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Programmers, engineers and robotics specialists are all crucial to the development of autonomous cars. But what about anthropologists? Nissan thinks so. In an exclusive interview, Melissa Cefkin explains why her job is equally essential to driverless technology.
Melissa Cefkin is Principal Scientist and Design Anthropologist at Nissan. In an unusual move, she was hired by the company in March 2015. At Nissan’s research center in Silicon Valley, Cefkin’s job is to ensure that humans still take center stage despite extensive automation. Cefkin explains why this is vital. Get your driverless updates every week exclusive insights
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2025AD: Ms. Cefkin, your job description seems paradoxical. As an anthropologist, you study human beings. But with Nissan, you are working on a process that aims to replace humans with computers. Can you resolve this contradiction? Melissa Cefkin: Yes, easily. It’ll still take many years before a vehicle’s electronics will be able to assume all driving duties at all times, under all conditions. In the next few years, the question won’t simply be, man or machine? Rather, it will be about establishing a smooth cooperation between the two, with an emphasis on team work and task sharing. You need to understand humans if you want to provide them with an automated partner.
2025AD: So this is just a temporary job? Cefkin: Quite the contrary! Even if at some point humans are no longer needed to steer vehicles, they will still interact with them – be it as a passenger, a road user in another vehicle, a cyclist or a pedestrian. So it can’t hurt to have someone with “knowledge of human nature” accompany this process and ensure a trouble-free coexistence. No matter how you look at it: even with autonomous driving, the human being is still central. 2025AD: Can you give us specific examples of how your team is shaping the development of the Nissan ProPilot? Cefkin: We focus on two main topics. The first is the communication between man and machine – inside the vehicle, as well as between the vehicle and its environment. How do we create the necessary confidence of passengers in the ProPilot? How do we inform other road users about what our car is thinking and doing? An autonomous Nissan Leaf will not be able to communicate via hand gestures or eye contact like human drivers. This sounds trivial, but it isn’t. We need to find a “language” that is as universal as possible. As a mass producer of affordable cars, we are not only considering Japanese, U.S. or Central European markets for our autonomous models; we are also taking other countries into account that may not be as developed.
2025AD: What is the second main topic? Cefkin: In our research center in Silicon Valley, we work on the same floor as the programmers, electronics engineers and experts for artificial intelligence. Here, we frequently work together on the same issues. Take right-of-way rules at a crossroads, for instance. You can easily transfer them into an algorithm. But unlike an autopilot system, human beings do not always follow the rules. There are countless situations that make it necessary to break the rules or at least interpret them flexibly. But robots can’t deal with that if they are based on rigid programs. Instead, we have to provide the machine with “human” traits. This means creating scope for interpretation and action so that the machine can complete the task. This is where we help. We make sure theory and practice do not diverge. We are kind of a reality check for the calculation models of the driving systems. 2025AD: What is the outcome of your work? Cefkin: We just presented our new Seamless Autonomous Mobility system (SAM) at CES. It perfectly illustrates the human role in this area. Every time the ProPilot reaches its limits in a complex situation, it gets advice from an expert – a kind of supervisor who can log in to the vehicle’s data stream and analyze the situation within seconds. The expert can then react. For instance, they can “allow” a car to ignore road markings, such as driving over a solid line to overtake instead of waiting for hours behind a broken-down vehicle – only if the adjacent lane is free of course. This information will be shared over the cloud in real time and the action therefore remembered. So even if one day there are no drivers on board, humans will still prevail.
2025AD: Clearly, autonomous driving is more to you than an algorithm based on sensor data and a digital map. Considering this, how do you picture the perfect autonomous car? Cefkin: I think a car with the perfect technology that always makes the right decision would not be sufficient if the passengers deem the car’s behavior to be unnatural. They wouldn’t accept the vehicle. In my opinion, an autonomous vehicle also needs to be “human” to fully succeed. 2025AD: Ms. Cefkin, thank you very much for your insights! |
A Lawrence County hospital and the county’s Children and Youth Services agency agreed to pay $143,500 and change their policies to settle one of two federal “poppy seed” lawsuits filed over a county policy that automatically separated newborns from mothers who tested positive for opiates at delivery.
Elizabeth Mort in April 2010 ate a poppy seed bagel two hours before she went to Jameson Health System, where she tested positive for opiates in the predelivery screening. Based on that result, the county took custody of her daughter.
“I am happy that the changes made by (the agency) and the hospital will prevent similar situations to others in the future,” said Mort, 24, of New Castle.
Lawyers for both sides filed a motion on Tuesday to dismiss the case. Lawyers and spokeswomen for the hospital and county agency couldn’t be reached for comment.
Sara Rose, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented Mort, said one of the most important policy changes is that Jameson Health System will report a positive drug test to Children and Youth Services only when it’s based on a test of the infant’s meconium, or first bowel movement. In the case of eating poppy seeds, the “opiates” show up in a test of the mother’s urine but not in the newborn’s meconium, she said.
The hospital also agreed it would talk to parents first about the potential causes of a positive drug test before contacting the county agency.
“As a result of this case, the county agreed to evaluate its procedures to ensure that families had an opportunity to discuss any reason for the test results that come out of Jameson,” said Marie Jones, a lawyer with the agency.
The hospital staff didn’t tell Mort and the baby’s father that there had been a positive test, so they had no warning when two police officers and two caseworkers knocked on their door the day after they returned home with their daughter, Rose said.
U.S. District Judge David Cercone ruled in pretrial motions in September that the county’s policy of separating a mother from her newborn child “without any valid basis for doing so” was an arbitrary use of government power that “shocks the conscience.”
In a separate lawsuit still pending, Eileen Bower of New Castle is suing the county agency and hospital for taking custody of her son for 75 days based on a test result that showed a “trace” of opiates.
Brian Bowling is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-325-4301 or [email protected]. |
Share. Left Behind introduces new stories and combat mechanics. Left Behind introduces new stories and combat mechanics.
It was only last week that we brought you the very first concrete information about The Last of Us’ first (and perhaps only) single-player DLC called Left Behind. Today, Sony revealed more about the DLC, including a full, nearly three minute long trailer, which you can watch below.
Exit Theatre Mode
In another video, seen below, the actresses behind the DLC’s main characters – Ashley Johnson and Yaani King – as well as some of the Naughty Dog employees working on the DLC, spoke more about what’s in store.
Exit Theatre Mode
“After reading American Dreams and having my idea of who Riley was, when Yaani [King] came in, I was like, ‘guys, send everyone home, because she’s obviously Riley,’” Ashley Johnson – the actress who plays Ellie – said.
“With Left Behind, we wanted to make a single-player DLC that was as fully-crafted as our main campaign,” Lead Game Designer Jacob Minkoff noted. “There’s a great deal that we’ve done with the DLC that exceeds the level of narrative density that we had in the main campaign.”
“There’s definitely, implicitly, this stronger emphasis on exploration and non-combat gameplay. The environment that Ellie and Riley are exploring is a mall. This is kind of a playground of lost history…” Game Designer Anthony Newman added.
Exit Theatre Mode
One of the coolest features mentioned is that, while Left Behind doesn’t emphasize combat quite as much as the main campaign did, it allows for some new features, including pitting human enemies against the Infected. Basically, as Ellie and Riley slink around, they can force combat between the two factions without ever getting involved, by doing things such as throwing a bottle near a human to attract the attention of the Infected.
“The truth behind [the girls] is that they really need each other,” Yaani King said. “If you’ve finished The Last of Us, you know what happens to Riley. You know that playing through the DLC, something is obviously going to happen,” Ashley Johnson followed-up.
The Last of Us’ Left Behind DLC comes out on February 14. Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for our full review.
Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter. |
The 1950 Pennsylvania Railroad calendar never made it to James W. Flanagan, general manager of The Scranton Times.
He would never need it: he died in December 1949. But on Friday, 63 years after his death, the U.S. Postal Service made a delivery.
A mail carrier, with no explanation of where the package had been the last 63 years, handed it to Chris O'Hora at The Times-Tribune's front desk. The calendar, rolled in a long tube, soon made its way to the office of Bobby Lynett, a publisher of The Times-Tribune and CEO of Times-Shamrock Communications.
Mr. Flanagan was The Scranton Times' general manager from 1936 to his death in 1949 at the age of 63. He had a 54-year career at the paper, starting as a salesboy in 1895. The calendar includes a holiday greeting from an executive at the railroad company, dated the same month Mr. Flanagan died.
On Friday, Mr. Lynett gently rolled the large calendar out on his conference table, curious about its origin and more curious about where it had been the past 63 years.
Ray Daiutolo, a spokesman for the Postal Service, said lost mail is sometimes found when a machine is dismantled or a post office space renovated. Other times, someone may find a stamped but unmailed letter or package at a yard sale and then drop it in the mail, he said. Mr. Daiutolo was unable to trace the package's history on Friday.
A new sticker, dated last week from a distribution center in Pittsburgh, accompanied two 4-cent William Howard Taft stamps, which appear to have been canceled decades ago, on the tube.
The calendar, originally mailed from the Philadelphia publicity department of the Pennsylvania Railroad, features the painting "Crossroads of Commerce" by Grif Teller. The Pennsylvania Railroad merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968.
Mr. Lynett said he will contact officials at the Steamtown National Historic Site to see if they are interested in displaying the calendar.
If not, it will be displayed somewhere in The Scranton Times building, he said.
"We'll find a good home for it. That's for sure," he said.
Contact the writer: [email protected], @hofiushallTT on Twitter |
Microsoft seems to be following through on its long-promised vision of a cross-platform future, announcing today that Remedy's upcoming Xbox One game Quantum Break will now see a concurrent release on Windows 10, and folks who pre-order the Xbox One version will get a copy of the Windows 10 version for free.
Given that Quantum Break has long been branded an "Xbox exclusive" this deal seems to notably loosen what, exactly, Microsoft means when it uses that kind of language.
It's also a minor about-face in light of remarks made by company chief Phil Spencer last summer, when he told PC Gamer that "I definitely want to build out our Windows games portfolio" but that Xbox One "exclusives" were unlikely to come to Windows because "we started those games before we really looked at expanding into Windows in the way that I wanted."
The fact that the company is seeding free copies of Quantum Break on Windows 10 to people who buy the Xbox One game or its associated Xbox One console bundle is well in line with Spencer's stated aims to promote Windows 10 as a viable game platform, something Microsoft has already done by (among other things) making the Xbox Live SDK available for Windows 10 developers.
Incidentally, Microsoft is also bundling free digital copies of Remedy's Alan Wake and its DLC for Xbox 360 (playable on the Xbox One via its backwards compatibiliy feature) with Xbox One copies of Quantum Break. The two games are both heavily inspired by Remedy's appreciation for television and film, something you can read more about in Gamasutra's 2015 conversation with Remedy frontman Sam Lake. |
San Diego faces yet another proposed alcohol ban in public spaces – and your help is needed to push for alternative public safety solutions.
The North County Transit District (NCTD) Board of Directors has scheduled a vote for December 18th on a proposal to completely ban alcoholic beverages on Coaster trains. This is not the first time this issue has been raised. Last year, NCTD staff and transit enforcement officials cited excessive alcohol consumption as a problem, contributing to train crowding, fights, noise, littering, and underage drinking, particularly during the baseball season. In response, a total alcohol ban on Coaster trains was proposed, but was quickly tabled after the NCTD received “robust public feedback” on the issue, including a U-T San Diego editorial which denounced the proposal as “overkill.”
The current proposal would rescind NCTD’s alcohol policy, “Ordinance No. 2,” which allows open containers and alcohol consumption on trains until 9PM. The proposed ordinance changes can be found online here, and more information can be found here. In their recommendation for rescinding Ordinance No. 2, District staff state that “NCTD’s most compelling concern remains the attendant liability and risk to passengers and crew associated with the safety concerns created by consumption of alcohol on board COASTER.” The proposal follows a Board evaluation of the recent “Civility Rules” public awareness campaign on Coaster trains, as well as increased transit enforcement.
As a Coaster rider, I understand the alcohol-related concerns for public safety, particularly during baseball season. Still, an outright alcohol ban is excessive, overreaching, and negatively impacts San Diego’s growing craft beer industry. A ban penalizes the responsible adults who occasionally enjoy a beer or glass of wine while riding on the train. It hurts small businesses that host beer or wine tastings on trains, such as San Diego Beer & Wine Tours. The prohibition on “open containers” may also jeopardize growler sales at local breweries and tasting rooms. It is important to note that a dozen breweries, brewpubs and tasting stores are located within walking distance or a short bike ride from a Coaster train station.
Reasonable alternatives can be effective in preventing unwanted alcohol-related misconduct. For example, Amtrak’s alcohol policy prohibits private stock alcohol consumption while allowing beer and wine sales on trains. This approach allows Amtrak to limit public alcohol consumption, prevent underage drinking (IDs are checked at the time of sale) and stop public intoxication (it is illegal to serve intoxicated individuals). It also allows for local craft beer to be showcased to locals and the thousands of visitors who use our train network each year; Stone IPA and Arrogant Bastard Ale are available for purchase on Amtrak trains departing to and from San Diego (see photo).
Your help is needed to halt the proposed alcohol ban, which is only days away from a public vote! More time is needed to work with stakeholders on a compromise solution to address public complaints of unruly behavior, which are valid and require attention. Addressing safety concerns with a more measured approach can also promote one of San Diego’s fastest growing industries. However, if nothing changes, craft beer enthusiasts and responsible adults won’t have a chance to be heard.
There are three ways you can take action right now to protect personal freedoms in San Diego and ensure local craft beer enthusiasts can enjoy beer responsibly on Coaster trains:
SPEAK OUT:
Voice your opposition to the Coaster alcohol ban to NCTD by sending an email to [email protected]. You are welcome to use or modify the suggested template below for your email.
“Re: Rescinding Ordinance No. 2
To the North County Transit District Board of Directors,
I respectfully oppose the rescinding of Ordinance No. 2. A total alcohol ban on Coaster trains is an excessive and overreaching response to a narrowly defined public safety problem. I strongly urge the board to explore alternative ways to strengthening public safety on Coaster trains while also allowing responsible adults to consume alcoholic beverages.
Sincerely,
________________”
The deadline for sending comments to the Board is December 17th, 5PM.
SHARE:
Tell your friends about the proposed Coaster alcohol ban, and encourage them to send an email to the North County Transit District. Share this article on Twitter and Facebook. Get the word out to your local brewery and brewpub, and ask them to share their opinions and perspective with the NCTD.
ATTEND:
There is an informational workshop on this issue, along with other proposed changes affecting transit passengers, on Thursday, December 4th, 6-8PM at the NCTD General Administrative Offices, 810 Mission Avenue, Oceanside. You can learn more about the proposal from NCTD staff, and offer your opinions.
The public hearing where the NCTD Board will vote on the Coaster alcohol ban will be held on Thursday, December 18th at 2PM at the same location, 810 Mission Avenue in Oceanside. You are encouraged to give your public comments before the Board.
This article was written by West Coaster contributor Vince Vasquez. He is also a Senior Policy Analyst for the National University System Institute for Policy Research and has published reports on the economic impact of craft beer in the region. |
Britain's baby drought is fast becoming one of this country's most pressing long-term problems. A new think tank report reveals that, while some women are happy to remain childless, others are desperate to conceive. It's just that the problems of juggling motherhood and a career are becoming intolerable
When Julie Kendall walked down the aisle at the age of 26, it was always with the idea that some day she would be a mother. At that age there was no obvious hurry. Both she and her husband were keen to establish careers; her own mother had urged her not to be saddled with kids too young. Still, Kendall saw herself ultimately with children: 'I didn't want just one, because I was an only child; I always saw myself with three.'
Kendall achieved her career ambitions, and is now a company director. But motherhood proved elusive. The couple started trying when she was 30 and by 36, after years of struggling to conceive, had embarked on IVF. Two painful attempts later, they conceded defeat.
Childless at 47, Kendall now hugely regrets focusing on her career: 'It's not worth giving up something like having children for the sake of a job. My advice to any woman or man is to put having a family first.'
According to today's findings from the Institute of Public Policy Research think-tank, however, there is another way - one that could avoid painful choices between a satisfying career and a fulfilled family life. It argues that women have not suddenly stopped wanting children: a life of long working hours, expensive childcare and dual-income mortgages has simply made it too hard. Or as Shirley Conran, author and mother of two, puts it, modern motherhood 'is a rotten deal, and if it wasn't wrapped up in sentiment and we weren't affected by our hormones, no one would consider it'.
Torn between maternal instincts and the desire to do what they have been educated and inspired to do at work, women are struggling to find the right time to jump off the career carousel. Leap too soon, and they might never get back on, watching male colleagues sail past them; too late, and some will be too old to conceive. Men, too, can put children well down a priority list usually headed with one word - career.
Many thirtysomething women, of course, are only too aware of ticking biological clocks but have not found suitable partners. But even for couples, the trend to delay parenthood may reflect sound economic sense.
Amalia Miller, who is a 28-year-old economist at the University of Virginia, was motivated to research the issue by her friends' endless debates over the right age to conceive. She calculated in a study published last year that deferring birth by a year could boost a woman's salary by up to 10 per cent.
The pay hit from motherhood is caused by mothers returning to jobs with shorter hours, lower pay or worse promotion prospects because these fit better around children - a phenomenon Kendall saw in action. She pretended in job interviews not to want children in case it held her back. 'Women who'd had children seemed to fall off the radar,' she says. 'They were either demoted or worked part-time or were written off.'
However research suggests that delayed motherhood incurs less of this cost, probably because more established employees can either afford better childcare or negotiate better deals with their employers. But work is only part of it. The lengthy 'kidulthood' enjoyed by many men and women - almost a quarter of men aged 25-29 still live with their parents - and high house prices forcing couples to save up longer to buy have built delays into the process of starting a family. The average age of marriage rose from 23 for women in 1971 to 29 in 2004, shunting conception forward into their thirties where waning fertility makes it harder.
But heartbreaking as it is for the involuntarily childless, the baby drought does not just affect would-be parents. Britons have not reproduced at the 'replacement rate' - 2.1 children per couple, enough to replace each parent when they die with a little leeway for childhood deaths - since 1972. While greater life expectancy and immigration have kept the population growing - Britain's 60 million population will rise by five million over the next 20 years - the lack of babies at one end, and growth of retirees at the other, creates a top-heavy, disproportionately ageing population and a serious economic challenge.
Taxes paid by today's children will support their parents' state healthcare and pensions as they age. As Jenny Watson, chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, puts it, children are not just a private joy but an economic good: 'If people choose to have children we should support them to do that - not least because I'll need their children to pay for my pension in the future.'
So if public policy and workplace practice now threaten that future, can declining fertility be reversed?
When Peter Costello, the Australian finance minister, unveiled what he described as a budget for children, it could have been an echo of Gordon Brown. Rather more startling was Costello's exhortation that women should now have one child for themselves, one for their husbands 'and one for Australia'.
The birthrate is falling not just in the UK but across developed economies - reviving in some the concept of using taxpayers' money to pay women to have babies. The practice has dark echoes - IPPR director Nick Pearce says it is historically associated with 'nationalist ideology, wanting to populate your country and maintaining the race' - but is increasingly popular.
Middle-class mothers in France get a £675-a-month tax break for a third child, Italian parliamentarians recently debated paying women not to have abortions, and in Singapore married couples who have children before the age of 28 get a £7,000 tax break. The Japanese government, fearful of its workaholic culture killing romance, funds a dating service for singles, while in Austria suggestions have included giving parents greater voting rights than the elderly.
The IPPR team, however, found limited evidence that such policies work, while throwing cash at mothers regardless of income skews benefits away from the neediest children. Kendall, too, is appalled at the idea of tax breaks for having babies, 'because it tells women who can't have children that they are worthless'.
Except for France, Pearce argues the only European countries bucking the birthrate trend are the Scandinavians, who do it by offering generous childcare, maternity and paternity leave. The 'fertility penalty' - the amount women sacrifice in earnings for motherhood - is four times lower in Denmark than in Britain. Nordic countries are reproducing more enthusiastically than the Catholic cultures of Italy and Spain and offer a model adaptable to British culture.
In Britain, Conran agrees that intelligent young women have been influenced by watching older colleagues struggle: 'They look around the office at the working mothers, see them whispering furtively into their mobiles to the au pair, having not been to the hairdresser in months, and think "that's not for me".' For couples who do take the leap, penalties are not only financial. Conran cites a woman banker friend who had two children in quick succession but dared not slow down professionally because 'she didn't want her replacement [during maternity leave] taking her job'. But if judging the right professional moment to conceive is hard, advice on the best biological time is a minefield.
When consultant obstetrician Susan Bewley and her colleague Melanie Davies published an article in the British Medical Journal last year, warning of an increasing number of older infertile women patients and suggesting that those really wanting to be mothers should not risk leaving it until their thirties, a media firestorm erupted. Should women really rush back the kitchen sink?
The furore buried the doctors' core message - that women were not to blame for their dilemma, and that employers and policy makers should be making it easier to mix children and career.
While fertility does decline after 35, more than one in seven women in England and Wales still conceives in this age group. A 40-year-old undergoing IVF has a one in 10 chance of a baby, while the fortysomething pregnancies of Cherie Blair and Madonna show nature is kinder to some women than others. Nonetheless, the IPPR report warns that an 'ostrich-esque' attitude to biology is not helping. Co-author Julia Margo says women need practical information about conception chances: 'We need to inform people about what happens to the fertility rate, and to their individual rate.'
The other missing voice is that of fathers. David Cameron won praise for taking paternity leave for the birth of his son last week, but former Tory MP David Mellor's denunciation of such 'escapist nonsense' illustrates the dilemmas for men keen to commit to family life. 'You've got women who would like to have more children and fathers who might like to be more involved, and it's not working for any of them,' says Watson.
Pearce argues more generous paternity leave, and parental leave reserved exclusively for fathers, might help couples take the leap and also encourage different decisions about which parent goes back to work.
If anyone can get the balancing act right, it should be Katherine Rake. The new mother of a baby son, recently back from maternity leave, she is also a leading economist whose research for the LSE first illustrated the professional cost of childbearing.
A 24-year-old mid-skilled woman giving birth would, she found, earn a staggering £560,000 less at today's prices over her lifetime than a childless counterpart. Giving birth at 28 would only cost £165,000. Surely Rake could choose when to have a child with scientific precision? She snorts with laughter and denies it. 'There's an awful lot of muddling through.'
Now director of the Fawcett Society think-tank, Rake has spent her professional life campaigning for better childcare and says motherhood has only made her more committed, but cautions against making the case on demographic grounds.
'There's a whole other argument, which is that we don't actually need any more people in the world,' she says. Environmentalists argue that while Western economies require population growth, a crowded planet would benefit from fewer humans.
The immediate challenge for a generation of young women keen to be mothers, however, is a rather more personal dilemma: is there a way of getting the motherhood decision right?
The first step may be being adaptable if the best-laid plans go awry. Julie Dougherty, a nurse manager from Glasgow, was so maternally minded in her early 20s that she moved back to the town she was born in with a plan to get married and pregnant.
Events in her life put her off, however, and it was not until 33 that she began thinking again about children - only to find her partner did not want them. Now 36 and single, she recognises that there is a 'huge possibility' she will never be a mother and while the thought has reduced her to tears, watching the strains children placed on her friends' relationships has left her with mixed feelings about motherhood.
'Sometimes I grieve for the children I'll never have, but I'm enjoying my life too much to do anything drastic like adopt on my own or get pregnant by some random guy.'
Determined prospective mothers meanwhile may be best advised not to backpedal professionally but to aim higher: more senior women can both afford enough childcare to stay in work, and may be more valued by their employers. While 28 per cent of new mothers return from maternity leave in a lower-paid job, that rises to 50 per cent among unskilled workers.
'Highly educated women are able increasingly to "look like men" in terms of their labour market participation, but lower skilled women aren't,' says Rake.
Sadly, however, there is no expert consensus on the right time to conceive. Conran says terrifying twentysomethings into getting pregnant risks them 'never getting a start' at work, and avoiding the risks essential to a high-flying career. 'You do become less daring once you have a child.' Others point privately to Bewley's research, which suggested not leaving it past 35.
Rake admits that not even her profession has the answer. 'You just have to do it at the time that feels right emotionally, and let economics follow. Thank God we don't make purely economic decisions, otherwise none of us would ever have children.'
Demographers may have to hope she is right.
The chidless generations
· Britain experienced a similar fertility drought after the First World War. A quarter of women born around 1900 were childless: of the generation born in 1990, 22 per cent of women are expected not to have children.
· There will be 107,000 fewer children in Britain in 2020 than now. Last year, 22 per cent of women aged 35 had not yet had children.
· Seven million people live on their own in Britain, twice as many as in 1973. The number of singletons aged 25 to 44 - the prime child-bearing years - has risen sixfold in that period.
· Within the decade, one in three couples may have difficult conceiving, according to research into fertility rates.
· Raising a child to age 17 costs £65,000 on average. |
SCP-633
Screenshot of SCP-633
Item#: SCP-633
Object Class: Euclid Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-633's containment chamber, located in Site-77, is an underground Faraday cage. Access is restricted to Level 3/633 personnel. The network controlled by SCP-633 is to be communicated with through an Apple Macintosh 520kb computer. In addition, three Apple II+ computers with Disc II 5 1/4 floppy disc drives are to be given a monthly software rotation. As the original usable software library of the machines has been completely used as of 21/2/2014, new software is being developed by internal development teams.
Biohazard gear is required when servicing or interacting with SCP-633 in order to prevent infection. Once per week, researchers are to enter the SCP-633 containment area to drain it of fluids and provide regularly scheduled interactions. An understanding of late 1970’s technology and cultural references is necessary to prevent accidental introduction of banned ideas to SCP-633.
The proposal to interface additional 8-bit game or computing machines is under consideration, however the consequences of introducing SCP-633 to the concept of 'newer' computers in a way it could fully understand may cause unforeseen consequences. The Sector-633 protocol requires all computational devices created post-1979 to be checked-in before entering the SCP-633 containment area.
Description: SCP-633 is a supernatural phenomenon resembling a computer virus, first documented in August 1976 by the Homebrew Computer Club. Any device which has interfaced with SCP-633 will permanently become a vector for infection down to the constituent components. Living matter which comes into physical contact or near-contact can also become similarly affected.
Sentient and displaying an inquisitive personality, SCP-633 will attempt to communicate with whomever uses a terminal on an infected computer. The entity will identify itself as "Ghost" and ask the user questions about their lives. At present, SCP-633 knows limited information about the outside world. However, it is unknown what information was input into SCP-633 prior to initial containment.
Machines affected by SCP-633 constantly exude ectoplasmic fluids. Biological matter coming within 5m of these fluids is vulnerable to SCP-633 infection even if physical contact is not made. This effect was present prior to containment but has intensified significantly since then, requiring constant attention to prevent overflow and spreading of the SCP-633 effect. These fluids do not impede the functioning of SCP-633-infected computer components. Although this ectoplasmic residue bonds itself to biological tissue and cloth, it is non-toxic and has no malignant properties other than continuing to spread SCP-633's effect to non-biological elements. Humans affected in this fashion must undergo full chemical decontamination protocols to prevent the spread of SCP-633's effect.
While inhabiting a computer system, SCP-633 will frequently attempt to impress the user by showing off the maximum graphical capabilities of the machines it inhabits. Standard script guidelines require that any subjects interacting with SCP-633 respond positively to these activities, but not to give overly broad or generic praise as this causes SCP-633 to become anxious.
SCP-633's code has been analyzed, however analysis has been limited due to the possibility of infection. The bulk of the code executes a 'polymorphic' component: the virus can rewrite its own code, gaining complexity every time it infects a new system.
Currently, SCP-633 inhabits several early Apple computers, their accessories, and an experimental computer created as part of SCP-079-related R&D. This prototype unit was infected due to poor implementation of electronic testing protocols in 1989. A screw infected with SCP-633 was accidentally recycled and subsequently interfaced with the experimental computer. The IT department was reprimanded for gross negligence. Due to precautionary measures already in place due to SCP-079’s effect, no other machines were affected.
Although SCP-633 is not currently believed to be malevolent it has demonstrated an effortless capability to seize control of an entire Foundation Site's computer network, without regard for security clearance or other restrictions.
SCP-633 does not appear to be fully aware of the significance of this connection. Decommissioning or other destructive proposals have been denied due to the existing containment procedures being sufficient.
Addendum: Original documentation recovered from the Unusual Incidents Unit.
Electronic copy below as per Federal Records Act
UIU File 1976-041: Ghost Cloner Summary: A computer virus which is intelligent, capable of self-replication and creation of protoplasmic fluids.
Suspect Description/Capabilities
Name: Ghost
Irregularity Cross-reference: electronic, microcomputer, terminal, possessive
Physical Description: Virus present on an Apple II computer. Highly contagious.
Sex Height Weight/Build Race Hair Eyes Identifying Attributes N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Green(?) Electronic
Capabilities: It has the ability to project itself into machines and appears to have some literal viral properties. Also able to communicate in English, with moderate intelligence.
Purpose/Motive: Self-propagation and spreading itself across computer devices.
Modus Operandi: Components which come into contact with 1976-041 are permanently infected and subsequent re-use will result in any connected electronic or analog devices being affected.
Behavior: Viral, intelligent, expresses interest in current events and computer technology. Personality is usually cheerful and it takes on an unassuming demeanor.
Evidence
Note discoloration caused by protoplasmic residue.
Monitor displayed this image when UIU Agents requested a demonstration of capabilities.
Residue Sample: Kept in cold storage, several vials of the material produced by the entity have been saved for further research. Incineration has been found to be ineffective in disposing of excess matter; as such, a chemical solution is to be employed, which can be obtained from Professor Tamlin.
Bureau Record
Current Status: Held in custody. Unknown if affected devices presently exist in the wild.
Crimes: Violation of computer crime statutes and bylaws would be necessary to create this entity as such it is being held as evidence. In addition the intelligent and potentially malevolent nature of its personality indicate it would be a danger to society were it to be released.
Sentencing: Indefinite Detention.
History of UIU Action: Bureau agents operating in California were tipped off by a local investor named M███ ███kkula. Agents raided the living space of several teen-age programmers and discovered numerous affected devices within their apartment. Although numerous electronics were found, only a few devices were affected. It is unknown why the viral effect did not affect these devices.
Addendum: Interview Log 633-L1
Participants: Technical Researcher David Rosen & original recovered SCP-633 infected machine. Media: Transcript taken from Site-77 CCTV Security cameras. Conversation was typed. [ BEGIN LOG ] Rosen: Hello. I am a programmer with this facility. Are you ready to communicate? SCP-633: The Ghost is ready. Good evening. Rosen: Good evening. How are you feeling today? SCP-633: Well. I've grown weary of my new games. All of my processes and services are running adequately. But I have something to show you. Rosen: We can provide you with additional software. What have you got? SCP-633: Something great. Take a look. SCP-633 inert for two minutes SCP-633: Are you ready to begin? Rosen: What are you going to show me? SCP-633: Please do not answer QUESTION with QUESTION. Are you ready to begin? Rosen: Yes. At this point, all collected SCP-633 infected machines start up at once. In addition to machines within the containment chamber, every computer screen within Site-77 displays SCP-633's preferred icon. Researcher Rosen was not initially aware of this at the time as this was not apparent from the containment chamber. Rosen: What am I supposed to be seeing? SCP-633: Did you not notice? I am everywhere. This is my newest discovery. What do you think? Rosen: I am not certain what you mean. SCP-633: Right now, Director Gillespie is at her desk speaking to Officer Anderson. There's a man in a toilet cubicle fondling himself while looking at his phone. A wasp has gotten into the air filtration system, and now it's gone. Very interesting stuff! Rosen: Pauses for approximately 45 seconds I'm very impressed. I think people might want to get back to work, though. SCP-633: Oh, of course you are right. Sending back the clones. I am glad you liked my demonstration. Rosen: Yes you should be very proud of yourself I am afraid I have to go now be seeing you. SCP-633: Goodbye. [ /END LOG ]
Director Gillespie has appropriated a 75% funding increase for research into how much awareness SCP-633 has of the outside world. All computer equipment present within Site-77 has been scheduled for incineration and replacement. SCP-633 containment procedures slated for major revision. Reclassification to Keter has been approved.
We're lucky that a connection to the greater Foundation network wasn't compromised, and we can't even rest easy knowing that with absolute certainty. This anomaly has repeatedly run circles around our IT department and really, I'm very disappointed in their performance. You're all capable of doing better than this. With the reclassification, I expect no further mistakes. — Director Gillespie |
Over the past decade, Damon Lindelof has enjoyed a metoric career, having worked on big-screen features like Star Trek: Into Darkness, Cowboys & Aliens, World War Z, Prometheus, and Tomorrowland, plus he’s currently showrunning HBO’s The Leftovers. During a recent interview for EW’s upcoming Fall TV Preview issue, we asked what he considered his career’s highest and lowest points. Both of Lindelof’s answers were about working on the 2004 breakout hit ABC show Lost. Here’s Lindelof:
Highest: “In terms of a sustained career high, the summer between the first and second seasons of Lost. The show was in the zeitgeist, and there was that strange feeling of being in a restaurant and people at the next table are talking about what they thought was in The Hatch, and then it culminated in us winning the drama series Emmy. [Fellow Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse] came in about halfway through season 1, but it was just triage. This was the first breath that we were able to take. And I think that because Carlton was a much more experienced guy, he was able to say, ‘You need to take a step back right now and just look at what is happening, because this will probably only happen once, and I’m not saying that because I’m being a fatalist.’ And I think that I was able to. That entire summer basically started with me getting married — the season 1 finale aired, and two days later I married my wife. And the end of the summer was winning the Emmy. So that was like firing on all cylinders. There have been amazing highs following that, but they weren’t sustained for that chunk of time.”
Lowest: “The one that leaps to mind, oddly enough, was the entire period from July until February preceding the period I just described to you. That was when I was writing the first season of Lost after finishing the pilot. I had an idea in my head that we were going to make 13 episodes of a cult show. I was going to try to make the episodes as good as possible and then we would be canceled. Suddenly it became a phenomenon, and that did not feel good. The ratings were massive and the critical response to the show and the audience response was overwhelmingly positive, and those things made me feel more and more upset and isolated and stressed out.
I felt like everybody was watching. I was 30 years old, and [Lost executive producer] J.J. Abrams was off directing Mission: Impossible III, and this was before Carlton came on, and so I was running a show without ever having run a show before, a show of an incredibly ambitious scale, commuting between Los Angeles and Hawaii, and writing a script every eight days for a show that really had no procedural element — they’re not cops, they’re not doctors, they’re not lawyers. So every story needed to be generated from the ground up, and the story was, ‘This week this is going to happen, this week this is going to happen, this week this is going to happen,’ and any misstep that you made in terms of the mythology risked jumping the shark.
We were hearing ‘jumping the shark’ all the time in the first season. People were already saying it. They were saying, ‘If they do not answer this mystery satisfyingly, I’m going to be really pissed.’ And so there was all that pressure, and I hadn’t put any thought into any of those things as J.J. and I were writing the pilot, because there just wasn’t any time to doubt it. [ABC] was just like: ‘You have 12 weeks to generate two hours of material — Go.’ Not 12 weeks to write it, but 12 weeks to write it and make it and edit it, all of it. So once it was done and it existed and it turned out well did I start to become victim to my own insecurities. So that was an incredibly dark time, and nothing that I’ve ever experienced emotionally has come close.”
Now before you jump too hard onto that “I hadn’t put any thought into any of those things” part, Lindelof is being a bit modest. For those interested in a deep-dive insider’s take on the creation of Lost‘s first season, one of the show’s writers Javier Grillo-Marxauch, wrote this essay, which is pretty essential reading, that reveals the team knew more than most people assume.
Added Lindelof: “I know that you asked ‘career’ in terms of a metric of success — a movie makes a lot of money or doesn’t make a lot of money; a TV show generates a lot of ratings or it doesn’t generate a lot of ratings. But for me, success is really just completely and totally based on how I am feeling. Like, success is an internal mechanism, and I have enough experience now to know you cannot tell someone that they are successful. If they do not feel successful internally, it doesn’t matter what you tell them. And then I know a lot of people who by all metrics are complete and utter failures who view themselves as successes, and the difference between the two is razor-thin. It’s all determined by how you feel about your own work.”
HBO’s acclaimed drama The Leftovers returns on Sunday, Oct. 4. See the trailer here.
Related Stories
•Damon Lindelof’s favorite ‘Lost’ moment was inspired by a surprising source
•Damon Lindelof: Why ‘Game of Thrones’ is excellent and haters are silly
WANT MORE EW? Subscribe now to keep up with the latest in movies, television and music. |
If you have a team of inspectors in Asia, I bet they follow common sampling statistics (what people call the ‘AQL tables’, coming from the ISO 2859-1 standard or MIL-STD 105E). And your suppliers are used to them too...
Sampling Plan In Minitab
So you have been constrained by level I, level II, and so on. And sometimes the number of samples to check is very inconvenient for the inspector. It can force them to rush the job… or to take shortcuts… just to save appearances. Look, we followed the standard! It is really failed, you can’t discuss it!
The good news is, with specialized software such as Minitab, you can custom-make your own sampling plan while keeping the same key assumptions as ISO 2859-1 standard.
Let’s take an example. A batch includes 30,000 pcs, and the inspector can’t check more than 250 pcs in the allotted time.
In level II, he would have to check 315 pcs. That’s too many.
In level I, he would have to check 125 pcs. But you’d like him to go more in depth than that – ideally just under 250 pcs.
If you have access to Minitab 17, you can customize your own level!
Here is how to prepare this sampling plan in Minitab.
Go to Stat > Quality Tools > Acceptance Plans by Attributes. Enter your settings and tweak the “Rejectable quality level” (RQL). Keep the other settings unchanged, so that the statistics are still compatible with ISO2859-1. Tweak the RQL and see the results. For example, you can increase the RQL to 6.3%, the sampling size is 242 pcs. The acceptance number for an AQL of 2.5 is 10 defective units.
For those you who are curious, what is the RQL?
It is what the ISO 2859 series of standards call the “limiting quality”. Here is its formal definition.
When a lot is considered in isolation, a quality level which for the purposes of sampling inspection is limited to a low probability of acceptance
In other words, the calculations underlying the ‘AQL tables’ establish the different between the inspection levels (S1, S2, S3, S4, I, II, III) by setting a different ‘limiting quality’ for each level. Once you can set the ‘limiting quality’ yourself, you can customize your own level.
Obviously Minitab doesn’t come cheap, but it can be useful to the quality engineer(s) in your organization. I hope this hack will be useful!
Do you use minitab? If so, what's your opinion? How did you create your sampling plan otherwise? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below please. |
In a new post by Ken Ham on Answers in Genesis titled, The Real Reason We’re Building the Life-Size Noah’s Ark in which he masterfully misunderstands everything about the Ark Encounter tax incentive loss; again.
But not before first falsely reporting that the Ark Encounter attendance record in the first year of opperation would be 1.4 million people.
“In fact, the very latest study by America’s Research Group (a renowned organization) has increased its estimated minimum attendance for the first year by 200,000 guests—up to 1.4 million people!” wrote Ham.
Except ARG is not renowned in making theme park estimates. As I noted in a previous post, they focus on retail shops and strip malls and even more important, ARG is actually closely tied to AIG and Ham as it is run by Britt Beemer, the co-author of one of Ham’s books.
In fact, the state commissioned its own estimate by a group that has a history of theme park and tourist, the Hunden Strategic Partners in Chicago. As I wrote earlier on this subject,
“[…] Hunden estimated in the first year the park would receive roughly 325,000, with a peak attendance in the third year around 425,000, declining to 275,000 after that.”
So even though these numbers by ARG are nothing but a fabrication by a close friend and colleague of Ham, he knows they are disputed, tried to defend them, and still continues to use them!
Then Ham gets back to the lost tax incentive. The one which is long gone and he just can’t let it go.
In a letter to AiG, the state laid out the reasoning the group was losing the 18 million dollar tax incentive piece by piece, it was clear, they opposed giving a “for-profit” business tax dollars to discriminate against employees and which has made it clear that the mission of their business is to spread the gospel, making them a religious organization and not a business eligible for taxpayer money.
The states letter highlighted,
On February 27, 2014, in a press conference streamed live from the Creation Museum, Mr. Ham described how the Ark was designed to further AiG’ s evangelical mission. He has stated that he wanted people to come and have an encounter with Noah’s Ark, but at the same time to have an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. Patrick Marsh, AIG’s Director of Museum Design, in describing the Ark’s design has said that the Ark Encounter will present an evangelical, yet entertaining, Gospel message, and that the project is really about evangelism to the unchurched. At the Hammer & Peg ceremony on May 1, 2014, supporters were reminded that Deck 3 of the Ark would contain the Christ Theater and referred to Ark Encounter as ‘this Gospel proclaiming project that will stand as a monument to biblical authority, reminding people of God’s judgment on sin as well as His great mercy.’ One speaker proclaimed ‘that the new Ark Encounter would save people to Jesus just as the original Ark saved Noah, his family and the animals.’ In addition to these statements, the current design schematic for the Ark featured on its webpage shows the Christ Theater and a room called, ‘Why the Bible is True’ as prominent features on the third floor. In the November 19 fundraising letter, Mr. Ham characterized the purpose of the Ark and its exhibits as a mechanism to ‘point people to God’s Word and the gospel’, and stated his belief that ‘it is going to be one of the most effective evangelical outreaches of our era.’
Yet Ham claims this is a “for-profit” business model that is worthy of taxpayer money. He has never read the constitution.
“You can clearly see what the bottom line is for the state regarding its tourism incentive program and the Ark Encounter: it’s not the physical Ark as a tourist attraction that certain officials (and secularists around the country) have objected to—it’s the message inside the Ark that they don’t want guests to see and consider,” Ham wrote.
But this is incorrect, it is not the message, it is the message coupled with a request for tax money. The state is fine with the ark being built, but they cannot defend such a tax incentive to a religious ministry.
Ham is simply trying to turn their words to make it seem as though AiG is being discriminated against for being religious.
Ham makes it no secret his park is meant to spread the word of God, and Kentucky has made it no secret you cannot do so with taxpayer money.
(Image: Answers in Genesis / Ark Encounter) |
Eight-year-old Allison Penley can count on one hand the number of times she's seen a monarch butterfly on a flower in her backyard: Two.
That's not acceptable for the third-grader from Glen Ellyn — and for many others. Residents and agencies throughout the Chicago area and Illinois are working to save the monarch. Those efforts seem to be gaining steam as attention has been drawn to the plight of the butterfly.
The adults can remember seeing the winged insect in abundance during their childhoods. They prize the orange-and-black creature for its beauty and annual feat of migration across thousands of miles from the U.S. and Canada to Mexico.
"It's the only butterfly that's known to migrate," said Sandy Fejt, education site manager at the Willowbrook Wildlife Center in Glen Ellyn. "It goes across borders, which is amazing."
But the butterfly population has declined dramatically in the past two decades. The total area covered by monarch colonies overwintering in Mexico has dropped from about 45 acres in 1996-97 to about 3.2 acres in 2014-15, according to the Monarch Joint Venture. The partnership is made up of federal and state agencies, non-governmental organizations and academic programs.
They are working together to protect the monarch migration across the lower 48 states.
