text
stringlengths 316
100k
|
|---|
http://www.dead.net/features/news/get-grateful-dead-europe-72-rock-prodigy-app
Get The Grateful Dead – Europe ’72: Rock Prodigy™ App
Grab Your Guitar And Jam Along With The Dead!
Whether you are picking up a guitar for the first time or are a long-time rocker, the Grateful Dead – Europe ’72: Rock Prodigy™ will improve your skills as you play along, note-for-note, to Jerry Garcia’s guitar. The app acts as your personal music teacher, walking you through songs from the legendary tour and providing feedback as you hit each note.
In addition to featuring iconic songs like "Jack Straw," "Ramble on Rose," and "Sugar Magnolia," professional Rock Prodigy® lessons are included in the app to get you started with beginner lessons ranging from holding a guitar to groovy rhythms, chords, and scales. Every song has multiple skill levels and uses the actual re-mastered, live-recorded tracks. Take a trip back to 1972 with the band and jam alongside as they journey throughout Europe. Start off by learning the basic rhythms and chord progressions and work your way up to soloing along with Jerry!
Download the app here.
Watch the video tutorial.
|
Q. How do I play the games? How much does it cost?
A. We sell tokens to use in the arcade machines. It’s £1 for 4 credits.
Q. Are the games emulated? Are they multi-boards?
No, they are all original arcade PCBs running on original hardware.
Q. How many games do you have?
We have over 60 games rotating across 6 machines, and we’re adding more games to our collection over time.
Q. How often do you change games? When will you next have X game on?
We rotate games almost every day, and strive to maintain a mix of different styles on at any one time. Generally, our line-up tends towards having 2 VS fighters, 2 shoot ’em ups, a puzzle game and a brawler/platformer/other on at one time.
Q. If I request a game, will you put it on?
A. We’ll do our best! If you request it in person on the day, and we’re not too busy, and an appropriate machine is available, then we’ll be happy to put it on for you. If it’s a game you are specifically coming in to play, or something you want to try for a high score on, we recommend you contact us at least a day in advance to avoid potential disappointment.
Q. What’s the story with your arcade machines?
A. They are all vintage 1990s Japanese ‘candy cabinets’. If you’d like more background details on the machines, we recommend this excellent article on the subject.
Q. Do you ever run tournaments / gaming events?
A. Yes we do, regularly! We run weekly evening events, monthly tournaments, and other special events too. All events are listed on our Facebook page , so check there for full details of what’s lined up.
|
Qataris were furious after photos of famished camels appeared in local newspapers on June 19.
After Saudi Arabia broke off relations with Qatar on June 5, Riyadh made clear it wanted nothing to do with its tiny Arab neighbor. Trade is cut off, planes headed to Qatar can't fly through Saudi airspace, and now, even Qatari camels in Saudi Arabia must go.After the deportation order was handed down, thousands of camels were trapped at the border for days with little food or water."The camels were starving. Some of the males were fighting and in very bad condition," one irate Qatari camel owner told Reuters. "My brother still has 10 or 11 camels in Saudi Arabia."Qataris were furious after photos of famished camels appeared in local newspapers on June 19. Authorities sent caravans of provisions to relieve the stranded animals and have now set up temporary shelters.A 5,500-mile-square peninsula in the Persian Gulf, Qatar has little land to pasture its camels, which are a backbone of traditional culture and recreation there. In the past, many Qatari families have simply pastured their camels in Saudi Arabia, traveling back and forth across the border to tend to their livestock.About 15,000 Qatari camels have now left Saudi Arabia.The break between Qatar and several Arab countries, including Egypt, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates, came amid heightened tensions over the Saudi-led war in Yemen aimed at ousting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Qatar has rather cozy relations with Iran, the Saudi kingdom's archenemy. Its state-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera has also criticized Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which blocked it in late May.Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations accused Qatar of financing terrorism, a charge Doha denies.But camel herders want nothing to do with politics."We just want to live out our days, to go to Saudi Arabia and take care of our camels and go back and take care of our family," the camel owner told Reuters.
|
Clearpath Robotics was founded six years ago by three college buddies with a passion for building stuff. Its 80 employees specialize in all-terrain test rigs like the Husky, a stout four-wheeled robot vehicle used by researchers within the Department of Defense. They make drones too, and have even built a robotic boat called the Kingfisher. But there is one thing they will never, ever build: a robot that can kill.
Clearpath is the first and, so far as we can tell, only robotics company to pledge not to build killer robots. The decision, made last year, was simple, says co-founder and CTO Ryan Gariepy, and in fact it's even helped the company recruit robot experts who've been drawn to Clearpath's unique ethical stance. That's because ethical questions are becoming a pressing matter for companies that build robotics systems. You see, we're already at the dawn of the age of killer robots. And we're completely unprepared for them.
It's early days still. Korea's Dodam systems, for example, builds an autonomous robotic turret called the Super aEgis II. It uses thermal cameras and laser range finders to identify and attack targets up to 3 kilometers away. And the US is reportedly experimenting with autonomous missile systems.
We're 'nowhere near ready.'
Military drones like the Predator currently are controlled by humans, but Gariepy says it wouldn't take much to make them fully automatic and autonomous. That worries him. A lot. "The potential for lethal autonomous weapons systems to be rolled off the assembly line is here right now," he says, "but the potential for lethal autonomous weapons systems to be deployed in an ethical way or to be designed in an ethical way is not, and is nowhere near ready."
For Gariepy, the problem is one of international law, as well as programming. In war, there are situations in which the use of force might seem necessary, but might also put innocent bystanders at risk. How do we build killer robots that will make the correct decision in every situation? How do we even know what the correct decision would be?
We're starting to see similar problems with autonomous vehicles. Say a dog darts across a highway. Does the robo-car swerve to avoid the dog but possibly risk the safety of its passengers? What if it isn't a dog, but a child? Or a school bus? Now imagine a battle zone. "We can't agree on how to implement those bits of guidance on the car," Gariepy says. "And now what we're actually talking about is taking that leap forward to building a system which has to decide on its own and when it's going to preserve life and when it's going to take lethal force."
Make Cool Stuff; Not Weapons
Peter Asaro has spent the past few years lobbying the international community for a ban on killer robots as the founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. He believes that it's time for "a clear international prohibition on their development and use." According to him, this would let companies like Clearpath continue to cook up cool stuff, "without worrying that their products may be used in ways that threaten civilians and undermine human rights."
Autonomous missiles are interesting to the military, though, because they solve a tactical problem. When remote-controlled drones, for example, operate in battlefield conditions, its not uncommon for the enemy to jam the their sensors or network connections so their human operators can no longer see what's going on or control the drone.
But Gariepy says that, instead of developing missiles or drones that can decide on their own what target to hit, the military would be better off spending its money on improved sensors and anti-jamming technology. "Why don't we take the investment that people would like to make in building fully autonomous killer robots and bring that investment into making existing drone technology more effective?" he says. "If we face and overcome them, we can bring that technology to the benefit of people outside of the military."
Lately there's been a lot of talk about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Elon Musk worries about an out-of-control AI intelligence that could destroy life as we know it. Last month, Musk donated $10 million to research the ethical questions behind artificial intelligence. One important question is how AI software will affect the world when it becomes fused with robotics. Some, like Baidu researcher Andrew Ng, worry that the coming AI revolution will cost jobs. Others, like Gariepy, worry that it might cost lives.
He'd like his fellow researchers and machine-builders to give serious ethical thought to what they're doing. And that's why Clearpath robotics has sided with humans in the whole killer robot thing. "Though we as a company aren't in a position to put up $10 million," Gariepy says, "we are in a position to put up our reputation."
|
On the rise of the radical religious right and the breakdown of democracy in the United States
Several mistakes are commonly made when thinking about the radical religious right. The first is to assume that the religious right shares the values held in common by most Americans.
Note from the author A few years ago, when I wrote this essay, I felt that few people understood the radical religious right in the United States. Since then the radical religious right has become more prominent, but its beliefs and values are still very poorly understood. If mainstream Americans really understood the religious right, they would be shocked. My aim is not to ridicule or attack the religious right, but to bring its beliefs and values into the open. - Michael Webb
In fact, the religious right has an entirely different cultural and ideological background that basically regards those shared values as irrelevant. Fundamentalist Christianity teaches its believers to be "in the world but not of the world"; that is, to live among secular people but to reject their way of thinking.
Among the values shared implicitly by all Americans are 1) that persons ought to be free to do as they please so long as they do no harm to others, and 2) that every person is entitled to hold an opinion, and that no person's opinion is necessarily or intrinsically more valid than any other's.
The radical religious right does not play by those rules at all. From their point of view, those assumptions are secular ("worldly"), and therefore simply wrong.
The notion of compromise is alien to the radical religious right, because from their point of view either a belief comes from God, and is therefore absolutely and eternally true, or it comes from the secular world and ultimately from Satan, and is therefore utterly false, no matter how reasonable it may seem.
In fact, fundamentalist Christians believe that Satan (considered a completely real being) uses reason to deceive the sinful human mind. Reason is bad, faith is good.
Because of those attitudes, most people are totally at sea when trying to understand the religious right. The core perspectives are too different.
Another common error is that many people who consider themselves Christians, but who are not part of the radical religious right, feel that they can understand the radical religious right based on shared Christian beliefs.
In fact, the religious perspectives of the religious right differ markedly from those of moderate, nominal Christians.
Extreme fundamentalist Christians actually regard moderate, nominal Christians, "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (II Timothy 3:5), as worse than unbelievers. "I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16)
They may pity unbelievers, but they distrust or even despise moderate Christians, in whom God has invested more of his grace and light, but who have chosen not to respond wholeheartedly. "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." (Luke 12:48)
The radical religious right has gained power only by keeping its true intentions under wraps, by using the Republican Party as a cover, and by portraying itself as conservative rather than radical.
A further marked difference between the fundamentalist Christians and others is that most people are motivated by the desire to find happiness. Those who adhere to Christian fundamentalism do not regard the pursuit of happiness to be a valid motivation, but instead consider "doing the will of God by submitting utterly to the Lordship of His Son Jesus Christ" to be the only acceptable reason for living.
Those two motivations lead to very different choices and personal values.
. . .
How could a group with such distinct values have become so powerful in the United States, a society where power derives from political appeal?
The answers to that question are complex, but part of the success of the radical religious right has come by infiltrating a mainstream political party -- the Republican Party. The religious right has been able to gain a foothold in that party by playing down its more radical leanings.
Many people who consider themselves Christians mistakenly feel that they can understand the radical religious right based on shared Christian beliefs.
For their part, the Republicans in the United States have been happy to see their party energized by the fervor and commitment that religious right true believers can bring to the political process. Since the late 1970s the religious right has steadily transformed the Republican Party from a basically secular, conservative, civic-minded party to become the public face of legitimacy for the otherwise alien values of the radical religious right.
The radical religious right is not conservative at all, however, in that it does not wish to conserve the status quo; it seeks to overthrow many longstanding American traditions and institutions or at least to radically change their outworking.
For almost three decades the leaders of Christian fundamentalist groups have increasingly radicalized their followers by using certain explosively emotive issues. Principal among those has been the legality of abortion, which they consider to be the murder of unborn children.
As driven home by leaders of the radical religious right, any society that legally sanctions the murder of children must be unreservedly perverse. That conviction further hardens the position that no compromise is possible with the deluded mainstream, and that only radical change is acceptable.
A second area of radicalization has been gay rights and the gradual acceptance by the American mainstream that gay people can be good citizens, and a third area has been the issue of prayer in public schools and the teaching of biological evolution.
Those points have been used to radicalize the radical religious right in the United States in the same way that Islamicists have long used the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to radicalize their own people. In fact, we can draw many parallels between the radical religious right in the US and Islamic radicals in the Middle East.
Like most radical movements, both are unwilling to compromise or coexist with their adversaries. In their minds, the continuing presence of political or ideological adversaries can only be bad. Radicals feel they must persist in their struggle until the world is completely purged and free of the adversaries.
That political reflex differs dramatically from moderate democratic values, which emphasize tolerance, dissent, competition among ideas, and the formation of alliances based on negotiated compromises.
The radical religious right is not conservative at all, however, in that it does not wish to conserve the status quo; it seeks to overthrow many longstanding American traditions and institutions.
The influence of the radical religious already right exceeds its size. It still faces challenges to its rule, although that may change during the next few years as it consolidates its strength, and begins to exercise the prerogatives of its growing power.
As that happens, the United States will begin to look quite different.
What kind of place will the United States be if the radical religious right continues to consolidate power and enforce policies of its choosing?
An obvious change will be that children in public schools, or private schools publicly funded through vouchers, will receive religious instruction based on the ideology of Christian fundamentalists. That policy will perhaps be presented as a way to strengthen the fabric of society, reduce crime, and so on.
Of course, the scientific view of biology will no longer be taught in public institutions, except as a cultural oddity to be rejected.
Those are perhaps some of the least dramatic changes, although they will eventually lead to the United States slipping from its preeminent role in science. In the eyes of the fundamentalist, "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (I Corinthians 3:19).
Regions where religious fundamentalism prevails can sometimes produce good science, and very occasionally might even produce excellent science, but arguably almost never brilliant or groundbreaking science.
A society under the strict control of the religious right would arguably suppress the cultural factors that support a dynamic and innovative knowledge-based economy. For that reason, a political coup by the religious right would likely be regarded by capital markets as being unfavorable to long-term growth.
Although it might seem that the rise of the religious right would be unfriendly to the kind of secular, hyper-consumerist society that global capitalism seeks to invest in, that is not entirely true in the United States.
American Christian fundamentalists during the past few decades have increasingly embraced a view that Jesus wants them to be wealthy. Conspicuous consumption by believers is regarded as a beneficial display of God's power and His love for His people.
. . .
A more troubling and perhaps less obvious effect of the exercise of power by the radical religious right will be the rise of militant nationalism in the United States.
Many people fail to understand this because, again, they are thinking of the religious right as being Christian, and that Christianity is a religion that teaches peace. That view misses the mark on several levels.
Christian fundamentalists believe in biblical literalism, and the Judaeo-Christian bible is actually full of references to war and an angry, aggressive God, and certainly does not condemn war.
Also, the religious right is rooted in the American South, which has a longstanding culture of militarism. Many people in the South have lived as professional soldiers or in communities that support military bases, and have done so for generations.
For the radical religious right, an American foreign policy based on militant nationalism has an almost holy virtue. They believe that the United States has been specially dedicated to Jesus Christ for His purposes. To question or resist militant nationalism is to be unpatriotic, and to be unpatriotic is to be un-Christian in the eyes of the religious right.
This perceived connection between the United States and Jesus Christ is important to understand, as it motivates much of the political activity of the religious right.
Another more troubling and perhaps less obvious effect of the exercise of power by the radical religious right will be the rise of militant nationalism in the United States.
Until the late 1970s, Christian fundamentalists were not particularly involved in politics. From the fundamentalist perspective, however, Christian believers are the "salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." (Matthew 5:13)
That scriptural injunction, along with others, is taken by fundamentalists to mean that they are held accountable by God to stem social rotting and corruption (like salt in meat) and to actively promote the sanctity of the United States.
Christian fundamentalists understand that God does not want them simply to be passive in the political sphere, minding their own business and practicing their religion in private. They believe that their God has solemnly enjoined them to force their biblical beliefs upon all levels of government, from local school boards to Congress and the Supreme Court.
At the same time, Christian fundamentalists believe that because of their active presence in the US political process, and because of earlier generations of pious Americans, the United States is special in the sight of God. Therefore, patriotism and militant nationalism are consistent with fundamentalist Christian beliefs.
Such thinking is remarkably similar in tone to that of the National Socialists in Germany. The Nazis held the absolute conviction that what was good for Germany and German supremacy was always right and was to be vigorously pursued at all costs, no matter how detrimental that might be for individuals, smaller groups.
Christian fundamentalists understand that God does not want them to be simply passive in the political sphere, minding their own business and practicing their religion in private.
The radical religious will seek to restrict not only freedom of thought but ultimately even freedom of religion itself.
In particular, once the radical religious right succeeded in establishing totalitarian control, it would likely make moderate forms of Christianity the targets of surveillance and persecution.
Fundamentalist Christians regard the "religious left," which includes Christian groups seeking to improve human rights and social conditions for the poor, as being under the influence of the spirit of Antichrist.
From the fundamentalist perspective, the spirit of Antichrist seeks to replace the gospel of Christ with liberal, secular thinking that appeals to the "unsaved" but that does not lead to true salvation.
In their view, only Christ can save the world from its problems. Any attempt to replace Christ with other solutions is ultimately motivated by Satanic forces. Socially progressive or charitable groups would find their freedom to operate and to express their views restricted.
. . .
Many pentecostal or "charismatic" Christians believe in demons, which are disembodied spirits in the service of Satan. Those spirits commonly enter human bodies and make people think or do sinful things by strengthening their "sinful nature."
Such Christians openly believe that liberal Christians are inhabited by demons of Antichrist that deceive them into playing into Satan's desperate attempt to keep the world from seeing the light of Christ's Word.
It is ironic that the religious right would seek to restrict religious freedom, because their own success in the United States has partly come from a liberal legal foundation that restricts state interference in religious affairs.
It is also ironic because many of the complaints made by Christian fundamentalists have been that the public school system forces their children to acquire secular humanist values.
The religious right may impose its cultural ideology through a national public school curriculum that will begin as an attempt to bring standards to education, but will grow steadily restrictive and prescriptive.
Education will perhaps be limited to teaching basic skills and moral lessons. Critical thinking will probably be explicitly eliminated from the new national curriculum. Christian fundamentalists have a bias against intellectual development and toward manual labor: "work with your own hands, as we commanded you" (I Thessalonians 4:11).
Fundamentalists believe that Satan is a fallen angel who has the power to "steal the seeds of faith" from God's children through the clever intellectual reasoning that he plants in the minds of educated unbelievers.
We only need to think of the intolerance of Puritans in colonial New England to realize that religious freedom in the United States has more often meant that the state could not interfere with the prevailing religion, and not that all religious practices or beliefs would be tolerated.
It's interesting that the type of American modeled by the Philadelphian Benjamin Franklin what the radical religious right seeks to extirpate. Franklin was a scientist, intellectual, publisher, the founder of the first public library, an internationalist in the context of his times, and a rationalist.
Fundamentalist Christians regard the "religious left," which includes Christian groups seeking to improve human rights and social conditions for the poor, as being under the influence of the spirit of Antichrist.
As do most radicalized political movements, the radical religious right considers itself to have been persecuted by mainstream society.
Christian fundamentalist leaders teach their followers that the educational, legislative, and judicial institutions of the West are in the hands of what they refer to as secular humanists, who are determined to curtail the rights of true Christians, either overtly through public policy or more stealthily through relentless exposure to the corrupted "worldly" media.
Just as Nazis claimed that Germany had been aggrieved by Communists and alleged Jewish internationalist conspirators, the belief in having been aggrieved by the American coastal urban establishment will be used as justification for the restrictions that the religious right will begin to impose on freedom of thought and expression in the United States.
Similar also to the Nazis, the religious right will seek to uphold what they deem to be the morality of common people, railing against degeneracy (as the Nazis railed against entartete Kunst).
Once fully in power, the religious right will regard alternative viewpoints as unacceptable rivals in their efforts to control the cultural life of the nation.
Admittedly, the legal tradition in the US makes it difficult for a government to directly curtail freedom of expression, but the radical religious right will work relentlessly to weaken legal protections and to impose their restrictions through any means possible.
Quite possibly the political proxies of the religious right in the executive branch of government will use security concerns as a cover for clamping down on freedom of expression.
The cycle will have come fully around when the radical religious right begins to prohibit competing religions. This is not as surprising an outcome as it may seem.
. . .
Many Christian fundamentalists take a dim view not only of nominal moderate Christians, but also of Catholics, whom they regard as Mary-worshippers and idolaters, and certainly of Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, and Muslims, all of whom they consider to live in spiritual darkness.
The attitude of Christian fundamentalists to Jewish people is noteworthy. Fundamentalists recognize that Jesus was Jewish and that Christianity grew out of Judaism. In fact, they believe that Christianity is the fulfillment or "perfection" of Judaism and the answer to the Abrahamic promises made by God to the Jewish people.
In that sense, fundamentalists consider Jews to be God's chosen people, but that they are lost in spiritual darkness until they accept Jesus as their Messiah. Christian fundamentalists see the Jewish religion as an obstacle to Jewish salvation.
That explains the odd problem that the Israeli government has long faced with extremist millenarian Christian fundamentalists coming to the State of Israel and attempting to make converts.
One of the fascinating facts about the radical religious right, and a fact that many opposing political activists will fail to realize, is that direct opposition only makes it stronger.
In the end, the radical religious right will brook no opposition to its total control of the United States. The religious right will use patriotism and national security concerns to solidify its grip on power.
The religious right is a grassroots movement as well as a national one. Local "cells" operating in churches run disciplined campaigns to win local offices by taking advantage of voter ignorance and apathy.
One of the fascinating facts about the radical religious right, and a fact that many opposing political activists will fail to realize, is that direct opposition only makes it stronger.
There is no way around this. The belief system of fundamentalism is constructed to sustain a perpetual siege mentality, and this siege mentality in turn makes the belief system seem even more real and urgent to fundamentalists when they perceive themselves to be under attack.
Many fundamentalists consider that their attackers may be empowered by trans-human, Satanically-aligned intelligences. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12).
Overt opposition will only radicalize the radical religious right even further. In fact, if they fail to get their way through legitimate political means, they might eventually turn to terrorism, as some have done in bombing abortion clinics and shooting physicians who practice abortion.
When groups become radicalized, they start to believe that the nobility of their ends justifies any means, and they slip into thinking that any action, including violence and lying, is necessary and appropriate.
The best hope we have of taming the radical religious right is to bring it out of the shadows. If mainstream Americans understood what the radical religious right actually stands for and plans to do, they would be shocked.
Further, one of the engines driving the fundamentalist right is Pentecostalism.
Pentecostalists are convinced that Christ will return to earth in bodily form within the next few years. They believe that when he appears his followers will be instantly transformed and given immortal bodies. Many even believe in a "rapture," in which Christ's believers will be physically snatched up and will fly into the sky at the moment Christ returns.
People who hold such beliefs feel little commitment to improving present institutions or to working to solve ecological problems. Many feel that global ecological disasters are inevitably part of the "end times" that were supposedly predicted in biblical verses.
The only way to stem the rising tide of Christian Nationalism and the religious right is for ordinary Americans to better understand what the religious right is and what it truly stands for. It has gained power only by keeping its true intentions under wraps, by using the Republican Party as a cover, and by portraying itself as conservative rather than radical.
Extreme political movements are a social disease, a symptom of weakened overall health in a society. Societies that are open and at peace do not fall prey as easily to political extremism.
The best hope we have of taming the radical religious right is to bring it out of the shadows. If mainstream Americans understood what the radical religious right actually stands for and what it plans to do, they would be shocked.
There is no appreciable difference between Islamic fundamentalism and the radical Christian right.
Indeed, it isn't too great an exaggeration to say that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a fairly clear model of where the religious right wants to take the United States. Only the details differ.
|
C. Glenn Begley and Lee M. Ellis propose how methods, publications and incentives must change if patients are to benefit.
Efforts over the past decade to characterize the genetic alterations in human cancers have led to a better understanding of molecular drivers of this complex set of diseases. Although we in the cancer field hoped that this would lead to more effective drugs, historically, our ability to translate cancer research to clinical success has been remarkably low1. Sadly, clinical trials in oncology have the highest failure rate compared with other therapeutic areas. Given the high unmet need in oncology, it is understandable that barriers to clinical development may be lower than for other disease areas, and a larger number of drugs with suboptimal preclinical validation will enter oncology trials. However, this low success rate is not sustainable or acceptable, and investigators must reassess their approach to translating discovery research into greater clinical success and impact.
Many factors are responsible for the high failure rate, notwithstanding the inherently difficult nature of this disease. Certainly, the limitations of preclinical tools such as inadequate cancer-cell-line and mouse models2 make it difficult for even the best scientists working in optimal conditions to make a discovery that will ultimately have an impact in the clinic. Issues related to clinical-trial design — such as uncontrolled phase II studies, a reliance on standard criteria for evaluating tumour response and the challenges of selecting patients prospectively — also play a significant part in the dismal success rate3.
Many landmark findings in preclinical oncology research are not reproducible, in part because of inadequate cell lines and animal models. Image: S. GSCHMEISSNER/SPL
Unquestionably, a significant contributor to failure in oncology trials is the quality of published preclinical data. Drug development relies heavily on the literature, especially with regards to new targets and biology. Moreover, clinical endpoints in cancer are defined mainly in terms of patient survival, rather than by the intermediate endpoints seen in other disciplines (for example, cholesterol levels for statins). Thus, it takes many years before the clinical applicability of initial preclinical observations is known. The results of preclinical studies must therefore be very robust to withstand the rigours and challenges of clinical trials, stemming from the heterogeneity of both tumours and patients.
Confirming research findings
The scientific community assumes that the claims in a preclinical study can be taken at face value — that although there might be some errors in detail, the main message of the paper can be relied on and the data will, for the most part, stand the test of time. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Although the issue of irreproducible data has been discussed between scientists for decades, it has recently received greater attention (see go.nature.com/q7i2up) as the costs of drug development have increased along with the number of late-stage clinical-trial failures and the demand for more effective therapies.
Over the past decade, before pursuing a particular line of research, scientists (including C.G.B.) in the haematology and oncology department at the biotechnology firm Amgen in Thousand Oaks, California, tried to confirm published findings related to that work. Fifty-three papers were deemed 'landmark' studies (see 'Reproducibility of research findings'). It was acknowledged from the outset that some of the data might not hold up, because papers were deliberately selected that described something completely new, such as fresh approaches to targeting cancers or alternative clinical uses for existing therapeutics. Nevertheless, scientific findings were confirmed in only 6 (11%) cases. Even knowing the limitations of preclinical research, this was a shocking result.
Table 1: Reproducibility of research findings Preclinical research generates many secondary publications, even when results cannot be reproduced. Full size table
Of course, the validation attempts may have failed because of technical differences or difficulties, despite efforts to ensure that this was not the case. Additional models were also used in the validation, because to drive a drug-development programme it is essential that findings are sufficiently robust and applicable beyond the one narrow experimental model that may have been enough for publication. To address these concerns, when findings could not be reproduced, an attempt was made to contact the original authors, discuss the discrepant findings, exchange reagents and repeat experiments under the authors' direction, occasionally even in the laboratory of the original investigator. These investigators were all competent, well-meaning scientists who truly wanted to make advances in cancer research.
In studies for which findings could be reproduced, authors had paid close attention to controls, reagents, investigator bias and describing the complete data set. For results that could not be reproduced, however, data were not routinely analysed by investigators blinded to the experimental versus control groups. Investigators frequently presented the results of one experiment, such as a single Western-blot analysis. They sometimes said they presented specific experiments that supported their underlying hypothesis, but that were not reflective of the entire data set. There are no guidelines that require all data sets to be reported in a paper; often, original data are removed during the peer review and publication process.
Unfortunately, Amgen's findings are consistent with those of others in industry. A team at Bayer HealthCare in Germany last year reported4 that only about 25% of published preclinical studies could be validated to the point at which projects could continue. Notably, published cancer research represented 70% of the studies analysed in that report, some of which might overlap with the 53 papers examined at Amgen.
Some non-reproducible preclinical papers had spawned an entire field, with hundreds of secondary publications that expanded on elements of the original observation, but did not actually seek to confirm or falsify its fundamental basis. More troubling, some of the research has triggered a series of clinical studies — suggesting that many patients had subjected themselves to a trial of a regimen or agent that probably wouldn't work.
These results, although disturbing, do not mean that the entire system is flawed. There are many examples of outstanding research that has been rapidly and reliably translated into clinical benefit. In 2011, several new cancer drugs were approved, built on robust preclinical data. However, the inability of industry and clinical trials to validate results from the majority of publications on potential therapeutic targets suggests a general, systemic problem. On speaking with many investigators in academia and industry, we found widespread recognition of this issue.
Improving the preclinical environment
How can the robustness of published preclinical cancer research be increased? Clearly there are fundamental problems in both academia and industry in the way such research is conducted and reported. Addressing these systemic issues will require tremendous commitment and a desire to change the prevalent culture. Perhaps the most crucial element for change is to acknowledge that the bar for reproducibility in performing and presenting preclinical studies must be raised.
An enduring challenge in cancer-drug development lies in the erroneous use and misinterpretation of preclinical data from cell lines and animal models. The limitations of preclinical cancer models have been widely reviewed and are largely acknowledged by the field. They include the use of small numbers of poorly characterized tumour cell lines that inadequately recapitulate human disease, an inability to capture the human tumour environment, a poor appreciation of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and the use of problematic endpoints and testing strategies. In addition, preclinical testing rarely includes predictive biomarkers that, when advanced to clinical trials, will help to distinguish those patients who are likely to benefit from a drug.
Wide recognition of the limitations in preclinical cancer studies means that business as usual is no longer an option. Cancer researchers must be more rigorous in their approach to preclinical studies. Given the inherent difficulties of mimicking the human micro-environment in preclinical research, reviewers and editors should demand greater thoroughness.
As with clinical studies, preclinical investigators should be blinded to the control and treatment arms, and use only rigorously validated reagents. All experiments should include and show appropriate positive and negative controls. Critical experiments should be repeated, preferably by different investigators in the same lab, and the entire data set must be represented in the final publication. For example, showing data from tumour models in which a drug is inactive, and may not completely fit an original hypothesis, is just as important as showing models in which the hypothesis was confirmed.
Studies should not be published using a single cell line or model, but should include a number of well-characterized cancer cell lines that are representative of the intended patient population. Cancer researchers must commit to making the difficult, time-consuming and costly transition towards new research tools, as well as adopting more robust, predictive tumour models and improved validation strategies. Similarly, efforts to identify patient-selection biomarkers should be mandatory at the outset of drug development.
“The scientific process demands the highest standards of quality, ethics and rigour.”
Ultimately, however, the responsibility for design, analysis and presentation of data rests with investigators, the laboratory and the host institution. All are accountable for poor experimental design, a lack of robust supportive data or selective data presentation. The scientific process demands the highest standards of quality, ethics and rigour.
Building a stronger system
What reasons underlie the publication of erroneous, selective or irreproducible data? The academic system and peer-review process tolerates and perhaps even inadvertently encourages such conduct5. To obtain funding, a job, promotion or tenure, researchers need a strong publication record, often including a first-authored high-impact publication. Journal editors, reviewers and grant-review committees often look for a scientific finding that is simple, clear and complete — a 'perfect' story. It is therefore tempting for investigators to submit selected data sets for publication, or even to massage data to fit the underlying hypothesis.
But there are no perfect stories in biology. In fact, gaps in stories can provide opportunities for further research — for example, a treatment that may work in only some cell lines may allow elucidation of markers of sensitivity or resistance. Journals and grant reviewers must allow for the presentation of imperfect stories, and recognize and reward reproducible results, so that scientists feel less pressure to tell an impossibly perfect story to advance their careers.
Although reviewers, editors and grant-committee members share some responsibility for flaws in the system, investigators must be accountable for the data they generate, analyse and submit. We in the field must remain focused on the purpose of cancer research: to improve the lives of patients. Success in our own careers should be a consequence of outstanding research that has an impact on patients.
The lack of rigour that currently exists around generation and analysis of preclinical data is reminiscent of the situation in clinical research about 50 years ago. The changes that have taken place in clinical-trials processes over that time indicate that changes in prevailing attitudes and philosophies can occur (see 'Improving the reliability of preclinical cancer studies').
Box 1: Recommendations: Improving the reliability of preclinical cancer studies We recommend the following steps to change the culture of oncology research and improve the relevance of translational studies: There must be more opportunities to present negative data. It should be the expectation that negative preclinical data will be presented at conferences and in publications. Preclinical investigators should be required to report all findings, regardless of the outcome. To facilitate this, funding agencies, reviewers and journal editors must agree that negative data can be just as informative as positive data.
Journal editors must play an active part in initiating a cultural change. There must be mechanisms to report negative data that are accessible through PubMed or other search engines. There should be links to journal articles in which investigators have reported alternative findings to those in an initial (sometimes considered landmark) publication. One suggestion is to include 'tags' that report whether the key findings of a seminal paper were confirmed.
There should be transparent opportunities for trainees, technicians and colleagues to discuss and report troubling or unethical behaviours without fearing adverse consequences.
Greater dialogue should be encouraged between physicians, scientists, patient advocates and patients. Scientists benefit from learning about clinical reality. Physicians need better knowledge of the challenges and limitations of preclinical studies. Both groups benefit from improved understanding of patients' concerns.
Institutions and committees should give more credit for teaching and mentoring: relying solely on publications in top-tier journals as the benchmark for promotion or grant funding can be misleading, and does not recognize the valuable contributions of great mentors, educators and administrators.
Funding organizations must recognize and embrace the need for new cancer-research tools and assist in their development, and in providing greater community access to those tools. Examples include support for establishing large cancer cell-line collections with easy investigator access (a simple, universal material-transfer agreement); capabilities for genetic characterization of newly derived tumour cell lines and xenografts; identification of patient selection biomarkers; and generation of more robust, predictive tumour models. C.G.B. and L.M.E.
Improving preclinical cancer research to the point at which it is reproducible and translatable to clinical-trial success will be an extraordinarily difficult challenge. However, it is important to remember that patients are at the centre of all these efforts. If we in the field forget this, it is easy to lose our sense of focus, transparency and urgency. Cancer researchers are funded by community taxes and by the hard work and philanthropic donations of advocates. More importantly, patients rely on us to embrace innovation, make advances and deliver new therapies that will improve their lives. Although hundreds of thousands of research papers are published annually, too few clinical successes have been produced given the public investment of significant financial resources. We need a system that will facilitate a transparent discovery process that frequently and consistently leads to significant patient benefit.
References 1. Hutchinson, L. & Kirk, R. Nature Rev. Clin. Oncol. 8, 189–190 (2011). 2. Francia, G. & Kerbel, R. S. Nature Biotechnol. 28, 561–562 (2010). 3. Rubin, E. H. & Gilliland, D. G. Nature Rev. Clin. Oncol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2012.22 (2012). 4. Prinz, F., Schlange, T. & Asadullah, K. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 10, 712 (2011). 5. Fanelli, D. PLoS ONE 5, e10271 (2010). Download references
Rights and permissions To obtain permission to re-use content from this article visit RightsLink.
About this article Publication history Published 28 March 2012 DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/483531a
See Editorial p.509
|
CASH Conference: exploring basic income in a changing economy
cara rose defabio Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 28, 2017
The Economic Security Project invites you to our first ever CASH Conference this fall in San Francisco. We will meet at the historic Old Mint, a building that once housed a third of our nation’s wealth, to reimagine what an economy built on the well-being of everyone could look like. We want to redefine what ‘work’ means and explore how a basic income could provide economic stability to Americans and fundamentally change society. We’ll talk to experts about the evidence for unconditional cash, examine why a basic income may be our best shot at alleviating poverty, surface the history of a guaranteed income in the fight for civil rights, and look at the kind of societal shifts automation could bring. We are bringing together artists, academics, activists and curious newcomers for a day of challenging conversations as we forge ahead towards a more secure future, and we want you there.
Can’t get the day off of work for the conference? Join us after 6:00pm for an evening of cocktails in the vaults, art activations from the Museum of Capitalism, and soon to be announced guests you won’t want to miss!
This event is free and you can register here.
Thursday, October 19th
The San Francisco Mint, 88 5th Street, San Francisco
*event is free with registration and entrance is first come, first serve
*venue is wheelchair accesible; please contact us with any accessibility concerns
|
Ultra-Fast Internet Speeds Available to Homes, Apartments and Small Business Locations in Parts of Tulsa Area
AT&T* is now offering a 1 gigabit connection1 on our 100% fiber network powered by AT&T FiberSM to customer locations in parts of the Tulsa area, including in parts of Tulsa, Jenks, Owasso and surrounding communities. 2
The Tulsa area is one of 55 metros nationwide where our ultra-fast internet service is currently available. We plan to reach at least 75 metros with our fastest internet service.
Today, we market a 1 gigabit connection 1 on our 100% fiber network to over 5.5 million locations across 55 metros. We plan to reach at least 12.5 million locations by mid-2019.
“We are proud to add Tulsa to our list of cities where we plan to bring our fastest internet speed tier available,” said Steve Hahn, president of AT&T Oklahoma. “AT&T’s ultrafast internet speeds will open more possibilities for our customers. They can enjoy doing the things they love online, faster than ever.”
“High-speed internet has quickly become a preferred way to access information and communicate,” said Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum. “I am glad to see this investment from AT&T, and am certain that the increased ability to tout Tulsa’s connectivity to fiber internet further strengthens the reputation of our community.”
AT&T Internet 1000 is our fastest internet speed tier on our 100% fiber network. It is offered at $70 per month for customers who bundle with other AT&T service on a single bill. Or only $80 per month standalone for 12 months. 3 Either way, there are no extra monthly fees and equipment is included with a 12-month agreement. Customers are also able to add our award-winning DIRECTV or U-verse TV service as well. We have single, double and triple play offers to fit each customer’s needs.
What can I do with a service that starts with a 1 gig connection?
You can download 25 songs in 1 second or your favorite 90-minute HD movie in less than 34 seconds.4 Customers can enjoy our fastest upload and download speeds.
You can also quickly access and stream the latest online movies, music and games. These ultrafast speeds let you easily telecommute, video-conference, upload and download photos and videos, and connect faster to the cloud.
What is AT&T Fiber?
Our 100% fiber network under the AT&T Fiber umbrella brand lets customers choose from a range of internet speeds, all over an ultrafast internet connection. This 100% fiber network is just one of the network technologies we plan to use to connect customers as a part of AT&T Fiber.
Frost & Sullivan recently recognized AT&T for its leadership in high-speed internet services. It awarded AT&T the 2016 Company of the Year Award for Broadband Access. The analyst firm praised AT&T for “rapidly evolving into a new form of telecommunications company; one that is based on the delivery of broadband access, both fixed and mobile, as well as services that ride that access.”
For more information on AT&T Fiber, visit att.com/getfiber .
AT&T in Oklahoma:
AT&T has invested more than $775 million in its wireless and wireline networks in Oklahoma between 2014 and 2016. This drives upgrades to reliability, coverage, speed and performance for residents and business customers.
1Actual customer speeds may vary. Download speeds are typically up to 940Mbps due to overhead capacity reserved to deliver the data.
2Initial availability limited to select areas. May not be available in your area. Go to https://www.att.com/internet/ to see if you qualify.
3After 12 months, price moves to standard rate of $90/mo.
4Speed/Time examples are estimates.
|
MP3 Direct Download | iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Feed
In light of the recent online hysteria surrounding the Hampstead satanic abuse allegations, it might be worth putting the story within some kind of historical context. As the old proverb says, those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
It’s not the first time allegations of Satanic Ritual Abuse have been made and it won’t be the last. This is because a rich mythology has been created off the back of every well-publicised false allegation. From the McMartin preschool trial in the United States in the 80s, to the dawn raids in Rochdale, England in 1990, not one satanic abuse network in the modern context has ever been proven to exist.
Despite this fact people tend to remember the sensationalism of each case, and the fear and rumors generated by it – not the final verdict, which has always been acquittal or at least the overturning of a wrongful conviction.
The truth of each case gets lost in time and hangers on reposition themselves as experts, poised for the next case to emerge, where they’ll remind everybody of the mythology but not the reality.
Yet while this is self evident if one studies the timeline of cases, it doesn’t explain how the mythology originally came in to existence. People have always seen devils and demons as an outgrowth of religion and superstition, but the satanic ritual abuse idea emerged at a specific time in modern history and has a very specific set of themes.
1) Child Sexual Abuse
2) Infanticide (mass murder of babies)
3) Blood Drinking
4) Ritual (regalia, chanting, rites, devil worship)
5) A Widespread Network
6) Impossible Allegations (flying, magic and the supernatural)
When a new case like Hampstead pops it to existence it’s almost as if the alleged victims or those encouraging them have a memory bank of these themes which they have projected on to the story. That’s because they do. They come from past cases, but more interestingly – works of fiction that have directly influenced those cases.
Let’s look at 7 works of fiction that helped create the satanic ritual abuse mythology …
The Satan Seller (1973)
Mike Warnke’s book The Satan Seller (1973) did not directly reference satanic ritual abuse in regard to children, but it did establish some of the satanic themes and rites, and is a starting point for the panic that would follow, due to how it was widely shared along the bible belt of America. He continued ideas popularized by the likes of Rosemary’s Baby – the novel and film that reached wide appeal a few years prior, as well as the emerging ritualism of LaVeyan Satanism – and boldly declared that he had spent years in a real satanic cult.
He claimed to have been a high priest presiding over thousands of Satanists, in three cities. He describes the kidnapping, brainwashing and ritual rape of a young woman, as well as the summoning of demons through spells, and blood drinking rituals.
But after having a change of heart, instead of surrendering himself to the cops for his crimes and handing over evidence to track down the cult and put a stop to them, he did what any morally sound and good natured person would do … he found God and became a preacher, selling his story as he went!
He promoted his book as a true life account (rather than a novel) and declared that his satanic network really did worship the devil and commit crime and abuse (unlike Anton LaVey’s harmless but antagonistic brand of atheism). This gave the churches the perfect fodder to confirm their congregation’s fears. Satan was real and the degradation of society was was down to him.
