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With the ascent of K-pop boy band BTS to the lofty realms of the Billboard 200 and the Hot 100 charts, there is no denying that the act’s hardwork throughout the past few years has paid off. With the support of their loyal ARMY, an acronym for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth,” the group's new album, Love Yourself: Her, and it's single "DNA" have seen they type of global success that's rare for the K-pop world, propelling the Her to become the highest-charted K-pop album ever on Billboard charts. Never ones to forget their fans, BTS has dedicated several songs to their supporters and constantly thanked them for their effusive love of the band. But while the septet's well known to their fans, sometimes the faces of who that fandom is comprised of gets lost behind the glowing ARMY Bomb lightsticks. Billboard spoke to a handful of the band’s American supporters to provide just a taste of who BTS' fans are in the States: Sara Donis Age: 17 Location: St. Charles, Illinois Career: Junior in High school An early ARMY: It was a little after their debut [in 2013], actually, so I guess I’m a pretty old ARMY. [Laughs] It was just through I I was watching some videos, I think a React channel, you know. It didn’t initially start with BTS, it was other groups. But eventually I made my way to their debut song and other videos, and I was intrigued by them and really attracted to their music. How has fandom changed: It’s definitely grown, but it’s also become a lot more intertwined. Before, we were a really small fandom that was so close with each other. Now, internationally we have so many other fans out there. Even our relationship with K-ARMYs, the ARMYs from Korea, has grown essentially into this family-like atmosphere and it’s really amazing to see this growth and it’s amazing to share everything with so many other people. Global connections: They’re a symbol, in a way, that the world doesn’t have to be so far apart. We’re actually really close together. The fact that I can like their music, like these seven Korean guys and their personalities, and become so close to them even though they don’t know me shows that the world doesn’t have to be so separated. We can share each other’s music and media. The world isn’t black and white anymore. It’s like a mixing pot that we can all kind of contribute to. And that’s huge for me. It just opens your mind to other things and I think that’s really important. "If I had a flower every time I thought of you, I would walk in my garden forever" ~~~#ARMYSelcaDay pic.twitter.com/peh3CFq9nL — --Sara \| #85 (@NetflixndChim) May 1, 2017 Gloria Jun Age: 20 Location: Pennsylvania Career: Student Sisterly ties: Around the end of sophomore year [of high school], or early junior year, my sister was into BTS before I was and she showed me “Boy in Luv” and “No More Dream.” And she said that she thought I’d really like the songs, that they’re my style. At first I wasn’t really into BTS because I was sort of already into a different group, but then she kept playing songs for me. Playing their music all the time wherever we were. It got really catchy, so that’s when I started to really like them. I remember I was listening to “No More Dream” and I really liked the lyrics. The lyrics were not typical to K-pop. They’re about having dreams, being in school and doing nothing. I don’t know. I felt that was really cool. I really liked the beat and the way the music flowed. Closing the language barrier: I help people organize [fan events] sometimes because I am Korean-American so it’s a bit easier for me. Sometimes I’ll catch something in lyrics, or what BTS said on broadcast, that international ARMYs who don’t speak Korean aren’t able to catch on to and I try to tweet about it. But it’s not like I have a huge following so it’s my friends that see it. [Laughs] A lot of people ask me to help them learn Korean to understand BTS better. The boys try really hard to speak English for us and I think it’s really cool that people who are not Korean or haven’t learned Korean before are venturing into it because of them. Friendship through BTS: I’ve met some of my closest friends through BTS. My best friend actually. We went to Korea together. She lives in Korea now, but I would go to New York to stay with her before and she’d stay at my house. We’d go to concerts together. Through BTS I met a lot of people and even though I haven’t met many of them [in person], I’m very grateful and lucky to have met them. When you get a BTS sweatband (or whatever it's called) as a gift so you put it on your dog ---- pic.twitter.com/mUEmHUv5v3 — gloジ (@glojunjun) August 10, 2017 Vinny Cottingham Age: 24 Location: Dallas, TX Career: YouTube reactor, Father, Husband, Landscaper It’s a couple thing: My wife had been into K-pop for about two years. At first I was very standoffish against it. I grew up a metalhead. I only listened to rock music and suddenly I heard this pop music in my house. I wanted nothing to do with it. In the end, I actually saw the music video for “War of Hormone” back in October of 2016. I sat down on the couch and started watching with my wife and that’s where it all started. Our relationship actually got stronger because of BTS. I got hooked after that. If not for BTS, I would not be here. I probably wouldn’t be as close to my wife as we are now. So props to my wife, first of all, for getting me into all of this, and thanks BTS for putting the flames back into my marriage. And as for ARMY, you guys have done a great job. Seeing them live: My first time seeing them was in Newark, New Jersey, at the BTS Wings tour in 2017. We drove 30 hours from Texas to go see them. But when we got there, we were 60th in line and 48 hours ahead of door opening. We went from 85 degree weather to snowing outside. We were not prepared. I was wearing a tank top at the event. My wife and her friend ended up getting it made. My bias, my ultimate bias Jung Jungkook, he’s the golden maknae [which means he’s] the youngest one, omigosh. I love that guy. I could talk about Jungkook for six days and BTS for another seven. But, anyway, they had a tank top made that I wore. “You make me begin,” the lyrics from [his solo track] “Begin” on the front, and then on the back, “Marry me Jungkook.” I mean, I’m already married but it’s snazzy, it’s cool. All the feels: I felt my heart stop five or six times during the concert, I had to check my pulse to make sure that I was breathing. It was one of the most surreal moments of my life, only third to getting married and second to being a father. My wife would tell you that the kid was first, BTS was second, our marriage was like seventh or eighth. [Laughs] BTS make you feel, as a fan, that it’s not just seven guys on stage. It’s seven people on stage and then the millions of people that support them as well. Without ARMY, there is no BTS. Without BTS, there is no ARMY. And I just love how you can really tell that they appreciate their fans. They do so much hard work for all of us. In the end, the relationship between fandom and BTS makes being a fan of BTS that much greater. Colette Bennett Age: 40 Location: Atlanta, GA Career: Senior Writer, The Daily Dot Encountering BTS: The friend who introduced me to K-pop in 2011 came to me and said, “This is a really cool band, you should check them out, I think they stand out” during the Dark and Wild period, so quite early for them. I remember thinking “I don’t really like rap.” [Laughs] I took the album and listened to it and was like, “These guys are really good” but they were just another band on my K-pop playlist until The Most Beautiful Moment in Life series when they released “Dope.” When I saw that, I thought, “Holy shit, this band is really good.” That’s when I started actively listening to past albums. Seeing them live: The first time I saw them was actually at KCON NY 2016. I decided that I wanted to see them as much as I could and I couldn’t go to Korea, so I went to both coasts for KCON to essentially see five songs. To this day I laugh about how expensive that was. [Laughs] It just really smacked into me, “Wow, this band is really inspiring me in so many ways, I love them, I just wanna see them.” And this year I did the Wings tour. I’m saving money now for what I’m sure will be an amazing next tour. I only went to one night of the Newark stop, which I now regret. Following on the path of her faves: BTS appealed to me for the same reason BIGBANG did during my intro to K-pop in 2011. K-pop was always fun music to me that I enjoyed. When I discovered BIGBANG, the biggest thing that impressed me the most was that they wrote their own music and it was often more than just “Hey, let’s go party.” They were kind of setting a precedent and BTS, you know, they were huge BIGBANG fans and I feel like they carry that torch. BTS are in a good place where they’re making music that is both catchy and that people want to listen to and dance to but they’re also making music that they’re communicating through. The [Love Yourself] slogan is something that people really need to hear, especially younger fans, and they’ll listen to BTS because they’re popular. Jacob Enano aka MiniMonster Age: 10 Location: San Diego, CA Career: Student First introduction: My older sister [about 2 years ago] told my mom about BTS. She wouldn’t stop bothering her and then she told my other sisters and then me. I started to get into them because of how good their songs are. So that’s how I got into them. My first song was “Dope.” I think that they’re really, really good at making their songs and everything. They really know how to plan out their songs really well. Cosplaying as Rap Monster: It makes me feel happy about people complimenting my pictures and everything. I like dressing up. It’s funny how I look. I want [people] to know that I do cosplay for fun, and so that I can make everyone recognize [BTS] a lot more so that they’ll be more popular. [Laughs] Christine Gee Age: 27 Location: San Francisco, CA Career: Recreation-Aquatics Specialist First encounter: I actually got into BTS through my cousin, who is also an ARMY. She was like, “You’ll really like this group” because I really liked BIGBANG and Epik High, and BTS was just starting out. But because I was in college and things were super busy, it took a while but I started getting involved more right around the “Danger” era. Fan activity: I’m one of the admins over at BTS Views. As an ARMY, I’m doing more of the stuff related to voting and streaming. The day “DNA” came out, I was updating our account every few minutes. Some ARMYs feel guilty about not having merchandise or being able to attend tours, but I think just caring for one another and supporting the boys, through streaming or whatever, is all that matters. Why BTS: Their message is beyond just making good music. They talk about social issues. They stand for more than your typical boy band would stand for. I think that’s really important for people my age and the younger generation to really understand. Everything on social media, you kind of get desensitized to everything out there. But BTS brings it to the forefront. A lot of things that people younger than me or my age wouldn't care about or know about, they find out about becuase BTS cares about those things. That really sets them apart for me in comparison to anyone else out in the industry. Fun fact: Chrstine attended the BBMAs So an awesome thing happened to Admin C at #BBMAs tonight. -- @BTS_twt pic.twitter.com/u6EsR6vvCB — BTS Views (@bstwings_views) May 22, 2017 Preston Heldibridle Age: 19 Location: Central Pennsylvania Career: LGBTQ+ rights activist and going into school for occupational therapy Getting drawn in: I didn’t get into BTS until early this year. I briefly heard about them way before. I tried to get into K-pop before but it wasn’t really my thing. The thing that drew me in was Suga’s Agust D mixtape. It was all over social media. He talked a lot about his personal issues and mental health, which isn’t talked about so much over there. After, I checked out their music videos and I found the Wings short film leading up to their last big comeback. I really liked the storytelling, the whole overarching story they were doing and that’s kind of what clinched it for me and got me into them. I was always passionate about music before but no other music fandoms drew me in prior. The [BBMAs] voting came and that’s when I went ,“Oh wow, we can actually accomplish things” and began participating in the fandom. How BTS’ music is unique to him: I have sensory disorder issues but with their composition they don’t try to fill every space with noise. It’s not a big thing but something I really appreciate about them. How deliberate they are in their compositions and the fact that they’re very involved in the writing and producing in their own music. And the fact that a lot of their songs do have messages that help me out that I can relate to. You know, loneliness, things that youth are dealing with, things like that. Other than musically, the thing about the members is that they’re all very genuine. We don’t know everything about them and it’s not our place to, but they do show us many sides to themselves and when you start to learn about their struggles, their quirks, their bond with each other, once you get in you can’t get out. Both the members, personally, and their music has helped me through hard times and helped me push for better opportunities for myself. I think once you get that attached to [that] it makes it very hard to not want to support them. My first album should be coming within the month. That’s cool. I haven’t been to a concert yet, but hopefully soon. Hopefully I’ll have that experience soon. Ashten Brown Age: 31 Location: Bowie, MD Career: Operations Coordinator for Helicopter Association International Motherly love: I have a 15-year-old daughter who was in love with K-pop for about four years now. I was like, “Okay, okay” and never really paid it much attention. Then one of her aunts bought her a BTS jacket for Jimin, and I heard her keep talking about this concert. So I went out to Stubhub and got the tickets for BTS [in New Jersey] and ever since the concert I’ve been hooked. The fact that there were fans from babies to grandparents, that was the thing. I saw a lady at least in her 70s with a BTS jacket on and her Bangtan bomb [lightstick]. Seeing girls and guys, all different nationalities. It was just amazing, I loved it. Being an active ARMY: I heard about the Jungkook birthday billboard [in Times Square] so my daughter and I went up to NYC for a day to go see that. Then a couple weeks ago we went back up there because there was a comeback billboard. They’re slowly taking over my entire life, I’ll admit it, I’ll admit it. These guys are pretty awesome. I actually just did an album giveaway. With this being my first comeback, I went overboard. I just wanted to spread the love, because a lot of [fans] are young and they don’t have the funds to do it, or they don’t sell [BTS CDs] in their countries, so I just felt that was a good way to give back, to pay it forward. Ariana Scarpelli Age: 23 Location: Olney, Maryland Career: Server/Student Long-term ARMY: A friend was doing a YouTube reaction channel and wanted me to watch a BTS video with her. Once I did, I was hooked. That was probably like six months after their debut I want to say. I knew about [K-pop] a little, that’s why my friend asked me to do a video with her. I listened to B.A.P, 2PM, Super Junior-Super Junior was the first group I listened to. And then BTS had this charm to them and I really liked their choreography. I used to do dance and I really liked their choreography so it kind of just sucked me in. Event Organizer: When BTS last came to the US for their Red Bullet tour, I had a friend who did a banner project. The venues were probably like 1,000-2,000 people. She did the project for New York and it was successful. I wanted to do something when they came back. But we didn’t know that when they came back to the U.S. it would be big huge venues. So we were trying to figure out what to do. The second that they released the fact that they were coming to the U.S, I created Facebook pages for each city, for Newark, Chicago, and Anaheim. I basically made ticket pages so it was easier for people to sell tickets or get tickets from other ARMYs. From there, we posted that we wanted to do group projects for the concerts. What we did was we recruited a couple people who were interested [to lead local events] and we started brainstorming ideas. The idea came from the Korean fans. Korean fans have covered their ARMY Bombs [lightsticks] with purple bags and we wanted to do something like that in the U.S. We were trying to figure out what color to do when somebody said, “Oh, why don’t we do like a rainbow?” And so the whole message behind it was that at the end of the storm is there’s always a rainbow, and for us BTS is like that rainbow. So whenever there’s hard times, we listen to BTS and it helps us.
A Florida man stabbed his girlfriend's dog, killing it, because he said it always took her side in arguments. Mike Lado, 26, is facing one charge of animal cruelty, resulting in a death. According to his arrest report, Lado had been out drinking for several hours and returned home and began arguing with his girlfriend. Blue, a boxer-Labrador mix, was sitting next to his owner, Lado's girlfriend, during the argument. Blue's owner told detectives about five minutes after the argument ended, Blue slipped out of his collar and followed Lado into the kitchen. Blue did not approach Lado aggressively, according to the dog's owner. She told detectives the nearly 2-year-old dog was barking and growling at Lado, who then reached for a large butcher knife and stabbed the dog twice. While inspecting the home, detectives say there was a pool of blood in the kitchen where the stabbing occurred. Throughout the home there were heartbreaking clues which shed light on the last moments of Blue's life. A trail of blood was found down the hallway leading to the back of the residence. In the arrest report, detectives wrote there was blood on the doors at the end of the hallway as if Blue was trying to get through the doors in an attempt to get away from Lado. When Blue could no longer run, he fell to the ground against one of the doors where he bled out and died. Lado is being held on a $5,000 bond.
by Jason Stotts 2011 was a good year for Erosophia. Traffic was up dramatically from the year before, even though there were fewer overall posts (206 in 2010, 149 in 2011) Erosophia’s 2011 Traffic: We’ve also seen the birth of the Erosophia podcast and it’s very first episode. I have some exciting things planned for 2012 and maybe some exciting announcements, so this should be a pretty good year! ——————— 10. Letters From Readers (First, Second) I love getting mail from my readers, especially when that mail is them telling me that I’ve made their lives better in some way. It makes a big difference to me and helps to keep me motivated to keep writing. These are two of the more poignant letters from last year. 9. Love Without Sexual Attraction While it’s possible to fall in love with someone who you are not sexually attracted to, this is ultimately a very bad idea and such a person would be better as a friend than a lover. 8. It’s about Time Our society should not be punishing teens for being sexual. 7. Sex Tips #7: Communication is Key One of the most important skills you can possibly have in a relationship is communication. 6. Dan Savage on STI’s STI’s are medical issues, not moral issues. 5. Starbucks Doesn’t Get it Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz doesn’t understand what’s happening in the economy. 4. Formspring: When is Sex Appropriate? When should you start engaging in sex with a new partner? 3. Getting Started with Male Anal Sexuality Advice for a couple who is looking to start with male anal sexuality. 2. The Importance of Sexual Satisfaction This post is not for everyone. But, for those who have ever been in the trap it presents, it will be a breath of fresh air and a way out. 1. Compersion Deriving pleasure from your partner’s pleasure is called “compersion” and it is absolutely critical to successfully engaging in a polysexual or polyamorous lifestyle. ——————— Best of 2010 Best of 2009
This after a court ruled that a decision to drop corruption charges against Zuma was irrational. JOHANNESBURG - The rand extended its gains against dollar on Friday to hit a five-month high after a court ruled that a 2009 decision to drop 783 corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma was irrational and should be reviewed. The rand hit a high of 14.1650 per dollar at 1003 GMT, its firmest level since 26 November, according to Thomson Reuters data. "The currency seems exceptionally sensitive to the political situation. We have seen that broad reaction in December with the change of the finance ministers, we saw that reaction which was swift," Global Trader head of trading Nilan Morar said. TREASURY DG'S CONTRACT EXTENDED At the same time, Cabinet has extended Treasury Director-General Lungisa Fuzile's contract for another term. There was speculation late last year that Fuzile was on his way out. He'd reportedly been told not to reapply for the job. President Jacob Zuma's reshuffling of finance ministers in December fuelled speculation that Fuzile would also be shown the door. But during a post-Cabinet media briefing today, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe announced Fuzile's job was safe. "The extension of the contract is for Lungisa Fuzile as the Director-General of National Treasury. The extension of contract is usually for five years." Fuzile is said to be close to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. He is also leading a process to determine how much Zuma must repay for non-security features to his Nkandla home. In March, the Constitutional Court ordered the president to comply with the Public Protector's directives to pay back a reasonable portion of taxpayers' money spent on refurbishing his private home. Additional reporting by Rahima Essop
It was a simple understood gesture to play ball. Then Stanton threw Wiffle ball pitches to the kids on a field next to Yankee Stadium on Thursday -- as friends had done for him nearly every day as a boy not so long ago in California. Stanton, Major League Baseball's leader with 24 home runs and 62 RBIs, is in fourth place in the latest National League outfield All-Star voting update, but here was a plainly visible sign of just what he means to the sport in 2015. NEW YORK -- The kids screamed when they saw Giancarlo Stanton show up. One of the boys with the new white "Play Ball" T-shirts looked up with wide eyes and graciously accepted what the Marlins superstar was handing him: A Wilson outfielder glove with "Giancarlo" stitched on the outside in cursive. NEW YORK -- The kids screamed when they saw Giancarlo Stanton show up. One of the boys with the new white "Play Ball" T-shirts looked up with wide eyes and graciously accepted what the Marlins superstar was handing him: A Wilson outfielder glove with "Giancarlo" stitched on the outside in cursive. It was a simple understood gesture to play ball. Then Stanton threw Wiffle ball pitches to the kids on a field next to Yankee Stadium on Thursday -- as friends had done for him nearly every day as a boy not so long ago in California. Stanton, Major League Baseball's leader with 24 home runs and 62 RBIs, is in fourth place in the latest National League outfield All-Star voting update, but here was a plainly visible sign of just what he means to the sport in 2015. • Cast your Esurance All-Star ballot for Stanton and other #ASGWorthy players "When you're in another city that's not your home team, it's awesome that the kids recognize you and acknowledge you. It's great to give back to them," Stanton said. "To get them to see that we're human beings, too, we're not so far away. You don't only see us on the field, and we can relate to them a little bit in this way, it's great. It's good for their confidence." Stanton was at Macombs Dam Park's Heritage Field on the footprint of the old Yankee Stadium to help MLB and USA Baseball celebrate the launch of the "Play Ball" initiative. This new undertaking is being introduced in a committed effort to spark widespread participation in all forms of baseball activities among all age groups, especially youth. • Stanton, Gordon 'Play Ball' with kids in Bronx Joining Commissioner Rob Manfred -- in addition to Stanton -- were Hall of Famer Andre Dawson and representatives from the Yankees (Alex Rodriguez, Dellin Betances and Chris Young) and Marlins (Dee Gordon). Also in attendance were MLB Network and FOX analyst Harold Reynolds (who recruited the big leaguers) and about 100 youth players from area Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) and Little League clubs. "The purpose of the initiative is just to remind people that you can engage with baseball without having nine guys on each team, uniforms and umpires," Manfred said. "There are lots of small games that are ways to play baseball that can be really fun for kids and can really help them develop skills. The kids seemed to have a great day today. You see the excitement that's generated when Major League players show up, and it creates a day that they'll remember the rest of their lives." Manfred told the assembled kids that he got his start playing for the "Mesa 1" team in the 6-7-year-old age division in the town of Rome in upstate New York. He told them how he and his friends would play the old rundown game of "hotbox," home run derby and any other impromptu pickup games that did not require much organization. The message: Just get kids interested in the bare basics. • Yankees join Commissioner to launch 'Play Ball' "What we hope to get is through events like this, organic activity where kids actually play more in these smaller games," Manfred said. "It's going to be a difficult thing for us to measure, but we're going to work really hard at it, because we are really committed to the initiative." Video: MLB Tonight on the new Play Ball initiative This initiative highlights the many ways baseball can be played, including outside of traditionally organized baseball leagues and tournaments, ranging from playing catch, stickball and Wiffle ball to participating in skills competitions like "Pitch, Hit & Run." PlayBall.org serves as its online home, featuring coaching tips, parent resources and health and safety info. It's also a resource to find out how to gets kids involved in Play Ball activities and get links to youth-related news and events, plus searchable maps for local community leagues. Stanton flashed a big smile in recalling those Wiffle ball days. "I played some Wiffle ball, yeah, sure did," he said. "That's what it's about -- when you can't be on your Little League team, you go play in three more games all day and just have a blast." Was he a power hitter then? "Tried to," he said. "Big leg kick, try to hit it as far as you can." MLB also launched MLB.com/playball as the social media destination to share experiences during Play Ball activities. "The launch of Play Ball is a landmark occasion for our sport," said executive director and CEO of USA Baseball Paul Seiler. "With the support of Major League Baseball, we are thrilled to take a more active role in the proliferation of our game and offer innovative resources to our national member organizations and their constituents. While the launch of Play Ball is the culmination of a lot of hard work, today represents the beginning of our partnership with MLB to grow the game at the grassroots level." MLB and USA Baseball are launching the Play Ball Mobile Coaching App, a free tool for coaches at every level that is currently available for download via Google Play and will be coming soon to the Apple App Store. Coaches can access the app as guests, but logging on with Play Ball credentials allows users to create customized practice plans, organize team data, utilize Pitch Smart recommendations and more. The Play Ball Drills Library outlines information for hundreds of drills, along with important information such as difficulty level, recommended duration, diagrams and videos for each exercise. One of the main features of PlayBall.org is "Baseball Near You," a database of baseball-playing opportunities, searchable by zip code. It includes more than 10,000 leagues across the U.S. and also provides contact information for player registration. "Baseball Near You" was made possible through the support of American Legion, Dixie Boys and Majors, Little League Baseball and Softball, RBI and the MLB Urban Youth Academy network. The promotion of Play Ball includes the launch of an advertising campaign, which has begun running with spots on MLB Network, FOX, FOX Sports 1, ESPN and MLB.com. Spots also will air on TBS game broadcasts beginning in July. "I feel like it's my obligation to do something like this, being able to give back and be a motivating factor to these kids," Dawson said. "They already love the game. But when they see stars like Alex Rodriguez and Giancarlo Stanton, that only fuels their motivation. That's what makes it worth the while." MLB is partnering with its clubs and various organizations to help grow the initiative's awareness and accessibility through special events and promotional opportunities. USA Baseball, its national member organizations, and Boys & Girls Clubs of America, will help promote Play Ball across their membership bases and within their communities. Since April, MLB and Little League Baseball and Softball have joined with ESPN for an initiative to promote youth baseball by bringing kids from local Little Leagues to MLB ballparks for ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball," allowing them to meet Major Leaguers and appear on air with ESPN broadcasters. This initiative will continue in support of Play Ball's launch. Special youth events that showcase the different ways to play the game will be an important aspect of Play Ball. During All-Star Week in July, MLB, the Reds and Chevrolet are joining together to attempt to set the Guinness World Records title for the MLB Largest Game of Catch presented by Chevrolet. In addition to Play Ball, MLB is committed to strengthening its existing relationships with youth-based organizations and growing its ongoing initiatives, such as Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI), Baseball Tomorrow Fund and the MLB Urban Youth Academy network, which gives America's youth, especially those from underserved and inner-city communities, greater access to playing baseball and softball.
CLOSE Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch looks at the future of craft beer and the never-ending battle against macro-beer. (July 6, 2017) Will Cleveland Buy Photo Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch (Photo: Will Cleveland/@WillCleveland13/Staff photographer)Buy Photo Greg Koch is loud and he recognizes not only the power of his voice but the platform he has to use it on. If there were a Mount Rushmore of craft beer, the co-founder and executive chairman of California brewing behemoth Stone Brewing would be on it. One should expect nothing less from the country's ninth-largest craft brewery, developer of such offerings as Arrogant Bastard strong ale and its flagship West Coast-style IPA, and from the man who considers himself to be a soldier in the craft beer revolution. Nowadays, most of Koch's energy is devoted to strengthening the foundation of craft beer and waging a never-ending battle against "big beer." "We know that we have to fight for a choice, because what big beer wants to do is remove choice," Koch said on a recent visit to Rochester, where he also dished on Stone's early struggles, its expansion to Germany and the future of craft beer. "(Big beer) wants to homogenize and cheapen." What follows here is an abridged transcript of that conversation: Buy Photo Greg Koch, co-founder of Stone Brewing, right, with D&C beer columnist Will Cleveland. (Photo: Will Cleveland/@WillCleveland13/Staff photographer) Will Cleveland: Do you ever have any amazement at what Stone has become ... this iconic craft beer brand? I mean, when you started this thing in 1996, did you ever envision it becoming this international craft behemoth? Greg Koch: That would’ve been beyond my expectations, anticipation or dreams. I came from the music industry. I came from rock ‘n’ roll. I’m very heavily influenced by a rock ‘n’ roll ethos. I would always think to myself and I was actually using this thought process when we were starting Stone, what bands stand the test of time and why? Whether it’s the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin or U2 or Metallica or the Grateful Dead, they are all very, very different. They are all iconic and have stood the test of time, because they all followed their own muse. They were always at their best when they weren’t trying to please people other than themselves and their own style. We’re here to do our thing and we hope other people love it, too. But ultimately, it’s up to us to decide what to do, and you can decide for yourself if you like it or not. If you don’t, we’re not going to change for you. It’s always the worst when an artist modifies their art to try to please a wider range of people. I think it’s OK to recognize that you won’t please everybody. Beer can be art when it is at its best and art is best when it has a point of view. So I like beer with a point of view. WC: What drew you to beer? Why was it something you wanted to devote your life to? GK: I had my first beer epiphany in 1987 when I had an Anchor Steam for the first time. I was living in downtown L.A. and it was this little hole-in-the-wall called Al’s Bar. It just so happened that they had Anchor Steam on tap. I had never had any beer like that before. I had two reactions. One, I was elated to see that beer could actually taste like that. My other reaction was that I was angry because I realized at that moment that all of my previous beer-drinking years had been stolen from me by the lies of The Man telling me that other stuff was beer. I felt compelled to join the revolution, to fight for people’s access to great beer, my own included. Collectively as an industry, we’ve been successful beyond my wildest dreams. But we are always going to continue to fight for access to the marketplace because the Man wants to have us go the other direction. They want to own it, they want to obfuscate, they want to control, and they want to play by a different set of rules. Stone Brewing's iconic IPA. (Photo: Provided) WC: How does Stone adapt? What do you do to remain relevant? GK: By focusing on the things we enjoy the most about craft brewing. That’s what has always gotten us along pretty well. It’s no secret that we’re the purists, zealots, like to push the boundaries. Since that is such a natural part of our personalities, as we grow, we retain it, because it’s who we are. Dynamics change a little bit as you grow. San Diego's Stone Brewing became the first American craft brewery to open a facility in Europe. Stone opened its Berlin location last year. (Photo: Provided) WC: Why expand your brand into Berlin? Isn't there enough room for growth in this country? Or enough challenges? GK: I guess I am a glutton for punishment. I mentioned how when we opened in San Diego 21 years ago, nobody was lining up and asking for our beer. It’s the exact same thing in Berlin. The local populace is generally uninterested in our beer. Right now, it’s just the weirdos like us who drink craft beer. Everybody else just thinks it’s kind of strange. Read more: IPAs aren't the only way; more local craft beer drinkers seek balance WC: Did you just want to be the first American craft brewery to operate (in Berlin)? GK: The old phrase, "Why do things the easy way, when you can do them the hard way?" I’m a bit a Europhile. I believe people should have access to great beer. That’s been our mantra from the very beginning. Just helping provide choice, which is now a thing that we commonly accept and expect here in the U.S. and the better beer cities. You just have to remember back to a time when it wasn’t a thing. You had to sort of push that boulder up the hill. I guess I am just a boulder-pusher by nature. The interior of Stone Brewing's new Berlin location. (Photo: Provided) WC: There is obviously a huge battle being waged right now between independent — GK: Good and evil. (Laughs.) WC: You know exactly what I am going to ask. Why is it so important to support and fight for independent craft beer? GK: There are a couple of basic fundamental things at play. For folks like me that remember the dark times or just the fact that I was in Toronto two days ago, big industrial beer actively fights against access to market, access to freedom of choice. To the casual consumer, they don’t always see that. But anybody inside the industry knows about the obstructing. We know that we have to fight for a choice, because what big beer wants to do is remove choice. They want to homogenize and cheapen. Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch (Photo: Provided) There are two fundamental different business models between commodity industrial and artisanal. Artisanal is independently controlled. It is, by its nature, art. It doesn’t always make business decisions that are focused strictly on the bottom line. Commodity industrial has fewer choices. I’ll make the joking reference of good vs. evil, but I’m not going to suggest that publicly held companies are evil. The fact of the matter is that they are limited in the kinds of activities they can do. They have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. They are legally required to do that. Commodity industrial isn’t allowed to act artisanal. Stone Brewing launched a campaign to highlight "true, independent craft" recently. (Photo: Provided) WC: How do you see the future of craft beer playing out? Be Nostradamus: Do you see continued growth, plateauing or attrition? GK: We were born in 1996, which was the year the first bubble burst in craft beer. We were born in the lean times when nobody was interested. It looked like craft beer had a very shaky foundation. I’ve seen it go through that. I think we may be headed toward another shift. It may not be super pleasant for some. Arguably we may look back and discover that we’re actually in the middle of it right now, or some point of it right now. I have always believed in people’s tastes, good tastes. I have an unrealistically positive view of the future. I’m an entrepreneur and I believe we can still write the future. I think we have a lot of power. We just have to continue to push that boulder up the hill. WCLEVELAND@Gannett.com READ MORE Read or Share this story: http://on.rocne.ws/2uGh71K
Spartanburg, SC – Christian McCaffrey’s speed and agility are receiving high-praises from his defensive teammates who have to play against him in training camp. The Carolina Panthers offense is comprised of fast wide receivers, and now their rookie running back is giving the defense something to talk about. Nonetheless, everyone agrees that this potent offense is good for the defensive to get prepared for the upcoming season. The NFC South is most known for its explosive weapons on that side of the ball. However, here at training camp, everyone can’t stop talking about McCaffrey. How Fast Is He? “He’s quick,”second-year cornerback James Bradberry said. “He’s a lot bigger than he was in OTAs from my point of view, but he’s quick. I think he’s going to make a lot of plays for us.” Bradberry admitted that he’s yet to face McCaffrey one-on-one thus far. However, he recalled a played that McCaffrey made on Luke Kuechly that left him in shock. “I seen him make a move on Luke and another lineman. He made a pretty sharp cut and made me give a little ohhhh-ahhhh.” Bradberry wasn’t the only person noticing how good McCaffrey is. Kuechly gave a scouting report on him on Day 3 of camp and he referred back to the play that Bradberry mentioned. “He’s quick. He’s got shake (and is) fast. He got me today on one run, but luckily Thomas was right next to me. He’s fast (and) he’s quick. The way he runs you can tell that he’s done it a few times. He’s very precise with his movements he’s in and out of breaks quick,” Kuechly said. After practice was over, head coach Ron Riveria talked with the media and also mentioned how he’s pleased with McCaffrey’s game. “He’s a good football. I think a lot of guys like what Christian is going to bring to the table. I think we are all excited about what he can do for us. It’s been exciting to watch him and when guys come up to you make comments about a guy’s abilities that’s kind of fun to watch.” Nothing but high praise from coach and players about Christian McCaffrey… story tonight at 11 over at @1340AMFOXSports pic.twitter.com/m9zMfwbF7X — Joshua Alfonzo Vinson (@TheJoshAVinson) July 28, 2017 Wrapping it all up: The big question will be how will McCaffrey play with full contact expected. Tomorrow should be a good test for both the offense and defense. Nonetheless, with all the moves made this offseason, it seems like Carolina is in a “win now” mindset. McCaffrey will be a big help for Cam Newton and this powerful offense.
Although automated "robo-polls" are not considered reliable Automated-dial polls are generally not considered reliable, but Gov. John Kasich's campaign already is touting the results of a new one from New Hampshire. That's because the Public Policy Polling survey - conducted by a Democratic-oriented firm no less - shows that Kasich is the only Republican who can beat Hillary Clinton. He is ahead of Clinton 43 points to 41 points, which is within the "robo-poll's" margin of error, plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in a release: �John Kasich does well but the same things that make him appealing to the middle might make him struggle with the conservative voters he needs to get the nomination.� The Ohio governor was more popular among respondents who labeled themselves "somewhat conservative" than with those who said they were "very conservative." In the head-to-head matchup with the former first lady, Kasichis pulling 12 percent of those who said they voted for President Barack Obama in 2012, while Clinton gets just 5 percent of GOP nominee Mitt Romney's supporters. Clinton beats all 14 other Republican comers in prospective 2016 general election matchups. Coming closest are billionaire Donald Trump, who is 2 points behind the former secretary of state, and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina at 3 points back. Clinton beats the others by at least 7 points. The unfavorables outweigh the favorables for both Clinton and Trump by more than 20 percentage points. Kasich is 6 points above water, although a third don't know enough about him to register an opinion. Kasich is scheduled to return to the Granite State next week for five events, then return the following Monday for the Milford Labor Day Parade. The survey of 841 New Hampshire voters from Friday through Monday, with 80 percent of participants responding via phone and 20 percent who do not have landlines filling out the survey over the internet. The full poll is at http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_NH_82615.pdf
By: \| In just 45 seconds, your hot soda can be chilled to a refreshing four degrees with V-Tex. UK-based company Enviro-Cool claims that its gadget needs 80% less energy than standard drink chillers and about 54% less as compared to glass door coolers. These figures are based on cooling 200 x 500ml cans per day. V-Tex saves lot of space of your refrigerator; now you don’t have to keep your beverages in the fridge, you can store them anywhere in your home. When you’re ready for a cold one, chill it on the spot. This reverse microwave can be a big help to the parents of newborn babies, allowing them to cool baby bottles from the boiling point to ready-to-drink in seconds. Now you don’t have to run cold water over the bottles or put the bottle in the refrigerator to cool it. V-Tex also allows you to cool multiple beverages at once in just seconds without disturbing the carbonation. Both cans and bottles of all shapes and sizes, from a 150ml tin can to a wine bottle, can be cooled. Enviro-Cool plans to release both commercial and domestic variants soon. But until then, we’ll have to stack our bottles in the fridge.
Jim Weirich is Chief Scientist at Neo I’ve been familiar with Jim Weirich’s name for a while; among other things he wrote the “rake” tool which most of us use on a daily basis. Then I was lucky enough to see Jim do a presentation at GoRuCo this June, when he explained some of the more advanced features of rake. I was immediately struck by how Jim was able to explain a very complex topic in a natural, straightforward way. Later this Fall at RubyConf I saw Jim gave an amazing keynote address that derived the Y-Combinator from first principles, explaining some of the basic ideas behind Lambda Calculus along the way. This time he not only clearly explained an even more difficult topic, but was able to make what would normally be a dry, mathematical subject very entertaining. This month I was thrilled had the chance to interview Jim for RubySource; it was a great opportunity for me to learn more about him and how he approaches public speaking. We also had a chance to talk about how he got started as a computer programmer, why he learned Ruby, functional programming, Ruby’s threading model and also his new RSpec-Given framework. I’ve typed in the interesting parts of our conversation here – take a few minutes to learn more about one of our industry’s most innovative and charismatic thought leaders! The job description of a computer programmer Q: How did you get started as a computer programmer? Why did you choose this profession? --ADVERTISEMENT-- My very first introduction to computer programming was back in high school, back in the early 1970s. I got a book from the library about computer programming that described a BCD style computer. You programmed it in more or less assembly language. It was kind of a bizarre thing to program a BCD computer in assembly language, but I got into that. Q: What does BCD mean? BCD, “Binary Coded Decimal,” means all the numbers were stored as decimal numbers, not binary numbers. Q: I’ve heard of that before, now that you explain it. It was a very unusual machine architecture, but it was appropriate for a beginner, and appropriate to learn a little bit of programming with it. I thought: “This is kind of fun!” So when the career counselor came around I thought this might be a career I was interested in. And then I read the description of a computer programmer, and it sounded horrible! Q: What was the description? It was something like: “… You’re all alone, sitting in the dark! …You never talk to anybody during hours of hard work!” I thought that this programming stuff might be cool, but a real job – I’m never going to do that. So I forgot about it. Later in college my advisor said: “Why don’t you sign up for this Introduction to FORTRAN course; it sounds interesting and who knows you might like it.” Then I went to the class, and the instructor went to the blackboard and started writing down code, explaining it as he went. I remember that very first function he put up there was called “member.” He was going through it, explaining how it worked, etc., when I thought: “This must be some strange dialect of FORTRAN… it has way too many parentheses!” It was Lisp! It turned out I got into the one and only programming course taught by Dan Friedman, who wrote the Little Lisper. Q: And what about the job description of a programmer? Were you afraid of working alone in the dark all the time? Actually, I find programming to be a very social type of activity. The programmer sitting alone in the dark, I think, is not necessarily true. Today if you’re working alone in your basement, you’re in contact with people via Twitter, over IRC, over all kinds of things – github issue lists, mailing lists – you’re always interacting with people. It’s not the lone wolf kind of thing that it was portrayed to be in the 1970s. A happy discovery Q: How did you get started with Ruby? I was working in C++ and Java at the time, and I also did a lot of Perl to do tooling. You know, all those little scripts that every programmer writes to make his job easier. This would have been in 2000 I think. I was really getting frustrated with Perl. Although Perl was really great to do your quick hacks, it did not seem to grow very elegantly. You could not do nice abstractions with Perl, at least not easily. If you needed a list, Perl was awesome – but if you needed a list of lists, then Perl was kind of clunky. I was looking for something else. I wanted something that would express abstractions a little more, and since I was an object oriented programmer, I wanted my scripting language to support that kind of thing. I looked really, really hard at Python. This was the third time I made an attempt to learn Python. But it wasn’t like “Bam,” switch over and I’m ready to run. I had to stop and I had to look up everything I was doing in Python. I never stuck with it long enough to make it second nature to me. In the middle of this third attempt to learn Python, I saw an email from Dave Thomas – I don’t remember exactly where it was – and he said: “we discovered this little language called Ruby and we really like it. And you might like it too.” I had just finished reading The Pragmatic Programmer and thought: well, if Dave Thomas says this is a good thing then I have to check it out. So I downloaded Ruby and got it working and tried it out for a few minutes, and thought: “This is it! This is exactly what I want.” And within 3 days I totally stopped writing Perl scripts and starting using Ruby instead. Q: What version of Ruby was this? It was Ruby 1.6. This would have been in the Summer of 2000. Q: And what was it about Ruby that made you decide this was exactly what you wanted? It did things in the same way that Perl did, but in an object oriented way. So I would sit down and think: “Well, I would do it like this in Perl, but if I had objects I’d want it to work like this.” And I would write it in Ruby and it would just work! I was immediately able to use it for all those quick and dirty things that I used Perl for, and then I discovered that Ruby has great abstractions, and grows very nicely into a real language as well. It was a happy discovery for me. Is Ruby a functional programming language? Q: So Ruby is an object oriented language. Is it also a functional programming language? And what does that mean? That’s a good question, because there’s a lot of attention on functional languages these days. In fact, we’re having the Cincinnati functional programmers meeting tonight. I told my wife I was going to stay late for that and she goes: “Ok – and tomorrow night you’re staying for the non-functional programming meeting?” There are two things that make a language a functional language. The first thing is the ability to manipulate functions as first class citizens. You can pass functions around; you can bind them as variables; by using closures you can create new functions of them, etc. That’s the primary requirement for being a functional language. In that regard, Ruby certainly meets that requirement: we have lambdas and closures; we can bind them to variables; we can create new ones dynamically. It is a functional language in that sense. There’s a second requirement, though, that I think makes functional programming really interesting. This is that functional programming tends not to use state modifying semantics. And Ruby fails in this regard, because we modify state all over the place! What makes functional programming interesting to me today is the idea of concurrency. What makes concurrency hard is that if you have two things happening at the same time, and they are working on the same piece of data, you get into what’s called a race condition. You don’t know which one is successful. For example, take something as simple as incrementing an integer – two tasks doing that, one task goes in and fetches the value, increments it in a register and stores it back. At the same time somebody else is touching that value, incrementing it in a register and storing it back. If they interleave in exactly the right way, if you start with 10 and two tasks increment it by 1, then you can end up with 11 rather than 12, just by the order of events. So you have to be very, very careful when you have shared data that is mutable. There are two ways out of this problem. One is not to have shared data. The other is not to mutate shared data. And functional programming takes that second approach. You don’t mutate data; you only generate new data, in essence. Therefore concurrency is trivial in a pure functional language like that. I think in today’s technology environment, as you have more and more CPU’s on your laptop, threaded code, concurrent code, is going to become more and more important. That’s why functional programming is so interesting. A language like Clojure has really, really good constructs for easily managing multiple threads, and not having the threads clobber each other and cause race conditions, because you don’t modify data. At least in Clojure when you do modify data you do it in very, very controlled circumstances, when it’s safe to do so. I think Ruby is suffering from that, because its threading model is out of the 1960s and 1970s. Ruby’s Threading Model Q: Right; especially MRI Ruby. I think the interpreter itself is not thread safe. Is that correct? The interpreter is thread safe, but they made it thread safe by introducing the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL). At RubyConf they talked a lot about the GIL. Essentially what that means is when you enter the interpreter, it sets a lock so that other threads cannot also enter the interpreter at the same time. It’s makes it thread safe, but it also makes it difficult to get useful threading out of a situation like that. Q: However, other Ruby interpreters, like JRuby and Rubinius, are thread safe, right? Yes! They do their locking at a much smaller level. The thing is that if you design from scratch to be thread safe at a smaller level, then it’s not hard to do. Adding in thread safety after the fact is what was really hard, and that’s what the MRI developers are dealing with. They have to add in thread safety after the fact, which is why GIL is an easy solution. I did hear Matz say they did a version that uses “microlocking” – that is, locking when you’re actually modifying tables that are shared. He said it ran much slower than the GIL version. So do you want a slower Ruby where you have better threading, or a faster Ruby where you have the GIL. That’s a tradeoff you’ve got to make. So if you’re really looking at threading environments, then JRuby and possibly Rubinius are things that are worthy to look at. Even so, in both of those you’re still looking at shared mutable state, and Ruby just does not have, at this time, a really good construct for dealing with that. 10 Papers Every Programmer Should Read Q: It’s interesting how sometimes what seems to be a new, modern idea is actually based on research and thinking done a long time ago. For example, the functional programming ideas we just discussed, or Lambda Calculus which you talked about in your keynote presentation at RubyConf. That’s 80 year old stuff! Q: Do you have other examples of that sort of thing – old ideas that were pulled into something new? There’s an excellent blog article by Michael Feathers from 2009 called 10 Papers Every Programmer Should Read (At Least Twice) [author’s note: this is a link to a list of the 10 papers; Michael’s actual article, originally posted on the Object Mentor web site, is no longer available online]. Let me just point out a couple of the papers from that. The first one is: On the criteria to be used in decomposing systems into modules by David Parnas. He took a very simple program called “keyword in context” where you go through a text file, find all the words, find out where they are used and record the context of where they are used so you can display them in an index, with the words surrounding them. This was actually an experiment. He wrote the system in two different manners, and compared what happened to them when he introduced changes to the requirements. What he found was that the best way to break down the program into modules is to have each module hide a secret. Q: Is that one of the ideas behind object oriented programming? It is one of the ideas – that every object contains information, implementation details, that does not matter to the outside world. You can change those details without effecting the outside world. This very basic research really highlighted that this is what we really want to do. That’s one of the papers I really recommend reading. What was interesting to me was that he actually performed the experiment. He actually wrote the code both ways and then measured how much code he had to change to get this effect. Another good paper is: Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? by John Backus. This is one of the very early papers on what he called “ML,” which is a functional programming language. ML is the foundation for things like Haskell and OCaml. There’s also an awesome paper by Ken Thompson that just blows my mind. It was done in 1984, and is called: Reflections on Trusting Trust. He describes how to hack a compiler so that he can insert a bug into the Unix system that is not in source code anywhere. Public Speaking Q: I think you have a natural way of making very difficult topics understandable. How do you boil complex topics down into something that makes sense to a general audience? I have read a good number of books on presentations, on how to do presentations and how to prepare presentations. And the books tell you to make outlines and things like that – that just does not work for me! What I like to do when I’m preparing a talk is to use a whiteboard, or maybe something like Omnigraffle on the Mac. I’ll start drawing little boxes with ideas in them. Then I’ll start drawing lines between all the ideas. So if I’m doing a talk about Ruby, I’ll list all the things about Ruby that I want to talk about. And I’ll draw lines between them – kind of like “mind mapping.” Except my mind map is more like a directed graph. So I’ll get all the concepts on a piece of paper and then I’ll try to find a story that will walk through this graph and hit all the topics. Not necessarily in the order I’ve drawn arrows relating the ideas, but that covers them and makes an interesting story out of them. Q: So you’re sort of a technical storyteller? Is that the right way to describe it? I would like that description, actually! Q: To make what sometimes are very dry topics, like Lambda Calculus, into an interesting story to tell is quite an art. I think most of our eyes would glaze over if we tried to read the original academic papers on Lambda Calculus from 80 years ago. I think the key to doing a good presentation is to be excited about the topic. If you are excited about that and you let that excitement show through to your audience, then they will get excited as well. I can’t tell you how many professors in college I had that would speak in a monotone voice. It drove me crazy. I said if I ever get up and speak I’m not going to do it that way. I’m going to be excited and I’m going to let me excitement shine through. I think that is the real key. All the preparation beforehand will aid that, but if that excitement is there then you’re going to show it. rspec-given Q: Do you have any new presentations coming up in the near future? In January I’m going to be talking about the Given/When/Then framework that I did. I’m really excited about that. Every time I go to do testing now I start using that framework. It expresses tests so elegantly. I’ll be speaking at CodeMash about that. Q: Does it have anything to do with Cucumber and the BDD philosophy? Or is it just coincidence that you are using the same three keywords? It’s a coincidence; there’s nothing really directly related to Cucumber. When I use Cucumber I really like the way they did the Given/When/Then thing. With RSpec-Given you say: here are all the things to setup. This is the code you’re testing and this is what’s true after you run your test. That is, in my mind, an excellent way of specifying tests. Even when I was using Test::Unit I would often break up my test methods into three sections: here are my givens, here’s my code under test, and here’s my assertions. But I really wanted a way of expressing that very clearly, so that it was very clear what was given, that it was very clear what part of this code was being tested. And I think that’s missing a lot in some of our very procedural test frameworks. Test::Unit and even RSpec doesn’t break that out very clearly in my opinion. About two or three years ago I was thinking about this, and I started jotting ideas down on paper, and I was at the Ruby Hoedown in Nashville at the time, and a bunch of us EdgeCasers were sitting around at the back and I passed this paper around the table, getting comments on it, and Joe O’Brien turns and says to me: “You’re not really writing another test framework, are you?” I played for these ideas for about a year or maybe two years before stumbling upon a really trivial implementation in RSpec that worked out really, really nicely. I think that says a lot for RSpec that had the right abstractions and supported exactly what i wanted to do, very, very closely. What we end up with is just a very, very thin library that sits on top of RSpec. You can use all your RSpec knowledge you’ve gained beforehand but can then add this stuff in for just a little better clarification on your code.
Last week’s revelation that Apple iPhones and Google Android-based smart phones were retaining locational information generated howls of protest from privacy advocates and government officials. Concerned that mobile devices were tracking our digital footsteps, many wanted “steps to be taken” to address their worries. Some of the concerns raised about the retention of locational data are valid. But panic, prohibition and a “privacy precautionary principle” that would preemptively block technological innovation until government regulators give their blessings are not valid answers to these concerns. The struggle to conceptualize and protect privacy rights should be an evolutionary and experimental process, not one micro-managed at every turn by regulation. Regulation should enter the picture only when companies break the promises they make to consumers or engage in deceptive practices. If serious harm has come to someone because of data disclosure, the Federal Trade Commission already has the power to crack down on companies, or lawsuits and class actions can be pursued. The data collected on Apple phones was brought to light after some computer science geeks unearthed a file buried on iPhones that can only be read on a computer that is syncing with the user’s device. This means the most likely snoop of your data would be someone already known to you. This could be a problem when an abusive spouse is involved, but in most circumstances, this is likely not a serious issue. Government access to locational data, however, is a more significant issue. Governments possess unique powers the private sector lacks, such as taxation, surveillance, fines, and imprisonment. Indeed, the Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to rule that the police can surreptitiously attach GPS devices to your car and track your movements—without a warrant or oversight of any kind. Meanwhile in Michigan, police are downloading the entire contents of citizens’ smartphones — including geolocation information, emails, texts, and call histories — when stopping them even for routine traffic offenses. People genuinely concerned about privacy should focus their attention on these state-sponsored abuses and how to limit them. Congress should update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 to ensure adequate safeguards against unwarranted snooping by the law enforcement and a subpoena process that places a high bar on government access to phone records. Some critics worry about companies using locational data for advertising or marketing purposes even though that doesn’t happen much today. Even in this case it is unclear where the harm lies. If our phones know we are walking by an ice cream parlor and the store’s owner is offering free scoops to nearby consumers who find the shop with their phones, that seems like a benefit, not a harm. After all, while for some privacy trumps all other considerations, for others locational data provides the services they expect. For finding the location of an appointment, seeking out a restaurant in a new neighborhood, or networking with a friend, geo-location is a “must-have” feature on digital devices. Optimally, companies should get clear consent before any “tracking” features collect data about user whereabouts. But in practice, consent can be tricky. What data does the user own? What data do those who provide us with innovative (and often free) services own? How long such data should be retained is a sticky question—but it’s clear there’s no “one size fits all” rule. Apple has admitted that a bug in its software allowed iPhones to store locational data much longer than is probably necessary and vowed to correct that flaw in an upcoming software update. But, again, no one has presented evidence of any harm coming from the existence of the data sets. The wise approach is to educate and empower consumers to handle their personal privacy settings. Transparency is key to this process. Companies need to better explain to users what these services are, how much information they collect, and how it benefits consumers. Of course, if they are still sensitive, users can always turn off locational tracking or encrypt and constantly delete their data. Most though won’t want to go that far because it would cripple those other useful features and applications, including the ability of parents to know where their children are. Public pressure and market norms also encourage companies to correct bone-headed mistakes like the locational info retained by Apple. But we shouldn’t expect less data collection or less “tracking” any time soon. Information powers the digital economy, and we must learn to assimilate new technology into our lives. Privacy isn’t dead, but it is certainly different today than it was in past decades.
International equity investors are giving up on Japan. After dumping their Tokyo stock holdings for four of the past five months, foreigners are on track for their biggest annual exodus since 1987. Back then, they were fleeing bubbly valuations and the Black Monday crash. This time, they're fed up with Shinzo Abe's ineffectual economic policies and the surging yen. "In the late 1980s, international investors were disappointed and realized it wasn't sustainable," said Toru Ibayashi, the Tokyo-based head of Japanese equity investments at UBS Group AG's wealth management unit, which oversees $2-trillion (U.S.) worldwide. "The latest selling tells us how seriously and deeply disappointed they are in Abenomics." Story continues below advertisement The $59-billion outflow, bigger than in any of the 33 markets tracked by Bloomberg, helps explain why unprecedented exchange-traded-fund purchases by the Bank of Japan have failed to prevent a 12-per-cent slide in Tokyo's Topix index this year. With overseas funds pulling out faster than the BOJ can buy, some of the world's biggest investors say there's little hope for a market revival any time soon. "Japan is now in a difficult position when it comes to foreign investment," said Yoshinori Shigemi, a global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, which oversees about $1.6-trillion. High-up on Mr. Shigemi's list of concerns is the yen, which has advanced 16 per cent against the dollar for the biggest gain among major Asian currencies this year. That's bad news for Japan's export-sensitive Topix, where per-share earnings have dropped about 18 per cent since September, 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Currency strength is also undermining the effectiveness of Abenomics, a key driver of foreign inflows in 2013. The government's prescription of massive monetary stimulus, increased fiscal spending and structural reform has so far failed to spur lasting growth or get the country anywhere near its 2-per-cent inflation target. Consumer prices fell for the fifth straight month in August, while households cut spending by the most since March. For some foreign investors, BOJ stimulus is making the stock market less attractive. The central bank's adoption of negative interest rates has weighed on bank profits, while the monetary authority's $58-billion-a-year ETF program has fuelled concern that the holdings will distort valuations and make some stocks difficult to trade. Mark Mobius, the executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, called the BOJ's methods "insane" in an interview last month. At Pictet Asset Management, Japan skeptics have reduced holdings despite attempts by Hiroshi Matsumoto, the firm's head of Japan investment, to convince his colleagues that the market is a long-term buy. The Topix trades at 13 times projected earnings for the next 12 months, versus the 10-year average of 15, data compiled by Bloomberg show. "Some of my colleagues don't believe the time is right," said Mr. Matsumoto, whose firm oversees about $150-billion worldwide. "People are not confident enough. There's an argument to reduce Japanese equities and put the money in other asset classes, like emerging equities in Asia." Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement Foreign investors should give Abenomics more time to overcome headwinds including weak global growth, according to Akira Amari, a lawmaker in Mr. Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party. "There has been a delay," Mr. Amari, a former economy minister, said in an interview at Japan's parliament in Tokyo on Tuesday. "But Abenomics isn't wrong as a plan." While overseas sellers in 1987 proved right in the end, local investors kept the bubble going for another two years before it finally popped. With BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda pledging to boost asset purchases if needed to revive growth, the risk for bears this time around is that further central bank stimulus eventually sparks a rally. "The foreign selling is very clearly overdone," said Mikio Kumada, a Hong Kong-based executive director at LGT Capital Partners, which oversees about $50-billion and stopped cutting its Japanese stock holdings this year. "The BOJ will make a move. The yen should weaken again and the equity markets will rise." For UBS's Mr. Ibayashi, a sustainable rally is only likely once the government makes headway on key structural reforms. Mr. Abe has yet to enact one of his most-anticipated policy promises, an overhaul of the labour market that many analysts say is essential for improving the profitability of Japan's corporate sector. Foreign outflows, meanwhile, could exacerbate Japan's reform challenges by removing a catalyst for businesses to improve their governance. Story continues below advertisement "Foreign investors are a strong driver of corporate reform," Mr. Ibayashi said. "But they're disappointed, giving up and leaving Japan. Is that a good thing? I don't think so."
