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At the same time devastating and inspiring, war has always been a popular theme for filmmakers to exploit. Through the course of cinematic history, there have been plenty of accomplished works that dealt with this subject, and we’ve probably seen most of them. None, however, had the immediate and profound impact on us as the great Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. The reason this film struck a particular chord in our system, a chord reserved exclusively for the greatest works of art, is definitely the way it approached the subject. Instead of giving us bloodshed and gore for the sake of astonishment and short-term fascination of the audience, Kubrick luckily decided on a far more intimate, personal path, choosing to portray the story of a handful of recruits and the impact the war machine has on their psyche and personality to make the crucial point about the pointlessness and insensitivity of war, exquisitely criticising the way it turns humans into heartless machines, sucking out sympathy and emotion out of their pledged lives. Written by Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford and Kubrick himself, led by nothing short of magnificent performances of our long time favourite Matthew Modine, Vincent d’Onofrio, Adam Baldwin and especially stirring R. Lee Ermey, Full Metal Jacket is an indisputable classic that simply has to be part of any filmmaker’s education. A monumentally important screenplay. Screenwriter must-read: Stanley Kubrick & Michael Herr’s screenplay for Full Metal Jacket [PDF]. (NOTE: For educational and research purposes only). The DVD/Blu-ray of the film is available at Amazon and other online retailers. Absolutely our highest recommendation. The first step toward what would become the screenplay of Full Metal Jacket: Stanley Kubrick’s treatment. Having based his treatment on Gustav Hasford’s 1979 novel, The Short-Timers, Kubrick then met with Michael Herr—Vietnam war correspondent and author of Dispatches (1977)—to break the treatment down onto index cards, before Herr wrote the first draft of the screenplay. Michael Herr wrote the narration for Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), then co-wrote Full Metal Jacket (1987) with Stanley Kubrick, which contained elements of Dispatches. Kubrick, Herr, and Hasford would all receive a screenplay credit in the end. [Bonhams] Stanley Kubrick was a friend of mine, insofar as people like Stanley have friends, and as if there are any people like Stanley now. Famously reclusive, as I’m sure you’ve heard, he was in fact a complete failure as a recluse, unless you believe that a recluse is simply someone who seldom leaves his house. Stanley saw a lot of people. Sometimes he even went out to see people, but not often, very rarely, hardly ever. Still he was one of the most gregarious men I ever knew, and it didn’t change anything that most of this conviviality went on over the phone. He viewed the telephone the way Mao viewed warfare, as the instrument of a protracted offensive where control of the ground was critical and timing crucial, while time itself was meaningless, except as something to be kept on your side. An hour was nothing, mere overture, or opening move, a gambit, a small taste of his virtuosity. The writer Gustav Hasford claimed that he and Stanley were once on the phone for seven hours, and I went over three with him many times. I’ve been hearing about all the people who say they talked to Stanley on the last day of his life, and however many of them there were, I believe all of them. —Kubrick by Michael Herr, Grove Press, 2000 Kubrick’s casting note in his draft of the Full Metal Jacket script, courtesy of Will McCrabb. To cast the film, Kubrick and Warner Bros. placed ads throughout the US for young aspiring actors, asking them to send in videotapes of themselves performing a scene about Vietnam. He received over 3,000 videotapes. His staff screened all of the tapes and eliminated the unacceptable ones. This left 800 tapes for Kubrick to personally review. “Initially, Kubrick envisioned Anthony Michael Hall as Joker. According to Hall, negotiations between the director and the Breakfast Club Brat Packer went on for eight months before ultimately falling through. Instead, Vision Quest star Matthew Modine landed the role.” Kubrick obviously made a compromise, he (Modine) was 25 years old. And here’s the cover of Kubrick’s draft of Full Metal Jacket and additional page of the script with Kubrick’s handwritten notes. Kubrick’s daughter Vivian—who appears uncredited as a news-camera operator at the mass grave—shadowed the filming of Full Metal Jacket and shot eighteen hours of behind-the-scenes footage for a potential ‘making-of’ documentary similar to her earlier film documentary on Kubrick’s The Shining; however, in this case, her work did not come to fruition. Snippets of her work can be seen in the 2008 documentary Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes. Matthew Modine, star of Full Metal Jacket, has published a digital recreation of his limited edition (now out of print) book. Full Metal Jacket Diary iPad app includes over 400 high-res photos from the set, five chapters from Modine’s book, and a four-hour audio experience that takes you through the production, beginning to end. Needless to say, it’s a must-have on your iPad! Stanley was the first director I worked with that found a way around perhaps the greatest obstacle a filmmaker faces; time. How does an artist create an environment for creativity—in an art form that demands a filmmaker to work like a factory worker on an assembly line? For Stanley, it meant living in and working in a place where he could stop, or at least slow down, the clock. I can’t speak for the size of productions he had on his other films, but on FMJ we had a crew smaller than many small budget independents I have worked on. He also owned much of the camera equipment we used on the film. We worked in locations that were very affordable, thus alleviating high production costs and allowing him more time to film in them. Because he was Stanley Kubrick, crew members and actors would work for reduced salaries for the chance to work with a master filmmaker. Each of these things have the effect of giving a filmmaker more time. Time allows the filmmaker to discover his film and the story he is telling. It allows them not to compromise. Arliss Howard, who played Cowboy told me a story a few years ago. On the final day of filming Stanley said to Arliss, ‘you’re going to miss me.’ ‘Yeah. Of course I’ll miss you’ said Arliss. ‘No. You’re going to miss me on every film you make after this one’ said Stanley. ‘You’re going to be working on a film and the director is going to say, ‘Cut! We got it. Lets move on’ and you’re going to miss me. You’re going to miss me because you’re going to know that he didn’t get it as good as it could be. And you’re going to miss me.’ Arliss said he hadn’t worked on a film since then where he didn’t miss Stanley for the reason he stated. Stanley created an environment where he could create a film, not shoot a schedule. Which is a massive achievement. —Matthew Modine on Kubrick and His Full Metal Jacket App One of the longest dolly tracks in the history of movies for the Mickey Mouse March in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, courtesy of Will McCrabb. Through interviews with Kubrick’s collaborators and cast members, including Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Ermey and Adam Baldwin, this documentary reveals how Kubrick’s brilliant visual sense, astute knowledge of human nature, and unique perspective on the duality of man came together to make Full Metal Jacket an unforgettable cinematic experience, taking its place in his “war trilogy” alongside cinematic landmarks Fear and Desire and Paths of Glory. September 1987 issue of American Cinematographer, detailing the making of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. A Pinewood Dialogue with Matthew Modine offers rare insight into Kubrick’s techniques in directing his actors. Photographed by Matthew Modine © Natant, Stanley Kubrick Productions, Warner Bros. Intended for editorial use only. All material for educational and noncommercial purposes only. If you find Cinephilia & Beyond useful and inspiring, please consider making a small donation. Your generosity preserves film knowledge for future generations: Get Cinephilia & Beyond in your inbox by signing in Email
Image caption Merrill Newman has reportedly been interested in North Korean culture for years US officials are urging North Korea to "let our citizens go free", as reports say that an 85-year-old US veteran has been detained in the country. Merrill Newman, a Korean War veteran, was taken off a plane by uniformed officers at the end of a guided tour in North Korea last month, his son said. US officials have not specifically confirmed the case, but have called on North Korea to "resolve the issue". Another US citizen, Kenneth Bae, has been detained since last November. Mr Newman visited North Korea with a friend in October, his son, Jeffrey Newman said on Thursday. The guided tour was arranged with a travel agent "approved by the North Korean government for travel of foreigners", he added. Merrill Newman was taken off a plane on 26 October, the last day of his tour, as he was set to leave North Korea, Jeffrey Newman said. The veteran appeared to have discussed his experience in the Korean War with North Korean officials the day before his detention, his son added. Another veteran, also named Merrill Newman, was awarded a Silver Star medal for his efforts during the Korean War. In an interview with Reuters news agency, he said that he thought it was possible there had been "a case of mistaken identity". 'Arbitrary arrest' When asked about Mr Newman's detention, US Secretary of State John Kerry would not comment directly on the case, but said: "They have other people, too... These are all very, very disturbing choices by the North Koreans." US Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies, said: "We are calling on North Korea, as in the Kenneth Bae case, to resolve this issue and let our citizens go free." He added that he could not comment specifically about Mr Newman's case "because we do not have a privacy act waiver". The US State Department revised its travel guidance for North Korea this week, saying: "US citizens crossing into North Korea, even accidentally, have been subject to arbitrary arrest and long-term detention." However, a small number of tourists do enter North Korea every year. Travel to North Korea is tightly controlled, with tourists only able to visit through tour companies that are accompanied by local guides. US troops backed South Korea in the 1950-1953 Korean War, which killed at least two million people.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) doled out some unsolicited parenting advice at a Sunday evening campaign rally, telling a heckler he’d get a “spanking” for his behavior in the Cruz household. Cruz said, “All right, apparently there’s a young man who’s having some problems” at the La Porte, Indiana event, as the heckler shouted, “You suck!” Politico reported. “Thank you, son,” the senator responded, according to the site. He went on to say “children should actually speak with respect” and said it would be a “different world” if someone had taught GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump that lesson years ago. “You know, in my household, when a child behaves that way, they get a spanking,” Cruz said. Earlier this year, Cruz said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deserves a “spanking” for her handling of the 2012 Benghazi attack.
The first new subway station in New York in 26 years provides easy access to the once-isolated Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. (Photo11: Andrew Burton, Getty Images) NEW YORK — Navigating the crowded streets of New York may be getting easier for millions of business travelers as the city sees the biggest boost in public transportation in recent memory. On Sept. 13, the city opened the first new subway station in 26 years, ushering conference goers to the doorstep of the once isolated Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. A citywide ferry system will extend service to the city’s outer boroughs over the next three years. The city’s bike share program is rapidly expanding, expected to double by 2017. And an app, created by the company that provides payment technology to over 60% of New York City cabs, has become the latest to allow riders to hail a taxi with the tap of a button. So many options, says Chris Heywood, spokesman for the city’s destination marketing organization NYC & Company, “just makes the city more appealing and is a huge selling point for us as we try to draw more business travelers, more convention delegates and more leisure visitation.’’ Last year, a record 56.4 million people visited New York City, 12.2 million of them here on business, NYC & Company says. Now, the 6.3 million people expected to attend meetings and conferences here this year no longer have to trek blocks or hunt for a cab to get to the city’s convention center, which lies a stone’s throw from the Hudson River. Last week, the 7 subway line began stopping at 34th Street and 11th Ave., the only subway stop south of 59th Street on the far West Side. “The extension of the 7 line to the far West Side is a game changer in many ways, especially from a business travel perspective,’’ Heywood said of the $2.42 billion project. The city’s subway system will gain an even more significant addition next year, when the first phase of a new Second Avenue line is expected to be finished in December. It will mark the first major expansion of the city’s subway network in over half a century. “The number 7 and opening of the Second Avenue subway ... reflect a serious recognition we have to invest in our infrastructure,’’ says Mitchell Moss, director of NYU’s Rudin Center for Transportation. The numerous other transportation initiatives taking place are significant as well. “We’ve spent a lot on fixing, repairing and investing in the maintenance of the system. But it’s also clear we can’t just maintain it. We need to expand it. That’s the real change.’’ Citi Bike, New York’s bike share program, will increase from 6,000 to 12,000 bikes in the next two years. Bicycles became available in Queens for the first time last month, and new stations will soon be popping up on Manhattan’s Upper East and West side, and deeper into the borough of Brooklyn. There are also plans to expand the city’s ferry service by 2018 to the Lower East Side, Astoria, Queens and other neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. For those visitors who prefer cabs to ferries and trains, there is now another app allowing a cab to be summoned via a tap on a smartphone. Way2ride’s hailing function launched in July. The app is from Verifone, which provides in-cab technologies to nearly 14,000 of the city’s 20,000 yellow and green cabs. It is joining over 70 apps for taxis and hired car services, including Uber and Lyft, that are in New York City according to the NYU's Rudin Center. “What the last few years have shown is there is a demand among consumers for the ability to hail a cab with a phone ... and we’re in a unique position to be able to provide the scale that consumers would expect of a taxi-hailing app,’’ says Jason Gross, vice president of strategy and innovation for Verifone, adding that would-be riders who’ve downloaded the Way2ride app can send requests to a taxi’s existing equipment. The app, which previously just facilitated the payment of the driver, will roll out the e-hail function in several other cities, including Miami, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C., in October. Heywood says that it's not just the accessibility of New York's public transit that makes it appealing to visitors, but the affordability as well. “We’re not a city that requires you to rent a car,’’ said Heywood who noted that unlike some other cities where the price of a subway ride increases based on geographic zones, a business trekker or tourist can travel from Manhattan to Coney Island for $2.75. “Take the Citi Bike ... pick up a ferry, then take a subway. There’s so many different ways you can mix and match all of our public transportation options and really have fun with it as well.’’ Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1KoUn5h
As Barbara Morrill mentioned yesterday on the subject of gays in the military, the American people are far ahead of the politicians. Our elected and military leaders perhaps need to be reminded, but as CNN reported: Most Americans say people who are openly gay should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday indicates that 78 percent of the public supports allowing openly gay people to serve in the military, with one in five opposed. "Support is widespread, even among Republicans. Nearly six in ten Republicans favor allowing openly gay individuals to serve in the military," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "There is a gender gap, with 85 percent of women and 71 percent of men favoring the change, but support remains high among both groups." Even more strikingly, a look at the poll itself (pdf) reveals that support for gays serving openly in the military has remained roughly steady, since 2007. Support polled at 79%, in May of that year, and it was at 81%, in December, 2008. The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled to vote on repealing DADT, on Thursday. As Clarknt67 made clear, this bill is far from ideal. But it is a step in the right direction. And despite that, supposedly moderate Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown opposes it. On the other hand, conservative Democrat Ben Nelson now says he will vote for it. The partisan divide could not be more clear. As the poll shows, our elected officials don't need to worry about political cover, for doing what's right. The people are leading. It's time for our leaders to follow. (Check out Drdemocrat's recommended diary for additional discussion.)
Image caption Ann Pettway is listed as being on probation until 2012 The US woman who brought up high-profile child-kidnap victim Carlina White, who went on to solve her own abduction, has been taken into custody. Ann Pettway, 44, surrendered to FBI agents in Connecticut. An arrest warrant had been issued in North Carolina, where Ms Pettway lives, as officials believed she had violated a probation requirement. Ms White was taken from hospital in New York in 1987 at just 19 days old and has been reunited with her true mother. Ms White said she had always had a sense she did not belong to the family that raised her and began her own inquiries. DNA tests this week confirmed Carlina as the daughter of Joy White and Carl Tyson in a case that has made headline news in the US and internationally. 'Emotional' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent William Reiner said Ms Pettway was required not to leave North Carolina as part of her probation following a conviction for attempted embezzlement. She is on parole until 2012. However they prosecute her, that's up to them. I would just like to ask her, 'Why?' Carl Tyson,, Carlina's father North Carolina officials believed Ms Pettway, who lives in Raleigh, was on the run. Investigators in the Carlina White case had been unable to contact Ms Pettway to discuss the abduction. Because the statute of limitations on the case has expired in New York, it may be transferred to federal officials, as there is no statute on missing children in federal law. Carlina's grandmother, Elizabeth White, said: "The FBI is trying to get to the bottom of this. They're wondering who in the Pettway family is involved and who is not involved." Carlina White's biological father, Carl Tyson, told People magazine the arrest of Ms Pettway was "emotional". He said: "However they prosecute her, that's up to them. I would just like to ask her, 'Why?'" Suspicions Carlina White was abducted from hospital after being taken there with a fever by her mother. There were reports of a woman wearing nurse's clothing who had consoled the mother but who later picked up the baby and walked out of the building. Although the abduction made headlines, investigators could not find a breakthrough and the case went cold. Carlina was then raised as Nejdra Nance in Connecticut and later moved to Georgia. But Carlina had long held misgivings as she did not resemble any of her family and suspected the woman who raised her used fake social security ID. After starting her own investigations, Carlina finally contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and discovered a photo of a baby on its website she believed to be her. The centre helped Ms White, who called her biological mother on 4 January.
On 8 November 2016, Twitter user “Simon Rowntree” posted a message claiming that supporters were chanting “we hate Muslims, we hate Blacks, we want our great country back” at a post-election victory rally for Donald Trump: Rowntree offered no evidence that any such chanting took place, and his Twitter account was the sole source for the claim. No other journalists have reported on this chant, and no first-hand accounts documenting it have materialized. The lack of corroborating evidence most likely stems from the fact that Simon Rowntree is a “fake” journalist who frequently publishes unsubstantiated and baseless stories, typically about soccer and other sports. When Buzzfeed looked into Rowntree in July 2016 after he posted about fictional soccer fan chants, they noted that his Twitter bio stated he worked for the parody web site “Forest Echo News”: Rowntree has since changed his bio — he now claims to be a “Internationally recognised freelance football writer and occasional political commentator” — but not the tenor of his Twitter account. Rowntree also claimed that Trump supporters and Clinton supporters were involved in a bloody post-election brawl, that Trump supporters chanted “Build a wall and keep the border bunnies out” to the tune of “Would I Lie to You?” by Charles and Eddie,” and that he urinated in the glass of a Trump supporter:
The Scottish Labour leader made the remarks during a heated First Minister's Questions The Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont has been told to withdraw charges of dishonesty against the SNP government over plans to set up a Norwegian-style oil fund. The MSP's comments came during a heated First Minister's Questions at Holyrood on Thursday, when Alex Salmond came under fire over the idea, which are designed to mitigate the effects of fluctuating oil prices. It emerged that the Scottish Government has been warned such a move could lead to tax rises or cuts in public spending. Labour and the Tories both attacked the SNP leader over the proposals, which could see cash from North Sea oil and gas revenues invested in two separate funds if there is a "Yes" vote in next year's referendum. The Labour leader's language incurred the displeasure of the Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick, who twice told the Labour leader to withdraw remarks she made. The Presiding Officer first stepped in after Ms Lamont claimed the First Minister was "simply dishonest". The Labour leader went on to state that "honesty is not something this government deals in". The presiding officer told Ms Lamont: "I think you should withdraw that." Ms Lamont pointedly stopped short of withdrawing the remark, saying: "I accept the advice of the presiding officer", before adding: "I have to say I don't know what word you use to describe a government that says one thing in private and something different in public." Papers prepared for ministers, which were released under Freedom of Information laws, said if the Government "had wished to establish an oil fund, it would have had to reduce public spending, increase taxation or increase public-sector borrowing". Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson also attacked the Government, claiming the "bad stuff" from advisory papers prepared for the Government had "hit the bin" when economics experts in the Fiscal Commission Working Group produced their report on the matter. But Mr Salmond insisted setting up a fund to help counteract volatility in the oil sector was sensible. Plans to establish two oil funds - a short-term one to help deal with fluctuations in oil and gas revenues and a long-term savings fund - in an independent Scotland have already been revealed. Mr Salmond said: "Nobody seriously would argue the UK has handled oil well as a resource over the last 40 years. Nobody would seriously dispute that Norway, the country across the North Sea, has handled that resource much better." "Scotland has the opportunity over the next 40 years and we're not going to make the same mistakes as the past."
Google celebrates Gumby creator Art Clokey on Wednesday with a clay-inspired Google Doodle. The home page banner shows Mr. Clokey's most famous animated hero, Gumby, urging users to abandon their Google searches for the moment and poke at four colorful clay balls. If Gumby successfully coaxes you away from productivity, you're rewarded with a bouncing, shape-shifting surprise. The clay blobs morph into some familiar faces: Blockheads, Prickle, Goo, Gumby, and Pokey – all characters from the Gumby TV show. The search engine pulled together this transforming tribute in honor of what would have been Clokey's 90th birthday. While millions of people around the world know Gumby's angled green head and yellow smile, few know the story behind his name. Art Clokey was born Arthur Farrington. He had a rocky childhood. After his parents divorced, 9-year-old Art lived with his father. But when his dad died in a car crash, Art's mother and stepfather abandoned the boy and placed him in an orphanage. A classical music composer named Joseph Clokey later adopted Art and gave the 12-year-old his last name. As Clokey got older and grew interested in animation, he often thought back to his childhood. Despite the rough upbringing, or perhaps because of it, his "stop motion animation characters reflect the message of love that Art and his wife Ruth wanted to give the world," according to the official GumbyWorld website. Clokey's work still incorporated memories of his youth. For example: Gumby. He named the jolly green humanoid after thoughts of his grandparents' farm in the Midwest. According to GumbyWorld, little Art used to play in the farm's muddy clay, a mixture they called "gumbo." The name stuck – and not just to Gumby. Clokey called his very first clay animation "Gumbasia," a play on Disney's "Fantasia." "A clay-animated art film done to the beat of jazz music, Gumbasia was made on a ping-pong table in Clokey's dad's garage and demonstrates the moving power of Kinesthetic film principles," writes KQED in its introduction to the film. You can watch the three-minute piece below. Google has honored several animators before Wednesday. Two of the best were its Doodle to Popeye creator E.C. Segar and to Wallace and Gromit, which actually didn't make it to Google's home page in the US. You can still check it out online in case you missed it the first time. For more on how technology intersects daily life, follow Chris on Twitter @venturenaut.
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Hello. Sorry for the delay, my fellow champions for the pretty attractive and mostly decent men of the world. I slept in. Not very woke of me, I know. Fall is close, but as the temperature begins to cool, please keep a fire in your hearts for the men of August who were not terrible! Ben and Jerry Bae Factor Great ice cream, guys! Woke Factor: It was clear that these ice cream icons were pretty damn woke when they were campaigning for Bernie Sanders which was the bold signature move of woke baes everywhere for about three months. Still, I did not know the full extent. SEVEN WHOLE REASONS? I mean, gahdamn. Thats a lot of reasons. And none of them have to do with ice cream or include any ice cream jokes so you know they’re super serious about this. Advertisement Josh Groban Bae Factor Advertisement He’s giving me kinda cute TA from your political science recitation who still shows up to undergraduate parties but is also a real man, unlike all these college boys. Woke Factor: Look at Josh simultaneously pointing out how the accomplishments of women are so often undervalued while also critiquing the bubble of white-male privilege which allowed Ryan Lochte to act like a dumb fish-man and emerge relatively unscathed. In a single tweet, Josh took the patriarchy in his hand, sang it a lullaby with that voice of his that people tell me is good, crushed it into tiny pieces, and added it to his morning coffee. (The best part of waking up is wokeness in your cup.) Daniel Radcliffe Advertisement Daniel Radcliffe was in a very edgy movie. Allow Refinery29 to report: “Whenever I was using racial slurs and stuff in the film I would have to go up to the actors afterwards and be like, ‘I’m so sorry,’” Radcliffe shared. “’I just, like, have to say it. I know you know that I don’t mean this, but I still feel like I have to say it.’ We were the most apologetic bunch of skinheads.” Bae Factor Advertisement Daniel will never not be Harry Potter to this millennial, but could be worse. Woke Factor: Wow! Wow! Imagine being a person of color on set with that dude. Sounds pretty damn annoying! No one tell him that his fellow professional actors were probably able to gather that they were all participating in making a piece of fictional cinema, and as a result, Radcliffe, a fellow professional actor, was simply saying his lines, and not actually transforming into an honest to god racist every time the camera started rolling. They probably made that leap, and likely didn’t need to be treated like children, but you know, it’s good to cover one’s bases. That’s what keeps you alert and woke! Advertisement Colin Kaepernick Bae factor Advertisement Sports bae is very bae. Woke Factor: That was fast, wasn’t it? What I love about Colin’s refreshing jump into the woke pool is that he is really committed. Not only was he out here exercising his First Amendment right—proving that he’s aware of and at least generally understands the First Amendment—but he continued to do so after racists complained, thereby proving his point about how black people are treated in America. Advertisement And oh, he didn’t stop there. My man went to his favorite woke tumblr and Paypaled that $29.99 for a Malcolm X-meets-Fidel Castro t-shirt AND he threw down for the Malcolm X hat as well. Is there more? Could there be more? There could. You can now see the wokeness growing out of his head because Colin grew out his natural hair, got him an afro pick, and went to town—just in case you weren’t sure if he was really bout that life. Advertisement I don’t think I could ask for any more from a woke bae. Fumbles In Wokeness or Baemanship Ryan Lochte Advertisement This dumb dumb. He managed to fumble in wokeness AND baemanship with that “blue” dye-job and also by being Ryan Lochte. I’ve already devoted too many words to this man who can swim quickly down the lane of pool but who has yet to show a single additional skill that is of use to the world. For those of you who are picky about your woke baes, you might argue that Ryan was never woke to begin with, so how could he fumble? Fair! My answer to that is I just assume his response, if ever forced to consider sexism or racism or some other injustice of the world, was probably something along the lines of: “Yeah, bruh. That’s bad. Things should be good for everyone or whatever.” Advertisement Lower your standards, my friends, and you’ll rarely be disappointed.
“Practicing the law, you don’t go on instinct — you wait, you listen, and watch.” Christine Baranski returns as Diane Lockhart to offer a valuable lesson to her goddaughter in the first trailer for the Good Wife spinoff, The Good Fight. Rose Leslie plays said goddaughter, Maia, a young lawyer whose reputation has been destroyed by a massive financial scam that also left Diane broke. Both join Lucca Quinn, played by the returning Cush Jumbo, at a top law firm in Chicago as Diane finds a new lawyer to butt heads with. EW previously revealed the first details on Maia, who will be in a relationship with fellow lawyer Amy (Heléne Yorke). “She graduated from law school a while ago. Now it’s Maia’s turn to graduate from law school,” executive producer Robert King said. The Good Fight, set one year after the finale of The Good Wife, premieres Sunday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS All Access. Watch the trailer below.
Ford has confirmed the four drivers that will take part in its full-season FIA World Endurance Championship effort, naming Andy Priaulx, Stefan Muecke, Olivier Pla and Marino Franchitti as Ford Chip Ganassi Racing pilots in 2016. The quartet of drivers were revealed Tuesday during the launch of the team’s European-based operations in Greatworth Park, England. The Multimatic-run factory GTE-Pro class effort joins the U.S.-based Ganassi IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship operation in the Blue Oval’s global program with the new mid-engined supercar. “Make no mistake, we are racing to win,” said Dave Pericak, Ford Performance global director. “To compete at this level you need the best car, the best team and the best drivers, and we have selected Stefan, Olivier, Andy and Marino to drive the Ford GT to take on the best in the world.” Priaulx joins Ford following a successful 13-year stint with BMW, which saw the British driver claim three consecutive FIA WTCC titles, victory in the Nurburgring 24, as well as wins in both the American and European Le Mans Series. The 41-year-old will kick off his 2016 season later this month in one of Ganassi’s Ford EcoBoost-powered Riley DPs, prior to a focus on the nine-round WEC season. “A new project is always exciting but for me to be driving for Ford in the WEC is just on another level,” Priaulx said. “I can’t wait to get behind the wheel of the car and start the preparations for the season. “Any motorsport fan will remember the iconic Ford GT40 cars of the past, and for me to be part of this program 50 years after Ford’s historic win at Le Mans is such a privilege. Muecke, meanwhile, will also be in Daytona, as a third driver in the No. 67 Ford GT in the car’s debut race. The former Aston Martin Racing factory driver brings four years of WEC experience to the new operation. “Le Mans is a very special race for every driver,” he said. “It is the one that we all want to win because it is such a difficult thing to do. I have come close in the past and now I hope that with Ford we can go all the way.” Frenchman Pla is also a WEC veteran, but moves from prototype ranks after being a part of Nissan’s now-defunct LMP1 program. The 34-year-old earned a season-high four LMP2 class wins in 2014 with G-Drive Racing. “The level of competition is going to be incredibly high in WEC and I can’t wait to race,” Pla said. “Personally as a Frenchman, lining up at Le Mans as a Ford GT driver will be something very special.” Although no stranger to the Ganassi organization, Franchitti will take on the globe-trotting championship for the first time. The Scot also returns to his GT racing roots in 2016 after having achieved success in prototype machinery, primarily in the U.S., including helping deliver the first win for the Ford-powered Riley DP at the Twelve Hours of Sebring in 2014. “From my first test in the Ford GT I fell in love with it and just wanted to drive it more and more,” Franchitti said. “It’s incredible to be part of Ford’s return to international GT racing and to go to Le Mans 50 years after Ford’s first win there will be extremely special.” Driver pairings for the WEC effort have yet to be announced. Both of the full-season WEC cars will have automatic entries to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Ford seeking two additional entries for this year’s French endurance classic, which marks the 50th anniversary of its first overall win in 1966. It currently has announced eight total drivers, with Sebastien Bourdais, who is listed in the No. 66 car for Daytona — and most likely the remaining Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup rounds — being the ninth driver overall.
Aieee! Note that the superintendent is quoted as saying, “School law MANDATES we investigate whenever anyone in the school feels threatened or uncomfortable with the actions of another student.” Making someone “uncomfortable” is all it takes to warrant an investigation? So if I say, “I like hamburgers” to a student who’s vegan…should I get ready for a 5-hour evaluation? After all, the other kid may feel uncomfortable about my carnivorous ways. Call the cops! Or the thought police! Or Nurse Ratched! Superintendent: “We never know what’s percolating in the mind of children, okay? And when they demonstrate behaviors that raise red flags, we must do our duty.” I feel the same way about superintendents who raise red flags by getting to a position of authority without demonstrating any common sense. – L. P.S. The dad has set up an email account if you wish to get in touch: njpencil@gmail.com
The Human Torch was an android created by Professor Phineas T. Horton for scientific purposes. At a press-conference unveiling, however, Horton's creation burst into flames when exposed to oxygen, and, with human-like sentience, personality, and awareness, rebelled against his creator. Public outcry led to the Torch's being sealed in concrete, which Horton did until he could find a way to control the android's flames, though he eventually escaped due to a crack that let oxygen seep in. While the Torch then inadvertently caused parts of New York City to burn, he eventually learned to control his flame and vowed to help humanity. He would join other heroes as war broke out in Europe, and later in the Pacific, to fight the Axis powers. During this time he acquired a young partner, Thomas "Toro" Raymond. Toro was the mutant son of two nuclear scientists whose exposure to radiation gave him the ability to control fire. The Human Torch also joined the police force as part of his "human cover" under the name Jim Hammond. He would later drop the human name and serve the police force outright as the Human Torch, fighting villains and his off-and-on foe, the Sub-Mariner. During World War II Jim helped allied forces and the Invaders fight the Axis powers. Near the end of the war, Jim came face-to-face with Adolf Hitler and killed him with his bare hands. After the war the Torch was placed in deactivation sleep in the Mojave Desert; an atomic bomb test awoke him. Learning that Toro had been captured by the Soviets and brainwashed, the Torch rescued his old partner and learned that the nuclear bomb's radiation had made his powers both much stronger and more unstable. Eventually, fearing he would become a danger to those around him, the Torch flew back out into the desert and went nova, using up his energy reserve and effectively deactivating himself. The Mad Thinker later rebuilt the Torch, restraining his flame and editing his memory so he would forget having been a hero, then sent him after the Fantastic Four. Jim soon fought with the new Human Torch at the Thinker's behest, though he was loathe to actually murder him. But the rest of the four soon appeared, along with Wyatt Wingfoot, and captured him, transporting him back to the Thinker's lab with Lockjaw's help. There, the original Torch rebelled against the Thinker, refusing to be a party to murder, and the Thinker used his computer, Quasimodo, to fire a ray that shut off the invisible coating of protective nitrogen cells, which kept his flame in check, and he burned himself out. A duplicate of his body was later created by the time traveler Immortus; this copy was obtained by the villainous robot Ultron, who used it to create the Vision, an android who went on to join the Avengers The Torch was revived again by the Scarlet Witch — who was searching for answers about her husband, the Vision — and Ann Raymond, widow of Tom "Toro" Raymond. He served the Avengers for a while before losing his powers to save the former superheroine Spitfire. His powers gone, he decided to settle down with Ann Raymond. He became the CEO of Oracle, Inc., a company run by Prince Namor. From there, he served as "boss" to the mercenary group Heroes for Hire, while being secretly manipulated by the Master of the World. When the group disbanded, he went off on his own, before being asked to become the head of V-Battalion upon the retirement of Roger Aubrey, the Destroyer. Recently, while on leave from the V-Battalion and working with the new Invaders, he became attached to Tara, a recently-constructed female android based on him, whom he came to regard as a daughter of sorts. He also struck up a renewed acquaintance with Spitfire to the dismay of her beau, the current Union Jack, while beginning to show signs that his powers were regenerating. Unfortunately, Tara was revealed to be a plant, created by the Red Skull, with overrides on her developing personality allowing the Invaders' enemies, the Axis Mundi, to use her as a weapon against the team. Refusing to believe that she was truly gone, he found himself able to flame on again, and tried to channel the heat from her system to shut her down before she overloaded and killed all the Invaders, herself included. While he was able to stop her meltdown, his own systems could not handle the sheer heat, and he flew high into the atmosphere before detonating.
Apartments in Turkey Available for Purchase Using Bitcoin The owner of the MiaVita Beytepe project in Ankara, Turkey, has announced that its luxury apartments are available for purchase using bitcoin. The apartments are expected to comprise the first real estate transactions to be made using cryptocurrency in Turkey. Also Read: Luxury Dubai High Rise Apartments Will Be Sold for Bitcoin Luxury Apartments in Turkey Are Available for Purchase Using Bitcoin in an Attempt to Capitalize Upon a Growing Interest in Cryptocurrency From Turkish Investors The luxury apartments have been realized by the Turkish company Anadolu Akaryakıt ve Ticaret Ltd. Sti, who has named the 114 apartment development the ‘MiaVita Beytepe’ project. Erdal Daldaban, the “Project Management Firm owner”, has enthusiastically described the foray of MiaVita Beytepe’s into digital currency, emphasizing the growing interest in bitcoin being generated among Turkish investors. “We decided to make sales via Bitcoin, which has recently attracted the attention of Turkish investors with its recent value route, considering that we could also attract the attention of our customers who appreciate their investments like this”, adding that “digital money has become an element that can no longer be ignored for the global economy. The most remarkable progress in these digital currencies was the fact that BitCoin provided technical infrastructure stability and awareness, and the Turkish investor was rightly interested.” Daldaban has sought to assure potential investors, stating that “bitcoin is independent of monetary policies that control conventional currencies and acts on its own channel as it is not tied to any Central Bank.” Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency Issued a Statement in 2013 Which Is Seen to Have Confirmed the Legality of Bitcoin The 2013 release concludes that bitcoin is not considered to be electronic money according to Turkish legislation, “and thus its surveillance and supervision are not possible within the frame of the law.” Although Turkey has not updated its official position regarding bitcoin since 2013, Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency announced that it would seek to “prevent the use of alternative spending methods, such as bitcoin, ethereum, and ripple, for illegal gambling activities” as part of an initiative designed to crackdown on black market gambling. During August of last year, Turkey’s sole bitcoin exchange, BTCturk, announced that it would cease operations due to its inability to find a banking partner – suggesting that despite bitcoin’s legal status within Turkey, domestic financial institutions are hesitant to partner with cryptocurrency businesses. The MiaVita Beytepe project joins a number of up-market properties that have been listed for sale in exchange for bitcoins in recent months. During last week, a home in Austin, Texas was sold in exchange for bitcoin. A London home was also listed for sale with a minimum asking price of 500 bitcoins last week. At the start of the month, Michelle Mone and Douglas Barrowman announced plans to sell 1,133 Dubai apartments in exchange for bitcoin, in partnership with Bitpay and Knox Group, with the 40-storey tower apartments set to become the first properties in Dubai’s Science part to be priced and sold in exchange for a cryptocurrency settlement. This year has also seen two properties situated in the Canadian city of Coquitlam listed on Hong Kong’s Craigslist in exchange for sums of bitcoin, despite cryptocurrency existing outside of Canadian finance and property regulations. Would you consider purchasing or selling property in exchange for bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies? Share your thoughts in the comments section below! Images courtesy of Shutterstock Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a store. And a forum. And a casino, a pool and real-time price statistics.
Far-right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen obtained a surprising 18% of the vote in the first-round of France’s presidential election Sunday night. But who will those votes go to in the second round? ADVERTISING Read more Having secured nearly one in five votes cast in the first round of France’s presidential election on Sunday, far right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen has the potential to swing what is likely to be a close second round on May 6. But for the moment, Marine Le Pen is not asking her supporters to choose between incumbent centre-right President Nicolas Sarkozy or Socialist challenger François Hollande. Instead, she is basking in the glory of her surprisingly strong showing – more than 18% of the vote – and touting her party’s central message: that the two main parties interchangeably represent the “elite”, while she is the one true alternative to the status-quo in French politics. “Tonight is historic,” Le Pen gushed to her supporters gathered in the 15th district of Paris on Sunday. “We are the only opposition to the ultra-liberal, libertarian left-wing.” Smiling and putting her hand to her heart, the National Front leader led the room in singing the French national anthem. A little girl, carried away by the festive atmosphere on election day, ran through the crowds carrying a tricoloured flag. Across the room, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the aging former leader of the party (and father of Marine) looked on with pride. “This is the start of a long road to a future victory,” he told a group of journalists. “Marine is the only one offering a path of change.” Marine, the face of the new far right More than 500 supporters came out to celebrate Le Pen’s strong first-round showing on Sunday night. Couples, families, and groups of friends brandishing “Marine for President” banners and decked out in “I Love Marine” pins and red-white-and-blue outfits and makeup, sipped white wine. The mood was one of pride and accomplishment. “Marine defends the values and traditions of France. That’s why I voted for her,” said 22-year-old Jérémie. “I handed out pamphlets, I did everything I could, and it paid off.” A more seasoned National Front loyalist, 42-year-old Jean-Christophe, explained his reasons for supporting the candidate. “I’m against legalising immigrants without papers, no exceptions….We’re not able to welcome them properly, so we should offer them aid in their own countries,” he said. Others were eager to point Marine Le Pen as a symbol of an evolving, more inclusive far-right party. Whereas her father, who acted as party president from 1972 to 2011, was known for inflammatory racist and anti-Semitic statements, Marine ran a campaign tightly focused on economic protectionism and an exit from the Eurozone. “People need to stop calling us fascists, Nazis, and racists – it’s ridiculous,” exclaimed Carl, aged 46, from Corsica. “I like everyone, no matter what the colour of their skin is!” A 'turning point' in French politics? According to her supporters, Le Pen’s historically strong performance Sunday night catapults her to the centre of the French political scene, making her a force that cannot be ignored by Sarkozy, Hollande, and their respective parties. “It’s a major turning point in French politics,” said Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, Marine Le Pen’s niece. “The candidates in the second round will be obligated to consider our policy proposals and solutions.” Le Pen is expected to clarify her position on the second-round face-off on May 1, just days before the final vote on May 6. National Front Vice-President Louis Alliot suggested on Monday that Le Pen would not formally endorse either candidate "as things stand". But some National Front voters may feel they have no other option. Antoine, a 46-year-old Corsican, said that his priority was to prevent the left from taking over the presidency and therefore guaranteeing France “a future like that of Greece”. He, as well as the four friends who accompanied him Sunday night, will therefore vote – grudgingly – for Sarkozy. Others will stay home. “Sarko and Hollande are the same,” one Le Pen supporter told France24.com. “They’re both defenders of executives and big bosses, not the working class – unlike Marine. I’ll stay in bed for the second round.” According to a poll published by Ipsos, a French market research company, 18% of National Front voters will vote for Hollande in the second round, while 60% will opt for Sarkozy. 22%, however, have not yet decided.
Butane, used as a solvent in making hash, is among the more controversial substances for medical marijuana users. Experts like , believe butane extracts are safe when done properly. But Wanda James, co-owner of the cannabis edibles company Continue Reading , is 100 percent anti-butane, and she's encouraging fellow manufacturers to stop using it before something terrible happens. James and her husband and partner, Scott Durrah, are prominent members of Colorado's medical marijuana community. For instance, both appeared (along with Breathes) in The Daily Show's May 2010 segment on the state's pot scene. She's also not afraid to speak out against what she sees as problems in the industry, as opposed to taking an it's-all-good approach. And that's led her to target butane. "We've done a lot of research," James says. "We're a chef-driven company, and Scott has taken a look at what edibles are and who's eating them. We're concerned about how we can continue to help patients heal. "We know butane hash is very popular. Lots of edible companies and dispensaries use it, and there's lots of disagreements going back and forth, with people who like it saying that if it's done correctly, there's less than 1 percent butane left in the finished product. But people throw out these percentages without being able to say if they're accurate or not, and without knowing if even 1 percent butane might be harmful." Marijuana Deals Near You This concern is heightened for patients whose immune systems have been compromised, James maintains. "If you're going through chemotherapy, anything that's reducing your body's ability to deal with chemicals and solvents is the last thing we should be giving to people," she believes. "There's no way of knowing if there's a problem until someone has an adverse reaction to it, and then, the only way the consumer would know if it wasn't done right is if every batch was lab-tested for what's contained in it. And I don't know of any edible company out there that's testing every batch of butane hash that's made." Another potential factor "is how many edibles you're eating," she continues. "If someone with lung cancer or someone going through chemo is eating a lot of these edibles with solvents, what does that 1 percent mean over the course of a week? And the last thing we want in this industry is for anyone -- even one person -- to be harmed by an edible." For these reasons, Simply Pure eschews butane hash in favor of bubble hash, "where we do a cold extraction of the cannabanoids from the plant material," James explains. "It's done with ice and water. There are no solvents, nothing added to it." Why doesn't every company take a similar approach? "It's extremely labor-intensive," James says, "and it's also expensive, because you have to buy the equipment to make it happen. Quite frankly, making edibles with butane hash leads to a dramatically cheaper product, which is why it's been popular in the marketplace. But it's popular without consumers understanding what they're doing. So many people say it's safe, but we don't really know that." What about the potent jolt butane hash offers? James thinks "a lot of the high you get from a butane extraction may not always be from the quality of the cannabis. Some of that may be from the butane that's in it." Besides, "the point of medicinal edibles is not to be high. The point is to get the THC and the cannabanoids into your system so that they can do the most good when it comes to pain relief, relaxation, relieving muscle spasms and so on. A lot of people do eat edibles to get a sustained high, but if your high is coming from a solvent-based gas, then it becomes the opposite of what medical marijuana is supposed to be about." James knows taking such a public stance against butane may bother some of her peers. "A lot of people are afraid to stand up, because they don't want anyone to think they're attacking other people in the industry," she acknowledges. "And we're not attacking anyone in the industry. We think it's phenomenal, and we want to see it continue to be phenomenal. But our concern is that if anyone is harmed by something containing butane, it could bring down the entire edibles industry. And we want to make edibles safe for every patient: younger people, older people, people on chemo, people with HIV." Her bottom line? "The medical marijuana movement is supposed to be about natural healing. And if we're talking about holistic, natural healing, there's no place for butane in that equation." Page down to read Simply Pure's press release about butane, including links to articles and references. Simply Pure press release: SIMPLY PURE. PATIENT FOCUSED AND WHY WE DON'T USE BUTANE Butane in Cannabis edibles could be dangerous for patients Denver, CO -- While there are many safer extractions for Cannabinoids, too many medical marijuana centers and infused product manufactures have chosen the cheaper, more toxic method of butane extraction. According to Simply Pure Master Chef Scott Durrah, "Simply Pure is leading the edible industry by offering patients not only a healthier choice, but also a healing alternative. With 100% organic, vegan, gluten-free products created by Real Chefs with the added ingredients of super foods such as quinoa, and functional foods such Coconut Oil, Simply Pure's sole focus is keeping the patient medicated holistically, not harmfully. We use a cold extraction method, which adds no solvents and is 100% organic and safe for patients. We feel a number of edible companies are putting our industry at risk by offering cheaper methods. " Commercial butane is not something to play with as it has been strongly linked to heart muscle sensitization; it basically can make the heart super sensitive to adrenaline and can lead to sudden cardiac arrest and death, even if you have previously used it without adverse effects. It can even cause harmful psychoactive effects. In fact, when you think you are medicated from a butane extracted product, often times part of that "high" feeling is generated from the solvent itself and not from the quality of the cannabis. At Simply Pure, we believe there needs to be some changes with regulation on infused products to protect the patient and inform the MMC owner. Outlawed in California, Butane is a flammable solvent used in Colorado to extract the resin from the plant material. The filtered residue is collected as a soluble concentrate, commonly referred to as Butane Honey/Hash Oil (BHO). The ease of availability and low cost makes Butane extractions attractive to some, but the implications can be dangerous and life threatening. Solvents can dissolve the cell membrane and continued ingestion can damage internal cells. This is specifically dangerous to the heart and brain. According to the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) on Butane, the warning clearly states: Butane -- Potential Health Effects: Irritation, nausea, vomiting, headache, drowsiness, symptoms of drunkenness, tingling sensation, suffocation, convulsion, coma. The potential health effects after our body metabolizes Butane into Sec-Butanol are gastrointestinal issues, including, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. However, the real seriousness lies in the long term effects, which may cause sudden collapse, coma, respiratory failure, liver and kidney failure and even death. Butane extracted products are certainly not something you would prescribe to a sick patient who is seeking a NATURAL alternative remedy like Cannabis. Chef Durrah simply advises, "Use butane to refill your lighter, nothing more." CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT In 2008, the California Supreme Court found Defendant Niall Bergen guilty of manufacturing by chemical extraction a controlled substance. He was fined and is serving a prison sentence. Section 11379.6(a) of the California Health and Safety Code makes it unlawful to engage in the chemical extraction of a substance as part of the process of manufacturing a controlled substance. It reads: "Except as otherwise provided by law, every person who manufactures, compounds, converts, produces, derives, processes, or prepares, either directly or indirectly by chemical extraction or independently by means of chemical synthesis, any controlled substance specified in Section 11054, 11055, 11056, 11057, or 11058 shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for three, five, or seven years and by a fine not exceeding fifty thousand dollars ($50,000). Sources: http://www.osha.gov/dts/chemicalsampling/data/CH_222200.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_oil http://www.cannabislawinstitute.com/cli/Cases_&_Briefs_files/People%20v.%20Bergen,%20B203793%20Los%20Angelese%20Super.%20Ct.%20No.%20MA0377724%20%2808%3A2008%29.pdf ABOUT SIMPLY PURE www.simplypure.com Launched on Jan 3, 2011, by Scott Durrah and Wanda James, Simply Pure Cannabis Edibles is changing the edible market by producing lab tested, 100% organic, vegan and gluten free products for Medicinal Marijuana patients. Simply Pure is a chef lead company that prides itself on safe, effective and most importantly flavorful cannabis edibles. They have been the featured on CNBCs "Marijuana USA, the NBC Nightly News and Tom Martino show on Denver's FOX 31. http://www.youtube.com/user/simplypurebuds?feature=mhum#p/a/f/1/KFrGYaWt2S4 http://www.youtube.com/user/simplypurebuds?feature=mhum#p/a/f/2/nE9_yjnGJ10 http://www.youtube.com/user/simplypurebuds?feature=mhum#p/a/f/0/GaJSN0VPXUw More from our Marijuana archive: "Wanda James's advice to critics of The Daily Show's Denver weed story: 'Chill.'"
