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Many people have been speculating about how many stars from NXT will get called up when RAW and Smackdown split. It is obvious that the WWE is going to need a lot of talent for the brand split and the logical option for the WWE draft is to promote from within. The great thing about running such a successful developmental system like WWE is doing with NXT is that plenty of stars are ready to make the jump if needed.
Bryan Alvarez on the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Live (subscription required but recommended), says that from what he is hearing, 6 names are likely getting called up from NXT to the main roster for the 2016 WWE draft. In the professional wrestling world (especially in WWE) things are known to change but that is the rumored plan right now is 6.
6 is a fairly significant number. I think it is easy to automatically assume Finn Balor and Bayley will be 2 of these rumored 6. There has been heavy speculation over the past several months that they would be getting a call up but it never came to fruition. With the Brand Split, the WWE would be fools not to include them as they are more than ready.
Speculation:
Shinsuke Nakamura, Samoa Joe, Asuka and American Alpha are all names that could be moving up. Joe and Asuka are currently champions so it might hold them back a bit, but I expect a couple of these names to be included.
The other options are recently brought in talent from TNA: Bobby Roode, Eric Young and Austin Aries could all be promoted. They have been wrestling for a number of years and are past the need for developmental.
Other names possible: The Revival? Hideo Itami? Nia Jax? Alexa Bliss? It is too difficult to predict.
Let us know who you think will be promoted to the WWE main roster and be included in the 2016 WWE draft from NXT in the comment section below.
[irp posts=”13042″ name=”WWE Money In The Bank 2016 Predictions”]
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ST. LOUIS (AP) - A rock-loving orangutan named Rubih is suspected of going ape on the observation windows of her St. Louis Zoo enclosure, forcing nearly $200,000 in repairs and the exhibit's closure until later this month.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the 7-foot-tall, triple-paned windows that zookeepers believe were damaged by the 12-year-old female orangutan were replaced in mid-November with 3-inch thick acrylic ones.
Zoo officials say the repairs were required after Rubih for months tapped or banged rocks repeatedly against four of the six windows.
The zoo's ape care team had taught Rubih to bring rocks to them and be treated. But the ape kept banging on the windows with rocks when zookeepers weren't around, presumably to get someone's attention for a treat.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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This is getting out of hand.
President Trump’s unwieldy handshakes with other world leaders have long been closely watched, but at the close of his Paris visit Friday, he shared a truly striking hand maneuver with French President Emmanuel Macron.
After attending a Bastille Day parade that included tanks and flyovers, Trump and his French counterpart ambled towards the U.S. motorcade with their wives.
Related slideshow: Shaking hands with President Trump >>>
Trump and Macron began shaking hands as they were walking side by side but slowed to a halt, which is when Trump apparently yanked Macron’s arm, knocking him off balance.
The two then turned to one another and appeared to be in conversation, with their hands still clasped. French first lady Brigitte Macron approached the pair, perhaps to intervene, and Trump greeted her with a pair of kisses, all the while never letting go of Macron.
U.S. President Donald Trump (2ndR) shakes hands with French President Emmanuel Macron (2ndL) and his wife Brigitte Macron (L), next to US First Lady Melania Trump, during the traditional Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris, France, July 14, 2017. (Christophe Archambault/REUTERS/Pool) More
Trump and Macron had previously shared another attention-grabbing handshake, albeit one that was far surpassed in intensity by Friday’s display. Ahead of a NATO summit in May, the two held a photo op, and a reporter in the room described “Each president gripped the other’s hand with considerable intensity, their knuckles turning white and their jaws clenching and faces tightening.”
Related slideshow: Trump visits Macron in Paris >>>
Afterwards, Macron told the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche that the ferocity was intentional.
My handshake with him – it wasn’t innocent,” Macron said. “It’s not the be-all and the end-all of a policy, but it was a moment of truth.”
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Read more from Yahoo News:
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EXCLUSIVE: The Sopranos alum Michael Imperioli has joined the upcoming seventh season of Showtime‘s comedy series Californication for a major recurring role. He will portray Rick Rath, a successful old-school television producer who will play a key role in Hank’s (David Duchovny) latest venture. Production on Californication‘s 12-episode seventh season begins this month for a 2014 premiere. Imperioli, who co-stars in thriller The Call opposite Halle Berry, will next be seen in the Oldboy remake, reuniting with director Spike Lee. In addition to Sopranos, which earned him an Emmy, Imperioli’s major series stints include Law & Order, Life On Mars and Detroit 187, playing a detective on all of them.
Californication stars Duchovny as hedonistic novelist Hank Moody who is co-parenting his college-aged daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin) while still carrying a torch for her mother, his ex-girlfriend and muse Karen (Natascha McElhone). Best friend and agent Charlie (Evan Handler) and Charlie’s ex-wife Marcy (Pamela Adlon) are always there for moral (and immoral) support. The series is created and executive produced by Tom Kapinos and executive produced by Duchovny.
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Ciara has ordered Future to face deposition in the former couple’s ongoing lawsuit against each other. The Jasmine Brand reports that the singer filed documents Monday (May 2), that say her legal team will question her ex-fiancee under oath.
The questioning will be videotaped and is set to take place next week in Georgia. Future will be asked about his fallout with Ciara, child support regarding their son and his Twitter posts, including one where he called her a “bitch” with “control problems.”
Ciara, who is now engaged to Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, first filed the $15 million lawsuit in February, claiming the Atlanta rapper committed slander, libel and defamation against her.
Future Hendrix fired back with a counter-suit, saying that she was using the claims to generate publicity for herself. He demanded for her to pay his legal fees and punitive damages.
(This article was last updated April 13, 2016 and is as follows.)
Future has filed a counter-suit against Ciara, according to theJasmineBRAND.com. He wants her to stop making false claims about him and to pay his legal fees regarding the lawsuit she filed against him. He also wants an additional amount for punitive damages, her claims to be thrown out and her to be awarded nothing from her lawsuit.
The Atlanta rapper says that if he did slander his former fiance, she waited too long to sue him for slander and that the statute regarding defamation claims has expired.
Future also claims that filing her lawsuit against him generated more publicity than his tweets that allegedly defamed her. Given this, Future wants her defamation claims to be dismissed.
Future also says that Ciara is using the lawsuit to generate publicity for herself and that none of his social media posts – including one in which he called her a “bitch” – were false or defamatory. He claims he simply wanted to see his son more often and that his comments are protected by free speech.
In addition to these claims, Future says Ciara is no longer successful and that her most recent album, 2015’s Jackie, was a commercial flop.
(The most recent post in this thread was published February 10, 2016. It is as follows.)
Future scoffs at Ciara‘s $15 million lawsuit against him.
One of Future‘s affiliates told TMZ that the Atlanta rapper “thinks it’s absurd” that his ex-girlfriend is suing him for defamation, slander, and libel. The source says that Future could have said that Ciara has spread equally harmful sentiments about him, especially through her song “I Bet,” which is supposedly about Future cheating on her.
The source continues that the rapper has yet to see the legal documents from Ciara’s suit and is reportedly considering a countersuit against her.
Future released his EVOL album Friday (February 5).
(This article was first published on February 9, 2016 and is as follows.)
Ciara files $15 million lawsuit against Future over defamation, slander, and libel claims.
According to The Jasmine Brand, the issues between Ciara and Future, two artists who were once in a relationship and have a son together, have been upgraded to the legal level.
The site reports that late last month Ciara filed a lawsuit against Future in a Georgia court. The singer is reportedly concerned over “false and defamatory statements” that have been made about her following the birth of their son, Future.
Most recently, Future stated “this bitch got control problems,” in regards to Ciara with a tweet made on January 4 of this year.
In her lawsuit, Ciara states that the Atlanta rapper has spread lies about her to promote his various, music endeavors. Additionally, she claims that Future has never paid child support.
“The singer accuses her ex-fiance of lying about her publicly to increase interest and publicity for his upcoming musical endeavors, namely the release of his upcoming album and tour,” The Jasmine Brand reports. “Ciara blasts Future saying he purposefully published lies about her on his Twitter account, social media and other interviews to destroy her reputation as a good mother, to diminish her brand and to impair her professional career in the entertainment industry.”
Despite Future’s claims about having to go through lawyers to see his son, the lawsuit states that Ciara has gone out of her way to ensure that the two spend time together.
Future has yet to respond publicly to the $15 million lawsuit filed against him.
For additional Future/Ciara coverage, watch the following DX Daily:
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Heather Lyke will be the first female athletic director at the University of Pittsburgh.
The University of Pittsburgh has announced Heather Lyke as its new athletic director. Lyke is the director of athletics at Eastern Michigan University, and has been since 2013. Previously, she was the senior associate athletic director at Ohio State University. She was the first woman to hold the position at Eastern Michigan University, and will also be the first female athletic director in history at Pitt.
The University of Pittsburgh has announced Heather Lyke as its new athletic director.
Lyke is the director of athletics at Eastern Michigan University, and has been since 2013.
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Previously, she was the senior associate athletic director at Ohio State University.
She was the first woman to hold the position at Eastern Michigan University, and will also be the first female athletic director in history at Pitt.
#Pitt officially announces Heather Lyke as athletic director. Introductory press conference to begin shortly here at the Pete #WTAE #H2P pic.twitter.com/MPOkLpQSIG — Andrew Stockey (@astockeyWTAE) March 20, 2017
AlertMe
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It was the photograph that went viral, an image of a young woman smiling serenely in the face of an irate member of the far-right English Defence League at a demonstration in Birmingham’s city centre.
Photo of Saffiyah Khan defying EDL protester in Birmingham goes viral Read more
It later emerged that Saffiyah Khan had intervened to defend another woman who was being shouted at by EDL demonstrators. On Monday, Khan and the woman she defended, Saira Zafar, met properly for the first time and the two proud Brummies hugged.
“I just want to say thanks a lot for your help and for stepping forward and supporting me in that situation,” said Zafar. “It did really mean a lot. And together we defeated the EDL, I would say, at that rally.”
Khan spent Monday dealing with calls from journalists and was sent tickets to see the Specials in May because she was wearing the band’s T-shirt in the photograph.
Zafar, 24, had been attending a counter demonstration “to show that [the EDL’s message] is not acceptable and that it will be countered” when she was cornered by the far-right protesters shouting abuse at her. She said: “They were saying, ‘You’re not English,’ ‘This is a Christian country, not your country,’ and ‘Go back to where you came from.’ I was alarmed and worried for my safety.”
Khan said the police were not responding, so she stepped in: “I wasn’t going to let someone who was speaking the truth and being replied to aggressively be put in that position. You didn’t look like you wanted to be there and I have an intrinsic problem with that.”
Zafar said: “At the time, I did appreciate the support. But I couldn’t see exactly who was around.”
“Absolutely, it was complete chaos,” said Khan. “Can you vouch for me as well that they were 360 [degrees] around you? They were closing in.” Zafar agreed, saying: “Yeah, there were so many of them.”
“There’s no excuse to be doing nothing really,” said Khan later. “Even if it just means calling the police and saying I just witnessed this. Even if there’s no violence … just reporting it to the police means it comes up on their stats and they can look at it all and start working on ways to combat it.”
EDL activists claimed on Twitter that scuffles broke out at the demonstration after counter-protesters shouting “Nazi scum” disrupted a silence being held at the rally for victims of terrorism.
Writing on Facebook, the EDL member in the picture, Ian Crossland, the group’s leader, described Khan as a “dirty unwashed leftwing scrubber”.
He added: “The disrespectful witch chose the minute’s silence for the victims of the terror attack in Stockholm and Westminster. She’s lucky she’s got any teeth left.”
In dark times, this image has a glorious message – resistance is not futile | Suzanne Moore Read more
Khan said there was video evidence that contradicted the EDL’s claim and that anyone who knows her knows she would not have done that.
Tommy Robinson, the EDL’s former leader, tweeted that the picture was embarrassing.
“OK, just had confirmed by a friend who was at EDL demo, this lady was defending a woman in a navy hijab as she said to the papers,” he wrote. “[And] I don’t care how many people don’t like me saying that, the truth is the truth. [And] the picture is embarrassing.”
Zafar said: “I was a little bit confused about what he said because, as far as I’m aware, he was completely supportive of the exact narrative that the EDL preach.”
“The picture definitely is embarrassing for the EDL,” added Khan. “Personally I don’t know how much I agree with him, but that statement is bang on.”
“There’s no need for anything like this,” said Zafar, reflecting on the past two days. “I’m sure we’re more than capable of living together, united despite our differences.
“You just have to walk into Birmingham city centre to see how diverse it is. People of different colours different religions. It’s an absolutely amazing city and such a beautiful city, and it’s nothing like the sort of message that the EDL came here to deliver.”
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Inspired by A Neural Algorthm of Artistic Style, I made a video style adaption from a drone aerial of Yangshuo, Guilin. Looking at my hometown through the lens of artist is a pleasant experience.
(If you are in China 墙内请戳优酷)
Some of the higher layer neural network from the original paper (conv4_1 and conv5_1) had to be taken out to smooth out flickering in sub regions.
The Starry Night segment is flickering, due to the uncertainty during gradient descend. I processed the video frame by frame, thus sometimes the L-BFGS optimizer can take an entire different direction of optimizing the video. Some frames' gradient exploded and had to be retrained by hand afterward.
I hope this can provide an inspiration for the next neural art. Great thanks for the Neural Art Torch7 repo.
Future Directions:
Continuous Gradient Descending exploiting the similarity between video frames
Realtime processing (a dream?)
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A Sergeant for the Sanitation Department died on duty in Staten Island yesterday afternoon, soon after making a comment about the excessive heat, and as temperatures exceeded 90 degrees.
Sergeant Frank Musella, 37, had recently returned from a patrol to Staten Island's District 3 DSNY headquarters on Muldoon Avenue in Greenridge when he mentioned the heat, according to DSNY spokeswoman Belinda Mager. He then walked to his city car.
According to an FDNY spokesman, the fire department received a call at 2:07 p.m., pertaining to cardiac or respiratory arrest. However, Mager emphasized that "we do not have a cause of death, nor do we know if it was heat related." Mager said that it is also as yet unclear whether colleagues discovered Musella near, or inside of, his car. Musella was pronounced dead upon arrival at Staten Island University Hospital.
DSNY mourns passing of Enforcement Sgt. Frank Musella, 9-yr veteran & father of 2, who died on duty on S.I. today. pic.twitter.com/MASACrDkz5 — NYC Sanitation (@NYCSanitation) July 29, 2015
Death of DSNY Enforcement Sgt. Frank Musella yesterday was 1st line of duty death in division's 34 year history. pic.twitter.com/06vfEnNois — NYC Sanitation (@NYCSanitation) July 30, 2015
Musella, who had worked for the DSNY since the fall of 2006 and lived in Bensonhurst, was married and had two sons, ages 8 and 4. His wife Alessandra posted yesterday to Facebook:
Today was the worse day of my life! I lost my love, my friend, my life, my heart! I lost my other half, the one I was supposed to grow old with! My Love My Husband, HOW DO I GO ON WITHOUT YOU?
Today Mayor de Blasio issued an order that all city flags be flown at half-mast until Musella's funeral, which has yet to be arranged. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of one of New York’s Strongest, who died while in service of our city," he said in a statement, issued yesterday evening.
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Regents
The Most Ancient Hall of the Wizengamot was untouched by everything that happened. The great half-circles of stone still loomed over the floor. There were still people on the wooden benches. But there were far fewer. When Harry had last came here, there had been fifty-five sitting on the benches, and Dumbledore on the podium above. There were now but thirty-seven, presided over by Amelia Bones, for the time being. Back in April, 27 of those on the benches were on Malfoy's side, 4 followed Greengrass, and just 24 followed Dumbledore. But 17 of Malfoy's, and one of Greengrasse's followers had died in that graveyard in June. Harry now held the majority, and he intended to use it.
"Quiet." Called Amelia Bones. "Our first order is to be the ennoblement of the House of Granger, for avenging the death of the Most Anciente House of Monroe."
Looking around, it was clear it had passed.
"Very well, I count it 25 to 12, the House of Granger is now the Noble House of Granger. Next, since Hermione Granger has passed her O. , with 6 O. , I call a vote on confirming her as the Lady Granger."
Almost every wand in the room lit up.
"I count that as 32-5. Please take your seat, Lady Granger."
Hermione walked down, and took a seat on the left of the Ancient Hall, among the plum robes.
"Next, a vote on confirming Harry Potter as the Lord Potter, as he has gotten 5 O. ."
Only eight wands remained unlit.
"I count that as 30-8. Please take your seat, Lord Potter. Now, our third order of business is the disposition of the seats left vacant after the events in June. Does anyone happen to have any suggestions for those seats?"
"Yes." Harry announced.
"Ah, our newest member. What is your suggestion, Lord Potter?"
Harry rose from the benches. "Well, since those who died in the graveyard supported Voldemort, it is clear that they are traitors. Since I do not believe we are in the business of giving seats in the Wizengamot to families of traitors, I think they should instead be given to upstanding citizens. If after a period of time, say ten years, the fallen familes have improved, they might get their seats back. If not, well then they won't."
Gasps of shock, surprise, and outrage rose from the right of the room.
"Do you have any suggestions as to who these upstanding citizens might be?" Amelia Bones asked.
"Since the Order of the Phoenix fought against Voldemort in the last war, the members of it would be an excellent addition to the Wizengamot."
A man on what had been Malfoy's side rose, and screamed "You dare."
"Yes." Harry answered.
"Silence."Amelia Bones called. "I believe we should bring this to a vote. If you agree that the currently vacant shall be governed by members of the Order of the Phoenix for the next ten years, please light your wands."
Virtualy all of the Plum Robes raised their wands.
"I count that 24-14. The motion has passed. Now let us break for Lunch."
The members of the Wizengamot filed out of the room. On the way out, Hermione caught up to Harry.
"Well, we're now members of the Wizengamot."
"Yeah. I'm not sure if I can get the elective seats passed. It'll be close."
"Yeah. We need 42, and even if everyone in the Order of the Phoenix passes it, that's only 43."
"I think we can get it, and if not, a couple more seats could go vacant."
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LANSING, MI - Some of Michigan’s 15 public universities fare better than others under the state aid funding formula now in place and proposed to continue in Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The proposal is now being vetted at the subcommittee level in the Michigan Legislature, including a House hearing on Tuesday. Universities, on average, could get a 2 percent state aid increase under Snyder’s proposal
. About 1.5 percent of the proposed increase would be distributed to universities based on a formula similar to one in place for the current budget year. It varies by the number of undergraduate degrees awarded in critical skills areas, research and development spending, comparisons to peer universities, graduation rates and other factors. Another 0.5 percent would be distributed to universities keeping their in-state undergraduate tuition increases below 4 percent for the next academic year. Not counting the tuition restraint piece, the increases would vary from a high of 5.1 percent at Lake Superior State University to a low of 0.2 percent at Wayne State University. The full list as proposed by the Snyder administration: • Central Michigan University, up 2.3 percent. • Eastern Michigan University, up 0.9 percent. • Ferris State University, up 4.7 percent. • Grand Valley State University, up 3.2 percent. • Lake Superior State University, up 5.1 percent. • Michigan State University, up 1.0 percent. • Michigan Technological University, up 2.8 percent. • Northern Michigan University, up 2.1 percent. • Oakland University, up 1.5 percent. • Saginaw Valley State University, up 2.1 percent. • University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, up 1.1 percent. • University of Michigan-Dearborn, up 1.1 percent. • University of Michigan-Flint, up 4.9 percent. • Wayne State University, up 0.2 percent. • Western Michigan University, up 1.6 percent. The percentage increase for each of the universities would bump up beyond that if they keep tuition in check. Typically, each university president has an opportunity to testify before legislative subcommittee hearings during each budget cycle. University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, for example,
. On Tuesday, Ferris State President David Eisler said he was “grateful” for the increases in the current budget and anticipated in the next budget. But he noted it comes after a long period of decline in state aid support for higher education in Michigan. While universities are in line for a second year of state aid increases in the next budget, those increases do not make up for deep cuts in previous years. In Snyder’s first budget, for example, universities absorbed a 15 percent cut in state aid. University funding also had been cut during Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s tenure. Grand Valley State University’s enrollment has grown rapidly, but it now gets less state aid when calculated on a per-student basis than any other Michigan public university, President Tom Haas told lawmakers Tuesday. “Lansing policies and math can be very curious,” Haas said. “Add students, lose funding for students. Reduce enrollment, and get more money per student.” Michigan Technological University President Glenn Mroz noted that retirement system costs at some state universities are considerably higher than at other institutions not in the same system. “The costs are borne by students and their families,” he said.
Email Tim Martin at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @TimMartinMI
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Hillary Clinton at Iowa State University on July 26, 2015. (Photo11: Charlie Neibergall, AP)
A majority of Iowa Democrats predict the email controversy will hurt Hillary Clinton in next fall's presidential election, a Suffolk University Poll finds, but they are sticking with her anyway.
The former secretary of State holds a daunting 34-percentage-point lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Vice President Biden, who is weighing whether to jump into the race, is third at 11%.
The survey of 500 likely Democratic caucus-goers in the Hawkeye State, taken Thursday through Monday, underscores the strength of Clinton's support and the challenge Biden would face in the nation's opening presidential contest. "There is a fierce loyalty to Hillary Clinton," says David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. Her support persists, at least for now, even though 52% of the Iowa Democrats surveyed say the flap over her use of a private email server while leading the State Department would hurt her in the general election.
What's more, Iowa Democrats are somewhat more inclined to identify Sanders as the most honest and trustworthy candidate in the field. They are slightly more likely to say Clinton "best understands the problems facing people like you" and that she "best represents the values of Democrats like yourself."
Overall, 54% support Clinton, 20% Sanders, 11% Biden, 4% former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley and 1% former Virginia senator Jim Webb. That's a wider lead than the 24-point edge she has held in recent Iowa statewide polls averaged by RealClearPolitics. Just 9% volunteer that they are undecided.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during the opening of his Cedar Rapids field headquarters on Aug. 16, 2015, in Marion, Iowa. (Photo11: Charlie Neibergall, AP)
Clinton shows particular strength among female voters, backed by 58% to 15% for Sanders and 13% for Biden. If Biden doesn't run, about four in 10 of his supporters say they would support Clinton instead, three in 10 Sanders and two in 10 O'Malley.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
The Iowa caucuses have been a tough contest for both Clinton and Biden in the past. In 2008, Clinton unexpectedly trailed in third place, behind Barack Obama and former North Carolina senator John Edwards. Biden finished fifth at only 1%, behind former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.
In the new poll, more than one in four say the issue of Clinton's emails bothers them; seven in 10 say it doesn't. An overwhelming three of four say they don't think she broke the law; just 9% say she did. The furor and its fallback are among the factors prompting some Democrats to support other candidates. When those who aren't backing Clinton are asked why, 18% say it was because they like other candidates better. Other reasons given included "untrustworthy/dishonest," "email controversy," "has a lot of baggage" and "she's a Clinton."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1JjPREF
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This article is about the American basketball player. For the English footballer, see Danny Grainger
Danny Granger Jr. (born April 20, 1983) is an American former professional basketball player who played 10 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was drafted by the Indiana Pacers in 2005 after a two-year college stint at New Mexico. In 2009, Granger averaged 26 points per game on 45 percent shooting and was named an All-Star and the league's Most Improved Player. An injury to his left knee limited Granger to just five games during the 2012–13 season, and in February 2014, he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. He went on to play for the Los Angeles Clippers and Miami Heat before having short stints with the Phoenix Suns and Detroit Pistons in 2015.
High school career [ edit ]
Granger attended Grace King High School in Metairie, Louisiana. A four-year letterman at Grace King, he averaged 24.3 points, 12 rebounds and 5.5 blocks per game as a senior.[1] He was a McDonald's All-American nominee before his senior year.[2] He scored a 30 on his ACT and was accepted to Yale University.[3]
College career [ edit ]
Granger made the Missouri Valley Conference All-Freshman team for Bradley in 2001–02, averaging 11.1 points and 7.1 rebounds a game. He was a highly publicized transfer to New Mexico after the first semester of his sophomore season, having averaged 19.2 points and 7.9 rebounds for the Braves.[2] He wasn't eligible to start playing for the Lobos until January 2004.[4][5] He said the reason for the transfer was because of Braves head coach Jim Les's intimidating tactics,[6] including being 'verbally abusive'.[7]
Granger averaged a career-best 19.5 points per game and also led the Lobos in rebounding (9.0 rpg), steals (1.32 spg) and blocks (1.41 bpg) as a junior in 2003–04. He became the first Lobos player to lead the team in all those categories in the same season and was awarded the Bob King Team MVP Award. He also became just the second Lobo in 33 years, and the fifth all-time, to average more than 19 points and nine rebounds for an entire season, joining Luc Longley, Willie Long, Mel Daniels and Ira Harge. A First Team All-Mountain West Conference selection, Granger was twice named the league's Player of the Week for the weeks ending December 22 and January 25.[1]
As a senior in 2004–05, Granger was the only player in the NCAA to average at least 18.8 points and 8.9 rebounds per game, while also averaging at least 2.0 blocks (2.1), 2.0 steals (2.0) and 2.0 assists (2.0). He led the team in scoring, rebounding, steals and blocked shots for the second year in a row. He became the first player in school history to record 60+ assists, blocks and steals in a season. In 52 games, he registered 91 career blocked shots, ranking sixth all-time in New Mexico history. He fell just six points short of 1,000 in his New Mexico career, and for the second year in a row, he was given the Bob King Team MVP Award. He was named the MWC Tournament MVP and earned First Team All-Mountain West honors for the second straight year.[1] He was also runner-up to Utah's Andrew Bogut as MWC Player of the Year.[2]
College career statistics [ edit ]
Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG 2001–02 Bradley 21 17 24.6 .446 .176 .790 7.1 .7 1.3 2.4 11.1 2002–03 14 13 27.1 .518 .300 .684 7.9 1.1 1.4 1.4 19.2 2003–04 New Mexico 22 22 32.0 .491 .333 .760 9.0 2.1 1.3 1.4 19.5 2004–05 30 30 30.0 .524 .433 .755 8.9 2.4 2.1 2.0 18.8 Career 95 82 28.4 .496 .366 .752 8.2 1.6 1.6 1.9 16.7
NBA career [ edit ]
Indiana Pacers (2005–2014) [ edit ]
Early years (2005–07) [ edit ]
Granger was selected 17th overall in the 2005 NBA draft by the Indiana Pacers. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team after averaging 7.5 points and 4.9 rebounds in 78 games. He was a starter in the T-Mobile Rookie Challenge during All-Star Weekend in Houston on February 17, 2006, where he had nine points, three rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot in six minutes, and shot 2-of-4 from 3-point range.[1]
In 2006–07, Granger became one of only four Pacers players to hit 100+ 3-point field goals in a season in the previous 15 years. He led Indiana with 110, after making just 30 3-pointers in his rookie season. He was the only Pacers player to see action in all 82 games; he started 57 games, including the first 14 and 42 of the last 44 games.[1]
Perennial team scoring leader (2007–12) [ edit ]
In 2007–08, Granger was the team's leading scorer with an average of 19.6 points per game. On November 5, 2007, he was named Eastern Conference Player of the Week for games played Tuesday, October 30 through Sunday, November 4. It was his first and only NBA Player of the Week honor.[8] He set a franchise record by making 65 straight free throws (January 21 to February 22), breaking the record set by Reggie Miller in 2005.[1]
On October 31, 2008, Granger signed a five-year contract extension with the Pacers believed to be worth a guaranteed $60 million.[9] The new contract began in 2009–10, with incentives that could have pushed the total closer to $65 million.[10]
Granger in December 2008, shooting a free throw
In 2008–09, Granger became the first player in NBA history to lift his scoring average at least five points per game in three consecutive seasons, and the first Indiana player to average more than 25 points per game in more than 30 years. He ranked fifth in the NBA with 25.8 points and was named the NBA's Most Improved Player.[11] His average was the highest by an Indiana player since Billy Knight's single-season team record of 26.6 points per game in 1976–77. Granger scored 20 or more points in a career-high 16 straight games from December 15 to January 19, tying the longest streak in the Pacers' NBA history. In a three-game span from January 3 to 7, he scored 35 or more points in each game and is the only Pacers player to ever do so. In February 2009, he played in his first and only NBA All-Star Game. He missed a total of 15 games due to injury or illness, including 11 in February and March with a torn tendon in his right foot.[1]
In 2009–10, Granger led the Pacers with 24.1 points per game, eighth best in the NBA and third best in the Eastern Conference. He scored 20 or more points in 45 of 62 appearances and scored 30+ points 16 times. He tallied a career-high 44 points against the Utah Jazz on March 26, 2010. He missed a total of 18 games due to injury or illness, including 16 straight in December and January with a torn plantar fascia in his right foot.[1]
In the summer of 2010, Granger won gold as a member of the US national team at the 2010 FIBA World Championship.
In 2010–11, Granger was the Pacers' leading scorer for the fourth season in a row, with 20.5 points per game, which was 16th best in the NBA and his third consecutive season of 20+ points per game. He scored in double figures in all but four games and tallied 20 or more points 39 times with 30+ points nine times.[1] On January 2, 2011, he grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds in a 98–92 loss to the New York Knicks.[12]
Granger (#33) in December 2011, attempting to block Luol Deng 's shot
In the lockout-shortened 2011–12 season, Granger was the Pacers' leading scorer for the fifth consecutive season—his 18.7 points per game ranked 22nd best in the NBA.[1]
Injury-riddled end to Pacers tenure (2012–14) [ edit ]
Granger missed the first 55 games of the 2012–13 season with tendinosis of the left knee. He played five games between February 23 and March 3 before being placed back on the inactive list and eventually having surgery on the knee on April 4.[1]
Granger missed the first 25 games of the 2013–14 season with a strained left calf.[13][14] Indiana fans gave Granger a standing ovation on December 20 when he made his season debut in the first quarter of the Pacers' 114–81 win over the Houston Rockets, and chanted his name when he finally made his first basket, a 3-pointer, early in the fourth.[14] He appeared in 29 games (2 starts) for the Pacers in 2013–14, averaging 8.3 points, 3.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 22.5 minutes per game.[1]
Post-Pacers tenure (2014–2015) [ edit ]
On February 20, 2014, Granger was traded, along with a 2015 second-round pick, to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen.[15] He was bought out by the 76ers on February 26,[16][17] and two days later, he signed with the Los Angeles Clippers for the rest of the season.[18] On July 14, 2014, Granger signed with the Miami Heat.[19] On February 19, 2015, he was traded to the Phoenix Suns in a three-team trade involving the New Orleans Pelicans.[20] However, due to knee problems, he did not play for the Suns in 2014–15.[21] On July 9, 2015, he was traded to the Detroit Pistons, along with Reggie Bullock and Marcus Morris, in exchange for a 2020 second-round draft pick.[22] He spent the preseason in Arizona rehabbing from knee and foot injuries,[23] and on October 26, 2015, he was waived by the Pistons.[24]
NBA career statistics [ edit ]
Legend GP Games played GS Games started MPG Minutes per game FG% Field goal percentage 3P% 3-point field goal percentage FT% Free throw percentage RPG Rebounds per game APG Assists per game SPG Steals per game BPG Blocks per game PPG Points per game Bold Career high
Regular season [ edit ]
Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG 2005–06 Indiana 78 17 22.6 .462 .323 .777 4.9 1.2 .7 .8 7.5 2006–07 Indiana 82 57 34.0 .459 .382 .803 4.6 1.4 .8 .7 13.9 2007–08 Indiana 80 80 36.0 .446 .404 .852 6.1 2.1 1.2 1.1 19.6 2008–09 Indiana 67 66 36.2 .447 .404 .878 5.1 2.7 1.0 1.4 25.8 2009–10 Indiana 62 62 36.7 .428 .361 .848 5.5 2.8 1.5 .8 24.1 2010–11 Indiana 79 79 35.0 .425 .386 .848 5.4 2.6 1.1 .8 20.5 2011–12 Indiana 62 62 33.3 .416 .381 .873 5.0 1.8 1.0 .6 18.7 2012–13 Indiana 5 0 14.8 .286 .200 .625 1.8 .6 .4 .2 5.4 2013–14 Indiana 29 2 22.5 .359 .330 .962 3.6 1.1 .3 .4 8.3 2013–14 L.A. Clippers 12 0 16.2 .429 .353 .857 2.3 .7 .3 .3 8.0 2014–15 Miami 30 6 20.4 .401 .357 .757 2.7 .6 .4 .2 6.3 Career 586 431 31.5 .434 .380 .848 4.9 1.9 1.0 .8 16.8 All-Star 1 0 11.0 1.000 .000 .000 1.0 .0 2.0 .0 2.0
Playoffs [ edit ]
Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG 2006 Indiana 6 3 27.0 .529 .563 1.000 5.2 1.7 .7 1.2 8.2 2011 Indiana 5 5 36.6 .478 .348 .875 5.6 3.2 1.2 .2 21.6 2012 Indiana 11 11 38.2 .397 .356 .821 5.6 2.5 .5 .4 17.0 2014 L.A. Clippers 13 0 10.3 .275 .227 .778 1.5 .2 .5 .1 2.6 Career 35 19 25.7 .417 .358 .842 4.0 1.6 .6 .4 10.8
Personal life [ edit ]
Granger was raised in a religious household by Jehovah's Witnesses.[25] Granger's younger brother, Scotty, is a musical artist and songwriter. Granger is the great-nephew of the "Queen of Gospel", Mahalia Jackson.[26]
Granger has a wife and three children.[27]
Granger is actively involved in the "Dribble to Stop Diabetes" campaign due to his family's history with diabetes.[28]
On the side, toward the end of his playing career, Granger built up a real estate investment company.[29]
In January 2017, Granger began working as a studio and game analyst for the CBS Sports Network.[27]
In April 2017, Granger was inducted into New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame.[30]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
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The Massachusetts Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would ban discrimination based on gender identity in public accommodations.
Senate Bill 735 — which would expand a 2011 law that prohibits anti-trans discrimination in employment and housing — passed by a 33-4 vote margin.
“Today’s historic passage of the transgender protections bill in the Massachusetts Senate sends a message the transgender community has longed for decades to hear — that we are truly welcome and valued in our commonwealth, and that our contributions are a part of the fabric that allows Massachusetts to thrive and prosper,” said Kasey Suffredini, co-chair of Freedom Massachusetts, which campaigned in support of SB 735.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives is expected to pass the measure.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has not publicly said whether he will sign the bill, but he has indicated his opposition to discrimination based on gender identity.
‘‘If this legislation is passed, woman and children will have no protections against being ogled by, or exposed to, naked men,’’ said Massachusetts Family Institute President Andrew Beckwith, according to the Associated Press.
Eighteen states and D.C. ban anti-trans discrimination employment, housing and public accommodation.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory in March signed House Bill 2, which bans trans people from using restrooms consistent with their gender identity and prohibits local municipalities from enacting LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination measures. The Justice Department on Monday filed a federal lawsuit against the state after it refused to stop enforcing the controversial law.
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Image from TESLAMOTORS.COM
Plug Versus Pump
What people don’t get about the convenience of electric cars
Steven Johnson Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 30, 2013
Yesterday, Tesla announced its plan to radically expand its Supercharger stations around the country, and hinted at new technology that will decrease charging time at these stations by 50%. (If you haven’t been following the discussion of supercharging, the quick summary is that these stations allow you to re-charge the Tesla’s battery in about 45 minutes with free, solar-generated energy.) The announcement is designed to combat the familiar criticism that all EV’s have faced to date: the so-called “range anxiety” that comes from driving a car that can’t refuel itself via the existing infrastructure of gas stations. This drawback has led some observers to question the mainstream viability of all-electric vehicles; Business Insider’s Henry Blodget went so far as to call them “dead in the water” thanks to the inconvenience of relying on charging instead of gas stations. Matt Yglesias makes a similar point with more subtlety:
The real problem is scale and infrastructure. People sometimes express this as a problem of “range,” but that’s not right. A car that can go 200 miles before refueling is a fine car. The problem is that electric cars are hard to refuel. But if lots of people owned electric cars, then parking lots all across America would feature charging outlets and highways would be dotted with superchargers. After all, if you were the only person in North America to own a gasoline powered car you would be the one with the range problem. It’s the gas stations, not the internal combustion engine, that make gasoline-fueled vehicles convenient.
The Supercharger rollout looks like a great response to these critics, but I still think there’s a more fundamental point to be made here, which is the only reason why we think of EVs as being “inconvenient” is because we’re biased by the expectations of the gas-powered twentieth century.
To get outside those expectations, consider this little thought experiment. Imagine a company releases a new smartphone that works exactly like today’s phones with one crucial difference: you can’t charge it at an ordinary outlet in your home or at the office. You can use the phone normally, but when the battery starts to run down, you have to drive to some bleak spot by the side of a highway, swipe your credit card, and sit there in this depressing non-place while it charges. And for the pleasure of this experience, your card gets charged $50.
How do you think the market would respond to such a device? I think it’s fair to say the response would be universally negative, precisely because it’s ridiculously inconvenient to drive off to some random location to charge your phone, when we’re accustomed to plugging in by our bedside table overnight.
You see where this is going: the whole beauty of the EV with more than 200 miles of range is that 95% of the time, you do all your charging at home in your garage. You pull into the driveway, turn the car off, plug it in, and you’re done. Electric cars are “hard to refuel”—as Yglesias puts it—only because we’ve been acclimated to the tedious grind of driving to gas stations and standing around a pump.(Jason Calacanis talks about the joy of never having to visit a gas station again in another post in this collection.) Even without a Supercharger network, EVs are actually much easier to refuel than gas-powered cars, precisely because the “scale and infrastructure” problems were solved by the electrical grid a hundred years ago. Once consumers get used to the charge-at-home ritual, the pilgrimage to the gas station will very quickly feel as inconvenient as rewinding the VHS tape and driving it back to Blockbuster.
The one caveat here is something I’ve written about in an earlier post: the enhanced convience of an EV disappears if you live a dense city and park your car on the street, or in a public garage with no outlets. That’s why I was hoping Tesla’s announcement would include some reference to Supercharger stations in urban places like Manhattan or Boston or San Francisco. (To date, they have mostly invoked the Supercharger network as a way of supporting longer road trips between cities.) But for everyone else, replacing the pump with the plug will very quickly make us realize how much time we’ve been wasting at gas stations all these years.
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So, there we have it. After all the waiting, griping and pining we’re now only days away from the first Ubuntu Phone going on sale in Europe, courtesy of Spain-based Bq.
As we shared towards the end of last year, the Bq Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition handset will go on sale in Europe from next week priced at €169.
But you’ll need to act fast if you plan on buying one: Canonical and Bq plan to hold a series of online ‘Flash Sales’ over the coming weeks during which the handsets will be available in limited quantities.
This approach should help the first batches of Ubuntu Phone “sell out” — though without knowing specific quantities it’ll be worth taking any such claims made in the coming weeks with caution.
Qualify
To ‘quality’ for a purchase potential buyers will also need to complete a small mini-game to ensure they understand the phone’s purpose, differentiation — i.e., what it can and, perhaps more importantly, can’t do.
We’ve written a lot about what makes Ubuntu on a phone such a unique proposition, especially amidst a crowded and well entrenched mature mobile space (hint: they’re called Scopes).
Hardware
We’ve also covered the hardware of the Aquaris E4.5 a lot, so I’m sure most of you are well aware of its ins and outs by now. To recap the specifications:
4.5-inch screen (qHD resolution @ 540×960)
1.3 GHz Quad Core ARM Cortex A7 (MediaTek)
Mali 400 GPU @ 500 MHz (MediaTek)
8GB eMMC Storage (plus MicroSD card slot)
1GB RAM
2150 mAh Battery
Dual micro-SIM
8MP rear camera
I know: it’s hardly a beast of a phone, and far from being the ‘PC in your pocket’ that so many Ubuntu enthusiasts want. The lack of 4G will cause some to sneer, too.
But as firsts go — and one really shouldn’t forget how hard it is to get a device launched in a market so complacent with its victors — it does all it needs to.
Based on a few (rather gleeful) hours of playing with the device (admittedly hardly enough time to write a full review of the unit gifted to me by Canonical) it is a capable conduit for the Ubuntu Phone experience and what it’s trying to achieve — i.e., beyond apps, information at your fingertips, etc.
Carrier Options
In what was described as a ‘gesture’ of approval at Ubuntu’s mobile ambitions a select number of carriers will be offering some nifty SIM-only deals to those buying the device in/from certain countries, including:
Sweden — 3
Spain — amena.com
UK – GiffGaff
Portugal — Portugal Telecom
These are entirely optional: the dual-SIM phone ships entirely unlocked to allow you to use it with whatever network you’re currently on.
More to Come
If you kept up with us over on Twitter during the Ubuntu Phone Insiders Event then you’ll have seen this tweet:
#UbuntuPhone news confirmed to me by Canonical: Meizu to launch an Ubuntu version of the MX4 internationally. More info at MWC2015. — OMG! UBUNTU! (@omgubuntu) February 6, 2015
Yes, while attention may be on Bq right now it’ll be shifting to Canonical’s other hardware partner later this month, the China-based Meizu.
Meizu will be unveiling four phones during Mobile World Congress of which one, a repurposed version of its well-received MX4, will be running Ubuntu. The device will sit alongside YunOS, FlymeOS and another and be sold both in China (where the OS will ships with slightly different features due to locale) and Europe.
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Patricia G. Smith, Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the FAA, presents SpaceShipOne pilot Michael Melvill the department's first commercial astronaut wings
A commercial astronaut is a person trained to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a privately funded spacecraft. This is distinct from an otherwise non-government astronaut, for example Charlie Walker, who flies while representing a non-government corporation but with funding and/or training coming from government sources.
