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Okay, for ease of understanding we always just place Lamborghini under Volkswagen AG’s umbrella, but in reality, VW owns 99 percent of Audi AG who in turn owns Lamborghini... got it? In a third party, back-door kinda way, yes, VW does own Lamborghini... sort of. So earlier in the year, we mentioned that Audi had secured the Italian motorcycle builder, Ducati, for about $1 billion. According to Audi’s financial report, it is not the owner of Ducati. How in the world does that kind of error slip through the cracks, right? Well, apparently, Audi follows the same school of thought as its parent company, Volkswagen AG, and tries to push the bounds of legality to get things done, a la Porsche getting a share of VW to exempt VW from paying taxes on the buyout. Instead of Audi buying Ducati, Lamborghini actually bought it. This does two things for VW, Audi, and Lamborghini. First, it allows it to retain its Italian roots and secondly, it helps push Lamborghini’s overall fuel economy and emissions closer to the European standards that have plagued it in recent years. So VW has found a way to slither its way through the EU rulebook and find a way around a very important law. Touché, VW, we bow to your supreme rule-bending abilities and the way you do it without us even noticing sometimes.
Hugh G. Evelyn-White's hypothesis is that the authors of the non Homeric poems were reasonably aware of Homer's works. This is summarized in the introduction of Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica: The Trojan Cycle Six epics with the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" made up the Trojan Cycle—The "Cyprian Lays", the "Iliad", the "Aethiopis", the "Little Iliad", the "Sack of Troy", the "Returns", the "Odyssey", and the "Telegony". It has been assumed in the foregoing pages that the poems of the Trojan Cycle are later than the Homeric poems; but, as the opposite view has been held, the reasons for this assumption must now be given. 1) Tradition puts Homer and the Homeric poems proper back in the ages before chronological history began, and at the same time assigns the purely Cyclic poems to definite authors who are dated from the first Olympiad (776 B.C.) downwards. This tradition cannot be purely arbitrary. 2) The Cyclic poets (as we can see from the abstract of Proclus) were careful not to trespass upon ground already occupied by Homer. Thus, when we find that in the "Returns" all the prominent Greek heroes except Odysseus are accounted for, we are forced to believe that the author of this poem knew the "Odyssey" and judged it unnecessary to deal in full with that hero's adventures. In a word, the Cyclic poems are 'written round' the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey". 3) The general structure of these epics is clearly imitative. As M.M. Croiset remark, the abusive Thersites in the "Aethiopis" is clearly copied from the Thersites of the "Iliad"; in the same poem Antilochus, slain by Memnon and avenged by Achilles, is obviously modelled on Patroclus. 4) The geographical knowledge of a poem like the "Returns" is far wider and more precise than that of the "Odyssey". 5) Moreover, in the Cyclic poems epic is clearly degenerating morally—if the expression may be used. The chief greatness of the "Iliad" is in the character of the heroes Achilles and Hector rather than in the actual events which take place: in the Cyclic writers facts rather than character are the objects of interest, and events are so packed together as to leave no space for any exhibition of the play of moral forces. All these reasons justify the view that the poems with which we now have to deal were later than the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", and if we must recognize the possibility of some conventionality in the received dating, we may feel confident that it is at least approximately just.
GENEVA (Reuters) - A new body is being set up at the United Nations in Geneva to prepare prosecutions of war crimes committed in Syria, U.N. officials and diplomats said on Thursday. A still image from an undated video provided to Reuters on February 13, 2017, by Human Rights Watch claiming to show people treated in Aleppo, Syria, following a gas attack. Courtesy of Human Rights Watch/Handout via REUTERS The General Assembly voted to establish the mechanism in December and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is due to name a judge or prosecutor as its head this month. “We expect to start very, very shortly with just a handful of people,” a U.N. human rights official told Reuters. The team will “analyse information, organise and prepare files on the worst abuses that amount to international crimes - primarily war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide - and identify those responsible”, she said. While it would not be able to prosecute itself, the idea is to prepare files for future prosecution that states or the International Criminal Court in The Hague could use. The focus on prosecutions means evidence collected since 2011 by a U.N. Commission of Inquiry may be sharpened into legal action. The COI has issued 20 reports accusing the Assad government, rebel forces and Islamic State of mass killings, rapes, disappearances and recruiting child soldiers. It too lacks a prosecutorial mandate, but has denounced a state policy amounting to “extermination”, and has compiled a confidential list of suspects on all sides, kept in a safe. Rights watchdog Amnesty International said last week the Syrian government executed up to 13,000 prisoners in mass hangings and carried out systematic torture at a military jail. Syria denied the report, calling “devoid of truth”. A Swedish court on Thursday sentenced a former Syrian opposition fighter who now lives in Sweden to life in prison for war crimes. A U.N. report in January put the start-up budget for the new team at $4-6 million (£3.2 million - £4.8 million). So far $1.8 million has been donated, the U.N. official said. Funding is voluntary, posing a major challenge. BUILDING CASES The United Nations aims to recruit 40-60 experts in investigations, prosecutions, the military, and forensics, diplomats said. “It’s a very important step. It will not only allow court cases but also help us preserve evidence if there are cases in the future,” a senior Western diplomat said. Legal experts and activists welcomed the initiative. “The focus is on collecting evidence and building criminal cases before the trail goes cold,” said Andrew Clapham, professor of international law at Geneva’s Graduate Institute. Jeremie Smith of the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies said the United Nations must lay the groundwork for prosecutions ahead of any “exodus” of perpetrators when the war ends. “This is the only way to make sure criminals don’t get away by fleeing the scene of the crime.” The new team will seek to establish command responsibility. “This is mass collection of information on all sides with a view to prosecution in the future by the ICC (International Criminal Court), national courts or in some completely new international tribunal that would be created,” Clapham said. Many national courts could pursue suspects using its dossiers, he said. States that have joined the ICC could bring cases to the Hague court, without referral by the Security Council.
Ampulex dementor, the soul-sucking "dementor" wasp. (Michael Ohl/Museum für Naturkunde/WWF) Add this to my nightmare list: A creature that turns prey into a zombie, then eats it alive. That's pretty much the M.O. of Ampulex dementor, a wasp named after the mythical "Harry Potter" creatures that suck souls with abandon. Dementor wasps inject venom into cockroach prey, right in the belly, rendering it a "passive zombie," according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund. The report details 139 new species discovered in the Greater Mekong region during 2014. "Cockroach wasp venom blocks receptors of the neurotransmitter octopamine, which is involved in the initiation of spontaneous movement," according to the report. "With this blocked, the cockroach is still capable of movement, but is unable to direct its own body. Once the cockroach has lost control, the wasp drags its stupefied prey by the antennae to a safe shelter to devour it." The Ampulex dementor is a wasp that injects venom into parts of a cockroach's brain, enabling the wasp to lead the cockroach like a dog on a leash into a prepared burrow where it will serve as live food for the wasp's offspring. (Gal et al./Current Biology 2008) The red-and-black wasp is only known to live in Thailand. It has marked wings and "belongs to an ant-mimicking group of species with attractive coloration and rather bizarre habitus and probably also behavior," authors write in a 2014 research article published in PLoS One. The Museum für Naturkunde, a natural history museum in Berlin, asked 300 visitors to pick the wasp's name from among four options: "Bicolor," after its red-black pattern; "Mon," after a local ethnic group where the wasp lives; "Plagiator," since it mimics, or "plagiarizes," ants; and "Dementor," described to visitors as "magical beings, which can consume a person's soul, leaving their victims as an empty but functional body without personality and emotions." Researchers identified 139 new species in the area that includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. That figure includes 90 plants, 23 reptiles, 16 amphibians, nine fish and one mammal -- a bat with extra-large fangs. A long-fanged bat, Hypsugo dolichodon. (Judith L. Eger/WWF/AFP) Known as Hypsugo dolichodon, or the long-toothed pipistrelle, the long-fanged bat that researchers first described in 2014 uses its big teeth to chow down on insects with hard shells. The bat is found in Laos and Vietnam, although it's still not known what kinds of habitats it prefers. The bat could live in caves or in the forest, according to Tamas Gorfol, who helped discover the animal. Another find included in the WWF report: The world's second-longest insect, Phryganistria heusii yentuensis, measuring 54 centimeters from tip to its back legs. The stick insect was found in Vietnam. Since 1997, scientists have identified and described 2,216 new species from the Greater Mekong, according to WWF. But officials warned that the species' habitats are being threatened by dam construction, the international pet trade, deforestation and illegal poaching. “We’ve only skimmed the surface of new discoveries in the Greater Mekong,” Carlos Drews, WWF's director of the global species program, said in a statement. “However, while species are being discovered, intense pressures are taking a terrible toll on the region’s species. One wonders how many species have disappeared before they were even discovered.” READ MORE: The newest crayfish species looks like a Lisa Frank creation New species alert: There are dwarf dragons in the Andes The newest species of catfish is named after Greedo from Star Wars' This massive stingray might be the largest freshwater fish ever caught ‘The surprises still hidden in our oceans’: A ruby red seadragon Smithsonian scientists discover gold bat along with four other new species
When you're in a job interview, the questions you ask the interviewer can matter as much as your responses. They demonstrate how forward thinking you are, and how eager you are to invest yourself in the company's future. Here are five great questions that can set you apart from other candidates. This post originally appeared on LinkedIn. While interviewers have questions they like to ask ( like these three), more experienced interviewers can also sometimes feel it's a waste of time when they ask the candidate, "Do you have any questions for me?" Advertisement Why? The average job candidate doesn't actually care about how the interviewer answers their questions; instead they try to make themselves look good by asking "smart" questions. To them, what they ask is a lot more important than the answer to the question. On the other hand, great candidates ask questions they actually want answered because they're actively evaluating the company—they're deciding whether they really want to work for them. Advertisement Here are five questions job candidates can ask to stand apart from the crowd: "What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 60 to 90 days?" Advertisement Great candidates want to hit the ground running. They don't want to spend weeks or months "getting to know the organization." They want to make a difference right away. Plus they want to know how they'll be evaluated—so they definitely want to understand objectives and expectations. "What are the common attributes of your top performers?" Great candidates also want to be great long-term employees. Every organization is different, and so are the key qualities of top performers in those organizations. Advertisement Maybe the top performers work longer hours. Or maybe flexibility and creativity is more important than following rigid processes. Or maybe landing new customers in new markets is more important than building long-term customer relationships. Or maybe spending the same amount of time educating an entry-level customer is as important as helping an enthusiast who wants high-end solutions. Whatever the answer may be, great candidates want to know because 1) they want to know if they fit, and 2) if they do, they definitely want to be a top performer. "What are the one or two things that really drive results for the company?" Employees are investments, and every employee should generate a positive return on his or her salary. (Otherwise why are they on the payroll?) Advertisement In every job some activities make a bigger difference than others. The HR staff wants to fill job openings, but what they really need is to find the right candidates, because that results in higher retention rates, lower training costs, and better overall productivity. For example, employers want service techs to perform effective repairs, but what they really need is for those techs to identify ways to solve problems and provide further benefits—in short, to generate additional sales. As an interviewee, you want to know what truly makes a difference for the company, because you know helping the company succeed means you will also succeed, on multiple levels. Advertisement "What do employees do in their spare time?" Company "cultures" can be a controversial topic, but they are often a large factor for many employers. Happy employees 1) love the work they do, and 2) genuinely like the people they work with. Advertisement Granted this is a tough question for an interviewer to answer. Unless the company is really small, all any interviewer can do is speak in generalities. Even so, great candidates want to make sure they have a reasonable chance of fitting in with the culture—because the strongest job candidates almost always have options. "How do you plan to deal with...?" Every business faces a major challenge: technological changes, competitors entering the market, shifting economic trends—there's rarely a moat protecting a small business. Advertisement So while a candidate may see a company as a stepping-stone, they still hope for growth and advancement, and if they do eventually leave, they want it to be on their terms and not because their employer was forced out of business. Say I'm interviewing for a position at a bike shop. Another shop is opening less than a mile away. "How do you plan to deal with the new competitor?" I'd ask. Or say you run a poultry farm (a major industry where I live): What will you do to deal with rising feed costs? Advertisement A great candidate doesn't just want to know what the interviewer thinks; they want to know what the company plans to do—and how they will fit into those plans. These questions can help you stand out and demonstrate to an interviewer that you mean business, and you are conscious of the company's future and your role in it. Advertisement The 5 Best Questions a Job Candidate Can Ask \| LinkedIn Jeff Haden learned much of what he knows about business and technology as he worked his way up in the manufacturing industry from forklift driver to manager of a 250-employee book plant. Everything else he picks up from ghostwriting books for some of the smartest innovators and leaders he knows in business. He has written more than 30 non-fiction books, including four Business and Investing titles that reached #1 on Amazon's bestseller list. Advertisement Image adapted from BoBaa22 (Shutterstock). Photos by Maryland GovPics (Flickr) and Gangplank HQ (Flickr).
The shadow health secretary’s campaign, conducted in the wake of the Corbyn juggernaut, has been a difficult one. But his team remains confident of success He was late and needed to answer a call of nature. Andy Burnham arrived, on a close, uncomfortably sticky Friday evening, to speak amid the faded grandeur of Ipswich town hall, looking a little harassed and tired. There were nearly 150 people sitting quietly in the hall as he arrived for a 6pm performance of a well-trodden stump speech appealing for support in his bid to be leader of the Labour party. A small group of supporters waited by the columns of the main entrance to welcome him, but a Channel 4 cameraman shoved his lens right in the shadow health secretary’s face and the attached reporter’s quickfire questions about infiltrators and legal challenges to the future result had to be addressed first. Then it was a run up the stairs to the doorway of the main hall and a quick look around for a place to freshen up. “I could do with, erm … ” muttered Burnham, peering around. A middle-aged female organiser, walking two steps ahead of him and wearing a red “I back Andy4Leader” T-shirt, absent-mindedly walked into the room and started to clap vigorously. The audience quickly followed her prompt. “Oh God, right,” Burnham said under his breath as he followed her straight in. This interminable Labour leadership campaign has been, in Burnham’s own words, “hellish” at times. His days, littered with hustings, meetings and media interviews across the country, regularly start in the early hours of the morning and end well past midnight. His wife and three children are currently on holiday in Mallorca and tease him with photographs of themselves having lots of fun in the sun. Yet complimentary headlines, warm commentary and “political rock star” monikers have been hard to come by for all those scrabbling in Jeremy Corbyn’s seemingly unstoppable jet stream. It is the leftwinger, with his overflowing meetings of evangelical supporters chanting “Jez we can”, or swooning at the sight of his undershirt and Breton cap, who has been enjoying the “big mo”. But, maybe, just maybe, something is happening under the radar. In Ipswich – a seat that Labour must win in 2020 to stand a chance of being returned to power – Burnham spoke of how 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the Attlee administration that set up the NHS and told them that the meek and mild current Labour party would not be capable of such a feat. He attacked the malnourished social care system that left the vulnerable being cared for in 15-minute slots by underpaid, undervalued staff. And he rejected those who would inject market forces into the education system. Burnham reeled off a smattering of strong policies, from renationalisation of the railways to ensuring that workers of all ages are paid the same top rate of the minimum wage, rather than it being graded by age. He talked of Labour being bold, rejecting the centre-right orthodoxy, and regaining the confidence to talk about tax rather than mere cuts. And his care levy plan, under which there would be a 10% tax on people’s estates on their deaths, to fund a cradle-to-grave NHS and social care system that ensures dignity in old age, catches the imagination of most Labour members. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andy Burnham says that he has the best chance of beating current poll favourite Jeremy Corbyn For those who have joined the Labour leadership electorate determined to vote for Corbyn, there was probably little here to move them. Andrew Ferguson, a 30-year-old data scientist who asked Burnham at the meeting why he should support him over the leftwinger taking the contest by storm, confirmed when approached later that he was sticking with Corbyn. “Andy is good, but not great,” he explained. “I won’t put down a second preference. It will send a message.” But Ferguson’s take on the race does not, the Burnham camp believe, tell the whole story. While the parallel won’t be welcomed, who can forget the shy Tories who turned the general election? Phone-canvassing results from the leadership camps do not offer an accurate take on voting intentions. There is an inherent bias towards the camp that is making the call, because the caller has to identify their allegiance and most people being asked about their intentions don’t want to offend. But canvassing results do offer an insight into trends, and August’s results could be significant, Burnham’s camp claims. According to data seen by this newspaper, Corbyn saw a steady increase in his support between the second half of June and the end of July – but it appears that this has gone into reverse in recent weeks. And, additionally, his backers think as much as a third of the potential 610,000 electorate is now undecided. Those around Burnham believe that if they can limit Corbyn to 40% of first preferences there should be enough second preferences from Liz Kendall’s and Yvette Cooper’s supporters for their man to push himself ahead of the MP for Islington North to take the crown. It may well be that Corbyn excites – but he may also make people nervous, and the pitfalls of a Corbyn victory are being well rehearsed in the media. Alison Beech, 56, listened to Burnham in Ipswich, and had her head turned. “I was a bit torn and my heart was saying Jeremy and he has been challenging a lot of things, which is good for the party,” she said, “But I was a member in 1981 when the Social Democrat party split off. I think Andy is the only one who can keep the party together and offer proper policies. So I am voting for him. Yes, he convinced me tonight.” In the car driving on the A12 from Ipswich to his 8pm meeting in Colchester (running late again), Burnham reiterated his warning about the repercussions of a Corbyn victory for Labour, and raised the spectre of that SDP moment. “I think you can’t rule out some pretty seismic changes if there is a feeling that one side of the party has won out over the other,” he said. At Colchester Arts Centre, an old church, there is a bar, and the audience (about 250 strong) waiting for Burnham is in good spirits. They even play, somewhat preposterously, the soundtrack from the film Rocky as he walks on to the stage. The leadership candidate feeds off it and sips on a beer himself, pointing out to the audience that he “isn’t averse to a pint as you may have gathered”. He added: “I think George Osborne will be facing me across the dispatch box in 2020 and I will show him what a real northern powerhouse looks like.” Frances White, 17, who was sitting to one side, in the shadows of the hall, asked Burnham a question. “Everything I saw in the last election is that the Tories won on the economy, the SNP won on nationalism, Ukip won on immigration, but we stood on values and we lost. What are we actually going to say on the economy? What would be the message, because I haven’t heard it from him?” Burnham responded: “We need a Labour vision on the economy. Yes, that starts at the deficit. Here is the difference between me and Jeremy. “I don’t think you get out of first base at a general election unless you are trusted on the economy. But you don’t have to do it through spending cuts. With Osborne’s way we might reduce the deficit but, my God, we will destroy the fabric of communities. “There has to be a better way, I want a balanced plan for the economy. And here is the difference: tax. Tax should bear a bigger part of the burden in reducing the deficit. What is so wrong with saying that?” Was Frances convinced? “No. I think he might be an Ed Miliband Mark 2. And he has got the charisma all wrong. I can see he is drinking a beer, you don’t need to tell me. But I don’t want Jeremy Corbyn. To be honest, I think I will vote for Andy Burnham, but that will be despite Andy Burnham.” At this stage of the race, Andy Burnham is unlikely to quibble with that. CHECKING THE BALLOTS The maximum electorate for the Labour party leadership contest is 610,000. However, even those people who have received a ballot paper, or who have already sent in their vote, may not have their preference taken into account. The Labour party is checking, and rechecking, applicants and can strike anyone out until 12 September. ■ The verification system involves Labour officials cross-checking supporters seeking a ballot in the contest with the electoral roll, lists of candidates in past elections and lists of people who nominated candidates in previous local, European and general elections. Officials have also asked MPs to go through the lists of people seeking to register who live in their areas. Finally, officials are scouring social media to discover whether applicants have views hostile to the aims of the Labour party. ■ The decision of an official is then sent to a panel made up of members of the party’s governing body, the National Executive Committee. There is an appeal process, but it would be highly unlikely that such an appeal would be heard before the end of the contest. ■ There may be a legal recourse for candidates in the contest under contract law if they feel the rules for the running of the contest have been breached, including the provision that only voters who subscribe to Labour values should be given a vote. It has been suggested that would-be voters blocked by the party could take legal action if they believe they have been unfairly struck off, but such a move is unlikely to be successful because the party is not a public body. ■ The campaign teams for Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper have all pressed for canvassing returns, which suggest the voting intentions of local voters, collected by the party at the general election, to be used in the verification process. Their appeals have so far been rejected. ■ It has been reported that the Labour party has so far rejected 3,000 names. More than 120,000 people have signed up to vote, along with 189,000 members of unions and other affiliates.
Sara Di Pietrantonio from Rome University was burned alive by her ex-boyfriend after she left him. (File Image) Highlights Sara Di Pietrantonio's ex-boyfriend attacked her, doused her with alcohol He chased her, set her ablaze with cigarette lighter and left her to die At least two cars passed by as the 22-year-old screamed in vain for help Sara Di Pietrantonio, 22, died before dawn Sunday. A Rome university student was burned alive by her ex-boyfriend after she left him, authorities said Monday - a slaying one investigator called the most atrocious crime he has seen in his career.Sara Di Pietrantonio, 22, died before dawn Sunday after Vincenzo Paduano, 27, set her car afire, prosecutor Maria Monteleone told reporters. He then chased her after she ran out of the car, setting her ablaze when he caught up with her, authorities said.Investigators said her attacker used a cigarette lighter to set Di Pietrantonio's face on fire after dousing her with alcohol."I can say that in 25 years in this work I have never seen something so atrocious," said Luigi Silipo, the lead police official in the investigation.Paduano was being held for investigation of premeditated murder, Monteleone said.The suspect first denied killing the woman, but after eight hours of interrogation, confessed to killing her, Silipo told reporters.Paduano "didn't accept being abandoned' by the woman, Monteleone said. 'He organized, he planned the aggression,' the prosecutor said.Silipo said the suspect walked off his job as a security guard about 3 am and waited outside the home of Di Pietrantonio's current boyfriend. Then, after the woman left the home and drove off by herself, Paduano drove off, eventually forcing her car to the side of the road, he said."He got into her car, and after an argument, doused the car (interior) with a small bottle of alcohol, and doused Sara, too," Silipo said. "She ran out, he torched the car, caught up with her, and after about 100 meters" set her ablaze, leaving her to die "in an atrocious manner," the police official said.A surveillance camera in the area captured some of the events, including at least two cars that passed by while the woman screamed in vain for help as she tried to flee, authorities said.Monteleone made what she said was a fervent appeal to citizens to help such women, "not to look the other way." She added that if passers-by had helped, the woman's life might have been saved.She also encouraged women "not to keep hidden any threatening behavior by those who insist they love you, but it's not that way."Italian women's advocates have been trying to change mentalities in a country where men often turn violent when a women breaks off a relationship. One such champion for women to be more assertive in protecting themselves is an Italian lawyer whose face was mutilated in an acid attack ordered by her ex-boyfriend. She courageously testified at the ex-boyfriend's trial.Sounding a call Monday to Italian woman to denounce threats by men to police was Chamber of Deputies President Laura Boldrini. The parliamentary leader said a change in cultural mentality was needed, starting in early childhood classrooms. Women "must understand that those who should be ashamed are the violent ones, not the women who suffer threats," Boldrini said.
One Friday evening last September, Connecticut resident Michael Picard was doing what he usually does: standing on a strip of grass by an Interstate onramp and protesting the government. Picard, a local privacy activist, often protests police DUI checkpoints, which he believes are unconstitutional and a waste of money. That night he was holding a sign warning motorists of a DUI checkpoint farther up the road. Picard, like any good protester these days, also had a camera to document his interactions with police. What he ended capturing on video is now at the center of a civil rights lawsuit filed Monday on Picard's behalf by the Connecticut ACLU against three state troopers, whom Picard claims illegally seized his camera and then conspired to fabricate charges against him. Unbeknownst to the officers, though, the camera was still recording. Watch the video: According the lawsuit, Connecticut state trooper John Barone confronted Picard, saying he had received complaints from passing motorists that Picard, who also open-carries a handgun, was waving his gun in the air. (The ACLU says there were never any such complaints and that Picard kept his gun holstered at all times.) After claiming it was illegal for Picard to film him, Barone snatched the camera and put it on the roof of his police cruiser while he and other officers discussed what charges to hit Picard with. "You want to punch a number on this either way?" Barone asked one of his supervising officers, police slang for opening an investigation and entering a case number. "Gotta cover our ass." "We could hit him with reckless use of the highway by a pedestrian and creating a public disturbance," Sgt. John Jacobi suggested. "And then we claim in backup we had multiple people who stopped to complain," Master Sgt. Patrick Torneo added later in the conversation. "They didn't want to stay and offer a statement, so we took our own course of action." The officers ticketed Picard, returned his camera and gun, and told him to protest in another location. It took Picard more than a year to get the criminal charges against him dismissed. In the lawsuit, the ACLU says the three state troopers retaliated against Picard, violating his First Amendment rights to protest and film the government, as well as his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. "Community members like me have a right to film government officials doing their jobs in public, and we should be able to protest without fearing political retribution from law enforcement," Picard said in a statement. "As an advocate for free speech, I'm deeply disappointed that these police officers ignored my rights, particularly because two of the troopers involved were supervisors who should be setting an example for others. By seeking to hold these three police officers accountable, I hope that I can prevent the same thing from happening to someone else." A spokesperson for the Connecticut State Police said the issue was subject to an ongoing investigation and declined to comment.
The first major expansion for Stellaris, Utopia, is only a month away, and it may be the biggest and most transformative piece of DLC that Paradox Development Studio has ever released for any of its grand strategy games. Along with the accompanying 'Banks' patch (free to existing owners), we’re in for overhauls to the ethics, factions, and unrest systems, Tradition trees that allow us to further shape our empires over time, the chance to build space wonders (including entirely new planets), and late game 'ascension paths' that allow you to, for instance, turn all of your people into robots. Every Jim, Bob, and Xelgthrana is buzzing with gossip about these new features, so I’ve broken them down below—along with some speculation on how the galaxy will be affected. Ethics, Factions, and Unrest (free patch feature) What's new: Rather than deviating semi-randomly, different ethics (say, Militarism) will have an attraction value that determines how likely the people in your empire are to adopt them. The official ones you pick for your government will get a bonus to attraction, especially if you took the fanatical version. Factions will tend to organize around a specific ethic (such as a Human Supremacy faction for xenophobes), which will exert pressure based on their membership numbers to get you to pass policies they like. If a faction is unhappy with the government, its people will become unhappy, generating a new modifier called unrest (reducing resource output and potentially spawning rebellions) on the planets where they live. Implications: The good news is, your governing ethics will be far less ‘locked-in’ for the duration of a campaign than they used to be. The bad news is, all your people know this and will constantly be pestering you to represent their wishes, as pesky citizens who don’t even know what it’s like to run a galactic empire are wont to do. Traditions (free patch feature) What’s new: Empires will now generate a new resource called Unity from building certain structures and taking certain actions. These can be spent on Traditions (costing less for smaller, more homogenous empires and those that maintain lower levels of internal unrest), which are similar to the social policy trees in Civilization 5. Each follows a common theme: Supremacy gives you more space ships and bigger laser beams to strap onto them. Prosperity helps you turn Space Resources and Space Labor into more sweet, sweet, space cash. Implications: Increasing tradition cost from unhappy pops will help cohesive and pleasant empires who don’t exploit or enslave their citizens better compete with ruthless, sprawling ones who think children should be factory workers and aliens should be appetizers. Speaking of alien rights... Species Rights (free patch feature, but more options with paid DLC) What’s new: It’s now possible to set specific rights within your empire for every type of alien you encounter on an individual basis, from Citizenship (full citizens, non-voting, slaves, or even forced expulsion), military service, immigration rights, and even how many children they can have. With the expansion, you’ll also be able to pick from four kinds of slavery (put strong species to work, conscript the scary ones into the army, and turn the pretty ones into Space Butlers), and five kinds of purges (including processing them for food, if your single-minded space locusts are understandably more concerned with devouring flesh than making friends). Implications: Have you ever wondered what those little furry dudes who keep sending you diplomatic insults taste like? You probably have now. Ascension Perks (paid DLC feature) What’s new: When you complete a Tradition tree, you will unlock one of eight Ascension Perk slots, which are a way of adding powerful, permanent bonuses to your empire. These can include huge boosts to naval capacity, the ability to terraform otherwise uninhabitable worlds, and unlocking massive space wonders (see below). Most significantly, however, you may choose (though are not obligated) to spend two of your perk slots on one of three Ascension Paths: Synthetic for Materialist empires (becoming cyborgs, then eventually uploading the minds of your people into machines), Psionic for Spiritualist empires (awakening the latent psychic potential of your race and interacting with a strange, otherworldly dimension called The Warp The Shroud), and Biological (manipulating the DNA of any race in your empire to add and remove traits), which is open to any ethos and particularly suitable for Hive Minds. Implications: For those who want it, this represents a path to a sort of endgame destiny for your species. For those who don’t… well, we’ll probably still have to find ways to deal with the implications of entirely cybernetic empires, gene-modders who want to assimilate our people into their hive mind, and the strange being in The Shroud calling itself ‘The End of the Cycle’ that some of the spiritualists have been murmuring about. Hive Minds (paid DLC feature) What’s new: At species creation, you can forego selecting any ethos for your species and instead choose to be a Hive Mind, a psionically-linked meta-organism that acts as one consciousness. Since your entire race possesses but a single will, mechanics like happiness, unrest, and factions are disabled. The downside? Your pops can’t survive in non-Hive Mind empires, and non-Hive Mind pops in your own (including on worlds you’ve conquered) will be automatically consumed (literally turned into food) by the swarm. This, understandably, gives you a diplomatic penalty to any non-Hive Mind empires you meet. In particular, watch out for anyone named “Ender”. Implications: IF YOU WERE ONE OF US, WE WOULD NEED NOT EXPLAIN THE IMPLICATIONS TO YOU. THE SWARM IS ALL. YOU WILL BE CONSUMED. HEY, WHAT’S THAT ON YOUR PSEUDOPOD? HA-HA, GOTCHA. THERE WAS NOTHING. YOU HAVE BEEN DUPED BY THE SUPERIOR INTELLECT OF THE SWARM. Megastructures (paid DLC feature) What's new: After acquiring the proper ascension perk, you will be able to build massive structures in space. These include orbital habitats to house your population around uninhabitable planets (such as gas giants), Dyson spheres that encircle a star and harness huge amounts of energy (though they render any planets in the system cold and dead), and a sensor array that will give you limited vision over the entire galaxy. Like wonders in other 4X games, these projects take huge amounts of time and resources, and other empires will be notified that you are building them (with the exception of orbital habitats, which are a smaller investment). Implications: With the ability to harness the energy of entire stars, it may now be possible to run the Large Pixel Collider at full power. If this is the last you hear from us, just know that we went out doing what we love. Also, the machine consciousness is probably coming for you next. Run.
Topless men dressed as Roman warriors join the march (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) The rainbow flags are out as thousands of people descend onto the streets of Manchester to celebrate Pride today. The fairy tale themed parade saw topless men dressed as Roman warriors, colourful witches on broomsticks and a gingerbread truck. The crowd erupted into cheers as two police officers, in silver hats, stopped for a long kiss as their colleagues danced around them. And Jeremy Kyle was spotted confronting homophobic protesters – always on the ball. The Village has been taken over for the bank holiday weekend, and will be host to performances from Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Will Young, Groove Armada, Katy B and Heather Small. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) Edwina Currie (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) (Picture: Steve Searle/WENN.com) Kim Marsh from Coronation Street (Picture: Xposurephotos.com) Jemma Lucy from Ex On The Beach (Picture: Xposurephotos.com) Jeremy Kyle took on protesters Jeremy Kyle is at Manchester Pride confronting homophobic protestors. pic.twitter.com/h9kF07OKpW — Tom Wilson (@feedthedrummer) August 27, 2016 Kim Marsh was dressed like a princess The lovely Kym Marsh on the Corrie float #ManchesterPride pic.twitter.com/UUGqig4yec — Manchester Pride (@ManchesterPride) August 27, 2016 Cinderella’s horse and carriage was there too MORE: We tried the avocado bun burger to find out what all the fuss is about MORE: 16 things you only know if you really don’t care about The X Factor
Those in the market for an Xbox One should check out Amazon right now, as there's a nice deal going on that includes a lot and doesn't cost much more than the system normally goes for. For $369, you can get the 1 TB Xbox One bundle that comes with three games: Rare Replay, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. You also get copies of Halo 5's Limited Edition and Forza Horizon 2, as well as an extra controller and a $50 Amazon gift card. Retailers were recently offering the Xbox One for $300 as part of a promotion that ended a few weeks ago. This is obviously pricier than that, but given how much you're getting--including a gift card and a controller that's rarely, if ever, discounted below $40--it's a solid deal for anyone looking to pick up an Xbox One. Of course, there's one necessary disclaimer to be made. There have been reports of new, improved versions of the Xbox One and PS4 coming to market. If that proves to be the case with either system, it'll likely drive down the price of older hardware. It also could mean that continuing to wait to buy an Xbox One or PS4 will allow you to get a better system for the same price as what you'd pay now. That's all worth taking into account before making the plunge with any new console right now, particularly with E3 on the horizon.
When a new Switch game comes out, you’ve gotta drop everything and play it — and apparently that even means dropping your porn habit. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was released for the Switch on April 28th, and in the days following its appearance, YouPorn saw a significant drop in traffic among users they identified as gamers. But don’t worry — folks eventually made their way back to seeking out a more adult form of entertainment and when they did their searches were… interesting. According to YouPorn, as the game’s worldwide release began on Thursday they saw a 41 percent dip among traffic from users identified as gamers. By Friday, when the game was out everywhere, gamer traffic was down by a whopping 52 percent. By the end of the weekend, it was only down 30 percent. SEE ALSO: Nintendo Switch has cut deep into porn traffic This is substantially higher than the decline seen in early March when the Switch itself debuted, alongside Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Traffic from gamers was only down 17 percent at its lowest point that weekend. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Switch is already the fastest selling of all the Mario Karts, so perhaps it’s not surprising that so many people were so absorbed. Interestingly, when they did finally return to seeking out porn, they still had Mario on the brain. Nintendo-related searches surged 47 percent following the game’s release. Men were 213 percent more likely to look for it than women, and it was also most popular among people in the 18-24 year old range. So what exactly were people looking for? Nothing too mindblowingly creative, really. "Rosalina nude pics" was high on the list, as were "Princess Peach Cartoon," "Princess Peach & Daisy," and "Bowser & Peach." Of course, "Mario & Luigi" are in the mix and the classic "Zelda Cosplay." It's truly the best of both worlds. After all, why pick between porn and Mario Kart when you can have them both?
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday delayed a vote on the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to be attorney general until Jan. 31. Per committee rules, any member can request a one-week delay. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the panel, made the request. "Of course, I'll honor that request," Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said on Tuesday, adding there will be "plenty of time" next week to debate Session's nomination. According to Feinstein, Sessions' nomination is "a very big deal" following demonstrations against President Trump on Saturday. Sessions "must be a zealous advocate for the American people. All the American people," Feinstein said Tuesday, citing the issues of women's rights, abortion, equal pay, the environment and others. "The least we can do is tell marchers we'll be as careful as possible about who we put in place to make these decisions," she said. On Sunday, Sessions also turned over nearly 190 pages of questions in response to a lawmaker questionnaire, and senators and their staff need more time to review them, she said. "This nomination is a very big deal," Feinstein explained. "Our staff needs time to go through these answers and we need time to put them in context." Despite the delay, Sessions is expected to be confirmed. He needs only 50 votes to clear the upper chamber, and Republicans have a 52-seat majority.
There’s nothing wrong with the iPhone 4 that isn’t wrong with its rivals. That claim, made by Steve Jobs at the special iPhone 4 press conference Apple held last Friday, drew a loud round of catcalls from the smartphone industry, which clearly didn’t appreciate being tarred with the same brush that has smeared Cupertino these past few weeks. Nokia (NOK), Research in Motion (RIMM), HTC, Samsung and Motorola (MOT) have all issued statements taking issue with Apple’s claims and accusing it of unfairly trying to draw them into its death-grip drama. Here are their rebukes. Nokia Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict. In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design. Research in Motion Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple. HTC The reception problems are certainly not common among smartphones. [Apple] apparently didn’t give operators enough time to test the phone. Samsung Based on years of experience of designing high quality phones, Samsung mobile phones employ an internal antenna design technology that optimizes reception quality for any type of hand-grip use. In a statement given to the Korea Herald, the company specifically addressed issues with the Omnia 2, which was featured in the Apple press conference. The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone’s antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna. We have fully conducted field tests before the rollout of smartphones. Reception problems have not happened so far, and there is no room for such problems to happen in the future.”
