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The Christian life is a complex one. On one hand, we are righteous, and truly so, as I explained in a recent post. But on the other hand, we clearly continue to sin and get tangled up in the problems of this age. As John tells us, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us” . So we find ourselves in this awkward place, caught between the past and the future in a muddled present.
We often have a difficult time making sense of this, too. “Am I righteous? Am I a sinner? What exactly am I and why do I act the way that I do?” We hear different things from different preachers about exactly how these two things balance and function in our lives. But of course it’s not the theological theory itself that we want; we want out. What we need is a way forward. However our sin and righteousness interact, we want to know how to put the sin further and further down.
This is especially relevant if you think like I do. See, my mental processes when it comes to sin have two defining traits: big picture thought and introspection. First, my brain functions on the big picture. What makes it easier to do theology makes my flaws and failures all the more frustrating: with every little detail I see how it connects to and blends with a larger picture. So when I do wrong, what I see is not merely the stain on the wall but the entire growth of mold throughout the house. This is compounded by my obsessive introspection: I cannot stop looking in and examining myself over everything I do. The result of this blend is often a frustrated pessimism about myself. One mistake focuses me on the cracks running through my entire character and conduct, which seem too big to be repaired.
But when I find out that everything about me, running down to my least conscious everyday motivations, is polluted by sin, what am I to do? If even my best actions seem to, upon closer inspection, be tainted by selfishness or pride, how can I advance? What can I do to truly serve my God, or love my neighbor? What’s the point of even trying if all my tries will even be sinful? Will not my every sacrifice be, in the end, of blemished lambs?
This is where I found help from Martin Luther (and Karl Barth). Luther made a famous statement regarding our life as Christians: simul justus et peccator. We are “simultaneously justified and sinner.” Every moment we live in tension between the old man, the sinner who is dead through the Cross , and the new, the saint created by the Resurrection . God’s “Yes” and His “No” sound to us all at all times.
I don’t mean to say that God sees us as half-righteous, or that the old man still counts for anything. Far from it! Everyone in Christ is a new creation, and that’s all that matters to God . But we live in what the Bible calls the “last days,” the time between the times when the old things are still hanging around but fading, and the new things are working their way in. Jesus has won and redeemed us, but He is away and in the mean time while we wait for Him to return we experience both the old reality and the new one, both sin and salvation.
So what is my point, exactly? I’ve learned from Luther and Barth that we have to accept the peccator side of the equation, the “No” of God which will hang over us until death. We are sinners still. That is the old reality, which though it is dying and defeated still exists. And we have to live with that. I have to live with that. Though by grace I am being renewed each day and march on towards the day of resurrection and restoration, until I reach this goal I cannot escape the condemned part of my existence.
This is the frustration which I must subdue. I want to be whole. I want to be good and righteous and innocent. But for now I’m not. Which means I am in the wrong. I sin. I have actually mixed and polluted motivations. Even when I think I’m being good, I’m still sinning. There are cracks, moral faults, running all the way through my life. Nothing I touch or do is totally pure. Even my best love has selfish distortion. And all of these things fall under the judgment of God. All of them incur His wrath and disapproval for good reason. And I must accept that. I’m not yet who God has recreated me to be, and until that day I’m still never innocent.
Yet there is the other side of the equation. So I am messed up. I may be a sinner in too many ways, the old and fallen creation wielding far too much power. But that can’t keep me from following God. My motives may not always be pure, but they’re not altogether rotten. Help my unbelief, Lord, but I do believe. For even in my weakness, I don’t have to rely on my own merits, anyway. As I just posted, I’m relying 100% on Jesus’ faithfulness, not my own.
So this is the key to keep moving: I must accept the two-pronged death blow to pride. I am so messed up, but I’m not relying on myself anyway so I might as well keep fighting the good fight. When my motives are mixed, so what? I stand by Jesus, whose motives were never impure, so I should just keep pressing on. If I wished to sing on stage to glorify God, but I suspected pride may be involved in my wish as well, I should sing anyway for Him, knowing that my pride is crucified with Christ either way. Even if I know my obedience will be fraught with mistakes and sinful failings, I should offer it anyway, because my living sacrifice is not made pure by my own goodness but by my High Priest before the Father.
So in sum, I can only suggest this: We’re sinful. Deal with it. Keep obeying and never give up in despair at your unworthiness, because our Savior is worthy. Accept God’s judgment on your wrongdoing, and strive for righteousness anyway. You know in the end there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
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Milan have opened negotiations with Atlético Madrid as they seek to dispense with the services of Fernando Torres, who is currently on a two-year loan from Chelsea, and are hoping to secure Alessio Cerci in exchange.
Torres, a British record £50m signing when he moved to Stamford Bridge from Liverpool almost four years ago, departed for San Siro in the summer, effectively to see out the remainder of his Chelsea contract. Yet the World Cup and European Championships winner has scored only once in 10 Serie A appearances and has not played in the first-team since the draw against Internazionale on 23 November.
Milan had initially hoped to cancel the arrangement with Chelsea, but the London club are adamant the player is not returning to José Mourinho’s squad. “We have no space,” said the Portuguese when asked recently. “We have no space for players in our list, either in the Champions League or the Premier League.” With that confirmed, the Rossoneri are now exploring alternatives.
Milan’s coach, Filippo Inzaghi, is understood to have met with the chief executive Adriano Galliani after Saturday’s league draw with Roma – the Spain striker was an unused substitute in that fixture – to discuss transfer plans and determine how best to address the issue. They hope to offer the 30-year-old a temporary switch back to his former club, Atlético, in exchange for Cerci.
The Italy forward has struggled to settle at Atlético since moving from Torino last summer and having yet to make a league start, has managed a solitary goal in nine appearances in all competitions. It remains to be seen whether a deal can be struck, with Torres’ £150,000-a-week wage package a potential issue. Any deal would have to be sanctioned by Chelsea.
The Premier League club do not anticipate any first-team players coming in or leaving in mid-season, though they may consider permanent moves for some of the 25 players out on loan. Borussia Mönchengladbach are keen to secure Thorgan Hazard after the Belgian impressed on loan at the Bundesliga club while Mario Pasalic – who has spent the first half of the season on loan at Elche in Spain – could depart for Besiktas. |
Student debt could be derailing future Mark Zuckerbergs from growing their businesses, based on recent research from the U.S. Small Business Adminstration's Office of Advocacy.
The data, gathered by economist Brian Headd, and released last month, shows that as student debt has increased, self-employment among the young has declined. Self-employment for those under age 40 dipped from 15% to 12% between 1995 and 2010, the research found. And the situation is likely to be even worse now, given that student debt has mounted. In 2013, the median student debt among young families still paying off loans was $29,000--up from $12,000 in 1995.
Student debt is affecting every aspect of young people's careers, from the fields they choose to their ability to grow a business. Among young people with student debt, 40% chose work outside their major--whether they were self-employed or not, the research found. In contrast, about 20% of young adults without student debt went into fields outside their main area of study.
Student debt also seems to be discouraging young adults from taking out business loans. Among households with no student debt that had a self-employed family member, 27% said they had applied for business loans in the last five years, as of 2012. In contrast, in households with a self-employed family member that had student debt, only 17% had applied for such a loan. And who can blame them for wanting to avoid more debt?
Lingering debts from college also seem to be affecting young entrepreneurs' ability to create jobs. Firms run by an owner in a family with student debt employed two workers in 2010. In comparison, there were about nine workers in firms run by owners without student debt, the research found.
This is the first time I've seen any data looking at the impact of student debt on entrepreneurship--and I hope Headd will do further research. Millennials have been putting off many major purchases, such as buying a house, for a simple reason: "We're broke," writes Donovan X. Ramsey, an Emerging Voices Fellow at Demos, a public policy organization focused on equal opportunity.
If student debt is blocking millennials from the American dream of business ownership, too, we need to pay attention. It doesn't serve society well if talented young entrepreneurs have to give up on starting or growing firms that could create great career opportunities for others in their communities. And there appear to be plenty of young Americans with entrepreneurial potential. The Spark Small Business Barometer, for instance, found earlier this year that 60% of millennials consider themselves to be entrepreneurs.
One could argue that great entrepreneurs will find a way to achieve their dreams, no matter what. But consider the obstacles that many young people in families of modest means have to overcome to make it to college in the first place--and just how staggering a $29,000 debt is for most Americans. Given that small firms power the employment market, society would be well served by helping young entrepreneurial types build on the momentum that propelled them into higher education, instead of leaving them struggling.
Perhaps what we need is a program offering federal loan forbearance or debt forgiveness for young people who have demonstrated the capability to launch job-creating small firms to a panel of seasoned entrepreneurs. Student debt flows from income inequality. The entrepreneurial arena is a place where there could be a huge payoff for society by leveling the playing field. |
A homeless man in Aylesford, Kent, froze to death last weekend on the doorstep of an empty bungalow, according to Kent Online. Thirty-five-year-old Daniel Gauntlett had previously had trouble with the police when he tried to break into the abandoned building for shelter, and apparently took the decision to stay outside for the night, risking his safety to stay on the right side of the law.
Chris Hunter reports:
Derek Bailey, 80, who lives next door, said Mr Gauntlett had not appeared to be in ill health. "They took him up to the hospital about a fortnight before when they'd found him and social workers got involved," said Mr Bailey. "It was just the bitter weather. I know a lot about cold weather because I was in the Canadian army. I've known it drop to minus 70 but the trouble with this country is the dampness."
The news has been widely linked to recent anti-squatting legislation, after a bill signed into law last year made squatting on residential property a criminal act. The Morning Star's Rory MacKinnon reports about the site "Is Mike Weatherley Dead Yet?" which places direct blame for Gauntlett's death on Tory MP Mike Weatherley, who proposed the legislation to the commons. MacKinnon writes:
The Bill, which was proposed by Mr Weatherley and signed into law last year, made it a criminal offence to squat in a residential property - meaning police could immediately evict and arrest Mr Gauntlett. The MP could not be reached for comment today, but the creator of anonymous website Is Mike Weatherley Dead Yet? pulled no punches. "[The] situation of homeless people is already desperate. Mike Weatherley is personally responsible for making it worse," they told the Morning Star. "I hope he remembers that every time he tries to go to sleep."
Weatherley's legislation sparked widespread protest, with much of the objection focusing on the fact that squatting was often the least-worst outcome for someone on the verge of homelessness. While a working housing system wouldn't need to allow squatting, we clearly do not have a working housing system. Charities warned that criminalising squatting would lead to an increase in homelessness, and the government proceeded anyway, with Grant Shapps, then the housing minister, saying:
We're tipping the scales of justice back in favour of the homeowner and making the law crystal clear: entering a property with the intention of squatting will be a criminal offence.
That crystal clarity may have been responsible for Daniel Gauntlett taking the risk that ultimately cost him his life. |
Three years ago, we learned that a Dutch team had developed a biological concrete that could repair its own cracks. They said it might be two or three years before it found its way into the larger world—and now, we’re getting a look at its real-world applications.
The concrete is a collaboration between two scientists named Eric Schlangen and Henk Jonkers, who are profiled today in an update on their research from CNN. The duo first made news in 2012, when they introduced their “biocement,” which uses bacteria to patch up the cracks in concrete that lead to structural degradation.
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Here’s how it works: Traditional concrete aggregate is mixed with bacteria and capsules of calcium lactate. When a crack in the concrete forms, water seeps in and “activates” the bacteria, which is hard-wired to eat calcium lactate. When it does, it produces calcite—an ingredient of limestone—that accumulates to fill the space between the crack.
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When io9’s Robbie Gonzalez reported on the project in 2012, it was still being tested in a lab. CNN visited Jonkers in the Netherlands to find out how development has progressed in the time since.
Jonkers and his partner have used the mixture in a real building—a lifeguard station on a lake. They’ve monitored how small cracks in the facade formed, and how the bacteria produced limestone the fill them in, almost like skin that forms a scab and then heals over completely. “We were really happy to see that it worked,” he says in the video.
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The idea of buildings that can heal themselves has been around for decades—like the architectural nanotechnology used to rebuild Neo Tokyo that William Gibson famously imagined. It’s cool to see a technology that was being developed in a lab just a few years ago actually used in real-world buildings.
[CNN]
Contact the author at [email protected]. |
The Russian interference with the 2016 election has been called the most efficient information operation ever waged by the Russian government. Former director of National Intelligence James Clapper described it as “multi-faceted.” Leaders in Congress and the intelligence community have already warned that the Russians will target future U.S. elections.
But unlike the unified response to the 9-11 attack which led to the establishment of a non-partisan Commission, public hearings, an extensive investigation and a comprehensive report, Washington has moved haltingly, caught between partisan politics, disorganization, and a reluctance to acknowledge the ongoing threat to democracy in the U.S. and around the world. The Trump administration is in the middle of a media battle of Nixonian proportions. Instead of supporting investigation of allegations of wrongdoing and working to prevent future attacks, the White House tweets back at critics as if winning a round in a news cycle makes the country any safer.
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Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith recently argued that Congress is responding as it should, that oversight mechanisms are working as they should, and that “Trump is being held accountable.” Tell that to Rep. Adam Schiff Adam Bennett SchiffTech takes heat as anti-vaxers go viral Demands grow for a public Mueller report Bharara: It would seem 'odd and unusual' if Mueller report isn't made public MORE (D-Calif.), who learned from CNN that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) had provided information related to the committee to the White House before it was presented to the committee.
There are other problems as well. Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report Ex-Trump aide: Can’t imagine Mueller not giving House a ‘roadmap’ to impeachment Rosenstein: My time at DOJ is 'coming to an end' MORE has been unwilling to appoint a special prosecutor. The effort to establish an independent commission has stalled. There are still too many briefings taking place behind closed doors. Too many members, sitting on the intelligence committees, are unable to disclose to the public what they have learned. And when they emerge from closed door briefings, every indication is that we have not heard the full story.
Without a national commission and a comprehensive public report, there is a real risk that the outcome of the greatest attack on the United States since 9-11 will be a classified report for Congress with little information for the public. That is not a plan to strengthen democratic institutions.
Public disclosure needs to be broadened
The public has a right to know the details when a foreign government attempts to influence the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. The public has aright to know the extent of the risk and how the government agencies, tasked with defending the nation, responded. And the public has a right to know what steps have been taken to prevent future attacks.
Our votes and our participation in the democratic process are at issue. Congress should continue to pursue oversight. Congress should establish an independent commission and a special prosecutor should be appointed. But there is more to be to be done. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is proceeding with several expedited Freedom of Information Act cases, and several related FOIA matters, to uncover answers.
In EPIC v. FBI, we are seeking the public release of documents concerning the FBI’s response to cyber attacks on US political parties. The FBI has lead authority to protect US organizations from foreign adversaries, yet too little is known about how the bureau responded to the mounting evidence of Russian attacks. What were the bureau’s policies for notifying U.S. organizations of foreign cyber attack and were they followed when the bureau learned that both political parties were the targets of Russian interference? What prosecutions have resulted from the FBI’s investigation of the attack?
In EPIC v. ODNI, we are seeking the release of the complete report prepared by the intelligence community on the extent of Russian interference. The unclassified version, released in early January, raised more questions than it answered. The Russians infiltrated voter databases. Did they also hack voting machines? The Russians hacked the DNC donor lists and email accounts. Did they collaborate with WikiLeaks in releasing the Podesta emails? The complete report should be made available.
There is a lot of controversy as to whether Obama “tapped” Trump Tower. EPIC is seeking the release of all FISA warrants for Trump Tower. The Justice Department could acknowledge the number and duration of such orders without compromising individual investigations.
Regarding the hastily cancelled House oversight hearing, EPIC has also sought the prompt release of records concerning witnesses who were scheduled to testify. Specifically, EPIC has asked the Justice Department for the records of former Assistant Attorney Sally Yates concerning the Russian investigation. We have made similar request to the CIA for the records of the former CIA Director John Brennan, and the records at ODNI of former DNI James Clapper.
The agencies are likely to resist these public record requests. There are several exemptions they could assert. EPIC will litigate such claims, as we have in the past, as the cases move forward. But it would be in the national interest for the federal agencies to release as much material to the public as they can. Further secrecy will do little to restore public confidence over the integrity of our election system. And responses to formal requests made under FOIA laws are the best way to inform the public while avoiding charges of unlawful leaking.
With upcoming elections in Europe and ongoing concerns about the vulnerability of democratic institutions to cyber attack, now is the time for the federal agencies tasked with defending the country to be open and accountable with the American public.
