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Pharo 6.0 Released!
Pharo 6.0 released!
Dear World,
The time has come for Pharo 6.0!
Pharo is a pure object-oriented programming language and a powerful environment, focused on simplicity and immediate feedback.
This is our most significant release yet. Here are some highlights:
Pharo is now provided in 64-bit version in Linux and OSX and brings even better performance and stability (beware, 64bits version is a new technology and a small amount of tests is still failing)
A new code changes management system named Epicea for easier reviewing and recovering of your code easily
Integrated support for Git through an easy-to-use tool for repositories and commits management named Iceberg (as a preview for Pharo 6, it will be the default in Pharo 7)
The unified foreign function interface (UnifiedFFI) for interfacing with the outside world is significantly improved
The PharoVM is now part of OpenSmalltalk initiative
Introduction of object immutability, alternative bytecode sets and block closures independent of outer context
Pharo can now be bootstrapped from source code managed by Git
Pharo modularity is improved
Pharo is faster
The Dark Theme was improved and set as default color theme of Pharo
These are just the more prominent highlights, but the details are just as important. We have closed 1474 issues in Pharo 6.0 (a more complete changelog can be found at https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-changelogs/blob/master/Pharo60ChangeLogs.md).
While the technical improvements are significant (starting the transition to 64bits is a remarkable achievement), still the most impressive fact is that the new code that got in the main Pharo 6.0 image was contributed by more than 80 people.
Pharo is more than code. It is an exciting project involving energetic people. We thank all the contributors of this release:
Alberto Bacchelli, Alejandro Infante, Alexandre Bergel, Aliaksei Syrel, Alistair Grant, Andrei Chis, Ben Coman, Bernardo Contreras, Bernhard Pieber, Boris Spasojevic, Christophe Demarey, Clement Bera, Cyril Ferlicot, Dale Henrichs, Damien Cassou, Damien Pollet, Dave Lewis, Denis Kudriashov, Dirk Roeleveld, Eliot Miranda, Esteban Lorenzano, Esteban Maringolo, Evan Donahue, Federico Balaguer, Franck Warlouzet, Glenn Cavarle, Guillermo Polito, Gustavo Santos, Henrik Johansen, Henrik Nergaard, Hilaire Fernandes, Holger Hans, Jan Kurs, Jan van de Sandt, Johan Fabry, Juraj Kubelka, K. K. Subramaniam, Ken Causey, Kris Gybels, Lionel Akue, Luc Fabresse, Lucas Godoy, Marcus Denker, Mariano Martinez Peck, Marion Noirbent, Martin Dias, Max Leske, Maxime Roelandt, Merwan Ouddane, Matteo Bellotto, Miguel Campusano, Milton Mamani, Myroslava Romaniuk, Nicolai Hess, Nicolas Cellier, Nicolas Passerini, Norbert Hartl, Offray Luna, Pablo Tesone, Paul De Bruicker, Pavel Krivanek, Peter Uhnak, Philippe Back, Roger Stebler, Ronie Salgado, Sean DeNigris, Serge Stinckwich, Skip Lentz, Sophie Kaleba, Stefan Reichhart, Stephan Eggermont, Stephane Ducasse, Sven Van Caekenberghe, Thibault Arloing, Thibault Arloing, Thibault Raffaillac, Thierry Goubier, Thomas Heniart, Tommaso Dal Sasso, Torsten Bergmann, Tudor Girba, Udo Schneider, Valentin Ryckewaert, Vincent Blondeau, Werner Kassens, Yuriy Tymchuk
(If you contributed with Pharo 6.0 development in any way and we missed your name, please send us a mail and we will add you).
Enjoy!
The Pharo Team
Try Pharo: http://pharo.org/download
Learn Pharo: http://pharo.org/documentation
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Speaking with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on Washington Watch last week, Texas Republican Rep. Ted Poe accused President Obama and his administration of promoting policies that are “anti-religious.” Poe and Perkins were discussing with the manufactured controversy over a Texas veteran’s cemetery that prohibits a volunteer group from holding religious services at a funeral if the family does not request it. The New York Times points out that this rule was created in 2007 by the Bush administration, but according to Poe, the policy is actually all Obama’s fault.
As Kyle noted, “To the Religious Right, preventing outside groups from attending funerals and offering prayers at services where they are not wanted or requested is a violation of the religious freedom of the volunteers.” Last month, Poe attacked the cemetery director as “anti-Christian, anti-religion and anti-veteran” and introduced legislation that he said would end the supposed “religious censorship.”
In his conversation with Poe last week, Perkins claimed that “this is symptomatic of a much larger problem that we’re seeing in this administration where this type of hostility, I would describe it as, toward traditional, orthodox religious views is being unleashed.” Poe said that he agreed with Perkins’ assessment and went on to blame the Obama administration for having an “anti-religious” bias. |
Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton thought the prospect of a presidential candidate declining to pledge to absolutely accept the sanctity of certified election results was "horrifying." She said so in a general election debate in order to attack Donald Trump -- who, at the time, was (recklessly) leaving the door open to challenge the outcome of an election most people expected him to lose. Chief among these people was Hillary Clinton. That's why she excoriated his dodging and noncommittal answers on the question as dangerous to American democracy. Watch:
[Clinton] said she found “horrifying” the intimation he would not accept the will of the people on Nov. 8...In a striking breach of the country’s long-standing tradition, he twice declined when pressed to say whether he would accept the outcome of the election. "I will look at it at the time," Trump said. "I’ll keep you in suspense.” There was a gasp from the audience inside the debate hall. "That is not the way our democracy works," Clinton said. "He is denigrating, he is talking down our democracy. And I for one am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of a position.”
Times have changed. In a new interview with left-wing magazine Mother Jones, Clinton refuses to concede that the election she lost had been legitimate. Horrifying?
Exclusive: @hillaryclinton tells me “there are lots of questions” about legitimacy of Trump's election because of Russian interference & GOP voter suppression https://t.co/lRxBuNgMNg — Ari Berman (@AriBerman) November 17, 2017
"Do you think it was a LEGITIMATE election?" Clinton: "I think there are lots of questions about its legitimacy, and we don't have a method for contesting that in our system. That's why I've long advocated for an independent commission to get to the bottom of what happened." https://t.co/XAEsK2V2wc — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 17, 2017
By "voter suppression," Clinton is referring in large measure to constitutional and widely popular voter ID laws. This is a ridiculous reason to question the legitimacy of an election. In fact, verifying that more voters are who they said they are actually augments the legitimacy of an election. But her primary argument here is "Russia!" -- whose attempted interference in the election is being investigated from all angles, as it should be. But there is not a shred of evidence that a single vote tally was changed by the Russians, despite debunked conspiracy theories believed by most Democrats. This is a succinct and comprehensive smack-down of Mrs. Clinton's "appalling" efforts at "talking down our democracy" by a fellow at the left-leaning Brookings Institute:
There is zero evidence, anywhere, that Trump was elected president for any reason other than the sufficient number of Americans in the right localities actually voted for him. That's a legitimate election. Period. https://t.co/fe9r5ZE5Ki — Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) November 17, 2017
She delivered additional reality checks for liberals who were "upset" by her statement of fact:
Part of the reason we were so susceptible to unchallenged interference in 2016 was one candidate repeatedly called elections "rigged" and threatened to not concede. Don't play that game now. — Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) November 17, 2017
I'll leave you with this: |
With a sleek needle nose and a swept double-delta wing with two prominent nacelles, the supersonic SR-71 Blackbird spy plane is the stuff aviation legend. Although the SR-71 first flew in late December of 1964 and hasn't been in service for almost 25 years, it's still the fastest plane that's ever seen action.
Powered by two Pratt & Whitney J58 turboramjets, the jet could fly faster than Mach 3 and climb so high that the crew needed to wear pressure suits so as not to pass out. Basically, the J58 combines the functionality of a turbojet and a ramjet. Below Mach 2.0, air is pulled into the inlet, slowed down and then compressed by a turbine-driven multistage compressor. Afterwards, the air is mixed with fuel in the burners, with more fuel combined to the exhaust at the afterburner stage.
But at speeds greater than Mach 2.2, six bypass tubes around the engine open and move air directly from the fourth stage of the compressor to the afterburner. This gives the engine greater fuel efficiency.
Its supersonic speed and low radar profile (owing to its swept design and black ferrite iron radar-absorbing paint) made the Blackbird a difficult target. The military designed this super-jet to take over a number of missions performed by the much slower U-2 reconnaissance plane, which had become increasingly vulnerable to Soviet interceptor aircraft and surface-to-air missiles. Indeed, in 1960, a U-2 aircraft was shot down over the Soviet Union and pilot Gary Powers was taken prisoner. Then, two years, later another U-2 was taken out over Cuba.
Still, flying the plane was tricky. Both the pilot and navigator had to be in good shape because the latter lacked flight controls and the former didn't have a navigation set. If the pilot passed out, the navigator's best hope was that the plane was on auto-pilot at the time. That way, he could program a destination into the Astro tracker.
If the reverse happened, the pilot would have to make due with a standby "whiskey compass." (According to one theory, the "whiskey" is NATO phonetic for W, which stands for "wet" and refers to old compasses filled with kerosene.)
Going at Mach 3 also generated temperatures that could melt typical aluminum airframes, so the SR-71 had to be covered in titanium. However, this titanium proved tricky to handle on the assembly line.
As Lockheed Martin says on its website: "Conventional cadmium-plated steel tools, it was soon learned, embrittled the titanium on contact; so new tools were designed and fabricated—out of titanium."
The Blackbird was subjected to all kinds of extremes. After speeding up to such incredible velocities, it had to slow down for mid-air refueling from a much slower tanker. That caused the skin of the plane to cool down and contract, which meant the SR-71 was often a leaky mess.
Nevertheless, the SR-71 set a number of air performance records. For example, in July 1976, it reached a staggering altitude of 85,068.997 ft.
In 1990, a Blackbird flew from West Coast of the United States to the East Coast in a little shy of one hour and eight minutes, hitting an average speed to 2,124.51 mph.
Likewise, the aircraft had an impressive military record. The Blackbird penetrated Soviet and Chinese airspace, as well as that of other communist states. It studied Israeli and Arab troop positions during the 1973 Yom Kippur War; provided support for the U.S. bombing mission against Libya in 1986; and had been used over a wide range of countries, from South Africa to Nicaragua. Throughout all these missions, no SR-71 Blackbird has ever been shot down.
Over the years, 32 SR-71 Blackbirds – as well as 13 similar-looking A-12 Oxcarts (a single-seat CIA precursor plane developed by Lockheed Skunkworks as part of Project Archangel) and three YF-12 prototypes and two drone-launching M-21s – have been built.
Nothing lasts forever, though. The 1980s saw an increase in threats capable to countering the SR-71, including improved enemy air defenses and the introduction of the MiG-31, which was armed with the R-33 air-to-air missile could intercept the Blackbird. The U.S. military turned to spy satellites, which flew high above these threats, and put an end to the SR-71 program in 1990.
Today, you can find some 30 remaining Blackbirds and Oxcarts scattered in museums and US Air Force bases throughout the country, for example, at the USAF Museum, in Dayton, Ohio, and the National Air and Space Museum, in Washington, D.C.
USAF
There have been rumors of a secret follow-on spy plane called the Aurora, but they remain unproven. Ironically, the older U-2 is still in service because the high-altitude Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk drone, which was supposed to replace the aging aircraft, has yet to live up to its billing. The U-2 can still fly higher than the Global Hawk, carry a greater payload, and its sensors have more of a slant range. The Global Hawk also lacks de-icing equipment and countermeasures against Russian SAMs. We may be entering the age of drones, but old-fashioned piloted planes can still do a thing or two.
As reported in PM, NASA is currently the revisiting the supersonic spy plane concept. It recently awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Skunk to test the feasibility of the SR-2, a supersonic drone that would fly almost twice the speed of the Blackbird. The idea is that speed would play the role that stealth once did in beating enemy air defense network. Lockheed says that plane, if developed, could be ready in 2030. |
South Korea said on Tuesday it had recovered an unidentified drone that crashed on one of its border islands the same day that North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire across their disputed maritime boundary.
The wreckage was discovered on Baengnyeong island, which lies just south of the maritime border, fuelling suspicions that it might be North Korean.
"Military authorities retrieved the wreckage for analysis," a defence ministry spokesman said.
He declined to speculate on the drone's provenance, but the Yonhap news agency said military and intelligence officials suspected the drone came from North Korea.
Yonhap quoted a military source as saying the drone crashed around 4:00 pm (0700 GMT), less than an hour after North Korea wrapped up a major live fire drill along the border.
During the exercise, the North fired about 500 rounds of artillery shells, 100 of which fell into South Korean waters.
The South responded by firing 300 shells into the sea on the North Korean side of the border and scrambling fighter jets.
North Korea had displayed a set of what looked like very rudimentary drones during a huge military parade held in Pyongyang last July to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.
And in March last year, state media reported leader Kim Jong-Un overseeing a military drill using "super-precision drone planes."
Still photographs of the exercise broadcast on state television showed what resembled air force target drones being flown into a mountainside target and exploding.
Yonhap said the shape and size of the drone found on Baengnyeong island was similar to that recovered last month near the northern city of Paju, close to the land border with the North.
The Paju drone had a triangular wing with a 6.3 feet span, the agency quoted a government source as saying.
Its gas-powered engine was made in Japan and other parts were Chinese.
According to the government source, it had a camera that had taken aerial shots of the national highway from Paju to Seoul and the presidential Blue House in the capital. |
I have a friend from Central America who is a diehard advocate for all things organic. He eats organic, grows organic, and dedicates his time to working with small farmers across the region to help them incorporate more environmentally friendly production practices. I once asked him about what inspired the work to which he has dedicated his life. He mentioned first the ancestral agricultural practices of his Mayan ancestors but went on to mention more current sources such as the agroecology movement, biodynamics, traditional organic gardening, amongst others. When I asked him about the permaculture movement however, he laughed scornfully and remarked: "Permaculture isn´t anything but a movement of gringo hippies who are pretending to be farmers."
Though his critique was somewhat naïve and over simplified, I've been finding that throughout Central America and much of the "under-developed" (or perhaps better stated as "differently developed") world, this appreciation of permaculture as a movement of gringos is strongly felt and deeply rooted.
As I've talked with different farmers, researchers, academics and others interested in alternative agriculture and ecology, the main grievance that they have with permaculture is the steep costs associated with the courses offered and the literature sold. These prohibitive costs, they argue, turn permaculture into an exclusive club that can only be enjoyed by the affluent. They have very little argument with what permaculture actually teaches or advocates for, but they find that in a region where small farmers are usually severely economically marginalized, the exclusivity of the permaculture movement is a major impediment.
Most permaculture teachers offer a two week Permaculture Design Course (PDC). The running cost for most PDCs is around $2000 dollars, give or take $500. With prices like those, it´s hard to argue against the idea that permaculture is unaffordable to 90% of the world´s farmers who might be lucky to make that amount in a year of hard work.
Though there are a few permaculture institutes in Central America, the agroecology movement is far better established. This movement, in comparison with permaculture courses, tends to offer courses and classes for free to local farmers. True, participants may have to settle for eating beans and tortillas three times a day instead of organic hummus and other delicacies of the First World alternative health food movement, but nonetheless, it's free!
It's true that many of these Central American agroecology movements and organizations fund their work from grant money awarded to them by international organizations that fund development programs. Nonetheless, the money invested by 20 participants in a 2 week long permaculture design course is often equivalent to the funding for a three year agroecology project where hundreds if not thousands of Central American farmers will have access to information, agroecology courses, etc.
Another problem that many Central American academics and researchers have with permaculture is the cost of books written by supposed permaculture experts. One of the most recent permaculture books to hit the market was originally priced at $75 dollars on Amazon. Other permaculture authors even sell their books by the chapter. If it weren't for internet piracy and public libraries, the majority of books about permaculture that I wanted to read would still be on my Amazon wish list.
The actual permaculture courses can often seem like a publicity campaign for companies that market organic products. When I participated in a PDC back in 2012, there were hundreds of references or "plugs" during the two week course for different products and companies that produce organic inputs and of course for the essential books that any good permaculturist must read. It almost gave the impression that in order to farm and live permaculturally, you needed a bank account deep enough to buy this endless list of products.
Still other permaculturists advocate for the use of expensive machinery like bulldozers, Bobcats and backhoes. Where I live in Central America, big tractors and other heavy machinery are equated with mega-projects like mining, hydro dams, and industrial monocultures like the massive sugar cane plantations that dot the entire Pacific Coast of Central America. Farming tools are pretty much limited to a hoe, a machete, and strong back.
When I showed one video from a well known permaculture teacher about how to do build swales (water infiltration ditches) using a backhoe, one of the young Central American farmers raised his hand and asked sarcastically: "Is this guy a farmer or a miner?" Still another said that he could have built the same system of swales in a weekend with the help of a few friends and a six pack of beer.
The cost of renting a Bobcat in my small village here in Central America is $40 an hour. Most farmers make an average of $100 a month. Very few people would be willing to spend what they would make in 4-5 months just to rent a Bobcat to build a pond or a swale that they could build with a little sweat, a pick axe and a shovel.
Another point of tension between permaculture and Central American farmers is the issue of how knowledge is used. Some permaculture experts list knowledge as one of the main "products" or "income generators" from their farm. They argue that the knowledge they have acquired over years of study and work on their land can be sold to others.
The issue of knowledge as a profit generator brings up the debate as to whether knowledge should be considered a right that should be universally accessible to all or an aspect of private profit for individuals. In Central America, most farmers share their knowledge with one another. If one type of seed grows better than another variety, the majority of farmers will share that knowledge freely with their neighbors instead of trying to charge them for access to that knowledge.
Gene Logsdon, a farmer and writer linked with the agrarian movement in the United States, has said that farming is increasingly a part time occupation, especially for young people. If that means that someone who wants to embrace permaculture principles on their land has to work part time at a construction job so he can spend the rest of his time on the farm, so be it. It sure seems a lot fairer than having someone make their living by selling his or her knowledge for $2000 bucks per course.
I first heard of permaculture when I was around 24 years old. At that time, I was living in San Salvador and obsessed with the idea of socialist revolution and the end of the exploitation of the masses. I had read most of Marx's work and was convinced that the Marxist critique of capitalism leading to inevitable inequality and exploitation was dot on.
When I came across Bill Mollison, one of the founders of permaculture, I read about the three ethics of permaculture that form the backbone for the movement: care for the Earth, care for people, and redistribute surplus back into the first two principles. The first two ethics seemed pretty vague to me, but the third one jumped right off of the page.
Redistribution! That sounded pretty Marxist to me and definitely got me interested. I imagined permaculture advocating for land reform and supporting the cause of peasant revolution. I was convinced that permaculture was a way to tie my social/political ideas into my growing environmental awareness.
But as I learned more about permaculture and tried to find some affordable literature on the subject, I came to find that most people involved in the permaculture movement had no idea what the third permaculture ethic actually entailed. In fact, many permaculture leaders had different ways of defining the third ethic. Some permaculture teachers stuck to the more radical idea of redistribution of surplus, while others settled with the more ambiguous idea of "fair shares" while failing to ever define what is fair. Many a Central American farmer could ask if it´s fair for a permaculture teacher to rake in $20,000 from leading a two week design course while the small farmer toils daily for a mere $6 dollars a day.
We need a Marxist interpretation of permaculture's ethics. By that, I don't mean to say that we need government control of what we grow and how we grow it. The majority of political leaders have probably never shoveled cow manure or even stuck their hands in the dirt. Marx himself thought peasants were particularly dumb and subservient and that the communist revolution would be led by primarily urban workers who experienced the worst aspects of industrial, capitalist exploitation.
What I mean is that we need to understand that permaculture exists within a neoliberal capitalist system that continually tries to subtly subvert its "ethics" into some form of consumer, capitalist ideology. Care for the earth can be interpreted as allowing rich countries to pay for their waste and pollution through the pharisaical carbon credit program. Care for people can follow neoliberal ideology and argue that individual greed can miraculously lead to societal well being. And the issue of redistribution of surplus can either be shrewdly ignored (as it often is) or reduced to a largely symbolic offering of "scholarships" to economically challenged permaculture enthusiasts.
Some permaculturists argue that they need to charge $70 a book or $2000 a course to support their ongoing permaculture work and research. They may argue that maintaining an alternative, sustainable lifestyle is costly. And therein lays the problem. If living sustainably is an expensive luxury, then it is a privilege of the wealthy and affluent. Marx would be turning in his grave.
Permaculture desperately needs a new focus on the ethics of frugality, prudence and thrift. We in the so called "First World" need to learn to question certain things we take for granted about our lifestyle. A true permaculturist, as Wendell Berry says, would "achieve the character and acquire the skills to live much poorer than we do." Instead of relying on expensive organic inputs at the local permaculture store, we would learn how to shovel our animal manure and turn it into the fertility our plants need. As Henry David Thoreau admonished us so many years ago, we need to learn to "cultivate poverty like a garden herb."
If people come to permaculture because they think they'll be able to pull in fifty grand from organizing a couple of workshops per year, then permaculture is destined to remain a movement of affluent gringo hippies and continue to receive the ridicule of small farmers from around the world who understand that frugality and hard work are the keys to living successfully and sustainably on the land. |
This unique bar with its decidedly retro appeal has been proving immensely popular with collectors and fans. The 1 oz SilverTowne Retro Eagle Silver Bar is produced by the well-known SilverTowne Mint. SilverTowne got its start in 1949 as a rare coins dealer. However, once it decided to expand its interests to include minting, it has become a renowned maker and designer of precious metal products. SilverTowne is celebrated today for its quality minting and design artistry as evidenced by this bar.
Bar Highlights:
Individual bars ship in sealed plastic, multiples of 10 ship in sheets, multiples of 500 ship in boxes.
Contains 1 oz of .999 pure silver.
Intricate obverse design features a bald eagle atop a shield, with arrows and an olive branch in its talons.
Reverse features a waffle pattern and mint logo.
Retro eagle design from SilverTowne Mint.
Produced in Indiana.
Available in brand-new condition.
This 1 oz SilverTowne Retro Eagle Silver Bar is now available in brand new condition. The bar reflects a double-sided design. The retro eagle has been created with outstanding detail as customers will note. Produced with one troy ounce of .999 pure silver, the bar boasts a banner denoting the bars purity and weight which has been woven into the design. The detailed eagle has been rendered with great care. The reverse side features the mints famed prospector log and an attractive waffle pattern. All in all, this bar is quite extraordinary for its distinctive retro style.
Because JM Bullion receives all of its products directly from mints or our trusted distributors, customers have our assurance that all items are authentic and available in their described condition. We package each item for shipment with safety and security in mind. We also insure each mailing as an added protection against the rare occurrence of damage or loss. These bars are a celebration of minting excellence. As such, they also make fine gifts for anyone who collects precious metals.
Please call us at 800-276-6508 if you have questions about the 1 oz SilverTowne Retro Eagle Silver Bar or any of our other products. As an added convenience, feel free to reach us any time via live chat or by filling out our online form. Be sure to see our other great SilverTowne offerings like the 1 oz SilverTowne Retro Prospector Silver Bar. We also hope you will visit our website often as we are always adding new products to our inventory. |
The head of football's top organisation has revealed that a new ruling will be brought in at the next World Cup in order to avoid controversial goal-line decisions
How do you stay up to date with football when on the move? With http://m.goal.com – your best source for mobile coverage of the beautiful game.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has revealed that goal-line technology will be introduced for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.The 75-year-old ignored repeated calls for technology to be brought in following the controversy at last year's World Cup in South Africa, when England midfielder Frank Lampard saw an effort ruled out against Germany despite the ball having clearly crossed the line.That was just one of numerous incidents in recent years and caused controversy because it would have seen Fabio Capello's side draw level at 2-2 in the second-round match, which they eventually lost 4-1.But Blatter, who was re-elected earlier in 2011 despite corruption claims and calls for a more modern approach in the game, has recently warmed to the idea of goal-line technology and in an interview with El Mundo Deportivo, he has now suggested it will become a reality at Brazil 2014.He told the Catalan daily: "Brazil 2014 will have technology to avoid 'phantom goals.'"We have two good systems which correspond to the needs we have been considering: reliability, immediacy and [methods that are] uncomplicated to use."The full interview is set to be published on Tuesday. |
A man who reportedly used his eight-year-old daughter as a suicide bomber in an attack on a police station in Syria's Damascus is now said to be dead himself.
Images of a dead man believed to be the jihadist known as Abu Nimr have emerged online.
Abu Nimr who sent daughter on suicide mission last week in #Damascus, involved in murder of actor Mohamad Rafea, dead pic.twitter.com/ZJX4MlyQdm — Lizzie Phelan (@LizziePhelan) December 25, 2016
Earlier this month, disturbing videos in which the same bearded man is believed to be featured, were circulating on the internet. In two separate video, two little girls said to be named Islam and Fatima can be seen with a man and a woman who are believed to be their father and mother.
Read more
The footage show the girls being apparently brainwashed, as they appear in the room with a black Islamic flag hanging on the wall. The man believed to be their father holds the two girls in his hands and speaks of a suicide mission prepared for them.
The woman, dressed in a burqa, then hugs the girls in an apparent farewell moment, while the man behind the camera talks of suicide bomb attacks for them. The girls can be heard repeatedly saying “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic).
Less than two weeks ago, a blast hit a police station in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Syria's state television aired pictures of a girl who was allegedly a suicide bomber, while SANA news agency reported the attack was carried out by an eight-year-old girl wearing an explosive belt.
The bomb was homemade, and was activated with a remote control, the Syrian media said, adding that there were no other casualties except for a police officer who was slightly injured. |
Tablet Remote is a handy little Android app that lets you remotely control one Android device, be it a smartphone or tablet, with another over Bluetooth. Imagine the facility of remotely controlling media functions of your Honeycomb tablet, or troubleshooting a problematic Android device through another without the involvement of cables, an internet connection or a desktop client. With an extremely simple configuration process yet a comprehensive set of remote control options, Tablet Remote is inarguably one the most feature-rich and easy-to-use apps of its kind that we’ve come across so far.
What could the app possibly be used for, you ask? The image above is an excellent example of its practicality. If you have an Android tablet or phone with an HDMI output port (Motorola Xoom, HTC EVO 4G), you can connect it to your TV, and control the output from the comfort of your couch.
To control one device with another, Tablet Remote must, of course, be installed on both.
All you need to do in order to establish a successful connection between two devices is enable Bluetooth on both of them, and pair them with each other. For this, you need to launch the app on both the devices, tap Connection > Scan Devices, and finally hit Make Device Discoverable. From the list of detected devices, select the required device, and a confirmatory message will appear on the other one. Hit Accept to pair both devices.
Bluetooth is activated for 120 seconds (2 minutes) by default. This time limit can be removed by navigating to your device’s Bluetooth settings screen (tap Menu > Wireless & networks > Bluetooth settings), and setting the Discoverable timeout to Never.
The last caveat before you can eventually begin the controlling mechanism is to hit the Setup button on the controller device, and enable both the options included therein, namely Enable Tablet Remote In The Settings and Change The Input method For Tablet Remote.
Now that you’ve paired both devices, just hit the Remote button on one device to start controlling the other with it. The screen that follows packs various buttons that can be used to control media functions (play/pause, next, previous, etc), adjust volume and brightness levels, navigate to different screens, and control the target device in whatever way you please. Apart from the aforementioned controls, the screen also sports buttons for Back, Home, Menu, Search and text input (keyboard).
To switch to fullscreen, enable the Hide Status bar option from within the app’s Settings menu.
The remote control mechanism of Tablet Remote was successfully on HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z. The target device (the HTC Desire Z) respond flawlessly to commands from the controller (HTC Desire HD). The remote commands even kept working while the target device was on standby (that is, after its screen had timed out).
Download Tablet Remote for Android
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With the terrorists' ultimatum to execute the hostages in Entebbe looming overhead, the rescue operation was launched. Avi Weiss (Livneh), Sayeret Matkal’s intelligence officer, accompanied the troops to takeoff.
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"I left the squadron briefing room with Yoni and accompanied him to his car, where he took out his webbing (load-bearing straps) and personal equipment. We said goodbye with a handshake, a pat on the back, and I wished him luck. As I was waiting by Yoni's car and listening to the increasing roar of the Hercules engines, someone arrived with up-to-date Mossad photographs of the Entebbe terminal. I took the photos from him and quickly ran towards the runway to the Hercules planes—some had already taken off.
The Entebbe airport in an aerial photo taken by a Mossad agent three days before the operation (Reproduction: Tomeriko)
"I managed to signal to the last of the Hercules (Lockheed C-130) planes—which had also already started moving—to stop and open the door. The door opened, I threw the package of photographs inside and asked that they be given to Yoni in Sharm el-Sheikh. These photos were taken by a Mossad undercover agent (‘Warrior’ in Mossad terminology —RB), a pilot who took off from Kenya in a light aircraft, flew around the (Entebbe) airport, and fled back. They were the first and last up-to-date photographs we had at our disposal in this operation.
"The Mossad agent also reported that he only saw a few dozens of Ugandan soldiers stationed around the old terminal. This information, along with the information Amiram Levin got from Paris (when he questioned the non-Jewish hostages released by the terrorists —RB)—according to which there were dozens, not hundreds of Ugandan soldiers there—carried a lot of weight in Prime Minister Rabin's decision to approve the operation."
Due to time constraints, the four Hercules planes headed out to Uganda even before the government gave the green light for the operation, and made a stopover in Sharm el-Sheikh (a port city in the Sinai Peninsula, located where the Red Sea and the Gulf of Eilat meet —ed.).
Shlomi Reisman, then a commando and first sergeant in the Amnon Team, recounts "Our vehicles were tied in a row at the center of the Hercules plane and all along its length. The Mercedes was at the back of the plane, facing out, and behind it were the two Land Rover jeeps. On both sides of the vehicles, dozens of paratroopers were lying around on the floor. We had no choice but to crowd together on the cars. Our team was sitting at the back end of the second Land Rover.
The Mercedes on the Hercules plane as part of reenactment of the Entebbe Operation 25 years later (Photo: Shaul Golan)
"The plane didn't have any seats, and of course it didn't have a bathroom either. If you wanted to pee, you had to pee into a jerrycan. The Hercules planes were flying low, nearly touching the ground. Four Hercules planes flying south on Saturday morning was an unusual sight, and we had to be careful that hostile radars didn't spot us and blow our cover.
"It was a hot summer day with a lot of air pockets, and the more the plane flew, the more it jumped up and down like a wild stallion. We were sitting on the vehicles, and it just made the turbulence worse. Every now and again our head would hit the ceiling. Everyone's faces around me were green; I thought I must have been the only one on the plane not throwing up. Eight more hours of that, and by the time we landed in Entebbe, the terrorists would have no one left to fight."
Amir Ofer, also a first sergeant in the Amnon Team, adds, "We got off the plane in Sharm el-Sheikh, and I asked Arik, the doctor, to give me pills against nausea and vomiting—otherwise I would've collapsed. He gave me a box of Travamin, and during the flight I took about a pill per hour until landing. I landed in Entebbe with six Travamin pills in my stomach. One of the soldiers from the first raid team collapsed from vomiting during the stopover in Sharm el-Sheikh, and we had to replace him with one of the soldiers from the backup force, Amos Goren."
Four Hercules plane flying as part of reenactment of the Entebbe Operation 25 years later (Photo: Shaul Golan)
Amos Goren, at the time a young staff sergeant, remembers the moment he was brought into the prestigious Muki Team. "In a moment, the nausea had passed, and my pulse started racing. The raid force was wearing leopard uniforms, like the ones the Ugandans wore, for deception. I put on my uniform and bullet-proof vest and equipped myself with explosives.
"About two minutes after we took off (from Sharm el-Sheikh), Yoni and Muki called me over for a briefing. We sat down on the Hercules plane's back door, and Yoni took a vomit bag and started sketching the terminal buildings on it. He repeated the instructions: 'You run from here; you and Muki are coming in through the first entrance; Amnon and his team are coming through the second entrance...' Muki, who knew I wasn't part of the initial training and drilling, told me to stay close to him. I folded the vomit bag, put it in my pocket, and fell asleep.
"Several years after the rescue mission I received a phone call from the Netanyahu family. Iddo, Bibi, and their father Benzion decided to conduct an in-depth investigation of the Entebbe Operation and asked me if I was willing to be interviewed for it. I didn't know if the bag had any significance to such an investigation, but I told them about it and promised I would bring it. I remember how emotional they were to see this item, the bag, which contained the last thing Yoni wrote."
A Hercules plane taking off during a reenactment of the Entebbe Operation 25 years later (Photo: Shaul Golan)
At Sharm el-Sheikh, the troops waited for the government to give the green light for the operation.
"Those were frustrating hours," Danny Artidi says. "Because we were all nervous, we each withdrew inward. We each sat quietly and didn't talk to each other much. It appeared as if we were each in a period of introspection. I was thinking, 'How will the operation go? Will I come back alive? And what's going to happen to my soldiers? What is going to happen to the hostages?' We all knew there was a chance we wouldn't come back alive from this mission."
In the afternoon, despite the fact the operation has yet to receive the final approval, the troops received the green light to take off, and the planes started to make their way to Entebbe. Back in Israel, the discussions and debates were ongoing.
Giora Zussman, a captain at the time and the commander of the Zussman Team, says, "The planes were flying very low over the Red Sea, south of Sharm el-Sheikh. The view from the window was incredible—the Egyptian coast on the right and the Saudi coast on the left, and we were half-flying, half-floating over the water. I still thought they might turn us around and bring us back home, but we kept flying south and with every kilometer we passed, I realized that yes, we were about to do this."
Reisman recounts, "We were climbing high and, surprisingly, the flight was smooth and pleasant this time. We could take advantage of the time for one last nap. I was still thinking there was no way the operation was going to get the green light. When I woke up from my nap, I saw Yoni come out of the cockpit with a little smile on his face: 'We got the go-ahead from the government.'"
Shaul Mofaz, who at that time had just stepped down as Sayeret Matkal's deputy commander and later went on to become the IDF's chief of staff and then the minister of defense, says Netanyahu had been instrumental in getting that go-ahead. "Yoni was the one who provided the final stamp that the unit was ready for the operation, and his confidence in its ability to get the job done was conveyed, unfiltered, to the decision-makers," Mofaz says.
Landing in the dark terminal
The plane was slowly making its way towards Entebbe. "The flight from Sharm el-Sheikh was actually my first opportunity to sleep," says Rami Sherman, at the time the operations officer who led the backup force. "An hour before the scheduled landing time, the plane started to shake, as there was a storm raging outside. Since I knew the pilots, I could enter the cockpit, and it was from there that I watched a lightning storm the likes of which I'd never seen before.
“The storm ended, and Lake Victoria appeared below us, in all of its glory. It was a bright night with a full moon, and the view that appeared in front of me was so idyllic, so contradictory to the purpose of our flight."
"We were preparing for landing," says Pinchas Buchris, who would go on to become the director-general of the Defense Ministry but at the time was one of the younger commandos, a sergeant in the Yiftach Team. "I remember that Yoni Netanyahu came out of the Mercedes and went to each of the commandos, shook his hand, and wished him luck. When he got to me, I smiled at him. He touched my head and asked, 'What are you smiling for, Buchris?' shook my hand, and went back to the Mercedes."
Reisman tells, "After he went to each of the commandos, Yoni turned around and hopped back into the Mercedes, which in a few minutes was to slide down the tail of the plane. It was to drive first, with Yoni leading us in the front seat next to Amitzur, the driver. The Hercules started slowly gliding down ahead of the landing. The three other planes separated from us and stayed circling over the lake.
"The plan was that seven minutes after us—in the hope that we could surprise (the hijackers and the Ugandan soldiers), and while we were in the midst of fighting—two additional Hercules planes would land with two teams in armored cars that would quickly join us, carrying 30 additional commandos from the unit. They would spread around the terminal and secure us and the hostages we were to release."
The original Entebbe operation flight crew heading for a Hercules plane used in the operation during a reenactment 25 years later (Photo: Shaul Golan)
Arditi recalls, "The last part (of the flight) was completely dark. We couldn't see anything—only hear. You find yourself inside a dark mass that is supposed to land somewhere, and as soon as it lands and the doors open, the operation is in our hands. I distinctly remember this switch from a situation in which you're completely passive and dependent on the pilots, the planes, and luck to the point in which you're dependent a lot more on your own actions."
"As soon as the wheels of the plane touched the ground, I released the safety catch and cocked my weapon," Amir Ofer remembers. "Ilan, who was sitting next to me, yelled at me, 'You don't cock your weapon on the plane!!' He was right, of course, but I answered, 'Shut up! This is a real war!' and the door opened.
The Mercedes drives off the Hercules plane as part of reenactment of the Entebbe Operation 25 years later (Photo: Shaul Golan)
“I knew we were on the equator, and I was expecting to see Africa as I had imagined it—lions, giraffes, and a jungle. Instead we saw a standard airport runway, with low lights all along it on the left and right. We turned on the lights and started driving. The plane disappeared into the darkness behind us, and the farther away we drove, the lonelier I felt: three small vehicles, in the heart of darkness, beyond the mountains of darkness (a place in Jewish tradition where the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel are believed to have been exiled by the Assyrian King Shalmaneser V —ed.)."
The convoy was led by the black Mercedes, followed by two jeeps. Adam Coleman, at the time a staff sergeant in the Zussman Team, was riding with Netanyahu in the Mercedes. "There were three rows of seats. The car was freshly painted black and beautiful. Two days earlier it had been white. There were two (Ugandan) flags on the hood, and the front row seated three people."
"We were driving towards the old terminal, which was faintly lit, and saw the control tower, which was also in darkness. No one was talking in the car; we were driving in complete silence. We saw a guard post and a barbed-wire fence coming up on the right and blocking part of the road. Next to the guard post, a soldier rose to attention, his rifle pointing straight ahead in a form of salute.
The Mercedes used in the operation alongside one of the Hercules planes during a reenactment of the Entebbe Operation 25 years later (Photo: Shaul Golan)
"A tense discussion started about what we were going to do. Muki said the guard was saluting, so we had nothing to worry about. Yoni disagreed and wanted to kill the soldier. Yoni and Muki started giving Amitzur the driver different instructions. 'Amitzur, go left, go right, go left.' And Amitzur did as he was told, went left, and then right. Eventually he broke to the right towards the soldier after being ordered to by Yoni, who must have decided not to leave any Ugandan soldiers behind. He tried to shoot the soldier out of the moving vehicle with his Beretta 0.22 handgun that had a suppressor on it. But he was in an impossible posture; he didn't have a chance. The car was moving slowly but didn't stop.
"The moment went by incredibly slowly. The guard was at attention, his rifle aimed directly at me, and Yoni was with his body hanging outside the window, trying unsuccessfully to shoot him. The car kept driving and the rifle's barrel got past me with no shot having been fired—what a relief that was! The guard didn't even realize what was happening. Other than the faint sound of the Beretta's suppressed shot, everything remained quiet, and we could breathe easy for a moment. And then a long burst of gunfire came from behind us—someone from the Land Rovers shot the guard—and it was followed soon after by another burst of fire."
There are other versions of that incident. Muki Betzer says, "The Ugandan soldier, who was alone, raised his weapon as we were driving towards him without any urgency, and called out, 'Advance!' He didn't cock his weapon, didn't make any indications he was about to open fire—he just raised his weapon. I was familiar with this Ugandan procedure of raising the weapon and calling 'Advance.' I knew this was just procedure and that we could get past the soldier without worrying."
Muki Betzer (Photo from family album)
Alex Davidi, a staff sergeant in the Muki Team who was sitting in the back seat of the Mercedes on the right side by the window, says, "The Ugandan soldier raised his weapon, shouted something, and I saw a green tracer bullet coming out of it and passing by the Mercedes. Yoni and Giora Zussman put their hands out of the window and shot at the Ugandan with suppressed handguns. The car kept moving forward and passed by the soldier, with him to our right. He was still standing. To me, the war had begun. I also put my hand out of the window and joined the gunfire with a non-suppressed gun. The Ugandan was hit and tripped backwards."
Behind the Mercedes, in one of the Land Rover jeeps, was Rani Cohen, at the time a second lieutenant in the Yiftach Team. "I was sitting on the right side of the jeep, so I only saw the guard on the right," he says. "He was in a shooting position and yelling something. They shot at him from the Mercedes. I saw him fall, but he kept moving, so I shot a few single rounds at him until we drove past."
Pinchas Buchris also joined the shooting. "A loud burst was fired right next to me, which was probably aimed at the guard on the left, who started running away," he says. "I heard someone yell, 'Buchris, shoot!' I shot the fleeing guard. He was killed in the third burst from the MAG (a machine gun —ed.). Later I learned that the person who ordered me to shoot was Amnon Peled."
Coleman remembers, "Yoni shouted to Amitzur, the driver, 'Hit the gas!' We realized we had lost the element of surprise. Our nerves hiked up as we advanced towards the building, which was in the process of waking up and was ready for us. We couldn't see anything, just hear the sound of gunfire and see some sparks from the bullets.
Sayeret Matkal commander Yoni Netanyahu (Photo: GPO)
"The Mercedes stopped about 40 meters from the building, while the two Land Rovers came to a halt next to it and behind it. The building was similar to what we saw in the photos—but also not so much. It was a two-story building, with big windows up front, and a sort of an arcade of pillars. The ground floor was partially dark—there was only faint lighting on the outside—while the second floor was dark. On the left, the control tower popped up, as if growing right out of the earth, and it, too, was dark. Yoni was standing next to the car and yelling, 'Come on, charge! Come on, charge!'
"We were slowly getting out of the car. Those of us in the back row were stuck until the middle row, where the Amnon Team was, got out, and it was only after Zussman got out that my team could get out as well. Yoni was standing outside by the Mercedes and realized that things weren't moving, that the guys weren't coming out of the car, and that our assault was stuck. And he yelled at us 'Come on, charge! Come on, charge!' and a thought crossed through my mind that this was just like in the movies, or in our drilling, and then Yoni ran forward and charged, leading the force after him, and released the jam. A true commander, a brave man. This was the last time I saw him."
Part 3 of this story recounts the intense battle inside the terminal and how the commandos rescued the hostages.
Dr. Ronen Bergman is Yedioth Ahronoth's chief military and intelligence correspondent. Follow him on Twitter @ronenbergman |
Last year Miami’s defense ranked 15th in DVOA rankings and seemed poised to break out this season after the massive signing of defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh this off-season. This defense would represent a tough test for the Redskins offensive line and Kirk Cousins. After the Redskins lost last Sunday 17-10 at home, many criticized him for his performance claiming it was due to his two interceptions and lack of passing yards downfield. In this breakdown I wanted to take a look at the legitimacy of these claims as well as look at big plays and common themes displayed by the Redskins and Kirk Cousins in Jay Gruden’s quick-concept offense.
Stats
Kirk Cousins – 21/31 for 196 yards, 6.3 ypa, 1 TD, 2 INTs, 1 sack for 8 yards
Let’s take a look at some of his plays starting with the long sideline throw to DeSean Jackson in the 1st quarter that resulted in Jackson pulling his hamstring.
Play 1 – 1-10-WAS 23(Q1-5:49) 8-K.Cousins pass incomplete deep right to 11-D.Jackson. WAS-11-D.Jackson was injured during the play. He is Out. 11-Jackson has a hamstring injury
In this play, the Redskins are in offset-I slot right with 5:49 left in the 1st quarter. After Cousins runs play-action to his running back #46 Alfred Morris he throw deep down the sideline to wide receiver #11 DeSean Jackson. Looking at the play we are left with a question mark as we don’t know when exactly Jackson pulls his hamstring leaving us with two scenarios:
The first scenario is that Cousins placed the ball perfectly in front of Jackson on his out-n-up route and Jackson pulls his muscle mid-play resulting in the perceived “overthrow.” The second scenario is that Cousins’ overthrew the ball and when Jackson reached out for it he injured himself and missed out on a long passing opportunity down the sideline.
By inspection it doesn’t look like Jackson slowed down or was effected by his hamstring until after reaching out for the ball, so it makes you believe the latter was the case. However, Jay Gruden said the opposite in his press conference that Kirk placed the ball in-stride, but the hamstring pull slowed down Jackson who would have reached it if he was healthy. We don’t know for sure.
The Redskins run a smash concept on 3rd down against the Dolphins’ Cover 2 defense. The smash concept featuring an outside receiver, in this case #12 Andre Roberts, running a hitch route while the slot receiver, in this case #88 Pierre Garcon, runs a corner route.
The idea of this play is to target the outside cornerback and make him choose to cover the underneath route or have him drop into deeper coverage while leaving the underneath route open. In this case the defender chose the underneath route hoping the safety would make it to the corner route in time. Cousins throws a well-placed ball on the sideline allowing only Pierre Garcon a chance at the ball for the first down. Perfectly called and perfectly executed by the Redskins offense.
Cousins is in a 3×1 set with trips bunch on the right and Pierre Garcon by himself at the bottom of your screen.
This play was called back for offensive pass interference on Garcon, but the ball placement is what we are looking at. It’s actually a perfectly placed ball. The reason why Garcon has to dive to reach for it is because he trips coming out of his break to the outside and then is late on the timing pattern. Cousins throws with excellent anticipation and places it right on the sideline for him.
