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On Saturday April 28, Ring of Honor returns to the Eisenhower Center located just outside the Twin Cities in Hopkins, MN for Masters of the Craft! It will be a night of the hard-hitting, in-your-face action on The Best Wrestling on the Planet can deliver with all of your favorite stars in action!
The ROH Board of Directors has been hard at work finalizing bouts at the last event before the War of the World Tour commences. ROH World Television Champion “The Villain” Marty Scurll continues to crow after every ROH World Television Championship defense that he has defeated everyone ROH has to offer. In Hopkins, the ROH Board of Directors has secured a VERY special opponent that may have the ability to shock the world and capture the ROH World Television Championship at Masters of the Craft!
ROH WORLD TELEVISION CHAMPIONSHIP
ROH WORLD TELEVISION CHAMPION “THE VILLAIN” MARTY SCURLL vs. KEN ANDERSON
As the list of defeated challengers grows and grows, the louder “The Villain” Marty Scurll gets. The self-described “Reign of Wickedness” began in London in just his third match during his first weekend in ROH. Since then Scurll has defeated Will Ospreay, Dragon Lee, Jonathan Gresham, Juice Robinson, Donovan Dijak, Sonjay Dutt, Kenny King, and former three-time ROH World Champion Adam Cole in front of the largest crowd in ROH history at Supercard of Honor XI!
But as the, admittedly, fighting champion continues to get louder and louder about his successes, world-class challengers from around the world line up to take their best shot at “The Villain”. And a former world champion has his eyes set on Scurll at Masters of the Craft!
Ken Anderson makes his ROH debut in Hopkins, MN and has a chance to capture championship gold on his very first night! Scurll, and champions before him like Jay Lethal, Tomohiro Ishii, and Bobby Fish before him have elevated the ROH World Television Championship to the level of the ROH World Championship and Anderson looks for an opportunity to add his name to this storied lineage.
Will Anderson become lucky number 13 to hold the title and end Scurll’s “Reign of Wickedness” in his ROH debut match? The only way to find out is to be there LIVE in Hopkins! There is nothing like seeing the hard-hitting, fast-paced, in-your-face action that only ROH can deliver Masters of the Craft WILL sell out – get your tickets now!
ROH MASTERS OF THE CRAFT
Saturday, April 29, 2017 - 7:00 pm
Eisenhower Center
Hopkins, MN
ALREADY SIGNED
MAIN EVENT
THE ADDICTION (ROH WORLD CHAMPION CHRISTOPHER DANIELS & FRANKIE KAZARIAN) & DALTON CASTLE vs. BULLET CLUB (ROH WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS THE YOUNG BUCKS MATT & NICK JACKSON & HANGMAN PAGE)
RUBBER MATCH
ROH WORLD SIX MAN TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS THE BRISCOES (JAY & MARK) vs. MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS (ALEX SHELLEY & CHRIS SABIN)
ROH WORLD TELEVISION CHAMPIONSHIP
ROH WORLD TELEVISION CHAMPION “THE VILLAIN” MARTY SCURLL vs. KEN ANDERSON
MATT TAVEN vs. ADAM COLE
ROH WORLD SIX MAN TAG TEAM CHAMPION BULLY RAY vs. “PRO WRESTLING’S LAST REAL MAN” SILAS YOUNG
JAY LETHAL vs. BEER CITY BRUISER
PUNISHMENT MARTINEZ vs. JAY WHITE
NON-TITLE
IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS WAR MACHINE (HANSON & RAY ROWE) vs. THE REBELLION (SHANE TAYLOR & RHETT TITUS)
ROH WORLD TELEVISION CHAMPIONSHIP
ROH WORLD TELEVISION CHAMPION “THE VILLAIN” MARTY SCURLL vs. KEN ANDERSON
SIGNED TO APPEAR:
CHEESEBURGER
WILL FERRARA |
An organisation working for men's rights and issues has prepared a "men-i-festo" and said that if political parties do not accede to their demands, they will exercise the None of the Above (NOTA) option on the ballot papers.
Their credo - No Men's Right, No Votes.
These men have decided that if political parties do not commit on their demands, they will exercise the NOTA option.
The 10-point charter of demands has among others sought a ministry for men, a Men's Commission, and enacting of laws against harassment of men across the social spectrum.
Formed a decade back as Save Family Foundation, the umbrella group now known as 'National Coalition of Men', with 50 non-government organisations, is working across 25 states and 50 cities.
It has now decided to give "political teeth" to their long-pending demands and says that they have already sent their 10-point charter men-i-festo to the Congress and the BJP.
The local and regional chapters have been assigned the task of delivering it to regional parties.
While admitting that the demands have so far been met with lukewarm response, Amit Gupta, general secretary of the coalition, told IANS this time the men would go for the NOTA option in such an eventuality.
"We have been extremely vocal in expressing our concern towards gender equality and highlighting men's rights and issues and we now want to take it to the rightful direction by petitioning political parties in the election season to look into and support our demands," he said.
Also appended with the men-i-festo, being sent to politicians, is a presentation which "details the ugly side of the life of men viz a viz sexual abuse, harassment at office and other gender equality issues".
Lucknow chapter head Indu Subhash points out that while most politicians are empathetic to their demands, "woman sympathisers far outnumber them".
There are as many as 49-women specific laws in the country but none for us and it is high time the political parties concede that crime and criminality is gender neutral, said an activist.
Claiming a data of 25 lakh such families across the country, office bearers of the group told IANS that the data base they have of "suffering men" could spell trouble for political parties in case they decide to use the NOTA option.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at [email protected]) |
Image copyright AFP Image caption Bangladeshi security forces are already guarding Rohingya camps near the border
Bangladesh is limiting the movement of more than 400,000 Rohingya migrants who have fled from neighbouring Myanmar.
They must stay in fixed places allocated to them by the government and not travel elsewhere, police say.
Bangladesh also announced plans to build shelters for up to 400,000 people near the city of Cox's Bazar.
The mainly Muslim Rohingyas have been fleeing a Myanmar government offensive since last month, which the UN says could amount to ethnic cleansing.
Rights groups have accused the military of burning Rohingya villages.
But the army says it is responding to attacks by militants and denies it is targeting civilians.
Meanwhile, a fresh diplomatic row between Bangladesh and Myanmar has broken out over alleged violations of Bangladeshi airspace in the past week.
What are the new restrictions?
In a statement, Bangladeshi police said Rohingyas would not be allowed to travel anywhere outside of their allocated homes, not even to live with family or friends.
Transport operators and drivers have also been urged not to carry refugees, with landlords told not to rent out any property to them.
Analysts say the government wants to stop the Rohingya from disappearing into the general population and to keep them visible, in the hope of returning them to Myanmar - or even a third country.
What do we know about the new shelters?
According to Bangladesh's Daily Star newspaper, the new shelters will be on a site covering about 8 sq km (3 sq miles) of land, close to established camps which have been overwhelmed by arrivals from Myanmar.
A total of 8,500 temporary toilets will be built and 14 "makeshift warehouses" will be set up near the shelters, the paper says.
The new shelters are meant to be built within 10 days.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Many Rohingya migrants live in improvised camps
Image caption The violence has been concentrated in Myanmar's Rakhine area
An ambitious plan, but is it plausible?
Jonathan Head, BBC Southeast Asia correspondent
Bangladesh faces a colossal task accommodating the now more than 400,000 Rohingyas who have fled Myanmar. It rightly demands a lot more international support. And that support has been slow in coming.
One reason is the dramatic surge in the numbers of new arrivals in a very short period of time. Another is the politics of aid in southern Bangladesh.
The UN refugee agency is not allowed to deal with the large numbers of Rohingya who are living outside of official refugee camps as they do not want these people to have refugee status. Instead that role has been given to the International Organisation for Migration, a UN-related agency with expertise in assisting and monitoring migrants. The UN, with its proven "cluster system", is normally tasked with coordinating large-scale humanitarian emergencies.
In this context, the plan to build 14,000 homes, and 8,000 latrines is ambitious. The ten-day timescale set by the government seems unrealistic. In reality, many tens of thousands of Rohingyas are surviving with no shelter and little food, with more arriving every day. No-one has yet drawn up a plausible plan for assisting them all.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Jonathan Head went on a government-organised trip to Rakhine state last week
How is the crisis affecting Myanmar-Bangladesh relations?
Tensions have been mounting, with Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina heading to the UN General Assembly on Saturday to ask for more pressure to be put on Myanmar to help deal with the crisis.
The UN Security Council has appealed to Myanmar to stop the violence but no sanctions have been imposed.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC speaks to Rohingya who say they were injured in landmine blasts
Bangladesh has also lodged a formal protest with Myanmar about its use of military drones and helicopters which, it alleges, have violated Bangladeshi airspace on three days in the past week.
Bangladesh described their use as "provocative". Myanmar denies the allegation.
The two countries have also locked horns over the issue of landmines, with Myanmar denying Bangladesh accusations that its army is planting them on the border to prevent refugees from returning.
The BBC has spoken to Rohingya Muslims who were maimed after apparently stepping on landmines as they fled, but it was not clear when the mines were laid or by whom.
How did we get here?
The violence began on 25 August when Rohingya militants attacked police posts in northern Rakhine, killing 12 security personnel.
Rohingyas who have fled Myanmar since then say the military responded with a brutal campaign, burning villages and attacking civilians in a bid to drive them out.
The Rohingya, a stateless mostly Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Rakhine, have long experienced persecution in Myanmar, which says they are illegal immigrants.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Watch: Who are the Rohingya?
Some who fled from Rakhine state told the BBC earlier this month about killings, rape and even massacres, while inside Rakhine, a BBC crew witnessed charred homes inside Rakhine.
A new Human Rights Watch report released on Friday accused the Myanmar military of an "ethnic cleansing campaign" and detailed scores of villages targeted with arson attacks.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Fergal Keane spoke to Buddhists in Myanmar's second city, Mandalay
Myanmar officials blame the Rohingya insurgents for the violence, with government spokesman Zaw Htay urging displaced people to find refuge in temporary camps set up in Rakhine state.
However, Mr Htay said Myanmar would not be able to allow all those who fled to Bangladesh to return. |
"Best"? Who am I kidding? I don't believe there's any way to determine what the best sports photographs of the year are. Photography is simply too subjective. Almost every professional photographer has stories about winning awards for mediocre pictures while his or her best work goes unrecognized. A contest is only as relevant as the judges making the choices, and the same contest with different judges would produce very different winners. So perhaps I should call these photographs my favorites, because that's what they are. They reflect my personal tastes and biases, which regular readers of this blog will recognize: an attraction to the obscure, a passion for the absurd, and a love of that intersection between sport and culture. Pictures full of humor, beauty, and moments both subtle and decisive draw me in. Editing this blog has been pure joy as photographers from all over the world astound me every week with their skills. Each week there's always many more photographs I want to share than I have room for. And this entry is no different. Part one of the 100 Best Sports Photographs of 2009 covers the months of January, February, and March. I'll post the rest on successive Thursdays this month. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much I do. ( 25 photos total |
Unlike some publications, DiS doesn't tell the individuals who write for us what to think. The process of who reviews what is quite simple: we email out a list of forthcoming releases to our team of music lovers, people then put their hand up for what they'd be intrigued to hear and Andrzej our reviews editor spreads the records around. It's an imperfect system but it works. It's rare that we don't publish a review or to-fro with a writer over the substance of their piece (once or twice a year there's something questionable that gets discussed by senior staff, but this is usually due to close to the bone language, rather than the opinion expressed). We love the lack of a predictable "DiS view" and the plurality of opinions here at DiS. Occasionally, things stray a little, but then that is - we hope - what makes DiS human rather than some brand-obsessed hivemind led by some evil dictator.
When massive Antlers fan and DiS scribe Benjamin Bland sat down to review the follow-up to DiS' album of 2011 Burst Apart, he had high hopes. Perhaps too high. As did DiS' editorial team, and without even hearing a note we commissioned the band to takeover the site for a week. Ben wasn't blown away by Familiars, and provided a thoughtful and fair 6/10 review. Understandably, the band were a little surprised, especially as they chatted to DiS' Joe Goggins about the new album, who - spoiler alert! - has named it his favourite album of the year thus far (in a piece running on DiS next week).
Rather than throw their synths out of their prams, the Antlers takeover week happened as planned this week, with the band making us BBQ-friendly playlists, taking us behind the scenes of their 'Palace' video, and sharing some of their favourite summer haunts around the world. To end this week of words, here's Peter on that pesky DiS review of Familiars...
"We’ve found ourselves in a strange position. A few weeks ago, Drowned In Sound invited us to do a website takeover, in which we’d publish content through them for an entire week. We were all pretty stoked on the idea, until DiS posted an unfavorable review of our new record Familiars. Surely everyone’s entitled to their opinion, and this record just won’t resonate with some people, which is totally cool. But something about the situation began to feel weird for us. So in order to dissolve that awkwardness, I’ve gone ahead and Madlibbed Benjamin Bland’s review, replacing nouns, verbs, adjectives, and making minor edits in order to transform it into something else.
Bon appétit!
Peter"
Ever since The Antlers opened their third restaurant Hospice, back in 2009, they have been destined to become part of mainstream dining, making a transition similar to that experienced by the likes of Ruby Tuesday and TGI Fridays in recent years. Both Hospice, and its 2011 follow-up Burst Apart, were genuinely exquisite restaurants, to the extent that their culinary reputation remains as potent years later as on first bite. Familiars, then, carries an expectation of flavor as well as of quality menu-writing from Pete Silberman, Darby Cicci, & Michael Lerner.
Familiars, then, is unsurprisingly, immensely savory. Allowing this eatery to become your whole diet for its hour-odd wait time won’t reduce you to a quivering glutton as the band’s previous two locations did, but it will lead you to ask so many questions of your server that you’ll be feeling emotionally worn out by the time it draws to a close. There’s just something about Silberman’s use of exotic spices that sets him apart from other restauranteurs dealing in similar ingredients. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that, upon his regular he launches into fits of rage, his waitstaff almost disappears, as if cracking under the strain of the appetizers being explained. His daily specials look mostly ordinary throughout most of Familiars, but the almost decadent inclusion of clams in a dish like ‘Director’ - which Silberman describes as a “Clam-interjector, minced & interspersed”- borders on unnecessary. ‘Parade’ is less clam-filled, but no less motley. Silberman’s mezzaluna cuts straight to the heart, and it’s the most precise thing about this operation.
Unfortunately, this fact is indicative of why Familiars isn’t as scrumptious as its predecessors. Whilst Silberman’s clam concoctions have always been at the center of everything The Antlers serve, it would be inaccurate to proclaim that factor the sole reason behind their Yelp reviews to date. Burst Apart - and its sister-locale Undersea for that matter - both proved above all else the consistent inventiveness of the chef’s palate. Whether it was the grilled asparagus in ‘Parentheses’, the sautéed spinach in ‘No Widows’ or the roasted beets in ‘Putting the Dog to Sleep’, Burst Apart demonstrated that the vegetable was just as important to The Antlers as the shellfish.
But Familiars lacks any real regular operating hours. ‘Palace’ opens the restaurant in the fashion it means to go on. There’s gentle oversleeping, plenty of reluctant key-turning, the occasional bit of sombre sighing and muttering everywhere. In fact, the inconsistent opening-time is the most worrisome feature of the restaurant’s financial side by some distance, lending a distinctive uncertainty to the vast majority of Familiars. Therein lies the problem. Surprises make a nice addition to any kind of salad - as poorly-regulated supermarkets have proven so emphatically in recent years - but when used in such a careless way across multiple restaurants, as The Antlers have used them here, they become rather predictable.
In fact, the extremely subtle (which for many will probably read as ‘rather bland’) mozzarella that The Antlers have adopted here only avoids grating as a whole by the end of the day because the oven gets hotter as the crust bakes on. ‘Parade’, ‘Surrender’ and ‘Refuge’ are three of the best pizzas the band have ever delivered. It’s just a shame that they come at the end of a meal which, partly because of a lack of significant appetizer-variation and partly because of consistently long breadsticks (none are under five meters), makes for a rather carb-heavy dinner.
There’s a pepperoni topping on ‘Surrender’, which Silberman notes “can be enjoyed without your apprehension, with meat from a quiet field in our own dimension”. I’ve no doubt that’s exactly what The Antlers had in mind with Familiars. It’s definitely a restaurant built entirely on their own private island, and it definitely plays out on its own incomprehensible little schedule. Unfortunately this bistro is located down many windy roads, in a far away temperate rainforest, in an unsurprisingly wet climate, and I’m not entirely sure I can claim the journey to be worthwhile for foodies who aren’t already fully invested in The Antlers as a unique dining experience.
 |
on •
The use of armed drones to launch lethal strikes around the globe is rapidly becoming normalised. Despite widespread ethical, political and legal misgivings and the danger to global peace and security from the precedent that such strikes set, US, British and Israeli drones carried out numerous strikes in the first few weeks of 2015. Pictures of an apparent Chinese armed drone that had crashed in Nigeria also surfaced in a worrying sign of the further spread of such systems.
Snapshot
In Somalia two separate strikes on the same day (31 Jan) killed dozens of people. In the first, a strike on an alleged Al-shabaab training camp in Lower Shabelle killed over 40 people, while a separate strike elsewhere in Somalia targeted Yusef Dheeq, described by the US as Al-shabaab’s head of external operations. In a press briefing a few days later Pentagon spokesperson Admiral John Kirby confirmed it had been a US drone strike but could not confirm at the time that Dheeq had been killed. “If he no longer breathes, then this is another significant blow to al-Shabaab …” Kirby said. The Pentagon subsequently confirmed Dheeq’s death, along with “an associate”. Four civilians were also reported to have killed in the strike although the US insists that according to its assessment no civilians or bystanders were killed.
This latest targeted killing by the US in Somalia comes almost exactly one month after another senior Al-shabaab leader was targeted by a US drone at the end of December. As Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Jack Searle has written recently, this seems to indicate a change in tactic in US operations in Somalia away from manned aircraft towards greater use of armed drones. This assessment has been confirmed by Somalia Intelligence chief General Abdulrahma Turyare who stated that US drone strikes targeting Al Shabaab in central Somalia would be intensified.
Meanwhile US drone strikes continue in Yemen despite the recent (and ongoing) coup. Houthi rebels have been protesting in the capital Sana’a since September but escalated their action dramatically in January leading to the resignation of President Hadi and political chaos. It was suggested that US counterterrorism operations In Yemen including drone strikes were likely to be suspended but Pentagon officials strongly denied this and a strike took place almost immediately as if to prove such operations were continuing. The strike resulted in the deaths of three people – two reported members of Al Qaeda and Mohammed Taeiman al Jahmi, a boy aged between 12 and 15, whose father and brother had been killed in a previous drone strike in 2011. The Guardian, who had given the boy a camera to record his life after the first strike, released a remarkable video with Taeiman speaking about his life.
At least two other US drone strikes have occurred in Yemen, one on Feb 2 killed four people and one on Feb 10. US authorities insist that drone strikes inside Yemen are legal as they have been authorised by the Yemen government. It is hard to understand how these latest strikes can have been approved however as there is no Yemeni government.
Freelance reporter Chris Woods who has been carefully monitoring the air war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria reports that January saw the heaviest month yet of allied airstrikes with US and UK drones as well as manned aircraft from several countries undertaking multiple strikes. In January the US shifted its position after months of denying any civilians casualties from air strikes and says it is now conducting formal investigations into credible civilian casualty reports in Iraq and Syria.
US drone strikes have also continued in Afghanistan despite the US formally saying the war is over. One strike on Feb 9 targeted Abdul Rauf a former member of the Taliban who had sworn allegiance to ISIS. Rauf was killed along with an unknown number of other people. A separate US drone strike in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province on Feb 11 killed nine “suspected militants”.
US drone strikes also continue in Pakistan. According to the Bureau of investigative Journalism (TBIJ) there have been five such strikes in the country since the beginning of the year with between 26 and 38 people killed, many of them unknown.
Meanwhile Israeli drones carried out an airstrike targeting Hezbollah in the Syrian sector of the Golan Heights. The strike killed six members of the group as well as a senior Iranian General Mohammad Ali Allah-Dadi. Scores of media reports stated the strike was carried out by Israeli helicopters but UN observers stated drones were used to undertake the strike. The UN issued a statement condemning the strike saying “this incident is a violation of the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement between Israeli and Syrian forces.”
In January Israeli human rights group B’Tselem issued a report questioning the legality of Israel’s policy of air strikes by drones and other military aircraft on Palestinian homes during last summer’s war in Gaza – a strategy that led to hundreds of civilian deaths. According to the report the policy led to the deaths of 606 people in 70 attacks on homes that it examined. Among the dead were 93 children under the age of five.
Receiving surprisingly little coverage was news of the crash of an apparent armed Chinese drone in Nigeria at the end of January. Photos of the crash in local media clearly show the drone is armed and experts reported the drone was very similar to the Chinese CH-3 UCAV and speculated that it was there taking part in missions against Boko Haram. There is obviously a lot more to this story but mainstream and specialist press have been reticent to report further details
And on and on..
Meanwhile funding and infrastructure continues to be put in place to project the drone wars well into the future. President Obama’s defense budget, released at the beginning of February, contains plans for the Pentagon to spend almost $3 billion on unmanned systems according to detailed analysis from the Drone Center. This includes funding for 29 more Reaper drones for the US air force to enable an increase in the number of Combat Air Patrols (CAP) – basically the number of drones able to fly simultaneously – from 60 to 65. Far from reducing the number of US drones flying, as some predicted would happen with the US drawdown from Afghanistan, the number is set to increase. As Pete Singer states rather ominously “There was a push by some to reduce these numbers and ‘return to normal.’ This is a recognition by better minds that this is the new normal.”
The increase in drone flights however is having a real impact on drone pilots and there have been reports, as The Times put it rather memorably, of drone pilots bailing out. The Pentagon is considering retention payments of around $25,000 to encourage drone pilots to stay on.
It is not just the US that is increasing funding for drones. Defence Minister Philip Dunne told Parliament on 12 January that UK “investment” in drones in the current financial year had reached almost a quarter of billion pounds. With more than £2bn already spent by the UK on drones and with the UK signalling its intention to fund further drone projects this figure is only likely to increase.
Other European countries too are procuring drones with both the Netherlands and France signalling in January the purchase (or additional purchase) of US Reaper drones. Military officers from the US, UK, France and Italy met in Paris in January for the first meeting of the NATO Reaper User Group. The working group, established at the NATO meeting in Wales last year is aimed at working out how to pool training, logistics and defray operational costs.
Permanent War
Remote, ‘risk free’ war using drones and special forces is the shiny new model for political leaders wanting to be seen to be doing something about global security without engaging in the tricky, long-term business of real political change. With little impact on the public back home and barely a mention in national media, countries can now engage in almost permanent war. Yet as is becoming increasingly apparent, such warfare does have a heavy cost, primarily to those on the ground where the war is taking place, but also through the sporadic but increasingly violent episodes dubbed ‘blowback’ (such as recently occurred in Paris) as Chris Abbott of the Remote Control Project details.
In this snapshot of the first six weeks of 2015 we have seen numerous drone strikes in Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia along with ‘blowback’ terrorist attacks in mainland Europe. Drones are ushering in the age of permanent war and unless there is serious, international political movement to challenge it, it is likely that this is only just the beginning.
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Image: Bernard Dupont
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Monique Warner Monique is All4Women's Health Editor. When she's not editing health articles, Monique compiles our gardening and home décor ... More by Monique Warner >
Find out the benefits of planting spekboom, an indigenous succulent, in your garden.
Whether you call it spekboom, elephant’s food or pork bush, this incredible plant with its bright green, circular leaves should be planted in every South African garden (and maybe even every garden around the world). Here’s why.
1. It improves the quality of the air we breathe and helps fight climate change
Spekboom (aka Portulacaria afra) is a succulent that helps fight air pollution. It has the ability to ‘sequester’ or capture four to ten tons of carbon per hectare! Essentially, it acts as a carbon sponge, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and turning it into plant matter. Excess carbon in the atmosphere is responsible for global warming, so the more carbon we can remove from the air and return to the ground, the better.
Read more: How to get rid of ants naturally
2. Spekboom is a proudly South African plant
Spekboom is indigenous to the Eastern Cape where South African elephants consider the plant a delicacy.
WIN a R 2,000 Woolworths Voucher Subscribe to our Free Daily All4Women Newsletter to enter Sign Up Now
3. It’s water wise
No time to water your garden? Spekboom is a water-wise plant that’s ideal for low-maintenance gardens. This drought-resistant plant can survive on just 250-350mm of water a year!
4. Suitable for all seasons and weather conditions
Spekboom has a photosynthetic mechanism which allows it to adapt to both rainforest-like conditions and semi-arid conditions, making it incredibly adaptable and suited to almost any garden.
5. Even better, Spekboom is easy to grow
Spekboom is easily propagated, which is great news for budget gardeners. Simply cut or break off a piece of a spekboom, let it dry out for one or two days and then stick it in the ground. Give it a little water every few days and you’ll soon have a new spekboom plant of your own. Make sure you don’t give it too much water or it will rot.
6. Spekboom is a really versatile plant
Whether you are looking for a plant that can be turned into a hedge or a bonsai, or used as groundcover or a large bush, spekboom can do it all. It responds well to pruning and grows densely, making it an excellent, hardy screen or hedge. Some varieties grow low to the ground and others reach as high as 2 metres!
7. You can even eat Spekboom
We’re not suggesting you chow down on a plate of spekboom, but it is edible and apparently has a light, citrussy flavour. If you ever find yourself hiking through the Karoo, you can suck on a leaf – they are traditionally used to treat exhaustion and dehydration.
If you enjoyed this gardening article, we recommend reading 5 indigenous trees for a small garden.
Sources: Indigenous Flora, Spekboom.com and Times Live |
But it’ll likely be another six months before it actually comes down.
The Mayor’s Office announced this morning it will propose removal of the controversial Frank Rizzo statue in Thomas Paine Plaza.
“Earlier this year we initiated a call for ideas on the future of the Rizzo statue,” said Michael DiBerardinis, Managing Director for the City. “We carefully reviewed and considered everyone’s viewpoints and we have come to the decision that the Rizzo statue will be moved to a different location.”
That location has not specified. The proposal for removal, formulated after a month of collecting public input, includes a renovation of Thomas Paine Plaza to make it “more inviting” and similar to Dilworth Park or LOVE Park. Nothing can be finalized, however, until the Art Commission approves a formal proposal from the Mayor’s Office. That likely won’t come for at least another six months, as the Mayor’s Office noted it will need that long to complete a formal proposal. A timeline for renovations to the plaza is expected in time for the Mayor’s budget address in March.
For the Art Commission, the request to remove the statue is unprecedented. It has voted to move sculptures to accommodate new structures but not over a controversy. The group, which meets monthly, cannot act until a formal proposal is received.
The fervor over the Rizzo statue began in August after violence by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., and removals of Confederate statues in other cities. In a tweet that went viral, Councilwoman Helen Gym said, “All around the country, we’re fighting to remove the monuments to slavery & racism. Philly, we have work to do. Take the Rizzo statue down.”
Elsewhere around the country, statues that attracted scrutiny at the same time as Philadelphia’s Rizzo statue have been removed. In Dallas, the city council held an emergency vote to remove a Robert E. Lee statue. The Pittsburgh Art Commission voted last week to remove a statue of songwriter Stephen Foster. Baltimore’s mayor ordered the removal of four Confederate-related statues in mid August.
In a conversation with Billy Penn Thursday, Gym was confident the city would soon make the decision to remove the statue.
“I think that people have made very clear over a period of time that they want to see the public spaces of our city represent a big vision for Philadelphia, one that moves us beyond a complicated past and toward a future that feels like it’s conclusive of all people,” Gym said. “And I think that this is the type of administration committed to that vision of this city’s future.” |
Poor Spot. Boston Dynamics' robots have never had it easy, what with everyone constantly abusing them. Sometimes Spot just gets to play, unkicked. But despite its sophisticated technology, it's not often that it gets to play nice with other dogs. Maybe because those other dogs bark at it, try to herd it, and in general make its robotic life miserable.
A real life dog (named Cosmo, and owned by Android co-founder Andy Rubin) sees Spot, then proceeds to refuse to let Spot run. Spot tries to evade the more agile companion to little to no success before just kind of laying down and giving up, which doesn't stop the verbal harangue from its flesh and blood counterpart.
Of course, each of the robot's movements were controlled remotely, rather than by any of Spot's artificial intelligence systems. Spot is just one in a line of bots from Alphabet-owned Boston Dynamics, which is concentrating its efforts on creating robots that better move without toppling over and are able to take a beating. That's exactly what will be needed in emergency efforts, so the abuse at least has a reasoning behind it. Here's a little more of Spot in action, seeing just how well he's able to rebound: |
Editor Note 11/28/2014: Eagles fans....please stop emailing me. This article was satire. Adjust your sarcasm meter accordingly.
Jimmy likes jokes. Jimmy makes them often. Jimmy thinks his team is good even though they come up short every year. Jimmy wrote three entertaining articles:
10 reasons the Cowboys are going to be a dumpster fire this season
10 reasons the Giants are going to be a dumpster fire this season
10 reasons the Redskins are going to be a dumpster fire this season
I have an especially fond appreciation for Kempski's Cowboys article. Is anyone besides me wanting to run their 401K to the Vegas window to bet the Cowgirls under? Even Troy Aikman thinks Romo is screwed. But I'm not here to discuss Dallas' dumpster tire fire. We need to talk about the Eagles. Ah yes. Philly. I asked Jimmy Kempski his prediction for the Eagles this season and without hesitation he texted back "10-6." Classic homer.
1.) Element of Surprise. Hmm...this sound familiar? A new coach with a new QB gets to play the last place teams of every division with little expectations, a new playbook, and wins the division. The Redskins had it in 2012...the Eagles in 2013. Even though RGIII totaled his knee, everyone still predicted the Redskins winning at least nine games last year. It's quite amusing seeing Philly and their racist fan base fall down the same trap. Eagles fans: "We won the division last season!! We're guaranteed to be AT LEAST as good as last year." Let's totally ignore the fact the entire NFL has 18 games of film on Chip Kelly....we're still amazing!!! (insert terrible fight song chant here) "
2.) Strength of Schedule. Last season Philthy played all the worst teams in the league. The Raiders, Bucs, Lions, Cardinals...oh wait...not just the worst teams....the best possible scenario with the worst teams:
Packers: No Aaron Rodgers and even Seneca Wallace didn't play the whole game. Hello Scott Tolzien.
Bucs: The oh so fierce, Mike Glennon
Cowboys: Kyle Orton
Cardinals: Squeaked by Carson Palmer and his 3 turnovers
That there is some bragging rights there. What happened when you played a real QB? Broncos won 52-20. And then of course the Vikings bent you over a table with Matt Cassel and no Adrian Peterson. That home playoff loss to the Saints had to rekindle all those oh so glorious three consecutive NFC Championship home losses.
While you start week one in 2014 against a fluffy Jacksonville - the Panthers, Packers, Niners, Seahawks is a long cry from facing Scott Tolzien. Are you guys still jocking Casey Matthews to be your hero LB?
3.) NICK FOLES IS A GOD. As delusional as Redskins fans are with their free agent signings, Eagles fans are double that with their QBs. Every male Eagles fan had a chubby for Kevin Kolb and his snake killing prowess. I was at the Phillies Nats game last night and the Philly fan next to me was bragging about his Eagles' Sonny Jurgensen and A.J. Feeley jerseys. Eagles fans know QBs:
4.) Let's Cut Our Star WR and Let Him Go To our Rival. We all know you love DJax. You can pretend all you want it doesn't bother you he walked and you don't need him...but you might as well be spinning an Oreo cookie against your ear trying to tell anyone that cutting him and bringing no one else in is A-OK. DJax has single handedly killed the Redskins and Giants for years - posterizing Laron Landry and Matt Dodge in stellar fashion. The fact Chip Kelly kicked him to the curb like Dan Snyder does his season ticket holders just HAD to sting. What the hell do you do with your 100,000 DJax jerseys? "But but but...Chip went 10-6...we believe in his decision." DJax had a career year in receptions, TDs, and yards in 2013...but yea, beat it chump. The combination of our racist white WR and geriatric, Mizzou WR, who missed all of 2013, can totally make up for that!!! Good luck with that. The Eagles in 2013 had the highest yards after the catch (7.02 yards) since they started recording the stat in 1992...yea, you won't be missing that when Nick Foles is in 40% more 3rd and 2 situations throwing to a newly acquired Jabar Gaffney or Reche Caldwell.
5.) Nate Allen. Holy crap...Nate Allen is first on the depth chart? And you're still thinking 10-6?! Nate Allen has a special place in the heart of Redskins fans since that is who the Birds drafted with the botched McNabb trade. Players drafted after Nate Allen: TJ Ward, Rob Gronkowski, Zane Beadles, Daryl Washington, and Jimmy Graham. Standing golf clap goes to the Eagles brass on that one. But you'll be damned if you admit he sucks...we'll keep starting him! Nate Allen was the only Eagles defender last year with a 0% success rate against the run. That's what every team looks for in a Strong Safety!!
6.) OLine. The Eagles made it through the entire 2013 season with their OLine intact. That simply won't happen again. Lane Johnson is already out for four games and you have a guy named Allen Barbre starting that's been on four teams in four years....what could go wrong?
7.) Special Teams. Your rookie kicker just had this gem of a quote: ‘I Know I Still Look Like I'm 17.′ Does this sound like a cat that can handle the drunken 40 year old Philly fans who think they're still in their 25 year old prime? The Birds are going to be mediocre the first half of the season and this baby face is going to be the fall guy. The Eagles are good enough to be close in every game...and a tweener Bieber look-a-like will decide several games. Good luck with that.
8.) Deulsional Backups. Every team gets injuries at the WR and RB position. Who does Philly have on their depth chart as backups? Jeff Maehl, Josh Huff, Jordan Matthews, and a geriatric Darren Sproles. And GOD FORBID anything happen to Foles....Lord Butt Fumble enters the game. Philly fans will be booing Sanchez before Foles is even helped off the field.
9.) Oregon F Ducks. Chip now has SEVEN Oregon players on his team. Recreating one's college roster totally translates in the NFL. It worked for Spurrier...Saban...good luck with that Chip. I'd have more respect if Chip added Oregon players with actual talent like LeGarrette Blount, but no. Only white players are allowed on his team that can be raging assholes. All of America laughs at you that Casey Matthews is still part of the NFL. But hey...the Eagles brass can still say it's not a wasted draft pick since he's still on the roster. (golf clap).
10.) Loserville. It's Philly....the Chicago Cubs of the NFL (Well, you Jacksonville, Minnesota, Cleveland, Buffalo, and all the other sorry franchises). If you haven't won a Super Bowl now....why would you win now letting your star WR walk and the other 8 reasons above?
Bonus: Four years ago, the Eagles gave up two third-round picks and the No. 24 selection so they could move up to No. 13 and take pass-rusher Brandon Graham. Those picks only happened to become Dez Bryant, Ed Dickson, and Eric Decker. Does that make Graham's total of 11.5 sacks in four seasons feel disappointing? At least you're not starting him any more. Progress! |
As Durhamregion.com seems to have been the first to report, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda will step down at the end of the month. Here is the official statement.
Today, the Honourable Beverley J. Oda announced that she advised the Prime Minister two weeks ago that she will be stepping down as the Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Durham effective on July 31, 2012. First elected in 2004, Beverley Oda was named as the official opposition critic for Canadian Heritage. In 2006, she was named as the Minister for Canadian Heritage in the newly elected Conservative government. She was then named as the Minister for International Cooperation in 2007. Minister Oda is the longest serving Minister responsible for CIDA, the Canadian government‘s agency responsible for its international aid and development efforts. “For over eight years, it has been an honor and privilege to have served the constituents in Clarington, Scugog and Uxbridge. As the Minister for International Cooperation, I have had the opportunity to witness the hardships of the worlds most vulnerable peoples and have witnessed the great compassion of Canadians for those in need,“ said Bev Oda. “I am grateful for the support of my staff and colleagues in the House of Commons and Senate. I wish to express my appreciation to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet for their outstanding leadership.“
Archived coverage of Ms. Oda’s eventful time in cabinet is here.
The Prime Minister has released a statement in response. |
When Ms. magazine asked me what I thought about #NoShaveNovember, I had never even heard of such a thing, and I couldn’t quite grasp its point. Maybe this is because I participate in something called No Shave Forever: I don’t shave my armpits and only occasionally shave my legs. So I looked up the #NoShaveNovember Twitter trend and read the first 80 or so tweets. Here are a few typical examples:
My Twitter feed was completely saturated with such choice phrases. Apparently, it’s intended to be a meme for men, and its proponents want to make very, very sure that women don’t join in. Why all the sexism and hatred towards women with body hair? For months I’ve been working on a documentary film about armpit hair, called Pitstache, to answer just that question. I am interviewing people around the country so I can get to the bottom of this hairlessness norm.
From what I’ve learned so far, the problem isn’t just the media, or sexism, or advertisements; the problem is that no one really thinks about it. Dear readers, I challenge you to ask a friend why women must shave while men don’t have to. I’ve heard men (and women) answer that hairy armpits are disgusting and a sign of bad hygiene–but only for women. I’ve heard women answer that yes, they find hairy legs on men unsightly, but men aren’t supposed to shave, so oh well. Let me be clear: I don’t find anything wrong with choosing to shave, but I’m troubled that many don’t realize when or why they made that choice. Most women I talk to say that they started at puberty when everyone else did and never really thought about it.
When I confront people with the question of “why,” they really have to think. Hairless women have been burned into the collective mind as the symbol of sexiness and femininity, to such an extent that celebrities such as Mo’Nique who challenge the image are often ridiculed. But here’s some food for thought: By nature, shouldn’t body hair be defined as womanly because it is a mark of puberty and thus of becoming a woman? Not to mention its role as a pheromone producer. Armpits are sometimes referred to as “scent traps” because their hairs help trap and exude the scents of sexuality. Pubic hair is also a handy way of knowing a woman isn’t a 10-year-old with breast implants.
So why is hairlessness considered so feminine? To start at the beginning, as early as 1915, women were shown advertisements such as this one for depilatory powder in Harper’s Bazaar (right) telling them underarm hair was “objectionable.” Since then, the campaigns for hair removal products have become ubiquitous. Another argument relates more to gender roles: Generally, men tend to have more hair on their bodies and faces than women. Hairlessness for woman can be seen as an exaggeration of that difference between men and women.
The stereotypes of women with body hair are often hippie, lesbian and feminist. I’ve been called at least two of those, not always in a nice way. Hairy-legged feminist in particular is used as an insult, often accompanied by sexless or man-hating. Being a feminist with body hair gets linked to not being sufficiently invested in performing femininity or in pleasing men.
No one should be surprised at what is trending on Twitter. No one. While body hair has been discussed from time to time in the women’s movement, it hasn’t spread to the mainstream discussion. That’s because the progress that has been made for body image in the media has for the most part been about weight and body size. While weight and body size are important issues that must be addressed, they are not the only gendered issues around body image. I’m still waiting hopefully for the Glee kids to sing about leg fuzz.
Yes, there is increasing pressure for men to wax their backs and chests. And yes, men in fashion magazines often have trimmed armpit hair. Fashion tends to dictate what we should look like, and the appearance of hairless men in magazines is no exception. One could also argue that men’s garments are often less revealing, making shaving armpits or backs a moot point. So what’s the difference between the expectation of hairless men and hairless women? I could write an essay with citations, quotes and links, but a quicker way would be to direct you to the Twitter trend of #NoShaveNovember. The sheer volume of hateful messages and warnings directed to women who might dare consider participating is just staggering. I was able to pick out perhaps two comments about why men should keep shaving. And therein lies the difference: A hairy man can be considered a burly man, while a hairy woman is usually considered at best “forgetful.”
Just ask the person next to you: Why are women expected to shave while men are not? And if they come back with, “Well men have to shave their faces,” just remind them how rugged and dashing George Clooney is considered to look with stubble.
Photos courtesy of the author. |
The British left is packed with voices demanding an unreflective defence of ‘public services’. This public is frozen beyond any evaluation of commonality, is held to be equalising even as its bases fall away to reveal the private ownership concealed within them. The barrage is triggered in part by the Great Recession, but also in part by the sovereignty challenge being felt in the UK, concretely in Scotland in 2014. Now is a good time to reflect that the British sovereignty behind these public services has always in fact defined itself as a defence against popular sovereignty, a defence projected as timeless inheritance which is intuitive and ‘just there’.
If the nationalism standing behind the ‘British public’ throughout the press and left commentary seems oddly transparent, this transparency derives from Britain’s unusual licence to exist ‘beyond’ the national. For this is less a nation than it is a rationalisation of credit. The British union arises from the import of the Anglo-Dutch financial system after 1688, its guarantee in perpetuity by the Hanoverian crown, and central banks which supported it from the 1690s. As Daniel Defoe was describing at exactly the time of the Acts of Union in 1706-07, Britain’s raison d’état is as an investment entity, a guarantor of global money. As has been described in many accounts of the close of the seventeenth century, in this new state citizenship is understood in terms of naturalised property and the avoidance rather than the promotion of shared action. Reform it as much as you like, but collectivity is not within the scope of the British constitution.
After the financial eighteenth century and scuffles with rebels from Jacobites to American and Irish seceders, citizenship as property, inaction, and inheritance would be recast into nature itself by the Romantic writers who fell behind Edmund Burke to react to the French Revolution, after which the imperial ground would be opened for the export of a universalism based not on human rights – implying an action – but on heritage – implying informal rules which were eternal and out of reach. This left us with the familiar and canonical mid-Victorian constitution (Dicey, Bagehot), for which the empire was even, financial, and constantly vigilant against popular challenge. Of course, industrial imperial expansion eventually meant diminishing returns for empire, and the commodity constitution had to be modernised, a moment we now often associate with World War One.
