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Kostas Mitroglou: Wanted by West Ham and Fulham
Fulham reportedly agreed a fee with Olympiakos for the 25-year-old, but their London rivals are attempting to hijack the move.
The Hammers have been the busiest side in the January transfer window, bringing in six players, and the signing of Mitroglou would be a major boost to their Premier League survival hopes.
The Greece international has been in scintillating form for Olympiakos this season, scoring 17 goals in 19 games.
Fulham have been holding talks with Olympiakos throughout the week and edged closer to a deal on Wednesday after settling on a fee, believed to be in the region of £12.5m.
However, they now appear to be locked in a tense Deadline Day battle with West Ham for Mitroglou's signature.
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Simba checks out the view of the Neues Rathaus from the park on the backside. It was originally completed in 1913 during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The dome at the top is over 100 meter high and has observation platforms at the top from which you can see for miles. The elevator going to the top of the dome is rather unique and the only of its kind in Europe. It actually tilts and travels at an angle following the inside of the dome to the top. Behind the Rathaus is the 10 hectare Maschpark and the artificial lake the Maschsee.
Simba on the front steps of the Rathaus checking out the stine lions holding supporting the pillars.
Simba checking out the 3D models of how Hannover looked at different times in history. This is how Hannover looked in 1939.
Hannover in 1945. Almost 90 percent of Hannover was destroyed by allied bombing raids and fires during the war. Today Hannover has been rebuilt and is now a beautiful city with lots of parks and green spaces.
Simba peeks out one of the windows in the dome of the Rathaus.
Simba admiring the view of the Maschpark and a 78 hectare artificial lake called the Maschsee. The Maschsee was created during the 1930s mosrly using the labor of the unemployed. It was one of Hitler’s projects to create employment for the jobless. During the second world war it was sometimes covered up with nets with foliage to hide it to confuse allied bombers as to where they were. Pilots at the time relied heavily on landmarks for navigation. No GPS in those days.
Simba checking out view of Hannover’s main stadium from the dome of the Rathaus. This is where Hannover’s Soccer team “Hannover 96″ plays.
Another view of Hannover from the dome of the Rathaus. The large building by Simbas paw is a museum.
Simba looking down towards the front of the Rathaus from the too of the dome.
After enjoying the view Simba climbs down the narrow spiral staircase from the top of the dome to the angled elevator that takes him back down.
Simba looking back at the Rathaus from the bridge going towards entrance of the Niedersachsen Landtag “Lower Saxony state legislature building”.
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Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the February 2016 Issue of The CPA Journal. It introduced what we hope will become a regular print and multimedia series of personal viewpoints by CPAs from all corners of practice, reflecting what the profession means to them. We hope to include a wide variety of personalities and issues in this space; any readers who are interested in sharing their stories should contact the editors about contributing.
I grew up in Banqiao City, a then rural village near Taipei, Taiwan. My parents were farmers and we lived in a house with dirt floors, limited electricity and no plumbing, along with three generations of extended family members. I never imagined I would travel halfway around the world to live and work in a big city like New York 20 years later.
When I was young, my dream for the future was simple—have a job and earn enough money to put food on the table. In my father’s generation, raising a girl was not a good investment, but I was very lucky that he still sent me to schools, where my eyes opened to a world of unlimited opportunities.
After high school, I was admitted to National Taiwan University, where I studied Foreign Languages and Literature. I chose this major simply because it was the hardest to get into, not because I really knew what I wanted to do at the age of 18. During my senior year, however, a business elective course I took led me to another journey that I found extremely exciting. My professor showed us how business was interrelated with all other subjects, in the same manner as some teachers incorporated geography with history or history with literature. He helped me discover what my true interest was. I liked my Shakespeare, but I was even more interested in how people found their “benjamins.” So, I decided to come to the United States to pursue my MBA degree after working one year in Taipei to save enough money for my trip.
I chose the University of Iowa because of its affordable tuition and because its small town environment reminded me of home. My major was marketing and finance, but I still needed to take some accounting courses. My first encounter with accounting was scary; I failed the first midterm exam in Introduction to Accounting. I was so lost with the debits and credits in the double-side entry system. But my professor gave me a second chance. He offered me a deal: In 10 days, I could take another midterm for a new grade, but it would be 10 times harder than the first. I took the offer and worked extremely hard over the next few days. I finally grasped the concept, and not only did I pass the exam, I excelled subsequently.
My professor showed us how business was interrelated with all other subjects. He helped me discover what my true interest was.
In my second year of the MBA program, I was hired as a marketing instructor at the undergraduate department. The job not only helped me pay my tuition, but also built up my confidence in public speaking. I tried to make boring subjects interesting by applying some real-life experiences. I also cared very much about my students and wanted to give them the same opportunity to improve themselves that my accounting professor gave me. I guess my students appreciated my efforts, because they voted me best teaching assistant of the year.
After graduation, I had the choice to move east or west. I decided to move to New York; the city’s energy has always attracted me ever since my first visit during the summer after my first year of graduate school. I went to work for the French architect, Thierry W. Despont, who, among other great high-end design accomplishments, helped restore the Statue of Liberty and completed the interior design and installation of the home of a well-known American software entrepreneur. I began as a member of his small administration/accounting department, which only became smaller during the recession in the early 1990s. I applied myself constantly, always trying to anticipate and fulfill my boss’s needs. To my surprise, when we went through a round of layoffs, the head of my department was let go and I was given his job.
As my responsibilities expanded, I decided to pursue my professional certificate in accounting and sit for the CPA exam. Unlike finance, accounting seemed more predictable, and it was always in demand in any economic cycle. Despont paid my tuition and allowed me to adjust my schedule to attend courses at New York University. With a job, school, and my young children to raise, my life at the time was very fulfilling.
When I completed my certificate and passed the CPA exam, I realized that I had to leave Despont in order to move up to the next level of my career. This Catch-22 is no doubt familiar to my fellow New York CPAs: The quickest way to get the necessary experience to become a CPA was to work in an accounting firm. I found it difficult, however, to find a firm willing to hire me, since I had no public accounting experience and, after seven years at an architecture firm, I was overqualified for an entry-level position!
Still, I wanted to be a CPA, even if it meant leaving my good job and a generous salary. Eventually, at a CPE seminar, I met a friend of the partners at Koch Group & Company. He offered to set up an interview, and advised me, “Don’t tell them how much you’re making. I don’t want you to lie, but don’t mention it.” That did the trick. I was hired at a basic starting salary, doing bookkeeping and bank reconciliations. My direct supervisor was two years out of undergraduate school. But I didn’t care. I was on the next step to my goal.
I applied myself, just as I had at Despont, anticipating needs and then fulfilling them, always going the extra mile. “Is there anything else I can help you with? Is there anything else I can do?” That became my mantra. Eventually, the firm received a job with a senior citizen housing nonprofit in Brooklyn. Their books were a mess. They had more than 200 separate social programs, each with its own accounts and records, some with near-identical names, and hundreds of intercompany transactions. Other, more senior accountants were dispatched to sort things out; one after the other, they all came back defeated. Some of them quit. Finally, when they ran out of people, there I was, already staying late on my own doing work. “Why not send her?”
My career path was not typical or easy, but I think the lessons I’ve learned can be applied by anyone.
After three weeks on-site, I created my own entirely new numbering system to match with their programs and accounts. In the end, I returned with a completed report. After that, I started getting noticed. The founding partner, Stuart Koch, eventually put me on his team.
I continued to work on more nonprofits and went out on engagements with senior partners to court clients. The same passion and loyalty I developed at school and in my career helped me bring in more clients than some of the partners, so eventually, after eight years with the firm, I was made a partner myself.
In my work, I face the same challenges as many CPAs face today. As the profession becomes broader and more regulated, I’ve found that many CPAs succeed by finding a niche to specialize in, as I have with the housing and educational sectors. Beyond the repetitive bookkeeping tasks, accounting can be creative and fun. There are always stories behind the numbers. I am happy when I am able to help my clients solve their problems or when I see their buildings or schools put into service after many years of hard work.
My career path was not typical or easy, but I think the lessons I’ve learned can be applied by anyone. Accountants are always in demand, and anyone willing to put in the work can find a secure job somewhere. Even during busy season, I can manage my schedule by anticipating my future obligations and my clients’ needs by doing the necessary prep work ahead of time. My loyalty and reliability made me invaluable to my clients and coworkers in a way that can’t be replicated or taken away. My finance, marketing, and language backgrounds have also helped, giving me extra value and showing I’m not just an interchangeable tax return preparer or auditor. And most importantly, I am always working toward my goals, whatever they may be, by showing people just what this CPA can do.
This article is taken from a personal interview conducted by CPA Journal Editor-in-Chief Richard Kravitz.
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Hosni Mubarak had harsh words for the United States and what he described as its misguided quest for democracy in the Middle East in a telephone call with an Israeli lawmaker a day before he quit as Egypt's president.
The legislator, former cabinet minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said on TV Friday that he came away from the 20-minute conversation on Thursday with the feeling the 82-year-old leader realized "it was the end of the Mubarak era".
"He had very tough things to say about the United States," said Ben-Eliezer, a member of the Labor Party who has held talks with Mubarak on numerous occasions while serving in various Israeli coalition governments.
"He gave me a lesson in democracy and said: 'We see the democracy the United States spearheaded in Iran and with Hamas, in Gaza, and that's the fate of the Middle East,'" Ben-Eliezer said.
"'They may be talking about democracy but they don't know what they're talking about and the result will be extremism and radical Islam,'" he quoted Mubarak as saying.
U.S. support for pro-democracy elements in Iran has not led to regime change in the Islamic Republic, and Hamas, a group Washington considers to be a terrorist organization, won a 2006 Palestinian election promoted by the United States.
Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after a coalition government it formed with Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas collapsed in a power struggle.
Ben-Eliezer said Mubarak expanded in the telephone call on "what he expects will happen in the Middle East after his fall".
"He contended the snowball (of civil unrest) won't stop in Egypt and it wouldn't skip any Arab country in the Middle East and in the Gulf.
"He said 'I won't be surprised if in the future you see more extremism and radical Islam and more disturbances -- dramatic changes and upheavals," Ben-Eliezer added.
Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel and has backed U.S.-led efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of an Iran-style Islamist revolution in Egypt should Mubarak's Muslim Brotherhood rivals eventually take over.
"He repeated the sentence, 'I have been serving my country, Egypt, for 61 years. Do they want me to run away? I won't run away. Do they want to throw me out? I won't leave. If need be, I will be killed here,'" Ben-Eliezer said.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and U.S. President Barack Obama AP
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A Florida man who went to the wrong house to propose to his girlfriend in the nude was shocked with a Taser this week after spitting on a police officer.
WKMG reported that 22-year-old Thomas Edwards claimed to Casselberry police that his he had gone to the address given to him by his girlfriend and started taking off his clothes in preparation for a marriage proposal.
But in a 911 call obtained by the Daily Mail, the homeowners told dispatchers that they had no idea who Edwards was.
“What color shirt does he have on?” the dispatcher asked.
“Er, he doesn’t have a shirt on,” the homeowner explained. “Er, he is kind of walking around and taking his pants off.”
When police arrived, Edwards reportedly told them that “he just wanted to go to jail” and wondered if assaulting an officer with a head-butt would get him arrested.
“I told him not to try it,” an officer recalled telling the Seminole County man.
According to WKMG, police ordered Edwards to get dressed, but he refused and spit in an officer’s face. He was Tasered and arrested on charges of burglary of a dwelling, battery on a law enforcement officer and indecent exposure.
Watch this video from WKMG, broadcast June 4, 2013.
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Over 40 years since Apollo 11 first put man on to the moon, the allure of the great beyond remains, not only for the idea of conquering space but also for the boost that space projects have provided to science and technology and which have been transferred to our contemporary world.
Back on Earth after more than five months on the International Space Station (ISS), Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli last month inaugurated an exhibition of photographs of our planet that he took from space and which are currently on display at Athens?s Eugenides Foundation.
Nespoli was the first flight engineer in a five-member mission known as MagISStra, whose task was to carry out maintenance on the ISS while also delivering European, Japanese and Russian spacecraft equipment and supplies.
During the mission Nespoli kept up with his fans via Twitter, posting new photographs every day, which you can see on the Flickr page of MagISStra.
Nespoli spoke to Kathimerini English Edition about the experience.
How does it feel, seeing Earth from up there?
I am convinced that space tourism will be a success in the future because there are two things that are truly unique and which can only be found in space.
The first is the absence of gravity, which is really astonishing, unique and beautiful, and that you can not simulate on Earth. People think that there are rooms where you enter and with a switch it is possible to simulate the absence of gravity. They do not exist.
The second reason is the ability to see the world with different eyes.
It is different because you travel at a speed of 28,000 kilometers per hour, 7.7 kilometers per second, and you orbit so fast that in an hour-and-a-half you have done a full orbit of the Earth.
Every half-hour there is a sunrise or a sunset 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets per day now you are over Italy and 10 minutes later you are in Florida. Now it is winter and 10 minutes later it is summer. Now you are over an ocean, then over the desert. You are above the mountains, then above the Amazon Rainforest; you are in Sydney and then you are in Tokyo. It?s always like that!
Seeing the Earth from up there is awesome and gives you a different level of consciousness.
It gives you the feeling that the Earth is like a ship sailing through space; that we are the sailors and that all our actions have consequences for our planet.
I would like to see many people have this opportunity.
For example, I would like to send into orbit some philosophers, theologians, journalists and politicians in order to make them see the Earth differently. Perhaps I would leave a few politicians up there!
In my opinion there is a different point of view of this planet up there, in the sense that you can feel the sensitivity of the Earth and how we must be careful about what we are doing.
If you look carefully from up there, you realize how we are adapting this planet to our own needs with new roads, rivers, canals, bridges and cities and that on the one hand it?s fine, but on the other we should remember to respect the natural balance.
You spent more than five months in space. How did you feel when you got back?
The first thing I thought when we landed is that gravity sucks! After 159 days in microgravity you get used to floating in the air. At the beginning it is a shock, but then floating in the air is really nice.
Finding yourself pressed to the ground, bound by the force of gravity is pretty heavy and a bit oppressive, but clearly I was very happy that the mission had gone well.
I was glad to be finally back on Earth, to be able to do things normally, to smell the world, feel the sun on my face, talk to more people than the four or five that were on the station. I had a sense of having achieved a personal and professional goal and of being back a bit more human than alien.
What was the MagISStra mission about?
MagISStra was a fascinating mission that pursued three main goals of bringing back to Earth the benefits of space science, technology and education.
Many people often ask why we go into space and usually my answer is very banal because up there we can find conditions that you cannot find on land and which enable us to conduct scientific experiments, especially in the field of medicine.
For example, in the absence of gravity it is possible to measure and test all the micro forces, which exist on earth but we do not see, just because the force of gravity is so strong that it does not allow us to observe these little things.
Scientific research is one of the main reasons why we go into orbit.
However, some of these achievements can be measured and other less so. The process by which scientists are selected to conduct the experiments, the process by which we collect data in orbit, the process by which these data go back, then are reviewed and compared with other data, is a very complex system that makes it difficult to measure the goals achieved. You can?t say: ?We are back on Earth and we discovered this!?
Meanwhile as regards the educational work that we did during our mission, the results are more tangible.
We encountered a very strong interest, especially by young people. For example, on Twitter at the end of the mission I had 50,000 followers. The number of people who had seen the pictures from the orbit, who interacted with us, or the number of students and schools that participated in events with us, was amazingly high.
So the interaction that we brought into people?s lives every day was really felt.
Have you ever felt in danger during any of your missions?
First of all going into space is dangerous. You are defying nature, you are going to live in a place that is hostile to life, so to stay alive you need a machine and if your machine does not work or you do not know how to make it work, you have a problem.
The transition between being on the ground and going into orbit, the so-called launch, along with the return passages, are very delicate.
We are aware of the complexity and danger of these missions, but I personally have great confidence in the people who work in these systems.
I have done so much training that I think I know these things and I never had a feeling of fear also because I think this happens when you are in a situation that you are not familiar with.
Instead of feeling fear I was anxious because I knew that these experiments are expensive and complicated, handed to you by a team of thousands of people who worked for years and you have to do this experiment and you could ruin it or be unable to do it.
How important is it to invest in space research? How does Greece contribute?
In my opinion, it?s very important that all industrialized nations do research and invest in research in order to discover what they do not know so as to stay alive.
Greece is a new partner of the European Space Agency (ESA) and in one sense it is part of the space projects.
I think the Greek participation is very important because through ESA, you can offer new challenges for young people and new opportunities for Greek industry and even a boost to working together with Europe and the rest of the world.
?A Journey in Space: Images of the European Space Program? is open from 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. through April 17, except on public holidays and Sundays, at the Eugenides Foundation (387 Syngrou, Palaio Faliro, tel 210.946.9600).
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[van id=”us/2016/07/11/one-dallas-protesters-come-together-nccorig.cnn”]
DALLAS, Texas – The events of last week have left many people across the country to feel an array of emotions.
On Sunday, Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets of Dallas to bring attention to police brutality.
“I can’t just sit back and feel this way without trying to change it,” Britny Morrison told CNN.
On the other side of the street, a counter protest was occurring.
“Yeah, black lives matter and stuff. We all matter,” Chris Rice said.
At one point, organizers of both protests met in the middle to speak to one another.
Black Lives Matter protesters decided to cross the street and meet the counter protesters face-to-face.
The meeting resulted in hugs and prayers for the entire community.
A police officer, who had been stationed to separate the protesters, joined them in prayer.
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As Mandeville prepares to open its new beach on Lake Pontchartrain on Saturday (March 11), one City Council member is making waves. Councilman David Ellis said he is miffed that the $86,750 public beach project was launched without being properly vetted before residents and the council.
Mandeville City Councilman David Ellis
Ellis said alligators have been spotted on the beach since sand was trucked in to form it earlier this month. And, he said, the expenditure for the beach was approved in Mandeville's current budget without discussion and without input from the Planning and Zoning Commission or the Parks and Parkways Commission.
"We have procedures in place to ensure both public input and proper professional vetting of projects before they are implemented," Ellis said Thursday. "In this case, it seems the administration acted unilaterally."
Ellis said he told Mayor Donald Villere that the administration is not communicating effectively with the council and residents, suggesting that many residents were taken by surprise by news reports that the beach was being constructed. He said residents would appreciate a public discussion on such projects before they are initiated.
Cowabunga! Mandeville beach under construction at cost of $86,750 Sandy recreation area to open to public within next few weeks
Villere said the beach proposal was identified in Mandeville's capital budget and discussed by the council along with other expenditures before a vote was taken last summer. He said the two commissions have nothing to do with the project.
"It's a real shame that David Ellis, who is in his second term, doesn't understand the process of city government," Villere said. "If he's second guessing his vote [on the budget], he should come in and talk to me about it."
Ellis, whose district includes west Mandeville, said he told the mayor he was concerned about the safety of those using the beach, noting the alligator sightings. He said the mayor responded with one sentence: "Those people who have a concern should not go to the beach area."
"Quite frankly, that's outrageous," Ellis said. "Public safety should never be an issue of 'don't go there.'"
Gator spotted on new Mandeville beach The first sunbather on the new Mandeville Beach was spotted late Tuesday morning (March 7).
Villere said he does not think alligators will be a threat to those who use the beach. In fact, he said -- presumably in jest -- that he might ask the council to name it Alligator Beach.
Paul Scariano, an avid fisherman, hunter and licensed charter boat captain who lives in Mandeville, said alligators are known to cruise the waters of the city's lakefront but that he doesn't view them as a major threat to people using the beach. Scariano and Villere said they had never heard of anyone being harmed by an alligator on the lakefront, even though people have used the area for swimming and recreation for years.
"I don't think there's too much to worry about, but I would keep a close eye on children, which is what people should be doing anyway," Scariano said.
Instead, Scariano said he's concerned that waves created by winds from the unprotected northwest side of the beach could cause erosion. He thinks officials should consider building a rock jetty west of the beach to protect it and create a natural habitat for fish.
Mandeville officials plan to cut the ribbon on the new beach Saturday at 9 a.m. It is located at the east end of Lakeshore Drive at Jackson Avenue. The first 100 children to visit the beach after the ceremony will receive a free beach bucket and shovel, Villere said.
Ellis stopped short of saying the beach was a bad idea. But he clearly has qualms about the way it came to be. About 13,500 cubic yards of sand was hauled in to build the beach under a public contract with McGee Excavating, city officials have said.
"Is this artificial beach a good idea? I don't know," Ellis said. "There was no process for us to explore it. That kind of government is not what the people deserve and expect."
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Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles said Monday that the district is planning to get into the news media business and make its website a top source to read the latest on DISD.Miles told the district's 223 principals in a training session that DISD officials are working to overhaul its communications plan, which includes a proposal to launch a news media initiative. Miles said he wants DISD to break news before its reported by traditional media, specifically The Dallas Morning News, he told principals.DISD spokesman André Riley confirmed Monday that DISD is in the beginning stages of launching the news initiative."One of the issues you have when you are an organization publishing to a media outlet is that you lose control of the story or are at the mercy of what people cover," Riley said. "There are important stories that we want to get out on our own terms."In recent years, government agencies across the country have increasingly become their own new media outlets, releasing information on blogs and social media before they send news releases to reporters. The Dallas Police Department, for example, publishes news on DPDbeat.com and encourages its officers to send messages on Twitter from crime scenes.Miles told principals that the idea is not to transform DISD's communications team into a news station. But Riley said that DISD is exploring ways to provide in-depth stories and explanations of DISD news through video and text."One idea we have is to make it ( DallasISD.org ) a place for people to come for information," he said.Riley said DISD doesn't plan to hire new staff to run the news site."It's just one of many ideas we are exploring. I just cannot categorize it as something that is coming. We are always looking at how we could do things better," Riley said.
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Image caption The Telford Cooperative Academy and Lakeside Learning Campus are both expected to open in September 2015
Two new schools are set to be built in Telford under plans due to go before the council next week.
If approved, they would be in Stirchley and Oakengates, and replace three existing secondaries and one primary.
The new buildings are expected to cost almost £20m, with funding coming from the government's Building Schools for the Future scheme.
Telford and Wrekin Council said work could start early next year with the schools set to open in September 2015.
The Labour-led authority is expected to make a decision on the plans on Wednesday.
'Heart of community'
The proposals will see Lakeside Learning Campus replace the Lord Silkin School, with the nearby Grange primary school also later relocating to the same site.
Jim Collins, the assistant director for education and skills at Telford & Wrekin Council, said the new buildings would be "very much at the heart of the community" and also provide both post-16 and adult education.
The site will also feature a new library and leisure centre, and the parish council is also expected to be based there.
In Oakengates, the Telford Cooperative Academy is expected to be built around the new leisure centre.
It will replace the Sutherland School and Wrockwardine Wood Academy and provide places for about 1,200 pupils.
The Lakeside site is expected to provide places for 600 secondary pupils, a drop of 300 on those available at the current Lord Silkin School.
The council said it had taken into account the needs in south Telford and capacity at other schools that have recently opened in the area.
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In the middle of ancient Incan ruins in the foot hills of the Peruvian Andes, 14-year-old Renata Flores Rivera brings together two things dear to her heart: the ancient Indigenous language of South America, Quechua, and Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel." The result is gorgeous:
Flores spoke to Fusion from home on Monday afternoon after a full day at school.
"It's a project called 'Las juventudes tambien hablamos Quechua' (the youth, we speak Quechua too)," she said. She said it's important for her "to be able to appreciate this language again, because we are losing it here in Peru."
Flores's mother, Patricia Rivera Canchanya, kicked off the campaign this year through a cultural association, la Asociación Cultural Surca, which she founded 11 years ago to promote arts and Peruvian culture in their home city of Huamanga (also known as Ayacucho). Rivera is also a musician, and set up a music school through the association. She said she saw an urgent need to pass on Quechua to younger generations, before the language is forgotten in Peru.
"I speak Quechua, but not very fluently anymore because we don't use it," she said. "They teach a lot here, English, which is also really important because it's the global language, but we can't abandon our roots because this is ours, it's a heritage that we shouldn't allow ourselves to lose."
Though it's one of Peru's two official languages (along with Spanish), Quechua is not taught in schools and is spoken by just around 13 percent of the population, Rivera said.
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Dialects of Quechua are spoken in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil by a total of about 8.3 million people, according to 1987 data cited by UCLA's Center for World Languages, with about 4.4 million of those in Peru. The number of speakers has likely declined since then.
Flores said she's received messages praising the song. She's planning a concert this September in Huamanga to keep up the momentum. That's the next step. But ultimately, she said, she'd like to study music professionally after high school. In her spare time right now, she plays the guitar, dances and sings–she's also learning Quechua. She was on The Voice Kids during her most recent summer holidays.
Asked why she chose a Michael Jackson song for this special treatment in Quechua, she said, "When I was five years old I listened to a lot of Michael Jackson, I liked and admired him a lot … as for this particular song, I think I had sung it before in English and then my mom had the idea that I could record it in Quechua," she said.
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Interviews were conducted in Spanish and translated to English.
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Lawmakers introduced a new bill Monday to tighten the rules when it comes to buying gun ammunition in California. On the first day back at the Capitol, lawmakers introduce new legislation in an effort to curb gun violence.
The ammo control bill would require people buying ammunition to show identification, and sellers would have to report all ammo sales to the state Justice Department.
The 2013 Legislative Session officially began Monday. School safety is a top priority.
State and local leaders held a moment of silence to pay respects to the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook, Conn., school shooting. Then State Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) introduced AB 48 to regulate ammunition sales in California.
"It is easier in California to buy bullets than to buy alcohol, cigarettes or Sudafed cold medicine," said Skinner.
Skinner's proposal seeks to:
- Require ammunition dealers to be licensed
- Buyers must present identification
- All sales are to be reported to the California Department of Justice with local law enforcement notified when transactions involve large quantities
- Conversion kits that allow high-capacity magazines will be banned.
Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks) says that won't work.
"None of these measures, had they been in place, would have done a single thing to prevent what happened," said Donnelly.
In fact, Donnelly is readying a different proposal to have at least one anonymous person at each school armed.
"We haven't had a single hijacking since 9/11, and I think it is in large part due to the presence of air marshals," said Donnelly. "So why don't we have a school marshals program?"
As lawmakers hammer out how to improve school safety in California, Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has been getting taunting messages for his proposal to close a loophole that enables shooters to re-load faster.
"Rather than dealing with the heart of an issue, that they resort to racist innuendos, suggestions, and it's just really unfortunate," said Yee.
According to the campaign-finance watchdog group Common Cause, unlike in Washington, DC, the gun lobby in California has not been particularly strong, so gun control measures have a good chance of passage.
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Eleven Arts announced at its Crunchyroll Expo panel on Saturday that it will screen the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection anime film in the United States this winter. The company had announced at Anime Expo last month that it would screen the film in October.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection opened in Japan on July 22. The project is planned as two films. The second film, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Detonation , will open in 2018.
In the story, a pair of researchers stay behind on their dying planet of Eltria with their two daughters, Amitie and Kirie, in hopes of finding a way to revive the planet. But when the husband Granz falls ill it seems their dream of reviving the planet will die. Against her older sister's wishes, Kirie sets off with her childhood friend Iris to seek help from a distant alternate world. They arrive in Japan on Earth to search for the key to their planet's regeneration. There, they meet Nanoha Takamachi, Fate T. Harlaown, and Hayate Yagami.
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Scars and Ink
There are really only two instances that make me think about being a cutter when I was young:
When I get a new tattoo.
When I begin a new relationship.
Not that it doesn’t come up every once in a while whilst digging around in my soul garden…it’s just that these two things make me sit and really consider the nature of my youthful association to pain and how it is expressed in my adult life. Not that I’ve unearthed a fully developed answer about it… all I can say that it was a part of me and perhaps still is in an assimilated sort of way and… no. No it doesn’t define me.
I am not a lover of pain. I am not a masochist. I am not a sadist.
I simply am.
It has been so long since “that time” & my scars have faded to white flat spaces on my arms and hips and belly and breasts.
Barely noticeable.
If you ask me about it – I will be completely honest or completely dishonest depending on the day. I don’t lie to be protective – I do so because the width and breadth of my life isn’t tied up in these scars. I don’t tell the truth to humor anyone– I do it because part of my growth is knitted into my long healed flesh and if that growth helps others tend their soul garden I offer the knowledge freely.
This is me being honest in case you were wondering.
I was -as many children are- caught up in the trials of being young. Uncertain and unbridled. Seeking and emotional and self-loathing. My soul acted first and considered later. Many times that action was tethered to the need to feel or the need to escape. All of my responses found root in the soft little heart that beats beneath the curve of my ribs.
Not all of my responses were appropriate or necessary or sane…in fact my crazy pants nature began to manifest then. All of the things that happened during this time are puzzled pieces of my life and I would never ask for anything more or different …of course some part of me mourns for that little girl full of fucking hurt and during the darkest of dark nights (usually the short days of winter) I think that my scars are the braille of a story writ to recount the times when I was too soft to live and too viciously optimistic to die.
Lovers and Ink
I like to get inked to feel.
I like to get inked to mark the passage of time.
I would not have been able to tell you these things until recently. Until recently I just felt this urge and filled in a new piece of flesh with color and meaning…always meaning. With age I’ve become more fully present with my own story and how the syntax of this story is bound up in my flesh. I like that my life will be read in metaphor across my body – my thoughts and feelings and beliefs tied together with age lines and silvery scars and ink. When I die I hope to be translated like a map or the caves at Lascaux.
There is always one for a cutter.
The one that marked the end. The one that bit too deep and brought terror with the blood and carved room to consider the nature of the beast.
My one is private and is the only scar I have of which I am embarrassed – no that’s not right – perhaps protective is the word. I don’t speak about it in the “real world” because it belongs to a different more private place – the place of skin and sweat and trust. Only my lovers have seen the tattoo’s that mean the most to me & only lovers have seen the scars that hurt me the most.It belongs to this place.
A lover’s place.
I am awkward in it– being unwrapped and displayed. Shedding clothing for a lover and bracing for the questions, knowing that I can only answer honestly. Usually I try to make jest but eventually the questions become more poignant and with the poignancy comes my story. Scar by scar my story. Tattoo by tattoo my story. Not one has left the story unspoken and I think that is a testament at least to the people I choose to love – dreamers and weavers of tales all.
I am getting a new tattoo this Saturday thus my musing about this at length.
Thanks for listening…this is a cathartic place for me and you are my muse of sorts.
Have I worked out the mechanics of this? No. I haven’t. I think to do so I would need prescience greater than afforded to the average human. At the very least, at 31 I can say that I am giving it thought and have unearthed that this is a part of me and perhaps a part that is attempting to actively define who I am in this ocean of chaos… and then there is simply the chaos and that in itself is a story…all stories I guess…
Signing off with love always –
AH
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SplashData released its list of the 25 worst passwords for 2012 on Wednesday with very few surprises, reports ABC News.
Despite the increases in hacking and identity theft online, many Internet users are still choosing weak passwords.
“Password” still reigned at the number one spot, with “123456” and “12345678” at numbers two and three, respectively. New to the list are “ninja”, “jesus”, “mustang” and “password1”.
SplashData created the list based on files containing millions of hacked passwords. It advises anyone using passwords on the bad list to change them as soon as possible or risk becoming a victim in a future breach of security.
Rounding out the list of poorly chosen passwords are “abc123”, “qwerty”, “monkey”, “letmein”, “dragon”, “111111”, “baseball”, “iloveyou”, “trustno1”, “1234567”, “sunshine”, “master”, “123123”, “welcome”, “shadow”, “ashley”, “football” and “michael”.
A proper secure password consists of at least eight characters that include one uppercase letter, a special character and a number.
Here’s the top 25 “Worst Passwords of 2012,” including their current ranking and any change from the 2011 list:
1. password (Unchanged)
2, 123456 (Unchanged)
3. 12345678 (Unchanged)
4. abc123 (up 1)
5. qwerty (down 1)
6. monkey (unchanged)
7. letmein (up 1)
8. dragon (up 2)
9. 111111 (up 3)
10. baseball (up 1)
11. iloveyou (up 2)
12. trustno1 (down 3)
13. 1234567 (down 6)
14. sunshine (up 1)
15. master (down 1)
16. 123123 (up 4)
17. welcome (new)
18. shadow (up 1)
19. ashley (down 3)
20. football (up 5)
21. jesus (new)
22. michael (up 2)
23. ninja (new)
24. mustang (new)
25. password1 (new)
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40 of the Best Street Photos of India by Indian Photographers
Halla_photo_contests Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 23, 2017
Indian streets are perfect for street photography. On the street you can see colorful and unique life of India. So, we asked photographers to submit 1 real, instant image that capture moments, people, faces which you see on streets for our STREETS OF INDIA photo contest. Till now we got more than 100 entries for contest.
We’ve put together a collection of 40 of our favorite street photographs. The list covers amazing amateur photographers from all over the India.
Through these photos, the photographers represent their beautiful hometowns or sharing their impressions while traveling.
It’s always inspiring for us to see a versatile album of fantastic photographs, we hope you’re inspired by viewing this collection as well.
1. Mystery About Street…Photo by Sumeet Rajak
You never know what you can get on the streets as there is subject every where and you only need the vision to capture it.
2. Festival time street…Photo by Harshali Jain
3. GAZE…Photo by Zulfikhar Ahmed
Shri Vitthal Birdev Annual Yatra 2017.
4. Streets of india…Photo by Suraj Maurya
Those leading lines.
5. Bubble girl…Photo by Komal Dhayagonde
I was chasing bubbles, ended with this shot in colaba, mumbai.
6. The lone spectator…Photo by Kingshuk Mukherjee
A homeless man observes the daily monotonous life on the streets.
7. The Bubbleman…Photo by Rajat Kumar Singh
8. Musafir…Photo by Jayesh pawar
9. Streets of India…photo by Deepesh Arya
This picture was clicked on the streets of Kota city, and it’s a candid moment that I have clicked.
10. HOUSEWIFE…Photo by Jackie Prajapati
Ladies bring dual water to their family.
11. Graffiti…Photo by SANCHARI MITRA
Photo taken at ghats of Benaras, India.
12. FEEDING HOUR…Photo by Chinmoy Biswas
A MAN IS FEEDING THE PIGEONS BY THE ROAD.
13. Life with life…Photo by Ankush Jangid
14. Joy of rhythm…Photo by Riddhi Trivedi
A picture which gives justice to the level of adrenaline rush of people while Ganesh Chatturthi in Maharashtra, Specially in Pune for this picture.
15. Family affairs…Photo by Partha Pratim Saha
16. City of Joy…Photo by Debashis Mukherjee
Chitpur Road a historical road of old Kolkata.
17. Attraction…Photo by Ghanshyam Kahar
Glamour are attrect to all now.
18. Street photography…Photo by Chirag Kabira
19. Joyride…Photo by Omesh Meena
I captured this moment while I was on the roof of my home and these three children were enjoying their Fun ride. it reflects their joy of togetherness and true spirit of childhood where every moment is shared with friends . Another aspect of this photograph shows need of public space for public recreation because their riding on the road poses threats of accident .
20. Don’t watch the clock;Do what it does. KEEP GOING..Photo by Dhrumil Pandya
Make a lifetime commitment someone who does respect your relationship with GOD..
21. Rath Yatra…Photo by Arjit Chowdhury
Children are ready to blow the Rath.
22. Mother…Photo by Kausik Paul
This photograph was taken at Kumartuli Kolkata, An artist is making an Durga idol before puja at that time an old lady was passing by , I captured the contrasting theme of two mothers.
23. Steers of indore…Photo by Er Avi Nitin Jain
24. Streets of India…Photo by Avijit Chakraborty
Reflections on the streets of India.
25. Everyone is busy…Photo by Abhishek Verma
Peoples in the frame are those who are daily wages labor who use to live on the road side.
26. Basic needs…Photo by Harshal Barot
Indian basic needs. People are for such type of food. We must help them. Also some people are happy with these. And many are there who just waste it. :(
27. STREET OF CALCUTTA…Photo by Subhadip Sarkar
28. Dadar the heart of Mumbai.Photo by Ravi Teja
One of the busiest streets of Mumbai.
29. Streets of Kolkata…Photo by Pranay Pariyar
Slow shutter shot taken in the streets of Kumartuli in Kolkata.
30. Gateway Of India…Photo by Vaibhav Sutar
Monsoon Click Mumbai..
31. Sudden Attack…Photo by Sudipta Das
A man passing in front of the lion on the occasion of Durga puja gives a perfect juxtra photograph at streets of kolkata.
32. See new,click new…Photo by Bhagyesh Patel
33. UNWANTED TROUBLE…Photo by Arghya Bhakta
34. READY TO MOVE…Photo by Ahilan Chinnadurai
Autorickshaws waiting for passengers on a hot summer afternoon near Kothandaramaswamy Temple in Ramanthapuram district, Tamil Nadu.
35. Streets of Mumbai. We live our dreams here…Photo by Vrinda Agrawal
36. God Art vs Human Art…Photo by Sachin Chauhan
I clicked this Photograph in the streets of Chandni Chowk.
37. A tale of twin cities …Photo by Sayan Raha
Clicked this shot from a roof top of a building . Twin cities that means Kolkata and Howrah .
38. Virtual Photographer…Photo by Swapnil Trivedi
It Happens only in streets Of India this little child was capturing me with his virtual camera.
39. Mumbai rain or pain…Photo by Pratik Y Kerkar
It’s is raining even after the season has ended..
40. Beauty And The Beast…Photo by Ayush
I took this on a recent photowalk. I was amazed by the beauty of the sunset but deeply saddened by the waste littering around. People were busy living their life utterly indifferent to the surroundings.
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**Update** A follow-up press release from Bandai Namco's European arm has let slip that Dark Souls 3 will be the last game in the series: “The DARK SOULS brand became a phenomenon thanks to amazing work from our dear partners FromSoftware and our very own BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment teams”. said Herve Hoerdt, Vice President of Marketing & Digital at BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe. “But above all, we are blessed to have such a supportive and loving community, and we are happy to dedicate this final episode to them!”' The press release also confirms that original Dark Souls and Bloodborne director Hidetaka Miyazaki is indeed directing DS3.
**Original story continues below**
The rumoured second sequel to official greatest game of all time time Dark Souls, has been officially announced during Microsoft’s E3 2015 press conference, via a typically enigmatic teaser trailer. Published by Bandai Namco, and developed by original Souls and Bloodborne studio From Software, the game’s tagline seems to be ‘Now only ember remains...’, indicating a possible post-apocalyptic setting, and a timeframe potentially long after after that of its predecessors.
Indeed, the scant details in the trailer show a blasted, grey desert wasteland, crumbling towers, and nomadic people trekking through the wilderness in scenes more than a little reminiscent of The Dark Crystal. Later, a female character - likely key to the plot - addresses a crown sitting in a collapsing palace - ditto likely a key artefact - before a monstrously large knight seemingly rises from the dead.
Although announced at Microsoft’s conference, no Xbox One exclusivity was mentioned, nor was the level of involvement of original Dark Souls and Bloodborne director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who took a relative back-seat on the development of Dark Souls 2 in order to develop its spiritual successor for Sony. No more specific release date than ‘Early 2016’ yet, but as soon as we know more, you will too.
Get caught up on the rest of E3 2015 - and there's a lot of it - with our hub page.
