a blog that implements JSON:API: { "links" : { "self" : "http://example.com/articles" , "next" : "http://example.com/articles?page[offset]=2" , "last" : "http://example.com/articles?page[offset]=10" }, "data" : [{ "type" : "articles" , "id" : "1" , "attributes" : { "title" : "JSON:API paints my bikeshed!" }, "relationships" : { "author" : { "links" : { "self" : "http://example.com/articles/1/relationships/author" , "related" : "http://example.com/articles/1/author" }, "data" : { "type" : "people" , "id" : "9" } }, "comments" : { "links" : { "self" : "http://example.com/articles/1/relationships/comments" , "related" : "http://example.com/articles/1/comments" }, "data" : [ { "type" : "comments" , "id" : "5" }, { "type" : "comments" , "id" : "12" } ] } }, "links" : { "self" : "http://example.com/articles/1" } }], "included" : [{ "type" : "people" , "id" : "9" , "attributes" : { "firstName" : "Dan" , "lastName" : "Gebhardt" , "twitter" : "dgeb" }, "links" : { "self" : "http://example.com/people/9" } }, { "type" : "comments" , "id" : "5" , "attributes" : { "body" : "First!" }, "relationships" : { "author" : { "data" : { "type" : "people" , "id" : "2" } } }, "links" : { "self" : "http://example.com/comments/5" } }, { "type" : "comments" , "id" : "12" , "attributes" : { "body" : "I like XML better" }, "relationships" : { "author" : { "data" : { "type" : "people" , "id" : "9" } } }, "links" : { "self" : "http://example.com/comments/12" } }] } The response above contains the first in a collection of “articles”, as well as links to subsequent members in that collection. It also contains resources linked to the article, including its author and comments. Last but not least, links are provided that can be used to fetch or update any of these resources. JSON:API covers creating and updating resources as well, not just responses. MIME Types JSON:API has been properly registered with the IANA. Its media type designation is application/vnd.api+json . Format documentation To get started with JSON:API, check out documentation for the base specification. Extensions The JSON:API community has created a collection of extensions that APIs can use to provide clients with information or functionality beyond that described in the base JSON:API specification. These extensions are called profiles. You can browse existing profiles or create a new one. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of individual changes here.
Automation may be all the rage in the automobile world today, but in the skies it can be dangerous. The Federal Aviation Administration is failing to ensure airline pilots receive enough training in manual flying, according to a recent report from the Department of Transportation's Inspector General. In fact, commercial pilots may be relying so much on automation that they lack the skills to take over when the system fails, the IG says. "The agency is missing important opportunities to ensure that pilots maintain skills needed to safely fly and recover in the event of a failure with flight deck automation or an unexpected event," the report says. "Reliance on automation is a growing concern." The report cites the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 in San Francisco in 2013. Afterward, the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the crew did not appropriately understand the aircraft's automation systems, which contributed to the crash that killed three people and injured 187. "As a result, reliance on automation is a growing concern among industry experts, who have also questioned whether pilots are provided enough training and experience to maintain manual flying proficiency," the IG report says. A spokesperson for the FAA did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. The FAA regulates at what speeds and altitudes that autopilot can be used, and require pilots receive authorization before using certain flight procedures that require automation. But the IG accuses the agency of being lax in enforcing these standards, as well as ensuring that pilots are properly trained in the procedures of switching from autopilot to manual control. But the agency itself has noted in the past that an over reliance on autopilot can prove dangerous to pilots.
Most politicians have figured out that it backfires when you say something racist (the Republican Party has even issued rules to try to avoid future “Macaca moments”). The trick, however, is to somehow appeal to racist fears while not appearing to actually be racist. For example, in 2006, the Republicans ran a now-infamous negative TV ad against black Senate candidate Harold Ford. For the most part it was a typical negative political ad, but it accused him of taking porn money and ended with a young white woman winking salaciously and saying “Harold, call me”. The result was devastating. Ford was ahead before the ad ran, but his campaign plummeted and he lost the election. The moral? Putting black men in the same ad as sexy white woman scares the pants off some voters. Fast forward to 2008, and the Republicans are running a new ad containing Obama and young white women like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Note that neither of these women have anything to do with Obama, and both have gotten quite a bit of media attention for their sexual exploits. The Republicans can claim that they are just trying to compare Obama to other “top” celebrities, so they have plausible deniability. But here’s the interesting bit. When Obama complained about this ad, McCain’s campaign manager snapped back “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck.” Ignore for a moment that McCain is blaming the target of his own ad for playing the race card. The more interesting point is that McCain’s response is almost exactly the same as a famous quote from lawyer Robert Shapiro “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.” As you may remember, Shapiro was talking about how they won the O.J. Simpson trial, where a black man was accused of killing a white woman. Coincidence? Or just blatant irony? UPDATE: Bob Herbert in the NY Times has the answer. UPDATE 2: The Brits have a term for this kind of message — they call it a “dog whistle”. Just like a real dog whistle is a whistle that only dogs can hear, in politics, a “dog whistle” sends a message that only a certain constituency will hear or understand.
Star Wars' Jar Jar Binks death video emerges, fans rejoice Storified by CBC News Community· Thu, Nov 07 2013 12:12:39 Not many people like Jar Jar Binks; especially not Star Wars fans. Because Nobody Likes Jar Jar Binks - Part 2 of 3The Blue Sequel There's no such thing as Santa Claus and people who like Jar Jar Binks.Darth Vader Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, there were celebrations all 'round. So when a video emerged on YouTube appearing to show the death of the annoying, bumbling and computer-generated character, who first appeared in, there were celebrations all 'round. In the clip, Jar Jar Binks can't quite manage to get out of the ship he was travelling in, and falls over a waterfall, presumably to his death. Jar-Jar Binks dies.withmorten2 Watching Jar Jar Binks DIE was one the most satisfying things I have seen! Tears of joyhttp://t.co/KsBVRiOXUVUrooj M Finally, we have a great scene in Star Wars with Jar-Jar Binks http://t.co/RhJMqRftnDJames Fritz The geek in me is VERY happy!A Deleted Scene from The Phantom Menace of Jar Jar Binks Dying Horribly \| Geekosystem http://t.co/9bEEoMS3C1Mark Burke Let's watch this deleted scene of Jar-Jar Binks getting crushed and rejoice and think what could have been http://t.co/qfz4unPlyj #StarWarsMentality Mag Jar Jar Binks dies in a deleted scene. This is quite satisfying to watch.http://t.co/qSSmD1sXpBMatt Kelsh Star Wars, The Matrix, and trance music videos.) The video also features actors Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson dressed in costume as their Star Wars characters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, which clinched the authenticity for many people. The news about Jar Jar Binks spread far and wide online. No one seemed to care about the identity of the YouTuber who posted the video -- withmorten2 -- or how he got a hold of the footage in the first place. (His many other video posts feature other clips from, and trance music videos.) Jar Jar Binks is trending on Facebook right now. There is at least three things wrong with that sentence.Billy Jepma His death was sweet revenge for some fans, who felt that they were owed something for having to watch him on screen in Episodes 1 to 3. my favorite comment: 'I don't care if it makes kids cry. That was the Star Wars we deserved' Read more: http://t.co/nngfh1duhqBrad Cundiff Many Star Wars fans call Jar Jar Binks the worst part of the entire movie series, so his death seemed almost too good to be true... and, as turns out, it was. A few people have started sharing links to another YouTube video online, which shows Jar Jar Binks jumping into the water and swimming to safety before the ship goes over the waterfall and smashes. Someone doctored a deleted scene from Phantom Menace to include Jar-Jar Binks' death: http://t.co/CyiYv74534Angelo Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace Deleted Scene #3swdestiny For any of you Jar Jar Binks-iacs out there, now it's your turn to celebrate! Personally, I find Jar Jar Binks' antics and speech patterns to be charming and would mourn his death. #weesaAlan Honeycutt Am I the only one who feels kinda sorry for Jar Jar Binks? http://t.co/7LDeJQY47dAlison Tafel Are there any movie characters, human or otherwise, who you hate? Which character do you wish was never created?
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene and stop one of two immigrants in federal custody because they do not have proper legal permission to be in the U.S. from having an abortion. A federal district court judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday to stop administration officials from preventing two 17-year-old girls, known in court documents as Jane Roe and Jane Poe, from having the procedures. But the government right now is only appealing the abortion of Roe, who according to court documents is about 10 weeks pregnant. The government said only that there are “differing circumstances surrounding Ms. Poe’s case.” ADVERTISEMENT The administration is asking the court to block the ruling for a minimum of two weeks while the government vets the sponsor that has been identified for Roe. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals extended the 24-hour hold that District Judge Tanya Chutkan placed on the temporary restraining order. She had issued that order on Monday to give the government time to appeal until 6:05 p.m. on Tuesday. Chutkan lifted the 24-hour hold for Poe on Tuesday to allow her to obtain her abortion as soon as possible since the government has not appealed the order blocking her procedure. The American Civil Liberties Union said Poe is in her second trimester, but she has not had an ultrasound so it is not known how many weeks pregnant she is. The Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday afternoon that Roe is 19 years old, not 17 as previously believed, and that the Office of Refugee Resettlement is transferring her to the Department of Homeland Security as an adult. The department said Roe’s transfer will be completed imminently and “will materially affect the viability and review” of the temporary restraining order Chutkan issued on Monday. Detention standards from 2016 on the U.S. Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's website say women detainees can fund the termination of their own pregnancies. The case comes just months after the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed another immigrant teen in the U.S. without legal permission, known as Jane Doe, to receive an abortion in Texas. - This story was updated at 7:05 P.M. EST.
Amanda Tipton Photography / Getty Images In this week’s TIME cover story, “One a Day” (available to subscribers here), journalists Mark Thompson and Nancy Gibbs explore why suicides among the U.S. military have reached crisis levels. Every day, one active-duty service member dies by his own hand, the authors note: “The U.S. military seldom meets an enemy it cannot target, cannot crush, cannot put a fence around or drive a tank across. But it has not been ale to defeat or contain the epidemic of suicides among its troops.” The specific triggers for suicide are unique to each soldier. Each person deals differently with the stresses of war, frequent deployments, separation from family, death of comrades. Many contend with depression and post-traumatic stress upon returning home. There are several programs and support lines for these soldiers, but it also helps for their immediate families to remain vigilant and to monitor their behavior. Even still, many service members fall through the cracks. Below is what we hope is helpful advice for military spouses, who want to know what warning signs to look for in their service member and how best to handle severe situations. One immediate sign, say experts, is a pervasive sense of uselessness, a feeling that they no longer belong. “What we learn from our families [who lost service family members to suicide] and what they saw in their loved ones, is behavior [in which they] pulled back and felt they were not able to be a useful part of unit that relied on them,” says Bonnie Carroll, founder and chairman of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, a non-profit that supports those who have lost a loved one in the military. “These men and women need to know they are still a part of a unit at home and overseas.” (MORE: Military Suicides: The Stigma of Seeking Help) Here, experts offer more answers to common questions that military families face when a loved one shows signs of trouble: What are the signs of suicide risk to look out for? There are many signs of suicide, says Kim Ruocco, director of the suicide prevention programs at TAPS. Some key warning signs to look out for: Hopelessness and saying things like “This will never get better” Helplessness and saying things like “I can’t do anything about this” No longer finding joy in things they once enjoyed Angry outbursts and increased agitation Sleeplessness or oversleeping Lack of appetite or increased appetite Withdrawal from friends and family, or suggestions that family would be better off without them History of suicide attempt and history of depression Post-traumatic injury Warning signs of suicide that call for immediate attention: Talking about or making plans to take his or her own life Putting personal affairs in order Giving away personal possessions Obsessing about death Abusing drugs or alcohol Acquiring or obtaining access to lethal means (prescription drugs, weapons, etc.) Engaging in out-of-the-ordinary or risky behaviors “You should always ask someone if they are thinking of killing themselves and if they are, do not leave them alone, escort them to help, take them to a doctor at primary care, behavioral health or the emergency room,” says Ruocco. “Sometimes a person will deny thinking of suicide despite warning signs. These people should also be considered high risk and be taken for immediate evaluation.” (MORE: Captains Courageous) Whom should I contact if I’m concerned about my loved one? The first person to speak with is your loved one. Ask your he or she is feeling, says Eileen M. Lainez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Defense. For example: Do you feel as if you could harm yourself? How often are you having those kinds of thoughts? Do you have a plan to harm yourself? “Keep track of all conversations with a service member who expresses any indication that he or she could harm him or herself, or is experiencing unique or intense stressors,” says Lainez. There are several 24/7 service lines open to family members who have immediate concerns: Military Crisis Line: Dial 800-273-8255 (press 1 for military) or visit the crisis line online, which provides a chat and text service for veterans (see below) and active duty members Dial 800-273-8255 (press 1 for military) or visit the crisis line online, which provides a chat and text service for veterans (see below) and active duty members Veterans Crisis Line: Visit Veterans Live Chat or call 800-273-TALK to talk with a crisis counselor Visit Veterans Live Chat or call 800-273-TALK to talk with a crisis counselor DCoE Outreach Center: Visit Real Warriors Live Chat or call 866-966-1020 to talk with a health resource consultant Visit Real Warriors Live Chat or call 866-966-1020 to talk with a health resource consultant Military OneSource: Call 800-342-9647 for one-on-one counseling or visit online Call 800-342-9647 for one-on-one counseling or visit online Do not hesitate to call 911 in an emergency Should I alert the military if my loved one is showing signs of suicide at home? Anyone concerned about a service member for any reason should not hesitate to contact that service member’s supervisor, commander, any health-care provider or a chaplain. “If the family member is looking for behavioral health support, information or resources, they should contact [these individuals]. The earlier an adjustment or behavioral health issue is identified and addressed, the more likely a positive outcome will result,” says Lainez. Is there anything I shouldn’t do? Don’t be afraid to be proactive: Ask your loved one questions about suicidal thoughts or plans, and do not hesitate to get help. “Suicidal thoughts can be a medical emergency. Someone who has been thinking about suicide over time can lose the ability to control the impulse. Put aside fears of betraying your loved one or ruining his [or her] career and chose to save his [or her] life,” says Ruocco. (VIDEO: How Dogs Help Veterans Cope With PTSD) Should I be more concerned if my loved one has been overseas for several tours, or less concerned if he or she hasn’t? There are many factors associated with suicide, which make it difficult to point to any one factor as a root cause. Currently, there is no evidence directly linking the number of deployments to an increased risk of suicide. Any warning signs of suicide should be taken seriously, regardless of the number of times the service member has been deployed overseas. “Combat exposure can increase risk for suicide, especially if the service member was exposed to trauma or suffered a concussive injury,” says Ruocco. “However, about half of our service members who die by suicide have never deployed, so the fact that they have not deployed should not be a reason to not seek treatment.” The 2010 Department of Defense Suicide Event Report found that indeed half of all service members who died by suicide during 2010 had never been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. What can I do to support my soldier and help prevent suicide risk? Real Warriors, a campaign started by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE) to promote recovery and resilience among returning service members, suggests that you encourage and help your loved one do the following: Cut back on obligations when possible and set reasonable schedules for goals Consider keeping a journal to express pain, anger, fear or other emotions Avoid isolation — get together with buddies, commanding officers, family, friends or other members of the community regularly Stay physically fit by eating healthy foods and getting enough sleep Stay motivated by keeping personal and career goals in mind Use relaxation techniques to help manage stress Stay organized by keeping a daily schedule of tasks and activities (PHOTOS: Suicide in the Recruiters’ Ranks) There are plenty of mental-health resources out there, but here are a few we highly recommended for service members and their families: U.S. National Suicide & Crisis Hotlines: http://suicidehotlines.com/national.html U.S. Army Suicide Prevention: http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/ Real Warriors suicide prevention: http://www.realwarriors.net/family/support/preventsuicide.php U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs suicide prevention: http://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/ Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, for families who have lost a loved one in uniform to suicide: http://www.taps.org/survivors/survivor.aspx?id=6320 Read the full TIME cover story, available to subscribers here.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group has executed more than 3,000 people in Syria, including hundreds of civilians, in the year since it declared its self-described “caliphate,” a monitor said on Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring Syria’s conflict, said it had documented 3,027 executions by IS since June 29, 2014. Among those executed are 1,787 civilians, including 74 children, said the Observatory. Members of Sunni Shaitat tribe account for around half of the civilians murdered. ISIS killed 930 members of the clan in Deir Ezzor last year after they rose up against the extremist Sunni Muslim group. The toll also includes recent mass killings by ISIS in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, which the jihadist group re-entered briefly this week after being expelled in January. The monitor said it had counted at least 223 executions in the border town this week. The Observatory also documented 216 ISIS executions of rival rebel factions and Kurdish fighters, as well as the executions of nearly 900 regime forces. ISIS has also executed 143 of its own members it accused of crimes including spying, many of them captured as they were trying to desert the group, the Observatory said. And at least 8,000 ISIS militants have been killed in battles and U.S.-led air strikes, added the monitor. ISIS emerged in Syria in 2013, growing from Al-Qaeda’s one-time Iraq affiliate and initially seeking to merge with Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front. When Al-Nusra refused the merger, the two groups become rivals, and ISIS went on to announce its “caliphate” in territory in Syria and Iraq last year, proclaiming its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “Caliph Ibrahim.” Last Update: Sunday, 28 June 2015 KSA 17:07 - GMT 14:07
Thanks to joint Jewish-Muslim rallying, European Council has decided not to recommend a ban on circumcision. The Council of Europe has decided not to recommend a ban on circumcision. At a meeting of the Council in Strasbourg this week, it decided to accept arguments put forth by Jewish and Muslim groups supporting circumcision. The joint effort was a rare one for Jews and Muslims in Europe, as both sought to uphold their ancient traditions in the wake of attempts by European Union governments to ban the practice, other than for dire medical need. According to those opposed to circumcision, infants sustain significant “psychological damage” because they are unable to resist what they see as a violent attack on their body. The EU, UN, and other international organizations have all seen circumcision as a form of “violence” against children, and have recommended banning the practice based on that. To reverse the Council's recommendation, Jews and Muslims formed a joint committee to testify and present arguments in favor of the practice. Among the members of the group, called the Muslim-Jewish Leadership Council, are the Conference of European Rabbis, the King Abdullah International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), the Islamic Council of the Republic of Germany, and the World Islamic Relief Organization. Representing Israel was MK Issai Freij (Meretz), who spoke before the Council on the human rights aspect of preserving circumcision. Commenting on the new decision, Freij said that it was “a victory for logic. The debate over circumcision is a legitimate one, but those opposed to this ancient practice should be battling it through education, not legislation.”
With the female-driven “Ghostbusters” less than a year away from its release date, Sony Pictures Animation has called the gang for another project. Sources confirm to Variety that Sony has begun developing an animated “Ghostbusters” pic with Ivan Reitman producing through his Montecito Picture Company. SPA president Kristine Belson and Michael Lachance will oversee the project on behalf of the studio. “Ghostbusters” has previously gone down the animated path, with an animated series following the success of the first film in the ’80s. Plot details are unknown, but it’s likely the film will follow the famous group as they fight supernatural forces. No writer or director are attached at this time. This marks the second this past year that Sony has taken a high-profile film property and spun it off into an animated film. SPA is also developing an “Amazing Spider-Man” animated movie with Phil Lord and Chris Miller writing and directing. The “Ghostbusters” reboot starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones bows next July. The news of the animated film was first reported by the Tracking Board.
Please enable Javascript to watch this video DENVER -- In an effort to curb violence and image issues on the 16th Street Mall, Denver police Chief Robert White proposed something that’s raising eyebrows for marijuana shop owners and employees along the popular strip. At a news conference Monday aimed at improving 16th Street, White proposed asking dispensaries on the mall to stop selling a certain product. “We’ll be reaching out to every last one of the dispensaries for the purpose of asking not to sell a single joint,” White said. White said selling single joints can create challenges as it relates to individuals who make those purchases. He believes if dispensaries on 16th Street stopped selling single joints, it would result in fewer people on the mall smoking marijuana. Many of those who purchase single joints are the same people causing issues on the mall, the out-of-state homeless people who are called "travelers" by the Denver Police Department. “That seems kind of silly to take away a pre-rolled joint. Are they going to take away shooters from liquor stores? It’s kind of silly to say that’s going to solve an issue there,” said Kiefer Salazar, a supervisor at Euflora, a recreational dispensary on 16th Street. Salazar said it’s ridiculous the chief would suggest asking the mall’s dispensaries not to sell single joints when people can easily buy cheaper pot products such as edibles, as well as cheap alcohol from liquor stores. “I just don’t think that’s the problem,” Salazar said. Instead, Salazar blamed the city. “The problem is [the city] let [travelers] collect and gather and panhandle in one area,” he said. White said it would be up to the dispensaries as to whether they would agree to the request.
FOR decades, Texas lawyers have used the “Hobby Rule” to win the immediate release of clients arrested on DWI charges. American taxpayers now deserve similar protection under my proposed “Rangel Rule.” First, the background: Longtime Texas Lt.-Gov Bill Hobby was locked up one night for driving under the influence, but immediately released when his attorney came down to point out the high status of the fellow. When news of this special treatment slipped out, the court tried to defend itself by saying it was standard procedure to release a suspect into the custody of an attorney – though everyone knew any regular DWI inmate would have been held for bond or trial. Ever since, Texas lawyers have been showing up to spring their inebriated clients by exercising this previously unknown “Hobby Rule.” It’s standard legal procedure to this day. American taxpayers could win the same get-out-of-jail-free pass, thanks to the ongoing legal saga of my friend and colleague, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-Harlem), and new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Chairman Rangel admitted on the floor of the House that he had for years failed to pay tax on rental income from his resort property in the Caribbean. He apologized for this “oversight” and agreed to pay his back taxes – but has paid no interest or penalties. Secretary Geithner admitted in his Senate confirmation hearings he had for years failed to pay taxes on his income from the International Monetary Fund, even though the IMF sent him checks and instructions to pay those taxes. He also called this an “oversight,” has paid no penalties and faces no charges. As a former practicing attorney and a Texas state judge for two decades, I can tell you: If that was you or me, we’d be socked with penalties and interest many times the amount of the original tax. In a case like Geithner’s, I suspect we’d likely face criminal charges as well. But Rep. Rangel is the powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the IRS. And Geithner is secretary of the treasury – the boss of the IRS. Just like Bill Hobby, these two high-status fellows have received a little different treatment than the common taxpayer. We either need to hold Chairman Rangel and Secretary Geithner fully accountable under the law – or we need a national “Hobby Rule” for taxpayers. Last week, I introduced the Rangel Rule Act of 2009 (HR 735). Under this bill, any US citizen who owes back taxes can pay them and automatically waive all interest and penalties by writing “Rangel Rule” on their return. I believe this would restore equal treatment for working Americans – and serve as an economic stimulus by restoring millions in pending IRS penalties and interests to the free-market economy. We all need to stay sober and pay our taxes. But if we fall short, we ought to be treated the same. In Texas, that means using the Hobby Rule after one too many. Across America, it should mean using “The Rangel Rule” after failing to pay the IRS. Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) is secretary of the House Republican Conference.
Recent strings of sexual assaults in pockets across the city, including the Annex, Etobicoke and Ryerson and York universities, have some asking why police won’t say whether the attacks are instances of an unwanted grope or of rape. Toronto police don’t release those details, says spokeswoman Meaghan Gray. “Providing a level of detail as to what the assault specifically was may lead people to attribute a level of seriousness to the sexual assault and that’s not the message we want to send,” she said. Still, some say they want to know what happened — that the information would help them be more vigilant, even change their behaviour. “I believe it is important to tell the public somebody was raped,” said illustrator Ainsley Ashby-Snyder in the lobby of Ryerson’s student union building earlier this week. The 28-year-old attended an emergency meeting, held in the wake of at least five reported sexual assaults on or near campus since the beginning of the school year. Article Continued Below “If there’s a serial rapist running around my neighbourhood, you’re goddamn right I want to know what is happening,” said Ashby-Snyder. “I would understand more of my surroundings, what’s going on.” While most sexual assault alerts in this city come from police, Ryerson’s security team has released more specific details about the nature of attacks reported to them. In one instance, two women had their buttocks grabbed, and in another, a man allegedly touched a woman under her clothes at a campus bar. York University, which has had six reported sex assaults since the start of September, also offers more details in its security bulletins. “The additional information is meant to help the community understand what the situation is, so that they can make decisions and protect themselves based on the nature of the incidents,” said Bruce Piercey, Ryerson’s director of communications. Piercey emphasized he agrees with the notion that all instances of sexual assault are serious. “Generally, the feeling we get is, give us more information,” he said, noting that, just like police, that doesn’t include releasing details that would compromise the victim’s identity or the investigation. Asked whether an instance of rape would ever be communicated in Ryerson’s alerts, Piercey said, “I think to the extent that we could give information that would be helpful to people we’d want to describe if it was a particularly violent situation. We’d want people to know that.” Article Continued Below York University spokeswoman Joanne Rider said its protocol is to “communicate what was reported to York security in terms of detail.” She later clarified that a description of the incident would not necessarily mean every detail is reported. Elaborating on her earlier point, Toronto police’s Gray said: “Every woman responds in a different way to the sexual assault and it’s important for us to send the message that they are all serious, that they are all investigated seriously, and to get into the specifics of what happened doesn’t contribute to that.” Other GTA police forces, like Peel police, follow the same protocol. Ryerson student Lee McVittie, 20 — who disagreed with Ashby-Snyder — made the point that a warning of a groper could be taken less seriously by some, and those instances could escalate to rape. “You don’t want people to accidentally brush anything off,” she said. In 1983, the offence of rape was repealed from the Criminal Code and replaced with the broader term of sexual assault. The change was made in part because it was difficult to get a conviction. Lawyers could question women about past sexual history to discredit them, and many women chose not to report the crime. Under the Criminal Code, sexual assault includes any unwanted contact of a sexual nature, from touching and kissing to violent sexual attacks and including verbal threats with sexual overtones. Charges of sexual assault with a weapon and aggravated sexual assault can also be laid. It’s another reason why police always use the term “sexual assault” in their alerts, said Gray, because it mirrors the legal language. The language police use when communicating about sex assaults has evolved over time. Jane Doe, her identity still protected, successfully sued Toronto Police after she was raped at knifepoint in 1986. Doe’s assailant, known as the “Balcony Rapist,” had a preferred victim type and area of operation that police had documented, yet didn’t warn the public. After Doe won her lawsuit in 1998, a city audit followed. Among its recommendations: Toronto police should revise their sexual assault alerts. “A lot of those alerts didn’t include any factual language about how the assault transpired, but rather they were seen as fear-based in nature and were a list of warnings and ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that,’ ” said Gray, who has sat on an advisory committee made up of experts from the field. Examples, she said, included telling women to avoid dimly lit streets, to not walk alone at night or talk on a cellphone. “What was pointed out to us is when we do those types of warnings all we’re really doing is reinforcing the myth that sexual assault only happens to women who don’t protect themselves.” In the last several years, police have focused on providing as much information around an assault as possible — the location, time of day, how the victim was approached, what the perpetrator was wearing and the direction they took afterward. All this without going beyond the fact a sexual assault took place. These details may help jog the memory of a bystander, who could have information for investigators. People can “take that information and decide to change their behaviour, or not,” said Gray. Asked what she would say to someone who simply wants as much information as possible, so that they can use those details to take steps to protect themselves, Gray said: “I think the information we provide lets them do that.”