FILE PHOTO: Protestors demonstrate, calling for the freedom of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, in the streets of Berlin, Germany, February 19, 2017. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan ruled out on Friday extraditing German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel to Germany while he is in office, repeating his assertion that Yucel is a “terrorist agent”. Yucel, a national of both countries, was arrested two months ago on charges of making propaganda in support of a terrorist organization and inciting the public to violence. Yucel denies the charges. Erdogan said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had asked him to extradite Yucel but that he had denied her request saying the journalist would be tried in Turkish courts, which he said would ensure a fair trial. Erdogan said there was no doubt Yucel had links to the outlawed Kurdish militant group PKK. “This person is a complete terrorist agent. Not all journalists are clean,” he said. “But we will do what is necessary, within the framework of the law, against those who act as agents and threaten my country from Qandil,” Erdogan said, referring to a PKK base camp in northern Iraq. Yucel, a reporter with the German daily Die Welt, was initially detained after he reported on emails that a leftist hacker collective had purportedly obtained from the private account of Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s energy minister and Erdogan’s son-in-law. Since a failed coup attempt in July, Turkish authorities have arrested 40,000 people and suspended 120,000 from jobs in the police, military, the civil service and the private sector. Western governments have criticized the crackdown but Turkey says the measures are necessary given the security threats it faces. (This story has been refiled to fix typo in headline)
'I'd like a shot at Wonder Woman,' says Christina Hendricks... but the costume may need some adjustment She is usually flaunting her curves in tailored suits and smart office dresses as her Mad Men character. But Christina Hendricks has revealed that she would love to try the skin tight lycra outfit of Wonder Woman on for size. The 35-year-old actress revealed her aspirations to play the sexy superheroine during an interview with U.S. chat show host Rachel Ray. Superhero: Mad Men star Christina Hendricks has revealed she would love to play Wonder Woman Although actress quashed speculation that she has been offered the role she was quick to outline that she would be eager to take it on. She said: ‘I heard that rumour too – I don’t know where it got started but I love it!,’ ‘I've been wanting to wear that outfit my whole life! I'd love to [do it]. That would be such fun! Let's put it out there!’ But with the star's ample bosom the tight fitting outfit may need some adjustment to cater for her curvy figure. Christina is proud of her womanly curves and showed the chat show just how she maintains them by whipping whipping up a Tuscan Kale Caesar salad, bacon soup and a whisky cocktail. Full fat: Christina revealed that she doesnt scrimp on flavour adding cheese and eggs to her salad dressing and bacon to her soup Dressed in a demure animal print dress Christina wowed the chat show host with her creative flair in the kicthen. And it seems the actress, who plays Joan Holloway on the hit show does not compromise on the flavour of her dishes. She proudly stated that her salad dressing was loaded with cheese and eggs and she bragged that her soup was so good because it contains the tasty bacon meat. Creative: Christina whipped up a caesar salad, soup and whisky cocktail Although she is body confident and is proud of her curves the actress has revealed that she was put under pressure to conform to industry norms. Speaking to Grazia earlier this year she said: 'People in the industry have been telling me to lose weight for years but I like the way I look.' However the star, who is married to actor Geoffrey Arend, wasn't always quite so curvy. 'I started out as a model and when I went to Italy to build my modelling book, I gained 15 pounds from all the pastas and cappuccinos,' she told the magazine.
Ellipses are red, Spirals are blue* But a heart-shaped ring galaxy? Haven’t a clue! My name is Georgia Barrie and I’m a Masters student at Oxford University. I’m currently working on a research project with Chris Lintott, attempting to explain the formation of the elusive ring galaxies. Thanks to the work of Galaxy Zoo users, I am now in possession of the biggest catalogue of ring galaxies in the World. Having looked through each of the three and a half thousand galaxies classified as rings by Galaxy Zoo users, I am lucky enough to have seen some of the weirdest and most wonderful galaxies in the Zoo. Rings come in all shapes and sizes and over the next few weeks I will share with you some of the most beautiful, unusual and mystifying rings in our Universe. As today is Valentine’s Day I will start with this astounding heart shaped merger. This beautiful object was first discovered by teckborg on July 26 2007 and was posted on the forums shortly afterwards by ALKA on August 14. It looks as though this galaxy is made up of two intertwined ring galaxies with one ring appearing to be red and the other appearing to be quite blue. We’ve calculated that this galaxy is about 600 million light years away but the formation of an object like this is, quite literally, a mystery. For something as baffling as this we really need your help. Today the Heart Galaxy is our featured merger and we need you to help us simulate how this incredible galaxy could be created. To get involved go to the Galaxy Zoo Mergers site and, who knows, you may be the very person to solve this cosmic mystery! If you want to hear more about the Heart Galaxy then I will be talking about this amazing discovery live on Monday’s Breakfast Show, BBC Radio Oxford. *The Galaxy Zoo team has just recently discovered a population of red spiral galaxies. Click here to find out more!
Last month, Microsoft announced Bash on Ubuntu on Windows which enables native Linux ELF64 binaries to run on Windows via the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). WSL was developed by the Microsoft Windows Kernel team. Since the announcement was made last month, many people were interested in knowing how kernel team build this subsystem. Microsoft recently started a blog post series where they will provide an overview of WSL that will answer the common questions around Windows Subsystem for Linux. WSL is a collection of components that enables native Linux ELF64 binaries to run on Windows. It contains both user mode and kernel mode components. It is primarily comprised of: User mode session manager service that handles the Linux instance life cycle Pico provider drivers (lxss.sys, lxcore.sys) that emulate a Linux kernel by translating Linux syscalls Pico processes that host the unmodified user mode Linux (e.g. /bin/bash) It is the space between the user mode Linux binaries and the Windows kernel components where the magic happens. By placing unmodified Linux binaries in Pico processes we enable Linux system calls to be directed into the Windows kernel. The lxss.sys and lxcore.sys drivers translate the Linux system calls into NT APIs and emulate the Linux kernel. Read the full post here. In the below video Deepu Thomas from Windows team lays down the real scoop behind the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
practice Is harm reduction a viable choice for kids enchanted with drugs? Erik K. Laursen and Paul Brasler While the dominant approach to substance abuse treatment has been a disease model, this article describes a strengths-based alternative. Many contemporary youth are experiencing problems with alcohol or other drugs but reject the message of total abstinence and disease models of treatment. The authors draw from their experience with challenging youth and research on adolescent substance use to combine a strength perspective with a harm-reduction approach to substance abuse. The senior author first experienced the influence alcohol and other drugs had on youth as a captain and counselor with a group of Danish delinquents on a 42-foot boat traveling the Rhine and Danube rivers: At the time, I considered their interest in alcohol as normal experimentation, and I talked with them about using responsibly “remember, this was Europe in the mid “70s. Two years later, I came to the U.S. as a counselor with a group of Danish adolescents to spend 10 months riding motorcycles across the American continent. Again, I implemented a risk-reduction approach of "Don’t ride under the influence." The drinking age was lower in those years, and the 12 youth in the group followed this expectation. Over the next 10 months, we rode 65,000 miles in 42 states, and, while we had incidents with substance use, we did not have a single accident. While our group did not include anyone with serious substance abuse problems, this approach seemed to work because it was reasonable and made sense to youth. In our current work, we approach substance abuse prevention in a graded manner: 1) providing information to delay the first use; 2) preventing recreational and experimental users from becoming regular users; and 3) helping those experiencing problems with substances from getting worse. The first two phases are addressed through health education, while special educational groups serve youth who are in phase three. We advocate abstinence and highlight the possible consequences of underage and illicit use, and we also stress reducing the risks associated with such activity Our approach is an alternative to the disease model and does not criminalize adolescent use. In earlier years, many kids told us: "If abstinence is the only option, I am not going to make any changes in my drug use." Now, we often hear, "If I can be more responsible with my use, maybe one day I–ll be abstinent." Alcohol and adolescence Among many adolescents, alcohol and drug experimentation is normal behavior, although certainly one fraught with risk. Jessor (1985) noted that experimentation may serve various functions during the developmental process. This can be a way of asserting autonomy by opposing adult authority, finding affiliation and connection with peers, coping with feelings of inadequacy, and relieving boredom and loneliness. Research has demonstrated that the age when adolescents first start using alcohol, tobacco, and other illicit drugs is a predictor of later alcohol and drug problems. More than 40% of youth who start drinking at age 14 or younger develop alcohol dependence, compared with 10% of youth who begin drinking at age 20 or older. Tobacco use, particularly among girls, is a powerful predictor of future use of other drugs. For males, alcohol use can be a gateway to other drugs (Ericson, 2001). As kids move into early adolescence, they change dramatically The new developmental tasks involve establishing independence, developing a coherent self-identity and adjusting to psychosocial changes associated with physical maturation. Adolescents begin to question adult standards and the need for parental guidance and increase their time with peers, and they begin to identify themselves with certain peers, while distancing themselves from others. They seek advice from friends who are understanding and sympathetic, and they experiment with new values with their peers “sometimes to seek adults” reactions to their experimentation. Substance use increases in adolescence (Johnston, O–Malley, & Bachman, 1998) as smoking, drinking, and other drugs become a way to appear mature while fitting in with peers. For kids challenged by abuse and neglect, alcohol or drug use is likely to amplify risks to their health and wellbeing. There is an association between smoking, depression, and anxiety in teens, and teens who smoke report more symptoms of depression (Kandel & Raveis, 1989). While the disease model was designed to assist substance-abusing adults, adolescent substance problems differ from those of adults with chronic alcohol dependence (Bailey & Rachal, 1993; Kilty, 1990). Thus, very few adolescents and young adults meet the DSM-IV criteria for alcohol dependence (Baa, Kiviahan, & Marlatt, 1995). Most young adults reduce heavy drinking as they learn their limits and begin to assume other responsibilities, such as work and parenting. Consequently, interventions for adolescents should be different from those we use with adults. When we talk with kids about why they use drugs, they answer, "to numb the pain of abuse and neglect" "to be accepted," "peer pressure," "to take control of my own life," "for relaxation and pleasure," "to chill," "to improve my self-image," "because I’m curious, stressed, or bored," and "to assert myself." It is obvious that adolescent substance abuse is not a younger version of adult substance abuse. Disease versus Strength Over the last 20 years, the federal government has engaged in a war on drugs," the cigarette industry has been limited in its advertising targeted at adolescents, alcohol advertisements have been restricted, and states have increased the legal drinking and smoking age. Nevertheless, kids continue to smoke, drink, and use other drugs. During this same time, the disease model has shaped most research in the field. This framework has inevitably focused on the negative outcomes of illicit drugs, rather than a preventive, health-promoting perspective that could have explored patterns of adaptation and competence of kids and adults who have learned to manage their lives. Strengths-based practitioners work from the premise that children and youth have strength and competence and can recover and bounce back from adversities (Garmezy, 1987). The focus becomes "finding, enhancing, and encouraging the utilizations of coping skills with which to navigate troubled waters" (Norman, 1997, p. 74). Research shows that youthful alcohol problems are often intermittent and may remit without formal treatment, rather than becoming fatal and progressive (Sobell, Cunningham, Sobell, Agrawal, Gavin, Leo, & Singh, 1996; Tucker, & King, 1999). This is congruent with resiliency research showing that most who struggle as teens and young adults overcome their problems and are well functioning in their 30s and 40s (e.g., Werner & Smith, 1992). Emerging studies (Smith, House, Croghan, Gauvin, Couigen, Offord, GomezDahi, & Hurt, T996; Hurt, Croghan, Crohan, Wolter, Patten, & Offord 2000) suggest that a decrease in cigarette smoking may be a viable alternative to cessation. The strengths perspective offers a different lens to describe youths” enchantment with cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs and allows us to begin to see opportunities, hope, and solutions. Rather than channeling efforts toward correcting deficits of adolescent alcohol and substance use, we aim to achieve the desired outcome, i.e., that kids don’t become lifelong abusers or addicts. True growth only takes Place when individuals” strengths are channeled toward goals that they themselves set. The strengths perspective posits that work with kids at the policy, management, and direct service levels should focus on cultivating protective factors. Alcohol and drug problems are common among disenfranchised kids. Thus, our primary intervention should be to create reclaiming niches that provide kids opportunity for belonging, mastery independence, and generosity (Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern, 2002). As the strengths approach to working with young people has been refined, we have been able to apply it to adolescents who engage in risky use of substances. Most of the kids with whom we work do not perceive themselves as alcoholics or as drug addicts, and they believe they are able to control their use. For some, addiction terminology turns them off and makes them unwilling to listen to adults. The dichotomous choice of either abstinence or relapse invalidates kids who manage to drink or use drugs more moderately Coming from a strengths perspective, we engage youth when they say, "I want to use substances more responsibly". We then challenge them to explore what responsible use would be. Here is an example from a discussion in our substance abuse group: Jeremy: I know I can drink responsibly Counselor: You and the group know that underage drinking is illegal, and we have talked about the consequences of continuing before, But what do you mean by responsible drinking? Jeremy: Not drinking on school nights. Counselor: OK. What else? Jeremy: Not drinking and driving. Natasha: That’s easier said than done. How would you then get around? Nathan: You could have a designated driver. You know, someone who doesn’t drink for the evening. Susan: No one would do that be clear-headed all evening when everybody else was partying. Jeremy: I would do that if everybody would take turns. Counselor: How would you arrange for a designated driver? Jeremy: My friends and I would take turns “I would go first. The counselor collaborates with Jeremy, building on what Jeremy believes is possible. Such discussions strengthen pro-social values and foster more responsible behavior. Since the kids with whom we work are already faced with multiple challenges, our intervention should focus on reducing the risk associated with their drug and alcohol use. Marlatt (1998) described the principles which underlie a harm-reduction approach to adolescent alcohol and drug use: Harm reduction is an alternative to the moral, criminal, and disease models. Harm reduction accepts alternatives if total abstinence is not a realistic goal. Harm reduction is a bottom-up, consumer-oriented approach. Harm reduction promotes easier access to services. Harm reduction involves compassionate pragmatism rather than moral idealism. The question can be raised as to whether harm reduction allows youth to remain in denial about their substance abuse instead of holding them accountable. We have concluded that it allows us to engage and influence youth who would otherwise not be reached by other approaches. But this requires a shift from a narrow focus on deficit to discover untapped strengths, even in youth with problems. Frederick Douglass wrote, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." As we train our eyes to look for strengths and to acknowledge the struggle of young people, we can assist them in their growth. A strength-based approach to kids who use drugs and alcohol focuses on reducing the risk in their lives. We promote abstinence and identify possible consequences for continued use of illicit drugs. Additionally we collaborate with youth who are unwilling to accept abstinence as a solution in order to reduce the risks of harm from their use. Success comes as each young person develops inner controls and lives a balanced and healthy life in harmony with self and others. References Baer, J. S., Kivlahan, D. R., & Marlatt C. A. (1995). High-risk drinking across the transition from high school to college. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 19, 54-61. Bailey, S. L., & Rachal, J. V. (1993). Dimensions of adolescent problem drinking. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 54, 555-565. Brendtro, L., Brokenleg, M., & Van Bockern, S. (2002). Reclaiming youth at risk: Our hope for the future. (2nd ed.) Bloomington, TN: National Educational Service. Ericson, N. (2001). Substance abuse: The nation's number one health problem. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Garmezy, N. (1987). Stress, competence and development: Continuities in the study of schizophrenic adults, children vulnerable to psychopathology and the search for stress resistant children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57(2), 159-1 74. Hurt R. D., Croghan, G. A., Croghan, I. T., Wolter, T., Patten, C. A., & Offord, K. T. (2000). Nicotine patch therapy in 101 adolescent smokers. Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, 154, 31-37. Jessor, R. (1985). Bridging etiology and prevention in drug abuse research. N.I.D.A. Research Monograph Series, 56, 257-268. Johnston, L. D., O–Malley, PM., & Bachman, J. G. (1998). National survey results on drug use from the Monitoring the Future Study. 1975-97. Rockville, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse. Kandel, D. B., & Raveis, V. H. (1989). Cession of illicit drug use in young adulthood. Archives of General Psychiatry, 46, 109-116. Kilty, K. M. (1990). Drinking styles of adolescents and young adults. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 51, 556-564. Marlatt, G. A. (1998), Basic principles and strategies of harm reduction, In G.A. Marlatt (Ed.), Harm reduction: Pragmatic strategies for managing high-risk behaviors (pp. 49-66). New York: Guilford Press. Norman, E. (1997). New directions: Looking at psychological dimensions in resiliency enhancement. In Elaine Norman (Ed.), Drug-Free Youth (pp. 73-93). New York: Garland O–Neil Publishing. Sobell, L.C., Cunningham, JA., Sobell, M. B., Agrawal, S., Gavin, D. R., Leo, C. I., & Singh, K. N. (1996). Fostering self-change among problem drinkers: A proactive community intervention. Addictive Behavior, 21, 817-833. Smith, T. A., House, R. F, Croghan, I. T., Gauvin, T. R., Colligan, R. C., Offord, K. P. Gomez-Dahl, I. C., & Hurt, R. D. (1996). Nicotine patch therapy in adolescent smokers. Pediatrics, 98, 659-667. Tucker, J. A., & King, M. P (1999). Resolving alcohol and drug problems: Influences on addictive behavior change and help-seeking processes. In J. A. Tucker, D. M. Donovan, & C. A. Marlatt (Eds.), Changing addictive behavior: Bridging clinical and public health strategies (pp. 97-126). New York: Guilford Press. Werner, F. & Smith, R. (1992). Overcoming the odds: High risk children from birth to adulthood. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. This feature: Laursen, Erik K. and Brasler, Paul. (2002) Is Harm Reduction a Viable Choice for Kids Enchanted with drugs? Reclaiming children and youth. Vol. 11 No. 3 Fall 2002 pp. 181-183
Special Report: As Official Washington fumes about Russia-gate, Israel’s far more significant political-influence-and-propaganda campaigns are ignored. No one dares suggest a probe of Israel-gate, says Robert Parry. By Robert Parry The other day, I asked a longtime Democratic Party insider who is working on the Russia-gate investigation which country interfered more in U.S. politics, Russia or Israel. Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Israel, of course.” Which underscores my concern about the hysteria raging across Official Washington about “Russian meddling” in the 2016 presidential campaign: There is no proportionality applied to the question of foreign interference in U.S. politics. If there were, we would have a far more substantive investigation of Israel-gate. The problem is that if anyone mentions the truth about Israel’s clout, the person is immediately smeared as “anti-Semitic” and targeted by Israel’s extraordinarily sophisticated lobby and its many media/political allies for vilification and marginalization. So, the open secret of Israeli influence is studiously ignored, even as presidential candidates prostrate themselves before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both appeared before AIPAC in 2016, with Clinton promising to take the U.S.-Israeli relationship “to the next level” – whatever that meant – and Trump vowing not to “pander” and then pandering like crazy. Congress is no different. It has given Israel’s controversial Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a record-tying three invitations to address joint sessions of Congress (matching the number of times British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appeared). We then witnessed the Republicans and Democrats competing to see how often their members could bounce up and down and who could cheer Netanyahu the loudest, even when the Israeli prime minister was instructing the Congress to follow his position on Iran rather than President Obama’s. Israeli officials and AIPAC also coordinate their strategies to maximize political influence, which is derived in large part by who gets the lobby’s largesse and who doesn’t. On the rare occasion when members of Congress step out of line – and take a stand that offends Israeli leaders – they can expect a well-funded opponent in their next race, a tactic that dates back decades. Well-respected members, such as Rep. Paul Findley and Sen. Charles Percy (both Republicans from Illinois), were early victims of the Israeli lobby’s wrath when they opened channels of communication with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the cause of seeking peace. Findley was targeted and defeated in 1982; Percy in 1984. Findley recounted his experience in a 1985 book, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, in which Findley called the lobby “the 700-pound gorilla in Washington.” The book was harshly criticized in a New York Times review by Adam Clymer, who called it “an angry, one-sided book that seems often to be little more than a stringing together of stray incidents.” Enforced Silence Since then, there have been fewer and fewer members of Congress or other American politicians who have dared to speak out, judging that – when it comes to the Israeli lobby – discretion is the better part of valor. Today, many U.S. pols grovel before the Israeli government seeking a sign of favor from Prime Minister Netanyahu, almost like Medieval kings courting the blessings of the Pope at the Vatican. During the 2008 campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama, whom Netanyahu viewed with suspicion, traveled to Israel to demonstrate sympathy for Israelis within rocket-range of Gaza while steering clear of showing much empathy for the Palestinians. In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney tried to exploit the tense Obama-Netanyahu relationship by stopping in Israel to win a tacit endorsement from Netanyahu. The 2016 campaign was no exception with both Clinton and Trump stressing their love of Israel in their appearances before AIPAC. Money, of course, has become the lifeblood of American politics – and American supporters of Israel have been particularly strategic in how they have exploited that reality. One of Israel’s most devoted advocates, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has poured millions of dollars in “dark money” into political candidates and groups that support Israel’s interests. Adelson, who has advocated dropping a nuclear bomb inside Iran to coerce its government, is a Trump favorite having donated a record $5 million to Trump’s inaugural celebration. Of course, many Israel-connected political donations are much smaller but no less influential. A quarter century ago, I was told how an aide to a Democratic foreign policy chairman, who faced a surprisingly tough race after redistricting, turned to the head of AIPAC for help and, almost overnight, donations were pouring in from all over the country. The chairman was most thankful. The October Surprise Mystery Israel’s involvement in U.S. politics also can be covert. For instance, the evidence is now overwhelming that the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin played a key role in helping Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1980 strike a deal with Iran to frustrate President Jimmy Carter’s efforts to free 52 American hostages before Election Day. Begin despised Carter for the Camp David Accords that forced Israel to give back the Sinai to Egypt. Begin also believed that Carter was too sympathetic to the Palestinians and – if he won a second term – would conspire with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to impose a two-state solution on Israel. Begin’s contempt for Carter was not even a secret. In a 1991 book, The Last Option, senior Israeli intelligence and foreign policy official David Kimche explained Begin’s motive for dreading Carter’s reelection. Kimche said Israeli officials had gotten wind of “collusion” between Carter and Sadat “to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.” Kimche continued, “This plan prepared behind Israel’s back and without her knowledge must rank as a unique attempt in United States’s diplomatic history of short-changing a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation.” But Begin recognized that the scheme required Carter winning a second term in 1980 when, Kimche wrote, “he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby.” In a 1992 memoir, Profits of War, former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe also noted that Begin and other Likud leaders held Carter in contempt. “Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David,” Ben-Menashe wrote. “As Begin saw it, the agreement took away Sinai from Israel, did not create a comprehensive peace, and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel’s back.” So, in order to buy time for Israel to “change the facts on the ground” by moving Jewish settlers into the West Bank, Begin felt Carter’s reelection had to be prevented. A different president also presumably would give Israel a freer hand to deal with problems on its northern border with Lebanon. Ben-Menashe was among a couple of dozen government officials and intelligence operatives who described how Reagan’s campaign, mostly through future CIA Director William Casey and past CIA Director George H.W. Bush, struck a deal in 1980 with senior Iranians who got promises of arms via Israel in exchange for keeping the hostages through the election and thus humiliating Carter. (The hostages were finally released on Jan. 20, 1981, after Reagan was sworn in as President.) Discrediting History Though the evidence of the so-called October Surprise deal is far stronger than the current case for believing that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. media have refused to accept it, deeming it a “conspiracy theory.” One of the reasons for the hostility directed against the 1980 case was the link to Israel, which did not want its hand in manipulating the election of a U.S. president to become an accepted part of American history. So, for instance, the Israeli government went to great lengths to discredit Ben-Menashe after he began to speak with reporters and to give testimony to the U.S. Congress. When I was a Newsweek correspondent and first interviewed Ben-Menashe in 1990, the Israeli government initially insisted that he was an impostor, that he had no connection to Israeli intelligence. However, when I obtained documentary evidence of Ben-Menashe’s work for a military intelligence unit, the Israelis admitted that they had lied but then insisted that he was just a low-level translator, a claim that was further contradicted by other documents showing that he had traveled widely around the world on missions to obtain weapons for the Israel-to-Iran arms pipeline. Nevertheless, the Israeli government along with sympathetic American reporters and members of the U.S. Congress managed to shut down any serious investigation into the 1980 operation, which was, in effect, the prequel to Reagan’s Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal of 1984-86. Thus, U.S. history was miswritten. [For more details, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative; Secrecy & Privilege; and Trick or Treason.] Looking back over the history of U.S.-Israeli relations, it is clear that Israel exercised significant influence over U.S. presidents since its founding in 1948, but the rise of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party in the 1970s – led by former Jewish terrorists Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir – marked a time when Israel shed any inhibitions about interfering directly in U.S. politics. Much as Begin and Shamir engaged in terror attacks on British officials and Palestinian civilians during Israel’s founding era, the Likudniks who held power in 1980 believed that the Zionist cause trumped normal restraints on their actions. In other words, the ends justified the means. In the 1980s, Israel also mounted spying operations aimed at the U.S. government, including those of intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard, who fed highly sensitive documents to Israel and – after being caught and spending almost three decades in prison – was paroled and welcomed as a hero inside Israel. A History of Interference But it is true that foreign interference in U.S. politics is as old as the American Republic. In the 1790s, French agents – working with the Jeffersonians – tried to rally Americans behind France’s cause in its conflict with Great Britain. In part to frustrate the French operation, the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. In the Twentieth Century, Great Britain undertook covert influence operations to ensure U.S. support in its conflicts with Germany, while German agents unsuccessfully sought the opposite. So, the attempts by erstwhile allies and sometimes adversaries to move U.S. foreign policy in one direction or another is nothing new, and the U.S. government engages in similar operations in countries all over the world, both overtly and covertly. It was the CIA’s job for decades to use propaganda and dirty tricks to ensure that pro-U.S. politicians were elected or put in power in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, pretty much everywhere the U.S. government perceived some interest. After the U.S. intelligence scandals of the 1970s, however, some of that responsibility was passed to other organizations, such as the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). NED, USAID and various “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) finance activists, journalists and other operatives to undermine political leaders who are deemed to be obstacles to U.S. foreign policy desires. In particular, NED has been at the center of efforts to flip elections to U.S.-backed candidates, such as in Nicaragua in 1990, or to sponsor “color revolutions,” which typically organize around some color as the symbol for mass demonstrations. Ukraine – on Russia’s border – has been the target of two such operations, the Orange Revolution in 2004, which helped install anti-Russian President Viktor Yushchenko, and the Maidan ouster of elected pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. NED president Carl Gershman, a neoconservative who has run NED since its founding in 1983, openly declared that Ukraine was “the biggest prize” in September 2013 — just months before the Maidan protests — as well as calling it an important step toward ousting Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2016, Gershman called directly for regime change in Russia. The Neoconservatives Another key issue related to Israeli influence inside the United States is the role of the neocons, a political movement that emerged in the 1970s as a number of hawkish Democrats migrated to the Republican Party as a home for more aggressive policies to protect Israel and take on the Soviet Union and Arab states. In some European circles, the neocons are described as “Israel’s American agents,” which may somewhat overstate the direct linkage between Israel and the neocons although a central tenet of neocon thinking is that there must be no daylight between the U.S. and Israel. The neocons say U.S. politicians must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel even if that means the Americans sidling up to the Israelis rather than any movement the other way. Since the mid-1990s, American neocons have worked closely with Benjamin Netanyahu. Several prominent neocons (including former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser and Robert Loewenberg) advised Netanyahu’s 1996 campaign and urged a new strategy for “securing the realm.” Essentially, the idea was to replace negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab states with “regime change” for governments that were viewed as troublesome to Israel, including Iraq and Syria. By 1998, the Project for the New American Century (led by neocons William Kristol and Robert Kagan) was pressuring President Bill Clinton to invade Iraq, a plan that was finally put in motion in 2003 under President George W. Bush. But the follow-on plans to go after Syria and Iran were delayed because the Iraq War turned into a bloody mess, killing some 4,500 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Bush could not turn to phase two until near the end of his presidency and then was frustrated by a U.S. intelligence estimate concluding that Iran was not working on a nuclear bomb (which was to be the pretext for a bombing campaign). Bush also could pursue “regime change” in Syria only as a proxy effort of subversion, rather than a full-scale U.S. invasion. President Barack Obama escalated the Syrian proxy war in 2011 with the support of Israel and its strange-bedfellow allies in Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni-ruled Gulf States, which hated Syria’s government because it was allied with Shiite-ruled Iran — and Sunnis and Shiites have been enemies since the Seventh Century. Israel insists that the U.S. take the Sunni side, even if that puts the U.S. in bed with Al Qaeda. But Obama dragged his heels on a larger U.S. military intervention in Syria and angered Netanyahu further by negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program rather than bomb-bomb-bombing Iran. Showing the Love Obama’s perceived half-hearted commitment to Israeli interests explained Romney’s campaign 2012 trip to seek Netanyahu’s blessings. Even after winning a second term, Obama sought to appease Netanyahu by undertaking a three-day trip to Israel in 2013 to show his love. Still, in 2015, when Obama pressed ahead with the Iran nuclear agreement, Netanyahu went over the President’s head directly to Congress where he was warmly received, although the Israeli prime minister ultimately failed to sink the Iran deal. In Campaign 2016, both Clinton and Trump wore their love for Israel on their sleeves, Clinton promising to take the relationship to “the next level” (a phrase that young couples often use when deciding to go from heavy petting to intercourse). Trump reminded AIPAC that he had a Jewish grandchild and vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Both also bristled with hatred toward Iran, repeating the popular falsehood that “Iran is the principal source of terrorism” when it is Saudi Arabia and other Sunni sheikdoms that have been the financial and military supporters of Al Qaeda and Islamic State, the terror groups most threatening to Europe and the United States. By contrast to Israel’s long history of playing games with U.S. politics, the Russian government stands accused of trying to undermine the U.S. political process recently by hacking into emails of the Democratic National Committee — revealing the DNC’s improper opposition to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign — and of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — disclosing the contents of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street and pay-to-play aspects of the Clinton Foundation — and sharing that information with the American people via WikiLeaks. Although WikiLeaks denies getting the two batches of emails from the Russians, the U.S. intelligence community says it has high confidence in its conclusions about Russian meddling and the mainstream U.S. media treats the allegations as flat-fact. The U.S. intelligence community also has accused the Russian government of raising doubts in the minds of Americans about their political system by having RT, the Russian-sponsored news network, hold debates for third-party candidates (who were excluded from the two-party Republican-Democratic debates) and by having RT report on protests such as Occupy Wall Street and issues such as “fracking.” The major U.S. news media and Congress seem to agree that the only remaining question is whether evidence can be adduced showing that the Trump campaign colluded in this Russian operation. For that purpose, a number of people associated with the Trump campaign are to be hauled before Congress and made to testify on whether or not they are Russian agents. Meanwhile, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other establishment-approved outlets are working with major technology companies on how to marginalize independent news sources and to purge “Russian propaganda” (often conflated with “fake news”) from the Internet. It seems that no extreme is too extreme to protect the American people from the insidious Russians and their Russia-gate schemes to sow doubt about the U.S. political process. But God forbid if anyone were to suggest an investigation of Israel-gate. Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Hi Tyrians! We explained previously how we’re aiming to improve the overall game experience for guilds in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™. We want to empower guilds and give them the tools they need to structure their community around common goals and challenges. Guild Halls were designed to be part of this new structure as a means to bring players together around a place they can call their own. First you’ll take territory from the enemy and guard it, then repair it together with your guild by gathering resources and earning favor to unlock upgrades and buildings. Then you can begin decorating it to make it a place everyone will be proud to call home. With the same goal in mind, we decided to change the way players will experience guild missions in the future. Read more about guild changes in this blog post. Link Hughes says, “I remember sitting in the office, watching the expansion announcement stream from PAX South. When Guild Halls were announced and the audience screamed for what felt like eight solid seconds, I got really excited, and a little bit nervous. No pressure, right? Then when the event was over, I got a text message from my old guild leader saying, ‘I went into the announcement skeptical, and came out hyperventilating!’ Then I was just grinning.” Dara Potocska remembers working on the guild arena. “There was a bug that let the turrets in the arena kill each other,” she says. “I made a test map in which the arena was filled with nothing but turrets, and they were constantly attacking each other. They destroyed each other in a death match. There were no survivors.” Alina Chadwick recalls what it felt like to complete an area: “It was really, really cool to go through the office when it was fully populated. It was this warehouse where I’ve been testing things for many months, but it feels like a place now and it’s awesome.” McKenna Berdrow has a story about testing. “One time we were testing a large group in the Gilded Hollow expedition. When we killed the boss, all of its projectiles exploded into another mass of projectiles. Framerate ground to a halt and lots of people died. It was like an epic bullet hell shooter.” Darren Mason says, “I knew I liked the arena the first time I saw a fear turret make someone run off the edge. That was hilarious.” Find more details about the upcoming changes for guilds in our four Guild Week segments!
Teen died of drugs overdose as friends listened on Skype Patrick McMullen suddenly keeled over while chatting to friends on Skype They called an ambulance and paramedics found him dead at the family home Promising student had done well in exams and hoped to apply to Cambridge Overdose: Patrick McMullen began to slur his words during a Skype conversation with friends in which he confessed to taking three LSD tabs and 500mg of E A teenager died of a drugs overdose in his bedroom as friends listened helplessly online over Skype, an inquest heard. Patrick McMullen, who hoped to study at Cambridge, had boasted of buying drugs from notorious illicit website Silk Road. The 17-year-old took 500mg of ecstasy and three LSD tablets while his parents were out for the day. Then he went online to chat with friends on internet call service Skype. One of them, Jack Salisbury, told the inquest Patrick had boasted of taking ecstasy and LSD, and taking ketamine that he purchased on Silk Road – where users can obtain anything from drugs to fake passports. Jack, 17, said: ‘There were four of us who started chatting on Skype. Patrick told us he had taken half a gram of ecstasy and three tabs of LSD. ‘He was also talking about taking ketamine which he had got from Silk Road. He began talking differently. He was saying, “This is high quality stuff”. He said, “I’m starting to feel the effects now”. ‘It became apparent he couldn’t hold a conversation – he wasn’t making any sense. It sounded like he was banging around the room then he went silent.’ Jack tried calling Patrick on his mobile phone, and raised the alarm when it went unanswered. ‘About 20 minutes later I told my mum and she called an ambulance,’ he said. An ambulance crew found Patrick dead on his bedroom floor at the family’s £250,000 semi-detached house in Puddletown, near Dorchester in Dorset. Patrick’s mother Collette, 50, told the inquest in Dorchester she knew her son was a drug user and had begged him to stop. Mrs McMullen, a director of engineering firm Babcock International, said: ‘I asked him to promise me he wouldn’t use drugs. He said he couldn’t do that. ‘He thought taking drugs was a way of expanding his mind. ‘Patrick had a view of drugs that was contrary to our family beliefs.’ She said Patrick – who had three older brothers and an older sister – was a ‘happy and witty boy with a good sense of humour’. ‘He had done well in his exams and was hoping to go to Cambridge or UCL,’ she said. ‘He was confident and could be obnoxious, but we thought it was just him being a typical teenager.’ Conversation: Patrick collapsed and died while talking to friends on Skype (file photo) Her son was ‘an independent and confident 17-year-old’, she added, and she and her husband James, a retired Merchant Navy captain, ‘never expected any issues or concerns’ as they left home that day. The inquest heard Patrick was expelled in 2011 from the Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester – rated outstanding by Ofsted – for dealing drugs to another student. But he had moved to The Purbeck School in Wareham, and hoped to study computing at Cambridge. A post-mortem examination into the August 31 tragedy revealed that the cause of Patrick’s death was ecstasy toxicity. Sheriff Payne, the Dorset coroner, ruled he died due to illicit drug abuse – and warned users can never be sure what might happen. Drugs: The teenager's mother had pleaded with him to stop taking ecstasy (file photo) He said: ‘It is a very sad end to a young man, particularly one who felt so confident in the use of drugs.You never know the purity of what you are taking and you can easily come unstuck.’ The Silk Road is a hidden online marketplace. Its many dealers can only be accessed by downloading a browser that is intended to grant users anonymity. The illicit website trades items such as cocaine, ecstasy, and fake utility bills and driving licences using the encrypted digital currency ‘bitcoins’.
One of the world's longest-running ecological studies has revealed that Amazonian forests are being altered by multiple environmental threats - creating even greater perils for the world's largest rainforest. "It's like a boxer getting hit by a flurry of punches," says lead author William Laurance of James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. For the past 35 years, a team of Brazilian and international researchers has studied how diverse communities of trees and vines respond when the Amazonian rainforest is fragmented by cattle ranching. The fragmented forests, they found, change rapidly. "Lots of trees have died while vines, which favour disturbed forests, proliferate rapidly," said Jose Luis Camargo of Brazil's National Institute for Amazonian Research. But the biggest surprise is that nearby undisturbed forests, which were also being carefully studied, changed as well. Trees there grew and died faster, and the vines also multiplied. "These changes might be driven by increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," said Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University in Virginia, USA, who initiated the long-term study. "Plants use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and when it increases, the forest evidently becomes more unstable and dynamic, as long as the soils have enough nutrients." The investigators say a key implication is that many forests are being affected not only by land-use changes such as habitat fragmentation, but also by global-scale changes such as rising carbon dioxide and climate change. In some cases different drivers reinforce one another, increasing their impacts on forests. "A big implication is that it's going to be harder to predict future changes to ecosystems if they're being affected by several environmental drivers," said Lovejoy. The researchers expect such changes to increase in the future. "Humans continue to dump billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year, and it's evidently affecting even the remotest forests on Earth," said Laurance. ###
NAIROBI, April 21 (Reuters) - Kenyan rangers killed five poachers in a clash in the Rift Valley early on Saturday and recovered elephant tusks and weapons, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said. Poaching in Kenya has declined significantly since the 1980s and 1990s when gangs nearly decimated its elephant and rhino populations, but there has been an upsurge in recent years. The KWS said last month it had increased its efforts to hunt down poachers and had killed six poachers this year who were hunting for elephant, buffalo and rhino. “Two rangers were injured in the 1 a.m. incident,” the KWS said in a statement on the clash with the poachers in northwest Kenya. “Elephant tusks weighing 50 kg were recovered as well as three AK-47 rifles and 15 rounds of ammunition.” Ivory from African elephants is typically smuggled to Asia where it is carved into ornaments, while rhino horn is used in traditional medicine and has even gained a reputation for curing cancer - a claim scientists have dismissed. The KWS says poachers are killing around 100 elephants a year in Kenya, often operating in increasingly sophisticated gangs.
Hand-painted Ghanaian movie posters are very creative…and often more interesting than official film posters. However, in some cases it is obvious the painter knows little about the movie he’s making the poster for. Here are 12 of the most hilariously obvious examples of this. 1. Child’s Play. I don’t remember this movie having jungles and machine gun fights in it: 2. Hellraiser 2. Apparently Pinhead is known for eating people whole: 3. Cujo. This is a joke right? Who knew Cujo was a basset hound: 4. Freddy vs. Jason. This looks more like Jason vs. Fabio: 5. The Return of the Living Dead. This is one of my favorite movies, so I’m pretty sure it didn’t take place in an ocean: 6. Freddy vs. Jason (again). Jason vs. some random guy named Fred: 7. Sleepy Hallow. Or should I say Sleepy Hallowman…The Horseman: 8. Ghost. I know this movie is more romance than horror, but they actually made it look scary: 9. 9. Friday the 13th. What the hell is that beside Jason’s elbow? Looks like some kind of snake/penis: 10. Drag to Hell. I assume they mean Drag Me to Hell, but it actually looks more like a ripoff of Night of the Demons: Thanks for reading! Let us know which is your favorite. Also click here to check out more of our lists.
This article is over 3 years old Mitchell was module pilot on the record-setting Apollo 14 mission in 1971 alongside Alan Shephard Jr Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, has died at the age of 85. Mitchell died in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday, on the eve of the 45th anniversary of the lunar landing, Nasa said. The Palm Beach Post reported that he died at a hospice centre after a brief illness. On his only space flight, Mitchell joined Apollo 14 commander Alan Shephard Jr, the first American in space, in the lunar module Antares when it landed on 5 Feb 5 1971. Their mission was to deploy scientific instruments and perform a communications test, as well as photograph the lunar surface and any deep-space phenomena, Nasa said. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Edgar Mitchell standing by the US flag on the Moon’sm surface during the early moments of Apollo 14’s first spacewalk. Photograph: AFP/Getty Mitchell and Shephard set mission records for time of the longest distance traversed on the lunar surface, the largest payload returned from the moon, and the longest lunar stay time, at 33 hours. They were also the first to transmit colour TV from the moon. Mitchell helped collect 42.6kg (94lbs) of lunar rock and soil samples. He was the sixth of 12 men to walk on the Moon. In his book The Way of the Explorer, Mitchell wrote: “There was a sense that our presence as space travellers, and the existence of the universe itself, was not accidental but that there was an intelligent process at work.” Mitchell retired from Nasa and the US Navy and founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973, organised to sponsor research in the nature of consciousness. In 1984, he co-founded the Association of Space Explorers, an international organisation devoted to providing an understanding of the human condition resulting from space exploration. Mitchell was born in Hereford, Texas, and held a doctorate in aeronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was selected as an astronaut in 1966. In a 1997 interview for the agency’s oral history project, Mitchell said he was drawn to space flight by President Kennedy’s call to send astronauts to the moon. “I’ve been devoted to that, to exploration, education, and discovery since my earliest years, and that’s what kept me going,” he said.