Marc Rotenberg is president of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, D.C. He testified before the 9-11 Commission on "Security and Liberty: Protecting Privacy, Preventing Terrorism." EPIC maintains an extensive FOIA docket.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill. |
First came Generation X. Then the Millennials. And if you have kids under 10, you already know what they're going to be called: the Touchscreen Generation.
For these kids, who learned to walk and talk as smartphones and tablets were saturating the cultural landscape, a computer with a physical keyboard is archaic and distant, a clattering tool their parents use. The Touchscreen Generation experiences computing as something immediate, direct, intuitive—not as an interaction that happens in a slightly removed way, where the screen and what happens on it are mediated by keys, mice, or trackpads.
And yet there's a different kind of distance that touchscreens create. Seamless interactions with touchscreens depend on the seamless packaging of apps into self-contained experiences. What kids gain in directness, they lose in an appreciation for how the software on the screen really works, how it was built, how they too could build it.
When I was a kid, I had to know some DOS commands to launch a program, or navigate a file tree, or insert a floppy disk, all of which served to remind me that this computer was a machine, not a magic portal. Interacting with touchscreens, on the other hand, feels so natural that it's easy to forget that these devices, these apps, are things that someone built. The natural posture for relating to touchscreens is as a consumer, not a creator. That kind of one-way dynamic isn't a good start to the way the next generation relates to technology.
>'This is a tool that they can use to get their voice out in the world, not just to consume what other people are doing.'
But a new app might be able to break through that passivity by meeting the Touchscreen generation where their fingers live. ScratchJr is a new iPad variation of the Scratch programming language, a tool created at MIT to help teach kids to code. The premise for both is the same: instead of text, Scratch uses interlocking colored blocks to mimic the logical structures and functions of a typical grown-up programming language. Scratch scripts allow their creators to direct and interact with "sprites"—cartoonish characters on the screen. By introducing kids to coding without the hurdles of arcane syntax and bug-prevention, the hope is that they'll become engaged enough with the process that their sensibilities will shift.
The difference with ScratchJr is that it aims to bring this dynamic to an even younger audience, the kids who have known only tablets and smartphones. "We wanted to make sure young people aren't just using tablet for browsing and consuming," says Professor Mitchel Resnick, head of the MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten group, which developed ScratchJr along with researchers at Tufts University and the Montreal-based Playful Invention Company. "This is a tool that they can use to get their voice out in the world, not just to consume what other people are doing."
Core Concepts
ScratchJr isn't as sophisticated as Scratch itself, which works as either a standalone app or a web app on PCs. But that relative lack of complexity turns out to be ScratchJr's strongest selling point. While Scratch is aimed at eight-year-olds and up, ScratchJr is targeted at kids five to seven. It's almost purely graphic-driven, which makes it accessible to an age group for whom reading is sometimes still a lot of work. And the only time the iPad keyboard ever comes into play is when young coders want to change the text in the word-bubble coming from a character's mouth. Otherwise, they're creating rudimentary but fun programs by tapping and dragging on the touchscreen interface, which is as native to many of them as turning on a light switch.
MIT
Resnick is also quick to emphasize that although stripped down, ScratchJr retains the essential computational concepts taught by its older sibling, such as events, sequencing, and iteration. These core ideas are key to the aim of the Scratch project to teach coding as a new kind of literacy. "Just as with traditional literacy, it's important to learn to read, but it's also important to learn to write," Resnick says.
Not Just on the Receiving End
But as with reading and writing for earlier generations when those skills were less commonplace, parental anxiety around learning to code is economic, not just idealistic. Skilled programmers these days have their pick of high-paying jobs. As the outlook even for such venerable professions as law and medicine become murkier, the mythology of the Zuckerbergian coder-tycoon becomes all the more seductive.
But it would be a shame to view creations like ScratchJr mainly as entry points through which helicopter parents can guide their children onto the joyless path toward a college-ready kid-CV. Teaching kids to code isn't about giving them a better chance in 20 years of fighting off the robots who will otherwise take their jobs. It's about teaching them now that the robot isn't running the show.
Interactive digital technologies are now unavoidably a part of growing up, which makes it all the more important to start early in trying to shape how the Touchscreen Generation relates to that technology. They need to know that they can take the robot apart and put it back together again; that if they don't like the app, they can make their own; that if they want new kinds of creatures, tools, and materials in Minecraft, they can learn Java and mod it themselves. Tinkering is a way to make technology your own, and tinkering is what a project like ScratchJr makes possible, on a device kids are already using. The most important thing kids can learn when they learn to code is that, when it comes to technology, they're not just on the receiving end. |
by Brett Stevens on May 23, 2016
Ever wonder why Leftists are so active in getting felons to vote, busing the homeless to voting booths, and stirring up those on unemployment to go vote?
Elections are often quite close. Most people stay home because they have (selfishly) thrown in the towel on the whole process. When they do get inspired to come out, it is usually for strong candidates as recently happened in Austria.
But there, the tactics of the Left reveal the reasons for their existence: about half of the population are committed lunatics who vote Leftist for the benefits, out of fear or neurosis, and to revenge themselves on those above them. This is the group to beat, and when an election is close, trust the Left to use every trick possible.
In the end there was just a 0.6 percent difference, with Van der Bellen receiving 50.3 percent and Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer receiving 49.7 percent. …In the end it came down to some 750,000 valid postal votes which were counted on Monday and added to the total. Early reports suggest it came down to just a matter of a thousand votes in the end.
A thousand votes in a country of eight million. All it takes is the Leftists — most of whom are on benefits, so are not distracted with jobs, families and real-life activities — to go round up a thousand felons, elderly, unemployed, insane, homeless, and immigrants to displace the voice of the people.
In any sane society, this would be seen as an appalling result. But in any sane society, there would not be voting, because it inherently displaces responsibility for choice, and even with a representative system, the voice of an insane/criminal/neurotic would not be “equal” to that of a normal/healthy/intelligent.
Tags: austria, democracy, leftism, norbert hofer
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In 2008, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland rolled out a program to improve access to abortion in remote corners of Iowa. Using telemedicine, women were able to obtain the abortion pill at any of the state’s seventeen locations without a doctor on site. They simply had to walk in, see a nurse and a counselor, have an ultrasound, and consult via video chat with a doctor from one of Planned Parenthood’s three larger, urban locations. The doctor could remotely unlock a container holding the abortion pills, one of which is taken in-office and the other at home, where the abortion occurs over several days. (Still confused? The American Prospect has a nice explainer.)
These so-called “webcam abortions” quickly became a target for abortion foes in state legislatures (yielding bans in Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Tennessee), who argued that the physical and psychological risks of abortion necessitated a doctor’s physical presence. It’s sweet of them to worry, but in an independent review, 91 percent of women walked away “very satisfied” with the remote procedure, which was slightly more successful than a face-to-face consultation, 99 percent to 97. Still, the practice is up for a public debate before Iowa’s board of medicine today.
One statistic that might appease pro-lifers is that the relative convenience of abortions by telemedicine did not dramatically increase the number of abortions. Just the opposite: The annual number of abortions has dropped a staggering 30 percent since telemedical abortions were introduced, from 6,649 to 4,648, according to a USA Today report. Iowa’s Right to Life believes their 70 new “crisis pregnancy centers” have successfully converted 30 percent of unhappily pregnant people into blissed-out moms-to-be. Maybe! Personally, I’m leaning toward Planned Parenthood’s explanation. They attribute the decline to the rise of long-term reversible contraceptives like IUDs and implants, which the state was until recently giving away for free, thanks to a five-year initiative financed by Warren Buffett’s late wife, Susan. |
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Ambitious plans to create a huge public park in Greater Manchester bigger than New York’s Central Park can be revealed today.
City Forest Park, a green haven over 800 acres, would span areas of Salford, Bury and Bolton along the route of a valley between the rivers Croal and Irwell.
Land shaped by industrial decline would be transformed into a ‘new green-beating heart for Greater Manchester’ and boast 45 kilometres of paths and cycleways. It could also host music concerts and festivals.
Watch: Introducing City Forest Park (credit: Creative Concern)
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Forestry Commission sites including Prestwich Forest Park, Philips Park, Drinkwater Park, Waterdale, Prestwich Clough, Silverdale and Hurst Wood, west of Philips Park, would be encompassed by the new park. Future expansions could include council-owned parks, with talks involving Bury and Salford councils continuing. Exact boundaries could change.
It’s hoped to secure initial funding of £1m through grants, funding and sponsorship, but private sector investment is needed to turn the vision into a reality over years.
(Image: BDP/JILL JENNINGS)
The exact site is bigger than Regent’s Park and Hyde Park in London put together and is connected by river, road and cycleways to Manchester city centre.
It was home to coal mining, chemical works and manufacturing. The old Agecroft power station dominated the skyline under a derelict canal, rail line and sewage works.
After heavy industrial decline, work to regenerate the stretch of the Croal-Irwell Valley began almost 10 years ago under the Lower Irwell Valley Integrated Action plan.
(Image: BDP/JILL JENNINGS)
Pathways were build and thousands of trees planted, but the new plan aims to build on that work over what is believed to be the largest public green space in Manchester.
The park would incorporate the Irwell Sculpture Trail and culture and the arts would also be represented.
City of Trees, a charity spearheaded by The Oglesby Charitable Trust, the Community Forest Trust and other partners, are behind the plans.
(Image: BDP/JILL JENNINGS)
They aim to offer light shows and sculptures and work with the Manchester International Festival and Manchester’s HOME arts complex to broker partnerships to bring the park alive with art, shows and performances.
Pop-up markets and educational courses for schools could also feature.
Tony Hothersall, from City of Trees, said: “With the right investment, we will be able to realise City Forest Park’s full potential and give the region the inspiring green space and culture hub it deserves and needs.”
(Image: BDP/JILL JENNINGS)
Salford Mayor Paul Dennett said: “Green spaces are vital for cities like ours. They provide a breath of fresh air in a dense urban environment, beautiful natural landscape and not to mention they’re good for the environment.
"This is a huge opportunity for our city. I am proud to put my name to this idea, and I hope the people of Greater Manchester share my enthusiasm.”
Coun Alan Quinn, Bury council’s cabinet member for environment, said many thousands of trees would be planted. He added: “It will be a place of natural beauty, 330 hectares in area, 15 minutes walk from the suburbs of Greater Manchester.
"It will support wildlife, clean our air and provide a place of tranquillity for everyone to enjoy.” |
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-12 20:42:54|Editor: Xiang Bo
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BEIJING, April 12 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday warned India it would take further measures to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and national security following offensive remarks made by the Dalai Lama while he was visiting a disputed zone in the east part of the China-India border area.
According to media reports, an Indian official also repeatedly made inappropriate comments regarding China and the border dispute.
These recent actions indicate that the Dalai Lama's trip has gone beyond the so-called "religious activities" as claimed by India, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at a routine press conference.
India has violated its solemn commitment on Tibet-related issues, which will have a detrimental impact on the proper resolution of territorial disputes through negotiation, Lu added.
Noting that the Dalai Lama group has totally positioned itself on the foreign side, Lu said his "disgraceful show" would not affect China's stance on border- and Tibet-related issues, or change the fact that China's Tibet government has been effectively exercising jurisdiction over the east part of the border area for a long time.
Border- and Tibet-related issues concern the political foundation of China-India ties, Lu said, stressing that the Indian side has made commitments on Tibet-related issues and reached consensus with China on resolving border disputes via negotiation.
China has lodged solemn representations to India, Lu said, urging India to refrain further provocations that could jeopardize border negotiations and bilateral ties. |
Hundreds of church-goers in N.D. exposed to Hepatitis A
Hundreds of Catholic church-goers in North Dakota may have been exposed to the hepatitis A virus while taking communion in recent weeks.
North Dakota Department of Health officials say a person who was infected with the virus participated in services and touched communion wafers at four churches in Fargo and Jamestown in late September and early October.
Immunization Program manager Molly Howell said if the person didn't use good hand-washing practices, the virus could have been spread to parishioners.
"We do think that there is a low risk of transmission," Howell said. "We're just being overly cautious and want to notify people who may have had communion, if they develop symptoms, to go in and be tested."
Hepatitis A is found in the stool of infected people and is usually spread by contaminated hands.
Symptoms include fever, fatigue, nausea, dark urine and jaundice. Most people recover within a few weeks or months, but in rare cases the virus can cause fatal liver damage.
Howell said it can take 15 to 50 days after exposure for symptoms to develop. She people who contract the virus can feel sick for some time.
"This isn't something that lasts just a couple of days," she said. "It would be a prolonged illness that can even last as long as two months." |
When Florida Governor Rick Scott rejected $2.4 billion in federal high speed rail funding, it set up the possibility that California could reap a big windfall that helps us build out our HSR project. And so we have. Today Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced California will get $300 million of that money:
California – Central Valley Construction Project Extension – $300 million for a 20-mile extension along the Central Valley Corridor. This will continue to advance one of the highest priority projects in the nation that will ultimately provide 220 mph high-speed rail service from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The work funded in this round will extend the track and civil work from Fresno to the “Wye” junction, which will provide a connection to San Jose to the West and Merced to the North.
It’s not as much as California wanted – an application was submitted for all $2.4 billion – but it is a sign of further federal support for the project, and is welcome news.
The bulk of the funds went to the Northeast Corridor ($800 million) and the Midwest ($400 million). Given the need to keep Senators and Congressmen from other states happy and supportive of the HSR project – especially after Republicans demanded and won huge cuts to federal HSR funds – this move should be no surprise, and may even be good for California HSR in that it helps build political support for HSR in more states and among more members of Congress.
I’m sure some will be disappointed with the fact that California didn’t get a larger share. That would have been nice, but with so many other states competing, it may not have been all that realistic. Some may also read into this a slap at the California project. I’m not sure that’s warranted, but we should be at least a bit concerned that NIMBYism and HSR denial is starting to creep its way into the state legislature, and could undermine the project if not stopped.
Still, the bigger need is for more federal funding – a lot more. Clearly there is nationwide demand for HSR, and teabaggers won’t govern Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida forever. Congress made a big mistake cutting HSR funds and President Barack Obama made an even bigger mistake agreeing to those cuts. The White House may have decided to use the Florida HSR funds to rebuild political support in Congress for HSR funding. If that means California gets a smaller share today, but results in more federal funding in the years to come, then it’s definitely worth it. |
Photo RevMedXBrad Gilpin Photo RevMedXBrad Gilpin
Just like the data dump following the failed Syria raid to rescue James Foley exposed US tactics techniques and procedures, the administration has repeated the mistake with the recent failed raid to rescue American journalist Luke Somers.
While a simple statement saying, “US Special Operations Forces were unable to rescue an American hostage who was killed by terrorists during the attempt” is sufficient to inform the nation, the administration insists on providing a multitude of details that helps our enemies thwart future operations and increases the special operations troops’ vulnerability.
To the novice, details such as the type of aircraft, number of US troops, insertion method, decision cycles, how raids were compromised and how targets are surveilled are juicy tidbits to vicariously participate in these fascinating operations but to the military minded they provide critical clues to the enemy on how to protect themselves and even kill future rescuers.
It’s been widely reported about 40 SEALs inserted six miles from a compound by two Air Force Osprey tilt rotor aircraft from a base in Djibouti or the USS Makin Island off the coast of Yemen. From there, the SEALs made their way to the objective. They were discovered only 100 meters from the compound by either a dog barking or while setting up a perimeter by a guard who stumbled on them while looking to relieve himself.
Subsequently, a five to 10 minute firefight ensued where about 10 terrorists were killed. Early in the fight, overhead surveillance observed a terrorist enter the building the hostages were in. The same hostages found shortly after had been shot numerous times. One died on the outbound Osprey while being attended to by an airborne surgical team (or under the care of two medics with the SEALs), the other on the USS Makin Island where the aircraft recovered to. The entire raid took about 40 minutes and occurred about 1:00AM local time.
All these details were released by administration officials or military officers.
As I’ve said, this all makes for riveting reading locking the reader’s attention on the details of the operation and forgetting the larger less sexy but much more important issues like, ”What’s our strategy to stop terrorists in Syria from kidnapping and beheading Americans?” Then again, that’s the whole intent behind these data dumps. I won’t reiterate the political manipulation motivating these operational security lapses except to say they come out almost simultaneously with the death of an American by these terrorists and serve to create a fog in the public’s mind to avoid asking the question, “Why does this keep happening?”