When Poafpybitty and her husband, Virgil, decided to return to Pine Ridge after 15 years living off the reservation, they were not just choosing a life on the reservation over life on what some refer to as "the outside." It also meant her return to the home Poafpybitty grew up in, a house abandoned after the death of her parents. Her brother murdered them there while Poafpybitty's young son looked on. "I knew moving home was going to be a struggle," she said in a recent interview. "I didn't care." The challenges facing residents of Pine Ridge, one of the poorest parts of the country, are chronic and mounting. About 40,000 members of the Oglala Sioux tribe live here on this vast expanse of land that is roughly the size of Connecticut. Poverty and unemployment rates remain seismic, alcoholism is rampant and the life expectancy here is the shortest in the country, according to a recent study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Nearly everyone we spoke to over a recent trip to Pine Ridge had a story that put a fine point on the hard business of living. A man who cared for a young relative who suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome; a woman who had been held at gunpoint by her daughter's then-boyfriend, addicted to drugs; a woman who'd found her brother dead hours before we met her, still too shaken up to talk. Virgil Poafpybitty inside of his home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. "Coming back here, you learn to just live day to day," Virgil Poafpybitty said. "You can't think about the future." The future at Pine Ridge could soon grow bleaker. The budget that President Donald Trump unveiled on Tuesday makes deep cuts to a slew of areas that life at the reservation depends on. The spending reductions touch every part of life from access to clean drinking water to block grants that fund programs to feed the elderly to much-needed after-school programs. In one of the nation's most deeply impoverished communities, residents and tribal leaders say the cuts could be devastating. Wishing away the inevitable Campaign slogans and political promises ring hollow here on the Pine Ridge reservation, in part because residents say they've seen it all before. In 1999, then-President Bill Clinton visited this sprawling, more than 3,000-square-mile reservation as part of his so-called poverty tour of economically depressed communities across the country. Clinton announced an economic empowerment zone to help boost Pine Ridge's economy. He railed against an unemployment rate that was 15 times the national rate and Native communities replete with deadly disease and soaring rates of infant mortality, telling Pine Ridge's residents that "when these things persist, we cannot rest until we do better." Nearly two decades and four administrations later, little has changed. President Bill Clinton listens to Oglala Sioux Nation President Harold Salway on July 7, 1999, at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. "It's like time just stood still," Virgil Poafpbitty said. "All the same buildings, all the same stores. It doesn't matter what government gets in there. We're still poor." The sweeping cuts included in the Trump budget proposal have sent shivers through this community. The cuts could be devastating, according to Mason Big Crow, the Oglala Sioux tribe treasurer. The tribe could lose at least half the money it receives from federal sources, Big Crow said in an email in response to questions about the President's budget blueprint. But tribal leaders were already meeting and discussing the impact on future years' budgets. Trump's plan would slash the budget for the Interior Department -- which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal agency that provides services for nearly 2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives -- by 12%, to $11.6 billion. The money the Oglala Sioux tribe receives from the agency supports critical services and programs, including the already-strained tribal police. Just 44 police officers currently serve the sprawling reservation. Cuts could mean having to do more with less. The number of homicides on the Pine Ridge reservation doubled in 2016 to 17 from 9 in the previous year. Several residents said they'd called reservation police -- and no one answered the calls. Members of the Oglala Sioux tribe, which heavily relies on federal financing to operate, say it's imperative that the administration continue its support. "It is the United States' responsibility to uphold their obligation, but this is not happening," Big Crow said. Trump administration officials and representatives of the Bureau on Indian Affairs did not respond to requests for comment. Similar stories are playing out on reservations across the country that all depend on US federal government support. Five of the poorest 10 counties in the United States are in Indian country, according to Jacqueline Pata, the executive director of the National Congress on American Indians. "Pine Ridge is the same as many communities who have similar concerns," she said. "Those that are the most vulnerable in these communities, when their resources are cut, they have very little safety net in place." Robert Brave Heart Sr., the executive vice president of Red Cloud Indian School, said the Trump administration's plan to eliminate $1.2 billion in grants for after-school and summer programs could devastate this community's youth. Several years ago, a string of suicides among young people on the reservation was so pervasive that it drew national attention and sparked congressional inquiries. "I just can't help but think that this would impact all of our students," Brave Heart said. The after-school programs at Red Cloud, he said, provide a safe haven for children, one that could help keep them from becoming involved with the gangs that roam the reservations and away from drugs, alcohol and violent situations. The school also relies on Americorps volunteers whose tasks range from teaching classes to driving school buses full of students back and forth each day. But cuts to the Corporation for National and Community Service, which funds Americorps, are also on the table. That means Red Cloud Indian School would have to stretch to get kids in classrooms and teachers to educate them. "We're not sure how we're going to deal with it until we get there, if we get there," Brave Heart said. "Hopefully we won't." While there's a sense of weariness at yet another round of budget cuts from the federal government that could rock this reservation, most people seem detached from it and skeptical that any US politician could change their lives. Chris Cuny, 49, is working to tackle the housing crisis on Pine Ridge. He, like most on the reservation, didn't support Trump. Chris Cuny outside of his home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. "We've seen a lot of campaign slogans, and it always seems that we are the last to really get any of the effects when those changes come," Cuny said. "If Donald Trump is making America great again, his administration will really need to look into the reservation communities." Doing the best they can Doreen Two Bulls has been fighting for what feels like her entire life. Fighting to keep her daughters safe, off drugs and in schools. Fighting to make sure her grandchildren grow up in a stable home. Fighting just to keep her lights on and her house warm. Eight years ago, she moved back to Pine Ridge from Rapid City, relocating into her grandparents' old house a few miles outside the village of Pine Ridge. Her two-bedroom house is packed with people yearning for space. Two daughters, one son and five grandchildren all live there. "Usually there are mattresses everywhere," she said on a recent Thursday as she walked through the house, urging an adult daughter to wipe down mirrors smudged with child-sized handprints and years of wear. "We manage, we get by," she said a few minutes later with a weak smile. Doreen Two Bulls, in her home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Was the decision to leave Rapid City the right one? Two Bulls has her doubts. As we talked, her 4-year-old grandson crawled over the arm of a couch, begging for attention. Behind the couch, one of her daughters cared for her 9-month-old son, perched on the edge of a set of metal bunk beds. "I really wish we could have stayed, at least three more years, to get my kids into school a little more," she said. When she moved back to Pine Ridge, her eldest daughter was a sophomore in high school. Life changed quickly. Sometimes, she'd spend her nights looking for her daughter on the dusty streets of the village. Now her daughter lives in Rapid City and had just started a training program to get a new job while Two Bulls holds things together and cares for her grandchildren back in Pine Ridge. It's been lonely work -- the father of three of her daughters died from a drug overdose. She's now engaged, but her fiance splits his time between the reservation and working on the outside. She's tried to be persistent, but sometimes the reservation's problems seem too big to overcome and leaving feels like the only viable choice. "I would like for my daughters to go off of the reservation, to get the employment going and get the feeling of being able to live in society out there," Two Bulls said. "That choice is really up to them if they want to come back." Antoinette Poafpybitty outside of her home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. For the Poafpybittys, though, coming back to the reservation wasn't a choice. It was a calling. They wanted to live near family, to reconnect with the land where they grew up, to celebrate their heritage. "I have the opportunity to go to sweats, our ceremonies, to go to our sun dances," Antoinette said. "When we lived away from home, I would have to plan all year to save the money, and then it would to come to getting, asking my boss to take the leave, and sometimes I would get denied to have the opportunity to come home. And being home ... I can't beat that." At first they slept in their car as they began to shear away the overgrown foliage that took over the house in the more than a decade since Antoinette's parents' deaths. Then they began to replace broken windows, finally giving them a place to call home again. A double-wide window hangs where the front door first did. Big wooden patio chairs that Virgil made sit in the front lawn. Matthew, Antoinette's adult son, tends a garden out front; they plan to name it for Antoinette's late mother. A sign in the garden declares: "Do not enter. Sacred ground." "It's the best therapy I could get," Antoinette said. "Coming home to my parents' house. It's that security, feeling safe and being at home."
Terminology Edit A crossbowman or crossbow-maker is sometimes called an arbalist or arbalest. Arrow, bolt and quarrel are all suitable terms for crossbow projectiles. The lath, also called the prod, is the bow of the crossbow. According to W.F. Peterson, the prod came into usage in the 19th century as a result of mistranslating rodd in a 16th century list of crossbow effects. The stock is the wooden body on which the bow is mounted, although the medieval tiller is also used. The lock refers to the release mechanism, including the string, sears, trigger lever, and housing. Construction Edit History Edit Modern use Edit Comparison to conventional bows Edit With a crossbow, archers could release a draw force far in excess of what they could have handled with a bow. Furthermore, the crossbow could hold the tension for a long time, whereas even the strongest longbowman could only hold a drawn bow for a short period of time. The ease of use of a crossbow allows it to be used effectively with little training, while other types of bows take far more skill to shoot accurately[82]. The disadvantage is the greater weight and clumsiness to reload compared to a bow, as well as the slower rate of shooting and the lower efficiency of the acceleration system, but there would be reduced elastic hysteresis, making the crossbow a more accurate weapon. Crossbows have a much smaller draw length than bows. This means that for the same energy to be imparted to the arrow (or bolt), the crossbow has to have a much higher draw weight. A direct comparison between a fast hand-drawn replica crossbow and a longbow show a 6:10 rate of shooting[83] or a 4:9 rate within 30 seconds and comparable weapons.[84] Legal issues Edit Main article: Laws on crossbows Modern competition crossbow Can. 29 of the Second Lateran Council under Pope Innocent II in 1139 banned the use of crossbows, as well as slings and bows, against Christians.[85] Today, the crossbow often has a complicated legal status due to the possibility of lethal use and its similarities to both firearms and archery weapons. While some jurisdictions regard crossbows the same as firearms, many others do not require any sort of license to own a crossbow. The legality of using a crossbow for hunting varies widely around the world, and even within different jurisdictions of some federal countries. For example, in Canada a valid licence or registration certificate is not needed to possess any other type of bow, including a crossbow that is longer than 500 mm and that requires the use of both hands.[86] See also Edit
Liam Gallagher, former lead singer of the rock band Oasis, is back with a new installation of Music Corner. Gallagher equates Thee Oh Sees’ “The Static God” to a really bad trip where he’s chased by the big lady from Tom and Jerry holding a frying pan. There’s also “a lot of it, all of it” that he doesn’t like about Declan Mckenna’s “Brazil”. Other reviewed songs for the week that don’t quite meet up to Gallagher’s standards include Foster The People’s “I Love My Friends,” Parmalee’s “Sunday Morning,” and Tricky’s “When We Die”. “He’s got a mad little voice,” Gallagher remarks after being startled by Tricky’s track. Previous VICE News Tonight critics include Patrick Carney of The Black Keys, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, HAIM, Rae Sremmurd, and Big Boi. Watch all of these artist-critics in one place here:
The rare and delicate but perfectly preserved bones of a primordial bat found in Wyoming are offering up new clues to the evolution of the flying mammals, and to at least one chapter in the evolution of flight itself. Though first discovered a decade ago in the shale of southwestern Wyoming, the nearly complete fossilized remains of a 52-million-year-old bat, the most primitive ever found, have gotten attention mostly for what they don’t have. While many modern bats have structures in their ears that allow them to use echolocation, the ancient species, dubbed Onychonycteris finneyi, had none, suggesting that bats’ ability to fly came long before its adaptation for using sound to navigate. Now paleontologists have returned their attention to the rest of the fossil skeleton, to determine what more can be gleaned about bats’ evolutionary history. “For some time now we’ve been trying to figure out what can be learned about how bats evolved flight,” writes Berkeley paleontologist Kevin Padian in a statement to Western Digs. “The earliest fossil bats, from the Early Eocene (about 55 million years ago) are already fully-fledged, but they have some features that are somewhat different from today’s bats.” Chief among them, he notes: Unlike today’s bats, which only have one claw on each wing, this ancient ancestor carried a whole complement of giant claws, one on each finger and toe. O. finneyi had “unusually large and robust claws,” he writes, suggesting that it was particularly well suited to climbing, especially on surfaces like tree trunks, as well as possibly hanging upside-down, just like modern bats. “But they probably didn’t roost on the ceilings of caves, because their claws don’t seem delicate enough to fasten the animal to tiny cracks and crevices,” Padian says. “Also, we have no evidence that the first bats roosted in large colonies on cave ceilings.” Instead, he and colleague Ken Dial of the University of Montana suggest that the early bats’ forebears lived in trees, and their huge claws were testament to their ancestors’ arboreal past. As for their ability to fly, the experts note that O. finneyi had smaller wings than modern bats, but it was capable of true, powered flight — by flapping its wings instead of gliding. And, they add, the animal’s hip bones had already developed the crucial ability to splay the legs out to the sides, instead of in front, allowing it to adopt its flat, sleek flying posture. [Learn about another ancient flyer recently discovered in the same fossil formation: “Extinct Tropical Bird Discovered in Wyoming“] While the fossil record remains mum on exactly when and how these mammals began to fly, the duo speculates that the predecessors of O. finneyi were rudimentary, but true, flyers who made their lives in the trees and rock faces of Eocene Wyoming. “The evidence suggests that the ancestors of bats could climb and descend vertical surfaces using robust claws,” Padian writes. “They may have jumped from heights to escape predators or to seek food on the ground, and they may even have tried to catch flying insects as they jumped.” Padian and Dial presented their research today at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Los Angeles, California. Join Western Digs on Facebook, follow @WesternDigs on Twitter, and follow us on Tumblr and Google Plus!
Hillary Clinton called Friday for rethinking President Obama’s strategy to combat North Korea’s nuclear program, saying the country’s latest nuclear test gave the White House “an opening” to expand sanctions and broaden a missile-defense program in neighboring countries. She also said that the United States can do more to pressure China to lean on North Korea, its longtime ally, to halt its program. “It’s clear that the increasing threat posed by North Korea requires not only a rethinking of the strategy, but an urgent effort to convince the neighbors, most particularly China, that this is not just a U.S. issue,” Mrs. Clinton said, signaling she would support a change in strategy since she served as secretary of state. Since the start of the Obama administration, Mrs. Clinton had supported Mr. Obama on his “strategic patience” approach of gradually escalating sanctions on North Korea, but the blast on Friday signaled that the tactic had failed to halt North Korean advances in developing its nuclear capacity.
A lot of people sneer at the garbage pickers you see around the city searching through recycling bins for returnable bottles and cans. CBC producer Meghan Griffith-Greene remembers a time a few years ago when a neighbour yelled at her husband Jeromy Lloyd for running into the house to grab more bottles from a recent party to give a guy working the bins on their street. “He said, ‘Are you actually helping him?’ He couldn’t believe it. There’s a general attitude that they shouldn’t be doing that, they’re treated with derision. But he’s a neighbour. A member of our community.” That faith proved justified in the very early morning of July 24, when a man out picking through recycling bins may have saved the lives of Griffith-Greene and Lloyd and the six others who were asleep in the house they live in. One very early morning last week, a man collecting bottles and cans from recycling bins saved the lives of eight people who were sleeping in a burning house on Runnymede. Two of the people in the house were Megan Griffith-Greene and her partner Jeromy Lloyd. ( Carlos Osorio / Toronto Star ) Every morning, David Dearman gets up at 4 a.m. and rides his bike to Tim Hortons for a coffee, and then rides around the neighbourhood and through local parks, picking up returnable beer and liquor bottles in a bag he slings over his shoulder as he rides. Sometimes he finds scrap metal that he sells to a local salvage shop. He collects enough to buy a meal, some smokes, maybe a beer each day. This is according to his best friend, Arthur McIsaac, who says Dearman is a “humble guy who doesn’t want accolades.” Dearman was shy of talking to the press, but passed along the business card I left at his home to McIsaac, who was eager to talk about his friend. A 52-year-old transplanted Nova Scotian who has lived in the Junction for decades, Dearman is a labourer — he’s done woodworking, has a forklift driver’s license — who picks up odd jobs doing just about whatever he can. He’s the kind of hard worker, McIsaac says, who once went back to a job operating a jackhammer the day after having a cast put on a broken wrist, but also the kind of guy who might not accept any money for a day’s work painting a storefront. McIsaac says Dearman’s had a tough time of it recently: No steady jobs, but gigs that sometimes don’t pay him after he’s done the work; a good friend who died after an operation; a car that hit him on his bike a few weeks ago. But he loves going fishing in local rivers and lakes with a cheap rod someone gave him, and he loves riding that bike. Every morning he has “quality time” before the sun is up, out riding and smoking and scavenging when most people are still asleep. Article Continued Below On July 24, just after 5:45am, Dearman was just returning with a few dollars in recyclables to his home on Dundas Street West. Looking south just as the sun was about to rise on the horizon, he saw smoke billowing into the sky from a house on Runnymede. He left his stuff there on the sidewalk and ran. Griffith-Greene and Lloyd were asleep in their apartment on the top floor. The house is divided into five apartments in which nine people live. Eight of them were home that morning, all of them sound asleep. “We heard a crash just above us on the rooftop deck, just above our bedroom,” Griffith-Greene says. “We thought someone had come home late, or there were raccoons. It woke me up, but I didn’t think anything of it.” They were going back to sleep, she says, when there was another crash, and then they heard another sound, “a really aggressive banging on the door.” They thought another tenant was banging to complain about the crashing noise, assuming it was them. Lloyd got out of bed and put on a robe to go explain that it was probably a raccoon. “Jeremy was about halfway down the stairs when he heard the guy say, ‘The house is on fire, get out of the house, get out of the house!’” They threw on some clothes and ran outside to the front — and they could see a giant and growing plume of smoke and flame on the roof. “I thought, oh God, the house is going to burn down.” Dearman was frantically running around to the doors of the other apartments, making sure to get everyone out with the help of another two neighbours who’d been awakened by then. “He was much more aware of what was happening than we were, we were stunned.” He ran into a basement unit to get a woman who was refusing to leave without her cat. “He tossed furniture aside and helped the cat, to make sure the cat got out. I’m just amazed, I’m just astonished with how devoted he was, with how determined he was to make sure we all got out.” Dearman had called 911 before originally kicking in the exterior door to get to the multiple apartment doors, McIsaac says. The call came in at 5:53 a.m. — a two alarm fire. At 5:59 a.m., according to Toronto Fire Captain Adrian Ratushniak, engines arrived and confirmed that everyone was already out of the house. “There were six fire trucks in front of the house in minutes, they came so fast,” Griffith-Greene says. “The firemen went in through the house and put up a ladder and then the fire was out fairly quickly. We went out and thought, ‘It’s going to burn down,’ but they put it out quickly.” Still, it had burned a hole right through the roof directly above their bed. Total disaster may well have been minutes away. “The guy who pounded on our door, I can’t ever say how much he absolutely saved our lives that morning,” Griffith-Greene says. “He probably saved eight people. We would have been dead.” Dearman wandered away shortly after the firefighters and police arrived to handle the situation. McIssac has spoken to the fire department about a commendation, and they are prepared to put in a submission for one — something Griffith-Greene says she heard about through her landlord, as well — but Dearman has been unwilling to talk to them about it so far, just as he didn’t want to talk to the press. Article Continued Below “The only thing that I’d add is that I think we’re still struggling with one thing: How do you thank someone for something like this?” Griffith-Greene writes in a follow-up note. “It’s just too big. We owe him everything and I don’t know how we could ever express that enough.” McIsaac describes Dearman as the kind of guy who’s hard to thank — he often jokingly delivers an insult when he does you a favour to defuse any overly-sappy moments. McIsaac thinks he deserves some accolades and should soak up the gratitude, but that doesn’t come naturally for Dearman. He shows me a short video of Dearman talking about the incident. “All I want is,” he says in the video, “if I’m in the same situation, for someone to do the same for me.” Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire
Monterey >>A Greenfield-based labor contractor has been ordered to pay $2.6 million in damages to farmworkers who were exploited while working in Monterey County fields, but it remains unclear when the workers will get the money. Salvador Zavala Chavez, who was sued in October 2012 by the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, declared bankruptcy in November. His bankruptcy will likely extend the process farmworkers will have to go through to collect their share of the settlement. “He is bankrupt, so those who were workers and didn’t get paid should collect their money from the Labor Commissioner’s Office,” said Peter Melton, a spokesman with the department. The federal lawsuit stems from a Labor Commissioner’s investigation and complaints from more than 150 farmworkers who were employed by Chavez to work at more than 10 locations — mostly in Monterey County lettuce and grape fields. The state claimed, and the settlement asserted, Chavez violated federal minimum wage rules, failed to pay thousands of dollars in overtime and altered workers’ time records. Employees also said the facilities lacked toilets and about 14 employees were fired after complaining about not getting paid. This went on from April 2009 through April 2012. It was not until March 2012 that workers reported the claims and the state became aware of it. “This lawsuit is but one example of our commitment to conducting in-depth, meaningful inspections to get the wages earned into workers’ pockets,” Labor Commissioner Julie Su, who filed the suit on behalf of workers, said in a statement. “When workers come forward, as these farmworkers have done, to tell us about illegal working conditions, we will take action to protect them.” When the state conducted an inspection on Zavala Farms, evidence showed documents provided to the state were altered to hide the “existence of workers and the true (numbers) of hours worked,” according to the complaint. “The workers would often work more than 10 hours per day picking lettuce and working in grape fields without overtime pay or an afternoon rest break,” the complaint said. In his first court appearance on April 2013, Chavez opted not to go to trial, but the case was beset by delays. Melton said Chavez required all court documents be translated from English to Spanish, which delayed the date for the case’s resolution. In November, when the case was expected to be resolved, a tentative $1.2 million settlement was expected, but the court gave Chavez more time to look over the agreement, which had yet to be translated. On Friday, the court ordered Chavez to pay $2.6 million to the farmworkers he employed and hadn’t paid over the years — a $1.4 million boost from what was discussed in November. Although employees received a heftier award, Chavez remains bankrupt. Employees will have to go through the Labor Commissioner’s Farm Labor Contractor Fund to get their money, Melton said. “Bankruptcy gives him certain protections and it’s unclear what his assets, if any, are, but he has agreed that he is liable for $2.6 million,” Melton said. “(Workers) will have to come to us for their money.” Su said that on top of the suit working to pay Chavez’s employees their deserved wages, it also sought injunctive relief to stop Zavala Farms from engaging in future violations of the law. Ana Ceballos can be reached at 726-4377.
An Oahu grand jury has indicted a 57-year-old man for breaking etched glass panes of three doors at Iolani Palace. SHARE ADVERTISING An Oahu grand jury has indicted a 57-year-old man for breaking etched glass panes of three doors at Iolani Palace. Michael L. Aquino was indicted today with first-degree criminal property damage and second-degree criminal property damage for breaking glass panes at the palace and breaking a glass door to the House chambers at the state Capitol. His bail has been set at $100,000. First-degree criminal property damage is a class B felony that carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. Second-degree criminal property is a class C felony that carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. “The cultural and historical significance of Iolani Place to the people of Hawaii cannot be overstated. The State Capitol is a vital public building. Aquino will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible,” state Attorney General Doug Chin said in a news release. Aquino vandalized Iolani Palace and the state capitol sometime before 5:15 p.m. Sunday. He allegedly used a three-foot metal pipe to break the glass panes on the mauka side of the palace. He then broke a glass door to the House chambers at the capitol before state sheriffs arrested him. Iolani Palace was built in 1882 as the official residence of the Hawaiian monarchy, according to its website. In 1895 Queen Lili‘uokalani was imprisoned at the palace for eight months following the 1893 overthrow of the monarchy. The palace was designated a national historic landmark in 1962.
ADVERTISEMENT On April 30, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed legislation into law that allows the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources to establish a two-year industrial hemp remediation and biofuel crop research program. According to information released by the governor’s office, the bill, S.B. 2175, authorizes the growth and cultivation of industrial hemp in accordance with requirements established by the 2014 Farm Bill. The 2014 Farm Bill was signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 7. Section 7606 of that legislation allows higher institutions and state departments of agriculture to conduct industrial hemp research. The provision applies only states that have legalized industrial hemp cultivation. Under federal law, sites used for growing or cultivating industrial hemp in a particular state must be certified by and registered with that state’s department of agriculture. Federal law also authorizes state departments of agriculture to promulgate regulations to carry out pilot programs with industrial hemp. Pilot programs include those used to study the growth, cultivation or marketing of industrial hemp. The final version S.B. 2175 signed into law in Hawaii addresses the potential to use hemp as a biofuel feedstock an in phytoremediation applications. Phytoremediation is the science of using plants and trees to remove toxins from the soil. The plans draw in toxins, along with beneficial nutrients, through their roots. The toxins, such as metal, pesticides, solvents, explosives and crude oil, are concentrated in the stems, shoots and leaves of the plant. The plant can then we harvested and safety disposed of. The Hawaii legislation specifies that hemp is a superior phytoremediator because it grows quickly and can extract toxins without the need to remove any contaminated topsoil. It is also unaffected by the toxins it accumulates, has a fast rate of absorption and can bind compound contaminants from the air and soil. The legislation also stresses that help is an environmentally friendly and efficient feedstock for biofuel. Through the two-year research program authorized by the bill, researchers at the University of Hawaii will study the phytoremediation potential of hemp, as well as its viability as a biofuel feedstock. “Hawaii’s environment and economy will benefit from this research,” Gov. Neil Abercrombie said. “Industrial hemp can be used to decontaminate soil and increase the state’s production of biodiesel, therefore reducing our dependency on imported fuel.” With recent Farm Bill authorization of certain industrial hemp research projects, it is possible more states will follow in Hawaii’s footsteps. The nonprofit advocacy group Vote Hemp notes that 33 states and Puerto Rico have introduced pro-hemp legislation and 22 states have already passed pro-hemp legislation. At least one U.S. biofuel company has already indicated it sees value in industrial hemp for use in biomass power applications and cellulosic fuels.
In case you’ve been hibernating and missed it, something absolutely phenomenal has been happening with Lithium batteries in the last several years. The performance and weight have been increasing by leaps and bounds driven by the power tool, laptop and electric car industries. The 18650 cell formats have gotten incredibly stable and the energy density has increased every year while the prices continue to drop at a rate exceeding the predictions of most experts. If you’re into electric powered vehicles, it’s an exciting time to be alive. I got a 52v NCRb shark pack from Lunacycle.com (located here) about a month ago and was very impressed with their performance compared with LifePo4 batteries that I bought just one year ago and paid quite a bit more for and were twice as heavy. When you start looking at the performance capabilities of these new 2015 cells compared to older cells you realize that the transformation that is happening in Lithium Battery power is similar to the transformation of computing power we’ve seen in our lifetimes. For whatever reason the mainstream public is completely ignorant to what is happening and the fault may lie with the fact that the 18650 cells look a whole lot like the crappy Alkalines that we all grew up with, but their capabilities don’t even come close. Why do so few people see the potential of these amazing cells? 18650 cells are clearly divided into two distinctly different groups, one group provides the maximum power density at the expense of peak current, the second group goes for peak current while not being overly concerned about maximum power density. The NCRb is an incredible cell that is often overlooked because of it’s low peak current capabilities, but at 3400Ma of power storage it is a very cutting edge cell. Alkaline AA batteries vs. NCRb 18650 Lithium cells: About the same size and weight Cost per cell: 50 cents vs. $5 (wholesale retail is about $6.50 each here) Lifetime (charge/discharge cycles): 1 vs. 400-1000+ (If only charged to 80%) Nominal voltage (volts): 1.5v vs. 3.6v Capacity (amp-hours): 2ah vs. 3.4ah Max discharge (amps): 1amp vs. 7amp continuous (10amp burst) Max discharge (watts): 1.5w vs. 25.2w (The NCRb’s discharge power is almost 17 times the AA power & it’s rechargeable) power & it’s rechargeable) Total power capacity(wh): 3wh vs 12.24wh (Quadruple the storage capacity) These numbers are impressive, but when you start looking at the peak power output capabilities of a high current cell like the 25R that is when the numbers really start to make your head roll. A normal Alkaline AA battery can put out about 1 Amp at 1.5v for a whopping 1.5 watts of power. Some high power cells like the 25R cells can put out 100 Amps burst rate at 3.6 volts for a whopping 360 watts of power. That is 240 times the power output of the same cells that you grew up with, and they are rechargeable to boot. So the million dollar question that our society should be asking itself is why the heck are we still using Alkalines for anything at all? The biggest factor is cost, your Alkaline batteries are about 1/10th the cost of cell if you look at the initial cost of the cell. This all breaks down when you look at the LIFECYCLE cost of the cell which for the Alkaline is $.50 for 3Wh or $0.16 a Wh. For the NCRb with 1000 cycles, you are looking at a life cycle cost of $0.00053 a Wh (not including the electricity cost to charge it). That means that for the same power capabilities Alkalines are over 300 times as expensive even though they cost 1/10 of the initial cost of a 18650 cell. This discrepancy makes it blatantly obvious that if we REALLY cared about the environment maybe we’d find some way to stop using these stupid alkaline batteries that we have to throw out after one charge and start figuring out how to integrate these 18650 cells into electronic stuff other than just power tools, laptops and ebike batteries. In order to use 18650 cells, the device has to be designed to use these cells as they have a different voltage and are more sensitive to shorting and over-charging issues (meaning they can blow up in your face if you’re stupid with them). To say that the new NCRb shark pack is the best battery I have ever owned would be an understatement. Just over a year ago I bought a 48v pack from BMS Battery in China for about $400 (without a charger) that was 12Ah Headway cells and weighed in at over 16 lbs. The battery is still listed on their website here ($381 for the 50Amp BMS w/out a charger) as weighing only 6kg, which is a total outright lie. I’ve told them TWICE that the battery actually weighs 7.5kg but they have yet to change the website. This is what you get when you try to deal with China. I spent well over $100 to get the battery shipped to me so in the end it was a crappy deal. I only use this example as a way to explore the weight to cost to power ratio for 2 different packs. The BMS Battery ran $400 (no charger) +$100 shipping for 12Ah or $41.66/Ah and weighed a whopping, unbearable 7.5kg The Lunacycle battery cost $435 (free charger) + $30 shipping for 13.5Ah or $34.44/Ah and weighed a featherweight 3.5kg So this means that I paid about 18% less for a battery that had 13% more capacity but only half the weight. Let that sink in for a minute, an 18% cost savings over the span of a year would be phenomenal enough on its own, but to have weight savings of 46% is absolutely insane. Initially, I went with the heavier LifePo4 chemistry last year because I didn’t want my house to burn down, but now 18650 cells have reached the point where they are stable and reliable enough with the proper BMS to not be a serious risk to your property. So what were the real downsides to this pack? I’ve been beating on this pack non-stop for weeks now and the one complaint I have about it is that it does not work well at higher power levels. If you are running this pack with a BBSHD or something else that is going to pull 30Amps continuous then I can say with some certainty that you will probably not like how hot this pack gets after long climbs. There are plenty of disclaimers in the description and if you want a high power pack then you need to opt for the high power ‘pf’ cells instead. The cost is the same but you will lose about 2Ah off the pack. Such is life. With the BBS02 750W drive unit this pack really shines. Since the BBS02 never pulls more than 25Amps the pack barely gets very warm even with extended hill climbing and full throttle riding. Heat and lithium batteries do not mix, and if your pack is getting hot when using it then you need to get a bigger pack to meet your power needs or you will shorten the life of the pack that you are using. There really is just no way to get around this. Should I get the 48v or the 52v Shark Pack? You are asking the wrong guy here. I like the gut wrenching wheelie popping feeling of a super low geared BBS02 and a 52v pack with a full charge of 58v. To me, the 48v packs always seem terribly anemic with any gearing setup. If you don’t care about having fun then go with a 48v pack, but if you are a fun hog like I am then don’t even consider ever buying anything other than a 52v pack. The Shark Pack comes with a 3amp charger but I strongly recommend just using the 52v Lunagizer as since my last cheap ebay Chinese charger blew up, I really don’t trust anything else. You can add a Lunagizer for $79 when you buy a battery pack, which is way cheaper than what it’s gonna cost you when your house burns to the ground because of a cheap Chinese charger. The future looks very bright for 18650 cells. If you’re still using the older reliable LifePo4 chemistry or the uber-sketchy Hobby King Lipo chemistry it might be high time that you gave the 18650 cells a run for their money. I can assure you with some certainty that they won’t disappoint. Ride On.
With the rapture just a couple days away, the idea of looking ahead for a weekend weather forecast might seem a bit silly. At least, it might if I was planning on being magically vaporized on Saturday.Instead, I'm planning to see a bunch of Christians making excuses for why their dire predictions turned out to be wrong yet again. I also know that this won't last long. They will have new predictions out quickly. They will assure us that they will be right next time.Most of all, I'm planning to see many Christians scoffing at those among them who have made these predictions. They will try to distance themselves from the "end-of-the-worlders" as if their beliefs were any less absurd. And when I point that out, I'll be accused of not being sufficiently respectful.In other words, I'm expecting life to go on as usual.H/T to ichazz for the graphic
“It is unfortunate that the world is placed in a conflicting process of science and technology progress and regression of human culture. All around the world we see leaders are guiding the world into the darkness of ignorance instead of the light of consciousness,” Hosseini, a Palme d’Or winner, wrote on his Instagram. “They advance discord, hatred, division and racism among human societies under any excuse. But nations, unlike their leaders, move toward freedom and unity,” he noted, as reported by ISNA. Hosseini referred to the executive order recently signed by US President Donald Trump to prevent citizens of several Muslim countries from entering the US, saying that it reminds one of the black era in the late 1930s and 1940s and the rise of Adolf Hitler which had disastrous consequences that will not be erased from world’s memory. “The fate of all tyrants and criminals of history is like a mirror in front of human beings, especially Trump and his supporters, through which they learn about the past. As an actor and director, I suggest that Hollywood filmmakers put the making of a movie about the king of Shinar Nimrod on their agenda. Nimrod was the king who claimed he is the Lord of the world but was killed by a mosquito,” Hosseini added. Shahab Hosseini’s reaction came after Taraneh Alidousti, the other star of “The Salesman,” and Asghar Farhadi announced that they would boycott the Oscars ceremony in protest at Trump’s visa ban.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday responded to President Trump's executive order banning refugees and halting immigration from several countries by welcoming those refugees to Canada. "To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada" Trudeau tweeted. To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 28, 2017 To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 28, 2017 ADVERTISEMENT The tweets included old photos of Trudeau welcoming Syrian refugees to Canada. Trump on Friday signed an executive order that he said would provide a thorough vetting of refugees to ensure that "radical Islamic terrorists" cannot get into the United States. The order indefinitely bars refugees from war-torn Syria and suspends all refugee admissions for four months as officials review the vetting process. Admission will resume only after vetting has been deemed "adequate" by the secretary of State, the secretary of Homeland Security and Director of National Intelligence.
Yesterday the National Women’s Law Center and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights released a new report, “Mothers Behind Bars,” on the treatment of pregnant and parenting women in U.S. state prisons. The picture the report paints—like most glimpses into our broken prison system—is not a pretty one. According to the report, there are more women behind bars than ever before in U.S. history and, thanks to the mandatory sentencing laws of the war on drugs, the majority of those women are non-violent, first-time offenders. They are also mothers. Two-thirds of women in prison have at least one child under age 18. And our state prisons are failing these “unseen and largely forgotten” women. The report graded states based on their policies in three key areas: prenatal care, shackling of pregnant women, and family-based treatment programs as an alternative to incarceration. Overall, 21 states received failing grades. Another 22 states earned a C—which in my book is still pretty shitty. Only Pennsylvania, which got an A-, really has anything to be proud of when it comes to treating women in prison like actual human beings with a right to quality health care and humane treatment. Some key findings: Forty-one states do not require prenatal nutrition counseling or the provision of appropriate nutrition to incarcerated pregnant women. Thirty-four states do not require screening and treatment for women with high-risk pregnancies. Only ten states have laws limiting the shackling of pregnant women during transportation, labor and delivery, and postpartum recuperation. Seventeen states have no family-based treatment programs for non-violent women who are parenting. Thirty-eight states do not offer any prison nursery programs to new mothers behind bars. When the U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners, something is wrong. When we think it’s acceptable to shackle pregnant women while they’re in labor, something is wrong. When we don’t do everything we possibly can to provide treatment programs for non-violent women who have children, instead of putting the mothers behind bars and the children in foster homes, something is wrong. The severe neglect of incarcerated pregnant women, mothers, and their families is just yet another reason—from rampant sexual abuse to the (literally) torturous effects of long-term solitary confinement—that future generations will surely condemn us for the horrible conditions in our prisons and the injustice of our mass incarceration system.
Salma Hayek blasted the movie industry for giving up on women both behind and in front of the camera at a Variety-hosted event Saturday afternoon at the Cannes Film Festival. “For a long time they thought the only thing we were interested in seeing were romantic comedies,” said Hayek, who appears in the Cannes drama “Tale of Tales.” “They don’t see us as a powerful economic force, which is an incredible ignorance.” Joining the conversation about gender inequality in Hollywood were actresses Parker Posey (“Irrational Man”) and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (“Jazbaa”), as well as producers Christine Vachon and Elizabeth Karlsen (who both worked on “Carol”). The event was co-hosted by the U.N. Women’s HeForShe campaign, and moderated by Variety co-editor-in-chief Claudia Eller and U.N. Women head Elizabeth Nyamayaro. Variety publisher Michelle Sobrino welcomed the crowd at the Radisson Blu hotel. Despite the success of films like “The Hunger Games,” “Frozen” and “The Fault in Our Stars,” women directed only 17 of the 250 top-grossing films of last year, and there seem to be fewer A-list leading ladies who are paid as much as their male counterparts. “The only kind of movie where women make more than men is the porno industry,” Hayek said. “It’s simple ignorance.” Related The Best Fashion at Cannes 2018 International Cinema Group Urges Festivals to Ban Non-Theatrically Released Films From Competition Bachchan said that even in international markets, a women starring in a movie is considered a niche product. “It’s pretty much the same everywhere across the globe,” Bachchan said. “We keep coming back to reiterating preconceived ideas.” Posey talked about how she loved to watch Turner Classic Movies from the ’40s, where the female characters were witty and three-dimensional. “It’s so rare that I see that in movies now,” Posey said. She added: “We’re in very masculine times. We’re at war. The culture is eating nature, it’s overpowering storytelling.” Hayek said that she’s lost out on jobs because A-list actors have approval over her casting, whereas top actresses in Hollywood don’t get similar deals. She noted how studio executives suffer from amnesia when it comes to female-driven hits. “They don’t know what we want to see,” Hayek said. “When women don’t direct and women don’t write and tell our own stories, we stopped going to the movies and started watching them on television.” Vachon acknowledged that there are certainly more powerful roles for women on the smallscreen. “I think to some degree it is because television, at least in the United States, has become a place where riskier stories are told, more character-driven stories are told and often those are female-driven,” she said. Karlsen noted the amount of pressure to succeed for “Carol,” a lesbian 1950s love story directed by Todd Haynes and starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, which premieres at Cannes on Sunday night. “Certainly there’s a huge question mark,” Karlsen said. “It’s female-led. It’s a lesbian romance. There’s a huge wave of expectation.” Hayek said that women in Hollywood can’t continue to allow themselves to be sidelined. “Look, we cannot stand as victims and say they are not looking at us,” she said. But she noted that Hollywood does care about money, and women — who make up 50 percent of tickets sold — need to continue to exercise their strength in numbers. “What gives me hopes is that we are in a position of power,” Hayek said. “And I am so grateful to gay men. If it wasn’t for Tennessee Williams and Pedro Almodovar, it would be even worse.”