The sweet, sweet voice of beloved, long-time Dodgers announcer Vin Scully has earned the man a star on the Walk of Fame, but it could also get a street near the stadium renamed for the sportscaster, who's heading into what's likely to be his final season giving the play-by-play. Eastsider LA says Councilmember Gil Cedillo's introduced a motion that would have Elysian Park Avenue renamed to Vin Scully Avenue. The name change would only affect a couple blocks—stubby Elysian Park Avenue runs from Sunset Boulevard to Stadium Way, where the stadium's Sunset Gate entrance is located—but the motion argues it's a fitting tribute to the announcer, who's been with the Dodgers organization for 66 years. This strip of road has already been renamed once: it used to be called Chavez Ravine Road. (Chavez Ravine was the name of the community that was bulldozed to make way for Dodger Stadium, as well as a physical, still-extant canyon nearby.) It's not a done deal yet, though. The motion has yet to be heard by the full LA City Council, but if they approve it, the next step would be for the Bureau of Engineering to start the name-changing process. · Councilman wants to rename Elysian Park Avenue in honor of Vin Scully [ELA] · The Vin Scully Map Guide to Los Angeles [Curbed LA]
The declassified 28 pages from the report of the congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11 can be read in their originally-released PDF format by clicking the image on the right. Below, we’ve posted a full transcription of the 28 pages as a service to anyone who finds this format easier to read or work with. Dotted lines represent redactions, and they do not precisely reflect the length of a redaction or the number of words or characters within it. Page 415 PART FOUR—FINDING, DISCUSSION AND NARRATIVE REGARDING CERTAIN SENSITIVE NATIONAL SECURITY MATTERS 20. Finding: While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individual who may be connected to the Saudi Government. There is information, primarily from FBI sources, that at least two of those individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers. The Joint Inquiry’s review confirmed that the Intelligence Community also has information, much of which has yet to be independently verified, indicating that individuals associated with the Saudi Government in the United States may have other ties to al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups. The FBI and CIA have informed the Joint Inquiry that, since the September 11 attacks, they are treating the Saudi issue seriously, but both still have only a limited understanding of the Saudi Government’s ties to terrorist elements. In their testimony, neither CIA nor FBI witnesses were able to identify definitively the extent to which such support, if it exists, is knowing or inadvertent in nature. The FBI’s Washington Field Office created a squad devoted to ———————– ————- ————- —————- —————– ——————– ——— ————- ——— ——————– ———- ————— ———. Only recently, and at least in part due to the Joint Inquiry’s focus on the issue, did the FBI and CIA establish a working group to address the Saudi issue. In the view of the Joint Inquiry, this gap in U.S. intelligence coverage is unacceptable, given the magnitude and immediacy of the potential risk to U.S. national security. The Intelligence Community needs to address this area of concern as aggressively and as quickly as possible. Discussion: One reason for the limited understanding is that it was only after September 11 that the U.S. Government began to aggressively investigate this issue. Prior to September 11th, the FBI apparently did not focus investigative resources on ——– —————— Saudi nationals in the United States due to Saudi Arabia’s status as an American “ally.” A representative of the FBI ——————- testified that, prior to Page 416 September 11, 2001, the FBI received “no reporting from any member of the Intelligence Community” that here was a ————- presence in the United States. According to various FBI documents and at least one CIA memorandum, some of the September 11 hijackers, while in the United States, apparently had contacts with individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government. While the Joint Inquiry uncovered this material during the course of its review of FBI and CIA documents, it did not attempt to investigate and assess the accuracy and significance of this information independently, recognizing that such a task would be beyond the scope of the Joint Inquiry. Instead, the Joint Inquiry referred a detailed compilation of information uncovered by the inquiry in documents and interviews to the FBI and CIA for further investigation by the Intelligence Community and, if appropriate, law enforcement agencies. A brief summary of the available information regarding some of these individuals is illustrative for purposes of this report: Omar al-Bayoumi. The FBI had received numerous reports from individuals in the Muslim community, dating back to 1999, alleging that al-Bayoumi may be a Saudi intelligence officer. FBI files suggest that al-Bayoumi provided substantial assistance to hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000. Al-Bayoumi met the hijackers at a public place shortly after his meeting with an individual at the Saudi consulate and there are indications in the files that his encounter with the hijackers may not have been accidental. During this same timeframe, al-Bayoumi had extensive contact with Saudi Government establishments in the United States and received financial support from a Saudi company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense. According to FBI files, ——— at the company said that al-Bayoumi received a monthly salary even though he had been there on only one occasion. This support increased substantially in April 2000, two months after the hijackers arrived in San Diego, decreased slightly in December 2000, and stayed at that same level until August 2001. That company reportedly had ties to Usama Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida. In addition, the FBI determined that al-Bayoumi was in contact with several individuals under FBI investigation and with the Holy Land Foundation, which has been under investigation as a fundraising front for Hamas; Page 417 Osama Bassnan. Bassnan may have been in contact with al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi during their time in San Diego. Bassnan was a close associate of al-Bayoumi and Omar Bakarbashat, another one of the hijackers’ close associates. He also lived across the street from the hijackers, and made a comment to an FBI asset that he did more than al-Bayoumi did for the hijackers. According to an FBI document, Basnan told another individual that he met al-Hazmi through al-Bayoumi and later that he met two of the hijackers through al-Bayoumi. He also told the asset that al-Bayoumi was arrested because he knew al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar very well. The document goes on to state that Bassnan and al-Bayoumi have been “close to each other for a long time.” Bassnan has many times to the Saudi Government, including past employment by the Saudi Arabian Education Mission, referred to in FBI documents as ——————– ————- —————. The FBI also received reports from individuals in the Muslim community alleging that Bassnan might be a Saudi intelligence officer. According to a CIA memo, Bassnan reportedly received funding and possibly a fake passport from Saudi Government officials. He and his wife have received financial support from the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and his wife. A CIA report also indicates that Bassnan traveled to Houston in 2002 and met with an individual who was ———————- —————— ——————————— ————- ——————–. The report states that during that trip a member of the Saudi Royal Family provided Bassnan with a significant amount of cash. FBI information indicates that Bassnan is an extremist and supporter of Usama Bin Laden, and has been connected to the Eritrean Islamic Jihad and the Blind Shaykh; Shaykh al-Thumairy. According to FBI documents and a CIA memorandum, al-Hazmi and al-Midhar may have been in contact with Shaykh al-Thumairy, an accredited diplomat at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and one of their “imams” at the King Fahad mosque in Culver City, California. Also according to FBI documents, the mosque was built in 1998 from funding provided by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdulaziz. The mosque is reportedly attended by members of the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and is widely recognized for its anti-Western views; Page 418 Saleh al-Hussayen. In September 2001, Saleh al-Hussayen, reportedly a Saudi Interior Ministry official, stayed at the same hotel in Herndon, Virginia where al-Hazmi was staying. While al-Hussayen claimed after September 11 not to know the hijackers, FBI agents believed he was being deceptive. He was able to depart the United States despite FBI efforts to locate and re-interview him; and Abdullah Bin Laden. Abdullah Bin Ladin claims to work for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. as an administrative officer. He is identified by the FBI as Usame Bin Ladin’s half brother. He is a close friend of Mohammed Quadir-Harunani, a possible associate of Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi prior to September 11, 2001. The Joint Inquiry also found other indications that individuals connected to the Saudi Government have ties to terrorist networks, including: The CIA and FBI have identified the Ibn Tamiyah Mosque in Culver City as a site of extremist-related activity. Several subjects of FBI investigations prior to September 11 had close connections to the mosque and are believed to have laundered money through this mosque to non-profit organizations overseas affiliated with Usama Bin Ladin. In an interview, an FBI agent said he believed that Saudi Government money was being laundered through the mosque; Another Saudi national with close ties to the Saudi Royal Family, ———-, is the subject of FBI counterterrorism investigations and reportedly was checking security at the United States’ southwest border in 1999 and discussing the possibility of infiltrating individuals into the United States; According to FBI documents, several of the phone numbers found in the phone book of Abu Zubaida, a senior al-Qa’ida operative captured in Pakistan in March 2002, could be linked, at least indirectly, to telephone numbers in the United States. One of those U.S. numbers is subscribed to by the ASPCOL Corporation, which is located in Aspen, Page 419 Colorado, and manages the affairs of the Colorado residence of the Saudi Ambassador Bandar. The FBI noted that ASPCOL has an unlisted telephone number. A November 18, 2002 FBI response to the Joint Inquiry states that “CIA traces have revealed no direct links between numbers found in Zubaida’s phone book and numbers in the United States.” According to an FBI document, the telephone number of a bodyguard at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, who some have alleged may be a ————————- ———- was also found in Abu Zubaida’s possessions; and According to an FBI agent in Phoenix, the FBI suspects Mohammed al-Qudhaeein of being ——————. Al-Qudhaeein was involved in a 1999 incident aboard an America West flight, which the FBI’s Phoenix office now suspects may have been a “dry run” to test airline security. During the flight, al-Qudhaeein and his associate asked the flight attendants a variety of suspicious questions; al-Qudhaeein then attempted to enter the cockpit on two occasions. Al-Qudhaeein and his associate were flying to Washington, D.C. to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy. During the course of its investigations, the FBI has discovered that both al-Qudhaeein and the other individual involved in this incident had connections to terrorism. Finally, the Committees are particularly concerned about the serious nature of allegations contained in a CIA memorandum found by the Joint Inquiry Staff in the files of the FBI’s San Diego Field Office. That memorandum, which discusses alleged financial connections between the September 11 hijackers, Saudi Government officials, and members of the Saudi Royal Family, was drafted by a CIA officer ————— ————, relying primarily on information from FBI files. The CIA officer sent it to the CTC to determine whether CIA had additional information. He also provided a copy to the FIB agent responsible for the investigation of one of the individuals discussed in the memorandum. Despite the clear national implications of the CIA memorandum, the FBI agent included the memorandum in an individual case file and did not forward it to FBI headquarters. FBI headquarters, therefore, was unaware Page 420 of statements in the memorandum until the Joint Inquiry brought the memorandum’s implications to the Bureau’s attention. ————— ———- ————- ———- ——- —— Possible Saudi Government Connections to Terrorists and Terrorist Groups While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government. There is information, from FBI sources, that at least two of those individuals were alleged to be Saudi intelligence officers. The Joint Inquiry’s review confirmed that the Intelligence Community also has information, much of which remains speculative and yet to be independently verified, indicating that Saudi Government officials in the United States may have other ties to al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups. The Committees are particularly concerned about the serious nature of allegations contained in a CIA memorandum found within the files of the FBI’s San Diego Field Office. That memorandum, which discusses alleged financial connections between the September 11 hijackers, Saudi Government officials, and members of the Saudi Royal Family, was drafted by a CIA officer ———- ———-, relying primarily on information from FBI files. In their testimony before the Joint Inquiry, neither the CIA nor the FBI was able to definitively identify for these Committees the extent of Saudi support for terrorist activity globally or within the United States and the extent to which such support, if it exists, is intentional or innocent in nature. Both the FBI and CIA have indicated to the Committees that they are now aggressively pursuing Saudi-related terrorism issues. Prior to September 11th, the FBI apparently did not focus investigative — —————————————– ——- Saudi nationals in the United States due to Saudi Arabia’s status as an American “ally.” ——————————————— —————————— ———————–. A representative of the FBI’s ———————— testified in closed Page 421 hearings that, prior to September 11th, the FBI received “no reporting from any member of the Intelligence Community” that there is a ————- presence in the United States. It should be clear that this Joint Inquiry has made no final determinations as to the reliability or sufficiency of the information regarding these issues that we found contained in FBI and CIA documents. It was not the task of this Joint Inquiry to conduct the kind of extensive investigation that would be required to determined the true significance of any such alleged connections to the Saudi Government. On the one hand, it is possible that these kinds of connections could suggest, as indicated in a — ———- dated July 2, 2002, ” incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi Government.” On the other hand, it is also possible that further investigation of these allegations could reveal legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations. Given the serious national security implications of this information, however, the leadership of the Joint Inquiry is referring the staff’s compilation of relevant information to both the FBI and the CIA for investigative review and appropriate investigative and intelligence action. Possible Connections Between the September 11 Hijackers and Saudi Government Officials in the United States In reviewing FBI documents and the CIA memorandum, the Joint Inquiry Staff has examined information suggesting that: One individual who provided assistance to Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar may be connected to the Saudi Government. A second individual who may have been in contact with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar also has ties to the Saudi Government, including connections to the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. There is reporting in FBI files that persons have alleged that both of these individuals may be Saudi intelligence officers; Page 422 The September 11 hijackers may have been in contact with other Saudi Government officials in the United States prior to the September 11 attacks; and Saudi Government officials in the United States may have ties to Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network. Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan Two individuals known to the FBI prior to September 11, 2001 – Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan—may have provided assistance or support to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar while the two hijackers-to-be were living in San Diego. While the documentary evidence that al-Bayoumi provided assistance to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar is solid, the files contain only limited evidence that Osama Bassnan had contacts with the two individuals. When al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar moved to San Diego, al-Bayoumi provided them with considerable assistance. Before the hijackers moved in with the long-time FBI informant, they stayed at al-Bayoumi’s apartment for several days until al-Bayoumi was able to find them an apartment. Al-Bayoumi then co-signed their lease and may have paid their first month’s rent and security deposit.1 After al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar moved into their own apartment, al-Bayoumi threw a party to welcome them to the San Diego community. He also tasked Modhar Abdullah, another individual from the Islamic Center of San Diego (ICSD), to help them get acclimated to the United States. Abdullah served as their translator, helped them get drivers’ licenses, and assisted them in locating flight schools. —————————— ————– ————— 1 The FBI notes, in its November 18, 2002 response that “financial records indicate a cash deposit of the same amount as the cashier’s check into al-Bayoumi’s bank account on the same day, which suggests that the hijackers reimbursed him.” FBI November 18 Response, 3. However, another FBI document, dated October 14, 2002, appears to reach a slightly different conclusion. This document states that “a review of Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi’s bank records indicate there is no bank documentation that supports the reimbursement of [the rent money], or monies to Omar Al-Bayoumi from al-Hazmi or Al-Midhar.” Page 423 During the post-September 11 investigation, the FBI discovered that al-Bayoumi had far more extensive ties to the Saudi Government than previously realized. In fact, according to an October 14, 2002 FBI document, al-Bayoumi has “extensive ties to the Saudi Government.” The connections identified by the FBI are: Al-Bayoumi had been an accountant at the Saudi Civil Aviation Administration from 1976 to 1993, when he relocated to the United States; According to the FBI, al-Bayoumi was in frequent contact with the Emir at the Saudi Ministry of Defense, responsible for air traffic control; The FBI has also located records, indicating that al-Bayoumi received $20,000 from the Saudi Ministry of Finance at one point; When al-Bayoumi applied t schools in the United States in 1998, he had a letter from the Saudi Embassy, which stated that he was getting a full scholarship from the Government of Saudi Arabia; and While in San Diego, al-Bayoumi was receiving money from the Saudi Ministry of Defense through a Saudi company called “Ercan.” ——— of that company informed the FBI after September 11, 2001 that, although al-Bayoumi only showed up at the company on one occasion, he received a monthly salary and allowances. ——– stated that, at first, he attempted to refuse to pay al-Bayoumi a monthly salary, but he was told that his company would lose their contract if the did not pay him. ———- informed the FBI that at the time, he attributed this to Saudi corruption. Al-Bayoumi also had frequent contact with Saudi establishments in the United States. In a review of telephone toll records, the FBI learned that al-Bayoumi called Saudi Government establishments in the United States almost 100 times between January and May of 2000. According to the FBI, al-Bayoumi was in contact with at least three individuals at the Saudi Page 424 Embassy in Washington, DC; two individuals at the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission in Washington, DC; and three individuals at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles. In a search of Bayoumi’s —— ——, they also discovered that he had the phone number for an individual at the Saudi Consulate in London. Two former San Diego agents addressed the issue of whether al-Bayoumi was an intelligence officer at the October 9, 2002 closed hearing. The former case agent who handled Muppet testified: [Al-Bayoumi] acted like a Saudi intelligence officer, in my opinion. And if he was involved with the hijackers, which it looks like he was, if he signed leases, if he provided some sort of financing or payment of some sort, then I would say that there’s a clear possibility that there might be a connection between Saudi intelligence and UBL. A former Assistant Special Agent in Charge in San Diego testified that the FBI received “numerous, I would say half a dozen” reports from individuals who believed that al-Bayoumi was a Saudi intelligence officer. The FBI’s November 18th response is inconsistent as to whether the FBI currently is designating al-Bayoumi as a suspected Suadi intelligence officer. In its response, the FBI notes that al-Bayoumi ——– ——- ——– until after September 11th, but the response also states that “there is no evidence” to conclude that al-Bayoumi is a Saudi intelligence officer. The FBI had received reporting from a reliable source well prior to September 11, 2001 indicating that al-Bayoumi might be a Saudi intelligence officer. Al-Bayoumi was known to have access to large amounts of money from Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that he did not appear to hold a job. On one occasion prior to September 11, the FBI received information that al-Bayoumi had received $400,000 from Saudi Arabia to help fund a new mosque in San Diego. The FBI conducted a counterterrorism investigation on al-Bayoumi in 1998 and 1999, but closed the investigation at that point. Page 425 Since September 11, 2001 FBI investigation revealed that al-Bayoumi has some ties to terrorist elements. Pasquale J. D’Amuro, the Executive Director for Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence testified in the October 9, 2002 hearing that [w]e’ve been talking with the ——- Government about collection on an individual named ——– who has ties to al Qa’ida, who has ties to Bayoumi. In addition, the FBI reported the results of their search of al-Bayoumi’s ——- that, “after an exhaustive translations of Bayoumi’s documents, it is clear that in Bayoumi’s correspondence he is providing guidance to young Muslims and some of his writings can be interpreted as jihadist.” According to information acquired by the FBI after September 11, 2001, al-Bayoumi also noted on one of his school applications that he worked for a company called “Dallah/Avco.” According to the FBI, Ercan is a San Diego subcontractor of Dallah/Avco. According to a separate —- document, Dallah and Avco are under the same umbrella company, Avco Dallah Trans Arab, which is a subsidiary of Al Barakaat Investment and Development Company. Avco Dallah reportedly holds the contracts for cleaning and maintenance at the three major airports in Saudi Arabia. The — document states that ———— ————– the company has links to Usama Bin Ladin. FBI Headquarters was informed of the affiliation between Dallah/Avco and Al Barakaat in February 2001, but the San Diego Field Office apparently never got this information. According to FBI documents, al-Bayoumi’s pay increased during the time that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were in the United States. According to a recent — analysis of ties between the terrorist attacks and elements of the Saudi Government, before al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar arrived in the U.S., al-Bayoumi generally received approximately $465 per month in “allowances.” According to the — document, in March 2000, a month after al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar arrived in San Diego, his “allowances” jumped to over $3,700 a month and stayed constant until December 2000, when al-Hazmi left San Diego. Al-Bayoumi’s allowances were then decreased to approximately $3,200 a month and stayed at that rate until al-Bayoumi left the United States in August 2001, approximately one month before the September 11th attacks. Page 426 The — memorandum dated July 2, 2002, incorrectly noted that al-Bayoumi’s wife, while living in San Diego, was receiving $1200 a month from Princess Haifa Bint Sultan, the wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador Ambassador to the United States. The FBI has now confirmed that only Osama Bassnan’s wife received money directly from Prince Bandar’s wife, but that al-Bayoumi’s wife attempted to deposit three of the checks from Prince Bandar’s wife, which were payable to Bassnan’s wife, into her own accounts. The Joint Inquiry also found, in FBI files, information suggesting that Osama Bassnan may have also been in contact with al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, including: Bassnan was a very close associate of Omar al-Bayoumi’s and was in telephone contact with al-Bayoumi several times a day while there were both in San Diego. Bassnan also has close ties to a number of other individuals connected to the hijackers, including Omar Bakarbashat, discussed below, who is referred to in FBI documents as Bassnan’s brother-in-law; According to an October 16, 2001 FBI document, Bassnan informed an asset that he had met Nawaf al-Hazmi through Omar al-Bayoumi. According to the FBI document, he also told the asset that al-Bayoumi was arrested because he knew al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar very well. The document goes on to state that Bassnan and al-Bayoumi have been “close to each other for a long time.” Bassnan lived in the apartment complex in San Diego across the street from al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar; Bassnan made a comment to an FBI source after the September 11 attacks suggesting that he did more for the hijackers than al-Bayoumi did; Page 427 The FBI is aware of contact between the hijackers and a close friend of Bassnan’s, Khaled al-Kayed, a commercial airline pilot and certified flight instructor living in San Diego. Al-Kayed admitted to the FBI that in May 2000, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi contacted him about learning to fly Boeing jet aircraft; FBI documents speculate that Osama Bassnan ———– ——– ——. The FBI’s November 18, 2002 response contends that this was an early investigative theory based on asset reporting which the FBI has not been able to corroborate. However, there is also additional information tying Bassnan to ———–. In 1992, while he was living in Washington, DC, Bassnan listed his employment as the Saudi Arabian Education Mission. FBI documents state that ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-. Bassnan also has other ties to the Saudi Government. Bassnan’s wife received a monthly stipend from Princess Haifa. In a recent search of Bassnan’s residence, the FBI located copies of 31 cashier’s checks totaling $74,000, during the period February 22, 1999 to May 30, 2002. These checks were payable to Bassnan’s wife and were drawn on the Riggs Bank account of Prince Bandar’s wife. The FBI has determined that there has been a standing order on Princess Haifa’s account since January 1999 to send $2000 a month to Bassnan’s wife. Bassnan’s wife was allegedly receiving the funding for “nursing services,” but, according to the — document, there is no evidence that Bassnan’s wife provided nursing services.————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-. On at least one occasion, Bassnan received a check directly from Prince Bandar’s account. According to the FBI, on May 14, 1998, Bassnan cashed a check from Bandar in the amount of $15,000. Bassnan’s wife also received at least one check directly from Bandar. She also received one additional check from Bandar’s wife, which she cashed on January 8, 1998, for $10,000. Page 428 In the October 9, 2002 hearing FBI Executive Assistant Director D’Amuro commented on this funding: I believe that we do have money going from Bandar’s wife, $2,000 a month up to about $64,000. What the money was for is what we don’t know.” ————- —————– —————- ———- testified: ————- —————– —————- ———-. She gives money to a lot of different groups and people from around the world. We’ve been able to uncover a number of these…but maybe if we can discover that she gives to 20 different radical groups, well, gee, maybe there’s a pattern here. The FBI has also developed additional information clearly indicating that Bassnan is an extremist and supporter of Usama Bin Ladin. In 1993, the FBI became aware that Bassnan had hosted a party for the Blind Shaykh at his house in Washington, DC in October 1992. Bassnan has made many laudatory remarks to FBI assets about Bin Ladin, referring to Bin Ladin as the official Khalifate and the ruler of the Islamic world. According to an FBI asset, Bassnan spoke of Bin Ladin “as if he were a god.” Bassnan also stated to an FBI asset that he heard that the U.S. Government had stopped approving visas for foreign students. He considered such measures to be insufficient as there are already enough Muslims in the United States to destroy the United States and make it an Islamic state within ten to fifteen years. According to FBI documents, Bassnan also knew Bin Ladin’s family in Saudi Arabia and speaks on his mobile telephone with members of the family who are living in the United States. Phone Numbers Linking Abu Zubaida to a Company in the United States and a Saudi Diplomat in Washington On March 28, 2002 U.S. and coalition forces retrieved the telephone book of Abu Zubaida, whom the U.S. Government has identified as a senior al-Qa’ida operational coordinator. According to an FBI document, “a review of toll records has linked several of the numbers found in Zubaida’s phonebook with U.S. phone numbers.” One of the numbers is unlisted and subscribed to by the ASPCOL Corporation in Aspen, Colorado. On July 15, 2002, Page 429 FBI Headquarters sent a lead to the Denver Field Office requesting that it investigate this connection. On September 19, 2002 agents of the Denver Field Office responded, stating that they had completed their initial investigation. According to the FBI’s Denver Office, ASPCOL is the umbrella corporation that manages the affairs of the Colorado residence of Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The facility is protected by Scimitar Security. Agents of the Denver Field Office noted that neither ASPCOL nor Scimitar Security is listed in the phone book or is easily locatable. In addition, the Colorado Secretary of State’s office has no record of ASPCOL. The Denver office did not attempt to make any local inquiries about ASPCOL, as they believed that any inquiries regarding ASPCOL would be quickly known by Prince Bandar’s employees. Due to the sensitivity of this matter, they decided to hold their investigation of ASPCOL in abeyance until they received additional guidance from FBI Headquarters.According to the FBI, the phone number of an individual named ——– ——— of McLean, Virginia was found within the effects of Abu Zubaida. ——– is reportedly a bodyguard at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC. The FBI now suspects that he may be a ———— ————. In a September 17, 2002 document, the FBI notes that the Bureau is opening an investigation on ——- due to the size and value of his residence and his suspicious activity in approaching U.S. Intelligence Community personnel. It also appears that ———- has been in contact with ———- ———— ———-, which is located at ————–, in McLean Virginia. The FBI has identified this address as the address of Prince Bandar. According to the FBI, ——- is officially a driver for the Saudi Embassy. ——– number was also linked to ASPCOL, Prince Bandar’s umbrella company located in Colorado. It should be noted that the FBI’s November 18, 2002 response states that “CIA traces have revealed no direct (emphasis added) links between numbers found in Zubaida’s phone book and numbers in the United States.” Page 430 The U.S. Government also located another Virginia number at an Usama Bin Ladin safehouse in Pakistan. The number is subscribed to by an individual named —————- ———— ————- was interviewed by the FBI in June 2002. He could not explain why his number ended up at a safe house in Pakistan, but stated that he regularly provides services to a couple who are personal assistants to Prince Bandar. This couple’s driver is an individual named ———– ——, who is assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC. According to ——— regularly called —————- business and frequently travels back and forth to Pakistan. Other Saudi Government Officials in the United States Who May Have Been in Contact with the September 11 Hijackers Among the individuals who may have been associates of the al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar was Shaykh al-Thumairy. According to the — memorandum reviewed by the Joint Inquiry Staff, “initial indications are that al-Thumairy may have had a physical or financial connection to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, but we are still looking at this possibility.” Al-Thumairy is an accredited diplomat at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and is also considered one of the “imams” at the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California. ———– ————— ———– ————— ———– ————— ———– ————— . According to FBI documents, the King Fahad mosque was built in 1998 from funding from the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdulaziz. The mosque is attended by members of the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and is widely known for its anti-Western views. FBI documents indicate that Mohdhar Abdullah drove al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar to the King Fahad Mosque, before al-Mihdhar returned to Saudi Arabia. Several individuals on the East Coast whom the hijackers may have met may also had connections to the Saudi Government. After the terrorist attacks, the FBI discovered that, during September 2001, and individual named Saleh al-Hussayen stayed at the same hotel in Herndon, Virginia where al-Hazmi was staying at the time. According to FBI documents al-Hussayen is apparently a “Saudi Interior Ministry employee/official.” He claimed not to know the hijackers, Page 431 but agents in the FBI’s Washington Field Office believed he was being deceptive. The interview was terminated when al-Hussayen either passed out or feigned a seizure requiring medical treatment. He was released from the hospital several days later and managed to depart the United States despite law enforcement efforts to locate and re-interview him. Saleh al-Hussayen is the uncle of Sami Omar al-Hussayen. Sami al-Hussayen is connected to the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA) and is the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation. The FBI has also discovered that Saleh al-Hussayen is a major contributor to the IANA, a non-profit organization based in Michigan that is dedicated to the spread of Islam worldwide. According to the FBI, the IANA’s mission is actually to spread Islamic fundamentalism and Salafist doctrine throughout the United States and the world at large. The IANA solicits funds from wealthy Saudi benefactors, extremist Islamic Shaykhs, and suspect non-governmental organizations. According to FBI documents, IANA has solicited money from Prince Bandar, but the documents are unclear as to whether Bandar actually contributed money to this organization. FBI documents also indicate that several Saudi Naval officers were in contact with the September 11 hijackers. FBI documents state that the San Diego Field Office opened a counterterrorism investigation of an individual named Osama Nooh, a Saudi Naval officer, due to his association with Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. In addition, Lafi al-Harbi, another Saudi Naval officer, was in telephone contact with flight 77 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi on nine occasions from March 11, 2000 to March 27, 2000. The Jacksonville FBI Field Office is conducting an investigation to determine whether Saleh Ahmed Bedaiwi, a Saudi Naval officer within its territory was in contact with any of the hijackers. ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————- ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————————– —————– —————- ———- ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————- ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-. Page 432 ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-. The FBI has also discovered some more tenuous connections between Saudi Government personnel and the hijackers during the course of the PENTTBOM investigation. For example, according to the FBI, an individual named Fahad Abdullah Saleh Bakala was close friends with September 11 hijackers Ahmed al-Ghamdi and Hamza al-Ghamdi. Bakala previously “worked as a pilot for the Saudi Royal faily, flying Usama Bin Ladin between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia during UBL’s exile.” In addition, an FBI source stated that after September 11 that he/she was 50% sure that al-Midhar was a visitor at an apartment in McLean, Virginia that was occupied in July and August 2001 by Hamad Alotaibi of the Saudi Embassy Military Division. FBI documents also note that September 11 hijacker Saeed Alghamdi may have also visited the address. Connections Between Saudi Government Officials in the United States and Other Possible Terrorist Operatives The Joint Inquiry also reviewed information in FBI files, suggesting other possible connections between Saudi Government officials and terrorist operatives. For example, according to FBI documents, there is evidence that hijackers Marwan al-Shehhi and Mohammed Atta were in contact with Mohammed Rafique Quadir Harunani, the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation since 1999 and a close associate of Abdullah Bin Ladin, who is referred to in FBI documents as Usama Bin Ladin’s half brother. Abdullah Bin Ladin, who is the subject of several FBI investigations, is currently in the United States ————- —————– —————- ———- —————-. He claims to work for the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC as an administrative officer. Abdullah Bin Ladin has financed Quadir’s company and is listed by Quadir as the emergency contact for Quadir’s children. They are in frequent email and phone contact as well. Page 433 According to the FBI, Abdullah Bin Ladin has a number of connections to terrorist organizations. He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America. Both organizations are local branches of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is “closely associated with the funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical support to individuals wishing to fight in the Afghan War.” In 1998, the CIA published a paper characterizing WAMY as a NGO that provides funding, logistical support and training with possible connections to the Arab Afghans network, Hamas, Algerian extremists, and Philippine militants.2 Also of potential interest, at least in retrospect, is the 1999 incident involving Mohammed al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan al-Shalawi. Al-Qudhaeein and al-Shalawi were flying from Phoenix to Washington, DC to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy. After they boarded the plane in Phoenix, they began asking the flight attendants technical questions about the flight that the flight attendants found suspicious. When the plane was in flight, al-Qudhaeein asked where the bathroom was; one of the flight attendants pointed him to the back of the plane. Nevertheless, al-Qudhaeein went to the front of the plane and attempted on two occasions to enter the cockpit The plane made an emergency landing and the FBI investigated the incident, but decided not to pursue a prosecution. At the time, al-Qudhaeein and al-Shalawi claimed that the Saudi Embassy paid for their airplane tickets. After the FBI discovered that an individual in Phoenix who was the subject of a counterterrorism investigation was driving al-Shalawi’s car, the Bureau opened a counterterrorism investigation on al-Shalawi. In November 2000, the FBI received reporting from ———- that al-Shalawi had trained at the terrorist camps in Afghanistan and had received explosives training to perform “Khobar Towers”-type attacks. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Phoenix Field Office attached even potentially greater significance to that 1999 incident. A Phoenix FBI communication explained the theory behind this: “Phoenix FBI now 2According to the FBI’s November 18, 2002 response, although several officials in WAMY support al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups, the intelligence is insufficient to show whether the organization as a whole and its senior leadership support terrorism. Page 434 believes both men were specifically attempting to test the security procedures of America West Airlines in preparation for and in furtherance of UBL/Al Qaeda operations.” In testimony before the Joint Inquiry, the agent who drafted the Phoenix EC” stated: In a post 9/11 world, I went back and looked at that as possibly being some sort of dry run. It is currently under investigation. After September 11, 2001, al-Qudhaeein ————- —————– —————- ———- ————- —————- —————– —————- ———- —————————– —————– —————- ———- ————– ————— —————– —————- ———- —————- ————- —————– —————- ———- —————-. In interviews, a Phoenix FBI agent stated that Phoenix ————- —————– —————- believed that al-Qudhaeein might be ————- —————– ——–. His profile is similar to that of al-Bayoumi and Bassnan. He is in the United States as a student and does not have a visible means of income. He is in frequent contact with Saudi Government establishments in the United States and appears to be very involved in the affairs of the local Saudi community. He runs a “Saudi Club” in Phoenix, and assists Saudi students in the area. The FBI has also developed information that al-Qudhaeein was receiving money from the Saudi Government but, as of August 2002, had not obtained the relevant bank records for review. The FBI’s Phoenix Field Office has speculated that al-Qudhaeein and others may be ————- —————– —————- ———- —————-. There are other indications in FBI files that elements of the Saudi Government may have provided support to terrorist networks. For example, the FBI had identified the Ibn Tamiyah Mosque in Culver City as a site of extremist-related activity both before and after September 11. Several subjects of San Diego investigation prior to September 11 had close connections to the mosque. Based on interviews and review of FBI files, San Diego FBI agents believed at the time that these subjects were laundering money through this mosque first to Somali non-profit organizations and then to other entities affiliated with Usama Bin Ladin. Page 435 In approximately 1998, the FBI became aware of millions of dollars in wire transfers from the Somali community in San Diego to Al Barakaat Trading Company and other businesses affiliated with Usama Bin Ladin. At the time, the funding appeared to be originating from the local Somali community in the form of donations to various Somali non-profits. However, the FBI now believes that the some of the funding actually originated from Saudi Arabia and that both the Ibn Tamiyah Mosque in Los Angeles and the Islamic Center of San Diego were involved in laundering the money. According to the former FBI agent in San Diego who was involved in this investigation, this scheme may allow the Saudi Government to provide al-Qa’ida with funding through covert or indirect means. In his October 9, 2002 testimony the former agent commented on the possible money laundering: My guess Saudi—it’s connected somehow with the Saudis. And knowing that probably 70-80 percent of the population of Saudi Arabia support Usama Bin Ladin, it might be an indication. There are also indications of Saudi governmental support for terrorist activity though charitable organizations. The Saudi-based Umm al-Qura Islamic Charitable Foundation (UQ) is an Islamic non-governmental organization linked to terrorist support activities. According to a May 2002 Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary, the UQ’s activities in support of terrorism include: suspicious money transfers, document forgery, providing jobs to wanted terrorist suspects, and financing travel for youths to attend jihad training. The Defense communication notes that since September 2001, UQ couriers have transported over $330,000 in cash, most of which they received from Saudi Embassies in the Far East. In January 2002, UQ administrator Yassir El-Sayid Mohammed traveled to Thailand to pick up approximately $200,000 from the Saudi Embassy in Bangkok. In early November 2001, the personal assistant to the UQ administrator traveled to Kuala Lumpur for a meeting at the Saudi Arabian Embassy. he returned with tens of thousands of dollars, according to the Department of Defense. CIA, Treasury, and FBI officials have all expressed their concern about the al-Haramain Foundation’s ties to both the Saudi Government and terrorist activity. According to the FBI’s Page 436 November 18, 2002 response, the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation (HIF) has clear ties to the Saudi Government, and intelligence reporting suggests it is providing financial and logistical support to al-Qa’ida. In 1993, HIF established its U.S.-based office in Ashland, Oregon, and that office has since received approximately $700,000 from the parent offices in Saudi Arabia. The FBI has a pending investigation of HIF and the activities of the Portland HIF Office. As discussed above, the FBI has located correspondence between al-Bayoumi and the HIF. From the documents, it is clear that HIF was interested in appointing the imam of the mosque in Cajon, California, that al-Bayoumi managed. The Treasury General Counsel testified about his agency’s concern about the foundation: MR. AUFHAUSER: Second, and this is important point, it also rises out of Rick’s testimony, on al-Haramain, the two branch offices that we took a public and joint action against, al-Haramain really does represent a significant issue for the PCC and for terrorist financing and for the United States policy. It is, of course, the largest, I think the largest Islamic charity in the world. Its name is synonymous with charity in the Islamic world. Its direct overseers are member of the Royal Family; significant contributors are members of the Royal Family. We don’t have a great dal of intelligence on the headquarters, about whether they are knowingly assisting people in al-Qa’ida and others; but in significant branch offices yet to be designated and under current investigation, we have ample evidence that large cash amounts are being couriered to those branch offices, that large wire transfers of money are being sent to those offices, that a great deal of the money is being dissipated through misspending, unaccounted for, and finally, that those offices have significant contacts with extremists, Islamic extremists. CIA officials recently testified that hey are making progress on their investigations of al-Haramain: A year ago we had a lot of reporting suggesting branch offices were tied to al-Qa’ida…Over the last year we developed a lot of intelligence and law enforcement information and we prepared a paper about a month, six weeks ago which assembled all of that…That paper gave us the first clear indication that the head of the central office is complicit in supporting terrorism, and it also raised questions about Prince Nayef. Finally, ————-, the subject of Phoenix and Portland FBI counterterrorism investigations, also has close ties to a member of the Saudi royal family. ———- no longer resides in the United States, but is still the subject of an FBI investigation. The FBI opened an Page 437 investigation of ——– an employee of Saudi Arabian airlines, in 1999 after receiving information ———— ————- that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaida had ben in contact with a telephone number associated with ——- in Portland. In May 2001, two individuals were arrested in Bahrain and later admitted they were on their way to blow up U.S. facilities in Saudi Arabia. One of them had a passport that had been issued to one of ———- ——–. The FBI’s Phoenix Field Office also received source reporting in 1999 that ———- was checking security at the Southwest border and discussing the possibility of infiltrating individuals into the United States. The FBI has developed information that ——— has close ties with one of the Saudi princes and accompanies him on many trips, including travel to the United States. According to the FBI, —————– was recently interrogated at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. He informed the FBI that —— got the job at Saudi Arabian Airlines through his contacts. He said that —— did not earn much money in this job, but that he “had another source of income through a Saudi prince” named Khalid al-Bandar. According to ———– ———- performed miscellaneous tasks for the Prince, such as handling real estate matters and assisting the Prince’s grandmother. —— traveled many places with the Prince, including Europe, and often to the United Arab Emirates. ——– ———– made the cryptic comment that nobody “knew everything about ———.” Although is name was on the State Department’s watchlist, ———– was apparently able to circumvent the Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service because he was traveling with the Saudi prince. The FBI only learned of the trip after the fact. Agents in the FBI’s Portland Field Office expressed their concern that —- and others were using their status as Saudi Arabian Airlines employees as a cover to enable them to transport weapons in and out of the United States. Lack of Saudi Cooperation in Counterterrorism Investigations In testimony and interviews, a number of FBI agents and CIA officers complained to the Joint Inquiry about a lack of Saudi cooperation in terrorism investigations both before and after the September 11 attacks. For example, a veteran New York FBI agent stated that from his Page 438 point of view, the Saudis have been useless and obstructionist for years. In this agent’s opinion, the Saudis will only act when it is in their self-interest. When a high-level — officer was asked how the September 11 attacks might have been prevented, he cited greater Saudi cooperation, pointing to an example from the summer of 2001, when the U.S. Government requested Saudi assistance, with no success. In May 2001, the U.S. Government became aware that an individual in Saudi Arabia was in contact with Abu Zubaida and was most likely aware of an upcoming al-Qa’ida operation. The U.S. Government pressured the Saudi Government to locate him. The Saudis informed the U.S government that they required additional information to do so. The U.S. Government agency that had originally learned of this individual’s knowledge refused to provide the Saudis with additional information because it would reveal sources and methods. The National Security Council also tried to pressure the Saudis, but the Saudis would not cooperate without the additional information. According to some FBI personnel, this type of response is typical from the Saudis. For example, one FBI agent described one investigation after September 11 in which he provided the Saudi Government with copies of the subjects’ Saudi passports. The Saudi Government maintained that they had no record of the subjects. According to the former Chief of Alec Station, the unit in the DCI’s Counterterrorist Center established in 1996 to focus specifically on Usama Bin Ladin, it was clear from about 1996 that the Saudi Government would not cooperate with the United States on maters relating to Usama Bin Ladin. There is a May 1996 memo from the DCI’s Counterterrorist Center ———- stating that the Saudis had stopped providing background information or other assistance on Bin Ladin because Bin Ladin had “too much information about official Saudi dealings with Islamic extremists in the 1980s for Riyadh to deliver him into U.S. hands.” In a June 1997 memo to the DCI, Alec Station reemphasized the lack of Saudi cooperation and stated that there was little prospect of future cooperation regarding Bin Ladin. The former Chief of Alec Station thought that the U.S. Government’s hope of eventually obtaining Saudi cooperation was unrealistic because Saudi assistance to the U.S. Government on this matter was contrary to Saudi national interests. Page 439 ———- ———- ———- ——————– testified on this issue on October 9, 2002: On the issue of al-Qa’ida and Saudi intelligence, that goes back to our efforts to interact with the Saudi to get them to help us on investigating al-Qa’ida…for the most part it was a very troubled relationship where the Saudis were not providing us quickly or very vigorously with response to it. Sometimes, they did, many times they didn’t. It was just very slow in coming. Both FBI and CIA personnel cited an individual named Madani al-Tayyib as a specific case in which the Saudis were uncooperative. The CIA and FBI had been pressuring the Saudis for years for permission to talk to al-Tayyib. According to the former head of ALEC station, al-Tayyib managed all of Bin Ladin’s finances when Bin Ladin was in Sudan, and any expense ofer $1,000 had to be approved by al-Tayyib. Al-Tayyib oved to London in 1996 to work with Khalid al-Fawwaz, another important al-Qa’ida figure who has since been arrested. In the summer of 1996, al-Tayyab returned to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis continuously refused the FBI’s and the CIA’s requests to talk to al-Tayyib, stating, in the words of an FBI agent that al-Tayyib was “just a poor man who lost his leg. He doesn’t know anything.” The former chief of Alec Station also cited the example of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Khalifa is Bin Ladin’s brother-in-law and an important figure in al-Qa’ida. The U.S. Government arrested Khalifa in the United States in 1994. Khalifa had been sentenced t death in absentia by the Jordanian Government for his role in a bombing in Jordan. The Jordanians then returned him to Saudi Arabia. In the opinion of the CIA officer, the Saudis “bought off” the Jordanians for the return of Khalifa. According to the CIA officer, when Khalifa subsequently arrived in Saudi Arabia, he was met by at least one important government official. Khalifa now works for a Riyadh-based NGO and travels and operates freely. The General Counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department testified at the July 23, 2002 hearing about the lack of Saudi cooperation with the U.S.: Page 440 There is an almost intuitive sense, however, that things are not being volunteered. So I want to fully inform you about it, that we have to ask and we have to seek and we have to strive. I will give you one-and-a-half examples. The first is, after some period, the Saudis have agreed to the designation of a man named Julaydin, who is notoriously involved in all of this; and his designation will be public within the next 10 days. They came forward to us 2 weeks ago and said, okay, we think we should go forward with the designation and a freeze order against Mr. Julaydin. We asked, what do you have on him? Because they certainly know what we have on him, because we shared it as we tried to convince them that they ought to join us. The answer back was, nothing new. MR. BEREUTER: Do you believe that? MR. AUFHAUSER: No, I think that taxes credulity, or there is another motive we are not being told. Status of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Investigations into Connections Between Terrorism and Saudi Government Officials Both the FBI and the CIA have informed the Committees that they are treating the Saudi issue seriously. According to the November 18, 2002 FBI response, the FBI and CIA have established a working group to look into the Saudi issue. The FBI formed a squad at the Washington Field Office ———- ——— to investigate this issue and ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ———. ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— Page 441 However, both the FBI and the CIA still have only a limited understanding of the Saudi Government’s ties to terrorist elements. In the October 9, 2002 closed hearing Director Mueller stated: If I have one preliminary note of caution, it is that at this point there are more questions than answers, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions before we know a lot more. A document located by the Joint Inquiry Staff confirms that the FBI’s Washington Field Office is still in the early stages of focusing on these investigations. In an August 15, 2002, communication, a field office agent stated that —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———-. In that same document, the Washington Field Office asked —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ———. —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— —— acknowledged in his testimony that the — understanding of this issue is limited as well. With regard to the specific question of have we seen the Saudi intelligence services supporting terror groups, I think the record is not clear at all on that. Both the FBI and CIA recognized the possibility that individuals connected to the Saudi Government may be providing support to terrorists. —- ———- —— testified: So there’s certainly a good, good chance that there are sympathizers or extremists, sympathizers possibly for al-Qa’ida within the security services. —- ———— also noted that: Abu Zubaydah said he’s confident that al-Qa’ida must have contact certainly with Saudis in the United States and that al-Qa’ida and Usama Bin Ladin are particularly—they Page 442 invest significant energy in cultivating what Abu Zubaydah called good relationships with Saudis of all standing…He said bin Ladin is very pleased when Saudis in the military, those successful in business and those close to the royal family to lend active support to his cause. he said bin Ladin actively seeks out such relationships. —- ———— stated: What we find troubling about the cases we learned about from FBI, both the Los Angeles cases and some of the cases that the Washington Field Office has looked at, in which you’re seeing Saudi money going to people, is that it fits sort of a pattern that we’ve seen in terms of direct payments from the Saudis, the Saudi Government’s longstanding support for very fundamentalist Wahabi and Salafi charities and movements around the world, which in a sense you see the money is going to fundamentalists and you would be very surprised if some of it doesn’t bleed over into terrorist support…We’ve had a lot of suspicions before September 11 which we documented in a number of different papers, and again it’s a lot of smoke and the issues that come up are who knows about the payments, on whose behalf are the payments being made, are they being made on behalf of the central government or are they bing made by a local official or person. Do the people who are making the payments know what’s happening to the money? If they do know what’s happening, why are they making the payments? Is it a form of blackmail? Do they recognize the terrorist support? There’s the issue of are they regulating themselves as well as are they doing the due diligence that they ought to. FBI Executive Assistant Director Pasquale D’Amato testified at that same hearing: To date I can’t sit here and tell you that those ties go back, that we can prove that the Saudi royal family is sponsoring terrorism. But there’s enough smoke that we are conducting several investigations to try to determine what other information is out there. What is clear is that the FBI did not treat the Saudis as a counterterrorism — —————— threat prior to September 11, 2001. —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- Page 443 Michael Rolince, the former head of the International Terrorism Operations Section at FBI testified: The answer to your question is pre-9/11 there were not any significant preliminary inquiry or full investigations, with relatively few exceptions, conducted by the FBI looking at Saudi —- ———- ——— or support for terrorism…I’m not going to stand here, Ms. Hill, and tell you in any way, shape or form —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———-. The former Assistant Special Agent in Charge in San Diego confirmed this in his testimony: Basically, —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ———. They were not a country identified by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. And the theme or the common modus operandi that we saw in San Diego was that if there were —– ——– there, their primary objective was to monitor dissidents in the interest of protecting the royal family. So they were not viewed as an inimical threat to national security. In the October 9, 2002 closed hearing, Director Mueller acknowledged that he became aware of some of the facts regarding the Saudi issue only as a result of the investigative work of the Joint Inquiry Staff: I’m saying the sequence of events here, I think the staff probed and, as a result of the probing, some facts came to light here and to me, frankly, that had not come to light before, and perhaps would not have come to light had the staff not probed. That’s what I’m telling you. So I’m agreeing with you that the staff probing brought out facts that may not have come to this Committee. Senator Dewine: But what you’re also saying thought is that probing then brought facts to your attention. Director Mueller: Yes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
REPORT: Navy to Charge Officer Who Fired on Islamist During Chattanooga Terror Attack Navy Lt. Commander will reportedly be charged for shooting at the Chattanooga terrorist Lt Commander Timothy White and Islamist killer Muhammad Abdulazeez A report at The Navy Times in July confirmed that one of the Marines shot during the Chattanooga terrorist attack exchanged fire with the terrorist. Navy Lt. Cmdr Timothy White also shot back at the terrorist. But rather than being celebrated as a hero, Lt. Commander White may be charged for discharging a firearm on federal property. Allen West reported this week that Lt. Commander Timothy White Ladies and gents, resulting from the text message I received yesterday, I can confirm that the United States Navy is bringing charges against Lt. Cmdr Timothy White for illegally discharging a firearm on federal property. The text message asked if it would be possible for Lt.Cmdr White to reach out to me. To wit I replied, affirmative. What kind of freaking idiots are in charge of our Armed Forces — pardon me, our “unArmed Forces”? What would they prefer that Abdulazeez had been able to kill all the Marines and Sailors at the Naval Support Reserve Center? Let me draw an interesting contrast: Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus is more concerned about lifting the ban on transgendered Sailors. Mabus has a problem in that for the first time since 2007 the US Navy will not have a Carrier Battle Group operating in the Persian Gulf. But this knucklehead has no problem with the Navy seeking to destroy the career of a Sailor, a commander of an installation, returning fire against an Islamic jihadist attack. I do not care if it was his personal weapon, he deserves a medal for facing the enemy. Folks, this has become the Obama military that will not implement policies for our men and women in uniform to be protected — but will punish them if they do protect themselves. What ever happened to the Navy of John Paul Jones, Farragut, Halsey, and Nimitz? What has happened in our America where we believe that our men and women in uniform — especially the commanders — are just targets for these damn Islamic jihadists? Lt Commander Timothy White is pictured with his family. Photo by Contributed Photo /Times Free Press. UPDATE: TOP DEMOCRAT, PENTAGON Confirm Investigation of Chattanooga Navy Officer Who Shot at Terrorist
The new Star Wars franchise will play in China, but a day-and-date release seems unlikely. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (侠盗一号：星球大战外传), the first film in a new direction for the Star Wars universe, has secured cinematic release on the Chinese mainland, Disney told local media on Monday, although the studio did not confirm a specific date. The highly anticipated announcement will further bolster analyst expectations the standalone film will dominate the box office. Recent tracking services expect the film to approach $150 million in its China launch. Directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones, Rogue One will be released in certain European countries like Belgium and Sweden on December 14, followed by the United Kingdom on 15 December and North America on December 16. It’s unlikely the film will be given a day-and-date release in China, however, where the schedule of foreign movies is already unusually crowded following an unofficial relaxation of the foreign film import quota. Industry watchers have long expected the film to be released in China sometime in the first quarter of 2017. On Monday, local media speculated the most likely release date is January 6, 2017. IMDB lists the date as January 12, 2017, with Hong Kong opening December 15. 2016. China Film Insider sought but did not receive confirmation of the exact release date from Disney. With four or five sequels already in the offing, Disney is banking on the space-opera franchise gaining firmer purchase in the Chinese imagination. The first three Star Wars films were never released theatrically in the country — coming out as they did in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. The subsequent “prequels” that came out in 1999, 2002 and 2005 missed China’s box office explosion. Disney execs are no doubt hoping the inclusion of Chinese stars Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen in Rogue One, which focuses on events preceding the 1977 classic, will help to invigorate the franchise in China. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (星球大战：原力觉醒) underperformed in China taking in just RMB 824.47 million (US$120 million) after four weeks. By comparison, the widely panned Warcraft earned RMB 1.4718 billion ($213 million) But on the whole, the company has been the most successful Hollywood operator in the country this year, having secured releases for eight films including Star Wars: The Force Awakens (星球大战：原力觉醒), Captain America: Civil War (美国队长3) , Zootopia (疯狂动物城), The Jungle Book (奇幻森林), Finding Dory (海底总动员2), Alice Through the Looking Glass (爱丽梦游仙境2) as well as Doctor Strange (奇异博士), and Moana (海洋奇缘). That has helped the Burbank, California-based company to enjoy its biggest year all time at the global box office, taking in $5.851 billion through November 1. Disney’s Moana is currently in second place at China’s box office, after Warner Bros’ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, sitting on $12.1 million after opening in theaters last Friday. Meanwhile, Doctor Strange added a further $1.47 million over the weekend, taking its cumulative earnings in China to $108 million. Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger even secured a rare meeting with China’s powerful president Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in May, six weeks before the opening of the Shanghai Disney Resort theme park in Shanghai. The $5.5 billion park received one million visitors per month during its first four months, and could almost break even next year, according to the CEO. Last week, the company unveiled plans for a $1.4 billion expansion of its Hong Kong Disneyland theme park as part of a six-year growth plan. Disney has met with some minor setbacks in China in 2016, including the closing down of DisneyLife, a streaming video service the company launched at the end of 2015 in a joint venture with Alibaba.
Federico Higuain heard many of the theories and questions surrounding his health last year. The designated player for Crew SC missed six games after hernia surgery in June and six games from August to October as he dealt with abdominal pain. Four goals and three assists in 20 games made 2016 the least productive of his first four full seasons in Major League Soccer. Many wondered whether Higuain, who turned 32 in October, had permanently lost a step and questioned his ability to return to the form of a midfielder who had become integral to the Crew’s success since his arrival in 2012. After logging four goals and four assists in his first 11 games this season, Higuain chuckled this week when reminded of the questions surrounding his long-term health. “I think the analysis was bad, but it’s OK. It’s part of the game,” Higuain said. “I understand.” Higuain has missed just one game of the Crew’s first 12 this season, sitting out for a 1-0 loss at the Chicago Fire last month because of ankle soreness. He recently presented a fairly compelling counterpoint to an injury-marred 2016: three starts and 244 minutes of action over eight days that wrapped up Saturday with a 3-2 win over the Montreal Impact. “He’s another one who wants to play for the team, and he’s also in a great moment, so it’s kind of hard to pull him back off the field and it’s us being careful,” Crew coach Gregg Berhalter said. “I think the fact that we did rest him against Chicago gave me a little bit of relief that he doesn’t have all the minutes (spent), but it’s a situation we have to manage throughout the year.” Higuain didn’t offer many specifics as to when he began to feel his health return over the offseason. But he said Wednesday, “I feel good.” When that has been been the case during his time with the Crew, Higuain generally has had the results to match. “When I’m healthy, I think I’ve always done well for this team,” Higuain said. “I mean, it wasn’t just because I played bad (last year). I am trying to be very realistic with my situation. When you have an injury and you can’t play at your level because you are not ready, it’s hard, but I’m a guy who likes to be on the pitch most of the time.” His desire to be on the field included a long stretch of 2016, when Higuain was medically cleared to play but in pain and not moving like his usual self. “My coach asks me if I’m OK, I always say I’m OK because I love this game,” he said. As Higuain and those around him saw it, the bad “analysis” of a lost 2016 stemmed from one long-term injury being blown up to create a larger injury history and a perception that Higuain’s age and mileage had caught up with him. “I think people think he’s older and he had an injury and they’re equating it with injuries, which it’s not,” Berhalter said. “He, for the most part, has been healthy for a long stretch of games and he takes tremendous care of himself. We have no questions about, ‘Does he take care of himself? Is he an injury-prone player?’ We don’t think that at all.” Higuain said his process of preparing for games changes every year, but he credited high performance director Steve Tashjian and strength and conditioning coach Brook Hamilton for their efforts in helping him stay game-ready. The equation of keeping the central attacking midfielder at his best will include rest like it did against Chicago, Berhalter said, but there are no precise totals for minutes or games by which the team will monitor Higuain. “I don’t think it’s that exact of a science. We rested (Higuain) partially in the Chicago game, so we got him some time there and we’ll continue to do that throughout the year,” Berhalter said. In Crew SC’s high- and low-mileage stretches alike this season, Higuain’s presence has had an effect that captain Wil Trapp summed up concisely: “When he’s on the field, we’re a better team.” aerickson@dispatch.com @AEricksonCD
Image copyright AFP Image caption The suspected explosives belt was found in a dustbin in the Montrouge district French police are examining what appears to be a suicide bomb belt dumped on a Paris street following attacks that killed 130 people. It is said to resemble belts used by the attackers and was found in a suburb which a suspect is thought to have passed through after the attacks. The US has issued a worldwide travel alert in response to the attacks. The Belgian capital Brussels remains on high alert. Schools and the metro will stay closed on Tuesday. They are due to reopen on Wednesday but the highest alert level will continue for at least another week. Authorities fear attacks like those in Paris on 13 November may be carried out in Brussels, where at least one Paris attacker lived. Prime Minister Charles Michel warned that the threat remained "imminent". French President Francois Hollande is due to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday as he continues a busy week of international diplomacy during which he will meet all other permanent members of the UN Security Council. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Despite the restrictions, Belgium's PM wants normality to return Read more: How the Paris attacks are affecting Muslim children Interview transcript: 'My brothers were manipulated, not radicalised' Paris attacks: The unanswered questions Paris attacks: Who were the victims? Who were the attackers? Special report: In-depth coverage of the attacks and their aftermath 'Detonator missing' The suspected explosives belt was found in a dustbin on Monday by street cleaners in the Montrouge district, police say. Police sources told news agencies it resembled those used in the 13 November attacks. According to AFP news agency, the device lacks a detonator. It is one of two key pieces of evidence discovered by French police and publicly linked to Salah Abdeslam, one of the main suspects. His brother Brahim blew himself up during the attacks. A mobile phone was previously found in an abandoned car he rented. Phone data suggest that on the night of the attacks, Salah Abdeslam was in the area where the belt was later found. It may be that he planned to detonate the bomb belt but abandoned the plan - either because the belt was malfunctioning or, as his brother Mohamed has suggested, because he had a last-minute change of heart. In other developments: Jawad Bendaoud, the man said to have provided accommodation in a Saint Denis apartment to three people killed in a police raid there last week, was on Tuesday brought before an anti-terrorism judge who will decide whether he will be charged or released France's minister for the family, Laurence Rossignol, has encouraged the families of children who lost a parent in the 13 November attacks to request the status of "ward of the nation", which dates back to World War One and could entitle the child to grants and subsidies for their education and early adult life France's badly hit entertainment industry says it needs €50m ($53m) in aid to deal with the crisis France is to install security gates at the Paris and Lille train stations for the Thalys cross-Europe services by 20 December. The train was the subject of a foiled gun attack in August The state funeral of 28-year-old Italian victim Valeria Solesin, who died in the arms of her boyfriend at the Bataclan, is held is Venice Image copyright AFP Image caption The coffin of Valeria Solesin, who died at the Bataclan, is carried through Venice's San Marco Square A massive manhunt for Salah Abdeslam is continuing in both France and Belgium. Brussels on Monday saw a third day of unprecedented restrictions, with troops and armed police patrolling the streets. Announcing that the state of alert would remain at level four, Mr Michel stressed "we must all progressively get back to a normal life". Many citizens are keen to do this, reports the BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels, but he says others will be wondering, with the main suspect still at large, what if anything has changed. The rest of Belgium remains on alert level three, meaning an attack is seen as possible and credible. How is Brussels affected by terror threat? Belgian police have charged a fourth suspect with terrorism offences related to the Paris attacks, the federal prosecutor said. The unnamed man was one of 21 people detained in raids on Sunday and Monday. Seventeen have been released without charge. Mohammed Amri, 27, and Hamza Attou, 20, have already been charged with aiding Salah Abdeslam. A third, unnamed suspect has also been charged. Hollande's diplomatic push Monday: Met UK Prime Minister David Cameron in Paris Tuesday: Flies to Washington to meet US President Barack Obama Wednesday: Meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris Thursday: Goes to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin Sunday: Meets China's President Xi Jinping in Paris Mr Hollande's search for allies Analysis: James Cook, North America correspondent Image copyright Reuters Image caption Security is tight in New York ahead of Thanksgiving A US worldwide travel alert is unusual but not rare. Similar advice, which applies everywhere bar the US itself, was issued twice in 2011 - following the death of Osama Bin Laden and on the 10th anniversary of the 11 September attacks. There was a further warning in August 2013. The most recent worldwide alert came last Christmas in response to an attack in Sydney, Australia, flagging the risk of "lone wolf" attacks, a warning repeated this time using the less colourful phrase "unaffiliated persons". Such broad warnings have been criticised in the past, both for being so vague as to be of little practical use and for doing the terrorists' job for them by creating a climate of fear in which governments may introduce repressive policies. But with millions of Americans travelling this week to celebrate Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday, US officials insist the action is a sensible reminder of the global terrorist threat.