How does the above information help the enemy? A rudimentary after action analysis from the enemy’s perspective demonstrates what intelligence nuggets can be gained by all this reporting and how the enemy can use it.
First, stating where aircraft took off from/landed and what kind of aircraft where used provides an enemy, warning, potential chokepoints to obtain intelligence or defend against insertions. Just like Cuba had an agent in the US counting airplanes taking off from an airfield it was afraid an invasion might come from, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out putting agents near our base in Djibouti or other nations to monitor US aircraft arrivals and departures would provide telltale signs of an operation.
Further, staying alert to US ship deployments or sightings of C17’s unloading aircraft or Osprey comings and goings can provide the enemy warning he may have no other way. At a minimum this information could be used to raise an enemy’s defensive threat level. Thinking more practically, knowing what kind of aircraft would be likely used in a raid/rescue allows an enemy to identify what size landing zones work for various aircraft. He could then make them unusable (e.g. IED’s or obstructions) and/or set up ambushes at these potential landing zones. Especially in mountains or other highly restrictive terrain, landing zones can be very limited.
Next, knowing that dogs and roving guards have often caused a rescue or raid to be discovered prematurely, it behooves the enemy to commonly employ those resources and techniques to provide early warning of an impending raid. That early warning would be critical to final preparations to defend themselves, call for help, set up ambushes for the extraction (e.g. man MANPADS systems to engage the exfiltration aircraft) or arm previously emplaced IEDs.
Knowing how long it took for intelligence to make its way to the Secretary of Defense and get approved by the President before launching a raid provides the enemy with a timeline to base the movement of a hostage should an OPSEC violation on their part be discovered to include the presence of drones. It also provides an enemy with resources an opportunity to turn a compromised hostage location into an ambush site. The same sort of advantages can be gleaned by learning what time raids happen and under what environmental conditions we prefer to launch them under.
Finally, stating the duration of a raid along with the distance traveled from the landing zone gives the enemy insights into capabilities not explicitly stated. If the timeline and landing zone distance from the objective are accurate, one can determine that even the SEALs didn’t run sub five minute miles wearing body armor and carrying weapons and ammo over six miles in “rough” terrain. I’m not going to give the enemy anymore ideas I already have but that sort of information provides anyone with an iota of combat experience a plethora of ideas to slow, stop or kill someone trying to get to your position quickly in the dark. There are just so many paths one can take from point A to B.
I have been very reticent in doing the enemy’s thinking for them but someone has to start laying out what the potential real costs to all the fantastical reporting going on could potentially be. Is the political advantage really worth it? Are the lives of our troops that cheap? If someone has asked themselves those questions and still released this information that cold blooded calculus is chilling. If not, the incompetence is just reaching new heights. |
Zootopia: Young Nick Wilde by Sa-Dui
Source [1]
I’ve done this enough times that I think it’s safe to call it official. Every Art of the Day post that ends with a even number, I’ll try to incorporate some sort of theme. And this week, we’re taking a trip back in time to when the cast of Zootopia were kids!
I just have to say, I really love Nick as a cub scout. When he’s happy, it’s the most adorable scene in the movie. I personally went through the whole Boy Scouts of America program, starting when I was somewhere around Nick’s age, and it was a wonderful experience. I made some great friends, learned things I never would have considered trying, and eventually I achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest honor a Boy Scout can achieve. I remember those times with fondness, and while I didn’t always enjoy getting covered with mud or 20 mile treks, it was a great thing that I had fun doing.
So, when that scene of the movie takes a turn for the dark, it was heartbreaking. Not only could I relate to him as he was being bullied without having any idea why (“what did I do wrong?” …oh goodness that line got to me), but to have all those future good times, friendships, skills, and memories just crushed like that? It was a real tragedy.
Enough about that. Get your daily dose of D’awww after the break!
Lil Zoo Scout by Silverfox5213
Source [2]
To comfort you by nik159
Source [3]
Lil Con Fox by Silverfox5213
Source [7]
Young Judy Defends Young Nick by jonathantaniuchi
Source [8]
Broken Dreams by nik159
Source [9]
Little Nick and Judy by Fuzzt0ne
Source [10]
FA- Would you like some Pawspawcookies? by Rexcaliber25
Source [11]
Broken Dreams. Zootopia Fanart by pandapaco
Source [12]
Brave Little Fox II by nik159
Source [13]
[Zootopia] If we meet early. by smily0347yo
Source [14]
FA- Junior Ranger Scout Nick by Rexcaliber25
Source [15]
Zootopia (***little bit spoiler alert) by Mushstone
Source [16]
Zootopia – Little Nick and Judy by nik159
Source [17]
How was the reunion honey? by badneko
Source [18]
Hopps n’ Wilde by pastelsl0th
Source [19] |
Back to Publications The Elegant Eye
Alaska Quarterly Review
Volume 6, Nos. 1 & 2, P. 55
Accepted for Best American Essays 2010
They aren’t what most people think they are. Human eyes, touted as ethereal objects by poets and novelists throughout history, are nothing more than white spheres, somewhat larger than your average marble, covered by a leather-like tissue known as sclera and filled with nature’s facsimile of Jell-O. Your beloved’s eyes may pierce your heart, but in all likelihood they closely resemble the eyes of every other person on the planet. At least I hope they do, for otherwise he or she suffers from severe myopia (near-sightedness), hyperopia (far-sightedness), or worse.
Such uniformity is essential: for an eye to focus properly, its length and its optical system must be matched match to within a fraction of a millimeter. When a man and woman toss their genes together to make a baby, nature sets the focal point (determined by the optical power of the cornea and crystalline lens) at a standard distance, then adjusts the length of the eyeball to that same distance – twenty-four millimeters, or about one inch, with a few millimeters of variation thrown in for good measure. Thus unlike livers and kidneys and hearts and brains – those ordinary, non-spherical organs – eyes tend to an impressive sameness all over the world. My spleen may be half again bigger than yours, intestines can vary by five feet in length from person to person, but, with rare and usually disastrous exceptions, eyes are like so many peas in a pod.
Trust me. I’ve handled hundreds of eyeballs, removed from their owners for a variety of unpleasant reasons. One of my jobs – that of the ophthalmic pathologist – is to slice these globes into wafer-thin strips, stain the strips with vivid colors (hematoxylin and eosin, periodic acid schiff, Masson trichrome), then examine the results under a microscope. Given these credentials, I can assure you that your lover’s eyes differ from those of your most despised enemy in only the most superficial ways – in the color and texture of the iris and in the size of its pupil. When we wax eloquent about “beautiful eyes,” we are usually moved more by the trimmings – the lids, the lashes, the brows, the prominence of the globe in its orbit – than by anything contained within the eye itself. The Japanese sometimes refer to westerners as “big eyes,” an illusion caused by the lid position and orbital structure of Occidentals, while in truth Asians exhibit a collective tendency toward myopia that gives them on average slightly larger eyeballs.
* * * A crisis came upon me during my fourth year of medical school. This was the crucial moment, the ultimate decision: to what specialty would I devote my life? Should I tend to phlegmy children who wriggle and scream and scratch my face when I thrust an otoscope into their ear? Should I slice open bellies, wander among livers and spleens and gallbladders, grope my way through greasy omental fat pads to explore coil after coil of diseased intestines? Or should I tend to the human heart, throbbing in its nest between foamy pink lungs?
I flirted with cardiology, then settled on neurology. Nothing rivals the complexity of the human brain, I reasoned, and no goal is more noble than curing its various ailments. The ultimate dialectic: using the skilled synapses of my own brain, I would diagnose and cure the diseased brains of others. Fortunately, before it was too late, a six-week elective in neurology revealed the terrible truth: almost every neurology patient suffers from a stroke or a seizure or an incurable brain tumor, and they almost never – NEVER – get better. Worse yet, the rare patient with a curable lesion is usually snatched up by the neurosurgeons, the most arrogant species on earth. By the end of the elective I felt like a zombie myself.
How about Ophthalmology? Clean, precise, offering its own dialectic: with my intact eye I would diagnose and cure the diseased eyes of others. It didn’t take long, only one good look into the ocular depths through a dilated pupil, and my quest was finished. There before me lay a stunning image – a delicate lacework of arteries and veins spread on a burnt umber palate swirled and streaked with shades of ocher. Most spectacular of all was the retina, a transparent wafer that gleamed like polished glass under the light of my ophthalmoscope. In the center the optic nerve shone like a risen sun.
I was smitten. * * * Since every normal eye displays a clear cornea and a white scleral coat, any notion of special beauty attributed to the globe itself must derive from the iris, the dynamic membrane that contains the pupil and rests in front of the crystalline lens. The iris comes in many colors, but if one trusts the obsession of poets and novelists, the most beautiful irises are always blue: light-blue, velvety-blue, welkin-eyed, peacock, midnight, cobalt, ice-blue. Green gets an occasional nod – “she had jewel-bright emerald eyes, so lustrous and fetching they tore through my heart” – but most of the time blue runs the show. The rankest discrimination, and a bit ironic, since blue irises contain no intrinsic pigment, showing only the raw color of the tissue itself. The pigment cells in the Caucasian iris often add a twist to this aesthetic by lying dormant during gestation, breaking the heart of many a parent when the gorgeous blue eyes of their newborn turn muddy-brown as the months go by.
The texture of the iris is all but invisible to the unaided eye, but the ophthalmologist’s slit-lamp microscope discloses a panorama of diaphanous spokes, crypts and valleys, flecks and spots and strands that dance about with each twitch of the pupil. Dark irises tend toward a tight weave, while light irises fluff up like a shag rug. And there’s the all-important pupil: constricted by morphine and bright light, dilated by fear, darkness, sexual arousal, and death. Yes, the coroner’s final measure, the mark of a departed soul – enormous black pupils that give nary a twitch to even the brightest light. Despite this morbid sign, many cultures consider large pupils a sign of beauty. “Belladonna,” Spanish for “beautiful lady,” is also the name of a pupil-dilating poison extracted from the plant Atropa belladonna, more commonly known as deadly nightshade.
A note on cosmetics: under an ophthalmologist’s slit-lamp microscope, false lashes look like mutilated telephone poles, while mascara shows up as greasy black chunks that squiggle across the corneal tear film with every blink. For the efficiency-minded woman there is permanent eyeliner, a dark line tattooed along the lid margin. It works beautifully, provided styles don’t change, and provided the tattooist, working millimeters from the cornea, doesn’t inject ink into the eyeball.
About myopia – if you have it, be happy. Numerous scientific studies have shown that near-sighted men and women boast a higher average intelligence than their non-myopic cohorts. The precise mechanism of this association remains unknown, but there are two popular theories: nature and nurture. Those who support nature argue that during embryologic development, the eyes develop from the same neural tube as the brain itself. Since large eyes tend to be myopic, big eyes and big brains might go together in much the same fashion as long arms and long legs.
Those who favor nurture insist that myopia leads to high intelligence because of its effect on childhood development. Most near-sighted kids wander around undiagnosed for years, and during this formative period – unable to see the baseballs, Frisbees, and rocks thrown at them by their playmates – they spend a lot of time indoors. The non-athletic myopes who take up reading get high scores on their SATs, while those who take up eating give us claustrophobia by overflowing the seat next to us on airplanes. Myopia also exerts a powerful influence on career choice: eighty-five percent of my fellow ophthalmologists are myopic, an incidence far greater than that of the normal population. Pathology breeds preoccupation. * * * However beautiful the human eye, it serves a more important purpose than romantic allure. Forty percent of the brain is devoted to vision, which provides us with more information than our other four senses combined. Our optic nerves transmit millions of impulses to the brain every second, impulses that specify the location, color, and intensity of light for all the points in our visual space. Even more remarkable, our visual cortex fuses the slightly disparate images from each eye to give us the three-dimensional miracle known as depth perception. A stunning feat, given that video cameras, arguably the benchmark of modern technology, can muster only two dimensions.
Certain ocular tissues stand on the pinnacle of evolution. How does nature, so crude in claw and fang, create a surface that brings light to a pin-point focus? This surface must be perfectly curved, perfectly transparent, perfectly smooth. It must be – water! Which is to say, the cornea owes its optical precision to a tear film whose dissolved salts, lipids and proteins allow it to maintain a flawless wetted surface. A man who has no tears stands on the threshold of blindness. Worse yet, that man will writhe in agony: a bone-dry cornea responds to each blink with a tormenting jolt of pain, a jolt so severe its sufferers compare it to rubbing shards of glass on the eye.
Another evolutionary triumph: for light to reach the retina unimpeded, the cornea and lens must remain transparent, and yet, like all living tissues, they must be nourished by oxygen. More than 99.9 percent of all human cells obtain their oxygen from capillary blood flow, but capillaries lacing through the cornea and lens would veil our vision with an opaque net. To remain crystal clear, the outer portion of the cornea must survive on oxygen absorbed from the surrounding air, while the lens and the inner cornea depend on. aqueous, a colorless fluid that flows through the chambers of the eye. Since aqueous contains neither hemoglobin nor cells of any sort, it carries only a tiny fraction of the oxygen contained in blood. And the rate of aqueous flow must be precisely controlled: a deficiency shrivels the eye into a useless spitball, while glaucoma, caused by blockage of the trabecular drainage channels near the base of the iris, leads to throbbing pain and blindness. Thus pain-free vision, the presumed birthright of every human, demands an arrangement as delicate and wondrous as that achieved by any space-age gadget. * * * Of all the ugly things in this world, I would argue that diseases top the list: cancer, syphilis, leprosy, gangrene, fungating ulcers. Even the pictures lying flat and odorless on the pages of a textbook bring a surge of nausea. And let us not forget elephantiasis, an infestation by filarial worms that wriggle through the lymphatic system, causing such severe edema the legs often swell to the size of tree trunks. Male victims pay a special price, with the unluckiest among them pushing their scrotum before them in a wheelbarrow.
But surely the eye, the most delicate of organs, is afflicted by only the subtlest diseases. Or so one might think. I soon discovered the fallacy of this logic. Indeed, some of the most grotesque diseases known to medicine are those that disfigure the eye. Ophthalmology did not prove the sanitary refuge I had hoped for. On the second day of my student elective in the Stanford Eye Clinic, I examined Justine Jewell, a tall, slender diabetic in her late teens. She was accompanied by a tall mother who carried twice her daughter’s bulk. Justine complained, “My eyes are full of floaters.” Good, I thought. Floaters. No problem. Everything looked fine from the outside – white sclera, clear corneas, pale blue irises. Then I shined my ophthalmoscope through her dilated pupils. “Excuse me” I said, and stepped out of the room.
By that time in my career, I had seen the interior of a few dozen eyes, each a breath-taking panorama of amber and brown, yellow and pink, shading through a delicate lacework of arteries and veins. But Justine’s eyes were filled with tangles of angry red spiders. Dark clots rose into the vitreous gel, trailing streamers of blood in all directions. I rushed into the hall to grab Doug Jacobson, the retinal specialist in clinic that morning. It took only an instant. Doug focused the beam of his ophthalmoscope on Justine’s right eye, then her left, removed the ophthalmoscope from his head and hung it on the wall.
“You have diabetic retinopathy,” he said. “And I’m sorry to say it’s very advanced.”
The mother burst into tears. “Oh, doctor,” she sobbed, “my grandmother, my cousin Ernest, this woman across the street – so many people I know went blind from diabetes! Can’t you do something?” Justine said nothing. Her eyes were dry, wide open, the irises stretched into pale blue rims around the blackness of her dilated pupils. Later, in private, Jacobson gave me her diagnosis in the vernacular – jungle-osis. Jungle-osis meant dense black clots, arching streamers of blood, a traction retinal detachment bound with scars so dense they defy the reparative efforts of even the most skillful surgeon. It meant blindness, both eyes, and soon – weeks, perhaps a month or two. Justine, not yet twenty years of age, was doomed to stumble through the remaining decades of her life with a white cane or a guide dog. Worse yet, she might develop absolute glaucoma, an intractable rise in pressure so painful and nauseating the victims often beg to have their eyes removed.
But – perhaps not. Justine’s only hope was a treatment so recently developed we had no proof that it worked, a treatment whose promise was based on the crudest evidence. For decades, ophthalmologists had noted a strange phenomenon: when one eye of a diabetic showed widespread retinal scars from an old injury or infection, that eye often retained vision long after diabetic hemorrhages had blinded the unscarred eye. Apparently, by a mechanism no one understood at the time, these scars protected the surviving retinal tissue from the ravages of diabetes. And so, by a logic that might impress a blacksmith or a witchdoctor, the new treatment called for obliterating much of the nonessential peripheral retina in an effort to save the central portion that gives us our sharpest vision. Since there was no other option, Jacobson advised Justine – a young girl poised on the brink of blindness, dry-eyed and speechless with fear – to let us experiment on her.