Up to this next play, Cousins was having an excellent game. He was accurate on the short routes and even showed a nice touch on the sideline passes. All too familiar to Redskins fans, Cousins throws an interception in his own territory. So what happened?
First, the Redskins are in Gun slot right with “20” personnel in the game (two running backs – three wide receivers). Cousins snaps the ball trying to catch the Dolphins off-guard as they are still discussing their assignments. The Dolphins drop three into a deep Cover 3 shell while bringing three in pass rush with the fourth picking up the checkdown receiver.
Right tackle #76 Morgan Moses gets beat off of the snap immediately by defensive end #91 Cameron Wake’s speed rush. Moses recovers from his mistake and is able to flatten Wake before he can reach Cousins for the sack, but the pressure forces Cousins to step up into the pocket and scramble outside. Cousins keeps his eyes locked onto his target tight end #86 Jordan Reed on the sideline and then fires a pass to him that gets intercepted by cornerback #21 Brent Grimes. Here is the problem. As soon as Cousins turns to run outside the pocket Grimes follows Cousins’ eyes and reads him to cut off the pass.
Cousins needs to realize that the pass to the sideline is already a substantial distance, but combined with Reed starting to move up the sideline it becomes a dangerous play if he doesn’t read the defenders around his target. This skill takes time to develop and only comes with more experience in actual game situations.
Honestly, when Cousins threw the ball I half-expected him to have turned up the field and targeted Andre Roberts working the seam between the zones after the scrambling started. In 2014 this is where you would have seen Cousins force the ball and in this case it probably would have worked to get the Redskins the first down. Some may also note that Garcon is also open underneath his hitch route after the scrambling started on the opposite side of the field. This would have been a poor decision as Cousins would have had to throw completely across his body as he was scrambling in the opposite direction.
It was the combination of a poor decision by Cousins and Reed starting to move upfield anticipating the pass that lengthened the throw even more than if he stayed put in the flat on the sideline that causes the interception. Luckily for Cousins’ the Redskins defense is able to force a turnover on downs and not allow the Dolphins to capitalize on Cousins’ error. A HUGE difference from the 2014 Redskins.
Throughout most of the afternoon, the Redskins used a variety of quick-concept play designs meant to specifically attack particular members of the defense. In this play, the Redskins run mirrored hitch-flat routes in an attempt to attack the outside zone defender on either side of the formation. In this case, it’s the weakside linebacker #53 Jelani Jenkins on the bottom of your screen.
The hitch-flat combination forces the targeted underneath zone defender to choose which route he wants to cover. If he decides to cover the hitch, the flat is open. If he decides to cover the flat, the hitch is left open. Ironically, Jenkins chooses to cover the flat defender, but since he runs into the hitch receiver (Pierre Garcon), Cousins has the flat defender open underneath which he places perfectly for tight end #89 Derek Carrier to catch and gain 9 yards on the play.
Another thing to note is the three-step drop that Cousins takes. The design is to have Cousins release the ball on the third step, while bouncing off his second step to throw the pass on time. Cousins does this perfectly. Another excellent example of Cousins understanding the Jay Gruden’s quick concept that was used throughout most of the day.
Article continues on the next page. |
miami beach moves ahead with redesigned convention center by fentress architects
the city of miami will move forward with the $500 million USD renovation of the region’s convention center, the building which annually hosts art basel miami beach. construction will commence following the completion of the 2015 edition of the fair, and will continue into 2017. despite the planned schedule, organizers have insisted that the 2016 event will remain unaffected by construction work.
the plans include a new 80,000 square foot ballroom and an outdoor function space
all images courtesy of fentress architects
designed by fentress architects, in collaboration with local practice arquitectonica and landscapers west8, the plans include a new 80,000 square foot ballroom and an outdoor function space. the project also includes the renovation of the existing exhibition hall and ancillary spaces such as meeting rooms, kitchens and bathrooms. the scaled-down redesign follows the blocking of OMA’s competition winning scheme by local authorities.
the project also includes the renovation of the existing exhibition hall and ancillary spaces
‘the studio aims to design a convention center that will give back to the urban and civi environment’, explained michael winters, director of diesgn and interiors for fentress. ‘miami is a world-class city an it deserves a world-class convention center’, added curtis fentress, president and principal in charge of design at fentress architects.
the scaled-down redesign follows the blocking of OMA’s competition winning scheme by local authorities
project info:
name: miami beach convention center
location: miami beach, florida, USA
size: 1,400,000 sqf
cost: $500 million USD
architect: fentress architects
associate architect: arquitectonica
landscape designer: west8
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New Zealand Fishing Industry Accused of Driving World’s Rarest Dolphin to Extinction
Study of industry that calls itself "world leader" finds that vessels Illegally discard a third of their catch
Christopher Pala
Biologists Liz Slooten and Steve Dawson crisscross southern New Zealand’s scenic Akaroa Bay looking for the world’s smallest dolphins until Slooten spots a stopped 30-foot motor catamaran. We approach gingerly and find a dozen tourists in the water wearing wetsuits. The grey and black dolphins, no bigger than an 8-year-old child, are checking them out, their characteristic round dorsal fins slicing up though the water as they come up to breathe every two minutes. The tourists watch in hushed silence. Dawson photographs the dolphins to identify them later.
Photo by Photo courtesy of Liz Slooten
These Hector’s dolphins, unique to New Zealand’s shallow coastal waters, are friendly to humans, enjoy sex outside of reproduction and almost never fight, explains Slooten with a tender smile. Like Dawson, she is a professor at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, near the southern tip of New Zealand. The couple has been studying these dolphins for the past 32 years, during which they have seen their numbers plummet as thousands upon thousands drowned after getting caught in gill nets and towed trawl nets used by fishermen. Though their use is legal, these kinds of nets trap and kill, in addition to marine mammals and turtles, many more fish than the fishermen can sell.
“We’ve seen the species fragmenting into smaller and smaller isolated populations,” says Slooten.
One of these, a subspecies called Maui’s dolphin that’s been separated from the rest for 16,000 years, has only 50 to 60 adults thinly spread over 400 miles off the western coast of the North Island, down from 2,000 individuals in 1970. It has become the world’s rarest dolphin. “It’s heartbreaking because it’s so easily avoidable,” Slooten says. The rest of the population, a slightly larger sub-species known as Hector’s dolphins, has fallen from a probable 50,000 to an estimated 10,000.
Since 2012, the International Whaling Commission, along with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), dozens of nonprofits and the country’s opposition parties have been calling on the New Zealand government to ban all nets in the Maui’s habitat. The US has listed the Maui dolphin as critically endangered and the Hector dolphin as threatened. But so far, the New Zealand government has only banned nets in a tiny fraction of the Maui dolphins’ habitats.
Last year, the US imported 470 tons of New Zealand snapper, some of it from the Maui dolphin habitat, but where it is retailed is not publicly available information, says Gib Brogan, fisheries campaign manager for Oceana, a nonprofit devoted to clean seas and sustainable fishing. And while fish must be identified by country, there is no “requirement to provide consumers with more information about their seafood such as the gear it was caught with or the region it was fished in,” he says.
WWF calls the Maui’s situation a “conservation emergency.” Greenpeace NZ head Russel Norman, a former Green Party co-leader and member of parliament, says saving the Maui dolphin could be done by spending NZ$20 million (US$ 15 million) to help the fishermen switch to different fishing gear. “It would be a popular move, the polls show that,” he says.
Labour Party MP Ruth Dyson agrees. “It would be a win-win for everyone,” she says. “You protect an endemic species and you ensure a healthy, sustainable fishery.” Just last year, the government spent NZ$3.9 million (US$2.81 million) to eradicate mice from remote and uninhabited Antipodes Island.
But ending net fishing in the Maui dolphin’s habitat would financially impact the main player there, Sanford Ltd. The company is the country’s biggest and oldest fishing concern, and in the Maui dolphin zone, it owns 60 percent of the quota for snapper, the most valuable catch, taken mostly by bottom trawlers. Sanford’s main shareholder and former chairman, Peter Goodfellow, is president of the conservative National Party, which has been in power for eight years. He declined two requests to be interviewed.
Photo by Photo courtesy of DOC, New Zealand
“You have to wonder if the government would do the right thing if the links between Sanford and the party weren’t so close,” says Slooten, the biologist.
Nathan Guy, the minister responsible for fisheries, also declined to be interviewed for this article. But through a spokesman, he sent a statement insisting that existing protection measures, which ban all nets in 5 percent of the Maui’s habitat and gill nets in another 14 percent, are adequate. “We’re on the right track,” the statement said.
Guy’s reluctance to extend the ban to the entire habitat comes as no surprise to academics who have probed the quota system, the foundation of New Zealand’s claim to be “an acknowledged world leader in the management of fisheries.”
Created by both industry and government in 1986, the country’s fisheries management structure is built on the neoliberal belief that a resource will be better managed by its owner than by government regulators. The government initially gave fishermen quotas — the right to fish a certain amount of a certain fish in a certain place — for the species they were already fishing. But it allowed the quota owners to hire other people to fish their quota and to sell them to anyone. The result is that today, most quotas are owned by large corporations that make a profit simply by hiring independent fishermen to catch their quotas and paying them less than the value of the fish they bring in. Some academic studies have found the system encourages wastefulness and profits corporations at the expense of consumers and independent fishermen. The quota system was initially designed in the 1980s at the University of British Columbia and has been applied to many fisheries in Iceland, but New Zealand is the only country to have adopted it for all 638 of its stocks of fish.
In an interview in his office by Auckland’s waterfront, I ask Sanford’s CEO, Volker Kuntzcsh, why the company, which owns just under a quarter of the whole country’s fishing quotas, doesn’t simply stop fishing with nets in the dolphin’s habitat and justify its name, “The Home of Sustainable Seafood.”
“There’s quite a lot of fish coming out of that area,” he replies. “Our board wouldn’t be happy” if the existing fishing stopped. But, he adds, “We do suffer from a bad reputation here,” and … “we want to prove that we’re really serious” about saving the Maui dolphin.
So instead, he explains, Sanford has pledged to find a dolphin-safe trawl net by 2022 and to continue trawling with its vessels in the Maui habitat until then. The company, which also buys net-caught fish from five vessels in the Maui dolphin habitat, will stop doing so starting in March. It will also no longer allow fish caught by gillnets in the Maui dolphin habitat to be sold in its auction house.
Sanford’s measures have drawn praise from government officials. “There are already extensive fishing protections over a large part of the Maui dolphin distribution, and these new steps will provide even greater reassurance and protection,” says Guy, the minister for fisheries, in a press release.
But many scientists and conservationists remain unconvinced about the effectiveness of these measures. “I don’t see much benefit for the dolphin in the Sanford plan,” says Slooten, the dolphin biologist. Even if a dolphin-safe [trawl net] is invented by 2022, she says, “There may be very few Maui dolphins left.”
Slooten notes that the last three surveys conducted for the government by Auckland University came up with estimates of 69, 55, and 63 adults, with a 68 percent probability that the population is continuing to decline. “The smaller the population, the harder it is to count,” she says. She cites the case of the baiji, a dolphin endemic to the Yangtze River that the Chinese government tried too late to save. By 1999, scientists reported, “uncontrolled and unselective fishing” had reduced the population to an estimated 13 individuals. A survey in 2006 found none and the baiji became the first human-caused extinction of a cetacean species.
In Mexico’s Gulf of California, the government is fighting an illegal fishery for the totoaba fish, whose swim bladder is prize by the Chinese. The vaquita porpoises also drown in the nets, and last year the population was halved from 60 to about 30.
Photo by Photo courtesy of Liz Slooten
Until last year, criticism of New Zealand’s fisheries industry was muted by the widespread perception that it lived up to the “world-leading” and “clean and green” image vigorously promoted by the government. Indeed, a 2009 study based on the official catch statistics of 53 countries ranked New Zealand first in sustainability. “On paper, they looked great,” said Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia, a co-author of that study. “They scored better than anyone on the key stuff, like respecting their catch quotas.” Quotas, based on population estimates often derived solely from catch reports, are limits set by scientists to prevent overfishing, which reduces fish populations and lowers the annual yield of catchable fish.
Pauly, who is the world’s most quoted fisheries scientist, also directed a global survey to determine just how accurate were those national catch statistics, which are curated by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome and form the bedrock of international fisheries policy. The survey, published in January 2016, found that the global seafood catch from 1950 to 2010 was a third higher than what countries had reported to the FAO. The difference came mainly from artisanal catches in poor countries, which their governments didn’t bother counting.
But for the New Zealand chapter of the study, published in May 2016, a team of researchers from the universities of Auckland, Oxford, and British Columbia uncovered a level of organized deceit that Pauly says is unparalleled: Over 60 years, the average real catch was an eye-popping 2.7 times bigger than what was reported (Since 1986, the catch was 2.1 times the amount reported, or double). Currently, the estimate is that about a third of the catch in New Zealand is unreported. Most of the hidden part comes from fully-licensed commercial vessels illegally discarding 38 percent of their catch (that’s more than four times the global discard average), and then systematically filing false catch reports while government regulators looked the other way, the report found.
“Turns out that what they were really, really good at is lying,” Pauly says. “Spain used to cover up the illegal fishing their ships were doing in other countries and the Soviets lied about their big whale catch. But what the New Zealanders did is in a class of its own, not only by the sheer size of their discards but because for decades they went to fishing conference saying their quota system was the best in the world — and most people believed them, of course.”
Slooten, the dolphin biologist, says under-reporting of dolphin killings is even worse, on the order of 20 to 1. Between 2000 and 2006, for instance, the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere estimated the mortality of Maui and Hector’s dolphins at between 770 and 1050 a year. Yet the NZ government informed the whaling commission that only 48 dolphins were reported to have died in nets. A ministry document shows that only 2 percent of the fishing days in the Maui’s habitat had observers. “There are no incentives for the fishermen to report these deaths and lots not to, so it’s not surprising very few are reported,” Slooten says.
Glenn Simmons, the lead author of the New Zealand catch study on which Pauly is also co-author, says that the pressure to discard less valuable fish was baked into quota-based fisheries model adopted by the industry and its regulators in 1986. In theory, the quota owner would choose the most profitable — therefore efficient — way to fish a given stock of fish. In practice, trawling and gillnetting, which bring in the most fish at the least cost, are indiscriminate; the trawler pulls a sock-like net over the bottom, where most fish are found, while the netter places a curtain-like invisible net that entangles everything bigger than its mesh.
Whatever species a fisherman has a quota for, he still would end up with many fish that were either of low value or for which he had no quota, Simmons explained. The law requires the fishermen bring all of these in, then fines the fishermen for killing valuable fish for which they have no quota. Caught between the low purchase prices offered by the quota owners and a law that penalizes honesty, many fishermen illegally toss them overboard so they can fill their holds only with more valuable fish for which they have a quota. Thus they file catch reports that suggest jaw-dropping efficiency, according to multiple studies.
Simmons says the catch study he led drew not only from official records but also from several hundred interviews of fishermen and over 200 reports of violations filed by fishing inspectors but never integrated into the catch figures filed to the FAO in Rome. The study found detailed descriptions of widespread unreported dumping of fish as well as equally illegal failures to report the killing of dolphins — and the discreet landing of over-quota fishes sold on the local black market. The investigation reports were not made public and culprits were rarely prosecuted, the study found.
One such report described by Simmons and obtained and released by a local television journalist last year caused a sensation because it contained video footage of fish being dumped. The report describes Operation Achilles, undertaken in 2012, in which officials installed cameras on six trawlers as a pilot project to see how many dolphins they caught. The footage showed that one vessel killed two Hector’s dolphins on the same day. The report noted the skipper waited four days to report the first dolphin death and didn’t report the second one at all, which is illegal. The footage also showed that all but one of the six vessels’ crews filmed were discarding fish with abandon, which is punishable by a NZ$250,000 (US$175,000) fine.
“We have never had such compelling evidence to prove what we have known for a long time,” wrote Mark Sanders, the investigator who wrote the Achilles report. He urged his superiors to prosecute the crews. Were the video to be released, which it eventually was, he wrote, “The sight of large, perfectly good fish being systematically discarded… could… stir up an emotive backlash not only from the NZ public but from international quarters as well.” Not fixing the problem, he added, “could see a large international company (like) McDonald’s refusing to buy our ‘non-green-image’ fish or having imports cancelled because of those pressures.” McDonald’s is a major buyer of New Zealand fish.
The skippers of all five trawlers got off with a warning, which caused considerable indignation in the press and in the liberal opposition. Scott Gallacher, then fisheries deputy director-general, dismissed the findings of the Simmons report and insisted that discards were between 5 and 7 percent. After it emerged that it was Gallacher who made the decision not to prosecute the skippers in the Achilles case, he was reassigned to another department (though his boss called it a “coincidence”). The government then appointed a former solicitor-general, Michael Heron, to independently review Gallacher’s decision not to prosecute. Heron describes the decision as “flawed” but “understandable” and says “the situation as to discards remains confused.”
In a 2014 e-mail released by Heron, Dave Turner, the director of fisheries, wrote to Gallacher, his boss at the time, that excessive discards were a “systemic failure of the current system.” But if the fishermen were forced to follow the law, “We would probably put half the inshore fishing fleet out of business overnight.”
Turner is far from the first official to sound the alarm. In 2008, Fisheries Operations Manager Jonathan Peacey wrote that the quota system has created a situation where “dumping… is common in many New Zealand fisheries.” He urged a “comprehensive review” that would lead to major changes, but no such review was undertaken by the National Party administration, which came into power a few months later.
In an unpublished 2008 report obtained by Earth Island Journal, Shaun Driscoll, at the time the fisheries ministry’s manager for investigations, noted that “an overbearing and over-powerful fishing industry” had created a system that “virtually guarantees illegal fishing practices.”
“The quota system,” writes Fiona McCormack, an anthropologist at the University of Waikato, in Hamilton, New Zealand, “concentrates fishing power in the hands of industry, which allows it to capture its government regulators and to squeeze the fishers so much that they are forced to discard. The only sustainability it achieved is the sustainability of the profits of the quota holders.”
Today, in quota-based fisheries, “Between 50 percent and 80 percent of the value of a fish landed in port goes to the quota holder, which could be a fishing company, a fish processor or even a private-equity investor,” adds Evelyn Pinkerton, a fisheries anthropologist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Reactions to the revelations of the Simmons report have varied widely. While the government denies any wrongdoing, California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium says it might make some changes to its influential guide to sustainable seafood, Seafood Watch. The guide currently gives a favorable rating to snapper, even when it’s caught by net in the Maui habitat. “We are updating our ratings and taking the Simmons report into account,” says Santi Roberts, manager of the rating program.
A spokesperson for the nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council — a global leader in certifying fisheries as sustainable — says that after examining the Simmons report, it has confirmed that “the New Zealand hoki fisheries have been independently assessed as continuing to meet the high requirements of the MSC Fisheries Standard.”
The MSC has certified 70 percent of New Zealand’s deepwater fisheries as sustainable.
Last May, McDonald’s was asked to comment on calls from NABU, a German nonprofit, that it boycott hoki (blue grenadier) in the light of the Simmons report and the parlous state of the Maui dolphin. The company uses hoki for 8 percent of the filet-o-fish it sells globally. “The New Zealand hoki fishery was one of the first fisheries in the world to be awarded MSC certification for sustainable fishing,” a McDonald’s spokeswoman was quoted as saying in response. “There is no guesswork in ensuring these standards are met and maintained because MSC has an independent team of scientists who regularly examine data.”
On January 19, more than 50 conservation organizations wrote to MSC to protest its certification of fisheries, including the New Zealand orange roughy fishery, that each year kill 650,000 marine mammals, including dolphins, and millions of sharks. MSC receives most of its revenue from the fishing companies it certifies and environmental groups have accused it of violating its own standards to increase income.
This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute |
Ebenezer Choebefu and his wife heard a young girl screaming outside their home on Sunday night, crying out that "my daddy has killed my mummy and my auntie."
The girl was fleeing from a residence in the 6400 block of Penbrooke Dr, S.E., where two women were stabbed to death Sunday night and a third hospitalized with her injuries.
"She was screaming, ‘my daddy has killed my mummy and my auntie. And she just kept repeating that," Choebefu said.
The girl was outside the home where the attacks happened when she screamed for help, he said. When the girl saw Choebefu’s wife, she ran into her arms.
"(She) kept screaming, ‘my mommy is inside and she’s dead."
The child, about nine or 10 years old, according to Choebefu, told his wife that her mom and aunt hid from her dad in a room but he forced his way inside.
Police were called to the residence about 6:30 p.m. Sunday following reports of a confrontation. They found one woman dead at the scene and another seriously injured. She was rushed to Foothills Hospital but later died.
Neighbour Olivia Rodrigues was the first to reach the mortally injured woman, who had managed to get outside the residence.
"I came flying out of my house," she said. "I saw a young lady lying on the sidewalk bleeding out."
Rodrigues yelled at her fiancé to get a first aid kit and she quickly applied pressure to the woman’s wounds, which were on her upper body, until paramedics arrived.
Rodrigues said that as she applied pressure, the injured woman asked for her mom.
"The only thing she said was, ‘I want my mom. It hurts. I want my mommy, I want my mom.’ "
Rodrigues’s fiancé, meanwhile, rushed to help a second stabbed woman who Rodrigues said was lying at the duplex’s side door.
The couple’s efforts were in vain, she said.
"It didn’t help. There was nothing we could have done."
Police said the woman who died in hospital was Fahmida Velji-Visram, 29, of Calgary. She was a friend of the victim who died at the scene.
That woman, believed to be the estranged wife of a man police have in custody, has not been named.
The third woman attacked was a landlord who lived directly above the residence. Police said she was stabbed when she tried to intervene in the confrontation. She was taken to hospital Sunday with non-life-threatening injuries and has since been treated and released.
Police said two charges of second-degree murder and one of aggravated assault are pending against the suspect, who is in stable condition in hospital with self-inflicted injuries. The man is understood to have ingested a liquid prior to being apprehended in a car near the murder scene Sunday night. He is yet to be interviewed by investigators.
Staff Sgt. Doug Andrus said the suspect had recently started living alone at the property. Police were called to the address on April 9 in response to an argument.
"At that time, there was no indication of a criminal offence, and one of the parties indicated that they were leaving the residence," Andrus said.
The estranged wife had returned to the residence Sunday with a friend, her friend’s mother and a young girl to pick up some property, he said.
"It was while they were in the residence in the basement suite that a confrontation occurred, where both victims were stabbed.
"There’s no indication it was planned and deliberate, at this time."
The girl was not hurt, and was staying with friends and family, Andrus said.
Police were still searching the residence and the car where the suspect was arrested. Andrus would not discuss possible motives for the attacks.
An autopsy on the second victim was expected to be completed on Tuesday.
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St. Antonio Primaldo and his companion martyrs (Italian: I Santi Antonio Primaldo e compagni martiri), also known as the Martyrs of Otranto, were 813 inhabitants of the Salentine city of Otranto in southern Italy who were killed on 14 August 1480. The mass execution is often explained as taking place after the Otrantins refused to convert to Islam when the city fell to an Ottoman force under Gedik Ahmed Pasha.
Characteristics [ edit ]
The Ottoman ambitions in Italy were ended. Had Otranto surrendered to the Turks, the history of Italy might have been very different. But the heroism of the people of Otranto was more than a strategically decisive stand. What made the sacrifice of Otranto so remarkable was the willingness to die for the faith rather than reject Christ. Matthew Bunson[1]
The siege of Otranto – with the martyrdom of the inhabitants – was the last significant military attempt by a Muslim force to conquer southern Italy. The slaughter was remembered by Risorgimento historians (like Arnaldi and Scirocco) as a milestone in European history,[2] because as a consequence of this sacrifice the Italian peninsula was never conquered by Muslim troops.[3]
The contemporary Turkish historian Ibn Kemal indeed justified the slaughter on religious grounds. One modern study suggests it may have been a punitive measure, devoid of religious motivations, exacted to punish the local population for the stiff resistance they put up, which delayed the Turkish advance and enabled the King of Naples to strengthen local fortifications. Intimidation, a warning to other populations not to resist, may also have entered the invaders' calculations.[4] They were beatified in 1771 and were canonised by Pope Benedict XVI on 14 May 2012.[5] They are the patron saints of the city of Otranto and the Archdiocese of Otranto.
History [ edit ]
On 28 July 1480 an Ottoman force commanded by Gedik Ahmed Pasha, consisting of 90 galleys, 40 galiots and other ships carrying a total of around 150 crew and 18,000 troops, landed beneath the walls of Otranto. The city strongly resisted the Ottoman assaults, but the garrison was unable to resist the bombardment for long. The garrison and all the townsfolk thus abandoned the main part of the city on 29 July, retreating into the citadel whilst the Ottomans began bombarding the neighboring houses.
According to accounts of the story chronicled by Giovanni Laggetto and Saverio de Marco (and presented by author Ted Byfield) the Turks promised clemency if the city capitulated but were informed that Otranto would never surrender. A second Turkish messenger sent to repeat the offer "was slain with arrows and an Otranto guardsman flung the keys of the city into the sea".[6] At this the Ottoman artillery resumed the bombardment.
A messenger was dispatched to see if King Ferdinand of Naples could send assistance. As time went on "Nearly seven-eights of Otranto's militia slipped over the city walls and fled."[6] The remaining fifty soldiers fought alongside the citizenry dumping boiling oil and water on Turks trying to scale the ramparts between the cannonades.[6]
On 11 August, after a 15-day siege, Gedik Ahmed ordered the final assault, which broke through the defenses and captured the citadel. When the walls were breached the Turks began fighting their way through the town. Upon reaching the cathedral "they found Archbishop Stefano Agricolo Stefano Pendinelli, fully vested and crucifix in hand" awaiting them with Count Francesco Largo. "The archbishop was beheaded before the altar, his companions were sawn in half, and their accompanying priests were all murdered." After desecrating the Cathedral, they gathered the women and older children to be sold into Albanian slavery. Men over fifteen years old, small children, and infants, were slain.[6]
According to some historical accounts, a total of 12,000 were killed and 5,000 enslaved, including victims from the territories of the Salentine peninsula around the city.[7]
Castle of Otranto
Eight hundred able-bodied men were told to convert to Islam or be slain. A tailor named Antonio Primaldi is said to have proclaimed "Now it is time for us to fight to save our souls for the Lord. And since he died on the cross for us, it is fitting that we should die for him."[6] To which those captives with him gave a loud cheer.
On 14 August they were led to the Hill of Minerva (later renamed the Hill of Martyrs). There they were to be executed with Primaldi to be beheaded first. After the blade decapitated him "his body allegedly remaining stubbornly and astonishing upright on its feet. Not until all had been decapitated could the aghast executioners force Primaldi's corpse to lie prone."[6] Witnessing this, one Muslim executioner (whom the chroniclers say was an Ottoman officer called Bersabei) is said to have converted on the spot and been impaled immediately by his fellows for doing so.
Between August and September 1480, King Ferdinand of Naples, with the help of his cousin Ferdinand the Catholic and the Kingdom of Sicily, tried unsuccessfully to recapture Otranto.[8] Seeing the Turks as a threat to his home Alfonso of Aragon left his battles with the Florentines to lead a campaign to liberate Otranto from the Ottoman invaders beginning in August 1480.[9] The city was finally retaken in the spring of 1481 by Alfonso's troops supported by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary's forces. The skulls of the martyrs were placed in a reliquary in the city's cathedral.[6]
Relics [ edit ]
On 13 October 1481 the bodies of the Otrantines were found to be uncorrupted and were transferred to the city's cathedral.[10] From 1485, some of the martyrs' remains were transferred to Naples and placed under the altar of Our Lady of the Rosary in the church of Santa Caterina a Formiello - that altar commemorated the final Christian victory over the Ottomans at Lepanto in 1571. They were later moved to the reliquary chapel, consecrated by Benedict XIII, then to a site under the altar where they are now sited. A recognitio canonica between 2002 and 2003 confirmed their authenticity.
In 1930 Monsignor Cornelio Sebastiano Cuccarollo O.F.M. was made archbishop of Otranto, and as a sign of affection and recognition to his old diocese he gave some of the relics to the Sanctuary of Santa Maria di Valleverde in Bovino, where he had been bishop from 1923 to 1930, where they are now in the crypt of the new basilica. Other relics of the martyrs are venerated in several locations in Apulia, particularly in Salento, and also in Naples, Venice and Spain.
Canonization [ edit ]
A canonical process began in 1539. On 14 December 1771 Pope Clement XIV beatified the 800 killed on the Colle della Minerva and authorised their cult.
In view of their possible canonization, at the request of the archdiocese of Otranto, the process was recently resumed and confirmed in full the previous process. On 6 July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued a decree recognising that Primaldo and his fellow townsfolk were killed "out of hatred for their faith".[11] On 20 December 2012 Benedict gave a private audience to cardinal Angelo Amato, S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in which he authorized the Congregation to promulgate a decree regarding the miracle of the healing of sister Francesca Levote, attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Antonio Primaldo and his Companions.[12]
The martyrs were canonized on 12 May 2013 by Pope Francis. The announcement of the canonisation was made on 11 February 2013 by Pope Benedict XVI in the consistory in which Benedict also announced in Latin his intention to resign the papacy.
Questions of historicity [ edit ]
Some modern historians, such as Nancy Bisaha and Francesco Tateo have questioned details of the traditional account.[13] Tateo notes that the earliest contemporary sources describe execution of up to one thousand soldiers or citizens, as well as the local bishop, but they do not mention conversion as a condition for clemency.[13] Bisaha argues that more of Otranto's inhabitants were likely to have been sold into slavery than slaughtered.[13]
However, other historians, such as Paolo Ricciardi and Salvatore Panareo, have argued that in the first year after the martyrdom there were no information about the massacres in the contemporaneous Christian world and only later – when Otranto was reconquered by the Neapolitans – it was possible to get details of the massacre from the local survivors who saw it.[14]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ] |
Learn more about corporations VOTING to rewrite our laws.
The Wackenhut Corporation provides security services to commercial and government organizations. It is a subsidiary of U.K. based G4S, which is one of the largest security corporations in the world. [1]
"It is known throughout the industry that if you want a dirty job done, call Wackenhut." -retired FBI agent, William Hinshaw in a September 1992 SPY Magazine article by John Connolly.
Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
Wackenhut Corporation has been a corporate funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).[2] See ALEC Corporations for more.
About ALEC ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org , and check out breaking news on our PRWatch.org site
Overview
The Wackenhut Corporation was founded in 1954 by former FBI official George R. Wackenhut, has been a publicly held corporation from 1966 to 2002, and they have recently merged with Group 4 Falck to create the monster private security firm Group 4 Securicor.
Before the merger the chairman was George Wackenhut, the vice chair and chief executive officer was George C. Zoley and the president and chief operating officer was Wayne H. Calabrese
Wackenhut has had a long history with the US government and military. They heavily recruit from military job fairs and publications. Many ex-CIA, FBI, and other government officials have worked in the upper levels of the company over the years.
By 2001, Wackenhut’s revenues topped $2.8 billion as the leading provider of security at U.S. national defense sites, with a global presence on six continents. [1]
They serve as the US division of the global corporation, providing uniformed security officers, Customs protection officers, building security, as well as training programs and consultation and investigative services. [2] They have provided security for the Alaskan oil pipeline, US embassies around the world, and nuclear reactor sites.
Wackenhut Services Incorporated is a subsidiary which handles security, law enforcement, "operations and maintenance", facilities services management, fire suppression and prevention, emergency medical services, airfield management, operations and maintenance for federal, state and local government agencies. [3]
Wackenhut had revenues of $1.5 billion in 2004 and currently have over 340,000 employees. They are headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.[4]
Government connections
Wackenhut has been tied to the US goverment since inception. The early board members included Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, Gen. Mark Clark and Ralph E. Davis, a leader of the John Birch Society. Other members include former FBI director Clarence Kelley, former Defense secretary and CIA deputy director Frank Carlucci, former Defense Intelligence Agency director Gen. Joseph Carroll, former Secret Service director James J. Rowley, former Marine commandant P.X. Kelley, former CIA deputy director Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, and previous to becoming CIA director, William J. Casey as outside legal counsel. [5]
Surveillance
Wackenhut's surveillance services were fined in 1999 by a federal district court in Alabama for illegal wire tapping, theft of business documents and corporate sabotage. This should come as no surprise as Mr. Wackenhut, a fervent right-winger, made his money in the 1950s creating dossiers on suspected communists, achieving by 1966 over four million files, or one for every 46 adults in the country.[6]
Front company
In the same above mentioned SPY Magazine article, 18 year terrorism expert and CIA analyst, William Corbett, stated "For years, Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organizations, including the Drug Enforcement Agency. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandistine operations." He went on to say Wackenhut provided the intelligence agencies with information and was paid in return "in a quid pro quo arrangement". This would explain in part the huge number of contracts awarded to Wackenhut in delicate areas of the national security, such as embassies and nuclear plants, and the $150 million increase in work under the Reagan Administration.
Wackenhut was also involved in illegal US operations in Central America in the 1980s. By exploiting the Cabazon Indian reservation as a sovereign nation, they intended to produce and export explosives to the Contras, evading Congressional law to the contrary.[7][8]
The director of international operations at the time, Ernesto Bermudez, admitted to having 1,500 men in El Salvador doing "[t]hings you wouldn't want your mother to know about."
According to Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan in The Terrorism Industry (ISBN 0679725598), "Wackenhut quickly got involved with right-wing terrorists who were themselves linked to state security agents" in Belgium. They left in the early 1980s after some of their guards were accused of luring immigrant children into basements and beating them.
Strike breakers
Wackenhut is known for providing muscle and force against organized labor and protesters. They provided strike breakers at the Pittston mine in Kentucky. Their armed guards have beaten protesters at nuclear sites for the Department of Energy. [9]
Among nuclear weapons lab employees, Wackenhut was better known for “wacking” radiation whistleblowers like Karen Silkwood and attempting to run Dr. Rosalie Bertell off the road. [10]
Swelling Prison Privatization
See also Geo Group.
Progressives at the turn of the last century were able to stamp out the trend of private prisons, however the Reagan Revolution and the rise of crime in the 1980's reversed those accomplishments of old labor and allowed the prison market to develop. Once a State-responsibility, prisons now rely on criminals for profit and labor
Wackenhut rose quickly to the challenge, entering the prison business in 1987 and turning pofits of $630.3 million annually by 1992. [11] By 1997, they controlled one third of the prison market contracts, were paying out minimal wages, and providing cheap labor for other corporations such as IBM and Microsoft. Industry experts state a 90-95% capacity rate is necessary to attract investors, ensuring a vested interest in a growing prison population for the future.
They have become notorious for cutting programs out of prisons to increase their profits. Programs include drug rehabilitation, counseling and educational services. They were investigated in 1995 for diverting $700,000 in drug rehabilitation funds from facilities in Texas. [12]
Wackenhut guards have repeatedly been accused of raping inmates in Texas, Arkansas and Florida jails.[13][14][15] They have been sued for their treatment of inmates at juvenile facilities in the south, including the horrid beating of a seventeen-year-old wearing a colostomy bag. [16]
In Australia, all detention centers were owned and operated by the subsidiary, Australasian Correctional Management.
By the end of 2000, Wackenhut had received contracts spanning the US, UK, South Africa, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and Canada with a total of over 40,000 beds [17]
Joint ventures
Wackenhut is a joint venture partner along with MPRI, Kellogg Brown and Root and AGS in the civilian police training company Civilian Police International, LLC which is under a State Department contract for $1.6 billion to work with the Civilian Police and Rule of Law office in coordination with the United Nations training emerging police forces around the world. [18]
Wackenhut's subsidiary in Peru, Wackenhut del Peru, has been representing an Indiana based security recruiting company, 3D Global Solutions, in efforts to recruit former military in Peru for service in Iraq and Afghanistan.[19]
Investigations
On June 26th, 2007 the City of Los Angeles opened an investigation into Wackenhut for contract abuses with the city ranging from workplace discrimination, labor violations, and management incompetence to employing irresponsible contractors with poor performance on other contracts and failing to comply with relevant laws and regulations.
Wackenhut had more than $5 million annually in contracts with the city to guard at least two dozen buildings and public places including Los Angeles City Hall East; Mount Lee -- the home of the famous Hollywood sign; the Ed Davis Training Facility, an elaborate LAPD training facility; other parks, performing arts centers, and the Watts and Van Nuys city halls.
The contracts were not renewed. [20]
Political contributions
George C. Zoley, Chair & CEO of Wackenhut Corrections Corp., was a Bush Pioneer having raised at least $100,000 for Bush in the 2004 presidential election. [3]
Wackenhut Corp gave $21,600 to federal candidates in the 2006 election through its political action committee - 0% to Democrats and 100% to Republicans. [4]
Personnel
Key executives: [5]
Gary A. Sanders, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Susanne Jorgensen, Chief Financial Officer
Brian McCabe, Chief Information Officer
Nuclear facilities
Wackenhut, through contracts with the Department of Energy provides security services for the following sites:
Arkansas Nuclear One
Braidwood Nuclear Power Station
Byron Nuclear Power Station
Callaway Plant
Clinton Power Station
Dresden Nuclear Power Station
Ginna Nuclear Power Plant
Grand Gulf Nuclear Station
Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant
LaSalle County Nuclear Power Station
Limerick Generating Station
Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant
Oyster Creek
Palisades Nuclear Plant
Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station
Pilgrim Nuclear Station
River Bend Nuclear Station
Point Beach Nuclear Plant
Prairie Island Nuclear Plant
Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station
Salem/Hope Creek Generating Station
Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant
South Texas
St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant
Three Mile Island (TMI) Unit 1
Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant
V.C. Summer Nuclear Station
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station
Waterford
Zion Nuclear Power Station
Wackenhut has since lost contracts with many of these stations after guards at various nuclear sites were found asleep. Some were recorded by an insider who later sent the video to CBS news resulting in several firings and Exelon to form Exelon Nuclear Security to relieve Wackenhut from their contracts.[citation needed]
4200 Wackenhut Drive
Suite 100
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida 33410
USA
Phone: 561-622-5656
Fax: 561-691-6423
http://www.wackenhut.com
SourceWatch resources
References
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About The Author Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. When he is not writing or speaking at a conference, he’s most probably running … More about Vitaly…
29 Cool Music Videos
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Music has always been an excellent source of inspiration. Particularly if you are stuck with some problem you can’t find a workaround for, a beautiful song can give you a new perspective, let you see the problem from a different angle. And sometimes it’s just useful to make a break — for instance, watching some music videos.
Music has always been an excellent source of inspiration. Particularly if you are stuck with some problem you can’t find a workaround for, a beautiful song can give you a new perspective, let you see the problem from a different angle. And sometimes it’s just useful to make a break — for instance, watching some music videos.
In this post we present some unusual music videos for your monday’s coffee break. Some of the videos are thought-provoking, some of them are funny and some are bizarre. While many of them are well-known, you’ll probably find some videos you’ve never watched before. The videos all perfectly to the music which is being played in the background. Hopefully, everyone will find something new and inspiring for himself/herself. Please notice that you might need to watch some videos at least twice to get the idea behind them.
Further Reading on SmashingMag:
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You might want to read the descriptions of the videos — they are provided below every link. The screenshots often don’t reveal that much about the videos they stand for.
Music Videos
Unkle - Rabbit in your Headlights What is this guy whispering? Who is the guy? And what is he doing in the tunnel? You need to watch this video till the very end. You won’t be disappointed.
Jason Forrest - “War Photographer” (2005) These freaking vikings are both cool and strange. But it doesn’t make them less sympathetic. And they can play both on drums and guitars pretty well.
Bat for Lashes — What’s A Girl To Do 00:38 is the best moment in the history of music videos. Well, this one is kind of scary. Hares driving on the bicycles and clapping their hands at the same time? A masterpiece from the year 2007.
Nick Cave & Kylie Mingoue — Where The Wild Roses Grow Probably one of the most beautiful music videos ever made. There is no need for words. Watch it.
Rob Dougan — Clubbed To Death Incredible editing and directing. So symbolic, so powerful.
Fujiya & Miyagi - Ankle Injuries What about a music video which is made with thousands of 6-sided dice? Exactly. And the music fits perfectly.
Radiohead – “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” (1995) The video for this song was shot using different film frequencies, allowing various actions to unfold at different rates within the same frame. The emotional effects of this practice range from silly to unsettling. Try not to watch this video too many times; it begins to feel a little more disturbing each time. [Jeff Shreve]
Sia – “Breathe Me” The production of this video clip took several thousands Polaroid photos. The result is… at least unusual.
Citizens Here and Abroad - You Drive and We’ll Listen To Music Jason Koxvold’s video pairs crashing cars with crashing guitars. Rock. Very well executed and perfectly edited. Must see.
Moby - Porcelaine Such a beautiful song. One of the videos you are amazed about once, and you never forget again.
The Strokes - You Only Live Once With a Hundred ways to do a dozen things, why not try it all? Directed by Warren Fu.
Arctic Monkeys - A view from the afternoon A song about a passion and unstoppable willingness to do what you love. Simple, yet so effective.
“Glosoli” - Sigur Ros “Glosoli” depicts a young drummer boy gathering up the other denizens of what appears to be an adult-free utopian land, and leading a revolution to freedom. So beautiful and so touching. Don’t miss the last scene.
The Avalanches - “Frontier Psychiatrist” This is freaky. Sometimes the most obvious concept for a video also turns out to be the best. The ghost choir is the best. Except for the nightmarish old-man turtle, of course.
Royksopp - Remind Me We’ve featured this movie already, but it’s worth mentioning it in this post. You can watch it dozens times and still not catch everything. A day in the life of an average working Jill, broken down into its minutest component parts. The unstated joke: mankind has erected immense, resource-devouring systems of almost incomprehensible complexity just so you can sit in your cubicle.
Blur - “Coffee & TV” (Quicktime) Actually, this song is about a dancing milk carton. However, its adventures are funny, cute, but with a pleasing streak of cruelty. The milk-carton protagonist even has its own fan site.
Boards of Canada: “Dayvan Cowboy” It’s pretty easy to get wrapped up in the grainy, existential pulchritude of this thing and completely miss the cheeky self-reference. So, um, where can one surf in Canada? Directed by Melissa Olson.
Move Your Feet - Junior Senior That’s weird. And that’s what makes it special. A pixel-based video clip.
Daft Punk - One More Time Probably one of the most colorful animated music videos of all time. Daft Punk, one more time.
Xploding Plastix - Joy Comes In The Morning A music video about the world we live in and the world we’d like to live in.
Unkle - Eye For Eye A haunting track with a creepy animation, which won an award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Nasty weirdness drops from the sky and then moves on.
Vitalic - Poney Flying dogs in light of a laser and in slow-motion. Nobody has ever done something like this before.
OK Go - Here It Comes Again
Justice “D.A.N.C.E.” Sometimes even T-Shirts can speak. For instance, in this music video. “D.A.N.C.E.” was nominated for “Video of the Year at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. On the first of November Justice received the “Video Star” award at the European Music Awards in Munich.
Radiohead - Just What could the man on the street possibly have said?
Prodigy - Out Of Space Prodigy’s “Out of Space” is probably one of the weirdest videos ever created. Welcome back to the 90s — this is how some videos looked like then. The song which was * for the whole generation.
The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony A video everybody has seen. And everybody would see again.
RJD2 - Work It Out This guy just want to have some fun with his crooks and his skateboard. A one-shot-video from 2007. |
At the end of last year the media was full of articles about Professor David Nutt’s proposal to develop a drug that mimics the effect of alcohol without creating a hangover. Not surprisingly, this caused major discussions. Besides the legal concerns of replacing alcohol with another psychoactive drug, his suggestion came attached to a call for funding which was seen as a cheeky lobbying attempt by some.
Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, is certainly right when he claims that western society has a problem with alcohol consumption. Alcohol is one of the oldest but also most harmful drugs, responsible for ~2.5 million deaths each year, according to the WHO. But because it is so immersed in our culture and has been around forever, people tend to turn a blind eye. As Prof Nutt says: “If alcohol was discovered today it could never be sold as it is far too toxic to be allowed under current food regulations”.
We’re still happy to put up with its after-effects if that means we can enjoy a night of excitement, uninhibited pleasure and jauntiness. But would we still drink alcohol if we could experience most of the positive effects without next day’s hangover? What exactly is it that alcohol, or more accurately ethanol, does to our brains?
Effects on the brain – Why is it toxic – The sober-up pill – Drunk without a hangover
How does ethanol affect the brain?
Because of its molecular structure ethanol is highly cell membrane-permeable and will quickly reach all the tissues in the body, including the brain where it affects human consciousness (psychoactive). It is mostly a central nervous system depressant.
On a molecular level, ethanol binds to the receptor for gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA-A) which is a neurotransmitter system in the brain that helps to keep it calm (1). In addition, it inhibits NMDA receptors, which are important for memory functions, learning and a target of the main activating neurotransmitter glutamate in the brain (1). When ethanol, at low or moderate doses, mimics the GABA function the result is an overall sedative effect: it delays reactions, impairs memory (you forget your trouble but might also have difficulties remembering your night of drinking afterwards), judgement and comprehension, disrupts your balance and vision (2). It therefore temporarily reduces your brain functions. And as we all know ignorance is bliss.
