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After years of scandals that have plagued the Department of Veterans Affairs, President Donald Trump promised an ethics crackdown.
But when he formed his VA transition team, Trump brought in a onetime VA staffer implicated in a hiring scandal and a former congressman who was criticized for alleged financial improprieties at a charity he founded.
And although under Trump the VA has fired more than 1,000 employees, the administration has made no move against a VA executive implicated in improper spending both at the VA and at a prior federal government post.
Trump has repeatedly said he would set high ethical standards at the VA, and vowed to terminate employees who abused their positions.
“We made a promise to these heroes. You defend America, and America will defend you,” Trump said at a July 11, 2016, rally in Virginia Beach, Va. “I’m going to use every lawful authority to remove and discipline federal employees or managers who fail our veterans or breach the public trust.”
The problematic backgrounds of some of Trump’s VA appointees are cause for concern, said Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project On Government Oversight, a nonprofit organization that monitors government effectiveness.
It’s a mistake, Amey said, to appoint officials with “questionable histories” to transition teams, which play a key role in “helping the agencies get up and running” in a new administration. Government employees who are “operating for personal and private gain should be forced out of public service,” he said.
Appointee No. 1: His charity was stung by ethics complaint
The VA transition team official with the problem-plagued charity is Steve Buyer, a Republican who was an Indiana congressman from 1993 until 2011. He served as chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee from 2005 to 2007.
His political career ended after a government watchdog organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington D.C., filed a complaint accusing him of paying for “lavish golf outings” with money from a charity that he set up. Soon after the complaint was filed in January 2010, Buyer announced he would not run for re-election, saying his wife was ill with an incurable autoimmune disease.
Buyer had founded the nonprofit Frontier Foundation in 2003 to give college scholarships to Indiana students, according to an IRS filing.
Six years later, the foundation had raised $830,140 much of it from interest groups that had business before a health subcommittee on which Buyer served. But the charity still hadn’t awarded a single scholarship, according to its filings.
Instead, the foundation spent heavily on golf tournaments in the Bahamas and similar fundraising charity events that were attended by lobbyists and political donors, CREW alleged.
Buyer denied wrongdoing. After he announced his retirement, the Office of Congressional Ethics decided not to take action on the complaint.
Since leaving Congress, Buyer has worked as a Washington lobbyist for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and other firms. In a phone interview, Buyer declined to comment on whether the Trump administration had asked him about his charity before appointing him to the VA transition team.
Instead, he denounced Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting as a “rag” and accused a Reveal reporter of “participating in the furtherance of lies.”
“I can’t believe that you would include me in something like this,” he said. “I’m not a public figure. What you’re trying to connect is completely false.”
Appointee No. 2: He helped ‘incapable’ wife get a VA job
The transition team official who was once embroiled in a VA hiring scandal is Ron Thomas. He served as deputy assistant secretary for policy at the VA in 2007, according to his LinkedIn profile.
After he left to work in the private sector, he leveraged his contacts to get a $100,000-a-year job at the VA for his wife, Raquel Thomas, with consequences that hurt taxpayers’ pocketbooks, the VA inspector general wrote in a 2010 report.
In August of 2008, Ron Thomas sent his wife’s résumé to a friend, Willie Hensley, who was an official in the VA human resources office, according to the inspector general’s report. Both the Thomases’ names were redacted from the report, but Raquel Thomas confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the report was about her.
When Hensley pushed Raquel as a candidate for an executive post at the Office of Human Resources and Administration, another staffer said she wasn’t qualified. Raquel, a former Mrs. America runner-up, was hired anyway.
Once on the job, colleagues reported that Raquel boasted about her husband being “tight” with Hensley so she could get “anything she wanted,” according to the report. She also told co-workers she had inflated her past salary by nearly $70,000 to get a higher rate of pay at the VA, according to the report.
Employees reported morale issues in Raquel Thomas’ office as she told employees that “there would be a ‘wrath to bear’ ” if anyone “cross(ed) her,” the report said. She had an “unproductive communication style” and was “incapable of performing team leader duties,” according to the report.
The inspector general ruled Hensley had acted improperly in hiring Raquel Thomas and keeping her on the job. Hensley told the Examiner he left the VA voluntarily after the report was issued.
Raquel Thomas remained with the VA, working as a management analyst in the human resources office. One year later, she helped set up a VA conference in Orlando, Florida, that billed nearly $800,000 in “unauthorized, unnecessary, and/or wasteful” expenses, according to a September 2012 VA inspector general’s report.
Items purchased for employees attending the conference include tickets to a Rockettes show, a helicopter ride and a golf package, according to the report.
Again, Raquel Thomas’ name was redacted from the 2012 report, but her husband confirmed her identity to the Examiner. She later left the VA.
Ron Thomas declined to comment for this story, and Raquel Thomas did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A White House transition team representative declined to comment on whether the administration had known about the hiring controversy.
“The president and (VA) Secretary (David) Shulkin are committed to modernizing and transforming the VA, and have taken unprecedented steps to ensure our veterans receive the care they deserve,” said the representative, who declined to be quoted by name. “While the media works to distract on the important issues, the administration will continue to work on behalf of veterans and the American people.”
Appointee No. 3: Two public spending sprees
The high-ranking VA employee who has kept his government job despite criticism over his use of public funds is Reginald E. Vance.
Before going to the VA, Vance worked at the National Park Service, serving as chief of its business and finance office from 2003 to 2008, according to his LinkedIn profile.
A 2008 report by the Department of the Interior’s inspector general said that Vance had misused his government credit card, paying for a hotel room, rental cars and gasoline when he was not traveling on government business. He also ran up $2,606.63 of unauthorized cellphone charges, per the report.
The inspector general referred Vance to the Department of Justice for potential prosecution for the theft of government funds, according to a 2012 report subsequently written by the VA’s inspector general. Vance was not prosecuted “pending administrative action by the government.” Vance was notified that the government intended to fire him and he resigned, the report said. When the VA hired him the following year, he didn’t disclose the circumstances of his departure from the Park Service.
At the VA, Vance served as director of learning infrastructure for an educational program called VA Learning University.
Soon, the VA’s inspector general was called in to investigate Vance for more alleged spending improprieties.
In a 2012 report, the inspector general found that Vance traveled early to a Maryland golf resort before a conference, rented an upgraded rental car with “inadequate justification” and kept it an extra day. The inspector general concluded that Vance didn’t follow travel regulations, misusing government funds for a second time.
The inspector general also found that he misused his role at the VA. In 2011, Vance sent a college fraternity brother’s résumé to a VA contractor. According to the report, the way he did it would “infer an obligation by the contractor to hire the individual.”
The inspector general recommended that administrative action be taken against Vance, but he kept his job.
Vance’s attorney said his client had not authorized him to comment. VA media representatives also did not comment on Vance’s employment.
Don't miss the next big story. Brave investigations that change minds, laws and lives. Emailed directly to you.
Lance Williams contributed to this report. This story was edited by Amy Pyle and copy edited by Nadia Wynter. Reveal intern Ben Leonard can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @Ben___Leonard. |
Downtown Kiev burns as anti-government protesters clash with the Ukrainian riot police at a barricade on February 19, 2014. At least 25 people have been killed in the worst violence since Ukraine gained its independence in 1991. UPI/Ivan Vakolenko | License Photo
People light candles in memory of people killed in clashes between anti-government protesters and Ukrainian police in Kiev on February 22, 2014. UPI/Ivan Vakolenko | License Photo
People protest against Russia about the situation in Crimea on Independence Square in Kiev on March 2, 2014. UPI/Ivan Vakolenko | License Photo
People protest against Russia about situation in Crimea on Independence Square in Kiev on March 2, 2014. UPI/Ivan Vakolenko | License Photo
KIEV, Ukraine, March 3 (UPI) -- If Russia continues its military incursion into Ukraine, it will be on the "wrong side of history" and violating international law, President Obama said Monday.
Even with strong cultural and commercial ties between Russia and Ukraine, "what cannot be done is for Russia with impunity to put its soldiers on the ground and violate basic principles that are recognized around the world," Obama said during a media availability with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "And I think the strong condemnation that has proceeded from countries around the world indicates the degree to which Russia is on the wrong side of history."
Russian leaders maintain it is their right and obligation to protect Russian citizens and pro-Russian people in Ukraine where Moscow ally Viktor Yanukovych was ousted as president two weeks ago, fled Kiev and took refuge in Russia. There have been no verifiable reports of violence against Russians in Ukraine.
If Russia continues down that path, "we are examining a whole series of steps -- economic, diplomatic -- that will isolate Russia and will have a negative impact on Russia's economy and status in the world," Obama said.
RELATED EU sees lingering challenges to Ukrainian aid
"We've already suspended preparations for the [Group of Eight] summit, and we would expect there would be further follow-up on that," he said.
"Obviously the facts on the ground in Crimea are deeply troubling, and Russia has a large Army that borders Ukraine," Obama said. "But what is also true is that over time this will be a costly proposition for Russia, and now is the time for them to consider whether they can serve their interests in a way that resorts to diplomacy as opposed to force."
He said Congress should work with his administration to help provide an aid package to Ukrainians.
"[There] should be unanimity among Democrats and Republicans that when it comes to preserving the principle that no country has the right to send in troops to another country unprovoked," Obama said. "And my expectation is, is that I'll be able to get Congress to work with us in order to achieve that goal."
The United States is considering actions beyond sanctions against Russia over its incursion into Ukraine, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki said Monday.
Psaki said she didn't have any independent information on an Interfax report quoting a Ukrainian Defense Ministry official that the Russian fleet commander gave an ultimatum to Ukrainian forces in Crimea to surrender or face attack. Moscow has denied issuing such an ultimatum, Russian media reported.
"[These] reports today of threats of force against Ukrainian military installations would, if true, in our view, constitute a dangerous escalation of the situation for which we would hold Russia directly responsible," Psaki said.
In Moscow, meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry lashed out at comments concerning sanctions made by the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry over possible Russian military action in Ukraine as "unacceptable threats," RIA Novosti reported.
Kerry said the United States was prepared to strip Moscow of its seat with the Group of Eight, withdraw investments and businesses from Russia, impose travel bans and freeze assets.
Russia called on the United States and its allies to stop encouraging what Moscow says are nationalist and anti-Russian initiatives by its interim leadership, and focus on a dialogue and decisions acceptable to both the pro-European west and pro-Russian east.
In Simferopol, the capital of the autonomous Crimea, Kiev Post reported the Russian navy maintained its blockade of Ukrainian naval ships docked at Sevastopol Bay and Ukrainian military posts, barring relatives or others from bringing food to Ukrainian soldiers.
On Sunday Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a German proposal for international observers to review the standoff in Ukraine's Crimea area, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
The spokesman said Merkel offered the proposal for a "contact group" of mediating foreign diplomats and a delegation of observers to evaluate Moscow's claims ethnic Russians were being threatened under Ukraine's new leadership during a phone call Sunday to Putin, the Los Angeles Times reported.
RIA Novosti, quoting the Ukrainian UNIAN news agency, reported Monday Ukrainian officials have begun criminal proceedings against Yanukovych for attempting to violate the constitution.
The country's interim leaders last week placed Yanukovych on an international wanted list for mass murder charges stemming from clashes between police and anti-government protesters in Kiev that left more than 80 dead days before his ouster.
"After his appearance in Rostov-on-Don [in Russia], it was decided to begin criminal proceedings for attempts to overthrow the constitutional order in Ukraine," UNIAN quoted Prosecutor General Oleg Makhnitsky as saying.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to go to Kiev Tuesday to meet with the country's interim leaders.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, in Kiev Monday, warned the standoff over Crimea was "the biggest crisis in Europe in the 21st century" and the international community "cannot just allow this to happen." |
TAMPA, Fla. -- Early in his football journey, Akeem Spence had little interest in contact.
Safe to say he has changed.
The 6-foot-1, 307-pounder is expected to take on a larger role on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' defensive line, now that veteran tackle Clinton McDonald is on injured reserve. Spence, 23, has two tackles in two games this season after returning from a back injury. He has 70 tackles and four sacks with Tampa Bay since entering the NFL as a fourth-round pick in 2013.
Spence, who was born in Jamaica but raised in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, shared his inspirations and discoveries as part of our weekly Q&A with a member of the Bucs:
Akeem Spence said he was inspired to achieve in football after watching former Buccaneers star Warren Sapp. Andrew Weber/USA TODAY Sports
When did you know you wanted to play football?
Spence: I first wanted to play football in the fourth grade. One of my best friends invited me out. I had never played the game before, mind you, because I'm from Jamaica. So I just went out there watching. I'm like, "OK, guys running around, hitting one another." I wasn't really big on the hitting thing. I went out there and had fun with it and then just loved the game. And every year when I was little, I wanted to play.
When did you know football could become a profession?
Spence: When I got to high school, just playing it, and then I started getting college coaches coming to talk to me. I'm like, "So I can go to school for free and play this game?" And I was like, "OK, I'm pretty good at it so why not?" So I just took advantage of that and took off with it.
Who's your biggest inspiration in the game?
Spence: I've always been a Tampa fan, so I always used to watch [No.] 99 [Warren Sapp]. That's all I knew, because everybody said he was 6-foot-1, [and] we had all the same measurables. But I still don't think so. But I just used to love the way they played defense. I loved the way they played defense. I loved to watch 99. That was my biggest inspiration.
What has been your biggest challenge in the sport?
Spence: It's just that you're going to deal with a lot of adversity on and off the field. You're going to deal with injuries. You're going to deal with family problems. You're going to deal with a lot. But you've got to be able to push that to the side and work through injuries and still be able to focus on this game, because this is the greatest game in America. So to be able to play it and be one of the elite few to play it -- that's just big. I'm just living my dream.
What's the best advice you've received about being an NFL player?
Spence: You've got to be able to have a short memory. You want to harp on things. You want to do things great all the time, every play. You want every play to be a great play. Every play is not going to be a great play. So you've got to have a short memory -- next-play mentality. I think it was my college coach [at Illinois], Coach Ron Zook, who told me that, because I used to harp on everything in college. I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to make every play. But you're not going to make every play. I had to figure that out, because coming into college, you make all these plays. Then you come to college, and you've got to do assignments and this and that. I found it kind of strange. But then you just can't harp on it the next play. |
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Each week we will bring you an updated look at our prediction for the 53-man roster. Since our last prediction many things have gone down to change the original look of how we felt the roster would play out. Of course, that's football, so here are our 53-man roster predictions following not only preseason week one, but the Sammy Watkins blockbuster trade as well.
Quarterback (2): Jared Goff, Sean Mannion
Yeah, obviously there really isn't much competition. Jared Goff is the starter and that is not in question, but what also isn't in question is how the Rams feel about backup and former third-round pick Sean Mannion. He may not be the Rams long-term backup plan, but Mannion as we know now is the backup moving forward. If the Rams had any doubt that Mannion couldn't do it, they would have either drafted a QB (Brad Kaaya was available in the sixth round) or they would have given him more competition then just throwing out a camp arm in Dan Orlovsky.
At first it may have been up in the air going into the off-season when the Rams signed Aaron Murray to compete the for the second QB job, but it became quite evident of the Rams feelings of Mannion when they decided to release Murray before OTA's
Cut: Dan Orlovsky
Running back (3): Todd Gurley, Malcolm Brown, Justin Davis
Another obvious starter Todd Gurley is not going anywhere. Malcolm Brown appears to have taken a vice grip in the backup role unless he continues to put the ball on the ground like he did twice last night. As far as the running backs go after that? Not really a guarantee for any of them and that even includes Lance Dunbar who the Rams signed in free agency.
For a running back like Aaron Green, not competing in the first two games puts him on the bottom of the depth chart or close to it. Of the running backs the most impressive and disappointing on the field was USC product Justin Davis who took nine carries for 70 yards, but a the same time had two fumbles in week one. Davis likely put himself in the roster discussion. Last night he showed some of his ability as a pass catcher out of the backfield.
As for Lenard Tillery, he didn't get much of a chance to run the ball, but when he did it went backwards. Tillery has little time to show the Rams he's an asset. Lastly, this all begs the question if the Rams can have backs like Davis, Tillery and Green show out moving forward to close out preseason. Do the Rams really have to keep Lance Dunbar? I believe Dunbar will likely be put on the injured reserve or PUP list as there has been no reason to believe he will return to the field anytime soon.
Cut: Aaron Green, Lenard Tillery
PUP: Lance Dunbar
Fullback (1): Sam Rogers
After Zach Laskey went down it became Sam Rogers job by default. Laskey is on the Rams injured reserve list and Rogers is one of those players that gives it his all every day and is the first one to show up on the field at practice. Rogers offers special team value, but he was the best fullback coming out of college this year and the Rams plan on using him as a blocker, receiver and runner. There is no doubt the Rams will hold onto him as he offers plenty and he fits in the "We not Me" culture as well as anyone.
Cut: N/A
Wide receiver (7): Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, Tavon Austin, Pharoh Cooper, Josh Reynolds, Paul McRoberts
Well, the Sammy Watkins blockbuster trade really shook things up for the Rams and likely knocked a player the Rams pegged as someone who would make the team off of the roster. We likely know of the six players the Rams are keeping in Watkins, Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, Tavon Austin, Pharoh Cooper and Josh Reynolds. What we don't know is if they will keep more and if so, who that last player will be.
Overall, this position started out so unpredictable and has gone to what is likely the most predictable position on the roster. All we know is that there are four receivers guaranteed (unless you are on the fence that Tavon Austin makes the team) followed by a ton of uncertainty. The Rams could easily decide to keep McRoberts who actually worked with the first-team offense in their scrimmage versus the Chargers, they could decide that Spruce offers too much as a receiver to just let go or they could say that Cooper is a former fourth-round pick that can do a little bit of everything in the offensive game and special teams game and decide to ultimately keep him.
The last three wide receivers the Rams brought in KD Cannon, C.J. Germany and Justin Thomas appeared to receive a minuscule amount of snaps, but the Rams did try Cannon in the kick return game at least once in the preseason opener. Shakeir Ryan is going to offer something as a returner which will likely leave the Rams coaching staff to make a tough decision. I think when you look at the grand scheme of things, you have to consider who brings size to the table, who is out there everyday competing, who brings game-breaking ability in the return game and who isn't there.
Unfortunately, with the Watkins trade the Rams may have made a mistake in even drafting Josh Reynolds who will likely make the team regardless of what happens and likely push off one of the fan favorites like McRoberts or Spruce. You could also see a trade or two and with that being said Pharoh Cooper would seem like the most likely in that department. You still have to keep in mind Mike Thomas will sit on the suspension list for four games and won't count against the roster. An interesting dynamic to keep in mind as well.
Cut: Brandon Shippen, Shakeir Ryan, Nelson Spruce, KD Cannon
Suspended: Mike Thomas (available for week five if the Rams choose to bring him back on the roster)
Tight end (3): Gerald Everett, Tyler Higbee, Travis Wilson
This Gerald Everett guy looks like no tight end we have ever seen the Rams deploy. Everett has an amazing blend of size, speed and overall quickness. While it says Tyler Higbee as the starter right now on the depth chart, don't be surprised when it's the second-round pick as the starter at the end of the preseason.
With that all being said the Rams seemed set to have three tight ends Everett, Higbee and Temarrick Hemingway moving forward. That was until Hemingway suffered a grueling fractured fibula injury that will sideline him more than half the season. All of them played at least one snap with the first-team offense. Cory Harkey would seem like the likely next man up and the reason being he has dominated the others in snaps in the preseason, let alone his longevity in the league. However, the first signing in the new Sean McVay era was Travis Wilson, a former QB turned TE after working on the transition for awhile. I think McVay likes him as his project and will likely hold onto him.
Cut: Cory Harkey, Johnny Mundt
PUP: Temarrick Hemingway
Offensive line (9): Andrew Whitworth, Rodger Saffold, John Sullivan, Jamon Brown, Rob Havenstein, Andrew Donnal, Austin Blythe, Jake Eldrenkamp, Darrell Williams
This is a unit that shows improvement in the starters, but man, do the Rams have a lot of evaluating to do to get this offensive line depth in order heading into the season. Some of the names above that I have listed to make the roster may not make it and might actually be replaced by a player that is not even on the Rams yet. That's just the nature of the business, it's a very "give and take" type of league and the Rams have to be a team watching attentively to see who is ultimately let go.
Andrew Donnal and Austin Blythe are quite honestly the "stars" of the second-team and I wouldn't sleep on Donnal who could possibly replace Jamon Brown if he turns out to be the wrong decision. Another player to watch would likely be Jake Eldrenkamp who has the ability to play both center and guard. The guy I would expect if any, to be replaced would be Pace Murphy who has had a rough time in pass protection. Although the Rams may not want to think about the idea of their stud left tackle going down with injury. It's important to have a backup plan and right now the Rams best option might be a player that has barely played the tackle spot and that's Donnal.
Cut: Alex Kozan, Parker Collins, Pace Murphy, Michael Dunn, Cody Wichmann
Defensive line (6): Aaron Donald, Ethan Westbrooks, Michael Brockers, Tanzel Smart, Louis Trinca-Pasat, Morgan Fox
This is sort of a bold prediction, but with recent dialogue, it appears Aaron Donald could have a deal sooner than later what would ultimately bring him back to the Rams. Factoring that in unfortunately Casey Sayles, who has looked real good in preseason gets the ax. With Donald, I believe this position group has a lot of promise.
Michael Brockers is one of the better lesser known defensive tackles in football, Ethan Westbrooks is an underrated pass rusher that has improved every year, Tanzel Smart is an exciting rookie that has extremely quick feet and can penetrate the interior like an Aaron Donald, Louis Trinca-Pasat is a player that brings a non-stop motor to the defense, Morgan Fox is literally the same exact thing with some underrated athletic build.
I think by the Rams keeping seven guys, it allows there to be a rotation that might become underrated and forgotten with no Dominique Easley in the fold.
Cut: Casey Sayles, Omarius Bryant, Tyrunn Walker
Linebackers (9): Robert Quinn, Connor Barwin, Alec Ogletree, Mark Barron, Matt Longacre, Bryce Hager, Cory Littleton, Samson Ebukam, Ejuan Price
With the new switch over to Wade Phillips' defense, the Rams find themselves likely employing more linebackers than any former roster in the last decade. The starters are set to be Robert Quinn, Connor Barwin, Alec Ogletree and Mark Barron. On paper that looks nice, but it's a matter of them all staying healthy and putting everything together. I feel as though the Rams have a lot of young talent at his position with Cory Littleton, Bryce Hager, Samson Ebukam and Ejuan Price. Unfortunately players like Josh Forrest and Cassanova McKinzy might be the odd men out.
The Rams could realistically keep the nine listed with an additional 2-4 more linebackers based off who deserves to be on a 53-man roster. However, they are backed in a corner and will likely need depth in the secondary which will ultimately leave them parting ways with some talent at linebacker.
Cut: Cassanova McKinzy, Josh Forrest, Carlos Thompson, Nic Grigsby, Kevin Davis, Folarin Orimolade, Andy Mulumba, Davis Tull, Willie Mays
Cornerbacks (5): Trumaine Johnson, Kayvon Webster, Nickell Robey-Coleman, Michael Jordan, Dominique Hatfield
The Rams traded away E.J. Gaines for Sammy Watkins and while Gaines could be considered a loss, I believe the Rams are equipped with some nice depth even going down to the back end of the position. Trumaine Johnson returns on a rental one-year contract, Kayvon Webster is the one player at cornerback that we still have yet to see in game action. I believe he can be a legit starter in the NFL and if so, that alleviates the pressure of losing Gaines to this trade.
After the two projected starters, Nickell Robey-Coleman, Michael Jordan and Dominique Hatfield make up what I believe will be the full position depth chart. This leaves the Rams with a young group at the back end with Jordan and Hatfield that the Rams can develop moving forward. Yes, to some, Hatfield seems like a shocking pick, but that's who I predicted on the latest Downtown Rams Podcast episode and I'm sticking with it here.
I love what Kevin Peterson brings to the table, but unfortunately I don't believe he received enough reps to actually make this roster. He showed some serious potential in limited opportunities, but I don't believe it was enough to get on the 53, but I do believe it will be enough to make the practice squad. Regardless of what you may think about Peterson, keeping him and perhaps another cornerback in the building probably makes the most sense.
Cut: Aarion Penton, Kevin Peterson, Tyqwuan Glass, Carlos Davis
Suspended: Troy Hill (available for week three if the Rams choose to bring him back on the roster)
Safeties (5): Maurice Alexander, LaMarcus Joyner, Marqui Christian, Blake Countess, John Johnson
It seems crazy to snub players like Cody Davis and Isaiah Johnson, but unfortunately that's what the draft pick of John Johnson ends up causing. No, I wasn't a fan of the pick and I'm still not. As you all know I am very optimistic about the Rams, but I did not like that pick of Johnson. Regardless, Mo Alexander and LaMarcus Joyner are starting this season and I believe the Rams will have two versatile pieces behind them in Marqui Christian and Blake Countess.
Countess, like Joyner and Johnson can play cornerback as well as safety. I believe the Rams could have mutual interest in recently rumored cut T.J. Ward, which would likely change everything for this unit. As for right now though, I don't believe the Rams need Ward. I like where the Rams are at with this group heading into week one. Don't sleep on Christian, he has a knack for the ball and could be a vital third safety moving forward.
Cut: Isaiah Johnson, Cody Davis
Special Teams (3): K Greg Zuerlein, P Johnny Hekker, LS Jake McQuaide
Nothing to see here....
Cut: Travis Coons
Predicted Practice Squad:
RB Lenard Tillery
WR Brandon Shippen
WR Shakeir Ryan
TE Johnny Mundt
OT Michael Dunn
DT Casey Sayles
LB Cassanova McKinzy
LB Davis Tull
CB Kevin Peterson |
Rockefeller Plaza Fire
This photo provided by Nico Rodriguez shows a firetruck near the observation deck of 30 Rockefeller Plaza after a piece of camera equipment caught on fire in New York, Sunday, July 13, 2014. New York City fire officials say six people, including a child, suffered slight burns. A fire department spokesman says the fire started just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday and was under control about a half hour later. He says the injuries were caused by embers from the fire falling onto the victims. (AP Photo/Nico Rodriguez)
(Nico Rodriguez)
NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City fire officials say six people, including a child, suffered slight burns when a piece of camera equipment caught fire inside the observation deck of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
A fire department spokesman says the fire started just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday and was under control about a half hour later. He says the injuries were caused by embers from the fire falling onto the victims.
Five adults at the scene refused medical attention and the child, whose age was not immediately known, was taken to a nearby hospital. No word on what caused the fire.
The 70-story, Art Deco-style GE Building opened in 1933. It is the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan and home to the NBC television network. |
A 17-year-old girl acted as a "pimp" for a wealthy Auckland businessman - finding and enticing girls as young as 15 to have sex with him in return for drugs and cash, prosecutors say.
The pair allegedly preyed on methamphetamine-addicted teenagers, the 17-year-old sourcing the girls and delivering them to the man's multimillion-dollar inner-Auckland property.
The man, 56, and the girl, now aged 20, are on trial in the Auckland District Court over events alleged to have taken place from October 2010 to December 2011.
The Crown says as well as inducing 15-year-old girls to provide "commercial sexual services" in return for methamphetamine, the pair conspired to drug one of the teenagers with the date-rape drug GHB.
A text from the girl read: "She [the alleged victim] is very hard for me to tolerate lol. Let's spike her please."
Prosecutor Jo Murdoch said in one instance, associates of the man located a girl who owed him money and brought her to the man's inner-city residence.
He put her "in a device" and she was forced to perform oral sex on the businessman as a punishment.
Both accused have name suppression.
Murdoch said text messages from the girl said: "I don't work ever. I've always been the pimp."
Another text said: "I've got a girl to sell."
Talking about her boyfriend, she said: "He hates that I was hanging around with meth maggots and pimping underage girls."
The stupefying charges related to texts in which the girl suggested spiking the girls' drinks with "waz" - the date-rape drug GHB.
The businessman is accused of sexually assaulting one of the teenagers after she was drugged.
The Crown said the 17-year-old eventually went to police.
She told them she procured girls as young as 14 for the man who liked them "the younger, the better".
The girl's defence counsel, Lorraine Smith, said her client was addicted to methamphetamine at the time and she was as much a victim as any of the girls who would give evidence.
The girl sold sex to get the drug and no-one was compelled to do anything, Smith said.
The businessman's lawyer, Mark Ryan, said his client had had sex with the girls but it was not a court of "morals".
He had paid cash for the sex and he "completely rejected" the methamphetamine allegations.
His defence would be one of "due diligence" - that he made reasonable inquiries to be assured the girls were 18, Ryan said.
The man faces 23 charges including disabling or stupefying, supplying Class A and Class B drugs, indecent assault, sexual violation, abduction, inducing or compelling a person to provide commercial sexual services and four counts of receiving commercial sexual services from a person under 18 years old.
The girl faces two charges each of inducing someone to provide commercial sexual services and assisting persons under 18 to provide those services.
She also faces one charge of conspiring to disable or stupefy.
The trial before Judge Russell Collins and a jury continues this week. |
TOKYO, Japan – A fan of the popular browser game Kantai Collection (Kancolle) was arrested yesterday after being mistaken by military police for a naval officer who took an unauthorized leave of absence.
Yoshimori Takeshi, 25, was on his way to a Kancolle fan event, and was wearing an admiral’s uniform. Kancolle players assume the role of fleet admiral, and therefore male cosplayers traditionally don the uniform and take pictures with the ship girls at events and conventions.
At the same time, military police were searching for Kimura Tsugahara, 45, an admiral with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, who had violated orders and abandoned his post earlier that day. When the MPs spotted Mr. Yoshimori, they assumed he was the runaway Admiral Kimura and arrested him: “What were we supposed to do, question everyone wearing an admiral’s uniform?” asked Military Police Staff Sargent Morimoto, who conducted the arrest. “We saw the admiral uniform and figured it had to be the guy. We want to apologize and promise that the military police does not target Kancolle fans whatsoever. It was an honest mistake.”
Despite the apology, however, Anime Maru has learned that Mr. Yoshimori has hired an ace attorney. |
I hadn’t planned on blogging today during my own work hours, but I’ll take a few minutes from my lunch to shine some much needed sunlight on this. Maybe I need to shut off my email to get anything done.
From the “why can’t we have fun on the taxpayer’s dime while we are destroying the economy” department. Here’s the content of an email making the rounds internally at the EPA today:
I verified the email sender as being employed within the EPA, both by name and by email headers. That person shall remain anonymous to protect their employment status from repercussions of being a whistleblower.
I verified the phone number in the golf ad as being within the EPA 308 phone group. I also verifed the room number where the golf seminar is being held, room S-4370-80 as being in an EPA facility at:
One Potomac Yard
Conference Center South (4th Floor)
Room S-4370-80
2777 S. Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA 22202
For example, the same conference room was used for this EPA seminar: National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT) Subcommittee on Promoting Environmental Stewardship (SPES)
September 8th is a Thursday, a workday, 9AM-3PM are of course work hours in the “normal” non governmental world.
And finally, the Nike Golf Learning Center at Reston National is real too, see here.
What I don’t know is who is paying for this EPA golf seminar. But, now that this has seen sunlight, I’m sure some folks closer to the EPA than me will ask.
Chris Horner of ATI comments on this revelation in context to the whining about proposed budget cuts to the EPA, he writes:
Just as EPA seeks to fill the media with stories about their dire budget situtation and the horrors to befall us all if they have to take a haircut, the poor dears.
Imagine my surprise to receive, within the span of minutes, both the following news story in Energy &Environment Daily — “EPA: Jackson summons top aides for budget pow-wow as GOP sharpens knife: In the face of drastic funding cuts and a hostile political environment, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has told her top deputies to rank which of their programs they deem to be essential and which could fall on the budgetary chopping block” — and the following invitation, just circulated around EPA headquarters. Just keep this in mind when the results of this “pow-wow” — ritual demagoguery and a lot of talk about children, seniors and the poor — pop in the next few days. Possibly EPA officials are worried that they might have to shelve golf clinics for the bureaucracy run wild. “Bureaucracy run wild”. Yes, perhaps it’s time to wrangle in the EPA and remind Lisa Jackson and others at the EPA that you are beholden to the citizens of the United States, not the other way around.
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The Conservatives have spent more than $4.7 million fighting 15 losing court cases, including more than $1 million on tough-on-crime measures, according to figures released this week.
The cases range from the Conservatives' $426,529 battle to shut down Insite, Vancouver's safe-injection site, to $347,271 on the Supreme Court of Canada reference regarding Marc Nadon, whom Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to name to the top court, but who was ultimately found to be unqualified.
Liberal MP Ralph Goodale tabled a written request for the costs of the court cases through the House of Commons' order paper questions process, which allows MPs to request information from the government.
The most expensive fight for the Conservatives is the continuing dispute over health care for refugee claimants, which totalled $1,062,187 according to the costs released this week. The government lost a Federal Court case last July, which it plans to appeal, and refugee advocates have returned to Federal Court to argue the government is ignoring the original decision.
The response to an order paper question tabled by the NDP earlier this year put the cost of the refugee health-care battle at more than $1.4 million. The question was phrased differently and included a request for an estimate of the cost of the appeal.
Tough-on-crime fight pricey
The court process to keep mandatory minimum sentences for a variety of gun possession crimes and to keep a measure that abolished early parole has cost $1,076,992. The government lost one mandatory minimum case at the Supreme Court that combined two appeals, lost another at the Ontario Court of Appeal, and lost the appeal to the Supreme Court over early parole abolition.
The list of costs also shows the government spent:
Liberal Party justice critic Sean Casey compared the government's austerity budgets to the amount it is spending "trying to defend charter violations."
"It's entirely consistent with the personality and the soul of the government," he said, adding that the costs wouldn't matter if the government was guaranteeing less crime.
But, Casey said, the facts are exactly the opposite: studies suggest mandatory minimum sentences don't deter crime and that safe-injection sites reduce harm.
A spokeswoman for Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the government has instituted several efficiency measures at the Department of Justice, and has cut the number of hours spent on litigation files by two per cent.
"It is worth noting that while the government, at any given moment, is involved in some 50,000 litigation files, about 85 per cent of those were not initiated by us," Clarissa Lamb wrote in an email.
"I would also note that last year we were successful in nearly 75 per cent of cases." |
Today I found out where the word “wiki” comes from.
Howard G. Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki which was launched in 1995 called WikiWikiWeb, upon his first visit to Hawaii was informed by an airport employee that he needed to take the wiki wiki bus between the air port’s terminals. Not understanding what the person was telling him, he inquired further and found out “wiki” means “quick” in Hawaiian; by repeating the word, it gives additional emphasis and thus means “very quick”.
Later, Cunningham was looking for a suitable name for his new web platform. He wanted something that was unique, as he wasn’t copying any existing medium, so something simple like how email was named after “mail” wouldn’t work. He eventually settled on wanting to call it something to the effect of “quick web”, modeling after Microsoft’s “quick basic” name. But he didn’t like the sound of that, so substituted “quick” with the Hawaiian, “wiki wiki”, using the doubled form as it seemed to fit; “…doublings in my application are formatting clues: double carriage return = new paragraph; double single quote = italic; double capitalized word = hyperlink.” The program was also extremely quick, so the “very quick” doubling worked in that sense as well.
The shorter version of the name, calling a wiki just “wiki” instead of “Wiki Wiki” came about because Cunningham’s first implementation of WikiWikiWeb named the original cgi script “wiki”; all lower case and abbreviated in the standard Unix fashion. Thus, the first wiki url was http://c2.com/cgi/wiki. People latched on to this and simply called it a “wiki” instead of a“Wiki Wiki”.
It should also be noted that the proper pronunciation of “wiki” is actually “we-key”, rather than the way most today pronounced it, “wick-ee”. However, given the popularity of the mispronunciation of the word, Cunningham and others have long since stopped trying to correct people on the matter.
If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:
Bonus Facts:
The word “wiki” has been backronymed by many to mean “What I Know Is”.
Wiki was added to the Oxford English Dictionary on March 15, 2007.
The most famous of all wiki’s, Wikipedia, was launched on January 15, 2001. The word got out fast about this fledgling site with grand ambitions through Slashdot and gained a lot of early contributors through Nupedia, which by 2003 was shut down with all its articles being incorporated into Wikipedia.
By the end of 2001, Wikipedia had approximately 20,000 articles written in 18 different languages.
On September 9, 2007, Wikipedia broke a 600 year old record for the largest encyclopedia ever assembled, surpassing 2 million articles. The encyclopedia it surpassed was the Yongle Encyclopedia of 1407.
Wikipedia currently uses the open source software MediaWiki, written by Lee Daniel Crocker, as its platform. This is written in PHP with MySQL as its back end. Originally though, Wikipedia ran on UseModWiki, which was written in Perl by Clifford Adams. Within a year of the launch, they switched to a custom PHP/MySQL platform written by Magnus Manske. Within 6 months after that, they switched to the above MediaWiki with several custom extensions installed.
Wikipedia receives between 25,000-60,000 page requests per second, depending on time of day.
The original wiki, WikiWikiWeb, was added to Cunningham’s Cunningham and Cunningham software consultancy website c2.com on March 25, 1995. This was an add-on to the Portland Pattern Repository.
Cunnigham not only developed the first wiki, but also is a pioneer in program design patterns and Extreme Programming. He currently lives in Beaverton, Oregon and is the chief technology officer for AboutUs.
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The first of six debates among those vying for the Democratic presidential nomination takes place tonight in Las Vegas, a fitting backdrop for such a high-stakes event.
CNN is the host broadcaster and Anderson Cooper is moderating the two-hour event beginning at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner heading into the debate, but Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont has been closing in on her in some key primary states. The pressure on them, and the other candidates, to perform well tonight is high. Here are a few things to watch for:
1. Clinton vs. Sanders
The CNN ads for tonight's event are typical of the cliché that debates are akin to candidates squaring off in a boxing ring. The ads feature Clinton vs. Sanders, barely noting there will be three others on stage. The dynamic between the two leading candidates, facing off in a debate for the first time, will be something to watch.
Sanders boasts that he's never run a negative ad in all of his years in politics and sticks to positive campaigning. So we likely won't see Sanders make any comments about Clinton's face (like Republican hopeful Donald Trump did about his rival Carly Fiorina), or her hair for that matter, but will he attack her record?
Will he be tough on her? Accuse her of flip-flopping on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal? Denounce her judgment in using a personal email account while secretary of state and causing a scandal? Sanders might be more inclined to let the other candidates do that for him, but maybe not.
Whether Clinton goes after Sanders or leaves him alone will also be something to watch.
She's said little about him in the campaign so far, preferring to state what she's for and against and not talk about his positions. During the debate she will need to emphasize their differences and argue why her ideas are better, but without looking like she's going too hard on him. She doesn't want to turn off his supporters because she needs to appeal to the base of support that he's been building. She won't be able to do that if she comes off like a conceited know-it-all.
2. The other candidates
Yes, there are other people running besides Clinton and Sanders, but they are struggling for attention.
Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland, is among the candidates struggling for national attention in the Democratic presidential nomination race. (Charlie Riedel/Associated Press) That's why the stakes are especially high tonight for Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb. They get a prime-time, national television audience and they have to make the most of it. This is their chance to introduce themselves to voters across the country, and the pressure is on to avoid gaffes and to stand out from their competitors.
O'Malley is the former governor of Maryland, Webb is a former Virginia senator and Chafee is a former senator and governor in Rhode Island. These are experienced politicians who should be confident on a debate stage. Watch for whether they take advantage of this opportunity to remind the country that they are in the race.
3. Running against Obama
It's easy for Republicans to criticize President Barack Obama and his policies, but Democrats have to be more delicate in how they go about it. They want to keep the White House in their party's hands, of course, so they don't want to bash him too badly. However, they need to tell Americans what they would do differently and why.
Watch for how they distance themselves from the president. Clinton is in an especially awkward position to do this because she was part of Obama's administration as secretary of state. She's already set herself apart from him on some issues, the recently negotiated TPP being a big one. Watch how she does that during the debate, and whether she moves farther away on more issues.
4. Will Joe Biden show up?
Vice-President Joe Biden is considering joining the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press) The vice-president is mulling whether to join the race and he is nearing a decision. Some pundits say his heart wants him to go for it, but his head may be telling him otherwise, particularly because he is grieving the death of his son Beau from cancer a few months ago. If Biden does decide to challenge Clinton, he's not likely to announce it by walking out on stage tonight at the debate, although CNN has said they would let him join the festivities.
Even if Biden doesn't physically show up, his presence could still be felt. Some say Biden might be motivated to seek the nomination because Clinton isn't doing as well as everyone expected. The popular vice-president could act like a saviour for the Democrats by trying to ensure the White House stays in their hands. Clinton has to shine tonight to prove to Democratic voters that they don't need Biden to come to the rescue. |
The Conservative government is refusing to close the door to reappointing Justice Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court of Canada, a move that would pit the government against the country's top judges.
On Friday, the Supreme Court resoundingly rejected Prime Minister Stephen Harper's choice of the 64-year-old, semi-retired judge for one of its three Quebec seats. Mr. Harper had asked the court for an advisory opinion after the appointment was challenged in October, first by Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati, and then by the Quebec National Assembly.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that he is not eligible because he lacks current standing before the Quebec bar, or membership on a senior Quebec court, as required by the Supreme Court Act. The principle of special rules for Quebec appointments is so important it has the protection of the Canadian Constitution, and cannot be changed without unanimous consent, the court said.
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In two statements since then, one from the Prime Minister's Office on Friday, and one from the parliamentary secretary to the Justice Minister on Sunday, the government suggested that finding a quick way to make Justice Nadon eligible for the Supreme Court is a possibility.
"I think all the options are on the table. The Prime Minister will be looking at those," MP Bob Dechert said on Global TV's The West Block when asked about the possibility of trying to get the 64-year-old judge appointed to the Supreme Court through other means.
Those other means could include appointing him to the Quebec Superior Court through an Order in Council, which would probably take just one day, and then appointing him to the Supreme Court the next day, legal experts say. "They're into a real combat of the two branches at that point," Peter Russell, a leading authority on the court whose writing was cited in the majority ruling, said in an interview. "It isn't just the so-called liberal judges; it's a majority of judges that they would be trying to beat down."
However, Justice Nadon may be feeling chastened – or even "humiliated and embarrassed," as retired judge John Gomery, a former colleague, suggested over the weekend – and may not wish to be put through another fight.
"This isn't really up to politicians," Paul Daly, a law professor at the University of Montreal, said in an interview. "It's up to Justice Nadon. He has a great job at the Federal Court of Appeal. He has a choice between seeing out his career there or continuing the circus that this may become." Justice Nadon is not commenting publicly, said his lawyer, Reynold Langlois.
The nearest precedent occurred in the 1930s when U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt publicly threatened to expand the U.S. Supreme Court to 15 judges, after that court struck down some of his New Deal legislation, he said. "Roosevelt had his whole legislative program at stake. What's at stake for Harper here is just saving his face."
Paul Slansky, a Toronto lawyer who alongside Mr. Galati also challenged the appointment of Justice Nadon, said in an interview he expects they would contest any attempt to reappoint him. Such a challenge would likely drag on for years in the courts, and the government is unlikely to have the "stomach" to try to expedite matters by asking the Supreme Court once again for an advisory opinion, Prof. Daly said.
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Even if Justice Nadon makes it onto the Supreme Court without a legal challenge, a lawyer could seek to have that court rule that he is ineligible to hear a case. "Would the PM risk the Supreme Court having to deal with a challenge to Justice Nadon's entitlement to sit in the very first case to which he was assigned?" asked McGill University professor emeritus Roderick Macdonald.
"And when faced with such a situation, I think the SCC might well decide that sections 5 and 6 [which set out qualifications for judges in the Supreme Court Act] are meant to reflect basic constitutional values about the nature of the Supreme Court, and that to treat them as nothing more than technical barriers is to mistake the nature of a constitution."
The nine-member court has been shorthanded for seven months, its longest period since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect in 1982. Mr. Dechert also said the governments want to have a full complement on the Supreme Court as soon as possible.
A dispute over Justice Nadon's reappointment would play out during a Quebec election in which separation is a pivotal issue. Any attempt to circumvent the court's ruling "will add fuel to the fire of the Quebec election," Prof. Daly said. "I can't see how that's in the interest of Mr. Harper, who cares about a strong and united Canada." |
Read "97 Things Every Programmer Should Know" for more software engineering tips.
Even the smartest folks have room to grow. The following excerpts are contained in the book 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know edited by Kevlin Henney.
Question your own assumptions and the assumptions of others. Tools from different vendors might have different assumptions built into them so too might different tools from the same vendor. When someone else is reporting a problem you cannot duplicate, go and see what they are doing. They may be doing something you never thought of or are doing something in a different order. My personal rule is that if I have a bug I can’t pin down, and I’m starting to think it’s the compiler, then it’s time to look for stack corruption. This is especially true if adding trace code makes the problem move around. Multithreaded problems are another source of bugs that turn hair gray and induce screaming at the machine. All the recommendations to favor simple code are multiplied when a system is multithreaded. Debugging and unit tests cannot be relied on to find such bugs with any consistency, so simplicity of design is paramount. So, before you rush to blame the compiler, remember Sherlock Holmes’s advice, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” and opt for it over Dirk Gently’s, “Once you eliminate the improbable, whatever remains, no matter how impossible, must be the truth.” —Allan Kelly
We live in interesting times. As development gets distributed across the globe, you learn there are lots of people capable of doing your job. You need to keep learning to stay marketable. Otherwise you’ll become a dinosaur, stuck in the same job until, one day, you’ll no longer be needed or your job gets outsourced to some cheaper resource. So what do you do about it? Some employers are generous enough to provide training to broaden your skill set. Others may not be able to spare the time or money for any training at all. To play it safe, you need to take responsibility for your own education. Here’s a list of ways to keep you learning. Many of these can be found on the Internet for free: Read books, magazines, blogs, Twitter feeds, and websites. If you want to go deeper into a subject, consider joining a mailing list or newsgroup.
If you really want to get immersed in a technology, get hands on—write some code.
Always try to work with a mentor, as being the top guy can hinder your education. Although you can learn something from anybody, you can learn a whole lot more from someone smarter or more experienced than you. If you can’t find a mentor, consider moving on.
Use virtual mentors. Find authors and developers on the Web who you really like and read everything they write. Subscribe to their blogs.
Get to know the frameworks and libraries you use. Knowing how something works makes you know how to use it better. If they’re open source, you’re really in luck. Use the debugger to step through the code to see what’s going on under the hood. You’ll get to see code written and reviewed by some really smart people.
Whenever you make a mistake, fix a bug, or run into a problem, try to really understand what happened. It’s likely that someone else ran into the same problem and posted it on the Web. Google is really useful here.
A good way to learn something is to teach or speak about it. When people are going to listen to you and ask you questions, you’ll be highly motivated to learn. Try a lunch-‘n’-learn at work, a user group, or a local conference.
Join or start a study group (à la patterns community) or a local user group for a language, technology, or discipline you are interested in.
Go to conferences. And if you can’t go, many conferences put their talks online for free.
Long commute? Listen to podcasts.
Ever run a static analysis tool over the codebase or look at the warnings in your IDE? Understand what they’re reporting and why.
Follow the advice of the Pragmatic Programmers* and learn a new language every year. At least learn a new technology or tool. Branching out gives you new ideas you can use in your current technology stack.
Not everything you learn has to be about technology. Learn the domain you’re working in so you can better understand the requirements and help solve the business problem. Learning how to be more productive—how to work better—is another good option.