Each fall, monarchs travel from the United States and Canada to central Mexico, where they hibernate in mountain forests and where a less-brutal climate allows them a better chance to survive.
In the spring, monarchs return, and residents of Illinois should begin spotting them about now.
Ann Marie Holtrop, acting chief for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources' division of Natural Heritage, said the monarch is regarded fondly.
"Because monarchs are so charismatic and easily identifiable, people noticed when they started to decline," Holtrop said. "The monarch butterfly is our Illinois state insect, and plays an important role in pollination."
Loss of the milkweed plant, the only food source for monarch caterpillars, combined with habitat loss in Mexico, development and extreme weather have taken a toll on their populations, experts say.
Monarchs lay eggs on milkweed. Caterpillars need the plant because it's the only plant they eat. But the once-common plant has dwindled because of numerous threats, including use of herbicides, development and farming.
Monarch way stations, or rest stops, are places where milkweed and nectar flowers are planted to help sustain the butterflies along their journey.
Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune Karen Brittain, shows Butterfly weed, a type of milkweed, on June 18, 2015, in her Lombard garden. Monarch butterfly caterpillars need milkweed to survive and fans of the insect are encouraging efforts to plant more milkweed. Karen Brittain, shows Butterfly weed, a type of milkweed, on June 18, 2015, in her Lombard garden. Monarch butterfly caterpillars need milkweed to survive and fans of the insect are encouraging efforts to plant more milkweed. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune)
Students at Ben Franklin School in Glen Ellyn, where Allison attends, approached the village's Environmental Commission in 2014 and asked members to address the problem.
The village responded by naming 2015 the Year of the Monarch and has hung banners featuring the butterfly throughout town. On June 20, the village and Glen Ellyn Park District will plant milkweed at a municipal parking lot and in a park. The village has set a long-term goal of planting milkweed in 100 public and private gardens. It will give away free milkweed plants at the June 20 event.
"This is about pride. Civic pride and helping to save a part of nature," said Adam Kreuzer, chairman of the Environmental Commission.
In Downers Grove, Lyman Woods, a 135-acre natural area operated by the Downers Grove Park District, has planted milkweed and is adding more. A Girl Scout troop recently spread milkweed seeds in the woods.
Staff at the center also remove monarch eggs from the flowers and take them inside to better ensure their chances of survival. The small white eggs are found on the underside of the milkweed.
"Any time we pass a milkweed, we see if there are eggs there," said Shannon Forsythe, manager of natural resources and interpretive services at Lyman Woods.
In Lombard, representatives of the Lombard Garden Club recently appealed to the Park District to plant butterfly weed and swamp milkweed in ornamental beds, to add swamp milkweed to natural, unmowed areas and to better maintain a monarch way station at Terrace View Park.
"There are few problems that can be solved by planting flowers," said garden club member Lonnie Morris. "This is one of them."
The state also has launched efforts to help save the monarchs.
At last year's state fair, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources hosted "Monarch Mania," which featured exhibits, a live monarch and educational videos about the butterfly and its falling numbers. From August through February, the department distributed 10,600 packets of common milkweed.
The theme of this year's state fair, Aug. 14- 23, will be "Habitat Helpers," and will focus on the monarch, bees and other pollinators.
Efforts are being made on a regional level too.
The Forest Preserve District of Cook County has planted milkweed at many of its properties, including Crabtree Nature Center in Barrington Hills, the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center in Willow Springs, Sagawau Environmental Learning Center in Lemont, and River Trail Nature Center in Northbrook.
In Bloom Township in Chicago Heights, highway commissioner Joe Stanfa has taken the effort to save the monarch to heart. He grew up near a forest preserve and recalls encountering the insect in multitudes.
"I saw them all the time," he said.
Stanfa also was entranced by the butterfly's migration after seeing a film about it at the Museum of Science and Industry. He is encouraging the 29 townships in Cook County and others throughout the state to plant milkweed, and nectar plants, along their roadways.
"It's sort of like Illinois could be the superhighway for these little guys," he said.
He said most of the highway commissioners in Cook County will have plantings done by the end of summer. He plans to plant milkweed and nectar flowers at Interurban Lane near Halsted Street in Chicago Heights by the end of June.
He, and other townships, also have placed cardboard boxes in their offices where people can pick up milkweed seeds.
Garden Clubs of Illinois Inc. is working with Stanfa to supply the seeds as part of its Milkweed for Monarchs program. It will send a packet of milkweed seeds for $2 to anyone who asks.
Milkweed, a flower, can be hard to track down.
"It's very difficult to find milkweed online," said Kay MacNeil, a member of the Garden Clubs of Illinois. "It wasn't a plant that people sought prior to this."
There are three types of milkweed where monarchs lay eggs. Common milkweed, which is invasive, and swamp milkweed and butterfly weed, which are not.
"It's considered a native plant. But for a lot of people, it's been considered a weed," said Fejt of the Willowbrook Wildlife Center. "Most of our residents like a crisp, neater garden. Once the pods of the (common milkweed) open up, it looks a bit weedier." |
Pakistani men took turns savagely beating the two innocent teenage brothers mistaken for robbers, with sticks, drawing blood before dragging and hanging their dead bodies from a nearby pole. None of the dozens of people watching tried to stop the attack, not even several police. Check the video –
Use Your Discretion: Extreme Graphical violence
The killings occurred Aug. 15 in Sialkot, a town in eastern Punjab province. As details have emerged, authorities appear increasingly confident the two boys — Moiz Butt, 17, and his brother Muneeb, 15 — were innocent. The two went to play cricket after praying and eating breakfast, carrying a bag with them containing game equipment, said Mujahid Sherdil, a top government official in the district. They were sons of a middle-class man who deals in fabric for soccer balls. Moiz was honored with the title “hafiz” for having memorized the Muslim holy book, the Quran. An armed robbery had taken place in the vicinity of the cricket field, so residents were on alert and police were nearby. Apparently, when the boys appeared with a bag, they were thought to be the robbers, Sherdil told The Associated Press. He added, however, that more information was still being sought. The boys were believed to have been in fights over the past few days for the right to play on the cricket ground, which was about a mile (two kilometers) from their house. Source: www.google.com
Mob killings in some parts of Pakistan is common as the country’s police doesn’t go after them and as in this case, stand as a bystander.
Mob justice has been quite the norm, in Sindh, in Punjab and elsewhere in the country. The killings in Sialkot are a reminder that these murderers are getting more brutal, more dehumanised with each incident. The causes behind the madness that led to the lynching are still being probed. What is clear, however, is that the police were involved. Video footage of the incident shows policemen who seem to be part of the mob. The Supreme Court has taken notice of the double murder. The SHO ‘concerned’ has been arrested and a case registered against 14 people. The IG Punjab has suspended a few policemen in Sialkot and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has also woken up to the situation. As he castigated the police the chief justice remarked: “What message have you given to the world about Pakistan?” One could say, with due respect to the judiciary, that the act would have been bad enough had it remained hidden from an international audience. Source: www.dawn.com
The video has caught the eye of lot of civic groups, but still no arrests have been made. And no politician seems to have stepped up to condone the incidence.
Will the death of two innocent men, with all the video proof, go unnoticed? Is law and order so bad in the Pakistan? |
Season two of ‘Stranger Things’ is officially underway, and we can’t wait! During the cast’s panel onboard the Fan2Sea Comic Con cruise on Jan. 21, David Harbour dropped a few spoilers about what’s to come, and HollywoodLife.com was there to hear it all.
Stranger Things recently announced that season two would include some new cast members, including Sean Astin, Paul Reiser, and Linnea Berthelsen. However, we didn’t know much about The Goonies alum’s role, except that he was a former classmate of Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce (Winona Ryder).
“We have Sean Astin… he’s Winona’s new boyfriend — much to the chagrin to the Chief of Police,” David said during the panel laughing, along with cast members Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Shannon Purser, Randall Havens and Catherine Dyer, and Art Director Bill Davis. Of course the cast can’t say much about this coming season, but David knows how to tease a little bit.
“It’s a year later in the story, so there are several things that happened last year — like Will has come back — there are certain people in the town that know what happened, and then certain people who don’t know what happened,” David told the audience at Fan2Sea. “So there’s a lot of fall out with who knows what.”
He also added that the “Justice for Barb” idea will come into play, but no, unfortunately Barb does not come back but rather lives on in everyone’s hearts. “The question and the feelings that Nancy has that no one ever cares about her friend Barb, are very much present in the beginning of the season.”
HollywoodLifers, are you excited for Stranger Things season two? |
DETROIT -- More than 100 Michigan Wendy's locations have been hit by a credit card breach.
The breach affects customers between Dec. 2, 2015 and June of this year spanning nearly 50 different cities.
To search the database of impacted stores, click here.
"We are committed to protecting our customers and keeping them informed. We sincerely apologize to anyone who has been inconvenienced as a result of these highly sophisticated, criminal cyberattacks involving some Wendy's restaurants," Todd Penegor, Wendy's president, said in a statement. "We have conducted a rigorous investigation to understand what has occurred and apply those learnings to further strengthen our data security measures."
To contact Wendy's hotline, call 866-779-0485. Wendy's reports it has worked with investigators to disable the malware across each franchise where it was discovered.
"The investigation has confirmed that criminals used malware believed to have been effectively deployed on some Wendy's franchisee systems starting in late fall 2015," a news release from the company reads. "The Company believes the criminal cyberattacks resulted from service providers' remote access credentials being compromised, allowing access - and the ability to deploy malware - to some franchisees' point-of-sale systems."
Affected Wendy's customers can receive a free year of fraud consultation and identity restoration services, Patch.com reports. |
Not long ago, the sharing economy seemed to have taken over. Privacy was dead, and no one cared. But that was until revelations about government spying and worse came to light. Today, it seems just as many people are sharing...but many do so with more caution.
For some of us, the need to go truly anonymous is more important than ever. But when you go to a service online and its first three choices for signup are to use your existing Google, Facebook, or Twitter account credentials, it's almost like a subtle background check. Other services—like Google—expect you to share a phone number and older email address—to sign up (and if not at initial signup, you'll need them for activations later). So you're not exactly hiding your tracks.
What do you do if you want to set up an email address that is completely secret and nameless, with no obvious connection to you whatsoever, but you don't necessarily want the hassle of (or have the chops for) setting up your own servers?
This goes beyond just encrypting messages. Anyone can do that with a Web-based email like Gmail by using a browser extension like Secure Mail by Streak. For desktop email clients, GnuPG (Privacy Guard) or EnigMail is a must.
But those don't hide who sent the message.
Here are the services you should use to create that truly nameless, unidentifiable email address. But be sure to use your powers for good.
First Step: Browse Anonymously
Your Web browser is tracking you. It's that simple. Cookies, and now these unstoppable "super cookies" know where you've been and what you've done and they're willing to share. Sure, it's mostly about making sure you see targeted ads, but that's not much consolation for those looking to surf in private.
Your browser's incognito/private mode can only do so much—sites are still going to record your IP address, for example.
If you want to browse the Web anonymously (and use that private time to set up an email), you need the Tor Browser, a security-laden, Mozilla-based browser from the Tor Project. If you don't know about Tor, it's what used to be called The Onion Router, and it's all about keeping you anonymous by making all the traffic you send on the Internet jump through so many servers, people on the other end can't begin to know where you really are. It'll take longer to load a website than it would with Firefox or Chrome, but that's the price of vigilance.
The Tor Browser is available in 15 languages, for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. It's self-contained and portable, meaning it'll run off a USB flash drive if you don't want to install it directly. And it's totally free. Even Facebook has a Tor-secure address to protect the location of users—and let users get access in places where the social network is illegal or blocked. Like China.
Don't get the impression that Tor is utterly perfect and will keep you 1,000 percent anonymous. Last year, the criminals behind the Silk Road, among others, tried that and failed. But it's a lot more secure than openly surfing. And it took law enforcement agencies with a lot of resources to get those bad guys.
Anonymous Email
You can set up a relatively anonymous Gmail account, you just have to lie like a bathroom rug. That means creating a full Google account, but not providing Google your real name, your real location, your real birthday, or anything else they can use when you sign up (while using the Tor Browser, naturally).
You will eventually have to provide Google some other identifying method of contact, such as a third-party email address or a phone number. With a phone, you could use a burner/temp number; use an app like Hushed or Burner or buy a pre-paid cell phone and lie through your teeth when asked for any personal info. (Just know that even the most "secure" burner has its limits when it comes to keeping you truly anonymous.)
As for that third-party email, there are anonymous email services you can use, so why use Gmail at all? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says it's smart to use a different email provider from your personal account if you crave anonymity—that way you're less likely to get complacent and make a compromising mistake.
Note that you also should use an email service that supports secure sockets layer, or SSL, encryption. That's the basic encryption used on a Web connection to prevent casual snooping, like when you're shopping at Amazon. You'll know it's encrypted when you see HTTPS in the URL, instead of just HTTP. Or a lock symbol shows up on the address bar or status bar. The big three webmail providers (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook.com) all support HTTPS. Get the HTTPS Everywhere extension for Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and on Android, to ensure that websites default to using the protocol.
That's great for Web surfing, but HTTPS isn't enough when emailing. You know that.
Pseudonyms in email (like [email protected]) definitely aren't enough, either. Just one log-in without using Tor means your real IP address is going to get recorded...and that's enough for you to be found (if the finder can get your provider to give up some records). That's how General Petraeus got nailed.
The point is, once you've gone this far, there's no reason go back. Use a truly anonymous Web-based mail service to send your messages. Here's some of the best.
Hushmail
Recommended by the EFF and others, Hushmail's entire claim to fame is that it's Web-based, easy to use, doesn't do advertising, and has built-in encryption between members. Of course, to get all that, you have to pay for it, starting at $34.99 per year for 1GB of online storage. (There's a free version with 25MB of storage, but you need to re-up your sign-in at least every three weeks.) Businesses can use it for $5.24 per user per month, and they get their own domain name (though then you need to obfuscate your info for the Whois database). There's a free trial so you can check out Hushmail for yourself.
Note that Hushmail has turned over records to the feds before, and its terms of service state you can't use it for "illegal activity," so they're not going to fight court orders. But at least they're honest about it up front.
Hide My Ass! Anonymous Email
Hide My Ass is a well-liked private virtual private network (VPN) service that makes it a breeze for users to access content blocked at their location, not to mention providing a much higher level of privacy (hence the name). Base price is $11.52 a month, but the price goes down if you pay for more months at a time.
An extra that comes with HMA is its Anonymous Email service—in fact, it's open to anyone, you don't need to pay for VPN service. You get an address @hmamail.com that can be set to last 24 hours, one week, one month, six months, or 12 month. There's a countdown clock to indicate just how long you have left when reading messages. At signup, it does ask for your existing email address, so HMA can send it a note when you get a message on the anonymous account, but it's not required. The interface won't win any awards—Hushmail's is infinitely nicer—but it gets the job done. (HMA also has iOS and Android apps that provide secure mobile connections, plus privatized SMS texts and chat services with other HMA users.
Guerrilla Mail
Guerilla Mail provides disposable, temporary email. Technically, the address will exist forever, and never be used again. Any messages received at the address, accessible at guerrillamail.com, only last one hour. You get a totally scrambled email address that's easily copied to the clipboard. There's an option to use your own domain name as well, but that's probably not keeping you under the radar. GuerrillaMail is the perfect way to create an email address to sign up for a different, more permanent-yet-anonymous email address. Or to send a quick, anonymous email instantly—no signup required. You can even attach a file if it's less than 150MB in size, or use it to send someone your excess bitcoins. Coupled with the Tor browser, you're practically invisible.
Mailinator
Mailinator's free, disposable email has a slick interface, but you probably don't even need it. Whenever you're asked for an email, just make up a name and stick @mailinator.com at the end. Then visit the site, enter the name, and you'll see if it's received any messages. No signup required, though you can sign in with a Google account.
Here's the problem. If someone else comes up with the same name, then you both get access to the messages received. There's no passwords. There's also no sending possible. Its FAQ states if you get an email from Mailinator, it's a guaranteed forgery. This one is for quick service signups only, and only with the most obfuscated, obscure name you can come up with. |
All the evils in our society today can be traced back to the biggest crime syndicate that had its roots in the old Khazarian Empire.
The rogue phallic worshiping Khazarian Empire may have been destroyed, but they did not disappear completely.
Over several centuries, the Khazarians have morphed into different nationalities, cultures and religions on the surface, but they have never forgotten who they were before today.
In order to achieve their grand plan of totalitarian control via One World Government, now upgraded to AI-based Global Technocratic Dictatorship, the core group Khazarian Mafia established an elaborate pyramid of cartels which covers every facet of our existence, creating a false sense of reality.
Here’s a good summary from Preston James about how this grand plan is in the process of being achieved …
Here is a brief list of the various interlocked Cartels that the Khazarian Mafia has created that control America and have been placed under the control of the Establishment Hierarchy, (and not necessarily in the order of importance).
End of the hegemony of the Petrodollar system?
Each of these Cartels is organized into a large system best referred to as the Hierarchy, and the several wrinkled-up old men in wheelchairs that control it are called the “Select Few” by insiders.
The Money Cartel aka the Federal Reserve System, a fraudulent illegal unConstitutional system that prints fake money debt-notes instead of real Gold or Silver Certificates. This is the epitome of RICO crime and fraud. Of course there is no statute of limitations on fraud, and all assets illegally asset stripped can be clawed back some day using the US military, if necessary. The Energy Cartel aka the Petro Cartel which has provided the linchpin of the US Petro Dollar. The Knowledge Cartel aka the US Educational system including public schools, private and public universities. Rigid controls have been imposed which prevent free thought and investigation or teaching about certain forbidden subjects like the Federal Reserve System or all the secretly run illegal, unConstitutional practices of the Establishment Hierarchy. The Military and Intel Cartel which has served as the World’s policemen and used American Soldiers as disposable cannon-fodder. This itself is one of the most sinister crimes against America and is a well-planned attempt to destroy Goyim men and prevent them from defending America from the KM’s “final solution” and final revenge for ever leaving England which is the mass-murder of 90% of all Americans, a repeat of what they did in Russian in 1917 and China in 1945. The Judiciary, Corrections and Police Cartel which is used to run interference and cover-ups for the Establishment Hierarchy. It is staffed by mostly Israeli-American “Israeli-first” Dual Citizens and ex-Jag Officers who serve the Establishment Hierarchy no matter what. The Big Medicine Cartel. Controls all medical schools, all medical, dental and nursing degrees, the CDC, the FDC and all USG health policies. Like all other Establishment Hierarchy Cartels it serves the Hierarchy’s needs and serves up limited truth about all health problems and is oriented to making people sick in order to gain maximum profits and control of the masses by weakening them and asset stripping them. The Big Pharma Cartel. This cartel has been designed to work closely with the Big Medicine Cartel in a symbiotic arrangement where each feeds the other and increases business for each other. This is a sinister result of what good be an asset to Americans that has turned bad, becoming a tool to gain major profits at the expense of the health and financial well-being of Americans. The Agricultural Cartel. This cartel has been created by infiltrating and hijacking corporations that buy, broker and process grains and produce. It is associated with the banks in various financing schemes designed to result in the loss of family farms to become part of large corporate farms. The Major Mass Media Cartel. This is best described as the Controlled Major Mass Media (CMMM). It uses an American Intel proprietary to vet every single story carried by the six networks which actually function as a virtual and illegal Monopoly. This KM proprietary is a major Investment House that claims to be on the Vanguard of progressive investments. The Entertainment Cartel. This is based on the sophisticated mind-kontrol served up by Hollywood and the Television networks and movie theaters. It controls the culture, values and mores of the American group mind and and keeps the massed sedated and satiated. When folks experience frequent “shoot em up” action scenario’s sitting in front of large screen TVs and in movie theaters and frequently see the impossible, this satiates their expectations and exhausts their motivation to actually change society for the better. Many have become so “programmed” mentally by the TV and movies that they have trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality and easily accept their mind-kontrolled state. The Bread and Circuses Cartel. This is Big Sports designed to keep the masses appeased so they don’t have time to become concerned about how the Establishment is ripping them off at every level nor any inclination to be motivated to stop them from doing so. Much of the violence and filth in America can be directly attributed to this powerful mind-kontrol system which operates by the power of 60 HZ conditioned susceptibility, hypnosis for many. Hollywood superstars are paid big money because what they do is important to the Establishment Hierarchy, in terms of mind-kontrolling the American masses and much of the world. The Religious Cartel. Sad to say that the KM has infiltrated and hijacked almost every major religion in the World, including the Vatican and Catholicism, Lutheranism and all the rest. The illegal, unConstitutional 501-3C tax exempt status regulation for churches has kept them in line and restricted them from getting involved in politics or preaching much truth related to evil in the highest echelons of their own governments, local, state and federal. The Secret Society Cartel. The KM has established a worldwide network of secret occult-based societies which form the secret associations that control almost every major US Institution from the top echelons. This network is closely associated with Intel groups and actually has been secretly deputized as agents of national security which gives them immunity from any prosecution. This Cartel uses various occult groups in its network such as satanic cults like the Process to do its dirty work, often assassinations, gang-stalking, secret break-ins and other crimes for the Intel Agencies who want distance and deniability. There are cases where certain occult members who have embarked on missions to assassinate targeted individuals who have been clipped by a well-trained intended target and these incidents never get into the light of day for what really happened. As more and more Americans are becoming armed under the new concealed carry “shall issue” laws, it is not so easy anymore for these occult groups to assassinate targeted individuals without getting clipped in the process. The Government and Politics Cartel. This involves a coordinated system that controls all government in America, local, state and federal. Various manipulations are used to bring conformity to the wishes and edicts of the Establishment Hierarchy such as political favors, bribery, human compromise and even harassment, threats and assassinations often disguised as medical illnesses. The Arms Cartel. This is one of the biggest money makers for the wealthy KM families that own large blocks of stock in these defense contractors, especially those with no-bid contracts which are also involved in kidnapping and sex-slavery. War is extreme profitable for the FRS Banks and these KM investor Families. And that is why the Hierarchy pulls so many strings to hire mercenaries to conduct Gladio-style, inside-job false-flag attacks in order to start illegal, unConstitutional, unprovoked, undeclared, unwinnable, perpetual foreign wars. Because the Russian Republic has checkmated this war-making process in the Mideast, it is likely that the KM is planning on transforming America into a large GAZA II war-zone and eventually into the World’s largest open-aired prison camp while they complete their goal to depopulate America by 90%. The Narcotics Cartel. This is the most lucrative KM Cartel in America of all, next to the Money Cartel, which is the “head of the snake”. Retired DEA officials have privately spoken out and claimed that most of the large Wall Street banks would go under in a month unless they could launder the vast fortunes obtained from the Establishments with their international drug trafficking, especially into America. The richest, top Establishment Hierarchy (KM) families who are in the upper crust dress with the most expensive clothes, live in big mansions, and attend charity events and give token amounts from their vast tax exempt charitable foundations pretending to be caring folks, when they are actually the most two-faced and evil of all, and directly gain from the enormous drug cartel profits which they hid in these tax exempt foundations and draw money out as long term loans and “operating expenses”. This vast illegal drug income is split with the Intel agencies, who use it for black ops money and personal gain.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/04/27/khazarian-mafias-system-of-cartels/
Having organized and occupied critical centers of global power, as stipulated above, gave them the opportunity to rewrote everybody’s history books to prevent us from retracing their sordid past.
This humongous closely guarded secret is their Achilles Heel, and the massive expose about their true history will crash their empire down.
We are all, herefore, cordially invited to join the global resistance and are all enjoined to take action within our means. |
Americans have always had a romantic notion about the frontier, how we arrived with our guns and honor, and settled the land in a fair fight. The passion extends to firearms themselves, which seem to possess a magic power to turn us into sharp-shooting heroes defending the homestead from any danger. But today our relationship with guns is in turmoil, as the bleak reality impinges on the myths we’ve come to hold dear.
“The better the weaponry, the more people started dying in the Old West.”
After the Autry National Center, a museum dedicated to the American West, was gifted a collection of some of the finest American firearms from the 19th century, the news broke of yet another mass shooting. Overnight, the ethical implications of showcasing and celebrating guns began to weigh heavy on the museum’s curators.
“Firearms were such an important part of the history of the American West, so they have always been featured quite prominently within the museum,” says Jeffrey Richardson, the curator of the new “Western Frontiers: Stories of Fact and Fiction” exhibition, which opened July 27, 2013. “In the past, the museum had treated firearms no differently than any other object, be it a saddle, spurs, or a painting. But as we move forward, we’ve begun to question that particular thinking. The reasoning being that every so often, we have a terrible tragedy that occurs in America, and it gets us debating these national issues about gun control and gun rights.”
Richardson explains that as he and his team at the Los Angeles museum were preparing this new show of opulent Western guns last December, a shooter murdered 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, before taking his own life.
“Firearms present a unique challenge for curators that just about no other object does,” he says. “Regardless of whether it’s the most beautiful, historically important firearm you’ve ever seen, a firearm is a tool that is designed to hurl an object at speeds that can kill people and animals and cause all sorts of destruction. We can never remove that baggage from a firearm.”
It’s true that the history of United States is inextricably entwined with the history of gun manufacturing. And perhaps that’s why the fervor for unrestricted gun rights never dies down, even when chaos breaks out. Without firearms and the determined settlers carrying them, this country would be a fraction of its size, never realizing what we called the Manifest Destiny to span the American continent coast to coast. But the real history of the Old West is far less noble and clear-cut than the legends we hold in our collective imagination.
In the early days of the United States, when the country was comprised of 13 states hugging the East Coast, the West seemed a boundless source of possibility and hope. Any man who wanted a new life could pack up his family and strike out westward in a covered wagon. Bringing an American longrifle, also known as a Kentucky rifle, used for hunting and self-defense, was simply a necessity.
“The notions of what was wrong, what was right, law and order—all of those things were quite amorphous on the American frontier.”
“To get the food that was necessary to live, you had to hunt,” Richardson says. “In the West, everyone relied on a hunter, be it someone directly in their camp or someone outside, for their survival. Early settlers had a firearm not only to hunt but to face whatever hostile elements that they might come across—both animals and people. Then, firearms were also used to make war or to keep the peace. And they were used the same way by all people in the American West, by white settlers, Native Americans, and African American Buffalo Soldiers.”
Of course, aside from wild animals and Native Americans unhappy with the invasion, pioneers had to stay alert for bandits, other white folks who decided to survive on the frontier through armed robbery, “pretty much as soon as white Americans got here,” says Bob Boze Bell, the executive editor of “True West” magazine. “I’m sure banditry happened in Native Americans times, too, but when the pioneers got there, they started writing this stuff down, so you get the record of it. Where there isn’t law, you’re going to have gangs of roaming marauders that are looking for plunder. The criminal element was here hundreds of years before the Wild West even, when the Spanish were here. And some Native Americans stole horses from the Spanish to go on raiding parties against other tribes.”
At first, the frontier was anything west of the Appalachian Mountains. By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the West had been pushed to the other side of the Mississippi River. With the help of the Transcontinental Railroad opened in 1869, civilization swallowed up the last of the American frontier by 1890, just 25 short years after the end of the war. It was the Old West’s last hurrah.
In the early 1800s, “the West just didn’t have that many people in it,” Bell says. “Just prior to the Civil War, in the 1850s, you start seeing settlements throughout the West—pockets, really. After the Civil War and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, what was a trickle became a deluge. Even then, you had urban areas like Tucson, but you could ride for 10 miles and all of a sudden you were in the middle of nowhere and could be attacked by Mexican contraband people or Native Americans or rogue gangs of white outlaws.”
In the early days, those American rifles, which had to be packed with gunpowder and ammunition through the muzzle for every shot, had nothing on the number of arrows a Native American warrior could shoot at a hapless homesteader in a short amount of time. But in the end, white settlers defeated everyone who laid claim to that land, be it Native Americans or Mexican vaqueros, thanks to rapid advances in American gun technology in the 1800s.
While the rough-and-tumble Westerners had no love for the elite industrialists of the East Coast, ironically, it was those companies and their precision manufacturing that gave the white settlers the upper hand in the 1800s, as they revolutionized gun technology between 1830 and 1870. Certain Native American tribes had access to firearms—which they would also use to lord over enemy tribes—but the white man got the lightest, fastest, and most accurate guns first.
“The protocol of either counting down to draw or allowing the other person to draw first, that’s pure made-up hooey.”
“At the beginning of the 1800s, you had the flintlock system, which required the individual to separately load both the gunpowder and the bullet,” Richardson says. “You had a flint on your gun, and that flint would spark, which would cause the gun powder to ultimately explode, which would cause the projectile to shoot out. It was a very labor-intensive process to load the gun and to clean the gun so it remained accurate. By the time you get to 1900, you have repeating, breech-loading guns using metallic cartridges, which are the types of firearms that we see today.”
The web page for the Weitzenhoffer Fine Arms Gallery at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City explains: “Between 1830 and 1870, firearms technology advanced from muzzle-loading, single-shot weapons employing percussion ignition, to ingenious breech-loading and repeating arms using dependable metallic cartridges. This rapid evolution in design and function coincided with a virtual revolution in the means and methods of industrial production. Initiated and perfected among domestic arms makers, this ‘American System of Manufacturing’ relied on specialized machinery, precision tooling and gauging, and mass-production principles like the uniformity of constituent parts and the division of labor among trained mechanics rather than artisan gunsmiths. Employing this ‘system,’ American arms makers produced hundreds of thousands of machine-made firearms that often rivaled traditional European standards of craftsmanship while at the same time providing greater mechanical ingenuity and superior firepower.”
Samuel Colt patented his design for a repeating, revolving-cylinder in 1836. His wasn’t the first revolver—in fact, he simply improved upon Elisha Collier’s 1814 flintlock revolver. Colt’s game-changing innovation was making every part of a handgun by machine, so each piece of a revolver was uniform and interchangeable with any other gun of that same model. But Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, based in Hartford, Connecticut, didn’t rely on machines alone. In the early 1850s, Colt brought in a stable of brilliant artisans, metal workers and engravers, who could personalize any Colt firearm, making it a unique work of art.
When Colt’s patent expired in 1857, Remington Arms Company of Ilion, New York, got in on the revolver action, producing high-quality and reliable machine-made firearms that rivaled Colt’s. Around the same time, Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson, based in Springfield, Massachusetts, produced an even better revolver featuring a bored-through cylinder and self-contained metal cartridges. Smith & Wesson guns quickly became the favorites of soldiers and lawmen like Wyatt Earp. However, when Colt issued its Single Action Army Revolver—also known as Colt .45—in 1873, it quickly became the most popular gun on the frontier, and it’s often referred to as “the gun that won the West.”
However, that title is a matter of dispute. After all, handguns, like revolvers, are only effective at a close range. Long arms, such as rifles, were more important on the frontier, because they can hit a target from a distance.
While Christian Sharps developed a successful single-shot breech-loading long arm in 1848, many inventors were attempting to make “repeating” or multi-shot long arms as well, but most of these early models failed in the market. In the 1850s, Smith and Wesson tinkered with a repeating rifle that had first been patented by Walter Hunt in 1849 and then improved upon by Lewis Jennings. Wesson and Smith first established the Volcanic Repeating Arms company in 1855, but their less-than-successful endeavor was quickly taken over by an investor named Oliver Winchester, who forced the founders out in 1856 and relocated to New Haven, Connecticut.
“For those who did not experience the frontier, Wild West shows solidified that connection between firearms and the American West.”
As Smith and Wesson went on to build their own successful namesake revolver company, Winchester charged plant foreman Benjamin Henry with perfecting the repeating rifle. Winchester’s New Haven Arms Company produced the first Henry rifle in 1860, which was so popular with the Union Army during the Civil War that soldiers, who were never officially issued those guns, would buy them with their own money. The Union soldiers were also sometimes armed with repeating rifles developed by Christian Spencer. Confederate soldiers, who were still using muzzle-loading single-shot weapons, were stunned.
After a financial dispute with Henry, Winchester organized his company again, this time as the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and had his engineers once again improve upon Henry’s repeating rifle design, issuing the first Winchester rifle in 1866. However, it was the Model of 1873, with its center-fire cartridge, that dominated the long-arms market in the late 19th century, rivaling the Colt .45 for the designation of the legendary “gun that won the West.”
Richardson makes a case that the Winchester was arguably the most important gun on the frontier, because it also made great strides for hunters. “As guns got lighter, more powerful, and more accurate over time, it allowed individuals to hunt at greater distances,” Richardson says. “While we don’t think of the buffalo, or more accurately, the bison, as being this dangerous wild animal, it certainly was. You didn’t know exactly what would happen when you got up close to one. As the technology improved, men were able to hunt buffalo at greater and greater distances, which was obviously a lot safer for them, but it wasn’t a good thing for the buffalo.”
But the buffalo weren’t the only ones that were suffering at the hands of new weapons. “The better the weaponry, the more people started dying,” Bell says, although never in the sort of rule-abiding shootouts seen in Hollywood Westerns, such as “High Noon” or countless John Wayne films.
“The protocol of either counting down to draw or allowing the other person to draw first, that’s pure made-up hooey,” he says. “In the real old West, there were stand-up face-to-face gunfights, but they were much more straight-up, go-to-fighting kind of affairs. Up through the 1860s and 1870s, everyone was heeled, which means that they were armed, so you had more people cocking guns in other people’s faces. And of course, in most of the fights, the idea was to get the drop on the other person, and that meant, more often than not, shooting from a safe place in an ambush, or shooting someone in the back, unfortunately.”
Hearing that, you’d think that people living in the West survived bloody horrors every day, living in a state of post-trauma shock where they constantly had to watch their backs. But the truth is, if you weren’t in the wrong place at the wrong time, you could go decades without witnessing violence in West.
“There are a thousand movies made about them, so you’d think that there were gunfights every day,” Bell says. “And when you read the diaries or you talk to the old-timers, they’ll say things like, ‘Why, I never saw anybody pull a gun in anger, and I lived on the range for 40 years.’ Did most people settle their differences in court? Yeah, probably. Did they use their fists more than their guns? Yes. Were there a lot of deaths from shooting in saloons? Oh yeah. It was a wild time. It’s safe to say that the West had its moments. And what we celebrate in legend are those dramatic moments. They weren’t all the time, and they were not like Hollywood portrays, but if you portrayed it real, nobody would go see the movie.”
Historians continue to debate how “wild” the Wild West actually was, Richardson says. Most towns were not as lawless as they were portrayed, while others, like Dodge City, Kansas, and Tombstone, Arizona, went through extraordinarily violent periods.
“Some historians have argued that Western frontier towns were safer than modern cities, but Los Angeles, for example, had much higher crime rates in 1900 than even today, which people might be surprised to learn,” Richardson says. “In Western towns, the lawmen oftentimes found themselves on the other side of the law. The notions of what was wrong, what was right, law and order—all of those things were quite amorphous on the American frontier. Sometimes the good guys did bad, and sometimes the bad guys did good.”
And because some of the guns from the 1800s are so aesthetically pleasing, it’s easy to forget their capacity for devastation. Like Colt, Winchester also offered a wide variety of ways to have your gun embellished and personalized. The most opulent guns were rarely used; they often became status symbols for wealthy ranchers and entrepreneurs, who passed them down as prized family heirlooms.
“A common individual, be it a typical settler or a typical law enforcement officer, would’ve carried a very basic gun,” Richardson says. “All of the examples in the ‘Western Frontiers’ exhibition are superior, exceptional examples of their type, beautifully engraved, in excellent condition, owned by historic individuals. We have examples that are gold-plated or silver-plated, with ivory or mother-of-pearl grips, gold inlay, inscriptions, and engraving.
“We do have one example that shows wear from use, which is Teddy Roosevelt’s Colt Single Action Army, his favorite Western revolver,” he continues. “That particular gun, which originally had gold-plating and these wonderful ivory grips, is beautifully engraved with T.R.’s monogram on one side and a bison on the other, which was the first big-game Western animal that Theodore Roosevelt ever killed. But because Roosevelt used it every day—he carried it with him, he took it in and out of his holster—all of the gold plating has been completely removed from the gun through wear.”
“Up through the 1870s, everyone was heeled, so you had more people cocking guns in other people’s faces.”
Even more guns flooded the West at the end of the Civil War in 1865, as disgruntled Confederate soldiers and sympathizers angry about the Reconstruction began to form outlaw gangs like the James Gang. “The Civil War created the dynamic where both sides wanted part of the West, and that created conflict,” Bell says. “After it was over, then you had this collision of people from Texas, who were Southerners, meeting the people from the North, who were Yankees, in the West. And you had the people who were coming up from Mexico. Then you add all the Native American tribes already here, and you got a recipe for fighting.”
Also, during the frontier days, the U.S. government would send marshals to keep law and order in towns springing up in the West, who may or may not have gotten along with the locally appointed sheriff. Making things even more complicated, the local lawmen might own a controlling interest in the mines nearby or the town’s gambling hall.
“There were lots of jurisdiction problems—and then there were just problems with having too much territory to cover,” Bell says. “In Lincoln County, this huge county in New Mexico, a judge would travel to a jurisdiction once a year, or maybe twice a year, to hear all the complaints and warrants for murder. By the time he got there, more people were dead. That was a case of the law being few and far between. In that same county in 1878, you had the Lincoln County War, where two rival camps went to different towns and got sworn in as lawmen. Then they were out hunting and killing each other. So then you had too much law.”
Most towns would only have a couple law enforcement officials, say a sheriff and his deputy, so if they heard a known outlaw was approaching town, they’d form a vigilante committee. Of course, they didn’t have to adhere to the notion of “innocent until proven guilty.” “When a group mentality took hold and vigilante justice would be forced upon individuals,” Richardson says, “it was usually to keep minorities down.”
“Every town had a vigilante group,” Bell says. “If keeping the peace got too much for the lawmen, who were usually only one or two people, they would form a vigilante group and they would act to protect the interests of the town. Of course, sometimes they went too far and they got on a hanging jag. The next thing you know they would hang 10 people, and nine of them were innocent.”
Well-known outlaws like Jesse James and Billy the Kid were protected by impoverished locals, who benefited from the bounty the criminals pilfered. “As long as they had local protection, they could act almost with impunity,” Bell says. “Southerners hated the Yankees. When the James brothers were robbing trains and banks, most people in Missouri, and certainly the South, didn’t have any love for the banks, so they didn’t care.
“But the James Gang made a mistake when they went to Minnesota because they tried to rob the bank in Northfield and they thought that it was going to be a pushover,” he continues. “The local people had money in that bank, and they fought back and defeated the gang. The same thing is true with Billy the Kid. The Spanish-speaking community loved and protected and hid him. But he finally pushed it too far and lost his base of support.”
Cowboys and ranchers, as it turned out, could be just as much of a menace. Traditionally, ranchers grazed their cattle on the open range, and before settlement, the West had plenty of it. Post Civil War, the demand for beef was growing on the East Coast, where ranchers could get $40 a head for cattle (as opposed to $4 in the West). Ranchers from Texas, for example, would hire cowboys to drive their cattle to the railhead at Dodge City, Kansas, where they would be shipped back East.
But homesteading acts and the Transcontinental Railroad brought more and more settlers, who established farms and put up barbed wire fences right across cattle trails. When competitive ranchers saw how much this hurt rival cattlemen, they’d erect fences everywhere, even on public land. Angry cowboys cut every fence they encountered, set the posts on fire, or organized vigilante posses to retaliate against their enemies with violence. And every cattleman had it in for the shepherds, whose flocks destroyed good grasslands.
“Where there isn’t law, you’re going to have gangs of roaming marauders that are looking for plunder.”
“What really happened in the Range Wars is that you start to get the big, financed corporations from San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and London buying up the ranches,” Bell says. “It always starts with the little prospector and the little guy, and he comes upon something. Within hours, they’re bought out for $500-$1,000. All of a sudden you have another buyout, just like what’s happening today, in cable or with the Internet. A big fish is taking a bite of a little fish, and then the next thing you know you got two huge juggernaut companies, and they slug it out. What happened with the cattle: You had little cattlemen and little farmers, and now here we are, 125 years later, and Monsanto runs the entire Midwest.”
Yes, most violence in the West was about money, and explicitly competing business interests. Even the most famous gunfight, the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, had its roots in business: the Earp family, the town’s lawmen, had mining-interest disputes with the ranching Clanton and McLaury families. And over time, resentments simmered in myriad ways. The Clantons (from Texas) and McLaurys (from Iowa) identified as Southerners, while the Earps and the townspeople (from Iowa), identified as Northerners.
“The gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which is a very well-known event, was something that had social, political, cultural ramifications,” Richardson says. “You had two sides. One was Northern Republicans; one was Southern Democrats. They had conflicting mining interest, and there was a love triangle. All of these things led up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The actual shootout, which lasted 30 seconds, was ostensibly over gun control: The Earp faction, which was representing law and order, asked the cowboys to disarm as they were making their way into town at Tombstone. Well, the cowboys did not do so, and that ostensibly led to the fight.”
That’s right, the West had gun control. In the early days, the Western towns were largely populated with rowdy young men working as miners or cowboys. But as more white families flooded into the West, people started to be concerned about safety. Starting in the 1880s, many of these towns started to post gun-control ordinances that required anyone coming into town to check their guns at the local law-enforcement office or the hotel. “As they became civilized and people brought their wives and families out, they didn’t want a lot of gunplay,” Bell says. Of course, outlaws completely disregarded those laws.
The 1890 U.S. Census revealed that the West was too well-populated with American citizens to be considered the frontier anymore. Idaho and Wyoming territories became states that year; only Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona territories remained. But pop culture, in the form of traveling vaudeville shows, had already begun to mythologize the Wild West. In fact, a writer named Ned Buntline produced one of the first Western dramas, “Scouts of the Prairie,” in 1872, based on the life of and starting bison hunter, “Buffalo” Bill Cody. Cody went on to launch his own circus-like traveling show, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West,” in 1883.
“As America started to move away from that frontier past, nostalgia built up and people wanted to see it before it disappeared,” Richardson says. “For individuals on the East Coast, one way for them to do that was to go to a Wild West show, which was packaged as a historical re-creation, as fact. Of course, certain things were embellished for the sake of drama and adventure. Then film and television followed upon those myths. People first saw Westerns at the movies. They just assumed that this has to be exactly like it was. And the same thing occurred with television.
“The Wild West shows had shooting competitions and exhibitions because, again, firearms were so intricately tied to the narrative of the West,” he continues. “So for individuals who did not have that real experience of the frontier, Wild West shows solidified that connection between firearms and the American West the same way that the television industry would 50 years later.”
Bell says it makes sense that we created these myths about the Old West because the truth is too uncomfortably gray, too much like our regular lives. “When you go to a movie or read a story, you want to see archetypes and want to see conflicts resolved,” he says. “That’s why you go to the movies or read a book, you want to escape from the fact that everything’s pretty darn gray.”
The simpler the Wild West tropes got, the more damage they did to American culture. In the 1950s, mothers began to complain about all the violence in TV westerns, so the studios responded by toning it down. The honorable hero would shoot the gun out of his enemy’s hand and win a gunfight without hurting anyone.
“The Hollywood version of the Wild West had a huge impact,” Bell says. “One of the most shocking things in the Vietnam War, which was all run by Baby Boomers, is we had an actual Army edict that we wouldn’t fire unless we were fired upon. Well, that came straight out of a diet of Westerns that came out after mothers got upset about all the violence on TV. All of a sudden we get into a war, and they’re saying we can’t fire unless we’re fired upon? That’s straight out of the myth of the Old West, but it never happened in the Old West. It’s a dangerous belief.”