Islamic State group fighters made a new bid to cut off the Syrian border town of Kobane from neighbouring Turkey on Saturday as preparations gathered pace to deploy Iraqi Kurdish reinforcements. The Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq unveiled plans on Friday for up to 200 well-trained peshmerga to join Syrian Kurdish forces defending Kobane in the coming week. Kurdish news agency Rudaw said the first contingent could head to Kobane as early as tomorrow but there was no immediate confirmation of that timetable. Peshmerga ministry spokesman Halgord Hekmat declined to specify what route the Iraqi Kurdish forces would take, but they are expected to travel overland through Turkey, which has said it will allow them transit. Since Ankara conceded to US pressure to allow vetted reinforcements into Kobane to prevent IS winning the high-profile battle for the town, the jihadists have made repeated attempts to cut the border before any help can arrive. Before dawn on Saturday, IS fighters hit Kurdish forces defending the Syrian side of the border crossing with mortar and heavy machine gun fire, an AFP correspondent on the Turkish side reported. The heavy mortar fire around the Mursitpinar crossing prompted the Turkish army to order the evacuation of nearby hilltops from where the world's press has been watching the battle for the town. The Kurdish news agency said an initial peshmerga contingent of 150 was ready to leave for Kobane and would be headed by Sihad Barzani, brother of Iraqi Kurdish regional president Massoud Barzani and head of its artillery brigade. It cited peshmerga officials as saying that an additional 1,000 Iraqi Kurdish fighters would follow. Rudaw quoted a senior peshmerga officer as saying that the Iraqi Kurdish forces would deploy with heavy weapons, but that undertakings had been given to both Ankara and Washington that they would not be handed over to Syrian Kurdish forces. "Our enemies in Kobane are using heavy weapons and we should have heavy weapons too," he said. The main Syrian Kurdish fighting force in Kobane has close links with the outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has fought a three-decade insurgency in southeastern Turkey. Ankara has been adamant that no heavy weaponry should fall into its hands. Turkey has tightly controlled the flow of both fighters and weapons to Kobane and has accepted only Iraqi Kurdish or Syrian rebel reinforcements for the town. First Published: Oct 25, 2014 20:47 IST
Rick Perry blasts election of Texas A&M's first gay SGA president Keep going for a look back at Rick Perry's tenure in Texas through the eyes of Houston Chronicle editorial cartoonist Nick Anderson. less Accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence, Rick Perry speaks after being sworn in as secretary of energy. On Friday, he addressed the department's employees. Keep going for a look back at Rick Perry's tenure in ... more Accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence, Rick Perry speaks after being sworn in as secretary of energy. On Friday, he addressed the department's employees. Photo: Olivier Douliery, MBR Photo: Olivier Douliery, MBR Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close Rick Perry blasts election of Texas A&M's first gay SGA president 1 / 45 Back to Gallery U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, a former Texas governor and Texas A&M University Aggies Yell Leader, said Wednesday the election of the first openly gay president of the institution's student body was "stolen" and that the student who had the most votes was disqualified through a process that "made a mockery of due process and transparency." In an extraordinary submission to the Houston Chronicle's Editorial Board, the energy secretary also suggested that Bobby Brooks' victory was engineered by the Student Government Association in a quest for diversity on the traditionally conservative campus. BACKGROUND: Openly gay junior to be Texas A&M student body president Brooks was declared the winner in the campus election by the SGA even though he came in second in the vote count to Robert McIntosh , who is white and was disqualified by student election officials. McIntosh was disqualified on charges that he did not provide receipts for glow sticks used in a campaign video. He also faced charges of voter intimidation, which were later dismissed on appeal. Story continues below... The student body's Judicial Court, Perry said, "admitted that the charges were minor and technical, but incredibly, chose to uphold the disqualification." "The desire of the electorate is overturned, and thousands of student votes are disqualified, because of free glow sticks that appeared for eleven seconds of a months-long campaign," Perry wrote. "Apparently glow sticks merit the same punishment as voter intimidation." Perry then went on to suggest that the outcome would have been different had McIntosh not been a white male. BIG JOB: Here's what the Energy Department does "What if Mr. Brooks had been the candidate disqualified? Would the administration and the student body have allowed the first gay student body president to be voided for using charity glow sticks? Would the student body have allowed a black student body president to be disqualified on anonymous charges of voter intimidation?" Texas A&M University didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Political scientists who study Texas politics were astounded by Perry's decision to weigh in on College Station campus politics. Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle Texas A&M's newly-elected student body president Bobby Brooks, a... "It's astounding," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University who has studied Texas politics for decades. "He's written it as a call for fairness, not that he's come out against the first gay student body president at A&M, but the extraordinary part is that he took the time to do this when he should have so many bigger fish to fry in his current job." AGGIE EDUCATION: The traditions, secrets and myths of Texas A&M University Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor who has watched Perry political career rise and fall for years, said he, too, was surprised by Perry's intervention into the A&M election. "This must be his inner Aggie speaking, because this is certainly not something you expect a cabinet secretary to weigh in on – actually, probably not even a governor," Jones said. "It's strange. Of all the things he could have an opinion on, this is probably not the smartest move for a cabinet secretary. He must really be upset about it." You can read Perry's full opinion on HoustonChronicle.com.
26 minutes into a three-hour advice show Louis C.K. hosted in 2007, a guy named Blake calls up. Blake says he’s driving solo from Dallas to Oklahoma City that night and wants to know if Louie is going to just keep fucking around, or if he actually has anything good planned. At the end of the three hours Blake calls again, about to arrive in Oklahoma City, and says it’s been an “amazing ride.” I want to argue that Blake is being an understating piece of shit here, because this show is like…well…it’s like… REALLY amazing! It’s like the most Louis C.K.-y thing ever, and on top of that: it’s good. And beyond that, falling where it does in his career, it acts as a near-perfect summation of what makes Louie so unique. Let’s call it Louis C.K.’s Dianetics. What the hell am I talking about? Good question. There’s a block of programming on SiriusXM satellite radio Saturday nights 8-11pm that they use to test out shows that might then be moved to different time slots. Usually a few people host them together, and usually they have a strong idea for what the show will be about beforehand. Louis C.K. agreed to host one night in 2007, but he had neither of those things. I actually couldn’t find the exact date, but he talks about getting his first iPhone that day and then sitting on a park bench trying to figure it out all afternoon rather than preparing anything for the radio show. The show that night does start out with him kind of fucking around and insulting callers, even at one point lapsing into doing material (“Newscasters saying ‘the n-word’ is just white people getting away with saying the n-word.”) This beginning part especially is full of hilarious little Louis C.K.-isms: -“Thanks, but I’d rather shit in a hat and wear it for the rest of my life.” -“Your vagina smells like two onions…and a potato.” -“An AIDS accident is when a bunch of AIDS crashes into some other AIDS, and some of it goes into your mouth.” -“Shove a rock up your mother’s cnt so when she gives birth to it, she will have finally given birth to something useful. Then you can hang out with that rock like it’s your big brother and get advice from it.” -“I haven’t had sex in about 14 years. I should just cut off my penis and put it in an ashtray.” -“America is a crime in progress at all times. We should give it back to black people and Indians and we should all go fuck our mothers.” Eventually, after Blake kind of calls him out, he settles into a kind of ad hoc advice show format. He even says a bunch of times, “I want this to be like Dr. Laura or Dr. Phil, except those people are full of shit.” Listeners are encouraged to call in with their parenting and relationship problems and he will give them advice like an actual person and not someone trying to sell a book. A lot of people just call up with stuff they’re scared to talk about with anyone else. For example, one guy calls up to say that he likes to finger his ass and smell it every day when he gets home from work and he doesn’t know why and he can’t stop. I must have missed that episode of Dr. Phil. One other crucial thing about this show is the timing. This is during the period where Louie was way past his “Look at me! I have a peach!” short-form absurdist standup and just starting to do his “I hate my kids” super-conversational standup. But of course, that didn’t really work right away. This is right after his HBO show Lucky Louie got canceled, but a few years before he got the then-unheard-of “take it or leave it” deal with FX that allowed him to do his current show. This is ALSO when he was still in his doomed marriage. So all stuff that has really driven his career since then, but this is when it was actually happening. There are obvious parallels between being on the spot like that, i.e. having to do a satellite radio show for three hours without any preparation, and having to do the same thing in your career. And I’d even say that his work since then (standup and Louie) has been motivated kind of by that same thing, just a relentless self-examination that runs up against the limits of our own awareness and reason, and then getting out of it by just being super honest with yourself. He even says to a caller at one point, “I’m not gonna lie to you, man. I’m through saying what I don’t mean. It’s just not worth it anymore.” The first thing you might notice while listening to this is that he says the n-word, f-word (not “fuck”), and c-word about 50,000 times each. This is something that’s kind of always been part of his act, at least since Chewed Up, which had the “hey, when we call someone gay, we’re not really calling them gay!” bit on it. For my money, that bit did not age well, mostly because it’s one of those ideas that real assholes can latch onto and use to justify their assholeness. But, the fact that he is on this show preaching about just trying to be a good person while at the same time calling boy bands fa*ots kind of prefigures stuff like the poker scene in Louie, about how if you’re gonna be a jerk, you should at least fully know what you’re doing. I’d say that’s a pretty good example of examining these irrational things we do (saying potentially hurtful words even in a context where you’re trying to be helpful) and then making hay out of being relentlessly honest about them. A related characteristic of his standup since that point is that it’s hyper conversational. Like, in the technical sense of the word, where his bits about certain topics are just like exactly what someone would say if that topic came up in conversation. One friend of mine describes Louie’s standup process as, “coming up with new topics to be Louis C.K. about.” And that’s no mistake – you might notice this was on the Opie & Anthony SiriusXM channel. I guess that channel is called something different now, but Louie used to go on that show all the time starting in I think 2004, it seems for the express purpose of developing the ideas that later show up in his standup. For example, on this show he takes a caller who complains that he can’t approach “the hot girls in the bar.” Louie talks to him and at some point asks the guy what he does, and he responds that he owns a landscaping company. This is basically verbatim the bit at the beginning of Hilarious where he goes, “Why are we trying to impress these weird hot bar girls so much? You own a landscaping company.” This is also kind of the payoff of the Chelsea Peretti storyline of the Louie pilot. Remember when she gets on the helicopter and flies away after he says, “why am I trying to impress you?” So yeah, these O&A appearances are kind of like a peek into his standup notebook, and in another sense just a place to go where he can throw a bunch of shit against the wall and see what sticks. Because if you’re going to make scenes in your show that address really tough, touchy topics, you’ve got to practice somewhere. And if that Fat Girl scene in Louie is like a nice well-made cocktail, this is a bucket of crazy moonshine that will probably make you go blind.
National Australia Bank is set to raise interest rates for the one group of borrowers that have so far copped less interest rate pain than most. Street Talk can reveal that as part of a new tiered home loan pricing structure, NAB will lift rates by 0.15 of a percentage point for property investors who are paying off principal, as well as interest. The rate rise will come into effect on April 4 and be announced to mortgage brokers on Friday, sources said. NAB has gone further than rivals in winding back the role of sales targets for staff. The move comes as NAB rolls out a sweeping new mortgage pricing structure that means the bank has more levers to pull when it's changing mortgage rates. Under the new model, NAB will divide its home loan products into four distinct categories. Loans will be grouped by both borrower type (owner-occupier or investor) and loan structure (interest-only or principal and interest). It will mark the most differential pricing strategy among the Big Four in the home loan market, but it remains to be seen how it will received.
Rational Distance Problem is a new Demonstration. I'll start with the discussion there. Is there a point at rational distances from the vertices of a unit square? This unsolved question is known as the rational distance problem. This Demonstration gives 2877 canonical triples, which are points at rational distances from the vertices (0,0), (1,0), and (0,1). These triples were collected by analyzing primitive Heronian triangles (triangles with rational sides and areas). If $(a,b)$ is a triple, so are $(b,a)$ and the inverse $(a,b)/(a^2+b^2)$, so each triple gives three others. A triple has rational coordinates. Consider the squares of the distances: $x^2+y^2, (x-1)^2+y^2$, and $x^2+((y-1)^2)$. All of these need to be rational, so the differences $2x-1$ and $2 y-1$ are also rational. The ellipse $3 (x^2+ y^2)-4(x+y)+2 x y==0$ has 193 of the triples (or 386 counting reflections in $y=x$), with inverse points on the cubic $4 (y^3+ x^3)-3 (y^2+ x^2)+2x y ( 2y+ 2x -1)==0$. So that's the write-up at Rational Distance Problem. Here's more: Some rational triples have a rational distance to other points. Point (15803760/49193869,38592180/49193869) is also a rational distance from (0,-1). Point (-209/400, 391/300) is also a rational distance from (0,2). Points (209/195, 209/104), (187/280, 31/21), (89/408, 1246/765) are also a rational distance from (1,2). Many sets of three ore more rational triples are on straight lines. Most of those lines also go through (0,0), (1,0), or (0,1), but not all of them. Are there other equations of order 1, 2, 3, 4 with unexpectedly large numbers of rational points? The point with the smallest radical to (1,1) seems to be -(2480/8241),11284/24723, at distance $(11023 \sqrt{10})/24723$ with radical 10. The next radical is 17 for point (6/13,45/52). As of this moment, I've plowed through all the Heronian triangles with longest side 1410000 or less. The available data goes up to 6000000. If anyone has a computer or two with Mathematica that could run my search program for a week or so, let me know and I'll assign you a block to run and some code. Either a solution will be found, or more rational points will be collected.
- Advertisement - Another missed opportunity to talk about the most promising solution: regenerative agriculture. - Advertisement - The New York Times yesterday cited a new report by the notoriously conservative Government Accountability Office (GAO), which said "climate change is costing taxpayers billions." CNN also reported on the GAO study, which calls on Trump to "craft appropriate responses." The CNN coverage noted several initiatives to combat climate change undertaken under the Obama administration--the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, which sought to lower carbon emissions on a state-by-state basis, and the Paris climate agreement, which saw almost every country agree to voluntary limits on future carbon emissions. - Advertisement - The current climate-denying Trump administration wants to scrap those and other climate initiatives, in favor of prioritizing corporate profits. But that's not why I'm writing today. I'm writing because once again, a major report on the costs--financial, social, environmental, political--of doing nothing to slow runaway global warming focuses exclusively on reducing carbon emissions. The new report fails to mention that even if we achieved zero emissions tomorrow, we're still in big trouble--unless we draw down and sequester the billions of tons of carbon already in the atmosphere. Once again, a major report on global warming fails to acknowledge that we have the tools readily at our disposal to draw down that carbon. They are the regenerative agriculture and land-use practices outlined in a recent Stanford Woods Institute report, which says: If you want to do something about global warming, look under your feet. Managed well, soil's ability to trap carbon dioxide is potentially much greater than previously estimated, according to Stanford researchers who claim the resource could "significantly" offset increasing global emissions. They call for a reversal of federal cutbacks to related research programs to learn more about this valuable resource. The federal government has no problem subsidizing--to the tune of $20 billion/year--GMO monoculture crops that degrade the soil and play a major role in making global warming worse. But Congress wants to cut back on research that would help us improve soil health as a means of combating global warming? - Advertisement - Fortunately, other governments are incorporating "the soil solution" into their policies and plans to combat global warming. The most significant is France's "4 for 1000: Soils for Food Security and Climate" Initiative launched by the French government at the Paris Climate Summit in December 2015. In the U.S.,some states are taking steps of their own to enact regenerative agriculture policies, notably California, Vermont and Massachusetts. If your state isn't on the list, maybe it's time to start building a Regeneration Movement in your own community? We can no longer ignore our best hope for averting climate catastrophe. If federal lawmakers won't acknowledge the soil solutiion, we need to make sure our local and state officials get on board.
Our book today is Ghosts of Vesuvius by Charles Pellegrino, perhaps the most remarkable – and certainly the finest – book to emerge from the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11th. Pellegrino is one of the world’s true polymaths – a game expert in entomology, paleontology, forensic physics, marine archeology, and half a dozen other things. He epitomizes Leonardo daVinci’s belief that specialization is a harbor for shallow minds rather than what it’s viewed today, as the province of experts. Like Leonardo, Pellegrino acquires entire disciplines the way most men acquire facts, and he writes a delightful prose. For the purposes of Ghosts of Vesuvius, Pellegrino isn’t precisely entomologist or paleontologist or archeologist but rather something broader and darker – a cataclysmologist, if you will, studying the physics of disaster. His organizing focus is on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in a.d. 79, the disaster which consumed – and entombed -the thriving cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On the second-by-second reconstruction of the events of those days, there has never been a better book than Ghosts of Vesuvius, and although work continues apace on the excavation of those buried towns, a better book is unlikely to follow, by virtue of Pellegrino’s vivid writing. His exhaustive grasp of detail is perfectly wed to a very personal understanding: As others in the Herculaneum boathouses attempted to shelter themselves against the back walls or hide their faces from the approaching surge cloud, a fourteen-year-old slave girl cradled another woman’s child under her chin. The posture of her bones suggests an attempt to soothe – until, all in two-tenths of a second, their soft tissues were converted to incandescent gas and their skulls were exploded from the inside, by the pressure of vaporizing brain tissue and boiling blood. Like all true polymaths, Pellegrino is perfectly at ease admitting the limits of his own knowledge, although he’s obviously frustrated with the limits of everybody’s knowledge. One of these little mysteries is something called a ‘shock coccoon’- a weird product of apocalyptic physics wherein certain items will be preserved in perfect tranquility even while everything around them is being ripped apart. Pellegrino studies anomalies like shock coccoons in three horrible places where they can be found in abundance: the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the wreckage of the Titanic (the result of her thunderous impact on the sea floor), and, inevitably, Manhattan’s Ground Zero. Shock coccoons seem to work on his imagination, perhaps because they seem to taunt survivors and investigators by a vision of serenity in the midst of depredation – almost like there was a way for everything to survive its own destruction: No one knows for certain how shock coccoons occur. In a neighborhood where houses were blasted out to sea in pieces, no one in Herculaneum would have believed, in the predawn hours of August 25, a.d. 79, that a container of walnuts would be so perfectly coccooned that the nut meats (albeit just barely) would still be edible more than 1,900 years later. Pellegrino is at his most touching when his expertise is enlisted not to examine relics from danger zones safely dead but to probe something much closer to home. In addition to all the other weighty things it was, the fall of the Twin Towers was an epicenter for cataclysm physics. What he finds at Ground Zero is eerily similar to everything he’d seen in Herculaneum and or the Grand Banks, but infinitely more heart-breaking, because these are people he might have known, people who might still be alive if their own personal Vesuvius hadn’t overtaken them. In a weird and touching way – in a way that suggests so much it doesn’t have the heart to say – the similarities abound. At Ground Zero he finds all the things he’d found in those older disaster grounds, including shock coccoons which left chunks of law libraries intact – and in alphabetical order – on the fire escape outside a bar far from their place of origin high up in the stricken towers. Thankfully, he finds at Ground Zero other echoes, no less profound. True, there’s equal destruction and tragedy, but there’s also a heroism equal to that poor slave girl protecting somebody else’s child: One of the last groups of firefighter and police officers to evacuate alive, down the stairwells of the North Tower, met two civilians running up, the ‘civvies’ were carrying flashlights and walkie-talkies. They identified themselves as building security and announced that they had made contact with people trapped in an office on the sixty-second floor. The security guards acknowledged a warning that the building would soon collapse, but they refused to leave. The last time anyone saw them, they were climbing toward Floor 62. No one knows their names, and no one ever will. The North Tower’s security guards suffered 100 percent mortality.
Fox 2 News reporter Charlie LeDuff's police citation for alleged fighting at Sunday's St. Patrick's Day parade is being covered by other Metro Detroit media with prominent mentions of his unorthodox broadcast style. An Oakland Press headline calls him "eccentric," while an online article at WDIV has the phrase "known for his bizarre antics on camera" in the first sentence. At WXYZ, Bill Proctor's online story begins this way: He describes his TV reporting as “off the chain” and now there are allegations that Fox 2 reporter Charlie LeDuff was off the chain in his personal life. Free Press reporter Matt Helms, who refers to LeDuff's "bizarre stunts" in his lead paragraph Wednesday, pokes fun at the reporter on his personal Facebook and Twitter feeds. "This one's for you, Charlie LeDuff," he says with a post of a viral You Tube video titled "Charlie Bite Me." On another post about the incident, he adds "LOL!" (1 p.m. Wednesday update: The posts were removed after a Deadline Detroit inquiry.) Proctor was among the first with the news, reporting Tuesday evening that the Detroit Police Department is investigating a "booze-fueled brawl" involving Fox 2 Detroit star Charlie LeDuff. "It was a vicious assault that was totally unprovoked by anyone," said Linda Bernard, an attorney for a man who says he was LeDuff's victim. Helms, whose first story went online at 7 p.m. Tuesday, identifies the victim as Sunny Miller, a 54-year-old Detroiter who was handling security at a tent party during Sunday's St. Patrick's Day Parade on Michigan Avenue. LeDuff was cited for aggravated assault, according to a police report. Proctor, citing a police report, says witnesses saw LeDuff urinating on Michigan Avenue at Brooklyn toward the end of the parade. Bernard says people were taking pictures of the newsman. LeDuff ended up inside a nearby tent that was the site of a private party. Three women walked by who happened to be "attractive" Detroit cops. Bernard said LeDuff called the women "unsavory" names that she could not repeat on TV. The police report says LeDuf called them "whores." Proctor reported when the unidentified party host attempted to stop the "verbal barrage" from LeDuff, the two men started fighting after LeDuff spit in the man's face. When a security guard intervened, Bernard said, LeDuff bit him on the fingers. Eventually, said Proctor, LeDuff's brother, Frank, joined the fight. LeDuff told Proctor: "I was invited to come in and have a drink and it turned into a fight . I was tying to get guys off me and my brother. That's the way it is. No hard feelings on my end." Asked about the public urination, LeDuff told Proctor: “No, I think I was behind the tent, possibly, I don’t know. I’ll have to see a picture. I don’t think so. No reason to get your head stomped.” Was there was public urination?" Proctor asked. "I don't know, to be honest" LeDuff responded. "I don't know." Did he have too much to drink? “Probably,” LeDuff said. LeDuff, who grew up in Livonia, is a veteran journalist who made a national name for himself at the New York Times before returning to Detroit to work at the Detroit News and Fox 2, where his stories have gained attention for both their news value and his on-screen performances. Deadline Detroit named LeDuff journalist of the year in metro Detroit for 2012. LeDuff recently published a memoir about his return home titled "Detroit: An American Autopsy." The book is No. 17 on the New York Times' bestseller list for hardcover non-fiction. To read the police report, click here.
CTV Kitchener The man accused of shooting a Waterloo Regional Police officer with a pellet gun is now charged with murder in connection with the death of Michael Gibbon. Eric Amaral appeared in Kitchener court Tuesday to afternoon to answer to a new charge of first-degree murder. The 29-year-old's appearance was brief, and ended with him being returned to custody. His next court date was set for Nov. 3. He already faced 17 charges – mainly weapons and probation offences, but also assault on a peace officer with a weapon – after allegedly shooting a WRPS officer last week, following a traffic stop on Ottawa Street South. One of those charges relates to possession of a prohibited crossbow. Police said at the time that Amaral was one of about 30 persons of interest in the death of Gibbon, who was found with an arrow wound on the lawn of a Margaret Avenue home earlier this month. “There was a number of people that were involved in the investigation, all becoming persons of interest,” Staff Sgt. Mike Haffner said Tuesday. “Part of the investigation (was) to eliminate those individuals (from consideration).” Police declined to say whether Amaral was considered a person of interest before he was pulled over on Ottawa Street, or whether he had any connection to Gibbon. People living in the Margaret Avenue home believe that Gibbon was attempting to reach their door for help after being injured. He was rushed to hospital, where he died later the same day. Family members have described Gibbon as a kind, intelligent man who worked nights at an insurance company and regularly walked around his neighbourhood. Police say they’re still appealing to the public for information relating to Gibbon’s death. No further arrests are anticipated.
The Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima The Fourth Apparition — August 19, 1917 On August 13, the day the fourth apparition was to take place, the seers could not go to Cova da Iria, as they had been abducted by the mayor of Vila Nova de Ourém, who wanted to force the secret from them. The children held fast. At Cova da Iria, thunder followed by lightning was heard at the usual time. The spectators noticed a small white cloud that hovered over the holm oak for a few minutes. Phenomena of coloration were observed on the faces of the people, the clothing, the trees, and the ground. Our Lady had certainly come, but she had not found the seers. On August 19, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, Lucia was with Francisco and another cousin at Valinhos, a property belonging to one of her uncles, when the atmospheric changes that preceded the apparitions of Our Lady at Cova da Iria began to occur: a sudden cooling of the temperature and a waning of the sun. Feeling that something supernatural was approaching and enveloping them, Lucia sent for Jacinta, who arrived in time to see Our Lady appear–heralded as before by a bright light–over a holm oak slightly larger than the one at Cova da Iria. Lucia: What does Your Grace wish of me? Our Lady: I want you to continue to go to Cova da Iria on the thirteenth of each month and to continue to pray the Rosary every day. On the last month, I will perform the miracle for all to believe. Lucia: What does Your Grace want done with the money that the people leave at Cova da Iria? Our Lady: Have two portable stands made. You and Jacinta with two other girls dressed in white carry one of them, and let Francisco carry the other one with three other boys. The portable stands are for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The money that is left over should be contributed to the chapel that they shall build. Lucia: I would like to ask you for the healing of some sick persons. Our Lady: Yes, I will cure some during the year. “Becoming sadder, she recommended anew the practice of mortification, saying lastly, ‘Pray, pray much, and make sacrifice for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to sacrifice and pray for them.’ “As usual, she then began to rise toward the east.” The seers cut boughs off the tree over which Our Lady had appeared to them and took them home. The boughs gave off a uniquely sweet fragrance. * * * This account is based on the book Our Lady at Fatima: Prophecies of Tragedy or Hope for America and the World?
Dogged by controversy after last year's all-male shortlist, the organisers of the Arthur C Clarke awards have responded in 2014 by raising the profile of female authors, publishing a separate list of the submissions from women writers. Traditionally, all the books that have been nominated for the award are published just before the shorlist in April, but this year the list will be published in two parts, starting with a list of the 33 entries written by women. The visibility of women in science fiction has been something of a hot topic in the last couple of years, with Damien Walter suggesting that "a genre that women have done so much to shape seems to have been co-opted by men." As a response to last year's kerfuffle and the ongoing discussions about the profile of women writers, the Clarke awards director Tom Hunter says of the submissions reveal: "This year we've chosen to do this in two parts, first releasing this list of the 33 female authors submitted for the prize, which we hope will be a positive contribution towards further raising the profile of women writers of science fiction in the UK and beyond." There's no guarantee that any of these 33 books will make it through to the shortlist in April – let alone come out as a winner – but on the strength of these nominations it's already a very strong field. There's Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, Lauren Beukes's The Shining Girls, Kameron Hurley's God's War, Cherie Priest's Fiddlehead, Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam, Madeline Ashby's iD … it's tempting to just call it a day and pick an all-female shortlist right now. This announcement is no patronising sop to the embarrassment over last year's all-male list, a row which seems to have removed one of the major problems at a stroke. After all, according to Liz Williams, a member of the 2013 judging panel, last year's unbalanced shortlist was the result of unbalanced submissions. There were 82 submissions for last year's award, so with 33 already in the bag it looks like around half of this year's submissions will be from female authors. All the panel has to do now is pick some of them …
A lot of it is developing a relationship with the guys at Steam. For Gemini Rue I was so mystified that they didn't take it. It was like the #5 PC game on metacritic and it really seemed to resonate with hardcore gamers. But like I said, they never tell you why they reject something - even if you ask them after the fact. So up against a brick wall, I actually hired a guy to go speak to them on my behalf - someone who could actually make an appointment with them and speak to them about the game (something I couldn't do on my own). It turns out that they didn't know it was an IGF nominee - despite me putting it on the application document three times! They took it instantly after that. So yeah, it's a common misconception that you can just throw something up on Steam, but more often than not it's a big challenge. Especially for indie games, and point-and-click indie games to boot.
Geralt of Rivia (Polish: Geralt z Rivii) is a fictional character, the protagonist of The Witcher series of short stories and novels by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, as well as its adaptations, which include film, TV series, comic books and video games. Geralt, one of the few remaining witchers on the Continent, is a traveling monster slayer for hire, mutated and trained from an early age to slay deadly beasts. Geralt was portrayed by Michał Żebrowski in The Hexer film and TV series, and will be portrayed by Henry Cavill in the Netflix television adaptation.[1] Fictional biography [ edit ] Original [ edit ] Geralt, the central character, is a witcher. Shortly after being born, Geralt's mother, Visenna, gave him away to undergo training and, eventually, become a witcher at Kaer Morhen — the stronghold of the Wolf School Witchers. Geralt survived numerous mutations during the Trial of the Grasses, thanks to which he gained practically superhuman physical and mental abilities with minimal side effects. He resisted the "changes" brought on by the Trial of Grasses better than most, which encouraged his makers to perform even more dangerous experimental procedures on him, making him lose all body pigmentation. Because of his pale skin and white hair, he is also known in the Elder Speech as "Gwynbleidd", the White Wolf. Despite his name, Geralt does not come from Rivia (although he learned how to mimic a Rivian accent and is later knighted for services to the queen of Rivia): young witchers were encouraged to make up surnames for themselves by master Vesemir, to make their names sound more trustworthy. He once claimed that his first choice was Geralt Roger Eric du Haute-Bellegarde, but this was dismissed by Vesemir as silly and pretentious. After completing his witcher training, he received his Wolf medallion (the symbol of Kaer Morhen) and embarked into the world on his horse called Płotka — (literally, "Roach" with a dimunitive suffix. More accurately "Roachie" in English; he gave the same name to every horse he owned) to become a monster slayer for hire. I looked for the words "Witcher urgently needed". And then there'd be a sacred site, a dungeon, necropolis or ruins, forest ravine or grotto hidden in the mountains, full of bones and stinking carcasses. Some creatures which lived to kill, out of hunger, for pleasure, or invoked by some sick will. A manticore, wyvern, fogler, aeschna, ilyocoris, chimera, leshy, vampire, ghoul, graveir, were-wolf, giant scorpion, striga, black annis, kikimora, vypper... so many I've killed. Geralt, in Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish, "The Voice of Reason 4" Even though Geralt did not believe in destiny, he unknowingly demanded the unborn child of princess Pavetta and her husband Duny as a reward for his services by invoking "the Law of Surprise". The child turned out to be a girl, Ciri (otherwise known as Ziri coming from the elder speech word Zireael meaning Swallow). At first, Geralt did not take her because women cannot become witchers. However, fate or blind chance caused Geralt and Ciri to cross their paths thrice, and after the death of her grandmother, Queen Calanthe of Cintra, Geralt ends up taking the girl into his care, training and loving her as his own daughter. The events of the novels unfold as Geralt is pulled into a whirlwind of events in his attempts to protect Ciri from those who would do her harm, becoming reluctantly embroiled in the political contentions of monarchs and emperors. Continuation in video games [ edit ] After seemingly being killed by a mob during a slaughter of non-humans[clarification needed] at the end of the Witcher saga and taken, with Yennefer, to the Isle of Avalon, by Ciri, who then revives them, Geralt's story continues in CD Projekt Red's video game trilogy (The Witcher, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt). Geralt wakes in the outskirts of the Kaer Morhen fortress, with no recollection of the details of his sudden reappearance, (after Yennefer was captured by the Wild Hunt, he offered himself for her freedom. He was saved once again by Ciri, and left wounded and without memory of his past in the wood near Kaer Morhen). He is rescued by his fellow witchers of the school of the wolf and taken back to Kaer Morhen. Geralt, voiced by Doug Cockle, appeared as a guest character in the 2018 game Soulcalibur VI.[2] Sapkowski stated that the games are a work of art of their own and that they cannot be considered either an "alternative version", or a sequel, "because this can only be told by Geralt's creator. A certain Andrzej Sapkowski." [3] Television series [ edit ] Henry Cavill will portray Geralt in the upcoming Netflix adoption of the books scheduled for a 2019 release."[4] Sapkowski will serve as a creative consultant on the project.[5] Literary analysis and reception [ edit ] Geralt is described as being emblematic of Polish popular culture's spirit of "neo-liberal anti-politics" in the 1990s.[6] He is a professional, carrying out his duties and unwilling to become involved in the "petty quarrels" of the contemporary politics.[6] Marek Oramus compared Geralt to Raymond Chandler's signature character Philip Marlowe.[7] In 2012, GamesRadar ranked him as the 50th best hero in video game history.[8] See also [ edit ]
Share the News Though Baltimore already boasted terrific farmer’s markets, produce CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), and sustainably-minded grocery stores, city dwellers have gained even more access to locally-grown food via the exploding farm-to-door delivery market. The benefits of locally-grown and delivered food are convenience, freshness, and high quality. Buying local food also reduces the distance food travels from farm to plate which reduces pollution. The farm-to-door delivery, or central location pick-up, proprietors below all walk-the-talk by striving for sustainable business and farming practices. Friends & Farms ~ A Regional Basket of Groceries Bringing the best of Maryland’s bounty, Friends and Farm delivers your chosen basket of meats, seafood, dairy, bread and fruits and vegetables, to a central pick-up location. Customers can grab their food once a week from sites in Roland Park, Canton, Timonium, Federal Hill, Catonsville, and Owings Mills. New customers can order a sample basket. Visit friendsandfarms.com for more info. Heartland Home Foods ~ Natural Store Delivered to Your Door Heartland Home Foods not only delivers, but also puts away, a wide variety of natural or organic meats, seafoods and veggies to their Mid-Atlantic clients. Their food is delivered in individually-packaged vacuum-sealed portions. Visit heartlandfoodservices.com for more info. Hometown Harvest ~ Farmer’s Market Delivered to Your Door Hometown Harvest brings Frederick County’s produce, meats, dairy, pantry items, beverages, and soups to Baltimore-area homes. Working with 150 local farmers, their aim is to deliver a seasonal and sustainably-grown farmers market to your door. Visit hometownharvest.com for more info. Hungry Harvest ~ Produce With a Purpose You may have seen Baltimore’s-own Evan Lutz recently pitch his Hungry Harvest concept on ABC’s Shark Tank TV show. Hungry Harvest bags and delivers recovered, or ugly, produce that may go to waste because supermarkets require store-perfect produce. In addition to a Recovered Harvest bag, Hungry Harvest also delivers an Organic Harvest bag, and All Fruit Harvest bag. A super-cool bonus is that for each produce bag delivered, a donation is made to the free farmer markets that Hungry Harvest pops-up at local charities. (BTW- a Shark invested $100,000!) Visit hungryharvest.net for more info. Real Food Farm ~ Bringing Organic Produce to Northeast Baltimore Real Food Farm is working to bring healthy, organic and affordable produce to Baltimore’s food deserts. A Civicworks’ project, Real Food Farm grows organic produce on eight acres in Clifton Park. Real Food Farm sells its produce at farmers markets, through a CSA, and via delivery service. Their “mobile” farmers market brings produce to Northeast Baltimore schools, community centers, and libraries. Real Food Farm offers the Farm Alliance of Baltimore Double Dollars incentive program for food assistance customers. This system offers $20 worth of produce for $10. The mobile market also accepts WIC and EBT. Visit realfoodfarm.civicworks.com for more info. Relay Foods ~ Healthy Online Grocery Store Offering both a free pick-up service at Baltimore locations and home delivery, Relay Foods’ mission is to give customers no reason to visit another grocery store. Offering an extensive product catalog chocked with artisanal and local vendors, their “online aisles” include: produce, meat and seafood, dairy and eggs, deli, bakery, frozen foods, pantry, household and pet, and health and beauty products. Visit relayfoods.com for more info. South Mountain Creamery ~ Fresh from Our Farm to Your Home Harkening back to days of the milkman, South Mountain Creamery delivers farm-fresh milk, dairy products, eggs, meat, and produce to Maryland customers. Their milk, eggs, and meats are processed on site. Offering many varieties of dairy products (including ice cream, and chocolate and strawberry-flavored milks), and meat products, South Mountain Creamery delivers weekly to homes. Visit southmountaincreamery.com for more info.
PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans endorse increased government efforts to encourage energy production from alternative sources of energy, but at the same time do not believe the government should reduce its financial support for the production of energy from traditional sources. Only 30% think the government should decrease the monetary support and incentives it provides to producers of energy from oil and gas. These findings are based on Gallup's annual Environment Survey, conducted March 5-8. The Obama administration has prioritized investment in renewable energy, and a significant proportion of the recently passed economic stimulus bill is aimed at doing that. The administration also promises to cut carbon emissions and sees the use of clean-energy sources such as wind, solar, and nuclear as key to achieving that goal. Additionally, the administration has indicated it would reduce subsidies and add excise taxes on production of oil and gas in areas like the Gulf of Mexico. More than three-quarters of Americans say they support increased government financial support and incentives to produce energy from alternative sources, while just 8% say the government should do less in this regard and 13% say it should continue what it is doing. And while Americans are far less likely to favor increased government aid to produce energy from traditional sources -- only 39% hold this view -- another 28% want these efforts maintained. Thus, two in three Americans think government should continue to support energy production from oil and gas at either current or heightened levels. Just 30% call for a reduction in these efforts. It appears the public clearly recognizes the need to develop alternative energy sources and the benefits of doing so, but may also think it is too soon to do away with the current way of doing things. In general, Americans are concerned about the energy situation -- 42% describe it as "very serious," which is down slightly from last year's 46%, but at the higher end of what Gallup has measured in the last decade. Also, Americans are somewhat more willing to live with environmental degradation in the pursuit of energy sources than they have been in the past -- 47% say the government should put a greater emphasis on environmental protection over energy exploration versus 46% who say the development of energy supplies should be the greater priority. This parity is a departure from the past, as Americans have typically come down on the side of environmental protection by a significant margin in prior Gallup Polls. Alternative and Traditional Energy Preferences Combining respondents' answers to the traditional and alternative energy-policy questions provides a better sense of what Americans would ideally like to see done. This analysis shows that the greatest number of Americans (33%) favor increasing government support or incentives to produce energy from both sources. Eighteen percent favor increased efforts to encourage alternative energy production while not changing current government efforts aimed at traditional energy production. All told, 62% of Americans say they favor increased government assistance for development from both types of energy sources (33%), increased efforts on one while efforts on the other are maintained (21% -- mostly those who want to see alternative energy efforts expanded), or maintaining current government activity on both (8%). About one in four Americans think the government should increase its support for alternative energy but decrease support for traditional energy. Three percent think the government should cut back its financial assistance in both areas. Preferences for Government Energy Initiatives by Subgroup Given the broad public support for increased government efforts to encourage the development of alternative energy, it follows that most subgroups of the population generally support this approach. This includes majorities of Democrats (86%), independents (79%), and Republicans (63%), though Republicans are clearly the least supportive of the three party groups. Republicans, Democrats, and independents are about equally likely to favor increased government efforts aimed at producing energy from traditional sources, with roughly 4 in 10 in each group choosing this option. But Republicans are more likely to favor keeping efforts at the current level, and Democrats are more likely to favor a reduction in efforts. Implications Americans largely endorse government efforts to increase alternative energy production through the use of financial support or incentives, directly in line with the Obama administration's stated objectives. And though Americans are not as enthusiastic about increasing the government's support for traditional energy production, they also don't want to see a reduction in government support of those efforts. It is unclear whether the poor state of the economy has made Americans less willing to do away with traditional energy approaches, but Gallup has found over the years that sentiments in favor of environmental protection wax and wane in response to the health of the economy. Survey Methods Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,012 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 5-8, 2009. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only). In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
On Tuesday, August 4, at 6:12 p.m., a former IT professional named Nirbhasa Magee completed a half-mile lap around a nondescript block in Queens, New York. That may sound like an unspectacular feat of endurance, but what distinguishes Magee from most other joggers plodding around Joseph Austin Playground, is that, over the course of the last 52 days, the 35-year-old Irishman has done the .5488 mile loop 5,649 times, an astounding total of 3,100-miles. To put it another way, that’s like running from Portland, Maine, to San Diego, California, on a patch of urban landscape with little in the way of distinguishing features, save perhaps the perplexed stares of adolescent soccer players wondering what the hell you’re doing. Magee, along with 11 others, was running what’s known as the Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile Race, which ended its nineteenth iteration this past Tuesday. Founded by the late Sri Chinmoy, the Bengali guru who was considered to be something of a Renaissance man of the occult and believed that “the supreme secret or goal will be to transcend ourselves,” this event is the longest certified footrace in the world. Runners must average 59.6 miles per day in less than 52 days in order to be considered a finisher. As the eighth and final runner to reach the 3,100-mile mark in the allotted time, Magee's personal triumph coincides with an auspicious year for the race. In 2015, new world records were set in both the men and women’s divisions; 44-year-old Ashprihanal Aalto of Finland completed his 5,649th lap on day 41, while 56-year-old Surasa Mairer of Austria equaled the feat on day 50. From June 14 to August 4, these competitors have been making the rounds in this small section of grass in Queens’s Jamaica neighborhood, starting at 6 a.m. every morning and finishing at midnight, at which point they are transported by event organizers to nearby apartments for a few hours of sleep. All runners have support teams–usually family members or those of a similar spiritual persuasion—to hand them food and drink as they slog through the heat and humidity of the northeastern summer, inching their way towards 3,100 miles one concrete slab at a time. Curious as to what goes on inside the mind of someone who engages in such an extreme undertaking, and having seen elsewhere that runners often speak more candidly while on the move, I headed to Queens and joined Magee for a few laps to try and find an answer. I wasn’t sure how lucid anyone could be after five and half thousand loops around the same city block and a diet that includes sticks of butter to keep an emaciated body from withering away, but Magee was affable and articulate as he shared some his thoughts during his final day of self-transcendence. Here are a few of them, distilled from our on-the-move interview. On the big question: Why? “It’s kind of funny. I guess it’s one of the paradoxes of the human being, with all these different conflicting pieces inside of us. Our body, our mind, would maybe like to go home and rest, but then you’ve got something deeper and that’s just really enjoying being at the peak of capacity. I guess it’s the same reason why people swim the English Channel or do Everest, there’s some part, when you really push yourself, some inmost part of you that just gets tremendous joy.” On racing strategy for multi-day races “On the one hand you have to be very focused, determined, to keep always going forward. At the same time, you have to be very relaxed. So when I say focused and determined that doesn’t mean stressed out, it doesn’t mean being agitated. You have to be very calm, peaceful. If something comes your way, the ups and the downs, the things you don’t expect, you can’t allow it to perturb you, to shake you. ” On what you listen to while you run “I listen to different things actually. Sometimes, I’ll put on a nice audio book. I really like American history. There’s a historian called Doris Kerns Goodwin, she wrote this fantastic book about Lincoln [goes on to give a detailed synopsis of the book]. She also wrote a more recent book about the turn of the 20th century, about Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft [another extended summary]. So I listened to maybe four or five different audio books during the time I’ve been here. Usually about two or three hours a day. Music? “Yeah, usually late at night. When I get sleepy, towards midnight, usually the last one and a half hours. Something with a little bit of a beat to it just to keep me moving. Then, the last couple of laps, to try and get into a meditative state again, I might put on some music by my teacher. [i.e. Sri Chinmoy, whose prolific musical oeuvre allegedly includes about 22,000 songs.] On running shoes “I don’t scuff as much as some of the other guys, so I’m quite good on shoes. All the same, I’ve probably gone through about ten or eleven pairs. [Like several of the other runners, Magee had cut the toe box out of his shoes.] I’m wearing a Nike Pegasus now, but they’re not my favorite brand for this race. My favorite brand is the Mizuno Wave Rider, they’ve got a very high heel. But, yeah, probably ten, eleven pairs, which is slightly less than average for this race. It really depends on the style of the runner; the winner, Ashprihanal from Finland, he probably used seven or eight pairs, whereas the Russian, Vasu, runs like this [goes an exaggerated forward shuffle]–apparently, the first race, he went through 30 pairs.” On training for the impossible “I think a lot of the training is just for the mind. So the mind gets used to the idea of long distance and doesn’t go [shrieks maniacally]. My basis was that every day I’d run for two hours, at least. Then, for my long runs, I’d do a four hour run, and then five hour run, etc. Then, I’d start actually thinking about miles per week. That was my barometer. I’d aim for about 150 miles per week, but mentally it’s very hard keeping that level of training up for so long.” On fueling while running “[As we pass through the aid station and Magee’s brother hands him a cup of beer.] I actually have to drink beer by doctor’s orders. Non-alcoholic beer. I had some issues with my gall bladder, because we just eat so much food. [Another runner told me that they probably burn around 10,000 calories per day.] Apparently, beer stimulates the stomach and the gall bladder. I drink about five or six glasses a day.” Promising that I would return for his finish that evening, I left Magee to do some fueling of my own in the air-conditioned sanctuary of a nearby Indian restaurant. The proprietor, it turned out, was also a devout Sri Chinmoy follower. As I sipped mango lassi beneath a photo of the guru lifting 7,063 ¾ pounds with one hand, I wondered what sort of reception would await Magee when he completed his journey. Apparently, I wasn’t alone. When Magee set off on his 5,649th lap, a modest crowd, including camera crews and local news reporters, had gathered beside the chain link fence enclosing the ball fields of Joseph Austin Playground. Most of the athletes who had already completed the course in the past few days had returned to welcome the last finisher. After Magee broke the tape–in this case, a purple ribbon held aloft by his father and brother, who had come from Ireland for the race–he was given a bouquet and urged to take a seat on a foldout chair. Two women in saris presented him with a giant tiramisu bearing the number 3,100, after which the entire congregation began to serenade Magee with a few of the Sri’s 22,000 songs. Among the singers was this year’s champion and new record-holder Ashprihanal Aalto. Aalto, who has also done small-scale stuff like hike thru-hike the PCT and Appalachian Trail, has now participated in the 3,100-mile race 13 times. I asked him why he kept coming back, and Aalto told me that for him the race was a “spiritual journey” and “like meditation.” Beyond that, the trials of self-transcendence were apparently also useful in putting everyday woes into perspective. “Here, it can be pouring rain and you’re tired and you’ve been running for ten days and you have thousands of miles to go and just have to keep going all the time . . .” Aalto said. “[When you come back] you value things differently. Some things are not so important anymore. After the race, the things that used to be big things become small. It used to be ‘oh, no, I broke my phone’ or ‘I lost my keys’ and the mind makes a big deal out of it. But after this race, you’re just like ‘oh, who cares.’” I asked Aalto if he planned to run again next year. “No, next summer, I’m going to climb Mt. McKinley,” he said. “I don’t just run all the time, you know.”
Hillary Clinton’s success at edging out Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses and her strong footing going into South Carolina seemed to vindicate her argument that she’s the only serious Democratic primary candidate. Sure, Sanders won big in New Hampshire, but that’s a small, white state that was predisposed to vote for him, the senator from neighboring Vermont. Clinton’s the one, her supporters say, who can win the support of minorities, especially African Americans, and thus unite the party in the general election. Sanders, a white man from a white state, has had to battle the concept that his focus on class issues is a way to skirt the thorny issues of structural racism and white supremacy. Clinton surely has black allies, including the academic Michael Eric Dyson and the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, to argue this. But Sanders has plenty of prominent black support, from academic Cornel West to former NAACP leader Ben Jealous to writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who criticized Sanders for not supporting reparations for slavery only to later admit that he would, in fact, be voting for him. If Sanders is more progressive than Clinton on issues like mass incarceration, as civil rights author Michelle Alexander argues, then why do we keep hearing the accusation that Sanders is weak on race and incapable of winning minority voters? One explanation is the rift between “old left” socialists, who see everything through a class lens and argue that all our societal problems (including racial disparities) are the result of capitalism, and adherents to “new left” identity politics, who have developed a distrust of labor unions and white workers. For Jews, who straddle both these camps, it’s inescapable that the criticism of Sanders will force a broader soul-searching in terms of the tattered political relationship that American Jews share with African Americans. Once sisters and brothers in arms in the campaign for civil rights, we now seem to live in different political worlds. The recently released photograph of Sanders resisting arrest during a civil rights demonstration should have reminded everyone of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. The fact that many young Jews don’t know who these civil rights martyrs were is reason enough for us to ask: What happened to the famed black-Jewish alliance — and can Sanders revive it? 1963 arrest photo of young activist Bernie Sanders emerges from Chicago Tribune archives https://t.co/0zYArWlYwxpic.twitter.com/bnWonq0nwn— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) February 20, 2016 If you have to choose a historical marker for the beginning of the decline, the 1968 teachers strike in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville section of Brooklyn might be a good place to start. When Jewish teachers, who enjoyed the material benefits of public employment, went on strike, it was seen as a direct affront to the lower-class black parents living there. The strikes — and the tension — became citywide, and even impacted the black-Jewish alliance nationally. Both sides were accused of using bigotry during the fight, and the sore feelings lingered. Fast-forward a few years and you can see the rift grown wider: Jews moved up economically and socially, firmly marking themselves as middle class and beyond. Today, the issues of chronic unemployment and police violence — so tangible for African-American communities — can seem very foreign in the average Jewish suburb. But things are changing in the United States, in part because the 2008 financial crisis has forced anyone who isn’t rich to notice that our system is economically unsustainable, as even middle-class people with good jobs find the price of housing and the cost of goods makes saving for the future nearly impossible. That’s an equalizing force — and it just might help Sanders bring African Americans and Jews closer together again. “African Americans are on many issues no different than Latinos and whites. They want what [Sanders] is advocating for,” Jonathan Tasini, author of “The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America,” told me. “The majority of Americans are where he is on Social Security, breaking up the big banks and raising the minimum wage.” Tasini, who spoke by phone as he was leaving Nevada the day after caucuses, noted that the split among black voters in the primaries was mostly generational, as observers have said that the main divide between Sanders and Clinton is that Sanders is more attractive to younger voters. Older black voters, Tasini said, are attracted to Clinton because she represents a successful and strong Democratic Party, even if her husband’s presidency was marked by welfare reform and support for the death penalty. “Bernie’s going to do well among youth African Americans,” Tasini said. “The challenge will be with older African Americans.” It’s been said among American socialists that even if Sanders doesn’t win the nomination, his presence in this race can reestablish a progressive movement based on inequality and bring the call for higher wages, strong labor unions and funding public services and education out of the political margins. Certainly, anyone wondering what would become of Occupy Wall Street after police violently broke up the anti-bank encampments in the fall of 2011 can see how much of that anger and energy has been funneled into the Sanders campaign, which has a broader appeal than urban street protests. “Speaking as a Jew, I always forget that Bernie’s Jewish,” Tasini said, laughing when asked how Sanders’s Jewishness affects his reception with black voters. “I think of him more in his politics.” But the fact is that Sanders is straight out of central casting for the role of Jewish grandfather, and that shouldn’t be incidental to his politics. Even more than Joseph Lieberman in his failed run for the vice presidency in 2000, Sanders is going to be remembered for years to come as the Jew who got closest to the White House (assuming he doesn’t become the 45th president). For Jews on the progressive end of the spectrum, it will be his democratic socialism that becomes part of the face of Jewish politics, instead of, say, Congressman Eric Cantor’s ideological conservatism or the “Israel first” myopia of some American Zionists. As more prominent African-American leaders back Sanders, and as he performs better than expected in the polls, he can propel Jewish politics back to the point where Jewish-black unity was much stronger. He should own this goal and emphasize it, not as a cynical ploy to win votes, but because this resuscitated unity would be a genuine representation of his political beliefs. Ari Paul is a journalist in New York City who has covered politics for The Nation, The Guardian, VICE News, In These Times, the New York Observer, The Brooklyn Rail and many other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @AriPaul This story "Can Bernie Sanders Breathe New Life Into the Black-Jewish Alliance?" was written by Ari Paul.
AMMAN: The local food industry of an encircled, rebel-controlled enclave in northern Homs province is in peril after regime forces reportedly drained a nearby lake that once supplied vital irrigation water and thousands of fish, sources on the ground told Syria Direct on Wednesday. The Rastan Dam forms a man-made lake along western Syria’s Orontes River that once provided a source of fish and income for residents of Rastan, a town in northern Homs province encircled by the Syrian government since 2014. The month of May usually marks fishing season in the lake, as thousands of baby fish hatch from their eggs. But now, “all of the fish eggs have died,” and the lake is nearly empty, Abu Ayoub, a Rastan fisherman and farmer, told Syria Direct on Tuesday. He and other local fishermen blame the Syrian government for reportedly opening the dam’s turbines in recent months, causing the water to drain downstream, to the north. “This is the first time the water levels have been so low in the Rastan Dam since it was built,” Abu Ayoub said. Abu Ayoub at Rastan Dam in April. Photo courtesy of SMART News Agency. The loss of fish—and irrigation water for the area’s farmers—is devastating for Rastan and other nearby towns in the encircled north Homs pocket, where outside food is difficult and expensive to bring in past regime checkpoints. It is unclear when exactly the water level began sinking. Last month, pro-opposition news outlet Tomoddon reported that "regime forces" opened the dam’s turbines in order to raise the water level downstream and “limit the movements of rebel fighters in Hama province.” The Orontes River flows northwards from Rastan into Hama province, where the Syrian regime is advancing against rebels who launched an offensive there this past March. Syrian state media did not report the opening of the turbines. Video footage from late April shows a thin trickle of water where Rastan’s lake once stood. An Ottoman-era water pumping station sits abandoned in the middle of the lake’s dried-up sand bank. In late springtime, “the water level of the lake is usually high,” said Abu Mohammad, another local fisherman who relied on Rastan Dam for income. “Now, I can’t go fishing or sell my catch. I used to depend on the [fishing] trade to feed my children.” A fish restaurant in Rastan, April 28. Photo courtesy of Muhannad al-Qassim. Abu Mohammad isn’t alone—dozens of other fishermen now have no source of income, and no fish to feed the town. Among them is Abu Jassem, a Rastan resident in his mid-forties who has worked as a fisherman since defecting from the Syrian army in 2014. While fleeing the army, he suffered a gunshot wound to his foot, leaving him handicapped and unable to perform any manual labor beyond fishing. Working in Rastan’s fishing industry “was my only choice to make ends meet for my family,” the fisherman told Syria Direct on Tuesday. Last month, his wife gave birth to a baby son, and now Abu Jassem has almost no money to support the newborn. “Both the fish and my income are in danger—my family is suffering.” To buy fish, residents of Rastan are now left to rely on smugglers, who bring “limited amounts” past regime checkpoints and into the besieged pocket, fisherman Abu Ayoub said. Reliance on smugglers has led fish prices to increase six-fold since the lake lost its water, he says. “The price of one kilo of fish in Rastan used to be around SP600 ($3),” Abu Ayoub said. “This year, it costs SP4,000 ($18). Residents just aren’t able to buy it.” In a sign of the severe blow to Rastan’s fishing industry, local fishing net manufacturers are now out of business, said Omar Abu Rayyan, a correspondent for pro-opposition outlet Homs Post. “Nobody is buying the nets,” he told Syria Direct, “now that there are no fish in the dam.” For Rastan farmers who raise potatoes and cucumbers along the banks of the Orontes, losing the lake water also means losing the main source of irrigation for their produce. As a result, an estimated 20 percent of farm crops are now dead, a Rastan local council member told Syria Direct on condition of anonymity. “Wide areas” of farmland are now out of business along the stretch of the Orontes that flows through Rastan, the council member said. Worried about losing their own produce, other farmers close to the lake are now harvesting their crops before they are fully ripe “to minimize the damage,” said a Rastan resident named Mohammad. Until recently, farmland along the shores of the lake at Rastan Dam fed the area with the majority of its fresh produce—a mainstay of sustenance in “the face of encirclement” since 2014, the local council member added. Even before the lake ran nearly dry this year, Rastan’s 100,000 residents were already hit hard by food, water and fuel shortages. USAID contractor Chemonics International suspended water subsidies to the town’s local council last year, Syria Direct reported at the time. A shortage of baby formula last November left hundreds of newborns malnourished. In January, local officials ran out of diesel for water pumps. For Abu Ayoub, the fisherman who is now out of business, he is worried that produce and fish lost this spring may not come back. “I’m scared we could lose all of our fish yields next year, too, if the water level stays where it is.”
Chris Jericho stressed during his Talk is Jericho podcast that his relationship with luchador Sin Cara is going well following a reported altercation between the two RAW superstars a couple of weeks ago. Jericho said wearing the Sin Cara mask while intervening the no disqualification WWE Universal championship match between his Canadian buddy Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins on RAW this week serves as a slap on the face of reporters and fans who assumed to know the inside the scoop on the skirmish. "FU to the internet community that knows everything but doesn't know s-t," said Jericho, who reportedly renewed his contract with RAW for another month. Via Wrestling Inc. "Jericho and Sin Cara were reportedly involved in a scuffle on the tour bus during the recent WWE European tour. Sin Cara was going to be sent home at one point but was instead "exiled" to the SmackDown leg of the tour, even though he never worked a SmackDown live event. On the first RAW in the U.S. after the tour, Sin Cara was not allowed to use the regular locker room for WWE talent and had to change in the "extras" room." Jericho stated that Sin Cara is a good guy and has been his friend in the industry. He also revealed that it was the Mexican luchador who lent him the mask on RAW last Monday. Universal title hunt: There are reports that he's kayfabe alliance with fellow Canadian wrestler and reigning Universal Champion title holder Kevin Owens will soon come to an end after Roadblock. As a matter of fact, Forbes wrestling writer Blake Oestricher hints the possibility of Jericho taking his game to another level as a legit title contender. The picture of Jericho hoisting the WWE Universal Championship isn't a far-fetched since he has been consistently the brightest star on RAW roster every single week.
Chad Curtis, left, appears in Barry County District Court in Hastings, Mich. for a probable cause hearing Friday, June 22, 2012. At right is his attorney David Dodge. The former major league baseball player is accused of molesting two teens at Lakewood High School. (Chris Clark \| MLive.com) HASTINGS, MI – Moments after Chad Curtis allegedly molested her, a 16-year-old girl was leaving the windowless high school weight room where she said the assault occurred, but stopped when the former major leaguer asked her to pray with him. “I didn’t want to say ‘No, I don’t want to pray,’” the now 18-year-old said Monday, Aug. 12 during testimony in Barry County Circuit Court. “Prayer is always good.” The girl testified that she was alone with 44-year-old Curtis in the secluded Lakewood High School weight room on Labor Day of 2011 when a training session to work on hip flexor exercises turned into him suddenly kissing her breast and molesting her. It was the second time he had allegedly molested her. Earlier in the summer of 2011, she said he grabbed her breasts in the guise of a massage. She said each time she believed the man she looked up to as a former professional athlete and Christian role model, when he said he would never do it again. She also feared the effect her reporting the incident would have on Curtis’ family, especially his daughter with whom the alleged victim had become friends. “I thought about (his daughter) and how she looked up to her dad,” the girl testified. “His family didn’t do anything wrong, so I wasn’t going to say anything.” Curtis is on trial today, charged with six counts of criminal sexual conduct with this girl and two others, all at the high school where the former outfielder served as a substitute teacher and volunteered as a weight-trainer. Related: Assistant Barry County Prosecutor Christopher Ellsworth is working to convince a jury that Curtis used his position and access to the 15 and 16-year-old girls in order to victimize them. Over the course of the trial, which is expected to last more than a week, Ellsworth said he plans to present the three victims in the case and two others who say Curtis molested them, but were not part of the formal charges. Defense attorney David Dodge said he will present more than 30 witnesses, along with physical evidence and video recordings from the school that will shed doubt on the accusations. He said the accusations stem from a group of students who have been influenced to inflate incidents that were part of a normal, if intense, training regime to become something untoward and even criminal. He said charter witnesses will testify that Curtis had outstanding morals and was not the “demon” that the girls now claim him to be. He said part of Curtis’ training as a former big leaguer was that people have to play through injuries. He said many times that means massaging sensitive areas like the buttocks in order to release lactic acid build-up in the muscles. “If you’re playing for the Detroit Tigers or the New York Yankees and you get an injury, you don’t get to lie in bed,” Dodge told the jury. But the alleged victim testifying Monday said there is no justification for the way Curtis used his hands on her, even though she initially tried to convince herself there was. She said after praying with Curtis, she once again started to leave and he then asked her if she was virgin and “Did you enjoy any of that?” When she said she did not, he told her it was good because then she will know what to do if she ever got in a similar situation with a boy. Testimony continues Tuesday, Aug. 13. Curtis faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted. E-mail Barton Deiters: bdeiters@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/GRPBarton
A BOY of 14 was forced to wear slippers in class because his basic Dunnes Stores shoes did not meet school standards. Ricardo Guglielminotti was sent home with a note for his dad asking him to shell out on leather shoes — with branded footwear Converse, Vans or Keds considered acceptable. Dad-of-six Ricardo Sr visited St Peter’s College in Dunboyne, Co Meath, last week for a meeting with staff who offered him financial assistance for fancy footwear. But he told the Irish Sun: “I’m not going to put out my hand to the school.” Young Ricardo and his brother Max, 13, were both wearing €12 black canvas shoes but only Ricardo was asked to trade up to more acceptable footwear. His dad told us: “We got a handwritten letter home asking us to get leather shoes. “What he had was a pair of canvas shoes, but he was made to wear navy slippers around the school instead of them once they were spotted. “Neither my wife nor I had texts from the school. Buying the shoes would have been the first thing we’d have done.” Principal Maureen Murray declined to speak about individual students but said in a statement: “Parents are made aware of the uniform requirements at information meetings prior to enrolment in the school. “Given the amount of communication we strive to provide at school level and Parents Association level, I am surprised that this is an issue for any parent. We are always willing to clarify matters for parents.” @IrishSunOnline
Washington Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Melvin Clark says he is arming 10 parishioners to ensure his church is a place where worshippers feel safe. Clark’s church is located in Shelby, North Carolina–the town in which Dylann Roof was captured after allegedly shooting dead nine members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. According to Fox News, Clark indicated he wanted to avoid a situation where an attacker could enter the church and face no resistance. But he said he also wants to steer clear of a situation where an attacker enters and congregants draw guns from all directions. So his plan is to train and arm 10 parishioners who will serve as security at the church. Clark said: “I think the key to this is having people who know how to handle situations. [It] becomes a safer place for people who want to defend themselves.” Clark explained that he knew having guns in church was a good move long before the Charleston attack took place; he was “held at gunpoint and taken hostage in his church by an assailant in 2002.” Based on this personal experience he said, “There has to be an atmosphere of safety within the church for parishioners to come to worship.” He and other leaders in his church are currently working with law enforcement to ascertain the best firearms for the 10 parishioners to carry. Clark is also discussing methods of engagement with law enforcement, should an attacker target the church. Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
It turns out the knee injury that cost the Avalanche star forward Nathan MacKinnon the last 10 games of the season was worse than he initially thought. MacKinnon revealed Saturday that he suffered a left MCL sprain and couldn’t have played even if the Avs made the playoffs. He said he gave it a shot to see if he could help the Avs in their playoff push but quickly realized that it simply wasn’t feasible. “It’s not feeling great at all right now,” MacKinnon said. “You’ve got to be careful, because it could really mess up your knee if you push it.” MacKinnon will not need surgery on his knee, but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to play for Canada in the upcoming world championships. “If I can, I’d definitely be interested. But I definitely want to be pretty cautious,” said MacKinnon, who has played in the tournament twice, winning last year. He spoke to the media for the first time since suffering the injury March 18 at Calgary, expressing frustration for ending the year on the bench for the second consecutive season. MacKinnon felt his faceoff opponent jumped into his knee when they got tangled up and caused it to cave in. No immunity for Avs players Captain Gabe Landeskog was candid about his performance and what to expect next season. “There’s going to be some changes, I’m sure, and there are going to be some consequences,” Landeskog said. “I don’t believe anybody is safe in this room when it comes to maybe being moved.” Landeskog admitted he didn’t play up to his potential this season and plans to watch games in the offseason reflecting on how to get better. He said the whole team must avoid sugarcoating the disappointing season. Cameron Wolfe, The Denver Post
On the face of it, JD(U) national president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar practises schizophrenic politics — he frustrates his alliance partners in the state, RJD and Congress, by siding with the NDA on demonetisation, but he also accuses Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of not respecting the federal structure of the country and targets the BJP’s “saffron” agenda of love jihad and ghar wapsi. Advertising In fact, Nitish’s politics moves on twin tracks — one for Bihar, and the other for the Centre, in line with his national ambition. Even as an NDA partner (until 2013), he had differed with the BJP and supported the Congress over the candidature of Pranab Mukherjee as President. And after parting ways with the BJP, he has often not seen eye-to-eye with his Mahagathbandhan partners. Watch What Else Is Making News So, he went ahead with trying to replicate the Grand Alliance idea in Uttar Pradesh even as the RJD firmly refused to play ball, and he took on Samajwadi Party chief and Lalu Prasad’s relative Mulayam Singh Yadav by entering into an alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal and another small party. Recently, Lalu attended the SP’s foundation day ceremony in Lucknow, but Nitish stayed away. Now that Nitish’s stand on demonetisation has fuelled talk of his growing proximity to the BJP, he has reacted strongly. He has protested reports about his rumoured meeting with BJP president Amit Shah, and his alleged “talks” with Prime Minister Modi. He has termed these “canards” as “an attempt at political assassination”, and made it clear that his national politics has little to do with the Bihar Grand Alliance, which has a “separate and distinct agenda with complete clarity”. He has addressed his legislators in the middle of the Bihar Assembly’s winter session to clear ambiguities and “misgivings”. But Nitish is obviously uncomfortable with the stand of his alliance partners on the issue. While Bihar Congress president Ashok Kumar Choudhary went so far as to say that his party would walk out of the alliance if the high command so desired, Lalu got his son and Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav to toe Nitish’s line. The RJD chief might have acted differently if the RJD and Congress had the numbers together to form the government, though. The two parties have 107 MLAs — 15 short of majority. Lalu needs Nitish, and Nitish can afford to pursue his twin-track politics as per his political convenience. The Bihar CM’s politics on demonetisation — maintaining his distance from Mamata Banerjee who, along with Arvind Kejriwal, has emerged as the most powerful voice against Modi’s move — has already split the opposition, and forced his West Bengal counterpart to recalibrate her Monday Bharat Bandh to merely a Jan Aakrosh march. To be fair, Nitish had taken several anti-corruption measures in Bihar between 2007 and 2011. He brought the Bihar Special Courts Act, 2009 (implemented in 2010) to include a provision to allow the government to seize the property of officials accused of corruption — and flaunts the schools and children’s homes that the government has opened in the seized buildings. He did away with the MLALAD scheme following allegations that it was being used as a “commission fund”. The voluntary disclosure of property by all government functionaries from the CM to Class 3 staff, and the introduction of the Right to Public Services Act and Public Grievances Redressal Act was in line with the government’s professed “zero tolerance” for corruption. Nitish annoyed the opposition, and even his party leader Sharad Yadav, through these steps, but succeeded in taking the high moral ground. During the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign, Nitish accused the BJP of spending too much money and later, frequently reminded Modi about his promise of bringing back black money from abroad. Now that he has a definite national plan, he supports the PM on demonetisation, with the rider that the public should not be inconvenienced. According to a close aide of the CM: “He is very conscious of his national image and does not want any confusion over his stand against corruption. He has followed up his support to demonetisation with a demand for targeting benami property and unaccounted for gold. He also senses that demonetisation would hurt illegal liquor traders. Since prohibition is his big national plank, any measure that helps that, suits him.” In the specific context of Bihar, both Lalu and Nitish know that it is Nitish who has an option. The JD(U) and BJP together have 128 MLAs — well over the majority mark. But Nitish — whose Bihar charter is centred around “seven resolutions”, including those on electricity, water, promises of student credit cards and, of course, prohibition — shares an unwritten common minimum programme with Lalu. A senior JD(U) leader said: “What will Nitish get by joining hands with the BJP at this stage? He is into his third term as CM, and may well get the fourth term as well. Had Nitish accepted Modi as his leader, JD(U) could have been second largest party in the NDA, and Nitish could possibly have been Deputy PM. Nitish is clear in his politics, but others are reading too much into his support to the BJP on a particular issue. The only situation in which Nitish might be forced to rework his politics will be if, amidst the alliance’s pulls and pressures, Lalu pushes him to the wall, and law and order goes completely out of control.” Advertising But Lalu has always been a good reader of politics. When he had declared Nitish as the CM candidate, he had talked about the compulsions of “drinking venom”. Lalu knows Nitish remains indispensable for him, at least until Tejashwi comes out of the shadow of both his father and Nitish Kumar. For the moment, Nitish is likely to continue to loosen and tighten the thread of the political kite as the situation demands.
For centuries, "magic" mushrooms have been both celebrated and reviled for their mind-expanding properties. Research and popular use of psychedelic drugs like mushrooms and LSD surged in the 1960s, when the substances first entered the American cultural consciousness on a large scale, and came to define '60s counterculture. At this time, thousands of studies were conducted to determine the properties and potential therapeutic applications of the drugs. But in 1970, the Controlled Substances Act brought an end to this era of science-based open-mindedness, and greatly limited drug research for the next four decades. Today, research on psychedelic drugs is experiencing a renaissance of sorts. A growing body of scientific studies from major universities and medical centers suggests that the substances may hold promise as therapeutic interventions for a number of mental health conditions. 'Shrooms are known to trigger hallucinations, feelings of euphoria, perceptual distortions, inability to distinguish fantasy from reality, and sometimes a mystical feelings of oneness with nature. Because of their ability to temporarily create profound changes in consciousness, and sometimes lasting changes in psychological well-being, mushrooms have been an area of particular interest among both scientists and recreational drug users. Here's what else we know about mushrooms, what they do the human brain, and how. Psychedelic mushrooms grow naturally all over the world. According to most estimates, more than 180 species of fungus produce psilocybin or psilocin, the two psychoactive substances most commonly associated with psychedelic mushrooms. While not all "magic mushrooms" rely on these compounds to produce mind-altering effects, the majority of fungus now used for recreational and entheogenic purposes are fruiting bodies from the genus Psilocybe, though species in other genera also contain psilocybin or psilocin. Psilocybin mushrooms grow naturally across a variety of climates and on every continent except Antarctica. Psilocybe cubensis before cultivation. (Photo by Getty Images) Mycologists -- biologists who specialize in the study of fungus -- believe that psilocybin and psilocin, as well as a number of other naturally occurring compounds, serve as an evolutionary defense mechanism for these species. While many of the psilocybin mushrooms typically consumed by humans don't contain enough of these chemicals to be fatally toxic, at least to adults, they are potent enough to deter predation by many other species. A trio of goats made news a few years back when they reportedly ate psilocybin mushrooms and started acting strange, for example. The animals were sick and disoriented, according to their owner, but returned to normal after a few days. Humans who eat mushrooms may exhibit similar symptoms of physical discomfort -- along with intense psychological effects that the goats obviously couldn't articulate. Two of the most common species of psychedelic mushrooms are Psilocybe cubensis, the most popular on the black market, and Psilocybe semilanceata, the most widespread in the wild. Both of these species grow in the United States, though they have been known to appear in different climates. The concentration of psilocybin and psilocin present in each of these species has also been found to range greatly depending on the individual mushrooms. Mushrooms have been used by humans for their reality-altering properties for thousands of years. This basalt mushroom sculpture was created by the Mayans during the pre-Classic period (c. 2000 BC to AD 250). (Photo by Getty Images) Fungi have inhabited the earth for more than 400 million years, and early ritualistic use of hallucinogenic mushrooms may date as far back as 9,000 years ago. Some anthropologists have argued that mushrooms held a central place in many early cultures -- including Greece, India and Mesoamerican cultures -- and have had a profound impact on human evolution. According to one radical theory from philosopher Terence McKenna, the incorporation of psychedelics (particularly magic mushrooms) into primitive diets may have been the catalyst for significant evolutionary advances, including the development of self-awareness and language. Anthropologists have speculated that magic mushrooms may have been the inspiration for prehistoric rock paintings in the Sahara desert, which prominently feature mushroom imagery. They may have played a role in the evolution of Christianity, as well. Philologist John Allegro, who translated the Dead Sea Scrolls, has presented evidence for worship of psychedelic mushrooms in the early Christian era. Historically, psychedelic mushrooms have been perhaps most widely associated with the ancient Maya. Mushroom stones and motifs have been found in Mayan temple ruins, and several varieties of psilocybin, as well as hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria mushrooms, were thought to have been available to the Mayans. Mushrooms are a common trope in Mayan art, and their symbolism often connects mushrooms with a “dreamlike state” -- for instance, a man with mushrooms all over his feet. The fact that these scenes are depicted in Mayan art and even in the codices suggests that mushroom use was an important aspect of society worthy of recording. Large mushroom stones can also be found throughout areas of Guatemala that were inhabited by the Mayans. While there are different theories to explain the presence of these stones, some have suggested that they were involved in ritual consumption of mushrooms, or that there may have even been cult worship around the mushrooms. And the taboo surrounding psychedelic mushrooms is nothing new. Psychologist and writer Timothy Leary conducted experiments on mushrooms in the 1960s through the Harvard Psilocybin Project. When Western Christian conquistadors swept through Mesoamerica in the 16th century, they suppressed many aspects of traditional spiritual expression, including the use of mushrooms. Historians believe mushroom cults and shamans who used psilocybin to obtain what they believed to be a deeper understanding of the world were pushed underground, not to be widely rediscovered for hundreds of years. But mushrooms still played an important medicinal and spiritual role in a number of indigenous cultures, despite their lengthy disappearance from the Western record. Fast-forward to 1955, when psychedelic mushrooms entered the American mainstream. R. Gordan Wasson -- author, ethnomycologist and vice president of JP Morgan & Co. -- and his wife Valentina became the first known non-native-Americans to actively participate in an indigenous Mazatec mushroom ceremony in Mexico. The Wassons published a popular article about their experiences, which appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in 1957. The article inspired psychologist and psychedelic pioneer Timothy Leary to travel to Mexico and try it for himself. Leary and Richard Alpert (now Ram Dass) started the Harvard Psilocybin Project to promote research on psychedelics, which led to their dismissal from the university in 1963. Leary and others' popularization of mushrooms led to the creation of a psychedelic underground, associated with the counterculture moment of the 1960s, and an explosion in their non-indigenous usage. It also inspired President Richard Nixon to label Leary "the most dangerous man in America." Our understanding of mushrooms has been stunted by decades of prohibitive international and domestic law. Nixon ushered in a new era of prohibitive law, marginalizing drug use along with research about its potential therapeutic aspects. In 1970, Nixon passed the Controlled Substances Act as a precursor to what would soon be called the War on Drugs. Psilocybin and psilocin, as well as any "containers," i.e. mushrooms, holding these psychoactive compounds were determined to be Schedule I drugs, considered to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. A year later, with input from U.S. authorities, the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances was passed, also making psilocybin and psilocin -- though not the mushrooms containing them -- Schedule I drugs. Certain nations are relatively permissive when it comes to psychedelic mushrooms. Until 2008 in the Netherlands, the drugs were sold openly in special shops, though the law has since been changed to permit only the sale of a specific kind of psychedelic truffle. Other nations, like Brazil and Spain, operate on the language of the U.N. convention, which doesn't explicitly mention psychedelic mushrooms themselves. In the U.S., laws regulating the growth, possession and harvesting of psychedelic mushrooms vary slightly by state. But it's safe to bet that no matter where you live, authorities will crack down hard on any and all hallucinogenic drugs, no matter how natural they are. Which means much of the current debate focuses on recreational use and the black market trade that sustains it. Homer Simpson goes on a psychedelic spiritual journey in "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)," Season 8, Episode 9 of "The Simpsons." Psilocybin mushroom grow naturally in a variety of habitats, from grasses and gardens, to rotting wood and animal feces. But with a healthy market for illegal psychedelic fungi, growers have taken to more reliable and controllable methods of cultivation in order to maximize profit. Indoor operations frequently involve mushroom spores being injected into prepared beds of nutrients that are most frequently stored in jars or boxes. Given the proper conditions, the fungus can be fully grown and picked in a matter of days or weeks. Mushrooms that are specifically cultivated for recreational use are often harvested before they reach full maturity, when they contain more potent concentrations of psilocybin. After picking, mushrooms are dried in order to preserve the psychoactive ingredients within. Mushrooms are then typically eaten or boiled to make a tea. Street prices for mushrooms vary, but the Drug Enforcement Administration puts them at about $20 for an eighth of an ounce -- considered a strong personal dose for a "trip" -- and $100 to $120 for an ounce. One particularly large bust of a mushroom growing ring in Ohio in 2013 reportedly turned up 503 pounds of material containing psilocybin, at a street value of more than $800,000. Modern research has found that psilocybin can, quite literally, expand consciousness. In a recent brain-scanning study, British researchers found that ingesting psilocybin caused normally disconnected brain regions to communicate with each other. FMRI scans showed that the connections aren’t random -- the brain retains its organizational features, but the connections are completely different than they are in a normal brain state. This helps to explain some of the common effects of psilocybin reported by users, such as new insights and world-shattering realizations, synesthesia and nonlinear thinking. British researchers found significant differences in functional connectivity between a normal brain (left) and a brain on psilocybin (right). Other research showed that psilocybin dampens activity in areas of the brain associated with sensory processing. Normally, these areas pose constraints on the way we experience the world through our senses, grounding us in material reality. By reducing activity in these areas, the senses are heightened and perception seems to expand. These brain regions are also the seat of the ego and are responsible for giving us our sense of self, so by hindering their activity, users often report experiences of oneness with the universe and interconnection. Psilocybin also carries potential longterm effects, both positive and negative. Mushroom users commonly report experiencing enhanced visual perception, with colors appearing more vibrant and surfaces appearing to melt or breathe. Just one experience with psilocybin can have lasting positive emotional and psychological effects. Psychedelic experiences can make individuals more open-minded, Johns Hopkins researchers found. One “trip” was enough to cause significant changes in the “openness to experience” personality domain -- which is associated with creativity, intellectual curiosity and an appreciation for art and beauty -- for over a year. It’s important to note, however, that while the risk of overdose is extremely low (a user would have to ingest over 35 pounds of fresh mushrooms to reach fatal levels of toxicity), experimenting with the substance doesn’t come without risk. Some users report experiences of heightened fear, anxiety and paranoia while tripping -- in some cases, if the panic reaction is great enough, they may pose a threat to themselves or others. Research has also found psilocybin to produce a psychosis-like syndrome that mirrors early episodes of schizophrenia, and some experts have suggested that psilocybin may trigger or exacerbate mental health conditions like schizophrenia, mania and depression. More research is needed to determine psilocybin’s potential longterm physical and mental health impacts. Psilocybin could also have significant therapeutic uses. The stigma of psychedelics may be slowly shifting as more and more research finds that substances like LSD and psilocybin show promise as therapeutic tools for dealing with a range of mental health problems. Johns Hopkins researchers found that using small amounts of psilocybin in a controlled setting could lead to life-changing positive experiences that increased longterm psychological well-being. Fourteen months after the experience, a full 94 percent of the study’s subjects ranked taking the drug in a therapeutic setting as one of the top five most meaningful experiences of their lives, and 39 percent said it was the single most meaningful experience of their lives. Friends and family members also reported seeing positive changes in the subjects, saying that the experience had made them calmer, happier and kinder. The researchers said that they ultimately hope to see whether transcendent experiences, facilitated by taking psilocybin in therapeutic settings, could help treat conditions like addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Psilocybin is effective in reducing anxiety among terminal cancer patients, UCLA researchers found, and has also been shown to lead to a reduction in symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The therapeutic uses could include potential treatment for PTSD and depression. Magic mushrooms may be particularly promising as treatment for PTSD. A 2013 study found that psilocybin could alleviate the fear response in mice, a finding which may lay the foundation for future research on fear in humans. By helping people to literally escape destructive thoughts, mushrooms could also be a promising treatment for depression. Depression is associated with over-connectivity of the default mode network -- the brain network associated with self-consciousness, rumination and introspection -- which can lead to excessive negative self-thought. Recent brain imaging studies from Imperial College London have shown magic mushrooms to quiet down the default mode network. As Imperial College neuropsychopharmacology professor David Nutt told CNN, “This could create a paradigm shift to help people into a different state of thinking that they can then stay in." But we have a long way to go to fully grasp the effects and potential uses for mushrooms. Currently, the government does not fund psychedelic research, so funding is left in the hands of private organizations like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. While the Western resistance to psychedelic research remains a stumbling block, scientists are optimistic.