Go back to school. It would be nice to have the capability that Neo had in The Matrix, and simply download the information we need into our brains. But we don’t, so it will take a time commitment. You don’t have to spend every waking hour learning. A little time—say, each week—is better than nothing. There is (or should be) a life outside of work. Technology changes fast. Don’t get left behind. —Clint Shank
Everyone with industry experience has undoubtedly worked on a project where the codebase was precarious at best. The system is poorly factored, and changing one thing always manages to break another unrelated feature. Whenever a module is added, the coder’s goal is to change as little as possible, and hold his breath during every release. This is the software equivalent of playing Jenga with I-beams in a skyscraper, and is bound for disaster. The reason that making changes is so nerve-racking is because the system is sick. It needs a doctor, otherwise its condition will only worsen. You already know what is wrong with your system, but you are afraid of breaking the eggs to make your omelet. A skilled surgeon knows that cuts have to be made in order to operate, but she also knows that the cuts are temporary and will heal. The end result of the operation is worth the initial pain, and the patient should heal to a better state than he was in before the surgery.
Don’t be afraid of your code. Who cares if something gets temporarily broken while you move things around? A paralyzing fear of change is what got your project into this state to begin with. Investing the time to refactor will pay for itself several times over the lifecycle of your project. An added benefit is that your team’s experience dealing with the sick system makes you all experts in knowing how it should work. Apply this knowledge rather than resent it. Working on a system you hate is not how anybody should have to spend his time. Redefine internal interfaces, restructure modules, refactor copy-pasted code, and simplify your design by reducing dependencies. You can significantly reduce code complexity by eliminating corner cases, which often result from improperly coupled features. Slowly transition the old structure into the new one, testing along the way. Trying to accomplish a large refactor in “one big shebang” will cause enough problems to make you consider abandoning the whole effort midway through.
Be the surgeon who isn’t afraid to cut out the sick parts to make room for healing. The attitude is contagious and will inspire others to start working on those cleanup projects they’ve been putting off. Keep a “hygiene” list of tasks that the team feels are worthwhile for the general good of the project. Convince management that even though these tasks may not produce visible results, they will reduce expenses and expedite future releases. Never stop caring about the general “health” of the code.
—Mike Lewis
The single most important trait of a professional programmer is personal responsibility. Professional programmers take responsibility for their career, their estimates, their schedule commitments, their mistakes, and their workmanship. A professional programmer does not pass that responsibility off on others. If you are a professional, then you are responsible for your own career. You are responsible for reading and learning. You are responsible for staying up to date with the industry and the technology. Too many programmers feel that it is their employer’s job to train them. Sorry, this is just dead wrong. Do you think doctors behave that way? Do you think lawyers behave that way? No, they train themselves on their own time, and their own nickel. They spend much of their off-hours reading journals and decisions. They keep themselves up to date. And so must we. The relationship between you and your employer is spelled out nicely in your employment contract. In short: your employer promises to pay you, and you promise to do a good job. Professionals take responsibility for the code they write. They do not release code unless they know it works. Think about that for a minute. How can you possibly consider yourself a professional if you are willing to release code that you are not sure of? Professional programmers expect QA to find nothing because they don’t release their code until they’ve thoroughly tested it. Of course, QA will find some problems, because no one is perfect. But as professionals, our attitude must be that we will leave nothing for QA to find. Professionals are team players. They take responsibility for the output of the whole team, not just their own work. They help one another, teach one another, learn from one another, and even cover for one another when necessary. When one teammate falls down, the others step in, knowing that one day they’ll be the ones to need cover. Professionals do not tolerate big bug lists. A huge bug list is sloppy. Systems with thousands of issues in the issue-tracking database are tragedies of carelessness. Indeed, in most projects, the very need for an issue-tracking system is a symptom of carelessness. Only the very biggest systems should have bug lists so long that automation is required to manage them. Professionals do not make a mess. They take pride in their workmanship. They keep their code clean, well structured, and easy to read. They follow agreed-upon standards and best practices. They never, ever rush. Imagine that you are having an out-of-body experience watching a doctor perform open-heart surgery on you. This doctor has a deadline (in the literal sense). He must finish before the heart-lung bypass machine damages too many of your blood cells. How do you want him to behave? Do you want him to behave like the typical software developer, rushing and making a mess? Do you want him to say, “I’ll go back and fix this later”? Or do you want him to hold carefully to his disciplines, taking his time, confident that his approach is the best approach he can reasonably take. Do you want a mess, or professionalism? Professionals are responsible. They take responsibility for their own careers. They take responsibility for making sure their code works properly. They take responsibility for the quality of their workmanship. They do not abandon their principles when deadlines loom. Indeed, when the pressure mounts, professionals hold ever tighter to the disciplines they know are right. —Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob)
The value of testing is something that is drummed into software developers from the early stages of their programming journey. In recent years, the rise of unit testing, test-driven development, and agile methods has attested to a surge of interest in making the most of testing throughout all phases of the development cycle. However, testing is just one of many tools that you can use to improve the quality of code. Back in the mists of time, when C was still a new phenomenon, CPU time and storage of any kind were at a premium. The first C compilers were mindful of this and so cut down on the number of passes through the code they made by removing some semantic analyses. This meant that the compiler checked for only a small subset of the bugs that could be detected at compile time. To compensate, Stephen Johnson wrote a tool called lint—which removes the fluff from your code—that implemented some of the static analyses that had been removed from its sister C compiler. Static analysis tools, however, gained a reputation for giving large numbers of false-positive warnings and warnings about stylistic conventions that aren’t always necessary to follow. The current landscape of languages, compilers, and static analysis tools is very different. Memory and CPU time are now relatively cheap, so compilers can afford to check for more errors. Almost every language boasts at least one tool that checks for violations of style guides, common gotchas, and sometimes cunning errors that can be hard to catch, such as potential null pointer dereferences. The more sophisticated tools, such as Splint for C or Pylint for Python, are configurable, meaning that you can choose which errors and warnings the tool emits with a configuration file, via command-line switches, or in your IDE. Splint will even let you annotate your code in comments to give it better hints about how your program works. If all else fails, and you find yourself looking for simple bugs or standards violations that are not caught by your compiler, IDE, or lint tools, then you can always roll your own static checker. This is not as difficult as it might sound. Most languages, particularly ones branded dynamic, expose their abstract syntax tree and compiler tools as part of their standard library. It is well worth getting to know the dusty corners of standard libraries that are used by the development team of the language you are using, as these often contain hid-den gems that are useful for static analysis and dynamic testing. For example, the Python standard library contains a disassembler which tells you the bytecode used to generate some compiled code or code object. This sounds like an obscure tool for compiler writers on the python-dev team, but it is actually surprisingly useful in everyday situations. One thing this library can disassemble is your last stack trace, giving you feedback on exactly which bytecode instruction threw the last uncaught exception. So, don’t let testing be the end of your quality assurance—take advantage of analysis tools, and don’t be afraid to roll your own. —Sarah Mount
So often, we write code in isolation and that code reflects our personal interpretation of a problem, as well as a very personalized solution. We may be part of the team, yet we are isolated, as is the team. We forget all too easily that this code created in isolation will be executed, used, extended, and relied upon by others. It is easy to overlook the social side of software creation. Creating software is a technical exercise mixed into a social exercise. We just need to lift our heads more often to realize that we are not working in isolation, and we have shared responsibility for increasing the probability of success for everyone, not just the development team. You can write good-quality code in isolation, all the while lost in self. From one perspective, that is an egocentric approach (not ego as in arrogant, but ego as in personal). It is also a Zen view and it is about you, in that moment of creating code. I always try to live in the moment because it helps me get closer to good quality, but then I live in my moment. What about the moment of my team? Is my moment the same as the team’s moment? In Zulu, the philosophy of Ubuntu is summed up as “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu,” which roughly translates to “A person is a person through (other) persons.” I get better because you make me better through your good actions. The flip side is that you get worse at what you do when I am bad at what I do. Among developers, we can narrow it down to “A developer is a developer through (other) developers.” If we take it down to the metal, then “Code is code through (other) code.” The quality of the code I write affects the quality of the code you write. What if my code is of poor quality? Even if you write very clean code, it is at the points where you use my code that your code quality will degrade to close to the quality of my code. You can apply many patterns and techniques to limit the damage, but the damage has already been done. I have caused you to do more than what you needed to do, simply because I did not think about you when I was living in my moment. I may consider my code to be clean, but I can still make it better just by Ubuntu coding. What does Ubuntu code look like? It looks just like good, clean code. It is not about the code, the artifact. It is about the act of creating that artifact. Coding for your friends, with Ubuntu, will help your team live your values and reinforce your principles. The next person that touches your code, in whatever way, will be a better person and a better developer. Zen is about the individual. Ubuntu is about Zen for a group of people. Very, very rarely do we create code for ourselves alone. —Aslam Khan
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out that good programmers write good code. Bad programmers…don’t. They produce monstrosities that the rest of us have to clean up. You want to write the good stuff, right? You want to be a good programmer. Good code doesn’t pop out of thin air. It isn’t something that happens by luck when the planets align. To get good code, you have to work at it. Hard. And you’ll only get good code if you actually care about good code. Good programming is not born from mere technical competence. I’ve seen highly intellectual programmers who can produce intense and impressive algorithms, who know their language standard by heart, but who write the most awful code. It’s painful to read, painful to use, and painful to modify. I’ve seen more humble programmers who stick to very simple code, but who write elegant and expressive programs that are a joy to work with. Based on my years of experience in the software factory, I’ve concluded that the real difference between adequate programmers and great programmers is this: attitude. Good programming lies in taking a professional approach, and wanting to write the best software you can, within the real-world constraints and pressures of the software factory. The code to hell is paved with good intentions. To be an excellent programmer, you have to rise above good intentions, and actually care about the code—foster positive perspectives and develop healthy attitudes. Great code is carefully crafted by master artisans, not thoughtlessly hacked out by sloppy programmers or erected mysteriously by self-professed coding gurus. —Pete Goodliffe |
Disused Mine, Brakpan, 2009
Brakpan is a small town that lies on the East Rand of Gauteng, sandwiched between Boksburg, Benoni and Springs. A once-prosperous mining community, today there are pawnshops, roadhouses, mechanics, mini casinos and other day-to-day shops lining the two main roads that slice through the town. Brakpan is like going back in time; so many aspects of the town remind me of old images I have seen of South Africa. Despite all the changes in nearby Johannesburg, Brakpan still goes about its business in much the same way it did before. There is a lack of modern development. You don’t see Tuscan townhouse complexes or buildings with glass facades. It’s all very simple and straight forward – almost transparent, and this transparency can be seen in the people too. You won’t find any airs or graces, no fancy cappuccino shops, sushi cafes or organic goods in Brakpan.
The town does not seem to have benefited from its gold rush glory days, which spanned between 1911 until the mid 1950’s, and it now has very little to show for its’ past. Today, the once flourishing mining town only pulls out a small portion of gold compared to what it used to generate, and some disused gold mines now only sell rubble.
1. Down Town Sports Bar, Elliot Road, Brakpan, 2008 Jesus Festival, Voortrekker Road, Brakpan, 2009 Mr and Mrs Brakpan, Beauty Competition, Town Hall, Brakpan, 2009 Kubus at home, Prince George Avenue, Brakpan, 2010 Gerda and Chad, Brakpan, 2009 Gerda and Evona, Minnebrom, Brakpan, 2009 Die Arend School Fete, Brakpan, 2009 Waterval Avenue, Flemingo Ridge, Brakpan, 2008 Enzo, Brakpan, 2011 Atlantic Disco, Voortrekker Road, Brakpan, 2009
A second factor that has contributed to Brakpan’s sense of preservation is the development of Carnival Mall and Casino, which conveniently lies just off the highway a few kilometers away from Brakpan Central. All the major chains and retail shops have moved to the mall and, as a result, the town centre has been left untouched and undeveloped, stunting it economically and leaving its inhabitants with little opportunities.
And yet there are many faces to modern Brakpan. Young girls push prams while karaoke competition winners don’t get their promised prizes. Pirated DVD’s get sold on the streets, crippling the nearby video shops that rent out older movies. There is a sense of nostalgia that remains and is reflected in the buildings and in the people. This is a place where you can still enjoy school and church fete’s, rugby matches, old bars, sokkie jols, biker rallies, fishing and braaiing at the Brakpan Dam; all of which are a part of the local’s lives.
Here there is a peacefulness and relaxed country town feel, without the stress about what tomorrow may bring. The people of Brakpan live in the now but are still bound by the constraints of the past.
The images presented here are printed on Multigrade V1 FB Fibre matt photographic paper. Exhibition prints are 40cm by 40cm in size in an edition of 10.
Herbert, PQS Factory Clearers, Voortrekker Road, Brakpan, 2008 Derick, Brakpan Dam, Brakpan, 2008 Nicoline at her baby shower, Minnabrom, Brakpan, South Africa, 2010 DJ. Sokkie Jol, Brakpan Town Hall, 2008. Kenny, Bafana Bafana Sports Bar, Brakpan, 2010 Jane and Buks, Brakpan Dam, Brakpan, 2009 Brakpan Water Polo Team, Brakpan, South Africa, 2010 Villie and James, Blue Bulls Supporters, Brakpan, South Africa, 2009 Casbah Roadhouse, Prince George Avenue, Brakpan, 2008 Lucy, Mr and Mrs Brakpan, Beauty Competition, Town Hall, Brakpan, 2009 Wenners, Brakpan Mall, Brakpan, 2011 Elsie, Brakpan Anti Waste, Brakpan, 2008
Bio
Marc Shoul lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born in 1975 in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa and graduated (with honors in photography) from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 1999. Since then, he has had several exhibitions of his work including group shows at the Arts Association of Bellville, Fusion (1999), Artscape, Mental Health, (2001) Cape Town, Month of Photography, Detour, (2002), Cape Town, Photo ZA, Obsess (2004) and Resolution Gallery, Faces (2008) in Johannesburg as well as at the World Health Organization TB exhibition in India (2004). Solo exhibitions of ‘Beyond Walmer’ were held by the Association of Visual Arts Gallery in Cape Town (2000) and Natal Society of Arts, Durban (2001). “Flatlands” a solo exhibition was also held at the Association of Visual Arts in Cape Town (2009) with help from the National Arts Council. Shoul was also featured in the AGFA Youth International Photojournalism Publication 1999. He also reached the finals of the Absa L’Atelier 2009. Flatlands showed at KZNSA in Durban, South Africa and Galerie Quai 1 in Vevey, Switzerland in 2010. Shoul was invited to hold a workshop at the Vevey School of Photography on the 2010. Shoul was also been included in After A at the Report Atri Festival, Italy, June 2010 curated by Federica Angelucci. Beyond Walmer is on show at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum June-August 2010. Brakpan (work in progress),Shoul has also been included in the Bonaini Africa 2010 Festival of Photography, Cape Town Castle of Good Hope and Museum Africa, Johannesburg. Brakpan (work in progress) was included in 10 a group exhibition at the PhotoMarket Workshop, Johannesburg, 2010. Brakpan in 2011 won the 1st prize at the Winephoto.
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum added “Beyond Walmer” to its permanent collection (2007).
For the last ten years, Marc has worked for various local and international magazines such as Time, Colors, Wired, Blueprint, Dazed and Confused, Design Indaba, World Health Organization, Mother Jones, Stern, Gala, De Spiegel, Financial Times Magazine, Monocle, Smithsonian and The Telegraph Magazine, He has also shot for many advertising clients and agencies.
He has recently completed a project named ‘Flatlands’ in the Johannesburg inner city. He is now working on a new body of work in Brakpan on the East Rand where he is exploring the city’s way of life and its people.
He is interested in exploring theams of social relevance and changes within his country and further a field.
Shoul works largely in black and white, using a medium format film camera and natural light printed on Fiber photographic paper.
Related links
Marc Shoul |
Ontology2: the Real Semantics Book
Table of Contents | Ontology2 home page
RDF: a new slant
Too Many Data Formats
All of the time we need to feed a computer program a few facts, and traditionally that involves working with property files, XML, JSON, YAML, CSV, etc. Once a system gets complex and anywhere near the "enterprise" scale, having many different file formats for configuration, reference data, and for specifying the work done by the system becomes a source of stress for it's operators.
Once the job is specified, the program needs to consume and produce data which made be provided through various formats and APIs. The need to translate data from one format to another again and again gets in the way of using a wide range of powerful tools, such as logical inference, machine learning and hybrid systems that seek and find the reality behind data in the real world.
Real Semantics talks all kinds of data formats, but it sees them all using a single data model called RDF/K, an extension of the RDF schema language. Let's suppose you want to state a few facts about the world -- we suggest you write a Turtle file. Turtle is unbeatable for writing facts by hand, and thinking through Turtle will help you make a mental model of what RDF/K is and what it can do.
Capturing a business record
While developing our Legal Entity Identifier site, we captured a data record from an XML file. The system wrote this data as a Turtle file and we included this file in the unit tests so we have certainty this record is correctly processed no matter what changes are made to the code.
Using a single data model (RDF/K) means we need just a single mechanism to capture what facts the system believes at intermediate stages of inference, calculation, or decision. This extreme traceability, available when required, costless when not, is one of many unique features of Real Semantics that are necessary for compliance with the tough BCBS 239 standard in both normal times and crisis. (Who needs the stress of cleaning data in a crisis?)
This example is a simple business entity record from the Legal Entity Identifier system:
@prefix lei: <http://rdf.legalentityidentifer.info/vocab/> . @prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> . [] a lei:LegalEntity , lei:ConformantIdentifier ; lei:BusinessRegistryIdentifier "" ; lei:BusinessRegistryName "N/A" ; lei:EntityLegalForm "OTHER" ; lei:EntityStatusCode "ACTIVE" ; lei:HeadquarterAddress1 "C/O C T Corporation System"; lei:HeadquarterAddress2 "155 Federal Street" ; lei:HeadquarterAddress3 "Suite 700" ; lei:HeadquarterCity "Boston" ; lei:HeadquarterCountryCode "US" ; lei:HeadquarterPostalCode "02110" ; lei:HeadquarterRegion "US-MA" ; lei:LEIAssignmentDate "2013-05-24T09:30:20.883Z"^^xsd:dateTime ; lei:LEINextRenewalDate "2016-05-04T09:01:27.494Z"^^xsd:dateTime ; lei:LEIRecordLastUpdate "2015-05-07T01:52:22.058Z"^^xsd:dateTime ; lei:LEIStatusCode "ISSUED" ; lei:LOUID "EVK05KS7XY1DEII3R011" ; lei:LegalEntityIdentifier "549300I00FSB0O13VI67" ; lei:LegalJurisdiction "US" ; lei:RegisteredAddress1 "C/O C T Corporation System" ; lei:RegisteredAddress2 "155 Federal Street" ; lei:RegisteredAddress3 "Suite 700" ; lei:RegisteredCity "Boston" ; lei:RegisteredCountryCode "US"; lei:RegisteredName "BlackRock Funds - BlackRock Short Obligations Fund" ; lei:RegisteredPostalCode "02110" ; lei:RegisteredRegion "US-MA" ; lei:ValidationSources "FULLY_CORROBORATED" .
if you squint while you look at it, you might see things in common with many popular data formats. You should, because Turtle is closely related to many common data formats.
Spreadsheets and Relational Databases: Like a relational database, TSV, or spreadsheet, this record holds a set of data fields that can be seen as columns. In this record, all of the properties except one (the a property) are used just once; once we've decided which table this row comes from, the conversion between RDF and relational is rote and mechanical. With the SPARQL query language, you can write SQL-like queries against data that is relational in structure.
Like a relational database, TSV, or spreadsheet, this record holds a set of data fields that can be seen as columns. In this record, all of the properties except one (the property) are used just once; once we've decided which this row comes from, the conversion between RDF and relational is rote and mechanical. With the SPARQL query language, you can write SQL-like queries against data that is relational in structure. JSON: Beyond the relational model, JSON can represent situations where there is more than one data value associated with a property and also where objects are nested inside other objects. In relational systems, conceptual entities, say, a customer, are represented as a number of relational tables such as customer , linked to multiple instances of order , in turn linked to multiple instances of line_item . It's a pain to write such joins manually, compared to working with nested JSON-style structures.
Beyond the relational model, JSON can represent situations where there is more than one data value associated with a property and also where objects are nested inside other objects. In relational systems, conceptual entities, say, a customer, are represented as a number of relational tables such as , linked to multiple instances of , in turn linked to multiple instances of . It's a pain to write such joins manually, compared to working with nested JSON-style structures. XML: In the big picture, JSON and XML documents are structurally similar. The major difference is that XML is more formalized in a number of ways. The good news is that RDF inherits, builds on, and improves upon many of the features of XML, including:
In the big picture, JSON and XML documents are structurally similar. The major difference is that XML is more formalized in a number of ways. The good news is that RDF inherits, builds on, and improves upon many of the features of XML, including: Namespaces: Some kind of Namespace support is essential if we wish to combine facts, information, text and code from a wide range of sources, because otherwise it would be impossible to separate all of the different names used by different organizations for different things. With namespaces, we can make tools that manipulate data, driven by predicates and facts in a certain namespace while being transparent and oblivious to facts in other namespaces. (In our case, namespaces are specified with the @prefix construction above.)
Some kind of Namespace support is essential if we wish to combine facts, information, text and code from a wide range of sources, because otherwise it would be impossible to separate all of the different names used by different organizations for different things. With namespaces, we can make tools that manipulate data, driven by predicates and facts in a certain namespace while being transparent and oblivious to facts in other namespaces. (In our case, namespaces are specified with the construction above.)
Literal data types: the XML schema specification defines a rich set of data types including the string and numeric data types used in JSON as well as date and time types that are missing from JSON. Most importantly, XML and RDF support the xsd:decimal type, which is suitable for monetary quantities, something that the floating point numbers in JSON are not suitable for. You can create your own primitive types, in your own namespace, in case you need something extra.
the XML schema specification defines a rich set of data types including the string and numeric data types used in JSON as well as date and time types that are missing from JSON. Most importantly, XML and RDF support the xsd:decimal type, which is suitable for monetary quantities, something that the floating point numbers in JSON are suitable for. You can create your own primitive types, in your own namespace, in case you need something extra. Object-oriented: The mapping between object oriented languages and relational databases has been called "The Vietnam of Computer Science" The mapping between RDF and idiomatic Java works much better; this translation is made possible by the flexibility of RDF, and realized by RDF/K, a schema language similar to RDFS and OWL, but that closes the gap with data representations frequently used in practice. In this chapter, we will demonstrate the connection between RDF data and Java objects, because this is essential to how Real Semantics is built.
The mapping between object oriented languages and relational databases has been called "The Vietnam of Computer Science" The mapping between RDF and idiomatic Java works much better; this translation is made possible by the flexibility of RDF, and realized by RDF/K, a schema language similar to RDFS and OWL, but that closes the gap with data representations frequently used in practice. In this chapter, we will demonstrate the connection between RDF data and Java objects, because this is essential to how Real Semantics is built. Prepositional Logic The [] operator defines a blank node, which is a statement that "there exists some ?x such that the following is true", also known as the existential qualifier. Easy access to blank nodes is core to the Turtle language, meaning you can build the structures you'd build in JSON, LISP and other languages fully. Prepositional logic also allows logical inference; at the very top of the record above you see that the record is a lei:ConformantIdentifier which was inferred because logical rules established that the format of the identifier was correct.
Nested and Ordered Structures in RDF and Java
Here is another example:
@prefix : <http://example.com/appliances> . @prefix dbpedia: <http://dbpedia.org/resource/> [ a :WashingMachine,:FrontLoadingWashingMachine ; :capacity 4.8 ; :supportedVoltages 120, 240 ; :phases ( "Soak" "Wash" "Rinse" "Spin" ) ; :energyCostEstimate [ :source dbpedia:United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency ; :hotWaterSource "electric" ; :annualEstimatedCost 16.00 ], [ :source dbpedia:United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency ; :hotWaterSource "natural gas" ; :annualEstimatedCost 14.00 ] ]
Note that Turtle parser is not aware of schemas, vocabularies, and so forth. It takes the code you enter, and turns it into a graph, without validation that you are using the correct facts in the right way. That's fine, because a schema for RDF/K, a K-Schema, expresses the allowable vocabulary and structures and can be used to validate data and/or groom it to a standard. For now, I'm not using a schema, and I'm just coining names in the <http://example.com/> namespace because that's simple.
If you wanted to express these data in the Java programming language, you'd probably imagine a class that looks something like:
public class WashingMachine { Float capacity; Set<Integer> supportedVoltages; List<String> phases; Set<EnergyCostEstimate> energyCostEstimate; }
It takes a tiny amount of metadata to connect that Java class with the RDF written above. One way to do it is to package the metadata with the class in the form of a few Java Annotations:
@Prefix(name = "", uri = "http://example.com/appliances" ) public class WashingMachine { @Property Float capacity; @Property Set<Integer> supportedVoltages; @Property List<String> phases; @Property Set<EnergyCostEstimate> energyCostEstimate; }
The only metadata in this case is (i) the default prefix to map Java names to, and (ii) an assertion that we want to transfer data between a field and RDF. With that in place, we can convert RDF statements above into Java data with the greatest of ease:
@Test public void parseWash() throws InvocationTargetException, IllegalAccessException { WashingMachine m=new WashingMachine(); Resource that=getOnly("http://example.com/appliances/WashingMachine"); configurator.configure(m,that); assertEquals("Set",m.phases.get(0)); assertEquals("Wash",m.phases.get(1)); assertEquals("Rinse",m.phases.get(2)); assertEquals("Spin",m.phases.get(3)); }
in this test case, we find the only record of type :WashingMachine , convert it to a Java object (by creating the WashingMachine() instance and then applying configurator.configure and then we can check that we got the phases of the cycle in the correct order.
This method of annotation is useful for getting data in and out of Java classes that are written with Real Semantics in mind. The mapping is similar to JSON-LD but it works better because List and Set are used widely and exposed through the static typing of the language in contrast to JSON-LD, which adds new concepts for @list and @set . A strong advantage of doing it this way is that all of the parts in one place, so there is no risk of updating the class without updating the metadata.
Real Semantics can also work with Java objects that are not aware of real semantics; as in the above case, it looks at the Java metadata and processes it with rules that recognize common idioms such as Java Beans and sometimes a little bit of additional metadata you supply. Like the Spring framework, Real Semantics can create arbitrary objects configured with data from RDF. RDF reasoning systems, such as the Jena rules language, can do the kind of reasoning that Spring does, but can also reason about that data in different ways to understand, validate or visualize the construction of a system. RDF has the powerful SPARQL query language which lets you immediately apply analytics to anything.
Viewing Java data in RDF
Here is an example of getting data into Real Semantics from classes that were written before Real Semantics. Like most Java large programs, Real Semantics is compiled by the open source Apache Maven system which expresses and documents the physical structure of the program. The documentation generator that builds this book repurposes this information -- the fast track to that is to use the parser built into Maven to convert POM files into MavenProject objects inside Java.
The POM file is an XML document and Real Semantics could ingest it directly as a tree, however, Maven interpolates parameters and implements specific forms of inheritence and inference that let us work with, not the surface structure, but the deep structure Effective POM that controls Maven.
The documentation generator that built this book reads a map of the maven modules that comprise Real Semantics. This process has the following steps:
The first step of the process is that Real Semantics scans the Java introspection metadata about the MavenProject class and converts this into an RDF graph, which gives us a complete and losless model of the classes, fields, and methods built into that class and selected classes it depends on. RealSemantics applies one of several heuristic ruleboxes to automatically generate a mappings from Java to RDF. In this case we uses one that recognizes the "Java Beans" standard. If an existing rulebox is not satisfactory, rules can be overridden or a few mappings could be added manually with a fact patch. Real Semantics generates a set of stub classes and/or objects that implement the transformation.
Because of the intelligence under the hood, you can read the MavenProject object without thinking at all.
Stub<MavenProject> stub=new CreateStub().create(MavenProject.class); MavenProject project = MavenProjectFactory.getMavenProject(pomfile); Model that=stub.toModel(project);
the RDF output you get looks pretty natural:
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> @prefix unq: <http://rdf.ontology2.com/unqualified/> . [ unq:artifactId "javagate" ; unq:description """It will be necessary to import and export data between RDF and objects that were not developed with Real Semantics in mind. This can be done in a remarkably transparent way, given that there are conventions, such as Java Beans, that the system can take advantage of. Javagate converts class metadata from Java into an RDF graph, which can be queried and transformed with rules. From this, it create a Stub object which does the Java to RDF transformation."""^^xsd:string ; unq:groupId "com.ontology2.rdf"; unq:id "com.ontology2.rdf:javagate:jar:1.1-SNAPSHOT"; unq:modelVersion "4.0.0" ; unq:version "1.1-SNAPSHOT"; unq:name "javagate"; unq:packaging "jar" ; unq:modules (); unq:runtimeClasspathElements (); ... many more facts ... ] .
Model.
What does that buy us?
Just above, we used a library in Java (our host language) to extract information from a POM then we import that data into an RDF graph. Our project consists of a number of POM files, so we import them all into an RDF graph. What good is that?
For one thing, we can write queries in the SPARQL language, which is closely related to SQL. The POM files together form a map of the Real Semantics application that is built into this book. Data in hand, we can write the following SPARQL query:
prefix unq: <http://rdf.ontology2.com/unqualified/> select ?id ?name ?description { ?project unq:id ?id . ?project unq:name ?name . OPTIONAL { ?project unq:description ?description .} } ORDER BY ?id
this produces a SPARQL result set exactly similar to a SQL result set that we use to draw a map of RealSemantics, module by module, that is displayed on this page, and of which we'll show you a little sample here:
docminister Generator and weaver of reports and documentation. Captures documentation about the input data, specifications and software. Take advantage of mechanisms that already exist to express metadata and documentation. This applies both in the area of documenting software like Real Semantics itself, but also in creating a bundle of reports tied with a bow that explain some range of natural or social phenomenon. henson Henson is the Real Semantics component that sconfigure, create and snapshot virtual machines with software and data in a cloud environment. Ensures that Real Semantics can get any computing resources it needs to create decision-making data products java-annotations Sometimes Real Semantics needs to read metadata about software components it uses. For instance, the mogrifier maintains a catalog of components exposed to end users. If code is written post-Real Semantics, it is practical to stick a few Java annotations on the new Java code to express class-level metadata This keeps the metadata bundled with the code, which keeps the metadata in sync. This module also defines a few annotations for defining namespace prefixes which are re-used in the rdfconfig-annotation package which injects class data into RDF
This is the simplest possible example, but it illustrates that once you get data in RDF format, you can (i) write queries against it and (ii) put multiple objects of various kinds in a single graph and write queries against that. Without a universal data model, you are stuck writing queries in different languages such as SQL and XQuery if you are so lucky to have a query language for a particular data format. With RDF, SPARQL, and real semantics, you can write queries against any kind of data.
Ordered Lists in RDF
Two kinds of collections of things are commonly used in computer programs, and these are List and Set . The items of a list are in a definite order, like the authors of a book, but other properties, such as the collection of booksellers who sell the book, are not. Usually, duplicates are eliminated from an unordered collection, which makes it a set.
Two kinds of collections of things are commonly used in computer programs, and these are List and Set . The items of a list are in a definite order, like the authors of a book, but other properties, such as the collection of booksellers who sell the book, are not. Usually, duplicates are eliminated from an unordered collection, which makes it a set.
Set properties have always been used extensively in RDF. Particularly, you can make multiple statements that "some ?subject has ?property with value ?object quite easily:
@prefix : <http://example.com/> :Pool a :GameFamily . :Pool :hasVariant :EightBall . :Pool :hasVariant :NineBall . :Pool :hasVariant :Straight .
and thus define a set of variants of the game of Pool. The graph above has four independent facts written out one at a time. Turtle has a convenient shorthand which is just
@prefix : <http://example.com/> :Pool a :GameFamily ; :hasVariant :EightBall , :NineBall, :Straight .
The semicolon lets you state an entirely new property , while the comma lets you specify multiple objects that share the same subject and property. This collection has Set semantics because you can only enter a fact into the graph once.
Although ordered lists have been a part of RDF standards from the very beginning, they have been a bit out of fashion in the age of "Linked Data", which involves large and complex datasets such as DBpedia. Ordered lists are missing from common SQL implementations, so practically, generations of analysts have learned to work around this about 90% of the time, yet, the special cases that require ordering hold back general solutions baced on legacy technology. Real Semantics, through RDF/K and other features, makes ordered lists easy to work with.
You can write ordered Lists in Turtle exactly the same way you would in LISP.
@prefix : <http://example.com/> (:A :B :C)
This list exists, in itself, apart from any statements that involve it. Really, (:A :B :C) is a name for a blank node such that
@prefix : <http://example.com/> (:A :B :C) rdf:first :A ; rdf:next (:B :C) . (:B :C) rdf:first :B ; rdf:next (:C) . (:C) rdf:first :C ; rdf:next () .
we picture that graph here:
Let's add also that () is rdf:nil . This particular representation is called a "Linked List" and it is quite similar to the LinkedList in Java. Let's fill out a few of the things you can do with this notation.
You can state a fact about a list by using a list on the left side of the predicate, like so:
@prefix : <http://example.com/> ("foo" 75 :something) a :RandomList .
At this point you might be asking, "What am I allowed to put into the list?" and the answer is "anything", at least any kind of RDF Node:
@prefix : <http://example.com/> ( :hello [ :a :Person ; :named "John" ] (:goodbye 3 4))
Here we see members that are URI Resources, such as :hello and :goodbye but in the middle there are some facts about a blank node and the end is another list. This means you can build the same kind of structures you would in JSON, and even write LISP code in Turtle!
( <fn:numeric-add> 2 2 ) .
given, of course an implementation of the eval function that works on the list. Practically, Real Semantics tries as much as it can to hide the mechanics from you, when it is moving data between RDF and some other format, such as Java.
Representing multiple data values in Java
From the viewpoint of Real Semantics, there are three kinds of Java type:
Primitive: this could be a String, Java Primitive (Integer, Boolean) or a type that looks like a primitive such as an OffsetDateTime and would be typically represented by an RDF literal of some kind. Composite: this is a reference to another type which is known to the Real Semantics system; typically an instance of such a type would be described as a set of RDF properties centering around either a URI or a blnak node resource. Collection: certain generic types, such Set<T> and List<T> can be automatically mapped to appropriate RDF structures.
RDF, at a raw level, allows you to use a property any number of times. You are certainly welcome to apply a property exactly once to a subject, like this
@prefix : <http://example.com/> :Orange :red 200 ; :green 200 ; :blue 0 .
and if you want to assign that to a Java class that looks like
class Color { Integer red; Integer green; Integer blue; }
you are in pretty good shape. The Turtle language lets you write:
@prefix : <http://example.com/> :Colour_out_of_Space :red 100,200 ; :green (200 200 200) ; :blue 0 .
in which case there are two values for the red property (without a specific order) and three values for the green property (ordered as a list of three elements.) Either way, you can't stick multiple values in an Integer field, so Real Semantics gives an error message if you tried to make a Color from this data. This is a behavior that RDF/K adds to the RDF standard.
The handling of Set<T> and List<T> is straightforward. By default, Real Semantics is permissive about what you can do. That's good, because we find people are often sloppy in choosing Lists vs. Sets (sometimes they use one while another would do.) If we had a class like
class PolyColor { Set<Integer> red; Set<Integer> green; Set<Integer> blue; Set<Integer> alpha; }
Real Semantics can see the schema implied by the types, and makes the natural transformation, where red is the set [200,100] because order doesn't matter in a set, green is the set [200] because members of sets are unique and blue is the set [0] (we promote a single element to an set or a list that just contains that element and alpha is the empty set [] .
If you assign to a List, something similar happens:
class OrderedColor { List<Integer> red; List<Integer> green; List<Integer> blue; List<Integer> alpha; } |
We guess this is what treasure-hunter Ponce de Leon was looking for when he sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, claiming he found the fountain of youth in Florida.
Miami-Dade County resident Annette Larkins has sent the internet abuzz with her youthful appearance at the ripe age of seventy. That’s right, you read it correctly … 7-0.
She was profiled on NBC-Miami affiliate news program WPTV, showing off her figure, her tight and clear skin, and her robust garden. Every corner of her garden has something that is edible. She also collects rainwater to drink and water her plants.
Annette says the food in her garden is her ‘Fountain of Youth.’
She tells the news program:
“I am very vibrant, I have lots of energy, as I told you before, I am up no later than 5:30 in the morning as a rule, and I am ready to go,” she said.
Ironically, Annette’s long-time husband owned a meat store in the 1960s, which helped her transition into vegetarianism. We wonder what she saw behind the scenes. Yuck!
Years later, she made the ultimate decision and became a raw vegan.
According to Annette, she says she does not eat animal products — her food is unprocessed and uncooked.
“My diet consists of fruits, nuts, vegetables and seeds. I do a lot of sprouting of seeds and as you can see from my garden and of course these are the raw foods that I eat.”
Annette also juices fruits and veggies. She doesn’t play about her fruit and veggies; she juices grapefruits, pineapples, and spinach. But not everyone in the Larkins family eats and drinks this way.
Annette’s husband Amos of almost 54 years chose to continue to eat the way he did when they were first married. “I really wish I would have done what she did,” he said.
Amos says people even wonder if Annette is his wife. “They will ask me ‘what am I doing with a young girl? or they will say ‘you’ve got your granddaughter with you,’ things like that.”
Annette’s husband takes prescription medicines daily for high blood pressure and diabetes. Annette says she does not even take an aspirin.
Annette says because friends and strangers kept asking her questions about her health and youthful appearance, she decided to publish two Journey To Health booklets, and she produced a DVD 12 years ago.
Her husband says she is vibrant person. “She is an amazing person, she does everything. I mean she builds computers, makes all of her own clothes, grows her own food, speak three languages, it’s amazing.”
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In a study done by Carl L. Hart, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University, Hart discovered that d-amphetamine, also known as Adderall, and methamphetamine are “virtually identical.” In other words, taking Adderall is basically the same thing as taking meth.
*Live look at college kids everywhere.*
Here is a transcript from the study.
In our study, we brought 13 men who regularly used methamphetamine into the lab. We gave each of them a hit of methamphetamine, of d-amphetamine, or of placebo on separate days under double-blind conditions. We repeated this many times with each person over several days and multiple doses of each drug. Like d-amphetamine, methamphetamine increased our subjects’ energy and enhanced their ability to focus and concentrate; it also reduced subjective feelings of tiredness and the cognitive disruptions typically brought about by fatigue and/or sleep deprivation. Both drugs increased blood pressure and the rate at which the heart beat. No doubt these are the effects that justify the continued use of d-amphetamine by several nations’ militaries, including our own. And when offered an opportunity to choose either the drugs or varying amounts of money, our subjects chose to take d-amphetamine on a similar number of occasions as they chose to take methamphetamine. These regular methamphetamine users could not distinguish between the two. (It is possible that the methyl group enhances methamphetamine’s lipid-solubility, but this effect appears to be imperceptible to human consumers.) It is also true that the effects of smoking methamphetamine are more intense than those of swallowing a pill containing d-amphetamine. But that increased intensity is due to the route of administration, not the drug itself. Smoking d-amphetamine produces nearly identical intense effects as smoking methamphetamine. The same would be true if the drugs were snorted intranasally.
In other words, you’re screwed if you take Adderall! Ok, no need to overreact just yet. The study clearly says that smoking meth is more intense that swallowing a pill of Adderall so as long as you’re not smoking Adderall (I don’t know what you do in your free time and I don’t care), you’re golden. Plus if your doctor prescribes them to you, I’m going to trust that the doctor is well aware of the effects of Adderall and trusts you to take them properly.
I never know how much to read into those studies. It’s like those viral posts that are supposed to scare you and somehow have an effect on you to stop doing something. “25 Practical Uses For Coca-Cola, Proving You Should Not Drink It.” “10 Reasons Why You Should Stop Eating Hot Dogs.” “7 Reasons Why Cell Phones Are Bad For You Health.” Is that supposed to scare me? You could tell me that hot dogs will kill me by age 50 and I will make sure to add more chili and cheese on the next hot dog I eat. I’m going to continuing drink Coca-cola and use my cell phone. Those are just facts.
The same thing applies to Adderall. If you want to continue to take Adderall, go for it. No one is going to stop you. However, if someone calls you a meth head while taking Adderall, just respond with “I know. Thank you.” Good luck with those exams, college kids! |
A brutal purge of the senior staff at Popular Mechanics preceded the publication of last month's scandalous propaganda piece about 9/11. Pulling the strings is the grand dame of Hearst Magazines and behind the scene is her obscure husband a veteran propaganda expert and former special assistant to the director of the C.I.A. The Reichstag fire, a key event in German history, and the steps that followed en suite leading to the Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, provide remarkable precedents for what occurred in the United States on 9/11 and since. The fire that consumed the German parliament building on the night of February 27, 1933, is widely believed, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, to have been contrived by the newly formed Nazi government to turn public opinion against its opponents and allow it to assume emergency powers. The day after the burning of the Reichstag, the government headed by Adolf Hitler enacted a decree for the Protection of the People and the State. Hitlers emergency decree dispensed with all constitutional protection of political, personal, and property rights. Likewise, a month after 9/11 the U.S. Congress passed, without even reading, similar emergency legislation: the Bush administrations USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. The pre-prepared massive security act's long title is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." Within a month of the Reichstag fire, on March 23, 1933, the parliament passed the Enabling Act, whereby its legislative powers were transferred to Hitler's Reich Cabinet. This act, passed by a vote of 444 to 94, legally sanctioned the Nazi dictatorship, Another parallel is seen in the way George W. Bush and Hitler came to power. Bush obtained the presidency in 2001 through a Supreme Court decision after a flawed and un-counted election, while Hitler secured the German chancellorship through elections in November 1932 in which the Nazi Party failed to win an outright majority. Hitlers propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, is thought to have let arsonists into the parliament building through a tunnel leading from the official residence of Hermann Gvring, Reichstag president and Hitler's chief minister. Gvring then presided over the official investigation, which blamed the communists. In a similar manner, the Bush administration openly opposed an independent investigation of 9/11 and fixed blame on Osama Bin Laden and 19 Arab terrorists. Based on this official, but unproven, explanation for 9/11 the United States has invaded and occupied two Middle Eastern nations. "DISINFORMATION AND DECEPTION" "Ninety-five percent of the work of intelligence agencies around the world is disinformation and deception," Andreas von B|low, former parliamentary official responsible for the budget for Germany's intelligence agencies, told American Free Press in December 2001. Like Nazi Germany of 1933, American newsstands today carry a mainstream magazine dedicated to pushing the government's truth of 9/11 while viciously smearing independent researchers as extremists who peddle fantasies and make poisonous claims. The magazine pushing the government's 9/11 propaganda, Popular Mechanics (PM), is published by the Hearst family. Its March cover story, Debunking 9/11 Lies, has been exposed by credible researchers to contain numerous distortions and flawed conclusions. American Free Press revealed that Benjamin Chertoff, the 25-year-old senior researcher who authored the 9/11 article, is related to Michael Chertoff, the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The PM article illustrates how a propaganda method, used by dictatorships, is now being employed by the U.S. government: controlling mainstream media outlets to promote its version of 9/11. The actions of Michael Chertoff concerning the events of 9/11, the non-investigation that followed, the USA PATRIOT Act, and the propaganda being disseminated in PM, are strikingly similar to actions attributed to the Nazi ministers Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Gvring. While Chertoff is the czar of DHS, he is not sovereign at PM or Hearst Magazines, its corporate parent. The president of Hearst Magazines, one of the world's largest publishers of monthly magazines with 18 U.S. titles and more than 100 international editions, is Cathleen P. Black, a 60-year old native of Chicago. Black oversees the publication of 175 titles around the world including Cosmopolitan, Harpers Bazaar, Town & Country, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, and Popular Mechanics. Black is a former president and publisher of USA Today. In 1983, Black was made president of the new newspaper published by Gannett. The following year she was made publisher and soon became a member of Gannetts board of directors. Despite her efforts, her biography reads, USA Today did not show an operating profit in the eight years that Black was there. The newspaper's non-profitability notwithstanding, Gannett paid Black $600,000 a year for her efforts. USA Today reportedly had a circulation of 1.8 million when Black left in 1991. USA Today is often given away free of charge. Black left USA Today to become president and chief executive of the nascent Newspaper Association of America (NAA), formed on June 1, 1992. She then became the leading spokesperson and lobbyist for the nation's newspaper industry. Black's position at the NAA carried "considerable political heft," Paul Farhi of The Washington Post wrote, "given that the 1,400 members of her organization control the nations editorial pages. In 1995, for an annual salary reported to be "in excess of $1 million," Black was hired by Hearst Corp. to head its magazine division. Named by Fortune magazine as one of the Most Powerful Women in American Business, Black sits on the boards of Hearst Corp., the Advertising Council, IBM, and Coca-Cola. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. It is often said that USA Today is controlled by the CIA, which, like the paper, is based in McLean, Virginia. The little-known fact that Black is married to Thomas E. Harvey, an obscure lawyer who became a White House Fellow in 1977 and served as special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), provides substance to these rumors. Black's corporate biography does not mention her husband. President Jimmy Carter made Harvey a White House Fellow in May 1977. "In that capacity," Harvey's biography reads, he "served as special assistant to the Director of the C.I.A. Following that he held senior appointed positions within the Department of Defense." The DCI at the time was Stansfield Turner, who had replaced George H.W. Bush. Prior to serving the CIA, Harvey worked at the New York law office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. The international law firm, co-founded by Morris Hadley, a 1916 member of Yale University's secret society Skull & Bones, has ties to the CIA and lists William H. Webster, DCI from 1987-1991, as a senior partner. Webster also serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. In the 1980s, Harvey served as General Counsel and Congressional Liaison of the U.S. Information Agency, the former external propaganda arm of the U.S. government. Harvey also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Army and Navy. In 1992, Harvey was personnel director for the Bush-Quayle 92 Campaign. Calls to the offices of Black and Harvey for the purpose of this article went unanswered. THE COUP AT POPULAR MECHANICS In the months leading up to the Chertoff article in PM, a brutal take-over occurred at the magazine. In September 2004, Joe Oldham, the magazines former editor-in-chief was replaced by James B. Meigs, who came to PM with a deputy, Jerry Beilinson, from National Geographic Adventure. In October, a new creative director replaced PMs 21-year veteran who was given ninety minutes to clear out of his office. A former senior editor at PM, who is forbidden from openly discussing the coup at PM, told AFP that the former creative director was abruptly told to leave and given severance pay of two weeks wages for every year spent at PM. Three or four people have been similarly dismissed every month since, he said. He said he was astounded that the coup at PM had not been reported in the mainstream media. PM has long been a supporter of the U.S. military. The magazine ran a full page ad in support of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in May 2003. Since the purge last September, however, PM readers have noticed that government propaganda has replaced scientific writing. A letter to the editor in the current issue says, I think you guys are just another tool in the governments propaganda machine. Finis |
Three days before the official end of the US combat mission in Iraq, US President Barack Obama said on Saturday that the war in the country was “ending” and called Iraq a “sovereign” nation free to determine its own destiny.
“On Tuesday, after more than seven years, the United States of America will end its combat mission in Iraq and take an important step forward in responsibly ending the Iraq war,” Obama said in his weekly radio address.
The president, who spends Saturday his last full vacation day at on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, will cover the issue of Iraq in a nationally-televised address from the Oval Office on Tuesday.
“As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war,” Obama recalled in the address. “As president, that is what I am doing. We have brought home more than 90,000 troops since I took office.”
US troop numbers in Iraq fell below 50,000 last Tuesday in line with Obama’s instructions as part of a “responsible drawdown” of troops, seven years on from the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
American troop levels are now less than a third of the peak figure of around 170,000 during the US military “surge” of 2007, when Iraq was in the midst of a brutal Shiite-Sunni sectarian war that cost thousands of lives.
But more than 4,400 US servicemen and women have lost their lives in this war since it began in 2003, according to an AFP count based on data from www.icasualties.org, an independent website.
According to promises given by the US president, the US combat mission in Iraq will officially end on August 31. The remaining US troops, who will have a support and training mission, are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2011.
“But the bottom line is this: the war is ending,” Obama pointed out. “Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course. And by the end of next year, all of our troops will be home.”