A writer for The Daily Beast was accused of outing gay Olympic athletes after an article was published on Thursday morning about dating apps and sex in Rio’s Olympic Village. Nico Hines, who identifies himself as a straight, married man, was on assignment when he decided to investigate who uses the dating apps Tinder, Grindr, and Bumble. Within the first 60 minutes, Hines claims to have scored three dates and proceeded to find out how easy it is to get laid. There are several reasons the article offended a lot of people. Hines’s first mistake was signing up for Grindr, and many readers questioned if it is journalism for a straight man to log into Grindr, a hook-up app specifically designed for gay men, and then write about what happened next. “No prizes for guessing that Grindr proved more of an instant hookup success than Bumble or Tinder, which is owned by IAC, the parent company of The Daily Beast,” Hines writes. Hines then goes into detail of his matches on Grindr. The men have six packs and some use their bio to state their explicit intentions in Rio. “There were dozens of eligible bachelors listed on Grindr within a few hundred yards of where I was standing at the entrance to the athletes’ village. One posed in his full team kit. Others referred to their elite sporting status more furtively, but they included one of the world’s top equestrians and a track and field athlete a few days away from competing.” The second problem with Hines’s piece is that he only tells his matches on Grindr he was a journalist when asked. “For the record, I didn’t lie to anyone or pretend to be someone I wasn’t—unless you count being on Grindr in the first place—since I’m straight, with a wife and child. I used my own picture (just of my face…) and confessed to being a journalist as soon as anyone asked who I was.” [Image via Shutterstock] The article was met with swift and harsh criticism. Slate‘s Mark Stern called the piece disgusting and irresponsible. The original Daily Beast article contained enough details that Stern admits he was able to identify five gay closeted athletes — a few of them from “notoriously homophobic” countries. “With his dubious premise established, Hines proceeds to out athlete after athlete, providing enough information about each Olympian he encounters for anyone with basic Google skills to uncover their identities,” Stern writes. American Olympian and freeskier Gus Kenworthy, who came out as gay last year, tweeted his reaction. null The backlash led to details being edited out of the piece with a note from Editor-in-Chief John Avalon. “There was legitimate concern that the original version of this story might out gay male athletes, even by implication, or compromise their safety. This was never our reporter’s intention, of course. No names were ever used and some of the profiles described were of straight women. But there was a concern that even mentioning the home nation of some gay athletes could compromise their safety. We apologize for potentially jeopardizing that safety in any way. As a result, we have removed all descriptions of the men and women’s profiles that we previously described.” The article outraged columnist Dan Savage, founder of the It Gets Better Project, which helps combat suicide among LGBT youth. Savage took to Twitter demanding Hines’ press credentials be revoked for putting athletes in potential danger. “So… straight ‘journalist’ for @thedailybeast probably gonna get some gay guy killed with this piece,” Savage tweeted. [Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images] Amini Fonua, an openly gay Olympian and swimmer from the Pacific island of Tonga, unleashed a string of tweets denouncing Hines’ piece. null null null null On Thursday night, The Daily Beast removed the article from their website. The web page now redirects to a note from the editor detailing the decision noting that Hines was not to blame. “Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary. We were wrong. We’re sorry.” “As a newsroom, we succeed together and we fail together, and this was a failure on The Daily Beast as a whole, not a single individual. The article was not intended to do harm or degrade members of the LGBT community, but intent doesn’t matter, impact does. Our hope is that removing an article that is in conflict with both our values and what we aspire to as journalists will demonstrate how seriously we take our error.” [Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images]
Note: David Outten contributed to this column. The TV show “Black Jesus” debuted Thursday, Aug. 7, in spite of requests by our organization, Movieguide®, and others that the offensive show be canceled. Variety Magazine wrote, “Crossing the third rails of race and religion, ‘Black Jesus’ is guaranteed to offend some people. In fact, one might accuse Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim of a certain naïveté in green lighting a project where the rewards, even in success, are likely to be overshadowed by the negative blowback.” Variety goes on to say, “So while there’s an audience within the Adult Swim profile that should find ‘Black Jesus’ to its liking, the show’s flock had better show up in reasonably good numbers (by late-night standards, anyway), and relatively soon. Because in the modern history of TV, it doesn’t take much to give the higher powers a bad case of cold feet or, when faced with a controversy, prompt them to wash their hands of it.” The premier episode featured 88 profanities and has Jesus arrested for marijuana possession. He gets off by turning the marijuana into salad greens. It is not naïveté to feature a “Jesus” who smokes pot and uses the “F” word. It is purposeful. Fully knowing that “Black Jesus” is profoundly offensive, Turner Broadcasting chose to tweak Christians. They enjoy it. Even if the show gets canceled there will be people who chuckle in self-satisfaction that they even got it on the air. They are at war with Christianity and, in particular, Christian morality. It’s ironic that the day “Black Jesus” first aired on the Cartoon Network is the day young Christian children in Iraq were being beheaded. On the Internet you can see the bloody bodies of toddlers missing their heads. Hatred and ridicule of Christianity is not funny; it is bigotry. The great atrocities of world history begin with the demeaning of one group or another. America’s major entertainment companies may not appreciate Christians, but they do appreciate their money. “Black Jesus” will undoubtedly be canceled when executives feel that Christian consumers are prepared to do damage to their profits. When the show’s advertisers (including Unisom and Radio Shack) feel the heat from their customers, the show is in trouble. Wouldn’t it be great if America’s entertainment executives had more respect for the 78 percent of Americans who consider themselves Christian and the 123 million Christians who go to church each week? They really ought to consider something. In a “Christian” nation you have a choice to believe or not believe. You have the freedom to make a program like “Black Jesus.” In an Islamic nation, the bodies of executives that insult Islam would be missing their heads. In a Communist nation, the executives who mock Communism would find themselves in a gulag eating lice. Those anxious to rid America of Christians really ought to think about what America would be like without Christians. After all, Jesus Christ came to set each of us free, give us an abundant life filled with love for each other as we manifest His Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Is that what we want to remove? Related story: ‘Black Jesus’ TV show ‘guaranteed to offend’
Central Bucks South High School in Warrington, Pa. has crowned its Homecoming King and Queen and the reaction is sweeping across the internet, for all the right reasons.You don't need to spend too much time with Lily Bowman and Nick McGee before you realize, they're kind of a big deal at the school.In fact, no one was terribly surprised when they were selected Homecoming King and Queen this past Friday.No one, that is, except for Nick."It was pure joy and it was pure Nick. It was just exactly how he always is," Nick's mom Kim McGee said.Video from Friday shows the 18-year-old senior quickly ran to his classmates after the announcement and led them in his favorite cheer, "I believe that we will win!""It was so exciting. It was just amazing to see his joy and the kids' response. It was surreal," Kim said.School officials say their goal has always been to encourage the student body at CB South to embrace Lily and Nick not as classmates with Down syndrome, but, rather, simply as classmates."To see that culmination of hard work and effort on their parts and involvement from our student body and appreciation that everyone has for one another is really special," Principal Scott Davidheiser said."I cannot say enough good things about the kids from CB South. They have always been welcoming and wonderful. It's the greatest community," Lily's mom Andrea Bowman said.On Monday, the reigning Central Bucks South Homecoming King and Queen took the time to say thank you to everyone who made them feel like everyone else over the past few years and then making them feel truly special this past Friday night."I am very excited to be Homecoming Queen. It feels so awesome," Lily said.The two, by the way, won by a landslide vote.Both their families say there's some uncertainty in the years to come. But they say the support the two received from CB South has given them the confidence they need to face whatever comes their way.
Mr. Trump had already characterized the mayor as a “moron,” and concluded: “Koch has achieved something quite miraculous. He’s presided over an administration that is both pervasively corrupt and totally incompetent.” Mr. Koch countered then that Mr. Trump was “greedy, greedy, greedy,” and wrote: “Trump obviously considered himself to be my friend at one time, and because of that, or because he gave or raised $70,000 for one of my mayoral campaigns, he expected something in return. He never got it. And he thought that was disloyal.” Neither the White House nor the Trump Organization responded to a request for comment on Monday. Pat Thaler, the mayor’s sister, a former associate dean at New York University who helped organize participants for the Women’s March on Washington in her New Jersey community, said on Monday that Mr. Koch would have opposed the Trump agenda on reproductive freedom, health care, freedom of the press and immigration. “Clearly, he thought him a self-serving egomaniac,” Ms. Thaler said. In the papers she found, Mr. Koch elaborated on his antipathy toward Mr. Trump with several examples. One involved the proposed West Side convention center. The former mayor said he was told that Mr. Trump had an option on one site, and that if the city selected it, Mr. Trump would donate his $500,000 brokerage fee to the city — if the convention center was named for him. He later agreed to donate his fee regardless. After a committee selected the site, Mr. Koch wrote, he never heard from Mr. Trump again about the fee offer. Mr. Koch also recounted an anecdote by a store owner in London who told a friend he would be meeting with Mr. Trump. The friend predicted: “Ten minutes into the meeting the phone on Trump’s desk will ring. He will answer it and say, ‘You offered them $40 million and they turned it down? Offer them $60 million.’ He will then hang up and resume his meeting with you.”
In a recent issue of the medical journal Chest, alongside papers about transbronchial needle aspiration and nontuberculous mycobacteria disease, appeared four poems. One of them was “An Intern’s Recollection of a Night at the V.A., July 2004,” by the Vanderbilt University anesthesiologist Doug Hester. In ten lines, the intern in question relates a hospital drama—a patient in trouble, “a new chest tube to suction”—and concludes with a superior’s pithy, annihilating verdict on the intern’s performance: “the needle was / in the wrong place, / just like me.” Chest began publishing poems regularly in 2008, with the idea that poetry is “a tool physicians may use to express or visit that whole vastness beyond their scientific intellect,” as the journal’s poetry editor, a Boston pulmonologist named Michael Zack, wrote in an editorial at the time. Other medical journals that print poetry include the Annals of Internal Medicine, Neurology, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), each of which features verse by laypeople as well as by medical professionals. Some outlets select poems with a particular medical focus. In Chest, for instance, the preference is for poetry that deals with pulmonary issues—lung cancer, asbestosis, sleep apnea. (It runs under the rubric “Pectoriloquy,” which refers to an unusual intelligibility of the patient’s voice as it is heard through the chest wall with a stethoscope.) Neurology is partial to poems about treatment of the nervous system, loosely interpreted. “It can be anything from complaints about the amount of paperwork to reflections on the death of a child,” Anne McCammon, a San Diego neurologist who edits the journal’s humanities section, told me. The poetry itself ranges widely in style and tone. In May, the open-access International Journal of Medical Science Research & Practice published a poem by Sanjeev Narang, a pathology professor in Indore, India, called “Ulcerative Colitis,” whose first lines are: “Begins in the rectum and backwards it goes / No mercy to any part of colon it shows.” Elsewhere, a grim syndrome known by the acronym POEMS has, for obvious reasons, inspired special poetic interest. Alexandre Poppe, writing in Neurology, called it “a disease whose letters conceal / A casualty list of devastated organs.” Amir Steinberg, in Oncology Times, offered an appraisal that perhaps only a doctor could appreciate: Enlarged organs abound Even monoclonal gammopathy! Involvement of the skin! Increased hemoglobin and platelets! Increased fluid retention! The meditation ends: “Understand that POEMS / Usurps the poetry of the human body.” Other medical-journal verse, however, is more accessible to non-specialists. Adam Possner, a physician in Washington, D.C., who co-edits the section for poetry and miniature stories in Families, Systems, & Health, has written spare lines about prostate surgery and the Epley maneuver, a treatment for vertigo, but his poems can also tend toward the whimsical. In “Drug Holiday,” for instance—the title alludes to a period of time during which a patient is temporarily taken off medication—Possner’s speaker addresses a pill, inviting it to remain inside its bottle: You work so hard, with little thanks, toiling nonstop in the wet heat, the airless dark Medicine and poetry have long been intertwined. The Islamic thinker Avicenna, who was born in 980, summarized his “Canon of Medicine,” one of the foundational encyclopedias of early medical knowledge, in a poem. It was written in rajaz metre, whose structure made it particularly easy to remember, and disseminated throughout medieval Europe in Latin translation. (Avicenna’s advice on dealing with convalescents: “Try to lift their spirit through welcome words and pleasant company; / Give them sweet-scented perfumes and flowers.”) Today, many medical schools offer courses that bridge medicine and the humanities, arts, and social sciences, on the supposition that, say, literature hones students’ empathy and their capacity for observation in ways that immunology cannot. Johanna F. Shapiro, Possner’s co-editor at Families, Systems, & Health, directs the program for medical humanities at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. “You think a patient is going to be like a well-organized essay, but what you really get is a poem,” she told me. “You’re not sure what they mean, and they don’t tell you everything all at once, up front.” Part of what makes the poems published in medical journals like Chest so piquant, aside from subject matter, is context. They appear alongside scientific studies—accounts of double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials and the like—pieces of writing that are models of rationality and logic, and that require stripped-down, clinical language and do away with anecdote and allusiveness. In these studies, which often follow a rigorous structure—introduction, methodology, results, conclusion—“you narrow the amount of interpretability in what you’re saying,” Charlene Breedlove, the poetry editor at JAMA, told me. Poetry, by contrast, “moves in the opposite direction—it moves to open the possibilities of language. It wants to explore unnoticed possibilities.” Perhaps for this reason, medical journals are not always comfortable perches for the poetically minded. Michael A. LaCombe, a cardiologist in south-central Maine, began editing poetry at the Annals of Internal Medicine in 1990, after making a name for himself as writer of fiction about the medical world (there was a year, his annus mirabilis, when he published thirteen stories in outlets such as the Journal of Emergency Medicine). Early on in his tenure at the Annals, LaCombe visited the journal’s editorial offices, in Philadelphia, where he noted that the documents relating to his section were filed under “Fantasy.” It wasn’t that the staff was dismissive of the work, he said, but that to them it occupied a different realm. Two editors subsequently tried to kill his poetry and prose sections. They “were very antithetical to the poetry especially,” he said, though he was saved by surveys that showed the sections to be popular among readers. Now a much more favorably disposed editor is in charge of the Annals, though sometimes still there is no space for LaCombe’s pieces. “I am at the mercy of the science, as that should be,” he said. Considering the large audiences of many of these journals—JAMA, for example, has a circulation of more than three hundred thousand, ten times that of Poetry magazine—competition to be published in them is modest. Poetry receives a hundred and twenty-five thousand submissions a year and publishes three hundred of them; JAMA receives approximately a thousand, half of which are from physicians, and publishes around fifty. Charlene Breedlove told me that, at one point, about two years ago, she thought that she might have to step down. “It isn’t that poems don’t come in—it’s that they can be really bad, unbelievably bad,” she said. “It’s always a wonder that we get as many decent and sometimes really good poems as we do—well-crafted things, very thoughtful poems.” (Breedlove’s résumé includes editing stints in Tel Aviv and Paris. A Chicagoan with a background in publishing rather than in medicine, she has supervised JAMA’s poetry offerings since 1989. I formed an impression of her as the grande dame of medical poetry.) The qualities that make for a good submission are the same at medical journals as they are anywhere else, with a few wrinkles. Families, Systems, & Health puts poems through a peer-review process. The publication’s reviewers, medical professionals who may never have evaluated poetry before, are provided with guidelines: Did the poem move you? Did it teach you something about doctoring? “I have seen many reviews where the reviewer goes line by line and makes word suggestions,” Johanna Shapiro told me. “I’ve also gotten reactions like, ‘I have no idea how to review a poem. I don’t think I can do this.’ ” Michael Zack proposes that many of the submissions to Chest, which come mostly from patients or their friends and relatives, would benefit from restraint. Medicine, he said, is an inherently dramatic topic. “The pitfall of ninety per cent of the poems I read is that the poet tries to amplify on this already overamplified subject, and at the end of it you’re sort of drowning in the intensity.” The best medical poems, he said, pursue an elliptical approach. Take “Bossa Nova,” by Gary D. Swaim, which describes a man gathering a woman with multiple sclerosis from her chair and leading her in a dance: … with closed eyes buried deeply in his chest, her mind moves to slow, complicated rhythms of the bossa nova while limp legs trail marionette-like along the polished floor. Although physicians may feel pressure to keep up with the scientific advances that are detailed in journals, Michael LaCombe said, the poems can exert a powerful pull, too. “It’s quite common for people to come up to me and rather sheepishly and confidentially say, ‘You know, your sections are the ones I turn to first.’ As though it’s a sin to pick up a scientific journal and to turn to the poetry or turn to a prose piece first.” For poets such as Risa Denenberg, a nurse practitioner and freelance medical writer, being published in these journals is, if not a literary apotheosis, a personal triumph. “I know it’s not Poetry, but, for me, it’s quite a thrill,” Denenberg wrote on her blog after having four poems accepted by the Annals. And there are opportunities for wider recognition. The Annals offers five hundred dollars for the best poem published in a given year, and for unpublished works there is the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, which in its international category awards five thousand pounds to the writer of the best poem on a medical theme. When we spoke in November, I asked LaCombe which of the poems that he has published is his favorite. Immediately, he mentioned “Morning Rounds,” by the late New York doctor George N. Braman, which ran in the Annals in 2010. It is, in some ways, the inverse of “An Intern’s Recollection of a Night at the V.A., July 2004”: instead of “a chief” pronouncing on his subordinate’s medical abilities, Braman portrays a doctor observing an elderly colleague: He’d sometimes stop and stare long into space In mid-sentence, as if recalling sounds; “He’s lost the thread again,” I’d muse, and grace The awkward pause with words, resuming rounds. It is a picture of a physician whose heyday has passed, a reality that is perhaps best conjured in verse. LaCombe, who is seventy-two, continues to practice at a large community hospital and to teach medical students. “When you get in the twilight of your career, relationships, connections—with patients, and connections with those who help you care for patients—matter as much as or more than the chart, the medical record, the lab tests,” LaCombe said. Contemplating Braman’s evocation of patients who “glowed with convalescent thanks” under the elder doctor’s treatment, he added, “That’s where I live now.” Listen to Paul Muldoon, The New Yorker’s Poetry editor, read a selection of works from medical journals.
“The State Fair is the epitome of a public forum.I don't think a federal court would look with much kindness at limiting public expression at the fair.” Since being notified of the ban NCC has changed their plans and will rally outside the front gates of the fair during the concert by Willie Nelson. Marijuana activist group Nebraska Cannabis Coalition had planned to pass out literature and gather signatures at a Willie Nelson concert at the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island this week, but instead they aren't even being allowed inside the fairgrounds.In an interview with the Nebraska World-Herald, Nebraska State Fair Director Joseph McDermott said he didn't want the signature gathers 'roaming the fairgrounds' and that they should apply for a booth at the fair if they want to collect signatures. However, NCC spokesperson Myra Oppy said she tried for two months to get a booth and was not allowed.State Senator Paul Schumacher told the World-Herald that he wasn't sure about the legality of banning the group from the fair, saying:
CLOSE For years the only way to get marijuana was to grow it at home illegally or buy it on the black market. But today 205 million Americans live in a state where marijuana is legal for either recreational or medical use. Kristen Hwang/The Desert Sun Logan Martyn-Fisher looks through a tote bag filled with marijuana as he prepares to make a marijuana delivery in Portland, Maine. (Photo: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY) PORTLAND, Maine — Logan Martyn-Fisher checks his phone's GPS one more time and pulls up at the Portland Amtrak station, thousands of dollars of marijuana concealed in a pair of colorful beach totes sitting on the back seat of his BMW SUV. He’s looking for a guy who’s looking for pot. Maine doesn’t yet allow legal marijuana sales, so Martyn-Fisher, his girlfriend and their BMW have carved a niche for themselves in a state where possessing, growing and consuming cannabis now is permitted. This past fall, Maine voters legalized marijuana as of the start of this year, but lawmakers still are developing a system of state-regulated stores to sell it. They hope to have the stores open by February 2018. ► Black market: Marijuana smuggling persists despite legalization ► Consequences: What's the big deal with legal pot? No one really knows yet ► Across the USA: States forge path through uncharted territory That’s where Martyn-Fisher stepped in: While marijuana sales remain illegal, he’s giving away pot but charging hefty “delivery” fees. “It kind of sucks we don’t have a store,” he said. “We have to have all these sketchy meetings in parking lots. It doesn’t really feel like you’re running a legitimate business.” And so this day finds Martyn-Fisher driving through the train station parking lot, peering through his mirrored Oakley sunglasses for his next customer, wads of cash stuffed in his pocket. Like many marijuana entrepreneurs, Martyn-Fisher can't accept credit or debit cards since most banks are afraid to violate federal drug-trafficking laws. His girlfriend runs the online ordering via the Elevation 207 Facebook page and directs Martyn-Fisher to the customers. (207 is Maine's sole area code). Much of their time is spent reassuring customers that what they’re doing is legal, especially first-time buyers nervous that they’re ordering a federally illegal drug to be delivered personally. “Got him,” Martyn-Fisher says as he makes another pass through the station parking lot. He pulls up and the man, looking a little nervous, opens his wallet and begins counting out $20 bills, handing the stack to Martyn-Fisher, who hands him back packages of vacuum-sealed marijuana. The buyer offers his thanks as he stuffs the packages into his backpack, and Martyn-Fisher discreetly counts the $390 he was expecting. ► Alaska: In the last frontier, state's marijuana stores aim for tourists ► California: How police chief, marijuana grower made peace He hits the road again, headed to a luxury hotel near the waterfront, to meet a frequent buyer and business traveler. The buyer recognizes the arriving BMW and walks to the window as Martyn-Fisher pulls up, handing over a wad of greenbacks in exchange for 2.5 ounces of marijuana, the legal maximum a person can possess. On a whim a few months ago, Martyn-Fisher posted a Craigslist advertisement offering delivery services. It didn’t get much attention at first, but a series of television and newspaper stories about it has taken him and his girlfriend from about four deliveries a day to more than 30 at their busiest as the summer tourism season was getting under way in June. “We have to have all these sketchy meetings in parking lots. It doesn’t really feel like you’re running a legitimate business.” Logan Martyn-Fisher, Portland, Maine “I do this every day, all day long, every day,” he said. “It’s really hard to say no to money.” Maine’s legislators are meeting nearly daily all summer and fall as they develop a system to tax, regulate and sell marijuana. Like legislators in other states, Maine’s lawmakers are trying to decide who can get a license to sell pot and who will oversee the regulations and collect the taxes. Martyn-Fisher isn’t waiting for them. Using Facebook to highlight the day’s offerings, such as $100 for 10 grams of marijuana delivered, he’s quickly building a customer base around the Portland area, stressing that he’s charging a delivery free for a free product. The minimum delivery fee is $75. His Elevation 207 service is booming as he drops off smokable marijuana flowers, concentrates and cannabis-infused candies to customers. Based on his encounters with local police, he’s confident his workaround is working, particularly in exploiting the interplay between the state’s medical and recreational cannabis laws. The recreational laws don’t yet permit someone like him to have so much marijuana. But he’s also a certified medical caregiver, which means he’s allowed to grow and possess larger amounts. ► California: Boutique cannabis shop puts the high in high end ► California: This city sees pot shops as key to easing war on drugs inequities The legal area is gray, in part because Maine hasn’t made marijuana enforcement a priority. In Portland, voters in 2013 decriminalized marijuana, suggesting to Martyn-Fisher and other advocates that police have gotten the message: Hands off our pot. “They don’t seem to care, and that’s a feeling I’ve had for a while,” he said. “Maine has some pretty relaxed views about marijuana. They’ve got more serious things to deal with.” Logan Martyn-Fisher holds a vacuum-sealed bag of marijuana June 12, 2017, as he waits for a customer in Portland, Maine. (Photo: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY) One of those more serious things is the state’s rampant opioid and heroin abuse. Last year 376 Mainers died from drug overdoses. In a state with just 1.3 million residents, those deaths hit extra hard. For many marijuana sellers, it’s hard to understand why their industry faces such scrutiny when oxycodone — a federally regulated prescription medicine — repeatedly has proven fatal when abused. The kinds of customers that Martyn-Fisher said he gets show the nation’s drug laws and police are focused on the wrong priorities. In an afternoon, he made deliveries to a man with his kids in the backseat and a married couple with their kids in the backseat. Baby boomers make up a large portion of his client base. These are not irresponsible drug abusers but instead regular Americans who choose to consume marijuana the way many other consume alcohol: responsibly and in moderation, he said. Martyn-Fisher's favorite customer so far was an out-of-state father taking his daughter on a college visit “He was so excited, giving us thumbs up as we were leaving,” Martyn-Fisher said. ► California: County officials remain at odds with legal weed ► Colorado: Pot workers face banking hurdles in business, personally Looking ahead, he hopes Maine’s lawmakers can settle on a regulatory system that rewards and encourages entrepreneurs like himself, people who want to own and operate legitimate businesses, selling a product that millions of Americans clearly want to buy. Portland police didn’t return a message seeking comment. “My mom is still worried,” he said as he turns the BMW down one of Portland’s cobblestoned streets en route to the next customer. “But my dad went on deliveries with me.” Follow Trevor Hughes on Twitter: @TrevorHughes Other Legal pot in America stories: ► District of Columbia: In politically charged capital, cannabis is cottage industry ► Kentucky: Pot farmer faces life in prison; he's no criminal in some states ► Massachusetts: In city of Puritans, chance to buy pot legally moves ahead ► Nevada: A mining town straddles the Wild West, marijuana culture ► Oregon: Beach, weed go hand in hand on Cannabis Coast ► Pennsylvania: Medicinal marijuana converts minister into 'pastor for pot' ► Washington: Pot boosts city where timber had been king Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2vkJ2Vg
You might remember Mitt Romney's famously callous climate joke, the one he made during his acceptance speech at the RNC. He mocked Barack Obama's pledge to fight climate change and got his biggest laugh line of the night. I won't try to heal the planet or keep oceans from rising, he said, I want to help your family. Sandy made it beyond clear that the two objectives are anything but mutually exclusive; that slowing the oceans' rise will help millions of families. Forecast the Facts put together the video above, remixing the jab with Hurricane Sandy footage. And Buzzfeed caught Bill Clinton taking Romney to task at a campaign event in Ohio: Climate change didn't cause Sandy. But our fossil fuel-spewing habits gave her more strength, and they're leading to warmer oceans and higher sea levels—increasing the chances we'll see more of her kind. That's nothing to laugh about, really.
As the star of Killer Instinct's Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 box art, Fulgore has always been the poster child for the Killer Instinct franchise. We expected his return, but now we can confirm it. Unfortunately, he won't be available with the game's release on Friday. He will be added to the roster in March. Another previously teased, now confirmed returning fighter, Spinal, will be available in January. There are other exciting elements of the launch trailer, including plenty of gameplay from all those in the starting roster, and some of the interesting customization options that will be available. It also has what may be the most excited trailer announcer in the history of announcers. I don't think there will ever be anyone more excited to announce that something is exclusive to Xbox One that the announcer at the end of this trailer. Our review of Killer Instinct isn't online yet, but it will be soon. In the meantime, you can read some of our preview impressions. Killer Instinct will be downloadable for the Xbox One when the console launches on Friday, November 22.
“...Bye! / See ya, cops! / Hoa! / Dude!” ―Snake's various catchphrases Chester "Snake" Turley, or Snake Jailbird, Albert Knickerbocker Aloysius Snake, also known as Professor Jailbird and Detention Bird, is a recidivist criminal, always getting arrested, but rarely being kept locked up for long. He speaks with a "Valley Boy" accent and has a tattoo of a snake on his arm, which is presumably the source of his nickname. He is partial to fast cars and fast women and has a knack for reckless abandon. He is also known to use cheese as hair gel. Contents show] Biography In a mockumentary by Declan Desmond showing the pasts of Springfield citizens, a 13-year-old Snake is called "Detention Bird" by a old brenny lloyd mate punching ciggies at the skatepark. A former student of Middlebury College, Snake referred to himself as "Professor Jailbird"; it was also revealed that he was formerly an idealistic Indiana Jones-type archaeologist, until Moe stole the Mayan gold coins that Snake had discovered and was going to donate to the museum, so he decided to take his revenge out on society (convenience stores).[1] Snake also has a son named Jeremy. It is stated that Snake had previously spent time in a juvenile facility, suggesting he was a criminal before being an archaeologist.[2] It is implied by Otto that Snake was the one responsible for ruining Spinal Tap's concert.[3] He has stolen cars from Moe, Chief Wiggum, his ex-wife Gloria, Sarah Wiggum, Dr. Nick, Bumblebee Man, Professor Frink, Agnes Skinner and other characters. Personality Snake is constantly seen getting arrested, but never appearing to stay in prison. He speaks with a "Valley Boy" accent and keeps a cigarette pack rolled up in his sleeve. Snake has light brown hair. His occupation is a criminal and a former professor and archaeologist. Snake is partial to fast cars and fast women, and has a knack for reckless abandon. Snake's car's name is "Lil' Bandit," which is a Pontiac Firebird. It could be a reference to James Dean's so-called possessed car the "Li'l Bastard." It also could be a reference to the movie "Smokey and The Bandit" which featured a similar Pontiac Firebird used to escape police. It should be noted that the Lil' Bandit's horn plays the opening line of the tune Dixie, similar to The General Lee from the The Dukes of Hazzard. Snake has a son named Jeremy Turley, who looks just like him. Snake has custody issues with Jeremy. Although Snake seems to have committed every crime possible, he is an extremely good father to his son. Snake's ex-girlfriend, Gloria, briefly dated Mr. Burns, but then came back to him. Snake and Gloria have been seen together many times and she is pregnant once. He was also implied to have a soft spot for puppies and other animals, as, after being given one of Santa's Little Helper's Poodle/Greyhound puppies, promises to take care of it (albeit in a similar manner to trying to kidnap someone), as well as rubbing it affectionately.[4] His exact views on kids besides his own have varied. Although he once tried to run over Bart in an alleyway during a police sting,[5] he once reacted with horror when, while trying to shoot at Chief Wiggum during a police chase, saw he had Maggie Simpsons in his arms and was noticeably horrified that he had nearly endangered her (as he and Marge accidentally mixed up his gun and Maggie after bumping into each other during said police chase and trying to rush back home in time for Bart and Lisa to come home from school, respectively), and gave Maggie back to Marge while laughing sheepishly with her at the mistake.[6] Snake can be seen wearing a Middlebury t-shirt under his trademark vest, suggesting he may be an alumnus[7]. Princeton however is the school most often referenced as Snake's alma mater. Snake was once held captive by Herman, along with Chief Wiggum, but was eventually rescued by Kirk and Milhouse [8]. Snake once ran a telemarketing scam, but could not stick to it, because he didn't like bothering people at home. He also wrote the books, "The Ten Habits of Highly Successful Criminals" and "A Criminal's Guide to Hiding in Mexico." Snake once had a tattoo on his back, saying "Snake and Gloria 4 Ever," but Homer changed it to "Never".[9] Non-Canon Appearances The contents of this article or section are considered to be non-canon and therefore may not have actually happened/existed. Treehouse of Horror In "Treehouse of Horror IX," Snake was executed based on a "three-strikes" policy. First, he burned down an orphanage, then he blew up a bus full of nuns (which Snake declared was "totally self-defense"), and finally, he smoked in the Kwik-E-Mart. His hair was then implanted into Homer's head, but it had to be removed, due to issues with the hair, instilling Snake-like characteristics into Homer, e.g. seeking revenge for Snake's imprisonment and execution by murdering Bart, etc. In the "Treehouse of Horror XII" Dr. Hibbert's Island segment, he was a skunk. In the opening for "Treehouse of Horror XXVII", he worked as a worker at an ex-con Christmas tree yard, where he helped someone get their Christmas tree into the car, and also blew out one of the windows with a shotgun to give the tree more room to fit. Future In "Future-Drama", he tries to Charles Montgomery Burns but is foiled by Bart Simpson. In " Holidays of Future Passed ", he is a robot trying to rob the Kwik-E-Mart Snake occasionally appears as a passenger, and often tells the player he just wants to get out of the area immediately. However, he sometimes directly tells the player where he wants to go. Namely, he states at one point that he wishes to go to 742 Evergreen Terrace in order to loot the house. Snake briefly stole a military radio from Herman's Military Antiques (as he thought he'd get bodacious chicks with a military radio), but Bart managed to stop him. Snake was later arrested by Chief Wiggum when Lisa helped him uncover evidence of crimes under the three-strikes law (Counterfeit Designer Jeans, running over an elderly citizen without a permit, and littering, in that order) in exchange for information in regards to her missing brother. Later on, Apu reluctantly sought for his advice in regards to a potential lead to the source of the contamination of the Buzz Cola, as well as who was involved in contaminating it. Snake agrees to give him all he knows in exchange for Apu helping him do "community service" (which involved taking Garbage Pales and, later, destroying an Armored Vehicle), the second of which he truly gave info. His last appearance was when Homer ended up carjacking Snake (to which he notes the irony that he is the one getting carjacked), and ends up agreeing in order to not see Homer flip the bird at him. He survives the destruction of his car (he is seen to have jumped out). His car contained nuclear waste, and it was pulled into the Rigellians Tractor Beam. His voice is also heard in the beginning of the game, where he announces the name of "Radical Entertainment" in his usual manner. When the new Itchy and Scratchy game comes out, the entire Police Department is distracted and Snake thinks it will be a good chance for him to escape on his way to rob an orphanage but is caught. Snake appears in a jail cell in the level Mob Rules, who can be busted out and can join Marge's mob to ironically protest the sale of a violent video game. Later during the Alien Invasion Snake is seen talking to Agnes Skinner who assumes he's going to rob her which Snake doesn't get and asks why everyone assumes he is going to rob them. Agnes says it is because he is a criminal. Snake appeared as the Serpent during the first segment detailing Adam and Eve, where he tempts Adam (played by Homer) and Eve (portrayed by Marge). Although Marge is unwilling to eat the apple, Homer eats several. Other Gallery The full image gallery for Snake Jailbird may be viewed at Snake Jailbird/Gallery. Appearances This article or section is incomplete. Please improve the article, or discuss the issue on the talk page.