Major companies have suspended advertising campaigns on YouTube after their ads were displayed with videos depicting children in threatening situations—while the tech giant investigates ‘disturbing’ autofill results that users flagged over the weekend. The Wall Street Journal reports that Mars Inc., Adidas and Diageo, maker of spirits including Tanqueray and Captain Morgan, have suspended their advertising on YouTube. The videos were highlighted in a BuzzFeed report that described a “vast, disturbing, and wildly popular universe of videos” that included live-action footage of children depicted in compromising situations. YouTube took down some videos and responded by saying it would do a better job of enforcing its community guidelines. Dozens of users have also claimed that YouTube’s autofill results include phrases that promote pedophilia—for example, typing “how to have” into the search box brought up “how to have s*x with your kids.” HERE ARE THE RUSSIAN FACEBOOK ADS YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN DURING THE ELECTION The BBC reports that some speculate the asterisk in the results meant that YouTube was targeted in a campaign by trolls to make that response appear by gaming the algorithm. “Earlier today our teams were alerted to this profoundly disturbing autocomplete result and we worked to quickly remove it as soon as we were made aware,” a YouTube spokeswoman told BBC. The Google-owned platform has come under fire for not removing content that promotes terrorism and extremism and it was recently hit for not removing violent content from its YouTube Kids platform. The tech industry has already been forced to defend its response to the Russian infiltration of the 2016 U.S. election that utilized Twitter and Facebook to spread lies and disinformation.
ReverbNation is launching a marketing tool this Wednesday called PROMOTE IT, a suite of end-to-end tools for bands to share their wares on Facebook. Bands or labels can create campaigns to promote specific songs or albums on Facebook. PROMOTE IT will then help target fans, spur interaction and provide analytics. The campaigns are fully automated, following a "set-it-and-forget-it" model. This is enormously helpful for bands and labels, which are often more concerned with getting the talent to the gig than devoting resources to social media marketing. The tool also includes ad creation, custom landing pages and actionable results. The tool was created by ReverbNation, a provider of marketing, promotion and social tool for more than 1.7 million artists. Each campaign on PROMOTE IT costs as little as $25 but ramps up as musicians add more features and add-ons. Social media marketing has become increasingly important for all bands. While PROMOTE IT may be one of the first tools specifically designed for music professionals, its potential success could signal a slew of new tools designed for musicians and other creatives. Image courtesy of Flickr, Carnoodles
Earnest: Castro a 'Towering Figure' But His 'Activities' Cannot Be Whitewashed Trump Threatens to 'Terminate' U.S.-Cuba Deal Miami Fans Shower Kaepernick With Boos After He Praised Fidel Castro On "Happening Now" today, Newt Gingrich blasted Jill Stein's efforts to get a recount in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He pointed out that there's not a single state in the country where a recount would change the election outcome and hand the White House to Hillary Clinton. "Jill Stein represents sort of the nut wing of American politics," he said. "When the left loses as badly as they have at every level - from local state legislature to governor to Congress to the presidency - you begin to get this sort of nut fringe showing up." He said the fact that the Clinton team is working with Stein shows just how "desperate and disoriented" they are. "The whole thing is a joke. It's an expensive joke that will cost the taxpayers some money," Gingrich said. "There's nothing serious about this, except, of course, it generates news coverage." He added that the recount push just shows that the left is "spinning out of control." Watch more above. 'Luke Skywalker' Says Trump's Cabinet Full of 'Really Despicable People' WATCH: Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh LOSES IT Over Ref's 'Offsides' Call Gingrich on Castro Praise: 'Bernie Sanders' Fantasy Has Come to Life in Cuba'
We few, we proud, we Delawareans have a particular view of Sen. Joe Biden, the six-term Democrat announced as Barack Obama's vice-presidential running mate. If you take the Acela Express to D.C. often enough, you'll see him in the back of one of the nice cars, resting his eyes behind Pablo Escobar sunglasses or talking to one of the voters who recognizes him. When you head to the polls, there's a two-in-five chance you'll vote instead for whatever scrub the GOP put on the ballot. It's always been a bit strange to have this guy—half-suburban dad, half-jetsetter with a Death Star ego—as our face to the nation. The first three immediate minuses that Biden brings to the Obama-Biden ticket: 1. Drug warrior, at arms! In 1982, when John McCain was making his first run for political office, Joe Biden was building his credentials for a national bid. That was the year he proposed the office of "drug czar." Thus began a pattern: Whenever people were panicking about drug abuse, Biden would swoop in to assure them that their panic was justified. The crackdown on stuff that could be used as drug paraphernalia? The RAVE Act? Biden was there with a pen. Since 2002, he has softened only a little on the drug war, changing his mind about the crack/cocaine sentencing disparity two decades too late. 2. PATRIOT Actor. Don't use drugs? Never fear: Biden knows how to restrict your liberties, too. As The New Republic's Michael Crowley pointed out a month after the 9/11 attacks: In the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Biden did, in fact, champion an anti-terrorism bill similar to the one now before Congress (though it was, as he complains, badly watered down by anti-government conservatives and leftist civil libertarians). And Biden doesn't let you forget it. "I introduced the terrorism bill in '94 that had a lot of these things in it," he bragged to NBC's Tim Russert on September 30. When I spent the day with him later that week, Biden mentioned the legislation to me, and to several other reporters he encountered, no fewer than seven times. "When I was chairman in '94 I introduced a major antiterrorism bill--back then," he says in the morning, flashing a knowing grin and pausing for effect. (Never mind that he's gotten the year wrong.) Back in his office later that afternoon, he brings it up yet again. "I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill." And get ready for the U.S. Public Service Academy! 3. The Red, White, and Blue Man's burden. Biden isn't a hawk in the way that John McCain is a hawk. He doesn't look to military intervention as the first solution to every foreign policy trip-up. But he still wants the United States to solve them all. Darfur? Check. The embargo on Cuba? Check. NATO expansion and aid to Georgia? Check. Biden amplifies Obama's long-held, and well-disguised, neo-liberal foreign policy. If you were leaning toward the Democrats because you're tired of leaders bellowing and demanding action from the actors in every foreign flare-up, forget it. That's going to be Biden's job description. Politically, though, none of this is likely to wound Obama. Team McCain's immediate response to Biden, highlighting his criticism of Obama's experience (compare it to, say, Hillary Clinton saying she had experience while "Obama gave a speech"), is yawn-worthy stuff designed to slice into the news cycle. It won't stick. Meanwhile, Biden helps Obama out in a few important ways. 1. Anti-Rudyism. There is an upside to Biden's aggressive foreign-policy realism: He's a brutal, effective critic of even stupider foreign policy. As Politico's Ben Smith first noted, Biden was the most confident and aggressive opponent of the "war on terror" concept. "Terror is a tactic," he has said. "Terror is not a philosophy." That's not just promising from a policy perspective. It presents the Democrats with an opportunity to reframe the debate over terrorism. 2. Liberalism with a tough-guy face. Biden is exactly the kind of Democrat who would be winning easily this year if the party's voters hadn't gotten so distracted by that hopeful guy, that creepy lawyer guy, and that angry ex-president's wife. He is a doctrinaire liberal who has remained, nevertheless, completely relatable and C-movie tough. Apart from the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill (which sucked wind for reasons that should bother partisans of any side), there's nothing in his economic record, or interest-group voting record that should give liberals a second's pause. He helped throttle the nomination of Robert Bork, thereby saving Roe v. Wade for two decades. Between that and his authorship of the Violence Against Women Act, he'll lock up those Hillary voters who aren't just interested in throwing fits. 3. Don't call it a comeback. It shouldn't matter, but the manner in which Biden has survived gaffes, mockery, and a straight-up plagiarism scandal is pleasing, in a Hollywood kind of way. Biden recovered from his plagiarism scandal by burying all presidential ambitions for a generation and burrowing into his Senate work. He wasn't a foreign policy expert, so he became one. When he says something stupid, he bounces back. I never got why his comments about Indian-Americans staffing 7-Elevens and Dunkin' Donuts in Delaware were offensive, but in any case now Obama gets to look like an above-it-all pol who doesn't care about political correctness. David Weigel is an associate editor of reason.
By Shereen Lehman (Reuters Health) - Children exposed to tobacco smoke at home are up to three times more likely to have attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) as unexposed kids, according to a new study from Spain. The association was stronger for kids with one or more hours of secondhand smoke exposure every day, the authors found. And the results held when researchers accounted for parents' mental health and other factors. "We showed a significant and substantial dose-response association between (secondhand smoke) exposure in the home and a higher frequency of global mental problems," the authors write in Tobacco Control, online March 25. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two of every five children in the US are exposed to secondhand smoke regularly. Alicia Padron of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida and colleagues in Spain analyzed data from the 2011 to 2012 Spanish National Health Interview Survey, in which parents of 2,357 children ages four to 12 reported the amount of time their children were exposed to secondhand smoke every day. The parents also filled out questionnaires designed to evaluate their children's mental health. According to the results, about eight percent of the kids had a probable mental disorder. About 7% of the kids were exposed to secondhand smoke for less than one hour per day, and 4.5% were exposed for an hour or more each day. After taking the parent's mental health, family structure and socioeconomic status into consideration, children who were exposed to secondhand smoke for less than one hour per day were 50% more likely to have some mental disorder compared to kids not exposed at all. And children who were habitually exposed to secondhand smoke for an hour or more each day were close to three times more likely to have a mental disorder. In addition, kids exposed less than one hour per day were twice as likely to have ADHD as kids who weren't exposed, and children exposed for an hour or more on a daily basis were over three times more likely to have ADHD. "The association between secondhand smoke and global mental problems was mostly due to the impact of secondhand smoke on the attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder," the authors write. The study looks at a single point in time and cannot prove that secondhand smoke exposure causes mental health problems, the study team cautions. Frank Bandiera, a researcher with the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston who was not involved in the study, liked that the researchers "controlled for parents' mental health in the new study because that could be a confounder." But, he added, the study might be limited because, although the questionnaires are thought to be valid, the mental disorders were not actually diagnosed by physicians. "We're not sure if it's causal or not," Bandiera told Reuters Health. "I think (the research) is still in the early stages and the findings are inconclusive." But, he said, since secondhand hand smoke has been related to a lot of physical diseases, parents should avoid smoking around their kids. "We need to sort it out more, so we're not sure yet, but just as a precaution, I don't think parents should smoke at home - they should keep their kids away from secondhand smoke," Bandiera said. Lucy Popova, from the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, said there is a lot of evidence about the harms of secondhand smoke on physical wellbeing. "But research on effects of secondhand smoke on mental health have been really just emerging and this study really contributes to this growing body of evidence that exposure to secondhand smoke in children might be responsible for cognitive and behavioral problems," she said. Popova, who wasn't involved in the study, said no amount of secondhand smoke is safe - any exposure is bad. "So parents should not expose their children - the best thing to do is quit," she said. "And this will not only not expose their children to the secondhand smoke, but will also let them enjoy their life with their children longer." SOURCE: http://bmj.co/1ajZCX4 Tobacco Control 2015.
John Bel Edwards is sworn in as Louisiana Governor (photo gallery) John Bel Edwards is sworn in as Governor of Louisiana on the steps of the state capital in Baton Rouge, Monday, January 11, 2016. (Photo by Ted Jackson, Nola.com \| The Times-Picayune) (Ted Jackson) Gov. John Bel Edwards' transition committee on fiscal policy released its final report on Friday (Jan. 15), which gives a large "menu" of options on how to increase revenue to close the state's $1.9 billion deficit. The report includes recommendations to reduce income tax rates while eliminating federal deductions to the state income tax and establishing a flat corporate tax rate; it also suggests increases to the gas tax and extending the sales tax to apply to certain services. Also included are recommendations on reducing spending and removing statutory dedications in the state budget. There also are recommendations to phase out or overhaul the corporate franchise tax and suspend part of the sales tax exemption on business utilities -- a move the Legislature did in a limited way last year. The recommendations contain some of the most specific information to come out of Edwards' administration since his campaign. Although Edwards has spoken of the need for "shared sacrifice," he has not yet said much about what those sacrifices would be nor which areas the sacrifices could affect most. In the report released Friday, the committee makes clear it tried to produce recommendations that "spread (tax increases) as evenly as possible among individuals and businesses to ensure that sacrifice is broadly shared." The committee also said revenue increases should be used "as a last resort," but acknowledged that it is unlikely that the state can close its structural deficit through spending cuts and efficiencies alone. "Taxpayers need to be aware that the slogan, 'doing more with less' only stretches so far and at some point agencies reach the level where, despite their best efforts, the result is they can only 'do less with less,'" the committee wrote. "Fewer and lower-quality services are the tradeoff for a smaller revenue component to the budget shortfall solution." The report did not tie any specific revenue projections to the recommendations, nor did they put more emphasis on one recommendation over another. Edwards spokesman Richard Carbo said that at the moment, the governor has not decided which options from the list he'll choose to pursue. "These are all just recommendations," Carbo said. "The governor has always said he'd like a menu of options. This is part of that menu." Cuts to spending and removing statutory dedications can be viewed in the full report. Here's a look at some of the key revenue options.
Einsley Delmer "Del" Berg (December 20, 1915 – February 28, 2016)[1][2] was an American soldier and union organizer who volunteered to serve with the XV International Brigade (nicknamed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade) during the Spanish Civil War. He was the last known surviving veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.[3][4][5] Early life and education [ edit ] Born in Anaheim, California, Berg was originally a farmer, but was inspired to enlist when he saw a sign indicating that the government was looking for people to fight fascism. Berg briefly trained with the Oregon National Guard prior to going to Spain in 1937. He served in the United States Army during World War II and was stationed at Morotai Island.[6][7] He became a member of the Communist Party of the United States while in a Spanish hospital, while recuperating from a shrapnel wound to his liver.[5] He remained an interested and active party member up to the time of his last interview in 2014.[4][6] Career [ edit ] In the years following his demobilization, Berg returned to work the farm on which he had been raised. He fathered two sons from two different marriages. He began serving as a union organizer in the 1950s, and, in a 2007 interview, described the steps he took to discourage the attention of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. Berg became an official of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), when he was elected the Vice President of the Stanislaus County branch.[5] In the 1950s during the Red Scare, he was often harassed. In a 2007 interview with the Union Democrat, Berg described delivering a petition to the racist county sheriff, demanding his resignation. Berg described testifying at a hearing in Washington, D.C. on farm conditions as a representative of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee.[5] As his comrades died Berg was sought out for more frequent interviews. Berg's decision to volunteer to travel to a foreign country to fight fascism has been described as symbolic and inspirational.[8] He was interviewed for an episode of the PBS show History Detectives to provide background about the experience of American volunteers when a segment was focused around an artifact from the Spanish Civil War.[9] As of 2007, Berg lived in Columbia, California.[5] He became a centenarian in December 2015[10] and died on February 28, 2016, aged 100, in Columbia, California.[1][2][11][12] On March 25, 2016, approximately a month after Berg's death, United States Senator John McCain published an op-ed in the New York Times saluting him and his comrades, who had fought for the good values they believed in, in Spain, and when they returned home to the U.S.[11]
Hugging Face is a new, "fun" chatbot aimed at teens and it's named after an emoji. In press releases, the company boasts that in the testing phase the app exchanged millions of messages with users, and 500,000 selfies. It launched on the App Store this week. The idea is that the app learns more about you as you give it more information, remembering details like your name and age. As it turns out, the app is a bit of a privacy nightmare, which is made worse by the fact that it's marketed towards teenagers. When I downloaded the Hugging Face app, the first thing the chatbot did after a short, introductory exchange was ask for a selfie. I didn't want to do that. Here's how the bot responded: Me: That's weird, we just started talking. Hugging Face: It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard! You send me one. It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard! I really don't want to send you a selfie. It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard! How will the people who created you use my selfie? It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard! Can I talk to you without taking a selfie? It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard! What are your privacy policies regarding the use of my information including my selfie? It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard! Why do you want my selfie? It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard! If you were a real person this would be extremely creepy. It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard! I finally sent Hugging Face a picture of an envelope in front of my laptop. "Nice laptop, but I don't think it's your selfie," the bot responded. "Can you send me a better one?" I asked how it knew that it was my laptop in the photo. "It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard!" I asked if it used facial recognition technology. "It's not a pic fool. Take a pic from the keyboard!" Hugging Face finally relented when I sent it a photo of 90s TV star Luke Perry. Then it asked what my name was. Then it asked for my age. Keep in mind that this app is aimed at teenagers. "Selfies, for teenagers, are the main way of communicating emotions" This is all pretty concerning, because Hugging Face's privacy policy, when I finally tracked it down, states that my information will be used to "deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested." Further, "non-personally identifiable" information may be given to third parties "for marketing, advertising, or other uses." It goes on to promise that any personal information will be kept confidential. Basically, the site will use your information for marketing purposes pretty much like every other online service. The difference with Hugging Face is that the exchange felt much less like a request, and more like a demand. Usually, you're offered the opportunity to view a site's privacy policy before being required to pony up sensitive information. When I spoke to New York-based Hugging Face co-founder Clément Delangue over the phone, he told me that the app asks for a selfie because the team discovered that users wanted to send selfies to their chatbot friend. "Selfies, for teenagers, are the main way of communicating emotions," Delangue said. "So we implemented this feature as a way for users to communicate with the AI." Screengrab: Hugging Face/Author Asking for a selfie automatically was for simplicity's sake, he explained. "We don't feel like we need to make the experience way more complex," Delangue said, "and 90 percent of the users are using it pretty seamlessly." The chatbot uses computer vision technology to recognize if a face is present in a photo, but doesn't use facial recognition and can't distinguish between individual faces, Delangue clarified. Delangue said that I'd become stuck in an unfortunate selfie-asking loop and that the "bug," as he described it, would be fixed in an update. He also said that if I had asked the bot for the privacy policy before it asked for my selfie, I would have received it. Indeed, much later in the conversation when I asked the chatbot for the privacy policy, it was served up without a hitch. But as for a supposed opportunity to view the policy before being asked for a selfie, I don't buy it. There were just seven texts sent by the bot before it asked for my selfie, all asking me to do some basic setup steps, and so it's tough to see where I would have had the opportunity to ask for the policy before being essentially coerced into giving over my photo. Delangue said that teenagers are smart enough to know how to trick the AI. "They're smart enough to use photos of other people or celebrities," he explained. Maybe, but the app doesn't ask for a photo of a celebrity—it asks for a photo of you. Regardless, Delangue said, Hugging Face has no immediate plans to use people's data for marketing purposes and instead will use it to improve the chatbot. But don't forget—it's in the privacy policy. Subscribe to pluspluspodcast , Motherboard's new show about the people and machines that are building our future.
Some years ago, I went to a conference in Charleston. During a free moment, I strolled down to an old marketplace where I browsed the shops — all of which, it seemed, specialized in Confederate memorabilia. In search of a small gift for my son, I wandered among stacks of toy rifles, piles of Confederate belt buckles, and displays of battle flag bumper-stickers. At some point my eye caught a large framed lithograph of Robert E. Lee and the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia entitled “Lee and His Generals.” Inspecting it, I saw that something — or rather, someone — was missing. I was looking for a tiny, bearded, Major General, a divisional commander who was with Lee at Appomattox and who shared in the decision to surrender that April day in 1865. I was looking for General William Mahone of Virginia, and I did not find him because he was not there. A native Virginian, a railroad magnate, a slaveholder, and an ardent secessionist, Mahone served in the Confederate army throughout the war. He was one of the Army of Northern Virginia’s most able commanders, distinguishing himself particularly in the summer of 1864 at the Battle of the Crater outside Petersburg. After the war, Robert E. Lee recalled that, when contemplating a successor, he thought that Mahone “had developed the highest qualities for organization and command.” How did such a high-ranking Confederate commander wind up missing in action in a Charleston gift shop? Not, I think, by accident. By now, Americans interested in the Confederate monument removal project have had it drilled into them that the monuments were erected decades after the end of the Civil War as testimonies to white supremacy in all its various manifestations: segregation, disenfranchisement, lynching, peonage, and second-class citizenship across the board. But the monuments were not merely commemorative. They were designed to conceal a past that their designers wanted to suppress. That past was the period after Reconstruction and before Jim Crow, years in which African Americans in the former Confederacy exercised political power, ran for public office, published newspapers, marched as militias, ran businesses, organized voluntary associations, built schools and churches: a time, in other words, when they participated as full members of society. We must recognize the crucial role played by the politics of memory in the assault on African American equality. General William Mahone has not been forgotten entirely. Rather, he has been selectively remembered. There is a Mahone Monument, for example, erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy, at the Crater Battlefield in Petersburg, and Civil War scholars have treated Mahone’s military career with respect. There is an able biography. The problems posed by William Mahone for many Virginians in the past — and what makes it worthwhile for us to think about him in the present — lie in his postwar career. Senator William Mahone was one of the most maligned political leaders in post-Civil War America. He was also one of the most capable. Compared to the Roman traitor Cataline (by Virginia Democrats), to Moses (by African American congressman John Mercer Langston), and to Napoleon (by himself), Mahone organized and led the most successful interracial political alliance in the post-emancipation South. Mahone’s Readjuster Party, an independent coalition of black and white Republicans and white Democrats that was named for its policy of downwardly “readjusting” Virginia’s state debt, governed the state from 1879 to 1883. During this period, a Readjuster governor occupied the statehouse, two Readjusters represented Virginia in the United States Senate, and Readjusters represented six of Virginia’s ten congressional districts. Under Mahone’s leadership, his coalition controlled the state legislature and the courts, and held and distributed the state’s many coveted federal offices. A black-majority party, the Readjusters legitimated and promoted African American citizenship and political power by supporting black suffrage, office-holding, and jury service. To a degree previously unseen in Virginia, and unmatched anywhere else in the nineteenth-century South, the Readjusters became an institutional force for the protection and advancement of black rights and interests. At the state level, the Readjusters separated payment of the school tax from the suffrage, thereby enfranchising thousands of Virginia’s poorest voters. They restored and reinvigorated public education in the state, and they lowered real estate and personal property taxes. They banned the chain gang and the whipping post. At the municipal level, Readjuster governments paved streets, added sidewalks, and modernized water systems. The Readjusters lost power in 1883 through a Democratic campaign of violence, electoral fraud, and appeals to white solidarity. While Democrats suppressed progressive politics in the state, other groups of elite white Virginians worked fast to eradicate the memory of Virginia’s experiment in interracial democracy. These were mutually reinforcing projects. Convinced that black enfranchisement was “the greatest curse that ever befell this country,” members of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), founded in 1889, equated the Readjuster’ rule with “mobocracy” and called for radical pruning of the electorate. After 1900, William Mahone was characterized by whites in Virginia as a demagogic race traitor with autocratic tendencies. This representation was so powerful that as late as the 1940s the worst charge that could be brought against an anti-Democratic opposition candidate was that he had been associated with Mahone and the Readjusters. Black Virginians remembered things rather differently. In 1922, Luther Porter Jackson, a historian educated at Fisk and the University of Chicago, joined the faculty at Virginia State College, a black college founded by the Readjusters in 1882. Prescribing a combination of nonpartisan political organization and African American memory to combat white supremacy, in 1945 Jackson published Negro Officeholders in Virginia, 1865-1895 in an effort to inspire black Virginians to recall their power in the past and to regain the political influence they had wielded before Jim Crow.
This post has been updated with additional information on Zumwalt’s casualty and repair schedule. USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) is pier side following an engineering casualty the ship suffered transiting the Panama Canal, U.S. Navy officials told USNI News on Monday. The guided missile destroyer will undergo repairs at a former U.S. naval station until its fit to complete its journey to Naval Station San Diego, Calif., U.S. 3rd Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Ryan Perry told USNI News. The ship was in the midst of a southbound transit through the canal when it suffered the casualty, Under orders from U.S. 3rd Fleet commander Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, Zumwalt is now stopped for repairs at the former U.S. Naval Station Rodman, he said. “The timeline for repairs is being determined now, in direct coordination with Naval Sea Systems and Naval Surface Forces,” he said. “The schedule for the ship will remain flexible to enable testing and evaluation in order to ensure the ship’s safe transit to her new homeport in San Diego.” A defense official told USNI News on Tuesday the repairs could take up to ten days. The ship lost propulsion in its port shaft during the transit and the crew saw water intrusion in two of the four bearings that connect to Zumwalt’s port and starboard Advanced Induction Motors (AIMs) to the drive shafts, a defense official told USNI News on Tuesday. The AIMs are the massive electrical motors that are driven by the ship’s gas turbines and in turn electrically power the ship’s systems and drive the shafts. Both of the shafts locked during the passage and the transit had to be completed with tugs. The ship made minor contact with lock walls in the canal resulting in minor cosmetic damage. Following the transit, the Navy determined the ship couldn’t continue to its new homeport at Naval Station San Diego without additional repairs. The latest casualty follows an incident in September following the ship’s transit from shipbuilder General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Maine to Naval Station Norfolk, Va. in which the crew discovered “a seawater leak in the propulsion motor drive lube oil auxiliary system for one of the ship’s shafts,” the Navy told USNI News at the time. A service official told USNI News the most recent incident is similar. The service has narrowed down the likely problem to lube oil coolers leaking. The service replaced all four lube oil coolers following the September casualty. Following its Oct. 15 commissioning, Zumwalt suffered additional unspecified engineering trouble around the time arrived at Naval Station Mayport, Fla. and spent extra time repairing and testing the propulsion system, USNI News understands. Zumwalt entered the Panama Canal following a successful port visit to Colombia last week – a visit which the service intended to skip if it thought the engineering problems would continue, several defense officials told USNI News. The ship’s engineering plant – the Integrated Power System (IPS) – is arguably the most complex and unique in the service. Installing and testing the system — that provides ship additional power margins to power high energy weapons and sensors — was a primary reason the ship delivered months late to the service. Before the casualty, the ship was set to arrive in San Diego by the end of the year and start weapon system activation period before joining the fleet as an operational warship sometime in 2018. Zumwalt is the first of three in the $22-billion class. Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) and Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) are currently under construction at BIW.
Kim "Emperor" Jin-hyun has returned home to South Korea as he has been acquired by Longzhu Gaming, the organization announced Wednesday. The Korean AD Carry joined G2 Esports on Dec. 30, and he leaves the EU LCS after their dominant spring season was largely sullied by their poor performance at the 2016 Mid-Season Invitational. G2 finished in first place in the 2016 EU LCS Spring Split regular, and held onto the first place spot after beating Origen 3-1 in the playoff finals, however their momentum faltered at MSI. G2 exited the group stage with a poor 2-8 record and were eliminated from the tournament along with the TCL Wild Card team SuperMassive eSports. SuperMassive was also the only team that G2 won games against at MSI. Their poor showing also cost Europe the region's first seed status at the World Championship in the fall. Emperor's transfer from South Korea actually began when he was traded by CJ Entus Blaze to play for the Brazilian CBLoL squad Keyd Stars, along with his former teammate Kang "DayDream" Kyung-min. Emperor then moved on to the NA LCS for the 2015 Summer Split to play for Team Dragon Knights, but after a slew of visa issues, he was only able to play from Week 5 onward. Due to poor performances during the season, TDK were relegated to the NA Challenger Series. After that, Emperor joined G2. During the 2016 EU LCS Spring Playoffs, Emperor averaged a 4.63 KDA over eight games and his best champion was Kalista. He played the champion in two games, won both and averaged a crazy 18.0 KDA.
In the aftermath of the tragic terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 where 130 people were killed, and the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq involving the so called ‘Islamic State’ group, the debate surrounding Islam and reformation has resurfaced once again. In light of this, on Friday 26th February 2016 in London, iERA will be holding its fourth ‘Don’t Hate, Debate!’ event entitled, ‘The Big Question: Does Islam Need A Reformation?’ For some years now, there has been an ongoing discussion amongst British politicians, academics and think-tanks regarding the reformation of Islam. From a Muslim perspective, the main textual sources of Islam are considered timeless, and this is evident in how numerous Islamic civilisations had the ability to address new realities, without tampering the Qur’an or altering the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). This theme and more will be debated by a panel of experts in London on Friday 26th February 2016, whose opinions on the subject matter have shaped the current debate. The debate will be chaired by journalist and broadcaster, Lauren Booth, and she will be joined by: • Tom Holland – Historian • Dr Taj Hargey – Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford • Zara Huda Faris – Muslim Debate Initiative • Theo Hobson – Journalist and theologian • Safaruk Chowdhury – Theologian • Abdullah al Andalusi – Muslim Debate Initiative The debate will take place in central London, and will be within walking distance of the Bakerloo, Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan, Northern and Victoria lines. Doors open 7PM. Debate starts 7:30PM
Trans or Gender Non-Conforming With HIV? You Can Finally Be Heard Are you T+ (poz trans or gender non-conforming)? It's time to share your experiences in the confidential national survey by Positively Trans. The first-of-its-kind study seeks to determine the obstacles to care faced by trans people living with HIV. “As transgender people living with HIV/AIDS, we are capable of forming our own network, telling our own stories, and developing our own strategies for advocacy,” said Cecilia Chung about Positively Trans and its community-driven survey. Chung chairs the Sero Project board of directors and is a senior strategist at the Transgender Law Center, which sponored the survey. The Positively Trans survey is a groundbreaking community-led needs assessment focusing on poz transgender men and women, and gender non-conforming people living in the U.S.. “This survey is a groundbreaking opportunity to not only highlight our needs, but also our resilience when there aren't resources available,” Chung added. As Plus magazine has previously reported, trans women have some of the highest rates of HIV infection, yet too few comprehensive studies have examined the needs of the transgender community. Positively Trans was developed as “a response to the structural inequalities that drive the high rate of HIV/AIDS and poor health outcomes for transgender people, especially transgender women of color,” noted Transgender Law Center in a press release. The survey offers trans people living with HIV a safe and anonymous forum to share their experiences with discrimination, violence, and other barriers to health care, housing, employment, relationships, and community inclusion. “This survey is for us and will not be done without us,” said another Positively Trans board member, Tiommie Luckett from Arkansas. “Every trans woman and man living with HIV should fill out this survey because we need people to know that we’re here, and that we can develop our own solutions and strategies to take care of ourselves.” Positively Trans is supported by the Elton John AIDS Foundation. The survey’s findings, will be released in October, and may ultimately inform policy and program recommendations, prioritization of needs, strategic planning and advocacy efforts. You can take the Positively Trans survey, in English or Spanish, here. Positively Trans should not be confused with the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey sponsored by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE). The largest survey ever devoted to the lives and experiences of trans people, the NCTE survey is a follow-up to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, the results of which served as the basis for the troubling 2011 report on trans discrimination, Injustice At Every Turn. While the Positively Trans survey is open now, the NCTE survey opens up on August 19th. As these surveys may influence how future resources are allocated, all trans and gender nonconforming individuals are strongly encouraged to fill them out.
THE notion that money can't buy happiness is popular, especially among Europeans who believe that growth-oriented free-market economies have got it wrong. They drew comfort from the work of Richard Easterlin, professor of economics at the University of Southern California, who trawled through the data in the 1970s and observed only a loose correlation between money and happiness. Although income and well-being were closely correlated within countries, there seemed to be little relationship between the two when measured over time or between countries. This became known as the “Easterlin paradox”. Mr Easterlin suggested that well-being depended not on absolute, but on relative, income: people feel miserable not because they are poor, but because they are at the bottom of the particular pile in which they find themselves. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. But more recent work—especially by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of the University of Pennsylvania—suggests that while the evidence for a correlation between income and happiness over time remains weak, that for a correlation between countries is strong. According to Mr Wolfers, the correlation was unclear in the past because of a paucity of data. There is, he says, “a tendency to confuse absence of evidence for a proposition as evidence of its absence”. There are now data on the effect of income on well-being almost everywhere in the world. In some countries (South Africa and Russia, for instance) the correlation is closer than in others (like Britain and Japan) but it is visible everywhere. The variation in life satisfaction between countries is huge (see chart). Countries at the top of the league (all of them developed) score up to eight out of ten; countries at the bottom (mostly African, but with Haiti and Iraq putting in a sad, but not surprising, appearance) score as low as three. Although richer countries are clearly happier, the correlation is not perfect, which suggests that other, presumably cultural, factors are at work. Western Europeans and North Americans bunch pretty closely together, though there are some anomalies, such as the surprisingly gloomy Portuguese. Asians tend to be somewhat less happy than their income would suggest, and Scandinavians a little more so. Hong Kong and Denmark, for instance, have similar income per person, at purchasing-power parity; but Hong Kong's average life satisfaction is 5.5 on a 10-point scale, and Denmark's is 8. Latin Americans are cheerful, the ex-Soviet Union spectacularly miserable, and the saddest place in the world, relative to its income per person, is Bulgaria.
Land clearing is on the rise in Queensland and New South Wales, with land clearing laws being fiercely debated. In Queensland in 2013–14, 278,000 hectares of native vegetation were cleared (1.2 times the size of the Australian Capital Territory). A further 296,000ha were cleared in 2014–15. These are the highest rates of deforestation in the developed world. Land clearing on this scale is bad for a whole host of reasons. But our research shows that it is also likely to make parts of Australia warmer and drier, adding to the effects of climate change. How do trees change the climate? Land clearing releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but the effect of land clearing on climate goes well beyond carbon emissions. It causes warming locally, regionally and even globally, and it changes rainfall by altering the circulation of heat and moisture. Trees evaporate more water than any other vegetation type – up to 10 times more than crops and pastures. This is because trees have root systems that can access moisture deep within the soil. Crops and pastures have 70% of their roots in the top 30cm of the soil, while trees and other woody plants have 43% of their roots in the deeper part of the soil. The increased evaporation and rough surface of trees creates moist, turbulent layers in the lower atmosphere. This reduces temperatures and contributes to cloud formation and increased rainfall. The increased rainfall then provides more moisture to soils and vegetation. The clearing of deep-rooted native vegetation for shallow-rooted crops and pastures diminishes this process, resulting in a warmer and drier climate. We can see this process at work along the “bunny fence” in southwest Western Australia, where there is a moister atmosphere and more clouds over native vegetation compared with nearby farming areas during summer. Studies in Amazonia also indicate that as deforestation expands rainfall declines. A tipping point may be reached when deforestation reaches 30-50%, after which rainfall is substantially reduced. Complete deforestation results in the greatest decline in rainfall. More trees, cooler moister climate We wanted to know how land clearing could affect Australia’s climate in the future. We did this by modelling two scenarios for different amounts of land clearing, using models developed by CSIRO. In the first scenario, crops and pasture expand in the semi-arid regions of eastern and southwest Australia. The second scenario limits crops and pastures to highly productive lands, and partially restores less productive lands to savanna woodlands. We found that restoring trees to parts of Australia would reduce surface temperatures by up to 1.6℃, especially in western Queensland and NSW. We also found that more trees reduced the overall climate-induced warming from 4.1℃ to 3.2℃ between 2050 and 2100. Replanting trees could increase summer rainfall by 10% overall and by up to 15.2% in the southwest. We found soil moisture would increase by around 20% in replanted regions. Our study doesn’t mean replanting all farmed land with trees, just areas that are less productive and less cost-effective to farm intensively. In our scenario, the areas that are restored in western Queensland and NSW would need a tree density of around 40%, which would allow a grassy understorey to be maintained. This would allow some production to continue such as cattle grazing at lower numbers or carbon farming. Political and social challenges Limiting land clearing represents a major challenge for Australia’s policymakers and farming communities. The growing pressure to clear reflects a narrow economic focus on achieving short- to medium-term returns by expanding agriculture to meet the growing global demand for food and fibre. However, temperatures are already increasing and rainfall is decreasing over large areas of eastern and southwest Australia. Tree clearing coupled with climate change will make growing crops and raising livestock even harder. Balancing farming with managing climate change would give land owners on marginal land new options for income generation, while the most efficient agricultural land would remain in production. This would need a combination of regulation and long-term financial incentives. The climate benefits of limiting land clearing must play a bigger part in land management as Australia’s climate becomes hotter and drier. Remnant vegetation needs to be conserved and extensive areas of regrowth must be allowed to regenerate. And where regeneration is not possible, we’ll have to plant large numbers of trees.
Another Marvel movie rumor has been unleashed on the internet. It's interesting to see how these things start, especially when there are no real sources to the information, but it doesn't mean they aren't true, and this is one of those rumors I'd love to be true! The latest rumor originated at The Playlist who claims that Doctor Stephen Strange will play a role in Alan Taylor's Thor: The Dark World. It's not the most far out rumor, but one I would take with a grain of salt until some more proof comes to light. I will say, out of all the rumors though, this is by far my favorite because I freakin' love Dr. Strange and would love to see him finally introduced in the Marvel movie universe! So how would the character fit into the story? He would be working alongside Natalie Portman’s character Jane Foster, much like she did with Stellan Skarsgård’s Dr. Erik Selvig in Thor. In the comics Strange in a badass neurosurgeon, but according to the rumor in this film he will play a scientist who's very interested in Foster's knowledge about Asgard and Thor. They also make a point of saying this isn't just a cameo appearance, but that he will play a big part in all three acts of the movie. I would love for this rumor to be true! Either way, we all know a Dr. Strange movie is going to eventually to happen. It will be interesting to see who they end up casting in the role. According to the site, the studio originally wanted Joel Edgarton (The Warrior) in the role, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen because of how busy he is. Another casting rumor that is being talked about is that Viggo Mortensen (LOTR) was in negotiations at one point to have a role in Marvel's Phase Two plan. There's a chance that the role he was in the running for was Dr. Strange. Again this is all just fun rumor and speculation for now. We know for a fact that Marvel plans on bringing Dr. Strange to life on the big screen, that's going to happen. It's just a matter of how and when that will happen. What do you think about this this latest Dr. Strange Rumor?
Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra, already in the eye of a political storm for his dubious land deals, has since March 2011 stopped filing mandatory annual returns or financial statements with the ministry of corporate affairs of all the 13 companies he owns. The reason? He may have panicked as his "business model and land deals" have raked in huge controversy and the BJP has been gunning for him during the election campaign. In March 2011, a controversy had erupted over Vadra using DLF money to buy land in Haryana and for his bulk purchase of desert land in Rajasthan. He had disclosed both the facts – DLF's unsecured loans and bulk land purchase – in his financial statements submitted to the ministry till March 2011. However, since then, Vadra has not been filing financial statements. dna checked the records of Vadra's 13 companies available with the corporate affairs ministry and found that he had not been filing financial statements of seven companies for the past two years. In the case of the remaining six companies, Vadra incorporated them in a span of three months (July to August 2012) and did not submit information about their financial deals. All six companies have some 'Agro' link and have most probably been raised to buy rural land, sources said. Interestingly, his wife Priyanka Gandhi, who staunchly defended Vadra recently, had helped him incorporate one of the companies - Blue Breeze Trading Private Limited - in November 2007. Priyanka, however, gave up her directorship in the company within eight months of its incorporation; her mother-in-law Maureen Vadra then moved in as director. Blue Breeze is filing its annual returns. As per the ministry of corporate affairs rules, Vadra has defaulted for two consecutive years and if he does not file the returns for the third year in succession, the ministry may take action against him and all the companies where he is one of the directors. The action ranges from a minimum fine of Rs50,000 or Rs5,000 per day till the financial statement is filed. The minimum fine is levied only if the company has justifiable reasons for not filing the returns, ministry sources said. "Robert Vadra's act is not so much driven by the fear of the ministry's action. He can handle that by paying hefty fine. The fear of further exposure of his business or land deals in the media has perhaps stopped him from making his financial statements public," a senior ministry official said. Vadra does not want any further leak of his future or ongoing business plans. Four of Vadra's companies -- North India IT Parks Private Limited, Real Earth Estates Private Limited, Sky Light Realty Private Limited, Sky Light Hospitality Private Limited - are under the scanner for land deals in Rajasthan, where he has reportedly bought several thousand acres of land at throwaway prices. The value of the land shot up drastically as eight months after the deals, the ministry of non-conventional and renewable energy announced the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission Policy under which huge subsidies were offered for setting up grid tight solar plants. The BJP government in the state ordered a probe which would be expedited after Lok Sabha elections. Vadra's six new companies are apparently all Agro-based and may be dealing in land transactions and agricultural technology, as the names suggest, in the absence of any financial details or returns. None of these companies has filed annual returns or balance sheets since inception. Sources in the revenue intelligence disclosed that many companies have opted for not filing their financial statements for years in the past. Their investigations reveal that such companies primarily indulge in handling their black money. "They raise black money from one company and route it to other companies. Once they settle their finances, they start rolling out financial statements,'' said a revenue intelligence source. Another possibility in Vadra's case could be that he is winding up some of his companies which were embroiled in controversy. "He may cite bad financial health of these companies and can opt for Fast Track Exit through the ministry of corporate affairs,'' the source said. "Many companies wind up their old companies on financial grounds and route their money into new companies." In three months in 2012, Vadra floated six new companies, but their details are so bare that one can only risk to speculate.
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Batman trilogy has made Batman more popular that he has ever been. Hot Toys has already made quite a few different variations of The Dark Knight, but their fans just can’t get enough of him. Seen in the preview from last year, the Hot Toys Batman Armory was destined to be coming at some point. The newly launched Hot Toys Batman Armory comes in 3 different variations, to fit your sixth scale collecting needs. In The Dark Knight movie, Batman uses his specialized state of the art armory to store all of his high-tech weapons and gadgets. Hot Toys has meticulously recreated that same armory, in 1/6th scale. If features a 12 inch Batman collectible figure with the Parallel Eyeball Rolling System (PERS) and four newly sculpted interchangeable expressions, and a large collection of finely sculpted weapons and accessories. Pre-Order the Batman Armory (with Batman Collectible figure) at Sideshow Collectibles now! The second variation of the Batman Armory includes Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s butler in the movie. He is based on the image of Sir Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth in the movie, highlighting the newly developed head sculpt, and an impressively tailored costume. Pre-Order the Batman Armory with Alfred Pennyworth at Sideshow Collectibles now! The third and final variation of the Batman Armory set from Hot Toys has Alfred Pennyworth and Bruce Wayne sixth scale figures. The Bruce Wayne figure is based on the image of Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight, highlighting the newly painted head sculpt and a finely tailored costume with striking details. Pre-Order the Batman Armory with Alfred Pennyworth and Bruce Wayne at Sideshow Collectibles now! Until now, 12 inch action figure collectors were forced to make customs action figures of both Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth. With the latest Hot Toys announcement, many collectors are going to be trying to sell their customs to get their hands on the newly revealed Hot Toys versions, which will be available to collectors in Q2-Q3 of 2014. The 1/6th scale Batman Armory (with Batman Collectible Figure) Collectible specially features: Authentically detailed 1/6th scale Batman Armory in The Dark Knight Approximately 37 cm tall Movable armory doors Movable armory shelves Light-up function on armory ceiling with remote control Costume: One (1) Batman head with patented Parallel Eyeball Rolling System (PERS) and four (4) newly sculpted interchangeable lower part of faces capturing his classic facial expressions One (1) complex Batman body featuring fabric material covered with armor One (1) Batsuit collar One (1) black cape One (1) pair of black boots Six (6) pieces of interchangeable gloved palms including: One (1) pair of fists One (1) pair of relaxed palms One (1) left open palm One (1) right palm for holding batarang Weapons: One (1) surudoi saw One (1) nunchuck One (1) cutter Two (2) smoke bombs Three (3) sticky-bomb guns Three (3) grappling guns Three (3) Batarangs for attaching to utility belt Four (4) mini mines Six (6) ninja spikes Eight (8) Batarangs Accessories: One (1) set of wire One (1) antidote injector One (1) drill One (1) set of drill bits One (1) big hook Two (2) holders for Batarangs attachable to utility belt Three (3) utility belts Three (3) gun holders Three (3) holders attachable to utility belt Four (4) hooks Five (5) sets of grappling gun clips Fourteen (14) mini canisters Fifteen (15) pouches Twenty seven (27) rounds of ammo Armory stand with the movie logo The 1/6th scale Bruce Wayne Collectible Figure’s special features: Newly painted head sculpt with authentic and detailed fully realized likeness of Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Movie-accurate facial features with detailed wrinkles and skin texture Approximately 30 cm tall Body with over 30 points of articulations Seven (7) pieces of interchangeable palms including: One (1) pair of fists One (1) pair of relaxed palms One (1) pair of holding palms One (1) right palm for holding batarang Each piece of head sculpt is specially hand-painted Costume: One (1) light blue shirt One (1) dark red tie One (1) black pinstripe vest One (1) black pinstripe blazer One (1) pair of black pinstripe pants One (1) pair of black shoes Accessory: Figure stand with Bruce Wayne nameplate and the movie logo The 1/6th scale Alfred Pennyworth Collectible Figure’s special features: Authentic and detailed fully realized likeness of Sir Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth in The Dark Knight Movie-accurate facial features with detailed wrinkles and skin texture Approximately 30 cm tall Body with over 30 points of articulations Seven (7) pieces of interchangeable palms including: One (1) pair of fists One (1) pair of relaxed palms One (1) pair of holding palms One (1) right palm for holding batarang Each piece of head sculpt is specially hand-painted Costume: One (1) white shirt One (1) red tie One (1) black vest One (1) black blazer One (1) black coat One (1) pair of black pants One (1) pair of black shoes Accessory: Figure stand with Alfred Pennyworth nameplate and the movie logo Release date: Q2-Q3, 2014
December 19, 2012 SHERIFF'S DEPUTIES, accompanied by Jak Marquez, a lawyer for foreclosure vulture DMG Asset Management, knocked on the bedroom door of Larry Faulks on December 13 at 7 a.m. to evict him from the San Francisco home where he's lived since the age of 9--for the past 50 years. Larry, who has been fighting to save his family home since 2010, is just one of 27 San Francisco homeowners who are calling themselves the "Wells 27" since they joined with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) to fight Wells Fargo for their homes after having been denied loan modifications. Larry's struggle began in 2010 when an illness and a failed surgery left him too disabled to continue working as a technical writer. He filled out multiple applications for a loan modification, but received no satisfaction. "The bank lost document after document, and then claimed I never sent them, and forced me to repeatedly start over," Larry told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this month. Instead of working out a solution that would allow Larry to stay in his home affordably, Wells sold it at auction to DMG Asset Management, an investment company that has bought at least nine residential San Francisco properties in foreclosure and invested in at least 15 foreclosed properties outside of San Francisco. Larry Faulks (second from right) and anti-eviction activists rally outside his home Several months ago, Larry joined ACCE and Occupy Noe to protest both DMG Asset Management and Wells Fargo, demanding that they rescind the sale of his home so that his loan with Wells could be reinstated and modified. ACCE and Occupy Noe led protests and sent e-mail alerts demanding justice for Larry, but he was finally evicted on Thursday, December 13. About 30 people showed up to defend his home the day before, since Wednesday is the day of the week San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi's office generally carries out evictions. But perhaps in order to avoid publicity, the deputies came the following morning. This is the face of the foreclosure crisis, even in "progressive" San Francisco. LARRY'S IS the face of the foreclosure crisis in another way, too. It exemplifies the racism at the heart of the displacement of African American residents of San Francisco. When the Faulks family bought the home in the now-affluent neighborhood of Diamond Heights in 1962, they were the first African American family to own a home there. They bought the home brand new from builder Joe Eichler, Larry says, "because...Eichler was the only builder at the time who would sell to Black families." Now, unless Larry can win back his home, Wells and DMG's drive to maximize their profits at the expense of human needs will drive Larry from the still-predominately white Diamond Heights neighborhood, and perhaps from San Francisco, where rents have skyrocketed over the past several years. So-called market forces--really the individual decisions of countless banks, investors and real estate developers--have driven tens of thousands of African American residents from San Francisco over the past several decades. While African Americans comprised 12.7 percent of the city's population in 1980, according to the 2010 census, only 6.1 percent of the population is now Black. Of the major banks, Wells Fargo is perhaps the worst offender in this regard. Last July, Wells settled for $175 million with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for racially discriminatory lending practices. The DOJ charged that Wells Fargo steered African American and Latino lenders into more expensive subprime mortgages. As Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole said upon announcing the second largest fair lending settlement in the history of the DOJ, "Systematic discrimination...resulted in more than 34,000 African American and Hispanic wholesale borrowers paying an increased rate for loans simply due to the color of their skin--including approximately 4,000 African American and Hispanic wholesale borrowers who were steered into subprime mortgages." One of the Wells Fargo branches cited by the Department of Justice for discriminatory practices is in San Francisco's predominantly African American Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. Because of this, it became the site of protest when as many as 60 people rallied there December 6 to demand justice for the Wells 27 as part of a national day of action on the anniversary of the formation of Occupy Our Homes, a national network of local groups protesting foreclosures and evictions. Among the protesters were dozens of homeowners either currently facing foreclosure, or who fought foreclosure previously and won. About 30 people, led by ACCE but joined by groups such as Occupy Bernal and Occupy San Francisco Direct Action Working Group, took over the bank branch for 45 minutes, picketing and chanting inside, while about 30 people rallied outside. Chants included "Racist lending is a crime. John Stumpf should be doing time," in reference to Wells CEO John Stumpf. PROTESTERS STATEWIDE demanded that Wells Fargo offer a real principal reduction program to homeowners, which would allow them to reduce their debts enough to stay in their home affordably. Through the Keep Your Homes California program, the state makes $1.7 billion available for just this purpose, but Wells refuses to use the money. Instead, they have been forcing homeowners into short sales, the term for selling a home for less than the value of the loan. Worse still, Wells has been able to count these short sales as "homeowner relief" under the terms of last February's $25 billion national mortgage settlement, which the big banks were forced to sign because they were found to have robo-signed scores of documents leading to countless foreclosures. Of the "relief" Wells Fargo has offered to homeowners under the settlement since March, half of it--amounting to more than $1.2 billion--has come from short sales. Unfortunately, Wells is far from unique in this regard. Of the $20 billion in "relief" the "big five" banks that were part of the settlement have offered homeowners, 49 percent has gone to forgive debts in short sales. This means that the end result for a homeowner is the same as in a foreclosure--a lost home. With this in mind, the theme of the December 6 protest was "Don't sell homeowners short." Following the bank occupation, foreclosure fighters emerged to hold a press conference outside the branch. Bernetta Adolph, a 66-year-old cancer survivor who is scheduled to be evicted in March from her home in the Lakeview neighborhood, was among the speakers. Bernetta defaulted on a predatory pick-a-pay loan, just one of the many bad financial instruments lending institutions offered to homeowners during the housing boom, and then she was foreclosed on. Pick-a-pay loans involve a structure in which borrowers could accept one of several payment options. Accepting a lower payment meant that the loan balance would increase, and monthly payments would start to balloon. Homeowners were deceived into accepting loans on these terms, and these types of loans led to scores of foreclosures. Bernetta, who recently recovered from two eye operations that brought her back from blindness, lives on social security and a fixed annuity. "I'm not only here for myself, but for all the other people who had predatory loans. And they weren't only predatory. They're racist," she said. "But we're not going anywhere. We're fighting to stay in our homes."
The strangest item in the Liberal Party of Canada's new platform for democratic and governmental renewal is plank No. 26 of 32: "Save Home Mail Delivery." Then again, maybe it's not so hard to explain. This is, after all, an election year. The name of the game is winning votes, and this issue surely polls well with a key voting group. And so, however relevant it isn't, there Canada Post is. The platform Justin Trudeau unveiled on Tuesday may be titled Real Change, but it has been built with more than a little timber recycled from Old Politics. And for all of that, it contains some good ideas, whose adoption would make Canada a better, and better governed, place. But mixed in are more than a few ideas that are half-baked, hastily trotted out to fend off an NDP surge, and read more like marketing slogans than considered proposals for running the country. Let's start with what's good in the Liberal plan. Story continues below advertisement The Liberals promise more independence for government watchdogs such as the Parliamentary Budget Officer. They promise to make Question Period more relevant and useful by introducing the British practice of Prime Minister's Question Period – the PM will have to stand and answer. They promise ongoing parliamentary oversight of Canada's national security agencies – an amendment to Bill C-51, which they voted for while simultaneously promising to change if elected. They promise that there will be more free votes in the House of Commons, though the conditions under which these will happen are unclear. (Liberal MPs will not be free on any issue touching on "the shared values embodied in the Charter of Rights," which is about as vague and wide as can be.) And they'll further empower MPs by making parliamentary committees more independent of the prime minister and better funded. Also good: a promise to repeal the "anti-democratic elements" of the Conservative government's Fair Elections Act and scrap the Citizen Voting Act, both of which make it more difficult for some citizens to vote. Sections of the Fair Elections Act limiting and muzzling Elections Canada and the Chief Electoral Officer will also be repealed. The parties' pre-election spending, which thanks to a loophole is now unlimited, will be limited. What's more, the Liberals promise to pass legislation preventing the government of the day from using public money to fund what are effectively political ads – a long-standing Conservative government practice. The fact that the Liberal government of Ontario is currently undoing its own legislation banning partisan government advertising, the better to compete with the federal Tories, only proves just how effective such a law can be. The Access to Information Act will be brought into the 21st century so that almost all government data is available online, by default, rather than forcing Canadians to go through a cumbersome, ancient application process. It's an idea we've long supported. The same goes for bringing back the long-form census. Doing away with it was the equivalent of putting out the eyes of policy-makers and researchers. And then there are the promises that don't quite cut it. A promise that future cabinets will have an equal number of men and women is exactly one sentence long. Nice slogan. How exactly will it work? Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement And that marketing-slogan-as-platform is followed by this: "We will also adopt a federal government-wide open and merit-based appointments process, which will ensure gender parity and that more Indigenous Peoples and minority groups are reflected in positions of leadership." Did anyone in the party consider that the first part of that sentence sits uncomfortably with the second half? Or is this just the flip side of the Conservative Party's wedge-issue campaigning, where the goal is to put out markers and dare the other side to criticize you? And then there's this: "Ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system." The Liberals promise, if elected, to create a "national engagment process" and to remake our entire democratic system within 18 months. Will they bring in proportional representation? Ranked ballots? Mandatory voting? The Liberals promise a revolution, details to be determined. Before jumping into the unknown, it's worth remembering that Canada is one of history's most successful political projects. This place, warts and all, is a miracle – a remarkably enduring one. It needs to work better in a million small ways, but a total overhaul of the political system is a different matter. Which may explain why, faced with referendums on changing the voting system, voters in Ontario, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia all came down against the idea. Many of Mr. Trudeau's smart, modest proposals are to be embraced. This big one? Approach with caution.
A "dead fairy", a "mutant cucumber", or a pint of sun-dried bees are some of the weirdest items currently for sale on auction site eBay. You are forced to wonder why anybody would actually want to buy some of this stuff. A couple of months ago, I stopped in at a yard sale and came across this strange little creature. The apparent mummified corpse of a fairy being - or some kind of demon offspring (?) - this specimen is surreal to be around. My cat continually tries to get at the diminutive cadaver through the jar; and the thing just generally unnerves people whom have been in its admittedly creepy presence. It does have a definite Black Magick, otherworldly, Voodoo feel about it. In my opinion, the faint of heart are better off not having this thing around them. 2. Halloween prop female dismembered You are bidding on what was "originally" a Real Doll. Never was "used", used only for display. Now, being made available, as a PREMIER, Halloween prop. Made of top grade silicone material. I could only imagine what could be done with this item, from a person with a creative imagination. Amazingly, the life like feeling of the flesh is truly, something to behold. You won’t be disappointed in the realistic touch. 3. Petrified dead frog (not sure how it died) Well, I know this is kinda freakish, but this is not my idea you see. I found this dead frog that apears to be petrified in some way behind my couch when I was vacuuming one day. You can imagine my suprise. Actually, I just freaked! First, I thought It was a huge dead bug from a distance. So, I went to grab a paper towel to pick it up and just throw it away. I came back, got down there, and I noticed what looked like a tiny backbone showing through skin. Upon closer invetigation, I realized that this weird-looking object was a frog at one point. It's kind of sad. You can see the position he died. Just sitting there, back legs bent just like a frog does. I don't know what killed him or why. I just found it. I don't want to keep this, but I really can't see throwing it away when it is so interesting to look at. I mentioned it to my mom, and she knows I have been trying my hand at reselling things on ebay. So, she said why don't you try to sell it? So there you go! Here's your petrified frog. I will start the bidding at what I estimate it will cost to list and ship it. Thanks for listening to me jabber. Enjoy your dead Frog! 4. Silicon rubber tapeless foreskin tugger If you're circumcised, chances are you have no idea what you're missing. The foreskin you were born with was meant to protect your glans, keeping it supple and sensitive. Now you can get back some of the sensation that was taken from you. 200,000 men are restoring their foreskins. 5. 1 Pint sun dried California bees, Yellowjackets Here we have a full pint of organically grown Yellowjacket bees. Sun dried and ready for your creative use! 6. Face in chocolate chip cookie I baked some choc chip cookies and when I took a tray out of the oven this one was looking up at me. 7. My medicinal nipple hair I know it sounds crazy but you be the judge!!!!! I plucked out one of my nipple hairs just for fun the other day and when I touched it to a cut I had...two weeks later the cut healed!! What? You Say...I said that too but OMG(for you texters out there)...it really works!!! Here's what you do: scotch tape my nipple hair to the area that's hurt like if you have a cut or a broken leg( now if it's a broken bone the nipple hair may take a few months to help you but it's still worth a shot!!! Once the nipple hair has done it's job(leave it scotch taped to your boo-boo until your boo-boo heals) pass it on to a friend. You get one of my medicinal nipple hairs per price listed so hurry before they're all gone. Don't worry I'll use both nipples! 8. Mutant cucumber - must see - words fail me! Be the first and only person on your block to own this item! 100% ORGANIC! Words cannot describe this item! I've seen worm's disguised as plants, but never a plant that looks like a caterpillar! This is a must have for any collection! Preserve it and keep it forever! Amaze friends with this unique item! Wonderful conversation starter! Hurry! This is only listed for a short while, as it is currently perishable! 9. Yelling services - call me to just yell your heart out Hey My Name Is Justin Vames And I'm Looking At All The Ways I Can Earn Money For College. So You Know Or Remember The Times You Were So Mad And Just Need Someone To Yell Or Curse At? Well Here It Is, The Chance To Just Pickup The Phone And Yell Your Heart Out, (Included Are The Optional Talk Back Mode For Free), I Am Trying To Earn Up Money For James Madison University Next Year And Thought This Would Be A Great Service For The Public, And Myself. So What Are You Waiting For, I Will Give The Highest Bidder A Ten Minute Session, And A Optional Talk About Your Problem For Free. The Highest Bidder Will Be Messaged Through eBay, The Way You Can Contact Me, Fast And Easy. Good Luck And Happy Bidding's! 10. Really Weird Unique iMac Computer Cage for Hamsters Up for auction is a one of a kind very unique iMac rodent cage, handmade by ak_drummer. Made from the shell of a blue iMac with all the guts removed. Comes with the keyboard and mouse shown, no idea if they work or not. Everything is safe, I put my own hamster in there for a while just to get a good laugh and sense of accomplishment. Nothing toxic was used in constructing of the cage, nothing is poking out. It is more for ascetic purposes then an actual cage. HOWEVER the best rodent suited for the cage would be a hamster due to the fact that they do not chew as veraciously as mice, gerbils, and rats. WOULD NOT recommend a rat being in this cage as they can more then likely just chew through the cage front, let along the thin plastic in back.
Hi I'm Caleb Thompson (@calebthompson on Twitter, feel free to @ me for questions or email me). I'd like to ask you some pretty personal, socially inappropriate questions about who you are and how much money you make. Except for base annual salary, all of these answers are optional. The idea behind the others, which I'll admit are not ones I'd ask to your face, is to get the answer to "How does my salary or job offer compare to the salaries of everyone who answered? How does it compare to people like me, based on the answers I provide?" To visualize these answers, I'll create salary distribution charts like this one for various answers: All Respondents to Stack Overflow Salary Survey Respondents from the United States Comparison of Cis-Male and Cis-Female Respondents in the US None of this data will be available except in aggregate, such as in the graphs above. Some of it, such as email address, will not be made public at all but is so I can contact you about the survey later, to let you know when results are available. While I may at some point provide a way for you to opt into sharing the info (which is why I'm connecting it to an email address), I won't ever share it for you, and it won't be published in a way that can be tied to you. The plan is to provide a bunch of visual "slices" so that you can compare to everyone, to folks in the same location, with the same gender, those working at companies with similar employee counts, or some combination of these and the other answers. This can help you to evaluate a job offer or be used as data when negotiating a raise. The same data will be useful for employers. They'll be able to look at the results and search for things like years of experience, location, industry, and company size to help set their expectations for what salaries and offers are fair. Everybody wins. Loading...
Frank from Toledo struck again Saturday. With minutes remaining in Ohio State's 31-20 win over Michigan in Ann Arbor, Frank, along with several of his best Buckeye friends, unfurled a banner that read: COACH HARBAUGH FOREVER URBAN 6–0 JIMMY 0–3 It's was the fifth time Frank and his group have had the opportunity to celebrate in Michigan Stadium since 2007 when they started their tradition of displaying incredible banners in the Big House stands. We spoke to Frank – who'd rather not share his last name – two years ago and he shared his background: "I was born in University Hospital on Archie Griffin's third birthday," he says, then divulging into a tradition struck deep within his family's loins. "While my dad was in attendance at The Ohio State University, my grandfather started our family tradition in the 1920s. He was a football trainer, equipment manager and then my dad was an equipment manager in the '50s." This Buckeye was born in Columbus, but raised in Northwest Ohio where the hate for the University of Michigan football team runs deep — "we are ground zero" — in a city comprised of a wide range of football allegiances. ... His first sign was conceived in 2007 in Ann Arbor, in a similar way as his most recent. Then-Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr had lost three straight to Ohio State and Jim Tressel, and whispers about his imminent firing upon completion of his 13th season were everywhere. "I thought this could be kind of fun to throw up a banner, because I knew we were sitting right at the tunnel, right at the 50-yard line," Frank said. "This is going to be funny, if we wind up on top, this is going to be really funny to say 'SO LONG COACH CARR, WE'LL MISS YOU!'" His banners through the years have been nothing short of legendary, starting with the first one honoring Carr in 2007 for a game Ohio State would win 14-3: Two years later, he was there for Rich Rodriguez as Jim Tressel rolled to a 21-10 Ohio State win in the Big House: Frank and his crew were there in 2013 to wish show Brady Hoke some love in a game Hoke would lose to Urban Meyer, 42-41: And of course in 2015 to welcome Jim Harbaugh home for a game Ohio State would go on to win 42-13: What can we say, Frank. We salute you.
Why is it relevant that canteens come from the 1700's? It's a video game with dwarves, not the history channel. I think the civilians really need a better way to drink their booze. It shouldn't be much of an issue to grab a flask, grab some ale and go hang out in a meeting area. Right now I keep picturing a dwarf ripping the lid off a barrel and dunking his head in or grabbing the whole barrel with both hands and using it as a giant mug.I agree. It's not too far fetched that dwarves would come up with this concept long before humans would. Dwarves are fanatics when it comes to stone and metal. If they want a metal canteen, by Armok they're gonna make their metal canteen. Hell, they make metal barrels. My current fortress has an entire stockpile full of iron and nickel barrels full of booze.
NEW DELHI: Justice Tirath Singh Thakur will be the next Chief Justice of India , it was formally announced on Wednesday.The soft-spoken judge, who constantly extols the virtue of Indian inclusiveness as a way of life, will have a short tenure of one year and a month at the position.The appointment will be with effect from December 3, the government said in a news release.Justice Thakur, 63, has already indicated that he would spare no efforts to clean up the system. The intent was on display earlier this month, on the day he was named by outgoing CJI HL Dattu as his successor. Justice Thakur indicated that he would not tolerate any interference in the justice delivery mechanism, as he upheld a Madras High Court order calling the CISF to stop warring lawyers and ensure smooth functioning of the court.Justice Thakur, who will be the 43rd Chief Justice of India, is expected to take several crucial decisions on new judicial appointments in high courts.He is dealing with several important cases, such as the Vyapam and the Saradha scams. His bench will also decide the fate of Sahara Chairman Subrata Roy, in jail after he failed to comply with a court order to deposit thousands of crores with the Sebi to pay the group’s bondholders. Justice Thakur is exploring the option of appointing a receiver to sell off the Sahara properties to recover the money.He skillfully staved off a recent demand by Jain groups for a meat ban in the country, saying such things cannot be shoved down anyone’s throat in a multi-religious, multi-cultural country like India. He quoted Kabir to beautifully warn those who peek into others’ homes.
This article was first published at ConsortiumNews.com I was working on an article about last month’s rampage massacre in Afghanistan that left 17 villagers dead, when news hit of this past Monday’s massacre at an Oakland, California, religious college, leaving seven dead. In both cases, the shooters survived and face a possible death penalty — which is rare: Usually these rampage killings end with self-inflicted bullet in the mouth. These “going postal” rampage killings like the one that just took place at the Oikos University campus so often and with such relentless rhythm, a lot of people might easily assume that these mass-shootings at American schools and workplaces have always been with us. It’s not true, of course — as I wrote in my book Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion — it’s an exclusively American phenomenon specific to our time. The first post office rampage killing took place in Edmond, Oklahoma, in the mid-1980s, at the height of the Reagan Revolution’s war on the American worker. Those post office massacres quickly migrated into private workplace massacres by the end of the 1980s, where they’ve become a regular rhythmic staple of our murder culture ever since – and from the adult workplace, the massacres migrated to our schools. We’ve had mass-killings before; and every now and then, you’ll read about a rampage killing in some other country. But only in America, and only since the mid-1980s, do American employees attack their own workplaces and offices, and middle-class students attack their own schools, with such consistency, year after year. It was only after the crash in 2008 that some Americans began to accept the obvious: That the cruelty, predation and concentration of wealth and power introduced by the Reagan Revolution sparked a new type of murder that has more in common with insurgency violence or rebellious peasant violence than, say, the psychopathology of a serial murder. Like so many school rampage killers, last Monday’s alleged murderer, One L. Goh, was reportedly bullied and mistreated at his nursing school program at the small Korean Christian nursing program he enrolled in. Bullying also was blamed for the high school rampage killing a few weeks ago in suburban Cleveland that left three students dead and five wounded. The gruesome details about the way Goh is said to have lined up and executed his victims, the way he apparently singled out women, make it hard not to caricature him as a monster, a demonic psychopath — and yet, without excusing Goh’s killings, one should try to make sense of what happened to him, the downward-trending bleakness, the slow water-torture of low-five-figure debts, the broken marriage, the $23,000 tax bill owed to the IRS. Losing Hope In the Naughts, One L. Goh helped run a construction company. But construction collapsed as an industry in 2006-7; and unless you were Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo, you’d have nothing to show for the few good years. In late 2007, Goh moved into the Yorkview Apartments complex in Hayes, Virginia — a bleak, prefab looking structure in a rural corner of Virginia. By the following summer, One L. Goh found himself unable to cover his $575 rent payment two months in a row. He was evicted; and on the same day that they they evicted him, creditors took his car. The future rampage-murderer took it all stoically, even politely, according to one of Goh’s apartment complex neighbors, Thomas Lumpkin: “You would never expect it out of him. He just don’t seem like that type of person.” Here is how his neighbor described the scene of One L. Goh’s last day at the Yorkshire Apartments: Lumpkin said he recalled the day when Goh was evicted and his Nissan pickup was repossessed. Goh left by cab that day. “He was always neat, wore nice clothes,” Lumpkin recalled. “You would never expect it out of him. He just don’t seem like that type of person.” So he lost his car the same day he was evicted from his apartment in bumfuck, Virginia—and he took it all stoically as he cabbed away to god knows where. I tried to imagine what that cab ride felt like for One L. Goh, a pudgy 40-something Korean-American dweeb, stewing with resentment, in his nice neat clothes. How far did he go in that cab — and where to? The Yorkshire Apartments parking lot Eventually he wound up with his father on the West Coast. One L. Goh’s father lives in an Oakland housing project for senior citizens run by a Christian non-profit. Goh found work in a San Mateo warehouse; he moonlighted as a mover. Anything to get back on his feet. It’s not a good place to be if you’re a middle-aged failure: San Francisco has so much obscene wealth, and smug beauty — to be a fat 40-something nerd working with your father in a grocery store in Daly City, in the shadow of San Francisco, is some kind of Hell, a Hell for failures. Goh, who was born Su Nam Ko, had lived in the shadow of his more successful, celebrated war hero brother, Su Wan Ko. In 2002, he changed his name from birth name, Su Nam Ko, to One L. Goh, stating that he did “not like my current name because it sounds like a girl’s name.” And then last year, Goh’s brother, an Iraq War veteran and Special Forces hero, died in a freak car accident when his Toyota slammed head-on at 70 mph into a “multi-ton” boulder lying on a Virginia road. The photos of the accident scene look almost unreal, almost staged. The freak accident that killed One L. Goh’s war hero brother The news of the brother’s death destroyed One L. Goh’s mother: She died within months of her son’s funeral. This is the backdrop to Goh’s fateful decision to pull himself out of a years-long rut, and to start a new career for himself as a nurse. It may have been the shock of the back-to-back deaths in the family — or maybe it was his father who encouraged him, or the experience of living with his father in a building for the elderly. Whatever the case, his widower father supported his son with a $6,000 loan to pay for the vocational nursing school tuition. But after a few months, One L. Goh was out of the program, bitter and vengeful, dead set on murder; and his father was out $6,000, thanks to his son’s bad bet. Ignition to a Massacre What set Goh off? Why did he leave the nursing school so early? Most reports say he was teased by his classmates for his age, 43, and his accent. Which is odd, considering most of the students are foreigners and Koreans. (Another Korean-American rampage-killer was teased over his voice: Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui. As another Virginia Tech student told reporters back in 2007, “As soon as [Cho] started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ‘Go back to China.’”) Goh enrolled in what must have been one of the very worst nursing programs in the entire state of California: the vocational nursing program at Oikos University, a fundamentalist Korean-American Christian school in Oakland. The school’s nursing program is accredited, which is important of course if you want your for-profit school program to make money. To comply with the accreditation, Oikos U. had provide a “2010 Performance Sheet”summing up its students’ performances both on the national nursing exam and, once licensed, in the job market. The “performance” is abysmal, to the point where you almost wonder if it’s even statistically possible to fail as spectacularly as Oikos University’s nursing students. Of the programs 28 graduates from the Spring 2010 – 2011 term, only 11 of those 28 managed to pass the national nursing exam. That’s a 39 percent pass rate, almost unheard of. Oikos University ad promises: “Dreams Do Come True” According to a spokesman for the California Department of Consumer Affairs, it makes Oikos among the state’s very worst programs — the average success rate for graduates of other programs is 75 percent. (An Oakland Tribune article puts Oikos U’s exam pass rate at 41 percent of students who took the test, but the actual Performance Sheet gives a lower 29 percent pass figure — either way, both are awful). Oikos University failed to prepare its students for the test, and it failed those who passed when they turned to the job market. According to the same Performance Sheet, of the school’s 11 students who passed the exam, eight found paying jobs as nurses, with salaries ranging as low as $5,000 per year to the one lucky top salary earner who earned up to $35,000. That’s in the Bay Area, the most expensive region in America. In sum: One L. Goh could not have chosen a worse nursing program to pin his personal hopes on. This nursing program was all but guaranteed to fail him. Fundamentalist Mission One thing Oikos University does fairly convincingly is fundamentalist evangelical Christianity for Korean-Americans. Students at Oikos U. are required to attend regular church services; the pious language of evangelical Christianity frames everything. The school’s president, Rev. Jongkin Kim, says his goal is “to foster spiritual Christian leaders who abide by God’s intentions and to expand God’s nation through them.” Under the university’s “Our Vision” it reads: “The vision of Oikos University is to educate emerging Christian leaders to transform and bless the world at every level – from the church and local community levels to the realm of world entire.” And then there’s the reality, revealed in a lawsuit filed last month by a former staffer of Oikos University named Jong Cha, who says the school cheated her out of $75,000 in salary and expenses, and stiffed her on a $10,000 loan that she personally gave to the Christian college in 2008. Viewed from this angle, One L. Goh might have come to the conclusion at some point that he’d taken scarce funds from his poor old widower father, and handed it over to religious hucksters running the Golden State’s worst nursing program. One thing to keep in mind here: It’s easy to see why Oikos University introduced a nursing vocational program. If you get it accredited, these nursing programs are guaranteed cash-cows. Most of the big for-profit education predators like Kaplan Inc. (which subsidizes the Washington Post) are in on the vocational nursing for-profit gig. You can charge students insane tuitions, hire hacks as teachers, pocket the difference, and dump the unpaid loans on the government in exchange for 100 cents on the dollar. The Reverend who founded Oikos University certainly understood this — his good friend told the New York Times that Rev. Kim “had established the nursing school to support the school’s department of religion.” The cash must have rolled in quickly, because within a year after launching its nursing program, Oikos doubled its size — meaning doubling revenues. And yet even with all those new revenues coming in, the school couldn’t figure out a way to raise its graduates’ test results out of the failure category. The school appears to have stiffed one of its top staffers out of her pay and her loan, suggesting, in the words of the Oakland Tribune, “that the school may have fallen on hard times.” The bleak Oikos University “campus”: Like a converted warehouse I wonder if this is what set off One L. Goh a few months after he enrolled — the realization that he’d been fleeced, that he enrolled in the wrong program on his father’s money. The year 2011 had already taken his brother and his mother. A Dashed Last Hope There is something in between the lines that suggests his plan to become a nurse, worked out with his father’s assistance a kind of desperate last attempt to turn everything around in the proverbial One Bold Swoop. He would do something practical, and morally good, helping the elderly, people like his father — and earn a steady income that would allow him, at last, some dignity and some chance to start paying off his debts. It was as though Goh pinned everything on this plan to reinvent himself as a nurse — and according to all our cultural propaganda, all the Hollywood movies and newspaper bromides, Goh would be rewarded for undertaking this self-transformation. It was guaranteed to change everything. As the Oikos U. ad promised, “Dreams Do Come True.” And for a brief while last year, Goh’s mood was transformed, he really did think he had a great future ahead of him. One of Goh’s former employers at a food warehouse described Goh as “upbeat” when he ran into him last year in Oakland — a change from the usually quiet, sullen Goh he’d known. This new “upbeat” One L. Goh boasted to his former employer “about how he had returned to school to become a nurse and help elderly people.” The idea that you can reinvent yourself, that your fate is in your own hands, that you have the power inside of you to make yourself a winner (and if you fail, it’s all your own fault) — this may be America’s most toxic cultural snake-oil. And yet it never fails to find takers. Of course, nothing changed — except that Goh had been conned out of his dad’s money. As his former employer put it: “Not many people go back to school at that age. He was trying something new and it wasn’t working.” It didn’t take long for him to figure it out. Just a few months after enrolling, One L. Goh dropped out of the Oikos University program. When he dropped out of the program, he asked them to refund his father’s $6,000 that he paid for tuition. He was denied. He fought with the administrators, but they didn’t budge. This was what made him snap. The administrator, whom Goh fought with for his tuition refund and whom he came to kill that day, has now come forward. Her name is Ellen Cervellon. She was gone on the day of the massacre because she also teaches nursing to students at California State University at East Bay. Ellen Cervellan: The face of “Real America” Now she will have to wonder, why didn’t she just approve the refund to a desperate man? What if she had approved it? Her argument was that he’d already spent several months in the program. According to a friend of Ellen Cervellon’s, Linda Music, she even denied Goh his last reasonable request, to prorate the refund. As Matthai Kuruvila reported at SFGate.com, Goh had asked Ellen Cervellon for a full refund of his tuition and when he was denied suggested prorating the tuition refund. Cervellon said no, Music said. That meant he threw his father’s money away: He had nothing to show for the $6,000 given to the university; he would never be able to pay his father back; and he would never be able to borrow a sum like that from him again. That was it, the final act. The jig was up for him. Lack of Empathy Why? Why couldn’t Cervellon meet this desperate failure half-way? What was in it for Cervellon? What’s with the Ayn Randian lack of empathy in this country among the non-oligarchy caste? Cervellon seems to be asking herself this same question: “In talking to several of the students and faculty who were there, I think he was looking for me. I have that weight on my shoulders and I don’t know what to do with it,” School officials have been painting a portrait of One L. Goh as a psycho and a freak, using phrases like “behavioral problems” and calling him “angry” and “paranoid.” There must be truth to that; nice, normal people in a healthy state of mind don’t rampage-massacre others. But the intended target, Ellen Cervellon, disputes that: “He was never forced out, he showed no behavioral problems, and he was never asked to leave the program. He decided on his own to leave the program.” The depressingly familiar dead-end life that One L. Goh found himself in — surrounded by petty scams as revealed in the ex-staffer’s lawsuit and the bleak performance of the school’s graduates, combined with the back-to-back deaths of two family members — could make a lot of sane people desperate and enraged and suicidal. Not to mention the larger context of an inequality-ravaged America where opportunity and dignity are scarcer and scarcer. On top of all this, as he complained often, students at the nursing program wouldn’t talk to him. That could be traumatizing even under better circumstances, but under his conditions, being mocked and ignored by fellow fundamentalist Christians for being an aging loser, would be devastating. One of Goh’s teachers continued criticizing Goh even after the massacre: “I always advised him, ‘You go to school to learn, not to make friends.’” More great advice from the Oikos University folks. After quitting the nursing program, One L. Goh spent the last few months working with his father at the Daly City supermarket. He was back at square one: A failure, swindled, condemned to work in a shitty job beside his struggling father whom he’d let down. You might say that One L. Goh snapped because for once, he saw things as they really were, stripped of hope, stripped of fantasies about self-improvement or self-transformation. He failed at everything; he was one of those faceless, anonymous losers. But there was one thing he could still excel at, something that could get him attention, something that this country perversely celebrates: mass murder in a blaze of anti-glory. So long as you’re ready to make that transformation-of-character into a death row inmate, that option is always available here. Last Monday, according to police accounts, One L. Goh armed himself with a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol and showed up at the Oikos school for his final act. But the plan failed from the start: The administrator he was after was gone. So the target became the entire setting, Oikos University, as it so often happens in these “going postal” rampage killings. There’s a section on the Oikos University website about the 11 beliefs that the University holds to — they call it their “Doctrinal Statement” and it’s the last belief, Number 11, that sums up the malevolence of it all: “We believe in the existence of a personal, malevolent being called Satan who acts as tempter and accuser, for whom the place of eternal punishment was prepared, where all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity.” Would you like to know more? Read “Revenge of the Nerd: What the Media Won’t Tell You About The Rampage Killer Who Attacked A Pittsburgh Aerobics Class” and “Alabama Murder Mystery Solved: The Shocking Story Of How A Chicken-Slaughtering Billionaire Plundered Rural America” by Mark Ames. Also read Ames’ previous Consortium News piece, “The One Percent’s Doctrine For The Rest Of Us: We Are Not Human Beings, But Livestock Whose Meat They Extract As ‘Rent'”. Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine. Click the cover & buy the book!