The British settlement took on its most durable form, the form to defeat fascism, with the modernisation of the 1920s and ’30s, culturally ruled by new whigs including J.M. Keynes (economics), John Reith (broadcast), and F.R. Leavis (literature), with fiat currency taking much the unifying authority metal money had once had, and which aimed to send a message of inherited civility into every home. The massification of the modernised settlement was again enabled by defence against a terrifying Europe, and the need to demonstrate a greater permanence.
Throughout the 1940s, George Orwell described how fascism would be laughable to the British, but also how the answer which came was a deeper totalising vision for which the new continuity raised the performance of the public over history and experience; Karl Polanyi described a Great Transformation which linked the anti-Jacobin era of liberalism to modern consensus, and Hannah Arendt described the projection of a universal constitutional culture as the impossibility of a genuinely shared action and the opening of a potentially unlimited bureaucratisation. Since, Antonio Negri and John Holloway in particular have described how fascism seems simply primitive compared to the more resilient and totalising form of parliamentary sovereignty represented by the Keynesian consensus. The price of the material benefits of the welfare state was a strengthening of the commodity constitution – the postponement of the reckoning of ever widening inequality.
This modernised constitution therefore found its moment in War Keynesianism – Military Keynesianism as J.K. Galbraith would call it – with the state’s massive ‘public’ investment, as wartime defence pointedly referring back to 1790s fears of revolution to create a strengthened combination of progressiveness and continuity. As the diminishing returns of imperial industry were followed by a turn to immaterial labour (including what would later be called ‘knowledge economy’), this constitution was particularly strong in appreciating how the personal itself was the new ground of expropriation. So for the ’42 welfare state, all human time, including leisure and other ‘personal’ time, was to be measured in terms of labour.
The ‘public’ demand for perpetual self-improvement was both modern and familiar. While seeming a new and even ‘revolutionary’ form, it went straight back to eighteenth century anti-Jacobinism. The possibility of a challenge to the unwritten constitution is still answered by a refusal of any affective experience in the here and now, while the self-defined, in commodity terms, comes to seem oddly moral. (This is hinted at through Polanyian echoes of writing in the 2000s in particular the work of David Marquand and Colin Crouch, who describe the projected good of the state franchises which would now be known as public services). An instinctual way of life was ‘preserved’ in perpetuity, and during wartime privation the entire British press and new state broadcaster would line up behind it. But if this had been brought about by a crisis of accumulation in imperial industry, exactly the same should be expected of a crisis of accumulation in post-industrial immaterial labour, or the performance of a bountiful welfare Britain. As late as 2013 these images of bounty look antique and unfeasible, but as early as 2013 we hang onto them as if we had no idea where else to go.
We now live with an uncanny relationship to the era of the adaptation and modernisation of parliamentary sovereignty which ran from the 1940s to the 2000s. The signs of this era are all around us, we still feel bound to them by strong moral ties even as they are attenuated and outsourced; paid to queue us, charge us, and give us customer satisfaction surveys. Financial sovereignty means that the nesting of the private inside the public is perhaps stronger in the UK than anywhere else, meaning that the cherished ideals of welfare easily flip over into surveillance-saturated disenfranchising nightmares (indeed, the question of who public services really speak for was being asked by the New Left as early as the mid-1950s).
The odd doubled experience of the privatised public, the capitalist realism in which Britain has carved out an unusual advantage, has allowed for the almost seamless conversion to what would later be called neoliberalism - although of course the Keynesian consensus of the 1940s was itself the new liberalism. This is the Golden Country: the compulsory public defended by white cliffs, flotillas, intuition, pluck, the Anglosphere which runs from the Tudors’ vindication in 1688 through the whole empire, the land of ideal futures made only of ideal pasts.
The Golden Country is the country of Orwell’s party members, and of Tom Nairn’s bourgeoisie whose early primitive accumulation always draws them back into heritage. Before this it is also the country of the anti-Jacobin Whigs and Romantics who sharpened an inherited ‘way of life’ to keep it away from popular determination. It is bracketed by two moments of austerity, and two moments of war Keynesianism: in 1940-42 a new military economy makes the state enough of a mass player to reinvent citizenship; in 2008 Alasdair Darling, later leader of the campaign against Scottish independence, orders the renewal of Trident as an urgent matter of public investment. The first moment seems a necessary renewal; the second a deranged addiction to the past.
We should consider the importance of this 1940s-2000s timeframe, the long era of modernisation which is now passing. The British left story of things going terribly wrong right at the inception of Thatcherism will no longer do. Thatcherism did aggravate the class struggle by turning to credit and outsourcing, but Thatcher was, despite Labourite received wisdom, a consensualist, an arch-meritocrat, and, as Peter Clarke and others have shown, a believer in an ‘original’, state-capitalist Keynes. Thatcherism can also be seen as a cleansing of the 1940s renewal: the British Union has always been made of and made for capitalism, and has always been willing to interpolate whatever public would retain it as a principle of continuity.
The wrench here is to get over the idea that the public allowed by the financial British constitution is ‘ours’ to protect. As healthcare is reduced to queuing, as universities move from an educational role to a social cleansing one, as the unemployed become immaterial labourers tasked with recreating the conditions of inequality, how long can the’40s state retain its extraordinary pull? How long can the unionist press describe a Golden Country which has drifted off track, but whose foundational principles are permanent?
But, placed in positions of power by the post-war meritocratic regime of testing, Golden Country nostalgia-mongers will turn on any possible threat of popular sovereignty, as we see in the campaign against Scottish independence. Ken Loach gets a season ticket to the Guardian Lifestyle pages, and the ‘public’ defined by commodity time remains the only possible mode of the commons, since, for the British left as well as the right, There Is No Alternative. The anti-independence campaign shows that arguments against self-determination will tend to return to old models of fear and defence, even though we are already pretty sure of the fate of public services under the UK constitution.
We also have to understand that this is not only or even primarily a Scottish question. Nonetheless, Scotland is now the main the sovereignty trigger (as once was Ireland for Dicey): a legal tradition rising more or less along with the New Left stressed that Scotland has not been incorporated into British parliamentary sovereignty by the Acts of Union; only retrospectively and through the sleight of hand of ‘heritage’. The same is true of the whole of the UK, though the arguments vary. Indeed, as Michael Keating and others have shown, a civil society relatively discrete from the state has centralised Scotland for constitution sceptics throughout the UK. To localise this, using terms of pride or ambition or what is ‘best for us’, is to wilfully ignore it as a wider question of democracy. And this is the question against which Golden Country ideologists are now setting themselves.
Of course, scepticism over public services on any level is easy to present as being against free access, and a whole industry of Labourite emotional blackmail has grown up around this syllogistic understanding of the public. But although the 1940s form of the welfare state retains great emotional hooks, it has nowhere to go: the expropriation of the personal is now well past its crisis of accumulation, and we are just learning to let go. What has been growing since the late 2000s is not a ‘spirit of ’45’, but a refusal in the name of something more genuinely popular. The Golden Country’s form of the constitution has exhausted itself. Will it discover some new form of expropriation to save itself? We can only try to prevent it.
It is tempting, and misleading, to say that services like the NHS, the BBC, or the universities, are ‘ours’ to defend. We might see this defensive reaction for what it is. The British public is and always has been double-edged, yielding gains but underscoring the form of inequality generation specific to the present needs of financial government. In time we might see that failing public services and failing sovereignty go together, but anyone who cares about equal and common access should now be giving this sovereignty a push, rather than defending it. As the modernising cycle reaches its end, we can see that Westminster parliamentary sovereignty has only ever held an unusually distanced version of equal access, but also that its perpetual expropriation reveals a duty to prevent equal access. If it was once possible, facing fascism and industrial crisis, to present the Golden Country as mutual and beneficial, it can only be seen now as a country over which the sun has set.
A version of this article first appeared in The National Collective |
Tim Ireland/Associated Press
Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Allen Hurns left on a stretcher after he suffered a concussion against the San Diego Chargers in Week 12 and consequently missed the Week 13 loss against the Tennessee Titans. However, he is ready to return.
Continue for updates.
Hurns Active vs. Colts
Sunday, Dec. 13
Ryan O'Halloran of the Florida Times-Union noted the Jaguars' inactive list for the game against the Indianapolis Colts, and Hurns wasn't on it, meaning he is available to play.
Hurns Cleared to Return
Monday, Dec. 7
Mark Long of the Associated Press reported that Hurns has cleared the NFL's concussion protocol and has been cleared to play against Indianapolis.
Hurns Comments on Concussion
Monday, Dec. 7
Hurns told reporters he was knocked unconscious and doesn't remember the play in which he suffered the injury.
Hurns Released from Hospital After Scary Injury
Sunday, Nov. 29
O'Halloran noted Hurns was discharged from the hospital after the Jaguars' loss to the Chargers.
According to Around the NFL, Hurns was injured in the fourth quarter after his head hit the EverBank Field turf following his attempt to make a diving catch. ESPN's Michael DiRocco reported the Jaguars medical staff quickly stabilized Hurns' head and placed him on a stretcher.
Hurns a Big Part of Emerging Jaguars Passing Attack
Last year's rookie class was loaded with talented wideouts, so Hurns' 51 receptions, 677 yards and six touchdowns got lost in the shuffle somewhat. Allen Robinson's presence also resulted in Hurns' hard work not getting the appreciation it otherwise might have.
Offense has consistently been an issue for the Jaguars, especially since Maurice Jones-Drew's decline, which began in 2012. But between Hurns, Robinson and quarterback Blake Bortles, Jacksonville has the makings of a great passing attack for years to come.
Fans should also be encouraged by the former Miami Hurricane after his progress in his second year. Through 11 games, he's caught 48 passes for 758 yards and seven touchdowns. |
ABC‘s 9-10 PM comedy block, which was slated to air until the Dancing With The Stars result show returns March 29, is being dissolved effective immediately. After a month-and-a-half break, the only surviving member of the block, Happy Endings (its companion, Don’t Trust The B— was recently cancelled) will move to Fridays. Beginning February 26, reality series Taste, which airs at 8 PM, will slide to 9 PM, and a limited run of Celebrity Wife Swap will take over the 8 PM hour. (A Bachelor: Sean Tells All special airs at 9 PM next week.) Celebrity Wife Swap will be replaced with new diving reality series Splash on March 19. As for the remaining Happy Endings originals, ABC will air them back-to-back from 8-9 PM on Friday beginning March 29, after the Friday night comedy block of Last Man Standing and Malibu Country will have aired their season finales. This marks the third time slot for Happy Endings this midseason. In January, ABC slotted originals of Happy Endings and Don’t Trust The B— in the Sunday 10 PM hour in addition to their Tuesday runs but pulled them after two airings. The February 26 season premiere of Celebrity Wife Swap features Splash contestant and Playmate Kendra Wilkinson and reality mom Kate Gosselin of Kate Plus Eight fame switching families. |
It’s about time.
The San Francisco 49ers offense finally fired on all cylinders in a 27-6 win over the Washington Redskins Monday night.
The real matchup to watch was the battle between the two young quarterbacks; the Niners Colin Kaepernick and the ’Skins Robert Griffin III.
Kaep came through. Big time.
For the first time in weeks, the Niners had a passing game, a deep one at that. Kaepernick got right off the bat with a pair of deep passes, one of them a touchdown, to Anquan Boldin and a 40-yard reception to Vernon Davis, all in the first quarter.
Boldin finished with five receptions for 90 yards, while Davis finished with 70 yards on four catches.
By halftime, San Francisco had a 10-6 lead. Equally as important, Kaepernick was 6-10 for 118 yards and a touchdown. Griffin had thrown a pick early in the half and never really got settled into the pocket, thanks to a staunch Niner defense.
Kaep threw for two more touchdowns in the second half, ending the day with 235 yards on 15-24 passes and three touchdowns. No interceptions.
The performance was absolutely eons better than the quarterback’s last two dismal outings. But still, he wasn’t perfect.
There were some ill-advised decisions. Runs that should have been passes and passes that shouldn’t have been made. But overall, Niners fans saw a much better Kaepernick than they had in recent weeks.
He will have to keep it up in the weeks to come, as two division matchups against the Rams and Seahawks, respectively.
With the win, two teams head in completely different directions. While San Francisco (7-4) keeps its playoff hopes very much alive, Washington (3-8) looks all but done for the season.
But almost more important than the win, the Niners got their passing game, and the quarterback’s confidence in that game, back up to speed.
To read more about West Coast sports, visit https://westcoastbeat.wordpress.com/
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In the last two years we have seen a sudden rise of popularity of what, at one time, could have been considered fringe heroes: heroes that had a fan base but for some reason couldn’t quite break into the main stream consumption of super hero pop culture. Green Arrow was one of these heroes. The character has had numerous devoted fans over the years that read and loved the Emerald Archer but had to watch subpar iterations of him on animated series such as Justice League Unlimited, the Batman, and Batman: the Brave and the Bold. During this time he was used as a stock character more than an integral part of the show.
When Warner Bros. introduced him into Smallville as a regular cast member, it was truly unique and a great move on the part of the writers. It made perfect sense. The show had been on the air for some time and the fans were simply tired of being bated into seeing Clark Kent become Superman. So they introduced a character that had already become a hero: Green Arrow. He was a DC hero that was established and had a following but not overly well known by the public at large so there was no chance of him overshadowing the main character. It was a very intelligent move by the writers and producers.
Unlike Clark Kent who was still finding his way to a pair of glasses and a super suit, Oliver Queen was strapping on a quiver and running around in green leather. The Green Arrow portrayed by Justin Hartley was a character that was already on his path and was on the offensive and proactively working on the hero bit. This was a far cry from the character of Clark Kent at the time. Clark was reacting to events and situations around him. It gave the show a great burst of actual superhero energy that it desperately needed. For the character to finally reach a live-action iteration was a win for Green Arrow fans.
The character had an opportunity to be wonderfully reinvented in Sept. 2011 with the launch of the New 52. Many fans looked and waited with anticipation at the new Green Arrow title, only to be disappointed. The title written by JT Krul was three steps in the wrong direction. It was poorly plotted and lacked some consistency in quality and characterization. The book floundered in story and execution with an obscene amount of disposable antagonists. This would be a trend that would plague the book for sixteen issues. The old line of Green Arrow titles and graphic novels such as Long Bow and Year One had created a level of expectation that was not being met.
The book only fell further from grace when a new creative team took over featuring Ann Nocenti as writer. This new team did such damage to the character that is it is difficult to see how it would eventually pull itself back up. Nocenti’s Oliver Queen was a childish, reactionary, incompetent, and easily manipulated. The King Leer story line had been called everything from boring to racist in its portrayal of China. It simply did not meet the expectations of readers that wanted their Oliver Queen back. While Oliver Queen may have been invented to be the poor man’s Bruce Wayne he had become a truly unique character. The fans had fallen in love with a lively, devil-may-care archer that stood for the common man while running a billion dollar company. The character was so potent that he went against the grain of the Justice League more than once.
Many readers would try to stick it out with the New 52 Green Arrow but manly simply left. According to retail orders from Diamond Comic Distributors the New 52 Green Arrow premiered with an estimated $55,512. By its eighth issue it was down to approximately $24,690. That is more than half. Of course, there are many factors to lighten this blow. For instance, the excitement of a number 1 issue, the fact that these are numbers only from Diamond Comic Distributors, and the numbers are approximations make the reality of a commercial failure less likely. Still, the quality of the writing and art was just poor. The title would continue to suffer. Then along came Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino.
Jeff Lemire did something that the other writers couldn’t. He captured who the New 52 Oliver Queen was trying to be. Suddenly he was more definite, less charming, more focused even though he was reacting to the offensive of a new antagonist. Also, the whole façade of billionare playboy was almost completely tossed out. The gimmick had become cliché. Lemire goes so far as to introduce a supporting character that Oliver had fired for stalking another employee, thus demonstrating that Oliver was truly invested in the day to day of Queen Industries. The writing in conjunction with Sorrentino’s rich art gave new life to the dying title. Green Arrow Volume 4: The Kill Machine (issues17-24) goes in depth to explore the character of Oliver Queen by doing a few things immediately. In issue seventeen of Green Arrow the reader finds Oliver dealing with the loss of his company with rage. Almost immediately he confronts a board member named Emerson who brings up the fact that it was no mistake that Oliver wound up on the deserted island with just a bow. Lemire quickly plants the seeds of the island being more than simple survival but instead a test to forge Oliver into something more than a rich brat. Lemire strips him of his wealth, a healthy portion of the book’s supporting cast, and most of his resources. The first half of the collection is very reminiscent of DC’s Bruce Wayne: Fugitive. The writer cuts so much dead weight from the book that it relieves the reader of sixteen issues of frustration and a fresh start is evident. Everything from the characters and the past storylines were essentially wiped clean.
The book sees Oliver Queen having to come to terms with what a real archer is supposed to be. A villain named Komodo who knows everything about Oliver takes away his company and hunts Oliver down. Komodo essentially leaves him with just his bow and his hood. The connection between Komodo and Oliver is revealed to be Robert Queen. Having been spurned by his son, Robert found a follower in Komodo as he was on his own archery quest. The skills that Komodo uses to beat Oliver a few times were taught to him by Robert Queen himself. Oliver was destined to be Komodo, or should have been. In adding this particular subplot into the storyline, Lemire has created a scenario where Oliver is fighting his father’s skill by the proxy of Komodo. It is a fantastic layer of storytelling that most mainstream storytelling of all mediums are missing.
The reader soon finds out that the legacy of Robert Queen was not just the company he passed to Oliver but also of an ancient society that focused on archery. Lemire injects destiny into the Green Arrow mythos. This is something that Green Arrow never really had before. We have seen numerous origin stories that focus on a young Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent that hints at what men they will become, but Green Arrow was never truly on that level before.
Sorrentino’s drawing on the book is very rich and authentic looking. It’s a very unique style but combined with the coloring of Marcelo Maiolo the panels are radiant. The team is able to create a legitimate work of art, with a double page splash panel, without being pretensious. This style of artwork is radically different from the launch artwork. One of the weaknesses of the former creative teams was the basic panel to panel format. There was so little variation that there was no discernable flow. When the new creative team took over there were sudden splashes of color that didn’t belong but emphasized the importance of that particular panel. When the reader first looks at Sorrentino and Miaolo’s work it can be jarring. But the comic takes off soon after.
In addition to redefining and restoring Oliver Queen, Lemire did something rather uncommon. He made Count Vertigo appealing, now a tragic villain. Being born to a prostitute that resented his existence, while convincing him that he was the bastard son of a noble family, she sold her son to an institute that experimented with his mind by implanting devices into his brain. After years of abuse and experimentation, he takes over the institute by ridding it of people. Then he eventually takes over the country that he believes belongs to him. Lemire has given Green Arrow something that the New 52 title was desperately missing: a layered villain worth fighting.
While the increasing popularity of Green Arrow is due to the accomplishments of Lemire and Sorrention, the television show Arrow is largely responsible. The show premiered on the CW in 2012 and was soon a large success. To be fair, the first six episodes of the show are entertaining but exceptionally cheesy and there are plot points that mirror other DC superhero movies such as the earthquake machine being just another version of the microwave emitter from Batman Begins. The show quickly found its path and proved that a live action superhero show is more than feasible, but can be successful. Stephen Amell’s portrayal of Arrow is utterly fantastic. The character is serious, traumatized by five years of torture and training, focused, and ambitious. One of the best aspects of the show is that it continually evolves. Amell’s Oliver Queen originally comes home as an all-business-vigilante but after two seasons he has acclimated well and is a step closer to the comic cannon that inspired the show. Another strength of the show is that it does a wonderful job of validating costumed heroes and villains. For example, in the final season of Smallville viewers saw a live action version of Slade Wilson. But instead of him being the world’s greatest assassin, the writers turned him into an old grouchy four star general with an axe to grind on superhumans. Arrow took back what Smallville tossed around in the mud and created a Slade Wilson that is truly dangerous, believable, and menacing. Deathstroke is actually Deathstroke and not a watered down passive version. The uniforms of the universe that Arrow’s creators could exist in the real world even if some may be impractical. Still, it’s a step in the right direction.
The show is so successful that the ongoing Green Arrow title by Lemire and Sorrentino have adopted characters found in the show and brought back a few old characters from the old continuity with revamped backstories. A pivotal aspect of The Kill Machine is the storyline of Shado. Shado is much more rounded and dynamic than the version on the show. She is a woman that turns out to be Robert Queen’s lover and the mother of Oliver’s half-sister (stolen and raised by Komodo). She is also an archer that takes almost a mentor role to Oliver. At the end of Volume 4: The Kill Machine, Lemire introduces John Diggle. Much like how Harley Quinn was adopted into the comic books because of her popularity in Batman the Animated Series. These two Arrow worlds are only getting closer and closer. Soon Lemire will be handing over the writing reins to Arrow producer Andrew Kreisberg and Arrow writer Ben Sokolwski.
It is a great time to be a Green Arrow fan. The comics are becoming a true gem of the mainstream New 52 line and the television show has an ever growing fan base. There is even a Green Arrow animated show coming to cartoon network. The character’s popularity is rapidly rising. So much so that a reader or comic fan has to wonder what other sideline hero could be this successful? We can only look forward with anticipation to see what happens next. |
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— North Carolina State University running back Shadrach Thornton was dismissed from the university's football team Wednesday afternoon about 18 hours after he was charged in a crash that left a pedestrian injured.
"It's an unfortunate set of circumstances, but we've made the decision to dismiss Shadrach from our program," NC State head coach Dave Doeren said in a statement.
Raleigh police said Thornton, of 2717 Western Blvd., was driving a scooter that hit Jimmie Woodard near the intersection of Avent Ferry Road and Western Boulevard at about 9:15 p.m. Raleigh police said Thornton was driving north on the sidewalk on the southbound side of Avent Ferry Road. Woodard was walking south on the sidewalk.
Woodard was not seriously injured, police said, but he had to get stitches to close a wound on his face.
"I hold no grudge against him," Woodard said. "I don't know (Thornton). I know of him now, but I don't know the man, so I hold no grudge."
Woodard said he was waiting for a bus when he was hit.
"The next thing I know, I see a motor scooter coming my way, and I just got hit," he said. "I was aware because I saw the blood on my shirt."
Woodard said Thornton did not stay to help him, but Lee Turner, Thornton's attorney, said Thornton talked with Woodard before leaving the scene.
"I understand that he was polite, cooperative and gave the officers a full statement about what happened," Turner said. "I understand that after the accident he did have a conversation with the victim before leaving the scene."
Police found Thornton, 22, in his apartment at the College Inn Residence Hall nearby. They charged him with failure to stop and render aid and failure to provide information. A traffic citation states that Thornton was also charged with driving on the sidewalk and operating an unregistered vehicle. Court records show Thornton paid a $500 bond and was back at home just after midnight.
The charge is not Thornton's first brush with the law. He has pending charges of operating a moped without a helmet and exceeding a safe speed in a separate scooter incident. Thornton is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 29 for those charges.
In the summer of 2013, he was charged with assaulting a female after witnesses alleged he and his girlfriend were involved in a physical altercation in the D.H. Hill Library. Thornton was given a deferred prosecution ruling in that case and missed a single game in the 2013 football season.
He was suspended for the first two games of the 2015 season for violating team rules, although university officials did not specify what led to that punishment.
Thornton was also cited twice – in December 2013 and again in March 2014 – for possession of marijuana. In each instance, charges were voluntarily dismissed.
Thornton practiced Wednesday morning for the Wolfpack, but Doeren announced his dismissal from the team at about 4:30 p.m.
Doeren said the university will continue to support Thornton's pursuit of a degree. Thornton, a senior from Hinesville, Ga., is scheduled to graduate in the spring of 2016.
One of Thornton's backfield mates, sophomore Jaylen Samuels, said coaches did not address the incident during the team's practice.
"In practice, (Shardrach) did a couple reps. I don't know the full situation or what happened. I don't know if he's playing or not, but in practice today he was getting some reps," Samuels said. "Nothing was said, we saw (that) it (happened), we just knew about it. But we didn't know exactly what happened." |
Montreal’s infamous ugly Christmas tree of 2016 — one that generated headlines and social media posts around the world because of its awkward appearance — is the inspiration behind an entire village this holiday season.
A new “ugly” tree is being unveiled this Friday as part of the Village du Vilain Sapin, an installation to be erected near downtown to celebrate imperfections.
The group responsible for finding last year’s tree is also behind the new village, constructed around another authentic, albeit much smaller tree at about 20 metres high.
“It’s a bit of a nod to last year’s tree,” said Philippe Pelletier.
“It could become a Montreal tradition — instead of having a magnificent, perfect tree every year, you have one that’s authentic, crooked, a little bizarre with personality that could be super original and a mark of distinction for Montreal.”
Last year’s tree became a social media hit and garnered stories in major publications ranging from the New York Times and Washington Post to People Magazine — for all the wrong reasons.
Described as “ugly,” “skinny” and “lopsided,” the nearly 27-metre high tree was derided for much of its existence and ultimately dispatched to the sawmill just after Christmas.
Pelletier’s group had hoped to find a tree last year that would rival the one at Rockerfeller Center in New York City, using it as a springboard for Montreal’s 375th birthday this year.
But the balsam fir they plucked from the Eastern Townships fell a little short both in size and stature.
Pelletier said they took the negative coverage in stride.
“It’s an initiative we undertook…and we never thought a huge international controversy would have revolved around the estheticism of a tree,” said Pelletier.
“It was only a question of appearance and we found the virulent reaction of Montrealers and around the world very surprising.”
Pelletier said only $2,500 in public money went to the sparsely decorated tree — and that, thanks to a sponsor.
Some liked its less-than-perfect nature, while others were less generous, calling it “embarrassing” and “hideous.”
“Looks like the city of Montreal subcontracted its Christmas tree to Charlie Brown,” quipped one Twitter user last year.
The scrawny tree even ended up with its own parody Twitter account.
Pelletier defended it as what a big, natural Christmas tree from Quebec looks like.
He added nobody on his team was hurt by the social media lambasting.
“No one took it seriously, nobody’s ego was bruised because of the reactions,” Pelletier said.
This year, the location of last year’s tree will be used for two other trees.
Organizers of Montreal’s Grand Christmas Market say “Coeur de plume” by sculptor Jean-Robert Drouillard and what’s described as the smallest tree in the world by artist Valérie Dupras are to be unveiled Dec. 1. |
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New Delhi: India and the United Kingdom (UK) decided on Tuesday to jointly invest up to £240 million in an India-UK fund to finance India’s rapidly growing energy and renewables market. The fund aims to leverage private sector investment from London and is likely to raise around £500 million initially.
After the ninth UK-India Economic and Financial Dialogue between UK chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond and India’s finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday, both sides said in a joint statement that the proposed fund will be set up under the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).
“Progress will be accelerated by starting the process of appointing a fund manager now (by the autumn) with early market engagement via the publication of a blueprint, with the aim to identify additional and complementary sectors for fund investments," the joint statement said.
Speaking to reporters, Jaitley said India and the UK can start discussions on a bilateral free trade agreement only after the UK formally exits the European Union. “Obviously, this can be formally discussed after the Brexit takes place but it is probably going to imply a far wider and a far higher engagement between the two countries. What shape it is going to take can only be formalised post Brexit negotiation," Jaitley said.
On the question of India’s request to extradite Vijay Mallya from Britain who is facing economic offence charges in India, Hammond said the matter is sub-judice and it is not proper for ministers to discuss it.
India-UK Financial Partnership (IUKFP), under its co-chairs Uday Kotak and Gerry Grimstone submitted reports on rupee internationalization and green finance.
The two finance ministers also agreed to renew the IUKFP’s mandate and sought more papers on bank restructuring, fintech, disinvestment, India-UK trade and investment relationship; recommendations from financial and professional services; and ease of doing business in financial and professional services.
India and the UK agreed to deepen bilateral collaboration on fintech and explore the possibility of a regulatory cooperation agreement between the Financial Conduct Authority and the Reserve Bank of India in the second quarter of 2017, which will enable the regulators to share information about financial services innovations in their respective markets, including emerging trends and regulatory issues. “The feasibility of a UK-India FinTech Bridge would also be explored," the joint statement said.
Both sides said under agreed common reporting standards, automatic exchange of tax information will begin in 2017. They also advocated all member countries to work towards the International Monetary Fund completing the 15th General Review of Quotas “by spring or no later than the annual meetings of 2019" under which developing countries are likely to get more voting rights within the Fund. “We also support work to strengthen the Global Financial Safety Net, with a strong, quota-based and adequately resourced IMF at its centre," the joint statement said. |
Welcome to second installment of “Over/Under” where I highlight a player and determine some projections based on past tendencies, then state whether I think they will go “over or under” those projections. The criteria will be different for each player based on position and situation.
This week’s debate will focus on Reggie Bush. Since signing with the Detroit Lions in free agency, projections and expectations have been all over the place for the former Saint and Dolphin. For this article, I have determined the line to be 65 catches, 1,400 total yards, and seven touchdowns.
Since leaving Sean Payton’s never ending stable of running backs in 2011, Reggie Bush has shown the playmaking abilities and effectiveness we all thought we were getting coming out of college. He was never asked or given to opportunity to be “the guy” in New Orleans and was kind of an afterthought when he signed in Miami. The Dolphins had just drafted Daniel Thomas and Bush signed a two year contract as insurance. The Dolphins were lucky they had their insuranc,e too. Thomas has been a huge bust in the NFL and Reggie Bush was reborn.
During his two seasons in Miami, Bush totaled 2,072 rushing yards, 12 rushing touchdowns, 588 receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns. Now he moves on to a Detroit Lions team who uses their running backs in the passing game as well as any team in the league.
With the cannon armed Matthew Stafford and the “All-World” Calvin Johnson leading this team and keeping defensive coordinators awake at night, the Lions have been looking for a dynamic playmaker in this backfield since Jahvid Best’s career has been put on hold (and probably ended) due to several severe concussions. They were left at the altar last season waiting for Best to show up, but he never gained medical clearance and they were forced to roll with Mikel Leshoure, Joique Bell and Kevin Smith as part of a committee attack. Not to mention they have essentially used tight end Brandon Pettigrew as an extension of the running game by hitting him with quick passes near the line of scrimmage – he’s averaged five catches per game over the last two seasons. None of Detroit’s running backs offer the lightning in a bottle ability Jahvid Best or Reggie Bush offer, and this team sorely missed it.
Last year, the Lions targeted their running backs a total of 142 times (roughly nine times per game) and completed 103 passes (around six and a half per game). Joique Bell led all Lions running backs in receptions last year with 52 catches for 485 yards and Leshoure added an additional 34 receptions for 214 yards while leading the team in fantasy points. Leshoure was the lead dog from a rushing standpoint as he ran for 798 yards and nine touchdowns, but averaged just 3.71 yards per carry and offered next to no big play ability. His largest contribution came at the stripe as a physical goal line back. On the plus side, he definitely runs angry.
When Bush signed his contract with the Lions, he stated he was brought in with the guarantee he would have the opportunity to be the team’s starter. With his skill set as both a runner (he averaged 4.34 yards per carry last season) and his well documented pass catching ability (he’s averaged 53 catches per season throughout his career), Bush has the opportunity on this squad to be a PPR monster in 2013. His lone weak spot from a fantasy perspective has always been touchdowns – he has never scored more than eight offensive touchdowns in any season and I can’t see that changing this year.
I fully expect this situation to closely resemble the “Thunder and Lightning” approach used by the Tennessee Titans with Chris Johnson and LenDale White. Reggie Bush should put up some really exciting numbers and when the team gets down inside the ten yard line, they’ll bring in the battering ram to finish the job. On top of that, I don’t expect Bell to just completely become obsolete. He showed he has plenty of ability to produce in this league, probably as much as Leshoure has in my opinion.
When it’s all said and done, I expect Bush’s totals to be in the neighborhood of 1,100 yards rushing, 70 catches for 500 yards receiving and at total of six touchdowns. That’s “over, over, and under” on the stated line. To hit those totals, Bush would only need to average 69 yards rushing and around four and a half catches for 32 yards receiving per game throughout the season. Those numbers are attainable in my opinion and I’ll play the odds on him scoring less than seven touchdowns with Leshoure and Megatron being the red zone monsters they are.
I was really impressed and humbled by the reader response from the “Over/Under: Wes Welker” article and look forward to more interaction with our readers. The arguments that were made were well thought out, well presented and incredibly civil. I can’t wait to see what everyone’s thoughts are for Reggie Bush’s 2013 outlook. Are you taking the over or under on his 65 catches, 1,400 total yards, and seven touchdowns?
Let me know in the comments below and make sure you vote in the web poll. |
Doug Martin really isn’t in the Bucs’ plans.
That was Joe’s takeaway from Dirk Koetter’s extensive explanation about Martin’s status this morning at the NFL Owners Meetings in Phoenix.
For you can’t-get-enough-Bucs freaks out there, Joe typed up Koetter’s comments verbatim.
Put Martin’s drug issues aside for a moment, Martin’s three-game suspension to start the 2017 season is what’s really got Koetter looking elsewhere.
“That’s a little bit of a complicated situation still because Doug is still looking at a three-game suspension when he comes back,” Koetter said. “You know, with talked with Doug a few weeks back when he came back to Tampa. He looked good, he sounded good. If you recall, at the end of the season, my comment on that was by far the most important thing was Doug regaining his health and that’s an ongoing process. Doug will be coming back soon with the off-season program, hopefully with the offseason and for sure at minicamp. “The way it’s structured right now, you know, we’ve got the offseason coming up. We’ve got the draft coming up. We’ve got preseason coming up and then when we get to Game 1, that’s when Doug would start his three-game suspension. So right now, we don’t have to make a decision on that. We can let this thing play out. I mean, who knows what’s going to happen? Are we going to add a running back in the draft? Is Doug going to continue down the path of good health, and then we’ve got other guys we like at that position, too. I don’t know what’s going to happen as I sit here today but right now we’ve got time on our side.”
Ian Rapoport of NFL Network then asked Koetter if Martin would be on the Bucs in 2017, assuming he stays “on the good path healthwise?”
“Again, it’s a unique situation,” Koetter said. “I’m a Doug Martin fan. We would love to have Doug on our team. But when the guy who’s been a Pro Bowl running back, you know you’re not going to have him the first three games of the year, how do you do the reps? You know. I mean somebody, it’s kind of a unique in that last year we got so beat up at running back. By week three last year we had already played six running backs. “And that’s how beat up we were. It’s almost like he would be on [the physically unable to perform list] coming back for Week 4. But we don’t know what we’re going to do weeks one through three yet. “I’ve never been in this situation before. [General manager] Jason [Licht] and I have talked about it multiple times, and right now it doesn’t make sense to make any bold statements about it until we let this time pass.”
Martin, however, has an opportunity here. If he reports with his teammates on April 17, and then is a hard-working Bucs citizen through spring practices, and he passes a lot of mandated drug tests in between, then he could earn back some trust from the organization.
If it gets to that point, then maybe, just maybe, before training camp the Bucs tell Martin they’ll bring him back for this season under a restructured, prove-it contract.
More likely, Joe believes, Martin will have new team in July. |
(CNN) A large crowd broke into cheers Thursday after the New Orleans City Council voted to remove four monuments to the Confederacy from prominent places in the city.
The 6-1 vote means officials will take down statues of Gens. Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. An obelisk dedicated to the Battle of Liberty Place will also go.
It's one of the strongest gestures yet by an American city to remove symbols of Confederate history, following a trend in many Southern states to take down the Confederate battle flag.
Historic societies in the 300-year-old city supported the removal of the monuments, and the proposal was introduced by a majority of City Council members.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu described the move as a "courageous decision to turn a page on our divisive past and chart the course for a more inclusive future."
Council member Nadine Ramsey said New Orleans needed to stop living "underneath the shadows" of monuments to people who supported slavery.
"We need not honor these individuals and moments from the past that do not meet our standards of decency, equality and nondiscrimination," she said.
Council member Stacy Head cast the only vote against taking down the monuments, saying the action would create more division and not solve the city's real problems.
"It will not improve the socioeconomic balance of the city," she said. "If it would make the city more color blind, if it would create more balance, I would sacrifice almost any physical object to get us to that point."
Charleston slayings were a tipping point
Photos: Charleston church shooting Photos: Charleston church shooting In this image from the video uplink from the detention center to the courtroom, Dylann Roof appears at a bond hearing June 19, 2015, in South Carolina. Roof is charged with nine counts of murder and firearms charges in the shooting deaths at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17. Hide Caption 1 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old charged with murdering nine people in a church shooting on Wednesday, June 17, is escorted by police in Shelby, North Carolina, on Thursday, June 18. Hide Caption 2 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Law enforcement officers in Charleston, South Carolina, stand guard near the scene of the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Hide Caption 3 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting A police officer directs a police vehicle in front of the church on June 18. Hide Caption 4 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Two law enforcement officials said Roof confessed. Roof said he wanted to start a race war, one of the officials said. Hide Caption 5 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Police in Charleston close off a section of Calhoun Street early on June 18, after the shooting. The steeple of the church is visible in the background. Hide Caption 6 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Charleston police officers search for the shooting suspect outside the church on Wednesday, June 17. Hide Caption 7 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting People in Charleston pray following the shooting on June 17. Hide Caption 8 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting A woman joins a prayer circle on June 17. Hide Caption 9 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting A man kneels across the street from where police gathered outside the church on June 17. Hide Caption 10 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Police gather at the scene of the shooting on June 17. The church was formed in 1816. Hide Caption 11 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting People pray in a hotel parking lot across the street from the scene of the shooting on June 17. Every Wednesday evening, the church holds a Bible study in its basement. Hide Caption 12 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting An armed police officer moves up Calhoun Street on June 17. Hide Caption 13 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting People gather after the shooting. Hide Caption 14 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Police stand outside the church. Hide Caption 15 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Police close off a section of Calhoun Street near the scene of the shooting. Hide Caption 16 of 17 Photos: Charleston church shooting Police in Charleston released this security-camera image that they say shows Roof entering the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Hide Caption 17 of 17
Landrieu said the church slayings in Charleston, South Carolina, moved him to take action.
Photos: Evolution of the Confederate flag Photos: Evolution of the Confederate flag A veteran of the Confederate States of America examines a Union water bottle in front of a Confederate flag. Here's a look at the evolution of that flag. Hide Caption 1 of 6 Photos: Evolution of the Confederate flag The first national flag of the Confederate States of America was created in 1861 and had seven stars to represent the breakaway states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Hide Caption 2 of 6 Photos: Evolution of the Confederate flag The second National Flag of the Confederacy was issued by the Confederate Congress on May 1, 1863. This flag was designed to have a distinct difference from the Union's Stars and Stripes. Hide Caption 3 of 6 Photos: Evolution of the Confederate flag The third National Flag of the Confederacy was the final flag of the Confederate government and was adopted on March 4, 1865. The flag was not used long before the Confederacy surrendered. Hide Caption 4 of 6 Photos: Evolution of the Confederate flag The Confederate Battle flag known as the "Southern Cross" has 13 stars to represent the defeated Confederate States of America. Hide Caption 5 of 6 Photos: Evolution of the Confederate flag Dixiecrats resurrected the "Southern Cross" flag as a political symbol around the time President Harry Truman supported efforts to end lynchings and desegregate the military in 1948. During that same period, the Ku Klux Klan began using the flag more widely. Hide Caption 6 of 6
A week later, Landrieu announced the planned ordinance.
He addressed the City Council on Thursday , saying that New Orleans has many monuments, but he wanted these four removed because they are the most important.
"This is the right thing to do at the right time," Landrieu said.
"As we approach the Tricentennial, New Orleanians have the power and the right to correct historical wrongs and move the City forward. The ties that bind us together as a city are stronger than what keeps us apart," he said, according to a City Hall news release.
Monuments called 'nuisances'
The ordinance approved by the council declares the Confederate monuments "nuisances" and called for them to be removed. The statues are unconstitutional, said the proposed ordinance marked Calendar No. 31,082
A monument to Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, is one of four monuments called a "nuisance" by the ordinance the New Orleans City Council approved
"They honor, praise, or foster ideologies which are in conflict with the requirements of equal protection for citizens as provided by the constitution and laws of the United States, the state, or the laws of the city and suggests the supremacy of one ethnic, religious, or racial group over another."
Monument supporters say it's not about race
Landrieu requested the vote to banish specters of racism. But opponents of the plan steered away from any racial argument.
Keeping the figures of the Confederacy was not about preserving racial injustice, they said, but about honoring figures who fought to protect the city.
New Orleans, which was the largest city in the Confederacy, fell to Union forces in 1862 and was under federal occupation beyond the Civil War's end in 1865.
No place for Lee
One prominent artist who wanted the figures gone also skirted the issue of race. Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, who is African-American, said that Lee in particular had no historic place in the city.
"This symbolic place in our city should represent a great New Orleanian, or it should be an open space that represents our latest prevail and how people helped us, not a person who had nothing to do with our city and who indeed fought against the United States of America and lost," Marsalis told CNN affiliate WDSU
Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard was a Louisiana native, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis lived in New Orleans after the war and died there.
A New Orleans monument to Louisiana native and former Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard is one of four that will be removed.
Statue has stood since 1884
Lee's statue stands 60 feet high atop a neoclassical column at what was christened Lee Circle in his honor.
The Robert E. Lee Monument has stood in New Orleans since 1884.
It was originally called Tivoli Circle. Most Mardi Gras parades snake right past it.
Lee faces north, looking in the direction of his former enemy, and has stood there since 1884, the history department at the University of New Orleans says . Both Davis and Beauregard attended the monument's dedication.
Their statues were erected in the 1910s.
A fourth monument, probably the most contentious, will also be taken down.
The monument to the Battle of Liberty Place commemorates an uprising in 1874 of the White League against federal forces and police in an attempt to overthrow racially integrated governance put in place during Reconstruction.
Mayors have tried to remove the monument to the Battle of Liberty Place in the past. Thursday's New Orleans City Council vote makes it one of four pieces that will be taken down.
Former mayors, including Landrieu's father, Moon Landrieu, have attempted to have this monument removed or altered.
When asked what would happen to the removed monuments, Landrieu suggested a park that would reflect the complete history of the city, from before the American Revolution to the present. That park, he said, would be a place where "history can be remembered and not revered."
He said city leaders should consider forming a commission to decide what to do about other monuments.