This 24 equilateral triangle example is not a Johnson solid because it is not convex. This 24-square example is not a Johnson solid because it is not strictly convex (has 180° dihedral angles .) In geometry, a Johnson solid is a strictly convex polyhedron, which is not uniform (i.e., not a Platonic solid, Archimedean solid, prism, or antiprism), and each face of which is a regular polygon. There is no requirement that each face must be the same polygon, or that the same polygons join around each vertex. An example of a Johnson solid is the square-based pyramid with equilateral sides (J 1 ); it has 1 square face and 4 triangular faces. As in any strictly convex solid, at least three faces meet at every vertex, and the total of their angles is less than 360 degrees. Since a regular polygon has angles at least 60 degrees, it follows that at most five faces meet at any vertex. The pentagonal pyramid (J 2 ) is an example that actually has a degree-5 vertex. Although there is no obvious restriction that any given regular polygon cannot be a face of a Johnson solid, it turns out that the faces of Johnson solids always have 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 10 sides. In 1966, Norman Johnson published a list which included all 92 solids, and gave them their names and numbers. He did not prove that there were only 92, but he did conjecture that there were no others. Victor Zalgaller in 1969 proved that Johnson's list was complete. Of the Johnson solids, the elongated square gyrobicupola (J 37 ), also called the pseudorhombicuboctahedron,[1] is unique in being locally vertex-uniform: there are 4 faces at each vertex, and their arrangement is always the same: 3 squares and 1 triangle. However, it is not vertex-transitive, as it has different isometry at different vertices, making it a Johnson solid rather than an Archimedean solid. Names [ edit ] The naming of Johnson solids follows a flexible and precise descriptive formula, such that many solids can be named in different ways without compromising their accuracy as a description. Most Johnson solids can be constructed from the first few (pyramids, cupolae, and rotunda), together with the Platonic and Archimedean solids, prisms, and antiprisms; the centre of a particular solid's name will reflect these ingredients. From there, a series of prefixes are attached to the word to indicate additions, rotations and transformations: Bi- indicates that two copies of the solid in question are joined base-to-base. For cupolae and rotundae, the solids can be joined so that either like faces ( ortho- ) or unlike faces ( gyro- ) meet. Using this nomenclature, an octahedron can be described as a square bipyramid , a cuboctahedron as a triangular gyrobicupola , and an icosidodecahedron as a pentagonal gyrobirotunda . indicates that two copies of the solid in question are joined base-to-base. For cupolae and rotundae, the solids can be joined so that either like faces ( ) or unlike faces ( ) meet. Using this nomenclature, an octahedron can be described as a , a cuboctahedron as a , and an icosidodecahedron as a . Elongated indicates a prism is joined to the base of the solid in question, or between the bases in the case of Bi- solids. A rhombicuboctahedron can thus be described as an elongated square orthobicupola . indicates a prism is joined to the base of the solid in question, or between the bases in the case of Bi- solids. A rhombicuboctahedron can thus be described as an . Gyroelongated indicates an antiprism is joined to the base of the solid in question or between the bases in the case of Bi- solids. An icosahedron can thus be described as a gyroelongated pentagonal bipyramid . indicates an antiprism is joined to the base of the solid in question or between the bases in the case of Bi- solids. An icosahedron can thus be described as a . Augmented indicates another polyhedron, namely a pyramid or cupola, is joined to one or more faces of the solid in question. indicates another polyhedron, namely a pyramid or cupola, is joined to one or more faces of the solid in question. Diminished indicates a pyramid or cupola is removed from one or more faces of the solid in question. indicates a pyramid or cupola is removed from one or more faces of the solid in question. Gyrate indicates a cupola mounted on or featured in the solid in question is rotated such that different edges match up, as in the difference between ortho- and gyrobicupolae. The last three operations – augmentation, diminution, and gyration – can be performed multiple times certain large solids. Bi- & Tri- indicate a double and triple operation respectively. For example, a bigyrate solid has two rotated cupolae, and a tridiminished solid has three removed pyramids or cupolae. In certain large solids, a distinction is made between solids where altered faces are parallel and solids where altered faces are oblique. Para- indicates the former, that the solid in question has altered parallel faces, and Meta- the latter, altered oblique faces. For example, a parabiaugmented solid has had two parallel faces augmented, and a metabigyrate solid has had 2 oblique faces gyrated. The last few Johnson solids have names based on certain polygon complexes from which they are assembled. These names are defined by Johnson[2] with the following nomenclature: A lune is a complex of two triangles attached to opposite sides of a square. is a complex of two triangles attached to opposite sides of a square. Spheno - indicates a wedgelike complex formed by two adjacent lunes. Dispheno- indicates two such complexes. - indicates a wedgelike complex formed by two adjacent lunes. indicates two such complexes. Hebespheno - indicates a blunt complex of two lunes separated by a third lune. - indicates a blunt complex of two lunes separated by a third lune. Corona is a crownlike complex of eight triangles. is a crownlike complex of eight triangles. Megacorona is a larger crownlike complex of 12 triangles. is a larger crownlike complex of 12 triangles. The suffix -cingulum indicates a belt of 12 triangles. Enumeration [ edit ] Pyramids, cupolae and rotundae [ edit ] The first 6 Johnson solids are pyramids, cupolae, or rotundae with at most 5 sides. 6 sided pyramids and cupolae are coplanar and are hence not Johnson solids. Pyramids [ edit ] The first two Johnson solids, J1 and J2, are pyramids. The triangular pyramid is the regular tetrahedron, so it is not a Johnson solid. Cupolae and rotunda [ edit ] The next four Johnson solids are three cupolae and one rotunda. They represent sections of uniform polyhedra. Modified pyramids, cupolae and rotundae [ edit ] Johnson solids 7 to 48 are derived from pyramids, cupolae and rotundae. Elongated and gyroelongated pyramids [ edit ] In the gyroelongated triangular pyramid, three pairs of adjacent triangles are coplanar and form non-square rhombi, so it is not a Johnson solid. Bipyramids [ edit ] The square bipyramid is the regular octahedron, while the gyroelongated pentagonal bipyramid is the regular icosahedron, so they are not Johnson solids. In the gyroelongated triangular bipyramid, six pairs of adjacent triangles are coplanar and form non-square rhombi, so it is also not a Johnson solid. Elongated cupolae and rotundae [ edit ] Bicupolae [ edit ] The triangular gyrobicupola is an Archimedean solid (in this case the cuboctahedron), so it is not a Johnson solid. Cupola-rotundae and birotunda [ edit ] The pentagonal gyrobirotunda is an Archimedean solid (in this case the icosidodecahedron), so it is not a Johnson solid. Elongated bicupolae [ edit ] The elongated square orthobicupola is an Archimedean solid (in this case the rhombicuboctahedron), so it is not a Johnson solid. Elongated cupola-rotundae and birotundae [ edit ] Gyroelongated bicupolae, cupola-rotunda, and birotunda [ edit ] These Johnson solids have 2 chiral forms. Augmented prisms [ edit ] Johnson solids 49 to 57 are built by augmenting the sides of prisms with square pyramids. Modified Platonic and Archimedean solids [ edit ] Johnson solids 58 to 83 are built by augmenting, diminishing or gyrating Platonic or Archimedean solids. Augmented dodecahedra [ edit ] Diminished icosahedra [ edit ] Augmented Archimedean solids [ edit ] Gyrate and diminished rhombicosidodecahedra [ edit ] Snub antiprisms [ edit ] The snub antiprisms can be constructed as an alternation of a truncated antiprism. The gyrobianticupolae are another construction for the snub antiprisms. Only snub antiprisms with at most 4 sides can be constructed from regular polygons. The snub triangular antiprism is the regular icosahedron, so it is not a Johnson solid. Others [ edit ] Classification by types of faces [ edit ] Triangle-faced Johnson solids [ edit ] Five Johnson solids are deltahedra, with all equilateral triangle faces: Triangle and square-faced Johnson solids [ edit ] Twenty four Johnson solids have only triangle or square faces: Triangle and pentagonal-faced Johnson solids [ edit ] Eleven Johnson solids have only triangle and pentagonal faces: Triangle, square, and hexagonal-faced Johnson solids [ edit ] Eight Johnson solids have only triangle, square and hexagonal faces: Triangle, square, and octagonal-faced Johnson solids [ edit ] Five Johnson solids have only triangle, square and octagonal faces: Circumscribable Johnson solids [ edit ] 25 of the Johnson solids have vertices that exist on the surface of a sphere: 1–6,11,19,27,34,37,62,63,72–83. All of them can be seen to be related to a regular or uniform polyhedron by gyration, diminishment, or dissection.[3] See also [ edit ]
“Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts,” a U.N. panel said. (Martin Meissner/AP) The Earth is locked on an “irreversible” course of climatic disruption from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the impacts will only worsen unless nations agree to dramatic cuts in pollution, an international panel of climate scientists warned Sunday. The planet faces a future of extreme weather, rising sea levels and melting polar ice from soaring levels of carbon dioxide and other gases, the U.N. panel said. Only an unprecedented global effort to slash emissions within a relatively short time period will prevent temperatures from crossing a threshold that scientists say could trigger far more dangerous disruptions, the panel warned. “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts,” concluded the report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which draws on contributions from thousands of scientists from around the world. The report said some impacts of climate change will “continue for centuries,” even if all emissions from fossil-fuel burning were to stop. The question facing governments is whether they can act to slow warming to a pace at which humans and natural ecosystems can adapt, or risk “abrupt and irreversible changes” as the atmosphere and oceans absorb ever-greater amounts of thermal energy within a blanket of heat-trapping gases, according to scientists who contributed to the report. “The window of opportunity for acting in a cost-effective way — or in an effective way — is closing fast,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University geosciences professor and contributing author to the report. The report is the distillation of a five-year effort to assess the latest evidence on climate change and its consequences, from direct atmospheric measurements of carbon dioxide to thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies. The final document to emerge from the latest of five assessments since 1990, it is intended to provide a scientific grounding for world leaders who will attempt to negotiate an international climate treaty in Paris late next year. While the IPCC is barred from endorsing policy, the report lays out possible scenarios and warns that the choices will grow increasingly dire if carbon emissions continue on their current record-breaking trajectory. “It’s not too late, but the longer you wait, the more expensive it gets,” Gary Yohe, a Wesleyan University professor who also participated in the drafting of the report, said in an interview. Damage to the Earth’s ecosystems is “irreversible to the extent to which we have committed ourselves, but we will commit ourselves to higher and higher and higher damages and impacts” if the world’s leaders fail to act, Yohe said. A succession of IPCC reports since the 1990s have drawn an ever-clearer connection between human activity and climate change. But Sunday’s “synthesis report” makes the case more emphatically than before, asserting that the warming trend seen on land and in the oceans since the 1950s is “unequivocal” and that it is “extremely likely” — a term that the IPCC uses to denote a 95 percent or greater probability — that humans are the main cause. “Human influence on the climate system is clear,” the panel states in a 40-page summary intended for policymakers. In late 2013, when the first report of this round of the IPCC’s work came out, skeptics trained their attention on the contention that in recent years the rate of global warming has seemingly “paused” or slowed down. But the latest document is fairly dismissive of that idea, acknowledging that, while the rate of warming in the past 15 years has indeed been somewhat smaller than the rate since 1951, “trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends.” Although it is too early to say, claims about a possible slowing of global warming may be swept aside by new data: According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, all-time monthly temperature records were broken four times in 2014 — in May, June, August and September — raising the possibility that 2014 may set a record as the hottest year ever. In cautious and often technically complex language, the new report cites soaring emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in the past 60 years as the cause of nearly all the warming seen so far. While carbon dioxide is a naturally abundant gas essential for plant photosynthesis, it has been accumulating in the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate as a byproduct of the burning of fossil fuels by automobiles, power plants and factories. Concentrations of the heat-trapping gas is 40 percent higher than in pre-industrial times, a level “unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years,” the report states. Most of the excess heat is absorbed by the ocean, muting the effects. Yet, climate change is having profound impacts on “natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans,” the panel concluded. It cited rising sea levels, more extreme weather events, warmer air and ocean temperatures, melting glaciers and vanishing sea ice. And because of the long amount of time that carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere, some impacts are locked in, perhaps for centuries to come, the report warned. “A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change . . . is irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale,” the report said. Sea level rise, for example, “will continue for many centuries beyond 2100” because of ice-sheet melting that is underway and other causes. Scientists and policymakers have set a goal of restraining the average global temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, on grounds that a higher increase would change the climate so dramatically that neither humans nor natural ecosystems could easily adapt. That would probably require keeping concentrations of key greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to under 450 parts per million by 2100, the panel said. Concentrations passed 400 parts per million for the first time in 2013. Even with a rapid shift to renewable energy, the task of achieving such drastic reductions is daunting, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said in a speech last week as panel members began final revisions to the report. “May I humbly suggest that policymakers avoid being overcome by the seeming hopelessness of addressing climate change,” Pachauri said. “It is not hopeless. This is not to say it will be easy.” The report will likely add fuel to the debate over environmental policies in key congressional races. Candidates in several Senate and House races have clashed over how to respond to climate change and whether it indeed exists. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, reacting to the report, said it was time to move beyond the politicization of climate science. “We can’t prevent a large scale disaster if we don’t heed this kind of hard science,” Kerry said in a statement. “The longer we are stuck in a debate over ideology and politics, the more the costs of inaction grow and grow. Those who choose to ignore or dispute the science so clearly laid out in this report do so at great risk for all of us and for our kids and grandkids.”
Media playback is not supported on this device Manager Gary Rowett enthusiastic over Blues takeover The takeover of Birmingham City by Chinese firm Trillion Trophy Asia (TTA) has been formally completed after the club's parent company resumed trading. TTA, controlled by businessman Paul Suen, have acquired more than 50% shares in the Championship side. In 2015, Suen's TTA were granted a two-year exclusivity period to negotiate the purchase of Blues. The sale ends the club's seven-year association with Carson Yeung, who was convicted of money laundering in 2014. "A line can formally be drawn under the old regime and we can continue to plan ahead for a brighter Blues future," said a club statement. "The club's parent company, Birmingham International Holdings Limited (BIHL), has resumed trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is now in the expert hands of Trillion Trophy Asia Limited. "We welcome all at TTA into the Blues family and we look forward to exciting times ahead at St Andrew's under their guidance and with their backing." Receivers Ernst & Young had been running the club since February 2015, after their parent company BIHL went into receivership. Former banker Panos Pavlakis has been in charge of the day-to-day running of operations as director since 2014, but neither his future - nor the make-up of the club's board under Suen's ownership - is yet clear. Four West Midlands clubs are now under Chinese ownership, after Dr Tony Xia's takeover of Aston Villa, the sale of West Bromwich Albion to a Chinese Investment group and Chinese conglomerate Fosun International's purchase of Wolverhampton Wanderers. Analysis BBC WM's Richard Wilford "We're not talking a cash-rich situation. We're not looking at the £50m that Villa have spent this year or the 14 or 15 players that Wolves have brought in. "They (TTA) have already been putting money in and there may well be a bit of cash in January for a couple of decent players, but don't expect anything flashy. Don't expect the nature of the club to change. "The theory is that he (Paul Suen) will want to improve what is there, whether it is in terms of the infrastructure of Birmingham City or whether it be their fortunes on the playing side, because, if he does ultimately sell the club on, he will want to do so for a profit."
OAKLAND — Warriors point guard Stephen Curry is out indefinitely after spraining his right ankle. Yes, that ankle. “It was really a freak injury,” Warriors coach Mark Jackson said before Wednesday night’s game against Miami. “We don’t do much in shootaround — (he was) just chasing after a loose rebound. It’s unfortunate. We will shut him down. He’ll get treatment, and we’ll see where he goes.” Curry sat out the defending NBA champions’ lone trip to Oracle Arena this season, his first missed game of the season. He injured the ankle at the shootaround Wednesday morning when he landed on the foot of rookie Festus Ezeli. “I haven’t had a sprain in two-and-a-half months, so my ligaments are as probably the healthiest they’ve been,” Curry said. “Just have to wait and see how they recover. “ “I haven’t been in this situation for a while. I don’t know if it will be a fast or slow kind of deal just because after two surgeries and all that process, it finally had the time to cool down. So we’ll see tomorrow.” X-rays came back negative. His return will be based on how his right ankle progresses, a Warriors official said. “I’m not a doctor,” Jackson said, “but I can’t imagine it turning into something more. I’m not going to get into timetables and all of that. We’re not concerned.” Jarrett Jack started in Curry’s place Wednesday. The Warriors acquired Jack from New Orleans in the offseason for this very reason. For most of the previous two seasons, Curry’s right ankle has been a cloud hanging over his NBA career and the Warriors’ chances. He sprained the same ankle multiple times during the 2010-11 season, prompting surgery in May 2011 to repair torn ligaments. But that didn’t prevent multiple sprains during the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season. He had another surgery in April 2012 on his right ankle. And after months of rehab, he returned to action in time for training camp. He showed enough progress for the Warriors to sign him to a four-year, $44 million contract extension. Curry’s ankle had been a nonissue the first 36 games of the season, a big reason Golden State entered Wednesday 10 games above .500. He’s one of only three players in the NBA averaging at least 20 points, six assists and four rebounds per game. The others are Miami’s LeBron James and Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook. Jackson is sure to wait until Curry’s ankle is fully healed before putting him back in the action. The Warriors get Thursday off before playing at San Antonio (Friday) and New Orleans (Saturday). Golden State will host the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday and Oklahoma City on Wednesday. Without Curry, Golden State’s offense is noticeably less potent. In the Warriors’ game at Miami earlier this season, the Heat focused on stopping Curry, which opened up the floor for everyone else and keyed Golden State’s road upset. Even though Jack is starting, Jackson will also have to adjust how he finishes games. He usually plays Jack at the point with Curry and guard Klay Thompson on the wings (and David Lee and Carl Landry as the big men). But Curry’s absence will probably mean crunchtime minutes for rookie forward Harrison Barnes, who usually gets squeezed out in Jackson’s three-guard lineup to end the game. “It will be a feel or a flow,” Jackson said. “I’ve very confident in my guys. … I don’t know who will close the ballgame. The game will dictate that.”
Advertisement Advertisement Despite a tough 16-10 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Week 5, the Los Angeles Rams still seem to have managed an impressive turnaround this season. Less than a year after finishing the 2016 campaign with a 4-12 record, the Rams have gone 3-2 through five games with their two losses coming against strong Seahawks and Washington Redskins teams. Much of the credit has been attributed to newcomer Sean McVay, who took over for the washed-up Jeff Fisher at head coach. At just 31 years old, McVay appears to be a prodigious offensive mind, but many people seem to be overlooking the man who assembled the talent on this roster: general manager Les Snead. Let's take a look at the ways in which Snead improved the Rams personnel. Advertisement Landing a top young quarterback Having helped transform Kirk Cousins from a fourth-round pick into a Pro Bowler during his three years as the Washington Redskins offensive coordinator, McVay earned a reputation as a coach who could get the most out of his quarterback. This season, McVay has only bolstered that reputation, helping Jared Goff propel his quarterback rating from 63.6 over seven games in 2016 to 94.1 in his five games this year. While it seemed just a few months ago that Goff may have been destined to add his name to the list of legendary draft busts (e.g. JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf), he now looks like a Matt Ryan type of passer who can work effectively as a distributor within an offensive scheme when surrounded by talented players. Advertisement Top Videos of the Day Everyone is singing McVay's praises for getting Goff going in his second NFL season, but no one seems to be acknowledging that Snead made a strong move by acquiring Goff in the first place. The Rams were set to select 15th overall in the 2016 NFL Draft, but Snead made an incredibly bold move, giving up two first-round picks, two second-round picks, and two third-round picks to land the Tennessee Titans' No. 1 overall draft pick, with which the Rams selected Goff. The move initially looked like a monumental waste of draft capital, as Goff was struggling mightily and second overall pick Carson Wentz looked like a missed opportunity for Snead and the Rams. But Goff now has the appearance of a franchise quarterback in Los Angeles, and if you can land a player at the game's most important position (and perhaps the most important position of all of sports) who will hold down that role for the next 10-15 years, there is virtually no price that is too steep to pay. Advertisement It wasn't Snead's fault that former coach Jeff Fisher couldn't get the most out of a rookie Goff last year. Snead evaluated Goff's talent and made the decision that he would be able to play quarterback in the NFL, and now we are seeing that Snead was right—it's about time that we acknowledge it. Surrounding Goff with weapons Everyone likes to blame Fisher for Goff's rookie-year struggles, but while Fisher certainly deserves some of the blame, Goff had many more obstacles than a dull head coach. In 2016, the Rams' top four wide receivers were Kenny Britt (who is catching a miserable 34.8 percent of his targets for the Browns this season), Brian Quick (who has one target for the Redskins this year), Tavon Austin, and Pharoh Cooper. Snead knew that a 22-year-old Goff would continue to struggle if he didn't have better weapons to utilize in the passing game, so he completely overhauled the receiving corps. Snead landed an elite talent in 24-year-old Sammy Watkins via trade, a well-rounded pass-catching presence in Robert Woods via free agency, and an exciting underneath receiver in Cooper Kupp via the draft (third round). In addition, Snead used a second-round pick on tight end Gerald Everett, who isn't playing heavy snaps yet but has flashed some exciting playmaking ability. Fisher and former offensive coordinator Rob Boras clearly did not possess the brilliant offensive mind that McVay does, but it is also crucial to consider that McVay is working with a far more talented cast of pass-catchers, which now has the luxury of employing Tavon Austin as a No. 4 receiver and gadget player rather than forcing him out of his element by playing him as a traditional wideout. With these upgrades to the receiving corps, it was virtually a given that Goff's passer rating would improve, with or without McVay. Signing a cornerstone left tackle The Rams stumbled through 2016 with one of the biggest draft busts of recent memory, Greg Robinson (second overall, 2014—admittedly a big whiff by Snead), manning the most important position on the offensive line: left tackle. Goff was sacked a whopping 26 times in just seven games last year, putting him on pace for 59.4 sacks over a full 16-game season—the NFL leader in times sacked last season was Tyrod Taylor with 42. Knowing that he had to protect his young, slight quarterback to give him any chance at success, Snead signed perhaps the top offensive lineman on the market, Andrew Whitworth, over the offseason. Whitworth has injected a ton of talent and efficiency into a previously hapless offensive line, grading out as Pro Football Focus' fifth-ranked offensive tackle among 69 qualifiers so far this season. And wouldn't you know it: Goff is now on pace to be sacked only 19.2 times this year. Snead saw a hole at a crucial spot on his roster, and he did exactly what it took to fill it. Andrew Whitworth has now played 4 games with the Rams, and has still only allowed just 1 pressure. — Nathan Jahnke (@PFF_NateJahnke) October 1, 2017 The difference between McVay and Fisher is substantial, but the difference between Whitworth and Robinson may be ever greater. In summation The Rams have obviously improved since last year's disastrous 4-12 season, and Sean McVay replacing Jeff Fisher as head coach certainly has had a lot to do with that. McVay uses his players in creative ways and utilizes their strengths rather than attempting to fit them into a certain scheme. That being said, this roster is a lot more talented than it was a year ago. With huge upgrades to the receiving corps and left-tackle position, it's no wonder that Jared Goff is moving the ball more efficiently and the offense is scoring more points—that's simply what happens when you improve the talent around a young quarterback. The fact that Goff is now in his second professional season, giving him more experience and insight as to how he needs to prepare, certainly doesn't hurt the offense's upside. When it comes down to it, this is a talented roster, and the man who accumulated this talent deserves credit for doing so. McVay is doing a fantastic job of maximizing the talent of his players, but without Les Snead, McVay may not have all that much talent to work with.
Dean Baquet, the top editor at the New York Times, said he'd publish a story on Donald Trump's taxes even if it means risking jail time. He made the remark during a Harvard University forum Sunday, when he was asked about the legal risks tied to publishing a leaked or hacked copy of Trump's taxes. "I think every journalist on the planet wants Donald Trump's tax returns," said Laura Poitras, a filmmaker who made an Academy Award-winning documentary about NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Related: Why Trump owes it to voters to release his tax returns But she told both Baquet and Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward, who was also there, that the lawyers for their newspapers would probably warn them that they'd face jail time for publishing such information. "If the Post or the Times were to get Donald Trump's tax returns, would you publish them?" she asked. Both said yes, that they'd argue with the attorneys to do so. Baquet said Trump's taxes are important because he is "a presidential candidate whose whole campaign is built on his success as a business man, and his wealth," and that his taxes could cast light on whether that's true. Woodward joked that if a judge handed down a five-year jail sentence to the Post for publishing the taxes, he'd have everyone at the paper serve a single day of the sentence. But he also stressed that it's very important to report on the taxes. "Some things you have to do. Dean is exactly right. This defines Donald Trump," Woodward said.
Night after night Bill O'Reilly doles out his opinions on the problems that face minorities, black teenage girls and their money grubbing families, but when it comes to his own family and children, it appears he's got many more flaws to deal with. Gawker: Three weeks ago, a Nassau County Supreme Court justice ended a bitter three-year custody dispute between Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly and his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy, by granting custody of the couple’s two minor children to McPhilmy. Though nearly all documents pertaining to New York family court cases are sealed, Gawker has learned that the justice in the case heard testimony accusing O’Reilly of physically assaulting his wife in the couple’s Manhasset home. According to a source familiar with the facts of the case, a court-appointed forensic examiner testified at a closed hearing that O’Reilly’s daughter claimed to have witnessed her father dragging McPhilmy down a staircase by her neck, apparently unaware that the daughter was watching. The precise date of the alleged incident is unclear, but appears to have occurred before the couple separated in 2010. The same source indicated that the daughter, who is 16 years old, told the forensic examiner about the incident within the past year. Maybe BIllO should worry about fixing his own domestic problems before attacking entire ethnic minorities. Maybe he's you know, compensating a bit? Gawker has all the juicy details. Update: And let's not forget BillO's harassment of Andrea Mackris, which cost him a lot of money.
Kurdish refugees from Kobani watch as thick smoke covers their city during fighting between ISIS and Kurdish peshmerga forces on Oct. 26, 2014. Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters America’s war against ISIS is quickly turning into a quagmire. A few signs of progress have sprung up in recent days. U.S. airstrikes have slowed down the Islamist group’s onslaught against the Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria. A much-cheered caravan of Kurdish peshmerga fighters is making its way from Iraq to join the battle. But even if the Kurds push ISIS out of Kobani, what does that signify in the larger struggle? What happens next? And what is the Obama administration’s desired endgame and its path for getting there? These questions have no clear answers, and that speaks volume. When President Obama delivered his televised address on Sept. 10, announcing that he would now pursue ISIS throughout Iraq (not just where they threatened U.S. diplomats) and even into Syria, he clarified that the focus would remain on Iraq. To the extent he launched airstrikes in Syria, they would be clustered along the border, to keep the jihadists from moving back and forth between the two countries or seeking safe haven. And at first, the bombs dropped on Syria did fall along the ISIS cross-border paths. But by early October, Obama was dropping more bombs on Syria than on Iraq. What happened? Kobani. ISIS launched an assault against this town on the Turkish border. Intelligence indicated the town would soon fall. Local Kurds were running out of ammunition. Turkish President Recep Erdogan lined up tanks, but refused to roll them forward; he also blocked Turkish Kurds from crossing the border to help their Syrian brethren. So, to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, Obama sent in the drones and the fighter planes. For a short while, the bombing forced ISIS militias to lay low and fall back. But then, like most resourceful armies (and it turns out ISIS is resourceful), they adapted to the patterns of airstrikes and kept fighting. To bolster their ranks, thousands of jihadists flocked to Kobani from all over, to help the holy cause and to fight the American devils, even if it meant dying in the process. (In fact, for some, martyrdom was part of the appeal.) Suddenly, the fight for this little-known town took on vast symbolic significance. And if ISIS was telling the world that Kobani was a decisive battle along the path to the Islamic State’s victory, then Obama—who’d put American resources and credibility on the line—had little choice but to treat it as a decisive battle as well. If ISIS won, the propaganda windfall would be immense. So, Obama upped the stakes, dropping not only bombs on ISIS but also weapons and supplies to the Kurds. (One of the 28 airdrops drifted off course and wound up in the hands of ISIS, but all the others reportedly landed on target.) This is probably what energized the Iraqi peshmerga to come join the fight: Their contribution might not be futile, because the United States was now locked in. A senior administration official pointed to one more alluring factor: The dense concentration of ISIS forces in Kobani made for a very high-value target; a few bombs, well placed, could kill a lot of jihadists. But body counts, as we learned a long time ago, aren’t a good measure for which side is winning a war. The argument might carry more weight if ISIS were on its last lap. But the opposite is true. A couple hundred peshmerga may be streaming into northern Syria, but so are thousands of jihadists. A U.N. Security Council report, obtained by Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian, finds that 15,000 foreign jihadists have come to join the battle from more than 80 countries, including many “that have not previously faced challenges relating to al-Qaida,” among them such unlikely places as the Maldives, Chile, and Norway. In fact, according to the report, the numbers of foreign jihadists flowing into the area since 2010 “are now many times the size of the cumulative numbers of foreign terrorist fighters between 1990 and 2010—and are growing.” ISIS cash flows are growing, too. The U.S. Treasury Department estimates that the group earns $1 million a day from oil sales and, so far this year, has amassed $20 million in ransom payments. In short, American airstrikes and a few hundred Kurds on the ground aren’t going to be enough. Even if ISIS is pushed back from Kobani, so what? On Oct. 8, when the town seemed about to fall, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a public forum, “As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani, you have to step back and understand the strategic objective. … Notwithstanding the crisis in Kobani, the original targets of our efforts have been the command and control centers, the infrastructure.” Clearly, Kerry hadn’t received the administration’s talking-points memo for the day, but his comment—though crude and deeply alienating to the Kurds—wasn’t off the mark by the strict measures of geopolitics. ISIS is not 10 feet tall, but it looks like a giant because its opponents—which include every nation in the region—are unable to act in unity, either because of dysfunction or their own overwhelming conflicts of interest. The most promising allies in a fight against the Sunni jihadists of ISIS would be the Shiite regimes of Iran and Syria. But Obama can’t join forces with them, at least not openly: First, he’s called for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with good reason, and allying with Iran’s mullahs wouldn’t go over well politically; second, if he did ally with them, the region’s anti-ISIS Sunni governments would back away. And Sunnis are vital to this coalition, in order to discredit the notion that ISIS is a legitimate Muslim power. As for those Sunni governments, Turkey—which could be the most potent force against ISIS—doesn’t want to help the Kurds, lest they push their long-standing desire to secede; the Saudis are providing a base to train “moderate” Syrian rebels, and the United Arab Emirates is providing some air power, but otherwise, they don’t have much to give. And then there is Iraq. The corrupt sectarianism of the previous Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is responsible for much of what’s gone wrong. After U.S. troops left Iraq, he backpedaled on his commitments to bring Sunnis into the government and replaced senior army officers with incompetent cronies. So when ISIS rose up, the leaderless army deserted, and the Sunni tribes either collaborated or stayed passive, preferring to be ruled, however harshly, by fellow Sunnis than by oppressive Shiites. The Obama administration pressured Maliki to leave office. His successor, Haider al-Abadi, is a seemingly more inclusive Shiite. But so far his actions haven’t matched his words, so Sunnis still see no reason to pledge allegiance to the new Iraqi government. This was the key premise of America’s renewed involvement in Iraq—that the central government would visibly work for the interests of all Iraqis and thus wean moderate Sunnis away from ISIS—but it hasn’t happened. As a result, the U.S. intervention, however well-intentioned and circumscribed, rests on shaky ground, at best. Even on a tactical level, it’s hard to see where the Obama administration is going with its anti-ISIS venture. Figures released by U.S. Central Command show that the airstrikes over Syria and Iraq, combined, rarely exceed 25 per day. That’s not nothing, but it’s close. A joke recently circulating among Kurds was that they couldn’t tell whether the Americans were not fighting while pretending to fight—or fighting while pretending not to fight. (That was a couple weeks ago; the perception has changed since, but it still colors their historically skeptical outlook of the United States.) American military power has played an important role elsewhere. Strafings by Apache helicopters have kept ISIS from taking over the airport on the outskirts of Baghdad. And American advisers on the ground in Iraq have set up logistics, intelligence, and command-and-control networks, which have gone a long way toward stopping ISIS in its tracks. The Iraqi army is still in woeful straits, but Shiite militias—some of them dressed in army uniform—have recaptured a few towns. If the fight were restricted to Iraq, as Obama had initially hoped and planned for, this might be good enough. But, as he has learned, there is no defeating—or even degrading—ISIS without lurching into Syria as well. President Erdogan has told Obama that he won’t send Turkish troops to fight ISIS unless Obama does more to topple Syrian President Assad. In one sense, Erdogan has a point; ISIS probably couldn’t have risen without the power vacuums created by Assad’s deadly suppression of the Sunni uprising within his own borders. But his demand is probably more an excuse for inaction: Obama clearly doesn’t want to intervene in the civil war in Syria, and Erdogan surely knows this. In his Sept. 10 speech, Obama said that the United States would train moderate Syrian rebels to overthrow Assad. But this part of his plan seemed halfhearted. First, he acknowledged that it would take roughly a year. Second, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has acknowledged that the forces running the training program haven’t yet vetted which Syrians will take part. Third, while Obama has focused on bombing ISIS in northeastern Syria, Assad has stepped up his own airstrikes on other types of Sunni rebels (some moderate, some not) in northwestern Syria—200 airstrikes against them on Oct. 20 alone. So here we are, back in the Middle East again, shoring up a dysfunctional regime, caught in the middle of a sectarian conflict, saddled with allies who aren’t doing much and whose interests conflict with ours, roped off from potential allies who could do much more but whose interests conflict with ours more deeply, and facing a bunch of millenarian savages whose appeal grows as our involvement deepens. Obama knew this would happen. He understood the region’s dynamics. It was why he resisted intervening in these conflicts from the outset. But he took one step in, trying to help, carefully limiting his actions, to pre-empt the proverbial slippery slope; yet here he is, scrambling to climb back up the hill.