Just months before Justine’s arrival, our clinic had acquired the Coherent Radiation Model 800, one of the first lasers used to treat the human eye. Its console, six feet long and three feet high, looked like a coffin on legs. A glass tube buried deep within its circuitry gave off a high-pitched whine and emitted an eerie, bluish-green beam of light. Shown against a wall, the beam formed a circle of shimmering motes that scurried about like atoms in a nuclear furnace. A fabulous instrument, more precise than any razor, but now its tightly focused beam would serve a crude purpose – destroying retinal tissue. By the dozens, by the hundreds, the laser emitted tiny flashes, each flash the space-age equivalent of a magnifying lens burning a hole in a leaf. When the treatment was complete, lifeless white scars obliterated more than half of the patient’s peripheral retina. Care was taken to avoid the vital central portion, assuring that, if the treatment proved successful, the patient would maintain the acute vision needed to read and drive a car.
Justine suffered. To dull the pain from those hundreds of burns, we injected Xylocaine deep behind the eye. The contact lens used to deliver the laser beam sometimes caused a painful corneal abrasion. For three or four days after every treatment, fluid leaking from the peripheral burns seeped into the central retina, blurring and distorting her vision. Justine’s mother was always there, wringing her hands and squeezing her eyes shut when her daughter moaned under our long needle. But after six treatments the vitreous hemorrhages began to clear. The tangle of spiders melted away. Nine months after Justine’s first visit, Jacobson announced, “That’s it. All the hemorrhage is gone.”
Justine’s mother burst into tears, dropped her purse on the floor and threw her arms around Jacobson. His face blushed fiery red as he struggled against her grip, muttering, “No, no, it’s too soon to tell for sure,” but he was a small man, an inch or two shorter and many pounds lighter than the joyful mother.
Four years later, during the last months of my residency, Justine’s vision was still 20/20 in both eyes. There was no trace of hemorrhage, nor of the spidery vessels that signal recurrent proliferative retinopathy. Over the next three decades, recoveries like Justine’s would number in the thousands as laser surgery became the gold standard for treating diabetic retinopathy. A study published in 1976 showed a four-fold reduction in severe visual loss, but modifications to the original method eventually reduced total blindness among diabetics to a tiny fraction of the original incidence. By the turn of this century, numerous charities had delivered improved versions of the Coherent Model 800 to developing nations across the globe, allowing hundreds of thousands of patients to enjoy its benefits. Unfortunately, there remains a dark side to this story: many diabetics slip through the system, seeking care only when rampant scars have obliterated all hope of treatment, while some patients suffer an attack of retinopathy so fulminant and destructive, even the most timely therapy cannot sustain the acuity needed to drive or read.
Despite these limitations, laser surgery for proliferative retinopathy has proved a medical triumph of the first order. Here is something crude in principle, simple to perform and easily learned, but it works. In the miracle that defeated jungle-osis, my role – treating thousands of patients with the laser, plus teaching the procedure to almost a hundred residents – has been the greatest privilege of my career. * * * Even with laser surgery and a host of other high-tech developments, the blind are still with us. If we live long enough, our eyes will always fail us. Most ten-year-olds can count the legs on an ant, while only the rare nonagenarian can see the ant itself. Sooner or later our eyes, along with our knees and our hearts and our hair, will surrender to the vile duo of father time and ,mother nature. During the early years of life, the sclera is snowy white, the ocular media – composed of the cornea and lens and vitreous gel – remain crystal clear, while the retina shimmers like beaten silver under the light of an ophthalmoscope. Indeed, the sparkle we see in children’s eyes is no illusion. But by our twenties, the shank of young adulthood, the luster has begun to fade, foreshadowing the greenish cataract and rheumy yellow sclera of senescence.
Old age’s first target is often our crystalline lens, a lentil-shaped tissue that hangs behind the iris, suspended by a thousand translucent filaments. Tension on these filaments allows youngsters to focus their eyes from near to far with the ease and precision of a Nikon camera, but in order to sustain its marvelous clarity, the lens must survive without capillaries, nourished only by oxygen-poor aqueous fluid. Such metabolic tenuousness leaves the lens in a constant state of near suffocation, vulnerable to every biological assault. Like the canary in the mine, it is often the first tissue to fall victim when our bodies are attacked by radiation, toxins, or aging. During our fifth decade, our lenses begin to lose the elasticity that allows them to alter their focus from distance to near, bringing the curse of bifocals or reading glasses. Then, inexorable as an unloved season, cataracts appear, diffracting light into haloes, casting an odd tint on familiar objects, eventually drawing a dark veil over our world.
If granddaddy lives long enough, he won’t be able to read, but if he’s lucky – if cataracts are the only cause of his impairment – twenty minutes at the hands of a skilled surgeon, and the opaque lump is gone, sucked out through a vibrating needle and replaced by an acrylic lens the size of a cornflake. The next morning granddaddy will pour over his morning newspaper as happily as he did in his twenties. * * * “It’s macular degeneration, isn’t it, doctor?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
To see clearly, we need more than a clear cornea and a clear lens. Much more: a retina to transform light into nervous impulses, an optic nerve to transmit these impulses to the brain, and a visual cortex to process the impulses. Arguably the most complex link in this chain is the retina, a delicate, multi-layered, altogether wondrous membrane. But alas, the retina harbors a fatal flaw: like the lens, it falls victim to the ravages of time. As we live beyond our fifth decade, an ever-increasing proportion of us will suffer degeneration of the macula, the central portion of the retina and the site of its most active, densely-packed neurons. First comes loss of the silvery sheen that adorns the retina of the young; then, as more years pass, there begins a descent into the ragged, lusterless wasteland known as “dry” macular degeneration – an insidious progress akin to the wrinkles and liver spots that transform a baby’s face into the face of a crone. Year by year, line by line on the acuity chart, victims lose their vision. Worse yet, over time the dreaded disease expands its roster of victims until, among the few that reach the century mark, virtually none are spared its devastation.
“Doctor, when I got up this morning there was a black spot in my right eye. It blocks out everything I look at.”
This was Sister Maria, an eighty-four-year-old nun. I have heard similar words from a sixty-nine-year-old railroad engineer and an eighty-six-year-old former prizefighter with a crooked nose. A colleague of mine, a seventy-three-year-old professor of pathology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, spoke more bluntly. One afternoon he got up from his microscope, walked across Muhammad Ali Boulevard and barged into my clinic at the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. “God dammit, Gamel,” he said, “what the hell’s going on with my right eye?”
As I suspected the moment I heard their complaints, these were the unlucky ones. Most patients with macular degeneration suffer the “dry” form, which steals vision slowly, but a small percent suffer an abrupt hemorrhage or leakage beneath the retina that marks the onset of the “wet” form. From that point on, every object they look at disappears into a black hole. Fate makes only one concession: though the blind spot tends to enlarge over time, and though it quickly destroys the ability to read or drive, it rarely obliterates all sight, allowing the majority of sufferers to navigate a familiar environment.
“Doctor . . . please . . . tell me . . . is there a treatment?”
Dry-eyed or weeping, motionless or wringing their hands, clear-voiced or choked with fear, sooner or later every patient with macular degeneration will ask the same question. Theory offers two potential cures: transplanting the eye, or replacing the retina and its supporting structures. For the moment, both procedures remain well beyond the reach of science. The complexity of the retina rivals that of the brain itself. To transplant either organ, the surgeon must reconnect millions of axons – microscopic neural tubes so fragile the subtlest trauma destroys them forever. I suspect this achievement will elude the best surgeons for generations to come.
At the moment we can boast paltry progress against macular degeneration. For patients with the “dry” form, the only proven remedy is a regimen of vitamins and antioxidants that delays – but does not stop – the insidious loss of vision. On a more positive note, recent advances in molecular biology have given us a panoply of new drugs for treating “wet” macular degeneration. Though vastly more effective than the therapies available earlier in my career, these miracle molecules remain an imperfect cure: they must be injected repeatedly into the eye, they improve vision in only a small proportion of patients, and of these only a lucky few sustain the improvement for the remainder of their lives. Despite the triumphs of modern medicine, decay is written into our genes. It is our destiny. * * * Boris Osterhaus was a gray-haired farmer from Cecelia, Kentucky. His pot belly stretched the bib of his denim overalls tight as a drum. Minutes after arriving in my office, he pulled a pouch of Red Man Chewing Tobacco from the pocket of his denim shirt, then, remembering that this was neither the time nor the place to tuck a wad into his cheek, grimaced and stuffed the pouch back in his pocket. An optometrist in Cecelia had referred him to an ophthalmologist in Elizabethtown, the ophthalmologist had referred him to me, and now, after a hundred miles over back-country roads, Boris learned from my lips that he would never read or drive again. A dry, pock-marked wilderness had destroyed the macula in both of his eyes. When I finished my dismal spiel – a diplomatic version of “Mother Nature is a bitch, Father Time is a son of a bitch, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it” – Boris leapt out of his chair to grip me in a knuckle-cracking handshake.
“Thank you, doctor, thank you so much. I just can’t tell you how good it is to finally hear the truth straight up and down. Now I can get that confounded woman” – he gestured toward the stern-faced daughter who had brought him – “to stop dragging me all over the county. She keeps saying nowadays you doctors can fix anything. What a load of rubbish! I’ve lived eighty-three hard-bit years, and ain’t nobody in my family been able to read much after they was seventy-five or eighty. That’s just the way it is. I knowed it all along, but she wouldn’t listen.” * * * Of all my patients with macular degeneration, Hans Bergerman proved the most astute observer. No surprise, given his curriculum vitae: professor emeritus, former chairman of Stanford’s department of anthropology, editor of five books, author of two hundred academic publications. His bushy brows and bald, sun-darkened head gave him a gnomish look. Born in Brazil of German parents, he spoke with a crisp accent and sat stiff as a soldier in the exam chair. He never took his eyes off me for a moment.
“Let’s see how this matches yours,” he said, handing me a sketched outline of the blind spot he had noted in his right eye. I had just finished my exam and was drawing my own picture of the lesion that lurked beneath the macula of that eye. Both drawings resembled a childish doodle of a wolf’s head, but in my doodle the snout and ears were drawn with a red pencil to show streaks of sub-retinal blood. The wolf’s bulbous jowl was formed by a tangle of pathologic vessels that threatened to hemorrhage at any moment, destroying forever Bergerman’s central vision. The diagnosis was crystal clear – “wet” macular degeneration. Several years before, the same disease had destroyed the central vision in his left eye.
Bergerman was lucky. Wet macular degeneration usually strikes in the central portion of the retina, where laser therapy, the only option available at that time, would cause instant blindness. When I saw that his lesion lay a fraction of a millimeter removed from the center, I felt a shiver of anxiety. I had to treat the poor man by cauterizing the tangle of vessels with a laser beam, even though the zone that divided success from disaster was no greater than the width of a few human hairs. Doug Jacobs, the faculty attending who watched my every move through the viewing tube on the slit-lamp microscope, will never know the sweat that dripped from my armpits as I fired dozens of blue-green flashes into Bergerman’s eye.
Three months later, Bergerman said, “Thank you, Doctor.” His vision was 20/30. The tangle of vessels had shrunk to a dry, flat scar. He thanked me again two years later, the day he awoke to find a huge black spot in the center of his vision. My treatment had failed. I knew it would fail – unless the patient died first, treatment of macular degeneration always failed – but the sight of that dark clot beneath his retina brought me to the verge of tears.
“Thank you very much,” he said. “You allowed me to read for an extra two years.” On his way out of the exam room, he stopped to shake my hand and give my shoulder a friendly squeeze. With a rueful smile he said, “You sound so sad doctor, like you just lost your best friend. Who do you think you are – a magician, a god who makes old men young forever?” * * * Patients are more than the sum of their failing parts. The wisest among them know that life cannot be cured, but even they need someone to inform them, and – when healing fails – to accompany them on the lonely road to blindness and death. I did not learn this truth in a book or a laboratory or a lecture hall. My patients taught it to me. They came in desperation, returned year after year to share their struggles, and, as the years passed, they died. One way or the other I always lost the battle, but they gave me many precious moments.
The eye begins as a perfect thing, a miraculous organ, but its luster, mortal and doomed as life itself, fades with each passing year. I watched it all through my slit-lamp microscope. I watched my patients grow old with grace, and slowly, decade by decade, they taught me how to do it. |
About
Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my project. I am Natalia Silva the designer and artist behind “Love is ...” playing cards. I am excited to share my art with you, and I hope that with your support, we can make this deck a reality.
ABOUT THIS DECK:
"Love is ..." is a beautiful, simple and fun deck of playing cards inspired by love. Each card has it's own unique design and quote about love.
"What is love?" was the most searched phrase on Google in 2012.
“What is love?” It is one of the most difficult questions for the mankind.
What is love? How do you know if you’re actually in love? Is there a way to measure love? What does love mean?
Everyone has different opinions on love. Poets and authors have tried to define love for centuries, but nobody can really know for sure. Love means different things to different people.
So, here is "What is love?” in my opinion:
Uncut Sheets
The front side of "Love is ..." uncut sheet (frame not included).
Dimensions: 21 7/8" X 26 3/8" (frame not included).
"Love is ..." tuck case.
STRETCH GOALS:
This deck will be printed at the highest quality by MPC on 310sgm Linen quality card stock, unless we could reach our Stretch Goal ($10,000), which will allow me to print with the USPCC (United States Playing Card Company) on magnificent Bicycle card stock. In this case, the run will be 2500 decks.
Your support of this Kickstarter campaign will help me cover the costs of setup fees, proof charges, printing, photography, and the time to create the 54 original pieces of art.
My goal is to create decks that are playable, unique, and valuable.
I hope you can back me and help me realize my goal!
Thank you so much! :)
ADD - ONS:
These Add-ons can be added to any backer level.
To add on a product, keep your pledge level the same, and simply add the amount listed below to your pledge amount. You will receive a survey at the end of this campaign so that you can detail what your pledge was for, and you will receive any extra items that you want.
Thank you! |
With Tony Abbott’s ferocious payback tour showing no signs of winding down, his behaviour is increasingly compared to former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s conduct during his 2010–13 wilderness years. Similarities there are, but they are vastly outweighed by the differences.
Both men took their party to office at the ballot box, but under contrasting circumstances. Rudd’s feat was far less impressive: he simply slipped into the leadership when Labor was already generally ahead in the polls and headed for likely victory.
Abbott cut his own path to the Lodge. Like Rudd, he was elevated less than a year before an election, and hence enjoyed guaranteed tenure – though in Abbott’s case the Coalition was way behind in the polls and a win appeared unlikely. Abbott was also saddled with his own baggage: he was widely perceived in the community as an overly religious oddity, respected – perhaps – for sticking with his anti-abortion convictions but with little else going for him.
He had already published his book Battlelines, though, in an attempt to flesh out that public persona, and as leader he proved an adept opportunist. References to that which had been “this generation’s legacy of unutterable shame” (the rate of abortions) rarely passed his lips again, and by opposing the Rudd government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme he got into Labor’s head – which turned out to be a breathtakingly easy break-and-enter.
The following year’s drama flowed from that decision. Kevin’s backflip, Labor’s leadership change, the rush to the election, Julia Gillard’s mad incumbency-free re-election strategy – all generated the hitherto unthinkable, Tony Abbott as an acceptable candidate for prime minister. After taking the Coalition to the brink of victory in 2010, his second accomplishment was remaining opposition leader for three more years.
This he achieved by, yes, relentlessly attacking the Gillard government (he was desperate for an early election) but fundamentally by winning thumping voting-intention leads in the published polls. But he was never held in any kind of regard by most voters, and after Rudd’s return in June 2013 his position began to look shaky. Kevin obliged by calling the election quickly, motivated in part by fear of a return to the now-popular Malcolm Turnbull.
The two men’s personalities could hardly be more different. Abbott is, by all accounts, genial and considerate in person (like Julia Gillard). Rudd, on the other hand, is often cranky, sometimes bullying, with a curious need to put others in their place. He is highly intelligent, a policy wonk, and was across all portfolio areas. Abbott, not to put too fine a point on it, is none of these; philosophical musings are more his forte.