Council President Jason Williams said, "After a long and thoughtful debate on this issue, I am pleased that we have reached a conclusion. Thank you to all citizens who have participated and made your voices heard during this process. We all may have differing perspectives, but share a common love and concern for the City of New Orleans." |
How a rising of the ocean waters may flood most of our port cities within the foreseeable future — and why it will be followed by the growth of a vast glacier which may eventually cover much of Europe and North America.
THIS is the story of two scientists, who started five years ago — with a single radiocarbon clue from the ocean bottom and a wild hunch — to track down one of the earth’s great unsolved mysteries: What caused the ancient ice ages? Their search led over many continents and seas, to drowned rivers and abandoned mountain caves, into far-removed branches of science. It took them down through recorded history, from the stone tablets of primitive man to contemporary newspaper headlines.
These two serious, careful scientists — geophysicist Maurice Ewing, director of Columbia University’s Lamont Geological Observatory, and geologist-meteorologist William Donn believe they have finally found the explanation for the giant glaciers, which four times during the past million years have advanced and retreated over the earth. If they are right, the world is now heading into another Ice Age. It will come not as sudden catastrophe, but as the inevitable culmination of a process that has already begun in northern oceans.
As Ewing and Donn read the evidence, an Ice Age will result from a slow warming and rising of the ocean that is now taking place. They believe that this ocean flood — which may submerge large coastal areas of the eastern United States and western Europe — is going to melt the ice sheet which has covered the Arctic Ocean through all recorded history. Calculations based on the independent observations of other scientists indicate this melting could begin, within roughly one hundred years.
It is this melting of Arctic ice which Ewing and Donn believe will set off another Ice Age on earth. They predict that it will cause great snows to fall in the north — perennial unmelting snows which the world has not seen since the last Ice Age thousands of years ago. These snows will make the Arctic glaciers grow again, until their towering height forces them forward. The advance south will be slow, but if it follows the route of previous ice ages, it will encase in ice large parts of North America and Europe. It would, of course, take many centuries for that wall of ice to reach New York and Chicago, London and Paris. But its coming is an inevitable consequence of the cycle which Ewing and Donn believe is now taking place.
The coming of another Ice Age is an event serious scientists have never been able to predict from observable Earth phenomena. For until Ewing and Donn postulated their new Theory of Ice Ages (it was first published in Science in June 1956 and a second report appeared in May 1958) the very nature of the problem seemed to defy the kind of scientific understanding which makes prediction possible.
Scientists know that the glaciers which stand quiet in the Arctic today once covered America with a wall of ice up to two miles thick — its southern boundary extending from Long Island across New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas to the Missouri River, with extensions into the western mountain country . . . that it covered northern Europe, England, large parts of France and Germany . . . that it created the Great Lakes, the Hudson and St. Lawrence Rivers . . . that it moved mountains, crashed down forests, destroyed whole species of life.
They also know that it is cold enough at the Arctic for glaciers to grow today, but almost no snow has fallen there in modern times. What caused those snows that built the Ice Age glaciers until their own height forced them to march, and what caused them finally to retreat? And why has the earth been swinging back and forth between Ice Ages and climate like today’s for a million years, when before then the entire planet enjoyed a temperate climate with no extremes of hot or cold? Scientists could answer these questions only in terms of sudden catastrophe — a volcanic eruption, the earth’s movement into a cloud of cosmic dust — and unpredictable catastrophes are not the concern of contemporary science. Few scientists had even worked on the problem in recent years.
It was only by a combination of lucky circumstance and persistent curiosity that Ewing and Donn as a team began working steadily on the Ice Age Mystery. As Director of Lamont Geological Observatory, located on top of the New York Palisades over the Hudson River, Ewing teaches theoretical geophysics and directs research in earthquake seismology, marine geology and biology, and oceanography. Donn teaches geology at Brooklyn College and directs the research in meteorology at Lamont. Since the two men live twenty miles apart and were occupied all day, they would often meet at eleven at night in a deserted laboratory at Columbia University — midway between their homes — and work into the morning on the Ice Age trail. |
NFL Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown does not believe President-elect Donald Trump to be an “illegitimate president.”
He said Monday on Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.” that Trump won the election “fair and square,” and he will be supporting Trump even though he backed Hillary Clinton for president.
“[Trump] won, in my opinion, fair and square, and I’m going to support him as president of the United States,” Brown told host Stuart Varney.
He also said in the interview, “When you win against all odds and you defeat those who are against you — and I was for Hillary so I’m one of those who Mr. Trump defeated — but he is the president-elect of the United States, I’m a citizen. I’m not asking him to do everything. I’m going to pitch in and do some of the things that I can do with the like-minded people that I represent.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent |
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Cancellation: On Dubai Dhow Cruise trip we reserve the rights to cancel or withdraw any activity for reasons beyond our control such as weather, strikes, war & other events of force majeure for which a refund, partial refund or rescheduled date may be given which is at the discretion of Flyway Dubai Tourism. |
BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovak customs officers injured a Syrian woman on Monday when they shot at a car carrying migrants from Hungary into Slovakia, authorities said.
Police in Europe have sometimes used water cannon and tear gas to prevent migrants from crossing borders but this may be the first reported incident inside the continent’s passport-free Schengen zone where migrants have been shot at.
The officers stopped four passenger cars entering Slovakia from Hungary in the early hours of Monday, the Financial Administration that runs the customs service said in a press release.
Three cars complied with an order to stop but the fourth tried to escape and endangered three officers, it said.
“The officers fired warning shots and when the car did not stop they fired at the car, injuring one person,” it said, without further details.
A hospital in Dunajska Streda, southern Slovakia, said the injured person was a Syrian woman aged about 26 and that she was in a stable condition after undergoing surgery to remove a bullet from her back.
The hospital said it had also treated two migrants suffering from dehydration.
The cars and the passengers were handed over to the border police, the Financial Administration said.
Slovakia has so far seen only a trickle of migrants trying to cross its territory to reach Germany, the favoured destination for people fleeing conflicts and poverty in the Middle East and beyond. But the government fears tighter border controls by neighbouring Austria could prompt more migrants to use Slovakia as a stepping stone from Hungary as they head west. |
Monday, 28th August, 2017 10:15am
Minister Ross with Deputy Collins in Skibbereen.
BY JACKIE KEOGH & KIERAN O’MAHONY
WEST Cork roads, particularly the N71, will be ‘considered very important’ in the 2018 and 2019 budget allocations, according to the Minister for Transport.
When he was in Skibbereen on Tuesday, Shane Ross TD told The Southern Star that part of his reason for visiting was so that he could drive the N71 and ‘see what it was like.’
He said: ‘I can see the real difficulties which are there. I have been talking to Michael Collins (Ind) TD, Declan Hurley (Ind), Margaret Murphy O’Mahony (FF) and lots of other people about it and I understand that the roads are in need of repair.
‘Nothing very much has been done in the recent past because of the constraint on our finances. There is hope now that in 2018 and 2019 we will have more money available for the roads and the roads here will be considered very important in that context.’
The minister declined to given an assurance that the N71 would be prioritised. He said: ‘I am certainly not going to say anything which would give a hostage to fortune, but let me just say I am well aware of the problem, having been here today, and driven the road myself.’
Meeting earlier with local councillors and TDs in Copper Grove in Bandon to discuss funding for roads, the Minister heard Deputy Michael Collins say it was ‘hard to promote West Cork as a place to do business due to the roads and the inability to pass out on the N71’.
Deputy Margaret Murphy O’Mahony said West Cork needed a ‘big injection of cash’ to improve the road conditions on both the N71 and R586.
Issues over Irish Water delaying road surface projects, as well as poor response times – or none at all – from TII (Transport Infrastructure Ireland) were also raised by Sinn Féin Cllrs Paul Hayes and Cllr Rachel McCarthy.
Minister Ross said he could not give any promises on funding, but would give the concerns ‘a sympathetic ear’ as he could see the need in West Cork for better roads.
‘Obviously everything that you are looking for is something we would love to do, but we’ve got very finite resources – virtually all the money is committed,’ said Minister Ross. |
Security as a Spectrum: An Intro Through Analogy
JonLuca De Caro Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 1, 2017
On security as a spectrum, attack vectors, and how people who don’t understand security focus on the wrong things
Credit to ibtimes.co.uk
Imagine there’s a house you are trying to protect, with a large front door. What is the front door protecting, and who is it protecting these things from? Perhaps it’s in a rough area of town, and you went out of your way to purchase a triple deadbolt, upper- and lower-locks, and an alarm system. No matter what you do you’re mostly operating under the false pretense of security. Any measure you take will only deter a specific subset of people, there’s no one thing you could do to fully protect your front door. No matter what, if someone was motivated enough, they’d find a way in.
Security is a spectrum. You know that your triple-deadbolt door will probably keep out a petty thief, but would it deter the fire department? A SWAT team? Probably not. If the party on the other end of it is determined enough and has enough resources, your door can be broken down.
Cybersecurity can be thought of as the same as your door, and your house as your public facing website/data/API. There is no one algorithm, one program, or one solution that will make you completely safe. There is simply no one right way. It’s all about the levels of risk that you want to assume. The question you need to answer is not:
Does this completely protect me?
but instead should be:
To what extent should someone have to go to access my information?
This seems counter intuitive at first — most people will answer no one, or only a select few people they already know. This way of thinking is not applicable in security though — if simply wishing for something to be protected made it so, there would be no need for encryption, security, or protection in general. You must operate under the assumption that there will always be parties dedicated enough to get to your data. What level of risk are you alright with?
If the NSA wants access to your data, there is (almost certainly*) nothing you can do about it. They do this for a living, day-in and day-out. Whether you choose to run with pbkdf2 for your password storage or unsalted-MD5, you’re asserting that you accept a level of risk. It’s not guaranteed that pbkdf2 will secure your users’ information — and even then, attackers will take the path of least resistance.
*Yes, you can probably come up with a scenario in which you have some set of information that you could protect from the NSA. This article is assuming a publicly facing website/data set that has multiple attack vectors, not personal security/drives. An 8096-bit Truecrypt drive that is only connected to a local network, with keys stored entirely in memory is outside the realm of this article.
Your “house” has multiple points of entry
Imagine that your well protected house also has a back door leading to your backyard. This door is merely a screen door, with a wooden spring keeping it closed. Why would an attacker go through your front door, when they could go through the back door for a fraction of the effort?
Security works in much the same way. Attackers, just like burglars in real life, will go through the path of least resistance. These various methods of entry are attack vectors.
You can have a high-entropy, large-keyset password store that will deter many, but forgetting to close port 22 and leaving your root credentials at admin/admin for SSH renders that useless.. They were able to accomplish their end goal by going about it a completely different way. Just like the petty thief would just hop over your fence and go in the back door, inexperienced cyber criminals can get access to your data even if part of your system is extremely well defended.
It is uncommon to create a system that has only one attack vector. Most complex business applications (especially those that embrace the 21st century, with the cloud, 2FA, live document syncing, backups, and more) will have hundreds of attack vectors. Each one of these can be seen as a door into your data — some admittedly less severe than others — but the analogy remains. You cannot only focus on hardening one entry point, you need to think about the wider scope and minimize the amount of entry points instead, making sure that they are all up to an acceptable level of risk.
Now don’t take this to mean that you will be hacked — rather, it means that there will always be someone out there with the ability to hack your system. You just have to decide what level of security your data warrants, and what level of risk you find acceptable.
More to Security
There’s a lot more to security than is mentioned here, but step 1 is always to have the right frame of mind when approaching the topic. It’s nearly impossible to have a complete understanding of your security system if you are still focused on completely securing your system against everyone — it’s a naive point of view that has been consistently proved wrong, usually at the expense of your users data.
Author Note: This was meant as a fairly basic introduction to security through an easy to understand analogy. It’s primarily focused towards those not in the security field, and takes a lot of simplifications and abstractions. Any questions, corrections, or concerns can be addressed to [email protected] |
HotGlueGun Profile Joined January 2012 United States 1273 Posts #2 Jaedong vs Flash OOOOOMMMMMMMGGGGG Don't hoot with the Owls at night if you cant soar with the Eagles at dawn.
Beavo Profile Blog Joined August 2010 Canada 290 Posts #3 I wish stephano was still around No one remembers second place
Conut Profile Joined April 2012 Canada 908 Posts #4 EGTL got dis http://www.twitch.tv/conut (feel like a scum, but thats my stream lol)
xuanzue Profile Joined October 2010 Colombia 1623 Posts #5 khan sending roro last :S
bogus vs parting is ok
JD vs flash ... .. .. :O :O :O Dominions 4: "Thrones of Ascension".
Laryleprakon Profile Joined May 2011 New Zealand 9464 Posts #6 Flash vs Jaedong + Parting vs Bogus, such great match ups.
bduddy Profile Joined May 2012 United States 1322 Posts #7 I'm surprised that we're still not seeing any new players. Knowing how many B-teamers most KeSPA teams have, you'd think they would have had at least a couple of them spend a lot of time with the HoTS beta... >Liquid'Nazgul: Of course you are completely right
glzElectromaster Profile Blog Joined March 2012 Japan 2054 Posts #8 JvFFFFFFFFFF RIP Kt. Violet | In solitude, where we are least alone
Shellshock Profile Blog Joined March 2011 United States 94972 Posts #9 Good luck EGTL. Hopefully Coach Park's miracles keep working Moderator http://i.imgur.com/U4xwqmD.png
NguN Profile Joined August 2009 Australia 1314 Posts #10 WTF JAEDONG VS FLASH!?!!
Arceus Profile Blog Joined February 2008 Vietnam 8280 Posts #11 I figure trading Flying for Bogus in anti could be the best move -_-
Ensue Profile Joined March 2013 United States 144 Posts #12 JD vs. Flash?! ....I died. And NOOO Innovation vs. Parting! ....the feels (pray tell, what are they? I'm not so sure myself either) “Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast.” —Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
purakushi Profile Joined August 2012 United States 3240 Posts #13
SC2 Zerg too low skill cap >_> I feel like JD going to get absolutely crushedSC2 Zerg too low skill cap >_> June 2010 - August 2017: waiting for the return of Starcraft
slowbacontron Profile Joined October 2012 United States 7722 Posts #14 Didn't realize Solar was rising so quickly up the ranks...looks like he may be up for big things! jjakji fan
Dodgin Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 38849 Posts #15 Taeja for 5 points was so great for my anti team.
NicksonReyes Profile Blog Joined May 2010 Philippines 4429 Posts #16 I'm scared for KT, they'll get #CoachPark -ed "Start yo" -FlaSh
Oiseaux Profile Joined May 2011 United States 653 Posts #17 Hey, hitmaN. Mr. Bitter is gonna be stoked for the upcoming week. "[S]o be ready to kiss a few donkeys with glued-on paper horns during your unicorn hunt." -Some stupid 4x4 magazine
sinigang Profile Joined August 2012 356 Posts #18 Sola realizing he needed the 'r' in Solar.... otherwise he'd be named after that japanese porn star.
XSA Profile Joined December 2012 United States 2 Posts #19 Ctrl+F Bear
Nothing....
blade55555 Profile Blog Joined March 2009 United States 17354 Posts #20 Hm with how zvt is right now I can't see jaedong beating flash, but then again he's jaedong so we shall see.
Either way super pumped for jaedong vs flash :D When I think of something else, something will go here
1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Next All |
Srinagar: Just few weeks ahead of the polling in Srinagar for Assembly Election, terrorists have hurled at grenade at a CRPF bunker at Lal Chowk here injuring seven civilians and a jawan.
It is being reported that a child is among those who are injured in the grenade blast. However, no casualities have been reported in the attack. DSP Lal Chowk, Faisal Qayum said that the area has been cordoned off and search is going on to nab the attackers.
The injured have been rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.
BJP blamed Pakistan for the terror attack and said that it is a desperate attempt by Pakistan agents to stall democracy. Party spokesperson Sambit Patra said, "It seems a high voting turnover in Jammu and Kashmir has left the morale of the terrorists very low."
It seems a high Voting Turnover in J&K has left the morale of the terrorists very low ..desperate attempts by Pak agents to Stall Democracy! — Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) November 29, 2014
Srinagar is due to go on polls on December 14 for the ongoing Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. |
However, it appeared that the government of President Bashar Assad maintained control of key state installations and thoroughfares. Military reinforcements were said to have been brought into the capital and rushed to battleground districts. Video from the capital showed armored vehicles rumbling down main roads.
"We have transferred the battle from Damascus province to the capital," Saadeddine is quoted as saying. "We have a clear plan to control the whole of Damascus. We only have light weapons, but it's enough."
Col. Qassim Saadeddine, Homs-based spokesman for the Joint Command of the rebel group, said the fighting will not stop until the whole of the capital has been conquered, reported the website of a Lebanese television station.
A senior figure in the rebel Free Syrian Army, the main insurgent group, said Tuesday that the "battle for the liberation of Damascus has begun,” according to a Lebanese website tracking the conflict.
Opposition activists were calling the fighting -- the fiercest clashes to date reported in Damascus -- a potential turning point in the 16-month civil conflict, which previously had left the capital mostly unscathed.
BEIRUT -- Battles between security forces and rebels rocked Syria's capital for the third consecutive day Tuesday and appeared to be spreading to other districts of the city.
It was difficult to ascertain if the clashes signaled an all-out insurrection in the capital or violent eruptions in certain restive neighborhoods. It seemed possible that the violence could escalate and signal a new phase in the conflict.
Shaken residents of the capital reported the sounds of gunfire and shelling. There were reports of machine gun fire in central Sabaa Bahrat Square and nearby Baghdad Street, in the center of the capital.
The opposition said government forces were using attack helicopters and shelling to quell the unrest. There were unconfirmed reports that rebels had shot down a helicopter gunship.
Video posted on the Internet purported to show tanks rumbling in the central district of Midan, near the old walled city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition group, said military reinforcements were dispatched to Midan amid intense clashes between armed rebels and regime forces.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency said authorities “continue to chase down an armed terrorist group in the outskirts” of Midan, “inflicting heavy losses in the terrorists’ ranks.” The government typically refers to the rebels as terrorists.
Violence was also reported in the eastern district of Qaboun, where government forces attacked overnight with helicopters, said one opposition activist reached by telephone. An opposition group said helicopter fire had destroyed a number of buildings in the district.
The official news agency said rebels had attacked an electricity converter station in Qaboun with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The station will be out of service for two days, the official news service said.
Insurgents in Syria have repeatedly targeted electrical stations, fuel pipelines and other strategic facilities, the government says.
Unrest has also reportedly spread to several rebellious suburbs, including Barzeh in the north and Douma in the northeast. Both districts have long been anti-government bastions. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government was deploying helicopters in the orchards of Barzeh, apparently targeting insurgents.
An opposition activist reached by telephone in Damascus described a scene of battle.
"There is gunfire, sounds of explosions -- you can see helicopters above Qaboun and Barzeh," said the activist, who asked to be identified only as Susan for security reasons. "There are large columns of smoke and there are shelled areas. Wounded people ... some killed. We can't help them because there are snipers on rooftops. The situation is really difficult today ... shelling, sounds of gunfire. ... People are trying to run away, but the snipers shoot madly."
More government mortar fire was reported Tuesday in the southern district of Tadamoun, where the violence initially broke out on Sunday.
The official Syrian government news service also said that security forces clashed with insurgents attempting to block roads in the capital’s southern Naher Aisha district.
The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition coalition, said at least 11 people were reported killed in clashes in the capital. The figure could not be corroborated.
The Syrian government has severely restricted the entry of journalists and human rights monitors, making it difficult to judge the extent of the violence in Damascus and elsewhere in Syria.
ALSO:
Kadima Party breaks from Israeli government coalition
London Olympics security contractor called 'incompetent' by panel
Afghan soldier who fatally shot French troops gets death penalty
-- Alexandra Sandels. Patrick J. McDonnell in Istanbul contributed to this report.
Photo: A picture released by the Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network on Tuesday purports to show opponents to the regime blocking a road with burning tires in the Jobar neighborhood of Damascus the day before. The information could not be independently verified. Credit: Shaam News Network / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images. |
Bubble Wrap is losing its pop because the new version will no longer burst when you squeeze it.
The makers of the packaging have said they need to shrink Bubble Wrap so that they can attract new business.
The new version is laid out in columns of connected air pockets, so when you push on it the air just gets pushed into neighbouring bubbles.
In the past each bubble was separate so that you could squeeze each one and make it burst with a satisfying popping noise.
Bubble Wrap is adored by many for the satisfying popping noise it makes when the bubbles are squeezed
The news was met with horror by fans of Bubble Wrap, which is so adored that it has its own appreciation day and a Facebook group called ‘Popping Bubble Wrap’ has more than half a million members.
On Twitter Matthew Cowley wrote: ‘Oh no! How do I keep my kids happy?’
Cynthe Crawford wrote: ‘No way!! Don’t they know, that every adult, turns into a child, just at the sight of bubble wrap???’
Sealed Air Corp, which developed Bubble Wrap in the 1950s, said the new version will be called iBubble, and the lack of pop won’t be the only change.
iBubble will use up around one 50th of the space as the old stuff - because it will be shipped flat.
Consumers and retailers like Amazon will have to use a pump to inflate it to the amount they desire.
Traditionally Bubble Wrap has shipped in massive pre-inflated rolls which take up a lot of space.
Bubble Wrap was originally created in 1957 by the co-founders of Sealed Air who were looking for a new kind of wallpaper by putting shower curtains together.
Alfred Fielding and his partner, a Swiss inventor called Marc Chavannes were tinkering around in his garage in Hawthorne, New Jersey, when they realised that their invention could be used for packaging. |
Her contentions are set against a complex backdrop: spiraling health care costs and debates about Medicare. State and federal authorities in Texas are investigating Ms. Fitzgerald’s allegations, and any decision by them to join her case may give the suit momentum in the courts. But her corporate adversaries dispute her accusations.
“Cynthia Fitzgerald is rehashing old rumors and suspicions,” said Jody Hatcher, senior vice president of Novation, the company in Irving, Tex., at the heart of her lawsuit. ”These allegations have been examined in depth by a variety of different authorities, and no one has proven any of them to be true. The simple fact is that Ms. Fitzgerald’s allegations are false.”
For her part, Ms. Fitzgerald bristles at the idea that her lawsuit is without merit or, in response to common critiques of whistle-blower cases, about easy money. “I thought they were really nice people,” she says. “I was so grateful and thankful to have a steady income again. I wouldn’t have rocked the boat for any small thing to save my life.”
So why did she rock the boat?
“It was wrong,” she says of the behavior she asserts she has witnessed. “And I knew it was wrong.”
NINE years ago, while still recovering from a financially ruinous divorce, Ms. Fitzgerald decided to move to Dallas from her native Omaha. She knew almost no one in her new city. She graduated from the University of Nebraska 13 years earlier with a communications degree, then worked in sales and marketing in the food, pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
When she moved to Texas, she says, “It was pretty bleak.” She adds, “I went from having Thanksgiving dinners in a house with my family to living in an apartment that was so small that every time I turned around I ran into myself.”
More than anything, she said, she wanted stability — a steady job at a company where she could climb the ladder and work until she retired. After months of looking, she joined Novation. The company helped thousands of hospitals, rehabilitation centers, home health agencies and doctors’ offices nationwide negotiate prices for medical supplies — a wide range of items as diverse as saline solution and huge imaging machines.
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Novation assigned her a portfolio of medical and surgical products for which its member hospitals were spending an estimated $240 million a year: rubber gloves, surgical tools and so forth. The company sent her to a training class where, among other things, she says she learned once again about ethical purchasing procedures.
“I cannot overemphasize in the beginning how excited I was and really feeling blessed,” she says. “I felt like I got a second chance. Even though it was on the other side of sales, it was still sales.”
But as she settled in, she says, not everything in her new workplace squared with what she had been told in training, a situation that came to a head one day in 1998, when she was still just a few months into the job. According to her complaint, she and her boss met with a Johnson & Johnson sales team that was vying for an exclusive, three-year contract to sell $130 million worth of IV equipment to Novation’s clients. It was a valuable contract, and Ms. Fitzgerald had the power to decide who would get it.
The bids were already in. Ms. Fitzgerald understood this to be a mandatory “silent period,” when she was not supposed to meet privately with any of the bidding companies. All communications with vendors were supposed to be in writing, and if Ms. Fitzgerald disclosed any information to any bidder, she was required to tell them all.
In a deposition in a separate lawsuit filed against Novation by a medical supplier, a former Novation executive, John M. Burks, did not dispute that the Johnson & Johnson meeting took place. But he said that Ms. Fitzgerald misunderstood the rules, and that Novation permitted such meetings at that point. (When reached for comment, Mr. Burks said his views haven’t changed since his deposition.)
Photo
Ms. Fitzgerald says she had a very different understanding of the meeting. Discussions behind closed doors, tipping off a company on how to structure a winning bid, naming her price — this could be a felony, she recalls thinking :bid-rigging.
“How much will it take to get the contract?” she says one of the salesmen asked her, according to her complaint. “Others before you have done it.”
She says she chose not to do so. “Oh, no!” she recalls blurting out, bringing the meeting to a halt. “This is illegal, and I don’t look good in orange.”
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A spokesman for Johnson & Johnson, Marc Monseau, said, “We vigorously deny the allegations and will defend ourselves against them in court.”
Ms. Fitzgerald did not stop there. After the salesmen left, she says, she confronted her boss in the women’s room. Shouldn’t they report the incident to the legal department? Hadn’t they just been told that someone at Novation had taken a bribe?
Her boss offered no satisfaction, Ms. Fitzgerald says in her complaint. Concerned about the integrity of a bidding process she was responsible for, she began pursuing the matter herself.
OVER the following weeks, she says, she scoured her portfolio for contracting anomalies. She told colleagues about what had happened; some confided that similar things had happened to them. Others left anonymous notes on her desk. She began to think that Johnson & Johnson should be excluded from the bidding as a penalty for what she considered a serious ethical breach.
She says she took her concerns to Novation’s legal department, human resources and even the company’s president. In his deposition, Mr. Burks confirmed her activities, but called her “an employee who doesn’t simply understand that when a supplier asks an inappropriate question, you simply say no and move on.”
Ms. Fitzgerald says she passed over Johnson & Johnson for the IV contract, awarding it instead to Becton Dickinson. She said Becton had a superior bid, which provided a number of opportunities for Novation and member hospitals to be rewarded with rebates and other payments.
Becton said it believes that Ms. Fitzgerald’s accusations of improprieties in how contracts were awarded are baseless and that her complaint is “without merit.”
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She turned to the next contract, for trash bags — and the same thing started to happen, according to her complaint. When Ms. Fitzgerald told representatives of one vendor, Heritage Bag, that she was planning to put that contract up for bid, she says, one representative told her at dinner with several people that he would “take care of” her. Heritage Bag did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.
Ms. Fitzgerald asked her supervisor if she could be taken off the trash-bag contract. Her supervisor agreed, but then gave her a negative performance review. It said that among other things, she was rude, unable to meet deadlines and kept trying to “overhaul” parts of Novation that were outside her job description, according to a copy of the review. Ms. Fitzgerald refused to sign it. Relations deteriorated, and 15 days later, she was fired for “nonperformance of duties that were clearly identified as part of her job description,” according to Mr. Burks’s deposition.
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Ms. Fitzgerald says she believes she was shown the door because she had stumbled onto illegal behavior involving hundreds of millions of dollars and had refused to look the other way.
“It’s hilarious how stupid I was,” she says. “I knew that it was wrong, but I thought that if I just went to the right people, they would correct it. I was very naïve. I didn’t realize that it was systemic.”
The False Claims Act is a federal law that allows private individuals to sue on behalf of the United States if they believe that they have inside knowledge of a fraud. Their lawsuits stay under court seal at first, to give federal and state investigators time to look into the accusations quietly and to decide whether to join the case. If the government recovers money, the whistle-blower gets 15 to 30 percent of the amount.
Though enacted to fight war profiteering, the False Claims Act has become a potent weapon in the battle against escalating health care costs. Of the 20 largest False Claims Act recoveries listed on the Web site of Taxpayers Against Fraud, a group that supports whistle-blowers and their lawyers, 19 involved health care companies. (The other involved municipal bonds.)
The size of recoveries has soared in recent years. All told, the government has recovered more than $20 billion since 1986, when the False Claims Act was last amended, with $5 billion of it in the last two years.
The biggest single whistle-blower settlement to date was the $900 million that Tenet Healthcare, a hospital company, paid last year to settle accusations of overbilling the Medicare program. That settlement is dwarfed by the $1.7 billion that HCA, another big hospital chain, paid between 2000 and 2003 to settle a number of fraud suits.
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Companies and their lawyers say the growing caseload is a sign that the False Claims Act, with its promise of a payout for whistle-blowers, is motivating disgruntled employees to file nuisance suits that can tie up law-abiding companies for years.
Proponents of the law say that $20 billion of recoveries is proof that contracting fraud is real, and that offering whistle-blowers a percentage is a good way to compensate them for the near-certainty that they will be fired.
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“Protection for people who are willing to risk their lives and livelihoods, their careers and reputations, is critical,” said Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut, in Senate hearings last year.
As Ms. Fitzgerald sees it, Medicare’s losses grow out of the way that Novation and the vendor companies negotiate contracts.
When companies submitted bids to Novation, she recalled, they did not typically quote a simple price. Rather, they proposed package deals with opportunities for rebates, frequent-buyer discounts, “loyalty” rewards and baskets of products tied together. They might throw in free training for hospital staff, chances to participate in clinical trials, shares of stock, project sponsorships, sometimes even cash. The vendors also paid Novation for administering their contracts and for other services.
Ms. Fitzgerald says her compensation rewarded her for closing deals that maximized these payments — not for simply finding the lowest bid. Vendors preferred to combine higher upfront prices with rebates or other cash-back rewards, she says, because that obscured the net unit price of their products, making it harder for hospitals to comparison-shop.
But this also allowed millions of dollars to become “lost” in the system, she says. Novation passed on many of the payments to hospitals, she says, but not in a way that hospitals could accurately report them to the government. Thus they ended up overstating their supply costs, she says, and getting larger Medicare reimbursements than they were entitled to. The lawsuit does not contend that the hospitals did this deliberately, but that Novation knew it was happening.
A 2005 audit by Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, appears to bear her out. After studying the finances of three unnamed purchasing consortiums in response to repeated questions from Congress, federal agencies and the news media about their business practices, Mr. Levinson reported that their member hospitals “did not fully account” for such flows of money. In just five years, the discrepancies ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Novation said that there was no evidence that any underreporting was intentional. It cited the complexity of how hospitals are required to report costs and said it believed that hospitals met all legal requirements in how they reported Novation’s distributions to them.
In the past, a prosecutor’s decision whether or not to join a whistle-blower lawsuit could be a make-or-break moment. If the government became involved, defendants often settled right away. The announcement usually coincided with the unsealing of the whistle-blower’s complaint.
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But now that the lawsuits have become so complex, and investigations so slow, judges have become impatient with sealed lawsuits moldering in their courts. Some are ordering the complaints unsealed before investigators finish examining the claims.
That is what happened in Ms. Fitzgerald’s case. Last May, a federal judge in Dallas unsealed her suit, which had languished for four years. The assistant United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas , Sean R. McKenna, and the Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, notified the court that they were still investigating and would decide later whether to join the case.
THAT leaves Ms. Fitzgerald on her own for now. After Novation fired her, she was contractually forbidden from disclosing information about the company or filing lawsuits against it for three years, she says. Once that period lapsed, she gradually became aware she was eligible to file a suit under the False Claims Act. That led her to Phillips & Cohen, a law firm involved in whistle-blower cases.
Her firing, meanwhile, left her unable to get another job in her field; word of her demise at Novation seemed to precede her wherever she went. Former colleagues stopped speaking to her. “I was probably at one of the lowest points in my life,” she says.
She eventually founded her own business, Dimension Medical Supply. But she regrets the contentious departure from Novation, a company that made her feel as if she “was coming home” when it hired her. Deciding to speak out about the company’s dealings was difficult, she says.
“I warred with myself,” she says. “There weren’t any blacks in upper management. I knew that there were opportunities there, and I could rise to those opportunities.”
She was tempted, she says, to follow the status quo at Novation. And a little voice in her head kept saying, “Why can’t you just take the money and run? Buck up, girl, this is the system. You can take it and go places.”
In the end, the place she decided to go was court. |
#1051: “The nightly dinner debate during family visits is making me very cranky indeed.”
Hi Captain,
I’m such a fan of your kind and logical advice! I’m hoping for scripts to deal with a nasty pattern that my family falls into at mealtimes when we’re visiting my parents and brothers- it’s kind of like the abilene paradox on steroids, but while hungry.
I tell spouse and my parents that I’m going to make salmon and a salad for dinner, and do they want any. Parents counter with a 40 minute discussion of whether I eat fish (only if not baked), whether chicken would be better (Mom is pescetarian) whether we can bake the salmon (yes, but then I won’t eat it). I circle back to what I started with, because I’m hungry and this is what I wanted for dinner.
Spouse then asks why I’m cranky and Dad finishes with the ‘whatever you want dear’.
I start prepping, then deal with another 2 attempts to bring chicken back into the mix and a quick derailment of maybe we should have gotten takeout.
At this point its been over an hr of discussion for dinner, and as far as I can tell, no one is happy with the choice of food. And this sort of nonsense happens every night we visit, and is only amplified when my brothers and their spouses are in the mix.
I’ve tried the escape with spouse for dinner, but then I have to deal with the parental ‘oh can we come with, since we’d like to have dinner with you, but we don’t like any of the restaurants you’d want, but we’ll suck it up since that’s what you want’
How on earth do I avoid this nonsense?
Thanks!
Ugh, I can see why this is maddening. There is a deeply-ingrained thing I’ll call a Family Social Fallacy here along the lines of “Families eat together, so, we have to eat all together as a family, and we all have to eat the same thing (even though we are grownups with widely varied dietary needs and tastes) for it to count.” This is why you’re having such a hard time even though your very sensible, logical strategies for handling your own dietary needs (making what you want and offering it to other people to eat if they want, eating out sometimes) aren’t quite working. It’s not just about baked fish vs. not-baked fish, it’s about FAAAAAAAAAAMILYYYYYYYY, the culture of your family, how your family sees itself (and food, and the ritual of eating together). It’s not easy to swim against the current in these situations.
I think that there are ways to make your strategies work a little better for you, but all of them involve a mind shift where you decide “Hey, it’s actually cool if we don’t eat together” or “Hey, it’s cool if you don’t 100% love what I’m cooking, I’m doing it anyway” and stick to your path even if other people express discontent. Once you decide that you’re allowed to do that even if people are momentarily upset by it, enforcing boundaries will be easier. The first time will be the hardest time, but if you can hold fast, people will generally adjust.
For example, what if you bought the groceries for what you want to eat and then went in the kitchen and made whatever you want to eat whenever you want to eat without discussing it at all? Make enough portions for you, spouse, and whoever is around to opt in if they want some. “I made a bunch of salmon & a salad, help yourself.” This creates a potential waste/leftovers issue, but a) you have a lot of experience with these folks and you know that they are likelier than not to opt in and b) if there are leftovers that solves tomorrow’s lunch or whatever. “I’m gonna eat last night’s salmon & salad, don’t worry about me!” The other adults in the house will not starve if you do this, takeout is a thing, grocery store rotisserie chickens are a thing, throwing some salmon in a skillet for yourself and giving some to your mom to bake or whatever is a thing.
Or, what if you say “I’m making myself some salmon & a salad for dinner, who wants some?” and, when the inevitable discussion begins, what if you interrupted people and maybe raised your voice a little bit: “I’m going to stop you right there. I am making salmon and a salad for dinner for myself. Do you want some, yes or no?” Give yourself permission to ignore anything they say that is not “Yes, count me in, thank you” or “No thanks, I’ll fend for myself tonight.” What about chicken? What about baked fish? What about a pony? Who fucking cares? No more hour(s) of debate. Give people 5 minutes maximum to opt in or out and then go make food for yourself and whoever was smart enough to opt in.
As for dining out (a smart strategy!), sometimes the answer is “We really have our heart set on [thing you don’t like], so we’re going to go ahead without you. We’ll come back and play some cards or watch a movie with you afterward, though!” or “We’re gonna grab dinner by ourselves, can we bring back some dessert though?” and if your parents have feelings about that they can sit with those feelings while they bake a chicken together.
And sometimes the answer is “Of course you can come. We’re going to [a place where you, the Letter Writer, know you can find something you can eat]” and if they complain you either decide to ride it out and roll your eyes at it because this is a quirk of your parents and you knew what it would be like, or you decide to say “You sound like me when I was five and didn’t want to eat my lima beans. Enough with the complaining already!!!”
An overall script and strategy can involve you owning your dietary restrictions & needs, like, “Yep, I’m a picky eater, I need stuff to be a certain way and I need to eat at certain times or I get really cranky, so I’m going to go ahead and make sure I’m taken care of. I’m happy to share, but if you hate my cooking or need something different, I totally get it, I’ll just fend for myself and then get out of your way so you can make whatever you want!”
Another possible strategy is to find some family togetherness rituals on these visits that aren’t based around eating. Pictionary? A movie marathon? A giant puzzle, or building the Millennium Falcon out of Lego? Going bowling? Dance Dance Revolution? There’s probably more than one way to disrupt the “Mealtimes are family togetherness time” thing that is lovely in theory but not working for you in practice. Find that way and spend some quality, not-cranky time with your folks.
Oh, so, by the way I’ve turned comments off on this post and on all other posts that were currently open for commenting. I’m giving myself a holiday break from moderating discussions this week. Thanks for reading! |
Prime real estate or toxic mess? Hunters Point in San Francisco is one of the largest redevelopment projects in the Bay Area. The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit first revealed Tetra Tech, the government contractor cleaning up the former Superfund site, admitted to mishandling soil samples and falsifying data. Now, a former worker explains how he claims it all happened. Senior Investigative Reporter Vicky Nguyen has the exclusive interview in a story that aired March 10, 2016. (Published Thursday, March 10, 2016)
When Anthony Smith walked away from Hunters Point four years ago, he carried a secret with him—a secret involving radiation, deception and a government contractor.
For the first time last November, the former radiation control technician revealed to the Investigative Unit the tactics he said his supervisors used to conceal radiation on Hunters Point. The 800-acre former Superfund site is slated for parks, shops and homes.
Smith said what he witnessed—and what he did—calls into question claims that Hunters Point has been properly cleaned up and does not pose a public health hazard. For decades on Hunters Point, the Navy operated a radiological defense laboratory and decontaminated ships exposed to nuclear weapons tests.
Photos: Cleaning Up Hunters Point Naval Shipyard
Pasadena-based company Tetra Tech won $300 million in Navy contracts to oversee the cleanup of radiation. Smith said the company repeatedly cut corners to save money. In an interview with NBC Bay Area, Smith claimed Tetra Tech supervisors:
Ordered him to replace potentially contaminated soil samples with clean soil samples.
Instructed him to dump potentially contaminated soil into open trenches across Hunters Point.
Forced him to sign falsified documents that were later submitted to the government.
Tampered with computer data that analyzed radiation levels.
He said he decided to speak out “to clear my name, make everything right and let people know what really happened.”
Tetra Tech has ignored multiple interview requests to discuss claims made by Smith and concerns raised by the state health department and whistleblowers in a series of NBC Bay Area investigations dating back to 2014.
An onsite supervisor told the Investigative Unit that inquires about Tetra Tech must go through the Navy, but the Navy has also declined interview requests. A Navy spokesman said the agency hired another contractor to provide extra quality control at Hunters Point.
Switching Soil Samples and Dumping Soil into Trenches
Smith left his Georgia home in 2002 and worked on and off at Hunters Point as a radiation control technician until 2012. As part of his job, he collected soil samples. That soil was then surveyed to determine contamination levels.
Smith said beginning in 2009, his supervisors began instructing him to get rid of contaminated soil samples and replace them with clean soil samples. He said the switching of the soil samples often took place out of public view, inside large Conex bins located around the job site. He estimates hundreds of samples had been switched.
“I didn’t like it because it wasn’t right,” Smith said. “That’s not the way it was supposed to be done.”
Smith believes multiple locations across Hunters Point may still be contaminated with radiation.
Hunters Point Worker Says Supervisors Instructed Him to Get Rid of Soil Contaminated with Radiation
Former radiation control technician Anthony Smith collected soil samples on Hunters Point, including underneath a building referred to as Building 351A. The building used to house the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory. The soil underneath the building had been cleaned up, but Smith says he discovered a soil sample contaminated with radiation even after the building had been remediated. He says his supervisors told him to get rid of the contaminated soil sample and replace it with a clean soil sample from another location. He says it was faster and cheaper for his supervisors to say the soil was clean instead of contaminated. (Published Tuesday, March 8, 2016)
He said he collected soil samples underneath a structure referred to as building 351A, which once housed part of the Navy’s radiological lab. He recalls a sample tested positive for radium, an element linked to bone cancer.
“When I took a sample it came back hot,” he said, “and they made me get rid of it.”
Smith said the building should have been remediated after he found a hot soil sample, but he questions whether crews subsequently cleaned up the contamination. He said remediating the area would have taken more time and money.
Investigative Former Contractors Claim Hunters Point Cleanup is Botched
The California Department of Public Health also questioned the cleanup of building 351A. In December the department ordered the structure to be retested. The state reported that “no contamination was found.” Health officials confirmed Tetra Tech conducted the retesting.
Smith said his supervisors directed him to dump the discarded, potentially contaminated soil into trenches that have since been covered or paved. Smith said there is no way to know what the contamination levels are in the trenches without retesting the soil. He said as far as he can tell, Tetra Tech did not test the trenches after they were backfilled.
Falsified Documents and Data
Smith also said Tetra Tech fabricated documents called Chain of Custody forms, which are supposed to document where and when Smith took soil samples and certify that the samples stayed under his control. He said sometimes his bosses would fill out the forms instead.
“I never got to see them until the end of the day when all I done was sign my name and put the date,” Smith said.
He said he also watched Tetra Tech supervisors change computer data that detailed radiation readings, a practice he considers to be fraud. Smith said if his bosses thought a radiation level was too high, they would knock it down to a lower level.