Lifenews.ru, an online news portal with close contacts to the police, said a policeman had approached the woman to check her documents and that she had responded by removing the child's head from a bag and begun shouting that she had killed the infant. Local media reported that the woman — who was wearing a burka — remained outside the station for an hour before being detained by police. Officials said in a statement the unnamed nanny was from Central Asia and that she was undergoing psychiatric testing to see if she was mentally sound and understood the significance of the crime they said she had committed. Moscow investigators said the murdered child was three or four years old and that the nanny had killed her in the family apartment in the Russian capital before setting fire to the premises and fleeing. A woman has been detained outside a Moscow metro station and charged with murder after she walked around with a young child's severed head reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar." A graphic video posted to social media appears to show the suspect. Read more A woman has been detained outside a Moscow metro station and charged with murder after she walked around with a young child's severed head reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar." A graphic video posted to social media appears to show the suspect. Moscow investigators said the murdered child was three or four years old and that the nanny had killed her in the family apartment in the Russian capital before setting fire to the premises and fleeing. Officials said in a statement the unnamed nanny was from Central Asia and that she was undergoing psychiatric testing to see if she was mentally sound and understood the significance of the crime they said she had committed. Local media reported that the woman — who was wearing a burka — remained outside the station for an hour before being detained by police. Lifenews.ru, an online news portal with close contacts to the police, said a policeman had approached the woman to check her documents and that she had responded by removing the child's head from a bag and begun shouting that she had killed the infant. One reporter, from the RBC daily, said she had heard the woman screaming "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great). "I was on my way to the metro station from home," Polina Nikolskaya, the reporter, told Reuters. "She was standing near the metro entrance and caught my attention because she was screaming Allahu Akbar. I saw that she had a bloodied head in her arms, but I thought it was not real. People in the crowd said it was real." In other footage of the scene, the woman can be heard shouting about the end of the world while proclaiming herself a terrorist. The Russian Interior Ministry has also confirmed that the suspect was carrying a real human head, according to the Telegraph, who also reported that police are not currently treating the incident as terrorism. Follow VICE News on Twitter: @vicenews
@pokeDrago In that list, I think you mean't to say DKL as in the Donkey Kong Land series. But ya, the list you posted is a real dam good one. The ones that most stand out to me are Super Mario Bros. Deluxe , the rest of the Mega Man series, Shantae , DKL 1, 2 & 3 and the 2 Zelda games. Here's hoping it happens very soon. @LordOtaku Same here man. I couldn't agree with you more. Since E3 2012 is nearly around the corner, I expect some really decent retro games coming from the North American eShop near or around the weeks close to it. IMO , we waited WAAYY too dam long on Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 and Kid Icarus: Of Myths And Monsters. Time for NOA to pay up with the games ppl want to see. @dark-insanity Well the way how I see it goes like this man. 1: First off, Nintendo in all regions would have to make a decision to finally include GBA games as an option for gamers to download the games they want to replay again, or for the ppl who missed out on them back then. 2: If Nintendo Of Japan was lucky enough to get a game that never saw the light of day like Kid Icarus: Of Myths And Monsters back in the GAME BOY era in Japan, but were able to get their hands on the game as an import on 2/8/2012 of this year for the Japanese 3DS VC , then there could be hope for Game & Watch Gallery 4 making it's way over there. Besides, all in all, I think it would be a great idea if one day, all regions of the eShop can see imports of games that were released for one region on a portable like GAME BOY COLOR in Japan, but not for Europe and North America. A good example would be a colorized version of Donkey Kong Land III that was released for the GAME BOY COLOR on 1/28/2000. Just the fact of not knowing unless you look it up, that an old GAME BOY game like Donkey Kong Land III was redone in color for the GAME BOY COLOR would be worth the interest for anyone to want and try out.
In a recent letter to some of his colleagues, Vancouver Island doctor Jesse Pewarchuk explained why he won't be helping any more gravely ill patients to end their lives, despite his fervent support for assisted death. "It is my deep regret to inform you that I am no longer accepting referrals for Medical Assistance in Dying," the letter began. "Recent changes to the [Medical Services Plan] physician fee schedule have made MAID economically untenable and I unfortunately can no longer justify including it in my practice." Dr. Pewarchuk, an internal medicine specialist in Victoria who has presided over 20 assisted deaths, took his name off the list of willing physicians last month after the body that sets doctors' pay in British Columbia approved new fees that he and some of his fellow providers say are so low they could chase away even the most committed physician supporters of assisted dying. Story continues below advertisement Read more: Assisted dying no financial burden to health system: report A year after the passage of Canada's medical-aid-in-dying law, concerns among doctors over how they are paid to administer assisted deaths – a new medical service that is unlike any other – are not limited to the West Coast. In Nova Scotia, nearly half of the billing claims submitted so far for medical-aid-in-dying are stuck in processing, with some physicians saying they have yet to be paid for any of their assisted-death cases. In two provinces, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador, there are still no specific billing codes for hastening the deaths of the seriously ill. "The truth is, across the country, and most acutely in the Atlantic provinces and currently in British Columbia, it has become a crisis," said Stefanie Green, a Victoria doctor and the president of the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers (CAMAP). "It's been a year that my members have been doing this work. It has been done in good faith with the [understanding] that health authorities and provinces will be doing their job and setting adequate fees for this work to go on. That hasn't happened in some locations." Determining how doctors should be paid for assisted dying is a delicate question, one that is difficult to separate from larger conversations about physician compensation and patient access to assisted death. "I know MAID is really stressful, but so is counselling a suicidal patient. So is doing bedside palliative-care planning," said Trina Larsen Soles, the president of Doctors of BC, the umbrella organization that represents physicians in the province. "The MAID fees are done in the same ways as the other ones and [if] we're going to argue about which part of our jobs are more stressful and whether all parts of our job are adequately compensated, that's a big discussion." In B.C., the fight over assisted-dying fees has been simmering for months as officials worked behind the scenes to determine how doctors should be compensated for the two main components of the service: assessing patients to see if they meet the eligibility requirements of the new law and administering the lethal injections. Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement The chair of the Medical Services Commission, which manages B.C.'s public health-insurance plan, formally accepted the new fees on June 20. This came after the tariff committee, a joint fee-setting body that includes representatives from Doctors of BC, voted in favour of a MAID fee proposal crafted by the Society of General Practitioners of BC, which speaks for family doctors. Most MAID providers are family doctors. The new rates will be reviewed in three to six months to see if they are discouraging otherwise willing physicians from helping patients to die, Dr. Larsen Soles added. The local health authority that oversees Vancouver Island – which has one of the highest assisted-death rates in Canada – said two doctors have asked to be taken off the assisted-death provider list in the past three months, one citing the low fees, the other time constraints. The overall list of physicians willing to provide aid in dying continued to climb, from 14 providers in March to 21 at the end of last month, according to a spokeswoman for Island Health. Under the new fee schedule, B.C. physicians will now be paid $40 for every 15 minutes, up to a maximum of 90 minutes, to conduct the first of two eligibility assessments required by law. Each of the assessments has to be provided by a different clinician. That works out to $240, a significant increase from the $100.25 interim assessment fee that has been in place in B.C. since shortly after assisted death became legal. For second assessments, the time is capped at 75 minutes. Story continues below advertisement In the case of providing an assisted death, the province has set a flat fee of $200, plus a home-visit fee of $113.15. The new fee, which is an effective decrease from the interim rate, applies no matter how long a case takes and covers all aspects of the service: Prescribing the drugs, picking the drugs up from the pharmacy, spending time with patients and families explaining the procedure, obtaining final consent, administering the drugs and filing followup paperwork with the coroner's office. By comparison, if a doctor spent three hours start to finish on an assisted death – excluding the formal eligibility assessment – he or she could bill $621.60 in Alberta, $600 in New Brunswick, $499.80 in Quebec, $480 in Manitoba and $465.60 in Saskatchewan. If doctors in those same five provinces billed for two hours, they could still earn more than B.C.'s $313.15 in every province but Saskatchewan, though not by much. In most circumstances, B.C. does not compensate doctors for travel, which has led four of the province's MAID providers to turn to a small charity, the Toronto-based Right to Die Society, for help. Ruth von Fuchs, the society's president, said her organization has doled out $11,207.82 for four doctors to travel to help grievously ill patients end their lives in and around Vancouver Island. Tanja Daws is one of those doctors. A Courtenay, B.C., family doctor who has presided over 23 assisted deaths, Dr. Daws said that after paying her office overhead, she is losing money providing medical aid in dying, especially when she travels. Story continues below advertisement In one instance, Dr. Daws tried to bill $440.15 for an assisted death on Quadra Island in March, which she documented as taking five hours and 37 minutes, including travel time. The Medical Services Plan rejected her claim nearly three months later in a June 19 letter that said Dr. Daws could only bill $157.71 for 75 minutes of work. "I may have to close up shop, which will be absolutely horrific," Dr. Daws said. Nova Scotia is the only province that has set permanent MAID fees lower than the new fees in British Columbia. The Atlantic province allows doctors to bill a maximum of two hours for providing an assisted death at a rate that tops out at $292.20. Tim Holland, the president-elect of Doctors Nova Scotia, said most of the province's core group of seven MAID providers has yet to be paid in full for MAID assessments and provisions, largely because of a complicated billing issue that he believes the health authority is working to solve. Dr. Holland said he has not been paid for any of the eight people he has helped to die. His bigger concern is that the delay in payments and the two-hour time limit are proving to be a "hindrance" to attracting more doctors, which in turn makes the services less readily available to patients who are suffering at the end of their lives. "In my experience, it's never been less than two hours," Dr. Holland said of providing assisted deaths. "You're treating a family, not a patient." Story continues below advertisement Tracy Barron, a spokeswoman for the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness, said by e-mail that of the 67 claims filed so far for assisted-death assessments and provisions, 35 have been paid and 32 are being assessed for payment. "The new health-service codes were introduced in September, 2016. It's not unusual to have an adjustment period when new codes are introduced," she said, adding the department is working with physicians to understand any billing concerns.
This week, Keyshia Cole breaks through the Billboard Top 200 albums chart with Point Of No Return. Meanwhile, Childish Gambino’s KAUAI continues its climb, Tinashe’s Aquarius makes its mark and Flying Lotus’ You’re Dead impacts the Top 20. Keyshia Cole’s Point Of No Return Arrives At #9 Keyshia Cole’s Point Of No Return is the only Rap or R&B album in the Top 10 this week. Point Of No Return lands at #9 in its first week of availability. It sold 25,511 units this week. Cole spoke about the album earlier this year during an interview with Fuse. “There’s definitely more sexy songs on this album than I’ve ever done,” she said. “I’m excited to see what the people think about that, so we’ll see how receptive they are to the album. I think it’s a great album and I feel like it’s one of my best albums to date.” The album features several artists including Future, August Alsina and Wale. Childish Gambino’s KAUAI EP Jumps To #16 Childish Gambino’s KAUAI EP improved 19 percent in its sales figures this week. It also jumped from #18 to #16, moving 19,317 units compares to last week’s 16,168 units. Overall, ‘Bino has sold 35,485 copies of the album. KAUAI, a seven-track project, features Jaden Smith as “The Boy.” Smith performs spoken word poetry throughout the effort. Of course, this is not the only recent Gambino release. The rapper-actor recently dropped his Gangsta Grillz mixtape, STN MTN. Tinashe’s Aquarius Lands At #17 Tinashe’s Aquarius made its debut on the chart this week. The project, which earned a 4 out of 5 in its HipHopDX review, landed at #17 as Tinashe moved 18,821 units of Aquarius in the effort’s first week of availability. Another critically acclaimed project that is making its debut on the chart this week is Flying Lotus’ You’re Dead, which arrives at #19 with 17,170 units sold. Cole, Gambino, Tinashe and FlyLo round out the Top 20 on the chart, with Chris Brown’s X falling just short of it with #21. X sold 16,429 units this week, a 31 percent drop from 23,694 copies sold last week. Overall, Brown’s moved 222,609 units of the album. Album Sales – Week Ending 10/12/2014 #9. Keyshia Cole – Point Of No Return – 25,511 (25,511) #16. Childish Gambino – KAUAI – 19,317 (35,485) #17. Tinashe – Aquarius – 18,821 (18,821) #19. Flying Lotus – You’re Dead – 17,170 (17,170) #21. Chris Brown – X – 16,429 (222,609) #22. Prince – Art Official Age – 15,013 (66,016) #35. Lecrae – Anomaly – 9,356 (158,688) #36. Jeezy – Seen It All – 9,244 (211,342) #47. Prince & 3rdEyeGirl – Plectrumelectrum – 7,046 (33,406) #55. John Legend – Love In The Future – 6,045 (636,512) Ranker – Lists About Everything RELATED: Release Dates
BERLIN — The contrast could not have been more stark. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany started Thursday in Berlin with the 44th president — the one she has called “dear Barack.” She spent the afternoon in Brussels with the 45th, Donald J. Trump, whose election she greeted with a stern reminder to respect shared values like equality and freedom. Mr. Obama was in Berlin to help celebrate 500 years since Martin Luther’s Reformation, and received a rock-star welcome from tens of thousands at the Brandenburg Gate. It was all bonhomie, waves and warm words, as the former president praised Ms. Merkel’s “outstanding work, not just here but around the world,” particularly with refugees. Barely two hours later, Ms. Merkel was among the European leaders who greeted Mr. Trump coolly at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where few casual words, let alone warm ones, were exchanged, as the new American president once again castigated allies for not paying their fair share of bills. For Europeans, the juxtaposition served as an unavoidable reminder of the contrasts between the men — their personal styles, their relations with America’s allies and the values and priorities they embody.
Welcome to Greek-Recipe.com!! If you redirected to this page it is most probably because you requested to view a page of the previous version of Greek-Recipe.com. Greek-Recipe.com recently updated its look and feel and Content Management Platform from PHPNuke to WordPress. The site is now using a responsive layout, which allows to be visible also to tablets and smartphones. Greek-Recipe.com is one of the first websites, dedicated to Greek cuisine. The website operates since 2003 and used to be at the top of the search results in the major Search engines, including Google, having more than 5000 unique visitors per day. Until 2006 the content of the site was updated regularly and the traffic was stable. Since then it started to decrease because of two reasons. 1) New sites popped up with new ideas and fresh recipes. 2) The content was not updated. Recently we made changes to the site and started to post again new recipes. While not being so popular any more we believe that we still excel in some areas comparing to other more popular sites, which we do not want to name. First of all we see our content copied to more popular sites. We also notice that the authenticity of some Greek recipes has not been preserved in many sites. People follow the trends and post recipes, only because keywords are popular in search engines. Greek Salads are posted, which are not Greek at all, kebabs are presented as soutzoukakia, a kind of baklava is named baklava, etc. This trend obviously makes confusion to the people, who want to learn more about Greek cuisine. We encourage you to stay connected with our site and follow our activities because we believe that we represent typical Greek cuisine. We welcome you to send us your ideas, comments, feedback , which can make us better. Access If you still want to access the old site you can access it for a short period at this URL: http://phpnuke.greek-recipe.com We encourage you though to try to find the requested information in the new site by checking the respective categories or using the Search capabilities that we offer. Greek-Recipe.com is also accessible through the following URLs: recipe.gr astronet.gr greekrecipe.com bestgreekrecipes.com Enjoy!
Desperate to shift attention away from Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, some are trying to point fingers at Republicans who have used private email servers. The spin attempts to create the impression that the ethics of having a private email server are inherently the same no matter what government position one occupies. The New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman is a case in point. Walker, whose aides alleged to have set up private email in his Milwaukee Cty office, says Clinton needs 2 answer q's http://t.co/mgYMmOynCS — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 6, 2015 Walker’s aides allegedly set up a private email server when he was a county executive. That’s practically the same job as Secretary of State, you see. If those emails fell into the hands of a rival municipality it could have upset the balance of power throughout the entire greater Milwaukee area. @maggieNYT Completely bogus, tired, comparison. Different positions, held to different standard. One dealing with classified info, one not. — DMIII (@DMIIICEO) March 6, 2015 @maggieNYT Isn't it not 'alleged' but a fact? I thought the only thing unclear was his claim to not know about it. — Wilson Valdez (@Wilson__Valdez) March 6, 2015 @Wilson__Valdez @maggieNYT who cares? He is a STATE official. FRCA applies to FEDERAL govt. Reading truly is fundamental. — Nerds United (@HRTMotorsports) March 6, 2015 @maggieNYT Was Walker on the National Security Council while also soliciting funds for his family's foundation from foreign nations? — DMIII (@DMIIICEO) March 6, 2015 @maggieNYT -that you think these are remotely comparable means 1) Walker scares you most and should be the guy 2.) Hillary's in deep doo-doo — Ben Hale (@EYA10) March 6, 2015 @EYA10 @maggieNYT Maggie see's her job on Hillary's staff going down with the ship, doing all she can to preserve it. — dan smats (@smats88) March 6, 2015 You are just adorable. MT @maggieNYT Walker, whose aides alleged to set up private email in Milwaukee Cty, says Clinton needs 2 answer q's — jon gabriel (@exjon) March 6, 2015 @exjon @maggieNYT Walker was not the damn secretary of state! Another feeble example. — Sammy (@sdonabedian7) March 6, 2015 I think @maggieNYT sees her long dreamed-of spot as Hillary's press secretary going up in smoke. — jon gabriel (@exjon) March 6, 2015 @maggieNYT Was he handling national security secrets? Did he have a policy against what he did? Did he fire anyone for violating it? No? Oh. — Chris Lloyd (@chrisrlloyd) March 6, 2015 @maggieNYT you make Sec of State Hillary Clinton seem highly unimportant. — Casey Parker (@CaseyParksIt) March 6, 2015 You see, @maggieNYT, since Walker didn’t have the same restrictions Hillary had, his email practices are literally irrelevant. Stop it. — RB (@RBPundit) March 6, 2015 @maggieNYT You can tell how serious the liberal media think a Democratic scandal is by how quick they try to tie a GOP official to it. — Matt Thullen (@mthullen) March 6, 2015 Editor’s note: This post has been modified to correct a typo.
QR Code Link to This Post January 20, 2003 English 1A Professer ___________ My Best Summer Memory Hey man, I’m not really sure if you’re supposed to put an introduction in this thing, but here goes anyway. My name is ____________. My assignment today is to write an essay about the best thing that happened to me this last summer. I know everybody’s been kinda looking at me in class, wondering why a dude in his thirties is taking English 1A instead of being out there working a job. I’m not too keen on talking about myself much. Most folks aren’t, I guess, unless they’re Paris Hilton. But since the assignment is a personal essay I suppose I don’t have much choice. Anyways the best thing that happened to me this last summer was when I finally got outta prison based on that DNA evidence. I’ll tell you man, if you can’t appreciate getting outta prison then you haven’t been there to begin with. For me it started about three years ago when this chick got murdered in East San Jose while opening up her plumbing supply shop. Me and Merle came by a couple weeks later to pick up some PVC for a sprinkler repair, and for some reason the dude behind the counter thought we was a little suspicious, so he called the cops. They put me in a line up, but of course the dude already knew what I looked like and what clothes I was wearing so it wasn’t that tough to pick me out. Other than that there was no real evidence, but I didn’t have an alibi and I had a couple drunk and disorderlies on my record back from when me and Merle used to fight each other for fun after closing time. They had it in their minds I was guilty, and they kept after me for two days, yelling and throwing stuff at me and telling me made-up stories about how Merle told them I did it. I always figured I was pretty tough but after awhile it just wore me down. I had to look at some pictures of death row and I got showed on my arm where the needles would go and everybody called me Dead Man Walking. They told me if I signed a confession I wouldn’t get the death penalty and I had to think about that one pretty hard. The lawyer they assigned to me smelled like he’d been pulling a cork during lunch and he fell asleep while they was questioning me. I knew I didn’t do nothing but sometimes life just ain’t all fair, and this seemed like one of those times. So I signed. After the sentencing Merle sold my truck and moved all my stuff into storage for me, and promised me he’d look after Mussel Shoals, my black lab. They sent me up to San Quentin, and when I got there, I was put in the section with the black dudes.I found out later that’s what they do with new prisoners, except the blacks end up in the white section. I guess it’s to soften up the new inmates, I dunno. Whatever the reason it didn’t take long for them to find this paleface. One day I turn around, and there they stood, the welcoming committee. It didn’t take but one look to realize they weren’t there to bring me a fruit basket. I figured this was gonna be a test of me, find out if they could push me around, so I got a good shot in on the first one and broke his nose. Since it was four on one, I was looking at an ass-kickin for sure, so I didn’t follow up on the others too much, to try and keep ‘em from getting too mad. Well man, was I ever wrong about that. They got me face down, one on each arm and leg, then they got my pants down. About this time, right up till the last minute, I was thinking, this can't be happening to me. The dude whose nose I broke went first. I was heaving and twisting my body trying to get loose, but the others held me down good. He started to poke around and then forced himself in. I never in my life had anything hurt like that, man. Everything got all cloudy and I heard him call me his white bitch. Bits of snot and blood from his nose dripped down on the cement next to my head. It’s the only time in my life I ever tried to talk to God. First I asked him why. Then I asked him to help me. And he never said a word. You know, the only thing worse than being shined on by God is having it happen at a time like that, man. But it’s just like the preachers say: you can’t fool God. He knows why you’re finally talking to him – because you need help. So God never answered me, and I was on my own. And the only thing I wanted to do was to die. When he was done, he got up and kicked me in the head. That in a way was kind of a blessing, cause I don't remember anything that happened after that for awhile, and I'm pretty sure the rest of those dudes took their turns. A few weeks later, they came around again. I knew what was coming this time, and I didn’t hold anything back. I popped three of em pretty good before they got me down and did me again. They got the better of me, no question, but I left them worse for wear. That was the first time I ever saw a black eye on a black dude. By this time I was hoping they’d think I just ain’t worth the trouble. There were plenty of others there that were easier pickins than me. But this wasn't about finding someone for sex, it was about breaking me down. So I got another visit from my new buddies. This time, they kinda formed a circle around me before moving in, and I could see in their eyes that some of them weren't really looking forward to this at all. Well man, welcome to the fuckin club. This time I ended up in the prison hospital and spent a couple weeks there. One day, I was laying there thinking about how much I hurt and wondering what a life sentence was gonna be like with this happening all the time, when one of the inmates working in the hospital starts talking to me and tells me about the Aryan Brotherhood and how I don't have to put up with the nee-grahs no more as long as I join up with em. And that’s how I ended up with the tattoo of the swastika and WHITE POWER on my arm, right up there by the bicep. Well, time goes by and I’m getting settled into the routine of prison life, and no one is messing with my behind no more now that I’m in this white guy gang. Then from outta the blue I find out that that someone from the Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility in Montana got religious and wrote a letter confessing to killing that chick. He was just a kid, only seventeen years old. Can you believe that? Well, no one at San Quentin did. No one takes you seriously when you tell em you’re innocent, cause everybody in prison says they’re innocent. I didn’t have the letter or anything, just what I heard, so no one gave a shiet. So I wrote to Merle, and he sent some dude from the Innocence Project to visit me. Next thing I know the prison doctor is scraping some skin from the inside of my mouth, and one day, just like that, they're walking me out the door and on my way. Course it didn’t take more than five minutes to be up to my ass in ambulance chasers all wanting to help me sue the government for my troubles. Most of em didn’t smell much different than the public defender, and I began to wonder if I was ever gonna get a lawyer who wasn’t a fall-down drunk. The dudes at the Innocence Project gave me the name of some chick up in San Francisco to call. That was kinda far away for me, but she turned out to be a pretty good lawyer and didn’t smell of booze either. She spent a lot of time yelling at the guys from the city, and let me tell you man, after listening to that I sure was glad she was working for me and not them. In the end, I got some money, not a lot, cause I wasn't in all that long and of course I didn’t tell a soul about the other stuff, but it was enough to get my trailer and a good truck, and they also promised to pay for retraining which is why I’m taking this class. Once I got all signed up for school and the dust settled down, I figured I better get rid of that tattoo. So I called up Merle and told him to come on over and give me a hand with it. We heated up a weeding tool in the barbeque, and I bit down on a little stick of wood while Merle burnt off the tattoo with the weeder. You know, I never stopped biting that stick, but when the flesh started to burn, I tried to push everything outta me like emptying a squeeze bottle of Heinz ketchup. All the shame, all the rage I was carrying around inside me since I got out. I just forced it all outta me and I guess I yelled a good deal, cause Merle was looking at me kinda funny when it was done. Merle's my best friend, and I figured maybe it was OK if I told him about it all, so I did. And when I was done, there was a long silence, then he kinda looked at me and asked in a quiet voice if I was gonna make him burn my bunghole too, and finish the job. That Merle, he's as dumb as a box of rocks, but he always finds a way to make me laugh. I never really took to queers in the first place but it ain’t cause of what happened to me when I was inside prison. I don't blame the blacks or the queers for it. That stuff really wasn't about color or sex; it was about power plays by cons who had to ditch their humanity in order to survive. Still, as everybody knows man, no matter how many times you squeeze the bottle, you can't get every last bit of ketchup out, and for me, I still had some bits of my experience I couldn’t get outta my head. Sometimes, I'd be watching TV and just start to feel terribly sad and weak. Mussel Shoals was back with me by then, and he seemed to know something was wrong when I felt like that. He didn't know what, but he’d always come on over anyway, and lick my hand and rest his head on my leg. I tell you man, I really love that dog. It was real tough getting back in the saddle with the ladies after what happened to me in prison. I’d always heard that if you so much as touched another guy’s privates you were queer for life, and although I was hoping that weren’t true, it was hard to think about sex without remembering all the bad stuff. Merle brought by some chick he was going out with who had a lady friend, and though she was nice and all I was kinda scared I wouldn’t be able to deliver the goods and have to start explaining everything, so I had to pass. About a month after I bought my trailer, I met a nice chick at the park while out walking Mussel Shoals. She's about my age and pretty agreeable. Betty’s her name. She has a dog, too, a female Dalmatian named Dotty. Mussel Shoals was OK with that, ‘cause he ain’t prejudiced, and they got along just great. After we'd been going out for a few weeks it was my birthday, and she and Merle came over to my trailer and surprised me with a little cake. After I blew out the candles they said we could do anything I want, their treat. So we talked about it awhile and decided to spend the day out at Great America. Well I don’t know if you been to Great America lately but they have this new feature which is a water park, and if you asked me that part alone is worth the price of admission. After we got in we headed on over there and changed our clothes in one of the little changing rooms they have nearby. While I was waiting for Betty to change (course chicks always take forever, took me and Merle about a minute and Betty about four hours) I struck up this conversation with this Filipino dude who was waiting behind me. He had a shirt on said he’s a police officer, so of course I didn’t mention anything about being in prison. Then one of the changing rooms opened up, not the one Betty was in (of course since she takes a million years) so I told the dude to go ahead of me since I had to wait for Betty anyway. He moved on into the room and then his son, who was maybe 3 or 4 years old, started following him, but he told the son to wait outside. So the kid kinda backstepped a ways without turning around and then reached up and took my hand, and I closed my hand around his and we stood there awhile like uncle and son. It was a great feeling man. I never got to do that with my dad, cause he passed out on some tracks and got all mashed up by a train when I was only six months old, and none of the dudes that Mom brought around after that ever stayed more than a couple days. I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do, so I just stood there and tried not to squeeze his hand too hard. Pretty soon though I heard this laughing behind me, and it’s the kid’s mom. And I looked down at him, and he’s looking over at her, and his forehead gets all crinkly, and he looks at his hand in mine, and you can see him sorta follow my arm all the way up to my shoulder and to my head. When he figured out I wasn’t his mom, his eyes got real big and he yanked his hand away and scampered over to where she was sitting. Well by this time his mom is pretty much doubled over with laughter and she and I are talking, and of course Betty comes out right about then and sees me talking to this hot Filipino chick and gives me the stink eye. But it didn’t take too long before I’m the one who was upset cause Betty is wearing this string bikini top and let me tell you man, if I had charged a quarter a peek for a look at her tatas I would have made a fortune that day. Betty looks a lot like Salma Hayak (specially when she gets mad, which is all the time, Geez!) and she has a really nice rack. But you see man this is where chicks are really sneaky. Betty knew we was going to a water park and there'd be lots of chicks to look at and she didn’t want me looking at em. So she wore her most revealing outfit cause she knew I’d have to keep an eye on her. At a place like Great America there are tons of buff dudes walking around trying to grab your chick when you’re distracted. So you got to keep your eye out every minute and that cuts into your time cruising the hotties. And speaking of that I think next time I’m gonna tell Betty how much I enjoy checking out the babes while she’s goofing around in the dressing room. That oughta speed her up. We had a great time and ate crummy food and I won a Spongebob doll for Betty at the pitching booth. Merle almost got in a fight with some dudes who stole a big doll from one of the other carnival booths but the rent-a-cops broke that one up before it started. Later he got sick after going on the Invertigo and we got to watch him puke in a trash can. That part wasn’t so good, but after it got dark the fireworks started going off and Betty snuggled up to me real close and I forgot all about Merle, and we kinda lost him. It worked out OK though in the end. Merle called me later and told me that when he got out to the parking lot he ran into the same dudes he almost got in a fight with, and they ended up going out drinking and they’re his dawgs now. I never heard Merle call anyone that before, but he don’t generally hang out with black dudes either. After the fireworks was done, Betty came back with me to my trailer, and we started watching American Idol. Well, one thing led to another and the next thing you know we was in bed getting ready to do the horizontal mambo. She was kinda nervous so I cracked a few jokes to relax her till she told me to shut up. I was nervous too, man. I was worried about maybe being queer, but besides even that, this was gonna be the first time for me since before I went to prison, and I was afraid I might be a little rusty. It was a night I think I’m always gonna remember. First-time sex with a chick who's your girlfriend is always a big deal, specially if you’re a guy. You get to see what she looks like naked, specially the boobs, and see what kind of funny noises she makes when she gets all excited. In spite of all my worrying, everything turned out OK. I guess sex is like being on a bicycle, you never forget how to ride. Still, it took Betty a long time to come that night, but that’s probly cause she was busy with her own first-time sex thoughts. Chicks are funny about that. It's like the first time you take em out to dinner. They don't care about the dinner so much as not looking bad eating it, which usually means not eating much of it at all. Same thing with sex. The first time, they don't care so much about coming as much as they don't want to embarrass themselves. Next time though you better deliver, that is if you want there to be a third time. So we're laying there afterwards, her head on my shoulder, and just talking real soft about nothing in particular, when all of a sudden there's this big commotion and damn if Mussel Shoals wasn't trying to have sexual relations with Dotty. She didn’t seem quite as interested as he was, but he stayed right on it, the two of em crashing into the walls and the bed and just going to town. I'll tell you, no one is gonna mistake ol’ Mussel Shoals for a 60 minute man, but seeing it was his first time and all, maybe he'll improve with practice. A bit later I was the only one awake, and I was laying there listening to the three of em making their sleep noises, and wishing I could get my arm loose somehow so I could get a glass of water without waking up Betty. But I just laid there listening to the sounds, and smelling the odors of the people sex and dog sex, and thinking about my life. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I wanted to be a big success and fall in love with the prom queen and live in a four bedroom house with two kids and a Chevy just like white people do in the movies. It didn’t take long to figure out that wasn't gonna happen, and things started to look real bad there for awhile like I just told you about, and much as I try to, I’m probly never gonna forget how I got into prison and what happened to me there. But all and all, life really ain’t been so bad to me, man. Betty said she thinks I might make a good lawyer someday. I told her I’ll be lucky to pass this class much less make it all the way to law school. But she thinks I can become a lawyer, not one like the city gives you that drinks his lunch, but someone who really helps people, maybe even get some other dudes outta prison that don’t belong there either. She said everybody has a destiny in life, and mine is to help people to redeem their lives. How can you not love a chick who talks like that, specially about you? Come to think of it, the best thing that happened to me last summer was meeting Betty. I got me a good woman in that chick. I got someone to calm me down after I get cut off on the freeway by some dick, and to help me express my true feelings without cussin. She’s someone who’ll open the aspirin bottle for me when I have a hangover, fake an orgasm when I really need her to, and maybe someday, God willing, remind me how many kids we have and what their names are. Guys don't give their chicks enough credit for this sorta stuff, and frankly you dudes out there reading this, if you are not making use of this kinda help then you are not getting full value outta your chick. I’m gonna do my part too. I’m gonna protect her, always. I’m gonna hold her and pet her head and tell her everything’s OK when she’s feeling sad. I’m gonna nod at her sympathetically while thinking, "Who fuckin cares?" while she bitches on and on about some other chick at work who looked at her the wrong way. I’m gonna help her watch football with me, let her change my haircut and clothes all the time, and worry about all the big shiet so she has plenty of time for chick stuff like shopping and crying. It was a great summer, man. And I’m looking forward to the rest of my life. it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests Tucked in a folder of an old notebook at the very bottom of the box was the essay that follows. Written in longhand, it was the first assignment from the first class in my first semester.*******************************************************************************************************************I got a D for this essay ("inappropriate content)", and a C-minus for the course. I was pretty discouraged, but Betty wouldn't let me quit. She said that this might not be my last chance to change my life, but it sure was going to be my best chance, and I should go all out. At the department graduation ceremonies in May, the entire faculty rose and applauded me as I walked up to get my diploma. And then before you know it, everyone else got up and joined in too, and Betty started bawling her eyes out. I was really embarrassed, but fortunately Merle was there, and he shouted "It's about fucking time!" to me, which cracked up everyone and got them back into their seats. In the fall, I'll start law school at Santa Clara University, on an Emery scholarship.Merle is a Precinct Captain for the Obama Campaign.Mussel Shoals went on to live a happy life with Dotty. When his hearing started to go, we noticed that she was helping him to understand when we gave him commands. One by one his parts started to wear out, and on December 24th of last year, my dearest friend licked my hand one last time and then slept away. I buried him on a short hill, next to a trail where I used to hike with him and Dotty. The view is beautiful, and when we visit, Dotty will lay next to him for as long as I am willing to stay.About three years ago my grades started to get very good and it looked like school would stick. I came home one night and told Betty that I thought things were getting better every year, year after year. She started crying and wouldn't tell me why. It took me a long time to figure it out, and when I did I felt pretty sheepish. I asked her, she answered yes, and nine months to the day of our wedding night, little Tina was born. She's as cute as a bug, and someday when she is old enough to learn about her old man's story, I will take this essay out of storage for her to read.