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Buried by the Times is a 2005 book by Laurel Leff. The book is a critical account of The New York Times's coverage of Nazi atrocities against Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. It argues that the news was often buried in the back pages in part due to the view about Judaism of the paper's Jewish publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. It also gives a critical look at the work of Times correspondents in Europe. Contents
Argument Edit
Placement of news articles Edit The placement of news articles in a newspaper is a good indication of the importance given by the newspaper to a story. The Times consistently placed major stories about the Nazi treatment of European Jews on back pages "by the soap and shoe polish ads."[1] Leff found that during the period September 1939 to May 1945 very few stories about Jewish victims made the Times front page. "The story of the Holocaust—meaning articles that focused on the discrimination, deportation, and destruction of the Jews—made the Times front page just 26 times, and only in six of those stories were Jews identified on the front as the primary victims." [2] Terminology Edit Leff points out that the Times often used a more generic term such as refugee or nationality to refer to Nazi victims who were Jewish. In his review, Gal Beckerman writes, "More shocking even than the chronic burying of articles with the word 'Jew' in them is how often that word was rubbed out of articles that specifically dealt with the Jewish condition. It’s almost surreal at times. How could you possibly tell the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising without mentioning Jews? But The Times did, describing how '500,000 persons…were herded into less than 7 percent of Warsaw’s buildings,' and how '400,000 persons were deported' to their deaths at Treblinka. As Leff put it, The Times, 'when it ran front-page stories, described refugees seeking shelter, Frenchmen facing confiscation, or civilians dying in German camps, without making clear the refugees, Frenchmen, and civilians were mostly Jews.'" [3] Role of religion Edit Sulzberger was a convinced Reformed Jew which was the basis of his assimilationist approach: Judaism for him was only a religion and that Jews were neither a race nor a people any more than Presbyterians or Methodists were a race. In December 1942 in a memo to New York Times staff he wrote “I have been trying to instruct the people around here on the subject of the word ‘Jews’, i.e., that they are neither a race nor a people, etc.,”[3] Former New York Times journalist Ari Goldman, in his review of the book, writes: "There can be little doubt that Sulzberger’s views about Judaism trickled down to the editors making the decisions about what to put in the newspaper every day." [1] Staff biases Edit Leff examines the stances and performances of the Times's reporting and editorial staff. In the field, "She exposes the disturbing Nazi and Vichy attachments of a few European correspondents."[3] While back in New York, Sulzberger's bias was shared by other Jewish staffers: "Between them and influential Catholics among the crucial night editors, who decided where to place news items, the imperiled Jews of Europe had no advocate in the newsroom." [4]
Conclusion Edit
Blame for the lack of coverage: Beside the biases and lack of competence of the European correspondents, Leff "points out the problems with journalistic convention of the time, which preferred reprinting government pronouncements to digging for unknown stories. There was also, of course, a disorganized Jewish community and a Roosevelt administration too preoccupied with the war, both not pushing hard enough for front-page coverage. But the bulk of the blame, in Leff’s telling, falls squarely at the feet of The Times's publisher, Sulzberger." [3] A number of observers have observed how badly informed the American public was about the Nazis' systematic murder of European Jews. [5][6][7] Leff points out that the way the Times covered the Holocaust "contributed to the public's ignorance." But in addition to poorly informing the public, "The Times' coverage mattered so much," she writes, “because other bystanders, particularly the American government, American Jewish groups, and the rest of the American press, took cues from the paper. Among major American newspapers, it was unique in the information it received, how it disseminated the news, and to whom.”[8]
Reception Edit
Most of the reviews were very positive. English historian, David Cesarani reviewing the book in the Jewish Chronicle wrote: "The light which Laurel Leff sheds on US government policy adds to the value of her densely documented and judiciously written study. It is a model of research with serious implications for how the press covers atrocity and genocide in our own times." [4] Another Holocaust historian, Tim Cole, writing in the Journal of Jewish Studies points out a wider benefit from the study: "Laurel Leff's study of the reporting of the Holocaust in the pages of The New York Times does more than simply fill a gap by offering an in-depth study of America's most significant daily … her book stands as a model for future studies in this sub-field of Holocaust Studies … [and] makes the book of interest not only to those wanting to know what The New York Times reported on the Holocaust. Leff's study offers a broader insight into American Jews in the wartime years, and in particular the relationship between one American Jew and his Jewishness.'" [9] Columbia University journalism professor (and former New York Times reporter) Ari Goldman commented: "...Laurel Leff, in her excellent book, Buried by The Times, builds a strong and convincing case that The Times was deliberately downplaying a major story because it didn’t want to appear to be championing a Jewish cause. Like her observation about the use of wire stories, much of Leff ’s speculation cannot be verified. But there is much evidence to suggest that the editors were motivated by more than just the news. Leff documents this in great detail both in terms of what The Times published and in terms of the opinions of its publisher at the time, Arthur Hays Sulzberger." [1] Throughout the book Leff's outrage concerning the behavior of The Times is apparent. Beckerman comments favorably on it: "Beneath every word of Laurel Leff’s extraordinary and thorough new study of The New York Times's coverage of what we now call the Holocaust is this same desire—for the paper to be shocked and outraged beyond its very black-and-white bounds." [3] However one reviewer criticized her approach. "The tone of Leff's account is one of unremitting outrage. When The Times fails to report any Holocaust-related event, she is outraged. If the paper reports on it, she's outraged that the report isn't on the front page. When a Holocaust story is on the front page, she complains that it isn't high enough on the front page. When there is no editorial on some Holocaust-related subject, she is outraged, and if there is an editorial, she's outraged that it isn't the lead editorial. She is regularly outraged when either reportage or commentary, wherever placed, mentions not Jews alone but other victims as well. When one item made clear that a majority of those killed at a certain locale were Jews, she complains that this was noted "only once" in the story. All of this is so over-the-top as to verge on self-parody."[10] Finally, former NYT executive editor and Pulitizer Prize winning journalist, Max Frankel used Leff's preliminary research as a reference for his article criticizing the Times's reporting of the Holocaust in its 150th anniversary in 2001. He wrote: "As Laurel Leff, an assistant professor at the Northeastern School of Journalism, has concluded, it was a tragic demonstration of how 'the facts didn't speak for themselves.' She has been the most diligent independent student of The Times's Holocaust coverage and deftly summarized her findings last year in The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics. 'You could have read the front page of The New York Times in 1939 and 1940," she wrote, "without knowing that millions of Jews were being sent to Poland, imprisoned in ghettos, and dying of disease and starvation by the tens of thousands. You could have read the front page in 1941 without knowing that the Nazis were machine-gunning hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Soviet Union." Frankel called it "the century's bitterest journalistic failure."[11] Honors and awards Edit Best media history book, American Journalism Historians Association
Best history book, Foreword Magazine
Related work Edit
Leff's ongoing work on American responses to the Holocaust continues to draw commentary. Her research paper "Rebuffing Refugee Journalists: The Profession's Failure to Help Jews Persecuted by Nazi Germany" asserting that journalists, unlike physicians and attorneys, failed to establish committees to help Jewish refugees secure positions that would have made them exempt from immigration limits and allowed them to come to the United States, inspired a campaign to get the Newspaper Association of America to acknowledge its predecessor organization in the 1930s "was wrong to turn its back on Jewish refugee journalists fleeing Hitler".[12][13] The Newspaper Association of America responded by issuing a statement regretting that its predecessor organization did not give a full public airing to the issue at the time and by holding a special session on the topic at its annual meeting.[14]
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Donald Trump's ban on federal funds going to international organizations that provide abortion information as part of their reproductive services will have sweeping health consequences across the globe. In part, that's because it is written much more broadly than those implemented by previous GOP administrations, writes the New York Times:
The wording in the Trump order extends the restrictions to all American global health aid, an $8.5 billion pot of money, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research organization . More than half of that money goes to programs for H.I.V. and AIDS, including services for women of reproductive age, the analysis found. An additional 9 percent goes to maternal and child health care, which is partly aimed at promoting safe pregnancies. By contrast, the last time the rule was in place, under President George W. Bush, it applied only to family planning money, an amount that is currently around $520 million, the analysis found. As health providers braced for cuts from Washington, the Netherlands lost no time in casting itself as a defender of reproductive rights. Its Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that it would start an international fund “to make up as much as possible for this financial blow.” It gave no specifics.
Just to be clear, U.S. money was already prohibited from funding abortions abroad. This is just a really sloppy, overly broad attack on the mere mention of the term. Now it will adversely affect everything from the worldwide effort to combat HIV/AIDS to family planning services to basic healthcare needs. Social conservative groups like the Family Research Council are grinning ear to ear—they likely wrote the verbiage so its damage would go far beyond abortion. And it will.
Research suggests that the policy has had a counterintuitive impact in the past. In countries that relied heavily on funding from the United States for reproductive health services, abortion rates rose when the Reagan-era policy was in place. Researchers cite a possible reason: The aid spigot dries up for the organizations that provide contraceptive services to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Because actually decreasing abortions has never really been the goal of social conservatives.
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Back in November of 2016, Instagram announced that it would be introducing support for live videos so users could have new ways to share the moment. Unfortunately, and as has been the routine, the Live Videos feature first rolled out to iOS and Android users, and Windows Phone fans were left in the dust. According to WindowsPhoneArea, a few short months after the initial rollout, some Windows 10 Mobile users are now reporting that the feature is now live on their devices.
To check to see if you have the Live Videos feature on your Windows 10 Mobile Instagram app, you should swipe to the right from the main Instagram feed, and then select the “Live Camera” mode. After you do so, and when you start broadcasting, your Instagram followers will receive notifications and you will see that they have started watching you.
Additionally, on Windows 10 Mobile you also now can send photos and videos to your followers in Snapchat-like messages, which will disappear after 24 hours. Do you have Live Videos feature on your Instagram app? If you don’t, you should not worry, as the feature will slowly be rolling out to users this week. As always, let us know what you think by dropping us a comment below!
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Further reading: Instagram
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A MORGUE van carrying a dead body struck a pedestrian and overturned on a main street in Sydney’s inner west in a dramatic four-car crash last night.
Police believe a 21-year-old man in a Ford Focus collided with the van and two other vehicles on King St, Newtown around 10pm, before fleeing the scene on foot.
media_camera The overturned morgue van in King Street, Newtown last night. Picture: Channel Seven
media_camera Police at the scene of last night’s bizarre accident.. Picture: Channel Seven
media_camera The overturned morgue van on King Street, Newtown last night. Picture: Channel Seven
The morgue van ran off the road in the chaos, hitting a 24-year-old man walking along the footpath before landing on its side. The van’s 53-year-old male driver sustained a neck injury while the front-seat passenger fractured their ribs and both were taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Police confirmed the van was “loaded” with a dead body and another van had to be brought in to carry it from the scene.
media_camera Tow truck workers prepare to move the overturned morgue van in King Street, Newtown. Picture: Channel Seven
Newtown police are still searching for the 21-year-old and are understood to know who he is.
The pedestrian was taken to hospital with an injured wrist but cleared of fractures.
The 25-year-old man in a Toyota and 20-year-old female driver of a Nissan Qashqai were both involved in the accident but uninjured.
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Jessica Wilcox was born into a humble family on New Year’s Eve of 1925. Her father left them when she was three; her mother was critical and cold to her. The young girl was often left alone for hours in a dark room, and hence, as children are wont to do, she created an imaginary friends with whom to pass the time. With these imaginary friends, Jessica forged strong friendships, chief among them was one named Arlene, who hung around for many years and grew up with Jessica despite being an almost polar opposite of her: Jessica was open and articulate, Arlene was cynical and contemptuous like her mother. Other imaginary friends faded, but Jessica never grew out of Arlene–rather Arlene grew into Jessica, and became a separate personality.
Jessica was 16 when she entered the Miss Atlantic City contest, which led to a job at the Miss America Contest, which in turn was her platform to fame and a new name: Candy Jones.
During World War II, Candy was one of the world’s most popular pin-up girls. She toured with the USO through the South Pacific in 1944 and 45, and in the 60’s she may have unwittingly become a secret agent for the CIA, but Candy didn’t know anything about it. The agent was actually her alter ego, Arlene.
While out with the USO in April of 1945, Candy became very ill, and was taken to a hospital in the Philippines. While there she became friends with a medic whose name has been obscured over time, but is known by the pseudonym of “Gilbert Jensen.”
After the war Candy went home and married, then divorced, opened a modeling school and was getting by pretty well when she was approached by an FBI agent who asked her for her help. It seemed a benign request, and it was only patriotic to help out, and she allowed him to use her office as a secretive government mail drop.
And that was the entire story until 1972 when Candy married John Nebel. The pair had a true whirlwind romance, having known each other only a month before they wed. Despite being a generally congenial disposition, after they married Nebel started noticing Candy displaying huge, sudden mood-swings, the worst of which was when she’d slip into what he described as “the Voice”; in his own words: “The Voice … a look, a few moments of bitchiness.” A few weeks into the marriage Candy told her new groom that she sometimes worked for the FBI, and that she would be prone to vanishing for days on end without notice. Slowly it came out that Candy was also suffering insomnia, and in (what I can only imagine as a desperate) gambit to improve her moods, he offered to hypnotize to in order to help her sleep.
Nebel hadn’t hypnotized anyone before, and Candy was resolute that it couldn’t be done, so of course she went right under. She slept better than she had in years, and they decided to continue the sessions. As the hypnosis continued, Nebel learned that Candy became unusually susceptible to suggestion while under, and more disturbingly, she would spontaneously age-regress, and speak in a child-like voice. Sometimes her own, and sometimes Arlene Grant’s. It was the latter that spooked Nebel into tape-recording the sessions.
He uncovered a plot that had roots in 1945 Philippine hospital, and began in earnest when the FBI had asked for her help. Candy had only a few memories of the things she was asked to do, but Arlene had a grasp of all of them. While her modeling school was doubling as a government mail-drop she was asked to drop off a letter in Oakland, and since she was going there anyhow, why refuse? When she arrived the recipient was the doctor Gilbert Jensen that had befriended her when ill. He offered her a tidy sum of money to allow him to hypnotize her, and she accepted since she was divorced and strapped for dough. He told her the hypnosis didn’t work, but in sessions where the Arlene personality spoke, she said it had.
Jensen asked Candy to be a messenger for the CIA, and that her post was to be so secret that not even headquarters would know about her. In order to serve she needed to be in top health, and thus submitted to regular injections of vitamins. These were, of course, not vitamins, but a chemical agent designed to bring out the Arlene persona. When she assumed the Arlene identity she would alter her dress, her walk, her tone, and even took to wearing a dark wig. Arlene was supposedly sent to training camps where she was trained to kill with her bare hands, or, if handy, a hat pin. She was trained with poison lipstick, hiding code numbers under the paint of her fingernails, and other things that would make Mr Bond’s nipples hard. She would be asked to run government drops on her normal business trips, and it would be an ideal situation for the government if Candy had no recollection of performing these tasks.
And of course, the CIA knows nothing of it because they’re an intelligence agency.
But was any of it real, or was it False Memory Syndrome brought about by a truly disturbed woman and an inept therapist? There are some hints that point to the credibility of her story.
In the 60’s Candy told her editors that she sometimes worked for the FBI. Candy wrote a letter to her attorney instructing him that if she were to die or vanish that he wasn’t at liberty to reveal the details of the event to anyone. In 1974 the Rockefeller Commission exposed CIA’s MKULTRA Program–a mind-control program that was going on in the 1950’s. There were several absences from her school, or business trips where there was no business to do. And when Donald Bain was talking to her about publishing a book on the story of her life she produced a passport she’d found in the name of Arlene Grant bearing a photo of her in a dark wig.
On 3 July 1973 the answering machine at Arlene’s house received a message that said: “This is Japan Airlines calling on oh-three July at 4.10 p.m. … Please have Miss Grant call 759-9100 … she is holding a reservation on Japan Airlines Flight 5, for the sixth of July, Kennedy to Tokyo, with an option on to Taipai. This is per Cynthia that we are calling.” Upon a callback to Japan Airlines, there was no Cynthia working there.
None of it is proof. Nor is the fact in July 1980 Candy was nearly killed in an explosion. Just hints, innuendo, ticklers of possibility.
On the other hand, is even the CIA dumb enough to try to make a 6’4″ supermodel of the era into a secret agent? And worse, if they figured out a way to rewire the brains of pretty girls, don’t you think that Washington DC would be the global hotbed of sexy women?
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YOUNG priests who lead churches in deprived parishes in London have shown that Anglo-Catholic growth is possible — but they are not typical and a change of culture will be needed to make them so.
This is the conclusion of a new report from the Centre for Theology and Community (CTC), A Time to Sow: Anglican Catholic church growth in London. It says that the seven churches featured give the lie to claims that growth cannot be achieved in deprived areas, but warns that many Anglo-Catholics have embraced “damaging myths” about church growth, including the idea that it is an Evangelical phenomenon.
The report “shows that Catholic growth is possible,” writes Canon Angus Ritchie, director of the CTC, and Priest-in-Charge of St George-in-the-East, London. “But it also shows that such growth is only happening in a fraction of the parishes where it could — that there is a need for a change in the culture of Catholic Anglicanism if it is to fulfil its God-given potential to transform lives and communities.”
A Time to Sow, published after a separate study that explored Evangelical church-planting in London (News, 8 April. 2016), features seven Anglo-Catholic churches in the dioceses of London and Southwark that have been growing numerically in the past five years. Most have been growing at an average annual rate of five to ten per cent, equivalent to between three and 15 new people.
The new joiners were found to be a mixture of people who are from other churches, or who are returning to church, or who are new to church. All seven churches are within the 15 per cent most deprived parishes in England, and five of the seven priests leading them are in their first postings as incumbents, and are described as “young and relatively inexperienced”. Three of the churches are defined as “traditional Catholic”; the remainder “modern Catholic”. The growth in the churches is not merely numerical, the report emphasises, but is also seen in discipleship.
Among the seven featured is St Luke’s, Woodside. Before the arrival of the Priest-in-Charge, the Revd Sam Dennis, last year, there had been talk of merging the church with another parish. “The rapid revival of the church’s fortunes appears to vividly illustrate the difference that a positive and active priest can make in a parish where church life has waned,” the report says.
The author of the report, Tim Thorlby, development director at CTC, identifies seven “habits of growth” observed across the seven churches: “ensuring a welcome to newcomers, worship which is accessible but with depth, a focus on work with children, new services mid-week and later on Sunday, community ministry, and clergy who are focused on growth.”
The report says that the leadership of priests who have growth as “part of their mindset” evinces both continuity with the past and a readiness to make changes where necessary. The seven parishes were not ones where “Father does everything”, but places where the laity was empowered. Sacrament: The Vicar of St Benet’s, Kentish Town, the Revd Dr Peter Anthony, baptising a new member of his growing congregation
It also highlights the “active management” of assets, including buildings, and campaigns to increase giving by congregations. It gives the example of one flat that was so poorly managed that it eventually had to be sold for half of what its value might have been, and a hall used by an organisation who neither paid rent nor maintained it (a court settlement eventually resolved the matter). Several of the churches had secured increases in giving by significant amounts, after making requests of their congregations.
Relatively few of the activities or habits are new, the report says: “most are tried and tested, and some are truly ancient.” They are also, it suggests, similar to those observed in growing Evangelical churches in London: “Although worship styles and churchmanship may well differ, it is possible that the underlying habits of church growth may be more universal and not owned by any particular tradition.” This was the conclusion of From Anecdote to Evidence, the study published by the Church Growth Research Programme in 2014, which said that theological tradition appeared to have “no significant link with growth”, but listed “being intentional in prioritising growth” as a factor.
The CTC report also lists “habits of decline”, which, it suggests, are not theological but cultural, “acquired at some point during the 20th Century and which are no longer serving the tradition well”. Some priests are “ambivalent at best” about church growth, it says.
“Some of our interviewees suggested that the traditional mindset for a parish priest seems to be very much about being faithful in ‘running a parish’, ‘administering the sacraments’ and ‘praying for the world’ and relying upon the local community to faithfully respond to this by attending services. This may have been an appropriate stance when churchgoing in Britain was more prevalent but in a post-Christendom culture, they argue that the role of the parish priest has changed — it needs to be reimagined and the priest must become more of a ‘missionary’ to a sceptical community. A time of declining congregations requires a greater sense of urgency.”
The report also challenges claims made by some church leaders that deprivation is a reason for a lack of growth. The seven churches featured “strongly indicate that such arguments are excuses rather than explanations”, it says.
Mr Thorlby writes that the seven case studies are “unusual, rather than typical, examples of Anglican Catholic parishes in London”, and concludes that the overall picture is one of decline. CTC had “great difficulty in finding many Anglo-Catholic parishes which had grown consistently in the last five years”, and found “little evidence” of church-planting. “It is hard to see where significant Anglican Catholic growth in London might be,” he writes.
Although the report acknowledges that, across London, church attendance has been in modest decline, it argues that growth is less likely to be found among Anglo-Catholic parishes, on average. It cites the fact that there are no Anglo-Catholic “mega churches”; and that, among the large ones, few seem to be growing consistently or aiding the growth of other parishes. The argument that “mega churches” and “church planting” are not Anglo-Catholic reflects a “modern reticence” not rooted in the tradition, it argues.
Four challenges conclude the report, including a suggestion that priests consider “well developed programmes of midweek fellowship and catechesis” and a call on larger Anglo-Catholic churches to support and resource other parishes.
After listing a number of “damaging myths” embraced by Anglo-Catholics, Canon Ritchie writes in his Afterword that the report “refutes the consoling claim that growth is ‘not for us’. For
Catholic church growth is happening in some of England’s poorest neighbourhoods. Far from selling out to the dominant culture, the churches which are growing are challenging injustice and proclaiming the faith with confidence.”
In a foreword, the Rt Revd Peter Wheatley, a former Bishop of Edmonton, now an honorary assistant bishop in the dioceses of London, Southwark, and Chichester, suggests that many clergy have learned to preach, teach and pastor, “but not how to run an effective organisation where their people feel they are hosts not guests”. He also observes that most of the clergy featured in the report were appointed by bishops “exercising patronage creatively”.
In her foreword, Canon Alison Grant Milbank, associate professor literature and theology at the University of Nottingham, writes of a “crisis of confidence in the whole movement as well as a reluctance among some Catholic parishes to engage with what can seem an instrumental attitude to church growth”.
Noting that the churches featured have not done “anything particularly revolutionary. . . What is paradoxically most encouraging here is the modest nature of the growth reported, which is evidence of its rooted and authentic nature. Our world is crying out for sacramental, holistic ways of living which unite body and soul to mediate the transcendent.”
FR SAM DENNISSpirit-filled: Celebrating Pentecost at St Luke’s, Woodside, where Fr Sam Dennis is now Priest-in-Charge
Churches featured in A Time to Sow
At St Luke’s, Hammersith, where the Revd Richard Bastable is serving his first incumbency as Vicar, there has been a “significant increase” in children’s attendance and a growth in Sunday attendance from 60 to 75. Teaching sessions on spirituality are attended by up to 25 people a week. Income has been increased by leasing out a flat, and by a stewardship campaign that has resulted in an increase of 60 per cent in giving. Among the social outreach activities is an after-school craft session.
At St Benet’s, Kentish Town, the Vicar, the Revd Dr Peter Anthony, has seen growth from 40 to 60, offering a “more family-friendly welcome” on a Sunday, and more children’s work during the week. The Sunday school has been re-established, and a children’s eucharist is held several times a year. Management of the church’s property has delivered £20,000 more income a year and congregational giving has doubled.
At St Mary’s, Tottenham, where the Vicar is the Revd Simon Morris, social outreach includes a night-shelter and a lunch club. A mission hall, recently repaired, now has a congregation of about 40, using it for worship for the first time in 70 years. They include some people returning to church after years away. A new full-time children’s worker and assistant curate have joined this year.
At St Anne’s, Hoxton, where the Vicar is the Revd Christopher Woods, the congregation has grown from 45 to 65, of which a third are children. Members are involved in a growing number of mid-week activities, including study groups and a new evening rosary group. The church has also started running a weekly soup kitchen and youth group.
A St John’s, Catford, where the Rector is the Revd Dr Martin Thomas, the congregation has grown from 50 to 150 over the past decade. A new, more informal, Sunday-afternoon service, has been created, and mid-week activities include Messy Church and choristers club. Approximately half of the congregation class themselves as returning or new to church.
At St Luke’s, Woodside, where the Priest-in-Charge is the Revd Samuel Dennis, the congregation has grown from 60 to 90. There is a new “young church”, as well as a number of mid-week services and activities, including the Pilgrim course. Before his arrival, there had been talk of a merger with another parish. Congregational giving has risen by nearly 40 per cent.
At St George-in-the-East, Shadwell, the living was suspended until a plan proffered by the CTC was approved by the PCC: the Rector’s stipend was used to fund two part-time priests and the rectory was used to house a lay community of young people serving the parish. Sunday attendance has grown from 20 to 50, and two mid-week fresh expressions of church have begun. This has led a number of social justice initiatives, as part of Citizens UK.
Read the full report here
Comment: Church growth is not just for Evangelicals
Listen to Tim Thorlby talk more about the report on this week’s Church Times Podcast: churchtimes.co.uk/podcast
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IT was a team performance to be proud of, a close-knit unit covering every blade of grass in pursuit of glory for Australia at the World Cup.
No stone is being left unturned in making sure Ange Postecoglou’s Brazil-bound squad feel the part - and look it. On the night of the Socceroos’ qualification for the World Cup in June, a bunch of celebrities from Hugh Jackman to Shane Warne tweeted their delight - now their words will quite literally feed into clothing the Australian squad in Brazil.
WORLD CUP SCOUT: YOUR WEEKLY GROUP-BY-GROUP NEWS FIX
UP FOR THE CUP: PAPER TALK, BRAZIL STYLE
News_Rich_Media: Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou says it's time for Robbie Kruse to start thinking about the 2018 World Cup with his ACL injury almost certainly ruling him out of the tournament's 2014 edition in Brazil.
Rather improbably, each tweet was reproduced in grass on a farm deep in NSW, where a flock of some 100 Merino sheep today were let loose to munch their way through a diet of landscaped hashtags. This is grassroots sport, but not as you know it.
The sheep’s wool will shortly be sheared, and turned into the suits to be worn by the Socceroos on the way to the World Cup, made by tailor MJ Bale.
To give the sheep a due sense of national pride in their work, they were honoured not just by a rendition of Advance Australia Fair, but also the presence of former Socceroo Mark Bosnich.
Now the only question left to answer is whether Australia, facing world champions Spain and heavyweights Chile and Holland, will ultimately prove to be lambs to the slaughter.News_Image_File: Sheep dining out on famous Tweets.
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The founder of Facebook has found religion, it seems, according to a cheery holiday message he posted on the social network he created.
On Christmas Day, Zuckerberg indicated in a Facebook status that he was “celebrating Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah from Priscilla, Max, Beast and me,” he wrote, naming his wife, daughter and dog. Then a commenter asked him: Aren’t you an atheist?
Zuckerberg identified himself as an atheist for years, but on Facebook on Christmas he wrote back: “No. I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important.”
He didn’t answer further questions about what he does believe in. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have publicly discussed their moral values frequently — including in a lengthy letter when their daughter was born a year ago, in which they pledged to donate 99 percent of their Facebook stock, which at about $45 billion at the time was one of the largest philanthropic commitments ever. And they’ve already met one of the world’s most important religious figures: Pope Francis, with whom they discussed bringing communication technology to the world’s poor.
Want more stories about faith? Follow Acts of Faith on Twitter or sign up for our newsletter.
The man billed as the first atheist bound for Congress isn’t actually an atheist at all
Study: Religion contributes more to the U.S. economy than Facebook, Google and Apple combined
How a Facebook comment turned into a nightmare for the ‘evangelical Harvard’
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President Trump praised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday for Canada’s announcement it will bolster its military spending, according to the White House.
A phone call between the two leaders on Friday evening follows Canada unveiling a new defense budget aimed at increasing the country’s military spending budget to $32.7 billion over the next decade. The plan increases Canada’s defense budget by 70 percent over the next decade.
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Trump has made a point of lashing out at NATO allies for “not paying their fair share,” and pressed them to increase their military budgets in order to meet a 2014-set goal of putting two percent of their GDP toward defense spending.
"If we are serious about Canada's role in the world, then we have to be serious about funding our military," Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said earlier this month. “And we are.”
While Trump thanked Trudeau, other Canadian politicians have insisted Canada needs to play a bigger global role in large part due to a lack of Trump’s leadership.
“The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,” Canada Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said in an apparent jab at Trump earlier this month.
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Today’s Washington Post:
A comprehensive review of 31 years of data from 830 mid-size to large U.S. workplaces found that the kind of diversity training exercises offered at most firms were followed by a 7.5 percent drop in the number of women in management. The number of black, female managers fell by 10 percent, and the number of black men in top positions fell by 12 percent. Similar effects were seen for Latinos and Asians.
The analysis did not find that all diversity training is useless. Rather, it showed that mandatory programs — often undertaken mainly with an eye to avoiding liability in discrimination lawsuits — were the problem. When diversity training is voluntary and undertaken to advance a company’s business goals, it was associated with increased diversity in management.
… Today, U.S. businesses spend from $200 million to $300 million a year on diversity training, … Kalev said many trainers and executives told her they were not surprised by her findings. … Businesses are responding rationally to the legal environment, since several Supreme Court rulings have held that companies with mandatory diversity training are in a stronger position if they face a discrimination lawsuit.
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Ask anyone if they think the origins of Hip Hop’s emcee, b-boy, deejay, and graffiti culture have changed, and you’ll be certain to get a unanimous response. Yes. These art forms that comprise Hip-Hop made their rise during the late ‘70s through the early ‘80s and defined themselves as a staple in the South Bronx’s street culture. In an epic Rock and Rap fusion record, “The Escapades Of Futura,” Futura 2000 and Mick Jones of The Clash painted a vivid picture of life as a graffiti writer in New York during the early 1980s. Let’s not forget the impact Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón had on the culture of b-boying, while names like Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash serve as iconic figures in the early prominence of deejaying.
So while no one in their right mind would debate the aforementioned five pillars of Hip Hop, I think we have to come to grips with the fact that the entry points to Hip-Hop have changed. Golden Era fans likely point to the fact that those who weren’t artists per se still participated in the culture by deejaying, b-boying and practicing emceeing and even graffiti art as hobbyists and weekend enthusiasts. We’ve seen far less graf writing and b-boying over the last 30 years, technology has changed the perception and methods used for deejaying, and there are probably times when even the most hardcore Hip Hop fans believe that knowledge and overstanding of the culture is lacking. The latter is likely what prompted Nas to declare, “Hip Hop Is Dead” with the title of his 2006 album. To me, all of this leads to one question. How do you participate in Hip Hop in the Digital Age?
The Internet As An Entry Point Into Hip Hop Culture
When prompted with this same question, Compton-bred emcee, Problem, pointed to the World Wide Web.
“I guess you start a successful blog site,” he answered. “I think that’s probably the most effective way…it started as a street hobby, but so did basketball. It’s changed, so you gotta get involved with this shit and find new ways to get in and move. I watched an NBA game, and maybe three out of six commercials had rappers in them. This is it, man. Think of something and jump in! You might change the game. The thing everybody always has to realize though—it all goes back to the music. You still gotta be good.”
Problem’s observation points to an important distinction—not just in Hip Hop—but in all art forms. He notes the difference between what he called a “street hobby” and what has essentially become a multi-billion dollar industry. I’d argue that aside from the obvious difference of Hip Hop being a lifestyle or culture, the immediacy of the Internet can often transform a hobbyist into a professional in the blink of an eye.
“I started playing around in November of [2011],” Trinidad Jame$ noted, in an interview with Peter Rosenberg and Hot97 FM Program Director Ebro Darden. “Then I just stopped messing with it. Then two months after—in February—I decided to do the tape by myself.”
That tape, Don’t Be S.A.F.E., spawned the single, “All Gold Everything,” which debuted at the #47 spot on Billboard magazine’s “Hot 100” chart before being certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. Jame$ reportedly signed a $2 million deal with the iconic Def Jam Records. Yet it all came courtesy of a memorable hook over an instrumental he grabbed off the mixtape website, DatPiff—all free of charge. It was the same method he used for many records during his come-up days, as Jame$ would resort to grabbing beats off online instrumental CDs. Jame$ didn’t hide his path to success, either, when talking about how he used the Internet to his advantage when making his “All Gold Everything” hit.
“Everything I did was right out there in the open,” Jame$ told HipHopDX. “It wasn’t like it was a hidden secret. You gotta have something that’s worth going viral with. Once you go viral with it, you gotta have something that sticks to people in an original way so they feel like they really want to be a part of it.”
The example of Trinidad Jame$ speaks to the fast-paced nature of Internet-spawned success and an unwritten Hip Hop rule of perfecting one’s craft. I think how much importance each listener puts on both aspects directly informs each individual opinion on if Trinidad Jame$ is a proper representation of Hip Hop culture. Does the immediacy the Internet provides have to be mutually exclusive from perfecting one’s craft?
Paid Dues: The Death Of The Incubation Period
“A lot of kids get to come out too soon,” noted R.A. the Rugged Man, when asked about Hip Hop in the Digital Age. “[Before the Internet], when you was wack, you was learning your craft and you was wack. No one got to witness it worldwide. Nowadays, kids will be like, ‘Yo, I’m dope,’ when they’re still wack. And they get to put their shit all over online and on Facebook. And people will be like, ‘Ahh, that rapper’s wack,’ because he didn’t learn his craft yet. So you’ve got tons and tons of wack, unpolished, horrible rappers putting their fucking songs all over the Internet. They start thinking they’re a Rap star before they’re even good at their craft and before they even know how to make a song. That took at little something out of the game. ”
Granted, R.A. wasn’t speaking specifically about Trinidad Jame$ or any other particular emcee. But I can’t help but wonder if we’re talking about the issue of exposure as opposed to a fundamental shift in the way people—Hip Hop fans included—communicate with each other. I don’t necessarily think emerging emcees were better 30 years ago. But in 1983, a young emcee, deejay, b-boy or graffiti artist was pretty much limited to sharing their efforts with a small circle of peers. During that era, few could afford video equipment or the means to press mass quantities of their product for public distribution. I feel the limitations of technology provided a sort of incubation period as people perfected their craft. I’m not a mind reader, so only time will tell if someone like Trinidad Jame$ is actively working to become a better bar-for-bar rapper. And I’m not sure how we’d objectively measure such a thing anyway.
For now, I don’t think perfecting one’s craft and the immediacy afforded by the Internet have to always be mutually exclusive. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are part of the fundamental ways we communicate with each other in 2013. What’s the difference between someone in 2013 sharing their personal contribution to Hip Hop with 500 “friends” on the Internet versus someone in 1983 sharing their personal contribution to Hip Hop with 10 friends they personally interact with face-to-face? As someone is perfecting their craft, how do we as listeners separate the baby steps that sometimes lead to innovation versus an untalented contributor that’s better off just being a fan with a day job?
Started From The Bottom: Errors, Innovation & Excellence
“Back then, everybody was a biter,” noted legendary b-boy Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón in a 2010 interview with SceneInteractive.com. “But it was all about how can you bite, come back that next week, make that move yours and put your own little stamp on it?”
To me, Crazy Legs’ quote speaks to the issue of innovation and contributing to Hip Hop in the Digital Age. Whether you’re talking about deejaying, sample-based production or even emcees freestyling over previously used beats, I feel much of Hip Hop culture is comprised of adding on and creating new material from a previous work. Colón added that one of his many legendary innovations, was birthed from some haphazard experimentation while he was still perfecting his craft.
“It was an evolution of accidents,” Colón explained, while chronicling the invention of the infamous b-boying technique of the Windmill. “One day, I was trying to go into a Chair Freeze, and I over-rotated, because I was practicing in a small hallway. We didn’t have studios then, and I was in a tenement building. I went to go into my Chair Freeze, and to prevent myself from hitting my feet against the wall, I kind of whipped my legs around from [a different] position. Then I started spinning, and my cousin was like, ‘Oh shit!’”
I wonder what would have happened if Colón’s awe-inspiring mistake during that Chair Freeze was witnessed by a dozen people via a webcam instead of his cousin? If he’d essentially “gone viral” during what R.A. referred to as that wack period when people are experimenting and perfecting their craft, would we look at him differently?
Ill Communication: A Global Shift In How People Share Information
Ultimately, I think comparing pre-Internet Hip Hop contributions to today’s environment is apples and oranges. Legislation, societal norms, technology and a host of other factors make the decrease in visible b-boys, deejays and graffiti artists more than just an issue of trendiness. And I feel it’s almost impossible to knock how Hip Hop contributors share their contributions when the fundamental way we share everything has changed so much in the last few decades.
“We really are in the middle of a massive change and transformation in telecommunications in general,” noted photographer, producer and deejay Ryan Lewis. “I think just to be a person right now—so much has drastically changed in the world of communications—it’s heavily affected what it means to be a photographer or a producer. We have access to things.”
Lewis’ entry point was certainly aided by technology. He credits software programs and the ability to pursue photography and music production all relatively cheaply (or freely) from the same computer as a reason he is in his current position.
“The access is crazy cheap or free,” Lewis added. “And once you attain a certain skill level, the ability to freely promote and market yourself through social media is sort of the next step to that. It’s a very interesting time, but it’s a very difficult time to get recognized for anything artistically because there’s so many people doing that shit.”
Worldwide Underground: The Digital Tradeoff In Hip Hop
I can’t front as if I was around for the b-boying days of Crazy Legs or the times when KAWS was bombing trains and billboards. That was over 30 years ago. But through a knowledge and appreciation of the culture, the Internet has provided me the opportunity to study the history of Hip Hop’s rich culture. Interestingly enough, part of the reason Golden Era contributors such as Crazy Legs and KAWS are still in the public eye is at least partially due to Internet savvy artists like Kanye West and Clipse. Older heads undoubtedly remember KAWS as the guy who was infamous for bombing trains, walls, and billboards. But to younger fans of the Internet Era, he’s the guy who designed the artwork for West’s 808’s & Heartbreak and Til The Casket Drops by the Clipse.
“When I was younger I just saw [graffiti] as a great outlet,” KAWS explained to Philly.com in an April interivew. “I wake up and make what I want to make. It wasn’t a decision to stop doing one thing. It was more like becoming obsessed with another…When I was doing walls 15 years ago I was thinking about painting. I like painting. I like composition. It’s not really any different than it is now.”
Between artists directly interacting with fans via social media and using willing corporations like Budweiser and Redbull to increase visibility for themselves and their craft, the Digital Age provides more entry points into Hip Hop culture than ever before. In exchange, the ability to filter out a struggling novice from an unskilled, burgeoning pro has pretty much disappeared. An artist’s ability to perfect their craft during an unofficial incubation period is nonexistent. People across the globe can engage in heated debates about the merits of Hip Hop culture. Do the positives outweigh the negatives? I guess that’s something each individual has to answer for him or herself.
“The rappers that did study the craft now have a way of getting their music worldwide,” R.A. the Rugged Man added. “Some kid in Compton can go put his shit online. All of a sudden they’re listening to it in Belgium, Poland, Japan and fucking Slovakia just by this kid pressing a button. So there’s two sides of the Digital Age—it helps, and it hurts.”
It’s no question today’s stars have attained some level of success through talent, but in this Digital Era—in order to spread the word to the world—no other tool is more powerful than the Internet. It’s a tool that has given me the opportunity to reach out to today’s artists, and talk to them regarding their lives in this era. As much as rappers have gained from blogs and music publications, the same goes both ways. Without this commodity, sites worldwide—including HipHopDX—would have a much more difficult time reaching out to the stars and providing readers with more exclusive content. Like it or not, the Digital Era has made everything possible in today’s time.
Additional reporting by Michael Nguyen.
Omar Burgess is a Long Beach, California native who has contributed to various magazines, newspapers and has been an editor at HipHopDX since 2008. Follow him on Twitter @OmarBurgess.
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Yesterday Japan successfully launched its second transfer vehicle, known as the Kounotori 2. Similar to the Automated Transfer Vehicle the ESA sends to the ISS from time to time, the role these vehicles play is quite simple: launch with a bunch of cargo, dock with the ISS, the astronauts on board then take the cargo in and eventually fill the now-empty vehicle up with waste, and a few months later they seal it off and deorbit it, and all the garbage burns up in the atmosphere and thus the mission ends.
Pretty boring, right? Not when JAXA is in charge. Take a look at their most recent video uploaded today promoting Kounotori 2, and prepare to get excited about a cargo in - garbage out unmanned mission. Select 720px to make it even better. I would have reuploaded the video with subtitles but I don't believe JAXA allows that so I've written the translation below.
0:02 - This...
0:05 - is the story of a spaceship...
0:10 - ...given the name The White Stork.
0:14 - KOUNOTORI (Japanese for stork) 2 H-II Transfer Vehicle MISSION
0:19 - (bottom corner) Space station supply vehicle Kounotori 2
0:23 - The mission it has been entrusted with: to deliver.