Smith said he repeatedly raised concerns to Tetra Tech but that the response was always the same—he could go home if he didn’t like the company’s tactics. Smith said he needed the job so he stuck it out.
Investigative Workers Say Hunters Point Dirt Needs Radiation Screening
“I really didn’t have nowhere else to go work if I didn’t stay here,” Smith said. “I tell you one thing, when I came out here I was healthy and when I left I had high blood pressure. Very high. That’s how much it ate at me.”
Internal Tetra Tech Report
Smith’s contract expired in 2012. He put Hunters Point behind him until the Investigative Unit contacted him about an internal Tetra Tech report produced in April 2014. In it, the company admitted to the “mishandling of soil samples” and submitting “falsified data” to the Navy.
Tetra Tech came up with multiple theories, but could not definitively conclude how or why soil samples were switched and data was falsified. In the report, the company blamed the “sample collectors on the chain of custody forms” including Smith. He believes the company made him its scapegoat.
Investigative Contractor Submitted False Radiation Data at Hunters Point
“They were blaming me for something [they] were telling me to do every day,” Smith said.
According to Tetra Tech’s report, the company disciplined two supervisors, conducted ethical training and resurveyed and remediated the areas identified in the report. In February, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found Tetra Tech may have violated an NRC requirement and is now considering enforcement action.
Investigative Regulators Question Hunters Point Radiation Testing
Smith believes the company failed to identify and retest other questionable locations on the site. He worries the health of people who will work, play and live at Hunters Point may be at stake. He said the cleanup can’t be trusted.
“It’s not good and it’s not right,” Smith said.
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Sometimes you realize you need a fresh start.
When we started Handelabra Studio, we knew that we wanted to explore many different types of applications, only one of which was games. But the experience of making Uncle Slam showed us that gaming isn't just another type of app. It's our passion. We realized that we wanted to make games, games and more games.
Turning a ship like Handelabra is no small task so it was important, once we decided on this new direction, to get the right people on our team to help us execute this change in the best way possible. The way this would manifest itself would be a combination of the right team, the right partners and the right project.
The Project
If you are a gamer, and a fan of ours, you've probably played Uncle Slam. But we've had another app in our stable for more than a year now called Sentinels Sidekick. Not a game in and of itself, Sentinels Sidekick is a companion app for a tabletop card game called Sentinels of the Multiverse. Sentinels is a cooperative game where up to five players take on the personas of super heroes to battle villains and save the world. As most tabletop games do, Sentinels has a lot of "bookkeeping" involved while you play and Sentinels Sidekick makes that process easier to manage. But in our heart of hearts, we've always really wanted to try our hand at bringing this game into the digital world.
And so, we're happy to announce that the first project of the newly minted Handelabra Games Inc. will be Sentinels of the Multiverse, coming to iPads and Android Tablets in Spring 2014. |
So, the latest excuse for what is ailing the British economy is the crisis in the eurozone; it's always somebody else's fault. No longer should we blame the weather or lots of bank holidays or the royal wedding but those pesky Europeans. Of course, it couldn't possibly be the government's policies that have caused the slowing, could it?
More seriously, it isn't as if the government was not warned or that a slowing euro area is actually news. Austerity in the UK is pushing us back into recession, as it is in the eurozone. Plus, we have had a major depreciation of the currency, which should have created jobs and growth through import substitution – as imported goods are more expensive, this should have given a fillip to domestic production. But it hasn't.
Elsewhere, industrial production numbers released by Eurostat on 14 November (see table) showed a 2 per cent fall in the eurozone in
September 2011, compared with August 2011. This represented the largest monthly drop since February 2009, a pretty scary outcome, which suggests that the eurozone in general - and France, Germany and Italy in particular - are headed into recession.
Panic stations
This chimes with the composite leading indicators (CLIs) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which continue to point to a slowdown in economic activity. Compared to last month's assessment, the CLIs point more strongly to slowdowns in all major economies. The OECD also noted that in Japan, Russia and the US, the CLIs point to slowdowns in growth towards long-term trends.
The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is likely to downgrade its growth forecast, even after the £75bn monetary stimulus that it introduced in October is incorporated into its calculations. To me, this suggests that there will be even more quantitative easing (QE) to come.
In addition, the latest unemployment numbers are very bad. The REC/KMPG survey showed that permanent placements fell for the first time in over two years in October. The Labour Market Opinion (LMO) net employment balance score (that is, the overall effect of recruiting new staff and making redundancies) has fallen from -1 per cent to -3 per cent since the summer quarter. This is the second successive quarterly fall and the lowest net balance since last winter. And youth unemployment passed the million mark (reaching 1.02 million) on 16 November, which is likely to create a great deal of public outcry. No amount of spin or fiddling with the statistics - which, to this point, has been the employment minister Chris Grayling's modus operandi - will solve the problem. Apparently, new government measures are on the way but they will take a long time to have any effect.
I have heard from various sources that panic prevails in the corridors of Whitehall, as the search for growth-enhancing measures to announce at the autumn statement on 29 November is not going well. The latest data from the Bank of England, which showed that net lending to British businesses increased by just £0.4bn in the past three months, presumably wouldn't have helped matters. Lending to small and medium-sized businesses was down £1.7bn on the quarter but my sources tell me that the government's plans for credit easing are far from ready to go.
As far as I understand it, the problem is that the government has little planned that could do anything much before 2014. Toll roads and other measures to improve the infrastructure won't have much impact for several years. However, the CBI's idea to give a break in National Insurance contributions of newly hired youngsters is a welcome start.
Dangers of contagion
Above all, these are very scary days in the financial markets. My guess is that something very serious happened at the end of August and early September that put the frighteners on UK policymakers. In all likelihood, a European bank secretly had to be rescued with an infusion of capital, just as was done for RBS and Lloyds in the autumn of 2008. This would explain the sudden move by the MPC's internal members Paul Fisher, Paul Tucker, Charles Bean, Spencer Dale and Mervyn King to vote for more QE in October; they have seen something, just as they did in October 2008. The apocalyptic language in the statement that the MPC released when they announced QE2 gives us a clue as to how serious the problems are:
Vulnerabilities associated with the indebtedness of some euro-area sovereigns and banks have resulted in severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets more generally. These tensions in the world economy threaten the UK recovery.
The MPC has never used the word "threaten" before in any communication. I'm convinced that something happened to scare policymakers. If so, at least the authorities have acted.
The Prime Minister and the Chancellor would have been informed by the governor of the Bank of England, King, on the dangers of contagion to the UK economy. This would explain their sudden conversion to the need to give the IMF more money for bailouts. The break-up of the eurozone would present a major downside risk to UK economic growth and could well be the same order of magnitude as the 2008 downturn - an overall drop in output of 7 per cent or so. Panic reigns.
David Blanchflower is the NS economics editor and professor at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and the University of Stirling |
Steven Moffat
Photograph by Toby Canham/Getty Images.
Click here to read about real-life crime-fighting in Sherlock Holmes-era London.
What makes this Sherlock different from all the other Holmeses? The Sherlock that returns to Masterpiece Mystery for a second season on Sunday (PBS, 9 p.m. ET) is modern, witty, and served up with a cheeky wink. (It’s also poised for an American breakout as its stars achieve more mainstream fame.) Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, all cheekbones and billowing Belstaff coat, Sherlock’s Sherlock’s a fast-talking, giggle-inducing tease. Without ever mentioning Arthur Conan Doyle or any of the earlier incarnations of Holmes, the series plays the classic accessories and tics—the wardrobe, the bad habits, the maddening lack of impulse control—for amusement: In 21st-century London, there is no way to wear a deerstalker unironically, and Sherlock doesn’t even try.
But he is also a conundrum, and many viewers spent the first season, which first aired here in 2010, trying to puzzle out who he truly is. Sherlock may be set in the present day, but Sherlock can be doggedly old-fashioned: Though he always keeps an iPhone close at hand, he prefers to stare into a microscope and visit the “mind palace” inside his head. He is a showoff, yet he keeps his most impressive feats of detection to himself. He’s a Johnny-no-mates nonetheless willing to sacrifice everything for the handful of people he cares about. And he is an asexual manipulator who somehow seduces everyone he meets. Is he a sociopath or on the side of the angels? Or, as the show suggests at times, both? Earlier this week, I asked Cumberbatch and Steven Moffat, the show’s co-creator, to help me distinguish the red herrings from the reliable clues to Sherlock’s character.
In the first of this season’s three 90-minute episodes—self-contained movies, really—Sherlock tangles with Irene Adler, a crafty dominatrix being chased by American spies and British royals. Sherlock is impervious to her charms—she can’t even fluster him by entering the room naked. Does his apparent lack of interest in the sins of the flesh mean that Sherlock is asexual? Not according to Moffat, who is best known to U.S. audiences for his work as a writer and now show-runner for Doctor Who. Holmes has simply suppressed certain appetites for the sake of his calling as a consulting detective: “All that sex lark? That doesn’t matter. All that emotion? That gets in the way,” Moffat says. “He cuts through all that to what he wants, which is to be the very, very best at what he does.”
But what about his manners? As with his distant cousin Gregory House, Sherlock’s sense of his own superiority makes him careless with other people’s feelings, unable to mute his powers even when his observations hurt. When a female guest arrives at a Christmas gathering at 221B Baker Street in the season premiere, Sherlock announces that a perfectly wrapped gift tucked away in her bag is clearly an attempt at seduction—embarrassing everyone but Sherlock when it becomes clear that the present is for him. Isn’t he a thoughtless snob? Not at all, says Cumberbatch; he simply has no time to waste. “That doesn’t make him a bad man. There’s so much in the 21st century that is stymied by bureaucracy and mediocrity and committee. It’s a great thrill to see someone cutting through that.”
Well then, is he, as his flat-mate and collaborator John Watson (Martin Freeman) suggests in a moment of frustration, “a machine,” who exhibits no emotional response when a dear friend appears to be in mortal danger? No, Cumberbatch sees his character as a loving, caring human: “You can’t be a master interpreter of behavioral science and the logic of human interaction in the way that he is—diagnosing people’s behavior, the evidence on their person, their psychology—unless you have an understanding of it.”
Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in Sherlock. Photograph by BBC.
OK, but surely Sherlock is an attention whore—a celebrity who courts the tabloid press and enjoys the flash of the paparazzi. When Sherlock’s showboating performance in a high-profile trial turns him into even more of a public figure, he seems excited to find himself chased by packs of reporters. Still, Cumberbatch doesn’t think he craves the attention: “He doesn’t want fans. He complains to John about his burgeoning Internet fame, but he makes no bones about it when he’s being brilliant. He can’t filter that. He gets too much enjoyment out of it. It erupts.”
You might even ask if Sherlock deserves to be at the center of the show. In their loose interpretation of Doyle’s stories, Moffat and co-creator Mark Gatiss have beefed up the role of Holmes’ nemesis, Jim Moriarty, played with slimy gusto by Andrew Scott. Here in the antihero-loving United States—home of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Boardwalk Empire—this would surely have guaranteed Moriarty the title role in the series, but Moffat dismisses my dreams of Moriarty!, saying Sherlock’s much more interesting to him. He loves Sherlock’s striving for perfection; quoting with relish Conan Doyle’s description of Holmes as a man who “makes a special effort to be better than his human frailties might seem to allow him.”
Eliminate every alternative and what remains, no matter how unlikely, is the solution. So, what is the key to Sherlock Holmes? For Moffat it’s something usually missing from the world of TV: satisfaction. Sherlock Holmes is perfectly comfortable in his own skin. “As much as it may horrify us, Sherlock’s quite a happy man. He gets a bit bored between cases, but he enjoys himself. He’s got his best pal, he’s got his nice flat, and he goes out and has tremendous adventures. He’s unrepentant about how he is, because he honestly can’t see a damned thing wrong with it.” And the secret of his appeal? “If you met a man like Sherlock Holmes, and he was that clever, and that dazzling, you’d be fascinated by him. He would be absolutely magnetic. The fact that he is carelessly rude to you wouldn’t concern you at all. Fascinatingly confident, rude people are great.”
I suspect this is an opinion held in very few places other than the heads of TV writers. A real-life Sherlock, forever touting his brilliance and running rampant over fragile emotions, would be intolerable. But this TV version has an Achilles’ heel. Every so often, in moments of extremis—as in the final episode of last season, when he was willing to risk everything to save John Watson’s life—he reveals that his bluster and coldness is all an act: He loves us “ordinaries.” That makes us love him back. |
The Confederate Revolving Cannon was a weapon developed and used during the U.S. Civil War. The weapon had a design similar to that of a revolver pistol, scaled up to the size of a cannon.
History [ edit ]
Henry Clay Pate was a former attorney who, during the U.S. Civil War, organized a mounted company that was called Pate's Rangers or the Petersburg Rangers. The innovative Pate designed the revolving cannon, which he had cast at the Petersburg foundry in Petersburg, Va. This cannon was then made available to Pate's unit.[1]
The cannon saw use in the siege of Petersburg, Va. It was captured by Union troops at Danville, Va, on April 27, 1865. While innovative, the weapon did not play a significant role on the battlefield. After its capture, the cannon was sent to the Ordnance Laboratory, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.
Design and Features [ edit ]
The revolving cannon was designed with the goal of increasing the fire rate of a cannon. The design was similar to that of a revolving pistol of the time, consisting of a cylinder which contained the rounds to be fired, with the rotation of the cylinder being used to bring a round into position at the breech of a single barrel. The barrel had a two-inch bore, and the cylinder held five rounds.
The cylinders of the revolving cannon were fired using percussion caps. The cap was struck by a large spring-actuated striker.
The cannon employed a screw mechanism which pushed the cylinder forward when it was in position. This reduced the gap between the cylinder and the barrel, which significantly reduced gas leakage during firing.
A lever attached to a ratcheting mechanism was used to rotate the cylinder. A spring-loaded cog would slip into recesses in the cylinder, holding it in the correct position for firing.[2]
See also [ edit ] |
It’s time again for my annual review of MIRI’s activities. In this post I’ll provide a summary of what we did in 2016, see how our activities compare to our previously stated goals and predictions, and reflect on how our strategy this past year fits into our mission as an organization. We’ll be following this post up in April with a strategic update for 2017.
After doubling the size of the research team in 2015, we slowed our growth in 2016 and focused on integrating the new additions into our team, making research progress, and writing up a backlog of existing results.
2016 was a big year for us on the research front, with our new researchers making some of the most notable contributions. Our biggest news was Scott Garrabrant’s logical inductors framework, which represents by a significant margin our largest progress to date on the problem of logical uncertainty. We additionally released “Alignment for Advanced Machine Learning Systems” (AAMLS), a new technical agenda spearheaded by Jessica Taylor.
We also spent this last year engaging more heavily with the wider AI community, e.g., through the month-long Colloquium Series on Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence we co-ran with the Future of Humanity Institute, and through talks and participation in panels at many events through the year.
2016 Research Progress
We saw significant progress this year in our agent foundations agenda, including Scott Garrabrant’s logical inductor formalism (which represents possibly our most significant technical result to date) and related developments in Vingean reflection. At the same time, we saw relatively little progress in error tolerance and value specification, which we had planned to put more focus on in 2016. Below, I’ll note the highlights from each of our research areas:
Logical Uncertainty and Naturalized Induction
2015 progress: sizable. (Predicted: modest.)
2016 progress: sizable. (Predicted: sizable.)
We saw a large body of results related to logical induction. Logical induction developed out of earlier work led by Scott Garrabrant in late 2015 (written up in April 2016) that served to divide the problem of logical uncertainty into two subproblems. Scott demonstrated that both problems could be solved at once using an algorithm that satisfies a highly general “logical induction criterion.”
This criterion provides a simple way of understanding idealized reasoning under resource limitations. In Andrew Critch’s words, logical induction is “a financial solution to the computer science problem of metamathematics”: a procedure that assigns reasonable probabilities to arbitrary (empirical, logical, mathematical, self-referential, etc.) sentences in a way that outpaces deduction, explained by analogy to inexploitable stock markets.
Our other main 2016 work in this domain is an independent line of research spearheaded by MIRI research associate Vadim Kosoy, “Optimal Polynomial-Time Estimators: A Bayesian Notion of Approximation Algorithm.” Vadim approaches the problem of logical uncertainty from a more complexity-theoretic angle of attack than logical induction does, providing a formalism for defining optimal feasible approximations of computationally infeasible objects that retain a number of relevant properties of those objects.
Decision Theory
2015 progress: modest. (Predicted: modest.)
2016 progress: modest. (Predicted: modest.)
We continue to see a steady stream of interesting results related to the problem of defining logical counterfactuals. In 2016, we began applying the logical inductor framework to decision-theoretic problems, working with the idea of universal inductors. Andrew Critch also developed a game-theoretic method for resolving policy disagreements that outperforms standard compromise approaches and also allows for negotiators to disagree on factual questions.
We have a backlog of many results to write up in this space. Our newest, “Cheating Death in Damascus,” summarizes the case for functional decision theory, a theory that systematically outperforms the conventional academic views (causal and evidential decision theory) in decision theory and game theory. This is the basic framework we use for studying logical counterfactuals and related open problems, and is a good introductory paper for understanding our other work in this space.
For an overview of our more recent work on this topic, see Tsvi Benson-Tilsen’s decision theory index on the research forum.
Vingean Reflection
2015 progress: modest. (Predicted: modest.)
2016 progress: modest-to-strong. (Predicted: limited.)
Our main results in reflective reasoning last year concerned self-trust in logical inductors. After seeing no major advances in Vingean reflection for many years—the last big step forward was perhaps Benya Fallenstein’s model polymorphism proposal in late 2012—we had planned to de-prioritize work on this problem in 2016, on the assumption that other tools were needed before we could make much more headway. However, in 2016 logical induction turned out to be surprisingly useful for solving a number of outstanding tiling problems.
As described in “Logical Induction,” logical inductors provide a simple demonstration of self-referential reasoning that is highly general and accurate, is free of paradox, and assigns reasonable credence to the reasoner’s own beliefs. This provides some evidence that the problem of logical uncertainty itself is relatively central to a number of puzzles concerning the theoretical foundations of intelligence.
Error Tolerance
2015 progress: limited. (Predicted: modest.)
2016 progress: limited. (Predicted: modest.)
2016 saw the release of our “Alignment for Advanced ML Systems” research agenda, with a focus on error tolerance and value specification. Less progress occurred in these areas than expected, partly because investigations here are still very preliminary. We also spent less time on research in mid-to-late 2016 overall than we had planned, in part because we spent a lot of time writing up our new results and research proposals.
Nate noted in our October AMA that he considers this time investment in drafting write-ups one of our main 2016 errors, and we plan to spend less time on paper-writing in 2017.
Our 2016 work on error tolerance included “Two Problems with Causal-Counterfactual Utility Indifference” and some time we spent discussing and critiquing Dylan Hadfield-Menell’s proposal of corrigibility via CIRL. We plan to share our thoughts on the latter line of research more widely later this year.
Value Specification
2015 progress: limited. (Predicted: limited.)
2016 progress: weak-to-modest. (Predicted: modest.)
Although we planned to put more focus on value specification last year, we ended up making less progress than expected. Examples of our work in this area include Jessica Taylor and Ryan Carey’s posts on online learning, and Jessica’s analysis of how errors might propagate within a system of humans consulting one another.
We’re extremely pleased with our progress on the agent foundations agenda over the last year, and we’re hoping to see more progress cascading from the new set of tools we’ve developed. At the same time, it remains to be seen how tractable the new set of problems we’re tackling in the AAMLS agenda are.
2016 Research Support Activities
In September, we brought on Ryan Carey to support Jessica’s work on the AAMLS agenda as an assistant research fellow. Our assistant research fellowship program seems to be working out well; Ryan has been a lot of help to us in working with Jessica to write up results (e.g., “Bias-Detecting Online Learners”), along with setting up TensorFlow tools for a project with Patrick LaVictoire.
We’ll likely be expanding the program this year and bringing on additional assistant research fellows, in addition to a slate of new research fellows.
Focusing on other activities that relate relatively directly to our technical research program, including collaborating and syncing up with researchers in industry and academia, in 2016 we:
On the whole, our research team growth in 2016 was somewhat slower than expected. We’re still accepting applicants for our type theorist position (and for other research roles at MIRI, via our Get Involved page), but we expect to leave that role unfilled for at least the next 6 months while we focus on onboarding additional core researchers.
2016 General Activities
Also in 2016, we:
2016 Fundraising
2016 was a strong year in MIRI’s fundraising efforts. We raised a total of $2,285,200, a 44% increase on the $1,584,109 raised in 2015. This increase was largely driven by:
A general grant of $500,000 from the Open Philanthropy Project.
from the Open Philanthropy Project. A donation of $300,000 from Blake Borgeson.
from Blake Borgeson. Contributions of $93,548 from Raising for Effective Giving.
from Raising for Effective Giving. A research grant of $83,309 from the Future of Life Institute.
from the Future of Life Institute. Our community’s strong turnout during our Fall Fundraiser—at $595,947 , our second-largest fundraiser to date.
, our second-largest fundraiser to date. A gratifying show of support from supporters at the end of the year, despite our not running a Winter Fundraiser.
Assuming we can sustain this funding level going forward, this represents a preliminary fulfillment of our primary fundraising goal from January 2016:
Our next big push will be to close the gap between our new budget and our annual revenue. In order to sustain our current growth plans — which are aimed at expanding to a team of approximately ten full-time researchers — we’ll need to begin consistently taking in close to $2M per year by mid-2017.
As the graph below indicates, 2016 continued a positive trend of growth in our fundraising efforts.
Drawing conclusions from these year-by-year comparisons can be a little tricky. MIRI underwent significant organizational changes over this time span, particularly in 2013. We also switched to accrual-based accounting in 2014, which also complicates comparisons with previous years.
However, it is possible to highlight certain aspects of our progress in 2016:
The Fall Fundraiser: For the first time, we held a single fundraiser in 2016 instead of our “traditional” summer and winter fundraisers—from mid-September to October 31. While we didn’t hit our initial target of $750k, we hoped that our funders were waiting to give later in the year and would make up the shortfall at the end of year. We were pleased that they came through in large numbers at the end of 2016, some possibly motivated by public posts by members of the community. All told, we received more contributions in December 2016 (~$430,000) than in the same month in either of the previous two years, when we actively ran Winter Fundraisers, an interesting data point for us. The following charts throw additional light on our supporters’ response to the fall fundraiser:
Note that if we remove the Open Philanthropy Project’s grant from the Pre-Fall data, the ratios across the 4 time segments all look pretty similar. Overall, this data is suggestive that, rather than a group of new funders coming in at the last moment, a segment of our existing funders chose to wait until the end of the year to donate.
For the first time, we held a single fundraiser in 2016 instead of our “traditional” summer and winter fundraisers—from mid-September to October 31. While we didn’t hit our initial target of $750k, we hoped that our funders were waiting to give later in the year and would make up the shortfall at the end of year. We were pleased that they came through in large numbers at the end of 2016, some possibly motivated by public posts by members of the community. All told, we received more contributions in December 2016 (~$430,000) than in the same month in either of the previous two years, when we actively ran Winter Fundraisers, an interesting data point for us. The following charts throw additional light on our supporters’ response to the fall fundraiser: Note that if we remove the Open Philanthropy Project’s grant from the Pre-Fall data, the ratios across the 4 time segments all look pretty similar. Overall, this data is suggestive that, rather than a group of new funders coming in at the last moment, a segment of our existing funders chose to wait until the end of the year to donate. In 2016 the remarkable support we received from returning funders was particularly noteworthy, with 89% retention (in terms of dollars) from 2015 funders. To put this in a broader context, the average gift retention rate across a representative segment of the US philanthropic space over the last 5 years has been 46%.
(in terms of dollars) from 2015 funders. To put this in a broader context, the average gift retention rate across a representative segment of the US philanthropic space over the last 5 years has been 46%. The number of unique funders to MIRI rose 16% in 2016 —from 491 to 571—continuing a general increasing trend. 2014 is anomalously high on this graph due to the community’s active participation in our memorable SVGives campaign.
—from 491 to 571—continuing a general increasing trend. 2014 is anomalously high on this graph due to the community’s active participation in our memorable SVGives campaign. International support continues to make up about 20% of contributions. Unlike in the US, where increases were driven mainly by new institutional support (the Open Philanthropy Project), international support growth was driven by individuals across Europe (notably Scandinavia and the UK), Australia, and Canada.
Unlike in the US, where increases were driven mainly by new institutional support (the Open Philanthropy Project), international support growth was driven by individuals across Europe (notably Scandinavia and the UK), Australia, and Canada. Use of employer matching programs increased by 17% year-on-year , with contributions of over $180,000 received through corporate matching programs in 2016, our highest to date. There are early signs of this growth continuing through 2017.
, with contributions of over $180,000 received through corporate matching programs in 2016, our highest to date. There are early signs of this growth continuing through 2017. An analysis of contributions made from small, mid-sized, large, and very large funder segments shows contributions from all four segments increased proportionally from 2015:
Due to the fact that we raised more than $2 million in 2016, we are now required by California law to prepare an annual financial statement audited by an independent certified public accountant (CPA). That report, like our financial reports of past years, will be made available by the end of September, on our transparency and financials page.
Going Forward
As of July 2016, we had the following outstanding goals from mid-2015:
Accelerated growth: “expand to a roughly ten-person core research team.” (source) Type theory in type theory project: “hire one or two type theorists to work on developing relevant tools full-time.” (source) Independent review: “We’re also looking into options for directly soliciting public feedback from independent researchers regarding our research agenda and early results.” (source)
We currently have seven research fellows and assistant fellows, and are planning to hire several more in the very near future. We expect to hit our ten-fellow goal in the next 3–4 months, and to continue to grow the research team later this year. As noted above, we’re delaying moving forward on a type theorist hire.
The Open Philanthropy Project is currently reviewing our research agenda as part of their process of evaluating us for future grants. They released an initial big-picture organizational review of MIRI in September, accompanied by reviews of several recent MIRI papers (which Nate responded to here). These reviews were generally quite critical of our work, with Open Phil expressing a number of reservations about our agent foundations agenda and our technical progress to date. We are optimistic, however, that we will be able to better make our case to Open Phil in discussions going forward, and generally converge more in our views of what open problems deserve the most attention.
In our August 2016 strategic update, Nate outlined our other organizational priorities and plans:
Technical research: continue work on our agent foundations agenda while kicking off work on AAMLS. AGI alignment overviews: “Eliezer Yudkowsky and I will be splitting our time between working on these problems and doing expository writing. Eliezer is writing about alignment theory, while I’ll be writing about MIRI strategy and forecasting questions.” Academic outreach events: “To help promote our approach and grow the field, we intend to host more workshops aimed at diverse academic audiences. We’ll be hosting a machine learning workshop in the near future, and might run more events like CSRBAI going forward.” Paper-writing: “We also have a backlog of past technical results to write up, which we expect to be valuable for engaging more researchers in computer science, economics, mathematical logic, decision theory, and other areas.”
All of these are still priorities for us, though we now consider 5 somewhat more important (and 6 and 7 less important). We’ve since run three ML workshops, and have made more headway on our AAMLS research agenda. We now have a large amount of content prepared for our AGI alignment overviews, and are beginning a (likely rather long) editing process. We’ve also released “Logical Induction” and have a number of other papers in the pipeline.
We’ll be providing more details on how our priorities have changed since August in a strategic update post next month. As in past years, object-level technical research on the AI alignment problem will continue to be our top priority, although we’ll be undergoing a medium-sized shift in our research priorities and outreach plans. |
The current game environment (see screenshot) has flaws:
Its going for a realistic look which requires lots of texture work and large textures. Elements like bridges and ladders require lots of tris without producing enough buzz. The pillars block the view even for ridiculously placed cameras. Which requires expensive z-buffer magic (blending and double draw calls) with complex programming. The confined environment and camera properties call for a backdrop graphic or other kind of background.
Before I dive headless into the next iteration of the environment, I should do some thinking.
Camera angle and focal length determine how much of the environment can be seen. The angle is determined by the game mechanics: one has to be able to see what one has to see to play the game. The focal length is limited: getting the camera to close will distort the view on the important game elements. Besides these contraints, the camera properties can be tailored for the background.
As the following graphics show, longer focal length and steeper angles lead to less visible environment. This effects the environment elements that can be seen, their placement, and their size. Hence it is very useful to fix angle and focal length before hand, work with a placeholder environemnt, and do all the detailed work on the environment later.
Anyhow, since a foto realistic style is beyond my abilities, would require too much effort, and doesn’t really work for an indie game anyways, I decided to go for a simple, more abstract look. Currently I am thinking about “Low Poly Terrains”. Artists like JR Smith, Alexandre Duforest, Vitaliy Prusakov, or Jeremy Kool are examples for this. It still need to test this might be very suited for my needs: |
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis brought popcorn to a lunch meeting with top Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump on Tuesday, poking fun at the escalating feud between Sen. Bob Corker and Trump.
During an appearance on Fox Business Network on Tuesday, Tillis said he would bring popcorn to the meeting, and he followed through with the stunt, tweeting out photos of himself filling a bag from a Senate popcorn machine.
Corker, who is retiring from the Senate seat he has held since 2007, has been openly critical of Trump for the past several months and on Tuesday told reporters that Trump "has great difficulty with the truth," is not a role model, and will be remembered most for "debasing" the nation.
Trump has lashed out at Corker repeatedly, claiming that the senator is an "incompetent" politician and a "lightweight" who declined to run for reelection after Trump refused to endorse him. (Corker says that Trump encouraged him to run and privately promised to endorse him several times.)
Tillis told Fox host Neil Cavuto that while he could not remember an instance of a president openly denigrating a member of his own party, he seemed to view the feud as a temporary distraction.
"At some point we need to get back again to the task at hand," he said.
Tillis argued that behind closed doors and off of social media, constructive dialogue will resume.
"It'll be interesting to watch," Tillis said, "but you know at the end of the day I think getting people into a room and talking about it we get out of the Twitter and social media personas to people in a room who still are unified in our need to pass tax reform." |
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(Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... (Courtesy | Emery County Sheriff) A Salt Lake County woman is recovering after being wedged in and suspended for nearly 12... |
A bright and lively space scene to top off the year as I have been doing each year since joining deviantART. This one also tops off the whole decade so it can be considered even more special, even though I left myself with little over a day to do it allBut it was fun to do and stress-free compared to most of my other works these days. and one of my favourite themes of course. Ten years ago I was drawing the exact same stuff...often in crayonI was planning on even more colours, but I think I'll do that for a nebula-only piece one day. Scenes with planets just don't look as good with every colour in the spectrum. After much experimentation I got this really sick green/purple combination that may not be realistic, but makes a standSo like, that's it, a nice space scene, especially since I've been neglecting the genre lately, though something tells me I'll never get sick of it |
South Australia has been forgotten when it comes to infrastructure spending, with no new funding allocated in the budget, despite billions to be spent on other states, the State Government has said.
Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis has described the federal budget as one which "pretends that South Australia is not in the country".
Other states received significant infrastructure spends, including $8.4 billion for the inland freight railway to connect Brisbane to Melbourne and $5.3 billion towards the new Western Sydney Airport.
There were no new infrastructure spends for South Australia, with a $36.6 billion announcement for new power infrastructure part of an existing agreement for an asset recycling scheme.
"We made an agreement with (former federal treasurer) Joe Hockey when we exited the Motor Accident Commission that if we reinvested that in infrastructure they would give us a capital grant," Mr Koutsantonis said.
"This is simply that money coming into the budget, it is not new."
Disappointment over no new South Road funding
The Treasurer also said former prime minister Tony Abbott's 2013 promise to fix South Road in a decade has been "broken", with no extra money towards to project beyond what was already budgeted.
"Why has the Liberal party decided not to start funding projects here in SA?" he asked.
"What is about SA that they don't like?
"I think every single Liberal MP in South Australia should hang their heads in shame for not fighting for our state."
The Civil Contractors Federation in South Australia said that it was "astonished" that there was no commitment of new money for the north-south road corridor.
"Quite astonished," the federation's chief executive officer Phillip Sutherland said.
"They can't start the design work until there's a Federal Government funding commitment to do that. We're going to run the very grave risk of ending up with a dog's breakfast of a freeway across Adelaide."
South Australian Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham said his government was pouring money into South Australia, through investment in the defence industry and advanced manufacturing.
Federal Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said that there would be opportunities for South Australia.
He pointed to the "$10 billion in new money" that had been made available for national rail infrastructure.
"There's absolutely no reason why the South Australian Government wouldn't be able to successfully secure funding under that $10 billion," he said.
AdeLINK would be eligible for some of that, if it provides a solid business case.
Little in budget to help submarine build: Xenophon
Share Nick Xenophon is worried most of the money set aside for submarines will go overseas.
SA Senator Nick Xenophon said there was little in the budget to help South Australia's future submarine builders in the short term.
"It looks as though next year there'll only be $319 million spent on the submarine project," he said.
"Most of that money will go to set up Australian teams in France, for the French design team, and for the US combat systems so most of that money will be going overseas."
He also agreed with Tom Koutsantonis that the state had been "dudded" by a lack of infrastructure funding.
Budget gives solar power a boost
One SA group pleased with the budget is Repower Port Augusta, which gets up to $110 million in equity funding to build a solar thermal plant.
"The only barrier to getting this to happen is if the State Government is going to purchase power or not," Repower Port Augusta's Dan Spencer said.
"With this federal investment completely confirmed now, there's no excuses for the state not to do it."
Share The Port Augusta solar plant will be based on the Crescent Dunes facility in Tonopah, Nevada.
The group estimates that solar thermal power will create up to 1,000 construction jobs and 50 ongoing jobs utilising similar skills to those needed to operate Port Augusta's old coal-fired power station.
Other budget announcements relevant to South Australia included $40 million in supplementary road funding for local councils, after it was cut by the Abbott government. |
Little Known Law Used to Detain U.S. Terrorist Suspect Criticized
As the planned closing of the U.S. military’s detention center at Guantanamo Bay draws nearer, human rights activists are raising questions about the treatment of detainees who will be transferred to the U.S. for trial.
But, while the media has focused virtually all its attention on these foreign prisoners held abroad, the government is already imprisoning in the U.S. American citizens awaiting trial on terror-related charges – and under what their supporters describe as draconian conditions.
These people are being held under a Department of Justice rule known as Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), a rule dating from the Bill Clinton era and strengthened during the administration of George W. Bush.
SAMs are designed to keep dangerous inmates in custody from communicating with other terror suspects on the outside, and to prevent them from ordering violence or harming other inmates. The measures were expanded after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, extending the limit to one year from 120 days and permitting the monitoring of communications between the inmates and their lawyers in certain circumstances.
The DOJ and its Bureau of Prisons say six people – four charged with terror-related crimes — are currently being held under the SAMs rule. But one case appears to be attracting increasing attention.
This is the case of Syed Hashmi, a 29-year-old Pakistani immigrant and U.S. citizen who grew up in Queens, New York, and who has been held in solitary confinement in a federal prison in New York City for more than two years while he awaits trial on charges of providing material support to Al Qaeda.
Hashmi, a Muslim, is on a 23-hour solitary-confinement lockdown and 24-hour surveillance including when he showers and goes to the bathroom. He was not allowed family visits for months. Now, he can see one person for an hour and a half, every other week. He is permitted to write one letter a week to a single member of his family, but he cannot use more than three pieces of paper per letter. Within his own cell, he is restricted in his movements and he is not allowed to try to talk guards or other inmates.
Hashmi is forbidden any contact — directly or through his attorneys — with the news media. He can read newspapers, but only those portions approved by his jailers — and not until 30 days after publication. He is forbidden to listen to news radio stations or to watch television news channels.
He is also under 24-hour electronic monitoring inside and outside of his cell. He is allowed one hour of recreation every day — which is periodically denied — and not given fresh air but must exercise alone inside a cage.
One of Hashmi’s Brooklyn College professors, Jeanne Theoharis, who has attended the hearings in his case, told us that Hashmi’s “mental health appears to be deteriorating.” His attorneys are concerned that his extreme isolation “will cause lasting psychological, emotional, and physical damage” to their client.
Theoharis, an associate professor of political science at the City University of New York’s Brooklyn College, was instrumental in organizing a campaign to draw attention to the civil liberties and human rights concerns of Hashmi’s case that enlisted more than 550 signatories to petition the Justice Department protesting the conditions of Hashmi’s confinement and undermining his right to a fair trial. Among them were Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Duncan Kennedy of Harvard; Seyla Benhabib of Yale; and Eric Foner and Saskia Sassen of Columbia.
Prosecutors have said that Hashmi’s friend, Junaid Babar, stayed at his London apartment for two weeks, while Hashmi was studying for a Master’s degree in the U.K. Babar stored luggage containing raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks in the apartment. Babar later delivered them to the third-ranking member of Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
When, later in New York, a Grand Jury charged Hashmi with “conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,” the socks, ponchos, and raincoats became “military gear.”
The government also charges that Hashmi let Babar use his cell phone “to call other conspirators.” Hashmi says he had no idea whom Babar was calling.
Hashmi has denied that he was part of conspiracies to help Al Qaeda, or that he ever gave support to anybody to pass on materials to the terrorist group.
He was initially arrested in London in 2006 as he prepared to board a flight to Pakistan and was then extradited to the U.S. He has been held in New York since the Memorial Day weekend, 2007.
Hashmi has no criminal record and no history of committing acts of violence.
In court in January 2009, Hashmi’s lawyers called the restrictions on Hashmi too severe and asked a federal judge to lift some of them, perhaps allowing Hashmi to have a cellmate or to exercise in fresh air. But the judge denied a motion to consider the psychological impact of solitary confinement and ease the conditions of his detention. Hashmi’s trial is set for November 30, 2009.
Hashmi’s friend Babar has pleaded guilty to five counts of material support of Al Qaeda and has agreed to serve as a government witness in terrorism trials in Britain, Canada, and at Hashmi’s trial. The Justice Department says Babar is the “centerpiece” of its case against Hashmi. In return, under a plea bargain, Babar will likely get a reduced sentence. If Hashmi is convicted, he may be sentenced to 70 years behind bars.
Much of the evidence against Hashmi is classified. His lawyers have received CIA-level clearance to view it but may not discuss it with Hashmi or with other uncleared experts.
Sean Maher, one of his attorneys, has told the media that he is under “severe limitations on what I can and can’t say.” Civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart was convicted in 2005 for providing material support to a terrorist conspiracy for releasing a statement by imprisoned Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman to his followers in the outlaw Islamic Group. She is now appealing her conviction. Hashmi’s lawyer is under the same restrictions.
Maher also raised the issue of secrecy in federal court. “One of the paramount issues that this case brings up, without talking about any specifics in this case, is the use of secrecy in modern courtrooms. And in our Article III court, which we’re all trying to get people in Guantanamo to, what is the role of secrecy? And what will secrecy’s role play in these cases that President Obama says he might bring into these courts? “
As U.S. trials of Guantanamo detainees move closer to reality, these questions are likely to attract far wider interest. As Prof. Corey Robin, another of Hashmi’s teachers at Brooklyn College, told us, “The conditions of his confinement have not been changed since President Obama took office. As the nation looks backward to the Bush Administration, it is imperative that we draw attention to abuses – particularly those within our federal prisons and courts – that continue under the Obama Administration.” |
VirnetX is a patent-holding company that won $200 million from Microsoft following a 2010 trial and then sued Microsoft again in 2013. The second lawsuit (PDF) asserted six patents that were said to cover Skype and other Microsoft products that integrated Skype.
Now that second case has been laid to rest as well, with Microsoft agreeing to pay a $23 million settlement. "We are pleased to have come to an agreement with Microsoft Corporation and put all our legal disputes behind us," VirnetX CEO Kendall Larsen said in a statement on the deal. A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was pleased with the settlement and noted that it includes a license to VirnetX's entire patent portfolio.
The $23 million settlement is more than ten times what VirnetX made from all its licensing activity in 2013, Bloomberg noted in its brief on the settlement.
VirnetX has been referred to as a "patent troll," since it makes all its money from licensing and litigating patents. The publicly traded company has 14 employees, and its corporate headquarters is a small office suite in Zephyr Cove, Nevada, which it leases for $5 per month.
There aren't any other big payments on the horizon for VirnetX. The company's stock got a bump from the Microsoft settlement, but its biggest win, a $368 million verdict against Apple, got thrown out by an appeals court in September. Its stock price hovers around $6 per share, far off the $20 mark it sat at one year ago.
The patents in the Apple lawsuit are still valid, and some are still considered infringed: that case has been sent back to the lower court to re-assess a damage award. The judge in that case had also awarded VirnetX an ongoing royalty that would have amounted to nearly 1 percent of all iPhone sales. |
Picture perfect weather with a subtly incredible lineup, Interstellar Rodeo is on firm ground, selling out Saturday at Hawrelak Park and coming within an indie folk beard’s length of its 3,000-person capacity Friday and Sunday.
People will be talking about Marty Stuart and Cat Power’s sets for a long time, and Kathleen Edwards was great on Sunday afternoon. But some of the lesser-known bands were easily the most powerful shows over the weekend, bands like Andra Day, insanely handsome former Calgarians Reuben and the Dark, even José Gonzalez, just on the cusp of mainstream.
On Sunday, for example, South Carolina/Nashville’s Adia Victoria came like a steel lioness out the gate. With a quivering, sleepy yet penetrating voice, she sang rousing country blues songs of loss, heartbreak and belonging. Her song Invisible Hand took on the church, and she was emotionally moved talking about how “I was told I have no face, no place,” but finally learned about coming from somewhere once she found the blues.
Festival producer Shauna de Cartier is especially proud of the first-time performances Interstellar brought to the city. “It was Fantastic Negrito’s first time to the city, and I didn’t realize it was the Mariachi Ghost’s first time. As a Winnipeg band, how is it they never played Edmonton before? That went over really well.”
In the blessed shade, the producer discusses earning the audience’s loyalty and affection over the last five years to a point of ensured stability. “I’m aiming to develop that trust with the audience, because I’m sure a lot of the audience hasn’t heard of anybody, that they just come because they like it.