eBay's Director of Seller Protections Rich Matsuura joined me yesterday to talk about eBay's Seller Protection Program and how eBay protects sellers from bad buyers. You can listen to the podcast on the Ecommerce Industry Soundbytes podcast, a transcript of the interview follows - please feel free to post your comments below. Ina Steiner: I've published a post on the EcommerceBytes Blog asking readers what questions they had for you, and not surprisingly, people had lots of questions. There were six pages of questions. I'd like to get through as many points as we can fit in this interview. I wanted to start off by asking you if there are any plans to change eBay's seller protection program or to change anything about the feedback system? Rich Matsuura: Let me tell you what we're doing right now and about some of the changes we have. One change that is coming up in the near future, and you've probably seen the announcement about this already in the last seller release, is about a claims process. We are moving to a world where we are going to require buyers to contact sellers prior to making a claim. Now, we strongly encourage it, encourage them to do the process of the buyers giving up that claim, but because that communication can happen outside of eBay, we often have to take the buyer's word for it that they contacted the seller. So now we're going to require the buyer to contact the seller through the member to member communication. We're going to know the contact happened. That's one of the changes that will take place. The other one, during that same change, we will no longer be counting the open cases against a seller, only those where there was a strike against the seller. So we're making some changes coming up in buyer protection. I'd say a lot of the changes that we're making happen on the backend. We've been doing quite a bit this year to start removing the bad buyers off of the site. I always have a caveat before going into this piece - I know most of your listeners are sellers who have been on the platform for some time. I do want to call out that most of our transactions on the platform go really well. I think we do have a really good community of both buyers and sellers. And when we do have one or two new sellers on the platform who might be listening to this podcast, I don't want to, I don't want to turn this conversation turn into "We have a lot of bad buyers and this happens all the time." We've been researching this; we've been looking into this; most of the buyers on the site are good. But we do know there are buyers out there who are taking advantage of the system. They're taking advantage of the fact that we do use feedback and DSRs, the inner standards program and they do know we have a buyer protection program, and they're using that against us. There are folks who are distorting feedback and they're folks who are saying, give me free shipping or I'm going to give you a negative feedback, or give me a partial refund,... Ina Steiner: There were a lot of questions about bad buyers. Maybe we could cover some of that. One of the questions that I thought was really interesting was, what actually constitutes feedback extortion? Rich Matsuura: Feedback extortion right now, it needs to be fairly clear, inside of the messages, between the buyer and the seller. The buyer would leave negative feedback or a low DSR unless the seller complies. One of the things were absolutely doing is looking at our feedback policies and making sure that our feedback policies are clear. There is probably some room for improvement on some of the areas we could be looking at, this is something we're absolutely going to be looking at next year - feedback policies and where removals make sense. But right now it does have to be a pretty clear case of the feedback or the message itself being pretty clear that "If you don't do this, I'm going to leave you a negative feedback." Ina Steiner: It's a lot more subtle than that. One of the questions on buyer behavior was about, why not have immediate suspension for a buyer who circumvents the blocked bidder list? Is there any way - eBay knows if a particular User ID has multiple User IDs and is circumventing the blocked bidder list, but the seller has no way to know that. Have you ever thought about doing something around that? Rich Matsuura: We do take action against folks who are circumventing the blocked bidder list. The one thing that, and this is another area we're absolutely improving - we've made good progress in 2012 - we have made, if you go back to what we call account linking, where we know that this person is from the same account, or multiple users from the same person. We have done quite a bit on the seller side, because sellers need to give us quite a bit of information when they're setting up their account. To be able to make those connections. On the buyer side we have less of that information in a lot of cases. So we've been making some good progress on being able to link those accounts. We're moving further along for us to be able to take those actions when it's not just blocked bidder list but if a person has been suspended before. Ina Steiner: Right. Let me ask you about this because sometimes the seller is in the front line and he or she is dealing with a particular buyer, and experienced sellers know that there's something going on. I just had someone recently who wrote me and said, I know that there's a buyer who has multiple accounts and they're doing this behavior, but when I call customer service,... a lot of people are just frustrated dealing with customer service. I kind of want to take a step back and say to you: You're in charge of seller protection. But there's one thing to have policies, but when the sellers actually call in to try to resolve something or report someone or try to get some kind of satisfaction or answers, sometimes they're stymied. Do you see, is there any way of fixing that disconnect between what you are intending for the protection of sellers versus what the seller has to deal with when dealing with customer service reps? What do you think about that? Rich Matsuura: I think going into next year this is a big opportunity for eBay. This is something where, the first thing I want to say around our customer support group, we have been making some really good progress over this past two or three years to build up this customer support organization - to provide more phone support, and email support, and to really get out there with getting more training. I'm in Salt Lake City today, visiting their customer support organization. It's a fantastic group of folks. They know a ton about eBay and the site. This is part of the problem that we run into. I'm going to acknowledge another point which is, I think we can absolutely get better here, especially from a seller protection perspective. We ask our reps to know a lot. We ask the agents to know a lot of rules and nuances out of those rules, and we need to, and I'm taking this on my team's side, we need to train and better train across the board folks in customer support so you get a consistent answer and you get the right answer when it comes to seller protection. One of the primary reasons I'm out here is just this: making sure we get the right training get out, to make sure we get the right information distributed across so there is, not just here in Salt Lake, there are a lot of reps we need to get trained on this, but making sure we're getting that consistent feedback back to our sellers. Because I hear the feedback, and I've read through the first five and a half pages (of the EcommerceBytes Blog post), I think to the beginning of page six on your comments section, and I saw this, and I hear this when we get out in the community. We've been getting out to the different events and meetups and hearing that customer support is a frustration point. And it's been so when it comes to seller protection. It's something we're taking on, and some time next year when we're talking again, We're hearing that it's getting better, not this ____ that it was before, because we're looking to get it even better than we have in the past. Ina Steiner: Right, and it sounds like sometimes the customer service reps, sometimes they say, they got a great customer service rep but it was just coming back to the policies themselves. So in terms of DSRs, that was a big area of concern. One of the biggest things I think people are wondering is, why can't sellers see the DSR scores and to give it historical perspective, they were rolled out when sellers were able to give buyers negative feedback. eBay rolled this out as a way for buyers to feel comfortable leaving honest feedback. But now that there are no negative ramifications, is there any talk about bringing transparency to DSRs? Rich Matsuura: I'd say there are still negative ramifications to exposing who leaves that negative DSR score. This goes back a few years now but one of the other primary reasons feedback or DSRs were anonymous was that it gave us a more accurate picture of, or more accurate feedback from the buyer. Buyers were apt to leave more accurate feedback when that feedback was anonymous. For us to maintain this getting accurate signal - eBay had not been able to see well into the transactions. It's well into the, these are the top four points we're hearing from buyers, they're having frustrations with areas that eBay needed to get better on - Ina Steiner: You raise an interesting point. Now that eBay is charging final value fees on shipping costs, they do have transparency into (it). eBay knows if a seller says, the shipping cost is $5, and then eBay sees that they have charged the buyer $5, then why is the buyer then able to say, that was too much? And I'm going to ding DSR on shipping cost. Rich Matsuura: There are two parts to this answer. On the one part, there are still areas of eBay where we have, and I'll call it - it's a term we used to use quite a bit before, and I'm glad we're not having to use it as often - but there's still areas of eBay where we have an excessive shipping problem. You're right, we've removed a lot of the barriers around, a lot of the incentives for sellers to be charging excessive shipping. But it still exists. When buyers we're paying high shipping costs, this is one of the reasons why it hurt their trust. It actually hurt their future buying activity on the site, and that's why it became one of the four DSR scores, one of the primary DSR scores we are looking at when we are rating sellers and looking for feedback from our buyers. Are we getting to a world where we have more information? I'd say absolutely. In a world where, if you go back a few years, we didn't have, we didn't require shipping costs to be on the list. We weren't seeing a lot of shipping cost information. We didn't even have the ability to have tracking information. There's a lot that we didn't have in the past. So as we're looking at what else can we improve on the feedback system I'd say getting more objective is something we're absolutely looking at. There's a team at eBay that's looking at what we can do to make things better there. Feedback is, the complexity here is pretty integral and printed deep into our ecosystem so we need to make changes carefully. But we're absolutely looking at what do we need to do to make feedback more accurate, more objective, looking into quite a bit there. There's a feedback team at eBay that's looking into that. Ina Steiner: I would say one of the things I'm hearing, and I'm not sure how widespread this is, but I hear once in a while from people who say they've gotten low DSRs because they're a small seller. I believe it's a year for them (before those scores roll off). They sort of live under this cloud of, oh my gosh, I got a low DSR, it's affecting my discounts, my status, and most importantly, my visibility in search, and they're told, just hang in there, just wait for the year to go, and those DSRs will roll up. I hear from those sellers once in a while that they never do have that opportunity. They're somehow so limited because they're pushed down in search results and they can't get enough sales and ultimately they just fail, they just can't get over that low rating. Are you aware of those kinds of issues, and what's your response? Rich Matsuura: We do hear that once in a while. We hear more often though sellers, and a lot of these, you're right, they are the lower volume sellers. They have their feedback on for a year, so they're under the 400 for the three months, and we do hear quite often that a number of sellers are able to get their way back into top rated seller status, continuing to sell items by continuing to provide that good level of service to their customers. But when we're talking about the top-rated seller program, we do work fairly closely with the top rated seller team. The philosophy on the top rated seller team is, these are the sellers who can provide this top experience inside of eBay. They do have some strict standards for what they need to meet to stay at that top rating. And for us to get an accurate signal into are they providing a good customer experience you do need a certain number of transactions to get through, which is why we'll stand there for a year, we're looking to make sure there's enough transactions there to make an accurate picture of how is this seller performing on the site. And that's why we have a longer look back period there. We're always working with the top rated seller team to see what's the future of the top rated seller program looks like and what are these look backs. We're working with them from a policy perspective, and the philosophy there is, you need to have enough transactions for us to make an accurate picture and make sure the folks we're promoting and giving that promise back to our buyers, that they are giving a top rated experience. That's the primary reason we have that stringent standard there. Ina Steiner: And another question I saw that was somewhat parallel: Readers are saying that buyers are only leaving seller feedback if they're dissatisfied, not all of them, but that's a growing trend, that buyers won't leave feedback unless they're unhappy. Some of the questions were, if a buyer doesn't file and will leave feedback in a certain time frame, why not automatically give the seller five stars for the transaction because? If they were unhappy they would have given the feedback. Rich Matsuura: That's actually a good point. The way we're calculating our standards program today versus when you go back a couple of years ago, that's pretty much what we're doing. Because we're looking at your number of low DSRs compared to your number of transactions, we're essentially calculating on the back end as though those were five star transactions. So we're making the assumption now, and this is different from when we had an average score before, when kind of back into the 4.8 days, and the 4.6 days, compared to those days now, this is exactly the way that it happened. And the way we calculate it on the back end, I think as a seller, be happy that you don't get a feedback, because essentially when we calculate it, it's the same as five stars. That's the way we calculate today, and that's already happening. Ina Steiner: OK. What is, to get back to the bad buyers, I don't know what percentage, it may be a very minor small percentage, but when they do exist, they have a big effect as you can see with DSRs and so on. I want to make sure I get this question in there: What is eBay doing to identify bad buyers? And once identified, what are you doing about them? Rich Matsuura: We've stepped up this program dramatically over the last year, and are continuing to step it up over the next year. We have a trust science team at eBay, a whole bunch of really smart guys, PhDs, and these guys create these algorithms. These guys are looking at every transaction that happens on the site. They're looking at buyers' histories. They're looking at a number of variables, something in the neighborhood of a couple hundred variables they're looking at, to identify when something is going bad, or when a buyer is being abusive - everything from, somebody is getting too many returns, or too many partial refunds. They're also looking deep into that member to member communication. An interesting story that came up fairly recently was a buyer who was being really polite in all her member to member communications but they were essentially, it was around this musical instrument, they were writing the same text to three different sellers saying that there was something wrong and they were looking for a partial refund. And they're getting these partial refunds, and sellers were extremely apologetic, and this was a world where, they couldn't see that this was happening to more than one seller. eBay was able to identify that, and then we suspended that person. We've been, let's go back to, the other things we identify, let's call them the picky buyers. The buyers who are leaving a lot more negative feedback than they should be leaving. We're looking at the folks and partial refunds are a big red flag for us, somebody who is getting a lot of partial refunds, which could also point to that pickiness. A lot of different types of behavior that we're looking at. And then your question, well what do we do when we identify them? We're doing a couple of things depending on how egregious the behavior is. On one end, we're trying to rehabilitate them. We see this a lot with unpaid items. A lot of new buyers come in, they don't pay for their item, but they're very "rehabilitatable." We send them the educational information, we give them a call, and we help them. Sometimes eBay is not the easiest place to purchase, especially for a new buyer, and we help them along. We see a lot of them rehabilitate, and we see a lot of them turn into good buyers going forward. Then you've got the other end of the spectrum where it looks pretty egregious. Here's another example: they're looking at competitive sellers. You're a competitive seller in this category and you leave negative feedback, and you're doing this a couple of times. That's looking pretty bad for us. We will suspend those folks pretty quickly. If we're getting reports from sellers that they're getting a brick in the box as a return, that's pretty egregious. These things that are outright fraud and these are people we don't want on the site, we're suspending them, and we're just getting rid of them altogether. When we take these different actions, and there are areas in the middle where we can warn the buyer and we can say, we're watching you, if we even warn a buyer, we look back at all of the feedback they have left, their low DSRs, their negative and neutrals, we look at the claims they have filed, and we re-score all of those from all of the sellers they had interacted with. As soon as they get that warning, we are making the assumption that person is suspect. And it's a person whose feedback does not bring the credibility we want in the system, so we take it all out of the system. Ina Steiner: That was going to be a follow up question. So what you're saying is, once you do identify someone who has problematic buying behavior, you do go back and remove negatives and DSRs? Rich Matsuura: Everything. We remove all the negatives, all the low DSR scores, and the claims from all of the sellers they had previously interacted with. Ina Steiner: Well, this message isn't really getting out there. eBay is a very quantitative company. You measure everything. Why not provide some statistics to sellers in a seller newsletter or through our publication where you say, here's our performance over time. Because you're demanding that sellers adhere to standards and they're doing the best they can, but eBay, are you guys getting better? We have no idea. We're still seeing complaints, it's anecdotal. You guys have the numbers. Why not get your message out, look we've tried, we're now better able to identify. Isn't there any way of communicating that without sending the wrong message to buyers or looking bad? Rich Matsuura: I don't think I'm as concerned about sending the wrong message to buyers. To a certain degree I want buyers to know we're doing this. That this behavior is not going to be tolerated. I think you make a really good callout here, which is, and this is me talking to you here is the first of us getting the seller protection message out, that we're doing something, and there's a team that cares about our sellers. We haven't done a good job around touting our successes, because we have some successes, and we need to pull those together and make sure Ryan and folks are good with it, but there's a really good story we can share and I would love to keep on having these conversations with you and give you progress reports. Because you're right, we don't communicate that very well. One of the things we're, and we've started this recently, is that, when we do remove that feedback from our seller's account, to start letting them know we're doing that. So we start sending out monthly emails. When we remove that feedback, sellers should be getting emails telling them that we removed the feedback. We're also trying to show it on the seller dashboard, information about the feedback numbers removed during that month. We're trying to get more proactive with what we're sharing, but you're right, we have a long ways to go there. Ina Steiner: I have a couple more specific questions I'm going to try to squeeze in here. Sellers have asked for more empowerment. Blocked bidder is a powerful tool for them. But they want more features added to it. Somebody said, how about giving the ability for sellers to block buyers with more than two negatives in the last year or those who have returned more than two items in the last year, and to add the number of claims or the percentage of claims filed during a period of time, and let them block that buyer. What do you think about those kinds of suggestions. Rich Matsuura: Glad those suggestions are coming in. This is something we have heard before. I'm not saying it's something we would take off the table. I'll tell you where I'm thinking about this now, and I would love to get more seller feedback going forward, especially as we're trying to ramp up these buyer abuse efforts that we're doing and getting rid of these buyers. I think the world we ultimately get to is, sellers need to get to a place where they don't need to be worrying about this. It's the, eBay shouldn't be thinking about this as putting more tools in our sellers' hands to manage who buys from them and who doesn't. Not only does that introduce more complexity on the seller side in make sure this all gets set up, it introduces more complexity on the buyer side around when a buyer is being rejected from purchasing certain items and such. But in a world where we can identify the bad buyers, in a world where we can see this abuse early on, and we can start rehabilitating or removing, and seeing these incidents and bad experiences going down, I am hoping we get to a world where sellers don't feel like they need this any more. You know this, Ina, we can't do everything from a resource perspective on eBay. We're trying to figure out where to best put those resources. And a lot of it for me right now is making sure we're getting rid of the bad buyers on the site and changing policies with claims and such. Making sure we're getting the right pieces in place there. So this one on the list, I'm not sure where it falls on the priority. Ina Steiner: We're running out of time and I want to thank you for chatting with us and I know you're holding a workshop this week. Do you want to talk about the workshop at all? Rich Matsuura: We're having a seller protection workshop. We're going to go into a lot more details on what we talked about here. We're also going to be having a Q and A there. Thursday's workshop, it's unfortunately already filled up to the max so we started up another one, and I'll send you the information, but on January 9 we're going to have another one where we're going to cover the same thing. Ina Steiner: When you say it's filled up, does that mean people can just observe it or they can't see it at all? Rich Matsuura: The company we work with has a technical limitation on how many people can call in and listen in. We'll keep on setting those up until that demand is not there. We want to make sure we're getting folks aware of what we're doing. So we'll be taking questions at the end. We'll keep sending them to you as they come up. Ina Steiner: given the number of comments about this on the ECommerceBytes blog, I'm not surprised that the workshop filled up. I want to thank you so much for joining us, Rich, this was really informative.
Appropriate song to play while reading this post: Harder To Breathe – Maroon 5 Asthma severity can be affected by several indoor and outdoor conditions, including dust and microbes. In a paper that came out last week in Indoor Air, researchers from Yale University applied NextGen DNA sequencing to characterize the bacterial and fungal communities in house-dust sampled from nearly 200 homes of asthmatic children in southern New England. Dust was collected from couch and floor surfaces in the main living area using a special vacuum cleaner. After DNA extraction, fungi and bacterial communities were amplified and sequenced (454 Titanium technology for the fungal amplicons and Ion Torrent for the bacterial fragments). The most abundant fungal species found in these dust samples were Leptosphaerulina chartarum, Epicoccum nigrum, and Wallemia sebi. Not surprisingly, the most abundant bacterial families were Staphylococcaceae, Streptococcaceae, and Corynebacteriaceae, taxa commonly found on human skin. Higher concentrations of human cells in the dust were associated with higher abundance of human human-associated fungi, such as Malassezia spp., and human-associated bacteria such as Rothia mucilaginosa, Streptococcus, Corynebacterium, and Staphylococcus. More fungal species were found in houses with pets, and higher humidity (water leaks, less use of AC unit). Bacterial richness was higher in houses with pets and in suburban areas. In addition, bacterial composition was associated with high human occupancy and presence of pets. So no major surprises here, but it was nice to see correlations between household characteristics and microbial communities. A major limitation is that the study only included households with a child with asthma, so there was no comparison possible to homes with healthy children. In addition, as noted by the authors, a high fungal richness might be protective against the development of asthma development, so the number of fungal species in these houses might actually be lower than those without asthmatic children. I would also have liked to see a correlation between the severity of asthma and dust microbial composition, which would have been a great addition. Finally, I would have preferred to see the PCoA plots that are currently in the supplemental materials in the main text, instead of the current tables and bar graphs. But that is maybe just my personal preference. All in all, a nice study to add to our knowledge of fungi and bacterial communities in indoor air, that would have been stronger if it had included homes from children without asthma. Influence of housing characteristics on bacterial and fungal communities in homes of asthmatic children – K. C. Dannemiller, J. F. Gent, B. P. Leaderer, and J. Peccia – Indoor Air – doi:10.1111/ina.12205 Like this: Like Loading...
This arena contains 20 challenges of 4 different levels with their own rewards. Everything about this map is a complete command block operated , no plugins or mods are required to operate any of it. This map uses a total of 1,977 command blocks. The 4 challenge levels are easy, medium, hard, and elite, these levels are marked with blocks of emerald, gold, iron, and diamond. If you want to change the rewards to these challenges, then simply look under the challenge zone on the floor for the respective blocks. All command blocks with the rewards have signs on them indicating what challenge they're for and what they drop. If there are any problems with this map, then please feel free to let me know in the comments so I can check the problem and see if I can make any fixes. This world was NOT designed to be copied and pasted elsewhere! Stay tuned for other mini-games I'm working on! that also solely run using nothing but command blocks!
As people gather together with friends and family this holiday season, most will make an effort to avoid wandering into the potential conversational minefields that are politics and religion, but new research indicates that conflicts over such issues are far from a new thing. In research published this week in Current Anthropology, University of Colorado anthropology professor Arthur A. Joyce and Sarah Barber from the University of Central Florida reported they had discovered proof that such tensions existed more than 2,000 years ago. Joyce and Barber discovered evidence in several Mexican archaeological sites dating back to 700 BC that contradicted the commonly-held believe that religion served to unite early cultures in the region. In fact, it many cases it had the exact opposite effect, according to their research. “It doesn’t matter if we today don’t share particular religious beliefs, but when people in the past acted on their beliefs, those actions could have real, material consequences. It really behooves us to acknowledge religion when considering political processes,” Barber said in a statement. Role of religion in social life, politics has changed little The new study is the result of several years of field research conducted in the lower Río Verde valley of Oaxaca, which is the Pacific coastal lowlands of Mexico. Joyce and Barber analyzed archaeological evidence from 700 BC through 250 AD, the time during which states were first established in the area. People living in the Rio Verde valley during this time often took part in religious rites, including offerings and the burial of people in cemeteries. In comparison, the upper society in the highland Valley of Oaxaca served as intermediaries between their citizens and the gods, which ultimately led to conflict with traditional community leaders, the authors explained. “In both the Valley of Oaxaca and the Lower Río Verde Valley, religion was important in the formation and history of early cities and states, but in vastly different ways,” said Joyce. “Given the role of religion in social life and politics today, that shouldn’t be too surprising.” For instance, in Río Viejo, the capital of the lower Río Verde valley, the citizens built massive temples by 100 AD. Yet, despite the effort required to create such structures, those same temples wound up being abandoned just a little over 100 years later, the research team discovered. “An innovative aspect of our research is to view the burials of ancestors and ceremonial offerings in the lower Verde as essential to these ancient communities,” said Joyce, who was the lead author of the study. “Such a perspective is also more consistent with the worldviews of the Native Americans that lived there.” —– Feature Image: Thinkstock Comments comments
1) "Good" is defined as what will give the greatest happiness for the greatest number. 2) Progress (toward greater happiness, wealth, and individuality) is the goal of society. 3) The free and equal individual is the basis of society. 4) Humans are defined as rational, economic entities. 5) Technology and invention are the sources of societal wealth. 6) Creative, inventive (wealth-producing) individuals are the most valuable for society. 7) Quantitative measures such as statistics are the best means of determining values. 8) The Bible is inerrant; Jesus is God and the savior of mankind; not being a Christian is irrational, etc. The Utilitarian discourse system, while advocating equal rights for all members, quite specifically denies those rights of equality to those who do not show themselves willing to participate in the ideology of this discourse system. Care/harm: cherishing and protecting others. Fairness/cheating: rendering justice according to shared rules. Liberty/oppression: the loathing of tyranny. Loyalty/betrayal: standing with your group, family, nation. Authority/subversion: obeying tradition and legitimate authority. Sanctity/degradation: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions. ASAFor once I'm actually have an answer that satisfies me and I hope satisfies you. Unfortunately, I've never made this argument in writing before, so I will probably fall short in terms of being as convincing as I can be.Much of this argument will borrow heavily from this book, my bible:, but I do go off book quite a lot in this answer.In chapter 6 of this book, the authors outline what they call the "Utilitarian Discourse System." That is the system that we are very often bound by when we talk about the world. Here are the rules of the system as they live in our unconscious minds:The book goes on to talk about how many of the ways that we as people talk about the world in all situations tend to use rules that are the same as or variations upon these seven rules.In the case of Conservative Christians, I would tack on one more:Now I think most people will agree that with the possible exception of rule #7, all of these are things that Conservatives would almost certainly agree with. On the other hand, many of these are things that I as a leftist have strong problems with, and I will elaborate in a second why I think everyone should have a problem with a number of these.Now here is the kicker:So, anyone who, for any reason, disagrees with any of these already quite conservative assumptions will be treated as inferior and probably irrational. Anything they have to say does not have to be paid attention to.The book at this point is being charitable. I don't think the authors would disagree with this way of saying it:The Utilitarian discourse system, while advocating equal rights for all members, quite specifically denies those rights of equality to those whowilling to participate in the ideology of this discourse system.So if to be human is to be "rational," then what kinds of people might be considered "irrational" and thus less human? Maybe "ethnic" groups that are perceived to be more "angry" or "passionate" or "empathetic" instead of simply "rational," namely Black Americans, Latino Americans, and women.I must emphasize that these judgments are all made in the unconscious mind. Very few people would say, "Hey, there's a Black person! They're Black so they must be more prone to anger, so they are more prone to irrationality, so they are less than fully human a lot of the time, so they are to be treated as inferior to me!" Indeed, they are more likely to say, "Don't worry, I don't see race. We're all just equal, you know?" Nonetheless, we have a good amount of research showing that this is not too, too far off whathappen in the unconscious mind.Now, exactly what it looks like to treat someone as an inferior is covered in chapters 3 and 11. And if you do want to read this book but don't want to read the whole thing (it's big!), I would recommend just reading chapters 3, 6, and 11.Now for the reasons you shouldn't believe these rules:According to the truly brilliant, there are six foundations of all morality:The idea that "good" as defined as what will give the greatest happiness to the greatest number is that it turns all six of these foundations into simply derivations of the first foundation, Care/harm.(As a sidenote, I think the ideal personal moral system is one that assumes the first three foundations are universal moral principles while the final three are relative moral principles.)There are many ways I can attack this principle, but my favorite is this:Global warming as a concept subverts "progress" as an intrinsic good. Because it subverts this rule, many people will treat those that espouse global warming as less-than-equal. Even if those people are climate scientists.Yes, as odd and frankly arrogant as it may seem, I think this is a compelling argument for why global warming denial is so prevalent in the US.Our group identities affect a LOT about how we act in society. White, male, cis, straight, able, etc. people are far more likely to show a sense of entitlement relative to less-privileged groups. (I am going Anon, so I will say that I am all but one of these on the above list.) And because this kind of person has a lot of power in this world, it makes our society effectively neither free nor equal.So maybe this is the way thingsbe, but they simply are not right now.And to say so means that you are perceived as trying to subvert and undermine this rule, which means you will be treated as inferior. This includes anyone who fights any kind of oppression.So you just have to do minimal study in psychology or behavioral economics to know that (1) ZERO humans are truly rational, (2) humans do not and have never primarily acted as "economic entities." For more information on this, I would recommendReally? We don't benefit from art? From philosophy? Literature? Empathy? Community? By mainly valuing technology and invention and discounting other things as being "societal wealth" at all, we make a worse society than we can.This is why teachers are so disrespected. Because they aren't "wealth-producers," therefore, they don't do it for the money, therefore, we should pay them less. Essentially, by valuing wealth-producers above all others, we have created perverse incentives in our society that make it worse than it could be.Actually, I like this one a lot. I'm not going to say anything against it.If you got this far, then you probably are not in agreement with this rule. But if you are really interested in why the Bible is not inerrant, I recommend this book:As you can tell, a lot of the ideas that conflict with the Utilitarian discourse system are quite liberal. Because the discourse system pervades our language, we are persuaded by people who are seen to champion these ideas because they hew closer to what we already think we know about the world. But liberals are forced to "prove their arguments" and are often not even given the time or ear to do it (because they are inferior). Conservatives are cut a lot more slack, however, because they say what "we all already know."So that's my argument. I am very curious what anyone's reaction is in the comments. Hope you enjoyed it!PS I'm going Anon because I've just started a job search, and as you might guess, this would not do well to pop up on a Google search of my name right now....
A former pastor and his valedictorian daughter were discovered shot dead at their Maine home on Thursday in what authorities believe was a murder-suicide. State police said it appears that Daniel Randall, 56, shot his 27-year-old daughter before fatally turning the gun on himself — just days after he was served divorce papers. Claire Randall was found in the bathroom, while her father’s body was face-down on the porch with a shotgun, according to the Portland Press Herald. Cryptic messages were also spray-painted inside the home in Hebron, Maine, where his estranged wife, Anita, daughter Molly and son Gabe lived. “ANITA ITS ALL YOUR FAULT,” was scrawled in the dining room. In another room, a message read “VOW BREAKER,” according to a neighbor, who Anita Randall called concerned to check on the house Thursday afternoon. Before he entered the home, Caroll Daggett, 71, said he thought the blood splattering was part of a morbid Halloween decoration. It was not until he saw the eerie spray-painted messages that he feared the worst. He notified police, unbeknownst to him that the couple’s daughter, Claire Randall, was dead inside. Daggett then called back Anita Randall. “I told her, ‘Claire is not answering, and if you could come home, I suggest you come home,’ ” he told the Portland Press Herald. Police arrived at the scene to find Claire Randall dead of multiple shotgun wounds. Her father, Daniel Randall, had been shot in the head. Autopsy results have not been released. Earlier in the day, before the murders, Daniel Randall completed a 90-day substance abuse program for alcohol, authorities said. He checked himself out of the in Portland, Maine, center at 10 a.m. Thursday local time before buying a shotgun. Police say he then drove to the home where he broke in did not have a key. He had served as a pastor at the First Congregational Church in Bristol, Rhode Island, until January 2015. He also was affiliated with Roger Williams University in Providence, Rhode Island from 2009 to 2012. “He seemed to be a very pleasant person,” Daggett said. “A sort of take-charge family type person.” Reached by phone, the couple’s daughter, Molly Randall, declined to comment on Friday. “We don’t want to talk to anyone,” she said. “Please respect us in this. It’s very, very hard.”
This post will strike a nerve with some readers, as many minimalists or aspiring minimalists are die-hard carnivores. They love their meat and don’t want to hear anything against it. Well, hear me out, please. If you could read to the end of the post before disagreeing, blasting me, or dismissing me, I’d be grateful. In this post I’ll tell you (briefly) why I chose veganism and how it is the diet I believe is most in line with minimalism. Minimal eating Veganism, simply defined, is abstaining from animal products, from meat and fish and poultry to dairy and eggs and other such products. I also try for whole foods that are minimally processed, which means I mostly eat veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, beans, some whole grains. This is a limited, minimal diet, and yet it can be incredibly satisfying and maximally flavorful. It’s also very healthy, very light, and low on the budget (if you compare it to eating whole foods carnivorously). A small amount of ingredients. Light on the palate and stomach. Easy to prepare, with a minimum of fuss. The most sustainable diet I won’t go into the figures here (they’re covered better elsewhere), but raising animals for meat, eggs and dairy is incredibly wasteful. For every pound of meat or dairy, many times that amount of plants must be used to feed the animals for those products. Animals also produce a huge amount of pollution and contribute immensely to greenhouse gases, not to mention the machinery and fuel that’s used to raise, slaughter and transport them … and all the plants needed to feed them. They contribute hugely to deforestation and other environmental problems as well. Eating only plants cuts that waste to a minimal amount, and is so much better for the environment. Minimalists who care about living lightly and sustainably would do well to research this and consider it. Minimal cruelty One of the main reasons for becoming a vegan is that we don’t believe animals should be held captive, suffer, and be slaughtered for our pleasure. There is absolutely no need for humans to consume animal products to live a healthy life. Sure, we’ve eaten them for millions of years, but as millions and millions of people have proven, you can eat a vegan diet and be healthy. And so, the only reason to eat animal products is pleasure — you like the taste and “can’t give it up”. Vegans don’t believe animals should suffer for our pleasure, and becoming vegan means you’re opting out of a society that treats animals with extreme cruelty and pretends it doesn’t happen. Addendum 1: Obviously this applies to factory farming, but it’s also true of free-range, grass-fed animals. Some vegans (myself included) don’t believe animals are objects that should be used for our pleasure, kept captive and killed, no matter how “humanely” we treat them while alive. This is akin to slavery of a fellow thinking, feeling creature. Animals don’t exist for human benefit — they exist for their own benefit. Addendum 2: Another justification commonly made is that vegetarians kill plants, and those are living things too. However, they don’t feel and think and suffer in the same way that humans and animals do — they don’t have a central nervous system or brain. It’s a fallacious argument — carnivores have no problem with killing plants, and are only pointing this out to make vegans look inconsistent. If you feel that killing plants is cruel, then I challenge you to live consistently with that belief. Vegans are doing our best to live consistently with ours. Living lightly, not always conveniently If your definition of minimalism involves always choosing the most convenient, easiest options, then veganism might not be the most minimal choice. It can sometimes be inconvenient, when eating at restaurants that aren’t vegan-friendly or at the homes of non-vegan friends or family. That’s a reality, but in truth, it’s not that hard. I mostly cook my own food, with a minimum of preparation, and so most days I have no problems whatsoever. More and more restaurants are becoming vegan-friendly, and the ones that aren’t can usually whip up a quick and simple vegetable dish on request. I usually avoid McDonald’s and most fast food anyway. When I go to someone else’s house, I usually bring a dish with me, and friends and family who know me best often will cook a dish for me out of consideration. So it’s not that hard. My suggestion, if you’re interested, is starting small: try a couple vegan dishes this week, a couple next week, and so on. There’s no need to drastically change overnight, but in time you’ll find that vegan dishes are delicious and the vegan lifestyle is wonderfully minimalist. Thanks for listening, my friends.
Earlier this week we told you about a The Legend of Zelda prototype cart for sale on eBay, with the seller establishing a target price of $150,000. A sale has now been made for a handsome sum, but it's ultimately just over a third of that target price. According to examiner.com, $55,000 is a record total for a Nintendo Entertainment System game, and seller Tom Curtin stated that his choice of buyer wasn't simply down to money. I care about the collecting community and giving it a good home was important. I feel as though that was accomplished. It was also important getting prototype video game collecting into the news. ...I am satisfied. Do I think it's worth more? Yes. There was no way I was taking less than the previous world record. The fact that it remained in tact over the last 25 years is amazing. The legacy of this cart and how it came into the hands of the previous owner is incredible. ...Amazing to play something that was in the hands of the Zelda dev team. I simply cannot describe it. I played this with my brother as a kid, for hours and ours as many of us did. To own the cart that brought this to America was a dream. The name of the new owner will remain undisclosed due to a non-disclosure agreement, but that's a lot of money for the prototype cart; it'll be interesting to see whether that record will ever be beaten in the future.
In the fallout over Wednesday’s suspension of “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson by A&E for anti-gay and racist remarks, GLAAD is experiencing record levels of backlash. “In the five-and-a-half years I’ve worked at GLAAD, I’ve never received so many violently angry phone calls and social media posts attacking GLAAD for us speaking out against these comments,” the media watchdog organization’s vice president of communications Rich Ferraro told TheWrap. He said those reactions range from those who simply believe as Robertson believes to those who feel that GLAAD and A&E’s actions limit the reality star’s free speech. Also read: ‘Duck Dynasty': Inside the Decision to Suspend Phil Robertson (Exclusive) “I don’t think this is about the first amendment,” Ferraro said. “I feel it’s more about the America we live in today. That is one where Americans, gay and straight, are able to speak out when people in the public eye make anti-gay and racist remarks.” Robertson’s supporters have started petitions, called for boycotts and include Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity and Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. Currently, more than 70,000 people have signed the online petition asking A&E to drop the suspension. “It just means we still have a lot of work to do,” Ferraro said. GLAAD spoke with A&E representatives on Wednesday morning to discuss why people would be offended by the comments and calls to action. “They took this very seriously, as soon as the news broke,” Ferraro said. Also read: ‘Duck Dynasty': 5 Other Crazy Phil Robertson Quotes From the GQ Article After the meeting, GLAAD issued its statement on Robertson’s comments. A&E initially released a statement from Robertson in which he said he would “never treat anyone with disrespect just because they are different from me.” But the network declined to comment itself until Wednesday night, when it announced the suspension, which GLAAD applauded. “We believe the next step is to use this as an opportunity for Phil to sit down with gay families in Louisiana and learn about their lives and the values they share,” the spokesman said. The organization is also currently researching companies who use Robertson as a spokesperson. Also read: ‘Duck Dynasty': How Phil Robertson Became an Instant Conservative Martyr “Silence is agreement in this case,” he said. “With such egregious anti-gay and racist comments, those companies that choose to be affiliated with this family need to speak out.”
Do We Care If The Poor Don't Work? Well, we should. Some of us don't. But we should. But its also possible to argue that as a rich, post-scarcity society, we shouldnt really care that much about whether the poor choose to work. The important thing is just making sure they have a decent standard of living, full stop, and if they choose Keynesian leisure over a low-paying job, thats their business. No, actually. No. It is not possible to argue this in front of anyone with a functioning brain, for more than three seconds. Here's why: first of all, even conceding the very strange new notion that we are so wealthy we can let much of the population loaf, there is a thing on this planet we call adversity. Bad things happen. Industrial accidents, floods, economic devastation, massive crop failures, earthquakes, terrorist attacks. And so on. Stores of excess wealth and widespread economic independence are good and necessary attributes to possess, when adversity strikes. Douthat's assumption is that this is a time of plenty and things will carry on this way forever. This assumption has had a 100% guaranteed failure rate over the entire course of human history and will fail quite reliably in the future, probably very much sooner than we would like. Dependents, or 'poor people' in Douthat's formulation, are absolutely defined by their inability to handle adversity. They have no stores of wealth. They cannot do a thing to help themselves, and this is a problem when adversity inevitably happens and the hands of capable people are full. While the enormous wealth of a rich country may be able to keep millions of people floating on the dole for a good while in good times, bad times are another thing entirely. What you want when the sht hits the fan is a lot of scrappy individualists with skills and instincts and a productive acumen. People who are independent and helping themselves, their communities, and each other, directly. Not a massive burden of helpless dependents, and its attendant slow, resource-hogging bureaucracy. The presence of a lot of dependents is not helpful when the prosperity of the country is not-so-prosperous, never mind downright endangered. But against Douthat's central assumption is this; we are massively in debt as a nation. How can he say we can afford for people to loaf, when at the same time we are counting on their future productivity to pay down these bills? I'm at a loss to explain this massive oversight of logic. And Douthat doesn't refer to these people as actually unable to work. He just says they are poor. So he's not talking about the profoundly disabled or infirm - people for whom publicly financed social services were originally intended. He's just talking about people who don't have enough money. Well how are they supposed to ever elevate themselves from this condition, unless they are encouraged or incentivized to work? Douthat's assertion is nothing less than a green light for the continued willful and wide destruction of human potential. As if we haven't had enough of that in the last fifty years! Incentive is the mother of achievement, for almost all people. Remove the incentive, you destroy the potential greatness of the individual, and the future society that depends on such individuals, right in the cradle. Finally there is the implicit insult in Douthat's assertion. The best way for me to elucidate this insult is to ask a question. Faced with choosing between work, or being perpetual state-financed layabouts, what do you think Mr. Douthat would encourage his own children to do? This is where cute philosophical fancies about 'the masses' crash with personal reality. Does anyone seriously think someone like Douthat would portray a life on the dole as an attractive lifestyle choice, to his own kids? I sincerely doubt it. If some can be counted on to tell their own kids to go forth and achieve, while simultaneously telling others that they can sit home and collect a check, what is the real message here? That it is hunky-dory if you* never grow, earn, or discover the boundaries of your own success. We never really thought you had it in you, anyway. Very sh*tty sentiment. Extremely so. __________________ Just an aside: I asked the cobs what they thought of the Douthat column. Dave in Texas: Near as I can tell, the only point of this column is to be something that's supposed to sound smart to readers of the NYT. It's smart-sounding gibberish. Gabriel: I'm sorry, I couldn't really concentrate on it. I have no idea what it's about. It was boring. Andy: Rabbish!!! When you realize you wasted hundreds of words on nothing. Oh well. At least it kept you and me occupied for a minute, right? Right.
Remember that handy DeskSMS Android tweak we reported on earlier this month? Well for those of you that missed it, DeskSMS is a very handy app developed by ClockworkMod, which allows you to forward your SMS messages to the likes of Gmail, Gtalk as well as DeskSMS’ online service. So the idea is, if you’re at your desktop all the time, your iPhone can be more of a middleman for receiving messages and filtering them through to the desktop client of your convenience. Not only does this lessen the distraction of having to pick your phone up every time you want to send/receive a text, it is also significantly easier to type messages using a hardware keyboard than it is on the often tedious soft keypad. If you opt to reply to the SMS from your Google account, the recipient will get a reply sent directly back to their number, as if it was sent through the native SMS app, so it’s not intrusive and there’s no spam at the end of the message. It’s pretty easy to set up and configure, but I’m going to quickly run through the procedure to get you on the right track. Step 1: Install Notifo, a free app which can be found at the App Store. Open the app and sign up for an account – it’s easy as pie. Step 2: Now open the DeskSMS Springboard app and enter the necessary details: Google username and password, as well as your Notifo username and API key, which you can find by logging in at notifo.com and clicking the settings tab. Now you’re ready to go! You can modify the settings to tailor the experience to suit you. With calls, emails and now SMS now all possible through a desktop, the justification for having your iPhone attached to you all day while at home or at work is wearing thin. Then again, if you can’t find anything useful or productive to do on your iPhone, there’s always Angry Birds! Unlike the Android version which doesn’t require you to root your device, you will need a jailbroken iPhone to install DeskSMS in this case. You can follow our step by step guide posted here to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch on iOS 4.3.5 using Redsn0w (or PwnageTool), or on iOS 4.3.3 using Redsn0w, PwnageTool, Sn0wbreeze & JailbreakMe (that last one being the easiest). DeskSMS can be found on the BigBoss repo in Cydia, and is available for a very brilliant price of free! Check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. You can follow us on Twitter or join our Facebook fanpage to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google and Apple. Related Stories
A Group of Secretaries on education has recommended to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that starting April this year, English should be taught in all secondary schools and there should be “at least” one government-run English-medium school in each of the 6,612 blocks in the country. On Friday, the Group on Education & Social Development pushed for promotion of English and Science, saying English should be made “a compulsory subject in all schools from class 6th onwards” and “at least one English medium school (be set up) in every block along with Science education facility in a radius of 5 kms”. Advertising The Group had secretaries of Higher Education as well as School Education & Literacy as members and its recommendations were framed after consultations with state governments. Education, being a subject in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, is guided by the Three Language Formula as laid down in the National Policy on Education (Parliamentary Resolution) of 1968. The Formula provides for the study of Hindi, English and “modern Indian language” in Hindi-speaking states and regional language, English and Hindi in non-Hindi-speaking states. It’s only in Central Board of Secondary Education-affiliated schools that English is compulsory for the first eight years. However, the Board does not offer English as a compulsory subject in classes 9 to 12; rather, students need to choose between English and Hindi. Last October, the RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas (SSUN) had suggested to the Ministry of Human Resource Development that the medium of instruction from elementary to higher levels in schools should be the mother tongue and English should not be compulsory at any level. The Secretaries’ group, in an effort to improve learning outcomes in the country, has suggested that surveys by “third party” be allowed annually to measure outcomes. Besides, they have called for the country’s participation in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and said that there should be a School Education Quality Index (SEQI) to assess and rank states on their performance, with partial funding to states linked to improvement in their SEQI scores. The 12-member group has also recommended that the “policy of detention in secondary schools” be reintroduced, with states being given the freedom to decide at which level or class the detention policy will come it and alternative safety nets such as skill training and remedial interventions from Class 6. It also wants a basic aptitude test and counseling to be introduced in Class 8 for “proper career planning”. As many as 18 state governments want Section 16 of the RTE, which prohibits the detention of any student until they complete Class 8. On skill training, it has said that skill development centres should be opened in districts with more than 25 percent tribal population and in minority-dominated blocks. On higher education, it has recommended the standardisation of post-school national exams for entrance to all higher educational institutions through a National Testing Organisation that would conduct JEE, NEET, UGC NET, CAT, GATE and CMAT for entry into medical, engineering as well as university colleges. Advertising It has suggested that 50 best colleges be made autonomous by giving them administrative, academic and financial autonomy as well allowing them to fix their fees and curriculum. For the rest, it said that the university curriculum be reviewed every three years by all departments. Last October, the PM formed 10 Groups of Secretaries to undertake a critical review of the work done by the Union Government in the respective sectors and provide “new ideas” to push the reform agenda further.
HIV/AIDS was normalized in the the LGBT community because, as they admit, are the prime transmitters of HIV and AIDS due to sexual practices such as sodomy. According to scientists, there is another major health crisis that is about to befall the LGBT and they have “no idea’ how to treat it, and that is an epidemic of anal cancer: Almost 620,000 gay and bisexual men in the United States were living with HIV in 2014, and 100,000 of these men were not even aware of their infection. These men are 100 times more likely to have anal cancer than HIV-negative men who exclusively have sex with women. Yet, no national screening guidelines exist for anal cancer prevention in any population. Anal cancer is predominantly caused by chronic or persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. HPV infection can lead to the development of anal precancer which, if remains undetected or not adequately treated, may lead to anal cancer. Likewise, HPV infection is also responsible for causing cervical, vaginal, vulvar, oropharyngeal, penile and rectal cancers. The objective of screening is to identify and treat these precancers to prevent occurrence of anal cancer. However, one of the reasons for the lack of screening guidelines is that anal precancer treatment has not yet been shown to prevent invasive cancer. Our study, published today in the journal Cancer, attempts to find a possible solution to prevent anal cancer in HIV-positive gay and bisexual men, using the best available data. We found that age-specific anal precancer management, including post-treatment HPV vaccination, can potentially lead to an 80 percent decrease in lifetime risk of anal cancer and anal cancer mortality among gay and bisexual men. Anal cancer: the next big crisis Some in the medical community have identified anal cancer as the next big crisis among HIV-infected gay and bisexual men. Initiation of anti-retroviral therapy in the 1990s greatly reduced the AIDS-related death rate and improved survival. However, this improvement in survival led to an increase in the lifetime risk of developing anal cancer, especially among HIV-positive gay and bisexual men. Anal cancer is typically preceded by persistent HPV infection that often leads to precancer. HPV is common among U.S. men; about one out of two men in the general population has HPV infection. HPV typically clears naturally; however, under certain circumstances, it might persist longer and might progress to anal precancer. If it remains undetected, untreated or inadequately treated, this precancer can progress to anal cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be 8,200 new anal cancer cases in 2017. In the absence of national screening recommendations, more than 50 percent of these individuals will be diagnosed at stage III or IV, when five-year survival is less than 40 percent. This creates a major public health concern. We do not yet know how best to manage anal precancer (also known as high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions) so that anal cancer could be prevented. A national randomized clinical trial study – Anal Cancer HSIL Outcomes Research (ANCHOR) – is currently determining optimal anal precancer management by comparing treatment and active monitoring. The question then arises: How do we start managing our patients using the best available evidence? Likewise, it is imperative that these individuals have as much information as possible about anal cancer prevention. How our study brings insight Using a mathematical model, we simulated the life course of 100,000 hypothetical HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) who were 27 years or older and were diagnosed with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. In our model, we compared four different management strategies: (1) individuals were not provided any form of treatment, which is the current practice; (2) individuals were actively monitored (followed biannually) and those who developed early cancer were treated; (3) individuals were immediately treated using surgery (current most popular strategy among clinicians who treat precancer); and (4) individuals in addition to surgical treatment received HPV vaccination (potential strategy). We followed these hypothetical patients over their lifetime in our computer model to estimate harms and benefits of the management strategies. We tracked the number of individuals who developed anal cancer and then estimated their risk of death from anal cancer. We then estimated above outcomes by patient age. For each strategy, we estimated age-specific lifetime outcomes considering cost, quality of life and life expectancy. We found that HIV-infected gay and bisexual men who are 38 years or older should be treated using surgical treatment of ablation (either infrared coagulation or electrocautery), and that HPV vaccination should be administered at the time of surgery. This strategy is cost-effective and has the potential to decrease the lifetime risk of anal cancer by up to 80 percent in those men. The model also found that because younger men are more likely to be cured of their precancer without intervention, patients younger than 29 should not be treated and those between 29 and 38 years old should be actively monitored (watch-and-wait approach) in order to prevent treatment-related inconvenience and morbidity that might affect their quality of life. (source) The answer to stopping the anal cancer epidemic is very simple. It is so simple that almost anybody can do it, and if it is followed it guarantees almost 100% that one will never get anal cancer. The answer? STOP SODOMIZING EACH OTHER. A photo of an LGBT liberated colon The reason why anal cancer is so common among the LGBT is because the anus is a exit meant for expelling solid waste from the body after the nutrients from it have been absorbed. It is not meant for having (usually dozens of) men repeatedly thrust their penises into it so they can masturbate. If that is not bad enough, there are many homosexual men and now, thanks to the influence of the LGBT in porn, heterosexual porn has been promoting the practice of shoving one’s entire fist and sometimes as far as one’s arm up to the elbow into another person’s anus for the purpose of sexual gratification. This practice, called “fisting,” is very common among homosexuals and is as unnatural and disgusting as it is an excellent way to spread and contract disease. This is a cesspool. Cesspools are the locations where fecal matter and urine goes from an outhouse. A Septic Tank is a type of cesspool. Would you stick your hand in this? If you did, imagine how long it would take to get the smell out. Most people might be concerned with diseases because, well, it is a pool of feces. The very idea that a man would get sexual pleasure out of shoving his arm into such a disgusting thing means there is something desperately wrong with him, and he most likely should merit hospitalization and examination by both a psychologist and a trained exorcist. Yet sticking one’s arm into this is what the LGBT does with the practice of fisting. Think about that. One cannot underemphasize the influence of the LGBT on the pornography industry, which in turn influence society. If masturbating into another man’s anus and then shoving one’s fist into it is not bad enough, there is also the practice of “rosebudding.” Have you ever taken a shirt by the collar and then “flipped” it so the shirt is now inside out? That is what the practice of “rosebudding” is, except it involves one’s anus. Originally practiced among homosexuals, gay men with loose anuses from repeated episodes of sodomy would begin to get rectal prolapse, which is a serious medical condition in which the intestines actually being to fall out of the body. However, instead of actually treating this as a serious medical condition, the LGBT enshrined it as something to strive for, so much that it has now become its own special genre of fetish pornography and is being practiced among heterosexuals, including many women. As the article below notes, merely echoing from a heterosexual perspective what the homosexuals already do, “prolapse sex” involves licking and masturbating on the insides of another person’s intestines protruding out the anus in reverse for the purpose of sexual pleasure. “It smells like blood. And it tastes like raw flesh. It’s not something you’ve ever been exposed to. But it strikes a chord somewhere deep inside.” That’s how Sheena Shaw, a 29-year-old porn star and extreme anal queen, describes the primal appeal of rosebud—a kind of extreme anal sex that is rapidly gaining popularity in the adult film world, popping boners and flipping stomachs with equal abandon. While rosebud is named after those crimson flowers you get on Valentine’s Day, that’s where any intimation of sweet, romantic love ends. The sexual act that Shaw specializes in is, in fact, caused by an anal prolapse—a medical condition in which the inner walls of your rectum collapse and slip out of your butthole, the bright red internal tissue blooming out of your anus like a desert rose (cue Sting). Of course, extreme anal practices like rosebud, fisting, enemas, and ass gaping are nothing new to the S&M crowd, or even the gay-porn industry. What is changing, however, is the encroachment of hardcore sex acts from the fringe into the mainstream. “Everyone’s pressured to do anal,” Sheena says. “Culture teaches us what to like and what not to like.” What used to be taboo is now a staple, and the public is taking notice. On a thread titled “Increased Visibility of Anal Prolapse: Reasons?” from September 2013 on the online forum Adult DVD Talk, a user commented: “Anal prolapsing: at one time it was reserved… for girls who had performed one too many double anal scenes (Ava Devine, Amy Brooke: we’re looking at you). Now, we’re seeing much more of it on screen, even from performers who are fairly new to the industry.” So what is causing this blossoming of a thousand rosebuds? The same user hypothesized that anal performers just hid their prolapses off camera in the past. “(They) are now only showing it on screen because it has become acceptable and there is a growing market for it.” Indeed, big porn companies like Evil Angel have started to produce top-quality extreme anal films with a variety of high-profile porn stars. Once a trend like this takes hold, a self-perpetuating feedback loop almost guarantees its continued spread. “When a gorgeous porn star does it, it is legendary stuff for extreme-anal-porn fans, thus resulting in even more gigs for the girls who can and will do it,” says the California-based porn director Jay Sin. He’s witnessed this effect firsthand—films of his like Deep Anal Abyss, Anal Acrobats, and Anal Buffet have gone on to become cult favorites. (Anal Buffet is now into its ninth sequel.) But the conclusion that everyone from your boss to your creepy uncle is tuning in and getting turned on by girls pushing their innards out of their assholes is a vaguely unsettling—and simplistic—one. While porn films have gotten more aggressive and violent in recent decades, this could also be a result of not just evolving tastes but the internet’s impact on the porn industry. (source) Since “prolapse sex” is literally getting pleasure off of the inside of the tube used to pass fecal matter, one can say that it is the equivalent of trying to bathe oneself in a sewer. A medical drawing of a rectal prolapse from Wikipedia. The LGBT thinks this kind of serious medical disorder is something that people should masturbate into. Indeed, anybody who thinks that masturbating into another person’s medical wounds is “sexually arousing” is deeply disturbed. As mentioned in the study above, doctors are “shocked” at the rates of anal cancer and are calling it the next great plague to befall the LGBT after HIV/AIDS. But how can one say that they do not know the cure? The reality is that the cure is to stop engaging in the abominable sin of Sodom, a sin so heinous that it is called “worthy of death” in both the Old and New Testaments, that it is one of four sins that specifically “cries to Heaven for vengeance,” the sin for which God destroyed the city of Sodom as a sign for all time to the wickedness of this sin, the sin that the saints have recalled is so vile that even the demons are repulsed at it, and the sin for which the great saints of old burned people at the stake for. All of these words we have documented from Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and you can read them in our archives. In light of all of this information, is it really a surprise that a new disease epidemic is befalling the LGBT? Between the evil nature of this sin and the fact that the LGBT is engaging in abominable, medically abnormal and disease conducive practices, how could a new disease epidemic be avoided? Indeed, it would be impossible to so do because of the nature of what is taking place. As the article points out, this is not just limited to the LGBT, but owing to the influence of the LGBT these abominable practices once limited to their circles are now being found common among heterosexual couples. Between the internet “amateur” porn videos and the major porn companies, what was once an LGBT perversity is now found commonly among many households, and that which one would not think to have ever considered practicing at all is now being normalized. The anal cancer epidemic is a plague, but even more so there is the disease of the soul that is perverting the world with the sin of Sodom. Remember that God is Love, and He is Mercy as He is Justice. He sent His only Son to redeem the world, but at the same time He will also give justice to those who refuse to receive His mercy. This becomes even more pertinent given that, as we have been warning, there is currently an arms race taking place which has all appearances of leading up to a third world war, to which there echoes the Prophecy of Our Lady of Akita, merely echoing the words of what those have seen it is the Third Secret of Fatima: “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.” “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres…churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. “The demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them” (source) God destroyed Sodom for their sins. The same sin of Sodom has now overtaken the world. At the same time, we stand on the edge of a third world war. In the meantime, the state of California, where so many people ardently support the LGBT and which serves as the center of the American pornography industry is attempting to force coffee roasters to put labels on their mugs saying that roasting coffee may release a possible chemical that might cause cancer (but are not absolutely sure): future cup of coffee in California could give you jitters before you even take a sip. A nonprofit group wants coffee manufacturers, distributors and retailers to post ominous warnings about a cancer-causing chemical stewing in every brew and has been presenting evidence in a Los Angeles courtroom to make its case. The long-running lawsuit that resumed Monday claims Starbucks and about 90 other companies, including grocery stores and retail shops, failed to follow a state law requiring warning signs about hazardous chemicals found everywhere from household products to workplaces to the environment. At the center of the dispute is acrylamide, a carcinogen found in cooked foods such as French fries that is also a natural byproduct of the coffee roasting process. The coffee industry has acknowledged the presence of the chemical but asserts it is at harmless levels and is outweighed by benefits from drinking coffee. Although the case has been percolating in the courts since 2010, it has gotten little attention. A verdict in favor of the little-known Council for Education and Research on Toxics could send a jolt through the industry with astronomical penalties possible and it could wake up a lot of consumers, though it’s unclear what effect it would have on coffee-drinking habits. (source) So it is a social “sin” to criticize the LGBT in any way, including discussion of how their behaviors are transmitting disease as well as are a grave sin in the eyes of God, yet coffee manufacturers are under legal assault right now because THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA HAS DECLARED that a natural by product of the roasting process which has been consumed by billions for countless centuries without cancer might-maybe cause cancer, although they cannot clearly explain why? Just think about that. And in the meantime, I’ll have a cup of coffee instead. print
By Jake Donovan Antonio DeMarco's latest performance showed that a new weight class and trainer are a good fit. With Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach in his corner and a few extra pounds of muscle on his frame, the former lightweight titlist tore through Jesus Gurrola in their main event, scoring a second round knockout Saturday evening in Tijuana, Mexico. The bout marked DeMarco's second foray above the lightweight limit, weighing just over 143 lb. DeMarco made a statement in the opening round, which began at a measured pace but quickly picked up steam. A right hook late in the round forced Gurrola to stumble backwards, to where only the ropes prevented his fall. The sequence was correctly ruled a knockdown, with Gurrola forced to take an eight count despite his unsuccesful plea of having tripped over DeMarco's foot. Gurrola attempted to brawl his way back into the fight in round two, but the tactic left him as a sitting duck for DeMarco's sharp-shooting tactics. Jabs were fired in repeitiion, perfectly setting up the fight ending sequence. A straight left hand floored Gurrola hard late in round two, once again taking an eight count. The shot was enough to beat the fight out of Gurrola, spitting out his mouthpiece as the referee waved off the contest. The official time was 2:58 of round two. DeMarco improves to 30-3-1 (23KO), scoring his second straight win following his title-losing knockout to Adrien Broner in Nov. '12. Gurrola falls to 20-6 (9KO), suffering the first stoppage loss of his career. The most popular question following the win, of course, will be where DeMarco goes from here. The Tijuana-based southpaw enjoyed a stay of just over a year as lightweight titlist until running into then-unbeaten Broner, who was moving up in weight for their HBO-televised title fight in Atlantic City. DeMarco came back slowly in 2013, going through a complete makeover in and out of the ring. Having previously fought under the Gary Shaw Productions banner, the Mexican boxer entered a deal with local promoter Fernando Beltran's Zanfer Promotions. Saturday marked his second with Mexico's largest promoter, and his debut with Roach in his corner. DeMarco began training at the famed Wild Card Gym last December after a career - pro and amateur - spent with cornerman Romulo Quirate. Both of his comeback fights have taken place in between the super lightweight and welterweight limit, having outgrown the lightweight division. With contineud success, his newfound relationship with Zanfer will mean a path towards the top 140 and 147 lb. fighters within the Top Rank stable. Among those challenges include Tim Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez, Brandon Rios, Mike Alvarado, and of course the biggest prize Top Rank has to offer in none other than Manny Pacquiao. DeMarco will have to keep winning and increase his competition in the process for any of those bouts to be other than a cashout opportunity. With more performances like Saturday night and further developing chemistry with Roach, the still prime boxer - mere days removed from his 28th birthday - can easily punch his way right back into contention. GARCIA SHINES IN CHIEF SUPPORT Unbeaten welterweight prospect Rodrigo Garcia emerged victorious in the UniMas-televised co-feature with a fourth round stoppage of Claudinel Lacerna. The mismatch played out exactly as expected on paper. Garcia was in control for the duration before putting away the struggling Lacerna - winless outside of his native Brazil - with a series of right hands. The official time was 2:17 of round four. Garcia advances to 15-0 (10KO), scoring his fourth straight knockout. Lacerna falls to 16-10 (12KO), having now lost eight of his last ten contests. TV AZTECA UNDERCARD Welterweight prospect Abner Lopez edged Humberto Gutierrez in their 10-round bout, which - given the restrictions of what can air on each network - served as the televised headliner on TV Azteca. Scores were 97-93 and 96-93 in favor of Lopez (17-3, 15KO), and 95-94 for Gutierrez (29-5-2, 21KO). The bout marked the first decision win for Lopez since his pro debut. The 23-year old Tijuana product had scored four straight knockouts entering Saturday's contest. Local lightweight Eduardo Galindo entered uncharted territory but still managed to remain unbeaten, scoring a fifth round stoppage of Jose Valdez. While the bout wasn't competitive, Galindo was forced to work much harder than has been the case in his five consecutive knockouts entering Saturday's bout. Proof of that came in round four, when Valdez (3-9-2, 1KO), scored a surprise knockdown. Galindo shook off the blow and came back strong in the very next round, which would prove to be the bout's last. A pair of right hands deposited Valdez into a corner, where he took an eight-count but was in no condition to continue, thus prompting a stoppage. The official time was 2:39 of round five. Galindo rolls to 7-0 (6KO), scoring his deepest knockout to date. His only other bout to extend beyond the opening round was in his pro debut, going the four-round distance for his lone win by decision. Bantamweight newcomer Leonardo Baez opened up the TV Azteca telecast with a 4th round knockout of hapless Bernardino Guevara. A pair of body shots late in round four produced the lone knockdown, forcing Guevara to his knees for an eight-count before the referee to halt the contest. The official time was 2:46 of round four. Baez improves to 3-0 (2KO), having just turned pro last November. Guevara remains winless, falling to 0-8, including four straight knockout losses. Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com, as well as the Records Keeper for the Transnational Boxing Ratings Board and a member of Boxing Writers Association of America. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
ANN ARBOR -- The quarterback depth for Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan football program appears to be growing once again. Iowa quarterback Jake Rudock, who's waiver was cleared by the Big Ten on Wednesday, will transfer to Michigan and be immediately eligible to play for his final year of eligibility. The news and confirmation of his transfer was first reported by The Wolverine's Chris Balas on Twitter. Our sources in Iowa confirm Jake Rudock will join U-M, compete for starting job now that he's Big Ten approved: http://t.co/R57sZufe4c — Chris Balas (@Balas_Wolverine) April 1, 2015 Rudock finished the 2014 season, where the Hawkeyes finished 7-6 overall, with over 2,400-yards passing, 16 touchdown passes and only five interceptions. He will join a Wolverine depth chart being the quarterback that has the most game experience by a wide margin. With two true freshman on roster (Alex Malzone and Zach Gentry), a redshirt freshman (Wilton Speight) and a junior (Shane Morris) not having thrown a collegiate touchdown pass.
newswire article reporting portland metro actions & protests occupy portland Anarchist reportback and critique from Occupy Portland author: some anarchists We just got back from the opening march for Occupy Portland, and were even more disappointed by how liberal, reformist, and nonthreatening it was than we had expected. The website for Occupy Portland had promised that "proper actions" would be taken against "instigators" of any "illegal activity (property destruction etc.)," which we can only interpret as a threat to snitch to the cops, so we went with low expectations, but this was by all means a massive disappointment even taking into account our pessimism from the get-go. We just got back from the opening march for Occupy Portland, and were even more disappointed by how liberal, reformist, and nonthreatening it was than we had expected. The website for Occupy Portland had promised that "proper actions" would be taken against "instigators" of any "illegal activity (property destruction etc.)," which we can only interpret as a threat to snitch to the cops, so we went with low expectations, but this was by all means a massive disappointment even taking into account our pessimism from the get-go. We attended the opening march for Occupy Portland because we are some angry-ass proles who really hate capitalism. Although Occupy Wall Street (and the various off-shoot occupations) have few official defined goals or positions, there is a general opposition to "corporate greed" and "corrupt politics". As anarchists, we seek to expose and destroy the roots of these problems - as long as capitalism and the state exist, there will be greedy corporations and corrupt politicians. Capitalism and the state cannot be reformed into something kinder, gentler, or more humane, it is exploitative by nature. We wished to push the discourse at Occupy Portland in a more radical, explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-state direction. So we attended the Occupy Portland opening march in full team colors with a big banner that read "NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP (A) NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN." Hey, we do have a sense of humor. Although Occupy Wall Street and the offshoot occupations are supposed to be leaderless movements, we found that there were most definitely leaders who managed everything, from the route to the chants to who was allowed to be at the front of the march to who was allowed up on the microphone at the rally at the end of the march. To be clear, this was a hierarchical, authoritarian event. These leaders/organizers, especially the wannabe-cops wearing blue "peacekeeper" armbands, are not our comrades in any way, shape, or form. When the march stopped at Pioneer Courthouse Square, the "peacekeepers" (whose role it was to de-escalate any conflict should it arise) chanted to the bike cops something along the lines of "Thank you cops, we love you!" It should be self-evident to anyone who doesn't have their head stuck up their ass that the police are not our allies. The police protect property over people and enact violence daily along lines of oppression. The police exist to protect and serve capital. The police uphold the very institutions that the Occupy movement is supposedly fighting. When we brought out the usual anti-cop chants ("All cops are bastards, ACAB" and "No justice, no peace! Fuck the police!") we were shouted over and told to calm down. One of the peacekeepers called out on the megaphone, "we need volunteers to block the anarchists because they're being negative and this is a positive event!" We were repeatedly told that "cops are the 99% too!", which made us very sad that so few people have any understanding of how class society functions. Cops are class traitors and the enemy. Cop-lovers who try to manage and neutralize our anger toward the forces that exploit us are the enemy. To be clear, the Peacekeepers functioned to protect the cops from our anger and to do the cops' jobs for them. The Peacekeepers attempted to physically block us from marching at the front of the crowd, and apparently found our banner so offensive that they formed a line in front of it (we're talking about mere inches in front of it) so that no one could read what it said. They told us that if we were to speak out against cops and dogmatic pacifism, then this movement is not for us and we should leave. A movement that in theory should be explicitly anti-capitalist does not serve some working-class folks who recognize the role the police play in our exploitation? Something's wrong with this picture. But that's what you get with fuzzy "99%" rhetoric instead of anything resembling an actual class analysis. To the crowd's chants of "We are the ninety-nine percent!" we responded with "You have a shitty class analysis!" To their chants of "Show me what democracy looks like!" we responded with "This is what a police state looks like!" Before moving to the park that they planned to occupy (err, can you really call it an occupation if you have a permit?) the crowd gathered in the park across from the Justice Center. The organizers/leaders took turns making speeches to the crowd on the PA system. One of the A-team members made it up to the steps where the organizers were speaking, managed to get on the microphone, and read this hastily-written speech: "Egalitariansim has never existed under capitalism, and we should not be trying to restore our culture to some mythical egalitarian past that never existed. To argue that the system just needs to be fixed (as if it were ever unbroken) is to ignore the racism, sexism, and all other forms of oppression that have existed as long as the state and capitalism have. This whole fucking system is designed to exploit us. Let's kick it over! "So-called peacekeepers are enemies of any revolutionary movement. If you try to control or de-escalate my rage you are decidedly not my comrade. Calls for nonviolence are delusional and can only come from a place of oblivious privilege. Tell me, what part of the material conditions of capitalism is nonviolent? If you think nonviolence is a feasible strategy for bringing down capitalism, check your fucking privilege. "Fuck liberal reformism. Demand nothing, take everything!" When we got to the part of nonviolence being ineffective and delusional, the person in charge of the microphone pulled the plug on the sound system and cut us off. Leaderless non-hierarchical movement my ass. Luckily a sympathetic by-stander offered their megaphone and we were able to finish speaking. The person who spoke on the microphone before us said something along the lines of "this is a revolution that started in Egypt and is now sweeping the globe!" The Occupy Portland organizers conveniently forget that in Egypt, they actually fought the cops. Again and again, past movements are rewritten as nonviolent and nonconfrontational, and anyone who dares to draw clear lines in the sand with the cops on the other side is silenced and branded divisive and a threat to the movement. We heard that the Mayor Sam fucking Adams attended the march. Let's be clear here: politicians are the enemy. Your "99%" category is meaningless and useless if it includes politicians and cops. Fuck your liberal reformism, fuck your dogmatic nonviolence, fuck your cops-in-training Peacekeepers, fuck your boring "occupation" (PS: it's not an occupation if you have a permit and you leave when the cops ask you to). We still stand by our original demands: Taquitos (vegan), burritos (not vegan),Rihanna, negation, total destroy, the head of every cop on a stick, same with rapists, Justin Timberlake n00ds, mo garbagio, srsly taquitos, Derrick Jensen's badger sweaters (12), Urban Scout, loljk Urban Scout is a joke, that fancy-ass dark chocolate with the almonds and sea salt, and dank bud. contribute to this article contribute to this article add comment to discussion view discussion from this article
The California Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance predicted that legalizing the adult marijuana marketplace would see “Reduced costs in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments related to enforcing certain marijuana-related offenses, handling the related criminal cases in the court system, and incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders.” The assessment was included in a ballot title and summary released December 24, 2013 by state Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office regarding a proposed 2014 state ballot initiative to legalize cannabis for adult cultivation and use. The full impact of legalizing cannabis in America’s most populous state is impossible to predict, but the state Legislative Analyst has precise information on how many pot-related arrests, court cases and incarcerations California has. The “low hundreds of millions” figure, while vague, is based on hard evidence, analyzed by an impartial body, that adds serious weight to the law enforcement pillar of the legalization argument. The specific ballot measure described, the Marijuana, Control Legalization & Revenue Act, also taxes the production and sale of cannabis, which is expected to bring California additional annual revenues “in the low hundreds of millions.” After years of huge deficits, California’s current budget has turned around and now runs a surplus of $1.69 billion. Based on these new estimates, the saved costs and added revenue from legalizing cannabis would raise that surplus by 20-30% as a buffer against spending. Should the state fall on hard times, that extra boost could be the difference between being financially in the black and being in the red. Cannabis legalization would reverberate through society in ways that go far beyond the fiscal budget and are rooted in the social costs of keeping marijuana illegal. “Legalization and regulation would not only be a huge boon to the state financially, but also a tremendous win for public safety,” says Lt. Commander Diane Goldstein (Ret.), board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of law enforcement professionals opposed to the war on drugs. “Marijuana is one of the primary sources of income for street gangs and enforcing its prohibition wastes a tremendous amount of police time and energy that would be better spent solving violent crime. Not only will California’s economy improve with legalization, it will be a safer and better place to live.”