Remember, this was the late 60s/70s era when the younger generations were first beginning to reject their puritanical parents and religion, when heavy metal music was on the rise, and people were not only experimenting with drugs but also different belief systems, several which did give rise to damaging cults. In fact Warnke claimed to have attended rituals with Charles Manson, the evil archetype of the era.
The fundamentalists had a collective anxiety because they didn’t understand how the world was changing and what their children were doing, and men like Warnke gave them a specific target to unleash their negative energy towards – the satanic cults!
He travelled the networks of churches across the country, released his presentations on tape and album, appeared on TV, and as the title of the book suggests, he sold Satan to the masses.
Only it was all bullshit. Many people knew that from the beginning, but it took a popular Christian publication (the irony) to expose his timeline of events and track down the people who he was really hanging out with during his so called 8 year satanic crash course.
Ultimately Mike Warnke recanted a lot of his claims and decided to drop the act and become a Christian comedian. If only he read some of the Satan Seller’s pages on stage, they are hilarious.
Pheww! Good job old Deano had taught you what to do. What a laughing stock you would have been if that demon didn’t appear before everyone’s eyes.
Despite our ability to laugh at this absurd relic of religious paranoia, his book did very real damage that is still being felt to this day. He essentially popularized the modern concept of criminal satanic cults ritualistically abusing people, and sucked up millions in donations for churches in the process. Unfortunately the worse was yet to come.
Michelle Remembers (1980)
The satanic ritual abuse concept really took off Michelle Remembers (1980), which was written by Canadian psychotherapist Lawrence Pazder and his patient Michelle Smith. In fact it was Pazder who first coined the term “ritual abuse” in the book.
The story documents Pazder’s so called therapy sessions with depressive Michelle, that began in 1973, the same year The Satan Seller was published and during the excitement surrounding the Exorcist movie. After a rather routine couple of years the book claims Michelle suddenly went in to a possessed like trance during one of these sessions, and began regressing to the state of a 5 year old girl. Over the next 600 hours of sessions Pazder claimed he used “hypnosis techniques” to recover alleged memories of ritual abuse that occurred in the 50s at the hands of Michelle’s mother Virginia and a satanic cult.
Smith claims to have been sexually abused, forced to drink blood at “satan’s altar,” and witnessed the ritual murder of babies.
The story is absurd, but these themes became the backbone of thousands of allegations that would emerge in the 80s, none of which ever had any merit beyond certain isolated cases of child abuse.
Many of these cases emerged from Pazder’s own “hypnosis techniques” as a whole community of therapists began to claim the ability to recover hidden memories of child abuse that patients had buried because of trauma.
Today Modern psychology rejects the methods of Repressed Memory Therapy and warns that it is impossible to distinguish between a real and false memory without corroborative evidence, and that therapists may well be implanting the memories in to their patients through suggestion or encouragement. British guidelines advise psychotherapists that so called repressed memories can be metaphorical or outright fantasies, and without corroborative evidence should be interpreted as such.
The ending of Michelle Remembers claims 5 year old Michelle was subjected to an 81 day long ritual, which culminated in the devil himself being summoned – only for Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael to come down and save the day, conveniently removing all the scarring and physical signs of abuse from Michelle’s body.
Despite these impossible allegations, the Christian community and most of the mainstream media welcomed the book at face value and Pazder was christened the go-to expert when similar criminal cases would soon emerge after the book’s publication. One of those was the McMartin Daycare scandal that erupted in 1983 after mother Judy Johnson claimed to believe her son had been molested by teacher Ray Buckey. This escalated to claims of bestiality, children being attacked with drills, and supernatural occurrences like levitation.
After an initial investigation and round of questioning police determined there was no evidence, but made the foolish mistake of sending all the parents of the children at the daycare a letter, informing them that their kids “may” have been abused.
This obviously caused a great panic and many more allegations began to emerge. It was determined that hundreds of children should all be interviewed, and Pazder was brought on as an expert consultant by the families because of his work with Michelle. This was foolish because no formal investigation or material evidence had ever been presented for the content of his book.
The hysteria grew exponentially. Flying witches, blood drinking, secret orgies at car washes and other seemingly public places, were all claimed. Then there were the secret tunnels underground, and rape in a space ship. The children were allegedly flushed down special toilets that ejected them in to underground satanic temples, before sucking them back up to be cleaned before home time.
This hodgepodge of delusional paranoia lead to the most expensive series of criminal trials in US history at the time. They lasted for 6 years, and targeted daycare matriarch Virginia McMartin, Ray Buckey, his wife and Virginia’s daughter Peggy McMartin Buckey, Ray’s sister Peggy Ann Buckey and teachers Mary Ann Jackson, Betty Raidor, and Babette Spitler. They were charged with 321 counts of child abuse, based almost entirely on the children’s varied, contradictory and impossible testimony.
Ultimately no convictions ever materialized, but all of those accused spent some time within the system. Ray Buckey lost 5 years of his life before being acquitted in 1990.
Since then the case has been vigorously studied by all manner of experts and academics, and it is now accepted that the overall body of the children’s allegations were created by the coercion of the interviewers, who went against California guidelines at the time. A sample of such coercion can be read here.
“Never did anyone do anything to me, and I never saw them doing anything. I said a lot of things that didn’t happen. I lied,” revealed alleged victim Kyle Zirpolo in 2005. “Anytime I would give them an answer that they didn’t like, they would ask again and encourage me to give them the answer they were looking for … I felt uncomfortable and a little ashamed that I was being dishonest. But at the same time, being the type of person I was, whatever my parents wanted me to do, I would do.”
Several conflicts of interest were also observed in the case, including the history of mental illness from the original mother, the prosecution using an inmate with a history of perjury and giving him immunity from perjury if he testified against Ray Buckey, and the dubious characters like Pazder having influence over the case.
Interestingly one of the key local reporters who showed a bias towards the allegations ended up in a relationship with one of the children’s key interviewers, and David Rosenzweig, the editor at the Los Angeles Times at the time, became engaged to marry Lael Rubin, the prosecutor in the case.
It might also be worth noting that Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith both divorced their previous partners and married before Michelle Remembers was published.
Satan’s Underground (1988)
During the midst of the McMartin case and other similar trials, a woman using the name Lauren Stratford came along to add to the growing hysteria of satanic ritual abuse. She claimed to be a survivor of such abuse and alleged she had a lesbian relationship with the preschool’s matriarch Virginia McMartin.
In 1988 Stratford and her evangelical preacher friend Johanna Michaelsen published the book Satan’s Underground: The Extraordinary Story of One Woman’s Escape. This lead to Stratford appearing on chat shows like Oprah to share her “experience” of being raised in a satanic cult and witnessing and partaking in ritualistic sexual abuse and murder of children.
Her major contribution to the mythology was the concept of infanticide or the mass ritualistic murder of babies. She claimed to be a baby breeder, the person tasked with birthing and acquiring the infants for sacrifices to Satan.
Off the back of these claims she also associated herself with the infamous Kern County child abuse cases which emerged not long after McMartin. In total 36 people were convicted based only on flimsy testimony, and most spent years in jail before having their convictions overturned. Many of the alleged victims later admitted there was no truth to their stories and said they were encouraged by various adults in their families and the system to make things up.
It has since emerged that local Kern County social workers had attended a “training seminar” where the book Michelle Remembers was used as a manual. As for Stratford, despite trying her best to latch on to the cases even the investigators sent her packing, but her book would still get major publicity.
Just like Warnke, after she managed to escape the satanic cult she decided selling her story was more important than handing herself in with evidence to catch the other culprits. No missing babies or remains of babies have ever been discovered in relation to her claims, and later investigations revealed that none of her dates matched up and nobody who ever knew her by her real name Laurel Rose Willson, had ever known her to be pregnant nor part of a cult.
She did however have a history of mental illness, and once her publisher pulled her book for being a hoax she changed her name to Laura Grabowski and began claiming to be a holocaust survivor.
Her preacher friend Michaelsen is still active on Facebook sharing stories about Israel and Palestine, and stylising herself as an “expert” on the occult.
As for Kern County, a grass roots movement grew in support of those wrongly convicted and a documentary called Witch Hunt charts their story and leaves a lot of the blame at the doorstep of district attorney Ed Jagels.
Geraldo and 20/20
The news and chat show media played an important role in spreading the fraudulent survivor stories to wider public. In 1985 ABC News series 20/20 did an “investigative” piece on The Devil Worshippers.
Cutting through the imagery, creepy music, and claims of known liars, it only really focussed on a few isolated cases of church vandalism, violent criminality, and teenage rebellion. Nonetheless the slick production and faux concern from the hosts certainly fanned the flames. One Youtube user comments: “I remember my mom took my metal albums after watching this.”
During the show the narrator made reference to the movie Rosemary’s Baby, commenting: “These fictional devil worshippers are strikingly similar to that of real life Satanists,” though perhaps a simpler explanation is that fantasists were simply crafting stories based on more popular stories from cinema.
Talking heads on the program included none other than our old pals Lawrence Pazder and Mike Warnke, the latter who was described as “a former Satanist” and “high priest.”
He actually admits it was movies with satanic themes that peaked his interest and started him down the path to Satan. But since his own book is a work of fiction, and most of this very broadcast’s claims are false or sensationalized, neither he nor ABC News are separate from the fiction they claimed was impacting society.
It would seem rather than fiction leading to the widespread occurrence of real Satanism at the time, both forms of fiction (traditional and hoax stories presented as real) actually lead to a paranoia that didn’t have any basis in reality. The real widespread network – of true believers – did real damage in the form of hysteria and witch hunts, but actual Satanism and ritual abuse itself was nowhere to be found.
The most distasteful part of the program sees the host Charles Gibson talking to two young boys and getting them to re-enact their tale of ritualistically stabbing a baby, with a butter knife and a doll. Despite police admitting that there was no evidence that this really happened, nobody seemed to have any problem with exploiting the poor children, while endorsing a can of “Crush” soda in the process.
In his book “Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend” in 1993, sociologist Jeffrey S. Victor concluded that the 20/20 program was important in giving the panic credibility in the eyes of the wider public.
An even more sensationalist show aired in 1988 when moustachioed hack reporter Geraldo Rivera stole the name of Lauren Stratford’s book, and decided to expose “Satan’s Underground.”
Cut together with satanic imagery, interviews with “experts”, and a live studio audience, Geraldo “investigated” everything from the McMartin case, to heavy metal music. He even had a bewildered Ozzy Osborne live via satellite to answer for his satanic lyrics.
Stratford herself also appeared on the show to retell her fraudulent story of being a “breeder” of babies to be sacrificed. Zeena Schreck, the daughter of Anton LaVey quite rightly asked “where are the bodies?” And Michael Aquino founder of the Temple of Set, challenged notorious former FBI agent Ted Gunderson, to name and arrest the culprits if he had the evidence.
Gunderson who passed away in 2011 became a prominent talking head in the wider conspiracy community, buddying up to the likes of Alex Jones and lending his air of authority to a number of theories beyond satanic ritual abuse. It’s concerning that a former FBI agent who was high up in the chain during the declassified COINTELPRO era, would be accepted at face value by so many people.
The Satanic Indicators
It wasn’t just the United States where the satanic panic took hold. By the 90s it had reached the UK with similar cases and the same checklist of themes. We had our own psychotherapists like Dr. Valerie Sinason making claims of widespread satanic ritual abuse, based solely on what she’d encouraged from her mentally unstable patients, never seeking any corroborative evidence.
Our social workers were also influenced by self-styled experts in conferences and “training seminars,” which sometimes hosted guests from the United States.
The hysteria really got rolling when the NSPCC Charity shared a list known as the Satanic Indicators.
Intended for social workers, it outlined so called signs that a child may be a victim of satanic ritual abuse, despite the concept having never even been proven.
Armed with their new found knowledge about the devil and encouraged by Christian elements within the social services and wider community, children began to be snatched by the state from their parents in a series of paranoid and baseless cases.
One of the most high profile of these was the 1990 case in Rochdale where a total of 12 children were wrongly removed from five families, several in dawn raids by police. Allegations ranged from the sacrifice of human babies and robed devil worship, to locking the children in cages and caves. None of the claims were ever proven, and all of the children were eventually returned to their families, 10 years later in the worst instance. Many of the alleged victims later spoke out in a documentary about the very real abuse they suffered when being forced to undergo “medical examinations” at the behest of those who had snatched them.
Video tapes of the children’s interviews were eventually released and showed how the social workers coerced and encouraged the stories.
One social worker involved in the Rochdale case – Liz McLean – just a few months later would become the central figure in another case in the Scottish Orkeny Island of South Ronaldsay. Once again children were snatched in police raids and their parents accused of satanic ritual abuse.
Evidence gathered and recorded as three masks, two hoods, and one black cloak, turned out to actually be three nativity masks, two academic hoods that you’d wear for graduation, and one priest’s robe.
A hand made child’s model plane was recorded as a “wooden cross,” and a video tape of the Blackadder comedy was seized.
The children themselves denied they had been abused. Recalling the saga later as an adult, one victim described how Liz McLean tried to force her to go along with it:
I was terrified of her. She was very intimidating, very controlling. I was always small when I was a child but she would lean over me. She got very angry. She would want me to agree with what she was saying. They were mentioning about private parts, things like that. Asking me, did one of the grown-ups touch you and touch your brothers and sisters in your private parts? They would want me to agree with it. And when Liz McLean couldn’t get me to agree with it, she would ask me to draw a picture. So I drew a picture of my pony. That wasn’t right. Then I drew a picture of us playing football. That wasn’t right. Eventually, she pulled this piece of paper out which had a circle on it, and she said, ‘Copy that.’ So I drew a circle and she said, ‘Draw little stick men round it,’ and that’s what I did. And she said, ‘You’re being very good.’ And that was the meetings.
It seems even where the Satanic Indicators didn’t fit, some social workers made them fit.
Dispatches – Listen to the Children (1990)
In 1990 feminist activist and journalist Beatrix Campbell produced an episode of Channel 4’s investigative series Dispatches, having become a leading media figure in the UK’s satanic ritual abuse hysteria, (she had previously sided with social workers in cases like Orkney). Her program “Listen to the Children” revisited a high profile case from 1987 in Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, where several children were placed in to care. After an initial investigation, evidence was presented and a jury convicted 9 adults of being involved in an incest ring, spanning several generations within one extended family.
The nature of such a case means that not all of the facts will have come to light, but the local authority were happy that the children were safe and the majority of those leading the abuse were convicted. The case was summarized in another channel 4 documentary.
In the beginning there was no sign of Satanism, not from the children’s testimony, nor from any evidence gathered from the abusers. It was only after the children were in care that more allegations emerged. Untrained foster parents were asked by social workers to note down any further disclosures the children made, despite police closing the criminal case. One of the first disclosures noted was that the children had allegedly circled in a group and danced around a doll, some going in to the middle and jumping on it. The foster parent would later say in Campbell’s piece that she assumed this was a satanic ritual and the doll was a real life baby.
The group of foster parents began to meet up and share stories, and gradually a wide range of new allegations emerged, including that the children were taken to parties and churches with witches and hooded figures, where blood drinking and rituals would take place, as well as the murder of babies.
At the behest of the foster parents and social workers police opened up a second investigation to get to the bottom of the new satanic allegations. Teams returned to the houses of the abusers and tore them apart in search of any hidden evidence, as well as checking the gardens for graves or sacrifice remains. Nothing was found. They then searched the wider Nottingham area, including alleged locations of abuse, such as Wollaton Hall, an Elizabethan country house and park, owned by the council and open to the public. Again nothing was found.
There were also no tunnels found between Wollaton Hall and other nearby properties as alleged. And while one “tunnel” was found in a local cemetery, it was known to the public. It was simply an old route where funeral processions would follow in to the church grounds.
The investigation deemed that the amateur interviewing of the children by the foster carers and their encouragement by social workers obsessed with satanic ritual abuse, might put the original case in jeopardy, should defence attorneys argue that investigators were entertaining absurdities. If they could prove that B was false, then maybe A was false too. Police once again closed the case, causing a rift between the two parties.
By this point the “satanic indicators” and wider US-centric hysteria had been spread among the social workers and foster parents, and satanic “experts” were brought on board to fan the flames of the panic. Now even more allegations and locations were made.
It was ultimately decided that an independent enquiry involving police and social workers outside of the case, be brought in to come to an independent conclusion. By 1990 their findings were released in the Joint Enquiry or JET Report and determined that “there is no evidence of Satanic ritual abuse in the Broxtowe case or its aftermath,” and that the social workers and the foster parents were influenced by the unsubstantiated “satanic indicators.”
Parts of the Social Services Department appear to have developed over the last two years a belief system in ritualistic Satanic abuse which is unwittingly resulting in children being encouraged to believe in and allege bizarre abuse. This could lead eventually to grave injustice and if unchecked it has the ingredients of a modern ‘witch hunt.’
This didn’t stop Beatrix Campbell peddling her Dispatches documentary. It sought to restate the satanic allegations and framed itself as giving the children a voice. It did not take on board any of the JET findings and even retraced old allegations that had already been debunked by police, as “new evidence.”
Dispatches “listen to the children” – annotated by the Sub-culture Alternatives Freedom Foundation, SAFF
In one sensational scene Campbell treks down the aforementioned graveyard tunnel with a flash light. It certainly gives the appearance of something creepy, but the tunnel was not secret and had already been investigated. It was a known feature that the public were well aware of. It’s presence alone is hardly evidence of a Satanic cult. On the contrary it was part of a Christian church’s grounds, the antithesis of satanic.
Campbell then breaks in (or was let in by the caretaker) to the cemetery’s “lodge,” and rummages around in a draw. She finds some junk and a dildo, which she puts back with disgust. The irony of a lesbian feminist activist’s disgust at a dildo is pretty hilarious.
The insinuation is that this was some kind of hub for the abuse, but then one has to ask, why would the culprits leave any evidence behind if this “lodge” was so easily accessible? Or if the owners of the property were in on the action, why would they let a film crew inside? It has since been claimed that this was simply where the caretaker dumped litter and other junk that he’d cleaned up from the grounds.
Similar to the media conflicts of interest in the McMartin scandal, social worker Judith Dawson who is featured in the Dispatches episode left her husband and began a lesbian relationship with Campbell. The two would continue to peddle the satanic ritual abuse mythology, and Judith managed to worm her way in to other similar cases when she dropped her husband’s name.
Campbell who has since received an OBE from the Queen is now a prominent member of the Green Party. She seems to keep this embarrassing time of her life at arms length, and the entry about it has also been curiously scrubbed from her Wikipedia page. Those pushing the Hampstead abuse allegations at face value have brought her name in to the fold as somebody who supports the cause, though she has not discussed the case in any way.
Although Channel 4 carelessly commissioned Campbell’s Dispatches piece, they did somewhat redeem themselves in a fascinating episode of After Dark. For those unfamiliar, the series was very much a pre-podcast era discussion show, that did not confine itself to time-constraints or TV style interview methods. A range of guests would be invited to converse for hours on end, in an informal setting.
This particular episode featured Beatrix Campbell, Nottingham Social Services Director Andy Croall, former judge Jean Graham Hall, anthropologist Dr. Sherrill Mulhern, Repressed Memory therapist and alleged satanic abuse survivor Wendy Lindsay, Director of Newham Social Services Deborah Cameron, sociologist Dr. Bill Thompson, and “Paul”, one of the innocent parents from the Rochdale case.
There was a clear split between the guests with Dr. Mulhern and Dr. Thompson broaching research from the satanic panic and repressed memory scandals in the US, and Christian Andy Croall and Beatrix clearly wrapped up in that very panic themselves.
Croall who had been involved in “training seminars” was forced to step down from his position shortly after the show aired in 1991.
The Biggest Secret (1998)
By the late 90s the hysteria had quietened down in both the US and the UK, but one man who would give it a new lease of life, at least in the realm of the online conspiracy community was footballer and TV host, turned self-professed messiah – David Icke.
His 1999 book The Biggest Secret is riddled with accusations of satanic ritual abuse. George Bush for example is a “Satanist, child abuser and serial killer” and the Yale Skull and Bones society is “a blood drinking, Satanic secret society.”
The Royal family are “satanic abusers,” and “ceremonies involving the ritual murder of children, and the use of women called breeders to produce babies and aborted foetuses for sacrifice
to a demon ‘god,’” are happening all around us.
The book is an amalgamation of all of the satanic ritual abuse themes explored in the above list, as well as umpteen other conspiracy theories he plagiarized from other “researchers.”
What he has added to the mythology and what became particularly popular in the first decade of the 2000s is that the satanic ritual abusers are actually reptilians that are not visible to the human eye under normal circumstances.
Icke has since backed off from talking about the Reptilians and if quizzed attempts to give it an air of scientific basis, but from the discredited Hollie Greig case to the very real (though most likely not satanic) Jimmy Savile scandal, Icke continues to assert that satanic ritual abuse networks are widespread across the world with no solid evidence whatsoever.
Conclusion
Starting in the 60s the United States went through a dramatic culture shock that alienated the god-fearing traditionalists. Over the next decade popular fiction, particularly cinema, played in to these fears with satanic themed movies like Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen and The Exorcist. However beginning with Mike Warnke’s The Satan Seller in 1973, it was a series of “survivor stories” dressed up as true-life accounts that gave rise to a moral panic about Satanism. First shared among Christian groups and then given national exposure on shows like Oprah, ABC’s 20/20, and Geraldo in the 80s, these stories lead the public to believe widespread networks of Satanic cults were murdering babies and abusing children as part of their evil religion. It was only after the themes were established in fiction that real world allegations were reported to the authorities, none of which ever resulted in long-term convictions.
When we see the term “satanic ritual abuse” bandied around be so called experts today, it is therefore important to understand that the term itself was first coined in a work of fiction (Michelle Remembers) and only came in to popular use as the satanic panic intensified. No credible agency uses the term today because it essentially has no meaning in the real world and brings along with it a lot of unhelpful hysteria.
According to a 1996 study in the UK by Anthropologist Jean LaFontaine, in a handful of isolated abuse cases that did involve loose satanic themes and “props”, the perpetrator’s goal was deemed sexual gratification rather than religious or cult practises. A preoccupation with Satanism from those involved was seen to distract from the crimes at hand.
Not one ritual abuse network of religious Satanists has ever been uncovered.
So when a case like Hampstead falls out of nowhere and includes every theme on the satanic panic checklist, we need to be deeply skeptical. Have we miraculously stumbled on to the very first legitimate satanic ritual abuse cult, or is it just another in a long line of false allegations, driven by the mythology that came before it?
Believers will argue that the children in the videos are far too articulate to be making things up. However that assumes they are the sole originators of the stories. We’ve seen how time and time again, social workers and parents have coerced stories out of children to fit their preprepared narratives, and the children have gone along with them out of both fear and the desire to please the authority figure.
So while it is true that children do not know how to verbalize the concept of satanic ritual abuse, as it is not in their frame of knowledge or vocabulary – it is not necessarily a sign of truthfulness when they do, rather a sign that adults have introduced the themes and words in to their world.
The elaborate nature of the Hampstead allegations indicate the stories have been fed to or coerced out of the children and then repeated until an elaborate narrative was formed. Even if such coercion came from a genuine (though misguided) concern – as may have been the case in with McMartin, Rochdale and Orkney – that doesn’t make the allegations truthful.
Furthermore police discovered a history of neglect in the family home dating back to when the mother and father were still together. The mother’s new partner was also found to have a history of physical violence against his own children and the children in question.
Are the public getting wrapped up in another satanic panic and failing to the see what’s right in front of them?
|
Definition of Technocracy
The reason we are outlining all of this is that T echnocracy is built upon science. It is the use of science in observing, measuring and testing our existing price system, its successes and its failures to see objectively what strengths and what weaknesses it has, as well as using these techniques to determine more effective courses of action, that like a scientific theory , must be in agreement with observation, and must be modified or replaced when we learn something better . Thus it is not about a specific way of running a government, but the application of the scientific method to insure we use the best course of action in pursuing the goals of society . Some might think that technocracy is about imposing one specific approach to a problem, which couldn't be further from the truth. As in engineering, the solution to any problem depends on the nature and scale of that problem, as well as the environment in which it must be solved. It also must be flexible enough to deal with changes to the environment it operates in, and changes to the nature of the problem itself over time.
Price System
|
As the Senate considers amending long-established internet law in order to punish Backpage.com for running sex ads, many folks have pointed out that this change could be ruinous for social media and online publishing as a whole. But fewer seem willing to defend Backpage per se, which has been lied about by politicians for so long that many smart and otherwise savvy people seem to think the site is run by sexual-slavery-loving sociopaths. Anyone under that misguided impression—and anyone seeking to push back against it—should check out some new research published in the Wake Forest Law Review.
In the paper, "The Virtue of Unvirtuous Spaces," Notre Dame Law School lecturer Alex F. Levy explores similarities between the Progressive Era's pageantry around "white slavery" and the modern-day activists against the alleged "epidemic" of U.S. sex trafficking.
In both cases, people have conflated consensual prostitution among adults with forced prostitution—or "modern slavery," as current reformers call it, and "white slavery," as yesteryear Progressives called it— and the sexual exploitation of minors. Activists in both eras have also mistaken prostitution's increasing visibility to middle-class audiences for an increase in prostitution itself. Conversely, they take the eradication of prostitution from certain highly visible spaces as an absolute victory against exploitation, despite all evidence suggesting the activity will simply migrate elsewhere.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the focal point of this symbolic fighting was the dance hall. Now it's online venues such as the classified ad sites Craigslist and Backpage. Levy finds that both campaigns are "pageantry: a kind of theater designed to satisfy people's need to identify and fight bad guys without regard to nuance or long-term outcome." And while "removing exploitation from view" may settle some middle-class queasiness, it is "at odds with recovering victims."
If we really want to make long-term headway against sexual exploitation, we must embrace platforms like Backpage, argues Levy:
A closer and more rigorous inspection reveals that the war on Internet platforms like Craigslist and, more recently, Backpage.com ("Backpage") is (at best) based on a misunderstanding of their relationship to human trafficking. Even though some traffickers make use of these platforms, there is neither an empirical foundation for the assumption that the platforms cause trafficking, nor any evidence that shuttering them would reduce trafficking. To the contrary, allowing Internet platforms on which sexual services are brokered to thrive may be key to apprehending traffickers and recovering victims.
Both law enforcement and nonprofits such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) routinely use sites like Backpage to search for teenagers reported missing. The cross-country nature of the site allows authorities to track potential victims who may move around a lot, and provides tangible evidence for prosecutors to use against their exploiters. Police also use Backpage extensively when conducting sting operations ostensibly targeting the recovery of minors. Backpage itself has, at least historically, reported suspicious ads (such as those featuring pictures of people who look underage) to NCMEC or local law enforcement.
All of this is used by politicians and professional activists as evidence that Backpage causes sex trafficking, or is especially complicit in it. But that only holds water if, in the absence of the site, there would be no alternative options for exploitation. This simply isn't true. There are plenty of other websites, apps, and physical spaces that traffickers can access just as easily in order to incite exploitation—spaces that are frequently far less accessible or useful to law enforcement than open online ad platforms are.
Tellingly, these same folks never admit to Backpage's utility in locating and recovering victims, an asymmetry Levy attributes to "a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of online intermediaries in human trafficking." She continues:
Internet platforms are, by definition, nothing more than forums—forums for the good and the bad and the vulgar and the humorous. To the extent that they are forums for trafficking, they are also forums for its antidote. Indeed, all they provide is a space in which people become visible. The consequences of visibility are up to users—exploiters, law enforcement, nongovernment organizations ("NGOs"), and concerned citizens, among others. Like many forums, Internet platforms are generally not legally liable for content created by others. The fantasy that these websites are bad actors—and are thus worthy enemies of antitrafficking advocates—not only distracts from efforts to hold traffickers accountable, but causes an invaluable resource for apprehending traffickers and recovering victims to be squandered.
Later, Levy slams "initiatives to shutter these venues." Such crusaders, she writes, do not understand "the difference between causing exploitation and revealing exploitation," and their efforts simply "send trafficking back into the shadows." The idea "that they cause trafficking is unsubstantiated, and ultimately part of the fantasy articulated, in so many words, by [one popular Progressive Era activist]: that the complex and fearsome array of social changes can be undone by shuttering the places in which they play out."
But the battle "against trafficking—real trafficking—is won by making victims more visible," writes Levy, and "to the extent that websites bring abuses to light, their existence is a tremendous help" to the anti-exploitation cause:
While more visibility invites more business, it also increases the possibility that victims will be discovered by law enforcement, or anyone else looking for them. By extension, it also makes it more likely that the trafficker himself will be apprehended: exposure to customers necessarily means exposure to law enforcement.
The tendency to confuse "a problem's disappearance with its resolution" winds up "doubly dangerous where, as here, visibility actually contributes to the solution." Ultimately, writes Levy, "the greatest casualties in the war on online intermediaries may well be trafficking victims themselves."
Read the whole paper in the Wake Forest Law Review. Read more backstory on Backpage here.
|
Being in power does, in a very real sense, go to people’s heads. Psychologists have found that when people are made to feel powerful, they believe more in the things they’re thinking. This leads to a bunch of wacky, seemingly contradictory behaviors, as Ohio State Ph.D. candidate Geoff Durso explained to Science of Us in an email: Feeling more powerful may make you kinder and more assertive, yet also more dishonest.
This is explained by the “self-validation theory of judgment,” he says, which basically means that when you feel powerful, your thoughts get magnified. They feel more right compared to if you felt powerless. “So, when placed in a situation where one is primed to think aggressively (e.g., a competition), greater feelings of power should translate into more aggressive, competitive behavior (thus seeming to lend credibility to the idea that ‘power corrupts’),” Durso explained. “But when placed in a situation where someone has the goal to act generously (e.g., when considering a charitable donation), the self-validation perspective predicts that greater feelings of power should now translate into more helpful, prosocial behavior.”
And this is where things get even weirder: If powerful people don’t know what to do, they really don’t know what to do.
For a study published this month in Psychological Science, Durso and his colleagues recruited 129 and 197 college students for two separate experiments. Participants were given different descriptions of an employee named Bob, some with all positive attributes (like that Bob beat his earnings goals), some with all negative (e.g., Bob stole his colleague’s mug from the kitchen), and some with an even split. Then, the participants were given a writing task where they had to recall an experience in their lives that made them feel powerful or powerless, framing their decision. They were also asked how conflicted they felt about Bob’s future, and in one study, they were asked to decide whether to fire or promote Bob with the click of a mouse. Of the participants who were given ambivalent information about his behavior, the powerful took 16 percent longer to make a decision than the less powerful. Just as power made people kinder or more dishonest when they were primed for it in the other experiments, it also made them think longer about conflicting information.
It’s a finding that is easy to spot corollaries for out in the wild. Barack Obama, who largely makes good decisions, has spoken about the burden of power and conflicting information. In an interview with U.S. News in 2009, Obama said that one of the difficulties of his job was that if a problem were to have a clear solution, it wouldn’t land on his desk; the buck wouldn’t stop there. When asked about difficult economic decisions, he said that there’s always going to be probabilities involved. “You’re never 100 percent certain that the course of action you’re choosing is going to work,” he said. “What you can have confidence in is that the probability of it working is higher than the other options available to you. But that still leaves some uncertainty, which I think can be stressful, and that’s part of the reason why it’s so important to be willing to constantly re-evaluate decisions based on new information.”
Same with George W. Bush, as the research team notes in their press release: Though he described himself as “the decider,” the president said that he would not be rushed into making a decision about whether to add or withdraw forces from Iraq, and was, despite his decider-ness, given to delays. It’s all evidence that the more powerful you feel, the higher the stakes are — even in your head.
|
A group traveling across the Midwest protesting infant circumcision stopped in Sioux Falls on Tuesday.
The California-based group called Bloodstained Men has been traveling from city to city raising awareness about circumcision.
You may have seen them on city streets Tuesday afternoon.
Members of the group said the act of circumcision is a social epidemic, which has drawn criticism from around the world.
"That's unacceptable for a free nation like the United States," Brother K said. "Our boys deserve the same rights as men in the rest of the world, that is to have normal intact bodies, so we are protesting on every corner that we can in the United States."
The group's next stop is Rapid City.
The Bloodstained Men travel to about 60 cities every year.
|
The Great Kantō Earthquake, the Korean Massacre and its Aftermath: The Responsibility of the Japanese Government and People, by Shōji Yamada (Tokyo: Sōshisha, 2011). 山田昭次『関東大震災時の朝鮮人虐殺とその後―虐殺の国家責任と民衆責任』創史社、2011
Reviewed by Jooeun Noh (PhD candidate, University of Tokyo; HYI Visiting Fellow)
On 1st September 1923, a strong 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Kantō area of Japan, which includes Tokyo. False rumors about a ‘Korean revolt’ (chōsenjin sawagi)’—for instance, that Korean residents in Japan intended to poison the wells, or that Koreans were carrying bombs (in fact, apples)—spread around Tokyo, which was in a state of disorder due to the great earthquake. This led to a sudden wave of killings of Koreans in the disaster area, with more than 6,000 Korean people murdered at the hands of vigilante groups, police, and soldiers due to these rumors.
Historiography of the Great Kantō Earthquake has mainly focused on issues concerning the reconstruction of Japanese society after the disaster. Since 1945, however, some zainichi Korean scholars in Japan and a few Japanese researchers have tried to shed light on other aspects of the earthquake, including the massacre of Korean people in 1923 and its deliberate concealment by the Japanese government. Since the publication of The Great Kantō Earthquake and Koreans (Kantōdaishinsai to Chōsenjin, Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō, 1963) by zainichi scholars Tŏksang Kang and Pyŏngdong Kŭm on the 40th anniversary of the earthquake, this issue has received substantial attention from zainichi and Japanese scholars. The research published on the 80th anniversary of the earthquake is noteworthy for the fact that three great scholars in this field—Tŏksang Kang, Shōichi Matsuo, and Shōji Yamada—published their books in this year. The work reviewed here is a revised and enlarged edition of Yamada’s 2003 book.
In his book, Yamada does not deal with historical facts regarding the massacre in 1923. Because, as Yamada mentioned in the edition of 2003, the purpose of this book is to start a conversation with the Japanese who want to solve issues of colonial responsibility, he focuses on the Japanese government and people’s responsibility for the massacre. He points out that the Japanese government was responsible for the massacre in two ways: first, the government induced Japanese people to kill Koreans by spreading false rumors about Koreans and mobilizing the police and soldiers under martial law; second, it concealed the rumors’ falsity and avoided taking responsibility after the massacre through the suppression and cursory examination of criminal trials. Offering valuable historical materials, this book traces how those problems of responsibility have developed in Japanese society since the earthquake.
The particular focus of the book is the issue of the responsibility of the Japanese people (minshū) for the Korean massacre in the earthquake. According to Yamada’s argument, Japanese minshū are responsible for participating in the massacre and not calling for an investigation by the Japanese government in 1923 and after. One of the reasons for Yamada to publish this revised and enlarged edition in 2011 was the movement, called ‘Kantōdaisinsai Chōsenjin Gyakusatsu no Kokka Sekinin o Tō Kai’, started in 2010, by zainichi Koreans and Japanese who demanded that the government take responsibility for the Korean massacre after the earthquake. Yamada argues that Japanese minshū are responsible for delaying this movement, which is why he included “the Aftermath” in the title of this revised edition.
Many of Japan’s younger generation today do not think that the problems created by Japanese colonialism before 1945 are their responsibility, and they are not interested in these issues, including the 1923 massacre. Similarly, Korean youths are also forgetting the history of colonial period and some of them are not concerned about these issues. The lack of interest among the young generations in both countries regarding these historical problems is a resounding indictment of both the Japanese and Korean people: namely, for this glaring gap in historical consciousness between those of the old generation who suffered during colonization and the new generation who lacks any experience with colonialism.
|
If you swallow this gum, how long will it really stay in your stomach? Steve Wisbauer/Photodisc/ Getty Images
Surely you were warned, most likely by your mother: You shouldn't swallow gum, because it stays in your digestive system for seven years. But if that were true, what kind of havoc would that wreak?
Our digestive system is built to dissolve and excrete what we put in our mouths in a matter of hours, days at most, but certainly not years.The urban legend reference Web site Snopes.com put the kibosh on the rumor that gum stays in you for years, and medical science confirms the site's conclusion. Pediatric gastroenterologist David Milov tells the magazine Scientific American that he can say "with complete certainty" that gum does not stay in you for seven years [source: Scientific American].
This is due to the effectiveness of your digestive system. When you swallow food, it travels down your esophagus into your stomach. Here enzymes and acids go to work on the food, beginning the process of breaking the food down.
From the stomach, the partially digested food is moved into the intestine, where -- with help from your liver and pancreas -- the food is broken down into its components. These components are used to fuel the body. Those elements of food that can't be used are sent to the colon, where they'll be processed into waste.
Generally, gum is made up of four general components, and our bodies can easily break down three of these. The gum's flavorings, sweeteners and softeners are all no match for human digestion. It's the gum base that sticks around. Gum base is made mostly of synthetic chemicals, and these chemicals give gum its chewy property. It's designed to resist the digestive properties of the saliva in your mouth. But once it's swallowed, even the gum base is subjected to the same treatment as regular food, and after it's recognized as useless by your digestive system, it goes the same route as any waste product.
Chewing gum began as early as 7,000 years ago -- researchers have found lumps of tar with human teeth marks in them. Modern gum got its start during the 1860s, when exiled Mexican general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (who captured the Alamo in March 1836) introduced chicle to gum maker Thomas Adams, who then made it into gum. But the origin of the gum-swallowing legend is much less clear. Despite the evidence lent by the continued healthy existence of those who swallow gum, this rumor persists. Perhaps that's because, every once in a blue moon, a medical case resulting from swallowed gum turns up.
David Milov and colleagues wrote in the journal Pediatrics about a few case studies of kids who had ignored admonishments against swallowing gum -- and paid for it. One boy suffered from two years of chronic constipation. Years of swallowing five to seven pieces of gum each day led to a "'taffy-like' trail of fecal material" consisting mostly of gum, which had to be suctioned out of his rectum [source: Milov].
But gum still doesn't stay in your digestive system for seven years. The boy who had the "'taffy-like' trail" was just 4 when he underwent the removal procedure. It's possible that the gum might have remained in his tract for seven years, but intervention by physicians circumvented that. So while he will always be a walking footnote in support of the fears of mothers everywhere, the seven-year mark remains elusive. And that's probably a good thing.
For more information on urban legends and digestion, read the next page.
Related HowStuffWorks Articles
More Great Links
Sources
|
The ceasefire in Ukraine came as a relief after months of intensive bloodshed. The agreement in Minsk came as a joint effort between Europe and Russia, but Washington is thinking about sending arms to Kiev - something that Europe warns will trigger even more mayhem in eastern Ukraine. So what motivates Washington? Why compromise is not something the West seemingly wants? To ask these questions and more we talk to political scientist John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago.
Follow @SophieCo_RT
Sophie Shevardnadze: Professor John Mearsheimer, author, political scientist at the University of Chicago, welcome to the programme - it’s great to have you with us. Now, U.S. isn’t arming Ukraine yet, but it is planning to send military personnel to Ukraine this month. These plans were confirmed by Washington and a government website has an issue to tender for troops logistics. The situation in Ukraine is finally winding down, so - why now?
Professor John Mearsheimer: I don’t think that the situation in Ukraine is winding down, even if we have a ceasefire. A ceasefire doesn’t solve the basic problem, and the basic problem involves getting the political settlement. The U.S. believes that to get a political settlement, it has to put more pressure on Vladimir Putin, and the Russians more generally. The West is interested in upping the ante to get Putin to throw his hands up in the air and surrender - so I think that it’s hardly surprising that the Americans were threatening to arm the Ukrainians, threatening to up the sanctions and even threatening to move some military forces into Ukraine for purposes of training of the Ukrainian army.
SS:Alright, but if we look at the numbers, we have 300 U.S. troops and 75 UK soldiers in advisory role - I’m wondering if their presence is going to change anything. What are they going to change in the grand scheme of things?
PJM: They’re going to change hardly anything. It’s a foolish policy. If the U.S. was to try seriously arm the Ukrainian army, the Russians would just up the ante and in escalation between Russians on one side and Americans on the other side, the Russians would win, and the end result would be that the war inside of Ukraine would widen, more Ukrainians would die and relations between the West and Russia would deteriorate even further. This is why the whole idea of arming Ukrainians is a bad idea and I’m pleased to say that here in Europe most people understand that. The real problem is in Washington, where there are a lot of individuals who do want to arm Ukrainians.
SS:You have said that U.S. and its European allies don’t consider Ukraine a core strategic interest - at least not enough to defend it militarily. But now we President Obama has been mulling sending weapons - and that’s still on the table - UK is sending advisors and non-lethal aid, Poland in involved. These actions aren’t serious enough, you think?
PJM: The U.S. and the Europeans do not consider Ukraine core strategic interest in the sense that they themselves are not willing to fight and die for Ukraine. There’s no question that the West is willing, under certain circumstances, to send arms and other forms of military aid to Ukraine - but that’s a lot different than going there and fighting. What the West is expecting the Ukrainians to do if they get these weapons is to improve their performance on the battlefield - but as I said to you before, this simply is not going to happen. The Ukrainians are not capable militarily, even with arms from the West, of defeating the separatists who will be backed by the Russians. So, this is a fool’s errand from the start, on the part of the West, and again - we’re talking mainly about Washington here.