“People were maybe super music fans in college, and now they have jobs and probably kids, and they don’t have time to read Exclaim! magazine from cover to cover. But they still love music, that edge of discovery. But if I can do that work for them, and not be three years after the fact, actually be ahead of the curve, people see those names on the big posters and say, ‘I saw them at Interstellar’.”
Saturday was spectacular from the get-go with the political R&B of Fantastic Negrito, the cool L.A. country of Sam Outlaw, even a great tweener by Edmonton’s Jessica Jalbert playing Faith Healer songs. And, of course, Cat Power, whose vulnerability reinforced her connection with the crowd.
After the show she wrote on the Instagram account of security volunteer Jim Dreichel, “I love my earrings!!” a reference to the big man’s shining, dangling ear jewelry.
“Because of my size and look and presence, Shauna had asked me to be personal security for Cat Power. I’m almost 300 pounds; I’m a big dude. But it’s my personality to do something stupid,” he laughs.
“The first day I wore a feather boa, but because I was being professional, I knew I had to tone it down a bit. I knew I had to break the ice somehow … so she was like, ‘Oh my God, I love your earrings.’ She was really sweet, incredibly kind, really funny.” Dreichel, who runs a salon in Vancouver, met de Cartier working at Maxwell Taylors restaurant back in the day. “I think it’s fair to say we all got our work ethic there,” he laughs, his earrings sparkling.
Back to the music, following the slow-build, multi-harmonic roots rock of Reuben and the Dark, Kathleen Edwards had a punchout set Sunday, thanking with love the friendship of Luke Doucet, playing onstage for the second day in a row (he’s half of Whitehorse with his wife Melissa McLelland). “I’m going to marry you!” Edwards yelped. “Polyamory, I’m totally open,” she laughed. “Where’s Melissa?”
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That sort of chill, loose vibe was everywhere all weekend, and de Cartier says it’s one of the best things about the festival, being small enough to have elbow room.
“Winnipeg Interstellar has a capacity of 8,000, so we can hire more expensive musicians, but I can find those artists that are going to blow your mind for Edmonton because no one knows who they are yet. The calibre of music isn’t lesser if the budget’s lesser. It just makes my job harder,” she laughs.
“It feels like more than ever people are really understanding what I’m trying to do here, and loving it. The Edmonton audience is the best audience. Adia Victoria said this was the best festival she’d ever played. Marty Stuart said it was the best one he’d played in a year. That’s us doing our job, but it’s especially the audience doing their job.
“They are exactly perfect.”
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twitter.com/fisheyefoto |
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Alabama - A Jefferson County man who allowed lawmen to search his home in the hunt for a theft suspect ended up in trouble himself.
Jefferson County sheriff's deputies on Saturday night were called to a home in the 1300 block of Devine Drive in the Forestdale area after a repo man said someone stole a pickup truck off of his lift. After loading up the truck, he told deputies, a man came from the house, unloaded the truck and drove off.
Deputies were told the suspect was believed to have hidden the truck somewhere else and then returned to the home on foot. They knocked on the door, and a different man answered.
That man told deputies the suspect didn't live there, and had left before they arrived. They asked to look around inside to make sure the suspect was gone, and the man agreed.
Once inside, deputies found cocaine, prescription drugs and more than four pounds of marijuana, said Chief Deputy Randy Christian. They also found a shotgun, a handgun and cash.
Authorities arrested Marcus Lamarr Ellington, 39. He is charged with trafficking marijuana, unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Ellington is being held in the Jefferson County Jail with bond set at $116,000. Christian said the original suspect on the vehicle theft remains at large. |
Laila Alawa, an American Muslim of Syrian origin, has been selected among the amazing change-makers in this year’s Forbes #30Under30 list.
The 24-year-old lady is the co-founder and CEO of The Tempest, a website, which gathers 500,000 hits per month. Alawa originally geared her website toward Muslim women but pivoted to incorporate women of all ethnic backgrounds. The site has more than 250 contributors around the world — 40% of whom are Muslim.
She is also the host of a critically-acclaimed podcast called The Expose, where she picks apart cultural norms, taboos and societal issues with her co-hosts and important figures such as Hollywood director Lexi Alexander, Mona Haydar, Kathy Benjamin, and Emilie Lawrence. Laila presented a TedX Talk, The Secret Behind World Domination, and is amongst the 40 Women to Watch list.
The Tempest aims at giving a voice to the cultures of those from underrepresented backgrounds.
“Grateful to be among the amazing changemakers and disrupters in this year’s Forbes #30Under30 list,” Alawa wrote on her Facebook page.
“This is not an ending – it’s the beginning to something so much bigger for The Tempest. And I’m so grateful to be taking you along on that journey“.
In an interview with CNN Alawa said:
“As a teenager, I never fit in socially, and I made a vow to myself that when I was older, I’d dedicate my work to creating serious impact for those who felt the same way. On top of that, my life is a constant story — so melding the two in a high-impact, high-potential media company for diverse millennial women is a constant rush of energy, renewal and tenacity.”
With offices in the U. S. and U.A.E., the website delivers user-generated content from its more than 1,000 global contributors and original video to its audience of three million monthly unique visitors.
“Growing up Muslim, Syrian, Danish, homeschooled, and an immigrant (and – ultimately, American!) in a world where your identity plays an intimate role in the opportunities and accomplishments you are offered is more than a simple statement: it’s an act of defiance,” Alawa said on Facebook.
“I made a vow to myself at 13 that I would never let any person feel silenced or stereotyped if I had the power to do something about it.
“It’s a vow that’s grown to a global movement, one that spans so much more than just me. It’s a movement powered by the incredible global team of staffers and fellows, thousands of thought leaders and influencers, and millions of people from around the world that want what everyone wants: to belong, no matter who or what you are.”
Read more: |
To best protect threatened plants, inefficient national parks should be sold off and the proceeds used to buy more cost-effective ones.
So says Richard Fuller at the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Australia, who reckons that replacing 1 per cent of Australia’s protected areas could significantly increase the number of vegetation types – such as grasses and woodlands – being protected.
Worldwide, there are 100,000 regions dedicated to biodiversity maintenance, covering 12 per cent of countries’ land and territorial waters.
“Historically, a lot of these areas were designated because we couldn’t use them for economic or agriculture purposes, not for their biodiversity value,” says Fuller. “Consequently, many species and habitats remain inadequately protected.” In some of the world’s protected areas, for example, up to 83 per cent of threatened plants are found outside protected areas.
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Fuller says environmentalists who try only to increase the number of protected sites are effectively “adding to an inefficient system”. Instead, he says, governments should sell off expensive land of low conservation value and buy new sites instead.
Cutting up Australia
Fuller’s team has developed a mathematical model to test their theory in Australia. The group divided the country’s landmass into around 65,000 sections before assigning each a “conservation value” based on the rarity of the vegetation type within it: higher values were given to areas where more native vegetation has been lost since 1750, when Europeans began widespread clearance.
They then divided each section’s conservation value by its financial value, enabling them to rank currently protected areas in terms of cost-effectiveness. In the model, the least cost-effective areas were sold off and the funds used to buy more cost-effective sites.
For a vegetation type to be considered as “protected” in the team’s model, 15 per cent of the land area it covered in 1750 must lie in protected areas. Currently, only 18 out of 60 Australian vegetation types are protected by this measure. Replacing just 1 per cent of the least cost-effective areas boosted the number to 54. “We get an enormous increase in efficiency without spending more money,” says Fuller.
Starting debate
“It’s a logical approach with obvious benefits for protected biodiversity,” says Jon Nevill, an environmental consultant in Hampton, Victoria, Australia. “But I have no confidence that governments could effectively manage such a difficult programme.”
Martin Taylor, a protected areas policy manager at environmental campaign group WWF-Australia, is less complimentary. He says the idea of “trading off protected areas to buy theoretically better ones” is “quite horrifying”.
Sacrificing a protected area based solely on vegetation types without consideration of native animals or local geography is troublesome, he says. “No area can be written off so lightly as these authors do.”
Fuller defends his approach, saying the study is just a demonstration. “If this idea was to be put into practice you would need to consider these other values.”
“All we wanted to do was show how significantly and quickly the gains could be made,” says Fuller. “We wanted to start a debate about how best to protect our environment.”
Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09180 |
As the Geneva II talks on Syria staggered to an uneventful close, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper this week presented a stark assessment of the terrorist threat in the Middle East in his annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community” before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“Political uncertainty and violence will probably increase in the region in 2014,” Clapper’s statement read, adding that the war in Syria has “created opportunities for extremist groups to find ungoverned spaces from where they can try to destabilize new governments and prepare attacks against Western interests.”
In other words, the terrorist threat to the region is going from bad to worse, thanks in large part to the war in Syria. Intelligence and terrorism expert Bruce Riedel writes for Al-Monitor that Israel is increasingly surrounded by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and that “the growth of al-Qaeda franchises and al-Qaedism in the neighborhood is the result of the Arab Awakening and the chaos it has produced, not some al-Qaeda master plan.”
So much for the promise of the once-hyped Arab Spring, the failed assumptions of which still seem to affect US-Syria policy.
Even though there is no sign that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is on his way out, through either the Geneva II negotiations or a military defeat, the Obama administration is struggling — so far without success — to thread the needle on addressing the rise of Syria-based terrorism in the Middle East and keeping the heat on Assad to leave.
This approach led to US President Barack Obama saying in his State of the Union address that “in Syria, we’ll support the opposition that rejects the agenda of terrorist networks.”
The United States — which is sending arms to "vetted" armed Syrian opposition forces — also appears to be ramping up efforts to rebrand these groups as a counterterrorist force, with the expectation they could actually hold their own against Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the Syrian government, against whom they have been losing ground.
It is worth taking a look at the US experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, countries with actual military institutions. The Iraqi army, rebuilt and trained by the US military over the past decade, is losing Anbar province and cannot protect its capital city from al-Qaeda terrorists. The Afghan army struggles on its own against Taliban insurgents.
The myth of a counterterrorism policy rooted in Syrian opposition forces, created out of whole cloth over the past three years, would, in the end, be the worst of all worlds: the continuation of the war and refugee flows and the expansion of those “ungoverned spaces” that contribute to the proliferation of terrorist groups, as Clapper testified to the US Congress.
The Obama administration need not give up its political and military support of the Syrian opposition, but it should consider three options as part of a reset in US-Syria policy to address the threat of the rise of al-Qaeda and affiliated groups in the Middle East.
First, it is time to engage Iran on Syria. Both countries share an enemy in al-Qaeda advances, including in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The US position that Iran must endorse the Geneva communique in chapter and verse serves only to stymie the prospects for a political solution, as there will be no solution without Iran’s buy-in. The United States does not mind venturing from the letter of the Geneva communique by declaring that Assad cannot be part of the transition in Syria, so Iran might get some leeway as well, given its support for a political solution and its influence with Assad.
Second, and related, the United States should encourage Turkey and Saudi Arabia to build bridges to Iran over Syria. Turkey is rethinking its Syria policy because of the threat from terrorists, as this column described last week. Ali Hashem reports that Syria was the topic of closed-door talks during Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Iran this week, and this is to the good, but there is even more Turkey can do in terms of regional diplomacy.
Clapper’s statement referenced Syria as a “proxy war” between Iran and Hezbollah on the one hand, and “Sunni Arab states” on the other. The United States should support Saudi Arabia and Iran in talking about confidence-building measures to address regional security and the threat from al-Qaeda.
Third, Assad’s leaving should be recast as a US preference, not a demand. There is no sign he is going. It is understandable that the United States might keep up that line heading into Geneva II to buck up the opposition and its regional allies, and it has been US policy since Obama first called for Assad to “step aside” in August 2011.
The political transition should complement steps toward a cease-fire, not contribute to entrenchment by any of the parties. In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem called for a "national unity government" to include representatives from opposition groups. This proposal should be considered in the context of the Geneva II framework as a possible bid to gain some needed traction in the transition talks.
The United States should have some faith in a Syria-led process, as called for in the Geneva communique, and in the idea that the Syrian people will deal with Assad on their terms and in their time, including matters of transitional justice, accountability for war crimes and violations of human rights.
The priority for US diplomacy in Syria for now, however, should be to stop the war and build regional alliances against al-Qaeda terrorist networks. The open secret is that both objectives require dealing with Assad, as Frank Wisner and Leslie Gelb write this week, and as Ryan Crocker wrote in December. The recent experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and Libya should be lessons that dealing with the Middle East is the realm of “least-worst” options — unintended negative consequences and of gray, not black and white. The terrorist groups that gain in Syria are the inheritors of those who flew airplanes into the towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, and are today blowing apart Iraq. They are on the rise, according to the latest US threat assessment, and US-Syria policy should adjust to make confronting those terrorists a priority. |
Despite missing 15 games in the last two years in large part due to an ongoing Achilles injury, Washington Redskins safety LaRon Landry will not be having surgery to repair the injury over the winter, coach Mike Shanahan confirmed to reporters at the Senior Bowl on Monday.
Mike Shanahan says LaRon Landry has elected not to have surgery on his Achilles. #Redskins — Grant Paulsen (@granthpaulsen) January 23, 2012
Landry has been bothered by many nagging injuries, but all go back to his Achilles. He first missed the final seven games of what was a breakout 2010 season, then struggled in 2011 after passing on surgery that offseason. The Redskins finally put him on injured reserve late in the year after seeing him shuffle in and out of the lineup all year.
Landry is a restricted free agent, and this injury concern further complicates his status. The Redskins could sign him to a long-term deal, or they could give him the franchise tag.
For more on the Redskins, please visit Hogs Haven, SB Nation's Redskins blog. |
From intestines to tracheas, tissue engineers are building a handful of new body parts — but progress on larger organs has been slow. This is mainly because tissues need nutrients to stay alive, and they need blood vessels to deliver those nutrients. It's difficult to build those vascular networks, but now a team from Germany may have a solution: Print some capillaries with a 3-D printer.
Engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB developed special printer inks containing synthetic polymers, as well as biomolecules that will prevent the artificial tissue from being rejected. Chemical reactions turn the printed material into an elastic solid, allowing the researchers to build highly precise three-dimensional structures.
Though 3-D printing can be quite detailed, the researchers needed an extra layer of precision to build the fine, feathery structures to serve as capillaries. They used two-photon polymerization to do this, according to a Fraunhofer news release. This involves brief, intense blasts of laser light, which stimulate finely tuned molecular crosslinking. Once the tiny vessels are made, they are seeded with endothelial cells, which form the innermost walls.
Other attempts to grow artificial blood vessels have used gel matrices or even hammering a nail into an electrified plastic block, which both create fine tubes through which fluid can flow. This new method is another way to precisely control the structures' formation.
The next step would be to build entire organs, vascularized with this new printing method. Those may never be transplanted into a human, but they could be used as a test bed for new drugs or therapies, replacing animal subjects in clinical studies. Transplanting synthetic organs is still farther into the future, the Fraunhofer team says.
The team will present their work at the Biotechnica Fair in Hanover, Germany, next month.
[via BBC] |
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said that fixing the nation’s debt problem may require breaking Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, telling a Georgia television station Wednesday that “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge.”
“If we do it his way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that,” Chambliss told 13WMAZ. Chambliss said Norquist’s opposition to increased revenue adds to the debt and is a “fundamental disagreement.”
Chambliss admitted that Norquist would likely turn against him for abandoning the pledge in his 2014 re-election bid. “But I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist,” Chambliss said. “I’m willing to do the right thing and let the political consequences take care of themselves.” |
When Clay Higgins made the leap into celebrity and announced his resignation from the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office from the steps of the parish courthouse in Opelousas on Feb. 29 of this year — Leap Day, coincidentally or not — he proclaimed with his now-familiar bluster, “I will die before I will sacrifice my principles. I will die and leave my wife without a husband, my children without a daddy, rather than kneel to the very forces of evil that I have so long stood against. So I will sacrifice my life for my principles. Surely you understand, I must sacrifice my job.”Fifteen minutes before that announcement, Higgins had tendered his resignation to Sheriff Bobby Guidroz. At the courthouse announcement, Higgins would say of his now-former boss, “Although I’d take a bullet for my sheriff, although I’d stand with him against any peril, I cannot abide by his current orders. I’m sorry — I just can’t.”
Guidroz’s current orders? Tone it down in the Crime Stoppers videos and follow department procedure when appearing as the “Cajun John Wayne” away from the office.
Higgins’ exit is stuck in Guidroz’s craw.
Photo by Robin May
“What upset me the most was he led the public to believe that I wanted him to do something which was maybe, I don’t know, illegal,” the sheriff says, a dazzling autumn Jefferson Street streaming through Venetian blinds into the conference room at The Independent.
Guidroz
YouTube
Guidroz
Photos by Robin May
The IND had been talking to Guidroz in recent days, seeking Higgins' email records from his office, and Guidroz has stopped in to take a photo after having lunch Downtown on Sept. 30. Small talk while photographer Robin May snaps pictures turns into a 30-minute conversation. The sheriff does all the talking. An imposing man, tan with meaty hands and the confident, calm demeanor of a country lawman who suffers no damn fools, Guidroz is having none of Higgins’ show and sell.“He insinuated that he was doing something against his principles that the sheriff wanted him to say or not say or do or not do — something,” Guidroz continues. “That’s what he left with the public. It upset me because he didn’t correct that. He didn’t say why he left.”says prior to the infamous “Gremlins” Crime Stoppers video that aired on KATC in December — the one in which an animated Higgins, toting an assault rifle and wearing body armor, says into the camera to an alleged gang member somewhere out in TV land, “Young man, I’ll meet you on solid ground any time-anywhere, light or heavy — makes no difference to me. You won’t walk away!” — Higgins had been called in two or three times and warned to tone down the rhetoric due to concerns from department lawyers as well as Crime Stoppers’ attorney. (It's worth noting that Guidroz insists he personally had no issues with the Gremlins video.)Guidroz had also put the kibosh on a TV commercial Higgins shot for a local burglar-alarm company when Higgins appeared in the commercial in his SLPSO uniform, which Guidroz says is against the law.“Clay Higgins came into my office after the Gremlins video and requested extra body armor and an AR-15 and to take the decals off of his car,” Guidroz recalls. “And I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘My wife is home alone a lot. I don’t want these Gremlin guys that are making threats, I don’t want them to see that I’m a policeman living in this area with the decals on my car.’“And my response to him was, ‘No, and I’ll tell you why: You put a target on 55 other deputies in this parish that have marked units. By calling these guys out on the street, claiming to be a bad ass — I’m sorry [for using the word “ass”].’ And I said, ‘You know what, you put that target on them. Why should I grant you that request to unmark your car?’”maintains that while he gave Higgins permission to sell T-shirts, mugs and other gewgaws as his fame burgeoned over the course of 2015, he was unaware that Higgins was meticulously plotting his launch into America’s tawdry reality-TV stratosphere long before he resigned at the end of February.“Now, we’re talking about Feb. 29, 2016. In March and April of 2015 — 11 months before that — you start reading the emails he was sending. He was hiring an agent. He was hiring an attorney. He was contracting with people to take care of his speaking engagements,” Guidroz notes. “So, he was preparing his departure way before — 10 months, 11 months before — he actually left, and I didn’t know that.”Shortly after Higgins’ departure, Guidroz sent a memo to department personnel . “In order to control the rumors and the false information, I put that letter out to say this is what happened,” Guidroz says. “He would not comply with policy — he just could not. And it’s a shame because I think he could’ve gone far in our department if he’d have taken the time to follow the law, the policies and procedures. Was it that much that your head got that big that you couldn’t and would not comply? I regret that because I did like him.”Guidroz says he now sees a correlation between Higgins’ demeanor becoming more outlandish in the Crime Stoppers videos and his settling on the crime-busting caricature he was trying to sell to television producers in California.The Guidroz memo as well as a hoard of emails Higgins sent and received through his official SLPSO email account in the year leading up to his departure from the sheriff’s office have become news since several local and national news outlets, including The Independent, requested them from Guidroz’s office. In the emails, Higgins corresponds with potential reality-TV producers, chats with his agent and financial planner and negotiates deals to speak and/or appear at corporate functions. At least once he asks to be paid in cash — a request that should be considered against the fact that at the time the IRS was garnishing Higgins' sheriff’s paycheck as he caught up on thousands of dollars in back taxes.reality TV deal never came through, but Clay Higgins’ profile had gone national, and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. On May 18 he announced his bid to run for the 3rd Congressional District seat opening up as Rep. Charles Boustany seeks to move up to the Senate.“Clay Higgins does not belong in Congress, in my mind, because he’s doing it for the wrong reasons,” Guidroz says. “If he were a public servant and seeking a position where he could make a difference, I’d say go for it. But he has no experience with dealing with the public, no tolerance, no patience and no understanding of what it takes to follow the law or the general policies and guidelines of an organization.“If you think you’re gonna get elected to Congress because everybody in Wyoming and California and Wisconsin and North Carolina say they love you and they’re gonna send you a hundred bucks for your campaign, they’re not gonna elect you to Congress in the 3rd District in Louisiana.”But the financial windfall and fame that spring from Higgins’ national profile as a crime-fighting Louisiana cop are surely helping; by most accounts he’s polling second in the race behind Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle and may very well get into a December runoff.In campaign mode, Higgins frequently dons a cowboy hat, boots and jeans, and he wears a badge and sidearm on his belt as he glad-hands the public.“It upsets me. And I think he’s trying to convince people that he’s a street cop. And you know what? He’s not,” Guidroz says as he slips into addressing Higgins directly: “You were a policeman in Port Barre for two years. You got run off from Opelousas PD after a year and a half, two years [Higgins worked for OPD from November 2004 to May 2007; read more about his departure here ]. I took you in at the sheriff’s office and promoted you — it didn’t mean you had leadership abilities; it meant you needed to be promoted to do the job — for four years? That’s not the definition [of a street cop].
Photo by Robin May
“These policemen in Lafayette and all through this country should see. They should be upset with him for prancing around with a badge on his belt and a gun on his hip. What the heck is that? He’s no longer the ward constable in Port Barre; he resigned that May 22, 2016.”That observation has Guidroz pivoting to another: “I notice that the badge on his belt is not the [Lafayette] city marshal badge. And if it’s a St. Landry Parish sheriff's badge, he’s gonna get arrested for impersonating a police officer, a sheriff’s deputy. Now that’s strong words from a strong man that can tell you, I don’t play. And he’s not gonna parade around with a St. Landry Parish sheriff’s badge on his belt convincing people he’s a street cop or law enforcement officer when he’s not.“Let me tell you, if I get confirmation, I’m gonna tell you again, I’m gonna say it loud and clear: If I get confirmation that that man is parading around with a St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s badge on his belt, he’s gonna get arrested,” Guidroz continues. “I mean it. I don’t play. That’s an insult to these policemen who go home at 6 o’clock in the morning after fighting all night long, and he’s going to prance around saying ‘I’m a street cop’? No, you’re not a street cop.”
Higgins was sworn in as a reserve deputy marshal by Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope this spring; Pope has since been indicted on multiple felony counts.
A longtime former state trooper, Guidroz is now in his third term as St. Landry Parish sheriff. He was first elected to the office in 2007, getting 60 percent of the vote in a four-candidate runoff. He ran unopposed the last two times he faced re-election.
It’s not lost on Guidroz that if Higgins’ bid for Congress is unsuccessful, a run for St. Landry sheriff might be in the cards.
“Straight from me — this is what he is: He’s got people fooled,” Guidroz says. “And if he wants to run for sheriff in three years — and you can record this — if he wants to run for sheriff against me in three years, I say put your big boy pants on and come and get it, because you’re gonna lose quick and you’re gonna have to show the people who you are, what you got.
“I’ve been there and done that. I walk the walk — I don’t just talk the talk. He talks it, I’ve walked it, and I welcome that challenge.” |
Description: After discovering LuckySpammer had defected to Pi and that the vast majority of Sphere was no longer interested in waging a war, Cyanide vents his frustrations.
We have almost finished preparing our signal jammers.
We have set them up here,
here, and here.
At midnight CST, Razgriz's TagPro connection will be permanently severed
The Pi subreddit will be without good leadership, causing mass hysteria.
Wonderful work.
I'll have LuckySpammer remove Pi afterwards to rub it in his face.
Well Cyanide...
Uh...
LuckySpammer just made a post embracing Pi as his home server.
It may become the most elite server on TagPro.
If you were planning to stop warring against Pi...leave...now...
I didn't expect anyone to leave!
We get hit as a server, we fight back as a server!
Everyone out there will pile onto Pi and we'll destroy it together!
91 fucking subscribed Pi scrubs...
Are you fucking kidding me!?
And only in a matter of a few days!
Nearly a hundred people stupid enough to listen to Razgriz.
I bet half of them came from Sphere as well!
Cyanide, I can't allow you to insult Sphere's own members.
They are cowards, traitors, and failures!
Cyanide, this is outrageous.
They are the scum of the TagPro player base!
Not a shred of honor!
It's the same shit as usual.
"Yes, we love Sphere!"
"No, we're not hanging out on other servers!"
Then while I turn my back for the MCAT,
They fraternize with other scrubs on Pi and Radius
with plans to silently desert to inferior servers!
All it must've took for Razgriz to lure them was a shitty piece of chocolate!
Ever since I came onto Sphere
I've poured my heart and soul into making it the master race
and only asked for everyone's support.
Traitors.
They've betrayed and deceived me from the very beginning!
What a monstrous betrayal of the Sphere server!
But I'll tell you what I'll do to them.
I will personally find everyone who left the room
and beat them all to death!
It's okay Trench, Cyanide won't let anything happen to you.
My efforts have all gone to waste.
Under these circumstances, there is no way to crush Pi.
It's over.
The war is lost.
But if you think I'm going to abandon Sphere, you are seriously mistaken.
I'd rather concede a million caps.
You are dismissed. |
Ocala, Florida Police Chief Greg Graham (WFTV-TV)
The police chief of Ocala, Florida will remain on the job despite being accused of sexually harassing three subordinates WFTV-TV reported.
The allegations against Chief Greg Graham stem from a series of complaints dating back to February, including an alleged encounter in May while visiting the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in Washington, DC.
According to the Ocala Post, a grievance filed on Sept. 15 stated that Graham harassed Officer Casey Walsh at a bar, and at one point grabbed her phone out of her hands to “question” Walsh’s girlfriend about her whereabouts.
“Over the course of the last year, Officer Walsh has had to endure countless attacks of sexual harassment from Chief K. Gregory Graham. Chief Graham is aware of Officer Walsh’s open homosexuality, and almost always intertwines that subject into the conversations that he has with her,” the complaint stated. “It has become commonplace for Chief Graham to make inappropriate comments about the women that Officer Walsh has dated, and has invited as her guest to Ocala Police Department functions. Chief Graham routinely comments on their attractiveness, and inquires about how she is able to find and date such beautiful women.”
The complaint also stated that Graham also harassed Officer Rachel Mangum at the bar, particularly during a game of “never have I ever” the chief played with his subordinates.
During the game, Graham allegedly pointed to Mangum and said, “Never have I ever had a c**k shoved in my a*s.” That same night, another officer allegedly heard Graham say that Mangum had the “nicest t*ts at the table.”
On Monday, Mayor Kent Guinn said that because he trusts Graham, he would be allowed to remain on duty while a Tallahassee-based law firm investigates the allegations against him, though he would be barred from discussing the complaint with the three officers who filed it.
Guinn also complained that the allegations have hurt morale within the department.
“Their chief has been attacked,” said the mayor. “The chief is well respected in this community and this police department. People like him, people love him and when he’s attacked, it hurts.”
Watch WFTV’s report, as aired on Monday, below. |
Over the weekend, Samsung added support for content-blocking plugins to the browser preinstalled on its Android phones. The first plugin available for Samsung’s browser was Adblock Fast, a free and open source solution available on Google Play. Yesterday, Google removed the Android plugin from its app store.
Ad blocking on mobile devices is gaining popularity thanks to Apple’s iOS 9, which has built-in support for content blockers, and a growing number of options on Android. Samsung is now trying to do the same with its Android browser. Users are drawn to mobile ad blockers due to a cleaner browsing experience, faster load times, and reduced data usage. Publishers meanwhile are forced to look at ways of diversifying their revenue streams.
Adblock Fast was uploaded to Google Play on January 29, 2016. As far as we can tell, it was pulled sometime between 8 a.m. Pacific on February 2 and 8 a.m. Pacific on February 3. Update: Adblock Fast confirmed that Google removed the plugin yesterday.
Back in March 2013, ad-blocking apps got kicked out of Google Play because Google’s developer distribution agreement states apps cannot interfere with the functionality of other apps. The difference this time is that Samsung wants these plugins to work with its browser.
While Adblock Fast was the first to partner with Samsung, two other ad-blocking solutions quickly joined: Adblock Plus and Crystal. At the time of publishing, they are still available on Google Play.
The Adblock Fast homepage has been updated with a “Find out when Adblock Fast is back in Google Play!” message, followed with a box where you can enter your email address:
We have contacted Google and Rocketship Apps, the maker of Adblock Fast, for more information. We’ll update you if we hear back.
Update at 9:38 a.m. Pacific: A Rocketship Apps spokesperson is pointing the finger at Google for removing its plugin from Google Play yesterday. According to Adblock Fast, the events unfolded as follows.
Adblock Fast hit the top spot for free, new productivity apps on Google Play yesterday:
The plugin was then “promptly” removed by Google for “interfering” with third-party apps, according Rocketship Apps developer Brian Kennish. Google apparently cited section 4.4 of the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement. For reference, that section reads as follows:
You agree that you will not engage in any activity with the Store, including the development or distribution of Products, that interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator. You may not use customer information obtained from the Store to sell or distribute Products outside of the Store.
“We haven’t been able to get an official response from a human there (just autoresponders),” Kennish added. “The only app Adblock Fast interacted with in any way was the Samsung Internet browser and only using Samsung’s API (that we helped them define). I wonder how many Google engineers would call using an API, ‘interfering’.”
The full email Rocketship Apps received is below:
Hi Developers at Rocketship Apps, I reviewed Adblock Fast, com.rocketshipapps.adblockfast, and found that it violates section 4.4 of the Developer Distribution Agreement. This particular app has been disabled as a policy strike. Just as a reminder, you’ve agreed to follow the Google Play Developer Program Policies and additional enforcement could occur if there are further policy issues with your apps. If you’ve reviewed the policies and feel this rejection may have been in error, please reach out to our policy support team. One of my colleagues will get back to you within 2 business days. I appreciate your support of Google Play!
We have asked Google again for the company’s side of the story. It’s not clear if this is an automatic removal that might be reversed or if Google will stand by its decision, which would mean other adblocking plugins would also be pulled.
Update at 10:17 a.m. Pacific: “While we don’t comment on specific apps, we can confirm that our policies are designed to provide a great experience for users and developers,” a Google spokesperson told VentureBeat.
Google thus removed the app, but it isn’t confirming so explicitly. A source close to the situation indicates that Google considers this a “unique case” because two apps are required to invoke the ad blocking. Furthermore, the source adds that Google has no problem with browsers which can block ads within themselves via built-in functionality (like Adblock Browser) or via plugins.
Samsung’s browser is thus fine on Google Play, but Adblock Fast isn’t. What exactly that means for the Adblock Plus and Crystal plugins, which also only work with Samsung’s browser, is still unclear. We’ve asked for more clarification. |
MUMBAI: The launch of Indian Super League (ISL), made many doubt if the country’s original football league would be able to sustain or not. However, putting fears to rest about the future sustainability of the I–League, it is all set to take off from 17 January 2015 in Bengaluru and will be telecast on Ten Sports.
The official broadcaster, which will air 75 out of the total 110 matches live on the channel, is optimistic about it. Ten Sports CEO Rajesh Sethi says, “We have had a long-standing partnership with the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and the I-League. We have seen this property grow leaps and bounds on our network in terms of audience interest and viewership numbers.”
He goes on to say that the network values the primary national league on its platform and is looking forward to an exciting new season of the tournament from January 2015 as well as the Federation Cup, which will commence from December 2014.
While some sports experts feel that the ongoing Hero Indian Super League (ISL) would cause sustainability problems for the league, the announcement comes as a welcome move. Sports columnist Hemant Kenkre says, “The I-League was introduced in India as a professional football league. While India may have a low ranking in terms of world football standings, foreign leagues like the EPL are popular in the country. The I-League together with the Indian Super League can co-exist together, as a large number of football leagues will provide not just an opportunity for youngsters to play but also give international exposure for the game.”
The decision on the dates for the league, were taken at the recent I-League and Federation Cup committee meeting. It was also decided that the inaugural edition of the AIFF U-15 tournament for I-league clubs will be held in the next calendar year and will consist of 16 teams wherein besides the 10 league clubs, four other academies and two AIFF academies will be a part of the final round.
“With the new clubs in the league giving more importance to infrastructure and grassroots development programmes, and with AIFF’s initiatives for new tournaments in the junior categories, it is definitely going to impact the quality of youngsters in the game in India and I am confident that these initiatives will bear fruit in the Indian teams performances and results in the U-17 World Cup,” adds Sethi.
While coming up with the fixture of the championship, the schedule of school examinations will be kept in mind, and only post discussions with sponsors like Coca Cola and AIFF marketing partners IMG-Reliance, will intimate the clubs. It has also been decided that the registration of players would be done centrally through the state associations and all ID cards would be issued by AIFF. No club would be allowed to register a player after the completion of the 11th round of I-League.
As per the release of players for the AFC U-22 Qualifiers, slated to be held from 23 to 31 March 2015, the clubs have agreed to get back to the governing body over the same. Meanwhile, the second division league would take place in two venues which are to be finalised post inspection by AIFF. The eight participating Clubs are Aizawl FC, Chanmari FC, United Sports Club, Mohammedan Sporting, PIFA Sports, Kenkre Sports, Hindustan FC and Lonestar Kashmir FC. The U-19 I-League will kick-off in the second week of December.
The last season of the championship was won by the newcomer Bangalore FC, which was led by India’s national football team captain, Sunil Chhetri. When asked for his expectations for the upcoming league he says, “Expectations remain same in the I-League; we want to defend our title. We want to make it as difficult as possible for the competition. We also have an AFC competition and the Federation Cup so we have our work cut out.”
“The players obviously want to put up performances that the audiences can enjoy,” he concludes. |
Gary Lawless TSN Senior Correspondent Follow|Archive
In the course of a seven-game series, Calgary Flames star Johnny Gaudreau can expect to be slashed on the hands somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 times. Penalties might be called on about five of those plays. Something is out of whack.
Whack is the right word here because that’s become a handy way to slow down a player with the puck. In National Hockey League circles, it’s called “tapping,” the act of slashing a player on the gloves.
That’s Hockey 2nite reports that Gaudreau took 21 taps to the gloves in a Nov. 15 game between Minnesota and Calgary, including a final one by Eric Staal that broke his finger – an infraction that went unpenalized.
Gaudreau went to the bench again Wednesday night shaking his hand after Los Angeles Kings forward Tyler Toffoli slashed him on the hands. This time Gaudreau won’t miss six weeks with a busted digit and Toffoli got pinched for two minutes.
So sometimes it’s a slash and sometimes it isn’t.
The uneven approach can be exasperating for the likes of Flames’ GM Brad Treliving.
"The frustration from my standpoint was this wasn't just a single act,” Treliving said in November. “If you look at the game in Minnesota…there are rules in the rule book for when you get whacked like he's getting whacked. We think there could've been a call made. This isn't moaning and groaning. Top players learn to deal with, play around and play through some of this. But when you strike a guy in the hand, there's a penalty for it.
"We've got a lot of rules in the book. And one of them is slashing. We think some of the things Johnny's played through and had to deal with…there are calls there.”
Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby mutilated the finger of Ottawa defenceman Marc Methot with a slash last week. Ottawa owner Eugene Melnyk went deep on the subject in a radio interview, saying Crosby should be suspended the same about of time Methot will miss due to his injury. Crosby shrugged his shoulders and said it happens to him all the time.
It’s Crosby’s reaction that strikes me as most relevant. Something is not right when arguably the game’s best player states he gets checked with a stick to the hands on a regular basis. No one is paying to watch Crosby get slowed by players using illegal tactics. The NHL allowed the hooking and waterskiing of the late 1990s to diminish the skills of stars like Mario Lemieux and Brett Hull. Lemieux called the NHL a “garage league” at the time.
"The advantage is to the marginal players now. They can hook and grab, and the good players can't do what they're supposed to do,” said Lemieux.
Are we at the same point with today’s slashing? Absolutely not. But why wait to see if it gets there? There’s too much of it. Why not curb it before it does become an epidemic? At least one person, TSN director of scouting Craig Button, believes that’s what it is already.
The balance the NHL must always weigh is between skill and the ability to deter or impede offence. Do they want to allow Gaudreau and his like to do their thing, or do they want to give players the opportunity to slow them down? Offence sells tickets and defence wins games. It’s the yin and yang of the NHL.
Talking to a number of NHL types over the last week about Crosby’s unpenalized slash brought mixed reaction. From, “That’s a penalty and we don’t call it often enough,” to “It’s always been in the game and we shouldn’t take it out,” there has been all manner of comment.
The fact there is no consensus suggests nothing will change soon. A movement from the GMs is the best way for the NHL’s hockey people to get behind an issue and enact change. That hasn’t happened.
Just because a critical mass of GMs haven’t spoken up on the subject, however, doesn’t diminish the reality.
They were slow to come around on obstruction as well and for good reason. They get paid to win games and defence is easier to acquire than offence. So the lowest common denominator wins out.
So regardless of a lack of outcry from many of the game’s stewards, it’s clear from watching NHL games that the threshold for calls to be made on slashes to the gloves is too high.
When a player puts his stick on an opponent’s gloves, it’s a penalty. But, as often happens in the NHL, players push the boundaries of a rule and the standard shifts. Watch an NHL game today and you’ll see a lot of stick-on-glove work.
Referees don’t call it every time. They’ll tell a player, “watch your stick,” a few times. If it persists, they’ll call a penalty.
A grey area has long been there. Black and white doesn’t exist and frankly it wouldn’t work. Twenty slashing penalties in one game would make for theatre of the absurd.
Right now the balance is off-kilter. One popular theory says the current slashing or tapping on the gloves is no different than it ever was and that the broken and severed fingers we’ve seen are a result of the gloves being too thin. Fair enough. Scoring players are always looking for an edge and lighter, less cumbersome gloves enhances the ability to use one’s hands.
Wear more protective gloves? That’s certainly an option.
A player told me last week the combination of thin gloves, lighter sticks and more muscles is a bad combination. There are more Gordie Howe physiques in the NHL these days than the Fats Delvecchio profile. So a tap with a feathery composite stick creates dangerous physics. The stick becomes a rapidly moving scythe.
Today’s NHL, with cameras everywhere and virtually no angle unseen, has altered the officiating playing field. Referees are expected to see and penalize every infraction. Again, that’s not reality. It’s also not an excuse for letting things slide. “They can’t call everything,” isn’t an acceptable defence for ignoring what’s in front of our eyes.
There’s too much slashing. It needs to be slowed before it develops into an epidemic. The players have pushed the envelope. It’s time to seal it. |
ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- Watching delegates file into the Republican National Convention, it's easy to see one big challenge facing their party: Fewer than 2 percent of the delegates are black.
Thirty-six of the 2,380 Republican delegates are black, according to the nonpartisan Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
That number marks a 78 percent decline from 2004, the lowest representation in 40 years and a huge deficit when compared to the 1,079 delegates at last week's Democratic National Convention, according to the think tank report.
Clarence McKee, a black Republican delegate, said he believes the party's pro-family message is one that would resonate well with the African-American community, but he said, "Historically, blacks have voted based on a blind loyalty to Democrats."
McKee, communications chairman for Florida's Broward County Republican Executive Committee, said, "We are the ones losing out in the game."
Polls show black voters heavily favor Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama -- with about 90 percent picking him over the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain. But GOP candidates historically do not win much of the black vote. President Bush received 11 percent of the African-American vote when he ran against Sen. John Kerry in 2004.
McCain apparently isn't blind to the odds against him. After going over some of his outreach efforts, the senator from Arizona told Essence magazine, "But does that mean in my campaign I am going to get a majority of the African-American vote? Probably not.
"But what it does mean, what I've committed to, is assuring and promising all Americans whether they vote for me or not, I am going to be their president."
McKee said the black community has a problem "cutting the umbilical cord from the Democrats."
"There's a lot of peer pressure for blacks to stay with the Democrats," he said, noting that African-Americans often face ridicule when they align with Republicans.
Politics aside, some blacks have said they want to vote for Obama because it's historic to have an African-American in the race. Still, others said voting on the basis of skin color is further evidence of a racial divide. Read about how some black Republicans feel about the Obama candidacy
"It's been 45 years since Dr. King spoke about 'I Have a Dream,' " said Lenny McAllister, an African-American conservative blogger, referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic 1963 speech in Washington.
"One of the things he talked about was content of character, not the color of one's skin. It's when we're able to do that comfortably in an accepted fashion in America [is] when we'll be able to grow and move forward as a country and move past the wounds that we've had from race relations throughout the country."
The Obama campaign said the notion that black voters are supporting the Democrat solely on racial lines is "flat-out false."
Obama has African-Americans' support because he is the better candidate, said campaign spokesman Corey Ealons.
"If you were watching last week the scene at Mile High stadium and saw the diversity of the crowd, you would have a greater appreciation for the broad support Obama has," he said, referring to the turnout for the Democratic nominee's acceptance speech at the Denver, Colorado, convention.
However, the GOP's lack of black support is not because of a lack of effort, according to officials with the Republican National Committee. The RNC has employed a full-time press secretary to work with African-American media. McCain and Republicans have worked to have a presence with the NAACP, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and other minority advocacy groups.
To make inroads with black voters, McKee said Republicans need to do three things: get African-Americans to vote on philosophy and principle, make sure those voters register and then showcase them to the community so they don't seem like such anomalies.
As how it feels to be a black delegate in a sea of white colleagues, McKee said it's nothing new to him.
"I always stand up for principle. We are used to being a minority," he said.