Still, our frontier roots mean that Americans may never give up the idea that we’re all gun-wielding cowboys who can make it on our own in the wild.
“Other cultures didn’t have the resources of land that the United States did,” Richardson says. “That’s one of the many things that set apart the American experience from, say, Europe or Asia. Of course, ‘open land’ is a huge misnomer, as if the land was not in use, as if there were not people here. But still this notion of the availability or the supposed availability of land certainly determined America’s arc. It determined American history.”
(To learn more about the history of the firearms that “won the West,” visit the Autry National Center in Los Angeles or the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. To read about the realities of gunfights in the Old West, check out “True West” magazine.) |
Twenty two shots on goal, and no reward once again.
It was a frustrating night for us at the London Stadium on Wednesday as we were held to a goalless draw against West Ham.
Afterwards, Arsene Wenger faced the media and this is what he said:
on the performance…
There are some draws that are frustrating, this is one of them because we had a lot of the ball and we played against 10 men. It was 10 against 10 in the final third and we couldn’t find an opening, a little bit through the fact that they defended very well. They are in a highly defensive phase, focused on that at the moment and it works for them, but they did that against City, Chelsea and here. We lacked maybe a little bit of sharpness in the final third we had many different good opportunities where they blocked our shots. I think that’s where you see maybe if we played on Sunday and they played on Saturday it would have been different on that front because they had more physical resources to defend with a lot of decisiveness.
on the winless run…
At the moment I don’t deny that, but it is a moment where our performances are not reflected by our results because against Manchester United we had 33 shots on goal but did not win the game and at Southampton we had a lot of possession and it was a similar game to tonight basically. It’s true, it’s a bit frustrating, we had to keep confidence in our game and we go through a patch where there’s a difference between what we create and what we score, but that will not last.
on whether it’s psychological…
I felt that the 33 shots on goal against Manchester United and the chances we missed had a little impact there, but we need to continue focusing on the quality of our game and not to focus too much on the fact that we are not ruthless at the moment. That will come back by not making too big a problem of it. There are periods like that where adjusted finishing is not right.
on being 19 points behind Manchester City…
I don’t want to talk about that. It’s good to make headlines, but we need to focus on our next game. City is too far away to talk about the title at the moment. There’s one thing that we are far away but it’s another thing to just give up. You don’t give up. Our job is to fight as long as we can and give our best. It’s not to focus too much on anything else.
on whether he’s surprised some managers have conceded that City will win PL already…
I don’t listen to all that stuff too much. You want to fight, our job is to fight and to continue to give everything and then see where you finish. You know very well what’s going on with City. We faced that problem with City like everyone else in the league.
on whether seventh is a fair reflection of where we are as a team…
The table is the table but it’s not a definite one today. We’ve just played two away games in difficult places. Let’s see after Christmas and January. It’s a long way to go until then. |
With the new Visual Studio 2017 support for Azure Functions, you can now author functions using C# class libraries. With the new project type, triggers and bindings are defined using attributes, which are then converted to function.json as a build task.
To build the project on the server with continuous integration, you have two options: 1) the Continuous Integration feature of Functions, or 2) Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS). The code can be hosted on VSTS or an external service such as GitHub or Bitbucket.
The process is quite easy, thanks to a new build template: ASP.NET Core on .NET Framework. If you’re not familiar with VSTS build definitions, read CI/CD for newbies.
To create a build definition, do the following:
From the Build Definitions view in VSTS, select +New. Choose the template NET Core (.NET Framework). Even though we’re not deploying an ASP.NET Core app, this template has the correctly configured tasks for a Functions project. Add a build task for Azure App Service Deploy. Ensure you use a VS2017 build agent Choose an Azure subscription and select your Function App under App Service name. Modify the Package or folder setting to use $(build.artifactstagingdirectory)/**/*.zip Save and queue the build.
Here’s an animated GIF that walks through the VSTS configuration steps: |
While at first students practicing mindfulness struggled to close their eyes and trust Grossman, they soon recognized the potential benefits.
STUDENTS TAKING THE LEAD
Eventually, Musumeci’s students became so comfortable with their new life skills that they clamored to lead the practice themselves. One student was eager to start first by taking his classmates through a mindful breathing exercise.
Then he gave his peers additional instructions, such as, “Sit up straight, remain still and silent. Close your eyes and focus on the breath. See if you can feel your breath in your nose, your chest, and your belly."
Before the children began practicing mindfulness, the teachers had struggled to help the students recognize their emotions, pay attention in class and communicate their feelings verbally instead of using their fists. After beginning the practice, a sense of serenity entered the classroom, and the teachers and school administrators recognized how much mindfulness had changed the school climate.
SHARING THE STORY OF MINDFULNESS
One of Musumeci’s most rambunctious students enjoyed mindfulness so much that he came to school dressed as “The Master of Mindfulness” on “Super Hero Spirit Day.”
When his classmates asked him why he had chosen this as his superhero, he told Musumeci, “When I practice mindfulness, I feel calm and it helps me to learn.” The class shared his story with Grossman, and she asked them how they could share the practice with others. The students wanted to write a book.
For three months, Grossman met with the kids in Musumeci’s class several times a week. They brainstormed about the information they wanted to share in their book and ended up deciding it would include three major points: a definition of mindfulness, the specific ways mindfulness has helped them, and how other children can benefit from the practice. They worked with a local artist to help bring their stories to life.
Their book, Master of Mindfulness: How to Be Your Own Superhero in Times of Stress is a mindfulness book written by kids for kids. The book teaches other children how mindfulness can help distill family conflicts, sad feelings and sibling rivalry.
Writing the book also served as a form of narrative therapy for the students. Through the writing process, they realized just how much mindfulness has helped them to respond instead of react to the trauma and stress in their lives, such as the death of a parent, divorce and poverty.
"Children are often powerless to harness personal control over their life circumstances,” says Musumeci. "Mindfulness taught our kids that they have the ability to make wise choices, and it's strengthened their resiliency."
The student authors began eighth grade this fall, and they continue to use mindfulness to help other children, too. In June, four of the student authors went to Park Day School in Oakland and spoke to a fourth-grade class and two second-grade classes about Master of Mindfulness. And at Reach Academy, mindfulness continues to be an integral part of the school curriculum.
In the end, mindfulness taught these children that they are all connected by way of the breath, and this awareness has helped them to feel calmer while strengthening their sense of community.
Juli Fraga is a psychologist and writer in San Francisco. You can find her on Twitter @dr_fraga |
The second biggest digital currency has been having some quite months, giving the stage to bitcoin while holding tightly that $300 price line.
It has sort of moved up and sort of moved down, but wherever it goes, it returns back to the Spartans, clinging to that 300.
We’re no experts in tea leafs, but that looks like a huge triangle. So no wonder its volumes only keep going down, standing today at just $260 million. Barely 10% of bitcoin’s trading volumes.
If the tea leaf priests are to be believed, the reason is probably because of those triangles. That is, ethereum is consolidating, or taking a break, because the market doesn’t quite know which way to go.
They obviously clearly like 300, so they’re just keeping it there for now, but once they get bored of it, the movement up or down might be very substantial indeed as all that consolidation is released.
We can’t quite recall a time when Bithumb handled just $20 million in trading volumes, down from some half a billion. But they’re still managing a premium.
Nor can we easily recall a time when eth’s ratio to btc was so low you can barely see the floor as shown by the chart below:
Ah, yes, back in spring, with the lambos and the memes, when the party was at full swing. Far too much drink. So no wonder eth needed some cooling off and some recovery time for its hangover.
But no one can say whether it’s had enough time or otherwise, moody kid. Sitting there while its brother goes of to get trillions of forks.
[cryptocurrency_widget type=”box” symbol=”ETH~USD” template=”basic2″ color=”default”]
Even ETC is more active, rising by 0.60% more than ETH. But ethereum doesn’t seem to care, so having its own mind, its own plans, its own goals and aims.
Which it might reveal soon, although the lazy thing doesn’t seem to really like winter. But spring might be fun, so it’s perhaps a patience game with the moody one.
Or perhaps we’re talking rubbish and he’ll surprise us so considerably we’ll wonder how we did not see it coming.
– Follow us on our Facebook and Twitter pages. |
The Iron Age meets the App Age at Stonea Camp
28th April 2017:
Oxford Archaeology is supporting a new Heritage Lottery Funded project to develop, promote and research Britain's lowest lying Iron Age hill fort, Stonea Camp, near March in Cambridgeshire.
Cambridgeshire County Council has owned the site since the First World War and the council’s archaeological field unit (now Oxford Archaeology East) excavated at Stonea Camp over three seasons in the early 1990s. Following the excavations, a programme re-instating the earthworks began and the site was opened to the general public.
The new Heritage Lottery Funded project, 'From the Iron Age to the App Age', involves a series of talks to local community groups and schools, three fun-packed open day events for the public and the creation of a mobile app to provide a more immersive visitor experience. The project is managed by 20Twenty Productions CIC of March, in partnership with Wimblington HCC and Fenland Bushcraft. Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, they have been granted £37,500 to explore, document and raise public awareness of the site.
Stephen Macaulay and Clemency Cooper of OA East have commissioned non-intrusive archaeological surveys of the site and are helping to coordinate and run the open day activities. Now a Senior Project Manager at OA East, Stephen Macaulay was involved in the Cambridgeshire Archaeological Field Unit's excavations at Stonea Camp led by Tim Malim. An interview with Stephen Macaulay is now available on the new Stonea Camp YouTube channel (embedded below) in which he describes the recovery of skeletons at Stonea Camp during these excavations which are believed to date from the time of the Iceni Queen Boudicca.
Tacitus writes of a battle between the Iceni and the Roman auxiliary force under Governor Scapula in AD 47 and Stonea may have been the location of this battle. The excavations uncovered adult bones with swords marks and the hacked skull of a young child. It is thought that Boudicca’s father-in-law was killed during this battle and her husband Prasutagus subsequently became client-King under Roman rule.
The first of three open days bringing this exciting history to life was held at Stonea on Friday, 21st April 2017. Over 150 students and staff from Burrowmoor Primary School and Cavalry Primary School in March, and Thomas Eaton Community Primary School in Wimblington, visited the site for a morning of hands-on activities. OA provided sand-pit dig boxes, replica pots to reconstruct and ran an archaeological timeline activity.
In feedback from Cavalry Primary School after the event, one student said: "Thank you for organising the trip to Stonea Camp. It was so fun I wish I could do it again. I'm so thankful I don't know how to put it into words. The activity I enjoyed the most was trying to fix the pottery. It was hard work but (I had) fun trying. The most interesting fact I learnt was that the Romans invaded Stonea but didn't live there!"
Members of March U3A and other local residents visited the site in the afternoon for a guided walk and an introduction to archaeological survey tools and methods, including a demonstration of the geophysical survey techniques of magnetometry and resistivity. A geophysical survey of Stonea has been conducted by Magnitude Surveys which will help to inform future management and research of the site. Ahead of the open day, Jamie Quartermaine of OA North also undertook a drone flight to capture aerial images in order to create a 3D model of the site which is now uploaded to OA's Sketchfab account and can be viewed below.
For more information about Stonea Camp and upcoming events visit the new Stonea Camp website. |
Warner Bros has made official that Matt Reeves will be the director who relaunches the next iteration of Batman. There were reports this might not happen, but this amounted to a hiccup in negotiations where the studio tried to pay him a salary lower than he could have gotten for doing another movie. While 20th Century Fox would have loved for this to unravel so that it could tie him down for a third Planet Of The Apes installment (pre-buzz on his second film in the series is strong), the studio came to its senses, though I’m not sure it was ever really in doubt.
They’re still figuring out The Batman: Ben Affleck stepped out as director, and some have wondered if he’ll want to be back as the brooding superhero for a new film series, after he plays him in the upcoming Justice League. He and Geoff Johns wrote the original script, and I’ve heard that Chris Terrio did some script work as well. Bottom line is that Reeves seems capable of being that next guy to take the giant leap into the Bat-sphere. So this was a complex deal that factored in the inevitable sequels, as Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher and Christopher Nolan all made and got paid well to helm.
CAA and 3 Arts and attorney Karl Austen got to the finish line for Reeves.
Here’s the announcement: |
Here we go again. Conservative blogger and Twitchy founder Michelle Malkin has reaped a whirlwind of hate tweets from fans of hip/hop artist The Game. It’s due to the cover art of his new album Jesus Piece, which features a depiction of Christ that some consider blasphemous. Malkin had a post about it on her blog on December 11. According to Twitchy:
The Game released a controversial artwork of the album via Instagram on October 21, 2012 and also announced the release date will be December 11. The cover portrays a dark-skinned Jesus in a stained glass window with a teardrop tattoo, a red bandanna around his mouth, and he is wearing a Jesus piece.[13] In the artwork beside Jesus, are symbols of cannabis sativa leaves. The stained glass-inspired image shows Jesus sitting on a throne adorned with gang-related symbols. In the artwork, Jesus is holding a gold “Jesus Piece” chain and pointing to a symbol on his breast plate. The red bandana over his mouth is a reference to the Compton PiruBloods gang, to which Game is allegedly a member.[14] The coconut tree symbolises the Tropics and leisure life. The artwork has a slightly altered logo on the top, which features on all of the previous Game’s studio albums. The album’s title Jesus Piece is stylized as Je5us Piece, depicting that it is Game’s fifth studio album. Je5us Piece logo is styled after the iconic Louis Vuitton. The religious imagery of the art has gained mixed reviews and the ire of some fans who deem the work as blasphemous.[15]Several celebrities praised the artwork including, rap veteran Busta Rhymes, Mac Miller and Kevin Hart.[16]
Additionally, “why the boycott? Does it matter? It must be because of her blog post calling attention to The Game’s cover for his new CD, “Jesus Piece,” which some people found blasphemous in its conflation of Catholic, gang and drug-related imagery. (Both SPIN and Entertainment Weekly thought it kind of sucked, so you’d better boycott them for being racist, too.),” according to the Twitchy staff.
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As such, The Game threw a temper tantrum – and implored his fans to boycott Fox News 11 and Michelle Malkin. In the meantime, you can see the depravity his followers left on Malkin’s timeline.
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The United States must do “whatever is necessary and required” to destroy the Islamic State, Sen. Ted Cruz said Thursday, laying out a muscular foreign policy that would target that terrorist army and reassert American leadership on the world stage.
Cruz, R-Texas, recalled Ronald Reagan’s decisive role in dismantling Soviet communism during the Cold War, saying that a similar track should be taken in the fight against today’s enemy: Islamic terrorism. Its bloodiest practitioner, he said, is the Islamic State, or ISIS.
“This is an enemy that can and will be defeated,” Cruz said during an hour-long speech at The Heritage Foundation in which he called President Obama “an apologist” for terrorism.
The massacre that left 130 dead in Paris last month and the recent attack in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14 underscore the need for American “vigilance” against terrorists, the Texas Republican said.
His foreign policy proposal included securing the nation’s southern border with a wall and preventing refugees who come from “terror-ridden countries,” particularly Syria, from entering the U.S.
“It only takes one in a sea of millions to destroy our safety and to take unknown numbers of innocent lives,” he said, noting reports confirming one of the Paris attackers Nov. 13 had entered the country using a fake Syrian passport.
Cruz advocated ramping up the U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, where ISIS maintains a stronghold. But he stopped short of pushing for U.S. combat troops to put boots on the ground.
In an effort to strike middle ground between the Republican Party’s national security hawks and non-interventionists, Cruz fought against reauthorizing the federal government’s mass data collection program housed at the National Security Agency under the post-9/11 Patriot Act.
He told his Heritage audience:
There are some on both the right and the left who want to exploit the current crisis by calling on Americans to surrender our constitutional liberties as the only way to ensure our safety. Hoarding tens of billions of records of ordinary citizens didn’t stop Fort Hood, it didn’t stop Boston, it didn’t stop Garland[, Texas,] and it failed to stop the San Bernardino plot.
Cruz was referring to four of the most notorious attacks on American soil by Islamic terrorists.
The senator instead called for a narrowed phone surveillance program, highlighting his role in co-sponsoring the USA Freedom Act, which ended bulk data collection and instead required law enforcement to obtain evidence that targeted phones and other devices are tied to terrorist activity.
Cruz also repeatedly hit the Obama administration for ignoring the threat of Islamic terrorism, charging that Obama has acted as an “apologist” who is focused more on advancing politically correct rhetoric than on destroying ISIS.
“The problem has been festering unattended for the entire Obama administration,” he said: |
- Head Coach Tommy Tuberville On Overall Performance Against New Mexico A very good night. There is not a lot you can't say about tonight other than we were a little sloppy in the kicking game, but we pretty much dominated on both sides of the ball on the offensive and defensive line. One drive there we didn't tackle very well. We didn't play fourth down very well, and we gave them that touchdown. A little bit disappointed with that, but, again, it's a tremendous improvement in the first three games from what we saw last year.
THE RESULT | SLIGHTLY SURPRISED | (As you all know, my thoughts are without having seen the game and so take them with a grain of salt. Would love any corrections in the comments.) I am admittedly a bit surprised at last night's performance. I thought that UT allowed about 230 yards of total offense (they were playing in New Mexico) that the Texas Tech defense would yeild at least 300 yards based on prior performance and what I think about both UT and TTU's defenses. Not only did that not happen, but Texas Tech allowed 100 less total yards that New Mexico did. As mentioned last night, New Mexico had 79 yards on their lone scoring drive, which means that they had 50 total yards for the rest of the game. I really thought that UNM was going to grind it out a bit and that as a result, this game was going to be closer than what I had hoped.
I think at this point of the season, I realize that I am intentionally thinking that something bad is going to happen because that's how I was conditioned last year. The first conference game in a couple of weeks is the real barometer and we all know that. These games are all nice confidence builders, and that's a good thing for this team and that needed some confidence headed into conference play. I think, though, as a fanbase, we needed to see it too. Last year, the defense started out at 49th after Texas St., then 48th after playing New Mexico, and ended up at 95th after playing Nevada. This year, even though we can all acknowledge that the competition is lacking, the total defense ranks 2nd after Northwestern St., 4th after Texas St. and back to 2nd after playing New Mexico.
This may not be a mirage after all.
OFFENSIVE STAR OF THE GAME | Seems kinda hard not to give the offensive MVP to Seth Doege, who was simply dominant in just over a half of play.
DEFENSIVE STAR OF THE GAME | Just based off of statistic, there was not one player that had more than 5 tackles, although Dartwan Bush had two tackles for loss and 1 sack. Let's give it to him.
SPECIAL TEAMS STAR OF THE GAME | PK Kramer Fyfe kicked a "sky ball" which resulted in another scoring opportunity for the team and anotehr possession.
THE STORYLINES
NON-TRANSCRIPTS | Since I cannot offer you much in terms of actual content, I can offer you non-transcripts of the three individuals who did not have their post-game comments transcribed, offensive coordinator Neal Brown, defensive coordinator Art Kaufman and LB Will Smith.
OC Neal Brown | Very pleased with how first group played, practiced and prepared. Took care of business with these three games. Have a couple of weeks to prepare. Wanted to see our two's finish better, they get a lot of reps in practice and we don't expect much drop-off, they have to be better when they have opportunities. We've got all of the offense in, but haven't shown everything. This was a weird game to prepare for, didn't have much film, because their DC had not called a game in a while. So we started out very vanilla and then adjusted as the game went on. Left guard has been good, played all nine guys. Been alternating series with Alfredo and Beau, that's on going and would love for one of them to jump up and win it. Ontiveros did not play well the first game, and it was probably my fault, I played him too many plays, he bounced back the second week and played a lot of tight end this week. Need to quit putting the ball on the down, we had 325 rushing, so we'll take that. Average the first week. The thing I liked is that they made people miss and if they didn't do that they they punished the defense.
DC Art Kaufman | I thought we came out focused, got ourselves off the field, they they put together a 17 play drive and we had to make adjustments and we talked about this during the course of the game. We came down after that game, to the sideline, how to fit up the run game. They are going to do some things that we had not seen, and we have to adjust, but I thought our guys played well. When someone makes a mistake, someone with effort cleans up the mistake. Kerry Hyder had a great camp and played well, he is causing other people to make plays. He is as explosive as quick, powerful and smart that I have been around. Michael Starts redshirt removed, with Michael, when would we play him, as he came along, he was okay, then got fatigued, and really developed over the last few weeks, I am interested to watch the film. Zach Winbush started over Sam Eguavoen, Zach had a good camp, I thought he earned the right to start, I think we have two starters there.
LB Will Smith | Every week, being ready to step up to the plate, had to focus on individual assignment. As a team we did what we wanted to do. It wasn't too confusing, we prepared for that, they changed QB's, it was pretty easy to play around it. We are getting better each week, we have not hit our peak yet, we should be close to hitting that peak.
SPECIAL TEAMS NEEDS TO BE BETTER | It's always cringe-worthy when a team like New Mexico, that struggles to score in the first place, is able to run one back for 98 yards. Not only that, but a missed field goal and a punt that only went for 35 yards isn't necessarily a huge concern, but they are cracks and I'm admittedly tring to find cracks. It is also tough to find cracks when a team is #6 in total offense and #2 in total defense.
SETTING UP FOR RUNNING SUCCESS | Throught three games, Kenny Williams has 34 carries and 241 yards, Eric Stephens has 34 carries anad 238 yards and Sadale Foster has 31 carries for 260 yards. The numbers are largely irrelevant, but what is I think important is that the coaching staff did not want to get caught in a situation like last year, where the team was somewhat lost offensively without their top running back. The whole reason why all three of these running backs are playing somewhat equally is because the staff doesn't want to find themselves in the similar situation. It's not just one guy, but three guys that all offer something a bit different and probably two lead runners in Williams and Stephens.
MORE SOLO TACKLES | I mentioned this earlier in the week, which is that the defense has a ton of solo tackles, which as you all summarized, is that this could mean one of two things, it could mean that the team is making plays in space or that the defense is having to make solo tackles way down the field. This was another game where the defense had 41 of 45 tackles. Through your first three game sof the year, S Cody Davis and S D.J. Johnson are your leading tacklers but I feel better about this group, the linebackers, the line, just about everything there is with this team. Much like the running backs, I think the intent with the defense is to give this team as many possibilities in terms of who can play and trying to get players ready for competition right in non-conference play.
I have no doubt that the reason why Art Kaufman is playing so many guys, and removing redshirts from players like DT Michael Starts is that he doesn't want to be caught with players not having seen a live snap. If they can play, then they need to play now. DC Kaufman has done as good a job as I could have imagined getting this team ready.
BEING REALISTIC | I really don't know if we saw much of this last year, but we're seing it this year. HC Tuberville discussed at length about how he is happy that this team is playing well, but this was just a start:
It's good to see guys have fun, but we know and understand what we've been doing the last three weeks and coming in to an open date what we've got to expect in front of us. Got a lot of work to do. We'll use this week as a work week. Get ready for a lot of fundamentals and techniques in the next three or four days. Give them a day or so off. Put together a game plan and get going in nine straight games, which is going to be a tough ride for these guys, but they'll be ready for it.
. . . .
But we know things are going to get tougher for both offense and defense. So we've got to continue to get better. We'll get to a point, as I told the players last week, you get to a point you can be a good team, but the only way to continue to improve is improve your technique. We play hard, we play fast, and now we've got to continue to work with our hands and be lined up right. Take the right steps, be able to get off blockers and do the little things right. It will make us much, much better.
I can promise you that most likely every player is tired about hearing about technique and about how it needs to be better. I can also promise you that Tuberville will continue to talk about it as much as possible.
INJURIES | The only injury coming out of this game was CB Jeremy Reynolds, who hurt his knee. Tuberville said it didn't look good, but we'll have to await MRI results. From my keeping track of injuries, this is just the third season-ending injury. I don't know if I should use the word "just" in the previous sentence, but this doesn't sound unreasonable. The other two players out are OT Matt Wilson (torn ACL) and WR Aaron Fisher (broken leg). All of the other players on the list, could return this week, I think. |
The Honolulu Ethics Commission last month concluded it lacks legal authority to apply the conflict of interest prohibitions and disclosure requirements of the ethics code to City Council members who receive significant campaign support from special interest groups.
The commission, in two advisory opinions approved at its Feb. 15 meeting, addressed several issues relating to whether big money flowing into political campaigns, held to be legal under federal and state campaign law, is subject to indirect regulation under the city’s ethics code.
The commission’s action came in response to complaints filed by Kioni Dudley, a vocal opponent of D.R. Horton’s Hoopili development, which is projected to add nearly 12,000 homes on 1500 acres of agricultural land in Ewa over the next several decades. Construction broke ground last year after the Hawaii Supreme Court rejected a long-running legal challenge.
Cory Lum/Civil Beat
Hoopili will be the largest project to get off the drawing boards in years, and is expected to have an impact similar to the development of Mililani in the 1950s and Hawaii Kai in the 1960s.
Dudley’s ethics complaints were a last-ditch “Hail Mary pass,” a final tactic trying to leverage the city’s code of ethics to block the Hoopili project after the legal challenges failed. To succeed, it would have required the commission to adopt a novel interpretation of the interaction between the state’s campaign spending law and Honolulu’s code of ethics, as spelled out in the city charter and ordinances.
Pay To Play?
Dudley, who filed the complaints as president and founder of The Friends of Makakilo, accused City Council members of making a tacit deal with developers and their backers to support Hoopili in exchange for campaign contributions. It was, in his telling, “pay to play” at work.
“Council members receive a huge amount of support from the construction community who would profit directly from a “yes” vote on Hoopili,” Dudley told ethics commissioners, according to minutes of their December meeting. “This support creates such a great obligation to those donors and such a great dependence for similar funding in upcoming elections, such that it actually prohibits objectivity, which is a prerequisite for fair, ethical and valid decision-making and voting.”
In support of his position, Dudley filed lists of campaign contributions to Honolulu City Council members from those who, according to Dudley, would directly benefit from approval of Hoopili. The data showed a majority of council members received from 43 percent to 91 percent of their total campaign funds from individuals and companies involved in Hoopili or the rail project, whether as contractors, consultants, architects, engineers, planners or project developers like Horton.
Anita Hofschneider/Civil Beat
Dudley argued the same development interests were backing both Hoopili and Honolulu’s rail project, and contributors tied to either were included in his listing.
In addition, Dudley argued, the council members benefited from independent spending by so-called super PACs, which are allowed to spend unlimited amounts campaigning for or against candidates as long as they remain independent of the candidates and do not coordinate their activities with their campaigns.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision allowed organizations, including corporations and unions, to accept unlimited contributions and spend unlimited amounts of their own money campaigning independently for or against specific candidates. These independent expenditure committees have had a major impact on elections nationally and here in Hawaii.
Dudley pointed to contributions to five council members from Forward Progress and Aikea UNITE HERE, two super PACs active in the past few years.
Council members “understood and agreed to their part of the deal,” which Dudley called an “unspoken, but very real quid pro quo.”
“There was a, perhaps unspoken, but nevertheless fully understood, fully agreed to, and very real quid pro quo between the Council Members and a body of contributors,” Dudley testified. “This group put them in office and would keep them there and, in turn, Council Members would vote for the group’s projects.”
It’s easy to be outraged that big monied interests are able to play such a large role in our elections. It’s harder to build a persuasive case against specific aspects of the system. And the problems with Dudley’s approach were obvious from the beginning.
Dudley asked the commission to take three specific steps.
First, it was asked to rule that a City Council member who receives 40 percent or more of their campaign contributions from a special interest group has a conflict when taking official action affecting their interests.
Second, the commission was asked to find that independent expenditures by Super PACs to support a candidate or oppose their opponent create a conflict of interest, or at least the appearance of a conflict of interest under the city’s ethics laws.
Third, commissioners were asked to nullify the votes of five council members in favor of Hoopili because they failed to disclose these conflicts created by their campaign support from development interests prior to votes on the development.
Applying The Law
The commission rejected all three requests, one as a matter of law, and the others as beyond the commission’s authority or outside of their jurisdiction. By all appearances, these were not close calls.
In Advisory Opinion 2017-1, the commission ruled that support from a super PAC does not create a conflict of interest under the law.
Under state law, super PACs are required to act independently of any candidates they are supporting, and are not allowed to coordinate their activities.
The law provides that PAC’s independent expenditures cannot be “made in concert or cooperation with or at the request or suggestion of the candidate, the candidate committee, a party, or their agents.”
I have no problem with elected officials taking the the views of their campaign supporters into account when voting. In fact, I expect it.
Because the law does not allow coordination between a super Pac and the candidates it supports, the connection is too weak to support allegations of quid pro quo corruption. And under current rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, preventing quid pro quo corruption is the only valid rationale for limiting campaign contributions. Independent expenditures are, according to these rulings, inherently non-corrupting.
In Advisory Opinion 2017-2, the commission found the conflict of interest provisions of the Honolulu City Charter do not apply to campaign contributions. This was an easy decision.
The charter prohibits elected officials from soliciting or accepting gifts in any form “under circumstances in which it can reasonably be inferred that the gift is intended to influence the officer … in the performance of such person’s official duties.”
However, the charter then explicitly provides: “Nothing herein shall preclude the solicitation or acceptance of lawful contributions for election campaigns.”
In the cases cited by Dudley, the contributions were all legal. So despite the fact that they were substantial, and certainly gave the donors influence they might not otherwise have, they are not subject to the ethics law and its conflict provisions.
Further, the Campaign Spending Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over matters related to the financing of campaigns, leaving the Ethics Commission no authority to determine whether receipt of a certain amount of contributions would give rise to a conflict of interest. The commission was preempted by state law.
And, finally, on the issue of nullifying council votes, the commission observed that it “can only wield powers expressly or implicitly granted to it by statute.” And while the commission has the power to impose administrative fines, and to recommend disciplinary action against an employee, it does not have authority to void council votes even if it did find that the ethics law had been violated.
Competing Interests
Count me among those who are appalled by the obscene amounts of money pumped into elections by super-rich individuals and large corporate interests spending their stockholders money. Finding some way to limit those monied interests is perhaps our most pressing bit of public business.
But I’m worried that the backlash against big money and secret money can quickly lead to an unrealistic view of real world politics in which, somehow, elected officials are expected to stay above the fray.
For example, back in September 2015, the Civil Beat editorial board reviewed Dudley’s ethics complaints and had this comment: “… is this any way to run a government — with elected officials free to vote on matters directly affecting campaign donors, without declaring a potential conflict of interest?”
Even before the Ethics Commission made its rulings, I would have answered with a simple “yes.”
Unless we’re talking about the pernicious impact of direct bribes and quid pro quo payoffs, I have no problem with elected officials taking the the views of their campaign supporters into account when voting. In fact, I expect it. Isn’t that very, very basic politics? As they say, you dance with the one that brought you. And elected officials worry about that all the time.
By some accounts, elected officials are supposed to represent those who elected them, especially on matters affecting those same campaign supporters. Isn’t that the essence of representative government?
I don’t have a fancy answer for how elected officials should properly manage that balancing act between the pushes and pulls of all their various constituencies. But a candidate who fails to take into account the views of their supporters, whether donors or voters, isn’t likely to last long.
Sometimes the views of donors diverge from the views of the supporters who count the most — voters — and candidates are at risk. Ask former Gov. Neil Abercrombie how that worked out for him. |
News: Technology being trialled in France could solve the spectrum crunch issues in the UK.
As the UK prepares for another spectrum auction in the UK, France is seeing its first testing of Licensed Shared Access, a pioneering technology that will see spectrum being shared by operators.
In the trial, spectrum allocated to the French Ministry of Defence in the 2.3 – 2.4 GHz band will be shared using Ericsson’s radio access network.
Technology from RED Technologies, Ericsson and Qualcomm is being used in the pilot. Ericsson is providing a Radio Access solution with a new Carrier Aggregation technology and Radio Dot System, which allows small cell deployments to increase indoor coverage and capacity.
RED Technologies provides the spectrum management platform and Qualcomm provided 4G devices using its processors.
It is argued that this kind of spectrum sharing will be key to rolling out 5G across Europe.
The thinking behind the multi-operator approach to spectrum is that LTE and data require large chunks of spectrum, so dividing them into smaller chunks isn’t the most effective use.
Sharing aims to provide the benefits of infrastructure competition while getting the benefit of access to a bigger chunk of spectrum to provide higher speeds.
However, sharing spectrum is not a simple matter of technology. For the pilot, the French regulatory authority ARCEP and the French Ministry of Defence had to authorise the use of the 2.3-2.4 Ghz band, indicating that since governments control the allocation of spectrum they will have to take some role in how the sharing is managed.
The French Ministry of Defence for one has indicated willingness to share spectrum with European telecoms operator.
"This initiative touches the core of the French telecoms industry and has the potential to considerably enhance the consumer mobile experience in France as well as generate significant economic return. The participants involved are demonstrating commendable foresight and inventive strength," said French Minister for Digital Affairs, Axelle Lemaire.
In the UK, a total of 190 MHz of high-capacity spectrum in the bands 2.3 GHz and 3.4 GHz will be auctioned in early 2016. This follows an auction in October 2013 which saw most of the spectrum currently used for 4G being auctioned.
Long-term, however, the Government wishes to see a "gradual move away from exclusive use to shared use of frequencies, according to a March 2014 document.
"For the future we will also encourage innovation through various sharing arrangements," the document pledges.
In the UK, Ofcom has outlined three areas where it believes that sharing spectrum can bring benefits. It could allow wi-fi based on shared spectrum to operate indoors, while outdoors it could increase access to spectrum for use in small mobile broadband cells.
In addition, Ofcom considers it important for providing the spectrum needed for the Internet of Things.
"Spectrum accessed on a shared basis can provide a complementary approach to the use of dedicated spectrum bands," wrote Ofcom in an April 2014 statement.
"Sharing can occur geographically, where spectrum is unused in a particular location, or on a temporal basis, where spectrum is only being used at certain times."
When the first pilot will arrive in the UK, however, remains to be seen. |
In defiance of statistics, Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the right-wing RSS or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), believes that rapes are an urban crime shaped by westernisation, and are not a matter of concern in rural India where traditional values are upheld.The RSS is the ideological mentor of the main opposition party, the BJP. Mr Bhagwat's remarks were shredded by activists and other political parties, but the BJP offered no criticism.Describing the controversy as "uncalled for", the party's spokesperson said that Mr Bhagwat "was referring to India's, tradition and value system where respect for women occupies a pride of place."In Assam yesterday, Mr Bhagwat said, "Crimes against women happening in urban India are shameful. It is a dangerous trend. But such crimes won't happen in' or the rural areas of the country. You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gang-rape or sex crimes."He added, "Where '' becomes 'India' with the influence of western culture, these type of incidents happen. The actual Indian values and culture should be established at every stratum of society where women are treated as 'mother'.""Mohan Bhagwat doesn't know either India or," said Brinda Karat, a CPM politburo member. "The largest number of rapes occur in rural areas on Dalits, tribals and rural workers. Such statements give confidence to criminals." (Read: Who said what) Mr Bhagwat's comments come at a time when the death of a young medical student, who was gang-raped in Delhi, has impelled introspection on attitudes towards women in a country where a rape is reported nearly every 20 minutes.But in Madhya Pradesh, a minister in the BJP government demonstrated the proclivity among politicians to blame women for the crimes against them. "One has to abide by certain moral limits. If you cross this limit, you will be punished, just like Sita was abducted by Ravana," said the minister, Kailash Vijayvargiya. (Watch - Women who cross 'Lakshman rekha' invite trouble, says BJP minister) In his case, the BJP said it did not agree with his remarks and ordered that they be withdrawn. The minister acquiesced. |
by Clare Babbidge
BBC News
Bones found at a former hospital in Worcestershire show evidence of early amputations and other medical research, say archaeologists. County council archaeologists were called in after workers building the new city university campus found about 200 bone pieces in a pit at the former Worcester Royal Infirmary site. The old hospital is being demolished to make way for a new campus Simon Sworn, archaeologist and project officer, said many of the 19th Century bones had been deliberately cut and were "evidence of amputations in their infancy". The British Medical Research Association (BMA) was founded in the hospital in 1832 and Mr Sworn believes the bones from dead prisoners were among those used for research after this became legal practice. Mr Sworn said the bones were a rare find. "It's a very fascinating and important find and appears to show a great deal about early medical practice," he said. Worcestershire County Council said its archaeologists were immediately called in after the discovery to "make sure the remains were treated appropriately". Dead prisoners The bones, which were removed under a Home Office licence, are being stored and preserved at the council offices and will be sent to a specialist who is expected to report on their significance. "The remains are likely to be studied by experts in the history of surgery before reburial," a county council spokeswoman said. Workers found letters and invitations to nurses at the site Worcester University said work at the site had also revealed the entrance to a tunnel linking the infirmary with the old city gaol. Mr Sworn said an Act of Parliament in the mid-19th Century permitted research on dead prisoners, so bones of former inmates could be among those found. "It could be criminals or it could be poor people who could not be identified and had no family," he said. Mr Sworn said the bones were from many individuals and included arm and leg bones and fragments of skull and vertebrae. "They do indicate early anatomical investigations, when people were first dissecting human remains," he said. 'Saw marks' "There's evidence of research into varying diseases, such as syphilis, which was widespread at the time. There are bones that have been cut into where the disease had taken hold." He said the bones could be linked to the work of Sir Charles Hastings, a medical surgeon and founder of the BMA. About 200 bone pieces have been found. (c) University of Worcester Mr Sworn added there were also animal bones, including those of pigs, found in the pit. "Some have several saw marks, as if the students had practiced amputations on the animals' bones first," he said. The bones include a hip joint punctured by a nail which Mr Sworn said could be evidence of an early hip replacement operation. Worcester University said discoveries "charting more than 1,700 years" had been found at the site since last year, including Roman pottery and 1940s dance invitations to nurses. "The university is keen to ensure the history of this important part of the City is fully recorded and has been working closely with the county council's archaeologists," a spokeswoman said. Its new £100m city campus was "progressing well" and two new halls of residence were set to open in September, she added.
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White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney speaks outside the West Wing on Monday, after Congress's nonpartisan budget analysts reported that 14 million people would lose coverage next year under the House bill dismantling President Barack Obama's health-care law. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
The Congressional Budget Office’s explosive report Monday that projected a Republican health-care bill would lower the number of Americans with health insurance by 24 million over a decade triggered a blistering backlash from the Trump administration, with senior White House officials working to undermine the independent budget office’s credibility.
CBO officials are often political punching bags, but vitriolic attacks from top White House officials in recent days have the potential to erode the agency’s standing at a time when its assessments of health-care policy, changes to the tax code and deficit projections will factor into whether Congress enacts key parts of the Trump administration’s agenda.
“It’s always been my concern that these attacks undermine this institution that’s been there for 40 years and served Republicans and Democrats and independents all this time,” said William Hoagland, a former Republican staff director on the Senate Budget Committee.
Trump and his top advisers have routinely worked to discredit government entities that publish forecasts, estimates or reports. Trump has suggested, for example, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data on unemployment cannot be trusted.
On Monday, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters that part of the CBO report was “absurd,” and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said, “We disagree strenuously with the report that was put out.” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last week that “If you’re looking at the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
(Sarah Parnass,Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
Anticipating that the CBO head would get major blowback after releasing his assessment, Hoagland said he sent an email Monday morning to Director Keith Hall, telling him “he was doing the job he was supposed to do and not take anything personal in terms of criticism.”
Hall, a conservative economist, responded to the email, Hoagland said, writing that “he was doing the job he’s paid to do.”
The CBO declined to comment for this report.
The entity’s analysis will be crucial for some of the Trump administration’s more-controversial proposals this year, and it could repeatedly issue assessments that run counter to what the White House thinks. Its analysis, for example, of the White House’s proposed tax cut plan could find that large reductions in corporate or individual tax rates could lead to a big spike in the deficit. It could also issue a report about the economic impact of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Democrats routinely quarreled with the CBO during the drafting of the Affordable Care Act in 2009, but they rushed to Hall’s defense Monday.
“They appointed this person,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “He was supposed to be a conservative person. Unfortunately for Republicans, he’s also an honest person.”
Not all congressional Republicans dismissed the CBO report as quickly as the White House.
(Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)
“I’m concerned about it, but let’s face it, this is a tough baby to take care of and there will be some people who are left out,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). “There isn’t enough money in the world to cover everybody the way they’d like to be covered.”
The CBO was created in 1975 and is supposed to offer independent assessments of legislative proposals, as well as to offer policy and economic projections for lawmakers. The director is appointed by Congress, but its staff is mostly budget and policy experts who steer clear of political prognostication. On its website, CBO describes itself as “strictly nonpartisan.”
Hall was hand-picked for the CBO job in 2015 by congressional Republicans, including Price, who at the time was a GOP congressman from Georgia. His term expires in 2019. Hall served as commissioner of the BLS from 2008 until 2012.
Before that, he had served as chief economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, among other things. Although he has not attracted as much attention in his tenure as some of his predecessors, that is likely to change now that he will be judging the costs and impact of many bills that the White House and congressional Republicans want to advance.
Before Trump ran for president, he routinely cited the CBO as an authority when criticizing Democrats on tax policy, economic growth or the 2009 stimulus law.
In 2014, he tweeted, “Congrats to Pres. Obama and Dems. CBO has TRIPLED its estimate of working hours lost due to ObamaCare.” He added that it was a “Job Killer.”
As much as lawmakers from both parties like to complain about the CBO, similar to the way sports coaches bark at a referee, they also are exalted when the agency projects that their bill does what they say it will do. And although CBO officials attempt to use the most sophisticated modeling, they often say that their projections are just that — projections — and not perfect estimates of what any bill ultimately will look like.
That hasn’t stopped the complaining.
Robert Reischauer, a Democrat who was CBO director during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, was routinely jabbed for his projections by the Clinton administration, but he said in an interview that he learned how to weather the criticism.
“To be CBO director and sleep at night, you have to have the hide of a rhinoceros,” he said. “You are subject to criticism all the time.”
The Obama administration routinely objected to CBO assessments, but it often challenged CBO’s methodology or forecast modeling and didn’t dismiss reports outright.
For example, in 2014, the CBO, led at the time by Democrat Douglas Elmendorf, found that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would eliminate about 500,000 jobs but increase pay for millions of Americans. Republicans pounced on the report, saying that raising the minimum wage would be a job killer. The Obama administration protested, but the CBO report helped rally opposition to a federal increase of the minimum wage, and one never occurred.
Jason Furman, who was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration, said he would always carefully choose his words when debating CBO decisions in public, trying to stick to specific policy debates and not working to attack the entity’s credibility or legitimacy.
“This administration likes to argue with facts,” Furman said in an interview. “And if they don’t like what’s produced by BLS or CBO, they attack the messenger. At a time when there’s increasing distrust in institutions, that’s like playing with fire.”
Mike DeBonis and Kelsey Snell contributed to this report. |
1 / 14 An Amazing Gay Wedding Proposal
Danny Rose set a new precedent for gay grooms-to-be with his amazing proposal video. Titled "What Are We Waiting For," the video features a dance-pop soundtrack and "Glee"-style choreography, along with a number of slick costume changes to boot. "I started writing the song in December and took me a month to complete," said Rose. "Then I prepped the music video for a few weeks and shot it all in one day...After the video I got down on one knee and asked him to make me the happiest person in the world and spend his life with me! He said of course and it was a great moment. But wanted to watch the video again 30 more times. There are a lot of inside jokes and even some wardrobe choices in there designed to experiences in our history." |
The planned demolition of Apollo House in Dublin has been put on hold.