SS:U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “President Putin misinterprets U.S. actions abroad”, and that the U.S. is not involved in any color revolutions. What is the U.S. doing then? What’s your take on that?
PJM: Well. The U.S. general policy - this is the West’s general policy - is to peel Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and make Ukraine a part of the West, and this strategy has three prongs. The first prong is NATO expansion, the second prong is EU expansion, and here, what’s going on is NATO was moving eastward, the EU was moving eastward, and the ultimate aim is to incorporate Ukraine into those two institutions. The third prong of the strategy is democracy promotion, and what the U.S. is interested in doing and the Europeans as well, is toppling regimes in places like Ukraine, that are pro-Russian, and putting in their place regimes that are basically pro-Western and anti-Russian, and that is exactly what happened on February 22nd, 2014, when the Yanukovych regime in Kiev was toppled. Yanukovych was basically pro-Russian, he was forced from power - it was effectively a coup-d’etat, and in his place you got a regime that is pro-Western. The Russians, not surprisingly, given NATO expansion and EU expansion, consider this to be categorically unacceptable, and the end result is that Putin took Crimea and he’s now in the process of going to great lengths to wreck Ukraine, because he’s not willing to let Ukraine become part of the West. For the Russians, unlike the Americans, the Ukraine is a core strategic interest, it’s a vital strategic interest, and Putin has no intention of allowing Ukraine to become part of the West. He’s basically saying to the West, and he’s saying to Kiev: “If you don’t back off, if you don’t stop pursuing this policy of westernization inside of Ukraine, I’ll wreck Ukraine instead”, so if there’s any hope of settling this mess, what’s necessary is for the West to stop trying to incorporate Ukraine into its orbit.
SS:But I think that the most acute part of westernizing Ukraine is obviously NATO part, the NATo expansion, and like you’ve said, one of the core problems is NATO’s expansion eastwards. There is no way that Washington didn’t understand that Russia would push back, like you’ve said, I mean, everyone talks about, you know, “it’s Russia’s strategic interests that are threatened” and there’s no way that Washington didn't understand that when they were pursuing the goal of NATO expansion towards Russia - so why provoke this confrontation?
PJM: Well, you would think that what you’ve said is true, you would have thought that the West would have understood that trying to incorporate Ukraine and Georgia into NATO was a prescription for disaster. You’d want to remember that it was April 2008, at the Bucharest NATO summit, where NATO announced at the end of the summit that Georgia and Ukraine would become part of NATO. A few months later, in August 2008, we had war between Russia and Georgia over this very issue. Here was a clear signal that Russians were not going to tolerate Ukraine or Georgia becoming part of NATO - but the fact is that Washington refused to believe Russians, and Washington continued to believe that it could pursue policies designed to make Ukraine a western bulwark on Russia’s doorstep, despite the fact that Putin and his predecessors told the Americans and told the West Europeans that this was unacceptable. So, amazingly, the West was actually, totally surprised by what happened after February 22nd, 2014, as you point out, they should not have been.
SS:But NATO never really publicly abandoned its goals of bringing Georgia and Ukraine into the Alliance. Is the issue still on the table?
PJM: Of course the issue is still on the table. This past December, the Ukrainians pushed through legislation that will now allow them to pursue NATO membership - this was remarkably foolish, and at the same time, people in the West have done nothing to allay Russian fears about NATO expansion into Ukraine; this is why this crisis is not going to be settled anytime soon, and, if anything, it’s likely to get worse. The only way you’re going to solve this crisis is to start by taking NATO expansion and EU expansion off the table.
SS:Now, last month’s agreements in Minks were a success - I think they were - there are talks that are being planned, new talks are going to be planned, and also the possible use of peacekeepers is being discussed. Europe - and I mean France and Germany - is at least, partially, embracing this de-escalation. Is the U.S. ready to ease tensions with Russia as well?
PJM: I think there’s no question that what happened in Minsk is a step forward. I think it looks like, at least for the foreseeable future, you’ll have a ceasefire of some proportions on the ground, but the real problem here is that you don’t have a political settlement that puts this problem to rest once and for all. What we need here is some sort of agreement, some sort of deal between the Russians on one side and the West on the other side that solves the Ukrainian problem. I think to achieve that end, again, you have to take NATO expansion and EU expansion off the table, the Americans have to get out of the business of “democracy promotion” in places like Kiev, and, more generally, you have to turn Ukraine into a neutral buffer state - and until the West is willing to pursue that policy, I see no end to this crisis. So, I don’t think Minsk-2 is going to solve this bigger problem.
SS:But there’s a slight problem, though: do you really think that Ukraine wants to be turned into a buffer state, or a buffer zone?
PJM: Well, if Ukraine wants to survive as a functioning state, that’s the only choice that it has. As long as Ukraine continues to think that it can become part of the West, it’s going to pursue a policy that is in my opinion suicidal. Some people say that I am anti-Ukrainian that I am hostile to the Ukrainian people and I think that Russia has the right to run Ukraine - this is not my view at all. My view is that the policies that the West has been pushing, NATO expansion, EU expansion and democracy promotion, have been disastrous for the Ukrainian people, it’s created this present mess that they’re in. Ukraine would be much better off if it were a neutral buffer state. The Russians would care much less about it, and they would be much more inclined to leave it alone; and furthermore, there’s no reason that the Russians then couldn’t work with the West and with the IMF and with Kiev to turn the economy around in Ukraine and make it economically flourishing state. But if you continue the present policy - that’s not going to happen.
SS:You proposed that Ukraine should be made a buffer zone, and that, first and foremost, that would be the best thing for Ukraine right now, but how do you actually make that happen?
PJM: You’d want to remember that what I’m calling for here is basically restoring the status quo before the February 22, 2014 coup. From 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence, up until early 2014, Ukraine was effectively a neutral buffer state between the West on one side and Russia on the other side - so we’re talking about the return to status quo ante. The question is how do you achieve this end? What’s necessary is for the West to adopt to a fundamentally new policy, which is to stop trying to incorporate Ukraine into the West, stop trying to make it part of NATO, and stop trying to make it part of the EU. I think its almost impossible at this point in time to imagine the West pursuing that policy. I don’t think they’re going to turn the ship around and adopt this policy of making Ukraine a neutral buffer state - and that’s for that reason I don’t think this crisis si going to be settled anytime soon, and I actually think that over the long term, the crisis will get worse.
SS:You know, this crisis that we’re talking about, the Ukrainian crisis, is often considered to be a crisis of U.S.-Russia relations. Certainly, that’s the way a lot of people perceive it here in Russia. Is it?
PJM: I think there’s no question about. It’s a multi-dimensional crisis, it’s a crisis between Ukraine and Russia, it’s a crisis between Russia and Western Europe, but it’s also a U.S.-Russian crisis, and many people in the U.S. say quite correctly - it’s the worst crisis between these two powers since the Cold War, and it’s a crisis that has significant consequences for U.S. on variety of fronts, because the U.S. needs Russian cooperation on all sorts of issues. For example, the U.S. needs cooperation from Russia to deal with Iran nuclear problem, the U.S. needs cooperation from Russia to deal with Syria, the U.S. needs cooperation from Russia to deal with its exit from Afghanistan, the U.S. needs cooperation from Russia to deal with China - and instead, what we’re doing is driving the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. So, this is a remarkably foolish policy for a whole variety of reasons for the U.S. But as I say, it’s not only crisis that affects U.S.-Russian relations, it also affects other dimension of the problem as well.
SS:We’re going to talk about China a bit later, but first, I want to clarify something - you’ve said that Russian leaders fear that they may be next in line when it comes to Western social engineering policies, like in Ukraine, for example. Do you really feel that Washington believes such scenario is possible today, in Russia?
PJM: I do think that they think such possibility is in the cards. I think, one of the reasons that we are upping the pressure on Putin, they reason that we’re willing to countenance greater sanctions, and even think about arming the Ukrainians - is because we think in the end, there’s some possibility that we could topple Putin from power. The U.S believes very powerfully that democracy is an important force in world politics, and that countries like Russia, countries like Ukraine, desperately want democratically elected leader in place, and they think that Putin has all sorts of legitimacy problems, he’s not terribly strong in his position inside Russia, and they believe that if they put significant pressure on him, there’s possibility that they could topple him. And by the way, in September 2013, there was a opinion bit in Washington Post by Carl Gershman who heads up the Endowment for Democracy promotion, who was making the argument that Putin might be next - so you don’t want to underestimate the extent to which some Americans believe that Putin could ultimately be toppled from power.
SS:But, on the other hand, the U.S. still needs Russia and you’ve mentioned this too: there are issues like Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear programme, Syria, and moreover - fighting the Islamic State. So is the Middle East more important for Washington than European matters, what do you think?
PJM: I think that it’s hard to say whether the Middle East is more important than Europe is for the U.S. I think that historically Europe has been the most important area of the world for the U.S. When you think about the areas outside of the Western hemisphere that the U.S. cares the most about, it has historically been: Europe’s first, Asia second, and the Persian Gulf third. We are about to undergo a fundamental transformation in our grand strategic thinking in the U.S. - for the first time in our history, Asia will become the most important area of the world for us, and this is because of the rise of China. The Persian Gulf will become the second most important area because it’s linked so closely to Asia, because of oil, and Europe will drop to a distant third. So, Europe is becoming increasingly less important in the American strategic mind over time, and you’d want to remember that Americans are committed to pivoting to Asia, and when you pivot to somewhere, that means you pivot away from another area, and the area we’re talking about pivoting away from was Europe. So this crisis over Ukraine really caught us off-guard, and as long as we remain involved in Ukraine, it would be difficult for us to pivot to Asia, which is more important strategic area of the world, than Europe, and again, as I said, I think the Persian Gulf is inextricably linked to Asia and therefore it too is a very important area.
SS:So, with Persian Gulf area and the whole Middle East area moving to the second position according to importance of topics for America, could we see a barter exchange between Russia and the U.S.? Let’s say, trading the issue of Syria for Ukraine, for instance?
PJM: No, I don’t think in those terms. I think a better way to put it is just to understand that the U.S. has a vested interest with having good relations with Russia for purposes of dealing with China in Asia and for purposes of solving its problems in Middle East, whether you’re talking about Syria or you’re talking about Iran. So, I think what the U.S. wants to do, is that it wants to go great lengths to smooth its relationship with Russia, end this crisis over Ukraine, so that it can cooperate with Russia over China and over Iran, and over Syria.
SS:Why do you think it is so dangerous to actually have Russia and China closer together?
PJM: The fact is that China is growing economically at a very rapid pace and because it has more than 4 times as many people as the U.S., if it had a per capita GNP that looked anything like South Korea or Hong-Kong, it would be economically and militarily much more powerful than the U.S. The U.S. is going to have its hands full, trying to contain China over the long term. Of course, we’re assuming here that China will continue to grow economically, but assuming that that happens, the U.S. is going to have a very difficult time containing China, and it’s going to need all the help that it can get. It is going to need help from countries like Japan and India and Singapore and Vietnam, but it is also going to need help from Russia, and it makes absolutely no sense to drive the Russians into the arms of the Chinese, which is exactly what’s happening as a result of this dispute over Ukraine.
SS:Now, U.S. diplomacy all too often seems not so much in negotiation but really dictating terms, sort of like, “if you doesn’t go our way, we’ll send weapons to Ukraine, we can bomb Iran” - “no options on the table” sort of approach. Why does the U.S. talk from the position of force very often? Because it can?
PJM: The U.S. believes that it is, in the words of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright the indispensable nation: we believe that we stand taller and we see further than most other countries. There is the sense in the U.S. that it has a right and a responsibility to run the world, and it also thinks that because it is incredibly powerful both economically and militarily, that it has the leverage to push other states around and get what it wants. So, the U.S., since the end of the Cold War, has not been really interested in diplomacy, because diplomacy involves compromise, and the U.S. is not into compromising these days. The U.S. likes to dictate the terms of any settlement that it has with any other country. It only very reluctantly comes to the point where it will make a compromise. And, I think, with regard to the Russians, because the Russians were so weak in the 1990s and in the early 2000s, that the U.S. got used to pushing the Russians around, it got used to thinking that it could get its way with the Russians, that it could dictate terms of any settlement to them - and for a while, we basically got away with that, we were allowed to push the Russians around, that’s why we got the first expansion of NATO, without any trouble, that’s why we got the second expansion of NATO in 2004 without any trouble - but now the Russians are pushing back and we, therefore, we meaning the Americans or the West, are going to have to compromise to get some sort of settlement over Ukraine, but it’s very hard at this point in time to get the West, especially, Washington, to compromise.
SS:Professor, thank you very much for this interview. We were talking to professor John Mearsheimer, political scientist at the University of Chicago, also an author. We were talking about the crisis in Ukraine and where Russian-American relationship stands in regards to that matter. Also, talking about China as a rising threat to America that could be hard to contain in the future. That’s it for this edition of Sophie&Co, I will see you next time.
|
"JOHN TORRINGTON - DIED JANUARY 1st 1846 AGED 20 YEARS," the letters of a hand-painted plaque read. The plaque was nailed to the lid of Torrington's coffin. These few short words are one of only two records of John Torrington. The other, the tombstone that stood above it.
Built of mahogany and covered in blue fabric with white linen trim, Torrington's coffin was very well-crafted. As the team chipped away the permafrost around it, the team noticed that the coffin itself was frozen solid and opening it would take a great deal of time and ingenuity. First the team had to remove dozens of nails from around the lid's edge. Then there was the problem with the ice underneath, which had virtually cemented it into place. Once the lid was removed, and the ice underneath melted with hot water, John Torrington's body came into view.
Dressed in a grey button up shirt, his limbs were tied with linen strips, remnants of how his body was placed in the coffin. Toes and hands were perfectly preserved. The skin had a leathery appearance but overall were completely void of decay even after over 130 years in the ground. As the team continued to thaw the ice in the coffin it became apparent that Torrington's face was covered in fabric. When this fabric was removed, the team got the most unexpected fright of their lives. John Torrington was starring back at them, literally. It would be a moment they would never forget.
|
President Trump spoke about possibly pardoning former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio during a rally in Phoenix on Aug. 22. Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt in July. (The Washington Post)
President Trump spoke about possibly pardoning former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio during a rally in Phoenix on Aug. 22. Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt in July. (The Washington Post)
Cecillia Wang is deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. She was one of the attorneys who litigated the civil rights case against former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio brought by the ACLU and partner organizations.
President Trump rallied his crowd in Phoenix on Tuesday night by invoking the name of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. The reaction was exactly as expected.
“Do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?” Trump asked the crowd to thunderous applause. “I’ll make a prediction: I think he’s going to be just fine.”
With those words, Trump effectively promised to pardon Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt of court, publicly disgraced and voted out of office by the majority of Maricopa County, Ariz., voters. In doing so, the president of the United States sealed another deal with an emboldened white-nationalist movement in our country.
Trump claims Arpaio was convicted for “doing his job.” That’s false. After the community rose up to stop his policies of racial profiling and illegal traffic stops — represented by lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union and its partner organizations — a federal court ordered an end to those unconstitutional policing tactics.
Joe Arpaio's illegal-immigration crackdown made him a polarizing figure and an early ally of President Trump. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
Arpaio repeatedly showed “flagrant disregard” for a court order requiring him to stop illegal detentions and was again held accountable, first through a civil contempt-of-court trial in the civil rights case and then through a criminal-contempt prosecution by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section before a different district judge.
Arpaio was duly convicted based on damning evidence that he violated court orders and did so deliberately — including Arpaio’s own statements to the press and the testimony of his former attorney and lower-ranking commanders that they had explained to Arpaio that his detention policy violated the court order but that he continued the policy anyway.
Arpaio is due to be sentenced for criminal contempt on Oct. 5. But now the president of the United States, who made a point of campaigning with Arpaio to crowds calling for more xenophobic policies, has thrown the power of his office behind Arpaio. The message to their mutual supporters is clear: The president would like law enforcement officials who pursue racist policies to be above the law.
Anyone who has paid attention to Trump’s policies knows that a potential pardon for Arpaio would not be his first expression of official racism. As a candidate, Trump made openly racist statements against Mexicans and Muslims. As president, he has followed through on those statements by promulgating policies that attack immigrants and communities of color.
In his first week in office, Trump issued a trio of discriminatory executive orders. On Jan. 25, Trump issued one to build a wall on the southern border and another to unleash a massive deportation force, including measures to force local police into Arpaio-style tactics that have led to racial profiling and damage to public safety. Two days later, Trump issued his infamous ban on the admission of all refugees as well as all immigrants and visitors from seven majority-Muslim countries.
When white supremacists marching in Charlottesville praised Trump’s policies, this is what they were praising. A pardon of Arpaio should be seen for what it is: the latest attack on people of color by Trump.
The same core of white-supremacist support that cheered Trump’s initial response to violence in Charlottesville — blaming people on “many sides” for the deadly incident — also fueled Arpaio’s racist policies. Arpaio supporters successfully demanded immigration sweeps based merely on the presence of Latino day laborers or Spanish-speaking employees in their neighborhoods. Arpaio spoke to this same constituency when, after being held in check by federal court orders, he defiantly said that no one could tell him what to do.
Neither Trump nor Arpaio can change the fact that federal courts held Arpaio accountable for his civil rights violations, or that the people of Maricopa County kicked Arpaio out of office. But if Trump follows through with the pardon, he will go down in history as the president whose first exercise of the pardon power was a shout to white supremacists: I’m with you.
|
UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos has earned a reputation as one of the classiest athletes competing in mixed martial arts. He never speaks badly of anyone, treats fans with respect, and honors the roots of the sport with his game performances. Even when Alistair Overeem tested for an elevated testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio, knocking him out of their anticipated title fight, dos Santos took the high road, and said he'd still be willing to fight him if that's what he was asked to do.
He's also genuinely honest, so when he was asked about Frank Mir's all-around game on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour, dos Santos noted that he'd seen a trend when it came to moments of adversity. Specifically, he indicated you could push Mir to a breaking point, of which there was no return.
"What I was saying was I can see that in his fights, when he’s in a bad situation, like leaving a bad situation, it’s easy for him to give up," he said. "But when he’s living in a good moment in the fight, he’s a monster. He can capitalize on all the good moments and enjoy that moment really well, like he did with 'Big Nog' [Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira]. But in bad moments, it’s easy for him to give up."
Mir (16-5) has only lost twice since the start of 2007, but each time was to a fighter that pushed him around physically. In one case, it was Brock Lesnar, in the other it was Shane Carwin.
Even though both men have said they're ready to contest the fight anywhere, clearly, the two will be fighting for control of its positioning. Mir knows his best chance is on the ground, and dos Santos knows a standup fight benefits him.
But dos Santos (14-1) said it's not necessarily about the location of the action, but the pace that he sets. That might mean he's willing to swarm Mir and attempt to put him on the defensive from the beginning in hopes that he crumbles under the pressure.
"When you put him a bad situation, when you put more pressure on him, it’s hard for him to fight," he said.
dos Santos started his camp preparing for fellow striker Overeem, but after learning of the opponent switch, he says he's brought in several grapplers and wrestlers to help with his training.
Despite the change in opponent, dos Santos said he is not any less motivated to continue his win streak, hoping to successfully defend the belt for the first time.
"I want to keep this belt for a long, long time," he said. "I think I’m giving more of myself in training. I’m training more and taking it very, very serious because it’s my life. Everything what is happening is my life. I'm really enjoying everything that is happening in my life so I want to keep things going like that."
If he wins, he said he would be willing to face Overeem in the future, when he comes off his suspension. Even with Overeem's troubles, that's a fight many would still like to see.
Dos Santos has repeatedly insisted he is a clean fighter, and railed against those using performance-enhancing drugs.
"When people see me fight, that’s real," he said. "That's me for real. It’s myself fighting. They see Junior dos Santos fighting, being the champ in the fight. When people use drugs to get a better performance, that’s not them fighting. It's something very frustrating because it’s not real. If people want to know who’s the champion for real, I can tell you, I’m the champion for real."
Of course, it remains to be seen if he will remain the champion, with Mir waiting in the wings at UFC 146. dos Santos thinks he can get Mir to wilt under his offensive pressure, but says he's ready even if the fight goes into Mir's world.
"I will be looking for the knockout for sure," he said. "I want to knock him out and I will give my best to knock him out. If the fights goes to the ground, I don't want to put the fight on the ground, but if he takes me down or something like that and holds me there, I will show my jiu-jitsu for everybody. I can tell you I’m ready to fight, it doesn't matter where. I can surprise everyone fighting on the ground, too."
|
Air Dodge Appears to have an FAF that occurs prior to the Auto-Cancel Window of Air Dodge.Because Dakpo asked me to explain - an FAF (First Actable/Actionable Frame) or IASA (Interrupt As Soon As) is a term used to indicate when a player may make an input in order to move directly into their next action. Without any inputs, the current action will continue on to completion.For example if you look at the sample frame dodge data:1 -3: Start up4-29: Intangible30-34: Cool Down35: First Actionable Frame35-X: Aerial Landing Lag Penatly will Occur if You Land Here*I don't have solid frame data, but I suspect air dodge will probably have something like x = 40 frames in this scenario. That's a guess. Most of the frame data is a guess until people put up concrete frame dataIf you buffer an aerial between frame 35 and Frame X (someone can frame test to find exactly what that frame is), you'll suffer your aerial landing lag penalty as opposed to the 22 frame air dodge landing lag penalty. The game will read you an in an aerial as opposed to in an air dodge because of the FAF/IASA option.So if you're Diddy Kong and your Dair autocancels on startup as an example, you can aerial cancel your landing lag penalty, mitigating the risk of air dodging into the ground in some cases.TLDR - DeLux CancellingYou should interrupt your air dodge with the least laggy aerial landing lag on your character moveset Video-
|
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia (NOKIA.HE) and Samsung (005930.KS) are expected to settle their two-year patent dispute within days, with analysts forecasting a one-time payment of hundreds of millions of euros for the Finnish company.
The Nokia headquarters is seen in Espoo, Finland, July 28, 2015. REUTERS/Mikko Stig/Lethikuva
Nokia entered into a binding arbitration with South Korea’s Samsung in 2013 to settle additional compensations for a five-year period starting from early 2014.
The International Chamber of Commerce’s arbitration court is due to make its ruling on the issue imminently.
Nordea analyst Sami Sarkamies, one of few analysts to give a precise estimate, said the verdict could boost Nokia’s operating profit by about 700 million euros ($758 mln) this year, forecasting the court will stipulate an annual patent fee of 300 million euros.
“Samsung has been paying Nokia probably 100 million per year, and the rate could now come up to around 300 million euros (per year). The settled rate will also be paid retrospectively for the last two years,” Sarkamies said.
“But they have already booked perhaps 100 million a year from Samsung to their income statement, so the EBIT impact for this year could be around 700 million euros.”
Sarkamies has a “hold” rating on Nokia shares, which have fallen 9 percent since last April when it announced a 15.6 billion euro takeover of French network gear rival Alcatel-Lucent ALUA.PA, due to be completed this quarter.
Investors have worried about the integration process and special terms negotiated by the French government, but the share price could get a boost if the settlement with Samsung is much bigger than analysts forecasts.
Last month, Sweden’s Ericsson (ERICb.ST) said that a patent license deal with Apple Inc (AAPL.O) would help lift its intellectual property rights revenue by up to 40 percent in 2015, sending its shares up sharply.
Nokia, which once dominated the global mobile phones market, is now focused on telecom network equipment but still holds on to a portfolio of phone patents.
It said last month that the International Chamber of Commerce had advised that the settlement with Samsung is expected by the end of January.
A Nokia spokesman declined to comment on Saturday, saying the company had nothing to add beyond the previous statement.
($1 = 0.9233 euros)
|
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House weighed in carefully on Monday on the Scottish independence referendum, saying Washington would respect the outcome of the vote but would prefer the United Kingdom to remain “strong, robust and united.”
Scots vote on Thursday on whether to split from the United Kingdom or become an independent country. A variety of experts say Washington would rather avoid the disruption to NATO defenses that forming a separate Scottish military would bring.
Scottish membership in the Western alliance is not a foregone conclusion because other members, particularly states such as Spain with their own separatist worries, could block it.
President Barack Obama’s chief spokesman, Josh Earnest, chose his words with care when asked to comment on prospects of Scottish independence.
“This is a decision for the people of Scotland to make,” the spokesman said. “We certainly respect the right of individual Scots to make a decision ... along these lines. But, you know, as the president himself said, we have an interest in seeing the United Kingdom remain strong, robust, united and an effective partner.”
|
Get started with starters today!
Settings
Show help tooltips? Yes No
Batch volume in: US gallons Liters Imperial gallons
Your Wort Details Target Pitch Rate
(US gallons) Batch Volume
(SG) Original Gravity(SG) Overbuild Cell Count (billions) Yeast Cells Needed (billions) Ale - .75 million/ml Lager - 1.5 million/ml Hybrid - 1 million/ml Custom
Your Yeast Details
(billions) Initial Cell Count(billions) Viability %
(billions) Viable Cell Count(billions)
Your Starter Details
(liters) Flask Size(liters) Gravity Volume (liters)
(grams) DME Needed(grams) 500 ml 1 liter 1.5 liters 2 liters 2.5 liters 3 liters 3.5 liters 4 liters 4.5 liters 5 liters Custom
1st Starter Step Method of Aeration Starter Volume (liters) Inoculation Rate (millions/ml) New Cells Created (billions)
(billions) Total Cells(billions) Growth Factor Stir Plate Manually Shaken Simple (no agitation)
2nd Starter Step Not needed! Method of Aeration Starter Volume (liters) Inoculation Rate (millions/ml) New Cells Created (billions)
(billions) Total Cells(billions) Growth Factor Stir Plate Manually Shaken Simple (no agitation)
3rd Starter Step Not needed! Method of Aeration Starter Volume (liters) Inoculation Rate (millions/ml) New Cells Created (billions)
(billions) Total Cells(billions) Growth Factor Stir Plate Manually Shaken Simple (no agitation)
4th Starter Step Not needed! Method of Aeration Starter Volume (liters) Inoculation Rate (millions/ml) New Cells Created (billions)
(billions) Total Cells(billions) Growth Factor Stir Plate Manually Shaken Simple (no agitation)
Overbuild Harvest
(liters) Amount to pitch(liters)
(liters) Amount to harvest(liters)
Assumptions used by the calculator
Liquid yeast is assumed to lose approximately 20% of the total viable cell count per month. This figure comes from a White Labs statement that indicated that you could expect 75%-85% viability after a month; 20% is used as a middling factor. I also assume that the max viability on any package of yeast is 97%; call me a cynic, I don't see you getting 100 billion live cells unless you bring the package directly home from the yeast lab
There are multiple models out there for calculating loss of viability. If you go with a linear model (i.e. you lose 20% of the original cells per month), you end up with 0% viability after five months. I know of far too many cases of people who have brewed with yeast older than that, so I don't trust that model. Instead, I do this as a "running" total - you lose 20% in one month, 20% of the remaining balance the next month, and so on. This model has it own flaws, of course; since you are always deducting a percentage, you never get to zero cells - which obviously cannot be true.
In the end, I feel like this model is the most useful for normal brewing applications - if your yeast is four or more months old, you need to make a starter, regardless. Also, you may freely substitute your own viability percentages in this calculator if you so desire.
There are multiple models out there for calculating loss of viability. If you go with a linear model (i.e. you lose 20% of the original cells per month), you end up with 0% viability after five months. I know of far too many cases of people who have brewed with yeast older than that, so I don't trust that model. Instead, I do this as a "running" total - you lose 20% in one month, 20% of the remaining balance the next month, and so on. This model has it own flaws, of course; since you are always deducting a percentage, you never get to zero cells - which obviously cannot be true. In the end, I feel like this model is the most useful for normal brewing applications - if your yeast is four or more months old, you need to make a starter, regardless. Also, you may freely substitute your own viability percentages in this calculator if you so desire. All growth figures are based off of a 75% attenuation rate. Obviously, multiple factors can influence this, most notably the actual strain of the yeast used, but also the gravity of the starter wort, the temperature of the wort, and other factors. It stands to reason that attenuation rate will absolutely impact the final number of cells produced.
I am assuming 2.72715 grams of extract per point of gravity per liter of starter.
The calculator does not try to give precise starter volumes, as I feel that it would be rather difficult to work with recommended volumes like "1.15 liters" or "3.27 liters". Instead, it makes calculations based off of 500ml increments. If it cannot hit your target cell count at, say, 2 liters, the next try will be at 2.5 liters, and so on, until either your target cell count or your flask size is reached. If the calculator determines that you cannot build a large enough starter in a given step to reach your target cell count, it automatically calculates the next step up.
Note that you can customize any step of the process at any time, so if you want that 3.27 liter step, have at it!
Note that you can customize any step of the process at any time, so if you that 3.27 liter step, have at it! All growth rate data comes from the work done by Kai Troester of Braukaiser fame. My original intent was to include both the Braukaiser and Mr. Malty calculations, and allow users to pick from both. However, the more I delved into the subject, the more convinced I became that the Troester figures were more reliable. Troester makes his formulae freely available, while the Mr. Malty formulae are treated like something of a trade secret. Troester has published data from multiple experiments that seems to indicate repeatable results to back up his assertions, whereas I can't really find any experiments to back up (or back into) the Mr. Malty figures.
Specifically, the growth equations used in this calculator are, as follows:
For stirred starters, if the initial cell count is less than 1.4 billion per gram of extract, the growth rate is 1.4 billion cells per gram of extract.
If the initial cell count is between 1.4 billion and 3.5 billion per gram of extract, the growth rate is 2.33 - (.67 * initial cells) billion cells per gram of extract.
If the initial cell count is greater than 3.5 billion per gram of extract, there is no growth. For simple (non agitated starters), the growth rate is .4 billion cells per gram of extract, up to an inoculation rate of 3.5 billion cells per gram of extract. If you exceed this, there is no growth. For shaken starters, the growth rate is .62 billion cells per gram of extract, up to an inoculation rate of 3.5 billion cells per gram of extract. If you exceed this, there is no growth. The formulae for stirred and simple starters comes from this article detailing estimating yeast growth rates, and the formula for shaken starters comes from this 2013 NHC presentation.
Specifically, the growth equations used in this calculator are, as follows: The formulae for stirred and simple starters comes from this article detailing estimating yeast growth rates, and the formula for shaken starters comes from this 2013 NHC presentation. Finally, realize that due to all of the assumptions above in regards to yeast viability and growth rates, no calculator will be able to accurately predict how many cells you have or will grow. According to the Troester models, you should assume a variance of +/- 15% in all such calculations. That being said, this yeast calculator will absolutely get you into the ballpark, and will help you to make noticeably better beer.
Use the calculator below to help you determine the proper size yeast starter for your next homebrewed beer. The calculator takes into account the details of your wort (i.e. the batch size and the gravity of the beer), and also allows you to overbuild your starter (if you are the type of brewer who likes to harvest yeast from your starters for future brew dates).The calculator will help you to predict the viability of your yeast, and will also help you to build your starter of the proper gravity.Finally, the calculator will recommend a multi step starter, if needed, and will calculate out to four steps of yeast starters to help ensure that you meet your desired cell count.If you are unsure as to what any of the terms used in the yeast starter calculator actually mean, you can simply mouse over the label in question, and a tooltip will open to help you out.If you enjoy the yeast starter calculator or find it useful (or entertaining), please consider sharing it via one of the buttons below. Thanks!If you prefer, we now have a downloadable version of the calculator available (requires Microsoft Excel).Additional credit goes out to Beersmith's article on the subject, and to various internet blogs and websites that I used to check data against. Finally, I'd like to thank my charter members of HomebrewDad.com for helping me to test the calculator; their input was absolutely invaluable!
|
In the post-it note dual of "Wife said no" and "Apple said yes", any guesses as to which yellow sticky turned out on top? That's right, Apple's fantastic customer service strikes again. A man returned an iPad 2 because his wife disapproved of the purchase only to find one arrive at his door shortly after. The full story goes something like this:
Man buys iPad 2. Man's wife frowns upon iPad 2. Man returns iPad 2 with a note on it that says "wife said no". Apple finds note and thinks it's funny. Two Apple VPs find out and also find it humorous, so Apple sends man an iPad 2 with a note that says "Apple said yes". Man is happy to have iPad 2. Wife is happy that no money was spent. Apple is happy to make customer happy.
Very cute story. Very lucky man. Did any of you out there have to the pass the spousal gauntlet to get your iPad 2?
[MacRumors]
|
Taoglas, a leading provider of IoT and M2M antenna products, today launched a range of high-performance GNSS antennas specifically designed to power the next generation of applications that require highly accurate location capabilities, including navigation, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs ), surveying, agriculture, and paving the way for the rise of autonomous vehicles. The new antenna range is the most comprehensive series of high-precision GNSS antennas in the market today, and incorporates several new form factors to help drive optimal performance and location capabilities across a wide variety of use cases.
To deliver the best accuracy, centimeter-level positioning and precise location capabilities required for applications like the Connected Car and autonomous driving, the use of multiple RF bands is required. Taoglas’ new range includes systems and antennas that utilize not only the additional functions of the Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou satellite systems, but also the GPS L2 or L5 bands to deliver the highest levels of accuracy and performance required.
“Today’s connected devices and applications demand new ways of approaching the age-old problem of location accuracy,” said Dermot O’Shea, Taoglas co-CEO. “In certain applications, there is simply no room for positioning errors—location accuracy is an absolute requirement.”
The new antenna range includes:
The GRS.10, a “smart” antenna that includes a high-performance Taoglas GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou) ceramic patch antenna module integrated with a u-blox NEO-M8U GNSS receiver.
The Torpedo series GNSS quadrifilar helical antennas, extremely high-performance wideband satellite antennas for position-information-critical applications. No other GNSS antenna provides such high circularly polarized antenna gain across such a wide beamwidth. These are available in a passive (QHA) or active (AQHA) versions.
GNSS quadrifilar helical antennas, extremely high-performance wideband satellite antennas for position-information-critical applications. No other GNSS antenna provides such high circularly polarized antenna gain across such a wide beamwidth. These are available in a passive (QHA) or active (AQHA) versions. The BOLT A.90.A.10451111, a new GNSS timing antenna that includes lightning-induced surge protection and is an ideal solution for the base station market. The advantage over existing timing antennas is the addition of GLONASS and BeiDou frequencies.
The complete range of precision GNSS antennas also includes:
The ASFGP.36A.07.0100C, a ceramic GPS L1/L2 low-profile, low-axial-ratio, embedded stacked active patch antenna.
The MAT.12A, a GPS/GLONASS/BeiDou dueling-loop chip antenna evaluation board, which delivers the advantages of a circularly polarized patch antenna, with two miniaturized low-profile chip antennas on a smaller PCB footprint, at one-fifth the weight.
Yesterday, Taoglas also launched an industry-first range of small-form-factor ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas specifically designed to work with DecaWave’s chipset and module solutions for applications including asset tracking, follow-me drones, healthcare monitoring, smart home services, and other applications that demand high-performance indoor localization capabilities.
To learn more about Taoglas’ complete range of GNSS and UWB antennas, visit Taoglas in Booth N.614 at Mobile World Congress Americas, September 12-14, 2017, in San Francisco, or visit www.taoglas.com.
About Taoglas
Taoglas provides advanced antenna and RF solutions to the world’s leading wireless and Internet of Things (IoT) companies. With five world-class design, support and test centers in Ireland, Germany, Taiwan and the USA, Taoglas works with its customers to provide the best solution for their unique antenna and RF challenges, quickly and easily. In-house manufacturing in Taiwan and USA enable us to deliver the highest quality products. Our team of professionals live and breathe RF solutions, with expertise and experience across different wireless and IoT use cases, from LTE to GNSS, DSRC, and NFC and beyond to 5G. This expertise is proven in the huge number of success stories across a variety of applications, including Telematics, Automotive, Metering, Smart Grid, Wearables, Medical Devices, Remote Monitoring, and High-Speed Video Broadcasting. For more information, visit www.taoglas.com.
|
M iriam Thimm Kelle carries a grim treasury to illustrate the lack of closure the death penalty brings for families of murder victims: a thick album of news stories about her brother, James, the victim in one of the most violent and disturbing murders in Nebraska’s history. She brought the book with her last year to the Nebraska State Capitol, where it sat by her side during a hearing in which she urged lawmakers to pass a bill abolishing capital punishment once and for all.
Kelle’s father had begun collecting the articles after James’s death in 1985, passing them on to his other children before he died. The first three pages of the album are about James’s funeral. The rest chronicle the long saga that ensued, the trial and subsequent appeals. The lurid details of James’s death appear again and again. “Each time I read through it,” Kelle told me, “it’s just more crazy and awful.”
Photo: Dept. of Correctional Services/AP
The man who killed James, a white supremacist cult leader named Michael Ryan, was sentenced to die in 1986, but in 2015 remained alive on death row. As decades passed, Ryan enjoyed notoriety and attention, while Kelle’s family lived in a sort of “purgatory,” endlessly awaiting an execution date. As Kelle spoke before lawmakers that day, Ryan was dying of cancer. She had no need to see him executed. But she felt betrayed by what she called the “false promise” of the death penalty. “Michael Ryan was sentenced nearly 30 years ago,” Kelle testified. “At that time, my son was in diapers. Now my son has two children of his own. And Michael Ryan still sits on death row.” Kelle said she would “give anything” to go back in time and ask for a life sentence.
Kelle was one of several witnesses at the hearing who were feeling hopeful. The abolition bill, LB268, had been put forward by veteran state Sen. Ernie Chambers — an outspoken champion of social justice who introduced anti-death penalty legislation every year. But recently a coalition of conservatives had joined the fight, reframing the death penalty as a wasteful government program — expensive, ineffective, and contrary to Christian values. Leading the charge was Republican state Sen. Colby Coash, who described how as a college student he had once joined the bloodthirsty throngs outside Nebraska’s death chamber as an execution was carried out. Now he was a staunch fighter for abolition — and part of a growing trend that has seen transforming conservative attitudes about the death penalty.
In May 2015, two months after Kelle testified before lawmakers, the Nebraska legislature passed LB268, in a historic victory for abolitionists. In a 30-19 vote, lawmakers overrode a veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts, making Nebraska the first red state to end the death penalty in 40 years.
Yet the battle over Nebraska’s death penalty was far from over. In November, voters will have an opportunity to overturn LB268, thanks largely to the efforts — and considerable family fortune — of Gov. Ricketts. Denouncing the law as proof that “the legislature has lost touch with the citizens of Nebraska,” Ricketts poured his own money into repealing it, funding a petition drive launched under the banner Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. Last summer, the group attracted enough signatures to put the issue on the November 2016 ballot; in September, the Lincoln Journal Star reported that the group had raised more than $913,000 — “a third of it from Gov. Pete Ricketts and his father, Joe Ricketts,” the founder of TD Ameritrade. Last month the Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a lawsuit alleging that the governor improperly downplayed his role driving the referendum in order to mask the “violation of his duty” to enforce state laws, even those with which he disagrees.
With the court set to rule on the lawsuit soon, anti-death penalty activists have launched Retain a Just Nebraska, organizing events throughout the state to convince voters to reject the death penalty in November. Sen. Coash has taken a leading role in the campaign, making his case in speeches and in the press. But as was the case in winning abolition in Nebraska, preserving it will also rely on murder victims’ families who have worked behind the scenes for years. For people like Kelle, this means continuing to revisit a deep-seated trauma over and over again, as part of the exhausting work of changing hearts and minds.
Speaking over the phone after a recent work shift, Kelle was intent on describing the looming referendum as an opportunity to educate Nebraskans about why the death penalty is wrong. But her fatigue was also clear. “It took me ten years to work through the anger and all the emotional aspects” of James’s death, she told me. It took several more years to find the courage to tell her story. After 12 years fighting to end the death penalty, “I was hoping that we would be done. Because it’s very traumatic to go over it every time.”
A housing unit at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution in Tecumseh, Neb., May 11, 2015. Photo: Nati Harnik/AP
T he murder of James Thimm was shocking. Potential jurors for Michael Ryan’s 1986 trial were asked if they had “queasy stomachs.” One district judge who upheld the conviction called it “the most horrendous torture and sickening murder imaginable.” When she gives speeches, Kelle tries to let people know that “it’s a difficult story,” she said. “I use that as an option out.”
Thimm was raised by foster parents in Beatrice, Nebraska, where he was part of a devout Mennonite community. At some point in his late teens, he became attracted to the religious cult led by Ryan, eventually moving to the cult’s farm in Rulo, on the southeastern edge of the state. But Thimm began to question Ryan’s messianic claims; Ryan responded by declaring that Thimm was the devil and ordered him punished. Over three days, he was brutally tortured by Ryan and his followers. In August 1985, months later, Thimm’s body was discovered following a raid by law enforcement. He had broken bones and had been partially skinned. Buried next to him was the son of two cult members, 5-year-old Luke Stice, also killed by Ryan. At trial, cult members described how Thimm was “chained, whipped, shot in the fingers and forced to have sex with a goat.”
As Kelle’s family reeled from the trauma of her brother’s horrific murder, prosecutors pushed them to support the death penalty for Ryan. “We were told this was the only option” that would ensure he couldn’t hurt others, she said. “The state said he would be a danger to other people beyond James,” including prison guards. “And we didn’t want that.” Ryan was convicted and sentenced to die.