Criteria [ edit ]
The definition of “astronaut” and the criteria for determining who has achieved human spaceflight vary. The FAI defines spaceflight as any flight over 100 kilometers (62 mi) of altitude. In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 80 kilometers (50 mi) are eligible to be awarded astronaut wings. Until 2003, professional space travelers were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, whether by the military or by civilian space agencies. However, with the first sub-orbital flight of the privately funded Scaled Composites Tier One in 2004, the commercial astronaut category was created.
Criteria for commercial astronaut status in other countries has yet to be made public.
FAA Commercial Astronaut rating [ edit ]
With the advent of private commercial space flight ventures in the U.S., the FAA has been faced with the task of developing a certification process for the pilots of commercial spacecraft. The Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 established the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation and required companies to obtain a launch license for vehicles, but at the time manned commercial flight - and the licensing of crewmembers - was not considered. The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act has led to the issuance of draft guidelines by the FAA in February 2005 for the administration of vehicle and crew certifications.[1][2] Currently, the FAA has not issued formal regulatory guidance for the issuance of a Commercial Astronaut Certificate, but as an interim measure, has established the practice of awarding "Commercial Astronaut Wings" to commercial pilots who have demonstrated the requisite proficiency. The content of 14 CFR Part 460 implies that an instrument rating and second-class medical certificate issued within the 12 months prior to the proposed qualifying flight will be included as a minimum standard.
The FAA’s Commercial Astronaut Wings Program is designed to recognize flight crewmembers who further the FAA’s mission to promote the safety of vehicles designed to carry humans. Astronaut Wings are given to flight crew who have demonstrated a safe flight to and return from space on an FAA/AST licensed mission. To be eligible for FAA Astronaut Wings, nominees have to meet the following criteria and submit an application to the FAA:[3]
Must be an FAA licensed launch;
Must meet the requirements for flight crew qualifications and training under Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 460; and
Must demonstrate flight beyond 50 statute miles above the surface of the Earth as flight crew on an FAA licensed or permitted launch reentry vehicle.
Astronaut Wings [ edit ]
The emblem for the first set of FAA Commercial Astronaut Wings issued in 2004 has in its center a green globe on a blue background, with the three-prong astronaut symbol superimposed on top. In yellow block text around the globe are the words "Commercial Space Transportation" in all capital letters. In a gold ring outside the blue are the words "Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration" in black. Beginning with the wings awarded for flights in 2018, the design has been simplified to be the astronaut symbol, surrounded by the words "Commercial Space Transportation", all in gold on a black background.
Years awarded Country Commercial Astronaut Wings 2004 USA 2018 - present USA
List of Commercial Astronauts [ edit ]
See also the FAA's list of companies with active commercial space licenses.[7]
See also [ edit ]
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The South Korean military says North Korea attempted to launch a missile on April 15, the birthday of the country’s "eternal president," Kim Il Sung, but that it failed. (Reuters)
North Korea tried but failed to launch an intermediate-range missile Friday, American and South Korean military officials said, dealing the regime an embarrassing blow on the most important day of the year on the North Korean calendar.
To mark the 104th anniversary of the birthday of the country’s "eternal president," Kim Il Sung, North Korea launched a missile from its east coast at about 5:30 a.m. local time. But it deviated from a "normal" trajectory, an official from South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters in Seoul.
“North Korea appears to have tried a missile launch from the East Sea [Sea of Japan] area early morning today, but it is presumed to have failed,” the official said.
But South Korea's military is still on high alert. "We are preparing against the possibility that the North could carry out heavyweight provocations at any time, including the fifth nuclear test," a military official said, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
[North Korea unveils homemade engine for missile capable of striking U.S.]
A U.S. defense official said that the U.S. Strategic Command systems had also “detected and tracked” the missile. “We assess that the launch failed,” he said.
Initial analysis suggested that the missile was a Musudan, also known as a BM-25, the kind that South Korean authorities had detected being moved Thursday near Wonsan on North Korea’s east coast.
The Musudan is an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of traveling 1,500 to 2,500 miles — putting the U.S. territory of Guam within reach — and of carrying a 1.3-ton nuclear warhead, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
North Korea has displayed the Musudan at its military parades and is believed to have supplied assembly kits for the missile to Iran, but it had never tested this model of missile before.
Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, said the failure would “reinforce the persistent denial” about North Korea’s capabilities.
“But in fact, they will have learned a lot from this launch. Not as much as they would have learned if it had succeeded, but still something,” Lewis said.
The Musudan uses the same sort of engine as the submarine-launched ballistic missile that North Korea tested last year but that also failed.
“Clearly they have a problem, but maybe next time it will work. It took them a couple of launches to get the Taepodong-2 going,” Lewis said, referring to the ballistic-missile technology that has now put two North Korean satellites into orbit.
At the same time, North Korea has been making a series of claims about technological advances, from building solid-fuel rocket engines to miniaturizing nuclear warheads. The regime recently claimed that it could send a nuclear-tipped missile to the U.S. mainland.
[North Korea claims it could wipe out Manhattan with a hydrogen bomb]
Although this has not been proved, U.S. military officials and nonproliferation experts say that North Korea is clearly working toward this goal. The Musudan test could be part of this program.
At a hearing of a Senate Armed Services subcommittee this week, Brian McKeon, a senior Pentagon official, said North Korea’s weapons and missile programs pose a growing threat to the United States and its allies in East Asia.
North Korea is “seeking to develop longer-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons to the United States and continues efforts to bring [a road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile] to operational capacity,” he said.
Although an untested long-range missile was unlikely to be reliable, North Korea’s successful satellite launches showed it was mastering the technologies that would be needed, McKeon said.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency said North Korea’s failed firing of a mid-range ballistic missile Friday was “the latest in a string of saber-rattling that, if unchecked, will lead the country to nowhere.”
Since Kim Jong Un ordered his military to conduct a fourth nuclear test in January — which North Korea claimed was a hydrogen-bomb explosion, although outside experts are highly skeptical — there has been a steady stream of projectiles emanating from North Korea.
1 of 50 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × What life looks like inside North Korea View Photos Scenes from the hermit kingdom. Caption Scenes from the hermit kingdom. April 14, 2016 A girl dances ballet at the Mangyongdae Children’s Palace in the Pyongyang suburbs. The large facility, opened in 1989, has hundreds of rooms for various activities, including mathematics, chemistry, computer science, sports, music and dance practice. Franck Robichon/European Pressphoto Agency Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
In February, Kim oversaw the launch of what North Korea said was a satellite launch vehicle but which was widely viewed as part of an intercontinental ballistic missile program. Since then, there have been numerous short-range missile launches and rockets fired into the Sea of Japan.
[North Korea has new rocket system that could strike Seoul this year, South Korea warns]
North Korea is banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions from launching ballistic missiles or carrying out nuclear tests, but it continues to do so.
The international community has responded to North Korea’s latest provocations with tough sanctions aimed at cutting off the state’s ability to procure parts and finance its weapons-of-mass-destruction program.
This push coincided with two-month-long drills between the U.S. and South Korean militaries, during which they are practicing their response to the collapse of North Korea. The drills, which conclude at the end of this month, include computer-simulated “decapitation strikes” on the North Korean leadership.
Amid this background of heightened tensions, North Korea has been preparing for two key events — the anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth and the first congress of the communist Workers’ Party in 36 years.
The country is in the grip of a “70-day campaign” to prepare for the congress, set for early next month. Analysts expect Kim Jong Un to use the event to bolster his legitimacy.
Kim, who is 33, is not only incredibly young by the standards of Korea, where age is revered, but he also did not have the kind of long preparation and introduction that his father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, enjoyed.
Read more:
North Korea scolds Obama by adopting the voice of Abraham Lincoln
What it’s like to be an American held in North Korea
The weird world of North Korea’s restaurants abroad
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I have my own personal canon for the series I love. There is no epilogue to the Harry Potter series. Ron Moore and I have some differences of opinion on the final fate of the Galactica. Select later season episodes of Buffy and the entirety of Star Trek: Voyager NEVER HAPPENED.
Is this arrogant on my part, to be overwriting the work of authors and directors with my own personal preferences? Is it greedy to want a story that meets your exact specifications? Maybe, but I'm not alone. Since Jar Jar walked on screen in Episode I, we've seen an explosion in fanon (fan canon) and personal (or head-canon) versions of popular films and TV shows.
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It's not that these works are bad; far from it, actually. It's that they're good enough that we want to tweak them to make them the stories they could have been.
There are any number of examples of movies that could use the personal canon treatment, but I'd like to nominate A.I.: Artificial Intelligence as a first film in need of revision. There are actually a lot of good aspects to Steven Spielberg's 2001 posthumous collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, including some stunning special effects sequences and Jude Law as a robotic gigolo: the role he was born to play. But there's one huge problem that keeps me from thinking of it as a truly great movie, a problem that I like to pretend doesn't actually occur.
Warning: The following discussion is obviously going to contain spoilers for a movie starring Haley Joel Osment. The Sixth Sense has taught me that sometimes upsets people.
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I actually went to see A.I. its first weekend in theaters during a terrible thunderstorm out of a new-found love for Stanley Kubrick and a mixed-to-positive review in the local paper. I spent most of the movie upset at it for wandering forever through its maudlin and predictable emotional core while running through its exciting world-building so fast you could hardly wrap your head around the concepts before they were gone.
What saved the movie for me was the ending.
Before you all get upset with me though I need to explain how A.I. ended for me. After the permanently child-like robot David spends the entire film searching for the Blue Fairy he finally finds a statue of the fairy in a sunken Coney Island attraction and prays that "she" will turn him into a real boy. Then...
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KRAKA-THOOM
A bolt of lightning hit the theater and the screen shut off. The theater's manager came in and apologized before promising that the movie will be up and running again in 10 minutes. A few people started to wander out of the theater and I considered doing the same, but I came to the movie with friends and they wanted to stay. I relented since I wasn't really looking forward to going back out into the storm anyway.
After the movie came back, A.I. took a hard left turn into Spielbergian sentimentality as David is awoken 2000 years in the future by advanced robots who clone his mother so she and David can spend a final, heartwarming day together. It was a bizarre shift made all the more bizarre by a thunderstorm that wanted to make sure I never saw it.
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I spent the next few days insisting to my friends that the ghost of Stanley Kubrick hit our theater with a bolt of lightning. I don't want to pretend this was a personal communication. I assume Kubrick's ghost was doing his damnedest to hit EVERY movie theater with a bolt of lightning that weekend. But, supernatural or not, you've got to admit the bolt of lightning had a point.
The ambiguity of leaving David at the bottom of the sea wishing eternally for a life as a real boy doesn't just avoid the weird far-future coda, it's actually a stronger ending that resonates more with the film's themes.
Unlike other robot movies that are about exceeding your limitations, the robots in A.I. are defined by the limits humans have put on them. David will always be a little boy; Gigolo Joe will always be a sex-bot — I mean it's right there in his name! It's a film about how cruel it is to create a being that exists for only one function and never allowing them to grow past it. If you give David what he wants, then you defuse the drama of who he is.
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Instead, the best option is to leave him at the bottom of the ocean in a weirdly poignant program loop, trying forever to exceed the bounds of what he is without ever actually being able to. David, and the audience, are left eternally hoping he can be a real boy while knowing he actually can't.
At least that's what I think. If you've got your own version of A.I., feel free to share it down in the comments even if you just want to tell me the film is perfect as it is.
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Rising rents and home prices forced California’s housing crisis to the front of Gov. Jerry Brown’s and lawmakers’ agenda in 2017. Legislators passed the most comprehensive package of housing bills in recent memory designed to increase spending on low-income development and encourage more construction in general. But the bills, according to independent analyses, won’t do much to make housing cheaper in the state.
Expect more focus on housing issues at the Capitol and on your statewide ballot in 2018. Here are three to watch.
1. A rent control battle
California cities and counties are prohibited from putting rent control on apartments built after Feb. 1, 1995. For some cities that have rent control on older properties, the prohibition goes back even further. (In Los Angeles, rent control is imposed on buildings built before October 1978.)
These restrictions are due to a state law known as Costa-Hawkins. Last year, Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) proposed legislation to repeal Costa-Hawkins, which would allow local governments to implement new rent control policies. But Bloom’s bill never got a hearing.
In 2018, the debate will be different. Tenant advocates and the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is a veteran of numerous expensive local and state ballot measure campaigns, have filed a potential 2018 initiative to repeal Costa-Hawkins. And Bloom’s legislation already has been scheduled for a Jan. 11 hearing in the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee.
Rent control is a major flashpoint in housing debates. Tenant advocates credit it for keeping people in their homes while landlords and economists worry the policy discourages new building. A recent study by Stanford economists found that those living in rent-controlled apartments in San Francisco saw significant benefits, but the city’s policy “likely fueled the gentrification of San Francisco” in part by encouraging landlords to convert apartments to condominiums.
A tenant protest is held in 2016 in Koreatown against alleged intimidation tactics by landlords. Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times
2. The future of Proposition 13
2018 will mark the 40th anniversary of Californians approving Proposition 13, which dramatically reshaped the state’s tax system.
The measure has kept homeowners’ property tax bills lower than they would be otherwise by basing tax rates on when people bought their houses, rather than their current market value. It also changed how governments can raise revenues calling for public votes to raise taxes, in some cases requiring supermajorities for their approval.
In 2018, voters could see a number of proposed changes to Proposition 13 on their ballots.
GOP legislators are pushing a ballot measure to ensure any local tax increase proposed for a specific purpose, such as repairing roads or increasing fire protection, would need support from two-thirds of voters to pass. A California Supreme Court ruling in August suggested such measures might need only a simple majority.
The California Assn. of Realtors is behind an initiative that would allow homeowners aged 55 and older across the state to take a portion of their Proposition 13 tax break with them when purchasing a new home. Right now, elderly residents are only allowed to do so on a more limited basis in certain counties. The association argues that such a change would encourage home sales. But the state’s official financial analysis of the measure warns it may be costly to local governments.
In another potential shift, progressive groups are rallying support for taxing commercial and industrial properties differently than homes through a potential initiative known as the “split roll.” Under the proposal, local governments could receive more tax dollars from commercial and industrial properties by assessing them at their current market value rather than based on their purchase price. Protections on residences wouldn’t change under the measure. Advocates believe the new system could raise $11 billion a year. Business groups have long been opposed to such changes, arguing they would cause major damage to the state’s economic climate.
It’s not just Proposition 13 at issue in state tax policy. The recently passed GOP federal tax overhaul reduces the mortgage interest deduction on new mortgages from $1 million to $750,000. The federal plan also limits the ability to deduct the payment of state and local taxes, including property taxes, from tax returns. California Senate Democrats already are looking for ways to combat these changes, and more proposals could be coming.
Howard Jarvis, chief sponsor of Proposition 13, signals victory as he casts his vote at the Fairfax-Melrose precinct in 1978. Ben Olender / Los Angeles Times
3. How lawmakers will follow up on this year’s housing efforts
Lawmakers promised last year’s housing package would be just the first step in addressing California’s affordability crisis.
It’s unclear before the legislative session begins in early January how many meaningful bills will be introduced in 2018, especially on the funding side. Last year’s efforts included a $75 tax on most real estate transactions and a $4-billion bond measure for the November 2018 ballot — both primarily to fund new low-income development. Those efforts required two-thirds approval in both houses of the Legislature and were difficult to pass.
Gov. Jerry Brown and incoming state Senate leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) in 2015. Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
No lawmaker is talking about similar ideas for 2018, and any new tax measure could be even harder to get through in an election year. Instead, expect smaller efforts, such as one from Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco). Ting, the chairman of the Assembly Committee on Budget, has floated the idea of helping local governments with rising pension payments if they embrace state laws designed to encourage housing production.
Housing advocates should be encouraged that one of their own is expected to have a leadership role. State Sen. Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) is the choice of Senate Democrats to become the chamber’s new leader. Atkins wrote last year’s real estate transfer tax bill and has long made housing issues a legislative priority.
Follow California housing issues throughout the year on Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast, co-hosted by Liam Dillon of The Times and CalMatters reporter Matt Levin.
Support our journalism Please consider subscribing today to support stories like this one. Get full access to our signature journalism for just 99 cents for the first four weeks. Already a subscriber? Your support makes our work possible. Thank you.
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@dillonliam
ALSO
Gov. Brown just signed 15 housing bills. Here's how they're supposed to help the affordability crisis
With housing costs skyrocketing, rent control is on the docket again in Sacramento
A major change to Proposition 13 takes its first step toward the 2018 ballot
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(Author) Jeffrey Westbrook/Studio D; (Clothes) J. Muckle
The author and his $953.57 worth of new clothing. First row, from left: Jackets by Uniqlo, Muji, and Gap. Second row, from left: Alpha khakis by Dockers; jeans by Mavi. Third row, from left: Sweaters by Uniqlo and H&M; shirt by Camicissima; jeans by Uniqlo. Fourth row: Shirts by Camicissima; pullover by Gap.
Published in the December 2011 issue, on sale now.
There's a British man man in my closet. Nick Sullivan, Esquire's fashion director, a longtime neighbor, and the kind of man who occasionally changes into a tuxedo before leaving the office at night, was thumbing his way through my shirts, sweaters, and pants while I stood by quietly, feeling very bad about myself.
It's my own fault. I bought those shirts, like the ugly brown-gingham cowboy shirt with pearl snaps that can't even be hidden under a sweater (the snaps look like nipples) and the orange-and-blue-striped button-down that's only a bow tie and a better voice away from getting me into a barbershop quartet. Also, I invited Nick here. I asked for his help, because I really needed it.
There was a time when I thought I dressed well. I even got compliments. But that was in D.C., where all you really have to do to outdress your coworkers is tuck in your shirt. Still, feeling welldressed felt good. But then I moved to New York. Suddenly, the only part of my wardrobe I felt confident in was the sweaters I borrowed from my gay (and very stylish) roommate when he went out of town. I was in a rut, and seven years later, it's only gotten deeper. At 33 years old, I dress like a high school science teacher. And not even the cool one.
My plan was simple. I would commit to spending $1,000 of my own money under Nick's supervision — an amount that wouldn't clean me out but would be enough to make a noticeable difference in my wardrobe. As his protégé, I'd soak up everything Nick could teach me in the hope of eventually doing it myself. As my coach, Nick would share the knowledge and skills he's accrued over two decades in the fashion business, all while making sweeping decrees, helpful suggestions, and secretly enjoying having someone take notes as he talks.
The first step of rebuilding a wardrobe is to figure out what, exactly, needs to be rebuilt. Hence, the cleaning out of my closet. Of my more than 50 long-sleeved oxfords — Nick said I had even more dress shirts than he did — I got rid of nearly 30. Shirts that didn't fit or had stains or just weren't appealing to people with taste or decent eyesight. As we went through each one, Nick said either "okay" or absolutely nothing, grimacing a bit as he placed it in the "no" pile. When we got to my pants, it was even worse. Ten-year-old wide-leg Gap khakis, some mistake in a plaid flannel — I dropped seven pairs there. "Modern pants have a taper," Nick explained, and then pointed to what he was wearing: a pair of hunter-green khakis that, I couldn't deny, looked a lot better on him than any pants have ever looked on me. Plus, he said, the narrower your pant leg, the dressier the shoe you can wear with it. "You can finally wear some of these nice shoes you've got in here," he said. "When it's a little colder, I'd definitely bring out those boots," he continued, gesturing to a pair I hadn't had the guts to wear in years.
Back at the office, we devised a plan of attack: I needed three to four dress shirts, a blazer, chinos, jeans, and a couple of sweaters to set my closet in order. The biggest chunk of my budget would go toward the blazer, an investment that Nick said "bridges any outfit." Fit and tailoring, he explained, make an outfit look dressy. If a casual blazer is made well, it can look elegant, and if it's properly cut, it can look like it's much more expensive than it really is.
The following Wednesday, right after lunch, we headed out to SoHo, where we could walk between stores and battle the throngs of Japanese tourists in our way. My hopes were high. I figured with Nick leading the way, I'd be coming home with more bags than I could carry. At J. Crew, Nick walked right to the suiting section. He had a focus, a game plan, that I never have in stores, walking directly to what he wants instead of aimlessly flipping through the racks. And he takes advantage of salespeople: Whereas I normally stay away from them, hoping to avoid the guilt that will come when I inevitably don't buy something, Nick goes right to them, explains what he's looking for, and has them bring clothes to him. He asked for a suit coat that he'd seen online called the Ludlow. It's cut perfectly for someone with a slim build (which, at six feet and only 155 pounds, it's safe to say I have). The jacket looked great — and fit perfectly — but they didn't have it in navy. I was discouraged, but not Nick. We'd just look online, he said. One of the best recent developments in shopping, he said, is that you can try on things in the store and then find them much cheaper online.
We had similar luck at Club Monaco, where Nick had me try on a few jackets that I never would have picked up on my own. They just seemed too dressy and too ... what's the word? ... European. There wasn't anything we liked enough to buy, so we continued on to Bloomingdale's, where Nick schooled me in the art of picking out a shirt. The collar's important — the farther the stitching is from the edge of the collar, the better the craftsmanship. The first one I tried on, around $100, was more than we wanted to spend. Same goes for the slim-fit Dockers he wanted me to buy: At $120 each, they were too pricey and came only in neon blue and marigold. We wrapped up the first day and headed back to the office empty-handed. Disappointing, maybe, but it was a relief to see that even a guy like Nick doesn't always find exactly what he wants. But he keeps trying.
This called for reinforcements: Nic Screws, Esquire's market editor. While Nick speaks with a suave British accent, Nic called me "Boo" and told me when things were "major" and "everything" and, worst of all, "not cute." But the woman knows her stuff, and so we headed out again to stores I'd never even heard of. First stop was Camicissima, an Italian company that uses high-quality Egyptian cotton but saves money by having its shirts constructed in China. They come in two cuts, regular and slim, and only one sleeve length, which luckily was just right for me. I tried on the slim first. The fit was great everywhere but my chest, where it was tight enough to pucker the material a little. "Look at you, all beefy," Nic said, which I pretended not to be flattered by. "Try on the regular." The regular was huge, so we went back to the slim and decided I'd focus a little less on weights and more on cardio. For $125, we got four shirts. We stuck mostly to blues — stripes, a check, and a faint plaid pattern — except for a purple microstripe that Nic had to work very hard to convince me to buy. "Trust," was all she said. After three decades of not being able to buy a properly fitted shirt for myself, Nic was able to do it in 30 minutes. I'd been going to the wrong stores, and I'd had no idea what it actually meant for a shirt to fit. The armholes should be high, the chest should be taut (maybe not this taut), and the sides should billow only as much as your actual sides do.
We needed jeans, so we headed to Mavi. Jeans were the only really contentious issue we faced, and not just because I got uncomfortable every time Nic said, "Show me the back." The problem was fit. I didn't mind a taper, but she had me trying on jeans that felt like leggings. Each pair I put on felt wrapped around me like a half-hearted boa constrictor. I bought them anyway — she is a woman, and she knows men's style — and once we left the store and I started to notice the cut of other men's jeans, I realized Nic was right. The more narrow and fitted the jeans, the better most men looked. There is such a thing as too narrow, but as long as I could breathe and bend my knees enough to sit down, I was in the clear.
The all-important blazer remained at large. We headed to Uniqlo, where our goal was to check out Jil Sanders's line, +J, and to get a couple of inexpensive staples, like a gray cashmere sweater and another pair of jeans. We'd already found a casual blazer from Muji — a Japanese store that's relatively new to the States — so we needed something dressier. As Nick had said, the more tailored the cut, the dressier the blazer, and +J was a great way to find a high-end fit at a mass-market price. I struggled with the sizing a little bit — the small too small, the medium too big — but I learned that buying clothes is about making choices. Nothing is ever going to fit perfectly, so I had to prioritize and pick my battles.
I can't emphasize enough the value in having a coach. Or two coaches, really, each with their own way of reassuring me when I was frustrated, correcting me when I was wrong, and steering me toward things I wouldn't normally even have looked at. Like those jeans. Or the plum-colored sweater that I found myself trying on in H&M's fitting room. When Nic pulled it off the shelf, I shuddered. She insisted, and I put it on. "Trust," she said. Trust.
In all, I spent seven hours in stores with Nick and Nic. I bought two new pairs of jeans, three chinos, a few sweaters, three blazers, and four dress shirts for $953.57. While I'm not at the point where I think I can do as well on my own, I won't be as intimidated the next time I go shopping. I'll work with the salespeople gladly. I'll go to another store if I don't find what I like. I'll take my time figuring out the fit. And I won't give up quite so easily.
Mix, Match, Repeat
Five office-ready combinations of the author's recent purchases
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Microsoft is transforming the Azure Backup platform into a reliable solution for managing the virtual machines protection after all Azure Backup is one of the “low-hanging fruits” available for IT admins that want to start trying cloud solutions. Now they are previewing the Azure Backup pre-checks to guarantee a clean and straightforward process when you are protecting your workloads.
Backup solutions for on-prem platforms can get complex, we all know that, with several variables that might affect the health status of backups: Agents not communicating properly, network problems, insufficient resources to execute the backup job, inconsistent files that might generate a failure in the backup process, etc. And not all of the enterprise solution can provide a reliable way to alert of any issues.
Azure Backup pre-checks works to solve all those issues proactively and therefore guaranteeing the IT admins to execute a successful job backup, always. The pre-checks basically reviews the VMs where the backup job will execute and inform any potential issues in the Recovery Services Vault dashboard, including the recommended actions to mitigate those issues. And yes, no additional cost to use these pre-checks.
The Azure Backup pre-checks will verify several parameters to ensure file-consistent and application-consistent, whenever applies, to obtain a successful backup every time. The different states of the pre-check for Azure Backup are:
Passed : This state indicates that your VMs configuration is ready for successful backups, no additional action is needed.
: This state indicates that your VMs configuration is ready for successful backups, no additional action is needed. Warning : This state indicates one or more issues in VM’s configuration that might lead to backup failures and provides recommended steps to ensure successful backups. Not having the latest VM Agent installed, for example, can cause backups to fail intermittently and falls in this class of issues.
: This state indicates one or more issues in VM’s configuration that might lead to backup failures and provides recommended steps to ensure successful backups. Not having the latest VM Agent installed, for example, can cause backups to fail intermittently and falls in this class of issues. Critical: This state indicates one or more critical issues in the VM’s configuration that will lead to backup failures and provides required steps to ensure successful backups. A network issue caused due to an update to the NSG rules of a VM, for example, will fail backups as it prevents the VM from communicating with the Azure Backup service and falls in this class of issues.
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The battle to rule Westeros continues on Sunday night, when HBO’s megahit fantasy series “Game of Thrones” returns for its seventh season. Dying to watch the premiere? Fox News has everything you need to know.
When does “Game of Thrones” premiere?
9 p.m. ET on HBO. If you have access to the HBO GO streaming service through a login from a TV provider, you can watch online or on devices like phones, tablets, and smart TVs.
“Episodes will be available on HBO GO on Sunday evenings at approximately 9:00pm Eastern (6:00pm Pacific),” the network's website says.
I don’t have a HBO TV subscription or access to HBO GO -- how can I watch the show?
HBO Now offers a free 30-day trial to watch the network's content. It costs $14.99 per month after the trial and works for a number of devices, including computers, gaming consoles and phones.
‘GAME OF THRONES’: BOLD PREDICTIONS FOR THE 7TH SEASON PREMIERE
What do we know about this season?
The new season is slated to include just seven episodes. The season premiere is titled “Dragonstone” and is 59 minutes long.
“Jon Snow organizes the defense of the North,” the episode description says online. “Cersei tries to even the odds. Samwell discovers crucial information. Daenerys comes home.”
The second and third episodes for this season will be called “Stormborn” and “The Queen’s Justice.” They will air July 23 and July 30, respectively.
How many seasons are left?
Just one more, “Game of Thrones” fans. There are going to be six episodes in its eighth season, Entertainment Weekly reported in May.
‘GAME OF THRONES’ SEASON 7 PROMOTION PUTS WHITE WALKERS IN LONDON
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0 UPDATE: State Superintendent Hofmeister pleads not guilty to campaign contribution violations
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. - Quick facts:
Oklahoma State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister is charged with felony campaign contribution violations.
She is accused of funneling funds through an independent group to run negative ads against her opponent in 2014.
Hofmeister pleaded not guilty and was released on bond.
A host of other leaders, including a current Trump campaign staffer, are also charged.
Oklahoma State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister has been charged with felony criminal campaign contribution violations.
The charges filed in Oklahoma County include allegations that Hofmeister, in conjunction with others, accepted more than the maximum allowed contributions in 2013 and 2014, as well as money from prohibited corporations.
She is also charged with conspiracy to commit a felony and violation of the Computer Crimes Act.
She pleaded not guilty and was released on bond Friday.
FOX23 broke the news on FOX23 News at 5:
Court documents allege that though Hofmeister operated a positive campaign with her name on it, she was using corporate money to run a second negative campaign to trash her political opponent, former superintendent Janet Baressi.
STORY: Hofmeister has an education town hall meeting scheduled in Tulsa Nov. 15
The investigation started after Chad Alexander, a Hofmeister political advisor, was arrested for cocaine possession. When law enforcement searched his cell phone, they reportedly found that Hofmeister was using a political action committee to funnel funds.
No candidate for state office may accept donations from corporations under Oklahoma law, and no family may give a candidate more than $5,000. According to court documents, the Hofmeister campaign is accused of setting up the independent group to accept more than the permitted donation limit.
© 2019 Cox Media Group.
Others named in the lawsuit include Steven Crawford, the executive director for the Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration, Fount Holland, a political strategist that started his business in 1997 in his Muskogee home, Stephanie Milligan, the battleground states director for the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign and Lela Odom, the executive director for the Oklahoma Education Association.
They are facing conspiracy to commit felony charges and a violation of the Computer Crimes Act.
Hofmeister gave a statement Thursday, saying she believes she acted in compliance with both her personal standards and the law.
My statement is below.
I will fight these charges. pic.twitter.com/vh3zp4kAs5 — Joy Hofmeister (@joy4ok) November 3, 2016
“I will vigorously defend my integrity and reputation against any suggestion of wrongdoing and fight the allegations that have been made against me. Three years ago, I made the decision to enter the world of politics for the first time, because as a mother, state school board member, and small business owner, I saw a need in our state’s public education system for leadership focused on improving opportunities for Oklahoma’s children. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. At the onset of my campaign, I made a commitment to myself and my supporters that as a candidate and public servant, I would reflect certain values, including transparency, trustworthiness and above all, integrity. I am confident that my actions throughout my campaign more than two years ago were consistent with these values and in compliance with the law. Today, I ask of my team at the State Department of Education – including our board, the Oklahoma education community, those who supported my campaign, Oklahomans, and my family and friends to believe in me and to know that the person they’ve seen work so effectively, and with the highest standards, to make education better, is also someone who would never jeopardize their trust. So I will fight these charges, but I will not be distracted. The state of Oklahoma, our parents and children, deserve my continued focus, and they will have it. We have accomplished so much in 20 short months, and there is much more to be done. I look forward to continuing to work on improving the educational opportunities for Oklahoma’s schoolchildren now and for many years to come.”
The Oklahoma Education Association also released a statement:
“In its 127 year history, the Oklahoma Education Association has advocated ethically and honorably for Oklahoma public schools, students, and education professionals. We are disappointed to see that charges have been filed against former OEA Executive Director Lela Odom, but we firmly believe that when this matter is resolved, she will be cleared of any wrongdoing. In the meantime, OEA will continue our work to advance public education for the benefit of all Oklahoma students.”
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What to read on FOX23.com:
© 2019 Cox Media Group.
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In 1982, a new comic was launched in Britain, the impact of which is still being felt today.
Despite only lasting for 26 issues before folding amidst a quagmire of litigation and missed opportunities, Warrior stands alongside 2000AD as one of the finest anthology titles of all time, firmly announcing the arrival of one Alan Moore.
The Northampton writer had already made a name for himself with an increasingly brilliant run of short Future Shocks in the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, but it was his contribution to Warrior that ended up changing the face of modern comics forever.
It was there where he created V For Vendetta with David Lloyd and updated the 1950s British hero Marvelman with Garry Leach, both of which have been talked about and lauded massively in equal measure ever since.
There was a third classic Moore strip in Warrior, though. Making it’s first appearance in issue 12, The Bojeffries Saga was a humour strip, rendered in beautifully timeless cartoon style by Alan’s close collaborator Steve Parkhouse.
Set in a suburban council house in contemporary Britain, Bojeffries was a deft mix of wry social commentary and laugh out loud silliness, starring a family of supernatural weirdos.
Raoul was a werewolf who worked in a factory and ate the occasional dog, while his brother Festus was a Vampire. The infinitely powerful Ginda Bojeffries was perennially single as men found her ability to arm-wrestle the gravitational pull of black holes somewhat intimidating. Oh Grandad is an amorphous mass in the last stages of organic matter.
If this sounds ridiculous that’s because it is. Wilfully surreal and absurd, Moore and Parkhouse crafted a strip that was as wild and fanciful as anything either of them would ever work on, but shot through with rapier-sharp observations on a British working class culture that was already starting to disappear even back then.
Looking back on what has always been one of his favourite works, it’s no surprise Alan Moore has perfect recall of the genesis of The Bojeffries Saga.
“We were working on Warrior. It was the early days and I had a great urge to work with Steve Parkhouse, who I had admired for ages. It was dependent on how much time Steve had got along with writing and drawing his other strip for Warrior, The Spiral Path. Me and Steve decided we’d like to do a humour strip, which seemed to fit in with Warrior as it was a genre missing from the line-up of strips.
So we started to put our ideas together, but in the early days our ideas were a lot more conventional than it actually turned out. For one thing we were thinking of making it an episodic story, like all the other strips in Warrior, with an overarching narrative rather than individual episodes, so to that end when I started to put all the individual ideas together, it was a fairly conventional idea. It was the idea of having, basically, a family of monsters, which wasn’t a particularly new one at the time.”
When influences on the Bojeffries are usually discussed the almost-literal spectres of Munsters and Addams Family are never far away, but according to Moore, while those freaky families had a part to play, the real inspirations came from some less obvious sources.
Alan said: “When thinking of influences, I’d have to include Henry Kuttner’s Hogben family stories. This was a series of really great science fantasy stories with a strange family in America. There was also Ray Bradbury’s The Family, an occasional series that included things like Uncle Ivor Has Nine Wings and things like that, though that not being so comical wasn’t so much of an influence. Of course there were things like The Addams Family, The Munsters and all of those TV monster family shows. but the Henry Kuttner stories were probably at that point the predominant influence.
I was thinking if we took that basic idea but just moved it to England, then surely that would be a big enough difference? It would alter the character and tone of the story enough to distance it from the original. At that point I was still planning on giving a tip of the hat to Henry Kuttner’s original story. I think we ran a preview in Warrior that included a character called Hogben Henry, as we were still thinking of it as an episodic, continuing story. I think he was some sort of American cousin who would have turned up for an apocalyptic showdown in the final end of the arc. Then I actually started writing the story and it turned into something completely different.
It was only a couple of pages in when I realised actually why the story was working and that was because it was set in the English working-class landscape that me and Steve were creating. A family of monsters would just be another family. Most families in their way were completely unique oddities. A family that included a vampire, a werewolf and Christ-knows what wouldn’t be significantly different in that landscape. As the story went on, I realised it was influenced a lot less by things like Kuttner or The Munsters or The Addams Family, but by a lot of the British absurdist playwrights of the ‘50s and ’60s.
I’m thinking things like N.F. Simpson’s One Way Pendulum, a remarkable play that was full of ridiculous and comically absurd elements. There was a psychopathic brother who was training I-Speak-Your-Weight machines to sing in a choir, then he was going to premiere this remarkable creation somewhere in the South Pole, which would be such a novelty that millions of people would go there and they would all have to jump up and down to keep warm which would tilt the world off it’s axis and millions would die, all because the brother wanted to have an excuse to wear black for the rest of his life, which I thought was just wonderful. All those surreal, absurd British comedies seemed to play more and more of an influence as it went on.
The strip started to take it’s own character, so by the time we got to the end of the first two episodes(the Trevor Inchmale story), I realised that it wasn’t a continuing narrative and that each episode would perhaps have very little relation to the things that have gone before. They would all be little observations of some element of ordinary life, but through this peculiar lens of the Bojeffries family.”
Moore is a famously collaborative writer and the Bojeffries Saga was no different, with the strip being created by the writer working in close harmony with artist Steve Parkhouse. It’s impossible to imagine either creator not being involved with the story, as each man is as essential as the other to what makes it so unique. Understandably, Moore is full of praise for his long-time collaborator.
He said: “Probably two of the best artists that I’ve ever worked with and two who are very different but both come from the same roots are Steve Parkhouse and Kevin O’Neill, because both of them are unaffected, or apparently unaffected at least, by American comic books that they have absorbed during their youth and then during their career.
You can see they’ve grown up absorbing Leo Baxendale, Ken Reed and all of these great artists for DC Thompson. They’ve sucked up all of this stuff, Steve possibly even more than Kevin. He seems to have came from the same classic tradition of someone like Dudley Watkins. He had his Lord Snooty style, which was perfect for Desperate Dan or any of that stuff, but you also had his serious dramatic style, which was in stories like Jimmy And His Magic Patch, as well as a third style that he used for his religious illustrations. And so it was with Steve.
He has this wonderfully fluid, cartoony style that he showed off to such great advantage in the Bojeffries, but he also had this impeccable dramatic style that he showed off in The Spiral Path (another Warrior strip) and a load of his other work. He was a really great all-rounder, Steve. Yes, the art in Bojeffries was cartoony, but the detail, it was believable, it was credible, it was a recognisable British landscape. Even if it was exaggerated or cartoonified, it was always rooted in reality.”
For all it’s strangeness, there’s something beautifully relatable to the Bojeffries Saga. Monsters they may be, but there’s a very familiar family dynamic going on in there, while scenarios like dodging the rent man or the dreaded Work Night Out were perfectly pitched little snapshots of everyday life on a working-class council estate. Importantly, there’s no malice or contempt on show from Moore here, as cutting as his wit may be, there’s clearly an affection there for what he has described in the past as his most autobiographical story.
He said: “Well, that is certainly true. To some degree everything you write and even in every character you write, there is going to be a bit of you buried somewhere in there. So in a sense, I suppose all stories are autobiographical to some degree or another, but with the Bojeffries this was taking observations from my deeply-buried memories of a working-class upbringing. It was probably taking memories of a working class world that wasn’t there any more by the time I started writing the story, or at the very least was on the brink of vanishing.
It was a world where I would walk past factories as a child and I would not understand the arcane functions of these factories from the signboards on the gate. There’d be a pile of blue shavings visible through the gate, there’d be a strange smell and it was only later that I would realise that this was some sort of tanning yard. So that was kind of reflected in Raoul’s factory : Slesidge & Harbuck – Staunching, Grinding and Light Filliping.
There were the peculiarities of speech, the little things that your parents or someone that you knew would say. I remember that the expression ‘Duzzy’ that was used in the first episode, that was something peculiar to my first wife’s father, who would use it instead of saying ‘bloody’, or something like that. It was one of those evasive semi-swear words, which I thought sounded peculiar so I stuck it in the Bojeffries. Things like the Batfishing story, that was just trying to convey the sense of these working-class traditions that you were aware of but didn’t understand the reason for it. The normal rituals and traditions that come with an ordinary family life, well they somehow got changed into Batfishing, which seemed emblematic of the ways that British people seemed to pass their time. But yeah, it’s all autobiographical, in that all families look a bit weird and monstrous when you’re growing up in them.”
One of the Bojeffries’ finest moments came in Warrior issues 19 and 20, the masterpiece that is Raoul’s Night Out, where the affable Werewolf enthusiastically throws himself into a work’s party, with typically hilarious results. Populating the story with Raoul’s mostly horrific co-workers and a pair of racist Policemen, Moore gets a laugh out of almost every panel while getting across exactly what he wanted to say.
He said: “I didn’t have to reach back so far in my memory to bring out Raoul’s Night Out. That was thinking back to my late teens and early twenties where I was in the world of work and experienced works nights out for myself, which were always kind of nightmarish, if oddly entertaining in other ways.
I think in that episode I think that I really hit my stride with Bojeffries. That was where I really felt it all crystallised, with that final scene where the Police burst in through the window and there is a ridiculous punk rocker, a teddy boy dwarf, a member of some extremist right-wing fringe group, a werewolf and a black man. Of course they just walk straight over and beat up the black guy. It’s left in the final panels with Raoul still sitting there looking like a Werewolf and Little Nigel the dwarf is sitting there saying ‘Well, y’know, I’m not racial prejudice, but they ent the same as us, are they?’. It was there I thought that was exactly what the Bojeffries should be about, that someone could say that with a werewolf in the room without a trace of irony.
It’s saying something about British culture and it’s saying something about working-class culture, but it feels funny too. It was those sort of things, memories of the August bank holiday fortnight, or the Factory Fortnight as it was called, going to Yarmouth every year and staying in a caravan and walking along the front, all of those things.”
With it’s first episode coming along in 1982 and the last (so far) set in 2009, Moore has kept the Bojeffries family close to his heart for over 30 years and in that time has, by the very nature of the strip, documented the British working class during that period. Looking back at those early issues, there’s an almost quaint portrayal of a world that time has left behind. It’s something that the writer looks on with some measure of pride.
Alan said: “One of the things that is perhaps the element of the Bojeffries that I’ve ended up being proudest of, because without ever meaning to do it, there is a kind of history of British culture, the incidental British culture that is kind of embedded in that narrative. How long has it been since there was a rent man? Or giro cheques? There’s all these things that don’t exist anymore. Even in the most up to date story, Big Brother is still on Channel 4 and David Cameron is still in opposition. It’s these ephemeral things about our culture and the way it’s changed over the years that end up being the most poignant things about the Bojeffries.”