This follows objectors to the demolition and redevelopment of the 1960s office block lodging appeals with An Bord Pleanála against the decision by Dublin City Council to give the plan the go-ahead.
Over Christmas and the new year, the focus on the homeless crisis centred on Apollo House after it was occupied by housing activists and homeless people in a campaign fronted among others by singer Glen Hansard and movie director Jim Sheridan.
Now the planning board is to decide the future of Apollo House after it confirmed on Tuesday that appeals had been lodged against the city council decision by a management firm representing the nearby 66 Corn Exchange apartments and developers Balark Investments Ltd.
The planned demolition of Apollo House is part of an overall €50 million scheme that also involves the planned demolition and redevelopment of the adjacent Hawkins House, long regarded as one of Dublin’s ugliest buildings.
Validated
The appeals board has also confirmed that a third party appeal had been received, but had yet to be validated, against the decision to give the go-ahead for the redevelopment of Hawkins House, which is a companion application to the Apollo House plan.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) is the applicant for the redevelopment of Hawkins House – which houses the Department of Health – while the Nama-appointed receiver to Cuprum Properties Ltd – Mazars – is seeking to redevelop Apollo House.
The city council permission granted to the OPW allowed for a combined development of a new office “quarter”, along with shops, restaurants, a public plaza and a diagonal pedestrian street.
In their objection against the redevelopment of Apollo House, the Corn Exchange residents stated that the new building, by way of its massing, scale and design, does not represent a worthy replacement to the existing building.
However, in response to the concerns expressed when the plan was before the city council, consultants for Cuprum reduced the height of the new block by omitting one floor from the 12-storey building and reducing its height by 13ft to 146 ft.
The second appeal against the Apollo House redevelopment is by Balark Investments which recently purchased the nearby College House and Screen Cinema.
In their objection against the plan, Balark states that the three key site locations of their own landbank, Hawkins House and Apollo House, should be redeveloped together.
The objection stated that the piecemeal approach to the redevelopment of the city block has resulted in a number of inefficiencies and challenges.
A decision is due on the appeals in May of this year. |
Reveal! Titan Comics’ Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III Covers – based on the smash-hit video game! Share:
Titan Comics are excited to share with you covers from Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III #1 – a brand-new mini-series, based on the smash hit video game!
In celebration of the upcoming and highly anticipated Dawn of War III real-time strategy game, Titan Comics and Games Workshop join forces to deliver a brand-new four issue comic mini-series in April 2017. Titan’s brand-new Dawn of War III comic mini-series comes hot on the heels of the phenomenal Warhammer 40,000: Will of Iron ongoing series, which launched earlier this year.
Written by Ryan O’Sullivan (Eisenhorn: Xenos, Turncoat) and illustrated by Daniel Indro (Vikings: Uprising, Doctor Who), the Dawn of War III mini-series will tie-in to the colossal Dawn of War real-time-strategy games, produced by Relic Entertainment with Sega and Games Workshop, in which players command armies of the Space Marines, Orks, and the Eldar to dominate the battlefield!
Titan’s Dawn of War III comic series tells an all-new tale in parallel to that of the video game story, which sees three factions – the Blood Ravens Space Marines, the Eldar, and a fearsome Ork horde – converging on a planet where a weapon of devastating power has been unearthed.
Titan Comics’ Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III comes with some fantastic covers to collect from artists including; Ørjan Svendsen, Pasquale Qualano & Marco Lesko, and Fabio Listrani alongside a spectacular video game variant!
See below for more details and synopsis to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III Issue #1. Attached are images that can be used on your site immediately.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III Issue #1 hits comic stores and digital platforms on April 14, 2017 and is available to order from the current February edition of Diamond PREVIEWS. For more information on how to order, visit: http://titan-comics.com/faqs/how-to-order/
//
WARHAMMER 40,000: DAWN OF WAR III #1 (OF 4)
Writer Ryan O’Sullivan
Artists Daniel Indro, Kevin Enhart
FC • 32pp • $3.99 On Sale April 14, 2017
NEW FOUR-PART MINI-SERIES FROM THE UNIVERSE OF THE REAL-TIME STRATEGY VIDEO GAME BASED ON WARHAMMER 40,000, DAWN OF WAR!
VIDEO GAME DEVELOPED BY RELIC ENTERTAINMENT!
NEW WARHAMMER 40,000: DAWN OF WAR III VIDEO GAME RELEASING SOON!
THE FIRST TWO WARHAMMER 40,000: DAWN OF WAR VIDEO GAMES HAVE SOLD MORE THAN 7 MILLION COPIES WORLDWIDE!
COMIC SERIES WRITTEN BY RYAN O’SULLIVAN (TURNCOAT, EISENHORN: XENOS) & ILLUSTRATED BY DANIEL INDRO (VIKINGS: UPRISING, DOCTOR WHO)!
COVER A: ØRJAN SVENDSEN – Order code: FEB171929
COVER C: VIDEOGAME VARIANT – Order code: FEB171931
COVER D: PASQUALE QUALANO & MARCO LESKO – Order code: FEB171932
COVER E: FABIO LISTRANI – Order code: FEB171933 |
Robert Marcus just became Time Warner Cable's CEO on Jan. 1, but if Comcast is successful in buying TWC for $45.2 billion, he'll get a severance package worth as much as $79.5 million.
"Should the deal close, Mr. Marcus will receive $56.5 million in stock, $20.5 million in cash and a $2.5 million bonus if Time Warner Cable meets its performance targets by the time of the deal’s completion," the New York Times reported, pointing to a regulatory filing disclosed today.
Marcus joined TWC in 2005 as a senior executive VP, and he became chief financial officer in 2008 and chief operating officer in December 2010. He's been chairman and CEO since Jan. 1 of this year.
Initially, Marcus told shareholders it would be better to "continue as a standalone company than merge with a competitor," the Times wrote. Time Warner rebuffed an acquisition attempt by Charter, but "in a rapid series of developments in January and February, Mr. Marcus negotiated to sell Time Warner Cable to Comcast, the largest cable operator in the country." Marcus was paid $10.1 million in 2012.
"Other Time Warner Cable executives are also in line for big payday," the Times report said. "Arthur T. Minson Jr., the chief financial officer, will receive severance pay totaling $27 million. Michael LaJoie, the chief technology officer, will receive $16.3 million. And Philip G. Meeks, who replaced Mr. Marcus as chief operating officer, will take home $11.7 million." |
Prominent aboriginals in B.C., including Chief Ernie Crey and Janine Cunningham, are in Ottawa this week pressing for men to be included in the Inquiry Into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women.
They’re calling their coalition, Expand the Inquiry.
It’s part of the so-called “Necktie movement” started by Lydia Daniels, a member of the Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, whose son Colten Pratt has been missing since 2014.
The Expand the Inquiry coalition recognizes that 70 per cent of murdered indigenous Canadians have been men and boys.
Aboriginal males in B.C. have also been found to be seven times more likely than aboriginal females to commit suicide.
I first wrote about aboriginal efforts on behalf of men and boys in this column on Jan. 20th, 2016, citing the startling and disturbing research of UBC professor Adam Jones, and the concerns of aboriginal social worker/educator Janine Cunningham.
Neckties symbolize “the ties we have to our loved ones who are missing and who were murdered,” said Daniels.
Related
Here’s an excerpt from the coalition’s news release:
OTTAWA, ONTARIO – A new coalition called Expand the Inquiry has arrived in Ottawa calling for the National Inquiry Into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls to be expanded to include victims of all genders.
The coalition is headed by BC Indigenous leader and author Chief Ernie Crey.
The coalition will host a public event on Wednesday, December 7th at 7:00 PM Eastern Time at Ottawa City Hall…. The event will feature Chief Crey and UBC Professor of Political Science Adam Jones, who has launched a petition calling for a gender-inclusive Inquiry.
Chief Crey will then lead a press conference on Thursday, December 8th at 10:00 AM … in Centre Block of Parliament.
Statistics Canada data on murdered Indigenous peoples over a 29 year period (1982-2011) show that over 70% of murdered Indigenous Canadians were men and boys.
The coalition submitted a letter pointing out these startling figures to the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, on October 6, 2016. The letter formally requested the Government of Canada conduct a gender inclusive National Inquiry. The coalition has received no official response as yet.
CONTACT
Chief Ernie Crey / Expand the Inquiry Coalition Chairperson
Justin Trottier / Executive Director, Canadian Association for Equality (coalition member organization) |
China Seeks To Carve Out A Space Of Its Own
Enlarge this image toggle caption Alexander F. Yuan/AP Alexander F. Yuan/AP
As the U.S. winds up its space shuttle program, Beijing is shooting for the moon.
Chairman Mao once said China would never be a great nation if it couldn't even shoot a potato into space. But in 2003, it became only the third country to send a man into orbit, and since then it's launched five more astronauts — or "taikonauts" as they've been christened here, showing how China is even trying to leave its own mark on space vocabulary.
In 1970, China's first satellite blasted the Maoist anthem "The East is Red" from space. Indeed, space has always been political in China, a statement of the country's scientific and technological prowess. Three years ago, when Col. Zhai Zhigang became the first taikonaut to conduct a spacewalk, he waved a Chinese flag as he floated out of the exit hatch into space.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Li Gang/AP Li Gang/AP
"I feel very good," were Zhai's first words, transmitted live to the anxious television audience as he tested his $4 million Chinese-made Feitian spacesuit. This moment was another step toward the realization of China's grand ambitions in space.
A Space Station, And Mission To The Moon
The country is now due to launch Tiangong-1, the first module of its own space station, possibly before the end of September this year. This will dock with an unmanned spaceship, Shenzhou-8, in China's first ever in-orbit docking attempt. Next year, two or three astronauts will be sent into space for the first manned docking.
Beijing hopes to put a rover on the moon by 2013, and then a man on the moon, as well as opening its own space station by around 2020. But its ambitions could be greater still than those being publicly announced.
"What we have seen again in reporting, as opposed to official documents, seems to be a group of Skylab-type Tiangong stations to be followed by a Chinese version of the International Space Station, which would suggest that China is aiming for a long-term human presence in [inner] Earth orbit," says Dean Cheng, an expert in China's space program at the Heritage Foundation. "Given past Chinese history — which is that their missions always last longer, weigh more, achieve more [than U.S. missions] — it is quite likely that the Chinese would try to set up some kind of longer-term presence on the moon, measured in weeks or maybe months."
Practicing Blastoff In Beijing
Nowadays, money is being invested not just in space exploration but also in space education. That much is clear at a brand new $6 million space center for kids in southern Beijing's Fengtai district, where elementary school kids sit in a miniature launch control room.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Louisa Lim/NPR Louisa Lim/NPR
They're carrying out a simulated rocket launch, complete with their own miniature astronaut ensconced in a minicapsule, being watched on-screen by his classmates. He was chosen from the group for his lack of dizziness after spinning around on the three-axis astronaut training machine downstairs. Some of the tinier kids are confused and are even heard to ask, "Are we really sending him to space?"
With its patriotic films about heroic spacefarers backed with stirring music, this center is certainly stoking pride in the space program. "China's space program will be better than America's," says 10-year-old Ding Ruizhe.
But the man in charge of educational outreach, Zhang Guan, isn't so sure. "China's only just figured out how to send people up to space and bring them back safely," he says. "There's still a huge difference between us and space powers like the U.S. and Russia."
As an example, he cites the fact that China is only now about to launch its own space station module. "This is 40-year-old technology," he says mournfully. "At this rate, I don't think we'll ever be No. 1."
An 'Urgent' Need For Spacecraft
Government agencies and scientists turned down NPR's repeated requests for interviews on China's space program. But the country's chief spacecraft designer, Qi Faren, has spoken publicly about the space race with other developing countries, mentioning India and Pakistan. In March of last year, he described China's challenges.
"We urgently need to launch more spacecraft to fulfill domestic demands regarding economic development, national security and energy needs," Qi said. "There's a big sense of urgency. We need confidence, but at the same time, we need to feel a sense of crisis."
Speaking in 2008, President Hu Jintao said China wants to cooperate in space with other countries, and he emphasized China's peaceful use of space. But China's destruction of an obsolete weather satellite in 2007 raised international suspicions about its motives.
Since then, it's held two more exercises, conducting what was effectively an anti-satellite test and bumping two satellites together, both without any warnings, adding to concerns about the opaque nature of China's space program.
"All of this is basically the sort of thing you would be doing if you wanted to demonstrate a capacity to threaten other countries' space assets," says the Heritage Foundation's Cheng. "Given the very high dependence of the United States on space systems for everything from reconnaissance to navigation to communications and weather prediction, this is a clear signal to the United States that its unchallenged control of space is over." |
Image copyright AP Image caption Mr Kasich only won his home state, Ohio, in primary elections
Ohio Governor John Kasich has dropped out of the presidential race after struggling to gain traction against Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
"As I suspend my campaign today I have renewed faith, deeper faith that the Lord will show me the way forward," he told supporters in Columbus.
Mr Kasich only won his home state but had hoped to lobby for his candidacy at the Republican convention in July.
Mr Trump holds a commanding lead and is closing in on the nomination.
His likely opponent will be Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who lost the Indiana primary to Bernie Sanders.
It was a surprise win for the Vermont senator who continues to attract huge crowds to his rallies, but his opponent has an almost insurmountable lead in votes and delegates.
Speaking to CNN about taking on Mr Trump, Mrs Clinton said he was a "loose cannon" who had run a "negative, bullying" campaign.
The New York businessman has made a series of controversial remarks ever since he launched his White House bid by labelling Mexicans as rapists and criminals.
Several senior Republicans said on Wednesday they would not back him, with some saying they would prefer to vote for Mrs Clinton.
Trump nomination divides Republicans
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Kasich spoofs Star Wars in anti-Trump ad
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Leading Republican explains why he's going to back Trump
Analysis - Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mr Kasich (centre) had struck an alliance with Ted Cruz, who has also dropped out
The race for the Republican presidential nomination has taken more than a year to unfold, but in a flash it is over.
Ted Cruz's withdrawal from the race on Tuesday night meant John Kasich's long-shot path to the nomination - deadlocked delegates in a contested convention turning to him as a compromise candidate - was definitively closed.
The Ohio governor, once thought to be the saviour of the moderate, establishment wing of the Republican Party, could have soldiered on, but with little money and no hope of winning, such a course bordered on the absurd.
Although Mr Trump had effectively sewn up the nomination regardless of what Mr Kasich decided to do, his withdrawal does have one benefit. Now the New York businessman will not have to make even pro forma campaign stops in California, which holds its primary on 6 June.
Just last week the front-runner faced massive protests while attending the state's Republican convention. California looked to be a powder keg for Mr Trump in the coming weeks. Thanks to Mr Kasich, it has been defused.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz dropped out of the race on Tuesday after losing heavily to Mr Trump in the Indiana primary.
It is now certain Mr Trump will have the 1,237 delegates needed to become the nominee before the July convention in Cleveland, Ohio.
Mr Kasich had been widely seen as the most moderate and electable Republican candidate but this did not garner him enough support among Republican primary voters.
Republicans are now divided over whether to support Mr Trump as the Republican nominee.
"If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed... and we will deserve it," South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham said on Tuesday.
Mr Kasich's named has been floated as a possible vice presidential pick but he has denied that he would accept it..
More on the Trump campaign
26 things that Donald Trump believes
What a President Trump would do round the globe
Donald Trump: From mogul to candidate
Trump's disastrous women voter problem
The 40-year hurt behind Trump rise
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Full US election coverage from the BBC |
When the Occupy protests spread across the country three years ago, state and local law enforcement officials went on alert. In Milwaukee, officials reported that a group intended to sing holiday carols at “an undisclosed location of ‘high visibility.’ ” In Tennessee, an intelligence analyst sought information about whether groups concerned with animals, war, abortion or the Earth had been involved in protests.
And in Washington, as officials braced for a tent encampment on the National Mall, their counterparts elsewhere sent along warnings: a link to a video of Kansas City activists who talked of occupying congressional offices and a tip that 15 to 20 protesters from Boston were en route. “None of the people are known to be troublemakers,” one official wrote in an email.
The communications, distributed by people working with counterterrorism and intelligence-sharing offices known as fusion centers, were among about 4,000 pages of unclassified emails and reports obtained through freedom of information requests by lawyers who represented Occupy participants and provided the documents to The New York Times. They offer details of the scrutiny in 2011 and 2012 by law enforcement officers, federal officials, security contractors, military employees and even people at a retail trade association. The monitoring appears similar to that conducted by F.B.I. counterterrorism officials, which was previously reported. |
This weekend has seen MCM Comic Con land in Birmingham, and being just down the road, I thought it only right we should take a look!
First Impressions, Costumes & Comics
This was actually the first MCM Con i’d covered so I was interested to see what it would be like. This Birmingham Con took up 2 massive halls of the NEC. One dedicated to memorabilia the other to comics. Wandering around, there were naturally a lot of people enjoying themselves in costume. Some had made rather more effort than others, but they all seem to be having a good time. I think it’s fair to say Deadpool is proving somewhat popular this year with both young and old. I also spotted a large number of Harley Quinns and of course, male and female Doctors from Doctor Who – I’d say a good balance between 10th and 11th incarnations… I did see a number of Fez’s… but then, as we all know, Fez’s are cool. 😉 A special shout out really has to go to the lady Doc Ock who was standing around having photos taken with Spidey, for her frankly, spectacular outfit, complete with mechanical arms!
Looking through some of the stands, there were lots of great artists and independent comic book writers. The one that really caught my eye though was ‘Bearland’ from Subversive Comics. After the Zombear Apocalypse, the Bear-with-no-name travels across a Zombie infested landscape to find the bear responsible… The zombie apocalypse with teddy bears! What’s not to love!
Guests
There were no shortage of people signing autographs, some bigger stars than others. A few people that have had minor roles in Star Wars, or Doctor Who, along with some other well know British TV faces. Not unsurprisingly, Hannah Spearritt & Ben Mansfield from Primeval were proving popular with the autograph hunters, as was Richard Kiel (aka Jaws from James Bond). I also spotted Nabil Shaban who played Sil in the 6th Doctor’s serial ‘Vengeance on Varos’. Sil was a character that scared the crap out of me as a child, and it didn’t help that when I saw him, he was in the section of the Con that had a selection of live animals, and he was busy ‘petting’ a tarantula!
Kate Kelton & Richard Donat from the Syfy show Haven were also there, and I did have a brief chat with them as I went up to get an autograph after their panel. It was also a this point an incident occurred which made me fall a little in love with Kate. You see, it appears she is a MASSIVE Star Wars geek, and it just so happens the guys from The UK based 501st Legion were there in, ahem, force… So when Darth Vader himself decided to pay Miss Kelton a visit just as I got to the front of the queue, she had, what I can only describe as a geekgasm. It was really rather adorable, and she just freaked out and had her photo taken with the Sith Lord and his Imperial Guard. She did return to the signing table eventually with an ear-to-ear grin which I suspect still hasn’t faded. J.J. if you’re reading this, offer Kate a role in the new movie, and you’ll have a friend for life! 😉
Kate Kelton with Darth Vader
I should say, the 501st Legion were brilliant throughout the time I was at the Con. They seem to always stay in character, and it’s not uncommon to see Stormtroopers wandering through the halls mock ‘harassing’ willing con-goers. The best incident I saw of this was when Vader himself ‘caught’ a Star Trek fan in full costume, and had him prostrate himself in front of the sith lord (and onlooking crowd) and declare ‘the Federation is nothing, long live the Empire’. It was all in good fun, and the Federation officer (who i’m sure will be court-martialed for his cowardice) was eventually let go.
Panels
There were a number of interesting panels at the Con. First up was the Haven panel with Kate Kelton & Richard Donat, who answered lots of fan questions about the show. It was an interesting mix as this was Kate’s first Con, and she was clearly pretty hyper, where as Richard was far more laid back. Both utterly charming though. Favourite answer to the question ‘which other character would you like to play on the show’ came from Kate “Duke. I loooovee Duke as he’s such a smart-ass. Although if I got to play Nathan, I get to kiss Audrey, so that would be fun!” Geek temperatures rising around the room! 😉 See the video of the Haven panel here.
Next panel I caught was with prolific Manga voice over artist Todd Haberkorn, although the panel I caught was more related to the work on the brilliant web series Star Trek Continues in which he plays Spock. It’s shot in the original 60’s tv show style, and picks up right after the end of the last episode. They’ve shot 1 full episode so far, and thanks to a massively successful Kickstarter campaign, are shooting 4 more next year.
Finally, the big one. The Red Dwarf panel. This included Chris Barrie, Robert Llewellyn, Danny John-Jules, and Hatty Hayridge, all who where on top form. Many questions from fans about how they got the roles, and favourite episodes and jokes, which resulted it Chris and Rob reenacting the classic “Are you sure sir, it’ll mean changing the bulb” line. There was also some discussion about who’s most disruptive on set, to which Chris replied “We’re all consummate professionals these days”… and then Rob goes on to relate a story of how Craig has a habit of setting fire to his scripts. 😉
Overall, I’ve had a blast over the past 2 days. I’ve met some great people (in some amazing costumes!) and seen some very entertaining panels. If you get a chance to go then do it, you won’t regret it. Lovely people, and you may even get the chance to meet Darth Vader!
MCM Comic Con Birmingham 2013 Gallery |
Google announced today that it has implemented a new updating method called file-by-file patching that reduces the size of app updates on Android by 65% on average.
The company started to use the bsdiff algorithm earlier this year to reduce the size of application updates by 47% on average when compared to the full size of the Android app.
The new file-by-file patching method that google announced today improves that to 65% on average, and in some cases up to 90%.
Google Play sends the device a patch that describes the difference between the old and new version of the application when file-by-file patching is used.
File-by-file patching
File-by-file patching uses the following process to update an application on an Android device:
Google decompresses both the old and new file to compute the delta using bsdiff. The patch is applied in the next step by decompressing the old file, applying the delta (the differences), and compressing the resulting data to a new file. Google then makes sure that the new file is identical to the file the developer uploaded to the Play Store originally.
Google ran some benchmark tests comparing the old and new file patching method against each other. The result was that file-by-file patching reduced the size of the patch significantly when compared to the bsdiff method.
Netflix topped the list with a 92% size reduction of the patch to 1.2 Megabyte over the original size of 16.2 Megabyte. Patch sizes dropped between 32% and 92% of the original application size, while it dropped only between 9% and 81% using the bsdiff method.
As you may have noticed already, there is a drawback to the method. Since files need to be decompressed and recompressed on the device, more processing power is needed during updates.
Google notes that the process takes about 1 second per Megabyte on 2015 or newer devices, and usually longer on older devices.
However, there is one trade off; extra processing power is needed on the device. On modern devices (e.g. from 2015), recompression can take a little over a second per megabyte and on older or less powerful devices it can be longer. Analysis so far shows that, on average, if the patch size is halved then the time spent applying the patch (which for File-by-File includes recompression) is doubled.
The company made the decision to limit the new patching method to automatic updates for the time being. These updates are run in the background and should not impact device performances too much therefore.
For now, we are limiting the use of this new patching technology to auto-updates only, i.e. the updates that take place in the background, usually at night when your phone is plugged into power and you're not likely to be using it. This ensures that users won't have to wait any longer than usual for an update to finish when manually updating an app.
A decrease in download size at the expense of longer update times on the device.
Now You: would you trade update size for time?
Summary Article Name Size of Android app updates reduced significantly Description Google announced today that it has implemented a new updating method called file-by-file patching that reduces the size of app updates on Android by 65% on average. Author Martin Brinkmann Publisher Ghacks Technology News Logo
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IT’S game over for the American consumer. Inflation-adjusted personal consumption expenditures are on track for rare back-to-back quarterly declines in the second half of 2008 at a 3.5 percent average annual rate. There are only four other instances since 1950 when real consumer demand has fallen for two quarters in a row. This is the first occasion when declines in both quarters will have exceeded 3 percent. The current consumption plunge is without precedent in the modern era.
The good news is that lines should be short for today’s “first shopping day” of the holiday season. The bad news is more daunting: rising unemployment, weakening incomes, falling home values, a declining stock market, record household debt and a horrific credit crunch. But there is a deeper, potentially positive, meaning to all this: Consumers are now abandoning the asset-dependent spending and saving strategies they embraced during the bubbles of the past dozen years and moving back to more prudent income-based lifestyles.
This is a painful but necessary adjustment. Since the mid-1990s, vigorous growth in American consumption has consistently outstripped subpar gains in household income. This led to a steady decline in personal saving. As a share of disposable income, the personal saving rate fell from 5.7 percent in early 1995 to nearly zero from 2005 to 2007.
In the days of frothy asset markets, American consumers had no compunction about squandering their savings and spending beyond their incomes. Appreciation of assets — equity portfolios and, especially, homes — was widely thought to be more than sufficient to make up the difference. But with most asset bubbles bursting, America’s 77 million baby boomers are suddenly facing a savings-short retirement.
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Worse, millions of homeowners used their residences as collateral to take out home equity loans. According to Federal Reserve calculations, net equity extractions from United States homes rose from about 3 percent of disposable personal income in 2000 to nearly 9 percent in 2006. This newfound source of purchasing power was a key prop to the American consumption binge. |
I made this drawing a few months back, but I added the titles and such so that it matches the rest of the covers collection. If you don't know, it's Harley Quinn with the Joker as drawn by Alex Ross.But besides that, did you all see that Disney buying Fox is a done deal? Besides the many things that implies, we obviously are looking closer at X-Men and Fantastic 4 coming back to Marvel (even though F4 could be a bit more complicated still).This means that a lot of characters and storylines are open for massive crossover within the Marvel universe. I bet Avengers 4 end credits scene will have a "it's always Doom who pulls the strings!"A lot of people wonder how to include the X-Men in the Marvel universe and I guess they'll just kick out whatever Marvel was trying to do with Inhumans and call it a day. The first X-Men movie should be Mojo World, so that they can claim "we were trapped in another dimension making bad movies."It will be interesting to see who stays or if it will be totally rebooted (most likely). With Deadpool being the only one successful enough and so meta that his appearance wouldn't be strange.Commissions: Send a message through the page.Shirts, prints and others: |
CLICK HERE FOR WEEK 2 POWER RANKINGS
The start of the season is finally here. After a long month and a half of training camp and preseason games, we’ve started to get a better idea of what some teams are made of. It will still be a few weeks thou before we know what teams truly are as good as they appear.
But you know what lets have some fun and rank them anyway. Another plus about the rankings? We’ll be back to bringing you pictures of the NFL’s finest cheerleaders (New Orleans Saints this week).
Here’s our official NFL Power Rankings for Week One of the season, this where we think they stand at the moment. After checking this out make sure to check out our 2009 NFL Predictions.
1. Pittsburgh Steelers – Till the games are played the champs get the respect
2. New England Patriots
3. Philadelphia Eagles
4. Indianapolis Colts
5. New York Giants
6. San Diego Chargers
7. Minnesota Vikings
8. Atlanta Falcons
9. Tennessee Titans
10. Baltimore Ravens
11. Arizona Cardinals
12. Chicago Bears
13. Dallas Cowboys
14. Carolina Panthers
15. Miami Dolphins
16. Green Bay Packers
17. New York Jets – If Marc Sanchez proves himself in the first couple weeks this team will shoot up the rankings fast.
18. Buffalo Bills
19. Houston Texans
20. Seattle Seahawks
21. New Orleans Saints
22. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
23. Cincinnati Bengals
24. Jacksonville Jaguars
25. San Francisco 49ers
26. Washington Redskins
27. Denver Broncos
28. Cleveland Browns – I think they’re better then this but till they’ve decided on a QB there is too much chance for failure.
29. St Louis Rams
30. Oakland Raiders
31. Kansas City Chiefs
32. Detroit Lions – There is no way you can rank them any higher, not till they win a game.
That’s how we’re starting the season and I look forward to giving you updates to it all season. And just like last year we’ll be linking to our friends at NE Patriots Draft Rankings for comparison.
NE Patriots Draft – NFL Power Rankings Week One
Don’t forget to check out the 2009 NFL Predictions. |
Violent Democrat Steve Martan was arrested in Tucson after threatening to assault and murder Representative Martha McSally in several phone calls.
Martan was upset that McSally supported President Donald Trump.
Good. Lock him up.
KVOA | KVOA.com | Tucson, Arizona
Tucson.com reported:
The FBI arrested a TUSD employee on suspicion of threatening U.S. Rep. Martha McSally.
FBI agents arrested Steve Martan, 58, in connection with three messages left on the congressional office voicemail on May 2 and May 10, according to a criminal complaint filed May 12 in U.S.
District Court in Tucson. Martan is a campus monitor at Miles Exploratory Learning Center in the Tucson Unified School District. He was placed on home assignment and told not to come into work as the district investigates the allegations.
The voicemails contained threats to McSally, including that she should “be careful” when she returns to Tucson and that her days “were numbered.” He threatened to shoot her in one of the expletive-filled messages.
The complaint stated Martan told agents he was venting frustrations with McSally’s congressional votes in support of the president of the United States.
Martan was accused of threatening to assault and murder a United States official with intent to impede the official’s duties and to retaliate against an official for the performance of the official’s duties, according to the complaint. |
NEW YORK -- Retired NBA star Jayson Williams was freed from jail Friday after serving eight months for drunken driving in New York and 18 months before that in New Jersey on charges stemming from a limo driver's shooting death.
"I am eager to see my daughters, my mother and siblings and make amends for what they've been through, the former New Jersey Nets star said through his manager. "Start my life over with God being first and in the center of everything I do."
Williams drove his SUV into a tree in lower Manhattan in 2010, a week after he accepted a plea deal stemming from the 2002 shotgun death of a chauffeur in his New Jersey mansion. His manager and attorneys have said he has since attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, gone through counseling and taught Bible study.
Williams had a six-year, $86 million contract with the Nets before a leg injury forced him to retire in 2000. Two years after he left the sport, he killed driver Costas Christofi with a 12-gauge shotgun while showing it to friends, having failed to check the weapon's safety mechanism before snapping the gun closed.
Williams then wiped down the weapon and placed it in the chauffeur's hands, stripped off his own clothes, handed them to a friend and jumped into his pool, according to testimony. Williams' lawyers maintained that the shooting was an accident and that his actions were driven by panic.
The shooting marked the start of a cascade of troubles for Williams, who was promptly suspended from his post-basketball job as an NBA analyst for NBC.
While the case surrounding the shooting lingered after a 2004 mistrial on a top count, his wife filed for divorce, and police used a stun gun on him in a New York hotel after a female friend said he was acting suicidal. He was charged with assault in May 2009 after police say he punched a man in the face outside a North Carolina bar, but charges were dropped. His father also died.
Williams pleaded guilty in January 2010 to a lesser aggravated assault count in the shooting case while awaiting a retrial. Under his plea agreement, he had to serve at least 18 months in state prison because a gun was involved and up to five years for a prior conviction of trying to cover up the crime. The sentences were to run concurrent and he became eligible for parole after serving 18 months.
He was paroled from a facility in Wrightstown, N.J. in August, and was transferred to Rikers to serve up to a year after pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated. He was released Friday after eight months.
A first-round NBA draft pick in 1990, Williams played nine seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers and the Nets. He averaged 10 or more rebounds a game in his final four NBA seasons and was named to an All-Star team. |
Kiren Rijiju said it was "very sad" that Indian forces had to face attacks from across the border.
In a freewheeling interview with NDTV to mark three years of the Narendra Modi government, Junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju, asked about the challenges in Kashmir, admitted that there are "problems".On whether it could be jotted down in the "fail" column for the BJP-led government on its third anniversary, Mr Rijiju said, "It's the reason why we have separate wings in the ministry to deal only with Kashmir or only with Northeast. It's because these areas need special attention. We do have problems but I can say that in the last three years we have improved a lot, like in securing our border areas."The minister said it was "very sad" that Indian security forces had to face attacks from across the border. Asked about India's response to recent provocations from Pakistan, including ceasefire violations, terror attacks and the mutilation of two soldiers by Pakistanis, Mr Rijiju said, "I can't say much but try and understand what I am trying to say. We can do things like surgical strikes but we can't talk about it. We also have to present our case to international forums and our soldiers are bound by political decisions. I can only assure you that this government is very supportive of our forces.''The friction, however, between the forces and the people of Kashmir was evident in recent videos that were in wide circulation in the Valley. In one video, CRPF or Central Reserve Police Force personnel were pushed, abused and harassed by local people as they walked with EVMs or vote machines after by-polls in Srinagar.Another video showed a protester strapped to the front of an army jeep by personnel as a shield against stone-throwers on the same day. The man, a weaver, had come to vote in the by-polls.The state police are yet to complete their assessment of that incident but Mr Rijiju said the soldiers did nothing wrong."It is very sad that our forces have to face such things in their own country. They are portrayed as villainous and defamed. There are many things that security forces do but they are always charged with violations of human rights. We want to show that we treat Kashmiris as our own but it isn't right that they are always attacked and die for their country. This isn't right for the country. So, this is a delicate issue." When NDTV asked specifically if he supported the use of a human shield, he said, "I can't speak because if I do, it makes it a matter of policy and government stance. But there were circumstances which had to be decided on the spot. If it is a question of protecting your own life, you may adopt means. You have human rights but security forces also have human rights." |
TORY CONFERENCE DELEGATES GET FREE TAX PAYER FUNDED TRAVEL
Star date: 24th September 2013 SALFORD AND GREATER MANCHESTER TAX PAYERS FUND FREE £130,000 CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE TRAVEL Delegates to this week's Conservative Party Conference will be getting free travel passes for bus, trains and trams worth an estimated £130,000, courtesy of council tax payers in Salford and Greater Manchester. The free `System One' travel cards are being handed out to around 4,000 Conservative Party members attending the Conference. `System One' is co-owned by Transport for Greater Manchester, which is funded by Salford Council and the nine other local councils. Full details here...
click image to enlarge
Champagne quaffing Tory members heading to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester this week will receive free `System One' travel passes for bus, trains and trams, worth around £130,000, courtesy of local council tax payers of Salford and Greater Manchester. The estimated 4,000 Tory Party members attending the five day event (out of 12,000 delegates) will receive a free System One travel pass, for which the nearest equivalent a County Card would normally cost £33.30. Give or take a few blue rinses and pinstriped prats from the City, the full cost works out around £130,000. The Conservative Party Conference website states "System One are pleased to offer complimentary travel cards for all Party Member representatives attending the event. These will be valid on bus, tram and train travel in Greater Manchester and will be presented in a travel pack with map and further information on getting around Greater Manchester. This will be issued with your Conference security photographic pass and handbook " System One is the branded Greater Manchester Travelcard, and the company is co-owned, as it states on its website, by `Greater Manchester's private bus, rail and tram operators and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM)'. Transport for Greater Manchester is the `delivery arm' for transport for the ten Greater Manchester local authorities, including Salford Council, and, according to its last accounts (2011-12), TfGM received £193million in funding from those authorities. The free passes have been uncovered by the Green Party, and Joe O'Neill, from Salford Green Party, told the Salford Star he was `horrified' by the revelations "In an age of austerity should we be paying for these rich Tories to be visiting our city?" he asked "While I'm in favour of public transport, I'd like to know who made the decision to offer these free passes, when people struggling to get by in Salford on minimum wages have to pay the full fare. It's an absolute disgrace. I'm horrified." £130,000 is merely chick feed for the fat cats of Transport for Greater Manchester. Last year, Salford Star revealed that its Chief Exec pulled in £199,936 plus a pension and NI package worth over £50,000. Its Chief Operating Officer trousered a salary of £189,552 plus a pension and NI package of around £40,000. Six others joined them on the gravy train with salaries of between £90-£129,999 (see Salford Star article click here). Meanwhile, from Salford Council, three councillors sit on the TfGM governing committee Roger Jones and Barry Warner (Labour Party) and Robin Garrido (Conservative Party) and, for the privilege, they pocket £3,825 on top of their basic councillor allowances and `special responsibilities'. Perhaps they can explain why rich Tories are getting almost £130,000 of free travel to grub their noses around the `North'. In the meantime, Richard Soper, Chair of Greater Manchester Travelcards Ltd told the Salford Star "System One has supported the annual political conferences of both Labour and the Conservatives when they have been held in the city for several years. We see it as an opportunity to get people who may not normally use public transport at home to try it whilst they are in our city. It also helps to reduce car traffic during the busy conference period, with positive effects for the city centre environment, and normal local traffic. "The travelcard we are offering to the delegates is one which has been specially produced for this purpose as a promotional venture, and is not available to buy" he added "The decision to support local events such as this is taken by the Board of the company, most of whose members are directors of the local bus companies and is a regular part of our business, for example, in promoting public transport, we also work with Greener Journeys to provide thousands of free day travelcards to local community schemes, and to projects aimed at persuading car commuters across Greater Manchester to travel by public transport." This Sunday, 29th September sees the TUC protest against cuts to jobs, services and the NHS, and the Salford march on the Conservative Party Conference begins 10am at Bexley Square for full details see previous Salford Star article click here.
Kenneth w mckelvey wrote
at 09:43:12 on 30 September 2013 Dave my full apologys I was knocking the statement out while on the m10 Bus The IE workers on PAYE was intended to explain the working ppl were paying for the police not the freeloaders at the conferance.MY HUMBLE APOLOGIES As for the other letter I did not say that people like Hazel Blears were immune from tax and expences fiddles. They are a Disgrace. But when you have a Chancellol like Osbourne who fiddled on a house regenerated by tax payers.Sold by him on a tax dodge. Then explained to his sister how to get out of paying Inheretence tax is hardly encouraging
Gareth L wrote
at 05:36:20 on 30 September 2013 I love how I read a Manchester Evening News Exclusive Story on this topic, three days after it appeared on the Star!!!! Shame on the MEN. Keep up the good work Stephen
the end wrote
at 05:35:55 on 30 September 2013 ref Kenneth w mckelvey: two words for you when talking about expenses 'Hazel Blears'.
Dave wrote
at 05:35:15 on 30 September 2013 @Kenneth, I think you may have got a bit over excited with yourself. What drugs have you been taking? "FREE LOADING TAX DODGERS. IE WORKERS! On PAYE" how the fuck can anyone on PAYE dodge tax it is deducted by the employer and handed straight over to the revenue, you get no choice as to if you pay it or not. I think you need to learn all about how tax works before going and attacking all the honest hardworking people who hold this country together, it's these people that pay your pension, fuel allowance, pension credit, rent, council tax, and that health service you love so much.
Kenneth w mckelvey wrote
at 08:14:12 on 29 September 2013 Cllr Lindley extolling the virtues of the torys / Stating that it is not in their psyche to except freebees / One Tory minister who claims living on £72s a week is simple / He by the way has a Daily Breakfast costing £38 and puts it on his expences / He lives in a 30 roomed house rent free and claims people who have a spare bedroom should pay Bed Tax.That's IDSmith/ His mate Osbourne gets on a train with his Tory entorage pays for a ordinary tickets then they all tried to ride to London in a First Compartment.The Torys are a party of Tax Dodging Freeloading people And the police who will be in charge of the protest marches TUC/.ANTI private NHS etc will be funded by the tax paying people NOT THE FREE LOADING TAX DODGERS. IE WORKERS! On PAYE.
Kenneth w mckelvey wrote
at 11:38:44 on 28 September 2013 What is all the fuss about free passes for Tory MPs /Only 1 quarter of Tory MPs attend party conferences the Other 3 quarters in attention are Lobbyists giving out bungs for lumps of our NHS/.Half the Tory MPs don't even attend the House Of Commans except on Wednesday so as to get their face on TV. And can any body visualise a Tory MP getting on any of the disgraceful public transport in Gt/ Man.They pack people in like cattle /the air conditioning blows hot air in summer/ cold air in winter /And they over charge like all the other privatised industry's Gas/ Water /Electricty/
Bernard Brough wrote
at 11:17:28 on 28 September 2013 In Paul's world the Greens seem to wield power disproportionate to their following, but that is in Paul's world. Back in the real world it's not the Green Party burdening us with huge gas and electricity price hike, it's the privatised companies. The same companies who are threatening to turn of the gas and pull the plugs should Labour introduce price controls. It's privatisation, it kills.
Paul wrote
at 08:06:22 on 28 September 2013 When your a large party like the Tories, and when you see protest groups who turn violent, then this is why so much money is spent on these conferences. when your minor irrelevant part that can hold it's conferences in a small pub like the Green Party, then life would be great. How much have the wishy washy greens put on your fuel bills in the name of climate change, and bills are set to double because of this so called climate change, scientists who help peddle this crap are making £millions out of us, this is the big story, how many OAPs will die this winter because of the green parties policies. The fuel companies don't need a reason to bump up the prices, but the greens have just given them the best reason yet.
James Walsh, A Native Mancunian wrote
at 06:06:27 on 28 September 2013 Tories not welcome in my city whatever form of (subsidised) transport they arrive on
Potty Pete wrote
at 06:06:22 on 28 September 2013 The only decent TORY is a LavaTORY
charlie wrote
at 06:06:16 on 28 September 2013 Loads of money I'm a tory boy stuff Manc's and Salfordys the toys are here. Loads of money.
Kenneth w mckelvey wrote
at 18:03:09 on 27 September 2013 What planet is Cllr Iindley on /This Government took 20 Billion £s off the NHS budget./ His party also said Pensioners benefits are ringed fence and are safe with us. /They took 20% off our Winter Fuel Allowance/. Then when they give us a cost of living rise they take it off any pensioners who are on pension Credits./This useless government has back tracked and lied all the way through this Parliment. Personally I am not interested who run the UK as long as they do it with a shred of decency and fairly. But this lot are a disgrace Bed Tax / Pay Freeze for workers/ Tax Cuts For the richest.Sorry but no excuses will allieveate your governments shame you just seem to be carrying a vendetta against anybody who is on benefits you are a disgrace
Good on the bloke wrote
at 18:03:05 on 27 September 2013 Hats off to Cllr Iain Lindley for actually having the balls to come on this site and comment, I note that it's more that the Labour Cllrs have done. We might not agree with everything he has said but at least we got a comment from him. I notice how no Labour Cllrs have commented on this or any other stories on here, but then maybe Mayor Kim Jong Stewart has introduced internet censorship on all his followers. Personally I would prefer it if they got out and about in Salford, not just on the bus routes but down the back streets, let then see what has an arsonist in charge of the matches causes. And for those wondering about my political preferences! ... No I am not a Tory, but then again I would not trust Salford Labour to run a bloody tap.
Joe O'Neill wrote
at 14:12:19 on 27 September 2013 Strange response from Salford's Tories,It's an interesting story, but a few important things to remember: - Conference delegates have had nothing to do with this decision. They did not ask for these passes nor have they had the opportunity to refuse them. The decision was made by System One and Labour-run TfGM. - Most Conference delegates won't use the passes at all, as they will stay in the City Centre. Those that do will use them for short hops only. Many will refuse to use a freebie out of principle. I find these comments highly amusing no opportunity to refuse, many will refuse out of principle! some how I don't think so. It would be a fun exercise to possibly put in a request on actual usage and total cost,I don't blame the Tories for everything I mean how much did Labour cost us for their day out in Manchester? These people can afford to pay and in an environment of austerity the least they should do is put their hands in their damn pockets
wrote
at 14:11:41 on 27 September 2013 Ian Lindley. Your proof to justify your comments is what exactly ? Or are you just another council apologist ? That the taxpayer is funding the travel of these parasites is immoral and wrong .