How Do You Know The Public Domain Is In Trouble? It Requires A 52-Page Handbook To Determine If Something Is Public Domain from the not-how-it's-supposed-to-work dept We're obviously big supporters of the public domain here at Techdirt, and frankly, believe that many more works should be in the public domain. In fact, we treat our own articles, written by staffers here, to be public domain, even though there's no officialmechanism to officially put them in the public domain. We can only proactively state that we will treat them as such. And, of course, thanks to the switch from "opt-in" copyright to "everything eligible is automatically covered by copyright" in 1976, combined with ever-farther-reaching copyright term extension, nothing has officially entered the public domain in the US in ages. In the past, I've often relied on the handy website set up by my alma mater, Cornell, in trying to determine what is and what is not in the public domain , but that's somewhat limited. So it's great to see that the folks over at the Samuelson Clinic at Berkeley have developed a detailed handbook to determine what is in the public domain , which comes complete with this handy-dandy (if not altogether simple) graphic:The handbook itself (embedded below, based on their Creative Commons license -- which I'll note, isCC's CC0 public domain dedication) is 52 pages going into detail explaining some of the details and nuances of the graphic. It's actually quite handy in many ways, but it still seems...that the public domain should ever need a 52-page handbook just to figure out if a work is or is not actually in the public domain. It really seems to drive home just how much we've sidelined the public domain and created permission culture instead. Oh, and, you'll note that for stuff published after January 1, 2003, the only way for anything to actually go into the public domain... is for the copyright to expire (in other words, no real way to put these works into the public domain). Filed Under: copyright, culture, public domain, public domain handbook
Develop a new financial model to stabilize the campus and eliminate a crippling deficit. Campus officials project reducing a shortfall that was $150 million last year to $56 million by June 2018. They’ve eliminated 400 jobs and are working to increase revenue. As the percentage of its budget covered by state funding remains well below what it once was, Christ said Berkeley must raise more money on its own through philanthropy, extension programs and other noncredit classes, self-supporting degree programs, research grants and real estate and entrepreneurial income. Increase support for undergraduates, including campus housing. Berkeley has the smallest housing capacity in the UC system, currently offering rooms — usually for one year — to only 22% of undergraduates and 9% of graduate students. Christ calls that “unacceptable” and wants to double the available space. Promote free speech. Christ has declared a “Free Speech Year” with “point-counterpoint” forums to demonstrate how to exchange opposing views in a civil manner. Other events will explore constitutional questions, the history of Berkeley’s 1964 free speech movement and the impact of that movement on such figures as acclaimed chef Alice Waters. Boost student and faculty diversity. Last fall, of the nine UC undergraduate campuses, Berkeley had the lowest percentage of underrepresented minorities (18%), low-income Pell Grant recipients (27%) and students who are the first in their families to attend college (28%). Christ said the campus would step up outreach.
"It was a large room with a series of semi-circular tables (with many terminals) all arched around the far wall. A wall, I should mention, that was covered from floor to ceiling in monitors. On each monitor was a rotating view of hall ways, factories, and... what the hell was that room? In the centre of the monitors was one three times as large as any other. There was something about it that was enchanting, and it seems Flare and Serenity thought so as well as we all moved closer to get a better look. Even with the threat of death by vaporization I had to see.The large room in the screen seemed to be in a strange shape, with sixteen different walls, each the same length, making it a strange shape (I could only see half the room, so I guessed). On each of the walls, I could see a number painted, encircled with strange runes. The floor was covered in a mosaic of a white so pure it made the rest of the facility look dirty, and in a pattern so strange and arcane I couldn't make head or tail of it. In the centre of the chamber there was a empty space without tiles, dyed a deep blue. It was just large enough for a pony.“What the shit?!” Flare gasped.A pony that wasn't there before appeared. It was pure white like the tiles, and lacking a mane or tail. Something about the pony made my shoulder ache.The pony flickered.One second it was lying down. The next it was standing, its back to the camera.“Is that really... there?” Serenity asked in a hushed tone, as if she was afraid the thing could hear us through the screen. But how could it?There was a rush of wind. Something creaked.The pony’s head turned all the way around. It stared into my soul with pits of fire for eyes."Snippit from Fallout Equestria: Heroes. www.fimfiction.net/story/662/1… Commission for a friend!
The New Brunswick government was allowed to keep more than $55,000 seized from an Ottawa man during a traffic stop in 2015, even though no criminal charges against the man ever proceeded to trial. John Ivan Gorman was stopped by RCMP on Nov. 4, 2015, near Havelock because police suspected the tint on his windows exceeded the maximum allowable. The amount of tint was found to be within the allowable limit. During a search of Gorman's vehicle, six bundles of cash held together with elastic bands totalling $54,200 and a bundle of $1,560 were found in a duffle bag. Most of the money was in $20 bills. A police dog confirmed the presence of contraband substances on some of the money. Later in a laboratory, two of the six bundles of money tested positive for the presence of explosives and another tested positive for the presence of cocaine. Not charged under Criminal Code Gorman was never formally charged with possession of the proceeds of crime under the Criminal Code. A charge of possessing a restricted firearm without a licence was laid, but was later withdrawn. However, the Attorney General of New Brunswick proceeded with the seizure of the money under the province's Civil Forfeiture Act, which carries a lower burden of proof than a Criminal Code offence. Under the provincial law, the province has to show "on the balance of probabilities" that the cash seized was from criminal actions, as opposed to the threshold of "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal cases. "In proceeding under the Civil Forfeiture Act, the Attorney General is pursuing a similar kind of claim, both for the ultimate benefit of the victims, but also in the public interest," Court of Queen's Bench Justice Jean-Paul Ouellette said in his ruling. Ouellette issued an oral decision on Jan. 26, 2017, while the written version of his decision was released only recently. Gorman's arguments included that the province didn't establish on the balance of probabilities that the money seized was from the proceeds of criminal activity. Gorman, who received social assistance in Ottawa, said he was not employed at the time of the seizure because of a medical condition. He said he had the $54,200 in cash with him as he was considering buying a friend's house in Nova Scotia for about $35,000. However, he decided against it because the house needed a lot of repairs. When asked why he brought $54,200 to buy a $35,000 property, Gorman said he brought all his money in case he needed it. The bundle of $1,560 was his winnings from the Nova Scotia Casino in Halifax, which he visited on his trip, he said. RCMP testimony RCMP Sgt. T. Feeney said in an affidavit that Gorman's case is "significantly" similar to cases involving the movement of money that are the proceeds of crime and taken by criminality. Under cross-examination, Feeney did not dispute that it is legal to travel with large amounts of cash or have money wrapped in elastic bands. However, he said that didn't change his opinion that the circumstances of Gorman's case are present in many others involving the proceeds of crime and trafficking of contraband, and that Gorman was a runner or trafficker in contraband and returning the money to central Canada. In his ruling, Ouellette found Gorman's evidence "lacked credibility and was often farfetched and lacking in plausibility or defying common sense." "It lacked harmony with the propensity of evidence that I did believe," he said. "I am satisfied that the only rational inference which can be drawn from the evidence in this case is that the currency is the proceed of crime and is an instrument of unlawful activity which, if not confiscated, would likely be used for the purpose of trafficking more drugs," stated the judge in granting the province's application for the forfeiture.
Vermilion Ohio, A Good Place to Live Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. - Helen Keller......Never eat more than you can lift. - Miss Piggy......It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. - H.L. Mencken......Listen for the birds. They'll always tell you when spring is come............rnt............... NAMES & FACES SHOPTALK: Vermilion Junior League 1949: Founded in 1901 by a New York City social activist and Bernard College student named Mary Harriman-Rumsey (1881-1934), it was initially known as The Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements. Now known simply as the Junior League it has evolved into one of the oldest, largest and most effective women’s volunteer organizations in the world, encompassing 160,000 women in 292 Leagues in four countries – the U.S, Canada, Mexico and the U.K. The accompanying Richard Koontz photo is that of the membership of Vermilion’s Women’s Junior League at their the “first banquet” held on June 28, 1949 in the dining room of the Okagi Restaurant. I can name some, but not all, of the women pictured. I do have a list that was made by my brother Al who had originally acquired the photo. But I have some problems with his list. First of all, my good brother couldn’t spell as well as one might like. Second, sometimes he could misidentify faces. As a consequence I won’t use his list. But I will afford ye some names and let you match them to the faces. Dorothy Litman, Ethel Swanbeck, Belva Jefferey, Bernice Fischer-Koachway, Dale Rodgers, Yvonne Boyd, Dorothy Koontz, Nadine Furgason, Mary Rapprich, Eleanor Orth and… I believe I know some of the others, but I don’t want to guess. I’ll leave that to someone else. I also don’t know if the Women’s League in Vermilion still exists. PARTY KIDS: On my home desk this week is a pic of the children who attended a nice birthday party for their little friend Brenda Baumhart on the north end of town. According to a 2013 survey conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project cell phones are now being used by 91% of American adults. So, aside from just being able to make a phone call with these devices most are also capable of taking photographs (among, of course, a plethora of other things). Given this technology it’s truly impossible to not only estimate the number of photographs that were taken yesterday – but to also know just how many have been posted on social media programs such as Facebook. As a consequence, a snapshot like the one accompanying this week’s monograph may not be considered by a whole lot of folks as being unusual or rare. However, one certainly must wonder just how many of the social media photographs will survive the next 70 years, as has this one. [It’s just a thought.] On my home desk this week is a pic of the children who attended a nice birthday party for their little friend Brenda Baumhart on the north end of town. According to a 2013 survey conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project cell phones are now being used by 91% of American adults. So, aside from just being able to make a phone call with these devices most are also capable of taking photographs (among, of course, a plethora of other things). Given this technology it’s truly impossible to not only estimate the number of photographs that were taken yesterday – but to also know just how many have been posted on social media programs such as Facebook. As a consequence, a snapshot like the one accompanying this week’s monograph may not be considered by a whole lot of folks as being unusual or rare. However, one certainly must wonder just how many of the social media photographs will survive the next 70 years, as has this one. [It’s just a thought.] This snapshot was taken in July of 1945 in the backyard of what was then the A.D. Baumhart home on the northeast corner of Huron and Washington Streets. Neighborhood children had gathered there to celebrate the 6th birthday of their friend Brenda Baumhart. Pictured are: (Back L-R) Tom Creech, Pat Keller, Brenda Baumhart with Althea Showalter, and Jeanie Lindsley. (Front L-R) Nancy Lee, Linda Bogart, Tim Trinter, Richard Copeland, John Trinter and Shirley Malone. With the exception of Tom Creech and Pat Keller all the children in the snap still live in or visit Vermilion with some frequency. The birthday girl in the picture, Brenda Baumhart Mezz, is a retired teacher and lives in Eaton, Ohio. Brenda was the only child and daughter of former Vermilion mayor Charles Wheeler and Helyn Hecathorn Baumhart. Althea Showalter – who is apparently one of the oldest youngsters pictured (perhaps a baby-sitter) – is married to Bob Shanks and currently lives in Bay Village, Ohio. She was the eldest child and daughter of William (a local plumber) and Hazel Showalter. Many current residents should recognize the pretty dark-haired girl Nancy Lee. She is better known today as Nancy Fulper. She and her brother Bill are the children of late Vermilion residents Leroy and Norma Lee. Mr. Lee owned the boatyard where Vermilion Power Boats is now located. He was also the very ambitious and enthusiastic developer / promoter of the Shady Lake housing subdivision east of Sunnyside Road. Linda Bogart is the oldest child and daughter of late Vermilionites Howard and Mary Bogart. Her father helped manage two of the town’s early dairies, was a long-time Vermilion Township clerk, and later worked as assistant manager of the local branch of Lorain National Bank. Her mother Mary and her sister Dorothy Hart (who was married to local pharmacist Jim Hart) were the adopted daughters of a very prominent local couple – Presdee and Nellie Klaar-Wood Morgan. Linda is a retired teacher and lives in Lorain, Ohio. Her younger brother, Howard, lives in California. The Trinter brothers, John and his younger brother Tim both still live in Vermilion. They’re the oldest sons of late Vermilion historian Betty and John Trinter. One might chance upon Tim and his wife, Paula, as they take their rescue pooch for a walk about town. And persons who drive or walk along Liberty Avenue between Exchange Park and the Vermilion Lagoons in the mornings may often see brother John taking his daily constitutional. John and his spouse, Nancy, have a home in the Lagoons. Both men are retired now. Rick Copeland isn’t too hard to find either. Also a retiree, one might run into him enjoying a cup of coffee at one of our local eateries or while shopping at the “Eagle”. And Jeanie Lindsley, until a short time ago, was always somewhere about town with her husband Richard Miller. But due to health concerns the couple recently relocated to Ashland, Ohio to be near to one of their children. Again, it’s impossible to know just how many, or even if any, of the current digital portraits similar to this snapshot that were taken just yesterday and uploaded to social media will survive as long as it has. To be sure we must be preserving a forest or two by saving all these images electronically instead of on paper. But in the end it may very well be that we’ll be unable to see the proverbial tree of our memories of yesteryear because the darn forest is blocking our view. Ref: Special thanks to: Brenda Baumhart Mezz; Written Sunday, November 1, 2015 ON A SEARCH: This week I’ve been on a frantic search for some of my old oral history interviews. I did find some of the earliest ones that Geo (my wife) and I did in Exchange Park. But they’re not the ones I’m searching for. I did find transcriptions I made of those histories – but I just know I have the videos somewhere. I just have to track them down. It’s a frustrating business. On the other hand, I have rediscovered pix I took as far back as perhaps 2005 or 06 – and some maybe earlier. For instance, I have some great interior pix of the opera house with years of dust on the seats [see below]; pix of the construction and / or renovation of several buildings about Vermilion; as well as numerous pix of flooding along the Vermilion River (the Great 1969 flood as well as others). But, darn, if I’ve come across the mp4 interviews yet. But I will prevail… Historically, A TALE OF TWO PORTRAITS: : I came across this old and rather mundane pic of the girl getting her portrait taken last week and noticed the larger portraits on the wall behind the girl. Wow! They are the same portraits that hang in the living room of the Vermilion History Museum today. I found them several years ago when we were cleaning out the attic over the print shop. They were laying on the floor – the glass in their frames was broken. Anyway, believe it or not I recognized the folks in them. The fella on the left is my g-grandfather Ernest Thomas “E.T.” Bottomley. And the lady on the right my g-grandmother Clarissa “Clara” Ellsworth-Bottomley. I liked the portraits and frames, so I replaced the glass and repaired part of one of the frames. I don’t know the identity of the person responsible for the portraits, or where or how they were done. But, again, I like them. My g-grandfather was born in Woodlesford, Yorkshire, England (b.1857) and migrated to America with his family when he was just a tad. His mother, Elizabeth Wheelwright, died during their passage. By the time he was 12 years old he was working in a paper mill in Lee, Berkshire, Massachusetts along with his father. His older sister, Mary, at the age of 15 took care of the household. So life must have been difficult. In April (26th) of 1876 he married Clara in Westfield, Massachusetts. She was the youngest child born in 1858 at Chaska, Carver, Minnesota in 1858 to Ezekiel and Abigail Ellsworth. Her father was a carpenter. Both parents were born in Massachusetts. This may explain how Ernest and Clara met and were married in the East. Her parents likely had relatives there. After their marriage they moved to Minnesota where he apparently farmed, ran an apothecary and was appointed in 1888 as Postmaster at Granite Lake, Wright, Minnesota. In the years preceding the new century (the 20th) the couple and their children moved to Milan where Ernest and his brother William operated a general store on the square. While living in Milan their daughter (my grandmother Bessie) met her future husband (my grandfather Pearl Roscoe). Several years later the Bottomleys moved to Vermilion where Pearl and Bessie owned and operated The Vermilion News print shop. During ensuing years E.T. joined his son-in-law selling newspaper advertising. He also became involved with some other business ventures including real estate. He died at the age of 59 in 1916. Clara died in her early 80s in 1941. Only The Best Kids SOME OF THE “BEST KIDS IN TOWN” SANS BUCK: Pictured are some of [as former Vermilion snack-shop owner Paul Metrakis used to say] “the best kids in town” back in the late 1940s. According to Vermilionite Dennis McKern, who supplied the snapshot, these were the original “Our Gang” kids: 1.) Kathleen Buell, 2.) Alice McKern, 3.) Donna Jean McKern, 4.) Rick Walker, 5.) Jonathan Smith, 6.) Doug Smith and 7.) Leon Buell. Missing from the regular gang are Bill Cassidy, Gary Flanders, and Dennis. [He who may have been taking the photo.] These shadows were most likely captured on film in the long sloping backyard of the Buell Family home at the far west end of South Street. Notably missing from the snap, but not to be forgotten then, now or ever, is young Leon’s faithful dog Buck. He was, perhaps, taking a pee break neath the greenery just behind the youngsters. This is noteworthy because it was well known that Buck “went everywhere” with this gang – including to the movies “downtown” where he would wait “faithfully” to rejoin them when the movie was over. [Evidently, he was not a fan of the silver screen.] As mentioned this snap was very likely taken in the Buell Family backyard at the west end of South Street. And while lacking any real visible evidence of that statement, it is made because more than a few youngsters from five to 18 years old who grew up in that part of Vermilion during the early 1940s through the early 1960s spent a good deal of time in or around the Alfred and Margaret Buell home on South Street. The Buells had five children. Each of them had at least five friends. And each of their five friends had at least five friends, ad infinitum. [You do the math.] So, mix the bright adventurous Buell kids and their numerous friends together with a super-sized backyard that gently sloped down to the miracles always overflowing in the meanderings of Edson Creek below, just before it ran through what seemed to be the huge tunnel under the railroad tracks; and stir into that scenario a wonderful woodlands just to the west [now part of the Erie County Park system] and what one has is a young person’s notion of Paradise. [Tom Sawyer, eat your heart out.] Doug and Jon Smith lived next door to the Buell family. The others lived nearby. Ergo, it is altogether appropriate to say that when this snap was snapped these kids were literally members of what one might call Vermilion’s original “Our Gang”. Of those pictured Doug Smith and Leon Buell are still familiar faces about town. But most of the rest of the mob has moved on – some to other stomping grounds and some, along with the ever-faithful pooch, Buck, have relocated to other pastures much loftier than those of today or the yesteryear. But there’s one thing for sure: When this photograph was taken all of them were some of “The Best Kids In Town”. [At least that’s the way Vermilion’s old hotdog purveyor Paul Metrakis would have said of it.] Ref: Special Thanks to Denny McKern (& Buck); Sunday, February 17, 2019. YESTERYEAR'S NEWS: The following clips are dictated transcriptions from past issues of The Vermilion News. I think you will find them both interesting and fun... Vol. XIV, No 37 - VERMILION, OHIO THURSDAY, February 23, 1911 Another Business Change George B. Krapp has disposed of his meat market to L. M. Seeley of Wakeman. Mr. Seeley will take charge Monday. Mr. Seeley has been in the business for the past 10 years and conducting the business here will keep up the market’s reputation for first-class goods and consistent prices. Mr. Krapp will engage in the buying and selling of livestock. He is a hustler and this will undoubtedly be very successful. Mr. Seeley sold his Wakeman market a few weeks ago to Adam Berk, who is a relative of H. H. Berk of the Vermilion Mills. Mrs. Jesse Davis Dead Guy S. Davis received a message from Cleveland this morning announcing the death of his mother, Mrs. Jesse Davis. Death must have come suddenly, as Mr. Davis had received no notice of her illness. Many Vermilion people were acquainted with Mrs. Davis who lived here at one time and her many friends here will be greatly shocked at the news of her death. COURT HOUSE NEWS Ernest and Fred Jekl, the Cleveland boys who were sentenced to a $200 fine and 30 days in the workhouse for stealing car Brasses from the Nickel Plate Ry. Co., at Vermilion, were taken to Toledo to begin their sentence Monday. The estate of Mrs. Margaret P. Black late of Vermilion has been appraised at $10,000. C. H. McGraw, M. E. Lawless and H. M. White were the appraisers. Houses Needed Vermilion is again having a famine, not in foodstuffs, but in houses. Nearly every day we have inquiries for houses. When a man purchases a home of his own if he is occupying a rented house, he, or the owner is besieged with people who are inquiring for a place. Rents are such now that we believe it would be a paying investment to build. News of Nearby Towns AMHERST Mrs. Charles Gawn is reported on the sick list. The condition of Benj. Redfern remains about the same. The Macabee Hall is being remodeled this week. Albert Sabiers is reported on the sick list. A large number of books have been added to the public library this week. BORN – to Mr. and Mrs. Pancoft of Washington Avenue a son, Friday, February, 17, 1911. Dana Smith who is been quite ill the past few months is reported on the gain. Work will soon be started on a new sewer for the residents of South Amherst. The Lake Shore railway is closing options and purchasing land on both sides of its rights-of-way for the two additional tracks through Amherst Township and village. The funeral of Lewis Clark of Brownhelm was held from the home at 10 o’clock Sunday morning. The deceased leaves two sons and many friends to mourn their loss. The funeral services of Mrs. Chas. Elizabeth Bonsor was held Monday afternoon from a home at 1:00 o’clock, Rev. W. L. Bretz officiated. Interment was made in Elmwood Cemetery. Mrs. Katherine Hoeh, aged 81 years, died at the home of her son Daniel Hoeh, one and one-half miles north of Oberlin. The funeral was held Thursday from the residence. Interment was made in the Amherst Cemetery. Strong’s Corners Seymour Leimbach has purchased a valuable trotting horse. The Masquerade dance given at S. Amherst Friday night was well attended. RUGBY Mrs. Geo. Arnold is on the sick list at this writing. Esther Leimbach is much better at this writing. Lloyd and Raymond Bacon took in the dance at Vermilion Friday night. BIRMINGHAM Kate Berg is under a doctor’s care. She has an attack of the asthma. Mr. C. Schisler is having a stairway put in the rear of his store. Miss Rose Kline was on the sick list a few days last week. W. P. Funk has put a new stairway in his store and will use the upper room for a sales room. It has greatly improved the store. CEYLON Mr. Frank Barnes of Joppa is busy cleaning stock cars. Mr. Hurley Casebeer is living on his farm in Joppa. The little girl of Charles Schuster was operated upon, at the home by Dr. Woosner and a doctor from Cleveland, Saturday. HURON The Bonnet Bros. have opened the grocery store in the building recently vacated by C. A. Henry. Mr. Cissne applied but the bakery business to Frank acrylic took possession last week. Fishermen are busy making preparations for the opening of the fish season. A number of Huronites are making preparations to raise chickens this season. Mr. Benj. Wilkerson an aged resident is reported very ill at the home of his daughter, Mrs. J Fisher. A daughter came to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Sheppard of Milan last week. They are former Huronites. Mrs. Waldo Foote of Amherst has made application for divorce on grounds of cruelty. The couple were married about six weeks ago. Montgomery Ward & Co., Sears Roebuck & Co, two large Chicago mail order houses have been flooding the country with catalogs and advertising matter and gross sales made by the latter company during the first half of February have shown an increase of 15 per cent. No doubt any and every article sold by these houses could be duplicated by our home merchants and like prices, (quality considered), but many the home merchant doesn’t believe in telling the people what he has to offer and they can buy it as cheaply of him, (all things considered.) He goes on the theory that people know the store is here and let them come or stay away as they like. We believe if the merchants of Vermilion would make an effort, at least half of what goes to these two companies from the locality would go into the stores of this town. There is not a weekly paper in the state but good about fill its pages with the ads from these and other houses of their kind, yet most of them do not for they know that much of the stuff thus advertised is inferior and not a square deal to their readers. [NOTE: My grandfather would not have liked businesses like Amazon at all. While I will admit that his motives were, in may respects, very selfish, they were also in the best interests of the people of the town: Shop Local – and keep the local economy going with jobs and taxes. It was a battle he never won.] OBITUARY Lewis Clark loved and honored citizen of Brownhelm Station for the past 42 years died at his home there Friday, Feb. 17, 1911, at the age of 69. Mr. Clark was born at North Amherst, Ohio. For many years he was an employee of the Lake Shore Ry. Co. At the death of his father, Julius Clark, some 20 years ago, Mr. Clark took charge of the general store and coal office at the Station. The store has been under the management of the family for more than 60 years. Mr. Clark was an upright man, a teetotaler, generous to a fault, always ready to help any worthy cause. Two sons, Newton of Brownhelm and Mort of Pennsylvania two brothers, Fred of Brownhelm and Frank of Vermilion are left. The funeral was held at the house Sunday, conducted by Rev. T. H. D. Harrold of the local M. E. Church and was attended by a large concourse of sorrowing relatives and friends. Newton Clark who is been associated with his father for a number of years will continue the business. BROWNHELM Ora Wilson has been ill for the past few days. Ora Wilson has been ill for the past few days. Mrs. Sarah Cooley is on the sick list. Mrs. Ben Lindsley has had a bad attack of Quinsy. Mr. Henry Brandau is confined to his home by a serious attack of La Grippe. The schools here closed Wednesday in observation of Washington’s Birthday. The home of Mr. Frank Peck is quarantined because of the illness of his children Harold and Marie with scarlet fever. Mr. Lewis Clark, age 69 years, died Friday afternoon at his home at Brownhelm Station. Nearly all his life was passed at this place. He has been postmaster and storekeeper for many years. Funeral services were held Sunday morning. Mrs. Dora Buckley, while visiting her brother, Mr. Elmer Minkler of Lorain was taken very ill last week. Her daughter, Miss Eleanor Buckley of Memorial Hospital, Elyria is caring for her. LOCALS AND PERSONALS BORN to Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Boylan, Furnace street, and eight and one-half pound boy. – Elyria Tel. Mrs. Mary Quigley and son Dean spent Saturday at Cleveland. Mr. and Mrs. John Delker visited their son Charles at Marine Hospital Sunday. He is reported very much improved and high hopes are now entertained for his complete recovery. Mr. and Mrs. Geo. P. Sahl who have been making their home in Cleveland for the past several weeks will move to Vermilion in the near future. They will occupy the rooms over F. V. Pelton store on South Street. This will be good news to their many Vermilion friends. Mr. W. E. Bailey who disposed of his plumbing business here recently has purchased a hardware store on 70th St. Cleveland took possession yesterday. His many Vermilion friends wish him unbounded success in this new enterprise. The family will remain here for the present. Starr Gardner has bought the N. Fisher place and will occupy it soon. Dr. W. E. Derr spent a few days last week with his wife at Marion. We are sorry to report that Mrs. Derr is not improving as rapidly as her friends could wish. RUST – Sarah E. Wife of Lewis T. Rust, Birchfield, O., Wednesday, February 22, 5:15 p.m., age 72 years. The above was among death notices in this morning’s Plain Dealer. Mrs. Rust is a sister-in-law of E. C. Rust of Vermilion. BERLIN HEIGHTS Mrs. Sterling Hill who has been sick for some time is reported to be improving. Mr. Harvey Hill who has been in the employ of the Brass Works at Vermilion for the past year has resigned, and has accepted a position with the Telephone Company of Lima O. where he had been employed as a book and timekeeper. The Suwannee River Colored Male Quartette drew some of the largest crowds that have has been in attendance the past season. They gave excellent satisfaction. The T. T. C. under whose auspices the quartette came did well in their choosing. It is quite evident that the Library to which the benefits were to be applied will receive some results. Axtel Carl Washburn is again able to be out after a short illness. Miss Lulu Bogart is visiting her sister Mrs. H. R. Waldron of Berlin this week. E. B. Welch recently shipped three thoroughbred calves Chicago Jct/ having received $70 $75 apiece for same. Hmmmmmm.... HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY CHAPTER XIV. THE PRESS OF ERIE COUNTY. …for in the fall of the year of its removal to that place the Advertiser became numbered among the evanescent journals of the county. In the office of the paper while at Huron it seems that use was made of the material of the Milan Times, a paper published at Milan, but of the precise time of its birth or death, as a journal, no reliable information is obtainable. George M. Swan is said to have been at one time connected with the paper, and that he was, “perhaps," one of the original proprietors in connection with Mr. Gray. THE DEMOCRATIC MIRROR. In December, 1842, William S. Mills and Sylvester Ross purchased the material of the defunct Commercial Advertiser and issued the first number of the Democratic Mirror, a weekly paper of Sandusky. These proprietors continued its publication with varying success until the year 1847, when John Mackey, then recently admitted to the bar, but not yet in practice, became a part owner in the office, and the firm was changed to Mills, Ross & Mackey. Under the management of these gentlemen a daily was started, and in connection with the weekly edition was continued for about two years, or until May, 1849, when Mr. Mackey retired from the firm to practice law, and J. W. Taylor, better known as “Signal Taylor," took his place in the firm. During the fall of this same year Mr. Ross was attacked with cholera and died Mills & Taylor continued the publication until 1852, when the latter retired, leaving Mr. Mills sole editor and proprietor. In the fall of 1853 the paper was sold to Joseph and Fielding Cable, father and son, under whose control the name of both daily and weekly was changed to the Bay City Mirror. The Cables published the Mirror but a short time and then sold out to Asa Dimmock, and he soon afterwards to Ray Haddock. About this time the daily edition was discontinued. Charles Orton, formerly connected with the Norwalk Experiment, became the owner and proprietor of the paper in May, 1856, but after two years experience in its publication disposed of it to his son, T. S. Orton, but one year later its publication was suspended. THE MILAN TRIBUNE. In the year 1843, the Tribune as a newspaper of Erie county first saw the light of day. It was founded by Clark Waggoner, who brought to Milan for the purposes of the publication the materials formerly used by him in the publication of the Lower Sandusky Whig. After publishing the Tribune, a weekly paper, at Milan for something like eight years, Mr. Waggoner discontinued operations at that place and became interested in the Sandusky Clarion, and moved his stock to the building in which the Clarion was published in Sandusky. Thus ended the life of the Milan Tribune. Mr. Waggoner subsequently severed his connection with the Clarion to assume an editorial position… HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY OHIO With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. Edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich - Syracuse, N.Y. D. Mason & Co., Publishes 1889. VERMILION ARTIFACT #288 VERMILION TRANSPORTATION: I believe this trucking company was located on the southwest side Douglas Street just across the Nickle Plate tracks. Methinks that Don Parsons may now own the property where it was located. ROLLO’S LAST TRICK Paul got off the elevator on the 40th floor and nervously knocked on his blind date's door. She opened it and was as beautiful and charming as everyone had said. "I'll be ready in a few minutes," she said. "Why don't you play with Rollo while you're waiting?" He does wonderful tricks. He rolls over, shakes hands, sits up and if you make a hoop with your arms, he'll jump through." The dog followed Paul onto the balcony and started rolling over. Paul made a hoop with his arms and Rollo jumped through -- and over the balcony railing. Just then Paul's date walked out. "Isn't Rollo the cutest, happiest dog you've ever seen? "To tell the truth," he replied, "he seemed a little depressed to me." LOCAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: After giving it much thought this link has been "put-down". During the last year most of the folks who used to use this page as a bulletin board have acquired their own and, consequently, no longer need this forum from "Views". I have, however, kept links (in the links section) to Larry Hohler's "Hope Homes" in Kenya - and to Bette Lou Higgins' Eden Valley Enterprises sites. They are historically and socially relevant projects. I suggest that you visit these sites on a regular basis to see "what's shakin'". Pay particular note to the "Hope Homes" page during the next few months / years. They are constantly improving the lives of their youngsters and those around them. This is an exciting project accomplished by exciting people. Although this Vermilion High School Class of 1959 reunion is over classmates may want to stay connected with each other through organizerROGER BOUGHTON. Ye can connect by mailing him @ 2205 SW 10th Ave. Austin, MN. 55912 or you can just emailRoger. Rich; it is our 60th reunion and will be very informal. It looks like this at the present time; Tuesday, JULY 9, 2019. -4pm Boat ride Vermilion River and Lagoons (Parsons) -5:30pm Drinks and music on the Patio-Vermilion Boat Club -6:30pm Dinner - order off the menu Vermilion Boat Club Replys can be sent to; Roger Boughton 2205 1th Ave. SW Ausitn, MN. 55912 Persons interested in the history of the Lake Shore Electric Railway (which was the subject of a recent past podcast series) - "the greatest electaric railway system on the planet" may want to go to Amazon.com and purchase a book called "Images of Rail - Lake Shore Electric Railway". It was put together by Thomas J. Patton with the help of my friends DENNIS LAMONT and ALBERT DOANE. It'd make a nice gift. Another great book with Vermilion Roots is, "Grandma's Favorites: A Compilation of Recipes from MARGARET SANDERS BUELL by Amy O'Neal, ELIZABETH THOMPSON and MEG WALTER (May 2, 2012). This book very literally will provide one with the flavor of old Vermilion. And ye can also find it at Amazon.com. Take a look. MARY WAKEFIELD BUXTON'S LATEST BOOK "The Private War of William Styron" is available in paper back for $15.00 with tax and can be purchased locally at Buxton and Buxton Law Office in Urbanna, ordered from any book store, Amazon.com or Brandylane Publishing Company. A signed, hard back edition may be purchased from Mrs. Buxton directly for $30.00 by writing her at Box 488, Urbanna, VA 23175 and including $6.00 for tax, postage and packaging. THE BEAT GOES ON: This page is generated by a dreaded Macintosh Computer and is written and designed by (me) Rich Tarrant. It will change weekly ~ usually on Saturday. Bookmark the URL (Universal Resource Locater) and come back at your own leisure. Send the page to your friends (and enemies if you wish). If you have something to share with those who visit this page, pass it on. And if you see something that is in need of correction do the same. My sister, Nancy, is a great help in that respect. It only takes me a week to get things right. And follow the links. You might find something you like. If you experience a problem with them let me know. Also, if you want to see past editions of this eZine check the new archives links below. If you're looking for my old links section (pictured) I've replaced it with a pull-down menu (visible in the small box next to the word "Go"). If you're looking for links to more Vermilion history check that menu. How the old links menu looked Links to additional Vermilion Ohio pages: Vermilion Ohio Historic Pix The First 100 Years of Vermilion's First Congregational Church History of Linwood Park Vermilion Visitor's Advisory (Satire) Gore Orphanage History The Lester Pelton Story The Wreck of The Niles #152 The History of Crystal Beach Vermilion Views Archives Vermilion's Pioneer Woman; Charlotte Sturges Cloudy; Vermilion's Ferryman The History of Vermilion's Congregational Church Dedication Sermon of Jotham W. Goodell, 1843 The Last Time I Saw Charlie Hope Childrens Home Kenya A Profile of Rich Tarrant Vermilion Biographies Vermilion - Village of Lake Captains Vermilion's Youngest Minstrels Don Englebry's "Growing Up In Vermilion" "Views" Podcast Archive The Story of Vermilion's Education System Eden Valley Enterprises VHS Class of 1959 For Persons who would like to donate to the cause (to keep these "Views" on-line you can send whatever you would like to me at the following address. And THANKS to everybody who has already donated to the cause. I doth certainly appreciate it): Rich Tarrant P.O. Box 437 Vermilion, Ohio 44089 Telephone: 440-967-0988 - Cell: 440-522-8397 or you can use PayPal: (NOTE: IT WORKS NOW) "Too much of a good thing is wonderful. " - Mae West Vol. 16. Issue 51 - February 23, 2019 Vermilion Views Search Engine
One of my first birthday parties at McDonald's—see regular-sized friend beside me. All photos via the author When my mom came home at age 22 and said she was pregnant, aside from the general disappointment parents feel when your unwed young daughter says she's knocked up, my grandmother was thrilled. I was the first baby in our immediate family in decades, and when I arrived, a mere six pounds and one ounce, my grandparents decided they would give me everything they could. By the age of eight, I had visited most of the world's continents, loved Broadway, and took dance classes and gymnastics. I also had unlimited access to food. I lived like a queen: I ate well, I had people at my beck and call, I always had a stroller to ride in or someone to carry me. If I threw a fit, I got a milkshake; if I threw another, I got one more. I ate just about everything nutritionists would say no to—Big Macs, fries, McDonald's pizza (remember those?), hot dogs, milkshakes, Dunkaroos, Lunchables, Teddy Grahams, Mr. Noodles, Fruit Gushers, Spice Girls Chupa Chups, Bugles, Pillsbury Toaster Strudels—in large quantities, all day, every day. If I wasn't eating a delicious assortment of food items and sweets, I was overfeeding my Tamagotchi and Neopets to the point of food explosion. I was a 90s fat kid, the biracial doppelgänger of Bruce Bogtrotter from Matilda. I used to skip to that part of the movie just to watch him eat that perfect chocolate cake. I dreamed of being in that position. Would I eat that cake even though a sweaty, mustached lady just told me it was made with blood, sweat, and tears? Hell yes. I spent my childhood searching for a similar cake until I stumbled upon one at a Just Desserts Café. My mom saw the savage come out as I devoured it. She never took me back again. A 2015 study found that the epidemic of childhood obesity in the US and UK actually started in the 90s, with nearly a fifth of boys and a quarter of girls born after 1990 being obese before their tenth birthday. According to the study, individuals born in the 1990s are two to three times more likely to be obese than individuals born between the 1940s and 1980s. In my favorite spot in the house with a flair for dramatics, age four The study suggested the changing lifestyle of the 90s to be one of the kickstarters of childhood obesity: more kids in front of computer and TV screens, more time on homework, and more aggressive marketing of junk food targeted at children. The health consequences for overweight children are serious. Rebecca Hardy, a researcher involved in the study, told Vitality, "The more of their lives people spend overweight or obese, the greater risk of developing chronic health conditions such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis." Childhood obesity is now considered a health crisis in Canada. According to a 2013 report called "No Time to Wait" by the Ontario's Healthy Kid Panel, 30 percent of children and adolescents (one in three children) are overweight. It mostly affects boys and aboriginal children (the number of obese adults has doubled, tripled for children, and 62.5 percent of aboriginal children under 11 are obese). Obesity costs Canada between $4.6 and $7.1 billion [$3.4 and $5.3 billion USD] annually, and the Canadian Health Measures Survey says kids today are "fatter, rounder, weaker, and less flexible than their parents were a generation ago." A few weeks ago, a new Senate report addressed new ways to end obesity in Canada. The report criticized Canada's Food Guide, declaring it needs a major overhaul because it's "dated" and "enabling." The report also urged federal action to curb obesity by suggesting a sugar tax on drinks and banning food and drink ads for kids. "We can't sugar-coat it any longer. There is an obesity crisis in Canada, and sugar is a big part of that problem. We must act," said Kelvin Ogilvie, the committee's chair. In the 90s, we didn't have the same knowledge on obesity that we do now, let alone a Senate report warning about the dangers of sugar and junk. Life went on as usual with fat kids and their parents. My mom and grandparents never consulted once with a doctor, and my doctor didn't make any comments—so it's hard to tell if I was just overweight or obese. I believe it was the latter. "It was more in relation to seeing other kids, or when we took pictures, that you looked a little bigger than the other kids," my grandpa told me. "We just didn't want you getting any bigger." I question how parents whose child is the size of a small sumo wrestler didn't notice a weight problem, but when I called up my family members to ask them, they were genuinely surprised. My grandpa said I threw fits every time we passed by a McDonald's (which was relatively easy considering it wasn't far from where I lived). He said I wanted the toys the most, but when I got there, I'd end up eating. By kindergarten (keep in mind that I was five), I was towering over my classmates, both in height and circumference. Most years, my mom would have my birthday party at my favorite place—McDonald's. If you see my pictures, you'd think someone invited Yogi Bear to a children's campfire. That, or the girl-child version of Biggie was in town. Who said food? Age two By the time I was six years old, I was wearing pants with elastic and drawstring sweatpants. If I did fit into kids clothing, it was for older children. Add to the fact that my Pakistani mom and grandma didn't know how to style black hair, and I was a hot mess in an oversized T-shirt, hot pink leggings pulled up to my chest, and frizzy braids adorned with plastic butterfly clips. But what I wanted was to look more like a girl-lady. My grandma would buy these DIY kits that came with fabric to make your kid a dress. She'd have to buy two packages to make me one dress, probably the equivalent of material needed to make a tablecloth. When I was barely six and well beyond the average weight of 44 pounds, my grandparents enrolled me in all-girls soccer practice. I couldn't kick the ball for shit, and the team thought I was useless. At the end of our first practice, we had to line to up get our team jersey. My coach was a cute teenage guy, and I knew right then that this wouldn't end well as all the pint-sized little girls ran up and got their beautiful, small-sized, emerald green jerseys. Fat but not stupid, I waited until the line was done to go up and get mine. I couldn't look the cute coach in the eye. But he eyed me, alright—just not the way I hoped. "Um... let's try this one," he said nicely as he scrounged for the next size up. When he took it out, my grandma put it on me. It was like squeezing sausage into casing. To conclude, it took a painstaking 15 minutes to find me a jersey that fit, which ended up being for the older girls' team. While my teammates ran around, glistening in their silky, deep green jerseys, I hobbled around in an ugly, algae green one. I asked my grandpa if it was then that they realized maybe I had a weight problem. He said it still never came up, although he made the point of commenting on my athletic abilities. "You couldn't run as fast as the other kids," he told me. Me and normal-sized friend at age six. We were the same age. My mom also never thought I was obese, just a little hefty. "When me or your grandmother would go on Jenny Craig and we'd get the pre-cooked meals, you'd sneak into the freezer and eat the mac 'n' cheese," she told me. My mom worked late when I was a toddler, and I'd spend all day with my grandma, who obliged my every food desire. When my mom got home, I wanted to be carried, but she couldn't pick me up. "You were so fucking heavy," she said. "But you were fed with love." This denial comes from the woman who knows I'd choose food over a man. The last time my mom dared to share food with me, I was six years old and wouldn't give her a bite of my blueberry pie. We got into a fight, and she didn't talk to me for days. The whole "we loved you and didn't notice you were fat" came up a lot when I asked my family to share my fat stories. They don't have any, because they didn't think I was fat. They kept telling me how cute and happy I was (little did they know about my school yard life, keep reading), even though by eight I had reached colossal status. Keep in mind, I come from a family who doesn't sugar-coat anything. These people weren't trying to soften the blow—they genuinely didn't notice they had raised a blimp. Me, my uncle, and my elastic-drawstring shorts blend, age four What's missing from the equation of childhood obesity is parental responsibility. In 2015, researchers at NYU Langone Medical studied two groups of children: a group of 3,839 kids from 1988–1994, and a group of 3,151 kids from 2007–2012. In the first group, 97 percent of parents of overweight boys and 88 percent of parents of overweight girls said their kids were the "right weight." The numbers were similar for the more recent group, and a study the year before had similar findings. When I asked my aunt if she noticed how big I was, she was speechless. "We used to say that kids who are well-loved and hugged are healthy, so we assumed that you were like that because we were always hugging you. You were so happy." Not really. School was the place I found out I was a bigger fatty than I thought. The only reason I wasn't picked last in gym class was because during dodgeball, I made a fabulous human shield to hide behind, and during volleyball, kids would scatter like loose coins when I served the ball. During red rover, they would unlink their hands long before I even made it to the other side. When boys played that stupid game of rating their female classmates, I was at the end of the list. My friends tried to set me up with a kid at the school across the fence, but when he saw me, he recoiled. I became the weekly school yard event because some little shit would steal my lunch and run around the yard, and kids would laugh as I chased him for my food. This is all funny, but what it really did was kill my confidence, even to this day. I was 16 the first time I spoke to a boy, and 19 by the time I was comfortable making eye contact with people. I'm still extremely shy when I go out in public, and I assume that everyone is laughing at me when they probably don't even realize I'm there. Sometimes I swear I waddle. I even monitor how I eat my lunch because I think I'm going to be ridiculed for holding my sandwich a certain way, and I avoid trying to squeeze through tight spaces even though I know I can. Weight is still a constant battle. Even the parrot is concerned. Age 4 Some experts say that the research is too limited to link self-esteem and depression issues to childhood obesity, but several studies have found a correlation. A 2009 report by researchers at the University of Alberta used Statistics Canada data from the mid and late 90s and surveyed kids at the ages of ten and 11 on their self-esteem. They surveyed the same kids after two and four years, and they found that children who were obese had almost twice the chance of reporting low self-esteem four years later compared with children of a normal weight. The epidemic had to start somewhere; unfortunately, it started with 90s kids (wasn't it bad enough we had soul patches and Fred Durst?). Now, we have endless food options for children (kale puree is a thing now?) and value the importance of a healthy diet and lifestyle for the little human. Even though our obesity rate is not as bad as the States, we at least acknowledged that we've all played a role in fattening up our kids. People are appalled when I tell them that I won't allow my future kids to eat whatever they want, but these are usually the skinny people who would've salivated at the chance to tease me. Once a fat kid, always a fat kid, no matter if you've shed the weight, and I refuse to have my children spend their youth crying in their room or starving themselves or being used as a fucking human dodgeball shield because I let them treat their stomach like a garbage can. When I asked my mom why she let me get so big, she seemed entirely convinced that I made myself fat. Deep down, we both know that isn't true, but I'll let her believe what she wants. I think she's still bitter about the blueberry pie. Follow Eternity Martis on Twitter.
Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. ALL through her life, white people tried to help Wilma Mankiller. As she walked to school, two miles down the hilly, narrow lanes of north-eastern Oklahoma, women in big cars would stop and offer her a ride. She didn't want one. The same women would appear sometimes at the wood-frame house, where her family of 11 lived in three rooms, burning coal-oil and hauling water from the spring, and offer them second-hand clothes. She would run away. If they caught her, they would pat her on her black-haired, Indian head. “Bless your little heart,” they murmured. In 1956, when she was ten, white people suggested her family should move from their farm at Mankiller Flats to San Francisco. The government, having forced her ancestors in 1838 along the Trail of Tears from eastern Tennessee to Indian Territory, now promised them a better life even farther west. They caught the passenger train from Stilwell; she wept Cherokee tears all the way to California. No one had forced them out this time. But they ended up in a drab, violent housing project where her father found back-breaking work in a rope-factory and she was mocked at school for her stupid name. She knew it meant “guardian of the settlement”; but that all seemed far away and irrelevant now. Many years later, when she was principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, a white woman offered money for college scholarships for Indians. She said she wanted to “give pride back” to them. Ms Mankiller had never heard such arrogance. Yes, her tribe needed schools, clinics, day care, Head Start programmes, and all these she was busy procuring for them. But it did not need the patronising charity of white people. Under Ms Mankiller, the Cherokee were learning to rely on themselves again. It had taken time. Over the years the tribe had been absorbed until almost everything was lost. In 1907 the tribal lands in Oklahoma had been broken up into allotments, one of which was given to Ms Mankiller's grandfather at Mankiller Flats; and nothing did more damage to the tribe, she believed, than that loss of commonalty and spiritual, as well as physical, interdependence. Her family had tried to preserve it, bartering with and working for other people. But the Cherokee could not easily find their sense of oneness again. She herself was almost lost to the tribe for a while, married to a Latino at 17, having two daughters early, living a middle-class Californian life. But the San Francisco of the late 1960s gradually radicalised her. The stiletto heels were swapped for sandals; the husband was sidelined; the two small daughters were taken by boat to be part of the Native-American reclamation of the prison-island of Alcatraz; and in 1976 she went back with them in a U-Haul van to Mankiller Flats. There, on the land that was still her family's, they camped under the stars and learned to tell the time by the sun, Cherokee-fashion. Nine years later she was chief of the Cherokee Nation. Hard graft was required. When she first ran for office in 1983, the entire tribal council opposed her: not because she was an activist, but because she was a woman. No woman had led such a large tribe before. She slogged on, “keeping steady”, until she had won them over. Organising in California for other tribes had taught her how to type, draw up grant applications and analyse land treaties; she brought in revenue and social programmes. But firstly she taught self-reliance. She had never forgotten the women at the Indian Centre in San Francisco, poor single mothers who made themselves ballgowns from cast-offs and went out to dance on Saturday nights, their hair piled up under Aqua Net lacquer, determined to unite and shine. She was credited with many things, including the expansion of the tribe from 55,000 to almost 200,000 members, its control of a $75m budget, the revival of the Sequoyah high school and the broadening of horizons for all Indian women. But her own favourite project was one she had masterminded in 1981 in the village of Bell, 14 miles from Mankiller Flats. There she persuaded a dying Cherokee settlement of 300 people, mostly chicken-catchers in run-down shacks, to build their own 16-mile water-line to the mains supply. If they dug or drilled, they would get new houses. The people took a year of persuading; but they built the line. No white person helped them. The “shiftless” Cherokees proudly did everything necessary. Ms Mankiller was not an easy taskmaster. She scolded the people of Bell until they obeyed her. When the tribal council cavilled about her disregard for ceremony, she turned off their microphones. Because the owners of smokeshops refused to pay their taxes, she shut them down. She battled on through constant illnesses, ending with pancreatic cancer, but still considered her biggest challenge was to restore the Cherokees' lost faith in themselves. One cure she knew. At Mankiller Flats, where she went back to live, the old wooden house had been burned down by hunters, but the spring still flowed. A Cherokee ritual called “going to the water” could heal negative thoughts as poultices healed wounds. So there, among the rocky slopes of bending hickory and walnut trees, her feet slightly wary of crawfish in the icy water, she would gather positive strength for herself, as well as for her tribe.