The main “wished-for” effects, an overall improvement of mood, loss of inhibition which boosts self-confidence and sociability, decreased anxiety and a shortened attention span, are also caused by ethanol’s activity at the GABA-A receptor (2). In that it is similar to other sedative drugs such as benzodiazepines (Valium), barbiturates and even anaesthetics (e.g. Propofol) which are also binding the receptor and can all have relaxing, anti-anxiety effects.
Why is ethanol toxic?
It is well-known that all these effects are dose-dependent. Because ethanol affects the brain so profoundly, high doses (blood alcohol content over 1 g/L or 1 permille) can disrupt its functions severely: this ranges from impaired speech, sensory & motor function, confusion, vomiting to unconsciousness, decreased heart-rate, coma and death by acute alcohol poisoning (3).
Prolonged heavy consumption of alcohol causes permanent damage to the brain and other organs. It also has lasting effects on the cell surface receptors ethanol binds to (1), which is why abrupt abstinence can result in hallucinations, seizures, tremor and delirium tremens, similar to drug withdrawal symptoms (4). Because ethanol is highly neurotoxic, long-term drinking causes neuronal damage, contributing to lasting neurological disorders, including dementia, depression, mania and paranoia, and an overall decline of mental abilities (4). These effects are irreversible because ethanol also reduces the brain’s ability to produce new neurons (5). Besides, it has been reported to induce DNA damage in cells (6), which increases the risk to develop cancer – depending on a person’s genetic profile (7). And it is teratogenic (8), which means it will cause neurological and physical defects in a fetus if consumed during pregnancy (again: it easily passes through the placenta and is taken up by the fetus).
But this is not the only reason why drinking – and not only heavy drinking – comes with a higher risk for certain diseases. Acetaldehyde, which is one of the substances ethanol gets metabolised into when it is processed in the liver, is highly carcinogenic (classified by the IARC as Group 1 carcinogen). Ethanol also disrupts the fat metabolism in the liver, leading to accumulation of lipids in the liver cells (“fatty liver”) which eventually causes cell death, inflammation, cirrhosis and – if untreated – might result in liver cancer (7). The risk for diabetes mellitus type 2 is higher because ethanol taps into glucose metabolism and causes insulin resistance (9). This effect has only been observed in heavy drinkers, though, and light-to-moderate drinking might actually improve insulin sensitivity. Occasional alcohol consumption is in fact associated with a lower incidence rate of type 2 diabetes (9). This touches on another controversy in studies about the effects of alcohol: moderate drinking seems to reduce the risk of coronary disease and stroke, but only if less than 12 g ethanol (less than 1 beer) per day are consumed. More than 60 g per day increases the risk again (9).
To sum it all up
Ethanol is a toxic chemical which anyone with a healthy consideration for his or her body would hesitate to touch if it was presented with a patient information leaflet and a list of side-effects. Some people freak out when they read the information on the back of their aspirin package. But the same bunch heads cheerfully into the next bar and orders rounds and rounds of shots (by the way: ethanol is a painkiller, too (10) – it induces analgesia via the activation of potassium channels; but considering the after-effects and the necessary dose it’s really quite inefficient).
The ancient societal role as (legal) collective pleasure inducer – in combination with peer pressure, of course – is hard to argue with. Even while I’m writing this article I know that my next week will probably include several after-work beers and some casual weekend drinking. It’s a habit and it’s hard to break – especially if the negative consequences are not (yet) noticeable and outweighed by seemingly many reasons to go for it.
But aren’t they really? What about all those countless weekend-morning hangovers? The headaches or, worse, vomiting and memory loss (OK, the days when I was getting that drunk are mostly over). Isn’t that my body yelling “stop poisoning me!” with quite some vehemence? Provided I want to keep drinking (casually) – does it really have to be like this?
Can we reverse the effects?
Not only scientists are thinking about this issue for quite some time now. The question probably already came up during the neolithic period, when the first fermented beverages were produced. Generally, two main ideas have been suggested which are intended to take care of the hangover once and for all:
The sober-up pill
Can we reverse the effects of alcohol with a simple pill?
Imagine you’re out on a Friday night, it’s late and you’ve had a few. Actually way more than a few, you realise as you walk outside and notice that your motor skills are a thing of the past and your stomach feels like its ready to jump straight through your throat. Wouldn’t it be nice to just pop a pill now and within half an hour revert back to a normal human being?
In a recent nature nanotechnology paper (11), a group from UCLA reports the successful construction of nanocapsules which contain enzymes that can metabolise ethanol and decompose of toxic by-products, while circulating in the blood and stomach. The researchers tested the capsules on mice and reported a quick reduction in blood alcohol content of treated animals as opposed to controls. They propose that their invention could be used as a prophylactic and as an antidote which prevents alcohol intoxication even after you’ve already had a few drinks. Sounds too good to be true?
So far, the authors have used nanocomplexes containing two enzymes, alcohol oxidase and catalase, combined to reduce blood alcohol level. This only takes care of the initial metabolising step and does not remove acetaldehyde, the toxic by-product which is generated in a later step by different enzymes. A look at the statistics also shows that the blood alcohol reduction is not massive but noticeable: oral administration of alcohol and nanocapsules at the same time results in a reduction of blood alcohol concentration by 31.8% after 90 minutes (compared to drunk mice which get drug-free capsules and obviously also showed reduced blood alcohol levels, but less so).
If already intoxicated mice are injected with the capsules, the reduction is lower but still quite noticeable (26.1%), indicating that the drug also works as an antidote. Unfortunately, the nanocapsules are washed out from the blood stream after a while and will reach the kidney after about 40 minutes, which means that they lose their function.
Studies in humans have not been conducted and so far there is little known about physiological effects of the nanocapsules. But the idea is certainly worth a try – a patent has already been filed.
The availability of a drug which helps your body to metabolise ethanol faster after you’ve had too much would certainly be a useful thing. I’m still skeptic about the use of it as a prophylactic. In theory that would mean that you pop the pill before you head out with your colleagues for some after-work drinks, you have your beers and won’t feel hardly any effects – at least as long as your capsules are present in your blood and stomach. But why then drink at all? In any case, you will only drink more and spend more money to get yourself relaxed. So unless you want to embark on a drinking competition with a group of dedicated alcoholics a prophylactic pill would probably be of little use.
Replace ethanol with a less-toxic, psychoactive substance
If ethanol is toxic why don’t we just use something with a similar, but less powerful effect on the brain that comes without side-effects?
This idea is not entirely new. When researchers tried to delineate the mechanisms of opioid addiction, for instance, they found that it is caused when the drug binds to specific opioid receptors in the brain, which can also be activated by endorphins and other endogenous proteins in the body. Opioid drugs such as morphine and its derivative heroin bind to the μ-opioid receptor which is responsible for the main drug effects and side-effects: analgesia, sedation, euphoria, constricted pupils, constipation, respiratory problems etc. Recent studies suggest that this receptor, at least in part, is also to blame for the addictive potential of these drugs by inducing tolerance and a rewarding feeling after use (12). This is further supported by the δ-opioid receptor which interacts with the μ-receptor upon drug binding (12).
But as always there is a third opiod receptor, κ, which seems to antagonise the other two. Opioid drugs that bind there even produce an aversive effect in mice (12). It has therefore been suggested that unwanted effects of opioids, such as tolerance and psychological dependence, could be prevented by activation of the κ receptor, while the analgetic and sedative effects would remain. This would make common opioid-based analgesics safer for patients, but it could also be used to treat drug addicts and help them reduce withdrawal symptoms and stop their drug use.
Sure, one can hardly compare the effects of heroin to those of alcohol but the pharmacological principles behind receptor binding and drug effects remain the same.
So could we replace ethanol with a drug that gives us the inebriation without the damage and hangover?
We know that ethanol targets the GABA-A receptor and we also know that a range of GABA subsystems can be targeted by other, selective drugs. The entire GABA-A system is extremely complex and so far 19 different subunits of the receptor have been identified (13), resulting in a remarkably diverse spectrum of receptor subtypes throughout the brain. And all these receptors come with different functional roles which are also dependent on the drug they bind. So in theory we could identify substances that only activate the systems which cause sedation and relaxation, and remove the unwanted effects, such as aggression and addiction. Prof Nutt claims he has identified five feasible compounds and is in the process of testing them to see if people find the effects comparable to alcohol.
It is difficult to believe, though, that a drug like this would come completely without side effects. It would still need to be membrane-permeable to be delivered in a drink – and it would need to be psychoactive to have the sedating or euphoric effect on the brain. As mentioned earlier in the example of opioid substitution the addiction is something that could probably be selected against. But heavy drinking would likely remain as deleterious as it is now, because anything that affects the brain will disrupt the careful balance in the neurotransmitter systems that keep our mind healthy. It doesn’t even have to be neurotoxic for this – but chances are that it would be, because as it permeates the membrane it destabilises the organisation of the lipid components and attached proteins, impairing receptor functionality. With this, the cell loses its ability to communicate with surrounding cells.
But at least an alcohol surrogate would come without the nasty company of acetaldehyde and that, for sure, would decrease toxicity, overall damage and cancer risk.
The challenge is to overcome all the legal hurdles of introducing a new, psychoactive drug. There is a difference between releasing a pharmacologically tested, FDA-approved substance onto the market for medical purposes – and selling it as (a component?) of a drink. Prof Nutt speaks of an enormous health potential of a safer alternative to alcohol. But he has also realised that alcohol, as it is, would never be legalised nowadays – because of its harmful effects. And they do not only include toxicity and hangovers, most of all they lead people to act carelessly, endanger themselves and others, lose control and their common sense.
As long as people are getting drunk, one way or another, this will be bound to happen. We will have many more serious discussions ahead of us, should Prof Nutt ever find a feasible candidate drug he wants to put on the market.
Things you can do
While you’re waiting for a human version of the sober-up pill and the legalisation of Prof Nutt’s GABA wonder-drug, here is a list of common sense principles that will help you deal with your hangovers. You’ll find it’s all the usual stuff that sometimes works – and sometimes doesn’t. I’m afraid I have to end this article with the rather bleak confession that there still isn’t any real cure for hangovers out there. Most of the strategies mentioned in the link above are simply myths. Except for the water, food and sleep advice – and, of course, the best recommendation of all: if you want to avoid a hangover, don’t drink too much.
And if there are any questions left, please don’t hesitate to mention them in the comment sheet below. I’ll make sure to update this article as soon as the wonder-drug has been announced 🙂
Want the scientific details? Here are the references: |
After tearing his ACL in the Portland Timbers' final game of the 2014 season, Diego Valeri has undergone surgery at the Oregon Outpatient Surgery Center. According to the team, the surgery was successful.
The estimate that Valeri will be out for approximately five months remains the same. Last season, Rodney Wallace was estimated to need five to seven months to make his return after suffering a similar, but slighly worse, injury and was back on the field with Arizona United in six months and with the Timbers in seven.
The five month time-frame would put Valeri back with the Timbers early in the season, potentially in April.
Dr. Richard Edelson, who operated on Valeri, has seen a number of Timbers players over the last four years including Wallace, Bright Dike, Mikael Silvestre, and Brent Richards.
The surgery means that, for the second straight year, Valeri will spend his offseason rehabbing from surgery with the Timbers training staff.
The Timbers' press release: |
With its hidden world of mythological gods and monsters lurking below the streets, Red Thorn is one of the most striking and atypical depictions of the Dear Green Place.
The profile of Glasgow is set to receive a surprising boost, as one of the world’s leading comic publishers unveils a new series devoted to the lore, legends and pop culture of Scotland’s biggest city.
Meghan Hetrick. Picture: John Devlin
Described as a “dark fantasy epic,” Red Thorn is the latest title to join the celebrated roster of DC Comics, the company behind Batman and Superman, though it is published under its “mature readers” Vertigo imprint.
The first issue, published last week to critical acclaim, follows the story of Isla Mackintosh. An American with Scottish heritage, she arrives in the city in the hope of finding her missing sister, only to discover all is not as it seems, with an ancient pagan demigod known as Thorn escaping a prison deep underground.
The story of how the two worlds collide represents a major breakthrough for Red Thorn’s creator, David Baillie, a West Lothian-born writer and artist who grew up in Glasgow. A former analyst for British Aerospace and programmer for Deutsche Bank, he has spent the past decade forging a successful freelance career, penning scripts for the likes of 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine. His golden opportunity arrived last year when he was invited by Vertigo to pitch a new title. At first, he was unsure whether the US company would be interested in a story set entirely in his adopted home city.
“It seemed like a hard sell,” Baillie recalled. “DC is based in Los Angeles and everything stars surfers and sunshine. I was pitching this book set in a world of perpetual rain. It’s a very different style to the hundreds of other comics out there today, which tend to be much more shiny.”
David Baillie. Picture: John Devlin
His concerns, fortunately, proved unfounded. After running the idea past Shelly Bond, Vertigo’s editor-in-chief, she described it as a “brilliant” idea.
“Shelly thought the idea of a comic set in Glasgow was exotic and I guess when you’re in Scotland, you’re used to the weather and the amazing, sometimes hidden, architecture. You don’t appreciate it.
“It was only when I started talking about Glasgow that a buzz started to happen, and all the film and television guys at Warner Bros [owners of DC comics] began to get excited.”
Encouraged by Bond’s enthusiasm for the project, Baillie decided to populate Red Thorn’s world with familiar sights, wandering around the city taking photographs of street furniture, landscapes and buildings that could be brought to life by his US-based collaborator, artist Meghan Hetrick.
In the first issue, entitled “Glasgow Kiss”, eagle-eyed readers will spot such well-known locations as the Necropolis, Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow School of Art and the Clyde Auditorium.
After using Baillie’s photographs and maps of the city, Hetrick said she felt the city had a strong visual identity. “It’s a place that’s unique and full of character, but there is a creepiness to it as well,” she explained.
One scene sees the characters pass the famous sign of the Barrowlands, a venue Baillie says played an important part in his burgeoning interest in graphic art. He once ran a stall at its market and spent his free time there browsing through boxes of old 2000AD issues.
The city, Baillie believes, has not only informed the comic’s look, but its characters and dialogue. “There’s a humour and argumentativeness to Glasgow people, and I’ve given that trait to pretty much the entire main cast,” he explained.
Already, the pair have completed a year’s worth of comics as part of Red Thorn’s initial series and, depending on commercial success, hope it will prosper for several years to come.
With the medium proving a popular source for movie and television adaptations, they have also received interest from producers in the US.
“People are interested,” said Baillie. “That’s all I’m allowed to say!” |
I first visited South (or Iraqi) Kurdistan in the summer of 1994. That summer the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) almost squandered the autonomy that the 1991 Gulf War gifted them by descending into civil war. I visited for my second time in 2000. Immediately following the March 2003 Iraq war, I lived in Sulaimani for close to a year. During a sabbatical from my university this year, I spent another five months in Erbil.During these stays in South Kurdistan and during many other shorter visits, I would often ask people I knew or even just met about their views on Kurdish independence. Except for one taxi driver in Erbil in 2010 who liked Nuri al-Maliki, during all this time I never met a Kurd who did not support Kurdish independence.In 2003 I spent many an evening with Kurdish friends and students in Sulaimani, listening to them talk about how they hoped this latest war would finally realize their dreams of independence – if not today, then perhaps within ten or fifteen years.To hear some of these same friends now talking about voting ‘no’ in the upcoming referendum thus leaves me dumbfounded. While virtually everyone I know in Erbil and Duhok solidly support a ‘yes’ vote on September 25, a good number of those in Sulaimani seem to be reveling in casting doubt on the viability of Kurdish independence, the shortcomings of the current KDP-led Kurdistan government, economic problems and so forth. Although the situation was much worse in 1994, 2000 and even 2003, they seem much more negative about independence than they used to be.Your humble columnist can’t help but think that the real reason for some of these people’s outlook, even for self-proclaimed modern, secular and urban Kurds, boils down to tribalism or party politics. They find themselves sour about the referendum because the initiative was put forward by President Masoud Barzani and his KDP first and foremost, whom many PUK, Gorran and other party supporters dislike.Such an outlook boggles the imagination for those of us from places where the nation is supposed to come before party, sect or tribe. If someone in Kurdistan truly has more faith in the Iraqi federal government than that of Kurdistan, if they prefer autonomy within Iraq (or whatever version of such they get from future regimes in Baghdad), or if they feel more Iraqi than Kurdish, then of course they should vote ‘no’ on September 25 and everyone should respect that.But for self-described ardent supporters of Kurdish independence to now talk about voting ‘no’ or abstaining from the referendum contradicts everything they claim to want. The timing has never been more favorable for South Kurdistan’s independence, and may not again prove so favorable within current voters’ lifetimes. While voting ‘yes’ on September 25 is not risk-free, remaining within Iraq carries grave risks as well.Would KDP stalwarts or Islamist Kurdish nationalists in Erbil or Dohuk betray a similar attitude if PUK or Gorran Movement leaders had led the push for a referendum? Perhaps – in which case they too would make themselves as undeserving of independence as any people ever was.The real test will come on September 25. Perhaps on that day the vast majority of average people in all of Kurdistan’s provinces, not blinded by partisanship and mindful of a lifelong yearning for independence, will take a clear and straightforward look at a very simple referendum question: “Do you want an independent Kurdistan?”They should answer the question honestly, or stop droning on forever about what they want or deserve while they refuse to reach out and grab it. For those concerned about good governance, President Masoud’s term in office, democratic rights, equality, and the other concerns of politics, the time to vote on these issues will come very shortly after the referendum.As reported in Rudaw this week, Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani has set November 1, 2017 for parliamentary and presidential elections in the Kurdistan Region. Kak Masoud has also clearly stated that he will not run in this election. Disgruntled voters in Sulaimani can vent themselves at the polls on that day rather than September 25, voting for whomever they like.In the meantime, Kurdistan’s political leadership is simply turning to the people to democratically gauge their preferences for the future. These same leaders have been very responsible in security matters and in their foreign relations during the past twenty years or so. It is therefore up to Kurdistan’s voters to state their preference for the future. While a declaration of independence may not follow the very next day, the leadership of all the parties will know where the people wish to go.David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw. |
With a German federal constitutional court now examining the legality of EU bailouts in a lawsuit filed by a group of concerned citizens, economist and author Michael Mross declared that the bailouts’ illegality is self-evident.
“You do not have to be the chairman of a constitutional court to find out that it is completely illegal because it is obstructing the Maastricht Treaty, it is against the Lisbon Treaty, it is against everything,” Mross told RT. “We have a no-bailout clause in Europe, and everybody is breaking it.”
According to Mross, Germans will feel the real impact of the EU bailouts within the year.
“Most Germans are not regarding this as a very big problem, of course, because the economy is booming here in Germany and unemployment is at a 30-year low, so this is not in the spotlight right now,” he said. “But it will be in the spotlight next year, when economic experts already forecast a downturn in the economy – and then we will see what is going on.” |
Story highlights McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh admits 'big mistakes' in 2013 season
McLaren without a podium finish in year of 50th anniversary
Whitmarsh says Jenson Button and Sergio Perez "deserve" to be at McLaren next season
Honesty is often a rare virtue at the highest level of sport, especially when it comes to admitting mistakes, so McLaren fans may give Martin Whitmarsh some begrudging respect after the team principal accepted responsibility for a catalog of errors this season.
The United Kingdom-based constructor may have won twelve drivers' championships since its creation in 1963 but none will be added in the year of McLaren's 50th anniversary.
Neither Jenson Button nor Sergio Perez have managed to stand on the podium all season, with the Briton's fifth place in the third race in China the best finish so far.
Mexican Perez, 23, has won 18 points in his first season with McLaren while Button, who won the 2009 title with Brawn, can only muster 47, trailing leader Sebastian Vettel by 150 points -- or the equivalent of six race victories with just eight rounds left.
The problem is that McLaren are currently on course for their first season without a grand prix win in seven years.
A number of hasty changes to the car have made racing this year both "painful and difficult" for Whitmarsh as he revealed in an open interview with Formula One's official website.
"This year we have made some big mistakes -- that is very obvious, and difficult to rectify," the Briton said. "I don't like it, but there is no point in hiding from it."
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The 55-year-old traces the roots of the problems back to the middle of last season, when McLaren dropped off the pace after a bright start.
At this point, the car was redesigned, with significant changes to the height of the nose, the configuration of both the front and rear suspensions, as well as the bodywork and exhaust layout.
"In a word, we did too many things which were deviating from a car which was the fastest car about nine or ten months ago," the McLaren official said.
"The start of the 2012 was good, but then in mid-season we were falling behind and it is about that time that you make these decisions -- and then last year's car became quicker and quicker.
"It was bad timing, it was misjudgment, and it was ambition. It is very clear in hindsight that we've got it wrong. But let's also be fair: this car is now quicker than last year's car."
Nonetheless, it is still struggling to make any impact in the constructors' standings, with 11 races of the 19-round season having already gone.
McLaren's tally of 65 points is almost tripled by the team immediately above them in the standings, fourth-placed Lotus, while the Woking outfit's total is dwarfed by the 312 boasted by Red Bull, who lead the way.
When asked who should carry the can for the failed redesign of the car, Whitmarsh resisted any temptation to seek out scapegoats.
"Ultimately I take the blame for it," he said. "I am happy to name names when we are successful and give them the opportunity to stand on the podium, but it is my job when things haven't gone so well to take the responsibility."
Critics of Whitmarsh, who has been with McLaren for a quarter of a century, will point to the team's inability to win a championship since he replaced the retiring Ron Dennis in 2009, a year after the team's last championship title.
The closest McLaren came to a championship under his control was in 2010 when Lewis Hamilton had a chance of winning the title on the final day of the season, only for Vettel to take the glory.
There has been some good news for Whitmarsh this week though.
At Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, Button felt the car performed the best it had all season with the Briton, 33, also publicly stating in recent days how he hopes to sign a new three-year contract with the team.
Whitmarsh had considered trying to lure Kimi Raikkonen, who has been in great form this year, back to McLaren for next season, revealing that talks last year to the same effect failed "for various reasons".
However, he also feels he owes the current stable a car that will enable them to challenge far higher up the table.
"We haven't given our drivers the car we should have done this year. But they've been fantastic ambassadors and I think they deserve another go with us next year.
"If we give them a car that is good enough, they both can win. We know that."
And having had a front row seat for more than 100 of McLaren's 182 grand prix wins, Whitmarsh is confident that the team can turn itself around ahead of the 2014 season.
"Looking over the last 20 years, we are pretty consistent," he rallied. "Yes, this is a bad year but usually we come back strong -- and that is what we will do next year." |
If you haven’t been over to the DoTheTon forums you’re missing out on some quality shed-made custom cafe builds. Not all manage to combine sensible engineering with either style or a sense of proportion, but if you want to see the best of what can be built by men in sheds and backyards, the Bike of the Month pages are the ones to follow. We love this monthly battle so much that we’ve partnered up with Do The Ton and plan to feature winners and top contenders here on the Bike Shed whenever we can.
Last month’s lineup was a fierce competition with three worthy contenders, and this was the winner, what some might call a resto-mod BSA, built by Jon Swan. Here’s where the story begins…
As a child I rode Honda dirt bikes in the woods of Northern Minnesota and bought my first street bike, a 1966 Triumph 650 TR6 Trophy, while at university. I wisely sold it because I was too young, dumb and wild to be responsible enough to ride a motorcycle. While living and attending graduate school in London, I vowed to have another vintage British motorcycle again. Several years later I found a 1966 BSA Lightning Basket case, taught myself how to restore her, did so from the crank up and rode her for several years. At this time I began collecting parts for my unit 750 Triton which is now my daily rider.
I have degrees in fine art, art history and archaeology and have worked as a conservator, archaeologist and museum curator. Use my training and experience to carefully and methodically restore bikes. I restored several mid 1970’s Honda CB400F, CB550F and CB750 K’s which I sold to fund my British motorcycle habit. Two and half years ago I found an ad for a 500 cc BSA on North American Craigslist. I was the lucky bastard who bought a BSA DBD34 Gold Star that had been sitting in a barn for nearly 40 years. It was in rough shape but I knew what I had. The saga began…
I built my Gold Star to the best of my ability with the intent of riding this rare and valuable bike for the rest of my life. This is not a show bike, trailer queen or museum piece, but rather my daily rider. There are too many examples of this bike “mummified” in collections which never get ridden. I am very fortunate to have such an amazing bike and I ride it every chance I get. All the time and money spent on restoration is forgotten once I start her up and ride her. If anything goes wrong I literally know every single nut, bolt, part etc and can fix it. I enjoy maintaining old bikes but riding them more so.
The bike is in stock UK Clubman trim with the exception of a new Phil Pearson crankshaft, clutch, Carillo rod, Wiseco piston and rings, bearings, new valves, guides, springs etc. The original magdyno was rebuilt with a new condenser, and retains the original 6 volt lighting system. Every bit of hardware was cadmium plated, the black bits powder coated. The flanged alloy rims and spokes are from Buchanan Spoke and Rim and the seat foam and cover from Leighton in Birmingham, UK. There is a new Burlen/Amal 389 monobloc carb to the earlier CB style head which came with this bike. The rare, ARRT2 gearbox was swapped for a STD standard gearbox. Clocks were rebuilt with NOS stock faces. She starts on the first kick now that I have the routine down and she sounds absolutely amazing. Fast, easily handling and a thrill to ride.
Whenever I ride or park my Gold Star, I have all types of people asking questions and taking photos. This is a little weird for me and I do not ride this bike for the attention, but I am patient, answer their questions and share my story. Who know what they have in their basements, garages or barns. Perhaps my next bike restoration project?
See more of Do The Ton’s Bike of the Month contenders and winner HERE on The Bike Shed. |
This is where I spend most of my day. The studio is a big room in the center of the house with lots of light. It has morphed into mostly a space for painting and napping thinking, but you can see the drawing board in the corner next to the window that I’ve reserved for working on comic strips. I write most of the strips and draw pencil sketches for Jim, so my part of creating ZITS doesn’t take up a lot of real estate.
The right side of the studio is the painting side. I’m an oil painter when I’m not being a cartoonist.
The smaller monitor on the left is for me to view reference photos while I paint, and the larger TV monitor is for the NFL PBS documentaries. There are a couple of local landscapes in progress on the wall above the TV.
Here’s a better shot of the comic strip corner. If you squint your eyes, you can see it back there by the wastebasket.
I wish this area looked more impressive, but I probably spend more time on the couch than at the drawing board while working on ZITS.
We live on a working cattle ranch on the central coast of California, so you never know when some of the neighbors will drop by to say hi.
That’s it! Hope you enjoyed the tour. |
If girls just want to have fun, as Cyndi Lauper belted out in 1983, does that mean boys are serious stoics? Lauper probably wasn't trying to make a sociological statement in her head-bopping anthem, but her lyrics point to a much-debated question about gender differences. In studying the relative happiness of people across the globe, do men and women exhibit distinctive emotional characteristics? In short, is one sex generally happier than the other?
It's important to note that evaluating happiness isn't a highly precise scientific undertaking. For one thing, happiness is a subjective term, and there's no universal measurement for it. Though someone smiles on the outside, it doesn't mean that his or her apparent joy reflects internally. Similarly, a lot of studies related to happiness rely on self-reporting. One survey that economists from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania have used simply asks respondents to rate themselves on whether they are "very happy," "pretty happy" or "not happy." The resulting statistics don't take into account the nuances and background information of why and how people scored themselves.
Despite the potential pitfalls of empirical happiness studies, we can draw some conclusions about who the happiest sociological groups of people are. Generally, older people are happier than younger ones. Wealth and good health also give us something to smile about more often. Yet when it comes to the happiness gender gap, things aren't so cut and dried.
The 2003 Pew Global Attitudes Project that surveyed 38,000 men and women across 44 countries lends insight into the disparities between male and female happiness. Overall, women scored themselves as more satisfied with their lives than men [source: Pew Research Center]. Moreover, women from certain countries, including Pakistan, Japan and Argentina, appeared significantly happier. The differences between what affects men and women's levels of happiness explains this slight gender gap. Women, for instance, tend to focus on personal and domestic problems, while men concern themselves more with matters outside of the home.
This variation in values is also reflected in how the recent recession has affected people's happiness. According to a Nielson Happiness Survey conducted in 51 countries, men's happiness hasn't weathered the economic storm well since they attach more importance to financial success than women. On the other hand, the women surveyed indicated they appreciated quality relationships above all [source: Reuters].
But women shouldn't start celebrating the good news just yet. |
Canadians and Americans agree on one thing: Airlines suck.
Roughly two-thirds of people in both countries agreed that the airline industry is dysfunctional in a new poll from the Angus Reid Institute.
Respondents were asked whether they saw airlines as “working well,” with competition leading to the best combination of prices and service, or whether they saw it as “broken” and “operating like a cartel.”
The survey, which Angus Reid funded itself, was carried out from May 24-28, in the wake of the infamous passenger-dragging incident on a United flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
That was followed by several other stories reflecting poorly on airlines, including an incident in Charlottetown, P.E.I., in which a 10-year-old boy travelling with his family was bumped off an Air Canada flight to Costa Rica.
The incident led to a few changes in the industry, with United upping the amount of money it offers bumped passengers, and Southwest announcing it would no longer overbook flights.
Where Canadians and Americans differed is on what to do about the airline industry. While nearly two-thirds of Canadians agreed that stricter government regulations would help, only 37 per cent of Americans agreed.
The survey found that, among Americans, United scores the worst on passenger satisfaction, with Southwest and Jetblue coming out on top among major airlines.
Perhaps surprisingly, among Canadian respondents, Air Canada scored worse than United did among American respondents.
Seventeen per cent of Canadian respondents said they had a “poor” or “terrible” experience with Air Canada, compared to 12 per cent of Americans who felt that way about United.
Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute, suggests that this has to do in part with the greater degree of consolidation in Canada’s airline industry than in the U.S. After all, Canada has only two major airlines.
“For many routes, chances are you are dealing with Air Canada,” she told HuffPost Canada.
Canadians, overall, seem somewhat more pessimistic about the airline industry as a whole. For instance, 76 per cent north of the border agree that the negative media coverage of United and other airlines shows that airlines “have a serious problem with customer service,” but a smaller majority (66 per cent) of Americans agree.
If Canadians are more negative about their airlines, it may simply be due to a lack of experience with U.S. airlines, Kurl suggested.
“They haven’t seen how no-frills or how just stripped-down it can get,” she said, adding that she’s inferring from personal experience.
“It could just be that Canadians don’t have a sense of how much worse it might be.”
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It’s not a secret that Shipyard Pumpkinhead is not a favorite of mine, I actually try to avoid it but it seems like it never fails, someone will show up with a six pack and at least one bottle will get left in my fridge. I usually just re-gift the bottle to a friend who likes the beer but this year I thought I’d try something different and cook with it.
Pumpkinhead Waffles
2 Cup Flour
3 Tablespoons Sugar
½ Teaspoon Salt
4 Teaspoons Baking Powder
2 Eggs
1/3 Cup Butter (Melted)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 ½ Cup Pumpkinhead Ale
Preheat waffle iron Combine Flour, Sugar, Salt and Baking Powder in a bowl. Combine Melted Butter, Eggs, Vanilla Extract, and Beer in a separate bowl. Combine wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix. Grease waffle iron Pour in batter and remove when cooked
This recipe yields 4 large waffles (depending on the size of waffle iron), the waffles have that distinct pumpkinhead flavor but much more mellow than if you were drinking the beer, the waffles are slightly sweet and have a touch of vanilla in them as well, they complement a variety of toppings from maple syrup to fresh fruit and ice cream.
Cheers!
Chaddah
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If you have ever wondered how a serial murderer -- a murderer who is sane and fully aware of the acts he has committed -- can remain steadfastly convinced of his own moral superiority and show not even the slightest glimmer of remorse, you should not wonder any longer.
The United States government is such a murderer. It conducts its murders in full view of the entire world. It even boasts of them. Our government, and all our leading commentators, still maintain that the end justifies the means -- and that even the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents is of no moral consequence, provided a sufficient number of people can delude themselves into believing the final result is a "success."
...
It is useless to appeal to any "American" sense of morality: we have none. It does not matter how immense the pile of corpses grows: we will not surrender or even question our delusion that we are right, and that nothing we do can be profoundly, unforgivably wrong.
The American exceptionalist myth tells us that the United States is unique and uniquely good. It is not sufficient to ignore negative consequences of our actions: we must transform any and all negative consequences into a positive good. This process has been rigorously followed for every American intervention ever undertaken (going back to the Philippines, then with the American entrance into World War I, on into many interventions after World War II, on into Iraq and Afghanistan today), and the identical process has been well underway for several years in connection with Iraq in particular.
President Barack Obama is set to announce a blueprint for bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan that is expected to reduce the number of troops by up to 5,000 next month, as well as a broader plan for recalling the rest of the 30,000 surge forces he sent there in 2009.
The latest UN report puts the death toll for Afghan civilians across the nation in 2010 to 2,777, the largest since the war began in 2001 and a 15% increase over the toll from 2009. The vast majority of those killed were random victims of the fighting between NATO and the Taliban.
“When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost — in terms of life and treasure — hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people,” the ambassador said, “my people, in turn, are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here.”
...
“When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse,” Mr. Eikenberry said, “and our generous aid programs dismissed as totally ineffective and the source of all corruption, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on.”
...
“Mothers and fathers of fallen soldiers, spouses of soldiers who have lost arms and legs, children of those who lost their lives in your country, they ask themselves about the meaning of their loved one’s sacrifice,” he said. “When I hear some of your leaders call us occupiers, I cannot look these mourning parents, mourning spouses and mourning children in the eye and give them a comforting reply.”
I wrote the following almostblood-soaked, barbaric, murderous, goddamned, fucking years ago As I detailed in " The Blood-Drenched Darkness of American Exceptionalism ," the United States exhibits all the symptoms of severe neurosis brought on in significant part by "the extreme nature of the delusions necessitated by an unquestioned belief in the myth of American exceptionalism."It is not enough that our national political culture completely ignores the deadly, catastrophic consequences of the U.S. government's actions. Our national delusions, and our national neurosis, compel us to invert every moral value and principle. This is a world in which evil becomes good, and death becomes life:I could mention manyabout the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, but let us consider only two.The propagandists continue in their damnable work, as reflected in the headline of this AP story: " Obama to Move US Closer to Leaving Afghanistan ." [The headline was changed after this post was published, which alters nothing in the following argument.] To grasp the huge lie this represents, you have to read the entire story -- which, of course, very few readers will do. For it is only near the very end that we read this sentence:Keeping that 100,000 figure in mind, now read the opening paragraph of the story:Assuming all 30,000 of the "surge forces" leave, 70,000 U.S. troops will remain. Well, there's "leaving" and then there'sMoreover, as we are always told about such matters, all this is subject to "conditions on the ground" -- which means only that the U.S. government will do whatever the hell it believes is required to maintain dominance and control. And, not at all by the way, Afghanistan is especially crucial to ongoing U.S. plans for geopolitical dominance; see this post , as well as the Robert Higgs article I excerpt: " CENTCOM's Master Plan and U.S. Global Hegemony ." I therefore state, as I have many times before:(Also note: This bloody charade about "leaving" follows exactly the pattern seen in Iraq . One can hardly blame the war criminals who lead the U.S. government for playing the same bloody tune again. After all, almost no one is objecting in any way that matters to our continued presence in Iraq. Why not offer the identical music of death another time? Everyone already knows the melody, and no one gives a damn.)So, an enormously significant, ongoing U.S. troop presence is the first fact to remember about Afghanistan. The second is the nauseating number of civilian deaths caused by U.S. warmaking. As is always the case, we can only be certain of one aspect of this bloody business: whatever number manages to surface into public awareness must necessarily be far, far lower than the accurate and truthful number. With that qualification noted, we can turn to an article published just a few months ago Take a look at this article from the Guardian, too. It's from a year ago, but it remains helpful in grasping the continuing slaughter.It would appear very safe to say that the total for civilian deaths in the last ten years is well over 10,000, and the actual number may be far greater than that figure. But hell, it's not as if we're talking aboutThey're justpeople, the Other. Who gives a shit? Almost no one.Certainly, one of the many Ministers of Death -- the departing American ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry -- doesn't give a shit. That is, he doesn't give a shit about the U.S. troops that will remain in that devastated country into the foreseeable future, or about the slaughtered civilians. But he wants to be sure Karzai and the rest of us know that he is deeplyandbecause not everyone appreciates how noble, glorious and self-sacrificing Americans are. Reread my description offered at the beginning of this post, and especially note my observation about the serial murderer (and, I stress,) remaining "steadfastly convinced of his own moral superiority and show[ing] not even the slightest glimmer of remorse." And then read these sickening remarks offered by Eikenberry I often describe our national leaders as monsters. These are some additional reasons for that description. And "monsters" has special application to those who fashion, implement and defend U.S. foreign policy.I referred above to "the symptoms of severe neurosis" which result from a dedicated reliance on the delusions supporting American exceptionalism. Eikenberry's comments show how that severe neurosis begins to veer ever closer to psychosis, if we use "psychosis" to indicate a condition representing an irreparable break with reality. I emphasize again that it is not simply that U.S. leaders ignore the murderous, bloody consequences of the U.S. government's actions. That would be more than sufficiently evil by itself, but U.S. leaders and functionaries like Eikenberry go much further. They transform evil into a positive good. And they go further still: theythat others acknowledge their nobility and goodness -- andthem for it."Oh,President Obama, Secretary Clinton, Ambassador Eikenberry!for destroying my country and slaughtering my family and half my relatives. How can I ever thank you enough for your overwhelming kindness and generosity!a thousand times!"If that isn't insane, nothing is. Our leaders are profoundly, deeply terrible people. They areI stand by that description. |
About
**** UPDATE ****
A massive thanks to everybody who has backed this project. You are all amazing and I feel really humbled that you chose to place your trust in me.
However, I feel it's time to face up to reality that the chances of hitting the target are rapidly diminishing. This means I am moving into plan B mode and I have just updated my website that includes the ability to instantly buy the Alpha version of Cyberstream Fugitive for $20 as well as the OST. You can find it here http://xiotex-studios.com
I still have people who believe that the target will be met so I am not going to cancel it right now.
What is Cyberstream Fugitive?
Cyberstream Fugitive is a game I’ve been working on since last September. It’s the kind of game I’ve always wanted to work on and was massively inspired by my all time favorite arcade game - Space Harrier. Since I wanted to be able to play this game on my iPhone I’ve deliberately kept the game-play and controls as simple as possible in order to produce an adrenalin-pumping thrill of a ride. It currently runs on iPhone, iPad, Windows and Mac.
The story of the game is that you've been kept prisoner for a long time by the evil free to play overlords of Cyberstream and you've been broken out by the resistance force as the last hope to stand up to them and free Cyberstream once and for all. Evading capture isn't going to be easy though, there are a lot of obstacles between you and freedom!
Screenshot of in-game action
Why do I need your help?
I stopped accepting contract work back in September in order to work on this game, to give it my full attention and to see what I could achieve if I really concentrated on making a game I wanted to make. I have to say I’m pretty happy with what I’ve created but I wasn’t sure if it would be to anybody else’s taste so I posted a short video on youTube of the game running on an iPad.
The response was phenomenal. Along with praise for the game from people who liked what they saw, some publishers and distributors got in touch telling me they really liked the game. This was extremely flattering and it showed me that there was potentially an audience for this game beyond just me.
To be honest, working on a game yourself in a room month after month can be tough and it’s really hard to tell if what you are working on will appeal to others as well as yourself, so getting this kind of response was a massive wake up call and a really flattering surprise. Along with that surprise though was a realization that the game needed a lot more work done to it to live up to that praise.
In order to spend more time on the game I’m going to need more funds, I had put aside enough money to allow me to work on the game up until the end of February but I would really like to work on it for a few months more.
I don't just want your help with funds though - I would like to build a community so that this also becomes your game and you have a say in how it progresses.
What are the goals?
At the moment the game consists of one long level, I would like to break that up into multiple levels, with difficulty getting progressively harder - as well as the visual style changing to show progression. As you get closer to that goal of freeing Cyberstream the world should change to reflect that. It should become more colourful, more inviting.
I would also like to add more enemy types into the game that are fully 3D and animated. At the moment I am using pixel art given to me by the talented artist Dugan Jackson. I want these enemy to be introduced along with the new levels and make it tougher to proceed.
I would also like to add a lot more variety in the weapon pickups so there's an element of strategy - do you risk collision and death in order to pick up a weapon that might help you complete the level? The visual form of those pickups is the hardest thing for me - I need an art director who can design something that looks like it is a pickup. This game should be easy to just grab and play without having to go through a lengthy tutorial and great art direction helps with that enormously.
But more importantly I need help finishing the game because of this:
Art - all the art in the game is currently coder art. I really need to hire an artist to give all the art a beauty pass to make it a lot better than anything I could possibly produce on my own and to also provide some much needed art-direction as well as add more variety to the visual style of the game.
Music and sound effects - the amazingly talented composer Gavin Harrison (of GavinHarrisonSounds.com – if you are making a game you really should hire him) has kindly written the music for this game and is doing the sound effects and he's allowing me to pay later for this once the game is out. He's done this because in his view, having played the game, it's worth it and will add to his portfolio of game music in a significant way. If this game gets funded I will be paying him for his music and asking him to do a lot more since his work is phenomenal and really adds to the atmosphere of the game.
Legal – If I do decide to go down the route of getting this game published other than self-publishing, and that is dependent upon the reaction of this campaign, then there are going to be a few contracts that need checking out and unfortunately Lawyers cost a lot of money. So if anything a large portion of any funds generated will be going towards this.
The remainder of the fund will be used to add as much polish to the game as possible for as long as possible but this depends on how much funds are raised here.
How am I going to reward your help and support?
I don’t want to just give you something trivial in return for your support and help in finishing this game, I want to give you something that means a lot to me, something of great personal value – the source code to the game.
That might sound a bit mad to you but if there’s one thing I love more than making games is helping other people make games. I want to be able to share with you just how this game was made and what better way to do that than to share the code with you?
If you’re not into making games, then that’s fine I will also be offering T-shirts, posters and the OST of the game - as well as a copy of the game itself of course!
Who am I?
My name is Byron Atkinson-Jones and I've been working in the games industry for something like 15 years now. I’ve worked for companies like EA, Lionhead studios, Sega Sports Interactive as well as indie legends PomPom and Introversion. The list of games I’ve worked on is:
Darwinia+
Multiwina
Mutant Storm Empire
Hungry Shark Evolution
Bliss island
Football manager
Robot Unicorn Evolution
NHL
Miami Vice
Create
Wonderworld amusement park
Comfort Zone
I’ve also helped on these games: FIFA
NBA
Harry Potter
Nascar What if the funding fails?
If the funding isn’t reached the all of the above can’t happen and the game will be released at the end of February in the form it is when that date is reached. I hope that doesn’t happen though and that this game does earn your support and funds because it has a lot of potential to be more than the simple form it currently is.
Thank you for your support! |
Add building robots to the list of out-of-school activities required for kids to be competitive college applicants and future workers.
Digital Adventures, which runs summer camps and after-school courses to expose kids to engineering and computer science, aims to provide the experience some parents think is necessary to get into the increasingly attractive field.
The company offers programming at two studios: one in affluent Wilmette, launched in April 2015, and one in Lincoln Park, which opened in December. Digital Adventures co-founder Omowale Casselle said he hopes to open a third location this summer, possibly in Hinsdale, where he grew up.
Jackie Pilossoph / for the Chicago Tribune Omowale Casselle, co-founder of Digital Adventures. Omowale Casselle, co-founder of Digital Adventures. (Jackie Pilossoph / for the Chicago Tribune) (Jackie Pilossoph / for the Chicago Tribune)
The after-school programs are the company's bread and butter, Casselle said, keeping steady traffic coming to the studios.
"I wanted it to be where (kids) could go week after week," he said.
Kids enrolled in a robotics course called Awesome Machines can come in for an hour a week and learn how to make robots do their bidding and build their own computers. Casselle said students can build battle bots and robots that navigate obstacle courses.
The bootstrapped company's studios are equipped with Macs, flat-screen TVs, 3D printers and other tools.
The after-school classes, which cost $199 per month for four sessions, are the program's main source of revenue, Casselle said. Summer camps cost $500 a week or $125 a day, makers workshops run $75 for two hours or $115 for three hours, and birthday parties are $399 for 2 hours and up to 8 kids. The company is operating profitably, he said.
Arjun Venkataswamy photo A group of Girl Scouts learn how to build robots. A group of Girl Scouts learn how to build robots. (Arjun Venkataswamy photo) (Arjun Venkataswamy photo)
Casselle said he started the company because he saw firsthand how hard it was to fill engineering positions for his new ventures team at Redbox, where he worked until leaving to run Digital Adventures full-time.
"I've got a couple little ones of my own, and I felt like they were getting very good at navigating iPhones and iPads and things," Casselle said. There was an opportunity, he thought, to help his kids become creators rather than just consumers of digital products.