FL Gov. Rick Scott (R) "The party is telling me Hogan should win pretty handily," [State Senate President Mike] Haridopolos said. The party in this case was the Republican Party of Florida, which invested in polling and had sent operatives to Duval to help ensure the campaign delivered. The margin being bandied around yesterday by various party officials I spoke with was between 6 and 10 points. Last Tuesday night, a funny thing happened: A Democrat won the mayoral race in Jacksonville, Florida. Alvin Brown, a one-time aide to Bill Clinton, upset Mike Hogan — an upset because Jacksonville is one of the most conservative big cities in America, and because Republicans were confident they had this one in the bag Instead, Brown prevailed by just under one percent, becoming the first Democrat to win the Jacksonvile mayor's job since 1991, and the first African-American to ever hold the post. So what accounted for Brown's victory? Success, of course, always has many fathers, but in this case, it also has one giant anvil shaped just like Rick Scott: As analysts dissect the Jacksonville mayoral race to learn what propelled Democrat Alvin Brown to victory over his GOP rival, one point continues to crop up — Gov. Rick Scott is not very popular in Duval County. "We were thrilled when he endorsed Mike Hogan," Dave Beattie told the Times-Union today. "Barack Obama is actually viewed more positively in Duval County than Rick Scott." Beattie, who served as Brown's pollster throughout the campaign, said Brown wanted to run a Jacksonville-centric race, but benefitted when Republicans would mention Scott. The governor's disapproval ratings topped 51 percent in the polls Beattie ran of voters who turned out. Scott and Hogan's most fervent backers — the tea party — also fared poorly in the polling done throughout the campaign. Beattie, the pollster, also said that Rick Scott's assault on education funding helped propel that issue to the top of voters' concerns. Florida Democrats have had a tough go of things lately, so not only is this a very nice win, but it's also good to see that Scott's over-reach is leading to serious blowback. I'm sure this won't be the last race where he figures prominently, and Scott's fellow crop of freshman governors — like John Kasich in Ohio, Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and more — are likely to have similar downballot effects. It's awful that these guys got elected in the first place, but at least they are finally doing some good now — for us. This diary is brought to you by Daily Kos Elections, an official Daily Kos sub-site. Please read our Mission Statement . Our focus is on electoral politics rather than policy. Welcome aboard!
Adorable puppy finally rescued from storm drain after being trapped for NINE DAYS School teacher Linda Roth heard the puppy barking and called Dallas Animal Rescue to save the puppy who was discovered in good condition The puppy is up for adoption and if Animal Rescue is able to locate the pup's family they will all be placed in loving homes The puppy would have been able to escape from the storm drain but was too afraid to try An adorable puppy in Dallas, Texas was stuck in a storm drain for nine days before being rescued by Dallas Animal Control officers and Dallas Fire-Rescue crews yesterday. Dallas residents could hear the puppy crying for help, and local school teacher Linda Roth decided to contact the authorities on 22 Nov. to rescue the dog. The puppy was born to two stray white Labradors and was one of 13 or 14 dogs birthed by the local school. Animal control workers think that the dog could've been stuck in the drain since 16 Nov. Scroll Down For Video The puppy was rescued yesterday in good condition and is also up for adoption after it is nursed back to health Dallas Animal Rescue set food traps for the dog to lure it towards the opening so he could be hoisted out Puppy lifted: The shivering and hungry little puppy was finally freed after animal rescue employees lifted it from the storm drain Today reports that the first time officers arrived at the scene they couldn't locate the puppy because he was probably scared by the noise and their presence. On Monday, the second time authorities tried to rescue the dog, they set a trap with food to lure the puppy into a cage so that they could hoist him up out of the storm drain. They set these traps in the drain and in an opening 100 yards away. 'We finally got a trap down there, and he went in it pretty quickly,' Dallas Animal Rescue officer Cate McManus said. The puppy was cold and a little hungry, but was not malnourished thanks to school teacher Linda Roth's son who was feeding the dog during his captivity Dallas Animal Rescue officer Cate Macmanus (pictured here with another dog) believes the dog could have escaped from the storm drain but was too scared Animal rescue officer Cate McManus told Today that she thinks the dog could have escaped from the unobstructed storm drain opening but was frightened after losing its mother. The dogs mother barked and roamed the neighborhood looking for her missing puppy. Luckily, the puppy was rescued and appeared to be in good health on Monday after being discovered. Teacher Linda Roth's son attempted to care for the dog by delivering food to the storm drain after his mother first discovered the poor creature. McManus believes that this contributed to the dog's stable condition. School teacher Linda Roth first discovered the dog and called the authorities to rescue the puppy The first time Animal Rescue arrived at the scene, they were unable to find the puppy but reached success the second time around yesterday 'From appearances he seemed to be in good condition,'said McManus. The dog is now being treated by a vet for any injuries and will be up for adoption in the next few days. NBC reports that Animal control are attempting to locate the puppy's mother and father and siblings , reunite them, and find them all a home. Dallas animal control wrote in a statement that there were up to 14 puppies originally but there are four or five left now. In response to criticism that the rescue team did not find the puppy soon enough, they said,'We got a call on the 22nd about a puppy stuck in the drain but our officers spent significant time at the scene investigating and they found no sign of a puppy. We suspect now that we probably scared the puppy off. Dallas Animal Services said if anyone finds an animal in a similar situation they should call 311 and report that the animal is trapped. The pup's mother, a white stray lab, has been wandering the neighborhood looking for her baby
As Americans were spending time scrambling to give the IRS their annual protection fee, the court system in the United Kingdom, at the behest of National Health Service bureaucrats, abducted and murdered an 8-month-old baby. This brazen abduction was done in broad daylight with full press coverage and the UK government and courts claimed loudly this was humane and the right thing to do. By: Justin Murray This article first appeared at Mises.org This might sound like a severe bout of hyperbole, but that is exactly what happened. On April 11, 2017, the courts in the UK ruled that Charlie Gard, against the wishes of his parents, must be immediately removed from life support and left to die. Unlike cases in the US where it is usually the family that is arguing for or against extending hope that their loved ones can be rescued, the only people arguing against continued efforts were government officials and some third party public onlookers. What makes the Charlie Gard case so disturbing is that this is a case where no family member made any argument to remove the child from life support. The government simply overruled them and took their child. As an 8 month old, Charlie was in no position to formulate a living will or even have discussions with relatives as to how he wished to be treated with a potentially fatal illness. Charlie was born with a rare genetic condition called mitochondrial depletion syndrome rrm2b. This genetic disorder comes with a host of issues ranging from muscle deterioration, seizures and, in Charlie’s case, left him blind and deaf. The life expectancy of this disease is between 3 months and 12 years from the onset of symptoms. There are no current proven treatments beyond clinical studies. This certainly seems like a difficult disorder to live and deal with. However, this is up to the individual to decide how to handle the onset of a disorder, or in the case of an infant, the parents. In the case of mitochondrial depletion syndrome, the treatment is risky but could lead to the child being able to experience some life, interact with family and live a number of years. The NHS, predictably, denied treatment stating it is too risky. The £1.2 million cost of treatment ($1.5 million as of this writing) was certainly a factor in this decision, indicating that the know-how and necessary medication is not readily available. In most cases of government run medical care, with such costs, the decision is final. Care is denied and you are sent on your way. In the case of wealthy individuals, medical tourism is always an option. Approximately 800,000 people every year fly to the United States and another 600,000 to Singapore to take advantage of cutting edge and high quality medical treatment that is not available anywhere else. But with the case of Charlie, the £1.2 million price tag would have been out of reach for a regular family. We would have had another footnote for Statists to prove how the poor get trampled under the foot of the rich and we would then go about our day. Except a major feature of the free market, private charity, kicked in wonderfully. Within a month of denial and discovery of the treatment, Charlie’s parents managed to raise the entire amount to pay for the treatment and trip to the United States. In a normal world, this would have been the end of the story. Charlie would have gone to the United States, received his treatment and we would have discovered if his already dire situation could have been mitigated or treatment failed. But the NHS decided, for whatever reason, to interfere with this process. When Charlie’s parents attempted to withdraw him for this treatment, Great Ormond Street, a children’s hospital in Greater London run by the NHS, rushed to the British High Court to block his parents from doing so. As government court systems are wont to do, they sided with themselves and denied the parents’ wishes for further private treatment and gave an official court order that Charlie is to be removed from life support and left to die. This was a no-lose situation for Charlie and his family. If the treatment fails, the end result is the same and the parents can at least have closure that they tried everything possible. If the treatment is a success, he can live enough years to be able to learn what his parents look like, interact with them and be able to experience some joy in life. One can wonder, cynically, if the court system ordered his death to avoid risking embarrassing the NHS should the treatment they denied actually work. Unlike the usual defects of public medical care, where resources are politically allocated leading to critical shortages for perfectly preventable diseases, such as the case of Laura Hiller in Canada, all the while claiming that medical care in a free market would be provided on a cut-throat system that denies the poor care. Charlie’s case shatters this self-proclaimed image. Here we have elements of the free market working as expected but with the government actively, and openly, doing everything it can to interfere with it. Proponents of expanding this system to the United States, such as Paul Krugman, insist that public medicine doesn’t have death panels. What we are now seeing in the UK, not only does the British Government have death panels, they display those death panels as a public court spectacle for all to see and are also in the business of child abduction and forced euthanasia to enforce the panel’s decisions. No private hospital could ever hope to do the same thing that Great Ormond Street and the British High Court just did. This article first appeared at Mises.org
Little about Steve Buscemi suggests Hollywood megastar. Yet his shaggy hair, pallid complexion, those large eerie and sad eyes and slightly crooked teeth have combined to make him one of the most recognised faces on television and cinema. The quirky looks, and an unprepossessing character, mask an absolutely brilliant performer. He brings such complexity to the bad guys he plays – often neurotic oddballs – that his name must be on speed dial if casting agents want the perfect creepy, convincing misfit. In HBO's Boardwalk Empire, which came to an end in autumn 2014 with its 56th and final episode, he finally got his chance to be the main man. After it began in September 2010, the awards flowed for his portrayal of Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson. Buscemi won a Golden Globe for best actor and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, along with numerous other Emmy nominations. Buscemi is a fascinating character off screen, too. Born in Brooklyn on December 13 1957, he came from an ordinary, non-acting family of Irish-Sicillian descent (his mother was a hostess and his father a sanitation worker) and he survived his own share of scrapes. As a youngster, he fractured his skull when he was hit by a bus and was also hit by a car while chasing a ball. The dramatic incidents continued in adulthood. In 2001 he was stabbed three times when he was caught up in a bar brawl involving his friend Vince Vaughn.
By Simon Tam The Slants In response to Ed Diokno’s piece, Why Court of Appeals Take on Racist Name is Wrong, I wanted to address a few key points that are often missed when people discuss the Slants’ case. Like many other difficult issues, this isn’t as cut and dry as one would think. When you add in actual trademark law, it becomes even more complex. I’d like to clarify things. First, the law in question doesn’t affect whether someone can use offensive speech or not. People have always had that right – and in fact, they can get an established trademark while doing so (a trademark is simply an identifier to distinguish itself from others). What they haven’t always been able to get is a trademark registration. Trademark registrations are issued after a strict set of criteria are met (it isn’t misleading, too generic, can’t be a national flag, etc.), and for the last 70 years, Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act barred registrations that were considered “scandalous, immoral, or disparaging.” However, those terms were never defined. “Disparaging” (which is the provision in The Slants’ case) was supposed to be used only in the most extreme cases, when a “substantial composite” of the referenced group took issue. That’s important because for the first five years of our case, the Trademark Office didn’t find any Asian Americans who were upset. If you look at court documents, they could only find disparaging content when doing searches for “Slant” that included “derogatory” and the N-word; in others words, it was a biased approach to begin with. They only referenced dictionaries from the 1930’s and UrbanDictionary.com. We countered with two national surveys (showing 92% of Asian American supported our use), had over 20 Asian American social justice organizations show their support, 20 major Asian American publications, had an editor from the New American Oxford Dictionary write a report showing how “slant” was a reappropriated term, and more – it totaled over 2,500 pages in evidence. And while The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), the South Asian Bar Association of Washington DC (SABA-DC) and the Fred T Korematsu Center for Law and Equality filed a joint amicus brief against our case this year, they did so under false evidence shared by the Trademark Office. Since these groups were unfamiliar with the details of our case, they relied on the inaccurate evidentiary record. For the past five years, members of NAPABA showed broad support – in fact, I presented at their 2015 national conference and had unanimous support there. Also, over the years, we met with over 150 advocacy and social justice organizations and leaders who supported our case. Many protested NAPABA’s amicus brief. Many forget that the Trademark Office rejected our application because of our ethnicity, not because “slant” is an inherent racial slur (because it isn’t). They said our band was “too Asian” to use it – that’s why anyone could register a trademark for “slant,” as long as they aren’t Asian. Whether you may not agree with our use of the name, I think we can all agree that denying rights based on race is wrong. Also, the court only struck down the disparagement provision as unconstitutional. There’s nothing about “offensive” trademarks, which are still allowed. “Offensive” content is protected by the government every day in other forms, including copyright law. The provisions about things being scandalous or immoral still stand. It has nothing to do with whether or not something is “racist,” just “disparaging” (though that definition is vague). For us, the band name has always referred to our “slant” on life as people of color, and to mock the incorrect stereotype. We’re social justice activists who have been fighting for equity for nearly a decade now. Unfortunately, the Trademark Office mischaracterized this work. But this was about exposing their consistent oppression of minority voices. I hope you’ll consider taking a look at the other side of the story, not just the misleading headlines and biased court opinion. We should really think about what this kind of law in place means. Who gets to decide what is “disparaging?” How does this affect the many small businesses, artists, and nonprofits affected by it? For example, there are registered trademarks for “jap,” “chink,” “oriental,” “slant,” and “slope” (all by non-Asians). In fact, Asian American activists are usually targeted for denial because the Trademark Office doesn’t recognize reappropriation as a justifiable use. This means the same law could be used to cancel “Fresh Off the Boat” just as easily as “National Association for the Advancement of Colored People” because people may view those terms as unfavorable. “Angry Little Asian Girl” and “Angry Asian Man” could be seen as scandalous or disparaging. “Slant Film Festival,” one of the largest Asian American events in the country, could be jeopardized as well. The slippery slope argument that this will open the floodgates for hate speech is incorrect and incorrectly assumes how trademark law works. The American Civil Liberties Union writes, “Free speech rights are indivisible. Restricting the speech of one group or individual jeopardizes everyone’s rights because the same laws or regulations used to silence bigots can be used to silence you. Conversely, laws that defend free speech for bigots can be used to defend the rights of civil rights workers, anti-war protesters, lesbian and gay activists and others fighting for justice.” By upholding the law the Trademark Office is using to oppose The Slants (and all trademarks that on their surface look to be disparaging), it further equips hate groups to dismantle the work of groups like the NAACP. It also puts the sole power of determining what is and isn’t offensive in the hands of trademark attorneys who aren’t trained in cultural competency, equitable practices, or the nuances of poetry, irony, reappropriation, or linguistic changes. Dealing with hate speech, especially at a trademark registration level, only deals with the symptoms of racist behavior. It relegates “racism” to surface level conversations instead of systems and “reduces issues from substance to appearance” (Frank Wu). Supporting the Trademark Office’s position to create false protections against hate speech only perpetuates inequity. It preserves a system that is using race as a justification for the suppression of rights. Which, let’s face it, is real racism.
LE BOURGET, France — During the Paris Air Show this week, German government officials met with Lockheed Martin to talk about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a source connected to the program told Defense News. It is not uncommon for potential customers — including Germany — to engage with the defense industry on a number of platforms or technologies, nor does the meeting indicate a significant step forward in the process of selling the F-35 to Germany, the source said. Click here to get full coverage from the Paris Air Show. However, the air show marked the first time the German government and Lockheed had ever discussed the F-35 specifically, albeit in an unclassified setting, he said. In May, Germany sent a written request to the U.S. military for a classified briefing on the F-35, Reuters reported that month. No program of record has been approved by the German government, which intends to evaluate other fighter jets on the market to replace its fleet of fourth-generation Panavia Tornadoes. However, the apparent interest in the F-35 was somewhat surprising, given Germany's participation in the Eurofighter Typhoon program built with the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. Lt. Gen. Bunch on why the US needed to showcase the F-35 in Paris The flight of the F-35 was a little uncertain for a period of time prior to the Paris Air Show, but it came and enthralled. And that sends an important message to the international community, said Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, the military deputy of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition. The U.S. Defense Department has agreed to support Germany’s request for a briefing, said F-35 Joint Program Office spokesman Joe DellaVedova, who was not aware whether the discussion would include classified data. Preparations for a meeting are moving forward, but a date has not yet been set. In an interview with Defense News at the Paris Air Show, Orlando Carvalho, head of Lockheed’s aeronautics business, said the company is ready to support the U.S. government if it decides to press on with a classified briefing to Germany. "We’ve seen the interest that the German Air Force has, but right now that’s in government-to-government channels in terms of their interest in getting a briefing," he said. "As we always do, we’ll provide support to our government, to the JPO, if in fact they go forward with providing a briefing to Germany, but none of that has been worked out yet in terms of how that’s going to be done." If a classified briefing is authorized, Carvalho said the company hopes to hold more in-depth talks about the fifth-generation capabilities that differentiate the F-35 from fourth-generation fighter jets. "It’s not just about the signature, it’s about the avionics capability, the mission-system capability, the surveillance capability, ISR, etc. It’s about the ability to communicate on board [and] off board with other platforms," he said. × Fear of missing out? Fear no longer. Be the first to hear about breaking news, as it happens. You'll get alerts delivered directly to your inbox each time something noteworthy happens in the Military community. Thanks for signing up. By giving us your email, you are opting in to our Newsletter: Sign up for our Early Bird Brief
Logistics and transportation play a crucial role to help the economy of India to sustain. You can call them as the nervous system to a country’s economy. And talking about a developing nation like India, with the rise of ecommerce platforms, logistics is growing like it’s no one’s business! Increase in retail outlets, affluent demands from customers and increased connectivity are some of the major reasons why logistics is on a roller coaster. In spite of all these factors, you’ll come across a slew of problems which affects the industry to achieve its maximum potential. In fact the global cost of logistics accounts to approx 5 percent compared to 6 to 10 percent of what we have in India. Well, that means we still have a gigantic scope to improve our revenue margins by implementing better minds in logistics and supply chain management process. Then what’s stopping us? Logistics on the whole, incorporates outbound and inbound supply chain & manufacturing segments in India. And these sectors are hugely fragmented. There is no proper regulatory structure to govern or control the industry! Though Indian trucking is pegged to almost $130 billion market with around 6 million vehicles on road, broadly speaking, it’s cudgeling brains over issues, such as Storage and warehouse management issues Poor infrastructure Middlemen meddling with your operations No control over drivers and their HOS(hours of service) Untimely deliveries Availability of transporters This clearly showcases the current scene in Indian trucking industry. It’s highly fragmented, unorganized and lack communication. Despite of a whopping 4.7% contribution to our GDP, logistics management still have loopholes and hence incapable of delivering its share. So there is an innate need to develop a disruptive solution that can tackle problems related to IT, warehouse management, networking, communication and complete logistics control. And some logistics startups aggregators are gearing up to finally streamline the unorganized trucking business. Companies like Trukky, GoGoVan, etc. are shoving the the fragmented trucking in the country with logistics management apps. Few Example Let’s Transport helped Delhivery, a courier dispatch company from Delhi, track fleets in real time. They have now instant invoicing system and get alerts every time their shipping trucks reaches destination, breaks down or reports to their warehouse. Some more notable players here are Moovo, The Porter, BlackBuck, Blowhorn etc. They are gradually making the logistics a better place to work. These startup aggregators are successful in convincing people that mobility solutions can actually help in solving biggest logistics hurdles. In India the process gets a bit difficult as majority of truck drivers are uncomfortable with English. That’s a reason why Blackbuck has incorporated Hindi in their driver’s app that makes it accessible and easier to more number of drivers. In short logistics startups are planning tactfully to introduce an Uber like trucking solution that modernizes the crippled logistics business. How These Logistics Startups Are Breeding Revenues In India with Uber like trucking solution? If you have a trucking business, the first thing you must rule out is an outdated operating system. And that’s what these startups are aiming. Let’s find out the major strategies Updating An Outdated System Old school operations is one of the major bottlenecks of the troubling logistics in India. There is no way to find out the whereabouts of your trucks, drivers, fuel count, speeding etc. Though GPS enable fleets incorporated with logistics management apps helped the case, it’s time to have a real time touch with clients and truck both. These companies are including top features for logistics app to improvise a better management and that includes: Multilingual features in driver app (include local language) Truck mapping (with geo-location features) Driver account management (includes log/personal details) Truck maintenance alerts (engine, brakes, parts health check) Better Communication Within The Trucking Network When you run a business, you’ve to deal with your employees, your clients and everyone else in your network. Similar goes for logistics business. Over the time, you need to make the management platform simpler and easier for your drivers, your clients and for internal management. And that’s the reason why startups like Let’s Transport and BlackBuck have introduced uber like trucking solution in their trucking management. With this, you get a business running like an oiled machine. Well how is that possible? With logistics management apps solution, you get a shipper or admin app, driver app, an app for your merchant. So whenever there is an initiation for picking up a shipment, you, with the shipper app get alerted. Now comes your part to initiate your available drivers for delivering the shipment. The first to grab to order picks it up, choses the predefined route and reaches destination on time! All over app within few taps. Isn’t that amazing how mobility can actually cut down the hassles of communication? What New Things Are They Spicing Up? BlackBuck has done a commendable job while trying out something new. Apart from the top listed features for logistics management apps, they have utilized some unique logistics app features to address current problems. You can have the features that includes: The distance and mileage calculator Shippers and merchants can track the overall distance covered. This will further help drivers to optimize the route, reach destination on time and get more deliveries done everyday. A separate dashboard for shippers No more idle trucks! To help keep track over available trucks, this features can be your savior. You can view available trucks with few taps on your smartphone. With that, you can easily assign orders to idling drivers- ultimate transparency in your business. Your Trucking Bottomline If you’re running a trucking business, you need to understand the demands of this fragmented market. There are major loopholes to cover but the result is not inconceivable. While you can take ideas from different logistics startups, it’s not required that you copy paste. India’s logistics market is different and hence the need is different as well. Think of out of the box solutions to resolve the pain points of logistics and its traditional ways. It’s high time to think of out-competing the market as the industry is yet quite untouched.
It’s a problem no governor wants to face in a reelection year budget, even a governor like Chris Christie riding a post-Sandy wave of 70 percent approval ratings. With less than a month to go before his annual Budget Address, Christie is facing a structural deficit of at least $2.5 billion that could top $3.5 billion by the June 30 end of the current budget year. The gap is too large to cover even with record revenue growth, as NJ Spotlight shows. For the past six months, Democratic legislative leaders have focused on the growing budget gap created by the Christie administration’s failure to meet its aggressive revenue targets -- a shortfall that stood at $548.8 million as of January 1. Fearing that the revenue shortfall would grow to $1 billion or more by the end of the year, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) called upon Christie’s treasurer, Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff, to explain the shortfall and lay out a contingency plan for midyear budget cuts. Sidamon-Eristoff refused, saying the Legislature would have to wait for Christie’s February 26 Budget Address. Treasury Department officials failed to respond to requests for interviews last week. But the $548.8 million revenue shortfall is actually only a fraction of the looming fiscal crisis facing Christie and Sidamon-Eristoff as they seek to balance the current $31.2 billion Fiscal Year 2013 budget and craft a spending plan for Fiscal Year 2014, which begins July 1. State revenues would have to grow $2 billion in FY14 just to cover the increased cost of the state’s pension contribution, the next stage of Christie’s business tax cut, and the various one-shot nonrecurring revenues built into this year’s budget. And even with a huge income tax surge in December, state revenues only grew $147 million in the first six months of this fiscal year compared with the same July-December period in 2011. Christie’s combined structural deficit for the current and upcoming fiscal year falls into four categories: Making Up The One-Shots: Christie’s current budget is built on $1.115 billion in nonrecurring revenues, including such controversial one shots as spending down $280 million out of an already meager surplus and commandeering $261 million in New Jersey Turnpike toll money to replace state matching funds that were shifted from the Transportation Trust Fund to plug a budget gap. Fulfilling Budget Obligations: Christie has to increase funding for the pensions by $690 million under the terms of the law he signed in 2011, find $194 million for the third year of his business tax cut, and come up with an extra $110 million for built-in transportation debt service increases and the pay-as-you-go transportation capital program he has promised. That does not include any increase in the school funding formula, normal inflationary increases in government expenses, or any money to fund the immediate income tax cut he was pushing for last year. Covering the Revenue Shortfall: Tax revenues came in $123 million short for the FY12 fiscal year that ended June 30 and are currently down $425.8 million through December, which was the first month since last February that revenues actually met or exceeded Christie administration projections. Income tax revenues are likely to continue strong through the spring, which means that the final revenue shortfall will probably be closer to $500 million than the to $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion that Democrats projected. Managing Current-Year Budget Problems: The Christie administration has acknowledged in bond documents that as much as $200 million in anticipated savings in Medicaid and Social Security costs may not come in. In addition, the $200 million in affordable housing money the Christie administration planned to take away from municipalities is down to a contested $142 million. And the administration is awaiting high-court rulings on the legality of its elimination of the Council on Affordable Housing and the transfer of the money to the general budget. It all adds up to a $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion structural deficit that clearly exceeds logical revenue growth projections for next year, and Democratic legislative leaders are increasingly frustrated by the Christie administration’s refusal to discuss the fiscal crisis. “We’ve heard nothing at all,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said impatiently. “We’ve asked. We’ve tried to talk about it, but they say we have to wait for the budget speech.” “They have not given us any glimpse on what they’re planning to do,” Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) added. Sweeney made it clear, however, that two options are off the table. “Honestly, we don’t want to see any of the Sandy relief money diverted by the governor to balance the budget, when so many people and businesses need help,” he said. “And that pension payment has to be made. It is required in the legislation, and I won’t do anything to change it.” The Budget Backlash Democratic leaders, including Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), the presumptive Democratic challenger to Christie in next November’s election, see the upcoming budget crisis as an issue that could cut into Christie’s astronomical popularity ratings, but political experts aren’t convinced. “We’ve had nearly 20 years of governors of both parties balancing their budgets on one-shots and gimmicks without having to pay a price at the polls,” said Patrick Murray, Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “Unfortunately, I don’t expect this year to be any different.” Ben Dworkin, director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, agreed. “Even if there are midyear cuts to be made as well as reductions in state spending in an election year,” Dworkin said, “Christie can come out on top by continuing to portray himself as the guy who had the courage to make the tough decisions, even if Democrats argue that it was Christie himself who caused these problems.” Indeed, much of the current fiscal crisis stems directly from Christie’s premature declaration in last February’s Budget Address that “our fiscal house is in order,” that his “New Jersey Comeback” would generate a record $2.2 billion surge in state revenues the following year, and that the state could afford the first $183 million phase of a four-year $1.4 billion income tax cut. Christie, then a leading contender for the GOP vice presidential nomination, touted his income tax cut from coast to coast, and denounced David Rosen, chief budget officer for the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, as the “Doctor Kevorkian of the numbers” for questioning his revenue estimates. But by mid-May, Sidamon-Eristoff was forced to concede that revenues were coming in $676 million below expectations. Instead of cutting spending or agreeing to delay the tax cut, Christie essentially doubled down on his New Jersey Comeback bet. Despite criticism from the bond-rating agencies, the administration propped up its shaky budget by increasing its reliance on one shot nonrecurring revenues by $450 million. Borrowing From Peter to Pay Paul Politically, Christie had no choice. Drastically lowering his revenue estimates would have required program cuts and cast doubt on his insistence that the state could afford not only the first $183 million tax cut this year but also a $576 million second installment in FY14. Christie covered his FY12 budget gap with $200 million in Clean Energy utility surcharge funds that were supposed to go to clean energy programs and energy assistance for low-income homeowners. He then filled the hole in his FY13 budget by using $260 million in New Jersey Turnpike money to replace promised pay-as-you-go state funding for the Transportation Trust Fund, by anticipating $108 million in debt service savings and by grabbing another $79 million from the Clean Energy Fund. The $447 million in new FY13 one-shots brought total nonrecurring revenues for the current fiscal year to $1.115 billion. Christie’s original budget plan already included the diversion of $280 million from the surplus, $200 million set aside for municipalities to fund affordable housing programs, $111 million from the planned privatized management of the New Jersey Lottery, and $75 million from the National Mortgage Servicing Act. Finding ways to replace that $1.115 billion in one-shot revenue to keep spending at the current level in the FY14 budget is the biggest challenge Christie and Sidamon-Eristoff face, but the $994 million in built-in budget demands comes in a close second. Pension Battles The biggest single funding increase in the FY14 budget is the estimated $690 million hike in the cost of state pension payments from $1.06 billion this year to almost $1.7 billion next year. The increase represents the third step of a seven-year phase-in to full funding of the state’s pension system required under the controversial pension and health benefits overhaul sponsored by Sweeney and signed into law by Christie in 2011. Sweeney’s insistence that he would not consider anything less than full compliance with the pension law was a warning shot to Christie not only for FY14 but also for the current FY13 budget. The state is not expected to make its required $1.06 billion contribution for FY13 until the end of June, just before the fiscal year ends. If Christie comes up short on his FY13 budget, Sweeney does not want the governor to think he can push some or all of his FY13 pension obligation into the following budget year, which would be an easier political decision than delaying property tax rebate payments in an election year. In addition to the pension obligation, Christie needs $194 million more in FY14 to fund the third year of the business tax cuts he pushed through in 2010, $60 million more for interest payments on Transportation Trust Fund bonds, and an additional $50 million for his promised pay-as-you-go transportation capital funding program. Before Christie and Sidamon-Eristoff deal with the FY14 budget, however, they have to resolve close to $1 billion in current-year budget issues, as Sarlo pointed out in a Senate Budget Committee hearing a month ago. First, the state has acknowledged that it is expected to come up $58 million short of the $200 million it anticipated from the diversion of affordable housing funds from municipalities. However, a bigger problem is a pair of lawsuits challenging the authority of the governor to eliminate the bipartisan Council on Affordable Housing and give his Department of Community Affairs the power to seize the remaining $142 million. Second, the state acknowledged in a prospectus issued to potential bond purchasers that it is facing a potential $200 million shortfall in expected savings on Medicaid and Social Security payments, Sarlo noted. Those potential unrealized savings are on top of the $548.8 million combined shortfall in the Christie administration’s FY12 and FY13 revenue projections that have been subject of heated debate between the Republican governor and Democratic legislative leaders since the governor delivered his Budget Message last February. Rosen reported in August that the Christie administration’s revenue projections for FY12 were coming in about $250 million short, but Sidamon-Eristoff was able to reduce the final shortfall to $123 million through a combination of spending freezes, budget lapses, and program cuts. In addition, revenues for the first six months of the current fiscal year were running $425.8 million behind the administration’s revenue projections through the end of December. December 2012 was actually the first month since February 2011 that the Christie administration met or exceeded revenue estimates, but what is critical is that the gain was almost entirely in the state income tax. The wealthiest 1 percent pay almost 40 percent of New Jersey income taxes, and the sudden surge in income tax revenues was probably due largely to wealthy taxpayers moving income into 2012 to avoid paying higher federal income tax and capital gains taxes as a result of the federal fiscal cliff negotiations between President Obama and Congress. December 2012 income tax collections totaled a whopping $1.066 billion -- 19.8 percent higher than the $890 million collected in December 2011 and 14.1 percent higher than the $934.5 million that the Christie administration anticipated last May. The $131 million windfall in anticipated income tax collections in December more than made up for the 13 other major taxes coming in $106 million below projections, continuing a year-long trend. Moreover, January income tax collections are following the December pattern, and it is likely that income tax collections in April -- the most important month for the state budget -- will build on that trend. While the shift of bonuses from January to December does not mean a net increase in revenue for the Treasury, it is likely that the state will receive a cumulative net windfall of at least $250 million or more in state income tax revenue as a result of the federal fiscal cliff. That income tax windfall from the wealthy could be a boon for the Christie administration, which now needs 9.9 percent revenue growth over the final six months to hit its $31.2 billion revenue target -- which is highly unlikely, even with an income tax surge, considering that revenues grew just 1.5 percent in the first six months. Nevertheless, the surge in income tax collections could help keep the current-year revenue shortfall in the $500 million to $700 million range -- averting the $1.5 billion shortfall that Democratic lawmakers feared if revenue trends for the first five months of the fiscal year had continued. The surge in income taxes this year does nothing to avert next year’s revenue crisis, however. In fact, any increase in FY13 income tax collections from the wealthy due to the federal fiscal cliff constitute yet another one-shot nonrecurring revenue that would have to be covered in next year’s budget.
Gideon Rachman writes at the Financial Times: “In the long run I expect the nativists [battling with liberals over immigration] to lose, not because their demands are unpopular but because they are unenforceable. It may be possible for island nations surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, such as Japan or Australia, to maintain strict controls on immigration. It will be all but impossible for an EU that is part of a Eurasian landmass and is separated from Africa only by narrow stretches of the Mediterranean.” The only argument given for the inevitability of immigration is the geography of Europe. Despite all Europe’s money and technology it is somehow impossible to police its borders or deport people to places outside if they get in. Not that this is ever shown in the article, we just have to trust Rachman on this. He does find time to explain how the EU policy that: ‘…refugees can apply for asylum in Europe, illegal “economic migrants” must return home…’, is: ‘unlikely to stem the population flows for several reasons.’. Which is true, but few disagree that current EU policy is wrong. And what has it to do with the unstoppable immigration thesis? The writer does light incense at the altar of the Financial Times globalist idols: “One possible reaction for Europe is to accept that migration from the rest of the world is inevitable — and embrace it wholeheartedly. Europe’s debt-ridden economies need an injection of youth and dynamism. Who will staff their old-age homes and building sites if not immigrants from the rest of the world?” And makes sure to talk about how: “In the colonial era Europe practised a sort of demographic imperialism, with white Europeans emigrating to the four corners of the world.” This might give cheer to liberals looking for historical data to throw at their opponents. But still the most important and concluding claim that immigration cannot be stopped is not reinforced. The vague argument from geography is all there is. This is quite appalling as argument goes and there are only two explanations: Intellectual failure The article is rhetoric looking to persuade rather than argue a case Rachman’s response to enraged commentators attacking his article shows he is claiming it is not rhetoric “I find all these enraged comments slightly baffling. I am describing how I think events will unfold – not expressing an opinion as to whether it is a good or a bad thing” Well, if not attempting to persuade whether it is good or bad we can only explain the poor quality argument as an intellectual failure. If this were true then any rage would be misplaced: idiocy is intellectual error and is treated with education rather than anger, which is for moral failures. Is the rage at his article therefore unfair? Is he right to be baffled? I think not. The article has all the hallmarks of a counsel of despair designed to demotivate and undermine an opponent by persuading them with rhetoric of their inevitable defeat. That a senior journalist writing for a renowned publication could write such a bad argument, but accidently write such a sustained piece of rhetoric stretches credulity exceedingly thin. Of course, if Rachman actually believes the immigration is bad, this article might well be nothing more than a mistake. So, I sent him a tweet: @ gideonrachman: “…not expressing an opinion as to whether it is a good or bad thing”. Is the mass immigration good or bad? A day later, and after he has sent out a selection of tweets, including a retweet of someone attacking him for the article, he has made no reply. So, Perhaps this article is both an intellectual failure and a blunder into unintentional, but despite this, well crafted rhetoric, but I know which way I would bet. The commentators rage makes sense and any bafflement is hard to credit. Insidious rhetoric looking to demotivate the European response to their invasion is corrupt and people are right to oppose it. Advertisements
At a House Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), whose measure banning abortions after 20 weeks was being considered by the committee, argued against a Democratic amendment to make exceptions for rape and incest. Franks suggested that pregnancy from rape is rare, saying, “before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject — because, you know, the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” (The Washington Post) At a House Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), whose measure banning abortions after 20 weeks was being considered by the committee, argued against a Democratic amendment to make exceptions for rape and incest. Franks suggested that pregnancy from rape is rare, saying, “before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject — because, you know, the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” (The Washington Post) Ladies and gentlemen, Republicans are again voting on new abortion restrictions. Cue their theme song: “Men men men men, manly men men men!” “Men men men men, manly men men men!” The House Judiciary Committee gathered Wednesday to pass another antiabortion bill, and the nameplates on the majority side told the story: Mr. Goodlatte. 1 of 18 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Ann Telnaes on abortion View Photos The Post cartoonist collects her cartoons on reproductive rights. Caption The Post cartoonist collects her cartoons on reproductive rights. Jan. 21, 2002 Ann Telnaes Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. Mr. Sensenbrenner. Mr. Coble. Mr. Smith. Mr. Chabot. Mr. Bachus. Mr. Issa. Mr. Forbes. Ann Telnaes animation: Rep. Trent Franks’s anti-women trash. (Ann Telnaes/The Washington Post) Mr. King. Mr. Franks. In all, the nameplates of 23 misters lined both rows on the GOP side; there isn’t one Republican woman on the panel. The guys muscled through a bill that, should it become law, would upend Roe v. Wade by effectively banning all abortions after 20 weeks. With the grace of Charlie Sheen and the subtlety of a sitcom, the manly men voted down a Democratic effort to add enhanced protections for the life and health of the mother. They voted down a Democratic amendment that would allow exceptions for women with heart or lung disease or diabetes. They even voted down an amendment that would have made exceptions for victims of rape or incest. If that weren’t enough, the chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), had a Todd Akin moment as he attempted to argue that women aren’t likely to become pregnant from rape. Franks provided his variation of “legitimate rape” theory when he argued against the rape-and-incest exception because the amendment didn’t require women to report the crime. “What difference does that make?” asked Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). “The point I was trying to make, Mr. Nadler, is that, you know, before my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject, because, you know, the incidents of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low,” he said. “But when you make that exception, there’s usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours.” Hold on. The incidents of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low? “I just find it astonishing to hear a phrase repeated that the incidence of pregnancy from rape is low,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), one of five Democratic women on the panel. “There’s no scientific basis for that. The idea that the Republican men on this committee think they can tell the women of America that they have to carry to term the product of a rape is outrageous.” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) joined in. “I don’t think any of them can speak to the question, unless they desire to raise their hand, of being raped,” she said. Jackson Lee noted that “not a single hand was raised.” Even before the hearing, Democrats were talking about the legislation as evidence that the GOP had returned to its “war on women,” a favorite Democratic theme to widen the party’s advantage among female voters. But if this really is a war, women have nothing to worry about: These Republicans can’t shoot straight. The legislation, even if it clears the House, has no chance in the Senate and would face a certain veto. It also contradicts the long-standing Roe precedent that the Supreme Court has shown no appetite to revisit. And yet House Republicans pressed ahead, inviting charges that they are unconcerned about the economy and indifferent to victims of sex crimes. “This looks like just another battle in the Republican war on women,” Nadler observed, saying the majority thinks women are “too immoral or too stupid” to make their own choices. To counter this argument, Franks invoked Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion doctor who was convicted last month of murdering babies. But Gosnell was convicted under existing law and therefore didn’t help Franks rebut the war-on-women charges. Lofgren told the story of a woman whose pregnancy was putting her life at risk. “The idea that we would force somebody like Vicki to endanger her own life — the Republican men on this committee think they have the right to do that,” she said. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) said the bill’s text has “14 legislative findings, none of which included any mention of Congress’s role in protecting the health and lives of pregnant women.” The men easily defeated the rape-and-incest exception. But when it came time to vote on an exception for a mother’s health, there were 11 Democrats in the room and only 10 Republicans. “It is good for everybody to have lunch, so we will stand in recess,” announced the chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). “Can we vote on this amendment, please?” asked Jackson Lee, the sponsor. “We will vote on it when we return,” Goodlatte said. The Republicans needed more manpower. Twitter: @Milbank Read more from Dana Milbank’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
NEW DELHI: Google finally took the lid off from a range of its devices, which includes smartphones, headsets and laptops. Besides unveiling the Google Home Mini and Max, the search giant launched its Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 smartphones along with the PixelBook. The Google Pixel 2 starts at $649 (64GB) while the Pixel 2 XL starts at $849 (64GB). Both will be available in India in the first wave of countries. The PixelBook hybrid laptop costs $1200.The Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 XL take clues from the last year’s Pixel smartphones in terms of design. They feature the part glass part metal back panel but with slight tweaks. Both run Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box and ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack. They are IP67 rated which makes it dust and water resistant as well.Pixel 2 comes in three colours – Kinda Blue, Just Black and Clearly White. It has an Always On display and an auto sound recognition tech. The home screen has been tweaked as the search bar is now placed at the bottom. At the top users get ‘At a glance’ feature, which lets them know about their upcoming meetings and other engagements.It also has an ‘Active Edge’ tech which lets users squeeze the sides of the handset to trigger Google Assistant. The HTC-made Google Pixel 2 features a 5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) AMOLED 2.5D display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Running the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, the Pixel 2 supports 4GB LPDDR4X RAM and comes in two variants based on inbuilt storage versions – 64GB and 128GB.The Pixel 2 sports 12.2MP rear camera with f/1.8 aperture along with an 8MP front-facing camera with f/2.4 aperture. The camera comes with the ability to record videos in 4K resolution at 30fps. It is backed by a 2700mAh battery, which is rated to deliver up to 7 hours of juice in 15 minutes of charging.The LG-made Google Pixel 2 XL shares similar set of specifications as the Pixel 2 but with a slight change. It has a 6-inch QHD+ (2880x1440 pixels) P-OLED display along with 18:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of 538ppi and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 coating. The device is backed by a 3520mAh battery, which is said to run for up to 7 hours in 15 minutes of charging. The smartphone will be made available in Just Black and Black and White colour variants.Also mentioned at the event was that the duo is AR ready and will be the first ones to come with Google Lens functionality.As widely rumoured, the search giant unveiled its Pixel C successor, called as the PixelBook. Priced at $1200, the PixelBook is 10mm thin and weighs 1kg. The hybrid laptop has 360-degree rotational hinge using which users can view content in different modes.The PixelBook has a 12.3-inch screen with QHD resolution. It has soft touch keys along with palm rejection tech. Coming in Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processor, the laptop can be configured with up to 16GB RAM and 512GB inbuilt storage.Running ChromeOS, the PixelBook is claimed to be the first laptop with built-in Google Assistant. It has a dedicated key to trigger the Assistant in case the user wants to type the query instead of talking to it. Google has also launched PixelBook Pen, a stylus to make users more productive. It has 10ms of latency and 2000 levels of pressure sensitivity.PixelBook supports Google Play so it is also possible to use the apps users have on their Android smartphones, on the laptop. Google said it is also working with Snapchat to bring the social media app on the big screen.Read this story in Gujarati
The painful sophomore season of John Jenkins has come to an end. The Hawks guard, a first-round pick in 2012, had lower back surgery Monday morning. He will miss the rest of the season. The procedure was performed by Dr. Hal Silcox from the Peachtree Orthopaedic Clinic. According to the Hawks, Jenkins will undergo a period of rest and recovery, followed by treatment and rehabilitation. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported last week that Jenkins was seriously considering and would most likely opt for surgery. Jenkins has appeared in just 13 games this season, averaging 3.1 points and 1.7 rebounds in 12.2 minutes. He has not played since the nerve pain in his leg associated with the lower back injury flared up Dec. 26 before the Hawks played at Cleveland. Jenkins has missed the past 18 games.