Introduction: In 1953, a year in advance of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that would rule racially segregated public schools unconstitutional, Georgia Governor Herman Talmage laid the groundwork for a voucher scheme that would privatize Georgia's public schools. Talmadge and his fellow pro-segregation state governors never implemented that plan, but now - over fifty years later - a shockingly similar neo-voucher scheme, backed by Michelle Rhee's pro-privatization group StudentsFirst, is siphoning taxpayer money off to fund white-dominated wealthy suburban schools and pay for students to attend Christian fundamentalist private schools that bar openly-LGBT students even teach that they are hated by God. Judging by StudentsFirst's choice for its first two "educators of the year" -- Tea Party-aligned state legislators who have sponsored virulently anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant legislation, the Rhee-backed neo-voucher schemes now operating in twelve U.S. states, which have been accused of fostering a new, anti-gay school segregation regime, are dragging the racist legacy of Southern segregation in tow. Following the election of New Jersey's new U.S. Senator, Cory Booker, StudentsFirst head Michelle Rhee emitted a series of chirpy congratulatory tweets which proclaimed, among other things, that "education is the civil rights issue of our time". Rhee might just have a point, but as an article from the October 2013 issue of Rolling Stone explores, through their support for school privatization schemes Rhee and Booker (who enthusiastically endorses StudentsFirst) might not be on the better side of the issue. In The Hidden War Against Gay Teens, Rolling Stone's Alex Morris explores the growth of taxpayer-funded Christian fundamentalist schools, funded by neo-voucher schemes in 12 US states, that actively practice anti-gay discrimination -- barring LGBT students from attending and even teaching that they are hated by God. Morris crisply explains, "Georgia, along with 11 other states (Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida, Rhode Island, Iowa, Indiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, New Hampshire, Louisiana and, most recently, Alabama), has adopted laws – sometimes referred to as "neovouchers" – to grant dollar-for-dollar tax credits to people who donate money to provide children with scholarships to private schools. In theory, such a plan has the potential to help a lot of students, but in practice, especially in deeply religious places like Georgia, it has also meant that millions of dollars have been redirected from public funds to privately run Student Scholarship Organizations, which can then funnel the money to schools with strict anti-gay policies. Because the money goes straight to the SSO and never actually enters the public coffers, it's free and clear of being considered a "public fund" – allowing church and state to technically be kept separate. All of which may sound fishy, but consider this: It's fully legal because the laws make it so. And, as the school-choice movement gains ground, it's certain that other states will soon pass similar legislation." "The Accelerated Christian Education's 11th-grade science materials include a section on "Man's Corruptions," in which students are taught, "In Old Testament times, God commanded that homosexuals be put to death. Since God never commanded death for normal or acceptable actions, it is unreasonable to say that homosexuality is normal." A biology textbook published by the Bob Jones University Press begins a section on homosexuality by quoting Romans and goes on to say that "God calls homosexuality a sin and condemns those who engage in it." Such textbooks, and others with a similar stance on homosexuality, are part of the core curriculum in Georgia's Christian schools." Alex Morris' October 2013article also documents viciously anti-gay content taught by these neo-voucher funded Christian fundamentalist schools: The Talmadge Plan So where did these voucher schemes come from ? As it turns out, the original idea seems to trace back to a reactionary plan, hatched by staunch pro-segregationist racists such as Georgia Governor Herman Talmadge, that was never implemented but was designed to privatize all of Georgia's public schools in order to thwart to desegregation mandated by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. Earlier this year, I came across a mention so intriguing that I was compelled to break a cardinal rule and buy a new book, at full price. That book was White Flight - Atlanta And The Making Of Modern Conservatism, by Kevin M. Kruse (2005, Princeton University Press). On page 132, Kevin Kruse describes, "At the heart of their plan to defend schools segregation, for instance, stood a revolutionary scheme called the "private-school plan." In 1953, a full year before Brown, Governor Talmadge advanced a constitutional amendment giving the general assembly the power to privatize the state's entire system of public education. In the event of a court-ordered desegregation, school buildings would be closed, and students would instead receive grants to attend private, segregated schools. "We can maintain separate schools regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court", Talmadge promised, "by reverting to a private system, subsidizing the child rather than the political subdivision." This is mind boggling, because the mechanism Talmadge envisioned, to protect Georgia's racist regime of segregated schools, is exactly the mechanism now used to channel taxpayer dollars to private schools in twelve states across the union. Let me explain - in brief, the reason that neo-vouchers have been deemed to be constitutional is that the taxpayer money funding these schemes never actually goes into state coffers; taxpayers, both individuals and corporate, give the tax money, that they would otherwise pay to the state, instead to private nonprofits which disperse scholarships to students. Court decisions have ruled that these schemes are not funding radically sectarian religious schools (which would be unconstitutional) - they're simply providing scholarship funding that enable students to attend those schools: a dubious and, as a practical point, virtually meaningless distinction. It's not even necessary to rely on Kruse' tight scholarship to understand this underlying basic, horrid truth - that a plan hatched over fifty years ago to institutionalize racism, and segregated schools, has recrudesced and is in fact spreading, albeit in a nominally "non-racist" guise; here's a video of the late Governor Talmadge himself describing his planned segregationist voucher scheme: [see my partial transcript at the end of this post] Kevin Kruse, again from page 132, lays out the intensity of planning that went into the scheme to retain Georgia's segregated schools through a voucher-funded private school system: "During the 1956 legislative session, for instance, the General Assembly strengthened the plan with several new laws. Legislators laid out a plan to transfer all public-school property and functions to private hands. No detail was left untouched. Procedures for fire marshal examinations of private schools, for instance, were reworded and made to conform to the standards for public ones. Likewise, the legislature amended the state retirement program to ensure that all public-school teachers would maintain their coverage at private institutions. If the courts ordered their schools to desegregate, the governor could thus switch everything to a nominally "private" system without missing a beat." Then, Kruse drops a bombshell of a thesis - suggesting that this was the origin of the modern school privatization movement, at least in Southern states: "As the private-school pan made clear, massive resistance had the potential to reshape the political and social landscape of the South. Although its proponents framed their resistance as a way to stop the clock on racial change and preserve the customs of the past, in truth the movement represented the first significant step toward a new conservative politics more attuned to the future. For it was in their challenge to integration that white southerners in Atlanta, and across the region, first considered major changes that they otherwise might never have contemplated--including complete abandonment of public education, and introduction of a system of tax breaks and tuition grants to fund the scheme." Now, over a half century later, Talmadge's scheme is being implemented, and in many of the states which had active segregation back in Talmadge's day. The Road To Neo-Voucher Segregation The Talmadge plan would have created an entire regime of private schools by government fiat. But it was never implemented -- the historical arc of Southern "massive resistance" against desegregation took another route. Following the public relations debacle of the 1925 Scopes Trial, Protestant fundamentalism retreated from the public sphere, to build its own private schools and institutions of higher learning. But eventually, events caught up with the movement: Many who study the modern religious right as an American political movement that arose in the latter half of the 20th Century attribute its emergence, in part, to anger over the aftermath of a 1971 Supreme Court decision, Green v. Connally, which ruled the U.S. Internal Revenue Service code does not grant tax-exempt status (or allow for tax deductible contributions) to private schools that practice racial discrimination. Then in 1975, under the presidential administration of Jimmy Carter, the IRS moved to revoke the tax exempt status of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University - which only dropped its ban on interracial dating in 2000, following an uproar over presidential candidate George W. Bush's visit to the school. Stung by the Carter Administration's actions, because many conservative evangelicals and even fundamentalists had backed Carter's presidential bid, fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals began their long reentry into electoral politics. As key architect of the religious right Paul Weyrich recounted, "I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed. What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation." Weyrich's admission was subject of an extended treatment by evangelical historian Randall Balmer, who in his 2006 book The Kingdom Come - An Evangelical's Lament - How The Religious Right Distorts The Faith and Threatens America writes, "In the 1980s, in order to solidify their shift from divorce to abortion, the Religious Right constructed an abortion myth, one accepted by most Americans as true. Simply put, the abortion myth is this: Leaders of the Religious Right would have us believe that their movement began in direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Politically conservative evangelical leaders were so morally outraged by the ruling that they instantly shed their apolitical stupor in order to mobilize politically in defense of the sanctity of life.... It's a compelling story, no question about it. Except for one thing: It isn't true. Although various Roman Catholic groups denounced the ruling, and Christianity Today complained that the Roe decision "runs counter to the moral teachings of Christianity through the ages but also to the moral sense of the American people," the vast majority of evangelical leaders said virtually nothing about it" Balmer describes being invited to a 1990 Washington, D.C. conference, attended by key leaders of the emerging religious right including Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, and Paul Weyrich, at which Weyrich - who since his work with the 1964 Goldwater presidential campaign had sought to draw evangelicals into politics - pegged the pro-segregationist roots of the movement he helped engineer: "[Weyrich] declared, in effect, that the origins of the Religious Right lay in Green v. Connally rather than Roe v. Wade. I quickly concluded, however, that his story made a great deal of sense. When I was growing up within the evangelical subculture, there was an unmistakably defensive cast to evangelicalism... The IRS attempt to deny tax-exempt status to segregated private schools, then, represented an assault on the evangelical subculture, something that raised an alarm among many evangelical leaders, who mobilized against it. For his part, Weyrich saw the evangelical discontent over the Bob Jones case as the opening he was looking for to start a new conservative movement using evangelicals as foot soldiers." Balmer's frontal assault on the pervasive myth, cultivated by the religious right, that the movement arose in opposition to Roe v. Wade has not to this day been fully assimilated into mainstream political awareness, even though the religious right has come to exert a pervasive and even destabilizing impact on American electoral politics. "During the meeting in Washington, D.C., Weyrich went on to characterize the leaders of the Religious Right as reluctant to take up the abortion cause even close to a decade after the Roe ruling. "I had discussions with all the leading lights of the movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s, post–Roe v. Wade," he said, "and they were all arguing that that decision was one more reason why Christians had to isolate themselves from the rest of the world." "What caused the movement to surface," Weyrich reiterated,"was the federal government's moves against Christian schools." The IRS threat against segregated schools, he said, "enraged the Christian community." That, not abortion, according to Weyrich, was what galvanized politically conservative evangelicals into the Religious Right and goaded them into action. "It was not the other things," he said. [...] ...I cornered Weyrich to make sure I had heard him correctly. He was adamant that, yes, the 1975 action by the IRS against Bob Jones University was responsible for the genesis of the Religious Right in the late 1970s. What about abortion? After mobilizing to defend Bob Jones University and its racially discriminatory policies, Weyrich said, these evangelical leaders held a conference call to discuss strategy. He recalled that someone suggested that they had the makings of a broader political movement—something that Weyrich had been pushing for all along—and asked what other issues they might address. Several callers made suggestions, and then, according to Weyrich, a voice on the end of one of the lines said, "How about abortion?" And that is how abortion was cobbled into the political agenda of the Religious Right." Summing up, Balmer levels this searing indictment: "The Religious Right arose as a political movement for the purpose, effectively, of defending racial discrimination at Bob Jones University and at other segregated schools. Whereas evangelical abolitionists of the nineteenth century sought freedom for African Americans, the Religious Right of the late twentieth century organized to perpetuate racial discrimination." Amidst the tremendously complex architecture of the movement which emerged from that racist backlash Balmer describes, within the movement we know as the "religious right", is a key sector: education. From the mid-1970s and up to the present, leaders of the movement founded new schools and universities -- such as Jerry Falwell's Liberty University and Pat Robertson's Regent University, and myriad K-12 Christian private schools and academies. Fallwell's and Robertson's schools, and other such fundamentalist institutions of higher learning are now absorbing, each year, hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding which, like the funding that flows through neo-voucher programs, is premised on the same thin technical distinction -- that it does not directly fund these schools but, rather, provides students tuition and loan money to attend them. These institutions tend to champion Young Earth Creationism and deny evolution, and oppose LGBT rights (some quietly, some overtly); and they generally promote the raft of issues dear to the religious right as a movement -- opposition to government taxation and regulation, promotion of Laissez-faire capitalism, opposition to the environmental movement and the feminist movement, and promotion of a Christian nationalist and "biblical" worldview discussed by journalist Frederick Clarkson in a landmark essay published Spring 2007 in Public Eye magazine, History is Powerful - Why the Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters: "The notion that America was founded as a Christian nation is a central animating element of the ideology of the Christian Right. It touches every aspect of life and culture in this, one of the most successful and powerful political movements in American history. The idea that America's supposed Christian identity has somehow been wrongly taken, and must somehow be restored, permeates the psychology and vision of the entire movement. No understanding of the Christian Right is remotely adequate without this foundational concept. ...through a growing cottage industry of Christian revisionist books and lectures now dominating the curricula of home schools and many private Christian academies, Christian nationalism becomes a central feature of the political identity of children growing up in the movement. The contest for control of the narrative of American history is well underway. [...] A running refrain in the revisionist narrative is that somehow the original intention of God and the Founding Fathers has been thwarted by some combination of liberals, judicial tyrants, the ACLU, secular humanists, and more. This notion, which seems silly to some, is tremendously powerful in the context of the conservative Christian subculture. It asserts that "the Christians," (however one may define Christians), are the intended rulers of the nation, because that's what God, the Founding Fathers, and by implication, the Constitution, sought to accomplish. It is a powerful piece of political and religious mythology that feeds into another powerful myth - that Christians are persecuted in the United States by the very forces that have thwarted God's plan for America. The effect is to make people feel that something has been unjustly, unrighteously taken from them - and that that something must be "restored" or "reclaimed." So, to sum up -- the modern religious right movement which began, per its own key leaders, as a racist backlash against court-mandated desegregation, went on to found fundamentalist schools that - as As Alex Morris' Rolling Stone story lays out - are now receiving, with the enthusiastic backing of Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst, funding through neo-voucher programs, in what amounts to a new, state-supported anti-gay, segregationist private school system. The principle underlying difference between the privatization plan created in Georgia in the 1950s and the current neo-voucher system, beyond surface distinctions, is this: the Talmdage plan was reactive - it sought to protect the established segregationist order. The neo-voucher-funded fundamentalist schools both establish a new, anti-LGBT segregationist regime but also further a wider project -- the goal of "reclaiming America", and remaking it as the once and future Christian nation. LGBT Students and Science Last "In accordance with the Statement of Faith and in recognition of Biblical principles, no "immoral act" or "identifying statements" concerning fornication, adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, or pornography, will be tolerated. Such behavior will constitute grounds for expulsion... " -- Official school policy at Cherokee Christian Schools, a Georgia private school currently receiving state tax money under a tuition tax credit program that was expanded in 2011 by the StudentsFirst 2012 "educator of the year" former Georgia state senator "Chip" Rogers. "Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years. This could not have happened if evolution were true." -- from Bob Jones University Press Life Science text, taught in 7th Grade at Cherokee Christian Schools. "Most of the private schools are religious... Many of those schools adhere to a fundamentalist brand of Christianity. A commonly used sixth-grade science text retells the creation story contained in Genesis, omitting any other explanation. An economics book used in some high schools holds that the Antichrist — a world ruler predicted in the New Testament — will one day control what is bought and sold." -- May 5, 2012 New York Times story, Public Money Finds Back Door to Private Schools that focused on the flow of taxpayer money to private religious schools - such as Georgia's tuition tax credit program which was expanded in 2011 with help from the StudentsFirst 2012 "educational reformer of the year", former George State Senator "Chip" Rogers. "StudentsFirst is a single-issue organization. That means we focus on improving education for kids, and nothing else." - StudentsFirst head Michelle Rhee, June 5, 2013 In 2013 Michelle Rhee's pro-school privatization organization StudentsFirst nominated TN state representative John Ragan, who a year earlier had compared LGBT sex to murder and child-abuse, "Educator of the Year". In early 2012, Ragan had co-sponsored a Tennessee bill (HB1153) which would have allowed forms of school bullying that expressed "religious, philosophical, or political views." Responding to a January 2012 letter from a Tennessee lesbian high school student who was concerned about the "license to bully" bill, Representative Ragan suggested that LGBT sex was behaviorally similar to rape, murder, child-abuse, and overeating. After receiving his 2012 StudentsFirst "reformer of the year" nomination, Ragan soldiered on to co-sponsor another TN state legislature bill, the "don't say gay" bill (HB1332), which would have not only blocked discussion of homosexuality in Tennessee schools but also required school officials to tell parents about students who are gay or who simply were suspected of being gay. It was a notable public relations debacle - Ragan was exposed as a die-hard anti-gay crusader of the religious right and embattled school privatization champion Michelle Rhee incurred the wrath of both LGBT rights advocates, and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party (nonetheless, StudentsFirst still supports the nomination.) In an apparent attempt at PR damage control, in April 2013, StudentsFirst staff member Eric Lerum boasted of StudentsFirsts' alleged support for gay rights, tweeting, "We were 1st ntl edreform org to support anti-bullying, to my knowledge. Whole staff did It Gets Better video." StudentsFirst continued to stand by its nomination of Ragan, despite his position in the vanguard of Tennessee anti-LGBT legislation, until June 6th, when StudentsFirst head Michelle Rhee wrote, on the StudentsFirst website, "[John Ragan's] introduction of ill-conceived and harmful legislation including HB 1332 — which would have cultivated a culture of bullying — does not represent the type of leadership we look for in our legislative champions. Simply put, we must hold our ‘reformers of the year’ to a higher standard. So let me be very clear — policies that are intended to single out any student based on their sexual orientation and treat them differently are wrong." But - unnoticed until now - StudentsFirst's 2012 "Educator of the Year", former Georgia state senator "Chip" Rogers was just as problematic, and for similar reasons.: StudentsFirst's nomination of Rogers as "Education Reformer of the Year" originally came under fire because then-Senator Rogers had sponsored three separate pieces of anti-immigrant bills, "one of which would cut off all state services to illegal immigrants" according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. But immigrants were not the only group in Rogers' legislative crosshairs. Although Tennessee Rep. Ragan's failed antigay legislation earned considerable notoriety, StudentsFirst's "Education Reformer of the Year" for 2012, former Georgia Senate Majority Leader "Chip" Rogers, has arguably played a more substantive role in battling LGBTI rights - by helping expand (see page 10, linked PDF) Georgia's tax credit program that, as reported by the New York Times on January 20, 2013 - channels millions of state tax dollars to virulently anti-gay Georgia private religious schools that use creationist educational curricula filled with inaccuracies, historical revisionism, heavy political slant, denigration of non-Protestant fundamentalist religious beliefs, and bizarre pseudo-scientific claims. Segregation, revisited In a statement concerning Rogers' 2012 nomination as "Educator of The Year", StudentsFirst's Vice President Tim Melton praised Rogers' support for "innovative approaches to learning" and declared, "Sen. Rogers has played an invaluable role as a strong and devoted ally in driving education reform initiatives in Georgia." But as a shocking January 2013 17-page report from the nonprofit Southern Education Foundation detailed, since its establishment in 2008, "Georgia's tax credit scholarship program has diverted more than $170 million in taxpayer funds to cover the tuition costs of students in private schools during the last four years... This program of educational tax credits is providing public financing to a large number of private schools in Georgia that have draconian anti-gay policies and practices." In effect, Georgia's tuition tax credit scheme is financing a rebirth of school segregationism that explicitly targets gays rather than blacks. According to the Southern Education Foundation January 2013 report, "At least 115 private schools participating in Georgia's tax-funded scholarship program have explicit, severe anti-gay policies or belong to state and national private school associations that promote anti-gay policies and practices among their members. These schools constitute approximately one-fourth of all private schools that are currently affiliated with SSOs in Georgia's tax-funded scholarship program. There is also a larger number of religious schools, many involved in the state tax credit program, that use textbooks and curriculum materials in the classrooms condemning both homosexuality and gays. [...] These anti-gay policies and practices among tax-supported schools do far more than condemn gay students for who they are. They affirmatively deny gay students (and often other students who may openly tolerate or defend gay students) admission to educational institutions receiving public funds. And, the policies insure that gay students are denied access to tax-funded scholarships at these schools primarily on the basis of the students' identity - not their conduct or performance in school. In effect, public funds from Georgia's tax credit scholarship program are being denied students in private schools exclusively on the basis of who the students are, who they accept, or what they believe. More broadly, tax funds and the governmental power to validate school programs as suitable for Georgia's children are going to private entities - both private schools and private accrediting agencies - that punish, denounce, and even demonize students in the name of religion solely because they are gay, state that they are homosexual, happen to have same-sex parents or guardians, or express support or tolerance for gay students at school, away from school, or at home." Neo-Vouchers, Privatization, and a New Civil Rights Movement In recent years, LGBT rights advocates have explicitly compared the battle for gay rights to the Civil Rights movement and, indeed, Georgia's growing tuition tax credit program itself carries troubling echoes of the Peach State's pro-segregationist past : Following the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools, then-Georgia Governor Herman Talmadge had warned that "blood will run in Atlanta's streets." Declared Talmadge, "We intend to maintain separate schools in Georgia, one way or another." That very year, 1954, Talmadge's term as governor ran out, and the Georgia constitution barred him from a second term. Former governor Talmadge went on to a long career as a member of the U.S. Senate, where he voted against the 1964 civil rights and the 1965 voting rights bills. While Talmadge's segregationist voucher scheme was never implemented, the lineage carries on - through voucher and tuition tax credit schemes rapidly spreading across the nation, propelled by massive amounts of corporate cash and championed by strategists of the Christian right, notably Dick DeVos and Betsy DeVos, head of the pro-privatization group American Federation For Children. According to People For The American Way Fellow Peter Montgomery, "Religious Right leaders and anti-government ideologues have shared a decades-long dream: to dismantle public education through a system of vouchers that would divert taxpayer funds out of public schools and into religious schools and other private academies. For some, privatizing education is primarily a religious or ideological project. For others, the billions of dollars that flow through public schools is a tempting source of cash." As researcher Rachel Tabachnick explains, in a Public Eye article on the spread of "school choice" initiatives across America, tuition tax credit schemes were conceived by pro-school privatization forces, following the decisive voter rejection of school voucher initiatives in California and Michigan in the 2000 election, as a rebranding tactic to move past the racist stigma associated with vouchers. In 2002, during a speech to the Heritage Foundation in which he outlined a state-by-state "stealth" strategy to advance school privatization, Amway fortune heir Dick DeVos warned "We need to be cautious about talking too much about these activities". "Welfare for the rich" In the 2011 legislative session, StudentsFirst's 2012 "Educator of the Year" Senate Majority Leader "Chip" Rogers helped pass legislation enabling financial expansion of the Georgia tuition tax credit program, which has since come under increasing criticism, for its apparent purpose - as a tax subsidy for private schools that ultimately drains money from Georgia's public school system and seems to violate the spirit of Georgia's state constitution, by funneling tax money to sectarian religious schools. Beyond gay rights and church-state separation concerns, programs such as Georgia's raise issues of economic fairness: In a February 28, 2013 report, the Washington Post suggested that state tuition tax credit programs may amount to "welfare for the rich". Wrote author Valerie Strauss, "Call it welfare for the rich. Why? Wealthy businesses and individuals are the folks who get the tax credits for putting up the cash to pay the tuition. Furthermore, the amount of money for tuition made available for tuition by private scholarship organizations often does not actually cover the full cost of attending a private school. Poor families can't make up the difference. Guess who can." Strauss' Washington Post story followed a May 22, 2012 New York Times report from Stephanie Saul, which noted only a small percent of Georgia's tuition tax credit program money benefits poor children and observed that, nationally, tuition tax credit programs serve a number of less-than fully altruistic goals: "Spreading at a time of deep cutbacks in public schools, the programs... redirected nearly $350 million [in 2012] that would have gone into public budgets... While the scholarship programs have helped many children whose parents would have to scrimp or work several jobs to send them to private schools, the money has also been used to attract star football players, expand the payrolls of the nonprofit scholarship groups and spread the theology of creationism, interviews and documents show... Most of the private schools are religious... Many of those schools adhere to a fundamentalist brand of Christianity. A commonly used sixth-grade science text retells the creation story contained in Genesis, omitting any other explanation. An economics book used in some high schools holds that the Antichrist -- a world ruler predicted in the New Testament -- will one day control what is bought and sold." Tea Party Republicans first ? StudentsFirst's 2012 endorsement of Former Georgia Senator "Chip" Rogers initially hit heavy criticism last August because, while StudentsFirst officially supports the immigration reform DREAM Act, Senator Rogers was author of three draconian anti-immigrant bills and was identified in a 2004 Southern Poverty Law Center report as being part of a growing movement of "xenophobic hatred" in Georgia. Although Michelle Rhee has touted her StudentsFirst effort as bipartisan, the slate of candidates it backed in 2012 suggests otherwise. In the 2012 electoral cycle, 90 out of the 105 candidates nationally who were financially backed by StudentsFirst as "education reform" candidates were Republicans, many of whom were on the far right. One was "Chip" Rogers, who received $1750 from StudentsFirst and $4800 from the pro-school privatization group American Federation For Children. In the same year StudentsFirst gave $6500 to help reelect Tennessee Representative John Ragan. Chip Rogers' tenure in the Georgia Senate did not long survive his reelection or his selection by StudentsFirst as a hero of education "reform". In October 2012 at a private Georgia Republican caucus session, Senator Rogers organized and presided over a 4-hour presentation led by a former Georgia Tea Party member who gave an extended Powerpoint presentation in which he warned that the nonbinding United Nations Resolution known as Agenda 21, which encourages sustainable development, is in fact part of a United Nations conspiracy to impose a totalitarian one world government. The presentation claimed the Obama Administration planned to implement the evil plot using Cold War-era mind control techniques. Following negative publicity over the event, which was partially filmed by a Georgia public-interest group which publicly released the footage, Senator Rogers opted, in November 2012, not to run for a third two-year term as Georgia Senate Majority Leader. The following December, Rogers resigned his senate seat and subsequently was appointed, amidst considerable controversy to head the Georgia Public Broadcasting corporation. Former Senator Rogers' October caucus session was even more extreme than media coverage suggested. The session also featured a screening of a one and a half hour conspiracy theory-packed documentary video named "Agenda: Grinding America Down", by evangelical activist Curtis Bowers. Bowers' video depicts liberals, progressives, and the Democratic Party as part of a covert communist plot to infiltrate, subvert, and destroy American democracy, free enterprise, the family, and Judeo-Christian civilization -- a grand conspiracy alleged to include the feminist movement, the "homosexual movement", the environmental movement, the anti-war movement, Moveon.com, Media Matters For America, A.C.O.R.N. and, needless to say, President Barack Obama. In the video's introduction Bowers intones, "History has proven beyond any doubt that the free enterprise that freedom produces more for anyone willing to work than any other system. So why would the left still be pushing their socialist agenda on us ? I mean, it's really just microwave communism. There's really only two possibilities. They're either ignorant, or they're evil." Partial transcript, Talmadge video Governor Talmadge's commentary on his plans to thwart the upcoming Brown decision begins at 4:20 in the video, and continues for over ten minutes. At 6:52, Talmadge states, "At the last session of the [Georgia] general assembly, they submitted a constitutional amendment to the people of our state for their approval or rejection, which will enable the general assembly, in its discretion and in its wisdom, to utilize tax funds for the payment of tuition fees to private institutions, if that becomes necessary." One of the two moderators interviewing Talmadge then comments, "Well that is going to be a very difficult system to set up, I suppose. Would it be very expensive, sir? To which Talmadge replies, "Anything the Supreme Court does to thwart or change our present system of state-control of our educational systems will be the most difficult thing that we in the Southern states have had to approach or deal with since the war between the states." The moderator interjects, "It will effect something like twelve million school children and the District of Columbia..." Leaping in with more comprehensive statistics on segregation, Talmadge lays out, "Tremendous number - actually seventeen states have mandatory segregation, four states have permissive segregation, but at one time the overwhelming majority of the states in the union had segregation. Now, the white people in the South and also the Negros in the South want it left alone, just like it is. A few agitators, white and colored, want to change it." The moderator observes, "Governor, this means, in effect, your state would set up a private school system." Somewhat testily, Talmadge retorts, "I don't think there's any doubt that my state would do so, if they had to, to maintain segregation. We intend to maintain separate schools in Georgia one way or another, come what may. A lot of people are not familiar with it, don't realize how far reaching or deep-seated that is, for both races, white and colored. Now, by the nearest comparison I can possibly think of at the moment - if the Supreme Court of the United States suddenly handed down a decision that you could no longer worship your God, in these United States, as you saw fit - you can imagine the consternation, the chaos, the turmoil, the excitement that would create. Any decision to outlaw segregation in common schools in the Southern states would amount to about the same thing in our area. Moderator: "Well, Governor, does that mean, if you're going to make, set up a private schools with state funds, that no matter how the decision goes, the Negros are going to benefit through better schools and more advanced education ?" Talmadge: "Actually, the Negros are already benefiting through fine schools in Georgia." "School privatization schemes, hatched during the racist Southern backlash against the 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision, are now both undermining the urban public schools that many African-American students attend by siphoning taxpayer money off in neo-voucher schemes that fund white-dominated wealthy suburban schools and are also funding a new segregation regime that discriminates against LGBT students and even teaches that they are hated by God. Michelle Rhee's national pro-school privatization group StudentsFirst appears to be all for it." : this is my original story introduction, which I rewrote October 20, 2013.
The Republican senator from Florida is conservative. But he's not Trump. The New York real estate scion and reality TV star flirted with racism at the start of his campaign — Mexicans are "drug dealers" and "rapists," he said — and since then he's had several full-on make out sessions with white nationalism. With the latest development, right here in Minnesota, Trump and his racist backers might have hit third base. It seems that likely caucus voters in the Iron Range are getting robocalls trying to push them toward backing Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The calls are very, very racist. The campaign messages are originating from the American National SuperPAC, an explicitly white nationalist organization that's making its calls out of the 213 area code in Los Angeles. The supporter on one call identifies himself as "William Johnson, a farmer and white nationalist." Johnson then explains that the "white race is dying out in America and Europe, because we are afraid to be called racist." Then Johnson, if that's really his name, says some stuff that will definitely get someone called racist. Schools don't have enough "beautiful white children" these days, and white people are facing a "genocide" if they don't speak up for... what, it's not clear. White people things. Mayonnaise. Duck Dynasty. Maybe don't call Carly Melin and ask her to vote for Donald Trump. "Don't vote for a Cuban," the ad says, a clear reference to Marco Rubio, "vote for Donald Trump." The ad claims Trump's biggest selling point is that he is "not afraid." But its senders should be a little afraid that they've targeted some of the wrong people. One recipient was a Democratic legislator, Rep. Carly Melin, DFL-Hibbing, who shared with City Pages the audio of a voice message she received Thursday evening. Click below to hear the short, frightening clip. [audio-1] Melin thinks, charitably, the racists on the other end might have been blindly hitting households that have previously voted in caucuses or primaries. That's Melin, sure. But the third-term Iron Range legislator is also a lifelong Democrat. And she's not a racist. "I found the content to be offensive," Melin said, "and am shocked that so much hateful rhetoric has been part of the 2016 election cycle." Sadly, it has. We have Donald Trump to thank for most of it.
Licorice root extracts are often consumed as botanical dietary supplements by menopausal women as a natural alternative to pharmaceutical hormone replacement therapy. In addition to their components liquiritigenin (Liq) and isoliquiritigenin (Iso-Liq), known to have estrogenic activity, licorice root extracts also contain a number of other flavonoids, isoflavonoids, and chalcones. We have investigated the estrogenic activity of 7 of these components, obtained from an extract of Glycyrrhiza glabra powder, namely Glabridin (L1), Calycosin (L2), Methoxychalcone (L3), Vestitol (L4), Glyasperin C (L5), Glycycoumarin (L6), and Glicoricone (L7), and compared them with Liq, Iso-Liq, and estradiol (E2). All components, including Liq and Iso-Liq, have low binding affinity for estrogen receptors (ERs). Their potency and efficacy in stimulating the expression of estrogen-regulated genes reveal that Liq and Iso-Liq and L2, L3, L4, and L6 are estrogen agonists. Interestingly, L3 and L4 have an efficacy nearly equivalent to E2 but with a potency ca. 10,000-fold less. The other components, L1, L5 and L7, acted as partial estrogen antagonists. All agonist activities were reversed by the antiestrogen, ICI 182,780, or by knockdown of ERα with siRNA, indicating that they are ER dependent. In HepG2 hepatoma cells stably expressing ERα, only Liq, Iso-Liq, and L3 stimulated estrogen-regulated gene expression, and in all cases gene stimulation did not occur in HepG2 cells lacking ERα. Collectively, these findings classify the components of licorice root extracts as low potency, mixed ER agonists and antagonists, having a character akin to that of selective estrogen receptor modulators or SERMs.
From the November 2011 issue of PC Gamer comes pictures of... Riven: "The Shattered Exile" http://i.imgur.com/H6fsB.jpg "It's never too late for redemption. This former Noxian soldier has forsaken her malevolent compatriots on a quest for self-discovery, wielding a shattered sword to remind her of the fractured world she left behind. Her high-mobility playstyle is reminiscent of arcade fighters, with the ability to combo skills in quick succession for maximum damage. When she gets her ultimate, people will die: her sword reforms to unlock its full power, sending massive energy waves crackling through the air with each slice." Plus her pretty hot sword: http://i.imgur.com/GjtRt.jpg AND : Magus: "The Magus Ascendant" http://i.imgur.com/W4eLE.jpg "This caster champ, a being of pure energy, perfectly captures the feeling of uncontrollable power. He charges up energy with each spellcast, temporarily increasing the damage and cost of subsequent spells. Playing him will be a tricky balancing act between knowing when to open the floodgates and pour out your damage, and when you're better off taking the slow-and-steady route" The main image of Magus as a white ghost with armor and chains is his "super-charged" form, while the bottom shield-like image is his "low-energy" form. And then I have my free Arctic Warfare Caitlyn skin code, teehee. Reds: Quote: IronStylus: Hee hee... Quote: RiotRunaan: :3 So stoked. o u.EDIT:EDIT2:
What a British jihadist's anti-Arab rant tells us about life in the so-called Islamic State Image caption Omar Hussain has defended beheadings and threatened terror attacks against Britain - and he's now penned a rant about the manners of his Syrian hosts A British fighter for so-called Islamic State has penned what seems to be a racially charged rant against Arabs - providing a surprising glimpse into tensions inside IS-held areas of Syria. Omar Hussain is one of at least 700 Britons thought to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join militant groups. He's become an active voice in social media propaganda for the group, has called for terror attacks, has threatened Britain in interviews with the BBC, and defended beheadings and other Islamic State atrocities. But he recently posted a rant critical of Arabs and his Syrian hosts on a Tumblr page under his pseudonym, Abu Saeed al Britani. In the post, he gives a laundry list of complaints, broad stereotypes and misinformation. Syrians are "childish" and are known for "stealing shoes", nicking food and using other people's phone chargers, he says, and also accuses them of being messy and lazy. The blog is also peppered with odd or just plain incorrect statements. "Syrians love to stare at foreigners, maybe because no tourist has ever visited Syria," Hussain writes (Syria had a significant tourism industry before the war). Hussain insists that he doesn't mean to "ridicule" Syrian culture, but concludes by advising would-be jihadis to join "European battalions" and calling the habits of Syrians and Arabs "bothersome." Charlie Winter, senior researcher at the anti-extremism Quilliam Foundation think tank, says the post exposes the divide between the foreign fighters who have travelled to Syria and the local population. "Foreign fighters do enjoy a different level of lifestyle. They are given better lodging, more money, better food, and this is something you consistently hear from defectors," Winter says. "It's very different from the Islamic State's official line, which is that everyone receives the same health care and benefits and everyone is equal." "Clearly he looks down on Syrian locals as inferior supporters of Islamic State," he says. "In my opinion, he's shooting himself in the foot and shooting foreign fighters in the foot." Winter says that foreign IS fighters are sometimes seen complaining on Twitter about "madani" - civilian locals - and people who have escaped from IS-held territory in Syria and Iraq have routinely described the inequality between foreigners and the newcomers. But rarely have foreign fighters been so vocal, at such length, about their disdain for the locals. "It points to something that is incredibly important, something that the central Islamic State leadership don't want to have any coverage of," he says. Online the reaction to the post was mostly incredulous, if not outright mocking. "There is just something so uncomfortably British about complaining about bad manners and etiquette while being a terrorist," said one Reddit commenter. "Let's get a gofundme for this poor soul," one Twitter user sarcastically commented, "where's your humanity?!!" Blog by Mike Wendling Next story: Five 'happy refugees' pictures that went viral Image copyright facebook What do you think of when you think of migrants and refugees? Probably not smiling children or moments of joy.READ MORE You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
The Ninja Turtles and dinosaurs have been crossing paths since early in the Mirage Comics, the Triceratons count right? Even if they don't, the Turtles have still managed to cross paths with actual dinosaurs either thanks to time travel or mysterious lands below the streets of New York. (No Seriously. Go watch the original cartoon.) So it should be no surprise that their Half-Shell Heroes incarnations are about to cross paths with the Jurassic once again. Next month Nickelodeon will be airing an animated special featuring the Half-Shell Hero Turtles and their adventures in the distant past. But the first of the toys have already arrived on store shelves. Each of the four Turtles is available as part of the basic assortment packaged with a small companion dinosaur. So while we still have to wait to see the show, we can check out the first of the figures right away. Packaging - 8/10 The packaging for the Blast From the Past Turtles is almost the same as the previous Half-Shell Heroes basic figures. There is a small addition of a notice of the Nickelodeon TV special. And they finally updated the text on the back. I must admit that I'm a tad bit surprised that they did not include any images from the TV special or change the graphics to fit the prehistoric theme as they have done in the past. That's not really necessary though. The packaging looks nice and gives you great access to the toys. Though the material for the cards seems a bit thin which makes it prone to warping and damage. Sculpting - Mikey & Raph 4/10 Leo 5/10, Don 6/10 The sculpting for the Blast From the Past Turtles is not Playmates' best work. The concept it there. Each Turtle gets a new sculpt with an outfit put together from materials they found in the prehistoric world. The concept is solid. But the details of the molds isn't very sharp resulting in figures with unidentifiable objects on them. The best of the series is Donatello. Most of his costume details look good. The one area where he could use some improvement is around his neck. He's got what looks like a fur collar but I can't tell exactly what it is. Also, my figure looks as though he may have been assembled wrong as his head is pushed down so low that he has no neck. Leonardo comes in as a close second. Most of his costume looks good. But I still can't tell exactly what his belt and sword are suppose to be made of. (The belt looks like it might be a snake with the head used a the buckle.) Mikey has a lot of nice detail. But he also is the only figure to have the filler material on his weapon this time. And he is wearing what appears to be a saber tooth tiger head on his noggin. But the pelt looks more like he skinned a saber tooth tiger stuffed animal. I suppose it can't look too realistic since it is meant for a young audience. Finally there is Raphael who is covered with unidentifiable details. Each of the Turtles also comes with a small dinosaur companion as well. The dinosaurs are certainly not scientifically accurate models. (I have heard one person get very upset over the fact that the T-rex has three fingers.) But they are quite cute and look good. Paint - Mikey 3/10, Raph & Donnie 5/10, Leo 6/10 The paint work on both the Turtles and the dinos are solid in terms of the quality control. The dinos in particular look great other than the unpainted claws/toenails. The Turtles vary depending upon how much effort they put into painting the details of the sculpting. Leo has the most number of colors which really helps a lot of those details to stand out. But there is still a lot of small details that could still be painted. Both Donatello and Raphael have a bit less paint work than Leonardo, but still have enough to make them look good. Michelangelo is the one stinker in the group. He has far too many important details that are left either totally unpainted in the case of his foot wear or completely painted in just a single color in the case of his head gear. Those two oversights really hurt this figure. Articulation - 5/10 The Blast From the Past Turtles have the usual six points of articulation that most Half-Shell Heroes figures. My Donatello figure's neck is very difficult to turn and limited to just a few degrees of motion. But once again, I believe that is due to the head being pushed down too far on my figure. The dinosaurs are fairly limited in this area. Each has rotating joints for the neck and each pair of limbs. But each pair of limbs is linked together through the torso. So the number of poses possible are quite limited. Accessories - 7/10 Each of the Blast From the Past Turtles is packaged with their own companion dinosaur. But that is it for accessories. The dino companions are cute and each is marked with paint to identify their Turtle partner. They could use a bit more range of motion from their articulation though. Value - Mikey 6/10, others 7/10 The Blast From the Past Turtles are part of the regular assortment of Half-Shell Heroes figures. So each two pack should sell for $7 to $8. That is a very fair price for two fairly cool little figures. And given how promising the TV special looks, these will probably be a favorite for any young TMNT fan. Happy Hunting: The Blast From the Past Turtles are part of the basic assortment of Half-Shell Heroes figures which is available in most stores with a decent toy section such as Toys R Us, Walmart, Target and more. They are the most recent figures and started arriving in stores in limited numbers just a couple of weeks ago. I got my set from Walmart and have seen them in several local stores since then. But depending upon how quickly your local stores sell through their existing stock of HSH figures, these may take a while to show up in great numbers everywhere. Back to the reviews page
Story highlights The EPA says ground-level air tests don't "show elevated toxic chemicals" A city official says that any released toxins appear to pose "no threat to the public" The Waxahachie fire chief says the fire overran the plant's sprinkler system A main chemical produced at the plant was anhydrous ammonia, an EPA official says Preliminary air quality tests show "no threat to the public" from a massive fire at a Texas chemical plant Monday, city and federal officials said. Waxahachie Fire Chief David Hudgins said authorities believe that the fire "overran the sprinkler system," and it sent thick plumes of smoke high into the sky hours after it started. There were no flames visible by late afternoon, though by then the blaze might have discharged dangerous substances into the air, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. That prompted EPA staff to dispatch air monitors to test for toxic vapors. Around 4:45 p.m. (5:45 p.m. EST), Waxahachie city spokeswoman Amy Hollywood said initial tests did not indicate any danger to those in the area. That assessment was later confirmed by EPA official Nicolas Brescia. "We have not seen any significant level that would cause a public health concern," Brescia told reporters. Brescia said that tests conducted from flights over and around the fire detected small amounts of two chemicals, but nothing that would be considered dangerous to anyone outside the immediate vicinity of the fire. A statement from his federal agency also indicated that "ground-level portable sampling devices did not show elevated toxic chemicals." Earlier, Dave Bary -- a Dallas-based spokesman for the EPA -- said the most prevalent chemical that the company had documented, and produced on site, was anhydrous ammonia. The EPA official said earlier Monday that 48,630 pounds of the chemical, which creates a toxic vapor downwind when released, have been reported at the site. It was not known how much of the chemical was released into the air during the fire. Officials ordered the evacuation of a school, an apartment building and other industrial sites within an eight-block radius of the plant, said Diana Buckley, an official with Ellis County government. A shelter-in-place advisory is in effect for some smaller nearby towns northwest of the city, including Red Oak, she said. JUST WATCHED Explosions go off during chemical fire Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Explosions go off during chemical fire 01:00 "Everybody is out and safe," Donald Golden, environmental health and safety manager for Magnablend Inc., the plant's owner, said of employees and visitors to the plant. The plant stores and mixes numerous chemicals, said Amy Hollywood, a city spokeswoman. Images transmitted by CNN affiliates KTVT and WFAA showed orange flames devouring buildings and licking at tanker cars parked at the edge of the Magnablend plant, which is about 30 miles south of Dallas. Firefighters had pulled back and were using ladder trucks to spray water on the fire, Hollywood said. Multiple fire departments were on the scene. One of the them, the Midlothian Fire Department, reported that chemicals had been released in the fire, but no additional details were immediately available. Officials have said burning liquid continued to fuel the flames hours after it began, but they appeared able to wrestle the fire under control by early Monday evening. There was no immediate word on the cause on the fire, Golden said. No one was injured in the fire, Hudgins said. The nearby Wedgeworth Elementary School was evacuated, a school district official confirmed. Students were being taken to a school across town, school officials said. Navarro College's Waxahachie campus also evacuated, a receptionist confirmed. Southwestern Assemblies of God University, which is on the other side of town from the chemical plant, was keeping people inside but had not evacuated, spokeswoman Christina Freeze said. Magnablend produces custom chemicals for a variety of industries, including oil, agriculture, pet and animal feed, water treatment, construction and industrial cleaning companies, according to its website. Anhydrous ammonia is a clear, colorless gas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can be absorbed into the body by inhalation, ingestion, eye contact and skin contact.
John Albert Kieffer has stepped down temporarily from his position as president of Atheists of Florida to focus on his Nov. 7 trial involving a prayer incident at a Polk County School Board meeting earlier this year, an official with the organization said Wednesday. LAKELAND \| John Albert Kieffer has stepped down temporarily from his position as president of Atheists of Florida to focus on his Nov. 7 trial involving a prayer incident at a Polk County School Board meeting earlier this year, an official with the organization said Wednesday. Vice President Ellenbeth Wachs, who has had high-profile incidents in Polk regarding her beliefs, has assumed his duties. "Unfortunately this is a terrible time to be an atheist in Polk County," Wachs, 48, said. "He needs to concentrate on his trial. This is a very sensitive matter, and school board officials have made it illegal not to pray at school board meetings." Kieffer said his trial will be an "epic event" in his life. "I feel atheists are not second-class citizens," he said. "We should be permitted to go to a government function without having to confront any religious issues." Kieffer, 61, of Tampa, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting an officer without violence at a Feb. 22 school board meeting. During the invocation, Kieffer and Wachs took pictures and were speaking loudly. Chairwoman Kay Fields told Kieffer to leave, but he said he wasn't violating any laws because the meeting hadn't officially started. The Polk County School Board changed its policies that month to state that invocations be held prior to the official start of the meeting. Assistant Superintendent of Support Services Fred Murphy instructed two Bartow police officers to remove Kieffer, and he resisted. Because the incident took place before the official start of the board meeting, there is no video evidence of the incident. After Kieffer's arrest, Rob Curry, director of the Atheists of Florida's St. Petersburg chapter, said he has attended Polk County School Board meetings and the board has violated its own policies by praying after the official start of the meeting. School Board Attorney Wes Bridges said school board members, district officials and Superintendent of Schools Sherrie Nickell have been subpoenaed for Kieffer's trial. School board member Frank O'Reilly said the Atheists of Florida have been an aggravation to district officials. Within the past month, they have made numerous public records requests including phone records and emails of school board members. O'Reilly said the atheists have cost the district time and money for "their hatred and bitterness" "I think it's harassment to keep their name in the media," O'Reilly said. "I really do not understand why one person would be that adamant about other people expressing their views prior to the meeting. I don't picket them, and I don't have anything bad to say about them." Curry said the charges against Kieffer are ridiculous. "It seems clear to me that the politicians involved want to use prayer as a signal to mark their territory," he said.
Crimson Skies is an arcade flight video game developed by Zipper Interactive and published in 2000 by Microsoft Game Studios. Although a flight-based game, Crimson Skies is not a genuine flight simulator, as the game is based less on flight mechanics than on action. According to series creator Jordan Weisman, Crimson Skies is "not about simulating reality—it's about fulfilling fantasies."[3] The game is set in an alternate history of the 1930s in which the United States has fragmented into a number of smaller sovereignties, and in which air travel has become the primary mode of transportation in North America. The game centers on Nathan Zachary, an adventurous air pirate seeking to rob the affluent of their wealth and power.[4] Throughout the campaign, Zachary leads his gang of air pirates, the Fortune Hunters, on a quest to gain fame and riches. Crimson Skies is often regarded as a "cult success", commercially successful only to a limited extent. The game has received generally favorable reviews; it has been noted for its high-quality voice acting, gameplay, and atmosphere.[5][6] Notable technical issues, however, have been known to plague the game, the most notorious of which was the tendency to delete saved game files until a patch was released.[7] Gameplay [ edit ] Crimson Skies is a cross between an authentic flight simulator and an arcade flight game. Although flight mechanics such as lift are still present, the game's planes are generally overpowered, allowing them to perform aerobatic maneuvers impossible in reality under similar circumstances.[6][8] According to lead game designer John Howard: We're not trying to build a realistic flight simulation, but at the same time, Crimson Skies isn't a cartoony, arcade-type game, either. We had to find a middle ground, where the planes were more powerful, more responsive and more intuitive to fly, so that the player can just concentrate on being a hero.[9] GameSpot has stated that "the flight model in Crimson Skies is light on the physics and heavy on the barnstorming."[8] In this way, the site likened the game's arcade flight model to the "stunt-flying heroics of pulp novel fame", in which "daredevil pilots performed unbelievable (and quite impossible) feats of showmanship and gunnery."[8] To this effect, the game features select "danger zones"—difficult spaces situated throughout the environment through which the player can fly to dissuade pursuing aircraft.[10] Such stunts are also documented in the player's "scrapbook", which is the game's record of the player's accomplishments throughout the campaign.[10] The gameplay of Crimson Skies takes place through the player controlling an aircraft through the game's various environments. The game offers three cameras during missions: first-person perspectives with or without a cockpit visible, and a third-person view. The game's heads-up display features basic flight instrumentation such as the compass, altimeter, and speedometer, as well as a damage indicator for the player's aircraft and ammunition displays for the plane's primary and secondary weapons. The game also provides the player with a feature known as the "spyglass", which provides a magnified image of the selected target and indicates its current heading.[10][11] The game features eleven different playable aircraft, each of which can be customized. For any aircraft, the player can select its airframe, engine, armor, weapons layout, and paint scheme, although customization is limited by the weight capacity of the airframe and—in the single player campaign—the player's cash on hand. Outfitting an aircraft with different components affects its performance in terms of speed, maneuverability, stamina, and offense. The player is also able to equip his/her aircraft's guns and hardpoints with different types of ammunition and rockets, respectively.[10][11] The game's single player campaign has three difficulty levels,[12] and spans twenty-four missions.[6] Before the start of a mission, the plane and ammunition for both the player and his/her wingman can be selected, although wingmate commands are not available during gameplay. In addition to the campaign, an instant action mode is available which allows the player to play individual missions or customized scenarios. Multiplayer is also available through the Reverb Gaming lobby, over a LAN or the Internet, or via a direct serial connection. Players can host games or join existing ones; the host selects the game's victory conditions and allowable aircraft components/ammunition. Multiplayer game modes include dogfight, capture the flag, and Zeppelin-to-Zeppelin combat.[6][10] Plot [ edit ] Setting [ edit ] Crimson Skies universe North America in the fictionaluniverse The Crimson Skies universe is set in an alternate history of the year 1937. According to the game's backstory, factors such as the growing strength of the "Regionalist Party", the division between "wet" and "dry" states, and a quarantine caused by an Influenza outbreak resulted in a general shift in power from federal to state and local levels. After the Wall Street Crash of '29, states began seceding from the U.S. A number of independent nation-states form from the fractured United States; hostilities between these sovereignties eventually escalate into outright war.[13] After the breakup of America, the former nation's railroad and highway systems fell into disuse as they crossed hostile borders. Consequently, the airplane and the airship became the primary modes of transportation in North America, which in turn gave birth to air piracy. Although air militias formed to defend against the air pirates, continuous brushfire wars between the nations prevent the established governments from effectively repelling the pirate threat.[3][13] Characters [ edit ] The player character is Nathan Zachary, a man well known in the game world as a reputable ladies' man and a notorious air pirate.[9] He is the leader of a group of air pirates, the Fortune Hunters. Zachary dislikes the wealthy and privileged, seeing them as selfish and insensitive towards the less privileged; as a result, Zachary and his gang have a penchant for stripping the rich of their money and influence.[4] Zachary's "articles of piracy" insist that his gang are not to harm the innocent, and that they steal only from those who can afford the loss.[14][15] IGN has stated that the Fortune Hunters are "wonderfully ambiguous […] in the moral sense", qualifying that "It's always great to see heroes […] who aren't too good to be true."[16] The Fortune Hunters are based on the Zeppelin Pandora, and comprise the airship's crew as well as six pilots—Nathan Zachary and his wingman Jack Mulligan, "Tex" Ryder and her wingman "Buck" Deere, "Big John" Washington and Betty "Brooklyn" Charles.[16] Later joining Nathan and his gang are Dr. Wilhelm Fassenbiender, a scientist and friend of Nathan's since World War I,[17] as well as his daughter, Dr. Ilse Fassenbiender.[15] Opposing the Fortune Hunters are rival pirates and privateers, such as The Black Swan, Jonathan "Genghis" Kahn, and Ulysses Boothe. Also fighting Zachary and his gang are private security firms such as Blake Aviation Security and militia squadrons such as the Hollywood Knights. Many of these opponents are old rivals or former love interests of Nathan Zachary.[18][19] Storyline [ edit ] Nathan Zachary is a great war hero pilot. Before he meets up with his crew and forms the Fortune Hunters, he saves damsels in distress and fights enemies. Until when he arrives in New York he and his three other wingmen present (Jack, Tex and Big John) hijack the Empire State Zeppelin the FULCRUM and reconstructed it, to the current PANDORA. Three of the FULCRUM's crew also joins the Fortune Hunters (Buck, Betty and Sparks). Soon later down south in Cuba, Nathan and the Fortune Hunters fight against the British and the Medusas in Cuba. Lucas Miles a fellow Fortune Hunter attempts to betray them over a score, resulting in Nathan ordering his crew to open fire on Miles' Zeppelin destroying it, while the Fortune Hunters flee to safety. Soon later, the Fortune Hunters and Medusas are socialising, while Nathan is stuck in the PANDORA, sore over the betrayal of his old friend. He refuses to come down, until he mentions of a discovery of a treasure map from Hawaii which he tells Jack. They then head to a group of islands, where they successfully find the treasure, although after finding it they are soon tracked by the Medusas who want the treasure for themselves and the British who want the Hawaiian islands under English rule. The Fortune Hunters repel an initial Medusa attack before fighting the British who attempt to foil their retrieval of the treasure and stealing one of their bombers to locate their base of operations. Finding it at another island where a slave camp and zeppelin dock is being built, they liberate the work camp and steal a zeppelin salvaging mechanism from the zeppelin dock, alongside dealing with another unsuccessful British retaliation involving a submarine. Finally, the Fortune Hunters claim their treasure back in the main island with their new equipment and repel the Medusas one last time along with their leader Justine Perot. On the trip heading away from Hawaii, Nathan receives a call from Dr. Wilhelm Fassenbiender, an old friend he met during the Great War. However it turns to be his daughter Ilsa and she explains of the predicament where her father was captured by the Russian Chekka secret police for their reasons, which leads the Fortune Hunters to Pacifica. The Dr. is imprisoned on a passenger Zeppelin belonging to the CCCP, which the Fortune Hunters attack. Nathan and his gang are then attacked by an old flame, The Black Swan and her gang who were staging a robbery onboard the Zeppelin. After downing Swan and her crew, he daringly saves the Dr. while up in the air out high. Later back down on land, while fighting the local security firm Blake Aviation Security, Nathan saves Ilsa and steals the Blue Streak Bloodhawk, a prototype plane the Dr. works on with his daughter. When the PANDORA runs low on fuel resources, Nathan suggests a steal of fuel supplies from a Russian tanker, which pits the Fortune Hunters once more against the Russians. Paladin Blake, CEO of Blake Aviation Security then warns the Fortune Hunters to leave Pacifica given Blake has a zeppelin containing an armada of fighters intent on downing Zachary. The Fortune Hunters however sabotage the zeppelin and destroy it, along with Nathan personally fighting Blake himself. Blake loses, and the Fortune Hunters leave Pacifica. The Fortune Hunters' previous activities come back to haunt them however when the CCCP zeppelin that Zachary and his gang attacked and eliminated its escort during their rescue of the Dr. was finally downed at Pacifica's coast by a new mysterious pirate gang, the Black Hats, who intend to abduct the passengers and ask for ransom, Zachary and his gang fight and defeat the Black Hats while defending a Hospital Ship sent to rescue survivors. At the Nation of Hollywood, Nathan remembers his rival Johnny Johnson now handling security affairs as president of Hughes Aviation (the aviation security company there). Nathan decides to knock Johnny given his pompous personality and is able to sneak in Betty into a movie studio where she has a role. The Fortune Hunters then rescue Lana Cooper who is not happy with her contract and wish to escape. After she is rescued in a daring abduction scheme, Johnny, now embarrassed that he failed to keep Hollywood safe, tries to show off publicity by showing Hughes' newest accomplishment the biggest plane ever, named the Spruce Goose. Nathan gets on stealing the giant plane with the help of Betty. With all his convictions, he is invited to an aerial stunt race with aces, pirates, aviators, aviatrixes and even Johnny Johnson himself in the competition, to prove the best pilot. The race however ends in a free for all planned by Johnson to shoot down Zachary, with help from Charlie Steele the leader of the Hollywood Knights whom previously attempted to stop the Fortune Hunters during their abduction of Ms. Cooper and the theft of the Spruce Goose, as rival pirate gang leaders Genghis Khan and Bill Redman also join the fight, Zachary however succeeds in shooting down all of them with assistance from The Black Swan and Loyle Crawford, leader of the Broadway Bombers. Nathan, after the competition realises it is a trap to lure him away from the PANDORA so it can be destroyed by Johnson's military forces and he goes on a one-to-one anti-Zeppelin battle with his crew against Hughes Aviation. Though after battle, the PANDORA was victorious but was in terrible shape, which fortunately the Fortune Hunters have found a cargo zeppelin which can help them get into Sky Haven by towing the damaged PANDORA. The cargo zeppelin is defended by Blake Aviation Security, and thus Nathan and the crew fight them one more time, emerging victorious. While in Sky Haven, Nathan and the Black Swan had lost their crews and now try to get them back. It turns out that they are being hunted by the Black Hats for some unknown reason. Nathan first battles the Black Hats and their apparent leader Ace Dixon again, which also involves a dogfight with a military squadron affiliated with the new security firm Sacred Trust Incoparated, whom appears to be helping the Black Hats on their hunt. He then saves Sparks from an exploding train who beforehand contacted Nathan for help. Sparks explains the crew was kidnapped by the Black Hats themselves, and Nathan goes on a military autogyro fight with Ulysses Boothe, who turns out to be the leader of the Black Hats. Nathan downs Boothe to be taken hostage. Nathan and Swan decide to use Boothe as bait to know of the crews' location in exchange for Boothe. Nathan and Black Swan drop Boothe off and learn the location of the crews which the Black Hats kept in a self-destructing cargo zeppelin. Nathan manages to save the crews and the PANDORA from destruction by the Black Hats who try to double cross them, however Swan is downed and captured in the process. Eventually the Fortune Hunters go to destroy the Black Hat mansion as payback, rescue the Black Swan who was held prisoner and steals aerial torpedoes. Nathan soon uncovers evidence of an alliance between Sacred Trust Incorparated. and the Black Hats; they are planning to conquer the entire divided America, especially with their influence over the Empire State and its capitol Manhattan and decides that he'll need help from Blake in order to stop them both. The Fortune Hunters intercept a Black Hat attack on Blake. Earning trust and their enmity gone, Blake and Nathan work together in destroying the Black Hats. Nathan and Blake head to New York, where they try to deal with Sacred Trust personally. After a tip-off from a taxi gyro Nathan sabotages the Black Hats in one of their illegal operations where he destroys a German freighter and warehouse containing their stolen loot which was to be shipped to Berlin. Later, the Fortune Hunters learn that a Sacred Trust accountant named Waldo Carney has evidence of Black Hat pirates and German spies working undercover in the firm, and tries to flee the country, but is under attack by the Black Hats while flying on board a zeppelin liner. Nathan saves Carney, delivering him to the police for safety. Acting on Carney's information, the Fortune Hunters sabotage attempts by Sacred Trust in getting their loot away back to Germany via three cargo zeppelins in which they were to rendezvous with a fleet of Luftwaffe fighters waiting outside international waters as their escorts. They stop Sacred Trust, as well as the Spruce Goose as well which was thought to be lost beforehand, but was really bought by Sacred Trust to be used as a secret getaway plane. Zachary and his gang soon learn that the leader of the STI-Black Hat forces is none other than their former nemesis Lucas Miles whom was believed to have been killed in Cuba, a year earlier. Miles and his gang challenge The Fortune Hunters for one last confrontation over the streets of Manhattan. The Fortune Hunters with the help from The Black Swan are victorious in the battle over Broadway. Nathan then gives chase to Lucas who has taken Miss Cooper hostage but she bails out safely before she can be killed, resulting Nathan being able to shoot Lucas down who later on drowns in the ocean. Nathan is offered membership to Blake Aviation but turns it down, Paladin Blake is outraged with his choice to stay a pirate, but Nathan cuts him off. Nathan plans with the Black Swan on stealing South American treasure as their zeppelins along with their plane squadrons fly off into the sunset. Development [ edit ] Jordan Weisman, series creator and creative director of Crimson Skies, has said of the game: "Our whole goal is to give the player the kind of role of being Errol Flynn in a 1930's, 1940's great pirate adventure film of the air."[20] According to Weisman, the inspiration for the game came after he had done research on the early years of aviation; he wished to create a game about the era. Weisman and Dave McCoy came up with the concept of "combining the classic fantasies of pilots and pirates." They then created the series' backstory by proposing changes to the history of the United States that would allow the rise of air piracy.[3] Development on the game originally began for Virtual World Entertainment, and was changed to a PC game under the name "Corsairs!". This original project was shelved, however, prompting Weisman and others to create the board game Crimson Skies. When FASA later became a part of Microsoft, Weisman was given the opportunity to work on a new project; his choice was to restart production of the Crimson Skies PC game.[3] The original version of the game shipped with numerous technical problems, one of the most notorious was the tendency to delete the player's saved game files.[21] Shortly after the game's release, Microsoft released Crimson Skies Update Version 1.01, a patch specifically designed to fix this problem.[7] Microsoft later released Update Version 1.02 to address other issues, including multiplayer game stability and mission load times.[22] Recent ATI and Nvidia drivers do not support this game. As such it was only possible to play it in Software Rendering mode. Several fans tried to identify and find the causes of this problem, later gathering at the Nvidia forums,[23] and asking the Nvidia for a fix. Nvidia did not show availability for this. The fanbase tried several paths to a solution, culminating in asking known game graphic modder Timeslip if he could devise a fix. The unofficial patch is available at Timeslip's homepage,[24] fixes the issue with current graphic drivers and improves the game in some aspects, such as allowing higher resolutions. Reception [ edit ] Reception Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 84 of 100[26] (based on 42 reviews) Metacritic 83 of 100[25] (based on 32 reviews) Review scores Publication Score Edge 5/10[27] GameSpot 7.7/10[6] GameSpy 84/100[12] IGN 8.8/10[5] CNET Gamecenter's Mark Asher noted that Crimson Skies was commercialy unsuccessful.[28] It is regarded as a "cult favorite" or a "cult success",[29][30] generally popular only within a limited "cult following." The game, however, has received generally favorable critical reviews. GameSpot said that "Crimson Skies does an excellent job of taking the elements of flight simulations that have broad appeal—the shooting and the fancy flying—and embellishing them with a great environment and a good story."[6] IGN called the game "highly inventive, tons of fun and ridiculously addictive",[5] and ranked the game as #65 and #75 respectively on its 2003 and 2005 lists of the "Top 100 Games of All Time."[31][32] IGN lauded the game's arcade-style physics model, stating that it made gameplay "exciting and immediate."[33] GameSpot likewise complimented the arcade flight model, stating that it fit with the game's pulp fiction setting and allowed for elaborate stunt flying and fast-paced dogfighting.[6] Other positively received aspects of gameplay include the game's "scrapbook"[6][12] and aircraft customization features.[5][12] The game's visuals were generally well-received, as was its audio. Critics took particular note of the game's voice talent, which was described as among the best found in computer games up to that time.[5][6] The Crimson Skies universe was also well received by critics, who found it highly original and described it as an "alternate history that is rare in being both compelling and believable."[5] Critics also commended the way these elements—voice acting, soundtrack, graphics style, and story—combined to contribute to the game's 1930s pulp fiction atmosphere.[6] The single player campaign in Crimson Skies was criticized for its overall linearity, and GameSpot found that multiple playthroughs of a mission would become "tiresome."[6] The game was most heavily dispraised, however, for its numerous and notable technical issues, which include choppy framerate, missing textures, crash bugs, slowdown during menu screens, flawed wingman AI, long loading times for game levels, and the unreliability of saved game files.[5][6][12][27] IGN commented that "there are some serious issues with the game that need to be addressed […] in order to help the game realize its amazing potential."[5] According to GameSpot, "Unfortunately, the game is […] a reminder of how easily technical problems can defeat a promising design."[6] Edge magazine has stated that gameplay is directly affected by these problems, as long loading times force players to "play it safe" and avoid the "improbable stunts that should be the signature of [the] game"; the review concludes it's "A shame, because in its variety of missions and sheer panache, the dashing Crimson Skies almost steals your heart. "[27] The editors of Computer Games Magazine nominated Crimson Skies for their 2000 "Sci-Fi Simulation of the Year" award.[34] See also [ edit ]
(CNN) Seven of the service members killed in a military transport plane crash in Mississippi were from an elite Marine unit based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, the Marine Corps said Tuesday. The other nine Marines killed were from Orange County, New York, county executive Steve Neuhaus said. The KC-130T aircraft was based in New York, officials said. Investigators are trying to determine why the plane crashed in western Mississippi's Leflore County on Monday afternoon, Maj. Andrew Aranda said. The transport plane, carrying fifteen Marines and a Navy corpsman, was moving personnel and equipment from North Carolina to a western base to train before deploying, the Marine Corps said. Six Marines and the sailor were members of the 2d Marine Raider Battalion , based in Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. They were part of Marine Corps Forces, Special Operations Command and were traveling to the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona, for small unit pre-deployment training. BREAKING UPDATE: 16 people on board military C-130 killed in LeFlore County plane crash https://t.co/1KvzFukSzr pic.twitter.com/D6oeUZDj4E — WLBT 3 On Your Side (@WLBT) July 11, 2017 "The incredible demands of this dangerous and demanding calling forge some of the tightest units and family bonds found in the US military," special operations command said. "This loss impacts us all." Neuhaus said the New York-based Marines will be flown back to Dover Air Force Base, then to Orange County. The names of the deceased weren't immediately released, but a father of one of the Marines told CNN affiliate WCAX his son was on the plane. Father of Marine killed: He loved to fly Gunnery Sgt. Brendan Johnson was from Vermont. His father told WCAX and CNN that his son loved his job. "He thought it was one of the best jobs in the Marine Corps. He really loved flying. He loved going different places," Kevin Johnson said of his son, who spent 23 years in the Marines and was a loadmaster. Brendan Johnson, 45, planned to retire next year, after a career that took him to Europe, Africa, South Asia and the Pacific, including deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. "He was looking forward to retiring, he said it's time to let the younger kids do this," his father said. Report: Debris found across wide area The aircraft belonged to a Marine Forces Reserve refueling and transport squadron based at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York. The plane, which the military can use to refuel planes in the air and carry cargo, went down in a rural area just off US 82, about 85 miles north of Jackson, with debris found on both sides of the highway, CNN affiliate WDBD reported The flight originated from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in eastern North Carolina. Federal Aviation Administration officials contacted the Marines when the aircraft disappeared from air traffic control radar over Mississippi, officials said. "Every resource we can pull from will be used to determine what happened," Aranda told reporters a couple miles from the crash site. The KC-130 is able to refuel planes in the air and transport troops and equipment. Because the plane was carrying small-arms ammunition and weapons, an explosive ordnance disposal team was at the crash site, military officials said. "Out of precaution, we just wanted to make sure people do not approach ... just out of general safety," Aranda said. Flames and dark smoke rose from part of the wreckage in a field off the highway, video from WDBD on Monday showed. CNN affiliates WDBD and WHBQ , citing officials they didn't name, reported the plane had stopped in Memphis, Tennessee. Aranda did not confirm that, saying he didn't know details about the aircraft's flight plan. Witness: Plane spiraled to ground, nose down A witness to Monday's crash, Andy Jones, said he heard a loud bang while working in a field near his catfish farm. The plane spiraled, nose down, to the ground, Jones said. One of the engines appeared to be trailing white smoke, he said. "At first it looked like an acrobatic plane, like a stunt plane, blowing the smoke out the back" he said. "Then all of a sudden you realized that the smoke was coming off one of sides of the wing." He called 911 after the crash. Jones said he didn't see the impact because trees blocked his view. He said he went out to the site and saw a bunch of mini-explosions coming from the crash. 'Heartbreaking' President Donald Trump called the crash "heartbreaking." "Melania and I send our deepest condolences to all!" the President tweeted. Marine Plane crash in Mississippi is heartbreaking. Melania and I send our deepest condolences to all! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2017 Near the crash site on Tuesday morning, David Weeks stopped along US 82 and played taps on a bugle, video from CNN affiliate WJTV shows. Weeks, of Inverness, Mississippi, told CNN that he did it "to let these American heroes know their service and sacrifices were appreciated." He is a member of the Patriot Guard Riders , a nonprofit motorcycle group that honors fallen troops. David Weeks, of Inverness, Mississippi, plays taps Tuesday near the crash site. "Playing taps was my way of saying, 'thank you,'" he told CNN. The Marines' commandant expressed his "deepest condolences to the families of those killed in the aircraft mishap yesterday afternoon in Mississippi." "Please keep the families of our 16 fallen service members in your thoughts and prayers," Gen. Robert Neller said. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who had long service as a Navy SEAL, was among officials posting condolences on social media. "Please join me in praying for or sending good thoughts to the families and unit of the Marines we lost tonight in the C 130 crash," Zinke wrote on Twitter. Please join me in praying for or sending good thoughts to the families and unit of the Marines we lost tonight in the C 130 crash #SemperFi — Secretary Ryan Zinke (@SecretaryZinke) July 11, 2017 U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi, posted on Twitter: "Deeply saddened by the loss of life in today's @USMC KC-130 crash in the Mississippi Delta. Our thoughts & prayers are w/everyone involved." Deeply saddened by the loss of life in today's @USMC KC-130 crash in the Mississippi Delta. Our thoughts & prayers are w/everyone involved. — Senator Thad Cochran (@SenThadCochran) July 11, 2017 Workhorse aircraft Hercules: Tough, versatile The C-130 family of planes is the longest continuously produced military aircraft. Why it's important: The Hercules can refuel other aircraft midflight. It can fly a small military force and heavy equipment around the world and land on short, unfinished airstrips. It's also used for firefighting, search and rescue missions and the gathering of scientific data from dangerous storms. How many have been made? Lockheed Martin Corp. has produced many variations of the C-130 since 1956. More than 2,500 have been delivered. It has logged 1.5 million flight hours. -- From CNN's Thom Patterson The KC-130T is a Marines variant of the C-130 Hercules . It was first deployed in 1983. Often used for airborne refueling, the KC-130, made by Lockheed Martin Corp., also can be used to deliver cargo, troops and equipment. The first KC-130s appeared in 1962. Its normal range of 1,150 miles as a tanker and 3,200 miles on cargo missions gives it access to the entire war arena. The maximum takeoff weight for the KC-130T is 175,000 pounds and its flight ceiling is 25,600 feet. 2015 crash blamed on misplaced goggles case One of the most recent crashes of a US C-130 cargo plane happened in October 2015 , when one went down 28 seconds after takeoff from Afghanistan's Jalalabad Airport near the Pakistani border as it was heading to Bagram Airfield. The crash killed 14 people. A US Air Force investigation blamed the crash of the C-130J on the misuse of a night-vision goggles case that the pilot had placed in front of the cockpit yoke while the plane was on the ground. The pilot put the case there to prop up part of the plane's tail to help the loading team deal with some tall cargo, but the case was never removed, and when the plane's nose pitched up too far, the case blocked the yoke when the pilot tried to move it forward, the investigation report said. Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the FBI is at the scene of the crash. The FBI told CNN on Tuesday that it is not at the scene.