Appearing in Warrior at the same time as Bojeffries was Moore’s V For Vendetta. A grim nightmare vision of a near-future fascist Britain, the writer extrapolated it’s politics and ideas from the world around him a the time, making logical jumps to where he could see society going given the right circumstances. Brought to stark life by David Lloyd’s monochrome art, it’s tone was deadly serious, but only a few pages away, The Bojeffries Saga was making just as pointed and well-observed comments about Britain, but what with being (on the surface at least) a knockabout comedy strip, it flew somewhat under the radar.
Moore said: ”It was always one of the most intense and difficult things to write. Probably the nearest thing in my later career that came close to it in terms of difficulty was Jack B. Quick. Very dissimilar strips, but both humorous, both depending upon dislocating your sense of logic to a suitable degree so that you could actually think in terms of the logic of those characters.
The Bojeffries were kind of like a language that I had to learn to speak with each story. Like Festus: Dawn Of The Dead started off as a title, more or less. I just thought ‘Let’s follow Festus throughout his day and see what happens.’ The first thing that I thought of was that he’d want to be up before sunrise, wouldn’t he? In order to get about his business. I remembered when I used to have to get up early, I’d have the radio by the bed, so I’d always hear Thought For The Day, which is at 6 in the morning, a five-minute long, tiny little religious programme, which would generally be some Church of England vicar who would come up with a loveable character with which to explain the delights of Christianity. That kind of got worked in there.
By the time he got to the shops I’m thinking (and this is another example of how it comments upon things that aren’t really noticeable any more) that I remember at the time there weren’t really distinctive shops any more. There used to be a sweetshop, a greengrocers etc and I was starting to notice that recently everybody now did a bit of everything, so I came up with Rosemary’s Whole Foods, Fishing Tackle and Adult Video, which sounded like a comical exaggeration at the time, but these days you probably wouldn’t blink if you saw it. But I was having to get myself into that frame of mind, where I could make observations like that, where I could think ‘what would Uncle Raoul do?’.
Probably the character I identified most with was probably Ginda Bojeffries. I always had a great liking for her as she’s so very confident, while Raoul has always been adorable. It was just a matter of putting a different head on to work with them.”
With Warrior folding, the Bojeffries lost their home and spent the ‘80s and ‘90s making occasional appearances in titles like Flesh & Bones and A1, the latter containing new stories, but from 1991 onwards, we thought we’d seen the last of our favourite family of monsters. But we were wrong. In 2013, Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout Comics combined to release a beautiful collection of the complete Bojeffries Saga that featured an all-new 24-page story that brought us right up to date. Well up to 2009 when Alan wrote it. A lacerating broadside on the vapid celebrity culture that Britain had taken to so wholeheartedly, ‘The Bojeffries Saga: After They Were Famous’ was a fitting finale for a story 30 years in the making.
He said: “I’d got to be thinking I really, really liked the Bojeffries and I was sort of sorry that I hadn’t had a chance to do it for a few years. I started thinking maybe it would be nice to bring out a collection again as it’s one of the works I’m most proud of. It is probably one of the works that has received the least attention, although amongst the people who have paid it attention it’s often one of their favourite books of mine. It’s amongst my own favourite works too, because it’s coming from somewhere that is very personal and it’s about something that seems to me to be real and relevant.
Working class life is an area that isn’t discussed or bothered about enough for me, but it seems to me to be important. Bojeffries has always had that incredible importance to me, so I thought it would be nice to bring it out again in a collection and I then thought it would be good to give readers something new and substantial, so what about a story about where Bojeffries are today? They’ve obviously not aged, as they’re probably thousands of years old anyway, doesn’t matter, they’re immortal! So what are they doing now in this very different world?
The first thing i thought of is that Ginda Bojeffies would almost certainly be one of Blair’s Babes, a kind of Ann Widdicombe of the Left. Once I had that image in my head, the rest of it started to fill itself in. I came up with the idea of Reth, the eternal 11 year-old, in the Groucho Club, or at least a close surrogate of it, having published his memoirs. All of these ideas were floating around, so I just sat down and pulled out a piece of paper and the very first thing that occurred to me was that it would be good to start all this as a TV retrospective and I came up with that opening sequence, with the upside-down view of the Gallows and that Geordie bloke doing the voice over.
The thing is, all of these things completely dates the story. Will anybody in the future have any idea what that is about? Probably not, I just hope it’s still funny! I barely bothered planning the story out in advance, I just started from that first page and went onto the next, in the way that you let one note follow another in music. There was something very musical about the way that i composed the Bojeffries and of course there was something incredibly musical about Steve’s artwork, it’s got that lovely springy, expressive cartoon style. When I mentioned it to Steve, fortunately he was as up for doing it as I was. It took a while, because he has a lot of commitments, but the end result was absolutely stunning. I did wonder whether we might have paled a bit compared to the original strips, because it’s about 30 years later. You can’t help but worry if the later ones would seem as fresh as the first ones, but I think that it does. Yes, it’s different to all the others, but it stands up. It’s got everything that the others has got and it retains it’s freshness.”
After They Were Famous still felt very like a Bojeffries story, but the years had changed both the family and the writer. There was a certain acerbic quality present, a cynicism that seemed more pronounced than it had been in those early tales. Comparing the two, Moore is very aware of the difference in tone.
Alan said: “A lot of the earliest stories have a cynicism in them, like Raoul’s Night Out and the racism that was endemic both in the country in general and in the police force. There’s always been a cutting edge to the Bojeffries, but generally in the early stories, the humour is probably more affectionate, I think. Even while I am rueing the horrific institution of the works night out, I can still find something kind of dopey and endearing about it, whereas in the later ones, and this probably reflects the 30-odd years the story has taken to unfold, British society has changed a hell of a lot and of course so has the individual who was writing it! I’m 30-odd years older. My attitudes have changed to a certain degree.
I don’t think I get more right-wing as I get older, though saying that I have a copy of a Max Hastings book on my table next to me. It’s one of his war memoirs, which are actually quite good, it doesn’t mean I’ve started reading the Daily Mail. I have perhaps become less tolerant about some of the things that I think are ridiculous or even repulsive about culture. Obviously I wasn’t a big fan of the shallow culture as represented by Big Brother at the time, which we used as a convenient and easy target in that final story.
So yes, it has become more acerbic. A lot of that episode is talking about culture, from the popular arts programme that frames it, to How To Look Good Naked, to Hollyoaks. It probably unfairly focuses on Channel 4, actually! Lord knows, there are probably more deserving victims of that scorn, but they were doing Big Brother at the time, so if the cap fits and all that.
Most of my scorn is probably reserved for that kind of celebrity culture and of course there is a fair bit of withering scorn towards Hollywood in the ‘Meet The Bojeffries’ sequence. That is probably born of my own experiences within the film industry that have taken place since I began writing the Bojeffries back in 1982.”
Acerbic it may be, but After They Were Famous is still loaded with poignant little moments, including one that Moore found a different meaning in after it was written.
He said: “One of the things in that final story that stuck with me was when Uncle Raoul was on his way to the Big Brother auditions and there’s just a shot of him walking down a flooded street, up to his waist in water, with all the Police rescue boats helping people in the background. Then in the next panel he’s in a different part of town, where he’s dripping wet but there’s no water. He doesn’t appear to have noticed the town is flooded, because he wouldn’t, as he’s Uncle Raoul.
On the other hand there was something in that panel that seemed to me to speak to the fact that the landscape around us is altering now with blinding speed and we take that blinding speed of change as the norm and we try to deal with that and get along as normal, even if the situation around us is becoming increasingly abnormal. I know that’s a lot to read into a single panel and it was certainly not what I intended when I wrote it, but the way it came out there was something poignant in that, that we are walking through a flood without a care in the world.”
After They Were Famous was written as a finale to the Bojeffries Saga and as such it works perfectly, in as much as an immortal family of supernatural monsters can ever be seen to have an ending. If this is really the end, it’s a good one. Alan Moore however, isn’t ruling out the possibility of another appearance by the Bojeffries somewhere down the line.
“Well, I got a lovely letter from Steve the other day. Who knows? As always with the Bojeffries, they’re kind of spontaneous. They first appeared in Warrior when Steve and I both had the time and the inclination and they just felt right. We got an idea for a Bojeffries story when Garry Leach was doing A1, where the thought of a few little short, self-contained Bojeffres stories might be quite fun. When that stopped happening, then we were both otherwise employed for a number of years until eventually the Bojeffries called us back again. Whether there is another story there? I don’t know. If one does arrive I’m sure both me and Steve will recognise it and respond to it. I didn’t know that the last time was going to happen. If it ended there I wouldn’t be displeased, but on the other hand, if me and Steve did happen to come up with another idea in the future, I would be even more pleased.”
So there you have it. It’s not a competition, with one comic “better” than another, but Bojeffries Saga is every bit as inspired, every bit as special, every bit as flat out wonderful as *anything* Alan Moore has ever written.
Think about that for a minute.
Now, if you haven’t already, go discover it for for yourself. And be ready to fall in love.
The Writer of this piece was: Jules Boyle
Jules tweets from @Captain_Howdy
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The synth legend has more Eurorack modules on the way.
Tom Oberheim has introduced two new Eurorack modules, set to be fully revealed at this week’s NAMM show.
As Synthtopia reports, the SEM Plus and Mini Sequencer modules are manufactured by Oberheim’s Marion Systems Corporation, and follow the SEM and Phaser modules introduced at NAMM last year.
There are no specifications to go on yet, but the SEM Plus appears to include two VCOs, LFO and more functions, while the Mini Sequencer is a simple Eurorack sequencer with MIDI in and out. The Mini Sequencer is missing a clock in though, which could be a dealbreaker for some.
Pricing and release date for the modules is yet to be confirmed, but we could be waiting a while – the Oberheim Eurorack modules announced at last year’s NAMM show have yet to materialise.
Marion Systems isn’t the only company with new Eurorack gear on the way – Make Noise and Pittsburgh Modular also teased fresh products this week.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersPush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback Sanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' MORE (I-Vt.) said President Trump's claim that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower last year is just the latest example in a long list of "delusional" statements.
“Every other day President Trump sadly says something which is totally preposterous,” Sanders said Thursday on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
“And now he’s come up with the idea that his phone was tapped by President Obama,” Sanders told host Wolf Blitzer. "I think this just adds to a lot of the delusional statements that we hear from President Trump.”
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Sanders went on to tick off a few of Trump's other false statements.
“A little while ago, he talked about 3 [million] to 5 million people voting illegally last election — total nonsense,” he said.
“He talked about how he won the Electoral College in a wider margin than any other candidate in recent history — total nonsense,” the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate added. "He saw people celebrating in New Jersey the destruction of the Twin Towers — total fiction.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellHouse to push back at Trump on border Democrats block abortion bill in Senate Overnight Energy: Climate protesters storm McConnell’s office | Center-right group says Green New Deal could cost trillion | Dire warnings from new climate studies MORE (R-Ky.) said earlier Thursday it is “appropriate” for the Senate Intelligence Committee to examine Trump’s claims.
The committee is already probing Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential race, and the White House has suggested making Trump’s claim a part of that wider investigation.
Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamHouse to push back at Trump on border Trump pressures GOP senators ahead of emergency declaration vote: 'Be strong and smart' This week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration MORE (R-S.C.) said Thursday he is willing to subpoena intelligence agencies to get information relating to the controversial allegation.
“All I can say is that the country needs an answer to this,” he said on CNN. "The current president has accused the former president of basically wiretapping his campaign.”
Graham and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Sheldon WhitehouseThis week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration Senate reignites blue slip war over Trump court picks Democrats brush off GOP 'trolling' over Green New Deal MORE (D-R.I.) on Wednesday asked the Justice Department and the FBI to hand over any potential applications for a warrant to wiretap Trump’s campaign.
Trump seemingly blindsided lawmakers over the weekend by claiming, without evidence, that Obama had his “wires tapped” before Election Day.
“Terrible!" Trump tweeted March 4. "Just found out Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"
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The Industrial Revolution may seem like a thing of the past to residents of developed countries, but those who live in developing countries are still very much in the thick of it. Air pollution claimed 7 million lives in 2012, according to a report just released by the World Health Organization, with the vast majority of deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
One out of every eight premature deaths in 2012 was attributable to air pollution, the numbers reveal — a rate double that reported in previous years due to more accurate measures of pollution in both outdoor and indoor environments and in a broader range of rural areas.
The numbers also reveal that the link between air pollution and cardiovascular disease and cancer is even stronger than previously believed. A recent analysis of life expectancy in more and less polluted regions of China also suggested that air quality levies a high tax on health than documented in prior studies.
“The risks from air pollution are now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes. Few risks have a greater impact on global health today than air pollution,” Maria Neira, director of the WHO’s Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, said in a news release.
The most dangerous form of outdoor air pollution is the particulate matter from coal-burning power plants and diesel vehicles. Indoor air pollution, as defined in the study, stems from the use of coal, wood or biomass (mostly dung) as cooking fuel.
Cooking over an open fire is equivalent to burning 400 cigarettes an hour, according to environmental health pioneer Kirk Smith of the University of California at Berkeley, whom WHO cited in materials supporting the report.
Indoor air pollutants played a role in 4.3 million of the deaths, while ambient pollution figured in 3.7 million, the agency said. Some deaths resulted from exposure to both, capping the total at 7 million.
Western Pacific nations, which include China and Japan along with Pacific Islands, suffered highest per capita death rates from both types of pollution. Southeast Asia and Africa were hard hit by indoor air pollution.
Outdoor air pollution was worst in the cities of Arab nations and northern India — countries which also saw the highest per capita deaths. But the pattern of deaths also revealed economic rifts within countries. Per capita death rates were significantly higher among low- and middle-income nations in Europe and the Western Pacific region.
In the Americas, by contrast, per capita deaths were more than twice as high in more affluent nations.
Although the organization has not yet released data breaking death rates down by country, it did identify failure to implement cleaner alternatives for transportation, energy and industry as the core problems — a correlation reflected in the fact that the dirtiest cities were not the economic powerhouses of India and China, which have fallen into the second tier after efforts to improve air quality.
“Excessive air pollution is often a by-product of unsustainable policies in sectors such as transport, energy, waste management and industry. In most cases, healthier strategies will also be more economical in the long term due to health-care cost savings as well as climate gains,” said Carlos Dora, coordinator for Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health at the WHO.
Certainly there are innovative ideas on how to clean up at least the transport and energy sectors, including self-driving cars, trucks and ships and cleaner sources of fuel and electricity. But U.N. and WHO efforts indicate that many developing countries have yet to take even basic steps, such as replacing older diesel vehicles with newer, cleaner models and designing roads and signage to ease congestion.
The WHO said it plans to devise a road map for preventing cancers and cardiovascular diseases related to air pollution and will step in to provide guidance for countries as they adopt international recommendations, expanding its traditionally narrow focus on health.
Images: World Health Organization, 螺钉 and WambuiMwangi via Wikimedia Commons
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NORTH MIAMI, Fla. - A resident at a North Miami apartment building that caught fire early Wednesday shot at firefighters, believing that someone was burglarizing his home, WPLG News has learned.
The fire started about 3 a.m. at La Castellana apartments near Northeast 135th Street and Northeast Seventh Avenue.
Dozens of residents were forced out of their homes because of the dryer fire on the second floor.
Many residents heard the fire alarm and got out before firefighters arrived.
While firefighters were knocking on doors and checking for any residents who might have still been inside, a disabled man in a wheelchair on the fourth floor thought someone was breaking in and fired three shots through the door, the man's caregiver told WPLG.
"We knocked, identified ourselves and, even if there's no answer, we forced the doors, causing some damage to the doors, just to make sure that there was nobody inside of the structures," Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Lt. Felipe Lay said.
Nobody was injured, however, and the man was not expected to be charged.
Firefighters monitored the carbon monoxide levels in the apartment building before allowing residents to return.
Copyright 2017 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
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PATERSON -- The principal at the center of the Fetty Wap music video controversy is a hometown hero beloved by students and staff at the iconic high school.
Zatiti Moody, the principal of operations at Eastside High School, was placed on administrative leave Wednesday as the district investigates how a drug-filled music video was filmed at the school without its knowledge.
Students and staff interviewed outside the school Thursday all had words of praise for Moody, though they declined to provide their names due to the ongoing investigation.
"He is a great principal, great role model and goes above and beyond for the students," a vice principal said.
Moody was brought into the school in 2009 amid a rash of incidents that included drugs and fighting. He previously served as supervisor of the Great Falls Academy, an alternative district school for violent and disruptive students.
In 2010, the school was broken into three smaller schools, each with their own principal. The 41-year-old Moody oversees operations of the building, which houses 2,100 students, including security and athletics.
Moody came in and instituted a uniform policy, thought to be impossible to implement, said one staff member. He also runs the WEBB (We expect better behavior) trailer in the back of the school for late and troubled students, which was controversial when it started.
Despite tough initiatives, students said Moody, always dressed in a suit, was a great principal who protects and cares about them.
"He knows how to run the school. If it wasn't for him it would go downhill," ninth-grader Raschel Penson said.
"This is normal to me," Moody told the Paterson Press in 2012. "I grew up understanding the ways some of our young people think, so it allows me to break down some of the barriers and teach some of the things I've learned along the way, so they can make better decisions."
Moody did not return a request for comment Thursday.
A counselor at the school said after she struggled to find placement within the district. Moody helped her land a job.
Eastside is Moody's alma mater, according to a biography of school alumni. He graduated in 1993 as a top scholar and athlete.
He attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he played a defensive end on the school's football team in the Big East Conference three years in a row. After completing his undergraduate work, he continued at the university where he received his Master's and became a certified social worker. Pittsburgh Public Schools tried to recruit Moody, but he instead returned to Paterson.
The school is also a family affair for Moody. His mom, Sarah Moody, taught at the school until 2014 and his cousin Michiline Moody is currently a vice principal, according to state ethics forms filed by the principal.
Moody's daughter is a freshman at that school, according to students and staff interviewed.
Those interviewed said it seemed impossible, given Moody's tight control of the school, he did not know about the filming of the video, which includes numerous references to marijuana and a half-naked stripper twerking in a classroom.
Students at the school seemed ecstatic that Fetty Wap, an Eastside dropout, chose the school to film but also some took issue with aspects of the video.
"Everybody already smokes (marijuana)," Penson said. "I only have an issue with the stripper. It took us 30 years to get here from the Joe Clark days, and you show a stripper?"
Terry Corallo, a spokeswoman for the district said the district is investigating whether Moody, or anyone else, was paid to use the school.
According to district regulations, fees associated with use of the school range from $80 to $200 for four hours, depending on what part of the school is used. If the music video for "Wake Up" only took four hours to film, then a fee of at least $1,000 would have to be paid for parking, school use and custodial clean-up.
Grace Giglio, president of the Paterson Principals' Association, said people shouldn't rush to judgment on Moody's involvement until the investigation is completed.
"Mr. Moody is a well-regarded principal with an established record of being a loyal employee and having a strong commitment to the district and to the Paterson community," Giglio told NJ Advance Media. "As president of the Paterson Principals' Association, it is my expectation that Mr. Moody will be given his full rights of due process."
Fausto Giovanny Pinto may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @FGPreporting. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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Bill and Ildefonso Ramirez.JPG
Bill Ramirez, left, and his father, Ildefonso Ramirez, are pictured here with a tray of Cuban tamales at their former Kool Korner Sandwiches location in the Vestavia Hills Center Center. The shop is reopening in a new location in the Vestridge Commons retail center. (Birmingham News file/Mark Almond)
Kool Korner Sandwiches is coming back to Vestavia Hills.
The popular Cuban sandwich shop, which closed in June after six years in the Vestavia Hills City Center, should reopen in about four or five weeks in the Vestridge Commons retail center on U.S. 31, Kool Korner co-owner Bill Ramirez told AL.com this afternoon.
The shop will move into a former Philly Connection location at 1360 Montgomery Highway, a few doors down from Sol Azteca Mexican restaurant.
"We are signing (the lease) this weekend," Ramirez said. "We are eager to open, and just as soon as we can clear all of the permits that we need, we are ready to go."
Ramirez's father, 92-year-old Cuban immigrant Ildefonso Ramirez, ran the original Kool Korner Sandwiches in Atlanta for about 25 years until his building was sold in 2008. He opened in Vestavia Hills in 2009 after he moved here to be closer to his son.
The shop became famous over the years for its authentic pressed Cuban sandwich, which Garden & Gun magazine named one of its "100 Southern Foods You Absolutely, Positively Must Try Before You Die."
The father and son, who co-own the business, closed their shop in the Vestavia Hills City Center after they could not agree on a new lease with the shopping center's owners.
Bill Ramirez said it was important to his father to find another location in Vestavia Hills.
"My father wanted to be close to his neighbors, to his customers," he said. "We talked last night, and he's very glad to get back to it."
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North Korea fired a missile on Aug. 29 that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. (Reuters)
North Korea fired a missile on Aug. 29 that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. (Reuters)
North Korea launched a ballistic missile Tuesday morning that flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the most brazen provocation of Kim Jong Un’s five-year-long rule and one that elicited strong condemnation from U.S. allies Japan and South Korea.
The launch poses a further challenge, in particular, to President Trump, who has made North Korea a favorite rhetorical target. Trump said earlier this month that he would make Kim “truly regret” harming the United States or its allies.
In Japan, the prime minister was visibly agitated by North Korea’s actions. “A missile launch across Japan is an outrageous act that poses an unprecedented, grave and serious threat, and significantly undermines the peace and security of the region,” Shinzo Abe said after an emergency national security council meeting.
Japan’s upgraded missile response system swung into action, sending emergency alerts through cellphones and over loudspeakers shortly after 6 a.m., warning people on the potential flight path of the threat and advising them to take cover.
However, Japan did not try to shoot down the missile.
The missile appears to have been a Hwasong-12, the intermediate-range ballistic missile technically capable of flying 3,000 miles that North Korea has been threatening to launch toward the U.S. territory of Guam.
But North Korea launched Tuesday’s missile to the east, over Hokkaido and into the Pacific Ocean, rather than on a southward path toward Guam, apparently to test its flight on a normal trajectory without crossing a “red line” of aiming at the United States.
Still, this launch, coming after North Korea last month launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles theoretically capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, underscore both Kim’s defiance of the international community and his determination to press ahead with his missile program. Kim has now ordered the launch of 18 missiles this year alone, compared with the 16 missiles his father, Kim Jong Il, fired during 17 years in power.
The White House did not immediately respond to the latest provocation, but the Japanese prime minister’s office said Trump and Abe talked by phone for 40 minutes after the launch, agreeing that the test was unprecedented and that they should further increase the pressure on North Korea.
The the U.N. Security Council confirmed it would hold an emergency meeting in New York Tuesday to discuss the latest provocation. Missile launches and nuclear tests are banned by the U.N. Security Council, but North Korea has paid no attention to its resolutions.
In Seoul, President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who has promoted engagement with Pyongyang, ordered an “overwhelming show of force” in response to the missile launch. South Korea’s military aircraft dropped eight bombs on a shooting range on the southern side of the border with North Korea.
Analysts said Tuesday’s launch marked a worrying escalation from North Korea. “This is a much more dangerous style of test,” said Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia program at the Wilson Center and a former top East Asia official at the Pentagon.
North Korea’s recent missile tests had been carefully calibrated to go nearly straight up and land in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, rather than overflying Japan.
“North Korean missiles have a habit of breaking apart in flight, so if this happened and parts of it landed in Japan, even if it was not North Korea’s intention, this would amount to a de facto attack on Japan,” Denmark said.
This missile appeared to have broken into three during flight, but all of the parts landed in the sea.
[ North Korea launches three missiles into sea, heightening tensions ]
The missile was launched at 5:58 a.m. Japan time from a site at Sunan, north of Pyongyang and the location of the country’s main international airport.
U.S. intelligence agencies were monitoring the site and had seen signs of the impending launch hours earlier, when they spotted Hwasong-12 missile equipment being moved into place.
The Hwasong-12, known to American agencies as the KN-17, is fired from a road-mobile launcher — usually a modified truck — making it easy to move around the country and launch on short notice.
North Korea has sent rockets over Japan before, in 1998 and again in 2009. But both times it claimed that they were satellite launches, and in the second case, it gave Japan notice before the launch.
This time, there was no notice, and analysts said that this launch was clearly for military purposes.
The missile traveled almost 1,700 miles in total, flying over Hokkaido at 6:06 a.m. before landing in the Pacific Ocean 730 miles to the east of Hokkaido’s Cape Erimo at about 6:12 a.m. During this time, it traveled through Japanese airspace for about two minutes, government officials said.
The Pentagon said it had detected the launch but was still in the process of assessing it.
Japanese military aircraft and ships headed to the landing site on Tuesday morning to try to recover debris from the missile, which could yield important information about its technical capabilities.
The Japanese broadcaster NHK showed Patriot missiles installed at sites around the country.
“We will make every possible effort to protect citizens’ lives and property,” Abe told reporters before heading into the national security council meeting.
However, the Japanese military did not attempt to intercept the missile. Government officials said they could tell the missile was heading into the sea, rather than toward Japanese territory.
But analysts said that the PAC-3 missile defense system has a range of less than 20 miles and is designed to intercept the missile as it’s coming down, meaning that even the batteries on Hokkaido would not have been able to intercept this one.
[In a dangerous time, the Pentagon prepares for a war game on the Korean Peninsula]
Tuesday’s launch, on the heels of three short-range missiles fired Saturday, comes amid ongoing joint exercises between the United States and South Korean militaries, exercises that North Korea always strongly protests because it considers them preparation for an invasion.
The exercises, which mainly involve computer simulations rather than battlefield maneuvers, are due to end Thursday.
“We should expect a kinetic reaction from North Korea during the exercises, but this pushes the boundaries of an ordinary response,” said Daryl Kimball, the director of the Arms Control Association.
However, Kimball said that talks still remain the best course of action for dealing with North Korea.
“The U.S. and Japan have so few options to respond to these ballistic missile tests short of negotiations that would have North Korea agree to halt these launches in return for a modification of future military exercises,” he said. “This is why North Korea is such a problem — there are no good options.”
Despite the international pressure, Kim has pressed ahead unrelentingly with his missile program.
His government had been threatening to fire a missile to pass over Japan and land near Guam, which is home to two huge U.S. military bases, by the middle of this month. However, Kim later said that after reviewing the plans, he would “watch the Yankees a little longer” before making a decision about whether to launch.
After the Guam threat, Trump warned North Korea that “things will happen to them like they never thought possible” should the isolated country attack the United States or its allies.
With no missile launches during the first three weeks of August, the Trump administration had suggested that its tough talk was working, with Trump saying last week at a rally in Phoenix that Kim had come to “respect” him.
John Wagner and Ellen Nakashima in Washington and Yuki Oda in Tokyo contributed to this report.
Read more
North Korea mocks Trump’s ‘ego-driven’ Twitter posts as military exercises continue
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All Syrian Chemical Weapons Attacks Must Be Investigated
The UN weapons inspection team reported today that sarin was used in the Ghouta region of Syria on August 21st.
The team’s report implies that the Syrian government carried out the attacks.
But another UN agency previously hinted that rebels used chemical weapons earlier in the year. Specifically, Carla Del Ponte – a member of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria – said that there is strong evidence that the rebels used chemical weapons earlier this year, but that there is not evidence that the government used such weapons:
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Turkish state newspaper Zaman reported earlier this year (Google translation):
The Turkish General Directorate of Security … seized 2 kg of sarin gas in the city of Adana in the early hours of yesterday morning. The chemical weapons were in the possession of Al Nusra terrorists believed to have been heading for Syria.
Update.
Haaretz reported on March 24th, “Jihadists, not Assad, apparently behind reported chemical attack in Syria“.
And see this.
Indeed, the UN is investigating 14 chemical weapons attacks in Syria. As Reuters notes:
U.N. war crimes investigators know of 14 potential chemical attacks in Syria since they began monitoring Syrian human rights abuses in September 2011, the team’s chairman said on Monday. “We are investigating 14 alleged cases of chemical weapons or chemical agent use. But we have not established the responsibility or the nature of the materials that were used,” Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria told a news conference. *** While the weapons inspectors may confirm the use of a chemical weapon, it is up to the Commission of Inquiry to try to find out who was responsible and bring them to justice. Without having access to the country, they gather information from witness testimony and try to verify and crosscheck reports from inside Syria. “I think that the report from the special experts on the use of chemical weapons will be a big step for us, forward in our investigation,” Del Ponte said. “But for sure we must enter Syria, to have a proper, judicial, formal investigation on that and to know exactly who was using chemical weapons.”
The use of chemical weapons is a war crime. But given that the rebels may have used chemical weapons – and the U.S., Britain and Israel have repeatedly violated the Chemical Weapons Convention – a negotiated solution to the Syrian crisis is better than war … even if the government is ultimately found to have carried out the August 21st attack.
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Images of the forthcoming N3 smartphone from OPPO have surfaced, revealing the successor to the OPPO N1 to be a thinner design that once again integrates a swivel camera. We also now know that the OPPO N3 will be launched in a choice of three colors (aqua blue, pink and silver) at the company’s up and coming event in Singapore on October 29th.
The specifications of the new N series device have not yet been confirmed but the are a few details that seem to be pretty much locked down at this stage. As with the N1, the N3 will again be a pretty large 5.9 inch device and although OPPO have dabbled with QHD screens on its flagship 1440p Find 7, it would seem that the N3 will in fact use a 1920 x 1080 screen. The OPPO N3 will be powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 we that adorns the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and as with the flagship Samsung phablet, the N3 will also have a substantial 3GB of RAM.
We don’t have too much information about the sensor the OPPO N3 will use, but it would seem to be accompanied by a dual LED flash and certainly uses a similar rotating design to what we saw on the N1. We reviewed the N1 a few months ago and found it to be a solid option for anyone who wants to take truly impressive selfie shots. The new N3 appears to retain the original design within a thinner overall build that has neatly chamfered corners. Generally speaking the N3 is a thinner and very possibly lighter version of the N1. If these images are genuine and correct, it’s looking good.
Note: we have no idea why it will be named the N3 and not the N2. Perhaps Microsoft’s naming philosophy has become a contagious trend. We will be in attendance at the OPPO launch in Singapore, and look forward to getting hands on with the new OPPO N3.
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Members of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union shout early in the morning outside the closing Trump Taj Mahal on Oct. 10, 2016, in Atlantic City, N.J. The sprawling Boardwalk casino shut down at 5:59 a.m., having failed to reach a deal with its union workers to restore health care and pension benefits that were taken away from them in bankruptcy court. (Mel Evans/AP)
Trump Taj Mahal, the Atlantic City casino-hotel Donald Trump once suggested was proof of his deal-making mastery, closed for good on Monday, putting 3,000 people out of work and further eroding the Republican’s message that he is an unmatched business success.
The casino closed at 6 a.m. Monday, just hours after Trump faced off with Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate.
The casino’s owner, billionaire investor Carl Icahn, blamed the closure on a bitter disagreement with the casino’s unionized workers, who went on strike in July.
When Trump opened the 42-story tower in 1990, he called the project “the eighth wonder of the world.” But its financial struggles led Trump’s gambling and real estate empire into its first of six corporate bankruptcies.
Besides the name, Trump has had little involvement in the casino for years. Icahn, who helped Trump keep control of the debt-plagued casino in the early 1990s, paid to take over the casino following its parent company’s bankruptcy in 2014.
In 1990, Donald Trump opened the largest and most lavish casino-hotel complex in Atlantic City. Unlike any other casino in America, the Trump Taj Mahal was expected to break every record in the books. But just several months later, it all fell apart. (Alice Li/The Washington Post)
In a statement Monday, Icahn said the casino had lost “almost $350 million over just a few short years” and could not be saved.
“It was simply impossible to find a workable path forward that would not have required funding additional investments and losses in excess of $100 million over the next year,” Icahn said. “Like many of the employees at the Taj Mahal, I wish things had turned out differently.”
[Donald Trump wasn’t the only one who made a bad bet on Atlantic City]
Trump’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment Monday. But Trump, who has repeatedly touted his job-creation skills as credentials for the Oval Office, said recently that he was surprised Icahn couldn’t keep the Taj Mahal open.
“I felt they should have been able to make a deal,” Trump told the Associated Press earlier this month. “It’s hard to believe they weren’t able to make a deal.”
Disagreements between management and the union representing Atlantic City casino workers, Unite Here Local 54, came to a head July 1, when nearly a thousand cooks, housekeepers, bellmen and servers walked off the job after failing to agree on wage and benefit provisions.
After the closure, union president Bob McDevitt issued a statement saying Icahn “would rather burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes.”
“For a few million bucks he could have had labor peace and a content workforce,” McDevitt said. “But instead he’d rather slam the door shut on these long-term workers just to punish them and attempt to break their strike.”
Once a rare haven for gamblers outside of Las Vegas, Atlantic City’s casino business has been in decline for years due to the rapid legalization of casinos in states such as Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York. The Taj is the sixth Atlantic City casino to close in the last decade.
[Inside the rocky billionaire bromance of Donald Trump and Carl Icahn]
The Taj was Trump’s third Atlantic City casino, following Trump Plaza and Trump’s Castle, and it was his grandest, with 1,250 rooms. When it opened, in 1990, it was the largest casino-hotel in the world, and stars such as Michael Jackson and Elle Macpherson were on-site to toast the casino’s grand opening.
But its financial troubles began early. When the Taj opened, gaming analysts were already warning that Atlantic City was in distress. The market for casino gambling was cooling, and the Taj was expected to only cannibalize other casinos’ business, without bringing new players of its own.
To cover the project, Trump broke his vow to New Jersey regulators and financed the Taj project with $675 million in risky, high-interest junk bonds.
Those loans contributed to the more than $3 billion in debt that led to the near-collapse of Trump’s gambling empire. The Taj filed bankruptcy in 1991, roughly a year after it first opened. The Plaza and Castle went bankrupt the next year. As part of his settlement with lenders, Trump agreed to give up nearly half of his equity stakes in the casinos.
Trump’s Taj debts were a key obstacle during his negotiations with bankers and bondholders, and as part of the settlements, he was forced to sell his plane and mega-yacht.
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Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra did not know Dan Goicoechea was facing harassment and discrimination accusations when she hired him to a high-ranking position, according to an internal department email.
This email, along with hundreds of pages of documents Idaho Education News obtained through a public records request Friday afternoon, appear to shed more light on what Ybarra knew about Goicoechea, her former spokesman and deputy for government affairs.
Goicoechea resigned from Ybarra’s State Department of Education on Sept. 18, after just five weeks on the job. He resigned the same day a former colleague from a different state agency filed a tort claim with the state alleging a pattern of harassment and discrimination.
Until it released the batch of records Friday, the SDE had declined to comment on what Ybarra knew about Goicoechea’s work history, and when she learned of the tort claim.
In a Sept. 20 email message to Deputy Attorney General Leslie Hayes, SDE communications director Allison Westfall wrote, “Superintendent Ybarra was made aware of the allegation Friday afternoon. She was not aware of it when (Goicoechea) was hired.”
The Friday afternoon in question was Sept. 15. Goicoechea was hired on Aug. 14.
Separate emails showed the Idaho attorney general’s office had alerted Goicoechea to the tort claim through a phone call and followup email on Sept. 14, four days before his resignation.
The SDE announced Goicoechea’s departure in a Sept. 19 news release, but did not mention the tort claim or allegations.
The allegations of harassment and discrimination stem from Goicoechea’s tenure at the Idaho state controller’s office, before he joined the SDE.
In her tort claim, former deputy legal counsel Lourdes Matsumoto accused Goicoechea of “remarking on their physical appearance, making vulgar sexual remarks in connection with their lack of abilities in the workplace and making sexual overtures, both directly and indirectly.”
The controller’s office has denied any wrongdoing. The controller’s office said it launched an internal investigation into the alleged behavior once Matsumoto complained to them July 14. As a result of the investigation, the State Controller’s Office said last month that it “separated Mr. Goicoechea’s employment with the SCO.”
Over the past two weeks, Goicoechea has not responded to several requests for comment from Idaho Education News.
On Sept. 20, Idaho Education News first asked SDE officials about what Ybarra knew about Goicoechea’s work history, and when Ybarra learned about the tort claim.
At the time, Westfall responded with two terse emails, saying only that “Superintendent Ybarra will not comment on a confidential personnel matter.”
The records released Friday suggest that Westfall was preparing a more detailed response. But when Westfall did respond to Idaho Education News, nearly an hour after emailing a deputy attorney general, she did not include any reference to what Ybarra knew or when.
Efforts to reach Westfall for comment Friday afternoon were not immediately successful.
Timeline
Aug. 14 . Dan Goicoechea joins the State Department of Education as State Superintendent Sherri Ybarra’s deputy and spokesman.
. Dan Goicoechea joins the State Department of Education as State Superintendent Sherri Ybarra’s deputy and spokesman. Sept. 14 : Deputy Attorney General Colleen Zahn alerts Goicoechea that he has been named in a tort claim, stemming from his time in the State Controller’s Office.
: Deputy Attorney General Colleen Zahn alerts Goicoechea that he has been named in a tort claim, stemming from his time in the State Controller’s Office. Sept. 15 : Ybarra learns about the tort claim, according to an email SDE communications director Allison Westfall sent on Sept. 20.
: Ybarra learns about the tort claim, according to an email SDE communications director Allison Westfall sent on Sept. 20. Sept. 18 : The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office receives notice of the tort claim at 9:32 a.m., according to a time-stamped copy of the claim. Goicoechea resigns from the SDE later that day.
: The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office receives notice of the tort claim at 9:32 a.m., according to a time-stamped copy of the claim. Goicoechea resigns from the SDE later that day. Sept. 19 : The SDE announces Goicoechea’s resignation.
: The SDE announces Goicoechea’s resignation. Sept. 20: News of the tort claim and accusations against Goicoechea breaks in several media outlets, including the Idaho Statesman and Idaho Education News.
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I recently discovered an article on the excellent blog, LifeHacker, which describes the contents of the CIA’s Escape and Evasion Survival Kit.
The kit’s contents currently include:
Lifehacker believes the small bag used is the Maxpedition M-2 Waistpack. I like Maxpedition packs: they’re very durable, typically military grade, and reasonably affordable. But the M-2 is small–quite small.
This led me to thinking about über-portable shortwave radios I would carry in such a small pack for survival purposes. If I were a foreign operative, ideally, I’d want a shortwave radio that has SSB mode, in case my home country’s numbers station broadcast in SSB.
In reality, there are very few good radios that are so compact they could fit in the M-2 Waistpack.
A few that came to mind were the Tecsun PL-310ET or Tecsun PL-380, but the fit would be very tight, if at all; both radios are slightly wider and taller than the M2’s main pocket, which measures 5 x 3 x 1.5 inches. I then remembered the Kaito KA1102 that I owned a few years ago–a very portable radio, but it, too, would be too large at 143 x 88 x 28.50 mm.
But then, it hit me: there is one radio, which, though no longer on the market, would fit the bill (and the pocket)…
The Holy Grail of über-portable receivers: The Sony ICF-SW100
I have never owned an ICF-SW100, but I’d love to. Occasionally they show up on eBay, but prices range from $300-$800 depending on condition. That’s simply too pricey for my budget. Universal Radio has acquired used units in the past on rare occasions; these have sold between $200-400.
Then there are the lucky few, like my radio-listener buddy, The Professor. Remarkably, he tracked down (and knows I’ll never forgive him for it) an ICF-SW100 on Craig’s List for about $50! That was a steal.
Performance is superb for a radio this size. Not only does it have SSB mode, but selectable sideband sync detection.
One note of caution, should you be lucky enough to acquire one: the ribbon cable that connects the lower portion of the radio with the display (especially in the mark 1 production units) is known to fail. Fortunately, there are a number of videos (like this one) which walk you through replacement.
Click here to search eBay for a used Sony ICF-SW100.
Honorable mention: the Sony ICF-SW1S
The ICF-SW100 predecessor, the ICF-SW1S (above), would easily fit in the M-2 Waistpack–it measures a mere 4.75 x 2.785 x 1 inches. Like its younger brother, it is highly sought after on the used radio market, and usually fetches $300+. The ICF-SW1S does not have a sync detector and lacks SSB mode. Still, as a broadcast receiver, it is truly superb for its size.
If you purchase a used ICF-SW1S, do ask the seller if all 6 original electrolytic capacitors have been replaced. If not, you may have to replace them in short order as the originals were known to fail. While not a repair for the faint of heart (as parts are quite small), there are several instructional sites and videos to help you. Alternatively, you can send your ICF-SW1S to Kiwa to be professionally re-capped.
Click here to search eBay for a used Sony ICF-SW1S.
Any others–?
Do you know of any other high-quality shortwave portables out there compact enough to fit in the M-2 Waistpack? Let us know!
The hunt is on…!
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Since the last human mission to the moon, all of our explorations in space have focused on low Earth orbit. But what’s so special about LEO?
Low Earth orbit is not very high.
Yes, we think about LEO as being way up there in space—and it is indeed very high. The International Space Station orbits 400 km above the Earth’s surface. However, in terms of orbits, that’s not that far. Take a look at this python model (using trinket.io) that shows the path of the ISS around the Earth. Just so you can see it, I made the space station about 2,000 times larger than it actually is. Oh, and this is a python program so that you can look at the code and change it if you like. Also, you can rotate and zoom in and out of the view with right-click and scrolling.
As you can see, LEO is not very far from Earth. You can barely see it at all. But what about a geostationary orbit? A geostationary satellite is at an orbital distance such that its angular speed is the same as that of the Earth. This means that as it orbits it appears to be above the same spot on the equator of the Earth. Here is another simulation to show the distance of a geostationary satellite.
Humans don’t really go to a geostationary orbit. It’s all about LEO (for now).