The president also used his address to call on Americans to honor those who have served in Iraq by sending them messages via such social networking Internet sites as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr or Twitter.
A strong critic of the war, Obama has always drawn a distinction between former Republican president George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and the daily fights US soldiers were waging in the country.
Addressing disabled veterans in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this month, Obama noted that the Iraq war had sparked a vigorous debate in the country and that there were American patriots both in favor of and against the war.
But “what this new generation of veterans must know is this: our nation’s commitment to all who wear its uniform is a sacred trust that is as old as our republic itself,” the president said Saturday. “It is one that, as president, I consider a moral obligation to uphold.”
He said his administration was modernizing and expanding veterans’ hospitals and health care system, and adapting care to better meet the needs of veterans.
This video is from the White House, published Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010. |
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A 21-year-old man from Oxford has been charged with being a member of Isis, according to officials from the Kurdish region of Syria.
Officials told the BBC Jack Letts - known around the world as "Jihadi Jack" - has been charged after being captured by the Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units) in May.
Their statement said Letts had been taken to a prison in Qamishli, Rojava, in northern Syria. This is the first time Kurdish forces have confirmed his capture as a prisoner of war.
Letts converted to Islam while at Cherwell comprehensive school in Oxford. He first travelled to the Middle East in 2014, aged 18, after dropping out of A-level study. He ventured to Syria via Jordan.
Although he has previously denied any connection to Isis, he remains under investigation by global anti-terror units.
His parents, John Letts and Sally Lane, were convicted for funding terrorism charges earlier this year after sending him around £1,700. They have appealed this decision and are expected to appear at the Supreme Court soon.
They claim their son is not fighting for Isis but is acting as a "humanitarian" in the Middle East. They have criticised the Government for "[leaving him] in a hole with no trial, no process, no charge".
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "As all UK consular services are suspended in Syria, it is extremely difficult to confirm the whereabouts and status of British nationals there.
"Anyone who does travel to Syria, for whatever reason, is putting themselves in considerable danger." |
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A man accused of attacking a mannequin that Las Vegas police positioned to resemble a homeless person following two slayings remained jailed Friday.
A judge has set bail at $50,000 for Shane Schindler, who is charged with one count of carrying a concealed weapon, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Schindler was arrested last week following the Feb. 22 incident.
Schindler's arrest report says police set up the mannequin resembling a sleeping man after detectives had no leads on the slayings of two homeless men earlier this year in downtown Las Vegas. Authorities hadn't ruled out the possibility of "thrill kills" and placed the blanket-covered mannequin on the same spot where one of the two men was killed.
The report says Schindler, 30, approached the "decoy," looked around for traffic and struck it with a 4-pound engineer's hammer he had in a bag. Surveillance video captured the incident.
According to the report, Schindler told police he "knew it was a mannequin" before hitting it. But police dispute that statement.
"The decoy mannequin was staged in a manner which would have made it impossible for Schindler to have determined the mannequin was not a human being before he struck," according to the arrest report. "Schindler swung the hammer using both arms to generate maximum force to his blow."
Deputy public defender Ashley Sisolak described Schindler's bail as excessive. She said her "client has proclaimed his innocence, and I look forward to fighting these allegations."
Daniel Aldape, 46, and David Dunn, 60, were bludgeoned to death within a month's time earlier this year. Both had suffered apparent head trauma.
(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) |
Aisha Tyler will be a big part of the new season of Criminal Minds, which is good because it looks like the BAU will need all the help they can get in season 12.
When the show returns, Hotch (Thomas Gibson) has just been arrested for charges of conspiracy, and a murderous group of 13 serial killers is on the loose. The BAU will be aided in these high-stakes investigations by Dr. Tara Lewis (Tyler), who first appeared on the show last season and has now been made a series regular, CBS announced on Wednesday.
In addition, Adam Rodriguez joins the show as a series regular — he’ll be new BAU recruit Luke Alvez — while Paget Brewster will return as Emily Prentiss for a few episodes.
Season 12 of Criminal Minds premieres Sept. 28 at 9 p.m. on CBS. |
Here come the pictures:
This is a resizer grip widget:
This is an ellipsis widget:
This is the stack/flow layout manager in action. The four buttons are in the same GtkHBox, but they wrap to the following line:
Regarding the stack/flow layout manager, I'll describe the implementation more completely in this post. After fixing a bug in a really hideous way, I decided that I was using the wrong approach, and that the switch to interfaces (see the previous post) had to happen sooner than later; luckily, however, most of the code I had written (as opposed to code I had blindly copied from Gtk+) still applies. The stack/flow layout manager is now ~1300 lines of code instead of 2800, which is actually not bad. :-) Instead of 5 classes, I have 1 class and 1 interface. In addition, there are four implementations of this interface, that are plugged into widget classes that are part of Gtk+, such as GtkLabel or GtkVBox.
The new interface, GtkLayoutable, is implemented by all widgets, and provides an additional pair of size_request/size_allocate methods. These methods have slightly different semantics than the size_request/size_allocate methods that are already part of Gtk+; basically, the allocation phase can occupy more vertical space, and less horizontal space, than it had requested.
The class is the only thing that stayed almost the same from the old implementation. It is called GtkManagedLayout (the scrollable thing in the picture above), but while the old implementation managed all the widgets in the hierarchy of stacks and flows, now it is much more coherent with the existing Gtk+ containers. GtkManagedLayout is a GtkBin (a kind of decorator widget) which wraps a widget and lays out the wrapped widget using the new pair of methods.
If a container or widget wants to support stack/flow layout, all it has to do is to implement GtkLayoutable; since this is a composite pattern, the implementation will call the GtkLayoutable methods on the subwidgets. If a widget (or even a container) does not support the new system, it does not have to do anything: GtkWidget provides a default implementation of the two methods that delegates to the old system.
It is very elegant that existing containers can be modified to support the new methods. For example in the new implementation stacks are just GtkVBoxes and flows are just GtkHBoxes. The same happens for widgets: in fact, it is also possible that a leaf of the widget tree is reached without ever reverting to the old style of layout management. For example, a GtkLabel that is placed inside a GtkManagedLayout becomes the equivalent of an HTML display: block or inline-block element.
Here is the tree of the above example:
GtkWindow GtkScrolledWindow GtkManagedLayout GtkVBox* GtkLabel* GtkHBox* GtkButton GtkHBox GtkPixmap GtkLabel GtkButton GtkHBox GtkPixmap GtkLabel GtkButton GtkHBox GtkPixmap GtkLabel GtkButton GtkLabel GtkLabel*
Widgets marked with * are the ones that are laid out using GtkLayoutable. You can see that they are reachable from a GtkManagedlayout, and you can see that once you get out of the stack/flow system (as is the case for GtkButton) there's no way back. You can also see that the GtkBin decorator pattern is used extensively in Gtk+, for instance GtkWindow, GtkScrolledWindow and GtkButton (yes, even that one!) are all decorators. This is why I considered elegant that GtkManagedLayout is a GtkBin subclass.
I liked a lot this foray into Gtk+; it is just amazing that such a complex system was programmed entirely in C. The object system is extremely powerful and customizable. While this does mean that you have to write a lot of boilerplate code, on the other hand I probably would not have done anything of this if it had been written in Java or another language that I cannot just as easily turn into a GNU Smalltalk module.
(code is available at this git repository) |
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The Indians, short on outfielders, have been mentioned as a possible suitor for the Reds’ Jay Bruce.
There is just one problem: Bruce added the Indians to his no-trade list in November, enabling him to block any proposed trade to Cleveland, a major-league source said.
The Indians still could acquire Bruce, but likely would need to give him some kind of financial inducement to entice him to waive his no-trade protection.
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Prior to the change, Bruce’s eight-team list included the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Athletics, Rays, Marlins, Twins and Diamondbacks, according to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick.
Bruce substituted the Indians for the Blue Jays — and the Jays nearly acquired him in February in a three-team deal that would have sent outfielder Michael Saunders to the Angels and prospects to the Reds.
The deal collapsed because of medical concerns about a Jays minor leaguer who was headed to the Reds, sources said at the time.
Bruce, 29, since has increased his trade value, batting .285 with 16 homers and a .930 OPS. Any team that acquires him will inherit his $13 million option for 2017″.
Saunders, also 29, has performed even better than Bruce, proving yet again that sometimes the best deals are the ones that are not made. He is batting .304 with 15 homers, and his .971 OPS as an outfielder leads the majors, according to STATS LLC.
The Indians, without the injured Michael Brantley, currently are using Lonnie Chisenhall, Rajai Davis, Tyler Naquin and Jose Ramirez in their outfield.
Abraham Almonte, who is eligible to return from his 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs on July 3, hit a home run in his first Triple A rehab game on Wednesday.
MLB.com first reported last November that the Indians were on Bruce’s no-trade list.
NORRIS: NEXT TO GO FOR THE BRAVES?
The Marlins, looking for starting pitching, are doing background work on Braves right-hander Bud Norris, according to major-league sources.
No deal appears close, but Norris has a 2.82 ERA in four starts since returning to the Braves’ rotation on June 4, and a 2.43 ERA in 40 2/3 innings since May 1, including 12 relief appearances.
Never mind that the Braves yanked Norris from their rotation after five starts, when his ERA was 8.74. The shortage of available quality starters has interested teams scrambling for help.
Norris, who is still owed just over half his $2.5 million salary, is a free agent at the end of the season. Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports first mentioned the Marlins’ interest.
Jay Bruce (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) |
If this puppet-master behavior were not strange enough, scientists have now found out how the parasite may change rat behavior.
Toxoplasma infection activates a part of the rat’s brain normally engaged in sexual attraction. The smell of cat urine revs up this set of neurons like the presence of a sexually receptive female rat normally would.
The neurons that trigger the rat’s normal “freezing” reaction to cats continue to fire. But their message may get swamped by the overactive sexual attraction signaling, the researchers suspect.
“Thousands of scientists are trying to figure out how to tamp down anxiety, and this tiny parasite has already figured it out,” said Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University neuroscientist and co-author of a paper reporting the discovery in the journal PLoS One.
The discovery by Dr. Sapolsky and his colleagues is “quite intriguing,” said Joanne P. Webster, director of parasitic diseases in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London.
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“It’s a small study, but it makes sense,” Dr. Webster said. “The rodents’ fear of cats is such a strong innate reaction. Something that’s going to override it is going to have to be quite a focused, fine-scale response in the mind of the rat. The neuronal activity underlying sexual attraction is a good candidate.”
Dr. Webster was the first to report, in 2000, that Toxoplasma infection piqued rats’ interest in cat urine. She found that infected rats acted normally otherwise, and only their survival instincts seemed to suffer. She called their response “fatal feline attraction.”
The Stanford researchers tested the brain activity of 36 infected and uninfected rats exposed to either the smell of a cat or that of an estrous female rat. They focused on two neuronal circuits — one for fear and one for sexual attraction. The two neuronal pathways run essentially side by side through a region deep in the brain called the amygdala, involved in emotions and many behaviors. To detect the level of neural activity, they measured the activity of a protein that is expressed only when neurons fire.
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Toxoplasma infection may not directly cause the neuronal sabotage, said Patrick House, a graduate student in Dr. Sapolsky’s lab who carried out the bulk of the research. “The parasite could trigger an inflammation or some other response that in turn affects the brain,” he said.
Toxoplasma infection in humans almost certainly would not affect human behavior as it does the rat’s, Mr. House says.
At least two billion people worldwide are infected by the protozoan, many from eating infected meat. Initial symptoms are mild flu, after which the parasite forms cysts that lodge in the brain. There they remain for decades and are thought to have little or no effect in adults, except in people with compromised immune systems.
Infection does, however, pose serious dangers for a fetus, so pregnant women are advised to take special care to avoid infection. |
The news of Elizabeth Thomas’ safe return is wonderful news for our community, and now, we can begin healing as a community, school district and as families touched by the AMBER alert. Thanks go to all who have kept the message of finding Elizabeth Thomas and working on her safe return as top-of-mind throughout the nation. The efforts of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Maury County Sheriff’s office, nationwide law enforcement community and media outlets promoting awareness of this case have brought us to this safe conclusion, and Maury County Public Schools wants to thank these many professionals for the good news today. We continue our efforts here with the policy-review task force whose members are focused on developing consistent procedures to assist each school when faced with allegations and investigations. Again, Maury County Public Schools is grateful to everyone who worked tirelessly to bring Elizabeth Thomas home safely. The TBI will be holding a press conference at 3 p.m. CST. |
Artificial mouse cells grown from outside body in a blob of gel shown to morph into primitive embryos, roughly equivalent to one third of way through pregnancy
The transformation of a fertilised egg into a tiny living embryo ranks among nature’s most impressive feats. Now scientists have replicated this critical step towards a new life for the first time, growing an artificial mouse embryo from stem cells in the lab.
The cells, grown outside the body in a blob of gel, were shown to morph into primitive embryos that perfectly replicated the internal structures that emerge during normal development in the womb.
The scientists let the artificial embryos develop in culture for seven days – about one third of the way through the mouse pregnancy. By this point the cells had organised into two anatomical sections that would normally go on to form the placenta and the embryonic mouse.
Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a developmental biologist who led the work at the University of Cambridge, said: “I’m looking at it as a miracle of nature as well as trying to understand the process. It’s incredibly beautiful that we can begin to understand those forces that give rise to self-organisation during the earliest stage of development.”
The scientists’ goal is not to grow mice – or babies – outside of the womb. Instead, they are opening a new window on the embryo’s development just prior to implantation.
Until now scientists have struggled to recreate the embryo’s emerging three-dimensional structure outside of the body, while in the mother’s womb it is still too tiny to observe in detail using ultrasound.
“This is the time of implantation when the embryo is invading the body of the mother,” said Zernicka-Goetz. “Weeks later you can observe it with ultrasound but at this stage it is very mysterious. It’s a developmental black box.”
Scientists believe that as many as two-thirds of miscarriages take place before the embryo has implanted – and often before the woman is even aware that she is pregnant.
“To really understand the key principles of pregnancy at this stage would be very helpful,” said Zernicka-Goetz.
The team seeded the embryos from embryonic stem cells – powerful master cells that can turn into any cell type in the body – rather than starting from a fertilised egg, which could also potentially overcome the shortage of human embryos available for research. Currently, these are developed from eggs donated through IVF clinics, while the supply of embryonic stem cells is limitless.
“We are very optimistic that this will allow us to study key events of this critical stage of human development without actually having to work on embryos,” said Zernicka-Goetz. “Knowing how development normally occurs will allow us to understand why it so often goes wrong.”
Nick Macklon, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Southampton, agreed that the research could pave the way to new insights that would help reduce miscarriage rates in the future. “If they are able to achieve this with human embryos I’m sure we will learn more about why early embryo development goes wrong and why some don’t implant,” he said. “This is … very impressive and important work.”
In the latest paper, published in the journal Science, single embryonic stem cells were mixed with small clusters of trophoblasts, the cells that go on to form the placenta.
The cells were placed in a semi-solid gel which allowed the structure to grow in three dimensions. After five days, the jumble of cells had multiplied and self-organised into distinct cell populations. The embryonic cells had also begun to diverge into two populations. One cluster, the mesoderm, would normally give rise to the heart, bones and muscles, while another contained cells that would go on to become brain, skin and eyes.
“It has anatomically correct regions that develop in the right place and at the right time,” said Zernicka-Goetz. “This was the most amazing thing for us.”
While the artificial embryo closely resembled the real thing, the researchers said it is unlikely that it would develop further into a healthy foetus. This would require the addition of the yolk sac, which provides nourishment for the embryo and within which a network of blood vessel develops.
The Cambridge team is now hoping to create similar artificial embryos with human cells.
Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell biologist at The Francis Crick Institute in London, said one challenge was that scientists have not yet worked out how to extract trophoblast cells from human embryos.
In the mouse version, communication between the two cell types appeared to be what triggered the embryo to self-organise.
But, he added, “Scientists like to have unanswered questions – they keep us busy!” |
How The Woodlands became The Woodlands
Cynthia Woods Mitchell cuts the ribbon marking opening day in The Woodlands on October 19, 1974. See other photos of The Woodlands beginning. Cynthia Woods Mitchell cuts the ribbon marking opening day in The Woodlands on October 19, 1974. See other photos of The Woodlands beginning. Photo: The Woodlands Development Company Photo: The Woodlands Development Company Image 1 of / 43 Caption Close How The Woodlands became The Woodlands 1 / 43 Back to Gallery
Among the Houston area's most prosperous master-planned communities is The Woodlands, which this month celebrated its 42th anniversary.
Cynthia Woods Mitchell, wife of The Woodlands founder George P. Mitchell, on Oct. 19, 1974 cut the ribbon, officially marking the grand debut of the new neighborhood. Just a decade earlier, George P. Mitchell acquired thousands of acres situated 27 miles north of downtown Houston.
Developers modeled the layout of the new community after similar neighborhoods around the country. Among the key planning committee members was Ian McHarg, a landscape architect specifically sought out by George P. Mitchell because of his unique design principles. McHarg embraced and applied a design that would minimally affect the area's woodlands and wildlife, according to a University of Massachusetts essay authored by ecologist Kristine Swann.
RELATED: Deacon Baldy's food truck park now open near The Woodlands
"McHarg looked at The Woodlands as an opportunity to apply his theory of ecological determinism - allowing the ecology of the land to determine what development could and should take place," Swann explained.
Nine years after its official founding, the secluded neighborhood reached $1 billion in investments. That led to the construction and expansion of more efficient roads to and from Houston and The Woodlands. By 1988, the Hardy Toll Road was completed, offering an alternative route to Interstate 45.
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Better transportation encouraged more families to relocate to the affluent community, promoting widespread custom home expansion throughout the area.
Celebrities also helped grow the name recognition of the new suburb. By 1989, renowned golfer Arnold Palmer traveled to The Woodlands to debut the Woodlands Resort & Country Club, a golf course that he and architect Ed Seay designed. In 1990, Frank Sinatra was among the first musicians to perform at the award-winning venue The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion during its opening weekend.
In 1996, a partnership by Morgan Stanley and Crescent Real Estate Equities purchased the Woodlands Corp assets for $543 million. Six years later, in 2011, the Howard Hughes Corp. bought Morgan Stanley's interest.
SEE ALSO: Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion due for extensive renovations this year
Construction of one of the suburb's most prominent features, The Waterway, began in 1999. It debuted in 2002, and was followed by the opening of retail center Market Street in 2004.
The expansion of retail and residential enclaves attracted families, especially with custom home developers flocking north.
Corporations, too, were drawn to the area. In 2011, ExxonMobil declared that it would be opening a north campus there. Now, Baker Hughes, Chevron Phillips and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. all have campuses in The Woodlands.
WINNER: Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion named world's No. 1 outdoor amphitheater
Despite a heavy commercial presence, the community's heavily wooded lots and devotion to family-friendly amenities continues to attract young families to the area.
"There are a lot of people who have a lot of pride in what The Woodlands is all about: a master-planned community designed in nature that allows people to live, work, play and learn in this 28,000 acres," Nick Wolda, president of The Woodlands Convention & Visitors Bureau, said in 2014.
Scroll through the gallery above for a look at how the area developed. |
The intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue is among the world’s most famous—you’ve seen it broadcast every year on the Oscars as the start of the red carpet. But like most celebrities, the tourist-thronged Los Angeles landmark had a very dark secret: It was known as one of the most dangerous intersections for pedestrians in LA. That all changed six months ago.
Late last year, after the alarming news that pedestrian deaths were skyrocketing nationwide, several reports investigated Los Angeles’ most dangerous places to walk. Topping nearly every list was Hollywood and Highland, which is not just one of LA’s busiest for both people and cars, but also a place filled with people who are simply not paying attention—on both sides of the windshield. Not to mention the fact that the sidewalks are sometimes so crowded that people have no choice but to walk in the street.
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In November, LA’s Department of Transportation (LADOT) redesigned the intersection with a new “scramble” crosswalk (also known as a Barnes Dance). This kind of crosswalk design prevents crashes by separating pedestrians and drivers in time, meaning that vehicles are stopped in all directions while pedestrians get the intersection to themselves, then the cars get to take their turn.
Marching diagonally across the street instead of waiting for two walk signals is a transcendent experience for pedestrians who are used to timidly scurrying across crosswalks. But the best news of all, at least for those behind the wheel, is that cars are also more efficiently routed through a scramble, due to the reduction of potential conflict when they’re trying to negotiate turns (which is when most crashes occur).
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Using a data-driven approach to fix dangerous intersections is part of LADOT’s Vision Zero initiative, part of a global trend to reduce traffic fatalities to zero. So LADOT works with LAPD to provide constantly updated provisional crash data to an open-data portal. From 2009 to 2013, the average number of crashes per year at Hollywood and Highland was 13. But since the crosswalk was redesigned in November, there has only been one crash. (LADOT had originally reported zero crashes, but after reviewing the data found a no-injury car vs. car crash that had occurred in March.) A closer look at the data also revealed this: In the first 11 months of 2015 there were 19 crashes, resulting in 13 injuries. Reducing that figure to a single non-injury crash over six months is impressive.
“Safety is a long game, and it takes cycles before we can declare victory,” LADOT general manager Seleta Reynolds told Gizmodo. “We celebrate initial success, but our data is always evolving. We continue to focus on long-term evaluation, such as the five-year analysis that produced our Vision Zero High Injury Network.”
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So if this works so well, why not do it at every intersection? Well, price for one: LADOT estimates the cost for the conversion is about $100,000 per crosswalk. But beyond cost, the goal for each crosswalk in LA has to be considered separately. A scramble is the best solution for very high volume intersections, where there are lots of cars and people. But where pedestrian volume or budget doesn’t allow for a scramble, there are other changes that can be made. Better striping and pushing the curb out can help make walkers more visible. And signals can be programmed at no cost to create a Leading Pedestrian Interval (LPI), which brings some scramble benefits: It keeps the light red for vehicles in all directions while giving pedestrians a “head start” to cross the street before cars will try to make turns.
The idea that such a simple change could have such unequivocal impact makes it seem like an obvious solution for busy streets, but the concept is only now seeing a revival in the US. The scramble has been used to great effect in large cities from London to Tokyo. But it’s not an easy sell in the US due to the perception that it exacerbates congestion—it was actually far more prevalent a half-century ago, before cities began prioritizing cars over people. In New York City, which is experiencing an epidemic in pedestrian deaths, there’s been a call for the city to re-install them on its most dangerous intersections.
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LADOT says that more scrambles are on the way, but it might be years before they are standard in the city. Consider that a scramble was recommended for Hollywood and Highland almost two decades ago, said Deborah Murphy, founder and executive director of Los Angeles Walks. “Just think how many lives we could have saved if we had done this in 1998 when we first proposed it.”
If the scramble proves effective it certainly would make sense to install more on Hollywood Boulevard, which is one of the few places in LA where pedestrians consistently outnumber cars. Of course, there’s an even smarter way to make a busy street for pedestrians safer: Close it to cars entirely. |
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a 2 to 1 decision Friday that human genes can be patented because the DNA extracted from cells is not a product of nature.
The court held (PDF) that Myriad Genetics can patent two human genes used to predict the risk of breast and ovarian cancer in women, overturning a previous decision by a federal district court in March 2010. But the court ruled that the method used to determine a patient’s risk of cancer was not patentable.
The lawsuit, Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, et al., was filed in May 2009 on behalf of researchers, women patients, cancer survivors and scientific associations against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as well as Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation, which hold the patents on the genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2.
The lawsuit was filed by the Public Patent Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, who claimed patents on human genes violate the First Amendment and patent law because genes are “products of nature.”
The court disagreed.
“In this case, the claimed isolated DNA molecules do not exist as in nature within a physical mixture to be purified,” Judge Alan D. Lourie wrote for the majority. “They have to be chemically cleaved from their chemical combination with other genetic materials. In other words, in nature, isolated DNAs are covalently bonded to such other materials. Thus, when cleaved, an isolated DNA molecule is not a purified form of a natural material, but a distinct chemical entity. In fact, some forms of isolated DNA require no purification at all, because DNAs can be chemically synthesized directly as isolated molecules.”
Judge Kimberly A. Moore added in a concurring opinion that isolated DNA “is a distinct molecule with different physical characteristics than the naturally occurring” DNA found in nature, noting that the DNA found in nature “is part of a much larger structure, the chromosome.”
In his dissenting opinion, Judge William C. Bryson advocated the “common sense view” that “patents are for inventions” and “a human gene is not an invention.” He also warned that “if sustained the court’s decision will likely have broad consequences, such as preempting methods for whole-genome sequencing.”
“Because the native BRCA genes are chemically bonded to other genes and histone proteins, the majority concludes that cleaving those bonds to isolate the BRCA genes turns the isolated genes into ‘different materials,'” Bryson added. “Yet there is no magic to a chemical bond that requires us to recognize a new product when a chemical bond is created or broken, but not when other atomic or molecular forces are altered.”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has already granted thousands of patents on human genes. It is estimated that nearly 20 percent of human genes are patented.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the three judges were on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of N.Y.
[H/T: SmartPlanet] |
Nicola Scafetta sends this along, I found this figure quite interesting, but there are many more in the full PDF available below.
A regional approach to the medieval warm period and the little ice age
Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist
Stockholm University
Sweden
1. Introduction
In order to gain knowledge of the temperature variability prior to the establishment of a widespread network of instrumental measurements c. AD 1850, we have to draw information from proxy data sensitive to temperature variations. Such data can be extracted from various natural recorders of climate variability, such as corals, fossil pollen, ice-cores, lake and marine sediments, speleothems, and tree-ring width and density, as well as from historical records (for a review, see IPCC 2007; Jones et al. 2009; NRC 2006). Considerable effort has been made during the last decade to reconstruct global or northern hemispheric temperatures for the past 1000 to 2000 years in order to place the observed 20th century warming in a long-term perspective (e.g., Briffa, 2000; Cook et al., 2004; Crowley and Lowery, 2000; D’Arrigo, 2006; Esper et al., 2002; Hegerl et al., 2007; Jones et al., 1998; Jones and Mann, 2004; Juckes et al., 2007; Ljungqvist, 2010; Loehle, 2007; Mann et al., 1999; Mann et al., 2008; Mann et al., 2009; Mann and Jones, 2003; Moberg et al., 2005; Osborn and Briffa, 2006).
Less effort has been put into investigating the key question of to what extent earlier warm periods have been as homogeneous in timing and amplitude in different geographical regions as the present warming.
It has been suggested that late-Holocene long-term temperature variations, such as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA), have been restricted to the circum-North Atlantic region (including Europe) and have not occurred synchronic in time with warm and cold periods respectively in other regions (Hughes and Diaz, 1994; Mann et al., 1999; Mann and Jones, 2003). This view has, however, been increasingly challenged through the ever growing amount of evidence of a global (or at least northern hemispheric) extent of the MWP and the LIA that have become available (see, for example, Esper and Frank, 2009; Ljungqvist, 2009, 2010; Moberg et al., 2005; Wanner et al., 2008).
A main obstacle in large-scale temperature reconstructions continues to be the limited and unevenly distributed number of quantitative palaeotemperature records extending back a millennium or more. The limited number of records have rendered it impossible to be very
selective in the choice of data. Palaeotemperature records used in a large-scale temperature reconstruction should preferably be accurately dated, have a high sample resolution and have a high correlation with the local instrumental temperature record in the calibration period (see the discussion in Jones et al., 2009).
The number of long quantitative palaeotemperature records from across the globe, of which a majority are well suited for being used in large-scale temperature reconstructions, have been rapidly increasing in recent years (Ljungqvist, 2009). Thus, it has now become possible to make regional temperature reconstructions for many regions that can help us to assess the spatio-temporal pattern and the MWP and LIA. Only by a regional approach can we truly gain an understanding of the temperature variability in the past 1–2 millennia and assess the possible occurrence of globally coherent warm and cold periods. Presently, only four regional multi-proxy temperature reconstructions exist: two for eastern Asia (Yang et al., 2002; Ge et al., 2010), one for the Arctic (Kaufman et al., 2009), and one for South America (Neukom et al., 2010). Six new quantitative regional multi-proxy temperature reconstructions will here be presented in order to improve our understanding of the regional patterns of past temperature variability.
…
4. Conclusion
The presently available palaeotemperature proxy data records do not support the
assumption that late 20th century temperatures exceeded those of the MWP in most regions, although it is clear that the temperatures of the last few decades exceed those of any multidecadal period in the last 700–800 years. Previous conclusions (e.g., IPCC, 2007) in the opposite direction have either been based on too few proxy records or been based on instrumental temperatures spliced to the proxy reconstructions. It is also clear that temperature changes, on centennial time-scales, occurred rather coherently in all the investigated regions – Scandinavia, Siberia, Greenland, Central Europe, China, and North
America – with data coverage to enable regional reconstructions. Large-scale patterns as the MWP, the LIA and the 20th century warming occur quite coherently in all the regional reconstructions presented here but both their relative and absolute amplitude are not always the same. Exceptional warming in the 10th century is seen in all six regional reconstructions.
Assumptions that, in particular, the MWP was restricted to the North Atlantic region can be rejected. Generally, temperature changes during the past 12 centuries in the high latitudes are larger than those in the lower latitudes and changes in annual temperatures also seem to be larger than those of warm season temperatures. In order to truly assess the possible global or hemispheric significance of the observed pattern, we need much more data. The
unevenly distributed palaeotemperature data coverage still seriously restricts our possibility to set the observed 20th century warming in a global long-term perspective and investigate the relative importance of natural and anthropogenic forcings behind the modern warming.
Full report here (PDF)
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The U.S. Border Patrol’s account of a fatal shooting in south San Diego, California, has been called into question by witnesses.
Authorities said a plainclothes agent shot 32-year-old Valeria Alvarado after she rammed him with her car Friday while he was serving a warrant.
“The suspect was armed with a vehicle, and literally ran our agent down,” Border Patrol Deputy Chief Rodney Scott told KNSD-TV. “He was carried several hundred yards before he discharged his weapon through the windshield of the vehicle.”
Alvarado, a mother of five, died at the scene. Scott said the unidentified agent was taken to a local hospital for treatment, but did not say whether the subject of the warrant was connected to Alvarado.
But witnesses’ accounts Saturday portray the woman as driving away from the agent.
“He was walking towards the car and the car was moving back slowly,” a nearby resident, Ayanna Evans told XETV-TV. “He pulled his arm up and I heard it, ‘pop pop pop.'”
Another witness, Ashley Guilbeau, told KMFB-TV (Warning: graphic link) she saw the agent walking toward the front of the car shooting “about 12 times” without identifying himself as being part of the Border Patrol.
“Without her even able to say a word — I didn’t hear anything — [he] just came across and just shot at the windshield many times,” Gullbeau said.
A representative of an immigration-related advocacy group, the Southern Border Communities Coalition, told KNSD it will work with Alvarado’s family to make sure the Border Patrol’s investigation of the incident is transparent. On Saturday, her husband, Gilbert Alvarado, issued an angry call for justice.
“Whoever shot my wife, that guy whoever that is, that guy needs to get shot,” he told ABC News.
KNSD’s report, aired Saturday, can be seen below. |
Zen and The Art of Beer League Hockey
Someone asked me once why I liked hockey so much. This was way back, before I had the slightest idea what Zen was or had any idea at all about meditation or being one with the universe. What I told him was this:
When I’m playing hockey, there’s no room for anything else in my head. I don’t have time to think about anything but chasing the puck and trying to avoid bodily harm.
The guy who asked me the question was mainly confused that I didn’t share his passion for golf. I explained that golf to me, was three hours of my mind wandering, focusing on anything and everything except the task at hand, interrupted a few times to swing a stick.
Football’s probably even worse. I’ve timed a football game using a DVR and fast forwarding through everything except the parts where they’re actually playing football – running, passing, kicking, tackling. Turns out that it takes about three hours to play 11 minutes of football. And since the players are divided between offense, defense and special teams. Each player probably is actually playing football for just about 5 minutes. That leaves a lot of time for the mind to wander.
But hockey is almost all non-stop action from the moment your skates hit the ice until the moment your ass hits the bench. Your mind doesn’t have time think about anything but playing hockey. Pucks are whizzing around, grown ass men are careening by at the outer limits of their speed, agility and control. There’s no time to think about the ass chewing your boss gave you earlier that day or the argument you had with your wife or whether or not you remembered to pay the credit card bill in time to avoid the late fees. For the 90 seconds or so that you’re on the ice, hockey is all there is.
And for the 90 seconds after that you’re trying to catch your breath.
Then your buddy comes flying over the boards, your skates land back on the ice and you’re lost again in the world of stick and puck.
Happiness is the degree to which your external reality, what’s happening in front of your eyeballs, matches your internal reality, what’s happening between your earholes.
If that’s what happiness is then I can honestly say I’m never happier than when I’m playing hockey.
Ancient Chinese monks and that Grasshopper dude from Kung Fu might call it ZEN, but Modern day psychologists call it FLOW, the mental state when you are fully immersed in an activity – engaged, focused and energized. Lost in the moment.
Have you ever been driving down the interstate, basically driving on autopilot, so lost completely in whatever inner narrative is going on between your earholes that you just drive right past your exit?
FLOW is the exact opposite of that: When you are so consumed by the task at hand that there’s no room in your head to think of anything else. Except that thinking isn’t exactly the right word.
When you’re in a FLOW state you’re not THINKING of anything, you’re just doing. Being.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book BLINK is about our ability to think without thinking, how sometimes we just know the right answer. We know what to do. Especially when we’ve reached FLOW.
I tell all the guys on my hockey team “There’s no thinking in hockey.”
If you ever notice a thought crossing your brain in the middle of a hockey game…
“Davey’s breaking, I should pass to him.”
“The goalie is a leftie, I need to deke left and go backhand to his glove side.”
If you have time to think that thought, you’ve missed the opportunity to do that thing.
And if two equally good options present themselves at the exact same moment – Pass to Davey or go glove side on the goalie, sometimes your brain will stutter step, attempt to think on its own, completely average the two options and you’ll end up splitting the difference and shooting the puck almost exactly halfway between Davey and that damn lefthanded goalie.
I have no scientific corroboration for this, nor any idea what you would call the phenomenon, but I’ve seen it happen a thousand times. Not thinking is harder than it sounds.
A lot of what I used to chalk up to being lucky on the ice is actually a result of this thinking without thinking, FLOW.
The ancient chinese monks from Kung Fu have another phrase for this too: wu wei, which translates roughly as action without action.
The thing is you can’t learn to reach flow, you can’t try to be zen, you can’t think yourself to wu wei.
There’s a story about the Yoga instructor whose student complained that no matter how long he practiced Yoga, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reach enlightenment and maybe the instructor should teach him something new to help.
The instructor told him to “Quit trying so hard and just do the damn stretches.”
I’m pretty sure that’s what Yoda meant when he said “There is no try. Either do or do not.”
Trying is concentrating on the outcome. The expected result. And expectations are the enemy of happiness.
Doing focuses your mind, your body, your entire reality on the activity, on the task at hand.
If you want to lose yourself in the moment,
If you want to get more done,
If you want to reach FLOW.
Quit trying so hard and do the damn thing, whatever the damn thing is.
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Terry Lancaster is the VP of Making Sh!t Happen. Speaker. Entrepreneur. And Author of BETTER! Self Help For The Rest Of Us. He’s a husband, a father and spends most of his free time, like all true native southerners, at the ice rink playing the hockey.
Connect with Terry Lancaster |
Indian diaspora grows steady and strong +
either students who wanted to outstay their visas or others who were intercepted trying to enter +
CHENNAI:with India topping the list among countries whose citizens acquire foreign nationality, said a recent global study on migration. Unknown to many, a tiny bit of this migration is driven by asylum-seekers from home who count among the biggest groups seeking refuge from “persecution” in countries as far-flung as New Zealand (NZ) and Latvia According to the International Migration Outlook 2017 report on OECD member-nations, top asylum-seekers to NZ between 2012 and 2016 were from China, India, Fiji and Iraq. The country note for NZ says that in 2015-16, 340 people sought asylum in NZ. Among these, India and China were the largest source countries of asylum-seekers (11% and 9%), followed by Fiji (8%), Iraq (7%) and Pakistan (6%). Refugee status was granted in 110 cases (35%) in all. India was also among the top countries for asylum requests in 2016 for Australia, Finland, Japan, Latvia, Slovak Republic, UK and US, according to statistics.Latvia, a small country in Europe with a population of 2 million, for instance, had 6,200 registered international students in 2015-16, of which the largest proportion was from India and Uzbekistan at 18% each. According to experts, Indians requesting asylum there werethe country.“In Latvia there were 20 applications for asylum, and there were 20 Indians caught trying to cross the border. They might be the same people,” says Jonathan Chaloff, policy analyst, International Migration Division at OECD.Indians have sought asylum in more than 40 countries for several years now, reveals data from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Europe has historically seen a large number of applications from Indian asylumseekers -6,300 in 2012 and 2013. The refugee crisis in Syria and Iraq, however, has changed the situation on the continent over the last couple of years.Asylum applications from India despite a relatively calm political and economic situation are due to factors ranging from students overstaying on their visas, low skilled job seekers trying to stay put in a high wage market, to refugees seeking resettlement, said experts.Asked if Indian students who overstay their visas could apply for asylum, Chaloff says, “Yes, because it delays deportation. They have a chance of staying. They are also able to extend their stay while they wait for their application to be processed, even if it's rejected.“Gladston Xavier, head of the department of social work, Loyola College, who has worked with Sri Lankan refugees in India for several years, says number of applications for asylum may be high, but success rate may not be. “They have to prove threat to life because of race, religion, political belief, political affiliations or gender. If not, the Refugee Status Branch will turn down the request or keep the decision pending,“ he says.Vidya Mahambare, associate professor, economics and finance, Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai, says, “Asylum seekers from India may not be in the highskilled category . They may not have been able to get into good universities abroad and this may be the only alternative. India is a labour surplus country . Some may be looking for lower-end jobs abroad,“ she added.By and large though, Xavier says, “India is not a refugee producing state, we receive refugees“. |
A republic dies not instantly, or by brute force, but through physical and moral exhaustion, and in slow, methodical steps. Just consider the Roman Republic.
Sunday was March 15, known to the culturally literate as the Ides of March. On that day in 44 BC, Julius Caesar was infamously stabbed to death in the Roman Forum.
Aside from perhaps wondering why the only Latin words in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” are “Et tu, Brute?” it’s also worth pausing to think on what the “Ides of March” really meant. That Julius Caesar was stabbed on the Ides of March is both historical fact and a commonplace, so rotely repeated by schoolchildren and the trivia-minded that it’s been drained of its import. But there is more here than mere ancient history.
Who Was Caesar?
We should first ask, who was Caesar? Gaius Julius Caesar was no mundane rabble-rouser; he was the second of Rome’s charismatic dictators. The first had been Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who in 81 BC revived the dormant (but fully constitutional) office of dictator—originally intended only for circumscribed use during periods of grave military crisis—and used it as a means to reshape Roman governance and butcher his enemies. (Among those enemies was a teenaged Caesar, who only narrowly escaped death himself. Ironically, Sulla was reluctant to spare the young man’s life, warning those who pled on his behalf that “there are many tyrants within this one.”)
Caesar’s dictatorial power was achieved not just by the backing of the legions he commanded, but also on the strength of his personal popularity with the masses.
Caesar’s political career was based on his prestige as a general, and it began in regular constitutional order. However, as the Senate’s grip on power began to slip and Caesar’s domestic alliance (the First Triumvirate) fractured, he followed in the footsteps of Sulla and Marius and marched his army into Italy, seizing power. This dictatorial power was achieved not just by the backing of the legions he commanded, but also on the strength of Caesar’s personal popularity with the masses.
Moreover, Caesar was distinguished by generosity towards his defeated foes at home. And here was a man who not only fought gloriously against the Gauls abroad but, after defeating his domestic foes, refused to execute them en masse as Marius and Sulla before him had done. Instead, he sought to befriend them. For a republic which had witnessed the horrors of mass slaughter, civil war, and periods of near-anarchy, Caesar’s treatment of his political rivals was a striking departure from the norms of the previous 40 years.
The problem was, Caesar was too popular—and he knew it, and flaunted it. His magnanimity was unfeigned, but so was his desire to rule Rome alone. He was convinced it was for the best, that the Senate was no longer capable of handling the administration of an expanding empire without collapsing into bloody civil war amongst competing factions of noblemen. But then most men who seek despotic powers convince themselves of the same.
When Brutus, Cassius, and the rest of the senatorial conspirators stabbed Caesar to death on the Ides of March, it represented a last gasp at retaining their primary role in guiding the path of state.
The rule of the Senate, and the abhorrence of any idea of kingship, was the official ideology of the Roman polity. This institution had clawed its way from ephemeral, impermanent, and advisory status to the primary legislative body in Rome across generations of wrack and ruin. So when Brutus, Cassius, and the rest of the senatorial conspirators stabbed Caesar to death on the Ides of March, it represented a last gasp at retaining their primary role in guiding the path of state.
So: March 15, 44 BC. Caesar’s crumpled body lay in a bloody puddle on the floor of the Roman Forum. The Republic had been saved, right? Wrong. It didn’t work. It never could have worked.
Fractured Self-Interest Killed the Roman Republic
Julius Caesar wasn’t the Republic’s problem. He was a symptom of the problem. The real problem was something far more intractable: competing Senate factions and families had become so consumed with claiming power, glory, land, and the spoils of war that they had ceased seriously addressing the business of ruling an expanding empire.
The Senate failed to realize that over the past decades of recurring civil war, broken promises of reform, and dissipated morals, it had forfeited any claim upon the loyalty of the masses.
The Senate failed to realize that over the past decades of recurring civil war, broken promises of reform, and dissipated morals, it had forfeited any claim upon the loyalty of the masses. So while murdering Caesar removed the Senate’s immediate rival to power, it could never cure its underlying failures. The senators soon found this out the hard way with the emergence of Marcus Antonius, better known to history as Mark Antony: a gifted rhetorician, successful general, and immensely popular as Caesar’s ally.
Antony was, at heart, a hedonist and a flake, but his initial seizure of the anti-Senate mantle was telling for the fate of Rome. The senators had played their factional games but forgotten the lesson from of the bad old days of the Gracchi, of Marius and Sulla: the people, however fickle, had a voice, too, and were at best indifferent to senatorial prerogatives, or actively supported a Man On A Horse. So when Mark Antony emerged, the people of Rome—most of whom had never known anything except civil war—did not think “we must preserve the glory of our form of government!” Rather, they thought, “Well, that’s enough of these upper-class twits. Let’s have a man of the people instead.” Edward Gibbon famously summarized this dynamic at the start of his “Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire”:
The provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the Republic, sighed for the government of a single person who would be the master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of Rome, viewing with a secret pleasure the humiliation of the aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows…The rich and polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the philosophy of Epicurus…suffered not the pleasing dream to be interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom…The republicans of spirit and ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the proscription. (Vol. I, chap iii)
The Senate Gladly Gives Its Power to the Executive
Enter Octavian. Gaius Octavius, nephew of Julius Caesar and later his adoptive son, was known as Octavian during most of his life and only late-adopted the name by which he is known to history: Augustus Caesar. More importantly, he was one of the most brilliant politicians to have ever drawn breath.
These men, unlike their forefathers, were willing to give up the hassles of running the Republic to a strong executive, so long as it was understood that the Senate was merely ‘loaning’ Augustus its power.
How brilliant was Octavian/Augustus? This brilliant: after Caesar’s assassination, Octavian fought another 14 years of civil war, first against the senators Brutus and Cassius, then against his erstwhile ally Mark Antony. At the end of these wars he returned to Rome and won the greatest triumph of all: he turned the Republic into the Empire, sweeping away the 450-year-old Roman prohibition on one-man rule, and he did it by consent of the Senate itself. He “boiled the frog,” as the old adage goes, stripping away the powers of the Senate with caution and tact, careful at all times to respect its dignity even as he relieved it of duty.
Augustus understood the sense of the Senate at this point: exhausted by nearly a century of intermittent civil war, weakened, purged of its firebrands, bewildered by the domestic challenges of the Republic, and unable to reach accord with one another. These men, unlike their forefathers, were willing to give up the hassles of running the Republic to a strong executive, so long as it was understood that the Senate was merely “loaning” Augustus its power.
He was happy to play along with this illusion. Augustus appreciated the reality that legislative power, once voluntarily surrendered, is rarely if ever recovered. Augustus’ formal title as ruler of Rome was never Emperor, it was “Princeps.” The word has descended to us in English as “prince,” but in the Latin of Augustus’ day it meant “first citizen.” This was not intended as euphemism. First Augustus may have been, but a mere citizen he remained. All are equal!
Augustus knew better. He saw that the Senate had become addicted to peace, and comfortable in its indolence, willing to trade the hard work of governing an unruly city, its nearby allies, and its far-flung provinces for the price of appropriate deference. (After all, an empire is difficult to administer—why not delegate this onerous task to the seemingly-reasonable Princeps?)
Augustus appreciated the reality that legislative power, once voluntarily surrendered, is rarely if ever recovered.
Augustus insisted on testing the Senate on this point. In 27 BC, he came to the Forum and announced it was time to for him to step down and restore the Senate to its full powers. His job had been to bring peace and secure order, he claimed, and having done so it would be an insult to the majesty of the Senate and the Republic for him to retain such control. A noble speech, but one with an outcome that Augustus had been assured of in advance: the Senate not only rejected his resignation, they reappointed him by acclamation to another ten-year term. (This farce would be repeated as each ten-year term expired, until it was dispensed with altogether as an unnecessary formality.)
At this point the game was well and truly up. Augustus was now the Indispensable Man, and the Senate had willingly recognized it.
Once the Republic Is Gone, It’s Gone
That, friends, is how a republic dies. Not instantly, not by brute force, but through physical and moral exhaustion, and in slow, methodical steps. What must never be forgotten (as Gibbon emphasizes) is the willingness with which the Senate ultimately gave away its power, after fighting Julius Caesar for it. Augustus, political genius that he was, made it easy to accede to someone who flattered their sensibilities and offered them the trappings and prestige of power with none of the actual responsibility.
Their civic muscles had atrophied; they had forgotten what it meant to rule a nation.
Later on, when faced with emperors far more degraded than Augustus, the Senate would scramble to reclaim the power it had foolishly given away. It was too late. The people no longer had any real memory of the Senate exercising control over the affairs of Rome. The army had become loyal to idea of a sole Caesar, leading them into battle and sharing the spoils of war with them. And the Senate itself, frankly, had no understanding of how to wield power or influence anymore.
By the time of such legendary debauchees as Caligula and Nero, the institution of the Senate had devolved into little more than a repository for well-bred sybarites. Much like the French nobility gamboling about the grounds of Versailles under the later reign of Louis XIV, Roman senators spent their time jockeying for positive attention from the emperor, avoiding his occasionally baleful gaze, playing meaningless status games with one another, and exercising a merely honorific “authority.” Their civic muscles had atrophied; they had forgotten what it meant to rule a nation. There was no going back.
Thankfully, this sort of thing could never happen in the United States. |
A 25-year-old federal contractor was charged Monday with leaking a top-secret NSA report — detailing how Russian military hackers targeted US voting systems just days before the election.
The highly classified intelligence document, published Monday by the Intercept, describes how Russia managed to infiltrate America’s voting infrastructure using a spear-phishing email scheme that targeted local government officials and employees.
It claims the calculated cyberattack may have been even more far-reaching and devious than previously thought.
The report is believed to be the most detailed US government account of Russia’s interference to date.
It allegedly was provided to the Intercept by 25-year-old Reality Leigh Winner, of Augusta, Ga., who appeared in court Monday after being arrested at her home over the weekend.
She was charged with removing and mailing classified materials to a news outlet, DOJ officials said.
“Releasing classified material without authorization threatens our nation’s security and undermines public faith in government,” Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein explained in a statement. “People who are trusted with classified information and pledge to protect it must be held accountable when they violate that obligation.”