Casselle is a mechanical engineer with degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Michigan, as well as an MBA from the Harvard School of Business. His cofounder, Arjun Venkataswamy, is a fellow University of Illinois-trained engineer with a master's in education from Northwestern University and a former instructor at the coding bootcamp Starter League.
Casselle said he hopes to expand Digital Adventures across the country, using a franchise model. He said the company's proprietary curriculum — developed internally — will help it stand out against existing after-school STEM programs from for- and nonprofits.
One of the country's largest out-of-school education companies, Sylvan Learning, has offered STEM courses since 2015. Its offerings today include classes on robotics, coding and engineering. Most of the courses in this category start at $99, according to Sylvan's website.
Omowale acknowledged that price could be a barrier for some families to sign up for Digital Adventures' programming.
"It's not an inexpensive program, but I think parents are seeing the value," he said.
Josh Goldin, an Evanston resident who works in IT, said he enrolled his 10-year-old son Henry in a Digital Adventures summer camp last year after searching for that type of program for a few months.
He said he paid $325 a week for four weeks of half-day robotics courses. He described the cost as relatively affordable.
That summer, Henry also attended an aquatics camp. These days, he participates in the Lego robotics club at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Literary and Fine Arts magnet school in Evanston.
"If you don't get started at an early age, I think you absolutely can be at a disadvantage by not getting yourself into the technology ahead of time," Goldin said, recalling a story he heard about an older boy who got straight A’s but failed to gain acceptance to the schools of his choice.
Although Goldin said Henry enjoyed the program, he probably won't send him back this year. That's partly because of Henry's other extracurricular commitments.
But Goldin said he also didn't like that the Digital Adventures camp offered just one week's worth of lessons — a different topic on each day, rather than a deeper look at a single subject. Henry attended for four weeks, but instructors had to tailor his experience to keep it from being too repetitive, Goldin said.
Janet Beissinger, a University of Chicago expert on after-school STEM curriculum and training after-school instructors, said there is a desire among families for out-of-school STEM opportunities, where kids can experience new concepts in nontraditional ways. But she said she was concerned that the learning studios may not be socioeconomically diverse, at least for now.
She also pointed out that turnover in such programs is often high, as part-time instructors move on to full-time jobs. A strong curriculum that is shared across locations can help guard against a breakdown in quality when new instructors are brought in, she said.
Digital Adventures instructors include the leadership team and engineering students from Northwestern. Beissinger said kids might be especially excited about learning these topics from real engineers.
"Their enthusiasm for the subject rubs off," she said. "I think that's a value of an after-school program that covers content that's not necessarily covered during the day."
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Remember QWOP, Bennett Foddy’s infamous browser game that has players trying to manipulate the legs of the world’s least coordinator runner? It’s something of a cult classic now, having inspired dozens of purposefully awkward games and at least one instance of incredible cosplay that became a meme of its own. But dressing and flopping around like QWOP is one thing. What if you could actually take control of your friend’s body and play some real-life QWOP? That’s the question James Hobson, an engineer and star of the YouTube channel The Hacksmith, set out to answer in a recent video. Turns out, yes, you can, and all it takes is a little scientific know-how and a friend who’s willing to be electrocuted for your entertainment.
Having previously emulated much more complicated pop culture tech like Iron Man’s jet boosters, the QWOP challenge was a pretty simple one. Hobson and his team took inspiration from electroshock therapy. They modified some of the equipment used in that process and wired it to a keyboard so the “player” could press the Q, W, O, and P keys to send a gentle shock to the “runner” that would manipulate part of their leg. It worked out about as well as a real game of QWOP does—a whole lot of flailing and falling down while everyone watching laughs at QWOP’s misfortune.
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I recently made a homemade ice cream for my family using cake mix and of course it was full of dairy. All I could think of was that it was so not fair that they got to have that while I sat by and watched. So I started thinking…it really wouldn’t be all that hard to make me my own batch of gluten free, vegan cake batter ice cream. Before the family was allowed to dig into their ice cream, I made my own batch.
Do you ever have pity parties for yourself? Just me? Well, for the past 7 months or so, I have had enough pity parties for myself that it’s not even funny. I can’t stand watching cooking shows anymore (Hubbyman is probably happy about that), I don’t enjoy going to parties or eating out, and just the thought of going to the grocery store makes me cringe. Food was such a huge part of my life, all my friends know that I love to cook and bake and throw parties.
I’ve mentioned before that my new food allergies have caused great sadness for me, but I think I’m finally on the uphill slope. Yeah me! It’s still a struggle to do all those things I mentioned, but I don’t feel sorry for myself any more. Sure, I’d love to be able to order whatever I wanted and not play 1000 questions with a restaurant before ordering, but I’ve never felt better. WOOHOO!
I’m learning to take favorite recipes and adapt them to be what I need. I’m not a vegan, but by default all of my desserts will be vegan. Since removing dairy from my diet, I’ve zero asthma attacks, zero seasonal allergies, and I feel great. If only I could also drop some pounds. LOL! Honestly, I been filling my food void with way too many ice cold Cokes.
Apparently, this post has turned into a confessional, so let me confess…this ice cream was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! After the family devoured their traditional they began attacking me for mine. They loved it and no one could tell it was different. Now, I’d say that’s a good thing.
Gluten Free-Vegan Cake Batter Ice Cream Save Recipe Save Recipe Print Recipe 1 cup vanilla soy milk, well chilled
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups soy creamer, well chilled
2 tsps pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup gluten free cake mix (make sure it's vegan too)
1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles Place freezer bowl of ice cream maker into the freezer. Freezer for 12-24 hours. In a medium bowl, whisk the milk, sugar, creamer, and vanilla until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in cake mix, making sure there are no lumps. Pour mixture into the freezer bowl and let mix until it has thickened (about 25-30 minutes). During the last 5 minutes, pour in rainbow sprinkles. Remove ice cream from freezer bowl and place into a separate container. Place ice cream into the freezer to further harden for several hours or overnight. ©Around My Family Table 7.8.1.2 162 https://www.aroundmyfamilytable.com/gluten-free-vegan-cake-batter-ice-cream/
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Biological clock ticking for men too
Updated
The drop off in fertility for women after the age of 35 is well known. Now Australian researchers have found that men face a similar decline at the same age.
Sydney IVF researchers took sperm samples from more than 3,000 men and their DNA or genetic make-up was examined.
Mark Bowman from Sydney IVF says they found older men had less chance of fathering a child.
"They cannot take fertility absolutely for granted, there is also an impact of male age on fertility," he said.
Dr Kylie de Boer says the samples showed that as men age their sperm starts to fragment or break down, which makes the sperm less viable for fertilising the egg.
The older the man, the more damage, researchers found.
"The rate of DNA fragmentation of sperm increased with age and there was a significant DNA damage to sperm when the man was above the age of 35," Mr Bowman said.
And while the Rupert Murdochs of this world have fathered children later in life, the new research suggests they are the exception, not the rule.
One in six Australian couples end up seeking medical treatment because they cannot conceive and in almost half of those cases it is due to male infertility.
Mr Bowman says a healthy lifestyle is one way of holding back the years.
"The messages would be limit alcohol, don't smoke, eat a healthy diet, take anti-oxidants and probably spend more time with your partner," he said.
Topics: reproduction-and-contraception, health, mens-health, research, sydney-2000, australia, nsw
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Believe me.
For months, the White House has pledged that its tax plan will not benefit the rich — or, at least, that it won’t do so intentionally.
“Tax reform will protect low-income and middle-income households, not the wealthy and well-connected,” President Trump assured supporters in a recent speech in Indiana. “They can call me all they want. It’s not going to help. I’m doing the right thing, and it’s not good for me. Believe me.”
In late September, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn went further, promising, “The wealthy are not getting a tax cut under our plan.” Other administration officials have conceded that the rich might derive some benefit — but only through the collateral consequences of lowering taxes on the middle class and corporations.
Then, the House and Senate unveiled tax bills that deliver the lion’s share of their benefits to the idle superrich, while raising taxes on a broad swath of middle-class households. The bills would also eliminate deductions that benefit veterans, indebted students, and people who suffer from rare diseases — while preserving loopholes that enrich hedge-fund managers and owners of golf courses.
Get your hot static distributional analysis of the Senate tax bill here! https://t.co/oIOQyh0igU (w/ @bencasselman) pic.twitter.com/L231v9EkU5 — Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) November 10, 2017
Meanwhile, both iterations would add trillions to the deficit, in defiance of the president’s campaign promises and, more critically, the rules of budget reconciliation.
Considering all this, it isn’t too surprising that the president decided to do a little back-seat driving Monday, and air an implicit criticism of congressional Republicans’ work. But the nature of that critique was a trifle baffling.
I am proud of the Rep. House & Senate for working so hard on cutting taxes {& reform.} We’re getting close! Now, how about ending the unfair & highly unpopular Indiv Mandate in OCare & reducing taxes even further? Cut top rate to 35% w/all of the rest going to middle income cuts? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2017
The House tax-cut bill retains the current 39.6 percent rate on couples that earn over $1 million a year (while lowering the rate on couples that make below that figure, but above $480,000, to 35 percent). The Senate bill cuts the millionaires’ rate down to 38.5 percent.
So: The populist president looked at legislation that increases the tax burden of half of all families with children — even as it allows the heirs of multimillion-dollar estates to avoid paying all capital gains taxes on their inherited assets — and concluded: This bill really needs to do more to increase the post-tax income of millionaires, and reduce the number of Americans with health insurance.
Trump’s advocacy for a lower top marginal rate doesn’t just contradict literally all of his messaging on tax “reform” to this point. His proposal also evinces total ignorance of the budgetary challenges Republicans currently face.
Right now, even if Mitch McConnell had 51 votes for the Senate’s tax bill, he wouldn’t be able to pass it. In order to evade a Democratic filibuster, Republicans must pass their tax plan through “budget reconciliation” — but that process can only be invoked for bills that do not add to the deficit ten years after they’re passed. Currently, the Senate bill would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit in 2028. And the Senate bill assumes that the final legislation will generate more than $1 trillion in new revenue by fully eliminating the state and local tax deduction — a benefit that House Republicans insist on retaining in some form. So, the actual budget shortfall is almost certainly even larger.
Killing the individual mandate would generate some revenue. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that such a move would increase the ranks of the uninsured — and, thus, save the government $338 billion on health-insurance subsidies and other costs. But even if Senate Republicans had the votes to sabotage the individual insurance market, they would need the consequent revenue to pay for the cuts they’ve already proposed.
The absolute last thing that the GOP should do now is dig themselves into a deeper fiscal hole, for the sake of giving millionaires a bigger payday.
One of Donald Trump’s core strengths in 2016 was his indifference to conservative ideology. The mogul’s nihilistic pragmatism allowed him to crowdsource his agenda (by adjusting his policies and messaging to suit the whims of his rally crowd), a process that resulted in a heterodox economic platform that included support for entitlement programs, infrastructure stimulus, price controls on pharmaceuticals, universal health care, and breaking up the big banks.
Given the manifest unpopularity of the congressional GOP’s agenda, one might wonder why Trump hasn’t pivoted back to populism. After all, the president is far less interested in the conservative movement’s ideological project than in winning the plaudits of the (fake news) media. (Trump (reportedly) relished the good reviews that followed his debt ceiling deal with “Chuck and Nancy.”) The president has a firmer grip on the Republican base than Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell. Trump would seem to have much to gain, and little to lose, by trying to dictate terms to Congress, and demanding a bipartisan infrastructure bill; or a progressive, revenue-neutral tax reform package; or a pragmatic fix to the health-care system.
And yet, here he is, bucking the congressional leadership … by calling for an even more regressive tax-cut plan.
This can’t be explained by Trump’s formidable greed. The existing tax plan is already a windfall for the president, and it’s unlikely he has much to gain personally from lowering the top marginal rate on individuals, since most of his income comes via the profits of his pass-through businesses (which would be a taxed at 25 percent if the GOP gets its way).
Rather, Trump’s tweet — and broader failure to impose a more popular platform on his party — appears to be the product of sheer mindlessness. The president was too lazy and incurious to shape his own policy agenda. So, he outsourced it to Vice-President Pence and his team of Koch cronies. Now, Trump can’t even summon the resources to maintain a consistent sales pitch for his tax plan; or develop a rudimentary understanding of the legislative challenges it faces; or, ostensibly, avoid tweeting out whatever moronic proposal one of his plutocratic pals just whispered in his ear. |
The Brexit vote reached, like the hand of some invisible medieval executioner, right into the guts of progressive Britain, and pulled something vital out. People reported feelings of loss, trauma and betrayal. The life chances of their kids were altered; their identity challenged; their feelings of basic trust and solidarity with fellow Brits they thought they understood eroded.
Well, now you know what it felt like to be working class in the 1980s. Thatcherism destroyed not just the industry our communities were based around, but our social continuity. The pub where I drank my first pint was the same one in which my grandfather drank his. It has gone, together with the resilient solidarity that kept our violence low-key, our crimes rare, and wages high.
So, if you’re feeling like your future has been stolen by Brexit, welcome to the club. First, a left based on workplace organisation and what Eric Hobsbawm called “a common style of proletarian life” was destroyed; now, thirty years later, a left based on multiculturalism, the rights of the European citizen and liberal social values is similarly besieged.
And there is a common thread. If Brexit marks the beginning of a second great disruption in the left’s living memory, then, like the first, its origin lies in the systemic crisis of an economic model. In the 1980s, the elite decided that unions and social cohesion had to be smashed because Keynesianism no longer worked, and organised labour stood in the way of the right’s determination to build a new precariat.
In turn, Brexit happened because neoliberalism no longer works. The right will now use the self-inflicted crisis to attempt, one final time, to make it work, using deregulation, precarity and repression.
But this second crisis has come at a time when the left in Britain is weaker. Not in numbers: the mass influx into Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and the social-democratised Scottish National Party testifies to high levels of engagement and understanding that the crisis demands a fightback. The weakness lies at the level of ideas, strategy and a coherent project. You can observe it everywhere as a series of mistimed gestures: the rudderless opportunism of that generation of faux-left shadow cabinet members who deserted Corbyn; the huge swing of the Scottish left salariat from Labour to the SNP; the “conscience vote” for the Greens which delivered 11 Labour target seats to the Tories, and helped ensure their majority. Above all, in the disengagement from official politics common among a young generation otherwise passionately engaged with social justice and liberty.
Since the morning of Brexit, which triggered the anti-Corbyn coup, many on the left have been mesmerised by Labour’s inner party struggle. However, it is only a reflection of the bigger challenge.
Leave won because it fostered a plebeian social movement. If you go into a small-town railway station and find that the men and women selling the train tickets are having a loud public conversation about how “you can’t use the word ‘gollywog’ any more”, and how you’re “not allowed to buy your granddaughter pink toys”, nobody needs to mention Europe.
Whether the Ukip vote stays firm now, or splits back to its Tory and Labour origins, for a few brief weeks, plebeian resistance to the EU became a self-sustaining meme of resistance.
For some people, it was the first political thing they ever did: they discovered agency and they won. They reclaimed public space for the right to stigmatise migrants and flout the conventions of political correctness imposed by corporate life. The experience will stick with them for a lifetime.
The left can and must revive itself in the same memetic way: as a social movement rooted in the values and lifeworld of global modernity.
There is no longer a “common style of proletarian life”. But there is very tangibly a common style of progressive life, and it stretches across the salariat and the precariat. It reaches from the dance floors of Ibiza to the Deliveroo picket line.
It’s about tolerating difference, about kindness and restraint. It values arguments based on evidence more than emotion. It accepts the “weak ties” sociologists observe in the post-proletarian workforce and builds out of them a social life based on networks, not hierarchies.
It accepts, in a way our grandfathers would have found hypocritical and intolerable, the self as the centre of the world: it understands work on the self as a contribution to collectivity – because if we all have better, less angry, more educated selves, the society we build will cohere without any need for rigid hierarchies. And its concept of human liberation is based more on freedom than on economic well-being.
Because of this, its instinctive response to the crises of the early 21st century was to accept the altermondialiste dictum “One no and many yeses”. But since 2008, the crisis of the neoliberal model mean this is unsustainable. The Spanish Indignado movement of 2011 became a party by 2014 and now runs three big cities. Look at the people tapping away on laptops at Momentum’s temporary HQ in Euston, London, and you see people who, in 2011, were the toughest exponents of the hand-twinkling horizontalism during Occupy. It’s been the same with the Bernie Sanders movement.
But if the horizontalist generation of the left has now “got politics”, it has not yet totally understood the dangers facing it.
Right now, the world economy is being kept alive by money-printing, property bubbles and a probable secret pact between central bankers to avoid rival currency depreciation. The price is higher inequality, stagnation and collapsing productivity.
If we do not abandon neoliberalism, it will create – in the same way as it created the plebeian Leave movement – nastier iterations of the same thing until, one by one, the world’s democratic institutions are eroded and the global order fragments.
That is the precipice on which the progressive generation stands, but they can barely see it. It’s easier to believe that there is a technocratic solution to everything; that activism can be compartmentalised; and – except for the real hardcores or through slip-ups – that political choices don’t have drastic personal consequences.
This technocratic illusion in turn breeds a timeless attitude to historic events. There is scant understanding among the progressive young – and I mean here the very wide, gig-going, eco-friendly, leftish generation aged between 18 and 35 – of two things the 1930s taught the left.
First, that the right side does not always win. The Spanish Civil War was the wake-up call in the 1930s. Though only a few thousand Brits went to fight there, several million realised by the end of it that you can be both morally and politically right and still get killed in a ditch.
Second, that you get very few second chances. Maybe the 1,000 to 3,000 people who voted Green in Labour-Tory marginals in 2015 really were indifferent as to whether David Cameron or Ed Miliband became prime minister. I doubt it. It was a luxury vote, cast on the assumption that somebody else at some future date will rectify any bad outcomes.
You see the same historical insouciance in the actions of Scottish Labour during Better Together: the assumption that no matter how many lies, threats and manoeuvres you execute on behalf of the British elite, your mass base will forget about it and revert to deference.
The left in Britain has some clear but time-limited chances.
The first is to reunite Labour around whoever wins the leadership and take the fight around the 90 per cent of issues the party’s left and centre left agree on to a public crying out for a competent opposition. The Labour activists pledging to rerun the coup as an annual outing until the party is destroyed are playing with fire. If there is no viable Labour Party, the space will be open for plebeian racism and xenophobia.
The second lies in Scotland. Two-thirds of the SNP’s members joined after the 2014 independence referendum and their typical profile is left, globalist, ex-Labour. Brexit poses a threat to Scottish nationalism’s very existence – and the progressive cultural renaissance that surrounds it. At some point Scotland will have to stop simply asking for independence and EU continuity and begin to fight for it. Otherwise, as under the perennially flaccid Convergència i Unió parties of Catalonia, the aspiration for radical, progressive independence will wither.
The third chance lies in action from below. When people talk of Labour becoming a social movement they must realise what that means. Frances Fox Piven, the veteran US sociologist, described what a social movement does, based on her study of the early civil rights actions of the 1960s. It causes “commotion among bureaucrats, excitement in the media, dismay among influential segments of the community, and strain for political leaders”.
They want to frack our countryside? Then cause commotion. They want to ration access to the NHS? Then don’t leave it to the junior doctors: fill the admin offices of the health bureaucrats with patients demanding treatment now.
But we have to focus. We, the British left, stand right in the headlights of an oncoming train. It is here, in the UK, that rich-world globalisation took its first hit. If the Labour Party is struggling to stay whole, and if the Union of Great Britain itself looks fragile, then probably many other aspects of the given social order are weak as well.
We may have only a limited time in which to do this. We need a social movement with a few clear messages, whose aim is to invest communities of despair with messages of hope and resistance.
Paul Mason is a former economics editor of “Newsnight” and “Channel 4 News”. His most recent book is “PostCapitalism: a Guide to Our Future” (Penguin)
This article is part of a New Times collection of the future of the left. Read the other pieces here. |
More people voted, we got better trash cans and our sports teams are good!
As a Philadelphian during the holidays, perhaps you’ll be tested. Perhaps you’ll get some flak from relatives you’ve journeyed outside the city to visit or those coming to visit you.
They always bring up the stereotypes. They’ll ask if you’ve eaten a good cheesesteak lately. They’ll mention the crime and filth. Yes, the murder rate is trending upward this year, but the same thing is happening in other major cities and the rate is still well below homicide levels in the mid-aughts. We’re also working on a Zero Waste goal by 2035.
The Eagles play on Christmas, so maybe you’ll even get a snowballs-at-santa reference this year.
We all know Philadelphia is vastly more than cheesesteaks and snowballs and grit. Sometimes it’s good to have a yearly reminder. So let’s revisit 11 things you can be proud about as a Philadelphian in 2017.
The SRC dissolved itself
The School Reform Commission, the state-controlled body that ran Philly schools, has been a source of frustration for Philadelphians since its formation in 2001. Among the lowlights: the 2014 shredding of teachers’ contracts. But after years of discussing the SRC’s demise, the board members decided in November to vote it out of existence. Philadelphia is currently looking to form its own board of education.
Philly restaurants swept the Oscars of the food industry
Michael Solomonov, the chef and co-owner of Zahav, Dizengoff, Abe Fisher and other favorites, won the 2017 James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef. Stephen Starr took home the award for Outstanding Restaurateur. Locals and visitors from around globe have been talking about Philly’s food scene for years. These awards were further vindication we’re among the best.
Middle neighborhoods, discussed early in Philadelphia, became a national issue
Middle neighborhoods are the sections of the city that aren’t doing well enough to receive loads of private development or poorly enough to get public aid. They’re just doing OK, and as such, are at risk of decline. Authors Paul Brophy and Ira Goldstein introduced the idea at Temple University in February. Congressman Dwight Evans made them a priority, and by May, the topic had reached the desk of President Donald Trump. In Philly, prompted by Councilwoman Cherelle Parker, City Council held a hearing on middle neighborhoods, hoping to eventually reach longterm plans for assisting them.
Philly sports are relevant again
Let’s just forget about all these recent blown leads from the Sixers and Carson Wentz’s knee (prayers!). Philadelphia sports actually matter. Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons have made the Sixers one of the most exciting teams in the NBA, with Embiid particularly garnering attention as a future superstar because of his personality. The Eagles could still make the Super Bowl. Maybe. At worst, they’re a playoff team with a good future. So long as that knee holds up after surgery and rehab.
Philly hosted the best NFL Draft of all time
That headline may sound like a superlative but you’d find few fans, media members or NFL employees who’d disagree. In late April, about 250,000 people attended the draft and its festivities, and officials said visitors directly spent $56 million. Those numbers don’t tell the whole story. It was more about the scene. For the first time, the NFL Draft was al fresco. Philly turned what’s often a staid affair into a block party.
We can sit on Rittenhouse Park’s wall and smoke weed
Remember in January when city officials, the Parks Department and Friends of Rittenhouse decided to ban sitting on the wall because of pot?
That decision was overturned quickly, thanks in large part to Mayor Jim Kenney. He even hinted that smoking weed was OK, as long as it wasn’t too obvious:
Our public spaces are getting an overhaul
Philly’s parks, way behind the rest of America’s big cities when it comes to the budget, are getting the first share of about $500 million in improvements. The first 61 sites for Rebuild were designated earlier this month. The program provides renovations to parks, recreation centers, playgrounds and libraries.
The I-95 cap is actually happening
For decades, city officials and residents alike have pined for a cap on I-95, something to bring Center City closer to the Delaware River. This spring, the city, private funders and PennDOT pledged more than $200 million to get the project done. We’re going to have a real waterfront.
More people voted than expected
You can’t say Philly had a high turnout for this year’s primary or general election. You can say we did much better. Turnout for the spring primary —when Democrats Larry Krasner and Rebecca Rhynhart handily won their respective district attorney and city controller races — came in at 17 percent. That was nearly double the 2013 turnout and 5 percent above 2009 turnout. In the fall, despite Krasner and Rhynhart nearly assured of victory, turnout was 20 percent, also well above recent years for these races.
Bigbelly trash cans got foot pedals
The city improved many of the trash cans nobody likes to open with their bare hands. So far about 275 foot pedal Bigbellies have been installed, all in Center City.
The situation is still far from perfect.
Still! Progress!
Our mayor continues to dress like Buddy the Elf
This tradition better last for as long as Jim Kenney’s in office and then be mandated for his successor. |
Jerry Shenk (Photo: Submitted)
A Google search of the words “diversity is strength” yields more than six million results.
Progressives for whom the platitude has become unassailable, albeit fact-free dogma have created hundreds of logos and images proclaiming that Diversity is (our) Strength, none of which specifically define diversity. Given the multitude of circumstances in which “diversity” is invoked, though, one gathers that its practical left-wing definitions are “whatever we say” and/or “…because…shut up!”
Diversity is Strength is a vague, faculty-lounge-like locution often applied in the same way the left gratuitously misuses pejoratives such as “racist,” “sexist,” “xenophobe,” “science denier” or “homophobe” to shut down reasonable disagreements over or expressions of justifiable opposition to their social, cultural or political preferences – or simply to delegitimize political adversaries.
For progressives, “diversity” has become an intuitively self-vindicating term employed to mask otherwise-divisive identity politics which emphasize cultural equivalency (“Religion of peace,” “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”), illegals (“Dreamers,” “undocumented job-seekers), militant feminist sloganizing, LGBT grievance-mongering and, especially, race (affirmative action, Black Lives Matter). Suggestions that All or Blue Lives Matter are punishable violations of racial conformity.
The lazy left is lousy at persuasion and coherent, logical explanations, so attempts to bully and insult those with whom they merely disagree are popular weapons of choice. That strategy works frequently enough to lather-rinse-and-repeat, but left-wing intimidation/indoctrination campaigns can be perversely entertaining – like small children’s tantrums, only funnier.
For example, things get tricky when “diversities” clash. In November, 2016, San Diego’s first transgender police officer was excluded from an LGBT memorial event she helped to plan so the sight of her uniform wouldn’t upset other attendees. Bye-bye, “diversity.”
In October, while agitating for dedicated “safe spaces” exclusively for “people of color,” students at the University of California-Berkeley blocked white students from using a campus entrance gate. Note to Berkeley progressives: If you’re demanding segregation or apartheid, you’re probably racists.
Faithful conformance to ‘diversity” can get awkward. Also in October, a young woman at South Africa’s Cape Town University publicly rejected science in favor of witchcraft, saying: "Science as a whole is a product of Western modernity and the whole thing should be scratched off," She called for a conference group to "restart science from an African perspective, from our perspective." Her preferred method to "restart science from an African perspective?" By practicing "black magic."
Then, a moderator admonished an openly-amused attendee for "disrespecting the sacredness of this space," for trying to "collapse this space and make it antagonizing" and forced him to apologize. Apparently, liberals are the “science deniers.”
Last September, a University of Michigan student brilliantly protested an initiative intended to force the entire campus community to use fabricated pronouns to address students who imagine they belong to some alternate, invented gender. On a data-base-building web page inviting students to declare their preferred “designated” pronouns, a conservative undergraduate expressed his desire to be addressed as “His Majesty...” University progressives were unamused, even angered.
Clearly, nonconforming diversities are unacceptable, …because…shut up!
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Last week I was extremely high on Jared Cook and also recommended you play Travis Kelce, Zach Ertz, Cameron Brate and Julius Thomas. Travis Kelce and Cameron Brate were the #2 and #3 tight ends on the week, while Ertz came in at #9. Jared Cook almost came through against the Broncos, dropping a touchdown pass from EJ Manuel, and I think it’s safe to say Julius Thomas can be removed from start em sit em discussions for the remainder of the 2017 season, and possibly beyond. This week, the higher end tight ends actually have some fairly tough matchups and you may be better served with some lower end guys.
Charles Clay – Buffalo Bills @ Cincinnati Bengals – $5,700 Fanduel – $4,800 DK – Charles Clay is quietly the #4 tight end in fantasy football. The Bills lack talent at the wide receiver position and Clay seems to be reaping the benefits of Rick Dennison’s horizontal passing attack. The Bengals have been OK against the tight end so far this year, but that stat is deceiving. In week 2, they played the Houston Texans who had to sign a guy off the street the day before the game just to have a tight end on their active roster, but he failed to even see a single target. Clay should be able to get some short yardage catches against George Iloka and if he’s able to break a tackle he could get loose for a big one. Clay is the best bet on the Bills offense to score a touchdown outside of LeSean McCoy especially with Jordan Matthews out.
Austin Seferian – Jenkins – NY Jets @ Cleveland Browns – $5,500 Fanduel – $3,500 DK – In his first two weeks back from suspension, ASJ saw 10 targets from Josh McCown who should continue to be conservative in his passing decisions this week since the Jets lack any other serious threat on offense. Browns Linebacker Joe Schobert has been a pass coverage liability for the Browns who have surrendered 2 touchdowns to the likes of Jesse James and Tyler Kroft. Look for the bleeding to continue this week and get ASJ in some of your DFS lineups. With several solid tight ends on bye this week, ASJ is also a solid streaming option in season long leagues. If he can get it done again this week, it’s time to start considering him as a weekly starter given the Jets wide receiver situation.
Hunter Henry – LA Chargers @ NY Giants – $5,200 Fanduel – $3,800 DK – Start tight ends against the New York Giants. Last week, both OJ Howard and Cameron Brate scored on the Giants. So far this year, the Giants have surrendered a touchdown to the tight end position in each game they’ve played. The only thing standing between Hunter Henry and the end zone this weekend is a poorly timed substitution for Antonio Gates.
Evan Engram – NY Giants vs LA Chargers – $5,400 Fanduel – $4,000 DK – Evan Engram is quietly the second most targeted tight end in football behind only Zach Ertz, and tied at 30 targets with Rob Gronkowski. Engram is an overgrown wide receiver and safety Jahleel Addae shouldn’t be able to keep up with him in pass coverage, fresh off a game where he surrendered 81 yards receiving to Zach Ertz.
Jared Cook – Oakland Raiders vs Baltimore Ravens – $5,300 Fanduel – $3,900 DK – I am not terribly confident in Jared Cook this week but EJ Manuel did look Cook’s way in the redzone last week. Having EJ Manuel under center could work in Cook’s favor if he looks to check it down and play it safe, or it could be devastating if he implodes. I am likely to stay away from Cook this week but he is worth consideration. Manuel did hit Cook in the hands in the endzone last week but Cook dropped it once the defensive back hit him.
Travis Kelce – Kansas City Chiefs @ Houston Texans – $7,000 Fanduel – $6,000 DK – Travis Kelce needs to be started in season long leagues and is a roll of the dice in DFS this week. So far this season, it appears the Chiefs have looked to exploit matchups in the passing game versus peppering certain players no matter what like the Eagles do with Zach Ertz. Last week was a Kelce game as the Chiefs exploited DJ Swearinger in coverage, and this week Kelce does have a good matchup, but Tyreek Hill may have a solid matchup himself if he faces Johnathan Banks in coverage. That being said, Kelce may be a wild card this week because both Hill and Kelce have good matchups and they have yet to both come through in the same game. It will be interesting to see which player the Chiefs showcase this week in light of the trend, so I wouldn’t go all in on Kelce in DFS.
Week 1 @ Patriots: Kelce 5 catches, 40 yards, 0 TD’s – Hill 7 catches, 133 yards, 1 TD
Week 2 vs Eagles: Kelce 8 catches, 103 yards, 1 TD – Hill 4 catches, 43 yards, 0 TD
Week 3 @ Chargers: Kelce 1 catch, 1 yard, 0 TD – Hill 5 catches, 77 yards, 1 TD
Week 4 vs Redskins: Kelce 7 catches, 111 yards, 1 TD – Hill 5 catches, 35 yards, 0 TD
Digging Deep
Zach Miller TE – Chicago Bears vs Minnesota Vikings – $4,900 Fanduel – $2,800 DK – Mitch Trubisky will get his first professional start this week against the Vikings. The Vikings aren’t horrible against the tight end, but Trubisky may rely heavily on Zach Miller if he wants to be conservative in his first career start. I wouldn’t play Miller in season long leagues unless you’re desperate, but he may be worth a cheap, big tournament play in DFS.
Be Careful – Zach Ertz may be a risky play this week against the Arizona Cardinals who are giving up 3rd fewest points to the TE position. The Honeybadger is really good in coverage and he may slow down Ertz. This will be the first week I shy away from Ertz in DFS, however, I am still rolling him out there in season long leagues.
Last week, I recommended you play Trevor Siemian, Philip Rivers, Andy Dalton, Dak Prescott and Jay Cutler. Siemian didn’t come through against Oakland. This was a surprise given Oakland’s suspect pass defense and it’s really hard to trust Jay Cutler at all anymore after he came up very small against the Saints. The performances we saw from Siemian and Cutler last week were both a little bit of a surprise. Dak, Dalton and Rivers, however, all finished inside the top 12 at the quarterback position in standard scoring formats. Three out of five isn’t bad, but hopefully we can be a little better than 60% this week with Kurt Cousins, Drew Brees and Matt Ryan, all likely weekly starters in season long leagues on bye.
Eli Manning – NY Giants vs LA Chargers – $7,000 Fanduel – $6,100 DK – The Giants cannot run the ball and they have several viable targets in the passing game. The Chargers aren’t bad on defense but they aren’t that great either opposite Casey Hayward. Manning hasn’t had the greatest start to 2017 but he’s quietly the 9th highest scoring QB in fantasy football and is available in 29% of Yahoo leagues. With four viable quarterbacks on bye this week Manning is a solid option and offers tremendous upside given the Chargers ability to put up points.
Jameis Winston – Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs New England Patriots – $7,700 Fanduel – $6,000 DK – If you play in a slate that starts on Thursday night, get Winston in there. It was once thought that you don’t want to start opposing quarterbacks against the Patriots but lately, opposing QB’s have been shredding them. I know the Patriots generally try to take away the opposition’s best weapon, but with Mike Evans, DeSean Jackson, OJ Howard, Cameron Brate and now Doug Martin, I am not sure who they can try to slow down without getting burned somewhere else.
Dak Prescott – Dallas Cowboys vs Green Bay Packers – $7,700 Fanduel – $6,800 DK – Dak Prescott is fantasy football’s #5 scoring QB through 4 games and as long as Dez Bryant stays healthy and Zeke Elliott continues to struggle, Prescott figures to continue this pace. Prescott is like a Tyrod Taylor who is more rounded at throwing the ball, giving him a lot more upside. The Packers aren’t horrible on defense but they do have problems in the secondary, especially covering the slot. The Packers can put up serious points on offense so the Cowboys should be throwing the ball early and often on Sunday to keep pace.
Tyrod Taylor – Buffalo Bills @ Cincinnati Bengals – $7,200 Fanduel – $5,000 DK – If you look at straight fantasy points against, the Bengals defense gives up the 9th fewest points to the QB position this year. However, if you dig a little deeper, you will see that 2 of the 4 QB’s the Bengals faced so far this year were DeShone Kizer and Joe Flacco, both of which combined for about 12.5 fantasy points. The Bengals struggled a little against Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson, both of which have mobility. Tyrod Taylor has mobility and although I think the Bengals will contain him for the most part, I think he will do just enough with his legs to give him a decent fantasy day. All he needs is one big throw or run to come through.
Digging Deep
Jacoby Brissett – Indianapolis Colts vs. SF 49ers – $7,000 Fanduel – $5,600 DK – The 49ers are weak in the secondary and if Jared Goff can shred them on the outside, then Brissett has the potential to do so as well. TY Hilton and Donte Moncrief have decent matchups this week against Rashard Robinson and Dontae Johnson and if one can break loose for a big one, Brissett will pay huge dividends. Brissett doesn’t really have a discount on the daily sites this week, but he may offer streaming value in season long if you have a QB on bye or were bit by the injury bug with Marcus Mariota or Derek Carr.
Josh McCown – NY Jets @ Cleveland Browns – $6,800 Fanduel – $4,500 DK – Everybody is slinging passing touchdowns on the Browns this year who have been somewhat solid against the run. If the Jets are going to advance the ball this week (and advance to 3-2) they will need to do so through the air. McCown is a sneaky streaming option in season long leagues and is a good bet to stack in daily with Austin Seferian-Jenkins. McCown and Seferian-Jenkins are my DFS stack of the week. Hopefully McCown and ASJ do a little bit better than Cutler and Thomas did last week.
Be Careful – Carson Palmer has a great matchup this week against the horrible Eagles secondary but he has been horribly inconsistent. I don’t feel confident trusting Palmer on the road, traveling across the country to face a rabid Eagles pass rush. Palmer could hang 5 TD’s on the Eagles but he could just as easily hang a donut if the Cardinals O line is unable to give him enough time to throw. Palmer is a good bet to take a lot of sacks this week given the current state of their offensive line and the talent level of the Eagles defensive line, but the Eagles secondary is so bad it warrants some consideration for Palmer. I am not going to trust Palmer in season long unless I’m desperate, but I will enter a few DFS lineups with Palmer this week.
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Giant US firm which makes Budweiser crushes tiny UK brewers - for naming beer after their children's primary school
US corporation Anheuser-Busch produces fruit-flavoured Belle-Vue beer
It claims customers may confuse its own beer with those made by Belleville
Belleville's two directors named their ale after their children's popular school
UK firm has just £1,000 in the bank and court action could bankrupt them
With just £1,000 in the bank and one part-time employee, the Belleville Brewing Company is hardly in a position to threaten the global dominance of the world’s biggest drinks producer.
But Anheuser-Busch, the powerful US corporation which numbers Budweiser among its brands, apparently thinks otherwise.
Lawyers acting on its behalf have written to the group of parents who run Belleville demanding that they drop the name or else face court action which could bankrupt them with legal fees. The US giant claims that customers could confuse Belleville’s ales and its own fruit-flavoured Belle-Vue beer.
Anheuser-Busch, which produces Belle-Vue beers, pictured left, has threatened a Wandsworth microbrewery called Belleville Brewing Company, pictured right, with legal action unless it changes it name
The heavy-handed intervention has shocked the fledgling British business, which is named after the popular state school attended by the children of Belleville’s two directors – real ale fans Adrian Thomas and Mark McGuinness-Smith.
Potential investors are also required to have a child at Belleville Primary in Wandsworth, South London, to ensure the small-scale enterprise retains its community links. Mr Thomas, 50, said: ‘The legal threat is ludicrous because the products are completely different.
‘Belle-Vue is a Belgian fruit-flavoured beer with a tart taste. Our beer is made with American yeast and hops and is more like a pale ale. None of the shops and pubs we supply are more than a few miles away.’
However, Anheuser-Busch – which last year generated revenue of nearly $40billion (£26 billion) – has made the extraordinary claim that consumers could confuse the two.
Shocked: Five of the founding members of the Belleville Brewing Company, pictured from left to right are Adrian Thomas, Mark NcGuinness, Guy Martin, Olivier Chatriot and Stephane Rognan, were stunned by the heavy-handed intervention
A warning letter, drafted by British lawyers hired by the Missouri-based company to protect its UK commercial interests, says: ‘Visually and aurally, Belle-Vue and Belleville share the first six letters in common and end with the same letter “e”.
‘Conceptually, both Belle-Vue and Belleville would be understood by the English-speaking consumer as signifying something beautiful.
‘As a result of this considerable degree of similarity . . . your use [of the name] is bound to lead to deception and confusion among the public and our clients’ consumers and potential customers.
‘Such use also enables you to take unfair advantage of, or free ride on, our clients’ reputation in the EU.’ The letter, from Bristol law firm Humphreys & Co, demands the destruction of all packaging and promotional material bearing the microbrewery’s name and the removal of any references to Belleville on the company’s website within 28 days.
Lawyers for Anheuser-Busch claims the name Belleville could easily be confused with Belle-Vue beers by English-speaking consumers
Anheuser-Busch claimed the level of similarity between the names would lead to deception and confusion
Mr Thomas, a musician who played guitar and keyboards with Tubular Bells creator Mike Oldfield in the 1990s – said his first instinct was to defy the threat of a High Court injunction. But after consulting colleagues, he decided a more prudent course would be to choose another name. One option under consideration is Northcote, the name of a road in Wandsworth.
Mr Thomas started home-brewing in his kitchen and offered his ale for the first time at a beer festival organised by the parent-teacher association at Belleville. His nine-year-old son, Callum, attends the school and elder son Jake, now 11, is a former pupil.
Mr Thomas added: ‘There is only one member of Belleville staff – me – and I don’t draw a salary.
‘The legal action must have been triggered when we registered the name. We feel coerced and bullied. It’s as if they’re saying, “We have more money than you, so you’ve got to do as we say.”
A UK spokesman for Anheuser-Busch, whose chief executive Carlos Brito last year received a £2.7 million bonus, said: ‘We are unable to comment on ongoing legal matters.’
No relation: Belleville School in London is entirely separate from the Belle-Vue brand of beer
Simple idea: Two directors of the Brewery suggested the name Belleville after the popular school their children attened in Wandsworth |
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A coalition of community and labour organizations have come together to present their views on necessary EI reforms as part of the pre-budget process.
Joint community and labour statement on the 2016 Budget, stimulus and EI
We urge the government to act quickly and decisively to restore the integrity of Canada's EI social insurance system.
In particular, it is vital that the 2016 Budget provide economic stimulus and be at the ready as the country prepares for difficult economic storms. As an earlier federal study found, EI is "the single most powerful automatic stabilizer" reducing both GDP and job losses by up to 14 per cent during recessions. Much of that earlier capacity has been lost with only 40 per cent of the unemployed now receiving EI benefits after years of repeated cutbacks.
We recommend the government delay any decision on premium changes and immediately begin the job of making much-needed improvements to EI. All are long overdue but will now also serve as strong economic stimulus in the 2016 Budget:
1. Repeal the 2012/13 EI changes.
This includes but is not limited to the punitive and discriminatory job search rules, a detrimental "best weeks" calculation for low-income workers, removal of the extended benefit pilot project, erosion of the "working while on claim" benefit for those taking casual work while unemployed, and the politically motivated addition of new EI regions in Prince Edward Island and Canada's North.
2. Move up EI improvements.
This includes the promised one-week waiting period and reforms to the EI Hours System that will expand access and restore reasonable benefit durations. The elimination of the 910-hour rule for new immigrants, young workers, and parents re-entering the labour force is an important down payment. But other reforms are urgently needed. EI must be allowed to do the job it's supposed to do in a labour market overflowing with precarious, temporary and part-time jobs and now facing a downturn.
3. Immediately address rampant problems with EI service delivery and appeals.
Staffing levels and in-person services have seriously declined, discouraging workers from pursuing a benefit claim. The appeal system is also suffering with the Social Security Tribunal that was introduced with the 2012 changes; the model requires fundamental reforms and restoration of the business-labour role.
4. Ensure there is an independent EI Account and that EI contributions are used exclusively to fund EI programs.
This includes the projected 2016 surplus, which should be used to pay for the highlighted improvements.
On behalf of the Interprovincial EI Working Group:
Unemployed Workers Help Centres, Saskatchewan
Alberta Federation of Labour
Community Unemployed Help Centre, Winnipeg
Good Jobs for All Coalition, Toronto
Canadian Labour Congress
Coalition de l'Est du Québec
Fédération des travailleurs et des travailleuses du Québec
Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi (MASSE)
Confédération des syndicats nationaux
Centrale des syndicats du Québec
Centrale des syndicats démocratiques
Public Sector Alliance of Canada – Atlantic
Nova Scotia Federation of Labour
New Brunswick Coalition Against EI Cuts
Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour
PEI Coalition for Fair EI
… and others.
Photo: Tania Liu/flickr
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A PIPER who played as doomed Scots footballers headed to their fate at the Battle of the Somme has finally been honoured – 90 years after his death.
In 1916, Sergeant William Duguid was pipe-major of “McCrae’s Battalion” of the 16th Royal Scots – dubbed “the sporting battalion.”
The 1,350 fighting men of the battalion were mostly amateur or professional sportsmen – with professional players and diehard fans of bitter rivals Hearts and Hibs fighting alongside one another.
Duguid piped the McCrae’s out of Edinburgh and then again at Southampton docks where the battalion set sail – bound for the Somme.
But it was his great sorrow that he was never able to play the pipes for the battalion on their return – as up to three quarters of the battalion were slaughtered in one of the bloodiest battles of WWI.
In spite of a prolific military career Duguid was buried in an unmarked grave, but yesterday (THURS) a memorial plaque was unveiled to mark his final resting place in Edinburgh to “right an old wrong.”
The plaque was unveiled to marked the centenary of the battalion’s departure for the front lines of WWI.
And it will also commemorate the battalion’s imposing Great Dane mascot, Jock.
The first volunteers for McCrae’s Battalion were 11 professional players from Heart of Midlothian – along with fellow players from Raith Rovers, Falkirk, Hibernian and Dunfermline.
The regiment was the first of the “footballers’ battalions” of the war – in a model that was replicated throughout the British military.
But on their first day over the top 810 of the battalion were killed or wounded in just half an hour of action.
When WWI broke out in 194 pipe-major Duguid was already a 40 year-old veteran of the Gordon Highlanders.
In 1897 he led his battalion in Pakistan, before fighting the Boers in South Africa.
After receiving an honourable discharge from the force he volunteered to join up again when WWI broke out.
Pipers in Scottish battalions often doubled as stretcher bearers in battle – and on the first day of the Somme Duguid dodged bullets from german machine guns to rescue wounded comrades.