Kelle had never been comfortable with the death penalty. She was a nurse as well as a Mennonite and leaned more toward healing and forgiveness. Over time, she found herself reaching out to those who had participated in her brother’s murder. One of them had described himself as James’s “best friend,” yet admitted to torturing him, saying he’d been brainwashed. He was sentenced to 15 years. “I was really scared that he wouldn’t be better when he got out,” Kelle recalled. She feared he would remain in the grip of that same “false doctrine — we now call it radicalization.” She began visiting him in prison, trying to work with him to ensure that he would be ready for release, a decision she acknowledges is “difficult for people to understand.”
It was not until years later, after Kelle got a brief part-time job working at Nebraska’s Tecumseh Prison, that she was finally able to publicly disavow the death penalty. The prison was home to death row, where Ryan was incarcerated. She saw firsthand how bogus the state’s claim to her family had been — the prison’s security was more than enough to keep Ryan from harming employees. Kelle reached out to Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and eventually met other murder victims’ family members who were opposed to executions. “It was just so validating to know that they felt the same way,” she said.
Photo: Nati Harnik/AP
Today Kelle criticizes the way politicians treat grieving families like political pawns, “putting you on a chessboard to their advantage.” If you agree with the state, they’ll support you at trial and beyond, she said. But if you stand up against executions, “all of a sudden, along comes the big King, or in our case, Governor Ricketts, [to defeat you]. And that’s really very disheartening when you work so hard and it costs so much emotionally to do this work.”
This dynamic was on display in April of last year during the floor debate over the abolition bill. Lawmakers opposed to the bill described Thimm’s murder in graphic detail, casting him as a “victim who is unable” to speak for himself. Kelle was not present, but her fellow activist Elle Hansen, who has lost three loved ones to murder, was at the Capitol that day. “I already have plenty of PTSD,” Hansen told me. As she listened to Republican Sen. David Schnoor describe how Thimm had been sodomized with a shovel, she realized, “I could not sit and listen to that again.” From that point on, Hansen brought earbuds to hearings and played the Sara Bareilles song “Brave” whenever testimony became too graphic.
For those who have lost loved ones to murder, such experiences are “horribly re-traumatizing,” Hansen explained. Politicians exploit other people’s tragedies when “they are not their losses to speak about, to dictate about.” As she listened to lawmakers argue that day, Hansen felt increasingly unsettled by a meeting she had recently attended with the governor that she could not shake from her mind.
On April 7, 2015 — less than two months before the abolition bill passed — Hansen, Kelle, and a handful of other activists sat down with Gov. Ricketts in Lincoln. It was a chance to make their case for abolition. As Hansen recalls, she was telling the governor that if the state reinvested the money it spends on the death penalty toward crime prevention, the murder rate would decline, “and your likelihood of sitting here as a person whose lost a loved one to murder would go down considerably.” The governor’s response surprised her. “I actually have lost a loved one to murder,” he told Hansen. Ricketts had never revealed this part of his family’s past. Hansen went home and researched the case. The victim had been Ricketts’s first cousin, 22-year-old Ronna Anne Bremer, who went missing right before Christmas in 1988. A pregnant mother of two, Bremer’s death was confirmed only after an anonymous person mailed her skull to a sheriff’s office. The crime was never solved.
Hansen could certainly empathize with the family’s plight, but she was disturbed by Ricketts’s lack of transparency. As a relative of murder victims, she said, “I stood up … and I said, ‘Look, I have skin in the fight.’” She didn’t see why the governor, as an elected official, should not be just as forthcoming. Afterward, Hansen watched as Ricketts personally funded the referendum to repeal the abolition law. “I thought for sure … he was going to say something,” Hansen said. But months later, petitions were being turned in, “and he still didn’t say anything.”
Hansen got angry. She had already been disgusted by Ricketts’s unethical approach to executions, the way he had tried to import lethal injection drugs from foreign countries in violation of federal law. Now he was deploying his wealth and power to roll back the law she and others had fought so hard to win through the democratic process.
In September, Hansen met with Joe Duggan, a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald. She told him about the meeting with Ricketts. She also shared her own story, talking in detail about the three loved ones she’d lost to murder. Afterward, Hansen said, “I went to the bathroom in the coffee shop and I just bawled.”
Later, Duggan broke the story about the meeting and Ricketts’s cousin. The governor refused to comment, but a spokesperson issued a statement. “The Ricketts family continues to grieve Ronna’s tragic death, and pray that the person who took her life will be brought to justice.”
Photo: Nati Harnik/AP
I t is impossible to know how deeply his cousin’s case has influenced Ricketts’s views on the death penalty. But the contrast of Ricketts’s personal war against abolition with the positions of Kelle and Hansen illustrates the different ways people react to a tragic loss. Twenty-nine murder victims’ families publicly expressed their support for the abolition bill last year — but there are surely 29 others who might disagree. Within Kelle’s own family, she said, there are those who would have liked to see Michael Ryan executed. But in the end they too experienced the disparity between how the death penalty works in theory and its cruel reality.
Michael Ryan died on May 24, 2015, after nearly 30 years on death row. Three days later, LB268 passed, abolishing the death penalty in Nebraska. As the fight over abolition drags on, proponents of capital punishment will have a harder time pointing to Ryan as proof that the death penalty works. For her part, Kelle will continue to carry her collection of articles and to urge the state to stop wasting money on a policy that punishes the very families the death penalty claims to heal. “Resources could be used for so many other things,” she said. “Victims’ rights, cold cases … I mean, just pick whatever you’d like. Anything but that.”
|
Police say a 16-year-old girl, Eliza Wasni, killed an Uber driver by stabbing and hacking at him with a machete and a knife in the Chicago suburb of Lincolnwood. (Reuters)
A 16-year-old girl was carrying a machete in one hand, a knife in the other, as she walked out of a Walmart store in the Chicago suburb of Lincolnwood without paying at about 3 a.m. Tuesday, prosecutors said at a court hearing. The girl, Eliza Wasni, called for an Uber ride — her third that night — and a driver pulled up in a silver Hyundai Sonata.
Wasni climbed into the car. About two minutes later, as the car reached an intersection a few blocks away, she began stabbing and hacking at the driver from the back seat, prosecutors said at a news conference.
Teen girl charged in killing of Uber driver randomly attacked man with knife, machete she'd just stolen: authorities https://t.co/aElJubW9zo pic.twitter.com/B7FVRWefG1 — Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) June 1, 2017
The bleeding driver, 34-year-old Grant Nelson, managed to pull the car into a nearby condominium building driveway. He ran to the lobby entrance, banged on the door and screamed.
“Help me,” Nelson shouted, “Help me, I’m going to die.”
Meanwhile, Wasni tried to flee by taking the wheel of the car, but soon rammed into a median and took off on foot, prosecutors said. After residents called 911, police arrived to find a bloodstained car, and a trail of blood leading from the parkway around the side of the building.
There they found Nelson in the grass in a pool of his own blood, suffering from deep stab wounds and hacking wounds to his arms, side, head and chest. He was coherent enough to describe his assailant to police and what happened, but he would later die in a hospital.
Police found Wasni after identifying her from the Uber app on the driver’s phone, which he left in the car. She was crouching behind a building near where she’d abandoned the car, holding a machete in one hand and knife in the other, prosecutors said. She wore only a bra and leggings — a Chicago Cubs shirt was found nearby, the Chicago Tribune reported.
When she repeatedly refused to drop her weapons, police said they used a stun gun on her and took her into custody. They would later find surveillance video from Walmart that prosecutors say shows Wasni stealing the weapons while wearing a Cubs shirt.
Authorities charged Wasni as an adult with first-degree murder, the Chicago Tribune reported. A judge called the attack “extremely violent” and ordered her to be held without bail. She will be held in a juvenile facility, the Tribune reported. She appeared in court Wednesday in a white jail jumpsuit, her blond hair disheveled and her eyes kept mostly to the floor.
16-year-old girl charged with murdering her Uber driver with machete https://t.co/SCpfwK6Hh5 pic.twitter.com/X8pJLHhKgm — WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) May 31, 2017
Prosecutors called the attack “heinous” and “not provoked in any manner.”
Wasni lives with a single mother and is a student at Taft High School in Chicago, her public defender said in court, according to the Chicago Tribune. She was in violation of the company’s 18-and-older age restriction for riders. Access to the service can be removed if a rider is found to be underage.
An Uber spokeswoman said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune the company is “heartbroken by the loss of one of our partners, Grant Nelson. Our deepest sympathies and prayers are with his family and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time.”
The ride-hailing company — embattled from a number of recent internal struggles and controversies — has previously made headlines regarding allegations that its drivers assaulted passengers. But this case involved the opposite. And the shocking incident spurred the question: Why would a teenage girl — seemingly unprovoked — brutally attack a complete stranger?
[From #deleteUber to ‘Hell’: A short history of Uber’s recent struggles]
Grant Nelson’s sister, Alex Nelson, said in a news conference Wednesday the details of the attack were “horrifying and saddening,” and that “obviously this is a time of heartbreak and tremendous loss for us.”
“Grant was an extraordinary figure in our lives,” she said. “He was a gentle man. He was a good man.”
Grant Nelson, who lived with his parents in Wilmette, just north of Chicago, had a wide range of interests — from animals to classical opera to military history.
“We don’t have any answers,” Alex Nelson said.
More from Morning Mix:
‘The guy who microwaves fish’ in the office: Inside Al Franken’s blood feud with Ted Cruz
Snow White actress Chloë Grace Moretz calls out her own movie promos for fat-shaming
N.Y. subway breakdown inspires makeshift graduation on the E train
Trump revives ‘Crooked Hillary’ nickname. Clinton fires back with ‘covfefe.’
|
What Your Students Can Create With Tellagami
(Sample of what your students can do with Tellagami)
21st Century Learners
Tellagami: A New Way to Show Learning!
free video creation app available for Tellagami is avideo creation app available for Apple or Android devices. You record yourself and your avatar repeats your words. So what's so different about this app? Let me count the ways...
21st Century Skills Made Easy
Customize your avatar Customizable Avatar! You can edit your avatar's gender, skin tone, eye color, head size (weird right?), hair color/style, clothes, and shoes. You can even select the emotion that the avatar will project while speaking your words (choices include: neutral, happy, sad, surprised, angry, scared, and silly). Choose the background. This is perhaps the most important factor in creating videos (or 'Gamis') to show student learning. If your students are reading a chapter from a book, you might ask them to make or find a visual representation of the scenery, take a picture of it, and upload it on Tellagami. This will show up behind your avatar. You also have the option of selecting one of their stock backgrounds. Place your avatar in a historic situation. Easy sharing. Some video recording apps make it difficult to access your creations by only allowing people to view them from their website (see my review of Adobe Voice). You can Easy sharing options save your 'Gamis' directly on your device. Even better is the fact that you can upload these videos to YouTube or iMovie. You can even have your students embed a 'Gami' into a Keynote presentation or a webpage/blog. I found that a really creative way to use Gami is to set up fake conversations with your avatar (ie. in each slide of a Keynote you can ask your avatar historical questions and program them to explain a historical issue/topic/theme).
Like any app, Like any app, Tellagami is not perfect. See below for some things you should know before choosing to incorporate Tellagami into your curriculum.
Things You Should Know First
If you want options, you have to pay Hidden Costs: Tellegami recently switched many of its avatar customizing options to 'in-app purchases.' For example, you used to be able to use one of 3-4 stock clothing top/bottom/shoe options but now you only have one option unless you purchase the "Character Customization Package," which costs $2.99 in the app store. Another example is the "Text-to-Speech" option. Before, you could choose to speak or type the words that you wanted your avatar to say. When typing text, you had the option of using one of 7-8 different stock voices, each with a different dialect, age, or gender. This option will now cost you a $1.99 in-app purchase. Many stock backgrounds are available, for a price, however as you have already seen, it's probably better to customize your own background with pictures from your device. Although it would be nice to customize your character for free, this app is about showing learning, not showing fashion sense. Time constraints: Videos are limited to 30 seconds. This is extremely annoying. No matter how concise you are, a 30 second limit makes it hard to make a good video. There is a workaround to this however. You can string together multiple 'Gamis' on an app like iMovie to create a longer film. This would be especially helpful if students are working in groups. Not available on the web. Wanting to use an app on the web may seem counterintuitive to the 21st century skills objectives (who wants to go back to computers when you have a device?), however many schools are moving in the direction of 1:1 Chromebooks. Having the ability to access Tellagami on the web would make it easier for students to use this technology if they don't own a smartphone or tablet. The majority of computers have microphones and cameras in them, so why not make Tellagami available on the web?
Educational Technology for the 21st Century
their shoulders. They can select one of many apps from a list but the results should be the same regardless of the app. The objective of any activity/project is to have students show their learning and I believe that, in this respect, Overall, despite some of its drawbacks, Tellagami is still a fantastic app. A vital aspect of incorporating 21st century skills is giving students multiple options to show technological proficiency. Tellagami is just one of the many apps that I allow my students to use to show learning. The point of giving students their choice of app is that it places the responsibility onshoulders. They can select one of many apps from a list but the results should be the same regardless of the app. The objective of any activity/project is to have students show their learning and I believe that, in this respect, Tellagami is one of the more useful apps in my students' educational technology repertoire.
The emphasis on incorporating technology can be overwhelming for teachers at times. With the plethora of apps , tools, and technology on the market today, it's difficult to discern the value of any given tool. The technology you want to use may seem great but you really never know how the students will interact with it. This is why I always suggest that teachers try technology out for themselves before they attempt to incorporate it into their lessons. Tellegami is an app that you can master in literally 5 minutes. Even better, Tellagami fits perfectly into the 21st century skills framework. Sure, there are a great deal of apps that make teachers' lives more manageable, but vital aspect of Tellagami is that it will give your students the opportunity to practice
|
A T train that coasted through four Red Line stations without a driver on board Thursday morning likely left Braintree Station unmanned after an operator error occurred, according to Stephanie Pollack, secretary and chief executive of the Department of Transportation.
About 50 passengers were aboard the driverless train when it left Braintree Station at about 6 a.m., traveling past North Quincy Station until transit officials de-powered the third rail and brought it to a halt. The MBTA, along with Transit Police, the Department of Public Utilities, and the Federal Transit Administration, are continuing to investigate the incident and the operator has been placed on administrative leave.
Advertisement
While no one aboard the train was injured, Pollack referred to the incident as “an unacceptable breach of our responsibility to keep our riders safe’’ during a press conference Thursday afternoon.
“We failed our passengers today,’’ she said.
The train’s operator was unable to start the inbound train due to a signal problem, and requested permission to put the train in bypass mode from the MBTA Operations Control Center, Pollack said. Bypass mode allows a train to depart from a station without receiving the usual signal, and requires the driver to toggle a switch on the outside of the train.
“Trains are put into emergency bypass mode only when there is a signal problem,’’ Pollack said. “It is a procedure that is used regularly, and it is a procedure that is used safely if proper procedures are followed.’’
MBTA officials cleared other trains along the track before shutting off the power, stopping the runaway train between North Quincy and JFK/UMass stations.
In a press conference earlier in the day, Gov. Charlie Baker said, “It’s pretty clear the main control that drives the train was tampered with. I think the big issue on this is whether it was a negligence issue or something else.’’
Advertisement
“It’s pretty clear that it was set in forward motion, which is why it moved in the first place when the signal was manipulated,’’ he said.
Pollack said Baker’s reference to possible tampering was based on an “early concern about whether the operator’s area of the vehicle was left in the condition it should have been when the operator exited the train.’’
Once the train was stopped, T personnel boarded the train and brought it to JFK/UMass, where passengers were asked to exit the train onto the platform.
A train operator was struck by the side of the train at Braintree Station and sustained minor injuries, the MBTA said.
When asked whether travelers should be concerned for their safety, Baker stressed that this was an “isolated incident.’’
Bill Brids, 53, was on the train heading from Braintree to his job at MIT when the T passed through a station without stopping. At first, he said, he thought the problem was a “rookie’’ driver.
“It was going very quickly through Quincy. I was shocked,’’ Brids said. “This thing was full throttle.’’
He said the train eventually started coasting and slowing to a stop. He was stuck on the train for about 40 minutes, and wasn’t told what had happened.
“I knew it was unusual,’’ Brids said. “I knew something definitely had gone awry.’’
T. Lee, another passenger who was on board, said in an e-mail to Boston.com that there was a conductor initially present at Braintree. After the train had stopped, MBTA employees told passengers that the train had no driver, Lee said.
Advertisement
“The scariest part was not knowing if there was a train ahead of us AND how this train would be stopped,’’ Lee wrote.
Mark Hohmann, 26, said he boarded an inbound Red Line train at Quincy Center at about 6 a.m. His train, which he now believes was just ahead of the conductor-less train, didn’t stop at North Quincy or JFK/UMass. Passengers hoping to get to those locations had to get off at Andrew and go back in the other direction, he said.
“They didn’t tell us anything,’’ Hohmann said, adding that there was “confusion’’ among fellow passengers.
Red Line trains were delayed for hours as a result of the incident. Service resumed on the Braintree branch about two and a half hours later.
Photos: These are the busiest MBTA stops
Previous -- of -- Next Advertisement
.
|
Buy Photo Pastor Jane Harris preaches at Good Shepard Lutheran Church in Bloomfield on Sunday, October 4, 2015. (Photo: Brian Powers/The Register)Buy Photo
When Jason Benell told his mother-in-law he is an atheist, she asked if he worshiped the devil.
“Absolutely not,” he told her. “I don’t believe the devil exists any more than God.”
As press officer for Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers, he is used to the misperceptions, although the number of people identifying with his ideas continues to grow. The Pew Research Center’s latest survey on religion in America found that those who identify as unaffiliated, meaning atheists, agnostics or “nothing,” grew from 16.1 percent in 2007 to 22.8 percent in 2014.
Related: Why fewer rural Iowans are going to church
He said the growth may come from people who formally identified as Christians for social or cultural reasons who have now “come out of the closet” because secular values are more accepted and spread through social media.
Yet the reach of his 1,000-member group may be much larger, he claims, because many in rural areas still don’t participate out of fear it would hurt them economically in their professions or business.
“We don’t have an official stance. Do what is best for you or your family,” he said. “If you are a local real estate agent, don’t torpedo your clients.”
Faith organizations in Iowa are fighting to retain and attract members, and some are succeeding. Non-Christian faiths are rising as a percentage in Iowa, and while the percentage of Christians has dropped since 2007, it is still nearly 3 of every 4 Iowans.
Database: Which Iowa counties have highest percentage of worshipers?
More on the stats: Review highlights by city, by decade and across the country
But Hector Avalos, a professor of religious studies at Iowa State University, said the stigma of being a nonbeliever has faded. He has spoken to atheists all across Iowa.
“I see more local groups of nonbelievers organizing themselves,” he said. “There are local groups that did not exist when I arrived at Iowa State in 1993.”
Buy Photo Iowa State religion professor Hector Avalos. (Photo: Des Moines Register)
Avalos said some who don’t attend church are using the Internet to fulfill their spiritual needs, while others are finding connection with nonbelievers there.
“A lot of people tell me they used to go to church for friends,” Benell said. “They don’t believe, but they still went. Now they don’t go. They go online to groups like Iowa Atheists.”
He said his group is a social organization, but also advocates for social acceptance of atheists.
He said society doesn’t need religion to teach morals, and religion can be expensive. His group’s membership is $25, and they don’t pass around a collection plate.
What's the U.S. breakdown of religions by faith?
Click here to see the data in an infographic.
Read or Share this story: http://dmreg.co/1S1tcjK
|
The Republic Sienar Systems Republic T.I.E., the short-range starfighter in use with the Republic Navy in the waning years of the Old Republic (part of the Revised Prequels fan-project, Rise of the Empire), and predecessor to the TIE-series craft of the Galactic Empire. Artwork by Adam Kopala adamkop.deviantart.com Craft: Republic Sienar Systems Republic T.I.E.Type: Space Superiority StarfighterScale: StarfighterLength: 7 metersSkill: Starfighter Piloting: TIECrew: 1 and astromech droid (can coordinate)Crew Skill: Starfighter piloting 4D, starship gunnery 4DCargo Capacity: 65 kilogramsConsumables: 3 daysCost: 90,000 credits (new)Hyperdrive Multiplier: x2Nav Computer: Uses astromech droid (10 sets of coordinates stored)Maneuverability: 2DSpace: 7Atmosphere: 350; 1,000 km/hHull: 3DSensors:Passive: 20/0DScan: 40/1DSearch: 60/2DFocus: 3/3DWeapons:2 Light Laser Cannons (fire-linked)Fire Arc: FrontSkill: Starship GunneryFire Control: 2DSpace Range: 1-3/12/25Atmosphere Range: 100-300/1.2/2.5 kmDamage: 3DStar Wars is a copyright of Lucasfilms Ltd., subsidiary of Disney, All Rights Reserved.The Star Wars d6 RPG is a copyright of West End Games, All Rights Reserved.
|
There’s a sense of urgency that’s building at the Eagles practices and ti’s coming from head coach Andy Reid. Yesterday I counted four-times, that Reid demanded that plays be run over during the defensive period.
This is very unusual for Reid because he doesn’t normally get directly involved in the defensive part of practice. Normally he’s more of an observer of the defensive team work than anything else.
Yesterday, the big fella wanted passes from scout team quarterback Trent Edwards to be knocked down or intercepted by his secondary, not completed to the intended receiver. If it didn’t happen that way, Reid demanded that the play be run over. On one play he demanded that it be run over a total of three times.
He was living in the defensive huddle yesterday and talking to of the players on the defensive unit. When Jim Johnson was the defensive players, Big Red rarely talked to the defensive players during practice. They were Johnson’s responsibility and he gave the defensive coordinator plenty of room to do his job.
Yesterday, Eagles defensive coordinator Juan Castillo was on the side with the defensive players, who were waiting for their chance to get in there. Reid who is usually anchored behind the offensive huddle and out of the way during the defensive period, walked into the defensive huddle after nearly each play during the defensive period of practice and talked to the defensive players.
This as a major step because football coaches are very territorial. Clearly Reid is concerned about what’s happening with his defense and Castillo is probably on a short leash. Big Red is starting to heat up. This Eagles team has as much potential as any of Reid’s Eagles teams but they also have been mistake prone during the first two games of the preseason.
Good teams aren’t usually described as injury-prone. There seems to be a lack of attention to detail. Yes, there’s a desire to excel, but so far they lack the focus to avoid running into the quarterback too late, holding receivers, jumping off sides, or holding in pass protection.
Reid blew up the other night on the bench in New England because he knows that you can’t let a team get in the habit of playing sloppy penalty-ridden football, or they doomed to repeat it when the games start.
I expect the Eagles practices are going to be very demanding from now until the season starts because it will be quite a challenge to have this team sharp despite not playing together very much in the preseason. That’s especially true of the offense with Michael Vick at the helm. They’ve only played together for twelve plays.
|
You’ve no doubt seen the KISS logo many, many times during your life. Since it first appeared on a New York City concert poster in the fall of 1973, it has become one of the most famous logos in not only rock history, but brand history, too.
But have you ever noticed that the two S's in the logo are just the slightest bit different from one another?
"The KISS logo, as it appears today, I did with a Sharpie and a ruler," guitarist and vocalist Paul Stanley, aka Starchild, recently told The Huffington Post over the phone. "If you look at the two S's, they're not perfectly parallel because I did it by eye."
"When we got our record deal," he continued, "the art department asked if we wanted it to be redrafted to be perfect and I said, 'It got us this far, let's leave well enough alone.'"
He added, "Our number one rule has always been no rules."
See for yourself:
Kiss The KISS logo still looks almost exactly like Stanley's original design.
Stanley, who was stuck in traffic during our conversation, spoke with HuffPost to promote the band's latest venture: a worldwide movie theater release of their new concert film, "KISS Rocks Vegas."
The Las Vegas residency allowed the band to go after a new height of "sensory overload," as Stanley put it. The set location meant they didn't have to tear down the pyrotechnics, lasers and other theatrics at the end of every night, right after "the sacrificial guitar is broken."
"It's not much different than when you see one of those ships in a bottle and you go, 'How did they get that ship in a bottle?'" said Stanley, who added, "I would have to say, it's probably one of my favorite shows we've done in the last 40 years in terms of design concept."
"Role Models" Paul Rudd dressed as Starchild in the movie "Role Models."
The last time KISS appeared on this many movie screens was in the 2008 flick "Role Models," starring Paul Rudd. Although the band didn't show up in the film themselves, the main characters dress up as the band to fight in a memorable live-action role-play (LARP) battle at the climax of the movie.
"Paul Rudd was hysterical," said Stanley of his reaction to the scene. "Anytime that we're referenced in a film only embeds us further in American culture. It was a tremendous compliment."
Since the band has prevailed for over four decades, I certainly wondered if Stanley believed his real self to be the version with makeup (Starchild) or without.
"The makeup for me is not to create a character or a disguise, it's really to fortify and amplify a part of who I am. There's a comfort in it," Stanley answered.
|
A DoS Attack against the C# Compiler
Generics in C# are certainly very useful and I find it amazing that we almost didn’t get them:
What would the cost of inaction have been? What would the cost of failure have been? No generics in C# 2.0? No LINQ in C# 3.0? No TPL in C# 4.0? No Async in C# 5.0? No F#? Ultimately, an erasure model of generics would have been adopted, as for Java, since the CLR team would never have pursued a in-the-VM generics design without external help.
So a big thanks is due to Don Syme and the rest of the team at Microsoft Research in Cambridge!
But as well as being useful, I also find some usages of generics mind-bending, for instance I’m still not sure what this code actually means or how to explain it in words:
class Blah < T > where T : Blah < T >
As always, reading an Eric Lippert post helps a lot, but even he recommends against using this specific ‘circular’ pattern.
Recently I spoke at the CORESTART 2.0 conference in Prague, giving a talk on ‘Microsoft and Open-Source – A ‘Brave New World’. Whilst I was there I met the very knowledgeable Jiri Cincura, who blogs at tabs ↹ over ␣ ␣ ␣ spaces. He was giving a great talk on ‘C# 7.1 and 7.2 features’, but also shared with me an excellent code snippet that he called ‘Crazy Class’:
class Class < A , B , C , D , E , F > { class Inner : Class < Inner , Inner , Inner , Inner , Inner , Inner > { Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner inner ; } }
He said:
this is the class that takes crazy amount of time to compile. You can add more Inner.Inner.Inner... to make it even longer (and also generic parameters).
After a big of digging around I found that someone else had noticed this, see the StackOverflow question Why does field declaration with duplicated nested type in generic class results in huge source code increase? Helpfully the ‘accepted answer’ explains what is going on:
When you combine these two, the way you have done, something interesting happens. The type Outer<T>.Inner is not the same type as Outer<T>.Inner.Inner . Outer<T>.Inner is a subclass of Outer<Outer<T>.Inner> while Outer<T>.Inner.Inner is a subclass of Outer<Outer<Outer<T>.Inner>.Inner> , which we established before as being different from Outer<T>.Inner . So Outer<T>.Inner.Inner and Outer<T>.Inner are referring to different types. When generating IL, the compiler always uses fully qualified names for types. You have cleverly found a way to refer to types with names whose lengths that grow at exponential rates. That is why as you increase the generic arity of Outer or add additional levels .Y to the field field in Inner the output IL size and compile time grow so quickly.
Clear? Good!!
You probably have to be Jon Skeet, Eric Lippert or a member of the C# Language Design Team (yay, ‘Matt Warren’) to really understand what’s going on here, but that doesn’t stop the rest of us having fun with the code!!
I can’t think of any reason why you’d actually want to write code like this, so please don’t!! (or at least if you do, don’t blame me!!)
For a simple idea of what’s actually happening, lets take this code (with only 2 ‘Levels’):
class Class < A , B , C , D , E , F > { class Inner : Class < Inner , Inner , Inner , Inner , Inner , Inner > { Inner . Inner inner ; } }
The ‘decompiled’ version actually looks like this:
internal class Class < A , B , C , D , E , F > { private class Inner : Class < Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner > { private Class < Class < Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner >. Inner , Class < Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner >. Inner , Class < Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner >. Inner , Class < Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner >. Inner , Class < Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner >. Inner , Class < Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner , Class < A , B , C , D , E , F >. Inner >. Inner >. Inner inner ; } }
Wow, no wonder things go wrong quickly!!
Exponential Growth
Firstly let’s check the claim of exponential growth, if you don’t remember your Big O notation you can also think of this as O(very, very bad) !!
To test this out, I’m going to compile the code above, but vary the ‘level’ each time by adding a new .Inner , so ‘Level 5’ looks like this:
Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner inner ;
‘Level 6’ like this, and so on
Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner . Inner inner ;
We then get the following results:
Level Compile Time (secs) Working set (KB) Binary Size (Bytes) 5 1.15 54,288 135,680 6 1.22 59,500 788,992 7 2.00 70,728 4,707,840 8 6.43 121,852 28,222,464 9 33.23 405,472 169,310,208 10 202.10 2,141,272 CRASH
If we look at these results in graphical form, it’s very obvious what’s going on
(the dotted lines are a ‘best fit’ trend-line and they are exponential)
If I compile the code with dotnet build (version 2.0.0), things go really wrong at ‘Level 10’ and the compiler throws an error (full stack trace):
System . ArgumentOutOfRangeException : Specified argument was out of the range of valid values .
Which looks similar to Internal compiler error when creating Portable PDB files #3866.
However your mileage may vary, when I ran the code in Visual Studio 2015 it threw an OutOfMemoryException instead and then promptly restarted itself!! I assume this is because VS is a 32-bit application and it runs out of memory before it can go really wrong!
Mono Compiler
As a comparison, here are the results from the Mono compiler, thanks to Egor Bogatov for putting them together.
Level Compile Time (secs) Memory Usage (Bytes) 5 0.480 134,144 6 0.502 786,944 7 0.745 4,706,304 8 2.053 28,220,928 9 10.134 169,308,672 10 57.307 1,015,835,136
At ‘Level 10’ it produced a 968.78 Mb binary!!
Profiling the Compiler
Finally, I want to look at just where the compiler is spending all it’s time. From the results above we saw that it was taking over 3 minutes to compile a simple program, with a peak memory usage of 2.14 GB, so what was it actually doing??
Well clearly there’s lots of Types involved and the Compiler seems happy for you to write this code, so I guess it needs to figure it all out. Once it’s done that, it then needs to write all this Type metadata out to a .dll or .exe, which can be 100’s of MB in size.
At a high-level the profiling summary produce by VS looks like this (click for full-size image):
However if we take a bit of a close look, we can see the ‘hot-path’ is inside the SerializeTypeReference(..) method in Compilers/Core/Portable/PEWriter/MetadataWriter.cs
Summary
I’m a bit torn about this, it is clearly an ‘abuse’ of generics!!
In some ways I think that it shouldn’t be fixed, it seems better that the compiler encourages you to not write code like this, rather than making is possible!!
So if it takes 3 mins to compile your code, allocates 2GB of memory and then crashes, take that as a warning!!
Discuss this post on Hacker News, /r/programming and /r/csharp
|
Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest charm offensive toward Israel and his country’s Jews seems to show how a crisis over its downing of a Russian aircraft last month may help improve Ankara's dragging rapprochement efforts with the Jewish state.
After years of harsh rhetoric and actions against Israel, suddenly the ruling Islamist AK Party has allowed the first ever public Hanukkah event to take place on Sunday.
Erdogan followed that up on Monday by speaking positively of normalizing relations with Israel.Israeli, Turkish relations soured after a deadly 2010 incident, in which 10 Turkish citizens were killed as Israel enforced a maritime blockade on Gaza. The sides have held contacts to overcome that rift, and now these rather slow moving efforts may have been boosted indirectly by Ankara’s crisis with Moscow.More than half of Turkey’s gas and 10 percent of its oil come from Russia, the British Telegraph reported this month.Perhaps Erdogan is thinking about offsetting the potential loss of Russian energy by rekindling a past proposal to house a pipeline though which it would help export Israel’s offshore natural gas to Europe, experts say.Erdogan has set the bar high, though, demanding that Israel curtail a years old embargo on Hamas-ruled Gaza, in which Israel closely controls the territory’s imports and exports in a measure aimed at preventing weapons smuggling.Some experts were also skeptical about whether Erdogan wanted a rapprochement with Israel at a time when Iran has been boosting its standing in the region.“It remains to be seen if a pragmatic streak is left in Erdogan who is increasingly motivated by Islamist and neo-Ottoman impulses,” Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, told The Jerusalem Post.Erdogan’s campaign against Syrian President Bashar Assad is not going well, and “Iran is becoming stronger in the region, and he opened a new front with Russia,” Inbar said.Still Inbar feels: “Israel has many things to offer: its gas fields could become a new source of energy; its clout in Washington could reduce some of the criticism against Erdogan’s erratic behavior versus Russia; and it could become a powerful regional balance against a rising Iran – something all other Sunni powers fear.”Selin Nasi, a columnist for the Jewish Turkish weekly Salom, and contributor to Hurriyet Daily News told the Post the public Hanukka ceremonies had local Jews “feeling euphoric, notwithstanding the foreign policy agenda attached to it.”Nasi saw the gesture as “a perfect move to polish the country’s image abroad amid mounting criticism regarding human rights, and to calm world markets all at once.”“Erdogan adopted a rather soft rhetoric on Israel and avoided political bickering” during the campaign for the general election this past summer despite the tensions on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and in the West Bank, the Jewish Turkish intellectual said.Nasi sees the crisis over the downing of the Russian aircraft as “without a doubt” a key impetus behind Turkey’s moves toward Israel though she does not see Israel meeting Turkey’s condition of lifting the restricted access to Gaza, especially during the current wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.But, she asserted, Turkey has an interest in balancing the axis of Russia, Cyprus, and Egypt in the Mediterranean. “A thaw between Turkey and Israel will help Ankara overcome its regional isolation,” Nasi said.While Israeli, Turkish relations don’t seem likely to speedily return to the warmth or closeness of a decade or so ago, steps may be taken to normalize relations at the diplomatic level, beginning with an exchange of ambassadors, Nasi said.Nasi added, though, that “we all know that as long as the ideological Islamist conservative core persists at the government level, Turkey-Israel ties will remain vulnerable to crisis, arising out of tensions between Israel and Palestine.”
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>
|
Terrorist vehicle attacks with 4 or more fatalities are still relatively rare, though they are becoming more frequent. Radical Muslims committed 83% of mass public attacks committed up through the end of 2017. Including attacks where fewer than 4 victims were killed, 73% of all vehicle attacks were carried out by Muslims. We have previously done comparisons on rates of mass public shootings and bombings around the world, and specifically comparisons between the US and Europe.
Some of these attacks rank among the worst attacks in terms of deaths for some countries. The van attack in Toronto in April 2018 was the worst mass killing in Canada since at least 1989 and the third worst massacre in Canada since 1880. The Nice truck attack in 2016 was the third worst massacre in France since the end of World War II (one was the shooting attack at the concert hall in Paris in November 2015 and the other was a deliberate plane crash in 2015).
While there have been 8 previous vehicle attacks in the United States since 2000, the attack in New York City on October 31st, 2017 was the first one with at least 4 fatalities. However, the 2015 attack in Las Vegas had more total casualties (including injuries).
Other cases with fewer than 4 people killed.
There are also a lot of car accidents that weren’t conscious attempts to attack people.
Stillwater, Oklahoma, October 24, 2015: Four people were killed and more than 40 injured when a drunk woman drove into a homecoming parade at Oklahoma State University.
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn
CPRC original research, International Comparisons, mass public killings non-shootings
|
Brexit Power Matrix: National leaders and lawyers dominate
Many people are important to one side of the Brexit negotiation, but only a few are important and visible to both sides.
In this power matrix POLITICO maps out both the high and low-profile players on both sides of the Channel, so that you can see their relative importance to each of the teams.
The unprecedented negotiation will be a strange ebb and flow of politicians, civil servants, diplomats and lawyers. Each party — or in the case of the EU27, set of parties — will also attempt to use media outlets to advance their cause. The probability of leaks is high. The probability of some kind of breakdown in public communications or a breakdown of the negotiations themselves is nearly as high.
Here are the people who will have to steer through the obstacles, and manage crises whenever they occur.
The matrix illustrates that Brussels will be the center of gravity of negotiations, but that national figureheads rather than EU officials will be the core of that center.
It will surprise no one that Theresa May and Angela Merkel are chiefs among the national leaders. The role of the French president will depend on whether Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, or François Fillon prevails in the spring presidential election.
What may surprise is the number of unknown lawyers holding sway, particularly those from big. Western EU countries. That trend is an indication that legal wrinkles are likely to populate the full two years of negotiations, including possible court challenges in the German constitutional court, and running right through to the veto the European Parliament has over the deal.
There are several new appointments to the U.K. Permanent Representation to the EU, including Ambassador Tim Barrow, his deputy Katrina Williams and Simon Case, the new director general for the U.K.-EU partnership, that Brexit watchers need to watch.
In Whitehall, officials such as Olly Robbins, chief civil servant in the Brexit department, Theresa May’s co-chief of staff Fiona Hill, and Jeremy Heywood, the U.K.’s most senior civil servant, will matter more than most ministers, even those with Brexit responsibilities such as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Trade Secretary Liam Fox, or even Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who manages the hot-button issue of migration.
British media are outliers: Top of the tree in London, but insignificant to a Brussels bubble tired of tabloid scaremongering.
Wildcards include President Donald Trump and his chief strategist Steve Bannon, who are capable of disruption, and not trusted by the EU27 to watch from the sidelines, and the governments of Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Download the Brexit Power Matrix in high resolution here.
|
Image caption Chris Tappin was extradited to the US after a battle through the British courts
A British man accused of exporting parts for Iranian missiles has made his first appearance in a US court.
Retired businessman Chris Tappin, 65, of Orpington, south-east London, appeared for less than five minutes at a federal court in El Paso, Texas.
He was remanded in custody until Friday, when his lawyer says he will vigorously pursue the case for bail.
Mr Tappin, who was extradited last week after a battle through the British courts, denies the allegations.
Neighbouring state
The judge read him his rights in court and a summary of the charges.
These relate to an alleged conspiracy to export specialised batteries which the US justice department says would have been used in missiles by Iran.
The defendant will be held on remand at a prison in the neighbouring state of New Mexico.
On Tuesday, Mr Tappin's wife Elaine broke down in tears as she described his case to MPs.
She told the Commons home affairs committee of her dismay that British courts were not interested in his case.
Attorney General Dominic Grieve told MPs issues with the UK-US extradition treaty were "not readily curable".
Crime 'sting'
Critics say the treaty makes the extradition of British nationals easier than extraditing US nationals because the US authorities have to produce less evidence to support their case than their British counterparts.
But a review of extradition by senior judge Sir Scott Baker last year found the treaty was fair to British citizens.
Mr Tappin denies trying to sell batteries for use by Iran in Hawk missiles and says he has been the victim of an FBI sting.
The Briton, a former president of the Kent Golf Society, faces a trial and a possible 35-year jail sentence.
British judges say the extradition is lawful and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has refused to intervene.
|
Program Schedule
The Packard Campus Theater programs events year round, usually on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The schedule for each month is posted approximately two weeks in advance. Short subjects are presented before select programs. Titles are subject to change without notice.
In case of inclement weather, for screenings at the Packard Campus Theater, check the information line at (540) 827-1079 ext. 79994 or (202) 707-9994 no sooner than three hours before show time to see if the movie has been cancelled.
Need directions to the theatre? Click here
For more information about how to attend, go to the “About the Theater” link at the top of this page.
Request ADA accommodations at least five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or [email protected]
Upcoming Films
FEBRUARY
Thursday, February 14 (7:30 p.m.)
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (Miramax, 1998 – rated R*)
This historical romantic comedy speculates about where the young William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes), who is short on cash and ideas, finds inspiration for one of his best-known works, “Romeo and Juliet.” Much credit is given to the playwright’s growing love for the fictional Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow), a woman of means striving to find her place in a world governed by men. Directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, “Shakespeare in Love” was a hit with audiences and critics alike. Janet Maslin wrote in her New York Times review, “Galvanized by the near-total absence of biographical data, it soars freely into the realm of invention, wittily weaving Shakespearean language and emotion into an intoxicatingly glamorous romance.” Among its many accolades, the film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth I), and Best Original Screenplay. * No one under the age of 17 will be admitted without a parent or guardian. 35mm archival film print. Color, 123 min.
Thursday, February 21 (7:30 p.m.)
MUSIC AND LYRICS (Warner Bros., 2007)
Hugh Grant stars in this romantic comedy as Alex Fletcher, a washed-up eighties pop star who was part of the fictional band PoP!, (inspired by Wham! and Duran Duran). He gets a chance to make a comeback when a reigning pop diva (Haley Bennett) asks him to write a song for her. Stuck on the song’s lyrics, he finds assistance from Sophie (Drew Barrymore), a house plant technician he has just met, and the two find they are in sync in more ways than just music. The film features Grant performing “PoP! Goes My Heart” in a hilarious parody of 1980s-MTV style videos. Film critics remarked on the “surprisingly easy chemistry between Grant and Barrymore” (Jack Matthews, New York Daily News) and “undeniable adorability factor of each of the performers” (Stephen Hunter, Washington Post). More recently, Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday called “Music and Lyrics” a “scandalously overlooked rom-com” in her write-up for the year 2007 in the Post’s article “The best year in movie history was” (Dec. 30, 2018). Rated PG-13. 35mm archival film print. Color, 96 min.