Winner, who works as a contractor at Pluribus International Corporation, allegedly leaked the report in early May. A federal official told NBC News that she had, in fact, given it to the Intercept.
According to the document, it was Russian military intelligence that conducted the cyberattacks last year.
Specifically, operatives from the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, are said to have targeted employees at a US election software company last August and then again in October.
While the name of the company is unclear, the report refers to an undisclosed product made by VR Systems — an electronic voting services and equipment vendor in Florida that has contracts in eight states, including New York.
The hackers were given a “cyber espionage mandate specifically directed at U.S. and foreign elections,” the report says.
On Aug. 24, 2016, the group sent the employees fake emails, which were disguised as messages from Google. At least one of the workers was believed to have been compromised.
In late October, the group established an “operational” Gmail account and posed as an employee from VR Systems — using previously obtained documents to launch another spear-phishing attack “targeting US local government organizations,” the report says.
According to the NSA, the hackers struck on either Oct. 31 or Nov. 1, sending spear-fishing emails to at least 122 different email addresses “associated with named local government organizations.”
They were also likely sent to officials “involved in the management of voter registration systems,” the report says.
The emails were said to have contained weaponized Microsoft Word attachments, which were set up to appear as unharmful documentation for the VR Systems’ EViD voter database — but were actually embedded with automated software commands that are secretly activated as soon as the user opens the document.
The hack ultimately gave the Russians a back door and the ability to deliver any sort of malware or malicious software they wanted, the report says.
In addition, the NSA document describes two other incidents of Russian meddling prior to the election.
In one, the hackers posed as a different voting company, referred to as “US company 2,” from which they sent phony test emails — offering “election-related products and services.”
The other operation was said to be conducted by the same group of operatives, and involved sending emails to addresses at the American Samoa Election Office, in an attempt to uncover more existing accounts before striking again.
It is ultimately unclear what came of the cyberattack, but the NSA report firmly states that the Russians had been intent on “mimicking a legitimate absentee ballot-related service provider.”
“It is unknown, whether the aforementioned spear-phishing deployment successfully compromised the intended victims, and what potential data could have been accessed by the cyber actor,” the NSA states of the result of the hacking.
While the government employees were only hit with simple login-stealing tactics, experts told the Intercept that such operations could prove even more dangerous than malware attacks in some instances.
VR Systems doesn’t sell voting machines, but holds contracts in New York, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia — making it a prime target for those who want to disrupt the vote and cause chaos come election day.
“If someone has access to a state voter database, they can take malicious action by modifying or removing information,” Pamela Smith, president of election integrity watchdog Verified Voting, told the Intercept.
“This could affect whether someone has the ability to cast a regular ballot, or be required to cast a ‘provisional’ ballot — which would mean it has to be checked for their eligibility before it is included in the vote,” she said. “And it may mean the voter has to jump through certain hoops such as proving their information to the election official before their eligibility is affirmed.”
At least one US intelligence official admitted to the Intercept that the Russian hackers described in the NSA report could have disrupted the voting process on Nov. 8, by specifically targeting locations where VR Systems’ products were in use. They cited the simple possibility of compromising an election poll book system, which could cause widespread damage in certain places.
“You could even do that preferentially in areas for voters that are likely to vote for a certain candidate and thereby have a partisan effect,” explained Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society.
In response to the report, VR Systems’ chief operating officer Ben Martin told the Intercept: “Phishing and spear-phishing are not uncommon in our industry. We regularly participate in cyber alliances with state officials and members of the law enforcement community in an effort to address these types of threats. We have policies and procedures in effect to protect our customers and our company.” |
The last confirmed sighting of immigration minister Peter Dutton.
I'm worried about Peter Dutton.
The last time the country saw our Minister for Immigration, he was on Sky News reminding us that immigrants are coming to take our jobs AND leech off welfare.
For some reason, the public didn't react well to this perfectly reasonable self-contradictory xenophobia, with everyone from Karl Stefanovic to Karl Stefanovic (probably others too, but we get all of our news exclusively from Karl) calling him out for these statements. So Dutton went to ground.
And every day we don't hear from him, I get a bit more concerned.
After all, Peter Dutton is the face of Border Protection, and Border Protection is the number one most important issue faced by Australia, when the Coalition's Budget push isn't polling well. So where is he?
Distressed that something may have happened to Dutton, I try to organise an interview—attempting contact via phone and email. His people are responsive at first, but then communication suddenly stops.
Successive follow-ups are ignored. But hey, I want to give the Dutton camp the benefit of the doubt: maybe the copper-wire fibre-to-the-state-border NBN had simply failed to deliver my emails.
However, there's another lead: By far the most exciting part of Dutton's campaign is that he has a caravan. The Dutton Caravan of Courage is his mobile campaign office, a way for him to visit the remote parts of his electorate and really get the word out. But there's no schedule on his website, so I'm not clear on how anyone would know that he was coming over.
Come visit him at his mobile office... IF YOU CAN FIND IT.
"For more information," his website says under the picture of the Duttovan, "please call my office on 3205 9977." So I do. The problem is, they can't tell me any details about the wagon convoy—they don't actually know where he is, where he's going to be, or when he'll get to this undisclosed location. To hell with this, I think. Pete is clearly in trouble. He needs me. There's only one thing for it: I drive to Brisbane to look for him on the ground.
I arrive at Dutton's campaign office in Strathpine and alarm bells go off. Not literally, although the moment I knock on the door I imagine there's some klaxons going off as everyone files down to the concrete bunker.
Searching for Peter.
Every other campaign office I've been to is open and welcoming. People can walk right in, volunteers are keen to answer questions, everyone smiles. Dutton's is different. So unwelcoming, in fact, that I'm convinced I've come to the wrong place.
"The office is OPEN however for security this door is closed. Please PRESS the intercom button for assistance."
I press the button and a voice asks what they can do for me. "Yeah, I'm looking for Peter Dutton's campaign office," I reply, "but I think I'm in the wrong place..."
"No," the voice says, "this is his campaign office. What can we do for you?"
I tell them that I'm on the search for Mr Dutton, and I'd love to come in and have a chat if at all possible. The door doesn't open. "Is he in today?" I ask.
Upon closer examination of this picture, I realised I should have posed as a guide dog.
"He's not in today, I'm afraid," says the voice.
"Is he out in the electorate?" I ask.
"Yes, he is," says the voice.
"Do you know where?" I ask. Silence...
"...No," the voice crackles through the intercom. "We don't have access to his diary."
The best bet, the voice tells me, is to send him an email. And they give me the email address I'd been using to unsuccessfully organise an interview, the email address so chronically unresponsive I felt compelled to launch a statewide manhunt for our immigration minister.
This was getting increasingly strange. Not only did no-one outside of Dutton's campaign team know where he was in the middle of an election, it seemed no-one inside the team knew either. A campaign office is supposed to promote the candidate to the community, but this was a high-security gulag. And gulags are not designed to keep people out: they're built to keep people in. Peter Dutton, I reasoned, must be being held against his own will, a brutal attempt to stop him from making any more offensive gaffes before 2 July.
At 6 PM, a Facebook post informs me that he spent today at Kedron Caravans, a mere 2.3 kilometres from his campaign office. Did his office not know he was just around the corner? Was here literally standing there while I was five minutes away talking into an intercom? Also, Pete already had a caravan. Was I really meant to believe he spent the day browsing around "Australia's longest established caravan centre"? Something isn't right.
I figure at this point in an investigation, with leads drying up, a detective would trawl through recent photos of their target—trying to glean some insight into their secret inner life. So I find a recent picture of Dutton, and immediately recognise all the warning signs of a man held captive.
Even the gate under the billboard was on-message.
It's all there: the pained, teeth-baring expression, not one I recognise from the normal gamut of human emotions. Beside him stands a suspicious man, imposing menacingly. I make a mental note. Then an actual one in a notepad.
What do you do when someone goes missing? Of course there's only one course of action: put up posters.
I decide Dutton's campaign office is the best place to start, so I stick up some posters featuring the best photo of him I could find, praying it will jog some memories. I find some people and show them the picture. There's a flicker of recognition, but then they all shake their heads. I've stumbled onto something big.
If you don't see something, don't say something.
I leave Strathpine, hopeful these signs will do the trick and bring Pete back home to us. The high security at his campaign office suggests that the Dutton campaign is worried about potential threats from the public. Perhaps Pete was so worried about these threats that he felt he had to get out there. Maybe he's seeking refuge somewhere safe.
I imagine him taking off in his campaign caravan, maybe drifting into the waters of a foreign electorate, one where the voters insist that they will determine which candidates come to their electorate and the means by which they arrive. Perhaps Peter Dutton was—at this very moment—being held in an off-electorate processing office.
I've done all I can do. Pete, if you're reading this, please let us know you're okay.
Even Mr Dutton's closest friends are worried.
Follow Lee on Twitter. |
A widespread ransomware attack hit multiple countries across the globe on Friday, locking up computers and ransoming access in exchange for large Bitcoin payments, and also hit the UK's National Health Service, affecting computers at hospitals and doctors' offices.
SEE ALSO: Windows users should be really worried about the latest NSA leak
Screenshots shared of the attack show the ransomware program Wanna Cry was used. Officials noted that the attack that the NHS was not specifically targeted in the attack and that the attack was "affecting organisations from across a range of sectors."
Screenshot of apparent ransomware attack message sent to NHS England trusts https://t.co/jODkWomGPA pic.twitter.com/uc2HlGH9yM — BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) May 12, 2017
The attack on UK hospitals is significant in how it's affected the hospitals' ability to treat emergency patients. According to The Guardian, schedules, patient files, and phone and email systems have been blocked from access and there is rerouting of emergency patients taking place.
In their statement on the attacks, the NHS noted that they do not believe patient data was accessed as part of the attack.
Our statement on the reported ransomware issues: https://t.co/Pt47dvpbiR #nhscyberattack — NHS Digital (@NHSDigital) May 12, 2017
UK Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed that the NHS attack was part of the attack that was affecting other businesses around the world.
BREAKING: UK Prime Minister Theresa May says hospital cyberattack part of wider international attack. — The Associated Press (@AP) May 12, 2017
Multiple media reports, including from the New York Times and the Financial Times, have said that the attack was executed using a Windows exploit developed and used by the NSA and later leaked by the Shadow Brokers group.
The malware in question allowed the user to access computers running anything earlier than Windows 10. Microsoft later said this exploit was fixed by a security patch.
There's a massive global ransomware attack right now using a Windows exploit dumped by the NSA hackers: https://t.co/UZrToVTpZ4 pic.twitter.com/sxsghPt8RV — Eric Geller (@ericgeller) May 12, 2017
.@hackerfantastic @josephfcox If true, this means that 16 NHS trusts have been taken offline thanks to an exploit developed by the NSA — Tom Cheshire (@chesh) May 12, 2017
Early reports of the spread of the attack proved to be true as, all told, over 70 countries, including Spain, Japan, the United States, and Russia were affected by the attack.
Before it's over, it could prove to be the largest malware attack ever.
Another map gives you an indication of how widespread the attack was.
Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica was another victim of the attacks, according to a Spanish news report.
Telefónica hacked with Cryptolocker. They have to pay a ransomware in Bitcoin https://t.co/rRPqFsm5Aw #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/VtQ6v3XVEl — Bitcoin News (@PrecioBTC) May 12, 2017
As for the U.S., the FBI isn't saying much but the Department of Homeland Security are aware of the attack an investigating.
FBI and NSC declined to comment on the ransomware attack, but DHS says it's aware. pic.twitter.com/9FSwngTgLB — Eric Geller (@ericgeller) May 12, 2017
UPDATE (2:15 pm ET): Updated to include confirmation that attack on NHS service in UK was part of the larger attack and that leaked NSA tool was used in the attack.
UPDATE (4:35 pm ET): Added additional details. |
“The FBI has become America’s secret police.”
Gregg Jarrett was just getting started. It was December 6, and the Fox News legal analyst was a guest on Sean Hannity’s show. They were kicking off what would become the newest right-wing talking points about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
“Secret surveillance, wiretapping, intimidation, harassment, and threats,” Jarrett continued. “It’s like the old KGB that comes for you in the dark of the night, banging through your door.”
“By the way, this not a game,” Hannity interjected. “This is not hyperbole you’re using here.”
“No. Ask Paul Manafort,” Jarrett replied, referring to the FBI’s search of the former Trump campaign manager’s home. “They came for him and broke through his front door.”
“And if it can happen to him, Gregg,” Hannity offered.
“It can happen to all of us,” Jarrett continued. “Absolutely.”
This message — that the FBI is overly aggressive and politically motivated — is cropping up again and again on Fox News, bellowed by right-wing pundits and elected officials like Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. A Fox commentator, Todd Starnes, even asked point-blank, “Was the FBI weaponized to take down the Trump presidency?” A chyron on the network was yet more succinct: “A coup in America?”
All of this carries forward the rhetoric of a president who has tweeted insults at the FBI since his election. On December 3, for example, Trump tweeted that the FBI’s “reputation is in Tatters — worst in History!” In his latest burst in the past week, Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, “It’s a shame what’s happened to the FBI.” The context is quite obvious: The president and his supporters are worried that Mueller, a former FBI director, will find reasons for impeachment, and they’re on the attack to undermine the credibility of the FBI and the special counsel.
Right-wing media and politicians aren’t entirely wrong about the FBI. It is a secret police that bangs down people’s doors, follows Americans, intercepts digital communications, digs through trash, and harasses and threatens potential informants or targets of criminal investigations. In fact, civil rights activists and left-wing groups have been complaining about this for more than 50 years. And since the 9/11 attacks, Muslims in the United States have been subjected to an unprecedented level of intrusive surveillance. A common joke in mosques around the country: “Whenever I pray on Friday, I just assume the man next to me is an FBI informant.”
While it’s entirely true that the FBI has few checks on its power, right-wing media did not rouse itself until allegations emerged that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian intelligence agents. What’s amusing about the right’s sudden anti-FBI hysteria is that little evidence suggests Mueller’s investigation has been anything but by the book.
Let’s review some of the evidence of this so-called FBI coup.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller leaves after a closed meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 21, 2017 at the Capitol in Washington. Photo: by Alex Wong/Getty Images
The Text Messages
Text messages between two senior FBI officials who were involved in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia seem to have provided rocket fuel for the right-wing conspiracy about Mueller’s probe. FBI lawyer Lisa Page and counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok were having an affair, and the pair used their FBI mobile phones to text each other.
The FBI’s newest critics have zeroed in on one text from Strzok that they argue suggests some sort of “deep state” plot against Trump. Seeming to refer to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok wrote to Page: “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
In another text message, referring to Clinton, Strzok wrote: “Oh hot damn. HRC is throwing down saying Trump in bed with Russia.”
There is nothing unusually partisan about Strzok’s text messages. The mood of the country at the time of these texts was one of worry about the prospect of Trump being elected. President Barack Obama had expressed publicly that he did not trust Trump with nuclear weapons — an unprecedented statement from a sitting president about a major party candidate — and Trump had compounded fears by advocating that South Korea and Saudi Arabia become nuclear states. In the context of a nation concerned about electing a potentially incompetent and petulant president, the text messages between Strzok and Page do not appear to differ from the views of about half of the country’s electorate. Strzok’s texts even included a description of Democratic primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders as an “idiot like Trump.” There were many FBI agents who preferred Clinton to Trump. While some may have been partisan, others were concerned about Trump’s temperament and respect for the rule of law. Should every agent who voted for Clinton be run out of the bureau?
In addition, we have no way of knowing at this point what Strzok knew about the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia and how that might have informed his concerns about a Trump presidency.
The No-Knock Search
When the FBI raided Manafort’s home in July, agents arrived before dawn and busted open the door without warning. In FBI parlance, this is a “no-knock search.” A judge must sign off on such a search, which is generally justified by FBI concerns about the safety of agents or the destruction of evidence. While critics have a strong argument that the FBI too frequently requests permission for no-knock searches, nothing in the Manafort case suggests the search was unjustified given the FBI’s general practices. The FBI has used no-knock searches in even minor cases, including one that involved a search for counterfeit car parts.
Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, leaves following his plea hearing at the Prettyman Federal Courthouse on Dec. 1, 2017 in Washington. Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged Flynn with one count of making a false statement to the FBI. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The Intercepts
The FBI built its case against Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has become a cooperating witness after pleading guilty to making false statements to the FBI, through intercepts of phone conversations between Flynn and Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Flynn lied to FBI agents about the contents of these conversations.
For counterintelligence purposes, U.S. officials monitor the communications of spies and foreign diplomats under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It would be surprising if Russia’s ambassador was not being monitored, which is what makes it all the more surprising that Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, would choose to have unencrypted phone calls with Kislyak. While the leaking to the media of Flynn’s calls with Kislyak was a potential criminal act, the calls were intercepted under legal authority and in line with how the FBI conducts counterintelligence investigations.
The same appears to be true of former Trump adviser Carter Page, whose communications were monitored under FISA authority after the FBI established probable cause that Page was acting as a Russian agent.
While there’s plenty of room for FISA abuses, the intercepts involving Flynn and Page appear to have followed standard FBI counterintelligence methods.
The Lies
Mueller’s investigation has so far resulted in two guilty pleas. Both Flynn and former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI as part of deals in which they have become cooperating witnesses.
Trump and his media supporters have pointed out that court records filed in these cases do not establish evidence of collusion and that these two men were convicted for their own lies. While this is true, the argument ignores how the FBI works. Making a false statement to the FBI is a felony offense punishable by up to five years in prison; most people are unaware of this. For that reason, the FBI uses the lying offense as a bludgeon to force cooperation, or as a substitute for more serious offenses.
In Flynn’s case, Mueller and his team appeared to have significantly more serious charges they could have levied against the former national security adviser. Indicting him for false statements was a way of letting Flynn off easy — not bringing more serious charges — in exchange for his cooperation.
By contrast, Papadopoulos would likely not be a criminal today had he simply not spoken to the FBI. Unlike Flynn, he does not appear to have committed any crime other than attempting to deceive the bureau. But because he had lied, the FBI was able to use the felony charge as leverage to force Papadopoulos to cooperate.
Papadopoulos might have known to shut up had he paid any attention to how the FBI has investigated other groups. Since the 9/11 attacks, for example, 139 terrorism cases have involved charges of making false statements. Muslim civil rights groups routinely advise people never to speak with FBI agents.
The Emails
A lawyer for Trump criticized Mueller for obtaining transition team emails that had been stored on servers administered by the General Services Administration. If Mueller requested the emails from the GSA, under one of the many legal authorities he possesses as special counsel, and GSA employees in turn provided those emails, this would appear to be a fairly benign and legal way for the FBI to obtain information.
Under FBI rules, Mueller and his team have much more invasive ways to obtain information. Let’s say Mueller’s investigators think a former Trump adviser would make a good informant. FBI agents can use a Type 5 assessment to surveil the former adviser and even root through the former adviser’s trash for 72 hours in order to find information they can use to leverage cooperation. Imagine the outcry if this had indeed been done. And understand that the FBI has done this many, many times in a variety of other investigations over the years — without a hint of protest from the right wing.
If the FBI’s tactics in the Mueller investigation seem overly aggressive or partisan, you just haven’t been paying attention to the FBI. America’s secret police has the legal authority to be much more intrusive. |
Antarctica: Concern over scientific research funding casts dark shadow over future of Australia's share
Updated
The Federal Government is being warned Australia is in danger of losing its position as an Antarctic leader, as well as its claim over the frozen continent, unless it maintains funding for its scientific research program.
Key points: Government must maintain scientific program funding or it will lose its claim over Antarctica: experts
Countries including China and Russia are seeking to broaden their share and exert more power
The program is currently "well-funded" but it's crucial resources continue to be fed toward the work scientists are doing
Australia asserts sovereignty over 42 per cent of Antarctica, and has deep historic ties to the continent, but new players are emerging and challenging the traditional arrangements.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Anthony Bergin fears countries like China and Russia are playing a long game in Antarctica, saying both have been up-front in their desire to exploit the continent.
"If the Antarctic Treaty were to collapse, then obviously all bets would be off in terms of countries legally being able to pursue a military presence in Antarctica," Dr Bergin said.
Australia is one of the 12 original signatories to the Treaty which ensures Antarctica remains a conservation zone: free from mining, exploration and crucially, military bases.
While the economic value of Antarctica cannot be measured, there could be massive mineral, oil and gas reserves beneath the surface, and a virtually untouched krill fishery off the coast.
Federal Labor MP and keen Antarctic observer, David Feeney said the global rules governing Antarctica could be re-written in a few decades' time and Australia needs to maintain its influence around the negotiating table to ensure the status quo remains.
"We have always been able to take for granted having a peaceful and stable southern flank," Mr Feeney said.
"The problem we have at the moment is that non-traditional, external powers, particularly China and Russia, are now embarking on very significant programs in Antarctica.
"That puts Australia's claim and Australia's presence into the shade."
While Australia has three scientific research bases and a replacement ice-breaker on the way, China is searching for a site for its fifth research base and building a new class of ice-breaker vessels.
Mr Feeney said Australian scientists are also unable to reach the continent during difficult climate periods and once they are there, do not have the traverse capability to get into the interior of Australia's territory.
According to Mr Feeney, years of under-funding have eroded Australia's standing in Antarctica and "we need to take far more seriously our presence there and investment in our presence there".
The currency of Antarctic influence
Federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg has begun to turn that around. He oversaw a $200 million funding boost this year to the Antarctic program and last week became the first minister in four years to visit Australian scientists working on the frozen continent.
He said the Turnbull Government was making a "record financial commitment" in Antarctica and taking its responsibilities and leadership role "very seriously".
"It's very important for Australia to have a leadership role here, it's a strategic asset, an economic asset and of course an important environmental asset, so our presence will continue long into the future," he said.
But that extra funding should be seen as the "absolute floor" according to Dr Bergin, who said when it comes to Antarctica, "money doesn't talk, it screams".
"It's a cliche but it's true — science is the currency of Antarctic influence, so if we lose our edge in Antarctic science, that'll directly affect our leadership," he said.
That sentiment is echoed by the director of the Australian Antarctic Division, Nick Gales, who said the work scientists are doing in Antarctica is vital to understanding the past, and helping to predict the future, of the Earth's climate.
"We're one of the leaders in the science world. It's important we continue to invest in a major way in supporting the science we're doing. It's not just science for curiosity's sake, it's science that's essential for everyday Australians," he said.
"We are well-funded but we need to continue to be well-resourced to continue to do that work."
Dr Gales has also been buoyed by the fact that the Government has developed a 20-year strategic plan which, for the first time, sets out Australia's strategic interests and long-term objectives in Antarctica.
That plan highlights the need to upgrade the ageing research stations, and explore year-round aviation access, and specifically mentions a role for the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
The ADF has started flying its Globemaster aircraft to Antarctica each Summer to support the scientific work, but Dr Bergin believes it could go even further.
"I'd like to see Defence personnel regularly deploy to Antarctica as part of the scientific stations, there's no reason why Naval personnel couldn't be put on our new Antarctic resupply vessel," he said.
Dr Bergin said Australia has no Navy ships that are capable of sailing into the icy territory and points out the New Zealand Navy patrols the eastern parts of Antarctica each year looking for illegal fishing activity.
Topics: government-and-politics, science-and-technology, research, australia, antarctica
First posted |
On why the Boston Major format sucks…
Ben Steenhuisen Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 1, 2016
But how it might be fun anyway.
As a company, Valve operates very very differently to pretty much any company you’ve ever worked with or interacted with. Their fundamental approach is to view every external (and many internal) events as experiments — with various outcomes mapping to various degrees of success or failure. Their view of feedback is inherently data-driven: how many users joined in the latest product feature, which type of abuse is the most prevalent, how many compendiums sold. There are a lot more esoteric statistics and analytics they run, but I digress.
This situation leads to them actually force themselves to push and grow in (mostly) the right direction, but also inspires a newfound type of curiousness — a willingness to try out new things to see how they work. The International itself is a product of this curiosity, Erik Johnson explained in an interview that someone at Valve said “what happens if we host a tournament?” to which later the additional question was asked “what happens if it had a like, massive prize pool?”.
The Boston Major is an example of another set of these experiments for Valve in many respects: a smaller talent ensemble, time-frame, location (East Coast USA), and most notably for players, analysts and pundits alike — a completely different format: GSL Groups into Single Elimination.
Many people have likened the format to that of the CS:GO Majors, as if that acts as some underlying justification for the change. CS:GO and Dota 2 are two fundamentally different games, so even if we ignore the blaring flaws of the CS:GO Major format (two bo1 wins and you’re a “Legend” and guaranteed top 8) and ignore the fact that in this Dota 2 Major format all 16 teams advance to the playoffs (not just 8 teams) — it’s not in itself a justification for the change, you are just pointing out a similarity and that’s as far as it goes.
GSL into Double Elimination as a format has actually been excellent at previous non-TI Dota majors. That said, 13 of the 16 teams didn’t want to see TI6 played with a GSL format, preferring for a longer format group stage (Two group bo2 round robin) and petitioned Valve as such. Valve acquiesced then, but not now. In a vacuum, GSL is better than Round Robin because:
all teams are in direct control of their own future
none of the games are ‘meaningless’
each game means exactly the same for both teams
The problem is that GSL forces you to divy up the 16 teams into 4 groups — and if you don’t do this properly then some groups are much easier than others (the 2nd best team in one group could be 1st in another, or 4th in another). Analysts predictions of a team’s true skill coming into a tournament have been shown to be very far from reality (see The Manila Major).
Another situation is that when you go from GSL into Single Elimination, even if you got each group perfectly correct and there were no upsets — you still run a 1/3 risk that your two best teams will fall on the same half of the elimination bracket — and hence meet in the Semi-finals not the finals. As evident in multiple Dota 2 tournaments, most recently ESL Frankfurt 2016, having a finals where there’s a mismatch leads to an ‘unhype’ retrospective opinion of the tournament as a whole.
Upsets also have a much more profound impact in a GSL format — to the point where a single group’s upset can impact very negatively on other teams who now must face a tougher-than-expected opponent earlier on. This is possible in a Double Elimination bracket — but it’s way more rare for it to impact many teams.
“But”, says the devils advocate, “surely if a team loses to a ‘worse’ team that that means they don’t deserve to win the game anyway?”. This is a rational and mostly reasonable question if not for the complex dynamic that we get in Dota. In the same way that Chess, or Football, or Boxing or countless other sports have — there are very interesting head-to-head rivalries that exist in Dota 2. Sometimes a complete underdog has a specific style of gameplay or strategy which always works against one team who are universally regarded as better. This isn’t a rare occurrence in Dota 2 — there’s lots of cases of transitive breakdowns between the top teams, and hence it’s normal to judge a team not just by their navigation of a Single Elimination Bracket (like, how Tennis has almost all of their tournaments), but rather against a wide set of different opponents.
So I wanted to explore how the tournament looks with GSL, and how different it’d look given a Round Robin format. To model this situation, I took the average top 16 team Elo distributions of the last year (not the teams as such, just the top ranked Elo score, second best Elo, etc) and put them into Monte Carlo simulations: one for GSL into Single Elimination; and one for Round Robin (bo1) into Single Elimination with the existing TI tiebreakers. Both Monte Carlo’s ran 10⁷ iterations.
First up, the GSL -> SE format.
╔═══════════╦════════╦════════╦════════╗
║ Team Rank ║ Winner ║ Top 2 ║ Top 4 ║
╠═══════════╬════════╬════════╬════════╣
║ 1 ║ 20.68% ║ 32.68% ║ 50.03% ║
║ 2 ║ 16.69% ║ 28.57% ║ 45.99% ║
║ 3 ║ 15.80% ║ 27.85% ║ 45.16% ║
║ 4 ║ 13.78% ║ 24.59% ║ 41.81% ║
║ 5 ║ 11.49% ║ 22.18% ║ 38.45% ║
║ 6 ║ 7.73% ║ 16.83% ║ 32.43% ║
║ 7 ║ 3.41% ║ 9.42% ║ 22.15% ║
║ 8 ║ 2.20% ║ 6.78% ║ 18.33% ║
║ 9 ║ 1.28% ║ 4.57% ║ 14.26% ║
║ 10 ║ 1.22% ║ 4.39% ║ 14.25% ║
║ 11 ║ 1.15% ║ 4.28% ║ 13.82% ║
║ 12 ║ 1.14% ║ 4.21% ║ 13.67% ║
║ 13 ║ 1.05% ║ 3.88% ║ 12.91% ║
║ 14 ║ 0.86% ║ 3.45% ║ 12.59% ║
║ 15 ║ 0.79% ║ 3.26% ║ 12.49% ║
║ 16 ║ 0.73% ║ 3.07% ║ 11.66% ║
╚═══════════╩════════╩════════╩════════╝
The best team ends up winning ~20.7% of the time which is a bit low (not alarming) given the team Elo distribution. What’s a lot more disconcerting is the 137:1 odds on the worst team: 50% higher than what pundits are even offering on them. This is even more exaggerated when looking at top 2 and top 4 odds offered: 152% higher EV on the worst team making it to the final than modeled.
In 68.85% of these simulations, at least one group had an upset, and in only 0.86% of the simulations were all the upsets “balanced” (as in all upsets are cancelled by an exactly identical upset in the paired group).
Next, the Round Robin -> SE format.
╔═══════════╦════════╦════════╦════════╗
║ Team Rank ║ Winner ║ Top 2 ║ Top 4 ║
╠═══════════╬════════╬════════╬════════╣
║ 1 ║ 21.79% ║ 35.15% ║ 53.98% ║
║ 2 ║ 16.95% ║ 29.39% ║ 48.75% ║
║ 3 ║ 16.23% ║ 29.19% ║ 48.29% ║
║ 4 ║ 14.24% ║ 25.92% ║ 44.21% ║
║ 5 ║ 11.88% ║ 23.46% ║ 42.45% ║
║ 6 ║ 7.68% ║ 17.04% ║ 34.65% ║
║ 7 ║ 3.00% ║ 8.50% ║ 21.51% ║
║ 8 ║ 1.87% ║ 6.03% ║ 17.18% ║
║ 9 ║ 1.04% ║ 3.88% ║ 13.07% ║
║ 10 ║ 0.98% ║ 3.81% ║ 12.90% ║
║ 11 ║ 0.95% ║ 3.57% ║ 11.95% ║
║ 12 ║ 0.87% ║ 3.43% ║ 11.82% ║
║ 13 ║ 0.84% ║ 3.29% ║ 11.13% ║
║ 14 ║ 0.61% ║ 2.68% ║ 10.09% ║
║ 15 ║ 0.53% ║ 2.37% ║ 9.12% ║
║ 16 ║ 0.53% ║ 2.29% ║ 8.89% ║
╚═══════════╩════════╩════════╩════════╝
Substantially lower chances of the truly worst teams making it to the finals (~1/200 for 16th place). Slightly higher chance of the top teams making it, with a salient point (see below) around 7th place (meaning if you were above this point — the GSL format is actually bad for you). |
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Dozens of police officers were called to a reported fight at Kennywood Park Saturday night.
Police tell KDKA that there was an influx of teenagers coming into the park around 8:45 p.m., and a lot of pushing and shoving.
That’s when Kennywood officials decided to close the park, and police were called.
That lead to thousands of people attempting to leave the park at the same time, and several groups of people running.
“I saw a huge group of people running and screaming, and I was pretty scared,” one witness said.
Several other witnesses reported seeing up to 100 people fighting on social media, but officials say it doesn’t appear that was the case.
Police from as many as 10 different departments including West Mifflin, Duquesne, and Allegheny County were all called to the scene.
Witnesses report as many as 50 officers responded to the park.
As people started leaving the park, it spilled over to a nearby McDonald’s, where hundreds of teenagers had gathered.
“I didn’t even really know what was going on, I just wanted to get out of here,” a witness said.
Officials say four females were injured, but suffered only minor injuries and were treated at the first aid station in the park.
A Kennywood spokesman also says no shots were fired at the park.
Saturday was the first day open for the park.
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Amid all the clamor over sanctification (and perhaps the not so sanctified aims of improving one’s own standing by taking down a ministerial rock star), what seems to be missing are the very basic categories that animated the differences between Protestants (yes, that includes — ugh!! — Lutherans) and Roman Catholics. When you consider this debate among Mark Jones, Tullian Tchividjian (hereafter Double T), and Rick Phillips (for starters), it sure does seem that this is an internecine quarrel among experimental Calvinists who are still trying to sort out the ordo salutis, rather than a basic discussion of our right standing before God. Are we right with God by our works? Or are we right with God by faith alone and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us that comes by faith? Granted, those questions don’t reflect later theological developments. But when you read Rick Phillips’ statement of what’s at stake, a major category is missing:
The matter is not about legalists claiming that the law provides the power to obey God’s commands. Neither is this a fight between Tullian’s defense of the radical grace of the gospel versus those who are afraid of grace. Quite to the contrary, it is precisely the grace of God that is being denigrated, since it is by God’s amazing grace that Christians are not only justified through faith alone but are born again and given the power of Christ to lead new lives (Eph. 1:18-20).
So if the issue is grace and whether it is being denigrated, then what about Roman Catholics who insisted that their view of justification and virtue (what we call sanctification) was just as saturated with grace as the Protestant account? Everyone is claiming grace. What is much less clear is what people are saying about good works and human effort. Phillips and others can claim that the good works that believers do is all of grace. But any believer hearing that gracious account still has to decide what to do with her day, whether to wait for God’s grace (“let go, let God”), or simply get on with it and hope she doesn’t have too many sinful motives dirtying her otherwise useful activities of family worship, dissertation writing, and meal preparation for the pregnant woman in the congregation. That believer also needs to have some idea about whether not to prepare the meal in question is a sign of spiritual declension. Either way, the Phillips-Jones scenario seems to move the anxiety that Martin Luther faced from pre-justification blues to post-justification angst. Have I grown in holiness today? Am I becoming more sanctified and more sanctified? And if I am not, and if sanctification is necessary for salvation, then does my lack of growth in holiness mean I am not saved?
These nagging questions made my recent reading of Gilbert Meilaender’s (the smartest Christian ethicist on God’s green earth) essay, “Works and Righteousness” (paywall alert), particularly refreshing. For in recognizing similarities and differences between John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor and Helmut Thielicke’s Theological Ethics, Meilaender was able to cut through experimental Calvinist introspection and find the differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants while also recognizing the tension that lies at the heart of the Protestant account of the gospel, the good news of justification by faith alone.
For instance, Meilaender frames the essay around the question of whether character precedes actions (faith precedes works) or whether actions (holiness) determine character (standing before God). The challenge of Protestantism is to do away with ethics (i.e. antinomianism):
We can also frame the issue in something more like the language of the New Testament, and the encyclical does so. Faith opens us freely and entirely to call God good. “There is no doubt,” John Paul writes, “that Christian moral teaching, even in its Biblical roots, acknowledges the specific importance of a fundamental choice which qualifies the moral life and engages freedom on a radical level before God. It is a question of the decision of faith, of the obedience of faith (cf. Rom. 16:26) ‘by which man makes a total and free self-commitment to God.’” Of this commitment, St. Paul writes that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” At least in that sense, the character of the person determines the quality of the work. But what follows from that? Could we also say that any action that proceeds from faith”anything done by one who has made a fundamental choice for God” must be God-pleasing rather than sinful? That hardly seems to follow, but it does make clear the difficulty of relating person and work. For if we hold, as Thielicke does, that the character of a person depends on whether he is or is not in right relation with God, and if we also say that the character of the person determines the moral quality of his works, then we might seem committed to thinking that the actions of anyone whose basic determination is that of faith must be God-pleasing actions. Thielicke raises this issue very early in his Ethics , and he does so, interestingly enough, when discussing the story”so central to the discussion in Veritatis Splendor ”of the rich young man who comes to Jesus inquiring about what is good. His reading of the exchange focuses on the “person” of the young man. While the encyclical characterizes the encounter as one in which Jesus directs the man toward “a moral and spiritual journey towards perfection,” Thielicke suggests that Jesus aims to free the man from bondage to himself in order that he may be bound to God. Jesus does this through a “movement of concentration” in which imperatives are forms of the command to love God wholly and entirely, not requirements of particular actions. Particular acts seem to disappear, faith in God occupies the entire moral field, and Thielicke himself sees the difficulty. “We must therefore put the question quite pointedly,” he writes. “Does not all ethical reflection always involve an act whereby ethics really does away with itself by reducing the ethical question to a problem that is essentially dogmatic? . . . In short, does not the solution of the ethical problem lie in the dissolution of ethics?” How we respond to this question will depend on how we understand the claim that a Christian is simul justus et peccator , simultaneously saint and sinner. One way to understand this assertion “often thought to be the Lutheran way but in reality only one of several ways Lutherans have understood it” is to take it to mean that the believer is wholly and entirely saint and (simultaneously) wholly and entirely sinner. Viewed as one who trusts in the divine goodness and mercy revealed in Jesus, the believer is wholly saint. But viewed apart from that divine goodness, the believer is entirely sinner. The state of the person seems unrelated to his particular actions, for everything depends on the person’s relation to God. The theological task is simply to announce (again and again) the mercy of God that elicits a person’s fundamental decision of faith”leaving us, in short, with what looks like the dissolution of ethics.
Meilaender argues that there is no easy way around the tension that surrounds a faith-centric account of righteousness because we are caught in a conflict that is eschatological (could we get a little help from the Vossians, please):
Ethics always exists in “the field of tension between the old and the new aeons, not in the old alone, nor in the new alone.” To try to say more specifically what the shape of the Christian life should be within this tension would, he argues, be a non-eschatological ethic, something Thielicke associates with Roman Catholicism’s attempt to establish “a hierarchy of moral values with a corresponding casuistry of moral action.” Hence, he does not move very far or for very long beyond an understanding of the simul that he himself has found inadequate. He will accept no static “formula for the unity of the Christian’s existence,” no rules that can ease the tension between the two ages.
So faith alone means the dissolution of ethics, and grace-filled growth in holiness raises the specter of perfectionism: “if we make the connection between person and work too tight, right action may seem to be a condition that must be met in order to attain God’s favor, a tendency not altogether absent from Veritatis Splendor.”
Does this mean that forensic-centric Protestants can make no distinctions between a more or less sanctified life? No. Even a Lutheran can see the problem with an account that recognizes no difference between an adulterer and a husband who is merely tempted by adultery:
a Christian who is faithful to his wife even when experiencing temptation and a Christian who is unfaithful to his wife have the same status before God: They are simply sinners in need of forgiveness. And if going forward is just beginning again, there is no reason to distinguish between them. Each is a sinner, each needs to repent and believe, and each may be right with God. What they do, their agency, seems to make no difference in their relation to God.
But recognizing the tension doesn’t fix it. And the reason may be that bit of eschatology that Meilaender already invoked. We live in between the fall and consummation, and acting like the Christian life is road to holiness may commit the same naivete that John Paul II did, at least, according to Meilaender:
The encyclical exudes a kind of serene confidence about the Christian life that may sometimes be difficult to reconcile with the experience of individual Christians. “Temptations can be overcome, sins can be avoided, because together with the commandments the Lord gives us the possibility of keeping them . . . . Keeping God’s law in particular situations can be difficult, extremely difficult, but it is never impossible.” Surely this is true. We would not want to say of baptized Christians that the power of Christ’s Spirit cannot enable obedience in any circumstance. “And if redeemed man still sins,” Veritatis Splendor continues, “this is not due to an imperfection of Christ’s redemptive act, but to man’s will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act.” What we miss here, though, is some sense of our weakness, of the differences in strength and circumstances that mark individual Christian lives. In the famous refrain of Book 10 of his Confessions ”give what you command, and command what you will”St. Augustine also expresses confidence in the power of the Spirit to enable virtuous action. But in his repetition of that formula we sense something that is also present in Thielicke’s thought”the precariousness of our lives as Christians, the deep divisions that sometimes continue to mark the psyches of believers, our sense on occasion that the best we can do does not measure up to what we ought to do, our sense (so strong for Augustine) that God knows our character better than we know ourselves.
I for one don’t think that Double T (though I haven’t read much) captures the precariousness of our Christian lives. Simply to say everything is forgiven (if that is what Double T suggests) doesn’t wrestle with gravity of sin and its penalty, the idea that my sins sent Christ to the cross. But neither do the “obedience boys,” as Bill Smith calls them, capture this precariousness, that even the best of what we do is inferior to God’s righteous standard and comes mixed with a host of selfish and confused motives.
So perhaps the way forward is to read more Lutheran ethics — not the oxymoron that some experimental Calvinists think it is.
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The Alpha Phi sorority chapter at the University of Alabama has removed a promotional video from all of its social media accounts after complaints that it depicts women “selling themselves on looks alone, as a commodity,” according to one op-ed, and shows a lack of diversity.
The six-minute-long clip was published last week to attract potential new recruits ahead the annual sorority rush recruitment event at the university, Mashable reports. The video shows the sorority sisters running around campus in bikinis and football jerseys and putting on makeup, among other things.
Criticism towards the chapter was initially sparked by an op-ed published by writer A.L. Bailey on local news website, AL.com. “It’s all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition. It’s all so … unempowering,” Bailey wrote of the video.
Since then, the video has been reuploaded by countless YouTube users. While commenters panned what they referred to as the video’s sexist undertones, others have defended the video as just being a fun promotion for the group.
It isn’t the first time the university’s sororities have come under fire for a lack of diversity. An investigation conducted last year revealed the extent to which traditionally all-white sororities at the school rejected women of color as pledges.
“This video is not reflective of UA’s expectations for student organizations to be responsible digital citizens,” University of Alabama’s Associate Vice President for University Relations, Deborah Lane, said in a statement.
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Being submerged in grain
Grain entrapment, or grain engulfment, occurs when a person becomes submerged in grain and cannot get out without assistance. This more frequently occurs at storage facilities such as silos or grain elevators, but has been known to occur around any large quantity of grain, even freestanding piles outdoors. Usually, unstable grain collapses suddenly, wholly or partially burying workers who may be within it. Entrapment occurs when victims are partially submerged but cannot remove themselves; engulfment occurs when they are completely buried within the grain.[1] Engulfment has a very high fatality rate.[2]
While the death rate from workplace accidents on American farms has declined in the first decade of the 21st century, grain-entrapment deaths have not, reaching an all-time annual high of 26 in 2010. Many of those victims have been minors.[3] Agricultural organizations have worked to protect them and improve rescue techniques, as well as spread awareness among farmers of prevention methods. Primary among these is a federal regulation that forbids opening an auger or other opening at the bottom of a grain storage facility while someone is known to be "walking down the grain" within.
Smaller family farms, however, are exempt from most federal labor regulation specific to agriculture, and no safety regulations govern children working for their parents. In 2011 the U.S. Department of Labor proposed sweeping new regulations that would have changed this, prohibiting underage workers from being allowed to enter silos, among other provisions. They were withdrawn after protests from farmers and politicians of both U.S. parties.
Occurrence [ edit ]
“ I don't even recall how high the corn was. It came down and got me with no warning.
Too fast, too much, and I don't like remembering it. ” — Bodie Blissett, Mississippi farm worker, on being entrapped in grain up to his neck, [4]
External video Grain entrapment simulation with mannequin
At some grain-handling facilities, employees "walk down the grain" on top of it to expedite the flow of grain from the top when it is being allowed to flow out the bottom. This is the most common cause of grain entrapments. Regulations issued by the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) specifically forbid this at larger commercial facilities subject to them;[5] most smaller farms are not. It may also be necessary to enter a grain storage facility to remove damp, clumped grain (usually from early spoilage) stuck on the walls.[3] Entrapments have also occurred to children in grain transportation vehicles, or to those outside when grain is released from a storage facility or next to large freestanding grain piles.[1]:5–6
Workers in the grain can become entrapped in three different ways. An apparently stable surface may in fact be a "grain bridge" over an area beneath which the grain has already settled. A vertical mass of grain settled against a wall may suddenly give way while being cleared. Moving grain will not support the weight of an average person.[6]
Once entrapment begins, it happens very quickly due to the suction-like action of the grain;[3] half of all entrapment victims eventually become engulfed.[4] A human body in grain takes seconds to sink, minutes to suffocate, and hours to locate and recover. Recovered bodies have shown signs of blunt force trauma from the impact of the grain; one victim was found to have a dislocated jaw.[3]
However, suffocation does not occur from the weight of the grain, rather from the grain itself.[1]:8 If a victim's airway remains unobstructed, or they find an air pocket within the grain, they may be able to keep breathing and be rescued. In one instance a trapped person was able to survive for three hours.[6]
Rescue [ edit ]
External video Video from news report on unsuccessful rescue attempt in Indiana
Several factors complicate the rescue of entrapment victims even if their heads remain above the grain. Most grain storage and handling facilities are located on farms in rural areas, often distant from trained rescuers such as fire or ambulance services. They are also confined spaces, posing hazards to rescuers.