Single? Show me your estate deeds and bank statements In Shanghai, the only other market booming as much as its stock market is the marriage market. Being single in this city is as lucrative as any initial public offering, and with a little due diligence on prospective partners and a proper valuation of their net worth, getting married in Shanghai just might be the wisest investment you can make. Just like everything else in Shanghai, we also put price tags on prospective mates. Their retail value is determined by all the usual traits that we typically seek in a companion - looks, smarts, personality, kindness - but just like banks have the gold standard to determine the value of currency, here we use the Shanghai Standard. Consider yourself intelligent? Show me your Ivy League diploma. Think you're kind-hearted? Prove it by buying me something. Call yourself good-looking? Let me see the label on your suit. Sparkling personality? The only sparkle I care about is in that Chow Tai Fook display case. Since IPOing myself on Shanghai's marriage market, I've been having so much fun being wined and dined by the city's wealthiest bachelors that I really can't understand why so many people always complain about being single. The most recent matchmaking event I attended was a blind date cruise along the Huangpu River, organized by the Shanghai Matchmaking Association. There, beneath the romantic glow of the city's biggest financial institutions, 230 singles bared their souls - and their portfolios - to each other. It was like being in the trading pit of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Not everyone, however, was a suitable candidate. Some female participants later complained to the Jiefang Daily about being asked to provide their university degree, household registration certificate and proof of employment upon meeting their male counterparts. Some men even had the audacity to say that they felt pressured by the women to show them the deeds and titles to their estates. What did they expect? If you want to marry me, you obviously need to have somewhere for us to call home. An apartment isn't good enough, I want a town house; it's called a "house"hold for a reason. Any respectable family in Shanghai will have already purchased property here long before their child became of age to marry, so don't complain to me if your parents didn't get in before the housing bubble. Family is very important in China. In Shanghai, family is also very important: your corporate family. A senior manager from a multinational firm, for example, would make a perfect match for my family. One candidate at the matchmaking event bragged to me about his government connections. When I asked what his job was, he said civil servant. Um, no thanks. Any job title with the word "servant" need not apply. Another candidate I met that evening blew any chance he had the moment he offered to hail us a taxi. I laughed in his face. I suppose if we ever got married he would also expect me to take the subway when I want to go shopping. Can you imagine me on public transportation? There are 1.8 million car owners in Shanghai now, the streets are filled with Land Rovers and Audis; my future husband better be in one of them. Think I'm being unfair? Let's be straight with each other: people are born unequal. Some are born into wealthy or prestigious families, and some are not. Some are born beautiful, and everyone else is just average. That's how life works: the haves and the have nots. But for those men who expect their future wives to have fair skin or a shapely figure, or know how to cook and clean and take care of children and their elderly parents, they'd damn well better be able to provide us with an economic base to do all that. And if you can't, the Shanghai Railway Station is accessible from Metro Line 1, bye bye!
Posted October 14th 2010 at 8:36 pm by gimantalon Hip Hop has many never found stuff where 90s freaks like me are hunting on like wild animals. Like this for instance, the full Stretch & Bobbito Show with Big L & Jay-Z as guests on the 23th of February 1995. The only thing we had was the legendary freestyle that was cut out. Props to HecticEclectic to upload his recorded tape from that day that featured more shit. For me personally this is the best moment ever recorded on radio… Big L IS the best MC ever, since I first had a track of him. ‘You can put your man on too’, I wonder if he knew he would be in Forbes magazine and shit 15 years later? The most powerful hip hop artist ever was back then just Big L’s man haha. This shit is classic, no doubt. Props to Stretch & Bobbito for making everything so legendary. I tweaked it for y’all. Enjoy and reminisce: [DOWNLOAD] Sidenote, Big L’s family putting out a new official project next month. Support! Big props to The Big Sleep for holding down Big L on the internet. We brothers.
Police in Moscow detained Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption crusader, on Friday, hours before he was to address his supporters at a pre-election rally in a major provincial city. Vladimir Putin has not yet revealed whether he will stand for re-election at the Russian presidential poll in March 2018. But Mr Navalny, who declared his candidacy late last year, is already battling a barrage of official harassment to take his campaign to Russia’s far-flung regions. Police detained Mr Navalny early on Friday as he left his Moscow flat to travel by train to Nizhny Novgorod, an industrial city 480km east of Moscow, to attend a rally of his supporters. “Old man Putin doesn’t want me to go to Nizhny Novgorod,” the opposition leader wrote on Instagram. The Russian ministry of interior said Mr Navalny had been detained over “repeated calls to attend an unauthorised public event”. If the charge is upheld in court, he could could face a fine of 150,000 -300,000 rubles (€2,200- €4,400) or a 30-day jail sentence. A lawyer who swept to political prominence after leading massive anti-government protests that erupted in Moscow in 2011-2012, after a falsified parliamentary election, Mr Navalny is widely considered to be the only opposition figure capable of presenting a genuine challenge to Mr Putin at the polls. Campaign promise Large crowds have turned out at rallies across Russia in September to hear his simple campaign promise to redistribute the wealth monopolised by corrupt officials and oligarchs and give ordinary citizens a better life. From Nizhny Novgorod, Mr Navalny was planning to address meetings in the city of Orenburg in southern Russia and Arkhangelsk in the northwest this weekend before moving on to a rally in Saint Petersburg on October 7th. Russia’s central election commission warned earlier this year that Mr Navalny, who is serving a five-year sentence for fraud – a charge he says was politically motivated – is unlikely to be allowed to compete in the 2018 presidential poll. But the unexpectedly high level of popular support for Mr Navalny’s election campaign will make it difficult for the Kremlin to bar the opposition leader from the polls without risking social unrest. Destabilise Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, signalled concern this week, telling lawmakers that Russia should be prepared to combat attempts to destabilise the country in the coming months. Her message echoed a warning by the Russian foreign ministry that said the US might interfere in the forthcoming election by supporting anti-Kremlin protests. Writing from a police cell in Moscow on Friday afternoon, Mr Navalny urged his supporters to attend the Nizhny Novgorod rally as a “sign of protest against the stupidity, senility and degradation that has taken hold of our country”. But in Nizhny Novgorod, where police detained Leonid Volkov, Mr Navalny’s campaign manager, on Friday, the authorities were not taking any chances. A sports event was hastily organised to take place on Friday evening in the very same square where the opposition rally was planned.
An Ontario man who travelled to Syria to support an Islamic militant group will spend another two years behind bars after pleading guilty to a terror charge, his lawyer said Tuesday. Kevin Omar Mohamed was sentenced in a Toronto court to 4 ½ years in prison, with 2 ½ years credit for time already served, his lawyer Paul Slansky said. Kevin Omar Mohamed, seen in this file photo from Feb. 11, 2015, has been sentenced in a Toronto court to 4 ½ years in prison, with 2 ½ years credit for time already served, his lawyer Paul Slansky said. ( The Iron Warrior ) Mohamed, 25, has been in custody since his arrest in March 2016 on weapons-related charges, which were later changed to a terror charge. He pleaded guilty in early June to one count of participating in or contributing to, directly or indirectly, any activity of a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of any terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity. “Although there was no evidence presented to support this and, accordingly, no finding made to support this, my client did what he did to help the Syrian people to secure the overthrow of the (Bashar al-Assad) regime,” Slansky said in an email. Article Continued Below “Obviously, this was not the way to proceed. He now recognizes this and accordingly pleaded guilty.” Details of the case were made public for the first time Monday at Mohamed’s sentencing hearing. An agreed statement of facts read in court laid out how the former University of Waterloo student flew to Turkey in the spring of 2014 and made his way into Syria, where he met with members of Jabhat-Al-Nusra, a listed terrorist group. “His purpose was to enhance the ability of that group to commit terrorist activity,” the statement said. Mohamed returned to Canada roughly a month later after his mother and brother convinced him to come home, it said. Court heard Mohamed also encouraged others to join militants in Syria through social media, which he used under several pseudonyms. On one of his accounts, he described himself as “a supporter of international terrorism,” the statement said. While overseas, he tweeted a public invitation for others to join him, stressing how easy it was to enter through Turkey, court heard. On another occasion, he suggested it was easy to avoid detection from “security agencies” when travelling to Syria. Article Continued Below Later tweets urged those who share his beliefs to move to “lands of jihad” or consider carrying out attacks in their own communities, the statement said. Mohamed left his mother’s home in Whitby, Ont., east of Toronto, in February of last year and was put under police surveillance, the document said. But Mohamed caught on, withdrew $3,500 and went offline, managing to evade police for several days, it said. His mother reported him missing to both local police and RCMP later that month. Police tracked Mohamed in March of last year to the University of Waterloo campus, where he was sleeping in empty rooms, the statement said. He was arrested on March 25. Officers found a black computer bag that belonged to him and that contained a large hunting knife, heavy work gloves, a wallet and two sets of keys, court heard. They obtained a warrant to search lockers that matched they keys and found a number of items, including pages of handwritten notes marked with the Arabic word for assassination, the document said.
McDonald's served 60 million customers a day in 2009 A McDonald's outlet in the Netherlands was wrong to sack an employee for giving a colleague a piece of cheese on a hamburger, a court has ruled. The waitress was fired last March after she sold a hamburger to a co-worker who then asked for cheese, which she added. The fast-food chain argued this turned the hamburger into a cheeseburger, and so she should have charged more. But Leeuwarden district court ruled a written warning would have been more appropriate. It is just a slice of cheese Leeuwarden district court McDonald's profits jump by 23% McDonald's was ordered to pay the former employee more than 4,200 euros ($5,900; £3,660) for the last five months of her contract. The fast-food chain had argued that the waitress - who was employed at a branch in the northern town of Lemmer - had broken staff rules prohibiting free gifts to family, friends or colleagues. But the court said in its written judgement: "The dismissal was too severe a measure. It is just a slice of cheese," reports AFP news agency. The ruling comes days after McDonald's reported an increase in net profits by almost a quarter in the last three months of 2009.
An A-10 aircraft operated by the United States military suffered from a “catastrophic” engine failure during a routine refueling mission and was diverted to a base in Iraq to be repaired, the Pentagon says. The US Air Forceacknowledgedthis week that a maintenance repair team was deployed to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq recently after the malfunction sidelined an A-10C Thunderbolt II. The Air Force did not note the specific date of the incident, but described the glitch as “catastrophic.” The jet was not involved in a combat mission when the failure occurred, the Air Force said, but had to be diverted to a base in hostile territory where an expedited repair was ordered to fix the plane’s number one engine. Colonel Michael Stohler, the commander of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, said the aircraft safely landed “in a location that was not fully secure and we needed it repaired and flown out of there as quickly as possible.” According to the Hill, the Al Asad base in the largely-Sunni western province of Al Anbar was coming under "regular fire” from militants from the self-styled Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) as recently as this past January. Getting the A-10 out of Al Assad, Stohler said, was the “number one priority” for officials on the base. READ MORE: Air Force general loses job for telling airmen lobbying to keep A-10 ‘is committing treason’ The Pentagon reportedly thought repairing the jet would take upwards of a month, the Air Force said, but a maintenance team was deployed to the base and fixed it in five days. “This fix required removing and replacing multiple major components on the aircraft that are normally not done,” he said. “It was accomplished in hot weather at a base with minimal support structure. The maintenance personnel slept 16 in a tent. There were no shower facilities. They worked long hours with minimal equipment to rebuild this aircraft, test it and then fly it out,” Stohler said. The Air Force plans to retire a fleet of around 300 Warthogs ‒ officially the A-10 Thunderbolt II ‒ over the next few years, and expects the maneuver to save the Pentagon upwards of $4.2 billion by 2019. READ MORE: War chest: US Air Force seeks more cash to boost Iraq & Syria ops, surveillance The A-10 has previously been used extensively in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and defense journalist Tyler Rogoway wrote recently that the jets would likely deal a heavy blow to the IS due to its sheer maneuverability, armor, defensive suite and construction. At the same time, the jet has garnered opposition from critics who cite a recent report indicating the A-10 has killed more US troops in friendly-fire incidents and more Afghan civilians than any other aircraft operated by the Pentagon. Earlier this week, lawmakers on Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee in the US House declined to weigh in on the fleet’s future, instead passing the fate of the program to a full committee that is expected to meet later this month and debate the A-10, according to Defense News. On Thursday, Roll Call reported that the House Armed Services Committee is expected to continue funding the planes through the 2016 defense authorization mark.
Failing to keep your teeth clean could lead to more than yellowing and bad breath, according to research by a Hebrew University team. A study of oral pathogen Fusobacterium nucleatum, commonly found in the mouth, indicates that it can actually impede the body’s immune system from fighting certain diseases – like cancer. In a paper published in the latest issue of the research journal Immunity, co-authors Dr. Ofer Mandelboim and Dr. Gilad Bachrach discovered that the F. nucleatum germ could “collude” with colon cancer cells to inhibit an immune cell receptor called TIGIT – a natural body defense to the spread of cancer. “Certain bacteria have previously been shown to fight cancer, so the surprising finding of this paper is that bacteria such as Fusobacterium nucleatum can grant tumors an anti-immune defense mechanism,” said Mandelboim of the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School. Get The Start-Up Israel's Daily Start-Up by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up F. nucleatum has actually been implicated in a long list of trouble-making activities in the body. Once thought to be a harmless bacterium that got washed away with a good gargle, the bacteria – a major contributor to periodontitis, a disease of the gums – has been linked to heart disease, HIV and stillbirth. The new study is the first one to establish a solid connection between F. nucleatum’s activities and a specific worsening in the condition of cancer patients. F. nucleatum’s record made it a likely candidate for a study on its interaction with cancer. Mandelboim teamed up with Bachrach of the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Dental Medicine – a world expert on the F. nucleatum as a factor in periodontal disease – the two discovered that the bacterium was found not only in the mouth, but in human colorectal tumors as well. There, a protein on the outer membrane of F. nucleatum, called Fap2, attaches itself to the TIGIT immune cell receptors – a component of the “natural killer cells” in the body’s nonspecific (innate) immune system that can prevent the spread of cancer. This “relationship” somehow prevents the TIGIT receptors from acting properly – compromising the activity of the killer cells, and allowing the cancer cells to grow and spread. The findings may help researchers devise new ways of fighting cancer. If interaction between F. nucleatum and the TIGIT receptors prevents them from properly fighting cancer, then keeping those two elements apart could bolster the immune system, said Mandelboim. “Blocking the interaction between these bacteria and immune cells might improve anti-tumor immunity both in general and with regard to colon cancer in particular.” How does F. nucleatum get from the mouth to the colon? Via the bloodstream, research shows. It’s the same way the germ gets from the mouth to the heart or to the uterus. In one case cited by the US National Institutes of Health, for example, a woman with pregnancy-associated gingivitis (a common condition in pregnant women) experienced a respiratory infection, and gave birth to a stillborn. F. nucleatum, the NIH study said, appeared to be responsible, and “may have translocated from the mother’s mouth to the uterus when the immune system was weakened during the respiratory infection.” Researchers at Case Western University in the US found the same method of transmission in interaction between F. nucleatum and HIV in patients. The next step, said Chamutai Gur, a member of the research team, is to see if removing FAP2 or preventing it from binding with TIGIT changes the prognosis of patients. “The implications are that if we either remove the Fusobacterium nucleatum bacteria from the tumors or inhibit TIGIT with antibodies, we might enable immune cells to kill the colon tumors more efficiently.” So can keeping the teeth and mouth clean – for example, by brushing the teeth regularly – help prevent colon cancer? Not necessarily, say experts; colon cancer is tied to a number of factors, including age, weight, lifestyle and other environmental conditions. But the research is clear: the less Fusobacterium nucleatum in the mouth, the less chance for it to penetrate the bloodstream and end up in the colon, facilitating the spread of cancer.
Coach Ken Niumatalolo has yet to make a decision about his future. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post) Navy officials were still awaiting word as of Tuesday night regarding the future of football Coach Ken Niumatalolo, who interviewed Monday for the impending head coaching vacancy at Brigham Young but came back to Annapolis to give the job further consideration. BYU, meanwhile, continued its search process Tuesday by interviewing Kalani Sitake, the defensive coordinator and assistant head coach for Oregon State. Sitake played fullback for the Cougars and graduated in 2000. Niumatalolo has not spoken publicly about his meeting with Cougars officials in Provo, Utah, and his agent, Evan Beard, indicated a decision was not necessarily imminent despite initial reports suggesting the coach was close to accepting the position that came open when Bronco Mendenhall announced he was leaving for Virginia. Beard did not return a telephone message left Tuesday night but said Monday that Niumatalolo was in no hurry to make a decision. So too did Navy Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk. “I don’t know, and I mean that sincerely,” Gladchuk said of Niumatalolo’s intentions. “I’m in a holding pattern just like you.” A Salt Lake City television station reported Tuesday that BYU officials had not made Niumatalolo an offer and that the winningest coach in Navy history would remain with the program he’s directed to seven bowl appearances in eight years, including the upcoming Military Bowl on Dec. 28. “Barring a dramatic turnaround, all points today look like he’s going to stay at Navy,” Dave McCann, sports anchor for KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, said during a radio interview on ESPN 700. Niumatalolo’s interest in the BYU position in large part stems from his Mormon faith. He is a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having gone on mission for two years while attending the University of Hawaii and playing football in his home state. Niumatalolo has spent eight full seasons in Annapolis, where he owns a 67-37 record, including an 8-0 mark against Army, and five Commander-in-Chief’s trophies. The semifinalist for national coach of the year also guided Navy within one win of a spot in the American Athletic Conference championship game this season. The No. 21 Midshipmen (10-2), playing in a conference for the first time in 135 years of football at the academy, finished 7-1 in the AAC West Division, tied for first with Houston. Navy fell to the No. 18 Cougars, 52-31, in the final regular season game Nov. 27 to lose the tiebreaker. Niumatalolo officially took over in 2007 for the Poinsettia Bowl after then-coach Paul Johnson announced he would be leaving for Georgia Tech. In April 2011, Niumatalolo signed a contract extension that has four years remaining and is scheduled to pay him roughly $1.6 million per year. There is a buyout clause, but terms were unavailable. Virginia paid nearly $1.2 million to buy out Mendenhall, who will coach BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl on Saturday against rival Utah. “I’ve had some other opportunities, wasn’t interested much in them,” Niumatalolo said Saturday evening during his postgame news conference after beating Army. “This one is different because it’s who I am. It’s my faith. That’s the only reason.”
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy could face City Council grilling on crime statistics. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Ted Cox CITY HALL — City Council progressives are calling for hearings on the accuracy of Police Department crime statistics. Ald. Scott Waguespack is sponsoring a resolution, which was submitted at Wednesday's City Council meeting, calling for the hearings, backed by his allies in the Progressive Reform Caucus. The resolution cites the recent audit on crime stats by Inspector General Joseph Ferguson and a Chicago magazine article calling the city's crime stats into question. The resolution states that "properly collecting and utilizing accurate crime data is a fundamental and integral aspect of CPD’s critical public mission, and is necessary to effectively combat crime, and sustain public trust in law enforcement." It goes on to say that inaccurate data "cultivates a distorted view as to the actual state of crime and victimization in Chicago" and leads to "a weakening of public confidence." It calls on the council's Public Safety Committee to hold hearings attended by both Ferguson and Police Supt. Garry McCarthy on the matter. Ald. Nicholas Sposato (36th), however, withdrew his support from his progressive allies on the resolution. "I don't want to call the superintendent out on anything," Sposato said. "It doesn't set the right tone." McCarthy and Mayor Rahm Emanuel have boasted of reductions in crime across the board, and most recently in shootings and murders. Police spokesman Adam Collins said the department had already complied with the points made in the inspector general's audit. He also attacked the magazine piece as based on "inaccurate and unverified information" and pointed out the writers never even filed Freedom of Information Act requests on crime stats. "The Chicago Police Department takes the tracking, compiling and reporting of crime data extremely seriously as that information informs our policing strategies and our deployment, and is shared with the public to provide an accurate understanding of crime conditions," Collins said. "We make extensive amounts of crime data available to the public online in a number of formats — which can be broken down citywide, by police district, by neighborhood and even by small areas around a specific address. We are proud that CPD is regarded as the national leader for public transparency in crime data, and appreciate that a recent inspector-general audit affirmed CPD’s CompStat system and crime data."
Possible Green Lantern In Batman V Superman Revealed By Conner Schwerdtfeger Random Article Blend Speaking with At this stage, we know that Dan Amboyer is portraying a character creited only as "drone pilot," and that his potential listed name is "Lt. Christie." However, he also admitted that his role has an "undercover" aspect to it, so there’s a distinct possibility that Amboyer's Mr. Christie isn’t everything he seems to be; given his passion for flight Hal Jordan seems to be a likely reality for his character. Dan Amboyer just seems to really want to play a superhero at the end of the day. He originally auditioned to portray Kal-El in Man of Steel, and then returned to audition for The Flash in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. We have to believe that such tenacity must have resonated with Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. because all evidence points to him finally getting a superhero on the silver screen. As if all of these clues weren’t tantalizing enough, the final piece of the puzzle came when POPSUGAR innocently asked Dan Amboyer about his favorite color: No? Blue. Definitely blue, but I appreciate nature as well and everything green. Oh come on, Mr. Ambroyer. Don’t jerk us around like that. We will just have to wait and see if Dan Amboyer joins Ben Affleck’s Batman and Slowly but surely Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice has become less about the imminent smack down between Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight and Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel, and more about the early formation of DC’s Justice League. We know that Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Ezra Miller’s Flash , and Ray Fisher’s Cyborg will appear in the film in some form or another. However, what about the final piece of the puzzle: Green Lantern ? The green clad space cop has remained noticeably absent from the spotlight as the film gets closer and closer to its slated release date, but new reports indicate that actor Dan Amboyer may in fact harness the power of will during the events of Zack Snyder ’s upcoming film.Speaking with POPSUGAR about his involvement in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Dan Amboyer provided numerous – albeit minor – hints about the nature of his character. While no one statement wholly points to him donning a will-powered ring, many of his quotes add up to give us a pretty good idea that he may very well be a Green Lantern. During the interview, he explained not only does he have some great scenes alongside the major DC heroes, but also that there are DC characters waiting in the wings that have not yet been officially confirmed for the film. While that could indicate a potential villain role, we feel more confident in assuming that this might be a member of the Green Lantern Corps.At this stage, we know that Dan Amboyer is portraying a character creited only as "drone pilot," and that his potential listed name is "Lt. Christie." However, he also admitted that his role has an "undercover" aspect to it, so there’s a distinct possibility that Amboyer's Mr. Christie isn’t everything he seems to be; given his passion for flight Hal Jordan seems to be a likely reality for his character.Dan Amboyer just seems to really want to play a superhero at the end of the day. He originally auditioned to portray Kal-El in Man of Steel, and then returned to audition for The Flash in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. We have to believe that such tenacity must have resonated with Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. because all evidence points to him finally getting a superhero on the silver screen.As if all of these clues weren’t tantalizing enough, the final piece of the puzzle came when POPSUGAR innocently asked Dan Amboyer about his favorite color:Oh come on, Mr. Ambroyer. Don’t jerk us around like that.We will just have to wait and see if Dan Amboyer joins Ben Affleck’s Batman and Henry Cavill’s Superman among the ranks of the Justice League. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice will hit theaters on March 25. 10 Marvel and DC Characters Who Will Steal The Show in 2019 Blended From Around The Web Facebook Back to top
More than two months after my last article on the messy situation in Glendale (The Phoenix Coyotes: Things Get Messier In Glendale), the future of the Phoenix Coyotes remains in limbo in the Arizonian desert. Greg Jamison, the former CEO of the San Jose Sharks who has been interested in buying the Coyotes since August 2011, has yet to officially purchase the team from the NHL despite mentioning that he is ready to sign the arena management fee (AMF) agreement with the City of Glendale to make it official. The saga has been dragging on and on in the past 18 months without any actual development in regard to the ownership of the hockey team. Back in September 2012, prior to the NHL lockout, there were reports that Jamison had secured enough money to buy the Coyotes and satisfied the NHL’s rumored asking price of $170 million. Then two months later, at the end of November, the Glendale City Council approved a revised 20-year lease deal that would give Jamison $308 million, or approximately $15 million per year, to manage Jobing.com arena conditional on his purchase of the team from the NHL. The problem is that two months later and only NINE DAYS BEFORE THE EXPIRY OF THE PROPOSED LEASE DEAL on January 31st, 2013, Greg Jamison has yet to buy the team and disclose his investment group and the reason why he does not want to name his investors. Heck, Jamison did not even bother to attend the Coyotes’ home opener on Sunday, game which they lost 6-4 against the Chicago Blackhawks. Still, before Jamison can formally sign the lease with Glendale, he must officially buy the team from the NHL, which he has not done yet. The good news is that the home opener drew a nice crowd of 17,132 hockey fans, a vast majority of them being Blackhawks fans. The real test will be Wednesday night when the Coyotes host the lowly and Nash-less Columbus Blue Jackets at the Job. The crowd will be a good indicator of what to expect for the rest of the season in Phoenix for week-night games. Tickets for this game are still widely available and you can attend this game for a ridiculous $4.00 or you can watch the game on the low concourse for $16.00 if your budget is bigger. Even if Greg Jamison manages to purchase the team in the upcoming days/weeks/months, it will be hard for his management group to ever turn a profit in Glendale with such low after-market ticket prices. As for tickets sold at the team’s box office, the club ranks 29th among NHL teams regarding the average ticket price at $36.15 only in ahead of the Dallas Stars. The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Winnipeg Jets lead the league with an average of $123.77 and $98.27 respectively. What is even more puzzling is that the AMF paid to Greg Jamison is not even on the City Council Meeting’s agenda planned later Tuesday in Glendale, which proves that the newly-elected Mayor Jerry Weiers does not intend to address the situation before the lease expires on January 31st, 2013. What will happen next is still blurry as no one really knows what is going to happen to the NHL-owned team after the shortened NHL season. Probable scenarios for the Coyotes: 1) Current lease offering expires and the Coyotes are relocated at the end of the season. 2) Greg Jamison finally closes the deal after purchasing the team from the NHL. 3) Glendale’s City Council amends the current AMF and extends it to a later date, allowing Jamison to “gather the required funds”. 4) The NHL, Greg Jamison and Glendale keep quiet and we don’t have any updates on the situation until the end of the season while the league is paying the players and the staff month by month. Finally, with the ongoing construction of a new arena in Quebec City and the sale of the Sacramento Kings of the NBA to a Seattle-based group led by Chris Hansen, the NHL now has at least two short-term options if it were to relocate the struggling franchise. Things will certainly be interested in the desert in the next two weeks!