LEO is more about speed than altitude.
Let’s pretend like there is no air on the surface of the Earth. Now you want to launch a satellite into low Earth orbit. There are two things you have to do (while holding your breath since there is no air). First, you have to raise the altitude of the satellite up to 400 km above the surface of the Earth. Second, you have to increase the horizontal speed of the satellite such that as gravity pulls it curves into a circular orbit. But which requires more energy? Here is a super quick tutorial on orbital energy.
Suppose I want a spacecraft orbiting at a distance of r from the center of Earth (which has a radius R). The only force on the spacecraft is the gravitational force which decreases with distance from the center. This force has to make the object move in a circle of radius r such that it has an acceleration. So, I get (G is the gravitational constant and M E is the mass of the Earth):
The change in energy to get something in orbit would be the sum of the changes in kinetic energy and the changes in gravitational potential energy (going from the surface to orbit). Both of these depend on the distance from the center of the planet.
Substituting in for the velocity of an orbiting object:
That first term in the is the kinetic energy (in terms of orbital radius) and the other terms are due to the change in gravitational potential energy. If I put in a value of r corresponding to a 400 km altitude, then the kinetic energy is 89 percent of the total energy needed for orbit with the gravitational potential energy just being 11 percent.
But what about different orbital distances? The higher you go, the less kinetic energy you need and the more gravitational potential energy is needed. Here is a plot showing the energy needed for different orbits (starting from the surface of the Earth).
Yes, this plot ignores energy loss due to air drag in the atmosphere as well as the boost you could get from the rotation of the Earth.
LEO is not permanent.
When a spacecraft goes into low Earth orbit, it won’t stay there forever. As objects orbit the Earth, they interact with the atmosphere. There is a small air drag force similar to the forces a on a bullet shot from a gun—well the big difference is the size of the drag force. In LEO, the air is really thin and exerts just a tiny force on objects.
Generally, bigger objects have lower effects from drag since they tend to also have very large masses. The drag force is proportional to the cross sectional area of the object but the mass is proportional to the volume. So, if you double the length of a spacecraft (and scale all dimensions up too) then the area will increase by 4 but the volume will increase by 8. With a larger mass, the force is a lower influence.
How do you keep a spacecraft in low Earth orbit? They need a little help from a friend. For the ISS, this help can come from ESA ATV when it uses it’s thrusters to reboost the space station.
LEO is still the first step into space.
Even though low Earth orbit is lacking in many ways, it does offer something very useful—time. Once you get into LEO, you have time to make your next move. Yes, it’s not permanent but it is permanent-ish. Low Earth orbit is sort of like the lowest rung of a ladder. It doesn’t get you very far but you have to take that first step.
But what is the next step? The next rung of the ladder is probably getting all the way out of Earth’s gravitational well. Starting from the surface of the Earth with a speed of 11.2 km/s, you would have enough energy to leave and never come back—we call this speed the escape velocity.
Of course once you get out of Earth’s influence, you are still interacting with the Sun (just like the Earth). If you want to escape the whole solar system (starting from the position of the Earth), you would need an initial velocity of 42.1 km/s. Which leads to the last question: Where would you go from there?
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Univ. of Georgia marine scientists are uncovering the mechanisms that regulate the natural production of an anti-greenhouse gas. A new $2 million National Science Foundation grant will allow the UGA-led research group to further document how genes in ocean microbes transform sulfur into clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Co-principal investigators on the grant are Franklin College of Arts and Sciences professors Mary Ann Moran of the department of marine sciences and William Whitman of the department of microbiology. The team is joined by Ronald Keine, a marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama, and James Birch and Chris Scholin, scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.
Marine organisms produce compounds called osmolytes to balance salinity outside the cells. In the case of marine phytoplankton, they create a sulfur osmolyte called DMSP (dimethylsulfoniopropionate). When released into seawater from the phytoplankton cells, this compound is degraded by bacteria using two different pathways. One pathway keeps the sulfur from DMSP in the ocean, but the other creates a sulfur gas that escapes into the atmosphere to become a key component of cloud condensation nuclei. The result is that the more of this compound that goes up, the more clouds are formed.
This role of bacteria in creating the sulfur gas in the atmosphere has long been known, though not the genes or the factors that determine which pathway dominates. Working off the Georgia coast, UGA researchers led by Moran isolated bacteria and found one that degrades DMSP using both pathways. The discovery and the gene sequencing that followed led Moran to address the “switch” that regulates the formation of sulfur gas.
“We knew that some bacteria had all the genes to degrade DMSP, but we knew very little about why and how they decided which pathways to use,” Moran says. “This grant will allow us to move off into the ocean and watch these genes being switched on and off as ocean water conditions change.”
Engineers at Monterrey Bay had created an autonomous ocean-going instrument that houses a miniaturized molecular lab that sits in the ocean, takes in water, extracts DNA from cells, analyzes DNA and sends the information back to shore via radio modem, providing scientists with real-time ocean data.
“They were looking for good uses of their unique instrument that would be scientifically valuable,” Moran says. “We deployed primers for bacterial DMSP genes in their ocean-going molecular lab and caught an example of DMSP pathway regulation as it happened, for the first time ever.”
The group is planning for two new deployments with the new funding, one in the fall of 2014 and another in the following year. The results will be used to confirm theories about DMSP pathway switching, which will inform work in a variety of fields — from microbial ecology to geo-engineering.
“There are proposals out there to put more sulfur gas into the atmosphere to create more cloud cover, as an attempt to mitigate global warming,” Moran explains. “Our work is about the natural way this happens, understanding the organisms and primary mechanisms that release sulfur from the ocean into the atmosphere. The better we understand that, the more prepared we will be to make other, informed decisions.”
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You've been ad! The daft spoof small ads one joker put up in shop windows
Normally these little cards advertise everything from second-hand cars to baby-sitters, cleaners, kittens and rabbits.
But the ones created by 46-year-old Preston Likely were designed for a laugh and to see whether anyone would reply in similar humorous vein.
After two years and 70 small ads, placed in shop windows throughout England, he has just published a book containing his best spoofs.
Not likely: A volunteer needed to act as a scarecrow in Didcot, Oxfordshire. It specifies no time-wasters Time to pick a pocket or two? The course on offer in this advert will have you coming back for more. And the price is a steal
Preston's favourites are one for a driving school which promises to teach learners how to cut up other drivers and use their mobile phones while eating a sandwich, and another card offering massage services.
'A person inquired about the "extras" that were on offer,' he said. 'I told him it was blind man's buff, juggling and worshipping the moon.'
The advert for a lost box of matches also drew a reply: 'The chap said I'd never find them now because they would have been cleared up by the road sweepers.'
Preston was even contacted by someone excited at the prospect of being a scarecrow.
'He thought that it would be cool,' said Preston. 'I had to let him down gently.'
Man about a dog: Sounds like a pet owner was let off his leash and ran off Keep an eye out: Preston Likely posted this ad, calling for paranoid people to come forward Have a heart: Would you consider donating your soul to someone urgently in need of a soul transport It could be you: A Lottery winner advertises for a help at home. Would you fit the bill? Talk to the animals: Do you miss your dearly-beloved pet who passed away? Why not go along to an animal seance? Needle in a haystack: This appeal went out because Mr Likely had lost a box of matches, apparently Smile please: The happiest day of your life - the day you get your divorce - is a time to celebrate, according to this ad Missing: If you're an illegal immigrant you might need some accommodation. This spoof ad says it can help Milking it: A cow needs a cow and Preston Likely needs to find someone who'll take it in, apparently These ads were brought together in a new book 'Amuse Agents: When Small Ads Go Bad' - a collection of Preston Likely's funniest advertisements placed in shop windows around England
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Where to even begin? I feel ready to simply gush all over this text, both figuratively and literally. I'll try to restrain myself though. Cult of Luna is a Swedish progressive/post-metal/sludge band that has been making waves for some time with several studio albums already under their belts. Julie Christmas is a bad-ass woman known largely for her solo album The Bad Wife along with a number of collaborations with artists all over the spectrum. I was sadly not familiar with her until the most recent release from Spylacopa, but damn did she make an impression with clearly the best song on the EP. And now these somewhat disparate projects have collided to create what will certainly be called by many to be one of the best albums of 2016.
Again, this is difficult to put into words without it becoming a disjointed mess of praise and adoration. I guess I'll start with the music. The guitars waver between various moods of post-metal, from the dark and doomy to the serene and spacey. They really tease you on the opening track, "A Greater Call," taking their time to slowly light the fuse. But when it erupts we get an ever growing avalanche of sludge. Groovy riffs break through the more hypnotic elements creating the perfect tightrope of light and heavy.
And through it all, my apologies to Cult of Luna, Ms. Christmas steals the goddam show. From her meticulous choices of melody dripping from her sultry tone to the explosions of screaming fury, She is the driving force behind almost every minute. I'm banging my head to these crushing riffs, but 90% of my attention is following every rise and fall of her voice. What's more, her particular directions of notes are often unpredictable. I am no music major, but I'm sure someone more astute on these matters could explain what makes her particular songwriting approach unique.
In a few words, Mariner is a captivating and potent album. The first three songs will take you on a journey that is both ethereal and baleful at the same time. That's not to say that this whole album isn't worth its entire weight, but the first half alone should warrant the purchase. I'm already scanning the web for the most affordable copy of the gorgeous digibook version. Every aspect of the album seems to perfectly compliment its counterparts. It's something you simply need to hear for yourself to understand. Check out two of the best tracks below.
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A professor at Indiana University has instituted a system of gaining experience points through classwork instead of receiving traditional grades. Lee Sheldon is an accomplished screenwriter and game writer, having worked on TV shows like ST:TNG and Charlie’s Angels as well as the Agatha Christie series of games from The Adventure Company. He now teaches game design courses for Indiana University’s Department of Telecommunications. Instead of assigning his students a grade at the end of the course, he instead starts every student at 0 xp and they earn points through completing quests like solo projects and quizzes in addition to grouping up for guild projects and pick up groups. How many points they have at the end of the course determines their actual “grade.” Sheldon put the system in place so that his students were motivated by the game theory with which they were familiar. “The elements of the class are couched in terms they understand, terms that are associated with fun rather than education,” Sheldon said.
Escapist Magazine: Professor Abandons Grades for Experience Points
I could see this being a little more granular as well – awarding points in specific areas. At the end of the course, students could really assess where their strengths are. Over the course of a larger program of study (2-6 years or whatever), “experience points” in certain areas would really start to stack up. Having a bigger assessment of strengths would be more useful than a GPA or a list of pass/fails.
My alma mater Evergreen State College works something like this. You take only one class at a time. Each class is worth 16 credits, and the credits are usually spread across a few different areas. For example, I took a class called “Science of Mind” which awarded credits in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and statistics. If you don’t meet the objectives for one area of study, say statistics, you might lose credit for that subject, ending up with only 14 credits that quarter. There are no grades, so your GPA doesn’t suffer, but you won’t have as many statistics credits.
However, having a more defined set of areas that one could accumulate points over time through different classes and projects (“written communications,” “leadership,” “technical problem solving,” “mechanical aptitude,” etc. etc.) seems like it would be very useful for both the students themselves and for potential employers or graduate program committees or whoever else might need to evaluate a students strengths.
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Summer Zervos, a contestant on the fifth season of “The Apprentice,” sat next to her attorney Gloria Allred at a press conference in Los Angeles on Friday as she tearfully detailed claims of how Trump forcibly kissed and groped her during an encounter at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2007.
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Trump denied the accusations in a statement, saying he only “vaguely” remembers Zervos and that he never met her inside of a hotel room or touched her inappropriately. He blamed the media for “throwing due diligence and fact-finding to the side in a rush to file their stories first.” “That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I’ve conducted my life,” Trump said. “In fact, Ms. Zervos continued to contact me for help, emailing my office on April 14th of this year asking that I visit her restaurant in California.” Zervos said that after being eliminated from the game show, she approached Trump about working at one of his golf courses in Southern California.
She said Trump set up a meeting about a job opportunity at a hotel room in Beverly Hills, where he greeted her with an “open-mouthed kiss.”
Zervos said she was stunned and moved to the other side of the room to get away from him.
“He grabbed my shoulder and kissed me again aggressively and placed his hand on my breast,” Zervos said, choking back tears. “I pulled back and walked to another part of the room. He grabbed my hand and walked me into the bedroom. I walked out.”
After suggesting the two lay down on the bed to watch “telly-telly,” Zervos said Trump again came onto her.
She said she pushed Trump away from her by the chest to “create space,” and that Trump responded by telling her to “get real” and “thrusting his genitals” at her.
Zervos said Trump eventually became angered by her rebuff.
She said he bailed on a subsequent meeting, and that she received a job offer for half of what had been agreed upon.
When Zervos inquired about the disparity, Trump said she was no longer to contact him on his personal phone number and that the company had run into financial trouble and could no longer hire her.
“I wanted a job in your organization,” Zervos said. “Instead you treated me as an object to be hit upon. You were interested in me only to have sexual relations with me and no other reason. After hearing your released audio tapes and denials during the debate, I felt I had to speak out about your behavior. You do not have the right to treat women as sexual objects just because you are a star.”
More than a half-dozen women have come forward to say they were the subject of aggressive or unwanted sexual advances from Trump.
The GOP presidential nominee has denied all of the accusations and sought to discredit the accusers. He has lashed out at the press for printing their stories and is threatening to sue several publications that have printed their accounts.
Some have raised questions about the timing of the women coming forward, saying it is suspicious that the allegations are happening so close to the election and did not come out during the primary.
But several of the women say they were moved to action by Trump’s lewd remarks, caught on a hot microphone from an “Access Hollywood” appearance in 2005, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women and being able to get away with it because of his celebrity.
Allred said Friday that some women have “feared the wrath and retaliation from Mr. Trump and his supporters,” that some thought they were the only victims or that people wouldn’t believe them until others came forward.
She urged Trump to “get help” and to drop out of the presidential race.
“Donald, before you can become president of the United States, you must first learn how to treat women with respect. Your words alone are disgraceful,” Allred said.
“The White House is not a locker room, and the American people deserve better than a president who feels entitled to grope, grab and assault women at his pleasure. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
- Updated at 6:11 p.m.
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The White House's nominee to head up U.S. trade policy questioned whether China is still manipulating its currency to gain an advantage in global markets.
Robert Lighthizer, President Trump's nominee to become the next U.S. trade representative, said on Tuesday that while China has in the past adjusted the value of its currency to gain a trade advantage, he is uncertain whether Beijing is still doing so now.
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"In the past, it is my judgment that China was a substantial currency manipulator and I think we've lost a lot of jobs in the United States because of it," Lighthizer told members on the Senate Finance Committee during his confirmation hearing.
"Whether China is manipulating its currency right now, to weaken it, that's another question," Lighthizer said.
Still Lighthizer said the Trump administration will get tough on Beijing and that the president "is going to change the paradigm on China."
He said that "China is a substantial part of our problem" and U.S. officials have to think about some new remedies that go beyond taking cases to the World Trade Organization and "creating some new tools."
Trump regularly criticized China during the campaign and he had vowed to label China a currency manipulator on this first day in office. Trump has yet to follow through on that campaign vow.
Lighthizer said that decision would ultimately be up to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has said he would follow the normal process to examine whether countries are violating currency rules.
Last month, Mnuchin said no decision would come before Treasury's next currency report in April.
China has stepped up efforts to maintain the value of the yuan amid issues with capital outflows.
This post was updated at 6:30 p.m.
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1650s (albo) "souvenir book," from Latin album, which in classical times was a board chalked or painted white, upon which public notices (the Annales Maximi, edicts of the praetor, lists of senators, etc.) were inscribed in black, hence "a list of names." This Latin word was revived 16c. by German scholars, whose custom was to keep an album amicorum of colleagues' signatures; its meaning then expanded to "book with blank leaves meant to collect signatures and other souvenirs." Johnson [1755] still defined it as "a book in which foreigners have long been accustomed to insert autographs of celebrated people."
Latin album is literally "white color, whiteness;" it is a noun use of the neuter of the adjective albus "white" (see alb). The English word in reference to bound photographic collections is recorded by 1859. Meaning "long-playing gramophone record" is by 1951, because the sleeves they came in resembled large albums.
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There is perhaps no better sign of the New York Mets' financial and personnel woes than this: Bobby Bonilla will make more money this year than any Mets outfielder.
That's right, Bonilla, who retired after the 2001 season, will get paid more by the organization than any current outfielder on the Mets roster. That's because when the Mets bought out the final year of Bonilla's contract in 2000, they agreed to defer his payment and add interest. So rather than give him $5.9 million back then, they will pay him $1,193,248.20 annually for 25 years (2011-2035).
That's more than any outfielder currently on the Mets roster will make in 2013. In fact, just nine players on the Mets are due to make more than Bonilla this year.
As if that wasn't bad enough, here's the gut punch: New York bought out the $21 million contract of Jason Bay in the fall, and the franchise will pay the bulk of that this year. In other words, the money being paid to two players not on the team, Bay and Bonilla, is nearly one third of the combined salaries of everyone else ($64.5 million).
Cheer up, Mets fans. Amazingly, there's a chance your team won't be the worst in the NL East.
(H/T to Big Lead Sports)
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Over the past few years baby-trafficking has become a significant problem throughout the world, and in the poorer areas of Eastern Europe in particular. In 2011 11 people were arrested by Bulgarian and Greek authorities for participating in a baby-trafficking ring, in which people would pay between 15-20,000 Euros for new born children. In January, seven other alleged baby-traffickers were arrested in Greece, including five Bulgarians, followed by another in February.
Recognizing the practice of baby-trafficking as a troubling trend in her country, a journalist for the Bulgarian news program Nova named Veronika Dimitrova began looking around online for prospective clients for an undercover investigation. She stumbled upon a message from a London couple who claimed to be in the market for purchasing a baby. They said they were unable to have one of their own, and would pay any price necessary. Dimitrova arranged for the couple, Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake, to fly to Bulgaria, where they would negotiate the sale, all with the intentions of filming them as part of her report.
Scary stuff indeed. There was just one problem. The couple on the other end of the deal had the very same idea. It turns out that Calvert and Blake were actually undercover journalists themselves, working for the Sunday Times in London.
Both sides eventually confessed, and towards the end of the segment Nova shows an email from Blake saying: “We are very amused by this – it hasn’t ever happened to us before! “We have found lots of women in Bulgaria offered to sell their babies or act as surrogates for cash. How about you?
“We are also looking at Romania, Georgia and Ukraine and other countries.”
There probably aren’t many light-hearted moments in the world of investigating underground baby-trafficking, but this is about as close as it gets. Watch Nova’s report on the story below:
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>> Luke O’Neil is a journalist and blogger in Boston. Follow him on Twitter (@lukeoneil47).
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
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A top Wells Fargo techie in charge of engineering its bleeding-edge banking platform is leaving for rival IBM by the end of the month, The Post has learned.
Jesse Lund, who leads the bank’s Technology Group Innovation Lab based in Irvine, Calif., is leaving on Jan. 31, Ann Wasik, a bank spokeswoman, confirmed to The Post.
Losing Lund — one of the people heading up Wells’ “blockchain” push, the valuable but largely untested technology behind Bitcoin — is the latest blow for the bank, whose reputation was tarnished by last year’s fake-accounts scandal.
“Jesse Lund has decided to pursue other opportunities outside of Wells Fargo,” Wasik said in a statement. The Technology Group’s Innovation Lab is one of several areas at the bank focused on emerging technologies.
Blockchain technology is also being pursued by the bank’s San Francisco-based Innovation Group, led by Steve Ellis.
“Wells Fargo is committed to exploring emergent technologies and innovative concepts that will benefit our customers,” Wasik said.
IBM has been one of the leading non-bank companies in developing blockchain, which banks would like to control by building their own versions. The technology would make transferring payments faster, cheaper and safer, and is seen as the transaction system of the future.
Other banks, like Barclays, have massive innovation labs in New York to create their own system. Goldman Sachs and Bank of America also have been quietly patenting blockchain ideas.
Blockchain shares a massive database of transactions among users—similar to balancing a checkbook. Banks are hoping that blockchain can cut billions of dollars in costs over the next 10 years.
According to an IBM spokeswoman, Lund will work with IBM Blockchain and Hyperledger.
Execs involved include IBM Chief Technology Officer Chris Ferris and Blythe Masters, the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings and a former top JPMorgan Chase executive.
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Three-time all-star second baseman Bret Boone, who last played baseball in 2005, appears to have a lot of time on his hands. He spent today flinging himself into a reporter’s Twitter DMs just to make light of the day’s latest allegations of sexual harassment.
This morning Stephen Cohen, a reporter for SeattlePI.com (and not a sports reporter, mind you), tweeted an innocuous reaction to today’s news that Garrison Keillor was fired by Minnesota Public Radio for “inappropriate behavior.” An hour or so later, Bret Boone was all up in Cohen’s DMs:
“I got sexually harrased twice today. the Starbucks girl smiled at me and the woman at rite aid flirted with me.Im gettin a lawyer, unacceptable. lol”
After Cohen asked him why he thought that was a good or worthwhile thing to send unsolicited, or at all, Boone replied:
“Because it’s a joke and I have no clue who u are,nor do I care.Just sick of all the liberal bs and everyone all the sudden is offended.sorry that bothered u.go back to whatever you do in your pc world,and once again,I apologize if u were offended...You definitely would not be allowed to play golf in my foursome” “Oops,just happened again,the girl at vons told me to have a good day....lol...are you serious guy.”
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Cohen wrote about the interaction, and he admits to being baffled by the whole thing. But he did note that Boone DMed several of Cohen’s colleagues to say he was “being real and telling it like it is.” And then blocked everyone.
Boone’s handing out the DMs and subsequent blocks like candy today. @Jaydestro sends this along:
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Bret, my DMs are open.
Update: Boone has apologized.
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Thunder boomed across a gray, pouring sky with a loud shout. The rain didn't let up its assault on the soft, muddy earth, cleaving off leaves, and even full branches alongside the wrathful wind. All the Pokémon of the bombarded forest fled for whatever shelter they could find- to their own little huts- but they still couldn't escape the harassment of the elements. But one Pokémon decided to stay: a lone Lucario.
He sat on a fallen trunk as if the storm around him wasn't happening, meditating with arms crossed while the impaling rain pelted his fur. The others poked their heads out from their huts, to watch this mad Pokémon in shock and awe. They all watched with the same question on their minds: has he gone insane? The weather didn't treat the challenger kindly, it cracked the sky with many blades of lightning in several attempts to faze the blue jackal. Lucario denied it the courtesy of even twitching his eyelids to the disaster.
The Pokémon calmly stood from his log, ignoring the continued fits of thunder and lightning happening around him. No matter how much the downpour drenched his fur like a wet towel, or the screaming wind tore it off, he payed no mind to nature's childish tantrum.
He brought both paws to the middle of his chest. Through the thick curtain of rainfall, the cowering denizens observed a faint bluish light he summoned, growing brighter while cutting through the grayness. Their eyes became fixated on the Lucario, who focused his aura into a single point, growing it larger, and larger, and larger, until it all collected into a large ball of light. Why did he want to practice his moves in a time like this, they all asked themselves, he really must have gone mad. Their scared and sheltered auras shrieked in his ears, questioning his guts without understanding the pure thrill moments like this give him. When face to face with death, he felt more alive.
Life and power flowed from every vein in his body, and into the Aura Sphere, it squealed in a soothing, high-pitched tone. He could just feel it- this was the most powerful Aura Sphere he ever made. But if he wanted to show nature's wrath its place, he needed more to his power. In the middle of trees falling right beside him, to shots of lightning threatening to strike him down, he stood firm, charging his attack. Suddenly something distracted him from reaching his attack's fullest potential: the insides of his body shook violently, like his heart was somehow causing an earthquake. A loud, shrieking voice harassed his thoughts, growing louder and louder the more he tried to ignore it-
"Wake up! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!"
The voice rung through Oran's ears, static screeching in his head like nails on a chalkboard. He opened his scarlet eyes wide, but gave the morning light a chance to burn his little eyeballs out. He rubbed the blindness out with his fist, but sadly the first thing he had to see in the morning was Loudred, the guild's living alarm clock, looming over his side. The first thing he saw every morning was always him. "WAKE UP, YOU'LL BE LATE FOR GUILD LESSONS! YOU'LL BOTH BE LATE," the Big Voice Pokémon blared with his large, gaping mouth to both him and his still sleeping sister. Sometimes, Oran wondered to himself if Loudred could even hear himself talk; then his mind would answer back: he has Soundproof, of course he can't. Some Pokémon just don't know what an "off button" is.
"Rrgh." The Riolu forced his groggy body from the pile of hay that he called a "bed", dusting off the itchy straw from his black and blue fur. A little weak in his knees, his body felt heavy, and had a little jiggle to his stance, as if he was about to collapse any second into his hay pile for a few more Z's. "Do we have to get up so early?" He asked.
"YOU HAVE WORK TO DO TODAY. YOU BOTH DO. HOW WILL YOU WORK IF YOU BOTH ARE SLEEPING IN?!" Loudred screamed. Regardless of the time of day, it was as if Loudred had a sadistic fancy for bursting other Pokémon's ear drums.
"Agh, okay, okay," the pup yielded, folding his ears over themselves to block out as much of that Pokémon's screeching roar as possible. "We'll be there! We'll be there!"
"BE THERE AT THE ASSEMBLY HALL, SOON. OR ELSE YOU'LL TALK TO THE GUILDMASTER AGAIN." With nothing else left to say, and his job done, the Loudred stomped out of the room.
"Geez, how loud can that guy get?" Oran asked himself, while rubbing his aching head clear of that painful voice of his. "Just listening to him should be its own work."
"I thought you wanted the guild life," His sister yawned while shaking her body awake. For being the oldest sibling of the duo, she stood no taller than her brother, only a foot and four inches to his two feet four inches. Typical of a Buneary, she could rival a Teddiursa in cuteness, even after waking up. Despite being the older sibling, her baby brother towered over her by a foot. For her lack of height, she compensated with a quick tongue, sharper than any Seviper's tail. "Only a week in, and you're giving up. I knew you were just bluffing about joining."
"I want adventure," he replied. "I joined to be just like mom, and explore the Unido Region! I joined to learn how to use my aura powers! But I've just been getting chores ever since I came here. Speaking of which, how can you deal with him screaming every morning?"
"Soundproof," Pecha joked.
"Whatever, let's just go, already." With no more words he wanted to say to her, the two left the morning awkwardness of their quarters with a walk to the assembly hall; It was just an appetizer warm-up to prepare their bodies for the mountain of warm-ups that awaited them for the day.
The assembly hall was nothing but a meadow of grass inside a stone dome, lit by the many torches lining the restrictive walls of the guild. Wind could only flow through the opening at the top of the dome.
The room filled with the gathering members, still a bit sluggish from their ears being assaulted so early in the day. Among the growing mass: Normal, Grass, and Bug outnumbered all other types, including Oran, the lone Fighting-type. Big and small, strong and weak, there's no such thing as discrepancy at the Florges Guild- only teamwork and happiness.
Pecha and Oran walked into the conversing crowd, with only talks of job requests floating around to be heard. Oran could only catch white noise as he dug around in his own ears, trying to clear out Loudred's lasting echo.
"Okay, the first thing we should do is find Azumarill for our duties," Pecha told herself while exploring the hall, with Oran tailing her.
"Sis, what are you doing?" he asked his big sis while watching her wander. "The job board is that way," he pointed the opposite direction they were walking, though Pecha refused to pay his notion any mind. "Why don't we just skip the chores, and grab a request while they're still good?"
"Because we're not big enough for those requests," she replied to him with a blunt tone wreathing with irritation, about what she was uncertain, "I prefer being prepared over running into things head first."
"But Azumarill's jobs are so boring! I mean, garden maintenance? Cooking? Sentry duty? Those are boring! I want an adventure!"
"Aww, how cute," the Buneary stopped, teasing her brother as if what he said was absolutely precious, "you're so eager to take down a Legendary! Everyone, run away from the big, bad Riolu!"
"Cut that out," he demanded, "I can tell when you're being sarcastic! I'm being serious!"
"Hmm? Me? Sarcastic?" She hummed, her left paw coyly placed by her mouth. "You must be saying things."
"I'm not!" His sister's words stung him under his skin like a swarm of Beedrill. He pushed her to the grassy ground with his full upper body, thinking that would stop the teasing. She hit the soft lawn with a thud, her adorable fur coat got painted with mud and grass stains!
No matter how much she scraped her paws across her pelt, the stains never came out. "My fur! Oran, you jerk!" when she got back up to her feet she gave her brother a taste of his own medicine, returning the push he gave her; a war between siblings soon erupted: while each side pulled at the others' ears and fur, neither stood an advantage without grunting an angered, painful moan. The fight quickly took to the ground, with Pecha jumping onto her brother, pinning him down under the weight of her bottom. Oran squirmed for freedom, but his sad attempt only put a wide grin across his sister's face, "Ha! What are you gonna do now, Mr. Big Bad Riolu?"
"Get off me, Pecha," Oran barked.
"Say, 'pretty please'," she said, ignoring the painless flailing her brother's giving her. "Now say you're sorry."
"Never!" Too determined to give up in the face of his vain sister, he flailed even harder with every free limb he could control; to his disdain, even then, progress remained constant- he withered himself, while the punished only felt slight tickles to her skin.
"You always wanna do things the hard way," She teased him some more.
"Of course," he huffed under the little breath Pecha's weight squeezed out from his lungs, "H-how else'll I become strong? At least I'm not taking the backseat, like you!"
"That's not what I'm doing-!"
their vocal war soon broke to the cry of a peacekeeper, "Ch-children, please, stop fighting!" The gentle calling somehow was powerful enough to reach the two through the collective chattering of their surrounding, yet soothing enough to quell the children from fighting anymore. Pecha and Oran looked up with puzzled eyes to find Azumarill, the Guildmistress' assistant, on the verge of tears. "Wh-why are you two fighting? Don't you love each other?" She asked them in a faint voice, almost ready to break into a waterfall.
"Azumarill, tell Pecha that we're ready for a job request," Oran told her at the top of his lungs, still struggling to catch breath from Pecha being on top of them.
"Be quiet, Oran, you're going to get us in trouble," the Buneary hissed in his ears.
"I was told to bring you two to the Guildmistress' chambers this morning," She told them.
Oran couldn't ignore the large pit that just dropped in his stomach; Loudred couldn't have reported him to her already! As his sister released him from the ground, he caught several quick gasps of air, then spoke, "w-w-w-wait, Azumarill, I-I can explain: I was going to wake up on time, this morning, I swear!"
"Huh? What are you talking about? Miss Florges said she had something special for you two."
A moment of confusion befell the pair, which quickly sparked into a flame of curiosity that sparkled in their eyes. "Really? What is it?" The children asked her in high hopes.
"She wanted it to be a surprise," Azumarill told them. Seeing the children not attempting to kill each other any more, her smile broke from the confiding gates of her own blues. "Are you interested in finding out?"
The children needed no words- their expressions of joy were enough to speak to the Aqua Rabbit Pokémon. They followed the assistant through the morning crowd, in hopes of finding out the secret.
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Lets face it, finding a lost dog on the 4th of July is not what we want to do. There he is, running around your neighborhood, scared from the nights’ activities. The sky lighting up on fire, the booms…what in the world happened. You’ve managed to coax him into your front yard or backyard… so now what?
If you have the ability, setting up a specific little area for your unexpected guest, may be just the thing to help the dog get back to his home. This can include:
Pet bed or other loose bedding
Food & water
Toys
Radio set to soothing music
4 Ways to Help a Lost Dog Find Their Home
Signs
When a friend has lost a dog the first thing that a person does is drive around the neighborhood looking for their dog. But what happens if some has found the dog and it is quietly sitting in the backyard or house and the owner has just drove by? Most of the time we are the ones looking for the signs of a lost dog on street corners, etc. But if you’ve found a dog, why don’t you place a sign in your front yard saying “DOG FOUND!!”.
Microchips
I am not one to immediately take a dog to the shelter when I have found them, only because I live in a county with one of the highest euthanasia rates in the country, so if I can do all I can to help the dog find it’s owners then that’s how it shall be. A step I take is to check to see if the pet is micro-chipped. Obviously I don’t have a scanner in my home, but I can take the dog in to a local vet and have them scanned. Now that the pet has been scanned, and they are micro-chipped and depending on the company, the vet will take your information and give it to the company so the owners can contact you or vice versa. Sometimes though, even when the dog is micro-chipped, you are unable to find the owner because the phone number is no longer in service or they never completed the registration with the company.
Shelters
Another thing you can do is contact your local shelter to see if anyone has lost a dog matching the description of the dog you found. If there has not been a report, be sure to leave your name and number with the shelter so they can contact you if they are contacted.
Internet
Social networking on sites such as Facebook, Twitter (#lostdog #founddog) can help your little friend get back home. Also be sure to check sites like Craigslist and even the microchips company website. You can also sign up for lost pet alerts in your area with apps such as PetRescuers by HomeAgain.
Here are 2 of my favorite sites for lost and found dogs:
Lost My Doggie – a great resource for listing your lost or found dog. Free to list a found dog, small fee to list a lost dog. Next Door – I love this site because it really isn’t a pet site. Unlike Facebook NextDoor gives you access to a private social network for your given neighborhood. From classified listing within your neighborhood to keeping up with neighbors regarding yard sales and lost dogs, Next Door lets you get to know your neighbors again.
I urge you to do what you can if you can to help a lost dog back to its owner. There are many shelters that become overfull at certain times of the year and will make adjustments to give room for all the incoming lost pets. Don’t let your pet or someone else’s become a statistic.
If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook with the share links below. Thank you!
Updated: July 4, 2015
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The massacre of 49 innocent people at the gay night club in Orlando on Sunday was both shocking and tragic. Not being a specialist on gun rights, immigration, religion or mental health—all of which appear to be pertinent to the discussion of what happened—I do not wish to opine too much.
My immediate reaction is that a crazy or hateful individual, who is determined to kill the largest possible number of people (for whatever twisted reason), cannot be stopped by new laws and regulations, nor by the evolution of social and cultural norms that make the society as a whole more tolerant and safer (of which more below). Similarly, law enforcement response, no matter how speedy and brave, is unlikely to prevent some, perhaps most, casualties. Were I at that night club (or at that church in Charleston), I would have wished to be armed and thus have a fighting chance of survival. But, that's just me.
Now back to the evolution of social and cultural norms regarding gay rights. Gays and lesbians used to be persecuted and shunned throughout the world for millennia. In today's America, however, we enjoy rights and acceptance not seen since ancient Greece. Singular acts of hate and madness cannot erase the progress that our society has made and for which we all ought to be grateful. Knowing that will, I hope, provide some solace in dark times.
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On Jan. 26, 2015, The Plain Dealer quoted Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association President Steve Loomis as saying, "If the city thinks an officer did something wrong, they should charge them with a crime, not write a check. If there is an officer who does something wrong -- something intentionally wrong -- I'll help you get that guy."
On behalf of Edward Henderson, I accept Loomis' offer.
On Jan. 1, 2011, after surrendering to police, Edward Henderson was brutally beaten by six Cleveland police officers. The beating was witnessed by four other Cleveland police officers and caught on infrared video by a police helicopter. For his criminal conduct that evening, Henderson received a three-year sentence.
Despite clear video evidence of criminal conduct by CPPA members, the blue wall of silence rose up. Although four Cleveland police officers -- Paul Crawford, Martin Lentz, Christopher Randolph and Kevin Smith --- were initially charged with felonious assault and obstructing official business, they were not prosecuted and the case was closed.
On the advice of union-provided lawyers, five of the six officers potentially involved in the beating asserted their Fifth Amendment privilege at deposition in the civil case. Officer Lentz was excused from deposition because of the illness of his father. The other two officers deposed were Daniel Makad and Jonathan Dayton.
All police, including police union presidents and members, have a duty to disclose criminal conduct by their members. The president of the CPPA is uniquely situated to receive timely, factual information about each act of police misconduct that occurs on the streets of Cleveland. Union representatives are called to the scene of almost every incident involving the use of deadly force. Police are given 72 hours to consult with a union-provided attorney and a union representative before making any statement.
The union line on every case is always the same: "the officer was justified;" "he/she feared for his/her life;" "if the citizen had only complied;" "we are the good guys;" "it's a dangerous job;" "they are bad guys and we are justified 100 percent of the time;" "we are never wrong;" "we are always heroes."
Police union presidents repeatedly have failed to provide truthful information about use-of-force incidents, even in those obvious instances when police conduct can be characterized as state-sponsored murder.
CPPA leaders consistently have pointed the finger of ridicule and disgust in use-of-force cases away from officers and at citizens who become victims of police criminality. The CPPA leadership has pointed another finger at reform-seekers.
The mayor, police chief, the U.S. attorney, local civil rights lawyers, civil rights leaders and communities, as well as the African-American, Latino, LGBT and other minority communities, have felt the impact of the campaign leveled by CPPA leadership. The impact translates into a legitimate lack of trust of law enforcement.
The lack of transparency created by police misinformation is the standard rather than the exception in the Cleveland police department.
What action on the part of the CPPA would be helpful to Clevelanders and to its members?
The reformers, the Justice Department and Loomis agree on three significant facts about the Cleveland police department: The Cleveland police are poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly led -- and, Loomis would say, underpaid.
Now is the time for Loomis and the union to embrace reform, crack the "code of silence" and purge the department and the union of the criminal element that up to now has enjoyed union protection. The CPPA leadership should, on its own initiative, make a good-faith demonstration of reform by immediately revealing or confirming the names of all those officers who so fearlessly brutalized Edward Henderson while he was handcuffed and helpless.
The failure of CPPA leadership and membership to come forward on their own with their knowledge of the Henderson incident, if any, or their failure to force the officers actually involved in the incident to come forward with information, will only correctly cause the public to understand that the CPPA leadership is committed only to protecting a criminal element in their ranks rather than the people of Cleveland. Stop protecting these malefactors and start pursuing less violence toward the public, fewer million-dollar settlements, and more pay, better working conditions, better equipment and real leadership for Cleveland patrolmen.
Daniel S. Chaplin, a Cleveland lawyer, represented Edward Henderson.
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Earlier this morning, while sipping on my coffee I was reading Esquire's new interview with the Navy SEAL who shot Osama Bin Laden. It's a very in-depth interview and a great read. What's interesting is when the topic of interrogations was brought up, he mentioned heavy metal. This is where things get interesting:
He also insists that when it came to interrogation, repetitive questioning and leveraging fear was as aggressive as he'd go. "When we first started the war in Iraq, we were using Metallica music to soften people up before we interrogated them," the Shooter says. "Metallica got wind of this and they said, 'Hey, please don't use our music because we don't want to promote violence.' I thought, Dude, you have an album called Kill 'Em All. "But we stopped using their music, and then a band called Demon Hunter got in touch and said, 'We're all about promoting what you do.' They sent us CDs and patches. I wore my Demon Hunter patch on every mission. I wore it when I blasted bin Laden."
Using metal as interrogation is nothing new, with reports going back 10 years stating this. James Hetfield was quoted in 2009 as saying he "was kind of bummed" that the US Armed Forces were using Metallica's music, saying he believes music and politics don't mix.
What's surprising is that Demon Hunter, a notably Christian metal band, have no such problems with their music being used. What ever happened to "turn the other cheek?"
UPDATE: Demon Hunter have just released a statement denying they ever "volunteered" their music, also detailing how the Navy SEAL 6 team reached out them. An absolute must read.
UPDATE #2 Metallica have released a statement denying making any requests to the armed forces to stop using their music.
Watch Metallica videos.
Watch Demon Huntervideos.
[Thanks Stan!]
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Serial killer Ted Bundy once stated that “he could tell a victim by the way she walked down the street, the tilt of her head, the manner in which she carried herself, etc . . .” (Serial Murder, Holmes & Holmes, 2009)
Multiple studies have been done on how criminals select their victims. As such we have an accurate picture of what criminals look at in order to establish whether someone is vulnerable to victimization. Some of the most recent research on the subject confirms very startling notions.
On many occasions criminals have been asked how they choose their victims or why they fought back with a police officer. A lot of the typical answers are related to matters of natural selection. They choose victims based on comparative physical stature, perceived awareness, whether or not they are alone and gender. This study shows that the criteria is much more limited. While the aforementioned reasons apply, the study shows that body language and walking pattern are much more important. The basic idea of the study was to show a selection of inmates 12 videos of people walking away. Those 12 people also provided testimony as to whether they were ever victimized. Accuracy was judged on whether the inmates gave the people who had actually been victimized a 6 or higher out of 10 to show vulnerability. The inmates provided reasoning behind their victim selections as well. The study showed that inmates with severe psychopathy chose victims based on gait and their vulnerability rating corresponded with individuals which had been previously victimized.
What does this mean to the average person? The way you carry yourself can help single you out or rule you out for victimization. While there is victim selection criteria like your gender or age that you cannot change, you can stack the deck in your favor. Walking confidently and not exhibiting behaviors of distraction, ie: fidgeting, fumbling with cell phone, are minimal effort ways to help rule yourself out. In the simplest terms, do you walk like you have the ability to defend yourself? Do you drag your feet and act like a wounded animal? Most of us give these behaviors very little attention because we have been doing them the same for years. This was brought to my attention at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. We were shown countless videos, and spared countless more, of police officers falling victim to an attacker due to complacency and ultimately how they carried themselves. While you cannot control the people around you or their depravity, you do not have to carry yourself like a victim.
RULE YOURSELF OUT
Source: Psychopathy and Victim Selection: The use of Gait as a Cue to Vulnerability, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Angela Book, PhD, Kimberly Costello, PhD, and Joseph A. Camilleri, PhD, 2013
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In a fiery speech Monday, the leader of the nation's largest labor federation took aim at top American corporations and the U.S. Supreme Court, which he accused of waging a "war on democracy."