For a time, Rudd attracted the highest recorded approval ratings for an opposition leader, and then for a prime minister. The only records Abbott was in contention for were at the other end of the scale.
The dumping of Rudd in June 2010 is seen, close to unanimously, as an act of monumental political stupidity. The government had briefly dipped below 50 per cent two-party-preferred support in the polls, and at the time of the leadership change had been ahead in Newspoll for two fortnights in a row. If you accept (as I do) the counterfactual of a comfortable Labor victory under Rudd in 2010, the Abbott experiment could have been quickly terminated if Labor hadn’t panicked.
While Malcolm Turnbull might have disappointed as prime minister, the Liberals’ September 2015 leadership change will never be widely perceived as a blunder. It was more like Rudd’s 2013 comeback, which was greeted with an almost audible sigh of relief in voterland. Turnbull remains streets ahead of Abbott in head-to-head polling of preferred Liberal leader.
While Rudd enjoyed high esteem in the community during his exile, Abbott remains toxic. Yet he is adored by a highly ideological section of Liberal supporters, the self-appointed “base.” In Labor’s leadership wars, Labor’s own base remained firmly behind Gillard. Rudd was like Turnbull, seen by true believers as a carpetbagger; as Wayne Swan once put it, in characteristic prose, he “lacks Labor values.”
So Rudd’s campaign to retake the top job was directed not at caucus but at the general public, whose role it was to earbash their local Labor MPs. Abbott also bypasses the party room, but speaks to a small minority of Australians, the roughly 10 per cent of the voting population that tells pollsters he should lead the Liberal Party. At the elite level, the Abbott Show is strictly for the Hadley, Jones, Sky News (evening editions) crew and a handful of News Corp sentimentalists.
Any leadership aspirant must offer electoral salvation to his or her party. Rudd promised a popular and reauthorised leadership, generating a boost in the polls that would carry the party to victory (or at least “save the furniture”). Abbott pledges a major shift to the political right that he believes will remake the political landscape. Conceptually, such a strategy shouldn’t necessarily be dismissed, but the specifics here – the detested Abbott at the helm, voters reinvented as coal-adoring, renewables-hating, 18C-fixed IPA card-carriers – sit in the realm of science fiction.
After he lost the February 2012 leadership spill, Rudd warned (in not so many words) the party not to replace Gillard with anyone other than him. Abbott, by contrast, gives the impression that he would accept the consolation prize of another conservative (read “Peter Dutton”) as prime minister.
The Liberals will likely tear Turnbull down (or he will come up with a reason to bow out) by year’s end, but the choice before them of replacement is invidious. The candidate who is streets ahead as his most-wanted replacement, Julie Bishop, will be bypassed, not because she’s a woman but because she’s seen as “moderate,” and it’s a right-winger’s turn again, and because she’s too close to Turnbull and was insufficiently loyal to Abbott in September 2015.
The most likely candidates are Dutton – another Sky News hit for whom even fewer Australians clamour – or, perhaps, Scott Morrison (whom Tony has not yet forgiven for his 2016 desertion).
Bill Shorten, meanwhile, enjoys enhanced security thanks to rules put in place by none other than Rudd. The view must be wonderful from there. • |
According to the study “Sport Fans” by Stage Up and Ipsos which surveyed 14-64 year old Italians on the peninsula, Napoli is the team that has seen the biggest increase in supporters in the past 5 years with an impressive 61% growth (1,809,000 in 2011 to the current day 2,910,000). Behind Napoli are Bologna (+58%) and Lazio (+46%).
Juventus are the most supported team with 8,316,000 supporters, Milan second with (4,201,000), 3rd place is Inter with (3,934,000), 4th Napoli with (2,910,000) and then Roma is 5th with (1,906,000).
Only 14% of Juventus’ support comes from their region of Piedmont, 17% from the Northeast region, another 14% from Italy’s Central region while 40% come from the South and major islands.
Napoli have done well to increase their appeal these past few years and will be hoping to continue the trend going forward. If Napoli can tap into some of the strong Juventus support in the South then there could be a lot of room for growth in the future. |
Ald. Joe Moreno (1st) greets a former West Town resident Pete Frisbie at the debates Thursday. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser
WICKER PARK — Ald. Joe Moreno won re-election Tuesday night, narrowly defeating three challengers by earning almost 51 percent of the vote.
Coming in second to Moreno's 50.9 percent was Anne Shaw, with 24.9 percent of the vote, followed by Ronda Locke, with 20.5 percent and Andrew Hamilton, with 3.8 percent.
Moreno had 4,129 votes out of 8,112 cast.
CHECK OUT THE COMPLETE ELECTION RESULTS HERE
Moreno, who was first appointed to the City Council in 2010, kept most reporters out of his victory party at the Concord, 2050 N. Milwaukee Ave. and was unavailable for immediate comment.
"I awake tomorrow as your alderman for another 4 years. I am honored and humbled to represent the 1st Ward for another term. Thank you to all of our supporters," Moreno said in a Facebook status update late Tuesday.
Shaw said she was not ready to concede to Moreno, saying he barely bested the 50-percent-plus-one vote threshold to avoid a runoff.
"We are going to wait and see what all of the absentee ballots are and we are talking 73 votes that he won by, so it's not over. It's too close to call," Shaw said.
Shaw, with supporters at Innjoy:
Sam Park, who lives in Logan Square, was among a group of Shaw supporters that congregated at Innjoy, 2051 W. Division St. to watch the results.
"That is unfortunate .I am disappointed. She would have been an independent voice in Chicago politics and the first Asian-American female alderman," Park said.
During the campaign, Moreno was attacked for taking campaign contributions from developers seeking to invest in the rapidly improving ward. But Moreno said those same developers contributed money for local projects such as snow removal.
On Wednesday, Locke thanked her campaign supporters in a Facebook update.
"Everyone brought their own talents, perspectives and energy and I am incredibly humbled and grateful. Considering there are roughly only 75 votes that could put incumbent in a runoff and lots of voting shenanigans, not sure we have heard the end of this," Locke said.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: |
NewsFaith
LOS ANGELES, January 28, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Sunday night’s Grammy Awards show was all about shock value. Scantily-clad singers, same-sex “marriages” set to anti-Christian lyrics, simulated sex acts and a performance full of demonic imagery by pop star Katy Perry – who used to be Christian artist Katy Hudson – were just a few of the on-stage stunts that seemed custom-designed to offend Christian believers.
While most of the industry insiders in attendance cheered the provocative displays, at least a few decided they’d had enough, as one Christian nominee walked out in the middle of the show, and one Grammy award winner refused to show up at all.
“We left the Grammys early,” Christian gospel singer Natalie Grant announced via Twitter. “I’ve many thoughts, most of which are probably better left inside my head. But I’ll say this: I’ve never been more honored to sing about Jesus and for Jesus. And I’ve never been more sure of the path I’ve chosen.”
After social media caught fire over Grant’s decision to walk out of the show, with many homosexuals accusing her of ‘hate,’ Grant responded via Facebook.
“I NEVER said I left during any particular performance,” Grant wrote. “I only said I left early. I never pointed out any one particular performance, I only said I had many thoughts about the entire show, which were best left inside my head and that is where they will stay. So those who say I condemned one performance but then condoned others clearly did not read the post.”
“I will never stand on a street corner and wave a sign, I won't use my platform to engage in political arguments that will only divide and not unite,” she said. “I do have my own personal convictions that I live by, and I will continue to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord. (Philippians 2:12)”
Christian singer-songwriter Mandisa won two Grammys for "Best Christian Contemporary Music Album" and "Best Contemporary Christian Music Song", but she was not in attendance Sunday night. “Both times I have gone to the Grammys I have witnessed performances I wish I could erase from my memory, and yes, I fast forwarded through several performances this year,” the artist explained in a Facebook post. “I knew that submerging myself into an environment that celebrates those things was risky for me at this time.”
“Perhaps being alone with [Jesus] as my name was announced was protecting myself from where my flesh would have tried to drag me had I been up on that stage,” she added.
Neither artist specified exactly which performances offended them, but a likely contender was Perry’s performance of “Dark Horse,” which featured the ex-Christian singer performing what appeared to be witchcraft as she pole danced around an inverted broom, surrounded by flames and demons. Perry’s performance gave even the secular media pause, as E! Online tweeted, “Um, did we just witness actual witchcraft during Katy Perry's #Grammys performance?”
Other possible sources of concern for Christian viewers and attendees included Macklemore’s performance of the homosexual anthem “Same Love” – during which 33 couples, many of them gay and lesbian, got legally married in a ceremony officiated by Queen Latifah while Perry caught the bouquet – and a performance early in the evening by husband-wife duo Beyoncé and Jay-Z in which Beyoncé wore little more than a thong leotard and simulated sex acts with a chair, her husband, and herself.
Even celebrities who didn’t attend the awards commented on the inappropriate displays.
“Is it just me or are some of the Grammy performances so far seem to be really demonic?? [sic]” tweeted former University of Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron. “Looks like there is a lot of evil in the world.”
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh agreed, quoting McCarron on his show Monday and adding, “It was horrible, it was despicable.” He slammed the awards show for featuring Katy Perry “dressed as a witch and burned at the stake” and criticized Macklemore’s lyrics, which “openly attacked right-wing conservatives and Christians.” |
Following on the release of the Bushwackers Grid 9000’s in 2012, Saucony and Sneaker Freaker are joining forces once again for their follow up. This time using the Grid SD silhouette, the two present the highly anticipated Kushwhacker.
Kush is a popular strain of purple haze and this edition is definitely one that takes things to a higher level and above the clouds. The shoe features an upper of premium suede with accents of beige, smokey-grey and black and mesh panelling. It’s set off by the addition of 3M reflective details across the rear heel. Just like their first collaboration, this one will blaze up as soon as they land.
The Saucony x Sneaker Freaker Kushwhacker Grid SD’s will release initially via the Sneaker Freaker webshop on June 13th, where they’ll also come with a complimentary pair of “Kush” argyle sock from Burlington.
Text: Professor B
Images: SNKR FRKR |
Body piercing has been used as a way of celebrating rights of passage in various countries around the world for centuries. In modern North American culture we still often use piercings to celebrate milestones in our lives. Navel piercings are popular with young teenagers approaching adulthood, as well as women looking to reward themselves for various (often weight loss related) accomplishments.
(Done with an awesome titanium navel curve in sky blue from Anatometal.)
For this reason, it is no wonder that navel piercings are popular with woman who have undergone abdominoplasty (commonly known as the tummy tuck). And while the tummy tuck is one of the most common forms of plastic surgery performed in North America (it has been in the top 5 list every year since 2005), that does not mean that it isn’t a serious procedure with some serious recovery time.
(Unlike liposuction, which consists of simply removing excess fat, full tummy tucks involve removing skin, surgically forming a “new” navel, and often repairing the actual muscles beneath.)
In their excitement to celebrate their new bodies, many post op patients rush into their local piercing shop, seeking out a navel piercing before their bodies have even had a chance to recover from surgery. But what’s the harm? Why wait to add a little sparkle to your new, flat tummy?
We asked several of our piercer friends to weigh in with their opinions. Unfortunately, there is not one definitive answer as to when (if ever) it is appropriate to get your surgically formed/altered navel pierced, but between our own experiences, the input of our peers, and chats with clinics that offer tummy tuck services, we came up with the following to help you decide:
Surgeons and piercers alike agree that your healing tissues differ greatly from your original skin. After surgery, there is swelling, scarring, and reduced blood flow to your navel, all of which do not make for a happy piercing site.
Many surgeons recommend that their patients wait until around 4-6 weeks to return to normal physical activity, but warn that it is not uncommon for numbness can persist for 12-18 months. That means that while you may feel good quickly, your body is still settling and recovering for a very long time.
Many piercers do not perform these piercings at all. They find the skin to be too taunt and inflexible, which increases the rate of rejection (jewelry pushing out from the body), leaving scarring and sadness.
The piercers that do perform these piercings agree waiting longer is better. One year post op is the absolute minimum, many prefer 18 months, and others hold out for two years. Some prefer to use modified jewelry designs, or thicker gauges, while others work with traditional 14 gauge curved jewelry.
Lastly, it’s important to remember that the shape of your new navel must be appropriate for any responsible piercer to even consider your case, regardless of when your surgery happened.
Now 1-2 years may seem like a very long time (maybe your friend piercer hers a few weeks after surgery), but let’s consider the big picture here. You put a lot of time, money, and effort into creating this new version of your body. And while you will certainly be able to find an uncaring/uneducated piercer willing to stick jewelry through your still healing navel, you deserve better.
Any piercer worth their saline will only want to pierce you if they are confident that their piercing will be successful. And that confidence should be built on years of experience and a mountain of success stories… not a pile of money. So do your homework and find someone you can trust to pierce – or in some cases – not pierce you. |
I’ve whipped up meals in fancy copper saucepans, in battered woks, and in my grandfather’s old iron skillet, but never before have I used a syringe to make dinner. There I was, feeling like a cross between a superstar chef and a crack addict, madly jabbing a needle into a scrunched-up pouch of freeze-dried NASA shrimp cocktail, injecting a bit of water, and watching the water dribble uselessly back out. Welcome to space—the final food frontier.
Since the days of Project Mercury’s squeeze tubes, the food scientists at Johnson Space Center have come back to Earth a bit. Astronauts flying the space shuttle or working the International Space Station (ISS) can choose among 180 food and beverage items. Their menus are routinely reviewed by nutritionists—but rarely by food critics. That’s where I come in, to investigate an oft-overlooked but essential aspect of life in space.
With a dozen rations to reconstitute before me, I wished the good folks at NASA believed in packaging instructions as fervently as they do good nutrition. Astronauts cook by fitting a packet of freeze-dried food onto a needle-tipped rehydration station, or heating a thermostabilized food pouch in a briefcase-shaped electric warmer. A pair of scissors—in space, more useful than a fork and spoon—opens the pouch, and a Velcro disk on the bottom anchors it to the meal tray. Lacking NASA’s food preparation equipment, I made do with saucepans of simmering water and a 60-milliliter syringe supplied by the space agency. The freeze-dried packages tersely list, in English and Russian, the name of the food, how much water to use, and how long to let it sit in its bath.
I learned the hard way that they’re double packed, with an inner pouch that looks sort of like the IV bags used in hospitals, and that the needle has to go into a specialized inlet that allows water to enter but lets nothing out. My shrimp cocktail’s inlet was hiding among the tails, and I managed only to irrigate the space between the bags. Finally I just cut open the freeze-dried packages and poured in the water.
Food scientists, not chefs, are in charge of NASA’s space meals. Portability and shelf life are as important as flavor and nutrition. Not that flavor matters much: Aromas don’t waft upward toward the nose in space. Bodily fluids do, though. They puff up the astronauts’ features into a Charlie Brown face that makes it hard to smell (and therefore taste). Space food isn’t restaurant cooking; it’s not even takeout. If anything, it’s more along the lines of a frozen dinner—but you get bigger portions from the frozen-food aisle.
I could easily have downed two packages of the shrimp cocktail, long an astronaut favorite. The six medium-size orange shrimp were just a touch chewy after their slapdash, 10-minute water bath, but they looked and smelled like what you get at the supermarket. NASA’s cocktail sauce is spiked with plenty of horseradish and salt. If anything can revive tired taste buds in space, this dish is it. I chased it with a pouch of powdered mango-orange drink. The lush but tangy mango flavor juiced up the orange’s sweetness, and the mango aroma was pronounced. It was delicious.
Aromas don’t waft upward toward the nose in space. bodily fluids do, though.
In deference to the international character of the space station, NASA has raided menus (or food courts) from around the world. For a south-of-the-border dinner, I gathered pouches of beef fajitas, black beans, and tortillas. The beans managed to be soft without getting all mushy, and they were seasoned enough to enliven the bland tortillas. But no amount of black beans could rescue the fajitas, two soggy rectangles of meat so uniform in shape it was as if they had been spit from a machine. The beef had a tender, brisketlike texture but none of the slow-cooked flavor you’d expect. I pined for a spoonful of picante sauce. My Mexican meal ended with a four-pack of Lorna Doone cookies and some dried peaches. Ironically, the peaches were meatier than the beef, with an intense flavor and a satisfying chewy texture.