Friday, February 22 (7:30 p.m.)
LOVE ME TONIGHT (Paramount, 1932)
According to director Rouben Mamoulian, Paramount executive Adolph Zukor hurried "Love Me Tonight" into production to keep two of his more expensive contract players, Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, from sitting idle. If Mamoulian rushed, it doesn't show in what film historians consider one of the best and most original of 1930s musicals. By pre-recording the entire score, Mamoulian, who was influenced by the work of Ernst Lubitsch and Rene Clair, combined sound and image with more fluidity than most early musicals achieved. Songs by Rodgers and Hart – including "Isn't It Romantic" and "Mimi" – and an effervescent script filled with risqué innuendo are brought to life by Chevalier's saucy charm and MacDonald's angelic voice and beauty. Added to the National Film Registry in 1990, the film features an outstanding supporting cast including Myrna Loy, Charles Ruggles, Charles Butterworth and C. Aubrey Smith. 35mm archival film print. Black & white, 95 min.
Saturday, February 23 (2 p.m.)
AKEELAH AND THE BEE (Lionsgate, 2006)
In this family-friendly inspirational underdog story, eleven-year-old Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer) is determined to spell her way out of South Los Angeles and make it to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. With a supportive tutor coaching her, Akeelah may even show her pessimistic mother (Angela Bassett) she has what it takes to win. Written and directed by Doug Atchison the cast also features Laurence Fishburne and Curtis Armstrong. The National Board of Review elected “Akeelah and the Bee” one of the top ten independent films produced in 2006. Among the many awards and nominations the film received were five NAACP Image Awards nominations, winning Outstanding Writing for a Feature Film and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture for Keke Palmer. Rated PG. 35mm archival film print. Color, 112 min.
Saturday, February 23 (7:30 p.m.)
JUST ANOTHER GIRL ON THE I.R.T. (Miramax, 1992 – rated R*)
Chantel (Ariyan Johnson) is an outspoken high school student who wants to get out of Brooklyn and into medical school; she is determined to be seen as more than just another girl on the train that takes her to Manhattan. Writer, director, and producer Leslie Harris shot her debut film “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.” on 16mm film in 17 days with a shoestring budget of $130,000. The film was made with grants from the American Film Institute, National Endowment for the Arts, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Jerome Foundation, and went on to win the Special Jury Prize at Sundance. Harris described her independent feature as “a film Hollywood dared not to do” and as a coming of age film from a young black woman’s point of view. The film also stars Kevin Thigpen and Ebony Jerido. * No one under the age of 17 will be admitted without a parent or guardian. 35mm archival film print. Color, 92 min.
Thursday, February 28 (7:30 p.m.)
SHANE (Paramount, 1953)
George Stevens directed this adaptation of Jack Schaefer’s novel in which Shane, a former gunfighter fighter (Alan Ladd), comes to the defense of homesteaders who are being terrorized by a cattle baron who wants their land. Van Heflin, Jean Arthur (in her last screen appearance) and Brandon de Wilde portray the Starrett family who befriends Shane. Loyal Griggs lush color cinematography won an Academy Award for this western drama. “Shane” was tapped for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1993. 35mm archival print. Color, 118 min.
MARCH
Friday, March 1 (7:30 p.m.) - SILENT MOVIE DOUBLE FEATURE
ATTA BOY (Pathé Exchange, 1926)
Popular silent comedian Monty Banks stars as a copy boy working at a large daily newspaper in New York who dreams of becoming a real reporter. A practical joker tricks him (on April 1st, his birthday) into believing he has been promoted and Monty soon finds himself in over his head in a kidnapping investigation. Banks also produced this action comedy that was directed by Edward H. Griffith. 35mm film print produced by the Library of Congress film preservation lab in 2011. Black & white, 63 min.
CROOKED STREETS (Paramount Artcraft, 1920)
In this action-packed spy drama, Gail Ellis (Ethel Clayton) signs on as a secretary to a professor and his wife for a trip to exotic China to acquire antique vases. Once there, Gail is rescued from being accosted and chased by drunken sailors in a dangerous part of Shanghai by young Englishman Rupert O'Dare (Jack Holt). As the story unfolds, the two come to realize they have more than good looks in common. Director Paul Powell handles the proceedings with a stylish and assured hand and the cinematography by William Marshall is especially noteworthy. 35mm archival film print. Live musical accompaniment for both films will be provide by Jon Mirsalis. Black & white, 52 min.
Saturday, March 2 (2 p.m.)
RISE OF THE GUARDIANS (Paramount, 2012)
This computer animated action film is based on The Guardians of Childhood book series by William Joyce. The idea for the Guardians came from Joyce's daughter, who asked him if he thought Santa Claus had ever met the Easter Bunny. In this story, the Guardians enlist Jack Frost to stop Pitch Black from engulfing the world in darkness. The voice cast features Chris Pine as Jack Frost, Alec Baldwin as North/Santa Claus, Hugh Jackman the Easter Bunny, Isla Fisher the Tooth Fairy and Jude Law as Pitch Black. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Described on Rotten Tomatoes as “a sort of Avengers for the elementary school set, ‘Rise of the Guardians’ is wonderfully animated and briskly paced.” Rated PG. 35mm archival print. Color, 97 min.
Saturday, March 2 (7:30 p.m.)
ONCE & AGAIN (Isabel Dunn, 2018)
The documentary “Once & Again” quietly examines our digital age through sensitive portraits of three residents of Austin, TX obsessed with antique phonographs and 78rpm records. It features Jim Cartwright, phonograph collector; Amelia 'Foxtrot' Raley, Austin’s only phonograph disc jockey; and Dr. Louis A. Waldman, art history professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Director Isabel Dunn who will introduce the film, was raised in Silver Spring, MD; studied film and liberal arts honors at UT Austin; and is now based in Los Angeles, CA. Still making the rounds on the North American Festival circuit, the short’s accolades include Best Student Film at Lone Star Film Festival 2018 and Official Selection at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival 2019. Color, digital presentation, 25 minutes. Also on the program, “The Immortal Voice” (Bray, 1922) a fascinating explanation of how phonograph discs were recorded in the acoustic era. The silent short features an impressive new score by pianist Ben Model. Black & white, 14 min. Plus another short documentary TBA.
Thursday, March 7 (7:30 p.m.)
IN CALIENTE (Warner Bros., 1935)
A New York theater critic (Pat O’Brien) falls in love with a Mexican dancer (Dolores Del Rio) and incurs the wrath of his gold-digging fiancée (Glenda Farrell). Filmed at the Mexican resort of Agua Caliente, at the time Hollywood’s favorite vacation destination, this breezy musical comedy is a typical product of the "South-of-the-Border craze," initiated with the success of the 1929 film "Rio Rita." The popularity of movie musicals with Latin settings held steady throughout the 1930’s and really took off when Carmen Miranda burst onto the scene in "Down Argentine Way" (1940). The musical numbers in the film were created and directed by Busby Berkeley and include the memorable "The Lady in Red." Directed by Lloyd Bacon, the film also stars Leo Carrillo and Edward Everett Horton. 35mm film print preserved in 2016 by the Packard Campus Film Preservation Lab from the original negatives in the United Artists Collection. Black & white, 84 min.
Friday, March 8 (7:30 p.m.)
DOGFIGHT (Warner Bros., 1991 – Rated R*)
Set in San Francisco in 1963, this original and thought-provoking drama chronicles the brief relationship between a young Marine (River Phoenix) who is about to be shipped out to Vietnam and the rather plain aspiring folk singer (Lili Taylor) who teaches him a few important lessons about life and the treatment of women. Presented as part of a series of films from contemporary women directors from the 1970s to the present, this is the second feature film directed by Nancy Savoca, who also directed “True Love” (1989), “Household Saints” (1993) and “Union Square” (2011). Savoca was mentored by John Sayles, and she in turn, has mentored up-and-coming filmmakers through the IFP’s Emerging Visions program. 35mm archival film print. *No one under the age of 17 will be admitted without a parent or guardian. Color, 92 min.
Saturday, March 9 (7:30 p.m.)
DETOUR (PRC, 1945)
Film critic Roger Ebert called “Detour” “haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.” Hitchhiker Al Roberts (Tom Neal) gets mixed up with a femme fatale (Ann Savage) who "looked like she'd just been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world." The story is told in narration addressed directly to the audience who hears not what happened, but what Al wants us to believe happened. This ultra-low budget melodrama shot in six days by Edgar G. Ulmer has developed cult status as one of the most stylish B pictures ever produced. “Detour” was added to the National Film Registry in 1992. It will be introduced by film preservationist and new Library of Congress Film Laboratory Supervisor Heather Linville who supervised the recent restoration of the film. 35mm film print, restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, the Museum of Modern Art and the Cinémathèque Française. Restoration funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation. Black & white, 68 min.
Thursday, March 14 (7:30 p.m.)
SMOKE SIGNALS (Miramax, 1998)
Native American directors are a rarity in Hollywood. After the early silent film pioneers James Young Deer and Edwin Carewe, the portrayal of Native Americans in cinema turned dark and stereotypical. These social trends started changing with motion pictures like the groundbreaking "Smoke Signals," generally considered to be the first feature film written, directed and produced by Native Americans. Director Chris Eyre uses the relaxed road-movie concept to create a funny and unpretentious look at Native Americans in the nation's cinema and culture. The mostly Native American cast features Adam Beach and Evan Adams as the two road warriors who find themselves on a hilarious adventure. Beneath the highly entertaining façade, the film acquainted non-Native American audiences with real insights into the indigenous Americans' culture. Sherman Alexie penned the witty, droll script based his book "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." This Miramax release was a hit on the independent film circuit and won numerous awards, including a Sundance award. It was added to the National Film Registry in 2018. Rated PG-13. 35mm archival film print. Color, 89 min.
Friday, March 15 (7:30 p.m.)
Best of the Kennedy Center Honors” (1978-2014)
Renowned producer, director and writer George Stevens, Jr. will introduce a video compilation of memorable moments and performances curated from four decades of the Kennedy Center Honors broadcasts. The Kennedy Center Honors have been given annually since 1978 to performing artists for their lifetime contributions to American culture in the fields of music, dance, theater, opera, motion pictures or television. Created by George Stevens Jr. and the late Nick Vanoff, the honorees are celebrated in a star-studded gala at the Kennedy Center Opera House that is broadcast on CBS during the week between Christmas and New Year's. The programs feature short film biographies and leading artists pay tribute to the honorees. The Honors has won numerous awards including 10 Emmys for Outstanding Variety Special and the Peabody Award. The annual Honors gala is an evening without categories, without disappointments, and without competition. Mr. Stevens was producer and co-writer of the program through 2014. In 2017 he donated master elements for each broadcast to the Library of Congress and worked with the Library of Congress Video Preservation Lab to assemble this compilation of musical performances and presentations. Honorees include James Cagney, Led Zepplin, Sammy Davis Jr., Bette Davis, Billy Wilder, Loretta Lynn and Marian Anderson. Color, approximately 120 min.
Saturday, March 16 (7:30 p.m.)
GIGI (MGM, 1958)
Produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Vincente Minnelli, "Gigi" is a lush Technicolor musical from MGM that tells the story of a friendship between a playboy (Louis Jourdan) and a young girl (Leslie Caron) that turns to love. "Gigi" is based on a 1944 novella by Colette and received a treatment on Broadway in 1951, but it was Arthur Freed who envisioned the story as a film musical and ultimately fought to get it made. French actress and dancer Leslie Caron was cast in the title role, with Maurice Chevalier as Honoré Lachaille, a role that was expanded in the film version and helped revitalize Chevalier's career. "Gigi" won numerous industry awards, including a total of nine Oscars, a record at the time, and is often considered to be one of MGM's best musicals. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1991. 35mm archival film print. Color, 115 min.
Thursday, March 21 (7:30 p.m.)
IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER (MGM, 1955)
Producer Arthur Freed’s third pairing (along with “Singin' in the Rain,”1952, and “On the Town,” 1949) with director Stanley Donen, co-director and star Gene Kelly and the writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, “It's Always Fair Weather” follows three WWII soldiers after they are discharged over a ten year span when they reunite and compare notes. Clever use of montage and split screen techniques follows the men on their individual courses as the years go by. The film features a host of memorable musical numbers, including stars Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd hoofing with garbage can lids on one foot; Kelly gliding over the city streets on roller skates in a love-drunk stupor; Dolores Gray decimating a male chorus line via trap doors and exploding stage props; and Cyd Charisse in a sexy dance. Critically acclaimed, but not a hit at the time, “It's Always Fair Weather's spoof of television and the advertising business, ebullient musical numbers, melancholy observations about the transitory nature of friendships and some fiendishly inventive performances, make the film a continual favorite with contemporary audiences. 35mm archival print. Color, 101 min.
Friday, March 22 (7:30 p.m.)
BELLE DE JOUR (Allied Artists Pictures, 1967 – Rated R*)
Catherine Deneuve’s reserved patrician beauty hides a cracked interior in one of the actress’s most iconic roles: Séverine, a Paris housewife who begins secretly spending her afternoon hours working in a bordello. This surreal and erotic late-sixties daydream from provocateur for the ages Luis Buñuel is an examination of desire as well as a gently absurdist take on contemporary social mores and class divisions. Fantasy and reality commingle in this burst of cinematic transgression, which was one of Buñuel’s biggest hits. “Belle de Jour” won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1967. *No one under the age of 17 will be admitted without a parent or guardian. 35mm film print courtesy of Janus Films. Color, 100 min.
Saturday, March 23 (7:30 p.m.)
THE BAND WAGON (MGM, 1953)
Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan star in this sophisticated backstage toe-tapper produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Vincente Minnelli, widely considered one of the greatest movie musicals of all time. Astaire plays a washed-up movie star (in reality he'd been a successful performer for over 30 years) who tries his luck on Broadway, under the direction of irrepressible mad genius Jack Buchanan. Musical highlights include "That's Entertainment," “Triplets,” "Dancing in the Dark" and Astaire's sexy Mickey Spillane spoof "The Girl Hunt" danced to perfection by Cyd Charisse. Fred Astaire would only make three more musicals after "The Band Wagon" before turning to a film and television career that included the occasional turn as a dramatic actor. Added to the National Film Registry in 1995. 35mm archival film print. Color, 112 min.
Thursday, March 28 (7:30 p.m.)
A NEW LEAF (Paramount, 1971)
Already well known as part of the clever comedy team Nichols & May (with Mike Nichols), Elaine May made her film debut as writer, director and star in this critically acclaimed dark comedy about a playboy (Walter Matthau) who seeks out a rich woman to marry after he has squandered away his trust fund. The film received Golden Globe nominations for Best Comedy or Musical and Best Actress for May, plus a Writer’s Guild Award nomination for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium. May also wrote screenplays for “The Birdcage” (1996) and “Primary Colors,” (1998) and directed “The Heartbreak Kid,” (1972), “Mikey and Nicky,” (1976) and the 2016 American Masters documentary on Mike Nichols. Elaine May was awarded the 2012 National Medal of Arts for her contributions to American comedy. 35mm archival print. Color, 102 min.
Friday, March 29 (7:30 p.m.)
BELLS ARE RINGING (MGM, 1960)
Judy Holliday recreated her Tony Award winning role as Ella Peterson, an answering-service operator who falls in love with a man she's known only as a voice on the telephone in this musical comedy by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne. The legendary MGM musical team of producer Arthur Freed and director Vincente Minnelli adapted the show for the screen with Jean Stapleton reprising her Broadway role as Ella's cousin and popular singer/actor Dean Martin as Jeffrey Moss, the playwright with whom Ella falls in love. Songs include "Just in Time" and "The Party's Over" which became popular standards. Comden and Green won the Writers Guild of America award for Best American Musical and Minnelli earned a Best Director nomination from the Directors Guild of America. “Bells Are Ringing” was the last collaboration of Arthur Freed and Vincente Minnelli after 12 films together. Digital presentation. Color, 126 min.
Saturday, March 30 (7:30 p.m.)
JURASSIC PARK (Universal, 1993)
|
Cullen, who lived on his own in Wentworth Falls, had been seriously ill for some time.
Close associates told Fairfax Media the family feared he was near death three weeks ago.
In a Sydney court hearing last November, Mr Waterstreet said Cullen was bipolar and faced serious physical and mental health problems.
Cullen’s pancreas had been removed, he was diabetic and he took 11 medications a day.
Cullen received a 10-month suspended jail sentence and was ordered to undergo counselling after he appeared on drink-drive and firearms charges.
He had been pulled over by police near Goulburn in July, last year.
A number of weapons were found in his car and he had a blood-alcohol reading more than twice the legal limit.
Gallery owner Michael Reid, who knew Cullen well, said the court case had a devastating effect on the artist. He described Cullen as "quite an extraordinary human being".
"Adam was the real deal,’’ said Mr Reid. "Even in the grips of a consuming illness, on a good day, he was one of the very best contemporary artists in Australia. Adam was astonishingly kind and the many hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in paintings he donated to charity attest to his endless giving. Adam’s death is a great loss to the nation in so many ways."
|
Sixteen young Alaskans are suing the state, demanding Gov. Bill Walker’s administration take action on climate change.
It’s the second such legal action in the last six years. In 2014, the Alaska Supreme Court dismissed a similar lawsuit, Kanuk v Alaska, from six young people asking the state to reduce carbon emissions, among other recommendations. The justices ruled then that it’s not for the courts to set climate policy and that those decisions must be made through the political process, by the Legislature and the governor.
The new lawsuit says, essentially, the state has made its choice, and by encouraging oil development and permitting projects that emit greenhouse gases, Alaska is actively making climate change worse. The plaintiffs argue that violates their constitutional rights to, among other things, “a stable climate system that sustains human life and liberty.”
The suit argues it’s time for the courts to intervene.
Andrew Welle is one of the lawyers representing the young plaintiffs. He said they want the state to produce a plan to reduce carbon emissions, including from the state’s major industries.
“There needs to be a way for Alaska to address the emergency that’s being compounded by its government,” Welle said. “If that results in reductions of oil and gas extraction, that could be a component of the plan.”
Welle works for Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit that has filed similar lawsuits on behalf of young plaintiffs in states around the country and in federal court. Our Children’s Trust also backed the previous suit in Alaska.
The complaint, Sinnok et al v State of Alaska, is named for lead plaintiff Esau Sinnok, 19, who is from the community of Shishmaref on the Chukchi Sea coast. Shishmaref has voted to relocate because of rapid erosion due in part to the loss of sea ice. The lawsuit argues that climate change threatens “the very existence” of Sinnok’s “home village and native culture.”
Seb Kurland, a high school senior in Juneau, is another plaintiff. Kurland, 18, said young Alaskans have a particular stake in how the state handles climate change.
“I think a lot of young people in Alaska are very aware of this issue,” Kurland said. “We’re on the forefront of it, we see the impacts firsthand, we see how they alter the world around us.”
Kurland was one of 19 teenagers with the advocacy group Alaska Youth for Environmental Action who filed a petition with the Department of Environmental Conservation earlier this fall, asking the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The state denied that petition, arguing the request posed “significant consequences for employment and resource development”.
But the Walker administration has promised that some sort of climate plan is in the works.
It’s not clear yet what that plan will include, or when it will be released.
|
The telecoms giant AT&T has had an “extraordinary, decades-long” relationship with the National Security Agency, it was reported on Saturday.
Citing newly disclosed NSA documents dating from 2003 to 2013, the New York Times said in a story published with ProPublica that AT&T was described as “highly collaborative” with an “extreme willingness to help” with government internet surveillance.
In June 2013, the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked thousands of documents to media outlets including the Guardian. The following April, the Guardian and the Washington Post were awarded a Pulitzer prize for reporting on the story.
The new documents show that AT&T gave the NSA access to “billions of emails as they have flowed across its domestic networks”, the Times and ProPublica said. The reports also said AT&T provided “technical assistance” in “wiretapping all internet communications at the United Nations headquarters” in New York City.
The documents also show that the NSA’s budget for its relationship with AT&T was twice as large as that of the next-largest such programme, and that the company placed surveillance equipment in 17 of its US internet hubs.
NSA collected Americans' email records in bulk for two years under Obama Read more
The Times said the new documents did not name AT&T, but said analysis by its reporters and ProPublica revealed “a constellation of evidence” that pointed to the company.
The Times also pointed to the publication by the Guardian in June 2013 of a draft NSA inspector general report on email and internet data collection, under the codename Stellar Wind, which did not name AT&T or MCI, a company purchased by Verizon. The Times said the report “describes their market share in numbers that correspond to those two businesses, according to Federal Communications Commission reports”.
The Times quoted an AT&T spokesman, Brad Burns, as saying: “We do not voluntarily provide information to any investigating authorities other than if a person’s life is in danger and time is of the essence.”
|
On as many Friday nights as we can, my family gets together for Shabbat dinner. This tends not to be a traditional dinner; we do light the candles and say the prayers, but rarely to do we sit down to a chicken soup-to-nuts meal. My children tend to have busy schedules, and because we live in a secular world, there are practices, games, and parties on Friday nights. So even though we try to keep the tradition of gathering and welcoming the Sabbath, the “traditional” meal has gone by the wayside. In its place is a buffet of appetizers; crudité and hummus, cheese and crackers, guacamole and chips, nuts and raisins, and sometimes, a rotisserie chicken for tradition’s sake. The noshing goes on for a few hours and is usually satisfying to the group, but for me and my food intolerances, I am limited and not always satisfied. I am a big vegetable eater and I am happy to eat them naked (read: without a dip, not me naked), but recently, I was in the mood to dip into something that would be nutritionally dense (like hummus, but I can’t eat it due to my sesame allergy) and satisfy my hunger. I could have made the white bean dip I had made on a number of occasions, but I had a hankering for something new. And since we were veering from the traditional, I decided to move away from the Middle Eastern flavor of hummus and head to Mexico.
I didn’t have a plan for my dip, but I knew the flavor I was looking for. I peeked into my pantry and found a can of black beans. Black bean dip it would be. I pulled out my food processor and proceeded to make the most yum-worthy black bean dip that ever graced a Shabbat table!
Yum-Worthy Black Bean Dip
Makes 1 1/2 cups
1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon Sriracha sauce (feel free to add more or less depending on your heat preference)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, loosely packed
juice from 1/4 lime
In a food processor, blend all ingredients until smooth. That’s it! Really!
I dipped away! Carrots, cucumbers, tortilla chips, and tomatoes. Anything that could be dipped, was dipped. The black bean dip had a little spice to it due to the added Sriracha sauce. Had I been alone and kept the dip to myself, I might have added a bit more heat. And even though I was not alone, there were leftovers, which I spread onto rice cakes the next day while my son dipped sugar snap peas and proceeded to scrape the bowl clean (teenagers!)
Not only was this black bean dip yum-worthy, it was also quick and easy. Friday is coming around again in a few days, and I think this bean dip will become a new staple to our Shabbat “meal.”
Happy Dipping and Shabbat Shalom!
xo
B
|
For the first time, the fungus causing the deadly white-nose syndrome (WNS) in bats has been found in Texas. The fungus, called Pseudogymnoascus destructans, or PD, was also detected for the first time on two species of bats. That means PD is spreading westward and to more species, putting large populations of bats at risk in the US and possibly in Central America.
“We remain, I guess, on the edges of our seats to know exactly what’s going to happen as PD enters the ranges of those additional species,” Jeremy Coleman, national white-nose syndrome coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said during a press call today.
The white fungus thrives in cold, humid environments, where it infects skin of the muzzle, ears, and wings of hibernating bats. A couple years after infection, bats sometimes develop what’s called white-nose syndrome. PD often causes the animals to act strange: they fly outside in the day and cluster near the entrances of caves and mines. This causes the bat to burn out precious calories and fat reserves needed to survive the long winter months without any food, contributing to their death. In some sites, 90 to 100 percent of infected bats have died.
The fungus was first discovered in New York 10 years ago, but it’s now spread to 33 states and five Canadian provinces — killing more than 6 million bats. That’s bad not only because bats are incredibly cute, but because they’re key for ecosystems. Bats eat a lot of insects, including some damaging pests like the corn earworm moth, which attacks sweet potatoes, spinach, squash, and watermelon. They also pollinate plants and disperse seeds. Their ecosystem services to US agriculture are valued between $4 billion to $50 billion a year.
Despite a national effort to contain the fungus, PD has been spreading west. In 2014, it was found in Arkansas, in 2015 in Oklahoma, and in 2016 in Washington state. Today’s announcement shows that the deadly fungus is now present in six counties in North Texas on three bat species: the tri-colored bat, cave myotis, and Townsend’s big-eared bat. None of the bats have developed WNS yet, and there’s hope some of them won’t. Twenty of the 32 species of bats in Texas do not regularly hibernate, and WNS only harms hibernating bats.
This is the first time the fungus was detected on cave myotis and Townsend’s big-eared bats — and both bats have an extensive western distribution. The cave myotis is found as far south as Honduras, Coleman said. That’s concerning because bats of different species often share caves, so they have the potential to infect one other.
“We do have concerns about the continuous bat-to-bat spread of the fungus now throughout the West, even down to Mexico and South America,” Coleman said.
It’s unclear exactly how the fungus arrived from either Europe or Asia; it’s found in both places, but doesn’t cause the mass death of bats there, Coleman said. It’s possible that it was brought over by foreign cave visitors: the fungus latches onto shoes, clothes, and backpacks so it’s easy to carry around. That’s why officials are encouraging private cave owners to limit the number of people who visit their caves, so that the fungus is not spread around further. There are also decontamination protocols that should be followed to limit PD’s spread, Jonah Evans, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department state mammalogist, said during the press call.
Despite today’s gloomy news, we’ve come a long way to understanding PD and the deadly white-nose syndrome. And wildlife disease experts are actively working on several treatments to help improve the bats’ survival. Swabbing bats and cave walls around the country to detect the fungus early on — before the disease occurs — like it was done in Texas, is also a way to effectively manage and control PD. Hopefully, a solution will be found before it’s too late.
|
Turkey only pretends to be fighting against ISIL, British historian Michael Burleigh wrote, stressing that the country’s president Erdogan acts like if wanted to weaken the forces that actually combat Islamists.
© REUTERS / Kayhan Ozer/Handout via Reuters Time to Kick Turkey Out of NATO? Ankara Playing Dangerous Games With ISIL
It may seem only at first sight that the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is involved in the fight against ISIL militants, Michael Burleigh claimed in his article written for Daily Mail.
In reality, Turkish forces are conducting airstrikes mainly on positions of only “one army which poses a real threat to ISIS, and has won countless battlefield victories against them,” and it is the Kurdish PKK forces in Syria. In fact, ISIL could be destroyed in a relatively short period of time, if Kurds acted freely without being attacked by the Turkish Air Force.
“[W]hile Turkey may be a member of NATO — and of the alliance taking on the jihadists — Erdogan seems to be doing almost everything he can to cripple the forces actually fighting ISIS[ISIL],” Burleigh argued.
© AFP 2018 / VASILY MAXIMOV ‘More Powerful Players’ Behind Turkey’s Aggressive Policy Toward Russia
Burleigh went on by explaining that Erdogan treats Kurds as a threat of greater proportions than ISIL due to their objective of founding their own state. Kurds account for roughly one fifth of the population in Turkey and there are also big communities in Iraq and Syria.
Moreover, the Turkish leader “loathes” Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose positions would strengthen should ISIL military might decrease. So Erdogan turned a blind eye on ISIL militants infiltrating into small Turkish towns with a further goal of transfering foreign militants through those settlements to Syria. He also “ignored” that Turkish smugglers were purchasing oil from ISIL, Burleigh pointed out.
The historian also mentioned what he called the “worrying aspect of Erdogan’s consolidation of power,” meaning the continuing transformation of Turkey from a secular to Islamist state. Sitting in the Istanbul mayor’s chair, Erdogan was imprisoned in 1997 for his links to radical circles. And as Burleigh pointed out, he never forgot that experience. While serving as the country’s Prime Minister, Erdogan got his “revenge” in 2012, putting in jail 324 officers. He has also cut funding to the only force that could get in the way of spreading Islamization across Turkey – the army – by 30 percent.
The alarming fact, according to Burleigh, is that a younger generation of Turks, including members of Erdogan’s party, tends to be more sympathetic with ISIL. And there are some fresh instances of this turnaround: in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, Turkish football fans during the match between Turkey and Greece disturbed the minute of silence devoted to the extremists’ victims, chanting “Allahu Akbar.” Statistical data shows that seven percent of Turks don’t think that ISIL militants are terrorists and some 15 percent claim that the radical group doesn’t pose a threat to Turkey.
“That’s why, too, Vladimir Putin is at least partly right to accuse him [president Erdogan] of duplicity in his fight against ISIS [ISIL]. Erdogan may want to join the EU, but he’s only a fair-weather friend of the West,” Burleigh concluded.
|
LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A British university student who launched a website linking to TV shows and films online for free has reached an agreement to avoid extradition to the US and possible jail over copyright infringement allegations, the High Court heard on Wednesday.
A deal struck on Wednesday means Richard O’Dwyer, the 24-year-old creator of website TVShack, which helped people watch free films but did not host content itself, will travel to the United States to pay a small fine and will not be extradited.
O’Dwyer faced becoming the first Briton to be extradited for such an offence and his lawyers argued he would effectively become a test case for copyright law in the United States.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales launched a petition in June against the possible extradition and called O’Dwyer “the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public.”
The court heard O’Dwyer, from Sheffield in northern England, is set to go to the United States within two weeks and pledge not to break copyright law again, the Press Association said.
Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May agreed to O’Dwyer’s surrender after a court ruled in January that his extradition would be lawful.
In October, May blocked the extradition of computer hacker Gary McKinnon on charges of damaging U.S. military systems in a case campaigners said highlighted the unbalanced nature of Britain’s extradition treaty with the United States.
|
The Republic of Ireland will travel to the United States this summer for an international friendly against Mexico in MetLife Stadium, New Jersey on Thursday, June 1.
The game will kick off what promises to be an exciting summer for Martin O'Neill's side as they will also host Uruguay in a 'Three' International Friendly on June 4 before the 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualifier against Austria on June 11 - both at Aviva Stadium.
"This is a brilliant match for us in our preparation for our World Cup qualifier against Austria," said O'Neill.
"Mexico in the United States couldn't be much tougher but it's exactly what we want. We have another game against Uruguay a few days later at the Aviva Stadium before the Austria game the following week.
"The players who may not have played for a while after their club season has ended will, I'm sure, relish the opportunity to play against such quality opposition."
Ireland have played against Mexico four times - drawing three and losing once - and two of those have been on US soil, including the 1994 FIFA World Cup Group E game in Orlando.
Currently placed 17th in the FIFA World Rankings, Mexico are managed by Juan Carlos Osorio and are preparing for their own World Cup Qualifiers as well as, 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, which kicks off on June 17 in Russia and they are in Group A alongside the hosts, Portugal and New Zealand.
Ireland last played in MetLife Stadium in June 2014 when they took on Portugal, but the team has terrific history in New Jersey following Ray Houghton's famous goal against Italy at the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
The game is set for a 20:00 kick-off (local time) and tickets will be released via Ticketmaster.com at 15:00 on March 1. Please note that tickets will only be available for box office collection.
|
The Miami Marlins have placed pitcher Henderson Alvarez on the 15-day disabled list after an MRI revealed inflammation in his shoulder and elbow, Manny Navarro of the Miami Herald reports.
Alvarez allowed four runs on seven hits in five innings against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday. He struck out three batters and walked one.
Marlins manager Mike Redmond said the team doesn’t have a timeline for his return.
"How long [will he be out]? I don’t know. That’s kind of the unknown right now. It’s really up to him and how quickly he feels better. We’re going to make sure that he feels good and confident before he goes out and pitches again. "If he can’t pitch for a couple weeks but ends up finishing the season strong, that’s good not only for him but us."
• Marlins' Jeff Mathis, Don Kelly fracture fingers Sunday
Alvarez was an All-Star in 2014 and finished 12th in Cy Young voting. He had a 2.65 ERA and struck out 111 batters in 187 innings. He was tied for the major-league lead with three complete-game shutouts. He threw a no-hitter in September 2013.
Alvarez, 25, was the Marlins' Opening Day starter. Mat Latos, the No. 2 starter, allowed seven runs in two-thirds of an inning in his first start of the season.
Marlins ace Jose Fernandez began the season on the disabled list while he continues to recover from Tommy John surgery. He is expected back in May or June.
• VERDUCCI: Why faster is better for pitchers
- Dan Gartland
|
Mehr Khaneh is a project located at Ostrovskovo Street in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. Solmaz Fooladi, Nima Keivani and Sina Keivani are three Iranian architects in charge of the project.
In an interview with Mehr News Agency, as translated by IFP, Nima Keivani said, “In this quote modern project, we have adopted a different approach towards Iranian culture and architecture. In designing this project, we have benefited from symbols used in ancient Persia and Mithraism culture and religion, particularly the Sun as a significant symbol.”
The young architect noted that this is the first time in Europe that a building is built using Iranian symbols in its design, construction, and interior decorations.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Keivani referred to the budget constraints and said, “We had to create minimal, cheap, artistic and Iranian spaces derived from the religion of Mithraism. Therefore, we picked Loft architectural style for our design using exposed concrete, rebar and oxidized iron to design the space; meanwhile, we tried to bring good sense and heat into the residential space by using materials such as brick, wood and light.”
He added that one of the basic items in Mehr Khaneh design is the stairs in the living room.
“These stairs can be seen as a philosophical element in the design of this project. They are inspired by mehrabs and ziggurats and are signs of perfection and climbing higher and closer to the Sun.”
He also referred to the use of lustres, plants and geometric shapes at the kitchens in traditional architecture.
“Sun is the symbol of light, and light is the symbol of knowledge and wisdom. This design is a symbol of approaching to sun and advancing to knowledge essential for improvement and actualization of thoughts for an artist. The direction and raise of stairs are toward east and sunrise,” he went on to say.
“The design of lighting fixtures is also inspired by the symbolic role of Sun, and it follows the geometric symbol of sun, which a triangle surrounded by a dodecagon, used in traditional Iranian architecture. In a part of ceiling the triangular and pyramidal shapes are used such that they are such as the extensions of the light radiation that pass through the roof and shines inside such that no barrier _even a concrete wall- cannot prevent the knowledge and wisdom.”
“The ancient sun pattern was used as a light frame in this unit. The furniture is designed in accord with the aforementioned concepts, realized by using materials such as concrete, rebar, and metals. Not only we applied this concept to the interior design of kitchen for consistency, we also used turquoise tiles in this space to inspire the sense of place (Genius loci) that emerges in the Iranian traditional architecture.”
“Considering the role of plants in traditional Iranian architecture, planting components have been placed in different parts of this unit, for example, in the kitchen, as hanging components,” Keivani added.
“In the space right in front of the kitchen, wooden materials are used to create beautiful scenery with the special daylight available at sunset.”
|
In April 2007, about 7 years before user-uploaded sounds, ROBLOX admin Shedletsky uploaded the “Wind of Fjords” (sometimes referred to unofficially as “Telamon’s Sword”) to ROBLOX—seemingly ROBLOX’s first sound ever uploaded. This seven year old artifact is one of the more famous sounds of the first admin uploaded sounds and was often used in horror and survival themed ROBLOX games several years back. However, unlike other older songs on ROBLOX, this song’s origins isn’t very well known, much unlike the Halo theme or Caramelldansen. This Throwback Thursday, we’re turning back the clock to unravel the mysteries regarding this song.
To start, we must travel back to November 2001 when this song was first uploaded anywhere. It was during this month that the song was uploaded to the Mod Archive, a website with a vast collection of music modules dating all the way back to 1996. It was here that I found the origins of the song and its name …which is –drumroll please– The Winds of Fjords. Surprising, amirite? …Luckily, that isn’t the only tidbit of this discovery, but regardless, let’s delve a bit deeper into the name of this song. As the name implies, this song is about fjords (although “fjords” sounds sinister, it’s actually…) –a long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between high cliffs– or more specifically the fjords of Norway which the creator of the song, minomus, described as “so beautiful and rugged … so wild and changing”.
“Their water is [as] smooth as glass.” –minomus “PanoHardangerfjorden1″ by Aqwis – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PanoHardangerfjorden1.jpg#mediaviewer/File:PanoHardangerfjorden1.jpg
Now we wind the clock forward to 2007 when Shedletsky just uploads this song. Within months, the song’s original intention of being “calm and serene yet everchanging and untamed” is thrown out and a new trope now lies in its place with it being primarily used for “the calm before the storm… that eats brains”. Unfortunately, I cannot pinpoint an exact use of this song in a ROBLOX game anymore, but what I can do is explain some key differences between how the song plays on ROBLOX and how the song should play.
For example, you know that infamous, extended, sustained note at the end of the song? It’s a lie –Blame John– and it’s not supposed to be held that long. This jarring note may have inadvertently led to the song being used as zombie beheading background music, or at least it made the song seem a tad dark (if it wasn’t assumed to be a dark song already). If that’s not all, the song infinitely loops on ROBLOX, even with the ‘Looped’ property set to ‘false’. This is likely a fault in ROBLOX’s support of impulse tracker files (essentially, a dead file format)– this also explains why you cannot listen to this song on the ROBLOX website itself.
And with that ends this ROBLOX history lesson. This should get you prepped for the upcoming ROBLOX University, eh?
In case you’re hungry for more:
|
French Police use tear gas as two England fans arrested following trouble in Marseille
Sky Sports News HQ's Gary Cotterill explains what happened during the fan violence in Marseille, which led to two arrests at Euro 2016 Sky Sports News HQ's Gary Cotterill explains what happened during the fan violence in Marseille, which led to two arrests at Euro 2016
An English football fan has been arrested after French police used tear gas on a small group of England supporters caught in a brawl with locals in Marseille.
Police have said two people were arrested - one for assaulting a barman, and the other for violent disorder. One of the men was English and the other a local.
Another England supporter reportedly suffered a head injury after being hit across the face with a wooden chair.
England face Russia in their opening Group B match in Marseille
It is understood the confrontation took place outside an English pub in the Old Port district of the city, where England face Russia in their opening Euro 2016 Group B match at the Stade Velodrome on Saturday.
Gendarmes clad in riot gear and accompanied by dogs were deployed on the streets of the southern city after trouble was reported shortly before midnight on Thursday.
Ambulances were seen arriving after police carrying riot shields moved in to separate the two groups, and tear gas was used to clear the area.
Footage of the incident showed men hurling chairs, a fist fight outside a McDonald's restaurant and chanting England fans.
Flyers from Marseille fans warning England fans it is a 'high risk' area
However, Sky Sports News HQ reporter Gary Cotterill is in Marseille and said all was calm on Friday morning while suggesting there may have been local involvement in the trouble.
"We saw a sign that hardcore Marseille fans might have been involved and might have been the cause of these scenes," he said. "We saw stickers put there by their ultras warning that this is a Marseille fan zone and to beware, so signs that perhaps it wasn't all the fault of England fans."
A clip posted on Twitter apparently showed the aftermath of the disorder, as shop workers swept a street strewn with broken glass.
Police officers kept a close eye on England fans in Marseille's bars Police officers kept a close eye on England fans in Marseille's bars
UEFA has appealed to fans to "behave respectfully" during Euro 2016.
"UEFA regrets the skirmishes that occurred in Marseille yesterday", said a spokesman.
"We are confident that the safety of travelling fans will be ensured by the local authorities which are responsible for order in the city.
"We make an appeal to all fans to behave respectfully throughout the tournament."
Meanwhile, James Shayler, one of the country's most notorious football hooligans, has had his passport seized by police ahead of the European championships.
Shayler was jailed for two months at World Cup '98 after leading an attack on police officers, which led to him being dubbed "the Pig of Marseilles" by the French media.
Last month, he reportedly made abusive remarks, threatening to carry out violence at the tournament.
|
Story highlights Background on Clinton's tour of Mojave Electric identified the founder as a "a supportive Republican"
The Clinton campaign has touted Republicans who are choosing to back her over Donald Trump
Las Vegas (CNN) Hillary Clinton's campaign claimed Thursday that the founder of a local electrical company she toured in Nevada was both a Republican and a Clinton supporter.
One problem: The businessman, Dennis Nelson, told CNN that he was not a Clinton supporter and that he didn't tell the campaign that he was a Republican.
"To tell you right now, as messed up as everything is, I don't think I could tell you who I am going to support until a week or two before the election," Nelson said. "There are so much lies on both sides out there that I don't know. I really honestly don't know who I will support."
Nelson added that he "never" told the campaign that he was a Republican and declined to tell CNN if he were a registered Republican.
"I am not saying," he said. "That is my business."
Read More
|
Welcome, StumbleUpon visitor! I'd really appreciate a 'thumbs up' rating on StumbleUpon if you like this page. If you want to stay in the loop with blog updates, feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed or "follow" using Google Friend Connect! Thanks!
The part of "getting ready" that always confounds me is what to do with my mop. I usually blow my naturally wavy hair straight, or throw it up in a messy bun. This year is (hopefully) going to be different and I will manage to actually style my baby fine strands that never seem to cooperate. These side chignon and half up/half down hairdos from The part of "getting ready" that always confounds me is what to do with my mop. I usually blow my naturally wavy hair straight, or throw it up in a messy bun. This year is (hopefully) going to be different and I will manage to actually style my baby fine strands that never seem to cooperate. These side chignon and half up/half down hairdos from Martha Stewart look easy enough...I'm definitely going to give these looks a whirl over the holidays.