Speaking to thousands of union members at the AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles, President Richard Trumka denounced the "powerful forces in America today who want our country to be run by and for the rich."
He singled out Wal-Mart and McDonald's, saying "their whole business model is about keeping the people who work for them poor," as well as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whom he called an "apostle of greed" for his efforts to limit collective bargaining by public employee unions.
MORE: The AFL-CIO in Los Angeles
Trumka's scorching remarks came on the second day of a convention that he has sought to portray as a crucial turning point for a shrinking labor movement that has seen membership fall to just 11% of American workers, down from 35% in the 1950s.
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Mmm-mm. Dee-lish! They sure knew how to make a meat paste look tasty back in the day. Just show it being squeezed through a grinder – always a mouth-watering visual.
This is an example of where the food might actually have tasted just fine (depending on your tastes), but, before the advent of the “food stylist”, things often looked ghastly in their advertisements. We’ve become so accustomed to highly-polished, Photoshopped food presentation, that food in vintage advertising just looks unpalatable.
Here are some adverts from decades past where the food may or may not have tasted fine, but the presentation makes things look downright inedible by today’s standards. Bon appetit!
Okay, I can read that the bits that look like maggots are actually slivered almonds – but they still look like maggots!
Steaming sausages atop a mound of veggies and toast – sounds good in theory.
What’s in the blender? Answer: “A whole new world of cooking…. sauces you thought only professionals could prepare.”
Am I alone in thinking that maybe the raisins aren’t adding “a touch of magic” to these meals?
Eegad! This is truly horrifying.
A sandwich only an Australian could love.
Dear God. I enjoy a big gristly hunk of meat as much as the next guy – but can we get a food stylist on the set, quick! Evidently, in 1968, they didn’t know that we consumers don’t like our meat to look like it’s actually part of an animal.
Those are some deep red wieners! (And is the pile of radishes in the corner really necessary?)
No amount of garnish can save this gastro-abomination.
To be fair, I’m not sure it’s possible to make mustard pickles look appetizing.
Sweet Lord, that’s a lot of fake mayonnaise. This should fulfill your fake-mayonnaise allowance for the next couple years.
These Polynesian Meat Rolls are spectacularly appalling.
For more truly unsavory meats check out this article: Ugly Vintage Meats: Before There Were Food Stylists
I can think of a lot of ways to describe this snack – “pure natural goodness” isn’t one of them.
Rule #1 for food stylists: Make sure your food doesn’t look like it has a bloody tumor.
Wow. That’s an impressive wedge of fat on that veal chop!
Try serving these at your next party. You’ll be the talk of the town.
A pizza with Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee sauce, anchovies, boiled eggs, raw onion and a center of caviar? Well, there’s no denying it’s original. And how about those chicken legs – don’t they look tasty?
Call me crazy, but I’m thinking they could’ve made that ham look a bit more appealing. As it stands, I think I feel a tad squeamish – let’s call it day. Until next time.
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by
Cory Crawford is assistant professor of Biblical Studies in the Department of Classics and World Religions at Ohio University. He completed his AM and PhD in Hebrew Bible in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, and just finished a Volkswagen/Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the University of Tübingen in Germany. His BA was in Linguistics at BYU. His recent article, “The Struggle for Female Authority in Biblical and Mormon Tradition”, is in the Summer 2015 issue of Dialogue.
I am very grateful to BCC for inviting me to reflect on and highlight some of the ideas that surfaced for me when looking at the Bible and women’s authority in an LDS framework.
In deciding to write the article, I hoped to tackle the question in the spirit of the Gospel Topics essays, which are attempts to flesh out among other things the historical context for important contemporary questions, but which have yet to address the problem of female ordination or the deep history of gender relations in the Bible and LDS scripture. Before I began digging into the Biblical text and the substantial world of feminist biblical scholarship, I was rather pessimistic about whether the Bible could contribute much to a discussion of the particularities of LDS priesthood and ordination, since it doesn’t say much about ordination at all, and it doesn’t view priesthood in the same way Mormonism does. The process of looking closely at the biblical evidence and the careful work of modern commentators, not just with regard to specific biblical women but also to the way biblical authors understood and shaped notions and narratives of priesthood, turned me into an optimist. It convinced me that Latter-day Saints have many theological tools at their disposal to explore the possibility of female ordination within a “native” framework in harmony with both early LDS theology and with present concerns.
Priesthood at Risk
In an essay now published in the Mormon Feminism anthology, Kynthia Taylor clearly mapped out the problem with official discourse on priesthood and gender, which she immortalized by the term Chicken Patriarchy. She describes it as the Church’s adherence to two fundamentally contradictory positions: 1) priesthood is essential and the ultimate power in the universe; 2) priesthood isn’t really that important because it amounts to little more than choosing who gets to pray, and so it doesn’t matter so much that women don’t have it and men do. LDS rhetoric hops between these two poles (depending on the audience) in a way that only dilutes the force of priesthood and confuses both its (male) wielders and (female) observers. We tell our new deacons that they can call down angels from heaven, and our beehives that angels aren’t that big a deal anyway.
The driving force behind this polarization is a strong dual commitment to a) an exclusively male priesthood and at the same time b) the notion that men are not hierarchically more important than women. These two are insoluble, and the attempts to smash them together only replicate the theological quandaries. The untenable Hafen/Hudson treatment of Gen 3:16, which I discuss at greater length in the article, is a case in point. Similarly, the recent rhetorical emphasis Church leadership places on receptivity rather than agency in priesthood (see footnotes in my article) results from “Chicken Patriarchy.” What’s important about the priesthood, according to this line of argument, is not who actually turns the keys, but that the doors and windows to blessings get opened (note passive voice). This presents another insoluble dilemma: if it’s not important who turns the keys, then why not women? And if it is, why not say so, and provide evidence and justification?
In my view, this dual discourse risks diluting the power and relevance of priesthood in an LDS context.
Adding to the crisis is a second factor that also became very clear when comparing the struggle for female ordination in non-LDS communities: We have a much bigger problem with priesthood and gender than other Christian denominations. This is because priesthood intrudes into every single relationship, permeates every family in the here and hereafter in a very direct way. We can’t, as did Carol Meyers for ancient Israel, dismiss priesthood because it was basically exclusive of all females and the vast majority of males. Priesthood is so entwined with eternal gender in LDS theology that getting it right is cosmically crucial. When it comes to priesthood and gender, the stakes are much, much higher in the Mormon context.
Biblical Evidence
The fact that we have an expanded notion of priesthood thus creates unique problems (in that every single family is affected by the hierarchy) but also unique solutions. Other theologies understand priesthood as a role more than a power wielded by people holding office. The LDS concept of priesthood as a force wielded not just by priests, but by prophets, apostles, deacons, judges allows the biblical record to testify to female priesthood in ways that might not be as direct in other traditions. It also forces us to reconsider the universal power described in Proverbs as (Lady) Wisdom as exactly equivalent to priesthood in the LDS tradition. In this light, not only do women clearly hold the Priesthood in LDS terms (Junia, Deborah, Phoebe, Hannah, Zipporah, Huldah, etc.), the power itself is gendered in Proverbs as female.
The Hebrew and Greek biblical record is a testament to the repeated extension and denial of (what Latter-day Saints call) priesthood power to women, and the best way to understand this cycle is under the rubric of apostasy. It is most clearly seen in the book of Judges, where women begin the story as among the most powerful figures in Israelite society, ever (especially the prophet Deborah and the priest(?) Jael). They save the entire population not through any stereotypical gender role confined to the home but through public prophecy, military maneuvering, and strategic violence. They operate as agents, as priests and prophets. But as Israel veers toward kingship, female power is systematically stripped away and women are increasingly shunted away from public view. I argue that the book of Judges characterizes this development as part of the decline of Israel, a descent into apostasy, which represents a move away from the will of God. To a lesser extent this pattern can be seen in other contexts where women occupy roles at the highest levels of LDS priesthood offices, including apostle and deacon, which is then contested especially at the end of the biblical period and into the postbiblical.
This is another area in which LDS theology is advantageous. We have so many tools at our disposal that point toward the necessity of expanding the priesthood to include all worthy people. Perhaps the biggest is that we bypass the wrangling over postbiblical tradition, or we can, anyway. Other denominations had to incorporate or transform the 1500 years of male-dominated tradition in a way foreign to LDS thought. Absent the rules created by early individuals and councils that solidified male power, we are free to grapple with the canonical text, which fairly easily submits to a neutralization of what seemed to virtually every generation until now to be a male-dominated hierarchy. It is virtually written out of the LDS constitution.
The Bible also presents a challenge to those who hold up explicit ordination as the singular indication of priesthood precedent. Michael Otterson’s statement that ordination of women requires that the New Testament say Jesus performed it is undercut by the many male figures in scripture whose ordination is taken for granted. And on the other hand, the commission and ordination of the female figures is either ignored or assumed in the negative. The fact of the matter is that the biblical evidence for ordination of any kind outside the rather narrow Levitical lineage is extremely thin. The list of figures assumed by Latter-day Saints to have had priesthood ordination without explicit mention thereof is long, and, more important, presents an uneven gendered application of evidentiary standards: many males traditionally (but not biblically) called prophets are declared in blanket statements to have held priesthood, but women who are explicitly called prophets (Deborah, Huldah, Miriam, etc.) and apostles (Junia) and deacons (Phoebe) are dismissed, as are other women who are clearly apostolic given New Testament criteria for apostleship (especially Mary Magdalene). Women who are characterized as priests (Jael, Hannah, Zipporah) are subjected to the same treatment that ancient scribes applied to the text of 1 Sam: from their vantage women couldn’t hold priesthood, so they clearly minimized Hannah’s priestly role. The bottom line is that, when it comes to ordination as with the other evidence discussed, we find an uneven application of evidentiary standards between men and women in scripture.
The beauty of LDS theology is its flexibility in pursuit of truth, in coming to revelation through study and questioning, in seizing on right scriptural ideas no matter how slightly indicated in the text. For millennia—and right down to Joseph Smith—interpreters have used the briefest allusions, like the author of Hebrews does, to come to new understandings of priesthood, and it is that process that will be exciting to watch unfold in future LDS discourse about women and ordination.
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Professor Matthew Goodwin a fellow of the UK in a Changing Europe based at the University of Kent found that analysis of voting data from the EU referendum had thrown up “profound value differences” between Leavers and Remainers.
Figures showed that educational attainment was a much stronger determining factor in people’s decision to vote Leave than either earnings or age.
Compared with degree holders, support for Brexit was “about 30 points higher” among those with GCSE-only qualifications or below, but the Leave-Remain differential was only 10 points between those earning less than £20,000 and more than £60,000.
Among the age groups, the gap was 20 percentage points between those over-65 and those aged 25 when it came to voting Leave.
Prof Goodwin added that the vote had also defined the core liberal v conservative battle – or “identity politics” - currently dividing Britain and fomenting the rise of Ukip and other anti-establishment political groups.
As a symbol of the values-clash, those who self-identified themselves as being against gender equality and gay rights voted 80 per cent in favour of Leave while those in favour of stronger prison sentences and the death penalty also voted 73 per cent and 76 per cent in favour of Brexit.
Prof Goodwin argued that Labour under both Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn had failed to appreciate the fundamental point that “identity”, immigration and anti-elite sentiment had become more important to many voters than being left behind economically.
One other major factor that affected voter intention during the June 23 vote was geographical location, a fact illustrated by data showing that people living in low-skilled areas of the UK tended to lean more towards Leave relative to residents of high-skilled areas, like Oxford and Cambridge.
Those with GCSE-level education voted 70 per cent Leave if they lived in a low-skilled area, but that figure fell to 54 per cent among voters with the same level of attainment living in a high-skilled area.
Even starker differentials were observable among A-level and degree holders. Those with A-levels voted 64 per cent for Leave in unskilled areas, but only 29 per cent in high-skilled areas – a gap of 35 points. The gap (49-18) was 31 points among degree holders.
“This is a double whammy for those left behind,” Prof Goodwin said, saying the figures showed how “deeply polarised” the UK had become on education, while pointing to an urgent need for government to devise investment strategies that encouraged social mobility.
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By Manuel Veth –
In 2008 Zenit Saint Petersburg became only the second Russian club to win a major European trophy when they beat Glasgow Rangers in Manchester to win the UEFA Cup – a triumph that propelled Zenit on to the international stage. However, such success would not have been possible without the financial backing of Gazprom, who had chosen football as the centrepiece of its global image campaign.
The final in Manchester was the peak of a process, which began in 1999 when Gazprom became the official sponsor of Zenit. Gazprom’s sponsorship deal was signed shortly after Zenit had lifted the Russian Cup, beating Lokomotiv Moscow 3-1 thanks largely to two goals from Alexander Panov, known as the “Kolpino rocket”. At the time of the takeover, Gazprom’s chairman Petr Radionov stated in the Russian daily newspaper Izvestiia “that in difficult economic times it is important that people have an outlet”. In a somewhat philosophical tone, Radionov was referring to the fact that Russia was recovering from the 1998 economic crisis with Saint Petersburg hit especially hard by the default of Russia’s banking sector.
Zenit – a cultural investment?
With Gazprom’s sponsorship, Zenit became part of a city-wide cultural investment programme with the company promising that its football club would have the funding available to produce a team that can challenge not only in Russia but also in the Champions League for years to come. Radionov, unlike so many apparent financial white knights in football, kept his promise.
For Gazprom, Zenit was a football experiment in a city – unlike Moscow – represented by only one club. Such investments, however, were characteristically not made without wider-reaching aspirations and motives in mind. The club would serve as an advertising platform that would become the new centre of a global football image campaign with the goal of introducing Gazprom and Russia in a new, progressive light to the west.
In many ways, Gazprom’s investment in Zenit marked a turning point in Russia’s post-Soviet economy as the country moved away from an economy based on the banking sector to one which focused on the export of natural resources under the rule of Vladimir Putin after 2000. Shortly after the rise of Putin, Gazprom was able to reacquire oil and gas assets all over Russia. This period was not without controversy, which included the trial of Mikhail Khordokovskii and the purges of other oligarchs in the Russian resource sector. These events were the backdrop against which Gazprom made its return as the major energy company in Russia; a fact which coincided with Russia’s revival as a global energy exporter.
Zenit, however, were a good bet for Gazprom. The sort of investment that bettors go for when they are certain of a correct score. Russia’s economic shift is very much reflected in Gazprom, with the company’s investment in sport viewed by some as a project to mask the questionable circumstances that enabled Gazprom to become Russia’s largest company. In 2005 Gazprom took over as the only shareholder of Zenit when Chairman David Traktovenko – now owner of Sydney FC – stepped down and agreed to sell his shares to the energy company.
From that moment, Gazprom was not only part of the game as a sponsor but also as an owner, thereby confirming Zenit as Russia’s richest club. Indeed since the takeover Zenit have won the Russian league three times, as well as one Russian Cup as well as the above mentioned UEFA Cup. In 2012, the German marketing company Sport+Markt published a report and listed Zenit as the best supported club in Russia and the 11th in Europe with 12.6 million followers.
Zenit is not enough: The creation of a global football network
But Zenit were not enough for Gazprom who wanted to expand its sport empire beyond Russia’s borders. In 2007, Gazprom was announced as the main sponsor of German club FC Schalke 04. As part of the sponsorship package, Schalke also signed a cooperation agreement with Zenit. The former has one of the best youth development programs in Germany, and have since sent specialists to Russia to help improve their youth infrastructure and those belonging to other clubs owned and operated by Gazprom.
Gazprom’s investment in Schalke has also allowed for some direct influence from Russia’s political elite in the day-to-day business of the German club. When Bayern Munich acquired Manuel Neuer from Schalke in the summer of 2011, Vladimir Putin personally tried to interfere with the transfer. The German newspaper Die Welt reported that Putin told Gazprom to make funds available to keep the German national goalkeeper in Gelsenkirchen. Putin also contacted the management of the club to voice his discontent with Neuer’s decision to eventually leave.
The trails being made by Gazprom into German football has more recently become a topic of fervent discussion in the south of the country. The all-conquering Bayern Munich have been the subject of speculation about a potential sale of some their shares to the Russian gas giant. The so called 50+1 rule forces German clubs to hold 51 per cent of their own shares; the clubs are, however, free to sell up to 49 per cent to investors.
In 2002, Adidas acquired 9.1 per cent of Bayern’s shares for €77m, and in 2009 Audi paid €90m for the same holding. These massive deals freed Bayern of their debts, making them one of the richest clubs in the world. In December 2012, Germany’s popular national daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that Gazprom were contemplating offering the Bavarians a multi-million Euro deal that would far exceed the previous arrangements with Audi and Adidas. The Gazprom-Bayern rumour has since refused to dissipate with the mutual benefits of such a move , plain for all to see.
A strategic partnership with Bayern, who are Germany’s best supported club, would create a more positive profile for Gazprom, who are often looked upon with suspicion in Germany, the economic engine of Europe and Gazprom’s most important customer in the European Union.
At this point, however, any future arrangement with the current Champions League holders remains distant, although their footballing empire has been growing elsewhere. For instance, in 2010, Gazprom saved the storied Serbian club Red Star Belgrade from bankruptcy by agreeing, by Serbian standards, a massive sponsorship deal worth €3m a season.
However, Gazprom’s activities in Serbia were lightweight compared to deals which followed.
Gazprom – the European Ministry of Sport Propaganda
In 2012, Gazprom buddied up with Chelsea to create a global energy partnership. The deal with Chelsea is perhaps less surprising considering Roman Abramovich’s close connections to the Kremlin.
As the Guardian suggested, the deal with Gazprom may help Chelsea to circumnavigate any potential issues with the new Financial Fair Play rules as the deal has seemingly reduced Chelsea’s dependence on cash inflows from Abramovich personally. As opposed to sponsorship money, Abramovich’s investments into Chelsea are recorded in financial reports as loan debts, a situation that has made Chelsea one of the most indebted clubs in Europe.
Financial Fair Play was introduced by UEFA in 2009, which is in essence a licencing system for clubs that compete in international competitions. The concept of Financial Fair Play is loosely based on the licencing system used by the Deutsche Fussball Liga (DFL), the governing body of the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga in Germany. As UEFA states on their official homepage, FFP follows the following principles:
• to introduce more discipline and rationality in club football finances;
• to decrease pressure on salaries and transfer fees and limit inflationary effect;
• to encourage clubs to compete with(in) their revenues;
• to encourage long-term investments in the youth sector and infrastructure;
• to protect the long-term viability of European club football;
• to ensure clubs settle their liabilities on a timely basis.
The deal with Gazprom therefore allowed Chelsea to increase their sponsorship revenue, and become less dependent on cash injections by Roman Abramovich, which are technically viewed as liabilities under the terms laid out by UEFA.
It was therefore not surprising when Chelsea chairman Ron Gourlay expressed his enthusiasm for the deal: “This is another very exciting global partnership for the club, and demonstrates the ever-growing appeal of Chelsea FC.” Furthermore, Gourlay added: “Our huge fan base around the world will help Gazprom reach their key markets in Europe and Asia, while we will benefit from their support in developing further our wide-ranging (Corporate Social Responsibility) CSR programs.”
According to sports website TSMPLUG, Chelsea have the second highest wage bill in the Premier League after Manchester City. The Guardian also reported on 9 November 2012 that the sponsorship deal with Gazprom meant that the club would for the first time since Abramovich had taken over in 2003 be run at a profit.
The Gazprom deal was perhaps a way for Abramovich to further circumnavigate Financial Fair Play by playing on his economic connections back in the Motherland. But as Abramovich’s involvement at Vitesse Arnhem shows (read Futbolgrad’s article Vitesse Arnhem and Chelsea – a Georgian-Russian Detente here), the Russian oligarch has had no qualms with slaloming round UEFA’s rules.
Release of the Kraken: How to influence policies Gazprom style
Gazprom does not invest in football merely to promote its image at home or abroad. Rather, Russia can use these investments to directly influence the decision-making processes of major clubs. Like a kraken, the company is therefore able to spread its tentacles into the decision making processes of, for instance, one of England’s largest sporting clubs, which ripples into the overall affairs of the Premier League and the Football Association.
In a way this process is reflected in other economic spheres as Gazprom has been able to infiltrate major energy companies in Western Europe through minority stakes. Through these minority investments Gazprom, in theory, has the power to influence policy decisions in countries like Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
For now, from the perspective of the countries in which Gazprom are making their investment, such projects are not considered dangerous. For them, this is a project concerning image and cosmetics. Ultimately, it can be argued that Russia, through Gazprom, is planting the seeds of control under the veil of pursuing its own major sport projects in Russia at home and abroad.
Manuel Veth is the owner and Editor in Chief of the Futbolgrad Network. He also works as a freelance journalist and among others contributes to Forbes.com and Pro Soccer USA. He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in History from King’s College London, and his thesis is titled: “Selling the People’s Game: Football’s transition from Communism to Capitalism in the Soviet Union and its Successor States,” which is available HERE. Originally from Munich, Manuel has lived in Amsterdam, Kyiv, Moscow, Tbilisi, London, and currently is located in Victoria BC, Canada. Follow Manuel on Twitter @ManuelVeth.
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Jacksonville Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette is reportedly not expected to play Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts because of an ankle injury, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport.
Assuming he sits out, Fournette will be able to rest until Nov. 5 since the Jaguars have a bye in Week 8.
The Jaguars selected Fournette with the fourth overall pick in the 2017 NFL draft, and the rookie has more than justified the investment.
Through six games, Fournette has run for 596 yards and six touchdowns on 130 carries. He also ranks fourth among qualified running backs in DYAR (defense-adjusted yards above replacement), according to Football Outsiders.
Fournette arrived in the NFL with some concerns about his durability, though, and those fears were borne out when he suffered a sprained ankle in Jacksonville's 27-17 defeat to the Los Angeles Rams.
On its own, the injury wasn't particularly serious, but it was the same issue that limited him to seven games in his final season at LSU.
Although Chris Ivory isn't an elite NFL running back, he's at least a proven commodity in his eighth year in the league. Ivory is a solid stopgap option in the backfield until Fournette is healthy enough to return to the field.
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GENEVA (Issued as received) – A United Nations expert has called on the Government of Cameroon to restore internet services to predominantly English-speaking parts of the country which have been cut off in “an appalling violation of their right to freedom of expression.”
“I am particularly concerned at the tightening of the space for free speech at a time where its promotion and protection should be of the utmost importance,” said the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye.
His call follows reports that Cameroonians in the northwest and southwest regions, which are predominantly English speaking, have been unable to connect to the internet since 17 January. It also comes against a background of widespread protests against government policies which have reportedly marginalized the country’s English-speaking population.
Cameroon has two official languages: French and English. But English speakers have long reported that they face discrimination and marginalization, and are excluded from top civil service positions and public services. They also complain their access to justice is limited because the majority of legislation and judicial proceedings are in French.
“A network shutdown of this scale violates international law – it not only suppresses public debate, but also deprives Cameroonians of access to essential services and basic resources,” said Mr. Kaye, urging the government to restore internet facilities immediately.
In 2016, the Human Rights Council passed a resolution which unequivocally condemned measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online in violation of international human rights law, and called on all States to refrain from and cease such measures.
This followed the 2015 Joint Declaration of UN and regional experts in the field of freedom of expression, which stated that network shutdowns or internet ‘kill switches’ are measures which can ‘never be justified under human rights law’.
The UN Special Rapporteur will continue to monitor developments in Cameroon closely, and is at the disposal of the authorities to provide assistance or advice as required.
Mr. David Kaye (USA) was appointed as Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in August 2014 by the United Nations Human Rights Council. As Special Rapporteur, Mr. Kaye is part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
UN Human Rights, country page: Cameroon
For more information and media requests please contact Ms. Azin Tadjdini (+41 22 917 9400 / [email protected] ) or write to [email protected] .
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Xabier Celaya, OHCHR Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / [email protected] )
You can access this press release online
Tag and share - Twitter: @UNHumanRights and Facebook: unitednationshumanrights
For use of the information media; not an official record
HR17/038E
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Y Combinator announced the YC fellowship program earlier this week.
YC Fellows will receive a $12,000 grant and advice from the YC community for 8 weeks (from mid-September to mid-November) to go from an idea to a startup. Fellows need an idea or a prototype and the ability to work on this full-time for 8 weeks.
If you are unfamiliar, Y Combinator is a seed investment firm targeting startup companies. The combined market capitalization of all the firms YC has invested in is over $30B.
I have replicated the YC fellowship application questions here on my blog. (Keep in mind there are 120 word limits on every question.) Below are my answers where I outline a company called Assure.
What is your company going to make?
This company provides benefits to employees of the sharing economy.
Independent contractors miss out of the benefits that come with full-time employment. Assure changes this.
Assure bridges the gap between full-time employee and independent contractor. Assure provides retirement contributions, medical insurance, and general liability insurance to members of the sharing economy.
In two sentences, say the most impressive thing about this team / startup.
I want to do something important. I want to create something of value.
Join hundreds of others!
Get notified of new posts.
Please tell us in one or two sentences about the most impressive thing that each founder has built or achieved.
I dropped out of college when my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. A month later I was hired full-time as a web developer with skills I taught myself.
Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you’re making?
A lot of my peers are oblivious to the benefits that come from being a full-time employee. (Something I have learned only recently after being hired full-time). Retirement contributions (401k), medical/dental insurance, and general liability insurance are the three areas I have a touch of experience in.
The sharing economy is expanding. A large number of jobs are tied to this industry. That number will continue rising.
Assure provides the safety and security employees need to maintain the growth of the peer to peer sector.
What’s new about what you’re making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn’t exist yet (or they don’t know about it)?
Providing benefits to employees who are independent contractors is not new.
Currently a contractor at Uber has scattered benefits. They have an IRA for retirement savings. Then, general liability insurance to protect their interests while working. And finally medical and dental insurance from their parents.
Assure brings these three interests together. Contractors wish to legitimize their employment. They will turn to Assure when they want their retirement contributions matched. When they want more protective liability insurance. Or when they turn 27 and no longer qualify for their parents medical coverage.
Who are your competitors, and what do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don’t get?
Companies that hire full-time employees are competitors. As are insurance companies that cover individuals.
Companies that hire full-time employees limit potential customers. While Insurance companies provide similar coverage to what we offer.
Our competitors are too slow to adapt to the sharing economy. Assure is agile enough to adapt as the peer to peer employment market grows.
How will you get users? How do or will you make money? How does this become a giant company?
Assure must educate people to turn them into users. Assure must provide information that allows millennials to see the value of working in a sharing economy while also receiving traditional full-time benefits. There is a knowledge gap.
Assure collects monthly premiums from members. Premiums are aggregated and invested. Profit is made from investment income, not premiums.
Assure is a component of the sharing economy. Employment opportunities are changing. Workers in this new economy will want benefits, Assure makes sure that happens.
Applications for the YC Fellowship are due by Monday, July 27th, two days from the time this post was published.
If you have feedback, please share it. I would appreciate hearing it before I press the submit button on Monday!
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Eric Decker has lived it, hidden in a dark library closet, quarantined by fear. The Broncos wide receiver has felt it, that feeling to which the students at Arapahoe High School can now relate. Sadly, they are not the only students who can relate.
“We didn’t know what to think,” said Decker, who hid for 45 minutes after the 2003 shooting of two students at his Minnesota high school. “Every girl was crying, every guy was trying to stay calm, and when they came and got us, we had to go across the street to the elementary school with our hands up. You see snipers on the top of the buildings, it’s just surreal. That moment, you’ll never forget.
“It changes your life in a second.”
In the days after the Dec. 13 shooting at Arapahoe High, Decker recorded a video message to the school’s students.
It was shown at an assembly, in the cafeteria and on the school’s website. He spoke of unity, of grieving, of perseverance. Decker is a Bronco, but to many, he’s now an Arapahoe Warrior.
“I just felt a connection,” said sophomore Mitchell Pennetta, who, as Decker does for the Broncos, wears No. 87 for the Arapahoe football team. “It’s been kind of hard to go through this — you never think it’s going to happen to your school, but then it does. And to know that somebody else, especially someone as famous as Eric Decker, has gone through something similar, it felt comforting.”
Feeling connected
Happiness comes cautiously these days at Arapahoe. But when the principal announced at an assembly that she had a video message from Decker, “Of course, all the girls are freaking out (because of his looks),” senior Grace Marlowe said, “and all the guys are freaking out for different reasons.
“It was nice because a lot of people are trying to relate to us — and it’s really hard, and I get that — but to have someone really get it, to have made it though something (similar) and to offer words of encouragement and advice? It was very welcomed and very needed at that time. It was also kind of like another note of optimism for all of us — he’s doing great, so we’ll be OK. We’ll move on from it, and it’s not going to be what people remember about us.”
On Dec. 13, Decker was driving home from Broncos headquarters, listening to the news on the radio — a student had shot another student at Arapahoe.
“It brings back flashbacks,” he said. “The library. Running out of the cafeteria. The gymnasium. You start praying for people.”
Decker recalls the voice of his friend, as the two fled the cafeteria to the library, ran past the gymnasium and spotted the chaos: “That’s my brother!”
On Sept. 24, 2003, a student shot and killed two other students at Rocori High School in small-town Cold Spring, Minn.
Decker was connected to both victims — one was a former teammate on the baseball team, the other the brother of his close friend, Jesse Bartell.
Decker was eating lunch with Bartell in the cafeteria when there was a sudden announcement. Code red. The two started sprinting, and that’s when Bartell saw his younger brother, Seth, sprawled on the gym floor. The gunman, a disgruntled student, had also shot classmate Aaron Rollins.
Decker and 11 other classmates hid in the library closet. Meanwhile, gym teacher Mark Johnson had heard a loud sound, which he at first thought was a light fixture falling to the floor. If only it had been. Johnson came into the gym and saw bloodshed at the hands of a boy. Freshman John Jason McLaughlin stood there, armed, “and I started walking toward him,” Johnson said. “He raised the gun at me and I stopped, took out my right hand and I just said, ‘No!’ I’ll be darned, he discharged the remaining shells on the gym floor and dropped the gun.”
Why did Johnson walk toward the gunman when so many people would run away?
“It’s just one of those things I just reacted to,” he said. “It happened so quickly. I don’t know why I started walking toward him, but I did. And once he raised the gun at me, that’s when I stopped. So I don’t think I became a threat to him; that’s the only thing I can think of. But he could have (shot me); he had seven more shots in the gun at the time. I grabbed the gun right away, and then I grabbed him.”
Soon after, Johnson tried to revive Decker’s friend Rollins.
“I can’t get his eyes out of my mind,” Johnson said. “We were doing CPR on him. But that didn’t work. He was already …”
For 1 minute and 55 seconds, the Arapahoe students were transfixed on Decker’s words.
Welcome distraction“
You never imagine being in that situation,” the Broncos star said in the video. “But through tough times like this, you’ve got to stick together — be it a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen or a person to be able to hug if there’s ever a grieving moment. And understand that everyone grieves at different paces.”
At Arapahoe, the Broncos matter. Denver is Broncos Country, sure, and the city is clamoring for the kickoff to Sunday’s AFC championship game against the New England Patriots, with a berth in Super Bowl XLVIII going to the winner. But for the members of the Arapahoe family, as the student Pennetta explained, “It’s just a big deal to sit and watch our home team do well. It helps take your mind off all the events, all the news, all that kind of stuff.”
For many, No. 18 is their favorite player. But at Arapahoe, No. 87 is their warrior.
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman @denverpost.com or twitter.com/hochman
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Computer keyboard with letters stacked in the word 'password' is seen in this illustration picture taken in Warsaw Thomson Reuters With cyberattacks resulting in hundreds of millions of leaked records and over $1 billion stolen in 2015, you might think people are starting to get wise about online security.
And you would be wrong.
Password management application company SplashData released its fifth annual report of the "worst passwords" that people can use, based on data it analyzed among 2 million passwords leaked by hackers in 2015.
The number one worst password — and the same one from 2014 — was "123456." In the number two spot was "password," which was also in the same spot on the list as last year.
Some other new passwords showed up, such as "login," "welcome," and "passw0rd." There were quite a few Star Wars fans out there as well, since new entries also included "starwars," "solo," and "princess."
But it's important to note that these choices are incredibly easy for a hacker to guess. Many of the most common passwords are loaded into software designed to crack accounts that run through a text file dictionary, trying each one, or combining words together.
So if your password is on the list, you should change it immediately.
"We hope that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will take steps to strengthen their passwords and, most importantly, use different passwords for different websites," said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData, in a statement.
Here's the 25 worst passwords of 2015:
1 - 123456 (unchanged from 2014) 2 - password (unchanged) 3 - 12345678 (Up 1) 4 - qwerty (Up 1) 5 - 12345 (Down 2) 6 - 123456789 (Unchanged) 7 - football (Up 3) 8 - 1234 (Down 1) 9 - 1234567 (Up 2) 10 - baseball (Down 2) 11 - welcome (New) 12 - 1234567890 (New) 13 - abc123 (Up 1) 14 - 111111 (Up 1) 15 - 1qaz2wsx (New) 16 - dragon (Down 7) 17 - master (Up 2) 18 - monkey (Down 6) 19 - letmein (Down 6) 20 - login (New) 21 - princess (New) 22 - qwertyuiop (New) 23 - solo (New) 24 - passw0rd (New) 25 - starwars (New)
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A PLAN to cut Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next decade is set to be dumped by the Baillieu government on the basis that it would merely lighten the load imposed on other states.
An independent review of the state’s key climate change laws, to be released today, has found ‘‘no compelling case’’ to keep the target following the introduction of the Commonwealth’s minimum target to cut emissions by 5 per cent, to be mainly achieved through Labor’s carbon tax.
Illustration: Ron Tandberg
It said keeping the larger state target operating with a smaller national target would put a disproportionately large burden on Victoria, with no benefit to the environment because other states would do less.
It also concludes that keeping the state scheme in place would distort the national scheme as Victoria did more than its share.
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We asked 10Best and USA TODAY readers to vote for their favorite Museum for Families, and the results are in! The Indianapolis Children's Museum -- the world's largest children's museum with over 29 acres to its name -- took home top honors. (Photo11: Children's Museum of Indianapolis)
Savvy families have a new must-see list, with the reveal of 10best.com's winners for Best Museum for Families. This popular Readers' Choice contest category was hotly contested, and in the end, Children's Museum of Indianapolis took the top spot. It was followed by nine worthy contenders with their own loyal followings.
Each of our winners, also shown in the carousel above, makes an excellent destination on wet or chilly days, or a fun weekend outing in any weather. Many of the winning museums also have exhibits and activities which will keep teens and adults entertained.
10 best museums for families
1. Children's Museum of Indianapolis
2. Children's Museum of Houston
3. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science - Albuquerque
4. Musical Instrument Museum - Phoenix
5. Discovery Center Museum - Rockford, Ill.
6. ¡Explora! Children's Museum - Albuquerque
7. National Museum of Play - Rochester, N.Y.
8. Henry Ford Museum - Detroit
9. Center of Science & Industry - Columbus, Ohio
10. Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum - Washington, D.C.
Congratulations to all the winners! To see previous winners and vote in all underway contests, visit 10best.com/awards/travel/.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1bLWzWz
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Skunks are probably best known for their ability to spray foul-smelling fluid as a defense against predators. Most wild skunks spray only when injured or attacked, as a defense mechanism. The mercaptan -emitting scent glands are usually removed in pet skunks at about four weeks of age. Since 2006, this removal practice has been illegal in the UK.
Although capable of living indoors with humans similarly to cats or dogs , pet skunks are relatively rare, partly due to restrictive laws and the complexity of their care. Pet skunks are mainly kept in the United States , Canada , Germany , the Netherlands , Poland , and Italy .
In the 20th century, most U.S. states outlawed the keeping of wild animals as part of their efforts to stem the spread of rabies . Only about one-third of states continued to allow domestic skunks. In the 1990s, skunk enthusiasts began establishing mailing lists and organized for skunk law reform. In the 2000s, similar initiatives took place in Canada .
Skunks are native to the Americas and are first noted in historical accounts of Christopher Columbus . Skunks were reportedly kept as pets by some Native American nations. [1] Farmers valued domesticated skunks for their ability to kill rodents and other pests . Skunk pelts were also used for coats and frequently passed off as marten fur . Before the 1950s, they were sold under ambiguous names such as "American sable " and "Alaskan sable". [2] The courts finally ruled that the customer must be informed of any purchase that contained skunk parts. The skunk fur market subsequently collapsed. Since then, skunks have been mainly bred as pets.
Skunks are sensitive, intelligent animals, [3] and like all intelligent animals, temperament varies with each individual. Skunks tend to be highly curious and will open cupboards that are left unlocked. Some owners have noticed skunks smelling something that was spilled on the carpet long ago, and attempting to dig to find out what is buried there. Like ferrets , their curiosity can lead them into danger, especially if they crawl inside reclining chairs or other machinery. [4]
Handling skunks Edit
To play with a baby pet skunk, it is possible to get on one's hands and knees, and playfully tap the floor with the fingers of one hand, while moving the hand toward the skunk. They quickly get the idea, and will respond with a sort of cat-like rearing up and coming down on their front feet. However, as they make their move, they will be looking you straight in the eyes, while aiming, with tail raised high, their potent "weapon" directly at your eyes simultaneously. (They do the same in the wild when threatened; baby skunks are trained in this manner by their mothers.)
It is better to avoid playing rough with baby skunks, or they may become aggressive and uncooperative as they get older. Bare hands can be used for loving and cuddling the skunk, but a stuffed toy or hand puppet should be used when playing with them due to their sharp teeth and extremely long fangs.[5]
As with all animals, spanking or hitting a skunk is not recommended, since it will cause them to become vengeful or hand-shy. A squirt of water from a spray bottle may be helpful.[6]
Housebreaking Edit
Most skunks can be housebroken by corner training. After they choose a corner, a litter pan with unscented litter can be placed there. If the skunk misses the litter pan, after cleanup, the area should be saturated with plain white vinegar to remove the scent, so that they will not return to that spot. After the skunk's toilet has been established, it can be moved about four inches a day to a different location. The skunk may or may not follow. If it does not follow, it may be necessary to give in, let the skunk have that corner, and block the view with a chair or bookcase placed in the corner or some other decorative idea.[7]
For covered cat litter boxes, it will probably be necessary to cut a larger opening for the skunk.[8] With any litter pan, bear in mind that regular cleaning is necessary since skunks will avoid a dirty litter box.
Letting skunks outside by themselves is risky since, like ferrets, they lack a homing instinct and can easily get lost.[9] De-scented skunks lack their most powerful defense against predators such as coyotes and foxes. Their nearsightedness also makes them susceptible to becoming roadkill.
Diet Edit
Skunks need a wider variety of food than most pets. They tend to have a voracious appetite, making obesity a common problem.[10] It is important not to overfeed them. Some types of food, such as chocolate, are known to be harmful to almost all animals.[11]
The topic of what to feed skunks is very controversial, according to Owners of Pet Skunks.[12] Mary Kaye Ashley's book, A Comprehensive Guide to Raising a Pet Skunk, recommends a ratio of 50 percent vegetables, 40 percent Skunkie Delight, and 10 percent other whole foods. Skunkie Delight is a homemade blend of a cooked grain (millet, oats, barley, or brown rice), raw ground turkey, eggs, vegetable oil, and a variety of vitamin and mineral powders.[13]
Jane Bone's Skunk Stuff describes a diet of vegetables, fruits, dairy, yogurt, vitamins and minerals, fiber, carbohydrates, and eggs.[14] Skunk Haven disagrees with this diet, and recommends their own sample diet.[15] Skunk expert Mary Kaye Ashley, as well as the American Domestic Skunk Association, Inc. also disagree with this diet.
Eugie and Matthew Foster have tried a lacto-ovum vegetarian diet with good results, with rice and beans with yogurt, cottage cheese, the occasional boiled egg, and unsalted peanuts for protein needs, and including nutritional yeast, cold-pressed safflower oil, and various vitamin supplements (including taurine and D 3 ) in addition to vegetables and fruit.[16]
Lynnda Butler, president of Florida Skunks as Pets, believes a small amount of sugar can be beneficial for skunks and recommends an eighth of a graham cracker or vanilla wafer a day. Others (e.g. Skunk Haven) eschew feeding skunks processed sugar altogether, citing the risk of diabetes. Skunk expert Mary Kaye Ashley, as well as the American Domestic Skunk Association, also strongly disagree with the feeding of any form of processed sugar products. Per Ms. Ashley, natural sugars (such as a small amount of fruit) can be included in the diet several times a week provided that the skunk does not suffer from hypoglycemia or diabetes.
Skunks generally do not drink a great deal of water, but clean water should always be available.
Veterinary care Edit
Baby skunks from the pet store generally have not had any medical treatment other than scent gland removal, and will require spaying or neutering, shots, and worming. They will need to be tested for coccidia and other protozoa as well as parasites. Skunks also need to have regular yearly checkups. Dr. Frank Krupka and Skunk Haven have developed a blood panel to show if supplements or changes in diet are needed, and recommend a blood panel as part of a yearly check up.[17]
Veterinary understanding of skunks is rather limited, since scientists have not conducted as much research on skunks as they have on more common pets. Skunks do not always respond to medicines the same way as cats or dogs. As a result, there is considerable disagreement about how best to treat them. Some veterinarians say they are related to hamsters and treat them as such. However, hamsters are from the Rodent order while Skunks are in the family Mephitidae of the order Carnivora. This is the same order as cats, dogs, and ferrets.
There are several different pet skunk organizations giving out conflicting advice on skunk care. Particularly in the medical realm, it is wise to consult multiple sources rather than rely on any one source of information from the Internet.
Spaying/neutering
Males should be neutered between 3 and 4 months of age. Females should be spayed between 4 and 6 months of age.