The Asian-themed entrée sounded promising, but my hopes were dashed when I peeked into the pouch. The precut chicken pieces were a strange pinky-beige color, sort of an avian version of Malibu Barbie. The chicken was as tender as the beef fajitas, but the big problem was lack of flavor. The chicken was paired with a gummy wad of skinny noodles and some carrot slivers. The peanut sauce was a clunker too. Despite a healthy dose of black pepper—the liquid kind sticks to food in zero gravity—the sauce seemed dull and overprocessed.
Fortunately, an all-American dessert came to the rescue. The thermostabilized cranapple cobbler was a homey thing, sort of like chunky pie filling looking for a crust. Roughly mashed apples were tossed with some cranberries, lots of sliced almonds, and cinnamon. It was ugly, but for once I wasn’t left feeling cheated about the portion size. The almonds really made the dessert by giving it some crunch, although the spicing needed more complexity and the apples could have been sturdier.
The food scientists had also sent two breakfast items, freeze-dried “Mexican” eggs and a sausage patty. The eggs, colored a bright buttercup yellow, were bouncy and broke down into small, dry curds. Flavorwise they were like a reluctant suitor, vaguely sweet but unwilling to make the full taste commitment. Hot sauce, ketchup even, would work wonders here. Nothing, however, could have saved the sausage patty.
For solace, I turned to drink: NASA’s tea with lemon and sugar (no alcohol is offered in space). It had a good, strong lemon flavor, identical to the jarred powdered teas found in every supermarket. I could see why such a recognizable flavor would matter in space: It tasted of home. “When crew members come back, they’re ready for some home cooking,” says Vickie Kloeris, manager of the center’s Shuttle and ISS Food Systems. So was I.
Bill Daley is the food and wine critic at the Chicago Tribune. |
China has experienced dramatic changes over the past four decades - while the country is becoming more affluent, it’s also facing complex social issues. A number of Chinese artists have responded to these issues through powerful art.
Discover extraordinary works created by Chinese artists
These artists have created site-specific performances in lakes, rivers, and mountains to raise environmental consciousness; they have written songs and plays for millions of migrant workers, to address the issue of inequality; they have organized parades and festivals for villagers, to make the processes of rural governance visible. These artists not only contribute to social change, they also push the boundaries of contemporary art. They challenge the conventional modes of artistic production and reception.
In this course we will look at a number of art projects that address important social issues. We will study how they integrate aesthetic concerns with social concerns.
Explore Chinese art projects in depth
China is massive. It means on this course, we won’t be able to discuss every socially engaged artwork created in China over the past few decades. Instead, we will dive deep into a number of projects that are substantial, and representative of this exciting field. The focus of this course is not only on why the artists initiated these projects, but also on how they developed their ideas, overcame challenges, and pushed artistic boundaries.
Get inspired by experts, artists and other learners
The lead educator for this course is Dr. Zheng Bo, an expert in Chinese socially engaged art. He leads the “Socially Engaged Art in Contemporary China” research project at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. In addition to course videos, you will also watch artist interviews, study visual materials, and participate in discussions. Through these varied learning you will gain a deeper understanding of contemporary China and of contemporary art.
In fact we hope you will also be inspired to create your own socially engaged art, to address something that matters to you in your community. |
NEW YORK -- Texas League All-Star outfielder Mike Bianucci, Rangers left-hander Chad James and Mariners righty Edwin Martinez were suspended Friday for violating the Minor League drug program.
The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball said Bianucci received an 80-game suspension after testing positive for "Growth Hormone Releasing Peptide 2 (GHRP-2) and metabolite," which is considered a performance-enhancing substance. James was suspended 25 games for an undisclosed violation, while Martinez was banned 72 games for using the synthetic steroid Stanozolol.
All three suspensions are effective immediately.
Bianucci was named a Texas League All-Star earlier this week. He's hitting .278 and is tied for second in the league with 12 homers to go with 34 RBIs and a .320 on-base percentage in 58 games with Northwest Arkansas, the Royals' Double-A affiliate. Drafted by the Rangers in 2008, the 28-year-old outfielder is a .270 hitter with 143 homers and 474 RBIs in 695 Minor League games.
James was suspended for 50 games earlier this year when he tested positive for an amphetamine and has yet to pitch this season. The 24-year-old was selected 18th overall by the Marlins in the 2009 Draft but was released last April after three seasons in the Minors. He signed with the independent Evansville Otters and threw a no-hitter on July 9, striking out 14, before signing with the Rangers as a Minor League free agent four days later. The 24-year-old southpaw went 4-3 with a 2.74 ERA over 42 2/3 innings in eight starts at Class A Advanced Myrtle Beach last season.
Martinez is a 19-year-old right-hander who signed with Seattle out of the Dominican Republic before the 2014 season. He's appeared in three games this year, striking out four over 6 2/3 innings for the Rookie-level DSL Mariners. Last season, he was 1-1 with a 2.22 ERA in 17 games in the same league.
GHRP-2 is believed to stimulate the body to create more Human Growth Hormone (HGH). According to GHRP2.com, the substance increases energy and endurance, accelerates recovery from injuries, enhances the immune system, improves protein synthesis and eyesight and strengthens bones, among other benefits.
Stanozolol is a synthetic anabolic steroid derived from testosterone that is sometimes prescribed by veterinarians to encourage muscle growth, red blood cell production, bone density and to stimulate the appetite of weakened animals.
Major League Baseball has issued 64 suspensions this year for violations of the Minor League drug program. |
Sunday will be a historic day for Ottawa Fury and Canadian soccer.
The Fury are heading south to New York to take on the Cosmos in their first ever NASL Championship game, but they’re likely going to have to do it without their influential midfielder Julian de Guzman.
De Guzman is away in Vancouver with the Canadian national team, for the two upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Honduras on Friday and El Salvador next Tuesday.
Inexplicably, the NASL have scheduled their Championship game for this coming Sunday, right in the middle of the FIFA international window and forcing the Canadian international to make the agonising choice between playing for club or for country.
“[It was] a very tough decision,” de Guzman told reporters after Canada’s training session at BC Place on Tuesday. “For the past couple of weeks I’ve been going back and forth between club and country. It wasn’t even confirmed that we’d playing in the Final, so we didn’t know at that moment. It was in the air.
“It was something that everyone understood let’s just focus on what’s happening, which was the semi-final game, but at the end of the day I did speak to Benito [Floro] and Marc [Dos Santos] as well. First they said they understand the national team commitments. It’s a FIFA World Cup qualifier game, so it’s something that’s important that I’m around for. It’s what we’ve been working for, for a very long time.
A difficult decision from the start, the reality really hit home when Ottawa clinched their berth in the Championship game on Sunday, in front of a record 9,346 crowd at TD Field.
“At that moment, when we were ok with that, we weren’t in the Final,” de Guzman added. “Now we’re in the Final, it’s kind of a tricky situation, but more than likely, it’s looking like I’ll be staying here throughout the whole camp.”
The Fury claimed their spot in the NASL Championship game in dramatic fashion this past Sunday, with former Whitecap Tommy Heinemann grabbing the vital goal in a 2-1 win over Minnesota United in the 108th minute.
A proud moment for Ottawa Fury, Canadian soccer and de Guzman. But that joy turned to sheer disappointment for the midfielder when he realised he wasn’t going to be able to play in the Championship game.
And de Guzman feels no player should have to deal with the dilemma he’s been faced with, and is critical of the league for scheduling their showcase game in the middle of an international window.
“To miss a final, it’s heartbreaking,” de Guzman admitted. “It’s something that I don’t think anyone ever wants to experience. I think it’s something itself the league needs to look in to in the future.
“If MLS, and most leagues in the world, stop for international matches, then I think the NASL should be able to do the same thing.”
Ironically, Vancouver hosting their first World Cup qualifier for over 11 years has scuppered de Guzman’s chances of heading back to his club for the final. If the Canada game had been anywhere but on the west coast, or the NASL final wasn’t on the east coast, playing in all three matches may have been doable.
“That was the idea at first,” de Guzman admitted. “Me leaving after the game against Honduras and joining the team in New York. But we weren’t even sure when the game was going to be because we had to wait for the New York game to finish.
“The New York game is on the 15th. If it was in Ottawa it would have been the 14th. So it was still in the air. We couldn’t put a finger on it. But because it’s on the 15th, it would probably take day for me to get over there, sit on the bench and maybe come off the bench. Then another six to eight hours from New York to El Salvador.”
For fans still holding out hope that de Guzman could make it to New York for Sunday, it’s looking bleak.
“Just the time inbetween for recovery and what not,” de Guzman said. “It was pretty much, almost impossible to go forward with it and have me fit for all the games. That’s why, at the end of the day, my focus right now is the national team. It’s important that I have to miss an important game. Hopefully this could be rectified in the future.”
Hopefully it can, because it’s been a shocking scheduling decision by the NASL. |
Reproduced at The Chess Drum with written permission from Mr. Gregory Kearse.
This article appeared in Chess Life , July 1998 edition.
eputations are not easy to come by in chess. Only a history of excellence and success over the board will propel a player into the limelight, push him into the upper regions of the elite and stardom. Two nationally recognized African-American players, Maurice Ashley and Emory Tate , have done exactly that for nearly two decades. Surprisingly, for a lot of chess players, other African-Americans chess players have mastered the game but perhaps get less attention nationally.
Many of the 86,000 United States Chess Federation (USCF) players know something about the history of the top players: Maurice Ashley in 1993 became the first African-American to be awarded the coveted title of International Master, and Emory Tate (who has two IM norms) had been the perennial U.S. Armed Forces Champion and the grassroots people's choice for Grandmaster in training .
However, these two titans, along with numerous other black chess masters, constitute a large stable of highly distinguished mavens of the game. Coming to mind are Morris Giles (FM), Irvin Middleton (FM), Ron Simpson (SM), Willie Morrison (SM), Greg Acholonu (SM), Ron Buckmeyer (SM), Norm Rogers (FM), Steve Booth, and George Umezinwa , to name but a few.
HISTORICALLY SPEAKING
Historically, there have been some 40 bona fide black chess masters. Further, there are many more black senior masters than most people realize. Most players, black or white do not even realize that back in the 1850s there was a formidable black problemist. He was an African-American by the name of Theophilus Thompson , who put together a book of chess problems (albeit not a very good one, to the taste of bookseller Fred Wilson). Copies of the book are rare.
On the forget-me-not list is K.K. Karanga , the young African-American genius (literally) who made it before trudging off to study at Yale. It is not clear whether it was he or Howard Daniels who became the youngest African-American to make U.S. master. But, let's not get too far ahead of this fascinating story.
In 1963, America was on the verge of a cultural explosion that would touch our lives and alter its very social fabric. Even in the world of chess, with its then exclusive clubs and its odd assortment of esoteric warriors, a minor revolution had taken place. America produced its first black chess master. His name was Walt Harris , an unassuming, dedicated scientist who for some years worked at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., the nation's capitol and a strong urban chess center.
CRADLE OF BLACK CHESS
As a matter of fact, one can claim the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area as the cradle of black chess in America, for over the next few years, some time during the middle phases of the U.S. incursion into the Vietnam conflict, Ken Clayton and his protégé, Frank Street , became chess masters, in 1965 and 1967, respectively.
Further, at one time, the Washington D.C. vicinity was the current or former home of masters: William Morrison, Ken Clayton, Barry Davis, Frank Street, Greg Acholonu, Emory Tate, Vincent Moore, Charles Green, Glenn Umstead, Charles Covington, Andre Surgeon, Tony Randolph, Walter Harris and Ms. Baraka Shabazz (more about her later).
When one looks at the other black masters spread out across the country, the contemporary list of masters is impressive. But it was not always this way, especially for this nation's first black master, Harris, who now lives in the Bay area in California. Harris waxes with nostalgic with, "It was lonely when I came up." He said that he was very pleased by Maurice Ashley's success and hinted that at least he (Ashley) has other black masters who surround and support him. His sharp, clear voice tries to conceal both the pain and the pride of his accomplishment.
AMATEUR CHAMPIONS
Incidentally, Clayton and Street are the only two African-Americans who have won the prestigious U.S. amateur title. While Clayton pretty much settled in suburban Washington, Street flew off to warmer climes of Berkeley in the 1960s to pursue a degree in higher mathematics and engineering. However, Street has returned to the D.C. area and is currently working out the calculus and physics that keep various satellites on course collecting data high above the planet Earth. About 1970, a quiet, good-looking young man living in New Jersey found the brass ring. He eventually became America's first black FIDE Master. His name is Alan Williams , who has stopped playing tournament chess. Then a chain smoker, Alan was noted for his suave and sophisticated mannerisms and understanding of subtle chess positions.
Thus, the seeds were sown, The late '70s and particularly the decade of the '80s produced the largest number of black masters in history. In its wake, a slew of strong experts was also created.
International Arbiter Jerome Bibuld has compiled a comprehensive database of African-American experts and masters in this country, an impressive feat and important monument. Form that pool of experts, particularly during the mid-1980s, sprang a phenomenal number of black masters, many of them interestingly enough, working in computer technologies, math, and the applied sciences. So much for the various bizarre urban myths surrounding black men. This is not meant to sound caustic, but black kids have had positive role models long before Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan.
THE BOOK
In the book I am currently writing ( Black Knights: The History of Black Chessmasters in America ), I will include a profile of Baraka Shabazz even though she never officially made master. However, she is the only black female to have ever been rated expert by the USCF and thus deserves special recognition. She exploded on the scene in early '80s as a gifted teenager playing 20-board simuls, but unfortunately faded from chess as the pressure of boys and the blistering social life of Washington pushed her deeper into other direction and interests. It is rumor in the chess corridors of Washington that Baraka can no longer stand the sight of a chessboard.
By the last decade's standards, the 1990s has seen somewhat of a lapse in the production of black masters; however, on the horizon is a veritable array of true candidate masters (2100+) who are black. Many of these experts are under the tutelage of current masters. Yet, it's not so much racial pride as it is an opportunity for many of these players to give back to the community which nurtured them.
My book explores in detail some of the social ramification of these friendships and relationships. Suffice it to say, however, that the chess community has traditionally been more enlightened than the larger society. The black community has always exalt edits black chessplayers, particularly those who have mastered the game.
In his chess prime, Ken Clayton would take on all challengers in addition to tutoring at the Benjamin Banneker Recreation Center, across the street from the historic campus of Howard University. Senior systems analyst and chess master, Charlie Greene , was one of the several fruits of Clayton's labor of love. Maurice Ashley's thematic tournaments for black masters was an instant success in 1994 in New York City.
Popular and seasoned chess master Norm "Pete" Rogers of Philadelphia has some insight into the thinking of blackmasters when he recently told me," I want to do something constructive by exposing kids to chess. On my job (at the local post office), I run tournament. It's difficulty, but I want to eventually run a chess camp for 200 kids."
When asked what life lessons does chess give, Norm had this to say: "It teaches discipline, patience, how to consider your reaction before you react. Chess teaches to sit on your hands and not verbally reasons to the first thing that comes to your mind."
FULL TIME TEACHER
Senior Master Gregory Acholonu (now on leave) teaches chess full-time to mainstream as well as underprivileged kids at the U.S. chess Center, located in the nation's capital. Call Frank Street on the phone and he'll drive over to your house to play you. Of course Emory Tate loves showing off his games, but in the process, he constantly talks about open files, pawn structure, waiting moves and tactical shots supporting strategic ideas. Willie Morrison (2501), one of the most affable masters around, will unselfishly takes the time to analyze your games.
What does it all mean? On a practical level, there are enough black masters nationally spread out from California to upstate New York, who take a special interest and pride in bringing along other African-American players into the mainstream. These men are heroes in the black community and are role models in glittering contrast to the stark madness or urban designer drugs and random violence.
The larger mainstream society is beginning to recognize the importance of chess in the education and salvation of our nation's youth. Chess clubs and programs are springing up around the country, and at the vanguard are the kids whom we have dubbed the lost generation all that black chess masters have been doing, almost from the very beginning, is passing on a legacy of excellence to the inheritors of the throne! |
Former top Office of Inspector General (VA OIG) head Jon Wooditch was caught repeatedly masturbating in VA’s all-glass conference room during work hours. His penalty was a slap on the wrist, bonus and early retirement at 57 years old.
Sound like a good deal? Wooditch received a $29,000 bonus on top of his $172,000 salary after getting busted. He was then forced to retire but not before VA covered his tracks.
Wooditch was formerly the acting OIG head and deputy OIG before he resigned after lying to investigators about serial instances of public masturbation at work. In 2008, as acting head of OIG, Wooditch ignored warnings about the wait-list manipulation scandal that later resulted in the deaths of many veterans by 2014.