All About Republican Party • African-American Issues |
In shaving, Bevel, which is backed by the prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, markets its old-school safety razor product set to African-American men, a demographic that the company’s founder, Tristan Walker, said had largely been ignored. Bevel’s starter kit, which includes a safety razor, shaving cream, priming oil and other facial accouterments, starts at $29. And Harry’s, the design-focused shaving start-up, offers its customers starter packages at $15 and $25.
Other start-ups offering less expensive consumer products include Casper, which sells mail-order mattresses to consumers online for as little as $500, nearly a tenth of the cost of high-end bed sets. And Warby Parker, the successful online eyeglasses retailer, offers a range of trendy eyewear for far less than the cost of many frames.
Image Razor blades being made for Harry’s, a start-up. Credit Benjamin Kilb for The New York Times
The products may be disparate, but the business models are similar.
Jeffrey Raider, a co-founder of Warby Parker, even went on to start Harry’s just three years after introducing the eyewear company. In January Harry’s raised more than $100 million in venture capital and bought its own razor factory in Eisfeld, Germany.
So far, the giants still dominate their markets. Unilever Home & Personal Care had a 27 percent share of the men’s toiletries market last year, according to Euromonitor, a market research firm. Procter & Gamble controls the men’s grooming market, with a 59 percent share in razors and blades.
Start-ups like Dollar Shave Club are much smaller, though Mr. Dubin says his company ships 8.8 percent of the razor cartridges in the United States.
To defeat the new competition, some of the giants are trying to mimic some of their smaller rivals’ tactics. Procter & Gamble, for instance, now offers an online subscription service for ordering its Gillette razors.
“New entrants to our category stimulate more conversation about shaving, which is positive for us as the market leader,” Procter & Gamble said in a statement. |
By Betsy McCaughey - June 27, 2013
The newly amended 1,198-page "comprehensive" immigration bill was plunked on Senate desks last Friday afternoon. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid forced through an initial vote over the objections of senators who said they had not read it. Sen. Mike Lee labeled the ploy "banana republic" politics.
The bill bribes reluctant senators to get their votes. A provision slipped in to extend taxpayer-financed advertising for Las Vegas casinos and other tourist attractions converted Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada into a last-minute co-sponsor. A $1.3 billion jobs program mollified Sen. Bernie Sanders (Sec. 1102(f), Sec. 1501).
Top banana Harry Reid is spending your money to buy support for his agenda and power. The nation is reeling under the Obama health law, rammed through the Senate by Reid in a similarly corrupt manner. The hurried vote on Monday produced a 67 to 27 majority (including 15 Republicans) that will move immigration reform to a final Senate vote later this week, and then on to the House of Representatives.
The House should discard the Senate bill and give us a series of 20-page bills in plain, honest English that members will read before voting. Opponents of the Senate bill object to its failure to secure the borders. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office report validated their concern, concluding that the bill would reduce illegal immigration by a meager 25 percent, making future amnesty crises inevitable.
In response, Sen. Bob Corker put forward the amendment voted on Monday night that purports to secure the border. In truth, it requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to present a plan that includes 700 miles of fencing, an elaborate list of technologies, such as drones, ground sensors and seismic imaging, a "surge" of border agents from the current 18,000 to 38,000, an e-verify employment system and tracking to identify visa overstaying.
The bill guarantees a tough plan, not implementation. Slippery language affords the secretary discretion to weasel out of fencing.
The target of 38,000 agents doesn't have to be met until 2021, turning a surge into a trickle. Sec. 5(b)(5), and Sec. 1102(a).
The bill's authors seem incapable of honest dealing. They label numerous provisions "emergency" legislation to avoid Congress's own "pay as you go" rule, which requires that any new mandatory spending be offset by reductions elsewhere or tax hikes. Labeling this bill an emergency is cooking the books.
Shockingly, the bill exploits immigration reform for partisan purposes, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds into "non profits," meaning immigrant advocacy groups and community activists.
This is a replay of the Obama health law, which is providing truckloads of money to the NAACP, SEIU and local groups for "outreach" to the uninsured. The money is said to go for door-to-door canvassing and phone banks -- the same techniques used to register voters and get them to the polls.
Numerous sections of the immigration bill empower the Secretary of Homeland Security to make grants to "community organizations." Here is a sample: Secs. 2106 and 2537 funnel $150 million in grants to non-profits to provide legal assistance, screen aliens for eligibility and assemble proof of residence and employment, and complete applications for family members and waivers. These functions belong in the Office of Immigration. Why outsource? Because community activists can say and do things government employees can't.
Sec. 2531 of the bill sets up a nonprofit United States Citizenship Foundation run by 10 directors from national community organizations. They will develop "citizenship preparation" materials to teach newcomers about American history and civics. That job is currently done by the Federal Office of Immigration, but outsourcing will allow it to be done with a partisan slant and without public scrutiny.
Just as the Obama health law elevates community activists into the "go-to" people for health benefits and other social services, the immigration bill would make them the "go-to" people for amnesty.
Empowering and funding these groups will tilt the scales against a two-party system and make it difficult for Republicans to compete fairly in another national election. That's a step closer to one-party, banana republic government. |
Health: SA ranks lowest of Brics members
Johannesburg - South Africa fares worse on health than the residents of any other Brics country, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said on Monday.
On aggregate, standard health indicators show South Africa is worse than Brazil, Russia, India and China, he said in Winterton in KwaZulu-Natal.
The average South African was expected to live until 54, while the Chinese could live to the age of 74, Brazilians to 73, Russians 68, and Indians 65.
Infant mortality in South Africa stood at 43 deaths per 1 000 live births, and 62 children out of every 1 000 would not make it to their fifth birthday.
Only India had worse figures, at 50 and 66 deaths per 1 000 respectively.
By comparison, Brazil and China had an infant mortality rate of 17 deaths per 1 000 live births, and Russia of 11 deaths per 1 000.
Only 12 out every 1 000 Russians would not live to see their fifth birthday.
Maternal mortality ratios and adult mortality rates made for bleak reading. According to Motsoaledi's presentation, on average 410 South African mothers out of 100 000 died during pregnancy or childbirth.
In India that figure was 230, in Brazil 58, in Russia 39, and 38 in China.
According to Motsoaledi's figures, 521 out of every 1 000 South African men aged 15 to 59 die before turning 60.
In China, that figure was 142, Brazil 205 and India 250. Russia came closest to South Africa at 391.
Motsoaledi said the number of people who died annually in South Africa almost doubled between 1997 and 2006, going from 317 131 to 612 462.
Many of South Africa's dire mortality statistics could be attributed to communicable diseases, especially HIV and tuberculosis.
Compared to its Brics partners, South Africa had the worst figures.
Only Brazil spent more than South Africa's 8.5% of gross domestic product on health.
South Africa fared fairly well in curbing smoking.
Russia, China, and India all had greater percentages of tobacco smoking in men older than 15 than South Africa's 29.5%.
In Russia, 70.1% of men over the age of 15 were smokers.
Brazil had the best figures, with only 19.4% of men smoking.
Most of the health indicator figures quoted by Motsoaledi were the most recent available and were for 2010. |
The Manor in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night had the ambience of a raucous Saturday. A massive crowd, pressed against the long bar, waved dollars at the slammed bartenders; a man on the side frantically shucked 50-cent oysters. People went out of their way to reserve the tables on the balcony—the kind of tables that traditionally go to bachelorette parties.
But Tuesday was different. Tuesday was the night that Senator Bernie Sanders would, as the pundits described it, introduce himself to America at the Democratic primary debate. And nearly 250 people came out to the Dupont Circle bar to watch his turn onstage—people who’d kicked $5 and $10 occasionally to his campaign in support, but more often dedicated hours of their lives to his campaign.
According to Matt Webster, the Sanders organizer in charge of the event, he simply created a Facebook event and people came: “You never just put something up on a site and people show up,” he said.
Some people, such as Carol and John Hazekamp, came from as far away as New Hampshire, a state constantly besieged by presidential wannabes. They were visiting their son in Arlington, but dragged him to the Sanders debate-watching party. “I realized that a lot of messages he had really resonated with me,” said Carol, who regularly follows election politics and said she was won over by his crusade against Citizens United.
The two said they’d wait on their donation until they’d seen how Sanders performed (generally, said Carol, they donate about $250 to campaigns), but already started volunteering in phone banks: “I actually called a woman who was 74 years old,” said Carol. “She goes, ‘If you asked me a couple weeks ago, I would have told you he has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected, but now I’m interested.’” (Carol’s daughter, she added proudly, runs “Boilers for Bernie” at Purdue University.)
The rest of the Sanders supporters interviewed donated much smaller amounts—$5 here, $10 there, or however much money it took to purchase a T-shirt “so that I could show my support for him as often as possible,” said Alex Atkins, a student at the Georgetown Law Center who started a pro-Sanders club on campus. (He wore the shirt in question—bright green with a graphic rendition of Sanders’s glasses and trademark wild hair—under his corduroy blazer.)
Several people, such as Sanders volunteer Jake Stevens, said they subscribed to an automatic donation service—in Stevens’s case, paying $5 a month to the campaign. “I’m trying to bring down that average donation number that he likes to talk about,” he joked, waiting by the stairs to hand out leaflets after the debate. “Seems like a win-win.”
This being D.C., several people in the crowd worked for government entities that prevented them from contributing to the campaign, but tried to support Sanders within the confines of their jobs. Ben, who only provided his first name, works for an intergovernmental organization and plastered a giant “Bernie Sanders 2016” sticker on his white sweater. “I gave money to all sorts of stuff around here” before he started his current job, he clarified, and would have done the same if his organization didn’t put restrictions on employees donating to campaigns.
And, like Ben, the ardent supporters more often donated time.
“We’re all in school, we’re all living off student loans to one degree or another,” Atkins said, gesturing to his friends, fellow Georgetown Law students involved with his club. “But we can devote a lot more with our time than we can monetarily”—for instance, handing out flyers for hours on end in front of the enormous entrance to the Dupont Circle Metro station and plastering the campus with Bernie media.
Webster, a freelance contractor who works with DARPA, is part of a group called “Programmers for Bernie” that’s trying to build apps and LinkedIn analyses for the campaign. “My hope is that the other Democrats are doing it, but I’m not sure,” he noted.
Stevens, a political organizer who created a Facebook group called “DC for Bernie,” grew it to 1,600 followers before even hooking up with the campaign. “From what I’ve seen, practically everybody who started up with this volunteering stuff has just gone out and started doing stuff, and then maybe later on you get some contact with the campaign, or maybe you keep doing stuff for Bernie Sanders and just trust that we’re all on the same team.”
It was really easy to find these supporters, too: “I’ve been really into politics for a long time, but what really blows me away is that so many people are like, ‘I’ve never gotten so into a presidential candidate before. I’ve never done this before,’” the 25-year-old said. “So many people are getting into this for the first time.”
But didn’t that sound like the hype surrounding the first Barack Obama campaign? Kind of, said Stevens, who worked with the Obama campaign: “A lot of people my age, some younger, some even older, are so disillusioned, even for Obama. But then they see Sanders and really get involved.”
Webster doesn’t know exactly how much the average D.C. volunteer has donated to the campaign, mostly because people tend to donate through the site, but he’s been inundated with volunteers. As the crowd thinned out at the end of the night, having cheered and booed and mocked Jim Webb for the past three hours while quaffing cheap beer, Webster tried to explain Sanders’s appeal: ”He’s like this band who’s been playing this one album for years and years and years, and the country has finally come around to say ‘OH MY GOD, that’s my favorite music!’” he gushed. “Nobody can ask him a question that he hasn’t thought about, because everything he’s talking about right now are things he’s been thinking about for the last 30 years.” |
“After the meeting, it seemed to me that the light flicked on for him” Tom Luongo, an expert on the Russian economy, told VICE News. ”This was a way to rapidly push forward Russian financial and banking services, they are now moving rapidly to effectively digitize their entire economy.”
One thing is clear, however: change came from the top. Analysts say Russia’s sudden embrace began on June 3, 2017, when Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. There, Putin had an unexpected meeting in the corridors of the Lenexpo Exhibition Complex with Vitalik Buterin, the Russian-Canadian programmer who created bitcoin-rival ethereum.
Moscow’s change of heart has left experts guessing at what the Kremlin has up its sleeve. Theories range from Russia making a strategic decision to reduce its economy’s reliance on oil and gas through bullish cryptocurrency investment to Russian oligarchs looking for clever ways to avoid western sanctions — blockchain technology allows for anonymous exchanges, making it popular among criminal entities looking to avoid government oversight.
One year later, Russia has established itself as a preeminent hub for bitcoin and other emerging cryptocurrencies, launching an audacious plan to grab almost one-third of the world’s bitcoin mining network from China. Everyone from the government to private businesses are embracing blockchain, the technology which powers bitcoin, and they’re doing so at an unprecedented rate.
In 2016, the Russian government was convinced bitcoin was a danger to its economy and a threat to its national security, so much so that politicians introduced legislation that, if passed, would spell jail time for anyone found using the technology. The offense carried a 7-year jail sentence.
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In 2016, the Russian government was convinced bitcoin was a danger to its economy and a threat to its national security, so much so that politicians introduced legislation that, if passed, would spell jail time for anyone found using the technology. The offense carried a 7-year jail sentence.
One year later, Russia has established itself as a preeminent hub for bitcoin and other emerging cryptocurrencies, launching an audacious plan to grab almost one-third of the world’s bitcoin mining network from China. Everyone from the government to private businesses are embracing blockchain, the technology which powers bitcoin, and they’re doing so at an unprecedented rate.
Moscow’s change of heart has left experts guessing at what the Kremlin has up its sleeve. Theories range from Russia making a strategic decision to reduce its economy’s reliance on oil and gas through bullish cryptocurrency investment to Russian oligarchs looking for clever ways to avoid western sanctions — blockchain technology allows for anonymous exchanges, making it popular among criminal entities looking to avoid government oversight.
One thing is clear, however: change came from the top. Analysts say Russia’s sudden embrace began on June 3, 2017, when Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. There, Putin had an unexpected meeting in the corridors of the Lenexpo Exhibition Complex with Vitalik Buterin, the Russian-Canadian programmer who created bitcoin-rival ethereum.
“After the meeting, it seemed to me that the light flicked on for him” Tom Luongo, an expert on the Russian economy, told VICE News. ”This was a way to rapidly push forward Russian financial and banking services, they are now moving rapidly to effectively digitize their entire economy.”
The appeal is obvious. Not only is every major financial institution around the world pouring huge amounts of money into research in cryptocurrencies, but according to one expert, in the right conditions — and Russia has the right conditions — mining bitcoin could be “10 times more lucrative than pumping oil.”
Luongo says that Putin soon realized cryptocurrencies were not entirely dangerous, and instead offered the potential to diversify the country’s economy away from oil and gas. Russia has thus far focused primarily on Buterin’s creation: ethereum.
While having less than a third the market capitalization of bitcoin ($29 billion versus $93 billion) many experts see ethereum having a bigger future, as it has widespread applications in the financial world, allowing banks and other institutions to run smart contracts.
“Right after the meeting, the government pivoted towards cryptocurrencies, and said we need to start looking into it because it might be a ground-breaking technology,” Andrei Barysevich, a researcher at threat intelligence company Recorded Future, told VICE News.
2914620 08/17/2016 Mobile application for bitcoin operations at the first cryptocurrency exchange point in Moscow. Maksim Blinov/Sputnik via AP
Russia’s pivot occurred seemingly overnight. The state development bank VEB is developing an ethereum-based project; Russia’s billionaire businessman Boris Titov launched a blockchain project promising secure voting; the Central Bank of Russia is developing its own digital currency called masterchain; and Burger King Russia is embracing the currency to promote its restaurants. One Russian entrepreneur reportedly applied to patent his plans to distribute “vodka that trades on the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ethereum Classic brand names.”
Last Wednesday, Putin asked his government to create legislation to regulate cryptocurrency mining and establish legal definitions for various digital assets — a move which will give the Kremlin greater control over how this industry develops.
But it’s not all about innovation and development. Barysevich believes there are other reasons behind Russia’s turn toward cryptocurrencies — and in particular bitcoin.
“It is not because of the convenience of the technology, it is purely because they want to be controlling the technology and making huge profits out of it,” Barysevich told VICE News.
Key to to Russia’s bitcoin takeover is an audacious enterprise launched in August to grab almost one-third of the world’s bitcoin mining network from China. Russian Miner Coin (RMC), a company co-owned by Putin’s internet ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev, is in the process of raising $100 million to fund the building of vast warehouses full of specialized computers that will work day and night with the sole purpose of mining bitcoins.
This gambit isn’t new to Russia. China has been dominant here for the last two years, currently mining around 60 percent of the world’s bitcoins. The Middle Kingdom’s efforts have been richly rewarded: the price of one bitcoin has soared from $1,000 at the beginning of 2017 to a record high of over $6,300 as of this writing.
Russia wants to get into the game and has a competitive advantage over almost every other country in the world: Electricity in Russia is cheap and abundant — especially in regions like Siberia — making it an ideal location to run the vast computing warehouses 24/7 at little cost.
Barysevich said that with the current government-controlled electricity prices, Russia could make a lot of money from bitcoin. “If you have an electricity at the cost of 2 cents per kilowatt, it’s 10 times more profitable than pumping oil.”
But bitcoin comes with some notable drawbacks, including its proliferation and popularity among criminals, who’ve embraced the currency because it’s difficult to trace.
The currency’s shady origins hasn’t been lost on Putin, who has publicly said that he wants restrictions put in place on who can use bitcoin.
Not everyone is buying Putin’s posture however, with some experts suggesting that Russia’s sudden interest in cryptocurrencies coincides with the latest round of U.S. economic sanctions, which even friendly economists say will deal a blow to Russia’s recovering economy.
Specifically, Russia’s emboldened interest in cryptocurrencies hasn’t evaded the U.S. government. The U.S. Treasury told VICE News that it is “aware of the reports” regarding Russia and its increased adoption of cryptocurrencies, and they are continuing to monitor “evolving trends and new potential avenues for sanctions evasion,” a spokesman for the department said.
Russia’s enthusiasm for largely anonymous currencies like Bitcoin and ethereum comes at a time when Russian financial affairs have never been more closely scrutinized. But Marc Johnson, a security consultant and former CIA operations officer, told VICE News, early indication suggests it’s mostly “sincere.”
“There are a lot of people in the Russian blockchain community that have a very sincere desire to see the technology succeed because of its unique capabilities,” Johnson said, “but there will inevitably be others who seek to capitalize on the currency’s anonymity.” |
Peter Thorne, from Hampshire, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011
Waiting for his routine check-up, Peter Thorne simply smiled when a nurse asked whether he was sure he was at the right clinic.
Over the previous year, the retired managing director of a woodwork company had become used to the discreet stares from the other patients waiting to be seen.
He was, after all, the only man there.
This is because the clinic Peter attends is for people with breast cancer.
Many men do not realise that they can develop breast cancer, and before his diagnosis in 2011 Peter, now 70, was similarly unaware.
So when he came across a pea-shaped lump on the right-hand side of his chest, just next to his nipple, he put it down to a pulled muscle.
‘I’d been helping my son hang some oak doors a few days before, so I wondered if I had strained something,’ says Peter, who lives in Ringwood, Hants, with wife Helen, a former nurse.
He saw no urgency in getting it checked out, but mentioned it when he went to get some eczema cream from his GP a few days later.
‘As an aside I said: “And what about this lump here — have I pulled a muscle?”’
‘The doctor said it was probably nothing, but that he would refer me on.’
Two weeks later, Peter, was surprised to find himself in a hospital waiting room where the only other patients were three women.
‘When I asked the registrar what it could be, he said it might be breast cancer,’ he says. ‘That was the first I’d heard of it — I had no idea men could get it.’
Mr Thorne was sent immediately for a mammogram, ultrasound and a needle biopsy.
‘The mammogram was really painful — they pushed what breast tissue I had between two plates and took an image. It was like being put into a vice,’ he says.
When he went back for the results a week later, he was horrified when it confirmed the diagnosis.
‘My wife said I turned green at the words,’ he says. ‘I really did not see it coming and, yes, part of me felt embarrassed.’
Mr Thorne was lucky that he didn’t wait before getting the lump checked. His tumour was a grade 3 aggressive cancer — meaning it was growing quickly and was likely to spread.
Around 350 men are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year, compared with 55,000 women.
Male patients tend to have less chance of making a full recovery.
One study published in the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2013 found that after five years, men have a 72 per cent survival rate, compared with 83 per cent in women.
‘My wife said I turned green at the words breast cancer. I really did not see it coming and, yes, part of me felt embarrassed.’
It’s not that men develop a more aggressive form of the disease, but it’s almost always because men don’t act as promptly when they develop symptoms.
‘Typically, men with breast cancer tend to come along when the cancer is at a later stage — that’s to do with awareness,’ says Dr Andrew Wardley, a consultant oncologist and honorary senior lecturer at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust.
‘They just don’t know they can get breast cancer, and are not offered screening as women are.
‘But they can get it — although it is obviously less common in men. This is because the main driver of breast cancer in men and women is the hormone oestrogen, and men have less of this hormone and less breast tissue in the first place.’ Whereas women produce oestrogen in their ovaries, men produce it from their adrenal glands — and also from fat tissue.
For men it’s primarily needed to help with the formation of healthy bones and plays a role in fertility.
The symptoms in both sexes are virtually identical. They include a painless lump in the chest area, discharge from the nipple or puckering of the skin around it.
Despite huge focus on equality, men are 67 per cent more likely to die from every unisex form of cancer
Peter was lucky that he didn’t wait before getting the lump checked. His tumour was a grade 3 aggressive cancer — meaning it was growing quickly and was likely to spread
Picking up what is and is not a cancer can be tricky if men have gynaecomastia — colloquially known as ‘man boobs’ or ‘moobs’ — which affects as many as six in ten men. This is often associated with obesity which can encourage the overproduction of oestrogen that encourages the ‘moobs’ to grow.
But why do some men develop breast cancer?
‘Some men may have a genetic abnormality, and those who carry the faulty BRAC2 gene seem to be especially prone,’ adds Dr Wardley.
These genes can be passed down from either parent’s side of the family. Warning signs include having one side of the family with an unusually high number of relatives with breast, ovarian or prostate cancer, especially if these cancers occurred at a younger age than normal (under 50 for breast cancer), or any incidence of male breast cancer.
‘Weight is also an issue, as with all cancer. And the more overweight you are, the more it increases the risk,’ adds Dr Wardley.
This is because obesity increases the amount of oestrogen that men produce.
Yet for some men, breast cancer is just bad luck. Most support and services for breast cancer are designed for women, too.
‘It’s very difficult for a man diagnosed with breast cancer,’ says Jean Slocombe, Cancer Research UK’s senior health information nurse. ‘There are no facilities set up just for them and it can be an isolating situation as there are far fewer people in their position.
‘Some men also find having this disease very embarrassing. They go along for appointments to find themselves in a pink waiting room, often the only man there.’
One study published in the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2013 found that after five years, men have a 72 per cent survival rate, compared with 83 per cent in women
Men with breast cancer have similar treatments to women.
Like them, men tend to have a mastectomy then radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy and a hormone treatment such as tamoxifen, which blocks the impact of oestrogen on cells and so helps prevent a re-growth of the cancer. Men may experience similar side-effects to women, including hot flushes and hair loss, which can further add to their discomfort at having a ‘woman’s disease’.
They may also experience loss of libido and erectile dysfunction.
‘I felt uncomfortable at first — after all, I was a man in a women’s club — but not any more.
The only major difference in their treatment is that men are less likely to have reconstruction after their mastectomy.
Men are also more likely to have radiotherapy treatment after surgery because their breast tissue is closer to the chest wall, so radiotherapy is given to prevent the chance of it spreading there.
Dr Wardley believes it could help to have services specifically targeted to men, and that the psychological support men receive could be improved upon.
‘It may be that we need a different sort of provision for men entirely,’ he says.
‘Perhaps rather than clumping it together as breast cancer, we should treat breast cancer in men as a rare cancer, so that it is treated in a different clinical setting from women with breast cancer.’
Mr Thorne’s experience highlights the additional difficulties for men who suffer from this kind of cancer.
After his diagnosis at the age of 66, Peter admits he struggled psychologically, finding it ‘a slightly isolating experience’.
When he told friends, some were taken aback that men could even get breast cancer.
‘One friend initially thought I was joking — he said: “You are taking the mickey, aren’t you?” ’
WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF BREAST CANCER IN MEN? The most common symptom for men with breast cancer is a lump in the breast area. This is nearly always painless. - Other symptoms can include: - Oozing from the nipple (a discharge) that may be blood stained - Swelling of the breast - A sore (ulcer) in the skin of the breast - A nipple that is pulled into the breast (called nipple retraction) - Lumps under the arm If you have any of these symptoms it is important to go to your GP straight away. Finding a cancer early gives the best chance of successful treatment. Source: Cancer Research UK
And, shockingly, when he came round after having his surgery in May 2011, he was urged to leave the hospital the same day because they didn’t know where to put a man recovering from breast cancer surgery, and initially had to move him into an empty ward.
‘As my wife wheeled me out of the car park a few hours later, I vomited, but there was no way I wanted to stay,’ he says.
His surgery was followed by chemotherapy.
‘All the hair on my body fell out within days of starting the treatment, which was almost the worst bit for me,’ adds Mr Thorne.
‘Up until that point, no one knew to look at me that there was anything wrong, but suddenly that changed.’
Happily, his hair has regrown and he goes for six-month checks and an annual mammogram.
As well as the check-ups, he takes the drug tamoxifen daily, although he has suffered only weight gain — not hot flushes.
And he has joined a breast cancer survivors’ dragon race boat team — where he is, not surprisingly, the only man among 19 women.
‘I felt uncomfortable at first — after all, I was a man in a women’s club — but not any more.
‘We are out every Saturday, 19 women and me, and we chat about things. It’s great fun and helps to rebuild our chest muscles.
‘Now I feel I am just as much a part of this club as they are.’ |
A file photograph shows Thames House, the headquarters of the British Security Service (MI5) in London, Britain October 22, 2015. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/files
LONDON (Reuters) - A former senior British intelligence officer wants to give evidence that the country’s security services knew about the torture of inmates at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, a newspaper reported.
The former officer is seeking permission to present evidence to a forthcoming parliamentary inquiry that British officials saw detainees being tortured in December 2002, the Sunday Times said quoting senior security sources.
Details of torture were disclosed during meetings held at the London headquarters of Britain’s MI5 in 2002 and the evidence is believed to include claims that British officials witnessed inmates being chained, hooded, waterboarded and subjected to mental abuse by CIA officials, the report said.
No one was immediately available to comment at Britain’s interior ministry which handles media queries relating to MI5.
A report by the U.S. Senate published in 2014 said the CIA used sexual threats, waterboarding and other harsh methods to interrogate terrorism suspects in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
A former British inmate at Guantanamo said last month that British security officers witnessed him being tortured by American soldiers in Afghanistan. [nL8N1420FW]
Separately, a former British inmate at Guantanamo said in 2014 he underwent psychological torture included execution threats and light deprivation.
The prison in Guantanamo, in Cuba, was opened in 2002 to house foreign terrorism suspects but has drawn international criticism from human rights activists and many foreign governments. U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking to close it. |
Contracts $8.5m / 2 Years (2018 - 2019) (Edit)
(Edit) signed by Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on 12/15/2017 (Free Agent)
2018: $4M, 2019: $4.5M
$4M, $4.5M
Originally Reported By: Ken Rosenthal
Source: twitter.com, Hat Tip: twitter.com
Submitted by Bailey Winston $5.8m / 1 Years (2017) (Edit)
(Edit) signed by Chicago Cubs on 1/13/2017 (Avoided Arbitration)
2017: $5.8M
$5.8M
Originally Reported By: Gordon Wittenmyer
Source: twitter.com
Submitted by Bailey Winston $4.2m / 1 Years (2016) (Edit)
(Edit) signed by Chicago Cubs on 1/15/2016 (Avoided Arbitration)
2016: $4.2M
$4.2M
Originally Reported By: Jeff Passan
Source: twitter.com
Submitted by Bailey Winston $0.5m / 1 Years (2015) (Edit)
(Edit) signed by Chicago Cubs on 3/5/2015 (Minor League)
2015: $0.5M
$0.5M
Source: spotrac.com
Submitted by Bailey Winston $0.5m / 1 Years (2014) (Edit)
(Edit) signed by Chicago Cubs on 1/1/2014 (League Minimum)
2014: $0.5M
$0.5M
Submitted by matthewyaspan $0.5m / 1 Years (2013) (Edit)
(Edit) signed by Chicago Cubs on 12/6/2012 (Minor League)
2013: $0.5M
$0.5M
Source: chicago.cbslocal.com, Hat Tip: chicagonow.com
Submitted by Bailey Winston Add New Contract Drafts 2012 Rule 5 Draft - Round: 1, Pick: 2, Overall: 2
Team: Chicago Cubs |
Tim Howard gave a historic performance against Belgium on Tuesday night in the World Cup, grabbing 16 saves, almost of all of which resulted in audible gasps and cheers around the country. But even more impressive is when they’re seen all in one highlight reel courtesy of ESPN:
An exhausted-looking Howard made the media rounds on Wednesday and said he was confident in the team’s future and proud of its performance. In an appearance on SportsCenter, he said that despite the heartbreak, the tournament was a highlight of his life.
Later on the Dan Patrick Show, he repeated how proud he was of the team’s efforts.
“We showed that we’re never outmatched,” he said on The Dan Patrick Show. “We went up against some of the best teams in the world … and we stood toe to toe and we gave as good as we got. I think we can be proud of the fact that we weren’t over-matched and we held our own.”
(Thanks to ESPN.com for sharing) |
Telegraph Sport can disclose that Frederick Lord, the director of Interpol’s Anti-Corruption Office, was offered a job in Fifa’s integrity unit last autumn only for the world governing body to withdraw the offer shortly before Christmas.
According to security sources, Lord, one of the leading experts on anti-corruption measures in global policing, received a “letter of intent” from Fifa and he was told he would be sent a contract.
On the basis of this assurance he resigned his post at Interpol, and sources have suggested he had begun house-hunting in Zurich.
In mid-December however Lord was told that the job, in which, Fifa says, he would have been involved in monitoring illegal betting on international football and other integrity issues, was being withdrawn.
With Interpol already having launched a global search for a successor in his post, Lord is now expected to return to his previous job for the Office of Police Integrity in Victoria, Australia.
Lord is a former colleague of Fifa’s security adviser, Chris Eaton, an Australian detective who stepped down as Interpol’s director of operations last March to advise Fifa on security issues.
Lord, who has spoken extensively on anti-corruption issues at conferences around the world, previously worked in the Australian police’s Internal Affairs Covert Services Unit, which focused on police corruption.
Fifa’s withdrawal of the offer to Lord prompted security sources to suggest that the organisation lacks the stomach to tackle the reputational issues it faces.
One source suggested that Fifa executive committee members had objected to the appointment because they feared Lord would conduct internal investigations, but a Fifa spokesman denied this.
The recent bid process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups was mired in controversy following allegations of corruption against Fifa officials. Fifa executive committee members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii were banned for one and three years respectively by Fifa’s ethics committee, and four other officials were also banned.
The effectiveness of Fifa’s investigation into allegations of collusion between the Spain-Portugal and Qatar bids has also been questioned after the ethics commission was unable to establish a case against them.
Last week Fifa President Sepp Blatter, who is under pressure from the Swiss authorities who have promised to clamp down on corruption in sport, said he intends to establish an anti-corruption committee to clean up the governing body’s image. “This committee will strengthen our credibility and give us a new image in terms of transparency,” he said.
Fifa insisted on Thursday that Lord’s employment was not connected to Blatter’s anti-corruption measures, but security sources with knowledge of Fifa described the decision as “strange”.
“It seems strange that you would seek an expert out to bring credibility and expertise and then drop him and form a committee of your own selected men to whitewash everything,” said a source.
In a statement issued to The Daily Telegraph via Interpol, Lord said: “I consider any discussions and negotiations between myself and Fifa to be private and any speculation from outside parties, is just that, speculation.”
In a statement Fifa confirmed that it had offered Lord a job, but gave no reason for why it was withdrawn. “The opening has nothing to do with an anti-corruption unit,” it said in a statement. “The opening is a position as a Fifa staff member in an existing department within Fifa, in relation to the Early Warning System and Fifa’s fight against irregular and illegal betting. After an evaluation process, Mr Lord and Fifa could not agree on employment conditions, and Fifa decided not to hire him.”
Fifa was unable to say whether the post would be filled by an alternative candidate. |
Overview
The title screen.
Gameplay
One of the new features, Battle Tower.
Pokemon Gyms
Violet City Gym
Azalea City Gym
Goldenrod City Gym
Ecruteak City Gym
Cianwood City Gym
Olivine City Gym
Magohany City Gym
Blackthorn City Gym
Vermilion City Gym
Saffron City Gym
Cerulean City Gym
Celadon City Gym
Fuschia City Gym
Pewter City Gym
Seafoam Islands City Gym
Viridian City Gym
The Elite Four
Elite Four Will
Elite Four Koga
Elite Four Bruno
Elite Four Karen
Elite Four Champion Lance
Legendary Pokemon
Entei
Suicune
Raikou
Lugia
Ho-oh
Celebi
Battle Tower
Cellphone Network (Japan only)
The GBC Cellphone Adapter
The seventh game in the Pokemon series. It was a remake of Gold/Silver with minor changes, as Yellow was to Red/Blue Emerald to Ruby/Sapphire , and Platinum to Diamond/Pearl . The plot is generally the same as gold/silver with a few new subplots added involving the legendary Pokemon Suicune and the Unown. This was also the first game in the Pokemon series where you could choose the gender of your trainer. Also it is the first pokemon game where the opposing pokemon each have a unique entry animation.Besides minor graphical changes, such as the new animated sprites for the Pokemon, the biggest addition was the battle tower, allowing players to participate in stadium-like battles.Pokemon Crystal follows closely the formula of the previous games, most notably Gold/Silver. You start the game in your home town and star capturing and training Pokemon aspiring being the greatest Pokemon trainer in the world. For that the player has the chance to choose the gender of the main character, something new to the series then, and choose which Pokemon he wants to start the adventure from three choices given by Professor Elm Cyndaquil or Totodile . The player is able to buy as much Poké-balls as he wants and try to capture as much Pokemon as he feels like, though only six can be held with the player for use against wild attacks or other Pokemon trainers, the rest will be stored and will be available for exchange at any PC found in Pokemon Centers.The player will have to travel through the world of Johto training Pokemons and battling gym leaders for badges, used to be allowed into the Elite Four, the very best trainers around, and the Elite Champion. The battles are set in turns with each Pokemon having a maximum of 4 attacks each, the Pokemon have a health gauge which when an attack is received it goes down, when it reaches zero the Pokemon faints and is unable to fight, the winner is the trainer who succeeds in taking down all Pokemon from the opposing trainer. When a Pokemon faints it can be recovered using items or by stopping by at any Pokemon Center and requesting the services from Nurse Joy, the Pokemon recovery is free of charge.Like before, this version features a rival for you character as well, this player will begin the adventure at the same time as you and will be advancing at basically the same pace as you do, at key points in the game the rival will appear and challenge the player to a fight. Aside from the rival the player can find several other players along the way, they will have increasing level of experience as you advance in the game, and can be a source of both experience for your Pokemon and money; though Pokemon that belong to other players aren't allowed to be captured, while wild Pokemon, even though generally handing away less experience points, give the opportunity for capture. The money can be used at Pokemon Marts to buy many types of items.Along with many from the previous games, this game brings 100 more Pokemon reaching the number of 251 unique Pokemon available (151 of which come from the previous generation). To capture every single Pokemon the player has to exchange with the games it was based upon, Gold/Silver, and the previous generation, Red/Blue/Green/Yellow, though the Link Cable, connecting two Game Boy's and allowing two players to battle or exchange their Pokemon at will. This system of not having a main version with all Pokemon available has been in the series since the beginning, and is still present in more recent games.This version also includes the day/night system, as well as the real time and the days of the week recorded in the cartridge. The has many influences on the game, for instance, some Pokemon only appear in the wild at night, while others will only appear in a certain day of the week. The Phone system is also present here, debuting in Gold/Silver, some Pokemon trainers in the game will get your phone number and eventually will call you giving some hints about the location of items, Pokemon, or inviting you for a battle. This makes possible for some trainers to be replayed even after you beat them, most of them will be a one battle only, like it was in the past and like happens with most trainers still.The system where you have to get badges throughout the world to be allowed to enter the Elite Four and try to become the greatest Pokemon Trainer around came back in the sequel to Red/Blue/Green/Yellow. This time the region where the game primarily takes places is called Johto and the gym leaders are all different than its prequel. Eventually, when all 8 gym leader are defeated in the Johto region and the Elite Four is also defeated, you'll have the opportunity to go back to Kanto (the region of the Red/Blue/Green/Yellow generation) to a replay on all past Gym leaders, assuring you a total of 16 Gym Leaders and 16 possible badges, even though the adventure is nowhere near in length than it was back then, but for a few more hours of added gameplay it's more than enough.Leader - FalknerBadge - Zephyr BadgePokemon Type - FlyingPokemon Used - Pidgey, PidgeottoLeader - BugsyBadge - Hive BadgePokemon Type - BugPokemon Used - Metapod, Kakuna, ScyterLeader - WhitneyBadge - Plain BadgePokemon Type - NormalPokemon Used - Clefairy, MiltankLeader - MortyBadge - Fog BadgePokemon Type - GhostPokemon Used - Gastly, Hunter, Hunter, GengarLeader - ChuckBadge - Storm BadgePokemon Type - FightingPokemon Used - Primeape, PoliwrathLeader - JasmineBadge - Mineral BadgePokemon Type - SteelPokemon Used - Magnemite, Magnemite, SteelixLeader - PryceBadge - Glacier BadgePokemon Type - IcePokemon Used - Seel, Dewgong, PiloswineLeader - ClairBadge - Rising BadgePokemon Type - DragonPokemon Used - Dragonair, Dragonair, Dragonair, KingdraWhen the Elite Four is beat you'll have the opportunity to go back to Kanto and re-battle the upgraded eight gym leaders from the previous game. Professor Elm will give you a ticket to S.S. Aqua docked in Olivine, if you decide to board you'll end up in Vermilion where S.S. Anne was docked back in Red/Blue/Green/Yellow. Now you can explore Kanto's Gyms, in a new order. The only difference, except for the order, is that Koga is not longer a Gym Leader, since he's now on the Elite Four we can only assume he got promoted, and leaved his gym spot for his daughter, Janine Leader - Lt. SurgeBadge - ThunderbadgePokemon Type - ElectricPokemon Used - Raichu, Electrode, Electrode , Magneton, ElectabuzzLeader - SabrinaBadge - MarshbadgePokemon Type - PsychicPokemon Used - Espeon, Mr. Mime, AlakazanLeader - MistyBadge - Cascade BadgePokemon Type - WaterPokemon Used - Golduck, Quagsire, Lapras, StarmieLeader - ErikaBadge - Rainbow BadgePokemon Type - GrassPokemon Used - Tangela, Victreebel, Jumpluff, BellossomLeader - JanineBadge - Sould BadgePokemon Type - Bug/PoisonPokemon Used - Crobat, Ariados, Weezing, Weezing, VenomothLeader - BrockBadge - Boulder BadgePokemon Type - Rock/GroundPokemon Used - Graveler, Rhyhorn, Omastar, Kabutops, OnyxLeader - BlaineBadge - Volcano BadgePokemon Type - FirePokemon Used - Magcargo, Magmar, RapidashLeader - GaryBadge - Earth BadgePokemon Type - Gary has a very varied teamPokemon Used - Pidgeot, Alakazan, Rhydon, Exeggutor, Gyarados, ArcanineThe Elite Four works pretty much like in the previous, you first face the four members of the elite to then battle against the Elite Champion for the title of greatest of all. Bruno from the previous Elite mark a come back, while the previously gym leader Koga appears as one of the four.Pokemon Type - PsychicPokemon Used - Xatu, Exeggutor, Slowbro, Jynx, XatuPokemon Type - Bug/PoisonPokemon Used - Ariados, Forretress, Muk, Venomoth, Crobat,Pokemon Type - FightingPokemon Used - Hitmontop, Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, Onyx, MachampPokemon Type - DarkPokemon Used - Umbreon, Vileplume, Gengar, Murkrow, HoundoomPokemon Type - DragonPokemon Used - Gyarados, Charizard, Aerodactyl, Dragonite, Dragonite, DragoniteLegendary Pokemon are Pokemon generally found in a very limited amount in the world of Pokemon, so unique there is only one of each of them. These Pokemon have more experience than the rest, and can be found in already high levels ranging from 30 to 70. Like Moltres Articuno and Zapdos were the legendary birds of the previous games, this time there are Legendary Dogs, called Entei Suicune and Raikou . There's also two new birds, Lugia and Ho-oh . And a time-traveler Pokemon called Celebi Type - FireLevel - 40Location - After receiving the Clear Bell in the Radio Tower, head to Tin Tower and you'll battle Suicune, both Entei and Raikou will be there too, but the manner to capture them is the same as Gold/Silver, you'll have to first find them in the wild to then start hunting them down in the world of Johto.Type - WaterLevel - 40Location - After receiving the Clear Bell in the Radio Tower, head to Tin Tower and you'll battle Suicune with a chance of capturing.Type - ElectricLevel - 40Location - After receiving the Clear Bell in the Radio Tower, head to TIn Tower and you'll battle Suicune, both Raikou and Entei will be there too, but the manner to capture them is the same as Gold/Silver, you'll first have to find them in the wild to then star hunting them down in the world of Johto.Type - Flying / PsychicLevel - 60Location - With the Silver Wing in hands, acquired in Pewter City, head to Olivine City and use Surf to surf south, Lugia is inside the caverns.Type - Flying / FireLevel - 60Location - The way to find Ho-oh is substantially harder than it was in Gold/Silver. Ho-oh sits on Tin Tower like always and to reach him you need the Rainbow Wing. Getting the Rainbow Wing is the problem, you need to have captured all legendary dogs, Entei, Suicune and Raikou, and have all the 16 badges. Then head to Tin Tower and talk to the upper center old man, he'll hand you the Rainbow Wing and the stairs to the higher levels of the Tin Tower will appear, go climbing your way through until you reach the chamber of Ho-oh.One of the aspects of Pokemon Crystal that got most players excited prior to the release was the rumor about being able to capture the Pokemon number 251 named Celebi , while it is possible to get in the Japanese version of the game, the Pokemon was removed from the American and European releases. The Goldenrod Pokemon Center was originally a larger place and had the possibility to allow the player to connect the Game Boy to a cellular phone , since the cellphone industry on the rest of the world wasn't as advanced as it was in Japan, it was later removed from the European and American versions of the game. In the original, the player would receive the GS Ball, then would have to go to Azalea Town and give it to Kurt, who would hold the ball for a day for examination before handing it back to the player. The player would then be able to put the ball into the shrine in Illex Forest, and Celebi would appear giving the player a chance to capture it at level 30.The only possibility for non-Japanese players to catch the Pokemon was participating in Nintendo events or by Game Shark.Arguably the biggest addition in Crystal is the battle Tower, if you walk west through the beach part in olivine you certainly will come across a house that wasn't in Gold/Silver, going through this house will take you to an open area and north of this area will be a huge tower, this is the Battle Tower. Unfortunately, like the Selebi case, in the American and European releases, the Battle Tower suffered major changes, in the original you can also utilize the cellphone features. In the Battle Tower you can register Pokemon in rounded levels going from level 10 to level 100, battling seven trainers for prizes. Here you don't receive experience points from beaten Pokemon and can't use similar Pokemon in the same party or have Pokemon hold the same items.One of Crystal's biggest features only in was the ability to trade and battle with the use of the Game Boy Color Cellphone adapter. This feature allowed players to make use of their cellphone's networking capabilities to make trade requests and engage in trainer battles with anyone playing the game in japan. This was performed in game from the Goldenrod City Pokemon Center. This Pokemon Center was changed to include a cell tower on the roof where players would go to make use of the Cellphone networking feature. this feature is similar to the Wi-Fi feature of Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, albeit limited only to Japan. |
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Sr. MemberActivity: 338Merit: 251 Re: [ANN][GUE]Guerillacoin - Anon Features - 1 Min Blocks - PoStr - Dynamic Interest July 26, 2014, 02:20:35 AM #1344
Many will try and copy us, but there is only one Silverback.