Foremost among them is the air within.[7] Carbon dioxide or toxic gases, such as or nitrogen oxides, accumulate from spoiling grain.[8] They can cause asphyxiation in great enough concentrations without proper ventilation of the area. The dust can also sometimes have molds or spores that may be toxic[1]:6 or cause allergic reactions.[1]:10 There is at least one documented instance of a first responder requiring treatment as a result of such inhalation;[9] rescuers are advised to wear at least dust masks or even self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA).[1]:10
As soon as an entrapment occurs, in addition to immediately notifying local emergency services, the workers at the facility should shut off anything causing motion in the grain, or close any outlet. The aeration fan should be turned on to improve ventilation, but without any heat source activated.[6] Rescuers must always take care not to make the situation worse, or take action that would result in they themselves becoming entrapped or engulfed. They should wear proper safety equipment such as lifelines. No more than two should walk on the surface of the grain at any time.[1]:11
Temperature extremes can cause problems for both rescuers and victims. Stored grain is often kept fresh by blowing dry air over it. This, combined with any moisture in the grain, can chill its core to 30–40 °F (−1–5 °C), creating a risk of hypothermia for the victim, especially one fully engulfed.[1]:12 Conversely, the air within the bin may be warmer than usual due to the heat released by decaying grain, the lack of exterior ventilation (especially on hot days) and any rescue activity; there is thus a risk of heat illness for those trying to free the victim.[1]:9
Even if a living victim is roped, they cannot simply be removed that way. Grain creates friction that resists the force used to pull them out. It requires 400 pounds (180 kg) of force to lift a victim buried up to their waist;[6] removing a human completely trapped in grain takes 900 pounds (410 kg).[10] Both of these amounts are above the level that can cause permanent spinal column injury.[6]
Rescues of an entrapped victim usually entail building makeshift retaining walls in the grain around them with plywood, sheet metal, tarpaulins, snow fences or any other similar material available. Once that has been done, the next step is creating the equivalent of a cofferdam within the grain from which grain can then be removed by hand, shovel, grain vacuum or other extraction equipment. While some of these techniques have been used to retrieve engulfed victims or their bodies as well, in those cases it is also common to attempt to cut a hole in the side of the storage facility;[9] this requires consulting an engineer to make sure it can be done without compromising the facility's structural integrity.[1]:10 There is also the possibility of a dust explosion, although none are known to have occurred yet during a rescue attempt.[1]:12
Prevention [ edit ]
The best way to prevent grain entrapments is to store grain properly. If kept at the proper moisture level of 14% or less and protected from the elements, grain will not form the kind of clumps that create grain bridges or other areas of unequal density within. Entrapments are more likely when grain is more spoiled.[1]:12 "Coring" grain by removing some of it from the center after the facility has been filled also reduces spoilage since it generally takes the broken and smaller grains where insects tend to start growing within.[1]:14
Strict policies about entering the area where grain is stored further prevent entrapments. Workers should never be alone, but if they must be they should have a radio or cell phone to communicate. Signs indicating the potential hazard should be posted at the entry, and anyone who does not have a good reason to be in the grain should never be there.[1]:12
OSHA's regulations require that employees who enter stored grain do so attached to either a lifeline or boatswain's chair, that one other employee be assigned to observe them, and that rescue equipment adequate to the task be available. At farms and feedlots not subject to those regulations, it is sometimes common to tie a permanent lifeline to the inside of the storage facility. This has not been found to be effective, as the grain's suction often pulls the victim under the surface too fast for them to reach it, and most are not secured firmly enough that they would not fail under the load.[1]:12
Statistical trends [ edit ]
Since 1978, the Agricultural Health and Safety Program at Purdue University in Indiana has documented grain-entrapment incidents. Its National Agricultural Confined Space Incident Database has, as of 2011, records on 900 reported entrapments dating to 1964. The program has analyzed them to find consistent patterns in the hope of improving prevention and rescue efforts. Among the statistically significant patterns it has found are the type of grain in which incidents predominantly occur, the geographic locations of incidents, the type of facility they occur in and the demographics of victims.[11]
More than half the recorded entrapments and engulfments have occurred in corn.[1]:1 Other grains in which victims have become entrapped include soybeans, oats, wheat, flax and canola. Given the predominance of corn as an entrapment medium, most incidents occur in the Corn Belt states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio) where that grain is grown and stored in quantity. Farms in states in the Upper Midwest and West, where humidity is lower and smaller grains are preferred, report fewer incidents.[1]:2 Over 70% of entrapments have occurred on small or family farms of the type exempt from OSHA grain-handling regulations.[9]:2
Victims have been exclusively male. Three-quarters of them have been farmers, farm workers, or members of farm families. The average age of victims is in the 40s, but a disproportionate share are under 18 (youths 16 or older can work in agriculture without any restrictions).[9]:3–4 According to Purdue professor Bill Field, entrapments in vehicles are particularly devastating for farm families, as 95% of the 140 deaths that occurred that way were boys under the age of 11.[4]
In 2010, the researchers noted that 38 incidents had occurred during 2009, when the national corn harvest set a new record. This was not only the highest since 1993, it capped a period in which the five-year average had steadily increased.[12] This rose to a record-setting 51 in 2010, when a similarly large corn harvest had a high moisture content and low test weight. Observers speculate that the demand for ethanol fuel production has fostered the increase of corn in storage.[13] The record entrapments ran counter to the trend of declining accidents in agriculture.[3]
At the same time, more victims are being successfully rescued. Before 2005, a quarter of the victims were saved. Since then, the rate has improved to half.[13] In 2011, when entrapments declined to 27, only 8 resulted in fatalities.[9]:5
2011 proposed regulations [ edit ]
After a 2010 entrapment at a commercial grain elevator complex in Illinois killed two workers aged 14 and 19, while a third survived with injuries, OSHA assessed fines of over half a million dollars against the operators (eventually collecting little over a quarter-million). It sent letters to other grain-handling facilities afterwards reminding them of their legal and moral obligations to prevent such deaths. A year later, after another incident in Oklahoma where two teenaged boys lost legs to a sweep auger, the agency proposed new rules on child labor in agriculture.[3]
They were the most extensive changes proposed in that area in a half-century. Most minors working in agriculture work for farms with fewer than ten employees, which are exempt from most federal workplace-safety laws and regulations. Children who work on their parents' farm are completely outside the scope of those laws, since it is believed that their parents would not let them do hazardous work. The proposed regulations, which took up 49 pages in the Federal Register,[14] would have changed that. In its preface to the proposed regulations, the department noted that while agriculture employs only 4% of the country's underage workers, those workers account for 40% of overall deaths on the job.[3]
However, the regulations drew opposition. While they preserved the exemption for small family farms, many observers, even proponents, felt they had overreached in scope and would prevent children of farm families from learning important skills at an early age. Even some of the family members of teenage boys who had died in entrapments told the media that the proposed rules went too far. Opposition mounted in Congress, where it was claimed that the proposed regulations were so broad they could have prevented children from doing chores on their parents' farms. Several Democratic senators from rural states facing hotly contested elections, such as Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill and Debbie Stabenow, complained about them personally to President Barack Obama.[3]
In 2012, the Labor Department withdrew them, taking the unusual step[3] of indicating, as it did so, that "this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration." Instead, the department said it would continue to work with youth-oriented agricultural organizations like the 4-H and FFA to increase awareness of safe work practices on farms.[15] It has also begun levying more and heavier fines for safety violations.[3]
Internet meme [ edit ]
Users of the social media platform Tumblr have, throughout the 2010s, made occasional memes around grain entrapment. In late 2016, after one popular user reposted to his blog some "choice excerpts" from the Wikipedia article about grain entrapment along with a video showing a mannequin sinking in flowing grain, they began to increase. Finally, in October 2017, a Tumblr account dedicated to grain-entrapment memes was created. The most popular ones were widely reblogged.[16] "One popular way of using the grain entrapment meme," The Daily Dot reported, "is as a metaphor for a bad, seemingly inescapable situation." Most commonly, users overlaid screenshots from the video of the mannequin with text metaphorically describing the grain as whatever might be taking up more and more of their time, such as work or the Internet. "But it's gotten to the point where any reference to grain entrapment can be part of the meme, whether it makes sense or not."[16]
The Dot said the Tumblr community's fascination with grain entrapment was easy to understand, as "it's a rare and bizarre way to go". A Tumblr user the website's article quoted agreed: "[A]nything that involves people dying at the mercy of impersonal forces seems to resonate with people in this day and age." The site noted that families who have actually lost a member to grain entrapment would probably not see it as an inside joke. But "it's a phenomenon far enough removed from the lives of most Tumblr teens that they seem to feel comfortable joking about it."[16]
In popular culture [ edit ]
In the 1985 film Witness , Harrison Ford's character John Book tricks a corrupt police officer who is hunting him into a grain silo, where he is buried in grain.
, Harrison Ford's character John Book tricks a corrupt police officer who is hunting him into a grain silo, where he is buried in grain. In the 1971 French film Le Casse (The Burglars), the jewel thief Azad buries his nemesis, the corrupt police officer Zacharia, in grain.
(The Burglars), the jewel thief Azad buries his nemesis, the corrupt police officer Zacharia, in grain. In the 2015 film The Dressmaker , Liam Hemsworth's character "Teddy" suffocates in a silo filled with sorghum.
, Liam Hemsworth's character "Teddy" suffocates in a silo filled with sorghum. In the 2017 film Jigsaw , two of Jigsaw's victims are locked in a grain silo and are quickly entrapped within grain as various sharp objects fall into the silo.
, two of Jigsaw's victims are locked in a grain silo and are quickly entrapped within grain as various sharp objects fall into the silo. In the 2018 film A Quiet Place, the children struggle to avoid becoming entrapped in corn grain in a silo while hiding from the antagonist creatures of the film.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ] |
The country knew and loved Farooque Shaikh as the actor behind many a sublime role. Few knew another side of him, as a fiercely secretive philanthropist who kept his identity hidden even from his benefactors.
On Saturday, Shruti Kamble discovered that the man who had helped her and her two sons after her husband's death in the terror attack of November 2008 was Shaikh. Offering a silent prayer for the actor, the 40-year-old says: "My regret is I could never thank him." All that the Kambles knew, from the many envelopes Shruti saved, was that a "Shaikh sa'ab" was helping them.
The 65-year-old actor died of a heart attack in Dubai on Friday night. The funeral is on Monday.
Exactly a month after the 26/11 incident, The Indian Express had received an SMS from Shaikh, characteristically self-effacing in tone, regarding a story that had appeared in the paper on the wife and two small sons of Rajan Kamble, a maintenance worker at Taj Hotel who had died in the terror attack. Shaikh had also read a previous story on Rajan in the paper, detailing how he had been shot by terrorists while ushering hotel guests to safety.
Reading that Rajan had wanted elder son Rohan to go to a military school and younger Atharva, only 2 at the time, to become a pilot, Shaikh had got in touch. He offered to fund the children's education, after extricating a promise that his identity would be kept a secret.
The Indian Express would call him at the beginning of every academic year and inform him of the amount needed, and he would promptly dispatch a cheque to the Kambles. He never asked how the money was spent.
While Atharva is one of the best students in his Class II now, Rohan, who is in Class IX, plans to work at the Taj. "While the Taj management has taken care of us, if not for Shaikh sa'ab, my children couldn't have dreamed of making it so far. Today I can finally tell my sons that this was the stranger who looked after us when everyone we called our own gave up," Shruti says.
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During his eight years in office, Barack Obama hasn’t always been seen as a robust supporter of a free press.
His administration’s aggressive attempts to uncover confidential sources, secretly subpoena phone records of news organizations, prosecute whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, and forbid government officials from speaking to reporters, didn’t exactly endear him to the Fourth Estate.
But in his final White House press conference as president on Wednesday, Obama did his level best Tto undo his successor’s endless efforts to delegitimize the institution of journalism, and deliver a ringing defense of its vital role in a healthy democracy.
“America needs you and our democracy needs you,” Obama said in his opening statement in the jam-packed briefing room in the West Wing.
“We need you to establish a baseline of facts and evidence that we can use as a starting point for the kind of reasoned and informed debates that ultimately lead to progress. And so my hope is that you will continue with the same tenacity that you showed us, to do the hard work of getting to the bottom of stories and getting them right and to push those of us in power to be the best version of ourselves and to push this country to be the best version of itself.”
Those sentiments could hardly have been a more pointed rebuke to president-elect Donald Trump’s incessant slander of working journalists—including in his Wednesday morning Twitter rant, in which he bitterly complained about NBC News’s “totally biased” reporting—as “dishonest…scum” and “the lowest form of life.”
“More FAKE NEWS,” Trump tweeted about a Today show segment that pointed out that he doesn’t deserve credit for saved jobs at General Motors, Lockheed and other companies.
The only time Obama used the phrase “fake news” was a reference later in the press conference to the Republicans’—and, by implication, Trump’s—claims of rampant voter fraud.
“You’re not supposed to be sycophants, you’re supposed to be skeptics, you’re supposed to ask me tough questions,” Obama told the standing-room-only crowd. “You’re not supposed to be complimentary, but you’re supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power and make sure that we are accountable to the people who sent us here, and you have done that.”
He added: “And you have done it for the most part in ways that I could appreciate for fairness, even if I didn’t always agree with your conclusions.”
And in case the incoming Trump administration is planning, as rumored, to kick beat reporters out of their longtime office space in the West Wing and relocate them to the Old Executive Office Building or somewhere even farther away, the current president came down solidly on the side of the press.
Obama said, “having you in this building has made this place work better. It keeps us honest, it makes us work harder. You have made us think about how we are doing what we do and whether or not we’re able to deliver on what’s been requested by our constituents. And for example, every time you’ve asked why haven’t you cured Ebola yet or why is there still that hole in the Gulf, it has given me the ability to go back and say, 'Will you get this solved before the next press conference?’”
For President Obama, of course, there won't be a next press conference. |
If you’ve been reading a bunch of year-end lists this year, you might be tired of seeing Kendrick in the #1 slot again and again. Especially after he topped our list and several others in 2015 and 2012 too. (BV didn’t actually do a list in 2012, but if we did, there’s a good chance Kendrick would’ve topped it.) Yes, it’s predictable, and the urge to not pick an obvious, hugely popular #1 is a very real urge, but Kendrick Lamar topping these lists is predictable for a reason. It’s only once in a while that a talent like this comes along, and it’s worth treasuring any time it does. Kendrick is like a Michael Jordan or a Tom Brady; it doesn’t really matter what team you root for, you gotta admit they’re some of the best to ever play the game. Kendrick’s hot streak of good kid. m.A.A.d city, To Pimp A Butterfly and DAMN. comes out two decades after what people tend to recognize as hip hop’s greatest era, and he can go bar for bar with any of the top MCs from that era. He’s like rap’s Nirvana in that he comes about 20 years after the definitive artists in his genre yet he’ll be sharing space with his forebears on lists and countdowns for years to come. And he’s like Radiohead circa OK Computer/Kid A in that he’s in the midst of a run where anything he touches blows away the competition, and any arguments that suggest otherwise just feel contrarian. This might all sound like hyperbole, but the quality of DAMN. backs all of these claims up, and that’s why it should be taken so seriously.
DAMN. follows To Pimp A Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar’s most challenging and ambitious project, and its comparative simplicity is why some fans and critics have suggested it pales in comparison. It is indeed more simple, but suggesting that makes it automatically worse is sort of like suggesting the Ramones are automatically worse than Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Its simplicity served a purpose. In the time since To Pimp A Butterfly came out, the attention turned in a major way towards rappers who were kind of just making pop records. Once Kendrick’s biggest rival, Drake now makes pop music more often than he makes rap music, and guys like Future and Migos are leading the critical and commercial conversation with music that has its merits but also veers more pop. And while Kendrick himself has no problem with “mumble rap” as a style of music, you get the sense that he made DAMN. as a way to remind everyone that he honors rap history and can do a fine job of putting his own spin on it. It’s a raw, bare-bones album, just like stone cold classics like Straight Outta Compton, The Infamous and Illmatic are raw, bare-bones albums. All it needs is booming beats and Kendrick’s mind-shattering rhymes to be as effective as the more lush-sounding To Pimp A Butterfly and good kid, m.A.A.d city.
If it wasn’t clear from the sound of DAMN. that Kendrick is out for blood, he takes a few chances to tell you. He takes shots at “wack artists” on “ELEMENT.,” and though he never mentions who he’s talking about, you get the sense that he’s talking about nearly every rapper who isn’t him. He dishes out just about every boast and every diss in the book on “DNA.,” again suggesting that, whoever you are, you probably aren’t as good as Kendrick Lamar. Hey, he can’t fake humble just ’cause your ass is insecure.
But DAMN. isn’t the best album of the year just because of the shit talk and the throwback production. Its true power is revealed after repeated listens prove that it’s just as multifaceted as its two predecessors, even if it seems simpler on the surface. Songs like “FEAR.” and “PRIDE.” allow Kendrick to work in the rich-sounding production of the last two LPs, and lyrically the album is as dense as TPAB is musically. He examines his own very complicated relationship with religion and doesn’t come to a simple conclusion; he looks at his place in the world as an artist, a lover, a family member, a friend; he mourns the current state of politics and the talking heads on Fox News who tell him his own anti-police brutality song is worse than racism; and he ends the album with one of the most gripping stories of his career. Closer “DUCKWORTH.” goes into great detail about an incident when Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith could have potentially killed Kendrick’s father, Ducky, years before starting TDE and signing Kendrick to his label. “If Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be servin’ life / While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight,” the song ends, before a gunshot rings out. It’s the kind of stranger-than-fiction story that you might wonder why Kendrick waited this long to tell, but it makes sense that he did. If he put this on his debut album when he was still largely unknown, it might not have had the same impact. Now, when Kendrick asks “Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence?”, the question resonates because we accept the superlative he awards himself as gospel. [A.S.]
Listen on Spotify |
Last fall, Walgreens launched Balance Rewards, which isn’t just a loyalty program, but is also the only way to access many of the store’s advertised discounts. However, a new report claims that Walgreens stores in four major cities are having a hard time making these discounted items available to shoppers, and that the items are frequently mislabeled anyway.
In March and April of this year, the folks at Change to Win, a union-backed advocacy group, sent secret shoppers into 200 Walgreens in four cities — New York, Miami, St. Louis, Los Angeles — with a shopping list of discounted products from the store’s weekly ad circular. Each store was visited three times, for a total of 600 visits across all four markets.
To test the range of discounted products, the shoppers’ lists included a mix of food items, over-the-counter meds, personal-care, and baby-related items; products were both name-brand and Walgreens’ house brand.
Here’s a PDF of their findings.
OUT OF STOCK
On average, CtW claims that 76% of surveyed stores were out of stock on at least one item, more than 40% were out of stock on at least two items, and 1-in-5 stores failed to stock at least three discounted items.
Miami had the highest overall out of stock rate, with more than 80% of stores missing at least one item. It also highest rate of being out of stock on three or more items, with around 1/3 of Miami Walgreens unable to keep multiple items on shelves. None of the stores in Miami or New York had every discounted item for all three of the shoppers’ visits.
St. Louis had the best results of the four cities, with around 70% of stores missing at least one discounted item, and only around 10% of stores being out of stock on at least three products.
MISSING AND INACCURATE SIGNS
In addition to the missing items, CtW shoppers found that 94% of surveyed Walgreens were missing discount signs on at least one item in each of the three visits. More than half of stores in the report were missing signs on at least three discounted items.
Some stores in New York had inaccurate signs on 70% of discounted items, while two Miami Walgreens were missing sale signs on more than 90% of items.
CtW says that none of the 200 stores in the survey had every shopping list item accurately labeled for each of the three visits.
WALGREENS’ RESPONSE
We felt it only fair to give Walgreens a chance to respond or explain the criticism in the CtW survey, so we reached out to the company.
A Walgreens rep told us the company had no comment, but curiously added, “By the way, just to be sure you know, Change to Win is an organization created by the Service Employees Int’l Union (SEIU), AFL-CIO and related unions.”
We asked the rep to clarify what, specifically, he was implying by mentioning the unions — CtW also has the backing to the Teamsters, the United Farm Workers, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union — but he has not replied.
In response to the implication that union involvement has biased the report, a rep for CtW tells Consumerist:
“We conducted the survey to measure how well Walgreen was implementing the sales critical to its loyalty program, and found that Walgreens often struggled to keep sales clearly labeled and well stocked. The survey was conducted with rigor and without bias. “Change to Win a labor federation, and our member unions are stakeholders in the drugstore industry. Our affiliates represent tens of thousands of workers in drugstores, including at Walgreens, and participate in pension funds with over $200 billion in assets, including Walgreen Co. common stock.”
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM PEOPLE ON THE FRONT LINE
We know that many of you work at Walgreens around the country, and we’d love to hear your feedback on this report. Is the CtW survey in line with what you’ve seen in your stores? Are there possible explanations for why these items might be out of stock or mislabeled? Give us the inside scoop at [email protected]. As always, we will never reveal your identity to the public or to your employer. |
TOEWS, QUINNIPIAC ADVANCE TO FROZEN FOUR
Devon Toews and the No.1 seed Quinnipiac Bobcats recorded a pair of wins over the weekend in the NCAA Division I Men’s Hockey Tournament to advance the Frozen Four for the second time in program history.
The Bobcats opened the tournament with a 4-0 shutout win over RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) on Saturday to advance to the Elite Eight round. Toews, the Islanders’ 2014 fourth-round pick, recorded a season-high three assists in the win. Toews’ three-point outing led all Bobcats.
On Sunday, the Bobcats downed the UMass Lowell River Hawks 4-1 to advance to the Frozen Four. Toews led all Bobcats with a +4 rating, being on the ice for all four Quinnipiac goals.
The Bobcats are set to take on the No. 2 seed Boston College Eagles at Amalie Arena in Tampa Bay on Thursday, April 7 at 5 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.
SCHEMPP, FERRIS STATE UPSET NO. 1 ST. CLOUD STATE
Kyle Schempp’s Ferris State Bulldogs were one-of-two four seeds to pull off an upset in the first-round of the NCAA Tournament, beating No. 1 St. Cloud State 5-4 in overtime on Saturday.
Ferris State jumped out to a 4-2 lead going into the third period, but allowed St. Cloud State back into the game in the third. After the third period scare, Ferris State only needed 18 second of overtime to pull off the upset, taking the game in the extra frame.
Schempp, the Islanders’ 2014 sixth-round draft pick and Bulldogs’ captain, tallied three shots and a +1 rating in the win. On Sunday, Schempp recorded a goal and an assist, but Ferris State lost 6-3 loss to the Denver Pioneers.
SOMERBY, TERRIERS FALL IN FIRST ROUND
Coming off their National Champion runner-up season, the Terriers fell to the Denver Pioneers 7-2 in the opening round. Somerby, a junior defenseman, recorded a team-high three blocked shots in the loss. The BU Terries fell into a 6-0 hole before recording a pair of goals late in the third period.
HO-SANG, ICEDOGS UP 2-0 OVER OTTAWA
Joshua Ho-Sang has been a major piece of Niagara’s offense, as the Icedogs have taken a 2-0 series lead over the Ottawa 67’s in the first round of the Ontario Hockey League playoffs.
Ho-Sang had three assists in Niagara’s 5-4 win in game one on Thursday night and was named the game’s first star. He followed that performance up with a goal and an assist in a 5-3 win on Saturday. The series shifts back to Ottawa for Games 3 and 4 on Monday and Wednesday.
DAL COLLE HAS FIVE-ASSISTS, KINGSTON UP 2-0 ON OSHAWA
Michael Dal Colle had five assists in one game on Saturday, as the Kingston Frontenacs beat the Oshawa Generals 7-3, taking a 2-0 series lead in the process. The top-seeded Frontenacs shut out the Generals 6-0 on Friday night. Dal Colle was named the game’s second star on Saturday.
On the other side of the ledger Mitchell Vande Sompel has one assist in two games for the Generals.
The series shifts back to Oshawa for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Thursday.
BARZAL, SEATTLE TAKE 2-0 SERIES LEAD OVER PRINCE GEORGE
Mathew Barzal has three assists in two games, as the Seattle Thunderbirds have opened up 2-0 lead on the Prince George Cougars in the opening round of the WHL Playoffs. Seattle beat Prince George 3-2 on Friday night and 4-1 on Saturday. Barzal had three assists in Saturday’s game and was named the game’s first star.
The series shifts to Prince George for back-to-back games on Tuesday and Wednesday.
BEAUVILLIER, CATARACTES TIED 1-1 WITH SHERBROOKE
Anthony Beauvillier and the Shawinigan Cataractes are knotted 1-1 with the Sherbrooke Phoenix in the opening round of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoffs. Beauvillier has yet to record a point in the series.
SOUND TIGERS KEEP PACE IN PLAYOFF RACE
Bridgeport: 36-24-4-3, (79 points), 4th in Atlantic Division, 6th in Eastern Conference
Nine games remain in the regular season for the Sound Tigers and despite getting only one of a possible four points this week, the Sound Tigers kept pace in both their division and conference.
Bridgeport opened the week with a 6-3 loss to Portland on Wednesday and fell 2-1 in overtime on Friday in Hartford.
Sound Tigers’ captain Ben Holmstrom led Bridgeport in points this week with two points (2A). Scott Mayfield (1G) recorded the Sound Tigers lone goal on Friday.
Bridgeport is back in action on Tuesday when they host the Portland Pirates, then faceoff in a back-to-back at Wilkes Barrie/ Scranton and Springfield on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Click here for the latest Sound Tigers news, stats and schedule.
MAVERICKS CLINCH REGULAR-SEASON POINTS RECORD
Missouri: 50-11-3-2, (101 points), 1st in Central Division, 1st in Western Conference, 1st in the ECHL
The Missouri Mavericks went 2-1-0 last week, cementing their position atop the ECHL. On Wednesday, the Mavericks clinched the ECHL regular-season points record and currently have 105 points. Missouri is 50-11-3-2 with six games remaining. The Mavericks are the only team with more than 100 points.
Click here for the latest Mavericks news, stats and schedule.
PROSPECT PLAYOFF STATS (MAR. 28) |
ROME (Reuters) - Carlo Cottarelli left a high-level job at the International Monetary Fund last year to help the Italian government cut high public spending. Nine months on, the craggy 59-year-old economist and newly minted “spending commissioner” has made little headway.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi talks during a joint news conference with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the end of a meeting at Villa Madama in Rome July 4, 2014. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Most of the cuts he suggested in a 72-page review of Italy’s public administration – an unpublished tome seen by Reuters that picks apart services ranging from disability benefits to policing - appear to have been ignored by Matteo Renzi’s government.
Rome recently reduced an original target of spending cuts to be achieved by 2015 to 14 billion euros from 17 billion, lowering this year’s goal to 3 billion from 4.5 billion.
The hurdles facing Cottarelli’s mission – politically influential lobbies and an inefficient bureaucracy – are the same as those that have dragged Italy’s economy to a virtual standstill for the past 20 years.
Italy’s public spending amounts to 51 percent of national output - the eighth highest proportion in the 28-nation European Union. The level is not in itself the cause of Italy’s thwarted growth; countries like France and Sweden have managed stronger growth while spending more than Italy. Inefficiency and wastefulness is the problem Cottarelli was brought in to fix.
A key example is pensions. Italy has recently tightened pension rules, partly by raising the retirement age, but it still spends 15 percent of gross domestic product on retirees. That’s the highest in Europe, comparing with 11 percent in Germany and 7 percent in Britain.
Part of the expenditure goes to millions of people who retired in their 40s and 50s, thanks to generous programs – dubbed “baby pensions” - that lasted until the 1990s. Yet no government has been willing to touch pensioners. That’s largely because in what is the European Union’s second-oldest population after Germany, there are a lot of them, and they are more likely to vote. They also make up nearly half of all union members.
“I worked for 33 years and didn’t take anything I wasn’t entitled to,” says Pietro D’Ascanio, a 78-year-old former chemical firm electrician from Ferrara in northern Italy who retired at 56 on a life-time pension worth more than 80 percent of his final salary.
One of Cottarelli’s proposals is to cut high pensions - but Renzi said in March he was “not very convinced” by the idea. He also said he was “not enthused” by Cottarelli’s document.
Italy’s new 39-year-old leader is trying to make some progress in curbing profligacy. For example he has set a ceiling on the salaries of public sector managers and is curbing the budget of state broadcaster RAI. However, the savings are tiny as a proportion of the state budget, and critics say they have more of a symbolic value than an economic one.
Renzi’s spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Renato Brunetta, a center-right politician who served as Italy’s public administration minister in the 2008-2011 government of Silvio Berlusconi, says he tried for years to cut public sector waste. But he says he was blocked by resistance from trade unions that his government was unwilling to override.
“Italy has 820 billion euros of public spending, which is the well that politicians and institutions draw their support from. If you erode that, then you are changing the power structure of the country,” he said in an interview.
TARGETED SAVINGS
Cottarelli, who was brought back to Italy in October by Renzi’s predecessor Enrico Letta, had spent the previous five years as head of the IMF’s fiscal affairs department, where he was responsible for monitoring states’ finances and making recommendations on how to improve them.
Letta tasked Cottarelli with finding targeted savings, such as identifying which hospitals in Italy had too many beds or which towns had superfluous street lighting, rather than opting for the usual strategy of overall cuts in certain categories or ministerial budgets, which can eat into productive investments and important public services along with the waste.
Cottarelli got to work, and in March gave his 72-page document to Renzi. The report, while referenced in various public appearances by Cottarelli, was never published.
In it there are dozens of cost-cutting proposals affecting areas from the national rail service to state subsidies to companies.
In the section dealing with pensions, the report urges the government to crack down on the improper provision of disability pensions, which have been targeted by fraudsters and have often been doled out as a form of political patronage, especially in the poor southern regions.
Last month police in the northern city of Bergamo confiscated the car of a woman who had been arrested for drunken driving. It later emerged that for six years she had been receiving a disability pension for blindness, the local finance police told Reuters.
Disability pensions have risen 50 percent since 1998, with no demographic explanation, Cottarelli notes in the report. And there are twice as many people receiving disability pensions in the southern regions of Calabria, Campania, Puglia and Sicily as in the northern ones of Veneto, Emilia and Lombardy.
There has been no mention of the issue by the government.
In the document, Cottarelli targets the overlap between Italy’s two main police forces, the Carabinieri, a military unit, and the Polizia. Italy has 466 police per 100,000 inhabitants, compared with 312 in France and 298 in Germany.
Cottarelli proposed that the finance police drop its riot unit, because controlling riots is not in their remit. But the proposal met huge opposition from the Guardia di Finanza and their sponsors in parliament. The government has not taken it up.
The result is that the Renzi government’s first announced cut in spending – 500 million euros that had been promised by this July – was finally effected by an across-the-board cut in the spending of all ministries.
IMPLEMENTATION HURDLE
There is another hurdle on the path to cutting spending in Italy; most laws in Italy can only come into effect after so-called “implementation decrees” that are aimed at sorting out the nuts and bolts of the legislation and signed by officials in central and local government ministries.
But these officials often have an interest in stalling the decrees, which means that many laws passed by parliament never take effect. Even when there is no obstruction, the process is long, because some of the decrees also have to be sanctioned by the country’s main administrative and accounting authorities, the Council of State and the Audit Court.
Government figures show that since Mario Monti became Prime Minister in 2011, only 43 percent of the implementation decrees needed to enforce legislation have been passed. More than 800 decrees are awaiting approval, of which 245 have expired, consigning the relevant measure to the scrap heap.
Implementation troubles have also marred Italy’s efforts to pay back money owed by the state to private suppliers. The unpaid debts are widely considered a brake on the economy, because they mean companies are deprived of the cash to invest money in new equipment or research or to hire workers.
According to the European Union, it takes an average of 170 days to pay for services or goods provided in Italy, compared with an EU directive mandating a maximum of 60 days.
Luigi Boggio, managing director of B. Braun Milano SpA, the local unit of the global healthcare supplies company, says he is owed 70 million euros – a considerable chunk for a company that made 175 million euros last year. On top of the cost of not being able to invest is the cost of borrowing from banks to fill the gap, says Boggio. “That’s a lot in terms of loss of competitiveness,” he says.
Of 27 billion euros of repayments authorized by Letta to be settled by the end of 2013, 3.5 billion are still outstanding.
One problem is that there is no precise estimate of how much money is actually owed, partly because there are so many levels of government involved, from town halls to the central state.
Reimbursing the money also raises Italy’s debt level, which is already the euro zone’s second highest.
Renzi is pushing for Italy’s debt reduction commitments to the EU to be eased to avoid what he calls the EU’s “Kafkaesque logic” of telling it to settle its debts but not giving it the fiscal leeway to do so. |
The Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline is becoming a political talisman, laden with magical meanings and mystical powers.
Premier Rachel Notley says she won’t sign on to Ottawa’s proposed carbon price of $50 per tonne without a pipeline. Kinder Morgan is the only one immediately available, with a federal cabinet decision expected in December.
If the Trans Mountain expansion is approved, Notley promises, Alberta will engage in talks to conform to the $50 price by 2022. “The economic growth it (the pipeline) would spur would absolutely accommodate that kind of measure,” she told reporters Tuesday.
She confers on Kinder Morgan the power of wealth and abundant goodwill. It’s a lot to expect from one run of pipe.
Notley doesn’t deal at all with the prospect of a rejection by Justin Trudeau’s cabinet.
That outcome would be horrible for the province, the industry, and the government. The whole political logic of her regime — winning a pipeline through climate change action — would simply collapse.
I don’t think rejection is likely. Ottawa is digging its own channel to the pipeline with approval of B.C.’s liquid natural gas project, and with the carbon price as well.
But so far, nobody is talking about what could happen after Ottawa approves. That could turn out to be demoralizing and divisive.
What if Kinder Morgan sinks into more months and even years of delay because of continued coastal opposition, much like Northern Gateway after the National Energy Board gave it the green light?
What if the B.C. government still says no, on grounds that its five conditions haven’t been met?
Here’s the landscape of this complex dispute, outlined by B.C. officials who are not at all motivated by ill will toward Alberta. They’re just describing their own mess.
First, B.C. has to do its own environmental assessment of Kinder Morgan, after the courts ordered one.
This is apparently moving along quite well. B.C. has a much quicker process than federal authorities (who doesn’t?). There’s even a slight chance it could be done by the time the federal ruling comes down.
After that, the environment minister has 45 days to respond. But B.C. cannot use its own conclusions to reject the pipeline. To contradict the federal decision would defy Ottawa’s constitutional authority over interprovincial trade.
All that sounds quite hopeful, but there’s more. Ominously, it’s political, not legal.
B.C. still expects five conditions to be met before it withdraws its formal rejection to Kinder Morgan.
Those were delivered personally in 2012 by Premier Christy Clark to then Alberta premier Alison Redford, prompting a spectacular feud.
In January this year, the B.C. government formally told the National Energy Board, in a written submission, that it would not support Kinder Morgan unless the conditions were met.
They are: successful completion of environmental reviews; world-class oil spill prevention and response on both water and land; satisfying all aboriginal rights and treaty obligations; and providing a “fair share” of economic benefits that recognize the risk borne by the province.
Those requirements are all at different stages, it seems. Ottawa is responsible for the marine response. Kinder Morgan has to provide the fair share. On it goes.
Although B.C. can’t legally block the pipeline, it can continue to say it does not approve because the conditions haven’t been met.
Asked if the pipeline could actually be built without provincial blessing, a senior official said: “I don’t see how that would be possible.”
Clark and her growth-friendly crew don’t really want to stop Kinder Morgan. But they’re faced with ferocious opposition on the Lower Mainland.
From the First Nations to the campuses, the beaches and the civic governments, this pipeline expansion is seen as a death threat to the coastline. These are dangerous forces for a B.C. government to oppose, especially with the oilsands at the tail end of the rattlesnake.
B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak said it pretty clearly in a statement late Tuesday afternoon: “Meeting all five conditions will be a challenge. We set the bar high for a reason.”
Although a lot of work has been done, she said, “We are not yet in a position to consider support for any heavy oil pipeline in B.C.”
The point isn’t just to get a friendly nod from Trudeau’s cabinet. It’s to see a pipeline built. That may be no more likely in December than it is today.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
[email protected] |
A compass made of light promises to be more sensitive than anything in a Boy Scout’s wildest dreams. A light beam shot through a blob of rubidium atoms can directly and reliably measure the size and orientation of a magnetic field, a team of physicists reports in the Sept. 13 Physical Review A.
Highly sensitive compasses are needed for oil discovery, earthquake detection and navigation (in the catastrophic event of a GPS failure, that is). Recently, highly sensitive compasses guided engineers as they drilled relief wells in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
These compasses are very good at finding the size of a magnetic field, but typically have to be tweaked to include a built-in local reference magnetic field so that they can also find the field’s direction. This comparison of the external field to an internal reference allows the compass to reconstruct the magnetic field, but the quality of the data can vary greatly, says study co-author Alexander Zibrov of Harvard University.
Zibrov and his colleagues wanted to create a compass that could directly pinpoint the direction and the size of a magnetic field. To do that, they relied on a technique that used a magnetically sensitive cloud of atoms and a laser. In their experiment, the team trapped rubidium-87 atoms at 113 degrees Fahrenheit in a domino-sized chip and shined linearly polarized light into the atoms. The light was filtered so that it had the same direction, like the light that makes it through polarized sunglasses.
In the presence of a magnetic field, the atoms’ orientation changed in a particular way, and this change was detectable in the light that came through the atom cloud, the team found. This change in transmission allowed the researchers to find the size and direction of the magnetic field at the same time.
Other compasses based on lasers and atoms exist, Zibrov says, but those rely on circularly polarized light and other ways to excite the atoms, and require fancy mathematical models to reconstruct the magnetic field after the measurement has been taken.
In the experiment, the compass detected magnetic fields with a strength between 0.1 gauss, which is less than the Earth’s magnetic field, and 200 gauss, which is stronger than a small iron magnet. The authors write that the performance can be adjusted with design tweaks such as changes to the temperature and size of the chip.
The new study is “a nice piece of work,” says physicist Szymon Pustelny of Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. Although the physics behind the new compass is largely known, “they succeeded in showing its nice application,” he says.
Compared to earlier models, the new compass is more robust against interfering noise coming from random collisions between the atoms and other sources, says study co-author Valera Yudin of the Institute of Laser Physics in Novosibirsk, Russia. What’s more, these compasses would be small and would consume very little energy.
But before the optical compass appears strapped to Scouts’ belts, the lab prototype must be tested in the field. “To talk about real applications,” Pustelny cautions, “a lot of work needs to be done.”
Image: NASA
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Art is almost like a long affair with objects and images and sensations, and what you can call the passions – Francis Bacon
His images arrive straight through the nervous system and hijack the soul
– The Times , UK
Francis Bacon A painter with bold, strong paintings, a figure of the 20th century that reflects into his art the human soul. Francis is organizing the first exhibition in Australia with rare works covering 5 decades of his career, starting from the dramatic works of 1940. They are coming from 37 collections including the Tate London, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
For a more comprehensive insight into this amazing artist, the exhibition presents a wealth of archival material from his chaotic studio in Londino. Take a look at the video following to get a taste of what will shock, will provoke, will transform your soul, and your mind will admire.
Part of the Sydney International Art Series, bringing the world’s most outstanding exhibitions to Australia.
Francis Bacon’s aim was to make a viewer come face to face with the process of looking at and interpreting art.
What he wanted – and what he makes possible – is for each individual to experience a personal, and usually very physical, response to the painting, where their own feelings override any attempt to interpret what Bacon himself was thinking or feeling.
Bacon didn’t intend his painting to be narrative or illustrative or psychoanalytical or autobiographical. He was about sensation. That was the reason he gave for fragmenting and distorting the body in the way that he did.
The figures in Bacon’s paintings aren’t characters in a story; they are the body as a material fact. Yet there is a strong connection between the imagery in Bacon’s work and the circumstances of his life, including the influence of his close friends and five long-term lovers.
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Game of Thrones' Oona Chaplin is heading to Pandora.
The actress will star in James Cameron and 20th Century Fox's four Avatar sequels, it was announced Tuesday during CineEurope in Barcelona.
Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Sam Worthington are returning for the follow-ups, which are set to begin hitting theaters in 2020.
Though the plots are being kept under wraps, Chaplin will play Varang, a strong and vibrant central character who spans the entire length of the installments. Cameron said that each of the four sequels will be able to stand alone, but will together create a saga.
Avatar 2 is set to open on Dec. 18, 2020; Avatar 3 on Dec. 17, 2021; Avatar 4 on Dec. 20, 2024; and Avatar 5 on Dec. 19, 2025.
The original 2009 film, praised for its advanced technology and world-creation, earned $2.8 billion to become the top-grossing film of all time at the global box office.
Chaplin, who is the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, also starred in the Tom Hardy series Taboo and was seen on the big screen in the romance The Longest Ride. She is repped by Troika in the U.K. and Magnolia Entertainment. |
Imagine a gun that could never be turned against you by an intruder, a gun that would never go off in the hands of a child, a gun that would be useless as a paperweight if it were stolen. In fact, that technology is already here. From the German-made Armatix iP1, which only works if the shooter is wearing a special wristwatch, to the Utah-made Intelligun, which is unlocked by fingerprints, so-called “smart guns” or “personalized guns” are poised to transform the gun industry. Expect them to get even smarter in the years to come: Ron Conway, an angel investor in Google and Facebook, recently announced a $1 million prize for the best new safety technology.
Unfortunately, a technology that could significantly improve gun safety and prevent certain acts of violence has become caught up in a hopelessly polarized national gun debate. One might think gun-rights advocates would be eager to remove some of the most powerful arguments for limiting the sale of firearms. But they aren’t. The National Rifle Association plays up the fact that, for now, “smart guns” are less reliable and more expensive. Gun-rights advocates worry that the technology that renders a gun inoperable in the hands of thief could also allow the government to shut a gun down in the hands of a legitimate owner. But the biggest reason for the opposition to “smart guns” stems from the fear that they will prompt a ban on ordinary guns.
A well-meaning effort to promote smart guns has only inflamed the discussion. The state of New Jersey passed a law in 2002 that bans the sale of ordinary guns three years after the first smart gun is sold in America. California lawmakers have tried to pass a similar law. Last year, US Representative John Tierney, a Salem Democrat, introduced a measure that would require all guns made in America to incorporate such technology.
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While these measures sound like common-sense gun control, they have actually made it harder for “smart gun” technology to spread. It’s an unfortunate reaction — but one that lawmakers probably should have predicted, given the vitriolic tone of the gun debate. Because of the New Jersey law, gun stores in Maryland and California received a flurry of death threats after stocking the Armatix iP1. Both stores quickly stopped selling it. Had the New Jersey law never been passed, “personalized guns” might be all the rage among technology-savvy gun owners. But now buying such a gun is viewed as a treasonous act among the most fervent gun-rights activists.
Giving gun owners the choice of purchasing smart guns or not, at least for the foreseeable future, would have achieved a better result than rushing to mandate this technology before gun owners even understand what it is. Cultural change takes time. No matter how superior smartphones are, any move to force the switch within three years would have ignited a similar backlash. Someday, smart gun technology will be the norm. But we aren’t there yet. |
This page contains a list of jargon used to varying degrees by railfans, trainspotters, and railway employees in the United Kingdom, including nicknames for various locomotives and multiple units. Although not exhaustive, many of the entries in this list appear from time to time in specialist, rail-related publications. There may be significant regional variation in usage.
A [ edit ]
Absolute block signalling A British signalling scheme designed to ensure the safe operation of a railway by allowing only one train to occupy a defined section of track (block) at a time[1] Annett's key A large key which locks levers or other items of signalling apparatus, thereby serving as a portable form of interlocking[ citation needed ] Aspect The indication displayed by a colour-light signal (e.g. a yellow aspect) Autocoach A passenger coach fitted with a driving cab and controls for use in an autotrain Automatic warning system (AWS) The specific form of limited cab signalling introduced in 1948 in the United Kingdom to help train drivers observe and obey warning signals
B [ edit ]
C [ edit ]
Cant The superelevation angle of a track (the relative level of one rail to the other), typically around a curve Cape A British Railways telegraphic codeword to note the cancellation of a passenger train service[18] Car transporter wagon or car transporter van A specialized freight car for transporting automobiles[19][20] Cattle Passengers (particularly commuters, who often complain that they are treated "like cattle")[21]
cess along the London Underground along the London Underground
D [ edit ]
E [ edit ]
F [ edit ]
fag packet livery HST power car (foreground) in FGWlivery
G [ edit ]
H [ edit ]
Headshunt A length of track feeding a number of sidings that permits the sidings to be shunted without blocking the main line, or where two lines merge into one before ending with a buffer, to allow a run-round procedure to take place[62] Hoover A British Rail Class 50 diesel-electric locomotive—from the sound of the engine cooling fans being similar to a vacuum cleaner, prior to the refurbishment which removed this characteristic[63] Hymek A D7000 class locomotive using a V16 Maybach diesel engine coupled to a Mekydro hydraulic transmission[64]
Happy Train A British Rail Class 365 because their revised front end resembles a grinning face.[65]
J [ edit ]
Javelin British Rail Class 395 electric multiple units, due to their usage during the London 2012 Summer Olympics on Olympic Javelin Shuttle services[66] Joint station A railway station at which tracks and facilities are shared by two or more railways[67]
K [ edit ]
Kestrel A British Rail HS4000 Key Timber or sprung steel block used to secure Bullhead rail into the chairs[22]: 187
L [ edit ]
Lamp A portable (often handheld) light source that is used to signal train crews[68]
Large-logo livery One of the first new British Rail locomotive liveries applied after many years of all-over rail blue. For this livery, the loco cabs were entirely 'warning yellow', with black window surrounds (the yellow usually wrapping round behind the cab doors); the main bodysides were still rail blue but featured very large running numbers with a large white British Rail 'double arrow' logo in the middle, the full height of the body. It was applied to refurbished Class 50 locomotives, among others.[69] Lightsaber The cutter's torch, coined by Modern Railways magazine as a pun on the Class 460 'Darth Vaders' having their front ends cut off as part of the amalgamation with the Class 458s[ citation needed ] Location case A trackside cabinet used to house signalling equipment such as relays or transformers[22]: 204 [70] Loop A second parallel track (running for a short distance) on single-track railway lines, allowing a train to pass another
M [ edit ]
N [ edit ]
Networker Clubman A British Rail Class 168 Clubman unit with original front end, so called because it resembles the front end of a Networker Normal A non-enthusiast[75]
O [ edit ]
Open wagon A type of rolling stock with a flat bottom and relatively low sides, used to haul material such as ore or scrap, and loaded and unloaded from the top which may be covered or uncovered[23][76] Overbridge A bridge over the railway[22]: 46 Overlap A distance (normally 180 metres or set according to the permitted speed of the line) beyond a stop signal which must be clear before the preceding stop signal can display a proceed aspect; allows a margin in case a train overshoots a signal before stopping[22]: 246, 326
P [ edit ]
Peak A British Rail Class 44, Class 45, or Class 46 diesel-electric locomotive—so named because the earliest of these loco types, the ten Class 44s, were named after mountains[77]
Person in charge of possession (PICOP) The railway or contractor's official responsible for safe working during engineer's possession[22]: 259 Plastic pig A British Rail Class 442, "Wessex Electrics" (electric multiple units)—so-named for being mostly made out of plastics in construction[ citation needed ] Point machine A motor or device which operates points Points The articulating rails that determine the route to be taken Predator A British Rail Class 70, a reference to the alien of the same name from the American films[ citation needed ]
Pump trolley A small, hand-powered railroad car used for track inspection
R [ edit ]
S [ edit ]
Shed A Canadian-built Class 66 diesel-electric locomotive (from the roof shape and also the corrugated bodysides)[83] Shunter A small locomotive used for assembling trains and moving railroad cars around[84] A person involved in such work[84]
Signal passed at danger (SPAD) An incident when a train passes a stop signal without authority Signal-post telephone (SPT) A direct no-dial telephone link to the relevant signal box, positioned on or near a signal[22]: 341 Silver bullet China Clay slurry wagons[85] Six foot The space between a pair of adjacent lines, nominally six feet wide. See also four-foot and ten-foot.[22]: 336 [52] Skipper Class 142 DMUs[86] Slack A temporary speed restriction to protect, for example, sections of track in poor condition and awaiting repair. Also applies to the timing tolerance included in timetable schedules to allow for such restrictions.[ citation needed ] Slack action Looseness in a train caused by mating clearances in couplers[84] Slam-door train Any diesel or electric multiple unit with manually opening hinged doors (mostly the British rail classes 423 and 421), so called after the noise made by passengers slamming the doors
sleepers beneath the rails Wood (left track) and concrete (right track)beneath the rails
Sleeper Bars of wood or concrete placed beneath and perpendicular to track to support the rails[33] Slim Jim Narrow-bodied version of the British Rail Class 33 diesel-electric locomotive (identified as sub-class 33/2)—built for the confined loading gauge on the Hastings line.[51] See also Crompton). Slip coach A passenger coach that is disconnected from a train without the train having to stop. While the train continued on its route, the slip coach would be guided and stopped by a guard on board using the coach's own brake mechanism. This practice was almost entirely limited to the United Kingdom and was discontinued in the 1960s.[22]: 339 [87] Splut Another nickname for the British Rail Class 25, referring to their habit of spluttering when their engines cut out and failed, which they often did.[88] See also Rat. Station pilot A shunting engine based at a major passenger station and used for passenger-train shunting duties Stop and examine A now-defunct British Railways rule which required a train crew to stop the train and examine the cause of an unexpected noise, vibration, etc.[89] Section TW of the Network Rail rulebook covers the requirements when working a modern train. Subway A tunnel passing underneath the railway tracks to allow passengers to cross from one platform to another Super 60 A rebuilt class 60, upgraded by DBS. Mainly seen in an overall red livery, with half-yellow fronts, but a couple can be seen in the original Sector livery. Superelevation The banking of railroad track on curves. Specifically, the practice on high speed lines (where the cant needs to be higher) of gently introducing the elevation of the outer rail before the bend starts, in order to avoid sudden lurches. Synonymous with cant.[84]
T [ edit ]
Tadpole A 3R diesel electric multiple unit (DEMU), named due to having two vehicles 8 ft 2½ in wide and one vehicle 9 ft 3 in wide[90] Tank engine A locomotive that carries its own fuel and water instead of hauling a tender Teddy Bear A British Rail Class 14 diesel-hydraulic locomotive for shunting and trip working.[83] Coined by Swindon Works' foreman George Cole who quipped "We've built the Great Bear, now we're going to build a Teddy Bear!".[91] Ten foot The space between sets of lines (e.g. between pairs of fast and slow lines). See also four-foot and six-foot.[22]: 373 [52] Terminus (UK) A station sited where a railway line or service ends or terminates
Toothpaste livery A class 465 in Network SouthEastlivery
Train driver The operator of a locomotive[98] Train engine The locomotive closest to the train during a double-heading operation Train register A book or loose-leaf sheets kept in a signal box and used to record the passage of trains, messages passed, and other prescribed events[22]: 395
Triangle Three railway tracks in a triangular form with points at all three corners—can be used to turn a train around[99] Tug A British Rail Class 60 diesel-electric locomotive, as named because of their tremendous pulling power, size and sluggish nature. Class 60s upgraded by DB Schenker are called 'Super Tugs'.[100]
U [ edit ]
U-Boat A Southern Railway U class 2-6-0 steam locomotive[101] Underbridge A bridge carrying the railway and allowing a roadway to pass under the railway[22]: 408 Up A direction (usually towards London, other capital city, or the headquarters of the railway concerned) or side (on left-running railways, the left side when facing in the up direction). The opposite of down. The up direction is usually associated with even-numbered trains and signals.[35]
V [ edit ]
Van A type of rolling stock with a flat bottom enclosed on all sides and top, which is loaded and unloaded from sliding doors on each side[53][54]
W [ edit ]
Y [ edit ]
Yeoman An early name for a Class 59 diesel-electric locomotive, the first privately owned (by Foster Yeoman) locomotives to operate on British Rail, owing to their names starting with "Yeoman" such as 59 001 Yeoman Endeavour[111]
See also [ edit ] |
A creature that appeared to be a scorpion fell from an overhead bin and stung a man on a United Airlines flight, the company confirmed to CNBC on Thursday.