{Images via Martha Stewart}
Side Chignon
1. Using a round brush, blow-dry hair smooth and straight, focusing on the top sections.
2. Once dry, use a large-barrel curling iron to create waves from the ears down.
3. Build height and volume at the crown by teasing hair gently with a fine-tooth comb.
4. Gather hair into a low ponytail. Twist it along the nape of your neck, pinning as you go.
5. Once you reach your ear, shape the remaining hair into curls, and pin them back over the twist.
6. Spritz strands in place.
7. To add texture, gently curl and scrunch the wispy ends with your fingertips.
8. Marvel at how gorg you look!
|
Then came a chance finding in 1962, within sight of the Ming naval shipyards in Nanking. Peasants unearthed a rudder-post some 36.2 feet long and 1.25 feet in diameter believed to be from one of the giant ships. Using these measurements, naval architects estimate that the rudder attached to the post was nearly half its length in height and breadth, or 452 square feet of wood. The ship to which such a rudder belonged, following the rules of thumb for Chinese ship construction, would be at least 400 feet long. One rudder does not a treasure ship make, but when archeologists excavating the same Ming naval shipyards in 2004 found another two rudder-posts the same size, we get a tantalizing hint of what could have existed at the time - a navy of gigantic ships that outweighed, out-gunned and out-classed anything afloat in 1420 and was arguably as dominant as the U.S Fleet is today.
|
Prime Minister Tony Abbott rules out raising taxes to pay for $500 million a year Iraq deployment against Islamic State
Updated
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has ruled out asking Australians to pay more tax to pay for the nation's military commitment in Iraq.
Australian fighter jets have begun flying combat missions as part of the international effort to fight Islamic State (IS) insurgents.
The Government has estimated the contribution - of up to 10 aircraft and 600 personnel - will cost $500 million a year.
Last week, Treasurer Joe Hockey said new budget cuts would have to be found to cover the cost of the military campaign and $630 million in additional funding for security agencies.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann on Sunday appeared to leave open the possibility of increasing taxes to cover the added pressure on the budget.
But the idea has been killed off this morning by Mr Abbott.
When asked if he could rule out a "war tax", the Prime Minister responded, "yes, I can".
"This is a government which believes in lower taxes, not higher taxes," he said.
"We will pay what we must to do our duty by our country and by the wider world.
"Just at the moment national security and international security are indivisible.
"We think we can afford it - but obviously we are in the business of getting the budget back under control and that's something that the Treasurer, the Finance Minister and myself wrestle with every day."
He said it was important to keep the $500 million cost "in perspective".
"That's a significant amount of money but, in the budget of something like $400 billion a year, we can manage these things," he said.
"I do not want to underestimate the budgetary challenge that we are facing but I do think that you should see the costs of this commitment in perspective and they are manageable."
Greens leader Christine Milne warned more budget cuts for the vulnerable are likely.
"Tony Abbott doesn't have a magic pudding and if he is saying there will be no tax hikes for the big end of town who are evading tax, then the only option is further cuts putting more pressure on the sick, the unemployed, our universities," she said.
Federal Cabinet, which is meeting today in Canberra, is also considering a response from the Iraqi government over the legal framework to support special forces missions in Iraq.
Australia has 200 special forces soldiers on standby ready to support Iraqi forces but Mr Abbott said he could not say when they would join the war.
"I'm not going to put a time limit on it," he said.
"Our special forces are ready to go. We just await the finalisation of the legal documents."
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, budget, defence-and-national-security, unrest-conflict-and-war, australia, iraq
First posted
|
The Senate passage of Resolution 65 on May 22, 2013, some argue, draws the United States closer to military action against Iran. In October 2012, amid concerns that surprisingly little research addressed the potential broad outcomes of possible U.S.-led actions against Iran, researchers at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) assembled nine renowned subject matter experts (SMEs) to investigate one underexplored question that now, eight months later, looms larger than ever: What are the potential effects on the global economy of U.S. actions against Iran? Collectively representing expertise in national security, economics, energy markets, and finance, the SMEs gathered for a one-day elicitation workshop to consider the global economic impacts of six hypothetical scenarios involving U.S.-led actions.
The elicitation revealed the rough effects of U.S. action against Iran on the global economy – measured only in the first three months of actualization – to range from total losses of approximately $60 billion on one end of the scale to more than $2 trillion to the world economy on the other end.
The results of the elicitation were compiled into the FAS report written by Charles P. Blair and Mark Jansson, “Sanctions, Military Strikes, and Other Potential Actions Against Iran.”
Summarized below are three of the six scenarios along with the associated estimated range of costs to the world economy in the first three months of U.S. action alone.
Scenario: Comprehensive Bombing Campaign (upper bounds of estimated costs to global economy: $1.7 trillion)
The president, not wanting to leave the job half-done and fearing that a more limited strike may not achieve all of its objectives or at too high a price should Iran retaliate, opts for a more thorough mission. The United States leads an ambitious air campaign that targets not only the nuclear facilities of concern but also seeks to limit Iran’s ability to retaliate by targeting its other military assets, including its air defenses, radar and aerial command and control facilities, and much of Iran’s direct retaliatory capabilities. These would include its main military bases, the main facilities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Iranian Navy, Army, and Air Force. The United States seeks to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz remains open by targeting Iranian capabilities that may threaten it.
Scenario: Isolation and Persian Gulf Blockade – no military action (upper bounds of estimated costs to global economy: $550 billion)
Iran’s economy is reeling yet diplomatic agreement remains elusive. The United States, concerned that the Iranian regime has gone into survival mode, enacts what can be referred to as a “total cutoff” policy. The United States moves to curtail any exports of refined oil products, natural gas, energy equipment, and services. Investments in Iran’s energy sector are banned worldwide. Official trade credit guarantees are banned, as is international lending to Iran and investment in Iranian bonds. Insurance and reinsurance for all shipping going to and from Iran is prohibited. Substantial U.S. military assets are deployed to the Persian Gulf to block unauthorized shipments to and from Iran as well as to protect shipments of oil and other products through the Strait of Hormuz.
Scenario: Full-Scale Invasion (upper bounds of estimated costs to global economy: $2.8 trillion)
The United States resolves to invade, occupy, and disarm Iran. It carries out all of the above missions and goes “all in” to impose a more permanent solution by disarming the regime. Although the purpose of the mission is not explicitly regime change, the United States determines that the threat posed by Iran to Israel, neighboring states, and to freedom of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz cannot be tolerated any longer. It imposes a naval blockade and a no-fly zone as it systematically takes down Iran’s military bases and destroys its installations one by one. Large numbers of ground troops will be committed to the mission to get the job done.
Note: All opinions expressed here and in the report, as well as its findings, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federation of American Scientists or any of the participants in the elicitation that served as the centerpiece of this study.
|
Canada's ski community is once again in mourning after Toronto skier Nik Zoricic died from head injuries suffered in a crash during a World Cup skicross race in Switzerland.
Zoricic, 29, was airlifted to a hospital on Saturday right after he went wide over the final jump and crashed heavily into safety nets lining the side of the course.
His death was later announced by the International Ski Federation and the Craigleith Ski Club, north of Toronto. The FIS said in a statement that Zoricic died at 12:35 p.m. local time from "severe neurotrauma."
Dave Campbell, the head coach at Craigleith, called Zoricic a "very competitive young man, a very talented athlete," and told CBC News he was a role model at the club for young racers.
[IMAGEGALLERY galleryid=2038 size=small]
"The atmosphere is a state of great loss and mourning here. A lot of people are still in shock and our thoughts go out to the whole Zoricic family," he said.
Max Gartner, president of Alpine Canada, said grief counsellors are with the team; a candlelight vigil will be held at the race's finish area later Saturday.
"Today is a very sad day," Gartner told reporters during a conference call. "Everybody in this organization is devastated."
Gartner hailed Zoricic as a "model athlete," who was "extremely dedicated" to his sport.
In his Toronto neighbourhood, the reaction was sombre and tearful.
Mourners created a memorial to Nik Zoricic on Saturday under the National Ski Team portrait of him that has hung for years in the ski lodge at Craigleith Ski Club. (CBC) "Such, such a tragedy," Zoricic's grandmother Sofia Drudar said. "I'm old already — still here. He's so young — gone. I don't know what to say."
"We just came apart, we're broken," said Joe Curkovic, a friend of Zoricic. "We don't know the details of it. It doesn't matter. We lost Nik today and we'll miss him. He's like family to us."
Zoricic is the second competitive Canadian skier to die this season.
Freestyle skier Sarah Burke, 29, who was raised in Midland, Ont., and lived in Whistler, B.C., died at a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, after a fall during a superpipe training run on Jan. 10 at the Park City Mountain resort.
Todd Brooker — a member of Canada's famous men's downhill ski team dubbed the "Crazy Canucks" that took the sport by storm in the 1970s and 1980s — recalled coaching Zoricic revelled in the excitement of skicross.
"When he started into it, it was evident right away that he had what it took to be good at it," Brooker told CBC News in an interview from Ontario's Collingwood ski area, where Zoricic got his start.
Brooker questions safety of jump
Brooker, who said he saw the video of Zoricic's crash, also expressed concerns about the design of the course, especially the jump just before the finish, which he called "absolutely massive."
"The jump was way too big to have near the finish line and posed one of the biggest challenges, and also the biggest risks on that course," he said. "To me, it wasn't right."
When asked whether the course design might have contributed to the crash, Alpine Canada's Gartner said World Cup events have many "rules and regulations," but he added there would be an investigation.
"It's important today that … we want to make sure that we focus on family and team," he said.
But Gartner also said such accidents were "extremely rare" and stressed safety is "at the forefront of our organization."
"I wouldn't qualify skicross as more dangerous than any other sport," he added.
Ashleigh McIvor, the first gold medal winner of women's skicross at the 2010 Winter Olympics, acknowledged the sport carried risks that officials try to minimize.
"I don't think any fingers should be pointed at any organization," McIvor said Saturday. "The thing is we do this sport because we love it."
FIS secretary general Sarah Lewis said conditions at the Grindelwald venue were very good.
"But there is risk," she added. "As soon as you put on a helmet you know there is going to be risk, and when you try to get past the ones in front of you, you take chances."
Skicross known as 'rough and tumble'
Scott Russell of CBC Sports said Zoricic's death is a "tragic loss for Canadians and ski racing in general." Skicross, which features four racers on the course at one time, is renowned for its physicality, he added.
"Skicross is match racing on real rough and tumble terrain," Russell told CBC News on Saturday.
Zoricic was part of an event that made its debut at the 2010 Olympic Games in Whistler, B.C. He started off as an alpine racer and made the switch to skicross in order to get to the Games, Russell added.
He was born in Sarajevo and made his home in Toronto. He trained at the Craigleith Ski Club in the Blue Mountain area on the shores of Georgian Bay.
"He was a real up-and-comer on the skicross circuit and had been the podium a couple of times," Russell said. His best moment, Russell said, was a third-place finish in Austria in the 2011 season.
Zoricic raced on the World Cup circuit for more than three years and was competing in his 36th event Saturday. He placed eighth in the 2011 World Championships held at Deer Valley, Utah.
Organizers said on the race website that Saturday's World Cup event has been cancelled.
|
MORRISTOWN Morris Museum “Beyond Bollywood: Indian-Americans Shape the Nation.” Through July 12. $7 to $10. “Now You See It: The Art of Magic and Illusion.” Through Aug. 15. $7 to $10. “Nikon Small World,” 20 images from the winning submissions to the Nikon International Small World Competition. Through Aug. 15. $7 to $10. “Musically, Made in New Jersey,” exploring New Jersey’s history of manufacturing musical instruments. Through Oct. 18. $7 to $10. “Indian Art: Tradition and Transition,” 20th-century paintings by Indian artists. Through July 12. $7 to $10. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m.; Summer: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Morris Museum, 6 Normandy Heights Road. 973-971-3700; morrismuseum.org.
MOUNT HOLLY ABstract EXpressions Contemporary Art Gallery Paintings and sculptures by Charles Palminteri. Through Aug. 29. Fridays, 1 to 7 p.m. and Saturdays, noon to 7 p.m. ABstract EXpressions Contemporary Art Gallery, 70 High Street. abstractexpressionsgallery.com; 609-267-7513.
NEW BRUNSWICK Zimmerli Art Museum “Picturing War: Selections From the Zimmerli Art Museum Collection.” Through July 5. “The Doctor Is In: Medicine in French Prints,” works by Honoré Daumier and others. Through July 31. “George Segal in Black and White: Photographs by Donald Lokuta.” Through July 31. Free. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Zimmerli Art Museum, 71 Hamilton Street. 848-932-7237; zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu.
NEWARK The Newark Museum “Royals and Regalia: Inside the Palaces of Nigeria’s Monarchs,” 40 portraits by the photographer George Osodi. Through Aug. 9. “Hassan Hajjaj: My Rock Stars,” video installation. Through Aug. 9. “Rajas, Wrestlers and Renunciants: Portraits From Asia.” Through Feb. 28. $7 and $12; members, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. The Newark Museum, 49 Washington Street. newarkmuseum.org; 973-596-6550.
PATERSON Lambert Castle “Highlights of the Paterson Evening News Collection,” newly digitized photograph collection. Through June 28. $3 to $5. The Clifton Association of Artists’ Summer Art Show, paintings, photography and other media. July 1 through Aug. 2. $3 to $5. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Lambert Castle , 3 Valley Road. 973-247-0085 ext. 201; lambertcastle.org.
PRINCETON Bernstein Gallery “Narratives: Hearts, Minds & Mythologies,” Samira Abbassy. Through Aug. 13. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bernstein Gallery, Robertson Hall, Princeton University. 609-497-2441; princeton.edu.
PRINCETON D&R Greenway “Palette With Purpose: Color in Nature,” artwork by the Contemporary Arts Group and D&R Greenway Artists of Preservation. Through July 31. D&R Greenway, One Preservation Place. 609-924-4646; drgreenway.org.
|
Young Irish immigrants say they're frustrated and astounded at a federal government policy that insists they pass a test to prove they can speak proper English before gaining permanent resident status — a necessary step along the way to Canadian citizenship.
"Common sense has left the building," immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann told CBC Toronto last week. He's calling on the federal government to exempt applicants for permanent resident status who come from countries where English is an official language.
Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) spokesperson Carl Beauchamp refused a request for an interview from CBC Toronto, but in an email he said every applicant is expected to write the test, regardless of the language spoken in their home country.
A sample question from the English proficiency test that immigrants must pass before becoming permanent residents. (The Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP))
"To be consistent and transparent, IRCC requires all applicants to provide proof of language proficiency through an objective test," he wrote.
Sinead Breen, who came from Ireland in March, 2016, wrote the English proficiency test in May.
She scored well, but questioned the value of the test for people from her country.
"It just seems so unnecessary," she said Friday. "I'm a member of a Facebook group called Irish and Applying for Canadian PR, and it's a question that comes up a lot.
Marina Hannigan now works as a hair stylist in downtown Toronto. She wrote the test several years ago and became a permanent resident in 2015. (Lisa Xing/CBC)
"People are very disgruntled about having to sit it."
She also said many young Irish immigrants find the $265 cost of the test onerous, and that some are delaying applying for permanent residency — even though they're on temporary work visas — because they can't cover the cost.
Marina Hannigan, originally from Waterford, Ireland, said she wrote the test several years ago. She's now a permanent resident and works as a hair stylist in downtown Toronto.
"It's a bit ridiculous when it's your first language, your own language," she said.
Members of a Facebook page called Irish and New in Toronto discussed the mandatory English proficiency test last week. (Facebook)
"I think if you're from an English-speaking country and it's your first language, even your high school equivalent would be enough to put you through."
The test is administered by a subsidiary of the University of British Columbia called Paragon Testing Enterprises, although the questions themselves are devised by IRCC.
The test covers listening, reading, writing and speaking skills, and takes about three hours to complete online.
A sample question from the English proficiency test that prospective permanent residents must pass. (The Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP))
A sample question:
Your child's school has asked you to help with a class field trip. Your friend bought you tickets to a baseball game for that same day. The school will cancel the field trip if there are not enough parents, but your friend will be upset if you cannot go to the baseball game because the tickets were expensive.
Choose ONE:
EITHER
Talk to the school. Explain why you cannot help with the field trip.
OR
Talk to your friend. Explain why you cannot attend the game.
Answer the following question.
Question: Do you think all university students should study abroad for a year, if there is sufficient funding? Explain your reasons.
Immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann wants the federal government to stop making people whose first language is English take a language proficiency test before becoming permanent residents. (Lisa Xing)
Mamann said that before 2013, applicants for permanent resident status could pass the English proficiency test through an interview with an immigration officer.
But since then, the test has to be done in writing, usually online.
"It makes us look a little bit too bureaucratic," he said. "Obviously we want to have an objective standard but there has to be some allowance for common sense.
"We're asking people who basically invented the English language to prove they speak English."
And he said it's not just Irish applicants who are upset at the stipulation.
Even an English prof must write it
"I sat there with a professor of English in the UK at a reputable university and I'm explaining to him I need him to undertake an English language test. it just seems kind of silly."
In an email, Beauchamp defended the requirement.
"Mandatory language proficiency tests for applicants to economic immigration programs have been in place for many years ... With a standard language proficiency test, all applicants are evaluated against the same standards, no matter their language of origin, nationality or ethnicity."
|
This week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) unanimously approved, by way of a 2-0 vote, a finalized order in what has become widely known as the first-ever FTC case brought against individual social media influencers.
As previously reported on Tubefilter, Trevor “TmarTn” Martin and Thomas “Syndicate” Cassell posted videos on their YouTube channels showing the pair of stars (with a respective more than 3.3 million and 10 million subscribers) taking part in the online gambling service CSGO Lotto. The problem was that the two ‘Let’s Play’ social influencers failed to properly disclose they each held a 42.5% ownership interest in the online gambling company, directly in violation of FTC disclosure laws.
Martin and Cassell were also under fire for paying thousands of dollars to several other well-known influencers, such as Jahova, also known as Jahovaswitniss to his now more than 1.7 million subscribers, and G2 Esports member Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt, to post on platforms including Twitter and Instagram about the gambling site without proper disclosures that they were paid to do so.
The FTC first released details of a proposed settlement with CSGO Lotto, Martin, and Thomas in September 2017. Public comments were accepted through October 10, 2017, after which time the FTC spent time to decide whether the settlement would become final. Part of the terms of the settlement required that CSGO Lotto, Martin and Cassell, entered into an “Agreement Containing Consent Order,” referred to as a Consent Agreement. The Consent Agreement requires that going forward they, among other things:
Comply with FTC disclosure guidelines, with an additional burden to properly monitor and ensure compliance by any endorsers they partner with for promotional purposes in the future;
Submit a compliance report in one year;
Keep records of activities related to the business for up to 10 years; and
Submit to ongoing compliance monitoring by the FTC for a period of up to 10 years.
All of the public comments received by the FTC during the open comment period were not in favor of the now finalized penalty. “I am appalled and disgusted with this ruling,” wrote Jack Thorpe, a commenter from Michigan. He continued on in his comment to refer to the terms of the Consent Agreement as “a slap on the wrist” for the parties involved.
The FTC’s press release and full decision and order are now available online.
|
I love cross season. I think it is a great cycling sport as it seems to bring the roadies and the mountain bikers all into the same circus ring. When I was first introduced to cyclocross racing I was told about all the fun aspects such as feeling like you can’t breathe because you’ve been pegged for the last 30 minutes, the bacon hand ups, and the hecklers.
It sounded great, the crowd being into the racing is good for the sport as a whole. It drives the racers to do the best they can and the spectators feed off of each other to have a great time. It should work like that. It should, but when I go to big cross races, the hecklers are getting it wrong in my opinion.
I’d like to think that we are all at a race to promote cycling, racing, and have a good time, but I can’t understand how telling the over weight 40 something year old rider towards last place that he is losing or he sucks is bettering anyone’s experience but the side liners. Even more frustrating is when I see this coming from people who clearly didn’t race that day.
Look, I’m all for heckling. I’m all for calling the riders out who are clearly sandbagging the cat 4 or cat 5 race, but that’s different. I think a proper heckle to the field should make both the racer and the spectators laugh. A perfect example from this past weekends Chi Cross race was a spectator yelling that he had seen a particular racer in an adult movie because he had a 1970’s porn mustache. Hilarity followed and the racer smiled and kept pedaling because he knew when he decided to wear that man trophy what was involved with such a decision.
We should want people, both spectators and racers to enjoy this sport. Enjoyment and enthusiasm are good for progression. I feel bad for the middle to back of the pack racers who are trying, who maybe at their first race ever, and the crowd is cruel for the sake of approval from the person next to them.
We can do better.
Enjoy what you read? Subscribe to be notified of future posts via email by either clicking the Follow button at the bottom or the Subscribe section on the right!
|
Australian PM vows to change after failed bid to unseat him
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott vowed Monday to change after surviving a confidence vote on his leadership, while urging an end to the disunity that has seen the government's popularity plummet.
Abbott has been fighting for his job after poor poll ratings and a series of policy backflips spurred some MPs from his conservative Liberal Party openly to attack him, calling last week for a leadership "spill".
The motion aimed to declare vacant the positions of party leader and deputy leader, occupied by Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott (C) walks with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (R) to a coalition party room in Canberra on February 9, 2015 for a confidence vote on his leadership that he survived ©STR (AFP)
If it had succeeded, the party room -- Liberal Party members of both houses of parliament -- could have voted for new candidates.
But the 101 Liberal parliamentarians -- one was absent -- rejected the proposal by 61 to 39 in a secret ballot. One vote was discarded for either being incorrectly completed or not filled in at all.
In a televised statement, Abbott called for the party to end "disunity and uncertainty" and move forward.
"The Liberal Party has dealt with the spill motion and now this matter is behind us," he said.
"We are absolutely determined to work for you, the people who elected us. We want to end the disunity and the uncertainty which destroyed two Labor governments and give you the good government that you deserve."
Labor switched leaders twice during its time in power from 2007 to 2013, with Abbott highly critical at the time.
University of Western Sydney political historian David Burchell said the recurring instability could be partly blamed on the diminishing ability of politicians to properly explain tough decisions to the public.
"I don't believe either this government or the opposition have any idea how to speak in those terms," he said.
"They have become paralysed by the fear of fickle electorates, and trapped in a cycle of endless political crisis management."
Abbott admitted in a later press conference that the government had "bitten off more than we could chew" in trying to rein in a growing budget deficit by slashing health and education spending while tightening welfare -- moves condemned as too harsh.
"I have listened, I have learnt, and I have changed and the government will change with me," he said, vowing to be more "consultative and collegial".
Abbott initially refused to be drawn on whether he planned to reshuffle his cabinet, with Treasurer Joe Hockey widely seen as a potential fall guy. But he later told parliament: "I stand by my treasurer. I stand by my team."
- Government 'in paralysis' -
Abbott, 57, survived despite waking to a dire Newspoll in The Australian broadsheet, and the vote outcome is unlikely to end speculation about his future.
The poll showed the ruling Liberal-National coalition trails the Labor opposition on a two-party basis 43 percent to 57 percent, while 68 percent of the 1,178 people interviewed were dissatisfied with Abbott's performance.
His popularity lags far behind Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Bishop, both touted as potential future leadership contenders.
Opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten said the government was "in paralysis".
"Tony Abbott promised he would run a stable and united government. This is his biggest broken promise yet," he said.
"The prime minister and ministers should be protecting the living standards and jobs of all Australians -- but they're only interested in their own jobs."
Since being elected in September 2013, the government has sealed free trade deals with China, South Korea and Japan. It also killed off controversial carbon and mining taxes and sharply reduced the number of asylum-seeker boats arriving in Australia.
But the proposed savings to curb the budget deficit alienated many voters, with Hockey widely criticised for failing to sell them sufficiently.
Abbott has also been criticised for changing positions on several issues and high-handed decision-making, with the bid to unseat him coming after he awarded Britain's Prince Philip a knighthood last month.
One of the backbenchers who initiated the confidence vote, Luke Simpkins, said Abbott created the situation himself.
"This has been a good wake-up call," he said.
Profile of Tony Abbott. Australia's prime minister who has survived a confidence vote on his leadership
|
No Comments
Mitsubishi Design Boss Says Production Models are Finally Coming
If you’ve kept up with Mitsubishi news at all in the last year, you’ve no doubt seen that its recent history is full of concept vehicles and mostly devoid of actual new production models.
Most notably, there was the XR-PHEV Concept shown at the 2014 Tokyo Motor Show, the GC-PHEV Concept at the 2015 Chicago Auto Show, the XR-PHEV II Concept at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show, the eX Concept at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, and most recently the GT-PHEV Concept at the 2016 Paris Motor Show. And we haven’t even named all of them.
The journey has been a bit of a tease, exacerbated by the fact that all of these concepts have been crossover SUVs and seem to hint at a similar model that never quite seems to be arriving to showrooms for our enjoyment. Fortunately, that’s soon about to change. According to Automotive News, Mitsubishi’s debuts will stop being concepts and will finally become production models next year.
End of an Age: The last-ever production Lancer Evo sold to charity
Tsunehiro Kunimoto, the automaker’s new design boss, says we can expect a production compact crossover at next year’s Geneva Motor Show. He worked for four years at Nissan and played a major part in designing the Juke. At Mitsubishi, his priority is to rebuild the brand with designs that showcase its “Mitsubishi-ness.” If you’re not sure what that entails, just listen to his own description of this:
“Mitsubishi can challenge [rivals] because of our heritage, our history,” he explained. “That’s what the customer expects of a Mitsubishi—very tough, reliable, solid—that’s what I want to maintain and improve that image.”
It’s about time Mitsubishi got back to making new models again. It’s too bad the Evo won’t be one of them.
Buying Used? Consider buying Certified for the best quality
News Source: Automotive News
|
Pizza! If you grew up obsessed with it — postgame pizza, movie pizza, baby-sitting pizza, college pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza! — and followed that American passion for cheese, sauce, and bread with an adult pursuit of the best slice, the finest pie, the Platonic Neapolitan, then the idea of naming America's best is likely contentious.
Read more: America's 35 Best Pizzas Slideshow
"A best pizza list? I know pizza. That's not great pizza!" Yes, pizza is tough to rank responsibly. Consider that just years ago, The New York Times' then critic Sam Sifton said Motorino "serves the city’s best pizza." It was enough to make you roll your eyes and call him out for knowing better, right? City's best? Not its best artisanal or Neapolitan pie? What about its best slice? And what is a "best" slice or pie anyway? After all, you could argue that great pizza can be many different things.
Given America's current love affair for Neapolitan pies, some might argue great pizza must meet the requirements of the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana, the international nonprofit founded in the 1980s by a group of pizzaiolos to cultivate and protect the art of making Neapolitan pizza. Their rules? Fresh tomatoes as long as they’re San Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino D.O.P., Pomodorini di Corbara, and Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio D.O.P. Canned, peeled tomatoes (Pomodoro Pelato San Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino D.O.P.) as long as they’re strained, broken up, and homogenized. And depending on whether you’re making a Margherita or marinara, you ladle "sauce" (according to the organization's founder Antonio Pace, technically it’s not a sauce) on and top it with oil, mozzarella or fior di latte, grated cheese, and basil; or just tomato, oil, oregano, and garlic.
Things get more contentious.
Maybe great pizza means the use of the freshest ingredients and seasonal toppings? Does it involve a structural integrity to the underlying dough that ensures you can lift a slice without experiencing droopage? Is it an airy, charred cornicione that makes even the most ardent crust-chucker certain not to leave one pizza bone behind? Must it employ artisanal sausage, or does old-school pepperoni count? Does it involve fresh mozzarella? Or just the expert scattering and sauce to cheese ratio of good old-fashioned, low-moisture aged mozzarella and sauce made from canned San Marzano tomatoes? Does a bar pie count? And how do you stack those up against deep-dish pies?!
These are all questions you could get lost debating for hours. For me, great pizza doesn't include deep dish. That's not pizza. It's a casserole for crying out loud. Great pizza is a thin-crust New York slice right out of the oven that you can fold and that keeps its structural integrity despite the generous cheese, sauce, and orange oil on top about to burn the roof of your mouth that you're compelled to bite into anyway. It's a bar pie topped with hot pepper oil at Colony Grill in Stamford, Conn., or Eddie's in New Hyde Park — pizza so thin that it's more like a hot cracker with your favorite toppings. It's the best renditions of Long Island's much-overlooked pan-crisped genre: the grandma pie. It's the charred, airy crust of Da Michele that inspires devotion and poetry, and the renditions in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York City that aspire to and almost achieve that level of greatness. It's South Brooklyn Pizza (the East Village location), Little Vincent's incredibly saucy and bubble-crusted pie in Huntington, Long Island, Bianco's pistachio pie in Phoenix, and Great Lake's chewy crust in Chicago. For me, in its purest form, great pizza is fresh pizza: thin, cheesy, saucy, and with an airy bubbled crust. I could go on, but this isn't my list.
You could argue that all of these things should be taken into account when compiling a list. When it comes to pizza, there are so many nuances, there should be niche lists detailing the best in each category. The Daily Meal will take that approach next year. In 2012, we did the next best thing: we assembled a panel of experts across America, and asked them to vote for the country's best pies.
How did this list of 35 places come to be? The Daily Meal's editors racked their collective pizza memory. We consulted venerable texts and online sources, sought out old-school Formica-table joints and brazen newcomers alike. We carefully considered the stalwarts of the country's two pizza capitals, New York City and (cough) Chicago, but not so closely that we couldn't look beyond them. We ended up with a list of more than 140 places for pizza, most any of which, you'd be very happy with stopping in for a pie.
Knowing that it might still be possible to miss quite a few local gems across the country, we then asked each member of our panel to write in with five suggestions of their own. Altogether, we turned 140 places over to our panel and asked them narrow things down to five spots for each of seven regions: West Coast; Southwest and Texas; Midwest; South; Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; New England; and yes, New York City.
There were hundreds of votes cast by a venerable panel of about 20 American chefs, restaurant critics, and pizza authorities, most of whom, besides the Los Angeles Times' Jonathan Gold and Chicago Magazine's Penny Pollack, requested anonymity. These are people who, like you (and us) live and die pizza. And you know what? The results are probably going to really bubble your crust, and burn your upskirt. That's just the nature of a list like this.
Panelists voted on places that you'd expect to make a best pizza list, like Bianco in Phoenix, Di Fara in Brooklyn, Pizzeria Mozza in LA, New Haven's Frank Pepe, and Una Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco. But they also put these places side by side with deep-dish pies in Chicago, and... wait, is that the jumbo slice from D.C? (Man, you've got to think that The Washington Post's Tom Sietsema and Tim Carman are going to be so mad.)
No $1-slice joints made the list. Neither probably, did several of your, or our favorites. Consider that in New York City alone, Roberta's, Kesté, Paulie Gee's, and South Brooklyn Pizza (that East Village outpost) didn't make the list. Neither did Pizza Moto (arguably, New York City's most underrated pizza — seriously, New York, how have you not acknowledged this as one of Gotham's best?).
That's the way these things go, until everyone can attest to having visited every reputable pizza place across the country. Below is the complete list of 2012's winners organized by region. Check out the slideshow for the countdown to number one. Think we missed a few great places? We're sure we did. Clue us in in the comments below and they'll be sure to be considered next year.
West Coast
Pizzeria Mozza, Una Pizza Napoletana, Gjelina, Flour + Water, A16
Southwest and Texas
Bianco, Pizaro's, Roppolo's, Antonio's Ristorante, Fireside Pies
Midwest
Gino's East, Great Lake, Spacca Napoli, Vito & Nick's, Pizano's
South
EVO, Monza, Scuola Vecchia, Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza, Reginelli's
Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and New Jersey
Osteria, 2Amys, DeLorenzo's, Jumbo Slice Pizza, Papa's Tomato Pies
New York
Co., DiFara, John's, Motorino, Joe's
New England
Frank Pepe's, Al Forno, Regina Pizzeria, Sally's Apizza, Santarpio's
Sean Flynn and Molly Aronica contributed reporting to this article.
Arthur Bovino is The Daily Meal's executive editor. Follow Arthur on Twitter.
|
She is fast becoming a catwalk queen, and Kendall Jenner has mastered the art of looking like an off-duty model.
So much so that on Tuesday, she appeared as though she could have just rolled out of bed – or from a sleepwear photo shoot.
Kendall arrived to Zinque in West Hollywood to meet Jaden Smith for a coffee, wearing what looked like a dressing gown.
Scroll down for video
Ready for bed?: Kendall Jenner appeared to be wearing a dressing gown in West Hollywood on Tuesday
The black robe had a waist tie, but the 18-year-old left it undone so as to show off her long legs underneath.
Kendall was also wearing black heeled ankle boots and a matching T-shirt, and bottoms so tiny they could not be seen.
The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star looked ready for her close-up with gorgeous natural make-up under her aviator sunglasses, and her hazelnut locks were tied in a sleek ponytail.
Famous friends: The reality star turned model was on her way to meet Jaden Smith for coffee
Leggy lady: Kendall left her black robe, complete with waist tie, unbuttoned so as to showcase her long legs
Always ready for her close-up: The 18-year-old looked great with little make-up and her locks in a sleek ponytail
Kendall completed her laid-back outfit with a small black handbag which had her Fendi monster key rings, that retail at around $800, hanging off it.
After getting her caffeine fix with Jaden, who has widely been linked to her younger sister Kylie, 17, the reality star turned model accompanied him to stroll around the Pacific Design Center.
Jaden, the son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, looked as though he had travelled by bicycle to the café.
Off-duty beauty: Kendall was also wearing a black T-shirt and boots, and bottoms so tiny they weren't visible
Ready for their caffeine fix: She met Jaden, the son of Will and Jada Pinkett, at Zinque restaurant
On yer bike: Judging by his lycra shorts and gloves, teamed with a T-shirt, trainers and colourful cap, Jaden may have cycled there
The After Earth star was dressed in black lycra shorts with matching T-shirt and trainers, and had a rucksack on his back and strapped across his chest.
The 16-year-old also sported a colourful cap in red, yellow and blue hues, and striped socks.
Earlier in the day, Kendall went for lunch with big sister Kourtney Kardashian and daughter Penelope, and was clad in a different outfit.
The teen was sporting the same riding boots and basic T-shirt but had teamed it with a blue plaid shirt and dark skinny jeans.
Close pals: The 16-year-old has been widely linked to Kendall's younger sister Kylie, who recently turned 17
|
TORONTO – Take a glance at the stat sheet and it may be hard to believe. But after an intense 120 minutes of soccer the Seattle Sounders have an MLS Cup and Toronto FC go home having come up agonizingly short.
The numbers present a stark contrast. Toronto took 19 shots, including seven on target, while Seattle made just three attempts to score and got none on target, both MLS Cup record lows. But Seattle, battered and facing a hostile crowd on the road, put in a heroic defensive effort, despite playing most of the game on the back foot. They also held their nerve in a penalty shootout, leaving a frustrated TFC in their wake.
“It’s tough after 120 minutes to lose a game where the other team didn’t have a shot on goal,” said Toronto goalkeeper Clint Irwin. “What can you do? That’s the game, this is what soccer is when you get to a cup final and you see it across the world. And it doesn’t take anything away from Seattle for winning it, but it’s tough for us to take.”
Though he also credited the Sounders for a defensive job well done, Toronto’s Jozy Altidore was a little more pointed in his assessment of Seattle’s game plan.
“Look, we were the better team but at the same time, Seattle, their game plan was to be unspectacular and to just kind of absorb pressure and try to stay in the game as long as they could,” he told reporters after the game. “Credit to them, they did, and we just weren’t able to find a way.
“I thought maybe in the middle of the park we could’ve been a little bit better in terms of creating more clear-cut chances. But hey, that’s football at the end of the day, and like I said, we have to regroup and try to get back here next year.”
Most of Toronto’s shots on goal on the evening did not seriously test Seattle ‘keeper Stefan Frei, save for one spectacular stop the former TFC man made on a looping header from Altidore in the first period of extra time.
Frei’s save on Altidore, as well as Justin Morrow’s crucial penalty miss coming just off the underside of the crossbar, served to underscore the thin margins by which the game was decided.
“They didn’t have a shot on goal, and what can you say? That’s sports,” said Irwin. “It comes down to these moments and a couple inches here and there, and it’s tough to take.”
And to lose a game of this magnitude on penalty kicks?
“It’s not easy,” said Altidore. “It’s a really crappy feeling, obviously. What are you going to say? The whole city was behind us and you kind of feel like you let them down, but I don’t think we did. I thought we showed them what this could be and it’s up to now to get back in preseason, work hard and try to get the city, try to get the love back.”
|
Foremay’s EC188 Family SSD and flash hard drives are the next generation in solid state drive technology, designed with high performance and high reliability in mind. With a maximum read/write speed up to 6.0 GB/sec, high IOPS up to 1,500,000, and capacity up to 200 TB, the EC188 Family is the Fastest SSD geared towards applications that require ultra-high performance, such as high speed, long life and high concurrent access. The EC188™ M-Series solid state drives are the flash hard drives designed for optimized performance for enterprise applications and support with optimization for various types of RAID configurations. The EC188 also supports all major operating systems for server and workstations such as Windows server OS, Mac server OS, Linux enterprise versions, Unix, Solaris, etc. The EC188™ PCIe SSD (now consolidated under EC188 M-series) has a standard PCI Express interface that boosts read/write speed up to 3,800/3,100 MB/s. Unit capacity is up to 32 TB for single PCIe card SSD. With the unique scalability of our EC188 PCIe SSD design, a 4U system can be configured up to 200 TB capacity with a set of 6 units of Foremay PCIe card SSD configured in RAID 0. The EC188™ 2U Rackmount SSD has optional SAN interface of 10/40/56 GigE, PCIe and Fiber Channel. The 2U SAN has up to 200 TB capacity and IOPS up to 1,500,000. It is an ideal solution for high reliability enpterprise storage systesm. The EC188 Family is made with high performance NAND flash and DRAM. By leveraging patented flash management technologies, Foremay's EC188 family SSDs significantly increase reliability and life-time, and provide unprecedented vibration, and shock and drop tolerance. EC188 solid state hard drive are available in different form factors of PCIe x8 Gen.3.0, PCIe x8 Gen 2.0, PCIe x4 Gen.2.0, PCIe x4 Gen.1.0, 2.5" SATA, 2.5" SAS, 2.5" NVMe, PXIe, VPX, and 2U Rockmount. The EC188 Family SSD and flash hard drives are rigorously qualified in Foremay’s compatibility labs with strict hardware and software testing standards for consistency and functionality. Using Foremay’s EC188 solid sate hard drive also reduces maintenance costs, which is essential for rugged markets to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO). The EC188 Family is available in a wide range of form factors and capacities to fit numerous types of applications. Selected models are available to support a wide operating temperature range up to -40 to +85°C. Secure erase and data encryption are available options for selected models. EC188 ™ M-Series, typical specifications Operating temperature: from 0 ~ +55 °C to -40 ~ +85 °C Form Factor R/W Speed (MB/s) Capacity Optional Features PCIe x8 Gen.3.0 3,800/3,100 1 TB ~ 8 TB S1, HE PCIe x8 Gen.2.0 2,400/2,000 1 TB ~ 6 TB S1, HE PCIe x4 Gen.2.0 1,500/1,400 2 TB ~ 12 TB S1, HE, OP PCIe x4 Gen.1.0 800/700 2 TB ~ 32 TB S1, HE PXIe / CPCIe 3,800 /3,100 1 TB ~ 8 TB S1, HE VPX 3.800/3,100 1 TB ~ 8 TB S1, HE 2U Rackmount 1 million IOPS 24 TB ~ 200 TB S1, HE 2.5" SFF-8639 NVMe 1,600 /1,500 1 TB ~ 8 TB S1, HE, OP 2.5" SAS 550/400 500 GB ~ 2 TB S1, HE, SC 2.5" SATA III 550/510 500 GB ~ 8 TB S1, HE, SC 3.5" SATA III 550/510 1 TB ~ 8 TB S1, HE, SC Optional feature code: S1: Type-I secure erase, software or firmware bases secure erase HE: Hardware based encryption CC: Conformal coating SC: Super capacitor SC: TCG-Opal Please contact a Foremay's sales representative to make sure your server's operating system is supported by above PCIe SSDs before place order. If your required special feature is not listed here, please let us know and may able to design and build a customized product for you. Please contact a Foremay's sales representative if your required special feature is not listed here. We will be glad to design and build customized products for you. * Please read carefully Disclaimer and Safety Warning
|
Wyoming’s one and only Planned Parenthood branch in Casper will be closing its doors in July. The health center is among five others in the Rocky Mountain region that will be shutting down this summer.
The decision to close the clinic was not entirely a financial one. That’s according to Adrienne Mansanares, a leader of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood which oversees the Casper branch.
Mansanares said the move to close the health center had to do with patients in Wyoming having access to care from other providers. Mansares also said most of Wyoming’s Planned Parenthood patients already travel to the Fort Collins branch.