I end my night with a quote from one of my favorite movies -- "Its gonna be biblical".
This kind of sums up what GUE means to me in a sea of scams, instamines, premines, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUsLDzXWUU4
Get in here silverbacks! Its time for Guerilla Warfare -- Irc.freenode.com #Guerillacoin
Guys -- Don't miss out on all of the fun. Things are blowing up! I found an old movie clip that reminds me of the situation that we are in. Guerillacoin is all about innovation and taking time to churn out quality features that just simply work.Many will try and copy us, but there is only one Silverback.I end my night with a quote from one of my favorite movies -- "Its gonna be biblical".This kind of sums up what GUE means to me in a sea of scams, instamines, premines, etc.Get in here silverbacks! Its time for Guerilla Warfare -- Irc.freenode.com #Guerillacoin |
Preview | Recap
Warriors-Wizards Preview
By KEVIN MASSOTH
Posted Feb 02 2016 10:21PM
The good news for the Washington Wizards is that the Golden State Warriors experienced issues against lesser competition on the first two stops of their road trip.
The bad news: they won anyway.
The Warriors brushed aside some uncharacteristic stretches by extending some more telling trends over the weekend, and they will go for their eighth straight victory when they visit the nation's capital Wednesday night.
It's easy to focus on the concerns from the opening two games of Golden State's trip as it nearly blew a 24-point lead in Saturday's 108-105 win over lowly Philadelphia before scoring a season-low 18 points in the opening quarter of Sunday's 116-95 victory against New York.
Still, the Warriors improved to 44-4 to match the best mark in NBA history through 48 games.
Golden State finished with 68 assists on 89 made baskets and converted on 29 of 59 3-pointers between the two contests - extending streaks of at least 30 assists to seven games and at least 10 3-pointers to 10.
The last NBA team to record 30-plus assists seven games in a row was the 1993-94 Warriors.
"That's what we do," coach Steve Kerr said.
And they win. The Warriors are one game better than the pace set by Kerr's 1995-96 Chicago Bulls on the way to their all-time best 72-10 record.
"We're not really paying much attention to the record," Kerr said. "But we don't take winning for granted, that's for sure."
Kerr almost experienced his first loss on the sideline. The Warriors, 5-0 since his Jan. 22 return from a leave of absence due to complications from back surgery, needed a Harrison Barnes 3 with 0.2 seconds left to beat the league-worst 76ers. Things didn't completely return to normal until the second quarter at Madison Square Garden.
Golden State, which has won eight of nine in this series and five in a row at Washington, bounced back from a 20-18 first-quarter deficit by scoring 64 points over the next 24 minutes. Stephen Curry scored only 13 points, but Klay Thompson made 14 of 18 shots for 34 and Draymond Green had 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists to tie a franchise record with his ninth triple-double - matching Hall of Famer Tom Gola's total from the 1959-60 season.
Golden State has also held a rebounding advantage in each game of its winning streak, an area that led to the latest loss for Washington (21-25).
The Wizards suffered their sixth defeat in eight games Monday after getting outrebounded 53-27 in a 114-98 loss at Oklahoma City. The Thunder grabbed 14 offensive boards to Washington's two.
"When you're playing from behind and you're getting a team that's making shots and getting offensive rebounds when they're missing, it's tough to win," point guard John Wall said.
The Warriors make plenty of shots as they're tied with San Antonio for the best field-goal percentage in the league at 49.1 while shooting 42.8 percent from 3-point range, far ahead of the second-place Spurs (38.7). The Wizards, who have lost seven of nine at home, allow opponents to shoot a league-high 38.6 percent on 3s and 47.0 percent overall.
Washington will play without coach Randy Wittman for the second straight game after his brother's death last week, and assistant Don Newman will assume the head coaching duties. Wittman is expected to return for Friday's home contest against Philadelphia.
Copyright 2016 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited |
With a President Donald Trump on the horizon, civil liberties advocates applauded President Barack Obama on Thursday after his administration announced the end of a federal registration program for Muslim and Arab immigrants.
Established by the George W. Bush administration in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) was criticized since its inception as regressive attempt to profile individuals based on their national heritage and religion.
Though the provision has been dormant since enforcement of it was blocked in 2011, Thursday's announcement signals the government's official cancellation of the policy. According to a statement by the Department of Homeland Security, "the regulatory structure pertaining to NSEERS no longer provides a discernible public benefit as the program has been rendered obsolete."
Though the ACLU long argued the program never offered a "discernible public benefit," the group welcomed the announcement.
"NSEERS was a completely failed counter-terrorism tool and massive profiling program that didn’t yield a single terrorism conviction in nearly a decade," said Joanne Lin, ACLU senior legislative counsel. "The ACLU applauds the Obama administration for terminating NSEERS for good. With this action, the U.S. is on the right path to protect Muslim and Arab immigrants from discrimination."
The move by the outgoing president appears to be the latest counter-measure against President-elect Trump, who made the establishment of a Muslim registry a cornerstone of his campaign.
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In a recent post for the ACLU's blog, Lin said the NSEERS framework would be especially dangerous in Trump's hand.
"The President-elect has promised on multiple occasions to target Muslim immigrants for "extreme vetting"—a truly terrifying prospect. In 2017, he could make this threat a reality by activating the dormant National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) program with the flip of a switch," she wrote.
Lin described the program as "not only discriminatory and dangerous" but "completely ineffective" as a security measure. "In its nearly 10 years of operation, NSEERS did not produce a single terrorism conviction. Even the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security — the department’s watchdog — said the program was unreliable and a waste of taxpayers' money."
Despite that—as Common Dreams reported last month—Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped draft the original law and has been an advisor to Trump's transition team, specifically cited NSEERS as a tool that could be resurrected by the President-elect.
Though it may not prevent Trump from establishing some other form of registration program for Muslim immigrants or refugees, there is at least one less tool at his disposal for such efforts. |
jailbreakme times 3
Once again, @comex has resurrected http://www.jailbreakme.com for your jailbreaking ease and pleasure!
@comex developed what is now the third installment (and his second) of jailbreakme.com, the easiest way to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad (including the iPad2!). No computer is necessary for jbme3.0…just browse to http://www.jailbreakme.com on your device and install it from there!
While @comex and others have worked hard to make this as simple as possible, some people may have questions and problems may arise. Rather than inundate comex with any questions over twitter, please consider using either our comments section below, or visit http://jbqa.me
Please read “More Information” on the jbme3.0 page for some basic background information and ways you can thank @comex. Here are some additional Q&As beyond that:
Q: Which devices and firmware versions are supported?
A: In this initial release, the following configurations are supported:
iPad1: 4.3 through 4.3.3
iPad2: 4.3.3
iPhone3GS: 4.3 through 4.3.3
iPhone4: 4.3 through 4.3.3
iPhone4-CDMA: 4.2.6 through 4.2.8
iPod touch 3g: 4.3, 4.3.2, 4.3.3
iPod touch 4g: 4.3 through 4.3.3
Q: Do the holes discovered by @comex put my device at risk?
A: Yes. We recommend installing “PDF Patcher 2” in Cydia once you’re jailbroken to eliminate this risk (any firmware version).
Q: How does jbme3.0 differ from the existing jailbreaks?
A: jbme3.0 is entirely userland-based, from start to finish. The A5 chip in the iPad2 has no iBoot or bootrom-level exploits yet, so tools like redsn0w, PwnageTool and sn0wbreeze can’t use the limera1n bootrom exploit to inject the jailbreak. Even for those devices where limera1n works, jbme3.0 injects the jailbreak with a userland exploit.
Q: If I’m already jailbroken on the latest firmware, is there any advantage to jailbreaking again?
A: No, but you should consider showing this to your friends! Spread the jailbreaking fever.
Q: Are the holes exploited by jbme3.0 closed in iOS5?
A: The holes still exist in the iOS5 betas, but they’ll almost certainly be fixed by the time iOS5 is public. However because the iPad2 had no public jailbreak yet, it probably wasn’t worth waiting until the fall to use them. If history repeats itself though, there will be more holes and exploits.
Q: Will I permanently lose the jailbreak if I need to restore my device?
A: For all except the iPad2, saving your SHSH blobs should let you always restore your device to iOS versions where this jailbreak works. The iPad2 is a little more complicated. If you have a wifi-only iPad2 and saved SHSH blobs, you’re in good shape. But if you have the GSM or CDMA iPad2, you won’t be able to restore to 4.3.3 or lower once Apple stops signing its baseband. There are a few ideas that might work to get around this limitation, but for now it’s best to assume there’s no going back to 4.3.3 once 4.3.4 is out for iPad2 GSM or CDMA owners.
Q: I heard this new unionfs stuff is dangerous?
A: Define dangerous :) Seriously though, although unionfs is a huge improvement to the install time of the jailbreak, it is brand new code and there is the possibility something will go wrong. Just keep regular backups of your media and content and you should be fine. If there are any problems, they should appear within the first few days, so hold off and let “everyone else” test the waters if you’d like. |
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British musician Labi Siffre has revealed that he wrote famous Anti-Apartheid anthem ‘Something Inside So Strong’ about his experiences as a gay man.
The singer rose to fame in the 1970s, and is known for penning ‘(Something Inside) So Strong’ while apartheid was in effect in South Africa.
The song was adopted by the anti-apartheid movement as a rallying anthem, for its lyrics including: “The farther you take my rights away the faster I will run/ You can deny me, you can decide to turn your face away.”
However, the singer revealed to the Radio 4’s Today Show that the song was actually inspired by his experiences as a gay men.
He was asked: “That particular song is seen very much as an Anti-Apartheid anthem – is that the way we should see it?”
Siffre, 70, responded: “As soon as I’d written the first two lines, ‘the higher you build your barriers the taller I become’, I realised with a shock that I was writing about my life as a homosexual.
“From knowing I was gay when I was four, long before I’d even heard the words homophobia and homosexuality, and then went through the societal abuse of being told that as a black man and as a homosexual, I was a wicked evil disgusting pervert.
He added: “I tend to find in my life that human rights and good things are like spotlights. They move. Good things happen here, then they move, and bad things take their place.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a little too early to say everything’s changed.”
Speaking about his 2005 civil partnership with late partner of 50 years Peter Lloyd, he said: “These were practical things for me, and they were things that I burned about, waiting for the society I lived in to grow a perceivable backbone.
“It took such a long time, that my life and the life of homosexuals of my age – in the same way as black Americans of my age… it’s too late to wipe away what some people would call bitterness, and I would call justifiable hurt. The wound that will never heal.
“I will never, as a gay man and a black man, ever feel comfortable in the land of my birth. I feel a little more comfortable – I got married, and that’s great.”
Watch a clip of the song below: |
Updated:
For immediate release
July 11, 2014
News media contact:
Steve Sloan, (949) 567-1223
PCGS Certifies Rare Transitional Peace Dollars From Former Mint Director’s Estate
Five rare 1921 and 1922 proof and circulation strike Peace dollars that reflect historic transition changes in the original high-relief design of the series have been authenticated and graded by Professional Coin Grading Service (www.PCGS.com). The coins exhibit different finishes and relief, including a previously unreported 1921 High Relief sandblasted and antiqued finish presentation specimen.
For over 90 years the coins were under the numismatic market radar, owned by and later in the estate of Raymond T. Baker (1877 – 1935) who was United States Mint Director at the time the five Peace dollars were struck.
“This is a fantastic group of 1921 and 1922 transitional coins, and is one of the most significant group of 20th century coins we’ve seen in a long time,” said PCGS Co-Founder David Hall.
The coins were submitted for certification by PCGS Authorized Dealer Ronald J. Gillio on behalf of Stack’s Bowers Galleries (www.Stacks.com). Stack’s will offer them in their upcoming public auction in conjunction with the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money in Rosemont, Illinois.
“There are three ‘discovery’ pieces among these five important coins, and PCGS has created three new classification numbers to formally recognize and catalog them. Each of the five transitional Peace dollars now have the “Baker Estate’ pedigree indicated on the insert label in their PCGS holders,” explained PCGS President Don Willis.
“With submission of these historic Baker Estate coins, PCGS now as identified and certified over the years a total of 19 different proof 1922 Peace dollars,” said Willis.
Baker served as Mint Director from March 1917 to March 1922.
“During his tenure, Baker oversaw the introduction of the new Peace dollar in 1921 and the subsequent design modifications in early 1922. Because of his position, he was able to acquire several important numismatic rarities that have remained off the market since the time of their production,” explained Ron Guth, President of PCGS CoinFacts (www.PCGSCoinFacts.com), the Internet’s most comprehensive resource for information about U.S. coins.
The five recently certified coins and their grades and varieties are:
1921 $1 PCGS SP64. A discovery coin that has a normal High Relief design, but with a sandblasted and antiqued finish.
1922 $1 PCGS PR67. Modified High Relief (Judd-2020). Satin (or “Bright”) finish. A total of 3,200 production trial examples were struck, but only a few were not subsequently destroyed. This surviving example is believed to be one of the first made and produced on a Mint press used to strike medals to bring up the Peace dollar design details.
1922 $1 PCGS MS65. Modified High Relief (J-2020, same die pair as the preceding coin). It has the number “3200” inked in the left obverse field indicating it was the last coin struck from the production run of 3,200 before the obverse die failed. It was struck on a normal production press.
1922 $1 PCGS MS67. Low Relief (Early hub dies, as adopted, but with the B1 reverse). It was pulled from production when the press indicator reached 140,000 coins struck.
1922 $1 PCGS MS67. A second Low Relief, early hub dies example, pulled from production at the same time as the preceding coin.
“This remarkable assemblage traces the transition from the High Relief design of 1921 to the Low Relief design of 1922, and all of the intermediate steps,” said Guth.
“The higher striking pressures required to bring up the full details of the 1921 Peace Dollar caused the dies to fail prematurely. In an attempt to solve this problem, Mint employees lowered the relief of the design, but only slightly. These coins are known as the Modified (or Medium) Relief design, but they failed for the same reason as the 1921s. Ultimately, the design details were reduced drastically, as seen on all of the circulation strike Peace Dollars from 1922 to 1935,” Guth explained.
One of the coins in the group can be tied directly to a January 8, 1922 letter from Mint Superintendent Freas Styer when he sent three 1922-dated experimental coins to Mint Director Baker. Superintendent Styer wrote: “…the coin marked ‘3200’ was the thirty-second hundredth piece struck – the last before the die sunk.”
Guth stated: “The historic importance of that coin is immeasurable. This is one of the rare instances when a particular coin can be tied positively to contemporary correspondence.”
Circumstantial evidence supports a claim that the 1922 “Bright” finish Modified High Relief was also included with that letter. The “Sandblast” finish coin cited in the letter remains unidentified.
Earlier this year, PCGS certified the finest 1922 Matte Finish High Relief Peace dollar, graded PCGS PR67, that also originated from Mint Director Baker’s estate. It will be one of the featured exhibits in the official Museum Showcase display at the ANA 2014 Chicago World’s Fair of Money, August 5 – 9, courtesy of collector Bob R. Simpson of Texas and Legend Numismatics of New Jersey (www.legendcoin.com).
Since its founding in 1986, Professional Coin Grading Service experts have authenticated and graded over 27 million coins with an estimated market value of $27 billion. For additional information about PCGS services, visit www.PCGS.com or call PCGS Customer Service at (800) 447-8848.
### |
Serbia does not intend to join NATO, said the country’s president Tomislav Nikolić.
“We will not do this”, – he said in an interview with Sputnik.
However, he stressed that Belgrade has a great potential for cooperation both with the Alliance and with other entities, such as the CSTO.
In due course, I personally insisted on sending a delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Russians didn’t require that, although our delegation had already attended meetings of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly”, – said the Serbian president.
He also suggested that Russia has enough verbal assurances that Serbia does not seek NATO.
“Russia as a serious country does not count on how much percent we are connected with Moscow, and how much with NATO. Russia knows that Serbian citizens do not want their country to join the alliance”, – said Nikolić.
Serbia is the CSTO observer state since April 2013. At the same time acts a parliamentary resolution adopted in 2007 on the neutrality of Serbia in point of military alliances.
Tags: Balkans; EU; NATO; Russia; Serbia |
As I already pointed out many times, there are a lot of parallels between the current depression and the one from 1929.
Some interesting charts Hussman posted on his blog today compare the current bear market rally with the biggest one from the Great Depression:
Here is a chart of the S&P 500 in weekly data. Note that the market easily and repeatedly breached the lower green bands during the decline, so we should not assume that these bands provide reliable guidance for buying or selling. The recent advance has moved the market the full distance from lower to upper bands, however, which typically does not go uncorrected. The following chart may look the same as the above chart. But it is from April 1930. The market recovered by an almost identical percentage following the 1929 crash, peaking in April 1930, after which it suffered a subsequent decline to fresh lows. The point here is not that the same outcome will necessarily follow in this instance, but that we would be remiss not to consider the fact that investors were equally cheerful in early 1930, when the front page of the Wall Street Journal featured an article entitled “A Turn of the Tide Near” assuring investors: “It cannot be imagined that the wholesale failures and interest defaults characteristic of earlier depressions will now be repeated. Confidence in our banking system wholly precludes the money panics of former eras.”
Hussman observes the parallels in the index movement from lower to upper bands, and suggests that the current market might be headed in the same direction. I would recommend to at least seriously consider this possibility in all your decisions.
The key thing to keep in mind in all of this: The recent rally, green shoots, and recovery hopes have been created and/or fueled by massive government expenses, and by a believe in the omnipotence of our leaders in Washington.
But government spending sprees, too, will have to come to an end sooner or later. On top of that, all that the recent government programs have accomplished is to get marginal individuals back to the same flawed habits, such as owning unaffordable homes, buying too many cars, etc.
The interest that the government has to pay on its debts when it runs up sky high deficits, and the taxes it will have to raise in order to make those payments, will be hanging over the recovery like a Damocles Sword. The Federal Reserve, too, will be faced with a similar situation. Let’s assume, for the sake of the argument, that lending activity on homes, cars, etc. were to pick up again. What will the Fed do then? Cut interest rates? Add more bank reserves? Surely not, quite the opposite.
Once existing stimulus programs and credit expansion attempts subside, there won’t be much left to pick up the slack. The consumer won’t be able to go back to business as usual unless he goes through a long period of reduced consumption, deleveraging, and savings, a period during which the majority of production and spending inside the US will have to be focused on capital goods, so as to restore a balanced ratio between the production of consumer goods and the production of capital goods.
At the point when these government stimuli wind down, Keynesian clowns will be jumping out of the bushes left and right, and demand that the government take on more debt and spend more money. But at some point their mindless tirades will no longer appeal to an overtaxed and overleveraged populace. Their ivory tower nonsense will be way too far detached from simple realities.
Any temporary recovery we witness now, is likely to be remembered as just that, a temporary phenomenon. All actions taken so far have set the perfect stage for a double dip recession of enormous proportions, the worst possible prolongation of the necessary correction.
If it was our dear government’s objective to repeat the playbook from the Great Depression one by one, then they have indeed succeeded phenomenally.
Related Posts: |
Bradley Cooper Says He Owes Everything to Being Sober
Shutterstock
Bradley Cooper doesn’t take his 11 years of sobriety for granted. The actor has not shied away from publicly discussing his past battle with alcohol. And in an interview with Barbara Walters this week, Cooper said sobriety not only changed his life, but saved his career.
“I would never be sitting here with you, no way, no chance [if I hadn’t gotten sober,]” he said. “I wouldn’t have been able to have access to myself or other people, or even been able to take in other people, if I hadn’t changed my life. I never would have been able to have the relationships that I do. I never would have been able to take care of my father the way I did when he was sick. So many things.”
When Cooper first “came out” about his recovery in 2012, he said prior to getting sober at age 29, his addiction to alcohol and painkillers was taking a toll on his work. "I was so concerned [with] what you thought of me, how I was coming across, how I would survive the day," he said. "I always felt like an outsider. I realized I wasn't going to live up to my potential, and that scared the hell out of me."
Since then, things have been on the up-and-up for the 40-year-old actor. Cooper’s breakout success came after his starring roll in The Hangover, and he’s since starred in a string of box office hits, like American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook. But he believes none of this would’ve happened if he hadn’t put down booze and pills 11 years ago. "The one thing that I've learned in life is the best thing I can do is embrace who I am and then do that to the fullest extent, and then whatever happens, happens,” he said in 2013. |
As was just revealed at the Doctor Who panel at New York Comic Con, in addition to the Doctor and Matt Lucas’ character Nardole, the Christmas special, “Return of Doctor Mysterio,” also features Justin Chatwin (Orphan Black) as a literal superhero.
Here’s the full image of Chatwin:
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Steven Moffat said that his inspiration for the special was his obsession with superheroes, in particular Clark Kent. Not Superman, but Clark Kent because Moffat loved the mild-mannered alter ego. In particular, the way that he never tells Lois Lane that he is actually the man she loves. “It’s a love triangle with two people in it!” It is, in his mind, the best love story ever told.
We also saw some of the very first footage from the special in a behind-the-scenes video. Be prepared for a lot of weird things confusing the Doctor: |
Preview: Everything’s bigger in Skylanders Giants
Last October, Activision released Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, a game that combined video games and collectibles in the form of small figures that unlocked additional playable characters within the game. The frenzy created by the availability of these additional figures led to blockbuster sales, with over 30 million Skylanders figures flying off the shelves by March. As supply slowly met demand, sales naturally slowed, but Activision has something planned to return gamers to that frenzied state: Skylanders Giants.
Giants borrows the gameplay mechanics from the original title, but introduces a host of new features including, as the name suggests, giant figures that are significantly larger than the originals. For the sequel, new arenas and additional gameplay options are slated to be added to the battle mode, which is the head-to-head portion of the game. There will also be new Hero Challenges, which are unique challenges that require you to complete a task in a set amount of time and are unique to each Skylander.
Activision also has new Skylanders on deck for the release of Giants. LightCore Skylanders, which feature some type of character integrated light up feature, will carry additional in-game benefits. Eight new Skylanders will be joining the existing ranks of playable characters, while a set of the original characters will see a re-release. These “Series 2” characters feature a new upgrade power called “Wow Pow,” and also let gamers upgrade across more than one upgrade path, a limitation from the original game. Series 2 characters will be playable in the original Skylanders game, for those of you not ready to jump into a new game. There will also be eight of the larger Giant characters available.
The original game was only available as a starter pack, which featured three characters, the game, and a Portal of Power. For Giants, Activision will be releasing new starter packs, as well as booster packs for owners of the original game that come with the game disc and one Giant. The new starter packs will include a Giant, one of the new Skylanders and a Series 2 figure. Right now, that’s slated to be Tree Rex, Jet-Vac and a Series 2 Cynder, respectively.
In my time with the game, I was able to play as Jet-Vac, one of the new characters, and Tree Rex, one of the new Giants. The first thing you’ll notice is just how large the Giants are. They are huge! The bosses also got a boost in size, so don’t expect to have a size advantage. The level I played featured a battle arena that reminded me quite a lot of Ratchet: Deadlocked, one of my favorites in the Ratchet & Clank series.
The one thought that kept coming to mind as I played was this is just like the old game, only new. The game itself is virtually indistinguishable from the original in appearance and gameplay, but you will notice minor tweaks and improvements as you play through the levels that only serve to improve the experience.
I’ve played quite a bit of co-op in the original game, but was not able to try co-op for Giants as the unit I played on was limited to a single controller. The only concern I had about co-op was how two Giants would fit on the existing portal. I was assured by Activision staff that they will fit; you just may need to angle them slightly.
It’s a gross understatement to say that I’m eager to get my hands on Giants, but if for some reason you are late to the party and haven’t picked up Skylanders, now is the time. Giants drops in a few short weeks and you’ve got a lot of ground to make up. |
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice is now a Republican, he officially announced at a rally for President Donald Trump. The ex-Democrat has just tipped the scales to give the GOP control of 26 state legislatures and governorships.
Justice said Thursday night that neither he nor Trump ran as politicians, but as people just wanting to "get something done."
Gov. Jim Justice campaigned as a conservative Democrat last year, declining to endorse Clinton https://t.co/qxIzThuzdTpic.twitter.com/eLWFeKpyLd — RT America (@RT_America) August 3, 2017
Justice’s announcement was anticipated during Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rally Thursday evening in Huntington, West Virginia. The president had teased White House reporters Thursday morning to expect “a very big announcement.”
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"Have we not heard enough about the Russians?" Justice told the crowd to raucous applause.
Justice won the office as a Democrat in November 2016, despite the state being reliably red. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton there overwhelmingly, 68.5 to 26.4 percent.
The party turn makes Justice the 34th Republican governor in the US. West Virginia became the 26th state where the GOP has full control of the legislative and executive branch, according to the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform.
Democrats control both the legislative and executive branches in six states, less than a quarter of the states held by the GOP.
The tax group estimates the total population of GOP-controlled states to be 164,139,104, while the six Democratic-controlled states have a combined population of 50,190,213.
Justice may be a newly registered Republican, but it is unclear how much his politics will truly change. Before entering politics, the billionaire coal and real estate tycoon registered with both the GOP and Democrats, as well as registering with no party affiliation, all while donating to elected officials of both parties, the New York Times reported.
Justice campaigned as a conservative Democrat last year, declining to endorse Clinton.
US Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia may end up being the most directly impacted by the party change. The moderate Democrat, who also used to be the state’s governor, has voted in line with Trump's position 54.2 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight. Up for reelection in 2018, Manchin may struggle without a Democratic governor’s support.
Justice shares with Trump an inclination for theatrics. In April, the governor brought three covered silver platters into the state capitol. He lifted the lids one by one, first revealing a “nothing burger” consisting simply of an empty bun, then a mayonnaise sandwich, and finally, a pile of cow dung covering pages of a Republican-backed budget proposal. Justice called the budget “nothing more than a bunch of political bull you-know-what.”
The West Virginia State Tax Department has four liens filed against Tams Management Inc., one of Justice’s companies, due to almost $1 million in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties, the New York Times reported. |
Buy Photo Leslie McGowan (left) and Annette DeBastiani, both of Wilmington, share a table as they hang out following a yoga class at Constitution Yards beer garden at the Wilmington Riverfront. (Photo: WILLIAM BRETZGER/THE NEWS JOURNAL)Buy Photo
Beer will continue to flow at Wilmington's outdoor beer garden.
Delaware's alcoholic beverage control commissioner, John Cordrey, granted The Constitution Yards Beer Garden's request for a two-year license Tuesday morning. Since its opening in June, the hotspot has operated and served alcohol under several temporary license extensions.
"We're excited and relieved that we can continue operating for the rest of the summer," said Megan McGlinchey, acting executive director of the nonprofit Riverfront Development Corp., which oversees the beer garden and other beautification efforts along the Wilmington Riverfront. "We thought that we had followed the letter of the law and followed the application and did everything that we needed to do."
Cordrey said he granted the beer garden the two-year license because he found it was "a not-for-profit entity that was entitled to a biennial gathering license under the law."
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In the state of Delaware, such licenses are usually reserved for picnics, fairs and banquets organized by nonprofit organizations like churches or volunteer fire companies.
Some residents of the adjacent Justison Landing Condominiums complex have complained the beer garden contributes to greater noise levels, increased traffic and public drunkenness near their Riverfront homes.
Charles Fleming Jr., a representative of the complex's homeowners association, articulated these concerns at a public hearing earlier this month with the help of attorney Stephen Spence, whom the HOA hired to argue against the beer garden.
At the hearing, Spence noted that several of the restaurateurs in support of the beer garden, who RDC attorney Michael Hochman brought before Cordrey as witnesses, operated out of buildings rented from the Buccini/Pollin Group, a Wilmington developer.
Spence also pointed out that the RDC saved roughly $50,000 in manual labor costs that went to the disassembling of certain parts of the Riverfront's annual ice rink, which will take the place of the seasonal beer garden during winter months.
"They brought up things that were of concern," Cordrey said. "They weren't of overriding concern."
Fleming said he and other members of the HOA plan to hold a meeting with McGlinchey in the coming days to discuss the ruling.
"Depending on the outcome of the meeting, the HOA will determine whether or not to exercise their right of appeal," Fleming said.
Cordrey said no residents of the Justison Landing Condominiums, nor Spence, have contacted the Office of Alcoholic Beverage Control yet with plans to appeal the ruling.
"That is certainly their right," Cordrey said.
Spence did not return requests for comment.
Patrons of Wilmington's Constitution Yards Beer Garden play corn hole Tuesday evening. (Photo: Jordan McBride)
Tim Lux, Constitution Yards' general manager, said he was not nervous the beer garden would be denied the two-year license.
“We trusted in the process and went through the hearing, so it’s great to finally hear it and move into the next phase,” he said. "We’re looking forward to a busy end of the summer and gearing up for the fall.”
On Tuesday evening, young professionals and some families gathered at the beer garden to grab a bite to eat, drink beer and play corn hole, despite weather hovering around 90 degrees.
Although it was the first time at the beer garden for Wilmington residents Ivy Brock and Natalie Kaplan, they said they were already fond of the spot.
“We were talking about how Philly has been doing things like this for years,” Kaplan said. “I’m glad to see Wilmington finally doing something like this too."
Brock, a lifelong Wilmingtonian, said that while locals may know to frequent places like Chelsea Tavern on Market Street or Trolley Square on a Saturday night, out-of-towners can sometimes struggle finding a hang-out spot. Now, she said, residents and newbies alike can add another venue to their list.
“I think it’s great,” she said. “It’s something that the Riverfront needs. It’s something our city needs. It’s about time that it came through.”
Contact Quint Forgey at [email protected]. Contact Jordan McBride at [email protected].
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/2ai0xLs |
John Cusack has joined the cast of western Never Grow Old alongside Emile Hirsch, Deborah Francois and Antonia Campbell-Hughes.
Being John Malkovich actor Cusack co-stars as malevolent villain Dutch Albert with Hirsch (Lone Survivor) in the lead role as the reluctant hero Patrick Tate. Shoot has been underway in Ireland since November 6.
Launched by Metro International Entertainment at the AFM, the film is written and directed by Ivan Kavanagh (The Canal). Rezo Films has taken French-speaking territories.
The film was developed by Ripple World Pictures with the assistance of Creative Europe and the Irish Film Board who also provided production finance for the project.
In Never Grow Old an undertaker [Hirsch] faces a moral dilemma when a ruthless gang of outlaws terrorises his sleepy frontier town: doe he profit from the violence to provide for his family or defeat the outlaws before they turn on him and his loved ones?
The film is produced by Jacqueline Kerrin and Dominic Wright of Ripple World Pictures in conjunction with Nicolas Steil of the Iris Group and Jean-Michel Rey of Rezo Productions.
Cofiloisirs is providing cashflow. The film is further supported by Quickfire Films and the Luxembourg Film Fund, along with Eurimages and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI).
Metro International’s slate includes Journey’s End starring Sam Claflin, Paul Bettany, Asa Butterfield, Toby Jones, Tom Sturridge and Stephen Graham, and family film Zoo with Art Parkinson, Toby Jones and Penelope Wilton. The next film due into production for the sales outfit is thriller Andorra, directed by Fred Schepisi, with an ensemble cast that includes Guy Pearce, Clive Owen, Gillian Anderson and Toni Collette. |
The increasing incidence of TGCTs over time strongly suggests that young men have been exposed to 1 or more increasingly prevalent causal factors. One exposure that has been increasing in the United States and in Europe over the same period as the rise in the incidence of TGCTs is the use of marijuana. 12 - 14 Chronic marijuana use has multiple adverse effects on the endocrine and reproductive systems. For example, chronic marijuana use is associated with reduced hypothalamic release of gonadotropin‐releasing hormone, decreased plasma levels of gonadotropins (follicle‐stimulating hormone, lutenizing hormone, and prolactin) and testosterone, reduced spermatogenesis, and impotency in men. 15 - 17 In mice, cannabis‐like compounds target cannabinoid receptors in Leydig and Sertoli cells, influencing testosterone secretion and Sertoli cell survival. 18 - 22 Male infertility and poor semen quality also are associated with the risk of TGCT. 6 Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that marijuana use is a risk factor for TGCT using data from the Adult Testicular Cancer Lifestyle and Blood Specimen (ATLAS) Study, a population‐based case‐control study conducted in the Seattle/Puget Sound region of Washington State.
Testicular germ cell tumors (TGCTs) are the most common type of malignancy in American men between ages 15 and 34 years. 1 These cancers traditionally are classified into 2 broad groups: pure seminoma (60% of TGCTs) and nonseminoma (40% of TGCTs). Nonseminomas include tumors that have purely nonseminomatous elements (eg, embyronal carcinomas) as well as tumors that have both seminomatous and nonseminomatous elements. 2 The age‐specific incidence of nonseminomas peaks 10 years earlier (ages 20‐35 years) compared with seminomas (ages 30‐45 years). 3 During the last half of the 20th century, the incidence of TGCTs increased by 3% to 6% per year in the US as well as in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. 2 , 4 - 6 The rising rates have been evident for both seminoma and nonseminoma. There are few established risk factors for TGCT beyond cryptorchidism, gonadal dysgenesis, age, race, and family history of TGCT 6 - 8 ; most (but not all) studies indicate that risk factors do not vary between the 2 histologic groups. 8 , 9 The current prevailing paradigm is that the disease is initiated in early fetal life, when some primordial germ cells fail to differentiate, remain susceptible to malignant transformation, and develop into carcinoma in situ. It is believed that these neoplasms progress to invasive cancer under the influence of adult steroid hormones and/or gonadotropins. 10 , 11
To evaluate the extent to which the reporting of marijuana use among our controls was consistent with other population‐based data, we analyzed publicly available data for men ages 18 to 34 years from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) (formerly known as the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse) that was conducted between 1999 through 2006. We did not include data on men ages 35 to 44 years, because the NSDUH data aggregated them with men ages 45 to 49 years (who were not included in our study). We compared the observed number of controls who reported ever using marijuana, current versus former marijuana use, and current marijuana use ≥1 days per week with the expected number based on the age‐ and race‐specific proportions in the NSDUH data. We calculated observed‐to‐expected (O/E) ratios, and corresponding 95% CIs using the Poisson process and logarithmic transformation. 29
Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated as estimates of relative risk using unconditional logistic regression. Polytomous logistic models were used to compare controls with each of the case groups defined by histologic type. P values comparing OR by histology were obtained by using likelihood‐ ratio tests, and P values for trend were evaluated among ever‐users of marijuana by fitting a grouped linear version of the variable of interest in that group. To assess the extent of confounding, we included in the logistic regression models terms for age and reference year (because the controls were frequency matched to the cases on these characteristics), history of cryptorchidism, first‐degree family history of TGCT, race, and income. We also examined confounding by 2 additional habits that may be expected to be correlated with marijuana use, smoking, and drinking alcohol, and observed that drinking alcohol (frequency of use in the 5 years before reference date) and current smoking were confounders. Final models were adjusted for age, reference year, alcohol use, current smoking, and history of cryptorchidism. Subgroup analyses were performed by age group, excluding men who had a history of cryptorchidism and men who had a first‐degree family history of TGCT. All analyses were performed in Stata/SE (Stata Statistical Software, version 9.2; StataCorp, College Station, Tex).
Analyses were conducted for all cases combined and for cases classified by histologic subtype: Seminomas included those with ICD‐O histologies 9060‐9064; and nonseminomas included embryonal (9070), yolk sac (9071), teratoma (9080, 9082‐9084), nonseminoma not otherwise specified (9065), and mixed germ cell tumors with (9085) and without (9081, 9101) seminomatous features. By using the data collected on episodes of marijuana use, we created analytic variables for ever use, former versus current use, age at first use, lifetime duration of use, and frequency of use. Frequency of use was calculated in 2 forms, 1 averaged over each man's lifetime and 1 for the current episode of use, if applicable.
Each man was asked whether he had ever used marijuana, hashish, or both. Each man who reported having used marijuana was asked to recall different periods in his life when he used this drug, defined by the ages in which he first and last used it at a given frequency (times per day, week, month, or year), and form (marijuana, hashish, or both).
After providing written informed consent, cases and controls were interviewed in person by trained interviewers in a place of the respondent's choosing (including home, place of work, or research institution office) using a structured questionnaire. All questions referred to the time period before each man's assigned reference date. For each case, the reference date was the month and year of his TGCT diagnosis. Each control was assigned a reference date that was selected at random from among all possible dates given the distribution of diagnosis years for cases identified as of the time the controls were selected through random‐digit dialing. Information collected during the interview included 1) demographic characteristics, 2) cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, 3) recreational drug use, and 4) other known or suspected risk factors for TGCT. Before the in‐person interview, each participant was asked to complete a self‐administered questionnaire regarding his family history of cancer and ethnic heritage.
Of the 1875 eligible controls who were identified, we interviewed 979 men (52.2%). The screening proportion was calculated as the number of screened households divided by the number of all confirmed households plus the number of presumed households (answering machine on every call, immediate hang‐up, and refusal to answer screening questions). The screening response rate was 82.9%, which, when combined with the interview proportion, yielded an overall response proportion of 43.3%.
Mitofsky‐Waksberg random digit dialing with a clustering factor (‘k’) of 5 was used to recruit controls. 25 - 27 Controls were men without a history of TGCT who resided in the same 3 counties as the cases during the case diagnosis period and were frequency‐matched to the cases on 5‐year age groups using 1‐step recruitment. 28 Each telephone number was called at least 9 times over ≥2 weeks, including weekday, weekend, and evening calls. When a call was answered, the interviewer sought to determine whether the telephone rang in a residence and was a landline telephone, the county of the residence, and whether a man aged 18 to 44 years of age lived in the residence. If the household census identified a man aged 18 to 44 years and he was eligible after age stratification criteria were applied, then the interviewer attempted to obtain the name and address of the man so that a letter of introduction to the study could be sent to him. After mailing of the letter, an interviewer called the man to conduct a final eligibility assessment and attempted to recruit him into the study protocol.
Of the 550 total cases identified with eligible diagnosis dates, we interviewed 371 men (67.5%). The rest of the cases fell into the following categories: individual refusal (n = 112; 62.6% of noninterviewed men), lost to follow‐up (n = 50; 27.9%), physician refusal (n = 11; 6.1%), and died (n = 6; 3.4%). Of the 371 cases who were interviewed successfully, we excluded 2 men from our analyses who had tumors classified as choriocarcinoma based on the uniqueness of this histology.
To contact each case to determine his final eligibility and recruitment, we asked his follow‐up physician to determine whether there was any reason why the man should not be approached for the study. If no such reason was given, then we sent the man an introductory letter and followed up with a telephone call from a study interviewer who assessed final eligibility and attempted to recruit him into the study protocol.
Cases who were eligible for participation in the ATLAS Study were men ages 18 to 44 years; were residents of King, Pierce, or Snohomish Counties, Washington State; were diagnosed with an invasive TGCT between January 1, 1999 and January 31, 2006; had a landline residential telephone at the time of diagnosis (because controls were ascertained through random‐digit dialing of landline residential telephone numbers); and were capable of communicating in English. Potentially eligible cases were identified from the files of the population‐based Cancer Surveillance System (CSS), a part of the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program of the National Cancer Institute, 23 based on the following International Classifications of Diseases for Oncology (ICD‐O) topography and histology codes: topography, codes C62.0 through C62.9; histology, codes 9060 through 9091. 24
In the 1953 episodes of marijuana use reported in our study population (268 cases and 666 controls who ‘ever’ used), 20 episodes (1%) were hashish use. An additional 247 episodes (12.7%) were both hashish and marijuana use, and the remaining 1683 episodes (86.3%) were marijuana use only. In the episodes in which both were used, there was no way to determine the proportion of each, When we eliminated those respondents who had used hashish, the results did not change.