Aaron Swartz, the 24-year-old wunderkind who co-authored the RSS specification at age 14 and sold his stake in Reddit to Condé Nast (which also owns Ars Technica) before his 20th birthday, was arrested Tuesday on charges of wire fraud, computer fraud, "unlawfully obtaining information from," and "recklessly damaging" a "protected computer." He is accused of downloading 4.8 million documents from the academic archive JSTOR, in violation of its terms of use, and of evading MIT's efforts to stop him from doing so. Swartz is a founder of the advocacy organization Demand Progress. In a statement, Demand Progress executive director David Segal blasted the arrest. "It's like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library," he said. Demand Progress also quoted James Jacobs, the Government Documents Librarian at Stanford University, who said that the arrest "undermines academic inquiry and democratic principles." According to the complaint, Swartz purchased a laptop in September 2010 and registered it under the name "Gary Host" (username: "ghost") on the MIT network. He then ran a Python script that rapidly downloaded articles from the JSTOR. JSTOR detected the script and blocked his IP address. The complaint alleges that there followed a game of cat and mouse in which Swartz repeatedly changed his IP and MAC address to evade JSTOR and MIT's efforts to block access. Swartz also bought a second laptop to speed up the downloading process. Finally, on October 9, JSTOR gave up and and blocked the entire MIT campus from using JSTOR. When JSTOR lifted the block a few weeks later, Swartz started using his downloading script once again. (Update: To be clear, Swartz resumed his downloading "a few weeks later," but the complaint doesn't say JSTOR access was blocked that whole time.) This time, he entered an MIT network closet, "hard-wired into the network and assigned himself two IP addresses. He hid the Acer laptop and a succession of external storage drives under a box in the closet, so that they would not be obvious to anyone who might enter the closet." Swartz entered the networking closet for the last time in January. The complaint describes the scene: "As Swartz entered the wiring closet, he held his bicycle helmet like a mask to shield his face, looking through ventilation holes in the helmet. Swartz then removed his computer equipment from the closet, put it in his backpack, and left, again masking his face with the bicycle helmet before peering through a crack in the double doors and cautiously stepping out." The complaint alleges that "Swartz intended to distribute a significant portion of JSTOR's archive of digitized journal articles through one or more file-sharing sites." But it offers no evidence for this claim. In fact, in a statement following the arrest, JSTOR acknowledged that "we secured from Mr. Swartz the content that was taken, and received confirmation that the content was not and would not be used, copied, transferred, or distributed." Indeed, Wired reports that JSTOR, the alleged victim, has denied seeking Swartz's prosecution. Open access to information has long been a passion for Swartz, and he has a history of using unorthodox and controversial means to pursue it. In 2008, he used an automated script to download more than 2 million documents from PACER, the website the federal judiciary uses to distribute court documents. PACER is ordinarily paywalled, but the judicial branch was experimenting with offering paywall-free access to selected libraries. Swartz used the program to circumvent the paywall. The effort led to an FBI investigation, but no charges were ever filed. There's an important difference between PACER and JSTOR. As works of the federal government, PACER documents are in the public domain. In contrast, many JSTOR documents are protected by copyright. The PACER documents Swartz downloaded are now available for download. Distributing the JSTOR documents, in contrast, would be a clear case of copyright infringement. Contacted by e-mail, Swartz declined to comment on what he was planning to do with the documents. But he pointed to his bio in the Demand Progress statement, which notes that "in conjunction with Shireen Barday, he downloaded and analyzed 441,170 law review articles to determine the source of their funding; the results were published in the Stanford Law Review." It's not clear, then, whether this was an attempt to liberate the documents from behind the JSTOR paywall or whether he was intending to use the documents for a personal research project. According to the Boston Globe, Swartz has been released on $100,000 bail.
Fighters of the Hashed al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), "are Iraqis who have fought terrorism, defended their country and made sacrifices to defeat 'Islamic State'," Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement. On Sunday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for Iranian and Iran-backed Shiite militia in Iraq to either return to their homes, integrate into the Iraqi army or leave the country, as the fight against the "Islamic State" (IS) was ending. "Those fighters need to go home," Tillerson said. "Any foreign fighters need to go home." Read more: Tillerson tries to undercut Iran in Saudi Arabia summit The 60,000-strong Hashed al-Shaabi was cobbled together from Iranian-backed militias in 2014 after IS took over large parts of northern Iraq. It is answerable to the prime minister's office, and parliament has voted to integrate it into state forces. PMF fighters have taken on 'Islamic State' militants in the battle to reclaim Iraqi territory "The Hashed is an institution that depends on the Iraqi state and the constitution does not allow the presence of armed groups outside the law," Abadi said. The cabinet added that "nobody has the right to interfere in Iraqi affairs." Critics allege that visits by Iran's Major General Qassem Soleimani, a commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards who advises the PMF, reflect Tehran's influence in the country. Iraq has close links with Shiite-majority Iran, which is the regional rival of Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia. Critics argue that pro-Baghdad Shiite-dominated PMF are supported by Iran, with Tehran seen as using them to expand its influence in Iraq. Tillerson urges dialogue over Kirkuk Meeting in Baghdad, Tillerson and Abadi discussed "government measures taken to restore the authority of the federal government in Kirkuk," said Abadi's spokesman Haydar Hamada. Read more: What you need to know about the Kurdish-Iraqi dispute Central government forces won back control of the oil-rich province from Kurdish forces last week after a controversial Kurdish independence vote. "We are concerned and a bit saddened by the recent differences that have emerged between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Iraqi central government," Tillerson said. "We have friends both in Baghdad and we have friends in Erbil and we encourage both parties to enter into discussion and dialogue." Watch video 04:22 Raqqa declared free of 'Islamic State' militants jbh/cmk (AFP, dpa)
The first railway budget of this BJP-led NDA government is a cosmetic exercise, high on rhetoric and low in substance. The emphasis had been in high-sounding bullet trains and commercial freight corridors with no budgetary calculations to back up. The entire emphasis is to attract FDI and to undertake all further expansion and modernization through the ignominious PPP route. The sub-text of the budget is designed to impose greater burdens on the common people who need the railways the most and who use it the most. Apart from the pre-budget hikes, which bring in a revenue of Rs. 8,000 crores, this budget has linked the future prices for travel with the fuel adjustment factor. This means that with every increase in the price of fuel, the cost of travel will automatically go up. Therefore, there will be a continuous increasing burden on the people. Further, experience of FDI and PPP in other infrastructure sectors like airports and seaports has shown how the costs to the consumer have grown exponentially. This is now bound to happen with the railways imposing further burdens on the people. Even these calculations of PPP are completely unrealistic as the budget itself informs that the last year’s target of Rs. 6,000 crore through the PPP route has not been realised. The budget, therefore, is a blueprint for the privatization of Indian railways at the cost of the Indian people who will bear the brunt of the profit maximization by the private sector and FDI. As a result, the social responsibility of the Indian Railways, of catering to the common people and making backward areas accessible is being given the go-by. Far from addressing the question of improving the health of the Indian Railways, the budget has shown that the operating ratio is now 95 per cent, i.e., 95 out of every 100 rupees earned is being spent. This has come down by 2.7 per cent from an earlier operating ratio of around 90 per cent. In spite of this, the Railway Minister has announced that the market borrowing will be lower despite the target of internal resource generation being short by over Rs. 2,000 crores. Though the Railway Minister mentioned that of the 99 new projects sanctioned during the last decade, only one has been completed, he failed to inform any roadmap for many of the important new projects that were designed to perform the most important role of the Indian Railways in discharging its social responsibility towards the country and the people. Clearly, the future expansion of the railways has been halted. Though there has been a lot of talk on improving the safety standards, nothing substantial has been suggested. Further, there is no indication that the close to 3 lakh vacant posts, mainly concerning the maintenance of safety standards, will be filled. In sum, it is clear that this government is relying entirely on attracting FDI in the railways and large-scale privatization rather than discharging the government’s responsibility towards improving the health of the Indian Railways so vital to our economy and the people. The net result would be increasing burdens on the people and the unfortunate further lowering of the safety standards.
I’m not sure whether to be happy or upset with this news. Google Chrome team has started reviewing all extension and apps hosted on the Chrome Web Store. Similar to Mozilla AMO team, Chrome team would also review each and every update submitted by the extension developers before it goes live to the users. As a Chrome user, I find this very exciting. By this move, Chrome team would ensure that all extensions and apps are safe for the users. This would also check unintentional and intentional flaws that may cause trouble for the users. On the other hand, as an extension and app developer, I hate this review policy. This would slow down the extension update process. I’ve really bad experience with Mozilla’s AMO review process, where the approval (still) takes several weeks. This irritates not just the developers, but also the end users. On contacting for more details, Chrome team confirmed that this manual review policy is for all developers submitting new or updated version of their extensions and apps. Just to remind you here, Google has already disabled extension installation from third-party sources. Users can install extensions and apps only from the Chrome Web Store.
After dipping its toe into original programming only a week ago, Apple took the plunge Friday by hiring the TV execs behind “Better Call Saul,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Blacklist.” Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg — presidents of Sony Pictures Television since 2005 — will oversee “all aspects of video programming,” Apple said in a statement. see also Apple execs vying for original movie, TV deals Senior Apple executives have reached out to some of Hollywood’s... The pair, who tendered their resignations to Sony on Thursday, will report to Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior VP of Internet Software and Services, once their contracts expire in August. “Jamie and Zack are two of the most talented TV executives in the world and have been instrumental in making this the golden age of television,” Cue said. “We have exciting plans in store for customers and can’t wait for them to bring their expertise to Apple.” The additions mark a major commitment for Apple, which under Steve Jobs called TV a hobby. Under Tim Cook, however, Apple has been inviting speculation about a deep dive into the business. Cook told CNBC last month that, as cord-cutting accelerates, “it’s clear what the end story looks like here, and we’d like to play in this.” Yet its only entry so far is “Planet of the Apps” — a “Shark Tank” rip-off about app developers competing for funding — which Apple Music made available June 6. Before its April start date was pushed back to August, James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke,” based on “The Late Late Show’s” recurring segment, was slated to be Apple Music’s first original show. Also in the development stage are documentaries about Sean Combs and Clive Davis, as well as a six-episode vehicle about Dr. Dre. Many observers consider these offerings a modest beginning for a content provider that aims to compete with Amazon, Facebook, Netflix and others in an escalating battle for over-the-top viewers. Still, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield believes Apple’s new hires might provide enough firepower to take Disney off the table as an Apple takeover target. “Many investors thought Apple was going to buy Disney to gain access to Disney’s IP [intellectual property] and content creation engine (or buy Netflix),” Greenfield wrote in a Friday update. “We thought that was unlikely.” If Apple’s new video hires deliver content, there will be plenty of devices to receive it. The company announced in January 2016 that the number of active Apple devices exceeded 1 billion — then made the same claim, a half-year later, about iPhones.
Sex-determining Region Y in Mammals The Sex-determining Region Y (Sry in mammals but SRY in humans) is a gene found on Y chromosomes that leads to the development of male phenotypes, such as testes. The Sry gene, located on the short branch of the Y chromosome, initiates male embryonic development in the XY sex determination system. The Sry gene follows the central dogma of molecular biology; the DNA encoding the gene is transcribed into messenger RNA, which then produces a single Sry protein. The Sry protein is also called the testis-determining factor (TDF), a protein that initiates male development in humans, placental mammals, and marsupials. The Sry protein is a transcription factor that can bind to regions of testis-specific DNA, bending specific DNA and activating or enhancing its abilities to promote testis formation, marking the first step towards male, rather than female, development in the embryo. In humans the first step in the development of an organism's sex is the inheritance of an X chromosome from the mother, and either an X or Y chromosome from the father. Typically, an XX individual develops as a female and an XY individual develops as a male. Studies by University of Kansas zoologist Clarence Erwin McClung in Lawrence, Kansas at the turn of the twentieth century helped researchers focus on the roles of chromosomes for sex determination. McClung theorized that there were two distinct types of spermatozoa, each of which resulted in different forms of fertilized eggs, leading to either male or female development. Nettie Maria Stevens, a post-doctorate researcher at Bryn Mawr College, located near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, expanded upon McClung's theory in 1905, observing that spermatozoa are of two distinct forms, containing either an X or a Y chromosome. Based upon her research on sex determination in insect species, Stevens concluded that the Y chromosome carries the genetic material that leads to male development. Stevens's work identified the Y chromosome as a heritable structure that somehow caused sex determination in the embryo. Her results supported the theory proposed in the early 1890s by zoologist researcher Walter Sutton at Columbia University in New York City, New York and biologist Theodore Boveri at University of Würzburg in Würzburg, Germany, that chromosomes contain genetic material. At that time, however, researchers couldn't detail the mechanism through which chromosomes work to induce changes in the cell. Experiments conducted by Frederick Griffith in 1928 at the Ministry of Health in London, England confirmed the existence of a factor in cells capable of transferring genetic information. In 1944 Oswald Avery, Colin Macleod, and Maclyn McCarthy, at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City, New York, discovered that chromosomes contain DNA, the molecule that encodes an organism’s genetic information. The discovery of DNA's structure in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, UK enabled researchers to develop biochemical technologies, such as Polymerase Chain Reaction, which can replicate a single DNA sequence several million times. These techniques enabled researchers to describe the mechanisms that underlie developmental pathways, including the role of SRY gene in sex determination. Starting in the early 1980s, research teams in London, UK led by Robin Lovell-Badge at the National Institute for Medical Research and Peter Goodfellow at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute sought to identify the genes present on the Y chromosome that induced male development. Scientists first scanned the Y chromosomes of several mammals for the presence of genes involved in testis formation. The scientists claimed that the gene would encode for the testis-determining factor (TDF), a protein responsible for causing testis to develop in embryos. The team found a sequence on the Y chromosomes of several species of mammals. The transcripts from those sequences were all found only in testes. The gene, designated the Sex-determining region Y, provided a candidate for expression of the TDF. Confirmation of the Sry gene encoding the TDF came from several experiments that focused on mutations in the SRY gene. Early evidence came from research conducted by Peter Goodfellow and his teams at both the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute and the National Institute for Medical Research in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That research showed that mutations in the Sry gene halted the embryonic development of testes, resulting in organisms that possessed a Y chromosome but expressed female phenotypic characteristics. Robin Lovell-Badge and her team at the National Institute for Medical Research later confirmed Sry gene's role in sex determination in an experiment where researchers injected Sry gene sequences into chromosomally female (XX) mice embryos during early embryonic development, and the embryos developed into males. Throughout the 1990s, several researchers argued that Sry protein acted directly upon the genital ridge, the region in early embryonic development from which either the ovary or the testis form. Researchers assumed that Sry protein helped change epithelial cells into Sertoli cells. Sertoli cells are only in males and produce key proteins and hormones during male development. However, later scientists argued that SRY protein indirectly induces mesonephric cells to migrate into the genital ridge. SRY protein causes cells in the genital ridge to secrete a chemotactic factor that causes cells from the adjacent mesonephros to migrate in to the genital ridge. The mesonephric cells, rather than SRY protein directly, induce the genital epithelial cells to become Sertoli cells. Researchers have linked mutations in the SRY gene to forms of sex reversal. One example is Swyers syndrome, a condition in which a person who has XY sex chromosomes develops the physical characteristics of a female. Mutations in the SRY gene account for between fifteen to twenty percent of cases of Swyers syndrome. Additionally, the presence of SRY gene in genetically XX individuals results in XX male syndrome. This state often results from improper crossing over between X and Y chromosomes during meiosis in the father, resulting in the presence of SRY gene sequences in X chromosomes.
New Jersey softball pitcher strikes out every batter in perfect game Cedar Grove pitcher Mia Faieta caught fire on the mound by striking out all 21 North Warren batters during a 4-0 win. CEDAR GROVE, N.J. -- A New Jersey high school softball pitcher has pitched a true perfect game. Cedar Grove sophomore Mia Faieta struck out all 21 batters she faced in a state playoff game Friday. The performance helped her team defeat North Warren 4-0. A local reporter chronicled the perfect game by tweeting out his an image of his scorebook. Don't see a scorebook look like this very often, but it happened today courtesy of Mia Faieta of @CedarGroveSB pic.twitter.com/hhy6fCYWxt — Sean Reilly (@SeanReillyHS) May 26, 2017 Cedar Grove coach Nicole Velardi said Faieta wasn't aware of what she was doing until the seventh inning. "I've never witnessed anything like that before," Velardi told The Record. "She really held it together. We didn't realize until the last inning that she was doing it." Earlier this month, Faieta struck out all 15 batters she faced in a five-inning game. This season, she has 321 strikeouts, and her performance Friday gave her the most strikeouts in the state this season. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The consensus of the polls and models is that the GOP is a clear favorite to win majority control of the Senate and pick up several seats in the House in today's midterm election. It's possible, if not exactly likely, that the polls are wrong, systematically biased against Democrats, who could still pull off a victory—or at least a less glaring defeat. Yet either way, there's one thing we can be sure of today: No matter who wins, Barack Obama loses. If Republicans win big, it will have been after running a tireless campaign against the president. The GOP's first line of attack against virtually all of its opponents this cycle has been to play up connections to the White House. President Obama's unpopularity, especially with swing voters in contested elections, has been the Republican party's most potent weapon by far. President Obama is not on the ballot, but his unpopularity has given the GOP a huge boost and dragged his own party down. When a reporter from Bloomberg Politics asked a Republican strategist who the GOP's best surrogate was, the strategist responded—not entirely jokingly—that it was President Obama. Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza talked to more than a dozen Democratic campaign strategists and found not only "widespread pessimism" about the party's chances, but agreement on the biggest factor: "The one factor that virtually every person I talked to cited as the biggest reason for the party's predicament was President Obama." This is not just a Republican talking point. It's what Democrats working on campaigns are saying. A Republican sweep will vindicate the party's all-in anti-Obama strategy. But if Democrats perform better than expected, it still won't be a success for the president. That's because Democrats in close races have spent much of this campaign attempting to distance themselves from Obama. Little more than a third of Democrats have expressed clear support for Obamacare, and several, including Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Alison Grimes, have refused to even say who they voted for. In Colorado, Democratic Senator Mark Udall has tried to portray himself as oppositional to the White House. "Let me tell you, the White House when they look down the front lawn the last person they want to see coming is me," he said in September. In Alaska, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich declared himself a "a thorn in his [posterior]." A recent rally for Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) feature a parade of speakers attempting to "distance Landrieu from President Barack Obama and instead associate her with Clinton," according to The Huffington Post. This has been the defining aspect of the Democrats' strategy in close races: Avoid looking close to Obama, even if doing so looks ridiculous. Better that than an association with the president. The White House has, not surprisingly, been slow to accept the reality of the president's declining popularity, with loyalists insisting that Obama, who has largely stuck to fundraisers, could have helped more on the campaign. Democrats have not exactly appreciated the White House's efforts. "The ineptitude of the White House political operation has sunk from annoying to embarrassing," an anonymous Democratic aide told National Journal's Josh Kraushaar last month. Obama himself has attempted to counter efforts by Democrats to separate themselves from him. "Make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot, every single one of them," he said last month. "These are all folks who vote with me; they have supported my agenda in Congress," he said of Democratic candidates running away from his record. Indeed, they have. And that's why it's important to understand is that, no matter which way the election goes, this isn't just a generalized rejection of Obama, although favorable impressions of the president recently hit a record low. It's a rejection of Obama's policies. The public still opposes Obamacare. And clear majorities disapprove of the president's handling of both the economy and foreign policy. On average, according to RealClearPolitics, just 41.8 percent of the public approves of the job the president is doing overall, while 53.4 percent disapproves. Every poll in the average shows disapproval at 50 percent or higher. The Obama era is coming to a close, and the public has rendered a negative verdict. That has implications for the next two years, as well as for the 2016 presidential race. Part of what it means is that if underdog Democrats overperform, they won't be able to continue to provide much cover for President Obama. The Democratic nominee, meanwhile, won't be able to simply promise a third Obama term. Democrats will have to separate themselves from the Obama legacy. Thanks to years of all-out opposition, Republicans won't have that problem. But the anti-Obama barrage has come at the cost of a well-developed GOP agenda, meaning that Republicans will have little in the way of a clear mandate should they win. The 2016 nominee will need to do more than run against the last eight years. Both parties, in other words, are due for resets, and this election offers multiple opportunities for new beginnings on both sides of the aisle. But regardless of what happens, it's over for Obama.
+1 Share Pin 0 Shares New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Could you produce your birth certificate, car title, or an old tax return at a moment's notice? You're supposed to store vital documents in a fireproof box or keep them in a safe-deposit box, but how many of us actually do that? We may not need these papers often, but when we do need them, we really need them. You need vital documents to sell your car, travel overseas, apply for a job, get through an audit, refinance your house, and more. The good news is that if you've lost important pieces of paper, you can replace them — and it might be easier than you think. Here's how to replace six of the most important documents in your life. Birth certificate You need a birth certificate for everything from enrolling in school to getting a marriage license (if you don't have a passport). To replace one for yourself or your child, go to the vital statistics office website for the state where the birth occurred. You might need a photo ID, and you'll need to provide as much of the following information as you can: Name Birth date Gender Parents' names Place of birth Replacing a birth certificate costs $10-$20, depending on the state. Social Security card A Social Security card can be required for a number of things, such as applying for a job or enrolling in college. Sometimes you only need the number, but other times you might be asked to produce the card. To replace it, contact your local Social Security office. You'll fill out an application form, and you'll need one of the following forms of ID: U.S. driver's license State-issued, non-driver identification card U.S. passport Plus one of the following proofs of citizenship: U.S. birth certificate U.S. consular report U.S. passport Certificate of Naturalization Certificate of Citizenship There's no fee for a replacement card, and you are limited to three replacement cards in a year and 10 during your lifetime. For security reasons, it's recommended that you go to your local Social Security office in person instead of mailing in the application and ID document. Passport You need a passport to travel abroad, but it's also handy to have for identification purposes should you lose your driver's license. If your passport has been lost or stolen, you'll need to report it by calling 1-877-487-2778. Then, go to a passport agency or acceptance facility in your area and bring the following two completed forms: You'll also need to bring identification and proof of citizenship (see list for Social Security replacement above for acceptable forms of proof) and two passport photos. Renewing an adult passport costs $140. If you need the passport in less than two weeks for an upcoming trip, you can contact the National Passport Information Center to make an appointment at a local passport agency. Property deed If you sell or refinance your house or property or transfer the title, you need to show proof of ownership in the form of a property deed. Try the following ways to get a copy (and have the address and tax map ID number handy): Contact the attorney who handled the closing to see if he or she has a copy. Call the county clerk's office, where deeds are typically recorded. Hire a title company to search for it. The first two methods are cheap, usually costing a small fee for photocopies. Hiring a title company can run $100-$150, but can yield a more complete search. Car title Hoping to sell your car? You're going to need the title. Contact your state's department of motor vehicles. You'll need the following: Application form Fee (varies by state) ID, such as a driver's license You'll also need proof of ownership, such as your license plate number and vehicle identification number or your vehicle registration. Tax returns To get tax returns from previous years, start by contacting your accountant or tax preparer, who should keep copies of your returns. You also can get copies directly from the IRS by filling out form 4506, Request for Copy of Tax Return. There's a $57 fee per tax year requested. For more information about replacing these and other documents, visit the this guide, complete with inventory worksheets, to get the ball rolling. Author: April Dykman As a freelance writer, editor, and blogger, April Dykman specialized in personal finance, real estate, and entrepreneurship topics. Her work has been featured on MSNBC, Fox Business, Forbes, MoneyBuilder, Yahoo! Finance, Lifehacker, and The Consumerist. Now she does direct response copywriting but, in her free time, April is a wannabe chef, a diehard Italophile, and a recovering yogi.
Nothing succeeds like failure in the Congress party, at least as far as the 'first family' is concerned. Rahul Gandhi may finally become what he is destined to be, the Congress party president. The 'Yuvraj' or 'Shahzada' of the party will now finally turn into a 'Shahenshah'. The party would like to make the world believe that he didn't really want the post, but that he had to succumb to the demands of the rank and file of the party, following their decade long persuasions and prodding. That he alone has the capability to steer clear the Grand Old Party from the existential crisis it is currently facing. That he alone has the charisma to regain the lost glory of the party, which has shrunk to irrelevance in various parts of the country – the congress now governs as little as six percent of the total population. No questions can be raised about the timing and the choice of Rahul's elevation from vice-president to president, just as no questions were raised from the inside when he was elevated from general secretary of the party to vice-president in January 2013, at the Jaipur Chintan Shivir. After all, the Congress is synonymous with the Nehru-Gandhi dynastic rule, and dynastic systems are guided by blue blood succession rules. He will only be succeeding his mother Sonia Gandhi to the post, who has been holding the post for past 18 years, since 14 March 1998, when family loyalists most unceremoniously threw out Sitaram Kesri, who had risen from the ranks. That was done in order to restore dynastic rule in the party, and also to restore the aura of Nehru-Gandhi family. Her 18-years of party presidency is a record of sorts in a supposedly democratic party, something which even revered family elders – Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi – were unable to accomplish. As for the timing, leaders of all hues in the party had for long maintained that the decision of when Rahul would elevate himself to the post of party chief was a matter best left to him and his mother Sonia Gandhi. It was left to their discretion, but the momentum from below had to be built in order to give the appearance the selection being a democratic process. One can now understand that this was the "cardiac surgery" which the likes of Digvijay Singh, Abhiskeh Manu Singhvi and Satyavrat Chaturvedi were talking about. A surgery to a common man is generally means no good news – the family and friends of a person who undergoes surgery don't really rejoice. The word itself brings tense moments for them. But when it comes to Congress, things become quite different. Surgery signifies the coronation of a proven failure, and the related song and dance around that. It does not matter to Congress whether Rahul possess the qualities to rule, or the charisma to rejuvenate the party and instill confidence among different cross-sections of the public. His last public interaction in November last year with the students of Mt Carmel College in Bangalore had practically turned into a fiasco for him. It doesn't seem to matter that with him as the De facto prime ministerial candidate for Congress, or as a challenger to Narendra Modi in the 2014 parliamentary elections, the Congress performed its worst ever, reduced to a double digit of 44 – very close to the numbers of two regional parties, the AIADMK and the Trinamool Congress. It didn't matter either that since then, Congress lost power in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharastra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Delhi, Assam, Kerala, and was badly mauled in every single state which went to the polls in 2014, 2015 and 2016. That rewarding the Gandhi's scion after failures, hailing his as youth icon and the future of the nation continues to be the accepted norm. The Congress can't survive as a party without chants for the 'first family'. Take for instance the prevalent political situations in January 2013, when he was elevated to the post of vice-president. In the preceding year, Rahul had led the party campaign in UP, Punjab, Goa and Gujarat. In all these places the Congress suffered massive defeats. That prompted Congress to begin a clamour for his elevation. It was not that the Congress had no reasons to celebrate, it had bagged a consolation prize in Himachal Pradesh, where it's very own rebellious leader Virbhadra Singh had become the chief minister. After he became Congress vice-president, he led the party campaign in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. The Congress was routed in all these states. That notwithstanding that Rahul was made the virtual prime ministerial candidate for Congress in 2014. Again, the Congress had Karnataka to hang on for Rahul in 2013. It's time to recall what Rahul had said on 20 Jan 2013, in his coronation speech in Jaipur. While explaining what was the "tragedy of India", he had said, "Every single day, I meet people who have tremendous understanding, deep insight and no voice. And all of us meet them. They are everywhere. But almost always they are kept outside our systems," "No one can hear their voice. No matter how much they try to speak no one listens. And then I meet people holding high positions with tremendous voice but with no understanding for the issues at hand. Why does this happen? It happens because we don't respect knowledge. We respect position. And it does not matter how much wisdom you have, if you do not have a position, you mean nothing. This is the tragedy of India," Rahul had said. Commenting on the need to change the administration system, he added, "All our public systems – administration, justice, education, political systems are all designed to keep people with knowledge out. They are all closed systems. Their design promotes mediocrity and mediocrity dominates discussion while the voices of insight and thought are crushed by the loudness of those who possess neither understanding nor compassion," "Success in these systems does not come through building, it comes by excluding. It comes not by pushing people forward, but by holding people back. Everyday initiative is killed to maintain the status quo," he said. Rahul should perhaps play back his own speech. The move to coronate Rahul is indicative of something else as well – Prashant Kishor's idea of Rahul being projected as Congress's chief ministerial candidate in UP is not feasible. The Congress president can never be downgraded to a chief ministerial position, even if they were to actually come by his way. Despite all his failures and period absenteeism, the Congress still have reasons to celebrate – Rahul Gandhi's leadership has won them the election in the Union Territory of Puducherry, albeit in alliance with DMK. Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.
Chromecast users shouldn’t have to wait too much longer to watch Sling TV on the big screen. In an interview with Decider.com, Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch said the company is working on a Chromecast support. “That’s one we intend to launch this year,” he said. Sling TV is a $20 per month service that offers more than 20 live streaming cable channels, including ESPN, TNT, AMC, and CNN. Some channels also offer a selection of on-demand video, and some allow you to watch several days of past programming. Add-on packages with themes like “Sports” and “Kids” are available for $5 per month, and you can tack on HBO for $15 per month. The service first launched on iOS, Android, Mac, PC, and Roku media streamers, and has since landed on Android TV devices, Amazon Fire tablets, Fire TV devices, and Xbox One. While Sling’s help site acknowledges the absence of Apple TV and Chromecast support, it only offers a boilerplate response about always looking to support new platforms. Lynch told Decider.com that Sling TV would also like to support Apple TV, but currently there’s no API that all app makers can use. That’s expected to change with the next version of Apple TV, which should be announced at a press event next week. “If Apple makes an API available and has reasonable business terms, we’d certainly be happy to be on Apple TV,” Lynch said. Why this matters: Chromecast support would be a boon to users of both the $35 TV dongle and more expensive Android TV devices, which have the same Google Cast functionality as Chromecast itself. Sling’s interface—which arranges all channels in a horizontal strip of tiles—can be cumbersome to navigate with a standard remote control, especially if you have more than just the basic bundle. Being able to swipe through those channels on a phone or tablet and beam them to the big screen could make the viewing experience much more tolerable.