0:39 - Soar into infinite space, find your way to him (lit. to that person).
0:45 - Kounotori (HTV) control room
0:47 - International Space Station
This is par for the course for JAXA, and their YouTube account has a number of English videos as well for their more prominent missions.
So what does one of their videos look like for a mission that is exciting in and of itself? This video of the Earthrise video as taken by the Kaguya mission should answer that. Lyrics to the song are below. The song, Furusato (Home), is quite famous so no need to make a new English translation, though I have added transliteration to the right of the original lyrics. The song was originally written about one's home town, but when looking back on the Earth from lunar orbit one realizes that in fact the entire planet is our home (cue Carl Sagan quote).
うさぎ追いし かの山 Usagi oishi kano yama
小ぶなつりし かの川 Kobuna tsurishi kano kawa
夢はいまも めぐりて Yume wa ima mo megurite
忘れがたき ふるさと Wasuregataki furusato
I hunted rabbits on that mountain.
I fished for minnows in that stream.
I still dream about those days I spent when a child.
How I miss and long for my old country home.
いかにいます 父 母 Ikani imasu chichi haha
つつがなしや 友がき Tsutsuganashi ya tomogaki
雨に風に つけても Ame ni kaze ni tsuketemo
思いいずる ふるさと Omoiizuru furusato
Mother and father―are they doing well?
Is everything all right with my old friends?
When the rain falls, when the wind blows, I recall
My happy childhood and my old country home.
こころざしを はたして Kokorozashi wo hatashiteいつの日にか 帰らん Itsuno hi ni ka kaeran山はあおき ふるさと Yama wa aoki furusato水は清き ふるさと Mizu wa kiyoki furusatoSome day when I have done what I set out to do,I will return to where I used to have my home.Lush and green are the mountains of my homeland.Pure and clear is the water of my old country home.
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It’s a common argument when a city wants to take away space for cars: “This isn’t Amsterdam.” But guess what, Amsterdam—where half the traffic movement in the city center is by bike—wasn’t always Amsterdam, either. The image above serves as proof that better street design can improve daily life, not just for people on bikes, but for all residents.
Once upon a time, Amsterdam was just like every other city in the middle of the 20th century: planning for cars, paving parking lots, and proposing urban freeways. Then the oil crisis of the 1970s happened. To help its citizens save gas, the Netherlands implemented a nationwide “Car-Free Sunday” in November of 1973. For one day each week, the country’s three million cars were not allowed on roads, leading to some interesting photos of horses and bikes on the country’s highways. Like similar car-free days in other countries, seeing the positive impact from this weekly activity inspired residents to bring about permanent change.
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As part of her masters’ thesis at the University of Amsterdam, Cornelia Dinca started a blog called by Sustainable Amsterdam, where you can find before-and-after photos of Amsterdam’s streets that show a stark transformation. Working with photographer Thomas Schlijper and images from the city’s archives, Dinca was able to create historic-contemporary photo comparisons for some of Amsterdam’s most impressive urban design transformations. We’ve included a handful of the photos below. Use the sliders to see the before-and-after!
What’s important to note is that it’s not just about swapping car lanes for bike lanes. It’s also about adding trees, sidewalk dining, benches, parks, markets, fountains. The sum of these smaller changes make a street a destination in itself—not just a way to get somewhere else.
Van Beuningenstraat and Van Boetzelaerstraat in 1962 and 2015
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Plantage Middenlaan in the 1970s and 2015
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Maasstraat in 1977 and 2014
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Nieuwe Doelenstraat 1981 and 2014
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Mr. Visserplein in the 1970s and 2015
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Haarlemmerplein in the 1970s and 2015
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Gerard Doustraat 1982 and 2015
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Check out more comparison shots at Sustainable Amsterdam and @SustainableAMS.
[Sustainable Amsterdam]
Top image: Sint-Antoniesbreestraat in the 1980s and 2013
Historical photos via Beeldbank, the Amsterdam city archives; contemporary photos by Thomas Schlijper; special thanks to Marco te Brommelstroet at the Urban Cycling Institute, University of Amsterdam who you can follow at @fietsprofessor
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The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com.
I was the first national political commentator to see the potential of Donald Trump. I believed Trump could win the nomination when only two people in all of America believed it- me and Trump. I wrote about it at FoxNews.com last June.
I was the first to compare Trump to Reagan.
I was the first to talk publicly about Trump’s appeal to blue-collar working class Americans.
So I think I am in perfect position to make some suggestions to the Trump campaign. Here’s my plan to “close the deal” for the man who wrote "The Art of the Deal."
First Trump can put the race away today by going to John Kasich through a third party to make the following offer: “John you’re not winning the nomination. There is no clear path for anyone but me to win the nomination. I’m about to open my wallet and spend $100 million to finish this race once and for all. I want you as my Vice President. Let’s call a press conference tomorrow and announce we’re a team. That means we'll win Ohio together as a team. Race over. With you by my side we beat Hillary and win the White House. You're in charge of balancing the budget for the second time in your remarkable career. I win. You win. America wins.“
How’s that for "The Art of the Deal?” In one swoop Trump has D.C. credibility and experience…the GOP establishment is quieted…Trump is guaranteed to beat Hillary in the Midwest…Trump has the perfect Vice President to win friends and twist arms on Capital Hill for the next 8 years…and he is partners with the architect of the last balanced budget in Congress. Trump can lay claim that Trump-Kasich is good for business…good for the economy…and capable of cutting the debt and balancing the budget.
Next…
For the next eight months Donald will be on nonstop flights criss-crossing the nation as he campaigns for president. It’s time to master policy details. Donald Trump graduated the Wharton School at Penn. He is one of the world's great businessmen and visionaries. He’s capable of being as smart as any candidate for president ever. It’s time to show it!
Bring an expert on every flight from now on- each one capable of teaching Donald the details of a specific political issue. On day one bring Kasich along for the ride to instruct Trump how to best balance the budget. On day two bring John Bolton to instruct Trump how to best return America to greatness on the global stage. On day three bring Rudy Giuliani to instruct Trump on how to best fight terrorism. On day four bring Sheriff Joe Arpaio to instruct Trump on how to best enforce immigration policy. On day five bring Dr. Ben Carson to discuss the best policies for repealing and replacing Obamacare.
It’s time to meet with "the best of the best" and study the details. Allow no one to ever again say Donald Trump doesn’t have a plan, or he’s short on detail.
It’s time to stop the wise-cracking, insulting and fighting with fellow Republicans. Donald Trump must unite conservatives and the GOP. Excite voters with your plan and your great grasp of details. Announce your GOP "Dream Team."
Bring Dennis Miller on board the campaign to write funny lines for your speeches and debate performances. Reagan became president because he made people laugh and smile. But he never wrote the jokes. Reagan just delivered them.
Bring Peggy Noonan on board to write your speeches. Pay her whatever she wants. You have $10 billion and you want to win the election. It’s time to open up your wallet. Trump is the CEO and visionary- but he needs to hire smart people with writing skills to write speeches based on Trump’s vision.
Then stick to five themes for the rest of the campaign:
1) Economy, economy, economy. It’s horrible. Obama just became the first president in the history of America to preside over 7 straight years of under 3% GDP. That makes him worse than Hoover during the depths of the Great Depression. Hillary says she wants to continue Obama’s policies and legacy. Hang this economy around her neck 24/7.
2) Obamacare. The middle class is being annihilated and bankrupted by Obamacare. They understand exactly what’s happening. They are being purposely targeted for extinction. Promise you’ll repeal and replace 24/7. Make Hillary build her campaign around defending Obamacare. You can ride that one theme straight to the White House.
3) The incompetency and evil of government. The IRS just admitted that they tried to protect the taxpayers whose ID’s were hacked last year…and they were hacked again. This is your government. Trump must attack the evils of government 24/7. Make Hillary defend government and say out loud…with a straight face…that government is good for us…and smart…and competent. That’s the end of Hillary.
4) Build the wall. This is the issue that catapulted Trump to the top of the polls. This is the issue that keeps middle and working class voters forever loyal to Trump.
5) Start branding Hillary as a criminal. Say it loudly every time the media brings up her name. Say she violated the laws of the United States…she should be under indictment…and she cannot be trusted. Repeat it 24/7 until she is branded as a criminal...and she will never be president.
Lastly, laugh at critics who bring up your business failures. Failure is a natural part of entrepreneurship. All entrepreneurs and visionaries fail. Edison failed 10,000 times before he invented the light bulb. Thank God there are courageous heroes willing to risk, fail and lose their own money. Their courage is what makes America great. Sure you failed a dozen times. Who cares? You also risked billions of dollars…created hundereds of thousands of jobs…paid billions in taxes…and succeeded with hundreds of businesses. Tell your critics to shove it. Not one of your critics has ever had the balls to risk their own money.
They've never failed because they never took a risk. Even your failures pumped billions into the U.S. economy. Your failures are a badge of honor.
Tell them to keep talking about your failures…while you talk about your many successes that helped make America great. May the best candidate win!
Do all of this and Donald J Trump is the next President of the United States.
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New Delhi, Dec 3 (PTI) Flower delivery service network Interflora India is eyeing Rs 200 crore turnover by fiscal 2021 as it plans to expand its presence in top 15 cities across the country.
Interflora, which launched operation in India in October this year through a licence agreement with gifting firm IGP, plans to open 100 stores across top 10 cities by the end of 2018.
"We are targeting to delivering revenue of Rs 200 crore by year 2020-21. Over the next 12 months, we would capture market in top 10 cities, which accounts for 80 per cent of flower deliveries," Interflora India President and CEO Tarun Joshi told PTI.
"Over the next three years, we will have presence in top 15 cities in India and we will focus on them to drive sales," he added.
The company is looking at operations in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Pune in the next 12 months.
Joshi said he is also in talks with investors to raise USD 10 million by end of this fiscal.
"We are looking at investing about USD 10 million in the 12 months period to expand our operations. This investment will go in setting up offline stores, flower factories and cold chain network to maintain quality promised by Interflora," he added. PTI SVK BAL
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A four-year-old girl is fighting for life at Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital after being brutally raped and left for dead — a horror that all too routinely brings back memories of the 2012 Delhi gang rape-murder.
The child was found “unconscious, naked and bleeding” on the tracks close to her house in northwest Delhi’s Keshav Puram on Friday evening. Doctors at Safdarjung, where she was brought later that night on the reference of a local hospital, said on Saturday that she had suffered “serious injuries” all over her body while her genital area was particularly “damaged” and required surgical repair. She was currently in the intensive care unit.
Calling her condition “horrific”, Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal tweeted, “Visited the little girl, her condition cannot be described. Horrific… Her parents are extremely poor. When will this heinous crime stop in Delhi?”’
Police have registered a rape case but are yet to make any arrests. Family members suspect the attacker may have been among several men drinking at a local liquor shop.
“There are a few liquor shops where people gather in the evening… The other children don’t remember how she went missing from outside her house. The place where she was found, injured and without clothes, is right behind the liquor shop,” said a neighbour.
Maliwal tweeted, “In 2014, only 9 accused were convicted in Delhi in crime against women. Can you imagine!” — her words a grim reminder that women remain as unsafe in Delhi as they did three years ago, when the gang rape of a physiotherapist on a moving bus caused nationwide outrage and led to stricter laws for such crimes.
Visited the little girl, her condition cant be described. Horrific. Her parents are extremely poor. When will this heinous crime stop in Del — Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) October 10, 2015
In 2014, only 9 accused were convicted in Delhi in crime against women. Can you imagine! Tabhi to Delhi mei kisi ko darr nai hai. — Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) October 10, 2015
This year, 1,557 rape cases were registered in the Capital till September 15.
First Published: Oct 11, 2015 00:46 IST
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Amazon has raised the hopes of just about every city in the country, including Tacoma, when it said it’s looking for a suitable site for a second headquarters.
Don’t break out the champagne and balloons, Tacoma.
Tacoma likely won’t land the $5 billion building, and attracting even small tech firms can be a long shot.
The City of Destiny has things going for it — reasonable home prices and a well-educated workforce.
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But those pluses are wiped out by the one thing that companies need if Tacoma wants to meet its aspirations of becoming an up-and-coming tech city.
Office space.
CLASS A SPACE
Tech companies have similar wants: access to a tech-savvy workforce, public transit, a walkable and vibrant downtown and high-quality office space, said Joseph Williams, tech industry economic developmental director with the state Department of Commerce.
Companies — tech or otherwise — of any substantial size moving to Tacoma first would have to come up with a home, either by occupying existing office space or building their own headquarters.
As it stands now, Tacoma lacks what even medium-sized tech firms need — Class-A office space.
This top tier of office real estate is the “most prestigious buildings competing for premier office users with rents above average for the area,” according to Building Owners and Managers Association International. “Buildings have high-quality standard finishes, state-of-the-art systems, exceptional accessibility and a definite market presence.”
In downtown Tacoma, examples of Class A space include 1201 Pacific (formerly Wells Fargo Plaza), the State Farm building and Columbia Bank Center.
Class A space isn’t the same everywhere. In a large metro area such as Seattle, it usually would include buildings no more than 10 years old.
“Class A is the best buildings the market has to offer,” said John Bauder, a commercial broker with real estate firm CBRE. “In most cities, just because they have so much product they tend to think of Class A buildings as less than 10 years old.”
Though most Class A spaces in Tacoma are older than that, they are some of the nicer buildings in the city and command the highest rents, he said.
Right now, Tacoma has just over 1 million square feet of Class A space. Downtown Seattle has about 33.5 million square feet, according to CBRE.
Seattle companies have had an insatiable appetite for office space. In the last year, Bauder said, they gobbled up nearly 2 million square feet — twice Tacoma’s existing inventory.
With these numbers it’s easy to see why Seattle is the crane capital of the United States — and why developers can build office space there without having a tenant’s lease in hand.
The picture is different in Tacoma, where the last Class A space built here without city assistance was the 68,500-square-foot Umpqua Bank building in 2004.
And the most contiguous Class A office space now on the market in the city in any one building tops out at 24,000 square feet — in the 17-story Tacoma Financial Center at Broadway and South 13th Street, Bauder said.
A tech company with 2,000 employees — something about double the size of Seattle-based supercomputing company Cray — would require at least 250,000 square feet of Class A space, according to Williams of the state Commerce Department.
TACOMA’S SUPERBLOCK
As for adding Class A office space, if investors wanted to build a 250,000-plus-square-foot building, for instance, several property owners and developers would be ready to start immediately, said Dan Trimble of the Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County.
Office space in such a building would rent in Seattle and Bellevue for mid $40 to low $50 per square foot, Bauder said. A 250,000-square-foot building in Tacoma would require the same rent for it to be financially feasible, he said.
A company looking to build a new headquarters could consider the Haub superblock, the largest section of undeveloped land in Tacoma’s downtown core, at South 14th and A streets.
There, a developer could build as high as 400 feet — more than 60 feet higher than the city’s tallest building, 1201 Pacific. The structure could include from 404,000 square feet to 808,000 square feet, depending on whether a developer secures deals to increase density, said Jana Magoon, with the city’s development services department.
LANDING INVESTORS
But to build, developers need investors and their money. One place to look is overseas.
The market for overseas investors in Tacoma is starting to pick up steam, said Michael Fowler, a consultant for World Trade Center Tacoma’s China trade and investment program.
Their entry into the Class A office market is likely a matter of time, he said.
Tacoma might have even more credibility from overseas investors since the groundbreaking of the $85 million, 300-room Marriott hotel in August. The 22-story tower is scheduled to open in 2020, and is expected to draw 102 investors from China.
Fowler said the skyline-defining project could be a bellwether for things to come.
“The opportunity is doing what nobody else is doing,” he said. “The guy who does it first is really going to make the money.”
In the last decade, Seattle added more than 14 million square feet of office space, according to Commercial Cafe, a commercial real estate website. Part of the boom was thanks to foreign investors.
Some projects are funded partially by a federal program called EB-5. The investor receives a green card under the program when they invest in a project that creates jobs.
Other overseas companies are bringing their money to Tacoma to take advantage of what they see as a good investment opportunity.
The city has seen some interest in foreign investment, including Tacoma Town Center, the Tacoma Convention Center hotel and a 160-unit apartment development next to the main branch of the Tacoma Public Library.
“The wave (of foreign investors) is just coming here,” Fowler said of Tacoma. “It’s gone from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Bellevue to Seattle, and now people are noticing the opportunity down here.”
Another source of money can be investors taking advantage of tax breaks. But that idea hasn’t gained traction.
An attempt to bring a suite of tax breaks for developers of Class A space outside of King County died in the state Legislature earlier this year.
The bill would have exempted Class A office developments outside of King County from property taxes for a decade. Such a tax break could save a property owner millions of dollars over that time.
It also would have exempted high-class office construction from sales and use taxes, as long as construction jobs paid at least $18 per hour.
Had the legislation passed, such tax breaks still would not overcome the cost of building in Tacoma compared with the low rents current Class A space currently draws, Michael Hickey, principal of Neil Walter Co. told The News Tribune in February.
“Will it help close the gap? It helps close the gap,” he said then. “Will it close the gap? No.”
But for Tacoma to entice investors to raise an office building downtown, developers would need a signed, long-term lease from a significant tenant before any ceremonial shovelful of dirt was turned.
Class A space in the city currently draws nearly $28 per square foot according to a recent CBRE report, meaning it’s cheaper for a company to lease existing space than to build anew.
“It would probably be challenging to get a lender on board to do that (build a new high rise) on a speculative basis because of the risk,” Bauder said.
It’s not whether the space would be leased, Bauder said — he is confident that it would: “It’s how long it would take.”
TARGETING SATELLITES
Even though Tacoma doesn’t have the Class A space needed to land a whale like Amazon, it’s had some success in landing satellite offices for workers who don’t want to commute to King County.
Infoblox, the Santa Clara, California-based cybersecurity firm, last year acquired Tacoma-grown Internet Identity and decided to keep an office in the city.
The company is growing. It hired the 100th employee at its Tacoma location on Pacific Avenue this year. Its nearly 25,000 square feet in the Horizon Pacific Center is filled with cubicles and offices.
The company wants to continue expanding but can’t. The problem? A lack of space, said CEO Jesper Andersen, who recently visited Tacoma.
“We are already facing a space crunch,” he said from a sixth-floor office. “I could see us doubling by employees here,” perhaps within a couple of years.
One reason the company decided to keep the Tacoma office is because competition for talent in Silicon Valley, where Infoblox is headquartered, is fierce and expensive.
By contrast, Tacoma has far fewer competitors, Andersen said. Seattle and Redmond aren’t far away, but the commute is becoming unbearable for many, he noted.
“I live in Silicon Valley and the commute is among the worst in the world,” Andersen said. “The Seattle-Tacoma area is not far behind.”
Working in Tacoma instead of in King County makes for a much better commute, he said.
“If I was living in Tacoma, I would not want to sit in that parking lot (Interstate 5),” Andersen said. “My commute can be half an hour rather than two hours each way.”
TACOMA’S SELLING POINTS
If the office space was here, what could Tacoma pitch to make businesses come?
In addition to bearable commutes — as long as you aren’t driving north to Seattle — Tacoma has the talent to sustain a company such as Infoblox with new college graduates, Andersen said.
The University of Washington-Tacoma and its tech-savvy graduates was one reason the company kept its local office, Lars Harvey, formerly Infoblox Vice President, has said.
UWT graduated 243 undergraduates and 85 graduate students from its institute of technology in the 2015-16 school year, a number that grows with each passing year, spokesman John Burkhardt said.
Students also are earning degrees in the masters of cybersecurity and leadership.
Beyond looking to UWT, Infoblox recruits veterans from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a talent pool Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland says other tech companies could draw from.
“They are very talented men and woman who work in sophisticated technology fields,” she said. “Tacoma has some really unique assets compared to many cities around the county and in our region.”
Tech companies are considering more than price when looking for a secondary campus or a home base, said Ricardo Noguera, economic development director for the city.
“If you want to be in a downtown that’s vibrant and has a mix of uses, that you can walk to shops and use public transit, then you want to consider Tacoma,” Noguera said.
Also, most tech companies have a compelling interest in public transportation, Williams said.
“There has to be pretty good light rail or the city has to be walkable,” he said.
With Tacoma’s light rail crossing the city’s downtown — and its upcoming expansion to the Stadium District and the Hilltop — techies who live in Tacoma might not need to have a car at all.
“If a user is looking for a place where workers can walk out of the building and grab a sandwich, or go to the cleaners and go on light rail and go somewhere else, downtown Tacoma has that,” Nogeura said.
Companies looking for a secondary office might consider locales off the beaten path, Williams said.
“They go to weird cities. Sometimes they go to North Dakota or Dallas or Charlotte,” he said. There’s no reason Tacoma cannot be on that list.”
Staff writer Debbie Cockrell contributed to this report.
Information from The News Tribune archives was included in this story.
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The word ‘detoxification’ is almost becoming a household word.
We are better understanding why ‘detoxing’ is more important than ever. Those who are more sensitive than others to toxins have a particularly daunting task to face in this overly toxic modern world. From the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, to the products we put on our bodies and in our homes, exposes us to an overload of environmental toxins on a daily basis.
The number one way to reduce this load is to educate yourself as to what things cause this exposure and do your best to avoid it. As a daily practice toward the achievement of optimal health, it’s best to limit your exposure to toxins.
The second thing to do is to eat foods that strengthen your body’s detoxification pathways as well as boost your immune system. The research behind these facts is mounting.
T. Colin Campbell’s book covering the 27 year research project he lead that included over 880 million people is a perfect example of the amount of data being gathered supporting the fact that plant based foods help us achieve optimal health.
Some of the research being done shows that following 5 foods can help support liver detoxification by altering levels of liver enzymes involved in deactivating and clearing toxic compounds from your body.
With regards to cancer, this is a vital step in boosting the immune system and releasing cancer from your body.
Greens; Barley or Wheatgrass, Chard or Kale, Lambs Quarters or Dandelion
Chlorophyll is the compound that gives vegetables their green color, and it has many beneficial effects.
Chlorophyll may actually be able to bind cancer-causing chemicals (such as heterocyclic amines found in meat cooked at high temperature), thereby allowing these chemicals to be excreted by the body instead of being absorbed.
It’s best to include a green vegetable in at least two meals a day. Especially good food sources of chlorophyll are spinach, parsley, green beans and arugula, but all greens will have some chlorophyll.
Have greens raw in a salad or sauté in olive or coconut oil as a side, add to omelets stir-fry, or soups.
Cruciferous Vegetables; Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, and Cabbage
These powerhouse vegetables not only help promote liver detoxification, but also contain indole-3-carbinol, a compound that helps balance estrogen levels.
Cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, and Brussels sprouts.
For an added bonus, most cruciferous vegetables (the green ones) also contain chlorophyll!
Turmeric
This delicious spice contains a phytochemical called curcumin, which studies are showing, decreases inflammation and promotes liver detoxification.
Sprinkle on any meal, in any smoothie or juice. The taste is mild enough to not alter flavor unless too much is used.
Beets
The colorful pigments in beets may help support liver detoxification and also serve as potent antioxidants in addition to being nutrient-rich.
Serve shredded raw beets over a salad or toss plain with avocado oil, salt and pepper.
Be careful adding it to homemade juices as is high sugar content can feed cancer cells. Best to eat it whole or in a smoothie.
Garlic
In addition to garlic’s detoxifying properties, some studies suggest that populations with higher garlic intake have decreased risk for stomach and colorectal cancers. Garlic also may help protect against cardiovascular disease.
For maximum benefit, have some garlic daily.
Here is an Oasis favorite!
This recipe is simple and delightful.
Send us feedback and tell us what you think!
Eggless Egg Salad
1/2 cup filtered water
1/2 cup lemon juice (or simply remove the skin of 1 lemon and use the rest)
1 1/2 tsp turmeric
2 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 tsp Celtic salt
1 1/2 cups raw macadamia or cashew nuts or a combination (soak over night)
1/3 cup scallions, chopped
1/3 cup celery, chopped
1/3 cup red bell pepper, chopped
1. Place the first six ingredients in a high speed blender and blend until smooth. Add more water if necessary.
2. Place mixture in a bowl along with last 3 ingredients and mix well.
3. Serve on a bed of lettuce. Will last refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
At An Oasis of Healing, we combine the best of all available knowledge and resources to help you achieve optimal health!
To your health!
Team Oasis
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Updated 1:16 p.m. EDT on Oct. 31 to clarify that ExoAnalytic Solution was deemed capable of meeting Air Force requirements.
WASHINGTON — The Air Force awarded a contract Oct. 19 to Applied Defense Solutions, Inc., to provide space situational awareness services (SSA), part of the Pentagon’s growing interest in private capabilities that could augment the military’s own SSA.
Tom Kubancik, Applied Defense Solutions’ vice president of advanced programs, said the Columbia, Maryland-based company will work with teammates Lockheed Martin, Pacific Defense Solutions of Maui, Hawaii, and Kratos RT Logic of Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The companies will bring commercially sourced space situational awareness data into the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center, or JICSpOC, at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs to support experiments, exercises and contingency operations.
“ADS is acting as a data aggregator,” Kubancik said. “These are primarily common sense activities such as providing real time sensor status, scheduling and ordering without a man in the loop, automated delivery, and performance reporting.
“With the government stepping up in a big way to commercial data and services we see a great opportunity to help enable a healthy and competitive market landscape,” he added.
The contract is for one year, with two one-year options, Kubancik said. He declined to disclose the value of the award, which the Air Force had not posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website as of Oct. 31. When the Air Force began soliciting proposals nearly a year ago, it said the contact ultimately could be worth as much as $38.5 million.
The Air Force can move forward with the contract after the Government Accountability Office denied a protest from Analytical Graphics, Inc.
Pennsylvania-based AGI, one of the larger companies involved in SSA, protested the decision by the Air Force to earmark the contract for a small business set aside. But the GAO said the service properly evaluated whether small businesses could fulfill the requirements.
ADS will be providing “near real-time data of up to 200 objects … across all orbital regimes” and “shall detect, monitor, track, and provide a detailed time history for all observable maneuvers of a government-provided list of objects” using at least 10 sensors, half of which must be outside the continental U.S., according to the original request for information the Air Force issued in November 2015.
The Air Force, which currently uses data from the U.S. Space Surveillance Network to inform satellite-collision warnings it issues to friends and foe alike, says data that is generated from commercial and civilian sources could more easily be shared with allied nations and the private sector.
The GAO’s decision notes that ADS and California-based ExoAnalytic Solutions were both deemed capable of meeting athe Air Force’s requirements for the work. The two companies were invited in July to submit formal proposals. Analytic Graphics, however, was excluded on the grounds that it did not qualify as a small business under the terms of the competition.
“We want to congratulate ADS and Lockheed Martin on their win,” said Doug Hendrix, ExoAnalytic Solutions’ chief executive officer.
“We were somewhat disappointed with the outcome, but ExoAnalytic Solutions is still very much committed to delivering the best suite of space situational awareness services and data to the commercial space community and the U.S. government,” Hendrix said.
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The House could vote as early as the coming week to eliminate the Federal Communications Commission's 2016 broadband privacy rules.
The rules are already on the ropes after the Senate on Thursday passed a resolution to repeal them.
Republicans are using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) authority to dismantle the regulations and prohibit the FCC from passing anything similar in the future.
If passed and signed by President Trump, it would be only the fifth successful CRA resolution -- and the fourth during Trump's administration alone.
The FCC's privacy rules would have required internet service providers to obtain permission from consumers before using their "sensitive" data – such as browsing history, app usage and medical and financial information -- for advertising.
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The CRA resolution, introduced by by Sen. Jeff Flake Jeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Poll: 33% of Kentucky voters approve of McConnell Trump suggests Heller lost reelection bid because he was 'hostile' during 2016 presidential campaign MORE (R-Ariz.), passed the Senate 50 to 48 in a party-line vote, and is expected to sail through the House as well, as early as this upcoming week.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn Marsha BlackburnTrump’s new Syria timetable raises concern among key anti-ISIS allies Dem lawmaker invites Parkland survivor to attend State of the Union Bipartisan senators press Trump for strategy to protect Syrian Kurds MORE (R-Tenn.), the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, has offered a resolution to eliminate the privacy rules in the House.
The move to eliminate the rules has been widely condemned by Democrats and consumer and privacy advocates, who say that the public will be left vulnerable to intrusive advertisers.
Republicans and industry groups on the other hand say that the regulations were too onerous and costly, and subjected service providers like AT&T and Comcast to tougher rules than websites like Facebook and Google, which are free to collect user data for targeted ads.
All eyes will also be on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who will be doing a Q&A at a policy conference hosted by the NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association on Monday.
The new Republican chairman has been off to a fast start, working to dismantle a number of Obama-era initiatives and rules.
On Thursday, the FCC held its March open meeting, where Pai also took action on a number of new priorities.
The commission voted to crack down on robocalls from fraudulent numbers and to make it easier for corrections officials to find contraband phones in prisons.
Lawmakers will have a busy week ahead with several technology-focused hearings.
On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on efforts to secure federal networks from cyber attacks.
On Wednesday the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on closing the domestic skills gap for technical jobs.
The Committee will also hold a nomination hearing for Deputy Secretary of Transportation, Jeffrey Rosen.
On the House side, the Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing about self-driving cars on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, that same committee will take up a hearing on "next-generation 911" services. The hearing comes in the wake of AT&T's nationwide 911 outage earlier this month.
FCC officials revealed on Thursday that over 12,000 AT&T customers were unable to call 911 last week when the company experienced an outage last week.
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As described in a previous post, Draftsight is available for Linux. Unfortunately, after needing to install it on another drive, it currently only seems to be available for Fedora, Suse, or Mandriva on their download page. Fortunately, I still had the .deb file for Ubuntu stored, so was able to put it on my new SSD*.
Edit 2/9/3013: Dratsight Ubuntu is available directly from Dassault directly via this link. Apparently they have some broken scripts on their page. Thx trycatch1 (via reddit)!
I’m not sure why it’s currently not available directly from Dassault, but (See above). If necessary, here is a copy of the .deb Ubuntu installation file from Dropbox or your use. I installed it by right clicking on the file, and running it via the Ubuntu Software Center. Really painless, it just asked for a registration email address, and I think you have to register in 30 days.
Just download this .deb file, and the Ubuntu Software Center to take care of everything else.
Here’s a screenshot of Draftsight, running successfully on Ubuntu 12.04! You need to register eventually, but that’s pretty easy. It’s free software, but I didn’t see anywhere else to download it!
Update 2/5/2013: Between writing this article and publishing it, the Dassault link to download the Ubuntu Draftsight version went up, now it seems down again. So who maybe it’s available. You can check with them here. You can download it for Mac or Windows there too, or check out my Windows Draftsight review if you run Microsoft and are on the fence about this free piece of software.
*I wouldn’t have noticed this issue, but I just installed a new SSD instead of the hard drive that crashed pretty hard about a year ago. It seems like a good improvement, and I plan to do a write-up about some of the speed and performance differences. Fortunately, I still had the install package saved on my old HDD, so I swapped it out and synced it using Dropbox (here’s my little blurb on this service).
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We often hear from customers that cell phones have the same capabilities as two-way radios. With cell phones now being able to connect you to the internet, share pictures, and access email (among many other things) it is not surprising that they are seen as a descendant of two-way radios. This could not be farther from the truth. It is no secret that cell phones have come a long way in recent years, but what is widely unknown are the many uses of two-way radios that cell phones just can’t do.
The History of Two-Way Radios
Two-way radios date back to the late 1800s. In 1885, Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of electromagnetic waves and that these waves could be sent and received. Shortly thereafter, Nikola Tesla used this theory and created the first radio. To learn more about Hertz, visit (this article). To learn more about Tesla and his part in two-way radio history, visit (this link). Two-way radios made their first appearance on ocean ships and airplanes. Before this, pilots often had to land their planes to deliver important messages, and ships were relegated to using Morse code and carrier pigeons. Within a few decades, two-way radios were implemented in police cars, and used by the military in WWII. Today two-way radios are used in numerous public and government functions. From firefighters to police officers, and construction workers to miners, two-way radios go where cell phones simply can’t.
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Three Modes of Communication
When electromagnetic waves were first harnessed to serve as communication transmitters, they were sent in only one direction, which is referred to as simplex communication. Your car radio or home televisions are examples of this form of communication. Simplex communication is one-directional and often used in instances of emergency when a large population needs to receive information. Your television harnesses simplex communication to deliver you the news, and both your TV and radio will interrupt normal broadcasting to inform citizens of emergency situations. Today simplex communication is still used in daily life more than most people realize. Pagers, GPS services, baby monitors, garage door openers, video cameras, and printers all rely on simplex communication.
While advancements in technology with radios and harnessing electromagnetic waves continued, two new systems evolved: half-duplex and full-duplex communication. Half-duplex communication is when radio waves can be transmitted and received by the same tool, but signals can only move in one direction at a time. Most walkie-talkies work in this fashion. A button is held down by the current transmitter, while the receiver simply hears the message. After the message is received, the receiver can then send a message back. In contrast, a full-duplex system of communication allows for both transmitter and receiver to send messages at the same time. Examples of this are today’s home and cellular telephones. While people are speaking to one another using telephones, both speakers can talk and be heard at the same time. Two-way radios can also be designed to work on full-duplex mode, where the transmitter relays their message on one frequency, and the receiver of that message can also relay a message at the same time using a different frequency. (Read More)
Most people would follow the logic that when looking at the advancements in communication, full-duplex is better than half, and half is better than simple. In contrast, all three forms of communication have their own pros and cons. Simplex communication is used in technology that is all around us, and would have no added benefit if turned into half or full-duplex forms. Do we really need our garage door openers to transmit signals back to us? Or do we need to send radio signals to our GPS services? Most would say no. It would be a waste of time and money to create car radios that also send outgoing messages. On the other hand, our telephones would be of little value to us if we were only able to speak to our friend at the other end without them being able to respond. When we compare two-way radios to telephones, cell phones in particular, we see many advantages to using a two-way radio.
Emergency Situations: Group and Instant Information
When it comes to emergency personnel, one would be hard pressed to find individuals who believe that a cell phone would be of greater use to them than a two-way radio. There are two main reasons for this: group communication and instant messages. Picture a large house fire. Firefighters and other emergency workers arrive to the scene, already with their two-way radios set to the same channel. All messages sent out by each person are heard by every worker who is set to the designated frequency. No answering, no buttons to push, no stopping. In addition to all personnel being able to hear the same messages, they receive these messages instantly. While a paramedic is moving an injured person to a nearby ambulance, he hears on his radio that another person has been rescued and needs medical support. He can quickly prepare himself and his team for the next person, and do it within a matter of seconds. The lives of all workers, and the people they are trying to rescue, require immediate action and to the second information.
In addition to emergency personnel, every day citizens will find it difficult to use their cell phone during national emergencies. It has often been seen during these times that millions of people get on their phone trying to reach loved ones. Because of this massive deluge of callers, cell phone networks often do not work. Callers cannot get through, and messages are not sent or received.
Durability
In addition to ease of use, group and instant messaging and reliability in emergency situations, two-way radios are much more durable than today’s cell phones. As most of us know, a cell phone can be destroyed with one simple drop onto an asphalt or concrete surface. Two-way radios are much sturdier and able to withstand much more abuse than any cell phone on the market. In tough work environments, a cell phone might last a matter of months, whereas a two-way radio can withstand the conditions and last for years.
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Remote Locations
Even though most of us are used to having excellent cell phone coverage, there are many locations around the world where cell phone towers are absent. When in remote locations, two-way radios are far superior. Two-way radios do not need any towers to send signals. The radio waves are simply transmitted from radio to radio. Examples of these areas include remote forests, underground construction sites, and open ocean.
Wide Area
Today, two-way radio providers are creating larger and larger areas in which radios are able to transmit to one another. A common problem with two-way radios is that their range can be just a few miles. For many companies, and during emergency situations, this short distance is detrimental to operations. Towers and tall buildings equipped with radio transmission equipment are making it possible to send messages via two-way radios that are up to 300 miles away. Using this equipment, messages are received in less than one second, just as if the two-way radios were only feet apart. (Learn More)
Overall two-way radios and cell phones are wonderful pieces of technology that in and of themselves serve very different purposes. Each has had advancements that further their uses, and in many ways are on separate tracks. Cell phones are great for having conversations, playing games or browsing the web. Two-way radios are a means of instant communication in emergency situations, in remote locations and when cell phone towers are overwhelmed. For more information on two-way radios for your company or government sector, please check out our contact us page (HERE).
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r/India is a cesspool of ultra leftists and some pakistanis and racists masquerading as Indians. 75% of the web traffic of r/India is from outside the country. [Source] Also, there are a lot of confused 16 year olds who think that abusing the government is the new hip. You can see the kind of silly ‘meme’s’ that get thousand + upvotes and understand. Also, many of the randians could not clear IIT, and their jealousy is apparent in their posts abusing IITians and people posting on quora/facebook. (Basically they hate everything apart from their safespace - r/India and when these people post their biased opinion outside their safespace, they are bashed by everyone and downvoted to oblivion.)
All the mods of r/India are from outside India (4 of the main mods were doxxed in other subs).
If you post anything showing India in a positive light, you will either be banned or muted. Also, if you oppose the views of mods, you will get muted And banned. [Source]. If there is a news showing India in a bad light, you will see 100 different posts from different sources blaring the same story. If however, it is something positive, only one link is permitted and all others are deleted with the reason [Duplicate post]. Even this one post could be banned with this reason - [Unreputable source]
If you complain against the mods, it is auto ban. The mods did an AMA and it was funny as everyone bashed the mods so much that they immediately un-stickied the post and deleted some comments, and changed the default sort from ‘top’ to ‘Q&A’ so that users couldn’t see the popular opinion.
Some of the mods have mental issues (a certain dentist is one of them) and if you visit this sub once a day, with all the negativity and fake news, you are bound to become like him.
The best thing to do is to unsubscribe from that sub. Even better if you can post something positive (For example post about GDP growth or number of toilets, etc) and get banned from that sub.
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This just made me smile from ear to ear and just made my day.
He may be the most happy-infectious person on earth and he was only given a 10% chance to live. 6-year-old, Ethan Ciesiulka was born with special needs in Buffalo, NY, which doesn't make his journey into Children's Hospital of Buffalo any easier. In November during the Snowvember storm in Western New York, Ethan was admitted to the hospital for a minor respiratory infection. After complications, doctors were forced to place Ethan in a medically-induced coma for over two months which lead to major surgeries and a bowel perforation and shortened bowel syndrome. He's forced to have a colostomy bag, wear a face mask, and depend on a trach in his throat that helps him breathe.
Sounds rough, right? Especially for a kid?
His life has been dramatically changed but the child is the eternal optimist. At Woman + Children's Hospital of Buffalo local musician, Vinnie DeRosa sang Pharrell's smash hit 'Happy' that had Ethan dancing for the first time in over 150 days.
This. Is. Awesome.
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Official US Air Force / Flickr)” width=”637″ height=”424″ />F-35 aerial refuel. (Photo: Official US Air Force / Flickr)
We have just a week left to help Burlington, Vermont, kill the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the biggest taxpayer ripoff in human history. On October 7, 2013, the Burlington City Council will vote on a binding resolution that would block F-35 warplanes from being based at Burlington International Airport, which is owned by the city.
If the council votes to block the planes from being based in Burlington, that won’t kill the $1.5 trillion F-35 taxpayer ripoff by itself. But it will set a crucial precedent. It will prove that the F-35 is politically vulnerable. It will mark a historic defeat of pork-barrel military Keynesianism by citizen engagement. It would help change the national posture of Democrats on unnecessary military spending. It would help abolish the dogma that Democrats have to support unnecessary military spending when it takes place in their districts.
Such dogma is deeply ingrained. But there’s no intrinsic reason why it should be true. Democrats wouldn’t support federal spending for propaganda against birth control if it took place in their districts. Democrats wouldn’t support federal spending to promote homophobia if it took place in their districts. Why should Democrats support federal spending for the taxpayer-ripoff, Social Security-cutting, job-destroying F-35, just because it takes place in their districts?
A crucial fact about the Burlington fight over the F-35 is that it’s largely among Democrats. Republicans won’t decide whether Grandma’s Social Security check will be stolen by Lockheed Martin.