According to multiple reports, passenger Richard Bell was on a United flight from Houston to Calgary on Sunday, when the creature fell from an overhead bin and stung him.
United told CNBC the airline crew immediately consulted with a physician on the ground who provided guidance throughout the incident. The company said the man's injuries were non-life threatening.
"Medical personnel met the aircraft after it arrived in Calgary," United spokesman Charles Hobart told CNBC.
The news came after United sparked outrage earlier this week when a video surfaced of a passenger being dragged off an overbooked United Express flight.
United CEO Oscar Munoz at first supported the action. Later, he apologized "for having to re-accommodate these customers." On Tuesday, he issued a detailed apology.
Watch: The latest on United's very bad week |
The Shins has recently added new dates to its already planned U.S. tour. The Shins will kick-off “Heartworms” tour on Jun 10th at Moose’s Tooth Pub – Anchorage, AK.
The Shins will be performing across major U.S. venues – in support to its upcoming album “Heartworms”, with shows in cities like Brooklyn, Portland, Troutdale, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Spokane, Santa Fe, Philadelphia, Columbus, Charlotte, and many more. In addition to this tour, The Shins has some festival performances to come including Firefly Music Festival (Jun 15-18), Arroyo Seco Weekend (Jun 24,25), Wayhome Music & Arts Festival (Jul 28), Lollapalooza (Aug 3), and Osheaga Music and Arts Festival (Aug 4).
The Shins will wrap-up 2017 concert tour with its final show at Roxy Theatre – GA on Nov. 17th. Tickets are available for sale at Ticket Hub.
Also published on Medium. |
Image caption George Reeder jumped in and saved the baby
A baby boy has been rescued by fishermen and a marina dock master after his pushchair was blown into the water by a gust of wind, police said.
The six-month-old was swept into the water at Watchet Harbour, Somerset, at 08:00 GMT on Sunday.
Avon and Somerset Police said he was airlifted to hospital for treatment.
A force spokesman said the condition of the baby was no longer believed to be life-threatening.
The poor mother, she'll probably never get over something like that, it's your worst nightmare George Reeder, Eyewitness
Dock master George Reeder said he dashed to the water's edge after hearing screaming and saw the child's upturned pushchair in the water.
The 63-year-old said: "The mother was there and she said 'my baby has gone in the water', so I went to the edge and I could see the pushchair upside down, floating away.
"I just jumped in and pulled the pushchair back over to the edge of the quay and then somebody put a rope down and I tied it on and they lifted it out.
"As far as I know, what the police told me was that the wind blew the buggy in."
He added: "The baby was still in the pushchair, it was very cold, it is amazing really because he must have been in there for a good five minutes under the water.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption George Reeder tells 5 live how he saved a baby from the icy sea
"They pulled up the pushchair and a lady started doing CPR, and then the Coastguard came, and the ambulance and the police, so I backed out the way."
Mr Reeder said the child's grandfather told him later that he was out of intensive care.
He said: "The poor mother, she'll probably never get over something like that, it's your worst nightmare."
A police spokesman said: "It is believed a gust of wind blew the buggy with the child in it into the water." |
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Formula One driver Sergio Perez said on Thursday he has dumped his sunglasses sponsor for a comment it made on Twitter about his Mexican compatriots after Donald Trump was elected as the next U.S. president.
India Formula One driver Sergio Perez of Mexico and teammate driver Nico Hulkenberg of Germany attend a news conference at the Plaza Carso in Mexico City, Mexico October 26, 2016. REUTERS/Henry Romero
The brand, Hawkers, had said on its Mexican Twitter account (@HawkersMX) on Wednesday: “Mexicans, put on these sunglasses so your swollen eyes can’t be seen during tomorrow’s building of the wall.”
U.S. President-elect Trump had promised while campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s election to build a “big, beautiful, powerful” border wall with Mexico to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants.
“What a bad commentary. Today I am ending my relations with @HawkerMX,” Perez said on his own Twitter account in reply. “I will never let anyone laugh at my country.”
Hawkers subsequently said it had made a “serious error,” and removed the offending tweet, which it said had not been made in “mockery.”
“It will not happen again,” the Spain-based company added.
But the tweet also proved to be a deal breaker for the Diablos Rojos of the Mexican Baseball League. The team on Thursday said its players would no longer use the sunglasses, nor would the company’s products be sold in its official store.
“We see it as an aggression against Mexico,” said Carlos Alberto Fernandez, a spokesperson for the Diablos.
“For the moment, Hawkers is not an option,” he said, adding that the team was evaluating other brands.
For his part, Perez, who drives for Force India, would not say how much the brand was paying him, but told reporters at the Brazilian Grand Prix on Thursday that his mind was made up, even though production had started on a run of some 20,000 glasses bearing his name.
The sponsorship deal had only recently been agreed, he added.
“I decided to split with the brand,” said the driver, who found out about the comment after landing in Sao Paulo and seeing a lot of angry messages from his fans on Twitter.
“It was a very unfortunate comment about my country .. I didn’t find it funny at all. I feel sorry because it’s a great brand, they’ve done really well but I’m not willing to stay there,” he added.
“The relationship was going to be very successful but my country and my people come first,” added Perez. “I won’t let anyone make fun of my country and it’s a shame that the brand pays for it because it’s a mistake from one person.” |
Like a lot of goaltenders who have played in the NHL’s outdoor games over the years, Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen wanted to mark the special occasion with a unique set of equipment.
For Andersen, that meant a tribute to Curtis Joseph and the Bauer Reactor pads he wore during his time with the Leafs, but Andersen had another reason for chose this particular design among the many Cujo wore in Toronto. Andersen’s father, Ernst, also wore them during his pro career in Denmark.
“I was at dinner with the guys from Bauer before the season and we talked about some old classic designs and I liked Cujo’s a lot,” Andersen said in a text message to InGoal. “Plus my dad once wore that pad, so I asked if they could do that for the outdoor game since they started printing the pad anyway.”
That “printing” part is the other thing that makes Andersen’s first outdoor NHL start so unique: His new equipment may look like another set of the “throwback” or “heritage” gear fans have seen at past events, but it is actually the first digitally printed custom graphic of its kind to appear on any pad.
Andersen’s new pads may look like a set of old Bauer Reactors but the rounded outer rolls, traditional knee rolls and leather straps that appear to be coming through the face of the pad on the shin are not real. They are all part of a digital graphic printed onto the same flat-faced Bauer Supreme 1S OD1N pads and gloves that Andersen has worn for two seasons now, and provide a glimpse into the future of custom gear.
“It’s nice to see the pads again, they look amazing,” Joseph told NHL.com after watching Andersen practice for the Centennial Classic. “I guess it’s a print but they look just like the pads that I wore.”
Some goalies weren’t happy about the limited customization options when Bauer first launched the Supreme 1S OD1N at retail this season. InGoal hinted in a lengthy magazine preview of the new pads that the digitally-printed layer that is one of five in Bauer’s radical new C.O.R.TECH skin that could eventually make OD1N the most customizable pad on the market. While the back-end work needed to make unlimited custom options available to the public is still in the works, expect to see more unique designs like Andersen’s appearing in the pro ranks over the next couple of months (and some a lot sooner).
For Andersen, that means being able to honor Cujo and his dad without sacrificing the performance properties he cited for switching to the Bauer Supreme 1S OD1N his last season in Anaheim: |
Neil Gaiman has baby brain.
The man who transformed DC Comics' old Sandman character from a science-based sort of avenging detective to a supernatural King of Dreams. The writer whose graphic-novel collaborations with Dave McKean and others have enthralled lovers of sequential art and literature for decades now. The author of the bestselling novels American Gods and The Graveyard Book, the movies Coraline and Stardust, and so many other creations in so many other mediums.
Neil Gaiman. The guy who, you know, married that multitalented Girl Anachronism named Amanda Palmer.
Has baby brain.
"Baby brain and slightly sleepless," he tells me, explaining our earlier botched connection. "Forgot to turn on my phone and check the calendar."
Of course Gaiman has baby brain: His son was born in mid-September, is still in the phase that requires all manner of constant, agenda-wracking attentions from bleary-eyed parents. But even baby brain can't cause more than a brief glitch in the acclaimed author's schedule of interviews and touring and public appearances and – naturally – writing, writing, writing.
That's why this interview, in fact. Because Gaiman will be at Austin's Long Center on Friday the 13th – and I was lucky enough to get some phone time with him in advance.
Austin Chronicle: What will you be sharing with the audience at the Long Center?
Neil Gaiman: The lovely thing about doing the sort of Evening-With-Neil-Gaiman show – that I've been doing now for, ah, for some years – is that, mostly, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. And this is a literal has-no-idea-what-he's-doing and a slightly more metaphorical has-no-idea-what-he's-doing, and the joy of these things tends to be going, "Okay, what do I feel like doing tonight?" Normally, poems will get read, short stories – often, very short stories – will get read. There will be talking. There will be the inside of my head. What I've loved doing more and more, recently, is getting the audience to do a lot of the work for me by asking questions – by writing questions down upon note cards. Which is great, because if a couple hundred people put questions down and I shuffle through them beforehand, I can go, "Oh, okay, a) that's what a lot of people seem to want to know, and b) that's a really fun question that I don't think anybody's asked me before, and I will answer it. So there's a certain amount of just grabbing the pile of questions and seeing where that takes me. Which means that none of these events are ever quite like any other. And hopefully means that Austin will get a very Austin-specific event.
AC: And I have a few questions that I've got written down on, appropriately enough, a series of note cards. For instance: Neil, in all the stories that you've created, is there one consistent – or at least occasionally repeated – message that you would most want a reader or viewer to realize?
NG: The lovely thing about being a writer – as I have now been for more than 30 years – is that what you try and do isn't actually what you achieve. What you try and do is to never repeat yourself. What you're trying to do is say something absolutely different each time, never pop out of the same hole twice, absolutely reinvent every possible wheel. That is what you plan to do. And whenever I sit and look at the future, I see things I haven't done before. But when you turn around and look back at 30-plus years of work lined up behind you, you realize that you've just been saying the same shit over and over. And it's okay, because you didn't notice while you were doing it. And what you wind up saying is things like "stories are important," "the imagination is important," and "you should be able to think yourself out of problems – brains will always be superior to brawn." And "people matter" and "individuals matter." All that kind of stuff. But it wasn't what I set out to – it wasn't a message kind of thing, like I'm Writing With a Message to the World. I never was; I was writing stories to the world. But now I can look back and go, "Ah, there was a message." Coraline, for example, is "you can think your way out of trouble, and being brave does not mean you aren't scared." It means that, "no matter how scared you are, you do the right thing anyway."
AC: Well, damn, yeah. And is there a particular work of yours that you feel embodies what you'd consider the most important of those messages?
NG: You know, it's really hard for me to point to any individual works, because it's like saying, "Okay, which body part would you like me to remove more with my little penknife?" It's all part of one giant corpus. If I were going to point to anything, I would probably point to The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the novel from 2013, which is about memory and about healing and about the power of stories and the power of the imagination to get you out of trouble. And I'd probably point to American Gods, as well – a big, giant, doorstop of a weird thriller, which is a huge and glorious mess, and I still look at it and go, "Everything that I thought about the world, about America, and about life, it's all somewhere in there."
AC: Why, in these modernized times, with everything going digital and with so much science around to illuminate the former darknesses of the world – why do fantasy and the supernatural continue to be such a popular, even an important, thing?
NG: I think there's a couple of reasons. And I think they have to do with the fact that the most powerful things that we possess are our imaginations. The reason why we're in this amazing, wonderful, futuristic world right now – with phones as powerful as supercomputers, with the ability to fly from continent to continent, all of this kind of stuff: It's because we imagine. Somebody imagined that things could be different, and then somebody made it up. Fantasy and science fiction have been incredibly important to all of the high-tech stuff that we're in, because the people who invented the things also started out reading fantasy, reading science fiction, and thinking things can be different. And I think that is probably the most powerful tool. And I also think that people love stories. Human beings are designed to love stories – we're storytelling animals. We can remember dry facts – names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses – these things are in our heads and they fall out of our heads. But stories are in there forever, and they're in there on a level of craving, of delight. I remember as a little child, demanding that adults would tell me a story. And now I'm an adult, and it's one of my greatest delights, to tell stories.
Neil Gaiman appears Fri., Nov. 13, 8pm, in Dell Hall at the Long Center, 701 W. Riverside. For more info, visit www.thelongcenter.org. |
Mexicans watched their televisions in horror as Donald Trump was victorious over Hillary Clinton in the U.S. election, putting into power a man who stirred resentment of them and their relatives in the U.S. and promised to build a wall between the nations after almost a century of peace.
“The world has gone crazy,” said Alessandro Mendoza, watching the results on two giant screens at a packed gathering of Mexican and American businessmen at the American Society. As Trump’s lead mounted, the 29-year-old lawyer from Mexico City, who has cousins in Miami, put his hand to his mouth in surprise and whispered to his friend, “we’re screwed.”
The country has been gripped for months by the election campaign, culminating with a tense night that Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz monitored from offices resembling a war room. Thousands of the capital’s residents had planned to celebrate a Trump defeat at the Angel of Independence in the city center, where soccer fans party after the national team wins. But as the final results came in, the Paseo de la Reforma thoroughfare that runs past the monument was eerily silent.
“Americans have disappointed me,” said Jose Enrique Guillen, a 28-year-old sociology student at the Pinche Gringo bar in the capital. “I feel the hatred. I’m sad and worried.”
From the moment Trump began his campaign by calling undocumented Mexican immigrants “rapists,” the Republican used Mexico as a whipping boy to drive home his concerns about free trade and undocumented workers. Now, after months of beating Trump piñatas, burning his effigies and donning wigs to satirize him in theaters, Mexicans are facing a bleak reality that could damage the nation’s economy and throw the lives of millions of migrants into chaos.
The peso slumped more than 11 percent at one point to a record low, breaching 20 per U.S. dollar for the first time, the worst major casualty of a night that roiled gold, currencies, stocks and financial markets around the world.
“This is the most important event in the U.S. for Mexico since the war of 1846,” when U.S. troops invaded the country, Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City, said before the result. “If Trump is attacking us, and the economy is being affected, the people are involved. We became part of the election.”
Mexico’s involvement in its neighbour’s presidential campaign was unprecedented. Its consulates across the U.S. mounted a campaign to turn legal residents into U.S. citizens, ostensibly to vote against Trump. At home, senators appeared on T.V. to urge Mexicans in the U.S. to cast their ballots, while presidential hopeful and former first lady Margarita Zavala took to Facebook to chastise Trump. A group called #GringosAVotar called on Americans living in Mexico to send in their votes.
It was all in vain. At the Pinche Gringo, young Mexicans and Americans drank beer underneath red, white and blue balloons, booing each time another state was called for the Republican, while the DJ played a song with a chorus similar to “screw Donald Trump.” As Trump won Utah, a frustrated viewer hurled food at the screen.
“It’s a result that surprised us all,” said Senator Gabriela Cuevas, head of Mexico’s Senate foreign relations committee and a member of the opposition National Action Party. “It’s worrisome that a person who seems to take decisions with little information and with such ignorance will have a majority in both chambers.”
Trump’s campaign, like Britain’s Brexit vote before it, rode an anti-immigrant wave, with the Republican blaming foreign workers in the country and free-trade agreements for taking American jobs. In addition to building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, he promised to deport criminal aliens, tighten border controls and institute an “American workers first” labor policy.
Salvador Villegas, 38, a security guard in Mexico City, worried for the 25 family members he has in the U.S., many of them undocumented. “Life is going to be difficult for them,” he said. “I wouldn’t think of going back there.”
President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration struggled to deal with Trump’s threats to build the wall and make Mexico pay for it, and to renegotiate or end the North American Free Trade Agreement. The president first likened the Republican to Adolf Hitler, but then hosted him at his mansion with only a few days’ notice, to the shock and dismay of many Mexicans.
I always thought the U.S. was at the vanguard. This makes me wonder
“Maybe Pena Nieto was right to invite Trump,” said the lawyer Mendoza, gloomily. “I always thought the U.S. was at the vanguard. This makes me wonder.”
Pena Nieto and other members of the government face the task of trying to repair ties with the incoming U.S. administration after months of accusations from both sides. Central bank Governor Agustin Carstens has been among the most vocal critics of Trump in Mexico, calling him a category 5 “hurricane” for the economy.
“Mexico has been attacked in many ways” during the campaign, said Marcela Guerra, who heads the nation’s Senate committee on North American relations and is part of the Organization of American States’ first observation mission to a U.S. election. Speaking before the election result, she said Mexico has “a lot to lose.” |
A study reported online today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology finds lasting benefits from MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for people diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The researchers, led by South Carolina psychiatrist Michael Mithoefer, followed up on 19 subjects, mostly victims of sexual abuse or assault, who took MDMA (a.k.a. Ecstasy) during three sessions interspersed with drug-free psychotherapy. Initial results reported two years ago indicated that subjects who received MDMA were much more likely than subjects who received a placebo to show improvement on the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale. After that study, the eight controls were invited to use MDMA, and all but one agreed. The 19 subjects completed follow-up evaluations an average of three and a half years after the MDMA sessions.
"There was an enduring, clinically meaningful benefit from MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to PTSD patients," Mithoefer et al. write. "No subjects reported any harm from study participation and all of them reported some degree of benefit....These results indicate that there was a favorable long-term risk/benefit ratio for PTSD treatment with just a few doses of pure MDMA administered in a supportive setting, in conjunction with psychotherapy. Should further research validate our initial findings, we predict that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy will become an important treatment option for this very challenging clinical and public health problem."
Subjects' comments on questionnaires shed light on MDMA's function as a catalyst for productive talk therapy. "It increased my ability to stay with and handle getting through emotions," said one. "The MDMA provided a dialogue with myself I am not often able to have," said another, "and there is the long-term effect of an increased sense of well-being." A third subject said: “I was always too frightened to look below the sadness. The MDMA and the support allowed me to pull off the controls, and I...knew how and what and how fast or slow I needed to see my pain."
Before the Drug Enforcement Administration banned MDMA in 1985 because it had become popular as a party drug, Mithoefer and his colleagues note, "uncontrolled published reports suggested that [MDMA], when administered in conjunction with psychotherapy, could yield substantial benefits for those afflicted with a variety of disorders." Now, after decades of government-engineered neglect, the psychotherapeutic benefits of MDMA are once again coming to the fore, thanks largely to the efforts of the Mutidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which funded Mithoefer's study and guided it through the legal obstacles created by MDMA's Schedule I status. If MDMA does indeed become "an important treatment option" for PTSD, it will be a huge victory for the MAPS strategy of working within the system to gradually loosen arbitrary government restrictions on useful psychoative substances. |
Pied Piper (Hartley Rathaway) is a fictional superhero appearing in comic books published by DC Comics, and is commonly associated with the superhero the Flash. The character was created by writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino, and made his first appearance in The Flash #106 (May 1959).
Piper was originally introduced as an adversary of the Flash / Barry Allen and eventually became a member of the Rogues, a criminal association led by Captain Cold which often battled the Flash. During the crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths, most of the Multiverse was destroyed, the DC Universe was rebooted, Barry Allen died, and Wally West took up the Flash mantle. Following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Pied Piper was re-introduced in The Flash #20 (December 1988) as having reformed and become a champion for the poor. Soon afterward, Piper became an ally and friend of Wally, and an integral member of the Flash family.
Following the events of Flashpoint, DC Comics rebooted its universe once again and relaunched its titles in 2011, during The New 52 event. Here, Piper is portrayed as a former member of the Rogues, who has given up being a vigilante and is dating David Singh, Barry's Director at the Central City Police Department.
The Pied Piper made his live action appearance in an episode of the first season of The Flash played by actor Andy Mientus. Mientus returned to the role in an episode of the second season.
Fictional character biography [ edit ]
Hartley Rathaway was born deaf and received assistive technology in the form of hearing implants thanks to research funded by his wealthy father (later it was revealed that the implants were made by Dr. Will Magnus).[1] He became obsessed with sound, and pursued little else in life; experimenting with sonic technology, Rathaway eventually invented a technique of hypnotism through music, and a way to cause deadly vibrations. Growing bored with his lifestyle, he turned to crime as the Pied Piper and frequently clashed with Barry Allen, the second Flash.
Following the events of Flashpoint, DC Comics rebooted its universe once again and relaunched its titled in 2011, during The New 52 event. Here, Piper is portrayed as a former member of the Rogues, who has given up being a vigilante and is dating David Singh, Barry's Director at the Central City Police Department.
Reform [ edit ]
After Allen's death during Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hartley retired from crime to become a socialist champion of the poor and underprivileged. He also came out as one of DC's first openly gay characters, and joked that this was ironic, as he was one of the few villains to have ever "gone straight". He first realized he was gay when he became attracted to Rod Lauren when watching The Crawling Hand.[2] Rathaway becomes a good friend of the Flash, Wally West, and his wife Linda, whom he helps with scientific problems.
Sometime later, Piper was arrested for the murder of his parents. Wally was sure Piper could not have committed such an act, but Piper himself seemed to believe himself guilty. Wally eventually discovered that the true murderer was Mirror Master. Unaware of Wally's discovery, Piper broke out of Iron Heights and struck a deal of some sort with former Rogue and FBI agent the Trickster. During this time, Flash asked the Spectre to erase everyone's memories of his secret identity, due to his wife suffering a miscarriage from an attack by Zoom.
It was later revealed that Barry Allen had Zatanna tamper with the mind of supervillain the Top, turning him into a hero (the Top had gone on a murderous rampage and Allen believed this was the only way to stop him from causing more harm). As a hero, the Top went insane over the guilt of his earlier deeds. After Allen had died, Wally received a letter from Barry asking him to restore Top's mind if he ever returned. After Wally had Zatanna restore the Top's mind, the Top revealed that when he had been a hero he had attempted to reprogram many of the other Rogues into heroes as well, including the Pied Piper.
When the 'good' Rogues went after the remaining 'bad', Top returned to undo his brainwashing on the redeemed Rogues. When the Piper battled the Flash, West unmasked himself, triggering a flood of memories of their friendship and causing the Piper to pass out as his mind repaired itself. When he awoke, Piper appeared to be his old self again and came to Linda's aid. Piper remains the only Rogue to no longer be a villain, save for Magenta. He later had all charges for murder cleared.
One Year Later [ edit ]
One Year Later, Pied Piper was seen in the pages of both The Flash (Vol. 3), and Countdown teaming with a new group of Rogues led by Inertia.[3] The team of Rogues has him working with his parents murderer, Mirror Master. Piper reveals that he has rejoined the Rogues with a plan of infiltrating them, but when Captain Cold, Heat Wave, and Weather Wizard successfully murder Bart Allen,[4] he and Trickster are forced on the run together. They are pursued by heroes and villains alike in the form of the Suicide Squad, the Question and Batwoman, Poison Ivy and Deathstroke, and eventually Piper's former friend and the newly returned previous Flash, Wally West. Wally confines the two of them at the wedding of Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding, despite the warnings that Deathstroke is planning an all-out assault at the occasion. They manage to escape the wedding assault, while inadvertently picking up Double Down as a passenger. The trio stop at a diner, only to be attacked by the Suicide Squad. Double Down is captured, but Piper and Trickster, using an invisibility field, decide to follow the Squad and free the other captured villains. After encountering and freeing Two-Face, Piper and Trickster are again attacked by Deadshot, who pursues them relentlessly until he succeeds in murdering Trickster. With Trickster's death, the cuffs activate a 24-hour self-destruct, which Piper is able to delay with his flute. When the train they are on is submitted to a border check, Piper flees into the desert. Delirious from the heat, he begins to imagine Trickster's corpse is talking to him. After severing the hand from the rest of the corpse, Piper is brought to Apokolips by DeSaad. Desaad unlocks the shackles, and claims that Piper can channel the Anti-Life Equation and control the planet. Before the Piper can do so, Brother Eye finishes assimilating Apokolips.
DeSaad finally gets into Brother Eye's control and convinces Piper to play his flute in order to activate the Anti-Life Equation. Piper agrees to play, but upon hearing that DeSaad was the mastermind behind his recent misfortune, in an almost successful attempt to break his spirit and take control of him, he kills DeSaad with a tune. He plays one final time for Brother Eye, a swan song, "The Show Must Go On" by Queen, that blows up the merged entity Brother Eye/Apokolips, with him still trapped inside, apparently left to die.[5] However, he is later seen alive in the streets of Gotham City, saying that if he was allowed to live for some reason, this time he will play on the side of the angels.[6]
Final Crisis [ edit ]
Pied Piper returns in the Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge mini-series. He invades the police precinct, and picks up Trickster's will, which is actually a fake that contains information on the other Rogues, written in invisible ink. Piper later steps into the middle of the fight between Inertia, Zoom and the Rogues, using his flute to paralyze the combatants, and taking the opportunity to revenge himself upon Mirror Master through a kick in the face. Before he can do anything else, Libra appears, and stabs Piper in the shoulder with his spear. Although wounded, Piper is able to contribute in the killing of Inertia by holding him in place for the Rogues using his flute. Piper is later mentioned to have turned himself into the Central City Police Department.[7]
The New 52: The Flash and Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion (2011–2016) [ edit ]
In September 2011, The New 52 rebooted DC's continuity. In this new timeline, Hartley is now the conductor of Central City's orchestra, and it is said that he is a 'reformed vigilante'. He later assists Flash and former Rogue teammate Captain Cold against the newly united Rogues.[8]
He is in a romantic relationship with David Singh, the director of the crime lab at the Central City Police Department.[9]
DC Rebirth: The Flash (2016–present) [ edit ]
Powers and abilities [ edit ]
A genius of sonic technology, by the age of sixteen Rathaway had crafted a sophisticated flute capable of hypnotizing anyone within range of its sound. He can make anyone do what he wants, and can even make himself 'invisible' to the perception of others. Although he focused obsessively on sound-based technology in his early years, he later expanded his scope to more general mechanical tinkering. Initially, he employed his mind control techniques almost exclusively on humans (and occasional animals), but during his incarceration in Iron Heights he became infatuated by the prison's ubiquitous rats and incorporated them into his gimmick, adding another similarity to his legendary namesake. He is able to use nearly anything that can create tones for his sonic manipulations, including touch-tone telephones and grass blade whistles. According to DeSaad, Rathaway's power is based on the manipulation of The Anti-Life Equation. Rathaway also employs a number of devices that can generate or amplify sound for destructive or protective purposes.
Other versions [ edit ]
Action Comics [ edit ]
The first Pied Piper appears in Action Comics #48 (May, 1942). Working for the Queen Bee, the Pied Piper would play his flute, whose music would compel the VIPs that had been previously drugged by Queen Bee to follow him. He'd lead them to a hidden bunker under the ocean where Queen Bee would hold them for ransom. He was stopped by Mister America.
The Earth-S version of Pied Piper appears in Captain Marvel Jr. #2 and 3 (1942). This version is an enemy of Captain Marvel Jr.
Flash Comics [ edit ]
A version of Pied Piper appears in Flash Comics #59 (November, 1944).
Detective Comics [ edit ]
A version of Pied Piper appears in Detective Comics #143 (January, 1949). The Pied Piper was a criminal obsessed with every sort of pipe. He opened a pipe shop in Gotham City where he planned a series of crimes related to pipes. His activities attracted the unwanted attention of the local vigilantes Batman and Robin and the Pied Piper was eventually captured.
Mystery in Space [ edit ]
A version of the character named Pied Piper of Pluto appears in Mystery in Space #110 (September, 1966).
Flashpoint [ edit ]
In the alternate timeline of the Flashpoint event, the Pied Piper is a hero who has had his vocal cords ripped out by Citizen Cold, forcing him to rely on a cybernetic replacement.[10] Pied Piper was also a childhood friend of Wally West. He arrives at Wally's lair and discovers that Wally has been killed by Citizen Cold. Pied Piper takes Wally's place in uncovering evidence of Citizen Cold's true identity. Pied Piper runs through the sewers and intends to rescue Iris West from the Rogues but was apparently killed by Citizen Cold's exploding ice sculpture.[11] He was later revealed to have survived, and revealed to Iris that Citizen Cold had killed her nephew. After threatening to reveal Citizen Cold's true criminal identity, Pied Piper was briefly attacked by Citizen Cold, who was then frozen by Iris as payback for what he did to Wally.[12]
All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold [ edit ]
The Pied Piper appears in All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #16 (April, 2012).
Injustice: Gods Among Us [ edit ]
He appears in Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Five #2 (March, 2016).
Wonder Woman '77 [ edit ]
The Hartley Rathaway version of the character appears in Wonder Woman '77 Special #3 (June, 2016).
In other media [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
Animation [ edit ]
Pied Piper has appeared in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Flash and Substance". Pied Piper was hanging out in a Central City bar, sitting with Turtle-Man; when Batman, Orion and the Flash entered the bar he made a run for it.
A different version of Pied Piper appears as in Wonder Woman episode "Pied Piper". This version of the character is very different from the main universe; his name is Hamlin Rule, and he hypnotizes women to rob the venues at which he performs. He is portrayed by Martin Mull.
The Flash. Andy Mientus as Hartley Rathaway / Pied Piper in television series
Andy Mientus portrays Hartley Rathaway / Pied Piper on The CW's The Flash. He is a former employee and protege of Dr. "Harrison Wells" (actually Eobard Thawne), who was kicked out by his parents when he came out as gay. When the particle accelerator exploded, his hearing was enhanced to a superhuman level, which resulted in him being in constant agony. He develops sonicwave weaponry in order to exact revenge on Wells by targeting his new protégé, The Flash, as well as creating implants for himself that serve both as hearing aids that dull sound and discreet weapons. He appears in the 11th and 12th episodes of the series' first season, initially attempting to get revenge on Dr. Wells for ruining his reputation after he attempted to reveal the risk of the particle accelerator exploding. He is captured, but manages to escape, although he reveals before his departure that he has learned what became of Caitlin Snow's fiancé Ronnie Raymond the night of the particle accelerator explosion which ultimately leads to the team learning of Ronnie's circumstances.[13] His parents appear in the episode "Revenge of the Rogues" and he is mentioned by name. Mientus told The Wrap in an interview that he's open for a spin off of his character.[14] Cisco later uses the components of both Rathaway's and Sara Lance's (Canary) sonic weapons to develop an ultrasonic collar for the latter's sister Laurel Lance (Black Canary), providing her an artificial ultrasonic ability when wearing it. Pied Piper made another appearance in the episode "Flash Back" where Barry goes back in time to talk to Dr. Harrison Wells / Eobard Thawne about getting faster to defeat Zoom. Barry goes back to Pied Piper's first appearance in the show. This time Barry prevents Hartley from breaking out by having Cisco look closer at Rathaway's implants. Rathaway assists the team in stopping the Time Wraith that's chasing future Barry with his technology, causing Cisco and Caitlin to see him differently. When Barry goes back to the future, he is saved from the Time Wraith by a reformed Hartley. A ramification caused by Barry's time traveling was that Hartley was no longer a villain and was now an occasional aid to Team Flash. He also becomes fully aware of Thawne's masquerade and having met the Earth-2 iteration of the true Harrison Wells. His relationship with his parents also appears to have improved.
Film [ edit ]
Pied Piper appears in the animated film Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, in a non-speaking role. In the distorted Flashpoint timeline, Pied Piper is a superhero member of Cyborg's group to stop the war between Aquaman's and Wonder Woman's forces.
Web Series [ edit ]
Pied Piper is seen as a background student on DC Super Hero Girls
Video games [ edit ]
Pied Piper appears in DC Universe Online, voiced by Jim Canning. |
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Last summer, Arsene Wenger was faced with the departure of long-serving right-back Bacary Sagna, and also planned to loan out Carl Jenkinson. It meant he required two new bodies.
Wenger, therefore, recruited both Mathieu Debuchy from Newcastle and Calum Chambers from Southampton, who could also play in central positions but had generally played on the right. Just over a year on, though, and neither can get a game. Arsenal’s right-back slot has been nailed down by someone else entirely – Spanish youngster Hector Bellerin.
Bellerin started last season as third choice in that position, and spent the first couple of weeks talking to coaches about a suitable loan destination. Instead, injuries to Debuchy and Chambers allowed him a surprise start at Borussia Dortmund last September – and while Arsenal were battered away in Germany, Bellerin was one of the few impressive performers.
Congratulating goalscorer Ramsey... after laying on the assist
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Since then, the 20-year-old has quickly established himself as a dependable first-teamer. Debuchy was unlucky with injuries last season, and while he’s now recovered, the Frenchman simply hasn’t been able to break into the team and get up to full match fitness. Chambers, meanwhile, had a couple of very difficult games last season: away at Swansea when he was terrorised by Jefferson Montero, and away at Stoke when he was sent off. He now seems more likely to get opportunities in the centre.
Wide boy
He famously beat Theo Walcott’s 40m sprint time at Arsenal, which is partly due to his acceleration – an attribute he shares with other former Gunners full-backs like Ashley Cole and Gael Clichy
Bellerin is most immediately impressive because of his tremendous speed. He famously beat Theo Walcott’s 40m sprint time at Arsenal, which is partly due to his acceleration – an attribute he shares with other former Gunners full-backs like Ashley Cole and Gael Clichy – and is always extremely quick to jump in ahead of opponents and intercept the ball cleanly.
He’s also shown great willingness to turn defence into attack quickly with a sudden burst down the touchline. This has worked nicely because on the opposite flank, the steadier Nacho Monreal has established himself at left-back ahead of Kieran Gibbs. Arsenal therefore need more dynamism from the opposite flank, and Bellerin has provided that expertly.
On Saturday, the Spaniard returned to Vicarage Road, where he spent a couple of months on loan two seasons ago, and turned in yet another commanding performance at right-back. With Watford shielding their centre-backs through Ben Watson and Etienne Capoue effectively, Arsenal needed to look wide when attacking – and with Aaron Ramsey determined to drift inside into the middle, Bellerin always made himself an option.
He was constantly overlapping to stretch the play, and he eventually assisted Ramsey’s goal (the Gunners’ third of the game) with a powerful run and neat pass inside. Overall, he was probably Arsenal’s best performer going forward. The Vine above shows his goal against Liverpool last season, as he cuts in from the right.
Defensive logic
The most impressive thing about Bellerin’s game, however, has been his defensive work. You expect quick 20-year-old full-backs to be determined attackers, especially because they’re often converted wingers.
He stands up to opponents well in one-on-one challenges, refusing to get drawn into unnecessary challenges
But Bellerin has rarely been exposed defensively either, and is seemingly very capable in all areas at the back. He stands up to opponents well in one-on-one challenges, refusing to get drawn into unnecessary challenges, while his speed means he recovers his defensive position quickly. He’s also very good at defending the back post when the opposition are attacking down the opposite flank.
Most importantly, though, Bellerin seems intelligent enough to vary his style based upon the situation. Therefore, while he spent the majority of the Watford game attacking, in the 3-0 victory over Manchester United, when Arsenal had won the game within the first half-hour, he remained in much more cautious positions and ensured Arsenal weren’t caught out on the counter-attack. It’s that tactical ability which Arsenal’s youngsters have often lacked, but Bellerin seems astoundingly composed for a player who made his debut just over a year ago.
Bright future
It’s normal for a youngster to suffer a dip in form around a year or 18 months after a surprise development in becoming a first-team player, mainly because of the Premier League’s physicality – youngsters simply become fatigued.
If that happens, Arsenal shouldn’t panic – after all, Debuchy and Chambers are waiting in the wings, allowing Bellerin to have a break from first-team action. Nevertheless, the Spaniard is now Arsenal’s first-choice right-back – and probably will be until his ex-club Barcelona come calling.
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If you haven’t heard, Apple just broke the record for achieving the highest earnings in a single quarter for a publicly traded company. They did that by netting $18 BILLION in income with $74.6 billion in revenues. Much of this success can be attributed to massive iPhone 6 sales.
But enough with the finance talk. What I really wanted to know is what you can do with $18 billion. I’m not referring to how many companies they can buy or how many stocks they can buy back. I much prefer to measure their money using more creative means. With that said, I’ve done the math and give you 5 outrageous things you can do with an $18 billion quarter:
1. Buy one, top of the line Tesla P85D every minute! That’s right, $18 billion per quarter breaks down to about $137,668 of profit per minute. I highly doubt Tesla can keep up with that kind of demand.
2. Generate 13x the GDP of American Samoa in a single month! According to Wikipedia, American Samoa’s GDP is approximately $462.2M. Not too bad for a growing country, but pales in comparison to the kind of money Apple can generate. Apple generates about $6M per month based on their most recent quarter.
3. Cover the distance between the moon and Earth 7 times by stacking $1 bills end to end! How crazy is that? If we obtained $18 billion in singles, and stacked them end to end, it’s enough to make 7 stacks that touch the surface of the moon.
4. Fill 12 Pyramid of Gizas. A single pyramid of Giza can’t contain all those dollar bills. Once again, $18 billion in singles can fill up to 12 Pyramid of Gizas (if there were 12 of them). You need approximately 1,428,331,318 singles to fill one pyramid.
5. Cover the entire country of India TWICE. You read that right. With $18 billion worth of singles, you can cover all of India with two layers of $1 dollar bill blankets. Bad at geography? To put it in perspective, that equates to covering approximately 75% of the United States of America. That is a lot of surface area, my friends.
So there you have it. I hope these visualizations give you get a better sense of how much $18 BILLION really is. In short, it’s A LOT.
p.s. Feel free to check my math! |
One of my favorite movies as a kid was Tron, the early 1980's film about a computer programmer who gets “digitized” and sucked into a computer world inhabited by personified computer programs. In the film, the protagonist joins a group of resistant programs in an effort to take down the oppressive Master Control Program (MCP), a rogue piece of software which had evolved, acquired a thirst for power, and was attempting to take over the Pentagon's computer systems.
In one of the most exciting scenes in the film, the hero programs race in light cycles, which were two-wheeled motorcycle-like vehicles that left walls in their wake. One of the protagonists forced an enemy cycle to crash into the arena's wall, leaving a gaping hole. The heroes dispatched their opponents and escaped through the hole to freedom – the first step on their way to take down the MCP.
When I watched that movie, I had no idea that I would unwittingly recreate the Tron world years later, rogue programs and all, with an Apple IIgs computer.
Here's how it happened: When I first learned to program, I decided to create a version of the Tron light cycles game. My friend Marco Busse and I programmed it on an Apple IIgs using ORCA/Pascal and 65816 assembly language. During play, the screen background was solid black with a white border, with one color line representing each player. We displayed the game score in a horizontal strip at the bottom of the screen. It wasn't the most graphically advanced program, but it was simple and fun. It looked something like this:
The game supported up to four players – that is, if they scrunched up close together on the same keyboard. It was clumsy, but it worked. We rarely had enough people in the same place to play as all four cycles, so Marco eventually added computer-controlled players that could put up a reasonable fight.
The Arms Race
At this point, the game was a lot of fun already, but we wanted to experiment. We added missiles in order to give players a second chance to blow their way out of an impending crash. As Marco described it years later, “Both the AI and the humans had three missiles they could use during the course of the game. When a missile hit a wall, it would create a mini 'explosion' that would erase the color on the background back to black as it faded out – thereby eliminating sections of the trail left by previous cycles.”
Soon we had players and computers firing missiles to shoot their way out of tight situations. Nonetheless, Tron purists may scoff, since the movie programs didn't have such luxuries as missiles to get them out of a bind.
The Escape
Like all accidents of a bizarre and unusual nature, this one was unexpected.
One day, when Marco and I were playing against two computer opponents, we forced one of the AI cycles to trap itself between its own walls and the bottom game border. Sensing an impending crash, it fired a missile, just like it always did whenever it was trapped. But this time was different – instead of firing at another trail, it fired at the game border, which looked like any other light cycle trail as far as the computer was concerned. The missile impacted with the border, leaving a cycle-sized hole, and the computer promptly took the exit and left the main playing field. Puzzled, we watched as the cycle drove through the scoring display at the bottom of the screen. It easily avoided the score digits and then drove off the screen altogether.
Shortly after, the system crashed.
Our minds reeled as we tried to understand what we had just seen. The computer had found a way to get out of the game. When a cycle left the game screen, it escaped into computer memory – just like in the movie.
Our jaws dropped when we realized what had happened.
So what did we do after discovering a defect in our program that could methodically crash the entire system?
We did it again. First we tried to blow our own way out of the game screen. Then we forced the computer to escape – repeatedly. Each time we were rewarded with fantastic crashes. Sometimes the disk drive light would twitch as the drive groaned into unending service. Other times, the screen would change to nonsensical text, or the speaker emitted a shriek or a low drone. Sometimes all of these things happened at once, leaving the computer in a state of total meltdown.
So why did this happen? To understand the answer, let's peek into the architecture of the Apple IIgs computer.
(Un)Protected Memory
The Apple IIgs operating system didn't have protected memory, a feature present in most modern operating systems that assigns programs memory space and restricts them from accessing memory outside that space. The upshot was that an Apple IIgs program could read or write anywhere it wanted (except it couldn't write to ROM – Read-Only Memory). The IIgs used memory-mapped I/O to access devices like the disk drive, which meant that you could activate the disk drive by reading from a certain memory location. Graphics programs took advantage of this design by reading and writing directly to the screen memory.
The game used one of the IIgs's Super Hi-Res modes; it ran at a glorious 320x200 pixels with a palette of 16 colors. To choose the palette colors, the programmer mapped sixteen entries (numbered 0 – 15 or $0 – F in hexadecimal) to 12-bit color values. You could read and write colors directly to the video RAM to paint the screen, just like you could read and write in program data memory.
Crash-detection algorithm
The game took advantage of this fact and implemented crash detection by reading directly from video RAM. For each light cycle, the game computed its next position based upon its current heading and read that pixel from video memory. If the position was empty, represented by a black pixel (palette entry $0), the player was safe and the game continued. But if the position wasn't empty, then the player had collided with a either a light cycle wall or the white game border (palette entry 15 or $F). Here's an example:
This example shows the upper-left corner of the screen, with color $F representing the white game border and color entry $1 representing player one's green cycle. Here the player is moving left as indicated by the arrow, which means the next space is empty, or color $0. If the player continued in this direction for one more move, they would collide with the wall (color $F) and crash.
Going off the grid
The algorithm to determine which pixel to check next used some fast assembler math to calculate a memory address – either one pixel above, below, to the left, or to the right of the current pixel. But since any given pixel on the screen was really just a memory address, the algorithm simply calculated a new memory location to read. So when the light cycle left the screen, the game happily calculated the next location in system memory to check for a wall crash. This meant that the cycle was now cruising through system RAM, wantonly turning on bits and “crashing” into memory.
Writing to random locations in system memory isn't generally a wise design practice. Unsurprisingly, the game would generate spectacular crashes as a result. A human player would be driving blind and usually crash right away, limiting the scope of system casualties. The AI opponents had no such weakness. The computer would scan immediately in front, to the left, and to the right of its position to determine if it was about to hit a wall and change directions accordingly. So as far as the computer was concerned, system memory looked no different than screen memory. As Marco described it,
We can only speculate what it started doing once it left screen memory, since it obviously would look to find a way to continue going in a direction that was occupied by 0’s. If it became blocked and ran into a “wall” of numbers, it would die. In those spectacular crashes though, it would sometimes be running around very much “alive” until at some point it either overwrote some code being executed with a trail that didn’t make sense, or it would access some memory mapped device that would then cause a crash. But it wasn’t immediate – the AI ran around for a little while out there before it crashed the system.
In the end, we had not only recreated the light cycle game from the movie, but recreated the escape as well. And just like in the movie, the escape had great consequences.
Nowadays, with operating systems that have protected memory, this sort of thing wouldn't happen so easily. Still, it makes me wonder if there are Tron-like programs out there trying to break free from their “protected spaces” — all in an effort to stop rogue AI code from taking over the Pentagon.
I guess we'll have to wait for that digitizer to get invented in order to find out.
--
Thanks to Marco Busse, Jamie Lendino, Jonathan Stark, Joe Leo, and Ariel Valentin for their tech edits and feedback. Crashed Apple II computer image from Mike's Hobby Home - Apple II Repair Tips.
Updated 10/8/2008 10:29 AM ET - Fixed CPU model typo, thank you Reddit readers! |
Whenever there is a disaster, those responsible claim it was "unforeseeable" so as to escape blame.
For example:
It happened with 9/11
It happened with the financial crisis
It happened with the BP oil spill (see this, this, this, this and this)
It happened with the Japanese nuclear accident
The big boys gamble with our lives and our livelihoods, because they make a killing by taking huge risks and cutting costs. And when things inevitably go South, they aren't held responsible (other than a slap on the wrist), and may even be bailed out by the government.
Are All Nuclear Power Plants Vulnerable?
Much of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex has experienced difficulties because the earthquake knocked out the main power, and then the tsunami destroyed the backup diesel generators.
Of course, many other reactors are built in seismically active areas. But that's not my point.
Nasa scientists are predicting that a solar storm will knock out most of the electrical power grid in many countries worldwide, perhaps for months. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
Indeed, the Earth's magnetic field protects us from the sun's most violent radiation, and yet the magnetic field fluctuates over time. As the Telegraph reported in 2008:
Large hole in magnetic field that protects Earth from sun's rays ... Recent satellite observations have revealed the largest breach yet seen in the magnetic field that protects Earth from most of the sun's violent blasts.
I'm not predicting some 2012 Mayan catastrophe. I am simply warning that a large solar storm - as Nasa is predicting - could knock out power throughout much of the world, especially if the earth's magnetic field happens to be weak at the time.
What would happen to nuclear power plants world wide if their power - and most of the surrounding modern infrastructure - is knocked out?
Nuclear power companies are notoriously cheap in trying to cut costs. If they are failing to harden their electrical components to protect against the predicted solar storm, they are asking for trouble ... perhaps on a scale that dwarfs Fukushima. Because while Fukushima is the first nuclear accident to involve multiple reactors within the same complex, a large solar storm could cause accidents at multiple complexes in numerous countries.
If the nuclear power companies and governments continue to cut costs and take large gambles, the next nuclear accident could make Fukushima look tame.
I'm not saying this will happen in 2012, or 2013 (although Nasa appears to be hinting at this). But a large solar storm which knocks out electrical grids over wide portions of the planet will happen at some point in the future.
Don't pretend it is unforeseeable. The nuclear power industry is on notice that it must spend the relatively small amounts of money necessary to prevent a widespread meltdown from the loss of power due to a solar storm.
Note: Future generations of nuclear reactors will presumably run at lower temperatures and will store spent rods in a safer manner.
But most current reactors are of a similarly outdated design as the Fukushima reactors, where the cooling systems require electricity to operate, and huge amounts of spent radioactive fuel are housed on-site, requiring continuous cooling to prevent radioactive release.