CT: The U.S.A./C.S.A. (Confederate States of America) Treaty of Secession has many provisions. A few highlights: A series of U.S.A./C.S.A. Mutual Defense Treaties will provide for cooperative defense and co-ownership titles into perpetuity on major military bases currently located in southern states, especially at Norfolk, Pensacola, and all NASA facilities. Lease agreements on other bases around the C.S.A. would sunset at increments of twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five, and a hundred years. The U.S.A./C.S.A Economic Separation Agreement makes the United States the guaranteed consumer of no less than 75 percent of all C.S.A. energy exports. This figure ensures northern energy needs will be met, while leaving the South with enough product to allow the new nation to nurture a healthy export economy. The Beltway Partition Agreement will cede that section of Virginia to the United States. Sorry, Virginians, it’s a lot of money and educated people to lose, but most of y’all don’t consider that part of the state “southern” anyway, and neither do the rest of us. Ten-year open border and automatic citizenship in either country for those left on the wrong side of the divide. The Annual Coca-Cola/Starbucks Blood Bowl ™ will determine the true college football champion and produce what would become football’s grandest extravaganza, an annual North-South gridiron border war between each country’s champions that would dwarf even the Super Bowl for drama, spectacle, Miller Lite consumption, and thirty-second ad buys. = : You've spent the whole book arguing that we'd be better off without the South because the region is overrun with irrational, angry, violent, racist, anti-science, religious fanatics—and then in the end, your solution is to have a treaty that gives them the U.S. military bases and defense contractors. Why would you arm a fanatical region on our border? CT: Wow, you’re tougher on the South than I am. I’m not advocating “giving” the independent South anything. Like all successful treaty provisions, the ones I suggest in the book are derived from interest-based needs on both sides and provide mutually beneficial arrangements. To soothe your fears, I believe that let loose from the enabling northern teat, the South would be forced to address and fix a number of the problems that have bedeviled the region for centuries. I may disagree with virtually everything they believe about governance, but the South is blessed with an extremely intelligent and gifted political class. Forced to swim in the new world economy or become a North Korean-style pariah state, an independent southern republic might just surprise everyone with its ability to at last overcome. Or, at least, to at last come over to my side of the argument with the realization that they, too, might be better off without ’em. Anyway, as even a number of southern academics told me, one of the first things an independent South is going to do is arm itself. This is inevitable—trying to keep southerners away from guns and tanks is like trying to keep fourteen-old-boys away from their peckers. = : What has the reaction to the book been in both the North and the South? CT: Knee-jerk anger and rigidity of thought are phrases that come to mind. By and large, people see that slave-days flag on the cover and leap to one of two general conclusions: a. Oh, boy, here’s yet another supercilious Yankee bigot trafficking in the same old stereotypes of a mouth-breathing South so fuck him and anything he has to say I will rage against this book without reading it because I don’t need to open the cover to know what kind of utter assaholic bullshit inside. b. Yeah, boy, about time someone told it like it is about the hillbilly horror show that exists down in that blighted possum kingdom of limb-chewing Dixie fucktards. I’d say 75 percent of the reader response and published reviews have roughly followed this script. When people take the time to read the book and actually see the research and analysis I’ve done, they tend to be more open-minded about it. The review on Daily Kos falls into that latter 25 percent category and I appreciate it. = : Here at Daily Kos, the range of reaction was everything from "Fuck yeah," to "Hell, no," with aof anger and accusations of bigotry and abuse from both sides of the aisle. Does that surprise you? CT: Not at all. I’ve been hearing the "Fuck the South" ranting for years here in socialist (or are we commies now?) Cascadia. In some ways this book started as a simple attempt to articulate and add facts and stats to the issues that my angry liberal friends have been voicing about the South for years. As for the "Hell, no" reaction (and what a polite way of putting it), I still have relatives in Georgia, used to have some in Virginia, have been traveling in the South since I was a kid and was well aware before doing this book how hyper-sensitive southerners are to criticism, especially when it comes from a pissant northern liberal who thinks he has all the answers. Many “reviews” of my book haven’t reviewed the book at all—they’ve reviewed a pathological fantasy of Yankee persecution that has taken hold of a certain kind of southern mind (not all) since the days of Reconstruction. I’m not blind to the difficult issues this book attempts to address. Splitting the country apart feels unnatural; at the very least, a crime against manifest destiny. Americans have become so accustomed to their hard divisions—conservative-liberal, black-white, Roe-Wade, red-blue, call them what you like—that the chasm separating North and South feels ordained, an organic, even integral part of the national tradition. Just because spiritual, political, racial, and commercial divides have always been with us, however, doesn’t mean they have to continue to define us. = : So I went through the 1,000+ comments from the review last week and tried to get a good sampling of observations from our readers that I'd love to have you respond to. Here we go, on to commenters' views, questions, observations, objections, etc., and your answers or reaction to them: Several users pointed out that the problem is less geographic than cultural. After all, there are inarguably pockets of bigotry and backwardness in every state. Why single out the South? Isn't that just Northern hypocrisy? Typical comments include these: From user SueDe: "This may boil down to a measure of constituencies in rural vs. urban areas rather than a North/South dichotomy." Many users made a variation of this observation, made by David54: "I was going to say...'the South' is not a geographical distinction anymore." Unduna says: "50% of the red on the electoral map is the South. The rest is, well, NOT the South. The intellectual fail in this bigoted idea that the South dominates the republican party, now being promulgated on the front page of a 'progressive' blog, is fucking astounding." angry marmot: "Thompson is just yet another sanctimonious jagoff who mistakes geography ("the South") for sociology ("southernization"). The problem isn't "the South," the problem is the less geographically circumscribed cultural conservatism, predicated on issues of religion, race and an abiding distrust of and disdain for the Federal Government, intellectuals and other secular authorities, all of which appeals to a naïve, disaffected and reactionary element in American society which extends far beyond the physical geography of the Old South." CT: There are a number of ways to try to explain the cultural/political/moral schism that currently defines this country. Red state/blue state. Urban/rural. Christian/Non-Christian. Tea Party/Sane. I have examined them all and as arguments they’re all reasonable and all have their merits. However, I think when you look at it analytically, the preponderance of the evidence lines up with the notion that the divide we’re dealing with today is the same one that has been with this country since the Continental Congress. That is to say, a North-South divide. All other formulations are no more than offshoots of this profound and historic divide at the nation’s heart. The primary social building blocks that separate North and South are approaches to religion, public education, economic policy, politics (this last one gets into significant differences in state constitutions). I examine and try to quantify all of these (and lesser but still important distinctions) in separate chapters. Of course, there are good counter-arguments to be made, but I think in the end the North/South reading of the nations’ troubles makes the most sense and it’s pretty easy to prove. As for finding racism and evangelical Christian fanaticism and ultra-conservative dogma and paranoid rubes in the North as well as the South, well, yeah, no shit, that’s obvious. People act like I didn’t think of this. Jesus, I grew up in Alaska. David Cross has a funny bit about finding the redneck accent in all fifty states and specifically includes Juneau (my hometown) in that bit. There’s this thing called the southern Diaspora and transient populations in this country. I’m aware. But establishing a moral or cultural equivalency between South and North by pointing out this obvious fact is misleading. You can find barbecue joints, Walmart fatties, and crooked elementary school football teams in the North, too, but that doesn’t make the North the South, any more than the presence of Levi’s, KFC, and Spider-man makes China the United States. = Dale encapsulates in this comment an objection of many commenters—what about the progressives, the minorities, the dispossessed marooned in the South? His comment in full: "Thing is, Thompson's thesis Would have us jettison the baby with the backwater -- er, bath water. Every time the electoral college vote is held, I think about how many African American, immigrant, and progressive voters are effectively disenfranchised by the winner-take-all, first past the post system, which ensures that the South is treated as a solid block of re state, no matter how many progressives live in places like Atlanta or North Carolina or northern Virginia. The "write 'em off" thesis does nothing but make permanent the state of affairs that those marooned progressive Southern voters face every time they go into the voting booth for federal races. LihTox: "This is what makes me pause. 'In 2010, 55 percent of the black population lived in the South, and 105 Southern counties had a black population of 50 percent or higher.' Should we abandon them?" And probably the most impassioned, deeply felt reaction on the part of proud progressive southerners, was written by Ms Johnson: What a bunch of shit. And how it dishonors the noble work of progressives in the South who struggle daily to effect incremental change in their communities. And what a slap in the face to Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other Southern warriors who have waged battle against the forces of intolerance and ignorance. It's easy being a progressive in California or New York. Try being one in Northern Alabama. So to this author and anyone who agrees with his thesis, I say a hearty "fuck you." How about instead of writing off Southern people, you take out your check book and write a check to any of the inumerable progressive groups working down here? We have a lot of challenges in the South. But the voices that will lead that change will arise from here and certainly not from Chuck Thompson, who, incidentally hails from Alaska, off all fucked up places. : Many, many commenters were dismayed by the willingness to abandon the powerless, minorities, the impoverished in the South. Many were equally dismayed by what they perceived as a dismissal of the generations of hard work by forebears to lead the fight in civil rights and to bring enlightenment to the region. Typical of the comments: CT: Ha ha. I wasn’t aware of how much people hate Alaska till I did this book. So many shit comments about the greatest state in the Union! I guess that’s what having Palin around does for us. You know what’s sad? I travel around the country and world a lot and it used to be that when you’d tell people you were from Alaska the first thing they’d ask you about was the northern lights or maybe the dark winters. Now the first thing they ask you about is Sarah Pailn. Fucking Palin is now more famous than the northern lights. Life is horrible. As for the main question, this one is the trickiest of all (I hear it a lot) because I have so many mixed feelings about it. Let me share just a few of my reactions: The amount of people who speak of me “abandoning” or “writing off” or “marooning” or “leaving behind” all those millions of southern liberals and African Americans, as though these people were soldiers trapped behind enemy lines, underscores for me how real the North/South dichotomy is. It also puts me in mind of the famous LBJ quote: “We are not going to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” I mean, how long are we expected to fight these battles on behalf of a liberalism that the majority of the people down South clearly do not want? My secession treaty offers open citizenship to anyone in Dixie who wants to relocate to the North. As I mentioned in my response to a previous question, I’m not so sure that an independent South wouldn’t surprise the world by reforming itself and becoming a much better place for all people to live (though not to work). I’m tired of “incremental change.” The stakes in the 21st century global world are too high. We need results, we need a difference, and that means "dramatic change." I visited the Southern Poverty Law Center (my interviews and experiences there are detailed in the book) as well as the Civil Rights Memorial and MLK’s Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, all in Montgomery, Alabama. Or, as I was informed there, what the truckers refer to as “Monkeytown.” Yes, I know all about those places and people you say I slap in the face. Relax, I’ve been on the right side of a lot of arguments in my life and so have you but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna win this one. Secession might be a good idea—at the very least it is a worthwhile frame through which to examine many of the problems in this country—but that doesn't mean it’s going to happen anytime soon. I’m serious about my book, but I’m also a realist and if you can’t see that there is a bit of a Swiftian proposition at work here, then you obviously haven’t bothered to read the book. = noexit argues: "There is nothin wrong with the south that can't be fixed by improving the form and structure of our government. If expelling the south were easier, I might be convinced that the immediate short term gain was worth it, but, ultimately it doesn't address the root of the problem which is a structure of government too vulnerable to capture by the 1%." cacamp asserts: "The book is wrong about blaming the "south" because its more about race than region. It should actually be named "Whats the Matter With White People" but that name has already been taken. Whereever the white power structure is solidly in control the rabid right is doing its damage be it north or south. But wherever that white powerstructure is being changed and challenged by a growing diversity, sanity is returning. Texas and Arizona will soon be blue states. When that change takes place the onslaught of stupid laws will cease." Ludovique: The South is a colonized land. The sort of economic despoliations and social degradations that one sees currently in places like Mexico were first inflicted by the North (the US industrial plutocracy) on the newly colonized post-bellum South. The descriptors: "uneducated, morbidly obese, racist, indigent, xenophobic, socially stunted"--and, I would add, bellicose--could easily and similarly be applied to a large part of the population of present-day Mexico (the racists, in their case, would be the lighter-skinned segments). The gypsification, to put it colloquially, of whole swathes of a country's population does not, of course, come about by accident: it is the result of decades (if not centuries) of colonialism/neocolonialism and the fundamentally extractive and subordinate position of a nation in a nexus of imperial and internationalized economies, in which a hegemonic power (the US) safeguards and promotes, at great cost to itself and the world, a fundamentally dangerous and damaging socioeconomic system, i.e. the neoliberal Washington Consensus. These are the same policies both Obama and Romney stand for (with minor social policy differences) and, as can be ascertained by the examples of both Mexico and US (North and South, but especially South) the results aren't pretty, the degradation of human beings and human societies never is. : Others argued that the problem was in the structure of the federal government and the restrictions of the constitution, or in the capitalist system itself and the way the South has historically been exploited by the North: CT: I agree with the notion that fixing a lot of our problems requires amending the basic structure of our federal government, likely starting with shuttering the electoral college. And, by the way, as an earlier questioner noted, that damn winner-take-all format does really perpetuate the notion that the “whole South is conservative” and clearly that is not the case. But, look, when guys like South Carolina Rep. Jim DeMint promise to make a sitting president’s major policy initiative (Obama, Healthcare) his “Waterloo”; when Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell says his party’s singular goal is to turn Obama into a one-term president; when the first lady launches a pretty harmless program meant to curb childhood obesity and half the South screams “Socialism!” (Georgia Rep. Paul Broun among them); then do you really think restructuring government is even a remote possibility? The white power structure is very much in control in New Hampshire and Montana and Oregon and Canada and many other perfectly nice places to live, so I don’t buy into the "all whities are evil" argument. Incidentally, my issue here isn’t with Republicans. It’s with southern obstructionists and often with usually southern fanatics who want to conflate Biblical law with U.S. law. When they’re doing their fiscally responsible, missionary-hump-values routine, the Republicans are fine. As for the poor victimized South, Jesus Christ, give me a break. The South’s most destructive evangelical mission is this whole “right to work” lie whose ultimate goal is, in the grand Dixie tradition, to turn the entire economy into a master/serf equation. The economic race to the bottom being led by southern states is doing far more harm to everyday Americans (North and South) than those billions of dollars of federal charity northern states are handing over to the southern states every year. Have northern and international industrialists raped portions of the South as part of the rapacious capitalist profit motive? Duh. But painting the South as helpless victims of this sort of thing just shows the epic hypocrisy and misunderstanding of history that underscore these arguments. (There’s much more on this in the economics chapter of the book.) = : There were several questions about practical aspects of a separation: WhamBam asks: "What about the debt? Does the North keep the federal debt?" He also asks: What happens to federal lands/parks in the South?Your response, and to any other questions of a practical nature about how it would work? CT: A portion of the federal debt will be assumed by the new C.S.A. I didn’t do the calculations on that, nor do I provide a firm figure. But I’d guess the C.S.A. would carry away about 35 percent of the national debt. The South takes control of its national parks and most of the federal land currently within its borders. Treaty provisions take care of the gray areas. = All I'd love to see in this political fantasy is a serious discussion with tons of media coverage and the threat of passage: The idea that each state should get the same per-capita proportion of federal revenues as they contribute. Then maybe some of these anti-government "self-reliant" Red Staters might understand who exactly is and is not benefitting from federal largesse. : Some believe the notion shouldn't be taken seriously, but that there's some good mileage to be had out of the idea if it sparked some real talk. An example is this comment, from firenze : Jesus, finally, someone gets it. Thank you. Look, whether or not you consider the meta argument absurd (which most normal people will), secession is still a fitting or at least useful and interesting umbrella beneath which to examine the primary source of the dysfunction that's hogtying this country on political, social and moral levels. "Thought experiment" is a phrase I used often when describing the book during research. Above all, I'm a realist and I understand secession isn't going to happen and that I'm unlikely to win many converts to my side of the argument. But it’s an argument worth having because I do think it exposes the prevailing source of much of our federal dysfunction. = southdem: "don't forget a lot of our 'Southern' politicians are imports from up North, like Gingrich (PA.)" Timmethy: "Our last 3 Democratic Presidents before Obama came from the South and were elected by the South (Clinton, Carter, LBJ) and were pretty good. California and Texas seem to supply the bad GOP Presidents of late (Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes). Texas = 1 for 3, California = 0 for 2." : There also were a couple of good points made about the import of bad politicians from the North and what the importance of some true recent southern leaders: CT: Sorry, we’ll take the blame for Bachmann and Santorum, but Gingrich is all on you guys who voted him in and made him a national celebrity. Lindsey Graham and a few thousand others also come to mind. Until Obama, if a southerner wasn’t on the Democratic ticket, the liberals had very little chance of winning a presidential election, which is why there almost always seemed to be a southerner on it. I expect Obama to be an anomaly in this regard and for the “gotta have a southerner to have a chance” mantra to return to the Dems. I hope I’m wrong on this and I might well be. By the way, easiest path to the White House in 2016? Any southern Republican willing either to switch to the Democratic side or simply seize the Republican brand name from the Tea Party Dollar Store gentry and run on a platform that promotes the kind of fiscal conservatism and small government generally associated with the Republicans (both GOP lies, of course, but the rhetoric still fools lots of people) and the kind of social liberalism generally associated with the Dems. That candidate would win 80 percent of the vote in this country. Obvious guy to do it is Marco Rubio, even though I’m not a fan of his. = Maybe I'm just engaged in wishful thinking but it looks to me like the South is poised on the edge of a tremendous historical shift, as economic growth and diversification coupled with demographic change fundamentally alter the region's long-standing social formation. When I see latino shopkeepers in North Carolina and Georgia, industrial workers in South Carolina and Alabama, and an honest-to-god financial services sector in Florida and North Carolina, I simply have to wonder if the old structures of power can remain in place. With a black man running a competitive race for president in places like Virginia and North Carolina, and performing surprisingly well even in racist bastions like Georgia and South Carolina, it looks like the day is not far off when the stranglehold Thompson complains of will be broken. : There also were many, many optimists, not just from the South, but from the North as well, who made solid arguments that things reallychanging for the better, slowly but surely. And that what was unimaginable a generation ago is common now. An example of this observation is made eloquently by litho : Sounds great but this "the South is changing, no, seriously it’s really changing" nonsense has been with us since the 1800s. The New York Times has run some iteration of this hopeful story every single year since at least 1974. I cite numerous other examples in the book, but here’s one from W.J. Cash’s totemic “Mind of the South” published in 1941: "Articles in the chief magazines hopefully announcing that the South was beginning to generate a wholly new attitude toward the Negro, were common even before 1910; commoner in the 1920’s. And in 1929 so astute a social critic as Oswald Garrison Villard, writing in Harper’s, could actually see the whole color line in the South as in the process of fairly rapid disintegration!" Here’s another bit from the book, from an interview with white, 73-year-old, Mississippi-based Civil Rights legend and activist Rims Barber: Many southerners had made the point to me that the N-word is rarely used in the South, anymore. Over the course of my travels, I heard it in casual conversation only a handful of times, far fewer times, for example, than one might hear it on a New York subway during the morning commute. "Does the fact that ‘nigger’ is almost never used in public, and not much even in private, mean that things are improving in the South?" I asked. Barber thought for a moment, then tapped his forefinger on his desk. "What that means is that the veneer on this wood is quite good," he said. Sizing up my bemused expression, Barber spread out his hand and ran it across the desktop. "This desk looks nice, doesn’t it?" he continued. "Like walnut or oak or something. I put a lot of coats of dark stain on it to make it look this nice. But, you know, it’s still just plywood underneath." = toddsmitts: "you can't be disgusted at present-day southerners who are nostalgic about the idea of secession if you're sympathetic to the idea yourself." North CountryNY: My question for those who advocate writing off the South. How are your views any different than this: Romney writes off 47% of Americans? Looks pretty much like the same kind of mind-set to me. A very poisonous one." : By far the biggest backlash against the premise ofamong the Daily Kos commentariat, however, was that writing off the South, the assumptions made about Southerners, the arrogance of outsiders judging the region, is in itself just as deeply ingrained—and as offensive—a form of bigotry as the racism and backwardness the book purports to condemn. Dozens of comments (many long) were made along those lines, but two of the most succinct can stand in for the rest: CT: To respond to a critique of the South by shouting, "You’re just as bad as they are!" is to employ the classic schoolyard bully misdirection, "Oh, yeah, I'm stupid? Well, guess what, you're ugly." It’s a baseless argument that’d get laughed out of any freshman rhetoric class. These type of comments often come from the type of mamby-pamby liberals that drive me absolutely bonkers, the kind of who disdain the blowtorch rhetoric of the Limbaugh-Hannity crowd but don’t have the stomach to stand up to it. I’m sick of the left cowering to morally bankrupt hypocrites. I’m willing to match that bullshit line for line and then some. As for being as bad as a Confederate secessionist, look, I’m not advocating launching a war meant to preserve slavery or the legal construct of white supremacy. Big difference. And if there is some overlap in interest between me and the reactionary South, well, that just goes to show you that the title of the book is meant to cut both ways. Divorces are tragic but sometimes they're inevitable and sometimes both parties ultimately benefit after the initial shock. You say I can’t be disgusted with present-day southerners who want secession if I am sympathetic to the idea myself: well, I’m not disgusted with them. We both want the same thing, and we both think we’d be better off without the other. Fine, let 'em go their way, let us go our way. You know what? We both might win in the end. We sure ain't getting to where we want to go together. So, let me get this straight: Romney wants to write off 47 percent of Americans and his party has been proving that they have the will and means to do this very thing for decades and decades and I’m supposed to sit here and say, "Oh, that’s OK, we still love you and want to be with you"? Look, I want nothing to do with Romney’s hatefulness—that’s why I want him and his southron power base out of my country. If half (or, God forbid, more than half) of the people in this country agree with him, I’d just as soon show them the door than invite them in to raid my refrigerator, not offer to clean the mess, and then bitch about what a shitty person I am. I’m so tired of the nonstop talk of fear and judgment and "America is doomed" from these people. It’s pathetic the way briar patch prophets and their followers give up so easily. I find that sort of pessimism completely at odds with the traditional American character of optimism. If they can’t behave like real Americans, I’d prefer they start their own Lost Cause country and do their bitching and blaming gays and abortion clinics for all the world’s ill somewhere else. = : And finally, on a lighter note, this observation by sewaneepat : "I do understand y'all not wanting to compete with SEC football, but who would fill your pro-teams rosters? And the only good music you would be left with is Bruce Springsteen." CT: Lighter note, my ass. This is as serious as the book gets. You know, not a single published southern critique has even attempted to mount a fact-based counter-argument to my book. All they can do is scream about me being yet another Yankee who hates on them poor old southerners who no one will give a break to and gripe about me coming down South to shoot fish in barrels and use the mouth-breathers to dishonestly paint the whole region. (Total bullshit, by the way. Far and away the southerners presented in this book are professionals, mainstreamers, business owners, elected officials, university profs, public administrators, demographers, statisticians, pastors, entrepreneurs, etc. In other words, community leaders.) I mean, for God’s sake, I draw a direct line from the 1960s Klan subsuming themselves into the evangelical political movement that now dominates the southern GOP and not one single published review or hostile email I’ve received has bothered to even try to refute that. The one exception is the sports fans, who reliably fortify their arguments with statistics and facts. Now, I can’t say I totally agree with those arguments—and I anticipated and addressed most of them in the book—but I will say they are legitimate arguments and deserve consideration and thank God for football fans, who are apparently among the last ones in the South who still know how to bring logic and facts to an intellectual debate. Anyway, never fear, northern football fans, the U.S.A./C.S.A. Treaty of Secession provides us access to NFL-caliber wide receivers and incentives for the equitable redistribution of cheerleaders. (By the way, whenever people talk about jazz as America’s only original art form and singular gift to world culture, I hasten to remind them of the cheerleader outfit.) As for music, that Phosphorescent CD I put on at the start of this interview is about done, so I guess I’ll pop on some Kanye or Los Lobos or Red Fang or Paul Simon or reach back for some Mudhoney or Stevie Wonder or Steely Dan or Charlie Parker or Duke Ellington … C’mon, I love Skynyrd and lots of southern and country music. Zac Brown and Eric Church were practically the soundtrack for my two years of southern research. But this has got to be the most legless argument of all. It ain’t a Berlin Wall I’m advocating. It’s a solution to a very real problem that might leave both sides better off. Thanks for the questions.
Get the biggest Manchester City FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Cesc Fabregas could be chased by BOTH Manchester sides this summer as his Barcelona future remains uncertain. The midfielder moved back to the Catalan club in 2011 after eight seasons with Arsenal, but it has been far from a dream return. Despite featuring heavily for Barcelona this term - playing in 33 of the 35 league games so far - Fabregas has not escaped criticism for the team's poor performances that is set to see them end the season without a major trophy. The 26-year-old was booed off the pitch by the Nou Camp fans after he came on as a substitute in the 2-1 home against Athletic Bilbao two weeks ago, and half of the Blaugrana fans that responded to a Marca poll on Fabregas's future thought he should be sold. With two years left on his existing deal, this summer will likely be the last window at which Barcelona could command a substantial fee for the player. The uncertainty surrounding Fabregas will attract United. The Reds tried to sign the Spaniard last summer and bid up to £40m and while they were unsuccessful, their approach to getting a new manager indicates chief executive Ed Woodward is not afraid to pursue the world's best. A source told the M.E.N that the club have compiled a list of three players for each area of the team they want to strengthen; Fabregas is thought to be on that list. But United will face stiff competition from City according to reports in Spain. Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo reports that Blues chief executive Txiki Begiristain is keen on the player . While Barcelona sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta appears eager to keep Fabregas due to his Barca 'DNA', the article suggests a plan is afoot at the Etihad to bring the midfielder to City. The Blues are known to be after another midfielder to bolster their squad. Gareth Barry is likely to be leaving the club and the side have struggled at times when Yaya Toure or David Silva - or both - have been injured. City pursued Porto midfielder Fernando Reges in the January transfer window but with no deal complete, the Brazilian signed a new contract. Begiristain's admiration of the Barcelona blueprint is no secret either. The idea of the holistic approach through the club and building a world-class academy are concepts inspired by the chief executive's time at the Nou Camp, where he was involved in trying to sign Cesc Fabregas for Barcelona. With FFP hanging over City's heads though and an existing midfield that can be categorised as world-class, it remains to be seen whether the Blues would move for the player. There is also Arsenal to consider. Arsene Wenger brought Fabregas's career through and the midfielder still has an affinity with the club. Speaking in October, he said: "Arsenal is in my heart and always will be. I don't know if I'll have the opportunity to go back and play there one day, or maybe after football. "It's a club that is always going to be there and will always open its doors to me. The club's like a family so, even if it wasn't as a coach, I'm sure they'd give me the chance to play a role."
Monaco's military forces A member of the armed forces of Monaco on guard duty at the Prince's Palace. The Principality of Monaco, the world's second-smallest sovereign state, after the Vatican City State, has a very limited military capability, and depends almost entirely upon its larger neighbour, France, for defence.[1][2] Altogether, there are 255 soldiers serving in Monaco's military (not including civilian employees who number 35 in total), making its military the third-smallest in the world (after Antigua and Barbuda and Iceland).[3][4] Department of the Interior [ edit ] The minister of the department of the interior is appointed by the Prince of Monaco for one 5-year term, and is mainly responsible for both policing and military activity within Monaco.[5] Ministers of the Department of the Interior (conseiller de gouvernement pour l’Intérieur): Border patrol and patrol boats [ edit ] Some military roles are assigned to the civil police, such as border patrol and border defence, which are the responsibility of a special police unit officially named the "Maritime and Heliport Police Division," and which operates on land and sea using patrol boats and high-speed surveillance boats.[6] Patrol boats, which currently[when?] number four (see below), are also operated by both the Corps des Sapeurs-Pompiers (fire-fighters) and the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince (Prince’s bodyguards). Military and civil defence [ edit ] Two full-time militarised armed forces exist under the control of the Department of the Interior. One is the Corps des Sapeurs-Pompiers de Monaco, and the other is the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince. Both units are key to the "ORMOS Red Plan" which makes provision for the evacuation of Monaco in case of natural disaster, or civil emergency. Corps des Sapeurs-Pompiers [ edit ] Fire appliance of the Monégasque firefighters Describing itself as a military force,[7] the Corps consists of 10 officers, 26 non-commissioned officers and 99 other ranks, for a total force of 135 military personnel (there are also 25 civilian employees) providing fire, hazardous materials, rescue, and emergency medical services.[8] The officers' ranks (in descending order of seniority) are: Colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel, Commandant, Captain, Lieutenant, and Sub-Lieutenant. There are a further nine ranks of non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel. Officers generally have served in the French military's fire service. Based at two barracks (one in La Condamine and one in Fontvieille), the Corps is equipped with fire engines, rescue vehicles and a range of specialist vehicles, including a fire boat and sealed tracked vehicles for entering Monaco's railway tunnels during an emergency. Beyond fire-fighting duties, the Corps has an extensive civil defence brief. Its personnel are trained in the use of firearms, and the Corps has a central armoury; personnel are also trained to handle chemical incidents, and have specialist chemical incident vehicles and equipment. They are also equipped with ambulances and personnel have paramedic training. An enlisted soldier (left) and a commissioned officer (right) of the Prince's Carabiniers. Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince [ edit ] Of a similar size to the Corps des Sapeurs-Pompiers, the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince has a total force of 116, consisting of three officers, 15 non-commissioned officers and 98 enlisted men (there are also 14 civilian employees). The officers have usually trained and served with the French military. Its primary duty is the defence of the Prince and the Prince's Palace in the Monaco-Ville (old town) quartier of Monaco. By extension, it also has a role in guarding members of the judiciary, who administer justice in the name of the Prince. There are a number of specialist units within the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince, which include a motorcycle section (for rapid-response and motorcycle outriding); a bodyguard and protection unit; a diving unit with military, rescue and scientific capabilities; a military first-aid unit that provides first aid and ambulance cover at public and sporting events; and a military band, which includes state trumpeters, a brass ensemble and a small orchestra, as well as serving as a marching band for ceremonial purposes.[9] The ceremonial "changing of the guard" at 11:55 a.m. each day attracts large numbers of tourists. The ceremony is more than just tourist spectacle, as this small military force is the front line of defence of the Monegasque princely family. Rank and insignia [ edit ] The rank structure of the armed forces of Monaco is based largely upon the rank structure of the French army. Enlisted soldiers and non-commissioned officers rise through a series of eight ranks: Commissioned officers rise through a series of six ranks, namely (in English translation): Sub-Lieutenant, Lieutenant, Captain, Commandant, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel. As can be seen, in the French/Monegasque system the title 'Commandant' replaces the title 'Major' as used in the British/Commonwealth/American system.
A former Twitter employee who stunned the world earlier this month by deactivating President Donald Trump’s account for 11 minutes has now stepped forward. Bahtiyar Duysak owned up to his involvement in the Nov. 3 Trump outage Wednesday in an interview with TechCrunch. Duysak, who is of Turkish decent but born and raised in Germany, called the outage a “mistake” and said he didn’t think the president’s Twitter account would actually get deactivated. Duysak was assigned to the trust and safety division of customer support while he neared the end of his work and study visa. The team is in charge of responding to alerts of offensive tweets, bad behavior, etc. During his last day on the job, Duysak said, someone had reported Trump’s account. So as his final act as a Twitter employee, he decided to start the process of deactivating the account before he signed off for good. Duysak said he didn’t think much of it until several hours later, when he learned what happened to the president's account and that a media uproar followed. Bypassing mainstream media Trump has consistently used Twitter to bypass the mainstream media and reach his 43.6 million followers directly, sometimes with content that some consider inflammatory. On Wednesday, Trump faced backlash for retweeting several videos that appeared to show Muslims committing acts of violence, with British Prime Minister Theresa May among the critics. However, Trump seemed to ignore the criticism telling May in a tweet “don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom.” Trump’s large social media presence was a crucial tool during his presidential campaign and a platform he acknowledged played a role in his election victory, the Washington Post noted. 'Full internal review' According to TechCrunch, Trump’s account was supposed to be protected from deactivation over a Terms of Service violation. Twitter initially blamed the outage on “human error,” but later learned that “a Twitter customer support employee” was responsible and promised to be “conducting a full internal review.” As for whether there will be legal repercussions, Duysak told TechCrunch he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong and hopes to “continue an ordinary life.” The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Complete History of WCW’s Yeti. Let’s talk about the Yeti. Even if you’ve never watched wrestling, you might’ve heard of him. (Maybe from me, come to think of it!) The Yeti is widely considered to be one of pro-wrestling’s worst-ever characters, and through an objective lens, I can’t disagree. He was a seven foot dude covered in so much gauze that he could barely walk. His one wrestling maneuver was best described as a dry hump. He was also very obviously a MUMMY. He was easy to make fun of and everyone did, but I loved the Yeti, and in fact once ordered a high-priced PPV event specifically to see him. The monsters of wrestling always fascinated me, and I can’t throw too much shade at one that pushed the envelope this far. Below: The history of wrestling’s infamous abominable snowman, in WrestleCrap GIF style. (Hi, RD!) Before we get to the Yeti’s stunning debut, I need to set the stage. In 1994, Hulk Hogan joined World Championship Wrestling. That probably wouldn’t have happened had Vince McMahon not believed that Hulk’s best days were behind him, but even if they were, Hogan was a huge score for a wrestling company that had long been #2. A year or so later, a new stable of monster-themed wrestlers was introduced. Led by “Taskmaster” Kevin Sullivan, the Dungeon of Doom’s entire reason for being was to destroy Hulkamania. In storyline terms, at least. Behind the scenes, the Dungeon of Doom was conceived to ease Hogan’s transition and make him less paranoid about his new wrestling home. It was no coincidence that the stable was filled with wrestlers that Hogan was already familiar with from his WWF days. Some he considered outright friends. These were safe guys to wrestle and none of them posed any threat to him. I won’t pretend that the Dungeon of Doom wasn’t hokey. The stablemates included a headhunting cannibal and a human shark, after all. It wasn’t a critical success, but I’d have to call it a commercial one: WCW got a lot of mileage out of some pretty cheap tools. Now let’s get to that damn Yeti: October 23rd, 1995. Monday Nitro. This was WCW’s new flagship show: A live broadcast that competed directly with the WWF’s Monday Night Raw. The WWF had better production values, sure, but WCW’s willingness to throw PPV-caliber matches on free TV made Nitro competitive from the start. On this night, the Master, who was basically the Dungeon’s non-wrestling “boss,” made a rare appearance outside of his usual smoky cave. I could barely understand a word he said, but the gist was that he’d imported a giant block of ice to the arena, with the implication being that some new wrestler was hiding inside. In more ways than one, this was WCW’s version of the Gobbledy Gooker. Fast forward to the end of that same episode. As Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage fought off various Dungeon monsters, the lights started flickering and the arena began to rumble. And then, IT HAPPENED. Just before Nitro went off the air, the Yeti busted out of his frozen prison. Our first glimpse of this new superstar lasted only a few seconds, but even that was enough to send shockwaves throughout the industry. Was WCW really gonna use a wrestling mummy? “THE YET-TAY!” We wouldn’t have to wait long for confirmation. About a week after Nitro came WCW’s annual Halloween Havoc pay-per-view event. This had historically been WCW’s “spooky” pay-per-view, but the 1995 edition turned out to be the last one that really lived up to the name. In the main event, Hogan defended his WCW championship against the Giant, who by that point was the Dungeon’s shining star. Billed as the “son of Andre,” the Giant was unusually athletic for such a big man, and would later find even more success as WWE’s Big Show. (…who still wrestles, and in fact is probably gonna wrestle Shaq of all people at this year’s WrestleMania!) The match ended in a huge clusterfuck. At the time, it seemed like every WCW main event did. I won’t bore you with a play-by-play, but basically, a bunch of good guys “went bad,” and everyone was beating up on poor Hulk Hogan. There was already enough meat on the bone to consider it an effective ending to the PPV, but WCW had one last trick up its sleeve: That ridiculous Yeti. Lumbering to the ring, the Yeti seemed impossible even by wrestling standards. Taller than the Giant and covered in what honestly appeared to be used toilet paper, it was immediately clear that whoever was in that costume had about as much mobility as Ralphie’s kid brother in his winter coat. In wrestling, first impressions count for a lot. I can’t say that the Yeti’s went off without a hitch. Scripted to aid the Giant in a “double bearhug” on Hulk Hogan, the Yeti looked more like he was trying to hump the Hulkster. It was… it wasn’t good. The Yeti spent most of the following month in hiding, but was then advertised as part of WCW’s inaugural World War 3 PPV event. Sixty men would square off in a three-ring battle royal to determine the new WCW champion. As if that wasn’t “gimmick enough,” each of those rings was to include “one giant.” The Yeti was advertised as one of the three. I ordered this event, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Yeti was the only reason. I didn’t expect him to win, but the idea that I could see a yeti/mummy attempt to actually wrestle and not just randomly hug a guy seemed well worth my parents’ money. Unfortunately, it wasn’t: The Yeti indeed participated in the match, just as advertised. The problem was that he’d somehow morphed into a giant ninja. One of the commentators speculated that he’d “thawed out,” but I knew bullshit when I saw it. The offense might’ve been more forgivable had the Yeti become a cool ninja, but this one was just the pits. He looked like he was wearing a giant-sized version of the same stupid Halloween costume I got from Kmart in the second grade. Worst of all, the Yeti barely competed in the match. He was tossed out of the battle royal within seconds, and even then, most of his appearance transpired off-screen. WCW had clearly lost faith in the Yeti concept, and just did the bare minimum necessary to make good on what was advertised. In fact, the Yeti’s throwaway appearance at World War 3 was basically all she wrote for the character. He never appeared at another PPV event, let alone on a Monday Nitro, which by then was even more important than the PPVs. Curiously, none of his friends in the Dungeon of Doom ever spoke of him again. Yet the Yeti actually did soldier on, albeit on a smaller stage. Still in his ninja garb, he competed in a quickie squash match on one of WCW’s least important shows. I’ll say this for the ninja costume: It at least let the Yeti pull off a few moves. Interestingly, his name was spelled “Yetti” during this match. I believe it was the only time that WCW showed his name onscreen. I’d love to say that they intentionally stylized it for merchandising reasons, but 10-to-1, nobody at WCW bothered to look up the spelling. That match marked the end of the Yeti’s (or Yetti’s) run, but he technically competed again that month, on another of WCW’s lesser shows. Billed as the Super Giant Ninja, the Yeti was the same in everything but name. As a final insult, he lost to the One Man Gang, who pretended to have no idea that he was wrestling a fellow member of the Dungeon of Doom! Ron Reis, who portrayed the Yeti, would later get to compete without the burden of silly costumes. Wrestling fans may remember him best as Reese from Raven’s Flock. In a shoot interview years later, Reis claimed that he was always supposed to be a giant ninja character, and was only drafted into “yetidom” because new signee Jorge Gonzalez (El Gigante/Giant Gonzales) became too ill to do the job. Oh, what could’ve been! These days, I can’t help but appreciate the fact that WCW’s “Yeti” was actually a mummy, and then later a giant ninja. That sort of ridiculousness was unique to WCW, and for as much as everyone poked fun, the bizarre nonsense sure kept things interesting. I’m not even counting it as “ironic love,” either. I genuinely dig it when wrestling goes nuts. Mr. Reis, wherever you are: Just know that there was at least one person who was truly invested in your work as a wrestling’s only yeti-mummy-ninja. I still want an action figure of you.
All of the GuardianProject in One Recovery-Flashable Zip We could all use a little more security in our mobile technology. Between trojans and malware, traffic monitoring at work, and the man, everyone is trying to see what you’re doing pretty much all the time. There are applications available for desktop operating systems that make snooping less of a problem such as Tor, which allows users to browse the web with complete anonymity. On Android, there are applications available that provide similar protection such as the applications developed via the GuardianProject. Started with the singular goal of increasing privacy and protection, the GuardianProject has developed a variety of applications that help make your day-to-day mobile device usage safer. Additionally, there are a number of applications that the GuardianProject supports, such as the K-9 email application that allows for email encryption. Now, it is possible to install the entire suite of GuardianProject applications using a ClockworkMod flashable zip. Posted by XDA Senior Member x942, the flashable zip contains about a dozen applications that will help guard your privacy. The included apps are: Orbot: TOR (Anonymous Web Browsing) for Android Gibberbot: Secure Encrypted IM using Google Talk ObscuraCam: Secure Camera that obscures faces InTheClear: Data Wipe (“Poison Pill”) Wipes phone on command Android Privacy Guard: Public Key Crypto (GPG) for Android DroidWall: Firewall that uses IPTables to prevent data leaks and Network attacks. FDroid: Alternative to Google Playstore. All apps are FOSS. ORweb: Privacy oriented web browser that works automatically with Orbot (TOR). [ADDED: 08//19/2012] OSTel: Encrypted VOIP phone calls using ZRTP. The app is based on CSipSimple For more info go here to create a free acount go here. NOTE: This service & app are in public beta status. [ADDED: 08/20/2012] K-9 Mail: Open Source E-mail app that works with APG for sending encrypted E-mails. Has lots of powerful options. [ADDED: 08/21/2012] CaCertMan: Manage the list of Certificate Authorities on you phone. Let’s you revoke any CA’s you distrust. ROOT Needed. [ADDED: 08/21/2012] Additionally, there is information on where to get applications to protect other things such as text messaging. If you’re looking to use your mobile device with a little more privacy and anonymity, head over to the original thread for more details. [This is the 6000th article published by the XDA Portal. Congrats to us!]
Meltdown (Shuttershock) Conservatives reacted angrily to reports that Washington state will begin teaching kindergartners about gender identity next school year. The conservative website Daily Caller reported on Thursday that as of fall semester 2017, public schools will start educating students about gender expression. Kindergartners will also learn to distinguish between “safe and unwanted touch” and to “Recognize people have the right to refuse giving or receiving unwanted touch,” according to a Washington schools spokesman, speaking to the Caller. The Caller fretted that Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction “did not answer a question from TheDC about whether this lesson plan amounts to teaching consent to kindergartners.” The story prompted one woman to compare public schools to “child abuse.” In the 21st century, sending children to public school is child abuse.@instapundit @g56yu https://t.co/SbI0Q1nwBI — FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 2, 2016 Others also reacted angrily. @ericowensdc @Not_RSMcCain We’ll end up with a generation that can’t add or subtract, but will be proficient in Special Snowflake pronouns. — Christi Junior (@ChristiJunior) June 2, 2016 @ericowensdc @DailyCaller More sick, twisted thinking from the liberals. Liberals, move to Germany. You can help them destroy Europe. — Bruce (@BruceSSilver) June 2, 2016 @ericowensdc@DailyCaller Teach them to spell Ridiculous while they are at it. How age-inappropriate! — Cindy Crawley (@cindy_crawley) June 2, 2016 A person posting a comment to the Daily Caller story conflated being transgender with mental illness — a common conservative theme. “I can respect the mentally ill,” the person wrote. “I can’t respect the idea of endorsing, promoting or buying into their delusions or being an accomplice to supporting mental disorders as healthy.”
<span class="truncated">...</span> There are system in place to validate the reports that are logged by the players behavior into report system so that Blizz can look at the actions and chat situation of each game. This isn't justice is blind in this game this is straight out " we see what your doing and we got it here for us to see and read what actions your are committing to get these reports" I been accuse of aim botting a lot most likely got reported for those accusations unfortunately for them I don't cheat and wouldn't waste my time or money to deal with such absurd actions. But logs can prove that I have not when you look at state wise on each game as my avg of accuracy I get per game is between 30% to 50% and I am a Hanzo main on QP. That's great and all but he said when it comes to abusive chat reports they just look to see if you used text or voice chat not what you've said. So if i'm just communicating with my team and not being abusive and get reported it'll show up I was using voice chat and that report is validated even when it shouldn't be. Report has to match what they put down even if they were in voice chat and they make the report. If the report doesn't match up with what is going on in game then no actions will be taken.But there will always be human error in the side of "mods" All log tell a story If you say Hey she/he playing a character the team hate and reports it. If the log say well he played an avg game that looks normal to us and was obviously not trying to throw the game no actions will be taken as the report was highly likely made to falsely accuse the player.And I would like to say you can't send a report based on " Hey we don't like this character being played" That wouldn't fly to get a justified report. You obviously have to lie in the report to get what ever action will take and hope human error is on the side to get the result accusers want.Personally I would suggest a system to rebut the actions if the crime doesn't fit the report take the accusers ability to report for certain amount of time.There needs to be a check and balance system in this game when it comes to reporting.