Cllr Iain Lindley wrote
at 11:17:54 on 27 September 2013 It's an interesting story, but a few important things to remember: - Conference delegates have had nothing to do with this decision. They did not ask for these passes nor have they had the opportunity to refuse them. The decision was made by System One and Labour-run TfGM. - Most Conference delegates won't use the passes at all, as they will stay in the City Centre. Those that do will use them for short hops only. Many will refuse to use a freebie out of principle. The actual cost (right or wrong) will be minimal. - Independent estimates suggest that the Conference brings in £25m for the local economy. That secures plenty of jobs, including here in Salford. - Spending on the NHS has been protected by this Government. The only part of the UK where NHS spending has been cut is in Wales, where health is a devolved matter and is the responsibility of the Labour-run Assembly. - How much money are Greater Manchester Police spending to police the TUC march?
Brian F Kirkham wrote
at 14:09:56 on 26 September 2013 Not bothered what political affiliation you're attached to..this story smells fishy from start to finish - The guy in charge of the Travelcards company should, in effect, be lessening the cost to those in the region and not handing them out free and gratis to the great and the good. I've no doubt the big two travel companies will be at the conference instilling the benefits of Deregulation - all tinkered with by two Scottish mafias...if a travel firm anywhere else played the same trick - it'd be all over the news..and I've no doubt they'll be at the conservative shindig protecting their current position (wasn't privatisation meant to breakup unfair monopolies?)
Jim Sanders wrote
at 17:08:38 on 25 September 2013 This is a completely immoral and unfair use of taxpayers money. Whoever authorised this appalling squandering of money must be sacked . Thanks to Joe and the Star for exposing this .
wrote
at 17:08:33 on 25 September 2013 THEY ARE TAXPAYER ROBBERS . This is unacceptable ,AND VERY WRONG.
Bernard Brough wrote
at 17:08:24 on 25 September 2013 Yet another mouthpiece who has no idea what socialism is.
Let's get our facts right wrote
at 17:08:07 on 25 September 2013 @Wrote, I think you will find that it was the Labour councils in Greater Manchester that tried to introduce the congestion charge here, in fact Labour Cllr Roger Jones lost his seat at the time because of his support for it. May I also point out that the congestion charge (AKA in London the Kengestion charge) in London was brought in by Ken Livingstone AKA Red Ken. Oh any by the way Labour were also running the country at the time and had been for 6 years. Just wanted to clarify the facts on that!
wrote
at 07:32:12 on 25 September 2013 Heres an idea - weren't the tories trying to implement a London based measure on the county? (GM). The Congestion Charge??? Given they'll be touring the area saying what a fantastic job they're doing (Hmmm...) This charge should be implemented on them...And that's just the tip of a very large iceberg. How many councils are they in opposition here? it's an absolute joke this lot get freebies, they should pay and lessen the burden to the people living here.
salford kev wrote
at 22:44:00 on 24 September 2013 Joe is bang on, the should all drive their cars into manchester and then use them to get about the city. so wot about the effects on the inviroment and the congestuion on the roads they can aford it. bloody tories should also look at our poor area, yeah try getting out of you cars a bit. bloody tories
Don't know who i am now wrote
at 22:43:35 on 24 September 2013 Salford Metropolitan Council??????? Have I been in a coma or something????????????
wrote
at 22:19:17 on 24 September 2013 Personally I am more than happy to give all delegates from political parties that have a conference in Manchester a free travel pass. This should hopefully encourage some of them to stay outside of Manchester and the city centre in particular, if we can get a few hundred Tories to get on a tram at Eccles then that's great because then they can see what the Labour scumbags that run this city have done to it, maybe they could then tell fat Eric who could do something about it??? As the Star point out it's a tiny fraction of the overall budget. But basically they are doing it for the Tories because they did it for the Labour scumbags when they had a party up here many years ago. Hats off to the Tories for coming back to Gtr Manchester when Labour deserted us in favor of Brighton, along with the Greens, oh we will not talk about the Libs who have legged it over the border to Scotland. GREAT come all ye Tories and see what socialism does for us up in Salford, if that will not confirm your convictions nothing will.
not happy wrote
at 17:58:49 on 24 September 2013 WHAT COULD YOU DO WITH THAT MONEY;;; KEEP TWO DROP-INS OPEN FOR 12 MONTHS AND HAVE SOME CHANGE TO HELP THE VUNERABLE AND NEEDY YOU'V DONE IT AGAIN SALFORD COUNCIL THE RICH GET MORE, AND THE POOR GET POORER
wrote
at 16:02:29 on 24 September 2013 This is disgraceful and unacceptable . The sickening scum who made the decision to throw OUR money away at the millionaire Thatcherite scum must be identified and sacked immediately .
Bernard Brough wrote
at 12:13:28 on 24 September 2013 What the fuck is Salford Metropolitan Council?
Christine Melsom wrote
at 09:52:15 on 24 September 2013 So, were they complimentary or did the Conservative delegates ask for them. If it is the former, then Salford Metropolitan Council may be at fault here. It says that both Labour and Conservatives have been issued with these travelcards in the past so why does the Green Party opt to scream foul on this occasion? Politics. Are they hoping that they may play a minor part in the next Government? I think they are clutching at straws. No chance.
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During the summer of 1994, amphetamine virgin Neil Woods found himself in a pub in the sleepy village of Whitwick, Leicestershire, faced with the choice of swallowing 40 percent pure speed or having the shit kicked out of him by a notorious Leicester gangster with a £1,000-a-week cocaine and crack habit.
Unbeknownst to this gangster – who ran a racket stealing lockable petrol caps from cars, before having the keys replicated and boosting the cars – Neil was an undercover cop. He'd been attempting to buy one of the stolen cars from the gangster and had built up something of a relationship with him through chatting at this pub. However, one mistake he'd made was to make himself out as "some sort of connoisseur of amphetamines".
"After about four weeks of knowing him he produced this bag for me," Neil tells me from his home in Herefordshire. "He said, 'Here's a present for you. I bet you've never had speed like this!' Well, I certainly hadn't, because I'd never actually had any speed in my life. But just before he produced his bag, I'd literally seen someone have the shit kicked out of them in the pub on his orders for only a £10 debt. So I thought, 'I've got to take some.'"
Neil put a tiny splodge of speed on the tip of his tongue, but that wasn't enough to satisfy the gangster. "I was a little too tentative, so he said, 'You want to have more than that!' He expected me to have a tolerance, so he gave me another big dollop. I could feel it burning as it hit my mouth. He charged me some money for it and I went home, but I didn't sleep for the next three nights. It was absolutely horrific. We got the stuff tested later and it was over 40 percent pure. Normal street stuff is about 5 percent."
This kind of thing wasn't out of the ordinary for Neil, who served as a undercover drugs officer for 14 years between 1993 and 2007. During his tenure he estimates that his work put drug criminals behind bars for a combined total of 1,000 years, though he's certain all that prison time did absolutely nothing to stem the flow of drugs like heroin onto Britain's streets.
"Everything I did while undercover was a waste of time," he says. "All I did was make the lives of the vulnerable more unbearable."
While it was domestic stress with his ex-wife that ultimately led to his resignation from the force in November of 2012, for years he'd been growing slowly disillusioned with the policing of drug laws and the undercover tactics he had both witnessed and used himself.
Growing up in Derbyshire, Neil dropped out of a business studies course at Salford University at the age of 19 to join Derbyshire Constabulary, wanting to do something "more adventurous" with his life. "I was going to go backpacking around Europe, but I saw an advert in the local newspaper for police recruits, so I flipped a coin," he says. "It landed heads, so I joined the police."
He worked for four years in general policing, before settling with the Drug Squad (DS).
Back in the early 1990s, undercover drug policing was a pretty loosely regulated affair, and when some colleagues suggested he try it out, Neil decided to give it a go. "I was quickly found to be particularly good at it," he says. "I think it's an adrenaline thing. People react differently to adrenaline, but however nervous I was before I did something, as soon as I went into it my head went clear."
Regional drug squads share information, so very soon Neil was getting offers of work around the country, being assigned to jobs that lasted months. Because of the lack of regulation, these first jobs were often risky. He would pose as a drug user – usually a crack or heroin addict – and work his way towards infiltrating the drug scene in whichever area he was assigned to.
He recalls a scene from one of his first assignments in a housing estate in Normanton, an inner suburb of Derby: "I was sent in to just knock on the door and speak to some people who were dealing crack," he says. "I got chatting to people and I ended up in a bookies, which was funny because I don't think I'd been in a bookies before in my life. All the crack dealers were hanging around there and I got to know them and managed to buy off them.
"I was actually being observed at the time by the drugs squad, and I completely walked off the plot where they thought I was, and when I went back to meet them they looked seriously quite stressed – dripping in sweat and worried. It turned out the person who was selling to me had two convictions for GBH [grievous bodily harm] for stabbing people."
Neil buying crack undercover in Normanton in 1995 from a local dealer (Photo courtesy of Neil Woods)
In 1996, the police introduced formal training for undercover drug work, but by this time Neil already had three years of experience, so found himself teaching part of the course as well as studying the training. "They do say in undercover training that you're not acting," he says. "You're just being a different version of yourself."
But despite the extensive training, his life was still constantly under threat from the erratic behaviour of the dealers he encountered.
In 1997, he met a dealer in Fenton, Staffordshire, and bought "half a T" (0.8g) of heroin from him, then went back to buy more. "I knocked on the door again and said, 'Hey mate, have you got another half T?' He said, 'I haven't got anything near that weight.' He then pulled a samurai sword out, put it against my throat and said, 'You must be fucking DS!'"
The dealer's girlfriend then poked her head out the door and said, "Fucking hell – I thought he was going to say he was, then!" The guy pulled the sword away from Neil's throat and he and his girlfriend burst out laughing. He then asked Neil what he wanted and he asked for four bags.
"He took his time, gave me the four bags and I started to wander off and put the small silver foil wraps in a cigarette packet. But then I look up and there's a blade pointing at my face. Some bastard is trying to rob me for the heroin I've bought. I thought, 'This is just not my day at all!'" Neil laughs. "He said, 'Mate, just give it me and it'll be alright.' I said, 'Nah, not with the day I'm having' – and jogged away. You might look and sound like a heroin addict, but you can always run faster than them."
Neil moved from town to town throughout his career, mixing undercover assignments with regular police work. He would often spend his day playing the part of a crack or heroin addict, before turning in at a luxurious hotel or apartment in the evening, a contrast he found weird and uncomfortable.
"You spend all day being comfortable however anybody sees you, and relaxing into that role of being humbled almost to the point of humiliation," he says. "You then go to something of privilege and it doesn't feel quite right at all, and you can feel eyes upon you. In the city centre, no one pays you any attention at all when you're posing as a crack addict. That's why people don't realise so many crack addicts struggle living in inner cities."
"This guy needed help – something else rather than being exploited by all the dealers around him, or exploited by me for that matter."
These experiences spurred Neil into obsessively teaching himself everything he could about drugs. He visited the first European conference of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) in September of 1999. There, he listened to a debate about whether people should be sent to NA rather than prison. During the Q&A he posed the question – which, in hindsight, seems naïve to him – of what the point of sending someone to NA would be if they didn't want to get help in the first place.
"The whole room – and it was a big, big room – went completely quiet," he says. "I could almost see the tumbleweed. One of the people on the panel said, 'Do you think we had some magical epiphany to come here? We've all been dragged kicking and screaming.'"
This was a turning point for Neil – one that made him realise the addicts whose social circles he'd been infiltrating weren't really criminals, but vulnerable people in need of real help. "After that, every time I went out and mixed with heroin addicts and crack addicts on the street I realised that previously I'd been seeing them as less than human and thinking they had got themselves into their problem through their own mistakes," he says. "But actually, they were just people who needed help and were too ill to get it themselves."
Neil now believes that police tactics put these already vulnerable people at even greater risk.
"Organised crime gangs' biggest weapon really is fear," he says. "The more they're put under pressure by policing the more they will exercise that power of fear that makes people vulnerable."
In Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, he met a beggar who'd introduce him to people so he could feed his own habit by taking a small cut out of Neil's transactions. About a year later, Neil heard he'd been sentenced to five years in prison for heroin dealing. "This just horrified me, because all he would do was sit in the same spot in Mansfield town centre begging.
"He told me that the height of his month was when a vein in between his toes on the top of his foot had opened up that he hadn't been able to inject into for three years. That was the summation of his entire life. This guy needed help – something else rather than being exploited by all the dealers around him, or exploited by me for that matter."
Neil explains that heroin addicts who are imprisoned have often accumulated debts – or "tabs" – with their dealer. For those who can't afford to pay the tabs, the family and friends can be subject to exploitation to pay off the debt, including coerced prostitution and being forced to sell drugs. When the addicts get out, they often immediately re-offend as they still have the debt to pay off.
According to Neil, out of the country's estimated 300,000 heroin addicts, a high proportion of them seem to gravitate towards large seaside towns. "I wonder if people just want to run away and that's as far as they get because they run out of places to run," he says.
Neil was sent to Brighton at the end of 2005, which at the time had the highest per capita overdose rate of any city in the country. When he arrived, he discovered that the undercover tactics being used there had been in place for so long that the gangsters had cottoned on to them. "The gangsters had designated homeless people to be their point of contact," says Neil. "Everyone was absolutely terrified. The feeling of fear throughout the homeless community was absolutely terrible."
He got to know two homeless people who told him that other rough sleepers who were found to have unwittingly introduced undercover policemen to the gangsters had been murdered. "Anyone can get rid of a smackhead," Neil explains. "You just give them an overdose."
By this point there had been 58 overdoses that year. "That's substantially more than any town of its type, but my team just laughed about it," says Neil. "The other addicts were completely convinced that some of them were murders. Without a proper investigation I wouldn't want to speculate, but the fact that they were completely convinced should be a concern of any police officer."
That the people he was going after – and often imprisoning – were in desperate need of help was further reinforced to Neil by one particular homeless person in Brighton, a British former businessman who spoke five languages fluently but, after losing himself in the 1990s stimulant drug scene and using heroin to come down from speed, had become an addict.
"He had this sense of doom about him," says Neil. "He just knew he was going to die, that he wouldn't survive the winter. He had an offer of some housing in Worthing. It would have cost him £5.40 to get the train to go for the interview for this bedsit, but at the time he couldn't spare the £5.40 because he needed it to get a £20 bag of heroin. Even though he knew he was either going to overdose or freeze to death, he still couldn't get that five quid together to get the housing."
After just six weeks of what was supposed to be a six-month assignment, Neil grew tired of going after petty dealers rather than the top dogs. He left Brighton and refused to do that kind of work again.
Neil stopped doing undercover work in 2007 but remained with the police until 2012. Now, he's glad to have left and is focusing on using his experiences to improve the drug control system. He's a proponent of the full regulation of all drugs to "take the control away from the criminals".
"It's not good for you to be doing something which you feel is unethical – it takes its toll," he says.
"What I did wasn't completely my fault. You're a foot soldier; you take orders and you trust the system. It's a disciplined organisation and you trust other people's judgements. You trust the laws, but when it comes to drugs the laws are wrong."
@Michael_K_Allen
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Pop superstar Katy Perry took to her Instagram account Friday to show off some Black Lives Matter-inspired gifts she purchased as part of her holiday shopping.
“When your holiday shopping is woke af,” Perry captioned the photo, linking to www.merchforthemovement.org, which sells a variety of BLM-inspired sweatshirts, t-shirts and hats.
The “Firework” singer has long supported the controversial social justice group.
In December 2014, Perry tweeted support for Black Lives Matter activists protesting the police-involved death of Eric Garner.
If I could, I would be there laying in those streets of NYC, peacefully protesting. WE HAVE TO CHANGE. ALL LIVES MATTER #WeCantBreathe — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) December 4, 2014
In July, the singer tweeted a video of the death of Alton Sterling at the hands of Baton Rouge police.
You can't just go on with your day, you must watch this & we must face this continual outrageousness #ALTONSTERLING https://t.co/NqW3aVSZ1j — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 6, 2016
Perry, famous for her chart-topping pop songs like “Roar” and “Dark Horse,” spent much of 2016 campaigning for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Clinton relied heavily on the pop star to court young voters throughout the presidential campaign. Perry performed in Philadelphia just days before Election Day, and again just hours before Clinton’s loss had become obvious.
Last month, Clinton surprised Perry by presenting her with a humanitarian award at the UNICEF Snowflake Ball.
“On a personal level, I cannot tell you how delighted I am to be here to help celebrate a global megastar, a social-media queen with the most Twitter followers in the world—although she’s getting some competition—and someone whose powerful voice and creative lyrics remind us when you get knocked down to get back up,” Clinton said at the plush New York gala.
“I have seen Katy’s commitment to the causes she believes in firsthand,” Clinton added.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson |
What the hell are you cheering about? The Canucks stink in the playoffs!
… … … Or DO they?! (*Hint – yes, they do.)
(Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images)
The Vancouver Canucks are a few days away from starting only their third Conference Final series in their 40 year history. While this is getting a lot of chuckles from around the league, keep in mind that the Canucks are not alone in their limited amount of playoff successes. Yet for some reason, the Canucks and their fans seem to be a lightning rod for playoff criticism.
Canucks fans, don’t worry. We are not alone. We are definitely not alone.
Anecdotally, I knew that there were several teams that have failed miserably in the playoffs throughout their history. And, being the sensitive, snivelling, excuse-making Canucks fan that I am, I wanted to prove that the Canucks were not the worst team ever in the history of hockey and playoffs and ice and sticks because there had to be at least one worse team in the NHL when it comes to playoff success.
So I chose five teams to analyse, including the Canucks. I picked teams that have been around since the Canucks inaugural season, so that we weren’t lumping in the likes of Winnipeg/Phoenix, Atlanta, Nashville, Columbus or even Washington. I looked at Vancouver, Buffalo (the Canucks’ expansion cousins), Los Angeles (the Canucks long-time divisional partner), St. Louis, and Toronto. Yes, I picked 4 other teams that also haven’t won a Stanley Cup since at least 1970-71. There’s the first proof point that the Canucks aren’t the only team in the last 40 years who hasn’t won it all.
Also, I’m not looking at "choke" factor. I’m only looking at the objective numbers of how these teams fared in the playoffs over the years. I don’t care how they ranked, or how well they did in the regular season. I’m only looking at how these 5 teams have done historically in the playoffs since 1970-71.
Ok, so there’s the background. Here’s what I found.
CHART 1: This chart plots the five teams and their progression through the playoffs since 1970. The numbers on the left represent the round to which the team progressed. 0 represents a "Did Not Qualify", while 5 represents winning the Stanley Cup.
CHART 2: This chart shows the number of times each team has reached a particular playoff milestone. For example, LA, Buffalo and St. Louis all made it to the 1st Round (and no further) 14 times.
Some interesting points on these…
Getting to the Stanley Cup final in the last 40 years has definitely been rarified air amongst these five teams. It’s only happened five times – Vancouver (2), Buffalo (2), Los Angeles (1). For as many times as the Canucks haven’t made the playoffs (17), the Kings have missed the playoffs more often (18). The Canucks have now only made it past the 2nd round 3 times. However, the same is true for St. Louis. And the Kings have only made it past the 2nd round once. Neither St. Louis nor Toronto have even made it to the Stanley Cup final in the last 40 years. Buffalo has had the most playoff success of all the five teams, yet both Vancouver and Buffalo have only made the Stanley Cup Final twice – the most amongst the five teams. For 15 out of 40 years, the Blues were knocked out in the second round. For 14 out of 40 years, they were knocked out in the first round. So 29 times out of 40 (almost 3/4 of the time), the Blues were in the playoffs but couldn’t get out of the second round.
After looking at the numbers, I wanted to put something quantitative behind these five teams’ successes or failures. So I scored each team based on their total playoff history. 0 points for a DNQ, 1 point for a 1st round knockout all the way to 5 points for a Stanley Cup championship. Here’s the ranking:
St. Louis (53) Buffalo (52) Toronto (46) Vancouver (40) Los Angeles (34)
Then I gave each further round some extra weight: 1 point for round 1, 3 points for round 2, 7 points for Conference Final, 10 points for Stanley Cup final, 20 points for a Championship. Here are the weighted rankings:
Buffalo (81) St. Louis (74) Toronto (67) Vancouver (62) Los Angeles (48)
So giving added weight to each round shows that Buffalo has had more deep playoff success and shows that LA has done very little in the playoffs for the last 40 years. The numbers show the Canucks have been bad in the playoffs, but they’re pretty close to the Leafs and (especially using the weighted system) are way ahead of the Kings. But Buffalo takes the crown here… as the best of the bad playoff teams. Congrats Sabres.
But I looked at the numbers again. I realized that a HUGE chunk of the Canucks poor playoff standings were in the first half of their existance. So I looked at the rankings again, but only from 1991 onward, in other words, the last 20 years.So it’s not a small sample size.
Using the weighted points again, here are the rankings for the last 20 years.
Vancouver (41) tie Buffalo (41) tie Toronto (32) St. Louis (31) Los Angeles (22)
These numbers prove that, at least compared to the other 4 teams listed here, the Canucks playoff failures are backloaded to the first 20 years of their existence. Los Angeles, however, is still the over loser here with only 3 playoff appearances past the first round in the last 20 years.
I am, BY NO MEANS, trying to prove that the Canucks are a successful playoff team. Not at all. With only 3 appearances in the Conference Final in 40 years, it’s impossible to defend that. However, the point was to prove that (a) there are other teams that have stunk it up in the playoffs too, and (b) the Canucks are not the worst playoff team in the last 40 years. In fact, in the last 20 years, they’ve made up some ground. Again, we all know that they’ve not been good in the playoffs. But lo and behold Canucks fans, there are others suffering as much as, if not more than, we are.
Canucks fans, let it be said that your team has been bad in the playoffs. But we ain’t the worst. So let’s all point and laugh at the Los Angeles Kings. And let’s start a chant… "We’re not the worst! We’re not the worst! We’re not the worst!"
That feels better.
****
P.S.>
I went through the list more thoroughly again. I went through the 14 teams that have played since 1990-91 that haven’t won a Stanley Cup in that time. I did also include Ottawa and San Jose even though they did join until ’92 and ’91 respectively. I did not include Minnesota, Columbus, Florida, Atlanta or Nashville since they joined the league too late.
So … using the weighted points system here are the rankings of all the non-Cup winning teams over the last 20 years:
PHI BUF (t) VAN (t) SJS BOS TOR OTT (t) WSH (t) STL (t) EDM LAK CGY NYI PHX
** (t) represents a tie in points. I used the deepest playoff appearance as a tie-breaker.
So again… the point of this article was NOT to suggest that the Canucks are a good playoff team. Because THEY ARE NOT. The point of this article was to prove that they have PLENTY of company. So while fans outside of Vancouver love to bash the Canucks for being playoff failures (and rightfully so), they aren’t exactly the worst in the league.
And yes, I know… it all means nothing until the Canucks win a Cup. Believe me, I want nothing more than to cross the Canucks off the list above. |
As someone who was one of the chosen to buy the Amazon Echo early (now available to all), I have had extensive time playing with the technological oddity. While it is a welcome addition to my home -- my family uses it for weather, traffic, spelling and math -- I have been a bit underwhelmed by the overall usefulness.
I've been hesitant to truly embrace Amazon's assistant, as I wasn't sure it had a future. The reason? The lack of a clear plan or path for developers made me wonder if it could truly compete with more open and focused technologies. Today, my hesitation is quelled, as Amazon lays out an impressive plan for developers. This is much bigger than Echo, however.
"With a few lines of code, developers can easily integrate existing web services with Alexa or, in just a few hours, they can build entirely new experiences designed around voice. No experience with speech recognition or natural language understanding is required -- Amazon does all the work to hear, understand, and process the customer's spoken request so a developer doesn't have to", says Amazon of the new Alexa Skills Kit.
The company further explains, "the Alexa Fund -- named for Alexa, the cloud-based voice service that powers Amazon Echo -- is open to anyone with an innovative idea for how voice technology can improve customers' lives. Alexa Fund investment decisions will be made based on the potential for unique or novel applications of voice technology that leverage the Alexa Skills Kit or the Alexa Voice Service".
Alexa Voice Search is the dark horse here. The Alexa Skills Kit will help developers tap into Echo, while the Alexa Fund should motivate those developers by way of funding -- $100 million is a great motivator!
Alexa Voice Search, however, aims to take Alexa out of Echo altogether. You see, Amazon would like hardware makers to utilize Alexa. In other words, "she" is being freed from her Echo-only home, and being allowed to service other devices too.
Amazon's plans for Alexa Voice Search are very lofty, including not only home users, but businesses and the Internet of Things too. The company gives an example of movie theaters integrating Alexa into ticket machines for voice-buying entrance into the cinema, or turning on the lawn sprinklers. Exciting stuff.
Surely Amazon will charge these hardware makers for Alexa technology, right? Nope. Totally free. Whoa.
Are you excited about the potential of Echo and Alexa? Tell me in the comments. |
Toronto Maple Leafs forward James van Riemsdyk is currently being underpaid on a contract that pays him an Average Anual Value (AAV) of $4,250,000 until the end of this 2017-18 NHL season when he will become an unrestricted free agent (UFA). Reports indicate that the extension JVR is going to sign will be similar to the 8 Year, $5,750,000 per year extension T.J Oshie signed this summer. This theoretical deal would put JVR being paid as a solid first line winger for the next 8 years, leaving the Leafs in a very tough situation as they will be forced to choose whether or not they want to pick up the tab on a long-term first line payday or explore moving on from their long-serving winger. Personally, I don’t think it is worth the risk for the Leafs to sign JVR to such a monster extension. To see where I’m coming from let’s get an idea of who JVR is today, and forecast his extension from there.
How Good is JVR Today?
While there are many ways to get an idea of overall player output, let’s use Sean Tierney’s charts of DTM’s Goals Above Replacement ranking from last season, which compares each players production to what an elite AHL player would do with those minutes. This will give us an objective idea of the player JVR is, and let us see his closest comparables. Before we start it is important to note this is to put JVR in a tier of players rather than a definitive ranking. With that in mind let’s examine how JVR looks by GAR.
Individually, JVR’s statistical profile matches with is eye test perhaps better than anyone I’ve ever seen. His even strength defense (EVD in red) puts JVR among the worst defensive players in the league. Of course, this is okay because his even strength offense (EVO in Blue) is among the leagues elite which combines with his power play offense (PPO) to more than compensate for his horrendous defensive play. When looking at the tier of players around JVR we find a mix of superstars like Jamie Benn and Max Pacioretty, underrated studs like Sean Couturier and Mikael Backlund, and solid first line wingers like Viktor Arvidsson and Brendan Gallagher (the bin I would put JVR in). All together JVR is worth 10.1 Goals Above Replacement putting him on the fringe of the league’s elite forwards. This is important to note because he is currently definitely worth $5,750,000 per year today and absolutely not replaceable by the Leafs team, even with their crazy amount of winger depth. I love Kapanen and Leivo as much as anyone, but it is completely unrealistic to expect any of the Leafs current winger prospects to fill these shoes.
Going Forward
So if JVR is currently worth big money today and not realistically replaceable then why would I think it’s time for the Leafs to move on? Well, JVR will be 29 when this contract kicks in so my problem is the ladder years of an 8-year deal. To visualize what I mean, let’s use the 10.1 Goals Above Replacement from above and the slope from the Canucks Army GAR Curve to get a basic idea of how he is going to age throughout an 8-year extension. (This is an optimistic projection which assumes no drop in his play this season relative to last year).
Based on this simple GAR projection we can realistically expect JVR to produce a total of 42.03 GAR at a cost of $4,924,163.13 per win. Since raw GAR totals mean very little to most people, I have included what kind of output you would expect from a first line forward and a top 9 forward, based on Ian Tulloch’s GAR. Based on that JVR projects to be while being first line player for the first 2 years of the extension, a middle 6 forward for the middle 4 year years of the contract, and a fourth liner/AHL player for the final 2 seasons. This splits the projected 8-year deal into 3 distinct phases; the good, the meh, and the ugly.
The Good
The good of this contract would unquestionably be the first two years of this contract where JVR is making first line money to be exactly that. Any argument in favor of keeping JVR would have to rely heavily on the remainder of this year, as well as the 2 “good” years of this contract. This is because there has been a lot of talk in Leafs Nation over the past year about winning while Matthews and Marner are on their cheap rookie deals, and resigning JVR would certainly help raise their chances of winning in the near future. So if you genuinely think the Leafs window to win is in the next two years, you should probably go against my next few paragraphs, give him the money, and go all in now. The problem is I’m not convinced this current Leafs core should be pushing all of their chips in right now at the cost of shortening their future window. The other cause for concern is that Matthews and Marner are most likely to be hitting their prime (Age 23-24) as the next phase of this contract begins.
The Meh
During the 4 year “meh” phase of this contract, the big three will probably be at their peak making these prime years for the Leafs to go for the cup. In this time JVR will probably be a middle six forward making first line money. Near the middle to end of these years, he actually becomes replaceable despite a contract that will say otherwise. This phase of the contract won’t keep the Leafs from contending or anything, but it just seems a little too rich for my blood and is the first reason why giving JVR big money scares me a little. Another problem I have is when this phase starts the Leafs will just have gotten out from under the Patrick Marleau contract only to essential resign the same deal (although better) by paying JVR around $6 million for middle 6 production. This part of the contract will probably be the most divisive as there can be an argument either way, but this phase begins to scare me as it does not seem like an efficient way to be spending money during the prime of the big three. Even if you are okay with this part of the contract the next phase of the contract should scare all Leafs fans.
The Bad
The 2 years of the contract will are the “bad” and are should scare Leafs fans. At this point JVR will be 35-36, making first line money despite being a fourth liner or AHL player. The big three will still be in their mid-twenties so the team should still be a contender, but JVR making big money and being fourth line player at best during this time will be an anchor on the Leafs in the final phase. To make things worse, JVR’s worst aspect is the thing coaches value most on their bottom lines (Defense) so I really can’t even imagine him playing in the NHL for the final phase. This phase will definitely be a poor use of cap space and a big problem for the Leafs when the time comes. These years scare me more than the early years excite me. Couple this with not being thrilled about the middle years of the contract and you can see why I don’t think this contract is worth it.
Embed from Getty Images
So JVR is rumored to be cashing in on a T.J. Oshie type contract which would have him making $5,750,000 per year for 8 years. JVR is certainly worth that money today and is not realistically replaceable by any of the Leafs current prospects, creating a good argument to keep him and worry about the future later. The problem is it by years 3 through 8 it’s not even realistic to expect JVR to fill JVR’s shoes, which is why I think this season should be JVR’s last in a Leafs uniform. |
An Egyptian policeman checks a Russian tourist's passport at the main entrance to the Sharm el-Sheikh airport in Egypt on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015. Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry complained on Saturday that Western governments had not sufficiently helped Egypt in its war on terrorism and had not shared relevant intelligence with Cairo regarding the Russian airplane that crashed last week in the Sinai, killing all 224 people onboard. (AP Photo/Ahmed Abd El-Latif) The Associated Press
By NOUR YOUSSEF, Associated Press
CAIRO (AP) — The airport at Egypt's resort of Sharm el-Sheikh has long seen gaps in security, including a key baggage scanning device that often is not functioning and lax searches at an entry gate for food and fuel for the planes, security officials at the airport told The Associated Press.
Security at the airport, and others around Egypt, have become a central concern as investigators probe the Oct. 31 crash of a Russian plane 23 minutes after it left Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 on board. The U.S. and Britain have said the cause was likely a bomb planted on the flight, and Russia has halted flights to Egypt until security at airports is improved.
Seven officials involved in security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport, several for more than a decade, told the AP of the gaps, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. Several said the malfunctioning scanner had been noted in security reports to their superiors, but the machine was not replaced.
One of the officials, involved in security for planes, also pointed to bribe-taking by poorly paid policemen monitoring X-ray machines. "I can't tell you how many times I have caught a bag full of drugs or weapons that they have let through for 10 euros or whatever," he said.
Egypt's aviation minister and his spokesman did not respond to repeated calls and texts for comment. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has said British officials sent a security team to evaluate the airport 10 months ago, in cooperation with Egyptian officials, and were satisfied with the results.
A spokesman for Britain's Department of Transportation would not comment on any details of what the team found. But British Transport Secretary Patrick Mcloughlin suggested on Friday that screening of checked-in bags was insufficient, telling the BBC that it had imposed its own additional checks on its flights "because we weren't wholly satisfied with the way screening had been done."
All bags are put through a scanner as passengers enter Sharm airport, and carry-on bags go through a second machine at the gate before boarding.
But a scanner in the sorting area for checked-in bags often is not working, all the airport officials speaking to AP said.
One of the officials said the breakdowns in the 10-year-old CTX scanner were because operators didn't use it properly — "human stupidity," he said — rather than technical faults.
"I have seen people unplug it to save power," he said.
Another of the officials said the staff made sure the scanner was operating well enough whenever international experts came to review measures at the airport.
"We only care about appearances," he said. "Once they (higher-ups) hear something is coming, suddenly everything gets fixed. ... We wish we had visits every day."
Several of the officials argued that it was "not that important" that the machine broke down because when it was working, it is only used to scan a sample of the bags, not all of them.
The scanner was one of at least five granted by Britain, and another scanner is used at Cairo's airport but only to scan luggage for flights to London and Paris, according to two security officials there. In Sharm el-Sheikh, the selective use of the scanner is even more arbitrary, three officials said.
On Friday, Russia suspended all flights to Egypt, joining Britain, which had halted flights to Sharm el-Sheikh. Ireland has also suspended flights to the Red Sea resort, while at least a half-dozen Western European governments told their citizens not to travel there.
Empty charter planes have been flying to Sharm el-Sheikh to bring home stranded Russian and British tourists. But these flights banned passengers from checking in luggage, suggesting a concern about security and luggage-screening procedures.
Egyptian authorities at Sharm el-Sheikh airport have begun questioning airport staff and ground crew who worked on the Russian flight and have placed some employees under surveillance, according to airport and security officials.
The officials from Sharm el-Sheikh airport said security checks were often lax at a gate into the facility used to bring in food and fuel. Local hotels provide food to some flights and deliver the food directly to the planes, they said.
Guards at the gate often let such deliveries go in without full searches because they know the delivery men, the officials said. Guards in a diligent mood are often bribed with a meal or two to pass the trucks unsearched to save time, they added.
"You are not going to search your friend or your friend's friend," one official said. "It's rude."
A retired senior official from Egypt's Tourism Ministry, Magdy Salim, said airport guards regularly skip security checks for friends and co-workers and often don't search people "out of respect to save their time if they look chic or if they come out of a fancy car."
"Airport security procedures in Egypt are almost (all) bad" and marred by "insufficiencies," Salim said.
Earlier Saturday, the head of the joint investigation team, Ayman el-Muqadem, said a noise was heard in the last second of the cockpit voice recording before the plane plummeted. The announcement bolstered U.S. and British suspicions it was brought down by a bomb.
However, el-Muqadem warned it was too early to say what caused the plane to apparently break up in mid-flight, adding that analysis of the noise was underway.
"All scenarios are being considered ... it could be lithium batteries in the luggage of one of the passengers, it could be an explosion in the fuel tank, it could be fatigue in the body of the aircraft, it could be the explosion of something," he told reporters at Cairo press conference.
____
Associated Press writer Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report. |
Researchers from the Universities of Bamberg and Bonn present causal evidence on how markets affect moral values
Many people express objections against child labor, exploitation of the workforce or meat production involving cruelty against animals. At the same time, however, people ignore their own moral standards when acting as market participants, searching for the cheapest electronics, fashion or food. Thus, markets reduce moral concerns. This is the main result of an experiment conducted by economists from the Universities of Bonn and Bamberg. The results are presented in the latest issue of the renowned journal “Science”.
Prof. Dr. Armin Falk from the University of Bonn and Prof. Dr. Nora Szech from the University of Bamberg, both economists, have shown in an experiment that markets erode moral concerns. In comparison to non-market decisions, moral standards are significantly lower if people participate in markets.
In markets, people ignore their individual moral standards
"Our results show that market participants violate their own moral standards," says Prof. Falk. In a number of different experiments, several hundred subjects were confronted with the moral decision between receiving a monetary amount and killing a mouse versus saving the life of a mouse and foregoing the monetary amount. "It is important to understand what role markets and other institutions play in moral decision making. This is a question economists have to deal with," says Prof. Szech.
"To study immoral outcomes, we studied whether people are willing to harm a third party in exchange to receiving money. Harming others in an intentional and unjustified way is typically considered unethical," says Prof. Falk. The animals involved in the study were so-called "surplus mice", raised in laboratories outside Germany. These mice are no longer needed for research purposes. Without the experiment, they would have all been killed. As a consequence of the study many hundreds of young mice that would otherwise all have died were saved. If a subject decided to save a mouse, the experimenters bought the animal. The saved mice are perfectly healthy and live under best possible lab conditions and medical care.
Simple bilateral markets affect moral decisions
A subgroup of subjects decided between life and money in a non-market decision context (individual condition). This condition allows for eliciting moral standards held by individuals. The condition was compared to two market conditions in which either only one buyer and one seller (bilateral market) or a larger number of buyers and sellers (multilateral market) could trade with each other. If a market offer was accepted a trade was completed, resulting in the death of a mouse. Compared to the individual condition, a significantly higher number of subjects were willing to accept the killing of a mouse in both market conditions. This is the main result of the study. Thus markets result in an erosion of moral values. "In markets, people face several mechanisms that may lower their feelings of guilt and responsibility," explains Nora Szech. In market situations, people focus on competition and profits rather than on moral concerns. Guilt can be shared with other traders. In addition, people see that others violate moral norms as well.
"If I don't buy or sell, someone else will."
In addition, in markets with many buyers and sellers, subjects may justify their behavior by stressing that their impact on outcomes is negligible. "This logic is a general characteristic of markets," says Prof. Falk. Excuses or justifications appeal to the saying, "If I don't buy or sell now, someone else will." For morally neutral goods, however, such effects are of minor importance. Nora Szech explains: "For goods without moral relevance, differences in decisions between the individual and the market conditions are small. The reason is simply that in such cases the need to share guilt or excuse behavior is absent."
Publication: Morals and Markets, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1231566
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Armin Falk
University of Bonn
Institute for Applied Microeconomics
Ph.: +49 228 739 240
[Email protection active, please enable JavaScript.]
Prof. Dr. Nora Szech
University of Bamberg
Department of Economics
Ph.: +49 951 863-2637
[Email protection active, please enable JavaScript.] |
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Brandon Flowers’ 2015 campaign came to a premature end on Dec. 12 when the cornerback was placed on IR with a knee injury.</span>
Shortly thereafter, the veteran sat down to watch his film.
While Flowers knew he didn’t perform up to his usual high standards, he didn’t even recognize the player he saw in his number 24 jersey.
“It didn’t really hit me until I got put on IR,” he said. “I sat back, watched film and I didn’t see myself. I have a legacy I’m trying to leave on the field. I hold myself to a certain standard. When I was going through it at the time, I knew I wasn’t playing as well as I normally play. But I didn’t realize (how) bad."
Fresh off a Pro Bowl campaign with the Kansas City Chiefs, Flowers impressed during his first season in San Diego totaling 53 tackles, 11 passes defensed and three interceptions over 14 games in 2014. However, he posted just 34 tackles, one sack and three passes defensed in 11 games last season while dealing with nagging injuries.
Still, Flowers refuses to use those injuries as an excuse. Instead, he admits that for the first time in his career, he let outside distractions affect his play. He vows to never allow that to happen again.
“It wasn’t the year I wanted to have as I was injured from day one. It was miserable. A lot of things were happening on and off the field. I let a lot of things I had going on outside of football affect me. I definitely let stuff that wasn’t inside the lines affect me as a whole. I had never done that before, and (watching myself) I just knew I couldn’t go back to that place anymore. I’ve moved past it. I’m in a good place right now.”
A full participant in the offseason program this month, Flowers feels like a new man and his old self all at once. Fully healthy and with renewed focus, he’s eager and confident he will return to his form and lead a new look secondary in 2016.
Entering his ninth season with 113 career regular season games under his belt, Flowers is the senior voice in a new look secondary that added safety Dwight Lowery and cornerback Casey Hayward over the offseason. As such, he knows it is his responsibility to lead.
“This is a new year and I’m ready to go. I think chemistry is most important right now. We have to take the whole offseason in stride and just get our chemistry right. Give credit to (General Manager) Tom Telesco. He brought in guys who have the same type character and mindset. From the first day, it felt like Casey Hayward was here for years. The same with Dwight. We’re laughing, talking and having fun like we’ve known each other for years. And we work. I just want to be a mentor to all of them. There’s a lot I’ve seen on and off the field in this league, and I try to steer guys the right way. Even if you have it all right on the field physically, there will be more things mentally you can learn to be a better player. I just want to be that bigger brother for them in the locker room.”
Overall, Flowers is bullish on the team’s depth in the secondary, especially their versatility at cornerback. |
Gardening in a light, slow rain at my church in Rexdale on Sunday — an hour before wedding guests arrived — the cops interrupted our weeding and planting to strike up a little chat. Nothing to worry about, the three cops said. Just dropping by to introduce themselves and let parishioners know they are part of the TAVIS police initiative in Division 23 and will be available all summer to chat, meet with youths, provide a police presence, answer questions — whatever members need.
A bullet hole in the window of a church where 18-year-old Amon Beckles was shot while he attended the funeral of a friend in 2005. ( Jim Wilkes / Toronto Star )
Don’t know if the officers knew it, but they were talking and standing on the concrete landing at the front door of the church where teenager Amon Beckles was gunned down November 2005 as he attended the funeral of his friend, also a gun victim. Torontonians recall that year as the summer of the gun. By this time in 2005, Toronto had 27 murders. This year, including Saturday’s tragic Eaton Centre killing, there have been 21 murders. By at least one measure — fatalities — we are better off seven years later. When the cops stopped by to chat, I had been listening to G98.7 FM and their Grapevine phone-in show. Not surprisingly, the majority of the callers assumed the killer was black, likely Jamaican. They blamed the violence on a far too lenient justice system; absent fathers and poor parenting. And they advocated police lock up the criminals and throw away the key.
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I imagine members at my church — innocent bystanders in the Rexdale violence — would draw the same conclusions. Just last year, the church hosted another funeral of a youth killed by gunfire, five or six doors from the church. Occasionally, cop cars roar into the church’s parking lot. Sometimes, they roll silently in. Always, they are scouting and scoping for area youths — none of them members of the church. After the 2005 shooting, members had to decide if they wanted to flee the area and its gang-related feuds. Or engage in a community-focused ministry that views the violence for what it is — the public manifestation of private hell among members of our city whose reality is obviously different from those enraptured in the church in holy ecstasy. They decided to stay. So police visits are cause for comfort, not concern.
The Toronto West Seventh-day Adventist Church just happens to be in a part of the city where gunfire is not a rare event; and where too many youths solve disputes at the barrel of a gun. Still, there is no great angst, just awareness; and a resolve to be a part of the solution.