Vermont is deep blue: the Cook PVI of Vermont is D+16. There are 14 city councilors in Burlington. The partisan breakdown is seven Democrats; four Progressives; two independents; one Republican.
If the seven Democrats and four Progressives voted yes to bar the F-35 from Burlington, while both independents and the lone Republican voted no, the binding resolution would pass 11-3. Even if only a bare majority of Democrats voted yes, the resolution would still have eight votes out of 14.
So this fight about national priorities is a fight among Democrats. Because Democrats are supposed to favor Social Security, Medicare benefits, Head Start and food stamps over corporate welfare for Lockheed Martin, this should be a slam dunk. But it’s not. Vermont’s leading elected officials – Patrick Leahy, Bernie Sanders, and Peter Welch – support military Keynesianism in Vermont, even though military Keynesianism destroys American jobs.
People who have never seen the numbers often act surprised that military Keynesianism destroys American jobs. There’s a powerful unquestioned dogma that unnecessary military spending creates jobs.
But the dogma just isn’t true. Compared with every other form of government spending to stimulate the economy – including tax cuts to promote personal consumption – unnecessary military spending destroys jobs. It’s true that if you could borrow the money for increased military spending, and didn’t have to pay for it through tax increases or cuts elsewhere, and if you weren’t allowed to borrow money to do anything else, including cutting taxes, borrowing money for unnecessary military spending would beat doing nothing in terms of creating jobs.
But that fact that unnecessary military spending could create jobs if you could borrow the money for only that and nothing else is totally irrelevant now, because national borrowing is now capped by the Budget Control Act. Every unnecessary dollar we spend on the military now has to come from cutting domestic spending or raising taxes. Given the domestic spending that is likely to be cut and the taxes that are likely to be raised to pay for more unnecessary military spending, hitting the incomes of people in the lower 99% of the income distribution, that means that unnecessary military spending is going to destroy jobs.
These basic facts about the economic impact of unnecessary military spending were documented in a 2011 paper by University of Massachusetts economists Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, using the standard economic models that are, without controversy, used to estimate everything else. The numbers in Table 1, Page 5, imply that every time you move $1 billion from the domestic economy to the Pentagon budget, you destroy 3,900 American jobs. Moving $1.5 trillion from the domestic economy to the Pentagon budget, if you did it all at once, would destroy more than 5 million jobs.
Government spending on big objects is highly visible. If Congressman Joe can grab federal dollars to build a big military boondoggle in his district, his constituents will see people working on the big military boondoggle and may see it as credible when Congressman Joe claims that he is putting people to work.
But Congressman Joe is actually destroying jobs if the money for the military boondoggle comes from cutting Social Security benefits, raising the payroll tax, cutting the Earned Income Tax Credit or spending less on food stamps, because these things deliver dollars more efficiently into the hands of working families who will spend the money in America. Protecting Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit and food stamps won’t build a shiny military boondoggle. But it will put more people to work than a shiny military boondoggle.
Because Social Security is so efficient at putting money in the hands of working families who will spend it – no corporate middleman takes a huge cut – there’s no well-heeled corporate lobby to promote it. Lockheed Martin doesn’t get a cut if Grandma’s Social Security check is increased – 100 percent of the money goes straight to Grandma. But if the government buys warplanes it doesn’t need, Lockheed Martin makes a fortune. With its taxpayer-financed wealth, Lockheed Martin can spend money on Democratic politicians to keep its taxpayer-financed gravy train running.
Could citizen engagement with Democrats turn this around in Burlington? Citizen engagement with rank-and-file Democrats in Congress was decisive in blocking the U.S. bombing of Syria, even though the Democratic leadership in Congress was in lockstep support of the bombing. A key vehicle for citizen engagement with Democrats against the war was MoveOn.org.
What if MoveOn members around the country encouraged Democrats in Vermont to oppose the F-35? Let’s spread the MoveOn petition around and find out.
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The Arab League condemned Israel for its closure of the Temple Mount following a terror attack at the holy site.
Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement on Friday that Israel’s “banning Palestinians from praying” will only “inflame extremism and escalate tension” in the region.
He stressed “the high sensitivity of issues related to religious places,” and chastised Israel for handling the situation with “carelessness.”
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The statement made no mention of the cause of the temporary closure — a terror attack earlier in the day that claimed the lives of two Israeli police officers.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, an umbrella group of 57 nations, also lambasted the closure, calling it “a serious crime and a dangerous precedent.”
Following Friday’s attack, in which three Israeli-Arabs killed two Israeli Druze police officers near Lions Gate outside the Temple Mount complex, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the rare step of sealing the site amid security sweeps.
Israel closed the compound for the first time since 1969, saying it was carrying out security checks, including for further weaponry.
Netanyahu has reportedly instructed that the site be gradually reopened starting Sunday, and rejected allegations that he was seeking to change the status quo.
Jordan, which administers the site through the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, also called on Israel Friday to “reopen Al-Aqsa mosque and the Haram al-Sharif (compound) immediately,” in reference to the complex which houses the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock sanctuary.
“The Jordanian government opposes any harm against Muslims in carrying out their religious worship in their holy places, freely and with no obstacles,” a government statement said. It warned against any attempt “to alter the legal and historical status quo in Jerusalem.”
Israel rejected the demand and criticized Amman, with one unnamed official telling Israeli TV that “instead of condemning the attack, Jordan chose to attack Israel, which is protecting worshipers and maintaining freedom of worship in the place.
“Israel will not tolerate harm to the holy places and is maintaining the status quo there. It should be expected that all sides involved, including Jordan, exercise restraint and avoid fanning the flames.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke with Netanyahu following the attack. According to the PA’s official news agency Wafa, Abbas “expressed his strong rejection and condemnation of the incident,” while calling for Israel to reopen the site.
According to a report Friday, among the suspects detained in the attack was at least one Waqf official who police suspect may have aided the terrorists, all from the northern Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm.
The terrorists attacked the officers in an alleyway, coming from the direction of the Temple Mount and fled back there as other officers gave chase. The police then opened fire, shooting the terrorists dead inside the complex.
Reports throughout Friday said both the police officers were killed just outside the Temple Mount compound. However, Channel 2 news reported late Friday that the second policeman may have been killed by the assailants on the mount itself, after they had fled back.
It was not immediately known how the terrorists brought the weapons used in the attack — two Carlo-style submachine guns, a pistol and a knife — into the holy site. Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount complex go through a less rigorous security check than non-Muslim visitors who enter through the Mughrabi Bridge.
The UN and the EU denounced the attack. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the deadly incident could ignite further violence. The EU in a statement called it a “crime” and “a profanation of [the] holy site.”
Two officers, Haiel Sitawe, 30 and Kamil Shnaan, 22, both from Druze villages in northern Israel, were critically injured in the attack, later succumbing to their wounds. A third officer was injured by shrapnel.
The gunmen were named by the Shin Bet security agency as Muhammad Ahmed Muhammad Jabarin, 29, Muhammad Hamad Abdel Latif Jabarin, 19 and Muhammad Ahmed Mafdal Jabarin, 19 — all from the northern Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.
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Oh. Sorry. Except the thing looks like it has been flattened a few times, thick across the bridge and cleaving to the left. Born that way, huh?
And Komarov, banger of record on the Leafs roster, would certainly know whereof he speaks. This is a guy who clears his head at the morning skate by repeatedly throwing himself into the glass. “It’s how I wake up. I bitch-slap myself.”
Leo Komarov has been impressed. “I didn’t know he was a hitter until I saw his stuff out there. But look at the way he’s built. I first noticed it in the dressing room — he’s big. He’s going to be a good hitter because he’s strong.”
The Swedish 22-year-old, bidding for a job on the Maple Leafs blue line, proved himself as advertised the other night, making his second exhibition appearance against Buffalo. Stepped into Evan Rodrigues with a clean shoulder BOOM along the boards as the rookie forward attempted to penetrate the Toronto zone. Rodrigues immediately departed with an undisclosed injury. Mostly he got his brain pan rattled.
Looks the part, too, at a muscular and tattooed six-foot and 210 pounds; built like a fireplug.
A reasonable assumption, though, that Borgman would have a contact-distorted proboscis, the way he plays: Physical, hit-thumping. Hard-nosed.
It’s been a long time since Swedes were regarded as slick but soft. A roll of the eyes by Borgman. “Look at Kronwall.”
“I kind of liked it,” explains Borgman of his early enticement by the body-slamming dimension of hockey. “You learn when you’re little. The more you try it, the better you get at it.”
While Borgman received mixed reviews for his performance on Friday night at Ricoh Coliseum — got into some out-of-position trouble at both ends of the ice — the splattering of Rodrigues is already gaining eyeballs on YouTube, his first GIF on this side of the Atlantic. He’s opening a few eyes as well among hockey observers around the team for the ferocity he packs into his game. It’s a quality the skill-rich Leafs can use.
There’s a slopping dollop of Swedish presence on Toronto’s training camp slate. Top 2017 draft pick Timothy Liljegren, a teenager who will likely be returned to Sweden for another year; forwards Carl Grundstrom and Andreas Johnsson, the former having drawn quite a few words of praise from coach Mike Babcock; Marlies winger Tobias Lindberg; and the free agent defence tandem of Borgman and Calle Rosen, both who’d gone undrafted, both signed by Toronto in May.
Borgman was passed over despite being listed as the 36th-best skater out of Europe in the 2013 draft by Central Scouting. But he’s made huge strides recently, generating belated interest from NHL clubs. Following a commendable 2015-16 campaign with Vasteras IK in his country’s second-tier league, he matriculated to HV71 in the prime-time Swedish Hockey League, winning rookie-of-the-year laurels last season, then burnishing his bona fides with 10 points in 14 post-season games, a key component in his club emerging as league champion.
But naturally he pined for the NHL.
“It’s pretty easy to understand that. It’s the big league, so you want to be here.’’
Growing up in Stockholm, he’d watched Mats Sundin highlights as a kid. Borje Salming was, and remains, a national icon, though Borgman admits more beloved by his parents’ generation. “He’s still got a big profile over there. He’s on TV a lot.’’
Personally, he was most in thrall to Nicklas Lidstrom, almost speechlessly in awe when invited back to Lidstrom’s home by the hall of famer’s son, Adam, when they were teammates in Vasteras.
“The first time I met him and said ‘hi Nicklas,’ it was a pretty weird feeling. I mean, this was Nicklas Lidstrom, you know what he’s done. But whenever I’ve been at his house, he’s just like anybody’s dad. When I was signed (by Toronto), he congratulated me, said I was going to enjoy it.”
They’ve talked more about life in the NHL than hockey.
When Borgman came to Toronto with Rosen for a couple of weeks in the spring, he indulged in the “tourist” pursuits, the Hockey Hall of Fame high on his must-see list.
“It’s a big move to make here. You leave all your friends and family at home. But it’s been my dream my whole life, to get over here and get a chance to play in the National Hockey League.”
Now, in the midst of training camp, it’s all hockey-hockey-hockey and trying to make a good keeper impression. The transition demands immediate adjustments — to rink size and the breathtaking speed of the NHL game. “It’s a little difficult with some of the angles and stuff like this. It’s a (bigger) surface, so you don’t get as much time as at home. There you can skate more with the puck. Here you almost have to give it away right away, try to make fast plays instead of skating with the puck.’’
There are precious few spots open on this Leafs team. Defence, however, has been a weakness. The top two pairings — Morgan Rielly with veteran acquisition Ron Hainsey, Jake Gardiner with Nikita Zaitsev — appear set. Competition is fierce for the third pairing and a seventh depth D from among a group that includes Connor Carrick, Martin Marincin and don’t forget the prohibitively tough Roman Polak.
The Leafs like the two-way capabilities of Borgman and Rosen and their fortunes seem to have risen.
Borgman, a left-handed shot, has been yoked with 22-year-old Travis Dermott, an agile and physically strong second-rounder from 2015 with an edge who, after a season with the Marlies, might be ready to take the next step.
“We’re just going to keep watching these guys and play them as much as we can,” Babcock said Saturday, addressing the battle for the third pairing. “I’m looking at Carrick, I’m looking at Rosen, I’m looking at Dermott and Marincin and Borgman. I’m watching them all, but I’m watching them individually, not so much as a pair.
“Borgman is a physical guy who is a bigger man than most of our guys on the back. He is really evasive. We have to help him understand how we play, and his stick, but he does lots of really good things that we can teach easy. We can’t teach 227, or whatever he is.”
That’s 210, coach, as in poundage.
“He’s strong as an ox.”
In Swedish, that would be oxe.
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Barack Obama repeatedly suggested executive amnesty would not be legal or ethical.
Obama said passing executive amnesty “would not conform with my appropriate role as president.”
Last night Obama passed executive amnesty.
Here are the Top Ten Lies from his speech.
Conservative Review put together the Top 10 Lies from Barack Obama’s executive amnesty speech.
Lie #1: Every President has Taken Executive Action on Immigration: No other president has ever issued an amnesty of anywhere near this scope, created it out of thin air, or built it upon a prior executive action instead of a statute. And in the case of President Eisenhower, his executive action was to deport 80,000 illegal immigrants.
Lie #2: Illegal Immigrant Crossings are Down: Actually, this is the third straight year that border crossings have gone up, not to mention the entirely new wave from Central America.
Lie #3: It does not grant citizenship or the right to stay here permanently: Under the royal edict, the work permits can be renewed every three years, and most likely, they will be renewed at the same 99.5% acceptance rate as DACA applications. And once they get Social Security cards, they are going nowhere. So yes, this is permanent. And yes, they will be able to get green cards, which puts them on an automatic path to citizenship: “we are reducing the time that families are separated while obtaining their green cards. Undocumented immigrants who are immediate relatives of lawful permanent residents or sons or daughters of US citizens can apply to get a waiver if a visa is available.”
Lie #4: Only 5 Million: Make no mistake about it. Obama’s illegal amnesty will not just apply to 5 million individuals. It will apply by default to all 12-20 million illegals in the country as well as the millions more who will now come here to enjoy the permanent cessation of borders and sovereignty. Given the numerous options for people to become eligible for amnesty, ICE and CPB will be restricted from enforcing the law against anyone because each individual has to be afforded the opportunity to present themselves and apply for status. There is no way those who were here for less than 5 years will be deported and there’s no way the new people rushing the border and overstaying their visas will be repatriated.
Lie #5: Deport Felons: Obama claims he is going to focus on deporting felons. Yet, he has done the opposite. 36,000 convicted criminal aliens were released last year, 80,000 criminal aliens encountered by ICE weren’t even placed into deportation proceedings, 167,000 criminal aliens who were ordered deported are still at large, 341,000 criminal aliens released by ICE without deportation orders are known to be free and at large in the US. Again, this is cessation of deportations for everyone. They are leaving no illegal behind.
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - It's been hard times for the NYPD lately.
Officers across the city were vilified following the death of Staten Islander Eric Garner in police custody. The fact that the Rev. Al Sharpton was at the forefront of protests did nothing to keep the temperature down.
Cops again found themselves under fire after a grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Garner's chokehold death. The biggest question: How could a grand jury fail to indict when there was video of the actual incident on the Internet for all to see?
The Garner grand jury decision followed on the heels of a similar decision in Ferguson, Mo., where a grand jury declined to indict a white police office in the shooting death of a black youth. That led to riots and looting in Ferguson.
The Garner grand jury controversy sparked protests across the city, including one during which police officers were assaulted (or "allegedly" assaulted, in Mayor Bill de Blasio's infamous parlance).
Then came that terrible day in December when Police Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot to death as they sat in their patrol car. The assailant, who killed himself, was seeking a twisted revenge for civilians like Garner who had died at the hands of police.
A cold war ensued between de Blasio and the NYPD, and the department took its knocks from coast to coast. Other controversies got dredged up, including de Blasio's stop-and-frisk reforms. The mayor discussed advice he had given his bi-racial son, Dante, when dealing with the cops. NYPD rank-and-filers took it as a personal affront, and said it was proof that the mayor didn't have their backs.
The heat has subsided in recent weeks. NYPD unions dialed down the rhetoric. De Blasio did some outreach, away from the camera's glare.
And now we have another police video, one that gives us a valuable insight into what NYPD officers do every day, as part of the normal round of doing their jobs.
It involves some NYPD officers coming to the aid of a gunshot victim outside the Richmond Terrace Houses in New Brighton.
Police said the 37-year-old victim, who was shot in the right leg, was unconscious and unresponsive in the street when they arrived on the scene.
The person who filmed the video, identified only as Elliott, said that police were on the scene about 90 seconds after he heard the volley of shots ring out.
Then Sgt. Samuel Carrion began performing chest compressions on the victim while Police Officer Jessi D'Ambrosio elevated the victim's leg and applied pressure to the wound, the police said. Another officer signals an arriving ambulance with a flashlight.
Police Officer Daniel Slevin and Police Officer Andrew Zimmerman, who is also an EMT, were also part of the response.
After a minute or so, the officers step back and the EMT crew takes over.
The victim's condition was at first deemed as critical, but was soon upgraded to stable. Maybe the cops' quick actions had something to do with that.
Police afterward swarmed the area, knocking on doors in an effort to find the gunman.
Again, nothing spectacular. Just a couple of cops doing their job. But an important reminder of just what the men and women in blue do for the City of New York, day in, day out.
For all the criticism that the NYPD gets, rightly and wrongly, it's just as important to point it out when cops do the job right.
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We're all occasionally guilty of a little time-wasting (hey, distraction can be a good thing), but if your day keeps ending before half your work is done, you probably need to manage your time better. Here's how, with a simple time-tracking tool and just seven days, I reclaimed my work time and significantly decreased my stress level in the process.
Photo by Franco and mikie11/Shutterstock.
You probably waste more of your workday than you realise, whether it's goofing off watching YouTube videos, socialising on Facebook, or just spending too much time on the wrong tasks. I've struggled with this a bit myself, realising that once the day was over, I didn't get half the stuff done I wanted to — but I had no idea where all that time had gone. I realised that before I could fix the problem, I had to figure out where I was wasting all that time in the first place.
So, I turned to time tracking application RescueTime, which records how much time you spend in certain programs and on certain web sites, and found it kept me accountable to how I was spending my time. I could see how I was spending every minute of the day, and point out where I was wasting more time than I realised — whether it was a half hour on Reddit I didn't intend, or a half hour tweaking one paragraph in a post when other, more important work was calling. The great thing about RescueTime is that it requires barely any work to set up, and you can have a pretty efficient system churning in about a week, most of which you'll spend doing what you normally do — working. Here's how I did it, and how you too can get that wasted time back in just a week.
Day One: Set Up RescueTime
You can't start organising your time until you've had a day or two's worth of data, so the only thing you'll do on day one is install the program. It only takes a few minutes, after which you can get back to work.
Just head to RescueTime's website, hit the Get Started button, and choose your account type. A free account is fine for most people, though for a few bucks a month a pro account will get you extra features like web site blocking, alerts, and individual document tracking (RescueTime free will track individual web sites, but not individual documents within programs like Microsoft Word). We won't go too deeply into the pro features today, but know that a free account comes with a 14-day trial of the pro version, so you can give those features a shot in the meantime.
After you've chosen your account type, give it a username and password, and download the installer when prompted. The wizard will ask you for a few activities you'd categorize as "productive" and "distracting", but I found this was a bit too general and didn't mean much in the long run, so you can skip it — we'll come back to it later. Install RescueTime onto your machine, and start it up. It'll sit silently in your system tray, tracking your work until you turn it off. At any time, you can right-click on it and pause it for 15 minutes, pause it for 60 minutes, or pause it until tomorrow.
You probably don't want it running all day every day, so right-click on it and hit "Dashboard" to go to your RescueTime dashboard. Hit the Settings link in the upper right-hand corner, and go to the Monitoring tab. Here, you can tell it what days and times you want it to run. For example, I have it set to monitor me Monday through Friday from 7am to 5pm, since that's when I'm usually working. You can also set a few other miscellaneous settings here, if you prefer. I like to have all of the "Detailed Settings" checked so I get the most accurate results possible.
That's it! Save your settings and get back to work. Let it do its thing for a few days before you head back to the dashboard. You can pause it from the system tray when you go on your lunch breaks and whatnot, but other than that just leave it alone and let it do its job.
Day Two: Keep On Working
You could jump right into RescueTime on day two, but I like to have more than a day or half a day of data before I start messing with stuff. You're going to have to tweak a few things in your RescueTime dashboard once you accumulate data, and the more you've accumulated before you start tweaking, the less likely you'll have to go back and tweak it a second time later. Keep on doing what you do today, and come back on day three to start digging into RescueTime.
Day Three: Make Sense of Your Data
Now that you've got a few day's worth of data under your belt, it's time to make it actually mean something. Depending on your job, you might not have to make a few tweaks to RescueTime's settings to make sure it's accurate. Head into your RescueTime dashboard and take a quick look at the graphs and charts on the main page. You should see a few graphs and widgets that show you how you've spent your time this week. You can see more detailed versions of the graphs by clicking the tabs on the right-hand side of the screen, under "Time Reports". Here are some of the reports you can view:
Overview : This is a simple graph of your activity based on very general categories. RescueTime organizes your activities into two sets of categories: we'll call them tier one ("Communication" or "Entertainment") and tier two ("Instant Messaging" or "Video"). The Overview page only breaks down your activity by tier one categories, colour-coding them by their productivity level — blue for productive, red for distracting. We're going to tweak the productivity levels of each category in a bit, so don't worry if they're incorrect.
: This is a simple graph of your activity based on very general categories. RescueTime organizes your activities into two sets of categories: we'll call them tier one ("Communication" or "Entertainment") and tier two ("Instant Messaging" or "Video"). The Overview page only breaks down your activity by tier one categories, colour-coding them by their productivity level — blue for productive, red for distracting. We're going to tweak the productivity levels of each category in a bit, so don't worry if they're incorrect. Categories : This is a slightly more detailed version of the overview, separating the graph bars by tier two categories, like "Meetings", "News/Opinion", "Calendars", or "Social Networking". Again, each bar is colour-coded by that category's productivity level.
: This is a slightly more detailed version of the overview, separating the graph bars by tier two categories, like "Meetings", "News/Opinion", "Calendars", or "Social Networking". Again, each bar is colour-coded by that category's productivity level. Activities : This is the most useful section, showing you exactly what programs you use and web sites you visit, and how much time you spend on each. Once again, each is colour coded to show their supposed level of productivity.
: This is the most useful section, showing you exactly what programs you use and web sites you visit, and how much time you spend on each. Once again, each is colour coded to show their supposed level of productivity. Efficiency : This chart is just a single bar with your "efficiency" percentage on it — that is, the percentage of your time spent doing productive things. I generally ignore this, since it doesn't really "mean" anything — it's more important to see how you're actually spending your time rather than viewing an obscure measure of how "productive" you are.
: This chart is just a single bar with your "efficiency" percentage on it — that is, the percentage of your time spent doing productive things. I generally ignore this, since it doesn't really "mean" anything — it's more important to see how you're actually spending your time rather than viewing an obscure measure of how "productive" you are. Goals: This section lets you set goals for yourself, like "Spend less than 1 hour a day on distracting activities". You can add more complicated goals, though, too — like "spend less than 1.5 hours a day on graphic design" if, say, you're spending too much time on that portion of your work and not getting enough done in other areas.
From each report's page, you can view the graphs over different time periods, like by day, week, month, or year. Just click on a time period in the upper right-hand corner to change it. You can also look below the graph to see more detailed descriptions of each category or activity RescueTime has logged.
As you look at the Activities section, you'll probably notice that RescueTime is mislabeling a lot of your productive activities as distracting, or vice versa. For example, I found that a large portion of my time was spent in IM and chat, which makes sense — since that's how I communicate with most of my coworkers — but RescueTime kept reporting this as "distracting", which is really incorrect in the context of my job. To change this, hit the "Categorize Activities" link on the right side of the page. From here, you can change an activity's productivity level with the plus and minus signs on the right side of each row.
It also might have no idea what a specific application does. Previously mentioned site-specific browser Webrunner, for example, could be anything — in my case, it was our editor chat room. So, to tell RescueTime what this was, I had to change its category from the dropdown menu in the middle, in addition to its productivity level.
If you're noticing that you're tweaking a lot of stuff within one category — for example, if your job requires the use of social networking, but it's labelling all social networking sites as "distracting" — then you can tweak entire categories from the Settings menu. Hit Settings at the top of the page, then go to the Categories tab. From here you can add your own categories and change the productivity level of existing categories. You should see your graphs on the front page immediately reflect any changes you make here, so your TweetDeck, Facebook, and Google+ activities will all change without you having to edit them individually.
Once you've gone through and made some tweaks, you should notice that your graphs on the front page are a bit more indicative of how you're spending your day, how productive you're being, and where your weak points are. Take note of your most distracting tasks and see if it improves your workflow tomorrow — knowing where you waste your time is half the battle. Heck, I've found that the little RescueTime icon in the corner of my screen is motivation enough to stay off Facebook.
Days Four-Six: Keep Working; Tweak if Necessary
Once again, there's no reason to rush here. Keep working for the rest of the week as you normally would. If you want to check back in with your dashboard on day five or so, that's probably a good idea — to make sure you didn't miss any miscategorised items on day three — but overall, just keep on working. The key is to see what the patterns in your work are, and it's hard to do that after only a few days. We'll come back on the last day to see what we can extract from 7 days worth of data.
Day Seven: Tweak, Review and Reassess
Of course, all this will mean nothing if you don't review it from time to time. Once you've got your categories straight and your graphs are starting to look somewhat accurate, start reviewing your dashboard every few days. Generally, I'll look at it once or twice a week, though if I've had a day where I felt particularly unproductive, I'll pull it up at the end of the day to see where I went wrong. Just make sure you're going over it on a regular basis if you want it to be effective.
As you review, there are a few things you'll want to watch out for. Obviously, you want to keep distracting activities to a minimum. Sure, a bit of personal web browsing can keep you energised and productive, but if Facebook is one of the more visited sites on your graphs, then you might want to make a mental note of that and cut back on the Facebooking. If you need extra motivation, you can even use the pro version of RescueTime to block it, or alert you to when you've spent too much time on that page.
More important, though, are the deceptive time-wasting activities that disguise themselves as work. Perfectionism is just as bad for productivity as distractions are, and spending too much time on one task can waste your entire day before you even realise its gone. When you review your dashboard, look closely at the activities list and see if certain "productive" items are higher on the list than they should be. I noticed, for example, that Flickr was a bit too high on the list some days. On these days, I was spending so much time looking for the "perfect image" for one of my posts, to the point where I was wasting time. In just a few minutes, I could have had an image and moved on, but kept looking to see if there was something better. Again, the sentiment is nice, but perfectionism is a big detriment to productivity.
The whole point of this is to make you more aware of how you're spending your workday, and if you're wasting time on tasks that should only take a few minutes, that's important to know. That way, the next time you're knee-deep in an unimportant task you can snap yourself out of it and move onto something more worthwhile.
Note: Pay close attention to your RescueTime system tray icon. I usually keep mine visible at all times, by clicking "Customize" in the system tray and setting RescueTime's icon to "Show Icon and Notifications". That way you always know when it's running. If you're jumping away from the computer for a bit, pause it — otherwise it might log whatever program you've left open until it goes to sleep, and that can mess with your data.
We haven't delved into every single thing RescueTime can do, but this should get you started and help you see where you might be losing time during the day. It might seem a little intense to track your every move during the day, but in the end you may find (like I did) that you're more productive, more efficient, and that work is much less stressful. Have you ever used a time tracking application? Let us know what it did for you in the comments.
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The easiest way to let major internet providers violate net neutrality principles is not to repeal the work done under President Barack Obama. It's to just not enforce the rules at all.
That's already what Ajit Pai, the new chairman of the FCC, is doing.
The FCC has ended its inquires into three "zero rating" programs, in which wireless companies let consumers visit websites and stream content without counting against data caps.
AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon had each been the subject of in inquiry from the FCC into their zero-rating arrangements.
Zero rating deals can be popular among consumers, who might otherwise avoid streaming music or video for fear of eating into data plans. These agreements — which have rapidly become common between the biggest wireless companies and the biggest tech companies — have caused concern for net neutrality advocates who see them as a way for some companies to gain a major advantage over others.
"Today, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau is closing its investigation into wireless carriers' free-data offerings," Pai wrote in a statement. "These free-data plans have proven to be popular among consumers, particularly low-income Americans, and have enhanced competition in the wireless marketplace. Going forward, the Federal Communications Commission will not focus on denying Americans free data. Instead, we will concentrate on expanding broadband deployment and encouraging innovative service offerings."
These zero rating deals had come under fire from the previous FCC administration and its chairman, Tom Wheeler.
Wheeler stepped down shortly after the election of Donald Trump. Trump then appointed Pai as FCC chairman, a move widely seen as the first step toward weakening the net neutrality regulations that Wheeler had implemented.
Pai was among the most outspoken critics of the push to enact what become known as "strong net neutrality," in which the FCC designated broadband and wireless internet as a utility. The move allowed the regulator to more aggressively police how internet providers handled traffic on their networks. This change was heavily supported by net neutrality advocates as well as Obama, and strongly opposed by the major internet providers and conservative trade groups.
Wireless, and in particular zero rating, had been seen as one of the top issues for the FCC to confront in the wake of the move. The efforts by Wheeler represented the regulator's first major move to push back against questionable deals.
Now, with the FCC abandoning its inquiries, telecom companies have been given the green light to pursue zero rating deals.
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U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva in Tucson on March 18, 2016. (Photo: Arizona Daily Star)
U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva and two other Democratic members of Congress were arrested as they led immigration-related protests outside Trump Tower on Tuesday.
The eight-term Arizona Democrat has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants and its decision to end an executive action by former President Barack Obama that temporarily protected "dreamers" from removal proceedings.
At Trump Tower today with a whole lot of DREAMers, immigrants & Americans to say enough to Trump & criminalization of immigrant communities pic.twitter.com/c2arAw3Lf8 — Rep. Raúl Grijalva (@standwithraul) September 19, 2017
Grijalva, along with U.S. Reps. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., and Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., are expected to be released from New York City police custody later Tuesday. They were arrested as they blocked traffic in front of President Donald Trump's signature office building in midtown Manhattan and refused to leave when asked by police.
The arrest is believed to be Grijalva's third for civil disobedience. His earlier arrests dated to the Vietnam era and in 2013 in Washington, D.C., involving immigration rights.
Grijalva, whose district includes the Tucson area, is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Update: Raúl was taken into custody in front of Trump Tower for civil disobedience along with Rep. Gutierrez and Rep. Espaillat. pic.twitter.com/Mrh60C9aTT — Rep. Raúl Grijalva (@standwithraul) September 19, 2017
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Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2yaZmFu
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It’s one thing to know about SQL Injection, File Access Attacks, XSS, and other security hazards. And because you’re a great developer you’re regularly squashing vulnerabilities in your app. And yet every Ruby/Rails developer is relying on someone else’s code to do their work. And guess what? No matter how careful you are, no matter how much time you spend perfecting your code, someone else’s code is going to have a security bug (yours will too if you & I are being honest with each other!)
One of the questions that a few people have emailed me with now is: “How do I stay up to date on Ruby/Rails security?” It’s a great question! First because not enough developers care about security. Second because there are a lot of great tools out there to help protect your app. Let’s look at how you can stay up to date.
By the way feel free to email [email protected] if you have questions too!
Follow Relevant Mailing Lists
The first step in keeping your app up to date and protected is to keep up with the news. The two main sources of security news are the Ruby Security Mailing List and the Rails Security Mailing List. Both lists focus on security and will give you the best warning that an attack/fix is coming down the pipe.
Follow CVE Reports
Now the Ruby, and Rails mailing lists are great, but you have A LOT more dependencies in your app than that: nokogiri, rack, thin, puma, etc. . Unless there was a major issue in these gems they’re not going to make the Rails or Ruby mailing list, so you need to get that information from elsewhere!
One of the little know resources for keeping up with security vulnerabilities are CVE databases. There are a few different sites that offer this type of information and CVE Details is my favorite because it’s easy to consume the information.
Ruby and Rails both have dedicated pages, and you can create an RSS feed of those pages. And for the major gems in your site navigate to their pages and create an RSS feed for them as well!
Keep Code Updated
A simple way to keep your application up to date with the latest vulnerabilities is to not let your dependencies become outdated. To do this run bundle outdated on your codebase and update the gems that are out of date.
This is usually easier said than done because updating dependencies can cause your application to break in unexpected ways. The mitigation for that is keeping your tests up to date. If you can update a gem, run your test suite, and nothing breaks (assuming >85% coverage), then you’re likely in a good spot to roll that dependency upgrade into production after some QA.
Process
A piece of advice that I’ve read about security from Thomas Ptacek who founded Matasano, a security consultancy. His advice was:
Put someone on your team in charge of tracking your dependencies (C libraries, Ruby gems, Python easy_install thingies) and have a process by which you periodically check to make sure you’re capturing upstream security fixes. You should run your service aware of the fact that major vulnerabilities in third-party library code are often fixed without fanfare or advisories; when maintainers don’t know exactly who’s affected how, the whole announcement might happen in a git commit.
I like this advice because it’s easy. Start by having a security day with your team. Buy some pizza and beer and go through your Gemfile.lock querying the CVE Details database and reviewing the gem’s repository. Then triage any issues and schedule fixes.
Why get the whole team together vs one person? Personally I’m a fan of having the entire team involved in security since it creates a culture of good practices vs just a single developer.
Tooling
The above processes sound cumbersome and manual (which some of it is going to be), so there are tools that you can leverage to automate this type of work for you.
Bundler Audit is one of the nicer tools. It uses the rubysec advisory db to check for vulnerable gems in your Gemfile.lock file, along with gem source issues. And it’s as easy as running the bundle-audit command.
This is a nice gem because it takes the research leg out of your dependency updating. And bonus points since it can fit in nicely as a CI build step. There are also paid versions that audit gem files as well like: AppCanary, Hakiri, and Gemnasium.
Why Stay Updated With Security?
Wrapping up, I want to emphasize that it is important to keep dependencies up to date. Security is sometimes a tough effort to justify because when it’s working you’ll rarely notice.
And with your apps security it doesn’t pay to be complacent:
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Isn’t it interesting how whenever a state wants to uphold federal immigration laws, federal judges say they are preempted by the federal government from enforcing the law? Yet, whenever neo-confederate sanctuaries nullify immigration law, it is not only upheld, but the courts say the federal government is powerless to enforce the law of national sovereignty.
Amidst a slew of liberal judges imposing nationwide preliminary injunctions on DOJ’s policy of curtailing federal law enforcement grants to sanctuary cities, a San Francisco judge has now implemented a permanent block. Judge William H. Orrick issued a preliminary injunction back in April based on Trump’s political statements with no valid standing from the jurisdictions in question.
In a rich irony, Judge Orrick, an Obama donor, cited separation-of-powers doctrine as well as the Fifth and 10th Amendments in siding with sanctuary cities.
Yes, evidently according to liberal judges, states are reduced to rubble and can’t decide election law and district maps or uphold federal immigration law … but, suddenly, when they want to nullify something manifestly within the powers of the feds, they cite the 10th Amendment! And the irony of separation of powers is lost on him, because nobody is willing to apply that doctrine to the runaway judiciary.
Advocates of judicial supremacy always erroneously cite the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution as proof that states must abide by lawless decisions, but they are missing the proper interpretation of this clause: abiding by federal statute on national issues, such as immigration.
Dale Wilcox of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, which filed an amicus brief siding with the government in this case, observed the dangerous precedent set by this ruling.
“If the Supremacy Clause is irrelevant, the result will be a country where agenda-driven politicians are free to choose which federal laws they will obey and which they will defy. This sets a horrible precedent that should be reversed on appeal,” said Wilcox, in a comment to CR.
Imagine if a governor would declare that because he disagrees with some of our foreign wars, he will not deploy his state’s National Guard units to the theater of war. Would courts then say the feds are impotent and incapable of forcing them to comply?
In his April ruling, Judge Orrick contended that only Congress has the spending power and that “federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the President disapproves.”
Judge Orrick is willingly overlooking the laws on the books.
Last month, when a Chicago judge issued a similar order, I noted that the federalism and separation-of-powers arguments are completely bogus:
Cities like Chicago are taking active steps to undermine, thwart, and downright prohibit police from cooperating with ICE, as required by law (8 U.S.C. 1373). There is no practical way for the federal government to exercise this solemn responsibility if states are active accomplices to the assault on the national sovereignty. Moreover, 8 U.S.C. 1373 was enacted as part of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act to ensure that illegal aliens don’t benefit from public assistance. By definition, any grant program would benefit illegal aliens were it to be funneled equally to jurisdictions saturated with illegal aliens. Thus, the federal conditions on the executive order are not extraneous to the policy goals of the underlying grant as they would be if, say, the federal government cut off transportation funding to a state for implementing an undesirable social policy related to gender-neutral bathrooms. In this case, the law is designed to target the recipients of benefits, not a social behavior.
Also, as we explained in a previous sanctuary case, the federal government is only limited from using the spending power to coerce states into abiding by a power not within the province of the federal government, such as the drinking age. Immigration, on the other hand, much like deploying the military, is one of the most foundational federal powers.
It is truly disgusting how illegal aliens can get standing to sue for money that statute prohibits them from receiving, yet taxpayers can’t get standing to sue sanctuaries.
In a twist of cruel irony, in July, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the entire state a sanctuary state by barring law enforcement from cooperating with ICE detainers. The man who originally got standing and won that case, Sreynuon Lunn, was subsequently arrested for allegedly slapping a 65-year-old wheelchair-bound woman in the face and stealing $2,000 from her after she exited a bank.
A government of one man
Being a federal judge is an amazing job, especially if you don’t believe in law and the Constitution.
According to our prevailing, albeit erroneous, conception of the judiciary, a liberal judge can grant standing to a plaintiff on any political matter; unilaterally serve as a legislature or executive veto on broad-based policy; apply the ruling nationwide; overturn 200 years of precedent, the Constitution, and statute; and have the new decision be regarded as sacred precedent, and then never stand for reelection.
As James Madison wrote in Federalist 47, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Yet, the judges have even more power than all three branches combined; they have the power of an emperor. Think about it — even a law that passes the legislature and is signed into law and is upheld for 200 years is not permanent. Yet, the minute a liberal judge overturns our laws, history, and traditions, that is considered permanent precedent. They have the ability to engage in an ad hoc constitutional convention on a daily basis.
This is why I laugh at those who suggest an Article V convention will result in a liberal takeover or “runaway convention.” Why would they undergo the arduous process of winning a targeted amendment in 38 states when they can get a single Obama donor within one of the many permanent circuits they hold to change our most foundational laws and constitutional clauses?
Our entire political debate over the issues is meaningless when unelected judges could win 100 years’ worth of political battles overnight without firing a shot and without incurring any backlash from the electorate.
What is so disgraceful is that there is no sense of urgency in Congress to fix the courts and not a single bill has been advanced to remove immigration from the jurisdiction of lower courts. Instead, the focus is all amnesty all the time.
The stolen sovereignty has gotten so bad that now the federal government cannot even protect us from the worst criminal aliens. At some point, this is the fault of the other two branches, not the judiciary.
Judges have “neither force nor will” to back up their usurpations. It’s time for Trump to demand from Congress the force and will to cut off all funds to sanctuaries in the upcoming budget bill and put the lawless judges in their place. (For more from the author of “Rule by One Man: Judge Declares Sanctuary Cities Law of the Land” please click HERE)
Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.
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Smoke from the bursting of crackers has not only affected the air quality but also the lungs and hearts of many people in Delhi with a 15 percent rise in the number of patients visiting AIIMS due to cardiopulmonary problems. (Image: IE)
Smoke from the bursting of crackers has not only affected the air quality but also the lungs and hearts of many people in Delhi with a 15 percent rise in the number of patients visiting AIIMS due to cardiopulmonary problems. Night-long Diwali revelries left the capital city polluted this morning, as the air quality took a sharp plunge and entered the ‘severe’ zone, triggering health complications. At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), there was a rush of patients, complaining of heart and breathing problems, as compared to the average number of people visiting the facility before the festival, doctors said.