When we conducted similar analyses according to histologic type, the association between current marijuana use and TGCT was limited primarily to nonseminomas (OR, 2.3; 95% CI, 1.3‐4.0) compared with pure seminomas (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 0.8‐2.1; P = .08 for the difference between the 2 histologic groups) (Table 3 ). For nonseminomas, the risk was higher only for current users who started using marijuana at age <18 years (OR, 2.8; 95% CI, 1.6‐5.1) compared with age ≥18 years (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 0.6‐3.2; P = .08 for the difference in OR). There appeared to be increasing risk with years of use (ie, the OR was 1.8 for <10 years of use vs 2.7 for >10 years of use). However, the difference in those estimates was not statistically significant ( P = .32). Risk did not vary according to whether use was daily or weekly, so we combined these frequencies (OR, 3.0; 95%CI, 1.5‐5.6); the OR associated with use on a less than weekly basis was 1.8 (95% CI, 0.9‐3.5). Subanalyses by age or after excluding men who had a family history or who had undescended testes did not change the results substantially.
Men with TGCT were slightly more likely to have ever smoked marijuana than controls (72.6% vs 68.0%; OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.0‐1.8) (Table 2 ). Twenty‐six percent of cases reported being current marijuana smokers at the reference date compared with 20% of controls (OR, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.1‐2.5). The ORs for first use at age <18 years among current users was somewhat higher than for first use at age ≥18 years (OR, 1.8 vs 1.4). The ORs did not differ appreciably by total years of use, but the risk associated with daily or weekly use among current users was somewhat higher than less frequent use (OR, 2.0 vs 1.4).
DISCUSSION
We observed a 70% increased risk of TGCT associated with current marijuana use, and the risk was particularly elevated for current use that was at least weekly or that began in adolescence. These associations were independent of known TGCT risk factors. In addition, all of the associations we observed appeared to be limited to nonseminoma/mixed histologies.
The current results must be interpreted in light of several limitations of our study. First, we only interviewed 67.5% and 52.2% of apparently eligible cases and controls, respectively. Our results may be biased if, among the cases and controls we were unable to interview, the association between marijuana use and TGCT was different from that among those men who we did interview. To have produced a spurious positive association, there would need to be an inverse association among the nonparticipating men. Second, we had to rely on self‐report of the use of marijuana: an illicit drug. Patients with cancer may be expected to more accurately admit to the use of an illegal substance than individuals in a control group. However, our finding of an increased risk of TGCT associated with marijuana use that was confined to nonseminoma or mixed histologies indicates that it is unlikely that over‐reporting occurred, because there would be no reason to expect that recall bias would occur preferentially according to tumor type. Furthermore, after adjusting for age and race, the marijuana use characteristics (ever, current, and frequency of use) of our controls were essentially the same as would be predicted from national data. Finally, we did not conduct a centralized pathologic review but relied on the histologic description provided by community pathologists and coded by the CSS. Any resulting misclassification, however, would be expected to obscure differences in associations between pure seminomas and nonseminomas/mixed seminomas.
Our original hypothesis sought an increasing exposure that would be associated with the risk of all histologic types of TGCT, because the incidence of seminomas, nonseminomas, and mixed histologies has been increasing. We observed, however, that the excess risk of TGCT associated with marijuana use was essentially confined to the nonseminomas and mixed histology tumors. In fact, the increase in the incidence of seminoma from 1973 to 1998 in the US was 64% compared with an increase of only 24% for nonseminoma.2 However, the opposite was true in the Netherlands and Norway, where the largest increase occurred in the nonseminoma histologic groups.30 If the increase in nonseminomas was caused in part by an increase in the use of marijuana, then some other increasing exposures must account for the higher incidence of seminomas over time. Akre et al.8 have suggested that increased maternal age, increased placental weight, and decreased parity are factors associated more closely with seminoma than with nonseminoma. These exposures also gave been increasing over the past decades31-33 and, thus, could explain differential increases in incidence according to histology.
We can only speculate why marijuana use may be associated with TGCT. Moller and Skakkebaek34 reported a significant association between subfertility in men and the subsequent risk of TGCT, and it has been suggested that both TGCT and subfertility in men may be caused by 1 or more common exposures. Could 1 of these common exposures be the use of marijuana? It has been established that marijuana use adversely affects male fertility, including sperm output, motility, and fertilizing capacity, in various species, including humans.17, 35 In addition, chronic marijuana exposure adversely affects both the endocrine and reproductive systems in humans.17, 36 It has been suggested that puberty is a ‘window of vulnerability’ during which environmental factors increase the risk of TGCT.37 This is consistent with our finding that the elevated risk of nonseminomatous TGCTs in particular was associated with the use of marijuana starting at age <18 years. It also is speculated that primitive germ cells persisting into the pubertal period multiply under the stimulation of gonadotropins and other hormones.38 Thus, it is possible that altered levels of gonadotropins and other hormones during this ‘window of vulnerability’ because of exposure to marijuana increase the risk of TGCTs. However, none of these explanations likely would be specific to nonseminomas. Indeed, if the association is true, then new avenues of research will be needed to address the specificity of the association to nonseminomas.
The mechanism by which marijuana exerts its effects on various biologic processes remained unknown until cannabinoid receptors were identified in the 1990s. Cannabinoid receptors are part of the G‐protein–coupled receptor family and comprise 2 major subtypes, brain‐type receptors (CB1) and spleen‐type receptors (CB2).20, 21, 39 They are G‐protein–coupled, 7 transmembrane spanning receptors and influence a variety of biologic responses. CB1 and CB2 are expressed in the testes and sperm as well as in the brain, heart, uterus, embryo, spleen, and immune cells.17 |
I felt awkward as an atheist attending a Christmas Eve service with my family. I used to be a dedicated Christian and delighted in religious gatherings. My family assured me that I would probably be the only non-believer in attendance. Looking around while everyone else bowed their heads, I found their theory incorrect as I made eye contact with several other attendees who were not participating in the prayer. As the service progressed, my new-found perspective lead me to this idea: Christianity contains a negative subtext to pull followers along. Let me explain.
The Christmas Eve pastor was young, quick and witty. He held the audience with a comedian’s stylings and exuded an aura of positivity. His words, however, spoke a largely opposite message:
“Without God, you are nothing. You can only be happy through Him.”
“You are powerless without God. He is in control of our destiny.”
The congregation thrived on his message and I heard echoes of approval. Why are people so willing to accept this pessimistic worldview that removes all personal control? What is the payoff of believing that God is in control of our futures and is necessary for personal happiness? I have two theories:
1. Believing that our destiny is out of our own control removes human responsibility. When a person believes that God is using them like a puppet in life, they are exempt from personal feelings of failure when success is not found. A lack of self-responsibility can act as a sort of emotional crutch; any failures are part of “God’s Plan” and do not fall on the head of the one actually failing. This can be a strong emotional motivator in hard times.
2. Believing that God is necessary for personal happiness aids religion because it implies that one would be less happy sans religion. This promotes feelings of communal well-being in the congregation and allows people to believe that those outside the church lack their level of happiness. It allows for societal walls to be drawn between those that God has blessed with his happiness and those that he has not.
The service ended and I went home with my family. I walked into the cold, bitter air and was struck by a gust of anger as I realized what I had just witnessed. A man, no older than 30 years old, stood in front of hundreds of people and delivered a highly negative message: You have no inherent value without the help of a divine ghost. I say fuck that. Life is short and is what you make of it. We are very much in control of our destinies and happiness can be found in a plethora of ways. The world is truly our oyster and the church preaches the opposite. How is it that the church’s negative message is so much more popular than the positive message that reality really contains? Why are people so eager to hand off responsibility but shy to take initiative and find out what truly makes them happy? I am sick of religions replacing rational thought, but I am furious when they put people down simply to increase the congregation’s reliance. |
“I’ve been contacting many organizations that claim they fight for ex-Muslims, and they fight for women…nobody, nobody help [sic] me.” Sarah, a Moroccan who say she’s atheist, says in a video titled “my last chance.”
Sarah put her story out on the internet hoping someone in a position to help her might hear. Hers is a common plight for ex-Muslims living the Arab world. For many like her, the internet is a lifeline that provides a safe space for atheists to communicate about life in a society intolerant of apostasy. According to a 2014 Pew Research report, 14 out of 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa still have laws banning apostasy and blasphemy, more than any other region of the world. In November 2015 a Saudi atheist poet was sentenced to death for renouncing Islam.
Many Arabs and north Africans who are atheist are able to connect with each other through closed Facebook groups. One such group, The North African Atheists, has nearly 18,000 members. Dozens others exist on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, with titles like Atheism United of Palestine, I Am A Proud Atheist, and EGYPT: From Religion to Reason. One open group on Facebook, الإنسانيه اللادينيه (Humanistic Atheism), provides a snapshot of Arab atheists’ everyday thoughts and concerns. This regarding a Nigerian child last year taken in by Danish aid workers after he was ostracized by his community for superstitious beliefs.
Translation: The Nigerian child, Hope, was ‘kidnapped’ by a Danish infidel who gave him life; do we need to say ‘thank god’ to the god who sits idle and does nothing to save him from sorcery and superstition.
Others turn to social networks to try to escape their circumstances and find asylum where they can live openly without fear of reprisal. Reddit’s /r/exmuslim has over 17,000 subscribers and while many posts are somewhat mundane, others show the potential for these communities to help people in need.
A German user reaches out for help for an Iraqi being forced to return to Iraq. Athesist refugee in need of help from exmuslim
Sarah, 29, is one such atheist living in the Arab world. A 2012 WIN/Gallup poll found that some 2 percent of people in the Arab world consider themselves atheists, while 18 percent say they are not religious. Vocativ spoke with Sarah over Telegram, the encrypted messenger application, and asked her why she wants to leave her home country of Morocco.
Sarah says she grew up in an abusive household, leading her to question her Islamic faith from a young age. She claims she was verbally and physically abused when she declined to pray, but that things worsened when she turned 18 and refused to marry a man who’d been chosen for her by her family. “I refused because I know how it goes, it’s the same sick culture,” she told Vocativ. According to UNICEF, some 63 percent of Moroccans justify wife-beating, while over 90 percent of households use physical punishment against children.
Sarah says she was beaten, humiliated in public, and pressed into doing all the housework. This lasted for more than a decade, until about three weeks ago, when her older brother threatened to kill her. “My family had enough with me and they just want me dead. I knew it’s [a] matter of time. I had to leave before it’s [too] late.” Since then she says she is on the run, having moved to a different city until she has enough money to leave Morocco entirely. Vocativ could not independently verify her claims.
Whether her story is true or not, one organization appears to be trying to help her. Haram, Inc. is a group of Arab ex-Muslims working to give ex-Muslims a platform to reach out and find help. The group launched a channel for Arabic speakers on Telegram, and a YouTube channel where users can upload videos anonymously. One of the founders told Vocativ they located Sarah from a post on Reddit’s board for ex-Muslims, and reached out to her that way. They say they are paying her expenses, and have a crowdfunding campaign to get her asylum.
“Aabout a year ago, when I had my first breakdown, I was praying and telling God ‘If you’re real, prove it.’ And nothing happened. I knew it was an illusion,” she told Vocativ.
A Saudi newspaper wrote about a rising irreligious population in the Arab world, claiming “atheism is now widespread in places that have been thought to be safe in the past.” Activists like those at Haram, Inc, say this will only make things worse for atheists who live in the region. |
A source in the Israel Police said on Sunday night that the approximately 90 fires that have blazed across the country in the past week were believed to be caused by arson.
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He specified to Ynet that "between 30–40 incidents contain suspicion of arson. That doesn't mean that there are suspects, rather indications, but in total there are 23 detainees at varying levels of suspicion."
He said that it was not yet possible to determine which arson-initiated conflagrations, if any, had nationalistic motives: "We're just saying where there's a suspicion of arson and where there isn't. Even when we say (that), we're qualifying it because we haven't completed the investigations, and it wouldn't be very responsible.
Fire in Haifa (Photo: AFP)
In some cases, he explained, "the results were caused by prosaic reasons—weather or an electrical short—but a significant portion of the incidents—arson. The intelligence network is analyzing and feeding us information, some of which is relevant. We're using finger prints, sophisticated investigative methods and more."
Arson attempt caught on security camera
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The source explained that the arsons did not appear to be part of a guided, concentrated effort: "What we're identifying is people's activity at a local level. The people who carry out the act aren't (operating on instructions) from some guiding hand, but for the sake of checking for the guiding hand, we've set up the investigation team."
A Palestinian suspect of arson (Photo: Ziv Birman of the Nature and Parks Authority)
Evidence that the blaze in Haifa was caused by arson has not yet been found, but sources in the investigation are not yet ready to rule out the possibility. Following the large fire, which affected 13 neighborhoods, four locations were identified as where the conflagrations broke out: in Romema, the Carmel Center, Ramot Eshkol and Ramat Hen. Five persons were detained and investigated, but they were all released after the investigation revealed that the suspects had no connection to Haifa's fires.
The police are operating to locate and arrest suspects across the country. Two of those detained, according to the report the Israel Police presented to the cabinet, confessed to committing arson. In addition, five persons—three Jews and two Arabs—have been arrested for online incitement. One, Yair Grinshpan, was arrested on Sunday for encouraging others on Facebook to burn Arab villages. He was granted conditional release. |
Care for a jellyfish chip? University of Southern Denmark
Times may have never been better for some of the world’s oldest animals. There’s something about today’s unbalanced oceans—disrupted by climate change, overfishing, and nutrient runoff—that make them especially hospitable to certain kinds of jellyfish. As these conditions worsen, jellyfish populations have billowed and bloomed all over the world.
Dealing with jelllyfish infestations, which can foul up power plants, swimming areas, and fisheries, is no easy task. While South Korea has deployed swarms of autonomous robots to grind the animals into a paste, Danish researchers have taken another tack: get them into the snack aisle. They have developed a way to turn cnidarians into something resembling potato chips.
The technique involves soaking the jellyfish in alcohol, and then letting it evaporate off to turn semi-sentient goo into crunchy, snackable discs. “In alcohol some gels simply collapse, and that is exactly what we see a jellyfish doing. As the jellyfish collapses, the water is extracted from it and its volume is reduced,” said gastrophysicist Mie Thorburg Pedersen to the Summit County Voice. “The mouth-feel and the aesthetic appearance in particular have gastronomic potential.”
A purple-striped jelly in Monterey Bay Aquarium. Sanjay Acharya/CC BY-SA 3.0
Eating jellyfish is nothing new. People in the Philippines, South Korea, and other places have eaten them for years—but preparing them for consumption takes well over a month and produces a gristly texture, unappetizing to the Western palate. Even if the chips don’t catch on, the new method should help speed up traditional ways of making the invertebrates ready for plates.
But if Western diners do get on board with jellyfish chips, they’ll find them a healthy snack alternative—low in fat, high in selenium. They’d also be high on environmental friendliness.
Gastro Obscura covers the world’s most wondrous food and drink.
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Hillary Clinton has done her best to divert attention of what happened in Benghazi and her email server and continues to lead the Democratic nomination for President, but her Panama connection could make it all crumble.
What are the Panama Papers? Last week, Mossak Fonseca were the victims of a major leak of confidential information that is larger than the Snowden leaks.
Mossak Fonseca is a law firm in Panama that offers “comprehensive legal and trust services” according to their website. A well-known newspaper in Germany got a call from someone with over 11.5 million documents and wanted to hand them over free of charge. The person simply said “I want to make these crimes public”, and they certainly did.
Basically the files contain secrets from some world leaders and people in high political places that have stashed money in “tax havens” around the world to avoid paying taxes in their own country, but that is just scratching there surface. What has happened so far?
Well, the Prime Minister of Iceland quit shortly after the release. David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, was on the list and his approval rating has dropped, and we are just starting to see the fallout in the UK.
People like Vladamir Putin were on the list, and some very interesting facts came out when looking closer to Russia in the Panama Papers and how it all relates to Hillary Clinton.
One of Russia’s biggest banks uses The Podesta Group to lobby for them inside the United States. Tony and John Podesta started the company, and you may remember John from being Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. The Podesta Group offers its clients access to the real Democratic decision makers. They have real access.
The unique access to the power structure of Democrats in Washington is exactly why the Russian bank used the lobbying firm. The people listed to handle the Russian Bank’s lobbying on behalf of The Podesta Group are Tony Podesta, Stephen Rademaker and David Adams.
Stephen and David were former assistant secretaries of state and Tony Podesta has organized a lot of those high dollar donations for Hillary Clinton that Bernie Sanders is always talking about.
Now here is the kicker. John Podesta has unique access to Hillary Clinton. Why? He is her campaign manager. He is the one building the strategy to get her in the White House. The same guy whose brother and company is lobbying for Russia to cut some of the sanctions after the country invaded Ukraine.
This is unparalleled access and it is just the tip of the iceberg. The person who is leading the Democratic nomination for president has her chief of staff also running a company that is working for Russia as a lobbyist.
The whole story is just starting to come out and Hillary’s future may not rest in the FBI with the email scandal, but in a bunch of leaked documents from Panama. |
The front of the box says that Bonus Content includes Harley Quinn's Revenge and Batman: Year One, and that it has a code to download from Xbox Live that expires on March 31, 2013.
I wasn't sure if that meant all content was behind the code or that some was on the disc and some on XBox Live. I got mixed results when researching the issue. One person said they used the code after expiration and it still worked. Some people said they got two discs in the box and it had all the content and others said they got one disc in the box and it didn't have all the content.
So here's the breakdown:
I put in the code today, 24 April 2013, and it is indeed INVALID on Xbox Live. I have a paid Gold membership (compared to a free Silver membership) and it still didn't work.
The box contains two discs. Those who got one disc may have purchased the original game. This is the Game of the Year Edition, with the ugly red and white cover. Upon installing and starting up disc one, the game searched for me and advised me that I have Catwoman content waiting for me and to please insert the second disc to install the Catwoman Bundle Pack.
All I had to do to enable this was start the game with Disc 2 in the drive instead of Disc 1. Up came a screen offering me to install:
-Catwoman Bundle Pack
-Batman Inc. Batsuit Skin
-Challenge Map Pack
-The Arkham Bundle
-Harley Quinn's Revenge
I could install individually or select "Install All" button.
So a careful reading of the box and examination of the options seems to show that the only thing the expired Xbox Live download code was used for was the animated movie "Batman: Year One." You do NOT get that for free when you buy this game because the code expired March 31, 2013.
I hope that helps anyone out there who was wondering, as I was, what the expired code meant. |
Panoramic Images via Getty Images An oil production platform is pictured in icy water, in Cook Inlet, Trading Bay, Alaska.
The Obama administration's proposed expansion of oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico would result in hefty climate-related social costs, a new report found.
In fact, those costs, estimated at $58.6 billion to $179.2 billion, may outweigh the economic benefits of selling the energy, according to Tim Donaghy, lead author of the report.
The proposed oil and gas program for 2017 to 2022 includes 13 potential lease sales -- 10 in the Gulf and one each in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea. In March, the White House abandoned plans to include the Atlantic Coast in the upcoming sale.
With emissions from existing oil reserves already capable of pushing the planet beyond the 2 degrees Celsius threshold climatologists say would result in drastic impacts, searching of more oil would be a step backward, Donaghy, a senior research specialist at Greenpeace USA, told The Huffington Post.
"Climate change isn't just this abstract thing," Donaghy said. "It's going to actually affect our daily lives."
Danita Delimont via Getty Images The Cook Inlet basin contains large oil and gas deposits including several offshore fields.
The 16-page report, released Thursday by Greenpeace USA and Oil Change International, finds that consumption of the oil produced under the five-year program would increase global carbon emissions by roughly 850 million metric tons of CO2 -- equivalent to that of 3.6 million cars over a 50-year period.
"These carbon emissions will impose high costs to society in coming decades related to human health, flood damages, agricultural productivity and other impacts," the report says.
In addition to quantifying the environmental and social costs of burning the oil, which Donaghy said are likely "underestimated," the report calls on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which regulates offshore oil and gas development, to include climate-related costs in its environmental assessment of the program.
Neglecting to do so, as is current practice, Donaghy said, is "crazy" and a "big oversight."
President Barack Obama has consistently said that climate change is the greatest threat to the planet and future generations, and that the United States should continue to lead efforts toward a solution. In February, the Supreme Court blocked the president’s Clean Power Plan, which requires existing power plants to cut carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
The Greenpeace report notes that despite "advancing a number of commendable policies to lower emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases," the continued policy of leasing federal lands and waters to fossil fuel companies "threatens to undermine President Obama’s climate legacy."
With the risks of operating in the fragile Arctic and the "long history of pollution and injustice in the Gulf," Donaghy said, offshore drilling is "something we need to put behind us."
"We are calling for Obama to do this before he leaves office," Donaghy told HuffPost. |
Outside my usual beat, but the statement from the Anti-Defamation League opposing the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero is truly shocking. As Greg Sargent says, the key passage — it’s a pretty short statement — is this one:
Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.
Translation: some people will feel bad if this thing is built, and we need to take these feelings into account, even though proponents “have every right to build at this site.”
So let’s try some comparable cases, OK? It causes some people pain to see Jews operating small businesses in non-Jewish neighborhoods; it causes some people pain to see Jews writing for national publications (as I learn from my mailbox most weeks); it causes some people pain to see Jews on the Supreme Court. So would ADL agree that we should ban Jews from these activities, so as to spare these people pain? No? What’s the difference?
One thing I thought Jews were supposed to understand is that they need to be advocates of universal rights, not just rights for their particular group — because it’s the right thing to do, but also because, ahem, there aren’t enough of us. We can’t afford to live in a tribal world.
But ADL has apparently forgotten all that. Shameful — and stupid.
Update: Times staff briefly removed the link to the ADL statement, because it seemed to be dead — but it was apparently just a case of an overloaded server, and I’ve put it back. |
First 'Baby Box' installed in Indiana Copyright by WATE - All rights reserved Monica Kelsey and the town of Woodburn, Ind., dedicated the first Safe Haven Baby Box of its kind on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, at the Woodburn Volunteer Fire Department. The box, which is temperature controlled and has a padded inside, is... [ + - ] Video
Associated Press - WOODBURN, Ind. (AP) — A Safe Haven Baby Box where mothers can drop off unwanted newborns anonymously with emergency help moments away is now available in northeastern Indiana.
The padded, climate-controlled container was dedicated Tuesday at the Woodburn Volunteer Fire Department about 15 miles east of Fort Wayne near the Ohio state line. It's on an exterior wall of the fire station.
The Knights of Columbus of Indiana will pay for the first 100 baby boxes, which cost $1,500 to $2,000 each, said Monica Kelsey, a volunteer with the fire department who has been advocating for baby boxes in Indiana for several years.
A second one was dedicated Thursday in Michigan City.
The boxes are equipped with a security system that notifies emergency personnel when a baby is dropped off. Emergency responders can get to the child within minutes.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia have safe haven laws, which allow unharmed newborns to be surrendered without fear of prosecution. Indiana's law allows mothers to drop off newborns at police stations, fire stations and hospitals.
Critics of baby boxes contend the containers make it easier to surrender a child without exploring other options and can deprive mothers of needed medical care.
Kelsey, however, said that some people want total anonymity. She spoke of a girl who called a hotline she volunteers for who wanted to know where a baby box was. The girl refused to go to a hospital or fire station to drop off the baby, but eventually, her boyfriend brought the baby to a hospital.
"This is not criminal," Kelsey said. "This is legal. We don't want to push women away."
The Woodburn baby box was actually installed April 19, the anniversary of when Kelsey says her birth mother abandoned her at a hospital when she was just hours old.
State Rep. Casey Cox, R-Fort Wayne, has supported the concept of baby boxes in Indiana and has been working with lawmakers and Gov. Mike Pence's administration on safety protocols. |
Welcome back to #GBL @ Tautonomy! We’re kicking off the 2015-2016 season with Part 1 of my better-late-than-never (and admittedly nitpicky) offseason grades. It’s the time of year that a Draymond Green Hassan Whiteside twitter battle is the most interesting NBA related news, so clearly we’re all in need of a little real action. Safe to say, the season couldn’t come any sooner. Training camps start up in about a month, and until then we’ll be posting division by division team analyses to get you hyped. Today’s division is…
THE SOUTHEAST
ATLANTA HAWKS:
2014-15: Record: 60-22
Added: Tim Hardaway Jr. (trade), Justin Holiday (FA), Paul Millsap (re-signed), Tiago Splitter (trade), Walter Tavares (draft rights)
Lost: Pero Antic (FA), DeMarre Carroll (FA)
GRADE: A-
Atlanta faced a major dilemma this offseason: two vital cogs to their conference title team, Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll, were due for raises, and it was going to be extremely difficult to retain them both. When the offseason began, each had only been with the Hawks for two years, which meant that Atlanta only held Early Bird rights on the free agents, as opposed to full Larry Bird rights.1 As a result, to exceed the salary cap to re-sign them, the maximum the Hawks could offer was 175% of their respective salaries from a year ago.2 As July 1st rolled around, it became clear that any tricky accounting would be unfeasible. To retain their free agents, the Hawks would have to use their limited cap space. However, it became clear that without dumping other players on the roster to clear salary, Atlanta would not have had enough enough room under the cap to bring Millsap and Carroll back at their respective market market salaries.
Additionally, re-signing them both would have limited the Hawks’ options to improve their roster elsewhere, and it would have left the team with scant cap space next summer. So, when free agency rolled around, the Hawks made their difficult choice. They opted to re-sign Millsap, but let Carroll head to Toronto. The decision was in keep with the Hawks’ philosophy of roster and cap flexibility that began when Danny Ferry came to town and immediately unloaded Joe Johnson’s albatross of a contract on the Nets.3 Thus, committing $58 million to Carroll and $60 million to Millsap would have locked them into a cap situation against their recent (and very successful) doctrine.
With the money left after Carroll’s departure, they brought in Tiago Splitter via a salary dump from the San Antonio Spurs. He should fit in nicely as a 3rd big who can play alongside either Al Horford or Millsap. They also made a draft day maneuver to get 2 second round picks and Tim Hardaway Jr. out of the 15th overall pick via a pick swap with Brooklyn. Many criticized the move because of Hardaway’s lack of production a year ago (VORP actually rated him as below replacement), but he’s shown decent offensive upside, is more ready to contribute than a rookie would be, and is making less than what the 15th pick will make given the rookie scale.
Hardaway Jr. will compete with Kent Bazemore, Thabo Sefolosha, and former Golden State Warrior Justin Holiday, who was a nice addition at the minimum, for the minutes left in Carroll’s wake. The hope is that some combination of the replacements can replicate what Carroll brought to the table. Finally, the team used leftover cap space to bring over 7’3” center Edy Tavares from Spain. The team’s second round draft pick in 2014, Taveras doesn’t figure to contribute right away, but the Hawks locked him into a cheap 3-year deal. The 3-year contract is useful because Atlanta will have his full Bird rights moving forward, allowing the team to exceed the salary cap to retain him when he becomes a free agent if he proves to be an effective NBA player.
Synopsis: Losing Carroll hurts, but per usual as of late, the Hawks stayed flexible and added solid pieces to mimic what Carroll brought to the table. Plus, the addition of Splitter gives the Hawks great depth at the big positions. While it will be difficult to repeat their breakout performance from a year ago, especially given that they overachieved the record their point differential predicted, the Hawks will be a major factor in the East once again and are set up well to continue competing beyond 2015-15.
CHARLOTTE HORNETS:
2014-15 Record: 33-49
Added: Nicolas Batum (trade), Spencer Hawes (trade), Frank Kaminsky (draft), Jeremy Lamb (trade), Jeremy Lin (FA)
Lost: Bismack Biyombo (FA), Gerald Henderson (trade), Lance Stephenson (trade), Noah Vonleh (trade), Mo Williams (FA)
GRADE: C+
After missing the playoffs in 2013-14, the Hornets set out to retool their rotation this offseason. Their first move was to dump Lance Stephenson. In the trade, Charlotte acquired Spencer Hawes and Matt Barnes from the Clippers. Hawes gives the Hornets coveted spacing from the big position, although his exorbitant contract makes him a net negative as an asset. Further, they managed to parlay Barnes into Jeremy Lamb, who, despite never establishing his role in Oklahoma City, has decent upside as a bench contributor in the last year of his rookie contract.
The big move was to get Nicolas Batum from the Trail Blazers for Gerald Henderson and the 9th overall pick in the 2014 draft, Noah Vonleh. Batum gives the Hornets playmaking and defensive prowess from the wing spot, two skills that Stephenson was supposed to provide but never did. Charlotte will have a new-look wing rotation with the additions of Batum and Lamb. They also added Jeremy Lin with their bi-annual exception, a nice way to fill the backup point guard spot. Given the external upgrades and the hope for internal development from guys like Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Cody Zeller, there are reasons to be optimistic about this Hornets team.
Speaking of Kidd-Gilchrist, the Hornets recently locked him up with a 4-year $52 million extension, which could keep him in Charlotte until the 2020-21 season. MKG has a player option in the 4th year so the contract could (and probably will) revert to 3 years and $39M. Nonetheless, this contract is a great deal for the Hornets in the current cap environment. The deal won’t kick in until the 2016-17 season when the cap is projected at $90 million, and will extend at least two seasons more seasons in which the cap will be above $100 million. Over the length of the contract, MKG will make below average money for a starter while, with projection based on his age and recent development, he can be reasonably expected to perform as an above average starter. Charlotte got great value with this deal.
On the other hand, though, it appears the Hornet’s made a rash decision to give up on Vonleh just a year into his career. Vonleh was going to be a project when he was drafted as an 18 year old out of Indiana, so letting him go now makes little sense. Vonleh has plenty of time to develop in a quality starter or better. The real kicker however, is that Batum is only under contract for 2015-16. One year of the frenchman on a fair (but by no means a massive bargain) contract was not enough value for three years of Vonleh on a rookie scale deal.
In addition, during the draft there were reports that the team turned down a monster trade offer from the Celtics, who were looking to move up and draft Justise Winslow. Charlotte rebuffed the offers and instead selected Wisconsin 7-footer Frank Kaminsky. Zach Lowe confirmed these rumors in his article on the Hornets and specified exactly what the Hornets passed on: the 15th and 16th picks in the 2015 draft, Brooklyn’s unprotected 2016 1st rounder, and a future first from either Memphis or Minnesota. It was a bit outrageous to pass on that offer just to draft Frank Kaminsky, and laughable that Charlotte’s decision makers justified it by saying they hadn’t “been focusing” on the later range in the draft. Isn’t it their job to know who they would draft at every spot to prepare for this type of situation? But I digress. This move signals that Charlotte is locked into win-now mode. Kaminsky is one of the only college prospects that figures to contribute immediately. However, accepting the treasure trove of assets Danny Ainge was offering would seem to have been a more efficient use of resources than drafting the 22 year old, especially given that their big rotation already figures to be crowded with Jefferson, Zeller, Hawes, and Marvin Williams.
Synopsis: The Hornets are clearly tired of rebuilding and it showed this offseason as they tried to upgrade the 2015-16 roster at the expense of the future. On paper, they look better than a year ago, and dare I say a playoff team in the East. They also still have the midlevel exception to add another rotation piece if necessary. However, Jefferson appeared to regress a year ago after a spectacular 2013-14 season, Kidd-Gilchrist was oft-injured, and the team didn’t mesh. Some of the team’s struggles can be redirected onto Lance Stephenson’s shoulders, but surely there were underlying issues leading to a disappointing 2014-15 season.
It has gotten to a point where I expect Charlotte to underachieve irrespective of supposed offseason upgrades. I don’t think they maximized value for the 9th overall selection in the draft, given Boston’s monstrous offer. Furthermore, trading away a promising 19 year old big for a fairly paid veteran in a walk year doesn’t seem to be a prudent move for a team that didn’t make the playoffs in the dreadfully weak Eastern Conference a year ago. In sum, Charlotte didn’t get good value in many of their offseason moves, which even if they do make the playoffs this year, will come back to haunt them.
MIAMI HEAT:
2014-15 RECORD: 37-45
Added: Goran Dragic (re-signed), Gerald Green (FA), Amar’e Stoudemire (FA), Dwyane Wade (re-signed), Justise Winslow (draft)
Lost: Shabazz Napier (trade), Zoran Dragic (trade)
GRADE: B+
The Heat brought back the band that really never got together a year ago. Among them, Dwyane Wade missed his obligatory 20 games, Goran Dragic wasn’t acquired until the trade deadline, and Chris Bosh missed the second half of the season with a lung clot issue. Even most improved player candidate Hassan Whiteside missed several games due to ankle issues.
They rewarded Wade for his past willingness to take less money for the sake of the team by re-signing him to an above-market $20 million contract. Because the deal lasts only one season, it maintains cap flexibility next summer. The overpay this year means that if the Heat have a chance to sign say Kevin Durant next summer, Wade would able to take less so that the team could do so. More realistically though, the team will need the cap room to re-sign Whiteside, who, because his contract with the Heat runs just two years, the team will have to use cap on to re-sign. If Whiteside stays healthy and plays the way he did a year ago, his market value will surely exceed what Miami could offer using the Early Bird exception. Thus, the necessity to use cap room to bring him back. Going full-circle back to Wade’s contract, a one year deal for him, rather than a long term commitment, makes potentially bringing in free agents in 2016 or just retaining Whiteside much easier.
Furthermore, nabbing Justise Winslow with the 10th overall selection in the draft was a coup d’etat given how he projects to be an impactful two-way wing. Winslow’s physical tools, skill set, and mentality on the court look like the foundation of an NBA starter and possibly more. In other value moves, the Heat nicely filled out their rotation with signings of Amar’e Stoudemire and Gerald Green to minimum contracts.
On the other hand, the flurry of positive offseason additions have left the team well above the luxury tax for the upcoming season. If the Heat do in fact end the season above the tax line, it would mark the fourth time in five years the team would be making luxury tax payments, which would mean Micky Arison and the rest of the Heat ownership group would be facing the dreaded repeater tax this season.4
The Heat have already begun to maneuver their way out of the tax. To shed some salary, the Heat traded away Zoran Dragic and Shabazz Napier, sending cash, and in Dragic’s case, a future 2nd round pick to do so. My quibble is with the Napier trade. After a poor rookie year, was his trade value so low that Miami had to trade him away, with the cash to pay his salary, for nothing in return? Apparently. But if that were in fact the case, I would have held on to Napier, a first round pick in 2014. Out of college he was projected to be a solid backup point guard by both scouts and statistical analytics, and while he struggled a bit in his rookie year, he did nothing to drastically alter this projection. The move seems to be a sell-low trade and I’m not a big fan, but again, I’m nit-picking.
Synopsis: Because of the severe penalty for every dollar over the tax line for a repeater team, it appears the Heat will try to make at least one more move to get under.5 Regardless, the team is stacked on paper going into next year. If Bosh comes back at full strength, Dragic plays close to his 2013-14 self, and Wade, Whiteside, and Luol Deng stay relatively healthy, they will be major players in the Eastern conference. That is without even mentioning Winslow and returnees Mario Chalmers, Josh McRoberts and Chris (Birdman) Andersen. By being smart with Wade’s contract, re-signing Dragic at a reasonable rate, bringing in Stoudemire and Green at the minimum, and stealing Winslow at number 10 in the draft, the Heat did all they could to put themselves on the right track for 2015-16 and beyond.
ORLANDO MAGIC:
2014-15 Record: 25-57
Added: Tobias Harris (re-signed), Mario Hezonja (draft), Jason Smith (FA), C.J. Watson (FA), Shabazz Napier (trade)
Lost: Ben Gordon (FA), Kyle O’Quinn (trade), Luke Ridnour (trade), Mo Harkless (trade)
GRADE: B-
My stance on this Magic team falls a bit in the revisionist camp. The general consensus is that this is the year they are finally ready to turn the corner on their rebuild and begin competing for the playoffs. But I’m not so sure. Their major addition was through the draft, adding talented young Croatian wing Mario Hezonja with the 5th overall pick. Hezonja, while possessing supreme potential, doesn’t figure to contribute immediately. His minutes this season will be much more for his development than helping the team win.
Further, the Magic retained skilled forward Tobias Harris on an interesting and fair contract. One of Orlando’s offensive hubs a year ago, Harris proved he could score in a variety of ways, shooting over 36% from 3-point land and posting the league’s highest points per possession in post up opportunities (min 100 chances). While his defense leaves much to be desired, his burgeoning game on the offensive end to go along with the fact that he’s still just 23, makes him a valuable commodity in the league. The Magic have structured his contract so that his salary rises in 2016-17 but then declines in the final two years, essentially trading cap room this summer and next for greater flexibility in 2017 and 2018.
My qualm with the Magic offseason lies in what they did elsewhere. They threw their gobs of cap space at journeyman veterans Jason Smith and C.J. Watson, who don’t figure to contribute much this season and won’t be in Orlando’s long-term plan. Look, I will give the Magic credit for trying to lure Paul Millsap with max money at the beginning of free agency, but he took slightly less to stay with Atlanta. Alas, once Millsap spurned their offer, the Magic ought to have have used their cap room more effectively than doling out questionable contracts for veteran backups. There were young players on the market who could have fit into their long-term plan. Al-Farouq Aminu on the descending deal that Portland gave him is perfect example of a player who would have been a better use of Orlando’s extra cap space. Moreover, rolling the extra space over in next summer would have been a better move than locking in Watson to a three-year deal.
Likewise, I remain skeptical about this team for not getting good value in the peripheral trades they made. They aren’t nailing all the little moves, although getting Shabazz Napier for nothing was nice. They let young center Kyle O’Quinn walk for $4 million a year and could only squeeze out a second round pick swap from the Knicks. O’Quinn signed for the same money (albeit a 4-year deal versus a 1 year pact) as Smith did. Instead of signing Smith and letting O’Quinn walk, they could have locked O’Quinn into 4-year descending deal, starting at $4.5 million only paying him $3.5 million in year 4. That type of contract structure would have increased his future value and kept a young and relatively productive backup center in town. In another head-scratcher, Orlando traded 22 year old forward Maurice Harkless to Portland for nothing in return. While Harkless hasn’t shown much as a pro, his age, length, and athleticism make him a solid proposition to be at least an energy guy off the bench. I might expect even more from the young forward, but I’m on the optimistic side. Along those lines, I would have kept both Harkless and O’Quinn if this was in fact the market for their services.
Synopsis: The Magic have a promising young core, but the front office has failed to nail all of the peripheral moves that would maximize their young talent. A general rule of thumb: pay for future instead of past production. In swapping out O’Quinn and Harkless for Smith and Watson, it seems the Magic have done the reverse. My relatively negative prognosis for this season notwithstanding, I would still bet on them being a really good team in the future, but a couple tweaks to their strategy would give them an even higher upside.
WASHINGTON WIZARDS
Added: Alan Anderson (FA), Jared Dudley (trade), Drew Gooden (re-signed), Gary Neal (FA), Kelly Oubre (draft)
Lost: Paul Pierce (FA), Kevin Seraphin (FA)
GRADE: B-
Entering the offseason, the most important task for Ernie Grunfeld and the Wizards front office was to convince Pierce to re-up at the maximum they can offer, about $6.4 million. In this regard, they failed, but not for lack of effort. The allure of returning to his LA roots and to his old coach Doc Rivers proved too much for The Truth to turn down. After the loss, the Wizards pivoted nicely to replace Pierce’s production. Getting veteran forward Jared Dudley for just a second round pick and bringing in guards Alan Anderson and Gary Neal were nice rebound moves. Anderson’s $4 million contract eats up most of the mid-level exception and Neal’s deal is for the bi-annual exception. All three however, should adequately fill Pierce’s minutes and with further development from 2013 third overall pick Otto Porter, they might not even have to. The team also brought back major playoff contributor Drew Gooden on a raise.
In the draft, the team traded two future 2nd round picks to move up from 19th overall to 15th to select Kelly Oubre. I’m a big fan of Oubre’s. He was my 2015 version of athletic draftee I fall in love with. He is raw, and it’s doubtful he’ll contribute to the 2015-16 version of the Wizards after looking lost at times last year at Kansas. On the flip side, Oubre has great potential to be a 3 and D wing or even more. Down the road, the risk to trade up to get the ephemeral wing could prove to be genius.
With Washington’s roster set at 15 contracts, the next task for the Wizards’ front office becomes looking forward to summer 2016. The first step may be trying to work out an extension with Bradley Beal before the October 31st deadline. Given Beal’s age and skill set, the scarcity of wings due to hit the market next summer, and the abundant amount of cap space expected across the league, Beal would in all likelihood get a maximum offer sheet from a team next summer. It makes sense then, that Beal would ask for the max in his contract discussions with the Wizards, and therein lies the dilemma.
There would be little upside for the Wizards to engage in such a deal. They could always wait out his restricted free agency next summer and match any offer sheet that he signs. The added benefit of doing the latter is that the Wizards will just have Beal’s $11 million cap charge on the books versus the first year of his extension, which could exceed $20 million. This difference could be have mammoth ramifications considering the Wizards have been hoarding 2016 cap space in the hopes to sign Kevin Durant, and an extra $9 million could open the door for another impact player to head to the capital along with KD. My bet is that the Beal’s extension doesn’t get done, which could wind up being beneficial to both sides.
Synapsis: The Wizards did what they could after losing the Paul Pierce sweepstakes, rounding out the wing rotation with quality veterans. If Beal and Porter continue their development, the team could take the next step into the upper echelon of the Eastern conference, which would set the stage for an exciting 2016 free agency when Durant could opt to head home to D.C..
**
1. For a deeper understanding of Bird rights, Larry Coon offers a more thorough explanation.↩
2. Or in Carroll’s case, 104.5% of the average NBA salary because it is greater than 175% of his previous contract.↩
3. He even pilfered a first round pick and a couple of pick swaps in the process.↩
4. The repeater tax is even more draconian than the regular tax penalty. For the first $5 million above the tax, a repeater team pays $2.5 million in taxes for every million over as opposed to just $1.5 million. Additionally, the tax penalty increases the further a team is over the line. For a complete explanation, click here.↩
5. I’d expect Andersen to be dealt by the deadline for one.↩ |
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