But friends said that after the bloody battle he was left broken, before dying in 1929 at 53 year-old.
His family could not afford a headstone at his resting place at Piershill Cemetery in Edinburgh – a state of affairs now set to right by the McCrae’s Battalion Trust.
James Alexander – the historian behind the design of the memorial – said: “It’s another piece of the jigsaw puzzle.
“We need to keep the tradition of remembrance alive among young people.
“McCrae’s Battalion were very idealistic, optimistic young men and it all ended in tragedy. This commemorates the gravestone of the man who led them to France.
“He was an older man who suffered watching his young comrades wiped out.”
At the ceremony today an honour guard from The Royal Regiment of Scotland unveiled the memorial plaque, which also marks the final resting place of his daughter Euphemia and wife Fanny. |
Vin Testa, 26, a math teacher in Washington, D.C., who is also an L.G.B.T. liaison for the district’s public schools, said the changes in relationships between straight and gay men have been so rapid that he sees a significant difference just since he graduated from high school. One of his greatest obstacles in coming out, he said, was something he thinks many gay men share: “the intense fear of losing those masculine friendships we have had.”
As it happened, the main impetus for Mr. Testa to come out in college was discovering that friends from his high school football team were “the ones who most wanted me to do it,” he said. “They were honestly concerned for me.”
Mr. Gregory, the Irish author, thinks that one connecting point for the younger generation is the proliferation of geek culture. “It’s technology, superhero movies, Pokémon Go and even some indie rock,” he said. “They’re all part of an often male culture that young gay guys feel part of, too.”
For men of an older generation, there is more distrust to surmount. “Our traditional way of thinking of relationships with gay and straight men is that they are hostile, even bullying,” said Michael LaSala, 57, the author of “Coming Out, Coming Home: Helping Families Adjust to a Gay or Lesbian Child.” “For that reason, gay men have traditionally not felt comfortable in these relationships.”
Mr. LaSala, who is gay, said he could not imagine being close friends with a straight man when he was in his 20s. In the last few years, however, he has formed a warm bond with Dr. Robert Garfield, 70, a straight man who wrote the book “Breaking the Male Code: Unlocking the Power of Friendship.” The two lecture together on the negative effects of homophobia on straight and gay males.
“My relationship with Michael, and with other gay men, is wonderful for me,” Dr. Garfield said. “It expands me as a human being. There’s a playfulness in talking about sex that I don’t hear from my straight male friends.” |
ooblick.com Where it is always time to make the doughnuts
How Not to Embarrass Yourself in an Argument With an Atheist
Copyright © 1996 Andrew Arensburger
[This section is provided as a public service. Feel free to distribute freely, so long as you give me credit for it.]
Judging by the number of people on the streets preaching the gospel of Jesus, there seems to be a fair amount of interest in converting people to Christianity. In light of this, it is interesting that any number of other religions still exist; Christianity is not universally accepted as the One True Faith.
Why is this? I suspect that the answer lies, at least in part, in the fact that many Christians find the tenets of their faith so blindingly obvious that they have trouble "stepping outside," so to speak, to see what their arguments look like to non-believers.
Imagine that you are at a party one evening, and it turns out that one of the guests doesn't believe that the sun rises in the morning. How do you convince him? Of course the sun rises! But it's so obvious that it's hard to prove. You could say, ``the Earth rotates, so that the sun appears to rise above the horizon.'' Is that a better or a worse argument than ``I've seen the sun rise many times''?
It's as plain as the nose on your face, but just like your nose, you might need a mirror to see it.
Fortunately, for religious arguments, there is a simple technique: take your original argument, substitute some other faith, and see how convincing it sounds to you.
Let's take, for example, the argument that ``Millions have found purpose in life through Jesus. Their lives have been enriched beyond measure by the Bible.'' This is undoubtedly true, but just how convincing is it to someone who isn't already a Christian? To find out, let's turn it around: ``Millions have found purpose in life through the prophet Mohammed. Their lives have been enriched beyond measure by the Koran.''
Now raise your hand if you've just had a sudden urge to convert to Islam. I said, raise your hand if... anyone? No? Hmmm...
All right, what about ``The Bible is thousands of years old. There must be something to it, for it to have survived that long!'' Once again, let's turn that around: ``The Tao Te Ching is 2500 years old. There must be something to it, for it to have survived that long!''
Doesn't really want to make you want to rush out and become a Taoist, does it?
And what about that hoary old chestnut, Pascal's wager? For those who aren't familiar with it, it goes like this: we don't know whether God exists or not, so you have two choices: to worship God or not. If you worship God, then either He exists and you win eternal life, or He doesn't and you haven't lost anything. If you don't, then either God exists and you lose big time, or He doesn't, and it doesn't matter. Hence, if you worship God, then you can't lose; if you don't, you can't win.
One of the problems with this argument is that it doesn't specify any particular religion. This argument applies equally well to Jesus, Allah and Krishna, not to mention Odin, Zeus and Pirun. How does it convince someone to become a Christian, and not a Jew or a Buddhist?
Also, don't forget that atheists don't believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, since they don't believe in God in the first place. So any argument based on the assumption that the Bible is the word of God is going to fall flat. For example, ``The Bible contains many examples of prophecies that came true. Surely, this means that it is of supernatural, if not divine, origin'' might become `` The Lord of the Rings predicts several events, such as the death of Boromir, the reapparance of Gandalf, and Aragorn's ascension to the throne, which later come true. Surely it must be of supernatural origin.''
Likewise, ``Jesus loves you and wants you to be happy'' is as convincing to a non-Christian as ``Barney loves you and wants you to be happy.''
Now, how about a counterexample? One show on National Public Radio featured a doctor who had written a book on the healing power of prayer. He described a number of studies, at least one of which was written up the highly-respected New England Journal of Medicine, that showed that patients who were prayed for tended to do better on average than ones who weren't. He said that the researchers had specifically considered psychosomatic effects: in one such study, the first names of half of the patients were given to organizations that pray for patients; neither the doctors nor nurses knew which of their patients were being prayed for, and the people doing the praying did not know anything about the people they were praying for. And yet, the group that was prayed for did better than the control group. In fact, the radio guest added, this effect is not limited to people: if people prayed for a specific bacterial culture, that culture would tend to grow faster than one that wasn't prayed for.
If you turn this around, say by replacing ``praying for Bob'' with ``standing on one foot and writing `Bob' on a piece of paper,'' and assuming that the facts check out, then this still remains a good argument. It may not make you want to run out and convert, but the next time you're sick, you might at least want to think about asking someone to stand on one foot and write your name on a piece of paper.
See also Ebon Muse's How Not to Convert an Atheist. |
This is not “open and armed”—supporting a global marketplace abroad with stronger support for the vulnerable at home. It is a GOP that talks the Trump talk and walks the Ryan walk; a demagogue drawing support from angry, white, working class voters whose party is beholden to the very policies that have fed those voters’ frustration.
Consider the ways that Trump’s haphazard heterodoxies have already merged with GOP religion, as Matt Yglesias has recounted. He has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would cause millions of low-income people to lose health insurance. His tax proposal would give the 1 percent an average tax cut of $275,000. It would also increase the deficit by almost $10 trillion, forcing cuts that would almost certainly be borne by the poor (when not accounting for Trump’s sacred cows of defense, Medicare, and Social Security, government spending is pretty progressive).
Meanwhile Paul Ryan’s budget is not a weapon against the multinational companies that Trump excoriates on the stump. In contrast, A Better Way stands firmly behind the economic principle that multinational corporations should keep more money. The most significant disagreement between his tax plan and Trump’s is that Ryan “would exempt foreign income of U.S. multinationals from tax,” as the Tax Policy Center’s Howard Gleckman explained. A Better Way has many fuzzy promises about elevating evidence-based policy to help the poor. But apparently no randomized controlled trials are required to reach the conclusion that millionaires get tax cuts.
I do not think that Paul Ryan wants people to be poor. But his welfare reform philosophy amounts to telling low-income families to try harder—which is, at best, insufficient and, at worst, cruel. His most specific policy recommendations include strengthening the work requirements for welfare and food stamps and reducing unemployment-insurance spending by nudging people back to work, adopting the philosophy of 1996’s welfare reform.
The legacy of President Bill Clinton’s reform is complicated. But most experts agree that welfare reform failed the most vulnerable by obliterating the safety net for the poorest single parents. The male participation rate has fallen more since 1996 than it fell in the 20 years before 1996. That’s astonishing, given that one goal of welfare reform was to get people to work.
There is something wrong with the U.S. economy that work requirements alone cannot fix. Two of the major reasons for the strange and terrible decline in working prime-age men is the rise in prison incarceration (and the difficulty of former felons to find work) and the structural decline of manufacturing and construction work. But A Better Way pledges to solve the problem without grappling with the root causes.
There are straightforward ways to help displaced workers and families in poverty. But many of these ideas involve the politically toxic notion that a fabulously rich country should send more money to vulnerable workers and children in poverty. As a share of GDP, the United States spends one-eighth of what Germany devotes to retraining workers and and one-third of what France spends on early education. With relatively low redistribution spending, the U.S. has the highest after-tax inequality in the OECD. |
We admit it, denim isn't the obvious choice for cycling. However, if you're anything like us, your time out of the saddle is seen through "denim-goggles." Not surprisingly, Levi's observed our daily style and forced the question on us, why not wear denim on your commutes? And with its new Commuter Trucker Jacket, we find ourselves asking the same question. Why not? This isn't some run-of-the-mill, one-off attempt at appeasing a subculture. Instead, Levi's worked closely with cyclists in multiple cities around America, distributing prototypes and accepting feedback. And, as a result of developing the jacket in accordance to critique, Levi's effectively dialed-in the fit, accoutrement, and finishes to what cyclists are actually asking for. Accordingly, Levi's adapted its staple denim jacket to the purpose of cycling. The Commuter Trucker features a water-resistant and dirt-repellent NanoSphere protective finish to make commuting in hostile weather a little more acceptable, especially if your destination is the office. It's for this very reason that Levi's also incorporated an odor-resistant Sanitized finish to the jacket, too. So, clever compositions aside, Levi's also gave the Trucker a cycling-specific cut. What does this mean? To start, the rear hem has been elongated in order to provide additional coverage while you're stretched out over the bars. Additionally, the arms have been lengthened for the same reason. Levi's has also created the pattern of the Trucker on a slight contour with built-in stretch panels running parallel with the torso. You'll also find specific features for cycling like a large flapped-vent across the back panel. Additionally, the elongated tail is capable of being moved up and out of the way with button closures. Furthermore, you're also able to let in or let out the waist hem with button closures. For storage on your rides, the Trucker features a large rear cargo pocket, two buttoned chest pockets, and two hand pockets. And to increa... |
Tag Oil has won approval to drill oil 220 metres from the Egmont National Park despite opposition from local iwi.
The consent will allow the company, one of the key players in the energy industry in the province, to establish and test up to eight oil and gas exploration wells, and to establish oil and gas production facilities at Mahoe.
An independent hearing was held last month involving representatives from Tag Oil and Ngati Haua Whanui Inc, a subsidiary of Ngaruahine.
Nga Hapu o Ngaruahine Iwi Inc executive chair Daisy Noble said she only learned of the commissioner's decision when the Taranaki Daily News contacted her for a comment yesterday.
Mrs Noble said she would first have to read the approved consent before commenting further.
Tag Oil New Zealand country manager Randy Toone told the hearing last month the company was determined its activities would operate in a way that "minimises potential effects" on the environment and neighbouring landowners.
"We're committed to being good neighbours and envisage our operations continuing long term in Taranaki," he said.
But the proximity of the site to the national park upset Omahuru Robinson, of Ngaruahine, who said the mere thought that the proposal would allow the desecration of whenua, or land, to take place "at the back door" was an "absolute disgrace".
In a decision report dated November 13 , commissioner Mick Lester said the application for consent was "consistent with the purpose and principles" of the Resource Management Act 1991.
The consent was granted subjected to conditions which include Tag Oil giving Stratford District Council no less than five days notice of the start date for both wellsite construction and drilling of each well.
Noise levels are to be 55dba between 7am to 10pm, and 45dba between 10pm to 7am, daily.
Flaring is only permitted at the site in response to an emergency situation or as required to prepare the gas flow for flaring.
Land disturbed by earthworks, trenching, or where dust is created from traffic use are subjected to dust suppression measures.
The secretary of Ngaruahine Iwi Authority shall be immediately notified should any artefact, taonga, koiwi or other archaeological or cultural evidence is unearthed. Construction work shall cease immediately around the affected area. |
The Australian-made Crash the Super Bowl entry “Finger Cleaner” is pretty disgusting. It’s gross and it’s weird and its thinly-veiled sexual subtext is completely outrageous. And you know what? That’s why I love this commercial. I didn’t think the CTSB judges would have the stones to pick Finger Cleaner for the Top 5 but I guess I was wrong. (Apparently they were serious when they told their fans they wanted “bold” submissions.) Finger Cleaner is so crazy and so hilarious that it actually went viral about 2 months before it even made the semi-finals. And when the ad was announced as an official finalist on January 2nd, Finger Cleaner was shared by so many people that it gained almost 300,000 views in a day. With three days left to go in the online voting, the commercial is up to 2.6 million views and 5,252 shares. Compare that to the finalist in 2nd place in the (unofficial) view count race; Time Machine. That ad has proved to be pretty popular too but it’s only earned 1,120,438 views and 574 shares.
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Views and shares don’t actually count in this contest but they’re a good indicator of how an entry is doing in the public voting. Finger Cleaner is getting so much positive media coverage and so many social media shares that it’s probably going to win the online poll in a landslide. The finalist that gets the most votes is supposed to air during Superbowl XLVIII and the creator is supposed to automatically win a million dollars. But ever since Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, the networks that broadcast the Super Bowl have been trying to keep the event squeaky-clean and controversy-free. Every year there are a few stories about Super Bowl ads that are rejected because they’re “too hot for TV” or because they might offend viewers. Advertisers such as Godaddy have realized that they can get some free press attention just by submitting Super Bowl ads that they know will get rejected. It’s a win-win situation for sponsors because these “controversial” ads go viral but the company doesn’t have to pay 3 million bucks to air it during the Super Bowl. Case in point, this Godaddy ad that was rejected CBS last year…
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That was pretty lame. I doubt Godaddy ever actually wanted to air that 49 second-long commercial during the Super Bowl. (They wound up airing a shorter, less-gross version of this spot) But because it was officially “rejected,” Godaddy could call it “too hot for TV” and post it on youtube. Since January 2013 that commercial has been seen more than 1.6 million times and those views didn’t cost Godaddy a dime.
The day after Doritos revealed their finalists, The Today Show aired and discussed the other selected ads (Office Thief, Breakroom Ostrich, Cowboy Kid and Time Machine) but at the end of the segment, Matt Lauer said:
“Now, there was a fifth finalist, but after watch it 37 times, I decided, and so did some other people here that it was not right for morning TV. So we’re gonna put that on our website and you can go to Today.com and check that one out.”
If you went to Today.com and looked for their story about the Crash the Super Bowl contest, you’d see that the headline they used was “See 5 Super Bowl ads competing for $1M and the one that couldn’t air on TV.” The article does include Finger Cleaner but states that it was “too provocative for TV.”
If The Today Show couldn’t show Finger Cleaner, will FOX be able to air it during the new G-rated Super Bowl? The commercial is so bizarre and so suggestive that I’ve had a creeping suspicion that Doritos picked it because they thought it might get rejected by FOX. If the ad didn’t get approved, the company could just air another Crash the Super Bowl commercial but they would still get millions of free viral views from Finger Cleaner.
But that plan doesn’t really seem like Frito-Lay’s style. So I contacted the company and asked what would happen if Finger Cleaner won the online vote but was rejected by the network. The Senior Director of Public Relations for Frito-Lay North America, Chris Kuechenmeister (AKA one of the top Crash the Super Bowl judges) sent me back a pleasantly definitive answer:
“All five finalist spots have been approved by FOX and the NFL. Two of the five finalist spots will air during the Super Bowl – one selected by the world’s votes, the other by the Doritos brand team.”
So that’s that! If Finger Cleaner wins the online vote CAN air during the Super Bowl. And that’s great news for everyone who thinks there aren’t enough glory holes for cheesy fingers on TV!
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Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design
The new Twitter for Mac is somewhat polarizing, what with its almost entirely custom UI. I used to have a fervor for uniform consistency in Mac UI design. A perusal through the early DF archives will show that. But the HIG is dead. It died long ago. And it was Apple that killed it. In Mac OS 9 (and prior), no one’s apps were more uniformly consistent to the HIG standards than Apple’s own. In Mac OS X, Apple began experimenting — especially in their flagship apps. Whether this change has been for better or for worse is certainly debatable, but there can be no debate that the mores of Mac UI designers have changed. Apple sets the tone, for better or for worse. Always has, always will. (No one but Apple could have made Brushed Metal popular.)
This piece today by Tim Morgan offers a detailed and thoughtful critique of the Mac App Store titlebar/toolbar and the new Twitter for Mac — but it’s a critique from the perspective of a critic who still believes in HIG-rooted uniformity.
I spent a few minutes there trying to think of a way to rewrite the preceding sentence without that but. That but sounds dismissive, like I’m using it to say that his criticism, no matter how accurate, can be dismissed, because he still subscribes to a set of standards from a bygone era. That’s not why I used that but, though. (Or, to be honest, at least not only why.) It’s simply that when you read Morgan’s piece — and if you haven’t already, you should as soon as you finish this sentence — it’s worth keeping in mind which of his criticisms fall under “this is non-standard” and which fall under “this isn’t good design”.
There’s a conservative/liberal sort of fork in UI design, in the sense of traditional/non-traditional. The conservatives see non-standard custom UI elements as wrong. Liberals see an app built using nothing other than standard system UI elements as boring, old-fashioned, stodgy.
“This is non-standard” criticisms will thus generate one of two responses. “Agreed, that’s wrong” say the conservatives. “So what?” say the liberals.
“This isn’t good design” criticisms, however, if accurate, are the sort of thing most designers ought to agree with, regardless of their position on the conservative/liberal UI design spectrum. The problem is that once you see that a certain piece of UI criticism is coming from someone at a distant position from yours on the conservative/liberal design spectrum, there’s a natural tendency to close your mind and discount everything they say.
To be clear, here’s the app we’re talking about:
No title bar. Completely custom close/minimize/zoom buttons (which ignore your system-wide settings for color; no red/yellow/green for you). You drag the window using that black sidebar. It’s all set in Helvetica (like iOS apps), not Lucida Grande (like Mac apps).
But let’s also be clear about where the app is coming from: Loren Brichter’s Tweetie for Mac:
Brichter, now a full-time employee of Twitter, is still the app’s primary developer. It’s been renamed from “Tweetie” to “Twitter”, but the version number has gone to 2.0 because what we have today is the next version of the same app. You can see it in the screenshots. Same direction, just further out there.
Morgan’s complaints about the Mac App Store app and his initial remarks about Twitter are of the conservative variety: non-standard windows and UI elements are wrong. But then there’s this:
Clicking on the different tabs in the main window (tweets, lists, mentions, etc.) reveals the corresponding content with a “slide out” animation. Upon opening the application, you are presented with your timeline. Click the “@” and your mentions slide out on top of the timeline. Click the timeline again, and you would expect perhaps for the mentions to slide back in, revealing your timeline, but instead your timeline slides out on top of your mentions. This endless sliding out creates a sensation of “stacking” UI views infinitely on top of each other, when in fact you are merely switching between six different tab views.
That’s quite astute, and pinpoints something I found mildly unsettling about the new Twitter for Mac but couldn’t put my finger on. iOS uses these sliding animations to give you a sense of place. The canonical example is Mail on the iPhone. It’s a four-column design: accounts, mailboxes, message list, message contents. You slide left to right, visually, as you navigate between columns. You can’t see more than one column at a time, but the animations help give you a sense of where you are. It’s because of the animation that Apple could make a four-column layout with a screen that was only 320 pixels wide.
Twitter for iPhone follows this model to a T: accounts, tweets, tweet details — arranged left to right, with animation as you move between them. In today’s new Twitter for Mac, though, the sliding animations when you switch between tabs add nothing contextually. They’re not merely harmless eye candy, either. As Morgan notes, these animations create a false sense of stacking where no stack exists. They’re technically excellent,1 but conceptually misleading.2
That’s the sort of criticism that should register regardless of one’s position on the standard-vs.-custom UI design spectrum.
As for where things are going, I think this new Twitter for Mac and the iPad-esque Mac App Store app are it. Morgan closes with a reference to yours truly:
Gruber once said (and for the life of me I can’t find the quote) that the difference between the Mac OS and iOS is that you don’t need to be a designer to make a good-looking Mac app: Apple provides you the assets you need; if you adhere to common sense and the HIG, you will create a good-looking (if not unique) application. On the iOS, all the best apps have had enormous amounts of design effort invested in them. As the App Store (and OS X 10.7) blur the lines between iOS and Mac OS, I fear we may lose this distinction as well.
Whether you think this is a good thing or not, there’s no use fearing it. Apple’s passion for UI uniformity went away with the six-color logo. Change is inevitable. Individuality is the new norm. Mac UI design is only just starting to take influence from iOS UI design. |
By Danny Yadron, Shira Ovide and William Launder
A pro-Syrian government group appeared to attack more than 10 websites, including Twitter, the New York Times and HuffingtonPost.com, said security researchers citing digital evidence.
The attacks by the Syrian Electronic Army, a group of hackers that supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, come as the U.S. is considering action against Syria. In the past, the group has taken action against media organizations and websites it believes are sympathetic to Syrian rebels.
The websites, including the Huffington Post’s U.K. website, appeared to be compromised Tuesday by the group, said a security researcher who had seen digital evidence. HuffingtonPost confirmed the attack and said there was a “minimal disruption of service.”
The hackers, meantime, repeatedly claimed they had taken over Twitter’s Internet address, though they appeared to be unsuccessful.
The social media site never appeared to lose service. (The hackers used their own Twitter account to claim they had hacked the social-media website.) |
The former Soviet states are a wild place. That much we know for sure. So if you see a dash cam video posted on YouTube with Cyrillic characters somewhere in the description, you can be reasonably certain that something crazy is going to happen in it.
Something like this Ukrainian logging truck taking a shit in the middle of a busy road on Sunday. The Odessa Forum reported that the truck's brakes had failed and that the accident was unavoidable. Luckily, no one was seriously injured. The truck driver walked away with a concussion.
The car in front of the camera and the truck were pretty much destroyed, but how stoked was the guy driving that little red station wagon? Whoever it was escaped in the nick of time, with the kind of perfectly choreographed disaster avoidance George Lucas and Steven Spielberg used in that boulder scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. |
Traffic chokes up the M5 motorway in Somerset. PA
New petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK from 2040 as part of a government effort to reduce pollution.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove confirmed on Wednesday morning that vehicles powered solely by fossil fuels will no longer be allowed to be sold after the deadline.
The measure was one of several planned by ministers in response to a legal ruling by the High Court, which demanded they take further action to improve the country's air quality.
In an interview on the BBC's "Today" programme, Gove confirmed the commitment, which was briefed overnight to newspapers.
He said: "The Conservatives had a manifesto promise to ensure that by 2050 there would be no diesel or petrol vehicles on our road. Today we're confirming that should mean no new diesel or petrol vehicles by 2040."
He said the ruling will put Britain in "a position of global leadership", alongside the government of France, which announced a similar policy— also with a 2040 deadline — at the beginning of the month.
More details on the policy — and other measures, including partial bans and charges on driving existing diesel vehicles — are expected to be included in a plan published by the Department for Rural Affairs and the Environment on Wednesday.
The government was forced into making its plans public after it lost a legal battle with environmental campaigners in the High Court in November 2016.
The court demanded that ministers publish full plans by July 31. Draft measures published in May will be superseded by the final plan on Wednesday. |
Milligram A minimalist CSS framework Getting Started
Why it's awesome Milligram provides a minimal setup of styles for a fast and clean starting point. Just it! Only 2kb gzipped! It's not about a UI framework. Specially designed for better performance and higher productivity with fewer properties to reset resulting in cleaner code. Hope you enjoy! Do you want to star it, tweet it, or share it with anyone? So do it! This means a lot to me ♥
Getting Started There are some ways to get started. First, see all download options available below, then choose the most suitable option for your need. Now you should add the main file of the Milligram and the CSS Reset in the header of your project. Just that! Download Milligram Install with Bower Milligram is available to install using Bower. $ bower install milligram Install with npm Milligram is also available to install using npm. $ npm install milligram Install with Yarn Milligram is also available to install using Yarn. $ yarn add milligram What's included Once downloaded, extract the compressed folder to see the main file in the uncompressed and minified version. milligram/ ├── examples/ │ └── index.html ├── dist/ │ ├── milligram.css │ └── milligram.min.css ├── license └── readme.md Usage First, use any method mentioned above to download Milligram. Then, just add these tags in the head. Milligram is also available via CDN. CLI A CLI for getting started with Milligram. It offers a super simple boilerplate project with Milligram. $ npm install -g milligram-cli Create a new app using the command milligram init , then install dependencies and run with npm start . $ milligram init new_app $ cd new_app $ npm start See more examples of getting started here.
Typography CSS3 introduces a few new units, including the rem unit, which stands for "root em". The rem unit is relative to the font-size of the root element html . That means that we can define a single font size on the root element, and define all rem units to be a percentage of that. The typography has font-size defined in 1.6rem (16px) and line-height in 1.6 (24px). Milligram uses the font-family Roboto, created by Christian Robertson , and provided by Google. Heading h1 4.6rem (46px) Heading h2 3.6rem (36px) Heading h3 2.8rem (28px) Heading h4 2.2rem (22px) Heading h5 1.8rem (18px) Heading h6 1.6rem (16px) The base type is 1.6rem (16px) over 1.6 line height (24px) Anchor Emphasis Small Strong Underline Heading Heading Heading Heading Heading Heading See more examples of typography here.
Blockquotes The Blockquote represents a section that is quoted from another source. Yeah!! Milligram is amazing. Yeah!! Milligram is amazing. See more examples of blockquotes here.
Buttons The Button, an essential part of any user experience. Buttons come in three basic styles in Milligram: The button element has flat color by default, whereas .button-outline has a simple outline around, and .button-clear is entirely clear. Default Button Outlined Button Default Button Outlined Button See more examples of buttons here.
Lists The List is a very versatile and common way to display items. Milligram has three types of lists: The unordered list use ul element will be marked with a outline circles, the ordered list use ol element and your items will be marked with numbers, the description list use dl element and your items will not be marking, only spacings. Unordered list item 1
Unordered list item 2 Ordered list item 1 Ordered list item 2 Description list item 1 Description list item 1.1 Unordered list item 1
Unordered list item 2 Ordered list item 1 Ordered list item 2 Description list item 1 Description list item 1.1 See more examples of lists here.
Forms The Form has never been exactly fun, and it can be downright painful on a mobile device with its on-screen keyboard. Milligram help to make this much easier with design focused on the user experience. Name Age Range 0-13 14-17 18-23 24+ Comment Send a copy to yourself Name Age Range 0-13 14-17 18-23 24+ Comment Send a copy to yourself See more examples of forms here.
Tables The Table element represents data in two dimensions or more. We encourage the use of proper formatting with thead and tbody to create a table . The code becomes cleaner without disturbing understanding. Name Age Height Location Stephen Curry 27 1,91 Akron, OH Klay Thompson 25 2,01 Los Angeles, CA Name Age Height Location Stephen Curry 27 1,91 Akron, OH Klay Thompson 25 2,01 Los Angeles, CA See more examples of tables here.
Grids The Grid is a fluid system with a max width of 112.0rem (1120px) , that shrinks with the browser/device at smaller sizes. The max width can be changed with one line of CSS and all columns will resize accordingly. Milligram is different than most because of its use of the CSS Flexible Box Layout Module standard. The advantage is the simplicity, and we know that a functional code is very important for maintainability and scalability. Simply add columns you want in a row, and they'll evenly take up the available space. If you want three columns, add three columns, if you want five columns, add five columns. There is no restriction on number of columns, but we advise you to follow a design pattern of grid system. See more tips on best practices in the tips. .column .column .column .column .column .column-50.column-offset-25 .column .column .column .column .column .column column-50 column-offset-25 See more examples of grids here.
Codes The Code element represents a fragment of computer code. Just wrap anything in a code and it will appear like this. if you need a block, by default, enter the code within the pre element. .milligram { color: #9b4dca; } .milligram { color: #9b4dca; } See more code examples here.
Utilities Milligram has some functional classes to improve the performance and productivity everyday. See more examples of utilities here.
Tips Tips, techniques, and best practice on using Cascading Style Sheets. Mobile First The Mobile First is the design strategy that takes priority development for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. It means all styles outside of a media queries apply to all devices, then larger screens are targeted for enhancement. This prevents small devices from having to parse tons of unused CSS. Milligram use some breakpoints like these: Larger than Mobile screen: 40.0rem (640px)
screen: 40.0rem Larger than Tablet screen: 80.0rem (1280px)
screen: 80.0rem Larger than Desktop screen: 120.0rem (1920px) /* Mobile First Media Queries */ /* Base style */ { ... } /* Larger than mobile screen */ @media (min-width: 40.0rem) { ... } /* Larger than tablet screen */ @media (min-width: 80.0rem) { ... } /* Larger than desktop screen */ @media (min-width: 120.0rem) { ... } Embed Font Milligram uses the font-family Roboto, created by Christian Robertson , and provided by Google. Customize your projects using Google Fonts. To embed your selected fonts into a webpage, copy this code into the of your HTML document. /* Embed Font */ /* Use the following CSS rules to specify these families */ body { font-family: 'Roboto Slab', serif; } of your HTML document. Extending The Inheritances The style of an element can be defined in several different locations, which interact in a complex way. It is this form of interaction makes CSS powerful, but it can make it confusing and difficult to debug. Default .buttonOutlined .buttonClear .button .button-black.button-black.button-black .button-small.button-small.button-small .button-large.button-large.button-large /* Extending The Inheritances */ /* Custom color */ .button-black { background-color: black; border-color: black; } .button-black.button-clear, .button-black.button-outline { background-color: transparent; color: black; } .button-black.button-clear { border-color: transparent; } /* Custom size */ .button-small { font-size: .8rem; height: 2.8rem; line-height: 2.8rem; padding: 0 1.5rem; } .button-large { font-size: 1.4rem; height: 4.5rem; line-height: 4.5rem; padding: 0 2rem; } See more examples of tips here.
Browser Support While not designed for old browsers, Milligram has support for some old versions, but we recommend using the latest versions of their browsers. Brave latest
Chrome latest
Edge latest
Firefox latest
IE latest
Opera latest
Safari latest See more examples of browser support here. |
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat (;[2] Arabic: محمد أنور السادات Muḥammad Anwar as-Sādāt, Egyptian: [muħæmmæd ˈʔɑnwɑɾ essæˈdæːt]; 25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. Sadat was a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under whom he served as Vice President twice and whom he succeeded as President in 1970.
In his eleven years as president, he changed Egypt's trajectory, departing from many of the political and economic tenets of Nasserism, re-instituting a multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy. As President, he led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to regain Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab World. Afterwards, he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty; this won him and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace Prize, making Sadat the first Muslim Nobel laureate. Although reaction to the treaty—which resulted in the return of Sinai to Egypt—was generally favorable among Egyptians,[3] it was rejected by the country's Muslim Brotherhood and the left, which felt Sadat had abandoned efforts to ensure a Palestinian state.[3] With the exception of Sudan, the Arab world and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) strongly opposed Sadat's efforts to make a separate peace with Israel without prior consultations with the Arab states.[3] His refusal to reconcile with them over the Palestinian issue resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989.[4][5][6][7] The peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination; on 6 October 1981, militants led by Khalid Islambouli opened fire on Sadat with automatic rifles during the 6 October parade in Cairo, killing him.
Early life and revolutionary activities
Anwar Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu El Kom, Monufia, Egypt to a poor Nubian family, one of 13 brothers and sisters.[8] One of his brothers, Atef Sadat, later became a pilot and was killed in action during the October War of 1973.[9] His father, Anwar Mohammed El Sadat was an Upper Egyptian, and his mother, Sit Al-Berain, was Sudanese from her father.[10][11]
He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938[12] and was appointed to the Signal Corps. He entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted to Sudan (Egypt and Sudan were one country at the time). There, he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, and along with several other junior officers they formed the secret Free Officers,[13] a movement committed to freeing Egypt and Sudan from British domination, and royal corruption.
During the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. Anwar Sadat was active in many political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the fascist Young Egypt, the pro-palace Iron Guard of Egypt, and the secret military group called the Free Officers.[14] Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk on 23 July of that year. Sadat was assigned to announce the news of the revolution to the Egyptian people over the radio networks.
During Nasser's presidency
During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed minister of State in 1954. He was also appointed editor of the newly founded daily Al Gomhuria.[15] In 1959, he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly (1960–1968) and then vice president and member of the presidential council in 1964. He was reappointed as vice president again in December 1969.
Presidency
Some of the major events of Sadat's presidency were his "Corrective Revolution" to consolidate power, the break with Egypt's long-time ally and aid-giver the USSR, the 1973 October War with Israel, the Camp David peace treaty with Israel, the "opening up" (or Infitah) of Egypt's economy, and lastly his assassination in 1981.
1972 Echo newsreel about the early Sadat years
Sadat succeeded Nasser as president after the latter's death in October 1970.[16] Sadat's presidency was widely expected to be short-lived.[17] Viewing him as having been little more than a puppet of the former president, Nasser's supporters in government settled on Sadat as someone they could manipulate easily. Sadat surprised everyone with a series of astute political moves by which he was able to retain the presidency and emerge as a leader in his own right.[18] On 15 May 1971,[19] Sadat announced his Corrective Revolution, purging the government, political and security establishments of the most ardent Nasserists. Sadat encouraged the emergence of an Islamist movement, which had been suppressed by Nasser. Believing Islamists to be socially conservative he gave them "considerable cultural and ideological autonomy" in exchange for political support.[20]
In 1971, three years into the War of Attrition in the Suez Canal zone, Sadat endorsed in a letter the peace proposals of UN negotiator Gunnar Jarring, which seemed to lead to a full peace with Israel on the basis of Israel's withdrawal to its pre-war borders. This peace initiative failed as neither Israel nor the United States of America accepted the terms as discussed then.
Corrective Revolution
Shortly after taking office, Sadat shocked many Egyptians by dismissing and imprisoning two of the most powerful figures in the regime, Vice President Ali Sabri, who had close ties with Soviet officials, and Sharawy Gomaa, the Interior Minister, who controlled the secret police.[17] Sadat's rising popularity would accelerate after he cut back the powers of the hated secret police,[17] expelled Soviet military from the country and reformed the Egyptian army for a renewed confrontation with Israel.[17]
Yom Kippur War
On 6 October 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Sadat launched the October War, also known as the Yom Kippur War (and less commonly as the Ramadan War), a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula,[21] and the Syrian Golan Heights in an attempt to retake these respective Egyptian and Syrian territories that had been occupied by Israel since the Six Day War six years earlier. The Egyptian and Syrian performance in the initial stages of the war astonished both Israel, and the Arab World. The most striking achievement (Operation Badr, also known as The Crossing) was the Egyptian military's advance approximately 15 km into the occupied Sinai Peninsula after penetrating and largely destroying the Bar Lev Line. This line was popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain.
As the war progressed, three divisions of the Israeli army led by General Ariel Sharon had crossed the Suez Canal, trying to encircle first the Egyptian Second Army. Although this failed, prompted by an agreement between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 338 on 22 October 1973, calling for an immediate ceasefire.[22] Although agreed upon, the ceasefire was immediately broken.[23] Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, cancelled an official meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen to travel to Egypt where he tried to persuade Sadat to sign a peace treaty. During Kosygin's two-day long stay it is unknown if he and Sadat ever met in person.[24] The Israeli military then continued their drive to encircle the Egyptian army. The encirclement was completed on 24 October, three days after the ceasefire was broken. This development prompted superpower tension, but a second ceasefire was imposed cooperatively on 25 October to end the war. At the conclusion of hostilities, Israeli forces were 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Damascus and 101 kilometres (63 mi) from Cairo.[25]
Peace with Israel
The initial Egyptian and Syrian victories in the war restored popular morale throughout Egypt and the Arab World and, for many years after, Sadat was known as the "Hero of the Crossing". Israel recognized Egypt as a formidable foe, and Egypt's renewed political significance eventually led to regaining and reopening the Suez Canal through the peace process. His new peace policy led to the conclusion of two agreements on disengagement of forces with the Israeli government. The first of these agreements was signed on 18 January 1974, and the second on 4 September 1975.
One major aspect of Sadat's peace policy was to gain some religious support for his efforts. Already during his visit to the US in October–November 1975, he invited Evangelical pastor Billy Graham for an official visit, which was held a few days after Sadat's visit.[27] In addition to cultivating relations with Evangelical Christians in the US, he also built some cooperation with the Vatican. On 8 April 1976, he visited the Vatican for the first time, and got a message of support from Pope Paul VI regarding achieving peace with Israel, to include a just solution to the Palestinian issue.[28] Sadat, on his part, extended to the Pope a public invitation to visit Cairo.[29]
Sadat also used the media to promote his purposes. In an interview he gave to the Lebanese paper El Hawadeth in early February 1976, he claimed he had secret commitment from the US government to put pressure on the Israeli government for a major withdrawal in Sinai and the Golan Heights.[30] This statement caused some concern to the Israeli government, but Kissinger denied such a promise was ever made.[31]
In January 1977, a series of 'Bread Riots' protested Sadat's economic liberalization and specifically a government decree lifting price controls on basic necessities like bread. The riots lasted for two days and included hundreds of thousands in Cairo. 120 buses and hundreds of buildings were destroyed in Cairo alone.[32] The riots ended with the deployment of the army and the re-institution of the subsidies/price controls.[33][34] During this time, Sadat was also taking a new approach towards improving relations with the West.[17]
The United States and the Soviet Union agreed on 1 October 1977, on principles to govern a Geneva conference on the Middle East.[17] Syria continued to resist such a conference.[17] Not wanting either Syria or the Soviet Union to influence the peace process, Sadat decided to take more progressive stance towards building a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel.[17]
On 19 November 1977, Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel officially when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab–Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. He said during his visit that he hopes "that we can keep the momentum in Geneva, and may God guide the steps of Premier Begin and Knesset, because there is a great need for hard and drastic decision".[35]
Sadat (left) shaking hands with Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman , 1978
President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin acknowledge applause during joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C., during which President Jimmy Carter announced the results of the Camp David Accords, 18 September 1978
The Peace treaty was finally signed by Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Washington, D.C., United States, on 26 March 1979, following the Camp David Accords (1978), a series of meetings between Egypt and Israel facilitated by US President Jimmy Carter. Both Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the treaty. In his acceptance speech, Sadat referred to the long-awaited peace desired by both Arabs and Israelis:
Let us put an end to wars, let us reshape life on the solid basis of equity and truth. And it is this call, which reflected the will of the Egyptian people, of the great majority of the Arab and Israeli peoples, and indeed of millions of men, women, and children around the world that you are today honoring. And these hundreds of millions will judge to what extent every responsible leader in the Middle East has responded to the hopes of mankind.[36]
The main features of the agreement were the mutual recognition of each country by the other, the cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the complete withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the rest of the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had captured during the 1967 Six-Day War.
The agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways. The agreement notably made Egypt the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel has remained in effect since the treaty was signed.
The treaty was extremely unpopular in most of the Arab World and the wider Muslim World.[37] His predecessor Nasser had made Egypt an icon of Arab nationalism, an ideology that appeared to be sidelined by an Egyptian orientation following the 1973 war (see Egypt). The neighboring Arab countries believed that in signing the accords, Sadat had put Egypt's interests ahead of Arab unity, betraying Nasser's pan-Arabism, and destroyed the vision of a united "Arab front" for the support of the Palestinians against the "Zionist Entity". However, Sadat decided early on that peace is the solution.[17][38] Sadat's shift towards a strategic relationship with the US was also seen as a betrayal by many Arabs. In the United States his peace moves gained him popularity among some Evangelical circles. He was awarded the Prince of Peace Award by Pat Robertson.[39]
In 1979, the Arab League suspended Egypt in the wake of the Egyptian–Israel peace agreement, and the League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. Arab League member states believed in the elimination of the "Zionist Entity" and Israel at that time. It was not until 1989 that the League re-admitted Egypt as a member, and returned its headquarters to Cairo. As part of the peace deal, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in phases, completing its withdrawal from the entire territory except the town of Taba by 25 April 1982 (withdrawal from which did not occur until 1989).[17] The improved relations Egypt gained with the West through the Camp David Accords soon gave the country resilient economic growth.[17] By 1980, however, Egypt's strained relations with the Arab World would result in a period of rapid inflation.[17]
Relationship with Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran
The relationship between Iran and Egypt had fallen into open hostility during Gamal Abdel Nasser's presidency. Following his death in 1970, President Sadat turned this around quickly into an open and close friendship.
In 1971, Sadat addressed the Iranian parliament in Tehran in fluent Persian, describing the 2,500-year-old historic connection between the two lands.
Overnight, the Egyptian and Iranian governments were turned from bitter enemies into fast friends. The relationship between Cairo and Tehran became so friendly that the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, called Sadat his "dear brother".
After the 1973 war with Israel, Iran assumed a leading role in cleaning up and reactivating the blocked Suez Canal with heavy investment. The country also facilitated the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Sinai Peninsula by promising to substitute the loss of the oil to the Israelis with free Iranian oil if they withdrew from the Egyptian oil wells in western Sinai.
All these added more to the personal friendship between Sadat and the Shah of Iran. (The Shah's first wife was Princess Fawzia of Egypt. She was the eldest daughter of Sultan Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan (later King Fuad I) and his second wife Nazli Sabri.)
After his overthrow, the deposed Shah spent the last months of his life in exile in Egypt. When the Shah died, Sadat ordered that he be given a state funeral and be interred at the Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo, the resting place of Egyptian Khedive Isma'il Pasha, his mother Khushyar Hanim, and numerous other members of the royal family of Egypt and Sudan.[40]
Assassination
The last months of Sadat's presidency were marked by internal uprising.[17] Sadat dismissed allegations that the rioting was incited by domestic issues, believing that the Soviet Union was recruiting its regional allies in Libya and Syria to incite an uprising that would eventually force him out of power.[17] Following a failed military coup in June 1981, Sadat ordered a major crackdown that resulted in the arrest of numerous opposition figures.[17] Although Sadat still maintained high levels of popularity in Egypt,[17] it has been said that he was assassinated "at the peak" of his unpopularity.[41]
Earlier in his presidency, Islamists had benefited from the 'rectification revolution' and the release from prison of activists jailed under Nasser[19] but Sadat's Sinai treaty with Israel enraged Islamists, particularly the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order" in Egypt. Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Abbud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose "plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing—he expected—a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country".[42]
In February 1981, Egyptian authorities were alerted to El-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information. In September, Sadat ordered a highly unpopular roundup of more than 1,500 people, including many Jihad members, but also the Coptic Pope and other Coptic clergy, intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes.[43] All non-government press was banned as well.[44] The round up missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who would succeed in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October.[45]
According to Tala'at Qasim, ex-head of the Gama'a Islamiyya interviewed in Middle East Report, it was not Islamic Jihad but his organization, known in English as the "Islamic Group", that organized the assassination and recruited the assassin (Islambouli). Members of the Group's 'Majlis el-Shura' ('Consultative Council') – headed by the famed 'blind shaykh' – were arrested two weeks before the killing, but they did not disclose the existing plans and Islambouli succeeded in assassinating Sadat.[46]
On 6 October 1981, Sadat was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal.[47] Islambouli emptied his assault rifle into Sadat's body while in the front of the grandstand, mortally wounding the President. In addition to Sadat, eleven others were killed, including the Cuban ambassador, an Omani general, a Coptic Orthodox bishop and Samir Helmy, the head of Egypt's Central Auditing Agency (CAA).[48][49] Twenty-eight were wounded, including Vice President Hosni Mubarak, Irish Defence Minister James Tully, and four US military liaison officers.
The assassination squad was led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli after a fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman.[50] Islambouli was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad in April 1982.
Aftermath
Sadat was succeeded by his vice president Hosni Mubarak, whose hand was injured during the attack. Sadat's funeral was attended by a record number of dignitaries from around the world, including a rare simultaneous attendance by three former US presidents: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. Sudan's President Gaafar Nimeiry was the only Arab head of state to attend the funeral. Only 3 of 24 states in the Arab League—Oman, Somalia and Sudan—sent representatives at all.[51] Israel's prime minister, Menachem Begin, considered Sadat a personal friend and insisted on attending the funeral, walking throughout the funeral procession so as not to desecrate the Sabbath.[52] Sadat was buried in the unknown soldier memorial in Cairo, across the street from the stand where he was assassinated.