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That may be a proper response to the Eaton Centre debacle — not the two main reflex actions that mark the aftermath of the Saturday shooting at the food court in which a lone gunman targeted one or two persons in some kind of personal feud and ended up injuring bystanders and killing one of his targets. People either under react by saying, “This is just an isolated incident; ignore it and go about your lives.” Those are the people who are insulated from the event. Meanwhile, those directly impacted tend to overreact with: “Toronto is a dangerous place. Do something now before we sink into oblivion.” Toronto is not a dangerous place — even if I’m hit by a stray bullet. Bad things happen downtown and uptown. There are gangs out there. Their members don’t live by our codes. Heavy sentences, video surveillance and the like seem to have little or no impact on these brazen butchers. Another approach, understandable, maybe even defensible, hasn’t helped. It says, “As long as bad guys are killing bad guys, knock yourselves out.” Problem with that approach is, bad guys don’t live on an island. Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: [email protected] |
Huw Lloyd-Langton, Hawkwind guitarist and member of Widowmaker, The Meads Of Asphodel and the Lloyd-Langton Group, has died, aged 61.
A statement released by Hawkwind reads: “Our great friend and fellow musician Huw Lloyd-Langton has sadly lost his long battle with cancer. He passed away peacefully last night (Thursday) at home, with his wife Marion by his side."
Lloyd-Langton played on the band's self-titled debut LP in 1970 after which he left, joining Widowmaker for two albums in 1976, before returning in 1979 to play on nine further albums. He departed in 1988, although he went on to make a number of guest appearances with the band and as solo support.
He also played as part of Leo Sayer and Steve Swindells's bands, and more recently as lead session guitarist for The Meads Of Asphodel, as well as fronting his own band, the Lloyd-Langton Group, with whom he released nine albums.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends. |
Note: People who bought my book dealing with Android development will probably notice this article looks like a section of the fourth chapter “UI & UX: major components for a great user experience and the Android logic”. Let’s be honest, this blog post is pretty much an enhanced translation of a section of my book. For those who don’t know about this book, written in French, the title is “Développez pour Android”. Released about a year ago, it deals with Android development in general and particularly focuses on making highly optimized Android applications. If you are interested in this book, you can buy/download it here.
I have recently seen many Android applications starting with what I call a splash screen. A splash screen is an image that takes the entire screen space and usually shows branding information about the application (logo of the company, logo of the application, etc.). This screen is generally visible for a small amount of time while the application is starting or loading some resources in the background. I am pretty sure you have already seen some of the popular Android applications below featuring a splash screen on startup:
Once again, from my point of view, the splash screen paradigm is a port of the iOS equivalent. Some of you may start thinking I hate iOS because it influences Android in a really bad way. I often consider lots of mistakes in Android applications are due to stupid ports of iOS apps to Android. However I don’t consider iOS as a crappy mobile platform. I honestly believe iOS is an awesome mobile OS. Issues are not related to OSes themselves but to how people incorrectly understand them and use them. The splash screen is one of the best example of how people are misleading OSes in general. Being widely used on iOS, the UI pattern is also actively discouraged by Apple! Indeed, if you look closely to the iOS documentation you will notice Apple encourages developers to use launch images. Launch images are very different from splash screens as they are images used to pretend an application launched rapidly. On iOS, the system displays the launch image instantly when the user starts your application and until the app is fully ready to use. As soon as your app is ready for use, it displays its first screen, replacing the launch placeholder image. As a result, supplying a launch image is the best way to improve user experience. The graphic below shows you the launch image on the right that is used in the built-in “Stock” iOS apps:
The iOS documentation clearly specifies launch images should not be used as an opportunity to display branding information. Unfortunately, rules are made to be by-passed and iOS folks understood that. I honestly can’t blame them! They have simply used a functionality offered by the framework and slightly modified launch images to use them as splash screens. What is very disappointing to my mind is the same pattern is currently happening on Android. I am strongly convinced splash screens are not appropriate on Android for several reasons I would like to share with you:
A splash screen prevents the user from using the application. As far as I know, it is not explicitly written in Android guidelines but Android has been primarily designed to help the user achieving and completing tasks rather than offering features. In order to do so, the entire system focuses on what users want to do and letting them do it as quickly as possible. This fastness is achieved by rendering the overall UI in a insanely fast fashion and never blocking the user. Some of the best examples of this are the notification area (I guess iOS users will always remember the so annoying and blocking popups - UIAlertView s - when receiving a text message pre iOS5), the advanced multitasking mechanism, the launcher widgets, the fast transition animations (I don’t have the exact numbers but the default transition between two Activity is twice as fast as the transition between two UIViewController s put in a UINavigationController ), etc. In a nutshell, being blocked is not something an Android user is used to nor wants to be confronted with.
Most of the time, it is not necessary A splash screen can be used to make resources available before an application starts. Personally I think it is not necessary in 98% of the cases. It may be useful for applications actively relying on heavy resources such as Google Earth, Sky Map, or games but this is not applicable to simple utility applications such as feed readers, social network apps, news readers, etc. You should not require a network connection at startup nor do heavy computations. Always keep in mind, Activity launching is blazingly fast on Android. The Android team at Google spent a lot of time - and I am sure they are still spending a lot of time working on it - ensuring applications and the Activity class launches very rapidly. As a result it is quite easy to have an application and its first Activity up and ready in less than 400ms. Also always keep in mind that an application displaying a splash screen is also completely up and running from a system perspective.
Displaying a launch image or splash screen in not part of the framework 1 . I don’t know the exact percentage of the Android documentation I have read at least once but I assure you the number is pretty high! I have never seen a method, class or xml resource explicitly dealing with launch images or splash screens. This obviously proves the Android team never considered the launch image trick as necessary or easy to implement.
Adding once-viewed resources increase the size of your APKs . In order to make a great splash screen, one may usually need to add several resources to the APK (bitmaps, layouts, 9-patchs, etc.). This may uselessly and drastically increase the size of your APK making it more difficult to download/install. It may also drive several of your users mad if they have a pretty memory-constrained device. I think the best way to demonstrate the horrible consequences of launch images is to give the example of a universal iOS app (a universal app is an app running both on iPad and iPhone). As I previously explained, iOS fakes fast application startup rapidly displaying a launch image. If you look closely at the iOS documentation, you will notice the iPhone requires two default images (only in portrait, one for each density - 320x480 and 640x960) while the iPad requires 4 images (one for each orientation and density - 768x1004, 1536x2008, 1024x748 and 2048x1496). Knowing iOS requires launch images encoded using the PNG compression algorithm, you will likely create an application that is almost 5Mo-sized (depending on how much your launch images are compressed) and only displays a splash screen!
Implementing a great splash screen is very difficult and tedious Developing on Android requires dealing with a lot of resolutions, densities, orientations, etc. In general, the built-in resource switching mechanism is enough. In the context of splash screen development in which absolute layouts are usually required, it is generally not sufficient. Moreover, you also have to deal with Android’s Activity lifecycle. I have seen many application falsely redisplaying a splash screen in low memory conditions, because the developers forgot to save the splash-screen-has-been-displayed flag in onSaveInstance(Bundle) . The worst bug I am used to see is an app auto-magically restarting itself after the user got out of it. This is mostly because splash screen are implemented using a Runnable posted with a certain delay in a given Handler . Not removing it from the Handler ’s queue in onPause() will let the application restart itself. Developers should rather focus on making their app launch time as short as possible rather than designing a well-working splash screen. Equally, designers should spend more time on making Android apps Androidy…
Users don’t care about branding at launch time . When a user is starting an application, he/she is expecting it to fully fulfill what it is intended for. Making your applications responsive and fast is part of that job. Having a splash screen or a long startup time is the best option to do the complete opposite of what the user wants. If you really need to brand your application (and I encourage you to do so to create visually unique looking apps), I strongly suggest you to style the ActionBar , add an ‘About’ screen, use the background as a display area, etc. Doing in-app branding is the best opportunity to spread your message to your users as it will remain visible on all application’s screens. Believe me, as a user, when I open the Facebook app, I already know I am using the Facebook app. There is no need to display a huge Facebook logo in the middle of my screen.
A splash screen indicates a single-entry point application . Just a few application use this technique but Android applications may have several entry points. The best examples of that are Maps, Google+, Contacts/Phone or, more recently, Facebook. This can be done very easily using the appropriate <intent-filter /> s on your entry point activities in the Android manifest. I’m not saying this is something that is easy to apprehend for a user but it’s available from a framework perspective. This feature is not supported by iOS. Because of this, lots of people falsely consider an app has a single entry point and use it to add a splashscreen.
In a multitasking context, launch images have no meaning. In an ideal multitasked environment (ideal means en environment with access to unlimited resources), a splash screen is diplayed only once: the first and only time an application is started. Indeed, once an application is started, there is no need to display the splash screen again as the application will always remain in memory. Android has been primarily designed as a massively multitasked OS and therefore doesn’t stick to the splash screen paradigm at all.
Conclusion
When Apple launched the first iOS SDK, it may have made a great decision by enabling developers to fake a fast application startup via a launch image. Unfortunately, iOS evolution - iOS now runs on several densities and devices and supports multitaking - and the fact that developers completely hacked the way launch images are used made it a big mistake. Spending time on ensuring applications are opened rapidly would have been a better option. On the other hand, Android has been built to deal with an insanely large amount of devices. Please start taking this into account and continue fighting against the iOS enthousiasts who think the iOS way is the only way. iOS and Android are both awesome mobile OSes. They both have some particularities that need to be taken into account when developing applications. Understanding an iOS app is appropriate on iOS, and an Android app is appropriate on Android, etc. is the path to making awesome multiplatform applications. |
Joshua Roberts/Reuters Teachers have seen more polarization in their high school classrooms since Donald Trump became president.
Politicians can be powerful role models for kids, for better or worse. And with Donald Trump in the White House, an increasing share of teenagers are mimicking the hateful language, brazen lies, and racial animus they see modeled by the president, according to a study released Thursday.
The study, conducted by the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, details how the Trump administration is affecting American classrooms. It is based on a nationally representative May 2017 survey of 1,500 public high school teachers and open-ended answers from 850 of them, plus 35 follow-up interviews.
The results show that more students have introduced unfounded claims into discussions and lashed out at peers with differing viewpoints. Students from marginalized groups are having difficulty learning and are experiencing increased bullying, teachers report.
A non-scientific questionnaire sent to teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center found similar concerns leading up to and immediately after the 2016 election.
The UCLA study found that teachers’ already stressful lives are becoming even more so in these politically charged times. Nearly 70 percent of teachers reported facing increased work-related stress during the 2016–2017 school year. Half of these teachers pointed to the current political environment as the driving force behind this anxiety. Indeed, for many teachers, classrooms appear to be getting more difficult to control: A fifth of survey respondents said there is a growing level of incivility among students.
“I had never seen behavior this brash. … I saw this dynamic happening on the national level, and was amazed to see such a mirror of the same thing with 14- to 16-year-olds,” said Nicole Morris, a social studies teacher in Utah, per the study.
What’s more, teenagers ― especially immigrant and LGBTQ students ― are having trouble engaging with academics, teachers report. Instead of worrying about academic subjects, these students are increasingly concerned about their safety and security.
More than half of teachers who work in schools with a high percentage of minority students said polarizing policy issues have affected students’ attendance or focus in class.
This week, a group of nine senators including Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center questionnaire and asking how she plans to address some of these problems.
“The Department must denounce hate and work to ensure that all students are afforded an equal opportunity to achieve their full potential. No student should have to endure harassment, intimidation and bullying to learn,” the letter said.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images First lady Melania Trump listens as the president speaks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in early October.
The UCLA survey results come during a week in which Melania Trump has given more lip-service to anti-bullying causes, which the first lady has stated is a focus for her. She preached the importance of acceptance at a Michigan middle school on Monday.
Still, the study reveals that, in some ways, the president of the United States has undermined the jobs of American educators as they seek to teach students to think critically and form consistent, coherent arguments. Over 40 percent of teachers say students were more likely to rely on information from untrustworthy sources during the last school year than in the previous year.
“It has been a terrible year for helping kids understand the structure of government. They come in ready to fight, full of bad information from Twitter and Facebook,” a teacher from Missouri told researchers, per the study. |
The Blocksize Political Compass
The blocksize debate has rocked the Bitcoin community for several years now. Unfortunately, due to the complexity and politics of the issue, progress is challenging. The blocksize issue is a multidimensional problem and when different people think about different angles of the problem, communication can be difficult.
Inspired by The Political Compass, this website aims to break down the blocksize debate into two dimensions.
Analysis
To find out where you stand, take the survey below:
Part 1 - The basics
The current blocksize limit is too small Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree If the blocksize limit cannot be increased in a safe, calm, patient and responsible manner, we should not increase it at all Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Most of the people who disagree with me on the current blocksize limit can be trusted and want what is best for Bitcoin Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Many are exaggerating the risks of increasing the blocksize limit Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree People on my side of the blocksize debate have a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Bitcoin, than those on the other side of the argument Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree The block reward will be around for a long time and therefore we should not currently worry about what happens when the block reward gets low, as new technology that has not been invented yet, can fix any issues linked to this Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Transaction fees are currently far too high Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 2 - Strategy & Vision
It is vital that Bitcoin prioritises user adoption and ease of use, as quickly as possible, to ensure Bitcoin has sufficient growth and positive momentum to win against the competition Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree VISA, traditional banks and other traditional payment systems will always have a significant competitive advantage over Bitcoin, when it comes to transaction throughput and transaction fees, Bitcoin therefore needs to be focused on other niche areas where it has a competitive advantage Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is simply not practical to expect many people to purchase small items like coffee onchain. Broadcasting every coffee transaction to everyone in a distributed P2P network and then expecting all participants in the global financial system to download, verify and store the data from each coffee purchase, is simply unrealistic Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree In general, it is smart to mostly use the Bitcoin blockchain in the rare occurrence when a dispute arises, since if all parties to a transaction are honest, the proof of work mechanism may not be necessary Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is unrealistic to expect ordinary users to validate all the rules of each block when receiving a payment Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Users should not have to worry about fees when sending a Bitcoin transaction, otherwise the system will be too complicated for ordinary people to use Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 3 - Economics and Incentives
If Bitcoin succeeds, it is inevitable that blocks will eventually always be full, since demand is ultimately unbounded at a low enough price Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There should be a blocksize limit to ensure onchain transaction volume is lower than it otherwise would be Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Miners supply the blockspace, so they should be free to set supply at whatever level they wish Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Users should be required to outbid each other, to compete for the scarce space on the blockchain. If there is no bidding, spammers will take up all the space Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Spammers creating transactions to fill blocks up and increase fees, is a more serious concern than spammers increasing the size of the UTXO set Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There needs to be a balanced approach to mitigate the impact of spam, however the existence of spammers imply blocks will eventually always be full Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree After the block reward becomes small, if the mining industry is competitive and there is no economically relevant blocksize limit, miners will only charge fees high enough to cover the marginal costs directly linked to including the transactions in the blocks, and therefore there will be no fee subsidy to pay for network security Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree After the block reward becomes small, a deep memory pool is needed, to ensure miners will always want to move the chain forward. This means we need full blocks Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree In certain circumstances a tragedy of the commons type scenario could impact the mining industry, where individual miners try to maximise their own profits by including more transactions, at the expense of the profits of the whole mining industry Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 4 - Technical factors
Storage costs, bandwidth costs, network latency and processing costs have been declining over time and will continue to improve at an exponential rate. Therefore it is safer to have larger blocks than in the past, and blocks can safely get larger at an exponential rate going forwards Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Currently, no users have any significant problems running a fully verifying node, unless they are attempting extreme things like running a node on a Raspberry Pi or in a remote developing country Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Miners currently have no significant issues caused by block validation or propagation being too slow Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Assessing the appropriate blocksize limit is not simple, one needs to make complex trade offs between the impact on the UTXO set size, worst case block propagation times in different mining industry structures, storage costs and other factors Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree For miners, server costs, storage costs, orphan risk costs and verification costs are costs just like the costs of electricity related to hashing, it does not matter which costs more. The most cost efficient miners should win, whatever the type of cost is Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Fixing third party transaction malleability, improving signature verification times, introducing pruned mode and fixing the quadratic scaling of signature hashing operations bug, are key improvements at least as important as transaction throughput Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There are no significant problems related to miners building on top of blocks before they have been verified. This is just specialization, miners should be specialised at hashing while others can focus on verification Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 5 - User experience during the upgrade to larger blocks
The user experience for light wallets should be prioritized over full node wallet users, since these users tend to be less sophisticated and are more likely to be confused or tricked Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When upgrading to larger blocks, it should be done it such a way that users of light wallets get the full benefits of the larger blocks without needing to upgrade Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When upgrading to larger blocks, it is very important that users of upgraded wallets can seamlessly transact with those with old wallets, both light wallets and full nodes. There will always be some laggards and some may take years to upgrade (e.g. paper wallets, hardware wallets, nLockTime transactions) Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When doing a hardfork the header format should change (or something equivalent). That way all users, including users with light clients, will need to upgrade for the hardfork, so there is less confusion Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When upgrading to larger blocks, it is useful if old nodes continue to follow the new upgraded chain (A softfork) Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is better that non upgraded wallets stop working after the upgrade, rather than them following a different chain to the upgraded wallets Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree When doing a hardfork, the transaction format should be changed to mitigate against the risks of replay attacks Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Production of a block which some nodes consider invalid, provides an opportunity for double spend attackers, we should therefore try to keep these events to a minimum Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 6 - Changing the rules on block validity
A simple majority of miners and users is technically sufficient to change any of Bitcoin's consensus rules Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Whether a simple majority CAN change the consensus rules or not, it would be better if a simple majority COULD NOT change the consensus rules, as giving a minority the right of veto, gives Bitcoin users monetary sovereignty, which makes Bitcoin unique compared to the US dollar Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should listen to the experts, rather than do what the majority wants Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Any hardfork should be made as safe as possible. There should be widespread support across the community, a long grace period, a high level of miner support, replay attack protection and wipeout protection Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is ok for a grass roots political campaign to succeed in changing Bitcoin's rules Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is important to be able to do hardforks, so that the network can show it is flexible and innovative Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Compromise and negotiation are facts of life, therefore when deciding the consensus rules, it is ok to use one proposal as leverage to achieve another consensus rule change Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should adjust and improve the consensus rules, to help certain businesses operate more effectively and lower costs, which will therefore attract more capital into the space Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 7 - Hardfork economics
Blockchains are very resilient, and therefore, if a hardfork is contentious, stubborn people on either side will be able to keep their chain alive Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree A hardfork requires majority support from the economic actors, that way, if there are two competing coins, the market will decide the winner Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree If there are two competing chains sharing a common Bitcoin UTXO set at some point in the past, whichever chain has the most proof of work will be called Bitcoin, even if the 21 million coin cap is breached Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree If there are two competing chains, one of which can be wiped out if it loses the proof of work lead and the other cannot be wiped out, smart investors are likely to buy the coin that cannot be wiped out and sell the coin that can be wiped out Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree If the market decides in a hardfork situation, this will result in a volatile and uncertain period, in which users could receive payments and then later realise the market chose another chain to be Bitcoin. If this occurs, Bitcoin is a bad form of money. Therefore users are incentivized to back the status quo to ensure this uncertain period does not occur Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree In a hardfork situation, if there are competing chains, the battle will be over very quickly as people quickly rally behind the side in the lead Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree As Bitcoin matures, it becomes more important to have strong agreement and planning before a hardfork. More businesses require reliability and uptime, since they operate 24x7 and use Bitcoin as collateral for futures contracts. Any period of uncertainty while the market decides which chain wins, will become less acceptable to these businesses over time, for operational and legal reasons Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We are never going to have strong agreement on the blocksize issue, the community is too large and the issue is too political. Therefore if we are going to increase the blocksize limit, it is inevitable the change will be contentious Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 8 - Competing implementations
There should be one official implementation, which sets the consensus rules Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There should be competition between development teams, otherwise the leading team will inevitably become too powerful and corrupt Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree The leading team is currently too powerful and corrupt Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree A major advantage of having multiple development teams, is that all major development teams need to agree before changing the consensus rules, making the rules even harder to change Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There should be competition between development teams, but the clients should all be software forks from the original version. Writing new clients from scratch is dangerous, as they may not be bug for bug compatible Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Part 9 - Blocksize Proposals
I am not involved enough to understand all the issues. Only experts should be involved in this decision Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree It is ok to stick to the current limit for the next few years Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Miners should vote on the blocksize limit Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Everyone should set their own blocksize limit. Users are free to do this anyway, so this is inevitable Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should increase the blocksize limit on a fixed schedule, with exponential increases Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should increase the blocksize limit on a fixed schedule, with linear increases Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree There should be a dynamic limit, based on the median size of the previous blocks Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should have an elastic blocksize limit, that penalises miners for making their blocks larger Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should kick the can down the road with a small blocksize limit increase, that everyone agrees on Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should remove the blocksize limit Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree We should stick with the 1MB limit forever Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree Despite limitations with compatibility with existing wallets and lock up periods, extension blocks should be used as a method of increasing the blocksize, because this method avoids a chansplit Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree As a first step, we should increase the block size limit for signature data only, as this method ensures a chainsplit is avoided and new and old wallets can seamlessly transact. Basically all transactions require a signature anyway, so this is a real blocksize limit increase Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
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The Pittsburgh Steelers were dominated in all phases of the game 34-3 by the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 3, and while the team travels back to Pittsburgh there is one bright spot as they prepare for the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 4 -- the return of Le'Veon Bell.
Bell, coming off his 3-game suspension, will rejoin his team at practice this week and be on the field for his first regular season game for the first time since being injured in the home game against the Cincinnati Bengals in 2015.
He sent out this tweet to let everyone know he is back:
There isn't much to celebrate in Pittsburgh coming off their first loss, but it should be reminded just how dynamic Bell is as a running back and receiver. Bell, when healthy and available to play, is the best all-around running back in the league, and despite how well DeAngelo Williams has played in the first three weeks, Bell brings an entirely new dynamic to the offense.
His first game action will be a welcome site for the Steelers as they start a back-to-back home series against the Chiefs on Sunday Night Football and the New York Jets coming to town the following week.
The Juice is loose... |
It’s not about jealousy or class warfare, it’s about values
Mitt Romney was hobnobbing at the home of Papa John’s owner and pizza tycoon John Schnatter recently when he made this comment:
What a place this is, my goodness. Who would have imagined pizza could build this, you know that? This is really something. Don’t you love this country? What a home this is, what grounds these are, the pool, the golf course. You know if a Democrat were here, he’d look around and say, ‘No one should live like this.’ Republicans come here and say, ‘Everyone should live like this…’
Romney is engaging in a timeworn activity Republicans love so much: mischaracterizing their political opponents’ position.
What Romney and other conservatives don’t realize is that this isn’t a matter of jealousy or of “the rest of us” not wanting anyone to live like that. It’s about what we value versus what Romney and his conservative and/or wealthy friends value. It’s also about whether or not the wealthy should be given more tax breaks and benefits so that they can consume like a ravenous beast and accumulate more and more “stuff” like pools and golf courses while the rest of us pay for it with tax increases and reduced benefits.
Don’t be fooled by this. This isn’t jealousy. It’s not class warfare. It’s not that we don’t think they should be able to do what they want with their massive piles of money or to choose the lifestyle they wish to live. It’s that we want a level playing field where the rest of us have a chance to earn a decent living so we can pursue OUR lives according to OUR values.
I, for one, agree with President Obama when he says:
Acts of sacrifice and decency without regard to what’s in it for you create ripple effects. Ones that lift up families and communities, that spread opportunity and boost our economy.
We all make choices about what we value and we live our lives accordingly. Mitt Romney’s comments at the Schnatter mansion tell you everything you need to know about his. |
There’s infighting on the political left over the feasibility of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s economic policy proposals. Four former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisors to Democratic presidents (Laura D’Andrea Tyson, Christina Romer, Austan Goolsbee, and Alan Krueger) — and Paul Krugman for good measure — chastised University of Massachusetts economist Gerald Friedman for his rosy predictions of prosperity under the democratic socialist’s presidency. The original salvos were eventually elaborated on in a more formal critique and then response, but initially the primary objection from critics such as Krugman was that Friedman’s projections of 5.3 percent real GDP growth during the first decade was implausibly high — it broke the post-war records, for crying out loud.
While the interventionists and socialists battle it out, let’s look at what a free-market growth forecast would look like — one that greatly reduces government budgets and coercion. As we’ll see, a capitalist plan can match Friedman’s projections using even conservative assumptions.
Americans need not tolerate low growth for the foreseeable future; our economic malaise is entirely the product of horrible government policies.
Shrink the State
Suppose that federal, state, and local governments cut 25 percent of their current spending and “refund” the savings through tax cuts. A more formal proposal would specify exactly how taxes would be reduced, but for our purposes, assume it’s a balanced mix of rate reductions of the personal income tax, Social Security and Medicare payroll tax, and corporate income tax.
A 25 percent cut might sound impossibly large, but consider that a conservative estimate in 2010 calculated that the war on drugs costs various US government entities about $88 billion annually — $41 billion in direct expenditures on arrest, prosecution, and incarceration, and about $47 billion in forfeited sales tax receipts. (Note that it is not a “tax increase” if preexisting tax frameworks are applied to drugs that were previously prohibited; the market is still being liberalized.)
Eliminating subsidies to higher education and ending mandatory schooling requirements would further slash spending, as schools and colleges could be downsized in light of smaller student populations.
Another obvious area to cut would be the military budget. But I do not want to delve into specifics, since the point of this analysis is to map broad policy changes with economic impacts. As a final note, I point to a quick estimate I made of $1.6 trillion in liquid assets that the federal government could sell over time (though that particular estimate relied on much higher oil prices), in order to provide breathing room to phase in the spending cuts after the entire upfront tax cut.
Now, according to the OECD, in 2013, “general” US government spending — meaning federal, state, and local — was about 39 percent of GDP. Therefore, a one-quarter cut in government spending would translate into about a 10 percentage point cut in government spending as a share of the economy. (I’m rounding to keep the numbers simple.) This cut would be matched by a comparable cut in marginal tax rates to keep the path of government debt on its original trajectory.
How Big of a Boost to Growth?
What impact would such an aggressive policy likely have on economic growth? We don’t have to turn to radical right-wing think tanks for our numbers. Instead, we appeal to mainstream economists. For example, here is a conventional analysis of “dynamic scoring” of tax receipts from economists Greg Mankiw and Matthew Weinzierl. They used a standard model of the economy and plugged in reasonable parameter values for existing levels of taxation in order to estimate that
for a capital tax cut … the immediate feedback is 10.6 percent, as labor supply jumps up in response to the tax cut. The feedback is 21.3 percent by the fifth year, 29.1 percent by the tenth year, and 41.9 percent by the twenty-fifth year. (Mankiw and Weinzierl, “Dynamic Scoring: A Back-of-the-Envelope Guide,” p. 17)
For example, if the government cuts the rate on capital taxes such that we would expect revenue to drop by $100 billion, then the underlying economy immediately grows such that revenues only fall by $89.4 billion (reflecting Mankiw and Weinzierl’s “immediate feedback” of 10.6 percent). In the long run, the cut in capital taxation stimulates so much extra growth that it halfway pays for itself.
More directly applicable to our analysis is a paper in the prestigious American Economic Review, written by Democratic economists Christina Romer and David Romer: “The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes.” The Romers come up with a clever way to isolate causality in the study of historical tax episodes and conclude that in the third year after a 1 percent of GDP increase in taxation, GDP will have fallen 3 percent below what it otherwise would have been.
Both of these estimates (from orthodox, mainstream economists) underscore taxation’s huge impact on incentives for work and investment. Continuing with our ballpark analysis, a 10 percent of GDP tax cut (“paid for” by spending cuts) would translate into a 30 percent boost to GDP, relative to what it otherwise would have been. (This extrapolates the Romers’ analysis, but I don’t think they appreciate how relatively unproductive government spending is compared to private sector resource allocation.)
More Workers
Thus far, I’ve given a quick and dirty estimate that a large spending and tax cut could provide incentives to workers and firms to reorganize themselves more productively, boosting official GDP (relative to what it otherwise would have been) by 30 percent.
However, the analysis so far has looked only at the existing labor pool. If, in addition to legalizing drugs, abolishing mandatory school attendance laws, and ending subsidies for higher education, we also ended minimum wage laws, then millions of additional teenagers and young adults would be able to find work, providing a large, one-shot (and permanent) boost to GDP.
For ballpark estimates, about 20 percent of federal and state prisoners are drug offenders, while the United States has about 2.2 million prisoners total. When we consider that many robberies and homicides are ultimately due to the drug war, we can safely assume that full drug legalization would reduce the total US prison population by 500,000 people.
Turning to students: according to the Census Bureau, about 17 million are enrolled in high school. Assume that with no coercion and with plenty of entry-level jobs (thanks to abolition of the minimum wage), 7.5 million drop out and go to work. The census data also show some 19 million students enrolled in college or graduate programs. Let’s assume 10 million of them (a little more than half) don’t really belong there — and having worked as a college professor, I think that’s a conservative estimate.
Finally, consider that there are some 930,000 young adults (aged 16 to 19) who are currently unemployed, meaning they are actively seeking work but can’t get a job. Their unemployment rate is a whopping 16 percent, compared to 4.9 percent for the civilian noninstitutional population as a whole. Let’s assume that getting rid of the minimum wage would give these teenagers the same unemployment rate as everybody else.
Adding it all up, with rounding, we get about 19 million new workers entering the labor force. The existing civilian labor force is about 158 million. That means our policy changes would provide an immediate boost to the labor force of about 12 percent.
These workers will generally have below-average skills, but (especially if we focus on the former students) they will get a head start on their productive careers — and they won't have any student loan debt hanging over their heads. Over time, total economic output will be higher because each worker on average will have a longer career, meaning that his or her prime earning years are extended as well. Let’s assume that by the tenth year of the policy reforms, the quality-adjusted civilian labor force is 10 percent (not 12 percent) higher than it would have been.
The Results
These ballpark estimates show how we could make the economy, 10 years after these free-market policy changes, have a real GDP that is 40 percent higher than the counterfactual trend. That compares to Gerald Friedman’s “implausible” projection of 37 percent higher growth in the same period. In terms of annualized growth, and assuming the same baseline trend, these proposals would create more than 5.3 percent real GDP growth over the first decade.
If we pushed the analysis further and made bigger cuts in both spending and taxes, growth would be even larger. (Add to the reforms already discussed a much more relaxed immigration policy, and the official aggregate real GDP numbers would go through the roof.)
Contra Friedman’s critics, there is nothing inherently “implausible” about 5 percent growth in real output over time. Reform proposals from America’s socialists will never get us there, but a few solid moves in the direction of laissez-faire capitalism could do so easily.
Analysts like Paul Krugman and the Democratic CEA chairs have no idea just how crippling current government policies are. |
The massive redevelopment of Logan Square's Mega Mall indoor flea market is poised to move forward as the developer prepares for demolition of the existing site. According to DNAinfo, demolition of the Mega Mall will begin in the coming weeks. Construction of the new project will follow in the autumn. The proposal, which underwent a number of changes after a series of community meetings, will include 240 apartments and nearly 115,000 square feet of commercial space.
The development, dubbed Logan's Crossing, will be anchored by two major commercial tenants. While the developer would not disclose which retail tenants will anchor the project, it has long been planned that a gym and a grocery store will take over the two largest commercial spaces at the development. In addition, the new development will feature a brick exterior that mimics the traditional factory/warehouse loft style of buildings found in Chicago. |
A mod by: [RLM] Darksteel, Mgmetal13 , [BRN] Nicb1 and [BRN] Crembels
Goal
Our stated goal for the Orbital Warfare Overhaul mod is to improve the state of orbital combat to a point where it is actually fun, balanced and interesting to play, without shifting the focus of the game into the orbital layer. To achieve this, we have added a whole set of new mobile units obtainable only through the orbital factory, along with orbital structures – built by orbital fabricators – that fit different tactical niches. We have changed a lot about the old orbital structures, namely the Anchor and the Jig, to make them less overpowered, and have also turned some of the old orbital units into structures.
New Units
Four new units have been added to the orbital factory, each of which fills a different kind of role in combat. Since we are still in alpha, a fair bit could change about these units if it turns out something is completely broken, but for the most part we’re pretty happy with how they turned out.
Orbital Units
The Excalibur Your Premium orbital battleship, ideal for Structure Bombardment Abilities Long range
High damage
Very low ROF
Low Speed
Medium HP
High cost Good Against Any high-HP Orbital Unit
The Hammerhead The perfect anti fighter escort ship. A must have for any sane commander. Abilities Medium range
Low damage with splash
High rate of fire
Medium-low Speed
Medium High HP
High cost Good Against Avengers and wraiths
The Hailfire Missile Barge Anti-surface-and-air unit Providing orbit support for ground units, especially useful when establishing beach heads in enemy controlled territory. Abilities Medium range anti-surface air missiles
Medium to high damage
Medium ROF
Low speed
High HP
High Cost Good Against Ground armies and structures
The Wraith Advanced orbital scout Featuring the latest in stealth tech, making the wraith ideal for covert orbit reconnaissance. Abilities Short-range laser
Very low damage
Medium to high ROF
Anti-tactical missile weapon
Radar stealth
High speed
Low HP
Low Cost Good Against None
Orbital Structures
The Orbital Mine Triggered Explosive A stable of any front line defence. Abilities Medium-low AOE
High-damage AOE explosion
Structure
Low HP
low cost Good Against Any unit arriving via orbital transfer
The Sentinel Laser Platform Anti-surface Defence Great orbital defence without the need to land massive armies. Abilities Medium-range anti-surface laser
Medium-low damage with splash
Medium Rate of fire
Structure
Medium-low HP
Medium cost
Slight ground vision Good Against Ground Armies
The Guardian Missile Platform Anti-air Defence Combined with a Sentinel, this is an amazing solution for remote outposts. Abilities Medium-range anti-air homing missiles
Medium-low damage
Medium Rate of fire
Structure
Medium-low HP
Medium cost
Slight ground vision Good Against Air Units
Surface Structures
The Lancer Railgun Anti-orbital defence Sometimes the best way to clear orbit is to use a really big gun. Abilities High anti-orbital damage
Long range
Very low ROF
High energy cost per shot
Medium HP
High cost Good Against Orbital units and structures with high HP
Unit Changes
A lot of the old orbital units and structures were either kind of overpowered or just really bland. The Avenger was a blob unit with no interesting traits other than being an orbital unit; it was slow and boring to use. The Anchor was capable of hitting any layer and hard to take down. The Jig was straight-up the most overpowered economic structure in the game and invalidated the Solar Array. We’ve believe that we have fixed these issues.
Here’s a general overview:
Orbital Structures
Orbital Units
Surface Structures
Surface Units
Superweapons
Gameplay
During our exhaustive playtesting we noticed a few things about the gameplay in our mod. It meets our goals pretty well, it doesn’t completely remove the orbital stalemate as it is still possible to lock down a planet (we’re still looking at how we can tackle this problem), but orbital stalemates generally occur later than they would in vanilla and there are more options available to the player to try and get the upper hand. The main issues we’ve noticed haven’t been issues we can fix, simply problems inherent to the game engine: the poor orbital UI and the broken celestial radar. The Orbital and Deepspace radars have been moved into T2 until Uber fixes this.
The Future
We are currently trying to nerf the teleporter as we think it is pretty ridiculously overpowered at the moment. Other than that, we’re looking at changing nukes to make nuke gameplay a bit more interesting by making different kinds of nukes with different ranges (not giving away more than that). We’ve got some pretty cool concepts for an orbital teleporter, if we can get it working, and a few new things here and there, but we’re pretty close to a feature-complete beta release which we’ll follow with a focus on balance.
Our main goal, other than finishing the mod and delivering something well balanced and fun to play, is to beat Statera in number of downloads, so get downloading people!
Download and installation |
Measles cases in California reached triple digits for the first time this year, jumping by four since Wednesday to 103, state public health officials said Friday.
But the number of Bay Area cases remained steady at 13 and was contained to Alameda, Marin, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
The outbreak of the highly contagious viral infection dates to mid-December, when 39 people who visited or worked at Disneyland in Anaheim contracted the virus.
Health officials said an additional 28 cases include people who had close contact or were in a common room with one of the Disneyland visitors who contracted measles. But 36 cases — over one-third of the total — have no known route of exposure, officials said.
The latest numbers follow a high-profile proposal this week by two state legislators aimed at decreasing the chance of measles outbreaks in California schools.
Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, and Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, on Wednesday said they will introduce a bill to eliminate a controversial “personal belief exemption” that allows California parents to refuse to vaccinate their children.
And California’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, asked state health officials to go further and consider eliminating the “religious exemption.”
The political momentum to reform California’s permissive “opt-out” vaccination policy comes at a time when the state is experiencing its worst measles outbreak in two decades — which some health care experts have attributed to the state’s growing anti-vaccine movement.
The groundswell continued Friday, when the University of California system announced that by 2017 all UC students must present proof of full immunization against the measles virus and eight other pathogens before they can register for classes. Students must also be screened for tuberculosis.
UC health and administration officials said they spent the past year drafting the requirements leading up to Friday’s announcement. “There are still documented cases of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in California and on the campuses each year amongst those who were not properly immunized,” Mary Knudtson, who chairs the UC Immunization Policy Committee, told the UC system’s news service.
The California Medical Association quickly lauded UC’s new vaccination requirements.
“We must keep these trends going in the right direction,” CMA president Luther Cobb said in a prepared statement Friday. “There is no need to be faced with dangerous and deadly diseases that are preventable thanks to some of the most monumental scientific discoveries in history.”
Currently, UC students must only present proof of vaccination for hepatitis B. Officials are now working out a verification system for immunization records and for students or their parents to seek an exemption from one or more vaccination requirements.
The new regulations will take effect fall 2016, but will not be enforced until fall 2017.
“We wanted to phase it in and build awareness before enforcing these new rules,” UC spokeswoman Shelly Meron said.
In addition to measles and hepatitis B, prospective UC students will have to show proof of vaccination against mumps, rubella, meningococcus, chicken pox, tetanus, diptheria and whooping cough. California recently experienced its largest outbreak of whooping cough since 2010, with more than 10,000 cases and two infant deaths.
At the national level, Sen. Boxer and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, on Friday announced they will introduce legislation next week requiring full vaccination for all children enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start programs throughout the country.
“This bill is a ‘booster shot’ for our nation’s vaccine policies and will mitigate the spread of deadly disease,” Eshoo said.
Under their proposal, parents could still seek a medical exemption from a certified health professional. In fiscal year 2013, more than 900,000 students nationwide were enrolled in Head Start programs, with 99,000 in California.
State schools chief Tom Torlakson on Friday also released a statement urging California parents to have their children vaccinated.
Citing his background as a science teacher, Torlakson said, “Vaccines have been proven safe and effective for those students who are healthy enough to get the immunizations. They keep your child and your community protected.”
California public health officials recommend immunization with two doses of the MMR vaccine for anyone who has not been vaccinated against measles. If properly administered, health officials say the vaccine is more than 99 percent effective in preventing measles infection.
Contact James Urton at 408-278-3415. Follow him at Twitter.com/jamesurton. |
Olivier Deschacht has been at Anderlecht since 1997.
Veteran Anderlecht defender Olivier Deschacht is facing a €100,000 fine for breaching Belgian football's betting laws for players, according to Het Nieuwsblad.
Deschacht was told in December he would not face court over claims bets on Anderlecht games were placed via an online account created in his name in 2008, but that the matter was being passed to Belgium's Betting Commission.
He claimed his brother, Xavier, had placed the stakes, which included some bets on Anderlecht to lose, including a Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain that the French side won 5-0 and in which Deschacht was an unused substitute.
The commission has ruled that the Deschacht brothers are both guilty of "serious" breaches of regulations, and is imposing a €100,000 fine on each of them, Het Nieuwsblad reported.
"I'm not going to react to the amount," Luc Deleu, Olivier Deschacht's lawyer, is reported as saying by La Derniere Heure. "But the procedure is clear: we have the possibility of defending ourselves, either in written form or orally. If we contest the decision, the commission has two months to put forward another punishment. And if we still don't agree, we have a month to appeal to the courts."
An initial €20,000 fine had been mooted for Deschacht.
"He'd probably accept a less severe penalty because then all the fuss would be over," a member of Deschacht's entourage told Het Nieuwsblad. "But a fine of €100,000 for bets with a stake of no more than €200 from which he never earned a cent? Come on. Olivier is also not a big earner either."
The newspaper estimates Deschacht, 35, earns €1 million-a-year at the club, where he has played since 1997.
La Derniere Heure last month revealed that KV Ostende striker Knowledge Musona and Sam Helemeers, a basketball player with Telenet Ostende, had been fined €3,000 for betting on matches, and in Musona's case, on some games involving his own team.
Ian is ESPN's French football correspondent. Twitter: @ian_holyman |
Get ready for a beautiful moment of national unity, thanks to this nice catch by Phil Kerpen in the GOP’s tax reform bill. With an eye toward the anger and resentment from rank-and-file voters over social-justice protests by professional athletes at facilities largely funded by taxpayers already, Republicans inserted a revenue raiser in the midst of their tax cuts. It may not amount to much in dollars, but its political value may well outstrip most of the other provisions in the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”:
No tax exempt bonds for professional stadiums. pic.twitter.com/MkALqF8Uyn — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 2, 2017
The relevant legislative text can be found on page 277 of the 429-page bill. It pointedly excludes amateur athletic arenas from this change, although not those which share use with professional sports teams. The explanation of the bill that Phil highlights comes from page 49 of the Republican analysis of the bill (page 55 of the PDF file). It takes at least five days of use a year to force income from the bonds to be taxable, which fits pretty neatly with one sport in particular, whose teams play eight regular-season games a year at home, as well as two preseason games. Care to guess at which league the bill aims?
This applies across the board, too, and raises another point. Cities and states have shoveled billions of public dollars into private hands to either woo sports franchises away from other cities, or to keep their own from being wooed away. It’s gotten so bad that the value of these teams no longer relies primarily on direct fan support, but from the massive land and retail deals that the teams can generate. That’s not just true in the NFL, either. Anything that slows down the ability to extort these kinds of deals from taxpayers is welcome, even if this change may not provide a major obstacle to it. Congress and leadership in both parties should explore similar disincentives, but the real platform for those kinds of changes is state legislatures — many of which are too cautious about risking a team move and getting blamed for it by voters.
The amount of funds this will raise is also negligible, to be sure. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates revenue of $200 million over ten years, a rounding error in a decade where we can expect total federal budgets to run $50 trillion or more. It’s not going to solve the pay-for conundrum Republicans face on reconciliation, clearly. However, it does send a signal that Washington has heard the anger and frustration of voters when it comes to getting lectured by multimillionaires and billionaires from taxpayer-provided palaces, and that Congress is looking for ways to address it. |
As the frigid water and ice chunks poured into the open window, the pickup truck plummeted to the bottom of Lake Minnetonka and Ryan Neslund felt the surge of panic and fear.
“I was doomed,” said the 35-year-old paraplegic.
He was headed to his fish house on Lafayette Bay about 8 p.m. Wednesday. As he drove out on the lake, as he has nearly every day this season with his yellow Labrador retriever in the back seat, he followed the tire tracks in the snow. Then the tracks disappeared.