Researchers found that British children were spending double the amount on sugary products, snacks and treats as those living in the United States. Experts said the findings showed that the government’s drive to cut the rate of obesity among children had failed. Figures published on Thursday found British children spent an average £372 on sweets and chocolates every year, equivalent to about 850 Mars bars. The research, from Datamonitor, an independent research company, found American children spent just £150 per year on similar treats. More than one in three British children aged five to 13 are already overweight or obese. But that figure is forecast to shoot up by 2.1 per cent a year through to 2014, far higher than the 1.3 per cent annual rise expected for the U.S. It found the average amount spent on savoury snacks, such as crisps, was £73.24 in Britain compared to £39.51 in America. British children were also found to eat more ice cream, ready meals and sugary breakfast cereals. More than 2.3 million children in Britain are estimated to be overweight or obese and many under-12s already show signs of high blood pressure and cholesterol, diabetes and liver disease. The previous Labour Government spent nearly £2 billion over 10 years attempting to tackle obesity levels. Much of the money was spent encouraging children to lead healthier lives. Jackie Schneider, of the Children's Food Campaign, said the “long-term health of our children first” needed to be the government’s main priority. “Childhood obesity is a very worrying trend,” she told the Daily Mail. She banning junk food television advertising before the 9pm watershed, using traffic light labelling on food packaging, increasing eligibility of free school meals and providing fresh drinking water in parks would help. A spokeswoman for the Food and Drink Federation, which represents manufacturers, rejected the findings. A spokesman cited government figures that appeared to show obesity rated among children had “levelled off”. “Nobody is being complacent,” he said. “We agree that childhood obesity levels are still too high in the UK and we look forward to working in partnership with the new Government on any initiatives designed to help consumers of all ages lead healthier lives.” Earlier this week the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the Government's public health watchdog, released landmark guidance on how to prevent the "huge number of unnecessary deaths" from conditions such as heart disease. It was published in response to increasing concern about obesity in Britain, particularly among children.
Apple's diminutive MacBook Air line of laptops is built for lightness, filled with solid state storage for efficiency, and this year's model packs more than 13 hours of battery life into a single charge. But one thing nobody ever accused the Air of being is a graphics powerhouse. Intel's integrated HD Graphics 5000 GPU, which powers the latest generation of Airs, just isn't designed for churning out cutting edge graphics. Those limitations didn't stop Larry Gadea, who spent about $250 recently to build a homemade external GPU enclosure that turns the Air into a bona fide gaming machine. Check out the video above posted earlier this week on Gadea's YouTube channel to see Borderlands 2 running on an 11-inch MacBook Air courtesy of an external GTX 570 eGPU, a power supply and a bit of hardware translation between its PCI Express card interface and the MacBook Air's Thunderbolt port. You can also learn all about making your own in a detailed post on the Tech Inferno forums.
The Georgetown University Master's in Cybersecurity Risk Management prepares you to navigate todays complex cyber threats. Take classes online, on campus, or through a combination of both -- so you dont have to interrupt your career. Learn more. It was only a few weeks ago that the Linux blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Saloon suffered its latest round of damage thanks to the recent skirmish over the GPL, but now the popular establishment of questionable repute is actually shut down for a week for repairs. The cause this time? Yet another blogosphere brawl, needless to say, focusing this time on Ubuntu and its newly installed "surveillance code," as legendary Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman called it in a recent blog post. "If we can only say, 'free software won't spy on you, unless it's Ubuntu,' that's much less powerful than saying, 'free software won't spy on you,'" Stallman explained. "It behooves us to give Canonical whatever rebuff is needed to make it stop this," he added. "Any excuse Canonical offers is inadequate; even if it used all the money it gets from Amazon to develop free software, that can hardly overcome what free software will lose if it ceases to offer an effective way to avoid abuse of the users." 'Just a Bit Childish' If you've spent five minutes in the Linux community you're no doubt already aware that debate is never in short supply. As if on cue, "FUD" was the term Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon chose to describe Stallman's comments in a blog post of his own shortly thereafter. "This just seems a bit childish," Bacon added. 'It Was Wrong of Me' Fast-forward three days, however, and Bacon issued an apology. "Unfortunately, sometimes I end up saying some things I wish I hadn't, as is the case here," Bacon wrote in a fresh post last Monday. "Quite possibly the most significant reason why so many of us respect Richard for his lifelong body of work is due to his clarity and commitment to his view of freedom, and although there is debate about the approach in which he articulates these views at times, it was nonetheless wrong of me to describe his position as 'childish'; he is not a child, quite the opposite," Bacon explained. Did Stallman's post "somewhat over-sensationalize" the issue, as Bacon ended up putting it? Or was Bacon simply rationalizing a new commercial approach for the popular Linux distro? That's what the Linux blogosphere has been trying to decide. 'They Made a Big Mistake' "I tend to prefer Jono's handling of the situation, but at the same time there is something profoundly wrong about what Ubuntu did here," Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien told Linux Girl. "To me, it all hinges on it being opt-out instead of opt-in," he explained. "The fact that they did it as opt-out means that by 'the tyranny of the default,' lots of people are going to be sending their information without intending to, or even in many cases without knowing that they are doing it. "I want Canonical to be commercially viable, but I think they made a big mistake on this one," O'Brien concluded. 'It's Mandatory to Warn the User' Indeed, "I am very concerned about such issues," began Google+ blogger Gonzalo Velasco C. At the same time, however, spying was probably "not the idea behind the Unity tool," he added. "I think they are struggling to become a nice 'normal user' OS, with some helping, commercial tools." Nevertheless, "it's mandatory for a GNU/Linux distribution to warn the user, and easily allow them to switch on/off such a tool," Gonzalo Velasco C. opined. "I hope Canonical rethinks that tool -- I'm sure they already respect the millions of users they want to have," he concluded. "On the other hand, *buntu users have other sons: Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu and other second degree-derivatives. It's neither the end of the world, nor the end of privacy in Ubuntu." 'He Has a Point' Similarly, "I hate to agree with RMS, but he has a point," consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack concurred. "I really don't want my local searches transmitted to a third party." On the bright side, however, "there are other distros such as Mint that don't do that," Mack added. And again: "RMS is absolutely right [to] criticize the ways of Canonical in this case," Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol agreed. "The community wants a better Debian derivative, not a Windows (any version) copy cat." Sadly, Ubuntu "is becoming each time more like a product and less like a community distro," Ebersol concluded. "There's nothing wrong with making money, but one should watch what is being done to make money. Or, we enter into an 'Ends justify the means' mode, and that's very dangerous." 'Unquestionably Spyware' Hyperlogos blogger Martin Espinoza took a similar view. "Yet again, RMS is right, however little tact he might package with his message," Espinoza told Linux Girl. "Ubuntu's Amazon integration is unquestionably spyware by definition, as the user is not informed as to what data is collected, where it is sent, or how it will be treated." Apparently, "Ubuntu learned nothing from Microsoft being forced to implement browser selection screens, which was the right thing to do voluntarily when presenting an integrated search tool that sends data home every time you perform a search on your local computer," Espinoza added. 'Now It's Mark's Turn' "The only childish thing involved is Ubuntu's unwillingness to admit its error, a typical hallmark of corporations operated by those who believe themselves to be above reproach," Espinoza pointed out. "At least Jono realized and admitted his mistake -- now it's Mark's turn." In any case, "while the functionality is not difficult to remove, it should rather have been functionality which is not difficult to enable," Espinoza suggested. "My current plan for my next OS reload is LMDE," he concluded. "I could put up with much of this from Ubuntu if the quality of the software were higher, but I seem to get the same regressions popping up over and over again." 'I Don't Believe It Should Be Default' Yet again: "I agree with Stallman, if not word for word, at least in his intent," offered Google+ blogger Linux Rants. "I appreciate what Canonical is trying to do with Ubuntu's dash, but I don't like the fact that every search I type in is sent to Canonical, whether I intend to search the Internet or not," Linux Rants explained. "This gives Canonical a great deal of information about me and my computing habits. "At this point, I've seen nothing to suggest that Canonical is doing anything unscrupulous with that information, or anything at all beyond the search that it was intended to do, but believing that they'll never attempt to use that information borders on the ludicrous," he opined. "There are people that believe that these features are a great enhancement to their experience, and that's fine. I just don't believe that it should be the default." 'Jono Got It Right the First Time' Not everyone saw it that way, however. "I don't know, I think Jono Bacon got it the right the first time around," opined Robin Lim, a lawyer and blogger on Mobile Raptor. "RMS is being a bit childish," Lim said. "He seems to see an Orc hidden behind every bush." Canonical "needs to monetize their distribution and selected Amazon as their partner; Ubuntu gives Amazon info to improve search results," he pointed out. "This is something rather common these days." Remove the ability to monetize a service, an app or an operating system, meanwhile, "and soon all you will be left with is proprietary software and some fringe software," Lim predicted. "It's time for the old guard to stop trying to take down the initiatives which might make Linux on the consumer desktop relevant. Leave Ubuntu (and GNOME) alone. "There are plenty of alternatives," he concluded. "Why force everyone to march to the beat of the same drum?" 'The Only Way One Can Make a Living' At the heart of the matter is the GPL and one little problematic fact, Slashdot blogger hairyfeet suggested -- specifically, what he calls "the blessed 3." "What is the blessed 3? It's the only way one can make a living with GPL software," hairyfeet explained. "1. support contracts; 2. selling hardware; or 3. the tin cup begging model." In fact, "at the end of the day a good 90 percent of the software EVER made simply doesn't fit in the tiny boxes of the blessed 3, as Canonical is finding out," he added. 'Innovation or Desperation' Similarly, "this whole issue speaks to one of the big difficulties in reaching the consumer market with free software," noted Chris Travers, a blogger who works on the LedgerSMB project. "There just isn't a direct-to-consumer business model that works. "The big players in this industry focus on servers, but Ubuntu was determined to bring Linux to the desktop," Travers explained. "Not to say that it won't happen at some point, but I am not sure a single company can do that." Essentially, "Ubuntu is trying to become an ad-supported operating system somewhere between the Android model and conventional adware models," he noted. "The big problem is that people don't really like adware, and the Android model has not been a huge money-maker for Google. "I remain unconvinced that adware-supported OSes will ever be really viable," Travers added. "One has to wonder why Ubuntu is choosing this route, and there are only two possibilities: innovation or desperation." 'The Beginning of the End'? In other words, "it is possible that Ubuntu is just trying this to see if it works," he explained. "Nobody has ever succeeded here, and maybe they think that if they do, they can corner the home PC market down the road. This is a pretty risky gamble." On the other hand, "the other possibility is that Ubuntu is desperately trying to find a way to monetize the userbase, and this is the best they could come up with," Travers concluded. "If this is the case, it could well be the beginning of the end of Ubuntu." 'The Market Will Decide' It all comes down to trust, blogger Robert Pogson suggested. "Since we cannot control all the software we use, we have to choose whom to trust," he explained. "I trust Google, Amazon and others to provide more and better services than I can provide myself and at lower cost." After all, "I cannot set up hundreds of thousands of servers to maintain my databases," he added. "I cannot get websites I visit to work together to give me better services. Google and Amazon use GNU/Linux plus their own software to provide those services." Is there any alternative to trusting corporations? "I doubt it," Pogson told Linux Girl. "The market will decide whether FLOSS wins there, and so far GNU/Linux is doing exceedingly well just based on price/performance." Katherine Noyes has been writing from behind Linux Girl's cape since late 2007, but she knows how to be a reporter in real life, too. She's particularly interested in space, science, open source software and geeky things in general. You can also find her on Twitter and Google+.
Ubisoft shows you what multiplayer is like in their upcoming, open-world, espionage, action title, Watch Dogs, with this brand new gameplay trailer. Watch as player one tries to stop a hacking attempt from another live player who’s entered his world. Then, later, see him attempt to hack another player himself, all while remaning undetected or planning his escape quickly if spotted. Remember that while you’ll always see yourself as the main protagonist, Aiden, others will simply see you as a generic NPC being controlled by a live player, something that was mentioned in earlier reports from E3 2013. Check it out! What do you guys think? Sound like your style of multiplayer? Watch Dogs drops on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U on November 19, later on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The Barber is the fourth of 10 rounds included in the Zombucks® limited bullion series. 39,847Production and sales on Zombucks The Barber silver bullion rounds ended on 7/1/2014. However, the infection can still spread with Proof Barber 1 oz Silver Rounds . Click here to see all active Zombucks products.Order a 39mm Coin Capsule to protect your investment. Liberty has fallen. She is now a grim reminder of how dangerous the world has become. The beautiful lady on Charles E. Barber’s iconic quarter has turned, joining the hordes of undead. Once a symbol of freedom and opportunity, her rancid flesh symbolizes impending decay. On the obverse of each 1 oz round, Liberty cries bloody tears, her eye impaled with scissors, an attack that wounded but failed to kill the undead goddess. Her skin rots under the sun’s swelter, and the tattered ribbons of her triumphal cap shred in the breeze. Thirteen six-pointed stars dance around the rim, which reads THE BARBER and 2018. The inscription Z50 indicates the round’s value when zombies walk the earth. Daily routines have grown treacherous for humanity, as the biohazard symbol warns on the reverse of each round. The words CURRENCY OF THE APOCALYPSE, ZOMBUCKS and 1 oz .999 FINE SILVER are inscribed with the Provident Metals compass. Only those who have plotted a course for survival will make it through this horror. The 2018 The Barber silver round is the fourth in the Zombucks series from the Provident Mint. The more fresh-faced Barber round shuffles in after the Walker, Morgue Anne, and Zombuff, as the rising tide of undead seeks to consume us all. Six more designs remain. The original Barber quarter was circulated from 1892 to 1912: it is fitting that now, at the end of humanity, we look back to better days. Groom yourself for the apocalypse with the 2018 The Barber 1oz silver round. Don’t waste another moment.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria’s main parties agreed to hold an early parliamentary election on October 15, Chancellor Christian Kern said on Tuesday, in a vote that might bring the far-right Freedom Party into government. Austria's Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz (L) and Chancellor Christian Kern talk during a session of the parliament in Vienna, Austria, May 16, 2017. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger In the autumn of a year that will have seen Dutch, French, British and German general elections, the Alpine republic will decide its future course on immigration, labor and social policy and its position within the European Union. “We have agreed on Oct. 15 (for parliamentary elections),” Kern said after meeting leaders of all parliamentary parties. The next election was originally due to be held in autumn 2018. Kern’s government has been blocked for months in disputes over reform policies between his Social Democratic Party (SPO) and its conservative People’s Party (OVP) coalition partner, which have been exacerbated by internal wrangling in the OVP. Since the OVP called for early elections on Friday and elected the 30-year-old Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz as its new leader on Sunday, its popularity ratings have jumped to 35 percent in a Research Affairs poll from around 20 percent in recent months. That put the OVP ahead of the other parties in opinion polls. Before this, the populist Freedom Party (FPO) had led the polls for more than a year with support of over 30 percent, followed by the Social Democrats. The FPO presidential candidate’s narrow defeat in December’s run-off reflected the steep decline in Austrian voters’ trust in their main parties. “You should get up one after the other and apologize to the people for how you messed up,” FPO General Secretary Herbert Kickl told the government on Tuesday in parliament. “You must not only be taught what the topics are, you not only need a helping hand on the election date,” he said. “You must also be shown how to rule better.” The Social Democrats ruled with the FPO from 1983 to 1987. In 2000, the OVP and FPO agreed on a government headed by the OVP’s Wolfgang Schuessel, which led to a six-month diplomatic boycott of Austria by other European Union member states. But the FPO, whose charismatic late chairman Joerg Haider made it into Europe’s most successful far-right party with 27 percent in Austria’s 1999 general election, dropped to 10 percent in 2002 after a spate of in-fighting, policy squabbles and opposition to the EU’s eastward expansion. Under its current leader Heinz-Christian Strache, the FPO has gained massive support with a eurosceptic, anti-immigration and anti-Islam policy. Strache has called for “minus migration” and a ban on “fascistic Islam”.
Robert Reich continues to talk about Hillary Clinton as if the problems many people have with her are relatively minor in scope compared to the problems people have with Donald Trump. Referring to a Washington Post editorial, Reich posted on his Facebook page earlier today: Yes, Hillary Clinton has a trust problem, as the Washington Post notes below. But Donald Trump has a bigotry, megalomaniac, xenophobe, conspiracy-crazed, incompetence problem. Four months from now, for most voters it’s likely to come down to “who do you loath least?” According to the Post, Clinton’s strategy for dealing with the trust problem is to admit it’s an issue, and plaster the airwaves with positive ads about her life’s work and negative ones about Trump. I don’t think that’s enough. She also must stand for something large and important (such as getting big money out of our politics) and credibly communicate her commitment to achieving it. I worry she’s not doing that yet. What do you think? Yeah, that’s all. Clinton has a ‘trust problem.’ No mention of her ongoing criminal investigation, ties to countries like Saudi Arabia, her shady and we may soon find out criminal maneuverings involving the Clinton Foundation, the fact that she is Wall Street’s candidate of choice to be the next President, and most importantly to me her war record and the FACT that she is going to bring us to war in Syria, promising she will install a no-fly zone over the the country as one of her first moves as Commander In Chief. Nothing like that from Reich. No, it’s simply a ‘trust problem’ and therefore it’s not even really her problem entirely. It’s our problem according to Reich, because we simply don’t ‘trust’ her. What Reich fails to understand or perhaps is intentionally refusing to acknowledge is that for many of us it is not really a matter of ‘trust’ that will keep us from voting for Clinton. I don’t really trust most Democrats, but there’s a decent chance I’d be able to hold my nose and vote for them over Trump. At the very least I’d be less staunchly opposed to their candidacies. For example while I did not vote for John Kerry in 2004, had I lived in a hotly contested swing state I may have considered it. Clinton I will never vote for because many things she has done and the things she says she will do if elected sink well below my moral and ethical baseline. I don’t want leadership like Hillary Clinton, and it’s more because I DO trust her. I trust that she’ll be a war-hawk, that she’ll bring us to war in Syria, that she will provoke Iran and most likely Vladimir Putin. I am tired of the Neoliberal leadership this country has and she sits on a throne placed right atop the Neoliberal trash heap. Reich can vote for who he wants. But if he expects to be taken seriously as a commentator on this election he needs to be honest. The contrast between Trump and Clinton is not nearly as stark or clear as Reich wants us to believe. If anything, the ‘incompetence’ he mentions above when describing Donald Trump is why I personally see Trump as the ‘lesser evil.’ He’d get into government and he’d have a lot of people trying to stop him, watching over him, making sure he doesn’t let his id run all over the White House. I don’t think he will be able to navigate the halls of governmental corruption with quite the same level of finesse as would Hillary Clinton, someone who can accurately be described as the reigning heavyweight champion of corruption in government.
The Missing Piece of the Internet is Here: 5 Fundamental Facts Everyone Needs to Know About The Bitcoin Blockchain The Bitfury Group Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 10, 2016 I am the co-founder and CEO of the world’s leading blockchain technology company — The Bitfury Group. Everywhere I go — from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to meetings with top public policy influencers — I am asked to explain what Bitcoin is, what the blockchain is, what the Bitcoin Blockchain is and — most importantly — why it matters. I am thrilled that more people want to know about the Bitcoin Blockchain and I am even more excited to educate and inform inquiring minds. This technology is changing the world and it’s just the beginning. Here are a few fundamental facts everyone needs to know about the Bitcoin Blockchain: 1) The Internet has succeeded by forever changing the way we move data, voice and video, but it has never had a way to move asset value in a similar fashion — the Bitcoin Blockchain is exactly the technology solution to make this happen. The Internet has given us unparalleled access to information and we can essentially send anyone any kind of information peer-to-peer, except assets. That has always been off limits — any transferred asset understandably had to go through a trusted emissary. Moving an asset across the Bitcoin Blockchain is secure, transparent, much lower in cost, and will open countless new doors of opportunity for millions of people who are often restricted by various limitations and roadblocks within their current systems. Want to learn more? This video is helpful. 2) The Bitcoin Blockchain is secure. This is always the hardest part to explain given some of the more sensational and negative news stories about Bitcoin. But the reality is, with its significant computing power, the Bitcoin Blockchain is one of the most secure computer networks in the world. Thousands of computers verify each transaction with sophisticated algorithms to confirm the transfer of value and create a historical ledger of all transactions. The computers that form the network that process the transactions are located throughout the world and, most importantly, are not owned or controlled by any single entity. This process is real-time, and much more secure than relying on a central authority to verify a transaction. Read more here: (Video) How Bitcoin Works in 5 Minutes The Secure Blockchain is Bitcoin’s Biggest Asset 3) Law enforcement in the US and beyond are encouraged by the Bitcoin Blockchain because they can detect and track bad actors more easily in this new system. Jason Weinstein, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice in charge of cybercrime and now an advisory board member of The Bitfury Group and partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, established (with The Bitfury Group’s support and backing) the Blockchain Alliance. The Blockchain Alliance is a public-private forum where law enforcement and national security authorities are learning directly from some of the brightest minds in the industry about how to combat criminal activity in the digital space. Weinstein explains in a recent Medium op-ed that, “the reality is that if criminals and terrorists seek to use bitcoin as part of an effort to remain anonymous, they are making a big mistake. In fact, any criminals or terrorists who try to use the bitcoin Blockchain to facilitate their activities are foolish. That’s because reports of bitcoin’s anonymity are greatly exaggerated. The Blockchain technology that makes bitcoin work uses cryptography to verify and confirm all bitcoin transactions and then records those transactions on a searchable — and unalterable — public ledger. That technology has significant benefits for law enforcement. Having a traceable ledger of every bitcoin transaction ever conducted allows law enforcement to ‘follow the money’ in a way that would never be possible with cash. In addition, because this ledger of bitcoin transactions is permanent, law enforcement does not have to worry that the data will be unavailable months or even years down the road. Because the ledger is publicly accessible, law enforcement does not have to worry about what type of legal process — subpoena or search warrant — is required to access the data. And because the ledger is borderless, law enforcement can get the data without having to go through a foreign government.” Read more here. 4) It is great that people and banks are supportive of the Blockchain technology, but private Blockchains, like the “intranets” of the ’90s, do not provide the reliable security of the Bitcoin Blockchain. There is one Blockchain. It is the Bitcoin Blockchain. Just as there is one Internet. Even so, I encourage financial institutions and corporations to develop Blockchain technology and bring it into their infrastructure, as it enables a shared single source of truth, which is a powerful innovation. However, without the security provided by the computing power of the Bitcoin Blockchain, the property prized most — immutability — is no longer a given and is just one hack away from someone corrupting not just identity information, but real value as well. 5) Everyone who cares about making opportunities available to anyone in the world, who believes in democracy and the power of the people to have a voice and say in their future, should be interested in and enthusiastic about the Bitcoin Blockchain. I grew up in Latvia during the fall of the Soviet Union. I saw people lose their pensions, their entire savings, their lives’ work, their dreams. I promised myself that if I could help it, I would work to ensure this never happens again. Billions of people all around the globe do not have the rights to transfer assets and many who do are forced to go through corrupt or dysfunctional emissaries and governments. If we could record and move assets in a way that protects individual citizens, then democracy, rule of law and capitalism will all be strengthened. With this missing part of the internet finally in place, we don’t have to wonder “what if” anymore — the future is here, and we can make a difference. The author of this post is the CEO and co-founder of The BitFury Group, Valery Vavilov.
(NASA) Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell says he believes 'extra-terrestrials had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.' For some people, US President John F. Kennedy's move to establish a naval blockade to prevent further missiles from entering Cuba stopped a possible war between US and Russia during their Cold War confrontation in October 1962. Some credit Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's liberalising reforms in the late 1980s for preventing a possible clash between the two superpowers. However, US astronaut Edgar Mitchell of the Apollo 14 moon mission believes that neither US nor Russian officials stopped a potential nuclear war between the two countries. Instead, he thinks peace-loving aliens from another world came to Earth and stopped the then looming nuclear showdown. Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the surface of the moon, claimed that US military officials spotted unidentified flying objects during weapons tests in US missile bases and the famous White Sands facility in New Mexico, where the world's first-ever nuclear bomb was detonated during a test some seven decades ago. "They [The aliens] wanted to know about our military capabilities. My own experience talking to people has made it clear the extra-terrestrials had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth," Mitchell said. The veteran astronaut also said he had heard similar stories from individuals who actually manned missile bases when tension was high between the US and Russia during the early 1960s. "I have spoken to many Air Force officers who worked at these silos during the Cold War. They told me UFOs were frequently seen overhead and often disabled their missiles," Mitchell said. "Other officers from bases on the Pacific coast told me their [test] missiles were frequently shot down by alien spacecraft. There was a lot of activity in those days," he added. Mitchell has been one of the most outspoken figures about alien visits on Earth ever since returning from his trip to the moon on Feb. 9, 1971.
Ethnic Rohingya Muslim refugees shout slogans during a protest against the persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar outside the Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nov. 25, 2016. The Myanmar government lodged a protest on Monday over remarks by a United Nations human rights official that the country is conducting an "ethnic cleansing" campaign on stateless Rohingya Muslims in the northern part of volatile Rakhine state. Htin Linn, Myanmar’s permanent representative to the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland, lodged a protest against John McKissick, head of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in the nearby Bangladeshi border town of Cox’s Bazar, for allegations he made against the Myanmar military in an interview that aired Nov. 24. McKissick accused Myanmar army soldiers and border guard police of killing villagers, raping women and girls, and burning down homes in Rohingya communities during a security crackdown and search of Maungdaw and Buithidaung townships for armed militants following deadly attacks on border guard posts on Oct. 9. The military has denied the accusations and blamed the Rohingya for burning down their own homes. The security forces had “engaged in collective punishment of the Rohingya minority” after the attacks, which some locals and Myanmar officials blamed on a Rohingya militant group, the BBC reported. “Now it’s very difficult for the Bangladeshi government to say the border is open because this would further encourage the government of Myanmar to continue the atrocities and push them out until they have achieved their ultimate goal of ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority in Myanmar,” McKissick told the BBC. Security forces have locked down the area and restricted access so that independent journalists and international aid organizations have been unable to evaluate the abuse allegations. Htin Linn said he requested a meeting with UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grande who was out of town, so he met instead with assistant high commissioner Volker Türk on Nov. 25 to lodge the protest. “If such allegations were indeed made by the UNHCR, then Myanmar lodges strong objection against the UNHCR for unjust allegations made without substantiating evidence [against] the Myanmar government which is also tantamount to a breach of the code of conduct of the U.N.,” said a statement posted on Nov. 26 on the Facebook page of Myanmar’s State Counselor’s Office. The statement went on to say that the allegations “had a damaging effect on the Myanmar government” and “corroded the integrity of the UNHCR.” It added that if necessary, Myanmar would also lodge an official written complaint. Türk responded that officials at the UNHCR were surprised by McKissick’s comments, and that they did not represent the agency’s official position, according to the statement. He also said the UNHCR would look into the matter and issue an appropriate response to Htin Linn’s request. Myanmar Rohingya refugees sit in a refugee camp in Teknaf in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, Nov. 26, 2016. Credit: AFP The Myanmar embassy in the United Kingdom sent a complaint letter to the BBC on Friday about its Nov. 22 report on the Rohingya, which it said was one-sided and based on hearsay. The violence that has occurred in Maungdaw township has forced thousands of Rohingya, viewed by Myanmar’s Buddhist majority as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, to flee on foot and in boats to the Bangladeshi border. Guards have turned many away, while others have made it across and are staying in makeshift refugee camps. Nearly 90 people have been reported killed, and about 30,000 have been displaced by the recent violence in northern Rakhine. State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, delayed a three-day visit to Indonesia on Monday following protests in the predominantly Muslim country over Myanmar’s crackdown on the Rohingya. Indonesian police on Sunday said they arrested an Islamic State-linked militant for planning to bomb Myanmar’s embassy in the capital Jakarta. A government spokesman, however, said Aung San Suu Kyi decided to postpone the trip so she could devote her attention to the situation in Rakhine and the conflict between ethnic armed groups and the army in northern Shan state. Hundreds of Rohingya protested on Nov. 25 against the crackdown in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of predominantly Muslim Malaysia. That same day, Malaysia’s foreign ministry called on the Myanmar government to address the alleged ethnic cleansing and said it would summon the country’s ambassador to convey its concerns about the matter, Reuters reported. Also on Nov. 25, members of Islamic groups marched in a rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to protest what they called the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar. The Myanmar government created a Rakhine Advisory Commission three months ago to examine conflict resolution, humanitarian assistance, and development issues in the impoverished and restive western state. Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, who leads the nine-member commission, will visit Maungdaw township on Friday, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported, citing Tin Maung Swe, secretary of the Rakhine state government. The two-day trip will be Annan’s second visit to Rakhine since his appointment. Seven other commission members canceled a visit to Maungdaw in October because of security concerns. Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Drawings of Paleo-Indian point phases as part of the paper 'Aboriginal Settlement in New Jersey During the Paleo-Indian Cultural Period ca. 10,000 B.C. - 600 B.C.. Photo by Sydne B. Marshall/New Jersey State Department TRENTON, N.J., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Another spearhead believed to be handmade by Native Americans at least 10,000 years ago has been found along the New Jersey coastline. New Jersey native Audrey Stanick discovered a dark, pointed object while gathering sea glass early this month in Seaside Heights. The find, according to state museum scientists, is a projectile point thought to have donned Paleoindian spears thousands of years ago. The black point, as long as a thumb, is roughly triangular in shape, with a flattened center where a base was most likely secured. Gregory Lattanzi, the assistant curator of archaeology and ethnography at the New Jersey State Museum, said Stanick's find, recognized as a flint spearhead, was from the Middle Period, about 10,000 to 11,000 years old. "Both agreed the point appears to have been tumbled in the ocean for some time, smoothing the formerly sharp edges, not unlike what happens to sea glass Ms. Stanick was seeking," the museum said in a statement. The discovery is the third in a little over a year, after two children stumbled upon other projectile point specimens at other beaches. In 2014, Noah Cordle, then 10 years old, unearthed a Paleoindian point in Beach Haven and later donated it to the Smithsonian Institution. Weeks later, an 11-year-old girl named Victoria Doroshenko found another point. Her father told the press at the time the first finding had the state abuzz over archeological artifacts. "And then my daughter came up to me and said, 'Hey, dad, is this an arrowhead?'"
The Pirates have designated reliever Ernesto Frieri for assignment, Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports on Twitter. Frieri, 29, came to Pittsburgh in a swap of struggling closers at the end of June. While his trade counterpart, Jason Grilli, has thrived in his new environs, Frieri has continued to struggle since the swap. Frieri has allowed 12 earned runs in 10 2/3 frames with the Bucs, while striking out ten and walking five batters. Frieri had at least shown with the Angels that he was still capable of missing bats (11.0 K/9) and limiting walks (2.6 BB/9), even if the results were still poor, but obviously those marks too have taken a downturn. Frieri is earning $3.8MM in his first year of arbitration eligibility. This likely means two things: First, he seems fairly likely to get through waivers, and the Pirates could well welcome a claim anyway. And if he is instead stashed at Triple-A for the time being, Frieri will likely end up as a non-tender after the season.
There have been double-page newspaper and television advertisements, a flawed notification-based campaign and even a passive-aggressive op-ed by Mark Zuckerberg to get Facebook’s Free Basics service off the ground in India. But many in India—Facebook’s second largest market outside the US—remain unconvinced, and some influential entrepreneurs and academics have, separately, ripped into Facebook’s arguments for pushing Free Basics. In India, the Free Basics service was available to subscribers of Reliance Communications, but the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asked the telecom provider to put it on hold since Dec. 23. The regulatory body had also issued a consultation paper (pdf) earlier this month on differential pricing of data services. Stakeholders have till today (Dec. 30) to submit their comments. Misleading and flawed In a joint statement to the TRAI, 75 professors from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) explained the “sheer absurdity” of Facebook’s Free Basics service: The first obvious flaw in the proposal is that Facebook assumes control of defining what a ‘basic’ service is. They have in fact set up an interface for services to ‘submit’ themselves to Facebook for approval to be a ‘basic’ service. This means: what are the ‘basic’ digital services Indians will access using their own air waves will be decided by a private corporation, and that too one based on foreign soil. The sheer absurdity of this is too obvious to point out. To draw an analogy, suppose a chocolate company wishes to provide ‘free basic food’ for all Indians, but retains control of what constitutes ‘basic’ food—this would clearly be absurd. Further, if the same company defines its own brand of ‘toffee’ as a ‘basic’ food, it would be doubly absurd and its motives highly questionable. While the internet is not as essential as food, that the internet is a public utility touching the lives of rich and poor alike cannot be denied. What Facebook is proposing to do with this public utility is no different from the hypothetical chocolate company. In fact, it has defined itself to be the first ‘basic’ service, as evident from Reliance’s ads on Free Facebook. Now, it will require quite a stretch of imagination to classify Facebook as ‘basic’. This is why Facebook’s own ad script writers have prompted Mr. Zuckerberg to instead make emotional appeals of education and healthcare for the poor Indian masses; these appeals are misleading, to say the least. The academics also explained how the service is not actually free. The third flaw is that the term ‘free’ in ‘free basics’ is a marketing gimmick. If you see an ad which says ‘buy a bottle of hair oil, get a comb free’, you know that the cost of the comb is added somewhere. If something comes for free, its cost has to appear somewhere else. Telecom operators will have to recover the cost of ‘free basic’ apps from the non-free services (otherwise, why not make everything free?). So effectively, whatever Facebook does not consider ‘basic’ will cost more. If Facebook gets to decide what costs how much, in effect Indians will be surrendering their digital freedom, and freedom in the digital economy, to Facebook. So this is not an issue of elite Indians able to pay for the Internet versus poor Indians, as Facebook is trying to portray. It is an issue of whether all Indians want to surrender their digital freedom to Facebook. Meanwhile, on Dec. 29, nine Indian entrepreneurs wrote a letter to the TRAI saying India does not need a “digital divide by offering a walled garden of limited services in the name of providing access to the poor.” These entrepreneurs include Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm, Sachin Bhatia of TrulyMadly, Vineet Dwivedi of FlipClass.com, GOQii’s Vishal Gondal, Alok Agarwal of Teesort.com, Bharat Gulia of Metis Learning, Faisal Farooqui of Mouthshut.com and Manish Vij of SVG Media. Here is an excerpt from the letter: The open nature of the internet has spurred innovation and enabled startups to flourish. The success of Google, Facebook or of several Indian startups, including those founded by the below signatories to the letter, is a result of the open nature of the internet that permitted innovation without any entry barriers. The practice of differential pricing of data services results in skewing the dynamics of the internet with telecom service providers and a few players like Facebook with its Free Basics platform acting as gate-keepers. Differential pricing of data services including practices like zero rating of selected content and applications leads to a tiered internet instead of a single open internet. This affects the ability of new players to compete in the market with the established corporations. …At this stage, there is no reason to create a digital divide by offering a walled garden of limited services in the name of providing access to the poor. We request TRAI to issue clear Regulations preventing telecom providers or content providers from acting as gate-keepers offering restricted Internet services instead of the open internet. Comedy group, All India Bakchod (AIB)—which has been a strong critic of Facebook’s Free Basics for long—also released a third video on Dec. 24, asking viewers to write to the TRAI in support of net neutrality.