Over three hundred Islamic radicals were indicted in the trial of assassin Khalid Islambouli, including future al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdel-Rahman, and Abd al-Hamid Kishk. The trial was covered by the international press and Zawahiri's knowledge of English made him the de facto spokesman for the defendants. Zawahiri was released from prison in 1984. Abboud al-Zomor and Tareq al-Zomor, two Islamic Jihad leaders imprisoned in connection with the assassination, were released on 11 March 2011.[53]
Despite these facts, the nephew of the late president, Talaat Sadat, claimed that the assassination was an international conspiracy. On 31 October 2006, he was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, less than a month after he gave the interview accusing Egyptian generals of masterminding his uncle's assassination. In an interview with a Saudi television channel, he also claimed both the United States and Israel were involved: "No one from the special personal protection group of the late president fired a single shot during the killing, and not one of them has been put on trial," he said.[54]
Media portrayals of Anwar Sadat
In 1983, Sadat, a miniseries based on the life of Anwar Sadat, aired on US television with Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr. in the title role. The film was promptly banned by the Egyptian government, as were all other movies produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures, over allegations of historical inaccuracies. A civil lawsuit was brought by Egypt's artists' and film unions against Columbia Pictures and the film's directors, producers and scriptwriters before a court in Cairo, but was dismissed, since the alleged slanders, having taken place outside the country, fell outside the Egyptian courts' jurisdiction.[55]
The film was critically acclaimed in America, but was unpopular among Egyptians and in the Egyptian press. Western authors attributed the film's poor reception in Egypt to racism – Gossett being African American – in the Egyptian government or Egypt in general.[56] Either way, one Western source wrote that Sadat's portrayal by Gossett "bothered race-conscious Egyptians and wouldn't have pleased [the deceased] Sadat," who identified as Egyptian and Northeast African, not black or African American.[57] The two-part series earned Gossett an Emmy nomination in the United States.
He was portrayed by Robert Loggia in the 1982 television movie A Woman Called Golda, opposite Ingrid Bergman as Golda Meir.
The first Egyptian depiction of Sadat's life came in 2001, when Ayyam El Sadat (English: Days of Sadat) was released in Egyptian cinemas. This movie, by contrast, was a major success in Egypt, and was hailed as Ahmed Zaki's greatest performance to date.[58]
The young Sadat is a major character in Ken Follett's thriller The Key to Rebecca, taking place in World War II Cairo. Sadat, at the time a young officer in the Egyptian Army and involved in anti-British revolutionary activities, is presented quite sympathetically; his willingness to cooperate with German spies is clearly shown to derive from his wish to find allies against British domination of his country, rather than from support of Nazi ideology. Some of the scenes in the book, such as Sadat's arrest by the British, closely follow the information provided in Sadat's own autobiography.
Sadat was a recurring character on Saturday Night Live, played by Garrett Morris, who bore a resemblance to Sadat.
Honour
Foreign honour
Bibliography
Sadat, Anwar (1954). قصة الثورة كاملة (The Full Story of the Revolution) (in Arabic). Cairo: Dar el-Hilal. OCLC 23485697.
Sadat, Anwar (1955). صفحات مجهولة (Unknown Pages of the Revolution) (in Arabic). Cairo: دار التحرير للطبع والنشر،. OCLC 10739895.
Sadat, Anwar (1957). Revolt on the Nile . New York: J. Day Co. OCLC 1226176.
Sadat, Anwar (1958). Son, This Is Your Uncle Gamal – Memoirs of Anwar el-Sadat . Beirut: Maktabat al-ʻIrfān. OCLC 27919901.
Sadat, Anwar (1978). In Search of Identity: An Autobiography. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-013742-8.
See also
References |
On Saturday, November 18, Ukrainian TV channel ZIK released an investigative report titled “Monuments of Contention”. The investigation into the acts of vandalism against Ukrainian monuments on the Polish territory is based on the e-mail correspondence of Alexander Usovsky that was hacked in early 2017 by the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance hacktivists and handed over for analysis to InformNapalm volunteers. From February to May 2017 the website of InformNapalm international intelligence community published a series of analytical reports on the issue:
Usovskiy’s name could be occasionally seen in Polish and other foreign media. However, the reaction of the Ukrainian media was slow, and only now the journalists of ZIK TV made an interesting and detailed special feature based on the leak. They drove hundreds of miles across the neighbouring Poland, visited numerous anti-Ukrainian protests, checked dozens of questionable foreign nationals that may have been involved in vandalism, analyzed gigabytes of videos, and tried to contact those individuals abroad who should be in the focus of Ukrainian intelligence and security agencies.
The journalists came to the conclusion that the remains of our long-dead compatriots are being made into weapons in the hands of provocateurs trying to drive a wedge between Ukrainians and Poles.
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In case you’re not aware, the damning videos of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, which confirmed the worst fears of every single critic of Obamacare, weren’t uncovered by a journalist.
The entire American media complex was scooped by a regular guy who started looking into the way the law was passed after losing his healthcare plan.
James O’Keefe of Project Veritas recently sat down with the man only identified as “Rich” for an enlightening interview, in which he explains why he released the videos:
Project Veritas is releasing a video interview of the man who recently brought videos of MIT economist and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber to public attention. Award-winning journalist and best-selling author James O’Keefe conducted the interview, which is being distributed on YouTube. During the interview, “Rich” stated that there was intentional mislabeling in the Affordable Care Act in order to hide a secret agenda in the bill: A two-hundred-and-fifty billion dollar per year tax grab. “President Obama promised us the most transparent administration in history,” said Project Veritas President James O’Keefe. “Rich has opened a new debate about an effect of the Affordable Care Act which will impact over one hundred and fifty million Americans. We deserve to know if part of the Obamacare plan was intended to eliminate the two hundred and fifty billion dollar yearly tax break. If this is the case, we also deserve to why this information was kept from the public by the White House.”
Watch the interview below:
All is not lost for Gruber. In fact, one person thinks he deserves an award.
Jonah Goldberg at the New York Post:
Jonathan Gruber, the arrogant, profiteering liar of the year Jonathan Gruber should have been Time’s Person of the Year. The magazine gave it to the “Ebola Fighters” instead. Good for them; they’re doing God’s work. Still, Gruber would’ve been better. Time’s Person of the Year designation has lost a lot of its stature. Part of its decline can probably be attributed to the fact that it’s come to be seen as an honorific. It was originally conceived to recognize the person who, “for better or for worse . . . has done the most to influence the events of the year.” So Adolf Hitler (1938) and Josef Stalin (1939 and again in 1942) qualified. In 2001, however, the editors couldn’t bring themselves to bestow the title on Osama bin Laden, even though he certainly deserved it. (Mayor Rudy Giuliani got it instead for his heroic response to the evil deeds of the person who influenced the events of the year most decidedly for the worse.)
Read it all here.
Featured image via YouTube. |
Do you like to use YouTube to stream music, but wish it had the audio-centric interface and exclusive mixes that SoundCloud does? Maybe you're really a Spotify loyalist, but you're itching for some Taylor Swift in the middle of your playlists. Well, Qus, a relatively newcomer to Android, lets you stream from any combination of these sources, plus Deezer and tracks stored locally.
Not only that, but Qus can help you solve another relatively common problem. We all have, at some point, lent one of our earbuds to a friend to let them hear the track we're listening to. If you were (or are) really enterprising, you have a headphone splitter to make things a little bit easier. Still, that is far from an ideal solution. If you both have Qus, you can have a joint listening section. When one of the users is streaming from a paid service like Spotify or Deezer, Qus locates a free equivalent elsewhere if necessary.
There are other social features, including the ability to gain followers and follow others. You don't have to be best buddies in order to join in on someone's listening session, either. There's potential here, especially for music discovery, but the number of users just isn't high enough yet for it to work out.
On services like SoundCloud or 8tracks, for instance, there are many users with large followings who act as trendsetters of sorts. I don't see that on Qus, but all the infrastructure is there to make it happen. Nonetheless, for some people the ability to make cross-service playlists alone makes Qus worth it.
Coming in the future will be support for Tidal and possibly other services, but probably not Play Music given the lack of APIs.
You can check it out on the Play Store. |
Evanston's SPACE has canceled singer Michelle Shocked's May 5 performance at the club following reports of her anti-gay rant from a San Francisco stage Sunday night.
“After speaking with the promoter of that show about the nature of the remarks, it's clear that this is no longer a show we're willing to put our name on,” the club announced on its website and Facebook page Monday, offering refunds to ticket-holders.
Reports from Sunday’s show at San Francisco’s Yoshi’s say Shocked, a born-again Christian, railed against gay marriage and told the crowd, “You can go on Twitter and say, ‘Michelle Shocked says God hates (anti-gay slur).’” The Twittersphere reacted accordingly.
SPACE general manager/talent buyer Jake Samuels, who had booked Shocked previously without incident, said he confirmed with the San Francisco promoter that Shocked’s comments were “ugly in nature and not meant to be artistic or satirical in any way ... It wasn’t a very hard decision for us.”
SPACE was not alone in its action. All nine of Shocked’s pre-SPACE concerts listed on her website have been canceled, according to the venues’ websites.
This turn of events surprised many Shocked fans, who have viewed her as being more than a bit left of center since her 1988 debut album “Short Sharp Shocked.”
“We’ve had Michelle four times in the past four years,” Samuels said. “I’ve never had an incident with her before. She’s given great shows. She always sells out. The audience loves her."
The singer’s most recent tweet came Sunday: "Truth is leading to painful confrontation." |
TOKYO—American gambling companies are falling over themselves to win favour in Japan, where the government is preparing to allow casinos to open their doors in flashy resorts to rival Singapore and Macau. Las Vegas Sands brought David Beckham, the British soccer star and ambassador for the casino company, to Tokyo Wednesday to talk about how much he loves uni, or sea urchin, and how much he’d love to see new sporting venues here. They even put Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh on stage at a showbiz-worthy news conference to lament the lack of top-notch performance venues in Japan.
Casino and resorts operator Las Vegas Sands has deployed David Beckham, centre, and other top sports, music and entertainment figures in its effort to woo Japan as it prepares to issue licences for casinos. Japan's large and wealthy market is luring big-name casino operators who are sweetening their bids with promises of ultra-modern "integrated resorts." ( Shizuo Kambayashi / AP )
Executives from Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts have repeatedly said they would each invest as much as $10 billon (U.S.) in Japan, while Lawrence Ho, president of Hong Kong-based Melco Resorts and Entertainment, said he would spend “whatever it takes” to get a foothold in Japan. “We’ve been trying to come here for many years,” Robert G. Goldstein, the president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands, said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s got huge appeal internationally. . . . It’s a very large gambling opportunity.” Casinos were illegal in Japan until parliament passed a controversial “Integrated Resort Promotion Law” in December, and will be allowed only as part of a wider resort that will have to include a hotel, an international conference hall and other such entertainment facilities. Yokohama and Osaka, Japan’s second and third largest cities, are the most likely locations for the first two “integrated resorts,” once appropriate legislation is passed.
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Yet many Japanese are concerned about the social harm that might come with casinos. A poll by the Jiji news agency conducted in August found that two-thirds of respondents were opposed to the introduction of casinos, with most worried about crime and gambling addictions. Pachinko, a noisy, pinball-like slot machine game with parlours outside practically every train station in the country, is already associated with organized crime and money laundering. But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government argues that casinos will help boost Japan’s economy, which has been stuck in a funk for two decades. Casinos are a central part of its goal to increase the number of foreign tourists from a record 24 million last year to 40 million by 2020, when Tokyo will host the Summer Olympics, and then to 60 million by 2030. Analysts at Nomura, a Japanese investment bank, say the country’s gambling business could be “significantly larger” than Singapore’s $7 billion and that integrated resorts in Japan could become the most profitable in the world. They expect it could be worth about $10 billion a year after the resorts open in 2023. But CLSA, the Hong Kong-based brokerage, says the business could be worth as much as $25 billion a year once Japan has two integrated resorts and 10 regional casinos.
That could make Japan “the next Macau,” becoming a haven not just for local customers, but also for gamblers from South Korea and China, CLSA analysts wrote in a research note. American companies have been aggressively preparing for the new opportunity.
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MGM Resorts hired Jason Hyland, a career diplomat who was until August the United States’ deputy ambassador in Tokyo, as its president in Japan. “Japan can be a bigger market than Las Vegas,” the chairperson of MGM Resorts International, James Murren, told a seminar in Tokyo earlier this year. Steve Wynn, the chief executive of Wynn Resorts, told the Nikkei business newspaper in August that Japan was a “perfect” market because of its size and wealth. Sheldon Adelson, the chairman of Las Vegas Sands, has called Singapore, where Las Vegas Sands invested $6 billion in the Marina Bay Sands resort, a “warm-up” for Japan. “I turned Singapore into a city for conventions and shopping. [I did] the same thing for Vegas,” Adelson said during one of several trips to Japan this year, suggesting he would do the same here. Adelson is a Republican backer who donated more than $20 million to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The Nikkei business newspaper reported that Trump asked Abe during their summit in February if he knew about Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts. Abe had his assistant jot down the companies’ names, according to the newspaper. On his trips to Japan, Adelson visited the secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in February, and in September met the governor and mayor of Osaka. There is still plenty of influencing to be done. Gambling companies are concerned that the Japanese government will over-regulate the industry. The government, for example, is considering limiting the size of the gambling floor in each resort to 161,500 square feet, the same as in Singapore. In meetings in Japan, Adelson has said this would limit the casinos’ profitability and therefore the amount of money his company would invest, according to the Asahi newspaper. Some critics are complaining about a suggestion that Japanese citizens would be required to show their new, government-issued identity cards and pay a fee of as much as $100 to enter casinos in Japan. Among other proposed regulations: a ban on ATMs in the casinos, and a requirement that Japanese citizens will have to use cash to buy chips, although foreign citizens will be allowed to use credit cards. Goldstein, of Las Vegas Sands, said his company wants “intelligent regulation.” But for now, gambling firms are so eager to set up in Japan that they are not likely to quibble. “If we’re so fortunate that the government will award us a license and tells us, ‘You’re going here or there,’ we will be glad to take it,” Goldstein said. “We’re just very eager.”
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PORT ST. LUCIE — The gang was back together again.
After an offseason in which the Mets decided against adding even one new player to the major league roster, the first full-squad workout of spring training arrived Sunday, with introductions unnecessary.
Expectations couldn’t be higher, after an offseason in which the Mets fulfilled their main priority by re-signing Yoenis Cespedes before addressing their bullpen needs by retaining Jerry Blevins and Fernando Salas.
Even with a payroll approaching $160 million, general manager Sandy Alderson said it’s possible the Mets could go higher, if needed, to compete for a World Series title.
“We’re all in here,” Alderson said. “I think it’s a credit to ownership that our payroll is as high as it is now given where we had been as recently as two years ago and where our budget might have been.”
As recently as 2015, the Mets’ payroll was in the $115 million neighborhood.
Manager Terry Collins gathered the players for a morning meeting and issued essentially the same message from the start of camp last year, when the Mets were defending NL champions: Expect success.
Last season, the Mets rallied with a 27-13 finish to the regular season to secure a National League wild-card berth. But their postseason ended with a loss to the Giants in the one-game wild-card playoff.
And now the Mets return with the idea of reclaiming the NL East from the Nationals. Or at the very least another wild-card berth.
“I’m confident we’re going to play in October, I will tell you that,” Collins said.
Cespedes, back on a four-year contract worth $110 million, joked with teammates around the batting cage. Cespedes wore his cap backwards in the cage, spraying pitches to all fields and resisting the temptation to swing too big on the first day.
David Wright played catch — out of sight from reporters — for his first throwing since undergoing surgery in June for a herniated disk in his neck. The Mets captain later indicated he was pleased with the session and will continue to build up arm strength in hopes he will be ready for Opening Day on April 3.
A clubhouse that includes veterans Curtis Granderson, Jay Bruce, Neil Walker, Asdrubal Cabrera and Jose Reyes, in addition to Cespedes and Wright, gives the Mets as much experience as perhaps any team in the National League.
“I’ve never been around this good a mix of veteran guys in the clubhouse, but also the attitude of the younger players to go along with the depth we have,” Wright said.
“I’ll put our character guys up in there against anybody. I’m not sure if that gets you any more wins over the course of a year, but it sure makes it more enjoyable coming to the ballpark and going through spring training with one another when you have the types of great personalities in there that just seem to mesh well together.”
It will take a healthy rotation for the Mets to succeed. And so far, team brass is encouraged what it has seen from Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz in their returns from surgery. Zack Wheeler is the wild card, after two years on the sidelines recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Collins wants the Mets to display a “swagger” in their charge toward reaching the postseason for a third straight year.
“What these guys did to persevere through all the tough times, all the adversity, all the injuries, all the doubters, all the things that happen, they better walk around with their heads up,” Collins said. “They better have a little swagger, they better talk winning, they better play like they are going to win, they better act like they are going to win.” |
A man replaces a shotgun in the rack in a downtown Montreal outdoors store in this file photo. MPs gave second reading Wednesday to a bill that would abolish the registry for long guns. ((Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press))
The federal long-gun registry moved a step closer to being abolished as MPs voted Wednesday in the House of Commons to scrap the controversial program.
With support from 18 Liberals and New Democrats, the private member's bill passed second reading 164-137 and now goes to committee.
If passed, Bill C-391 would scrap the decade-old registry and destroy existing data within the system on about seven million shotguns and rifles.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper rises along with Environment Minister Jim Prentice and Defence Minister Peter MacKay to vote in favour of the bill to abolish the long-gun registry in the House of Commons. ((Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press))
The legislation was proposed by Manitoba Tory backbencher Candice Hoeppner.
"I think it's important that the Liberals and NDP allowed a free vote and that many of their members supported the private member's bill," Hoeppner said.
"It's step one. There's still a lot of work to do, though."
Because the proposed law was introduced as a private member's bill, opposition MPs were permitted to break from party lines and support it.
That secured support from New Democrats and Liberals from northern and rural ridings, where opposition to the gun registry is strongest.
"I favour a gun-control system, but I do not favour a gun-control system that makes criminals out of farmers and hunters," said PEI Liberal MP Wayne Easter.
The Conservatives have long opposed the gun registry, brought in by the former Liberal government in response to the killing of 14 women at Montreal's L'École Polytéchnique in 1989.
However, there is unwavering support for the gun registry from such groups as the Coalition for Gun Control, the Canadian Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association.
Wendy Cukier of the Coalition for Gun Control said firearm deaths. including suicides and murders of women, have declined during the time the registry has been in place.
Cukier, who watched the vote from the public gallery in the Commons, called it "appalling."
"It wasn't even close," she said. "It's horrifying and a lot of Canadians are going to wake up tomorrow and find out about this for the first time."
The mother of one of the slain Montreal students made a public appeal to the MPs this week, imploring them to preserve the gun registry.
Conservatives argue the registry has been a billion-dollar boondoggle, although a 2006 study by the auditor general found that eliminating the long-gun portion of the registry would only save taxpayers about $3 million a year.
In an annual report from Canada's Firearms Commissioner prepared by the RCMP, police said they used the registry more than 2.5 million times in 2007.
But Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has not made the report public.
"Canadians don't need another report to know that the long-gun registry is very efficient at harassing law-abiding farmers and outdoors enthusiasts, while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars," Van Loan's office said in a release Wednesday. |
This article is over 3 years old
Figures show police transported people to hospital on 903 occasions last year, adding to concerns officers attending incidents paramedics should deal with
Met police taking hundreds to hospital after ambulances fail to arrive on time
Hundreds of patients are being taken to hospital by police because ambulances fail to arrive in time, new figures reveal.
Scotland Yard said it was forced to transport people to hospital on 903 occasions last year.
The figures, released by the Metropolitan police following a freedom of information request, showed officers stood in for paramedics more than twice a day in 2014.
The Met – Britain’s largest police force – was asked how many times officers were required to take someone to hospital because ambulances have not turned up in time.
July was the busiest month, when police transported patients on 102 occasions.
The trend continued this year, with figures showing there were 28 such incidents in the first half of January.
In recent months senior police have raised concerns about officers attending incidents that should be dealt with by paramedics.
Simon Cole, the chief constable of Leicestershire police, told the Sunday Telegraph in November: “I am concerned that officers on occasion are having to transport people to hospital when they should not have to do so, because there isn’t ambulance availability.
“It is not uncommon, and we are working hard to understand what contributes to it. We are anxious that we are spending time supporting the ambulance service.” |
The British government has repeated that it is seeking to avoid a hard border with the Republic, ahead of the publication on Tuesday of the first of a series of Brexit position papers.
Three Brexit position papers are due to be released this week with a special paper coming out on Wednesday that addresses how customs arrangements between the Republic and Northern Ireland might work.
In advance of a paper to be published on Tuesday on future trade with the EU, the UK department for exiting the union insisted it is aiming for what British sources have described as a “light touch” border.
“The UK’s goal is to secure as frictionless trade as possible with the EU alongside the ability to forge trade deals around the world, and avoiding a hard border with Ireland,” it stated.
It added that Wednesday’s position paper on North-South arrangements would “make clear the commitment to maintain a seamless and frictionless border with no return to the hard borders of the past”.
That paper, according to informed sources, would make clear that a customs Border between the North and the South would be required after Brexit.
The position paper, the sources added, would include proposals to make the impact of a customs border as limited as possible. This, they said, would involve proposals such as spot checks of vehicles, the use of number plate recognition technology, and CCTV cameras monitoring the movement of goods crossing the Border.
Sinn Féin and the SDLP however accused the British government of devising “unworkable” and “back of an envelope” proposals for Brexit.
Belfast Agreement
Sinn Féin Brexit spokesman David Cullinane said that the proposals for a customs border on the island of Ireland were unworkable, bad for the economy, and not compatible with the Belfast Agreement.
“It is clear that the British Tory party are in disarray over Brexit. They have no plan, no solutions for Brexit, only slogans,” said the Sinn Féin TD.
“The latest leak and briefings demonstrate that they are prepared to impose an EU frontier across Ireland and are prepared to play fast and loose with our economy and peace agreements,” he added.
“This is a non-runner. The notion of a frictionless technological border has been dismissed as nonsense and impossible to deliver,” said Mr Cullinane.
“What is clear is that Tories are prepared to use Ireland as collateral damage in their negotiations with the EU.
Mr Cullinane said the Government must stand up for the “interests of all those on the island of Ireland and argue for designated special status for the North within the EU”.
SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood also was dismissive of some of the expected content of the paper. “Advance leaks indicate that Theresa May’s government intends to stubbornly stick by its hard Brexit position of leaving the customs union and the single market, threatening a hard border in Ireland,” he said on Sunday.
“Back of the envelope proposals on ‘very advanced CCTV cameras’ at the border don’t even enter into the realm of a serious suggestion or a credible solution,” added Mr Eastwood.
‘Non-runner’
“It is almost laughable that it took the British government over a year to come up with it. Anyone who knows anything about the Irish border knows it’s a non-runner,” he said.
“Any border must be around the island of Ireland, not across it,” added Mr Eastwood. “This is the only position which recognises our unique circumstances and it is the only position which is actually enforceable. It is the only serious and credible solution to the Brexit problem which has so far been proposed.”
Meanwhile, Ulster Unionist Party Leader Robin Swann warned Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that he must steer away from pushing for a border “in the Irish Sea”.
“Brexit negotiations should not be used as a Trojan Horse by those who seek to exploit the situation to further their united Ireland agenda. Those who have shouted loudest about protecting the Belfast Agreement have seemingly been quick to forget the principle of consent when they think they are close to getting their way,” he added.
“Northern Ireland’s right to self-determination must be respected throughout these negotiations and beyond,” said Mr Swann.
“The futile pursuit of a border in the Irish Sea must be abandoned and minds must be focussed on finding solutions that work for everyone - a commitment that seems to have been forgotten in recent weeks,” added the UUP leader. |
If you aren’t going solar in Connecticut, you might want to rethink that. New research from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory puts Connecticut a lofty and surprising third – behind only Hawaii and California – among the 50 states in a measure of the unsubsidized economic potential of a residential solar system.
The state of Washington, meanwhile, is dead last, with a solar power system’s 25-year “lifetime revenue potential from net metering” pegged at 85 cents per watt, less than a quarter of Connecticut’s $3.49/watt.
These valuations are a bit of a theoretical exercise, undertaken specifically to assess the business case for third-party ownership of residential solar by state. To do an “apples-to-apples” comparison, the researchers assumed net metering policies everywhere that paid 100 percent of the residential electrical rate.
In reality, net metering polices are highly variable, so how much an owner might “earn” from a system wouldn’t necessarily be reflected in the NREL figures. Plus, states have (or don’t have) other incentives that will impact solar system economics.
Even in the rainy parts of Washington, for instance, solar can make financial sense for many homeowners, thanks to generous production incentives from the state and other programs from utilities. And solar has been growing in Washington State.
Still, the computation points us toward where solar makes sense by focusing on and capturing the relationship between the power-producing potential of a system given its location, and the value of the watts it produces there.
It turns out that the cost of electricity is the bigger influencer. Connecticut’s third-highest-in-the-nation electricity rates make solar a potential winner even though the solar resource there is relatively poor, 35th in the nation by capacity factor (actual electricity produced as a percentage of what a system would produce operating at full power around the clock).
The NREL researchers pointed to the cases of Hawaii and California to make the point about cost:
“The cost of electricity is the primary driver for the revenue from net metering as can be seen in the difference between the revenue potential from net metering in Hawaii ($7.93/W) and California ($3.67/W), which have similar solar capacity factors (0.170 and 0.176, respectively, but significantly different electricity costs (0.33 $/kWh and 0.15 $/kWh, in 2011 respectively).”
Washington does poorly by this particular measure because most of its population lives on the gray side of the state, where solar power systems aren’t terribly productive. Also, electricity rates in the state are very low, thanks to the subsidized – and environmentally impactful – hydroelectric projects of yesteryear.
Beyond Connecticut, another state where solar makes a lot of sense is Vermont, which is fourth on the list despite having the worst solar resource, a median capacity factor around 13 percent. Again, high electricity rates – fifth in the nation – are a key factor.
And here’s something Connecticut and Vermont residents will want to take note of: Your states do in fact have generous net metering policies, crediting net excess generation at the retail rate. That makes the high economic value of solar in your states more than a theoretical proposition.
Connecticut, too, does well when it comes to another factor that impacts the go-solar-or-not equation: the price of a system. According to the Berkeley Lab’s recent “Tracking the Sun” report, the median installed price for systems less than 10 kilowatts in size in 2013 was $4 per watt in Connecticut, well below the national median of $4.70/w.
For the full list of states and their lifetime revenue potential from net metering see page 32 of the NREL report, “The Effect of State Policy Suites on the Development of Solar Markets” [PDF].
Editor’s note: Prompted by thoughtful reader feedback, this story has been revised since its original publication to better reflect the economic reality of residential solar power in the state of Washington. |
Share. 25 must-have games for any Android-owning gamer. 25 must-have games for any Android-owning gamer.
Gone are the days when Android-owning gamers had to stare longingly at the App Store, looking at all the awesome, unplayable games on display. The Google Play store is full of incredible gaming experiences of all types.
Gamers looking for deep, rewarding experiences can dive in to games like Horn and Galaxy on Fire. Puzzle fans can load up their device with games like Bad Piggies and Triple Town. And of course there are plenty of games that smartly take full advantage of touch screens like The Room and Flight Control.
It’s never been a better time to be an Android gamer. That’s why, just like our Top 25 iOS list, this Android Top 25 contains no console or PC ports (Plants vs. Zombies is the lone exception). We wanted to spotlight as many original, built-for-mobile games as we could. The Android ports of Grand Theft Auto and plenty of other AAA games are top-notch, but this space is dedicated to original mobile hits.
With that in mind, let's jump right in...
List last updated on September 13, 2013.
Exit Theatre Mode
Chaos Rings II is a great example of the potential of 3D RPGs on mobile. While most of the platform’s best RPGs are top-down and sprite-based the Chaos Rings franchise is a reminder that a great 3D RPG can work just as well on touch screens. This sequel managed to improve upon every aspect of its predecessor, to boot. Chaos Rings II offers dozens of hours of gameplay, an original and creative battle system and some of the most beautiful environments of any mobile game to date. Chaos Rings II doesn’t have the world’s best story and it may be a little pricey, but it’s worth every penny for RPG fans. It's a reminder that Square Enix still has a few tricks up its sleeve. – Andrew Goldfarb
Exit Theatre Mode
Galaxy on Fire 2 is such a huge, full-featured and accomplished space sandbox game that it almost doesn’t feel possible that you’re playing it on your phone or tablet. You can follow a deep and intriguing 10+ hour story that will eventually let you (what else?) save the galaxy, or you can just cruise around trading resources or fighting pirates, amassing an economic empire. It certainly helps that Fishlabs’ massive virtual sci-fi world is drop-dead gorgeous. - Justin Davis
Exit Theatre Mode
SpellTower smartly combines Boggle-style word forming with more traditional puzzle concepts found in games like Tetris. As more lines of letters rise from the bottom of the screen, you must eliminate them as fast as possible by drawing lines to spell words. The core gameplay is clever and feels great, but it’s SpellTower’s impeccable style and wealth of play modes that make it the best word puzzler on the platform. - Justin Davis
Dungeon Raid is the most addictive puzzle + RPG mash-up since the original Puzzle Quest dropped in 2007. The concept is deceptively simple, as it always is - just draw lines to connect swords, shields, potions and more to earn money, gold and attack power for your hero. The twist is that you’re building a new hero with new special powers and equipment every time you play, almost like a roguelike. Once you inevitably die, the urge to start again fresh is almost overwhelming. - Justin Davis
Exit Theatre Mode
Knights of Pen and Paper makes old RPG ideas feel fresh again by presenting gamers a game within a game. Your group of adventurers must complete turn-based battles against wonderfully pixelated foes to rescue maidens, liberated towns under siege, retrieve artifacts for wizards, and plenty more. But the twist is that you’re actually playing as a group of real world kids, sitting around a table tossing dice. You can swap out GMs for an easier or harder campaign, order pizza to give your party a stats buff, and even recruit the pizza guy to join your party! It’s cute and clever and the core RPG mechanics still feel plenty rewarding, to boot. - Justin Davis |
The Investigatory Powers Bill forces internet providers to keep a full record of every site visited by each of its customers for over a year. Of course, government accounts are exempt from this Orwellian law.
This bill is not simply about notifying the government if a specific site has been visited, it is about listing every single site that has been visited by each citizen and when. This information will be made available to a very large range of government bodies. Of course, there’s the police, the military and the secret service but also others entities such as the Food Standards Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions.
Here’s a full list of the agencies allowed to search the browsing history of UK citizens.
Metropolitan Police Service
City of London Police
Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996
Police Service of Scotland
Police Service of Northern Ireland
British Transport Police
Ministry of Defence Police
Royal Navy Police
Royal Military Police
Royal Air Force Police
Security Service
Secret Intelligence Service
GCHQ
Ministry of Defence
Department of Health
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
National Crime Agency
HM Revenue & Customs
Department for Transport
Department for Work and Pensions
NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services
Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service
Competition and Markets Authority
Criminal Cases Review Commission
Department for Communities in Northern Ireland
Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland
Department of Justice in Northern Ireland
Financial Conduct Authority
Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
Food Standards Agency
Food Standards Scotland
Gambling Commission
Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
Health and Safety Executive
Independent Police Complaints Commissioner
Information Commissioner
NHS Business Services Authority
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation
Office of Communications
Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
Scottish Ambulance Service Board
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
Serious Fraud Office
Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust
Source: Belfast Telegraph, Your entire internet history to be viewable by PSNI, taxman, DWP and Food Standards Agency and other government bodies within weeks
Let’s face it, this law is custom made to create a climate of fear and paranoia in the UK. Studies have shown that government surveillance stops people from sharing controversial opinions online as it has a ‘chilling effect on democratic discourse’. Also, since people sometimes visit explicit websites and tend to google their most personal issues, they could easily be subjected to blackmail or other nefarious actions.
Will government officials be subjected to the same transparency? Nope. In fact, the only amendment politicians have submitted to the controversial bill is to stop MPs from being spied on. |
Last weekend I thought I’d have a good chance to shoot some of the wonderful VIVID SYDNEY, an annual outdoor event using light and sound.
With near drought inducing weather in NSW over the last few months we were looking at a dry winter, until of course, I tried to take a camera out to shoot something.
Thus adding to the urban mythology that if you want to have it rain somewhere, organise a crew to shoot something. Last time I shot in Dubai it hailed ! Maybe it’s me ?
Anyhow, I pressed on and kept on shooting anyway. In the end I was more interested in the people that went along and attempted to enjoy Vivid despite the rain.
Using the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera with native m4/3 lenses I moved around pretty easily and unobtrusively. Yes. The camera did get wet. I tried to keep it dry, but it was inevitable.
I shot mainly at ISO 1600, but the first few clips were shot at 800. Lens wise I had the Panasonic 14mm F2.5 (first few shots) and the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 (second lot of shots before the ferry travelling left to right) then I was principally on the Olympus 45mm F1.8 but I also had the 12mm SLR Magic T1.6 and the SLR magic 25mm T0.96
I had the terrific O’Connor 1030Ds head along for the ride too, but that was the only rig. I shot over about three hours and used three batteries.
This was all cut and finished in FCPx with a beta version of Nick Shaw’s BMC plugin for converting BMD FILM to REC709. The great thing about the plugin is that it gives you a very quick look. I could easily take the XML into Resolve if I wanted to for more powerful control as well, but it just gives you a very quick approximation and allows you to finish an edit with a quick grade.
No noise reduction or sharpening applied. Was shot all available light.
I should add, click on the title below to see it in VIMEO and full screen. Also, there is rain in almost every shot which I can see with the final finished file here, but it does tend to get lost in Vimeo (or turned into compression crawlies)
Enjoy. |
Why we're all proud of Liverpool
Why we're all proud of Liverpool
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Born again Liverpool has been declared “a city of great energy and charm” and a “dynamic, exciting place” in the new edition of The Rough Guide To Great Britain.
The city scores highly in countless areas, with the travel bible happy to make a series of recommendations for visitors.
Now in all good book shops and available online, The Rough Guide to Great Britain (£18.99, from the Rough Guides website) paints a bright, vivid and vibrant picture of a city recently revitalised and regenerated.
SHOPPING
“Liverpool is fabulous for shopping,” says the guide, which highlights the “brilliantly-designed” Liverpool One, as well as Bold Street’s independent stores and the “arty originals” in the Baltic Triangle.
NIGHTLIFE AND ENTERTAINMENT
More plaudits here, with some of the city’s popular festivals – including Beatles Week and the Liverpool International Music Festival – getting a mention, while the book states: “Liverpool’s club scene is famously unpretentious, with posing playing second fiddle to drinking and dancing, while particularly rich in home-grown live music.”
It also discusses the massive showpiece events Liverpool does so well, with the visits of the Giants said to be “jaw-dropping”.
EATING AND DRINKING
The guide discusses the delights to be found in Albert Dock, around Hardman and Hope streets, and along Berry and Nelson streets, and says the “blossoming” Baltic Triangle has become “the city’s most creative and cutting-edge quarter”.
Namechecked restaurants include Lunya, Delifonseca and Yuet Ben, while Ye Cracke, Berry and Rye and Camp and Furnace are in the pubs and bars section.
ATTRACTIONS
All manner of attractions are detailed, including, as you would expect, traditional favourites such as St George’s Hall, the Walker Art Gallery, Central Library, World Museum Liverpool, the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the two cathedrals, while the four-year-old Museum of Liverpool is described as “huge and flashy” and “brilliant”.
And while saying children will enjoy its Little Liverpool gallery, the guide states “anyone with any interest in popular culture will have an absolute ball at Wondrous Place, a memorabilia-rich celebration of sports and music”.
In pictures: 28 top Liverpool tourist attractions
ACCOMMODATION
Hope Street Hotel, the “unspeakably beautiful” 2 Blackburne Terrace (which was featured in the ECHO earlier this year) and the Racquet Club are among the hotels featured in the guide’s accommodation section, which also points out that budget chains are well-represented in the city.
Look inside 2 Blackburne Terrace
CROSBY BEACH
This is among those spots outside the centre which the guide is happy to point out as being worthy of a visit. It says: “Crosby Beach was an innocuous, if picturesque, spot until the arrival in 2005 of Antony Gormley’s haunting Another Place installation, spread along more than 1000 yards of the shore.”
And, finally, we were pleased to see the guide say “the Liverpool ECHO’s website is always current.”
An increasing number of people - daytrippers and holidaymakers - are making a beeline for Liverpool and its many attractions, and the latest offering from the hugely-respected Rough Guide series will help them navigate their way around this fast-changing “dynamic, exciting place.” |
The government needs to rethink its proposed legislation to amend The Tobacco Act, and instead base its policies on the evidence.
The backlash against “evidence-based policy” turns out to have been unnecessary: the fad was over before it started. This is hardly surprising, considering very few politicians who drop the phrase into their stump speeches can explain what it means. While the phrase still finds its way into the odd government press release, it turns out that, in practice, it means just what politicians usually mean when they refer to “evidence”: selective data that supports one’s preferred policies and ignores data that doesn’t.
This explains why Bill S-5, the federal government’s overhaul of the Tobacco Act, is obsolete before it has even been debated in the House of Commons. The proposed changes completely ignore growing evidence of the personal and public health benefits of new noncombustible alternatives to traditional cigarettes, including vaping, smokeless tobacco, and e-cigarettes (which heat tobacco to extract nicotine without smoke). The failure to engage with this evidence will compromise the Bill’s constitutionality.
A study by Public Health England has found that vaping is 95 percent safer than smoking. This means that encouraging persistent smokers to switch to vaping presents an enormous public health opportunity that would save hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in Canada. There have been fewer studies of noncombustible e-cigarettes, but what evidence there is suggests they are also substantially less damaging than ingesting tobacco smoke. That is why countries like the UK, Sweden and others are actively encouraging these new, less dangerous alternatives that save lives and public health dollars.
Bill S-5 ignores all this. Despite evidence submitted to the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology about the benefits of the UK’s approach, the Bill conspicuously omits the concepts of “harm reduction” or “smoking cessation” from the list of the Tobacco Act’s stated goals. It’s almost as if the government didn’t notice evidence that it wasn’t interested in acknowledging. Instead of encouraging smokers to switch to less harmful products, the government is extending the old “abstinence only” antismoking policy — along with most of the existing restrictions on marketing and selling cigarettes — to new vaping and e-cigarette products.
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the Charter right to “life, liberty, and security of the person” includes the right for addicts to access less harmful alternatives to lethal substances. In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had to approve a permit for a Vancouver drug injection site that operated as an exception to criminal drug laws. Laws that make it unnecessarily difficult for smokers to learn about the health benefits of switching to demonstrably safer technologies or to access these products run afoul of this harm reduction principle.
Bill S-5 also makes possible new restrictions on tobacco advertising in the form of “plain packaging” rules that limit the design, fonts, and even the colours of brand packaging. This is consistent with the 2015 mandate letter sent to the minister of health, and it is also almost certainly unconstitutional.
Tobacco laws have a rocky constitutional history in Canada. In 1995, the Supreme Court struck down a law imposing an almost complete ban on advertising, stating it was an unjustified violation of the Charter right to free expression. This was despite the Court accepting the trial court’s finding that “the mass of information, studies and research gathered in Canada and throughout the world, particularly during the past 25 years, makes it abundantly clear that tobacco use constitutes a substantial and pressing concern in Canada.”
As outlined in the health minister’s mandate letter, the new plain-packaging proposal goes even further than those unconstitutional restrictions on advertising and labelling. Worse, it does not differentiate between traditional cigarettes and new e-cigarette technologies. The extensive evidence of serious health risks that the Supreme Court weighed in deciding the constitutionality of earlier restrictions on tobacco advertising applied only to smoking traditional cigarettes. If it does not have for the new technologies a “mass of information, studies and research” like that amassed on the harms of tobacco use, the government can’t begin to justify applying the restrictions contained in Bill S-5 to e-cigarette or vaping packaging and advertising. It probably can’t even legally justify applying the existing rules to those new technologies.
Government should not stand in the way of consumers seeking less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. And it cannot curb the manufacturers’ free speech rights without clear and well-established evidence of their products’ serious health risks. If the government is to avoid lengthy and costly constitutional litigation that it will likely lose, it needs to step back and rethink these elements of Bill S-5. To put it in terms this government campaigned on, it should base its policies on evidence, not just charge ahead with its political agenda.
Photo: Shutterstock, by Dragana Gordic
Do you have something to say about the article you just read? Be part of the Policy Options discussion, and send in your own submission. Here is a link on how to do it. | Souhaitez-vous réagir à cet article ? Joignez-vous aux débats d’Options politiques et soumettez-nous votre texte en suivant ces directives. |
LONDON (Reuters) - Uber’s [UBER.UL] top boss in Britain will quit the taxi hailing app, according to an email seen by Reuters on Monday, as the company prepares to meet the London transport regulator in a bid to keep operating in one of its most important foreign markets.
Transport for London (TfL) shocked the San Francisco-based app last month by deeming it unfit to run a taxi service and deciding not to renew its license to operate, citing the firm’s approach to reporting serious criminal offences and background checks on drivers.
Uber’s license expired on Sep. 30 but its roughly 40,000 drivers will be able to take passengers for the Silicon Valley company until an appeals process has been exhausted, which could take several months.
The firm’s new global chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi will meet the TfL commissioner on Tuesday in London in a move backed by the city’s mayor, who has criticized the app’s management in the Britain but welcomed Khosrowshahi’s apologetic tone and promise of change.
Uber’s Northern European Manager Jo Bertram will leave the firm in the next few weeks, according to an email sent to staff seen by Reuters. She said the firm, valued at around $70 billion, needed a replacement in the region to tackle the issues it faces.
“Given some of our current challenges, I’m also convinced that now is the right time to have a change of face, and to hand over to someone who will be here for the long haul and take us into the next phase,” she said.
“While I would like to have announced my move in smoother circumstances, I’m proud of the team we’ve built here and am very confident in their abilities to lead the business into the next chapter.”
Bertram, who will take up an undisclosed new role elsewhere, will be replaced in her UK role by Uber’s London boss Tom Elvidge on an interim basis.
On Tuesday, Khosrowshahi - who has apologized to Londoners for the firm’s mistakes- will meet TfL’s Commissioner Mike Brown in a bid to repair a fraught relationship between the regulator and the taxi app, which has prompted strong opposition from unions and traditional taxi drivers over working rights.
Uber has until Oct. 13 to submit its appeal, which will be reviewed by a judge.
But TfL’s Chairman is Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, a Labour politician who has been critical of the app.
FILE PHOTO: A photo illustration a London taxi passing as the Uber app logo is displayed on a mobile telephone, as it is held up for a posed photograph in central London September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
Last week he singled out Uber’s management in Britain for criticism.
“The global CEO... seems to recognize some of the issues raised by the decision from TfL,” Khan told Channel 4 news.
“I just wish that Uber in the UK would rather than hire an army of PR experts and an army of lawyers, would address some of the issues raised by the TfL decision,” he said. |
President Donald Trump retweeted a man calling him a “fascist” Tuesday.
Twitter user Mike Holden was responding to a “Fox & Friends” tweet that featured a report about Trump “seriously considering” pardoning Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who was found guilty of criminal contempt in July for violating the terms of a court order in a racial profiling case.
Twitter
Twitter
It’s unclear if Trump believed Holden was referring to him in his tweet, though he later deleted the retweet.
Holden, who lives in northern England, told HuffPost UK in a Twitter message that he’s “astounded” Trump retweeted him.
oooh, I'm going to have a lot of Trumpites to deal with today I reckon... — Mike Holden (@MikeHolden42) August 15, 2017
“My Notifications went bananas,” Holden said. “I may retire from Twitter, I’ll never top that.”
“I try not to be just another troll ... but I often comment on his stuff because it’s so wrong for America (and the rest of us),” he added.
I'm announcing my retirement from Twitter. I'll never top this RT. pic.twitter.com/HuGHkiPoyR — Mike Holden (@MikeHolden42) August 15, 2017
Holden’s tweet wasn’t the only post Trump retweeted and later removed on Tuesday. He also shared ― and later deleted ― a tweet that featured a cartoon “Trump train” running over a man with a CNN logo superimposed over his face.
Trump RT'd this pic showing a CNN journalist hit by a train days after a white nationalist ran his car into activists, killed Heather Heyer. pic.twitter.com/tWjdoE70AS — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 15, 2017
Trump retweeted the cartoon from Twitter user @SLandinSoCal, whose account features racist memes and promotes conspiracy theories. The Twitter bio of @SLandinSoCal doesn’t identify the user, but describes them as “NOT a bot” and an “Independent Thinker, Truth Seeker, Christian.”