Vaccinations
Most skunk organizations recommend Purevax Distemper and Rabies vaccinations. Only distemper has been shown to cause disease or illness in skunks. Other vaccinations created for dogs and cats are modified live vaccinations and may cause actual illness in skunks.
Declawing
Skunks should not be declawed, since they use their claws to handle food. Instead, their claws should be trimmed occasionally. Skunks have "digging" claws like dogs, as opposed to gripping claws like cats.
Roundworms
Many skunks have died from roundworms. Baylisascaris columnaris is the species that infests skunks most commonly. Baylisascaris eggs can remain viable in the environment for many years, despite hot or freezing weather or certain harsh chemicals.
Skunks can be infested with roundworms for several weeks before eggs begin to be shed in feces. It is common for new skunks to have roundworms, which may be too early in development to be detected by fecal tests. Skunk experts agree that all new skunks need to be treated for roundworms, and that more than one treatment is needed. Diagnostic Parasitologist Matt Bolek recommends that "A deworming program should probably start at 7-8 weeks of age and deworm biweekly for 3-4 treatments".[18]
The frequency with which adults need to be treated for roundworms is controversial:
Skunk Haven as well as skunk expert Mary Kaye Ashley and ADSA, Inc. recommend: "After the first series of wormings, you should worm every 4-6 months". [19]
as well as skunk expert Mary Kaye Ashley and ADSA, Inc. recommend: "After the first series of wormings, you should worm every 4-6 months". Owners of Pet Skunks recommends "over the counter worm medication given every couple of months and a yearly stool sample check at the vet". [12]
recommends "over the counter worm medication given every couple of months and a yearly stool sample check at the vet". Skunk expert Jane Bone recommends that all skunks be wormed once a month.[20] However this information is dated and is no longer believe to be the best method of controlling parasites in skunks. Deworming should be done as needed and not on a routine basis due to certain parasites and worms becoming resistant to the dewormers.
The consensus is that Evict or Nemex 2 are good over-the-counter wormers for skunks. A veterinarian may have more powerful wormers. Safe, natural alternatives include seeds from cantaloupe, fig juice or cloves, according to Jane Bone.
General considerations Edit
Overall, caring for skunks is more complicated and challenging than raising other pets due to their rarity. The difficulty in finding a veterinarian with experience treating skunks, the conflicting advice offered by different pet skunk organizations, and the scarcity of scientific knowledge about skunk physiology make it necessary for many skunk owners to fend for themselves. In addition, some skunks - especially those that were mistreated - may bite, refuse to use a litter box, or exhibit other negative behaviors, according to Jane Bone and Skunk Haven.
According to James Furniss, a good skunk owner needs to be a do-it-yourself-er and willing to put in a lot of effort. There are, however, relocation options if a pet skunk does not work out, including skunk shelters.[21]
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Phys Ed Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.
As a clinical psychologist and sleep researcher at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Kelly Glazer Baron frequently heard complaints from aggrieved patients about exercise. They would work out, they told her, sometimes to the point of exhaustion, but they would not sleep better that night.
Dr. Baron was surprised and perplexed. A fan of exercise for treating sleep problems, but also a scientist, she decided to examine more closely the day-to-day relationship between sweat and sleep.
What she and her colleagues found, according to a study published last week in The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, is that the influence of daily exercise on sleep habits is more convoluted than many of us might expect and that, in the short term, sleep might have more of an impact on exercise than exercise has on sleep.
To reach that conclusion, Dr. Baron and her colleagues turned to data from a study of exercise and sleep originally published in 2010. For that experiment, researchers had gathered a small group of women (and one man) who had received diagnoses of insomnia. The volunteers were mostly in their 60s, and all were sedentary.
Then the researchers randomly assigned their volunteers either to remain inactive or to begin a moderate endurance exercise program, consisting of three or four 30-minute exercise sessions a week, generally on a stationary bicycle or treadmill, that were performed in the afternoon. This exercise program continued for 16 weeks.
At the end of that time, the volunteers in the exercise group were sleeping much more soundly than they had been at the start of the study. They slept, on average, about 45 minutes to an hour longer on most nights, waking up less often and reporting more vigor and less sleepiness.
But Dr. Baron wondered if the novice exercisers had experienced immediate improvements in their sleep patterns. And on a day-to-day basis, had working out on any given day produced better sleep that night?
Boring deep into the data contained in the exercising group’s sleep diaries and other information for the new study, Dr. Baron discovered that the answer to both questions was a fairly resounding no. After the first two months of their exercise program, the exercising volunteers (all of them women) were sleeping no better than at the start of the study. Only after four months of the program had their insomnia improved.
They also rarely reported sleeping better on those nights when they had had an exercise session. And perhaps most telling, they almost always exercised for a shorter amount of time on the days after a poor night’s sleep.
In other words, sleeping badly tended to shorten the next day’s workout, while a full-length exercise session did not, in most cases, produce more and better sleep that night.
At first glance, these results might seem “a bit discouraging,” Dr. Baron said. They also would seem to be at odds with the earlier conclusion that four months of exercise improved insomniacs’ sleep patterns, as well as a wealth of other recent science that has typically found that regular exercise lengthens and deepens sleep.
But, Dr. Baron pointed out, most of these other studies employed volunteers without existing sleep problems. For them, exercise and sleep seem to have a relatively uncomplicated relationship. You work out, fatigue your body and mind, and sleep more soundly that night.
But people with insomnia and other sleep disturbances tend to be “neurologically different,” Dr. Baron said. “They have what we characterize as a hyper-arousal of the stress system,” she said. A single bout of exercise on any given day “is probably not enough to overcome that arousal,” she explained. It could potentially even exacerbate it, since exercise is itself a physical stressor.
Eventually, however, if the exercise program is maintained, Dr. Baron said, the workouts seem to start muting a person’s stress response. Her or his underlying physiological arousal is dialed down enough for sleep to arrive more readily, as it did in the 2010 experiment.
Of course, both of these studies were small, involving fewer than a dozen exercising volunteers, all of them middle-aged or older women. “We think the findings would apply equally to men,” Dr. Baron said. But that idea has yet to be proved.
Likewise, it is impossible to yet know the sleep-related impacts of workouts of different types (like weight training), intensities or timing, including morning or late-evening sessions.
Still, the preliminary message of these findings is heartening. If you habitually experience insomnia and don’t currently exercise, Dr. Baron said, start. Don’t, however, expect that you will enjoy or even complete workouts the day after a broken night’s sleep, or that you will sleep better hours after you’ve exercised.
The process is more gradual and less immediately gratifying than the sleep-deprived might wish. But the benefits do develop. “It took four months” in the original study, Dr. Baron said, but at that point the exercising volunteers “were sleeping at least 45 minutes more a night.” “That’s huge, as good as or better” than most current treatment options for sleep disturbances, including drugs, she said.
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Did you witness the alleged attacked? Do you know the victim or the accused? If so, then we want to hear from you. Contact the Toronto Sun city desk at 416-947-2211 or by email at [email protected]
TORONTO – A TTC rider is in critical condition after being pushed into a train as it left Bloor-Yonge subway station Sunday afternoon, officials say.
The man was rushed to hospital after being found at the busy transit hub around 4 p.m.
Toronto Police Staff-Sgt. Corinne Bellon said the victim was pushed into the side of an eastbound train on Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) as it was leaving the station.
“He (the victim) is still in critical condition with head injuries,” Bellon said.
The incident happened after an altercation between two men, she said, but the circumstances aren’t clear.
“We aren’t sure what happened. The victim isn’t communicative,” Bellon said.
Officers have one person in custody who “was arrested close to the scene closely thereafter.”
Police also have TTC video and have spoken to witnesses.
Train service wasn’t interrupted due to the incident.
[email protected]
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Image copyright Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Image caption The cow became trapped in a wartime pillbox at Gibraltar Point nature reserve in Skegness
A pregnant cow is said to be "moving on" from the ordeal of getting her head trapped in a wall for several hours.
The distressed animal had to be sedated by a vet while firefighters used heavy breaking equipment to rescue her.
The animal had put her head through the window of a wartime guard post at Gibraltar Point nature reserve in Skegness, Lincolnshire.
Her neck swelled up, trapping her further, but firefighters freed her at about 17:30 BST on Thursday.
Image copyright Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Image caption The Lincolnshire Red put her head through the window but could not get it out again
The cow, a Lincolnshire Red, had been trapped since at least 10:30.
In a statement, Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue service said the cow "seems to be fine and moving on from the ordeal".
Spencer Creek, technical rescue manager, said: "Compared to fighting fires this may seem a little bit strange, but because of the county's rural nature animals do occasionally get into danger.
"Normally when this does happen they have become stuck in mud or water, so this was a bit different."
Image copyright Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Image caption The cow was sedated while firefighters rescued her
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There is a widespread belief among Igbos — the third-largest ethnic group in Nigeria — that they are descendants of the tribes of Israel. Many of them are passionately Zionist. Their precise number among the 175 million people in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is not certain, but ranges somewhere between 30 and 35 million.
Their claim to a Jewish lineage and their support for Israel are interesting in and of themselves, but even more fascinating is that during the last 30 years or so there has also been a movement among some Igbos to match their tradition of Jewish descent with the practice of rabbinic Judaism, the learning of Hebrew, and the fostering of connections with Jews abroad.
The wider Jewish world has begun taking notice. 2012 saw the release of filmmaker Jeff Lieberman’s documentary “Re-emerging: The Jews of Nigeria,” and earlier this year, Northeastern University professor William F.S. Miles published “The Jews of Nigeria: An Afro-Judaic Odyssey.” A book on Nigeria’s Jews written by Swiss Jewish Studies professor Daniel Lis will be coming out in 2013 as well.
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In February, I was fortunate to travel to Abuja, capital of Nigeria, where I spent a week with its Igbo Jewish community, visiting synagogues and homes, and celebrating Shabbat and Purim. Most Igbo Jews, numbering perhaps 3,000 to 5,000, live in Igboland, the ancestral Nigerian region of the Igbos. A smaller number of Igbo Jews live in Abuja, where they have three synagogues.
Generally, these synagogues try to follow Sephardi and Edot Hamizrah customs, but they have also developed some local ones. At Tikvat Israel (the synagogue headed by Sar Habakkuk Nwafor), for example, I observed that tallitot (prayer shawls) were not only worn by male worshippers during the morning prayers on Shabbat, but also when they returned for the afternoon mincha service.
There are quite a few talented lyricists and songwriters among the Igbo Jews, and their moving compositions are used in prayer and at religious gatherings. Especially given that there are no yeshivot or permanent rabbis among them, the Judaic proficiency and knowledge of liturgical Hebrew that many Igbo Jews have attained is quite notable. Nonetheless, the community’s greatest desire is for Jewish teachers and schools.
The lack of rabbis sometimes leaves Nigeria’s Igbo Jews uncertain about traditional Jewish practice elsewhere. There were reservations among the several dozen Igbo Jews who attended services at Tikvat Israel, for example, about whether or not tefillin ought to be donned during the festival of Purim. Some had heard that Purim has the status of a Yom Tov — and even, as a rabbinic homily describes it, that it is a day like Yom Kippur — and that, accordingly, tefillin were not to be donned.
Sar Habakkuk questioned me concerning the Jewish practice abroad, and declared that since the Igbos had lost the tradition of wearing tefillin, it was appropriate to follow the way of those who had maintained it, and that tefillin should be put on.
There is a shortage in Nigeria of religious items such as tallitot and tefillin. Though there are some locally made tzitzit and tallitot, Igbo Jews lack the ability to produce tefillin for themselves. While I was visiting, however, a package sent by Daniel Limor, an Israeli friend of the community, arrived for Sar Habakkuk. It contained thirteen new tallitot and thirteen new pairs of tefillin — an absolute treasure for the community and a cause of great joy.
In Abuja, there is no custom of Igbo Jewish children or adults wearing costumes on Purim. However, noisemaking of various kinds (including with the use of several groggers/ra’ashanim that I had given to some of the children) was used to blot out the name of Haman — the villain who sought the Jews’ destruction — during the reading of the Scroll of Esther. The Purim story was read to the congregation by Sar Habakkuk’s son, Hezekiah, from a scroll I brought as a gift from Wayne Franklin, a Rhode Island rabbi. An effigy of Haman was hanged from a makeshift gallows erected near the synagogue.
To Igbo Jews, the Jewish practices they have begun embracing in the past few decades are not those of a foreign religion or culture, but rather their own. They see themselves as ba’ale teshuvah: Jews returning to Judaism and to the traditional observances of their ancestors, which were lost due to the Igbos’ long exile from the Land of Israel and due to the introduction of Christianity to Igboland.
This view is enlarged upon by Dr. Caliben I.O. Michael, head of the OBGI Israel Heritage Foundation and its Abuja synagogue, in his 2011 “Our Roots: Igbo Israel Heritage.”
“The Igbo nation is part of Israel,” Caliben affirms, despite its widespread loss of Jewish practice. He chose to name his foundation OBGI, which is Igbo spelled backwards, in part to indicate that Igbos “are no longer what we used to be.” European and Christian influences have altered Igbo society, he contends, and its members must now “rejuvenate the latent/dormant Hebrew souls of the Igbos to reflect their real essence.”
The Torah ark in Abuja’s largest Igbo synagogue, Gihon, is flanked by the flags of Nigeria and Israel. On one of the synagogue’s walls, prominently displayed beside framed artwork depicting the Ten Commandments, is a handwritten English prayer: “Grant us the privilege to worship you in Yerushalayim [i.e., Jerusalem].”
Igbo Jews hope one day soon to be able make pilgrimages to Israel. In their efforts to assert their Judaism and Jewish identity in Nigeria, they look to the Jews of Israel for inspiration and solidarity.
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Nick Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro, speaks during the company's initial public offering at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in New York City. (Photo: Andrew Burton, Getty Images)
Camera maker GoPro remains the focus of Wall Street investors as we close out the week. Let's look at the technology stocks to watch Friday:
GoPro. Shares of the company jumped more than 5% at $32.87 in morning trading, one day after jumping 30% on its first day of trading on the Nasdaq exchange. The high-definition camera maker unveiled its initial public offering on Wednesday with a starting price of $24 per share.
Apple. The tech giant is reportedly working on smart home hardware that integrates with iPhones, iPads and potentially an iWatch. According to 9to5Mac, Apple has assembled a team to work on smart home products, but there are no details on what type of devices they're developing. The company hinted at its plans for the home during June's Worldwide Developers Conference, when it introduced the HomeKit to give mobile devices more control over home automation.
Intel. The chip maker earned an upgrade to 'market perform" from Bernstein, reports CNBC. The company is among several in tech shifting its focus away from the lagging personal computer market in favor of smartphones, tablets and other emerging gadgets.
Google. The company's Advanced Technology and Projects Group confirmed electronics maker LG will make an Android tablet capable of supporting 3-D, reports The Wall Street Journal. The device would be available to consumers in 2015.
Alibaba. The Chinese Internet giant will reportedly choose the New York Stock Exchange over Nasdaq for its initial public offering. CNBC reports the company will trade under the ticker symbol BABA. Alibaba's IPO is poised to become one of the biggest in history.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
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Donald Trump. Getty Images
President Donald Trump declared Wednesday he believes torture works as his administration readied a sweeping review of how America conducts the war on terror. It includes possible resumption of banned interrogation methods and reopening CIA-run "black site" prisons outside the United States.
In an interview with ABC News, Trump said he would wage war against Islamic State militants with the singular goal of keeping the U.S. safe. Asked specifically about the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, Trump cited the extremist group's atrocities against Christians and others and said: "We have to fight fire with fire."
Trump said he would consult with new Defense Secretary James Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo before authorizing any new policy. But he said he had asked top intelligence officials in the past day: "Does torture work?"
"And the answer was yes, absolutely," Trump said.
He added that he wants to do "everything within the bounds of what you're allowed to do legally."
A clip of Trump's interview was released after The Associated Press and other news outlets obtained copies of a draft executive order being circulated within his administration.
Beyond reviewing interrogation techniques and facilities, the draft order would instruct the Pentagon to send newly captured "enemy combatants" to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of closing the detention facility as President Barack Obama had wanted. Altogether, the possible changes could mark a dramatic return to how the Bush administration waged its campaign against al-Qaida and other extremist groups.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer, questioned about the draft order, said it was "not a White House document" but would not comment further.
The draft says U.S. laws should be obeyed at all times and explicitly rejects "torture." But its reconsideration of the harsh techniques banned by Obama and Congress raises questions about the definition of the word and is sure to inflame passions in the U.S. and abroad.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President George W. Bush authorized a covert program that led to dozens of detainees being held in secret locations overseas and to interrogation tactics that included sleep deprivation, slapping and slamming against walls, confinement in small boxes, prolonged isolation and even death threats. Three detainees faced waterboarding. Many developed psychological problems.
While some former government leaders insist the program was effective in obtaining critical intelligence, many others say the abuses weakened America's moral standing in the world, hurt morale among intelligence officers and proved ineffective before Obama shut it down.
The AP obtained the draft order from a U.S. official, who said it had been distributed by the White House for consultations before Trump signs it. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
The Pentagon didn't immediately comment and Spicer, Trump's press secretary, said: "I have no idea where it came from." But reports of the upcoming order quickly sparked alarm among Republicans and Democrats.
"The president can sign whatever executive orders he likes. But the law is the law," said Republican Sen. John McCain, tortured himself as a prisoner during the Vietnam War. "We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America."
Gen. James Mattis. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
On the campaign trail, Trump spoke emphatically about toughening the U.S. approach to fighting the Islamic State group. He said he would authorize waterboarding and a "hell of a lot worse." After winning the election, however, he appeared to backtrack, pointedly citing Mattis' advice that torture is ineffective.
Pompeo, Trump's CIA director, said in his confirmation hearing that he would abide by all laws. But he also said he'd consult with CIA and other government experts on whether current restrictions were an "impediment to gathering vital intelligence to protect the country or whether any rewrite of the Army Field Manual is needed."
Specifically, Trump's draft order calls for reinstating an executive order — "to the extent permitted" by current law — that President Bush signed in 2007 and Obama later revoked.
Trump's draft would reverse two other executive orders of Obama's. One called for closing Guantanamo Bay. The other ordered the CIA to shut any detention facility it operated and prohibited the U.S. from using any interrogation technique not listed in the Army Field Manual, demanding treatment in compliance with the Geneva Conventions, including timely access for the International Red Cross to all detainees.
Among the interrogation techniques banned by the manual were forced nakedness, hooding, beatings, sexual humiliation, threatening with dogs, mock executions, electric shocks, burning and waterboarding.
Any changes would face steep legal and legislative hurdles.
McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee's chairman, may be the most formidable opponent in Congress, but he is not the only one.
"It is wrong and I hope he will rethink it," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said.
On Guantanamo, the draft order says detention facilities "are a critical tool in the fight against international jihadist terrorist groups who are engaged in armed conflict with the United States, its allies and its coalition partners." About 40 detainees remain in Guantanamo.
The document says "over 30 percent of detainees" who've been released have returned to armed conflict, with at least a dozen conducting attacks "against U.S. personnel or allied forces in Afghanistan." Six Americans, including a civilian aid worker, died as a result of those attacks.
U.S. intelligence agencies say 17.6 percent of detainees released from Guantanamo are confirmed to have re-engaged in conflict. An additional 12.4 percent are "suspected" of re-engaging.
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to "load it up with some bad dudes."
But it's unclear who the new detainees would be. As American ground troops have stepped back this decade from the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan, captures of high-level detainees have become much rarer, and Obama tried to direct them through the U.S. justice system.
———
AP writers Eric Tucker and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
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Many high-profile Republicans have been clamoring for another right-wing option that is more neo-conservative than Donald Trump, but voters don’t seem to care as much as the consultant and pundit class.
Ex-CIA operative Evan McMullin announced his presidential bid on August 8. He’s running as an independent candidate, and would be a conservative alternative for GOP voters.
However, Public Policy Polling announced that the #NeverTrump faction of the GOP isn’t quite as big as most TV pundits claimed.
The preliminary results for third-party candidates from a statewide poll in Texas were released on Tuesday and McMullin failed to get even one percent, in a state that Trump lost during the primary season.
We included Evan McMullin on our Texas poll and he got 0 — PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 15, 2016
While they didn’t release the exact polling size, it’s safe to say it was several hundred people and McMullin earned just three votes.
He got 3 and it rounded down to zero https://t.co/GrksaKCcKw — PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 15, 2016
Adding insult to injury was that Harambe, the gorilla from the Cincinnati Zoo that was killed earlier this year, earned far more support. The deceased primate earned two percent of the vote and Deez Nuts, a fictional candidate, earned three percent.
Gary Johnson 6, Deez Nuts 3, Harambe 2, Jill Stein 2, Evan McMullin 0 https://t.co/GmdGjpe1i6 — PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 15, 2016
When the #NeverTrump movement fails to garner even a single percent in a state like Texas it shows there’s no groundswell of support from Republicans and conservatives for a new neo-con candidate.
Donald Trump is a movement, Bernie Sanders was a movement, #NeverTrump is a bunch of consultants with good PR.
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Like Donald Trump, Joe Arpaio made his name in politics through aggressive race baiting, repeatedly winning election as the sheriff of Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, by that means. Arpaio’s political strategy involved systematically going after the city’s Latino residents, using Latino appearance as the predominant reason for stopping and detaining people until they could prove their right to be in the United States. Ad Policy
Arpaio claimed his goal was to enforce immigration laws. But the pervasive targeting of folks based on their “Mexican” appearance made it clear that his deeper goal was to publicly stigmatize Latinos, citizens or otherwise, as perpetual foreigners in Arizona. In effect, he used racial harassment to grandstand politically.
In 2011, a federal court issued a stinging rebuke of Arpaio, making clear that the Constitution prohibits going after Latinos based on a presumption that we are in the country illegally. This sort of racial profiling, the court warned, was unconstitutional and had to stop.
Arpaio refused, and indeed made a point of flaunting his disdain. He ordered his officers to continue detaining and harassing people principally on the basis of Latino appearance. Related Article Trump May Be Making Good on One of His Harshest Campaign Promises on Immigration—Soon Julianne Hing
Finally, this July, the federal court responded again and held Arpaio in criminal contempt for his refusal to obey the law. Compared with the damage he had done to thousands of people over his 25 years in office, Arpaio faced a slap on the wrist—a mere six months in jail, at most. Nevertheless, his conviction sent a powerful message about the law’s duty and power to protect people from abusive government officials.
Then Trump pardoned Arpaio, siding with someone guilty of violating the 14th Amendment’s bedrock command of racial equality and of mocking a federal court’s order that he desist.
There’s some discussion, for instance in a recent op-ed in The New York Times, of the possibility that Trump’s pardon could be rejected by the courts. The logic is that in using his pardon to dismiss a conviction for violating a court order, Trump has effectively gutted the capacity of the courts to serve as a “check and balance” against executive power. He has done that. But it’s doubtful the courts will limit the president’s ability to grant pardons on that basis. After all, the pardon power by its very nature hamstrings court power. Current Issue View our current issue
There are a number of points in constitutional law in which the judicial branch confronts an inevitable truth: Democracy does not depend on courts or laws themselves, but on respect for the rule of law. When that respect is lacking among other branches of government, the courts can do little on their own to save democracy.
At these points, the courts often defer—to the abuser, in the short run, but ultimately to us, the people. At the end of the day, it is the public that must decide what is acceptable—and what trammels democracy. The president is answerable, a court might say, “in his political capacity.”
One way the president can be made answerable is through electoral process. Another is through impeachment by the people’s representatives in the House.
In pardoning an official who spat upon the 14th Amendment right to racial equality and who treated the federal courts contemptuously, Trump abused his presidential powers. He enabled a racist to trash our country’s core values and subvert the rule of law and face no consequences for these actions.
With courts powerless to stop this double assault on democracy, Trump must be held to account politically. This is precisely the situation for which impeachment was designed. The Constitution speaks of impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” This term refers not to some narrow set of enumerated crimes but broadly to abuses of public power that threaten the democratic order.
Other grounds for impeaching Trump have been advanced and, given his temperament as well as on-going investigations, others will surely emerge. Likewise, with respect to his aligning himself with racists, the bill of particulars against Trump is long and growing, from his birther lies to his coddling of the Charlottesville white supremacists. Finally, this is unlikely to be Trump’s last abuse of pardon power. Pardons for family members, and even for himself, may come all too soon.
As a technical matter, these swirling and deepening transgressions are independent of Trump’s pardon of Arpaio, which could stand on its own as a basis for impeachment. But the case for impeachment should not be read narrowly. It is, at root, a political judgment. At its most mystical—in the aspirational sense of the word—impeachment is the people’s power. This power should be exercised based on concrete abuses, to be sure, but should also look broadly at the president’s behavior, past and probable.
Of course, impeachment is most often mystical in a much less flattering sense, as an ideal rarely honored but instead typically mired in petty party politics. It’s overwhelmingly likely the current Republican House majority will refuse to impeach Trump. In this circumstance, the people must elect a majority that will impeach—one that honors racial equality, protects the rule of law, and thereby saves democracy.
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BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - If Emmanuel Macron wins Sunday’s French presidential run-off, Europe’s pro-EU liberals will finally have their champion.
Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche !, or Onwards !, and candidate for the 2017 presidential election, poses for a selfie as he leaves his home in Paris, France, May 2, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
For centrists who have been licking their wounds since Britain voted to quit the EU a year ago, the 39-year-old will be the gallant young hero who slew the most dangerous populist dragon of them all, the National Front’s Marine Le Pen.
From a Paris dinner party with the young leaders of Belgium and Luxembourg, to a conspicuous Twitter bromance with Italy’s ex-premier Matteo Renzi, Macron has already built a circle of likeminded peers, unafraid to promote closer EU integration at a time when voters are being tempted by the hard right and left.The young leaders present themselves as fresh faces, free of 20th-century baggage of left-right class war.
But to fulfill their dream of a reinvigorated Europe, they still need to win over leaders from the old school, above all Germany’s Angela Merkel.
One senior German official said Macron’s youthful stardust could give France some “Kennedy-esque” optimism. But the official also injected a skeptical note: Berlin was “willing to talk about Europe”, he said, “but the discussion has to be about responsibility as well as solidarity.”
ERASMUS GENERATION
Macron discussed his plans for Europe at a private dinner party in March at the home of a French TV celebrity, attended by Belgium’s 41-year-old Prime Minister Charles Michel and Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, 44.
“It was a moment for sharing our commitments on Europe,” Michel told Reuters of the dinner, which was kept secret until word leaked out in April. “In the coming months, we’re going to have to relaunch the European project ... and for that we will need partners.”
The three men are part of the first generation of European leaders to come of age with the benefits of EU citizenship.
“We are the Erasmus generation,” Michel told Reuters, referring to an EU exchange program that lets students attend universities in other countries across the bloc.
As France’s youngest-ever president, Macron would step into the shoes vacated by Italy’s youngest-ever prime minister, Renzi, who also took office at 39 and who stepped down last year after losing a referendum on constitutional reform.
“Bravo to @matteorenzi,” Macron tweeted this week. “Together we will change Europe with all the progressives.”
Renzi tweeted back: “Thank you dear Emmanuel. We are with you.”
The Paris dinner party, held at Macron’s invitation at the home of a TV personality Stephane Bern, a friend of Bettel, showed how the new generation of leaders is comfortable dispensing with the formality of traditional diplomacy.
“Everything’s got more informal,” one person familiar with the dinner said. “They’ve all got each other’s mobile numbers. They text all the time.”
Guy Verhofstadt, the liberal former Belgian prime minister, Brexit negotiator and champion of more federal EU powers, sees in Macron not just an ally who wants to end old habits of state-to-state wrangling in the EU, but an example of how social media and networking is changing policymaking — and maybe policy too.
“Political action will completely change,” Verhofstadt said.
Still, however they may be buoyed by a Macron victory, the young liberals will have a steep hill to climb to achieve a broad consensus for closer EU integration.
The historically unpopular outgoing president, Francois Hollande, failed to achieve similar aims in Europe and stands as a conspicuous example of how difficult it could be for Macron to persuade the French to back him.
All roads to EU change still run through Berlin, where proposals will be met with caution even if Merkel loses re-election this year to her center-left, EU enthusiast challenger Martin Schulz. Germans widely see French deficit spending as a threat to the euro.
Michel, Bettel and liberal Dutch premier Mark Rutte, 50, have jointly proposed an outline for EU reform to be debated after Brexit. It calls for faster integration of some states in a “multispeed Europe”, an idea that Germany was long cool to but which Merkel has lately signaled she might consider.
Slideshow (3 Images)
Some senior Benelux officials hope for revival of Franco-German harmony. They see a possible “grand bargain” where former banker Macron can eventually persuade Berlin that France can be trusted not to let deficits balloon if Germany is willing to drop its resistance to backing a share of other states’ debt.
A person close to Macron described the dinner on March 5 as a private meeting between like-minded young European reformers: “It was part of his European outreach efforts.”
“There is common ground,” he said, while stressing Macron would not limit himself to such alliances. “They support Macron’s plans to inject new momentum into the European project and he supports the message sent out by the Benelux countries.”
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The image below indicates where each pull in the WUGC Women’s Gold Medal match – USA v Colombia – was caught or landed, and the path of the disc up until the point where flow stopped or a turnover occured. For the purposes of this article, “flow” refers to the disc being released within 3 seconds of the stall, with a maximum of 1 fake. This definition is less strict than the one I used for the USA – Japan final (passes made in fluid movement within 2 seconds) – early fakes followed by a throw after 2-3 seconds seem to be far more prevalent in this game.
Points of note:
COL pulled out 2/8 times, USA 1/14 times, and USA also had a pull that slid out the back after landing in
USA caught 2/6 in-bounds COL pulls, COL caught 7/13 in-bounds USA pulls
COL moved the disc to the opposite side of the field 10/12 times
USA’s first pass moved the disc further away from the centre of the field 6/6 times, and onto the backhand side 5/6 times
COL took more than one pass in flow 10/12 times
USA took more than one pass in flow 4/6 times
Both teams pulled roughly the same average distance
COL turned over 3/12 times in flow, USA turned over 2/6 times in flow
Neither team scored from flow off the pull, though USA passed the disc beyond the half-way point 4/6 times
COL completed avg. 5.25 passes in flow off the pull, USA avg. 3.5
Colombia’s consistent pulls, occasional poaches, and USA’s flick-side-stack double-iso play
Most of Colombia’s pulls landed in the centre of the field, between the brick mark and the end zone. Colombian defenders generally arrived with simple person-to-person defence, however at 3-1 there’s a (possibly unintentional) poach off a handler, and at 8-4 there’s a clear poach off one of the downfield players in the side-stack – which Colombia use to clog the USA’s throwing lane. Both instances of poaching led to USA being slowed down with their advance, but not stopped.
When Colombia did not poach, USA would execute their pull play near-flawlessly – essentially setting up a side-stack on the flick side, then isolating a first and second cut on the backhand side of the field; #1 catches the pull and throws to #2 who is towards the backhand side of the field. #2 catches and looks downfield for #3 who is isolated. #3 looks to continue to #4, who is isolated deeper on the backhand side (and usually cuts deep). The other three players hang out in a side-stack near the flick-side sideline, and become activated if the play breaks down (or sprint to the end zone to score).
In the first point of the game, USA handlers pass the disc to the flick side of the field, and Colombia subsequently get an interception – I put this down to USA having not yet found their routine for the game as this is the only instance when the first pass goes to the flick side instead of the backhand side of the field, and it encounters more traffic. The lateral cut following this by #7 Kami Groom is at an awkward angle, and she does not attack the disc as aggressively as the Colombian defender, leading to the turnover.
For every other pull reception, USA follow their flick-side-stack double-iso setup as described above – being disrupted only when Colombia would put a poach in the mix.
USA’s variable pulls, containing defence, and Colombia’s 4-person crossfield swinging
USA’s pulls came down in a variety of places between the brick mark and the end zone line, and the defence would arrive with person-to-person marks (except for a zonal point at 3-0 and possibly 5-1). USA defenders marking Colombia’s handlers would ‘sag’ off slightly downfield, allowing the disc to swing to their player before closing them down and putting a flat / straight-up mark on.
Colombia kept four players back to receive the pull, spreading them laterally across the field. Without fail they would move the disc across to the opposite side of the field after catching the pull. This has the effect of dramatically changing the angle of attack, however results in the disc being nearer the sideline if flow is stopped by the USA. Downfield, Colombia’s cutters seem to be opportunistic – spreading across the field with no clear tendency to stack, the three cutters have plenty of room to work with, and cut into space as they see it developing – often after one of the four handlers pushes downfield (which they were happy to do in a very dynamic manner). The combination of increased downfield space and the disc swinging causing the angle of attack to change frequently makes the downfield defenders’ jobs hard.
Conclusions
USA allowed Colombia to swing the disc against their flat / straight-up handler marks. Usually swinging works as a tactic because the angles of attack change so dramatically, but USA defenders downfield were aware of which side the disc was swinging to, and their handler-marks would sag to clog the throwing lane, which stopped Colombia from gaining many yards through flow. USA also managed to get two early-point interceptions, and Colombia’s flow often stopped near the sideline, so USA’s defence can be viewed as a successful counter to Colombia’s offence.
USA’s pull fielding routine was well practiced – the disc was moved to the backhand side of the field 5/6 times, presenting the downfield players with a standard look to work from each time. Twice Colombia forced backhand, and these were the two times the USA’s plays were most successful – with two downfield passes being made to the iso players (although one of these resulted in an unforced turnover). Twice Colombia poached, and these were 2 of the 3 times the USA weren’t able to complete their first iso throw in flow – so it’s a tactic which Colombia should have explored further. Poaching off the handler encouraged USA to run handler-led flow for almost the whole length of the field, but poaching off a player in the side-stack prevented the first iso throw and stopped USA’s flow entirely. Forcing towards the side-stack and/or poaching off a side-stack player every time would have been good a tactic for Colombia to employ to try to counter USA’s well-drilled pull fielding routine.
Analysis of specifics
Colombia poaching off a handler, USA’s handler-led flow
Throughout the duration of this clip, USA have a 2v1 advantage in the backfield which they should be looking to maximise. Looking downfield and faking in this situation uses valuable time and energy, so must have a clear purpose – ideally one that ultimately plays to the 2v1 advantage. #52 Claire Chastain‘s play in this sequence is excellent – her first fake unbalances her mark, giving her an advantage which she immediately ‘cashes in’ on with a give-go move towards the near side of the field. She then tries to set up #18 Leila Tunnell to attack the far side of the field but they’re not quite on the same page. Chastain positions herself to receive the return pass – staying on her toes and moving dynamically. Note #8 Octavia “Opi” Payne on the near-side sideline, recognising the 2v1 situation and being happy not to get involved, leaving the handlers to exploit the advantage themselves. At the end of the clip, the poaching defender arrives and Chastain makes a well-timed throw & go move to counter the defenders velocity and get downfield of her – putting herself in a very powerful position. The Colombian defender’s overcommital suggests to me the poaching may have been unintentional.
Chastain pulls out of the throw & go – possibly predicting that #2 Calise Cardenas will look downfield after catching, and wouldn’t spot the give-go move early enough. Sure enough, Cardenas looks downfield and auto-fakes before hitting Opi coming under. Chastain has stayed dynamic & on her toes, always threatening and never allowing her defender to get comfortable, so is able to time her move to get the disc off Opi in perfect flow. Opi’s defender overcommits, Chastain immediately recognises and cashes in by dribbling with Opi, and then times her final fake to get her defender over-committing again. Other than Chastain continuing to initiate flow whenever she can by using her deadly dribbling skills, it’s worth noting Opi’s efficiency of movement – always aware of the positional advantage she has over her defender, never moving unnecessarily, always a threatening option – even when walking at the end she gets ready to receive a pass in the backfield as Chastain pivots infield. At the end of the clip, flow stops when Chastain doesn’t have an option to cash in on after faking her mark out – possibly another fake aimed at #2 Cardenas streaking into the end zone (or looking back to Opi) could have created an option of switching the play over to the far sideline, hard to say for certain.
Near-perfect USA pull play
USA execute their pull play nearly perfectly – #3 Lien Hoffmann gets free under as the first iso cutter, #6 Sarah Griffith gets free deep as iso #2, however she’s decided very early to cut for huge separation and reception of a flick huck over her right shoulder. She angles her cut slightly to the left corner (to create more space on the right), but gets so free with this move that Hoffmann rightly decides to throw to the left, putting up the immediate backhand huck. Griffith has taken her eye off the play and was expecting the backhand fake leading to flick huck on the right side, so looks over her right shoulder. She quickly realises she’s second-guessed Hoffmann and the throw has already been thrown to the left side – despite overcompensating with her read and putting in a good bid she’s unable to reach the disc. #51 Claire Desmond is free moving into the end zone as Colombia accidentally double-marked one of the USA cutters in the side-stack.
Textbook USA pull play
Great early read & adjustment from #51 Claire Desmond, who then slows down faster than the Colombian defender is expecting. Check out the speed from Griffith to create separation in the end zone! In 8 seconds USA have advanced the disc 60 yards, despite the pull being the best Colombia made during the game. Nightmare for defenders who chase down the pull & then must immediately turn 180 and sprint back to their end zone.
Colombia swinging the disc against USA’s containing defence
Colombia demonstrate how happy they are to move the disc quickly across the field – they are looking for ways to advance yards through disc movement opening up gaps in the defence, rather USA’s style of hitting isolated cutters from a particular disc-position on the field. You can see USA’s containing defence – each Colombian receives the disc in space, and is then closed down by their respective USA mark putting on a flat force. Note #24 Alex Snyder, after her player swings the disc she drops back slightly whilst matching the lateral movement of her mark, clogging the lane and encouraging a yard-losing pass back to her mark before closing her down again with a flat force – classic ‘sagging defence’ movement.
Interesting to note #44 Maggie Ruden on the near sideline (off the field) gesticulating to indicate the direction Colombia are swinging the disc – demonstrating without question that USA were aware of & trying to counter Colombia’s offensive movement by allowing the swings but being aware downfield of which side the disc was moving to.
In summary, it’s easy to see how Columbia’s dynamic swinging offensive style got them to the final, however USA had clearly done their homework and were prepared to counter it effectively. USA’s pull routine was very effective and was still being worked out by Colombia, who could have countered it more consistently by forcing flick & poaching off the side-stack to prevent the early iso passes.
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Swedish police have recently expanded their list of so-called “vulnerable areas,” where crime and extremism run rampant. RT talked to locals and observers about the problems in these troubled areas, widely known as “no-go zones.”
Sixty-one neighborhoods throughout the country were identified in the latest Swedish police report as vulnerable areas, with 23 being categorized as particularly vulnerable, up from 15 last year. These hotspots are “characterized by a low socio-economic status where criminals have an impact on the local community,” according to the police definition.
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An estimated 5,000 criminals are operating in these areas, making up around 200 criminal networks in total, according to the report. Witnesses are sometimes afraid to talk to police, and the presence of criminal gangs and the high levels of poverty and marginalization makes it harder for officers to do their job.
“If you run a company in this area, insurance companies do not want to insure you,” Salam Kurda, a local Kurdish shopkeeper and chairman of the corporate association in Husby, Stockholm, told RT. “One of the basic requirements for being a successful entrepreneur is safety, but the risk is quite big today.”
“If your life is at risk, money does not help,” he added. “There has been quite a lot of shooting, very brutal mistreatment of our entrepreneurs, a lot of robbery, so the entrepreneurs have decided to change jobs or move to another area.”
“These people have not been taken care of by society. Society needs to keep the youth busy, make it difficult for them to end up in trouble. They are being used by adults. They sell drugs openly. They carry weapons,” Kurda said.
These deprived neighborhoods have largely immigrant or foreign-born populations, with a higher unemployment rate compared to native Swedes. These neighborhoods also serve as a breeding ground for radicalization and Islamist extremism. According to the Swedish Defense University, 70 percent of jihadi fighters that left Sweden to join Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists came from these “vulnerable areas.”
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“The problem is the cultural difference and that these immigrants that come to Sweden do not want to integrate, or some of them do not want to integrate. We see this especially in many of the European countries where they have taken a lot of immigrants,” Danish TV editor and host Jonas Christensen told RT.
“We don’t see it in, for example, Poland or Hungary. But in Germany, or in the country where I live, in Denmark, we also have no-go zones, in Copenhagen for example; and Sweden also, especially in places where they have taken in a lot of immigrants,” he explained.
“We see these problems also in France and Belgium. And in Sweden, government people, they don’t want to admit that this is actually a problem so they don’t want to mention these no-go zones as no-go zones.”
Successive waves of refugees and migrants have come to Sweden for decades, first escaping war zones in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and now from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. Fully integrating these arrivals, who often come from conservative Muslim societies, into liberal cosmopolitan Sweden, has proved to be a challenge. In late 2015, Sweden finally tightened up its generous entry policy, cutting welfare payments and insisting that new immigrants present valid ID documents.
The term 'no-go zone' was originally coined by Swedish journalist Per Gudmundson in a 2014 editorial for the newspaper SvD, shortly after the publication of a police report that originally identified 55 vulnerable areas.
“The police does not use the term ‘no go-zones.' It is originally military slang for areas under rebel control. But the question is if there are any clearer description of locations were ‘the public in many cases experience it as if it is the criminals that rule the areas’ and where ‘police have not been able to fulfill their tasks,’” Gudmundson wrote.
Read more
Over the past few years there have been numerous notorious incidents connected to these areas, including: a spate of car burnings and gang-related shootings; a car bombing which killed four people, including a 4 year-old girl; a grenade attack which killed an 8 year-old boy; and even a riot that broke out mere days after US President Donald Trump rather preemptively made a speech about what happened “last night in Sweden.”