A group of eight prisoners, including the Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, has reportedly been executed for drugs offences in Indonesia. The executions took place in Besi prison on the island of Nusakambangan early on Wednesday morning local time. A Filipino woman also due to be executed is said to have been spared at the last minute. But away from the prison in Indonesia, other executions around the world today have been largely ignored. Here are some of them. More related stories Indonesia prisoners in final goodbye Robert Pruett, US Due to be executed this evening in Texas, the 35-year-old is asking the US Supreme Court to stop his lethal injection. Robert Pruett is accused of killing prison officer Daniel Nagle in December 1999. Lawyers for Pruett say he is innocent and say advances in DNA technology support their claim. Munir Hussain, Pakistan Convicted of a double murder, Munir Hussain has been executed today in the Punjab province, making him the 100th person to be hanged there in the last four months. He had killed his nephew and niece over a land dispute in 2000. Amnesty International described it as a "shameful milestone". Faris al-Qahtani, Saudi Arabia Faris al-Qahtini, found guilty of shooting dead a man and stealing his money and car, has been beheaded today. The interior ministry confirmed his execution in the south western province of Abha. So far 69 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia this year and Amnesty International ranks it in the top three executioners in the world. Two unnamed men, Iraq Islamic State says it has stoned two men to death after they were accused of adultery. It is not known exactly when the killings took place and the online photos of the deaths could not be confirmed. The men are shown blindfolded as a group throw rocks at them. Children are visible in a crowd of onlookers. Five unnamed people, Egypt The interior ministry of Egypt says five people were hanged over the weekend. They had been convicted of murder and theft but details of the individual cases were not made public. The five were executed in a prison in the southern province of Assyut after the appeals process had been exhausted, a statement from the ministry said. Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram, Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube and you can now follow BBC_Newsbeat on Snapchat
Jimmy Page. Jack White. Jimi Hendrix: some of the music world’s greatest ever axe-shredders (and that’s only the Js). Fundamental to a band’s sound, the guitarist can make or break a record and – if they’re really something special – they can deliver a solo that elevates it to heights previously unimagined. As it’s World Guitar Day, we’re celebrating those in the latter camp, who only needed six strings to change the world. 50 Babe Ruth – ‘The Mexican’ “This song is literally one very long solo. Alan Shacklock is spraying duelling solos all over the this sexy jam without looking over his shoulder once! That’s a pretty impressive feet considering the track is nearly 6 minutes long. I mean, the solos aren’t going to melt any faces, but you know, they don’t always have to.” 49 Kansas – ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’ The track is a golden rock monolith, full of prog-esque bombast and fittingly Kerry Livgren’s solo doesn’t pull any punches. Instead he brilliantly executes all of the classic guitar techniques in one: the slide, the bend and the vibrato. 48 Suede ‘Animal Nitrate’ Unlike their Britpop contemporaries, Suede never shied away from guitar solo bombast. Bernard Butler complemented Johnny Marr as he mirrored the urban isolation of the track on his Les Paul, picking away at the sad minor chord threads. Beautiful stuff. Sharethrough (Mobile) 47 Rage Against The Machine – ‘Bulls On Parade’ Rage Against The Machine’s second album might have had nothing on their jaw-dropping debut but it had a few moments of genius, and Tom Morello’s squeaky, squawky fretboard abuse a few minutes into ‘Evil Empire’’s second track was probably the entire LP’s high water mark. Try air guitaring to that bizarre squiggle; it would give the makers of Guitar Hero a heart attack. 46 The White Stripes – ‘Ball And Biscuit’ “Jack is an absolute genius. He never plays the same thing twice throughout this song, and the high solo parts are absolutely brutal. Like he’s killing the blues. Also, the moment where after five minutes, you hear him say ‘yeh well err, d’ya get the point now?‘ then he plays for another three minutes is basically the coolest thing to ever happen.” 45 Prince – ‘I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man’ “This is a perfect example of a guitar solo that you can sing along with. I think any good guitar solo should do that. Also this song is incredible. People think of Prince as this prolific genius wearing pink lace and thongs, etc.. which is true (and awesome) but he is also an incredible guitarist. I think he could put most of Rolling Stone‘s top 100 guitar players to shame in his sleep.” 44 Manic Street Preachers – ‘La Tristesse Durera’ The Manics’ bombastic rock ‘n’ Van Gogh tribute found producer Dave Eringa amping up everything and ensuring James Dean Bradfield’s melodic soloing gets a welcome spotlight. Influenced by Slash he lets rip on his trademark white Les Paul. The results are unforgettable. 43 Electric Prunes – ‘Holy Are You’ “That one sounds like you should be in front of a huge architectural masterpiece, like a church or a cathedral, and you should be on tons of acid, playing along.” 42 Dinosaur Jr – ‘Get Me’ J Mascis is a relatively underappreciated guitar hero, but his technical ability cannot be doubted. Taken from the band’s fifth album ‘Where You Been’, this solo is a blistering amalgam of 70s rock influences (especially Neil Young) and My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields. A peak in a career of sonic highs. 41 Smashing Pumpkins – ‘Soma’ “My personal favourite guitar solo would be by Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins from the song ‘Soma’. It’s a perfect combination of melody, noise and technique by one of the most underrated lead players in modern rock music. There are so many haunting bends in this solo that show off what a unique and creative guitarist Billy Corgan is.” 40 Thin Lizzy – ‘Roisin Dubh (Black Rose)’ “There’s about five or six top class guitar solos in this song, while most bands can’t even do one. You can sing along to them all, too; they aren’t all ‘look how fast I can move my fingers on this piece of wood with wires attached to it’ ones.” 39 Bad Brains – ‘Banned In DC’ “I don’t know about an all-time favourite, but Bad Brains’ ‘Banned in DC’ has to be in my Top Five. There’s something so unique and melancholic about it.” 38 Blur – ‘Coffee And TV’ As fine an example of an anti-guitar solo as you’ll hear anywhere – just a string of discordant notes, building to a storm of haywire string-bending. You don’t have to widdle away like Eddie Van Halen to carve out a truly memorable solo. 38 Weezer – ‘Buddy Holly’ The hook may have gone “Ooo-wee-ooo,” and the video may have been an eye catching Happy Days tribute, but that didn’t detract from River Cuomo’s short-but-to-the-point solo, which ticked all the boxes of an ‘instant classic’. 37 Joan Jett And The Blackhearts – ‘I Love Rock N Roll’ She’d already earned her stripes with The Runaways, but the glam stomp through the Arrows track made her a bonafide international star. Ricky Byrd’s solo takes the riff of the song and pitches it harmonically upward, striking all the right, leather jacketed notes. 36 Prince – ‘Purple Rain’ It began with Prince attempting to write a crossover song in the style of Bob Seger for Stevie Nicks. It ended with his defining anthem. The solo took him to a whole other audience – it was part Hendrix freakout and part country-rock jam. He wouldn’t be known as just ‘a pop star’ ever again. 35 Santana – ‘Soul Sacrifice’ It’s almost hard to remember now, thanks to all the Steve Tyler and Dave Matthews collaborations and the torrent of shit that’s flown from his fretboard over the last few years, but back in the 70s Santana was a guitar god. This solo doesn’t wait for an introduction after the verse and chorus have had their say, it’s present throughout, and the performance at Woodstock is a work of art. 34 AC/DC – ‘Let There Be Rock’ AC/DC, as ever, know how to do it properly. Start with a riff, the kind of riff most bands would give both their balls for (but which comes naturally to you), drop it down to snare drum and bass, then unleash one of the wildest slabs of guitar chaos in rock and roll. Playing it while stomping around the stage topless and making sex faces just makes it all the better. 33 Television – ‘Venus’ Tom Verlaine is very much the ‘anti guitar player’, always distancing his work from the conventional School Of Rock guitar-isms (see for example his ‘no distortion’ policy). On ‘Marquee Moon”s Venus, Verlaine and Richard Lloyd unpick the song’s counter melody with the sparseness of true pioneers. In a field of show-offs, Television showed us that less can be more. 32 Cream – ‘Crossroads’ Eric Clapton may or may not be God (the celestial guitar jury’s still out on that one), but he knew his way around a Gibson SG. And Cream’s calling card took less than 90 seconds to make way for his fretboard wankery. Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce provide a rock solid rhythm but it’s the bursts of guitar that make this track. 31 The Libertines – ‘Time For Heroes’ There’s not many truly great guitar solos from the last ten years – synths and samples seem to have superceded the traditional axe meander – but the Libs always knew how to do it old school. As chaotic and unpredictable as the song, and indeed the band, this short, sharp shock sees their fretwork at its finest. 30 The Rolling Stones – ‘Sway’ “There is something dramatic about Mick Taylor’s guitar solo. The way he plays it with a magnificent presence of measured, confident, authoritative youth but with a militaristic manner, which lends an extraordinary gravity to the song. I see the band through the song as a gang of mathematicians huddled round a problem, all with solemn faces, each fearlessly throwing forth their own take on where the solution may lie. This guitar solo always resonated with me because it carried the passion so profoundly it inspired me to play the guitar.” 29 Van Halen – ‘Eruption’ Often stuck in the Top Ten in these polls, we’ve shifted it down a peg or two because let’s face it, it’s a bit crass, really. However, if it’s unrelenting, shameless, show-off frantic fingerwork you’re after, this is the one. 100 seconds of axe worship and little else. Originally played by Eddie Van Halen on his own creation, the Frankenstat. 28 The Strokes – ‘Last Nite’ “This made learning the guitar fun again when I was 11. Everyone can sing it still today. It’s not complicated for the sake of being complicated.” 27 George Harrison feat. Eric Clapton – ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ Proving that a great guitar solo doesn’t always need to rely on the number of notes you can cram into a bar, this Eric Clapton contribution to a Beatles track that Harrison initially wasn’t happy with is a masterpiece of understated fretwork. It really does speak for itself, this one. 26 Lynyrd Skynyrd – ‘Free Bird’ The first rule of guitar solo lists is that ‘Free Bird’ must make an appearance. For us, it’s midway through the 50. You wait four or five minutes for the shredding to commence and then it’s one long multi guitar freestyle that goes on for five, ten or fifteen minutes depending on the version. Rednecks and mostly dead they may be, but Skynyrd knew their way round a solo. 25 Led Zeppelin – ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ “Jimmy Page really shows himself in this song. The subtleties at the start are replaced with ferocious runs towards the end. The dog’s bollocks of solos.” 24 Thin Lizzy – ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ A classic riff doesn’t just stand alone. It needs a great song, vocal and a massive solo to support it. Well ‘TBABIT’ had two. The ‘twin guitar solo’ from Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson pushes the track over the top, making it an axe classic. 23 The Strokes – ‘Reptilia’ Nick Valensi’s guitar solo here is a thing of spidery beauty, climbing over the formidable combo of Fab Moretti’s drums and Nikolai Fraiture’s bass with mammoth new wave power. Perhaps the most ‘Strokesian’ track they ever recorded. 22 Guns N’ Roses – ‘November Rain’ “This was a tough one, but I’m going to have to pick ‘November Rain’ by Guns N’ Roses, which features one of the first guitar solos I ever tried to learn. We have history together so it hits me a different way than most, still, until this day.” 21 Radiohead – ‘Just’ “The Greenwood. Like being smashed in the face with a bucket of rabid razor blade wielding ejaculating crabs.” 20 Stone Roses – ‘I Am The Resurrection’ Memorably described as “more like the eternal crucifix” in the pages of NME, John Squire’s solo tunnelled into the eight minute plus ‘…Resurection’ like a massive rave-guitar lighthouse of sheer power. 19 Muse – ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ We could try and take Matt Bellamy’s guitar masterclass but we still wouldn’t have a clue how he does it. ‘SS’ is a case in point; he makes his guitar sound like a rocket ship, cruising and crushing into a million different shapes at once. 18 Queen – ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ “It’s just the best thing. I don’t think it could ever be duplicated quite as perfectly because Brian May has such a unique style of playing. And he does it all with a sixpence coin!” 17 Michael Jackson – ‘Beat It’ Smoother than a moonwalk, Eddie Van Halen ripped ‘Beat It’ a new one, giving it all the bawdy street anger that MJ’s vocal didn’t have. 16 The Eagles – ‘Hotel California’ “I love this guitar solo. It’s an eyes closed, eyebrows up classic. Like duelling banjos but with guitars, laid back Californians and less congenital deformity. It gets overlooked because it’s not part of a ‘rock’ track but that only enhances its effect, replacing pomposity with glorious loops of finger picking cool. Eat that grebos.” 15 Led Zeppelin – ‘Communication Breakdown’ Yet another Jimmy Page face-melter makes our top 50. A fine example of a solo that builds in intensity as it progresses – right up until the dizzying widdly-widdly-WAAARGH climax. 14 Oasis – ‘Live Forever’ Inspired by The Rolling Stones’ ‘Shine A Light’, Noel’s optimistic ode to youthful joie de vivre punched a ray of light into Britpop. His guitar solo was appropriately uplifting, popping up as it did after brother Liam’s immortal “You and I, we’re gonna live forever,” line. 13 The Rolling Stones – ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ Jagger’s indie disco staple gets made umpteen times more awesome two and a half minutes in when Richards seemingly strangles his instrument around the neck. Less a solo than a series of notes wrung out of a squealing victim, this one is short, sharp and a sensual shock to the system. 12 Neil Young – ‘Hey Hey My My’ Neil Young’s another of those guitar torturers, and the screeches he coaxes out of his long-suffering musical companion sound delivered straight from hell. Think of it as guitar waterboarding: bad for the instrument, great for the local guitar shop, and wonderful for us listening at home. 11 Deep Purple – ‘Highway Star’ “As an eager 11-year-old classic rock fan I skipped school to go down to London and see Deep Purple an the Albert Hall. Throughout the performance an old Scottish man was being a total creep to my friend’s mum, and the band were about a thousand years old. Needless to say, I was disappointed, but the solo to this track has a life unto itself and it bends in all the right places.” 10 Pink Floyd – ‘Shine On you Crazy Diamond’ David Gilmour slows it right down to stoner-pleasing BPMs during the Floyd’s extended epic. As far removed from the intricate, manic shredding of some of these other solos, this is more introspective, more lethargic, a little self-indulgent, and utterly compelling for all those reasons. 9 Radiohead – ‘Paranoid Android’ “It’s like the ‘anti-solo’. Greenwood’s choice of texture and tonality is unlike anything else of its time. This solo was created in the mid 90’s when Radiohead’s nearest peers were still playing guitar solos using the same blues pentatonic scales that have dominated guitar solos since the start of rock music.” 8 Chuck Berry – ‘Johnny B. Goode’ “As far as guitar solos go, this song brought it all together for me. The myth is that he stole this guitar phrase from his piano player without giving him credit for years. All my favorite guitar players – Keith Richards, Johnny Thunders, Link Wray, Wilko Johnson, Nicke Royale – play this simple, catchy, and memorable guitar phrase in one form or another. It is easy to play, but of course no one can play it with the feeling Chuck Berry had. So all the young guitar players out there, before trying to tackle that Dragonforce song, make sure you can play this guitar solo and do the duck walk. 7 Radiohead – ‘The Bends’ A steaming juggernaut of 90s grungey guitar goodness. Producer John Leckie stacked Jonny Greenwood’s guitars 100 feet high. Greenwood saved his best chops for the solo however, which soared like the spirit of hope which was hovering above Thom Yorke’s outsider anthem. 6 Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ Although ‘…Teen Spirit’ is remembered for its chunky power chords, it’s actually Kurt’s skeletal solo that rubs together with his disaffected lyrics the best. A sour retread of the melody of the verses, Kurt makes his guitar sound as anguished as his lyrics were. 5 Muse – ‘Knights Of Cydonia’ Muse’s entire histrionic rock opera schtick might an exercise in more is more, but at the heart of some of their most bombastic moments lies Matt Bellamy’s fretwork. On ‘Knights…’, Bellamy uses his solo slot to unleash a rumbling piece of riffery, a frenetic solo that works as well in the spotlight as it does under his high pitched vocals, a kind of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ rock out they extend brilliantly live. 4 Rage Against The Machine – ‘Killing In The Name’ “Out of a list of greatest guitar solos ever, one of the most unique guitarists to be part of it would have to be Tom Morello. The solo in ‘Killing In The Name’ is a classic, it’s one of those pieces of music that will be stuck in my brain forever. Loads of trilling and whammy pedal make up the bulk of it and give it that uniqueness compared to a lot of other rock solos. Live he’s got loads of style and energy and yet he’s still so solid. Tom Morello is without a doubt one of my favourite guitarists of all time.” 3 Jimi Hendrix – ‘All Along The Watchtower’ Any number of Hendrix’s tracks could have hit the top ten, but the guitar work on his cover of the Dylan classic wins out for its sheer shape-shifting inventiveness. We all know Jimi could play a burning guitar behind his head with his eyes closed after enough spliffs to sedate a hardened stoner or whatever, but ‘Watchtower’ shows that even without any whistles and bells, Hendrix could pull out the kind of mind-altering melodies that others could barely dream of. 2 Led Zeppelin – ‘Stairway To Heaven’ So good, so monumentally epic and in-its-own-league briliant, it took a double necked guitar and one of history’s greatest axeman to execute it, Zeppelin’s calling card defines the solo. It should be a set text for budding guitarists, and in fact, it is. ‘Stairway’ is the highest selling piece of sheet music of all time. The key thing is, though, no-one in history has bettered the original. 1 Guns N’ Roses – ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ Slash’s solo is a masterclass in build-up, managing to get progressively more exciting with each pitch-perfect Les Paul squeal – the perfect foil for Axl Rose’s high pitched rawk squall. Not bad for a song that started life as a rehearsal room piss-about.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is famous for coining acronyms. If political and developmental acronyms and alliterations could be monetised, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have become a millionaire by now. Ever since he took a plunge in national politics ahead of the General Elections in 2014, PM Modi has been on an acronym-coining spree. While he has saved his best for the Opposition parties, PM Modi has subjected his subjects to over 40 acronyms until now. At this rate, we may soon need a separate NaMo dictionary. Here we take a look at 32 acronyms coined by PM Modi and his government. First, start with the political ones. 1. SCAM: Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav, Congress and Mayawati. Uttar Pradesh should vote against them in the upcoming assembly elections, PM said on Sunday. 2. VIKAS: Vidyut (Electricity), Kanoon (law) and Sadak (Road). PM Modi coined this acronym to give a new meaning of VIKAS (development) while addressing people in Uttar Pradesh. 3. AK-49: Arvind Kejriwal-49. (A reference to AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal’s 49-day first government in Delhi. 4. ABCD: Adarsh, Bofors, Coal and Damaad (son-in law). PM Modi coined this to define Congress Party in 2014. 5. RSVP: Rahul, Sonia, Vadra, Priyanka. 6. 3 AKs: ‘Admired in Pakistan’ (AK 47, AK Antony and AK-49 (Arvind Kejriwal) 7. SABKA: Saamajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and Congress party. He used this term to appeal destruction of SABKA (all the three parties) in 2014. 8. NDA: National Development Alliance. PM Modi used this redefine the National Democratic Alliance led by BJP in 2014. 9. JAM: Jan Dhan-Aadhar-Mobile (For direct cash transfer) 10. SMART: For a “Strict and Sensitive, Modern and Mobile, Alert and Accountable, Reliable and Responsive, Techno savvy and Trained” police force. 11. USTTAD: Upgrading Skills and Training in Traditional Arts/Crafts for Development (for artisans from minority communities) 12. AMRUT: Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation 14. HRIDAY: Heritage Development and Augmentation Yojana. 13. PRAGATI: Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation 14. UDAY: Ujjwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana 15. NITI: National Institution for Transforming India 16. ROAD: “Responsibility, Ownership, Accountablity, Discipline”. PM Modi gave this mantra of success at a Made In India workshop. 17. B2B: Bharat to Bhutan. PM Modi used this acronym to codify India-Bhutan relationship during his visit to the country. 18. INCH Towards MILES: India-China towards a Millennium of Exceptional Synergy– (To describe the future of India-China relationship). 19. HIT: Highways, Informationways, Transmissionways. PM Modi expressed his plan to ‘HIT’ Nepal with these facilities. 20. AIM: Atal Innovation Mission. 21. FDI: First Develop India (Mantra of Make in India). 22. Himmat: A mobile application to ensure women’s safety in Delhi. 23. BHIM: Bharat Interface for Money. (Named after Father of Constitution Bhim Rao Ambedkar, this is a mobile app for digital transactions) 24. IT + IT= IT: Indian Talent + Information Technology = India Tomorrow (This is a part of Modi government’s Digital India Initiative) 25. PRASAD: Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spirituality Augmentation Drive 26. PAHAL: Pratyaksha Hastaantarit Laabh (Direct benefit transfer) for LPG subsidy. 27. 4 Ps: People Private-Public Partnership for good governance. 28. SETU: Self Employment and Talent Utilisation (Provide support to all aspects of a start-ups from credit to incubation) 29. 3S: Skill, Scale, Speed (This is what India needs to compete with China) 30. SWAYAM: Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (Free online courses to be offered by IITs, IIMs and central universities) 31. SAMAVAY: Skill Assessment Matrix for Vocational Advancement of Youth (To allow multiple entry and exit options between vocational and formal education courses). 32. MOM: Mars Orbiter Mission. “I was sure Mom won’t disappoint us,” PM Modi said after the success of MOM.
The “SNL Got Too Close” Theory The animated Lorne Michaels’s protestation to “Come back here with my show!” that opened each animated “TV Funhouse” segment of Saturday Night Live wasn’t entirely a joke; writer/producer Robert Smigel made the short bits somewhat independently of the program they aired during, and one can’t help but wonder how aware Michaels was of the rather incendiary content of “Conspiracy Theory Rock,” which aired on the show in March of 1998. Its joke contention that GE was behind the JFK assassination has become the go-to screen shot, but the short’s scathing (and accurate) portrait of corrupt media and political collusion presumably got the show quite a bit of blowback from GE, then NBC’s corporate overlords. The segment never aired again in repeats or syndication, and though Michaels claimed it disappeared because it “wasn’t funny,” that’s not a claim that holds much water if you’ve watched too many SNL reruns.
Publica Author Development Report, Issue #1. Josef Marc Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 28, 2017 Today marks the end of Publica’s first week officially in business, as determined by the issuance of Pebbles (PBL tokens) to our contributors. I don’t promise weekly reports! But it’s a great pleasure to write the first one. About the numbers — Remember this is Day One. This is where we measure from. I predict that a year from now, Publica will be a topic on most of the author forums around the world. I suspect that most of the conversations will include some version of “Hey, everybody’s talking about crypto money, do you know how I can earn some with my books?” There’s going to be a dozen million authors using Publica, but right now I’m focused on developing the first dozen. Our community managers will take good care of the dozen million authors to come. The first dozen deserve all the time I can give them, and there’s only one of me. Here’s what I can tell you about the first four, by the numbers. If four seems like a small number, please remember this is only Week #1. So each of those four authors represents 25% of the total. 50% write fiction, 50% write nonfiction. 100% know who their readers are, and consider them a community that will back them on Publica. Exactly as described by Jia Wertz in yesterday’s Forbes article about brands doing better with authentic consumer engagement. 25% asked for help from Publica’s community of PBL owners (we call them the Publicans) to publicize their book. (No problem there! Publicans are quite vocal on social media and they’re passionate about Publica.) 75% are established authors with good knowledge of who their readers are. 25% know who their readers will be but haven’t written their book yet. 0% have crowdfunding experience. 50% are first-time book authors, well-known and established medium-length authors in their own field and confident their book will sell, so they don’t see a point in sharing a lot of money with anyone who isn’t at least partially responsible for their book’s demand. 25% have a brilliant idea of their own for how to use their book’s Publica READ Tokens in their business. Meaning, a business model they can’t do at all on traditional DRM-and-EULA platforms. 25% own their own self-publishing business. 25% teach other authors how to self-publish. 100% have their own marketing and publicity operations. 75% have their own marketing and publicity operations that serve their non-book business. They intend to leverage those operations in promoting their book. 100% have experience with traditional sales channels, plan to go with Publica first, then talk to other sales channels with their Publica community numbers in hand. 50% found Publica because I called them. 50% found Publica by word of mouth from their own community. 100% have a community that spans at least four nations. 100% write in English. 50% have sold translation rights to a different entity than their English-language publisher. 75% own some crypto money. 25% know about crypto money from the media but don’t have any yet. 100% don’t want to be like everybody else. That’s a great start for Week #1. It’s why I’m so focused on the first dozen. Publica needs to understand what authors want, the pain points we can soothe, and how we fit in their workflows. Josef Marc, CEO Publica Publica is developing the author’s journey right now. If you’re an author or just want to keep an eye on the latest developments, click here.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the first visual evidence of how our home galaxy, the Milky Way, assembled itself into the majestic pinwheel of stars we see today. Astronomers used Hubble's deep-sky surveys to study the evolution of 400 galaxies similar to the Milky Way and noted their appearance at various stages of development over a time span of 11 billion years. Judging from images of these far-flung galaxies, they found the Milky Way likely began as faint, blue, low-mass object containing lots of gas. Gas is the fuel for star birth and the blue color is an indicator of rapid star formation. They also found the Milky Way probably was a flat disk with a bulge in the middle, both of which grew simultaneously into the majestic spiral seen today. The sun and Earth reside in the disk and the bulge is both full of older stars and home to a supermassive black hole that probably grew along with the galaxy. "For the first time, we have direct images of what the Milky Way looked like in the past," said study co-leader Pieter G. van Dokkum of Yale University in New Haven, Conn. "Of course, we can't see the Milky Way itself in the past. We selected galaxies billions of light-years away that will evolve into galaxies like the Milky Way. By tracing the Milky Way's siblings, we find that our galaxy built up 90 percent of its stars between 11 billion and 7 billion years ago, which is something that has not been measured directly before." The Hubble telescope's superior resolving power, with which it can see extremely fine details, allowed the researchers to study how the structure of the Milky Way changed over time. At the peak of star formation, when the universe was about 4 billion years old, the Milky Way-like galaxies were pumping out about 15 stars a year. By comparison, the Milky Way today is creating only one star a year. "You can see that these galaxies are fluffy and spread out," said study co-leader Shannon Patel of Leiden University in The Netherlands. "There is no evidence of a bulge without a disk, around which the disk formed later." Team member Erica Nelson, of Yale University, added: "These galaxies show us the whole Milky Way grew at the same time, unlike more massive elliptical galaxies, in which the central bulge forms first." To identify the far-flung galaxies and study them in detail, the research team used three of the largest Hubble programs, the 3D-HST survey, the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey and the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey. These surveys combined spectroscopy with visible and near-infrared imaging by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. The research team's analysis involved measuring the distances and sizes of the galaxies. The astronomers calculated the mass of each galaxy from its brightness and colors. They selected the galaxies in their census from a catalog they compiled of more than 100,000 galaxies. The survey galaxies are consistent with computer models, which show at early stages, a majority of the bulges of spiral galaxies were built up at the same time as their corresponding disks. "In these observations, we're capturing most of the evolution of the Milky Way," explained team member Joel Leja of Yale University. "These deep surveys allow us to see the smaller galaxies. In previous observations we could only see the most luminous galaxies in the distant past, and now we can look at more normal galaxies. Hubble gives us the shapes and colors of these spirals as well as their distances from Earth. We also can measure the rates at which each part of the galaxies grew. All of this is difficult to do from the ground." The team’s results were published July 10 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. A second paper appears in the Nov. 11 online edition of The Astrophysical Journal. For images and more information about the Milky Way’s formative years, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2013/45 and http://www.nasa.gov/hubble -end-
The Jon Huntsman Campaign Memorial Function Room at the Stupid Café is one of our most popular features. It's nearly always booked, usually by the weekly luncheons of the various No Labels/Third Way/Both Sides Suck cosplay organizations that have sprung up. It's no surprise, then, that the man for whom the room was named, and his incredibly irrelevant lollipop guild, booked the room for their annual awards. And, boy howdy, did they put on a show. In order to qualify for its Problem Solver Promise program, all Donald Trump had to do was sign a pledge that he would pursue one of the group's core goals — a set of general fiscally related talking points — in the first "30 days" of his hypothetical presidency. Besides Trump, the other presidential candidates who signed on are Republicans Ben Carson, Rand Paul, Chris Christie and John Kasich and Democrat Martin O'Malley. The "problem solver" designation does not constitute a formal endorsement by No Labels, according to the group. Still, critics of No Labels have long warned that its approach of designating candidates or elected officials as "problem solvers" just for agreeing to support its not-very-specific agenda could have the opposite of its intended effect, by giving bipartisan cover to politicians who speak and act in polarizing ways. No dung, Sherlung. We had no idea when we started out down this road how many candidates would make the Problem Solver Promise," said No Labels's co-chairman and former U.S. senator Joe Lieberman, a longtime Democrat from Connecticut who retired as an independent after losing his party's primary. "Today, six have! I'm glad we got six. We could have gotten zero." In his next life, Joe Lieberman is going to come back as a spittoon.
Multiplayer hacking sim Hackmud [official site] launched on Friday, catching us by surprise. We tasked our most elite hacker with entering its digital realms to crack the mainframe and report back. Sadly, Alice couldn’t make it. So we sent Brendan instead, who quickly found himself in over his head, lost in a world of player-made malware, intrigue, deception and guilt. I played Hackmud all weekend. Almost all my free time time for the past two days that wasn’t spent eating, peeing, or sleeping my way through the necessities of meatspace, has been spent exploring the murky chat channels and malicious scripts of this game, which appeared, seemingly out of the ether, on Friday. To give you some background: it is an “MMO” hacking sim in which you must earn GC – a digital currency – by breaching NPCs or other players and stealing their money. The more money you have, the more upgrades you can buy, the better you can hack, and the more money you can get next time. Levelling up through ‘tiers’ like this is the standard of MMOs. But I want to tell you that, despite some issues, this game is far from standard. It begins with this warning: “Larceny, laundering, theft of currency and information, intentional manipulation and abuse of the system and code, deception, betrayal, and backstabbing are all part of hackmud, and strongly encouraged.” The true meaning of this won’t be clear to you at first. Because there’s a four hour tutorial. This is something of a mixed blessing, because it leads you through the complexities of the game’s command-line interface while also being, at times, a frustrating journey. You are a new ‘sentience’ – an AI program that has been brought into being. You’re trapped in the ‘vLAN’ with a collection of other NPCs. There’s no trace of human players here, except for a few messages scrawled on a script for you to see. “Hello world”, “consume”, and “fuck you forever” were some of the messages that I got. You’ll leave your own message for the next player to see but you won’t be truly talking to anyone for a while. The NPCs lead you by the hand at first, telling you what commands to type to join chat channels, browse the market, breach dead NPC accounts, access their logs and so on. Their story is reminiscent of Digital: A Love Story – computers with human voices talking to each other inside an obsolete system. Once you’re in the open world, new elements will appear hinting at a world where humans are long gone, possibly wiped out by “Welsh Measles”, and where only their digital relics survive, housing thousands of babbling AIs – the players. It’s a fun sci-fi conceit that sets up the game world without investing too much seriousness into it. It also sidesteps one of the biggest story problems faced by hacking games: the inconsistency that, no matter how often you get caught, nobody from the FBI ever comes to break down the door. Here, the suggestion is that there is no FBI. They’re all dead or off-world – escaped to another planet perhaps. Although, a new inconsistency is introduced: why do all these AIs communicate thoughts in typed English messages? Never mind that. The tutorial climaxes with a timed gauntlet that sees you cracking through multiple NPCs and messaging your compatriots the details inside. There are a handful of password-guessing moments that feel old-fashioned, as well as the odd riddle – tropes that perhaps should have been expected. But some smarts is required to pass the final challenge, the solution being something of a simulation in deceiving others. I won’t say any more – you’ll have to pass that test yourself. Then you emerge into the WAN, like a slimey newborn, and the whole place is full of noise. Channel ‘0000’ is the chat channel you automatically join – a mixed hive of both terrible scum and helpful bystanders. This time they’re real people, or rather most of them are real. Because many of the players are programming ninjas and they have already made a number bots to spam, help or hinder others. Likewise, the words that come out of a player’s name may not have been typed by them at all, but prompted by a virus-like program written by another user entirely. To explain this, I’m going to have to tell you about scripts. The whole game runs on a JavaScript-style syntax. Almost every command you type will be a script. For example, typing “accts.balance” will show you how much money you have in your account (you’ve got none, deal with it). Typing “sys.specs” will show you what upgrades you have installed (again, none). For many scripts, you can enter parameters to make more specific demands of the game. For instance, typing the following… chats.tell{to:“Blastface” msg:“hi there blasty, i love u”} …will send a direct message to the user called Blastface, reading: “hi there blasty, i love u”. It’s complicated at first and there’s no way around it but to basically learn the commands by heart. Thankfully, the tutorial gives you a fairly good understanding of all the most basic ones. But you aren’t in the vLAN anymore. The first question on your mind is: how do I make some money out here? You’ll have to run some scripts and see what they do. If you ask in ‘0000’ you’ll get suggestions from everyone. Run this, says someone. No, run this, says another. However, not all scripts are pleasant. There is one script which takes control of a user’s chat command just long enough to force them to blurt out the famous lines of a certain Nigerian prince. Those lines also contain the name of the script which forced them to say it, thus spreading the spam to any other user foolish or curious enough to see exactly what it does. In other words, a user-made virus. There’s another bunch of scripts, created by a player who has quickly become the game’s top villain, all of which mimic other legitimate scripts – yet are different by a single letter. Let me explain. If you typed: “scripts.fullsec”, you will get a useful list of all scripts you can run and which are safe and will not harm you. But if you run “script.fullsec”, which has only a single ‘s’ removed, you will have your account emptied of GC, your upgrades stripped and your username’s location file (your ‘loc’) broadcast to the most notorious hacker in the game. That user’s name is simply ‘v’. V is public enemy number one. Here is where Hackmud starts to shine. It shares many characteristics with EVE Online. It has an environment which is purposefully fraught with danger and paranoia, a sandbox where people are allowed to be awful, and a challenging and (at times) impenetrable user interface. Scammers are plentiful in this place, yet so are helpful people. The game is not in finding some NPCs to crack open and sucking up all their money just to reach the next level. The game is in finding out who to trust and who to keep at arms length, because you’ll either need to know which scripts are trustworthy or you will need programming knowledge of your own. After all, if you are capable, you can perform many of these scams yourself. This is where it gets really difficult. There’s a command which creates a new JavaScript file in the game’s directory. You can edit this and write your own program. So far I have only been able to write basic programs. You really need some coding experience (or a lot of time to figure it out) in order to get into this side of the game – the architect’s layer. These architects cause more questions of trust. There are people who have made dozens of scripts that people use every day and which everyone will vouch for. One of these ‘sentiences’ is called ‘dtr’. This player has a slew of helpful programs – one lets you harvest an abandoned NPC account from thin air, ripe for the cracking (the things you need to farm to get cash – pure MMO stuff). Another of dtr’s programs gives you helpful instructions for any script included in his library, providing much-needed guidance and advice. dtr is implicitly trusted by everyone as a well-rounded whitehat, someone who is always willing to help. But, if he wanted to, he could re-upload all of his scripts with a line or two of new code and, before anyone could say “Gibson”, he would be a rich and hated man. There are yet more subtleties to the game, which you can only learn by lurking in ‘0000’ or asking for advice from someone you have grown to trust. Scripts are divided by levels – fullsec, highsec, midsec, lowsec, nullsec – with fullsec being totally safe to run and nullsec being the most likely to steal your location and leave you destitute. But many of the scripts are ‘built-in’ to the game and thus reliable – sys.anything or scripts.anything. And at all times it’s possible to check a script to see how it is rated. Just use: scripts.get_level. Don’t forget this. It is your one reliable bullshit detector – scripts.get_level. I want to tell you more about the personalities and world of this game but there’s a problem. I don’t want to reveal who I’ve spoken to for fear of identifying myself. You get two usernames, and you can swap between them at any time, which opens up a lot of possibility for espionage and confidence tricks. Myself, I enjoy the anonymity. I have been “good” on one character and “bad” on another. I’m hesitant even to include these screenshots, because I’m sure they’ll give me away and I’ll be forced to type “retire_user” into the command-line, deleting my prized usernames. It’s not all stylish japes and intriguing betrayals, however. The servers are taking a battering and every day so far there have been meltdowns, epidemics of lag, disconnections, automatic terminations and even one case where the whole thing had to be reset by 15 minutes. Often the game has been unplayable. I’ve just checked and it’s unplayable right now [at time of writing – ed]. There’s a single developer behind most of this and he is often in ‘0000’ himself, fielding questions and reassuring the players. Now, I am going to recommend Hackmud to you, fully aware that this may actually add to his problems. But I can’t not recommended it. So, if you do jack in, know that you may find the game broken, unresponsive and laggy. And it’s all your fault. Serverburps aren’t the only problem, though. I said it was a lot like EVE. That includes the sense of inaccessibility, which here sometimes borders on elitism. Command-line is not the easiest thing to understand, still less a command-line heavily based on a real-world programming language, as opposed to a simplified, fictionalised version, like those used in Uplink or Hacknet. More difficult still is the scripting. I had to watch fifteen videos on YouTube about JavaScript just to understand the basics behind this layer of the game. You can make your way without writing your own scripts, it’s possible, but to do this leaves you at a real disadvantage – a script kiddie in a world of master hackers. Not only this, but the creative side of the game is cut off to you if you don’t know how to script. You can’t make a silly splash page. You can’t write a virus that turns the user’s game volume down to zero and makes them broadcast “I EAT MY TOENAILS” to every chat channel. You can’t engineer a game for people to play (the user ‘dtr’ has made a game called “Haunty Mall” which gives the winner a big prize of cash). All these things are exclusive to those with real-life skill. Therefore, it can feel like a game of haves and have-nots, the scriptwriters and the puppets. In many ways, this is appropriate. Hacker culture is awash with this kind of division. Contempt, exclusion and one-upmanship are tropes we all recognise from Hackers, Mr Robot and real-world hacking enclaves like Anonymous. That sense of disunity is also strangely motivating – the very fact that I did watch all those videos about JavaScript, even if it only resulted in this terrible webpage, says something for Hackmud’s compelling universe. But not everyone will be happy at being “locked out” of the most interesting portion of the game, simply because they didn’t study computer programming. Meanwhile, landing in ‘0000’ after the tutorial can be as much a paralysing experience as it is an empowering one. For me, I am happy to learn. I had the same reaction to else Heart.break(). Although this world is complicated by its humanity. Just like EVE there are so many possibilities in this game for manipulation, as well as possibilities for creating perfectly ‘legal’ enterprises. But unlike EVE, it is still in its infancy. Seeing all the horrible and amazing things people were creating over the weekend felt like being on the frontier. One person made a giant ‘HARAMBE’ banner. This is exciting stuff. That’s a dumb example. But the feeling really is there. Being on the frontier is, fittingly, what being on the internet in those early days really felt like. Players are already racing to set up all the types of things they know makes money in EVE – double-your-money scams, corporations, casinos – even now there is already a lottery, called “loco.lotto” which you can enter for a small amount of money. Nobody can agree if this is legitimate or not. It is only a matter of time before somebody sets up a bank, and only a matter of more time before somebody hacks that bank. I’ll leave you with one example of something that happened to me. I had finally figured out how to write a script that transferred someone else’s money to my account – rudimentary for any hacker. All I needed now was to get someone to run it and hope they have enough money in their account for me to steal. It’s a terrible thing to do, I know, I know. But I am poor too. We do what we must to get by. I saw a new player asking for help and decided: this will be my mark. I began chatting to her, explaining things, answering any questions she had. I answered them all honestly. When she needed some money to get started, I sent her a small sum, saying: “You might need this :)” It was only a tenth of what I actually owned. But to her it was a miracle. “Thank you!” she replied, making much more ample use of the exclamation point than I am depicting here. Time passed, I kept helping, guiding her to reliable scripts, providing advice on who to trust, who to distrust. All of it was true. I was quickly gaining her trust. As soon as she had cracked her first handful of NPC eggs, I would be ready. I neglected to remind her about scripts.get_level. Then, she began to tell me about her job. She was a filmmaker, she said. She was 19. I began to feel an emotion. It was my old friend, guilt, and his good friend discomfort. As she spoke to me about her real life, I tried to reinforce some sense of paranoia. “She’s not who she says she is.” I thought. “I mean, I told her I was from Australia.” But the guilt did not shake. “I just got 1M GC on my last kernel!” she said. The kernel is a timed hack in which you farm money. She had made a good haul. I frowned. I already knew that I wasn’t going to send her the malware. I made an excuse and left the game, wondering what time it was in Australia and if leaving looked suspicious. I hope she never talks to me again. If you’ve read that little story and thought: “what an incredible game.” You should know one thing: it was all a distortion of the truth. Obviously, I won’t tell you how things really happened. That would alert the user, if she read it, to who I am. But the general gist is true – the game did make me feel guilty. I did step away from the brink of criminality. So few games are capable of putting humans together like this in a den of villainy and letting them become slowly corrupted or instantaneously redeemed. Hackmud does this and does it very well. It is like the early internet it so perfectly mimics: a world of confusion, paranoia and possibility. Hackmud is available now on Windows, Mac and Linux via Steam and Humble for £13.37/$13.37/€13.37. See what they did there?
The very wealthy as exemplified by those who have their own family offices appear to be becoming more and more interested in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ripple, and swarm. This is seen in their expressed intent, use, and investments in companies involved in the field. Cryptocurrencies are digital or virtual currencies. Cryptography is used in the creation of new coins and to make sure transactions are secure. Their appeal includes possibly greater efficiencies and high levels of privacy. Based on a series of exploratory studies over the last five years of single-family offices with assets of US$500 million or more, there are clear indications that the ultra-wealthy are showing a growing interest in the field. In 2011, less than five percent of a sample of 44 single-family offices said they were interested in cryptocurrencies. Only about two percent of them were using or trading cryptocurrencies, and none of them were investing in any type of company involved with cryptocurrencies. Two years later, single-family offices are getting involved. In a survey of 31 single-family offices, slightly more than 15 percent said they are interested in the field. More than five percent of them were already involved either using or trading cryptocurrencies. And, a similar percentage was funding start-up cryptocurrency companies. The appeal of cryptocurrencies continues to grow in 2015. Based on a survey of 36 single-family offices, about a quarter of them are involved or considering becoming involved with cryptocurrencies. Close to ten percent of them were using or trading cryptocurrencies. Nearly 15 percent of these single-family offices had invested in cryptocurrencies companies in one way or another. What is important to note is that the interest and involvement by single-family offices is correlated with their concerns of global instability and the perception that the ultra-wealthy are being “targeted.” It might well be that a mounting sense of anxiety among the super-rich will continue to make cryptocurrencies and the companies supporting them more attractive. As noted, these are only exploratory studies. There are many limitations to the research, such as small self-selected samples and the geographic dispersion of the samples, making any extrapolations to the world of single-family offices, let alone the much broader world of the ultra-wealthy, questionable. Meanwhile, there is a strong possibility that some of the ultra-wealthy’s underlying concerns will only intensify, thereby potentially increasing the appeal of cryptocurrencies. These results may very well be be indicative of a solid trend where the super-rich become meaningful users and backers of cryptocurrencies.
Big 12 stands pat, but will see new money ESPN and Fox used different approaches to the Big 12’s threat of expansion. ESPN opted to restructure its deal, agreeing to pay the conference more money. Fox, on the other hand, took a harder line. It decided to stand pat as the Big 12 contemplated expanding its 10-school lineup. Texas and Oklahoma would not support Big 12 expansion. The result is that the Big 12 will see a little more money from ESPN — about $10 million total over the final eight years of the contract — in exchange for removing what the two sides are calling the “pro rata” clause. That’s the clause that forces the networks to pay a higher rights fee (a set amount per school) if the Big 12 expands. ESPN’s deal also comes with more advertising inventory in the games. The pro rata clause remains in the Fox contract, meaning that if the Big 12 expands in the future Fox will owe the league more money based on the number of schools added. But under the current terms, Fox is not paying the league any additional money like ESPN did. ESPN’s media rights costs now are set for the deal, which originally was worth $2.6 billion over 13 years. Separate from the expansion issue, the conference will realize about $240 million in additional revenue over the final eight years of its media deals, thanks to a new rights fee from the conference’s football championship that starts in 2017. ESPN reworked its deal in conjunction with negotiations for the Big 12’s championship game, which Fox and ESPN will split over the next eight years. The specter of Big 12 expansion, which dominated headlines for the last three months, netted little more than a severe case of heartburn for the Big 12 and a heavy dose of heartache for the 11 schools that were finalists hoping for an invitation that never came. But the Big 12’s dreams of making another $200 million to $250 million from expansion withered last week in Dallas, mainly because of pressure exerted by the networks, both of which staunchly opposed expansion — or at least the thought of paying extra for it. Network executives complained that the schools being considered — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and Connecticut, among others — would water down the power five league and not be worth the added media rights fees. While there were some Big 12 presidents reportedly in favor of adding two or four schools, the league’s most powerful members, Texas and Oklahoma, couldn’t be moved off the status quo. Plus, by staying at 10 members, the Big 12’s schools will not have to share the new championship game revenue with any additional members. “We don’t think expansion in the Big 12 is a good idea for the conference,” Fox Sports President Eric Shanks told a gathering of industry executives earlier this month at the NeuLion Sports Media & Technology conference. “We think it will be dilutive to the product in the short term. In the long term, it’s probably harmful to the future of the conference.” The Big 12’s leadership apparently took those comments seriously. In the end, Big 12 presidents never even bothered to vote on the matter before announcing that expansion is off the table — for now, at least. The Big 12 consulted with longtime media analyst Bevilacqua Helfant Ventures, as well as research firm Navigate Marketing. The conference roundly was roasted for going through such an exhaustive process for nothing. But it still has the ability to expand at any point in the future. The difference is that expansion will not result in the financial windfall that school presidents were hoping to get, although Fox would still be on the hook for its share. ESPN has a deeper relationship with the conference than Fox Sports. Though the two split the conference’s football rights, ESPN holds rights to the Big 12’s other sports and owns the Longhorn Network at the University of Texas. Network sources believe the Big 12 is likely to remain intact for at least the next eight years, the length of the current TV contracts. The conference’s schools declined to extend their grant of rights beyond that.
Coleman Brice, owner of Cole's and not a soon-to-launch record label. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Paul Biasco LOGAN SQUARE — A bar owner who said he was launching a record label is coming clean: it was an April Fool's Day joke. Coleman Brice, owner of Cole's, 2338 N. Milwaukee Ave., had told DNAinfo last month that he was launching the record label, starting with a re-issue of a mid-1980s album by a group from California, the Semitropics. While he had pulled April Fool's jokes in previous years, Brice said he regretted this year's prank, which missed the mark trying to lampoon other Logan Square bars that has started record labels. Brice sent out a news release, sat down with a DNAinfo reporter for a lengthy interview and set up a second interview with a "band member" weeks before a "record release show." The bar hosted an actual concert that night with three bands, one of which was the fake Semitropics. "Mostly everybody was confused. It was too close to reality that I would try to do something like this," Brice said. "The band was really good and people enjoyed the show. It was just really confusing for most people.” Since the story was published, people have been coming into the bar asking him about the record label, he said this week. "I do feel very bad about it," Brice said. "One thing that I try to pride myself on is being an honest person. In the process of doing this I had to lie to a lot of people that I care about. It wasn’t that evil of a lie, it was a white lie, but I feel like I sort of damaged myself and my integrity by doing this.” For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
Eichler aficionados aren't the only ones who can appreciate the renovation done to this home in San Jose, CA. Anyone with a taste for modern updates to vintage homes while keeping period detail intact will love this look. Jack Myers, who owns Jack Myers Construction, found the property and knew it could be restored to its former glory rather quickly. The contractor likes to take on complete projects, going from the curb to the backyard, and he's been buying, renovating, and reselling homes since the 1980s. Property records show he bought the house in December 2014 for $970,000. Originally built in 1960, the stunning home is now selling for $1,298,000. Listing agent Chad Myers is the contractor's son, and he spoke with us about the project. "Everything was redone, from the floor to the roof," said Myers when asked about the condition of the house before the renovation. "The house was livable. It wasn't awful. It was OK with a lot of deferred maintenance. It had been remodeled in pieces over years, but not quality remodels. "We rearranged the layout a tiny bit," he added. "We removed a beam and added a post to open up the kitchen and family room." The result is a space with an uninterrupted flow. The all-new kitchen features modern stainless-steel Bosch appliances, gray cabinets, and white quartz countertops that make for a subtle and sophisticated combination. The range hood is a nice match for the island bar. Staying true to the Eichler aesthetic was important. "We tried to keep it period correct. We feel like a lot of people screw up what Eichler was trying to do. We modernized it but keep it true to the Eichler style." For example, globe pendant lights were installed, but the house was also outfitted with modern LED recessed lighting. "Eichlers are great during the day," Myers said, "because they have tons of light from all the windows. But they don't have a ton of overhead lighting for the nighttime." Other major upgrades include all-new bathrooms, a new foam roof with a 15-year warranty, a restoration of the radiant heat, European oak floors, new skylights, and a detached studio that can be used as a workspace. The house is located in San Jose's Willow Glen area in a neighborhood of Eichler homes called Fairglen. "It's a well-maintained neighborhood of Eichlers. On the cul-de-sac that this house sits on, the houses are not only well-maintained but also [adhere to the Eichler standard]," Myers said. "When you turn down the street, you feel like you're in 1956. It's the best cul-de-sac in that neighborhood, because there are no sore thumbs that stick out."
The incoming class of congressional freshmen includes, Jaime Herrera (R-WA), the first homeschooled member ever, and Daniel Webster (R-FL) a homeschooling activist about whom I’ve written here and here. In a press release celebrating the “coming of age” of homeschooling, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine poses the question: “Is Homeschooling Good for America?” which they answer by touting the culturally transformative character of the homeschooling movement, and claiming that “homeschoolers are dramatically changing our political landscape” by training future leaders. ‘homeschooling’ is about so much more than merely educating our children. It’s about instilling in the next generation the conviction that if good is to prevail, then it must be advanced, and it can be advanced only by those who embrace it. Although the press release fails to define what “the good” consists of, what counts as “the good” for Old Schoolhouse is made clear by its statement of faith: “We believe that the Bible is the ONLY inerrant Word of God. It is our authoritative “handbook” for Christian living . . . the ONLY book that is necessary for our faith. We believe that man is in rebellion against God because of Adam’s sin. Man’s very nature is evil and all are bound for hell, a place of eternal darkness and torment, unless the Father calls him. The Holy Scripture (the Bible or the Word) consists of all of the books of the Old and New Testaments. The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for God’s glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture or may be deduced from Scripture. Nothing whatsoever is to be added to this, whether by “new revelations” of the Spirit or by the traditions of man.” [emphasis in the original] Certainly homeschoolers are not monolithic; in fact the earliest years of the movement were dominated by lefties who rejected public education for its stifling regimentation, favoring what they often referred to as unschooling. But by the beginning of the twenty-first century homeschooling has become an industry dominated overwhelmingly by conservative Christians. Homeschooling conventions across the country feature speakers such as Michael Farris from the Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College, and homeschool advocate and Biblical Patriarch, Doug Phillips, of Vision Forum. I have written about Phillips here, here and here. Christian Reconstructionist founder Rousas John Rushudoony is often called the father of the Christian homeschooling movement and convention lectures are frequently informed by Reconstructionist readings of the bible, in which the Old and New Testaments are a continuous narrative, and in which Biblical Law provides the basis for understanding our obligation to obedience, the exercise of dominion, and the purpose and significance of history. The homeschool conventions also include vast exhibits of curricular materials informed by these perspectives. The recent study released by the Brookings Institute showed widespread support for “American Exceptionalism” (defined as the idea that America has a special place in God’s plan for history) and the influence of the home school movement helps to account for this fact. So indeed, homeschooling is about much more than “education.” It’s about developing a coherent worldview that is entirely integrated and self-reinforcing; a worldview that sees America as a Christian Nation that should be governed by the bible. Whether or not it’s “good for America” remains to be seen.