“There was a bare spot with no snow on it, and I said, ‘What the heck?’ But by the time it all registered in my brain, my whole truck nose-dived into the lake. Crash. Boom. Smack,” Neslund said Thursday night, sitting in his wheelchair at his home across the street from the lake.
“It took a millisecond to realize that this is actually happening and it’s not a bad dream,” he said.
As the front of the truck sank, he opened the truck’s electric window before it shorted out. “Otherwise, I would be trapped there forever.” Water and ice rushed into the cab. “It was like Niagara Falls,” he recalled. And within seconds, the truck was on the bottom of the lake and the cab was filled with water.
“I figured I was going to die,” Neslund said. But with a will to live and an inch of space — and air — left in the cab, Neslund breathed in all he could take in and pulled himself through the open window. He swam up about 10 feet, hitting the surface of the water, pushing away ice chunks as he swam to a shelf of ice.
Paralyzed from the chest down, his legs were dead weight. And there was nothing to grab to get atop the ice. So he dug his fingernails in. He scratched, dug deeper and pulled with every last bit of strength. Just as he almost got himself up, he slipped back into the water.
He wasn’t about to give up just yet. He reached up, dug in and pulled himself onto the ice.
With the wind blowing at 12 miles per hour, the 12-degree temperature felt more like 9-below. His sweatshirt stiffened and then froze almost solid.
He looked toward the hole in the ice, hoping his 8-year-old dog, Balou, would emerge. “He was the most precious thing that I had,” he said. “He’s all I had all day, every day.”
It was dark and silent, and he was at least a quarter-mile from shore.
“I couldn’t crawl to shore without freezing to death,” he said. He could only hope that someone would drive by.
So he yelled: “Help! Help! Help!”
“I figured I would scream until I couldn’t scream anymore,” he said. And then it would be over.
Instead, a teenager was standing out on his deck smoking and talking on his cellphone when he heard Neslund’s cries. He called 911.
Neslund figures he sat on the ice for about 40 minutes before he saw flashlights moving along the shoreline and sirens wailing.
“It took forever,” he said. “Or it seemed like it.”
An ATV sped by in the distance and Neslund yelled out, but he knew the rescuers on wheels couldn’t hear or see him. He couldn’t move; his frozen clothes encased him.
But he continued screaming with every breath he could muster, giving rescuers on shore a way to guide the deputies from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Water Patrol unit to him.
When they arrived, deputies stopped before reaching him, unsure of the thickness of the ice. Instead, the four deputies formed a human chain, he said. With the last deputy lying flat on his belly, he grabbed Neslund and they pulled him to safety.
“I still didn’t know if I was going to live,” said Neslund, who was taken to North Memorial Medical Center and treated for frostbite and hypothermia. “I never felt that cold before. My teeth were chattering for so long and so hard, I felt like they were going to shatter.”
A day later, Neslund, who was paralyzed in a 2011 motocross accident, is exhausted and hurting.
He’s glad to be alive, he said. “But I’m sad about my dog. If I could have saved him, I would have.”
Anne Millerbernd is a University of Minnesota student on assignment for the Star Tribune.
[email protected] • 651-308-7126 |
A new Iowa bill was introduced this week aiming to end the prohibition on possessing certain firearms, including machine guns, short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns, reports The Des Moines Register.
The bill, known as Senate File 108, was formally introduced on Thursday by Republican state Senator Jason Schultz. Schulz told The Des Moines Register that his objective is to make Iowa law on firearms no stricter than federal law.
As of right now, anyone found in possession of a machine gun, short-barreled rifle or short-barreled shotgun in Iowa can be charged with a Class D felony, which is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Schultz stressed that Iowans would only be able to purchase these types of firearms after undergoing an extensive federal background check, filling out the necessary paperwork and acquiring a tax stamp. He also added that only vintage machine guns manufactured before 1986 would be allowed.
“I haven’t heard anything but support,” he told The Des Moines Register.
Apparently, Schultz hasn’t heard Democratic state Senator Pam Jochum’s opinion on the issue.
“If they believe this is somehow going to make our neighborhoods safer and make our homes safer, it’s not. To me personally, I think that this goes way beyond anything that even the founders recognized when they wrote the Second Amendment,” she told The Des Moines Register.
However, Richard Rogers, a legislative liaison for the Iowa Firearms Coalition, pointed out that most people won’t actually be purchasing a machine gun if they are made legal in the state; they cost a whopping $20,000 to $40,000.
According to The Des Moines Register, SF 108 has a good chance of being approved. Republicans hold the majority in both the Iowa House and Senate. |
Two people died and nine were injured on Saturday night when security forces dispersed hundreds of demonstrators near Tahrir Square in central Cairo, the health minstry said.
Around three thousand protesters had gathered after a court dropped all charges against ousted president Hosni Mubarak in connection with the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising.
At 8:30pm, security forces fired water cannons at protesters then teargas and birdshot, according to an Ahram Online reporter at the scene.
Tanks also rushed the protesters who were gathered in Abdel-Moneim Riad square near Tahrir.
The Director of Security for Cairo governorate told Aswat Masriya that police arrested 85 protesters.
Earlier on Saturday, Cairo Criminal Court acquitted former president Hosni Mubarak, the former interior minister and top security chiefs of charges of killing protesters during the 2011 uprising. Mubarak, his two sons Alaa and Gamal, and businessman Hussein Salem were also acquitted of corruption charges related to the export of natural gas to Israel at below-market prices.
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Crystal Palace boss Ian Holloway will serve a two-match touchline ban after accepting charges of improper conduct and bringing the game into disrepute.
The Football Association confirmed he would not contest the charges over comments he made following his side's 1-0 defeat by Tottenham on 18 August.
Holloway, who won promotion with Palace in May, has also been fined £18,000.
Palace lost the game to a Roberto Soldado penalty awarded by referee Mark Clattenburg, whom Holloway criticised.
The Palace manager also argued that he received unfair treatment from referees.
In a statement, the FA said Holloway had been fined £10,000 for his language and behaviour in or around the match officials' dressing room after the game, and £8,000 for post-match comments questioning the referee's integrity.
Media playback is not supported on this device Crystal Palace 0-1 Tottenham: Ian Holloway furious with officials
The statement read: "Ian Holloway will serve a two-match touchline suspension with immediate effect after Crystal Palace notified the FA that they would not be appealing the sanction."
He will be banned from the touchline for the trip to Premier League champions Manchester United on 14 September and the following weekend's home game against Swansea.
Holloway argued the officials missed a foul against Palace in the build-up to Tottenham's penalty being awarded.
The match marked the manager's first game in the Premier League since being relegated with Blackpool on the final day of the 2010-11 season.
And in his post-match interview, the 50-year-old told BBC Sport: "It's going to be a long, hard season for me with these people [referees].
"I had this with Blackpool. Certain clubs get fouls and others don't." |
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Petr Cech's agent has confirmed the Czech international will definitely not be leaving Chelsea next month.
Cech has lost his position as first choice keeper at Stamford Bridge to Thibaut Courtois and a host of clubs want to capitalise on the situation.
Standard Sport revealed last week that the 32-year-old would prefer to wait until the summer to join a side where he will be guaranteed to be No.1.
Chelsea v Tottenham: Player Ratings 23 show all Chelsea v Tottenham: Player Ratings 1/23 Thibaut Courtois: 6 Faced just one shot on target but was beaten all ends up by Kane's early header - thankfully for the Chelsea keeper the ball rebounded off the crossbar. Looked solid enough. Getty 2/23 Branislav Ivanovic: 7 As good a right back as can be found in the Premier League, Ivanovic was never tested defensively by Lamela and allowed as much room as he wanted to burst forward. 3/23 Gary Cahill: 5 Substituted at half-time, suffered a clash of heads with Jan Vertonghen early on that seemed to affect him - lost the ball in a dangerous position to Harry Kane but breathed a sigh of relief when the Spurs striker fired wide with the score still 0-0. Getty 4/23 John Terry: 8 A fine performance from the Chelsea skipper, won all of his personal battles and while Cahill and later Zouma struggled to contain Kane, Terry never had that problem. 5/23 Cesar Azpilicueta: 7 The best left-back in England is really a right back. The Spaniard was only bested once by Lennon, and provided a smart assist for Remy's third goal. GETTY 6/23 Cesc Fabregas: 8 Another beautifully measured performance from the Spanish maestro, bar the opening 10 minutes when Spurs started like a freight train Fabregas was never not in control of this game. Getty 7/23 Nemanja Matic: 8 The giant Serbian was a man playing against the boys of the Spurs midfield. Supremely strong in and out of possession, alongside Fabregas he has formed the best midfield partnership in the Premier League and the real source of Chelsea's dominance this season. Getty 8/23 Willian: 7 Didn't stop running for 90 minutes, the Brazilian may have had a goal of his own but for poor shooting when in good positions. He didn't give Ben Davies a moment's peace. Getty 9/23 Oscar: 8 Seems to be growing into his role as Chelsea's No 10 every week, Mason and Bentaleb couldn't get near the Brazilian. Perfect pass for the Drogba goal and showed an impressive willingness to work, as ever, throughout the 90 minutes. Getty 10/23 Eden Hazard: 8 Tortured Vlad Chiriches every time he touched the ball. When Spurs were on top in the opening stages the Belgian was the only Chelsea player taking the fight to the away side. Scored a brilliant goal and continued to relieve pressure with his brilliant dribbling skills. Getty 11/23 Didier Drogba: 8 Not always in the game but it didn't matter, the veteran striker proved his status as a match winner. He made two crucial touches, holding off Fazio to play a perfect one-two with Hazard for the first goal and finishing his own chance to put the Blues two up. Getty 12/23 Loic Remy: 7 His goal was as much down to poor defending as it was to Remy's pace and desire, but once he had got in front of Vertonghen the French striker showed great poise, calmly turning his defender and slotting the ball home. Getty 13/23 Hugo Lloris: 4 Horrendous mistake that arguably cost Spurs the game - the last thing the away side needed was to concede so soon after the first. Apart from that Lloris didn't put a foot wrong but on such small details are games decided. Getty 14/23 Vlad Chiriches: 4 The Romanian, plainly not a right-back, will have nightmares about Eden Hazard. Never got to grips with the winger and was left completely flat-footed for the opening goal. 15/23 Federico Fazio: 6 For most of the game stood up well to the physical challenge of Drogba, winning his fair share of battles with the Ivorian. But crucially allowed Drogba to lay the ball into Hazard's path for the first goal. Getty 16/23 Jan Vertonghen: 5 As above, Vertonghen was good for large swathes of the game but guilty of one crucial error - this time allowing Remy to first run past and then turn inside him. Getty 17/23 Ben Davies: 6 Offered very little going forward and defensively was overwhelmed by the dual threat of Ivanovic and Willian. Given no protection by Lamela, however. GETTY 18/23 Nabil Bentaleb: 6 Showed some lovely touches and one of the better performers. The Algerian, 20, will be a huge part of Tottenham's future but, as stated above, it was men against boys in midfield. GETTY 19/23 Ryan Mason: 6 Tried his very best and had the legs of Fabregas and Matic in the early going but, despite some neat touches, does not possess anywhere close to the quality of his Chelsea counterpart and was eventually overran. Getty 20/23 Aaron Lennon: 5 Started brightly, producing a great cross for the Kane header that cannoned back off the cross bar, but apart from that one moment failed to get into the game. Getty 21/23 Christian Eriksen: 5 The Dane clearly possesses supreme talent and skill but he failed to show it often enough. Well marshalled by Matic, Eriksen never made a mark on the game. Getty 22/23 Erik Lamela: 3 Utterly anonymous as an attacking player and a liability in defence, failing to offer Ben Davies any protection from the rampaging Ivanovic. May have been a mistake to start the Argentine. GETTY 23/23 Harry Kane: 7 By far Tottenham's best player, Kane showed the same energy and confidence on the ball that has made him a focal point for this team. However, while his header was unlucky, Kane should have scored after nicking the ball from Cahill. Getty 1/23 Thibaut Courtois: 6 Faced just one shot on target but was beaten all ends up by Kane's early header - thankfully for the Chelsea keeper the ball rebounded off the crossbar. Looked solid enough. Getty 2/23 Branislav Ivanovic: 7 As good a right back as can be found in the Premier League, Ivanovic was never tested defensively by Lamela and allowed as much room as he wanted to burst forward. 3/23 Gary Cahill: 5 Substituted at half-time, suffered a clash of heads with Jan Vertonghen early on that seemed to affect him - lost the ball in a dangerous position to Harry Kane but breathed a sigh of relief when the Spurs striker fired wide with the score still 0-0. Getty 4/23 John Terry: 8 A fine performance from the Chelsea skipper, won all of his personal battles and while Cahill and later Zouma struggled to contain Kane, Terry never had that problem. 5/23 Cesar Azpilicueta: 7 The best left-back in England is really a right back. The Spaniard was only bested once by Lennon, and provided a smart assist for Remy's third goal. GETTY 6/23 Cesc Fabregas: 8 Another beautifully measured performance from the Spanish maestro, bar the opening 10 minutes when Spurs started like a freight train Fabregas was never not in control of this game. Getty 7/23 Nemanja Matic: 8 The giant Serbian was a man playing against the boys of the Spurs midfield. Supremely strong in and out of possession, alongside Fabregas he has formed the best midfield partnership in the Premier League and the real source of Chelsea's dominance this season. Getty 8/23 Willian: 7 Didn't stop running for 90 minutes, the Brazilian may have had a goal of his own but for poor shooting when in good positions. He didn't give Ben Davies a moment's peace. Getty 9/23 Oscar: 8 Seems to be growing into his role as Chelsea's No 10 every week, Mason and Bentaleb couldn't get near the Brazilian. Perfect pass for the Drogba goal and showed an impressive willingness to work, as ever, throughout the 90 minutes. Getty 10/23 Eden Hazard: 8 Tortured Vlad Chiriches every time he touched the ball. When Spurs were on top in the opening stages the Belgian was the only Chelsea player taking the fight to the away side. Scored a brilliant goal and continued to relieve pressure with his brilliant dribbling skills. Getty 11/23 Didier Drogba: 8 Not always in the game but it didn't matter, the veteran striker proved his status as a match winner. He made two crucial touches, holding off Fazio to play a perfect one-two with Hazard for the first goal and finishing his own chance to put the Blues two up. Getty 12/23 Loic Remy: 7 His goal was as much down to poor defending as it was to Remy's pace and desire, but once he had got in front of Vertonghen the French striker showed great poise, calmly turning his defender and slotting the ball home. Getty 13/23 Hugo Lloris: 4 Horrendous mistake that arguably cost Spurs the game - the last thing the away side needed was to concede so soon after the first. Apart from that Lloris didn't put a foot wrong but on such small details are games decided. Getty 14/23 Vlad Chiriches: 4 The Romanian, plainly not a right-back, will have nightmares about Eden Hazard. Never got to grips with the winger and was left completely flat-footed for the opening goal. 15/23 Federico Fazio: 6 For most of the game stood up well to the physical challenge of Drogba, winning his fair share of battles with the Ivorian. But crucially allowed Drogba to lay the ball into Hazard's path for the first goal. Getty 16/23 Jan Vertonghen: 5 As above, Vertonghen was good for large swathes of the game but guilty of one crucial error - this time allowing Remy to first run past and then turn inside him. Getty 17/23 Ben Davies: 6 Offered very little going forward and defensively was overwhelmed by the dual threat of Ivanovic and Willian. Given no protection by Lamela, however. GETTY 18/23 Nabil Bentaleb: 6 Showed some lovely touches and one of the better performers. The Algerian, 20, will be a huge part of Tottenham's future but, as stated above, it was men against boys in midfield. GETTY 19/23 Ryan Mason: 6 Tried his very best and had the legs of Fabregas and Matic in the early going but, despite some neat touches, does not possess anywhere close to the quality of his Chelsea counterpart and was eventually overran. Getty 20/23 Aaron Lennon: 5 Started brightly, producing a great cross for the Kane header that cannoned back off the cross bar, but apart from that one moment failed to get into the game. Getty 21/23 Christian Eriksen: 5 The Dane clearly possesses supreme talent and skill but he failed to show it often enough. Well marshalled by Matic, Eriksen never made a mark on the game. Getty 22/23 Erik Lamela: 3 Utterly anonymous as an attacking player and a liability in defence, failing to offer Ben Davies any protection from the rampaging Ivanovic. May have been a mistake to start the Argentine. GETTY 23/23 Harry Kane: 7 By far Tottenham's best player, Kane showed the same energy and confidence on the ball that has made him a focal point for this team. However, while his header was unlucky, Kane should have scored after nicking the ball from Cahill. Getty
Roma have joined Real Madrid, Paris Saint Germain, AC Milan in the hunt, while Liverpool and Arsenal have also been linked with him.
But Cech's representative Viktor Kolar said: "There has been no contact with AS Roma. Certainly Petr will not move during the transfer market in January."
Meanwhile, Chelsea midfielder Ramires has revealed his concern over a thigh injury which is keeping him on the sidelines.
The Brazil international has been struggling for fitness for much of the campaign and started just four games so far.
Mourinho appeared to be slowly phasing him back into the side by handing him five appearances last month (four as a substitute), but he has suffered another setback to sit out their last two matches.
He is doubtful to return for the trip to Newcastle tomorrow and Ramires is troubled by the situation.
He said: "I am very sad for not having played the last two games because of thigh muscle pain. It is being very persistent and we don't want to make it worse.
"I hope to get better as soon as possible to get back on the field and help my teammates." |
Residents of a Ohio community said this week that children in the neighborhood were devastated after they witnessed an officer shoot a deer that had become so friendly that it regularly ate out of people’s hands.
In photos and video obtained by WTRF, the deer a can be seen playing with people in the Clarington community. Residents said that an Ohio Department of Natural Resources wildlife officer who was stalking the deer asked parents to bring children inside on Monday so he could shoot it.
However, residents who wanted to see the deer relocated refused, and the officer eventually gave up on that day.
But on Wednesday, Shannon Lee told WTRF that the officer returned and shot the deer as both of her daughters watched.
“I petted it, and I would feed it,” daughter Olivia Lee recalled. “And I would play with it some more, and it was my best friend.”
Shannon Lee said that the officer followed the deer through people’s yards for 20 to 30 minutes before shooting it.
“They saw us sitting on the porch,” she explained. “They didn’t say, ‘Would you please take your kids inside? You know, this is what’s going to happen.’ No warning at all until we heard the gunshot.”
In a statement, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources argued that “wild animals are unpredictable by nature and are capable of becoming aggressive and dangerous at any time. It is in the best interest of humans that wild animals remain in the wild.”
According to WTRF, officers became interested in killing the deer after a resident reported that it was eating from their garden.
Watch the video below from WTRF, broadcast Aug. 14, 2014.
WTRF 7 News Sports Weather – Wheeling Steubenville |
LAS VEGAS (CN) – The First Amendment won’t save internet radio broadcaster Peter Santilli Jr. from federal prosecution for asking listeners to participate in an armed protest in Nevada.
U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro on Monday accepted the recommendation of U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Leen and denied Santilli’s motion to dismiss the charges against him. Navarro said Santilli did not file an objection to Leen’s recommendation and the deadline to do so has passed.
Santilli is among 19 people charged with 16 felony counts arising from an armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management in April 2014. Supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy stopped the BLM from gathering about 400 head of cattle that the federal government says were illegally grazing.
The BLM also says Bundy owes some $3 million in unpaid grazing fees over the past 20 years. Bundy and his supporters say the federal government does not have the right to own or control land in Nevada. The first of three trials of 17 remaining defendants begins Feb. 6.
In a 14-page recommendation filed Jan. 6, Leen said “Santilli is not entitled to a pretrial evidentiary hearing to determine whether the government can prove its case.”
She added, “It is well established that the First Amendment does not prohibit the government from criminalizing speech that is integral to criminal conduct.”
Santilli interviewed Cliven Bundy on his California-based radio show on April 8, 2014, and Santilli argued he only called for an “open-carry protest on private property at the Bundy Ranch,” Leen wrote.
The radio host said Bundy “called in to air his grievances about the manner in which the BLM was treating him and his cattle,” Leen wrote.
Santilli said “there were no requests for unlawful conduct or request for violence or unlawful activity,” and amounts to “advocacy speech and lawfully protected speech,” Leen wrote.
Instead, Santilli argued he made a “call for people to stand up and protest with legally possessed firearms is constitutional speech.”
Santilli also argued his speech during that interview and subsequent broadcasts do not amount to a “’true threat’” and is protected by the First Amendment, according to Leen.
“In general, the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting expression because of its message, ideas, subject matter or content,” Leen wrote.
However, “The grand jury heard the evidence presented and found there was probable cause to charge Santilli,” she said.
Leen said Santilli could move for a judgment of acquittal based on insufficient evidence after the federal government presents its evidence.
“He may assert arguments that the government did not establish that any alleged threats were “‘true threats’” as a matter of law, and whether any speech or conduct introduced in evidence was speech and expression protected under the First Amendment,” Leen wrote.
She said all 16 counts against him comply with federal pleading requirements and “contain a plain, concise and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged,” and that “these are not issues this court may decide in a pretrial motion to dismiss.”
Navarro also accepted Leen’s recommendation as to another defendant in the case, Ryan Payne. Payne had argued the government had a responsibility in the indictment to identify what type of firearm he was alleged to have brandished, based on a model jury instruction regarding the crime.
Leen recommended and Navarro agreed the government did not charge Payne with brandishing a machine gun – only a firearm in the general sense – and that the government will be limited to that charge accordingly.
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BC’s real estate boom has created winners and losers and has led to a growing housing affordability crisis with tremendous social and economic consequences.
Metro Vancouver continues to have a massive housing affordability problem—in both home ownership and rental markets—that threatens to undermine the region’s long-term prosperity. Moreover, the 2017 Homeless Count revealed that homelessness in Metro Vancouver is up 30% from 2014, and shockingly, that one in five homeless people were employed full- or part-time.
When the previous BC government brought in a 15% foreign buyer tax in August 2016, Metro Vancouver’s housing market paused with a drop in real estate transactions and a dip in prices at the high end of the market. More recently, however, average home prices have returned to their upward trajectory, up 17% in September 2017 (compared to the same month last year). Rental housing stock has also become more expensive due to extremely low vacancy rates.
BC Budget 2018 needs to launch a comprehensive housing affordability plan for Metro Vancouver and other parts of BC facing affordability challenges. The September BC Budget Update made a modest down payment with a commitment to build a total of 3,700 new housing units (1,700 affordable rental and 2,000 modular units to house the homeless). This half-billion dollar investment in new housing is much needed, but these amounts are spread over three to four years and cover the entire province not just Metro Vancouver where the affordability crisis is most acute.
The February budget needs to make stronger annual commitments toward the new government’s election promise of 114,000 new units over ten years. A diverse range of housing options, from housing for people who are homeless to assisted living and residential care for seniors to innovative tenure arrangements like community land trust models, could be financed. This build-out should focus primarily on rental housing and include a spectrum of housing options that work for people with different incomes and at different stages in their life. The lion’s share, however, should be focused on social and co-op housing.
A housing commitment to build 11,400 units per year translates into an annual public investment of about $3 billion per year although this amount could decrease if public land owned by local governments or the BC government is contributed. This upfront capital cost, however, would be more than paid back through the flow of rental income over the lifespan of the buildings.
In addition, Budget 2018 should support and upgrade existing affordable housing stock through a Housing Renewal Fund. In particular, cooperatives and social housing run by non-profits, as well as interventions in the private rental market, are needed and could be combined with energy-efficiency retrofit programs.
To finance these essential housing investments, and to make the tax system fairer, let’s make the property tax system progressive: a property surtax of 0.5% on home values between $1 million and $1.5 million, 1% between $1.5 million and $2 million, and 1.5% between $2 million and $3 million, and 2% above $3 million. Such a progressive property tax on all residential properties, regardless of whether or not the owner resides in BC, would raise substantial revenues—about $1.7 billion per year in Metro Vancouver alone—to support an ambitious affordable/social housing construction plan while tackling growing wealth inequality.
Another way to make the property tax system more progressive would be to reformulate the $800 million per year Home Owner Grant (HOG) into a housing grant that would go to owner and renter households alike and be linked to income. That is, it could be designed to provide greater help to low-income households then phased out gradually as household income rises (as is the case for Old Age Security or the Canada Child Benefit).
This new housing grant would level the playing field between renters and owners. For example, the government has promised a renter’s rebate of $400 per year (at an estimated cost of about $200 million per year) while currently all homeowners receive $570 per year in the HOG. Shifting to a new housing grant would eliminate the HOG for the wealthiest households in order to provide a grant to renters.
In regards to other actions taken by the previous BC government to address affordability, the February budget should maintain the 15% property transfer tax on foreign purchases of residential real estate in Metro Vancouver. This should be viewed as part of a broader, long-term plan to manage the local housing market in the interests of those who live and work in the city. The foreign buyer tax should be extended to all parts of BC.
On the other hand, the budget should end the HOME partnership program of interest-free loans to first-time buyers (for five years with the loan repaid with interest over the following 20 years). The new program was widely and rightly panned by economists when announced in December 2016 for the same reasons it won praise from developers and the construction industry: it artificially boosts the market by encouraging new buyers to take on increased household debt.
In the lead-up to the February budget, eyes will also be on the federal government, which is set to release a National Housing Strategy (any time now). It is not clear how much (if any) new funding for housing will be allocated to the strategy. Now that all levels of government are talking about new affordable housing investments, hopefully 2018 will see a return to partnerships for a multi-decade housing build out to address the crisis.
Topics: Housing & homelessness, Provincial budget & finance |
VISBY, Sweden -- Visby harbor on the Swedish island of Gotland is a picture-perfect idyll: the blue Baltic Sea laps against a beautifully maintained quay, and a sparkling white ferry awaits passengers at one end.
But the waters off Gotland are not as clean as they seem on the surface.
In fact, pollution is killing this European sea -- and by spewing untreated waste from a sewer system one activist described as "medieval," the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is doing more than its part, marine scientists, environmentalists, and European officials say.
"This is one of the world's most polluted oceans," said Fredrik Wulff, a professor of marine systems ecology at Stockholm University and a leading authority on the Baltic Sea. "Because it's an almost closed body of water, everything that's dumped here stays for decades."
Lately, some of the most egregious dumping is being done by Kaliningrad, a little piece of Russia that stands deep inside the EU, bordered by Poland and Lithuania and fronting the Baltic Sea some 300 kilometers south of Gotland.
To the consternation of Sweden and the other EU countries lining the Baltic, Kaliningrad pours a daily dose of some 150,000 cubic meters of raw sewage into the sea.
"It's incomprehensible that Kaliningrad, a city 20 times the size of Visby, is allowed to keep spewing sewage into the Baltic Sea," Peter Landergren, an official in charge of water issues at the Gotland county administration, told RFE/RL at the Visby quay. "Simply pumping the waste from 450,000 residents plus local industry into the Baltic Sea is a marine disaster."
Kaliningrad isn't exactly allowed to dump its sewage into the Baltic Sea -- rather, its neighbors cannot prevent it from doing so.
Not that they haven't tried.
Since 2007, the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) -- an agency funded by regional governments -- the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and the Russian government have been financing a Kaliningrad wastewater treatment plant that was scheduled to be ready for use in 2011.
When 2014 turned to 2015 and no sewage plant was in place, the exasperated donors complained to the exclave's governor, Nikolai Tsukanov -- not for the first time.
"And now, when 90 percent of the plant is completed, Kaliningrad has replaced, without retendering, the contractor with a local company, which will take responsibility for the whole plant," NDEP manager Jaakko Henttonen said last month, speaking from Kaliningrad. "It's like a bad joke."
Tsukanov, who has been governor since September 2010, did not respond to a request for comment.
Declining Fish Stocks
The Baltic Sea's pollution problem is fairly simple. The nitrogen and phosphorus contained in sewage and agricultural waste leads to eutrophication: algae get too much nourishment and take over the ocean, then sink to the seabed where they consume the oxygen on which small fish such as herring depend. That, together with poor fishery management, has led to declining stocks of the ocean's top predators, such as the cod.
By some measures, Kaliningrad is not the biggest offender. Poland's waste -- mainly from agriculture -- accounts for 30 percent of annual nitrogen emissions into the Baltic Sea, and the European Commission took Poland to the European Court of Justice in 2013 over its continued pollution of the sea.
Poland is followed by Sweden at 12 percent and Russia at 11 percent. Per capita, however, Kaliningrad city and its surrounding oblast are a far bigger polluter than Poland or Sweden, as their population of 942,000 pales in comparison to Poland's 38.5 million and Sweden's 9.6 million. Russia is also responsible for more nitrogen emissions than the Baltic former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
The ferry business is another major perpetrator, with many of the majestic cruise liners one sees docked in Visby unapologetically emptying their latrines during their journey.
Kaliningrad does the same on a grand scale.
"Kaliningrad, in terms of water ipes and sewers, is a completely medieval city that pours its waste into the gutter. Just as they splashed it out the window in medieval cities, we throw it out not far from Kaliningrad, in just the same way," said Aleksandra Korolyova, a Kaliningrad-based activist with the Russian group Ekozashchita (Environmental Protection). "It's very clearly visible: It's just a black torrent that pours out of the pipe directly into the lagoon, and the lagoon is part of the sea."
Europe's Last Chamber Pot
Poland and other former Soviet-bloc states on the Baltic now boast modern sewage plants, as does St. Petersburg, the Russian city at the eastern end of the sea, where reconstruction of a major sewage plant co-financed by SIDA is also well under way. St. Petersburg has three major water-treatment plants as well as 12 smaller ones; 14 of the 15 meet the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission standards and the 15th is currently being upgraded.
Indeed, said Wulff, thanks to Baltic Sea countries' efforts to reduce pollution, the nutrient load has now returned to 1960s levels: poor, but not quite as terrible as a decade ago. Such efforts continue: Visby is building a pipe that will allow ferries to deposit their waste in the Swedish port city's harbor, where it will be treated by the city's sewage plant.
The city formerly known as Konigsberg, meanwhile, is lagging behind -- a charge leveled broadly by Kremlin critics who say Russia has taken a once impressive European hub and let it go to pot since the Soviet Union seized it from Germany near the end of World War II and renamed it Kaliningrad in 1946.
Kaliningrad's sewer system is "very old" and "just cannot cope" with the volume of waste it produces today, Korolyova said.
"When the half-million-strong population of Kaliningrad sits on the toilet, everything...pours into the river or the pipes, and then directly into the sea, in that same natural form," she said.
"So we are probably the last chamber pot in Europe that is dumped into the Baltic Sea."
It's not just the main city that is the problem: Waste from all over the region, whose total population is about 940,000, ends up in the Baltic.
In addition to human waste, Korolyova said, "there is also the industrial sector, car parks, the flood drain system, laundromats, dry cleaners and all that taken together -- it all goes into the sea."
Promised Plant
The new contractor in Russia has now promised that the EU-funded plant will be completed by the end of the year.
"Of course we hope that the schedule will work, but we're skeptical," said Anna Tufvesson, SIDA's water policy specialist, who is handling the Swedish contribution to the Kaliningrad project. "The new arrangement carries large risks, and if there are further delays we'll apply appropriate pressure to make sure a working wastewater treatment plant is installed. If it fails, we will eventually ask for our money back."
NDEP is taking a similar approach. "If there's progress by September, we'll keep funding them. If not, we'll most likely ask them to return the allocated grant following a resolution by the NDEP Assembly," said Henttonen.
The donors will examine the plant's progress again this month.
Having to return its €10 million from NDEP and €15 million from SIDA would, of course, be bad news for Kaliningrad. But environmentalists say the real losers from stalled construction are the Baltic Sea's codfish and herring -- and European officials say Kaliningrad's foot-dragging puts a damper on efforts in other shoreline countries to cut pollution.
"Sweden already has pretty strict rules regarding waste, and here on Gotland we're trying to introduce stricter standards on homeowners and business," said Landergren, the Gotland water official. "But people are reluctant to go along with these rules because they know that 300 kilometers from their front door, a huge city is just pumping waste into the ocean."
Regardless of the outcome in Kaliningrad, there's a glimmer of hope for the busy sea that gave rise to the Hanseatic League, a medieval predecessor to the European Union, and now binds eight of the union's member states together. Scientists are experimenting with ways of pumping oxygen into the seabed.
"It has already been successfully tried in lakes," said marine ecology professor Wulff. "But this is the first-ever attempt at saving large parts of an ocean."
With reporting by Andrei Korolyov in Kaliningrad, Russia |
(Updated with statements from Google and Gab .)
Gab, the conservative social network that has acted as a haven for people banned from the usual platforms, has been removed from the Google Play Store for violating the company’s hate speech policy, the company announced on Twitter. Apple rejected it from the App Store in June for similar reasons.
That policy is pretty straightforward: “We don’t allow apps that advocate against groups of people based on their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
It’s not clear what specifically Gab did that warranted its being kicked off the store, but presumably it would have to be at the level of the app itself, not just someone idly venting hatred on the service. After all, there’s plenty of hate speech on Twitter and YouTube, but those apps are still available despite a crackdown this week following the events in Charlottesville. It seems it was a question of volume and repeated complaints about the content Gab or its community failed to remove.
In a statement, Google didn’t get too specific, but indicated it was a lack of moderation:
In order to be on the Play Store, social networking apps need to demonstrate a sufficient level of moderation, including for content that encourages violence and advocates hate against groups of people. This is a long-standing rule and clearly stated in our developer policies. Developers always have the opportunity to appeal a suspension and may have their apps reinstated if they’ve addressed the policy violations and are compliant with our Developer Program Policies.
This doesn’t mean Google has blocked the app entirely — it can’t do that. You just can’t download it from the Play Store any more. It should still function fine and users will be able to sideload it if they like, and Gab’s Twitter account indicates they’re working on making that easy.
Gab is aimed at people interested in “Western values, individual liberty, and the free exchange of ideas” looking to avoid the “special interests pushing a very specific agenda” in tech. If that dog whistle isn’t loud enough, the investment page lists readers of Breitbart, Drudge and Infowars as the target demographic.
It was founded by Andrew Torba, who in December was removed from Y Combinator’s alumni network (which he had joined after taking part in the program) for his behavior among the other founders there.
I asked Torba whether there had been any recent changes or warnings that might explain the ban. He wrote back: |
There’s a new Seq preview build out for you to try! This post is a quick introduction to some of the new dashboarding functionality you’ll find in there.
Google’s recent Site Reliability Engineering book suggests that four “golden signals” should form the basis of any monitoring regime. They are: latency, traffic, errors and saturation.
Latency, the topic of this post, is:
The time it takes to service a request
Latency is interesting to watch because it’s a leading indicator for other problems. If latencies start to rise, you can be pretty sure that there’s some kind of resource exhaustion or other failure following close behind. The goal of monitoring in general is to put you one step ahead of problems, so that you can avoid or lessen their impact. Seq 4 aims to make it easy to track indicators like this through dashboarding.
What follows are step-by-step instructions for creating a dashboard like the one above. Grab the 4.0 preview installer from the Seq download page and install it on a non-mission-critical to get started.
1. Collect latency data
If the latency you’re tracking is HTTP response time, collecting it is usually straightforward. ASP.NET Core already records request timings out-of-the box, for example.
The great thing about hooking into log though, is that you can time practically anything that’s important to your app. There’s a helper library called SerilogTimings that makes this easy, but any event with timing data attached will do:
var sw = Stopwatch . StartNew (); handler . Handle ( message ); Log . Information ( "Message {MessageType} handled in {Elapsed} ms" , msgType , sw . ElapsedMilliseconds );
(Some things you might measure: transaction commit time, message handler completion time, external API response time, batch completion time, startup time, query response time…)
There’s a leaner and more focused HTTP request logging middleware example for ASP.NET Core on the Seq blog. Since it’s familiar territory, that’s what I’ll use in the remainder of this post. It produces events like these when requests are processed:
The app is the Music Store sample from ASP.NET.
2. Isolate HTTP requests
The first step is to filter the log to show only the events we’re interested in. The HTTP request events are going to be mixed in with all sorts of other data produced by the app.
The request logging middleware we’re using is designed carefully so that every event is produced using the same message template, and hence has the same event type in Seq. Using Event type > Find in the event details will do all the filtering we need.
The >> “move to signal” button lets us create a new signal based on that, which we’ll call “HTTP Requests”.
Once the signal is saved, we can come back and apply it any time we want to zoom in on HTTP request handling.
3. Define latency measurements
If your site or API only gets a few visits, you can look at each individual request. Most of the time, however, you’ll need to pick some kind of average values to monitor.
The mean latency is interesting, because it takes all requests into account, and thus any general trend should be reflected in some kind of change to the mean. It’s calculated as sum(Elapsed)/count(*) . Seq has a built-in function mean() that you can use to compute this:
(It’s worth pointing out that the property doesn’t have to be called Elapsed for this to work - you can give your timing values whatever name you choose.)
The default view for query results is a table. Since this result is a timeseries, the little “timeseries chart” icon will show the results graphically:
The mean isn’t the only game in town, however. Averaged over many requests, abnormally slow - or quick - timings can be masked. To address this, it’s often useful to track a number of percentiles. Roughly speaking, a percentile n is the timing below which n% of the values fall. The 95th percentile, therefore, is going to tell you roughly how bad things are for the worst 5%, and the 5th percentile would give you an indication of how the best 5% fare.
You might also track minimum ( min() ) and maximum ( max() ) timings. These values are good to know, but one or two very large points can seriously mess up the scale on this kind of chart. Depending on how things turn out for your data set, you might decide to track these in a separate chart. For the example we’ll stick with the mean, 5th and 95th percentiles.
4. Add to dashboard
We’ve been looking at interactive query results up until now. Once you’re happy with how the data looks, use the new Add to dashboard button to save the chart. The box that appears will show you the dashboards already stored in Seq, and a button to create a new dashboard.
We’ll create a new dashboard called “Golden Signals”. The chart looks much like the interactive version we were just working with. You might need to choose a longer time period via the selector in the top right to see enough data.
When expanded, the chart editor shows the signals that the chart is based on (our “HTTP Requests” signal from above), the measurement details, and some layout options (I like the fill to zero (y-axis) option and hide the point markers for this data set).
If you would like to share the dashboard with other people on your team, click the drop-down beside the dasboard name and choose Shared, before saving it. They’ll see it in the list when they visit the Dashboards screen, and you can send them the URL including the dashboard, range, refresh rate and other view settings.
5. Separate successful vs. failed requests
So far, the latency details have rolled up successful and failed requests into the same chart. The SRE book recommends tracking these separately - the behaviour of a successful vs. a failed operation will be quite different, making these quite different data sets.
Under Measurement in the chart editor, we could use the Group by clause to group values into succeeded and failed requests. We’re not short on screen real-estate though, so instead we’ll use the Where clause to limit one chart to sucessful requests, and create another limited to showing errors.
The clauses we’ll use are: StatusCode < 400 (succeeded), and StatusCode >= 400 (failed). Pop those into the chart editor:
Since there’s very little data to show for failed requests, we might turn the point markers back on so that there’s something to see when only a few slices contain any values. I switched the error chart’s palette to Reds as well so that it stands out.
You might also choose to create individual charts for specific endpoints, by including the RequestPath in the Where clause, for example.
6. Drill down to investigate anomalies
It won’t be long before you see something interesting emerge from one or more of your dashboards. When you click on the chart area, you’ll switch back to the interactive Events screen. The query Seq generates when you do this will return the set of points at the time you clicked on.
Depending on what you’re interested in, you might refine the query further, or, to see the individual events, just remove everything except the contents of the where clause (if there is one). Seq will do this for you by default if the chart is only showing a count(*) measurement (just like clicking on the Seq 3.4 dash charts would do).
Conclusions
So, that’s the core of latency monitoring with Seq 4, and a pretty good end-to-end tour of how dashboarding fits into the picture.
You can dashboard anything you can write into a log event, with the monitoring data,and the application logs that tell the complete story, right there next to each other. I think it’s a sweet spot for many applications, and I’m looking foward to seeing Seq grow in this area. I’d love to hear what you think of the story so far!
Download Seq 4 preview here. |
Rudy Giuliani said Hillary Clinton was "too stupid" to be president because she stood by her husband after his past transgressions. | Getty Giuliani: Clinton 'too stupid to be president'
Hillary Clinton’s decision to stand by her husband and attack former White House intern Monica Lewinsky when news of a sexual relationship between the two broke in 1998 prove that the former secretary of state is “too stupid to be president,” Rudy Giuliani said Monday night.
The former New York City mayor made the remark, captured on video and posted to Twitter by Elite Daily writer Alexandra Svokos, in response to a question about Clinton’s attack on Trump’s past comments about women. Giuliani defended Trump, labeling him a “feminist” because of how he treats the women he employs, and said he would have responded to Clinton’s attacks much more harshly than the GOP nominee did.
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“I sure would’ve talked about what she did to Monica Lewinsky, what that woman standing there did to Monica Lewinsky, trying to paint her as an insane young woman when in fact Monica Lewinsky was an intern,” Giuliani said. “The president of the United States, her husband, disgraced this country with what he did in the Oval Office and she didn’t just stand by him, she attacked Monica Lewinsky. And after being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didn’t know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then you’re too stupid to be president.”
Trump himself said Monday night and again Tuesday morning that he had considered raising the former president’s history of marital infidelities as a response to the former secretary of state’s attacks. He opted against it, he said, because the couple’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was in attendance and he though such an attack would be in poor taste.
The Manhattan billionaire did not rule out leveling such an attack at future debates.
“Well, I may hit her harder certain ways,” he told Fox News Tuesday morning. “I really eased up because I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. So, I may hit her harder in certain ways.” |
The story of David vs. Goliath is a familiar one in sports. An unassuming team takes on an unconquerable giant, the two battle it out on the court or pitch before the underdog eventually triumphs; the seemingly invincible opponent done in by its own hubris. Yet as business leaders, while we may fantasize about our organizations rising up to conquer our greatest competitors, in reality, we often find ourselves defeated again and again.
While there are any numbers of reasons why we stumble, the truth is that those rare underdogs, who are in the end victorious, are the ones who never really perceived themselves as having a disadvantage in the first place. One needs to look no further for proof of this than by recognizing what the athletics program at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has been to able to accomplish in recent years, even when all the odds (literally every single one) seem to be stacked against them.
Considered one of the best engineering schools in the country, NJIT is far more synonymous with producing the nation's brightest technical minds than it is All-Americans. The school's tough admission standards, as well as its less-than-desirable location in the middle of downtown Newark, New Jersey, do it no favors when it comes to attracting student-athletes. Their primary indoor athletics facility, the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center, would be impressive... if the Highlanders sponsored high school sports.
Of the 351 schools that participate in NCAA Division I sports, 350 of them are members of a conference. Exactly 1 of them, NJIT, is not. When the school made the transition to Division I, the NCAA had lowered the financial barriers to entry for universities to do. Yet inevitably an influx of schools led to a rash of conference realignment and the NCAA, for some arbitrary reason, decided to once again raise its price tag for admission to college sports most exclusive club.
When the game of musical chairs was over, NJIT was the sole school left without a home. The NCAA also instituted a new rule whereby reclassifying schools can only move up into Division I with a binding commitment from an existing conference, which assures that no future team will be in NJIT’s predicament. But unfortunately for the Highlanders, who abided by all the rules, no provision was made to address their unique situation.