Giant hat tip: Reptil. |
In partnership with Astronaut Tim Peake, UK Space, and the European Space Agency, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is sending their single board computers to the International Space Station in a program dubbed “Astro Pi.” Two Raspberry Pis will be sent to the ISS as part of Tim’s 6 month mission there and they’re inviting primary and secondary school aged children who are UK residents to write the code that runs on the boards. The boards will be outfitted with a bevvy of sensors included on the Astro Pi HAT: gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity sensors. The board will also have a real time clock with backup battery, 8×8 RGB LED display, and several push buttons. One Pi will have the camera module and the other will have the infrared camera module.
“I’m really excited about this project, born out of the cooperation among UK industries and institutions,” said Astronaut Tim Peake. “There is huge scope for fun science and useful data gathering using the Astro Pi sensors on board the International Space Station. This competition offers a unique chance for young people to learn core computing skills that will be extremely useful in their future. It’s going to be a lot of fun!”
More information about the competition will be released at the Bett Show in London next month.
The Raspberry Pis will be in good company on the International Space Station, which is already equipped with an espresso machine and a 3D printer. All they need now is a CNC and we can formally declare it the first hackerspace in… well… space. |
IT WAS Greg Mankiw's turn in the New York Times' rotation of weekend economic columnists on Sunday, and Mr Mankiw used his column space to take on the unenviable job of defending John McCain's economic policies. Specifically at issue was Mr McCain's plan to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%.
It's an idea with strong support from economists on the right, who note that America's corporate tax rate is high relative to many other nations, and who argue, correctly, that the distortionary impact of the corporate tax is high relative to other means of raising revenue.
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But Mr Mankiw makes a number of errors—of omission and commission—in making his case. First and foremost, as Mark Thoma points out, Mr Mankiw suggests that a cut in the corporate tax rate might be self-financing. This is a highly dubious proposition which lacks the support of most academic economists. Following closely from this goof, Brad DeLong sagely notes that while a corporate tax rate cut might be good for economic growth, an unfunded one will not. The long-term budget constraint applies, and while Mr McCain has promised to rein in spending, his actual policy proposals are rather quiet on just where these cuts would come (with the exception of earmarks, which offer too little excess to close the gap).
Finally, there is the matter of progressivity in the tax cut. Mr Mankiw does cite research showing that much of burden of the corporate tax is passed on to labour, and that is no doubt the case. But much of it is not, and as Mr Thoma notes, European nations generally combine their low corporate tax rates with generous redistribution of revenues.
There can be little doubt that a move away from taxation of income and capital, and toward taxation of consumption and negative externalities (like congestion and carbon emissions) would greatly improve the efficiency of the tax code. Politically, that's a difficult case to make. While Mr Mankiw's proposal is likely music to the ears of scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, he'll have to do more to acknowledge its drawbacks if he hopes to win converts from a broader audience.
(Photo credit: Reuters) |
Romain Grosjean has become the fifth current Formula 1 racer confirmed for next month’s Race Of Champions at London’s former Olympic Stadium
Grosjean, who has taken ten podiums for Lotus F1 Team ahead of his move to the new Haas F1 Team in 2016, joins Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hülkenberg and Felipe Massa in the ROC 2015 field
Unlike their Formula 1 day job, the Race Of Champions offers these stars the chance to battle for glory in identical machinery
They will join greats from Le Mans, Rallycross, Touring Cars and MotoGP in a bid to find the ultimate ‘Champion of Champions’, a title Grosjean won in 2012
Tickets are still available from www.raceofchampions.com for this festival of non-stop action and entertainment in London on November 20-21
Formula 1 star Romain Grosjean has become the latest driver to sign up for the 2015 Race Of Champions on November 20-21 at London’s former Olympic Stadium.
Grosjean has taken a total of ten podiums for Lotus F1 Team – most recently at this year’s Belgian Grand Prix – ahead of his move to the all-new Haas F1 team for 2016. The Frenchman also has a fine record at the Race Of Champions, not least his run to the ‘Champion of Champions’ title at Bangkok in 2012. That day Grosjean saw off Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen in the Grand Final, having beaten F1 world champions Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel in quick succession along the way.
Now Grosjean will return for ROC 2015 in London – and Vettel will again be among the opposition alongside fellow current F1 racers Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hülkenberg and Felipe Massa, making a total of five drivers in action from this year’s F1 grid.
Kristensen will also be back in a ROC field that includes reigning World Rallycross Champion Petter Solberg, reigning Formula E Champion Nelson Piquet Jr, British Touring Car great Jason Plato, Williams Martini Racing’s Official Test Driver Susie Wolff, reigning ROC Champion of Champions David Coulthard plus MotoGP world champions Mick Doohan and Jorge Lorenzo.
Grosjean said: “I'm delighted to be coming back to the Race Of Champions. This is a great event and there are so many reasons that we all want to return every year. The main thing is that everyone involved just loves racing and driving different cars – so trying out such a wide range of machinery is driving heaven for all of us.
“Then there’s the fact that you meet different champions and people you don’t have the chance to meet during the year. So we all have a lot of fun off the track but when we get in the cars everyone races at 100 percent – and I’m no different. Rest assured I’ll do everything to win the ‘Champion of Champions’ crown back next month.”
The Race Of Champions is an annual end-of-season contest which has been running for over 25 years. It brings together some of the world’s greatest drivers from motor sport’s major disciplines – including Formula 1, Le Mans, Rallycross, Touring Cars and MotoGP – and sets them free to battle head-to-head in identical machinery.
The event is run over two days: first comes the ROC Nations Cup (on the evening of Friday November 20) when drivers pair up in teams based on nationality to bid for the title of ‘World’s Fastest Nation’. Then on the afternoon of Saturday November 21 it’s time for the Race Of Champions itself, when teamwork goes out of the window and it’s a flat-out battle for individual glory as ‘Champion of Champions’.
ROC president Fredrik Johnsson said: “Romain has always been a strong performer at the Race Of Champions, and he proved his skill in style when he beat three of the world’s greatest ever drivers – Sebastian, Michael and Tom – to become Champion of Champions at Bangkok in 2012. That means he is sure to be one of the racers the others are keen to avoid in the draw. Hopefully we can now expect a sizeable French contingent in the crowd, to add to the cosmopolitan atmosphere in London’s former Olympic Stadium next month.”
In recent years ROC has visited the Stade de France in Paris (2004-2006), London’s Wembley Stadium (2007-2008), the ‘Bird’s Nest’ Olympic Stadium in Beijing (2009), Düsseldorf’s Esprit Arena (2010-2011), the Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok (2012) and Bushy Park Barbados (2014). Now the contest is returning to its European roots at the iconic home of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Tickets for ROC 2015 in London are now available via www.raceofchampions.com. For access to rights-free high-resolution imagery and to keep up with all the latest news ahead of this year’s event please visit www.raceofchampions.com, Race Of Champions on Facebook plus @raceofchampions and #ROCLondon on Twitter.
Drivers confirmed for the 2015 Race Of Champions:
Sebastian VETTEL, four-time Formula 1 World Champion
Nico HÜLKENBERG, F1 star and 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours winner
Tom KRISTENSEN, nine-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner
Petter SOLBERG, reigning FIA World Rallycross Champion
Daniel RICCIARDO, three-time Formula 1 grand prix winner
Mick DOOHAN, five-time 500cc MotoGP World Champion
Felipe MASSA, 11-time Formula 1 grand prix winner
Nelson PIQUET Jr, reigning FIA Formula E Champion
David COULTHARD, reigning ROC Champion of Champions
Susie WOLFF, Williams Martini Racing Official Test Driver
Jason PLATO, double British Touring Car Champion
Jorge LORENZO, double MotoGP World Champion
Romain GROSJEAN, ten F1 podiums, 2012 ROC Champion of Champions
Drivers confirmed for ROC Celebrity Skills Challenge presented by TAG Heuer:
Chris HOY, six-time Olympic gold medallist in cycling
Ben AINSLIE, four-time Olympic gold medallist in sailing
Ella EYRE, MOBO Award-winning singer-songwriter |
Posted on: March 8, 2016
On November 7, 2015, Alpinist Magazine and Imaginary Mountain Surveyors co-hosted a panel on women's mountaineering writing as part of the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. We called it "A Summit of One's Own." Writers in attendance were Angie Abdou, Bernadette McDonald, Margo Talbot, Jan Redford and Majka Burhardt.
In 1929 the British author Virginia Woolf—daughter of the great mountaineer Leslie Stephen—had famously declared that to become a writer, a woman needed a "room of her own," a space away from the expectations and conventions of her society. During this panel, we talked about the various ways that women have created rooms for themselves as adventurers and as mountain writers in a genre largely occupied by men. Our panelists and audience members asked many questions, including these: How much has changed in women's mountain writing since the late nineteenth and early twentieth century? What can be done to encourage greater female participation? What are examples of great female authors who have redefined what it means to roam and to write in the wild? And finally: What are some of the ways in which transcending masculine and feminine stereotypes can free people of all genders to experiment with new writing styles and subjects and to help foster richer, more diverse mountain stories in the future?
I was deeply moved by the stories the participants had to share that day—and by the sense of how urgent they felt these issues are to our community, to our mountain pursuits, our literature and our lives.
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The audio file below is a recording of that discussion. Because of a lack of a microphone in the audience section, we weren't able to record the audience stories. But I encourage readers to share their stories, now, in the comments section below. Or to email me if you have questions, queries or even pitches. We've love to add more diverse stories to our magazine from women and other under-represented groups.—Katie Ives, Editor-In-Chief, Alpinist Magazine
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A Canadian now in his nineties participated in a 1943 massacre of villagers by Nazi collaborators in what is now Belarus, according to a newly published academic paper based partly on declassified Soviet documents.
The paper in the latest edition of Holocaust and Genocide Studies has prompted Jewish organizations to ask Ottawa to reopen the case of Vladimir Katriuk, who arrived in Canada in 1951 and now lives southwest of Montreal.
“Canada should immediately revoke his citizenship and deport him to Belarus or Germany,” Dr. Efraim Zuroff, coordinator of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Nazi war crimes research project, told the National Post on Tuesday.
Written by historian Per Anders Rudling, a postdoctoral fellow at Lund University in Sweden, the paper says Soviet testimony unsealed in 2008 identifies Mr. Katriuk as having opened fire on civilians.
On March 22, 1943, villagers of German-occupied Khatyn were herded into a barn to be burned alive, the paper says. Mr. Katriuk “reportedly lay behind the stationary machine gun, firing rounds at anyone attempting to escape the flames.”
In an email Tuesday, the author cautioned that Soviet archival materials had to be treated “carefully and critically.” But he said other sources also pointed to Mr. Katriuk’s involvement in the massacre, which wiped out the entire village population.
[np-related]
“Katriuk’s participation in the Khatyn massacre is confirmed by multiple testimonies, and in some detail,” said Mr. Rudling, a citizen of the U.S. and Sweden who did his PhD at the University of Alberta.
“The testimonies are consistent in identifying Katriuk as a machine gunner at Khatyn, and indeed in other atrocities. Together, the material produces a compelling evidence that Katriuk was indeed an active participant in the massacre.”
Mr. Katriuk said he was unaware of Mr. Rudling’s paper. Carole Saindon, a Department of Justice spokeswoman, said the war crimes program reviews new evidence when relevant but declined to comment on specific cases.
‘These records clearly document that Vladimir Katriuk was a commander of a platoon in the battalion which perpetrated the massacre’
The paper is the latest twist in a long-running and controversial war-crimes case. In 1999, the Federal Court ruled that Mr. Katriuk had concealed his past as a Nazi collaborator when he entered Canada but found there was no evidence he had participated in atrocities.
“Now that argument is wrong because there is substantial evidence he was a hands-on perpetrator,” said David Matas, senior legal counsel at B’nai Brith Canada. He wants the federal Cabinet to revisit its 2007 decision to not revoke Mr. Katriuk’s citizenship.
B’nai Brith is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday and may raise the issue then, said Mr. Matas. The Jewish advocacy group also sent a letter to the Prime Minister last year citing Mr. Rudling’s research.
“These records clearly document that Vladimir Katriuk was a commander of a platoon in the battalion which perpetrated the massacre and that he personally opened fire with a machine gun on defenceless villagers,” the letter said. “There is no justification for continuing to give him a haven in Canada.”
During the Second World War, Mr. Katriuk was in charge of a unit of Battalion 118, which was under the command of German officers. He testified he had not joined voluntarily and while he had protected villagers and livestock from partisans, he did not participate in German operations.
He was later part of the Waffen-SS before defecting to the French resistance and fighting against the Germans. In 1951, using a false name, he took a ship to Quebec. He subsequently reverted to his real name and was granted citizenship in 1958.
But he eventually became a target of war crimes investigators and the government took him to court in 1996, successfully arguing he had intentionally concealed his collaboration with the Nazi regime. However, the decision to revoke citizenship rests with Cabinet, which declined to do so in Mr. Katriuk’s case.
Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said it remained vital to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. “Yes, they are old and feeble, but we ought not think of them as they are today but remember them as they were when carrying out their horrendous work, young, strong brutish thugs. They lived to a ripe old age while denying their victims their right to life.”
National Post
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, the 6-foot-5, 195-pound point guard from College Park High School (TX), has trimmed his list to four schools and set up official visits with each. Grimes will visit Texas (Sept. 22), Kentucky (Sept. 29), Kansas (Oct. 13) and Marquette (Oct. 20) “Those are really my final four right now,” he said Wednesday by phone. He broke down all four home visits and schools for: “[Their message is] I’m a big priority to them. I have to sign with them, they have to sign with me, I’m a must-get for them. I can come in there and be the primary scorer, primary ball-handler and be able to play alongsidewith them. Also be able to play with their good player in their frontcourt as well. Just come in there and a be big contributor to their offense.”“Coach Cal’s message is he gets players to the league. I’m a definitely a player that can can done with that. Come in there and play alongside other five-star players, get better every day, development on and off the court. Can’t help but get better playing with other great players, all playing alongside each other and pushing each other. So I could go in there, be the primary ball-handler, overall have a good year with them and try to get them a national championship.” Kentucky is also involved for 2018 point guardwho takes his official this weekend, but that’s not an issue for Grimes. “Yeah, he talked about the transition to the NBA and if gets three guards he’ll take them all and he just has to make them work. So if he gets three guards, he’ll play three guards. The best players will play for sure.”“They’ve been on me heavy for about a year now, been at every game, almost the whole coaching staff at every game. I could come in there and play alongside, he’s a great shooter, a great ball-handler, and just be able to complement each other really well. I can take them to the next step, an Elite Eight or Final Four Appearances and hopefully that national championship.”“That I’m a must priority for them and will play alongside. I already know Matt, have a good relationship with him so that’s a big deal for me. I already know the point guard, he lets me know how practice is, how the campus is, so that we will be able to complement each other well. I could come in there, be a primary scorer and be able to lead that team for sure.”Grimes averaged 21.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 4.3 assists at the Adidas Summer Championships last week with his AAU team, Basketball University. As for a timetable on a decision, he said. “Just whenever I feel comfortable with the right school and get a feel about the campus. I’m not trying to rush anything.” Photo: Adidas |
One of the goofiest things that happened during the 2004 presidential election was when a national poll asked Americans whether they would rather have a beer with George W. Bush or the Democratic candidate, John Kerry. A majority of those polled indicated they would like to hoist a Heineken with Bush -- how didmethod of choosing a candidate work out for us? -- and we appear to be at it again, with this year's version of that nonsense announced late last week.I'm sure you heard about it over the weekend… An Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll released Friday showed these to be among the most compelling things we should consider when selecting the next President of the United States: Between Barack Obama and John McCain, who would we rather watch a football game with and, as amore dignified follow-up, who would we choose to be our child's teacher.For the record, Obama was the choice on both counts but let's not endorse these ridiculous questions by dwelling on those results.It's actually quite sad that in a poll with 34 published pages of questions, these are undoubtedly the only two that made it to your television or newspaper over the weekend.What I found interesting is that, like most comprehensive polls that include questions about the Iraq war, the AP-Yahoo survey shows once again that the vast majority of Americans want some form of timeline for exiting Iraq -- a result that has not changed much in the last few years.The poll asked respondents "Do you support or oppose setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq?"Almost half of all of those questioned "strongly support" a withdrawal timetable, with a total of 72 percent of Americans either "somewhat" or "strongly" supporting a date-certain for withdrawal. And before "the surge" was somewhat successfully publicized by Bush and John McCain as the end-all-be-all of the Iraq war -- like we haven't had five disastrous years before that and still have no rationale for even being there -- such responses were consistently at 80 percent or more.But at this point, here's what almost three-quarters of Americanneed to keep in mind: John McCain and almost every Republican candidate running for office this year think you're all a bunch of cowards -- they've said so. They say you want to "surrender to the terrorists." They say you favor a gutless retreat and that you want to "cut and run."Perhaps most importantly, they have been questioning your patriotism for a long time and have often accused you of wanting to abandon our troops.They may not have sent most voters a bulk mail or an e-mail directing those comments personally at them, but they use that language and those sentiments on a daily basis to describe the public figures who agree exactly with the point of view of most Amercians.In her vice-presidential acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC), Sarah Palin said that Democratic nominee Barack Obama "wants to forfeit" to the terrorists.Former GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said at the RNC that "if Barack Obama had been President, there would have been no troop surge and our troops would have been withdrawn in defeat" and followed that by accusing Democrats of giving up on Iraq and saying "I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that when they gave up on Iraq they were giving up on America."Turncoat former Democrat Joe Lieberman said that Obama "wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle," and it goes without saying that Bush, McCain, Dick Cheney and every Republican with a second of air time has repeated "cut and run" so many times they probably still mumble it in their sleep and use it as an intoxicating phrase while having sex.And it may have hit its peak in late 2005 when Ohio Representative Jean Schmidt went after Congressman John Murtha -- a highly-decorated former Marine --- on the floor of the House of Representatives because Murtha had just called for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and smeared him saying "cowards cut and run, Marines never do."That was almost three years ago. That kind of mud had been flying before that, it has since and it will continue through November 4 and beyond.But no matter how many names they've been called, no matter how many times Americans have been hammered with "cut and run" and "retreat and defeat" over the last four years, mostfavor an exit from Iraq.So the three-quarters of Americans sharing the same views on Iraq held by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and other Democrats need to ask themselves one simple question as election day approaches: Why would they want to vote for John McCain or any Republican when they've said you're a coward, are not patriotic, silently support a terrorist victory over America and have turned your back on our troops?And then vote accordingly. |
'If I have to go, I'll go. But if I don't have to, I don't mind' - Andre Russell on the possibility of playing in Pakistan © Associated Press
West Indies allrounder Andre Russell has said he would be willing, but "scared", to travel to Pakistan if the Pakistan Super League (PSL) were to be played there next year. Russell, who represents Islamabad United in the PSL, said he was only being defensive based on the knowledge he had gathered about the security situation in Pakistan from reading and listening in the media.
"Based on what I have heard and stuff you know, I mean, I am going to be scared obviously," Russell told ESPNcricinfo, when asked if he would play in Pakistan. "But, for some reason, I would go to Pakistan. But listen, I am going to be scared. That's the thing."
Last year, Zimbabwe became the first international team to play in Pakistan since the 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore. The ICC, however, has not yet given a clean chit to the security situation in Pakistan. On the eve of the PSL, Najam Sethi, the league's chairman, had revealed that hosting a few matches in the major cities of Pakistan in the second season was definitely part of his plan.
Russell explained his fear, equating travelling to Pakistan to going to war-torn Iraq. "It is like me going to Iraq based on what I have heard about Iraq. You are going to have nice places in Iraq. You are going to have nice places in Pakistan. I've seen pictures, beautiful places, beautiful people. But it is [about] what is surrounding [them]," Russel said.
Russell even gave the example of walking through the streets back home in Jamaica. "A lot of crime going on in Jamaica. I'm from Jamaica. I'm going to tell, Jamaica is the most beautiful place in the world. You are going to say, "No, but, they are shooting people." I will say, no, no. Don't worry. So it is going to be similar [about going to Pakistan]. So if I have to go, I'll go. But if I don't have to, I don't mind."
Russell is the first high-profile overseas player in the PSL to express a willingness to play in Pakistan. In the past few weeks, other players such as Australia's Shane Watson and Russell's West Indies teammate and Twenty20 captain Darren Sammy have said they would travel subject to security clearance.
Watson, who was picked by Islamabad in the draft, said he had pleasant memories of Pakistan, having already toured the country in 2005 with Australia A. "I had a really good time while playing in Pakistan in 2005 during the Australia A team tour," he said on the eve of the PSL. "However, security is the most important thing and if players around the world are declared to be very safe I will be happy to play there.
"I love playing cricket wherever it is around the world. If security situation continues to get better there, it will be nice and Pakistan hadn't had home team advantage for a long time now because of security concerns and hopefully it works out their way soon."
Sammy, who plays for Peshawar Zalmi, said he felt bad for fans in Pakistan who have been deprived of international cricket for a long time. While conceding that playing the PSL in the teams' home cities would could fill the vacuum, Sammy said the decision to travel was not his.
"Well, to be honest, these decisions are never ours," Sammy said at a media conference in the first week of the tournament. "It is the government and the cricket body to decide, but what I could tell you is that the fans of Pakistan cricket have been missing some good international cricket.
"We as cricketers get to play in front of our home fans and that is something Pakistan have not had an opportunity [to experience], to play in front of their own people for a while. It is sad, but hopefully things could get resolved and every territory could get a chance of playing cricket before their own crowd."
Nagraj Gollapudi is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd. |
Football Wide receiver recruit Jordan Pouncey: Herman ‘was banging on tables and started yelling’ Posted January 28th, 2017
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Story highlights Tom Herman enjoys competition with official visitors.
Tom Herman enjoys competition with official visitors. Jordan Pouncey grew up a Texas fan because of Vince Young.
Jordan Pouncey grew up a Texas fan because of Vince Young. Texas, Miami and Tennessee are Jordan Pouncey's top three.
It was Jan. 20, and Texas head coach Tom Herman was banging on tables.
“Coach Herman is so high energy it isn’t even funny” remembered wide receiver target Jordan Pouncey. “On my official visit they brought us all to Dave and Buster’s and Herman was playing someone in the free throw game. Coach Herman won and all of a sudden he was banging on tables and started yelling. It was right in the middle of Dave and Buster’s with kids around. It was great.”
Herman is driven by competition. It is evident on the football field and it is evident while hosting official visitors from across the nation. Pouncey, a three-star wide receiver from Winter Park (Fla.) took notice.
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He’s always taken notice at what goes on in Austin.
“I played quarterback as a kid and I wanted to be just like Vince Young,” Pouncey said. “I always kept up with Texas and watched their football games. It never stopped once Young left. I’ve really liked the program since I was a kid and I’m legitimately looking at Texas.”
Pouncey is looking at a few schools. The one-time Notre Dame commit is the top target left on Texas’ board and the Longhorns are no longer merely a longshot for Pouncey’s signature. Texas is firmly in the race alongside Miami and Tennessee.
“Miami is close to home and I grew up wanting to play for the Hurricanes. My mom is from south Florida, so it was always a program I wanted to be around. Same thing for Texas outside of my mom going there. I’ve always liked Texas and heard great things about Austin,” Pouncey said. “Tennessee has recruited me since I was a freshman and I think I can fit in that system.”
Most systems would welcome Pouncey’s talent. At 6-foot-2, Pouncey can play outside receiver or in the slot. It was a sales pitch offensive coordinator Tim Beck and wide receivers coach Drew Mehringer used during Thursday’s in-home visit to Pouncey.
“I don’t care about what position I play,” Pouncey said. “The only position I prefer is get-me-the-ball.”
It was the wide receiver who ended up asking most of the questions.
“It was a great visit. They were here for over two hours and I wasn’t ready for them to leave. I must have spent an hour asking questions about the state of Texas and the school. I know about the football, but I wanted to know more about the other stuff,” Pouncey said. “It helped me as someone from Florida.”
Herman’s staff first made contact during winter break. A few days before the new year, as Pouncey recalls, he received word from Mehringer that Texas was interested. Pouncey’s previous association with Texas was through current San Jose State offensive coordinator Andrew Sowder, who was a quality control coach for Texas under Strong.
An offer soon followed.
“I knew this was a great opportunity and I needed to look into the possibility at Texas,” Pouncey said. “I’ve liked everything about the school. The coaching staff is the funniest group of coaches I’ve ever spent time around. It’s contagious and players want to be around that type of energy.”
Pouncey started his official visit to Tennessee on Friday and will announce his decision on national signing day. |
The writer, who died on Thursday, created her teen diarist Adrian Mole while she was a struggling single mother of three. In this Observer article from 1989, she described how the state had left her destitute
We were waiting at the bus stop. "If the conductor asks how old you are, tell him you're four," I instructed my five-year-old son. All I had in my purse was 11 pence. Enough for my fare into town but not his half fare.
Throughout the journey he asked in a voice that could cut through limestone: "Am I four or five?"
"Four," I mumbled, looking at the conductor. We were on our way to the town hall. Our party consisted of me, the five-year-old boy, the two-year-old boy and my baby daughter. For a treat we sat upstairs on the bus. When we passed Leicester prison my eldest son shouted: "Daddy lives there, doesn't he, mummy?" His podgy finger pointed at the forbidding building. I was now tired of this family joke. My ex-husband was not and has never been in prison, but naturally the other passengers on the bus were not to know this.
The five-year-old is now 24 and has (in my opinion) an unhealthy obsession with Kafka. I blame this on his earlier, obsessive interest in Leicester prison – which looks like a sinister Ruritanian castle.
The four of us were on our way to collect our weekly maintenance. I was expecting £9. It wasn't there. The woman behind the grille looked through a large ledger. "No," she said. "No money has been paid in."
I didn't know what to do. I asked her advice. "You must go to the Social Security office," she said. She gave me the address. I ran across the town, pushing the little ones in the pushchair and urging the five-year-old to pretend he was in a running race. We got there at about a quarter to four. The office was up three flights of filthy stairs. The lift was out of order. Precious time passed getting the children up the stairs.
We were given a number and told to wait. It was an awful room: the walls and the seats were institutional orange, the floor consisted of fag holes, and there were no ashtrays, although most of the claimants were smoking. The receptionist sat behind a glass screen. I had to bellow to be heard. "I've got no money."
I gave my name and address. She frowned. "You're in the wrong office." The office I wanted was on the other side of town; it closed at 5.30. It was now five o'clock, the children were hungry, the baby was crying. I was near to tears myself. We reached the other office at 5.20pm. This new waiting-room was worse than the earlier one. It was an older building, the one where the winos and tramps were registered.
There was an air of panic in the room, and a pool of vomit in the corner. I had 10 minutes in which to state my case and leave – with money in my pocket. I needed the bus fare and money to buy food. As before, I was given a number and told to wait. I explained I couldn't wait, I needed 50p in cash. An emergency payment. "We'll send it to you," I was told.
"When?"
"In a few days, when we've looked into your case. We need your birth certificate, marriage certificate, and a copy of your legal separation documents." I agreed to bring these documents in the next day. But in the meantime I had no bus fare – how would I get home, and how would I feed my children?
"Haven't you got any relatives who'll lend you some money?" said the young man behind the desk. It is impossible to convey to somebody who has money and no children the nightmare of having children and no money. I knew nobody who was on the telephone at that time. I couldn't even reverse the charges and ask for help.
I couldn't face walking the five miles home. I begged the young man for 50p, but he wouldn't relent. The staff in the back office started to put their coats on and tidy their desks. Half-past five arrived. Most of the people in the waiting room were ushered out. Others, desperate like me, stayed – explaining – some in tears, others shouting, that they hadn't eaten, had nowhere to stay. It was bedlam. My children were hot and thirsty. Could I give them a glass of water? "No," the office was now closed.
"You lend me 50p – as a person, you'll get it back," I said.
"No," he said. "Where would it end if I started to do that?"
I wanted to tell him that I was a literate and intelligent person, not just the young mother of those crying children – for Christ's sake, I had read every page of War and Peace. When I could afford it I read the Guardian. I was a Bessie Smith fan. I had won several prizes for verse speaking. I could read a menu in French. A poet had been in love with me. I knew how to spell and pronounce Dostoevsky. I had worked hard since I was 15. I had paid my taxes and my national insurance. I had never broken the law and all I wanted from the welfare state was a stinking, lousy, sodding 50p. I didn't get it.
It is a terrible thing to see your mother crying. I tried very hard, I contorted my face this way and that but eventually, when we were out on the street, the tears came. The four of us walked along – a quartet of cry-babies.
I was too proud to stop passers-by and ask for help. I scanned the pavements looking for money. Instead I found lemonade bottles, Corona brand. There was a returnable deposit of 4p on each bottle. My eldest son cheered up; he knew that these bottles represented hard cash. My pride vanished, I looked in litter bins, I looked over walls and behind fences. Soon we had enough for my bus fare, and then we had enough for four ice lollies – don't anybody dare to even think that those children should have been given something healthy to eat.
When we got home I bathed the children, and, when they were clean and shining in their pyjamas, I said we were going to have a special treat for dinner. I emptied the food cupboard of its contents. It didn't take long. There was a packet of beef suet, a tin of golden syrup, a tin of peas and one Oxo cube. For dinner we had pea soup (put another pea in the soup, Mother) and the golden roly-poly. My eldest child still remembers this meal. We laid a tablecloth on the living-room floor and ate in picnic fashion.
Late that night I put a note out for the milkman asking him to leave bread, butter and eggs, and in the morning our breakfast was waiting on the doorstep. Milkmen are a good source of credit. God bless them every one.
Later that day I rang the town hall. There was still no money, so I went back to the Social Security office. My family lent me £5. My friend looked after the children. I took my documents, but most important of all I put a copy of that day's Guardian on the counter between me and the young counter clerk. He talked to me with considerably more respect than he had done the day before. A fat lot of good it did me; my social security payment took nine days to arrive, but by then I had taken three part-time jobs and employed two young girls as baby-sitters, and the system had beaten me. I became a working mother.
I would like to report that the DSS conducts itself with more humanity today, but I can't because it doesn't.
In early January 1989 I read a report in the local paper. It said that a man had gone berserk in a DSS office. He'd broken the office Christmas tree and stamped on the glass baubles. My second son was in the waiting room with a friend; he'd already told me about this unhappy scene. Apparently the man had been waiting two weeks for a promised giro. He was married with children, he'd been sacked from his job as a hosiery mechanic and like all sacked people, he was refused dole. He was desperate for money, it was two days before Christmas.
The counter staff told him it was in the Christmas post; they had been telling him this for eight days. The man had tried telephoning but the DSS phone lines were permanently engaged. Finally, in bad temper, knowing there were only two shopping days before Christmas, he had got on a bus and come in person for his money. In court he was described as being "of previous good character". But in the DSS office he turned into Dr Jekyll, he started to shout.
The police were sent for. When they arrived he tried to explain his case. They wouldn't listen, they started to push him out. He refused to leave without his money, they pushed harder. The Christmas tree was knocked over, the man stumbled and fell amongst the glass baubles which had fallen with the tree. Soon wild confusion reigned, the man, the policeman, the DSS staff and a few disgruntled DSS petitioners fought amongst the pine needles. Quite soon the man was overcome, arrested, and taken to the police station.
He was charged with assaulting the police, resisting arrest, and criminal damage to a Christmas tree and decorations. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. I don't know how much it cost the state to prosecute the poor man and lock him up, but I'm sure, absolutely positive, that it would have cost at least a hundred times more than his paltry, delayed, giro.
The DSS offices are not given enough funding, their staff are poorly paid and are driven to distraction by the amount of work they have to do. There is frequent turnover of staff. Morale is extremely low. Working with desperate people all day is very dispiriting; their unhappiness rubs off on you. For the sake of self-preservation you develop a thicker skin, you come to regard the claimants as the enemy. Because they are inarticulate in the presence of articulate officialdom, you do not respect them and habitually talk to them as though they are of lower intelligence than yourself. You are frightened of them, and all your communication takes place behind a glass screen. The furniture they sit on is screwed down because, in the past, this furniture has been thrown at you.
They offend you in their poverty, you despise their clothes and their shoes. Some of them smell and have disgusting personal habits. That is why it is impossible to allow them free access to the lavatory; why they must queue up and ask for the key.
Nobody goes to a DSS office to ask for state benefits if they are well and happy and employed. Nobody needs to. There is no need to have vile surroundings and seemingly uncaring staff as a disincentive.
People down on their luck deserve the best: beautiful surroundings and well-paid professional staff to help them out of their difficulties. Why not train thousands more social workers and let them sit in on claimants' interviews? Most social problems could be helped or prevented if people had more money and practical advice. The present benefits system is unfair, inefficient, and totally unprofessional; which is why millions of people do not claim the benefits to which they are legally entitled.
There is hysterical emphasis today on preventing the abuse of the system by a tiny proportion of fraudsters (known as scroungers). But the abuse lies elsewhere; in the Department of Social Security. They do not aid their staff or their clients' health, and they undermine everyone's security.
This is an edited extract from Mr Bevan's Dream by Sue Townsend |
Courtesy photo
Police are pursuing a felonious assault charge against a 24-year-old Belleville man who they say intentionally rammed his SUV into a pickup truck because someone made off with his lunchbox in Saline last week.
The man had just left the Faurecia plant and was headed eastbound on East Michigan Avenue just before 3 p.m. June 19 when his lunchbox, which he'd forgotten he had placed on top of his SUV, fell off the roof and into roadway, said Saline police Sgt. Jay Basso.
A pickup truck driven by a 21-year-old Onsted man headed in the opposite direction stopped when the occupants saw the lunch pail fall off the SUV, police said. The passenger, a 19-year-old Brooklyn man, hopped out and snatched it up. The pickup truck continued westbound while the 24-year-old in the SUV quickly gave chase, Basso said.
“He thought they were stealing it and did a U-turn and tried to catch up with the other vehicle,” he said.
The pickup truck turned into the driveway at the nearby Briarwood Ford car dealership, located at 750 E. Michigan Ave. The 24-year-old in the SUV followed and intentionally slammed his SUV into the pickup on the driver's side between the door and the fender, totaling both vehicles, Basso said.
The 24-year-old needed to be taken to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, where he was treated and released. The Brooklyn man had some minor injuries and was treated on the scene.
The lunchbox contained between $50 to $60 and green tea caffeine pills.
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John Counts covers cops and courts for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on Twitter. |
Dec 5, 2013; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Michael Irvin on the NFL Network set before the game against the Houston Texans and the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Field. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports (Photo: Kirby Lee Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)
After being drafted No. 1 and No. 2 overall in 2012, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III will forever be linked together. With the news this week of RG3 being benched for the remainder of the season, NFL analysts have lashed out.
One in particular is NFL Network's Michael Irvin. The former Dallas receiver had some strong words on NFL Network's "NFL Total Access Kickoff" Thursday night. Before the kickoff of Denver, San Diego, Irvin and others discussed Griffin's benching.
"You are tearing him down," Irvin said of Griffin. "I doubt that any man could come back from this -- walking around three weeks around these guys that you have to lead."
"You think they would do this to Andrew Luck?" Irvin asked. Irvin's full speech can be viewed here.
Irvin continued the debate on Twitter.
@DWayne_8504@NFL_ATL@nflnetwork I love LUCK would never bad mouth that competitor. They were picks 1 & 2 that's why u make the comparison — Michael Irvin (@michaelirvin88) December 13, 2013
Luck has 3,119 yards, 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions (50 carries, 336 rushing yards, 4 TD) this season. Griffin has 3,203 yards, 16 touchdowns and 12 interceptions (86 carries, 489 rushing yards, 0 TD). |
This piece originally ran at the ACSblog .
My American Civil Liberties Union colleagues and I have been extremely busy since the Guardian and the Washington Post published leaked classified documents exposing the scope of the government's secret interpretations of the Patriot Act and the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allow the FBI and NSA to spy on hundreds of millions of innocent Americans. We haven't written much about the alleged leaker of this information, Edward Snowden, however, mainly because we took his advice to focus on what the NSA and FBI were doing, rather than on what he did or didn't do. (See exceptions here and here ).
But I did want to clear up a question that seems to keep coming up: whether Snowden is a whistleblower. It is actually not a hard question to answer. The Whistleblower Protection Act protects "any disclosure" that a covered employee reasonably believes evidences "any violation of any law, rule, or regulation," or "gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, and abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety."
In the two months since Snowden's alleged disclosures, no fewer than five lawsuits have been filed challenging the legality of the surveillance programs he exposed. The author of the Patriot Act, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), called the scope of data collection revealed in one of the leaked Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court orders " incredibly troubling ," and "an overbroad interpretation of the Act" that "raise[s] questions about whether our constitutional rights are secure."
It doesn't end there. Over a dozen bills have been introduced in Congress to narrow these now public surveillance authorities and increase transparency regarding continuing programs. No one can know what was in Edward Snowden's mind, but clearly he could have had a reasonable belief the documents he leaked to the news media revealed government illegality and abuse of authority.
The disclosures also revealed that U.S. military officers and intelligence community officials have been less than truthful in their public comments and congressional testimony about the government's domestic surveillance practices, both in the scope of the programs and their effectiveness . Such false and misleading testimony threatens more than just Americans' privacy; it threatens democratic control of government.
Americans need and deserve truthful information about what the government is doing, particularly where the activity infringes on individual rights. As the father of the Constitution James Madison said , "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both." Denying Americans this knowledge through excessive and unnecessary secrecy, or worse, official deception, is unjustifiable and illegal. In a democracy, the law should never be secret.
The countless articles on the front pages of dozens of newspapers across the country since the documents leaked reveal the public thirst for this information. It is clear that these disclosures benefited the public, by giving victims of illegal surveillance – essentially all Americans – the knowledge and opportunity to challenge these unconstitutional programs, both in the courts and through their elected representatives in Congress. Even President Obama said he "welcomed this debate" and thought it was "healthy for our democracy." Yet a properly informed public debate on these programs would not have been possible without Snowden's leaks.
But the fact that the leaks served the public interest by exposing government illegality and abuse doesn't mean Snowden is protected by the law, because the intelligence community has always been exempted from the Whistleblower Protection Act. This fact refutes the other common misperception: that there are effective internal avenues for reporting illegal activities within the intelligence community.
Congress passed the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act in 1998, but it is no more than a trap. It establishes a procedure for internal reporting within the agencies and through the Inspector General to the congressional intelligence committees, but it provides no remedy for reprisals that occur as a result. Reporting internally through the ICWPA only identifies the whistleblowers, leaving them vulnerable to retaliation. The examples of former NSA official Thomas Drake , former House Intelligence Committee staffer Diane Roar k and former CIA officer Sabrina De Sousa show too well.
This lack of protection means that when intelligence community employees and contractors – who take an oath to defend the Constitution – see government illegality they must turn the other way, or risk their careers and possibly even their freedom. The people we trust to protect our nation from foreign enemies deserve legal protection when they blow the whistle on wrongdoing within government.
Michael German is senior policy counsel at the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office and a former FBI agent. |
The Federal Reserve’s decision not to raise interest rates in June prompted a a sigh of relief on Wall Street Wednesday, but it wasn't enough to win over economists and activists concerned about sluggish wage growth.
The Fed said in a statement that it is keeping the federal funds rate -- the main interest rate it adjusts --at between 0 and 0.25 percent, where it has been since 2009. But in economic projections that accompanied the Fed's statement, 15 of 17 Fed board members and regional presidents agreed that economic conditions would warrant a rate increase before the end of 2015.
Most analysts interpreted the announcement to mean that the Fed would increase rates in September.
But economists who have long pushed for the Fed to more aggressively encourage wage growth warned that a rate hike in 2015 would unnecessarily hit people in their wallets. These economists, along with the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign, are part of a growing movement pushing for monetary policy that prioritizes full employment, and the wage growth that comes with it, rather than concerns about price inflation.
“I think 2015 is too soon at the current economic pace” for a rate increase, said Josh Bivens, research and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute. “There is strange eagerness to do it sooner rather than later, but the data just refuses to cooperate.”
Bivens noted that the same Fed projections that appear to show a consensus for raising rates in 2015 forecast slightly higher unemployment and slightly lower gross domestic product growth than previous estimates. Bivens said he wants the Fed to measure full employment on the basis of concrete wage growth, because wage growth accelerates when unemployment gets low enough that employers compete for workers.
The Fed has a firm 2 percent inflation target, Bivens observed, but the criteria it uses to measure full employment are "not very firm."
Bivens and Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, said they would like the Fed to tie a rate increase to annual wage growth of 3.5 percent, before inflation. Wages are currently 2.3 percent higher than they were at this time last year.
Meanwhile, jobs remain out of reach for many. There are 8.7 million people seeking work. Unemployment remains particularly high among African-Americans, with an official unemployment rate of 10.2 percent.
Economists aren't alone in urging the Fed to hold off on raising rates. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund both recently cautioned against a Fed rate hike in 2015.
Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, agreed that 2015 was too soon for a rate hike. He noted that the United States’ employment-to-population ratio for prime-age workers is now lower than that of Germany, Japan, France or the United Kingdom.
The Fed Up campaign, which focuses on mobilizing urban communities of color to advocate pro-wage growth Fed policy, also reacted strongly to Wednesday’s Fed statement.
“The economy remains far too weak for the Fed to consider slowing it down,” Ady Barkan, campaign director of Fed Up, said in a statement. “The Fed should set more ambitious goals for the American economy: wage growth that equals productivity growth plus inflation and a genuine recovery for all communities, especially communities of color.”
Fed Up said it is “planning next steps” to lobby the Fed to stop a rate hike. |
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Shilla Dynasty Excavation and Restoration Project - 신라왕경 복원 정비사업
Pics below - Hwangryongsa Temple - 황룡사 - the golden dragon temple. Standing a whopping 9 floors from the ground this
81m tall pagoda will be the largest of its kind in North East Asia. Not to mention, backed up by accurate historical evidence, and ancient materials.
Pic above - Wulsung- 월성
Pic below - Dong-goong & Wolji - 동궁과 월지 currently known as Anapji (great tourist attracion) (안압지)
Currently archaeologists are excavating the sites below :
The construction for 월정교 (Wol Jung Gyo Bridge) is already underway
pic below is the rendering for this romantic royal bridge
Pic below - Bridge finishing up : Just need to construct the Moon-Ru (문루) which are the two majestic gates at each end of the bridge.
All the architectural details applied to these buildings had enough historical evidence for the ministry to approve the restoration. Perhaps an equally significant fact is that all the historical structures will have excavated material in them which renders it an "actually historical building" rather than a theme park, like the one built in Buyeo.
Along with all the other existing historical attractions, the revealing of Shilla's 1000 year majesty will advance Gyung-Ju city's world recognition, and reputation. By 2025 the South Korean government is collaborating with Gyeongsang Nam Do to restore the hidden treasures of Shilla Dynasty at GyungJu city/ Shilla Dynasty lasted for more than 1000 years which makes it one of the oldest not just in Korean but human history as well. When the Shilla Dynasty was at its greatest peak it had the , the 4th largest city in the world, and had enormous economic, and social influence in Asia. Records show that the people of Shilla traveled as far as Persia (modern day Iran). In fact a Shilla princess married a Persian prince which demonstrates the political influence the ancient kingdom had at the time.Pics below - Hwangryongsa Temple - 황룡사 - the golden dragon temple. Standing a whopping 9 floors from the ground this81m tall pagoda will be the largest of its kind in North East Asia. Not to mention, backed up by accurate historical evidence, and ancient materials.Pic above - Wulsung- 월성Pic below - Dong-goong & Wolji - 동궁과 월지 currently known as Anapji (great tourist attracion) (안압지)Currently archaeologists are excavating the sites below :The construction for 월정교 (Wol Jung Gyo Bridge) is already underwaypic below is the rendering for this romantic royal bridgePic below - Bridge finishing up : Just need to construct the Moon-Ru (문루) which are the two majestic gates at each end of the bridge.All the architectural details applied to these buildings had enough historical evidence for the ministry to approve the restoration. Perhaps an equally significant fact is that all the historical structures will have excavated material in them which renders it an "actually historical building" rather than a theme park, like the one built in Buyeo.Along with all the other existing historical attractions, the revealing of Shilla's 1000 year majesty will advance Gyung-Ju city's world recognition, and reputation.
kimahrikku1, aquaticko, TM_Germany liked this post __________________ Last edited by Victoria123; July 26th, 2015 at 04:49 AM . |
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, June 22, 2010: Spill-response crews gathering and burning oil in the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the leaking Macondo well.JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
How rich will we be when we have converted all our forests, our soil, our water resources, and our minerals into cash? —Jay Norwood Darling, conservationist, artist
In case you haven't heard the latest news from the White House, the president chose to unleash the fossil fuel industry all across America. That's right. They're proudly calling the United States "the new Saudi Arabia." President Obama told his oil friends that "America the Beautiful" is all theirs for the profits.
I don't know what Obama got in exchange for this unconscionable plan to drill, pollute and frack in our farming, ranching, wilderness lands and oceans, including the fragile Arctic, I don't know what kind of filthy oil money they waved in front of him like a bunch of sleazy drug gangsters, or how many multimillion dollar homes they offered him in the package of threats, I can only assume that he wouldn't sell the whole country out to the fossil fuel industry unless there was an enormous retirement payback for the Obama family in return.
In case you missed Obama's enthusiastic oil speech, here it is again: "Over the last three years," boasted Obama in public, "I've directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We're opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We've quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We've added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth, and then some..."
Read more about President Obama's expansion of dirty oil plans in Bill McKibben's latest Rolling Stone article (12-19-2013 issue), including handing over Alaska's pristine Beaufort Sea to Shell where predictably an oil disaster is bound to happen from the tumultuous, icy wind conditions. In fact, even after Shell failed at the first attempt, its rig bopping about like a loose buoy, plagued by problems, the president nevertheless gave Shell the go ahead to drill. Now this is absolutely insane. But maybe you can't be president of this country unless you are certifiably insane? Who knows these days.
Perhaps Obama's worst character flaw is that he's completely oblivious to warning signs, at the cost of America's security, when it comes to oil drilling. It's one thing for Shell to push forward despite the threat of another BP catastrophe in the Beaufort Sea, but it's quite a different matter for the President of the United States to be so carelessly and foolishly immoral. No one in his or her right mind would approve of drilling under such threatening conditions: Kennedy, Carter, Clinton—would have all denied drilling in these stormy waters for the most obvious reasons: too risky! But not Obama. Why? Perhaps St. Augustine can answer that question: "A man is incapable of weighing the consequences of his actions if he is without compassion."
There is no possible way to clean millions of gallons of oil from an ice-covered sea in those conditions. To my knowledge, I've never heard Obama express compassion for animals or mammals whether it's for whales or bears. I don't even think he cares much for his family's dogs. And although he gave an eloquent speech about beginning the "process of healing the earth" before the 2008 election, he seems divorced from nature, not just physically but emotionally. My guess is that he could indifferently watch polar cubs drown in oil if it were a question of getting oil or saving the bears. Not even George W. Bush could get away with drilling in this sacred sanctuary.
Clearly, when it comes to oil profits, nothing is sacred to Obama, as he himself said about Alaska's Beaufort Sea refuge, "Let's see what we can find down there for the economic opportunities it presents." Translation: Let's see how many billions this will make for Shell.
A couple months ago in October when President Obama was defending his Affordable Health Care Plan in Boston, a large group of concerned individuals, family members, young and old, students and ordinary citizens of this country tried to get the message out to the president that coal and oil carbon emissions trapped in our atmosphere are altering our planet in frightening ways, and that we cannot afford to make it worse with the approval of the Keystone Tar Sands Pipeline. (Read how Obama is secretly pushing tar sands through the south of the country.) So they held up their banners and shouted, "Stop Tar Sands Pipeline."
The President smiled and then promptly trivialized their message by saying, "Hey guys, we had the climate change rally back in the summer," as if it were nothing more than a joke.