Actress Sonequa Martin-Green in the first trailer for 'Star Trek: Discovery' (Screen cap). The new series Star Trek Discovery stars Asian actress Michelle Yeoh as the ship’s captain and black actress Sonequa Martin-Green as her first officer — and this has caused some Trekkies to fret about the lack of white men in charge. While the overall reaction to the new Star Trek trailer has been positive — although there are the usual complaints from Star Trek fans about continuity errors — one group of fans is particularly upset about the show’s diverse cast of characters. As both Heat Street and Daily Kos point out, the series’ YouTube page has been bombarded by comments labeling the show a “SJW” plot aimed at shoving “political correctness,” “forced diversity,” and even “cultural Marxism” down viewers’ throats. Additionally, some angry Twitter users have even proclaimed that the show’s diverse cast is evidence of a “white genocide” conspiracy aimed at eliminating the white race from the face of the Earth. Read some of the top angry reactions from fans below. Star Trek Discovery: The only white males are a Vulcan a-hole and a wimpy helmsman. This show appears to be fully SJW converged. — LubertDas (@lubertdas) May 18, 2017 Star Trek introduces #WhiteGenocide in space… as if "diversity" could make it to spacehttps://t.co/r4y7cohOXe — Rabbit Brah 🔊 (@BrurRabbit) May 18, 2017 Star Trek: Discovery moar liek Star Trek: muh forced Diversity pic.twitter.com/a7WnjpWeJu — David Laettner (@DavidLaettner) May 19, 2017 Star Trek Discovery aka "SJW The Next Generation" Trailer Drops. Seems BLM made the trailer… — Michael Burns (@ooohouchburn) May 18, 2017
News of yet another long-awaited release we’ve been expecting to hear word about this year just hit: Cat Power’s follow-up to 2008’s Jukebox (a set of mostly covers) and 2006’s all-original LP, The Greatest, is set for September 11, 2012. While Chan Marshall herself unveiled the final title and expected release date over the weekend, she’s been fairly open about the recording process over the past few years — first sharing its tentative title for the Times way back in the fall of ’06, then describing her goal of playing all the instruments for the record in 2010, and finally testing out new material on the road last year. It’s unclear whether December’s one-off charity single, a re-recording of “King Rides By,” made the cut, but it certainly bodes well in conjunction with those live tunes we’ve heard for what’s to come. In the meantime, revisit that tune along with footage of 2 new songs performed at the Fillmore in San Francisco last February below:
NBN Co chief executive, Bill Morrow, says a third more than anticipated will be spent connecting regional areas to high speed broadband. NBN Co is to spend 33 per cent more than anticipated connecting the bush to fast speed broadband. In its latest report, the company says 620,000 people living in regional and remote Australia want broadband by 2021, three times the previous estimate of 230,000 (in the 2012-15 Corporate Plan). The extra cost is $1.5 billion, taking the total to $5.2 billion by 2021, with the high cost not able to be recovered with revenue from users. Bill Morrow, the new chief executive of NBN Co, says the Fixed Wireless and Satellite Review will set the future direction of broadband to service the 'last 7 per cent' of Australians, those living outside towns and cities. “The good news is this was partly anticipated in the Strategic review in December 2013, so it’s fully within the envelope that has been laid out within the corporate plan,” Mr Morrow said. “These areas in remote and rural Australia - it costs us more than the revenue we’re going to generate, so this is a loss-making proposition. “So we will subsidise that with the city areas, where we will see greater revenues, greater probabilities. Therefore, the system works to be able to provide all Australians with broadband service at a reasonable and affordable price.” The review recommends: Doubling the number of fixed wireless base stations to 2,700, to serve 85 per cent more regional and remote homes. Extending the fibre-to-the-node networks to 25,000 homes, farms and businesses that had been slated for a fixed-wireless or satellite connection. This will deliver 25 megabit per second (mbs) downloads and 5mbs uploads. Imposing tight restrictions on the use of satellites, to ensure no-one hogs the bandwidth. NBN Co has two satellites at total cost of between $1-2 billion, to be launched in 2015, to service remote Australians by 2016. But even with the additional demand, NBN Co has ruled out launching a third satellite, but rather will look at an option in future of negotiating with a third party to share its satellite. The company also plans to secure additional radio spectrum on the fixed wireless NBN to connect 80,000 premises in the urban fringes, like the Gold Coast hinterland. Responding to criticism of cost blow outs and slow delivery, NBN Co CEO Bill Morrow, who has been in the job one month, says it is a particular focus to improve construction methods. “We are a young company. There’s all sorts of growing pains we’re suffering from," he said. "We do have a plan to look at all the processes, in particular those related to the end user and our customers, the service providers.” The NBN Co document has blacked out certain costs and sentences, saying the detail is commercial in confidence. For example, the cost of building additional base stations and associated spectrum is deleted, as is the cost of buying radio spectrum for the urban fringe areas. Asked if one day every Australian might enjoy fast speed broadband, Mr Morrow spoke with passion. “I think that is the absolute corporateness of what NBN is. It’s why I joined the company and I think it’s what all of us are focused on day in day out. We want to give everybody affordable fast broadband access.” But he says 25mbs download and 5mbs uploads are what is affordable to aim for, not faster speeds. Paul Fletcher, Parliamentary Secretary for Communications, is scathing of Labor underestimating the demand in the bush for high-speed broadband, and blamed the former government for the extra $1.5 billion cost to offer fixed-line services.
The Edmonton Journal's Elise Stolte has been doing an excellent series on the city's debate about the future of transit. Unlike many transit debates, this one is about a real issue that affects the entire city: how to balance the ridership goals of transit with the competing coverage goals, where "coverage" means "respond to every neighborhood's social-service needs and/or sense of entitlement to transit even if the result is predictably low-ridership service." This is the great inner conflict in transit planning: Do we respond to demand (ridership) or to needs and expectations (coverage)? When I briefed the Edmonton City Council last year, as part of their Transit System Review, I encouraged the council to formulate a policy about how they would divide their transit budget between ridership goals vs. coverage goals. This solves a fundamental problem in transit analysis today: too often, transit services are being criticized based on their failure to achieve a goal that is not the actual goal of the service. For example, almost all arguments about how unproductive North American bus service is are based on the false assumption that all bus services are trying to be productive. Based on all the agencies I've worked with, only around 60-70% of bus services have ridership as a primary purpose. (My test: "Is this service where it would be if ridership were the only goal of the agency?") I may have invented this rigorous way of talking about transit's conflicting mandate. I began developing it in a Spokane (Washington) project around 1997 and in projects in Bellingham and Reno a few years later. My peer-reviewed paper on the methodology us here and the case for it is also in Chapter 10 of my book Human Transit. Helping transit agencies think about this question has been a central part of most transit studies I've done since, including major projects in Houston, Columbus, Indianapolis, Salem (OR) etc. Nothing makes me happier than to hear elected officials debating an actual question whose answer, once they give it, will actually affect reality. This is what's happening in Edmonton now. So far, articles in Elise Stolte's series have included Soon, I'm sure, she'll cover some of the passionate arguments in favor of coverage services, which we heard from several City Councilors when I last briefed them on the issue. Throughout, the Journal's Elise Stolte has taken a tone of genuine curiousity ("So, will you help me think this through?") in an argument where there are no right or wrong positions, only different priorities and visions to be balanced. Is your city having this conversation clearly?
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The house was washed away by floods in Dungog, New South Wales on the morning of 21 April. Three people have died in New South Wales as powerful storms batter the Australian state. The two men and a woman were found dead in Dungog north of Sydney, one of the worst affected areas, where homes have been washed away by flooding. Some 215,000 homes are without power in Sydney and across New South Wales. People have been urged to head home, as Australia's weather agency warned more severe weather would hit parts of the state on Tuesday night. Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption The SES has said that winds have been "cyclonic" in some areas The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has issued a severe weather warning for the Sydney area, Hunter and Illawarra forecasting "damaging and locally destructive winds, damaging winds, heavy rainfall and damaging surf". Winds of up to 135km/h (85 mph) were recorded in some areas, with up to 200mm of rainfall forecast for Tuesday. State premier Mike Baird has urged workers from the Illawarra region, south of Sydney, to the Hunter region several hours north of Sydney, to go home before storm conditions worsen. "It is a huge storm event that is wreaking havoc across New South Wales at the moment," he said. "What our priority has to be at the moment is to get through the next few hours and protect life at every opportunity." Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption NSW Premier Mike Baird: "It's a once in sort of 10-year event" A major flood warning has been issued for the Paterson and Williams Rivers in Hunter. The State Emergency Service (SES) said it had received more than 4,400 calls for help, and carried out dozens of flood rescues. People were reported to be trapped in cars and homes and stuck on the rooftops of houses. Most of the emergency calls had come from Sydney and the regions of Hunter, Central Coast and Illawarra. Image copyright EPA Image caption Winds of up to 135km/h (85 mph) were recorded overnight Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Beach conditions are reported to be especially dangerous in the Metropolitan, Hunter and Illawarra districts A Carnival cruise ship is stuck at sea outside Sydney Harbour - which has been closed - and dozens of flights have been delayed, local media report. 'Cyclonic' winds NSW police confirmed the deaths of three people in Dungog but said the circumstances surrounding their deaths were still being determined. In Dungog, 312mm of rain fell in just 24 hours. In said in a statement that "numerous calls were received by emergency services for assistance, particularly in the Stroud and Dungog areas". Eyewitness account: Glenn Wall, Dungog Shire councillor There is no mobile phone reception in Dungog and the landlines are not working. Every river system that we have up here is in severe flood mode. I have heard [from officials] that four houses have been inundated and washed away. It has been raining for about 24 hours now but in the early hours of this morning it really started coming down heavily. I have real concern about the next 24 hours because there are reports of another storm front coming in from the north. Dungog: The country town hardest hit SES Deputy Commissioner Steven Pearce told ABC News that the number of calls for help had been "enormous". "We haven't seen this sort of weather pattern, this east coast low or one as severe as this in years," he said. "The consistent gale force winds which are actually cyclonic in some areas with gusts up to 135km/h." The strongest winds overnight were recorded at Norah Head in the Central Coast region. Local media have also reported that an 11m (36ft) wave was seen off Sydney. Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Some ferry services have been cancelled because of dangerous conditions State-owned supplier Ausgrid tweeted that some 215,000 homes and businesses were without power across Sydney, Central Coast and Hunter. It added that although emergency crews were working at several locations, the storm was continuing to damage the network and repairs could take several days. The heavy winds and rain have also caused travel disruption in Sydney. The Transport Management Centre for NSW said that staying home may be the best option for many people. "If you don't need to be out on the road, probably best not to be," said spokesman Brett Moore, as quoted by ABC News. A number of main roads and railway lines have had to be closed because of the storm. Transport NSW have also cancelled the Manly Fast ferry service because of the dangerous weather conditions. Are you in New South Wales? Have you been affected by the severe storms? 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Between Sen. Wendy Davis's filibuster and the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, this week has been a strangely successful one for progressives in Texas. However, there was a ruling before either of these realities that girded conservatives and tea partiers in the state. On Tuesday, the SCOTUS ruled in a 5-4 decision that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act should be excised, and that Congress "may draft another formula based on current conditions." This section, which contained a formula forcing nine states and assorted counties to pre-clear electoral changes with the federal government, was one of the main pillars of the VRA, providing federal oversight to areas that had used traditionally discriminatory practices to prevent minorities from voting. Texas, as you may have heard, was one of the nine states subjected to such federal pre-clearance, most recently with its attempts at voter ID legislation. The new regulations were the greatest accomplishment of the 2011 Legislative Session, but a federal court used the VRA to bar the legislation from implementation. Now, following the SCOTUS's new ruling, Attorney General Greg Abbott says he will be pushing for implementation as soon as possible. "With today's decision, the state's voter ID law will take effect immediately," he said on Tuesday. Indeed, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, applications for the new Election Identification Certificates (EIC) were available yesterday, following Abbott's announcement. The EIC is now one of six options of state-approved forms of ID the state will require citizens to present while voting. Continue Reading And while the process of obtaining an EIC is relatively straightforward -- the application is short, and you are presented with a receipt upon same-day approval that allows you to vote -- the burdens that led the federal court to its earlier decision remain. "The regulations remained in basically suspended animation," Logan Churchwell, the public relations director with pro-regulation True the Vote, told the Houston Press. "We see this [ruling] as moving forward for our republic, and as a celebrated decision." As currently structured, citizens will need to present both proof of US citizenship and identification in order to obtain an EIC. While the card itself is free, applicants would need to pay up to $22 for a birth certificate as one of the options for obtaining an EIC. Churchwell disputed the notion that the cost should preclude anyone from obtaining the identification card. "It's important not to zero in on the birth certificate aspect, as that's a very narrow interpretation of what you need for ID," Churchwell told the Press. "That's just too narrow of a reality." However, other issues stand even more starkly. According to Katherine Cesinger, spokeswoman for TxDPS, citizens will need to apply for EICs at a TxDPS drivers license office. There is no option for a mail-in application. You must show up, in person, to obtain an EIC. But per the Press's calculations, there are 70 counties within Texas that do not provide such offices. From Irion and Crockett Counties in Central Texas to La Salle and Duvall Counties in South Texas, TxDPS's website shows that nearly 30 percent of Texas counties do not provide the necessary offices at which residents will have to arrive if they want to pick up an EIC. A raft of other uncertainties remain. Cesinger said she didn't know how many Texans would apply for the new cards or how many would need them. "There are no projections for either of those," she said. She also said she was unsure as to how long it would take to receive the EIC following an application, or what kind of outreach programs, if any, her department would use to educate Texans as to the new regulations. "As far as it coming in mail, I'm not sure exactly on what the timing is," she said. "We're certainly working with the Secretary of State's office to educate the public on this. ... Again, this is pretty fresh." Alicia Pierce, the Secretary of State's communications director, said her office would be unfurling a media campaign as the November election date moved closer, but that she was unsure what forms of educational outreach it would contain. "We are always working to makes sure that Texans have all the info they need in order to vote, including now," Pierce told the Press. "You can't underestimate the importance of working with county officials, and they are a central part to getting word out." They may not need to get the word out, however. US Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Fort Worth), along with a handful of others, filed suit in federal court on Wednesday, challenging the state's new voter ID requirements. "Just last year, a panel of federal judges in D.C. who were appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, unanimously ruled that the Voter Photo ID law was discriminatory," Veasey said in a statement obtained by the Press. "It is absolutely outrageous that just hours after the SCOTUS ruling, Gregg Abbott implemented the Voter ID law, fully knowing that this very law was already ruled as discriminatory against minorities, the poor, and the elderly [sic]. This is only one example of why Section 5 must be preserved and reason enough that I, along with 6 other plaintiffs, filed suit in federal court to prevent any form of voter disenfranchisement." However the upcoming litigation ends, voter ID within Texas remains as polarizing as it's ever been. While supporters see it as an effective method of combating voter fraud within the state, opponents point not simply to the reasons for which it was initially struck down in federal court, but also cite the demographic shifts the state is projected to see. "The Supreme Court's decision is a disaster," Gerald Horne, a professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston, told the Press. "It's clear that the Republican Party in Texas is intimidated by the changing demographics of the state, with the rising Latino population in particular. ... "They're engaged in desperate maneuvers because they see the numbers," Horne added. "The hard white right is hunkering down for its Alamo moment. Let's hope that we'll give it to them."
Women and the poor are invisible in the Crisil index of financial inclusion. A rich man will most likely have a bank account, and a poor woman will most likely not. The Crisil Inclusix index, which measures India's progress on financial inclusion, does not tell us that. Women and the poor remain invisible in this index, and in a deeply divided society such as ours, figures often hide the truth. Yes, the number of loans have increased, but they have gone to corporations, sometimes to small businesses and almost none to poor, self-employed women. Yes, branches have increased and so have the number of low-frill accounts, but a poor woman rarely saves her money in that account. She is still keeping her meagre savings at home, hidden in the roof, to be taken away from her when others need it, or even to be eaten by rats. Indices such as these are designed to help policymakers and service providers improve financial inclusion, which is often defined as reaching the "unreached". But if the aim is to reach the poor and to reach women, then the figures should give us a break-up by gender. Also invisible in the Crisil index are the myriad financial providers that actually do reach the poor. There may be no data on the informal sector, but there is no excuse for excluding those in the formal sector the non-scheduled co-operatives or private banks, the savings and credit societies, the micro-credit non-banking financial companies. Recently, the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) conducted a study on the effectiveness of unconditional cash transfers in rural Madhya Pradesh, and another one on women in the informal economy in Bihar. Based on these we formulated five principles of genuine financial inclusion of poor women. First, it must be recognised that a poor woman is willing to be part of the financial system. She is a natural saver, so having a safe place to save is important to her. An account of her own builds her identity and empowers her. However, banks often exclude women because they do not fulfil the KYC (know your customer) criteria. As Kamlabai, a bidi worker in rural MP, says "They ask for identity proof, but I have no identity. In my house, no one uses my name, they call me bahu or ma or bhabhi. I studied till sixth class. My name was changed after marriage, so my name on the ration card is different from the name on my school certificate." And Deepali, who works as a domestic help in Delhi and rents a room for Rs 2,000, speaks of the difficulties of providing the residence proof that a bank wants. ... contd. ALSO READ Degrees of irresponsibility Please read our terms of use before posting comments
Swedish rising star producer Tobtok a.k.a. Tobias Karlsson has teamed up with his Uppsala native producer colleage Oliver Nelson to release their new single 'Yellow' on February 22, featuring lead vocalist Liv Dawson. We are happy to present the opportunity for you to enter a Spotify pre-save campaign for a chance to win a brand new copy of Reason 10 – the music making software choice of Tokbok. We got the chance to speak with Tobtok during his hectic release schedule about how he approaches music making and producing in Reason. How did the collaboration between you and Oliver come about? What does your songwriting process look like? We have worked on a bunch of collabs now over the years, and ever since we first got together in 2013 we’ve worked very closely together and been involved in each others careers ever since! I’ve always been working in Reason since I first started with music-production in 2009 (celebrating 10 years with Reason!), and Oliver has always worked in Ableton, so we’ve had to combine the two over the years. We have a few different ways of working. Sometimes we sit together throughout the whole process as we live literally 1 minutes from each other which is quite convenient, but we also often swap stems and work of different elements of the song. For example, in “Yellow” Oliver was more in charge of the drums while I worked more on the Instruments, and then we did the final mixdown in Reason! I think that the fact that a lot of the big elements in the song is Reason-made sounds make it stands out and doesn’t sound like everything else out there. How did you write 'Yellow'? What was the creative process? We actually got a demo sent to us from the hugely talented Madfun and M-22 who originally wrote it. Everyone in our camp thought that it was special and had an interesting theme that we wanted to explore. Me and Oliver put our spin to it and made it to what it is today! What's your favorite thing about Reason? There is so many things I love about Reason, but if I have to pick one it’s how great and easy the interface is. I’ve tried out pretty much every DAW out there and I found myself being most comfortable in Reason, because it’s just not overly complicated, it’s almost like playing with Lego! I also like that there’s a bunch of really handy tools incorporated into the program, for example the Vocal Pitch Edit mode is so handy and much better than other programs that you can tune vocals in etc. also the main mixer is top notch! "The number 1 rule in Reason is to always put everything in combinators!" Do you have any special Reason production trick that you always use? The number 1 rule in Reason is to always put everything in combinators! I see a lot of people who ignore this, and it does my head in! It’s so easy and makes the whole project more tidy, and most of all it’s very efficient when you want to save the sound you’ve made rather than saving all patches or presets individually. The three most used devices in your Reason rack? At the moment it’s Radical Piano, Parsec 2 and Audiomatic Retro Transformer. What are your tips for new producers wanting to start out making music? Have fun with it, always strive to improve your sound design and watch tutorials on how to mix properly, because a nice piece of music can get ruined with a bad production. I’ve learned a whole lot watching Reason’s tutorial clips on your website over the years hehe. Download Combinator patches used in 'Yellow' Tobtok was kind enough to share three of his custom Combinator patches used in the single 'Yellow'. Click above to download them! Please note that the patches require Parsec 2 and Fab Filter Q2.
The Jygcademy Awards is a set of 10 awards for creativity and MEME merit in the Jygmerican Meme industry, given annually by the Jygcademy of Meme Arts and Sciences. They are awarded to recognize excellence in dank achievements as assessed by the Viewers voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a Golden Thing, Officially called the "Jygcademy Award of Merit", which has become commonly known by its nickname "a jyggy". The awards were first presented in 1969 at the Mars Hotel.The 2017 Jygcademy Awards will be Broadcast LIVE at Zeldathon.net on: FRIDAY JUNE 9TH AT 7 PM EASTERN TIME Below are the Awards and the Nominees. Please fill out this form and Share this with your friends. The winners will be announced LIVE on stream during the Awards!
As covered in previous posts, boot is an all-around useful tool for building clojure applications, but one feature in particular has proven a adjuncti finalum: boot lets you do clojure scripting. This elevates clojure to the same high productivity of scripting languages (like my personal favorite, Python), but bakes in dependency management and other goodies. This allows the user to build complexity iteratively, in a straight-forward manner (verses generating a bunch of boiler plate project code and building a package). This article explores boot scripting further, illustrating how boot can be used to quickly and easily develop and distribute applications and tools. There’s also discussion about getting your jars into Clojars, and setting up a simple bare-minimum Maven repository. EDIT: I originally had “interfectorem pluma” to represent “killer feature” in Latin, however thanks to danielsmulewicz in #hoplon reminding me how stupid Google Translate can be, I consulted a Latin->English dictionary and Wikipedia to attempt an uneducated, but better Latin equivalent. I mention it here because it’s all extremely funny, as interfectorem pluma literally translates to something like “feather murderer”. In my amateur approach adjuncti finalum literally translates to something like “characteristic of the ultimate goal”, which, if even remotely correct, is pretty accurate. Setup <a title="Boot: Getting Started With Clojure In As I’ve covered before, boot is easy to install. All you need is a JDK and the boot executable. Here’s a recap for the Linux and OSX crowd, just to get you going (we’ll assume you already have a JDK set up, have wget, and have sudo privileges): $ wget https://github.com/boot-clj/boot/releases/download/2.0.0/boot.sh $ mv boot.sh boot && chmod a+x boot && sudo mv boot /usr/local/bin $ boot -u Note that we are also instructing boot to update itself. This is useful if you’ve used boot in the past – the executable and the core boot libraries are distributed separately. Making Boot Faster Adding the following to your environment will speed boot startup by a vast amount. You can either run this command in your terminal, or make it permanent by putting this line into ~/.bash_profile or similar other files for your particular shell. See the JVM-Options page in the boot documentation for details, and other ways to incorporate these settings into your projects: export BOOT_JVM_OPTIONS="-client -XX:+TieredCompilation -XX:TieredStopAtLevel=1 -Xverify:none" A Simple Script For this article, we’ll start with an example of a useful application that grabs the most recent tweet from the Nihilist Arby’s twitter feed. A great addition to your MOTD to de-motivate users overzealous about the fact that they have SSH privileges to your machine. Twitter API Tokens Before we begin, set up an application and obtain a consumer key using a twitter account for which you have the username and password. For the sake of security, you may want to limit the application’s access to read only. The tokens can be used to read anything in the account, and any private feeds the account has access to, so be careful. Quick Note: Development Deviations Since we’re not building anything right now, or utilizing the task infrastructure, we don’t need a build.boot file. However, to make prototyping a bit easier, it’s useful to create one that will load our dependencies or libraries we’re playing with, when we run boot repl : #!/usr/bin/env boot (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"]]) Alternatively, we can pre-load dependencies on the command line when we run the repl task: $ boot -d twitter-api:0.7.8 repl The Script: Version 1 For the first pass of the script, we will hard-code our credentials, and not bother taking any command-line arguments. This illustrates what a bare-minimum boot script looks like. #!/usr/bin/env boot (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"]]) (use '[twitter.oauth] '[twitter.api.restful] '[twitter.callbacks] '[twitter.callbacks.handlers]) (import '(twitter.callbacks.protocols SyncSingleCallback)) (defn printer [response] (println (:text (second response)))) (defn -main [] (statuses-user-timeline :oauth-creds (make-oauth-creds "[YOUR API KEY ID]" "[YOUR API KEY]") :callbacks (SyncSingleCallback. (comp printer response-return-body) exception-print exception-print) :params {:screen-name "nihilist_arbys" :count 2})) Making this script executable, it can be run on the command line. The result will be the last tweet. I named my script downer , but you can name it however you’d like: $ chmod +x downer $ ./downer Rip it to shreds. Put it on a bun. Slather it in horsey sauce. Watch them line up to gorge. Feeding pigs to pigs. Arbys: a flat circle. You may see some output on stderr about some missing logging libraries. For now, these can be ignored. Lets take a quick look at the script’s main components: The first 2 lines are what make this a boot script. The set-env! function and general information about environments can be found in the boot documentation. First we have the “shebang” line, which tells the operating system what interpreter to use to run the script. In this case, we’re taking advantage of the convention of having /bin/env available in the same location on most systems, to figure out where boot is. Then we declare our sole dependency on twitter-api. lines 4-9 are typical use/import statements. In a boot script, a special namespace is created, called boot.user . You can alternatively load external code using the ns form. The example code could be replaced thusly: (ns boot.user (:use [twitter.oauth] [twitter.api.restful] [twitter.callbacks] [twitter.callbacks.handlers]) (:import [twitter.callbacks.protocols SyncSingleCallback])) . You can alternatively load external code using the form. The example code could be replaced thusly: Lines 11-28 are the “meat” of the program. Boot will execute the first -main function that it finds in a script. For details about what the code is doing, see the twitter-api and the twitter restful api documentation. In essence, the app makes a RESTful call to the twitter API, providing an API key and the necessary parameters. We then use a special callback to print the message from the result of that call. Distribution/Installation: Mark 1 The real beauty of this boot script we have, is that it is a self-contained entity. We can send it to anyone who has boot and a JDK installed. They can place the script anywhere they like. Dependencies are automatically downloaded the first time its run. A Not-So-Simple Script Boot scripting provides a natural progression from “just a script” to “full-blown application”. Boot scripts contain all of the functions needed to run, but this poses some problems: as functionality grows, the script can quickly become unruly because of the way boot encapsulates the running code, it can be difficult to debug. The solution to both of these problems is to move code into other files, and use the -main function in your boot script to invoke that code. This is handled quite simply by utilizing boot’s :source-paths environment option, and a little refactoring. We’ll construct a directory named src , and create a last_tweet.clj file. In it, we’ll declare a new namespace, last-tweet, and move the code there. src/last_tweet.clj : (ns last-tweet (:use [twitter.oauth] [twitter.api.restful] [twitter.callbacks] [twitter.callbacks.handlers]) (:import [twitter.callbacks.protocols SyncSingleCallback])) (defn printer [response] (println (:text (first response)))) (defn last-tweet [] (statuses-user-timeline :oauth-creds (make-oauth-creds "[YOUR API KEY ID]" "[YOUR API KEY]") :callbacks (SyncSingleCallback. (comp printer response-return-body) exception-print exception-print) :params {:screen-name "nihilist_arbys" :count 1})) This code is copied from the original boot script, almost verbatim. We’ve just made use of our own namespace, and renamed -main to last-tweet . Here is the new downer script: #!/usr/bin/env boot (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"]] :source-paths #{"src"}) (require '[last-tweet :refer [last-tweet]]) (defn -main [] (last-tweet)) This greatly simplifies our script, and does a better job of separating our concerns. We’ve segregated the application logic from the user interface. We’ve set ourselves up for some additional refactoring to make things more flexible. We can add many namespaces to the src directory. We can also add other source paths – the :source-paths directive is a hash set. Now we can refactor the last-tweet/last-tweet function to take credentials and the twitter account to get a tweet from as arguments: (defn last-tweet "Print the last tweet from a given twitter account" [account secret-id secret-key] (let [creds (make-oauth-creds secret-id secret-key) callback (SyncSingleCallback. (comp printer response-return-body) exception-print exception-print)] (statuses-user-timeline :oauth-creds creds :callbacks callback :params {:screen-name account :count 1}))) We’ve gone from a hard-coded function to one that is more general-purpose. Now we can utilize boot’s extremely useful defclifn macro and boot’s task option DSL to wrap our function, allowing the user to provide the values on the command-line, creating a proper user interface. #!/usr/bin/env boot (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"]] :source-paths #{"src"}) (require '[last-tweet :refer [last-tweet]] '[boot.cli :as cli]) (cli/defclifn -main "Prints the last tweet from the given account. Requires twitter user app authentication tokens. The authentication tokens can be set using the command-line options below, or in the TWITTER_KEY and TWITTER_KEY_ID environment variables. USAGE: downer [options] [twitter account]" [k secret-key KEY str "Secret key from Twitter" i secret-key-id KEYID str "Secret key id from Twitter"] (let [account (get args 0 "nihilist_arbys") secret-key (or (System/getenv "TWITTER_KEY") (:secret-key opts)) secret-key-id (or (System/getenv "TWITTER_KEY_ID") (:secret-key-id opts))] (if (or (nil? secret-key) (nil? secret-key-id)) (println "ERROR: you must provide twitter credentials. Try -h") (last-tweet account secret-key-id secret-key)))) A few notes: The docstring for the function is used as the “usage” message when the user passes the -h flag. flag. The task option DSL allows for a pre-processing step to be defined for each value. In this case, we used str , which treats each argument as a string. This can be changed to one of many very useful options, including keywords, symbols, files (which take a path and return a java.io object) and many more, including complex compound values. , which treats each argument as a string. This can be changed to one of many very useful options, including keywords, symbols, files (which take a path and return a java.io object) and many more, including complex compound values. There are two special variables that are provided by the defclifn macro: opts and args . opts contains all of the processed options as defined in the argument list, in the form of a map. args contains all other values passed on the command line, as a vector. We use the args variable to allow the user an intuitive way to override the default twitter account. macro: and . contains all of the processed options as defined in the argument list, in the form of a map. contains all other values passed on the command line, as a vector. We use the variable to allow the user an intuitive way to override the default twitter account. The use of environment variables as alternatives to CLI options is illustrated here. It’s very useful for deployment of more complex applications, and keeps sensitive information out of the process list. We’ve added some error handling to give the user a nice message if they neglect to set their credentials. Now we can see command-line output: $ ./downer ERROR: you must provide twitter credentials. Try -h The output of ./downer -h : $ ./downer -h Prints the last tweet from the given account. Requires twitter user app authentication tokens. The authentication tokens can be set using the command-line options below, or in the TWITTER_KEY and TWITTER_KEY_ID environment variables. USAGE: downer [options] [twitter account] Options: -h, --help Print this help info. -k, --secret-key KEY Set secret key from Twitter to KEY. -i, --secret-key-id KEYID Set secret key id from Twitter to KEYID. We set the environment variables, and try getting the last post from a different, possibly more depressing account: $ export TWITTER_KEY_ID="XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" $ export TWITTER_KEY="YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" $ ./downer jjmojojjmojo FINALLY... this just makes getting the sweet, sweet carrot dogs that much easier... http://t.co/TWYer14JH4 @adzerk Distribution/Installation, Mark 2 Pulling some of the code out into a separate file has made our little script cleaner, but now distributing the file is slightly more complicated, since we have to provide the script access to the code we factored out. There are several ways to handle this: Distribute the source code via git, or a tarball. The :source-paths environment parameter can be changed if needed to point to a proper location such as /opt/downer , or /usr/local/lib/downer . environment parameter can be changed if needed to point to a proper location such as , or . Build a library jar file. The jar file can be installed into a local maven repository, or a public one like clojars. The first option is sub-optimal. It can be made somewhat easier with help from fpm, but it’s still a bit cumbersome. The real beauty of boot scripting is we don’t have to bother with complex installation procedures. We can leverage the power of java jar files (which are just zip files under the hood) to contain our source code and other artifacts. This makes the jar file the best path. Once the jar is installed into a maven repository the script can reach, the script can once again be distributed as a simple stand-alone text file. We can use boot for this. That’s what it does. Compiling A Library Jar For a jar file to be installable via maven (which is what boot and the clojure ecosystem uses under the hood), it must contain a pom.xml file. This file will declare the project version, the dependencies and other metadata. We can construct a jar file from our source code just using the command line, or we can wrap it up in a build.boot file in a custom task. Here’s the basic command to get our last tweet jar: $ boot -d org.clojure/clojure:1.6.0 \ -d boot/core:2.0.0-rc12 \ -d twitter-api:0.7.8 \ -s src/ \ aot -a \ pom -p last-tweet -v 1.0.0 \ jar Looking in the target directory, we can see our jar file: $ ls target/*.jar last-tweet-1.0.0.jar We have several options for distribution, now that we have a jar file, each one takes advantage of the Apache Maven ecosystem: We can send the jar file along with the script to the user, and they can install it with boot. We can set up our own maven repository and upload the jar to that, then provide access to the user. We can send the jar file to a public repository like clojars. We can upload the file to S3, and provide credentials to our user. Wait, Why Not Distribute A Self-Contained Jar? We could move the CLI logic into our last-tweet namespace, and get rid of the boot script altogether. We could add the “uber” task and bundle all of our dependencies into a single, stand-alone, self-contained jar file that could be distributed (via maven as described above) without any external dependencies besides a JVM (the user won’t even need boot or clojure). This process is covered in some detail here. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this practice. In fact, it’s a good idea to seriously consider it when deciding how to deploy an application. But when writing boot scripts, it can be very useful to allow the user to change things in the script, or encourage them to write new scripts that use the underlying code in new ways. It helps to start looking at a boot script much like we would any other shell script – consider composing calls to external code instead of implementing and containing it internally. This concept coupled with the “it just works” approach of boot makes distributing core code as library dependencies of particular interest. You can make changes to your library code and distribute it once, and when your users run their boot script it will automatically update. On the other side of that coin, you have less worry about breaking existing scripts “in the wild”. Users can pin the version of your library to a specific number and avoid automatic updates altogether. It amounts to an extremely elegant way of constructing tools. Script Modifications To use an external jar instead of our bundled-in code, we just need to omit the :source-paths environment directive, and add our jar into the :dependencies list. Here are the changes to the (set-env!) call: (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"] [last-tweet "LATEST"]]) Note that we’re not pinning the version to a particular release, instead specifying the special keyword LATEST to signal that we always want the latest. This is helpful when distributing jar files that are updated frequently while the boot script is not. However, be careful not to rely on this too heavily. If the API in the library falls too far out of sync with the script, users will get errors. Installing A Jar With Boot Boot provides the install task, which can install jars built with a pipeline of tasks, or a specific jar with the -f option. $ boot install -f target/last-tweet-1.0.0.jar Now we can run our script and it will use the locally installed jar: $ ./downer jjmojojjmojo RT @adzerk: 3 ways for vendors to keep mobile ad tech lean - "be easy to work with" should be a no brainer http://t.co/P3yrKH74WW @blp101 v… This is the easiest way to get jars working with boot, but it’s the least flexible. Every time you make a change to your code, you need to create a new version of your jar and distribute it to all of your users, and they will need to install it. Uploading To Clojars Clojars provides a public maven repository for the greater Clojure community. There isn’t much in the way of documentation for using boot with clojars, but there is a tutorial, and a handy tool called bootlaces that provides a couple of wrapper boot tasks to make the process more seamless. Alas, neither of these things goes far enough to help the brand new boot user who wants to make use of clojars for their libraries. Very little is explained, and the tutorial is leiningen-centric. NOTE: There is also an excellent write up of the process (also linegien-centric but it covers GPG and signing your jars) by Michael Peterson over at ThornyDev, including links to the rationale for signing packages. So lets go over the process in detail, from the ground up. Admittedly, this is probably best left for a separate blog post, but as clojars is a great service and something any clojurist should be equipped to participate in – once you’ve got a handle on how it works “the hard way”, you are free to use bootlaces or derive your own workflow. It slots in nicely with the next section, where we build our own maven repository. In preparation for pushing your jar to clojars, you’ll first need to install GPG. GPG will be used to sign jar files to ensure they are not tampered with by malicious third parties. NOTE: For a comprehensive introduction, see The GPG Mini HOWTO. GPG can be installed via the downloads located at gnupg.org, or using your preferred package manager. MacOs users can use homebrew ( brew install gpg ). We’ll need to generate our key, if we’ve never used GPG before: $ gpg --gen-key You will be asked many questions. For most, you can specify the default suggested by gpg (press ENTER). Take note of the e-mail address that you use for your key, it will be the identifier for your new key in your keyring. NOTE: It’s a good idea to specify a pass-phrase. If you decide not to, you can just enter an empty pass-phrase when prompted. Now that we’ve generated our key, we can see it using gpg --list-keys : $ gpg --list-keys /Users/jj/.gnupg/pubring.gpg ---------------------------- pub 2048R/5A36EA7C 2015-05-21 uid Josh Johnson <[THE EMAIL YOU PROVIDED]> sub 2048R/6C662B47 2015-05-21 Next, we need to sign up for a clojars account. Ignore the SSH key entry. We will need to generate a text-based “ASCII-armored” version of our public GPG key to paste into the corresponding text box in the form. This is accomplished with the gpg command: $ gpg --armor --export [THE EMAIL YOU PROVIDED] code -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- [KEY CONTENT HERE] -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Copy everything from -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- to -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- , inclusive. Once you have your account set up, the next thing to do is set up a new repository in our build.boot file: (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"]] :repositories #(conj % ["clojars-upload" {:url "https://clojars.org/repo" :username "[YOUR USERNAME]" :password "[YOUR PASSWORD]"}])) WARNING: You will want to source your username and password from an environment variable, or some other place, like a local config file. We’re putting them here for the sake of simplicity, but this is not a sound practice! We’ve provided a function to set the environment property :repositories . This allows us to update the list of repositories instead of replacing it. We’re ready to upload our jar. This can be done, as before, with use push boot task: $ boot push -f target/last-tweet-1.0.0.jar -g -k [THE EMAIL FOR YOUR KEY] -r clojars-upload Taking a look at clojars, we will see our new jar file has been uploaded! However, it’s missing a lot of key information – things that weren’t so important when we were building a jar for our own use, but are very important when distributing software to a public repository. In the next section, we’ll fix this, but also use the power of boot to make our workflow easier. Adding better metatdata, fleshing out our build.boot We’ve constructed a library jar, and have successfully uploaded it to clojars. However, at this point we cannot build and distribute boot scripts that depend on our library. Clojars has a “promotion” process that protects users from seeing jars that do not have essential metadata. Let’s rebuild our jar with a URL, a license, and a proper description: $ boot -d org.clojure/clojure:1.6.0 \ -d boot/core:2.0.0-rc12 \ -d twitter-api:0.7.8 \ -s src/ \ aot -a \ pom -p last-tweet\ -v 1.0.0 \ -u "https://lionfacelemonface.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/advanced-boot-scripting/"\ -d "Demo project for advanced boot scripting blog post" jar Now, this is getting a bit (more) unwieldy. It’s better if we put this information into our build.boot file. We’ll still use the command line for now, as opposed to building our own boot tasks, but we’ll set these properties as default options. This way, we are free to construct our build pipeline as we see fit, but we don’t have to specify all of these lengthy parameters on the command line. We will be able to override these values if we desire, using command line arguments as before. (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"] [org.clojure/clojure "1.6.0"] [boot/core "2.0.0"]] :source-dirs #{"src/"} :repositories #(conj % ["clojars-upload" {:url "https://clojars.org/repo" :username "[YOUR USERNAME]" :password "[YOUR PASSWORD]"}])) (task-options! pom {:project 'last-tweet :url "https://lionfacelemonface.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/advanced-boot-scripting/" :version "1.0.1" :description "Demo project for advanced boot scripting blog post." :license {"MIT License" "http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php"}} aot {:all true} push {:gpg-sign true :repo "clojars-upload" :gpg-user-id "[EMAIL ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR KEY]" :gpg-passphrase "[YOUR PASSPHRASE]"}) This is a lot of stuff, so lets walk through the new concepts line by line: Lines 1-4 invokes the set-env! function to declare the dependencies we require to be included in our jar. These correspond to the -d options in the command line we used earlier. Line 5 specifies the source directories. We previously specified our source directory with the -s command-line option. Lines 6-10 update the repositories list with our clojars destination and credentials, as we implemented earlier. For general explanation of these environment modifying lines, check out Boot Environment, in the Boot Wiki. The rest of the file represents settings that are passed to boot tasks. Generally speaking, these correspond 1:1 with the command line options, but are expected to be pre-processed into clojure data objects. You can figure out the exact key to set for each value using the -h switch. For example, the help text for the pom task, looks like this: $ boot pom -h Create project pom.xml file. The project and version must be specified to make a pom.xml. Options: -h, --help Print this help info. -p, --project SYM Set the project id (eg. foo/bar) to SYM. -v, --version VER Set the project version to VER. -d, --description DESC Set the project description to DESC. -u, --url URL Set the project homepage url to URL. -l, --license NAME:URL Conj [NAME URL] onto the project license map. -s, --scm KEY=VAL Conj [KEY VAL] onto the project scm map (KEY in url, tag). And we can see that the -d command line option corresponds to the :description key passed to task-options! . Of particular interest to us are the --project and --license options – these are not specified as simple strings. The --project option is converted to a clojure symbol, as hinted at by the SYM placeholder variable. To verify this, we need to look at the source for the task, and read the task-option DSL: "Create project pom.xml file. The project and version must be specified to make a pom.xml." [p project SYM sym "The project id (eg. foo/bar)." v version VER str "The project version." d description DESC str "The project description." u url URL str "The project homepage url." l license NAME:URL {str str} "The project license map." s scm KEY=VAL {kw str} "The project scm map (KEY in url, tag)."] Here we see in the 4th column, the handling directive for each command line option. In the case of the --project option, the sym specification casts the value from the command line into a symbol. The --license is specificed as {str str} , indicating it is a mapping. On the command line, a colon is used to separate the key of the map from its value. Additional --license command line options will conjoin into a single map. As such, in task-options! , a map is expected. NOTE: For a comprehensive explanation of the various options, see the Task Options DSL page in the Boot Wiki. The rest of the options are simply strings. A few, such as the -a , or :all parameter to the aot task, are flags, and are specified with a boolean value. One last note: the version of our project has to be incremented every time that we change the metadata in our jar file. This is important to note since the output jar will be named differently. If you try to upload a jar with the same version as a previous upload, it will fail with an “Access Denied” error. Now we can rebuild and redeploy our jar. Since we’re chaining the boot tasks, the push task knows to look for jar files to upload in the working file set, so we don’t have to specify the path. $ boot aot pom jar push These tasks can be simply composed into a custom boot task. This is left as an exercise for the reader, but with the following caveat: Once you’ve uploaded a jar to clojars, there’s no automatic or simple way to get it removed. You can open an issue in github to ask for a deletion (details here), but it’s considered bad form. As such, please be careful what you upload!. Make sure that you’re running tests, and doing verifications on your jar files before you push them out for mass consumption. It’s a good idea to work those sorts of checks into any custom tasks that you put together. Building Your Own Maven Repository Maven handles resolving dependencies in the Java ecosystem. In maven terms, a repository is where you store artifacts, chiefly jar files. It’s what boot uses under the hood to resolve and store dependencies. Maven repositories are relatively simple. If you’ve been using boot, you already have one, located in ~/.m2 . If you take a look you’ll see how the files are laid out: $ ls -la ~/.m2/repository/ total 0 drwxr-xr-x 41 jj staff 1394 Apr 5 10:50 . drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:46 .. drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 alandipert drwxr-xr-x 7 jj staff 238 Apr 1 09:46 boot drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 byte-streams drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 cheshire drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 clj-http drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 clj-http-lite drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 clj-jgit drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 10:49 clj-oauth drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 clj-stacktrace drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 clj-tuple drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 clj-yaml drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 clojure-complete drwxr-xr-x 7 jj staff 238 Apr 1 10:49 com drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 commons-codec drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 commons-fileupload drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 commons-io drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:46 commons-logging drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 10:49 crouton drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 fs drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 10:49 http drwxr-xr-x 4 jj staff 136 Apr 1 12:46 io drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 javax drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 javazoom drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 jline drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 5 10:50 last-tweet drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 mvxcvi drwxr-xr-x 4 jj staff 136 Apr 1 09:47 net drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 3 08:20 opencv drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 3 09:52 opencv-native drwxr-xr-x 14 jj staff 476 Apr 1 10:49 org drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 potemkin drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 primitive-math drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 reply drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 riddley drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 ring drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 slingshot drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 tigris drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 09:47 trptcolin drwxr-xr-x 3 jj staff 102 Apr 1 10:49 twitter-api Note the last-tweet directory – this is where boot put our jar file when we installed it in the last section. A maven repository is this directory structure, accessible from one of a plethora of different protocols. This includes the file system, HTTP, WebDAV, even directly from S3. We’ll build a repository that we use the file system to write to (we could also use SFTP if this were a remote system), and provide HTTP access for a read-only use. Boot doesn’t currently contain any tools to do this sort of work, so we’ll need to install maven. This is fairly simple, we just need to download the tarball, and unzip it. We can then put its bin directory into our $PATH so it’s available (note this will need to go into your .bash_profile or similar location to make the change “stick”): $ wget http://apache.mirrors.hoobly.com/maven/maven-3/3.3.3/binaries/apache-maven-3.3.3-bin.tar.gz $ tar -xvf apache-maven-3.3.3-bin.tar.gz $ export PATH="$PWD/apache-maven-3.3.3/bin:$PATH" $ which mvn ...path to the mvn executable See the download page for alternative mirrors and formats. If you are using OS X, you can install maven via homebrew: $ brew install maven To construct a new maven repository, we just need to install our jar to it: $ mvn deploy:deploy-file \ -DpomFile=target/META-INF/maven/last-tweet/last-tweet/pom.xml \ -Dfile=target/last-tweet-1.0.0.jar \ -DrepositoryId=local-repo \ -Durl="file:///$PWD/my-maven-repo" As a first pass, we can use the file:// protocol to load the jar from our new repository. We’ll need to remove the file from our local repository first: $ rm -rf ~/.m2/repository/last-tweet Then we can add the new repository to our downer script: (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"] [last-tweet "LATEST"]] :repositories #(conj % '["my-maven-repo" {:url "file://[full-path-to-your-repo]"}])) We use conj here to preserve the baked-in defaults. When we run downer now, we’ll see an ever-so-slight pause and a blank line to indicate the jar is being found and copied. We can then verify that it was used by checking ~/.m2/repository : $ ./downer $ ls -l ~/.m2/repository ... last-tweet ... To share this repository, we have many options, but we’re going to do the simplest for our introductory purposes: set up nginx to serve our repository to the public. Note: Any web server will work, as long as it generates directory listings. First, we need to install nginx. There are packages available for most operating systems, and it’s in homebrew for folks using OS X. Since the location of the nginx configuration is variable depending on what operating system you’re using, we’ll make a bare-minimum configuration and pass it to nginx, called nginx.conf : events { worker_connections 1024; } http { default_type application/octet-stream; server { listen 8080; location / { root [FULL PATH TO YOUR REPOSITORY]; autoindex on; } } } Note: You will want to better fine-tune the web server in a “production” deployment, this is just a bare-minimum example to get you going. We can then start up nginx: $ nginx -c nginx.conf Nginx will run in the background. Now you can open a browser to http://localhost:8080/, and see your repository. We can now configure the boot script to use this repository in the same manner we used the file path earlier: (set-env! :dependencies '[[twitter-api "0.7.8"] [last-tweet "LATEST"]] :repositories #(conj % '["my-maven-repo" {:url "http://localhost:8080"}])) And we can test it in the same way as before: $ rm -rf ~/.m2/repository/last-tweet $ ./downer $ ls -l ~/.m2/repository ... last-tweet ... To shut down nginx, we use the -s switch: $ nginx -s stop From here, you can construct fairly complex maven systems. Maven supports HTTP authentication, so you can present your repository to the world and limit access. You can use WebDAV to make the HTTP-side of the repository read and write. Outside of the HTTP front-end, you can settle on the file:// protocol and put the repository on a shared drive, and ensure each user has it mounted to the same location. SFTP is an option for read/write of a remote system, using SSH for authentication (works with keys). Advertisements
As the university has previously announced, a decline over several years in graduate enrollments has created a budgetary shortfall that is being addressed through efforts to rebuild enrollments and, in the meantime, to reduce expenditures, primarily in units in the central administration. Those units have been asked to cut their operating costs by 5 percent. They are achieving these reductions by a variety of means, including implementing measures to lower energy expenses, enhancing competitive pricing on contracts, reducing overtime expenses and making some limited adjustments to services, with priority placed on maintaining services that are core to supporting the educational and research mission of the university. Some units in the central administration are also saving costs by restructuring their operations. Restructuring plans implemented by individual units vary, with some deciding to eliminate existing and/or vacant staff positions. Some units have also realigned certain functions to enhance operations with fewer resources. Administrative unit managers notified 46 current employees today that their positions have been eliminated. These employees have been offered transition assistance. “Reductions in operating budgets pressed some administrative units to reduce current staff. These decisions were made by units carefully with much forethought,” said Vice President for Human Resources Sabrina Ellis. She continued, “We want the best for all our employees, and we will work to help those in transition as well those in newly restructured units.” At the same time, the deans and directors of the university’s schools and colleges have been working aggressively with faculty and staff to recruit graduate students for existing graduate programs as well as developing new programs that will bolster enrollments in years to come. In addition to implementing strategies to boost enrollment, they have been working to achieve operational savings to balance their budgets. Together, the efforts by the university’s schools, colleges and administrative divisions are expected to reduce the budget gap for FY16 and to bring expenses in line with revenues if enrollment projections for fall 2015 are achieved. These actions build on previous efforts by the university to reduce expenditures. The university instituted a central staff position approval process that delays staff hiring and increased the required delay in filling approved positions from three to six months. Schools and divisions were also asked to reduce travel and training expenses for FY 2015. As President Steven Knapp emphasized in his message to the university community last month, “it is critically important that we not allow our current budgetary problem to prevent us from continuing to fulfill our mission or from realizing the aspirations embodied in our strategic plan.” “I want to express my personal gratitude to all who are working so diligently and creatively to help us make our way through these challenges and to keep the George Washington University on track to achieve the stature we know it will enjoy as it enters, in just a few years, its third century.”
"R&B" and "RnB" redirect here. For the modern style of music also called "R&B", see Contemporary R&B . For the Japanese television station that uses the abbreviation RNB, see Nankai Broadcasting Rhythm and blues, commonly abbreviated as R&B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African American communities in the 1940s.[1] The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular.[2] In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy,[3] as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records.[4] Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. In the 1960s, several British rock bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Animals were referred to and promoted as being R&B bands; posters for the Who's residency at the Marquee Club in 1964 contained the slogan, "Maximum R&B".[5] Their mix of rock and roll and R&B is now known as "British rhythm and blues". By the 1970s, the term "rhythm and blues" changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "contemporary R&B". It combines elements of rhythm and blues, pop, soul, funk, hip hop, and electronic music. Popular R&B vocalists at the end of the 20th century included Prince, R. Kelly, Stevie Wonder,[6] Chaka Khan, Whitney Houston,[6][7][8] and Mariah Carey.[7][9][10] Etymology, definitions and description [ edit ] Although Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine is credited with coining the term "rhythm and blues" as a musical term in the United States in 1948,[11] the term was used in Billboard as early as 1943.[12][13] It replaced the term "race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world.[14][15] The term "rhythm and blues" was used by Billboard in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, when its "Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles" chart was renamed as "Best Selling Soul Singles".[16] Before the "Rhythm and Blues" name was instated, various record companies had already begun replacing the term "race music" with "sepia series".[17] Writer and producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as "a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans".[18] He has used the term "R&B" as a synonym for jump blues.[19] However, AllMusic separates it from jump blues because of R&B's stronger gospel influences.[20] Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that "rhythm and blues" was an umbrella term invented for industry convenience. According to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts.[14] Well into the 21st century, the term R&B continues in use (in some contexts) to categorize music made by black musicians, as distinct from styles of music made by other musicians. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, and saxophone. Arrangements were rehearsed to the point of effortlessness and were sometimes accompanied by background vocalists. Simple repetitive parts mesh, creating momentum and rhythmic interplay producing mellow, lilting, and often hypnotic textures while calling attention to no individual sound. While singers are emotionally engaged with the lyrics, often intensely so, they remain cool, relaxed, and in control. The bands dressed in suits, and even uniforms, a practice associated with the modern popular music that rhythm and blues performers aspired to dominate. Lyrics often seemed fatalistic, and the music typically followed predictable patterns of chords and structure.[21] History [ edit ] Precursors [ edit ] The migration of African Americans to the urban industrial centers of Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the 1920s and 1930s created a new market for jazz, blues, and related genres of music. These genres of music were often performed by full-time musicians, either working alone or in small groups. The precursors of rhythm and blues came from jazz and blues, which overlapped in the late-1920s and 1930s through the work of musicians such as the Harlem Hamfats, with their 1936 hit "Oh Red", as well as Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and T-Bone Walker. There was also increasing emphasis on the electric guitar as a lead instrument, as well as the piano and saxophone.[22] Late 1940s [ edit ] In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name "Blues and Rhythm". In that year, Louis Jordan dominated the top five listings of the R&B charts with three songs, and two of the top five songs were based on the boogie-woogie rhythms that had come to prominence during the 1940s.[23] Jordan's band, the Tympany Five (formed in 1938), consisted of him on saxophone and vocals, along with musicians on trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums.[24][25] Lawrence Cohn described the music as "grittier than his boogie-era jazz-tinged blues".[14]:173 Robert Palmer described it as "urbane, rocking, jazz-based music with a heavy, insistent beat".[2] Jordan's music, along with that of Big Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Billy Wright, and Wynonie Harris, is now also referred to as jump blues. Already Paul Gayten, Roy Brown, and others had had hits in the style now referred to as rhythm and blues. In 1948, Wynonie Harris' remake of Brown's 1947 recording "Good Rockin' Tonight" reached number two on the charts, following band leader Sonny Thompson's "Long Gone" at number one.[26][27] In 1949, the term "Rhythm and Blues" replaced the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade.[14] Also in that year, "The Huckle-Buck", recorded by band leader and saxophonist Paul Williams, was the number one R&B tune, remaining on top of the charts for nearly the entire year. Written by musician and arranger Andy Gibson, the song was described as a "dirty boogie" because it was risque and raunchy.[28] Paul Williams and His Hucklebuckers' concerts were sweaty riotous affairs that got shut down on more than one occasion. Their lyrics, by Roy Alfred (who later co-wrote the 1955 hit "(The) Rock and Roll Waltz"), were mildly sexually suggestive, and one teenager from Philadelphia said "That Hucklebuck was a very nasty dance".[29][30] Also in 1949, a new version of a 1920s blues song, "Ain't Nobody's Business" was a number four hit for Jimmy Witherspoon, and Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five once again made the top five with "Saturday Night Fish Fry".[31] Many of these hit records were issued on new independent record labels, such as Savoy (founded 1942), King (founded 1943), Imperial (founded 1945), Specialty (founded 1946), Chess (founded 1947), and Atlantic (founded 1948).[22] Afro-Cuban rhythmic influence [ edit ] African American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 1800s with the popularity of the Cuban contradanza (known outside of Cuba as the habanera).[32] The habanera rhythm can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat. The habanera rhythm shown as tresillo (lower notes) with the backbeat (upper note). For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk, ragtime and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the Cuban genre habanera exerted a constant presence in African American popular music.[33] Jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo/habanera rhythm (which he called the Spanish tinge) to be an essential ingredient of jazz.[34] There are examples of tresillo-like rhythms in some African American folk musics such as the hand clapping and foot stomping patterns in ring shout, post-Civil War drum and fife music, and New Orleans second line music.[35] Wynton Marsalis considers tresillo to be the New Orleans "clave" (although technically, the pattern is only half a clave).[36] Tresillo is the most basic duple-pulse rhythmic cell in Sub-Saharan African music traditions, and its use in African American music is one of the clearest examples of African rhythmic retention in the United States.[37] The use of tresillo was continuously reinforced by the consecutive waves of Cuban music, which were adopted into North American popular culture. In 1940 Bob Zurke released "Rhumboogie," a boogie woogie with a tresillo bass line, and lyrics proudly declaring the adoption of Cuban rhythm: Harlem's got a new rhythm, man it's burning up the dance floors because it's so hot! They took a little rhumba rhythm and added boogie woogie and now look what they got! Rhumboogie, it's Harlem's new creation with the Cuban syncopation, it's the killer! Just plant your both feet on each side. Let both your hips and shoulder glide. Then throw your body back and ride. There's nothing like rhumbaoogie, rhumboogie, boogie woogie. In Harlem or Havana, you can kiss the old Savannah. It's a killer![38] Although originating in the metropolis at the mouth of the Mississippi River, New Orleans blues, with its Afro-Caribbean rhythmic traits, is distinct from the sound of the Mississippi Delta blues.[39] In the late 1940s, New Orleans musicians were especially receptive to Cuban influences precisely at the time when R&B was first forming.[40] The first use of tresillo in R&B occurred in New Orleans. Robert Palmer recalls: New Orleans producer-bandleader Dave Bartholomew first employed this figure (as a saxophone-section riff) on his own 1949 disc "Country Boy" and subsequently helped make it the most over-used rhythmic pattern in 1950s rock 'n' roll. On numerous recordings by Fats Domino, Little Richard and others, Bartholomew assigned this repeating three-note pattern not just to the string bass, but also to electric guitars and even baritone sax, making for a very heavy bottom. He recalls first hearing the figure – as a bass pattern on a Cuban disc.[41] In a 1988 interview with Palmer, Bartholomew (who had the first R&B studio band),[42] revealed how he initially superimposed tresillo over swing rhythm: I heard the bass playing that part on a 'rumba' record. On 'Country Boy' I had my bass and drums playing a straight swing rhythm and wrote out that 'rumba' bass part for the saxes to play on top of the swing rhythm. Later, especially after rock 'n' roll came along, I made the 'rumba' bass part heavier and heavier. I'd have the string bass, an electric guitar and a baritone all in unison.[43] Bartholomew referred to the Cuban son by the misnomer rumba, a common practice of that time. Fats Domino's "Blue Monday," produced by Bartholomew, is another example of this now classic use of tresillo in R&B. Bartholomew's 1949 tresillo-based "Oh Cubanas" is an attempt to blend African American and Afro-Cuban music. The word mambo, larger than any of the other text, is placed prominently on the record label. In his composition "Misery," New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair plays a habanera-like figure in his left hand.[citation needed] The deft use of triplets is a characteristic of Longhair's style. Gerhard Kubik notes that with the exception of New Orleans, early blues lacked complex polyrhythms, and there was a "very specific absence of asymmetric time-line patterns (key patterns) in virtually all early-twentieth-century African American music ... only in some New Orleans genres does a hint of simple time line patterns occasionally appear in the form of transient so-called 'stomp' patterns or stop-time chorus. These do not function in the same way as African time lines."[44] In the late 1940s, this changed somewhat when the two-celled time line structure was brought into the blues. New Orleans musicians such as Bartholomew and Longhair incorporated Cuban instruments, as well as the clave pattern and related two-celled figures in songs such as "Carnival Day," (Bartholomew 1949) and "Mardi Gras In New Orleans" (Longhair 1949). While some of these early experiments were awkward fusions, the Afro-Cuban elements were eventually integrated fully into the New Orleans sound. Robert Palmer reports that, in the 1940s, Professor Longhair listened to and played with musicians from the islands and "fell under the spell of Perez Prado's mambo records."[45] He was especially enamored with Afro-Cuban music. Michael Campbell states: "Professor Longhair's influence was ... far reaching. In several of his early recordings, Professor Longhair blended Afro-Cuban rhythms with rhythm and blues. The most explicit is 'Longhair's Blues Rhumba,' where he overlays a straightforward blues with a clave rhythm."[46] Longhair's particular style was known locally as rumba-boogie.[47] In his "Mardi Gras in New Orleans," the pianist employs the 2–3 clave onbeat/offbeat motif in a rumba boogie "guajeo".[48] Piano excerpt from the rumba boogie "Mardi Gras in New Orleans" (1949) by Professor Longhair. 2–3 clave is written above for rhythmic reference. The syncopated, but straight subdivision feel of Cuban music (as opposed to swung subdivisions) took root in New Orleans R&B during this time. Alexander Stewart states that the popular feel was passed along from "New Orleans—through James Brown's music, to the popular music of the 1970s," adding: "The singular style of rhythm & blues that emerged from New Orleans in the years after World War II played an important role in the development of funk. In a related development, the underlying rhythms of American popular music underwent a basic, yet generally unacknowledged transition from triplet or shuffle feel to even or straight eighth notes.[49] Concerning the various funk motifs, Stewart states: "This model, it should be noted, is different from a time line (such as clave and tresillo) in that it is not an exact pattern, but more of a loose organizing principle."[50] Johnny Otis released the R&B mambo "Mambo Boogie" in January 1951, featuring congas, maracas, claves, and mambo saxophone guajeos in a blues progression.[51] Ike Turner recorded "Cubano Jump" (1954) an electric guitar instrumental, which is built around several 2–3 clave figures, adopted from the mambo. The Hawketts, in "Mardi Gras Mambo" (1955) (featuring the vocals of a young Art Neville), make a clear reference to Perez Prado in their use of his trademark "Unhh!" in the break after the introduction.[52] Ned Sublette states: "The electric blues cats were very well aware of Latin music, and there was definitely such a thing as rhumba blues; you can hear Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf playing it."[53] He also cites Otis Rush, Ike Turner and Ray Charles, as R&B artists who employed this feel.[53] The use of clave in R&B coincided with the growing dominance of the backbeat, and the rising popularity of Cuban music in the U.S. In a sense, clave can be distilled down to tresillo (three-side) answered by the backbeat (two-side).[54] 3–2 clave written in two measures in cut-time. Tresillo answered by the backbeat, the essence of clave in African American music. The "Bo Diddley beat" (1955) is perhaps the first true fusion of 3–2 clave and R&B/rock 'n' roll. Bo Diddley has given different accounts of the riff's origins. Sublette asserts: "In the context of the time, and especially those maracas [heard on the record], 'Bo Diddley' has to be understood as a Latin-tinged record. A rejected cut recorded at the same session was titled only 'Rhumba' on the track sheets."