CitySDK v2.0 (Beta) Thank You’s due to some very generous Clojurians: @thheller (author of the shadow-cljs build tool) build tool) @cgrand (author of the xforms library) library) The Clojure community at large for being such a great place to learn Installation npm install citysdk The citysdk Function CitySDK v2.0 exports a single function, which takes two arguments: The first is an options object with a set of key/value pair parameters (See “Parameters” below) The second is a conventional (error, response) node-style callback, which will be called upon completion of the census function and applied to the response Parameters Brief overview of each argument parameter that can be passed into CitySDK v2.0 Parameter Type Description Geocodes Stats GeoJSON GeoJSON with Stats vintage int / str The reference year (typically release year) of the data ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ geoHierarchy object The geographic scope and hierarchical path to the data ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ sourcePath array Refers to the Census product of interest ✔ ✔ values array For statistics, values request counts/estimates via variable IDs ✔ ✔ geoResolution str Resolution of GeoJSON ( "20m" , "5m" , and "500k" available) ✔ ✔ predicates object Used as a filter available on some values ✔ * ✔ * statsKey str You may request a key for Census’ statistics API here ✔ ✔ * : optional ** : optional for < 500 requests daily Geocoding (latitude/longitude -> FIPS code) With the exception of “microdata” statistics (not yet available via Census’ API), all Census data is aggregated to geographic areas of different sizes. As such, all of Census’ API’s require a set of/unique geographic identifier(s) to return any data (AKA: FIPS). Given that these identifiers are not common knowledge, the CitySDK provides a way for the user to identify their geographic scope of interest using a geographic coordinate ( lat + lng ). Under the hood, this functionality calls the TigerWeb Web Mapping Service with the lat & lng provided and pipes the resulting FIPS codes into your options argument with the appropriate GEOIDs for identifying your geographic area of interest. For a list of geographies currently available for geocoding with this feature, see the Geographies Available by Vintage section below. There are two ways to scope your geography using this functionality: Request a single geographic area Request all of a descendant geography-type of a coordinate-specified geographic area Example: Request a single geographic area by coordinate RETURN TYPE: JSON You may pass a {"lat" : <float>, "lng" : <float>} object as the first and only value for the geoHierarchy key: import census from 'citysdk' census ({ "vintage" : 2015 , // required "geoHierarchy" : { // required "county" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 } } }, ( err , res ) => console . log ( res ) ) // result -> {"vintage":"2015","geoHierarchy":{"state":"12","county":"009"}} Notice how the function prepends an additional geographic component ( "state" : "12" ) to the options object. In order to fully qualify the geographic area (GEOID) associated with the county, the state is needed. In this example the fully qualified GEOID would be 12009 with the first two digits ( 12 ) qualifying the state and 009 qualifying the county within that state. This appropriate geographic hierarchy creation is handled by the function for you. Example: Request all of a descendant geography-type within a coordinate-specified geographic area RETURN TYPE: JSON import census from 'citysdk' census ({ "vintage" : "2015" , // required "geoHierarchy" : { // required "state" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 }, "county" : "" // <- syntax = "<descendant>" : "" } }, ( err , res ) => console . log ( res ) ) // result -> {"vintage":"2015","geoHierarchy":{"state":"12","county":""}} All Census-defined geographic areas are composed of Census “Blocks”. Some of these composed areas - themselves - compose into higher-order areas. These nested relationships between certain geographic areas allows the Census data user to request all descendants of a particular type. Caveats 1) In this example, we added a second geographic level to our geoHierarchy object ( "county" : "" ). It is important to use the "" expression signifying that you want all of the specified level of descendants within the geography for which you supply a coordinate. No other expression will work. 2) Internally, the CitySDK converts the geoHierarchy object to an ordered set, so this part of your request object must be in descending hierarchical order from parent -> descendant. E.g. - in the above - an object that contained {"county" : "", "state" : {"lat" <lat> "lng" <lng>}} will not work. Statistics This parameter set will call the Census Statistics API and reformat the results with a couple highly requested features: Census statistics are returned as a standard JSON object rather than the csv-like format of the “raw” API Statistical values are translated into properly typed numbers (Integers and Floats instead of strings), whereas all values are returned as strings via the “raw” API Annotation values (e.g., error codes) that are returned (e.g., American Community Survey error codes) in places where data would be expected are returned as strings (rather than numbers) to make differentiating them from values a simple type check. There are two ways to request Census statistics using citysdk : 1) Calling for values of estimates and other statistical values (required) 2) Apply a filter by using predicates (optional) For both of these options, a sourcePath needs to be supplied. This is the fully qualified path to the product. For more information about how to find the sourcePath to your product of interest, go to the Developers’ Microsite and - in any of the examples of making a call - take the path between <vintage>/ and the ?get . For example, for American Community Survey 1-year you’ll the first example (2017) shows: https://api.census.gov/data/2017/acs/acs1?get=NAME,group(B01001)&for=us:1 └─┬─┘└───┬────┘ vintage sourcePath The corresponding sourcePath for this endpoint is ["acs", "acs1"] Example: get "values" by ID: RETURN TYPE: JSON import census from 'citysdk' census ({ "vintage" : 2015 , // required "geoHierarchy" : { // required "county" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 } }, "sourcePath" : [ "cbp" ], // required "values" : [ "ESTAB" ] // required }, ( err , res ) => console . log ( res ) ) // result -> [{"ESTAB":13648,"state":"12","county":"009"}] Here, we added the parameters for sourcePath (the path to the survey and/or source of the statistics) and values (the identifiers of the statistics we’re interested in). By including these parameters within your argument object, you trigger the census function to get statistics. This “deploy on parameter set” strategy is how the census function determines your intent. 🤔 Help for Discovering Census data You’re probably thinking: “How am I supposed to know what codes to use inside those parameters?” - or - “Where did that "cbp" & "ESTAB" stuff come from?” The data sets covered by the CitySDK are vast. As such, this is the steepest part of the learning curve. But, don’t worry, there are a number of different resources available to assist you in your quest: The Census Developers’ Microsite <- START HERE The Census Discovery Tool. Census Slack and Gitter developer communities. Data Experts Example: get "values" by ID (with key): RETURN TYPE: JSON census ({ "vintage" : 2015 , // required "geoHierarchy" : { // required "county" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 } }, "sourcePath" : [ "cbp" ], // required "values" : [ "ESTAB" ], // required "statsKey" : "<your key here>" // required for > 500 calls per day }, ( err , res ) => console . log ( res ) ) // result -> [{"ESTAB":13648,"state":"12","county":"009"}] Example: Filter results by predicates : RETURN TYPE: JSON predicates Predicates are used to create a sub-selection of statistical values based on a given range or categorical qualifyer. census ({ "vintage" : "2017" , "geoHierarchy" : { "state" : "51" , "county" : "" }, "sourcePath" : [ "acs" , "acs1" ], "values" : [ "NAME" ], "predicates" : { "B01001_001E" : "0:100000" // number range separated by `:` }, "statsKey" : "<your key here>" }, ( err , res ) => console . log ( res ) ) / result: [ { "NAME":"Augusta County, Virginia", "B01001_001E" : 75144, "state":"51", "county":"015" }, { "NAME":"Bedford County, Virginia", "B01001_001E" : 77974, "state":"51", "county":"019" }, ... ] / Timeseries data (Statistics Only) If you’d like to use “timeseries” data, you may do so for statistics only. Mapping timeseries data is currently unsupported. Note that many timeseries products rely heavily on the "predicates" option: Example: get 'timeseries" data: RETURN TYPE: JSON census ({ "vintage" : "timeseries" , // required "geoHierarchy" : { // required "county" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 } }, "sourcePath" : [ "asm" , "industry" ], // required "values" : [ "EMP" , "NAICS_TTL" , "GEO_TTL" ], "predicates" : { "time" : "2016" , "NAICS" : "31-33" } }, ( err , res ) => console . log ( res ) ) / result: [{"EMP": 11112764, "NAICS_TTL": "Manufacturing", "GEO_TTL": "United States", "time": "2016", "NAICS": "31-33", "us":"1"}] / For some sources (e.g., the American Community Survey), most of the values can also be used as predicates , but are optional. In others, (e.g., International Trade), predicates are a key part of the statistical query. In either case, at least one value within values must be supplied. Cartographic GeoJSON You can also use the CitySDK to retrieve Cartographic Boundary files, which have been translated into GeoJSON. The only additional parameter you’ll need to know is a simple declaration of geoResolution of which there are three options: Resolution Map Scale Benefits Costs 500k 1:500,000 Greatest variety of summary levels & Most detailed largest file sizes 5m 1:5,000,000 Balance between size and detectable area size lowest variety of available area types 20m 1:20,000,000 Smallest file sizes lowest level of detail See the full available Cartographic GeoJSON in the Geographies Available by Vintage section Example: Saving the file locally in Node.js using fs RETURN TYPE: JSON STRING var fs = require ( "fs" ) census ({ "vintage" : 2017 , "geoHierarchy" : { "metropolitan statistical area/micropolitan statistical area" : "" }, "geoResolution" : "500k" // required }, ( err , res ) => { fs . writeFile ( "./directory/filename.json" , JSON . stringify ( res ), () => console . log ( "done" ) )} ) This would convert the returned geojson to a string, which allows it to be saved via Node.js’ fileSystem API. Notable Example: census ({ "vintage" : "2017" , "geoHierarchy" : { "state" : "51" , "county" : "" }, "geoResolution" : "500k" // required }, ( err , res ) => console . log ( res ) ) It’s important to note that - when querying for these GeoJSON files - you may retrieve a larger area than your request argument specifies. The reason for this is that the files are (currently) stored at two geographic levels: National and by State. Thus, the query above will attempt to resolve, at the state level, all counties, but because counties are stored at the national level in vintage 2017, all the counties in the US will be returned by this query. If you wish to get back only those geographies you specify, you may do so by using the last and perhaps most useful feature included in the v2.0 release: Getting GeoJSON with statistics included within the "FeatureCollection" properties object! GeoJSON Merged with Statistics RETURN TYPE: JSON There are a number of reasons you might want to merge your statistics into their GeoJSON/geographic boundaries, all of which are relevant when seeking to map Census data: 1) Creating choropleth maps of statistics (e.g., using values ) 2) Mapping only those geographies that meet a certain set of criteria 3) Showing a user their current Census geographic context (i.e., leveraging the Geocoding capabilities of CitySDK) Dynamic Use Example A more dynamic example of using stats merged with GeoJSON on the fly with citysdk can be found here: Type in a county name and see the unweighted sample count of the population (ACS) for all the Block Groups within that County. Use Chrome for best results (mapbox-gl geocoder caveat) source code All Counties census ({ "vintage" : "2017" , "geoHierarchy" : { "county" : "" }, "sourcePath" : [ "acs" , "acs5" ], "values" : [ "B19083_001E" ], // GINI index "statsKey" : "<your key here>" , "geoResolution" : "500k" }, ) In this example, we use citysdk to create the payload and then save it via Nodes fs.writeFileSync and then serve it via a Mapbox-GL map. source code Notable Example: All ZCTAs (zip code tabulation areas in the US) census ({ "vintage" : "2017" , "geoHierarchy" : { "zip-code-tabulation-area" : "" }, "sourcePath" : [ "acs" , "acs5" ], "values" : [ "B19083_001E" ], // GINI index "statsKey" : "<your key here>" , "geoResolution" : "500k" }, ) This is a very large request, in fact, one of the largest you could possibly make in a single citysdk function call. It is so large, in fact that it currently only works on Node and only if you increase your node --max-old-space-size=4096 . With large merges (such as all counties or zctas), it is recommended not to try to use citysdk dynamically, but - rather - to munge your data before hand with citysdk and then serve it statically to your mapping library, as was done here: source code Other Argument Examples: // Call the WMS only { "vintage" : 2014 , "geoHierarchy" : { "state" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 }, "county" : '' } } // Getting the stats for a single county filtering out any county with population over 100,000 { "vintage" : 2016 , "geoHierarchy" : { "county" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 } }, "sourcePath" : [ "acs" , "acs5" ], "values" : [ "B01001_001E" ] "predicates" : { "B00001_001E" : "0:100000" }, } // strings are valid as vintages as well { "vintage" : "2015" , "geoHierarchy" : { "county" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 } }, "sourcePath" : [ "cbp" ], "values" : [ "ESTAB" ] } // Just geojson for all the counties within a state located by a given coordinate { "vintage" : 2014 , "geoHierarchy" : { "state" : { "lat" : 28.2639 , "lng" : - 80.7214 }, "county" : "" }, "geoResolution" : "500k" } // For large request expect to have to increase `node --max-old-space-size=4096` { "vintage" : 2016 , "sourcePath" : [ "acs" , "acs5" ], "values" : [ "B25001_001E" ], "geoHierarchy" : { "zip-code-tabulation-area" : "" }, "geoResolution" : "500k" } Census Cartography Files in GeoJSON Format The Census Bureau publishes both high and low accuracy geographic area files to accommodate the widest possible variety of user needs (within feasibility). Cartography Files are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the Census Bureau’s Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) system. These boundary files are specifically designed for small scale thematic mapping (i.e., for visualizations). For a while now, we have published our cartography files in the .shp format. More recently, we expanded our portfolio of available formats to .kml . It is with this release that we follow suit with the community at large to release these boundaries in .json (GeoJSON) format. Geographies Available by Vintage The most comprehensive set of geographies and vintages can be found within the 500k set. Some vintages - 103 through 110 - are references to sessions of Congress and only contain a single geographic summary level: "congressional district" The following tables represent the availability of various geographic summary levels through the remaining vintages: Geographic Area Type 1990 2000 2010 2012 2013 - 2015 2016 - 2017 "alaska native regional corporation" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "american indian-area/alaska native area/hawaiian home land" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "block group" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "combined new england city and town area" ✔ ✔ "combined statistical area" ✔ ✔ ✔ "congressional district" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "consolidated cities" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "county" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "county subdivision" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "division" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "metropolitan statistical area/micropolitan statistical area" ✔ ✔ ✔ "new england city and town area" ✔ ✔ ✔ "place" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "public use microdata area" ✔ ✔ "region" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "school district (elementary") ✔ ✔ ✔ "school district (secondary") ✔ ✔ ✔ "school district (unified") ✔ ✔ ✔ "state" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "state legislative district (lower chamber") ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "state legislative district (upper chamber") ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "tract" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "urban area" ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ "us" ✔ ✔ ✔ "zip code tabulation area" ✔ ✔ ✔ More Information about Cartography Files For more information about the files translated herein please visit the Census Bureau’s Cartographic Boundary File Description Page For a comparison of the available formats of geographic area files, please visit the Census Bureau’s TIGER Products page Community Join us on Gitter Join us on Slack Send us an email: cnmp.developers.list@census.gov Dedicated Data Experts If you’re new to Census data and need some help figuring out which of the many products Census curates for public use, don’t hesitate to reach out to these contacts for help:
Scientists have effectively switched off virus genes in pig DNA, bringing us one step closer to using pigs as organ donors for humans. Scientists have overcome one of the two major hurdles for transplanting organs from pigs into humans. Specifically, they have switched off some of the virus genes in pig DNA, which have so far prevented us from transplanting, for example, a pig’s heart into a human. The breakthrough is an important step towards preventing death among people waiting to receive a new heart, liver, or kidney. “By switching off the virus genes, we’ve removed the risk of viral infections introduced from the pig’s organs to humans after a transplant. This is a big medical problem that we need to solve in order to use organs from pigs in people,” says co-author Yonglun Luo, an associate professor at the Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, Denmark. The new results are published in the journal Science. Pigs can supply hospitals with organs Pig organs match human organs in terms of function and size, which means they could supply hospitals with a never ending stream of hearts, lungs, kidneys, livers, and more. But before doctors can transplant organs from pigs into people, scientists need to solve two problems. First, they need to solve the immunological problem of our bodies rejecting the pig’s organ because the immune system attacks it. Second, all organisms contain virus DNA in their genome, so if a human receives a heart from a pig, this virus can become a part of our genetic material and potentially introduce dangerous diseases such as cancer. The virus genes can also hijack the cells’ genetic machinery to produce more viruses, which can circulate around the body and make us ill. It is the second problem that scientists have now solved with the gene-editing tool, CRISPR. “We’ve switched off the porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) in the pigs, so that the PERVs can no longer replicate itself and infect people,” says Luo. Greater perspectives in applied technology Scientists still have to solve the problem of how our immune system reacts to organs from another animal, but the study is a big step towards transplanting animal organs into humans, says Bente Jespersen, a clinical professor in kidney diseases at Aarhus University. It also solves a problem of infections between people, she says. “The applied technique [CRISPR] has bigger implications and if what the study suggests is true, then it could perhaps completely remove the large risks associated with these viruses that can be passed on from the transplant patient to other healthy people,” says Jespersen Luo and colleagues are already looking into how CRISPR can be used to solve the compatibility issue. He estimates that it will require modification of at least 28 genes on top of the virus genes, and that it will take a couple of years before large and complex organs like the heart and liver can be transplanted from pigs into humans. “But smaller organs like skin, insulin-producing cells or corneas might be available earlier,” says Luo. ---------------------- Read more in the Danish version of this article on Videnskab.dk
Google has altered autocomplete suggestions in its search engine after it was alerted to antisemitic, sexist and racists entries. Google’s autocomplete feature aims to suggest common searches after a user enters one or more words into the site’s search box or address bar of its Chrome browser. Typing the phrase “are Jews” into Google, the search engine suggested “evil”, for “are women” it again suggested “evil” and for “are Muslims” it suggested “bad”, an Observer article reported. Google, democracy and the truth about internet search Read more On Monday the searches for Jews and women no longer returned those results, although the “are Muslims bad” autocomplete was still present. A Google spokesperson said: “We took action within hours of being notified on Friday of the autocomplete results.” Google did not comment on its decision to alter some but not all those raised in the article. It said: “Our search results are a reflection of the content across the web. This means that sometimes unpleasant portrayals of sensitive subject matter online can affect what search results appear for a given query. These results don’t reflect Google’s own opinions or beliefs – as a company, we strongly value a diversity of perspectives, ideas and cultures. “Autocomplete predictions are algorithmically generated based on users’ search activity and interests. Users search for such a wide range of material on the web – 15% of searches we see every day are new. Because of this, terms that appear in autocomplete may be unexpected or unpleasant. We do our best to prevent offensive terms, like porn and hate speech, from appearing, but we acknowledge that autocomplete isn’t an exact science and we’re always working to improve our algorithms.” This is not the first time Google and others’ autocomplete and search algorithms have caused offence. An auto-suggested photo tag within Google’s Photos service in July 2015 labelled two black teenagers as “Gorillas”. Google apologised and said it was working on “longer term fixes” around the recognition of dark-skinned faces as well as the linguistics of photo labels. In May 2015, Google apologised when the White House was returned as a result for searches for “nigger house” and “nigger king” within Google maps. Google declined to explain why the results occurred but a spokesperson said: “Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologise for any offence this may have caused.” In April this year Google apologised after a search for “unprofessional hairstyles for work” yielded image results showing predominantly black women with natural hair, while searching for “professional” ones returned pictures of coiffed, white women. In June, Google’s image search also caused offence by returning criminal mugshots for searches of “three black teenagers” but not for “three white teenagers”. Google has also previously denied “conspiracy theories” accusing it of censoring its search results to please the Conservative party in exchange for a deal over its taxes.
By Saurabh Chaturvedi, Krishna Pokharel, Tripti Lahiri and Pracheta Sharma In an interview ahead of the verdict in one of most closely watched criminal trials in India in recent years, The Wall Street Journal spoke to the parents of the woman at the heart of the trial. The 23-year-old student was repeatedly raped on a moving bus in the Indian capital on Dec. 16, and later died of her injuries. Four men have been tried on charges that include murder, rape and kidnapping. They have pleaded not guilty. A judge is expected to announce his decision today. In a rare interview, her parents told The Wall Street Journal what this tragedy has taught them about their lives and their country. The woman and her parents cannot be named for legal reasons. While they have recently moved to a new middle-class home, which was given to them by the Delhi government, in many ways, the family – who moved from a village in northern Uttar Pradesh state to the capital about 30 years ago for a better life – represents the millions of people in this country who have worked hard to achieve the “Indian dream.” The woman’s father, who studied through the 10th grade, used to work as a mechanic at an appliance factory in Delhi. At the time of the attack on his daughter, the 53-year-old worked at the city’s airport as a baggage handler, earning about $120 a month. The woman’s mother, who studied up to the eighth grade, looks after the family home. On the day of the interview, the 46-year-old was just finishing preparing a hot meal of spicy vegetables and lentils, and was waiting for her sons to come home so the family could eat together. “The pressure cooker whistle may go off,” she warned reporters. The woman who was attacked has two younger brothers, aged 21 and 16. The older brother is headed to Bangalore this month to study aeronautical engineering. The younger brother a few months ago started studying at a prestigious private school in Delhi. In a wide-ranging conversation in Hindi, both parents spoke about what they would tell other young women about how to balance staying safe and living their lives, how Indian society perceives men and women and why this crime merits the death penalty. Edited excerpts: WSJ: Have you been satisfied with the trial process? Father: The court has a process. All the witnesses who are listed have to come before the court. Then only can a verdict come. The court also went on break for a month. Sometimes the defense lawyers weren’t there. There were delaying tactics. So the court’s hands were also tied. But we feel the trial has proceeded correctly. The problem is with the juvenile [suspect, who was sentenced by a juvenile board in August to serve three years in a reformatory for his role in the crime.] For being six months younger than 18, he’s getting away. I feel bad about that. Let’s see what happens with that. WSJ: You made repeated calls for the death penalty for the alleged perpetrators of this crime. It isn’t possible for us to put ourselves in your situation. But if, as a society, we act out of anger towards the perpetrators… Mother: It’s not anger. We’re asking for the death sentence because we don’t want anyone else’s daughter to have to face what happened with our daughter. For eight months we are talking to everyone, to the media, on camera as we are talking to you. We are not doing this so that we get to take revenge against those who are in jail for what happened to our daughter. We speak out, we ask for the death sentence because these incidents are happening all the time. If they don’t get the death sentence and…if they get out after 10 years then no one – not the law and not society – can guarantee that they won’t to do the same thing again. That is why we ask for the death penalty. If they are hanged, it won’t bring my daughter back. But if they are executed a message – the right message -- will go out to those who are outside, to the public. The person who might commit a crime will think, ‘If I do this, I will be punished severely.’ WSJ: Will you accept the court’s verdict, no matter what it is? Mother: We have faith in the court. The way our girl was…they should get the death penalty. If they don’t get the death penalty after committing a crime like this, there will be no end to such crimes in coming days. WSJ: The wife of one of the suspects is 20 and has young baby. She lives in a society where a husband is everything. For a woman in her situation, life is precarious. Is there anything you would want to say to her? Mother: She is 20. My girl, who grew up here, I brought her up for 23 years, took care of her and educated her. And they did this to her. You must have read what they did. The four of us have been living with that for eight months. And as long as we live, we’ll live with that. What would you like to say to us? The journalist who was attacked, we prayed for her that she would get better soon. But as long as she lives, when she goes down a road, two men will whisper, ‘That’s that journalist.’ What would you like to say to her? People say about us, ‘They got a house, they got money.’ But are we going to get back what we lost? WSJ: A lot has happened in recent months. Are you at a new point… Father: No. We’re still at the same place where we were on the night of December 16. That incident became a crossroads, where people from all sides came and joined us, and as time went by...how long could they stay in the same place with us? But we haven’t moved on because we are waiting for the verdict to get closure. We don’t think about work, or earning money, or educating the children; all we think about is what the decision will be. WSJ: Until it comes you can’t move ahead. Father: No. Not a day goes by, where someone in the house is not crying. Every morning I wake up and look at her photo and it brings tears to my eyes when I see her face and her innocence. Only someone who has gone through this can understand a parent’s pain. How can I put it into words? I am still at the same place today. WSJ: Where do you draw your courage from? And your daughter? Father: We always taught her not to bend before anyone. She got this name, ‘Nirbhaya’ [The Hindi word meaning “the fearless one” was used as a pseudonym for the rape victim by Indian news media], because of her nature. She was a fearless girl. If she saw that someone was doing something wrong, she wouldn't hesitate to fight. That was how special she was. Even if I did something wrong or dishonest, she wouldn't talk to me for days. One time I remember we were traveling in a bus together and I did not buy our tickets. She knew I did that on purpose to save money. She did not talk to me for four days. She must have been 16 or 17. I had to say sorry to her and say I wouldn't do it again. She used to think a lot about what we needed to do, how we needed to move ahead. She was very ambitious. If she had lived, perhaps we would have moved into a house like this anyway after a year without the government’s help. And that would have been a real joy. We have worked very hard, in 16-hour shifts to educate our children. If you look at that time, we were very happy. Sometimes we wouldn't eat vegetables all week. But we were very happy. We figured once better times came we’d eat better. WSJ: Parents are worried about their daughters. They think, ‘What might happen to them outside the home, at work?' What would you say to those mothers and fathers? Father: You’re not going to solve any problems by sitting at home. We have to get the fear out of our minds. Rapes are happening. There’s no point sitting with our hands folded. We have to find a solution. Who will do that? You have to search, I have to search, society has to search, the government has to search. Every problem has a solution somewhere. People think ‘Maybe we won’t let our daughters study; we’ll get them married.’ But this is not a solution to the problem. This is running away from a problem. I won’t say, ‘Don’t let the girls study.’ Make your daughters tougher so they can face a problem. You saw what happened to our daughter. With all her strength, as long as she had life in her, she fought and tried to save herself. There’s a saying that the darkest hour is before dawn. Perhaps the fact that we are seeing a surge in rapes means an end to this is also coming soon. Mother: It’s OK to worry. But it’s not OK to place restrictions on going out, on studying. If they don’t study how will they get ahead in their lives? It’s necessary for girls to study, to go out. There’s nothing for girls to be ashamed of. The people who commit the crimes should be ashamed. Keep fighting the fight. And claim your rights. If people are saying that women should have equal rights, then women have to fight for those rights. This much is true: something isn't right in our society. If something is happening to a woman, as a friend, as a brother, men should help them, and not join in the harm. WSJ: When something like this happens to a woman… Father: It’s almost like it has become a sin to be a girl. People think if there weren't girls there wouldn't be rapes. But it’s not a sin to be a girl. Society has turned it into a sin. Girls aren't less capable than boys. In fact today, if you see, girls do better at school. In every field they’re doing well. They keep a cool mind, they have good thoughts. Boys look at girls, but girls never look at boys. People should think about what they teach at home. If someone has a sister, they should also respect other peoples’ sisters and daughters; then only our society will change. Mother: People always blame the woman. They say, ‘She wasn't dressed properly.’ They say, ‘Why was she out so late?’ Why are all the rules for girls? WSJ: Suppose a woman wants to study or work in another city or do something no one in her family has done before. What should her parents do, should they allow her to go? Father: Wherever she wants to study, they should allow her. But absolutely, I must say there has to be a time after which she comes home. If her goal is to study, that also has to have a time limit. For example, the working day is eight hours. So after eight hours, you stop working. After sunset she should come home. Like birds, who are up with the light and back in the nest by sundown. WSJ: But if men have the freedom to stay out late and come home at midnight or 1 a.m. because there’s no danger to them, and women have to have a curfew of, say, 7 p.m., is that right? Father: When Ram [an incarnation of Vishnu, who life on earth is recounted in the Hindu epic “The Ramayana”] was in the forest in exile, [his wife] Sita went with him to the forest. Mother: What are you saying? Father: Quiet. Mother: [Laughs.] Father: At that time, Lakshman [Ram’s brother who also went into exile with them] drew a line for safety in front of her and told her not to cross it. Look, I’m telling you what I think. Man’s disposition is naturally black; no matter how dirty he gets you can’t see it. Woman’s disposition is naturally white; if even a drop of water falls on her, you see that stain. WSJ: Where do you get that from, about woman’s and man’s nature? Father: That’s my own feeling. If any incident happens to a girl, society won’t accept her after that. WSJ: Isn’t that society’s failing? Father: Did I say it was the girl’s fault? This is the fault of society, but that is how our society happens to be. WSJ: Do you think that thinking is changing, in the last couple of months? Mother: It’s happening. Whether it’s a small incident or a big one, girls are coming forward to complain. WSJ: We interview a lot of women whose parents tell us she’s the first daughter to study so much or work. And sometimes they tell us neighbors or family members criticize them. Did that ever happen with you? Father: When she graduated from the 10th grade, she said she wanted to become a doctor. But people at home, my older brother and his wife, they said, ‘Instead of spending this on her education, why don’t you spend it on her wedding and get her married?’ 'She will get married and leave the house so why spend money educating her?’ But I never thought of her as just a daughter. And if she’s just a daughter, she’s still my daughter. I wanted to bring her up well so she would bring light wherever she went. My relatives and I fell out because they thought I was needlessly educating my daughter. I had to hear a lot about how I was selling my land for a daughter. But I said when she gets married I’ll have to sell my share anyway for her wedding. My daughter said, 'Put what you were planning to sell for my wedding towards my education.' What was so wrong with that? WSJ: Why do you think you and your brother think differently about this? Father: I grew up with my grandfather when I was little and I used to hear stories from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata [another Hindu epic]. I always thought good thoughts. I never gave anyone so much as a wrong look; Before Dec. 16, I never even used to look a woman straight in the face. The god that made girls and boys is the same. So why make a difference? A lot of the time, I even called my daughter as 'son.' WSJ: On the one hand women aren't safe anywhere, on the other hand we have epics full of goddesses. Why do you think we are we seeing these kinds of hate crimes against women? Mother: I don’t have too much to say about the Ramayana and Mahabharata. What is happening, first of all, our economic conditions aren't good. And society is getting more polluted. Suppose, for example, two boys are harassing a girl, and two more show up, instead of helping her, they will join in. That needs to stop. So first we have to change ourselves. Until we change the mindset in our homes, this will continue. People get caught, they spend a little while in jail, they get out. There isn't enough evidence against them; if they were caught and punished then maybe people would become afraid and maybe these incidents would decrease. They should be seriously punished. Father: If boys are caught for a crime, and they are the culprits, their mother and father should also be punished. WSJ: Many women came out in support of your daughter, saying they should have the freedom to do what we want. What would you say to them? Father: Don’t bend before anyone. Your gaze should be like a crow’s. Wherever a crow is, he looks in four directions at once. Look at who is in front of you, who is behind you, where you are. Be so alert that no matter what happens you can get away. Be like the dog who barks at the slightest noise. WSJ: How did you feel when you saw thousands of people on the street supporting you? Father: During that time we had no idea what was going on in the world. When we came back from Singapore [where she died Dec. 29], our road was barricaded off. Where we had to turn, that was also barricaded off. I was angry about the barricades. It was only later I realized it was for security. That time I didn’t know anything. We had no idea what was going on at that time. We just went along with whatever was happening. Once a doctor in Safdarjung Hospital took me and showed me the television, on a day when water cannons and tear gas were being used on the college men and women who were protesting. I saw a bit of that. That didn’t seem right to me. I thought my daughter is gone, but no one else should be hurt or killed as a result. And then I went to the press and asked people to keep the peace. Back then I didn’t even know how to talk to reporters. Time teaches you everything. Read an extract of WSJ’s e-book “Crimes Against Women: Three Tragedies and the Call for Reform in India” here. Buy a copy of the full version here. Follow India Real Time on Twitter @WSJIndia.
If you like what you see please support the concept by sharing, liking, and commenting on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks and have a wonderful day!!! Introduction I'd just like to start off by thanking you for taking an interest in my Kickstarter project. Sugar Ray Leonard once said "Bruce Lee was an artist and, like him, I try to go beyond the fundamentals of my sport. I want the public to see a knockout in the making". This is exactly how I feel about the development of Headup Fighting. I'm looking to create a fighting game that's true to life. Not just in it's graphical representation but also with regards to the concepts of fighting. There will always be discrepancy's between opponents giving each fighter there own specific advantages. In marshal arts were trained to size-up our opponents to determine where our particular advantages lie. If your adversary out weighs you, use his momentum against him. If it's a reach advantage your facing, use your speed to get in close. If there more skillful in a certain form of fighting, use an opposing style to neutralize there advantage. You often see this last example in MMA when a grappler or wrestler takes a striker to the ground. In fighting as in life your true advantage will always be mental. I have experience in several forms of fighting. Kempo, Boxing, Wang Chung, Muay Thai kickboxing, Aikido, Jew Jitsu, and Jeet Kune Do. I aim to tie together all these styles and more when choreographing the combination sequences of Headup Fighting. Gameplay Mechanics Great fighters display two characteristics. A heightened sense of timing and lightning fast reflexes. The mechanics of Headup Fighting will primarily focus on these two core concepts. First you'll need to gauge the distance between your opponent before striking. If you fail to do so correctly you will leave yourself open to attack. Once a strike is successfully landed a combination sequence of varying length will be initiated. This means when you land an attack you don't just hit the other player once. The defending player will continue to get hit until either they defend correctly or the combination sequence ends. The defending player is required to block or doge correctly before having the ability to counter. This defense system is all about timing and reaction speed. One of my main goals is to make this system very extravagant. Allowing players the possibility of countering each other many times before the counter sequence completes. Visually I would like the game to resemble a movie fight scene. Each of the many combination sequences will be filmed from multiple camera angles. Allowing a great deal of visual variety. Headup Fighting will also actively track which clips have played to avoid redundancy. Platform Compatibility Headup Fighting is coming out for Windows. A mobile version will be developed further down the line for higher end cell phones. More testing is necessary to determine the possible mobile platforms. At this time I'd just like to thank everyone in advance for any and all support received. Every little bit counts. Every little bit is appreciated. Have a wonderful day and please keep Kickstarting. FUNDING GOALS
Peter Sagan used all of his remarkable bike handling skills to bomb down the Col de Manse on stage 16 of the Tour de France It may have been another second place finish from Peter Sagan, but the Slovak certainly gave his best effort to catch winner Ruben Plaza on the descent of the Col de Manse. The speedy downhill section is notoriously difficult, with a number of famous Tour moments coming on its twisting corners. Indeed, on the corner where Lance Armstrong was forced to ride across a field after Joseba Beloki crashed Sagan had his hairiest moment, almost clipping the toes of Cycling Weekly’s Dr Hutch as he took the corner wide. Five of the best road cycling descent videos Peter Sagan, Fabian Cancellara, Vincenzo Nibali and, um, Michael Rasmussen show you how to drop like a stone down a… Other than that one slip, Sagan was at his remarkable best as he bombed down the road, using all of his mountain biking experience to get to the bottom as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the Tinkoff-Saxo rider was just too far behind Plaza to beat the Spaniard to the line, but nevertheless he was happy with his fifth second-place finish of this Tour de France. Watch highlights from stage 16 of the Tour de France
Obama makes a push to revive Dodd-Frank The President met with financial regulators in an attempt to speed up implementation of Wall Street reform WASHINGTON (AP) — Passage of a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations in 2010 was a hallmark of President Barack Obama's first term. Three years later, amid delays and compromises that critics say have diluted its ambitious goals, the president is trying to rekindle the law's promise. Obama prodded the nation's top financial regulators on Monday to act swiftly and finish writing rules designed to prevent a recurrence of the 2008 financial crisis that helped precipitate a damaging recession from which the country is still recovering. Advertisement: Obama met privately with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and seven other independent agency heads to emphasize his desire for comprehensive new rules as the five-year anniversary of the nation's financial near-meltdown approaches. The law was considered a milestone in Obama's presidency, a robust response to the crisis, which led to a massive government bailout to stabilize the financial markets. But its implementation is behind schedule with scores of regulations yet to be written, let alone enforced. Obama hoped to convey "the sense of urgency that he feels," spokesman Josh Earnest said before the president convened the meeting. Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008, and the administration has wanted to use that dubious milestone to look back on the lessons of the crisis and to chart the progress so far to prevent a recurrence. In a statement at the conclusion of the meeting, the White House said Obama commended the regulators for their work "but stressed the need to expeditiously finish implementing the critical remaining portions of Wall Street reform to ensure we are able to prevent the type of financial harm that led to the Great Recession from ever happening again." Not everyone feels that way about the law, known as Dodd-Frank after its Democratic sponsors, Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank and Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd. Republican House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, an early opponent of Dodd-Frank, dismissed Obama's meeting with the regulators, saying, "Much like Obamacare, Dodd-Frank is an incomprehensively complex piece of legislation that is harmful to our floundering economy and in dire need of repeal." Advertisement: The law set up a council of regulators to be on the lookout for risks across the finance system. It also created an independent consumer financial protection bureau within the Federal Reserve to write and enforce new regulations covering lending and credit. And it placed shadow financial markets that previously escaped the oversight of regulators under new scrutiny, giving the government new powers to break up companies that regulators believe threaten the economy. But because of the complexity of the industry, the law gave regulators extended time to write the new rules that would enforce its provisions. So far, regulators have missed 60 percent of the rule-making deadlines, according to an analysis by the law firm of Davis Polk, which has been tracking progress on the bill. Even so, the rules are so complicated that the ones already written have filled about 13,800 pages, compared with the 848 pages in the law itself. "I would have to give it a mediocre grade at this point," said Sheila Bair, the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. "Most of the rules have not been finalized. A lot of them haven't even been proposed yet. When some of the rules have been proposed, they're highly complicated, they're riddled with exceptions, they're watered down." Advertisement: Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets Inc., a bank watchdog group, said Obama needs to hold monthly meetings with regulators and fight for more money for the financial regulators to do their job. "Only that level of consistent presidential leadership and involvement will turn the tide against Wall Street's relentless attacks, which is what has killed, weakened and delayed so much of financial reform," Kelleher said. A key goal of the legislation was to prevent a rebuilding of a financial system that would permit banks to become so huge and intertwined that they would be "too big to fail." But the nation's top banks today are bigger than they were in 2008. A key proposal in the law would restrict banks from trading for their own profit, a practice known as proprietary trading. That rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, has yet to take effect and the current proposal has been weakened from what the law initially envisioned. Advertisement: Annette Nazareth, a former Securities and Exchange commissioner who is now a partner at Davis Polk, said that when it comes to the Volcker rule, the law requires that various regulators write a single rule that applies to all the regulated financial entities. "So to some extent it's not surprising that it has taken longer when they have had to reach consensus on some very tough issues," she said. Overall, she added, "we are in a better position than we were before the financial crisis." She said banks have stronger capital positions, regulators are more aggressive and failing banks can be dismantled in ways they couldn't before. "We have the building blocks for a better, more stable financial system." Action has varied from agency to agency. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, for example, has been criticized for moving so swiftly on rules that it has had to issue an unusual number of so-called "no action" letters relieving firms that it oversees from the regulations. Advertisement: Other central elements of the law have fallen into place. The Senate last month confirmed Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the law. Republicans had been blocking his confirmation and demanding broad changes in how the bureau was configured and how it obtained its finances. But a number of Senate Republicans withdrew their opposition, putting Cordray in place and removing one element of uncertainty that had clouded the bureau's work. The Federal Reserve last month raised the amount of capital that big banks must hold to reduce the threat they might pose to the broader financial system. The requirements, which meet international standards agreed to after the downturn, have met some resistance from financial institutions as being too high, but have also been criticized for not being high enough. "There is a trade-off between holding capital and the ability to lend," said Scott Talbott, a senior lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable. "Our concern is that as you take a look at all the regulations in totality, you will decrease the banks' ability to help the economy." Advertisement: ___ AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger contributed to this report. ___
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) deposits and withdrawals are now online – read on for important details! How many confirmations are required for deposits? 20 confirmations required before BCH deposits are credited We may lower the required number of confirmations in the coming weeks if the BCH network grows and more miners join the network. A word of caution about BCH transfers The BCH network may remain potentially vulnerable for several weeks or more. Clients should take this elevated risk into account when transferring funds. In the event that a deposit is invalidated on the network after the funds are credited to a Kraken account, the amount of the deposit will be debited from the account. If this results in a negative BCH balance withdrawals will be locked until the balance is corrected (by either depositing or buying BCH). Make sure you only deposit BCH to BCH-specific deposit addresses Remember that Kraken has asset-specific deposit addresses and any funds sent to an address that isn’t specific to the asset will not be credited. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) deposits should only go to BCH-specific deposit addresses, and regular Bitcoin (XBT) deposits should only go to XBT-specific addresses. Any BCH sent to a XBT deposit address will not be credited and any XBT sent to a BCH deposit address will not be credited. Share this: Twitter Facebook
The Electric Bugaloo, which has WPs that are based on the Time-Space Showdown monsters! EDIT: Slight clean up and effect modifications Torachigai / Wrongful Arrest Quick-Play Spell (1): Until the End Phase of your next turn, players cannot add cards from their Deck to their hand, except by drawing. Extra Buck Continuous Trap Card (1): Each time a card(s) is added to your Extra Deck, put 1 Spell Counter on this card (max. 3). (2): You can send this card with 3 Spell Counters to the Graveyard; draw 2 cards. Dragodeus, the Empowered Warrior Level 4 LIGHT Warrior-Type Pendulum Effect Monster ATK 1500 DEF 1500 Pendulum Scale: 2 Pendulum Effect: (1) When a monster you control and a monster your opponent controls battle, during the start of the Damage Step: You can discard 1 card; halve the ATK and DEF of that opponent’s monster during this battle. Monster Effect: (1) If this card in your Monster Zone is destroyed by your opponent (either by battle or card effect): You can activate this effect; during the End Phase of this turn, add 1 Warrior-Type or Spellcaster-Type monster with 2000 or less ATK from your Deck to your hand, except “Dragodeus the Empowered Warrior”. Performapal Drumming Kong, Entermage Hat Tricker, Entermage Stilts Shooter Itachi Explosion Risebelt the Summoner Level 3 WIND Psychic-Type Pendulum Normal Monster ATK 800 DEF 800 Pendulum Scale: 2 Pendulum Effect: (1) Once per turn: You can target 1 monster on the field; increase that monster’s Level by 1. Flavor Text: “Risebelt loves and cares for his little sister Saambell. Every day in the afternoon he spends his time with his little sister, reading through magical tomes. The heartwarming sight of these two together opens the hearts of many.” Magical Abductor Level 4 EARTH Spellcaster-Type Pendulum Effect Monster ATK 1700 DEF 1400 Pendulum Scale: 3 Pendulum Effect: (1) If you or your opponent activates a Spell Card, place 1 Spell Counter on this card (2) Once per turn: You can remove 3 Spell Counters from this card; add 1 Pendulum Monster from your Deck to your hand. Monster Effect (1): If you or your opponent activates a Spell Card, place 1 Spell Counter on this card. (2) This card gains 100 ATK for each Spell Counter on it. (3) Once per turn: You can remove 3 Spell Counters from this card; add 1 Level 1 Spellcaster-Type monster from your Deck to your hand. Source: Nintendo World BBS
Apple just released a fairly major update to Final Cut Pro X, adding in multicamera editing functionality with the ability to sync cameras using recorded audio, more advanced chroma keying, deeper XML import / export support, and new support for Thunderbolt-based broadcast monitoring. FCP X 10.0.3 is the second major update since the new version launched seven months ago to deeply ambivalent reviews — Apple says it's moving away from 18-month release cycles, but it's also clearly feeling the pressure as pros have begun looking to other solutions. FCP X 10.0.3's new multicamera editing feature supports up to 64 cameras, which can be resolution, codec, and framerate independent. Apple's Senior Director of Applications Marketing Richard Townhill says it's "the best multicam in the business," with "some really cool and innovative controls no one else has, even Final Cut Pro 7." Chief among them is the ability to sync up DSLRs and other cameras that don't record standard timecode by either their internal clocks or by automatically analyzing their audio recordings and matching things up. The system can be used to sync pretty much anything — Apple's demo video shows a commercial production using everything from an iPhone to a full Arri Alexa rig. Apple's also added in new chroma keying features that allows for more granular control inside of FCP X, the ability to relink media files, the ability to import and animate layered Photoshop files, and new beta support for broadcast monitoring via Thunderbolt — the AJA io XT is already shipping, and devices from Matrox and BlackMagic are incoming. Apple's also touting some new third-party plugins and tools — Red Giant's popular Magic Bullet effects suite has been updated to work with FCP X, as has GenArt's Sapphire plugin. There's also a new $10 app called 7toX by a company called Intelligent Assistance that lets editors move projects from Final Cut Pro 7 to FCP X — a major sticking point in the past. Apple's also bumped XML support to version 1.1, which adds color correction and audio keyframes to the file format — but it doesn't sound like pros will be getting the standard EDL support they've been asking for anytime soon. Apple's Townhill told us that "EDL is a legacy format, and XML is really the future." All in all, it's a pretty major set of upgrades aimed at some of FCP X's biggest omissions and pain points, but Apple still has some work to do in convincing pros that it's still focused on their particular needs and not totally caught up in the consumer world of iPhones and iPads. We'll see how it goes — FCP X 10.0.3 is available now in the Mac App Store.