We have less than a day to go before Thanksgiving is here, and you should thankful for BGR’s series on paid iPhone and iPad apps that are on sale for free for a limited time. We save you hundreds of dollars each week by sharing the best paid apps that go on sale for free, and yesterday’s post has a few gems that are still free downloads if you hurry. Today, however, we have seven new paid apps on sale and if you’re quick, you won’t have to pay a cent for any of them. DON’T MISS: eBay’s Black Friday sale has some of the craziest deals we’ve seen – everything you need to know These are paid iPhone and iPad apps that have been made available for free for a limited time by their developers. There is no way to tell how long they will be free. These sales could end an hour from now or a week from now — obviously, the only thing we can guarantee is that they were free at the time this post was written. If you click on a link and see a price listed next to an app instead of the word “get,” it is no longer free. The sale has ended. If you download the app, you will be charged. Remindly Normally $4.99 Ultra easy to use with powerful beautiful features like a highly requested Auto-Snooze Functionality allows you to prioritize very important tasks with continual reminders, categorize everyone of your reminders, easily reschedule and snooze tasks until you can get them finished, and more! Take control of your life today! Download Remindly Captune Normally $0.99. All of us had moments that we wanted to capture and tune with favourite music. Captune is not just another music video generating app, it makes these moments unforgettable. Videos that we capture, represent the biggest, most important events of our lives. Music helps us recall our memories. All of this was our major drive to create an app with extraordinary experience of making personal music videos. Simplicity of design and usability is what we paid a lot attention to. You don’t want to miss that right moment while navigating through countless settings and effects of the app. We worked hard to give you a good range of simple, yet sophisticated filters. In the end, do you really want to have that red tulip frame on top of your video? – Pick a song from your playlist – Choose a filter – Record a video – Share it. It’s that simple! In real time Captune will create an unforgettable memory. No after-editing is needed. It’s all done in Real Time. Everything is made for you during recording. Audio timeline gives visual aid to make different accents while shooting the video. You can share your music videos with your friends and people you value via Facebook and Vimeo (Youtube upload coming very soon). Download Captune Mouthy Normally $0.99. Mouthy is the only way to get Siri ® to talk back. You type it, Siri will say it. Using the latest in text-to-speech, you can type a phrase and have it read it back to you, even unlocking various languages and accents to spice it up. ◉ Prank the driver by faking driving directions ◉ Order a pizza in a robotic voice ◉ Say anything and blame it on the phone ◉ Have a verbal battle with friends ◉ Play with funny accents Download Mouthy Instagrab Normally $2.99. Let Instagrab enhance your existing Instagram experience. Instagrab is an Instagram companion app that brings new functionality and allows you to take full advantage of your mobile device and your social network. Enjoy the view in our full-screen mode, bookmark your favorite photos/videos for your collections, and discover local photos based on your real-time location. – Enjoy the intuitive user interface – Access the most popular Instagram photos – Show local photos with your real-time location – View photos/videos in full-screen mode – Download photos/videos to your iPhone/iPad – Share photos to Facebook and Twitter – Bookmark your favorite users without following them – Search for locations, hashtags, and users – See all followers for a given Instagram account – Use passcode protection with Instagrab – Supports multiple Instagram accounts for viewing/downloading visual content Download Instagrab Groops Normally $0.99. Groops is a puzzle game that will put your mind to the test. Match tiles three at a time based on either shared or completely unique attributes – the number of possibilities will tie your brain in knots! Keep your mind sharp. Play Groops! • Hundreds of levels of increasing difficulties! • Infinite, unlimited gameplay in “Time Attack” mode. Get to the top of the leaderboards and send your friends Challenge requests to beat your score! • Unlock dozens of Achievements! • Compete against friends in multiplayer mode – who can get the most Groops before time runs out? ******** GAMEPLAY MODES LEVELS – Relax, there’s no time pressure. Find all the possible Groops on the screen to advance. You can use Hints if you get stuck (get more by playing TIME ATTACK or from the Powerups menu). TIME ATTACK – Find as many Groops as possible before time runs out! Make 5 Groops in a row to increase your multiplier, but be careful! If you make an invalid Groop, your multiplier gets reset. Rack up as many points as possible because your score gets added to your points bank. ******** OK, HOW DO I PLAY? Match 3 tiles to make a Groop. Tiles have 4 attributes with three options each – SHAPE (square, circle, leaf), COLOR (blue, magenta, yellow), PATTERN (solid fill, striped fill, border only), and SYMBOL (diamond, hourglass, and its 3rd option is no symbol at all). Finding identical tiles is easy, but you’ll eventually need to make Groops based on mixed attributes, and thats where we kick your brain into full-throttle. Groops can be made by matching tiles with identical attributes, by matching all 3 options of 1 attribute, or by matching three different options across multiple attributes. For example: • Solid blue square with no symbol, solid blue circle with no symbol, and a solid blue leaf with no symbol. (Same shape – square, same color – blue, same pattern – solid, all different symbols) • Striped blue square with no symbol, solid magenta circle with a diamond, bordered yellow leaf with an hourglass (All different shapes, all different colors, all different patterns, all different symbols) NOTE: To make a Groop, either all options are the same, or all different across the attributes. For example, these would be invalid: • Solid blue square with no symbol, solid blue square with no symbol, solid blue circle with no symbol (two squares and a circle, instead of three squares, or one square, one circle, and one leaf) • Bordered magenta circle with a diamond, solid yellow circle with a diamond, solid yellow circle with an hourglass (Invalid for two reasons: 1) two yellows and a magenta instead of three yellows or one yellow, one magenta, and one blue. 2) two diamonds and an hourglass instead of three diamonds or one diamond, one hourglass, and one without any symbol at all) Download Groops PutPic Normally $0.99. PutPic lets you merge your photos without losing any pixels or making them shrink. With PutPic, you can keep the original resolutions of your photos even after merging them. – EASY INTERFACE Using PutPic is as easy as a tap! It will show you the menu. – FREE POSITIONING PutPic has no frames. So, you can put your photos in a large canvas as you want. You can also freely crop, rotate, and resize them, and they will be merged and saved as seen. – PRESERVING IMAGE QUALITY Different from other photo apps, PutPic NEVER resizes photos without your intention. PutPic preserves the best image quality after merging. – TEXT OVER Do you want to put some funny comments on your photo or decorate them with beautiful poems? PutPic provides the TextOver feature with plenty of free fonts. If you want to use your custom font (.otf, .ttf), simply copy it into PutPic using iTunes Files Sharing, and it will be available in PutPic. Download PutPic Benjamin Afterburner HD Normally $19.99. For the first time in the Benjamin Universe, experience Real-Time HD Transformable Modern Jet Aircraft with 3 upgradeable HD jets along with 18 unique HD weapons and after-burner upgrades. Survive 20 action oriented HD arcade missions with 2 bonus endless mission challenges as you watch your HD Fighter Aircraft transform their engine and afterburner configuration in real time before your eyes, with NEW breathtaking and awe-inspiring HD visuals exclusively on the iOS. Featuring: • New generation of HD Arcade-Style Jet-Fighter experience with Transformable Afterburner technology that morphs, modifies and changes your modern HD aircraft in real time right before your eyes! • Enjoy Simple and Intuitive HD Controls: tilt your iOS device left/right to steer your Jet Fighter around city obstacles while skillfully avoiding enemy missiles. • Alternatively, for a casual ON-RAILS HD experience: forgo tilting and simply tap your enemies to engage the “Autopilot” while controlling your Afterburner and Weapons with a smooth 2-button interface. • Experience the Benjamin HD Afterburner Universe with brand new jaw-dropping HD effects, sights and sounds as well as ultra-fast style of arcade game play like never before! • RPG Style Progression System allows you to FREELY acquire, pilot and level-up 3 unique HD Transformable Modern Jet Fighter Aircraft while unlocking 18 different types of Afterburner and Weapon upgrades. • Face more than 30 different types of HD Afterburner enemies, including: modern jets, attack helicopters and GIGANTIC money-packed HD Afterburner transport aircraft! • Game Center support: with 7 HD Leaderboards and 18 elusive HD Achievements that demand an additional 10+ hours of game play. • Optional In-App Purchases allow you to skip the RPG grind and instantly acquire any of the playable HD Transformable Afterburner Fighter Jets. In addition, you can Restore your existing purchases to unlock content on multiple iOS devices. • Over 30 minutes of memorable original HD music will dynamically accompany your Benjamin Afterburner combat experience. • Adaptive HD AI and Randomized HD Enemies with Dynamic Difficulty: provide for a near endless replay value, as your opponents constantly change and adapt to your style of game play each time you engage a new or existing mission. >> Game Play Basics: Steer your HD Jet Fighter manually by tilting your device left and right, or tap your enemies to engage the ON-RAILS “Autopilot”. NOTE that you must be facing your enemies directly before pressing the right “Weapons/Fire” button. Holding the left “Afterburner” button will allow you to avoid enemy missiles as well as steer around various city hazards long enough to obtain a real-time Transform modification to your Jet Fighter. Remember that the game’s Dynamic On-Screen Tutorial System will always guide you on the right course of action, while prolonged use of the Weapons/Afterburner will cause a temporary overload. Also, note that your Jet Fighter is equipped with automatic repair systems which will activate shortly after you stop taking damage. Completing missions, earning XP and leveling-up your HD Jet Fighter to Level 5 will unlock new playable aircraft for FREE. You may also skip the RPG grind and instantly level-up via the use of optional In-App Purchases. Each In-App Purchase can also be Restored, thus allowing you to instantly unlock playable fighter jets on multiple iOS devices. Download Benjamin Afterburner HD
Karaoke was my family’s happy secret. In those early years in America, like many immigrants, my parents struggled with poverty and loneliness, but they also built provisional families, and inside our bubble there was joy, understanding, an intimate language I could never translate — and above all there was song. Out there, we were flat-faced, all-look-the-same nobodies. But in our own homes, I saw how my parents and their friends could be loose, free and loud. In the middle of seventh grade, we moved to a white suburb on Long Island, and everything changed. Not only was the drive back to Queens long enough to make trips infrequent, but with the high of our newfound class mobility came crushing paranoia that the tentacles of American individualism, recklessness and narcissism were coming for me, and so my parents clamped down even harder. Meanwhile, among my classmates, I no longer flew under the radar; instead, I was singled out, and my ethnicity made me a target for mockery. Faced with ostracization at school and confinement at home, I turned to karaoke. That year, my mother returned to Shanghai and came back with yet another karaoke machine. ‘‘It has English songs,’’ she said, pulling out a LaserDisc that came free with the system. I recognized two of them. I feigned nonchalance, but the next day after school when no one was home, I turned it on and began to learn the words to ‘‘What’s Up’’ by 4 Non Blondes. Accomplished vocalist I was not, but it felt good to belt out someone else’s words. The rage I didn’t know what to do with — for having to endure racism and bullying from my peers, for the intense isolation my parents put me through — slipped free of my body, and I felt worthwhile, dazzling even. At school, I was reviled; at home, I could shake the walls with my voice until the moon rose in the sky — or at least until my parents came home from work. The latest in Chinese home karaoke — a portable microphone that connects to your smartphone, with a built-in speaker — has now made solo singing more appealing than ever. Last week, after a surge of renewed anxiety about the world, I ordered a knockoff from eBay, and alone in my cramped New York apartment, I put my new rose gold microphone up to my lips. I felt like the speaker in the William Carlos Williams poem ‘‘Danse Russe,’’ who dances naked in front of the mirror once his wife, baby and nanny have gone to sleep and sings to no one: ‘‘I am lonely, lonely./I was born to be lonely,/I am best so!’’ I cued up a song and suddenly realized that I wasn’t lonely, lonely. No longer that dim creature who lived subterraneously for years, longing to perform while terrified of an audience, I told myself a small New York lie: All my neighbors are at work — surely no one can hear me. And I took a deep breath, and I sang at the top of my lungs, ‘‘What’s going on?’’
Instructions to slaughter sheep to respect halal and kosher rituals are seen inside of Cibevial sheep slaughterhouse in Corbas, France, May 4, 2016. REUTERS/Robert Pratta Belgium - A committee of the Walloon Parliament in southern Belgium has voted to ban the slaughter of unstunned animals, a requirement for both kosher and halal ritual slaughter. The environment committee of the Walloon Parliament voted unanimously on Friday for the ban, which takes effect on Sept. 1, 2019. The issue is set to be debated later this month in the Parliament’s plenary, according to the European Jewish Congress. Similar legislation has been proposed by the parliament in the northern Belgium Flanders or Flemish region. Advertisement: Shechitah, the ritual method of slaughtering animals, requires they be conscious when their throats are slit — a practice that critics say is cruel but which advocates insist is more humane than mechanized methods used in non-kosher abattoirs. Muslims slaughter animals in a similar method, albeit with fewer restrictions, to produce halal meat. EJC President Dr. Moshe Kantor called the decision “scandalous.” “This decision, in the heart of Western Europe and the centre of the European Union, sends a terrible message to Jewish communities throughout our continent that Jews are unwanted. It attacks the very core of our culture and religious practice and our status as equal citizens with equal rights in a democratic society. It gives succor to anti-Semites and to those intolerant of other communities and faiths,” Kantor said, vowing to “not rest until this ban is overturned and Jews in Europe are able to practice their most basic religious rights.” Last month, Philippe Markiewicz, president of the Consistoire organization of Belgian Jewry that is responsible for providing religious services, pleaded with Walloon region lawmakers not to “repeat the Nazis’ acts.” “The last assault on ritual slaughter was in October 1940 under the Nazi occupation because they knew how important it was for Jews,” Markiewicz said during an address in the city of Namur at the Parliament of Wallonia. The statement was unusual because Jewish community officials rarely draw comparisons between present-day issues and the Nazi occupation, which remains a sensitive subject in Belgium. The move in the Walloon region, which has only a few hundred Jews, follows an agreement in March that imposes limitations on ritual slaughter in the Flemish region, where half of Belgium’s Jewish population of 40,000 people live. The remaining 20,000 live in the Brussels region. According to the Joods Actueel monthly, Flemish Region politicians are seeking the consent of Muslim and Jewish faith communities to a proposal in which small animals would be non-lethally stunned with electricity before they are killed. Larger animals would receive “irreversible stunning” — a term that usually describes a bolt pin to the brain — within seconds of the slashing of their throats in a procedure known as post-cut stunning. Some Orthodox Jewish communities and their faith leaders, including in Austria, have accepted post-cut stunning. Regardless of whether an agreement is reached, a ban on the slaughter of animals without stunning will become effective in January 2019 in the Flemish region, according to De Morgen daily. In Europe, the Jewish and Muslim customs have united opponents both from liberal circles who cite animal welfare as their main concern and right-wing nationalists who view the custom as foreign to their countries’ cultures.
Fighters in eastern Ukraine are resorting for the first time since a ceasefire was signed in February to using a powerful, indiscriminate weapon that can cause heavy damage at long distances, and inflict enormous collateral damage on civilians. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe reported Thursday that its monitors on the ground had heard the firing of Grad rockets, a highly controversial Russian-built weapon designed to kill large numbers of enemy troops dozens of miles away. The weapon was heard being fired -- it's not clear by which side -- near Donetsk on Saturday and in the village of Hranitne on April 30, according to Alexander Hug, deputy chief monitor for the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, who also said at a briefing in Kiev that the security situation in the region was deteriorating. "Over the last week the OSCE SMM have heard hundreds of sounds of attacks. Especially on May 2 in Donetsk we heard the launching of Grad rockets, which led to civilian casualties,” said Hug. "While the ceasefire is in place, there remain ‘hot spots.’ The situation around the Donetsk airport is unpredictable and there are ever more violations of the agreements. People continue to die.” While Donetsk is under rebel control and Hranitne is under Ukrainian government control, Hug said that it was unclear who had fired the rockets. The OSCE monitors, who are charged with keeping tabs on the ceasefire, conduct daily spot verifications in their official capacity -- but in recent weeks they have complained about not been given access to areas controlled by pro-Russian rebels. This, they said, has made it difficult to ensure that the terms of the Minsk II truce were being fulfilled, including accounting for the whereabouts of heavy weapons. Before the ceasefire officially came into force on Feb. 15, the Grad system had been used widely by both sides since the conflict broke out in April 2014. But with the Minsk II deal on Feb. 12, government and rebels forces both agreed to cease using it. Designed and originally built in 1963 in the Soviet Union, the Grad system is still considered to be a highly powerful, if indiscriminate, weapon. A direct descendant of the Katyusha rocket launcher that terrorized German troops in World War II, it normally consists of a truck carrying around 40 tubes that fire one rocket each, simultaneously, at a single area, which can be as far as 40 km (24 miles) away. The standard rocket is often fitted with a fragmentation warhead that disperses fragments of metal at high velocity upon impact. Other warheads can deliver gas or explosives. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said pro-Russian rebels were preparing to launch a new offensive in the contested region of Donbas.
For episode 2.10, SVENNESS travels to Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic, for the European Championship. We take a look at the U23 race, which features such up-and-coming (or arguably already here) stars as Wout van Aert, Michael Vanthourenhout and Mathieu van der Poel. The course is a mix of paved road and mud. Nothing in between. However, it is for the most part all ridable and there isn’t more than a couple feet of elevation on the course. This is the first course SVENNESS has visited that is similar to something most amateurs would race on the weekend. For this race we focus on riding in the mud, cornering, tactics and blocking. The pro moves these young guns are putting on each other as the race gets heated at the end is not to be missed. As always, this episode is brought to you by Skills Drils and Bellyaches: A Cyclocross Primer. It is available for sale at cyclocrossbook.com. Also, check out the shirts, socks, water bottles and gloves we have available atcrosshairscycling.com/shop. Footage via Česká televize: ceskatelevize.cz/sport/ Music in this episode: My Friends Ft. Mick Coogan & Panic City: soundcloud.com/mcscottd/my-friends-ft-mick-coogan ZZ Ward – 365 Days – Jerry Folk Remix: soundcloud.com/jerryfolkmusic/zz-ward-365-days-jerry-folk Raleigh Ritchie – Bloodsport: soundcloud.com/raleigh-ritchie/bloodsport Gnarls Barkley – Crazy (TEEMID & Joie Tan Cover): soundcloud.com/teemid/crazy-teemid-joie-tan-cover
Q: If Chris Bosh doesn't return, this just makes the Heat a team with a lot of names on its roster. -- Edward. A: A reasonable point, just like the Nets were a team of names when Joe Johnson played there along with Paul Pierce, Deron Williams and Kevin Garnett. But the question is what is the ultimate upside for this non-Bosh mix (and I can't fathom he is returning after this much time away from the team)? I think it would be getting to the second round of the playoffs and getting a read on Hassan Whiteside and Justise Winslow (and possibly Josh Richardson, as well) in playoff competition. I agree that I'm not sure with Bosh in place you would have considered Johnson an essential addition. While Pat Riley tends to only speak in terms of championship visions, I think second-round visions hardly would be the worst vantage point for this season, considering how much has transpired this stage. Q: I can see the Celtics going after Hassan Whiteside big time the offseason. Whiteside on the Celtics could challenge anyone. -- Joel. A: Well, Hassan already has let us know that he is fast friends with Kelly Olynyk, so there is that. What is fascinating in free agency is that outside teams tend to see the glass half full, while a player's incumbent team has a greater knowledge of the accompanying flaws. Based on what the Celtics saw on Saturday and other teams have seen on the court this season, there can't be anything but a fascination of adding Whiteside's possibilities to an undersized mix. But when you listen to Erik Spoelstra and even Dwyane Wade, there is more of a complete and complex portrait. It is why I still believe the Heat would be less likely to go to the max with Hassan than another team. But it does seem like Dwayne is softening his viewing and coming around a bit more on Hassan. Q: Ira, Phil Jackson compares Steph Curry to Chris Jackson. It's enough to make you appreciate why Pat Riley stays off Twitter. -- Tim. A: Whether it is a Curry comparison to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf or any of his other cryptic messages, Jackson seems to take more pleasure in instigating discussion than selling his team's brand. That is not the type of image or reputation Riley attempts to portray. And how do you tell your players to think before they say or tweet or Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat something when you're out there yourself trolling? Riley's entire persona is one of an executive trying to get championships. At times, it's as if Phil merely is trying to get a rise out of us (and there's nothing wrong with that, either, as long as the entire fate of a franchise doesn't rest in your hands).
Image copyright Urban Land Institute Sea levels are rising, the land is sinking. It's going to become a big problem for some cities on the US East Coast, so in Boston people are thinking the unthinkable - copying Venice and Amsterdam, and becoming a city of canals. Two years ago, when the still vicious tail-end of Hurricane Sandy slammed into Boston, it was luck rather than planning that saved the city's streets from deep floods. If it had hit four hours earlier, during the full-moon high tide, it is likely a storm surge would have inundated the city, submerging its low-lying areas under several feet of water. The narrow escape concentrated minds, because there's another problem threatening to overwhelm the city's flood defences - climate scientists are predicting a sea-level rise on the US east coast of up to six feet (2m) by the end of the century. On top of this, Boston has seen an increase in rain and snow over the past few decades and has to contend with the fact that the whole of the US East Coast is sinking as the West Coast around the San Andreas Fault rises. This is why Boston's city planners and architects are contemplating the radical idea of turning its most historic district - the elegant 19th Century terraced houses of the Back Bay - into a network of canals. "Much of the model has been how do we keep the water out? Everybody's afraid of the water," says Dennis Carlberg, sustainability director at Boston University and co-chair of Boston's sea-level rise committee. "So we wanted to turn that conversation on its head and say, well what if we let water in? How can we make life better in Boston by bringing water in?" Image copyright Dennis Carlberg Image caption Clarendon Street as it is today, and (top of page) with added canal The canal idea was floated when architects, developers, real estate experts and business owners were brought together in May to discuss ways of preserving the city's buildings in this watery cityscape of the future. "It can't be that we provide a giant dam at the Boston harbour and solve all our problems that way," says Boston's Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Space, Brian Swett. "The way we solve this has to be vibrant, liveable, exciting and enhance our quality of life." One of the vibrant solutions that came out of that brain-storming session in May, hosted by non-profit organisation the Urban Land Institute, was to turn Boston into the Venice of the US north-east. Vulnerable cities Boston is the world's eighth most vulnerable city to financial loss because of sea-level rise, according to a 2013 World Bank study Other US cities ahead of Boston on this list are Miami (2nd), New York (3rd) and New Orleans (4th) The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) predicts sea levels will rise by between 3ft and 6.6ft on the US East Coast by the end of the century The canals would criss-cross the streets of the Back Bay - a neighbourhood of Boston which was actually a tidal bay before it began to be filled in and built on 150 years ago. Its rows of four to five storey brownstone houses arranged in a grid pattern were immortalised in the writings of Henry James and are considered to be the best preserved examples of 19th Century urban design in America. This is also one of the most expensive places to live in New England, with a five-storey town house selling for $15-20m. Even a one-bedroom basement flat costs $1m. "Currently the Back Bay streets are about four feet above high tide, so if the sea level rises as predicted, they would be under water part time by the end of the century," says Harvard Business School's John Macomber, who was brought in to assess the financial implications of the Urban Land Institute's ideas. "If the sea level rises higher than that, the city would look a lot like it did in the time of George Washington," he says referring to a time when Beacon Hill, at the eastern edge of the Back Bay, was an island connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The canals would mitigate sea-level rise by draining water into lower-lying back alleys and some main streets in an alternating pattern which would end at the major thoroughfare of Boylston Street, which has a subway line underneath it. Image copyright Urban Land Institute It's a solution to climate change which has the potential to make the historic district even more attractive, if it works. But there is a problem. "If you compare Boston to Venice or Amsterdam, the difference is they have very small tidal ranges," says John Macomber. "The tide change in Boston is about eight feet a day, so the canals would be either high part of the time or low part of the time. So we would have to decide whether they would be really deep or tidal," he says. The canals would also have to contend with freezing temperatures in winter, but it seems that, unlike Amsterdam's, they may not be suitable for skating on. "The question is whether in a climate where it can snow for six months of the year you want canals that are always open and partly full of slush, sand and salt," says Macomber. A less ambitious solution to sea-level rise would be simply to shore up the foundations of Back Bay houses and make sure important infrastructure, such as electrical and mechanical equipment, was lifted up above the likely level of any flooding. This kind of solution may have to be implemented in many of Boston's districts not just the Back Bay. Image copyright ALAMY Image caption Storrow Drive would become the Storrow Canal under the Urban Land Institute plan Last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) changed its 100-year flood zone map which indicates areas likely to be affected by extreme flooding to include many more properties in the city. "We've looked at raising the ground floor elevation as much as possible," says architect Amy Korte, who is working on building design in Boston's up-and-coming Innovation District. "We asked how do we raise critical equipment and create a new vision for what good urban design can be," she asks. Another solution would be to re-introduce natural wetland habitats that would act as a sponge for excess water. "It's a great non-technology natural solution," says Dennis Carlberg. "As sea level rises, we are going to be losing this natural sponge globally, so trying to add some of it back is an important thing to be paying attention to." Whether or not the Back Bay becomes the Venice of North America, at the very least this project has helped raised awareness of how much Boston is going to change over the next few decades. And by including financial planners and business leaders in the brain-storming sessions, those trying to raise awareness of climate change hope to move the argument away from political controversy and on to practicalities. "If you want property values to stabilise or remain where they are, at some point you need to invest," says Harvard's John Macomber. "The idea is to find the sweet spot to invest in a sensible way." He compares this project in Boston to the situation in Florida where, he says, "the high tide at full moon bubbles up through the storm drains and yet it's not useful in a political environment to say anything is happening". Boston's Chief of Environment, Brian Swett, says the evidence is clear and the city cannot afford to look the other way. But, he says, he is not without hope. "Boston's been around for 400 years and we're going to be around for another 400." Amsterdam is already more than 700 years old, and Venice more than 1,500. So canals can work - even if they do make it more difficult to park. Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
Guided By Voices From the earliest exposed copper wires vulnerable to shorting out in San Francisco's morning fog to 1970s phone phreaks and the future of NSA surveillance, it was a great talk; you can [Image: From the Ellensburg Daily Record, June 16, 1914]. Amidst dozens of examples and images in his talk, the one that really stood out for architectural purposes was his citation of something called the "human telephone," as originally reported in the Ellensburg Daily Record on June 16, 1914. A reorganized and cleaned-up version of that article appears above. As Prelinger described it, the human telephone was like an electromagnetic update to the oracle at Delphi: a lone female figure with access to distant voices, dancing slowly across a dance floor secretly wired from below, an interactive surface whose hidden technology extended up into her very clothing. There were copper wires woven through her dress, copper-soled shoes on her feet, even copper nails hammered in the floor below, and this all effectively turned her into a living telephone network—the "human telephone" of the article's title—receiving voices from some continent-scale network invisible to spectators' eyes. Oracular and alluring, she would then invite members of the audience to join her in this choreography, where ghostly conversations-at-a-distance would ensue. [Image: An otherwise irrelevant photo of people ballroom dancing, via Wikipedia]. In Prelinger's own words: Prior to the opening of PPIE [the Panama Pacific International Exhibition], Paciﬁc Telephone was asked to furnish service to the Ball of All Nations in May 1914. They built a hidden network of wires under the ﬂoor, connected with copper nails set close apart in the ﬂoor. The spouse of a telco employee wore copper-soled shoes from which wires ran up through her clothing to a telephone set. She asked her dancing partners whom they'd like to talk with, and suddenly they were on the phone. A switchboard operator listened in on all conversations and whenever she heard a name rushed through a call on special lines. This wired ballroom—like some telephonic update of the The copper woman in the center of it all becomes more like an antenna, stepping and turning inside a glossolalia of distant personalities all vying for time on the invisible network she controls with every move of her feet. Sheathed in metal, she is part golem, part conjurer, part modern oracle, kicking off the weird seance that was the early telephone system, guiding us through a switchboard of words from nowhere all woven together in this awesome dance. At last week's inaugural Infrastructure Observatory conference, MacroCity , archivist Rick Prelinger delivered a fantastic opening lecture, looking back at the history of telephony in the Bay Area.From the earliest exposed copper wires vulnerable to shorting out in San Francisco's morning fog to 1970s phone phreaks and the future of NSA surveillance, it was a great talk; you can view the slides here (and follow Rick on Twitter for yet more).Amidst dozens of examples and images in his talk, the one that really stood out for architectural purposes was his citation of something called the "human telephone," as originally reported in theon June 16, 1914. A reorganized and cleaned-up version of that article appears above.As Prelinger described it, the human telephone was like an electromagnetic update to the oracle at Delphi: a lone female figure with access to distant voices, dancing slowly across a dance floor secretly wired from below, an interactive surface whose hidden technology extended up into her very clothing.There were copper wires woven through her dress, copper-soled shoes on her feet, even copper nails hammered in the floor below, and this all effectively turned her into a living telephone network—the "human telephone" of the article's title—receiving voices from some continent-scale network invisible to spectators' eyes. Oracular and alluring, she would then invite members of the audience to join her in this choreography, where ghostly conversations-at-a-distance would ensue.In Prelinger's own words:This wired ballroom—like some telephonic update of the khôra , that Platonic dance floor and moving surface so mythologically important to the first days of Western architecture—presents us with an absolutely incredible image of people waltzing amidst voices, metallurgically connected to a matrix of wires and lines extending far beyond the room they first met within.The copper woman in the center of it all becomes more like an antenna, stepping and turning inside a glossolalia of distant personalities all vying for time on the invisible network she controls with every move of her feet. Sheathed in metal, she is part golem, part conjurer, part modern oracle, kicking off the weird seance that was the early telephone system, guiding us through a switchboard of words from nowhere all woven together in this awesome dance. Newer \| Older
What do David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have in common? One thing shared between them is the way in which they pronounce class. They rhyme it with arse, rather than ass. Whenever they open their mouths, all three party leaders announce that they are from southern England. The Prime Minister is an Oxfordshire Tory. The Lib Dem and Labour leaders have Yorkshire seats, but neither possesses the matching accent. Mr Miliband was born and largely bred in London. Mr Clegg came into the world in the not so gritty streets of Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. To a true northerner, they are no less southern than David Cameron. The great majority of the decision-makers at Westminster have their roots in the south. When Oliver Letwin was trying to persuade Boris Johnson of the case for green taxes on aviation, the cabinet minister told his fellow Old Etonian: "We don't want more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays." He could have made his point by referencing Southampton or Salisbury. It tells us something that it was the folk of a northern city that came to Mr Letwin's mind when he wanted to deny discount travel to the less well-off. With the exception of William Hague, Eric Pickles and two Lib Dem Scots, the cabinet is a very southern English affair. This may not have been much noticed by the south, but it is very evident if you look through the other end of the telescope. Viewed from Leeds or Manchester or Newcastle, Westminster is more remote than ever. It also seems increasingly hostile. Northern England has a growing – and often legitimate – grievance that it is getting a raw deal compared with the rest of the United Kingdom. There is the historic complaint, sharpened by public spending cuts which will bite hardest in the north, that they are discriminated against by power brokers concentrated in the south. To that is now added a creeping realisation that they are also losing out in money and influence to the devolved governments in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland – particularly the latter. That's the new dimension to an old tension. Elizabeth Gaskell published North and South back in 1855. There's some crudity to dissecting England like that. It's not all grim up north – far from it. Leeds is a place transformed compared with the city in which I was born. The skylines of Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield gleam with concert halls, art galleries, university buildings, shopping malls, and other citadels of steel and glass that helped to restore the self-confidence of northern cities in the Nineties and Noughties . The Labour years appeared to soften the north/south divide, but maybe they just masked it by using public spending which has left northern England proportionally much more dependent on public sector jobs and state-financed contracts. The spending cuts are bound to be felt most severely here. That is a brutal truth that can't be sugar-coated by rhetoric about everyone being in this together. In coalition theory, those losing jobs in the public sector will join those being levered off welfare in finding employment in a resurgent private sector. Nowhere more than the north does this need to come true if there is to be a re-balancing of the economy and an end to the squandering of human talent. The grey economic clouds are occasionally pierced by a ray of sunshine. A Thai company has investment plans which promise to more than double the number of steelworkers employed at Teeside Cast Products. Newcastle, home to pioneering work on stem cell research, has ambitious ideas about becoming the world's first "biotech city". The BBC, to squeals from some of its staff, is shifting a lot of production to Salford. Some of the cabinet do appreciate that the north/south divide hurts the country's economic performance. Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, remarked the other day: "It is not possible for Britain to maintain its prosperity in the 21st century in an increasingly competitive global economy unless we can close the growth gap between the north and the south." He was defending – against much southern dissent in his own party – the construction of the high-speed rail link between London and points north. I'm a fan of high-speed rail, but too much expectation is being invested in one very long-term infrastructure project. The first phase is not due to connect London with Birmingham until 2026. It may reach Leeds and Manchester sometime around 2033. In the here and now, the north feels the fight for future prosperity is unfair with the rules rigged by a coalition that appears to favour its chums in the south. Regional development agencies, one of Labour's imperfect attempts to address the north/south divide, are being wound up. These agencies own many millions of pounds' worth of land, buildings and other assets, some of which are crucial to regeneration projects that might help drive future growth. Boris Johnson has been handed control of the assets of the London Development Agency. What they'll do for the capital's Tory mayor, the government won't do for northern city halls. They have been told that they must pay market value if they want to get their hands on the assets of the agencies that are being axed. That contrast is a source of grievance to politicians in the north across parties. Another and growing resentment is that the north of England is getting very short-changed compared with the devolved governments in Belfast, Cardiff and especially Edinburgh. The Scots, the Welsh and the people of Northern Ireland have done rather handsomely out of devolution. There are cash flows from the Treasury to buy things for their citizens not available in England, and the powers to shape their own destinies. Tyneside feels just as far from decision-making in Westminster as do Scotland or Wales, and Geordies have a sense of identity every bit as strong as Celts. But they do not have the political clout to make their voice heard in London. Compare and contrast with Alex Salmond. To his recent election victory and accompanying proclamation that there will be a referendum on independence, the coalition has responded with soft words towards Scotland and hard cash for its Nationalist government. In terms of crude Tory electoral interest, they would be better off if the Scots said farewell. But David Cameron is desperate not to be remembered as the Conservative prime minister who lost the Union. The Scotland Bill, which completed its passage through the Commons last week, adds to the heap of advantages that the Edinburgh parliament enjoys over its neighbours in the north of England. The legislation will allow Mr Salmond to issue bonds and borrow against future business rates. That will give the Nationalist government an additional £2.7 billion of borrowing power with which to protect itself from public spending cuts or fund building projects – a power denied to English councils. The Edinburgh government's overall spending is to be boosted to £12bn. Looked at from the north of England – or indeed by any fair-minded observer – this is grossly unfair. Income per head in Scotland is 99% of the average for the UK. Income per head in the poorer north-east of England is less than 80% of the national average. Yet Scots receive £507 per person more in government spending. Crunched between well-favoured Scottish Nationalists in Edinburgh and a southern coalition in London, the north of England has sound grounds for feeling aggrieved. Politics is deepening the division. Labour is bouncing back in the north, but remains unconvincing to voters in the south. The Conservatives look resilient in the south, but have never managed to sell David Cameron to the north. At last year's general election and this year's local elections, the Conservatives made their strides in southern England while performing much more weakly the further you drove up the M1 or M6. There is not a single Tory councillor in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield. Some of Mr Cameron's strategists worry about this and they are correct to do so. A divided country mocks the prime minister's claim to be a One Nation Tory. It will be very difficult for the Conservatives to secure a decent parliamentary majority on their own if they cannot win in more parts of northern England. The disappearance of the Tories from much of the north turned the Lib Dems into Labour's main competition. The Lib Dems' northern councillors were obliterated at the local elections. Nick Clegg has confided to friends that he was slow to realise how much visceral hostility towards the Tories there was in the north, nor had he foreseen how it would be displaced on to his own party through guilt by association. It is reasonable to suppose that this trend is going to continue into the future, splitting the country between a Labour north and a Tory/Lib Dem-supporting south. This is not a happy prospect, this future for England in which it becomes ever more starkly divided into two political nations. • The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday 3 July 2011. In this article, we said there was not a single Conservative councillor in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield or Newcastle. Correct for the last four, but Leeds has 21 Tory councillors.
We've already examined the effects of SimCity's city size limitation after Maxis stressed the necessity of the restriction for a gain in performance . City sizes will remain fixed when the game launches next Tuesday, but in the words of Gandalf (who'd make a pretty great mayor), "Hope remains." Speaking to IncGamers , Creative Director Ocean Quigley says SimCity's team "could certainly make the city sizes larger" as a reaction to more powerful hardware setups. "We need to keep in mind that SimCity is a mainstream game," Quigley clarifies. "It's not a game that's only going to run on high-end gaming PCs. It has to run in your dad's PC as well. We'll eventually get around to expanding the city size, but I can't make any promises as to when.” Yeah, well, my dad just installed his second Titan , so there. In any case, the prospect of seeing my populace spread across the map in a wave of prosperity and garbage trucks feels exciting indeed. That is, of course, if Maxis' plans involves a substantial grid increase and not a fractional bump—I'd like to see the amazing GlassBox Engine roar with its newfound freedom, not mumble.
Last weekend we reported that in the past month two men, a Pole and German, claimed to have discovered the legendary Nazi "gold train" - a 150 meter long German train alleged to be full of gold, gems and weapons, which disappeared just before the end of World War II - in the proximity of the Polish town of Walbrzych, close to where the Nazi are said to have loaded up the train with valuables for its final voyage in the town of Wroclaw, just as the Soviet forces approached in 1945. As we detailed, the train is said to have been entombed in the vast tunnel labyrinth located close to Ksiaz castle, which served as Nazi headquarters during World War II... Ksiaz castle, Nazi headquarters during World War II ... and specifically, was said to be located at the foot of the Sowa mountain, in the woods three miles outside the town of Walbrych. The "gold train" is said to be located under this hill While many were skeptical that the mystical Nazi treasure train had been finally discovered after many years of searching, an official update last Friday by the Polish government suggested that that may indeed be the case. As the Mail reported on Friday, a representative of the Polish culture ministry, Poland’s National Heritage and Conservation Officer Piotr Zuchowski, said that the man who helped hide the train had revealed its location shortly before he died, and that proof of the train has been observed on radar. Zuchowski added that "Information about where this train is and what its contents are were revealed on the deathbed of a person who had knowledge of the secret of this train.' He added that Polish authorities had now seen evidence of the train’s existence in a picture taken using a ground-penetrating radar. He said the image - albeit blurred - showed the shape of a train platform and cannons. Piotr Zuchowski, Poland’s National Heritage and Conservation Officer, confirmed the 'unprecedented' find Mr Zuchowski said the find was 'unprecedented', adding: 'We do not know what is inside the train. 'Probably military equipment but also possibly jewellery, works of art and archive documents. 'Armored trains from this period were used to carry extremely valuable items and this is an armored train, it is a big clue.' He said authorities were now '99 percent sure the train exists' and whatever is on it will be returned to the rightful owners, if they can be found. 'We will be 100 per cent sure only when we find the train,' Mr Zuchowski added. The train found in the mountains is an 'armored train' which looks similar to the one pictured Mr Zuchowski told reporters that the train was about 100 metres long but added: 'It is not possible to disclose the exact location of where the train can be found. Still, he noted cryptically that "The local government in Walbrzych knows where it is." He explained it is hidden along a 4km stretch of track on the Wroclaw-Walbrzych line. Mr Zuchowski said the person who claimed he helped load the gold train in 1945 said in a 'deathbed statement' the train is secured with explosives. The official declined to comment further about the man who said this but speculation is now rife that it was a former SS guard or a local Pole who stumbled upon the train before hiding it. Deputy Mayor of Walbrzych, Zygmunt Nowaczyk told the press: 'The city is full of mysterious stories because of its history. 'Now it is formal information - we have found something.' Key excerpts from the press conference by the Polish official can be seen on the Euronews clip below: The confirmation of the discovery unleashed a surge of treasury hunters, and forced the Polish government to warn the population to stop looking because it could be booby-trapped and dangerous. Zuchowski said "foragers" have become active since two people claimed to have discovered the train last week and urged eager fortune-hunters to stop searching, saying they risk injury or death. Zuchowski adds that "there may be hazardous substances dating from the Second World War in the hidden train, which I'm convinced exists. I am appealing to people to stop any such searches until the end of official procedures leading to the securing of the find. There's a huge probability that the train is booby-trapped.' If anything, tthese warnings are sure to unleash an even more aggressive wave of seekers now that the train's existience has been confirmed, and the government is actually warning seekers to be careful in their search. But perhaps what is more interesting is just what the discovery, which would be straight out of an Indiana Jones sequel, will contain, and whether someone already got to the precious cargo over the past 7 decades. The answer should be made public shortly.
OTTAWA— From trade, to energy, to the environment, to security, to culture, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will have no shortage of topics to discuss with visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the next three days. Harper will also have an unspoken domestic political dividend — boosting his party's standing with Canada's 1.2 million Indo-Canadians as an October federal election looms. A number of prominent federal Conservative MPs, including Defence Minister Jason Kenney, greeted Indian PM Narendra Modi when his plane arrived in Ottawa on Tuesday. ( Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS ) After a formal meeting Wednesday, Harper will accompany the charismatic Modi to Toronto and Vancouver and will have no less than 16 fellow Conservatives appearing with them at various events, from cabinet ministers to MPs. A number of prominent federal Conservative MPs, including Defence Minister Jason Kenney and Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre, were on hand to greet the Indian prime minister when his plane touched down Tuesday in Ottawa. “This seems to be a win-win situation for Harper,” said Roland Paris, the founding director of the University of Ottawa's Centre for International Policy Studies. Article Continued Below Photos: Memorable visits to Canada by world leaders “He can promote deeper economic and diplomatic links with India while also scoring political points at home with the Indo-Canadian community.” Harper's fondness for diaspora politics is well known. His tough talk towards Russia is seen as a way of courting the 1.2 million Canadians of Ukrainian descent, for instance. Last year Harper highlighted the pre-eminence of Indian immigration during a major speech in Toronto. “Today, India is Canada's top source country for immigrants,” he said. “And this explains why Canada's Indo-Canadian community is over 1.2 million strong and continuing to grow.” But Kasi Rao, a vice president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said the Indo-Canadian community is no more uniform in its voting habits than any other segment of Canadians. “The Indo-Canadian community has made strides in all parties in Canada, federally and provincially and I think the community has now deepened in Canada,” he said. Article Continued Below It is exactly those deep roots that can allow progress in a number of key economic areas, including boosting trade and investment as well as ever-expanding post-secondary education exchanges, he said. Finalizing a deal — now two years in the making — that would see Saskatchewan's Cameco Corp export peaceful nuclear material to India will also be a major priority. Paris said economic progress between the two countries can't come soon enough for Canada. “A successful visit isn't enough. After nearly a decade in office, the Harper government has missed many opportunities to deepen Canada's links with the emerging powers of Asia,” he said. Others urge the two leaders to do more on tackling climate change. Louise Comeau, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, would like to see Modi and Harper prod each other to make strong commitments to reduce greenhouse gases ahead of the UN climate conference in Paris in December. “Neither country is performing to its best potential,” she said. “We have a very large population in Canada with connections in India — we have opportunities for trading in clean energy.” Modi's visit is the first to Canada by an Indian prime minister since Indira Gandhi was hosted in 1973 by then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau. The visit will also give Canadians their first glimpse of Modi, who swept to power last May. Modi is expected to get a rock star welcome at a Toronto arena on Thursday night. But another group — calling themselves Sikhs for Justice — wants Modi indicted on torture charges while in Canada, alleging he was complicit in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the Indian state of Gujarat. MORE ON THESTAR.COM: Modi's promise for better relations with India Harper-Modi combo bodes well for Canada-India relationship Read more about:
Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE's daughter Ivanka attended the president-elect's November meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan; it was Trump's first session with a foreign head of state. Ivanka Trump was also included in an official phone call between Trump and the leader of Argentina. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is being considered for a senior position in the Trump White House. ADVERTISEMENT These and other circumstances raise a persistent question in the media: Is Trump violating the federal anti-nepotism statute? The statute (5 U.S.C. Section 3110) states: A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official. Kushner satisfies the statutory definition of a "relative." Passed in 1967 as part of the Federal Post Act, the statute is often viewed as a reaction to President John Kennedy appointing his brother Robert as attorney general. Others claim it was primarily an attempt to clamp down on the common practice of officials hiring their wives and other relatives as staffers. The prohibition was an attempt to ensure that federal hiring was based on merit, but it also addressed purely practical considerations. For example, an official might find it difficult to reprimand or to fire a relative who is incompetent. And it is natural to give preferential treatment to those with whom a deeply personal relationship exists. On the surface, the Kushner situation seems clear because the statute language is plain. Appointing a relative violates statute law. But at least three powerful objections have been raised and may result in Kushner joining the White House. First, the nepotism limitation may be an unconstitutional violation of the Appointments Clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2). It provides: [The President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States. The clause gives the president sole authority to nominate or appoint any candidate he wishes; the Senate has the ability to grant or withhold its consent only after the fact. Statute law cannot overrule the Constitution. Second, there is debate on what is meant by the word "agency" with reference to advancing a relative "in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he [the President] is serving." It is far from clear that the White House constitutes an agency under the statute. Under the Freedom of Information Act, for example, the White House Office of Administration is not considered to be an agency and is exempt. A 1993 opinion from the D.C. Circuit provides another precedent for discarding the statute with regard to staff in the White House or in the Executive Office of the President. In that case, Judge Laurence Silberman wrote: [F]or example, a President would be barred from appointing his brother as Attorney General, but perhaps not as a White House special assistant. ... The anti-nepotism statute, moreover, may well bar appointment only to paid positions in government. Thus, even if it would prevent the President from putting his spouse on the federal payroll, it does not preclude his spouse from aiding the President in the performance of his duties. In other words, White House staffers may be exempt from the statute; even if they are not, then they may be exempt if they do not accept a federal paycheck. From media indications, Kushner may be pursuing the latter strategy. Third, Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE provides a prominent precedent. In 1993, Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonInviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Howard Schultz must run as a Democrat for chance in 2020 Trump says he never told McCabe his wife was 'a loser' MORE appointed his wife as head of the Presidential Health Care Reform Task Force in order to forge a universal health policy, which became known as "Hillarycare." The position of official power was an unheard of for a presidential spouse. President Obama continued the Clinton pattern in forming the Childhood Obesity Task Force, which exists to implement the "Let's Move" initiative — a crusade of first lady Michelle Obama Michelle LeVaughn Robinson ObamaFive political moments to watch for at the Oscars Former patients accuse ex-Fox News medical pundit of sexual exploitation Obama attends UNC-Duke basketball game MORE, roundly criticized for the "healthy" school lunches it promoted. In the footsteps of Clinton and Obama, Trump wants to surround himself with family members whom he can trust, and he probably has the legal right to do so. In the end, the surest brake upon nepotism may not be the law, but public opinion. Appointing family members to political power seems to contradict Trump's much-touted mission of sweeping D.C. clean of an elite, insider culture. It also gives the appearance of a royal family. The public would be correct to pause and watch with suspicion. Wendy McElroy is a research fellow at the Independent Institute. Follow her on Twitter @WendyMcElroy1. The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.
CNN: Trump kicked off his rally here on Sunday by encouraging his supporters to “make sure” their ballots are properly counted, saying that he is a “skeptical person” when it comes to the state’s largely vote-by-mail process. He then encouraged his supporters to get a “new ballot” in person at a local polling location. “They’ll give you a ballot, a new ballot. They’ll void your old ballot, they will give you a new ballot. And you can go out and make sure it gets in,” Trump said. Registered voters in Colorado automatically receive a ballot in the mail, but can request a new ballot or vote in person if they have not yet mailed in a completed ballot. “In some places they probably do that four or five times. We don’t do that. But that’s great,” Trump said Sunday, appearing to hint at the possibility of voter fraud in Colorado, a rare prospect Trump has continued to hammer on the stump.
Share While many channels and studios seem to see online streaming as a killer of business, the AMC Network seems to be, well, pretty happy with it. Last year, Netflix secured the exclusive rights to stream every back episode of the AMC shows Mad Men and Breaking Bad. The first season of The Walking Dead is also on the streaming service. The deal appears to be a success. AMC reports that its revenues were up about 40 percent in the first three months of 2012, and profits were up 20 percent thanks to strong ratings and performance of the new seasons of Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Part of the reason for their success? According to CEO Josh Sapan, Netflix and Amazon definitely helped. “2012 got off to a strong start for AMC Networks, with double digit increases in net revenues, AOCF and operating income,” said Sapan. “Continued viewer enthusiasm for our programming resulted in ratings gains for our national networks, most notably AMC’s The Walking Dead, which ended its second season with nine million total viewers, an increase of 50 percent over last season’s finale. The series reigns as the highest-rated scripted drama in basic cable history in advertiser’s key demos. The fifth season of AMC’s Mad Men currently ranks as the most watched season ever of the series, outperforming the prior season by double-digits. These successes underscore the strength of our original programming strategy, which continues to drive audience and advertiser demand for our networks.” In a conference call with investors yesterday, Sapan was a bit more explicit, according to WSJ: “New viewers are finding these shows on a digital service, catching up on prior seasons and then tuning into AMC for new seasons in greater numbers, many for the first time.” He argues that because AMC struck its content deals with companies like Netflix and Amazon in an “extremely careful” way (via THR), it hasn’t hurt the network, but is actually helping to drive the pay TV ecosystem for AMC. Other media companies like Viacom, which owns VH1, Nickelodeon, and other networks, have blamed recent ratings declines on the Internet. Though ratings and revenues are up, it is not all good news for AMC. Dish Networks, a satellite TV operator, has decided to drop the channel from its lineup. Dish cited poor ratings, but AMC CEO Sapan says that the threat to drop AMC is a direct result of some ongoing litigation between the two companies over its participation in Voom HD, a collection of HD channels that Dish decided to embrace but then drop in 2008.
The presenters also offered insights into Russia’s military operations in Syria and expectations for future relations with the United States. Second Line of Defense again attended the annual Moscow Conference on International Security, which met April 26-28, 2016 . This year’s focus was international terrorism. The presenters also offered insights into Russia’s military operations in Syria and expectations for future relations with the United States. The Russian speakers rightly boasted about Moscow’s military success in Syria. The intervention led by the Russian Aerospace Forces, which began at the end of September, has been surprisingly successful—a textbook example of the application of limited military power for attainable goals. With few Russian casualties, the Russian forces saved the Assad government from likely defeat last year and have made Moscow an indispensable player in the Syrian peace process. Syrian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov boasted that, “Coordinated with the government forces and later with the patriotic opposition squads, the Aerospace Forces’ operations made it possible to push back the terrorists and lay the groundwork for ceasefire agreements, delivery of humanitarian aid to those who need it, and the start of political settlement in Syria.” He called the cooperation between Russia, the United States, and other countries on this issue as “an advance towards implementing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initiative to create a broad-based antiterrorist front, which he addressed to the UN General Assembly.” Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov summed up preliminary results of the V Moscow Conference on International Security. In his report to the conference, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that, with Russian military assistance, Syrian government forces had recovered more than 10,000 square kilometers as well as 500 populated areas from Daesh, Jabhat al-Nusra (an al-Qaeda affiliate), and other terrorist groups. He added that, following the withdrawal of the main Russian units from Syria, the remaining force was seeking to destroy the militants’ military infrastructure (including arms depots and training camps) and financial assets (denying them means to purchase weapons or pay their fighters). Shoigu asserted that other Russian objectives in Syria were now securing a political settlement and providing humanitarian relief, which he said amounted to more than 700 tons of medical, food, and other aid over the past few months. Lieutenant General Sergey Rudskoy, the chief of the Main Operative Department of the Russian General Staff, reproted that the Syrian and Russian forces had already destroyed some 200 oil extraction facilities under the opposition’s control, as well as more than 2,000 means for delivering oil products. He stated that Russian and Syrian actions had also disrupted all shipments of oil and gas from Syria to Turkey, which Russian analysts see as a major source of terrorist financing, armaments, and other support. Rudskoy said that the Russian armed forces were using some 70 UAVs as well as orbiting satellites and other technical means to monitor developments on the ground. In his presentation, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, attributed part of Moscow’s success in Syria to the experience Russian forces had gained fighting in insurgents in the North Caucasus, which “gave Russia an opportunity to develop the solid foundation for the legal framework and combat practices.” It would be interesting to study this issue further—what lessons did the Russian military learn from Chechnya and apply in Syria. Other Russian speakers emphasized the imperative of addressing the broader global terrorist threat. Chief of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Colonel General Sergei Makarov noted that it was necessary to cooperate in fighting against terrorism, drug trafficking and cybercrime. Credit: Russian Foreign Ministry. Sergei Afanasyev the deputy head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate (the GRU), warned that Russian military experts estimated that Daesh–the self-designated Islamic State and also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS)–had some 33,000 armed fighters in the Middle East, 14,000 in Syria and 19,000 in Iraq. He also assessed that they had obtained substantial heavy weaponry, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, and anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems. Furthermore, Afanasyev warned that Daesh was in the process of destabilizing Libya, building on their stronghold the Mediterranean port of Sirte, recruiting thousands of fighters from Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Moreover, he claimed that hundreds of Islamist militants were also entering Europe each year from these combat zones, “ready to use the experience they have gained” in new acts of terrorism. Finally, he saw the rise of a “Terrorist Internationale” in Africa, led by Boko Haram with thousands of members, in destructive competition with the al-Qaeda affiliated groups of the continent, that risks destabilizing the whole of Africa. Many of the Middle Eastern speakers at the Conference praised Russia’s positive contributions to fighting terrorism. Russian government propaganda about Western democracy promotion exacerbating regional instability and Western indecisiveness in the face of Islamist terrorism appealed to some in the region. In his conference presentation, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan criticized the United States and its local allies for pursuing a double-standard approach in the region and supporting proxy terrorist forces. In his words, “the world is exposed to insecurity, instability and escalation of fear of terrorist activities of Takfiri-Zionist trends which are supported by the US, the Zionist regime and some regional countries headed by the Saudi government.” Conversely, Dehqan termed the Russian-Iranian partnership in Syria a successful example of fighting terrorism and promoting regional stability. The General announced progress in developing “concrete plans” for Russian-Iranian defense cooperation. According to Iranian sources, Dehqan discussed Iran’s buying Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and T-90 tanks. Earlier that month, the Iranian government began receiving the S-300PMU-2 air defense systems (NATO reporting name SA-10 Grumble) that Tehran had purchased from Russia. In the side conversations at the conference and in other discussions in Moscow, it became evident that Russian national security experts are torn between wanting to exploit the last year of what they see as a weak Obama presidency, or waiting until 2017 in the hope that an even more favorable Republican administration might gain power, with the risk that a more vigorously hostile Clinton administration might emerge. Russian leaders are calculating the prospects of a possible Trump presidency to decide whether to forego gains this year in the hopes of achieving what they would perceive as better results next year. The Russians perceive that Trump would follow a general policy of isolation, which would weaken NATO, and that Trump seems open to dealing with Putin on outstanding issues—Russia could have Syria, the U.S. would have Turkey, Russia gets Crimea, and so on—and Russians see his worldview as similar to that of Putin—disdainful of democracy, anti-Muslim, tough on terrorism, and so forth. Of course, Obama’s own reset strategy failed in the face of the enduring obstacles to Russian-U.S. partnership, but asymmetrical cooperation might prove possible if Washington and Moscow prioritize different areas of the world. This story originally appeared in Second Line of Defense Image: U.S. Navy
Welcome to a Smash 4 tournament series held by me, this will be a weekly tournament series that goes on weekly for as long as I want to host and am needed. "Here begins the journey of every player. After buying a new game they open it up and proceed to play, whether it be competitive or casual the goal remains the same, having fun and proving you're the best you can be. Now let the Smash begin" Rules: -3 Stocks, 8 Minutes (Or 2 Stocks, 5 Minutes if both players agree on it) -No items. -Double Elimination: Best of 3 rounds, Best of 5 for Winners / Losers / Grand Finals. -No customs by default (customs are allowed if both players agree / want to use them). -Miis are allowed, but must be 1-1-1-1. -Players must declare whether or not they have Dreamland 64 or Peach's Castle 64 before the round begins. STARTERS (For game 1, players either strike: 1-2-1, or agree on a stage): -Final Destination / Omegas -Battlefield -Lylat Cruise -Smashville -Town and City COUNTERPICKS (For games 2 onward, the winner of the previous game bans two stages from Starters + Counterpicks and the loser picks from the remaining stages): -Castle Siege -Deflino Plaza -Duck Hunt -Halberd -N64 Kirby's Dreamland (If one player has it) -N64 Peach's Castle (If one player has it) TIMES: 8 PM Eastern 7 PM Central 6 PM Mountain 5 PM Pacific Chat Link: http://www.codysnintendoroom.co.vu/amiibros-tournament-series.html Doing well will allow you to get points which can be used to win prizes such as Amiibos and E-Shop cards. If you have any questions feel free to ask, good luck and fight on.
The incongruity of that rule is that nobody has any choice. Players are compelled to wear advertising on any part of their apparel — in Barcelona’s case, for a remote state, Qatar. But those players are forbidden from revealing underclothing bearing personal and heartfelt messages to their loved ones at a time of extreme emotion. It all smacks of a game ruled by people who never played, or forgot how it felt to do so. Villa, now age 30, could miss a vital game later this season if he receives another yellow card. He would no doubt trade that punishment to have made the gesture. “Because of me,” he said after Barcelona’s 5-1 victory Sunday, “I am sure it has been a difficult time for them as well.” His wife, Patricia, knows how it feels to be sidelined because she was a soccer player before they started their family. And she, and quite possibly their girls, know what their man has been going through since his left tibia was broken last December while he was playing against Al-Sadd during FIFA’s money-making Club World Cup tournament in Yokohama, Japan. Profit for FIFA, pain for Villa, and the subsequent loss for Barcelona of its Spanish and European titles. Injury is part and parcel of the professional game. Barça had to make do without not just Villa, but also Eric Abidal, the left back who needed liver transplant surgery; the captain Carles Puyol; and the new striker Alexis Sánchez, who also missed long stretches of last season. Real Madrid came through and took full advantage in a record season for both the Spanish clubs — and, as it happens, Real is back at the Camp Nou on Thursday playing the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup between the league winner and the King’s Cup winner. Only in Spain would they schedule this extra trophy, with home and away matches, after the season has already begun. Photo This time, some of the doubts will surround Madrid because its opening match last weekend ended at 1-1 in the Bernabeu against Valencia. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In a tough match that included yellow cards for some fearful tackles, Madrid risked its goalie and captain, Iker Casillas, for more than half the contest after he appeared to be groggy, maybe even concussed, after he banged heads with his own defender, Pepe. Pepe spent Sunday night in a hospital under observation and was released on Monday. His temporary absence, and even Villa’s lost eight months, cannot be compared to what we are about to witness at the Paralympics in London. There will be thousands of men and women who strive for sporting excellence despite being born handicapped, losing limbs in wars or accidents, or otherwise suffering disabilities. 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. Nevertheless, Villa missed a crucial chunk of his prime. Barcelona missed him, for all that Lionel Messi scored 73 goals last season. And Spain missed him, even though it retained its European championship without him. “He suffered a lot,” said Barcelona’s playmaker, Xavi, on Sunday. “He has had a considerable injury, and the best news tonight is not that we won 5-1, but the return of El Guaje,” or the Kid. “We have missed him.” Tito Vilanova, the coach who has stepped up after four years assisting Pep Guardiola at Barcelona, made similar observations. Vilanova has strengthened Barça’s defense by signing Jordi Alba from Valencia in Abidal’s left back role and Alex Song, a powerful, adaptable midfielder/defender, from Arsenal. Madrid is still bartering with Tottenham Hotspur to try to buy the creative Croatian midfielder Luka Modric. Both Spanish clubs are recruiting from a position of strength, and their benches on Sunday were crammed with talents that would be certain starters anywhere else. Real’s substitutes were Kaká, Raúl Albiol, Karim Benzema, Marcelo, Sami Khedira, José-Maria Callejón and the reserve goalie Antonio Adnan. Barcelona benched Pinto, Andrés Iniesta, Gerard Piqué, Adriano, Sanchez, Sergio Roberto and Villa. It almost went unnoticed that Iniesta, the angel of Spanish soccer since he scored the World Cup winner in 2010 and was again the nation’s shining light at the Euro 2012, came on to provide Villa with his goal. Iniesta exchanged passes with Villa and cut the ball back into Villa’s path for the final goal. Those who have followed his career know that Villa — the scorer of 266 goals in 547 appearances — knows instinctively where the bounty lies. Advertisement Continue reading the main story His shot was crisp, short, intuitive and completely out of the reach of the goalkeeper. Off came the shirt, up went the yellow card admonishment, and after the emotion came the words: “I’m happy,” said Villa. “My goal is not to be the same as before. I wanted to use these months to be better. When I scored, I really wanted to enjoy it from within. You are lucky when so many people help you — my daughters, my wife, the coaching staff, teammates.” No man, not even a striker, is alone. The comeback would have been impossible without the support, even if there is a consequence to spelling that out in the way that Villa did.