He was apparently too busy working on other things.
RELATED: VA Employees Having Sex At Work
The Daily Caller uncovered the story that is certainly raising some eyebrows. In a previously unreleased report, confirmed allegations against Wooditch were as follows:
It was in July 2008 when multiple teachers attending a conference at the Renaissance Hotel — next to the IG’s Washington, D.C. headquarters — noticed a man looking at them and masturbating across the alley. The teachers observed him doing it repeatedly during their week-long stay. One of the teachers “described Wooditch’s behavior as being progressive. She said that during the week, he went from rubbing himself over the top of his clothes to disrobing and fondling his penis,” according to the investigative report. On Monday morning he would “peer out the window in the direction of the hotel… while fondling himself and/or masturbating.” Shortly after, the teachers saw him attend a business meeting in the same room. Tuesday went similarly; on Wednesday afternoon, Wooditch was in the conference room wearing exercise clothes, and took them off and put them back on multiple times in between masturbation sessions. On Thursday morning, two women “woke up early to leave the hotel by 7 a.m. for a function. They both said they observed, independently of one another, Wooditch alone in the VA-OIG conference room naked from the waist up.” Teachers would later pick Wooditch out of a photo lineup. The women separately alerted hotel security, which called the VA building’s security. At that point, a VA IG staffer took the alert to senior management — which was Wooditch.
VA stalled a FOIA request for the investigation records that were eventually leaked by a current VA employee last week to The Daily Caller. Wooditch’s fetish for public masturbation should send a message to sexual deviants currently engaging in exhibitionist behavior at VA, ‘Get caught, get promoted.’
In 2003, Wooditch was promoted following a workplace “porn” incident. Wooditch was a member of the “elite” Senior Executive Service (SES) at the time. As we know based on Diana Rubens experience, those SES execs skate on water.
RELATED: Diana Rubens’ Demotion Gets Tossed
Clearly America is reaching a tipping point with its collective disgust of VA’s blatant disregard for the law and human decency within the same agency designed to serve those willing to sacrifice it all for freedom.
When will America have enough? Will its disgust for these few VA whack-jobs taint taxpayers and erode the support veterans desperately need and deserve?
@deptvetaffairs - Way to cover up for such a whack-job! Click to Tweet
Source: http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/06/va-cop-chose-the-wrong-beat/ |
Within the animal advocacy movement, there seems to be a bit of confusion about shelter kill lists.
Some say they are a single issue campaign, yet other proclaim that they aren’t.
So, are they or aren’t they?
What Is An SIC
To decide whether something is or isn’t a single issue campaign, we need to understand what one is.
The simplest way to define it is as follows:
A campaign that elevates a specific situation of one species or group of species as more morally relevant than other species in a similar or identical situation.
For example. The Ban Live Export campaigns are a single issue. They want the live export of animals to other countries, for them to kill to stop. While ignoring the live transportation and killing of animals at home.
Another example would be the anti-fur campaigns. These target those who wear fur, yet pay no attention to those who wear leather.
Kill Lists Are Speciesist.
Using the definition above, shelter “kill lists” ARE a single issue campaign.
They are also speciesist.
They promote the status of cats and dogs or any other animal the shelter may have, above others.
There is no mention of the thousands of animals who will be killed every day for food.
Or for clothing.
Or for medial research.
The reality of these lists is that they are nothing more than a ransom list.
You either pay $X to “rescue” the animal or they will be killed.
Are These Lists Abolitionist Friendly?
In a nutshell, no they aren’t and this is why.
One of the main points for those who are abolitionist is to remove the property status of other animals.
Kill lists further entrench the view that animals are property.
Those who ‘rescue’ the animal, are buying them to keep them as their own.
It doesn’t matter what warm and fuzzy term you attach to it.
You are buying an animal. Plain and simple.
An animal who is YOUR property.
Hang On. I Don’t View My Refugee As Property.
In today’s society, and under the eyes of the law, it doesn’t matter what you choose to call them.
The animal you ‘rescued’ from the shelter is your property.
You have to abide by the laws of your area with regards to the keeping of pets.
This could be registration, licencing, micro-chipping, and so on.
Then there is also the issue that by keeping a pet yourself, you are telling and showing others that it is acceptable to do the same.
What About Their Right To Life?
Now this is where things get complicated.
When you ‘rescue’ an animal, you are ignoring some rights of the animal.
Their right to life is important.
As is their right to not be property.
Along with any number of other rights that are ignored when you own a pet.
There is also the other issue that what if the animal you are ‘rescuing’ isn’t able to cope with a plant based diet?
You would then have no other choice except to feed your ‘rescued’ animal other animals.
What makes the life of your ‘rescued’ animal more important than the life of those?
Francione Says…
If we have a look at why Francione says single issue campaigns are bad, the same applies to kill lists.
First, SICs convey the idea that some forms of exploitation are worse than other forms of exploitation.
This is exactly what kill lists do.
We don’t see people posting and sharing the lists for the sale yards. Aren’t those animals worth “rescuing” too?
Second, SICs simply cannot work as a practical matter.
While it is still seen as acceptable to own a pet, there will always be kill lists. Then there is also the buying into the multi-billion dollar companion animal industry.
An industry that wants you to continue buying animals as pets.
Third, many single-issue campaigns encourage speciesism.
This has been discussed above.
Fourth, some single-issue campaigns often promote other forms of human discrimination.
To this point, kill lists promote the worst form of human discrimination.
Discrimination based on socio-economic status.
Only those who are wealthy enough to have their own home, and enough surplus funds are able to “rescue” an animal.
The rest are left to feel like they aren’t doing enough, despite doing all that they can just to survive.
What are your thoughts on kill lists?
Are they single issue campaigns?
Leave your comments below.
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Eight pilots have been found drunk till June 30 this year, including three of SpiceJet and two of IndiGo. (Reuters)
Almost 100 pilots have been punished for being drunk ahead of flights between 2011 and June 30 this year, though there has been a declining trend of alcoholism among the cockpit crew, Rajya Sabha was told today.
From 2011 till June 30 this year, a total of 97 pilots have been found drunk in pre-flight alcohol checks. Of them, 28 pilots belong to Jet Airways and 17 pilots each were from IndiGo and SpiceJet, Minister of State for Civil Aviation G M Siddeshwara said in reply to a question.
While 17 pilots tested positive during pre-flight breathalyser examination in 2011, 41 were found drunk in 2012, 31 in 2013 and eight till June 30 this year, he said.
As per the guidelines of aviation regulator DGCA, pilots tested positive for alcohol consumption for the first time are suspended for three months and those tested the second time for five years.
All the 17 pilots caught in 2011 were suspended for three months, while 41 were punished in 2012, of whom one each of Jet Airways and GoAir were caught for the second time and suspended for five years, Siddeshwara said.
In 2013, one pilot of Jet Airways and another belonging to IndiGo were suspended for five years after being found drunk the second time while 29 others suspended for three months, he said.
Eight pilots have been found drunk till June 30 this year, including three of SpiceJet and two of IndiGo.
While seven of them were caught for the first time and suspended for three months, one of them belonging to IndiGo was suspended for five years as he was found drunk for the second time, he said.
Airlines are asked to take action against such pilots and also educate their flight crew on the adverse effects of alcohol and drugs, the Minister said. |
Many Common Lisp programmers have found that Google is not very useful in answering their questions. It is not uncommon to hear “I can’t find answers on Google” from CL programmers. Even the famous Xach (Zach Beane) has said that.
The reason for this problem is likely that CL questions are addressed in forums and mailing lists rather than in expansive blog posts.
Zach wrote an in-depth post about how and where to get help with your Common Lisp questions. It is not an exhaustive list but it covers the most important options. The sidepanel on subreddit /r/lisp contains a more complete list of resources and naturally the blogs about Lisp will increase as more people start to use it.
Below is a summary of Zach’s information for the benefit of those in a hurry. It is worth reading his complete post at least once to get more insight on each of them.
For general Lisp questions go here:
For questions about a specific library, start with its own mailing list and then try the list above.
For questions about your implementation, go to its own mailing list. (Zach gives links to the most prominent ones.)
When you are about to post a question, take Zach’s advice on how to ask a question. It will likely save you time. |
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If you try to escape in one of those high-speed televised police chases in Los Angeles — “an ultimate act of disrespect” to authority — you have a small chance of getting away.
About 18 percent of drivers fleeing police do succeed, a top LAPD official told City News Service.
“However, once a helicopter is involved in the chase, it’s almost impossible to escape,” said Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Andy Smith. Anyone thinking about trying to make a run for it should know that Los Angeles has more helicopters in its fleet — 17 — than any other city police department in the nation.
And that, he says, is a big reason why motorists who ignore demands by officers to stop their vehicles are eventually caught.
“Helicopters are a tremendous asset,” Smith said, adding that helicopter crews can direct patrol cars and quickly set up a perimeter.
The LAPD had 345 pursuits in 2014, he said. Eighty-two percent of them ended with arrests.
Smith said he thought some people may be leading police on pursuits as an act of defiance of authority.
“It’s an ultimate act of disrespect,” Smith said.
Smith urged people to cooperate with officers who are conducting traffic stops, and then seek remedies later in the court system.
“People should just pull over,” Smith said. “Nobody likes to get stopped — I myself have been stopped, both before and after I became a police officer.”
Police helicopters aren’t the only such aircraft to follow chases. TV stations rely on their own helicopters to follow those chases and broadcast live video of the pursuits. Los Angeles was one of the first big cities in the nation to start following police chases live on television years ago.
Some media people initially criticized the idea as not providing serious news to viewers, but the chases became so popular with viewers that most stations joined in with their own coverage.
— City News Service
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A planned upgrade of the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon will include a 3m wide bike path, providing a route for residents of outlying villages to get into Cambridge by bike.
The £1.5 billion scheme is intended to relieve congestion on a section of dual carriageway of which the Highways Agency says: “Almost 85,000 vehicles use this stretch of the A14 every day; significantly more than the level originally designed for. Around quarter of this is heavy goods vehicles - well above the national average for this type of road.” As a result, the road becomes extremely congested at peak times.
As well as frustrating drivers, the existing A14 dual carriageway is not a road any cyclist in their right mind would choose to use. Campaigners have been pointing out for years that it effectively makes unusable the direct route into Cambridge from villages to the north-west, even though the flat terrain makes the journey easily rideable.
According to Cambridge News’ Chris Havergal, the project to upgrade the A14 will now include a cycle route from Swavesey to Cambridge. The new cycleway is expected to be at least 3m wide and to connect with existing cycle routes on Huntingdon Road.
A Highways Agency spokeswoman said: “The A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme proposals include a non-motorised road user (NMU) route as part of the proposed improvements.
“It is envisaged that it will be of a similar standard to that associated with the guided busway.
“The project team is actively discussing the scheme footprint design with NMU groups and the proposed improvement scheme is currently going through a public consultation. We welcome comments from the local community on the design aspects of the scheme and would include all these comments as feedback to the current consultative exercise.”
Cambridge cyclists will however be hoping that the new route is not too similar to the guided busway bike path. The busway linking Cambridge with St Ives includes a wide, well-surfaced path that tends to be flooded and impassable in winter.
Work will start on the A14 upgrade in 2016 and is planned to be complete in 2020. |
Let's cut to the chase: they are gone. And in my humble opionion that's a good thing. The concepts of factories, services, constants, values and providers in Angular 1.x have been critized a lot and caused a lot of confusion for people new to Angular. Even after four years of Angular development, I'm not always sure which one to choose. Also why are constants called constants when they do not act like a constant. Ugh.
Fortunately things get a lot easier in Angular 2. Although it is still in alpha (I'm using 2.0.0-alpha.26 for this post) it is already starting to look pretty awesome.
A simple service in Angular 2
Let’s create a service to find photos at Flickr. A service in Angular 2 is simply a ES6 class.
class Flickr { }
We do not need to extend any built-in class or add annotation, this is it.
The $http service also dissapeared, and there is no replacement (yet, but there will be). Fortunately there are some great http utilities out there (like Superagent), and we could even start to use the Fetch API. Let's use fetch for simplicity sake.
class Flickr { searchPhotos(query) { return fetch(`http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?&method=flickr.photos.search&api_key=[your api key here]&texts=${query}&format=json`).then(function(response) { return response; }); } }
All this does is getting some photos by a given query and returns the data as JSON.
So, how do we use this Flickr class in a application? Luckily the Angular team did not drop dependency injection, as it was one of the greatest features in Angular 1.x. Let's inject our Flickr class into our component:
// Assuming the class exists in a different file import {Flickr} from 'flickr'; @Component({ selector: 'my-photos-component', appInjector: [Flickr] })
Then in the constructor of that component we simply inject it:
constructor(flickr:Flickr) { this.flickr = flickr; }
This beautiful syntax is made possible by TypeScript. Every time the application runs into a variable of type Flickr, it will create an instance of the Flickr class for us. Please note that this is a singleton.
Now we have a Flickr instance injected and saved in our component, let's see how we can use this instance to get some photos:
searchPhotos(query) { this.flickr.searchPhotos(query).then((photos) => { this.photos = photos; }); }
That will call our service and assign the photos to this.photos . Did you see we do not even have to call $apply anymore, even though fetch is not part of Angular? Mindblowing.
We still need to call the searchPhotos method from the DOM:
<input type="search" #photoQuery /> <button (click)="searchPhotos(photoQuery.value)">Search photos</button>
One last thing! Of course we want to show the results to our users:
<ul> <li *ng-for="#photo of photos"> <img [src]="createFlickrImagePath(photo.id, photo.owner)" width="250px"> </li> </ul>
The ng-for is a new directive in Angular 2 and it replaced ng-repeat . Also the * in front of it is part of Angular's new template syntax. In order for the ngFor - and every other directive - to work, you will need to import it and add it to the directives array of your component before it works.
Our complete component now looks like this:
import { ComponentAnnotation as Component, ViewAnnotation as View, NgFor } from 'angular2/angular2'; import {Flickr} from 'flickr'; @Component({ selector: 'my-photos-component', appInjector: [Flickr] }) @View({ template: ` <input type="search" #photoQuery /> <button (click)="searchPhotos(photoQuery.value)">Search photos</button> <ul> <li *ng-for="#photo of photos"> <img [src]="createFlickrImagePath(photo.id, photo.owner)" width="250px"> </li> </ul> `, directives: [NgFor] }) export class photosView { constructor(flickr:Flickr) { this.flickr = flickr; } searchPhotos(query) { this.flickr.searchPhotos(query).then((photos) => { this.photos = photos; }); } }
Please note that you will need a ES6 transpiler like Babel to run this example. |
Note: For those saying this is more than likely for Jessica Jones season two, that doesn’t begin production until after The Defenders, so at some point in early 2017. Filming on The Defenders is set to kick off in the next couple of months, and with Eka Darville (Malcolm) already being confirmed to come back for The Defenders, it’s highly unlikely that this isn’t Taylor training for The Defenders.
When it was revealed recently that Netflix doesn’t foresee the second season of Jessica Jones being released until at least 2018 – following The Defenders – many fans were upset. Like the film side of Marvel, there’s generally a gap between projects, which in this case usually runs around six months, making it a long wait for fans eager to see more from the Netflix side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And perhaps even more so like the film side of the MCU, although they released the second season of Daredevil relatively quickly, following the critically acclaimed first season, both Netflix and Marvel Television have remained firm in their initial plan since then – with the exception of the recently announced Punisher spin-off – naming Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders as their top priorities for the time being.
As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, Luke Cage is next up on the rooster and is set to hit Netflix on September 30th, while the fourth series, Iron Fist, is currently filming in New York. Iron Fist initially kicked off production back in April, meaning they have around a month left of production if we’re following the timetables of the other shows. (Possibly even a bit longer given the lengthy CGI work that will be featured in this one.) And following Iron Fist will be the long awaited mini-series, The Defenders. We’ve known for a while now that the series would begin production later this year, and over the past few months, we’ve even begun to hear more confirmations regarding the supporting casts from the solo shows. Eka Darville, who plays the wonderful Malcolm in Jessica Jones, has confirmed he’ll be around for The Defenders, and more recently, Elden Henson has confirmed he’ll be returning as Foggy Nelson as well. Which is why the latest addition shouldn’t be too surprising.
Taking to Instagram to post a video of her training, actress Rachael Taylor, who plays Trish Walker on Jessica Jones, has seemingly confirmed she’ll be on hand for The Defenders. This should please many fans who have wondering if we’ll see her return prior to the second season of Jessica Jones.