“There has been a 15 percent rise in the number of people visiting the AIIMS after Diwali for cardio-pulmonary problems. And, in the next 24-48 hours, more patients can be expected with such health issues,” AIIMS Director and noted pulmonologist Randeep Guleria said. At the Safdarjung Hospital too, many patients turned up, complaining of coughing and respiratory issues. At the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, where 15 cases of burn injuries were reported, four patients with breathing difficulty came to the casualty ward, the hospital authorities said.
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Not only have the Huskies proved they belong, they’ve proved they might be the top one-loss team in the country, writes columnist Matt Calkins.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Arizona is nice in December.
You can take in some rays, play 18 holes — maybe even jaunt to Sedona.
I’m just pointing this out to Huskies fans, because if they plan on traveling with their team for the College Football Playoff, they’re going to be headed for the Grand Canyon State.
Assuming the selection committee knows what it’s doing, of course.
How to watch the CFP selection show
The Huskies did more than just win on Friday — they dismantled the No. 9 team in the country. In Washington’s 41-10 win over Colorado, you half expected the refs to call for a running clock.
UW’s running backs plowed through the second-best defense in the Pac-12. UW’s secondary had three interceptions and held the Buffaloes to 81 yards passing. UW’s roster outclassed Colorado’s in every facet of the game.
After that performance, it appears impossible for the CFP committee to leave Washington out of the playoffs. It would render the process ridiculous if that were to happen.
But this isn’t a column arguing that the Huskies should merely make the playoffs — it’s arguing that they should be the No. 2 or 3 seed and play in the Fiesta Bowl.
“There are doubters and haters out there, but we talk with our pads,” Huskies linebacker Psalm Wooching said. “We showed them (doubters) that they were wrong. Obviously. We won the Pac-12 championship by a huge margin.”
Do you think you made a case that you should be a higher seed than four?
“Yes,” Wooching said.
Washington (12-1) has never appeared higher than fourth in the CFP rankings, and before Friday, that was OK. No. 2 Ohio State certainly had a tougher schedule than the Huskies, and while No. 3 Clemson’s résumé wasn’t as impressive as the Buckeyes’, you could still make a case for the Tigers to be ranked above UW.
But the narrative changed after that clobbering Friday. Even if Clemson wins the ACC championship game Saturday, Washington playing Alabama in Atlanta shouldn’t be a given.
Not only have the Huskies proved they belong, they’ve proved they might be the top one-loss team in the country.
We can start with a comparative score.
In Week 3, Michigan beat Colorado, 45-28, in Ann Arbor. The Huskies’ win over the Buffaloes was far more lopsided, and it came on a neutral field. Additionally, the Wolverines were trailing before Colorado quarterback Sefo Liufau left the game with an injury.
This is significant for two reasons. The first is that there is absolutely no argument you can make for Michigan (10-2) to leapfrog the Huskies in the rankings now. The second is that most people view Michigan as the equivalent to Ohio State, as last weeks’ double-overtime loss in Columbus would suggest.
In other words, Washington’s résumé suddenly looks just as strong, if not stronger than the Buckeyes’. The Huskies’ loss to USC is just as forgivable as OSU’s loss to Penn State — and the Huskies have a conference title that Ohio State does not have.
The committee has stated that “championships won” will be used as a tiebreaker when making a tough decision, and after Friday’s game, this is a tough decision indeed.
“We dominated everything you could have asked of us in every phase,” UW defensive lineman Elijah Qualls said. “I’m saying that because of how much respect I have for (Colorado). They’re not just some suckers off the block. They’re one of the toughest teams in the country.”
Plus, it’s not as though Clemson (11-1) has been definitively better than the Huskies. With wins over Auburn, Louisville and Florida State, the Tigers have beaten three teams in the CFP Top 25 (none in the top 10) and will have a chance to make it four against Virginia Tech. Washington? It has beaten three teams in the CFP Top 25 (Stanford, Colorado and Utah), got a victory against a top-10 team in Colorado, and destroyed Washington State last week when the Cougars were ranked 23rd.
Also, UW lost to 11th-ranked USC while Clemson fell to No. 25 Pittsburgh. If the Tigers don’t annihilate the Hokies on Saturday, Washington has a strong case to leapfrog them as well.
After Friday’s win, Huskies coach Chris Petersen was asked what he thinks his team showed the committee.
“I mean, we think we’ve got a heck of a team and we belong in there,” he said. “I think they’ll do what they should do, which is the right thing.”
The right thing isn’t just putting the Huskies in the playoffs. The right thing is having them play in the Arizona desert.
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Google’s Chromebook Pixel changed everything. Despite being stratospherically expensive, it proved once and for all that Chromebooks could be just as desirable – if not more so – than the finest high-end laptops. Now that Chrome OS is making inroads into big business, Dell has taken inspiration from Google’s efforts for its business-class Chromebook 13.
Dell Chromebook 13 7310: Design
Imagine for a moment that the Chromebook Pixel and one of Dell’s high-end Latitude laptops had a secret liaison – the product of that illicit relationship would surely be the Chromebook 13.
If it weren’t for the bright, unmistakeable Chrome logo on the lid, you’d never believe this was a Chromebook. It’s quite, quite lovely. Carbon fibre stretches across the lid, the base is armoured in silky-feeling charcoal-grey metal, and every corner rounds to a perfect curve. Make no mistake, this is every inch the subtly stylish business laptop, and it just so happens to run Chrome OS.
It’s no lightweight, though. Several of the Alphr team remarked on its heft after picking it up for the first time, and for good reason – at 1.62kg, it’s remarkably heavy compared to most £1,000 13.3in laptops. The build quality is superb, however. There’s barely a hint of give in the rock-solid base, and the carbon-fibre lid feels reassuringly tough and sturdy, too. If Dell’s goal was to combine hard-knock build quality with a dash of style, then it’s fair to say it’s hit the mark.
Dell Chromebook 13 7310: Keyboard and touchscreen
Sometimes, a keyboard just feels right – and this is one of those times. The Chromebook 13’s keyboard is a joy to work with, and as there’s no hint of bounce or flex in the base, the crisp action of the keys feels fantastic. Every keystroke leaves you in no doubt as to whether you’ve successfully pressed a key or not, and the combination of slightly shrunken keys and ample spacing makes it every bit as good as a desktop keyboard. My only complaint? The up and down cursor keys are just a touch cramped.
The buttonless touchpad is a delight. The glass feels wonderfully smooth under the finger; there's a lovely, solid click; and scrolling gestures are perfectly responsive. Combined with the touchscreen above, it makes for a Chromebook experience that is wonderfully slick and refined. Whether you instinctively prod the display or tap the touchpad, everything behaves consistently. It’s great.
Dell Chromebook 13 7310: Display and touchscreen
The Chromebook 13’s Full HD 13.3in touchscreen is a far cry from the Chromebook Pixel’s gloriously sharp 2,560 x 1,700 panel, but it’s still a big step upwards from most Chromebooks. Colours are pleasingly bright and saturated, and images and videos pop off the screen with plenty of punch and contrast.
Not everyone will love the touchscreen’s high-gloss finish, though, and the airgap between the display and the glass doesn’t help either, causing some annoying glare and reflections. Closer inspection reveals other issues, too. The modest maximum brightness of 227cd/m2 leaves the Dell struggling outdoors or under very bright lighting conditions. And while a measured contrast ratio of 857:1 is respectable, it’s nowhere near the best Windows devices I’ve seen. The range of colour isn’t quite up with the best, either: the Dell’s panel covered 90% of the sRGB gamut, which is good but not great.
Continues on page 2: Performance, battery life, connectivity and overall verdict
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'Cheque' out his honesty: Rickshaw driver turns down Rs 1.9 crore bonus
He could have been a billionaire overnight, but autorickshaw driver Raju Bharwad chose honesty over a cheque of Rs 1.9 crore sent in his name by Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation.
Bharwad was surprised to receive the cheque, which also had the name of his mother as the co-recipient.
The accompanying letter said the money was being given to them in lieu of 10 bigha land that they owned at Sanand near the Tata Nano plant.
Autorickshaw driver Raju Bharwad (above) returned a cheque of Rs 1.9 crore, saying his monthly income of Rs 6,000 was enough to sustain his family
At a time when complaints of violence, land-grabbing and forgery are on the rise in Sanand after the relocation of Tata Nano plant from West Bengal, Bharwad, who stays in Ahmedabad, rushed to the authorities to return the cheque.
"We did have 10 bigha land in that area but my father sold that plot for Rs 9 lakh 25 years ago. Today, several families are staying there," he said, adding that the ownership of the land was not transferred officially and had remained with Raju and his mother.
"If I had accepted the money, the authorities would have bulldozed the houses on that plot," Raju said.
He is now trying to ensure that the ownership of the land is transferred to the right owners.
"I earn about Rs 6,000 a month by driving an autorickshaw and have four bigha land," Raju said, adding that the money was sufficient.
Raju's honesty has surprised government officials, too, who said they have seen many disputes over land ownership but someone returning a cheque of such a big amount is unheard of.
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Pro-referendum supporters celebrate on the street after the closing of a polling station assigned by the Catalan government in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday evening, 1 Oct. 2017. Spanish riot police have smashed their way into polling stations to try to halt a disputed independence referendum and fired rubber bullets at protesters. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Catalonia’s regional government declared a landslide win for the “yes” side in a disputed referendum on independence from Spain that degenerated into mayhem Sunday, with more than 800 people injured as riot police attacked peaceful protesters and unarmed civilians trying to cast their ballots.
Catalonia has “won the right to become an independent state,” Catalan president Carles Puigdemont said after the polls closed, adding that he would keep his pledge to declare independence unilaterally if the “yes” side wins.
“Today the Spanish state wrote another shameful page in its history with Catalonia,” Puigdemont added, saying he would appeal to the European Union to look into alleged human rights violations during the vote.
Catalan regional government spokesman Jordi Turull told reporters early Monday that 90 percent of the 2.26 million Catalans who voted chose the “yes” side in favor of independence. He said nearly 8 percent of voters rejected independence and the rest of the ballots were blank or void. He said 15,000 votes were still being counted.
The region has 5.3 million registered voters, and Turull said the number of ballots didn’t include those confiscated by Spanish police during violent raids that aimed to stop the vote.
No one knows what will happen if Catalan officials follow through on their pledge to use the vote as a basis for declaring independence, a provocation that would possible remove from Spain one of its most prosperous regions, including the coastal city of Barcelona, the regional capital.
Hundreds of police armed with truncheons and rubber bullets were sent in from other regions to confiscate ballots and stop the voting, and amateur video showed some officers dragging people out of polling stations by the hair, throwing some down stairs, kicking them and pushing them to the ground. Anguished, frightened screams could be heard.
Police were acting on a judge’s orders to stop the referendum, which the Spanish government had declared illegal and unconstitutional — and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said going forward with the vote only served to sow divisions.
In a televised address after the majority of polls closed Sunday, he thanked the Spanish police, saying they had acted with “firmness and serenity” — comments sure to anger Catalans.
Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said the violence, while “unfortunate” and “unpleasant” was “proportionate.”
“If people insist in disregarding the law and doing something that has been consistently declared illegal and unconstitutional, law enforcement officers need to uphold the law,” Dastis told The Associated Press in an interview.
Catalans favoring a break with Spain have long wanted more than the limited autonomy they now have, arguing that they contribute far more than they receive from the central government, which controls key areas including taxes and infrastructure. The police aggression on Sunday was likely to only fuel the passion for independence, and the main separatist group urged the regional government to declare independence after the violent crackdown.
By day’s end, Catalan health services said 844 civilians had been treated in hospitals for injuries, including two in serious condition and another person who was being treated for an eye injury that fit the profile of having been hit by a rubber bullet. Thirty-three police officers were also injured.
At the Pau Claris School in Barcelona, amateur footage filmed by one voter showed police roughing up unarmed people standing in their way. Amateur video from other locations showed similar tactics, with people seen being hit, kicked and thrown around by police, including elderly people with their dogs, young girls and regular citizens of all stripes. Many tried to shield themselves from being smacked on the head.
There were also some signs of provocation by activists. In footage released by the Spanish Interior Ministry, some protesters were seen throwing objects and metal barriers at riot police.
Elisa Arouca, who was waiting to vote outside the Estel school in central Barcelona, reacted with anger when national police agents yanked her and other prospective voters out of the way, then smashed open the door and confiscated the ballot boxes.
She had been planning to vote in favor of keeping Catalonia part of Spain, but decided instead to join the march for independence. She moved to another polling station to try and cast her vote in favor of breaking away.
“I was always against independence, but what the Spanish state is doing is making me change my mind,” she said. “The national police and civil guard are treating us like criminals.”
There was no organized campaign for the “no” side in the vote, which most national political parties boycotted because it lacked legal guarantees and was suspended by the courts. Polls in recent years have shown roughly half of the 7.5 million residents of the region want to remain a part of Spain.
Mari Martinez, a 43-year-old waitress, said she didn’t vote. “I don’t lean toward independence, because we are part of Spain,” she said. “Today’s violence is not good for anybody. We never should have gotten to this point. Politicians haven’t done their job, and they should have reached an agreement a long time ago.”
A member of the Israeli parliament, sent to observe the vote, said she was shocked by the use of rubber bullets by Spanish police against crowds of unarmed voters.
“We did expect a normal democratic process,” said Ksenia Svetlova, part of a delegation of 33 observers invited by Catalan officials. “We knew that a lot of police were here but still, you know, there should be a respect for the will of the people to vote regardless of what you think of the referendum.”
Tensions were running so high that Barcelona played its soccer game against Las Palmas without fans after the team announced the match would be played behind closed doors shortly before kickoff, with thousands of soccer fans already outside the stadium. Barcelona wanted to postpone the game but said the Spanish league refused the request.
Manuel Condeminas, a 48-year-old IT manager who tried to block police from driving away with ballot boxes on Sunday, said police had kicked him and others before using their batons and firing the rubber bullets.
Elsewhere, civil guard officers, wearing helmets and carrying shields, used a hammer to break the glass of the front door and a lock cutter to break into the Sant Julia de Ramis sports center near the city of Girona that was being used as a polling station. A woman injured outside the building was wheeled away on a stretcher by paramedics.
Clashes broke out less than an hour after polls opened, and not long before Puigdemont, the Catalan regional president, was expected to turn up to vote at the sports center. Polling station workers reacted peacefully and broke out into songs and chants challenging the officers’ presence. Puigdemont was forced to vote in Cornella de Terri, near the northern city of Girona, his spokesman said.
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Associated Press writer Alex Oller contributed to this report from Barcelona, and Gregory Katz and Frank Griffiths contributed from London.
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Americans who do not turn out to vote on the voting day do have an excuse at the moment. They can easily reason being at work for not being able to vote for their favored candidate.
Election day is not a holiday in the United States at the moment. This means voters will have to plan the day and make time out of their busy working schedules. This means voters have a tough task to manage their work schedule, family duties, and commuting to figure out when they can vote.
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Election Day in the United States is the day set by law for the general elections of public officials. It occurs on the Tuesday right after the first Monday in November. This means that there is no available holiday on the election day.
According to WhyTuesday, Census data shows that the primary reason Americans don’t vote is that it’s inconvenient to do so. Between work, family responsibilities, and commuting traffic, it’s no wonder turnout is so low – and then those that do go vote before work, after work, or at lunch have to deal with long lines.
WhyTuesday also supports the idea that, if Election Day is made a federal holiday like Columbus Day, Presidents’ Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, or if the day of voting was scheduled on the weekend for convenience, it would give voters a day off and help to increase the public turn around for voting.
It seems like President Obama is also in favor of the notion. In a recent interview with The Daily Targum, Obama talked about several issues and went on to endorse the idea of having a federal holiday in election day, Slate reported.
Below is an excerpt of the full interview wherein they talk about the idea of election holiday.
THE TARGUM: You have pointed out many times that voter turnout in the United States is very low, especially compared to other developed nations. But in many other countries, the government automatically registers voters and holds elections on days that are weekend days or national holidays. Do you think it’s time for the U.S. to follow their lead?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely. We are the only advanced democracy that makes it deliberately difficult for people to vote. And some of it has to do with the nature of our history and our Constitution, where we allow individual states to determine their own processes for structuring elections within certain boundaries.
I think that we know some states like Oregon are doing a much better job at extending mail-in voting, increasing tools like online voting that are safe and secure, give people flexibility over a long period of time, (and) early voting. And so everything we can do to make sure that we’re increasing participation is something that we should promote and encourage. Our democracy is not going to function well when only half or a third of eligible voters are participating.
The single most dramatic political change that could occur in this country—and the best way for us to relieve the frustrations that people feel around the political process—would be if we had greater participation that was more reflective of the day-to-day concerns that people have.
Obama has always been in favor of increasing the public turn around for voting. He also suggested the idea of mandatory voting. The statement from Obama comes in liaison with the idea of Bernie Sanders, who introduced an election holiday bill in 2015,
Sanders believes that Democrats and progressives win when the voting turnout is high, while the republicans win when the voting turn around is low.
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Slate also reported that this notion is likely to be looked at with cold eyes by the Republicans.
It [Election Day] would make it easier for people with inflexible work schedules to vote, which means more working-class and lower-income voters, which means more votes for Democrats, Michael Grunwald of Slate wrote.
[Photo by Pool/Getty Images]
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CNN’s most whiny mouthpiece Jim Acosta took a swipe at President Trump on Twitter this morning while attempting to legitimize the news network’s output, but only succeeded in igniting a hilarious backlash.
Acosta suggested that the President should refrain from calling CNN ‘fake news’ in the midst of a potentially disastrous hurricane:
Not a good time to take shots at "fake news." Millions will be relying on national and local news outlets to stay safe during hurricane. — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 25, 2017
Yes, that’s correct, Acosta is so desperate for ratings that he attempted to politicize a weather event.
The response was swift, and it wasn’t pretty:
You're fake news. You'll blame the hurricane on the President. Watch CNN make political issue out of the hurricane — Mikexxxx (@Mikexxxx1) August 25, 2017
Seriously! Your using a dangerous hurricane to continue your war on the President.My God, use your twitter to report on the issue just once — brenda newman (@brendan13258690) August 25, 2017
Really? What an insult to intelligence to think people can't chose the difference between political lies and weather updates. — Jeri Miller (@miller_jeri) August 25, 2017
In other words, news outlets will use this opp to freak out the public, then they will say Trump didn't respond correctly. — Susan, One Each (@RestingBeeFace) August 25, 2017
I may be wrong, but I think most people can differentiate between "Trump is a literal Nazi" news and "Hurricane warning" news. https://t.co/3GRD60UQ3d — Ben P (@freedomanddogs) August 25, 2017
Thank goodness they didn't assign you to the story then https://t.co/yiA0s9q5C9 — DeplorableDonSurber (@donsurber) August 25, 2017
Then it really is a shame how CNN has ruined it's reputation for reporting the news accurately, isn't it? https://t.co/M5dbH4ns1b — BayAreaFrau (@bayareahausfrau) August 25, 2017
Bizarre defense of political #FakeNews from @Acosta… The weatherman has important things to say. https://t.co/jKG0kK1jDq — Dr. Milton Wolf (@MiltonWolfMD) August 25, 2017
It's all about all! Not a good time to whine Jim. Stop being #FakeNews and the shots will stop. — Mostly Right (@RightMostly) August 25, 2017
Watching Weather Channel, Mr. Fake News. — Mark Fuller (@markfuller86) August 25, 2017
Your lack of credibility is your own fault. For 8 yrs you fawned over, propped up & adored the Obama Admin. The contrast is glaring! — Emmy Wolfe (@emmywolfe) August 25, 2017
Like you guys are the only news? Should have done the job of true reporting. Honesty not lies. You are not worth it. — Cin (@slow_cmap) August 25, 2017
– Then try reporting instead of editorializing. Problem solved. — Larry Kiedrowski (@LKiedrowski) August 25, 2017
Putting out fake news too many times means folks won't trust you on such matters. #wolfcrying — Brain (@waddatwit) August 25, 2017
But nobody is relying on you — Mary Good (@butterfield1954) August 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/AhearnTim/status/901074240203522052
A few attempted to defend Acosta… poorly:
Jim is anything but fake. He's one of the best! He persists to get the full story. Blaming the media for a weather report is ridiculous. — Kelly Paulsen (@kellylwilson) August 25, 2017
It's amazing that those who cheer @realDonaldTrump's rants against MSM always turn to it when they need it. #WorstPresidentEver #RealNews — Lori Henry (@LoLo0817) August 25, 2017
When do we need msm? — Micah (@illMakeit) August 25, 2017
Well, maybe it's a good time to thin out the herd for those who believe it's "fake news" — Melynda (@mgms74) August 25, 2017
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Ujo Music, a platform that allows artists to own and control their creative content, plans on using blockchain technology in order to launch a full commercial music platform in early 2017.
According to a post by Musically, the company stated that the first version of the service will enable artists to register their music on the Ethereum blockchain with ease and make it available for fans through streaming or download.
“We are building a service that allows you to manage your artistic identity, your music and licensing on your own terms. We are starting small, with music, on-boarding eager, forward-looking artists to empower sustainable creativity,” the company explained, as reported by Musically.
Ujo worked with musician Imogen Heap in 2015 and released her track ‘Tiny Human’ using blockchain-based distribution. Fans were able to buy licences to download, stream, remix and sync the song, with their payments, automatically split between Heap and her collaborators on the track. The startup is also working with a number of labels in order to “re-digitize their catalogue for use in open-source blockchain systems”, at the same time encouraging developers to build apps on its platform.
Apart from Ujo Music, a number of music industry projects have turned to blockchain technology including Mycelia, launched by singer, songwriter, and producer Imogen Heap, and Dot Blockchain Music, launched by PledgeMusic founder Benji Rogers. Other projects include Blokur, Aurovine, Resonate, Peertracks, Stem and Bittunes that already has users in 70 countries.
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One of the more mysterious parts of vCenter Operations Manager (vCOps) from a new administrator’s perspective is exactly how you control access to the objects that any particular user can see within the interface. It’s an easier relationship to understand when using the vSphere Web Client, as the user can only view objects they were given permissions to view along with the Health status of that object in the Summary tab.
I see a fair bit of confusion from both discussions with folks that I work with and those on various forums on exactly how you translate permissions from vSphere to vCOps. Some discussions have given the (bad) advice of stating that a user must be a full vSphere Administrator to use vCOps – this is false.
Controlling vCOps Access
When working in an environment that uses vCOps, I typically start by cloning out the Read-only role into a new role called “Read-only with vCOps”.
I then edit the role to include the Global permissions of “vCenter Operations Manager User”.
Setting vCOps User Permission on the vCenter Object
Assign a user the new “Read-only with vCOps” role in the hierarchy at the vCenter object. I typically turn off propagation unless that user needs to see the entire infrastructure.
Make sure to then apply any additional permissions the user needs in other locations.
End Results
Here’s an example of the permissions I applied for Bob Sponge. I’ve assigned the “Read-only with vCOps” at the root vCenter Object with propagation disabled, and then again at the “Lab” cluster with propagation enabled.
When good ol’ Bob logs in, he cannot see the other cluster but can see the Lab cluster. Any objects that he does not have rights to will appear grey with a “Restricted” error as shown below.
Results of Applying vCOps User Permission Lower
Failure to apply the global “vCOps User” permission on the vCenter object will result in a “User not authorized” failure, as shown below for my Bob Sponge user.
vCenter Permissions Troubleshooting
I have run into cases where the user was assigned permissions in a variety of places, such as at the top level vCenter object, the Data Center, and the Cluster, but only changed to the “Read-only with vCOps” role at a single layer, such as at the Cluster. This caused some weird issues in that the user would get either a “user not authorized” or “incorrect user name/password” error when they tried to log in.
Here’s an example of this behavior. And yes, I’m typing in the password correctly 😉
My best advise would be to offer a consistent level of permissions across the user account from a vCOps perspective, especially for the top most layers of permissions. If an account has been granted rights to the vCenter object, ensure that it has vCOps User access.
LDAP Integration?
This is another area that seems to stump folks. All documentation that references creating user accounts and typing them into LDAP are referring to the “Custom UI” / Custom Dashboards feature of vCOps “Enterprise” edition (also found in the vCOps Advanced Suite license). The normal vCOps web interface, also known as the “vSphere UI”, has no settings for LDAP integration – it simply draws from the accounts configured in vCenter.
If you want to use LDAP accounts with the vSphere UI, just ensure that the accounts are given the permissions needed (as shown above in this guide) in the vCenter tree. For vSphere 5.1 users, this means incorporating that domain into your SSO service.
Looking for details on configuring SSO? Try my two part blog / video SSO series!
Thoughts
I hope this addresses some of the mystery around vCOps user permissions and clears up the FUD around needing to grant full Administrator access to an account for viewing vCOps. Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below!
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When you hear the term "reflection cottage," what comes to mind? A relaxing spa getaway? A peaceful place to unwind and de-stress? What about children held against their will in solitary confinement? At the El Pueblo Residential Treatment Center in Pueblo, Colorado, "reflection cottages" are an insidious attempt to disguise bare concrete rooms where teens are held for days and weeks in isolation.
El Pueblo is a facility ostensibly dedicated to helping at-risk youth, many of whom have developmental and mental disabilities. Yet despite existing state laws, court decisions, and widely-accepted standards for the treatment of troubled youth (not to mention basic human decency), El Pueblo routinely forces children into prolonged solitary confinement in these so-called "reflection cottages." In fact, according to children who have shared their experiences with the ACLU of Colorado, many children entering the "treatment" program spend at least two days in solitary, and children are often confined for much longer as punishment for minor infractions.
While in the "reflection cottages," children are not allowed to interact with other children, go outdoors, or receive any kind of schooling. Each child sleeps on a concrete slab and must ask for permission to leave the cottage to use the bathroom.
One teen was placed at El Pueblo when she was 16 after a long history of sexual and physical abuse. She reported that when she refused to take her diabetes medication, El Pueblo punished her by placing her in solitary confinement for over a month.
Of her time spent in the reflection cottage, she said "Nobody was there to help. I just kind of stood there all day and stared at a brick wall and thought about a time when I was ten and my dad punished me by locking me in my room when I told the truth – that my grandfather had sexually abused me."
The mother of another child, who was also confined for more than a month, told us she went to El Pueblo after her developmentally disabled son called her for help, saying "Mom, I'm gonna go crazy. I gotta get out of this room." Enforcing isolation to the fullest, the El Pueblo staff refused to let her see her son or the room where he was held.
Earlier this month, the ACLU of Colorado brought this appalling, unlawful practice to the attention of the Colorado Department of Human Services. The agency opened an investigation and announced last week that it has temporarily shut down the "reflection cottages," prohibiting their use while the investigation is ongoing. Additionally, the local school board responded to the ACLU's charges by voting to add conditions to their contract with El Pueblo barring the facility from placing school district children in solitary confinement.
While these are positive developments, we will not be satisfied until El Pueblo and all other such facilities across the country permanently discontinue the use of solitary confinement for children. Such stark isolation is not treatment – it is a heartless punishment that can cause irreparable harm to the mental and emotional well-being of children.
See also:
Stories of Solitary Confinement from Children at El Pueblo
ACLU of Colorado Demands DHS End Solitary Confinement of Children
ACLU of Colorado Commends Pueblo City Schools for Acting to Protect Children
More information on this case, including ACLU of Colorado's two letters to DHS
Learn more about solitary confinement and other civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
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Roasted okra is simple to prepare and delicious. Okra loses its characteristic sliminess when roasted and develops a sultry flavor. And it’s even easier to make in the air fryer.
My new favorite way to eat okra is so simple and easy that it almost can’t be called a recipe. All you have to do is wash the okra, put it in an oiled baking dish, sprinkle it with seasonings, and bake it. The beauty of this is that no cutting is involved, so you never come in contact with the dreaded slime!
The okra come out slightly crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and they’re perfect finger food (like green French fries, but don’t use ketchup). Even my husband, who says that okra is not his favorite vegetable, loved these. For me they’re the perfect side dish or light lunch–super-easy, fat-free, and delicious.
One thing to bear in mind when you’re buying okra is that the smaller the okra, the better. Larger okra is tougher, and while that toughness might cook out in a gumbo or soup, it doesn’t when the okra is roasted. I spend a lot of time at the local farm stand selecting the smallest pods of okra I can find.
Roasted Okra in the Air Fryer
Update 8/6/18: Since I posted this recipe in 2006, a lot has changed in my kitchen, and maybe yours. Since then, I’ve invested in not one but two air fryers, a small Phillips Viva and a Breville Smart Oven Air.
Recently, I made this recipe again using the air frying setting on the Breville Air. Instead of a baking dish, I put the okra directly in the Breville’s wire basket. I set the temperature to 425F, and air fried the okra for 14 minutes.
The main difference between baking and air frying in the Breville is that I did not have to stir the okra at all. The pods were evenly cooked in 14 minutes. I also did not have to oil the air fryer basket, which is stainless steel and fairly non-stick.
I highly recommend the air fryer for roasting okra. If you have a model other than the Breville, I suggest cooking them at 390-400F for 10-14 minutes or until they are beginning to brown.
Print 5 from 5 votes Add to Recipe BoxGo to Recipe Box Roasted Okra Roasted okra is the simplest way to prepare okra. Okra loses its characteristic sliminess when roasted or air fried and develops a sultry flavor. Prep Time 5 minutes Cook Time 15 minutes Total Time 20 minutes Servings 1 Author Susan Voisin Ingredients 1/2 pound small whole okra , per person
salt to taste
pepper to taste (or seasonings of choice)
olive oil spray (optional, if needed to prevent sticking) Instructions First, start with the smallest okra you can find. Larger okra tends to be woody, which wouldn't work in this recipe.
Wash the okra. Trim off any excess stems, but do not cut into the okra pod itself.
Preheat the oven to 450 F. Spray a shallow baking dish with olive oil, if necessary, add okra, and season to taste. Give the okra one quick (1/2 second) spray with olive oil and put them into the oven. Bake, stirring every 5 minutes, until okra is browned on all sides, about 15 minutes. Serve hot out of the oven. Air Fryer Instructions Preheat a standard air fryer to 390F or a Breville Air to 425F. Toss the freshly washed okra with seasoning and spread it in a single layer in the air fryer basket. Begin air frying, checking after about 7 minutes. Air fry until the okra is browning on all sides. Notes Air fried okra naturally has zero Smart Points under Weight Watchers Freestyle Program. You can also jazz these up with spice blends such as garam masala, curry powder, chili powder, Creole seasonings, or jerk seasonings--whatever your taste demands. But simple salt and pepper is amazingly good and allows the fresh flavor of the okra to shine through.Air fried okra naturally has zero Smart Points under Weight Watchers Freestyle Program. Nutrition Facts Roasted Okra Amount Per Serving (1 serving) Calories 70 Calories from Fat 2 % Daily Value* Total Fat 0.2g 0% Sodium 9mg 0% Total Carbohydrates 16g 5% Dietary Fiber 7g 28% Protein 5g 10% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Tried this recipe? Post a photo and mention @susanffvk or tag #fatfreevegan
If you like Indian food, be sure to check out Roasted Okra Masala. And if you’re a fan of fried okra, try my battered, oven-fried version.
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For the past few weeks, I’ve been staying in a guesthouse in Phnom Penh, writing every day in the restaurant downstairs, and trying to get the printed version of my book sorted. It’s a relaxing place, filled with backpackers all tapping away on their computers and updating their Facebook statuses as modern day travellers seem to do now.
It appears a lap-top, iPad, or at the very least a smart phone, are up there on the trusty travellers’ check list with sunscreen, sandals and mosquito repellent, which is very definitely needed in this bug-filled, thatched roof canteen.
Every hour a bus or a packed tuk tuk arrives with more tourists, some old, some young, some hauling monstrous backpacks that a small elephant would turn its trunk up to. Some are on their way north to Laos, some down to the coast to Sihanoukville, some are heading east to Vietnam, or west to Thailand, and some are just killing a day until their plane takes them back to their normal lives again, and the drudgery of a 9 to 5.
It’s like sitting at a crossroads watching the world go by. Other times, I feel like that bloke who lived in a French airport for six years. I feel mildly jealous of their energy and meticulously planned itineraries, but all most of them seem interested in is ticking off places they’ve been to.
None of them stay anywhere long enough to find out what a place is really like. How anyone can “see” India, Thailand, Cambodia and then Laos in two weeks – as celebrity chef Raymond Blanc just did before losing all his luggage and “Zen” on the flight home – is beyond me.
Occasional snatched trinkets of conversation drift over, but mostly I just tap away on my computer in the corner of the room, or offer the odd vehement curse as I try to resolve a formatting issue with my book.
Every day I eat the same two dishes – chicken porridge soup (bo bor sach moan) for breakfast/lunch, and prahok ling for supper (pic at top). The owner, a fellow prahok addict, cooked the latter for me one day after I told her I was learning how to cook Cambodian food, and I’ve been ordering it ever since.
I eat so much of it, she even calls me Prahok Ling now, and is threatening to make me up a T-shirt with “I Love Prahok” on the back (which admittedly is a lot more original than the ubiquitous “No Money, No Honey” T-shirts that wide-eyed men of a certain age wear over here). But I can’t stop myself – it really is splendid.
And whenever I think I’m being odd, or noses are wrinkled when my dish laden with prahok arrives, I just look round at the backpackers eating their cheeseburgers and garlic bread, and wonder what the hell is the point of travelling 6,000 miles to eat Western food every day?
Prahok ling is fish paste fried with hand-chopped pork, onion, garlic, egg, and chilli. And it’s so strong there are strict Government laws in place to ensure you only get a small saucer of the stuff, which you eat with boiled jasmine rice and a plate of raw vegetables to take the edge off the extremely pungent taste.
But I’ve always been into bold, salty flavours, and for me it’s absolutely delicious, and is something I’m definitely going to try to replicate when I get back to the UK.
Knowing that prahok will be as rare as rocking horse manure in Blighty, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this. I bought a couple of tins of anchovies the other day at a criminal price, chopped them up, and fried them in place of the prahok. It was pretty good, but not the same…
But anyway, this is how the guesthouse owner makes hers. She starts by hand-chopping about 500g of pork shoulder until it is minced but still has texture, and then thinly slices two onions, and chops four cloves of garlic, and two red bird eye chillies.
She heats a little oil in a wok and fries the pork for a few minutes until it is browned. She then removes it from the pan and sets it aside. She adds a little more oil to the wok, and then fries the onion for a couple of minutes until soft, and then throws in the garlic and chillies.
She cooks it for another few minutes before adding the pork and a spoonful or two of prahok, and some lime juice to taste. She then stir-fries the brownish mixture for 10 minutes, and sets it aside to cool. She keeps the mixture in a tub in the fridge ready for service.
When an order comes in (i.e. me), she heats a little oil in a wok, and then adds an egg. She stirs away furiously until the yolk has just cooked, and then adds about 100g of the pork and prahok mixture, and one or two whole red chillies, and fries it over a medium flame for three or four minutes (see pic above). She serves it on a saucer with a plate of raw cabbage, aubergines, onion, and cucumber, and a small mound of steamed rice.
I can’t recommend it highly enough. And if I ever do a Cambodian pop-up night when I get back to the UK, or run a barbecued cow (ko dut) street stall, or open a cafe doing the odd Khmer special, or indeed pursue any other of my half-baked plans that seem to change daily with the breeze blowing in from the Tonle Sap River, then prahok ling will definitely be on the menu.
Alex Watts
My new book on training to be a chef, including stints at Rick Stein’s and the Fat Duck, is available to buy on Amazon for Kindle, iPad, iPhone etc. CLICK HERE to buy for just £2.05, about the price of half a lager.
“It’s a bargain and an easy read, I didn’t want to put it down.” @Mcmoop
“Should be required reading for anyone who has ever dreamed of leaving the monotony of the 9 to 5 rat race to open their own restaurant.” Breil Bistro
“A great read and should be a set text if you’re considering a change of career, or God forbid, applying to Masterchef.” richard
Alex can also be found on Twitter
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Hillary Clinton encouraged supporters Monday to follow and stage an intervention for a protester who was removed by security after he interrupted her rally in Detroit.
"You know," Clinton said after the demonstrator was forcibly removed from her campaign event, "I do hope somebody follows that gentleman out and stages an intervention."
The demonstrator, an African-American man, was wearing a shirt featuring a likeness of Bill Clinton with the word "RAPE" printed across the front.
"He clearly has not been following this election very closely," Clinton said.
Monday's incident is the latest in a series of protests involving demonstrators interrupting Clinton and her surrogates to accuse the 42nd president of being a sexual predator.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was heckled at a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nev., last week by a protester shouting, "Bill Clinton is rapist!"
That demonstrator, a white man, also wore a shirt featuring a likeness of the former president with the word "RAPE" printed across the front.
"Bill Clinton is a rapist!" the man shouted repeatedly as he showed off his shirt to news cameras and Kaine's traveling press corps.
The former president himself was heckled last week in Canton, Ohio, by a woman holding a sign reading, "Bill Clinton is a rapist."
The woman shouted during his address Wednesday afternoon, "Bill Clinton has harmed women!"
"He has raped women!" she continued. "Bill Clinton is a rapist!"
Hillary Clinton's second run at the White House has been dogged by questions about her husband's sex scandals from when he was president and governor of Arkansas.
GOP nominee Donald Trump has sought to make the sex scandals a major story in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump held a press conference with four women, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathy Shelton, who announced their support for the GOP nominee and recounted their charges against the Clintons.
The former president has admitted in the past to engaging in extramarital affairs with multiple women, including former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and former model Gennifer Flowers.
He has also been accused of sexually assaulting more than one woman, including Broaddrick and Jones.
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EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger is to delay talks with Russia over the South Stream pipeline project, aimed at importing Russian gas via the Black Sea. His spokesperson said yesterday (10 March) that the EU executive had to take into account broader political developments, including the Crimea crisis.
"I won't accelerate talks about pipelines such as South Stream for the time being. They will be delayed," Oettinger told the German daily Die Welt.
Oettinger said that Europe was not facing a gas supply problem as a diplomatic solution is sought to Russian troops taking control of Crimea, following the collapse of Ukraine's government. Energy stocks are ample, and the winter is ending, taking the urgency out of heating requirements.
Russia has started building South Stream, which would bypass Ukraine via the Black Sea, to fulfill up to 15% of Europe's annual gas demand by 2018.
But the plan of state-controlled gas producer Gazprom has been frequently thrown into doubt over legal conflicts with the EU, which is seeking to wean itself off over-reliance on Russia for gas supplies.
The Commission has demanded that Russia aligns pipeline charges and access to its pipelines with the EU's internal unbundling laws and is also investigating Gazprom over allegations that it has priced its gas unfairly.
On 12 December 2013, Oettinger announced that the Commission will represent the seven countries embroiled in a legal dispute with Russia over the South Stream gas pipeline.
Six EU countries have signed inter-governmental agreements (IGAs) with Russia over South Stream – Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary and Slovenia. Serbia, which is part of the EU-backed Energy Community, also signed a similar bilateral deal (see background).
On 4 December, the Commission announced that all these bilateral agreements were in breach of EU law.
In order to secure its customer base in Europe, Russia has already bypassed Ukraine with the construction of the North Stream pipeline, which stretches under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany. The pipeline has been operating since 2011.
Oettinger also said he supported visa and banking sanctions against Russian decision-makers and wealthy individuals, but not large-scale economic measures.
"It would be wrong to question the economic ties that have been built over decades (with Russia)," he said. "They are important for the economy and jobs in Europe and Russia."
Asked to comment, Oettinger’s spokesperson Sabine Berger said the Commission’s still aimed to have the technical group discuss the legal and technical aspects.
“The Commission is interested in a solution. We’ve also been given the political mandate by member states to do so, but of course we need to take into account the broader developments as regards the overall relations between the EU and Russia. Commissioner Oettinger was referring to the political aspect,” Berger said.
Asked about the Gazprom antitrust probe, which has been ongoing since September 2012, Antoine Colombani, spokesperson of Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said that work was ongoing without any influence from the political developments surrounding Ukraine.
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The Fisher Building is 20-story, 275-foot-tall (84 m) neo-Gothic landmark building located at 343 South Dearborn Street in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago. Commissioned by paper magnate Lucius Fisher, the original building was completed in 1896 by D.H. Burnham & Company with an addition later added in 1907.