Both Trump and @SLandinSoCal retweeted the same tweet Monday from alt-right personality and “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec. |
The warning at the beginning of the DVD, after the copyright warnings reads: WARNING If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned...... Tyler See more
Alternate Versions
For the UK theatrical release of the film, the BBFC removed a total of four seconds from two scenes. In the scene where Lou ( Peter Iacangelo ) beats up Tyler ( Brad Pitt ), an overhead shot as Tyler receives a punch to the face is missing, and in the scene where The Narrator ( Edward Norton ) beats up Angel Face ( Jared Leto ), the third punch in the first load of hits, as well as several hits as his face becomes bloodied during the last load of hits have been removed. The BBFC argued that these cuts were made because of "excessively sustained violence" and "an indulgence in the excitement of beating a defenseless man's face into a pulp". Interestingly however, prior to the release of the film, the BBFC was petitioned to ban the film the film altogether, but they refused, disputing claims that it contained "dangerously instructive information" and could "encourage anti-social behavior". In fact, they actually came to the defense of the film, pointing out that "the film as a whole is - quite clearly - critical and sharply parodic of the amateur fascism which in part it portrays. Its central theme of male machismo (and the anti-social behavior that flows from it) is emphatically rejected by the central character in the concluding reels." For the 2007 Definitive Edition DVD re-release of the movie in the UK, all previous cuts were waved, and the film was released with the deleted four seconds reinstated. See more |
Twisted Insurrection 0.39 has been released! Changes in this update include an entirely new skirmish and online set-up interface bringing tons of new features, options and game modes to play! There have also been hundreds of balance, coding and graphical changes and additions since our final Public Beta release (5). Read this article for more information and downloads!
Posted by Aro on Feb 28th, 2015
Twisted Insurrection 0.39 has been released! Finally straying away from our previous Public Beta releases, Version 0.39 brings a whole new layer of layer of vast improvements, additions, changes and fixes to the mod and is our most stable build to date.
The Twisted Insurrection download file (Twisted-Insurrection-039.ZIP) contains the complete Twisted Insurrection installation so all you need to do is extract and play. Alternatively, those of you whom have Public Beta 5 installed can simply run the launcher to update your current build to Twisted Insurrection 0.39.
Note: It is highly recommended that you run TI_Launcher.exe as an Administrator!
● Download Twisted Insurrection 0.39 from ModDB.com
● Download Twisted Insurrection 0.39 from Project Perfect Mod
● The complete changelog since Public Beta 5 can be viewed here!
To install and play Twisted Insurrection, simply extract the folder (Twisted Insurrection 0.39) from the downloaded ZIP file and run TI_Launcher.exe to launch the game, update, set up and play Twisted Insurrection. No hassle, no mess, just a simple extract and play!
- What is Twisted Insurrection? -
Twisted Insurrection is a stand alone modification of Tiberian Sun, meaning you don't need to own Tiberian Sun to play. The mod features a completely new in-depth story-line which puts you in an alternate timeline where the Brotherhood of Nod were victorious during the first Tiberian War rather than GDI; After the Brotherhood used the Ion Cannon to destroy an irreplaceable monumental structure, the Global Defense initiative lost all UN support leaving them in total disarray. This is where our story begins.
Along with the complete overhaul and replacing of the original games graphics and having it's own all new soundtrack, Twisted Insurrection brings you all new units, infantry and naval forces to command as either The Brotherhood of Nod or the Global Defense Initiative in both singleplayer and multiplayer missions along with all new structures and base defenses to build as well! The mod also introduces the GloboTech corporation and contains all new campaigns for both GDI and Nod, plus some additional bonus challenge missions and several hidden maps so there is always plenty more to play. TI also features all new game-modes such as Survival, Twisted Dawn and Checkpoint Mode and has over 100 multiplayer maps to play either online or in skirmish mode.
Do you have what it takes to drag the shattered Global Defense Initiative out of ruin? Or will you crush all who oppose the will of Kane and his Inner Circle? The choice is yours commander.
- Version 0.39 New Features -
For a complete list of features, minor and major, please read our changelog here. Probably one of the most important features in Twisted Insurrection 0.39 is the new and improved Client, granting you the ability to customize your Skirmish and Online games with loads of new options and tweaks, pre-set teams, locations and alliances on all maps (even with AI players) and have many new game modes to try such as Twisted Dawn, Survival, Meat Grinder, Unholy Alliance, Timeless Insurrection and Ultimate Insurrection.
Loads of options that were not possible before are now available, which will enhance your skirmish and multiplayer experience greatly, allowing you to play the style of match you are looking for, be it a quick relentless war or a long-winded battle with unlimited funds at your disposal. Some of these new options include Build Off Ally, Start Without Shroud, Tiberium-Resistant Infantry, Disable Tiberium Lifeforms, Berzerk Cyborgs, Unlimited Tiberium and Enable Ion Storms. Some screenshots can be seen just above of all of the new client options!
Version 0.39 brings a massive balance overhaul to the mod too implementing lots of feedback provided by staff testing and the public players. The campaign missions have been modified and improved along with the addition of a few more new missions to play, including the Nod Finale. Some new units and structures have been added into the game too, some of which we won't reveal how to acquire just yet.
A list of Twisted Insurrection's top features (old and new):
Windows 8 / 8.1 Support
All new Skirmish/Online set-up Options
Optional Base Props mode, giving you more eye-candy for your bases
Completely Standalone (No CD/TS Required, TI runs entirely by itself)
A new in-depth story-line following Nod's victory in Tiberian Dawn (C&C95;)
Completely revamped and improved graphics
Additional Skirmish Modes such as Twisted Dawn, Survival and Checkpoint
New campaigns and new missions for GDI and Nod, including special challenge missions.
and new missions for GDI and Nod, including special challenge missions. Over 100 new multi-player maps
new multi-player maps Smooth and f ast Paced online game-play
Official CNCNet and Online Play Support
All New Units and Structures
Enhanced Skirmish and AI
Custom cinematics and a completely Original Soundtrack
Please note that this is not considered a final release, meaning that bugs and errors are a possibility. We are always looking for feedback and thoughts from the fans and the players so if you have any thoughts, ideas or want to report any errors you have come across, please feel free to share them with us! Thank you, and we really hope you enjoy the mod! |
Indian Air Force will have their first ever road runway as Agra-Lucknow expressway in Uttar Pradesh is being considered to be turned into an airstrip.
Such road runways are important in case the regular airbases are rendered dysfunctional during hostilities. Indian Air Force will bear the cost of the project.
An officer in the UP secretariat told to Hindustan Times that a delegation of officers from Air Force Station Bakshi Ka Talab in Lucknow will meet Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav on Monday to finalise the deal.
The Agra-Lucknow expressway is the longest greenfield expressway in the country. The IAF and UP state government officers will work together to select a three kilometre segment to turn into an airstrip.
To convert the stretch of expressway in to a runway, a few specifics are needed to be considered - |
Scott Walker talks to his friends (who can't spell).
Scott Walker talks to his friends (who can't spell).
Republican legislative leaders filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking changes to the newly redesigned ballot for the November election, claiming the one drafted by the nonpartisan elections agency unfairly benefits Democrats [...] The ballot design is unfair because Democratic candidates are listed first under the name of the office being sought and Republican candidates are separated by a line, the lawsuit said. Democrats are listed first, per state law, based on results in the 2012 election where President Barack Obama won Wisconsin. Republican candidates were listed first in 2012 because Gov. Scott Walker won election in 2010.
The ballot is unfair because Democrats are listed first! It wasn't unfair in 2012, when Republicans were listed first. Because, you know, Republicans were listed first.
So to recap, the only fair Wisconsin ballots are ones where Republicans are listed first, and where draconian photo ID requirements protect against voter fraud that doesn't exist.
But hey, can't blame them. It's not as if they can win fair and square on their ideas.
But we don't have to take it sitting down. Give $3 to sweep asshole Republicans out of power in Wisconsin. |
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam
"I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody."
"A male owner of a female slave has the right to sexual access to her.”
These views don’t come from an ISIS underground bunker, but out of the brilliantly lit halls of Georgetown University where rape and slavery are defended by an Islamic studies professor.
Georgetown had changed the names of Mulledy Hall and McSherry Hall because Mulledy and McSherry had once been involved in selling some slaves back in the early 19th century. When Christina Hoff Sommers spoke at Georgetown, feminists demanded trigger warnings and a university official threatened College Republicans. But defending actual slavery and rape is still okay at Georgetown.
So long as it’s committed by Muslims under the license of the Koran.
"I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody,” Jonathan Brown explained to attendees at his lecture. “Slavery cannot just be treated as a moral evil in and of itself.”
The Georgetown Islamic Studies professor had expelled a critic before the lecture even began. He thought that he was among “brothers” at the International Institute of Islamic Thought. But sitting in the audience was Umar Lee, another convert, but one who unlike Brown had struggled with the morality of his new religion. Some in the audience had questions and Brown had horrifying Islamist answers.
To a man who argued that slavery was wrong, Brown retorted, “How can you say, if you’re Muslim, the Prophet of God had slaves. He had slaves. There’s no denying that. Was he—are you more morally mature than the Prophet of God? No you’re not.”
Slavery can’t be wrong. Not if Mohammed, the prophet of Allah and founder of Islam, had slaves. The Koran is the touchstone of Brown’s personal morality, as it is of every Muslim.
Mohammed was the perfect man and a role model for all Muslims. Therefore rape and child abuse can’t be wrong either. Not when the founder of Islam was both a rapist and a pedophile.
When Brown had been asked in the past about the women and girls sold and raped by ISIS based on Islamic law, he defended the Islamic practice of sex slavery, “There is no doubt that the Quran and Sunna permit this.”
So too when defending Mohammed’s sexual abuse of a 9-year-old girl, Brown insisted, “You cannot say from a Sharia perspective that what the prophet did was wrong because the prophet can’t commit sins.”
How can Mohammed’s slavery and rape be whitewashed? All you have to do is deny the existence of freedom and the right of human beings not to be enslaved and raped.
"It’s very hard to have this discussion because we think of, let’s say in the modern United States, the sine qua non of morally correct sex is consent," Brown lectured wearily.
"If you take away the consent element, then everyone starts flipping out. Right? At that but you get, rape you get sexual acts done by people who are too young we perceive to consent. And these are sort of the great moral wrongs of our society."
We focus on consent, Brown explained, because we “fetishize the idea of autonomy”, but “most of human history human beings have not thought of consent as the essential feature of morally correct sexual activity”.
Islam certainly does not. In Islamic morality, consent has as much to do with moral sexual activity as ice cream cones have to do with airplanes. Islam does not offer universal rights, but hierarchies of privilege in return for allegiance to Muslim leaders. It eliminates individual autonomy: whether it’s that of non-Muslim women being raped by Muslim conquerors or non-Muslim slaves reduced to property.
"A male owner of a female slave has the right to sexual access to her... her 'consent' would be meaningless since she is his slave," Brown had also explained in the past.
"Slave women do not have agency over their sexual access, so their owner can have sex with them," he appears to have written on Facebook.
America is based on equality of rights. Islam is a supremacist system based on inequality.
“We fetishize the idea of autonomy to the extent that we forget, again who’s really free? Are we really autonomous people?” Brown wonders.
This deconstruction of a crime against a woman into philosophizing about the nature of free will isn’t just academic wordplay; it’s the essence of Islam. Islam denies that human beings can be free. Muslims are slaves of Allah. They serve the Caliph. In return, they may force everyone else to serve them.
Is anyone really free? We’re all slaves.
That is the essential idea of Islam. It’s the radical notion of every totalitarian revolutionary movement. If everyone is already enslaved, then enslaving them under the correct way of thinking is really liberation.
No one is free. Therefore those who are more free, because they worship Allah or recognize the evils of capitalism, are doing them a favor by enslaving them.
And the rest is word games.
Jonathan Brown is a Georgetown boy. He got his degree there and these days he holds the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization and directs the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. The $20 million gift from the Saudi prince brought real rape culture to Georgetown.
Don't look for Georgetown's Working Group on Slavery or President DeGioia, who decided to rename two buildings because their namesakes had once sold slaves, to get involved. The Saudis still practice their own form of slavery. They only abolished slavery, on an official basis, under pressure from JFK.
In 1962.
These days, the Saudis actually fund people like Brown who defend slavery in the United States.
Brown is valued by his masters for his word games. He deconstructs slavery and rape until they become meaningless. No one is ever free. And as the holder of a chair funded by a slave kingdom, he ought to know.
After the scandal broke, Brown declared on Twitter, "Islam as a faith and I as a person condemn slavery, rape and concubinage."
In the past, Brown had written, “As for concubinage, there is no doubt that the Quran and Sunna permit this.” At the lecture, he had declared, “If you’re Muslim, the Prophet of God had slaves. He had slaves. There’s no denying that. Was he—are you more morally mature than the Prophet of God?”
But it’s all in how you define slavery, rape or terrorism.
Behind all the words games is a fundamental clash of values and civilizations. American values and Islamic values are not compatible. Islam does not believe in consent, freedom and autonomy. It also doesn’t believe in truth. A dialogue with a totalitarian ideology is meaningless. It consists of deceitful word games used to justify its abuses. Those word games are all that Jonathan Brown has to offer.
It’s all that the left has to offer. That’s why it will protect and defend Brown and his horrifying views.
The modern campus and its obsession with punishing slavery and eradicating rape culture are a sham. Georgetown will lash out at a dead 19th century Jesuit priest, but it will never stand up to the Saudi royals or Jonathan Brown. It will investigate rape culture everywhere except in the speeches and writings of one of its professors who is merely quoting the horrifying body of Islamic jurisprudence.
ISIS atrocities shocked the world. But it’s a shorter distance from ISIS to the modern world than we like to think. You don’t need to travel to Iraq or Syria to listen to it being defended as a way of life.
Just stop by Georgetown instead. |
MUMBAI: The schoolteacher, who eloped with her 16-year-old student, was released on bail on Saturday evening."The teacher says she will marry the boy after he turns 18. Their parents have been told to handle the issue carefully as both of them are very disturbed," said a police officer.The teacher, Anjali Singh (23), has been charged with kidnapping, wrongful confinement and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The case dates back to January 25 when the boy's father lodged a complaint with the Vakola police, alleging that his son had been kidnapped by his schoolteacher. Singh started living with the boy in Bangalore and was arrested by the city crime branch on Friday.The two worked in different malls for a living and wanted to settle down in Bangalore for few years, the police said. "Singh told us that she loved the boy and had eloped as society would not approve of their relationship".Moreover, the boy was not in a position to convince his parents about his willingness to marry her," the officer added. After leaving Mumbai, the two sold their cellphones and discarded the SIM cards so that their whereabouts would remain unknown.Last week, the boy logged into his Facebook account. The internet protocol address showed his location as Whitefield in Bangalore. A team then zeroed in on a Bangalore cyber cafe the couple used to visit."When the police team showed photos of the two to the cyber cafe owner, he identified them. The cops waited for them and arrested them after they came there again," said a police officer.An officer stated the boy was missing his father. He contacted one of his friends from Bangalore to get details of his father and it helped the police to know his whereabouts. "They never anticipated that the police will catch them" said the officer. He further added that Singh had not harmed the boy and both of them told the police that they went together willingly.The Vakola police had booked Singh for kidnapping, wrongful confinement and protection of children from sexual offences (POCSO) act as the boy was minor.The boy is a student of Reverand CF Andrews school in Prabhat Colony in Santa Cruz (E).Singh was his English teacher The boy's friends were aware about his affair with Singh. On the day of the 'kidnapping' incident, the boy told one of his friend that he was going along with Singh before they disappeared. They first stay in Goa for a week and then shifted to Bangalore from where the police arrested them last week. |
scrollContainer function null Defines a contaier element inside of which the table scrolls vertically and/or horizontally. usually a wrapping div
scrollingTop number or function 0 Offset from the top of the window where the floating header will 'stick' when scrolling down
getSizingRow function null The plugin uses the first row in the table body to calculate floated header's column sizes. It expects this row to contain <td> s with colspan of at most 1. If the first row does not meet that requirement, you must implement this function.
Returns: jquery object containing tds. Length of this element much match the number of columns in the table.
example use
useAbsolutePositioning boolean true Position the floated header using absolute positioning or using fixed positioning. Fixed positioning peforms better with tables that use window scrolling, but fails miserably on highly dynamic pages where DOM can be suddenly modified causing the location of the floated table to shift. (You should call .floatThead('reflow') in this case, but you cant always instrument your code to make that call.)
debounceResizeMs number 1 The headers are repositioned on resize. Because this event has the potential to fire a bunch of times, it is debounced. This is the debounce rate.
zIndex number 1001 z-index of the floating header |
George Romero’s classic film Night of the Living Dead is one of the horror genre’s most influential films, as it established the idea of the “zombie” as we know it today. Prior to Night of the Living Dead and George Romero’s vision of the “zombie” as a reanimated cadaver, there had been no such character in horror. Now, television shows and movies like The Walking Dead, iZombie, Z Nation, 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, and World War Z dominate the airwaves and the cinema as one of horror’s most frequent characters.
Unfortunately, this massively influential film has had one hell of a ride on home media, for a few reasons which I will discuss in this article, as well as nailing down the best available ways to own Night of the Living Dead, and what the future holds for George Romero’s classic in terms of physical media.
Copyright Law is Tricky
The biggest issue with Night of the Living Dead is the lack of copyright on the original print. The original theatrical distributor, The Walter Reade Organization, did not include any indication of a copyright on the film prints, meaning that it was not protected by any of the various copyright laws in the US. Originally, Night of the Living Dead did have a copyright on the title slide, but after changing hands, it ended up being mistakenly removed. In 1968, the law required that such a notice be included with a film to be registered as a copyright, and since Night of the Living Dead lacked this statement, it was not protected by any laws. Thus, it fell into the public domain, meaning that anyone with the means to reproduce a copy of the film could distribute it as they pleased.
Once home media went mainstream with the widespread availability of formats like VHS and DVD, Night of the Living Dead copies hit their stride. There are anywhere from 12-20 currently documented VHS releases of the film, and over 200 DVD releases. I searched Instagram for VHS and DVD collectors, and I found a few images of older releases for Night of the Living Dead which is an interesting look into just how many versions there are available at any given time due to the copyright law and public domain status. Props to Instagram users sandracrash, jonathan_danner, and joshgoestohell for their contributions to this piece and willingness to share their photos.
In addition, there are already 9 different Blu-ray releases, all with varying picture and audio quality. With the rise of the Internet also came the rise of copies of Night of the Living Dead appearing everywhere online, which meant that anyone with an Internet connection could take one of these copies, download it to their computer, and attempt to restore the image, clean things up, and create their own vision of the film. This proves to be problematic, as this means that George Romero’s true vision is being diluted more and more every day by hundreds of at-home editors and distributors.
There Are So Many Versions – Which Ones Are Best?
With so many versions of Night of the Living Dead available on DVD and VHS, I am going to focus on the 9 currently available Blu-rays, as those are the top format available at the moment. This is not to say that a DVD copy wouldn’t be acceptable; with the source materials available, a DVD copy would probably look fine. I know the DVD versions I have seen have been acceptable and of a fairly high quality. However, there have been a few legitimate attempts at remastering Night of the Living Dead in HD for Blu-ray, and so in my opinion, these versions are as good as it gets.
One interesting thing to note, with so many different versions, there are actually releases of the film that do not contain the entire cut. Some of the versions are missing a few scenes, since, depending on the source that distributors can get their hands on, they may be incomplete. Thankfully, the two releases I will highlight do not have any material cut, so they are the full-length feature as it was originally released.
The best available Blu-ray is the “Happinet” Japanese Edition, which is available from CD Japan (they ship to the US), or on sites like Amazon or eBay for a likely premium price. I suggest CD Japan as the cheapest way to buy. This release is Region A, which is great for those of us in the US, as it is much better than the “Forgotten Films” edition that is the only available version from a US distributor. However, those without region free players in Europe will not be able to view this release; there is another option for you all that I will discuss below.
I personally own the Happinet Edition (bought from CD Japan – no problems with shipping to the US) and it is an extremely clean video transfer with solid audio. If you want to take a look at the visual quality, the screenshots in this article are sourced from this Happinet Edition. This release comes in a very cool, semi-transparent black case. It is not a solid black like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but a lighter black color; one might even call it a smoky gray. The back cover is completely in Japanese, but the front title is in English. It is a very cool release from an appearance standpoint, and I consider it to be one of the cornerstones of my horror collection.
The biggest draw of the Happinet Edition is the clean transfer created directly from the original negatives, which features an impressively high and consistent encode, carrying most of the film at a bitrate of over 35 Mbps. This makes for a defined image, and is the reason I suggest this Blu-ray over any of the available DVD copies. The film looks consistent with other black and white efforts from the same era, and although there is minimal damage to this print, the contrast of the black and white image is largely fantastic. The one drawback here is the cropping, where the film has been cut down in some shots, but unless you have seen the movie hundreds of times, you probably won’t even notice.
The audio is a solid LPCM 2.0 track, which sounds great, and there are also extras, including two commentary tracks, an 83 minute full-length documentary on the film, Out of the Fire, and an interview (audio only) with Duane Jones, as well as a trailer. All of the video extras are in full HD, which is awesome. Most releases of Night of the Living Dead offer no extras, so this is another reason to jump on the Happinet Edition of the film.
There is a strong competitor to the Happinet Edition; the Umbrella Entertainment Australian release, which is region free – great news for anyone outside of Region A. The Umbrella release does not feature any unique packaging, opting for a standard Blu-ray case with pleasing black and white artwork and the movie’s tagline displayed over the title. The Blu-ray transfer from this release was sourced from the same negative that the Happinet edition was, and experiences the same issues with cropping. The audio is a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track, which is actually a bit stronger than the Happinet edition.
The extras on the “Umbrella” release are a bit different, but respectable all the same. Instead of the Out of the Fire documentary included with the Happinet Edition, there is an exclusive documentary attached to this release, titled Reflections on the Living Dead. The documentary is 80 minutes long, and features interviews with horror legends Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, and Sam Raimi. There is also a TV spot and a theatrical trailer included.
You’re probably thinking that this Umbrella release sounds better than the Happinet, and honestly, it may be. Being sourced from the same materials and having a stronger audio track is certainly a plus. However, after that, it all comes down to personal preferences, and availability. Personally, I place a lot of importance on packaging, and the Happinet Edition is far superior in that department. I also prefer the documentary included on the Happinet Edition, because it is focused on the film and serves as an inside look into the production process. However, the documentary included with the Umbrella release features a great line-up, and shouldn’t be ignored.
The problem with the Umbrella release is that it is OOP, and very hard to find. If you can find a copy, it is worth grabbing, but you will have a much harder time tracking one down than the Happinet Edition, which is currently available on both Amazon Japan and CD Japan, for roughly $14. Make sure to buy from Amazon Japan, and not the US Amazon site, because the US Amazon sellers are charging upwards of $35.
Basically, to each their own, but both of these releases are the pinnacle of Night of the Living Dead on Blu-ray.
What Does the Future Hold?
Well, the future for Night of the Living Dead is actually very bright. Just last year, George Romero announced that he had found deleted scenes previously thought to be lost, in a newly discovered 16mm work print of the film. The 9 minutes of new material depicts a new scene in the basement of the house, and is said to contain the most on-screen zombie time of any scene in the currently available film. This is certainly exciting, as is the news of a newly available 16mm print from which to create a new transfer, but hold on, because that’s not it.
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When the new print was found, it was during a search for new materials as George Romero was working on a new restoration with a director you may know: Martin Scorsese. Yeah, that Scorsese. He is working with Romero on a new restoration of the film from various original elements, and with this additional 9 minutes of film, this would certainly be the most definitive version of the film. This news was originally announced by Romero at Monster Mania in 2015, but any updates have been quiet.
The interesting take away from this news is that Romero may potentially be able to copyright this new version of the film, as the additional 9 minutes could be considered a new film, and thus able to be copyrighted. This would finally allow Romero to make some money on his classic film, and would also keep it out of the public domain and into the hands of a legitimate distributor. Obviously, Scream Factory and Criterion immediately come to mind, especially with Scorsese’s close relationship with Criterion, but I could also see a company like Arrow Video jumping into the bidding war as well. In the end, it will come down to the availability to copyright the new cut and the quality of the new sources, but my hopes are high that a dynamite team like Romero and Scorsese can pump out the definitive version of the film for home media.
In the end, Night of the Living Dead is one of the most interesting cases of film on home media, as it is probably the most famous movie ever to hit the public domain and deal with those complications on a large scale. For horror fans, the struggle to find a decent release has been tough, but I firmly believe that either of the releases I covered here are as good as it gets, until Scorsese releases his restoration with Romero’s oversight. With no new updates on that story, it could be a while, but hopefully it will end the mess that is Night of the Living Dead on home media. From VHS to DVD to Blu-ray, the releases have been inconsistent in quality, numerous in quantity, and certainly a curious case of film history.
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Well, it seems Pure Genius is continuing to follow the Hollywood script by adding a patient with a case of “Islamophobia.”
On Thursday’s episode, “Around the World in Eight Kidneys,” the doctors at Bunker Hill are gearing up for eight kidney transplants, and sixteen surgeries. Each recipient will have a family donor for another patient, creating a chain.
Dean (Nick Hardcastle) is one such candidate who needs a kidney, with his wife donating to someone else on his behalf. He tells Dr. Strauss (Ward Horton) he’s all for diversity but doesn’t “want a kidney from just anyone,” hinting he’s seen someone he’s not too fond of.
Later, Dr. Strauss is prepping Dean for surgery and he demands to know who his donor is. Dr. Strauss tells him his donor is an Egyptian Muslim, which Dean finds unacceptable.
Dr. Strauss: Good Morning, Dean. You ready for your big day?
Dean: Depends. Now’s your chance to tell me, Doc. Straight up, just between you and me. Who’s my donor?
Dr. Strauss: We’re still on this.
Dean: Yeah. Because I’ve seen some pretty suspicious-looking people in the hallway.
Dr. Strauss: You know what Dean, fine. Your donor is Azeem Habib, She’s Egyptian and she’s Muslim.
Dean: Then I’m out. I’m not doing this. I’m breaking the chain.
Dr. Strauss: It’s too late to break the chain. Your wife’s already in surgery. The only person who wouldn’t get a kidney is you.
Dean: You set me up doctor.
Dr. Strauss: No, I didn’t. I simply protected the other patients from your bigotry. So it’s up to you. You can either take that hatred that’s inside of you to your grave, or you can open up your heart a little.
Right, because this would happen. If somebody were in dire need of a kidney, they wouldn’t care who was donating. This is just Hollywood’s agenda that we live in a world filled with Islamophobes being further pushed, as we’ve seen time again. Liberals just add these kinds of portrayals to make themselves feel superior to the rest of us "deplorables." |
The New York Times ran another front-page exposé this weekend of a college’s alleged indifference to rape. Its target this time was Hobart and William Smith Colleges, following a similar treatment of Columbia University in May. Hobart had acquitted three football players of raping a first-year student last year after she had drunk herself blotto at a frat party.
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By now, the template for such reporting is familiar: The reporter picks at various lines of questioning by the campus assault tribunal, trying to show that the questioners were insensitive or incompetent. Innocuous changes of topic by the tribunal are seized upon as evidence of malfeasance. Inquiry into the details of the various sex acts that were performed by the accused and accuser is presented as bumbling and grotesquely intrusive, since the alleged victim deserves an almost indefeasible presumption of credibility. (In fact, the reported transcript shows the questioners making an almost painfully concerted effort to be sensitive, however awkward and inappropriate their role may be.) And of course, the acquittal itself is prima facie, if not conclusive, evidence of a campus administration’s indifference to females. Other colleges be forewarned: Any acquittal in a campus rape proceeding risks a visit from the New York Times.
All this is standard by now. But the Times article did contain one bit of less familiar information: A picture of a Hobart-sponsored event last May called “Walk a Mile in her Shoes,” an international consciousness-raising concept in which males walk in high-heeled shoes to raise awareness of sexual assault. This institution was new to me, but Walk a Mile events seem to be overtaking Take Back the Night rallies as a locus of feminist campus organizing.
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Now I have nothing against cross-dressing. But according to the Walk a Mile website, these walk-ins help “men better understand and appreciate women’s experiences.” The implication would seem to be: Just as women are victims of the patriarchy in their footwear, they are victims of the patriarchy in ubiquitous sexual assault. The originator of Walk a Mile wanted to persuade men to “think differently about gender roles, gender relationships and gender violence.” But women choose to wear high heels because they want their legs and feet to look sexy. Nothing forces them to be sex objects; they assume the role voluntarily.
Campus rape hysteria may be industrial-strength feminist victimology, denying the possibility of females exercising personal responsibility when it comes to deliberate binge drinking and hooking-up. To the extent that “Walk a Mile” events embrace the idea that women are forced into uncomfortable “gender roles” in their footwear and elsewhere, they are a more trivial but still telling example of feminist myth-making. |
In this photo taken April 23, 2009, and released by U.S. Air Force, an F-35 Lightning II (also known as a Joint Strike Fighter) flies overhead for the first time at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. (Senior Airman Julianne Showalter/U.S. Air Force via Associated Press)
Less than two months after declaring the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ready for combat, the Air Force on Friday announced that it was temporarily grounding 15 of the jets after it discovered that insulation was “peeling and crumbling” inside the fuel tanks.
The setback is the latest for the $400 billion system, the most expensive in the history of the Pentagon. The problem comes as the program, which for years faced billions of dollars in cost overruns and significant schedule delays, had begun to make strides. Last year, the Marine Corps had declared its variant ready for combat. In July, the Air Force gave a similar blessing to its variant.
Along with the manufacturer, Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, Pentagon officials had declared that the long troubled program, derided as the “plane that ate the Pentagon,” had turned a corner. In testimony before Congress earlier this year, Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the program’s executive director, said the fighter is “at a pivot point” as production is about to ramp up. He said while 45 aircraft were manufactured in 2015, that number should grow to more than 100 in 2018 and up to 145 by 2020.
Even though the jet was declared combat-ready, Air Force officials warned this summer that it remains in development and that they could continue to find problems. The fact that the Pentagon committed to the aircraft before it was fully tested has been one of the chief criticisms of the program — a violation of procurement mantra: “Fly before you buy.”
“While nearing completion, the F-35 is still in development, and challenges are to be expected,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement. “The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise, and we’re confident we’ll continue to do so.”
In a statement, Lockheed Martin said that “the issue is confined to one supplier source and one batch of parts.” It emphasized that “this is not a technical or design issue; it is a supply chain manufacturing quality issue.”
Two of the grounded aircraft belong to Norway, the Air Force said. The insulation problem affects a total of 57 aircraft, the Air Force said, 42 of which are still in production. Lockheed Martin and Air Force officials are “developing procedures to resolve or mitigate the issue” before those aircraft become operational, the Air Force said.
In 2014, the Pentagon temporarily grounded the F-35 entire fleet after an engine in one of the jets caught fire as the jet was preparing to take off at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, forcing the pilot to abort the flight. No one was injured.
In July, Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, the head of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command, said in an interview he had faith in the aircraft and that he was “very, very confident it is going to continue to exceed our expectations.” But he warned that declaring the plane’s “initial combat capability is just the beginning. We still have work to do on the airplane, and it will continue to get better.”
The Air Force said Friday that crews discovered that insulation in avionics cooling lines inside the fuel tanks was deteriorating. It is unclear how long the aircraft would be grounded, how long the problem would take to fix or what the larger affect on the program would be.
Stefanek said the Air Force is “working with units to mitigate the impact on operations, training, and readiness.”
Lockheed said that “safety is always our first consideration” and that the company ” is committed to resolving this issue as quickly as possible to return jets to flying status.” |
The link between music and pleasure runs deep. A desire to make and listen to music is found in virtually every culture around the world, and dates back at least 43,000 years, when a Cro-Magnon in Europe pierced holes into a bear bone, creating a flute that has become the world’s oldest surviving musical instrument. There are good reasons music is so universal: Experiments have shown that our brains’ reaction to hearing favorite music most closely resembles what happens after we take psychoactive drugs or eat good food.
Now, neuroscientists are digging deeper into the neural patterns responsible for the fact that we love music so much. A new study published today in Science pinpoints the part of the human brain that makes new music in particular so pleasurable, showing that activity in the nucleus accumbens—located near the organ’s center and shown in dark blue in the image at top—is most closely linked to our enjoyment of a new tune. It also reveals that a second area (in the auditory cortex, shown in yellow) is involved, encoding preferences based on the music we hear over time, making it more likely that we’ll enjoy new songs that resemble those we’ve already heard.
The research team, led by Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University, came to the finding by using functional MRI (fMRI) technology, which measures blood flow to each part of the brain in real-time and is frequently used in neuroscientific inquiry. The neural activity of 19 participants was recorded as they listened to 60 songs they’d never heard before while lying in a fMRI scanner.
To specifically look into brain activity exhibited while people listened to new music they liked, though—rather than any new music at all—the researchers introduced a twist: Each of the 19 study participants were able to buy any of the songs afterward, with real money. By including this step, the scientists had an objective measure of which songs each of the participants truly enjoyed and deemed worth purchasing.
They found that when participants listened to songs they ended up buying, neural activity increased most dramatically in their nucleus accumbens, a reward area that releases neurotransmitter chemicals that provoke positive feelings—the same type of neural pathway that causes pleasure from food, drugs or sex. Moreover, the participants were allowed to “bid” varying amounts of money on each song ($0.99, $1.29 or $2, with greater amounts increasing the likelihood that they’d get to own it afterward), and the more a person ended up bidding on the song, the greater the level of activity in this region when the song was originally played, suggesting that the nucleus accumbens is crucial for generating the pleasure people get from hearing new music that they like.
Activity in the nucleus accumbens, though, also depended on signals coming from specific areas in the auditory cortex, which integrate sound stimuli and transmit them to the reward area. Previous work has shown that this cortex is involved in value-based judgements and preferences, so the scientists theorize our personal understanding of what sound patterns make for good music is stored in this area.
The neural patterns in this area can change over time, and are built out of habit, which is why different people have different musical preferences. The music you hear over the course of your life influences what new music you’re likely to enjoy most in the future. It’s a bit like Pandora for your brain: Just as the online service uses algorithms to guess what new music you’ll enjoy based on what you already like, this part of the auditory cortex draws upon encoded beliefs about what constitutes “good” music to activate the reward center, the nucleus accumbens.
So, while a love for music is nearly universal across humanity, this research could explain why particular kinds of new music different cultures (and different people) enjoy diverge wildly—from K-pop to monster ballads to the ritualistic chanting of Tibetan monks. |
So, we order a lot of our christmas presents online, which means we get a lot of packages in the mail/via UPS/via FedEx this time of year. It becomes a jumble, honestly, and so I opened this package, not remembering what I had ordered that would come in a tiny envelope, but figured it was from Etsy because I probably just spend money on Etsy when I'm asleep.
LO! No, indeed, I did not buy this. It was a gift, from the finest redditor the internet has to offer, from my secret santa extraordinaire! My husband is jealous because he didn't come up with the idea himself...
This lucky lady looted a diamond necklace for Christmas.
But really, it's so great, I haven't taken it off since it got here, except to take a picture of it. I teach at a middle school, and the kids are just starting to discover Minecraft on their phones, since most of them don't have access to computers @ home. I am now officially the coolest teacher in my school, according to the most recent poll of the three kids who knew why this was an awesome gift. :)
Many thanks to you, mystery redditor! May you enjoy many stacks of Christmas Joy x 64 (I think it drops from villagers) this holiday! |
A Humboldt squid found on a Santa Cruz County beach. At least several hundred squid washed ashore on December 9, 2012. (CBS) A Humboldt squid found on a Santa Cruz County beach. At least several hundred squid washed ashore on December 9, 2012. (CBS)
APTOS (CBS 5) — Scientists are investigating why at least several hundred dead squid suddenly washed ashore along the Santa Cruz County coast Sunday afternoon.
Witnesses said the Humboldt squid stranded themselves during high tide Sunday. Carcasses were found along a 12 mile stretch from Aptos to Watsonville.
“You just see them essentially killing themselves, and it’s just really weird to see it,” said graduate student Hannah Rosen of Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station.
Rosen said some people tried to put the squid back in the water, but the deepwater creatures swam back to shore.
“They don’t see the shore very often,” Rosen said “So it might just be that they don’t understand what’s going on around them, and they’re just trying to get away and don’t realize that if they swim towards the shore, they’re going to run out of water eventually.”
Scientists identified the squid as juveniles, both male and female, about a foot and a half long, weighing three pounds. The animals had full stomachs, having feasted on smaller market squid. A few had also cannibalized each other, which is normal.
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Researchers have not determined why the squid washed ashore. There is some speculation the animals may have eaten toxic algae.
“It’s possible that the squid are ingesting either these neurotoxins or they’re getting it through their food,” Rosen said. “And that could be causing them to be disoriented and swim onto the beach.”
Humboldt squid have not been seen in the Monterey Bay area for a few years. Scientists believe El Nino weather patterns may have drawn them to the cooler waters of Northern and Central California. The stranding is the third in the past six weeks.
“It’s really an exploratory time for us, so we’re learning more about what causes these strandings, and whether or not we should be worried about them or if it’s just a natural part of the squid cycle,” Rosen said.
(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) |
The project aims to help orchards of apples, plums, pears and damsons Dozens of orchards have been created and cultivated in a bid to protect traditional fruit trees and the habitat they offer to wildlife. The National Trust and Natural England effort follows a 60% decline in ancient orchards in England since the 1950s. Some 27 orchards have been restored and replanted and 12 new ones created, with some 2,200 trees planted. The National Trust is celebrating the first year of the project with a "full bloom festival" starting on Sunday. The major decline in ancient orchards has been the result of urban development, conversion to other uses and the pressure on small-scale producers from commercial fruit growing. Wildlife habitat The UK biodiversity action plan now lists traditional orchards as a conservation priority as they are home to local varieties of apples, plums, pears and damsons, and provide an important habitat for wildlife. A series of wildlife surveys have been undertaken at the new and restored sites, with one location found to be home to 37 different bird species, including mistle thrush, bullfinch, green woodpecker and kestrel. The project's orchard officer, Kate Merry, said: "You can't fail to appreciate what they add to our landscape. They do so much for us, it's imperative that we try and save what's left
Orchard officer Kate Merry "We would lose that and lose their historic importance. We would also lose valuable wildlife habitat, and all the old heritage and fruit varieties we have found. "And we would lose a lot of community opportunities to use this space to come together and have events. "They do so much for us, it's imperative that we try and save what's left," she said. The project also aims to find ways to help orchards pay their own way, including repairing and using old equipment such as harvesting ladders and cider presses. The project is also training people in traditional orchard management skills in order to ensure the orchards are maintained beyond the scheme's two-and-a-half year lifespan.
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The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC decided that the First Amendment right of free speech should apply with little distinction to both individuals and corporations. Since Buckley v. Valeo established money as a form of speech, the Court’s decision allows for corporations to donate unrestricted funds from their general treasuries to political organizations, effectively overturning decades of state and federal campaign finance laws. Fearing effects of greater corporate influence in American public life, Justice Stevens in his dissenting opinion warned that corporations can “amass and deploy financial resources on a scale few natural persons can match,” and are not “themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.” Although corporations now have a constitutional right to contribute money to independent expenditure groups, these groups are not bound to publicly disclose the sources of their funding. Even though the majority opinion in Citizens United actually upheld Congress’s right to enact disclosure laws, claiming that such “transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions” without “impos[ing] a chill on speech or expression,” 501 (c)4 and (c)6 organizations that do not disclose their financial backers are increasingly engaging in political work. While we do not know who is funding such organizations, we do know that the groups playing a larger role in the 2010 elections are overwhelmingly backing right-wing candidates. According to Time pro-Republican groups could spend as much as $300 million for the 2010 election. Many of the organizations almost exclusively supporting pro-corporate politicians never even have to report where their funding comes from. According to the Sunlight Foundation, “about 52 percent of the money spent so far on everything from political ads to phone banks to fliers promoting or opposing federal candidates has come from groups that don’t disclose the sources of their funds.” Corporate dollars are also financing many Tea Party and other conservative “grassroots” organizations, giving “Astroturfing” an even more prominent role in American politics. Citizens United and related judicial and administrative decisions have also allowed for the emergence of so-called Super PACs, which can take in unlimited amounts of money from corporations and individuals. A number of the new political organizations have been exposed as front groups for the energy and insurance industries, and new revelations reveal that some groups bankrolled by corporations even receive substantial funding from federal government contractors and foreign businesses. As of mid-October, the ten biggest independent expenditure groups have already “aired 60,052 ads since the beginning of August.” Legislative remedies such as the DISCLOSE Act will bring more transparency to the process, but leave corporate involvement in electoral politics mostly intact. Due to the sweeping language of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, only a constitutional amendment can overturn the decision. This report looks into the groups, empowered by the Citizens United decision, that are propagating their pro-corporate agenda. Many originated in the aftermath of Citizens United and directly point to the ruling as essential to their founding; others have been active for years but have gained new prominence as a result of the decision. What they all have in common is a relentless desire to discredit progressive ideas and elect pro-corporate candidates to office across the country. As discussed below, they also share an alarming level of dishonesty and distortion.
Common Thread of Misleading Ads
60 Plus Association
American Action Network & American Action Forum
American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS
American Future Fund
Where:
AL-02; AR-01; GA-08; IA-01; IA-02; IL-11; IL-17; IN-09; MI-01; MI-07; MS-01; NJ-03; NM-01; SC-05; SD-At Large; TX-17; WA-03; WV-01 American Future Fund is spending handsomely to attack Democratic congressmen and challengers running in open Democratic seats. CQ reports that AFF is spending $4 million altogether in fourteen congressional districts, and the group intends to spend between $20-25 million in total. During the primary season, AFF ads criticized Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky, Bill Binnie of New Hampshire, and Tom Campbell of California. The AFF is strongly backing Senate candidates Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Carly Fiorina of California. Before launching an ad campaign in fourteen congressional districts across the country, AFF hit Bruce Braley of Iowa with a controversial ad regarding the Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero. Now, the group is targeting Democratic incumbents such as Bobby Bright of Alabama; John Spratt of South Carolina; Jim Marshall of Georgia; Debbie Halvorson and Phil Hare of Illinois; Dave Loebsack of Iowa; Mark Schauer of Michigan; Martin Heinrich of New Mexico; John Adler of New Jersey; Chet Edwards of Texas; Travis Childers of Mississippi; Baron Hill of Indiana, and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota. In addition, AFF is running ads against West Virginia’s Mike Oliverio, Arkansas’ Chad Causey, Washington’s Denny Heck, and Michigan’s Gary McDowell, all Democrats running for open Democratic seats. Who:
The American Future Fund is based in Des Moines, Iowa, and was founded by GOP staffer Nick Ryan, a former aide to Iowa Congressman Jim Nussle who managed his unsuccessful 2006 gubernatorial bid. Ryan’s lobbyist firm has ties to Big Agriculture, especially Iowa’s large ethanol industry. The AFF’s director, Katherine Polking was previously a staffer for Republicans Chuck Grassley and Tom Latham, and now works for Ryan’s lobby firm, the Concordia Group. The AFF paid Ryan’s firm $300,000 for consulting fees. The New York Times found that while Ryan’s Concordia Group lobbies on behalf of the ethanol industry, the AFF received its seed money from Bruce Rastetter, the “chief executive of one of the nation’s larger ethanol companies, Hawkeye Energy Holdings.” As a 501(c)4 organization, the AFF does not have to disclose the sources of its funding (in this case Rastetter’s lawyer confirmed his connections to the group). Now Ryan, who works as a “lobbyist for four Rastetter businesses,” receives money to attack Democrats with ties to agriculture policy: “Of the 14 ‘liberal’ politicians singled out in a list [the AFF] released last month, nearly every incumbent sits on a panel with a say over energy or agriculture policy. Five sit on the Agriculture Committee; four others are on related committees with say. One candidate was a staff member on a related panel.” When Bruce Braley, a Congressman in the crosshairs of AFF attacks, tried to visit the AFF, he “found only a rented mailbox.”
Iowa politician Sandra “Sandy” Greiner currently serves as the President of the AFF. Greiner was a member of the Iowa State House from 1992 to 2008, and is now pursuing a bid for the State Senate. Like Ryan, she has close connections to Big Agriculture, and she is the past head of the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council’s state chapter. While in the legislature, Greiner received 100% ratings from the Iowa Family Policy Center, a leading Religious Right group, the anti-choice Iowa Right to Life Committee, and the pro-corporate Iowa Association of Business and Industry. Greiner’s predecessor at the AFF Nicole Schlinger was the former executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa, a staffer for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, and a fundraiser for gubernatorial nominee Terry Branstad. About:
According to Stuart Rothenberg, GOP stalwarts such as Ben Ginsberg, Ed Tobin, and Jan Van Lohuizen played key roles in AFF’s founding. Larry McCarthy, who produced the infamous “Willie Horton” ad, was the group’s media consultant. In 2008, the Minnesota Democrats filed a complaint with the FEC against the AFF, claiming that it improperly engaged in political electioneering by “expressly advocating” for Republican Senator Norm Coleman, rather than running “issue advocacy” ads. Potential Republican Presidential candidates including Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum both addressed AFF events while in Iowa. When the AFF spent over $600,000 attacking Martha Coakley in her race against Scott Brown earlier this year, the firm McCarthy Marcus Hennings produced the ads. McCarthy Marcus Hennings also lists the American Hospital Association, the American Insurance Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Federation of Independent Business as clients, in addition to the Republican Governors Association, the NRSC, the NRCC and numerous Republican officials such as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. As a 501(c)4 non-profit, AFF does not have to disclose its donors to the public. Dan Morain, the senior editor of the Sacramento Bee, wrote that groups like the AFF “operate in the shadows. Their donors are anonymous. The power behind them is rarely apparent. It’s impossible to track the exact amounts they spend on campaigns in any timely fashion.” The editorial board of Iowa’s Quad City Times asked the AFF “to let 1st District residents know who is paying for the billboards and ads in our community” after the group began attacking Congressman Bruce Braley, “Our request: Tell Quad-Citians who you are.” Current attacks:
Following a slew of ads smearing the health care reform law, the AFF released an ad trashing Rep. Bruce Braley for refusing to oppose the Park51 Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero. The AFF’s “Mosque” ad compares the project to “the Japanese building at Pearl Harbor,” employs discredited attacks against Park51’s organizer, and ties Braley to the project simply for saying that Iowans shouldn’t make decisions about the zoning of New York City property. In its new ads targeting vulnerable Democratic incumbents and Democrats running for open seats, AFF knocks the candidates’ support for Nancy Pelosi, and even blames Democrats who voted against health care reform for the law because they voted for Pelosi as Speaker. Furthermore, these ads utilize debunked and misleading attacks against the Stimulus Plan, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and health care reform’s impact on Medicare.