[55] Johnny Otis' "Willie and the Hand Jive" (1958) is another example of this successful blend of 3–2 clave and R&B. Otis used the Cuban instruments claves and maracas on the song. Afro-Cuban music was the conduit by which African American music was "re-Africanized," through the adoption of two-celled figures like clave and Afro-Cuban instruments like the conga drum, bongos, maracas and claves. According to John Storm Roberts, R&B became the vehicle for the return of Cuban elements into mass popular music.[56] Ahmet Ertegun, producer for Atlantic Records, is reported to have said that "Afro-Cuban rhythms added color and excitement to the basic drive of R&B."[57] As Ned Sublette points out though: "By the 1960s, with Cuba the object of a United States embargo that still remains in effect today, the island nation had been forgotten as a source of music. By the time people began to talk about rock and roll as having a history, Cuban music had vanished from North American consciousness."[58] Early to mid-1950s [ edit ] At first, only African Americans were buying R&B discs. According to Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, sales were localized in African-American markets; there was no white sales nor white radio play. During the early 1950s, more white teenagers started to become aware of R&B and to purchase the music. For example, 40% of 1952 sales at Dolphin's of Hollywood record shop, located in an African-American area of Los Angeles, were to whites. Eventually, white teens across the country turned their music taste towards rhythm and blues.[59] Johnny Otis, who had signed with the Newark, New Jersey-based Savoy Records, produced many R&B hits in 1951, including: "Double Crossing Blues", "Mistrustin' Blues" and "Cupid's Boogie", all of which hit number one that year. Otis scored ten top ten hits that year. Other hits include: "Gee Baby", "Mambo Boogie" and "All Nite Long".[60] The Clovers, a vocal trio who sang a distinctive sounding combination of blues and gospel, had the number five hit of the year with "Don't You Know I Love You" on Atlantic.[60][62][63] Also in July 1951, Cleveland, Ohio DJ Alan Freed started a late-night radio show called "The Moondog Rock Roll House Party" on WJW (850 AM).[64][65] Freed's show was sponsored by Fred Mintz, whose R&B record store had a primarily African American clientele. Freed began referring to the rhythm and blues music he played as "rock and roll". In 1951, Little Richard Penniman began recording for RCA Records in the jump blues style of late 1940s stars Roy Brown and Billy Wright. However, it was not until he prepared a demo in 1954, that caught the attention of Specialty Records, that the world would start to hear his new, uptempo, funky rhythm and blues that would catapult him to fame in 1955 and help define the sound of rock 'n' roll. A rapid succession of rhythm and blues hits followed, beginning with "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally", which would influence performers such as James Brown,[67] Elvis Presley,[68] and Otis Redding.[69] Ruth Brown on the Atlantic label, placed hits in the top five every year from 1951 through 1954: "Teardrops from My Eyes", "Five, Ten, Fifteen Hours", "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" and "What a Dream". Faye Adams's "Shake a Hand" made it to number two in 1952. In 1953, the R&B record-buying public made Willie Mae Thornton's original recording of Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog" the number three hit that year. Ruth Brown was very prominent among female R&B stars; her popularity was most likely derived because of "her deeply rooted vocal delivery in African American tradition"[71] [72] That same year The Orioles, a doo-wop group, had the #4 hit of the year with "Crying in the Chapel".[73] Fats Domino made the top 30 of the pop charts in 1952 and 1953, then the top 10 with "Ain't That a Shame".[75] Ray Charles came to national prominence in 1955 with "I Got a Woman". Big Bill Broonzy said of Charles' music: "He's mixing the blues with the spirituals ... I know that's wrong."[14]:173 In 1954 the Chords' "Sh-Boom" became the first hit to cross over from the R&B chart to hit the top 10 early in the year. Late in the year, and into 1955, "Hearts of Stone" by the Charms made the top 20.[78] At Chess Records in the spring of 1955, Bo Diddley's debut record "Bo Diddley"/"I'm a Man" climbed to number two on the R&B charts and popularized Bo Diddley's own original rhythm and blues clave-based vamp that would become a mainstay in rock and roll. At the urging of Leonard Chess at Chess Records, Chuck Berry had reworked a country fiddle tune with a long history, entitled "Ida Red". The resulting "Maybellene" was not only a number three hit on the R&B charts in 1955, but also reached into the top 30 on the pop charts. Alan Freed, who had moved to the much larger market of New York City in 1954, helped the record become popular with white teenagers. Freed had been given part of the writers' credit by Chess in return for his promotional activities; a common practice at the time.[81] Late 1950s [ edit ] In 1956, an R&B "Top Stars of '56" tour took place, with headliners Al Hibbler, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and Carl Perkins, whose "Blue Suede Shoes" was very popular with R&B music buyers.[82] Some of the performers completing the bill were Chuck Berry, Cathy Carr, Shirley & Lee, Della Reese, the Cleftones, and the Spaniels with Illinois Jacquet's Big Rockin' Rhythm Band.[citation needed] Cities visited by the tour included Columbia, South Carolina, Annapolis, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, New York, into Canada, and through the mid Western US ending in Texas.[citation needed] In Columbia the concert ended with a near riot as Perkins began his first song as the closing act. Perkins is quoted as saying, "It was dangerous. Lot of kids got hurt. There was a lot of rioting going on, just crazy, man! The music drove 'em insane."[citation needed] In Annapolis 70,000 to 50,000 people tried to attend a sold out performance with 8,000 seats. Roads were clogged for seven hours.[83] Film makers took advantage of the popularity of "rhythm and blues" musicians as "rock n roll" musicians beginning in 1956. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Big Joe Turner, the Treniers, the Platters, the Flamingos, all made it onto the big screen.[84] Two Elvis Presley records made the R&B top five in 1957: "Jailhouse Rock"/"Treat Me Nice" at number one, and "All Shook Up" at number five, an unprecedented acceptance of a non-African American artist into a music category known for being created by blacks.[85] Nat King Cole, also a jazz pianist who had two hits on the pop charts in the early 1950s ("Mona Lisa" at number two in 1950 and "Too Young" at number one in 1951), had a record in the top five in the R&B charts in 1958, "Looking Back"/"Do I Like It". In 1959, two black-owned record labels, one of which would become hugely successful, made their debut: Sam Cooke's Sar, and Berry Gordy's Motown Records.[87] Brook Benton was at the top of the R&B charts in 1959 and 1960 with one number-one and two number-two hits.[citation needed] Benton had a certain warmth in his voice that attracted a wide variety of listeners, and his ballads led to comparisons with performers such as Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.[88] Lloyd Price, who in 1952 had a number one hit with "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" regained predominance with a version of "Stagger Lee" at number one and "Personality" at number five for in 1959.[89][90] The white bandleader of the Bill Black Combo, Bill Black, who had helped start Elvis Presley's career and was Elvis's bassist in the 1950s, was popular with black listeners.[citation needed] Ninety percent of his record sales were from black people, and his "Smokie, Part 2" (1959) rose to the number one position on black music charts.[citation needed] He was once told that "a lot of those stations still think you're a black group because the sound feels funky and black."[citation needed] Hi Records did not feature pictures of the Combo on early records.[91] Sam Cooke's number five hit "Chain Gang" is indicative of R&B in 1960, as is pop rocker Chubby Checker's number five hit "The Twist".[92][93] By the early 1960s, the music industry category previously known as rhythm and blues was being called soul music, and similar music by white artists was labeled blue eyed soul.[95] Motown Records had its first million-selling single in 1960 with the Miracles' "Shop Around", and in 1961, Stax Records had its first hit with Carla Thomas' "Gee Whiz! (Look at His Eyes)".[97][98] Stax's next major hit, The Mar-Keys' instrumental "Last Night" (also released in 1961) introduced the rawer Memphis soul sound for which Stax became known.[99] In Jamaica, R&B influenced the development of ska.[100][101][102] In 1969 black culture and rhythm and blues reached another great achievement when the Grammys first added the Rhythm and Blues category, giving academic recognition to the category.[citation needed] By the 1970s, the term "rhythm and blues" was being used as a blanket term for soul, funk, and disco.[103] Around the same time, mods band influenced by R&B. The Who played Motown hit "Heat Wave". In 70s Philadelphia International The O'Jays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Jerry Bell,Archie Bell & The Drells,Billy Paul and Hi Records Al Green, O. V. Wright, Ann Peebles got R&B hits[104]. 1980s to present [ edit ] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, hip-hop started to capture the imagination of America's youth. R&B started to become homogenized, with a group of high-profile producers responsible for most R&B hits. It was hard for R&B artists of the era to sell their music or even have their music heard because of the rise of hip-hop, but some adopted a "hip-hop" image, were marketed as such, and often featured rappers on their songs. Newer artists such as Usher, R. Kelly, Janet Jackson, TLC, Aaliyah, Beyoncé, Christina Aguilera and Mary J. Blige, enjoyed success. L.A. Reid, the CEO of LaFace Records, was responsible for some of R&B's greatest successes in the 1990s in the form of Usher, TLC and Toni Braxton. Later, Reid successfully marketed Boyz II Men.[105] In 2004, 80% of the songs that topped the R&B charts, were also on top of the Hot 100. That period was the all-time peak for R&B and hip hop on the Billboard Hot 100, and on Top 40 Radio.[106] From about 2005 to 2013, R&B sales declined.[107] However; since 2010 Hip-Hop has started to take from the R&B sound choosing to adopt a softer smoother sound incorporating that of traditional R&B with rappers such as Drake and Fetty Wap who have opened an entire new door for the genre. This sound has gained in popularity and created great controversy for both hip-hop and R&B in how to identify it.[108] British rhythm and blues [ edit ] British rhythm and blues and blues rock developed in the early 1960s, largely as a response to the recordings of American artists, often brought over by African American servicemen stationed in Britain during the Cold War, or merchant seamen visiting ports such as London, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Belfast.[109] Many bands, particularly in the developing London club scene, tried to emulate black rhythm and blues performers, resulting in a "rawer" or "grittier" sound than the more popular "beat groups".[111] Initially developing out of the trad jazz, skiffle and folk club scenes, early artists tended to focus on major blues performers and standard forms, particularly blues rock musician Alexis Korner, who acted as a mentor to members of the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, the Graham Bond Organisation and the Kinks.[111] Although this "purist" interest in the blues would influence major British rock musicians, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Peter Green and Jimmy Page, other artists adopted an interest in a wider range of rhythm and blues styles.[111] Most successful were the Rolling Stones, whose first eponymously titled album in 1964 largely consisted of rhythm and blues songs.[citation needed] They soon established themselves as the second most popular UK band (after the Beatles) and led a second wave of the "British Invasion" of the US pop charts.[111] In addition to Chicago blues numbers, the Rolling Stones also covered songs by Chuck Berry and Bobby and Shirley Womack, with the latter's "It's All Over Now", giving them their first UK number one in 1964.[113] Blues songs and influences continued to surface in the Rolling Stones' music in later years. Other London-based bands included the Yardbirds, the Kinks, Manfred Mann and the Pretty Things, beside more jazz-influenced acts like the Graham Bond Organisation, Georgie Fame and Zoot Money.[111] Bands to emerge from other major British cities included the Animals from Newcastle upon Tyne, and Spencer Davis Group from Birmingham, and Them from Belfast.[111] None of these bands played exclusively rhythm and blues, but it remained at the core of their early albums.[111] The music of the British mod subculture grew out of rhythm and blues and later soul, performed by artists that were not available to the small London clubs where the scene originated.[115] As a result, a number of bands emerged to fill this gap, including Small Faces, and most successfully the Who.[115] The Who's early promotional material tagged them as producing "maximum rhythm and blues", but by about 1966 they moved from attempting to emulate American R&B to producing songs that reflected the Mod lifestyle.[115] Many of these bands enjoyed national success in the UK, but found it difficult to break into the American market.[115]. But British White blues musicians could not play real R&B, and UK black musician such as Carl Douglas, Hot Chocolate(UK), Delegation, Junior, Central Line[116] played real R&B and had hits. The British R&B bands produced music which was very different in tone from that of African-American artists, often with more emphasis on guitars and sometimes with greater energy.[111] They have been criticized for exploiting the massive catalogue of African-American music, but it has also been noted that they both popularized that music, bringing it to British, world and in some cases American audiences, and helped to build the reputation of existing and past rhythm and blues artists.[111] Most of these bands rapidly moved on from recording and performing American standards to writing and recording their own music, often leaving their R&B roots behind.[111] Many helped pioneer psychedelic, and eventually progressive and hard rock, having a major influence on the nature and sound of rock music, making rhythm and blues a major component of its sound.[111] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ]
“We came to Canada for the experience”: a French couple starts a life in Toronto on $91,000 a year “We came to Canada for the experience”: a French couple starts a life in Toronto on $91,000 a year Who: Ophélie Courtial, 27, and Loïc Boget, 28 What they do: Ophélie is a Marketing specialist. Loïc is an account manager at a firm that facilitates grants. What they make: Ophélie makes $48,000 a year. Loïc makes $43,000 a year. Where they live: A one-bedroom apartment in Parkdale. What they spend in a month: Rent: $1,550. (They moved to Toronto from Valence, a small city in southeast France, last February and bounced between short-term sublets and Airbnbs before finding a place at Queen and Dufferin. “We came because we wanted the experience,” says Ophélie. “We’re not ready to settle down.”) Utilities: $80. Car insurance and gas: $360. (Ophélie drives to work in Woodbridge. Loïc bikes or takes transit.) Cellphone For Loïc: $60. (Ophélie’s is covered by her work.) Internet and cable: $40. Groceries: $200. Netflix: $10. What they bought in a week: Wine: $35. Cheese for a dinner party: $15. (“We ate cheese every day in France, but we can’t do that here because it’s five times the price.”) Costumes for a themed party: $25. Clothes from American Eagle for family in France: $240. (“It’s such a typical North American brand. We don’t have it back home.”) Tickets for Allied, with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard: $15. (“It was half-price Tuesday.”) Takeout burgers and fries from Kitson and Co.: $31. (“In France, taxes are included in the price, and we don’t leave tips. We had to get used to paying $15 for a $10 burger.”) Want to tell us about your Cost of Living? Email us at costofliving@torontolife.com.
: Use of undefined constant user_level - assumed 'user_level' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) inon line Chocolate. Alcohol. Cheese. Cursing. Typical things that one would give up for Lent. I’ve tried to all of them for the full forty (read: forty-six when including Sundays) for Lent. In the Christian faith, Lent is to remind us of the temptation that Jesus endured in the desert from Satan. Lent is a time for us to give up one of our vices. I’m not religious. I go to church on the “important” holidays but this year I really wanted to give Lent a valiant effort. For the first time ever, I can truthfully say I survived Lent without cheating. I gave up Facebook. When people heard I was giving up Facebook there were a lot of questions: Why not Twitter? What do you miss most? Obstacles? Will you go back? etc. I can tell you this, life was better without Facebook. Facebook Vs. Twitter. When I posted an update that I wouldn’t be around for forty days, friends insisted I give up Twitter instead. Of course these friends aren’t on Twitter. It’s easy folks. Facebook, IMO, ruins lives. The amount of drama that runs rampant through the walls (pun intended) of Facebook is ridiculous. I don’t need to see who’s marriage is now “complicated” or go through every photo of my current crush (you know you’ve done it). What about keeping in touch? The people who I want to keep in touch with know other means of doing so. My response forty days ago to my friends was: “FB is simply for creeping out people’s photos you haven’t seen in god knows how long. Twitter is for actually communicating with others. :)” Think about it. I realized I called people less because I didn’t need to ask them what was new in their lives. Facebook can tell me. However Twitter, on a daily basis, offers its community something that will benefit them. We read at least a dozen articles a day about our industry, news, or even something to make us laugh simply because our friend retweeted a link. Twitter allows our professional networks to grow ten fold. We’ve traveled the country to meet friends we never would have known if not for Twitter. In my opinion Twitter wins every time. Team Twitter. Obstacles in a life without Facebook.Events, birthdays, and TJ occasionally saying, “Christina you gotta check this out on FB, oh wait ya can’t.” Events were most difficult. Just last week I had the opportunity to meet some great Twitter peeps for happy hour. Cog tweeted a link for the event but it was of course on Facebook. I joked, calling him my little Satan, but politely asked him to send me the details. Friends ran into this problem too. Reunions, birthday parties, brunch etc. It became harder to keep in touch. My closest friends would send me e-mails with subject lines: Info for non-Facebook friendly friend. I’m sure I missed out on some parties and events because of my lack of presence on FB but it didn’t bother me. My closest friends knew how to get in touch with me to make sure I was kept in the loop. Also less people knew what I was up to so I could pick and choose where I wanted to go. The thing I missed most about Facebook were birthday reminders. I am the worst when it comes to birthdays. If I missed your birthday please forgive me. I’m scared to go back and see who I missed. Blame it on Jesus 😉 (just kidding). Honestly, after the first two weeks of giving up Facebook the obstacles seemed less difficult. Life after Lent with Facebook.I’m writing this post the morning of Easter Sunday and I’ve already got the Facebook tab open. I’ve been on it for all of ten minutes. Uploaded a new profile picture and thats about it. I feel confused, lost, and not very excited. Reflecting on a life without Facebook reminds me of how connected our society is and our lack of face to face communication. Sure it makes it easier to see what my cousins are up to in Florida but what about my cousin that lives around the block from me? Shouldn’t I just call her and ask her to lunch to see what she’s up to? Instead I’ll creepily stalk her ski trip photos and assume she’s having a great time on her spring break. I noticed that stalking/creeping isn’t as fun either. What’s the point of it anyway? I don’t plan on being on FB much. Perhaps to share my PRBC blog posts, talk about upcoming events, and share the once a week happy birthday wish. However I do plan on doing some spring cleaning. If I haven’t talked to you in over x months, hasta la vista baby. There’s really no point to us being FB friends. It was nice to disconnect from the world a bit. Do you think we’re too connected? Do we have an obsession we can’t shake? [reus id=”6″][recent posts] Share on Tumblr
Bill Greenblatt, UPI, Newscom Mun Y. Choi, the new president of the U. of Missouri system: "There are perhaps families who are in Missouri and beyond Missouri who believe that the events of the fall of 2015 were much more serious than they were. There was a sense that it was a campus that was in turmoil. That’s not true." This fall the University of Missouri at Columbia will welcome its smallest freshman class in nearly two decades. As of this month, just 4,009 first-time freshmen had made enrollment deposits, a decline of 35 percent from the 2015 class of 6,191 students. The precipitous drop is striking for a public flagship with a prominent national brand, one that has seen enrollment grow almost every year since the turn of the century. In 2015 the student population reached a record high of 35,448. Come August, Mizzou plans to enroll about 30,700 students over all. Seven of its residence halls will be closed temporarily. What happened during that two-year period is common knowledge: the November 2015 protests by students of color, who criticized what they perceived as administrative indifference to their concerns about racism. Their demands for change inspired protests that are still reverberating on other campuses today. After a graduate student’s hunger strike and a boycott by members of the football team, Timothy M. Wolfe, then the Missouri system’s president, resigned. So did R. Bowen Loftin, the Mizzou chancellor. Then debates about campus free speech were sparked by Melissa Click, at the time an assistant professor of communication. Ms. Click was infamously videotaped calling for "some muscle" to block a student journalist trying to cover the protests. She was fired last year and now teaches at Gonzaga University. University officials were bracing for a decline, given the national attention the protests attracted. Other factors have also put pressure on enrollment, such as fewer high-school graduates in Missouri. But Mun Y. Choi, the new system president, said no one expected the fallout to be this bad. The Chronicle spoke with administrators, faculty members, and enrollment experts to try to figure out why Mizzou has lost so many freshmen, what it means for the university, and what might be done about it. A negative public perception of Mizzou is the main reason for the drop, university officials said. Advertisement The protests represent something different to each cohort of prospective students, Barbara Rupp, Mizzou’s former director of admissions, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after last year’s enrollment decline. Missouri students from rural areas are often critical of the university’s response to the protesters, and express negative opinions about Ms. Click, Ms. Rupp said. Students of color wonder whether the campus will be the right fit for them. Out-of-state students "don’t really have a sense of what’s going on, and they are relying on what they are seeing and hearing in the media," she said at the time. Mr. Choi, who joined the university system in March, said officials had learned important lessons from the upheaval and had taken steps to deal with the concerns of students of color. “The campus was in fact safe, was never shut down, classes were being held, and research was being conducted.” But he said the popular narrative about the protests wasn’t entirely accurate, and he pinned much of the blame on "overblown" news accounts. Some news-media coverage, he said, had painted a misleading picture of Mizzou as unsafe and the demonstrations as violent, and had failed to mention that "the campus was in fact safe, was never shut down, classes were being held, and research was being conducted." "There are perhaps families who are in Missouri and beyond Missouri who believe that the events of the fall of 2015 were much more serious than they were," he said. "There was a sense that it was a campus that was in turmoil. That’s not true." Given the number of college options available to prospective students and their parents, said John Gahl, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, it’s easy for them to throw out one institution if there’s any scandal or distraction. Not only did the protests probably prompt many high-school seniors to cross Mizzou off of their short list of colleges, Mr. Gahl said, but juniors starting their college search at the time may never have put the university on their list at all. It’s not just the protests. Other factors are playing a role. Missouri is not projected to grow much in population in the near future, said Pelema I. Morrice, Mizzou’s vice provost for enrollment management. Neither are bordering states like Illinois and Iowa, from which Missouri pulls many of its students. Advertisement In terms of its number of high-school graduates, Missouri is in the middle of a dip that will last at least a few more years, said Joe Garcia, president of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. The University of Illinois system is making a concerted effort to expand its enrollment, a move that has probably lured away some prospective Mizzou students, Mr. Gahl said. “They're afraid Mizzou will lose state money if they don't behave the way the legislature wants them to behave.” Berkley Hudson, an associate professor of journalism, said administrators had been tentative over the past couple of years and had lacked a cohesive strategy to deal with many issues, including enrollment. "They’re afraid Mizzou will lose state money if they don’t behave the way the legislature wants them to behave," he said. "Institutionally, there’s been a fear of being bold." He noted, though, that he’s had a good impression of Mr. Choi so far. Another problem is not unique to Missouri: a loss of international students who are perhaps wary of the Trump administration and the president’s hard-line views on immigration and Islam. Mr. Morrice said Mizzou had "some international markets that we’ve got some concerns about." On a positive note, Mr. Morrice said, student retention is good. About 85 percent of the 2015 freshman class enrolled as sophomores, he said, the third-highest rate in institutional history. At least one member of the Missouri system’s board believes administrators got complacent after years of growth. David L. Steelman, a former state lawmaker and lawyer who’s served on the system’s Board of Curators since 2014, said he didn’t think Mizzou had been proactive about recruitment for some time because it had had little trouble attracting students. “The University of Missouri ... got fat and happy.” "Simply, the University of Missouri — it’s been over five, six, seven, eight years — got fat and happy," Mr. Steelman told St. Louis’s CBS affiliate this month. Mr. Choi noted that he, Mr. Morrice, and Garnett S. Stokes, the Mizzou provost and interim chancellor, had come to the flagship campus recently, and that what administrators did before 2015 "is not something that we’re familiar with." Advertisement "It’s a new day," he said. "We now know that we have a system in place and a commitment to really focusing on enrollment." Even for a large research institution like Mizzou, the enrollment drop is a big deal. The loss of students means $16.6 million less in revenue for the campus in the 2018 fiscal year, and less tuition money for the next several years as the smaller classes advance. In addition, the state is reducing its funding for Mizzou by $14.7 million. So the university has to trim its overall budget by 8 to 12 percent. Tuition will rise by 2.1 percent. In a memo on Friday, Ms. Stokes laid out a budget proposal that includes the elimination of about 330 positions, mostly through retirements, attrition, and not renewing the contracts of employees such as non-tenured faculty members. The memo says only about 84 employees will be laid off. As state budget cuts have piled up over the past 15 to 20 years, the university has relied on enrollment growth to prop up its finances, said Mr. Gahl, the engineering professor. He serves as chair of the Faculty Council’s fiscal-affairs committee. “The concept was that we were going to beat this by just growing, growing, and growing.” He said Mizzou couldn’t fill the entire state-funding gap with additional tuition revenue, as many other universities have done, because a Missouri law prevents public-university tuition from rising faster than the Consumer Price Index. So Mizzou’s leaders tried a different approach: "The concept was that we were going to beat this by just growing, growing, and growing." The strategy seemed to work for a while, Mr. Gahl said. Overall enrollment at Mizzou increased annually from 2000 to 2015, with the exception of 2013. But universities can’t grow indefinitely, he said, and now officials are having to do some right-sizing. "There is a view amongst the leadership that is, Look, for the foreseeable future, we’re not getting really big. We’re going to be smaller, and that’s what it’s going to be, and that might be OK." It’s difficult to reverse enrollment declines quickly, said Don Hossler, an emeritus professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Southern California. Institutions have two primary levers to try to bolster enrollment: how selective they are, and how much financial aid they award. "Improving marketing alone," Mr. Hossler said, "is not going to have much of a short-term effect." Advertisement Officials said they have a plan to improve the bleak enrollment picture. New leadership will help get the university back on track, Mr. Choi said. Mizzou will soon select a permanent chancellor, its first since Mr. Loftin stepped down 18 months ago. The university has also created a committee to foster strategic enrollment management. Once people hear "our story" about student outcomes, academic offerings, and faculty research, and come to visit the campus, Mr. Choi said, the narrative will shift — and students will come back. Spreading that message, he said, will involve a mix of ramped-up recruiting, increased marketing, and more engagement with prospective students and families during campus visits and throughout the year. “We have a lot of capacity right now, and so we're going to be very active in recruiting the best and brightest students.” "We have a lot of capacity right now," he said, "and so we’re going to be very active in recruiting the best and brightest students." But one expert said treating the enrollment slide primarily as a public-perception problem was misguided. "What are you going to do — deny that these things happened?" said Richard Hesel, a principal with the Art & Science Group, a firm that consults with colleges on enrollment-management issues. The protests and racial tensions have caused many prospective students to question whether "it’s going to be a safe place to be," Mr. Hesel said. The solution? A focus on improving the campus culture, he said, through new programs and investments related to inclusion and safety. (Mizzou officials say they continue to make progress on the campus-climate efforts that began after the 2015 protests, such as increasing faculty diversity.) “They don't have an image problem. They have a reality problem.” "They don’t have an image problem," he said of Mizzou officials. "They have a reality problem." In the end, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that Mizzou is losing certain kinds of students, said Mr. Hudson, the journalism professor. He pointed to people who might criticize the group that led the 2015 demonstrations, a collective named for the year the university admitted its first black students. "Maybe," he said, "we don’t want students who aren’t open to the issues that were raised by Concerned Student 1950." Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.
Luis Suarez will become Liverpool ’s greatest ever striker if he fires them to the Premier League title, according to Anfield icon Steve McManaman. Suarez’s hat-trick in Saturday’s 6-3 win at Cardiff City took his tally to 28 goals in 25 league games this season, equalling Robbie Fowler’s Premier League-era record for the club with eight matches remaining. And McManaman claimed the Uruguay star can surpass legendary names such as Fowler, Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush and Roger Hunt in the pantheon of Liverpool greats if he scores the goals that end their 24-year wait for the English title. Liverpool go into Wednesday night’s home game with Sunderland four points behind leaders Chelsea with a game in hand and the form of Suarez will be crucial to their hopes of closing that gap. He is also only six goals shy of Andy Cole and Alan Shearer’s record of 34 for a Premier League season, despite missing the opening five games of the campaign through suspension. Speaking ahead of the Laureus World Sports Awards in Kuala Lumpur, McManaman said: “Suarez? Better than the ‘Growler’ [Fowler]. He’s going to break his record. “He missed the first five games of the season and that suggests he will go down in Liverpool history. “If he takes them to the league title, everybody will say he is the greatest centre-forward ever. “Liverpool have been blessed with some centre-forwards haven’t they? “You quickly forget because we live in the present, but the fact you are even talking about Suarez – after just a couple of years at the club – in the same breath as Robbie or Rushie or Kenny and whoever else shows how much he has learnt at Liverpool and how much he has improved. “He had a great year last year and he has gone and bettered it despite playing fewer games." Suarez tried to force through a move to Arsenal last summer but was ultimately convinced to stay and sign a new contract. His form could spark renewed interest from some of Europe’s biggest clubs but McManaman said: “I think he will stay anyway as he has just signed a new contract. “Listen, it is important for superstars to play in the Champions League every week, that is the over-riding factor. You want to test yourself against the best players. “Liverpool are on the right track. If they suddenly finished sixth there would be question marks but if they win the league or qualify for the Champions League, I don’t think there will be any assumption about whether he stays or goes. “I think he will stay and it will be up to Liverpool to decide if they want to sell him rather than the other way round.”
The Post Office announced Wednesday that it has no choice but the eliminate Saturday delivery of letters to save $2 billion, putting roughly 35,000-40,000 jobs at risk. Package delivery will continue six days a week. “Our financial condition is urgent,” said Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe, who in the past had said he didn’t have the power to eliminate a day of service without congressional approval. The rise of email has presented a persistent challenge to the Post Office, which is entirely self-funded, but the budget crisis was created purposely in 2006 by Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which mandated the funding of 75 years of pension obligations within 10 years. The same law prevents the service from raising tax rates to fund the pensions. “No business in the world could survive a mandate from the government to pay out $5 billion a year without the ability to raise its rates,” American Postal Workers Union President Cliff Guffey said on Ed Schultz’s radio show. “Anyone would go bankrupt.” Before the law passed, the USPS was not in any debt. About 70 percent of its losses can be traced directly to PAEA, as the postal service works continually to deliver new gains in productivity, reports Esquire’s Jesse Lichtenstein in his must-read exposé of the war on letter carriers, “Do We Really Want to Live Without the Post Office?” Guffey believes the point of the law was to drive the Post Office out of business and force letter delivery to become privatized as it is in Germany, “where stamps are 78 cents.” Majority FM‘s Sam Seder explains the plot against the Post Office here: USPS covers many regions of the country that private carriers won’t serve. Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the Constitution says Congress has the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” Now Congress is continually blocking any effort the service would like to make in order to reduce costs, including closing some small post offices, raising rates and funding pensions in a reasonable way. Its losses without the costs of pensions are around are estimated around $900 million a year. Congress could try to stop the change in service, though it failed to pass a bill designed to prevent the elimination of Saturday service late in the last Congress. Both Speaker Boehner and the White House are calling for Congress to act. It should start by reversing the damage it did in 2006. Photo credit: AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File
MUMBAI: Mumbai Police has kicked up a controversy following its circular which says the women's wing of an Islamic organization is "brainwashing and training girls for jihad". The outfit has threatened legal action if no apology is tendered by the police.The "internal circular" said the Girls Islamic Organization (GIO) of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind , one of the country's largest Islamic organizations that runs 40 high schools and three junior colleges in Maharashtra, has been operating with the objective of "brainwashing college and school girls and train them for jihad"."The group GIO is related to Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and it was established in Kerala. The purported aim of this organization is to make more and more Muslim women aware of their religion and the holy Quran. But the real objective of this organization is to brainwash school and college girls and train them for jihad," the circular, issued last month, says.The document, meant for internal circulation, got leaked and has invited the wrath of Jamaat with its Maharashtra spokesman Mohammad Aslam Ghazi threatening to sue the police department if it does not apologise.Ghazi alleged it was a deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of the socio-religious organization."The circular was leaked with vicious intentions. The allegations against GIO are false and baseless," he said."The Mumbai Police either has to prove the allegations or apologize for the error. Otherwise, we would sue them for defamation," said Ghazi, adding their organization worked for "peace, justice and to fight against prejudice of the state machinery".Mumbai Police spokesman Satyanarayana Choudhary said "the circular was meant to be only for the department and not for public."Earlier, Mumbai Police had got embroiled in a row over a poem by a traffic police inspector Sujata Patil published in an issue of the force's in-house journal 'Samwad' where she had described last year's Azad Maidan protesters as "snakes" and "traitors" whose hands should have been "chopped off". Amid threat of legal action and mounting anger of Mulim organizations, Patil had apologised in writing. The apology was published in the next issue of 'Samwad'.

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