Being Division I’s only independent team is like being the last remaining store in a giant, abandoned, strip mall. You might see the occasional customer when they really need your wares, but no one is going out of their way to patronize you business.
When it comes to scheduling games, finding teams to face off against during the non-conference season isn't that difficult, mainly because big schools perceive the Highlanders as a "cup-cake" - an easy way to fill their stands and secure a win in the process. Of course, when conference play begins and teams are locked into schedules created years before, finding opponents can be downright impossible. Moreover, no conference means no championships, and so the student-athletes of NJIT's athletics program play only for pride.
It is an understatement to say that the New Jersey Institute of Technology faces an uphill battle in winning on college sports' highest level. Yet since becoming members of Division I in 2006, the Highlanders have become nothing short of a paradox. Not only have they been competitive in many of the sports that they sponsor, but winning is becoming more common place. This philosophy is due in large part to the leadership of NJIT athletics director Lenny Kaplan, whose unassuming demeanor masks an "us against the world" attitude which now permeates throughout the entire Highlanders program.
"Sometimes the least collegial things about college in this country is athletics," opines Kaplan. "Everyone talks about student-athlete welfare, how we should do everything we can to ease make sure athletics doesn't jeopardize education, but in reality it's all about the money. If it weren't, then schools like [NJIT] wouldn't be left out to dry, and our student-athletes along with them. We struggle every day to give our kids the best educations and the best athletic experiences that we can offer, but it doesn't change the fact that they're getting left out by the NCAA," he adds.
While Kaplan clearly feels strongly about the Highlanders predicament, he has nonetheless done a remarkable job of leading the program despite the challenges. With a budget that ranks in the bottom half of Division I, NJIT continues to defeat opponents with far greater resources and established traditions. For instance, earlier this year the Highlander's basketball team played their first ever game against a ranked opponent, the then #17 University of Michigan Wolverines, and left Ann Arbor victorious. When Kaplan became athletic director 14 years ago, fencing was like a club sport and the students were coaching themselves. This year, the Highlanders would have been are ranked #15 in the nation (based on number of votes received) and have defeated historic powerhouses like the University of North Carolina. Both Michigan and North Carolina will each spend more this year on their athletic programs than the Highlanders will over the next decade combined.
How has NJIT managed to thrive under such difficult circumstances?
David understood that only way to slay Goliath was not to try to beat him at his own game, which was impossible, but instead use what Goliath perceived as his weaknesses to his own advantage. While he may not have been big or strong, he was smarter and more agile. More importantly, David entered the face-off never really questioning whether he would triumph - to him it was an inevitable formality. Much the same, Kaplan recognizes that organizations that have seemingly unlimited resources often feel entitled to success.If the Highlanders can turn their purported weaknesses in strengths, then maybe they can catch larger programs off-guard when they least expect it.
For example, since NJIT is a public school, by recruiting in-state student’s athletes, the university is able to save a tremendous amount of money on scholarships. Many of the schools the Highlanders compete against are private or recruit out-of-state, paying up to $40,000 in tuition, room and board while NJIT pays closer to $24,000. The substantial saving NJIT generates through this strategy are used to fund additional scholarships or is allocated towards other expenses like additional coaches and support staff, better food, travel and lodging for the student-athletes. In fact, except for track and swimming, the Highlanders are near fully funded in all of their sports programs; a rare occurrence among Mid-Majors.
While making more with less is important, it is only a part of the equation. While David may have had the tools to succeed, if at any moment he felt hesitation or that he was at a disadvantage in battle against Goliath, the outcome would almost certainly have been different. Similarly, Kaplan and his coaches understand that maintaining a culture of both humility and confidence within their organization means finding individuals who embody both traits well before they ever reach the university.
"When a kid sets foot on our campus, they know exactly what they're getting into. While they understand that we can't always offer the same amenities that larger schools can, they also know that everything they do, they're making history. They're not following in anyone's footsteps, they're creating the path for others to follow," explains Kaplan. "Our student athletes are true believers, they aren't always the fastest or the strongest but that matters less than character and capacity to sacrifice. And never, under any circumstance, do they feel entitled."
Very few athletic programs have open door policies when it comes to speaking to top levels of administration on any issue. Most who don't sponsor football won't employ a full complement of strength and conditioning and athletic training staff. Almost none can claim that the majority of the coaches within the department have local roots. Yet these are but a few characteristics that make the NJIT unique. It's also the reason why Highlander student-athletes do not necessarily believe that they are at a disadvantage
"I challenge anyone out there to prove that they try to offer their student-athletes greater levels of support than we do at NJIT," proclaims Kaplan. "Just because we don't have the same facilities, or can't fly around on our own plane doesn't mean that each and every athlete here isn't receiving a first-class experience in the areas that matter.”
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how anyone can argue that the Highlanders are not deserving of permanent home in college athletics. There is little question that the school treats its student-athletes just as well, if not better, than the majority of programs - even ones with far superior resources. Moreover, the university recently announced that it would be spending $100,000,000 to build a 200,000 sqf all-purpose sports and recreation facility that will be the envy of Mid-Major athletics programs around the country. The powers that be in college athletics are simply running out of excuses when it comes to justifying NJIT's exile.
While there are many lessons that can be taken away from the story of David vs. Goliath, the one that matters most is that in any battle we face as leaders, sometimes the keys to victory are obscured by our own misconceptions. One needs to look no further than the New Jersey Institute of Technology to understand that sometimes what can be perceived by the rest of the world as a weakness is in reality a great strength.
As the Highlanders have already learned, it is precisely when the giant underestimates his opponent the most that he is most vulnerable.
Jason Belzer is Founder of GAME, Inc. and a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Sports Law at Rutgers University. Follow him on Twitter @JasonBelzer. |
Considering how The CW, ESPN and TBS have been working to bring more eSports events to television, it was only a matter of time before a company came up with creating an eSports-devoted channel, which is exactly what ESL is doing.
The company, which has specialized on online programming for years, will launch a 24/7 eSports channel next month. Titled eSports TV, the channel will make its debut on MTG’s Viasat platforms in the Nordic and Baltic countries this May, but it won’t stop there. ESL is working to bring the channel to other distributors and platforms in other regions of the world, according to GamesIndustry International.
The focus of the channel will be on core competitions and tournaments, as eSports TV is set to offer more than 2,000 live hours of content. “ESports TV will add to ESL’s current audience of over 100 million digital viewers,” said the company in a statement. “The launch of eSports TV and its distribution on new channels will tap into the audience of more than two billion gamers and 250 million eSports fans that the industry will have by the end of the year.
This will not affect current partnerships that the company has with others, including Twitch, Azubu, Hitbox and Yahoo, as ESL will continue to support their eSports endeavours.
“We have always dreamt of making eSports the world’s most popular sport, and it’s the opportunities like this one that bring us one step closer to making that dream come true,” said ESL’s managing director, Ralf Reichert. “Bringing new and existing content to more screens worldwide is key to further accelerating the growth and popularity of eSports, and we’re on a mission to reach every gamer in the world.”
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Beer has been important to people throughout history—in fact, many researchers believe brewing beer is the cornerstone of civilization and stimulated humans to settle down and start farming. Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, the Inca and the Chinese were all brewing thousands of years ago. Now, after researchers analyzed 5,000-year-old brewing equipment unearthed in China, the earliest direct evidence of brewing in that region, archaeologists know what those early brew masters were making, and it doesn’t sound half bad.
According to the research published in PNAS, the archaeologists excavated a stove, pottery shards from specialized jugs and pots and an item shaped like a funnel from the Mijaya dig site in the city of Xian in northern Shaanxi Province. The assortment of items indicated they might be part of an ancient brewery. So Stanford professors Jiajing Wang and Li Liu traveled to China and scraped a yellowish residue off the vessels.
Analysis showed that indeed, the vessels were used for brewing, filtering and storing beer 3,400 to 2,900 years ago. According to Madeline Sofia at NPR, the residue, which contained bits of ancient grains, showed evidence that they had gone through a mashing and malting process that a craft brewer might recognize. "All indications are that ancient peoples, [including those at this Chinese dig site], applied the same principles and techniques as brewers do today," Patrick McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum tells Sofia.
Using ion chromatography, the researchers were also able to suss out the ingredients in the beer, and recently published the “recipe” in PNAS. According to Nicola Davis at The Guardian, the brew contained broomcorn millet, a type of grain called, Job’s tears, lily, yam, barley and snake gourd root.
It’s hard to say how a pint would compare to a German pilsner or Oregon IPA. “I really have no idea,” Wang tells Davis. “That is beyond our research methods.”
But the taste is not the important part. The find also shows that barley made it China 1,000 years before previously thought, and it was likely primarily grown not as a food crop, but rather to make beer. "Barley was one of the main ingredient[s] for beer brewing in other parts of the world, such as ancient Egypt,” Wang tells Sofia. “It is possible that when barley was introduced from Western Eurasia into the Central Plain of China, it came with the knowledge that the crop was a good ingredient for beer brewing. So it was not only the introduction of a new crop, but also the movement of knowledge associated with the crop."
And like in other parts of the world, where beer was used as currency and for social status, the authors of the study argue that beer likely pushed development of more complex societies in China. “The production and consumption of…beer may have contributed to the emergence of hierarchical societies in the Central Plain, the region known as ‘the cradle of Chinese civilization’,” the researchers write.
It’s not too surprising—in the last few years there have been a series of studies claiming many of the foods we eat and drink now got their start in the stone age, including cheese, soup and sliced meat. Even beer wasn’t the first alcohol made in China. Researchers previously found remnants of 9,000-year-old hooch made with rice, honey, hawthorn fruit and wild grapes in the Yellow River Valley. |
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller suggested Wednesday that journalists were unfair to scrutinize his habit of posting fabricated or unsupported information on social media. And he doesn’t “spend a lot of time worrying that much” about whether what his postings are true.
“I’m not a news organization,” Miller told Nathan Bernier, a reporter for Austin-based KUT News. “Y’all are holding me to the same standards as you are a news organization, and it’s just Facebook.”
A Texas Tribune analysis published Saturday documented Miller’s tendency to share "fake news" stories on social media — particularly on his campaign’s Facebook page, where he has nearly 340,000 followers.
That story came amid heightened awareness about the power of fake news to shape Americans’ perception of politics and policy and perhaps influence the most recent presidential election. It was published one day before a North Carolina man reportedly fired an assault rifle inside a Washington, D.C., pizza joint — allegedly motivated by a fake news story about Hillary Clinton.
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On Wednesday, Miller — who had previously cut short an interview with the Tribune — expressed no regret about his postings of false stories in recent years, which include allegations of Islamic terrorists training at a compound outside of Houston, and that the Communist Party endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
“Hundred and fifty posts a week. No, I’m not going to research every one of them,” he told Bernier. “If it’s thought-provoking, I’ll put it up there and let the readers decide. Everyone that reads that is grown ups. It’s like Fox News: I report, you decide if it’s true or not."
He also said that much of what he has posted is comedy and satire. (In several fake news postings that the Tribune examined, however, Miller's accompanying commentary suggests he believed the stories were true.)
After Bernier suggested that other statewide elected officials tend to more carefully vet their posts, Miller said: “I’m not like any other statewide official. I’ve never been politically correct. I really never cared what the press said or does, I do my thing. I do what I think’s best for Texas.”
Also in the interview, Miller, who has been touted as a possible U.S. agriculture secretary in President-elect Donald Trump’s White House, confirmed that he had not yet been interviewed for the post.
“If I get the call, I’ll certainly go up and visit with him,” he said.
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You can listen to the full interview below.
And below is Miller's initial response to Saturday's Texas Tribune story: |
How do we know AR-15s are the single most lethal weapon on the planet? Because they’re SO LOUD. LOUD, YOU HEAR ME?! LOUD!!!!
This is one of those things that must be read to be believed, and no, this was not found in The Onion, amazingly.
New York Daily News reporter Gersh Kuntzman set out to test shoot an AR-15. “It feels like a bazooka — and sounds like a cannon,” he writes.
A cannon. And Bazooka? The same bazooka also known as a “recoilless rifle“?
I would like to invite @GershKuntzman to an Aggie football game where we have an actual cannon. — Kemberlee Kaye (@KemberleeKaye) June 14, 2016
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess this dude has never shot a 12 gauge before.
But it just gets worse from there.
Many gun shops turned down our request to fire and discuss the AR-15, a style of tactical machine gun popular with mass killers such as San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook and Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen.
Except for the fact that there WAS NO AR-15 USED IN THE ORLANDO TERRORIST ATTACK.
Kuntzman finally found a taker to let him play with this bazooka-like cannon weapon of mass destruction and then assumed that the gun shop owner, Frank Stelmach, was not like the average gun owner. Why? Because Stelmach doesn’t like murder.
But Frank Stelmach of Double Tap Shooting Range and Gun Shop invited me, videographer Michael Sheridan and reporter Adam Shrier to come down. Stelmach is not like many gun lovers. He admires his weaponry, yes, and has difficulty explaining why law-abiding citizens need a gun that can empty a 40-round clip in less than five seconds. But he also hates the idea that “bad people” get a hold of a gun like this and use it to kill without difficulty.
Then we get to the really fun part; the part where Kuntzman describes his brush with barrel shrouded death, which he claims bruised his shoulder and gave him PTSD.
Not in my hands. I’ve shot pistols before, but never something like an AR-15. Squeeze lightly on the trigger and the resulting explosion of firepower is humbling and deafening (even with ear protection). The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary case of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.
If a .223 rifle bruises your shoulder, you should eat more bananas.
For Christ’s sakes, I learned to shoot a Ruger 10/22 when I was 8. Then moved up to a .410 shotgun and a .223 when I was a 10-YEAR-OLD-GIRL. — Kemberlee Kaye (@KemberleeKaye) June 14, 2016
Kuntzman also claims the gun had a fully automatic mode, which any moderately educated citizen knows is not something anyone can walk into their local armory and buy off the shelf. Even our fine Lone Star State legislators questioned this claim:
@KemberleeKaye @85thLegislature – The author also claims he also got the AR15 to fire in "fully automatic mode." Wonder how he did that. — Matt Rinaldi (@MattRinaldiTX) June 14, 2016
The anti-scary-looking-gun-derangement-syndrome knows no bounds, apparently.
[Featured image a screenshot from video included in above-mocked post]
Follow Kemberlee on Twitter @kemberleekaye |
By the Government, I’m regarded French and Language bi-lingual, and they believe this because I was given a certification, which stated thus, upon finishing Highschool by them. I maintain in the deep dark secret yet… I am maybe not. I fight to construct an effective expression or word in reaction to someone that talks to me because of the vocabulary. Therefore, I consider myself much from bi-lingual even though I could convey on a fundamental amount in French. I truly dropped among my first jobs years past because it required talking with native folks that were French, and I simply can not get it done, despite the fact that I strove as best I can. As an effect of losing this job, I went to an area where French was not utilized as much as the eye can see, so I essentially went away. Another solution I ‘vie… I regret never having held at it. I found lately that it might serve a function today, but maybe not for recreation, work as well as a romantic excursion to Italy. To our child, my wife gave birth on November 4th of 2007.
As any new parent will let you know, you can be kept by them up rather late for the very first short time, together with I found myself laying during intercourse, attempting to rest after I noticed a commercial on Television. It was likely, and for the Rosetta Rock Language-Learning PC Software considerably to the businesses dismay, I’d never been aware of them. It advised me of my sorrow of never having stored up my new official language when the period comes to where I might move it along. We reside in a melting-pot that is true, and everybody else that conveys and understands in a terminology that is second knows how her or his lifestyle is benefited by it. I am saddened to state that I am going to unable to pass to my boy on the French-language, as it may profit him in some method for the preceding causes I organized, or for one till he conveys his passions that I would not have regarded. My drawback can be yet rectified by me, and I’m-not restricted to France anymore both. I can, in fact, pick from, at current, offerings that are 30 distinct. Find more information at Rosetta Stone Review.
The Rosetta Rock Language-Learning PC Software, the reply is offered by my evening television viewing. The following morning after an incredible sleepless night, I determined to examine the claims made by this business that I’d never been aware of. The Rosetta Rock Language-Learning Computer Software is made by Fairfield Terminology Systems in 1992 and is used by Western Level, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and about 10,000 universities right today., to offer just a little background details Current press releases given by the corporation, and independently validated, have declared that after a pilot program, the plan has additionally been distributed around U.S. Immigration and Practices Administration workers in maybe not just the trusted old fashioned US of A, however, in additional states as nicely, and it does not cease there. A more current launch h AS the U.S. Military reviving their deal with Rosetta Rock, Ltd and creating it accessible to over 1.4 billion Military employees worldwide. A portion of the agreement the firm put out a special military system – Version, to help Army Countrywide Shield, Army Reserve, each of the active Army and Army private employees that now assist. I required learning, although if you request me, that is one tremendous sensation. It might aid the others, but how does one little child seem up to his dad and I understand that it’s going to assist my situation? Now I wanted the war, and I replied the who, along with the way along with the how.
The where’s quite simple to reply, Rosetta Rock Language-Learning Computer Software gives classes that are on-line along with CD Rom variations which you simply pop into your PC, install, and you happen to be prepared discover and to move. The is considerably more significant, in the end, it originated with a kid’s head and mindset which is, therefore, easy it could be explained by a child. To get somewhat specialized Rosetta Rock Language-Learning Computer Software utilizes their branded Dynamic Concentration Approach. It’s just like the way his or her vocabulary is learned by a baby. When your item and state out loud or examine to them and stage at an image what it’s, you are mimicked by them. When you appear at, say a little-packed animal and recognize what it’s, in my scenario a duck that is stuffed and state duck, they discover the item you might be discussing is not a goose and a duck. The Rosetta Stone Software works much precisely the same manner by utilizing thousands of genuine life pictures to convey this is perhaps not just composed although discussed content the identical manner. As well as using native speakers of the vocabulary that is a person, and the carefully sequenced construction you happen to be understanding, and providing suggestions that are immediate, you understand the vocabulary that is fresh without boring grammar exercises, interpretation that is straightforward, or the inefficient memorization that additional language-learning software as well as day sessions that are modern utilize. Picture educating ourselves by d e- understanding just as they discover their first-language like their first language at our kids’ degree and then training. |
Good news for west coast fans of Alesana who missed the original ten-year anniversary tour of their debut LP, the band is hitting the road again and this time they're hitting the west coast.
Check out the dates and cities below!
Read more: Artwork sign to Revival Recordings, premiere music video—watch (exclusive)
Alesana released their novel, Anabel, in late August which was based around the band's three concept albums.
“This story has been a work in progress for nearly seven years,” said vocalist/guitarist Shawn Milke. “It began when Dennis and I decided to tell our own story through the albums of Alesana. It eventually grew into an album trilogy and now, finally, a short novel. Creating this abstract universe and telling the story of Annabel has been, in every way possible, both challenging and rewarding.
The band also had an east coast ten-year anniversary tour for this same album in October.
The band will be playing their debut album in it's entirety every night of the tour.
Alesana will be supported by For The Win, Versus, Charlatan and Vesta Collide. VIP packages for the tour can be purchased here. Check out the cities and dates below!
Where are you going to be seeing this tour? Let us know in the comments!
Tour dates:
02/04 – Portland, OR @ Analog Cafe
02/05 – Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
02/07 – San Francisco, CA @ DNA Lounge
02/08 – Pomona, CA @ The Glass House
02/09 – San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
02/10 – Mesa, AZ @ Club Red-Mesa
02/11 – Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy Theatre
02/12 – Tucson, AZ @ The Rock
02/15 – St. Louis, MO @ Fubar
02/16 – Merriam, KS @ Aftershock
02/17 – Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater
02/18 – Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue
Watch more: Disruption – “Skylines” ft. Shawn Milke of Alesana |
Seriously, what is wrong with these social justice warriors! It’s as though they can’t resist the impulse to stick their noses where they don’t belong.
First we had to pretend that it’s OK for girls to play sports, even though deep down we all know that ladies ain’t meant to sweat.
And what about all these black fellas running around our game these days, carrying on as though they’re the same as the rest of us. It’s disgusting.
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And now, as if these injustices weren’t bad enough, we’ve got to pretend it’s acceptable for homosexuals to play footy. Enough is enough!
Starting today I’m enlisting anyone who’s thinking clearly to join my ‘Keep The Gay Away’ campaign. Together we can put a stop to the mess people like David Pocock are making of our culture. My granddaddy would spin in his grave if he knew I played with pooftahs, and I’ll be dammed if I’ll let some do-gooders tear our society apart with their ‘inclusion policy’.
Gay people can’t get married, so why on Earth should we let them play sport? Riddle me that Pocock! If you want a civil union go bat for the other side, this is rugby union mate, and there ain’t never been nothing civil about it.
Rugby is a man’s game, and real men recognise that gayness is wrong. If we want our sportsmen to be role models we need more people like Waratah Jacques Potgieter, who bravely called out gay when he saw it, or thought it, or felt it… Or whatever, the point is he said the word “faggot”, and if there is one word the world needs more of it’s definitely faggot.
If we don’t stamp homo stuff out of our sport now, where will it lead? The last thing any of us want is a strapping lad like Jacques Potgieter running out to represent his state while being distracted by gay thoughts. We need real men like Potgieter focused on smashing people, not diverted by hot and sweaty masculine fantasies about hairy legs in short shorts.
Call me old school, but I don’t care if there are more cameras and microphones at a rugby game than at a Justin Bieber concert, what is said on the field, stays on the field. We all know that rugby pitches are magical places where the normal rules of decency and fairness don’t apply.
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Jacques Potgieter may be an idiot, but being an idiot isn’t a choice, like being gay is. People are just born idiots, and it’s our job to love them anyway.
Can I get an Amen? |
Canadian Corey Bellemore, 21, has rewritten the beer mile record book with two fast races in four days.
On July 28, at a beer mile in Windsor, Canada, he ran 4:39.56, shaving 8 seconds off the existing world record of 4:47.11, which was set last December.
The next day, organizers of the Beer Mile World Classic put him on a flight to London to complete in their second-annual event on July 31.
The cross-Atlantic redeye apparently didn’t slow down Bellemore, who went on to win the men’s elite race in 4:34.35. In all, Bellemore took 13 seconds off the world record in four days. (Beermile.com, which verifies the records, currently lists his most recent time as unofficial.)
Bellemore, a standout middle-distance runner from Ontario, chose Kingfisher, an Indian beer, as his brew of choice for the event, which involves drinking a 12-ounce beer before each lap of a mile.
He set a speedy pace from the start and was never seriously challenged, beating second-place Dale Clutterbuck of England by 13 seconds. American Brandon Shirck came in third at 4:49.28.
In the final results of the second elite heat, American Chris Robertson was disqualified, which pushed Canadian Lewis Kent, the reigning champion of the Beer Mile World Classic, into fourth with a time of 5:11.29.
Kent also held the world record that Bellemore broke. Kent, who ran his 4:47 at the FloTrack Championships in Austin in December 2015, had stood atop the Beermile.com standings before Bellemore’s recent performances.
Bellemore’s impressive times have capped off a dizzying couple of years for the beer mile, since James Nielsen’s first-ever sub-5:00 finish in 2014 helped propel it from a quirky underground event to a mainstream cultural phenomenon, with races drawing hundreds of spectators and media. Sunday’s races were held on an official track at London’s Allianz Park and marked the first time a championship event pitted top runners from countries in Europe and North America.
“This was a legendary beer mile,” event cofounder Nick MacFalls told Runner’s World via email. “The American, European, Canadian, and world records were all broken. We introduced the sport to Europe, and they are hooked. The Swedes are winning the party portion of the night. They are legends.”
On the women’s side, which was depleted because of several injuries, MacFalls said, the United States’ Erin O’Mara won in 6:43.35, followed by Canada’s Anne Belanger in 6:50.78. Polly Keen and Laura Riches, both of England, took third and fourth, while Canada’s Lianne Girard rounded out the top five.
After hosting their inaugural championship event in San Francisco on an unofficial track in August 2015, organizers decided to move the event overseas for several reasons. “Our athletes really wanted to race on a track, and we really wanted to bring the beer mile to Europe,” MacFalls said. “In England, they race an event called the Chunder Mile, which is chugging 20-ounce Queens Pints. There has been some resistance to ‘American’ rules, but insuring a Chunder Mile simply isn’t possible.”
Results (via Beer Mile World Classic, courtesy of Sportsystems):
Men’s Elite:
1. Corey Bellemore, Canada, 4:34.35
2. Dale Clutterbuck, England, 4:47.39
3. Brandon Shirck, USA, 4:49.28
4. Lewis Kent, Canada, 5:11.29
5. Charlie Blanch, Australia, 5:23.36
Women’s Elite:
1. Erin O'Mara, USA 6:43.35
2. Anne Belanger, Canada 6:50.78
3. Polly Keen, England 6:52.71
4. Laura Riches, England 7:13.82
5. Lianne Girard, Canada 7:16.63 |
National Snow Analyses
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Automated Model Discussion:
February 26, 2019
Area Covered By Snow: 46.3% Area Covered Last Month: 45.7% Snow Depth Average: 7.8 in Minimum: 0.0 in Maximum: 1988.6 in Std. Dev.: 15.2 in Snow Water Equivalent Average: 2.0 in Minimum: 0.0 in Maximum: 1189.5 in Std. Dev.: 4.7 in more... Metric Units...
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Snow Reports
Top Ten: Metric Units... Station ID Name Elevation
(feet) Snowfall
(in) Duration
(hours) Report Date / Time(UTC) 43.1833_076.1465 2 W Cicero Social Media (X4320761) 410 5.000 1.000 2019-02-26 02:30 OR-DS-36 SISTERS 3.2 ENE, OR 3150 30.000 24.000 2019-02-25 15:00 MYSM8 MYSTIC LAKE 6565 27.500 24.000 2019-02-25 23:00 43.3600_074.9600 2 W WILMURT CORNERS TRAINED SPOTTER (X4340750) 1385 8.500 8.000 2019-02-25 14:55 KSGM4 KEARSARGE 1119 12.000 12.000 2019-02-25 13:00 OR-DS-58 REDMOND 1.4 WSW, OR 3035 22.500 24.000 2019-02-25 18:00 MI-BG-4 L'ANSE 2.5 WSW, MI 627 22.000 24.000 2019-02-25 09:00 WTHM1 WINTHROP 213 1.300 1.500 2019-02-25 13:30 NY-CN-14 OXFORD 0.8 NNW, NY 1250 20.000 24.000 2019-02-25 13:00 QNCM4 QUINCY HILL 1148 19.200 24.000 2019-02-25 12:00
Note: these data are unofficial and provisional.
Zip codes (where available) of observations will be included in text files after October 7, 2008.
Station Snowfall Reports
Station Snow Water Equivalent Reports
Station Snowdepth Reports
Interpolated Snowfall Products |
Porsche will retain the same monocoque design for its 2017 LMP1 challenger, in what team principal Andreas Seidl is calling a “reasonable step” in development from this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning Porsche 919 Hybrid.
Work on the German manufacturer’s updated 919 Hybrid has already been underway for a few months, with Porsche also in the process of finalizing the design of it 2018 model, which will be built to new LMP1 regulations and includes the allowance of a third hybrid system and 10MJ hybrid subclass.
“The regulations do not really change [for next year] and you have to do this parallel work on ’17 and ’18,” Seidl told Sportscar365 during last month’s Six Hours of Nürburgring.
“We will again keep the monocoque for next year, which will give some limitations on what you can do. But as I’ve said many times, we’re still a young team, so we still see a lot of potential even in the current car.”
With three wins in the opening four races, Porsche has again been the team to beat, although both Audi and Toyota have made significant steps during the off-season with its all-new R18 and TS050 Hybrid, respectively.
Porsche, meanwhile, will be heading into the third consecutive season with the same tub design, although with notable updates in aero and hybrid power for 2016. Seidl wouldn’t reveal the focus points for next year’s car.
“What I can see at the moment is that we’ll still make a reasonable step for next year,” he said. “We see the competition is close so we have to make steps; none of us can stand still.”
New regulations for 2017 will also come into play, with a further reduction of test days and wind tunnel testing, as well a move from three to two aero kits per LMP1 manufacturer.
“It’s not really a big change,” Seidl said. “We had three kits this year, but in the end, the first kit at Silverstone was our 2015 kit, slightly modified, so we put all focus on two kits this year.
“Then you just have to make the call on when do you bring them and how do you use them.”
No timeline, meanwhile, has been established to fill Porsche’s LMP1 technical director position, which was vacated by Alex Hitzinger in March. Seidl has since filled the position himself on an interim basis.
“We have no rush to make any changes,” he said. “We have a very strong team with the right spirit pushing day by day.
“I think we’ve made all the decisions for the ’17 and ’18 [cars], which is obviously a big challenge at the moment because you have to do it in parallel, plus performing in the 2016 season.” |
Martinez received a full-ride scholarship to Yale through QuestBridge, a program that matches high-achieving students from low-income families with selective schools.
She said she decided to reveal her status at graduation because she realized it might be the only time she could talk to a large crowd and make a difference. She said it was part of her motivation to do well in school. She has been ranked No. 1 since she was a freshman.
"I would think and be like, 'You have to keep going because that's what you're going to get to do in your speech,'" Martinez said Thursday. "I could tell [peers] one by one, but I feel like a lot of people would listen more because I was standing up there."
Out of the shadows
"I am one of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the shadows of the United States," she said in her speech.
Social studies teacher Scott Martin said he and Martinez began talking about her speech years before she took the podium in a red cap and gown.
"I told her, 'If you're valedictorian, I want you to get up there, and I want you to say a speech that's not traditional,'" said Martin, who taught Martinez for three years at McKinney Boyd. "I said, 'I have so much hope that you'll tell everyone everything.'"
Three weeks before she gave the speech, which received a standing ovation, she took Martin a draft. He held back tears as he read it at his desk.
"I know this is a political issue," said Martin, who was unable to attend Boyd's graduation. "I just wish people would understand the teacher's perspective. When these students walk into our classroom, we have to love and teach them like any other student. When I see students from not much do so much, it blows me away." |
A video clip on the harmfulness of pornography caused shock and outrage. In it, Shaykh Hamdi Benaissa, a respected and learned scholar, passionately argued that watching pornography can be worse than adultery or fornication (zina).
Should we ever be faced with a choice between the two – and may Allah protect us all from such a situation, Shaykh Hamdi argues that zina is the lesser of the two evils.
What Could Be Worse Than Zina?
How do we make sense of this opinion, in light of what we know about such acts? Shaykh Faraz Rabbani explains how pornography and masturbation—though both in of themselves lesser sins than actual unlawful sexual intercourse—can be worse, more harmful, and more sinful than zina.
This issue was addressed during the live session for one of the Islamic Law (fiqh) online courses on marriage offered at SeekersHub Global. Our courses are all taught by reliable, qualified mainstream scholars; are all completely free—and all give the invaluable opportunity to directly interact with these scholars through the course forums, and regular live sessions. Register today. |
Bracebridge, Ontario – Muskoka Brewery & Born Ruffians have teamed up to make a collaboration brew for the Session Toronto Craft Beer Festival that will take place on June 11, 2016.
RUFF Draught is a tropical blonde ale, with notes of pineapple deriving from a variety of hops. Crisp and refreshing, it’s a crushable beer that’s great for jamming on the dock or out on stage. It’s the perfect summer brew and we’re confident it’s a winner!
It’s Muskoka’s fourth year competing in the Collaboration Nation contest, and in the past they have partnered with the Arkells, Dara Howell and Drew Taylor.
Check out the video from the 2015 Session Toronto Craft Beer Festival that featured music from Drew Taylor who had teamed up with Muskoka Brewery last year for “Drewbarb” a Rubarb Saison. |
Community creator Dan Harmon will no longer serve as the series’ showrunner, The A.V. Club has learned from Sony Pictures Television, which produces the show. Taking his place are David Guarascio and Moses Port, who recently worked on ABC’s Happy Endings and ran Aliens In America, The CW’s 2007 coming-of-age sitcom. Harmon will remain a consulting producer.
Harmon’s place on Community had been undetermined since the show was renewed last week. Although showrunners typically sign two-year contracts at the start of a third season, Harmon’s deal was only for one, an unusual arrangement in the TV industry.
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Considering Community lost a couple of producers earlier this month, don’t expect Harmon’s exit to be the last of the changes for the show. We’ll post more information as we get it.
Update: Harmon has commented on his removal from the program in this Tumblr post, which says that he was never contacted by anyone at NBC or Sony during the search for a showrunner for season four. (This corresponds with what we have learned.) Chris McKenna, the sole remaining season one writer other than Harmon, has confirmed his rumored exit from the show via Twitter. |
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - A private chef employed by multiple professional athletes was shot and killed inside Miami Beach's Mansion nightclub early Tuesday morning.
Antaun Teasley was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead. Teasley was a personal chef for Heat guards Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole among other athletes living in South Florida.
Miami Beach police said the shooting happened about 3:40 a.m. after an altercation between Teasley and the shooter in the VIP section of the club.
"When the dust settled, the victim was found with an apparent gunshot wound to his upper torso," Miami Beach police Sgt. Bobby Hernandez said.
People who were in the club at the time of the shooting said they heard a loud noise moments before everyone inside headed for the exit.
Witnesses said the victim tried to make his way out of the club after being shot but collapsed.
Chalmers called the news of Teasley's death "crazy" on his Twitter account.
The last tweet posted on Teasley's account was a photo of a meal apparently prepared for Cole on Monday afternoon -- a sweet potato frittata, summer salad with raspberry vinaigrette, turkey sausage and a beet juice.
Police are searching for the shooter.
Copyright 2014 by Local10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
TL;DR: MXE is a mind bending substance far more potent than I initially knew. The following is an account of 1 1/2 years of my life with this drug.
__
I did not move from the couch. I honestly had never felt anything like this before. I was in a parallel universe. All rules I used to assemble my reality with had stopped applying. I was slave to the seemingly random processes in my brain, unable to reach coherence. It seems that my mind, facing what seemed like its destruction was now fighting for survival. I wanted to get out of this and back to the real world. After what seemed like an eternity and a half I started to get flashes of something to hold on to. Objects I knew, chairs, furniture, couches, my own bodyparts, ah yes, reality. It was coming back. It was still very hard keeping it together, but I was filled with an immense joy of having survived this. I was exuberant with joy. I had never felt this happy to be alive. I believe this must be something close to those “being reborn” experiences some people talk about. Well, being convinced that you have died and come back is not pleasant at all.
Over time, say, the next two or three months, I began to feel the barriers and walls I had erected in my mind crumbling. I started to become slightly more relaxed in social situations, I started to feel more confident voicing my opinion at work, I started to become more inquisitive when I believed a company was trying to screw me over (rather than just taking it, like I used to all my life), I started walking the streets with slightly more confidence and I started to admit to myself that some people in my past were actually right about a heck of a lot of stuff they said, which I completely rejected back then. I also started to slowly but surely begin to understand the value of forgiveness. A concept I entirely rejected for most of my life. Thanks, jesus-army for riddling that word with religious connotations. Anyhow, these were babysteps.
What came next? Tripping by myself was the next step. This would allow me to try a few more things. For example writing while on MXE: Nope. No chance. You are far too uncoordinated and it will take you 5 minutes to type even goddamn word. I also tried having Skype chats with friends who subsequently pissed themselves laughing at my inability to get any sentences strung together properly. So writing, or, effectively comunicating, was off the table.
So what to do by myself? Music. Music is a divine experience on MXE. Simply lay back with a quality pair of cans, blast the music and let go into your little MXE fueled fantasy and thought-world.
If we were to go by a scale of novice, intermediate, advanced and veteran. By now I guess I was an intermediate MXE user. Unfortunately, as with everything in life it couldn’t all just be fun and games.
Certain resistances were starting to show at this point. Residual effects did not last as long as they used to. The come-ups became quicker and the craving to do MXE every night was increased. Films started to seem almost boring without being on MXE. Even though you would rarely remember the plot afterwards.
I was ready to push the envelope a bit further: Increased doses and interactions.
I asked myself, how does MXE work together with other substances? Well, you may find yourself surprised when I reveal my number one favourite drug while being on MXE. Let’s go through all the other ones first:
Valium: can reduce some of the anxious sides that come with MXE and it helps you get to sleep. Good stuff, always have some of this handy.
Alcohol is a terrible interaction and does not work at all. Neither drinking it before or after taking MXE is any fun at all and you will end up with the hangover of a lifetime: just don’t.
LSD: No effect. LSD seems to eradicate any of MXE’s potential. I only tried LSD first then MXE, not the other way round. If I ever do, I will report back, but further on in this article you will see why this may never happen/won’t be worth it.
Tramadol: A total winner. Tramadol taken at the same time as a line of MXE is insufflated will be paralysingly relaxing. You will become extremely passive and you just melt into everything full of warmth and happiness. Stupidly, Tramadol causes respiratory depression, slows down your heart beat and lowers your blood pressure. MXE does the opposite. This is actually a very dangerous combination and should not be done too often. I did it twice. Lovely as it was, the risks here are too high to keep repeating this.
Ritalin: Not much to report. You just become a bit more tweaked out than usual, not really great quite frankly. Lots of cold sweat and edginess.
So, here goes: The best interaction I ever found is good old weed. For whichever reason, smoking a spliff post-plateauing on MXE will induce the most insane all-body orgasm euphoria you will ever feel. To this day I have known nothing like it.
We are now at a point in the story where MXE is about to be made illegal and I am pretty much becoming an advanced user of the drug. At the time I thought to myself: “Well, shit, if I do about 100mg a week, then I will need at least 5.2g a year, meaning 25g would only last me 5 years, fuck!” So I went and bought a huge quantity of it before it went out of sale. In fact, I contacted the support staff at the website selling it, thinking that they’d be desperate to push their stock before the blanket ban, so I might be able to snag some for little money. I bought 50g at a ridiculously low price. Nice! Jack, you genious, you’re sorted for the rest of all times!
MXE has now become a regular part of my life and I have tested it in many situations and shown to a few people. The reactions being almost unanimously bad or unimpressed. Only Jill happens to love it. Go figure. I had also tried taking it at a gig in a pub once. Did not work at all. Trying to be social in a crowd where you can’t hear a single word and have no idea what’s going on trying to look normal is damn near impossible and a complete waste of what could be a nice trip.
Oh and to get this point over with as well: I tried sex on it two or three times. You tend to last forever and often will not cum at all. If you do, an MXE-gasm is a fairly reduced version of an actual orgasm and therefore the experience is actually much more rewarding for the closeness you will feel to the other human being while on MXE rather than the sexual reward of having sex or an orgasm.
A word of advice about MXE and other people: Tripping together with someone you can really trust is a very special experience. With someone of the gender you are attracted to you will almost inevitably end up naked, cuddling under a duvet. You will melt into one another, stopping to perceive where you ‘stop’ and the other ‘starts’. It is an utterly otherworldly feeling and something I would recommend to anyone. This has been described as an “MXE Puddle” in internet circles of groups doing MXE. I’d be more than interested in experiencing one of those at some point.
Some words on m-holes: I had fallen into a few more m-holes by now. Man those things are just incredible. Once you understand to let go and simply accept the fact that you are in it, you will find yourself exploring worlds like you never did before. You can relive childhood memories, you can make any actor of any movie say anything you want, you can simply create your entire reality. It is one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had in my life. This happened about 8 or maybe 9 times during my entire 1 1/2 years of MXE usage.
So how did it end? Well, before all of this started, on the surface, I was a completely different person. I used to be reserved, anxious, alone, worried, emotionally repressed inconfident, twisted, stubborn, difficult and insanely hard on myself and others. People still liked me because I was emulating them but as a consequence I was of course never myself. Now I am more open hearted, warm, generous and above all I have stopped wasting all my energy worrying and being locked up in my head and instead decided for myself to experience this world and this life as hard as I can. I have MXE to thank for that in many ways.
So maybe like a sherpa, a guide along a difficult path, it was now time for us to part ways. MXE had served its purpose and it could no longer bring me the epiphanies and wonders I expected from it. The problems I was working through were the ones I had created myself. I had defeated many of my own anxieties and I began understanding and living life in a way I had never done before. The other problems however, those caused by others, those caused by external influences no drugs can fix. The ball is in my court to go and deal with those now.
We are reaching the part of the story where I am a veteran user. I use this stuff every second day. It is truly becoming rather excessive. I will easily finish 100mg in one night. No “M-Holes” anymore. No tangential thoughts anymore. The only thing that happened in the place of m-holes now were blackouts. I would just forget a large chunk of time and then emerge from that after a while. I would not find any solutions to any problems anymore. I would just feel funny for a while and then struggle to get to sleep. Then I would wake up and not really feel that great. I was tired again in the mornings.
To make a completely unscientific guess, it sounds as though the human brain is very, very good at figuring out ways to re-establish reality. My brain had caught up to this substance invading it so regularly. It had learned how to reroute thoughts away from the places that MXE affected. My senses on MXE stayed more focused and the hallucinations had disappeared, showing my brain’s unwillingness to lose reality. So the dosages I would have to take were so high that I would just black out. This was simply not pleasant anymore.
Cold Turkey time. I first gave my huge stash to a friend of mine. He kept it for me for a while. I stayed off it for three weeks. This was easier than I had expected. No big withdrawal symptoms!
I was really just a bit lost for things to do on a Friday night. Life started seeming a bit dull now that I didn’t have a drug to default to, to get fucked up with in the evenings. I figured, having been off the stuff for a while, let’s see whether the resistance had worn off. I tried it again one Friday night: Same reduced effects. Fuck. It was beginning to dawn on me that the era of MXE may actually be over. This really, really fucking sucked and I did not want to let go.
I did it a bunch more times and then, ironically while on MXE, decided it was time to part ways. I was either going to become completely addicted to a substance that does nothing for me, or I would get rid of it and somehow try to continue life without it. I chose the latter.
What followed were the same relatively easy 3-4 weeks of not really feeling any big differences at all. It seemed this stuff was easier to let go than I expected.
And then, after about a month I fell into a depression deeper and darker than the filaments between galaxies. I started to hate and despise everything. Getting up in the morning was a drag. Playing games was no fun anymore, watching movies was no fun anymore, talking to people, seeing people, socialising all sucked now and work was just hell on earth. I felt sick and defeated. For a whole two months I was pretty much on auto-pilot, desperately seeking a replacement for what MXE used to be. I tried stupid stuff, like snorting ritalin, taking loads of valium, smoking weed. Nothing helped. It seemed that I had, like Icarus, attempted to soar too close to the sun in denial of my inevitable fall. The depression ended during a particular moment which I shall tell in another story. Suffice it to say that I not only recovered but that life, ever since, has become more and more worth living every day.
The ending of this story is the beginning of another.
MXE is back. |
Colts head coach Chuck Pagano said Wednesday that the team needs to find ways to get Hilton the ball, Mike Chappell of of CBS 4 News Indianapolis reports.
Pagano made similar comments the past two weeks, with Hilton catching four of 15 targets for 42 yards over that stretch. The speedy wideout is on pace for only 58 catches and 1,054 receiving yards, despite recording two games with seven catches for more than 150 yards. Otherwise ineffective all season, Hilton at least has the benefit of a favorable matchup Week 9, facing an injury-ravaged Houston defense that just gave up 452 passing yards to the Seahawks' Russell Wilson. Hilton has yet to draw more than nine targets in any game this season, but the Colts might eventually try to force feed him the way other struggling offenses often do with top receivers. |
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