“We are making some difficult but necessary changes and this is really so that we can continue to meet patients’ needs in both the short term and the long term,” said Mansanares
Mansanares said they expect Casper’s 500 annual patients to be able to get care from other providers in town, including the Community Health Center of Central Wyoming.
The branch officially closes on July 21, with services slowing down in the coming weeks.
Mansanares said while Wyoming may no longer have any physical locations, Planned Parenthood will remain present in the state through their partnership with NARAL and a 24/7 text messaging service.
|
The popular frozen-yogurt store, Menchie's, located on Montreal's West Island, claims it is the latest target of the province’s language police.
The store's plastic, colourful spoons currently have the phrase "This is my mix" moulded into their handles.
But, after a visit from a Quebec language inspector, Menchie's says it has pulled the spoons from its shelves.
Franchise owner David Lipper says he was careful to translate all of the American company's products into French, but he admits he forgot about the spoons.
"I was paranoid about everything I heard about the language police to make sure everything was in French in this store," he said.
Lipper says it's not clear whether the spoons were breaking Quebec laws, but he has removed them from the store and is searching for a new supplier.
"We are working as fast as we can to get new spoons made just for our Quebec stores, at a large expense to us," says a statement on the Facebook page for Menchie's Dollard-des-Ormeaux store.
OQLF says store was not asked to remove spoons
But the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) says the rumours spread through social media are unfounded.
"This is my mix" are the words moulded on the controversial spoons. (CBC)
The French-language office claims that while an inspector did visit the frozen yogurt store to follow up on a complaint, the store was never asked to remove its spoons.
"Media reported that the OQLF was asking for the removal of plastic spoons, on which an inscription in a language other than French was written. These claims are without merit," said a statement from Martin Bergeron, spokesman for the OQLF.
"For the time being, the analysis of the inspection report … has not yet been completed. As a result, no correction request has been sent to the company."
Currently, the plastic spoons come from the company's headquarters, but the West Island shop says it is looking for a new manufacturer to serve the company’s three Montreal-area outlets.
|
What's new in this version
Changelog Version 2018.419 - Fixed problem causing localization to fail - Fixed problem causing repeated logging entries Changelog Version 2017.330 - Using new Pastebin API changes - WP8: Can now view private pastes Changelog Version 2017.222 - Fixed bug with saving data that could lead to data loss Changelog Version 2016.621 - Fixed "Remove Ads" Button not being shown/being shown when already bought - Fixed version and changelog not working correctly Changelog Version 2016.617.1330 - Changed version format to Year.monthday.hourminute.seconds - Created Windows 10 UWP app version - Fixed bug where expired paste would show a negative time - Fixed multiple bugs - Framework updated to newest version - W10: Scans clipboard for pastebin.com links and shows notification that you can click to view the paste in Pastebin Manager - Fixed bug with expire date being calculated with local time and not UTC
|
First and foremost, this book was FREE! With that being said, it is a great book. I laughed at all of the dialog and first person commentary, whether said out loud or internally. The primary first person thought process was hilarious and real. As for the many reviews B!+ h!ng about poor editing or spelling... this is writen as a journal and many, MANY, people are poor spellers, but also remember... This Book Is FREE! Quit complaining. Many authors are suffering through poor editors and less than steller editing. This is a great zombie book, that not only addresses the loss of community, loss of friends/family, choices and decisions (whether good or bad), but also throws in how people adjust to these changes. Some people freeze, some take charge; others crack emotionally and/or mentally, and some that capitalize on being sick and/or depraved; there are people who want to blame others, while others want to control others; there are leaders and then followers; there are characters you can't help but like and others you'd love to throw out for the zombies to feast on; but on top of it all there are those moments where we could become lost in our own thoughts, and yet those moments where a hilariously funny/sick thought might cross our minds. It's all in this story, which by the way, is a full size novel. It could be a stand alone, but would leave you wanting to know... did they all live happily ever after or what tragedy was awaiting them next. I loved the humor and my son had to know what was making his mom laugh so hard tears were streaming down my face. I would read him a clip and watch him start laughing just as hard. It's a zombie story that starts with a CDC rushed 'ooops,' in a plausible scenario. It evolves into community survival and family survival. You read about ideas for fortifications, food and ammunition concerns, and of course the what-ifs (when this happens what will we do), as well as WTF moments (Ryan Seacrest, really?!). We get to combine that with depraved humans and their need to be destructive or just an altogether mental sickness some have. Then there's that need to protect our children whether 3 years or 19 years old, they're still our babies. And of course, the love for a pet, that some of us just don't grasp, especially if it meant potentially sacrificing ourself to attempt to save a scared, hiding, useless pet. However, when you add in germaphobia, paranoia and laughable inner dialog, it can make for a very interesting twist on the now common doom and gloom, zombie apocalypse books. I'm greatful for this FREE book, because I found an author whom I might not have read otherwise. I am proud to say I am half-way through book number two, and I think the tears of crying from laughter have been even greater. And yes, my son's tears of laughter have been flowing heavily too. Read the first book for free, if it's not your cup of tea, then no loss...BUT just maybe you'll find a book that makes you laugh just as much as it makes you think what-if. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read for the fun and enjoyment of reading. To the Author: Thank you for allowing me the privilege of reading this first book free. - M.
|
The former 70.3 world champion is now a first-year medical student at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
The former 70.3 world champion is now a first-year medical student at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Canada’s Samantha McGlone experienced success across the three major distances in triathlon: she represented Canada in the 2004 Athens Olympics, she won the 2006 70.3 World Championship and then finished second to a then-unknown Chrissie Wellington at the 2007 Ironman World Championship. Two years later she nabbed her first Ironman title at Ironman Arizona.
Since that victory in Tempe, McGlone has struggled with injuries, overtraining syndrome and chronic fatigue. After a couple of attempts to return to the top of the sport, including hiring coach Matt Dixon at the end of 2010, McGlone has decided that she is done competing as a professional triathlete.
“I’m officially retired as of the end of last year,” McGlone told us.
The 33-year-old is not taking the retirement path you might expect from a professional endurance athlete. While many coach other athletes or become a part of business side of the industry, McGlone is already immersed in a second career that has very little to do with triathlon. She started medical school at the University of Arizona in the fall of 2012.
“I had always planned on going to medical school after my triathlon career was over and it seemed like a good time to make that transition,” McGlone explained. “I had been doing a little bit of studying when I was injured two years ago… Becoming a doctor is a long journey in itself. It can take eight to 10 years by the time I finish residency, so I definitely wanted to start that earlier rather than later.”
McGlone says that shifting her focus from a physically daunting sport to a rigorous field of study has gone relatively smooth.
“I thought it would be a tough transition since my brain has basically been in retirement for the last 10 years,” she explained. “They definitely want you to succeed here. The material is really hard and there’s a lot of it. I figure this is my next big project and I need to take it on in a similar way to how I approached triathlon and make my life around this thing.“
Although pursuing a doctorate in medicine, along with the studying that comes with it, is a tough challenge, McGlone was quick to point out that, unlike triathlon training, studying is an indoor task and comes with certain luxuries.
“Compared to Ironman training I think med school is easier,” she said. “You’re putting in some long days, but you’re in a nice air conditioned library with cold drinks and you can take a little break if you need to. It’s definitely not like being out on the bike for five or six hours in the Tucson heat. It’s challenging, but coming from such a tough sport and doing it for so long, I think this is pretty manageable for me.”
Despite the tough medical school schedule, McGlone was able to break away long enough to travel to the Big Island and watch the 2012 Ironman World Championship. She experienced a couple of ups (finishing 2nd in 2007 and 5th in 2009) and some downs (including a 16th place finish her final time competing in 2010) while competing in Hawaii, and she says she had mixed feelings while watching the race.
“It was bittersweet,” McGlone said. “I went out on the bike course. I was out at the Mauna Lani aid station. I handed out water bottles and saw people coming through. It was so fun to see my friends that I raced with and I had a great time. I was really glad I went, but of course watching the race was hard. There’s a big part of me that wished I was in it. I had made the decision. I knew it would be hard to move on because it was my life for so long.”
Don’t expect to see McGlone toeing the line of Hawaii, or any triathlon for that matter, as an age grouper any time soon. When we asked her about the possibility of racing the Ironman World Championship as an amateur down the road, McGlone was quick with her answer.
“I would say no,” she said. “I think I’m probably done with triathlon for a while. I will never say never, but I’m not sure if I would want to repeat that experience knowing the level I was at. I think I would find it hard to not be competing as a pro.“
For now McGlone is keeping busy with her studies, spending time on her mountain bike and running on Tucson’s trails.
“It was a great career,” she concluded. “It was more than I had ever hoped for. I’m sad that it’s over, but I’m really excited about moving on.”
Until recently, McGlone answered readers’ question in her “Ask A Pro” column for Triathlete. Look back on those columns here.
|
Photo credit: Oh Dag Yo Photography
Lost Lands 2017 survivors, keep an eye on your inbox today. At 2PM EST/11AM PST, a loyalty pre-sale code will be sent out to all emails who purchased Lost Lands 2017 tickets direct from the site. This code provides access to the first 2 loyalty tiers of tickets. Upon the sell out of those tiers, Excision will post the code in Excision’s Headbangers Facebook Group so group members can access the next tier of tickets. If you miss all the Thursday action, don’t start planning Couchlands 2018 just yet – general on sale begins Friday, Dec. 1 at 2PM EST/11AM PST and there’s no code needed to buy tickets at that time.
Excision has already revealed a few enhancements for the September 14-16, 2018 event taking place in Thornville, OH, including larger car camping plots, an early entry pre-party with surprise B2B’s, the addition of a designated quiet camping area and payment plans so you don’t have to COMPLETELY forego holiday shopping. Pay 34% of your total order on the day of purchase, 33% on April 16 and the final 33% on June 15. GA starts at $119 for the first loyalty tier, with tier 6 costing $209. VIP tiers start at $219 for the first loyalty tier and will increase to $299 by the final tier. This festival is bringing 1,000,000 WATTS OF BASS to Legend Valley so trust you’re going to get your money’s worth.
Need some hype music as you push the purchase button? Stream or download Excision’s Lost Lands 2017 mix here and bask in the bass until September 2018 arrives. There’s also no shortage of tour dates to catch the man himself before next year’s flagship event and as any true Excision fan knows, there’s no such thing as seeing him too many times. Find your next chance to throw your X up here.
|
Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A self-taught hypnotist who put a woman under his trance - telling her he was her master and she was his sex slave - has been jailed for 18 months for degrading her.
The 40-year-old grandfather, who had an unblemished record in the services spanning 24 years, had previously pleaded guilty to causing a person to engage in sexual activity without their consent.
Instead of helping his vulnerable victim with weight-loss and anxiety issues, ex-RAF man Timothy Porter took advantage of his skills to make her fondle her breasts.
Porter, of Ouseburn Road, Blackburn, was jailed for 18 months, placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and banned from contacting his victim and from acting as a hypnotist for 10 years.
Jonathan Walker, prosecuting, said Porter, who served at RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire until the end of 2012, learned hypnosis and offered to carry out hypnotherapy on the married mother, whose identity cannot be reported.
After a series of sessions, Porter turned up at her home on the night of December 2 last year when her husband was away.
Despite her reservations, Porter offered to hypnotise her more deeply than before and the pair sat on a sofa.
"He kept saying, 'No mind, no will of your own'," Mr Walker said.
She became frightened but the session continued.
Mr Walker said: "The defendant stated he was her master, she was his sexual slave."
The amateur hypnotist then persuaded her to expose and touch her breasts.
She was roused from the hypnosis and went to the kitchen, the court heard, and Porter tried to restart the session, without success.
Instead, his upset victim rang a friend, police were called and he was arrested.
Mr Walker said: "His account was that he believed she was consenting to his actions during the course of this incident.
"He agreed the incident had escalated and he misread the situation."
"It has had a profound effect on her sleeping pattern and her general health," he said.
|
What I’ve been doing lately:
Wow, February is just about over and I’ve been working pretty hard in my classes. I’m extremely happy with my most recent project so I decided to take pictures as I went to show my steps. So perhaps you’d want to create something like this or tilt your head in confusion as to why I decided to make something so complicated. Either way, here we go!
I love squirrels and we have hundreds of them on campus so I drew inspiration from my furry friends.
The assignment was to create an object of our choice with an unexpected twist. So, I wanted to make a Squirrel that fights crime.
I took the idea of a squirrel and ran with it. I first decided to make a sort of cardboard skeleton of a squirrel.
I covered him in paper mache to make his body much sturdier for the next step. Messy messy paper clay.
I’m so very glad I put a layer of paper mache down because the card board would have totally collapsed if I put the clay directly on it. At this step, the squirrel looks bumpy and messy. I only applied the clay to the body not the legs, tail, or head. I had different ideas for that. I also made his little hands from the clay.
At this point I figured out that I wanted to make a Red Lantern Squirrel. I was inspired by the Red Lantern cat named Dex-Starr. If any creature in the universe can be a lantern, why not a squirrel?
When the clay finally dried, I took coarse sandpaper and spent a good 3 hours sanding out the bumps. The gray spots you can see are patches I sanded too much. I ran out of white paper clay, so I used my gray clay instead as a bandage.
After the coarse sanding I used a fine grade sand paper to get it even smoother.
After sanding I sealed the clay with a sealing paint. I used a really cheap brush… so you can see the little hairs that came out of it…But the layers of paint would hide them. teehee.
I primed his little body for paint with white priming paint and sketched on the design I wanted.
Now for the next messy part… Painting.
I painted about 4 layers of each color. This picture is after the 4 coats and right before I put a glossy varnish. I forgot to take a picture so just imagine it shinier. ^_^
While my squirrel was drying I started working on the little details that make him a Red Lantern. I used craft foam for these pieces. I was not anticipating on how messy this next step would be. Dealing with faux fur. O_O
First I worked on the tail. Oh my god. The fur was EVERYWHERE. This is a picture of the tail before its grooming. haha.
Then I worked on the face. I used the little eyes you can get at craft stores that are used for stuffed animals and used some craft foam for the nose. This picture is the initial way my squirrel looked before his hair cut. Looks kinda like Al Sharpton. Heeheeehee.
Then I glued on some ears and his little domino mask and well… You get a Red Lantern Squirrel.
Hope you enjoyed my post. I love my squirrel so much. I named him Cecil.
Happy Early March! ^_^
|
Local members of the group Great Old Broads for Wilderness joined to send a strong message to the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, south of Burns in Harney County on Friday. They called them bullies and demanded that they leave the refuge. They also demanded prosecution of the occupiers for confiscation of refuge buildings and unauthorized use of public vehicles, among many other potential crimes.
Nearly 200 public lands supporters, led by the Great Old Broads, gathered in downtown Bend to protest the unlawful occupation led by the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. Among the speakers were two Harney County residents. Julie Weikel is a longtime rancher and supporter of the refuge. Her property is adjacent to the refuge boundary on the north. She says that the refuge doesn't deserve the negative spotlight the Bundys have portrayed. She acknowledges that the refuge has worked hard to collaborate with the Harney County community and has done a good job. She points out that the employees of the refuge are intertwined with nearby residents at a community level, a school level, and that the occupation is just "so wrong." Weikel says she wants them physically gone from her backyard.
"I'm not a fearful person. I live 30 miles from the nearest grocery store. I have never locked my doors in my entire life until last Monday night, and I don't choose to live that way. I just want them out of there." Weikel says it's been a gut-wrenching experience for local residents. She notes that local law enforcement officials are being threatened, and that they are under a lot of pressure to maintain public safety.
Noting that the Bundys want to take the refuge and federal public lands to transition them to state or private control, Weikel says these lands became federal because the states couldn't afford to manage them. She says the state can't afford to maintain the cost of what it takes to sustain grazing essential to ranchers depending on federal lands.
Rynda Clark, an organizer of the Great Old Broads rally, says she can't imagine losing federal public lands. "It's important to keep these lands public so children can have a wildlife experience now and in the future."
Duncan Evered, caretaker of the Malheur Field Station since 1997, told the rally, "We want the refuge back as soon as possible without violence under any conditions." Evered was forced to leave his residence on the refuge and he says that law enforcement officers continue to tell him that it's not safe to return. He emphasizes patience to resolve the standoff peacefully. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1908 by executive order of President Theodore Roosevelt for the primary protection of birds. The refuge is used by over 300 species of birds that migrate along the Pacific Flyway from Patagonia to Alaska and use the refuge as a rest stop, breeding and nesting ground.
|
" Say 'uncle'! " is a North American expression demanding that the opponent in a contest submit. The response " Uncle! " is equivalent to " I give up " and indicates submission.
For other uses, see Say Uncle (disambiguation)
In the United States and Canada, the idiomatic expression " Say 'uncle'! " may be used as an imperative command to demand submission of one's opponent, such as during an informal wrestling match. Similarly, the exclamation " Uncle! " is an indication of submission – analogous to " I give up " – or it may be a cry for mercy, in such a game or match. [1] This exclamation has also been assumed by the BDSM culture as a proverbial example of a safeword .
There are several theories on the phrase's origin.
One theory is that it derives from a phrase uttered by youngsters in the Roman empire who got into trouble, patrue mi patruissime (“uncle, my best of uncles”).[1]
It may also be based on a joke from 19th-century England about a bullied parrot being coaxed to address his owner's uncle.[1][2][3]
"Uncle" may derive from the Irish anacol, meaning mercy or quarter, but there is no strong evidence to support this conjecture.[3]
|
Photo: Felice Frankel
The high cost of batteries still prevents them from being used to store renewable energy for times when the wind dies down or there’s no sun. Pumped hydroelectric storage is the cheapest known energy-storage technology today, but is limited by geography.
With a new battery, researchers at MIT say they have found the sweet spot for energy storage. The energy-dense battery could be the first to compete with the installed cost of pumped hydro and compressed-air storage, which cost around $100 per kilowatt-hour of energy stored. Scaled-up versions of the new battery could store electricity for a fifth of that, at $20/kWh. By comparison, Tesla claims its Gigafactory can produce batteries for around $125/kWh.
The new battery might even have what it takes to replace fossil fuel “peaker” plants that can quickly inject power into the grid at high demand times. To compete with peaker plants, we need immense batteries that store energy from wind and solar for multiple days, even months, at an installed cost of around $50/kWh.
The device, reported in the journal Joule, is a type of flow battery, in which both the anode and cathode are liquid electrolytes. The anode in this case is sulfur dissolved in water, while the cathode is an aerated liquid salt solution that takes up and releases oxygen.
Lithium ions move between the electrolytes, and the salt solution at the cathode takes up or releases oxygen to balance the charge. During discharge, it takes up oxygen and the anode ejects electrons into an external circuit. When the oxygen is released, electrons go back to the anode, recharging the battery.
MIT materials scientist and engineer Yet-Ming Chiang says that his team’s main goal in building it was to keep costs to a minimum. They chose a water-based flow battery concept, which would have lower energy than a traditional battery but would be much cheaper per kWh.
After analyzing dozens of known battery materials, they chose sulfur because it’s cheap and abundant. Giant heaps of sulfur are produced as waste from tar sands refineries. “One existing stockpile of 4 million cubic meters, if turned into sulfur-based batteries, would store several times the entire pumped hydroelectric capacity in the world today (∼1.6 TWh),” the researchers write in an accompanying article in Joule.
The battery can store 20 to 40 Wh per liter of its electrolytes, making it 500 to 1,000 times denser than pumped hydro systems. Which means portable versions of this battery could be situated wherever they are needed near wind and solar farms. Plus, the cost of all the active materials in the battery is only $1/kWh, less than that for most any other rechargeable battery.
The battery is ideal for long-term storage because it is “scalable to a large size, made of earth-abundant materials, and has a stable chemistry in storage,” says Chiang. And as it gets bigger, storing energy gets cheaper. “System cost is a strong function of storage duration,” he says. “For long duration storage beyond a day, cost continues to drop and reaches $20 to $30 per kilowatt-hour.”
Editor’s note: This post was updated on 18 October to revise the energy density of the new battery from 20 to 40 kWh per liter to 20 to 40 Wh per liter.
|
Capcom Pro Tour’s ranking tournament at Thaigeruppercut 2014 this past weekend saw some intense action as players competed for points in the circuit. This culminated in an Ultra Street Fighter IV grand finals featuring Evo 2014 runner-up Masato “Bonchan” Takahashi and Razer’s Hiromiki “Itabashi Zangief” Kumada, both looking to shake up the board and move to the upper echelons of the rankings.
Adding to the stakes was the fact that Itazan was using Zangief against Bonchan’s Sagat. The former had been doing well for most of the tournament, showing an impressive performance with the grappler. Additionally, with Sagat being a supposed hard match up for Zangief, a win here over Bonchan would definitely make people rethink the matchup.
For those who missed the match, the organizers of the tournament recently uploaded archived footage.
In the end however, Bonchan’s Sagat was just too strong. Despite a valiant effort that saw Itazan even the score up one game a piece, Bonchan was able to take two games straight, clinching the final round and the tournament in a poetic manner with a final Tiger Uppercut.
Check out the complete results for Thaigeruppercut 2014 here.
Source: Thaigeruppercut
|
DayZ Changelog a guest Dec 17th, 2013 1,556 Never a guest1,556Never
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up , it unlocks many cool features!
rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 1.92 KB Current Changelog Current Status: Closed Test IN PROGRESS Experimental Branch Test Released on Stable Fixed: Drinking directly from wells now works headwear descriptions updated pants descriptions updated increased battery drain by flashlight bandaging cannot fix broken leg now server browser shows internet tab as selected out of the box fixed modifier messages, one message type per stage Workshop: lowered moto helmets spawn probability. removed old proxies, replaced with memory points Reduced level at which player becomes permanently unconscious Increased rate players recover from shock damage Internet set to default tab for multiplayer server browsing improved responsiveness when side-stepping from left to right/right to left disabled head movement for unconscious states adjusted head bob for select animations Various security related measures Tweaked the tenement buildings (small and big) for spawns on the roof improved transitions for restrained player Removed old proxies and replaced them with memory points and new loot spawn in sheds enabled step blending with raised rifle for better responsiveness New: Temporary status indicators for state of player in the inventory screen (thirsty, sickness, hunger, etc...) force feed other players Rain updated - it should better correspond with the rest of scene by adding the refraction effect New variations for main menu (Unarmed) added Greeting animations for all stances to be replaced (Now with left hand to avoid issues when holding items) Magnum hand IK Opening cans with sharp tools Dot crosshair Damaging knife, screwdriver and bayonet used for opening cans Loot array (with respective type of meat) added to animals configs and new types of meat added to food configs (ANIMALS DISABLED) Central Server: fixed performance issues on character creation and saving fixed character creation record override increased server response time and performance
RAW Paste Data
Current Changelog Current Status: Closed Test IN PROGRESS Experimental Branch Test Released on Stable Fixed: Drinking directly from wells now works headwear descriptions updated pants descriptions updated increased battery drain by flashlight bandaging cannot fix broken leg now server browser shows internet tab as selected out of the box fixed modifier messages, one message type per stage Workshop: lowered moto helmets spawn probability. removed old proxies, replaced with memory points Reduced level at which player becomes permanently unconscious Increased rate players recover from shock damage Internet set to default tab for multiplayer server browsing improved responsiveness when side-stepping from left to right/right to left disabled head movement for unconscious states adjusted head bob for select animations Various security related measures Tweaked the tenement buildings (small and big) for spawns on the roof improved transitions for restrained player Removed old proxies and replaced them with memory points and new loot spawn in sheds enabled step blending with raised rifle for better responsiveness New: Temporary status indicators for state of player in the inventory screen (thirsty, sickness, hunger, etc...) force feed other players Rain updated - it should better correspond with the rest of scene by adding the refraction effect New variations for main menu (Unarmed) added Greeting animations for all stances to be replaced (Now with left hand to avoid issues when holding items) Magnum hand IK Opening cans with sharp tools Dot crosshair Damaging knife, screwdriver and bayonet used for opening cans Loot array (with respective type of meat) added to animals configs and new types of meat added to food configs (ANIMALS DISABLED) Central Server: fixed performance issues on character creation and saving fixed character creation record override increased server response time and performance
|
The Republican tax reform proposal is focused on tax breaks for the middle class "and not about people who are really high-income earners getting a tax break."
Undaunted by his party’s failure to repeal Obamacare, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has fixed his sights on the next Republican priority -- tax reform. He says the plan is squarely aimed at helping the middle class.
On Sept. 27, 2017, the day President Donald Trump announced the framework of the GOP tax reform proposal, Ryan did a an interview on the Fox News Channel with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity. In it, Ryan stated:
People who are low- and middle-income, they’re the ones who are literally living paycheck to paycheck, who are worried about losing their job or they haven’t gotten a raise in years. This is about them and not about people who are really high-income earners getting a break.
Ryan made similar statements about the middle class earlier in the interview, as well as the same day at his weekly briefing with reporters and, repeatedly, several days later on CBS’ "Face the Nation."
So, is the Republican tax reform framework focused on tax breaks for the middle class "and not about people who are really high-income earners getting a tax break"?
What we found are some benefits for the middle class -- but, more clearly, breaks for the rich, as well.
Ryan’s argument
When Trump unveiled the framework, the New York Times reported that he offered "scant detail about how working people would benefit from a proposal that has explicit and substantial rewards for wealthy people and corporations." The Times story added: "Without more details, it is difficult to show how middle-income families will see the most benefit from the tax overhaul — or if it will favor the richest Americans."
One reason there are questions is that what has been proposed is a framework -- not all of the details have been worked out.
Ryan spokesman Ian Martorana argued that while the plan "reduces rates for everyone, the wealthiest individuals "will continue to pay at least the same proportion of the country’s taxes." He also criticized an analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, saying its assumptions about the plan make the analysis "deeply flawed."
Tax Policy Center director Mark Mazur told us he believes the assumptions are reasonable, given that they are based on previous tax proposals outlined by Ryan and Trump.
Key analysis of the framework
The Tax Policy Center analysis found:
The framework would collapse the seven individual income tax rates -- which range from 10 percent to 39.6 percent -- to three: 12, 25 and 35 percent. The higher percentages are applied to those who make more money. Ryan says the current 10 percent rate is reduced to 0 percent.
The framework would also, among other things, increase the standard deduction, eliminate personal exemptions, increase the child tax credit and eliminate most itemized deductions.
So, depending on the details, the provisions could all increase or decrease an individual’s federal income tax bill.
One bottom line, according to the analysis: The top 1 percent of earners would receive about 80 percent of the tax benefit. This income group would see its after-tax income increase 8.5 percent, whereas the bottom 95 percent of earners would see an average 1.2 percent increase in their after-tax income.
Other details from the analysis:
In 2018, all income groups would see their average taxes fall, but some taxpayers in each group would face tax increases. Those with the very highest incomes would receive the biggest tax cuts. In 2027, taxpayers in the 80th to 95th income percentiles would, on average, experience a tax increase.
Looking ahead, in 2027, some higher-income taxpayers would pay more in taxes, but the richest would still get breaks. Taxpayer groups in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution — those making less than about $150,000 — would receive average tax cuts of 0.5 percent or less of after-tax income. Taxpayers making between about $150,000 and $300,000 would on average pay about $800 more in taxes than under current law. About 80 percent of the total benefit would accrue to taxpayers in the top 1 percent, whose after-tax income would increase 8.7 percent.
The analysis also included this important caveat: The framework does not specify the income brackets to which the individual tax rates would apply, nor the maximum size and phase-out parameters of the increased child tax credit. So, to some extent, projections are hard to make.
But while some in the middle class are projected to see tax cuts, the better-off do even better, according to the Tax Policy Center analysis.
Other analyses
Other think tanks have also had to make assumptions about the framework, given its lack of details. Here is what some of them concluded:
Tax Foundation, a right-leaning group: It’s projected the plan "would, on average, lower the tax burden on the bottom 80 percent of households, while slightly raising the tax burden on the top 20 percent of households. The group with the largest gains is households between the 60th and 80th percentile."
New York Times: The proposal "is a potentially huge windfall for the wealthiest Americans, would not directly benefit the bottom third of the population (and) as for the middle class, the benefits appear to be modest."
Washington Post: "Most people will pay lower taxes, although it's unclear if the rich get a bigger break than the middle class."
PolitiFact National: "The framework appears to favor cuts for wealthier individuals and could increase taxes on some middle class groups." Our colleagues reached that conclusion in rating Stalled this campaign promise from Trump: "Everybody is getting a tax cut, especially the middle class."
National Review: "If they want to avoid raising taxes on a lot of middle-class families while sticking with their framework, Republicans are going to have to plug in the remaining numbers very carefully — and probably going to have to expand the child credit by more than $500 per child."
Cato Institute, a libertarian-oriented group: "The problem is that ‘middle-class’ Americans pay little in federal income taxes, while ‘lower-income’ Americans pay virtually nothing. So Republican leaders are making promises that will be difficult to keep, and they are distracting themselves from the better message of growth and prosperity for all."
Again, these analyses emphasized that many details have yet to be filled in.
Finally, it’s worth noting that some provisions in the framework specifically benefit the well-to-do, as PolitiFact National found in rating False a claim by Trump that the plan has "very little benefit for people of wealth." The plan would:
Eliminate the alternative minimum tax. This is a calculation that guarantees that certain higher-income taxpayers with large deductions pay at least a minimum amount of tax.
Eliminate the estate tax. Currently, for estates worth more than $5.49 million, the estate is generally 40 percent.
Reduce from 39.6 percent to 25 percent the tax rate for "small and family-owned businesses conducted as sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations" -- collectively, these are referred to as "passthrough" income. (Ryan argues that most small-business owners in Wisconsin, after business expenses are considered, are middle-class.)
It’s worth noting, as PolitiFact New York found, that the framework would increase the number of people who don’t have to pay federal income tax, although that’s not something that helps the middle class.
Our rating
Ryan says the Republican tax reform proposal is focused on tax breaks for the middle class "and not about people who are really high-income earners getting a tax break."
Missing details in the framework for the tax reform make it difficult to tease out exactly how various taxpayers would fare, so it’s possible there will be more for middle-class taxpayers. But based on the framework, while there are some benefits for the middle class, what’s more clear is there are specific provisions benefiting the wealthy.
For a statement that contains only an element of truth, our rating is Mostly False.
|
Jun 15, 2017 | By David
We’ve reported before on the progress of LPW Technology Ltd, a UK-based company which is gradually asserting itself as one of the global 3D printing industry’s biggest names in the field of metal powders and metal quality control solutions. A £20m investment was announced towards the end of 2016, and the company also secured a strategic investment from 3D printing specialist Stratasys Ltd. in April of this year. Now another promising alliance has been established, as Japanese firm Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation (TNSC) has committed to supplying the market with a new range of metal powders from LPW.
TNSC is one of the world’s largest suppliers of industrial, specialty and industrial gases, and it has a dedicated 3D printing technical team at its gas application R&D laboratory in Yamanashi, Japan. The company will use its sales and distribution channels to supply some of LPW’s most cutting-edge products. To start, LPW products will be available through TNSC's hubs in Singapore and China as well as a subsidiary in the U.S. A similar deal was set up by TNSC last year, with 3D printing systems specialist Optomec. The Optomec Lens 3D printer is now sold by the company as part of total additive manufacturing solution, which also includes gases, powder feed stock, and metal heat treatment techniques.
A statement from TNSC outlined the key motivations behind this significant international 3D printing partnership: "Metal welding solutions are considered by many as the basic building blocks of today’s 3D metal printing technologies. TNSC will leverage its industry expertise in welding processes, metal heat treatment and controlled gas atmospheres to help lower costs, streamline production and eliminate defects for metal AM customers globally."
This deal with LPW is a timely one, as the popularity of metal 3D printing as a manufacturing solution is growing rapidly. The demand for AM metal powders is expected to grow by around 60 percent this year, and LPW has been investing in new manufacturing facilities accordingly. The company is now capable of producing up to 1,000 tonnes of metal powder each year, and TNSC will be able to leverage this output for serious sales figures in a booming market.
According to Dermot Desmond, Asia Pacific Sales Manager for LPW Technology, “This alliance with TNSC is truly ground-breaking for the industry and will lead to further understanding of the total AM process and ultimately the development of more robust processes and novel alloys.” Back on home soil, the company, which was founded by CEO Phil Caroll in 2007 and last year received the Award for Enterprise from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, is hoping to create 120 new jobs by 2018. LPW has gained a substantial reputation for advancing research in the metal 3D printing field, with a major study carried out on the effects of gaseous corruption on 3D printed metal parts released last year. Its clients can also make use of the innovative LPW PowderLife system, which allows businesses to trace material history of metal powder products and make sure they remain compliant with various specifications and production requirements.
Posted in 3D Printing Materials
Maybe you also like:
|
Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter isn't really about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours too.
The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.
In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today's Vatican Hill. Cybele's lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering "sunrise services" at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that?
All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and blessed the cake instead.
Easter is essentially a pagan festival which is celebrated with cards, gifts and novelty Easter products, because it's fun and the ancient symbolism still works. It's always struck me that the power of nature and the longer days are often most felt in modern towns and cities, where we set off to work without putting on our car headlights and when our alarm clock goes off in the mornings, the streetlights outside are not still on because of the darkness.
What better way to celebrate, than to bite the head off the bunny goddess, go to a "sunrise service", get yourself a sticky-footed fluffy chick and stick it on your TV, whilst helping yourself to a hefty slice of pagan simnel cake? Happy Easter everyone!
|
Welcome to another installment of No Obama Bundler Left Behind. This chapter stars an elite Hollywood fundraiser who scored a plum diplomatic appointment, slacked off on the job and left her public office in disgrace, and then rebounded from failure as a new Obamacare promoter. Nice crony "work" if you can get it.
This failed celebr-ambassador is Nicole Avant. Her father, Clarence Avant, is a prominent Democratic activist and music executive. Her husband, Ted Sarandos, is the chief content officer at Netflix. Her godfather is music legend Quincy Jones. On Monday, Avant turned up at an Obama administration confab with pop stars (Jennifer Hudson, Jason Derulo), comedy stars (Amy Poehler, Kal Penn, Aisha Tyler) and other assorted Beautiful People (public relations teams for Oprah Winfrey and Alicia Keys). The liberal glam squad members all have agreed to spread Obamacare propaganda to the masses.
Avant, billed as an "Obama administration veteran" by The Hollywood Reporter, represented "industry" at the Ministry of Health Care Misinformation meeting this week. The Wrap, another Hollywood gossip outlet, describes Avant as having been "tasked with helping boost Obama's relationship with Hollywood."
But what exactly has this "veteran" accomplished? What are her qualifications? How has she used taxpayer dollars, and what exactly is her "industry"?
By all appearances, the industry of Nicole Avant is Nicole Avant. The Beverly Hills socialite and "power player" has appeared in highbrow magazines like "Uptown" with glossy photo spreads of her 1-percenter mansion — designed, we must all be made aware, by Max Azria. Avant's personal website describes her as a "businesswoman," but her biography mentions no actual business. Instead, Avant exults from a privileged 90210 childhood attending "elite soirees, charitable events and political fundraisers."
Avant's official biography includes the following anecdote: "One time, when I was in grade school, I told my teacher that Gov. Jerry Brown of California had been over. She responded in disbelief, asking, 'What was the governor doing at your house?' Avant replied, 'Just talking with my dad.'"
And that brings us to Avant's "qualifications." As a member of Obama's 2008 Los Angeles fundraising team, Avant used her family connections to help drum up some $21 million in campaign cash. She and her husband drummed up at least $500,000 for the Obama campaign during the last election cycle. First lady Michelle Obama recently gushed that Avant was a "dear friend" and "pretty phenomenal woman."
Money can) buy love. And ambassadorships. In the fall of 2009, Avant was appointed ambassador to the Bahamas. The State Department inspector general, alas, didn't have the same warm, tingly feelings for Avant that the Obamas do. The IG's scathing report blasted her jet-setting tenure, which the watchdog described as "an extended period of dysfunctional leadership and mismanagement." Avant, true to the Obama way, blamed problems "inherited" from the previous administration.
But Avant, and Avant alone, was responsible for her chronic absenteeism. She was gone from the office 276 days between September 2009 and November 2011. The IG concluded bluntly: "Her extensive travel out of country and preference to work from the ambassador's residence for a significant portion of the workday contributed to a perception of indifference. ... The frequent absences of the ambassador contributed to poor mission management."[Report in PDF]
And it was Avant's neglect of basic office maintenance and core mission work, not George W. Bush's, that led the IG to conclude that the post had produced "little political reporting or analysis on international crime, drug smuggling and illegal migration or on prevention of terrorism" under her reign. Avant chose instead to tout her "success" in hosting former basketball star and fellow Obama booster Magic Johnson on the islands to promote "business development."
It's more political patronage as usual in the era of Hope and Change. Remember when Obama the candidate once inveighed: "We need a president who will look out for the interests of hardworking families, not just their big campaign donors and corporate allies." Or when he pontificated: "It is no coincidence that the best bundlers are often granted the greatest access, and access is power in Washington." As I've chronicled throughout Obama's tenure in my columns and in "Culture of Corruption," Avant is the rule, not the exception among his class of incompetent, feather-lining bundler appointees.
No doubt the complainer in chief will dismiss any criticism of his celebr-ambassadorships-for-sale embarrassments as more "phony scandals." But the phoniest phony of them all doth protest too much.
|
The next GT5 update will be available to download tonight at approximately 11:00PM (Eastern Standard Time in the United States), as announced by Kazunori Yamauchi on Twitter and Polyphony Digital. Here’s a human translation of his post by our own SHIRAKAWA Akira:
Ok, here comes the long awaited GT5 online update. It will happen in 24 hours. An online special event will be held too.
His Twitter post was followed shortly thereafter by updates on Polyphony Digital’s official websites, announcing scheduled maintenance and downtime of GT5‘s online services around the world between 10:00 and 11:00 PM EST (a corresponding notice has also been posted to the European website).
As usual, there is no information about exactly what this update will contain, but we’ll find out soon enough. Thanks to all of you who sent this in so quickly!
GT5 Photomode image by Primus Ortus.
More Posts On...
|
WASHINGTON — Sen. Patrick Leahy withdrew his proposed amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill that would have recognized the marriages of same-sex couples for immigration purposes on Tuesday night, after several Democratic members of the committee stated that they would not be supporting it.
A little past 7 p.m., Leahy said, "It is with a heavy heart … I will withhold the Leahy Amendment 7 at this point."
Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, offered the amendment a half-hour earlier, saying, "I don't want to be the senator who asks Americans to choose between the love of their life and the love of their country."
He added, "Discriminating against people based on who they love is a travesty," noting that he wanted to hear from members of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" senators about why they didn't include protections for gay couples in the initial bill.
Sen. Lindsey Graham went first, saying he opposed the inclusion of gay couples' protections in the bill, despite noting his respect for Leahy's "passion" is support of marriage equality.
"If you redefine marriage for immigration purposes [by the amendment], the bill would fall apart because the coalition would fall apart," Graham said. "It would be a bridge too far."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein cited Graham's comments, then, saying of Leahy's amendment, "I think this sounds like the fairest approach, but here's the problem ... we know this is going to blow the agreement apart. I don't want to blow this bill apart."
She cited the fact that the Supreme Court could strike down the Defense of Marriage Act provision that prevents same-sex couples from having equal immigration rights in coming months. She also noted the a bill she is sponsoring to repeal DOMA is holding in the Senate, concluding, "I would just implore to hold up on this amendment at this time."
Sen. Jeff Flake, another Republican in the Gang of Eight, said, "It certainly would mean this bill would not move forward."
Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democratic member of the Gang of Eight, then spoke up, praising Leahy's leadership, but concluding, "I believe that this is the wrong moment, this is the wrong bill."
Sen. Chuck Schumer went last of the four members of the Gang of Eight on the committee, saying, "This is one of the most excruciating decisions I have had to make in my [time] in Congress. ... Not to do this is rank discrimination."
He then said, however, of opponents of inclusion, "They've made it perfectly clear that if this provision is included ... they will abandon [the bill.] ... If we make the effort to add it to this bill, they will walk away. ... The result: no equality, no immigration bill, everyone loses. ... Much as it pains me, I cannot support this amendment if it will bring down the bill.'
"I will be here," Schumer said to the LGBT community, to work on the issue in the future. "This is far from our last battle together."
Sen. Al Franken, likewise, joined in the decision not to support the amendment, saying, "This is the definition of a Hobson's choice. ... It's wrong to discriminate against people, but I do not want the LGBT people who would be hurt by this bill not passing, this whole bill not passing, to be hurt by this falling apart."
|
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
OKLAHOMA CITY -- For the third consecutive meeting, members of the indigenous community piled into the pews inside Oklahoma City's municipal building.
Some breastfed their babies, others quietly chatted with their school-aged children, still more passed the hours on their cell phones as they waited for a chance to speak.
27 pro-IPD speakers later, city council is nearing a vote on Indigenous Peoples Day. Last time it failed on a 4-4 tie. @kfor — Lorne Fultonberg (@LorneKFOR) October 13, 2015
And for the third consecutive time, they walked away disappointed.
By a 5-4 vote, the city council voted against adopting Indigenous Peoples' Day on the second Monday of October, traditionally the day Americans recognize as Columbus Day.
Related: Why some celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day
"I am flabbergasted," said Sarah Adams-Cornell, just after wiping away tears. "I cannot believe the injustice in that city council room right now."
Adams-Cornell had led the charge in Oklahoma City to change a holiday she views as cruel and torturous for her people.