At the time of its completion, the building was one of two buildings in Chicago that was 18 stories tall, the other being the Masonic Building. To this day, the Fisher Building is the oldest 18 story building in Chicago that has not been demolished. The Masonic Temple, while taller and older, was demolished in 1939.
The Fisher Building features terra-cotta carvings of various aquatic creatures including fish and crabs. In addition, there are eagles, dragons and mythical creatures depicted on the facade as well.
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Reporting from Berlin, Sam Glover examines the rise of far-right movements and parties such as Pegida and the AfD across Germany.
Today, Berlin is a vibrant and diverse city, much like London. Its creative scene is fizzing and popping, full of young artists, musicians, and poets from across Europe (and the world) relocating to this hip town. Stickers for socialist marches are plastered across telephone boxes, and it is hard to go anywhere without seeing posters in support of refugees. Especially in trendy areas such as Friedrichshain, which have large immigrant and student populations, the far-left is making its mark. As you walk from vintage shop to vegan café, you will be hard-pressed not to bump into a street merchant selling traditional soviet-style hats, hammer and sickle included. It is difficult to believe that this is in the area of Berlin that was ravaged by Soviet control, and whose people, until 1989, were captive in their own city.
It is not, however, the prominence of the far-left that is making the biggest impact in German politics. In spite of the fact that Angela Merkel is a centre-right politician, her support for refugees from Syria has led to serious problems with an ever-growing far-right movement. The rise of Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) is especially terrifying given Germany’s history with religious persecution. The tropes and racist stereotypes that were trotted out against Jews in the prelude to the Holocaust bear striking similarity to the way that Pegida’s members talk about Muslims. In a short New York Times documentary about the Pegida movement, one protestor is clear with her beliefs about Muslim immigration into Germany: “[Muslims] will take over Europe, and even the whole world. That’s the plan of all Muslim people.”
In London, when you (very occasionally) see a graffitied swastika, you usually don’t think all that much of it, but in Berlin, the graffiti is rather more ominous. In February 2016, Mein Kampf once again became a bestseller after its recent decriminalisation, and although many of its readers will merely be reading out of historical interest, there are some Germans who are still sympathetic to Hitler’s ideas. At German football matches, filled with working class fans, is it still not unheard of to hear anti-Semitic chants, one of the more popular ones including the line, “We’ll build an U-Bahn (underground train) from Jerusalem to Auschwitz.”
This kind of explicit racism is rare, but it would be a mistake to think that Pegida is a fringe movement. Its marches often attract over 10,000 protesters, with some of the marches in Dresden having as many as 25,000. Pegida has expanded across Europe, and its British chapter is led by Tommy Robinson, who founded the English Defence League (EDL). In Berlin, most people have a certain degree of embarrassment about anything to do with national pride, but on Pegida marches, overt jingoism and nationalism is encouraged.
Pegida is not the only far-right force in German politics. The Alternative for Deutschland, or AfD, attempts to promote a right-wing agenda through parliamentary means, rather than protests on the streets. Like similar parties across Europe, the AfD are purposefully provocative and court controversy in order to remain in the headlines. Their leader famously commented that German police should shoot at refugees entering the country illegally. The party has achieved moderate success, especially in the European elections, where they won seven Members of the European Parliament. What’s more, exit polls from yesterday’s state elections predict sweeping gains for the AfD, with the party entering state parliaments in three regions for the first time. They sit in the European Conservatives and Reformist grouping in the European Parliament, the same grouping as the British Conservative Party.
It is easy to convince yourself that far-right parties are not a problem, and that they have no chance of ever achieving real political power. However, if the current refugee crisis was coupled with an economic crisis, which many economists fear is looming in the near-future, it is easy to see how the far-right across Europe could surge, and Germany would perhaps be the Western European country in which this is most likely. Right-wing demagogues lie in wait, eager to blame any economic downturn on Muslims and refugees. From Geert Wilders in the Netherlands to the Swedish Democrats in Sweden to Marine Le Pen in France, and finally to Pegida and the AfD in Germany, there is lots of grassroots support and people power for hate-filled populism. Although most Germans will “never forget” the Holocaust, it is not so certain that they will remember the circumstances that fostered the rise of the Nazi Party, and if the battle does not begin soon against these far-right movements, the majority of Germans might not be prepared for the ramping up of anti-Muslim rhetoric and how easily people can be swayed towards hate in times of desperation.
To learn just how easily radical parties exert political influence, Germany need only look to Greece, where the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party made significant steps towards taking power, and the far-left Syriza are currently in government. During economic turmoil, people turn to radical politicians, of the left and the right. Germany, and other European countries, must be ready to fight against this rhetoric before it is too late.
If you like this, why not try:
What happened in Cologne is the latest symptom of a Europe that sorely needs to reassert its basic cultural values.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Travis Kalanick, chief executive officer of Uber Technologies Inc, failed on Thursday to win the dismissal of an antitrust lawsuit accusing him of scheming to drive up prices for passengers who use the popular ride-sharing service.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick speaks to students during an interaction at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus in Mumbai, India, in this January 19, 2016 file photo. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said Kalanick must face claims he conspired with drivers to ensure they charge prices set by an algorithm in the Uber smartphone app to hail rides, including “surge pricing” during periods of peak demand.
Passengers led by Spencer Meyer of Connecticut claimed that drivers conspired with Kalanick to charge fares set by the algorithm, with an understanding that other Uber drivers would do the same, even if they might fare better acting on their own.
Rakoff said the plaintiffs “plausibly alleged a conspiracy” to fix prices in this manner, and could also pursue claims that Kalanick’s actions drove out rivals such as Sidecar, enabling Uber to command 80 percent of mobile-app generated ride shares.
“The advancement of technological means for the orchestration of large-scale price-fixing conspiracies need not leave antitrust law behind,” the judge wrote.
Meyer’s lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of Uber passengers nationwide who have used the app and a subclass of passengers subjected to surge pricing.
Uber takes a share of the revenue that drivers generate.
“We disagree with this ruling,” Uber said in response to a request for comment on behalf of Kalanick and the San Francisco-based company. “These claims are unwarranted and have no basis in fact.”
Andrew Schmidt, a lawyer for Meyer, welcomed the decision.
“In creating Uber, Kalanick organized price-fixing among independent drivers who should be competing with one another on price,” he said. “Today’s decision confirms that apps are not exempt from the antitrust laws.”
Uber was not named as a defendant, despite being valued at well over $50 billion in recent funding rounds.
Rakoff said in a footnote that Uber passengers are subject to “user agreements” requiring them to resolve various disputes through arbitration.
He said that while claims in the lawsuit against Kalanick were “intimately founded in and intertwined with” the user agreements, Kalanick had not sought to compel arbitration, and passengers were not barred from suing him in federal court.
The case is Meyer v Kalanick, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-09796.
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Survivor host Jeff Probst and some of the show’s contestants that competed in the Philippines are now doing their part to help raise money for the country that was hammered by Typhoon Haiyan. Probst and former players like Lisa Whelchel, John Cochran, Malcolm Freberg, Phillip Sheppard, and Jonathan Penner will be participating in a CBS television stations – Red Cross fundraiser for victims of Typhoon Haiyan that will be taking place on CBS-owned TV stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento on Wednesday, Nov. 13.
Probst and the contestants will be speaking and answering phones to raise money for the American Red Cross relief effort. In addition, Probst is recording a Red Cross PSA for victims of Typhoon Haiyan that will air immediately after Wednesday’s episode of Survivor and direct people to the Red Cross to donate.
Survivor is currently airing the third out of four seasons that were shot consecutively in the Philippines. Fall 2012’s Survivor: Philippines and spring 2013’s Survivor: Caramoan — Fans vs. Favorites were both shot in Caramoan, while the current Blood vs. Water installment as well as next spring’s season (which was filmed over the summer) were shot in the Cagayan province.
This is not the first time the show has filmed in a country that would soon after experience a tragedy. In 2009, just weeks after Survivor finished filming the Heroes vs. Villains season in Samoa, a deadly tsunami ravaged the island of Upolo where the show was set, completely destroying structures such as the area where contestants stayed before the game began and after they were voted out. The show later returned to Samoa in 2011 to film the South Pacific and One World seasons. (Survivor also was in the middle of filming the Survivor: Fiji season in 2006 when a military coup broke out in the country.) In Los Angeles, the on-air fundraiser will take place from 6am-6:30pm. And if you’d like to donate to the relief effort, please click here.
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Two months after MicroFlo 0.1.0, another important milestone has been reached. This release brings a basic visual programming environment and initial support for all major desktop platforms (Win/OSX/Linux). The project is still very much experimental, but it is now starting to demonstrate potential advantages over traditional Arduino programming.
Official release notes and announcement here.
The start of something visual
The IDE shown is NoFlo UI, a visual programming environment which can also be used to program JavaScript for the browser and Node.js using the NoFlo runtime. This project is developed by Henri Bergius and rest of the NoFlo team. For more details about the NoFlo IDE project, check their latest update and follow their Kickstarter project.
Talk
At Piksel 2013 in Bergen, I also presented MicroFlo for the first time, to an audience of mostly new media and experimental sound artists. The talk goes into detail about the motivations behind the project, from the quite practical to the more philosophical considerations. Not my most coherent talk, but it gives some insight.
Link
Next
For the next milestone, MicroFlo 0.3, several things are already planned. Focus is mostly on practical improvements to the system, but I also hope to complete prototype support for “heterogeneous FBP”: Allowing to program systems consisting of both host computer and microcontroller programs in a unified manner using NoFlo+MicroFlo.
I am also planning a MicroFlo workshop at Bitraf some time in December and to demo the project at Maker Faire Oslo.
In the meantime, you can get started with MicroFlo for Arduino by following this tutorial. Feedback and contributions welcomed!
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Bengaluru, Oct 15 (PTI) : Concerned over reaching school late due to traffic snarls caused by an under-construction flyover, an eight-year-old boy here wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose office directed the concerned department to look into the issue.
"The under-construction flyover is causing problems for the people in surrounding area and especially I reach school late. I decided to write a letter to the Prime Minister after my grandfather advised me to do so," the boy, Abhinav, told reporters.
The work on the flyover, which falls on the way to his school in Yeshwanthpur, causes delays due to traffic jams, said Abhinav, who stays in Doddabommasandra.
It takes him 45 minutes to travel a three km distance from home to school.
Asked why he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister rather than the municipal body, the boy said, "The Prime Minister can solve any problem and hence I wrote to him."
To his delight, after two weeks, Abhinav received a response from the Prime Minister's Office saying that the concerned department had been asked to look into the matter.
Abhinav is now hopeful that the problem would be solved soon and that he would not get late to the school.
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It’s something you hear a lot. Fans and critics alike will all say that socialism hasn’t really worked yet but it looks good on paper and thus one day could work with the right people in charge. This is a lie and a scary one at that. The notion that a society run entirely through the State without regard for individual liberties is a good idea is absurd. There is no socialist utopia, there is only that which socialism brings: the most suffering and impoverished societies the world has ever known.
We don’t even have to look far back in history to find evidence of the failure of socialism. One only has to look to Venezuela today to see the utter failures of socialist policies. In 1998 under Hugo Chavez and the “Bolivarian Revolution,” the United Socialist Party of Venezuela gained control of the country and almost immediately the negative effects could be felt.
According to the index of economic freedom, Venezuela ranks as one of the worst and least free economies in the world. Despite having more oil then they know what to do with, they are as poor as can be. There is no economic diversity and the government has control over most industries. Their government centrally plans and dictates markets in order to guarantee food and health services to every citizen, and that has resulted in shortages and bread lines the likes of which Bernie Sanders would be proud of.
The government spends billions of dollars they don’t have in order to keep themselves rich. This has led to one of the largest devaluations of currency in the world today. As of December 2015 the inflation rate for their currency hit an all-time high of 180%. Their currency has such little value that people have started counting money by weight as opposed to value.
People hardly have any access to basic needs. The price of a basic food basket has risen 615% since 2014. Smuggling has become a routine practice, and the government spends billions of dollars trying to stop it. Of course, this isn’t the case for the leaders of the country who continue to live comfortable lives because they are the only ones with any power in their system and always have the threat of military violence to keep dissenters at bay, like when they imprisoned a leader of an opposition party after violence broke out at a rally.
Don’t want to take my word for it? Fine. Then just take a look at the number of Venezuelans who have left Venezuela since socialism became the way of life there. Between 1998 and 2013 an estimated 1.5 million Venezuelans (between 4-6% of the population) have fled their country. Their reasons stated were because of a lack of freedom, lack of a feeling of security, and a lack of opportunity.
Indeed, the economy was not the only thing that has been in free fall since the socialist revolution; the social fabric of the country has been in steep decline as well. Crime is a rampant problem. In 2013 it was ranked as the least secure country in the world. It was reported that 98% of crimes do not even result in prosecution, largely due to the government having a monopoly of police enforcement and being short about 20,000 investigative officers. Before the Bolivarian Revolution the murder rate had been constant around 20 per 100,000 people. By 2003, however, the number was up to 44 per 100,000. Today, it’s at about 80 per 100,000. For context, America’s rate is 5 per 100,000. All of this is terrible.
The people of Venezuela are literally suffering mental illness as a result. According to studies done by the top three universities in the country, 29% of respondents said they were living “in anguish” and 23% said overall they felt “sad.” The doctors, of course, can’t do much because of the scarcity of medicines and services they can provide. According to doctors, they used to have around 60 different psychiatric drugs to choose from whereas now they have 2 or 3,. It is tragic and sad that a country that at one point was on the rise like many South American countries, now is in such a horrible place and it is directly because of socialist policies.
This is what real socialism is. There is no utopia. An increase in the power of the State has always lead to totalitarian regimes and a society of people that suffer. Every time. Soviet Russia under Stalin and the millions dead from famine and death squads. Even more millions dead in China under Mao. Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia. Cubans being executed under Castro for trying to leave their oppressive government. The list could go on. Never has a single country that operated under a socialist system ever prospered and seen innovation like that of capitalist countries. Never has a socialist country ever even had a basic regard and respect for the lives of its own citizens.
Even in America, the socialist policies we’ve attempted to build here have been disastrous. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that is nearly depleted of funds and basically guarantees that our generation will have no benefits left when we’re old. Obamacare was the first step towards single-payer healthcare and the only result from that has been premiums sky-rocketing and making it nearly impossible for poor and middle-class people to afford healthcare, and when they don’t want to pay for it they are penalized by being forced to pay a fine. Our corporate tax rates are the highest in the world and it’s lead to billions of dollars from businesses being stashed overseas as opposed to staying here where it can be invested and allow the economy to grow. The Federal Reserve has been bailing out big banks that hand out government guaranteed loans that have consistently lead to bubble-and-bust industries like housing in 2008, and now a rapidly approaching similar problem with student loans and college tuitions. So, even the quasi-socialist policies we’ve implemented here have done far more harm than good.
Socialism relies on an all-powerful State that can control people and force them to bend to the arbitrary rules that they establish, rules that have to be enforced at gunpoint. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t go along with what the socialist leaders want you to do (providing for the “greater good”) then you are punished until you do. The idea that the people are more represented under socialism is possibly the biggest lie to ever exist. People have no power when the State controls everything. The average person has no choice, no control, no freedom. This is what socialism is on paper. Death is what it leads to in practice. There is no underlying altruism involved. When a system relies on some people being forced to do all the work for everyone else, people are going to get angry and stop working. The fact that droves of people attempt to leave socialist countries should be enough proof that these countries are living hells.
Yet, there is a culture here in America, especially among our educational centers, that socialism works or at the very least works on paper and that is the most frightening thing. Thomas Sowell said it best, “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore it.” Socialism doesn’t look good on paper, unless you think having no freedom and allowing the government to run every aspect of your life at gunpoint is a good thing.
Is there an attraction to a society based on universal equality and fairness? Of course. But, socialism is not that. Making everyone give up individual natural rights under the guise of “equality” is not fair. After all, equality of opportunity is what matters, not equality of outcome. Once people start to realize this unequivocal fact then the ideas of socialism will finally die out in the West, as it should have 70 years ago.
Sources
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-25666243
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Venezuela
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/10/12/venezuela-crisis-causing-widespread-anxiety-but-few-can-afford-treatment.html
http://www.heritage.org/index/country/venezuela
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Revolution
* Erik Picone is a marketing major at Emerson College with a minor in political communications. He enjoys making political commentary on various social media sites to help spread the message of liberty.
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You Can Go Home Again: The Transformative Joy Of Rereading
Returning to a book you've read multiple times can feel like drinks with an old friend. There's a welcome familiarity — but also sometimes a slight suspicion that time has changed you both, and thus the relationship. But books don't change, people do. And that's what makes the act of rereading so rich and transformative.
If you've been an avid reader for any amount of time, chances are you've revisited a book you love. A novel with interesting characters, that story collection that reminds you of home, a volume of poems you were given as a child. Whether it's nostalgia or simple pleasure we seek varies from person to person. But one thing is for certain: Every book is a reason in and of itself.
The number of books I receive every month can be glorious and daunting. It might be five, but it could be 20. And they all look damn beautiful, what with their unique designs, gripping blurbs, and freshly dried ink. Stories chock-full of murder, secrets, and political intrigue, novellas that seem to carry the weight of the world. Sure, I want to read them all, but that's impossible. I have children and a wife and dinner and I've been putting off getting an oil change for far too long. But also because, see, in addition to selected new releases, I really want to have that drink with the old friend.
There are three books I reread annually. These are the shoo-ins, books that I specifically set time aside for during the year. The first, which I breeze through every spring, is Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Published posthumously in 1964, it's his classic memoir of 1920s Paris. The language is almost intoxicating, an aging writer recalling an ambitious yet simpler time.
Another is Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm, her poetic 1975 ramble about everything and nothing; a moth consumed in a flame, a baptism, a little girl burned in an airplane accident. It begins: "Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split." I wouldn't say there's a "plot," per se, but perhaps it's the disfigurement of 7-year-old Julie Norwich in that accident. Anyway, if you need a neatly fleshed out plot to enjoy a book there's a pretty good chance you're a sociopath.
The third book is Julio Cortázar's Save Twilight: Selected Poems, because poetry. And because Cortázar.
While I tend to buy a lot of books, these three were given to me as gifts, which might subconsciously add to the meaning I attach to them. But I imagine that, while money is indeed wonderful and necessary, rereading an author's work is the highest currency a reader can pay them. Especially if the author is no longer around to spend money.
A voracious reader is a non-stop consumer of worlds. But one's interpretation of these worlds morphs and shifts depending on the personal experiences one brings into the reading. We identify with a character's pain because we've felt pain, and so on. The beauty of rereading lies in the idea that our engagement with the work is based on our current mental, emotional, and even spiritual register. It's true, the older I get, the more I feel time has wings. But with reading, it's all about the present. It's about the now and what one contributes to the now, because reading is a give and take between author and reader. Each has to pull their own weight. There are books I hated in my early 20s that I now see as powerful and revelatory.
The best books are the ones that open further as time passes. But remember, it's not because they changed. Every letter and punctuation mark is exactly where it always has been, and where it will remain forever. It's you who are different; it's you who's been affected by the depth of your experience. And it's you that has to grow and read and reread in order to better understand your friends.
Juan Vidal is a writer and critic for NPR Books. He's on Twitter: @itsjuanlove
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Saturday Is Read Comics In Public Day: Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are
toggle caption Robert Sergel
This Saturday, across the globe, I and hordes of my fellow comics readers will take our passion to the streets. And the parks. And the trains, buses and subways. And the bars.
If I know my people, the bars will figure largely.
We will grab a stack of comics and go forth into the wide world. Brave will we be. Powerful, expressionless, serene. We will brook no jeering, and fear no bullies. We will walk with our shoulders back and un-punched. Will hold our un-noogied heads high.
We will find a place amid the hurly-burly to sit. And there...we will sit. And we will read comics.
Take THAT, normals! ARE WE FREAKING YOU OUUUUUUT?
Read Comics in Public Day is the brainchild of Sarah Morean and Brian Heater, who run The Daily Cross Hatch, a go-to site for smart, in-depth reviews and commentary about alternative comics.
There's a RCiPD website, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, etc. And meetups? By God, yes, there will be meetups.
It's a project we're happy to get behind, here at Monkey See. Not least because of the genius of the thing, which is that it requires so very little of us: Instead of spending a Saturday lazing on the couch with a stack of comics, I will spend a Saturday lazing on the steps of some DC monument or another.
Naturally, the Read Comics in Public Day notion has already come in for some light criticism from ardent superfans, to wit: "I've NEVER been ashamed to read comics in public! I don't need a special DAY for it!"
To these people I say, yes, fine, you are out and proud and living out loud. Good for you. Rah, you. But you are not the target demo here. Also, you could stand to simmer down a scosh.
Here's the RCiPD mission statement, which resonated strongly with me. A fact I found more than a little surprising.
Look; I read comics on the bus, on the subway and while waiting for chronically tardy friends at coffee shops, bars(!) and restaurants. In any of these places, I'll talk about comics loudly, forcefully and at considerable length to anyone who'll listen, and to many who won't. Compunction about comics, I got none.
Or so I thought.
Earlier this week, on my way to record the latest Pop Culture Happy Hour, I stuffed into my bag a handful of comics to read on the subway. Didn't think about it, just grabbed a bunch as I ran out the door.
When I took them out to read, I noticed something. Unconsciously, I had selected books of a certain type. A type that can best be called: I am a Special Smartypants*, Comics Edition.
They were, all five of them, dense, serious, black-and-white comics about war and art and history and social class and blah. Again: I did not deliberately leave behind the superhero comics, and the manga, and the fantasy books, and the classic comic strip reprints I regularly read.
But as I sat there, staring down at the faithfully and exquisitely rendered landscape of some war-torn country or another, I tried to remember the last time I had read any superhero book, with its bright, colorful, spandex-clad mesomorphs facing off against aliens, or super-apes, or robots, or Nazis or alien super-ape robo-Nazis, while on the subway or at a bar. And I couldn't come up with one.
Clearly, then, my subconscious is a rank poseur. Who still cares enough about what others might think about his reading material to unconsciously self-edit his public choices. My subconscious, bless him, also clings to the downright laughable idea that the kind of tiresome, ungenerous people who'd judge me for reading comics would distinguish between, say, Footnotes in Gaza and Fantastic Four.
Here's the thing, though: I love the Fantastic Four. Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham are doing some fun, trippy, literally fantastic stuff on that book. So why pretend I don't? To strangers on the friggin' SUBWAY?
So. I'll be seizing Read Comics in Public Day as a chance to overcome the last lingering shreds of my internalized geekophobia. It'll be me, the dog and a pile of shamelessly goofy, high-concept, boldy colored, alien super-ape robo-Nazi-smashin' adventure.
So if on Saturday, while you are out and about, you should see me or someone like me reading a comic book, say hi. Ask me what I'm reading -- but only if you're prepared for me to, you know, tell you. Loudly, forcefully and at considerable length.
*TM Stephen Thompson
MONKEY SEE's "READ COMICS IN PUBLIC DAY"EXTRA!
COMICS READERS! MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD WITH THESE CHEERS AND CHANTS FOR RCiPD MEETUPS!
We're here!
Jeff Lemire!
Get used to it!
2-4-6-8!
Secret Six is really great!
1-3-5-7!
Read the works of Grayson, Devin!
1-2-3-4!
Y'know who's odd? Alan Moore!
Hey, Hey, LBJ,
Doctor Doom shtupped Morgan Le Fay!
Be! Aggressive!
B-E Aggessive!
Unless you're a Chris Ware character! In which case:
Be! Passive Aggressive!
B-E Passive Aggressive!
Hey hey, ho ho,
DC villains end in o!
(Clap, clap) Amazo!
(Clap, clap) Starro!
(Clap, clap) Despero!
(Clap, clap) Sinestro!
(Clap, clap) Titano!
(Clap, clap) Metallo!
(Clap, clap) Eclipso!
(Clap, clap) Computo!
(Clap, clap) Bizarro!
....Terminal vowel! Woo!
BRR! IT'S COLD IN HERE! Satellite monitors detect the presence of Bobby Drake, aka Iceman (or possibly Captain Cold, and given the barometric pressure we can't completely rule out the possibility of Mr. Freeze, the Icicle and/or Killer Frost, though, really, it's tough to know for sure).....IN THE AT-MOS-PHERE!
What do you want?
To peruse sequential art in the bright light of the upper world without getting accosted by street toughs!
When do you want it?
Now would be good! If that's okay!
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Roscoe Monroe Brumbaugh (born Rosco Monroe Merrick; December 18, 1928 – November 3, 2006) better known by his ring name Sputnik Monroe, was an American professional wrestler. He was a headliner in many territories, and was best known in Memphis, Tennessee, where he and Billy Wicks set an attendance record that lasted until the Monday Night Wars boom period.[1]
Early life [ edit ]
Monroe was born in Dodge City, Kansas. His father was killed in an airplane crash one month before his birth. His formative years were spent living with his grandparents. Later, his mother remarried, and his stepfather, whose last name was Brumbaugh, adopted him at age 17. As a result, Monroe's legal name became Roscoe Monroe Brumbaugh.
He had a brother, Gary "Jet" Monroe, who was his manager during certain parts of his career.[2]
Career [ edit ]
Debuting as Rock Monroe in 1945, Monroe began his career by wrestling in traveling carnivals. He changed his name to Rocky Monroe in 1949, and adopted the nickname "Sputnik" in 1957.
Monroe was a noteworthy figure in Memphis cultural history. During a period where legal segregation was the norm at public events, and during a general decline in the popularity of professional wrestling, Monroe recognized that the segregated wrestling shows (whites sat in floor seats while blacks were required to sit in the balcony)[3][4] were not properly marketing to black fans. The witty, flamboyant Monroe began dressing up in a purple gown and carrying a diamond tipped cane and drinking in traditionally black bars in the black area of Memphis. As a result of this, he was frequently arrested by police on a variety of trumped up charges, such as mopery. He would then hire a black attorney and appear in court, pay a fine, and immediately resume fraternizing with black citizens and drinking in their bars. Due to this, and in spite of the fact that he was a heel at the time, his popularity soared among the black community. At his shows, although floor seats in arenas would be half empty with white patrons, the balcony would be packed to capacity with black patrons with many others unable to enter due to the balcony selling out.[5]
Monroe, having become the biggest wrestling draw in the territory, soon refused to perform unless patrons, regardless of their race, were allowed to sit in any seat at the Ellis Auditorium. As a result, promoters were obliged to desegregate his wrestling shows, which then completely sold out with Monroe's black fans filling the auditorium. Soon, other southern sporting events, recognizing the enormous financial benefits, began to desegregate as well.[5]
Personal life [ edit ]
Monroe had three children, the youngest of them, Quentin Bell was also a pro wrestler. Monroe trained him.[6][7]
Death and legacy [ edit ]
Monroe died in his sleep on November 3, 2006 in Florida.[1] He was 77 years old. In May 2007, HBO announced that they would make a film based on Monroe's life.[8] In September 2007, Julien Nitzberg confirmed that the first draft of the film's script had been completed.[9]
Championships and accomplishments [ edit ]
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New York (CNN) Secretary of State John Kerry said a rejection of the nuclear deal with Iran by the U.S. Congress would put Israel at risk of being "more isolated and more blamed."
Speaking in New York on Friday before members of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Kerry declared there are "no alternatives" to the nuclear agreement the United States and five other world powers struck with Iran.
A clear focus in Kerry's message on Friday was his past and continuing support for Israel, even recalling his 100% voting record for Israel during his time as senator.
With the deal, Kerry said, "I believe Israel is safer, I believe the region is safer, I think the world is safer," but he warned that if the deal isn't adopted, "friends in Israel could end up being more isolated and more blamed."
Relations between the longtime ally nations are obviously tense.
Referencing the 2012 United Nations General Assembly, in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held up a drawing of a bomb, Kerry said, "We've seen the Prime Minister with a cartoon of the bomb at the U.N. ... But what's happened? What has anyone done about it? Anybody got a plan to roll it back? Anybody got a plan that's viable beyond bombing for one or two days or three days that might slow their program down for two years or three years?"
Michael Oren, Israel's former ambassador to the United States and a member of the Knesset, responded to Kerry's remarks, saying that a rejection of the deal by lawmakers would come "exclusively on the basis of U.S. interests."
"The threat of the secretary of state who, in the past, warned that Israel was in danger of becoming an apartheid state, cannot deter us from fulfilling our national duty to oppose this dangerous deal," Oren said.
Oren was referring to last year's prediction by Kerry of an apartheid situation if Israel and the Palestinians fail to agree on a two-state solution for their decades-long conflict.
On Friday, Kerry was firm and passionate in replying to critics of the deal in Congress.
"Do you think the ayatollah is going to come back to the table if Congress refuses this and negotiate again? Do you think they're going to sit there and other people in the world are going to say, 'Hey let's go negotiate with the United States. They have 535 secretaries of state,'" Kerry quipped.
"I mean, please. I would be embarrassed to go out."
Reneging on the agreement would compromise not only the developing relationship with Iran, but also the future of American relations with other countries, Kerry said.
"If the United States Congress unilaterally walks away from this arrangement that we have reached, we go right back to square one," Kerry said. "Iran is enriching, we have no inspections, we have no ability to know what they're doing. We don't roll back their program, we're right back where we were and we're going to head to conflict."
Friday's event came a day after Kerry was grilled in Washington by a panel of senators, including several Democrats.
Congress has the ability to vote against the agreement at the end of a 60-day review period. President Obama has said he will veto a vote against the deal, but would need enough Democrats supporting him to sustain the veto.
Many critics have questioned what happens when the deal expires in 15 years.
"This is not a question of what happens in 15 years or 20 years," Kerry said. "This is a question of what happens now, tomorrow, if we don't accept this deal. Because Iran will go right back to its enrichment."
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Contents
Summary
News
Task
Leaderboard
Submit
Register
Forum Status Closed Type Industrial Start 2011-05-11 10:00:00 CET End 2011-11-30 10:00:00 CET Prize 45,000$ Registration is required.
Overview The challenge is over now. Click here to view the Summary
95% or higher . A Canadian government Informatics Group analyzed three sets of data from our sensor and were able to distinguish one chemical from two others with accuracies ranging from about 70 to 90%, with a statistical classification strategy. We have posted one of their reports which provides the most details concerning methods and results (see Task page).
The contest ends no later than November 30, 2011, or as soon as a successful algorithm is submitted.
The award of $40,000 (Canadian dollars) will be paid by FIND Technologies Inc. to the team who as the first one develops an algorithm that meets or exceeds 95% accuracy threshold. The winning team must transfer intellectual property rights to the algorithm to FIND.
Additionally, there are 5 milestone prizes of $1,000 at 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90% accuracy. The first team or participant who achieves a given milestone will receive $1,000 prize, without intellectual property transfer.
The contest is supported by
Details of the task can be found on the
Declaring the Winner
Please read carefully the Eligibility section of the
About our Technology
* FIND sensor technology is proprietary.
* A Government Informatics Group, on several occasions has subjected signal data acquired from the sensor to a Statistical Classification Strategy.
FIND Technologies Inc. is a Canadian company that owns novel sensor technology for measuring electromagnetic signatures of materials. The sensor is a robust, inexpensive instrument that detects passive electromagnetic emission from all matter. It has biomedical, homeland security, engineering, geological, and other applications.In order to develop real-time, automatic identification of materials using the sensor, FIND offers $45,000 prize to an individual or group that is able to invent an algorithm that identifies and categorizes 1,500-sample data set of electromagnetic signatures into 3 classes of substances, at an accuracy of. A Canadian government Informatics Group analyzed three sets of data from our sensor and were able to distinguish one chemical from two others with accuracies ranging from about 70 to 90%, with a statistical classification strategy. We have posted one of their reports which provides the most details concerning methods and results (see Task page).The contest ends no later than November 30, 2011, or as soon as a successful algorithm is submitted.The award of(Canadian dollars) will be paid by FIND Technologies Inc. to the team who as the first one develops an algorithm that meets or exceeds 95% accuracy threshold. The winning team must transfer intellectual property rights to the algorithm to FIND.Additionally, there areat 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90% accuracy. The first team or participant who achieves a given milestone will receive $1,000 prize, without intellectual property transfer.The contest is supported by Biomedical Commercialization Canada , an investor and strategic partner of FIND Technologies Inc.Details of the task can be found on the Task page . See Leaderboard for current standings. If you have questions or remarks, post them on the Forum Please read carefully thesection of the Terms of Participation to learn about the procedure for selecting a prospective winner and conditions that prospective winner must fulfill to become a winner.* FIND sensor technology is proprietary.* A Government Informatics Group, on several occasions has subjected signal data acquired from the sensor to a Statistical Classification Strategy.
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With Congressional Republicans warning that the bailout could be slowed by efforts to tack on additional provisions, Democratic leaders said they would insist on a requirement that the administration use its new role, as the owner of large amounts of mortgage debt, to help hundreds of thousands of troubled borrowers at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure.
“It’s clear that the administration has requested that Congress authorize, in very short order, sweeping and unprecedented powers for the Treasury secretary,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said in a statement. “Democrats will work with the administration to ensure that our response to events in the financial markets is swift, but we must insulate Main Street from Wall Street and keep people in their homes.”
Ms. Pelosi said Democrats would also insist on “enacting an economic recovery package that creates jobs and returns growth to our economy.”
Even as talks got under way, there were signs of how very much in flux the plan remained. The administration suggested that it might adjust its proposal, initially restricted to purchasing assets from financial institutions based in the United States, to enable foreign firms with United States affiliates to make use of it as well.
The ambitious effort to transfer the bad debts of Wall Street, at least temporarily, into the obligations of American taxpayers was first put forward by the administration late last week after a series of bold interventions on behalf of ailing private firms seemed unlikely to prevent a crash of world financial markets.
A $700 billion expenditure on distressed mortgage-related assets would roughly be what the country has spent so far in direct costs on the Iraq war and more than the Pentagon’s total yearly budget appropriation. Divided across the population, it would amount to more than $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
Whatever is spent will add to a budget deficit already projected at more than $500 billion next year. And it comes on top of the $85 billion government rescue of the insurance giant American International Group and a plan to spend up to $200 billion to shore up the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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At his news conference, Mr. Bush also sought to portray the plan as helping every American. “The government,” he said, “needed to send a clear signal that we understood the instability could ripple throughout and affect the working people and the average family, and we weren’t going to let that happen.”
A program to help troubled borrowers refinance mortgages — along with an $800 billion increase in the national debt limit — was approved in July. But financing for it depended largely on fees paid by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been placed into a government conservatorship.
Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview that his staff had already begun working with the Senate banking committee to draft additions to the administration’s proposal.
Mr. Frank said Democrats were particularly intent on limiting the huge pay packages for corporate executives whose firms seek aid under the new plan, raising the prospect of a contentious battle with the White House.
“There are going to be federal tax dollars buying up some of the bad paper,” Mr. Frank said. “They should accept some compensation guidelines, particularly to get rid of the perverse incentives where it’s ‘heads I win, tails I break even.’ ”
Mr. Frank said Democrats were also thinking about tightening the language on the debt limit to make clear that the additional borrowing authority could be used only for the bailout plan. And he said they might seek to revive a proposal that would give bankruptcy judges the authority to modify the terms of primary mortgages, a proposal strongly opposed by the financial industry.
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who attended emergency meetings with the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, on Capitol Hill last week, described the proposal as a good start but said it did little for regular Americans.
Photo
“This is a good foundation of a plan that can stabilize markets quickly,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement. “But it includes no visible protection for taxpayers or homeowners. We look forward to talking to Treasury to see what, if anything, they have in mind in these two areas.”
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Ms. Pelosi’s statement made clear that she would push for an economic stimulus initiative either as part of the bailout legislation or, more likely, as part of the budget resolution Congress must adopt before adjourning for the fall elections. Such a plan could include an increase in unemployment benefits and spending on infrastructure projects to help create jobs.
Some Congressional Republicans warned Democrats not to overreach.
“The administration has put forward a plan to help the American people, and it is now incumbent on Congress to work together to solve this crisis,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader.
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Mr. Boehner added, “Efforts to exploit this crisis for political leverage or partisan quid pro quo will only delay the economic stability that families, seniors and small businesses deserve.”
Aides to Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic presidential nominee, said he was reviewing the proposal. In Florida, Mr. Obama told voters he would press for a broader economic stimulus.
“We have to make sure that whatever plan our government comes up with works not just for Wall Street, but for Main Street,” Mr. Obama said. “We have to make sure it helps folks cope with rising prices, and sparks job creation, and helps homeowners stay in their homes.”
Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, issued a statement saying he, too, was reviewing the plan.
“This financial crisis,” Mr. McCain said, “requires leadership and action in order to restore a sound foundation to financial markets, get our economy on its feet, and eliminate this burden on hardworking middle-class Americans.”
If adopted, the bailout plan would sharply raise the stakes for the new administration on the appointment of a new Treasury secretary.
The administration’s plan would allow the Treasury to hire staff members and engage outside firms to help manage its purchases. And officials said that the administration envisioned enlisting several outside firms to help run the effort to buy up mortgage-related assets.
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Officials said that details were still being worked out but that one idea was for the Treasury to hold reverse auctions, in which the government would offer to buy certain classes of distressed assets at a particular price and firms would then decide if they were willing to sell at that price, or could bid the price lower.
Mindful of a potential political fight, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke held a series of conference calls with members of Congress on Friday to begin convincing them that action was needed not just to help Wall Street but everyday Americans as well.
Republicans typically supportive of the administration said they were in favor of approving the plan as swiftly as possible.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said in a statement, “This proposal is, and should be kept, simple and clear.” The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said that the bailout was needed but that Mr. Bush owed the public a fuller explanation.
Some lawmakers were more critical or even adamantly opposed to the plan. “The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America,” Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, declared on Friday.
It is far from clear how much distressed debt the government will end up purchasing, though it seemed likely that the $700 billion figure was large enough to send a reassuring message to the jittery markets. There are estimates that firms are carrying $1 trillion or more in bad mortgage-related assets.
The ultimate price tag of the bailout is virtually impossible to know, in part because of the possibility that taxpayers could profit from the effort, especially if the market stabilizes and real estate prices rise.
Lehman Can Sell to Barclays
A federal bankruptcy judge decided early Saturday that Lehman Brothers could sell its investment banking and trading businesses to Barclays, the big British bank, the first major step to wind down the nation’s fourth-largest investment bank.
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The judge, James Peck, gave his decision at the end of an eight-hour hearing, which capped a week of financial turmoil.
The deal was said to be worth $1.75 billion earlier in the week but the value was in flux after lawyers announced changes to the terms on Friday. It may now be worth closer to $1.35 billion, which includes the $960 million price tag on Lehman’s office tower in Midtown Manhattan.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. on Monday filed the biggest bankruptcy in United States history, after Barclays PLC declined to buy the investment bank in its entirety.
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Hello,
We are MUBI.
Who? What?
Ok, lets make this simple… Do you know who Kubrick is? What about Antonioni? David Lynch? Ring any bells?
It’s ok, don’t bother if you don’t…
But if you are still reading you are going to like this a lot.
Well, we are MUBI and we are basically transforming your PS3 console into your own online cinema. (You can still play games and all that, don’t worry!) We couldn’t resist the idea of everyone having their own exquisite film library—And that’s it in a nutshell.
But lets get this straight, we are not just an online cinema and we are not just some tech and film geeks in California—well, some of us are, yes—but we are 300,000 friends talking, discovering, and sharing films with one another every day. In fact, every 2 minutes there’s someone joining us. Yes. 2 minutes. Sorry to get a bit geeky (we warned you!), but that’s 700 people joining each day. Not bad… but joining what?
The truth is, we can’t even start explaining. But let’s try this: At the moment, some of us are at the Cannes Film Festival announcing a major collaboration with SCEE for PS3. So, soon, you will find a new application on your console, which will let you stream the best of international cinema from the comforts of your couch. This is not a simple virtual videostore; we emphasize quality over quantity. You’ll find undistributed festival gems ripe for your discovery, your favorite recent independent and art-house releases. Names like the Coen brothers, Godard, Kitano, Almodóvar, Tarantino, and Van Sant are some we’ll bring home to you.