Americans for Job Security
Americans for New Leadership and Liberty.com
Where:
NV-SEN, DE-SEN Americans for New Leadership claims to have spent only $300,000 so far in ads attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and supporting his far-right opponent, Sharron Angle. After its first ad, the group was mocked for misspelling Sharron Angle’s name. Although it did not air any ads in the Delaware primary, the organization’s website Liberty.com did create an infamous online video which said that Christine O’Donnell’s primary opponent Mike Castle has a male lover. Who:
The Tea Party-backed group was founded by Tea Party activists Eric Odom and Yates Walker. Both worked on Christine O’Donnell’s successful senatorial campaign against Mike Castle in Delaware’s GOP primary, where Walker served as her spokesman and Odom was involved in online organizing. Previously, Odom and Walker worked for Doug Hoffman’s failed 2009 campaign for Congress. A Tea Party activist, Odom is involved with a plethora of Tea Party groups: he founded the website TaxDayTeaParty.com and the American Liberty Bus Tour, and runs the Liberty First PAC and the American Liberty Alliance, a for-profit organization. Erik Erikson, founder of the prominent conservative blog RedState, criticized Odom’s “tangled web” of Tea Party organizations. Republican activist and Fox News Commentator Dick Morris helped engineer the organization’s growth. Morris asked viewers of Hannity and his email list to donate to Americans for New Leadership, and said in an email solicitation that “the campaign in Nevada to replace Harry Reid is in a desperate situation and needs your help.” Conservative activists Jen Harrington, who worked in the Bush administration, and Brent Husson, the former executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, are also managing the organization. About:
Spokesman Yates Walker told Politico that the group intends to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling: “January’s Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which struck down the law banning corporate spending in elections, paved the way for the new group’s formation, Walker said.” The organization can also raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as an independent committee. Calling itself the right-wing version of MoveOn.org, Americans for New Leadership is attempting to strengthen the conservative “netroots” with its independent expenditure effort and website Liberty.com. Their website says that the organization’s mission is to “keep the American electorate informed and vigilantly guarding against the forces on the left who seek to redefine individual liberty, redistribute wealth, and remake America into a socialist, cradle-to-grave nanny state.” Moreover, the group decries the mainstream media as “infiltrated by the activist left” and says that the “fourth estate has become an accomplice to the progressive left’s assault on individual liberty.” It is focusing most of its resources on opposing Harry Reid’s reelection, and manages the website DumpReid.com. Current attacks:
In a Liberty.com video, an anchorwoman criticizing Delaware Congressman and then-Senate candidate Mike Castle responds an anonymous questioner asking “isn’t Mike Castle cheating on his wife with a man?” by saying, “That’s the rumor.” Americans for New Leadership has launched two ads in Nevada. Their first ad not only originally misspelled Sharron Angle’s name, and also asserted that “Sharron Angle won’t ‘phase-out’ Social Security” and called the charge a “lie.” However, Angle explicitly said in a debate that “we need to phase-out Medicare and Social Security out in favor of something privatized” and that Social Security “can’t be fixed.” In its second ad, Americans for New Leadership repeats the Medicare funding distortion and grossly misrepresents the stimulus plan and the American Clean Energy and Security Act.
Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Prosperity Foundation
Center
Club for Growth and Club for Growth Action
Where:
AK-SEN; CO-SEN; FL-SEN; NV-SEN; PA-SEN; WI-SEN; SC-05 Club for Growth Action recently launched a $1.5 million ad campaign to benefit right-wing Tea Party candidates for US Senate. So far, the group has spent over $1 million against Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania and nearly $600,000 attacking Michael Bennet of Colorado, and almost $200,000 opposing Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. They have also spent over $700,000 attacking Nevada Republican Sharron Angle’s opponents Sue Lowden (R) and Harry Reid (D), in addition to over $300,000 against Charlie Crist in Florida and more than $200,000 against Rep. John Spratt in South Carolina. In total, Club for Growth Action has spent over $3 million so far, and the Club for Growth’s is spending well over $2.5 million. Who:
Established in 1999 by a group of economic conservatives who sought to overhaul the country’s regulatory system and dramatically reduce the role of government, the Club for Growth has emerged as a serious force in conservative politics. Steve Moore founded the Club for Growth along with Ed Crane, the president of the libertarian Cato Institute, conservative economist Larry Kudlow, Richard Gilder of the right-wing Manhattan Institute, and National Review magazine President Dusty Rhodes. Other conservative institutions tied to the Club for Growth include the Heritage Foundation, the National Taxpayers Union, and Americans for Fair Taxation. The Club’s past President is former Congressman and current GOP Senate hopeful Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and the Club is currently led by former Indiana Republican Congressman Chris Chocola. The organization frequently engages in competitive Republican primaries by attacking the candidates it deems depart from conservative economic orthodoxy. For example, it spent $175,000 attacking Republican Senator Bob Bennett of Utah, and spent over $1.1 million combined in the seven Republican House races where it endorsed candidates. About:
With its ability to forward huge sums to candidates and run attack ads against their opponents, “the Washington-based advocacy group is a political force to be reckoned with in Republican circles,” writes The Los Angeles Times. It aims to spend $24 million on this year’s election. Following the Citizens United ruling, Club for Growth set up Club for Growth Action, an independent expenditure committee which accepts “unlimited individual and corporate contributions.” The Club for Growth is a vocal proponent of privatizing Social Security, establishing private school vouchers, reducing regulations, and lowering and ultimately eliminating corporate, income, and capital gains taxes. The group calls on officials to “embrace” the idea of privatizing Social Security, even exclaiming: “Privatize Social Security? Hell Yeah!” The Club also opposes the DISCLOSE Act, which would require political organizations to publicly report their donors, and ban foreign-owned corporations from financially participating in elections. Along with running attack ads, USA Today described Club for Growth’s practices of forwarding pooled contributions to candidates: “Since Jan. 1, 2009, for instance, the Club for Growth has tapped its members for $3.8 million that it has passed on to candidates, including nearly $850,000 for RepublicanPat Toomey, the Club’s former president, who is running for the Senate in Pennsylvania.” Current attacks:
Club for Growth Action’s new ads generally highlight issues such as the budget and health care reform. Blaming Senators like Russ Feingold and Michael Bennet for the country’s debt and deficit, the Club forgets that the most significant factors behind the shortfalls include the economic downturn that began under the Bush administration, the Bush tax cut scheme, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Club for Growth supported many of these policies, such as the Bush tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthiest Americans. In fact, Democratic President Bill Clinton’s administration left the country with a budget surplus and a path towards paying off the national debt. Regarding health care reform, Club for Growth Action repeats the myth that the policy leads to “Big Government Health Care” and “job killing taxes.”
Coalition to Protect Seniors
Where:
AR-SEN; CO-SEN; IN-SEN; MO-SEN; NV-SEN; WA-SEN; IN-09; NV-03; TX-23; As of mid-October, the Coalition to Protect Seniors has spent over $400,000 in ads and mailers criticizing health care reform in the districts of Democratic members of Congress, including: Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas; Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado; Sen. Patty Murray of Washington; Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada; Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri (who is not up for reelection in 2010); Senate candidate Rep. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana; Rep. Baron Hill of Indiana; Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada, and Rep. Ciro Rodriguez of Texas. Who:
The Coalition to Protect Seniors neither discloses its donors nor lists any information about who founded or manages the organization on its website, and it is unclear if the Coalition even has any members. “The address on the coalition’s filings was a suite in a large office building in Wilmington that seemed to be shared by an array of other businesses involved in the health care, financial services and energy industries,” writes Mike McIntire of The New York Times, and “calls to several of them turned up none that acknowledged knowing anything about the coalition.” About:
The group was established in June of this year and is based in Wilmington, Delaware, and appears to be solely focused on denouncing the recently passed health care reform law. The New York Times reports that the bulk of the Coalition’s advertising funds go to the Fenwick Group, which shares an office with “a broker for seven large health insurance providers, including Aetna, Blue Cross, Humana and United Healthcare.” The Center for Media and Democracy has classified the Coalition as a “front group” for the health insurance industry. Current Attacks:
The Coalition’s two ads can be found on its website, and the most notable ad features a talking baby criticizing health care reform. Both ads contend that the reform law cuts “$455 Billion from Medicare,” and the group’s website alleges that the law “hurts Medicare beneficiaries” and “will cut Medicare benefits.” According to the AARP, however, health care reform would actually lower Medicare costs for seniors while cutting waste in the program: “health care reform will strengthen Medicare by eliminating billions of dollars in waste while lowering prescription drug prices.” The dubious and discredited claim that cuts in Medicare waste would take “money out of seniors’ pockets” has been used by other pro-GOP groups that disapprove of the reform law.
Commission on Hope, Growth and Opportunity
Where:
CO-03 FL-02; FL-34; MD-01; MD-02; NY-25; PA-03; SC-05; The Commission on Hope, Growth and Opportunity is spending $900,000 on ads targeting Democratic Congress members John Salazar of Colorado; Allen Boyd and Suzanne Kosmas of Florida; Frank Kratovil and Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland; Dan Maffei of New York; Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania, and John Spratt of South Carolina. However, this initial buy appears to be only the beginning for the Commission as Politico reports that the group intends to “raise as much as $25 million” and air TV ads in more than 27 House districts and three Senate races. Who:
Veteran GOP operative Scott Reed, who in 1996 served as campaign manager for Bob Dole’s presidential bid, founded the Commission in the summer of 2010. Reed is a lobbyist who also worked under Mississippi Governor and RGA head Haley Barbour at the Republican National Committee. He also led the American Taxpayers Alliance, a front group for Reliant Energy and Duke Power that worked to defeat politicians who favored greater regulation and oversight of the energy industry. Like the American Taxpayers Alliance, the Commission appears to be a front group for corporations. Reed said that his group and others rely on “the big three stepping into the batter’s box,” which “are the financial services industry, the energy industry, and the health insurance industry.” About:
According to Reed, “Citizens United opened the door for the unparalleled participation by corporations at the financial level.” As a 501(c)4 organization, the Commission does not have to disclose either the corporate or individual sources of its funding. Apparently, the Commission did not even notify the FEC about its spending in key congressional races, which is required by law. The Commission’s website says that it plans to “communicate its public welfare message” through “print advertising, cable television and radio messaging, as well as e-mail and direct mail communications.” The group has partnered with American Crossroads and the American Action Network in what The Wall Street Journal describes as “a $50 million advertising blitz” to attack vulnerable Democratic members of Congress and some Democratic incumbents whose races have only recently become competitive. The Journal also maintains that the three groups are likely to outspend even the National Republican Congressional Committee in supporting Republican candidates for the House. Current attacks:
Political Correction says that the Commission’s new ads, which concentrate on the increasing national debt, make it appear as if “President Obama and Congressional Democrats are wholly responsible for the debt.” According to PolitiFact, the national debt grew by almost $5 trillion during the Bush Presidency: “When Bush took office, the national debt was $5.73 trillion. When he left, it was $10.7 trillion.” The budget deficit and the national debt grew rapidly under Bush, even though he inherited a budget surplus and the country was on track to pay down the debt.
First Amendment Alliance
Where:
CO-SEN; DE-SEN; KY-SEN; NV-SEN; WV-SEN The First Amendment Alliance has so far spent over $800,000 in ads criticizing Democratic Senators Michael Bennet of Colorado and Harry Reid of Nevada, along with Democratic candidates Chris Coons of Delaware and Jack Conway of Kentucky. Most recently, it decided to spend $300,000 on ads opposing Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Who:
The First Amendment Alliance is a front group for the energy industry and was founded by Anthony Holm, who established the organization in October of 2008 as a 527 political organization. Holm is a principal at the Texas-based conservative consulting firm the Patriot Group. He represents Texas Governor Rick Perry’s campaign and also serves as a spokesman for major Republican fundraiser Bob Perry and his company, Perry Homes. Most recently, Holm was tied to a GOP scheme to place a Green Party candidate on the ballot for governor in order to take away votes from Rick Perry’s Democratic opponent. The First Amendment Alliance received “seed money” from Bob Perry, who also contributed $4.45 million to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004 and recently donated $2.5 million to the Republican Governors Association. About:
On its website, the organization says “we communicate instances of waste, fraud, hypocrisy, and general disregard for standards of civility in society,” and its contact information only lists a mailbox in Alexandria, Virginia. The First Amendment Alliance, like American Crossroads, is a “Super PAC” which is allowed to raise unlimited funds from individuals and corporations, and can “explicitly urge voters to oppose or support a candidate in an election.” According to a review of the group’s recent FEC filings, it’s clear that the First Amendment Alliance is a sham group for the energy industry. Nearly every single donor, including businesses and individuals, has links to the energy industry. Of the 73 contributors, 39 are businesses and 34 are individuals, and 70 of the donors are clearly tied to the oil and gas industry. The group raised close to $1.1 million, and of that amount more than $300,000 came from businesses tied to the energy industry and over $600,000 came from individuals with energy connections. The group’s most generous donors include oilman Russell Gordy, who contributed $150,000, and Clayton Williams of Clayton Williams Energy and Earl Rodman of Rodman Petroleum, who both donated $100,000. The Anschutz Corporation donated $50,000, and Melange Associates and Chisos LTD, which are both involved in oil and gas exploration, gave $25,000 each. And of course, Bob Perry gave the Alliance a $50,000 contribution this year. Current attacks:
The First Amendment Alliance’s ad against Jack Conway was so misleading that one TV station pulled it from the airways. In the ad, the First Amendment Alliance used information showing the increased numbers of meth-labs shut down by police officers as evidence that the number of meth-labs increased while Conway was Attorney General. In essence, it used statistics pointing to increased effectiveness by Kentucky law enforcement to deceptively claim that Conway was unsuccessful in fighting drugs. Conway actually presided over the largest drug-bust in state history, and the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police cited Conway’s achievements in cracking down on drugs as one of the reasons the group endorsed him. The Glasgow Daily Times reports that “Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton says law enforcement ‘would be lost’ in the war on drugs if it weren’t for federal help, funding assistance opposed by Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul.” Paul, Conway’s Republican opponent, also asserted that drug abuse was not “a pressing issue” in the state. In its Delaware ad, the First Amendment Alliance accuses Democratic Senate candidate Chris Coons of “bankrupting New Castle County,” even though the county under Coons’s leadership received a triple-A bond rating, which Moody’s Investors Services said “reflects the county’s strong financial operations bound by conservative policies.” Despite such proof of sound fiscal leadership, the First Amendment Alliance falsely claims that Coons is responsible for an “economic train wreck.”
The New Prosperity Foundation
US Chamber of Commerce
Corporate Defenders and Mouthpieces
The growth of pro-corporate independent expenditure committees coincided with a more intensified effort to defend corporations’ more powerful role in politics. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, said that the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education is “akin in my view to the Citizens United case,” and that desegregating schools was similar to allowing corporations greater access to the political process. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who The Hill described as “a longtime and vehement opponent of campaign finance reform,” even filed an amicus brief in the case in support of Citizens United. Business interests, Tea Party groups, and pro-corporate advocacy organizations have staunchly opposed legislation intended to check corporate power in elections and bring more transparency to politics. They often argue that regulations on corporate involvement in elections are an attack on free speech itself. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the leading opponents of attempts to quench corporate influence in politics. The Hill profiled the Chamber’s intense lobbying against the DISCLOSE Act which one Hill aide called “borderline thuggish,” saying that “the Chamber has threatened [multiple vulnerable members] with ads against them if they vote for the bill.” FreedomWorks, a Tea Party mainstay led by former House Republican leader and corporate lobbyist Dick Armey, is rallying Tea Party groups against legislation like the DISCLOSE Act. FreedomWorks has ties to Americans for Prosperity, as both groups used to be apart of Citizens for a Sound Economy, and received significant funding from the pro-corporate Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation. In fact, the DeVos Foundation helped finance Citizens United’s successful legal challenge to restrictions on corporate electioneering. The leading advocacy organization against all campaign finance reform efforts is the Center for Competitive Politics. The group’s main purpose is to legalize greater and more direct corporate involvement in politics, and to thwart public financing systems. The CCP filed an amicus brief in support of Citizens United and actively resists state and federal steps towards the public financing of elections, which it blasts as taxpayers’ “subsidizing political campaigns.” The Brennan Center for Justice described the group’s research as “unscientific and unsupported,” and unable “to demonstrate any problem” with public financing. The CCP was founded by Bradley Smith, a former FEC head and a principal opponent of corporate restrictions in public affairs. The Washington Post referred to his views as “quite radical,” and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said that “sending Brad Smith to the FEC is akin to confirming a conscientious objector to be Secretary of Defense.” The Center’s President, Sean Parnell, previously worked at The Heartland Institute, a pro-corporate ‘think tank’ that promotes Climate Change denialism and combats regulations on the tobacco, agriculture, and insurance industries, and receives financial support from the fossil fuel industry and the rightwing Olin, Koch, Scaife, and Walton Foundations. Pro-corporate activists attempt to conflate reasonable restrictions on corporate involvement in politics with censorship. The head of Citizens United, David Bossie, wrote that since Elena Kagan argued Citizens United on behalf of the government as Solicitor General, she effectively believes that “the government has the authority to ban books and other forms of communication.” The Center for Competitive Politics said that the Citizens United ruling was about preventing “government bans on books.” Essentially, they argue that the avalanche of corporate financing in campaigns benefits the democratic process, and any restrictions are a form of draconian government suppression of speech. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, when reacting to the Citizens United decision, said that “no state can possibly benefit from having that much money injected into a political campaign.” Because of their massive financial and legal resources, corporations already have significant sway over public officials, and their clout has only increased as a result of Citizens United. With the ability to drown out the voices of real individuals and ordinary citizens, corporations in the post-Citizens United era have more ways to promote their agenda and silence their critics.
Conclusion |
In the previous posts we have shown how Legalist and Confucian values as well as the legal codes of imperial China have influenced the legal system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We have concluded that the Communist state emphasizes Legalist principles and legal traditions that aimed at protecting dynastic rule from rebellion and treason. Confucian values, by contrast, play only a secondary role. We shall now show how two other states belonging to the Chinese cultural sphere, the Republic of Singapore and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, have incorporated traditional Confucian principles into their legal system.
Singapore And Filial Piety
Singapore is a multicultural society with English as its main official language. However, because three-quarters of its population are ethnic Chinese, Chinese culture and traditional values have exerted a deep influence on the official discourse and the legislation of the city-state. During the first two decades following the foundation of the Republic in 1965 and the consolidation of power by the ruling party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), traditional values did not play a substantial role in policy-making. The government was too busy building up the state and the economy. At a time when the West still led the global economy, Singaporean leaders did not seem eager to emphasize Asian traditions.
In an interview given at an NBC’s TV press conference in 1973, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father and longest-serving prime minister, still identified Singapore as a “third world country”. At that time, he seemed worried about the Chinese cultural heritage of Singapore, because he believed that the Chinese were culturally “intense people” whose disposition made them prone to Communism. He stated:
More intense peoples are more likely to take to communism because communism is a demanding task-master. Less intense peoples, they want the fruits of communism but they don’t like to put in the discipline and the sustained effort that is required of them before they enjoy the fruits … East of the Mekong, particularly Vietnam, [the people] are more influenced by the Sinic culture of Chinese culture. They are the more intense types … I would not say that, unfortunately, I’ve got a population which is about more than 75% ethnic Chinese. And although we have been placed in a much more relaxed environment climatically, there is still the overflow of years and years of the cultural values and the impetus is still there. So I am taking no chances.
Although he was critical of the West, and especially of Britain, in the early years of his presidency Lee did not seem to consider traditional values as fundamental elements of Singaporean state-building, but, on the contrary, as an obstacle. It was only after sustained economic growth had catapulted the city-state to the status of a high-income society that Lee appears to have started a personal journey of reappraisal of traditional Confucian values (see Diane K. Mauzy and R. S. Milne: Singapore Politics under the People’s Action Party, 2002, p. 58). In an interview given to Fareed Zakaria in 1994, Lee explained:
In the East the main object is to have a well-ordered society so that everybody can have maximum enjoyment of his freedoms. This freedom can only exist in an ordered state and not in a natural state of contention and anarchy … Eastern societies believe that the individual exists in the context of his family. He is not pristine and separate. The family is part of the extended family, and then friends and the wider society. The ruler or the government does not try to provide for a person what the family best provides. In the West, especially after World War II, the government came to be seen as so successful that it could fulfill all the obligations that in less modern societies are fulfilled by the family … [The Singapore government] used the family to push economic growth, factoring the ambitions of a person and his family into our planning … [We] were fortunate we had this cultural backdrop, the belief in thrift, hard work, filial piety and loyalty in the extended family, and, most of all, the respect for scholarship and learning (Culture Is Destiny: A Conversation With Lee Kuan Yew. In: Foreign Affairs Mar/Apr 1994, pp. 109-126, my emphasis).
This view of society is consistent with the basic tenets of Confucianism. According to the Confucian worldview, individuals exist only as members of family units in which they have to fulfill certain obligations. The Chinese empire used such values in order to create a self-regulating society, in which family heads became law-enforcers. Strict hierarchy and the interdependence of individuals within the clan made such self-regulating society possible, as the freedom of the individual to transgress moral and social standards was restricted by social hierarchy and control by family elders.
The cornerstone of Confucian ethics is the concept of filial piety (孝), which is based on the principle that children, owing their lives to their parents, are indebted to them and must repay their debt by obeying and pleasing them and by taking care of them. Singapore’s legal system strongly emphasizes the concept of filial piety, and most especially the idea that supporting people in their old age is a duty of the children, and not of the state.
When in the 1980s Singapore was faced with the problem of an aging population, an issue common to most developed societies, the government reacted by turning to Confucianism for answers. It set up the “Committee on the Problems of the Aged” (1982–1984). The Committee issued a report in which it advised the government
[t]o foster greater filial piety and responsibility for children and relatives to support their parents and elders … and in so doing to consider the need for legislation to compel children to care for their parents (Report of the Committee on the Problems of the Aged, 16 February 1984, p. 2).
The result of the government’s attempt at “implementing” filial piety was the Maintenance of Parents Act, which was enacted in 1995, revised in 1996 and lastly amended in 2014. The Act states:
Any person domiciled and resident in Singapore who is of or above 60 years of age and who is unable to maintain himself adequately (referred to in this section as the parent) may apply to the Tribunal for an order that one or more of his children pay him a monthly allowance or any other periodical payment or a lump sum for his maintenance.
2,177 applications for maintenance and 1,090 applications for variation of maintenance were filed between 1996 and 2014.
It is important to emphasize the “popular top-to-bottom” approach of the government, which in many respects is very similar to the official promotion of Confucianism in the Chinese empire. The report of the Committee on the Problems of the Aged as well as the Maintenance of Parents Act clearly show that Singapore’s authorities did not believe that their population was “filial” enough. A government would not legislate on issues which it considers “natural”. For instance, governments usually do not enact laws to compel people to eat or to spend money, because one may reasonable assume that the citizens will do such things on their own accord. The authorities will legislate only when they assume that misbehaviour may possibly occur and that regulation is necessary. The Singapore government certainly drew upon deep-rooted Confucian values which already existed. However, the government considered the filial piety of the Singaporeans potentially insufficient. In hindsight, Lee Kuan Yew and other politicians may describe Singapore’s population as filial; but the reality is that in the 1980s the government did not have confidence in the “natural” filial ethos of its people, and therefore it promoted filial piety and enacted laws to “compel” the citizens to be filial.
The government, however, was well aware that filial piety alone could not solve the problems of the modern era, and while tradition remained the cornerstone of public education and legislation, the authorities also implemented labour policies and created the necessary infrastructure that would make it possible for the families to care for the elders.
The 2006 Report on the Aging Population by the Committee on Aging Issues (CAI) states:
We want to empower individuals to age with dignity and security, as integral members of society, in a vibrant and socially cohesive nation. The family, as the first line of support, should look after the physical and emotional needs of their senior members. These needs are best met by one’s family. To support the family, there will be a range of comprehensive services in the community to support them in their caring responsibility (Report on the Ageing Population, 3 February 2006, p. ii).
Yet despite the official promotion of filial piety, it is important to note that the government has not adopted traditional values uncritically, but it has rather adapted them to modern realities. One example is the traditional Confucian discrimination of women, who were considered inferior to men and therefore did not enjoy the same personal freedoms as men. Singapore’s leaders have endorsed the principle of gender equality, which is contrary to the original spirit of Confucianism. Lee Kuan Yew himself stated in 2001 that the “Confucian practice of male over female, of a patriarchal society … has to change”.
Confucianism and the Law in the Republic of China
Like Singapore, the Republic of China (ROC) too stresses filial obligations and promotes traditional values. The Criminal Code of the Republic of China enshrines in articles 293-294 the duty of children to support their parents:
Whoever abandons a person who cannot support himself/herself shall be sentenced to a prison term of no more than six months or to a fine of no more than 100 dollars. If neglect causes death or injury, the punishment will be a prison term of no less than five years or a prison term of no less than three years, respectively.
Until a few years ago the duty of children to take care of their parents was unconditional, meaning that children had to support their parents even if the latter had abused them or had failed to provide for them. In order to fight against child abuse, on January 2010 article 294 was amended by the addition of article 294-1, which exempts from legal care-giving obligations children who have been victims of abuse or neglect.
The ROC promotes filial piety not only through legislation, but also though various government-sponsored events such as the foot-washing ceremony and the filial piety awards.
Summing up the results of the present analysis, we may conclude that Singapore and the ROC institutionally promote Confucian values, most especially filial piety, through legislation, education and government-sponsored activities. However, these values have been adapted to the conditions of modern society.
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The first transfer bombshell of the summer is here: Arda Turan is close to joining Barcelona, who have offered Atlético de Madrid €35m to get their man.
The Turkish playmaker has a €41m release clause.
Turan and his agent had made it clear in recent days that a move away from the 'Rojiblancos' was on the cards, but what no one had expected was that the 28-year-old would end up at another Spanish club.
Chelsea and Manchester United had been hotly tipped as the likeliest destinations for the maverick midfielder, who wowed the Calderón crowd on so many occasions over the last few seasons.
Like Aleix Vidal, Arda will be unable to play for Barcelona in competitive action until the club's FIFA transfer ban has run its course, i.e. until January 2015. |
Computer hacker arrested (in real life) for theft in online medieval fantasy game RuneScape
A hacker has been arrested for stealing players' identities, skills, weapons and virtual money in an online computer game.
In the first case of its kind, the 23-year-old man was held for hijacking hundreds of teenage boys' accounts to gain access to their hard-won virtual abilities.
The boys were taking part in RuneScape, a medieval fantasy game which has more than 100million players worldwide.
Fantasy: A scene from the game RuneScape in which a hacker stole players' identities and used their virtual money, skills and weapons
It revolves around collecting gold coins which characters can use to buy magic potions, spells and weapons in a world of dungeons and dragons.
It can take years for players to accrue wealth and skills through a series of challenges from fighting goblins to activities such as fishing, farming and mining.
Police believe the hacker obtained password details through a so-called phishing scam where a fake internet page tricks users into handing over their personal information.
Worth fighting for: Money made in the fantasy game can be exchanged for real cash
The hacker can then gain control of the player's character - or avatar - and sell off his or her weapons, skills, equipment and clothing, which can be worth tens of thousands of pounds in the real world.
Though against the rules of the game, a lucrative black market exists where players can buy powerful characters and items within RuneScape, without having to spend hundreds of hours building up their own profile.
One RuneScape account was recently sold on eBay for £46,000.
However, the arrested hacker did not steal the accounts to sell on. Police believe the man, who has not been named, simply wanted to boost his own standing in the computer game.
He was arrested last Tuesday in the Avon and Somerset area and accepted a police caution for hacking into 284 accounts.
RuneScape was founded in 2001. It is free to anyone over the age of 13, although players have to pay £5 a month if they want more conquests and skills.
The most popular characters chosen by players are wizards, rangers and fighters, while the most feared monster is the corporeal beast, which eats souls.
Players can also buy 'magical' potions - including one to make teenagers' spots disappear. |
Rep. Tim Huelskamp says it’s a “twisted world” when “transgender and transracial” are considered “in,” while trans fats are “out.”
The Kansas Republican tweeted on Tuesday:
Twisted world: transgender and transracial are ‘in’; and trans fats are out! #jenner #dolezal http://t.co/ccEnSos9eK — Cong. Tim Huelskamp (@CongHuelskamp) June 16, 2015
The congressman was referencing two major recent news stories: Caitlyn Jenner, the Olympian and reality TV star formerly known as Bruce Jenner, appearing as a woman for the first time on the cover of Vanity Fair; and Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP chapter leader who resigned amid accusations that she “disguised” herself as a black woman.
Huelskamp included in his tweet a link to an Associated Press story on the Obama administration banning partially hydrogenated oils, a source of trans fat, from products made by food manufacturers. |
Signs for long-departed stores, retaining walls no longer in use, trolley tracks peeking out from asphalt streets: New York’s past leaves its imprint everywhere.
The sides of buildings give us glimpses of the city’s history too. The faded outlines of tenements and other buildings long gone often remain, at least until new construction comes along and obscures them again.
On a lonely block in the far West 30s is this classic city walkup, with a roof on a slant–a modest place to make a home in what was once a modest neighborhood.
Hebrew Union College put up this building in 1979, at Mercer and West 4th Streets, almost covering the two chimneys from the building that previously occupied the spot. A tenement perhaps?
Considering the pace of construction in a luxury-building crazed New York, these remains of a 43rd Street walkup might already be sealed out of view.
Same with this former home—maybe a brownstone?—on 86th Street, on a stately block near Fifth Avenue.
Also in the far West 30s near the Javits Center is this outline of a humble tenement on the side of another humble tenement, the people who once lived and worked there and their stories lost to the ages.
More faded building outlines—dormer windows too!—can be seen here.
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Tags: Hebrew Union College West 4th Street, Old buildings New York, outlines of old buildings NYC, tenements, tenements in New York City, Vanished Buildings New York City, West 30s NYC |
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Chicago is keeping up it’s tradition of increasing Murder rates.
With numbers on the constant rise in the windy city, it would seem that Chicago PD has their hands tied significantly by politicians and the ACLU.
The tragedies and brutality continue on, most recently with the death of two little girls; ages 11 and 12. When are people going to say enough is enough? When are the Chicago communities going to stand united and put an end to this slaughter? I have worked in urban communities, both as a law enforcement officer and as a Paramedic; where the unwritten rule in those communities is “…snitches get stitches…”.
It is this mentality that fuels urban chaos and the decline of our nations inner cities. It is time to put an end to this violence.
Fox News Reports:
The Chicago Tribune reports an 11-year-old girl was sitting in a parked vehicle Saturday night when she was hit by gunfire in the back of the head.
A 12-year-old girl was shot in the head while playing with friends in an unrelated shooting the same night.
The weekend’s gun violence also claimed the lives of a 23-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman in separate incidents. (Read More) |
This story was updated at 6:42 pm CT.
Yesterday, the Nebraska School Activities Association asked high school senior and state poetry champion Michael Barth to change his poetry selection for an appearance on an NET Television showcase of best performers in the state's speech competition.
Barth, from Gordon-Rushville High School, won the Class C-1 poetry division at the Nebraska State Speech Championships. The poems he performed, which include “Swingset” by Andrea Gibson and as well as lyrics from the song “Same Love” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, focused on LGBTQ identity and acceptance.
An NSAA committee selected Barth to record his poems for a showcase of 10 of the state’s speech champions for broadcast on NET Television. Yesterday, the committee asked Barth to change his poems because of their “controversial” themes.
Rhonda Blanford-Green, executive director of the NSAA, stated to multiple media outlets that the NSAA asked Barth to change his poetry selection because they didn’t want the program to appear to be promoting an agenda. The NSAA reversed their decision this afternoon and will allow him to perform the poems of his choosing on NET Television.
In the press release, the NSAA stated that the organization wanted to preempt any negative attention to the broadcast due to past controversy over a non-discrimination policy. "The intent of my decision was not to stifle freedom of speech, but rather to avoid any negative connotations for individuals within this statewide production," Blanford-Green said in the release.
The NSAA press release reversing their decision on Barth's poems. (Release courtesy NSAA)
Barth himself missed most of the controversy about his performance because on Wednesday he was on his way to Lincoln to record his performance for NET Television. His initial reaction to the NSAA's request was surprise. "To be honest, it kind of hurt, (because) it felt like they were trying to shut down a certain demographic of people from the speech community entirely," Barth said.
When he found out the NSAA had decided to allow his poems after mounting public pressure and attention, Barth said, "I was screaming for joy just a little bit. It’s so humbling, and it’s such an honor that so many people jumped to support this. To support this message, to support this poetry, to support this demographic of people. It’s amazing."
A Facebook page in support of Barth was created today (Wednesday) and has more than 1100 members as of this afternoon. A petition calling for the NSAA to allow Barth to perform his original selection was also created today and currently has more than 400 signatures, with a goal of 500, to send to Blanford-Green. ACLU Nebraska issued a statement in support of Barth’s right to choose whichever poems he wanted for his performance.
Before the NSAA's announcement, NET General Manager Mark Leonard had decided that NET Television would broadcast whatever poems Barth chose.
"It's an expression of poetry, a free expression, and these are values that public media supports," Leonard said. "In terms of the nature of a competition like this, as well as poetry, I think it's expressing a student's personal point of view and, for me, that's valid."
For Barth, the poems he performed for the competition and will perform for broadcast have a personal meaning for him.
"I’m a very effeminate man, and I’ve gone through so much pain and intolerance because of that," Barth said. "The message of 'Swingset' is very close to my heart because it speaks out against that."
As a result of today's controversy, Barth also learned about what he's willing to do in defense of his own personal convictions. If the NSAA hadn't changed its mind, Barth said he wouldn't have changed his performance. "I would have just gone there and been ready to perform whether they wanted me or not, and if they were gonna turn me down, they were gonna turn me down," he said. "I guess I would have turned around and gone back to school. I wasn’t gonna change it. It’s something I’m passionate about."
Barth's performance will be included in the "Best of the Best" program that will air on NET1 on Sunday, April 20, at 9 a.m. and rebroadcast on NET2. The full program will also be available online. |
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Employees at the Amazon Fulfillment Center Warehouse on Pecan Park Road can find their way to work on a new Jacksonville Transportation Authority shuttle.
JTA announced that Route 82 will have direct service between the Armsdale Park-n-Ride at 3191 Armsdale Road, just south of I-295 off Lem Turner Road. and the the warehouse. The route will launch Aug. 7, coinciding with JTA service changes. Route 82 will operate seven days a week with service 30 minutes before and after Amazon shift changes in the morning and evening.
At the Park-n-Ride, there are 189 spaces for parking, plus bike racks and ticket vending machines as well as direct connections to the Firsst Coast Flyer "Green Line."
During shift changes, the Amazon Shuttle will operate every five to seven minutes during shift changes.
Unlimited ride, single-day passes cost $4 or a one-ride ticket for $1.50 using the MyJTA mobile application.
JTA STAR cards are also available for purchase at the Rosa Parks Transit Station and at ticket vending machines and may be loaded with time-based passes or passes for a specific number of trips or dollar value. JTA said that the best value is the 31-day pass, which is available for $50 and equates to $1.62 per day.
Copyright 2017 by WJXT News4Jax - All rights reserved. |
Here are the fields in the table. The query is quite simple, and accesses the meta data which is available in every relational database.
Now, why do I spend so much time suggesting all these, when you can very easily just download a file, read it into R and do whatever you want with it? In a nutshell, because of all the goodies you get with it. For example, you could easily detect problems with the data as part of the load, and run SQL. You can handle data sizes that can't fit in memory. And at least with MS SQL, it gets better. You have an easy wizard that you can use to load the data, and figure out problems with it even before you load it. And with MS SQL, you can also run R from within it, on a large scale.
If you are unfamiliar with SQL, this SQL tutorial has been around for a long time, and this is where I got started with SQL. Another thing I find convenient is to use an ETL tool. ETL, if you are not already familiar with it, stands for Extract-Transform-Load, and is as pervasive a utility in IT infrastructures in companies as plumbing and electrical wiring are in homes, and often just as invisible, and noticed only when unavailable. If you are determined to stay open source, you can use PostgreSQL for a database (I prefer PostgreSQL over MySQL, but you can choose whatever you become comfortable with) and say, Talend for the ETL. For this exercise, I had access to Microsoft SQL Server's 2016 preview, and ended up using it. An interesting thing is that it already has an ETL tool called SQL Server Integration Services, and a wizard that makes it extremely convenient to do it all in one place.
In this post, I'll be using Microsoft SQL Server to import and prepare the traffic violations data, and then use R to visualize the data.
By the standards of the data sizes I have worked with, this is rather small; it is a little over 800K records, though it has about 35 columns, including latitude and longitude. I find it convenient to park the data in a relational database, analyze it using SQL first, and then get slices of it into R.
While I could not find one for any data for the SF Bay Area, I supposed I could get some vicarious pleasure out of analyzing it for some place for which I could get data. As luck would have it, I did find something. It turns out that Montgomery County in Maryland does put all the traffic violation information online . Of course, they take out personally identifiable information, but do put out a lot of other information. If any official from that county is reading this, thanks for putting it online! Hopefully, other counties follow suit.
Who does not hate being stopped and given a traffic ticket? Invariably, we think that something is not fair that we got it and everyone else did not. I am no different, and living in the SF Bay Area, I have often wondered if I could get the data about traffic tickets, particularly since there may be some unusual patterns.
select column_name, data_type from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.columns where table_name = 'Montgomery_County_MD_Traffic_Violations'
order by ORDINAL_POSITION asc
Date Of Stop date
Time Of Stop time
Agency varchar
SubAgency varchar
Description varchar
Location varchar
latitude float
longitude float
Accident varchar
Belts varchar
Personal Injury varchar
Property Damage varchar
Fatal varchar
Commercial License varchar
HAZMAT varchar
Commercial Vehicle varchar
Alcohol varchar
Work Zone varchar
State varchar
VehicleType varchar
Year bigint
Make varchar
Model varchar
Color varchar
Violation Type varchar
Charge varchar
Article varchar
Contributed To Accident varchar
Race varchar
Gender varchar
Driver City varchar
Driver State varchar
DL State varchar
Arrest Type varchar
Geolocation varchar
month_of_year nvarchar
day_of_week nvarchar
hour_of_day int
num_day_of_week int
num_month_of_year int
The last five columns were created by me. It is trivial to create new columns in SQL Server (or any other relational database) and having them computed each time a new row is added.
With RODBC/RJDBC, it is easy to get data from an RDBMS and do what we want with it. Here is an interesting plot of violations by race and if they concentrate in certain areas.
The code to create the above chart uses, as you may have guessed, the ggmap library. Installing ggmap automatically includes the ggplot2 library as well. In order to plot this, we first get the geocodes for Montgomery county, which is easy to do. First, we get the geocode for the location, and then use the get_map function to get the map. Actually, the get_map function also has a zoom level, that we can play with to get the appropriate zoom if we need to zoom in or out instead of using the default.
Here is another one on violation concentrations related to the time of day (the scale is hours from midnight: 0 is midnight and 12 is noon):
The code to do this is as follows:
It looks like there are few violations are really small in the wee hours of the morning. How about violations by month by vehicle?
Looks like it is mostly cars, but there are some light duty trucks as well. But how did we get the numerical month of the year? Again, in SQL, it becomes easy to do:
ALTER TABLE <table name> ADD COLUMN num_month_of_year AS datepart(month,[Date Of Stop])
After that, it is a routine matter of plotting a bar chart, after using RODBC/RJDBC to get the data from the database.
ggplot(data=alldata, aes(num_month_of_year)) + geom_bar(aes(color=VehicleType), fill=factor(VehicleType))
When we look at the Make of the cars, we see how messed up that attribute is. For example, I have seen HUYAND, HUYND, HUYNDAI, HYAN, HYANDAI, HYN, HYND, HYNDAI. I am pretty sure I even saw a GORRILLA, and have no idea what it might mean. That does not make for a very good plot, or for that matter any analysis. Can we do better? Not really, unless we have reference data. We could build one using the car makes and models that we know of, but that is a nontrivial exercise.
A little SQL goes a long way, particularly if the data is very large and needs to be sampled selectively. For example, here is a query:
The square brackets [] are an MS SQL syntax to work with fields that are separated by spaces and other special characters. To practise SQL itself, you don’t have to get an RDBMS first. In R itself, there is the sqldf library, where you can practice your SQL if you don't have an actual database. For example:
bymonth <- sqldf("select num_month_of_year, sum(frequency) as frequency from res group by num_month_of_year")
Since I have been recently introduced to what I call the "rx" functions from Microsoft R Server (the new name for Revolution Analytics' R), I decided to check it against what I normally use, which is ctree from the party package and of course the glm. My intent was not to get insights from the data here; it was to simply see if the rx functions would run slightly better. So I simply tried to relate the number of violations to as many variables as I could use.
The rx functions (in my limited testing) worked when the CRAN R functions did not. Note that I did not go looking for places where one outperformed the other. This was simply to figure out what was doable with the rx functions.
Finally, we can call R from within SQL Server too. Here is an example:
It is no surprise that the least violations are during the wee hours of the morning, but one surprise for me was the vehicle brand names. Of course, one can create a reference set of names and use it to clean this data, so that one can try and see what brands have a higher chance of violations, but that is not an elegant solution. Chances are that as we get such data, the errors in human inputs will be a serious issue to contend with.
Hopefully, this article also illustrates how powerful SQL can be in manipulating data, though this article barely scratched the surface on SQL usage. |
According to former Trump campaign staffer and key confidante Roger Stone, Democratic convention speaker Khizr Khan isn’t really just a father of a fallen soldier, he’s a Muslim Brotherhood sleeper agent hellbent on protecting Hillary Clinton.
Stone tweeted his theory Sunday night.
Mr. Khan more than an aggrieved father of a Muslim son- he’s Muslim Brotherhood agent helping Hillary https://t.co/mJuUYw60nK — Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) August 1, 2016
The url in Stone’s tweet links to a website run by anti-Islam pundit Walid Shoebat, and co-run by his son Theodore Shoebat. The Shoebats argue that “Khan is a Muslim plant working with the Hillary Clinton campaign, probably for the interest of Muslim oil companies as well as Muslim immigration into the U.S.”
It’d be kind to say their evidence is circumstantial at best. Among the leaps in logic, “Khan wrote the paper in the eighties while he was in Saudi Arabia, the motherland of Wahhabism, which means that Khan clearly had a Wahabist connection.” Or, “According to a recent report, Khan moved from Pakistan to the United Arab Emirates, a hotbed for the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The site even attacks Captain Humayan Khan, the decorated soldier who died serving in Iraq. “In regards to his son, many were the ‘Muslim martyrs’ who joined the US military…” they argue. “Is it likely that Khan’s son was killed before his Islamist mission was accomplished? Only another type of investigation will determine that.”
[Image via screengrab]
——
>>Follow Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? [email protected] |
A few updates on the OpenStim project
*There's been a lot of stuff added in the more recent versions. OpenStim can now do automatically timed runs, has a mode for double-blind sham stimulation(even on yourself!) better self-diagnostics, electrode quality monitoring, and better current regulation. There are also demo imprint files that give examples of how to configure things, and there should be some new documentation up shortly.
*Speaking of updates, the most recent versions (> revision 6) require an AD5206 digital potentiometer, not an MCP4131. The transition is one that I've been planning for a while, because the AD5206 is all around a better chip, and, in particular, it has six outputs, which will enable multi-channel HD-tDCS protocols in the future. Although the initial plan was for the switch to happen after the stable version of the basic system was ready, my last MCP4131s ended up breaking a week before I was due to talk about the OpenStim at a conference. Since I had a few sample AD5206s on hand, I swapped one in and made the necessary changes to the software, which also broke compatibility with the MCP4131(It's technically possible to auto-detect the kind of chip, but I figured that we're not at the critical mass of early adopters where that would be necessary yet)
In terms of hardware changes, there will probably be just one more before the 1.0, to allow for AC stimulation support. It's not totally clear what that will look like(it could be anything from adding one wire to a couple of specialized chips depending on what ends up working best), but it should be out by early summer. |
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