"Indigenous people cannot be a part of Columbus Day," she said. "We cannot be a part of that celebration because we cannot celebrate the genocide of our people."
Leader of #ipdOKC says group will be resilient and keep trying. @kfor pic.twitter.com/0KUDW9xcHS — Lorne Fultonberg (@LorneKFOR) October 13, 2015
Adams-Cornell helped mobilize the native community in the Oklahoma City metro area. Over the last six weeks, scores of people from a wide range of tribes stepped up to the microphone to let the city council hear their perspectives.
The community had hoped to pass the resolution in time for it to take effect for this year's holiday.
But two weeks ago, the resolution failed on a 4-4 tie with one member absent. On Tuesday, Sixth Ward Councilwoman Meg Salyer cast her "no" vote, effectively killing the resolution for this year.
"There was a lot of really good, well-meaning people in the council chambers today making emotional pleas and a lot of good cases," said Mayor Mick Cornett, who twice voted against the resolution. "I hope people will listen to them. I think they've got a decent case at what they're trying to accomplish. But this is a federal holiday and I think the federal government at some point is going to take a look and listen to them and reconsider."
Though Columbus Day is a federal holiday, Oklahoma City does little to recognize it. City workers do not get the day off and there are no Columbus Day celebrations. Most councilmembers saw the change as a symbolic gesture having little effect.
But Mayor Cornett says that doesn't change the fact that the city level is not the place to make a change.
"I just think that if you're going to go after a federal law, you should go after the federal government than go city by city or county by county or state by state," he said, encouraging the indigenous community to fight to change the holiday at the federal level.
Sarah Adams-Cornell says she will continue to fight until the holiday is changed, just as it has been in a number of large cities nationwide.
"We will not stop because justice doesn't stop for us," she said. "It's going to happen in Oklahoma City, but they're not the leaders that are going to get us there."
|
Argentina, named after the precious metal silver, is a beautiful, diverse country and part of the charm is the warm and wonderful people. Of European descent, but with a Latin American spirit they have a sophisticated exterior with an explosive core that is easily detonated if you touch one or more of a few raw nerves. By observing the golden rule Do´s and Don´ts you will find your time in Argentina a rich and rewarding experience and get along just fine.
Greet women with a light kiss on the right cheek – Men you are meeting for the first time a handshake will do fine. Argentine men who are good friends will normally kiss cheeks. Argentines know many foreign men are not comfortable with kissing other men. Even if you have a good Argentine friend they will understand if you don’t kiss them and let the handshake do for the ritual greeting.
Go to Asados – An Asado is the same as a barbeque. It is a good place to meet new people and have some great food. Always bring something to cook and share. It helps to bring lots of beverage also. Your host will probably be impressed if you bring your own plate, glass and flatware. Beware of eating hamburgers that are not cooked all the way through. Argentines will find this revolting and will be sure you will die of e coli or salmonella poisoning the next day. Brick ovens are common in Argentina and will render some of the best meat you will ever have.
Share – If you are in a group and you have candy or cigarettes it is common courtesy to offer some to the whole group. If you don’t they will consider you stingy. Sharing is a big part of this society and to be a part of it you need to participate.
Pay genuine compliments – Any time you get a chance. It doesn’t matter if it’s the weather, the scenery, food or anything else it’s a good idea to pass a positive comment. If you compliment Argentines they will swell with pride and respect you for your intelligent insight. Make sure it is genuine though. They will especially be proud of something you comment on that is better than in the US.
Dote over children – Argentina, as well as most of Latin America, is very family oriented. Any gathering will have children running around for sure. It’s best to give the little ones a lot of attention. The proud parents will take in the glory readily. If you see photos of children in their house be sure to ask about them and say how beautiful they are. It is perfectly acceptable to compliment a stranger´s child and open up a dialogue with the parent and take an interest in the child´s name, age and so on.
Be patient. – Be prepared to wait in lines for almost everything. Things move a lot slower in Argentina than elsewhere except traffic where everyone seems to think it’s a race. It can be frustrating at times to be waiting in line and the clerk or checkout girl seems to be in deep personal conversation with the person he/she is attending to. This is likely to be the case and is perfectly acceptable. Family and friends take priority over work duties. That’s the way it is and who is to say that is wrong?
Try the wine – Compare it favorably to anything you have tried elsewhere in the world, you won’t be far off the mark by doing this. Argentina is the 5th largest producer in the world and until recently was virtually unknown to the international wine scene. Malbec is Argentina’s signature grape and this red is full bodied and tasty. If you like wine you can get very nice table wines for less than a dollar a liter. With the unusually high alcohol content of Argentine wine you won’t need much of it to get your party started.
Don’t bring up the Falklands War – Never call the islands the Falklands. Argentines still call them The Malvinas. They are the Malvinas on all Argentine maps. Argentines believe the islands still belong to their country, even though the British have occupied them for over a hundred years. Many Argentines died during their invasion of the islands in their attempt to reclaim them. They will surely take offense if they hear the word Falklands especially if you are defending the British. In some schools they even have posters on the wall about British pirates that stole their land.
Avoid saying anything bad about soccer player Diego Maradona – Argentines consider him a national icon and the best soccer player ever. If you do talk about him, don’t compare him to any other player, especially Pelé. If you call him a coke snorting communist there may be a fight. You probably don’t want to snicker about the incident at the Rome airport where Italian tax authorities confiscated his 2 Rolex watches and diamond ear-rings to pay back taxes he owed while playing in Italy. It’s best if you don’t talk favorably about arch rival Brazil either. If there is one thing Argentines are passionate about its football.
Never talk about ex-presidents Carlos Menem (1989-99) or Fernando De la Rúa (1999-2001) – They stole money and land from the people and brought the country to collapse. It is considered bad luck to talk about them and people might spit in your face if they hear it. The current President Christina Kirchner is not popular but staying away from commenting either positive or negative is the way to stay safe. Argentine politics are a quagmire of disagreement and corruption. The vast majority of people know this and know there is nothing they can do change it. Chiming in with ‘if only they did this, things would be better’ kind of comments don’t help.
Never say no to a Yerba Mate – If someone invites you to partake of the customary Yerba Mate (pronounced ma-teh) they are extending the hand of friendship. Never say no unless you truly cannot drink it due to stomach problems. Mate is an important group ritual in Argentina. There is a very distinct process to share it. Every one in the group drinks from the same cup or gourd. The first person fills it with hot water. They let it cool for a second and then suck it through a metal straw called a bomba until they hear that sucking sound your mother always told you was rude. They then fill it with hot water and pass it to the next person. This is done 3 or 4 times until the mate has lost its flavor. Mate is somewhat bitter but full of caffeine. Even if you don’t like the flavor smile a lot and go along with the ritual and you will have new Argentine friends.
Don’t brag about your own country – Argentines are very proud of their country, customs, and life. If they hear you bragging about how great the US is, they will surely turn their shoulder to you. They will probably say if its so great why are you here? Many Argentines have misconceptions about the US that have been perpetrated by a biased media. You will hear things like the Apollo moon landing never happened or its better to live in Cuba than the US. It really doesn’t help to argue these points with them. Most likely you won’t change their mind. Even though many things in Argentina are 30 years behind the US pointing them out will only bring scorn.
Never talk about the former military government of Argentina – Those years were horribly tragic for people here, and most people that were alive then are ashamed of those times. Also, never talk about your own military service, no matter how brave or courageous you thought you were. This is especially true for US Marines. The US Marines took part in the killing and invasion of many Latin American countries, and Argentines see those people as brothers and compatriots.
Don’t compare Argentina with other Latin American countries – Again, the people here are very proud of their country and individuality. They have created their own Argentinean version of Spanish with distinct pronunciation, words, and grammar. In most areas of life, the Argentines stand apart from other Spanish-speaking countries in South and Central America and even Spain.
|
After the hurricanes in Florida and Texas, the question has surely been asked: How to save those wet, damaged books? Above, you can watch a visual primer from the Syracuse University Libraries--people who know something about taking care of books. It contains a series of tips--some intuitive, some less so--that will give you a clear action plan the next time water and paper meet.
Follow Open Culture on Facebook and Twitter and share intelligent media with your friends. Or better yet, sign up for our daily email and get a daily dose of Open Culture in your inbox.
If you'd like to support Open Culture and our mission, please consider making a donation to our site. It's hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us provide the best free cultural and educational materials.
Related Content:
The Art of Making Old-Fashioned, Hand-Printed Books
How to Clean Your Vinyl Records with Wood Glue
How to Open a Wine Bottle with Your Shoe
|
The votes, too, are going differently these days. Ballot measures, state legislatures, and Supreme Court decisions testify to a new public consensus on gay marriage, the political issue that currently serves as the chief proxy for attitudes toward gay rights and acceptance.
Gradually, and largely below the radar, religious Americans have powered this momentous shift. In 2004, just 36 percent of Catholics, the Christian sect most supportive of gay marriage, favored it, along with 34 percent of mainline Protestants; today, it's 57 percent of Catholics and 55 percent of mainline Protestants. Even among white evangelical Protestants, the most hostile group to gay marriage, support has more than doubled, from 11 percent in 2004 to 24 percent in 2013. "This debate has gone from a debate between nonreligious and religious Americans to a debate dividing religious Americans," said Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, who has closely tracked the evolution in public opinion.
This change -- from most religious Americans opposing gay rights to many of them supporting it -- didn't happen by accident. It is the fruit of an aggressive campaign by a determined gay-rights movement that realized, particularly in the wake of the 2004 elections, that you cannot win politically in America if you are arguing against religious faith. It is a recent development -- Jones dates the "tipping point" to 2011 -- and it has helped marginalize gay-marriage opponents by discrediting their most powerful claim: that they speak for the religious community.
For gay Americans, the consequences are already profound: a new generation of gay youth that may grow up less scarred by caustic preaching. The political repercussions, still unfolding, hold the key to further progress in the fight to expand gay rights, particularly marriage, nationwide.
"After the 2004 elections, the story was that we were losing to the value voters," said Sharon Groves, director of the religion and faith program of the Human Rights Campaign -- a position created in 2005. "Family values were defined, largely, as anti-LGBT. The people making the case for the family values side were religious leaders, and we as a movement were responding with advocates and lawyers." The message audiences got from that image: Religion was on one side and gay rights was on the other.
Groves spent last weekend manning a booth for her organization at the Wild Goose Festival, an annual gathering of social-justice-minded Protestants in rural North Carolina sometimes dubbed "Woodstock for Evangelicals." It was the first time the Human Rights Campaign had a formal presence at the festival. Over and over, people came to her tent, burst into tears, and said, "I'm so happy you're here."
"I get it all the time," she said. "People have been told for so many years if you're a gay person you basically don't belong in the religious community. And straight folks, too, want to see their religion as a source of love and inclusion that's making people's lives better, not shaming people or keeping them out."
|
Names passed to Steve Coogan by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire will not be disclosed after Scotland Yard intervention
The names of several News of the World journalists who ordered a private detective to hack into mobile phones belonging to six public figures will not be publicly disclosed after Scotland Yard intervened to prevent their publication.
The names were passed to Steve Coogan on Friday by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the paper, in compliance with a high court order the actor obtained earlier this year.
The names are critical to the phone-hacking investigation because they could show how far the practice was widespread at the paper, which was closed down by Rupert Murdoch last month, despite consistent denials from its owner News Group Newspapers. Coogan is one of several celebrities suing the paper for breach of privacy.
The high court order instructed Mulcaire to reveal who at the paper asked him to illegally intercept messages left on mobile belonging to former model Elle Macpherson, publicist Max Clifford and four others.
Mulcaire, who was employed exclusively by the News of the World, was also told to reveal who at the paper ordered him to target Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor, his colleague Jo Armstrong and football agent Sky Andrew.
He was refused leave to appeal against the order earlier this month and handed over the names on Friday, the deadline set by the high court for making the information available.
Law firm Schillings was contacted by Mulcaire's solicitor Sarah Webb of Payne Hicks Beach on Friday and asked not to make the names public. Webb said: "The issues of confidentiality are of concern to the Metropolitan police and we asked Coogan's solicitors not to disclose the information until the Met could consider the matter."
She added: "The issue is not that my client requires to keep matters confidential but rather that the police require him to. We were concerned that our [client] did not breach orders of the court in this respect. The Met are now dealing [with this] and there is nothing more I can add."
Similar high court orders have contained restrictions on publishing the names of News of the World journalists on the grounds that doing so could compromise Operation Weeting, Scotland Yard's ongoing investigation into phone hacking, by tipping off potential suspects.
Scotland Yard had not responded to requests for a comment by the time of publication.
There is some confusion over whether the order obtained by Coogan allows the names to be released, however. Sources close to the actor insisted they can be identified. News Group's parent company News International refused to comment.
Mulcaire is also taking legal action against News International after it stopped paying his legal fees in July, claiming the company is contractually obliged to do so.
Meanwhile, Coogan has also won a separate high court order to force Mulcaire to name the News of the World executives who ordered Mulcaire to hack into his own phone.
Mulcaire is appealing against that order on the grounds that he would incriminate himself by complying with it because he would be confessing to a crime he has not been charged with or admitted to.
Crucially, that defence is not available to him as regards Max Clifford, Elle Macpherson and the others, because Mulcaire already pleaded guilty to illegally intercepting messages left on their mobiles in the original 2007 phone-hacking court case, which resulted in his imprisonment.
Mulcaire was jailed in January of that year along with the News of the World's former royal editor Clive Goodman.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.
|
It was important to Gerrell for people to know "a low income black man from Tacoma with a 5-year-old daughter" returned the money. He hopes this can help "reverse stereotypes."
Gerrell McAllister is a 28-year-old cashier at a natural pet food store in Tacoma, Washington, and a father to his 5-year-old daughter. McAllister and his family have fallen on hard times recently. Gerrell McAllister Gerrell with his daughter Gerrell McAllister Gerell's late mother
His mother died in December, and according to his older brother, Mario Small, it has hit McAllister especially hard. He told BuzzFeed News he's been healing from the loss — but he's mostly focused on caring for his daughter.
Last Thursday, McAllister had a serendipitous encounter with a 30-year-old sales executive from Seattle named Melissa Trusler, and her dad, Alan. It all started with a mistaken PayPal payment. Melissa Trusler
Trusler told BuzzFeed News her dad wanted to send her money as a 30th birthday gift to help her recoup the cost of a new couch she recently purchased. So on Thursday morning, he sent Trusler $1,200 via PayPal using her phone number. However, her father had accidentally sent the amount to her old phone number. That old number now belongs to McAllister in Tacoma.
McAllister said he woke up to find an email from PayPal saying he'd received $1,200. "It said, 'You’ve got money!' so I’m thinking, You’ve got jokes!" he laughed. But he said once he realized it was a real PayPal payment, he started "freaking out." "I immediately woke up," he added. "I didn’t know where it was from."
But he said he instinctively issued a full refund to the sender (Trusler's dad) within a few minutes, along with a note that read, "Tell her I said happy birthday." Melissa Trusler Melissa Trusler
McAllister said he'd previously received a mistake payment a month ago for $55 — which he also sent back — but this time he realized they were coming from the same last name. "Returning the money was instinctive because of the values my mom instilled in me," he said. "I’m trying to be the best person and provide the best example for my daughter." Trusler said her dad was surprised to see the payments returned so quickly, so he asked his daughter to send McAllister a thank-you note.
After Trusler thanked McAllister for returning the large sum of money, he responded by asking her to make sure she let her friends and family know the gesture came from "a low income black man from Tacoma with a 5-year-old daughter." The message read: You're so very welcome! But if you could tell your family and friends that a low income 28 year old Black man from Tacoma with a 5 year old daughter returned your money, I would find that helpful in improving race relations while reaffirming the dope ass culture we as Western Washingtonians have worked so hard to cultivate. And that, in turn, would help me to stop kicking myself in the ass for remaining morally sound through the tough times my family and I are experiencing at the moment, lol. In short, share the story, spread the love. Thank you.
"Tacoma has a reputation of being lower-class and untrustworthy," McAllister explained. "We call it the 'Tacoma grit,' but we’re not bad people." "It was important to me to use this as an example to reverse some of those stereotypes, whether racial stereotypes or about young people. Hopefully, people can learn from it."
Not only did Trusler share the message to Facebook , people began commenting asking her for her old number so they could quietly donate to McAllister.
And then a handful of Trusler's friends and members of her social network began sending money to him in increments of $20, $30, and even $100. Facebook: melissatrusler
"As soon as that one arrived, it was nonstop," McAllister said. "Majority of them have such heartfelt, heartwarming messages." Facebook: melissatrusler
He said one guy wrote to him saying he was "a great guy" and he was "doing a great job raising [his] daughter." He said some of the messages had him crying at work. Facebook: melissatrusler
BuzzFeed News learned that unbeknownst to McAllister, Trusler's brother had died in December as well. McAllister was speechless when he found out. Melissa Trusler
"Oh my god,” McAllister responded. He fell silent for a moment. "I’m kind of at a loss for words, kind of feeling emotional," he said eventually. Trusler thought these shared experiences prove just "how connected communities can be."
McAllister's older brother later messaged Trusler to thank her for shining a light on his brother's actions. "My mom would be so proud of him," he wrote. Melissa Trusler
McAllister said that beyond the money, the kind words from strangers have been "therapeutic after the loss our family has gone through." He intends to respond to each message with a personal thank-you. "To be honest I haven’t checked my PayPal since that day," he said, admitting that he doesn't know how much people have donated thus far. "I want to try to message everyone back individually to say thank you. "I don’t want the money to detract from that. I don’t want that to dilute the intent."
Trusler said it has been "eye-opening" for her to see the good in social media. McAllister added that he hopes this encourages people to "engage with someone you come in contact with, you never know what they’re dealing with." Melissa Trusler, Gerrell McAllister
|
To unravel the mystery of declining U.S. dynamism—fewer moves, fewer quits, fewer startups—start with most well-documented mystery: why Americans stopped migrating.
Between the 1970s and 2010, the rate of Americans moving between states fell by more than half—from 3.5 percent per year to 1.4 percent. “It’s a puzzle and it’s the one I wish politicians and policy makers were more concerned about,” Betsey Stevenson, a former member of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, told The New York Times this week. Fewer Americans moving toward the best jobs and starting fewer companies could lead to a less productive economy. On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that productivity “is set to fall in the U.S. for the first time in more than three decades.”
It is impossible to simultaneously and conclusively explain 120 million decisions by 120 million American families. But there are several explanations that economists have offered (and rejected).
Is it because of the Great Recession? No. It would be satisfying to say that the decline in American moxie is directly related to the Great Recession. But the decline in mobility predates the housing crash, and since 2008, the rate of people moving between states declined similarly for both renters and homeowners.
Is the decline in dynamism concentrated in the stricken areas of Appalachia and the Rust Belt, whose struggles some some have tied to the Trump phenomenon? Nope. The decline in dynamism isn’t a regional quirk. It’s happening in every state, particularly in the west, not the Rust Belt.
Technology has changed the mix of jobs and the way that people work: Is automation somehow to blame for the decline in mobility? Nope. States with more workers in routine-intensive tasks, like administrative duties, actually saw smaller declines in labor-market fluidity.
Is it about the rise in dual-earner households, since now, instead of one partner having to a find a new job in a new city, both do? This seems like a smart explanation, except it doesn’t explain much. “Today’s two-paycheck married households are about 46 percent less likely to move across state lines than were their counterparts in the 1980s,” Timothy Noah reported in Washington Monthly. In other words, whatever forces are depressing American mobility aren’t disproportionately affecting dual-earner households.
Has America simply lost its verve as the working force got older? Not really, but this would seem like the obvious explanation, so it’s worth spending a bit more time on why it’s incomplete. Young people are more likely to switch jobs and move around. After all, it's much easier to graduate from Penn State and move to San Diego alone than to raise a family in San Diego and move all four of them to Pennsylvania. If young people are tumbleweeds, adults are like trees: They grow roots, and they tend to stay put. So, as a country ages, it should become less dynamic.
|
Watch Dogs Creative Director Explains the Aisha Trailer’s Poor Visuals, PS4 Version is “Millions of Miles Away” From it
Yesterday, a brand new video for Watch Dogs was unveiled, showing off Aisha Tyler getting hit by a truck. Unfortunately, the short clip looked pretty bad in the visuals department and was a far cry from previous footage for the November release.
To clear up any confusion regarding what was released yesterday, Jonathan Morin, Creative Director on Watch Dogs, took to his Twitter account and said, “I see the game every day and I can tell you, this trailer is far from it.” When asked if this trailer was based off the current generation version, he replied, “Current gen is better than that.”
He then explained how it was published in that state:
“You know sometimes 100s of people working together causes communications issues lets just say that ;).” “Its simply someone who don’t know the tech who check the wrong stuff.”
Jonathan added that the situation “was indeed hilarious in its own way I guess” and when someone referenced the spotty performance during Jimmy Fallon, he said, “[an] unfinished game remains unfinished. But we still want to show the real thing each time. It must be real.” As for console specific versions of the game, the PS4 version is “millions of miles away” from the now infamous video, while the Wii U version “should be fine” when it comes to outperforming PS3/Xbox 360.
Are your worries all gone after hearing the reasons for the visually underwhelming trailer? Let us know in the comments below.
Essential Reading:
|
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) — A Bay Area luxury high-rise is offering great views, and green cards.
We’ve learned owners of the towers are luring foreign millionaires with a fast track to citizenship.
It’s billed as one of the most luxurious properties in downtown San Jose, but the upscale development is facing new scrutiny.
The owners are using a controversial visa program to attract foreign investors.
Foreign investors can get more than a return on their investment, they can get a clear pathway to U.S. residency.
The Silvery Towers in downtown San Jose consists of twin towers and 643 luxury condos.
Despite an American flag on the side of the building, the money behind the project is mostly coming from Chinese millionaires lured by a controversial immigrant visa program that promises them legal U.S. residency if they invest at least $500,000.
Some are calling it the buying and selling of Green Cards.
But with all this money flying around, local workers say they’re not getting a piece of the action.
Al Gonzalez, the President of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 393 said, “I couldn’t believe that somebody could actually come in and buy what basically comes down to a Green Card.”
Gonzalez was shocked when he discovered a Chinese luxury real estate website advertising the Silvery Towers as San Jose’s most prosperous downtown residential project with 200 EB-5 vacancies waiting for investors and “your first choice to immigrate to the USA!”
This is hard for Gonzalez to swallow because he’s been fighting the project over its hiring of non-union workers from outside areas who make less money.
“They’re bringing in folks from other countries and not paying the workers, us, who live in the community, not pay us a family sustaining wage to be on that project,” Gonzalez said.
The EB-5 visa is almost 30 years old. It was designed to spur foreign investment in rural, depressed or high-unemployment regions. And it does offer foreign investors U.S. Residency for them and their families.
But Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren says the program has been abused.
“The way the investment for disadvantaged localities has been administered, has been outrageous,” Lofgren said.
The program got headlines recently when the sister of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner used EB-5’s to court Chinese investors to a Kushner high-rise in New Jersey with views of Manhattan.
“There’s been fraud that needs to be stopped,” Lofgren said, adding that previous reform bills have gone nowhere.
She was not aware of the Silvery Towers use of the EB-5 visas to lure investors, but with Santa Clara County’s current 3.5 percent unemployment rate, she said San Jose would probably not qualify as a depressed area.
“So we’ve been picketing for the last few months, just trying to make people aware of what’s going on,” Gonzalez said.
KPIX 5 reached out to the developer listed on the worksite, Full Power Properties LLC, for comment but were told that no one was available.
|
That means India is without an old Wall Street staple: Women who feel they must act like the stereotypical male banker to advance. There are no swaggering “masters of the universe” in this group. Top female managers regularly wear saris and talk openly about their children and husbands.
These women handle many of India’s biggest deals — raising $9.7 billion for the power company NTPC or negotiating Vodafone Group’s purchase of an $11.1 billion stake in Hutchison Essar.
Almost all of them are in their 40s and 50s, are from wealthy backgrounds, went to excellent schools in India and abroad, and graduated at the top of their classes before excelling at the bank they joined. So they often enjoy the same status as the men who were their competition and their banking clients.
Banking may be more of a meritocracy than other professions, women in the business say, because there is an easy way to keep score: Look at the bottom line.
“You got your next big challenge based on your performance and your potential, not whether you were male or female,” said Chanda Kochhar, chief executive of Icici Bank, where women make up 40 percent of the senior management. Mrs. Kochhar has been at the bank for her entire 25-year career, moving from corporate to retail banking, then directing the international business before becoming chief financial officer.
Women “excel when they are subject to an open competition,” said Shyamala Gopinath, one of the Reserve Bank of India’s two female deputy governors.
India operations of big global banks constitute a tiny portion of overall profits, because debt markets and deal size and volume are smaller than in developed countries. But India’s importance has grown as investment banks bet on emerging markets for growth and simultaneously move more complicated jobs to India to cut costs at home.
Photo
So sometimes these women oversee more employees than many top managers at the banks’ headquarters.
About 11 percent of HSBC’s 331,000 employees are in India, for example, and of JPMorgan Chase’s 220,000 employees, nearly 7 percent are in India.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
One in five of India’s big bank, insurance and money-management companies is headed by a woman, according to a study by the headhunting group EMA Partners. By contrast, there are no women leading major American or European banks, and no woman has ever run a Wall Street investment bank.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
Bosses sometimes gravitate toward women in India because they think “women are less corruptible, more straightforward and above board most of the time,” said K. Sudarshan, managing partner, India, for EMA.
In terms of compensation, none of the women interviewed said they had ever felt they were paid a different amount than their male counterparts.
“Here salary is totally nondiscriminatory,” said Usha Thorat, the other female deputy reserve governor at India’s central bank. The idea that women might be paid less for the same job as men in the United States “came as a surprise to me,” she said.
At the same time, women in banking in India say they have always felt more pressure than men.
“Always, that is a given,” Ms. Kidwai said. “It was very clear we had to perform better and work harder.”
She added that the women now heading banks had often been the first women hired in their early jobs and had been “watched like hawks.”
And they all relied heavily on a support network of family and India’s cheap labor pool to help watch their children. Some enlisted mothers and mothers-in-law for child care for months or years, and all of them employed full-time nannies and maids.
The length of maternity leave differs from bank to bank, but the average is about three months.
Meera Sanyal, head of RBS in India, started working in India at a branch office of Grindlays Bank in Calcutta, dealing with a barrage of upset corporate customers and a unionized staff that resented her for replacing an older man. She revamped the way the bank handled clients, according to profitability; learned Bengali to communicate better with the local staff; and ultimately convinced reluctant unions to accept automation, though it would mean layoffs.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
She was working at Lazard in India when she became pregnant with her first child. She recalls that when she told her boss she wanted to work flexible hours after her baby was born, he said: “Are you crazy? We’ve invested a lot of money in you.”
Rather than quit, she said, she vowed to work so hard until she gave birth that Lazard would feel it had gotten its money’s worth. She wrapped up a deal on July 6 and delivered the baby a day later. After that, her boss reconsidered, allowing her to work flexible hours for the same pay. There are several men, she said, who “made it possible for me to do what I wanted to do.”
Now she is doing the same for other women at the bank. Recently, a risk manager said she needed to quit because she was pregnant and had been prescribed bed rest. Ms. Sanyal suggested that the bank set up a home office instead that would allow her to work from bed. After having a healthy baby, “she’s back at work and absolutely a star performer,” Ms. Sanyal said.
“Small things like that cost us nothing,” she added. “It is just a way of being more flexible.”
Kalpana Morparia, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase in India, had some simple advice for Western banks that are trying to increase the number of women at the top. “Just be gender neutral,” she said. “Men are just as smart as we are.”
|
Google’s Pixel continued to ring up sales at Verizon retail outlets after the holidays, according to new data from Wave7 Research.
The firm conducted a survey of 50 carrier stores last week and reported that the Pixel accounted for 9.5 percent of smartphone sales at Verizon in the last month. And while Verizon maintains its exclusive rights to the Pixel—no other U.S. carrier is able to sell it to customers yet—some users are buying the phone and activating it through other operators.
“AT AT&T/T-Mobile/Sprint stores, 39% of reps (13 of 33) are aware of an average of ~2 Pixel activations each at these 13 stores,” Wave7 Research wrote in a research note to subscribers. “Most Pixel XL SKUs are shipping in March and most Pixel SKUs are out of stock as well.”
Mobile World Congress 2019 Attend the 2-Day Executive 5G Panel Series FierceWireless is returning to Barcelona, Spain, during Mobile World Congress 2019 with a two-day Executive 5G Panel Series at the Fira Congress Hotel, conveniently located across the street from the MWC Convention Center. The panel events will take place on Feb. 25-26 and will cover 5G and The Fixed Wireless Access Opportunity, Taking 5G Indoors, and Making 5G Ubiquitous. Attendees will have the opportunity to network and hear from 5G leaders including Verizon, Vodafone, Orange, Sprint, NTT Docomo, Boingo Wireless, Qualcomm, and more over the course of two days.
Secure your spot at the event today! Now is your chance to join fellow industry professionals for networking and education. Registration information and the schedule can be found on the website here. Register today
The lack of supply, particularly for the Pixel XL, indicates sales are markedly higher than Google had anticipated.
RELATED: T-Mobile challenges Verizon’s Pixel phone exclusive with $325 discount for unlocked version
Google unveiled the Pixel and Pixel XL in October, and the handsets—the smaller of which starts at $650—have received rave reviews. The nation’s largest wireless carrier immediately backed the phone with a $25 million marketing campaign and continues to tout the phone, although its spending has cooled.
“Along with Apple, Samsung, and Droid, the Pixel/XL continues to be heavily advertised—on an equal footing with top OEMs—at a price point of $10 (Pixel) or $15 (XL) per month with trade-in of a high-end smartphone,” according to Wave7. The research firm also noted prominent in-store signage backing the Pixel, adding that “It is clear that demand is exceeding supply.”
The Pixel accounted for 12.3% of smartphone sales at Verizon stores during the first few weeks of December, Wave7 reported last month.
RELATED: Jefferies: Pixel phones to showcase Google's mobile offerings
Meanwhile, sales of Apple’s iPhone 7 remained strong as depleted inventories have been replenished, Wave7 said. The iPhone’s share of sales was up slightly at every carrier other than Sprint, with the iPhone 7 slightly outselling the iPhone 7 Plus. “Sales of the iPhone 7 exceeded sales of the iPhone 7 Plus at all four carriers, but the gap narrowed significantly from prior months, now that iPhone 7 Plus supply is greatly improved,” Wave7 wrote.
|
Stress in the workplace is devastating. Regardless of the factors causing stress at work is very important to develop ways to manage stress to be creative and productive for us. It is unrealistic to believe that we can live without stress. The aim of stress management is not to stop worrying and care about everything (so that we can avoid stress) but to learn to keep our self relaxed and under control.
In recent decades the word stress has entered our vocabulary for good, describing the fatigue, discomfort and pressure we are experiencing in our daily lives. The difficult working conditions, the financial difficulties, and the small or big personal problems of each of us became our personal load that we are forced to carry every day.
Stress in workplace arises when we realize that the tasks we have to undertake in our work are greater than what we can handle. When the stress is intense and lasts for a long time, we begin to develop various symptoms that warn us that something is amiss. The most typical symptoms (signs) are the following: intense irritability, anxiety, uncertainty, difficulty in sleeping (insomnia), memory disturbances, tremor in the hands,headaches, abnormally tense muscles (particularly in the neck), nausea, tachycardia, intense sweating, dizziness, trends faint, and others.
The reasons why there are high levels of stress in the workplace especially the last two decades are a lot. The workplace now requires from the employee to be highly efficient and productive. The worker is working under very demanding conditions. Moreover, in reality the work is the instrument for acceptance and recognition of the adult person, that’s why it plays a very important role in our lives. The importance of work becomes more easily understood if one considers the high levels of unemployment and its impact on the lives of individuals.
The factors that cause stress are not the same for everyone. What causes stress in a person may not cause stress to another. Each person reacts to stress differently. So the factors that cause stress in the workplace can be classified into the following generic categories:
Environmental conditions
Factors such as poor lighting, high noise levels, inadequate ventilation of the area, bad architecture and ergonomic arrangement of space, etc. has found that they can have a significant impact on the health of the workers and are often a cause of accidents.
Working Conditions
Working parameters such as work schedule, night shift, work and career insecurity, possible reduction in pay or working hours, poor working position, can increase the stress levels in the workplace.
Conditions that have to do with the actual work
The workload is one of the key factors that can cause stress. Research has found that workers who have to work longer hours and have to undertake many tasks simultaneously are more likely to turn into harmful to the health habits (smoking, alcohol use, etc.) and they are more at risk to become sick than workers that have not been overloaded.
Conflict of roles / ambiguity of roles.
Conflict of roles is defined as the situation during which the worker receives conflicting and ambiguous messages in connection with the duties of his/her work from different people at the same time.
Ambiguity of roles is the situation during which the worker is unaware about the exact responsibilities and what is expected from them at work and what are the criteria for their assessment. In addition the inability to take initiatives in the workplace reduces job satisfaction and increases the rates of sick leaves.
Factors related to interpersonal relations in the workplace.
Employees who because of the nature of their work are unable to communicate with their colleagues are not usually satisfied with their jobs.
Effects of Stress in workplace
Today there is several research data, which show that stress, has a negative impact not only on the quality of work but also on the level of productivity and security, as well as on the health of workers. Of course, the daily pressure and stress rarely can cause a disease with no other factors that affect the organism. While it is difficult to record the full range of workplace stress effects, they can be divided into the following categories:
Physical health problems
The National Institute for Safety and Health at Work has issued a list for the impact of poor working conditions on the health of the workers. These include cardiovascular diseases, respiratory problems, cancer, and disorders of the reproductive system, hearing problems, dermatological diseases, psychosomatic problems, accidents and exposure to hazardous substances.
Psychological problems
Problems of psychological nature such as depression, severe anxiety and nervousness, weakness of concentration, emotional-out, low self-esteem.
Behaviour problems
Problems identified in behaviour, such as frequent absences from work, increased smoking, increased consumption of alcohol or psychoactive substances and drugs, aggressive behaviour towards colleagues, propensity to accidents.
Ways to manage stress in workplace
Regardless of the factors causing stress at work is very important to develop ways of managing stress to be creative and productive for us. It is unrealistic to believe that we can live without stress.
Some basic ways to manage stress in the workplace are:
Plan your time properly.
It is important not to say yes to everything. Try to count well and realistically the actual time required for the various activities you have to undertake
Try to put priorities.
The hierarchy of obligations will help you manage stress better.
Admit your own unique requirements.
It is good to be able to identify situations that can create you tension and anxiety and to take preventive measures to manage them or even to completely avoid, if possible.
Make Sure that you sleep well
The sleep allows the body and our mental world to relax from all pressures to which they are put daily.
Exercise regularly
Regular exercise helps to combat and reduce stress.
Watch your diet.
Eat healthy; avoid fats and consume enough fruits and vegetables. Coffee, alcohol and smoking increase the levels stress.
Get trained in the implementation of relaxation techniques.
Sports and music can make us relax. There are other relaxation techniques like deep breathing, the yoga, the massage, muscle relaxation techniques, the meditation that help reduce the intensity of symptoms but also in the preparation of the individual to identify them from their initial stages. A common characteristic is that the person, with continuous training, acquires the habit to think and act more calmly and functional.
Get Help from family, friends, and specialists
Seek help from family, friends or colleagues. In cases of chronic stress the assistance from friends and family may not be effective. In that case you need the assistance of a specialist.
The specialist – in addition to the relief from stress can offer you the possibility of a personal self-journey with the ultimate objective of personal success and self-esteem.
Express your opinion and discuss your problems
In order to manage stress and do the workplace more comfortable and functional, learn to express your opinion decisively to resolve any excessive demands, discuss the problems with the head of the department and behave to your colleagues with respect and sensitivity, as you would like them to behave.
Finally, a good solution is to throw away from your desk what you do not need because the mess is a cause of stress. Also, there is no harm in using game breaks in the office for relaxation. And remember that family support, support from friends and avoiding bad habits such as smoking and alcohol, only good can do for you.
The aim of stress management is not to stop worrying and not to care about anything (so that we can avoid stress) but to learn to keep our self-relaxed and under control.
|
Bottoms up!
A popular Long Island winery’s liquor license was suspended Thursday after a series of wild parties where wasted revelers had sex in public, pooped in neighbors’ yards and got into fistfights, according to state officials.
“Vineyard 48 has amassed a disturbing record of repeatedly serving patrons far beyond the point of extreme intoxication, straining police resources and wreaking havoc on their neighbors and the surrounding community,” Christopher Riano, counsel to the State Liquor Authority, said in a statement.
The last straw was a party last Saturday night, where the SLA says some 400 people boogied, banged and brawled.
Those who couldn’t stand the long line for the restroom peed and pooped on nearby properties, while a neighbor complained to cops that two people were fornicating in the bushes, the state agency says.
But a lawyer for the Cutchogue vineyard says the allegations are all false — and that he has photos and footage to prove it.
“For example, they allege that there were 400 drunk patrons [fighting] and we have videotape showing that it’s six people — a son and his mom and a drunk girl and two girlfriends yelling at each other,” said attorney Peter Sullivan.
The vineyard will get a hearing next week to plead its case for reinstating the license.
|
EU Referendum: international coprophagia 26/05/2015
Follow @eureferendum
Barely was the ink dry on the Lisbon Treaty when there was talk of another. Speculation, particularly in the German press, was rife, but seemed to peak in 2012 when
The ebb and flow of this debate was scarcely, if at all, followed by the UK media, which remained (and remains) largely ignorant of what was happening. It failed, therefore to note the decisions taken by the "Franco-German motor" to seek all means available short of a new EU treaty to bring economic governance to the eurozone. Only when all other avenues had been exhausted would an attempt be made to launch a formal treaty process.
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that when the Guardian picks up a random a rather sketchy report in
Thus do we see the paper rushing to print with a completely bogus story on its front page telling us that that "Germany and France have forged a pact to integrate the eurozone without reopening the EU’s treaties, in a blow to David Cameron's referendum campaign".
Sidestepping Britain's demands to renegotiate the Lisbon treaty and Britain's place in the EU, the paper says, "the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, have sealed an agreement aimed at fashioning a tighter political union among the single-currency countries while operating within the confines of the existing treaty".
As framed by the Guardian, there is no substance to the story. The events described are part of an ongoing routine which has been rolling out for more than five years, now based on developing a programme in "four areas", covering economic convergence, fiscal and social policy, financial stability and investment, and governance of the monetary union.
But, in a classic example of international coprophagia, once le monde had run the story, its European partner the Guardian decided to carry it. From there it has spread to other
Then it gets embellished beyond all recognition by the
Since then, the story has been run le monde.
All this does is reinforce the impression that the media – Europe-wide – is structurally incapable of reporting accurately or intelligently on EU affairs. So few papers are inclined to appoint specialists, and there few that we have are generally of poor quality.
That, however, will not stop the coprophagiat gorging on the reports, interpreting the detail in their own knowing way, all to add to their own ignorance and misdirection for us the grateful plebs to imbibe while we revere their greater wisdom.
And so do we continue to be misinformed. Barely was the ink dry on the Lisbon Treaty when there was talk of another. Speculation, particularly in the German press, was rife, but seemed to peak in 2012 when it became clear - and more so in retrospect - that Merkel was abandoning any immediate plans to push for another treaty.The ebb and flow of this debate was scarcely, if at all, followed by the UK media, which remained (and remains) largely ignorant of what was happening. It failed, therefore to note the decisions taken by the "Franco-German motor" to seek all means available short of a new EU treaty to bring economic governance to the eurozone. Only when all other avenues had been exhausted would an attempt be made to launch a formal treaty process.It should come as no surprise, therefore, that when thepicks up a random a rather sketchy report in le Monde on this continuing process, it immediately misreads the situation Thus do we see the paper rushing to print with a completely bogus story on its front page telling us that that "Germany and France have forged a pact to integrate the eurozone without reopening the EU’s treaties, in a blow to David Cameron's referendum campaign".Sidestepping Britain's demands to renegotiate the Lisbon treaty and Britain's place in the EU, the paper says, "the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, have sealed an agreement aimed at fashioning a tighter political union among the single-currency countries while operating within the confines of the existing treaty".As framed by the, there is no substance to the story. The events described are part of an ongoing routine which has been rolling out for more than five years, now based on developing a programme in "four areas", covering economic convergence, fiscal and social policy, financial stability and investment, and governance of the monetary union.But, in a classic example of international coprophagia, oncehad run the story, its European partner thedecided to carry it. From there it has spread to other UK papers , with nothing more to add than was in the original report.Then it gets embellished beyond all recognition by the Daily Mail , which has Mr Cameron "left humiliated after a pact between French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was leaked ruling out the need for EU treaty change".Since then, the story has been run other journals , and even the German media has been caught in the wake, with Die Welt reporting that Paris and Berlin are showing Cameron "the red card" – again relying on nothing more substantial thanAll this does is reinforce the impression that the media – Europe-wide – is structurally incapable of reporting accurately or intelligently on EU affairs. So few papers are inclined to appoint specialists, and there few that we have are generally of poor quality.That, however, will not stop thegorging on the reports, interpreting the detail in their own knowing way, all to add to their own ignorance and misdirection for us the grateful plebs to imbibe while we revere their greater wisdom.And so do we continue to be misinformed.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.