Palm d’Or winners and simply films we think should have won awards. But that’s not all. We’ll bring you exclusive online premieres, collaborations with international film festivals, and retrospectives of some of the best cinema the world has ever seen.
And as we said, we love talking and sharing wonderful cinema too. Which makes MUBI like a small coffee shop, a place where you can gather and chat about alternative endings, directors’ cuts, or whatever those frogs in Magnolia meant.
You can follow members and interact with them: This is Martin Scorsese’s profile for instance (he happens to be a member!). Anyway, you get the point. We’ve spent some time tying together an online cinema with a simple, engaging social network to help film lovers spread around the world connect over the movies they love best. And that is that. Welcome to MUBI.
Do you know what Tati means? What about Jonze?
Enjoy,
The Mubi Team
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PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies have said they would be monitoring the workload for a number of their young starters as the year winds down and Saturday one of them hit their limit.
Season-ending injuries to Zach Eflin and Aaron Nola kept the Phillies from having to intervene thus far but Vince Velasquez became the first healthy starter they've had to shut down.
Saturday night Velasquez made his last start of 2016 — the first full season in the majors he's thrown as a starter — finishing on a high-note against Atlanta. He allowed three runs, two earned, on five hits in seven innings of work. He completes his season having thrown 131 innings in 24 starts while going 8-6 with a 4.12 ERA. Possibly the number that stands out most for Velasquez is his rate of 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings.
"First and foremost it's not easy to strike out 10 hitters per nine in the big leagues," Phillies General Manager Matt Klentak said Sunday. "It's not easy to do that at any level as a starting pitcher but especially in this league. And for him to be able to do that for five straight months, that's really impressive."
The most memorable start this year for the right-hander came on April 14 when he threw a 16-strikeout, three-hit complete-game shutout against the Padres.
While the Phillies knew heading into the year they'd likely have to end Velasquez's season prematurely, they didn't have a date in mind.
"We didn't know exactly when that would be but as we've been monitoring his workload — his innings, his pitches, the intensity of those innings and those outings — we felt like this was going to be the right time to do it," Klentak said. "We told him on Wednesday, Vince was good with it, and obviously we wanted him to go out on a positive note and credit to him that's exactly what he did [Saturday]."
Velasquez's focus for much of the second half has been to be more economical with his pitch counts. As a strikeout pitcher, at-bats have dragged on against Velasquez. His pitch count has climbed early in his starts, which has kept him from going deeper in a number of outings.
"We've seen Vince has power stuff and as he's learning to mix in his secondary pitches he's becoming a really good starter and I think that we, with all things considered, are very happy with his development this year and [are] really looking forward to what he can contribute down the road," Klentak said.
Alec Asher, who was suspended for 80 games by Major League Baseball on June 16 because he tested positive for an anabolic steroid, will likely fill Velasquez's spot in the rotation once his suspension is complete. He's in the middle of a rehab assignment with Double-A Reading.
Asher made what could be his final rehab start Saturday, lining him up with Velasquez's turn in the rotation. Thursday is the next time Velasquez's turn will come up.
Before his suspension and lower calf contusion, which sent him to the disabled list retroactive to May 18, Asher was 3-0 with a 1.53 ERA in four starts for Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Asher made his major league debut last year for the Phillies, starting in seven games and going 0-6 with a 9.31 ERA.
[email protected]
Twitter @SteveGrossMCall
610-820-6187
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By Kathy Lawrence Santa Claus Bank Notes – Heritage Currency ……….
Many countries have versions of St. Nicholas. The American version came to us by means of the early Dutch settlers in New York (then known as New Amsterdam). That version of Santa Claus was a much thinner man than what we’re accustomed to today. The poem “The Night Before Christmas” (originally published as “A Visit From St. Nicholas”) by Clement Clarke Moore in 1823 forever altered our view of the man and led to Santa’s increased popularity. Moore wrote the Christmas poem for his children, but it was later published widely – along with a representation of Santa painted by newspaper artist Thomas Nast in 1870 based on Moore’s poem.
A number of Northern states designated Christmas as a state holiday in the mid-1800s. Since banks often chose vignettes that would lead customers to have faith in the bank, it is not surprising that Santa Claus vignettes were chosen by some banks to help acquire confidence and goodwill. The banks may have also hoped that customers would set a lower denomination note aside as a keepsake due to the Santa vignette as well. The vignettes found in this collection portray both the thinner Dutch version of Sinterklaas as well as the more Americanized version.
Heritage Currency presented The Roger H. Durand Santa Claus Notes Collection as part of the 2011 FUN Signature Currency Auction held in Orlando. Given the fact that most of the notes with Santa Claus vignettes are scarce to extremely rare, this was indeed a fabulous and noteworthy collection. Roger’s initial purchase that began this collection took place in 1960 at a cost of $17–several multiples of what most Obsoletes cost at that time. At that time, there was only one reference on the subject: a five-page monograph by John A. Muscalus, Ph.D. published in 1959. That work was followed in 1973 by a publication from Larry L. Ruehlen that ignited the interest of collectors.
There were far fewer notes than there was demand for and the notes are generally prized and closely held, so building a collection was quite the challenge. Although that is still the case, the sale of the American Bank Note Company archives in 1990 did add more material to the marketplace along with Part VI of the Ford sale in October 2004, although the Ford sale consisted primarily of material he purchased at the 1990 sale.
The continued interest in the Santa Claus vignettes is evidenced by the fact they took the number 23 spot on the list of The 100 Greatest American Currency Notes list, and the recent auction sale of a circulated Santa Claus note for over $40,000, an amazing price indeed for any obsolete banknote.
May your eyes twinkle and your dimples be merry this holiday season.
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Florida Governor Rick Scott said on Friday that four people likely contracted the Zika virus from a mosquito locally.
The cases, which involve one woman and three men, are in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, Scott said at a news conference.
[MORE: Zika virus info | Travel notices | Symptoms, treatment | Drain and cover | Zika insect repellants | Protection tips | OIA seeks to curb Zika ]
"Florida has become the first state in our country to have a local transmission of the Zika virus," Scott said.
The Florida Department of Health said it believes that active transmission of the Zika virus is occurring in one small area in Miami-Dade County, just north of downtown. The area is NW 5th Avenue to the west, US 1 to the east, NW/NE 38th Street to the north and NW/NE 20th Street to the south.
No collected mosquitoes tested positive for Zika and emphasized that there have been no locally transmitted cases in Central Florida, according to officials.
"While no mosquitoes have tested positive for the Zika virus, DOH is aggressively testing people in this area to ensure there are no other cases," Scott said. "If you live in this area and want to be tested, I urge you to contact the county health department which stands ready to assist you."
The news conference comes as officials at Florida's main supplier of blood say they'll begin testing all blood collections for the Zika virus using an investigational donor screening test. In a statement, OneBlood said operations will remain business as usual and collections will continue uninterrupted throughout its service areas.
On Thursday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requested all blood donations in two South Florida counties be suspended. In Miami-Dade and Broward counties health workers are investigating mysterious cases of Zika infection that may be the first spread by mosquitoes on the U.S. mainland.
OneBlood suspended collections earlier this week in the areas of Miami-Dade and Broward counties being investigated, according to a statement.
Florida health officials have said the four infections may not be linked to travel, but they haven't confirmed how the virus spread.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on its website asks blood centers in Miami-Dade and Broward counties to immediately stop collecting blood until each unit of blood can be screened for the virus.
Blood banks in Texas and Hawaii have begun or soon will start testing blood donations for the Zika virus. Puerto Rico suspended blood donations and imported blood products for the month of March until U.S. health officials approved the use of an experimental test to screen blood donations for the virus.
In addition to the locally transmitted Zika cases, there are three new travel-related cases Friday in Miami-Dade County.
The following counties have confirmed Zika cases that are travel-related:
Alachua: 5
Brevard: 8
Broward: 55
Charlotte: 1
Citrus: 2
Clay: 3
Collier: 4
Duval: 6
Escambia: 2
Highlands: 1
Hillsborough: 10
Lake: 1
Lee: 6
Manatee: 1
Martin: 1
Miami-Dade: 99
Okaloosa: 2
Okeechobee: 1
Orange: 40
Osceola: 18
Palm Beach: 18
Pasco: 6
Pinellas: 7
Polk: 12
Santa Rosa: 1
Seminole: 12
St. Johns: 3
St. Lucie: 1
Volusia: 5
Total cases not involving pregnant women: 331
Cases involving pregnant women regardless of symptoms* 55
The number for the Zika Virus Information Hotline is 1-855-622-6735.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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The 12th Invest in ME International ME Conference (IIMEC12) was held at One Great George Street on Friday June 2nd, 2017.
This article covers some of the more "technically challenging" talks. I am no expert, but have been to four previous conferences, and have a relevant degree from the last century.
My article is mainly from notes taken on the day. I did not have access to pictures of the slides and am likely to have made errors. So apologies to the speakers and members in advance. I have tried to convey the aspects of talks which stood out the most. Abstracts, where available, are now on the IiMER website.
Professor Donald Staines: 'Dysregulation of Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) ion channels and calcium in natural killer cells in CFS/ME patients'
Professor Donald Staines
Professor Don Staines from the National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (Gold Coast, Australia) ran through their work on TRPM3 receptors in Natural Killer (NK) cells. These cells are present in a range of cells throughout the body.
I did not spot anything new, though they are now looking at these receptors in a severely affected group, doing home visits. (No results yet.)
These receptors are involved in letting calcium ions (Ca2+) in to the cells. Their expression and function in NK cells are reduced in people with ME (PwME). Calcium is one of the most important intracellular signals, managing a variety of cellular functions, and these receptors are also present intracellularly, for example on the mitochondrial membranes, and those of the endoplasmic reticulum. The levels of Ca2+ ions are 100s-1000s times greater outside the cells than inside.
These receptors are also known as “Threat Receptors” and respond to a wide range of stimuli. As well as temperature, pH, stretch and osmotic pressure, they respond to vibrations (such as travelling), infection and irritants.
In a paper published earlier this year, they measured NK cytotoxicity under various stimulants. On Friday he commented that in healthy cells, Pregnenolone S (PregS) activates TRPM3 channels, to increase Ca2+ levels inside the cells. CD56dim CD16+ cells from people with ME do not give a good response to PregS alone. They show a better response to Thapsigargin (TG). TG inhibits the replenishment of the Ca2+ into intracellular stores, such as the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER). However with TG then PregS, there is a disproportionate increase in intracellular Ca2+ and cytotoxic activity.
PregS has an important role in the CNS, including memory and cognitive function. A
There was also mention that the different classes of TRP receptors respond at varying temperatures. TRPM3 are in the mid range, namely 20-35 degrees.
from the National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (Gold Coast, Australia) ran through their work on TRPM3 receptors in Natural Killer (NK) cells. These cells are present in a range of cells throughout the body.I did not spot anything new, though they are now looking at these receptors in a severely affected group, doing home visits. (No results yet.)These receptors are involved in letting calcium ions (Ca2+) in to the cells. Their expression and function in NK cells are reduced in people with ME (PwME). Calcium is one of the most important intracellular signals, managing a variety of cellular functions, and these receptors are also present intracellularly, for example on the mitochondrial membranes, and those of the endoplasmic reticulum. The levels of Ca2+ ions are 100s-1000s times greater outside the cells than inside.These receptors are also known as “Threat Receptors” and respond to a wide range of stimuli. As well as temperature, pH, stretch and osmotic pressure, they respond to vibrations (such as travelling), infection and irritants.In a paper published earlier this year, they measured NK cytotoxicity under various stimulants. On Friday he commented that in healthy cells, Pregnenolone S (PregS) activates TRPM3 channels, to increase Ca2+ levels inside the cells. CD56dim CD16+ cells from people with ME do not give a good response to PregS alone. They show a better response to Thapsigargin (TG). TG inhibits the replenishment of the Ca2+ into intracellular stores, such as the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER). However with TG then PregS, there is a disproportionate increase in intracellular Ca2+ and cytotoxic activity.PregS has an important role in the CNS, including memory and cognitive function. A paper earlier this year by Papanikolaou showed that TRPM3 are among the main calcium channel receptors in glial cells.There was also mention that the different classes of TRP receptors respond at varying temperatures. TRPM3 are in the mid range, namely 20-35 degrees.
My favourite quote of Don Staines is from a few years ago. His final slide showed data of the abnormalities in a range of cytokines and other similar signalling chemicals and said: “If anyone thinks that lot can be cured with a bit of exercise they should be delisted,” (the Australian Version of Struck Off).
Dr. Jo Cambridge and Fane Mensah (UCL PhD student): 'Immunoregulation in patients with ME'
Fane Mensah
Fane Mensah listed previous researchers who have demonstrated the following:
Viral infections lead to decreased numbers and function of Natural Killer (NK) cells.
Improved understanding of the molecular basis of the NK cells, altered DPP4/CD26 expression. (DPP4 is an enzyme that plays a potential role in immune cell modulation)
Understanding of genetic polymorphisms of NK cell receptors.
Instances of EBV infection in ME.
An altered cytokine profile for differing disease durations (<3 or>3 yrs)
He tweets @Fane Mensah
Dr. Jo Cambridge
Dr. Jo Cambridge then took over. Rituximab was first used in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the late '90s. It removes the harmful immune complexes.
It is also very successful in treating ;upus patients with (very rare) renal problems.
Rituximab works by depleting the peripheral CD20 B cells, leaving plasma and stem cells. When the B cells start returning, they are “naïve”, i.e., not producing the same antibodies (Ab) that were previously causing problems.
PwME who do not respond to Rituximab seem to have higher sCD23 levels (A surrogate marker of B cell maturity). This suggests that “bad” B cells had not been removed, but were still maturing in the tissues.
Rituximab works best where there are aberrant or autoimmune Abs.
Currently, they are immunophenotyping B cells, using markers IgD/CD38, and IgD/CD24.
Marginal Zone B cells (MZB) show high CD38 and are associated with IgM response, especially to EBV. ME patients have significantly more of these MZB cells.
There is a T cell independent rapid activation of innate B cells (9G4+) in the sub-epithelium of the tonsils. After the stimulus they migrate to the MZ of the spleen. They produce IgM in a germline configuration.
These innate B cells (9G4+) are only present transiently and are hugely increased in EBV.
The IgM requires carbohydrate, (N-acetyl lactosamine) on virus affected B cells to “paint” these cells. This structure then attaches to complement and lyses.
These B cells are also present in lupus and RA, and are potent drivers of autoimmunity.
They are also looking at CD24, which is expressed on naïve B cells and is significantly increased in people with ME v Healthy Controls (HC). CD24 is retained on old senescent B cells that have resisted T1 stimulation.
CD21 B cells seem to correlate with disease duration.
There is a reduction in size, mass and function of mitochondria in B cells in People with ME (PwME)
There are Abs to neurotransmitters, a skewing of the natural Ab pool and aberrant anti microbial Abs. These are interfering with normal metabolic processes.
Professor Simon Carding: Panel discussion with PhD students from Quadram Institute Biosciences
Professor Simon Carding
Daniel Vipond is close to writing up his PhD. (Or at least Professor Carding hopes he is). He has been:
Looking at gut inflammation
Taking quantitative measurements of IgA coated bacteria.
Hoping to separate and sequence the coated bacteria.
There is an increase in IgA production in PwME.
Along with other researchers, such as Maureen Hanson, he has found a reduced bacterial diversity which is similar in people with IBS.
Fiona Newbury and Ernie Hsieh are studying the Intestinal Virome in ME.
Viruses can also reduce bacterial diversity . They plan to:
Define the gut, viral and bacterial populations, and see if this changes with disease progression.
Determine if viruses isolated from PwME can influence and kill their bacterial hosts in the gut.
Try and develop an animal model in which they can study influences on intestinal and systemic inflammation.
There are technical problems with analysing viral genomes. There is a lack of a good database on viruses. In addition, there are large areas of the genome which are similar in many viruses.
Associate Professor Mady Hornig: 'Gut-metabolome-immune disturbances in ME/CFS subsets'
Associate Professor Mady Hornig
Mady Hornig from Columbia University spoke at great speed, about:
Epigenetics (switching genes on and off). There are important interactions between genes and the environment. There are particular stages of early development that are key in this process.
Brain, gut and ME. There are many molecules that are active in the gut and the brain. These include: GABA, noradrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, short chain fatty acids and acetylcholine. There is also a direct link to the brain via the vagus nerve.
CfII (Centre for Infection and Immunity) have collected longitudinal samples which have not yet been analysed. When funds permit they will be analysing these, looking at microbiome, mycobiome and virome (DNA and RNA species). They aim to match these samples for geographical residence, time of day (to remove circadian effect) and season (time of year), as well as the usual age, sex, etc. Subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire prior to sampling, to stimulate a mild stress response.
Using Multiplex assays, it has been shown that presence of parvovirus is associated with autoantibodies. Also, with EBV, 10-15 % of people with mononucleosis will go on to develop ME.
Viral activation can result in a signal in the CNS as well as the peripheral nervous system.
Fever production: this involves IL-6 production in the median preoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus, where there are thermoregulatory neurons. Il-6 also influences production of PGE2 (prostaglandin E2), a major pyrogenic mediator of fever.
Long-term “immune exhaustion”. This refers to their study demonstrating different immune profiles between patients with disease durations of less or more than three years.
Looking at CSF (Cerebospinal fluid). Generally cytokine levels are reduced in PwME. IL-6 is very significantly down. It has memory signalling effects.
Atypical ME (as defined in a more recent paper of theirs). These PwME show a strange encephalitis, which is also seen in people with Gulf War Syndrome or cancer. They also have much lower levels of pro-inflammatory IL-17A and the chemokine CXCL9 in the CSF.
Human Microbiome studies. Microbial products can affect gut motility and alter transit time. Gases, such as hydrogen sulphide and methane can slow the gut, whereas tryptamine and serotonin will increase motility. Butyrate producing bacteria are more prevalent in healthy controls than in ME, type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. There are often altered GI function comorbidities with brain disorders, such as IBS with ME.
Autoimmune disturbances may result from failed uptake of dietary precursors of antioxidants.
Systems involving Tryptophan to Kyneurine and conversion of 5HT to Melatonin. The balance of these systems is important for memory and immune function.
Professor Olav Mella: 'Update on the clinical trials RituxME and CycloME'
Professor Olav Mella
Professor Olav Mella summarised how he and Dr. Oystein Fluge had become involved in ME research. They are consultant oncologists. A couple of patients who had undergone treatment for lymphoma returned to the Clinics saying that their lymphoma treatment had also "cured" their ME.
He was keen to emphasise that the selection of Rituximab (Rx) as a potential treatment of ME was not some random process, but an intellectual understanding of the four chemotherapy drugs used in lymphoma treatment and a process of evaluation, leading to the decision to try Rx.
Their pilot trial showed 10/15 responding to the Rx, and 2/15 from the placebo group also showing a positive response. Their initial endpoint for this pilot was three months after the first two infusions. However, they later realised that their two initial patients had demonstrated an unusually quick response to Rx, and that in 18 responders the mean response time was 29 weeks (range 8-66).
Their Phase 2 trial involved giving top-up infusions to responders. Three years after interventions 11/18 were still responding, but there were then some gradual recurrences. Professor Mella commented that you give someone their life back and then are not permitted to give them more Rx outside a trial setting. The patients who had received saline were offered Rx treatment after the pilot.
They had also tried to treat a severe/very severe ME patient group. Unfortunately, there were significant problems as these people had great difficulty getting to the hospital. Rx has to be administered via IV in a hospital setting with specially trained medical staff. They were only able to treat a handful of patients. Due to logistical difficulties and a low level of response they abandoned this study.
Note: Cyclophosphamide (Cyclo) can be administered in the setting of a small community hospital, so is far easier to access.
The secondary endpoints (from SF-36) showed that responders had improved on: physical function, vitality, bodily pain and social function. Mental health had remained the same. (Not surprising as this is not a mental health disorder!)
Their conclusions were that autoantibodies were involved in ME, so they started their Phase 3 trial of Rx (RituxME) in 2014.
The protocol is IV treatment with Rx (500mg), or saline (with 0.4 mg albumen). The albumen is added, so that the nurses cannot detect which is being given. The initial treatment is two infusions, two weeks apart, and they have then chosen to give further infusions at three, six, nine and 12 months.
This study is "proof of concept" — it may be that different timings of "top-up" infusions are required. (I believe this is the case for Rx treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.) The patients are then assessed 24 months after the initial treatment. None of the data will be unblinded until two years after the final patient had begun their treatment. This is not until September, 2017. He did say that there are a number of patients in remission.
The data will not be unblinded until October, 2017, and no results will be shared until their results are published! This is an agonising wait, but essential if the results are to be taken seriously.
One of the problems with placebo trials is that there can be "regression to the mean". This means that reported improvements may be smaller than actual improvements, because patients may be worried about reporting a good response and then finding out they have received the placebo.
Endpoints:
Self-report of fatigue. This is done by the patients, at baseline and then every fortnight through the trial period. People can have problems in the second year, remembering how bad they were initially.
SF-36 Quality of life and level of function
Sensewear armbands at baseline and after 17-21 months. (Worn for a week.)
They have found overall that patient recall has correlated well with objective measures.
Substudies:
2 day CPET
GI examination including ultrasound and gastroscopy
Endothelial function both FMD (Flow Mediated Dilatation) and PORH (Post-Occlusive Reactive Hyperaemia)
The data from patients at the start of the trial, before Rx treatment, has been analysed.
As a group they do have endothelial dysfunction, in both large and small vessels. Their ability to respond to NO2 is intact, using nitroglycerin.
Cyclophosphamide Trial (CycloME)
Once again they had patients who were treated with a chemotherapy drug, this time Cyclophosphamide (Cyclo), for breast cancer, and two out of three showed significant clinical improvements.
Their pilot study, which ends in July, 2017, has been carried out in two centres: Bergen and Oslo. The patients include 15 from previous studies and 25 who have had no previous treatment. Cyclo can attenuate ME. Patients who have responded to Rx and Cyclo report that the effects are equivalent. At high doses, Cyclo is immune-suppressant. They may well try using lower doses.
Patients with ME seem to suffer more from the side effects of nausea and vomiting, but are still keen to continue the treatment. I believe that they are receiving treatment every four weeks, six times in total. Another worrying side effect is early onset menopause, so it cannot be used in younger women.
It is a more broad acting drug than Rx. It may well be that other potent immune modulating drugs could help in ME.
Professor Mella's comment was that it would be surprising if the first or second drug they tried proved to be the most effective in ME. No, we weren't told what would be next ...
ME is in THE BLOOD, NOT BETWEEN THE EARS!
Professor Mella is very clear on the above, not only because of the striking results they have seen with Rx and Cyclo, but also because of the changes they see when healthy cells are bathed in serum from ME patients. The healthy cells then function as if they are from someone with ME, and vice versa.
His view is that ME is an immune disease which has an effect on mitochondrial function. Lack of adequate ATP affects all cell types. There are widespread symptoms, which may be, in part, due to compensation mechanisms within the body.
He stresses that when patients start improving, ALL Symptoms START improving, though not necessarily at the same rate.
Once they have finished the trial they will want to give all the patients who had placebo the chance to have Rx.
Whatever the results, they will continue with trials on CycloME.
They are VERY OPTIMISTIC for the future. There was some mention about PARTYING in the NEW YEAR, though probably not as soon as 1 January, 2018.
Dr. Oystein Fluge: 'Metabolic Profiling in ME/CFS'
Dr. Oystein Fluge
Dr. Ingrid Rekeland spoke for Dr. Olav Mella, who had fallen off a ladder 10 days ago, while mending his roof!
She began by summarising the reasons why autoimmunity (AI) is likely to be important in ME, such as the lag time in response to Rx, and overlapping autoimmune syndromes, such as POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome).
In addition, they have found in their patients that over 40% of them have a first degree relative with an AI disease. It affects more women. There is a genetic predisposition and there is a sudden start to ME in about 70% of cases.
Dr. Rekeland summarised the amino acid patterns found in 200 PwME v 102 Healthy Controls (HC), as per
Healthy myoblasts grown in the presence of serum from patients with severe ME show metabolic adaptations, including increased mitochondrial respiration and excessive lactate secretion. Anaerobic metabolism appears to be activated at rest or minimal levels of exertion. This is the equivalent of running for a Healthy Control.
The pattern of amino acid changes in ME could not explained by: symptom severity, disease duration, age, body mass index or physical activity level among patients (steps). It is definitely NOT due to deconditioning.
who had fallen off a ladder 10 days ago, while mending his roof!She began by summarising the reasons why autoimmunity (AI) is likely to be important in ME, such as the lag time in response to Rx, and overlapping autoimmune syndromes, such as POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome).In addition, they have found in their patients that over 40% of them have a first degree relative with an AI disease. It affects more women. There is a genetic predisposition and there is a sudden start to ME in about 70% of cases.Dr. Rekeland summarised the amino acid patterns found in 200 PwME v 102 Healthy Controls (HC), as per their paper . Also PR thread " Metabolic Profiling indicates impaired Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Function in ME/CFS ". I will not repeat the detail here.Healthy myoblasts grown in the presence of serum from patients with severe ME show metabolic adaptations, including increased mitochondrial respiration and excessive lactate secretion. Anaerobic metabolism appears to be activated at rest or minimal levels of exertion. This is the equivalent of running for a Healthy Control.The pattern of amino acid changes in ME could not explained by: symptom severity, disease duration, age, body mass index or physical activity level among patients (steps). It is definitely NOT due to deconditioning.
From Q & A:
The functional inhibition of the mitochondria is due to an immune response. It is not associated with classical inflammation.
There may well be benefits in looking at individuals in remission and relapse, although the differences they have shown are demonstrated at a group rather than an individual level.
They have no recommendations for specific diets.
If the Rx results are good it will need to be replicated in another country, such as the United States. "Everything needs to be done in the U.S." I think he said this meaning, to get FDA approval in the United States a trial will need to be done there.
Re: biosimilars, they hope that some industrial partners may become involved to do trials of their biosimilar v Rx or against another company's biosimilar.
Are there any biomarkers? Not yet, though there may be information soon within the results from Canada and Arizona ... possibly a pattern predicting response.
This completely destroys the Psychological Theories of ME and provides explanation at a cellular level why GET is not effective or relevant.
COMING UP SOON: In the final article in this series, OverTheHills reflects on her experience as a patient attending the conference.
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Computer analysis of “refugees” who entered the United Kingdom claiming to be children on a given day recently reached a terrifying conclusion: Those “children” are actually ten years older than what they claim, averaging 25 years in age.
The facial analysis tests were carried out Thursday by Express.co.uk on Calais refugees who arrived in the UK from the Jungle migrant camp.
The Express reported:
The results come as a Home Office official addressed the growing questions surrounding how old the children really are by saying they had physically matured quickly because of the horrors they had witnessed in war. Politicians have raised concerns over photographs of the “hulking” children, some of whom clearly have facial hair, and warned Britain’s generous hospitality must not be abused by economic migrants posing as minors.
Philip Davies, a British MP, was shown the photographs.
“These don’t look like ‘children’ to me. I hope British hospitality is not being abused,” he told the Express.
“They are hulking teenagers who look older than 18. I’m all for helping the genuine children but the well of goodwill is rapidly being exhausted here.
And it wasn’t just the age of the “refugees” that struck Davies — it was also their sex.
“I’m also curious there are no young women – I would have thought they would be much more vulnerable,” he said.
“There is no way of knowing if someone is a child. We could end up causing even more misery if we are not careful. We should invite anyone who wants to come to the UK to take dental tests.”
The computer test results should also raise concerns to Americans in light of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s stated desire to shift President Obama’s own Syrian refugee program into overdrive.
Testifying early this year before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Philip Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO Allied Command Operations, said the Islamic State was “spreading like cancer” amongst the flow of migrants from the Middle East. He said that its members are using the Syrian refugee program to “mask the movement” of terrorists infiltrating Europe and the United States.
CIA Director John Brennan echoed that analysis three months later, and said the Islamic State is infiltrate operatives into the West through “refugee flows, smuggling routes and legitimate methods of travel.”
This is of particular concerns for Americans worried about security threats due to lax immigration policies and the influx of refugees.
Hillary Clinton has said she is in support of bringing more refugees into the U.S., despite experts warning there is no clear way to vet them.
Not mention, a recent WikiLeaks email that revealed a portion of Hillary Clinton’s speech to foreign bankers.
“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders,” Clinton told them.
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Detailed plans to cut holidays, lengthen working weeks and reduce flexible working for 450,000 public employees have been disclosed for the first time in leaked Cabinet Office documents.
A letter sent to every human resources director across the civil service, and seen by the Guardian, outlines the scope and speed of the coalition government's planned reforms and how they would affect staff.
By the end of this year, directors in every Whitehall department are expected to have examined the terms and conditions of their workforce and outlined plans to make their jobs more like those in the private sector.
The documents reveal several aspects of working life as susceptible to radical change, including employees' annual leave, occasional days' leave, sick pay, hours of work, the ability of employees to move from one job to another and probationary periods.
Managers have also been ordered to review policies including the family-friendly scheme of flexitime, travel and expenses, disciplinary procedures and performance management. The letter applies to staff below the level of senior civil servants.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said the government's plans to rush through fundamental changes would be "a sickening blow" for many public sector workers. "Amid an imposed pay freeze, and cuts to pensions and redundancy terms, the Cabinet Office now wants to undermine some very basic working conditions that any decent employer should offer," he said.
"It is impossible to separate this from the Tory-led government's wider political project to unpick the welfare state and drive down pay, conditions and employment rights across the economy, and we are determined to oppose it at every step."
The leaked letter was sent two weeks ago by the director of the civil service human resources and capability group, William Hague (not to be confused with the foreign secretary).
"The civil service reform plan states that each department will undertake a review of their terms and conditions. Your review should ensure that your department, and collectively the civil service, continues to be a good employer, offering terms and conditions comparable with, but not beyond what a good modern employer would provide," he wrote.
With a nod to rightwing attempts to paint public sector jobs as overpaid and comfortable, Hague wrote: "This is our opportunity to tackle those terms and conditions where we have been less responsive in the past as well as those that have left the civil service open to caricature."
He suggested that staff would have to become more "flexible and collaborative" in a transformed civil service, which may result in some having to move to keep their jobs.
"One feature of your review of terms and conditions should be to promote greater mobility. This will open up opportunities for employees to develop and build expertise," he wrote. "We wish to offer terms that reflect best practice in the private sector rather than the average."
The documents outline "other areas for consideration" which could also face cuts.
These include a number of family-friendly policies such as childcare, compressed hours working, which is a form of flexitime, working from home, parental leave, part-time working, job sharing and term-time working, which allows staff to organise their working hours around school holidays and voluntary work.
A list of other policies that could be reviewed, at the discretion of human resources directors, include gifts and hospitality, whistleblowing, apprenticeships, work experience, advances of pay, allowances, excess hours, weekend working, travelling time, eye tests, legal representation paid from the public purse, relocation fees, reward vouchers for good work, and advances in money to pay for travel expenditure and subsistence payments.
Directors are asked to consider other possible ways of saving money, beyond the lists drawn up by the Cabinet Office: "These lists are not definitive, and departments should include any terms and conditions, policies and practices or pay-related terms deemed relevant."
The review process has been split into three phases to be completed by the end of this year: an assessment of terms and conditions to be submitted by 19 October; a draft implementation of changes and a plan with key dates to be submitted by 16 November; and an implementation strategy and plan to be submitted by 31 December.
"Details of who the changes are to be applied to should be included in this document along with key dates, savings/costs the department has identified and the evidence it has relied on in reaching its conclusions," the documents state.
The aim is to deliver all reforms over two years, starting in April 2013.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said the civil service was being reformed to make it faster, more unified, focused on outcomes not process, and ultimately more enjoyable to work for: "Because we want to attract the best staff, we will remain an employer with good terms and conditions, as we have always been. However, while there has been significant recent change in pay and pensions, there are other terms and conditions that have not been updated and are now outliers compared to best practice. We will address this and ensure a modern employment offer is available to all."
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New York, NY - With Congress supporting a new GOP budget, the president has a new issue to take our minds off war and the lack of a real economic recovery - not that he can wave a magic wand and simply create one.
The presidential campaign that usually gets started in earnest in the autumn is already off and running with Barack Obama blasting his likely opponent Mitt Romney for backing a budget, created by Congressman Paul Ryan, that takes an axe to social programmes not already eviscerated.
His well-crafted speech in Florida threw down the gauntlet and sought to pre-empt the GOP game plan, although it is likely they will ignore him - since they prefer to run more on attitudes than issues. Expect more personal attacks.
Inside Story US 2012:
Are minorities being denied voting rights?
Obama called the Republican budget "so far to the right" on the political spectrum that it makes the Republicans' 1994 Contract with America "look like the New Deal".
"This isn't a budget supported by some small rump group in the Republican Party,” he said. “This is now the party's governing platform. This is what they're running on."
He says it would create a form of "Social Darwinism" by pitting "the poor against the wealthy".
Growing inequality
Bear in mind that the House of Representatives, the body that backed the plan is - as are many of our institutions - totally unrepresentative. Perhaps, that's why Congress enjoys an approval rating of less than ten per cent.
It has now become the "bully pulpit" that the White House was supposed to be, although this one is run by real bullies more comfortable with obstruction and personal destruction than law making.
In a new book, 99-1, Chuck Collins tracks the country's growing inequality and also shows whose interests the legislators now serve. Hint: it's not the working people of the US. He writes:
"The richest one per cent now owns over 36 per cent of all the wealth in the United States. That's more than the net worth of the bottom 95 per cent combined. This one per cent has pocketed almost all of the wealth gains of the last decade.
"In 2010, the one per cent earned 21 per cent of all income, up from only eight per cent in mid-1970s. The 400 wealthiest individuals on the Forbes 400 list have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans."
This is the reality that neither party is really talking about, because it would force an examination of the power centres of American wealth which are not accountable to a public vote, and often operate in the shadows.
The Wall Street lobbyists - gutting financial reforms and opposing a global tax on transactions - are never discussed in the political race that keeps the debate simple, partisan and personality driven.
The role of powerful companies are also mostly off-limits, because both Democratic and Republican candidates depend on their largesse.
Who do you think lobbied to stop the end of subsidies to super wealthy oil and gas companies? They did.
This issue became public at most for one day and, then, was quickly pushed off the agenda.
'Too big too fail'
In China, the prime minister attacks the banks there as too powerful, but in the US, the big ones are still considered "too big too fail" and allowed to suck off pro-bank financing schemes and bailouts by the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank.
Inside Story US 2012:
Romney's Florida win: More money than policy?
When libertarian Republican Ron Paul began questioning the powerful Fed in his political campaign, the media turned away from him in droves, dismissing his candidacy - which challenged war and the money masters - as non-serious.
They would rather talk about pregnancies than power.
The result is a process built around denial and avoidance, where the most important issues get buried in the name of reporting and speculating about the horse race.
Inanities replace information, and spectacles such as Sarah Palin's dramatised "debate" on a morning TV show get more ink than who's funding who.
Issues are bandied about; interests are ignored.
None of this is new. Some years back, I reviewed the post-mortem analysis of journalists - reviewing how political races were covered during 30 years. It was clear that the coverage fell into a recurring pattern, with the complaints and criticisms all predictable and, then, recycled, year after year.
Why can't news outlets do a better job? That question is rarely explored.
In what some media analysts have deemed a "post-journalism era", media outlets operate on routines, not innovation. Just like sports is mostly about winners and losers, so is politics. The networks genuflect and serve power, covering the politics of only two established parties and candidates with what Europeans call "extra-parliamentary movements" deemed illegitimate.
They pursue what's called "electotainment" with constant profiles of personalities and constantly evolving snappier presentations to "sex it up" and reinforce as many controversies as possible to build viewer interest. Many viewers have already opted out of what are often contrived, babbling brooks of commentary.
Note how, just as politics in the US revolves around well-known incumbents, TV news features its own "cast" of veteran incumbents as pundits who recycle a limited inventory of well-honed insights and old stories to show how smart they are. Much of them revolve around polls that rarely discuss why, relative to other countries, so few US voters even vote.
Fewer minorities in the newsrooms
The organisations that study the media also report fewer and fewer minorities in the newsrooms. EJC reports:
"Even as the number of minorities in the United States is increasing, the number of minorities working in newsrooms continued to decrease in 2011, according to new figures from the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Center for Advanced Social Research (CASR) at the Missouri School of Journalism. This, despite the fact that minorities make up roughly 36 percent of the US population overall, according to 2010 Census numbers."
This ensures that there will be fewer new voices or voices sensitive to minority issues on the air.
Inside Story US 2012: 'Fear of a Black Republican'
The new stories this year - such as the voter ID laws that will suppress minority voters, as raised by civil rights and human rights groups - seem to be an afterthought, as channel after channel regurgitate data with little perspective or context. The NAACP went to the UN's Human Rights Council hearings in Geneva to raise an issue that gets disturbingly little attention in newsrooms, or are competing feverishly to be first in reporting results.
Few outlets remind viewers that the Republican primary vote that gave New Gingrich his one victory in South Carolina was not really about him, but about CNN's handling of the debate in a way viewers considered rude and biased. It was an anti-media vote - not a pro-Newt endorsement.
Respect for the media seems to be at an all-time low on both the right and the left. In fact, even as CNN "upgraded" its graphics and on-air newsroom "look", it reportedly lost half its viewers. CNN competitors Fox and MSNBC, with small cable audiences relative to larger network audience shares, do less and less reporting, instead offering diametrically opposed partisan "shows" that feature highly politicised perspectives.
Whatever it is, it’s not journalism - as the Comedy Channel reveals night after night on the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. They, at least, show how overhyped, absurd and inaccurate so much of the coverage really is.
Thus, our media coverage plays as intense a role in undermining democracy as the relative handful of wealthy donors who now dominate and finance our politics.
Yet the campaign financers are a subject of growing debate, but the role of the media is not. And on top of it, media companies are the beneficiary of much of the political advertising, and hence have a big interest in the game that they not only "cover", but help create.
News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs at NewsDissector.net. His latest book is Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street and his film is Plunder. He hosts a show on Progressive Radio Network. Comments to [email protected]
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On Wednesday, the state media of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) broadcast video of leader Kim Jong Un watching what appears to have been a successful launch of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. However, the launch actually took place in April. The footage was broadcast now, according to analysts, likely as an attempt to demonstrate North Korea's nuclear threat as a senior DPRK official meets with China this week. The broadcast may also be an attempt to draw attention away from a string of failed launches of North Korea's Musudan intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM).
The video was broadcast just after analyst reports said North Korea had made a fourth failed attempt in two months to test-launch the Musudan—a missile designed to strike at targets as distant as Guam and the Philippines. The missile exploded on launch. Earlier on April 15, North Korea's military attempted a launch from a mobile launching system, but it exploded shortly after liftoff. Just two weeks later, as North Korea was preparing for the congress of the Worker's Party, there was an attempt at a dual launch—with both missiles crashing into the sea.
The Musudan, also known as the BM-25, was introduced in 2003. It is derived from the Soviet-era R-27 (NATO designation SS-N-6) and is essentially an improved solid-fuel "Scud" missile. North Korea has allegedly sold kits of the Musudan to Iran. The missile is believed to have a range between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometers (1,500 to 2,500 miles). But since its initial appearance, there had been no known test launches of the Musudan—only ground tests of the engine.
As Dr. John Schilling, an aerospace engineer in the satellite industry and ballistic missile and space analyst, wrote for the US-Korea Institute's blog, 38 North, it's very uncommon for North Korea to stage repeated launch attempts so quickly after a failure. Typically, the DPRK's military has gone back to the drawing board for as long as a year before making another attempt in order to find the root cause of the failure. The double-launch failure is even more puzzling, given the first failure just two weeks earlier—at least, it'd be puzzling outside of the context of North Korean politics. It's possible that North Korea simply believed the Musudan, which was built from Russian parts, didn't need to be tested, and the launches were purely a political move.
That doesn't mean North Korea's nuclear threat has been blunted. The apparent success of the submarine-launched ballistic missile in April, along with the completion of North Korea's first launch-capable ballistic missile submarine, are ample cause for concern anywhere within intermediate range (the same targets the Musudan would strike). Those actions are an even greater threat to South Korea and Japan in terms of warning times for attack. Additionally, there's the KN-08 mobile intercontinental ballistic missile being developed by North Korea. That system boasts an estimated range of 9,000 kilometers (5,500 miles), capable of striking the west coast of the continental US.