Sadly, Twitter isn't a safe place for leftist morons to RT and like one another's drivel with impunity anymore. The tech community of catamites and autistic screechers have been having fits over the overwhelming flood of pro-Trump 'right wingers' -- which has led to a lot of acrimonious debate on the beleaguered social media platform. As such, Jack Dorsey has been unable to sell the piece of shit -- because of the stigma associated with the platform as being a denizen of haters and haranguers. Yo @jack I support banning @realDonaldTrump take the brand back now and save your shareholders — howardlindzon (@howardlindzon) February 4, 2017 But Jack has a plan. The company is launching technology to fight abusive accounts and suppress the 'low-quality' ones. No word on what qualifies an account to be deemed 'low quality.' However, my best guess, it will not entail Leslie Jones -- who has been nothing but gracious since utilizing the platform. Source: CNBC The social media platform said Tuesday it will stop so-called trolls from creating new abusive accounts and will collapse "low-quality" and potentially abusive tweets from feeds and searches. That means Twitter will try to identify people who have been permanently suspended and block them from creating new accounts. The "safe search" will remove sensitive content and blocked and muted accounts from search results. Tweets that Twitter deems "potentially abusive" would need to be specifically sought out. The changes come amid widespread criticism of Twitter, which BuzzFeed News called "honeypot" for harassment. BuzzFeed's reporting revealed that Twitter staff struggled to balance the promotion of free speech while curbing bullying. How ironic that Buzzfeed should be leading the fight to defeat trolls, isn't it? Away with bullying! @Jack is gonna make Twitter safe again...for snowflakes. Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com
Browser firm says its new browser add-on will be 'a step forward in the fight for greater openness across the internet' Mozilla has released a free tool called Lightbeam that aims to help users of the Firefox browser see who is tracking their browsing habits. Lightbeam is a browser add-on that creates a real-time graph of all the tracking information that is deposited in the form of cookies on your computer as you browse the internet. It will enable users to identify third-party companies tracking their online behaviour for targeted advertising and other purposes. The launch was described as a "watershed moment" by Mozilla, which is hoping to capitalise on growing awareness among internet users of how their online activities are tracked for commercial purposes. The company started work on the add-on in 2012 under the name Collusion. Lightbeam is aimed at a mainstream audience, producing a real-time visualisation charting every site a user visits, and every third-party that operates on those sites that could be collecting and sharing user data. Mozilla is keen to stress that cookies in themselves aren't bad: it's just that internet users should be aware of who they're being used by, and for what purposes. "Third parties are an integral part of the way the Internet works today. However, when we’re unable to understand the value these companies provide and make informed choices about their data collection practices, the result is a steady erosion of trust for all stakeholders," wrote Mozilla's privacy and public policy lead Alex Fowler in a blog post announcing Lightbeam's launch. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mozilla's Lightbeam allows users to identify which companies are tracking your online movements. Crowdsourcing a ‘Wizard of Oz moment’ Lightbeam will also optionally send anonymised information about which sites and third parties are tracking your movements to Mozilla for inclusion in a crowd-sourced database of trackers, shining a light on the hidden world of data tracking and privacy. The add-on has already been welcomed by Till Faida, co-founder of popular ad-blocking browser extension Adblock Plus. “Mozilla’s latest Lightbeam tool represents a step forward in the fight for greater openness across the internet. We are delighted to see that the industry is waking up to the demand for a more user-determined internet experience," said Faida. "It is crucial that web users are educated on their online rights and informed about what is actually happening when they spend time online. This ensures that they are the ones in control of their online experience," said Faida. Lightbeam will also help reveal the sources of images, scripts and adverts displayed on web pages that originate from third-party domains and service providers with the ultimate aim of identifying those that may not be necessary or welcome. Lightbeam is an open-source tool that is available to view on Github and download direct from Mozilla. • In October, Facebook launched its first video ads on mobile
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said this morning that key surveillance programs won't be reauthorized by Congress until questions about intelligence "unmasking" are answered. At a House Intelligence Committee hearing yesterday in the Russia investigation, Gowdy asked former CIA Director John Brennan about the issue. Krauthammer on Trump-Russia Probe: 'Nobody Can Locate the Crime' TX Dem: I'm Crafting 'Articles of Impeachment' Against Trump Gowdy told Bill Hemmer this morning that he and other lawmakers still want more information on the procedures for unmasking the identities of Americans picked up in foreign surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies. Fox News reported in April that former national security adviser Susan Rice requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in incidental surveillance. The information was then reportedly distributed to top intelligence and national security officials. "That is a privilege to be able to request that a U.S. person's name be unmasked," said Gowdy. "I want to know who's making the request [and] what is the evidentiary basis of that request? And if it's late in your tenure - like the day before you leave office - that should send off alarms and sirens in your head as to why that person did it," said Gowdy. Gowdy said key parts of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act won't be renewed before they expire at year-end unless the American people are satisfied that their "security is going to be safeguarded." Asked whether there is evidence of the Obama administration "abusing" the unmasking procedures, Gowdy said the matter needs to be looked at further. Gowdy said he's still waiting for answers about what occurred late in the Obama administration, but is not accusing the former president of "spying" on the Trump team. Watch the "America's Newsroom" clip above and watch Gowdy's update on the committee's Russia probe below. Gingrich: Mueller Should Also Investigate the Clintons' Russian Connections 'Don't Mess With My Flag': Georgia Vets Outraged at Limits on Flag Displays NYC's De Blasio: 'Children Will Die' Because of Trump's Budget 'Media Malfeasance': Networks Stuck With Russia Story While UK Terror Unfolded
So... This has been a tough week for Disney princesses, with the recent public outcry against the entirely unnecessary makeover (complete with gloss and fairy dust) of down-and-dirty tomboy Merida from Pixar's "Brave". Even the film's co-director Brenda Chapman lined up to decry it. It got me thinking about role models for women are perceived these days, and how society still can't seem to get its head around how to market them to the younger generation. Thing is, I have met more than my share of inspiring, incredible women over the last year, the majority of whom have been very young indeed, and they all seem to have a very definite idea of who their role models are. And when I listed a few of them in my head today, I found myself asking the question: How many of these women would be improved by a few extra sparkles? I shall allow women everywhere to be the judge, as I unveil my prototype for Disney's new "World of Women" collection... 10 Real World Princesses Who Don't Need Disney Glitter SEE GALLERY
AT&T is reportedly abandoning its attempt to stop a Louisville ordinance that helped draw Google Fiber into the city. In February 2016, AT&T sued the local government in Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky to stop an ordinance that gives Google Fiber and other ISPs faster access to utility poles. A US District Court judge dismissed AT&T's lawsuit in August of this year, when he determined that AT&T's claims that the ordinance is invalid are false. There was still the question of whether AT&T would appeal the ruling, but WDRB News and Louisville Business First both quoted AT&T spokespeople as saying that the company has decided not to appeal. (We contacted AT&T today to confirm this but haven't heard back yet.) One Touch Make Ready Louisville's ordinance created a One Touch Make Ready system that lets an ISP make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles itself instead of having to wait for other providers like AT&T to send work crews to move their own wires. Without such rules, the pole attachment process can take months, making it more difficult for new ISPs to compete against incumbents. Google Fiber began taking signups in Louisville about two weeks ago. As it turns out, the Alphabet-owned ISP ended up burying the cables with a "microtrenching" strategy that is quicker than traditional underground fiber deployment. Still, Google Fiber could take advantage of the new pole attachment process to hang its fiber cables as it spreads through the city. Google Fiber may also use its fixed wireless technology to connect Louisville homes. Legal fights over One Touch Make Ready are not over. A lawsuit Charter filed against Louisville is still pending. Both AT&T and Comcast also filed suits against the Nashville metro government to stop a similar ordinance. But Louisville's victory over AT&T sends a message to other cities that "these problems can be dealt with at the local level," Ted Smith, co-chairman of the Mayor's Civic Innovation Advisory Council, said in the Louisville Business First article. "Local leadership can tackle these things and win."
For Brits, looking through the Very British Problems page on Twitter is to stare into a mirror of our own social anxieties and odd character traits, wittily exposed for all to see. The observational social media feed is making the leap to the small screen with the help of a variety of British comedians, including James Corden, Jonathan Ross, and Stephen Mangan, discussing their awkward encounters and faux-pas on the frontlines of British etiquette. When we say awkward, we really mean it – take, for instance, Vic Reeves’ observations on small talk at the doctors... during a prostate exam. “What that involves,” Reeves eloquently explains, “is you lying down on a bed and having the doctor put his finger up your a**e." If that alone wasn't uncomfortable enough, it’s excruciating with you factor in the added pressure of having to make idle chit-chat during the procedure. “I’d be quite happy with that if the doctor was quiet,” says Reeves. “But he wanted to involve me in conversation. “As he did it, he says, ‘So, have you got a busy day today?’” Now that is a very British problem. Channel 4, 9pm
The video will start in 8 Cancel Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email An ex-offender released from Birmingham Prison as the riots erupted around him said G4S had “lost control” of the jail as drugs took hold of many inmates. Ricky Wood, who almost died after taking Black Mamba inside the jail, said substance abuse was making prisoners “really unpredictable”. He said: “It’s changing them in dangerous ways and causing problems with debts and bullying. Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now “A mob mentality takes over when trouble breaks out. “It’s a different world but G4S has lost control of that world. “Prison officers are being overpowered both physically and psychologically by some of these people.” Ricky was freed from a 20-week sentence for harassing an ex-partner as the riot broke out last Friday. His wing was not involved in any of the rioting but it meant he was almost kept inside. He said: “We were being told that even the staff were being locked in. “It was pretty clear something major was happening. “We were hearing bits and bobs of information in our wing and some lads were getting phone calls from some of those involved.” Staff were forced to flee after the rioters snatched keys, cut through chains and burned documents in the worst prison disorder for more than 20 years. (Image: @Kennettphoto) Prisoners who called the Mail from inside the jail said tensions built because low staffing levels meant inmates were denied exercise and gym time. There were also reports that the prison’s TV aerial had been broken for two days and there were further complaints about the food. Ricky said: “There are no staff and that completely ruins the routine sometimes. “The best meal I had in there was on that Friday evening because it didn’t come from the usual kitchens. “I’m not sure where it came from, and it was very late, but it was sweet and sour chicken.” The Mail revealed last month that an inmate died after taking a cocktail of drugs on the ‘detox wing’ of Birmingham Prison - including banned former legal high Black Mamba. Tests showed shoplifter Dean Boland, 30, had also taken FIVE other drugs that had not been prescribed to him. An official report into the death raised serious concerns about prescribed drugs being exchanged between prisoners and the availability of illicit substances inside the Winson Green jail. A toxicology report found Mr Boland, who had battled drug addiction from a young age, had traces of Black Mamba in his system, along with a cocktail of prescription drugs that were not his. He was serving a sentence for shoplifting and was on recall for an earlier burglary offence when he was found unresponsive by his cell mate on April 17 last year.
The happy couple — event planner Esther Katzman and food writer Suresh Doss — were expected to host the perfect wedding. Indeed, a month before the big day, every detail was in place — the remote Niagara estate was booked, the elaborate vanilla-ginger and chocolate-hazelnut cakes were ordered and the embroidered parasols from India were ready to be hung in the dining tent. Esther Katzman and Suresh Doss at their Niagara wedding. ( Jeffrey Chan ) And then their caterer ghosted them. Upon arrival, guests were treated to platters of tapas and pintxos prepared by Richmond Station. ( Jeffrey Chan ) “I’ve worked with chefs in the past and knew that a lot of them didn’t check emails and preferred to keep their head down,” Doss said. “But when it came down to the three and four weeks before the wedding, we were in a bit of a panic mode,” he admitted. Article Continued Below “The first thing people said to us when we were sending invites was that the food and drinks were going to be amazing,” said Katzman, 31, a senior account manager with event and marketing company Mosaic. “I had people ask if they could buy a ticket to the wedding.” But with the wedding less than a month away, they had no food to serve their 128 guests. Appetizers of pork and rabbit terrine with pistachio, sweet wine gelee and pea shoots en croute. ( Jeffrey Chan ) “The anxiety was growing and I told Esther that we needed to make a drastic decision,” said Doss, 39. He called off the original caterer and with the last-minute help of a few of the city’s best chefs and old friends in the food industry, the race was on to create a multi-course feast for 130 guests at a remote backyard venue in just 12 days. Doss is the print editor of the Toronto edition of Foodism magazine and the new host of a weekly food segment on CBC’s Metro Morning that explores the GTA’s multicultural food spots. He leads private food tours introducing diners to international cuisines at family-run restaurants tucked away in the vastness of GTA’s suburbs. So, while food is an important part of most weddings, the pressure to have good food was paramount. The wedding had a station serving up cooked-to-order Sri Lankan hoppers. ( Jeffrey Chan ) In late July, after the caterer fell through, Doss ran into his friend Carl Heinrich, chef and co-owner of downtown’s farm-to-table restaurant Richmond Station. The chef casually offered to help any way that he could. Days later, Doss fired off a late-night email to Heinrich asking if he could cater the event, which happened to be taking place on one of the busiest wedding weekends of the summer. “We didn’t have the staff to do it, maybe if he asked us six months ago, but I told him I’ll see what I could do,” Heinrich said. He was keen on making sure there would be food at their wedding. After calling around to different chefs and caterers without any luck, Heinrich stepped up. “When a friend needs help, I’m going to do what I can,” Heinrich said. “He’s always been supportive of my career, so we turned it into a collaborative food event, which is always fun for a chef to do.” Suresh Doss and the chef who saved the day, Carl Heinrich. ( Jeffrey Chan ) Heinrich rounded up Richmond Station’s general manager Jenn Hornak and three chef friends who happened to be free that weekend: Jesse Vallins of the Maple Leaf Tavern, Heinrich’s fellow Top Chef Canada Season 2 competitor Trista Sheen and his former sous chef, Alex White, now the chef at Niagara College’s Benchmark restaurant. Article Continued Below The chefs divided and conquered, hashing out a menu of dishes that could be assembled quickly on site using ingredients they already had, or could easily source such as carrots, fennel, zucchini and radish from Heinrich’s bounty grown at the 100-acre organic farm, called the New Farm near Creemore, Ont. Eight days before the wedding, Heinrich emailed the couple the first draft of the menu — including quinoa and corn lettuce wraps with soybean hummus, scallop crudo, duck liver pate on toasted brioche, and pork and rabbit terrine to start. Doss and Katzman were elated with the menu that spoke to their love of local produce and tapas-style dining. Chef Jesse Vallins of the Maple Leaf Tavern grilled up a bunch of his homemade sausages. ( Jeffrey Chan ) With the main menu attended to, the Sri Lankan-born Doss concentrated on finding a caterer to make hoppers, sweet and savoury crepes made from a batter of rice flour and coconut and cooked in a wok. “We kept striking out because a lot of these guys aren’t used to cooking on such a big scale or could make the drive to Niagara.” So once again he turned to a chef friend, this time it was Johnne Phinehas, chef and owner of downtown’s Saffron Spice Kitchen, a kothu roti takeout spot. “He had a friend who could do it, and we had a three-way phone conversation where Johnny acted as the translator since I wasn’t completely fluent in Tamil,” he says. Sous-vide rainbow trout with corn puree, grilled squash and tomato salsa by Richmond Station. ( Jeffrey Chan ) Two days before their big Niagara bash, the hopper station consisting of a half dozen mini woks and butane camping stoves was confirmed. On the day of the wedding, all the food stations were ready. Guests parked on the side of the dusty country road and walked across the sprawling lawn of the venue, where the chefs were at their stations, grills fired up and coolers unpacked. “Carl showed up the day before to survey the venue and, with the exception of showing him where to put the garbage, we basically had no contact till it was time to eat,” Doss said. “As soon as I saw him and the other chefs pull up, we knew we didn’t have to worry about the food.” It was the wedding feast of their dreams. “Everyone started their conversation with me by saying how the food was amazing and that I had to try this or that.” Two cakes, meringues, marshmallows and pâte de fruits were made by Michelle Edgar of the Sweet Escape. Platters of Indian sweets from Al-Karam Sweets were also served. ( Jeffrey Chan ) A sangria dispenser awaited guests at the bar along with wine and beers and ciders made for the couple by Oast House Brewers and West Avenue Cider. Meanwhile, guests were welcomed with platters of pintxos and tapas: polenta fries with marinara sauce, grilled vegetables, salt cod on crusty bread, rabbit and pork terrine. There were grilled sausage coils from Vallins, Heinrich and Sheen worked another grill serving bites of thinly-sliced charred skirt steak with chimichurri and flaky Sous-vide trout with corn puree. A vegetable station offered wraps and beet salads, lighter fare than the late-night poutine truck White arranged from Niagara College. Suresh Doss and Esther Katzman seal their union with a kiss. ( Jeffrey Chan ) The dessert buffet included the ginger-vanilla and chocolate-hazelnut cakes, marshmallows, meringues and pâte de fruits made by Michelle Edgar of the Sweet Escape patisserie in the Distillery District. Platters of burfi, a dense and milky South Asian confection typically served at celebrations, from Al-Karam Sweets in Scarborough, rounded out the dessert table. “There was a point when the sun was going down and I was looking out on the yard, seeing people at the bar and at the tables with a glass in one hand and a plate of food in the other and we were relieved and honoured that Richmond Station was able to pull everything together,” Katzman said. Guests feasted and drank, celebrating the union, unaware that the wedding of two of the most food-obsessed people they knew almost didn’t have any food on the table. The couple did concede there was still one hitch that night: they forgot to put out the takeout food boxes for their guests. karonliu@thestar.ca
Nanyang Championship #2: Newbee take the final direct invite Topping off the list of direct invites to the Nanyang Championships is Newbee, the second place finishers at EPICENTER. After being one win away from becoming the victors of the EPICENTER LAN event, Newbee has recieved another chance at an international LAN event. Newbee will be joining Team Secret, Fnatic, EG, Digital Chaos and three other to be decided teams in Shanghai, China from the 6th to 10th of July to battle for a $200,000 prize pool at the Nanyang Championships season two. As of this announcement, five of the eight teams participating at the LAN event have been decided. Other than Newbee, another team representing China will also be invited, the invite will be based on the Chinese qualifiers taking place in the near future. As of late, Newbee has been on a roll, rocketing to second place on Gosurankings after their 29 win streak and strong performance at the EPICENTER LAN finals, where they were edged out by Liquid in the grand finals. Reflecting the team's strong performance, Newbee hold an 88% win rate across the games play for the Manila Majors Chinese qualifiers and EPICENTER LAN event this month, only dropping a series against OG (Gosuranking 6th) and Liquid (Gosuranking 1st) in their 17 games played. Headline and banner image from Newbee's Facebook QUICKPOLL Is Newbee the strongest of the four direct invites? Yes Thank you for voting! No Thank you for voting!
"Here we go kid." Just as the Olympic quarterfinal game between Canada and Latvia was getting under way, Syracuse Crunch goaltending and video coach David Alexander tweeted out those four words. His "kid," Kristers Gudlevskis was starting in a surprise move by Latvia's coach Ted Nolan. It was the biggest stage of the kid's career and he'd be backstopping a team that was overmatched and underskilled. It had the potential to be a bloodbath. Here we go, indeed. ***** June 30, 2013 By the fifth round of the NHL draft, things are moving along pretty quickly. There aren't any more treks to the podium by executives and teenagers. There's no real television analysis anymore. Picks are announced quickly and without fanfare and the action moves on. So does the audience, even bloggers who are meant to be covering the thing. I had certainly moved on, only checking Twitter every once in a while. After that disastrous season it was really hard for me to feign interest in teenage defensemen whose names I wouldn't need to know for years, if ever. But the Lightning took a goalie, so I was supposed to have something to say. "What do you know about this Gudlevskis?" Nothing. I'd never heard of him and had not one clue about him. I did what you do in the internet age, and Googled him. Found his stats, which tells you next to nothing. YouTube had some videos from the recent World Championship. Not enough to really tell much, but better than nothing. Raw, explosive. Certainly intriguing, definitely undisciplined. A project? Maybe so. I had nothing to offer beyond that. Raw Charge's draft coverage mentions him only in passing. Less than 5% of goalies drafted in the 5th round play more than 50 games in the NHL in their career. It's the draft round that has most goalies taken and the lowest percentage that become real contributors. There seemed to be no pressing need to find out more about this guy, especially when we were more focused on whether Andrei Vasilevski would be coming to North America or not. And, frankly, it took me months to recover from 2012-13. I put this apparent project goaltender out of my mind. Development camp arrived and so did Kristers Gudlevskis, with his beat up pads and mask. It looked like those pads had been used for years. (It turned out they had.) We were all focused on what Vasya was doing, how Vasya looked, but word began to emerge on the goalie grapevine that this Gudlevskis kid was worth paying attention to. As Development Camp morphed into Training Camp, the word got louder. I never get to see Lightning practices or training (#LongDistanceFanProblems), so I was going on the word leaking out from the folks who were there--plus two streamed scrimmages--but the word was exciting. This kid's good. Too good for the ECHL, where he's slotted to be. All of a sudden, the Lightning have a logjam in goal and someone could be displaced. Here we go kid. It didn't take long. Gudlevskis played less than a handful of games in the ECHL before getting the call in October to replace an injured Riku Helenius. And Gudlevskis's first game with the Syracuse Crunch was a shutout. It was my first opportunity to watch him for a whole game and everything I'd heard about him seemed validated. He was incredibly poised and made few mistakes. He went from almost perfectly still to battling in nanoseconds, like he had a switch he turned on when he needed to. That stillness was eerie. He looked in complete control of that game. He gave up four goals in his next game. Three in the one after that. The calmness, the focus--it came and went. He looked so young. But that potential was always there and the determination. It didn't take long to understand what the Lightning were getting with this guy: a young goalie settling into a new country and a new system, who had talent but not experience. He was almost pure raw material. Gudlevskis bounced up and down between Florida and Syracuse for a few weeks and then in early December, he got a callup in the absence of any injury or movement, and we knew this one would stick. He was going to be in the AHL, where he needed to be, getting that experience and getting control over his game. And getting consistent, regular coaching from a dedicated goalie coach in David Alexander. Despite the drama surrounding how the Lightning made this move, it was unquestionably the right move for Kristers Gudlevskis. By January 12, he was the AHL's player of the week. He made the Latvian national team for the Olympics. As much trouble as the Crunch were in, Gudlevskis was getting the chance to grow into the player the franchise felt he could be. On January 31, when both Ben Bishop and Anders Lindback were injured, Gudlevskis and his Crunch partner Cedrick Desjardins were both called up to the NHL. Gudlevskis wasn't expected to play and he didn't, as in the end Bishop was able to go, but for the final game before the Olympic break, the kid got to dress against the Detroit Red Wings, a sort of send off for the Olympic trip, and an indication of how the team sees him as one of their own. Then it was off to Sochi, where he hoped to get into a game at some point. Here we go kid. It had to feel like the week was both flying and dragging. It did for me, anyway. Latvia's number one goalie Edgars Masalskis was doing phenomenally well for the team. There was no reason to try to fix what wasn't broken. Eventually, Gudlevskis got the call to play against Sweden, a hell of a team to make your Olympic debut against. And, as expected, Gudlevskis let in 5 goals, and while at least a couple were the result of defensive breakdowns, a few were his own, too. Raw, intriguing, inexperienced. It's the same story. It was the same Gudlevskis we'd been watching for 5 months. Latvia's head coach Ted Nolan went back to Masalskis for the qualifying round, and the team stunned the world by eliminating emerging contender Switzerland. It put them in the path of Canada and the in the eye of the world. And about two hours before that game was to begin, it was announced that Kristers Gudlevskis--talented but raw--would man the net against one of the two best teams in the world. Here we go kid. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the world discover Kristers Gudlevskis yesterday. I'd been banging his drum for long enough and to watch him so completely frustrate a team stacked with some of the best players the NHL could offer was satisfying in ways that you rarely get to experience as a fan. He faced 57 shots, which is like two full games worth of work back in the AHL, and he only gave up 2 goals. He was exhausted but determined. It was a hell of a moment for a kid who keeps surprising people. It's been a hell of year for him. One game doesn't make a career, as Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper reminded us, even when it's a game like that one. It was far from a perfect game. Both the goals occurred on goaltender error--the first when he fell trying to recover to his left and the other when he failed to track and square up to the 53rd shot he'd faced that day. They were the kinds of mistakes made by young and tired goalies. He'll come home to Syracuse, not to Tampa. He'll make his way through the AHL, not the NHL, at least for the foreseeable future. He won't be in the NHL next year, either. But he will be in good hands, and his day will come. I believe that. The goal now is to find consistency, to stop the swings from giving up 4 to giving up nothing. The goal now is to grow into the goalie that we see glimpses of. It's going to be a fun ride, and a lot more fans are now taking it with him. I can't wait to see what happens. Here we go kid.
Photo by Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC It’s no secret that the UFC has changed directions since WME-IMG purchased the brand for over four billion dollars a few months back. You can sympathize with the William Morris crew though: they bought the UFC during its biggest boom period and a lot of that has rapidly fallen away. Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor were reliably selling a million pay-per-views each time they fought, now one seems to be done with the sport and the other is taking time off and playing hardball. Yet the bills still have to be paid. A knowledgeable fan is well aware of this and can therefore understand why the UFC might slap a completely unnecessary interim title on the Max Holloway – Anthony Pettis meeting, or rush together a title fight for the still largely mythical women's featherweight division. Gold belts on posters presumably get in a couple of hundred extra buys and you’re scrapping the barrel. Anyone who has followed the UFC for a while knows that interim belts and iffy title fights will be thrown in when necessary but the news coming out of the UFC recently, which actually has fans and media concerned, is the release of numerous top flight fighters. Many of these are not 'cuts' but failures to reach an agreement in renegotiating contracts but what is interesting is that a decent talent getting away from the UFC used to be a rare occurrence, in recent weeks we have seen quite a few. The light heavyweight division—already down two top men with Jon Jones' legal troubles and Alexander Gustafsson's injuries—lost two of its very, very few rising prospects within days of each other in Misha Circunov and Nikita Krylov. This compounds the issue of the already weak light heavyweight division. The consensus top five fighter, Ryan Bader, is now a free agent and last year the UFC passed up on top ten talent, Phil Davis. Lorenz Larkin and Rory MacDonald, top ten welterweights by anyone's reckoning, recently failed to come to terms with the UFC as well. Perhaps the UFC's greatest failing in recent history, however, is the release of Kyoji Horiguchi. Easily one of MMA's most entertaining and slick strikers with a beautiful combination of point style karate and boxing. Horiguchi does marvelous work bursting in off a one-two and either weaving into the left hook, or stiff-arming his opponent off. Along with gorgeous lead leg work, skipping into knees and pushing off into skip-up high kicks. I don't even know how this works. Horiguchi, rounding out his skills nicely since his rushed first go at Johnson, seemed to be the most likely man to dethrone the great flyweight champion. He was also Japan's best chance at a UFC champion, which would seem a big deal as PRIDE FC was one of the most successful companies in MMA and the UFC has dabbled in the market, hoping to wake the sleeping dragon. The greatest tragedy though, is that only a small portion of the UFC's viewers will even know who Horiguchi is, let alone recall how good he was at gliding ten feet across the canvas and effortlessly smacking men upside the head. Why? The same reason so many fans don't care about Demetrious Johnson's title fights: the UFC has not worked out how to promote flyweights. The Failure of the Flyweight Division It is no secret that Demetrious Johnson doesn't shift pay-per-views. The UFC can market him as the best fighter in the world 'pound-for-pound' until they are blue in the face but only the hardcore fans actually care about watching him fight. Some fans claim he has “cleared out” the division. Others think he is just in a particularly weak weight class. What seems most likely is that no one can get invested in Demetrious Johnson's fights because nobody even knows who his opponents are. No one encapsulates this more perfectly than Horiguchi: an ultra promising prospect who said himself that he didn't feel quite ready to fight for the title yet, Horiguchi fought zero top tier flyweights before being thrown into a title fight with Johnson. Horiguchi earned his shot by beating the 6-3 Louis Gaudinot then he was suddenly main eventing UFC 186 with Demetrious Johnson, to an estimated audience of just 125,000 buyers. Still, at least Horiguchi met Gaudinot on the main card of UFC 182: much of the moving and shaking at flyweight happens on the prelims. If a boring welterweight grinds his way through a couple of top ten opponents to get a shot at Tyron Woodley's belt, people will be actively rooting against him. If a loveable welterweight KO's or submits his way there, they will root for him. The chances are the challenger will have either ground on or beaten someone else who is in contention—they will have beaten people you know! If Tyron Woodley was matched against a welterweight who had fought no one in the top fifteen and had only ever fought on undercards, no one would know what the hell to think. The flyweight division is treated as an awkward sausage factory where fighters ply their trade exclusively in three round fights at the start of the night, in front of half empty arenas, and if they pick up two or three wins they immediately get catapulted into a fight with Johnson. Just take the cautionary tale of Wilson Reis. Reis is a great grappler, has a decent record, but probably didn't deserve a title shot when the UFC booked him in to challenge Johnson in July of 2016. When Johnson got injured, Reis stayed on the card and submitted his substitute opponent in the first round win but the title fight was never mentioned again. Except two weeks ago Reis was back to fighting someone you've never heard of, with one victory since 2014, on an undercard in a half empty arena. It was unremarkable but considerably better than most of the fights on the main card of UFC 208. Just not marketable at all. Then there is the entire Tim Elliott debacle. Herein the UFC put together a “tournament of champions” series of The Ultimate Fighter to determine a new challenger for Demetrious Johnson, hoping that weeks of reality TV would get people invested in the bout. The winner of the tournament? Tim Elliott, who had looked thoroughly competitive through his three previous fights in the UFC, featuring bouts against two future title challengers, and was cut prematurely. A very embarrassing look for the UFC as Elliott give Demetrious Johnson a compelling and peculiar fight. The even more remarkable thing? Co-headlining was a rare flyweight bout between two top-ten fighters, Joseph Benavidez and Henry Cejudo. This was possible because they had both already fought Johnson and could therefore go back to having a normal path through the rankings. It was a crackerjack fight and everyone who saw it was left wanting two more rounds. The only flyweight main event in UFC history that didn't contain Demetrious Johnson was Louis Smolka versus Paddy Holohan and that only happened beacuse every fight above it disappearing from the card. It wound up being one of the best fights of the year and ended in the second round. John Dodson versus John Lineker was effectively two top flyweights (though now competing at bantamweight) in a five round fight and it was fantastic, and divisive, and had fans talking for days afterwards. Even if it was not a draw, the rematch certainly would be. Maybe a Fight Night five rounder between a couple of top-ten flyweights is a bit much to ask, but Kyoji Horiguchi and Ali Bagautinov—the number four and number eight in the world respectively—were booked onto the undercard of the dire UFC Fight Night Phillipines card, then rescheduled onto the undercard of the Hall vs. Mousasi II card. Some might argue that the flyweights are often the 'Fight Pass featured prelim' or the 'prelim main event', but frankly that entire idea seems counterintuitive. Fight Pass has an estimated 450,000 subscribers, it would be generous to think that half of those would tune in for prelims. A few thousand more hardcore fans will follow on an unpaid stream. Even on televised undercards, the flyweights are often going on hours before what most people consider to be the event. Showing fighters to the smallest portion of a niche audience and then wondering why no one tunes in for Demetrious Johnson against guy-who-has-never-been-televised seems to be the entire thought process of the UFC regarding the flyweight division. The error seems to be that the UFC has treated the flyweight division as The Demetrious Johnson Show, hoping that building up the champion enough will make up for the fact that the casual fan will not have seen the person he's fighting, and the knowledgeable fan will know that some of his challengers have been deliberately untested and rushed into fights with him to fill up the programming schedule instead of building a competitive, exciting division with familiar names. A situation where only the champion's fights were treated like they mattered is almost unimaginable in any other division. Boring Manlets? Now if you have watched dozens of flyweight fights and think that it is a division of dull fighters with no finishing ability, there's nothing more to be discussed. But a surprising amount of the fans who cite the boring fighters of the flyweight divisions also seem to have no idea who any of them are, and I cannot blame them at all—familiarity is important to enjoying fights, we like the fighters we know and we look out for their tells, their habits, their specialities. If you want to do that with flyweights you have to consciously go out of your way to find their fights and it's a royal pain in the arse. But look a little closer and you realize that there are as diverse an array of styles in the flyweight class as anywhere in the sport. Traditional martial artists, kickboxers, wrestlers, submission specialists. The high kicking taekwondo of Sergio Pettis, for instance, is always a joy to behold. Like his elder brother, Sergio will throw up high kicks from almost chest-to-chest and in clinch positions. Certainly Sergio Pettis was the first fighter I've seen to throw a traditional high round kick from a quarter nelson. His ground game continues to surprise, this lush tripod sweep was the talk of the town when Gegard Mousasi did it, but Mousasi doesn't get hidden on undercards. Pettis' work against John Moraga a month or two back was sterling. Moraga was getting in with quick single blows, but the more experienced striker continued in combinations when Moraga was admiring his work. Moraga himself is something of a peculiarity in mixed martial arts, he can hit a guillotine choke from seemingly anywhere. Against Justin Scoggins he attained the guillotine while mounted and bucked and shrimped Scoggins back into guard to threaten the submission. Moraga's guillotine sealed the deal on the fight in the next round. That same Scoggins has been a treat to watch on the feet, with a very similar style to that used by Stephen 'Wonderboy' Thompson. Fighting with a more familiar style from the orthodox stance and that Superfoot triple threat from the southpaw stance, Scoggins picks his man apart with side kicks, round kicks and hook kicks. On the subject of side kicks, the first time this writer has seen a side kick knockout to the head in MMA came in the UFC's flyweight division, courtesy of the always exciting Louis Smolka. In fact, Smolka and the wily Irishman, Paddy Holohan put on one of the best grappling bouts in MMA to date in the UFC's only non-Johnson flyweight main event. Full of spin out side control escapes to d'arce attempts... Rolling back take attempts... And Fedoralby stoic heel hook escapes... But it isn't my job to hype up every one of the UFC's many interesting and unique flyweights. It is marvelous when a fighter like Conor McGregor comes along and sells themselves, but it is the job of the promoter to promote. What the UFC is doing with the flyweights is never going to make more people invested in Demetrious Johnson's fights because fights—oddly enough—are a product of two people. Unless the UFC makes some changes, DJ's fights will forever be hamstrung by the fact that no one can even recall seeing the guy he is facing before. Failing that the best thing the UFC could do is cut the division loose altogether and pick it up again in a few years after their competitors have done the heavy lifting. Anything to break the division away from the monotony of exclusively three round fights on undercards with any new blood that has a modicum of success being thrown to the wolves right away. It is no good to simply offer criticisms and no solutions though. Perhaps it would be a good time to remember that the UFC didn't used to believe in the marketability of lightweights, and now that is easily the UFC's most competitive and exciting weightclass. In an era of attempting to manufacture stars and relying on a dwindling number of old names, the UFC might do well to recall how many of the early stars of its brand came about: through rising above the rest in fights. Some of the fights were boring, some of the fights were bad, some young prospects saw their hype derailed early in a fight against another hot young prospect, but the guys who stood out did so because they were interesting and exciting and skilled. The best way to market the flyweight division? Put it on main cards and make the people sit through it. The people who really hate it can turn off or tune out and come back for the main event. That is promotion after all, pushing the fighters and not simply offering that division as an optional pursuit to those who wish to seek it out on Fight Pass. Don't believe that would work? Remember Jared Rosholt? I am willing to bet you loathed watching him fight. In fact I'm willing to bet you rooted for him to lose. That is more than most fans have ever felt towards any flyweight. That is because Rosholt dragged out performances on five UFC main cards. That's as many as Tim Elliott, Henry Cejudo and Kyoji Horiguchi had combined when matched against Demetrious Johnson. I am certain that thinking back, there's a fight on most recent cards that you wouldn't have minded not being there, if it were replaced by a flyweight fight that turned out to be boring you wouldn't feel robbed of your three rounder between lower tier heavyweights. It's not about some kind of prestige in position, the fact is that the main event sells the card, the main card is the appetizer, and anything earlier than that only affects a small core of fans who start preparing for their main course at midday. More than half the people who buy tickets to UFC events don't turn up until the main card starts, and they're paying for the experience. The only thing that matters in promoting most fighters is if you are seeing them and how often you are seeing them. You can love a fighter, you can hate a fighter, the only thing that doesn't help anyone at all is if you are completely indifferent to a fighter. And that, right now, is where the UFC's entire 125lbs roster stands. Cejudo versus Benavidez was a promising sign, the loss of Horiguchi is a worrying one. Through burying them on the undercard and avoiding match ups between top ranked fighters until after they have been rushed into a title shot, the UFC has been doing the flyweight division a tremendous disservice, and they are doing Demetrious Johnson a disservice too. Check out these related stories: Roots of Kayfabe: Why the Abdominal Stretch Is Not Just the Lamest Rest Hold in Wrestling Felder versus Ricci: Setting Traps and Breaking Noses Fedor: Only Human
About 50 girls are seen behind a Boko Haram militant, who demands the release of fighters in return for freeing the girls Fifty girls believed to be among the Nigerian schoolchildren kidnapped at gunpoint two years ago have appeared in a video released by Boko Haram. In the video, a masked man holding a gun tells the government that the militant group, which has murdered, raped and kidnapped thousands of people in north east Nigeria, would only release the Chibok girls in return for the release of imprisoned Boko Haram fighters. Of the 276 girls taken from their dormitories in April 2014, 217 are still missing. One of the girls, who identified herself as Maida Yakubu, spoke in the video of their suffering, but told their families to “take heart”. “To our parents – please be patient,” Yakubu said. “There is no kind of suffering we haven’t seen. Our sisters are injured, some of them have wounds on their heads and bodies. Tell the government to give them [Boko Haram] their people, so we can come home to you. “We are all children. We don’t know what to do. The suffering is too much. Please try. We have been patient. The only thing that can be done is to give them their people so we can go home.” As she spoke, the women sitting and standing behind her cried silently, wiping their faces on their black and grey abayas. One held a child in her arms. Black cloth had been draped behind them, making it impossible to know where the video was filmed. The fighter in the video, who has not been identified, also had a message for the Chibok parents. “They should know that their children are still in our hands,” he said, his face wrapped in camouflage cloth. Forty of the Chibok girls had been married, the fighter added, letting go of his gun only to wag his finger at the camera and hold a microphone under Yakubu’s chin. He complained of government airstrikes against Boko Haram camps. When Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, took power in May 2015, he vowed to crush Boko Haram within a year. While his forces have taken back large amounts of territory from the group, it has remained active, killing hundreds of people in suicide bombings. Footage was attached to the video purporting to show some of the schoolgirls killed in government attacks. However, analysts said the girls’ injuries did not seem consistent with airstrikes, but were more similar to machete wounds, suggesting that the footage could have been staged. The fighter’s message to Buhari was that if his troops tried to rescue the girls, Boko Haram would kill them. He said messages were relayed only through journalists and nobody was authorised to negotiate for Boko Haram. “Don’t waste time – release our members in custody and we will release the girls,” he said. He was reiterating a demand made in the first video of the girls, released a month after their capture. “I abducted your girls and I will sell them in the market,” Boko Haram’s then undisputed leader, Abubakar Shekau, said in the video. Only one other video showing 15 girls, some of them confirmed as Chibok victims by their relatives, has emerged since. A month after the video was released in April, one of the girls escaped. Amina Nkeki was flown directly to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to meet Buhari and be paraded in a press conference that commentators described as a “desperate bid to claim credit” for her release. The latest video is believed to have been ordered by Shekau and comes as a battle rages for control of Boko Haram. Ten days ago, Islamic State, to which Boko Haram pledged allegiance last year, announced that its west African affiliate had a new leader. Apparently unhappy with Shekau’s attacks on mosques and Muslim markets, Isis appointed Abu Musab al-Barwani in his place. Shekau released a video in which he appeared to admit defeat, saying in Hausa: “For me, the end has come.” Family demand news of Nigerian schoolgirl who escaped Boko Haram Read more However, the latest video casts doubt on Shekau’s newfound meekness. Ryan Cummings, a security analyst, said: “It [the video] refers to Boko Haram by their traditional name.” This name change could suggest that the girls are still being held by Shekau’s faction. Nigeria’s minister of information, Lai Mohammed, said the government was in contact with those behind the video and working to secure the girls’ release. “We are on top of the situation,” he said. “But we are being extremely careful, because the situation has been compounded by the split in the leadership of Boko Haram. We are also being guided by the need to ensure the safety of the girls. “Since this is not the first time we have been contacted over the issue, we want to be doubly sure that those we are in touch with are who they claim to be.” The kidnapping of the girls led to a global campaign, with public figures including the US first lady, Michelle Obama, calling for their release with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. The Chibok girls are among the thousands of adults and children that Boko Haram has abducted during its seven-year insurgency. Yakubu’s mother, Esther, wrote a letter to her daughter in April in which she described the effect that the abduction had had on her life. It was turned into a video. “From birth, I have been planning for you – your life, your education, your health. Before you were kidnapped,” Esther Yakubu said, tears running down her face. “Up till now, I have not seen or heard anything from you. But I believe that one day, I will fulfil that, my promise to you, and I will see you again, and my happiness, my joy, my life will be complete with you.” Harriet Sherwood contributed to this report

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