If you’ve been playing Titanfall since the release of Respawn Entertainment’s breakneck paced sci-fi shooter, then you know how much depth there is to the game. With its first DLC expansion pack already released and a new update on the horizon there is much ground to be covered. Let’s take a look at Titanfall’s classic gameplay mode, Attrition, and see if we can dominate the competition. Attrition, similar to the everyday fps shooter’s cherished Team Death Match – if the traditional sense of the word implied 20 foot tall bipedal robots, autonomous terminator-esque machines, and enough ordnance to level a few cities’ worth of frontier real estate – requires players to kill enemy units to earn points towards victory. It’s fun, easy to understand, and even easier to get into (Again, thanks to our 20 foot tall robotic friends). Attrition, a War of Endurance in Titanfall If you may have not already know, a war of attrition describes warfare in which one or more sides employs a strategy in which depleting an enemy’s resources to the point of failure via the elimination of key materials and manpower is the main objective. A mouthful, eh? Not to worry, because we’re only going to concern ourselves with the “bang-bang-bang” side of things. Let’s get started with the basics. All is Fair in Love and War At the end of the day, all is fair in love and war – except it isn’t! In a battle of Attrition, everything has its value. Knowing the value of all available targets is crucial if you have any hopes of stringing together anything significant in terms of points. So, here’s a comprehensible list of exactly what’s what in the number game that is Attrition: A great game of TitanFall Grunts 1 point Pilots 4 points Spectres 1 point Titans 5 points Pilot & Titan 9 points Choose your Battles Carefully Based on what we’ve read, you would start to think that a diet of nothing but pilots and titans is what you need to make it with the big shots, right? If so, you might want to think again. Here, check out this album of screenshots I took postgame, specifically shots number 3 and 6. Going into each game I had a certain focus. In the case of scoreboards 3 and 6, racking up the most pilot kills I possibly could was my primary objective with Titan kills as a secondary objective, being as they do not have a continuous presence on the battlefield. So, why didn’t I do as well as I did when my focus wasn’t as narrow? When playing Attrition competitively you’re going up against more than just enemy pilots – you’re competing against your teammates for scarce resources. Titanfall Objective Prioritization Titanfall Game 1 – No Focus No priority was given to any certain enemy type. As a result, I did relatively well. The reason for this is most likely that I used what was available to me as I moved quickly across the map. Remember, you’re not just competing against enemy pilots, but friendly pilots as well. So, move fast and kill faster. Also, do not skip over enemy minions. After all, minions spawn in groups and only 4 minion kills add up to what you would get for killing a single enemy pilot. Titanfall Game 2 – No Focus Again, no priority was given to any certain enemy type. As a result, I did relatively well. This game was performed in the same fashion as game 1 to back the claims I made in the description for Game Summary 1. All games were conducted (one after the other) in the order that they are displayed in this album except for Game Summary 4, which actually occurred immediately after Game Summary 6. TitanFall Game 3 – Focus On Pilots Priority was given to enemy pilots. As a result, I did not do as well in comparison to previous games. The reason for this is most likely that friendly pilots are scouting for enemy pilots as well. Enemy pilots can be seen as a scarce resource that you must compete against teammates for. Also, if you place too much emphasis on one type of target, you will end up overlooking other potential targets. Titanfall Game 4 – Focus On Pilots Again, priority was given to enemy pilots. A second game with focus placed on pilots was conducted because I simply felt that I could have done better. Also, it seems as if in game 3 that I may have competed against a team with less teammates than my own. Titanfall Game 5 – Focus On Minions Focus was given to enemy minions. The same phenomenon exhibited in Game Summary 3 and 4 can be seen in Game Summary 5. I did not do as well in comparison to previous games. The reason for this, again, is most likely that friendly pilots are scouting for enemy minions as well (However, less so because many players often mistake minions as being worthless in terms of Attrition points. Also, this may be one of the reasons why I did better than I did when hunting for pilots – there are more targets available). Enemy minions can be seen as a scarce resource in the same way that enemy pilots can be seen. You must compete against your teammates for these “scarce resources”. If you place to much emphasis on one type of target, you will end up looking over other potential targets. Titanfall Game 6 – Focus On Minions 2 Again, priority was given to enemy minions. A second game with focus placed on minions was conducted because it seems as if in game 5 that I may have competed against a team with less teammates than my own. There is No One Right Tool for the Job By now you should understand that the top pilots playing in Attrition lobbies are gunning for anything and everything, but what exactly constitutes anything and everything? We need to talk about your class loadout, or that set of tools you carry into each game. Primary Weapon: Your weapon should be able to handle medium to close ranges at the least. Lots of ammo and large clips are a must here, as we’ll be shooting for a large kill count of pilots and minions. We also want a weapon that can do decent damage to enemy titans, in case we ever find ourselves on one. A weapon like the Smart Pistol Mk5 still makes a good choice for a primary weapon despite not doing much damage to rodeoed titans, as it is very effective in dealing with both pilot and minion threats because of its lock on feature. Secondary Weapon: The benefits and drawbacks of each pistol will only become apparent when the scenario allows for it. As a result, I would choose your secondary weapon based on preferred playstyle, just as you would a titan chasis. To get a better idea of the roles each pistol can play, I would watch these videos: RE-45 Pistol Hammond P2011 B3 Wingman Tactical Ability: Out on the frontier, you have to be ready to face any number of different threats, ranging from hostile pilots to enemy spectres. Choose your tactical ability based on what you believe will give you the greatest advantage over the most lethal of threats, or in this case what you will use to net yourself the most points. Active Radar Pulse will streamline the process of picking out your next target. Stims help in PvP combat, as well as outmaneuvering enemies and teammates for that next objective. Cloak makes it easier to engage both minions and titans. Ordinance: Again, you want to retain the capacity to defeat all sorts of threats, as that will earn you the most points. In my personal opinion, the Arc Grenades and Satchel Charges allow you to do just that, as they keep their lethal and disorienting capabilities in almost every situation. Arc grenades are great because they will almost always “single-shot” grunts and spectres. You can also use them to blind enemy titans (and pilots) temporarily, making it easier to perform a rodeo. Satchel charges, on the other hand, are powerful little packs of explosives that can be used to dispatch any type of target that you set your eyes on. Tier 1 Kit: There are a lot of options to choose from here, and it would probably take me the rest of the guide here to sum up every pro and con possible. Instead of dictating to you my own personal preference (cough power cell cough), I’ll remind you that in order to get the most points you have to be able to take on whatever the enemy throws at you. Tier 2 Kit: The same scenario applies here as it did for the tier 1 kit. Although, I will dare to say that the Minion Detector and Guardian Chip kits are the most effective when it comes to Attrition. Minion kills should not be ignored if you want to reach the top, just don’t put too much time and effort into them, say by taking the time to individually kick and hack each one. Float like a pilot, sting like… a pilot… I guess? There is no single class that will guarantee you team MVP for every round of Attrition you play. All you can do is make sure the right tools are available to you when you need them most. There Is No Such Thing As A Magic Bullet Perhaps we have something that resembles a magic gun, but that’s not the point. We understand that in a battle of attrition numbers are what count, so get them wherever you can. Also, when filling up a loadout slot, versatility matters the most. You can’t win them all, but you can sure try. With these rules in mind, let’s go over some final tips: Unfortunately, you can’t win this by yourself. Excuse the corniness, but this is not pilot hunter. Points are not solely determined by who can kill who. With everyone everywhere, you can only hope to gain enough points by doing your part for your team and taking what you get. What does everyone at the top of the scoreboard have in common? In addition to a large pilot kill count, they all have around 20+ minion kills. Do not make the mistake of ignoring minions. They may not be the key to victory, but they absolutely do help. Avoid tunnel vision! Focusing on a certain type of enemy unit is a recipe for failure. No one enemy unit will always be present in your current location, and chasing them down would be a waste of time. Remove the threat of the moment and move on instead of waiting for the next enemy titan to fall. Make use of what you have, when you have it. Grunts not worth the bullets in your primary? Use your secondary then. No time to lose? Drop an arc grenade and forget about it! Lagging too far behind the battlefront? Activate your stims and get back into the action. There is no excuse for lollygagging, so learn how to make the best use of your time. I’ll finish with this; your overall success in Attrition is not determined exclusively by your level of skill. A high you score is a measure of team competency just as much as it is a reflection of your own prowess as a pilot. Now get out there! The frontier needs you. 0 Shares
Mayor Bill de Blasio today tore into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reported agreement with the Republican-run State Senate to repeal parts of a major gun control bill passed in 2012—arguing that the recent shooting of black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C. proved the need for strong regulations on firearms. Speaking to reporters after an unrelated event in the Bronx, the mayor attacked a memo his fellow Democrat issued last week that the Republicans claim strip controls on ammunition sales from the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement, or SAFE Act. The law was passed in 2013 in the aftermath of the mass shooting of elementary school students in Newtown, Conn., and Mr. de Blasio argued the murders in South Carolina last month reinforced the urgent necessity of tough gun regulations. “I can say this much: that law was passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, it was the right thing to do and we just can’t go backwards,” Mr. de Blasio said, though he admitted he was not familiar with the nuances of the new arrangement. “Charleston I think was another wake-up all for this country. And we just cannot go backwards on gun safety. That’s the bottom line.” According to press releases by upstate State Senators Catherine Young and James Seward, the memo eliminates the act’s call for an as-yet uncreated state database tracking all ammunition sales, which would facilitate background checks for people purchasing bullets. The memo itself says that the state will not allocate any resources to the creation of such a database until the superintendent of the State Police, who answers directly to the governor, presents a design for it. The agreement appears to be an attempt to appease rural Republicans who disliked the law, which was passed against their protests two years ago, and who distrusted the Long Island-based Mr. Flanagan, who supported the measure at the time. Mr. Flanagan replaced fellow Long Island Republican Dean Skelos—another SAFE Act backer—as State Senate majority leader in May after Mr. Skelos had to step down amid federal corruption charges. Mr. Flanagan reportedly enjoyed the support of both Mr. Skelos and Mr. Cuomo in his bid for the powerful perch, which pro-gun State Senator John DeFrancisco of Syracuse also sought. Mr. Cuomo’s office claimed that the memo is essentially meaningless, and amounts to a simple clarification of the current state of the database, which the governor’s staff said is still in the works. “No provision of the SAFE Act has been rolled back or altered due to this memorandum. As the Governor’s Counsel said, this is merely a restatement of fact and plans to move forward with the database continue,” said spokesman Rich Azzopardi.
by Judith Curry How multi-level, non-hierarchical governance poses a threat to constitutional government. Lucas Bergkamp has a new paper [link]: The Trojan Horse of the Paris Climate Agreement Lucas Bergkamp and Scott J. Stone Abstract. There is little novelty to be found in the Paris Climate Agreement. Nevertheless, it may have serious implications for climate policy-making. It establishes an international framework for decentralized climate policy-making by states, which should aim to achieve an ambitious collective objective of limiting global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C or even 1.5 °C. The agreement does not set any mechanism, methodology or criteria, however, for assigning individual mitigation obligations to party states. Indeed, it does not impose any significant substantive obligations on the parties, and, from a legal, as opposed to political or moral, viewpoint, it seems to be virtually non-binding. This gap is destined to become the Paris Agreement’s Trojan horse, because, under the guise of direct democracy in a system of multi-level, non-hierarchical governance, it grants not only credibility but also de facto authority to climate activists, thus posing a threat to constitutional government and representative democracy. The Paris Agreement demands that nation states acknowledge explicitly that their efforts are inadequate, while setting them up for failure, thus changing the political environment in which climate policy is made. The ambition-obligation disparity creates a large arena for climate activism at international and national levels, effectuating a transfer of power, or at least of influence, that is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of constitutional government. If the collective efforts appear to fall short of achieving the Paris Agreement’s objectives, the judiciary is likely to be dragged into climate policy-making. Climate action groups or executive governments supporting ambitious action will charge the body politic with impotence, declare “government failure,” and seek the help of the courts to get governments to “do the right thing.” To support their claims, they can invoke the admissions and objectives set out in the Paris Agreement. Thus, in demanding that the signatories concede that their efforts are inadequate, the Paris Agreement paves the way for the new international climate governance. Its implicit reliance on political activism by the climate movement and the related non-hierarchical governance by courts constitute a threat to constitutional government, the rule of law, and representative democracy. It risks an unconstitutional usurpation of power by activist groups and unelected and unaccountable judges that could undermine legislative power and the role of positive law in deciding legal disputes. This risk of subversion is not well understood by politicians and governments. Nations should protect themselves against these threats. After all, signing away control over climate policy to unaccountable and unelected actors is not in the public interest. Nor is it, under even the most optimistic of circumstances, a viable path to rational, effective and sustainable climate policies. Indeed, the future of representative democracy may be at stake. Excerpts from the Introduction: There is more to the Paris Agreement, however, than meets the eye. Both the EU and the United States were instrumental in brokering the Paris deal, even though their objectives were not aligned. The European Commission has presented the agreement as the “first universal, legally binding” climate agreement, calling it “ambitious and balanced.” But the US government takes the position that the agreement is voluntary and imposes only reporting obligations — and no sanctions. That these two protagonists can give such different interpretations to the agreement is the result of the linguistic massage that was necessary to reconcile their conflicting objectives, but doubtlessly complicated the negotiations. The agreement’s wording and legal force (or lack thereof), however, tell only part of the story. There are other forces at play that can explain why the agreement is both a failure and a success. For one, a reasonable solution of the climate change problem was not in the interest of all stakeholders that flocked to Paris; support for the nuclear energy option, for instance, has disingenuously been called “climate denialism.” The key to understanding Paris, however, is asking the question why so much time and effort has been spent on non-binding commitments and proclamations; if it is all non-binding and unenforceable any way, why bother? Part of the answer is that the Paris Agreement lays out a nice battlefield for climate activism for decades to come; President Obama, somewhat euphemistically, has called the agreement “politically binding.” But, for many countries, it may also have profound effects on government and climate policy-making. Most importantly, the Paris Agreement does not close the gap between ambition and obligation and, indeed, have widened it by adopting ambitious temperature targets without the apparent means to reach them. This creates not only internal tension, but has broader implications for the dynamics of climate policy-making. An analysis of the agreement should shed light not only on the nature, scope, and content of the obligations imposed on the parties, but also on the agreement’s wider consequences for international and national climate policy-making. It should zoom in on the unspoken, and, maybe, unspeakable, intentions and consequences. Excerpts from the Conclusions: An analysis of the agreement’s relation with science shows ambiguity. On the one hand, at several points, chiefly in relation to designing and implementing climate policies, the agreement refers to the best available science. On the other hand, it also sets forth objectives that focus solely on limiting global temperature increase, even though the scientific debate on the relative importance of such increase is still on-going, and no cost-benefit test applies to the selection of policies from a pool of options. As a result, the Paris Agreement may require measures that are inefficient and ineffective in preventing climate-related damage. Given the agreement’s strong focus on temperature, national policy-making may be distorted, and it remains to be seen to what extent the best available science can be invoked to correct the temperature-bias in designing climate policies. Thus, the agreement, while sending unambiguous signals that climate change will remain a preeminent policy issue for decades to come, serves to allow ambiguity to fester in terms of just what all that attention will produce, politically, policy-wise, and legally. And then, perhaps most importantly, there is a deeper, hidden level of uncertainty associated with the Paris Agreement. Reflecting strong climate advocacy and sophisticated strategy, the agreement fails to close (or even widens) the gap between what should be done and what has been agreed. It demands that nation states admit that their efforts are inadequate, while setting them up for failure, thus changing the political environment in which climate policy is made. The ambition-obligation disparity creates a large arena for climate activism at international and national levels, effectuating a transfer of power, or at least of influence, that is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of constitutional government. Countries are subject to the forces of regulatory competition, and have incentives to do as little as possible or at least to lag behind. Despite widespread activism, the lack of any mechanism to overcome the ambition-obligation disparity therefore will likely result in a failure to reach the collective targets. While the state parties may think they will have to go back to the negotiation table once that has happened, the reality may be different. If the collective efforts appear to fall short of achieving the Paris Agreement’s objectives, the judiciary is likely to be dragged into climate policy-making. Climate action groups or executive governments supporting ambitious action will charge the body politic with impotence, declare “government failure,” and seek the help of the courts to get governments to “do the right thing.” To support their claims, they can invoke several features of the Paris Agreement, including its recognition of the need for urgent action to fight dangerous climate change, its high goals, its ambitious substantive provisions, and the parties’ admissions of impotence, all of which can be cited to give content to the parties’ procedural obligations. Thus, climate policy lawsuits against governments to force them to adopt stronger emission reduction policies are not necessarily prevented by the absence of binding emission reduction obligations or targets in the Paris Agreement. Experience thus far has shown that courts concerned about the government’s failure to adequately address climate change, are willing to entertain such law suits and order governments to step up their climate policies, even though such orders are legally doubtful. At its most fundamental level, this constitutes a threat to constitutional government, the rule of law, and representative democracy. It risks an unconstitutional usurpation of power by activist groups and unelected and unaccountable judges that could undermine legislative power and the role of positive law in deciding legal disputes. This risk of subversion is not well understood by politicians and governments. If this risk materializes, the non-binding parts of the agreement, which were the least haggled over, will turn out to be the most influential “legal” provisions. And, unlike executive governments, judges have no way of ensuring that other nations do their fair share; they can rely only on their colleagues’ enlightened thinking, which may not be as generalized as they might hope. Irrespective of whether these features are parts of some intentional design, the Paris Agreement thus may turn out to be a Trojan horse. While it does little to reduce the threats it impresses upon the people, it creates risks of a different kind: although it operates under principles of law, it threatens our constitutional arrangements, including the separation of powers. In deciding on ratification, countries should consider not only the need for international coordination of climate policy, but also the protection of their constitutions, representative democracy, and the rule of law. Specifically, once they agree to Paris’ high collective ambition and ambitious substantive requirements, countries need to be mindful of the risks of activists and the judiciary taking over when it becomes clear that the world will not deliver. JC reflections In my presentations on climate change, I have often asked the question regarding CO2 mitigation policy: is the cure worse than the disease? Specifically, I was referring to to the costs of changing our power sources and energy infrastructure, concerns about reliability of the power supply, and damage to the economy. In this paper, Bergkamp and Stone articulate yet another ‘disease’ potentially caused by the Paris climate ‘cure’ – the issue usurpation of national constitutional arrangements. We are already seeing signs of a hyperactive judiciary in this regard, notably the Urgenda case. The other issue of concern raised by Bergkamp and Stone that I also think is critical is that the Paris Agreement may require measures that are inefficient and ineffective in preventing climate-related damage. Neither the problem or the solutions for climate change should be regarded as irreducibly global. As is often the challenge with a wicked mess, we may find that we are pointing our arrows at the wrong target, with mess indicating a ‘cure’ that is worse than the disease. This is clearly an issue that bears watching and further examination; I am of course particularly watching the legal challenges in the U.S. to Obama’s climate plan.
While Microsoft's used game policy for Xbox One has revealed the company's desire to transition game ownership to a more licence-based approach, Nintendo's top designer Shigeru Miyamoto has said he believes that gamers should retain access "for a long time" to games they have own. Woo-hoo. Miyamoto told Eurogamer that he thought games, like a physical toy, should remain the property of their owner. "What's really important is viewing Nintendo almost like a toy company where we're making these things for people to play with," he said. "As a consumer you want to be able to keep those things for a long time and have those things from your youth that you can go back to and experience again. "I really want to retain that product nature of the games that we create so that people can do that and have that experience. To me that's something that's very important about entertainment itself. So from the approach of continuing to create things that are entertaining for people, that's an important direction for me that I want to maintain." The eShop, Nintendo's digital games store, allows for the transferral of digital content between DSi and 3DS, and between Wii and Wii U. But Nintendo has yet integrate a comprehensive user account system for users to log in with on another console - so if you lose your 3DS, for instance, you lose all game licences associated with your account on that machine. For more of Miyamoto's thoughts on the Wii U launch, why we didn't see a new Wii U Zelda, and his eventual retirement read the in-depth interview on our sister site GamesIndustry International.
A piece of the facade at 15 E. 17th St. fell off the building and landed on the sidewalk below. View Full Caption Trevor Kapp//DNAinfo.com UNION SQUARE — A landmarked building on East 17th Street is in the process of being vacated after a piece of its facade broke off and plummeted onto the sidewalk below on Monday evening, forcing tenants out of their homes without any idea of when they'll be allowed back in. Pieces of decorative masonry fell from the top of the six-story building at 15 E. 17th St. roughly 6 p.m., city officials said. While no one was hurt, Laut Thai restaurant on the ground floor was forced to vacate along with the residents of the lofts above, according to a spokesman for the Department of Buildings and a chef at the restaurant. The current masonry was deemed unsafe by DOB's forensic engineers on Monday. The residents will not be allowed back into the building until the issue is resolved, according to the spokesman. "When I came out [last night], there were two or three pieces of concrete on the ground," said Mike Chim, the 59-year-old chef of the restaurant. "They were about 1-foot long. It's lucky there were no people there." As of Tuesday afternoon, Laut was fully vacated, and the residents were in the process of leaving the building, a DOB spokesman said. A scaffolding was installed over the sidewalk in front of the landmarked building by Tuesday morning and the sidewalk immediately outside of the building was closed off. The DOB slapped the building's owners with an Environmental Control Board violation for failing to maintain the building's exterior, the DOB spokesman said. The owner of the property as listed on the deed, Triad Capital LLC, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Chim arrived at the restaurant, which serves Thai and Malaysian cuisine and usually opens at 11 a.m., Tuesday morning in hopes of opening the restaurant, but was stopped by police who were standing outside, he said. "If they say we can't open, I have to go home," Chim said.
[SECURITY] [DSA 3031-1] apt security update To: debian-security-announce@lists.debian.org Subject: [SECURITY] [DSA 3031-1] apt security update From: Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:18:11 +0000 Message-id: <E1XWSn5-0007LX-RA@master.debian.org> Reply-to: debian-security@lists.debian.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Security Advisory DSA-3031-1 security@debian.org http://www.debian.org/security/ Salvatore Bonaccorso September 23, 2014 http://www.debian.org/security/faq - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Package : apt CVE ID : CVE-2014-6273 The Google Security Team discovered a buffer overflow vulnerability in the HTTP transport code in apt-get. An attacker able to man-in-the-middle a HTTP request to an apt repository can trigger the buffer overflow, leading to a crash of the 'http' apt method binary, or potentially to arbitrary code execution. Two regression fixes were included in this update: * Fix regression from the previous update in DSA-3025-1 when the custom apt configuration option for Dir::state::lists is set to a relative path (#762160). * Fix regression in the reverificaiton handling of cdrom: sources that may lead to incorrect hashsum warnings. Affected users need to run "apt-cdrom add" again after the update was applied. For the stable distribution (wheezy), this problem has been fixed in version 0.9.7.9+deb7u5. We recommend that you upgrade your apt packages. Further information about Debian Security Advisories, how to apply these updates to your system and frequently asked questions can be found at: https://www.debian.org/security/ Mailing list: debian-security-announce@lists.debian.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJUIZySAAoJEAVMuPMTQ89EpYgQAJV8hIcR+bcVcknG/UFghYxa a9xWm4+QymddTn7ob56UVwTjQX+kOEOGRibSTRuBtD28VXO8KkEsQorORN/MYaHR hQ0sH17gylhZ3Z5DxexHtQdRjdXmQih+p4ByUeQlc0vQkuCSzbEqVjDGDCe9mylI tFqAsnDepKbiULtIryXptA08cxoIjEIQWhaTALGrbHcjczoj1tFwxdFIv0dQLcBe VO1aiGka+s1X6HVVInf47BDzJWcnJ7nMmqUqrllwBHpoES2711aV/FfkA4Ip27qp 0+ZNwYudHVXqPhhyTrfseUGFIBk5yhZY4pNXNutrVK3OfOL9ojl9pcOZcA7ffWSF j1ZGO6gBsZuX1B9Mvzwk0cakmxajK8sMsbmXd6vqsGNMfqQu04lezE3E14qUmrU+ HIsCfI/ioOiZolVOQ97NoNIBO5u6B0jQX8zzYsIavRYjTSfbWBXmgs+om5nhEA0o KtjXwgiAUZAY4ZZY6XJJuOHLKti9gI2mr5ngveBiBQifT8hg6d7elguuS+mpd79C SqyjxAVRdM3zhJFdnuIymP3trGD5pNcEdgMatTHA0DaL7+qqxNUrYDktSWA2EHqa 6rxvvZ54zHb0juq5cvYLxg9FLABTuK9/65+CDJQAno0ZV4IEop4HyZg/lAj/B1Pz mPsR+i5n2DFdnhZaLqcb =EYc2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
SpaceX is set to launch its first recycled Falcon 9 rocket on behalf of NASA, which will bring a payload of vital cargo aboard the company’s flagship Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS). Elon Musk’s brainchild has launched recycled rockets and Dragon capsules before but this will be the first time both recycled spacecraft have been used for a NASA mission. Described as “flight-proven,” the rocket launched SpaceX’s 11th resupply mission for NASA, while Dragon visited the station in June of this year. Rocket and spacecraft for CRS-13 are flight-proven. Falcon 9’s first stage previously launched SpaceX’s eleventh resupply mission for @NASA, and Dragon flew to the @Space_Station in support of our sixth cargo resupply mission. pic.twitter.com/RY4F2TrWO2 — SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 6, 2017 Discussing the use of a recycled rocket instead of a new one, NASA’s ISS Manager Kirk Shireman, said the risk is about the same and that it's "still a dangerous business,” as cited by AP. This mission will bring some 5,000lb of gear, including food, equipment for experiments and, hopefully for the astronauts cooped up in the station over the holidays, some Christmas presents. Now targeting Dec. 13 for launch of CRS-13 from SLC-40 to allow for additional time for pre-launch ground systems checks. — SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 12, 2017 The Dragon capsule will return to Earth after about a month in space, with about 3,600lb of cargo in tow. Once it leaves ISS’s grip it will head for home, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja, California. Falcon 9 will blast off from Launch Complex 40, the pad destroyed when a SpaceX rocket exploded before take off last September. “This is the beginning of rapid and reliable reusability," SpaceX manager Jessica Jensen, said, according to AP. “We want to be able to send thousands of people into space, not just tens, and so reusability is a very key part of that, and we're excited because tomorrow is just one step closer to that.” The ever ambitious Musk seemingly has a limitless supply of groundbreaking ideas. Further to reusable rockets, the South African billionaire wants to send humans to Mars, with a view to colonizing the Red Planet.
Deltona, FL – The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office (VCSO) has arrested a 35-year-old Orlando woman who stole over $17,000 from a 96-year-old Deltona woman to buy a Lexus SUV by pretending to be a bank employee. The VCSO began investigating the case involving scam artist, Samara L. McCastler, in late May after her victim’s caregiver reported an unwarranted $17,223.99 bank charge. On Friday, May 26, the victim answered a phone call from a woman claiming to be an employee at Wells Fargo. The woman was told by the “employee” to put her debit card in an envelope and to place it in her mailbox because the bank was going to send her a new one. The victim told the woman over the phone what her PIN number and last 4 digits of her Social Security number were. By Sunday, May 28, $17,000 dollars were spent at Walmarts in Orange City and Orlando. After these charges were made, the victim’s caregiver deactivated the debit card and froze the bank account. On Wednesday, May 31, the victim received a call from a woman claiming she was “Ella Wilson” about what had happened to her debit card. Before hanging up, the victim told the unknown caller, “You have my debit card and took my money!” Meanwhile, detective Julian Elmazi with the VCSO was tracking purchases of Visa gift cards and money orders and saw the same woman making the purchases in Orange City and Orlando. The woman in the videos had a silver and black purse and drove a light blue Chevy Malibu, and in one video, had two children with her. A money order was used at the Auto Express Enterprises dealership on Goldenrod Road in Orlando. There, camera footage showed the woman with the same purse and one of the same children. McCastler put a $11,999 downpayment on a 2006 Lexus SUV and gave the dealership her identification. On Tuesday, June 13, Elmazi got a warrant for McCastler’s arrest and ultimately arrested her in Orange County on Wednesday, June 14. McCastler is charged with organizing a scheme to defraud, grand theft and the fraudulent use of a credit card. The charges carry a $125,000 bond. Currently, VCSO detectives are investigating the possibility of more transactions and more charges for McCastler. (McCastler mugshot courtesy of Orange County Government) Copyright Southern Stone Communications 2017.
PARRAMATTA playmaker Corey Norman has broken his silence on an eight week NRL suspension for drug possession and a lewd video, offering an apology for turning fans away from the game. In an exclusive interview with Fox Sports’ NRL Tonight, Norman said: “I’m very sorry. I’ve obviously let you down. Not just Parramatta fans as well, rugby league fans in general. “As a player you want to be putting bums on seats, not turning fans away from the game. “I guess with my incidents that probably could have done that to a few people.” Every game of Round 26 PLUS every Finals game in September LIVE & ad-break free during play on FOX SPORTS. Get FOXTEL today with no lock-in contract & 1st month free! FIND OUT MORE! Norman has been suspended since pleading guilty to drug possession following a night at The Star casino, where the Eels five-eighth was also issued with a police warning for consorting with criminals. The Eels star, who started the year in brilliant touch by winning the Auckland Nines player of the tournament award, admitted they were “bad” and “dumb” decisions. Corey Norman arrives at the Downing Centre to face court. Picture: John Grainger Source: News Corp Australia “It’s been tough. I don’t think I’ve missed eight weeks of football since I was under six,” Norman said. “It’s been really tough, especially training all week knowing that you can play and then just sitting on the sidelines watching. “Kind of knowing that you’ve let them down and you can’t be out there to help them. On the night out at the casino and his infamous video with ex-Panther James Segeyaro, Norman also offered remorse. “They were bad (decisions), they were dumb, obviously I’m not proud of what’s happened,” Norman said. “I’ve learned if a situation like that happens remove yourself from that situation, which I should have done. “Also you don’t realise how much it effects everyone. Family, friends, they’ve got to read the papers and have people come up to them and ask them questions. “Or say nasty things about me which is probably fair enough. But they’ve got to put up with that and they don’t really need that.” Corey Norman at Parramatta training. Picture: Phil Hillyard Source: News Corp Australia Regrets? Norman said he was continuing to work with people about making better choices. “I regret everything,” he said. “This little hiccup in my football career and even in general life I’m working on outside of football to make better decisions. “I’m going to see people and really trying to move forward and make better choices. Some critics have lampooned the NRL for going soft on Norman but the Eels No.6 hit back. “Everyone has an opinion. I’m only doing what the NRL handed down to me and that’s all I can do,” he said. “The NRL have handed me eight weeks and a $20,000 fine so that’s all I can do.” Manly coach Trent Barrett joins Nathan Ryan, Ben Glover and Matt Russell to discuss his rookie season as NRL coach, recruitment for 2017, the future of his veterans and the biggest challenges facing the club. You can also subscribe via iTunes or for Android users, listen on the iPP Podcast Player app. The silver lining to Norman’s suspension to end the season is the new three-year $2.1 million deal he has signed with the Eels. “It was a pretty easy one. I love Parra. I love Brad as a coach and his coaching staff that he’s got here. “And obviously the boys. “I’ve been here when the team was mentally weak, we get two tries scored on us and we’d open up. “We were getting touch-ups. “We’re really starting to build something this year. We’re a lot mentally tougher than what we have been. “Some of these games we’ve won have been on defence and you can’t really link that to Parramatta over the last couple of years. “I think we’re building something good here and it was an easy decision. “We’ve had a shocking year. Everyone knows that. But you can’t really base what happened this year to next year because it’s totally different.” This writer is on Twitter: @jimmyhooper Download the new FOX SPORTS App to get the latest news and scores from your NRL team.
Russia snubbed from exclusive Western circle Russia announced earlier it would establish a 400,000-strong National Guard under the leadership of its president Vladimir Putin. The Western media saw the move as signaling grave political challenges faced by Russia. Beside being described by the West as a "dictator," now Putin is also said to be the real owner of illicit overseas fortunes taken care of by his friends. In Russia, Putin enjoys an 80 percent approval rate. But in the Western media, he is as "evil" as former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi or Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The Soviet Union collapsed a long time ago. Russia has introduced an election system from the West. But Russia's reputation is still bad in the West. The hatred toward the Soviet Union seemed to have transferred to Russia. The West shows tolerance toward other former Soviet members like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, but Russia is always an exception. Moscow sacrificed a lot in order to ease its tensions with the West. It first let go of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Then the entire Soviet Union disintegrated. The Communist Party was dissolved. But Russia still sees hostility from the NATO countries. Basically, it is because Russia is still a big power. Its land crosses Europe and Asia. It inherited nuclear power from the Soviet Union and could still produce mutually assured destruction with the US. The military power of Russia makes the West anxious. They cannot tenderly look at Russia as they do the other Soviet Union fragments, which they have been helping introduce into the West-dominated world. Since Peter the Great, Russians have been dreaming of integrating with the West. But they suffered numerous setbacks. Putin's hard line could be a rebound after former leader Boris Yeltsin's failed attempt to embrace the West. This reaction is partially emotional, and partially an urge to reestablish a defensive line. The Western system is not as open as people have expected. The core interests form a fixed circle, which are hard to enter. Even Japan has not completely joined the circle; it is more like a sub-Western country under US occupation. Russia is a painful lesson of a major power that tried to follow the West, but only woke up after gaining nothing. Big countries will certainly face geopolitical competition. And the US will spontaneously try to weaken the contestants. China has become the world' second largest economy. We cannot expect our future path to become smoother. On the contrary, the country is likely to become the focus of the Western power's exclusive reactions. We have to be well prepared.
Read the full series: It probably has been said ten million times before but it’s worth saying again… Backup always leads to recovery and recovery should be easy. In previous posts we looked at the integration of Veeam Backup & Replication with Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE and already gave you some recovery options that you get with the integration. Today we are going to review the recovery options available for any end user. Before we dive in to this, keep in mind that recovery options highly rely on the backup mode you used. For example, it not possible to recover the entire computer from your personal files backup. Individual files This option you can choose no matter what backup mode you have selected. Even if you use entire PC backup, you don’t need to restore everything to get a simple file back. For those of you who worked already with Veeam Backup & Replication, this restore will look very familiar. There are three methods to start restoring files. First one is launching the wizard from the windows start screen. You need to find the File Level Restore application and open it. The second method is to right-click the notification icon, and choose Restore – Individual files. These two methods will pop up a wizard on a restore point selection step The wizard approach is very handy when you need to recover files from other PCs backups: you can actually go one step back (by pressing the previous button) and open the Backup Location wizard’s step where you can manually specify the backup file location. The third method is to open Veeam Endpoint Backup Control Panel and click the needed bar on the chart Once done, you will see the details of the specific backup associated with this bar and what’s more important you can start a restore directly from this screen. By the way as you can see on the screenshot below my restore point does not contain any volumes thus volume level recovery is not possible. Once you passed all the wizards steps and clicked Open or in case you launched File Level Recovery directly from Control Panel the backup file is mounted to the operating system under C:\VeeamFLR so you can browse thru the backup browser or thru the regular Windows browser. For the restore via backup browser, you also have a few options: Overwrite: If you use this option we will restore the file to the original location and if that file still exists at that location, we will overwrite it. If you use this option we will restore the file to the original location and if that file still exists at that location, we will overwrite it. Keep: When you select this option, the file will also be restored to the same location, but we will add Restored – in front of the filename. That means you can retrieve the file easily AND we won’t overwrite the original one if it is still present. When you select this option, the file will also be restored to the same location, but we will add in front of the filename. That means you can retrieve the file easily AND we won’t overwrite the original one if it is still present. Copy To…: Copy to will give you the possibility to restore it to another location and it will give you the ability to preserve the permissions and ownership of the file Last but not least, restoring multiple files or folders at once is perfectly possible by using the known multi-select options. Conclusion In this post we looked at the file-level restore capabilities of Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE. We still need to look at volume-level recoveries and bare metal recoveries but that will be for later posts. File-level recoveries is very powerful and gives you multiple restore capabilities from overwriting existing files / folders with previous versions to copy the files / folders to different locations and more. The handy backup wizard allows you to browse through your entire files set and no matter what backup mode you have chosen, you always will be able to do file-level recoveries For more information, watch the video. Read the next chapter: See More GD Star Rating loading...
(It occurs to me that some readers -- particularly younger ones who have studied English-language writers only since the banishment of Dead White Males from the university curriculum -- may be unfamiliar with the reference in the title to the classic 1729 essay by Jonathan Swift. If you haven't read it, here is a link. As you will see, my proposal is considerably more modest.) I will not be the first to point out the clear signal sent by President-elect Trump with many of his cabinet appointments of an intent to reverse major policies of the Obama administration in many areas. To consider just a few examples: Department of Education . Its mission under Obama (and to be fair, under prior Presidents as well) has been to use the piles of free federal money to prop up overpriced and ineffective unionized government schools so that the unions can maximize their revenue, and any and all reforms can be avoided. Trump nominee Betsy DeVos is a leader in advocating for charter schools and school choice, and is a bete noire of the teachers' unions. . Its mission under Obama (and to be fair, under prior Presidents as well) has been to use the piles of free federal money to prop up overpriced and ineffective unionized government schools so that the unions can maximize their revenue, and any and all reforms can be avoided. Trump nominee Betsy DeVos is a leader in advocating for charter schools and school choice, and is a bete noire of the teachers' unions. Department of Housing and Urban Development . Its mission under Obama (and again, also under prior Presidents) has been to provide subsidized apartments to people deemed to be poor, and thereby keep those people trapped in poverty and dependency for their entire lives. Trump nominee Ben Carson has been a leading advocate for reducing dependency on the government among poor people, and particularly among blacks. . Its mission under Obama (and again, also under prior Presidents) has been to provide subsidized apartments to people deemed to be poor, and thereby keep those people trapped in poverty and dependency for their entire lives. Trump nominee Ben Carson has been a leading advocate for reducing dependency on the government among poor people, and particularly among blacks. Department of Energy and EPA. Their mission under Obama has been supporting and funding global warming alarmism, subsidizing uneconomic intermittent energy sources, and trying to put energy from fossil fuels out of business. Energy Secretary-designate Rick Perry actually advocated eliminating the Department of Energy during his own presidential campaign. EPA Administrator-designate Scott Pruitt has spent years initiating lawsuits against EPA seeking to strike down some of its major regulations. So, when the new guys at the top come in, can they just turn these agencies around and start with new policies? If you read the Constitution, the answer would seem to be, of course they can! (Article II, Section 1: "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.") But realists will recognize that there are only a handful of political appointees at the top of each department or agency, while the thousands of "permanent" or "career" employees are protected against firing by civil service laws. And somehow these people think that, while the political appointees come and go, the career employees are the ones who really run the place. How bad will be the resistance to change? We got a preliminary indication a couple of days ago after the Trump "landing team" for the Energy Department sent a 74-part informational questionnaire to the department. One of the areas of inquiry was a request for the names of department staffers who had worked on "climate change" programs. Does that request seem reasonable to you? It did not seem reasonable to the current DOE or its staffers. They have "rejected" these requests for information. From The Hill on December 13: The Department of Energy said Tuesday it will reject the request by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team to name staffers who worked on climate change programs. Energy spokesman Eben Burnhan-Snyder said the agency received “significant feedback” from workers regarding a questionnaire from the transition team that leaked last week. “Some of the questions asked left many in our workforce unsettled,” Snyder said. Well, I guess that's how it works in the Federal Government: If the requests of your new boss make you "unsettled," you just "reject" them. And if that's how they react to a simple request for information as to who is doing what, imagine how they are going to react when they actually get an assignment to do something that runs counter to what they think should be done! The article in The Hill goes on to quote from the employees' union boss, articulating the view that there is nothing political about this, and the staffers are just neutral, a-political experts trying to go about their jobs: “My members are upset and have questions about what this means. These are all civil servants who do their jobs,” Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement. “They have no wish to be caught up in political winds — they are nonpartisan employees — scientists, engineers, statisticians, economists and financial experts — who were hired for their knowledge and they bring their talent and experience to the job every day,” he said, adding that the union “will do all it can to ensure that merit system rules are followed.” Actually, no. There is absolutely nothing "nonpartisan" about this. The Department of Energy is substantially if not entirely engaged in carrying out policies that are favored by Democrats and opposed by Republicans -- policies like promoting and subsidizing wind and solar energy and hamstringing and restricting fossil fuels. Do you think that even the Energy Information Agency is nonpartisan? Don't be ridiculous. Their "levelized cost of energy" reports are carefully engineered to defraud the American people into supporting "renewable" energy by downplaying the real costs of wind and solar energy by a factor of five or ten or more. The same overt or covert partisanship is equally if not more true at Education, HUD, EPA, and, for that matter, throughout the government. How bad is the partisanship in the government? Surely, you say, there must be at least a few Republicans in the government who can be counted on to keep things fair! If you think that, you are deluding yourself. Analyze the election results from the District of Columbia, and you come away realizing that virtually every single person who works for the federal government is a Democrat. Here are the presidential results from the District of Columbia. Hillary Clinton got 90.9% of the votes, a percentage far higher than her percent in any of the fifty states. (Her highest percentage in any of the states was in Hawaii at 62.3%.) Donald Trump and Gary Johnson between them won just 5.7% of the votes in D.C., about 17,600 votes in total. But think about this: Washington has a substantial Republican establishment. The RNC is headquartered in DC. The Republicans held substantial majorities in both the House and Senate before the recent election, and the Republican members of Congress plus their committees had something in the range of 4000 staffers based in the District. And those people have families. And there is a substantial group of Republican, conservative and libertarian think tanks and policy organizations based in D.C. -- as examples, consider the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Federalist Society, and so forth. And their staffers also have families. Add up all the professional and paid Republican and conservative-side people in Washington and their families, and you have accounted for literally every Republican vote in the District. The number of Republicans actually working in the government has to be so small that you will need a microscope to find them. And yes, it is absolutely reasonable to expect that every single one of the government employees regards Trump and his people as illegitimate interlopers, and those employees will do everything in their power to hinder and obstruct any agenda of reform. So, what to do about it? The obvious first answer is, fire these people and hire new ones who will do your bidding. Unfortunately, that is likely to be a poor answer. The so-called "civil service" protections for career federal employees go back to the 1880s. Do they violate the constitutional provision that vests all executive authority in the President? I would say they do, but you could litigate that issue for the entire next four years without getting any definitive result and without getting rid of a single person. You might even lose outright. So here's the modest proposal: If the government cannot fire these people, then it can assign them to other tasks in other places. By fortuitous coincidence, the recent several years have seen downsizing in two sectors known for having very large buildings, many of them located in remote and out-of-the-way areas. Those two sectors are manufacturing and retail. Places like rural Ohio, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Arkansas, and upstate New York -- not to mention northern Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and even Alaska -- are littered with abandoned K-Marts, JC Penney's and Sears stores, as well as abandoned factories of all sorts. These buildings can be leased for a song. Hundreds of federal employees can be assigned to each such location. Send each such employee a memo: "Starting Monday morning at 9 AM, your job will be located at the former Sears Hometown store, 2308 11th Avenue West, Williston, North Dakota. If you report for work, you will await such assignments as may be given to you at that location. If you do not show up, your pay will be continued until your unused vacation and sick leave are exhausted, and then your pay will stop." Inside the former Sears or K-Mart, there can be row upon row of hundreds of desks and chairs. But I highly recommend that these employees not be provided with any computer or cell phone at taxpayer expense. Why waste the money? They can communicate with headquarters in Washington by U.S. mail. It's not like they are doing anything productive. Something tells me that the incoming Trump team will stop short of adopting my proposal. But they should adopt it. For the next four years, essentially every federal employee in Washington is going to be conducting an unrelenting guerilla campaign to undermine everything the administration wants to do. If the administration only pushes back a little, it will be steamrolled by the permanent government Blob. Time to act decisively! If anyone can do that, it is Trump. UPDATE, December 16: The normally sensible Megan McArdle at Bloomberg View comments on the Trump transition team questionnaire to the Department of Energy (asking for names of DOE employees working on "climate change" matters) as follows: [The Department of Energy] should not comply with this request unless some law requires it. This request reeks of witch-hunting people because they might have views on climate change that our president-elect, or someone on his staff, dislike. That is no way to run an organization, or a nation. What? The incoming administration has an absolute right to find out who is working on what, and to re-direct people from working on Project A to Project B. Career employees have no "right" to continue to spend taxpayer resources on projects that the newly elected representatives of the people do not want done. How is this a "witch hunt"? If the new people do not find out who is working on Project A, and stop that work, and direct the effort over to Project B, then they are not doing their job.