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NEW DELHI: India will have nearly 1500 factories making handset and ecosystem product by 2020, the local handset industry association said, even as players like Foxconn said that the Indian opportunity was big enough to make 1 billion devices, but policy stability would be key enabler."Right now, we have 104 factories... by 2020, we expect that 1450-1500 plants will come up through the phased manufacturing program," said Pankaj Mohindroo , president of Indian Cellular Association On being asked whether next 1 billion phones can be made from India by the world's largest contract manufacturer, Josh Foulger, head of India operations at Foxconn said that they could make in 10 years, but the larger question was whether it can be done in five years, given India's potential."We can make in 10 years, the question is whether 5 years, or less. India has all the potential to do it. We have 100 companies here, PMP is in motion, component ecosystem slowly started to take shape. Key enablers are that govt continues to maintain the even queue, the policy stability has been very good so far. Continuity of PMP is dependent on policy stability," he said.Companies like Spreadtrum and Lava are optimistic on the India opportunity, as the Chinese chipset maker expects the featurephone market to be dominant, since 60-70% of the install base of mobile phones still haven't seen full smartphone experience. The leg up will be from the LTE featurephone , a segment in which the company is investing.Neeraj Sharma, head of Spreadtrum in India said that LTE featurephone will give users incentive to move to smartphone. "LTE featurephone will be there for 1-2 years, total market is 100 million, after which people will want to move to smartphones."Companies like Lava are hopeful that India will become the hub of skill development in the mobile manufacturing sector as well.SN Rai, co-promoter of Lava said that the government agenda is to promote local manufacturing. "We can create a lot of jobs, someday directly or indirectly we should hire 100,000 across the world, significant of which will be in India."
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A new poll finds Sen. Patty Murray headed into her 2016 re-election campaign with tepid job-approval numbers — but a big lead over her Republican challenger.
A new poll finds U.S. Sen. Patty Murray with tepid job-approval numbers — but a big early lead over her Republican challenger — as she gears up for her re-election campaign in 2016.
Just 41 percent of voters surveyed gave the four-term Democrat a positive job rating, while 49 percent rated her performance “only fair” or “poor,” according to the statewide Elway Poll released Wednesday.
Those are worse numbers than Murray had at this point in her 2010 campaign, when 48 percent of voters gave her a positive rating, with 38 percent negative, longtime independent pollster Stuart Elway said.
The new poll found 43 percent of voters inclined to re-elect Murray, with 50 percent undecided and 7 percent preferring “someone else.”
Murray’s Republican challenger, former state GOP chair Chris Vance, has a big gap to overcome.
In a head-to-head poll matchup, Murray beat Vance 44 to 23 percent — a 21 point lead.
Still, Vance quickly publicized the poll, saying Murray’s numbers are a sign the 2016 race will be competitive.
“At this moment, my numbers mean nothing. It’s about her numbers,” he said.
“This narrative that I am on some kind of windmill tilt is wrong,” Vance said. “She is very vulnerable.”
Vance added that Democrats’ “trackers” are following him around to record his speeches. They’ve also filed a records request seeking thousands of his state government-related emails. (He has worked for the past several years as an adviser to Randy Dorn, state superintendent of public instruction.)
In an emailed statement, state Democratic Party Chair Jaxon Ravens said Murray has a “strong record of fighting for Washington state families.” He predicted voters will sour on Vance the more they learn about his “long record of extreme partisanship, commitment to failed Republican policies like tax cuts for the rich, and cheerleading for failed politicians like George W. Bush.”
This is hardly the first time a poll has tantalized Republicans by showing Murray to be potentially vulnerable.
The “mom in tennis shoes” elected to the Senate in 1992 has never enjoyed intimidating job performance ratings, Elway noted. She’s never been above 50 percent heading into any previous campaign and was in negative territory heading into three of them.
“Yet she has won them all, against formidable opponents,” Elway wrote in his poll memo.
The statewide telephone poll of 500 registered voters was conducted using live interviewers between Oct. 13-15 and has a 4.5 percent margin of error.
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According to an analysis of federal payroll data by USA Today, the federal bureaucracy has flourished during the current recession.
Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months—and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time—in pay and hiring—during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector. The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available. When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000. The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules. ... The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker’s pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.
The report notes that the data analyzed do not include employees of the White House, Congress, the Postal Service, and the intelligence agencies or uniformed members of the armed forces. Adding these employees to the analysis probably would not alter the general outlines of the study’s conclusions.
This development would be remarkable at any time, but it seems even more remarkable when it coincides with a more-than-doubling of the unemployment rate, a 4 percent decline in real GDP, and the evaporation of trillions of dollars of private wealth in the markets for corporate shares, other financial securities, and real estate.
This development also highlights the division of interests at the heart of classical liberal class analysis: the division between those who gain their income from honest production and trade (which Franz Oppenheimer called the “economic means”) and those who gain their income by plundering the producers (which he called the “political means”). Plutocrats are no longer only the Daddy Warbucks types, wearing diamond stickpins and puffing on oversized cigars (although Hank Paulson clearly illustrates that such types have not disappeared). Now they are also the blank-faced bureaucrats, dozing over their desks in nondescript office buildings.
Even Franklin D. Roosevelt made a better showing in this regard, at least at the start of his presidency. Having campaigned against Herbert Hoover’s excessive enlargement of the bureaucracy and his large budget deficits, Roosevelt pushed through the Economy Act of 1933. This statute provided for substantial cuts in federal spending and veterans’ benefits and gave the president authority to eliminate some federal agencies to achieve greater government economy. Subsequent congressional and executive actions overturned most of the act’s provisions, but at least in this regard, Roosevelt’s heart was initially in the right place.
Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for Barack Obama’s heart. From his campaign, to the massive “stimulus” bill enacted in February, to the obscene hypertrophy of the federal bureaucrats’ pay, perks, and power during the past two years, we see all too plainly that while those of us who use the economic means to gain our living are struggling, those who use the political means are enjoying tremendous success in their plunder of the productive class, and that this conjunction has been anything but accidental. Members of the plundering class wanted it, and they have brought it about, owing to the threats of violence that serve as the basis for all of their actions under the state’s banners.
Thus, the current recession cum financial debacle certainly has been a severe misfortune for you and me, but for the federal bureaucracy, it has been a godsend—complete, we might note, with a messiah to lead the way.
Tags: American History, Barack Obama, Budget and Tax Policy, classical liberalism, Corporatism, Daddy Warbuck, Employment, federal employee, Franklin D. Roosevelt, government employees, Great Depression, Henry Paulson, Herbert Hoover, libertarianism, New Deal, plutocracy, Politics, Presidential Power, Socialism, The State, Unemployment
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Hip hop artist Snoop Dogg and lifestyle icon Martha Stewart plan to join forces in the kitchen this fall.
The two will co-host "Martha and Snoop's Dinner Party," a VH1 cooking show that will feature the two stars preparing a meal for their celebrity friends, the network announced on its website Monday.
"My homegirl Martha and I have a special bond that goes back. We're gonna be cooking, drinking and having a good time with our exclusive friends. Can't wait for you to see how we roll together!" Snoop told VH1.com.
Stewart said the show will "exemplify" the country's fascination with dining, celebrity and entertainment.
"I can't wait to get snoop in the kitchen," she said on a promo teasing the show that aired on ABC's 'Good Morning America.'
"Our new show is rizzle, dizzle for shizzle," she added, imitating the West Coast slang popularized by Snoop.
This will not be the first collaboration between Stewart and Snoop -- real name Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr.
Their on screen connection goes back to at least 2008, when they made multiple dishes including mashed potatoes and holiday brownies on an episode of "Martha Stewart Living." They later sat next to each other at the Comedy Central roast of Justin Bieber in 2015, and appeared together on ABC's "$100,000 Pyramid" game show earlier this summer.
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Current national climate pledges are not enough to keep human-induced climate change in check, a top UN official said Tuesday, but countries can – and must – do more to cut heat-trapping emissions sooner rather than later.
The risks from global warming are so unmanageable, the human cost so unpardonable, and the economic uncertainty so complete, that keeping global warming within a generally agreed upon safe range is crucial for global stability, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said at a Monitor-hosted event Tuesday, just a few weeks before a major climate summit in Paris.
In December representatives from 195 countries will meet in Paris to hammer out the details of an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and curb climate change. But the path to a transformational energy revolution must be forged quickly and intentionally, Ms. Figueres said, and an agreement in Paris will be just one step in that direction.
“We have to be able to admit publicly, privately, and everything in between that those 157 national climate change plans do not constitute enough emissions reductions to put us onto the path of 2 degrees [C],” Figueres said, referring to a level of warming above preindustrial levels that scientists believe is relatively safe.
“However, what they do do is get us off of the business-as-usual trajectory that we were on just four or five years ago to a temperature increase of 4 or 5 degrees, and by some estimates, even 6 degrees,” she added.
Although the final details of the Paris agreement remain unclear, and further efforts will be needed even after the agreement is concluded, Figueres says she’s optimistic that countries and companies across the globe will eventually reduce emissions enough to create what she called “climate neutrality”.
Check out our highlights and the full video from our conversation with Christiana Figueres below:
Three big ideas
1. Paris is a beginning not an end
If you think that the agreement in Paris is going to be a one-off deal that will solve climate change, you will probably be disappointed, Figueres said Tuesday.
Changing an economic development model that has been in place for 150 years is a lot more difficult than it may seem. That is especially true when most developed countries have benefitted enormously from that model – namely, in burning fossil fuels – and many developing countries are vying to adopt it. Nevertheless, Figueres said the Paris talks would create a “receptacle” for national climate change plans that would denote “the deepest engagement with climate change” the world has ever seen.
Although the commitments countries are currently making are not enough to stop the planet from warming to 2 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures, the Paris talks will draw a clear path for the future and help identify a final destination, Figueres said.
2. Climate change is as much an opportunity as it is a challenge
“Frankly, I am up to here with the doom and gloom news about climate,” Figueres said at Tuesday's event. “This is the biggest opportunity and the best news that we have had; this is the mega-development project of the world, let’s wake up and take advantage of it.”
The UN's top energy and climate official pointed to immense growth potential in new technologies as a foundation for new industries and new employment opportunities. There are currently around 7.7 million jobs in renewable energy worldwide, and studies suggest that increased investment will create between 5 million and 10 million more jobs per year. Meanwhile, the number of indirect jobs created could be 4 times that figure, Figueres said, adding that a switch to a clean-energy economy could create new job opportunities, new industries, and new ways to do businesses.
“The real story here is that solar and wind are just going through the roof,” Figueres said. “This transformation is underway, it is unstoppable.”
3. Global and national interests may finally be converging
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Countries involved in global climate talks already reached the zenith of accusatory blaming five or six years ago, Figueres said. Now, major changes have been made to how leaders approach climate talks. Negotiators look for where national interests and the global agenda coincide, and are using that as a basis for global climate talks.
That means that countries are more likely to follow through with their commitment. Still, the sum total of national interests does not necessarily match the global need for emission reductions, which makes it more important for Paris to have a contingency plan.
Two notable quotes
I have already been pellucidly clear about the fact that if I get one question in Paris that says, ‘and you didn’t get us onto 2 degrees,’ then I will chop the head off that person, because I have been saying for at least a year, if not more, that that is impossible [to get in Paris]." – Christiana Figueres
I am actually delighted about Volkswagen….When Volkswagen says we’ve screwed up, we admit it, now they are waiting to hear how high the fine is going to be. But what is their corporate strategy? They are going to scrap diesel. Scrap diesel! And we’re moving to electric vehicles. Well, now they have a little revolution under way.” – Christiana Figueres
Tweet of the day
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The latest episode follows an announcement by Hainan province in southern China last week that Chinese vessels would board and search ships in contested areas of the sea, which includes vital shipping lanes through which more than a third of global trade moves.
The new tensions illustrate in stark terms the competition in the South China Sea for what are believed to be sizeable deposits of oil and gas.
Earlier this year, China's third-largest energy company, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation, launched new equipment that would allow China to drill in deep water for the first time.
The escalation in the South China Sea comes less than a month after Xi Jinping took office as China's leader. Mr Xi appears to have taken a particular interest in the South China Sea and the serious dispute between China and Japan over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and as Senkaku in Japan. Whether any of China's most recent actions in the South China Sea were associated with Mr Xi was not clear. But Mr Xi does lead a small group of policymakers clustered in the Maritime Rights Office, according to Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Peking University, and other Chinese experts.
A website run by PetroVietnam reported the company's exploration vessel Binh Minh 02 had its seismic cable severed by a Chinese fishing vessel last Friday. In May last year, the Vietnamese authorities said a similar cable of the Binh Minh 02 was cut by three Chinese surveillance ships, resulting in weeks of anti-China protests in Hanoi.
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(CNN) The year is 2020. A group of warehouse workers are locking up for the weekend.
As the lights go off, a swarm of buzzing drones fly into the darkness.
Over the coming days, they will zoom up and down the aisles, updating the inventory for when their human colleagues return on Monday morning.
This isn't a scene from a sci-fi film.
South African start-up Drone Scan is working on a device which they believe will revolutionize working lives worldwide.
More fun than climbing ladders
Despite its name, Drone Scan does not manufacture drones. Instead, it makes the clever device which can be attached to drones to scan barcodes.
The device uses lasers and details of the warehouse's dimensions to navigate the drone. By measuring its distance from the ground and walls, it calculates the drone's position.
Every time it scans a barcode, it automatically updates the central log with the exact location of that product.
The Drone Scan is attached to a DJI Matrice, which -- as opposed to more "easy on the eyes" consumer products -- is designed for commercial use and can be customized and controlled externally.
Jasper Pons, co-founder of Drone Scan, says this technology will save large companies millions of dollars every month by cutting man hours during stock-takes.
The drone can also fly up to the harder-to-reach higher shelves.
"We think the workers are going to love them," says Pons. "They are going to say: 'Give us the drones and give us back our weekends.'"
Fishing for gold
The idea for Drone Scan came after co-founder Jasper Pons started using a homemade drone to map fishing sites and film a canoe race on the Msunduzi river near Pietermaritzburg, in South Africa
"I thought, if this thing can lift a camera it can lift a barcode scanner up in a warehouse," says Pons.
Having worked with warehouse software in the past, the drone was a logical step towards speeding up data collection for Pons.
The company, which was founded in 2013, has since landed a pilot project in Europe.
Co-founder Craig Leppan cannot disclose the client's name, but says it is a large multinational company.
"They've indicated they have over 400 warehouses worldwide in need of this solution."
Could change warehouse design
"Continuous inventory is almost a dream within warehouse logistics," says Leppan. "Eventually you will have the drones working away in the warehouses at night when everybody is asleep."
The technology has potential to improve efficiency for large delivery giants such as Amazon. "The drone will help make their system more accurate which means less time spent looking for stuff when it's needed," says Pons.
While these drones may be the ideal workers -- they don't complain or need weekends off -- they do need their batteries recharging, a limitation to the technology the team is currently working on. They envisage a future where drones fly themselves to charging pods.
Another major drawback is that, currently, the drones require a person to control them with a joy-stick-like device.
The company hopes autonomous drones could be available in as little time as one year.
"[In the meantime], we envisage that even the manpower of flying the drone and someone recording the drone's scans on a tablet is faster than the conventional team of a forklift driver and a scanner," says Leppan.
"We've heard from people who are thinking about designing new warehouses which are drone friendly."
Let's hope the drones are friendly, too.
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Arrivals
Learning to Lighten your Load
There's no question: overpacking tops the list of biggest travel mistakes. So here is OneBag.com, a non-commercial Web site that teaches — in exhaustive (exhausting?) detail — the art and science of travelling light. Here you can learn how to go pretty much anywhere, for business or leisure, for an indefinite length of time, with no more than a single carry-on-sized bag. An experience that can — as I hope you will discover — be life-changing.
Why Travel Light?
Of all the travel skills you might acquire, travelling light is the one most likely to result in enjoyable, productive, stress-free travel experiences. For two thousand years, seasoned travellers have written of its many important benefits, including …
With a much-reduced need to hand your belongings over to the care of others, you are less likely to lose them to theft, damage, or misrouting. Similarly, you foil those who would enlist your unsuspecting aid as a conveyor of contraband goods. Attaining peace of mind is rarely this easy!
You can laugh at checked baggage fees. You don't have to pay porters and others to carry and store stuff for you. You are more able to take public transportation (like most airport personnel do), rather than limos, shuttles, and (often scam-prone) taxis. You can even walk. All of which also bring you into more intimate (hence rewarding) contact with the people and places that you have come to visit.
Less stuff means greater mobility, thus more options. With no checked or awkward-to-manage luggage to limit your travel alternatives, you can better cope with delayed transportation & missed connections, and exploit unexpected opportunities (when you check luggage, you're usually constrained to ride with it). You can switch to other (sometimes earlier) flights when space is available, and use alternate transport (trains, rental cars, etc.) when it isn't. You needn't arrive at airports as early (no waiting for luggage check-in), and will be among the first to leave (while the hordes wait for baggage carousels and customs inspection queues). You can board trains, trams, and coaches with alacrity. You won't feel compelled to take the first hotel room offered, but can comfortably walk down the street should the ambience be unsuitable or the price unreasonable. You can sell your airplane seat (by volunteering to be "bumped") on full flights. You can travel as an air courier. You can be more spontaneous.
Travelling lightly reduces stress: it is simply a more hassle-free way to get about. You have more time, because packing takes little. You waste less energy hauling stuff. You know what you have, where everything is, and that it's sufficient. We've all seen those anxious folks at the airport, struggling with too much baggage, concerned that they have lost track of something, or left it behind. Foreign travel can be particularly challenging, because it is unfamiliar and less predictable. But the one-bag traveller copes by operating from a solid, familiar, and — most important — well-considered foundation, with fewer unnecessary things to worry about.
All of the above are concerned with short-term benefits to you. But travelling light also yields long-term benefits to the planet. Less stuff to manufacture. Less use of vehicles and other equipment to move you and your belongings about. Less fuel for those vehicles that do move you. Less greenhouse gas production. Less damage to our celestial home. Greater likelihood of upcoming generations being around and able to do some travelling of their own. (It's not often that the most convenient option is also the most environmentally responsible.)
Don't just take my word for it. Read what others have to say!
I’m Convinced! So How Can OneBag Help Me?
He who would travel happily must travel light. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry If there's a "trick" to travelling light, it's the understanding and proper use of a packing list (albeit a different type of list than those you have likely seen). Apart from that, however, there's no single specific secret. Travelling light is a skill comprised of a very large number of very small considerations. Taken individually, many of these might seem relatively unimportant (or unnecessarily meticulous); collectively, however, this selection of small sanities makes it possible to journey for extended periods of time, carrying no more than will fit in a surprisingly small bag.
Typical travellers shouldn't expect the transition to happen overnight (unless they're extraordinarily diligent). The proficient one-bag traveller will have mastered the three core elements of light travel, illustrated here in order of importance.
But there's no need to become an instant expert. Feel free to meander through this site, taking inspiration where you find it. Every single topic detailed on these pages can help you become a better (thus happier) traveller, but it's unnecessary (and perhaps even counterproductive) to tackle them all at once. Start with those that most appeal to you, and leave the others for when you seek to further hone your skills.
Here's a straightforward promise: if you persevere, you will at some point reach a transcendent moment, in which your (one) bag will be small and light enough to carry without consequence, no longer of any meaningful concern. And — from that instant — your travel experiences will be forever changed, with an unfettered freedom that is beyond the comprehension of those who remain bound to their baggage.
Where Do I Begin?
I strongly suggest starting with Using A Packing List, because that will yield the most benefit in the least amount of time. Once you've begun to develop your own personal list, continue as and where your interests lead you; you needn't learn everything immediately.
Looking for luggage tips? You'll find much on that topic under the What To Pack It In menu. Appreciate, however, that merely acquiring a new bag, no matter how "perfect", will no more turn you into a one-bag traveller than a superb violin will turn you into a concert soloist!
You'll also find here a collection of effective packing techniques (including how to pack clothing so that it doesn't get wrinkled), a detailed analysis of every individual item on my own personal packing list (to help you understand my choices, and thus be better equipped to make those best suited to you), and a considerable variety of supplemental information, including:
a checklist of things to take care of prior to leaving on a trip
contact information for suppliers of harder-to-find items mentioned on these pages
a (very) few recommended books on related topics
collected links to some carefully-chosen sites that OneBag enthusiasts are likely to find interesting
enthusiasts are likely to find interesting my own compilation of frequently-used travel industry links for airlines, hotels, and rental automobiles, plus the best metasearch engines, handy lists of country/airport/airline code designations, a telephone country/area code finding & deciphering service, and tools for checking real-time flight status, airport delay conditions, and aircraft seating arrangements (a useful page to bookmark)
Finally — and possibly even most importantly — don't miss the TraveLetters page, featuring comments from people like you, who have tried out these ideas and reported on their experiences, thus offering reassurance that this site isn't merely (or at least, entirely!) the ravings of some geek with a packing fixation.
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Caporn says the Avengers tattoo his girlfriend paid for on his 27th birthday is the best present he ever received. Credit:Twitter @capey Mr Caporn began collecting 20 years ago, buying up to 30 comic books each week, and has now built up a collection of more than 10,000. "I actually worked out I've been reading comic books for about 20 years, and that's continually buying them every week," he said. "I have a whole office full of toys and books and pieces and a whole bedroom back at my parents place. "Anytime anyone comes to visit they come have a look at my geek den."
Luke Caporn calls his room of collectables his "geek den". Credit:Twitter @capey Mr Caporn plans to one day open his own store and once travelled interstate to dine with US comic book creator "god", Stan Lee. "He was going to Melbourne to Oz Comic-Con and I booked flights and tickets immediately and fished out a bit of money," he said. Caporn has previously commissioned Mark Brooks (Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men) to create a piece of artwork for him. Credit:Twitter @capey "The dinner cost about $250 but he's like 90 so I knew it was the only chance in my lifetime to meet him.
"He's pretty much a god." Fans will pay between $27.50 and $780 for a ticket to Supanova. Credit:Twitter @capey The 28-year-old has even been recognised at overseas conventions for the Avengers tattoo he has inked on his wrist. "I've travelled to Singapore for a convention before...they'd seen me online so I was getting recognised," he said. "It's kind of like wearing my 'geekdom' on my sleeve.
"Since the [Avengers] film came out, people love it." Attending conventions allows him to connect with people who share his interests. "The culture is great - people with your same interests and people in costumes," he said. "All different fans and we all get along. "In my general life I don't have too many friends who share those interests."
Cultural studies lecturer Jon Stratton says fantasy and sci-fi are unique genres because they create spaces for fans to escape into. "Sci-fi creates alternative worlds and that fascinates people," he said. "It means you get some people who want to expand on that world and others who want to live in that world rather than this one. "People are fascinated by the kinds of aliens that are created and the potential possibilities with different kinds of alien life." Fans collect autographs and photos of the genres' celebrities because it gave them a special claim to share that experience with others, the Curtin University lecturer says.
"An autograph is something that's specific to a particular individual," he said. "It's something that you can show to people to say 'I met this person'. "A lot of this goes back to the idea of celebrity. "If you've done film or television, because it's a mass medium and so many people can see you, there's that sense that you become something special and people think that you're different." Supanova VIP tickets sell for up to $780 and when Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Perth, fans paid $10,000 for a spot at his private dinner.
"It tells you something about the extraordinary celebrity," Professor Stratton said. "Arnold Schwarzenegger started off as an amazing bodybuilder then he made a number of films, many of which are still very highly regarded. "It's a remarkable career and talk about an immigrant success story in the United States." Professor Stratton said while $10,000 to meet 'Arnie' - or even $80 to meet Carrie Fisher - might seem over the top to some people, the value of tickets, signatures and photos was whatever fans were willing to pay to get their piece of history. "What you have with Carrie Fisher is that history of being Princess Leia, a very charismatic character - one of the characters that people most remember from Star Wars," he said.
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Lifesite News has the scoop:
“Governor McAuliffe stands contrary to the Catholic Church in not one but many of the most essential teachings of the Church in the political arena,” the Norfolk pastor wrote in a March 5 letter to parishioners, distributed at Sunday Mass on March 8. “He himself promised to be a ‘brick wall’ against restrictions on abortion, has taken away commonsense protections for women in abortion facilities and lowered safety standards, and consistently takes money from pro-abortion lobbying groups.”
Norfolk Knights of Columbus Council 3548, which has organized the Norfolk Saint Patrick’s Day Parade since 1967, had secured McAuliffe as grand marshal, apparently keeping the choice from the pastor of Holy Trinity Parish, where the council is based. When Father Dan Beeman took it up with the state council on the advice of his bishop, he was told by the state council that another grand marshal would be chosen, a decision that was reversed ten days later.
Read more.
The full text of the pastor’s letter:
Dear Parishioners,
I write to alert you to an unfortunate situation which I have done my best to avoid, but to no avail. As you are aware, each year Norfolk is home to the annual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. The local Knights of Columbus Council #3548 have been the sponsors and originators of the parade since 1967. As a Catholic men’s fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus sought to bring a celebration in honor of one of our Church’s greatest Saints to the people of Norfolk. Each year, the Knights pay special honor to one particular “Grand Marshall” who is given the title, is honored at an annual Emerald Ball, and is then given the charge of leading the parade.
It had been the custom to honor a local resident or community member with that title for a number of years. Last winter, I wrote to the Knights of Columbus at the request of the Bishop’s Vicar for the East, advising them that it would be best if we allowed the parade to remain a non-political event. I asked them not to honor any political candidate, office holder, or former office holder above the city level, as politicians at those levels often make decisions about issues which Catholics hold as non-negotiable to our Catholic faith. It was our strong urging that they not honor any political persons, but that if they did, they should not honor anyone who stands in opposition to the teaching of the Church on issues of life, marriage, or religious liberty. I wrote that letter at the request of our own Bishop to be sure that the Knights understood this is an important part of distinguishing our Catholic identity in public forums and awards.
After receiving the letter in the winter of 2014, two members of the Knights of Columbus parade committee met with me because they had already chosen a Grand Marshall last year who did, in fact, stand publicly against the teaching of the Church and who had, in fact, campaigned specifically on positions against the Church. I met with the committee members and after extensive conversation, they agreed to name a new Grand Marshall for last year’s parade. They chose an excellent second option, the Chief of the Norfolk Police, and I was relieved to be able to participate in the Emerald Ball and Parade. In that meeting they specifically agreed to avoid political persons going forward as it could send a very mixed message for a Catholic organization to honor someone who stands in opposition to the Church’s teachings. They gave me their word they would not do this again.
The council kept the decision from me until just a few weeks ago, when I was informed via a bulk mailing. At that point, I followed the advice and counsel of the Office of the Bishop. He asked that I refer the matter to the State Council of the Knights of Columbus and to also advise the National Office. I was told immediately by the State Deputy that the Knights would name another Grand Marshall. Ten days later, the State Deputy informed me that the Knights had reversed their decision and have decided to leave Governor McAuliffe as the Grand Marshall of the parade.
Bishop DiLorenzo believes strongly in the Catholic principle of subsidiarity – that decisions in the Church should be made at the lowest level possible. I agree with him that this decision should be handled internally within the Knights of Columbus as an organization. While it is a sad and unfortunate thing that the Knights would decide to allow this to continue against our request, I have to consider that I have done my part as the pastor to teach the Truth of the Church and allow them to operate in freedom. It is the clear teaching of the Bishops of the United States in Catholics in Political Life that, “the Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions” (emphasis in original text). There is a difference between respecting the Office of Governor and allowing the Governor to march in the parade and honoring the Governor by naming him the Grand Marshall and official host of the parade. The Knights have chosen to act on their own, against the clear advice and teaching of the Church.
As a result of their decision, the parish will not support or participate in the parade. I will not attend the Emerald Ball or Parade. Sadly, this also unnecessarily severs the relationship between Council #3548 and Holy Trinity parish.
Again, it is unfortunate that the Knights have decided to make something that should be a community event into something that is political. I am aware that some members of the Council disagreed with this decision, and that there are some who had nothing to do with the decision. I am grateful to those men for the support of what is right, and to Knights who are active members of the parish who stand for the truth. In a time where things of so much more importance exist, I am sad that this much energy has been devoted to something of this nature. Please pray for unity in the Church.
Faithfully in Christ,
Father Dan Beeman
Pastor
+The Third Sunday of Lent
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As Rachel noted on the show last night, Jeb Bush raised a few eyebrows at a campaign event in Iowa yesterday, speculating about a possible running mate. “Should I be elected president,” the Republican said, “I would have my vice president, I think she will be a great partner.” Smiling a bit, Bush joked, “Did I say that out loud?”
I suspect this is part of a clumsy strategy to get people thinking about him as an electable general-election candidate, who’ll be only too pleased to go up against Hillary Clinton with a Republican woman on his ticket.
Will this have the intended effect? It’s hard to say for sure, though it’s hard to blame the guy for trying – nothing else is working for Team Jeb. NBC News had an amazing report yesterday documenting the presidential candidates’ spending so far, and Bush and his allies have easily outspent every other campaign operation in both parties, but to no avail. The Florida Republican remains stuck in the mid-single digits in state and national polling.
Of course, there’s another way to look at this: Jeb may be hovering around 5% in the polls, but imagine where he’d be if his campaign and its allies hadn’t already spent roughly $29 million on his behalf.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Bush backers expected the Paris attacks to refocus the race, giving Jeb a possible boost as the public looked for mature, steady leadership. But with fresh evidence that Paris hasn’t improved Bush’s standing at all, there’s “a fresh round of hand-wringing and second-guessing” about the candidate’s future.
On Monday, the Bush campaign circulated a list of fundraisers that mostly included previously announced supporters. Earlier, the campaign released an online video highlighting Mr. Bush’s leadership as governor during Hurricane Ivan – in 2004.
Um, what else you got?
Mr. Bush has sought to reassure uneasy donors by pointing out that in the most recent presidential race, several candidates surpassed Mitt Romney in the polls before he locked down the nomination.
Some may buy this, but it’s a tough sell: Romney never fell to the depths Bush is seeing now. Assorted frontrunners came and went in the GOP’s 2012 race, but Romney was consistently a strong second, while Jeb is currently running fifth. Romney also maintained double-digit support throughout the primary race, while Jeb has been in single-digits for quite a while.
Finally, there was this:
Major donors to Right to Rise said they expect the super PAC to raise $20 million to $30 million in the second half of 2015. On Thursday, C. Boyden Gray, who served as White House counsel for Mr. Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush, is hosting a campaign fundraiser at his Washington, D.C. home, among 16 scheduled fundraisers over nine days in 13 cities this month.
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For all the attention that Bitcoin receives in the news, the most interesting peculiarity of this crypto-currency has largely been ignored. Sure, we’d all like to know whether the currency will ultimately succeed without any ties to a real-world economy. And Bitcoin’s rapid fluctuation in value over the past six months has certainly turned some heads.
But how Bitcoins are actually created is all too often overlooked. The currency isn’t minted at will in a factory setting. Bitcoins don’t just magically appear out of thin air. Instead, they’re the products of complex software algorithms that run day and night on incredibly powerful computers. So who, exactly, has the pioneering spirit to “mine” the virtual currency, converting CPU and GPU cycles into something of real-world value?
Part of Eric's GPU-based mining rig.
It takes time, dedication, and an extraordinary amount of water-cooled PC hardware. Meet Eric. He's one of the converted. (Eric's name has been changed by request to protect his identity: "I'd rather not broadcast to the world that I have that much liquid currency under my control," he said.)
"Most people approach mining with the hopes that they'll turn a profit, but to me, it's more about creating a freestanding currency," Eric said. Luckily for him, profit came with the package.
Eric has been mining Bitcoins since 2010, and at one point quit a high-paying job as a software engineer to devote all of his time to, figuratively speaking, extract gold from silicon. His move was bold and risky, but yielded an awesome reward: To date, Eric has accumulated 2500 bitcoins, which is worth a cool $191,900 as of this writing. (At Bitcoin’s highest exchange rate, that amount was $665,000.) He doesn't trade them and has no immediate plans to cash out. Instead, he's hanging on to them, and waiting to see how their value changes.
With Bitcoin gaining traction as a viable currency, more and more people are interested in mining for a piece of the digital pie. However, mining for profit is more difficult than just loading up some software and watching the cash flow in. As Eric’s experience vividly shows us, Bitcoin mining requires a considerable investment (and intestinal fortitude) just to get started.
Number crunching for gold
To understand this mining, you have to understand Bitcoin itself. Roughly put, Bitcoin is an electronic currency that isn’t tied to any country or economy—it’s decentralized. Its value is constantly changing (just like any other currency), and saw an all-time high back in April of $266. It’s currently resting at $76.75 USD per single Bitcoin.
In order to buy, trade, or use Bitcoins, the units of currency have to first be introduced to the market. And that’s where miners come in. Bitcoins themselves are algorithm-based mathematical constructs, created by a developer with the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin mining software runs the Nakamoto algorithm, crunching numbers to solve this complex math problem. When an answer is found and verified as correct, a block of Bitcoins is rewarded to whoever found it. Current blocks contain 25 Bitcoins, but the block size goes down by half every four years, making mining harder and less profitable as time goes on.
One of the rig's many workhorses.
Bitcoin miners run specialized computer setups that constantly run the mining algorithm in hopes that a block of coins will be found. Currently, there are roughly 11.4 million Bitcoins in circulation—that number will cap at 21 million in 2140, according to the algorithm’s limitations.
Eric first got involved with Bitcoin in December 2010. He was interested in learning more about electronic currency, when he stumbled across Bitcoin in an online forum and was immediately intrigued.
“Understanding how Bitcoin worked gave me a lot of confidence in it,” Eric said. Instead of starting out slowly by buying a couple of coins—which were roughly $0.30 per Bitcoin at the time—Eric decided to jump right in and dabble with mining. But first, he had to get the right gear.
Back in 2010, when Bitcoin was in its infancy, miners relied on CPUs to get the job done—so basically, your home PC could handle mining with the right software. Eric started with his home desktop setup. Shortly thereafter, miners discovered that it was more efficient to mine using the GPUs on graphics cards. They’re about 50 to 100 times faster and more powerful than CPUs for the workload Bitcoin mining requires. So Eric invested in two ATI Radeon dual-GPU cards, and watched the coins start flowing.
The more Eric made, the more he expanded his rig. Since 2010, Eric estimates that he’s invested about $50,000 in graphics cards, CPUs, circuit boards, and memory. He’s also employed water-cooling technology—pumps, tubing, radiators, and other parts—to run his mining operation at maximum efficiency. All this gear costs money, not counting his electric bill, of course.
It takes a lot of components to keep a rig up and running.
Heavy GPU mining poses two major problems: power consumption and heat generation. GPU mining is a major power-suck—miners collectively gobble up about 3,176 megawatt hours of electricity per day. Eric worked his way around an insanely high energy bill by applying for a commercial license to power his home.
To combat the heat, Eric got a little crafty: He integrated a cooling system with his backyard swimming pool, pumping water out of the pool and through a radiator to cool down the rig. “The pool-cooling was experimental and definitely not standard,” he said. “Most miners didn't bother with water-cooling at anything beyond small scale, like a dual-purpose gaming machine.”
Eric built a custom cooling system using water from his swimming pool.
Eventually, Eric’s massive rig included four PCIe graphics cards that continuously chugged along, running the Bitcoin algorithm. He always operated within a mining pool—a group of miners that work together to find a block. When a block is found, the bounty is distributed among all of the miners within that pool. Different mining pools have different payout systems: Some divide the coins up evenly, while others divvy them up based on who put in the most amount of work.
“It’s hard to know if you’re being paid appropriately for your work,” Eric explained, “I pool-hopped for a couple months to level the playing field, but I don't know if it made much of a difference.”
Thanks to his experimental rig with a high output rate, Eric was able to turn a profit with Bitcoin mining—a rare feat, considering the investment he put in. But today his rig is nearly worthless. Application-specific integrated circuits— ASIC miners for short—were introduced in early 2013, and these microchips were created for one purpose, and one purpose only: to mine Bitcoins. ASIC mining rigs are smaller, faster, and consume considerably less energy than GPU mining operations like Eric’s.
However, ASIC miners hit the shelves just as Bitcoin was gaining some interest with the general public. It was moving out of the nerdy shadows and onto the pages of Forbes and Vice. The ASIC mining hardware is selling fast, and isn't widely available, but promises a ridiculous payout. Indeed, the first few ASIC miners paid for themselves in a matter of days. (Some have a selling price of $20,000.)
The future of mining
The mining community is vast, and growing every day. But newer miners to the scene will have a problem turning a profit, even with a top-of-the-line ASIC miner.
“Unless you started mining early, you’re going to fail,” said Eric. This has to do with the sheer volume of miners (competition is fierce), combined with a peculiar quality of the Bitcoin algorithm: It’s designed to make Bitcoins more difficult to create as more and more miners try to find them. A block of coins is rewarded roughly every 10 minutes, so the difficulty is dependent upon how many miners are involved. The reward also halves itself every four years, so when Eric began mining, the payout was 50 bitcoins per block, but now it’s down to 25. This ensures a steady trickle of currency. It also ensures that new miners will have a much smaller jackpot—and hit that jackpot less frequently—than those who got in early.
This chart from Blockchain.info shows the growth in Bitcoin hash rates—the computing power being used to generate the currency.
It's because of this growing mining pool and the new technology that Eric is moving on from mining. He went back to work, and is in the process of selling his GPU mining rig. He doesn’t think he’s out of the game forever, though. Eric says he would like to buy an ASIC miner when they’re more widely available—when “their return on investment isn’t as ridiculous as it is now."
But why put in so much energy and money for a currency that may not hold any value in the long run? Though Bitcoin is gaining some traction now, it’s hard to predict how much of an effect such crypto-currencies will actually have on a standard economy.
“It's too early to tell which alternative currency will become the dominant medium-to-long-term player,” Garrick Hileman, an economic historian at the London School of Economics, told TechHive. “On Bitcoin, my own assessment is that, over the longer term, it offers more potential as a store of value than as a widely used medium of exchange due to its capped supply and propensity to be hoarded.”
Eric agrees. “When the day comes that Bitcoin has its own set value, it will be more poised to complement national economies,” he said. Currently, Bitcoin is valued at whatever people decide they want to trade for it.
Because it is decentralized, it could also prove to be valuable in case your native country’s economy tanks. “Bitcoin is a good hedge against bad economic times ahead,” Eric said. “Everyone should own some. It might be the only thing between you and the red line.”
Do you have a Bitcoin mining tale to tell? We want to hear it. Reach out to Leah Yamshon (@leahyamshon) via Twitter.
This story, "Portrait of a Bitcoin miner: How one man made $192K in virtual currency" was originally published by TechHive .
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Thank you for three great years…
With deep appreciation for the incredible artistry that the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition has had the pleasure of celebrating over the last three years, the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD) has regrettably determined that financial support for the competition cannot be sustained. As a result, the M-Prize Competition has terminated and will not return in 2019.
“M-Prize was an exciting and important enterprise that helped raise the profile of the chamber arts in such a vital way,” said Dave Gier, dean of SMTD. “The competition not only gave chamber ensembles from around the world much-deserved attention and support, but it also highlighted SMTD’s ardent commitment to the genre, which will steadfastly continue. Unfortunately, it is not possible to maintain the financial structure needed to continue M-Prize while also supporting SMTD’s own growth in chamber music and its many other disciplines.”
“We are profoundly grateful to U-M Office of the Provost and an anonymous donor, both of whom made it possible for SMTD to run the competition for three inspirational years,” said Matt Albert, outgoing artistic director of M-Prize and chair of SMTD’s Department of Chamber Music. “We are also grateful for the vision illustrated and spearheaded by the faculty Steering Committee and former dean Aaron Dworkin. It has been a great honor to work with the committee, our extraordinary jurors, and SMTD’s administrative team in bringing M-Prize to life, and it has been a joy to witness, first hand, the spectacular talent that is making the future of chamber music so rich and so assured.”
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