Although the list of vulnerable areas in Sweden has grown, this allegedly has more to do with the police reclassifying certain areas based on better intelligence rather than an actual deterioration in the neighborhoods themselves. Statistically, Sweden remains one of the world’s most developed, wealthy and low-crime countries.
Nevertheless, police certainly face difficulties maintaining law-and-order in these areas. In 2014, the police station in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby, also known as Little Mogadishu, had to be abandoned after it was firebombed.
“We need to make a clear shift in direction, we cannot continue in this direction ten more years,” Dan Eliasson, Swedish National Police Commissioner, said in June. “Society needs to do more, we need to do more.”
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UniDict is an unification mod.
WanionLib is required.
When we play modded Minecraft, several mods based on their progression add Copper, Tin, Silver, Lead... But since a lot of mods add these common resources, we start to have a lot of equivalent items.
This "issue" could be solved manually through CraftTweaker, but since there are a lot of machines and resources, it can quickly become boring, and CraftTweaker doesn't give the you the ability to modify everything.
Would it not be easier do this automatically? This is what UniDict does, it standardizes the output of all recipes (that it has Integration with), not just for crafting table recipes, but for a lot of machines throughout several mods.
UniDict does not unify Ore Generation.
for more informations about UniDict, checkout our Wiki.
checkout the first, and probably the last, UniDict Spotlight, made by ShepherdShang.
Integrations (1.12.2):
AbyssalCraft (Transmutator)
(Transmutator) Advanced Rocketry (All Machines)
(All Machines) Applied Energistics 2 (Grindstone)
(Grindstone) Base Metals (Crack Hammer)
(Crack Hammer) Blood Magic (Alchemy Table)
(Alchemy Table) Chickens (Chickens)
(Chickens) Embers (Stamper)
(Stamper) Ender IO (Alloy Smelter, SAG Mill)
(Alloy Smelter, SAG Mill) Extreme Energy (High-Pressure Crusher, High-Pressure Assembler)
(High-Pressure Crusher, High-Pressure Assembler) Forestry (Centrifuge)
(Centrifuge) Foundry (Alloy Furnace, Casting, Metal Atomizer)
(Alloy Furnace, Casting, Metal Atomizer) Gadgetry Core (Alloy Furnace)
(Alloy Furnace) Gadgetry Machines (Grinder)
(Grinder) IC2 Classic (Compressor, Extractor, Macerator, SawMill, Recycler, Scrap Box)
(Compressor, Extractor, Macerator, SawMill, Recycler, Scrap Box) Industrial Craft 2 (Macerator, Thermal Centrifuge, Compressor, Extractor, Blast Furnace, Scrap Box, Block Cutting Machine)
(Macerator, Thermal Centrifuge, Compressor, Extractor, Blast Furnace, Scrap Box, Block Cutting Machine) Industrial Foregoing (Laser)
(Laser) Immersive Engineering (Arc Furnace, Blast Furnace, Crusher, Metal Press, Alloy Kiln)
(Arc Furnace, Blast Furnace, Crusher, Metal Press, Alloy Kiln) Kitsu's ForgeCraft (Anvil, Bloomery, Casting, Forge)
(Anvil, Bloomery, Casting, Forge) Magneticraft (Crushing Table, Sluice Box, Grinder, Sieve)
(Crushing Table, Sluice Box, Grinder, Sieve) Mekanism (Crusher, Chemical Injection Chamber, Enrichment Chamber, Metallurgic Infuser)
(Crusher, Chemical Injection Chamber, Enrichment Chamber, Metallurgic Infuser) TechReborn (All Machines)
(All Machines) Thermal Expansion (Compactor, Fractionating Still, Pulverizer, Redstone Furnace, Induction Smelter)
(Compactor, Fractionating Still, Pulverizer, Redstone Furnace, Induction Smelter) Vanilla (Crafting, Furnace)
looking for Integrations for older Minecraft versions? checkout this Wiki Page.
Indirect integrations: Tinker's Construct, Furnus, Extra Utilities, Actually Additions, Mariculture, and probably a lot more.
check out InstantUnify, it instantly unifies dropped items, and it is compatible with UniDict.
I love UniDict, how can I Support it?
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This article is over 1 year old
Paul Manafort has three passports and ties to Russian oligarchs, prosecutors say
Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump, had three US passports, millions in assets and ties to Russian oligarchs, according to federal court documents related to his indictment on tax fraud and money laundering charges.
Trump-Russia inquiry heats up as three key aides indicted Read more
Manafort and associate Rick Gates pose a significant flight risk because of the serious nature of the charges, the strong evidence of guilt, their wealth and “their history of deceptive and misleading conduct”, federal prosecutors said in a filing on Tuesday in US district court for the District of Columbia.
Manafort, 68, and Gates, who also worked on Trump’s campaign, pleaded not guilty on Monday in a 12-count indictment, ranging from money laundering to acting as unregistered agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.
The charges came as part of federal special counsel Robert Mueller’s five-month-old investigation into alleged Russian efforts to tilt the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor and potential collusion by campaign aides.
The allegations are not related to campaign activities but reveal close ties to Russia and include activities from 2006 to 2017, which overlaps with the men’s work on Trump’s campaign.
The two men are under house arrest and have relinquished their US passports, with a $10m bond set for Manafort and a $5m bond for Gates.
“Both defendants have substantial ties abroad, including in Ukraine, where both have spent time and have served as agents of its government,” according to the government’s memorandum in support of the conditions of release.
“And both Manafort and Gates have connections to Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs, who have provided millions of dollars to Manafort and Gates.“
Manafort was a longtime US Republican operative before turning his attention to political consulting overseas.
Manafort submitted 10 passport application in the last decade and currently holds three US passports, the memo said.
Asked about the information in the memo, Manafort lawyer Jason Maloni told Reuters on Wednesday his client “looks forward to having these allegations tried before a judge and jury”.
The memo said Manafort’s financial assets were substantial but difficult to quantify because he listed figures on loan applications and other financial documents since 2012 that ranged from from $19m to $136m.
Manafort and Gates owned or controlled entities and accounts worldwide including in Cyprus, Grenadines, Seychelles and England, it said.
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In the 1960s and 1970s, daytime television was dominated by light, entertaining fare like The Merv Griffin Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and Dinah And Friends. Phil Donahue brought topicality and controversy to daytime when his show went national in 1970, and by the 1980s he was ruling the roost. Oprah Winfrey followed Donahue’s lead in the mid-1980s and eventually displaced him. But daytime TV took another strange twist in September 1991. That month saw the debut of two new talk show hosts, Maury Povich and Jerry Springer, each of whom would take the genre in shocking and often tasteless new directions. Povich, best known to the general public as the anchor of A Current Affair, made it to air first. His show Maury launched on September 9, 1991. The initial ad campaign was warm and folksy, with Povich talking about his career and his marriage to Connie Chung, then a CBS anchorwoman.
But warmth and folksiness were not the hallmarks of Maury, at least not for long. The show became infamous as one of television’s shameless bottom feeders, ruthlessly exploiting the misery and misfortune of its guests for ratings. It’s difficult to watch highlight reels from the show and not see some evidence of classism and even racism at play here. Nevertheless, some fan-curated Maury supercuts remain both compelling and horrifying at the same time. Below, for instance, are some of the worst behaved children ever to appear on the show, typically appearing alongside their sobbing parents. Notice that these kids are treated like wrestling villains, taunting the audience while being booed. This is the stuff of South Park parodies.
If Maury has become synonymous with a catchphrase, it’s “You are not the father!” On-air paternity tests have become a staple of Povich’s show, typical of its “gotcha” approach. Someone has taken the liberty of assembling nine minutes of the most apoplectic reactions to parental discrepancy in Maury history. The men, generally, are ecstatic to be let off the hook. One even executes a perfect back flip on stage. The women, on the other hand, are devastated and resort to shrieking and crying in utter agony, while Povich and his crew continue to hound them. Pity the one woman who takes refuge in a bathroom while the host literally waits outside the door. With all the hysterics, it may be easy to forget that there are young children involved here, innocent kids too young to know what is happening all around them.
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New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick told reporters Saturday that after conducting an experiment to recreate a normal game day scenario, he claimed that the Patriots “followed every rule, to the letter” in preparation for last week’s AFC Championship game.
Belichick said that he studied the science behind why the air pressure inside footballs changes depending on environmental conditions and claimed that the customary practice of rubbing the footballs before the game changed the pressure, leading many fans to give the coach a new nickname: Bill Belichick “The Science Guy”.
Bill Nye, for one, is not impressed. On Sunday’s episode of Good Morning America, Nye refuted Belichick’s theory.
“I’m not too worried about coach Belichick competing with me. What he said didn’t make any sense. Rubbing the football I don’t think you can change the pressure. To really change the pressure you need one of these, the inflation needle.”
Nye also admitted he’s rooting for the Seahawks.
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It's no fish tale. After 51 hours, 4 minutes and 28 seconds underwater, "The Grouper" rose from the seas in triumph — back to the land where he belonged.
Allen Sherrod, a determined diver with a dream, reclaimed the world diving record Saturday for the longest time submerged in open saltwater.
The record was a title that Sherrod, known as "The Grouper," originally claimed in 2011 with a 48-hour-and-13-minute dive off Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. When a diver off Malta broke it last year, Sherrod set out to clinch the record once more.
"The only challenge was doing the time," Sherrod said shortly after returning to land. "Just hanging out and not getting excited about getting out too early."
Spectators on the beach cheered as they saw the diver raise his arms toward the sky in victory. His pruned hands were ashen and swollen. He knew precisely what he craved after more than two days on a mostly liquid diet of Gatorade and a rice-meal energy drink.
"I'm ready to eat my grouper tenders, eat some fries and take a nap," said Sherrod, 48.
The two days and nights spent by Sherrod underwater all began about 6:30 a.m. Thursday, when he plunged into the ocean.
Two divers stayed by Sherrod's side at all times to keep watch. They closely observed his rising chest as he slept and even checked for messy handwriting on a magnetic board that could clue them in to any decline in his physical state, said lead safety diver Jose Mijares.
"He had sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation," he said. "He goes through emotional roller coasters."
Sherrod easily entertained himself with the world that surrounded him at about 15 to 18 feet in depth.
He organized "sand dollar races" by digging up sand dollars only to watch them slowly burrow themselves under the sea floor again.
A dozen or so squid also swam around him. "They were doing their little dance back and forth," he said.
The highlight of the dive for Sherrod came Friday, when he renewed his vows with his "beautiful mermaid wife," he said.
The underwater ceremony between Sherrod and his bride, Barbara Wynns, was only natural — she was a former Weeki Wachee mermaid, part of a popular Florida attraction featuring underwater performers in siren suits.
They were flanked by two people, dressed as a merman and mermaid, who swam around the couple as they sealed their vows.
Because of their scuba masks, the couple didn't kiss. They instead brought their faces close together for a tender moment.
About 100 volunteers assisted Sherrod throughout his diving expedition, but a select few in his team proved to be a lifeline for him.
Melody Craven, his massage therapist, dove in the ocean to provide Sherrod a spa-like treatment: Her massages were meant to keep his body temperature from dipping and help keep his joints moving, she said.
Sometimes, he would doze off during the massages and when catnaps came, they were in spurts of 15 to 20 minutes. His support divers remained by his side, so he would not be disoriented when he awoke.
"We wanted him to be able to rest," Craven said. "That's important for mental strength."
Sherrod and the volunteers learned from the challenges that arose in December 2011, during his first record-breaking saltwater dive.
This time, they used new technology that made the dive easier for Sherrod and his crew of about 20 support divers, who monitored him and changed his air tanks round-the-clock.
Instead of a wet suit, he wore a dry suit that prevented water from filtering in. He also wore a heating device underneath the suit to prevent hypothermia. Instead of wearing an air tank on his back, he kept tanks at his sides that more easily clipped on and off.
A raft, jet ski and two boats overhead helped transport what was needed for him at the dive site, including air tanks.
Sherrod used his SCUL, "self-contained underwater loudspeaker," invention to communicate with his support crew.
Another device, a diving mask with cellphone capabilities, also came in handy: Sherrod, while still submerged, was interviewed by a radio station Thursday morning.
While on the air, he invited the public to stop by his nook of the sea, and paddle boarders and free divers took up the offer.
When Sherrod was especially chatty with visitors, his air tanks didn't last as long, Mijares said. Those who stopped by left encouraging notes or posed questions on a magnetic board. And Sherrod, using his SCUL device, would reply.
At night, Sherrod's level of excitement wore off.
And about 4 a.m. Saturday, a problem arose: Water began to leak into his dry suit. The cold settled into his bones and pain spread through his limbs, Mijares said.
At one point, he started to rise toward the surface. But a fellow diver held him down and pulled him toward the seafloor.
He stayed underwater a little beyond 51 hours — which was shorter than the 55 hours he wanted to reach, but still more than enough to set a new record. Sherrod is expected to once again have a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, once officials verify his dive.
About 10 a.m. Saturday, after Sherrod surfaced, the vessel carrying him zipped toward the eager crowd.
Women dressed as mermaids — who were part of a mermaid convention that coincided with the dive — dotted the shoreline. They flopped their iridescent fins as the waves rolled in and Sherrod grew closer.
At the shoreline, from atop the boat, the diver addressed the crowd. He said he was grateful for everyone's support.
"The team made it all possible," Sherrod said. "Without you all, it wouldn't be possible."
The diver soaked in the attention, gingerly slid off the boat and posed for photos with the women dressed as mermaids.
Sherrod then finally walked onto the beach, where a fire-rescue crew checked his blood pressure — 138 over 90 — and gave him an oxygen mask.
"I'm alive still, I think," he said.
[email protected], 954-356-4543 or Twitter @epesantes
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The period between the 5th and the 3rd century BCE was a fertile time for the world’s religions. In India, Buddhism and Jainism began to take hold. In China, Confucianism and Daoism likewise attracted mass appeal. And Europe saw the golden age of Greek philosophy.
What these movements have in common is that they all emphasize spirituality, self-discipline, and selflessness. And in doing so, they all are heavily moralizing.
According to a new study by Nicholas Baumard (University of Pennsylvania) and colleagues, this was no coincidence. In all cases, they suggest, it was driven by increasing affluence – specifically the increase in agricultural output that provided energy security and free time to ponder higher thoughts.
They compared these three regions with others that did not undergo enlightenment movements of this kind – in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, and the Andes.
They looked at various factors including the population size of the various states and their surface area – which they took as a measure of political complexity. They also examined population growth and the population of the main city.
The final factor they looked at was energy capture. That’s how much energy – that’s how much energy (in the form of food – including animal feed – and other energy sources) is available per person.
They looked at how each of these factors had changed over 3000 years up till 0 CE. By plugging the data into a mathematical model, they could see how effective they were at predicted when and where the emergence of ‘axial’ religions occurred.
They found that political complexity did not predict the emergence of religions, but affluence did.
In particular, there was a sharp threshold in energy capture. Once a society crossed the 20,000kcal/day level, axial religions were much more likely to emerge.
The size of the largest city also emerged as an important factor. However, total population size and the surface area of the state were unimportant.
The authors suggest several possible explanations. Maybe the surplus energy enabled these cultures to create a class of individuals with enough leisure time to become scholars or priests – although they point out that this would not explain why these new ideologies had similar pro-social content. Another is that affluence promoted a new way of life that fitted better urban, cosmopolitan societies of the large city states.
Their preferred explanation is that energy security shifted society from a ‘fast’ strategy, focussed on high birth rates and less nurturing, to a ‘slow’ strategy focussed on long-term investment in co-operation and self-actualization.
Now, they’re quick to point out that the data are very rough. And Ed Slingerland, who has extensively studied Asian religions, argues that the whole concept of an ‘axial age’ is outdated.
These results directly contradict a school of thought that says moralising gods were invented early on, to strengthen group cohesion. For example, one recent study concluded that societies developing in tough environments were more likely to create moralizing gods.
However, that same study also linked moralising gods to socially stratified societies – as did another, looking also at early cultures. And a study of modern cultures linked belief in moralising gods to complex, large scale societies.
So there are some similarities to all these studies. Social stratification, after all, depends on surplus energy generation (so the wealthy can live off the work of the poor).
But where they disagree is over the timing and the implications. Did moralising Gods enable a wealthy, complex society – or are they simply a byproduct?
Baumard, N., Hyafil, A., Morris, I., & Boyer, P. (2015). Increased Affluence Explains the Emergence of Ascetic Wisdoms and Moralizing Religions Current Biology, 25 (1), 10-15 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.10.063
This article by Tom Rees was first published on Epiphenom. It is licensed under Creative Commons.
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By Adam Taylor
My plan last week, was to look at how we could add another operating system to the Xilinx SDSoC Design Environment. However, having spent a few hours last week at work getting a Zedboard talking to a Digilent PmodAD2—a small, 4-channel, 12-bit A/D converter board with an I2C interface based on an Analog Devices AD7991—I realized that I could include what I learned within a larger example. So over the next few blogs, we are going to look at using SDSoC to develop signal-processing applications where we capture and process a signal and then use SDSoC to gain performance improvements.
Digilent PmodAD2, a small, 4-channel, 12-bit A/D converter board
To do this we will use a variety of different signal-capturing methods using the Zynq SoC’s integrated XADC analog module and the above mentioned PModAD2 board, amongst other approaches.
The hardware definition for the MicroZed platform within SDSoC provides access to the XADC via the DevC interface as seen in the picture above. This method provides a lower-bandwidth method of interfacing with the XADC than connecting to it over the AXI bus. It also requires no PL configuration to access and use it.
We will need to define a new hardware platform to communicate over the AXI bus, which we will address shortly. Indeed to communicate with the Pmod and other external ADCs, we will need to update the hardware definition, which will provide a good example of defining our own platform.
However there are applications where we are happy with a lower bandwidth, for example in system health monitoring or in some industrial measurement applications. Note that we can use the Zynq SoC’s XADC to monitor the device’s own supply voltages and operating temperature and we can take action should a parameter go out of range. Indeed we can even set alarms on these measurements within the XADC to issue an alarm if limits are exceeded.
Accessing the Zynq SoC’s XADC via SDSoC is very simple. Indeed it is like previous examples using SDK. We can use the same header file we did before—xadcps.h—which contains a number of functions we can use to configure and drive the XADC. I have uploaded to github the file I created to read the XADC using this method. The screen shot below shows the results of running it.
As we are going to be looking at ADC’s, it is probably a good point to recap sampling basics here. Based on Nyquist sampling criteria, if we wish to sample a signal we must sample at twice the highest frequency of interest within the signal. For example, a 10MHz signal should be sampled at 20Msamples/sec, at a minimum. Note that if we sample a signal at a higher frequency than our minimum Nyquist sampling rate, then the signal may alias back into the quantised spectrum. I say “may” because the signal has to be within the input bandwidth of the ADC. Using aliasing can be a very interesting and can allow direct signal sampling at higher frequencies if the ADC input bandwidth is sufficient.
Nyquist zones and Aliasing, showing the images in the 1, 3 and 4 zones for a signal in zone 2, the fundamental (Fa) and the images.
We can use the algorithm below to determine the frequency at which the harmonic component will be present:
Fharm=N ×Ffund
IF (Fharm=Odd Nyquist Zone)
Floc=Fharm Mod Ffund
Else
Floc=Ffund-(Fharm Mod Ffund)
End
Where N is the integer for the harmonic of interest. For example, with a 2500MHz sample rate of and a fundamental of 1807MHz, there will be a harmonic component at 693MHZ within the first Nyquist zone.
Over the next few blogs we will look more at ADC based applications starting with the XADC.
The files as always are on the github repository.
If you want E book or hardback versions of previous MicroZed chronicle blogs, you can get them below.
First Year E Book here
First Year Hardback here
Second Year E Book here
Second Year Hardback here
You also can find links to all the previous MicroZed Chronicles blogs on my own Web site, here.
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In February 2014, Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled that the government must comply with equitable allocation of advertising. Additionally, in late 2013 and early 2014, a handful of contradictory court cases impacted standards for intermediary liability, specifically regarding the liability of search providers for removing content containing the unauthorized use of individual’s images.
Argentine internet users have access to a wide array of online content, including international and local news outlets, as well as the websites of political parties and civil society initiatives. Although there is no automatic filtering of internet sites, web pages, blogs, or data centers, Law 25.690 tasks ISPs with the duty to provide software that limits access to specific websites.[46] Law 2974 also mandates the blocking of websites related to pornography in educational institutions, libraries, and other public locations in Buenos Aires.[47] Similar laws have been enacted in some of the provinces, such as Santa Fe.[48]
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and international blog-hosting services are freely available in Argentina, although social media sites have occasionally been blamed for coordinating vandalism and other illegal activities. In December 2013, Minister of Justice Julio Alak stated that a wave of looting that occurred in Entre Ríos and other Argentine provinces had been organized through social media in response to a police protest.[49] Consequently, in Entre Ríos there was a proposal to limit the use of social networks.[50] The proposed resolution stated that it was necessary to block “comments, expressions, and information that fosters ‘apologia’ [incitement] of criminal acts and violence…”[51] Although this would have been a blow to freedom of expression, the initiative was severely criticized and the project did not succeed.[52]
According to Google’s Transparency Report, from January to June 2013, the Argentine government submitted 35 court orders as well as 6 executive or police orders for content removal. Although the number of requests declined from the previous term, the amount of content covered in these requests increased greatly, encompassing 1,748 items. By contrast, from July to December 2012, 51 orders for content removal were issued, encompassing only 160 items. Although this increase is due in part to a court order requesting the removal of 1,385 search results (Google did not remove these results, but instead appealed the order, which was then reversed), excluding that particular order, the number of items still doubled in the first half of 2013. In both the 2012 and 2013 terms, the majority of the content was related to defamation.[53]
Among the most salient issues likely to impact internet access in Argentina are net neutrality regulation and intermediary liability. The Senate Commission of Systems, Media, and Freedom of Expression debated various projects related to these issues throughout 2013.[54] One of the more positive aspects to Resolution 5/2013, issued by the Secretariat of Communications, specifically provides for net neutrality, mandating that providers “guarantee access to every user, that in no way distinguishes, blocks, interferes, discriminates, hinders, degrades or restricts arbitrarily the reception or sending of information.” [55]
In recent years, controversy has emerged in Argentina over the blocking of allegedly defamatory material, copyright protected content, and injunctions that invoke intermediary liability. In October 2012, for example, a judge ordered the CNC to mandate that ISPs block specific websites that explain how to unblock netbooks from the government’s Connect Equality program in order to use them for purposes other than education and digital literacy.[56] The most recent—and highly controversial—cases of blocking concerned sites that were illegally commercializing medicine and electronic devices. The National Administration of Public Income (AFIP) blocked 37 such sites in November 2013.[57] In December, three additional websites were taken down, allegedly by the National Direction of Registration of Internet Domains (NIC.ar), after a complaint from the National Administration of Medicine, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT) that the sites were commercializing electronic cigarettes, which are prohibited in Argentina.[58] The controversy around these cases stemmed from a lack of clarity over whether the blocks and takedowns were, in fact, court-authorized. In a public statement, ANMAT announced that it had worked with NIC.ar; however, as the agency is an entity of the executive branch and not fully transparent, uncertainty remains over whether a court order preceded the blocking and removal of the content in question.
Cases of blocking on grounds of copyright infringement have also surfaced from time to time. In 2009, a court ordered the blocking of blog Que Te Pasa Clarin because of alleged copyright infringement against newspaper Diario Clarín.[59] Although the ruling was reviewed—and subsequently overturned—by the National Federal Civil Court of Appeals in March 2014, the domain was sold to another individual while it was blocked so that the owner could no longer make use of it. Hence, although the ruling was overturned, the blog no longer exists.[60]
Another important case regarding copyright infringement and intermediaries concerns the popular social platform and content sharing site Taringa![61] In 2011, copyright complaints were filed against the site—which has over 24 million registered users—by the nonprofit organization Cámara Argentina del Libro (CAL) and several editors. In response, the National Court of Criminal Appeals prosecuted the owners as “necessary participants” in the violations committed by their subscribers, who used Taringa! to share content protected by copyright law.[62] Although the Supreme Court confirmed the prosecution in August 2012, in March 2013 both parties reached an agreement under which they would create a mechanism for CAL to monitor content shared over the platform. Although this decision sparked criticism because it would entail content monitoring by private entities, it was nonetheless approved.[63]
To date, there is no specific legislation regarding intermediary liability in Argentina. Due to the absence of specific regulation, judicial rulings adjudicating liability to intermediaries or injunctions ordering them to remove content are based on general rules, and decisions tend not to be uniform. In 2013, numerous rulings regarding intermediary liability were issued, some of which were positive, exempting hosting companies from disproportionate measures, and some of which were negative, applying overly broad consumer protections that negatively impact the function of search engines. In one late 2013 case, which had a positive ruling from a freedom of expression standpoint, the production company Pampa Films filed a criminal lawsuit against YouTube administrators, Google, and a YouTube user for allowing the movie “Un Cuento Chino” to be uploaded without legal permission and hosted on YouTube.[64] The movie, which was viewed by nearly 200,000 people in the nine months it was available, was removed by the company after complaints from Pampa Films.[65] The First Instance Criminal Court and the Criminal Court of Appeals each ruled that YouTube could not be held criminally liable for hosting the film since it does not prescreen content uploaded by users, and praised the company for responding to the complaint by removing the content in question.[66]
A handful of cases pertaining to the unauthorized use of images or videos have also come to the fore in recent years. In one 2010 case, the artist Virginia Da Cunha sued Google and Yahoo for the unauthorized use of her image by websites that offered sexual services. The National Civil Court of Appeals ruled that intermediaries could only be held liable if they were nonresponsive to complaints, establishing a subjective liability regime, under which liability is assigned if an actor is deemed negligent. Although the case is awaiting a ruling by the Supreme Court, in August 2013, the Attorney General issued an opinion confirming the ruling made by the Appeals Court, which stated that satisfying Da Cunha’s request would be tantamount to requiring pre-emptive censorship.[67] This is a positive ruling for freedom of expression as it requires companies to respond to complaints but does not force intermediaries to monitor content as it is created, which could place undue burdens on intermediaries and lead them to censor legitimate content in order to limit legal liability.[68]
Two important rulings issued in 2013 are decidedly less positive for freedom of expression. In the May 2013 case of Florencia Peña, an actress who was victim to the online publication of a stolen video of her and her husband having intimate relations,[69] the Court of First Instance issued a precautionary measure ordering Google to block all search results containing the actress’ name along with terms alluding to the video, rather than taking a more nuanced and proportionate precautionary measure such as ordering the blocking of the specific URLs hosting the video. Another example of a ruling with a potentially dangerous precedent occurred in the December 2013 case of Evangelina Carrozo, a model whose image was used without authorization in sexual content websites. In its ruling, the National Civil Court of Appeals tasked Google and Yahoo with the obligation to compensate Ms. Carrozo for the use of her image.[70] The Court further stated that search engines carry out an inherently risky activity, making them automatically liable for content.[71] The Court’s findings are controversial as they imply that search engines ought to act as arbiters of content. Such responsibility would effectively force intermediaries to engage in censorship, negatively impacting freedom of expression and access to information.[72]
One March 2014 case stands as a positive counterexample to the concerning ruling in the Carrozo case. In this suit, which also involved a model, Carolina Valeria, whose name and image were used in sexual content websites, the National First Instance Civil Court ruled in favor of Google, the search engine being sued. In his ruling, the judge stated that the company had conducted no illegal behavior, and further, that forcing Google to delete all entries with the model’s name would amount to prior censorship.[73]
Two key legislative proposals that would have limited intermediary liability came to the fore in 2012, although neither was passed. Proposal 2668-D-2012 would have excluded ISPs serving as technical intermediaries from responsibility for content originating from a third party, as long as the ISP did not alter the content in question.[74] After this proposal was rejected in 2012 amidst criticism, its author, Representative Pinedo, updated the draft bill and presented it again; it was rejected a second time in March 2013.[75] The other proposal, 8070-D-2012, would have excluded ISPs from liability for all transmitted information, unless the ISP modified the information or was the original transmitter. This initiative faced criticism for disregarding international standards when allowing third parties and administrative bodies to ask ISPs to remove content without a judicial order.[76]
Self-censorship among bloggers and online users is not widespread in Argentina, yet in the interior of the country, where the rule of law is weaker than in the capital district, some online journalists refrain from writing about powerful local officials so as not to jeopardize their relationship with private advertisers. According to the latest IFEX report, given Argentina’s polarized political and press environment, public media is used as a tool to question journalists who criticize the government.[77] Some writers likewise adjust their reporting based on the partisan affiliation of their publication.
One significant issue facing news outlets is discriminatory allocation of official advertising, a practice for which the Argentine federal and local governments are known. Outlets whose reporting has been critical of the government are often excluded from official advertisement, while those who are supportive are rewarded with reallocation of advertisement opportunities.[78] This biased practice has inhibited freedom of expression, particularly in the print and broadcast media sectors.[79] Although funds allocated to internet activities represent only three percent of the federal advertising budget, the most recent publicly available statistics show that during the first semester of 2012, 42 percent of that sum was assigned to only 10 beneficiaries, all of whom had clear ties to the federal government.[80]
Despite multiple rulings by the Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Appeals in 2011 and 2012 stating that the government must utilize equitable measures in its distribution of state advertising, to date, the government has been noncompliant and has faced no penalty for its disregard of judicial orders.[81] In June 2013, the National Civil Court of Appeals made yet another ruling urging the government to distribute official advertising in an equitable and proportional way.[82] In October, the Supreme Court issued a further ruling regarding the constitutionality of the Telecommunications Law in which it recommended “transparent public policy in terms of official advertising.”[83] Finally, in February 2014, the Supreme Court confirmed its ruling urging the government to comply with equitable advertising allocation, emphasizing the importance of this principle to freedom of expression.[84] To date, however, the government does not appear to have changed its stance on equitable allocation of advertising.
There are no restrictions on access to national or foreign news sources in Argentina. Argentines are able to express themselves freely online; in recent years, many have also used social media as a tool for political mobilization. In late 2012, Twitter and Facebook were used to mobilize protestors in a major antigovernment demonstration known as 8N (November 8). Although official figures vary widely, placing the size of the protests between 30,000 (according to the Buenos Aires police) and 100,000 (according to regional media), 8N succeeded in bringing tens of thousands of people out to protest corruption, violent crime, declining freedom of expression, and inflation.[85] In April 2013, another public demonstration known as 18A (April 18) was organized using social media, and, like 8N, gathered a great deal of attention on Twitter and Facebook.[86] According to the Buenos Aires City Government, 18A gathered over 1 million protesters—a figure that was challenged by the National Government, which stated that only 178,000 people attended.[87] The 18A protest took place in the capital and in other Argentine cities such as Mar del Plata, Santa Fe, Rosario, and Salta.
A few other notable public demonstrations were also organized via social media during 2013. In October 2013, a march was arranged on social media in support of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was in the hospital recovering from an operation.[88] In December 2013, after suffering multiple power outages due to a heat wave and an energy deficit, social media was widely used as a tool to organize protests. One of the resulting movements, known as 30D, invited citizens to gather on December 30th for a march toward the Obelisc in protest of the power cuts.[89] Although the government did not respond to 30D, it stands as an example of the practical use of social media by Argentines as a tool for real-world mobilization.
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'Fruit Salad of Their Life': Carson's New Phrase Sets Social Media Ablaze
Krauthammer on GOP Debate: Rubio Was Throwing Haymakers at Trump
According to one political science professor, Donald Trump is almost a lock to win the presidential election in November.
Helmut Norpoth said on Fox and Friends that his research gives Trump a 97-99% chance of becoming the 45th President of the United States.
Norpoth, a Stony Brook Univ. professor, said his prediction is based on a historical model that has proven accurate in almost every election going back to 1912.
"I've looked at elections in the past. And I’ve seen that the New Hampshire primary in particular is a very good predictor of what happens," he explained.
Sandra Smith asked Norpoth whether he has doubts this time around, since this election cycle seems to be like no other before it.
He said that another key factor is that Trump won the first two primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina, while Clinton lost in New Hampshire.
Norpoth said the likelihood of a Trump victory could fall based on the outcome of some of Super Tuesday's primaries.
He said his prediction of Trump winning the general election is based on Hillary Clinton being the opponent.
Norpoth said the model was wrong only in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but did not win the White House.
Watch him explain in the video above.
Greta: 'Disappointed' in Romney for 'Cheap Shot' Against Trump on Taxes
Georgia Business Owner Requires All Employees to Carry Guns at Work
Brawl Breaks Out at Refugee Camp Over Woman Refusing to Wear Headscarf
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Baltimore police commanders on Tuesday ordered all city police stations to stay open around the clock after the story of a man who said he was robbed of his bicycle and found the nearest station closed drew concern from community leaders and elected officials.
Col. Darryl DeSousa, the department's patrol chief, ordered all nine of the city's district stations to "maintain lobbies that are accessible to the public 24-hours a day" — with someone there to speak to anyone who shows up.
Police would not say how much the change would cost in money or manpower. The department spends tens of millions of dollars each year on overtime.
They said they were responding to an opinion article published in The Baltimore Sun on Monday in which Connor Meek described his efforts to contact police after a group of teens robbed him of his bike on the Gwynns Falls Trail one night last month.
The 27-year-old Gwynns Falls man said a 911 dispatcher didn't understand where he was located, so he went to the Southwestern District station. He said an officer at the station told him it was closed between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Algerina Perna, Baltimore Sun Connor Meek is pictured at his home. He was mugged and then denied access to the police station near his house. Connor Meek is pictured at his home. He was mugged and then denied access to the police station near his house. (Algerina Perna, Baltimore Sun) (Algerina Perna, Baltimore Sun)
Meek was eventually able to begin filling out a police report with a detective, he said, but then was directed to the Southern District station. But once there, he said, he was told that station, too, was closed from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. He was able later to complete a police report.
"It's just hard to live in the city and pay taxes and buy a house next to the police station because you want that security, and then this is how they treat you," Meek said in an interview Tuesday. "It's just an us-versus-them mentality, police versus the citizens."
His story struck a chord among officials. City Councilman Ed Reisinger — who represents parts of Southwest and South Baltimore — said stations are a "sanctuary" for people in trouble, and shouldn't close overnight like a business.
It's just hard to live in the city and pay taxes and buy a house next to the police station because you want that security, and then this is how they treat you. — Connor Meek
"This ain't no damn restaurant," he said. "That is stupid with a capital 'S.' That jeopardizes public safety when you do that. What's next, the hospitals? The ambulances?"
Councilman Brandon M. Scott, vice chairman of the council's public safety committee, said police stations "should have always been 24/7," and Meek's efforts to get help should have been handled differently.
"Telling him to go away is unacceptable," Scott said.
Police officials said they agreed. Detective Jeremy Silbert, a police spokesman, called the incident "alarming and disappointing," and said the department is investigating.
"We want to assure our communities the Baltimore Police Department is here to serve them and ensure their safety, regardless of the time of day," he said in a statement.
"Some districts have had to temporarily close their front desks during the overnight hours due to manpower shortages," he said, but that will end.
Howard Libit, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, said the mayor "agrees that this is something that should be looked into, and that it is unacceptable."
Police stations in Baltimore, Howard and Harford counties are open at all hours, officials there said.
"Because public safety issues can arise at any hour of the day or night, our precincts are accessible to the public at any hour of the day or night," said Elise Armacost, a Baltimore County police spokeswoman.
Police stations in Baltimore have been open around the clock in the past, city officials said, but hours have changed over the years.
Capt. Eric Kowalczyk, another spokesman, said the department conducts "routine assessments of how we operate on a continuous basis" and makes staffing decisions "based on all of the issues at the time, including manpower and security issues."
He said summer hours at district stations have varied, with some closing at 10 p.m. or midnight.
Police and Rawlings-Blake's office both declined to say when the closures first began, who ordered them and for what reason, or specify the hours that were most recently in effect at each district station.
Security at city police stations has been under review for at least six months.
A man taken into custody last year in connection with an attempted murder smuggled a handgun into the Southwestern District station and used it to fatally shoot himself in a station bathroom, police said.
Then in January, a man walked into the Northeastern District with a loaded handgun, marijuana and cocaine and told officers he'd been acting on the orders of Black Guerrilla Family gang leaders to test security at the station, police said.
After that incident, Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts said his department would review security measures.
"I am always assessing security," he said at the time. "We will look at 30 days, 60, 90 days, we will continue to assess, change and adapt."
Doug Ward, director of the Division of Public Safety Leadership at the Johns Hopkins University, said it is uncommon for police stations in major cities to be closed.
"In mom-and-pop, one- or two-person, small-town police departments where the officer's out doing rounds and they close during certain hours of the night, that may be reasonable, but in Baltimore City you would expect that they would be open," he said.
Ward said security in police stations is a real concern, but should never cause a department to shut itself off from the community it is meant to protect.
"There is greater risk in a police car then there is in a police station. There's risk associated with everything, and I don't think we can be free if we just cower down," he said.
Officer Tanya Little, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Police Department, said that "enforcing the law is a 24/7, 365-days-a-year job."
"It doesn't stop," she said. "We can't say, 'Hold your complaint or whatever it is you have going on in your life until normal business hours.' That's just not practical."
The Rev. Cortly "C.D." Witherspoon, president of the Baltimore chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, called the closing of police stations "egregious" and "a continuation and pattern of bad decisions by this administration so far as its policing strategy is concerned."
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Correction: After a commenter pointed out our mistake, we took "ticket" out of the headline and changed it to "misdemeanor charge."
Californians want folks who get pinched for a small amount of hard drugs like cocaine to face only misdemeanor charges, not felony ones.
Continue Reading
In fact the Drug Police Alliance's statewide survey (PDF) found that nearly three-quarters of us (72 percent) want marijuana-like misdemeanor penalties for possession of cocaine, heroin and small amounts of other drugs.
That would mean if cops found a few bumps in your pocket you'd see a ticket [corrected]: misdemeanor charge, which would rarely result in jail time these days, particularly on first offense instead of a jail cell (just as if you had a few joints on you).
States the Drug Policy Alliance:
This poll offers important proof that most Californians do not approve of lengthy prison sentences for drug possession for personal use. At a time when California is slashing funding for education and health care while billions of dollars in incarceration costs remain untouched, this poll finds that Californians believe that too many people are incarcerated for too long.
This would be just a write up, if Californians had their way.
Of the 800 people surveyed by Lake Research Partners last month, 56 percent believed that too many Californians are in jail; even 66 percent of Republicans favor misdemeanors for small amounts of hard drugs; 41 percent said they'd favor a candidate who supports the misdemeanor move for hard drugs.
Allen Hopper, police practices director with the ACLU of Northern California:
Support for reducing drug possession penalties crosses all the partisan, regional, and demographic lines that normally divide California voters. Solid majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents from every corner of the state overwhelmingly agree that it's time for a new approach. We need to stop wasting precious tax dollars on unnecessary, expensive jail and prison sentences.
The DPA notes that those caught with cocaine or heroin -- even small amounts -- could see 16 months to 3 years in prison.
Added: We're also told that a plurality of respondents (40 percent) believe possession of a small amount of hard drugs like coke should only get a ticket (e.g. be cited for an infraction).
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Gamesmith94134: Argentina’s Sovereign Bondage
“Given the uncertainty involved, and that sovereign debtors can repay domestic-currency debt simply by printing money, creditors have typically demanded significantly higher interest rates if bonds are not issued under the law and in the currency of an advanced country – often the United States or the United Kingdom.”
As an institutional investor, I would protest on the issue of standardizing value on the bonds that are pegged to dollar or pound; in which, IMF has neglected the significance of the local pricing system which has made BRICS to fall after the invasion of the local equity market that created a stagflation and depreciation on the local currencies. Of course, it was the Quantitative Easing that triggered “beggar thy neighbor” and the concurrent environment that pushing the equity market to double its value in both developed nations and EM nations which have acclaimed disinflationary measures works. Hereby, I would warn both US and United Kingdom that their equity market are now being invaded as well, that inflation and inequality would depreciate their currencies and societal disorder is startling to rumble. Perhaps, EU is questioning the Conglomerates on the Taxes and privileges to restore its strength; and its double digits returns are undermined. After the 17000 in DJ, I would doubt the undeterred perpetual growth in price and how the market react on value of these stocks—diasporas or depreciated after widened trade deficits.
It is the market system that IMF must contemplate how the prudent macro-economic in the coming round of throw weight accountability of the currencies exchanges. How does IMF treat currencies in Developed nations and EM nations like protein in meat or fish alike that make it impossible to account 0.75% and 7% as in market rates by lumping together in such so-called market system? It is discriminating from one market system to another if the exchange rate is standardized with the globalized economy; and there is no one market system going to fit for all.
“Under the court order, Argentina may not pay the holders of the new bonds unless it also pays the holdouts, and no US financial institution can serve as an intermediary to make payments for Argentina. As a result, Argentina must either pay the holdouts in full or default on the new bonds.”
It is why I would agree that zone development to trade should be applied in the 1% in the transcontinental investment and another 1% for Diasporas for profits to levitate the exchange differentials; so, it would ease the tension of the strategy of “beggar thy neighbor” in fund transfers and devaluation of local currencies. Such issue cannot resolve with bankruptcy court since the sovereign is not marketable and vulture fund to manhandling the discounted bonds be not be rewarded with its full fund. Eventually, each trade group of the Zone can utilize these 1% funds to balance the exchange trade off, and the contingency that the bonds can buy back or subsidized to renew its bond issues through the zone authority through the WTO commissioned and World Bank guaranteed through the sovereign bonds, instead of kicking the can down the road or snowballing the debts to unsustainable. In the process, we, the institutional investors can purchase these bonds with local currencies and demand the debtor sovereign to participate the 3% loan with another 1% payment on the insurance premium to World Bank and IFC to work on the coupon issues to repayment and supervision to how the bond is pegged to it tax program or utility fee. Perhaps, we can eliminate the casino type investment from the stronger currencies and holdouts. Then CAC would not be needed or challenged in litigation; instead of using austerity to starve of the local economy.