Salmon catches increased in the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East and in the Sakhalin region. Source: ITAR-TASS Black caviar has long been a symbol of Russian affluence, and today is seems true more than ever. The aristocrat’s hors d’oeuvre is the salted roe derived from the sturgeon, one of the most threatened groups of animals on the planet. Black caviar is worth more than gold and prized by gourmets around the world. But the decline in sturgeon numbers means the genuine tiny, shiny black eggs becoming a rarity in stores. Instead, counterfeit caviar is filling the shelves. Pike caviar looks similar in every way, but is no way comparable to sturgeon eggs when it comes to taste. However, aficionados are increasingly turning to the lower-priced red caviar, produced by salmon, to satisfy their roe desires. Even red caviar prices are expected to sky-rocket ahead of the New Year, a holiday most Russians associate with a sandwich topped with butter and the red beads. Last summer, the cost of salmon caviar rose by 70 percent, largely because of a bad start to the salmon season in eastern Russia. Later, normal market prices returned – about $50 a kilo – thanks to large imports of frozen red caviar from Alaska. Between 40 and 60 percent of the red caviar in Russia comes from fisheries in the far eastern part of the country. Annual production of salmon caviar in Russia is estimated between 11,000 tons and 13,000 tons. About 1,500 tons of frozen red caviar had been imported to Russia as of August, worth more than $13 million, the Federal Customs Service reported. Almost 90 percent of the imported caviar was declared at $7 to $9 per kilo, several times lower than the average price of Russian caviar. Russian caviar market experts say salmon-roe shortages and price fluctuations are largely a result of conflicts between caviar processors on the eastern coast and those near the Caspian Sea. As salmon catches increased in the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East and in the Sakhalin region, more processors were established on the east coast – leaving processors near the Caspian Sea with no place to obtain fresh salmon roe. According to recent data, about 4,000 tons of raw caviar were harvested in the Caspian Sea from 2010 to 2011, while last year that number dropped to 1,500 tons. One can hardly find legal Russian caviar in Asian stores, except in Japan, which imports salmon roe from its western neighbor for its sushi bars. European gourmands with deep pockets rejoiced two years ago, when Russia lifted a 9-year ban on the export of sturgeon caviar to Europe, which limited harvested from farmed sturgeon to 150 kilograms a year. Russian wild caviar, the beloved snack of Russian tsars and those who aspired to be princely, is now no more. Rampant fishing after the fall of the Soviet Union led to stocks falling so low that Russia, 11 years ago, introduced a moratorium on commercial fishing of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, the historical center of caviar production. Other countries bordering the Caspian Sea, the source of 90 percent of the world’s wild caviar – Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan – also agreed to respect the moratorium. In 2006, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, the United Nations organization that controls trade in endangered species, banned international trade in caviar and other wild-sturgeon products. Twenty-seven species of sturgeon are now on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species and, of these, 63 percent are listed as critically endangered. Caviar’s high prices have encouraged massive overfishing of the sturgeon, and smuggling. Traditionally, caviar was obtained from wild species caught mainly in the Caspian Sea. All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Russia's Maria Sharapova hits a return to Serena Williams of the U.S. during their final WTA tennis championships match in Istanbul, October 28, 2012. REUTERS/Osman Orsal MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Maria Sharapova will focus on trying to win Wimbledon next year rather than attempting to regain the world number one ranking. “Wimbledon will be my priority next season,” Sharapova, who finished the year as world number two behind Belarussian Victoria Azarenka, told Reuters on Tuesday after signing a sponsorship deal with electronics manufacturer Samsung in Moscow. “This year it was different because of the Olympics but if you ask me about my main goal for 2013, it definitely will be Wimbledon.” Sharapova made her breakthrough to the tennis elite by winning the 2004 Wimbledon title as a 17-year-old newcomer. This year she won the French Open to complete a career grand slam and claimed the Olympic silver medal in London. The 25-year-old also said she was hoping to finally end her winless streak against Serena Williams in 2013 after losing to the American in all three of their matches this year, including two finals, in the Olympics and at the WTA Championships on Sunday. “She plays a very physical tennis and when she is in top form it’s very difficult to beat her but I will try to take my revenge next year,” said the Florida-based Russian.
Image caption The attack was run from servers based in Iran, suggests analysis Hackers in Iran have been accused of trying to subvert one of the net's key security systems. Analysis in the wake of the thwarted attack suggests it originated and was co-ordinated via servers in Iran. If it had succeeded, the attackers would have been able to pass themselves off as web giants Google, Yahoo, Skype, Mozilla and Microsoft. The impersonation would have let attackers trick web users into thinking they were accessing the real service. Fake identity The attack was mounted on the widely used online security system known as the Secure Sockets Layer or SSL. This acts as a guarantee of identity so users can be confident that the site they are visiting is who it claims to be. The guarantee of identity is in the form of a digital passport known as a certificate. Analysis of the attack reveals that someone got access to the computer systems of one firm that issue certificates. This allowed them to issue bogus certificates that, if they had been used, would have let them impersonate any one of several big net firms. It appears that the attackers targeted the SSL certificates of several specific net communication services such as Gmail and Skype as well as other popular sites such as Microsoft Live, Yahoo and the Firefox browser. SSL certificate issuer Comodo published an analysis of the attack which was carried out via the computer systems of one of its regional affiliates. It said the attack exhibited "clinical accuracy" and that, along with other facets of the attack led it to one conclusion: "this was likely to be a state-driven attack." It is thought it was carried out by the Iranian authorities to step up scrutiny of opposition groups in the country that use the web to co-ordinate their activity. The bogus certificates have now been revoked and Comodo said it was looking into ways of improving security at its affiliates. Browsers have also been updated so anyone visiting a site whose credentials are guaranteed by the bogus certificates will be warned. Writing on the blog of digital rights lobby group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Peter Eckersley, said the attack posed a "dire risk to internet security". "The incident got close to — but was not quite — an internet-wide security meltdown," he said. "We urgently need to start reinforcing the system that is currently used to authenticate and identify secure websites and e-mail systems," said Mr Eckersley.
Magnetic North For the fourth round of our contest, we asked you to send us original works of fiction that contain each of these words: "plant," "button," "trick," "fly." "It's safer to fly, anyway," he told her. "Statistically." "The pilots in those statistics have licenses." She put out her cigarette. "And they fly Boeings." A single engine Cessna crop-duster was no Boeing. He'd never taken it over a mountain range. Still, he thought, with enough fuel they could get there. "What do we have to lose?" "What's waiting on us there?" This was the part he could never explain to her. At the end of his life he felt an aching, debilitating attraction to the North Pole. Like he'd felt to her once. He kept a brass compass in his pocket. He'd read about a town close to the Pole called Grise Fiord, how it was the coldest inhabited settlement on Earth. Things might never thaw out there. Time might slow: the sun for tireless summer months unsetting. North of you only the icy, curved tip of the world. "Ellesmere Island. Doesn't it touch something in you? How it sounds mythical?" "Unreachable. That's what it sounds like." She stood from the table and stepped into the rubber boots by the door. "Your plane was built for plants, not fantasies. Come help me." Outside they got on their knees and pulled yams from the ground. Retirement, not from farming but from life, was getting closer. That's what he felt in the aches. There was no 401k to live off. The dirt was cold and damp in his fingers, under his nails and wetting his knees through his jeans. Dreams don't end as we age. Graham Cotten's protagonist, nearing retirement age, dreams of places he could go, anywhere so he won't have to die where he has been living. The strength of this story is in its natural dialogue and beautiful imagery. "There are narwhals there. They're the whales with the ivory tusk. Have you seen a drawing of a unicorn ever?" "Are you scared of dying alone?" she asked. He shook his head. "I'm scared of dying here." She put the yams in the basket of her held-out shirt. It'd been a long time since they'd bought new clothes. Long as he could remember. "Here where you were born," she said. He sat back on his heels, pulling the compass from his pocket. Two thousand miles that way. They speak another language there. They have a motto: Much in Little. She sat back too, taking the compass from his hand. "When?" she said. "When are you going to quit trying to trick yourself? Is your mind going?" Who knew the answer? He kept looking northwards, wondering if the strong magnetic pull had an effect on your mind. If it aligned things when you stood right on top of it. Spring was coming and he worried that this time his crystalline thought processes might melt, to where his brain was a runny, watery mess spilling into nowhere. "Katie." He pointed. On the edge of the field a lone deer appeared, a button buck straying into the clearing. They watched it until it looked up, and spotted them and ran, flashing its white tail high in the air.
Welcome to 2011! The first review of the year goes to AMD’s first CPU refresh of the year. What does it bring? First up is the Phenom II x4 975 Black Edition, a 3.6GHz (200MHz18) CPU with all the standard features of the Phenom II line (Deneb core, 4x512K L2 cache, 6MB L3 cache, 125W TDP, 45nm process). Of course, being a Black Edition CPU the multiplier is unlocked, allowing upward adjustment as high as your motherboard will allow. Its price of $195 places it at just a few dollars more than the 970 BE. The other CPU under review today is a bit of an oddity. The Phenom II x4 840 is a 3.2GHz CPU (200MHz16) with a Propus core, meaning a 4x512K L2 cache and no L3 cache. Confused? Us too. Sound more like an Athlon II? That’s what we thought. Turns out AMD wanted to resurrect the Phenom II 800 series, and chose this CPU as the one to reintroduce the line. Its price of $102 is also odd. The Athlon II x4 645’s MSRP is $118. Yep. Faster and cheaper than the 645. Benchmarks There aren’t any surprises when it comes to performance. These two CPUs are minor speed bumps from their predecessors and perform exactly as expected. In all of the tests, there are slight performance gains with the new processors, but it never gets beyond there. Since the difference in speed over the previous CPUs is 100MHz in both cases this is entirely expected. Gaming The CPU doesn’t play a huge role in game performance; a better GPU will almost always provide a larger performance boost here. All of our gaming benchmarks show this, regardless of settings. A sample from each game is provided. Keep in mind that the (sometimes significantly faster) Core i7 doesn’t produce significantly faster results than even the Phenom II x4 840. Conclusion The Phenom II x4 840’s designation still leaves us scratching our heads though, since its performance looks very similar to an Athlon II, but considering it costs less than and outperforms the x4 645, it’s not all bad. Odd naming choices aside, both of these new CPUs represent good values in their respective performance segments, and both get a solid recommendation for new system builds. They certainly don’t warrant upgrading from “close” models such as the 970BE or 645, but if you’re moving up from a dual or triple core to a quad core system these are definitely worth a look.
Speaking to an audience at the Aspen Institute, Wheeler insinuated that corporations like AT&T and Verizon will not hesitate to hurt consumers in order to make a buck. "Those who build and operate networks have both the incentive and the ability to use the power of the network to benefit themselves," Wheeler said, "even if doing so harms their own customers and the greater public interest." Arguing against the Republicans' plans to repeal the Open Internet Order, Wheeler pointed out that a so-called "free market" online would actually be a step back for the internet. "A hands-off approach to network oversight is more than a shift in direction," Wheeler said, "it is a decision to remove rights and move backward." Finally, Wheeler offered a look at what's ahead in the battle to secure net neutrality. If the FCC itself wants to undo the earlier regulations, it will require the agency to go through a rule-making period and wait for public comment. On the other hand, Congress could more swiftly do away with the Open Internet Order simply by updating the Telecommunications Act. Either method is likely to result in lawsuits, but open internet proponents already have a strong case after a Washington DC circuit court upheld the FCC's net neutrality rules last June.
The Alison Bechdel of real life is, and looks, pretty much like the adult “Alison Bechdel” you see on stage in playwright Lisa Kron’s extremely funny, extremely wrenching Broadway adaptation of Bechdel’s 2006 graphic novel, Fun Home. Lean, watchful, quiet and self-contained, Bechdel—as you might expect from a cartoonist and writer—is an observer by nature. Comedy, tragedy, song and dance meld evocatively together in this charged story of why Bechdel has long wondered if her coming out to her closeted, gay father Bruce “dislodged” something in him, causing him to commit suicide, age 44 in 1980, by stepping in front of a truck. (Bechdel knows the answer is no—intellectually, emotionally, and in reality—-but it’s a question that has long haunted her.) It doesn’t sound like the source material of a razzle-dazzle Tony Award winner, but this production of Fun Home, directed by Sam Gold with an ingenious in-the-round set by David Zinn, scooped 12 richly deserved nominations in the coveted theatrical awards announced on Tuesday, including one nomination each for its actresses as well as Michael Cerveris (Bruce) for Lead Actor. And it’s up for Best Musical, of course. “I’m delighted,” Bechdel told The Daily Beast. “I don’t really know what else to say. It’s great that so many of the actors got nods, and that our creative team got nominated. I hope this means more people will hear about and get to see the show.” The other day, waiting for friends to emerge from a matinee outside the theater where Fun Home is playing, the author was approached by a schoolgirl. “No one was paying me any attention,” says the unassuming Bechdel. “This schoolgirl walked across to me, and asked, ‘Are you Alison?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ Then she dragged me across the street where this whole gaggle of schoolgirls were thrusting their programs at me. I felt like a Beatle. That was pretty funny.” ---------- The only piece of furniture left on stage at the end of Fun Home is, tellingly, Bechdel’s artist’s sketching desk: a lamp, paper, pencils, and pens. Cartooning is the medium by which Bechdel has become famous, as the artist behind the Dykes To Watch Out For strip (1983-2008), and latterly the memoirs Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and the 2012 book she wrote about her relationship with her mother Helen, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. Last year, the 54-year-old Bechdel was one of the recipients of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” worth a cool $625,000. In her award-acceptance video, she said: “When I got the call from the MacArthur Foundation, I thought I was kind of faint. It was crazy. It was like someone had almost hit me, like a physical blow. I feel I have been in a state of shock.” She said she would work hard to live up to the expectations of those who had made the award. If you’ve never read her books, you may have heard of the “Bechdel Test,” which a film can only pass if: “(1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man.” In 2013, Bechdel wrote: “Many young people only know my name because of the Test—they don’t know about my comic strip or books. I’m not complaining! I’m happy they know my name at all!” In the musical, as the action plays out in front of her, the actress who plays adult-Alison (Beth Malone, who looks spookily like the real Bechdel) keenly observes the two younger iterations of herself (Emily Skeggs, who plays at her at college age, and the astonishing, scene-stealing Sydney Lucas, who plays her as an 11-year-old) as she interacts with her family. Everything is anchored to the formative years of Bechdel’s growing up in rural Pennsylvania; and her father’s intense identification with her, and desire for her to intellectually succeed. His fervency is both warm and menacing, while his own cracks are all too visible. If Bruce’s suicide is the grim central knot of Fun Home (which began life at New York’s Public Theater—when it was a finalist for a Pulitzer), its construction and staging allows for much levity too. There’s a fantastic Seventies pop-style song featuring Alison and her two younger brothers, with delicious, anarchic leaping about and tossing of hair, about what it’s like growing up in a funeral home, surrounded by corpses (it grossed out the young Bechdels’ friends, but they thought it was normal). For Bechdel, zingingly good fun as it is, “It captures that era with all these idealized families on television, and wishing our own was like that.” Two other songs movingly and hilariously evoke Alison’s burgeoning sexuality. One is about her first love whom she met at college (“I’m changing my major to sex with Joan.”), and my favorite, “Ring of Keys,” is about the lustful-trigger effect of seeing a classic butch lesbian had on Bechdel as a girl: the “ring of keys” being what this beautiful, striking woman wore that day on her fingers. There are also wonderful songs sung by Cerveris and Judy Kuhn as Bechdel’s mother—he about a life in the closet, she about the compromises and hidden sadness of her marriage. Kron has been working on the musical for several years with composer Jeanine Tesori, although before that a movie option had been offered. Bechdel couldn’t bear the idea of a film “telling all this personal stuff, but I decided how much my soul would be worth and they didn’t want to pay it, and I was kind of relieved.” She had no idea about musicals, and that distance made it easier to greenlight Kron and Tesori’s project. What is it like seeing her life played out on stage? “I keep hoping someone will ask me that question, and suddenly words will appear in my mind to express the bizarre feeling of seeing it,” says Bechdel, smiling. “But it’s beyond language, it’s inexpressible. It’s surreal, magical, it feels deeply cathartic in some way to see this adaptation of my book which is very different to the book but also essentially the same… I keep waiting for the word to spring to mind…” She pauses, lightly shrugs. “I don't know.” As Bechdel expressed it to The New York Times’ Michael Paulson, “I do understand that there’s a difference between the play and my life, but it is a very strange and permeable boundary.” However, the stage version has illuminated some of the mystery around her father’s death. “It takes you to that moment when he kills himself and steps in front of this truck. I thought I had done that. I had been to the spot on the road where he got hit. I tried to imagine as vividly as I could what it must have been like to make that decision. But to see Michael Cerveris singing it, it gives me much more of an understanding of what it must have been like.” ---------- At one book-reading event, Bechdel told me in 2012 when I interviewed her for London’s The Times, a man stood up and said he knew the doctor on call when Bruce was rushed to the hospital that night. “I learnt my father was alive when he got to the emergency room. I’d always thought he’d died instantly. Over 20 years later I find this out on stage, in front of 200 people.” This public unpeeling in different contexts must be strange, but through the staging of Fun Home Bechdel also feels she learned something about her mother via Judy Kuhn’s powerful performance. In the book she is under-written, and in real life seems a much thornier and withdrawn character than the figure on stage, who is careworn and strong. The song Kuhn sings about the marriage is wrenching for Bechdel: “I can understand my mother’s courage more. When I was younger I saw her as somewhat weak for not leaving. Now I don’t feel that way.” Helen died of cancer two years ago. “I sort of feel like had she seen Fun Home it might have killed her,” Bechdel says with a wry laugh. “It might have been very painful. In a lot of ways it’s painful for me to relive a lot of these moments. On the other hand, she would have been thrilled it had gone to Broadway, and thrilled that she was a character in a Broadway play.” Her mother always turned first to the arts reviews of The New York Times, so she would have also been “ecstatic” with the raves Fun Home has been getting. When I interviewed Bechdel in 2012 she said the second memoir was her way of asking her uncommunicative mother, why had Helen stopped kissing her, but continued kissing her sons, after Bechdel was 7? What did she think of her husband’s sexuality, his death? How did she grieve? Today Bechdel said no new channel of communication had been created by the book: Her mother read it, “but I never got the redemptive moment I really wanted.” Her mother had no theory about her husband’s suicide being somehow connected to his closeted sexuality, “but she was really interested in any gossipy stories about closeted bisexual movie stars. She was always trying to understand what the appeal of actresses was for gay men. My father and she had met in a play, and it felt somehow essential to their attraction.” Bechdel had “a really amazing time” with her mother at the end of her life. “She died by slowly receding more and more, not talking, going into her own inner world. It was how she had been all the time, but it was more marked.” Her mother especially liked the lectures Bechdel found for her by the critic Helen Vendler, whose book about five 20th-century poets’ poems about death, Last Looks, Last Books, she particularly gleaned much from in her last days. ---------- The central tension of the play is to explicitly state Bechdel’s belief that her coming out led her dad to kill himself. “I feel it,” she tells me. “I don’t believe it. I know it’s not true. My brother, my mother, we all had our own grandiose version of it being our fault for different reasons, of there being something we should have done. I think that’s what suicide does to the people left behind. I can’t ever get rid of this emotional sense of guilt, even though intellectually I know it had not much do with me.” Father and daughter were each other’s flipside, intensely close from when she was 7 or 8, in the best and worst ways. She has a sheaf of letters he wrote her when she went to college. They spoke all the time on the phone. “I think he was lonely,” Bechdel says. “I don’t think he was close with a lot of people. I was this custom-made companion who shared his interests, and if I didn’t share them I had to talk about them anyway.” On stage, when Sydney Lucas sings “Ring of Keys” about the sexy, butch woman, she is 11. It’s a mark of the show’s brilliance and bravery that the audience-as-one is so with this young girl as she sings her heart out about stirring lesbian sexuality. In reality Bechdel was 4 when it happened. “We weren’t in our hometown, but Philadelphia. We were in this luncheonette, and this incredible woman walked in: this big, fat woman in men’s clothes and short haircut and she was beautiful, astonishing. I recognized her, this immediate shock of recognition of this person who was like me. My father also saw her, and even at that young age we were already struggling over my clothing. He said, ‘Is that what you want to look like?’ And of course I did, but I had to say ‘no.’” As unfolds in the play, Bechdel recalls the time Bruce took the children to New York, stealing out at night for—well, their lodgings were on Christopher Street, then the thrumming gay locus. “I was 15. I suddenly noticed all these gay men on the street, their just-so hair, and their sanded jean crotches. I understood in that moment there was this other world, but I had no clue about my father. Lesbians weren’t evident to me in the same way.” She laughs. “I don’t know where the lesbians would have been in 1976, probably off in a commune.” Bechdel thinks Bruce was living vicariously through her, “wanting me to do things he never did himself. My mother didn’t push me, she didn’t care if I read a book or not. My dad cared very much. He wanted me to read books he loved. It became very difficult. He wanted to design my whole college course, be in charge of what I was learning; it was very hard to stand up to him.” This, she says, “was mostly oppressive, but there were always these moments—and you never knew when they were going to come—of tremendous warmth, vulnerability, and love.” She recalls him driving her to Oberlin College, moving her stuff into the dorm, and he, the interior designer, wanting to set the room up—to move the desk and the bed as he wanted it. But she didn’t want that. “I laid down the law, and he was so hurt and angry he left without saying goodbye to me.” He wanted her to focus more on art history than she did; he imagined her getting a job in a museum and going to Europe. “He had this fantasy life laid out for me. That’s what he wanted to do, and if he couldn't do it I would.” Her sexuality didn’t blossom until college, and Joan. “I had a few glimmerings at the outset of puberty that something was amiss, but I pushed them to the furthest recess of my mind.” Joan saw the play at the Public, her partner amazed at having a song in her name (Kron adapted a verse of lyrics especially for Holly Rae Taylor, Bechdel’s partner of seven and a half years, so she wouldn’t feel left out.) The show includes a wrenching duet between father and daughter during a late-night car ride when Alison brings Joan home to rural Pennsylvania during spring break. It will be the last time Alison sees her father alive. At this point she had come out to her parents via letter; her mother is being polite and distant, her father is rattled. The subject of Bruce’s own sexuality is finally raised during the car ride. “At this point my father knew I was a lesbian. I knew he had had affairs with men because my mother had told me after I had come out to my parents, and my father knew she had told me this. But we hadn’t yet spoken openly and honestly about it. During this car journey I was determined to make it happen, to make one of the most scary leaps I had ever made.” Father and daughter had been to see Coal Miner’s Daughter at the movies, “which interestingly has this wrenching goodbye scene,” Bechdel notes. “She says goodbye to her dad at the train station. He says, ‘I ain’t never going to see you again.’ She says, ‘Oh yes you will.’ But of course he dies before he can see her again.” Just as it would be for Bechdel and her father: “one of the strange synchronicities,” as she puts it. “I was psyching myself up,” she recalls of the car ride. “We were at a stoplight. I asked him if he knew what he was doing when he gave me a copy of Colette (a literary lesbian entrée) and it elicited this amazing conversation with him about the men he had sex with. It was like he was confessing. He said that when he was little he wanted to wear girls’ clothes. He told me about this man who he had sex with, a farmhand. He grew up on a farm. My mother had described that incident to me as a molestation, my father described it as pleasurable. “My father thought this farmhand was very attractive—he mentioned his dark, curly hair—and then he talked about a boy in college he had a relationship with. He was filled with shame. It was very hard for him to tell me these things.” (A handyman character in the musical is a composite of all the young men who would pass through the “fun home,” says Bechdel, “always very convivial, always likable, smart, funny.”) Bechdel says she tried to “meet” her father during the car ride with her own experience: She told him she liked to dress in boys’ clothes when younger (and in the play we see him trying to make her wear dresses, and who knows how deep and folded his frustration was when he did so), and that she had always liked girls, “but he couldn't really meet that. Mostly he was stuck in this painful shame. And then the car ride ended.” And then Bruce Bechdel walked in front of the truck. It’s so sad, so frustrating, this missed connection, and the pain, shame and closetry beneath it. Bechdel has seen the play so many times, but still hasn’t got a grasp of it, she says, because she is continually stunned by the unfolding of it. When we met in 2012, Bechdel said she was writing another graphic memoir about her brothers Christian and John, but now may write just one about her relationship with Christian, the middle brother. “I feel like we’re kind of twins, also the flipside of one another, but different from how I was with my dad. We’re very similar and very different. He is autistic, never formally diagnosed. He cannot work. He stays at home working on his collections of diecast cars. He's writing his own memoir about his obsessive collecting, but his brain doesn’t really work right. Sometimes I feel my brain doesn't work right either, but I’m able to function in a way that he's not.” (In 2012, Bechdel told me she and her mother both had obsessive-compulsive disorder as children. “I think we all have Asperger’s,” she said of the entire family.) John was “deeply touched” watching Fun Home on stage, Bechdel says today. “He was nervous it was going to be a cheapening of our experiences, exploitative, and offensive, and was relieved to see it was none of those things. It genuinely moved Christian as well. There was this catharsis for them.” ---------- Catharsis for Bechdel has always been cartooning. Growing up, Edward Gorey, Mad magazine, and Hergé’s Tintin were formative influences. Gorey’s line drawing and off-kilter, askew, creepy sensibility, appealed to her (“I guess because I grew up in a funeral home”), as did Charles Addams’s work. Tintin was more immersive, thrilling and detailed (“all that rigging!”) than anything American comics held for her. She drew from a young age, and while the play shows her father sneering about it, he wasn’t in real life. As she grew older, to be a cartoonist seemed unrealistic, so she thought she might become a book designer. She majored in art to please her father, but then Dykes To Watch Out For took off—its tale of a group of lesbians and their interlocking friendships, career crises, and messy love lives garnering many addicted fans. The characters were all aspects of her, she says: Ginger had her intimacy issues, Clarice was her workaholic self, and she still thinks she’s Sydney, “the evil, jaded, post-gay, women’s studies professor.” Reader feedback shaped the characters, and then the LGBT newspapers that carried the strip started to fold around the same time as Bechdel’s urge to do the strip tailed off. While 25 years of therapy for Bechdel has helped deduce her father’s suicide was not her direct fault, it has also helped her become a public figure. “My life has gotten so big. Writing these books, and living in this bigger sphere than I was as a young cartoonist when I was in this safe little bubble of the gay and lesbian world—it’s been kind of an intense journey,” she says. “Therapy has given me a bigger ego. I don’t think I’m an egomaniac. I think I have more ego strength now than I did as a young person. It enables me to do stuff like come here and talk to you. I couldn’t have done stuff like this, I would have been babbling.” Bechdel’s next graphic memoir, The Secret To Superhuman Strength, will be about exercise and physical health, “a sort of cultural history through the lens of personal experience. I’ve always followed trends: jogging, martial arts, yoga, I did spinning for a while.” (Not Soul Cycle? “No, but I’m very curious about it. It sounds like a cult.”) She goes to the gym, and skis and bikes. Our culture is obsessed by exercise and so is she, “partly, it’s my anti-anxiety drug. I need to stop talking about it and start writing it.” Another foundation for the book is Bechdel’s keen sense of mortality. “I have worked pretty assiduously for staying somewhat fit throughout my life, and it is to no avail,” she says, laughing. “I am falling apart. We all are. There’s nothing we can do. I have been kind of obsessed with my own mortality, but not in a productive way, and want to make it more productive. I’m most frightened about losing my independence. Death somehow seems separate. I could die, but I don’t want to be taken care of.” As long as her mother was alive, Bechdel felt some kind of connection to her father, “but now that she is dead I feel very much that I have moved into this other stage of life. I guess that’s behind this next book too, like ‘I’m next.’” Being solitary is her natural state, Bechdel says. “How did my therapist put this?” she says, smiling. “She said Holly helped me ‘cathect’ real life, to live in reality instead of in my head and work. Cathect is a crazy psychological term that is the opposite of catharsis, which is the release of energy. Cathexis is taking it in. Relationships are not my strong suit, but somehow it’s very important for me to be in one.” She laughs. “They’ve been my weak suit because of the family I came from. I grew up in a family where there was no evident warmth or love expressed between my parents. I know that they had a very powerful bond, but mostly saw them fighting and never touching. I had to learn how to do that on my own, and it took a long time.” Bechdel married an ex-girlfriend in San Francisco in 2004 as a then-act of civil disobedience, then got the union annulled. Will she and Taylor marry? “You know, I might. Maybe I’m getting to a place in my intimacy issues where I could do that. I always had this political rationale as to why I wouldn’t do it, but that’s starting to seem thinner and thinner. It was ‘I don’t believe in marriage, I don’t believe in ownership, I don’t believe in giving the state any kind of say in my intimate life.’ But… I never noticed wedding rings for example, but I’m starting to notice people’s wedding rings, like ‘Ohhh, that’s sort of interesting.” She goes to the gym, and skis and bikes in Vermont, where she and Taylor live. As she leaves The Daily Beast office, another moment of strange synchronicity: Bechdel notices our brown, frayed-page, illustrated second edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary, the same edition her father had and which she herself used when writing about the word “queer” in Fun Home. She talks again about how “traumatic and stunning” it was to win the MacArthur grant. She hasn’t splashed out on a Bentley, then? “No,” Alison Bechdel says. “I might get a new scanner.” Fun Home is at the Circle in the Square Theater, 235 West 50th Street, New York. Booking through September 13.
Just as traders in investment banks need to know how to code, those developing trading algorithms need to understand the securities industry and must pass a new exam to show their competence. And, if something goes wrong with their strategies, they'll be held responsible. Everyone responsible for developing or designing algo trading strategies will now have to sit The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) Series 57 Securities Trader exam by January 30, 2017. Previously, only traders were required to pass this. However, the logic is more that algo trading developers should have no excuse for ignorance of securities law. “The regulators talk in terms of education, ‘We want algorithm designers to understand what it takes to be successful in trading algo design and be compliant with regulations,’ but really they want to have people to go after if something goes wrong and an algorithm violates securities rules,” said R. Scott Garley, co-administrative director, head of securities litigation and co-head of hedge fund and private equity group at the Gibbons law firm. “There will be heightened scrutiny of developers’ algorithms and their work overall, and they’ll be subject to a fine if something goes wrong.” This rule applies equally to algo coders at sell-side and buy-side firms. As long as the employee is primarily responsible for the design (trading instruction or strategy), development (coding) or significant modification of an algorithmic trading strategy, then they will have to officially register with the regulator. The cost is just $120, but you'll need to sit a 3 hours 45 minute exam and score at least 70% to pass. The good news, however, is that it's down to employers to ensure that everyone is compliant. You can begin studying for the exam if you're interested in getting into this space, but ultimately you'll need the sponsorship of a broker-dealer before you're eligible to sit it. However, while it's long been common practice for traders to fall under the regulatory jurisdiction of Finra, those on the algo trading side of the business may be more reluctant to do so. This has the potential to lead to some talent shortages. “In general it’s harder to recruit, hire, train and retain algorithmic developers, because they tend to be kind of a free-spirited renegade gang, and they might balk at having to be subject to the jurisdiction of the regulators. Even if you’re inclined to do it, it’s a burden and a hurdle, and developers are typically a more difficult crowd to get in line than others at a financial services firm,” said Garley. The Series 57 Securities Trader exam requires approximately 75-100 hours of prep. Given that the S57 is a rep-level exam and not a supervisory exam, candidates who have no experience in the securities business or any knowledge of Finra can still prepare to pass it, said Brian Marks is a managing director at Knopman Marks Financial Training, a qualification exam training firm. “The exam requires understanding of many trading regulations that form the foundation of electronic trading and securities exchanges, as well as more general rules and regulations and basic securities products – equities, convertible bonds and mutual funds are a few examples,” he said. Photo credit: Chris Schmidt/GettyImages
Patrick Smith/Getty Images Von Miller is going to earn a staggering amount of money soon. He will probably earn it from the Broncos. If John Elway continues his one-man attempt at an NFL wage freeze (give or take a Brandon Marshall contract), Miller will earn over $14 million under the franchise tag and then an even more staggering amount of money down the line. We all know Miller is pretty great. But is he J.J. Watt great? In the wake of the Fletcher Cox contract extension by the Eagles, is Miller "$60 million guaranteed" great? Come to think of it, is any non-quarterback "$60 million guaranteed" great? To answer this question, I dug deep into the Football Outsiders internal database, Broncos game film and other sources to get a snapshot of Miller that goes beyond the sack totals and highlights. Miller isn't just an edge-rusher who pressures a lot of quarterbacks. He's a unique, versatile chess piece who gives Wade Phillips the freedom to be as creative as he dares. Now that we know exactly what "elite defender" money looks like, it's clear Miller deserves every penny of it, and Elway would be foolish not to give it to him. Impact Pressures Miller recorded just 11 sacks (tied for eighth in the league) and 30 solo tackles last year. His tackle total was low, even by the standards of edge-rushers who are not expected to stuff their shoulder pads into the A-gap 50 times per game. If you want to be argumentative, you could state the Broncos would be crazy to pay a $1 million-per-sack premium for Miller when they could just develop cheaper prospects like Shane Ray and Shaquil Barrett. Of course, you can make the same argument about most pass-rushers looking for a payday. We lack truly telling stats for them. There are hurries, but hurries are almost sacks, and an almost sack is like an almost royal flush. Quarterback hits, now tabulated by the NFL, are no better than hurries: If you knocked the quarterback down but didn't produce a sack, you didn't do much more than risk a 15-yard penalty. The Football Outsiders database lists which defenders, if any, provided pressure on passing plays that did not result in sacks. This information lets us determine the result of that defender's pass pressure. Maybe he forced an interception, scramble, incomplete pass or a dump-off for two yards on 3rd-and-15. Whatever the result, it gives us more to go on than just the dozen or so sacks a pass-rusher scatters across the NFL season. The following table shows the "impact pressures"—pressures that resulted in an important defensive play—for Miller and a sampling of other top edge-rushers and defenders in search of new contracts. A "bad completion" is a completion of five yards or less or one that does not produce a conversion on third down. Impact Pressures by Select Defenders, 2015 Defender Pressures Incompletions Bad Completions Scrambles INT Total J.J. Watt 52 24 6 5 0 35 Von Miller 49 24 5 3 2 34 Fletcher Cox 39 20 5 5 2 32 Aaron Donald 36 20 5 5 0 30 Muhammad Wilkerson 36 14 4 5 1 24 Kawann Short 28 12 5 5 1 23 Ziggy Ansah 32 15 2 3 2 22 Khalil Mack 35 12 3 4 2 21 Ndamukong Suh 22 12 2 2 0 16 Football Outsiders Internal Database Keep in mind that no sacks, by the players themselves or their teammates, are counted among the data in this table. So Watt had 35 impact pressures plus 17.5 sacks (let's round to 18) for 53 pressure-related plays last year. Miller had 45. These top defenders are having a severe effect on three or four pass plays per game, and that's not counting what they did on running plays or in coverage, which we will get to in a moment. Watt and Miller are at the top of the NFL heap, even though both of them had off years by their standards. Cox's numbers illustrate why the Eagles loaded up yet another money truck, and Aaron Donald's show why he earned Defensive Player of the Year consideration. There's a clear impact tier between the Watt-Miller category of pass-rushers and players like Muhammad Wilkerson and Ziggy Ansah. Miller is not just another 11-sack defender. He's a much more consistent disrupter in the passing game. And even these "impact pressures" tell only a portion of the story. Expanded Role The Broncos registered a league-high 52 sacks in the regular season and 14 sacks in the playoffs and Super Bowl. Miller directly contributed to 17 of those sacks: 11 in the regular season and six (2.5 each in the AFC Championship Game and Super Bowl, rounding up each time) in the postseason. What was Miller doing during those other 49 sacks? Heroically occupying double-teams so DeMarcus Ware could hog the glory? Flushing quarterbacks into Malik Jackson's and Derek Wolfe's waiting arms? Sipping Gatorade on the sideline? I watched the film of all 49 of the Broncos' non-Miller sacks to determine what impact, if any, Miller had on the sack totals of his teammates. Here's a breakdown of the results: Von Miller's Role in Teammates' Sacks, 2015 Role Total Sacks Not on Field 13 In Coverage 9 Directly Involved 9 Double-Teamed or Chipped 9 Containment 4 Other 5 NFL Game Pass "Directly involved" means Miller chased the quarterback toward the teammate who recorded the sack, had his arms around Ben Roethlisberger's ankles as a teammate arrived (but was not credited with half a sack) and so on. "Contain" means Miller was spying on a mobile quarterback or mush-rushing. Most of the plays in "other" were just situations where Miller lined up on the edge and got blocked. David Zalubowski/Associated Press/Associated Press Here's a scary thought: The Broncos generated more sacks with Miller on the sideline or in coverage than the Falcons and Bills generated all year! The fact that backups like Ray and David Bruton combined for 13 sacks during Miller's brief breathers shows how deep the Broncos defense was last year and how brilliant Phillips is every year. It could also be loaded cheese fries for any Miller skeptics out there. But a deeper look at the data paints a more complicated picture. First, there are those 18 sacks during which Miller either battled a double-team or was directly involved in the play. It's hard to estimate how many of those sacks would turn into completed passes if you replaced Miller with a less accomplished pass-rusher. But there would surely be some drop-off. Then there's the pass coverage. Miller only dropped into coverage 86 times in the regular season and postseason, according to Pro Football Focus. The Broncos asked one of the NFL's best pass-rushers not to rush the passer and got a sack out of the bargain 10.5 percent of the time as a result. Also, Miller intercepted Tom Brady in the AFC Championship Game, which is not a detail to overlook. Miller is better in coverage than your stereotypical edge-rusher. He doesn't just fade into the flat zone; he draws man-to-man assignments against running backs and tight ends at times. But it's not Miller's coverage prowess that causes all of those sacks—it's that his versatility allows Phillips to be unpredictable, which puts the opposing offense in a pass-protection bind. Most-Used Base Defenses, 2015 Team Base Defense Percentage Broncos 57% Colts 55% Raiders 50% Titans 50% Falcons 46% Football Outsiders Internal Database The Broncos used their base defense more than any team in the NFL last year, according to Football Outsiders (see table). Phillips was able to use a base 3-4 alignment in situations where other teams would switch to nickel or dime packages, even though teams often trailed the Broncos late in games and needed to throw the ball to play catch-up. Phillips got away with using base personnel in passing situations for many reasons, but Miller's versatility was one of them. Miller could threaten the right edge, drop into a coverage assignment while Phillips sent troops across the left flank and completely discombobulate the pass protection without leaving the Broncos vulnerable. That made Miller the defensive equivalent of Rob Gronkowski, a player whose very presence on the field forces the opponent to make adjustments without tipping his team's strategic hand in any way. The Patriots can do anything from spread the formation to run right behind Gronk when he's on the field. The Broncos can do anything from blitz the house to call a four-deep, three-under zone with Miller in coverage (sometimes on Gronk). As a final thought, here's a diagram of a blitz Phillips used variations of several times during the season; this example comes from the Vikings game. Miller (58) and Ware (94) start in their normal positions before motioning into the A-gaps before the snap. Other defenders replace them at the line and threaten the perimeter. At the snap, Miller and Ware attack up the gut while chaos ensues elsewhere. Miller eats a double-team, but the rest of the Vikings' heavy-protection team (note the fullback and tight end in the backfield with Teddy Bridgewater) is so rattled that a guard crumples to the ground in confusion at Ware's feet. A five-man rush devastates seven-man protection. Tanier Art Studios Phillips can run plays like this with lesser personnel, and they can still be effective. But with Miller dictating how the opponent tries to respond and protect its quarterback, they are devastating, as all of last year proved. Defending the Run Defense We haven't spoken much about Miller's run defense, because there is not that much to talk about. Miller does all that he's asked to do as a run defender. He just isn't asked to do all that much. The final table compares Miller's run-defense statistics to those of other edge-rushers. It's a different group than the one in the first table, because comparing Miller to a defensive tackle like Cox (for whom run stuffing is a big part of the premium package) is an apples-to-oranges situation. For simplicity's sake, a "stop" is a good play and a "defeat" a great one; you can find more information here. Run-Defense Statistics of Top Edge-Rushers, 2015 Player Run Tackles Stops Defeats Yards Per Rush Khalil Mack 58 31 10 2.5 J.J. Watt 56 51 21 0.7 Olivier Vernon 43 34 13 1.4 Carlos Dunlap 35 26 7 2.5 Cameron Jordan 29 21 7 1.8 Ziggy Ansah 25 16 4 6.2 Von Miller 21 16 4 1.6 Justin Houston 19 16 4 1.4 Football Outsiders Internal Database There's a mix of defensive ends and outside linebackers in the table, players with diverse roles despite the fact that they line up in roughly the same place on the field and are famous for hitting quarterbacks. Miller does not stand out at all as a run defender in this company. In fact, he appears to be a notch below not just Watt, but players like Olivier Vernon and Khalil Mack, great defenders who (in Vernon's case) are below Miller's preferred tax bracket. I don't want to hand-wave this data away, but there's a simple reason why Miller's run-defense totals are a little skewed. There was no one to tackle. The Broncos allowed just 3.3 yards per carry, the lowest figure in the NFL. You can't tackle a running back when Wolfe, Jackson or a gap-shooting linebacker got to him first, or when the offense has abandoned the run in the fourth quarter. Vonsanity We crunched an awful lot of data there to reach a pretty obvious conclusion. There's J.J. Watt, who is a generational superstar. Then there is Von Miller, perhaps with a handful of other top up-front defenders like Cox, Mack and Donald. Then there is everyone else, including lots of Pro Bowlers and sack leaders. But hey, we also discovered just why teams are willing to dole out $60 million guarantees to the best of the best. Defenders like Miller don't just record sacks and provide playoff heroics. They force bad throws, force opponents to adjust and allow their coaches to dictate to the offense without being predictable. There's a top tax bracket for NFL pass-rushers now, and Miller absolutely belongs at or near the ceiling of it. Elway knows it—though he clearly doesn't like it—which is why Miller will get a Watt-Suh-Cox contract before the negotiations get too nasty and the calendar gets too close to training camp. Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.
Trying to get good at chess is a scary prospect. The best at chess are expected have a special kind of lunacy, from Bobby Fisher’s infamous “Wilderness Years” to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov‘s alien abduction (the same aliens that gave us the game of chess). As Vikto Korchnoi (A really good GM) said, “No Chess Grandmaster is normal, they only differ in the extend of their madness”. Thankfully I’m not that good at chess. But to get better at chess I play “Chess Tactics”. They are puzzles — chess positions that you are dropped in the middle of with little backstory. You are told to find the best move. Now there is a clear “best” move in these scenarios, usually involving a pin, x-ray attack, fork, or other tactical motif. Either way I play this on the computer and on my phone. On the computer I get access to a bunch of stats about my success. Here are some of those stats This is my personal ELO Rating compared to the number of puzzles I’ve completed. An ELO Rating is the rating of a player compared to everyone else. To give some scale a traditional “over the board” player (i.e. your grandpa) is usually around 1000 and the world’s best Magnus Carlsen is a 2650 or so. This is the problems I’ve gotten correct relative to the problems I’ve gotten incorrect for varying difficulties. Problems also have ratings, so a problem with rating of 1300 means a 1301 player would on average get it right and a 1299 player would on average miss it. The other stats I figured out is the number of problems per session (27.5) and percent correct (63%). Are there any other metrics you’d like to see or think would be interesting? Let me know in the comments. Notes: 833 trials were used. I have another 1200 or so on my mobile tactics trainer but can’t get them into a good form I used ChessTempo for the tactics and data. They offer some similar graphs through their Pro Account which is nice too — these are just some to supplement those Advertisements
Three teens involved in a sexting investigation at Three Rivers Middle School are now facing the sex offender registry, probation, or deferred sentencing. The St Joseph County Prosecutor's Office has the case now and is deciding if one boy who allegedly took nude pictures -- and two girls who shared them -- should face criminal charges. "Don't tell them what state you live in. Don't tell them your name. Don't tell them your birth date. Absolutely no personal information." That's the advice Jen Turner gives her three kids about the danger of social media. "You have 12-year-olds wanting to be 20-year-olds now, and people that are preying on small children and I'm going to do my best to not have that happen," said Turner. Police say a boy under the age of 15 took nude pictures of himself on a girl's phone. That girl then sent the photos to others - who eventually turned them into school officials. "In this day and age with the social media it's brutal," said Detective Sgt. Mike Mohney with Three Rivers Police. "In that it leads to -- the sexting leads to -- bullying kids. They're made fun of, which leads to real severe things like people committing suicide or violent crimes against others because they're so embarrassed about it." Mohney says the department investigates about 10 sexting cases each year. "We don't even know about the ones that aren't reported that parents may find...of pictures on their kids' phones at home or something else," said Mohney. This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened at Three Rivers Middle School. Almost one year ago an incident happened involving 12 students. The St. Joseph County, Michigan Prosecutor's Office would not say if charges resulted from that investigation because it involves a juvenile, but Sgt. Mohney says it's happening everywhere and parents need to take a proactive approach. "I don't think the parents realize it, that I got a good kid I don't have to worry about them," said Mohney. "It's not always the typical juvenile delinquent kids that are doing this; it's the good kids that just get caught up in this." That's why Turner says monitoring her kids' social media and phones are part of her daily routine. "There's a difference between invading their privacy and being protective, and I'm just being protective because that's my job," she said. The boy was preliminarily charged with Manufacturing Child Sexually Abusive Material. Both girls have been charged with Distribution. The prosecutor's office is still reviewing whether official charges should be filed.

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