Pyrrha felt her heart snap as she looked down at the broken piece of metal she was holding. At one point, they'd been very recognizable pieces of metal; in fact, one might say iconic. At the very least iconic to everyone in her year, as the unmistakable High-Caliber Sniper-Scythe that belonged to her girlfriend. I broke Crescent Rose. Oh no. This is bad, this is very VERY bad! Ruby loves Crescent Rose more than anything and I broke it! Pyrrha could feel tears start to well up in her eyes as she found herself frozen in place, unable to do anything. I… I just wanted to give it some upgrades. One of the many perks of being a celebrity was the fact that Pyrrha had access to several modifications from certain companies that sponsored her, well before they were released to the public. …such as the one that Ruby had been all but drooling over for the past month. Pyrrha had been hoping she could install it on Crescent Rose and have it be a nice surprise for her girlfriend when she got back to the dorm with her team. At first, Pyrrha thought it was going to be easy; after all, these things come with instructions right? Turns out it wasn't the case for this particular modification. In fact, it had just been in a protective bubble wrapped case with no helpful handbook of any kind. No matter, Pyrrha had seen her girlfriend disassemble Crescent Rose enough times to know how to do it – she could figure out where it went. In all fairness, Pyrrha had felt more than a bit uncomfortable handling Crescent Rose; it was a form of trust that Ruby had let her have access to her locker. I'm not abusing her trust! I'm just… giving her a gift. Pyrrha couldn't wait to see the glee on Ruby's face. It was with that image in mind that Pyrrha had disassembled the weapon, replacing placing the new folding mechanism into the blade head of the scythe. All was going well… until the pieces didn't fit back together. Pyrrha's first notion was that perhaps she had reassembled it wrong, that if she disassembled it again, and redid it, it'd be fine… only for a different part of the weapon to not align properly. Repeating the process again, only led to the first issue popping up in addition to the second. It was at this point the desperation started to set in. What am I going to do? The teen only had a scant hour and a half left before Ruby returned. I could be honest about it. That was certainly her second option; hopefully Ruby would forgive her. However, that was also a last resort for Pyrrha, seeing as she had technically violated Ruby's privacy and broken her most treasured possession. I-I-I just need to take it apart do it more slowly this time. Then I'll be able to see what I did wrong. Pyrrha started to slowly calm down. It's going to be fine. Perfectly fine. Very slowly, the teen started to dissemble the weapon once more. I still have an hour and a half left till they get here. She looked up at the ceiling, as if it held the answers. I can do thi- Her emerald eyes strayed towards the clock. Less than five minutes left. Oh no. "We're back!" It was a voice that Pyrrha was normally ecstatic to hear, yet today it was one she was dreading, as Ruby skipped towards her, followed by her teammates –albeit with a slightly less skip to their gait. "H-hello Ruby." Crap, my voice is shaking. Ruby, however, didn't notice the tremor in her voice, rather, her silver eyes were drawn to what Pyrrha was hiding behind her back. "Whatca ya hiding?" It's now or never. "Remember that mod you saw in Battle Axe monthly?" Ruby nodded slowly. "Well… I might have had to call in some favours but…" With a shaky smile, Pyrrha slowly revealed Crescent Rose from behind her. "Crescent Rose has it now." The gleeful smile that stretched the corners of Ruby's mouth, the pure happiness in her silver eyes was all that Pyrrha needed to remember that the last four hours of panicking had been well worth it. In the end, she'd been able to properly reassemble it, much to her relief. I suppose I just needed some pressure to get it right. "Eeee! Thank youuu!" It still surprised Pyrrha the sheer level of bone crushing that could happened when the far smaller teen hugged her. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank youuuu!" As soon as the hug had enveloped her, it disappeared, as Ruby darted away from Pyrrha –and the rest of team RWBY- before swinging the scythe open. "Oh wow it's so much lighter!" Ruby was practically fawning as she stared at the new part. "And it opened smoother too!" Pyrrha finally allowed herself to smile. With a flick of the wrist, the scythe closed back down, Ruby locking it onto the back of her belt. Well. Most of it. Part of the blade had sheared off in mid-close, much to the horror of Pyrrha. Yang, Weiss and Blake stared at it in shock, the component floating in the air behind Ruby due to the tall teen's semblance; her immediate reaction to grab it with her power so it didn't clatter against the ground. "It's so light, I can barely even feel it!" The shorter teen disappeared in a burst of rose petals. "You're the best girlfriend ever Pyrrha!" Ruby was oblivious the stares of her teammates as she squeezed Pyrrha in another hug before standing up on her tippy-toes to give her a kiss. The lack of Pyrrha's response evidently tipped Ruby off to something being off, as she turned around; "Is something wro-" Silver eyes locked onto the broken fragment of Crescent Rose. Oh no. AU: Pyrrha, you've screwed up, may the crying Ruby not give you nightmares. I may actually do a sequel chapter next Friday for this. Possibly. Okay, short message today; Acceptance will be posted later today, probably in about two to three hours. Just need to finish some editing and one of the omakes. No Dilation, sorry X_X Hopefully this came off as funny, this was a very rushed chapter sadly! Also, Protect Nikos 2k15! Thanks for reading everyone, have a great day! :D
A YouTuber became mayor of a US town, banned heterosexuality and was then impeached, all in the same day. Elijah Daniel says he spent two days phoning US towns asking to be their mayor before finding an easy route in a town called Hell. He says he was inspired to move from making videos online to politics by Donald Trump. "If Donald Trump, a reality star, can be our president there's no reason why I can't be a politician," he tweeted. Elijah said he had looked up "the easiest political office" he could hold before contacting towns with his request - and then paying cash to take a short-term job. A proclamation document from the town's former mayor says Hell "needs a mayor" and "no one else wants the job." He paid £100 to become mayor for the day (something anyone visiting Hell can do) in a town to make a political statement against Donald Trump's Muslim ban in the US. During his short-lived time as the mayor of Hell, he issued a ban on heterosexuals entering the town, similar to one issued by Donald Trump after he became the president of the USA. "Growing up, I was always told that homosexuals would go to Hell," he wrote in his amended ban. "Now the heterosexuals are trying to take this from us too." However, less than an hour after sharing his ban on social media, Elijah told his 500,000 Twitter followers that he had been impeached from his post and was no longer the mayor of Hell. He then suggested Donald Trump should also try being impeached. And he's not the first wannabe politician to have been kicked out of office in Hell - it's a regular occurrence because that's how everyone paying to be the mayor ends their time. "Everyone who becomes mayor there gets impeached," Elijah told Huffington Post after his short-lived political career. "Most of the people who visit are same-sex couples who want to be married in Hell." His YouTube partner, Christine Sydelko, had celebrated her role in the process as "the first lady of Hell." The duo have half a million followers on YouTube after joining the site in 2011. Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat
The chaps at TechReport noticed that the Samsung 840 EVO TLC NAND is suffering from read speed slowdowns. A few months ago this created a lot of controversy, after which Samsung was fast to release a Firmware that should have fixed this. Samsung issued a fix for an algorithmic error in the management routine that tracks the status of cells over time but ... that obviously does not work well enough. If you look at the screenshot above you can see the performance degraded. This test unit 840 EVO SSD spent more than three months of the shelf, he results are pretty shocking: the months old data on the disk was only recoverable with an average read speed of 35.1MB/s. After formatting the disk and loading it with new data the disk averaged 430MB/s in HD Tach, there's a abvious issue with long-term degradation of data stored in the triple-bit-per-cell memory. There sure are lots of technology oddities this week to report.
Staff at Galway University hospital given limited sanctions for role in death of Indian dentist who was refused an abortion Nine members of the Irish medical team that treated an Indian dentist who died after being refused an abortion have been disciplined. Galway University hospital said the nine were part of a larger medical team looking after Savita Halappanavar before she died from blood poisoning in October 2012. Halappanavar had demanded that her pregnancy be terminated after fearing the foetus was dead and likely to give her sepsis. Her request was turned down after medical staff said they detected a foetal heartbeat. She was 17 weeks pregnant and miscarrying when she fell ill. The 31-year-old, along with her husband Praveen, repeatedly asked for a termination because they believed her life was in danger. A majority of the medical team – 21 out of 30 who attended Halappanavar – were told that there was "no case to answer" against them. The remaining nine were given limited sanctions that amount to written warnings. "The disciplinary process in respect of most of the other nine staff is now complete," a spokesman for the West/North West Hospitals Group said. "In some cases pre-procedural informal counselling with training and mentoring was applied, in others written warnings were issued. The process is still under way for a small number of staff." Praveen Halappanavar still intends to take a civil action over his wife's death against Ireland's Health Service Executive and Savita's obstetrician, Katherine Astbury.
West Ham are likely to move for Algerian international Islam Slimani - if a move to sign Ecuador international Enner Valencia fails to bear fruit. Slimani, who has been linked with West Ham since the end of the last transfer window is understood to be the club's second choice behind Valencia, who like Slimani has won plenty of approval for his performances in Brazil 2014. Sporting are reported to have slapped an 8million price tag on the 26-year-old Algerian who the Hammers had hoped to land on loan back in January. We reported yesterday how West Ham had made enquiries into the availability of Valencia, CF Pachua's 24-year-old centre forward who scored three goals in the World Cup Finals despite his country failing to qualify for the knockout stage. * Bayern Munich's Italian defender Diego Contento is reported to have been the subject of an enquiry by West Ham. Considered surplus to requirements having failed to nail down a first team spot under Pep Guardiola, the 24-year-old has also been linked with West Bromwich Albion. * Ravel Morrison is due to return to West Ham this Thursday when the first team squad reconvene for pre-season. The attacking midfielder, on loan at Queens Park Rangers since January has signalled his desire to win his place back in Sam Allardyce's first XI despite rumoured interest from a number of parties, including Harry Redknapp's Rangers. * West Ham are rumoured to be one of a number of clubs taking a close look at Dynamo Kiev's Andriy Yarmolenko - however with a rumoured transfer fee of £12-15million (Daily Star) United's chances of landing a player also sought by Liverpool and Chelsea, both of whom can offer Champions League football, appear slim at best. * Italian sources (Il Giallo Rosso) are running with a story suggesting Milan's Antonio Nocerino may be set to return to the Boleyn Ground on a permanent basis, despite previous reports claiming that he was about to complete a (permanent) move to Torino. KUMB suspects this may be someone taking what is known as a flyer, given Noce's frosty demeanour when leaving the BG for the final time back in May. * Les Bleus midfielder Mathieu Valbuena, a regular in the French World Cup squad that reached the quarter finals courtesy of a 2-0 win over Nigeria on Monday is being linked with an £8million move to east London (Mail). Currently with Ligue 1 side Marseille, Valbuena has also been linked with Arsenal (quelle surprise) and Liverpool in recent weeks after his agent revealed that he would consider a move to the Premier League. * Even more spurious than the Nocerino link is a rumour emanating from Portuguese media claiming that West Ham are showing an interest in signing Sporting's Argentine defender Marcos Rojo. The 24-year-old has featured regularly for his country at the World Cup Finals and is valued at the £20million mark. Russian side Zenit previously failed with a £15million bid for the 6'1½" centre half. * It's debatable whether West Ham were ever seriously interested but Belgian striker Divock Origi is on the verge of completing a move to Liverpool. At just 19 the Lille forward is poised to make a £10million move to Anfield, apparently snubbing the likes of West Ham and Tottenham. * Jefferson Montero, whom it was recently claimed was on the verge of signing for West Ham has spoken of his desire to try his luck in Europe. "Its certain that Ill leave the league," said the Mexican-based Ecuadorian international. "I already have an offer and I can tell you that it wont be Mexico; it will be Europe and I hope it works out." * Five years after making a 5million bid, Italian sources insist West Ham are taking a second look at Napoli's Macedonian international Goran Pandev. The 30-year-old striker has also been linked with Tottenham and Monaco. Franco Zola was thought to be close to landing the player in 2009 but missed out. * West Ham's ongoing link with Leeds striker Ross McCormack finally looks close to reaching its inevitable conclusion with the news that recently-relegated Fulham have offered £7million for the Scottish international. Leeds are said to be holding out for £10million, for a player who at 28 has never played in the Premier League. West Ham are unlikely to challenge the Cottagers. * A number of Twitter feeds are linking West Ham with a move for the US World Cup star Omar Gonzalez - although claims that the story originated in the Telegraph appear to be wide of the mark.
THE chairman of Microsoft, John Thompson, occasionally reminds one of its directors, a fellow by the name of Bill Gates, that his vote in board meetings is no more or less important than that of other members. Contrast that with Infosys, an Indian technology firm, whose own retired founder succeeded in getting its boss to quit on August 18th, after a months-long whispering campaign (see article). The board was dismayed, but the outcome was all too predictable, given India’s penchant for treating corporate founders as latter-day maharajahs. Indian companies come in all shapes and sizes, from clannish outfits whose tycoon bosses routinely stiff minority investors, to giants like Infosys whose corporate governance (usually) matches Western norms. What unites them is that they accord undue deference to “promoters”, as India dubs a firm’s founding shareholders. The exalted status bestowed on promoters is a pervasive feature of the Indian corporate landscape. Of the 500 largest listed Indian firms, according to IiAS, an advisory firm, 344 are controlled in practice not by boards answerable to all shareholders, but directly by promoters. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Founders can exert unhealthy influence over Western firms, too, but they typically do so using their shareholdings. The sway exercised by Indian founders has its roots in a unique mix of moral suasion, regulatory advantage and the trickiness of doing business in India. In many industries, the promoter has relationships with people who matter. Only he knows which palms need to be greased to keep a power plant open, or which union boss has to be co-opted to avoid strikes. This knowledge makes the promoter central to the running of the firm, even if it belongs mostly to other shareholders. Sometimes that leads to dominant promoters bilking the firms they run. They give family members juicy contracts, pay themselves excessively and get the firm to provide private yachts, London flats and much else besides. United Spirits, a booze firm promoted by Vijay Mallya but owned mainly by outsiders, used to pay for 13 properties for him and his family (he is now in Britain, trying to avoid extradition to India). The promoter’s perch is bad for the companies themselves, and not just their shareholders. It is harder to recruit good managers when power lies elsewhere. Balance-sheets get stretched as investment is funded more by debt than equity—because debt is cheaper and promoters can thereby avoid being diluted to the point of losing certain privileges. Promoter power is also bad for the economy. Inefficient firms that should be taken over by a rival stumble on, as promoters seek to preserve their perks. The promoter culture is partly to blame for the nearly one-fifth of all loans made by Indian banks thought unlikely to be repaid. When promoter-led firms cannot service their debts, dominant owner-bosses tend to skip repayments. They understand that banks cannot easily foreclose on them and later hope to sell the firm on, because any new owner would lack a promoter’s hold over the business. This has harmed the Indian banks and, in turn, the finances of the government that owns many of them. Demotion guide Promoters will not willingly give up their power. But others can help limit it. The original owners of companies will soon account for less than half of the shareholdings of India’s largest listed firms, down from 59% around a decade ago, according to IiAS. Much of the rest has been picked up by domestic institutional investors such as insurance companies and mutual funds (see Schumpeter). These investors have a duty to stand up to promoters, no matter how rich or politically connected they may be. Institutions should act as owners continuously, not just during a crisis. They should recognise the pre-eminence of boards of directors that represent all shareholders. And they should demand higher returns from promoter-dominated firms, in recognition of the higher risks. The tide has begun to turn against promoters. Newish rules force them to secure a majority of minority shareholders’ approvals in some instances. Authorities are leaning on banks to restructure defaulting firms’ debt, or push them into insolvency. Some tycoons have had to sell prized assets to keep afloat, a once unthinkable affront. Founding shareholders can be a resource for a company, but only if they know their place—in the boardroom, perhaps, but not on a pedestal.
× Driven by development, the Triangle is changing, which is keenly felt in the arts. New spaces are opening as old ones are closing. Emerging organizations are helping artists and audiences navigate this unsteady terrain, while long-running mainstays are adapting their missions to stay relevant. Whether you're new to the area or have been here for years, it can be hard to keep up. That's why, in our 2014 fall arts and culture guide, we explore some of the shifts in the local landscape, from the consolidation of indie choreographers and theater personnel shakeups to the trends of simulcasts in cinemas and pop-up galleries in the visual arts. Of course, we also offer our picks, selected by our expert critics, for the most promising dance performances, comedy showcases, plays, readings, college football games, movies, art shows and concerts you can look forward to this fall. Such a guide could never be comprehensive; this one doesn't even touch on the many local fall festivals, from Hopscotch and SPARKcon to the West End Poetry Festival and the Carrboro Film Festival (we'll catch up in regular coverage). Thankfully, that's one thing about the Triangle that hasn't changedthere's still an overwhelming variety of things to do, see and enjoy. This article appeared in print with the headline "Fall forward"
Ron Dermer told reporters at Trump Tower his government “has no doubt that President-elect Trump is a true friend of Israel.” ADVERTISEMENT Unprompted, Dermer added that Israeli officials “look forward to working with the Trump administration, with all of the members of the Trump administration, including Steve Bannon, and making the U.S.-Israel alliance stronger than ever.” Dermer did not respond when asked why he specifically mentioned Bannon. It's also not clear if the Israeli official met with Trump while visiting his Manhattan high-rise. Still, his comments come amid a firestorm of criticism surrounding Bannon, whom critics have accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism. Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, called Bannon’s appointment to a top White House role "hostile to core American values." Bannon has faced criticism after his ex-wife said that he did not want their children “going to a school with Jews,” a charge Bannon denies. He also formerly helmed Breitbart News, which others have said advances anti-Semitic tropes. For example, one piece contained a headline labeling conservative commentator Bill Kristol a “renegade Jew.”
By Gale Hemmann As temperatures drop and winter settles in, what could be better than a mug of hot chocolate? Nearly everyone likes hot chocolate. In fact, people have been drinking it for two thousand years. It is still popular around the world, often served with breakfast in France or made with cinnamon and spices throughout Latin America. An occasional cup of hot chocolate also has many health benefits – some studies show that the heart-healthy flavinoids of the cocoa bean are even more potent when heated up. You can find hot chocolate on the menus of many cafes and restaurants around Thurston County. I decided to round up willing family and friends to take a hot-chocolate tasting tour of Olympia and beyond. I found some wonderfully unique cups, as well as many takes on the classic version. Here are some of the highlights of my “hot chocolate tour.” Olympia For a unique hot chocolate experience, stop by Sizizis (pronounced Siz-iz-iss ) on Fourth Avenue. This funky café is open late and is one of the hippest spots in Olympia. They offer a delicious white hot chocolate option as well as dark hot chocolate. I gave the white hot chocolate a try and it was amazingly good – a sweet, flavorful, cream-colored brew that arrived in a charming vintage teacup. Sizizis is committed to using locally-sourced products, and if you have a non-hot-chocolate drinker along, they offer a full range of teas. ) on Fourth Avenue. This funky café is open late and is one of the hippest spots in Olympia. They offer a delicious white hot chocolate option as well as dark hot chocolate. I gave the white hot chocolate a try and it was amazingly good – a sweet, flavorful, cream-colored brew that arrived in a charming vintage teacup. Sizizis is committed to using locally-sourced products, and if you have a non-hot-chocolate drinker along, they offer a full range of teas. The popular Darby’s Café offers a sweet, satisfying cup of hot chocolate. On a recent lunch date there with my brother, I ordered a cup and was not disappointed: it came in a generous mug, topped with whipped cream and cocoa powder. Darby’s makes their hot chocolate with Ghiradelli chocolate. Sipping from my mug, listening to the eclectic music and enjoying the retro décor, I decided that a cup of Darby’s hot chocolate definitely brightens up a drizzly Olympia afternoon. (Tip: Since Darby’s is often busy, I recommend stopping by at an off-peak time, such as a weekday afternoon.) I stopped by the European-style Bread Peddler café, one of my favorite writing spots, on an especially cold winter afternoon. I was looking forward to trying their take on hot chocolate, and they serve a solid cup: it’s not overly sweet, made with house chocolate sauce and served with an artistic leaf-shaped swirl in your foam. The Bread Peddler’s hot chocolate pairs well with their pastries – I had it with pan au chocolate and it was perfect, complementing but not overwhelming the sweet dessert. For hot chocolate on the go, stop by the Filling Station on Fourth Avenue. This popular drive-thru spot has hot chocolate in adult and kids’ sizes, and they offer a fun daily trivia question (answer correctly for a discount). This Filling Station is housed in an actual vintage filling station, making it a fun spot to stop by for a hot chocolate or espresso treat. Lacey Besides offering a pleasant, relaxing café space complete with fireplaces, Panera Bread offers a terrific cup of hot chocolate. Their “Signature Hot Chocolate” includes Belgian dark chocolate, salted caramel sauce, and chocolate-chip mini marshmallows. I shared a to-go cup with my mom on a recent crafting date, and she agreed it was delicious. Tucked away in the Hawk’s Prairie area, the new Masaala Chai café offers standard hot chocolate, but their specialty is authentic chai. This delicious Indian drink, made of steamed milk and spices, is another terrific cold-weather option. They offer several varieties, including a chai latte, as well as sweets (try the fresh homemade coconut truffles) and deli items to accompany your drink. Tumwater I stopped by the Sound City Coffee Company on a weekday afternoon for a hot chocolate break. They offer a pleasant, generously-sized mug of hot chocolate, as well as spacious tables to talk, write or check your email. Sound Coffee Company is a non-profit organization, making them a unique place to stop. *Editors Note: Sound City Coffee Company is now closed. So, what are my conclusions from this whirlwind “hot chocolate tour” of Olympia? Well, first of all, we are fortunate that Olympia has so many great hot chocolate options. Every cup I tried was tasty, warm and satisfying. As the actress Jo Brand says, “Anything is good if it’s made with chocolate.” I also found that hot chocolate was a very affordable menu item at every location I visited. Most places were happy to substitute soy or rice milk in your drink for those who are dairy-free, or add extras upon request, making it a customizable drink. Hot chocolate is a simple luxury, a small celebration of winter, and perfect to share. Why not grab a cup as an afternoon pick-me-up, or as a fun alternative to a coffee date? Going out for hot chocolate also makes a fun, affordable family outing, sweetening up a winter’s day.
When hot lava from a volcanic eruption invades a forest, often the lava does not overthrow the larger trees, but flows around them. The moisture in the tree cools the lava in contact with the trunk and a hard exterior shell is formed. As the lava drains away, only the solidified “lava trees” are left standing. The tremendous heat burns away the wood inside and a hollow cast in the shape of the original tree is left behind. In some cases, the tree can remain standing and stays for years as a black charred skeleton, and in rare cases, some trees even survive and continue to grow after the eruption. The best example of lava trees are found on the island of Hawaii, in southeast of Pāhoa in the Puna District. Here, an entire forest of ohi'a trees were engulfed in molten lava up to 11 feet deep, when the Kilauea volcano erupted in 1790. Trees that were surrounded by the molten lava cooled the lava that coated them, while the heat of the lava caused the tree to burn to ash. Soon after a nearby fissure opened in the ground allowing the molten lava to drain away back into the earth. But the lava surrounding the trees had already cooled and started to harden and remained above ground as monuments to the trees that once stood in the same spot. Forest of lava trees resulting from eruption of a 1-km-line of vents east of Pu‘u Kahaualea. The bulbous top of each lava tree marks the high stand of the lava flow as it spread through the trees. As the fissure eruption waned, the flow continued to spread laterally; its surface subsided, leaving pillars of lava that had chilled against tree trunks. Spattering is from fissure out of view to the left. Note blob of spatter adhering to the top of the stripped ‘ohi‘a tree (Photo by J.D. Griggs, USGS / Text from Pacific Island Parks) Today, the Lava Tree State Park consists of 17.1 acres of native plants, trees and many lava trees. Many of the lava trees are covered in moss, while others have fallen to the ground, exposing their interior hollow structure. Some of the casts are so perfect that you can still see the imprint of the bark in the lava rock itself. Photo credit Photo credit Photo credit Large lava tree that fell and broke apart at Hawaii Lava Tree State Park. Photo credit Inside view of lava tree at Hawaii Lava Tree State Park. Photo credit Sources: Volcano Discovery / Instant Hawaii / To-Hawaii.com
Hi, folks! Precious Roy here. Looks like KENOBI, another STAR WARS STORY, will be filming in January 2019, if nothing goes amiss ala SOLO. Rumor is that Lucasfilm is currently trying to get director Steven Daltry to helm the film. I’m a fan of his work on THE HOURS and BILLY ELLIOT… he’s also directing the big-screen adaptation of Broadway’s WICKED, which is a Christmas 2019 tentpole. It will be interesting to see a director known for small set pieces with big stars, and grand period musicals, to tackle the action of the Star Wars Universe. I wonder at why they’re making a Kenobi movie (beyond the financial incentives and fan demand); I hope this means they’re onto a cracker of a good story for Obi-Wan’s exile to Tatooine. I dearly hope they are crafting an original story that fits into the canon as well as ROGUE ONE did. Obi-Wan has been used quite well in STAR WARS REBELS, and I would hate for anything in the films to retcon that show (or STAR WARS CLONE WARS) as being off-canon. Obi-Wan would be keeping a low profile during the pre-A NEW HOPE time, and Darth Maul is yet to revisit him. Here’s hoping that they will find another story to tell, and if they feel it necessary to include Owen, Beru, little Luke, or his pal Biggs, that they do it in some way that makes sense and has meaning for the series, instead of a thrill-ride to nowhere. Read all about it at Omega Underground: http://omegaunderground.com/2017/12/09/lucasfilm-eyeing-early-2019-production-start-kenobi-anthology-film/ I’m Precious Roy, and that’s my courageous story!
Over the past few weeks, the WikiLeaks organization has published the stolen emails of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, revealing some of the inner workings of the Clinton campaign. One email exchange released this week between Clinton and top campaign advisers appeared to show the Democratic nominee discussing the "unraveling of the ACA," also known as Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. Campaign adviser Ann O'Leary asked Clinton about her support for the so-called Cadillac tax built into the ACA, suggesting that she come out for a partial repeal. The Cadillac tax would impose a surcharge on high-cost health insurance plans with expansive coverage that employers provide for their workers. Since many unions had advocated for getting these high-quality plans for their workers, these traditionally Democratic-leaning groups were opposed to the tax, leading to bipartisan support for a delay or repeal of that aspect of the ACA. In Clinton's response, the nominee appeared to support a Cadillac-tax repeal bill written by Republicans. Here's the email in its entirety. (The Clinton campaign has not confirmed the authenticity of the emails.) "Given the politics now w bipartisan support including [Democratic New York Sen. Chuck] Schumer, I'll support repeal w[ith] 'sense of the Senate' that revenues would have to be found. I'd be open to a range of options to do that. But we have to be careful that the R version passes which begins the unraveling of the ACA." Clinton's supporters, and critics, have found a few different ways to interpret her comments. Jeffrey Anderson, a Hudson Institute senior fellow and opponent of Obamacare, suggested that Clinton was advocating for the "unraveling" of the ACA altogether. The suggested reason: more support to pass a public option — in which the government would offer its own insurance to people to compete with private insurers — or a single-payer system, in which the government is the only insurance provider, similar to systems in the UK or Canada. Clinton has advocated for a public option for years. Her plan during her husband Bill Clinton's presidential administration in the 1990s, colloquially called HillaryCare, was eventually defeated by Republicans but bears many resemblances to the ACA. The second option is that Clinton simply misspoke. The email directly after hers in the chain, from foreign-policy adviser Jake Sullivan, read: "Your point on R version is key. Our Bernie contrast rests on defending ACA, so crucial to cast this as a fix and to be on the lookout for R efforts to make this a Trojan Horse for broader dismantling of the ACA." Sanders, during the primaries, was more critical of Obamacare and loudly called for a government-sponsored plan. Chelsea Clinton, the eventual nominee's daughter, memorably attacked him for this in the primary, saying Sanders wanted to "dismantle Medicare" and "empower Republican governors to take away Medicaid," despite Sanders plan not really doing either. Put another way, reading into the context that comes with Sullivan's email, Clinton fat-fingered an email and was trying to establish a middle-ground between Sanders and more progressive Democrats and the Republican position. This version also suggests she was perhaps warning about the Republican version of the Cadillac-tax repeal bill because it had the potential to unravel Obamacare. Throughout the campaign, Clinton has repeatedly expressed her support for the ACA on the trail and called for improvements and strengthening of the law. The Clinton campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
By day two of the Toronto International Film Festival, one can almost smell the champagne in the air. It’s right around now that everybody coming into town for the festival has arrived and started making the rounds. So if the timing of TIFF isn’t enough to make one feel like it’s the first week back at school, then the moments spent reuniting with old friends certainly is. My day began at The Art Gallery of Ontario for Mark Cousins’ A Story of Children and Film. You might recall yesterday that I described the documentary feature as a sixteenth chapter to Cousins’ The Story of Film. That description was actually incorrect – deeply incorrect. The film – which is every bit as joyous, insightful, and airy as advertised – is not designed as an encyclopedia of great performances by juvenile actors. Rather, it’s a look at the very nature of childhood, and uses a litany of examples from worldwide film history to make its point. By taking this approach, Cousins’ has created something that transcends. It’s not a text book meant to appeal to film scholars, but a reflection on the very nature of childhood, that can be appreciated by any mother, father, aunt, uncle, or other adult familiar with the habits of kids. The small surprise for anyone who has been spending time with Cousins’ A Story of Film, is how energetic and bouncy he is. The man of the stoic narration with the Irish lilt was nowhere to be found when this film finished. Instead, the man with the mic was joyous, impish, and infectious. As suppertime arrived in Toronto, it brought with it a replay of a familiar song. At TIFF 2012, Jason Reitman held a Live Read of Alan Ball’s script for American Beauty. The event – a continuation of a series that has been staging in Los Angeles and New York – was so well-received, that Reitman decided to do it again at TIFF 2013. This year’s selection: Boogie Nights, continuing the theme of films that had their launch at TIFF in years gone by. The cast of characters assembled for this experiment went as follows: — Jesse Eisenberg as Dirk Diggler (Mark Whalberg in the original film) — Josh Brolin as Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) — Olivia Wilde as Amber Waves (Olivia Wilde) — Dakota Fanning as Rollergirl (Heather Graham) — Dane Cook as Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) — Jason Sudeikis as Buck Swope (Don Cheadle) Various additional roles were played by Jarod Einsohn, Marc-Andre Grondin, Jordan Hayes, and Scott Thompson. While the full-house gathered at The Ryerson Theatre was shown a good time, and voiced their approval on multiple occasions, one couldn’t help but feel that this event was a little off from what had transpired last year. For starters, the cast assembled didn’t quite feel like a starting nine; more like three choice selections and then whoever was available on Friday night. But that said, some surprises were in-store. Specifically, one couldn’t help but be impressed with what Olivia Wilde brought to the table (both as Amber and as Dirk’s mom), and at the pure amount of fun Sudeikis and Cook were having with the material. That said, while he gave a valiant effort, and hit the right note now and then, it was painfully obvious that the character of Dirk Diggler requires a certain amount of boyish charm, and that it’s not an arrow Eisenberg has in his quiver. What’s more, as the night wore on, it became apparent that there are a lot of things that make Boogie Nights such a special film – things beyond its script. After a while, their absence was felt more and more. While the event gave audience a decent amount of bang for their buck, one wonders if Reitman now wishes that he’d chosen a different script, different actors, or both. By the time night fell on day two, word was ringing out about the rousing debut 12 Years a Slave had had on Friday night. That ringing was enough to leave (ahem) certain people super-stoked that Steve McQueen’s new film was the top ticket on the stack for day three.
We might look at Russell Westbrook’s 43-point, 11-rebound, 10-assist triple double against the Jazz last week as the apex of his season. The Thunder trailed 106-102 with :40 left when Westbrook nailed a three and then went coast-to-coast for a layup and the foul, and the Thunder won. The crowd rejoiced. Big games off the bench from newbie Doug McDermott (16 points) and a healthy-again Enes Kanter (15 points) had OKC fans stoked about a playoff run. The Thunder had depth! Maybe they do better than 7th in the West! Westbrook is the MVP! A week later, and OKC has dropped three straight on the road against teams that will be in the lottery: Portland, Phoenix, and Dallas. Enter Mark Cuban, the increasingly-angry owner of the Dallas Mavericks: Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told a group of reporters before the Thunder played Dallas on Sunday at American Airlines Center that the MVP race is a toss-up between LeBron James and James Harden, and asked where Westbrook is in that mix, Cuban was blunt. “He’s not,” Cuban said, according to ESPN.com. “The criteria hasn’t changed,” Cuban said Sunday, according to ESPN.com. “And if I changed my mind, it’d ruin all the fun with you guys.” Westbrook is still averaging a triple-double. He’s fallen to 3rd in assists (John Wall passed him for 2nd awhile back). Westbrook is averaging an Iverson/Kobe-like 24 shots per game (most in the NBA by far), and on pace for his worst shooting season as a pro since he was a rookie (41 percent). So how is any of that more impressive than what James Harden has done? The Rockets are 3rd in the West, on pace for 60 wins, and he’s got an inferior supporting cast to Westbrook. Harden changed positions from shooting guard to point guard, and he’s averaging a career-high (and NBA-best) 11.3 assists per game. And of course, there’s LeBron, who one could argue has been the MVP of the NBA for the last 10 years. LeBron’s shooting 53 percent (best he’s done in Cleveland) and hitting 39 percent of his 3-pointers, which is approaching a career best. His rebound (8.0) and assists (8.9) numbers are the best of his career. The Cavs are 1st in the East. Tell me again why Westbrook is the MVP over Harden and LeBron?
Vatican astronomer to speak at three free events Courtesy photo + Enlarge Brother Guy Consolmagno Intermountain Catholic By Marie Mischel SALT LAKE CITY — Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory and president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Interpreter Science & Mormonism Symposium and the Summerhays Lecture Series, and also give a presentation at Juan Diego Catholic High School. All three events are free and open to the public. Brother Guy, who studied planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a PhD from the University of Arizona, also served in the Peace Corps and taught college physics before entering the Society of Jesus in 1989. “Since 1993 he has served as an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and was curator of the Vatican meteorite collection until his appointment in 2014 as president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation,” according to his biography. “In September 2015 Pope Francis appointed him Director of the Vatican Observatory.” In 2014 Brother Guy won a Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society for “outstanding communication by an active planetary scientist to the general public;” in addition to more than 200 scientific publications, he is the author of six books, including the best-selling Turn Left at Orion (with Dan M. Davis) and Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? (with Fr. Paul Mueller SJ). Brother Guy initially was invited to Utah by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, vice president of the Interpreter Foundation, which is presenting its second annual Science and Mormonism symposium with the theme “Body, Brain, Mind and Spirit” at Utah Valley University. Bradshaw, a senior research scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, said he has read many of Brother Guy’s works, and the first time he heard him at a conference, “I was intrigued by many of the things he did. Here was a passionate scientist, a passionate believer, somebody who loves technology – in other words, somebody who understands people like me – and he was not unwilling to state all of those beliefs in front of a mostly skeptical crowd.” While Brother Guy will give the keynote address at the March 12 Interpreter symposium, the daylong event will feature many other speakers, as well, including Stephen H. Webb, a Catholic theologian, author, and First Things columnist; and James E. Faulconer, the Richard L. Evans Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University. “We feel a lot of commonality in the issues and challenges we face as believers in science,” Bradshaw said, adding that he would like those attending the symposium to understand “that many mainstream scientists believe in God. I’m hoping that believers who are struggling with contradictions in their lives will realize this is the life of a scientist. Scientists, I think, make good believers because we’re able to accommodate contradictions in all areas of our lives.” In his keynote, “Astronomy, God, and the Search for Elegance,” Brother Guy will speak about the fact that “scientific theories must do more than merely satisfy the data; they must do so in a way that is (to use a term much favored by mathematicians) ‘elegant,’” according to the abstract for his speech. “By looking closely at a handful of astronomical images, we’ll explore the way that one proceeds from an emotional appreciation of the beauty of the stars and planets, to a deeper understanding that satisfies both reason and emotion. Ultimately, this link between ‘elegance’ and rational truth has profound theological implications.” Brother Guy is an excellent fit for the symposium, Bradshaw said. “I think that what he speaks to in both his choice of topic – on the elegance of the universe – and his faithful presentation of the things that he’s studied will resonate with the ordinary person as much as the scientists who attend.” Two days before the Interpreter symposium, on March 10, Brother Guy will speak on “Encountering God’s Personality in Creation” during the annual Summerhays Lecture on Science and Religion at Brigham Young University’s College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. His lecture will be titled “Encountering God’s Personality in Creation.” This will be “a tremendous opportunity for everyone living along the Wasatch Front because “he has such a deep understanding of really interesting topics in planetary science and has done some groundbreaking research in those areas, and not only that, he’s the director of the Vatican Observatory, which puts him in a very prominent position in terms of international religion,” said Jani Radebaugh, professor of geological science at BYU, who is helping to coordinate Brother Guy’s visit. “To be in a culture that values both of those things, science and religion, the way we do in Utah, means that his coming is a real gift to all of us, and we’ll benefit a lot by listening to him no matter what our levels of understanding are in terms of science, because he’ll help us understand those things and help elevate all of us.” Both Brother Guy and Radebaugh are University of Arizona alumni; he contacted her after accepting the invitation to speak at the Interpreter symposium, she said, and she asked if he also would give the Summerhays lecture. “He’s been making this journey through the universe and the solar system in a scientific and spiritual sense, and he’s able to bring all of us along with him, and that’s a real gift,” Radebaugh said. The final venue at which Brother Guy will speak while he is in Utah is Juan Diego Catholic High School, where he will present “Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer” on March 13. He will “share some of those adventures, and reflect on the larger meaning of our common experience as scientists ... not only what we do, but why we do it,” according to the press release for the event. “It seems like a natural fit” for Brother Guy to speak at the Skaggs Catholic Center, said Molly Dumas, the high school’s public information officer. “He’s not just a brilliant person but he has his faith aligned with that … Brother Guy will be talking about why science and faith go together: Why is it important to have an observatory in the Church? Why is it important to couple knowledge with faith exploration? Space exploration and faith exploration – that’s what we’re doing as well.” Prior to the lecture, the school will host a public reception with displays by students that will include the recent science fair winners and LEGO robots. Brother Guy Consolmagno in Utah All events are free and open to the public. Thursday, March 10, 6:30 p.m. — Summerhays Lecture on Science and Religion in the JSB Auditorium, Eyring Science Center, Brigham Young University, Provo. Br. Guy’s topic will be “Encountering God’s Personality in Creation.” Saturday, March 12, 9 a.m. — Interpreter Science & Mormonism Symposium: Body, Brain, Mind and Spirit at Utah Valley University, Orem. Brother Guy’s topic will be “Astronomy, God, and the Search for Elegance.” After his keynote address, the symposium will continue with various speakers until 3:30 p.m. For information, visit www.mormoninterpreter.com. Sunday, March 13, 3 p.m. — Presentation in Juan Diego Catholic High School auditorium, 300 East 11800 South, Draper. Brother Guy’s topic will be “Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer.” Preceding the presentation will be a public reception with student STEM displays, science fair winners, and robots in the Great Hall beginning at 2 p.m.
“There are really no absolutes in football,” Shanahan said Friday. “It has to do with what you’re going against and situations. You’ve got to be able to adjust to anything.” The Falcons, according to the official gamebook, ran 25 no-huddle plays in their 35-28 win over the Oakland Raiders. “Against Oakland, we definitely did it the most than we have done it,” Shanahan said. “A lot of that had to do with the (fact) that it was working. When you don’t get into third down – we only had 10 third downs – that means first and second down were going real well, so you stay in it.” If the offense is getting stopped, then Shanahan will huddle up in order to get his best personnel group on the field. “Why stop it,” Shanahan said. “You go until they put you in a third down. Fortunately, they didn’t stop us very much.” The 528 yards were the sixth-most in franchise history. The Falcons amassed 568 against the Saints on Sept. 7, 2014 for their top total yardage output. Shanahan is not sure how much no-huddle the Falcons will run when they face the Saints. The anticipated noise in the Superdome is not a factor. “It’s the same issue everywhere,” Shanahan said. “New Orleans, especially on Monday night, will be harder than most. It was extremely hard in the black hole last Sunday, too. I thought the guys handled it well.” The Falcons are ready if they elect to go no-huddle. “Sometimes, the no huddle can be easier because you quiet the crowd up a little bit,” Shanahan said. “Some time you get going and you have to communicate with signals more. There is never one type of deal that’s easier than the other.” Falcons quarterback felt the offense got in a rhythm against the Raiders. “Specifically, from the second quarter on and into the second half, I thought we did a good job of creating explosive plays both in the run game and the pass game,” Ryan said. “I thought it was a good mix of the two.” Ryan move the ball around to nine different receivers against the Raiders. “We got everybody involved and we kept it going,” Ryan said. “Our offensive line, continues to do a great job. I think they’ve been excellent in Week 1 and Week 2. That was a good couple of drives for us.” The Saints will be without starting cornerbacks Delvin Breaux (fibula) and P.J. Williams (concussion). New Orleans coach Sean Payton will like use rookies Ken Crawley and De’Vante Harris along with Sterling Moore. The Saints also played a lot of three-safety looks with Kenny Vaccaro playing close to the line of scrimmage and rookie Vonn Bell and Jairus Byrd back deep. The Saints held the New York Giants to three field goals last week and lost 16-13 because a blocked field was returned for a touchdown. “I know it’s going to be a challenge,” Shanahan said. “They did a good job last week. The Giants have as good of receivers as there are. I know that we do, too. But they held the Giants to nine points and they struggled to get in the end zone.” Over the course of his film study, Ryan has been been impressed with the Saints patch-worked secondary. “I think they’ve done a pretty good job for being their first couple of games out there being thrust into that spotlight and matching up against some really good receiving tandems,” Ryan said.
NEW DELHI: He wakes up around 4.30am every day, but instead of a morning walk he gets into his specially modified car to deliver water around the capital. It takes 68-year-old Alag Natarajan an hour and a half to fill the 60-plus matkas he has placed in and around South Delhi so that thirsty passersby and the poor get easy access to clean drinking water.No surprise that this retired gent who lives in South Delhi's Panchsheel Park has earned the epithet, the 'matkaman' of Delhi.Natarajan, an engineer who returned to India in 2005 after spending over 32 years in London, says it was a brush with colon cancer that changed his mindset. His was detected at an early stage and treated on time but it made him determined to make his post-retirement years count. He first started working voluntarily for the Shanti Avedna Sadan cancer hospital where he would help those who couldn't afford to bear the cremation expenses of their loved ones, even ferrying bodies in his van. "A lot of people could not even afford to spend Rs 500 on the cremation, so I would help them," says Natarajan.Soon, he hit on the idea of placing matkas on stands in areas like IIT, Green Park, Panchsheel and Chirag Delhi. The water, he says, is collected from three different borewells whose owners appreciated the work he was doing and wanted to help."The car had to be modified, with a generator added and two tanks of 500 and 200 litres to ensure the matkas did not run dry. My volunteers and I now make four to five trips to fill these matkas," he says. His volunteers include his house help, gardener, a drain cleaner from the area and a full-time as sistant. His van which has the name of his website matkaman.com painted across it is a familiar sight in South Delhi.He has also started installing cycle bells for cyclists who don't have one. He has now made a few designated points in the Panchsheel area where cyclists gather for refreshments in the form of lassi, to drink water and to get cycle bells installed.
In yesterday’s post entitled “Our Biggest Mistake: We Did As We Were Told” I listed several things deconverts like me did that inadvertently led to the demise of our faith. At one point I brought up prayer, and I explained that we approached prayer exactly the way the Bible instructed us to approach it: We came to God with hearts full of expectation, asking him to do the very things he said in the Bible that he wanted us to ask him to do. Allow me to list a few examples of places where Jesus himself instructs us to ask for things: “Give us this day our daily bread…lead us not into temptation…deliver us from evil…” 1 “…whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” 2 “…if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” 3 “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do…If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” 4 “…how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”5 I could easily get off on a tangent about why someone would require that we ask him to do anything that he was already planning on doing. But I remember having pretty good rationalizations for that when I was still a Christian, so I won’t spend much time belaboring that point. I could also explore the curious notion of asking a God who is supposed to be both all-knowing and all-powerful to alter his course in any way, as if we know better than he does what should happen. Who do we think we are, anyway? But that’s what the Bible tells us to do: ask God for things we need—not superfluous, luxurious things like yachts and private jets (only preachers are supposed to ask for those), but things like health, safety, and basic provision. In particular I mentioned that both Jesus and James explicitly instructed us to pray for healing when people among us are sick, assuring us that they would be healed. Let the Gaslighting Begin But like clockwork, people began sounding off in various places on social media to shift the blame onto the rest of us for believing the promises of the Bible. One well-meaning commenter expressed pity, an emotion I’m accustomed to receiving from people blissfully unaware how condescending that comes across to us: There’s so much in his post that’s sad, but the suppositions about prayer in #2—talking about prayers as if they’re wishes that do or do not “come true”—stuck out to me the most. Yes, when praying is likened to wishing, faith in God through Jesus Christ will disappoint for sure. See, there’s where we went wrong: We actually expected God to do what he said he would do. That was our biggest mistake. God isn’t into granting “wishes,” you see. He isn’t Santa Claus, you know. What a dismissive response! But this follows a time-tested strategy that’s become quite familiar to me at this point: Step 1: Trivialize people’s heartfelt cries for help as if we’re spoiled children asking for toys. Step 2: Shame former believers for believing what the Bible told them to believe. Step 3: Explain that prayer isn’t really supposed to be asking God to do anything. It seems many Christians suffer from selective amnesia when it comes to the claims of the Bible. After the above interchange on Facebook, I tweeted the following: Bible: Pray for the sick and they’ll be healed. Me: They didn’t get better. Them: Shame on you. God’s not your genie. Me: [quiet rage] — Neil Carter (@godlessindixie) April 6, 2017 Which of course prompted an immediate denial from believers, demanding I show them exactly there the Bible ever says anything of the sort. So I simply replied with the first two places that came to mind, although many more could be listed: So far, neither of them have replied. Maybe they don’t really read the Bible much. You know, some days you just have to step back and marvel at the manipulative genius of the Christian faith: First it promises rewards which cannot materialize until after you’re dead, then it threatens you with a punishment that is as unspeakably cruel as it is irrational, yet it asks you to believe in the inevitability of both outcomes without offering any concrete present-day proof. You will know the truth of it all the moment right after you die, they tell you, at which point it will be too late to change your mind. Before that day comes you will have to accept the third-hand testimony of people who died so many centuries ago that we can’t even find where they’re buried, much less call them in for questioning. But it doesn’t stop there. They lure you in with grandiose promises of divine care and provision, offering an intimate personal relationship with the Creator of the universe, a Supreme Being who loves you unconditionally and accepts you exactly as you are. But once you’re in, they inform you that everything about you is wrong and needs to change or else God will remove his blessings, whatever those are actually supposed to be. Also, you should never expect him to show up in your life in any clearly discernible way (and shame on you for expecting that). If you want to make sure he truly takes care of you, it will require asking him in exactly the right ways under precisely the right conditions or else his promises become null and void. If you protest this arrangement, they will guilt you for believing the Bible when it unambiguously instructs you to expect certain things to happen, then they call into question whether it really says he will do what it clearly says he will do. Not only did you read it wrong, they insinuate, but also you’re a selfish, shallow ingrate for coming away with the impression you got from reading whatever it was that Jesus or whoever said would happen. Then if you ever get fed up and leave, you were never really one of them to begin with (no matter how long nor how sincerely you were among them), and any problems you encountered must be attributed to either your own failures to do it right, or else to other people, because people just do bad things, but God and the Bible cannot be inculpated for any of it. They must remain above reproach at all costs. As a bonus, this system of beliefs, together with all of its defense mechanisms and social reinforcements keeping it safe from external or internal critique, generates a global industry worth trillions of dollars every year, employing hundreds of thousands of people. No wonder it’s so difficult to budge. But the problem must be you, not the system of belief itself. Always. That’s Not What Prayer is For There is one other dismissive tactic that shows up during this discussion that I have to mention before I leave this topic. Whenever this subject comes up, people always rush to argue that prayer isn’t supposed to actually DO anything at all, at least not outside of our own heads. I recall hearing Anthony Hopkins as C.S. Lewis in the movie Shadowlands exclaiming: “Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes ME.” Finally, something we can both agree on. I’ve noticed that the more “mature” a person’s faith becomes, the more it evolves to fit the way life actually works (as opposed to the way the Bible claims it will). Whether we’re talking about prophecy, or prayer, or simply “standing on the promises of God,” the mature Christian eventually learns to wait and see where the arrow lands, then they draw a target around that spot, calling God faithful and his word true. In time, prayer comes to be seen as a purely internal practice meant to reorient the individual’s outlook and perspective on life rather than an actual interchange between real persons who can be expected to respond to each other in discernible ways. The things is, I can relate to this, and I don’t blame them for reaching that point. I think prayer can function just like meditation—a calming, centering personal discipline that helps us all maintain a healthy psychological balance in the midst of an increasingly chaotic, noisy world. We could all benefit from this kind of practice. But you don’t get to tell us that the Bible doesn’t also indicate prayer is supposed to change things in real life…and I mean things happening outside of our own heads. That’s a terribly selective reading of your own religion, and those of us who inhabited that tradition for so much of our lives know better than to accept such facile dismissals of our legitimate critiques of the biblical notion of prayer. Try these answers on someone else; we’re not buying it. And frankly, it’s insulting. [Image Source: Adobe Stock]
By Sinéad Liobhas (Jennifer Lewis) ...An open letter to those Canadians who are Irish, and those who wish they were. This is a cheeky look at the appropriation of Irish culture in Canada. Though I’m no Jonathan Swift, I wanted to use some typically Dublin humour, in honour of everyone’s favourite holiday, St. Patrick’s Day. Ah, Éire. The Emerald Isle. When I tell people that I’m Irish, they promptly tell me, “I am too!” And, who in Canada doesn’t have a little Irish in them? Based upon the casual association of many North Americans to their ancestors, it would appear that a tipsy Irish man and a beautiful Cherokee princess were VERY busy populating the continent. Since the early 1800s and the Active Union between Britain and Ireland, the Irish have been leaving the wee island in droves. Subsequent foreign occupation of the country by the British, a long period of devastating famine, forced deportation as criminals, and repeated financial crises ensured we went forth and populated the Earth, to the tune of an estimated 80 million people claiming Irish descent worldwide. In 2012 alone, at the height of the most recent financial disaster, more than 50,000 Irish people emigrated, mostly to England, Australia, and Canada. When I arrived here with my parents and sisters during the depression of the 1980s, our accents and clothes immediately made us mascots for the diasporic community of second to seventeenth generation countrymen and women already here. It was so comforting, upon our arrival in Canada, to be welcomed with the same cultural stereotypes based in oppression and colonialism that we had enjoyed at home in Ireland and in nearby England. Our new “Irish” neighbours, co-workers, and classmates never missed an opportunity to cluck sympathetically about the “troubles,” inquire about our drinking habits, or be utterly shocked by my family’s almost complete rejection of potatoes as an every-meal staple. To be sure, we should have been overjoyed to be emigrating closer to the home of the potato (introduced to Ireland in the 16th century), without the forced labour required to farm it for English gentry. Canadians were so quick to welcome us and, just like their acceptance and absorption of so many other cultures before us, borrowed our accents, history, plight, and prejudices. And isn’t mimicry the highest compliment? Our Canadian neighbours were so kind and considerate, inquiring, when my parents managed to save up enough money to buy a second hand car or new furniture, “what, did you rob a bank?” And didn’t it warm the cockles of our Catholic hearts to hear quaint attempts to mimic our accents, complete with a hop and a jig and a drunken slur, or comments on our shared dislike of the “Brits”, or opinions on the relations between all Irish priests and all Irish schoolboys? We’ve continued to receive a warm welcome, even though my and my sisters’ Irish accents have softened into Westcoast drawls, which render us “American” at best and, when we go home to Ireland, “Plastic Paddies” at worst. It matters naught to our Irish brethren in Canada. It’s been a great comfort to be able to turn on the television in Canada and see shows with characters that are, if not exact replicas, pretty close to those cute cartoons that the British used to publish in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The entire province of Newfoundland has even been donated to take the brunt of the jokes that were traditionally directed at us Irish. Even the subtler and more sacred aspects of Irish heritage have been welcomed with open arms. I need look no further than the lower backs of many Vancouver residents to be warmly reminded of Newgrange (more recognizable around the world for its inspiration of tattoos than for being the oldest roofed structure in the world, older than both the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge). Our Irish “mysticism” has been so well capsulated in both crystals on lanyards and backyard “Beltane” festivals, where well-matured men in purple hats jump over fires of virility. It’s not quite the same as our beloved Bealtaine, but we’re just so happy everyone’s celebrating something. Why, even our sex lives are celebrated with a wink, with delightful sayings like “Irish twins,” making us chuckle over those old fashioned ideas that us Irish Catholics wouldn’t know where to find birth control if we tried. And our tempers! Has there ever been a richer image than an angry red-headed Irish person? And, when we’re feeling homesick for the “old country”, we can always pop into just about any corner pub for a “Black and Tan” —reminiscent of so many Bloody Sundays — chased by an “Irish car bomb” shot. We can celebrate Irish music there too…well, at least we think it’s Irish music, though it’s a bit hard to hear over the floor stomps from everyone “Irish dancing.” ‘Twould be a shame to miss out on the ubiquitous Irish jokes, told over a pint of the blackstuff. Jesus would weep to miss a tale about last St. Patrick’s day, when a well-lubricated lad wearing a fuzzy green Leprechaun hat was hauled off in a Paddy Wagon. We can chuckle into our drinks, secure in our secret knowledge that a “Paddy Wagon” is a slur created by our colonial oppressors, to bolster perceptions of the Irish as drunks, and that St. Patrick is our patron saint and not a drinking idol. Ah, bless. Isn’t it a grand thing to know that our Irish culture has so permeated the planet that we can experience the stereotypes from our homeland—still occupied by the British and experiencing the inherited and related issues of alcoholism and unemployment— even in Canada? Can cultural appropriation go so far, and be so deeply engrained, that it no longer matters anymore? While it’s important to recognize the wrongs that have been done against other disenfranchised peoples and cultures, have we sacrificed a close look at our own, shared “Irish” culture? Canadians have forgotten about the painful associations related to power, colonialism, poverty, and disenfranchisement while trying so hard to make us feel at home with their “Irish” stereotypes. And if the mass appropriation of Irish culture and heritage was to be pointed out, in a bar, on a bus, in a conference, would we merely hear the smug reply: “Ah, well, I’m Irish so I can say these things”? Illustrations: An Irishman cavorts, as John Bull (England) and Uncle Sam (US) look on (source); Peter Griffin's Irish dad in Fox's "Family Guy" (source); Newgrange kerbstone K52 (source); Random lower back Celtic tattoo, almost certainly from Commercial Drive (source). Additional readings: Flight from Famine: the coming of the Irish to Canada, by Donald MacKay The Course of Irish History, by T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin, Dermot Keogh, and Patrick Kiely The Green Flag Vol 3: Ourselves Alone, by Robert Kee How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill Our Appropriation (?) of the Month features, written by IPinCH team members, highlight the complexity of 'cultural appropriation' and 'cultural appreciation'.
Aljamain Sterling reflects on his week with Cage Pages leading up to his December 10 bout against Johnny Eduardo. Here is Part One of the UFC’s #6 ranked bantamweight Aljamain Sterling’s weekly blog with Cage Pages leading up to his fight at UFC Fight Night 80. Tune in every week to see what Sterling had to say about the week before and hear him talk about his preparation for the #10 bantamweight Johnny Eduardo. “I’m just under three weeks away from stepping back into the Octagon against Johnny Eduardo at UFC Fight Night 80 on December 10. I’ll be leaving December 6th at night for Las Vegas, so I can get out there a day early and rest up and get ready to go. I’m bringing Ray Longo, Matt Serra and my brother to be in my corner. My brother Troy was there for my UFC debut, but I’ve had Al Iaquinta with me for my last two fights. With Al facing potential surgery, I need someone to move around with me and that’s why I choose my brother. My brother is an amateur MMA fighter and was 3-0, but he hasn’t fought for three years. These days he’s more into music and is an aspiring rapper, but he’s into all kinds of music. I got a chance to watch the Rousey-Holm fight on Saturday night. I thought that Holm fought the fight she needed to fight to win. She played to her strengths, she did her homework and knew exactly what Rousey was going to do. She didn’t look fazed, rattled or uneasy at all. I think she looked more physically imposing in the cage as compared to Rousey. Ronda looked very bloated and not in normal shape and it showed when she tried to put a headlock on Holm, who immediately threw her down. Things are going great between Lou (Louis Giordano aka Loutrition) and I. I hit him up for meal plans and for snacks that I can eat between training sessions. I’m the lightest I’ve ever been this close to a fight, which is good. ALSO ON CAGE PAGES: Aljamain Sterling is getting closer to his dream It’s kind of scary as well, because I don’t want to get too light and have it be tougher to put the weight back on. I normally weight around 148 or 149 on fight night. I don’t like the IV thing, I did it once and I wasn’t too crazy about it. I didn’t feel a significant difference. I do things differently than the other guys anyway. Eduardo is a really good striker with some decent KO power. He’s had a ton of fights, he’s very well-rounded, very experienced and he knows what his strengths are. He knows where to keep the fight and he’s a mentally tough guy. I have to go out there and play to my strengths. Take the fight where I want it to go. I’ll frustrate him on the feet, then take him down and hopefully punch a hole in his head, possibly his chest. Wrestling season just started last week, after training I usually head over to Uniondale High School and help coach the kids. I want to show them how to become better individuals and become successful in life. I give them the life talks and mental talks that they need. They probably don’t get enough of that as young, developing adults. I really enjoy doing it, because a lot of those things happened to me and helped mold me in to the person I am today. I am kind of mentor to those guys, they see that I had to work hard to get where I am at right now. You can find me on Twitter at @Funkmaster_UFC, I post some really good stuff. Techniques from training that I think it would be fun for people to try.” Next: Lou Giordano thinks weight cut impacted Ronda Rousey Tune in next week for Part Two and see how Aljamain Sterling’s week went here at Cage Pages.
THE rapid rise of Sydney defender Aliir Aliir has been recognised, with the Swans youngster named among the top 10 key defenders in the AFL by Champion Data. The Kenyan-born Aliir enjoyed a standout start to his senior career and has been ranked as the eighth-best key defender in the competition according to the Official AFL Player Ratings. Having only made his debut in Round 6 last season, Aliir played 13 games for Sydney but missed the side’s grand final due to a knee injury sustained the week prior. It was a big blow for the Swans, with the 22-year-old averaging 14.4 disposals and 4.3 marks per game throughout the season. He also averaged 7.1 intercepts per match, the third-most at the club behind Dane Rampe and Heath Grundy. PRE-ORDER THE 12TH EDITION OF CHAMPION DATA’S AFL PROSPECTUS — THE ESSENTIAL NUMBER-CRUNCHER FOR THE 2017 SEASON — BY TAPPING HERE Alex Rance has been named as the AFL’s best key defender. Picture: Wayne Ludbey. Source: News Corp Australia Rampe ranks fourth in the AFL for key defenders going into season 2017, with Richmond defender Alex Rance leading the way. Rance, who earned a third successive All-Australian guernsey last year, averaged 18.6 disposals, 9.3 intercepts and 7.8 marks per game across the course of the season. The Tigers stalwart was followed by West Coast’s Jeremy McGovern and Melbourne’s Tom McDonald in the rankings. Essendon pair Michael Hurley and Cale Hooker ranked as the first and second best key defenders respectively going into the 2016 campaign, but fell out of the top 10 due to Champion Data placing a higher emphasis on last season — a year where both were suspended. Fremantle veteran Michael Johnson and West Coast defender Eric Mackenzie also fell out of the top 10, with Rampe, Aliir, Nick Haynes and Phil Davis taking their places. The rankings are Champion Data’s measure of player quality for the 2017 AFL Prospectus, based on the Official AFL Player Ratings. They are recognised as the best indication of a player’s performance, emphasising the quality of games played over the quantity. CHAMPION DATA’S TOP 10 KEY DEFENDERS 1. Alex Rance (Richmond) A three-time All-Australian who continued to improve his game in 2016. 2. Jeremy McGovern (West Coast) The Eagles interceptor ranked fourth going into the year, but improved significantly. 3. Tom McDonald (Melbourne) Enjoyed a standout start to the season and leapt up from seventh in the rankings last year. 4. Dane Rampe (Sydney) An All-Australian who locked down a key position post effectively in 2016. 5. Steven May (Gold Coast) The big-bodied backman capped a fine campaign by being named co-captain of the Suns. 6. Harry Taylor (Geelong) The evergreen Cats backman maintains his position as the sixth-ranked key defender. 7. Nick Haynes (GWS Giants) Elevated himself into the top 10 following a super consistent campaign with the Giants. 8. Aliir Aliir (Sydney) Arguably the best young key defender in the AFL. Expect him to keep improving. 9. Josh Gibson (Hawthorn) Falls down the rankings from fifth last year, but remains one of the game’s best key defenders. 10. Phil Davis (GWS Giants) The Giants skipper enjoyed the rewards of an injury-free year to elevate himself into the top 10.
Kotlin Night in London took place October 12th, 2016 in collaboration with Trifork and GOTO London 2016. We would like to thank everyone who took the time to join us and make the event such a great success. For those who couldn’t attend or who want to rewatch the talks, the video recordings are now available for your viewing pleasure. Intro Talk Hadi Hariri, JetBrains 10 Things I’m loving about Kotlin. Graham Tackley, Kaleida Through lots of real-world code examples, this practical whistle-stop tour will show the 10 things that make us love our decision to use Kotlin to implement our backend. Expressive Kotlin – Communicating Through Code. Duncan McGregor and Nat Pryce, Springer Nature Springer Nature adopted Kotlin for some projects in October 2015, and have been running in production since March. We’ve found the language to be easy to learn, enjoyable to write, and very expressive. In this talk Duncan will mine our Kotlin code for examples of using language features to communicate intent. Using these techniques, developers can spend less time trying to understand what code does, and achieve more in fewer lines of code. Enums on Steroids: Using Sealed Classes to Build the Kotlin Concursus API. Dominic Fox, OpenCredo A central concern of the API of the Concursus event sourcing framework is generating and handling events of various types, together with their associated event data. Traditionally, this has been done by mapping event types to Java POJOs, but Kotlin’s Sealed Classes and pattern matching provide us with a convenient way to treat a family of events as an abstract data type. In this talk, I’ll show how this was used to build a clean, typesafe API around the core Concursus domain model.

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