At present, I would encourage the institutional investors to participate in the WTO commissioned sovereign bond programs that my 3% return is ascertained with its 1% funding to ensure its payoff. I suppose such 3+1% is still cheap as comparing to the local loan rate; and it fitted for reviving the local in a breathable manner rather than a chokehold in depreciate its currencies to qualify to newer issue of sovereign bond and our investment are the real capital that are earned or accumulated through the process of valuation; they are matured cash value. By comparison, restructuring bonds are using the deferential interest rates and exchange rate to manipulate the local market system that is just assets by its shell only. I bet my finger is better than the bet off the broker; and it is not market system. It was Casino like Las Vegas.
I think I have out-spoken on the issues; but why should I second guess what the bankruptcy court could have offer for the investment on the debts which is sovereign or not; and my pension fund are real capital when it compare to those loans of the cheaper cost from the FED.
We do need reform even for Developed nations too, and the secondary central Bank from World Bank and Zone insurance should be considered……..and now before the diasporas. It may not happen because Ms. Yellen believe US can do hold with DJ; but trade deficit, inequality and over-valued stock price could be another factors in being depressed.
May the Buddha bless you?
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Android-x86 Accuses Console OS of Scamming — What Happened
Does forking code come at a Price?
A storm has been brewing in the Android-x86 developer community. The CEO of crowdfunded project ‘Console OS’ has been accused of scamming his Kickstarter backers by failing to deliver on his promises. Thanks to popular threads on social media sites such as reddit, the storm grew into a full-blown drama hurricane.
But who are the parties involved, what happened, and how does this fall into place in the wider world of open-source development? I delved into the many posts made over this issue, both past and present, to bring you a comprehensive overview of what happened between Console OS and Android-x86.
Who are the Players?
Time-line of Relevant Events
Note: there are many smaller events which play a part in each party’s grievances, however, they pale in comparison to the events listed below.
June 12, 2014: Console OS was announced on Kickstarter.
~June-August, 2014: Christopher Price, and all discussion of Console OS, is banned from the Android-x86 discussion board. The group’s reason for the ban is that they quickly determined the project to be a scam after speaking with Price.
August 11, 2014: Console OS Kickstarter ended.
~January 2015: Intel halts support for Android-IA, dropping both support for Core and PC tablets.
December 11, 2015: Chih-Wei Huang publicly calls out Christopher Price and Console OS, stating that Price is scamming his Kickstarter backers by failing to deliver on his promises.
December 25, 2015: The backlash begins to bubble as several outlets and developers begin covering the issue. It goes viral when the story is posted to the Android subreddit. That same day, Christopher Price posts an update on the Console OS Kickstarter page responding to the criticism.
December 31, 2015: In response to the accusations levied at Chih-Wei Huang in the Kickstarter update, Chih-Wei Huang challenges Christopher Price to produce at least 10% of the features he promised, and offers him $50,000 to do so by the New Year. Christopher Price responds, but does not take Mr. Huang up on the challenge, stating that the Android-IA mailing list is not the proper place to do so.
What are the grievances?
Chih-Wei Huang -> Christopher Price/Console OS:
Accuses Price of cheating his backers by not fulfilling his Kickstarter promises.
States that Christopher Price haven’t written a single piece of original code for Console OS, and that Console OS doesn’t really exist.
States that the existence of Console OS hurts the reputation of Android-x86, as anyone reading the git log of iConsole will see that “cwhuang” is the biggest contributor to the project. If he tacitly consents, he may be “treated as an accomplice in [a court of law].”
States that in their numerous attempts at correspondence (even once in person), Price has rebuked his requests to demo Console OS.
Christopher Price -> Chih-Wei Huang:
Claims Chih-Wei Huang is attempting to “shakedown” Price by demanding he pay $50,000 in order to pull code from the Android-x86 project. For evidence, he put up an e-mail conversation he had with Mr. Huang. As Chih-Wei Huang is the lead administrator of the Android-x86 project, he is responsible for managing pull requests.
States that it is unreasonable for Mr. Huang to demand a donation to pull from Android-x86, calling it “unfortunate” and a “disgrace to open-source.” He points out that Mr. Huang is an ASUS employee, and believes that it is unprofessional of an employee to make this request.
States that Chih-Wei Huang has been overly critical of Intel and Console OS.
Christopher Price/Console OS -> Android-IA
Disappointed that Intel dropped support for Android-IA, as Console OS relied heavily on Android-IA to get Android properly working on newer Intel hardware.
Community -> Christopher Price/Console OS
Believes that Console OS is but one string in a long line of failed projects, from Mechaworks, iConsoleTV, and now Console OS/iConsole Micro. Major issues with the project stemming from a lack of honesty about where the project would pull its sources from.
Worried that Android-x86 would be scapegoated for the lack of fulfilled promises made by Price.
There are accusations that Price put up a Kickstarter campaign while knowing that Android-IA support would not last.
Examining the Grievances
Clearly, there are many, many claims being thrown around. We’ll examine each to let you decide the truth behind the matter. Note that many of these links are based on comments sections on various blogs and articles. The discussion on this topic has been heavily fractured and thus hard to follow.
Against Christopher Price/Console OS
Against Chih-Wei Huang
Is Mr. Huang guilty of shaking down Price for money? According to the e-mail conversation posted by Price, the exact wording used by Mr. Huang was to “donate” to “android-x86.org.” According to Mr. Huang, the $50,000 demand was an attempt at testing Price to see if he could show “something real” this time. Mr. Huang demands a video demo of Console OS or code uploaded to Github. Does Mr. Huang have trouble working with Android-IA? You can read the relevant accusations levied against him here. Mr. Huang has since responded to these claims in the Android-x86 Google Group.
Where does this fit in the bigger picture?
Such a scenario is not at all unfamiliar to the open-source world. A similar debacle happened back in 2005 between CherryOS and PearPC. Popular open-source rendering program Blender has faced many attempts at forking its code-base for profit without seeing many improvements submitted upstream. A more recent, and relevant example, involves Menuet OS and its fork Kolibri OS. Christopher Price claims that his fork is nothing at all like these previous examples. In a blog post, he likens Console OS to that of Boxee, CyanogenMod, and Apple’s WebKit.
Price promises to resume development in 2016, claims to be offering rewards for any contributors to his open-source project, and states that he will ship all remaining perks to his backers. On the other hand, Chih-Wei Huang has moved to stop development of Lollipop-x86 entirely and move to the Marshmallow-x86 branch in order to “disillusion the scam quicker.”
We’ve laid out the background, accusations, and evidence to hopefully give you a comprehensive overview of the controversy surrounding Console OS. We hope that you view this as a reminder to critically examine claims made for crowd-funded projects before investing your money into it. Moving forward, we will have to wait and see if the Console OS team will be able to produce any code worth some merit. Until then, the Android community has lost faith in the project given the revelations made by the Android-x86 team.
Where do you stand on this issue? Let us know in the comments below.
Update: Chris Price has since replied to several of the comments on r/Android regarding this article, find them here
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To edit this page, request access to the workspace. Already have an account? Log in! BSidesCMH2016 BSidesCMH2016 If you need assistance with registration, please contact Mike at fatherofmaddog <at> gmail dot com. When: Monday, January 18th, 2016 Where: Doctors Hospital West, 5100 W Broad St, Columbus, OH 43228 https://maps.google.com/maps?daddr=Doctors+Hospital,+5100+W+Broad+St,+Columbus,+OH+43228&hl=en&geocode=CapatTxDUL-dFdWiYQIdEmoL-yEnlLhnj7c0NA&gl=US&t=h&z=16 Keynote Speaker is Thomas Drake. Thomas Drake is a former senior executive at the National Security Agency where he blew the whistle on massive multi-billion dollar fraud, waste and the widespread violations of the rights of citizens through secret mass surveillance programs after 9/11. As retaliation and reprisal, the Obama Administration indicted Drake in 2010 as the first whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg, charged with espionage. Drake faced 35 years in prison, turning him into an Enemy of the State for his oath to support and defend the Constitution. In 2011, the government’s case against him collapsed and he went free in a plea deal. He is the recipient of the 2011 Ridenhour Truth Telling Prize, and a joint recipient with Jesselyn Radack of the 2011 Sam Adams Associates Integrity in Intelligence Award and the 2012 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. He is now dedicated to the defense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Cost: $25 Schedule: http://cmhbsides2016.busyconf.com/schedule Only 200 attendees permitted due to the venue. Registration Link: Sold Out! Invite your friends by posting this on Twitter: " #BSidesCMH Monday January 18th, 2016" http://www.securitybsides.com/w/file/71767253/Columbus%20BSides%202014.pdf Call for Papers is Closed! Thanks to all that submitted. Sponsors OhioHealth - www.ohiohealth.com StealthCare - stealthcare.com TekSystems - www.teksystems.com Securicon - www.securicon.com Cisco Systems - www.cisco.com CBI IT Risk Management - www.cbihome.com TrustedSec - www.trustedsec.com ZeroFox - www.zerofox.com Interested in Sponsoring? http://www.securitybsides.com/w/file/88165535/Columbus%20BSides%202015%20Sponsorship.pdf Schedule Monday, January 18th, 2016 Start and End Schedule
8:45 AM - 9:00 AM Introductions
9:00 AM- 10:00 AM
KeyNote: Thomas Drake 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Session 1: Offense, Defense, Special Teams 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Session 2: Offense, Defense, Special Teams
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Lunch 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Session 3: Offense, Defense, Special Teams (Young Guns Session)
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Session 4: Offense, Defense, Special Teams
3:00 PM - 3:30 PM Break / Chill Out 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM Session 5: Offense, Defense, Special Teams
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM Session 6: Topics we would like to hear about Offensive Security Talks (Generically speaking Red Teams, Malware Design, Penetration Testing, I like being a bad guy)
Defensive Security Talks (Blue Teams; Firewalls, Application Security, Malware Detection and Eradication, etc).
Special Teams Talks (My talk is so far off topic that it does not fit in the normal bucket or most people will be lost in my discussion). Planners Volunteers Participants BSidesCMH2016 Tip: To turn text into a link, highlight the text, then click on a page or file from the list above. Printable version
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Ireland’s 2016 June Series kicks off next Saturday in DHL Newlands Stadium in Cape Town. There isn’t much optimism for a first-ever Irish win on South African soil, and for good reason.
The Springboks regularly enjoy kicking Northern Hemisphere visitors up and down the length of the pitch and you only have to look back the score lines from the last few years’ June Tests to see just how formidable they are on their home patch:
– 22-17 v England (June ninth 2012)
– 36-27 v England (June 16th 2012)
– 14-14 v England (June 23rd 2012)
– 44-10 v Italy (June eighth 2013)
– 30-17 v Scotland (June 15th 2013)
– 38-16 v Wales (June 14th 2014)
– 31-30 v Wales (June 21st 2014)
– 55-6 v Scotland (June 28th 2014)
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Their 2012 games against England seem like reasonably close contests, going by the results. In reality, South Africa were in control of each of them for most of the 80 minutes, with the 14-all draw being the only blemish.
It is difficult to pick any one area through which Ireland can develop enough of an advantage to eke out a win. The physicality that the Springboks play with is difficult to live with for one whole game, never mind three in a row in front of passionate home support.
One certainty heading into this series is that Ireland will struggle in the set-pieces. Their lineout was reasonably solid against Wales, Italy and Scotland earlier this year, but it faltered under the pressure England exerted, and, frustratingly so, it malfunctioned every time they got into the French 22.
Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha may not be around to lay waste to opposition lineouts anymore, but Eben Etzebeth and Lood de Jager know how to make their presence felt. Securing the ball at lineout time can be trying in and of itself and having two colossal locks imposing themselves on proceedings will make conditions downright claustrophobic for Ireland.
As well as having issues on their own throw, Ireland haven’t been competitive in the air to any great effect lately. They will have to put a lot of effort into disrupting the South African throw because if they are allowed to have clean possession at the lineout, the Springboks will set their maul and squeeze 9-12 points out of Ireland using their preferred offensive weapon.
Joe Schmidt has a tough decision to make in the second row. Devin Toner’s set-piece dependability will be vital, but the dynamism that Iain Henderson and Ultan Dillane offer would be useful against an abrasive Springbok pack. While Dillane’s sensational form should warrant a starting place, experience will probably tip the balance in favour of Toner and Henderson.
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It wasn’t just out of touch where Ireland were less than comfortable during this year’s Six Nations. They only had stability in the scrum when Mike Ross was on the pitch. It is worrying for them that none of the alternatives that were available during that period were up to scratch technically. These are bad omens as South Africa are the best in the world at strangling teams at tight.
If Ireland are to be competitive in this series, they will need to take the scrum out of the equation by going for channel-one ball. The last time these sides met, Ireland were under immense pressure at scrum-time, but on their own put-in, clean strikes from Sean Cronin to the base meant that they could get the ball away quickly, without conceding a penalty.
The breakdown is one area where Ireland could have an edge. South Africa tend to select a back row of 6’4”, 18-stone juggernauts, which can be good and bad at the same time. The advantages are that it gives them a lot of ball-carrying power as well as big hitters in defence. The disadvantages are that it can be hard for men this size to get low quickly and Ireland exploited this back in November of 2014.
However, Ireland’s breakdown work has taken steps backwards over the last two seasons. In this year’s Six Nations, they were effective on the ground against Wales, Italy and Scotland but sloppy against France and England. It doesn’t help that they are heading into this series without an international-standard openside flanker, with Seán O’Brien, Tommy O’Donnell and Josh van der Flier all unavailable due to injury or personal commitments.
It’s not just up front where Ireland have cause for concern. South Africa’s back line poses a serious threat. They will be without Handré Pollard due to injury but Elton Jantjies has been in superb form for The Lions this year.
With an impressive combination of skills, vision and footwork, he offers South Africa something at ten that they have lacked for a long time. If he fails to recover from his recent injury problems, South Africa have the experience of Pat Lambie to fall back on.
Further out, the Springboks have a centre partnership that could be the best in international rugby for the next few years in Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel. De Allende’s strength in contact is nothing new but he has plenty of gas as well.
Kriel’s turn of pace and intelligent running lines saw him lacerate the Ma’a Nonu-Conrad Smith defensive axis in Johannesburg last July, which tells you everything you need to know about the player’s potential.
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Willie le Roux is also a nightmare for opposition defence coaches and his injections into the line from full back caused Ireland no end of trouble 19 months ago. Trying to cope with a back line of such potency while adopting a new defensive system under Andy Farrell will be challenging for Ireland.
One of the cornerstones of Ireland’s last win over South Africa was the masterful kicking out of hand from Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton. Not only did they use the boot as a means of establishing field position and regaining possession; both of their tries came from kicking into the space behind the South African back three.
Ireland have been dealt a major blow in this regard, with Sexton set to miss the series with a shoulder injury. Much of the pressure that Ireland exert on other teams comes from Sexton’s aptitude for putting boot to ball.
Ian Madigan’s pending move to France has seen him drop in Schmidt’s pecking order, with Paddy Jackson certain to start for Ireland now. The Ulster out-half has arguably had his best season yet. Clever decision-making, quality distribution and positioning right on the gain line have been regular features of his performances, but his limited involvement with the national set-up over the last year may hinder his team in this series.
Despite his improvements, kicking out of hand is still his biggest flaw, and this is one of the reasons why Schmidt has previously demonstrated a preference for other players.
Another issue with Ireland’s tactic of aerial bombardment is that, much like their work at the breakdown, it doesn’t reap the same reward it used to. They did find grass behind Italy and Scotland in the Six Nations, but they weren’t able to do so against the more organised teams in the tournament.
The South African coaching ticket and video analysts will have done their homework this time round and there is little chance of their players affording Ireland the same amount of space in the back field.
Ireland have attempted to compensate for the shortcomings in their kick-chase oriented game plan recently by playing more expansive rugby, which worked up to a point. They scored several tries against Italy and Scotland, but they weren’t accurate enough at the final phase against the better Welsh and English scramble defences.
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Schmidt has come under intense scrutiny in the media for not selecting Matt Healy, Niyi Adeolokun or Tiernan O’Halloran in his initial squad because of their attacking exploits, instead opting for Keith Earls, Andrew Trimble, Luke Fitzgerald, Rob Kearney and Dave Kearney. What Schmidt’s critics have overlooked, though, is that the Connacht back three have question marks over their defence and aerial ability.
Healy and O’Halloran have been added to the squad since, with Fitzgerald and the Kearney brothers being ruled out through injury. There is no doubt that these two players would contribute a huge amount in terms of pace (something that Ireland lacked during the Six Nations) if given the chance to start, but throwing them in the deep end against a team who play territorial rugby better than anyone else may not be the ideal scenario.
One factor that could work in Ireland’s favour is South Africa’s appointment of a new head coach. Whenever this happens, there is usually a settling in period that follows, although Allister Coetzee’s previous experience of coaching at Test level should see him get his team up to speed with his methods quickly enough.
Having to bring in a new coach and use inexperienced half-backs at the same time is not convenient for the Springboks, but they have enough strength in depth in every other department to cope with these changes.
A series win for Ireland is unlikely, considering where they are at this moment in time. It has been a disappointing season and some horror-show performances from their provinces in the pool stages of the Champions Cup have meant that few of their players have experienced high-intensity rugby since the end of the Six Nations.
End-of-season fatigue and the further injuries that are bound to happen mean that a set of results similar to their last tour of New Zealand (back in 2012) is on the cards for Ireland: one game where they’ll be competitive, one where they’ll lose by a significant margin (20-30 points) and one landslide victory for the hosts.
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Nearly six months have passed since the Tigers took two out of three in Oakland in an early-season matchup that cooled off the A's from their hot start. Plenty of baseball has unfolded since both of those series. Still, as the Tigers settled into the visiting clubhouse, some of them felt they were just here.
OAKLAND -- Fifty-one weeks have passed since Justin Verlander shut out the A's here to carry the Tigers through the American League Division Series.
OAKLAND -- Fifty-one weeks have passed since Justin Verlander shut out the A's here to carry the Tigers through the American League Division Series.
Nearly six months have passed since the Tigers took two out of three in Oakland in an early-season matchup that cooled off the A's from their hot start. Plenty of baseball has unfolded since both of those series. Still, as the Tigers settled into the visiting clubhouse, some of them felt they were just here.
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"It's a little familiar, for sure," catcher Alex Avila said. "This time of the year, flying to California, we had to do that twice last year. But playing them, that's always a good series. Last year, the ALDS was a very, very good series, so I think everybody going into this matchup just expects another good one."
Each of their last two seasons included celebrations here. They clinched their first division title in 24 years here two seasons ago, then saw Verlander's masterpiece last October send them on their way to the AL Championship Series. If this Division Series goes the full five games, they'll have a chance to do the same behind Max Scherzer, who starts Game 1 on Friday (9:30 p.m. ET on TBS).
In many ways, this feels awfully familiar. However, it is a different team the Tigers take into this year's matchup.
One of the biggest differences for the Tigers was on the club, but not with the team when they came out here last October. In fact, Victor Martinez wasn't even watching most of the playoffs, rehabbing his surgically repaired knee.
"Just a little bit," he said. "I couldn't. It was tough for me. I watched a little here, a little there, but I didn't really watch.
"You know, it's tough, the thing that you love to do, and you're watching your teammates bust their butts on the field and you're sitting on the table rehabbing and doing this, doing that. It really killed me. It did."
While Delmon Young held his own as the designated hitter in last year's Division Series, going 4-for-17 with no homers and two RBIs, Martinez enters this year's rematch coming off baseball's hottest second half. He went 11-for-16 with a homer and two RBIs over four games against the A's in August in Detroit.
Martinez is a .343 career hitter against Oakland, and he deepens the middle of the order. With Miguel Cabrera hobbled, a different hitter than he was last year, extending the lineup could be more important.
Add in Torii Hunter batting ahead of Cabrera, and it's a lineup that has different avenues toward producing offense.
"No question, it's a better lineup this year," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "And they're probably a little more versatile in what they do. They maybe hit for a few more guys that last year they didn't hit for, and they just have a deeper lineup. When you have Hunter sitting in the two-hole above those guys, it presents its challenges, no doubt."
Except for the order, the pitching rotation is exactly the same. The biggest difference there is a fully healthy Scherzer starting Game 1, not the shoulder-hampered Scherzer who started Game 4 last year on a pitch count. It's a minute difference for many, but it's a bigger difference for Scherzer, who calls his starts before that September shoulder soreness some of the best pitching of his career.
"I was on a 90-100 pitch count," Scherzer said earlier this week. "Even when I was on that pitch count, those last 10 pitches, you're trying to build up. Like I've said, those last 15 pitches usually mean the most. And so, for me, I'm in a better position to be more effective in those last 15 pitches.
"So this year, I feel so much stronger. I feel my arm's more resilient going into this postseason. I'm on a full workload. If you need me to go 125 pitches, I'm more than capable of doing that. I think that's a huge benefit for me going into the postseason this year."
The deeper Tigers starters can go, the better, because their bullpen has a vastly different look. Jose Valverde, whose blown save in Game 4 set up his demise as Tigers closer, is gone. Joaquin Benoit, who set up last year's win in Game 1 before giving up a game-changing two-run homer the next day, is in after going 24-for-26 in save chances during the regular season.
Beyond him, the bullpen is not as deep. Octavio Dotel and Phil Coke are both out with injuries. Bruce Rondon, who could've been a major factor setting up, is also out. These Tigers will rely on their starters to provide deep outings, then lean on Drew Smyly, Al Alburquerque and Jose Veras to set up ninth innings for Benoit.
The lean on the starting pitching isn't new. The Tigers are hoping the results will be familiar as well.
"I think the matchup, Tigers-A's, I think everybody looks at some of the matchups we've had and know it's going to be good," Avila said.
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Kate's curtsey and the Queen's handshake for brutal King of Bahrain at Jubilee lunch
The Queen greeted the King of Bahrain with a smile and handshake
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge bowed and curtseyed to the controversial King of Bahrain at a lunch to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Human rights campaigners were horrified that William, Kate and other members of the Royal Family deferred to Hamad Al-Khalifa, whose regime has been accused of violently repressing pro-democracy activists.
The Queen, who had been advised by the Foreign Office over the guest list for the luncheon, made a point of personally greeting the king as he arrived at Windsor Castle, although as a fellow head of state she did not have to curtsey to him.
The pair even shared a private joke together.
The Countess of Wessex – who was heavily criticised recently for accepting two lavish suites of jewels from the king and his family on a trip to the Middle East – also greeted him warmly, while Prince Andrew’s daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, were seen chatting animatedly to the king’s wife, Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa.
The lunch for Sovereign Monarchs at Windsor Castle was almost certainly the largest gathering of crowned heads of state since the Coronation in 1953. All senior members of the Royal Family were present.
The seating plan detailed 24 kings and queens, one emperor, a grand duke and a sultan, along with eight princesses, an emir and an empress.
The more controversial names on the guest list sparked demonstrations outside Buckingham Palace, where Prince Charles last night hosted a black-tie dinner for some of the lunch guests.
The Queen, who has spent the last 60 years managing largely to sidestep such political controversy, found herself accused of making a catastrophic error of judgment by entertaining the Bahraini ruler and his wife.
The Queen, who had been advised by the Foreign Office over the guest list for the luncheon, made a point of personally greeting the King of Bahrain as he arrived at Windsor Castle
Other guests singled out for criticism included Swaziland’s King Mswati III, who has been accused of living an obscenely lavish lifestyle while many of his people starve.
Similarly Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, who is also his country’s ambassador to the UK, comes from a part of the world not renowned for its democratic practices.
Another guest, the former Prime Minister of Kuwait, Sheik Nasser Mohammad Al-Sabah, is also mired in controversy after being forced to step down over a corruption row.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge bowed and curtseyed to the controversial King of Bahrain at a lunch to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge talks to Prince Harry before a reception in the Waterloo Chamber
Former Foreign Office Minister Denis McShane told the Daily Mail yesterday that he did not blame the Queen personally but accused the Foreign Office of putting her in an impossible position.
‘I don’t underestimate for a second our strategic relationship with Bahrain but as there are very few ways for us to signal our disapproval at what has happening in his country, it would have been far better for William Hague to quietly disinvite this man,’ he said.
‘In doing so he would sent out the strongest message possible to the authorities there that their behaviour is not acceptable.
The menu for the Queen's Jubilee lunch
‘Many in Britain will regret that the Foreign Secretary, who approves all invitations sent in the Queen’s name as head of state, has decided to include a representative of the Bahraini regime which has done such terrible things to its own people since the Arab awakening a year ago.’
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell declared: ‘Queen Elizabeth II is hosting seven royal tyrants today: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Swaziland.
‘Inviting these blood-soaked dictators brings shame to the monarchy and tarnishes the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. It is a cruel betrayal of pro-democracy campaigners and political prisoners who are suffering under these totalitarian royal regimes.’
First to arrive for pre-lunch drinks in the Waterloo Chamber was Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, soon followed by Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg.
The grand duke and duchess were warmly greeted by the Queen and Prince Philip with handshakes and double kisses – a display of affection that set the tone for many of the welcomes.
King Harald V of Norway kissed the Queen’s hand and she responded with a beaming smile. Prince Albert II of Monaco was more formal with just a handshake while his wife, Princess Charlene, gave a low curtsey.
The most extravagant gesture came from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who flung her arms wide as she approached the Queen before kissing her warmly.
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell declared: 'Queen Elizabeth II is hosting seven royal tyrants today: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Swaziland'
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie were seen chatting animatedly to the King of Bahrain's wife, Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa
Kate, in £1,200 Emilia Wickstead dress, with Prince William and brother-in-law Prince Harry
Prince William chats to Princess Charlene of Monaco, before a reception in the Waterloo Chamber. Kate watches on
Style icons: Kate with ex-swimmer Princess Charlene of Monaco
So who was at biggest gathering of world royals since the Coronation?
By CATHERINE OSTLER
King Carl Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia (left) greet the Queen; The Sultan of Brunei (right) attended with his wife and cousin
The elk hunter with a secret double life
Bespectacled, dour King Carl Gustaf of Sweden looks like an accountant and for years was known for little more than hunting elks and handing out Nobel Prizes. But don’t be fooled. In 2010, the whole idea of dull Scandinavian monarchy was shaken by a biography which alleged he had led a double life – going to sex parties and strip clubs run by the Mafia, and having an affair with a busty singer known as La Camilla (I know, makes for a terrifying mental image, doesn’t it?). His daughter, Crown Princess Victoria, went rather downmarket by marrying her square-jawed personal trainer, but on the plus side has just had a baby. Aaah.
World’s biggest palace and 3,000 cars
The Sultan of Brunei is attending with his wife and cousin, Her Majesty Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Hajah Saleha. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah is an absolute monarch who owns more than 3,000 cars, the Dorchester in London and the biggest palace in the world, which has 290 bathrooms. The Sultan has had three wives and 12 children. Though he has broken up with wives two and three, he is still married to the first one. He has a troublesome younger brother, Prince Jefri, who had a long phase of spending silly (even by Brunei standards) money on such objects as a yacht tastefully named the SS T**s. They have supposedly made up now, though there is still a warrant out for Jefri’s arrest should he ever enter Britain, connected with allegations relating to financial misdemeanours.
Bling king: Mswati with wife Inkhosikati (note the shoes)
A new wife every year
King Mswati III of Swaziland is known for his love of luxury and his many wives. He rules jointly with his mother, whose title, Indlovukazi, means ‘the Great She-Elephant’ which, though it might earn you a slap over here, is apparently a compliment. Mswati is Africa’s last absolute monarch and at the most recent count had 14 wives and 23 children. Tradition dictates he can choose a new wife every year, and each one gets her own palace. One of his wives, Inkhosikati LaMbikiza, is accompanying him on this trip. He spent £1.6million on his 40th birthday party, but this year he asked for cows to be donated to his birthday feast in a show of thrift. However, last month an ‘anonymous sponsor’ stepped in and bought him a plane. Suggestions that this must have been bought with the country’s cash have been denied.
Man who’s been king twice
King Letsie III of Lesotho rules a tiny ‘kingdom in the sky’ landlocked by South Africa. He is an Old Amplefordian like his father, who was a full-on huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ Anglophile. King Letsie, a keen cattle rancher, also spent time at the universities of Bristol, Cambridge and London, much of it studying agriculture. Prince Harry spent some of his year off in his country and set up a charity, Sentebale, with the king’s younger brother Prince Seeiso, to help the country’s children. Oddly, Letsie is on his second stint as king: his father was deposed, he took over, then his father was restored before dying in a car crash.
Honda-driving fish fanatic
The Emperor of Japan, Akihito, is nearly 80 and just out of hospital for a heart bypass operation. But the Emperor of the Chrysanthemum Throne, the oldest monarchy on earth, and his wife Michiko are coming across the world to lunch. His first visit here was to the Queen’s Coronation as a 19-year-old prince, when Churchill entertained him to lunch in a post-war peace gesture. Possibly the most low-key sovereign there is, Akihito drives an ancient Honda and is fanatic about goby fish. In fact, he has been described as the ‘world’s only authority’ on the tiny critters. The only blot on his landscape was his iffy relationship with his daughter-in-law, an Oxford and Harvard graduate who felt depressed by the confines of palace life and her failure to produce a male heir. But another son has fathered a boy since, so all is well in the Empire of the Sun.
The Emperor of Japan (left) is recovering from a heart bypass; Prince Albert and Princess Charlene of Monaco greet the Queen and Prince Philipp
Party boy and the Olympic swimmer
The son of movie star Grace Kelly and the enigmatic Prince Rainier, eco-conscious party boy Prince Albert of Monaco took his time choosing a bride. Many thought he never would – though he wasn’t slow to produce what were alleged to be a pair of illegitimate sprogs. Eventually, the lucky South African former Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock wed him last year in the Principality. There were rumours that she tried to leg it before the ceremony and has been depressed since, but for all that they are faithfuls at Windsor events, where Charlene always makes it on to the best-dressed lists.
Trekkie and the fashion icon
King Abdullah of Jordan is a Star Trek fan who once got himself a non-speaking part on the programme, and has commissioned a Trekkie theme park in Aqaba. Queen Rania, born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, is a fashion icon well used to the global red carpet and friendship with Nicole Kidman types. The king, once beyond criticism, has been under attack since the Arab Spring and his wife has lowered her profile since allegations of corruption were made against her family, which were denied. A lavish birthday party in 2010 in a desert where nearby villages had no electricity went down badly. There is high unemployment and economic trouble; so admiration for her wardrobe and Hollywood connections have understandably worn a little thin.
Hitler Youth bride, tragic mother
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has been living with a personal tragedy since February, when the second of her three sons was buried in an avalanche skiing off-piste in Lech, Austria. He is still in a coma in a London hospital. He had been living in Britain for years, cut out of the line of succession as his wife was the former partner of the ‘godfather’ of the Dutch drug trade. Beatrix’s eldest son and heir, the Crown Prince, married a daughter of the Argentine junta. Queen Beatrix hasn’t been free of scandal herself: her late husband was in the Hitler Youth.
The world’s newest monarch
On the death of his brother in March, Tupou VI became King of Tonga, leaving him in charge of a cluster of tiny islands in the South Pacific and 100,000 people. This descendant of the Sun God, Tangeroa, went to school in Cambridge and entered politics in Tonga with mixed results. He was forced to resign as Prime Minister after some unpopular decisions, and was sent to Australia to practise diplomacy. His jolly predecessor is a tough act to follow: he wore a monocle and raced toy boats in the palace pool.
The Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was accompanied by his most presentable wife, Sheikha Mozah (left); King Albert II of Belgium with Queen Paola (right)
Billionaire’s global shopping spree
The Emir of Qatar, Hamid bin Khalifa, is accompanied by his most presentable wife, Sheikha Mozah. She is the second of three (who are concurrent, but the others stay at home) and they now own Harrods, the Shard tower in London, the Olympic Village, the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera and more of London than the Crown Estate. The Qataris are also on a semi-secretive global art shopping spree. (In February they bought Cezanne’s Card Players for £160million – a world record art price. They probably bought Munch’s The Scream too.) The Emir has been called a ‘flying carpet diplomatist’ who likes to intervene in international struggles. He deposed his own father in a bloodless coup by blocking the airport when the previous emir went abroad – crafty.
Dark horse on a motorbike
Aside from a fondness for motorcycles and a miserable childhood – his mother died when he was an infant – King Albert II of Belgium has an unexciting reputation. But actually, Albert, who married Italian aristocrat Paola Ruffo di Calabria, is a bit of a dark horse. A decade or so ago, it turned out he had a love child, London artist Delphine Boel, from an affair with a Belgian countess. Delphine, who makes things out of papier mache, has no relationship with her father. The King and Queen made up after the affair. Albert is accompanied by Queen Paola.
The richest royal in Europe
Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein and his family are always controversial as their banking secrecy laws are routinely accused of aiding tax dodgers and money-launderers, and have been investigated by the U.S. Senate, although recently the country decided to promote ‘transparency’. They had to – they were blacklisted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and a whistle-blower sold a list of tax-evading banking clients to the German government. Hans Adam, a former banker, has turned government decisions over to his son, but remains head of state.
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Supermarket Coop makes leap after law change allows sale of grasshoppers, crickets and mealworms for human consumption
Mealworm burger, anyone? Insect food on sale in Switzerland in European first
Switzerland’s second-largest supermarket chain will begin selling insect burgers for human consumption after the country’s food safety laws were revised.
Coop said insect-based produce such as the flour burgers and balls of protein-rich mealworm would go on sale next week.
Pesticides could wipe out bumblebee populations, study shows Read more
The products, made by a Swiss start-up called Essento, will be available in a handful of Coop branches, including in Geneva, Bern and Zurich, from 21 August, according to a statement.
Switzerland is the first European country to authorise the sale of insect-based food items for humans, a spokeswoman for the country’s food safety authority said.
Swiss food safety laws were changed in May to allow for the sale of food items containing three types of insects: crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms, which are the larval form of the mealworm beetle.
These insects, long used in animal feed, must be bred under strict supervision for four generations before they are considered appropriate for human consumption, according to Swiss law. This means local production will take a few months to get started.
In the meantime, imports are possible under strict conditions – the insects must be raised in accordance with the Swiss requirements at a company submitted to inspections by national food safety authorities.
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Last week, House Republicans declared war on Planned Parenthood. Now the organization and its Democratic allies in the Senate are striking back.
Last Wednesday, we broke the news that House Republicans—led by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a fierce opponent of abortion rights—had cut family planning funding in their proposed government-funding bill from $327 million to zero. (Much of that funding goes to Planned Parenthood and similar reproductive health care providers.) But at a Thursday press conference, Senate Democrats and Planned Parenthood officials said that they’re confident that they have enough votes in the Senate to restore the funding, regardless of the outcome in the House. (UPDATE: On Friday afternoon, the House voted 240-185 to approve Pence’s amendment barring any funding in the government-funding bill from going to Planned Parenthood.)
“Yes,” Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), said when asked whether abortion rights supporters have enough votes to nix Pence’s effort. “There’s plenty for people not to like,” in the House GOP’s bill, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), told reporters, saying that the family planning cuts were just a particularly egregious example. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), agreed, and said he hoped “the opposition [to the cuts] will be bipartisan.”
Later, in an interview with Mother Jones, Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards confirmed that the organization believes it can win Republican votes to restore the funding, which can’t be used for abortion but pays for birth control, cancer screenings, and basic health care for millions of poor women. “We’ve taken this vote before,” Richards said, referring to past Senate votes on family planning funding. Richards noted that Maine GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have voted for family planning dollars in the past, and said she hoped that Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who had a solidly pro-abortion rights voting record in the House, would also support restoring the money. Planned Parenthood also believes that Senate Democrats with mixed records on abortion rights will vote to restore family planning funding, Richards said.
There’s a problem, however. House Republicans have made defunding Planned Parenthood and expanding restrictions on abortion rights a top priority this Congress—and they could shut down the government if they don’t get their way. It remains unclear whether the House GOP, Senate Democrats, or the White House are willing to see this happen. But if no one is willing to cave or compromise, that’s exactly what could transpire.
If the government funding bill (known as a continuing resolution, or CR in Washington-speak) doesn’t pass before or around March 4, the government will have to cease providing crucial services, as it did during a similar fight in the mid-1990s. Both Richards and the Democratic Senators at the press conference blamed House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for the possibility of a shutdown. “One of the lessons of the last election,” Blumenthal said, “is that the American people abhor the gamesmanship and brinksmanship that this would involve.” Boehner is “saying ‘pass this or else,'” Franken added.
I also spoke to Richards about Dave Weigel’s recent Slate article that argues that House Republicans are overreaching on abortion rights (as with the now-famous “redefining rape” provision, which I first reported) and giving Planned Parenthood and their Democratic allies a political opening. Richards heartily agreed with Weigel’s thesis, noting that the new House majority seemed “obsessed with women’s health issues.” House GOP overreach, Richards said, was allowing her organization and Democrats in general to reconnect with women voters, whom she noted went for Republicans by a point in the last election. (Women as a group tend to vote for Democrats.) As an example, a Planned Parenthood spokesman pointed to a Ben Smith item from Thursday that highlighted a story about the family planning cuts in Cosmopolitan—a sure sign that the issue is getting very broad coverage.
Even if abortion rights supporters can fire up their base and beat the family planning cuts, other legislation that abortion rights groups loathe nearly as much could sneak through under the radar. “We’re worried about everything,” Richards said—especially, she said, because the House GOP leadership has made clear that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to restricting abortion rights.
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Liverpool’s owners are flying into Merseyside for Jurgen Klopp’s first home game as manager.
Principal owner John W Henry, chairman Tom Werner and Fenway Sports Group president Mike Gordon are all expected to be at Anfield for the Europa League Group B clash with Russian outfit Rubin Kazan.
The game will present FSG’s three biggest shareholders with the opportunity to see how the mood around the club has been transformed since Klopp’s appointment earlier this month as Brendan Rodgers’ successor.
The final home match of Rodgers’ reign proved to be a dour 1-1 draw with FC Sion which ended in a chorus of boos from a disgruntled crowd.
By then the owners had already decided to make the change and Rodgers was sacked after the Merseyside derby three days later.
Henry’s wife Linda Pizzuti is accompanying him on the visit to Merseyside and during their stay she is expected to pay a visit to the Liverpool FC Foundation College, which gives youngsters from across the city top class coaching as well as an education as they work towards various qualifications.
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Editor's note: A version of Glenn Beck's commentary originally appeared last Sunday in the New York Daily News. "Glenn Beck" is on Headline News nightly at 7 and 9 ET.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- When it comes to our economy, politicians on both sides of the aisle are quick to say that a stimulus package shouldn't have anything to do with political ideology. But while that's nice in theory, it's impossible in practice because economics and ideology go hand in hand.
"Debit cards also would have another big benefit over rebate checks: a deadline," says Beck.
Show me an economist who thinks that giving tax rebate checks to our poorest citizens is the best idea and I'll show you two economists who say that business tax cuts provide the most bang for the buck. Show me a statistic that proves stimulus packages keep an economy out of recession and I'll show you two that prove they do nothing but stimulate the deficit.
It reminds me of that old saying, "statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics" because, when it comes to the economy, almost everyone is a liar. People simply find the statistics and studies that prove their economic plan is the right one. It's just a coincidence how that plan happens to match up nicely with their own political ideology.
The stimulus package awaiting the President's signature is no different. Instead of spending weeks having ideological debates about whether the rich or poor, individuals or businesses are more likely to spend their rebate checks, our politicians should instead have been focusing on finding a way for it not to matter.
And I have one.
After Hurricane Katrina, FEMA needed to get money to victims fast, so they tried something new. Instead of issuing checks, they issued $2,000 emergency debit cards for evacuees to use for food, water, and supplies.
As you probably remember, 2005 wasn't exactly a banner year for FEMA. Along with food and water, some hurricane evacuees also bought Louis Vuitton purses, diamonds, and even breast implants. That caused major embarrassment for the government (at a time when they weren't exactly in the market for any more of it) and the debit card program was scrapped.
But while purchasing frivolous items may not have been what FEMA was hoping for, it's exactly what the government is hoping for now. Frivolous items have far higher profit margins than boring necessities like food and water, and it's that profit that will (at least in theory) trickle down to help create more jobs and eventually stimulate economic growth.
Debit cards also would have another big benefit over rebate checks: a deadline. One major concern about the checks is how much time it will take for the IRS to issue them (they're a little busy processing 140 million tax returns right now), then for people to cash them and eventually for that money to be spent. But all of those problems could be avoided by issuing debit cards with an expiration date. Give people three or six months to use up the value of the card and, after that, it's worthless. Use it or lose it.
Just so we're clear, I actually hate this idea. I believe the government should stay out of the way and let the markets correct themselves. I also happen to think that the only economy that will benefit from this package is China's. But let's face it: the stimulus ship has sailed and I hate this idea a lot less than the one that was just jammed through Congress.
Issuing tax rebate checks will not only cost us billions of dollars that we don't have, but there's absolutely no guarantee that the money will ever actually be spent. Issuing debit cards would also cost us billions of dollars, but at least we'd know that every single one of those dollars would be put back into the economy. And debit cards also have the advantage of looking exactly like credit cards, which will reinforce the behavior that got us into this mess in the first place.
It's win-win! Or, is it lose-lose?
Debit cards come with one other benefit as well: we wouldn't have to debate who's more likely to spend them, because it wouldn't matter. If they're not spent, they cost us nothing. That means neither party will have to needlessly grandstand in front of the television cameras about how they're fighting for [insert political base here] -- and that's also exactly why an idea like this was likely never even considered.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer. E-mail to a friend
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