But it's no joking matter at all. Extracting and producing this dirty, thick tar from shale rock makes ordinary drilling almost appear safe by comparison. Tar sands oil destroys nearly everything it touches starting with the extraction process, through the dangerous threat of transferring it through pipelines, to the end result of refining it and releasing this "carbon bomb" from hell into the atmosphere. Approving it is the most immoral and destructive decision this president could make.
Did the president learn anything from the recent April 2013 Exxon Pegasus ruptured tar sands pipeline disaster? Tons of diluted bitumen, heavy Canadian crude oil covered the streets of suburban Little Rock, turning the entire community of Mayflower, Arkansas, into an uninhabitable toxic zone. What if this had happened on the front lawn of the White House, would the president learn any lessons then? Like I said, this is Obama's hubris, his worst character flaw: he's oblivious to flashing warning signs, oblivious to the consequences of his actions, which puts the security of Americans at risk from toxic pollution exposure.
It's a good thing that I wasn't at that Boston Health Care meeting because I would have shouted to the president:
"Well you better make damn sure that your health care plan covers all the millions of Americans who are going to get severely ill from the oil expansion and pollution plans you've approved of beginning with the chronically ill residents who are suffering from BP's oil disaster and the toxic Corexit that BP and other oil companies keep using down there in the Gulf.
And if you STILL don't get the connection between oil pollution, global warming and people getting sick and dying, Mr. President, from either the toxic chemicals or from cataclysmic hurricanes and tornadoes, then take a good long look at China's smog alert – because if pollution can get that deadly and threatening there, then it can happen anywhere."
Of course, by that time, they would have handcuffed and dragged me off to some dark cell without due process since Mr. constitutional lawyer Obama doesn't like demonstrators and the First Amendment any more than the Bush administration liked activists and the Bill of Rights. But before they'd kick me out of the room, I would shout one last question, "Are you going to allow the oil industry to drill and frack next to your retirement home for economic opportunities?"
Actually, why should oil drilling in our back yards be up to one oblivious man or even an oil-soaked congress in the first place? Shouldn't we, the voters, be the ones to decide? Indeed, voters in three out of four cities in Colorado where a fracking ban was on the ballots chose to say no to extracting oil and gas from the ground by injecting a mix of water, air and chemicals.
There are anti-fracking measures springing up across the U.S. and Europe essentially because hydraulic fracturing is a process involving high-pressure injections of undisclosed chemicals into rocks containing natural gas or oil which contaminates water wells, and other sources of fresh water that the public relies on. Pittsburgh in 2010 became the first U.S. city to outlaw fracking, with city officials citing threats to drinking water and public health. Since then, more than a dozen East Coast cities have followed suit, and efforts to enact a statewide ban are currently underway in California. It's also a losing deal for consumers, as Buzzflash editor, Mark Karlin, pointed out.
As for drilling in the Beaufort Sea in Alaska, to add insult to injury, Mr. Obama has made sure to protect US oil company interests by sending the military to the Arctic. Annihilating the Middle East for oil wasn't enough. Now they're off to the Arctic to destroy life as we know it there, too, for oil profits.
The truth is President Obama didn't learn a damn thing from the BP Gulf catastrophe. He flew in and out for a few photo-ops and that was about it. Oblivious to warnings, he didn't show much interest at the peak of the disaster—and now that he believes that everyone's forgotten, he and his oil friends continue to propagate the lie that "all is well at the Gulf of Mexico."
After opening far more ocean territory than ever before to new oil drilling, Mr. Obama gave a boastful speech declaring that "Oil rigs today generally don't cause spills—they are technologically very advanced." A day after he delivered that speech, BP's deepwater Horizon rig exploded taking 11 men up in flames with it. No lessons learned at the White House.
All is not well at the Gulf of Mexico, as anyone who lives near the Gulf coast will tell you. Gobs of thick tar oil (methane poisoning) continue to pollute the shores. The oil disaster remains a threat to humans and wildlife. In addition to millions of gallons of oil that gushed from the deepwater Macondo well in April 2010 for months, BP has been dropping tons of the toxic dispersant, Corexit, over the sea and over the fragile clam and oyster bays for over three years in the attempt to hide the oil. To say that Corexit disperses the oil is not the same thing as eliminating or dissolving the oil. This was another White House lie that was propagated at the time. To learn more, I've written extensively on the BP Gulf disaster for Buzzflash at Truthout since this horrific tragedy blew up in Obama's face.
A few months after BP's Horizon exploded, Obama looked straight into the camera and shamelessly told the American people that "70% of the oil has been dissolved." Wishful thinking on his part, but it was a dangerous lie that persuaded residents into believing that the Gulf was safe when truth be told it was a toxic hell of chemical poisons, putting their lives at risk.
The consequences have been devastating not only to mammals, whales, dolphins, turtles, pelicans, sea birds, fish and the ecosystems that the Gulf once supported prior to the BP catastrophe, the combination of oil-methane and chemical poisons from Corexit have made thousands of Gulf residents chronically ill: read Dahr Jamail's recent report, Gulf Ecosystem in Crisis, and my follow-up piece on Corexit for Buzzflash-Truthout, BP's Last Nail in the Gulf Coffin: Why the Feds Must Ban Corexit.
In fact, many fishermen who were hired to clean up the toxic, cancerous mess actually died in less than two years after being exposed to the deadly oil and dispersant. There is no corporate media coverage of these reports. Orders from high up were most likely given to keep the real facts out of the news far from the public's eye. After all, such reports would contradict or make a mockery of BP's multimillion dollar, happy-go-lucky Gulf ads.
Contrary to the president's smiley-face interpretation of the Gulf, an ocean that is now officially zoned "dead" according to marine biologists who've been researching the massive fish die off, all is not well at all.
So the next time the president speaks about his Affordable Health Care Plan, he also should explain how important it is to have health insurance when Americans end up with chronic illnesses and cancer from all the pollution and chemical poisoning that will be produced from his expansion of oil and fracking plans. And let's hope that Obamacare will also cover all the severely injured victims from climate change hurricanes and tornadoes and cataclysmic flooding as he helps to increase carbon emissions and other heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere while the temperatures rise beyond two degrees Celsius which will make the current global warming catastrophes look like child's play.
I'm not happy about criticizing a President I voted for (twice). When the right-wing fanatics attack him, I'm first in line to come to his defense. The fact that he's trying, despite complications, to provide health insurance for millions of people who can't afford it is an admirable goal. Moreover, Obama vowed to veto recent Republican fracking-energy legislation that threatens to charge Americans up to $5,000 dollars for peacefully protesting oil-gas exploration and pipeline construction, which is a clear violation of our First Amendment rights. He also provided billions of dollars of subsidies for wind and solar. But, unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good; in fact it defeats the purpose compared to Obama's fossil fuel and nuclear power plans. As Bill McKibben put it, "It's like eating a pan of Weight Watchers brownies after you've already gobbled a quart of Ben and Jerry's."
I understand why African Americans are proud of President Obama. However, blacks and minorities need to make global warming a priority issue as much as anything else they care about. Why? Think Hurricane Katrina. Think Hurricane Sandy, or the Philippines' catastrophic typhoon, Haiyan, and you'll get the point.
Global warming and pollution wrecks communities, destroys the economy at all levels, rich and poor, while an extremely small group of oil oligarchs make out like bandits. They'll continue to reap billions at the expense of the planet, our health, our water, and our food; no doubt our very future is at stake. Billions of people are going to suffer terribly from global warming; and thousands of beautiful animals and birds are going to be wiped off the face of the earth forever so that a few white old men can live super rich lives: Just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made global warming emissions:
The companies range from investor-owned firms, household names such as Chevron, Exxon and BP, to state-owned and government-run firms ... But the decision makers, the CEOs, or the ministers of coal and oil if you narrow it down - they could all fit in a limousine or two.
Future generations will continue to grow angry at Obama's oil expansion plan as these conditions worsen with time. Historians will ask why he turned his back on the Crisis of the Century. Obama's pro fossil fuel administration will in the end define his legacy, over and above his Affordable Health Care Plan. He'll be remembered as the Democrat that fulfilled George W. Bush's oil drilling dreams. On the XL Keystone Pipeline, G.W. Bush said, "It's a no brainer, get it done," which you'd expect from a guy who doesn't have a brain. And yet, Obama must have been inspired by Bush's words because he said the exact same thing to his administration to "cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done."
"Despite brave opposition from groups like Tar Sands Blockade," wrote McKibben, "Keystone South is now 95 percent complete, and the administration is in court seeking to beat back the last challenges from landowners along the way. The president went ahead and got it done. If only he'd apply that kind of muscle to stopping climate change."
John F. Kennedy would most likely declare oil drilling (catastrophes) and climate change a clear and present danger to public safety. Sadly, Obama is no Jack Kennedy. He's just another oil salesman who values profits over life.
(Photo: Dr. Oscar Garcia, Florida State University/SkyTruth)
---
Jacqueline Marcus is the editor of ForPoetry.com and EnvironmentalPress.com. Author of Close to the Shore by Michigan State University Press. Her E-book Man Cannot Live on Oil, Alone: Time to end our dependency on oil before it ends us is available at Amazon.com Kindle Books. |
Things are not going well for Stannis and his army. Winter is upon them and they are attacked in the night losing most of their stores. Unable to move forward or back, he dispatches Ser Davos Seaworth to seek help from Castle Black. Jon Snow and the survivors of the attack at Hardhome make it safely back to the wall but the reception they get is anything but warm. In Dorne, Doran Martell takes the diplomatic route telling Jaime that Myrcella can return to King's Landing with him provided certain conditions were met. In Braavos, Arya sees Lord Tyrell who arrives to speak to representatives of the Iron Bank. He's accompanied by Meryn Trant, one of the men on her list. In Meereen, the Great Games begin but the needless killing is not to Daenarys or Tyrion's liking. Ser Jorah defeats his opponents in the arena but a trap is sprung and the Sons of the Harpy attack. Rescue is at hand however. Written by garykmcd |
NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi visited the Vir Meghmaya Temple in Patan, Bahucharji Temple in Mehsana and Khotidyar Temple in Varana on Monday, on the last day of the fourth leg of his Gujarat Yatra, making it a total of 11 temple visits in 50 days since his campaign began in the poll-bound state in September.The temple visits in Gujarat have surpassed similar efforts in UP during his ‘Deoria to Delhi’ Kisan Yatra last year before the UP polls. He started off with a visit to Ayodhya’s Hanuman Garhi Temple and later visited Mathura’s Dwarkadhish Temple and Chi t rakoot ’s Kamalnath Temple. After striking an alliance with SP, Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav jointly paid obeisance at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi at the fag end of the UP campaign.During that yatra across UP, however, Gandhi also visited Deoband, the Jama Masjid in Moradabad, the Jama Masjid in Allahabad, the Nadwa Madrasa in Lucknow, the Dargahe-Ala Hazrat in Bareilly and the St Joseph Cathedral in Lucknow.In Gujarat, Gandhi has not visited any Muslim place of worship yet, leading to political chatter that the Congress VP was trying to appeal to the majority Hindu population. The party is often accused by its main rival, BJP , of indulging in ‘Muslim appeasement’.“It is a different scenario in Gujarat. In UP, the attempt was to reach out to all communities and the temple visits by Rahul Gandhi generated lot of interest, especially the Ayodhya visit, till the Congress alliance with SP negated all that effort, since SP was seen as heavily inclined towards the minorities,” one of the Congress MLAs in UP told ET on the condition of anonymity.Gandhi’s choice of temples in Gujarat been determined by nostalgia and caste considerations. Like Ambaji Temple in Bansakantha is from where Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi began their Gujarat campaigns. Akshardham has lots of Patidar followers. A Congress leader involved in the strategy said the same is working as BJP is irked by Rahul’s temple visits and its senior leaders were attacking him.“Going to mandir should be a ‘swabhavik dharma’ and not a ‘chunavi karma’ for Rahul Gandhi. Why has he never visited the Akshardham Temple in Delhi or the Katyani Temple located in Delhi near his farmhouse,” asked BJP national general secretary and Gujarat in-charge Bhupendra Yadav. |
By Mark Felsenthal and Jonathan Spicer
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Aug 28 (Reuters) - The White House has yet to begin vetting Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen to take over the top job at the U.S. central bank, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation, after one report said the process had begun for her main rival for the job.
Picking a replacement for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, whose second four-year term ends in January, is one of the most important jobs President Barack Obama faces. The White House has said the president has not made up his mind and that no announcement is likely until the fall.
Even so, based on comments by the president and news reports, the selection process has become what appears to be a two-person competition between Yellen and former White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers.
CNBC on Monday reported that Summers is likely to be named Fed chairman in a few weeks but that he was still being vetted and that the process might take a little longer. On Tuesday, CNBC described its source as someone "pretty close but somewhat removed" from the process. Reuters was unable to verify the report.
Many outside observers believe Summers' close association with Obama makes him the favorite, and the suggestion that Obama has yet to begin the process of determining whether there may be something problematic in Yellen's background may reinforce that view.
"I don't think it's dispositive. But (it's) an indication," said a source close to the White House.
All sources declined to be named given the sensitivity of the decision. The White House declined to comment on the issue and a Fed spokeswoman said Yellen could not be immediately reached for comment.
The formal vetting process begins in the White House. Once the president settles on candidates, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is asked to do an investigation and check information.
An attorney who has advised clients on the White House vetting process cautioned that even if vetting had not yet begun for Yellen that may mean little about her prospects, especially since she was confirmed by the Senate for the vice chair post just three years ago.
"It might be that given the stories in the media about Summers' recent financial engagements, an official might want to weigh those reports and determine whether they're valid," said Robert Kelner, a lawyer with Covington and Burling.
Summers has done work for Citigroup Inc, Nasdaq, hedge fund D.E. Shaw and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Those ties worry critics who feel he may be too close to the financial firms the Fed must regulate.
CAMPAIGNING FOR JOB UNDERWAY
The succession process comes at a delicate time for the Fed.
The central bank has held interest rates near zero since late 2008 and has more than tripled its balance sheet to around $3.6 trillion by buying bonds to drive other borrowing costs lower.
Now, it is debating when to slow its bond purchases. Bernanke has said the central bank plans to reduce its purchases by year-end and expects to draw them to a close by mid-2014, a prospect that has jolted financial markets worldwide.
Whoever takes the helm at the central bank will have to steer that process and the eventual removal of the extraordinary stimulus that the Fed has pumped into the economy.
Obama said at a news conference in August that he was considering both Yellen and Summers for the job.
The process of replacing Bernanke, who has earned high praise for steering the U.S. economy through a period of great financial turmoil, has been marked by unusual campaigns on behalf of leading candidates to replace him.
Associates of Summers have reportedly organized to keep his name and accomplishments in public view, while two-thirds of the Democratic caucus in the Senate has signed onto a letter expressing support for Yellen. |
The Chilcot report’s “findings” have virtually all been part of the public record for a decade, and it avoids key pieces of evidence. Its recommendations are essentially to continue using war as a threat and a tool of foreign policy, but to please try not to lie so much, make sure to win over a bit more of the public, and don’t promise any positive outcomes given the likelihood of catastrophe.
The report is a confused jumble, given that it records evidence of the supreme crime but tries to excuse it. The closer you get to the beginning of the executive summary, the more the report reads as if written by the very criminals it’s reporting on. Yet the report makes clear, as we always knew, that even in 2001-2003 there were honest people working in the British, as also in the U.S., government — some of whom became whistleblowers, others of whom accurately identified the planned war as a crime that would endanger rather than protect, but stayed in their jobs when the war was launched.
Chilcot makes clear that the attack on Iraq was illegal, against the British public, against the international community and the UN Charter, expected to increase terrorism, based on lies about terrorism and weapons, and — like every other war ever launched — not a last resort. Chilcot records, as reality-based reporting always has, that Iraq claimed honestly to have no nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Chilcot fails to explain with any clarity that one cannot legally or morally attack another nation even when it does have such things.
Chilcot does make clear the extent to which France was pushing back against war, along with Russia and Germany and Chile and China. The key supporter of U.S. war plans was the UK, and there is some possibility that a UK refusal to join in this crime might really have done some good.
But Chilcot steers away from criminal responsibility, and from the damage done by the crime. It avoids the Downing Street Memo, the White House Memo, Hussein Kamel, the spying and threatening and bribing involved in the failed effort to win UN authorization, Aznar’s account of Bush’s admission that Saddam Hussein was willing to leave, etc. This is a report that aims for politeness and tranquility.
Not to worry, Chilcot tells us, as nothing like this will happen again even if we just let the criminals walk. Chilcot claims bizarrely that every other war before and since has been defensive and in response to some attack, rather than an act of aggression like this one. Of course, no list of those other wars is provided.
Even more bizarrely, Chilcot claims that Blair and gang literally never considered the possibility that Iraq had no “weapons of mass destruction.” How you make all kinds of assertions, contrary to your evidence, that Iraq has weapons without considering the question is beyond me. But Chilcot credits with great significance the supposedly excusing grace of groupthink and the passion with which people like Blair supposedly believed their own lies. Chilcot even feeds into the disgusting lie that Blair pushes to this day that Iraqis chose to destroy their own country while their occupiers nobly attempted “reconstruction.”
Despite itself, however, Chilcot may do some good. In the United States, when James Comey describes crimes by Hillary Clinton and assures us they should not be prosecuted, most people can be counted on to lie back and accept that blindly or even fervently. Yet our friends in Britain appear less than eager to accept the attitude with which Chilcot has reported on the supreme international crime.
Tony Blair may now be impeached as he needs to be. Yes — sigh — one can and should impeach people no longer in office, as has been usefully done in both British and U.S. history. Removal from office is one penalty that sometimes follows a conviction at a trial following an impeachment; it is not itself the definition of impeachment. Blair should be tried and convicted by Parliament. He should also be put on trial by the International Criminal Court or, better, by a special tribunal established for Iraq as for World War II or Yugoslavia.
The victors in World War II used the Kellogg-Briand Pact to prosecute the losers for the new crime of launching a war. Blair violated both the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the newer, yet never used, United Nations Charter, which also bans war. While Kellogg-Briand allows no exceptions, the exceptions in the UN Charter were famously not met in the case of the war on Iraq or, for that matter, any other recent western wars.
You can sign a petition urging Blair’s impeachment and prosecution here. Of course the goal must be to build momentum for holding the chief (U.S.) war criminals accountable, pursuing truth and reconciliation, and making massive reparations to the people of Iraq and their region. What the U.S. needs is action, not a 7-year “investigation.” Our own Chilcot report, better in fact, was written long ago.
The Chilcot report could, against its own wishes, move us in that direction.
Sign the petition here.
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You're at dinner. Suddenly you're stuck with the check as everyone promises to pay you back later. Sure, they can hand you cash the next time you see them, but maybe you'd rather just have the money go directly to where it came from -- your bank account.
To request an electronic transfer from your indebted friends, you'll have to pick a money transfer method. There are plenty of apps available now, but they're not all the same. For instance, some take days to complete a transfer, while other promise money in your pocket within 24 hours. Some require you to set up a new account, while other options get the job done with a few clicks.
As you sort through the options, pay attention to the delivery time, as well as any transfer limits. If you plan to use a money transfer app to pay the rent or get reimbursed for a vacation you spent thousands on, make sure there's plenty of wiggle room for the total transfer amount.
And finally, consider the person on the other end. If the person you're requesting money from already uses one of these services, it's worth finding out.
Editors' note, April 11, 2017: This post has been updated with details on Facebook Messenger and Gmail.
1. Direct bank transfer
How it works: If the person who owes you money uses the same bank, this is by far the fastest transfer method, since the funds are transferred directly to your account and are usually available within 24 hours. Many banks, including Wells Fargo and Bank of America, have simple transfer tools available within the same portal you use for online banking.
There is also a way to transfer money to people outside of your bank's network, but it often takes longer and requires a little more wrangling. The sender will need your account number and routing number, plus (depending on your bank) there could be a fee involved. It's like paying with a check, but online. In this case, it's probably better to use one of the next four options on this list.
Delivery speed: 24 hours to customers of the same bank; 2 to 4 days to people using different banks
The fees: Free.
Transfer limit: Varies based on bank.
The app: Most banks have accompanying apps that include transfer tools, but most lack the option to request money -- the sender needs to initiate the transaction.
The breakdown
Delivery speed Fees Transfer limits Withdrawal limits Has app? Direct bank transfer 24 hrs for same bank; 2-4 days for different banks None Varies n/a (direct deposit) Transfers included in most bank apps Facebook Messenger 1-3 business days None $10,000/month n/a Yes Gmail/Google Wallet 3 business days None for debit; 2.9% for credit $10,000/transaction; $50,000/5 day period $3,000/24 hours Yes PayPal 3-4 business days None for bank acct. transfers; 2.9% + $.30 for debit and credit Varies $500/month; more with verification Yes Square Cash 1-2 business days None $250/week; $2,500/week after verification n/a (direct deposit) Yes Venmo 1 business day None for debit; 2.9% for credit $300/week; $2,999/week with verification $999/week; $19,999/week with verification Yes
2. Facebook Messenger
How it works: Facebook's standalone chat app can be used for more than just messaging. Once you're in a chat with someone, tap the plus sign and then Payments. (If you're using Messenger on the desktop, you click the dollar sign instead.) Enter the dollar amount, specify what the payment is for, then tap Request or Pay. The company also just announced support for group payments, helpful for things like splitting a check at a restaurant. It works the same way, but you access it via a group conversation rather than an individual one.
For the moment, Messenger can draw funds only from debit cards, though you can keep more than one on file and switch between them as needed.
Delivery speed: Available instantly in your Google Wallet account; about 3 days to withdraw funds.
The fees: Free.
Transfer limits: $10,000 per transaction; $50,000 per five-day period.
The app: Messenger can be used to send and request money, but it also lets you play games, share your location, request a ride from Lyft or Uber and much more.
3. Gmail/Google Wallet
How it works: If you have a Gmail account, requesting money is as easy as attaching a photo to an email. Just head to your inbox, compose a message to your payee, fill out the subject line and body as you please, then click the dollar symbol in the bottom toolbar of the message window.
At this point, if you don't have Google Wallet, you'll be asked to set up an account. When you're done, choose the Request option, enter the amount due, and you're set.
Delivery speed: Available instantly in your Google Wallet account; about 3 days to withdraw funds.
The fees: Free.
Transfer limits: $10,000 per transaction; $50,000 per five-day period.
The app: Like PayPal, Google Wallet's app can be used to send and request money, but it has other mobile wallet functionalities. And Gmail for Android now supports this functionality as well: Just tap the attachment icon and choose whether you want to send or request money.
4. PayPal
How it works: If you have a PayPal account and the person who owes you has a PayPal account, the process is pretty simple. Just log into your account, head to the Request Money tab, and fill in the blanks.
PayPal recently made this process even easier with PayPal.Me, a special link you share with friends and family to get paid. You can create that link from your PayPal account and customize it with your name. Then simply share that link in an email, text message or anywhere else online with anyone who owes you money, and they'll be directed to a simple page where they can submit the payment. They'll need a PayPal account to do this, just as before.
If the debtor doesn't have a PayPal account, they'll be prompted to set one up. In this case, consider whether or not this person will want to do this. In some cases, it might be better to do a bank transfer (option 1) or use Square Cash (option 2).
Like Venmo, any money you receive will be added to your PayPal account balance -- in order to get the cash in your checking account, you'll need to "withdraw" it.
Delivery speed: 3 to 4 business days
The fees: Free for bank account and PayPal balance transfers; 2.9% plus $0.30 for debit and credit card transfers.
Transfer: Sending limits vary. Withdrawals are limited to $500 per month; more with identity and bank account verification.
The app: PayPal's app lets you send and request money, as well as conduct mobile payments with your phone. Read more about how PayPal works as a mobile wallet.
5. Square Cash
How it works: If you don't want to deal with setting up an account just to receive (or send) money, Square Cash is the best option. To request money, all you have to do is compose an email to the debtor, enter the balance in the subject field, and CC [email protected]. You can use the body of the email to include details about the request, if you like.
Once the recipient receives the email, you'll both be asked to provide banking information before the transfer is initiated. It's just too easy.
Delivery speed: one to two business days.
The fees: Free.
Transfer limit: $250 per week; $2,500 per week with identity verification.
The app: Square's app lets you send and request money just as easily as sending an email.
6. Venmo
How it works: Venmo isn't just a the name of an app -- it's a verb. "I'll just Venmo you," I've heard my friends say. After setting up an account and verifying your banking information, you'll be asked to add "friends" to the app, to whom you can send and receive money requests.
But before you sign up, know that Venmo has a couple quirks. First, there's a social element. When sending or requesting money, there's an option to make the transaction public (viewable by anyone on Venmo), friends-only, or private. You'll most likely use the private option, although it's pretty easy to miss this part when setting up the request.
The other thing about Venmo is that money isn't deposited directly into your bank account. Instead, it's added to your Venmo account balance, which you can use to pay friends in the future. When you're ready to put the cash in your checking account, you'll have to "cash out."
Delivery speed: one business day.
The fees: Free for checking accounts; 2.9 percent for credit card transfers.
Transfer limit: Transfers are limited to $300 per week; $2,999 per week with identity verification. Cash-outs are limited to $999.99 per week; $19,999 per week with identity verification.
The app: Venmo's app is easy to use and even enables a feature that allows you to accept friends' payment requests with a text message.
Now playing: Watch this: Three ways to send and receive cash |
Monday, October 29, 2012 3:25 PM ET
DETROIT -- The Tigers were sitting in their clubhouse Sunday night, still trying to get their heads around being swept out of the World Series, suddenly answering media questions trying to sum up a season that abruptly ended. Even in the stunned silence, however, the business of the Tigers' offseason was beginning.
One by one, team president/general manager Dave Dombrowski caught up with players whose futures were in question and called them into a quiet part of the clubhouse, out of public view or media access. For some, it was the clubhouse manager's office. For others, it was the hallway leading to the training room.
This is what Dombrowski does as each season wraps up, whether the Tigers go home at the end of the regular season or go to the playoffs. He talks face-to-face with players whose futures are in question and tries to give some outlook into the team's plans.
He'd rather do it in another setting, no doubt. But when you go to the World Series, you don't get to plan these things.
Those plans aren't public just yet. Still, for at least a couple of players, Sunday likely marked the end of their tenures in Motown.
Delmon Young, whom the Tigers stopped seeing as a full-time outfielder long ago, hits the open market as a right-handed slugger with back-to-back standout postseasons. But with Victor Martinez expected back next spring after knee surgery ended his season, Young is a man without a position in Detroit.
"I'd like to see how the process plays out," Young said. "It's my first year on the free-agent market, so I'm just going to see how it goes."
Closer Jose Valverde led the American League with 110 saves over his three seasons in Detroit, and had a higher conversion rate than anyone in that stretch. Yet the way this postseason ended for him, mired in the bullpen after his meltdown in the AL Championship Series opener, looks like it could be the way he leaves.
"I think everybody wants to play for the Tigers," Valverde said Sunday night. "They have a great team, great owner. Now I'm a free agent. I don't know [what's going to happen]. That's for my agent [Scott Boras], not for me.
"My agent knows exactly what he's doing. Now it's time for my agent, not for me."
Far less certain is the future of Octavio Dotel, whose $3.5 million contract looked like a bargain for 58 innings of quality relief with 62 strikeouts. He has a $3.5 million option for next season.
"I'm very excited and I hope they pick my option," Dotel said. "I hope I can come back here. Hey, if you see it, we've got an unbelievable starting rotation right now. ... This is the team I want to be with in 2013."
It's the rotation where the Tigers have the biggest question, and surely the priciest proposition. What was assumed to be a rental on Anibal Sanchez took a different outlook when the two sides meshed for a stellar late-season run.
Dombrowski is on record saying he'd like to keep Sanchez. The flip side of all that success, though, is that Sanchez is poised to be one of the most coveted free agents on the market, with no shortage of teams looking for starting pitching.
The Tigers have never invested in a market deal for a top free-agent starter under Dombrowski's watch, preferring to build their rotation from within and add a mid-level piece if needed. If they sign Sanchez, it'll be a major investment for a team looking to win now.
Add it all up, and it's a busy slate -- and that's just the situation with Detroit's own free agents. That's why Dombrowski was walking back and forth through the clubhouse, followed by one player after another, in the moments after the World Series. As abruptly as the season ended, the offseason is already under way.
Contract issues
Free agents: DH/OF Young, RHP Sanchez, RHP Valverde, C Gerald Laird.
Club options: RHP Dotel ($3.5 million, $500,000 buyout), SS Jhonny Peralta ($6 million, $500,000 buyout).
Player options: None.
Arbitration eligible: C Alex Avila (1st time), OF Brennan Boesch (1st time), RHP Phil Coke (2nd time), RHP Doug Fister (1st time), OF Austin Jackson (1st time), OF/IF Don Kelly (2nd time), RHP Rick Porcello (2nd time), OF/2B Ryan Raburn (3rd time), RHP Max Scherzer (2nd time).
Areas of need
Corner outfield: If the Tigers are going to add an offensive piece, this is the position to do it. Detroit can fill one corner with a mix of Andy Dirks and one of their right-handed-hitting prospects, either postseason surprise Avisail Garcia or Nick Castellanos. The other spot, likely left field, is where they could look to add a supporting hitter to either set the table for the middle of the order or back it up.
Closer: Coke's dominant run through October at least made it conceivable that he could take on save opportunities with Joaquin Benoit, but it doesn't appear likely. The Tigers will probably look at a buyer's market for closers and seek the certainty of a proven ninth-inning arm. They'll have no shortage of choices.
Shortstop: Most likely, the Tigers will pick up Peralta's option and hold on for another year. If not, Detroit could upgrade defensively on the market.
Backup catcher: Laird quietly turned in more than a backup effort for his $1 million deal, not only producing when he played but helping keep Alex Avila fresh for the stretch run. With a season of Triple-A ball on Bryan Holaday's resume now, the Tigers have to decide whether they can fill this spot from within and save a little money, or whether Laird's production demands a return.
2013 payroll
Add $20-plus million salaries for Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander and Prince Fielder, plus arbitration raises for so many players, the Tigers will almost surely maintain their $133 payroll next season, if not increase it, even if they don't make a major acquisition this winter. |
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Sep. 9, 2016, 6:41 PM GMT / Updated Sep. 9, 2016, 6:58 PM GMT By The Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. — Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein says she's working with North Dakota authorities to arrange a court date on charges related to her participation in a protest against the Dakota Access pipeline.
Stein has acknowledged spray-painting construction equipment Tuesday in North Dakota. Stein and running mate Ajamu Baraka were charged Wednesday with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and criminal mischief, and authorities issued arrest warrants.
Related: North Dakota Protesters Vow to Stop Pipeline From Traversing Sioux Land
Stein defended her actions to the Chicago Tribune Thursday during a campaign stop in Chicago. She said it would have been "inappropriate for me not to have done my small part" to support the Standing Rock Sioux.
The tribe says the pipeline threatens sacred sites and drinking water.
The $3.8 billion pipeline is to carry oil from western North Dakota to Illinois. |
SF Giants' Tim Flannery: Music man TIM FLANNERY
Hotel stairwell, music filling the air, a bottle of wine - the perfect place to begin a story about Tim Flannery.
Giants trainer Dave Groeschner reached to slide the key into his room's door at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia, late one night during the 2010 National League Championship Series. Groeschner suddenly stopped when he and his wife, Aimee, heard music.
Groeschner walked across the hall and popped his head into the stairwell. There he found Flannery, the team's ever-energetic third-base coach, playing his guitar. He invited the Groeschners to join him, summoned his wife, Donna (with the wine), and they all sat on the stairs for an impromptu concert.
Flannery played and sang and told stories about the lyrics in the personal, soulful tunes that have made him an accomplished musician and helped raise $60,000 for injured Giants fan Bryan Stow. Flannery often retreats to the solitude of hotel stairwells on the road, to unwind and savor the sounds of an unlikely venue.
"The acoustics are insane," he said. "Better sound than any opera house I've ever played."
On this night in Philadelphia, the music and conversation stretched for more than 90 minutes. Finally, approaching 2 a.m., the Flannerys and Groeschners decided it was time to sleep. One problem: They were locked in the stairwell.
Giants third-base coach Tim Flannery has made 12 CDs, mostly Irish bluegrass with a distinct country flavor. Giants third-base coach Tim Flannery has made 12 CDs, mostly Irish bluegrass with a distinct country flavor. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close SF Giants' Tim Flannery: Music man 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
Flannery had brought his cell phone and eventually reached Giants traveling secretary Michael King. King couldn't help but chuckle when he opened the stairwell door and saw the two couples, one guitar and one empty bottle of wine.
Now, any time Flannery finds sanctuary in a stairwell, he checks the door first.
Long journey
Third-base coaches are like offensive linemen in many ways, noticeable only when they make a mistake. Flannery, 54, is more visible than most in good times, given his animated nature and the way he frequently scrambles down the line as if personally escorting a Giants baserunner across the plate.
But his story runs deeper than waving around runners. Way deeper.
Start with Flannery's family background. His ancestors came from Ireland in the mid-1700s - bringing Irish bluegrass music with them, as he put it - and settled in the Appalachians. One grandfather (his mom's dad) was a coal miner in Illinois, and his dad's side of the family grew up around coal mines in the mountains of Kentucky.
Flannery's dad, Ragon, left to become a Christian minister in Oklahoma and later Southern California, following the call of the church. The family was living in Redondo Beach when Ragon Flannery gave his kids a choice on their next move: Anaheim or Bellflower. Tim successfully campaigned for Anaheim so he could attend more Angels games.
He was consumed by baseball at an early age, partly because his uncle Hal Smith played 10 seasons in the majors. Smith, the brother of Flannery's mom, hit a three-run, go-ahead home run in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, a prelude to Bill Mazeroski's famous homer in the ninth.
Flannery's family history, then, infused him with an abiding passion for baseball - and a similar passion for music. (His love of surfing would come later, given the lure of the ocean.) His parents perpetually played records in the house, including the Louvin brothers and Everly Brothers.
Tom Flannery, Tim's younger brother by six years, carries vivid memories of singing at night as kids.
"I had the lower bunk; I'd kick his bed and then we'd just lay there and sing," said Tom, now a high-school choir director and church musician in Lexington, Ky. "Even though we were separated by a few years in our pop-music tastes, we had the same hymns from church. One of us sang melody and the other sang harmony."
All the Flannery kids were inspired by their father, who was "a little nutty" in Tim's words - infinitely generous and also capable of drinking others under the table. Tim occasionally found empty cupboards at home, because a member of his dad's congregation had no food. But before Ragon Flannery gave away the food, he made the person weed the yard.
One of the father's most enduring influences (he died 13 years ago, at age 74) remains the musical inclinations he passed along. Flannery's sister, Ragean, toured Europe as a pianist. Tom Flannery has taught music for 20 years and directed choirs in front of the Pope at the Vatican.
Most of the siblings' kids also write songs and play music, so Thanksgiving at the Flannery household often resembles a four-hour set. They eat dinner along the way.
Serious musician
Flannery has worked with a wide range of notable singers, from Jackson Browne and Dwight Yoakam to Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Linda Ronstadt. Flannery has made 12 CDs, mostly Irish bluegrass with a distinct country flavor.
So, yes, he's really into this. Don't expect, "Take me out to the Ballgame."
He always worried that people wouldn't take his music seriously. Or they would question his commitment to baseball, a silly notion given his obvious devotion to the game. So he separates his passions as much as possible: When he plays a show, as he does about 30 times every offseason, he's not introduced as the third-base coach.
This baseball/music combination did not always resonate in San Diego, where Flannery spent all of his 11 major-league seasons and later coached under Bruce Bochy. He encountered skepticism because he played the guitar rather than golf or cards.
That's not the case now, as Flannery learned during his two Bryan Stow benefit concerts last offseason. The Bay Area audiences loved it.
"They get that you can be an artist and coach third base," Flannery said. "It's the best thing about living here - they get it. It's changed my life, living up here. People down south get pissed off at me, but I don't care."
The brutal beating of Stow outside Dodger Stadium on Opening Day 2011 deeply shook Flannery. He couldn't get over how irrevocably life changed for Stow and his family in those fateful few minutes. So when Yoshi's Theater called with the idea of a benefit concert, Flannery quickly accepted.
He played one at Yoshi's in San Francisco in November and another, with the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, at the Uptown Theater in Napa in January. Flannery is planning more concerts this offseason to raise money for Stow's medical care.
This is a shining example of tangible good arising from Flannery's skill at writing songs and playing the guitar. His music also helped pay the bills after the Padres fired him as third-base coach in 2002 - he took summer gigs he usually can't consider because of baseball.
Mostly, though, Flannery makes music because he loves it.
"It makes me breathe," he said. "Sometimes, my wife won't even talk to me after games until I sit in the corner for 20 minutes playing."
Flannery's songs and CDs tell the tale of his journey, from his family's roots to his life on the road. One song, "Pieces of the Past," was inspired by Flannery taking a piece of coal from the Kentucky mountains, where his dad grew up, and bringing it to him in his final years, as he fought Alzheimer's disease.
Ragon Flannery put the piece of coal in his mouth, slowly tasted it, looked into Tim's eyes and started telling stories of his youth, which his son had not heard. "That song is his history, my history," Tim said.
Or, as his brother Tom said, "Tim's music is truthful and organic. He's totally open, and that's why people relate."
Baseball man
Flannery also embraces surfing with vigor - he might have pieces of Kentucky in him, but he still grew up in SoCal. So he routinely wanders into the waters of Montara, Pedro Point and Half Moon Bay for another invigorating, adrenaline-filled pastime.
His job with the Giants counts as invigorating and adrenaline-filled. Flannery's emotional investment in baseball was clear in his playing days, as a scrappy utility infielder. Also consider this, courtesy of Tom Flannery: As a minor-league manager, Tim once got ejected and came back out in the mascot's uniform to manage the rest of the game.
Now he's one of the longest-tenured third-base coaches in the majors, and that's no accident. Tom Flannery drives from Lexington to Cincinnati when the Giants come to town, and Tim always brings his iPad to their lunches so he can watch opposing outfielders throw in the previous day's game.
He runs down the line on some plays because his mentors - Jimmy Davenport, Joey Amalfitano, Jimy Williams - taught him the importance of buying an extra second or two to decide whether to send home a runner. Flannery wears spikes, expecting a workout every game.
As Giants fans know, he errs on the aggressive side. Former owner Peter Magowan learned this in Flannery's first spring training with the team, in 2007. He was trying to rediscover his timing after four years away from coaching, and he had a few runners thrown out.
One night, at a banquet in Arizona, Magowan mentioned this to Flannery. Emboldened by a couple of glasses of wine, Flannery replied with a smile, "Well, if you wanted safety first, you should have hired a school crossing guard."
He loves working without a net, as he put it. It's why he does his research, contemplating the infinite possibilities of what might happen with two runners on base and a certain hitter at the plate.
And it's also why coaching third base suits Flannery so well, much like his other passions.
"There are times when surfing and music stir you, and there are times coaching is like that - you're in the moment, and it's a Zen-type thing," he said. "This is all you're thinking about, all you're consumed with. I'm obsessive, and the music and surfing are probably the best therapy for balancing that out. ...
"But one thing I've learned about coaching - if you don't respect it and honor it, if you don't prepare, it's going to blow up in your face. I was a platoon player. Now I get to play every day."
That's one game on the field and often one gig in the stairwell. |
University of California paid former president Mark Yudof $546,000 in 2014 – the year after he stepped down from his post, according to salary data released by the UC system this week.
Yudof served as UC president for five years before resigning in late summer 2013 to become a law professor at UC Berkeley. He was replaced by Janet Napolitano, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and governor of Arizona.
At UC Berkeley, Yudof co-instructed one class for one semester in 2014, according to a faculty profile page on the university’s website. The class met once a week for three hours.
Yudof benefited from a UC policy that allows high-ranking administrators to receive a year of pay if they are preparing to teach again. He took that pay and taught for two semesters, co-instructing another class in spring 2015. He retired from teaching in June, officials said, and no longer draws a salary from UC Berkeley. Berkeley Law’s website lists Yudof as a professor emeritus.
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UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein said in an email that “when UC presidents leave to teach at a UC campus, they customarily receive a year of sabbatical pay under regents’ policy. Yudof’s sabbatical pay lasted from Sept. 2013 to Sept. 2014.” Yudof’s sabbatical pay came directly from state funds, she said.
Yudof reaffirmed that information in an email, saying, “for 2013-14, I was receiving my (president’s office) compensation for a leave to prepare to re-enter teaching. This is the typical arrangement for presidents and chancellors who leave administration and prepare to begin teaching again.” Yudof said he also received pay for his teaching at UC Berkeley in the 2014-15 academic year. He declined further comment.
445 Number of UC employees earning more than $500,000 in 2014, according to data released by the college system
The University of California Student Association Acting President Kevin Sabo called Yudof’s pay in 2014 “another episode of embarrassment in terms of executive compensation.” He noted that other prominent professors such as former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who teaches public policy at UC Berkeley, earned far less than Yudof last year.
“Yudof should establish a scholarship fund with this money and give it back to the system,” Sabo said.
UC executive compensation has been a hot topic for years. The debate recently heated up again as UC officials this year threatened to raise tuition if the state did not budget more money to the system. Assemblyman Roger Hernández, D-Baldwin Park, introduced a bill shortly afterward that would have capped compensation for any UC employee at $500,000. That bill is stalled in committee; it last came to a vote in April.
Sabo said the UC system needs to revisit and possibly abolish its practice of paying UC presidents for a sabbatical after they leave. Such policies, he said, make it hard to convince legislators that UC needs more funding to help students.
“Time after time, it’s ‘Why should we give these resources to the UC when it just goes to executive compensation?’ ” Sabo said, summarizing what he said he hears from lawmakers.
Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, said he was disappointed to learn of Yudof’s 2014 pay. He said UC officials pleaded poverty when asked to allocate more money for California students this year.
“This is yet another example of the University of California finding money for executive compensation at the same time they say they can’t find money for enrollment for California residents,” said McCarty, who chairs the Assembly budget subcommittee on education finance. “It makes you scratch your head.”
Yudof should establish a scholarship fund with this money and give it back to the system. UC Student Association Acting President Kevin Sabo
Todd Stenhouse, spokesman for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents thousands of UC’s blue-collar workers, said Yudof oversaw a system that often did little to help rank-and-file employees.
“It is sadly ironic that the president who presided over the explosion of executive excess – of skyrocketing tuition and skyrocketing poverty among UC’s lowest-paid workers – gets paid half a million dollars for not working,” he said.
Yudof was one of 445 UC employees earning at least $500,000 last year, according to the new data. The year prior, 387 UC employees made that much.
The vast majority of UC employees earning more than $500,000 a year are doctors or administrators at UC hospitals, or coaches for major UC athletic teams.
Yudof made more than any chancellor at UC’s 10 campuses in 2014, with the exception of UC San Francisco, a stand-alone health-sciences school. He made nearly as much as Napolitano, who earned $585,000 in 2014.
Klein said Yudof earned $591,000 in annual base salary, and continued to earn sabbatical pay during the 2013-14 academic year that immediately followed his retirement. During the 2014-15 academic year, UC Berkeley paid him $315,000 for his position at the law school. The median pay for UC Berkeley law professors last year was about $310,000.
Earlier this month, the University of California approved 3 percent raises for 15 top administrators. Among those to receive the salary increases are five campus leaders, including UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. She will make $424,360. |
There's a saying in New England that if you can ski here, you can ski anywhere. In this landscape of white farmsteads, red barns, rolling hills and never-ending forests, there's a ski holiday to suit any requirement or budget. True, it can be a little chilly and the powder isn't as prolific as in the western states, but skiing the tree-lined slopes and Narnia-like glades of New England has a quirky kind of charm that can get right under your skin.
If you've got children in tow, Okemo , a medium-sized resort in central Vermont, is a good place to start. It's a slick operation with all the mod cons and is regularly hailed as one of the world's most family-friendly destinations. But on the Saturday in January when we visit, Okemo's having New England weather. I huddle on the chair lift with my two children as the wind whips snow off the trees and straight into our faces. Before long, we're in the base lodge sipping hot chocolate.
The next day we wake up to the bluest of skies and our friend Peter decides that we're off to Magic Mountain . We've never heard of it, but we trust Peter's judgment. He owns 280 pairs of skis and a helmet that once belonged to the iconic Italian skier Alberto Tomba.
We drive for half an hour and then pull into a time warp. Magic Mountain has two old-style chair lifts, one of which is closed today. Several of the staff look as if they're related to members of the band ZZ Top.
Magic Mountain, it turns out, is a bit of a hidden gem. Its varied trails range from child-friendly cruisers to those that are steep and technical – and the people here are as friendly as they come. At lunchtime there's a band in the bar and all the children get up to dance. The whole place appears to be held together with goodwill and gaffer tape. That's how it goes in New England.
No one knows more about the many and varied ski areas in this region than Jeremy Davis. He's skied all 85 of them. A decade ago he set up the New England Lost Ski Areas Project and so far he's recorded the histories of 625 community ski areas that are now closed. But Davis is convinced that the pendulum is swinging away from the big, homogenous resorts, back to the raw skiing experience of the remaining smaller areas, not least because they are so affordable.
Take Northeast Slopes. This little 12-trail ski hill on the road to Barre in southern Vermont is a piece of living history. It boasts the oldest continuously operating ski tow in the US, set up in 1936. It'll cost you just $12 (£8) to try out their "challenging steeps" and terrain park, and they'll happily lend you a pair of workman's gloves to protect your hands from the tow rope.
There's history at Mad River Glen, too – its single chair lift began carrying skiers to the top of General Stark Mountain in 1948. But most people don't come here for that. Skiers (snowboarders have been banned by the co-op that owns the resort) come here for the ungroomed slopes and the off-piste. The terrain is so challenging that its famous bumper stickers ("Mad River Glen, Ski it if you can") are worn like badges of honour.
If you prefer something a little more mainstream, Vermont has plenty more to offer. Of the three most northerly New England states, Vermont attracts the most ski tourists – four million last year. It is accessible, with the Interstate 91 bringing traffic north from New York and Connecticut and the state's famous ''ski highway'', Route 100, offers snow gipsies the chance to try out a different resort each day.
Killington is famous for its steep terrain, and its high altitude means that if it is going to snow, this is where the powder will be. Locals still talk of the November day 20 years ago when 27 inches fell in 12 hours. As its good snow record attracts the crowds, avoid weekends or school holidays.
Smugglers' Notch has a well-respected children's ski school and also offers 750 acres of gladed terrain for those interested in darting in and out of trees. You can hire GPS tracking units from the rental shop here – a good investment if you're a parent planning on glade skiing with your children. The 18th-century village of Stowe wins for chocolate-box New England charm – with enough arts and crafts shops to keep a maiden aunt happy for a week. Beginners will love the sweeping Toll Road, an incomparable green run.
Vermont's sidekick, New Hampshire, has a range of ski areas that are equally diverse. From the state's largest resort, Bretton Woods, you'll get impressive views of Mount Washington, the highest point in the north-east and reputedly home to the world's worst weather. For backcountry adventure, visit the newly reopened Mittersill Ski Area next to Cannon Mountain at Franconia. It's been designated "extra hazardous" due to the lack of grooming, limited patrolling and extensive rescue time. Those searching for solitude, drive north to Dixville Notch and visit the Balsams Wilderness, where you will have the slopes to yourself.
If you make it as far as Maine, you're already off the beaten track – two thirds of the skiers here are locals. And they're a hardy bunch. Sunday River is one of the larger resorts, spread out over eight peaks, and planning a route from one side to the other takes some concentration.
As for the long-range forecast for the season ahead, at Okemo they're talking about the El Nino effect bringing a snowy winter. The Old Farmer's Almanac, published annually in New Hampshire since George Washington was president, says it's going to be a cold one. Believe who you will but come anyway. Just pack an extra jumper. |
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