Vacation is over! Working the bag is my least fave thing with training (which is why I gotta do it! ???) w @julian_chua @marvelsjessicajones @netflix A video posted by Rachael Taylor (@rachaelmaytaylor) on Aug 5, 2016 at 9:48am PDT
With Jessica Jones set to enter production on the show’s second season following The Defenders, stars Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones), Taylor, and Darville are sure to have an insane schedule for most of next year. Still, it’s exciting to see the cast slowly building up for The Defenders. Now, here’s to hoping Taylor gets to become Hellcat at some point in the series, or at least joins in one the fight.
The Defenders will hit Netflix at some point in 2017.
Source: Instagram. |
J. League first-division side Ventforet Kofu held on to beat plucky Juntendo University 3-2 at home and book their place in the third round of the Emperor’s Cup on Saturday.
Takuma Abe scored what proved to be the decider by giving Kofu a 3-1 lead in the 57th minute, but the Yamanashi club was made to work for the win as Juntendo pulled one back through Masahiko Sugita and went close to forcing extra time in the dying stages.
Yuki Hashizume took a long pass from the left and drilled home at the edge of the area to put Kofu in front after seven minutes and Kazunari Hosaka doubled the advantage six minutes later with a crisp finish.
Teppei Harada latched onto a through ball into the box and steered inside the post to pull one back for Juntendo on 27 minutes, but Kofu restored its two-goal cushion when Katsuya Ishihara dummied a pass from Daiki Matsumoto, allowing Abe to run clean through and slip the ball through the legs of Juntendo goalkeeper Masaki Imagawa.
“Katsu-san (Ishihara) showed great movement (with the dummy). I knew he would do that and I put the ball in just the way aimed to,” said Abe.
Sugita made it 3-2 in the 79th minute with a superb long-range strike that went in off the underside of the crossbar and Juntendo went desperately close to equalizing moments from time, with Shoma Matsushima inches away from getting his head on the end of Harada’s left-wing cross.
“We knew it would be a difficult game against a university team and for now we are just glad with the win,” Abe said.
In other games involving J1 teams, Sanfrecce Hiroshima were the big winners of the day, Takuma Asano and Gakuto Notsuda both hitting doubles as the two-time J. League champions thumped Hiroshima University of Economics 8-0, while Hiroyuki Taniguchi’s brace sealed a 4-0 win for Sagan Tosu against Verspah Oita.
Takumi Yamada wrapped up a 3-1 win for Montedio Yamagata against Kamatamare Sanuki. Former Japan international Yoshito Okubo completed the scoring in Kawasaki’s 3-0 win over Matsue City and Yoshihito Fujita scored twice as Shonan Bellmare edged out Yokohama’s Toin Gakuen 4-3.
Obina hit the winner in Matsumoto Yamaga’s 2-1 defeat of Zweigen Kanazawa. |
Designing the first palm-sized pocket aerosol dispenser was challenging enough. But to reside in the pants pockets of young men, the spray head needed a clever lockout mechanism. To attain the unprecedented small size, many sealing and dispensing challenges needed to be overcome to make it a marketable consumer product. Even the client was skeptical of this new idea, but our creative packaging design team pulled it off.
The retail price had to remain in impulse-buy range, so Nottingham Spirk helped to develop the supply chain. The blended team of our product designers and engineers helped Unilever by taking numerous trips to Japan, Australia, the UK and Thailand to help create efficient production methods for tens of millions in annual unit volume.
The patented Axe/Lynx Bullet invention opened up new business channels and promoted point-of-sale purchases at checkout counters, videogame stores, airports, even vending machines — and is helping to foster a new generation of male fragrance users. Known as the Axe Bullet in the US and the Lynx Bullet in other countries, this packaging design innovation is a worldwide favorite.
This open innovation product line is protected by 5 Nottingham Spirk developed and issued patents and several more U.S. and international patents pending for Unilever. |
First, a completely open-ended spending commitment: whatever the SNP will spend on nurses, Labour will spend more. No consideration of whether it’s the right number of nurses or an affordable number. Just more. Whatever the circumstances.
Second, a continuation of the pattern of having supporters shout insults at journalists who ask questions they don’t like. I first noticed this happening in the 2010 general election where the combination of having a speech with party supporters as the bulk of the audience followed immediately by a Q+A with journalists in the same room didn’t work well as it saw Labour members shout insults at journalists who asked questions they didn’t like.
If you’re being generous, perhaps it was a mistake when trying something new and everyone else in Labour was deeply embarrassed at the sight of their fellow members showing such contempt for the idea of a free press and such love of a bit of intimidation of people they don’t agree with.
Or perhaps not. Because Labour have continued to organise in the same way. Hence yesterday’s insults thrown at the BBC’s Norman Smith. |
Article by:
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Tue May 02, 2017 | 16:10 PM
For two days, RuPaul’s DragCon invaded the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles, California, with a fierce gathering of drag queens, celebrities, and fans. This was the third and largest edition of DragCon yet, bringing together an inclusive community of fans – DragCon promotes a harassment-free policy for everyone "regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion.”
The fabulously popular reality show, RuPaul’s Drag Race, features over 100 drag queens from across the world and has been the driving force in elevating the art of drag from bars, into mainstream culture and onto our TV screens since 2009. Every facet of the DragRace empire and RuPaul Charles's career has championed breaking down identity and gender norms and loving yourself.
The energy was fun, inviting, buzzing with creative spirit and unlike any other convention, DragCon hosted lip syncs, makeup tutorials, in addition to its panels, meet and greets and more. Fans of all ages were able to meet their favorite queens like Katya Zamolodchikova, Latrice Royale, and Alyssa Edwards, with many death drops and tongue pops in between. With that, here are some of the positively fiercest drag queens at DragCon. Yaaaasss!
Peppermint
“Of course I brought my own fan!” (Photo by: Landry Edwards)
Nina Bonina Brown
Milk
“Make me look cool!” (Photo by: Landry Edwards)
Jaymes Mansfield
"Hi shapeshifters!" ( Photo by: Landry Edwards )
Miss Toto
“Do my abs look good?” (Photo by: Landry Edwards )
James Majesty
“They’re more than just butt wipes, I swear!” ( Photo by: Landry Edwards )
Bob the Drag Queen
The winner of Drag Race’s 8th season, meets her fans while lounging in her throne. (Photo by: Landry Edwards)
Violet Chachki
“I’ll be honest – my dress doesn’t fit me but it was made by queer artists I support and believe in.” (Photo by: Landry Edwards )
Biblegirl
“Filter that photo like you do your french girls.” (Photo by: Landry Edwards )
Bambi
“Iconic.” ( Photo by: Landry Edwards )
Aquaria
Aquaria, a NYC-based queen who garnered a large following on Instagram from her makeup and performances, poses in the Los Angeles Convention Center lobby. (Photo by: Landry Edwards )
Zane Zena
“DragCon doubled in size since last year – this is insane!” ( Photo by: Landry Edwards )
Alyssa Edwards
Alyssa Edwards, the source of an endless amount of Drag Race catchphrases, recreates an iconic scene between Shangela and Mimi Imfurst. (Photo by: Landry Edwards) |
The National Park Service says a bear that was euthanized was not the same bear that attacked a hiker on May 10. The DNA of another bear, that was captured and released with a GPS-tracking collar, also did not match the bear that attacked.
Park managers do have a protocol in place to confirm matches with DNA before animals are euthanized. Park rangers use facilities that can hold these wild bears temporarily while labs analyze DNA.
Those with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park say the bear biologists euthanized on May 13 was six miles out of the backcountry. They said it was not a practical option to transport the bear by a ground crew.
Biologists also use GPS-tracking collars. They will collect DNA from a bear and release with these collars. That way, they can monitor the bear while awaiting DNA test results. They couldn't use this method on the bear they euthanized because the collar would not fit around the bear's large neck.
“Bears are iconic symbols in the Smokies and a decision to euthanize an animal is not made lightly,” said Superintendent Cassius Cash. “Park staff have worked diligently over the last year to develop viable alternatives to euthanasia. Understandably, these options won’t be appropriate responses for every bear incident. In the interest of responsibly protecting hiker safety in America’s most visited national park, we make our decisions based on the best available information for each particular situation.”
Biologists recommended euthanasia for the 400-pound bear captured on May 13 based on several facts. The bear had dental injuries that matched the bite wounds on the hiker's leg, the size and sex of the bear, and it was the only bear present near the scene of the attack. The large, dominant nature of the bear matched the profile of the bear responsible.
According to investigators, the bear bit through a tent and into the hiker's leg. This was after the bear tried to get into the tent multiple times. Rangers say the hiker had properly stored his food on aerial storage cables.
The Spence Field backcountry shelter will stay closed as wildlife staff continue to monitor the site for bear activity.
Bradley Veeder, 49, Las Vegas, was asleep in a tent when he says a bear bit through the tent and into his lower leg.
After the attack, Veeder and the other hikers gathered at a shelter for the rest of the night. During that time, the bear came back and tore through Veeder's tent and another empty tent.
Veeder was taken out of the backcountry by horseback and then went to Blount Memorial Hospital by ambulance at 3:45 p.m. the next day. |
Here I'll point out another of the articles going up at the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, this time on the topic of the naturalistic fallacy where it occurs in opposition to healthy life extension. Our community would like to build medical therapies that address the causes of aging, thereby ending age-related disease and greatly extending healthy human life spans. It has always surprised me to find that most people, at least initially, object to this goal. It seems perfectly and straightforwardly obvious to me that aging to death, suffering considerably along the way, is just as much a problem to be overcome as any other medical condition that causes pain and mortality. Yet opposition exists, and that opposition is one of the greatest challenges faced when raising funding and pushing forward with research and development of rejuvenation therapies.
When it comes to treating aging as a medical condition the naturalistic fallacy is voiced in this way: aging is natural, what is natural is good, and therefore we shouldn't tamper with aging. If you look around at your houses, your computers, your modern medicine, and consider that such an objection is perhaps just a little late to the game, and hard to hold in a self-consistent manner, then you're probably not alone. Notably, the same objection is rarely brought up when it comes to treating specific age-related diseases, or in the matter of therapies that already exist. People who are uncomfortable about radical changes to the course of aging and who speak out against the extension of human life are nonetheless almost all in favor of cancer research, treatments for heart disease, and an end to Alzheimer's disease. Yet age-related diseases and aging are the same thing, the same forms of damage and dysfunction, only differing by degree and by the names they are given. Objecting to the treatment of aging on naturalistic grounds without also objecting to near all modern medicine is a deeply incoherent position. The whole and entire point of medicine is to defeat the natural causes of pain, debility, and death.
The word 'unnatural' conjures up feelings of doom and dread, and it is unfortunately often used by critics of science as a way to justify their own concerns. It is argued that interfering with the natural order of things is wrong and against nature, and therefore increasing lifespans thanks to scientific advancements is something we should not be doing. From an early age, most of us are taught that 'natural' is good and always preferable. Concepts like 'natural organic food is better,' 'natural remedies are always the best option,' and so on are all deeply ingrained into our culture. With this in mind, it is easy to understand why some people may consider the advanced medicines and next generation therapies science is developing being somehow unnatural. We have always sought ways to protect our health and extend human lifespan. But there are methods that already existed when we were born, and methods appearing later. Most people would not consider washing their hands, taking medicines, or undertaking surgery as being bad - unnatural or unethical - because we are used to their existence. These are ways to extend life. But we tend to feel anxious when we encounter something new. Part of this reaction is biologically programmed: during human evolution, new things might turn out to be dangerous, and wariness could be a successful strategy. But another part is related to the deficiency of knowledge about the new intervention and the indirect consequences of its application. In case of need, such as the need to cure a severe and aggressive disease, we welcome even radical interventions like gene therapy, because we know for sure that the alternative is probably death - and nothing can be worse than that. But let's remember that the various aging processes lead to the development of deadly diseases, like cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease and stroke, which makes any attempts to bring these processes under medical control highly ethical. A number of researchers are currently debating if aging should be considered a disease or a syndrome itself, and some suggest including aging as a disease under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). If accepted as part of ICD-11 it could create an opportunity for the medical industry to test and register new interventions for addressing the aging processes. This would then allow healthy middle aged patients to use these interventions even in the absence of age-related diseases, in order to prevent or postpone their manifestation. As so-called life extension technologies are no more than medical technologies focused on preventing age-related diseases at very early stage and sustaining health throughout life, it is obvious that they should be considered in the same way as any other form of medicine. They are no more unnatural than the medicines we already use today. The development of medical technologies, their implementation, and the efforts to make them accessible and affordable to every human being reflect the universal goal of the continuous improvement of health.
Link: http://www.lifeextensionadvocacyfoundation.org/education/unnatural/ |
This is a book (in progress) about declarative language definition with the Spoofax Language Workbench. The aim of Spoofax is to separate the various concerns of language definition and implementation and provide high-level declarative meta-languages for each concern such that language designers are not distracted by language implementation details. These meta-languages are declarative in the sense that they abstract from the how of language implementation and focus on the what of language design. For example, 'what is the syntax of my language?', instead of 'how do I implement a parser for my language?'.
The book provides a tutorial introduction to the current state of Spoofax, and will be gradually extended, improved, and updated as Spoofax evolves. Your feedback will be in the form of emails, issues, or pull requests will be most encouraging to keep that up.
The current version of the book: PDF
Author: @eelcovisser
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Getting Spoofax
Chapter 2: Testing with SPT
Chapter 3: Syntax Definition with SDF3
Chapter 4: Transformation with Stratego
News |
© Mike Segar/Reuters The ballot box sits on a table before voting begins for the U.S. presidential primary election inside Hale House at the Balsams Hotel in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire on February 8, 2016.
DIXVILLE, N.H. (AP) — Bernie Sanders and John Kasich picked up the most votes as the first ballots of the first-in-the-nation primary were cast early Tuesday.
Sanders won over all four Democratic voters in the tiny town of Dixville, while Kasich sneaked past Donald Trump, 3-2, among Republicans.
Under New Hampshire state law, communities with fewer than 100 voters can get permission to open their polls at midnight and close them as soon as all registered voters have cast their ballots. While that happened in three locations, Dixville traditionally gets most of the spotlight due to its media-friendly setup at the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel.
Located about 20 miles from the Canadian border, Dixville exists as a town only for voting purposes. Almost all of its nine voters are employees of the hotel, which closed in 2011 but is currently undergoing a major overhaul under new owners.
Former owner Neil Tillotson started the midnight voting tradition in 1960, likely at the suggestion of a news photographer looking for an advantage in getting his pictures out to newspapers ahead of his rivals. For many years, voters cast their ballots in individual booths in the hotel's posh ballot room. Because of the renovations, the nine current residents voted in another building on the property, the Hale House.
In 2012, there was a tie for first place on the Republican side, with Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman getting two votes apiece. All three Democrats voted for Obama.
Hart's Location, about 80 miles south of Dixville, first hosted midnight voting in 1948 but gave it up after the 1964 election when residents grew weary of the late hours and media frenzy every four years. Energized with new blood, town residents revived the tradition in 1996, and this year, the town has 41 registered voters.
Millsfield is also making a comeback this year, though it's unclear just when the town last voted at midnight or when its tradition started. According to a 1952 article in Time magazine, eight residents voted at midnight during the general election that year. This year, there are 22 registered voters. |
Subsonic comes with built-in support for your Sonos players. Access your personal music library the same way as other Sonos music services like Spotify or Google Play.
Features
Works with giant music libraries. Not limited to 65,000 songs like the native Sonos controller.
Configure which folders each user is allowed to access.
Access your personal Subsonic playlists (as well as Sonos playlists).
Star your favorites.
Audioscrobbling and play statistics.
Powerful search feature. The Subsonic web app shows who is playing what on Sonos.
Artist radio for playing similar songs.
Shuffle play whole library or by artist.
Album lists: Random, Recently added, Starred, Top rated, Most Played, Recently played, By decade, By genre.
Same folder structure / album art / media meta data as in the Subsonic web app.
Setting it up
Connecting Sonos to your Subsonic server is super easy:
In the Subsonic web page, enable the Sonos music service in Settings > Sonos. In the Sonos controller, click Add Music Services and select Subsonic. Select I already have an account, then enter your Subsonic username and password. You're done. The list of music sources now includes the Subsonic music service.
Advanced settings
Lossless audio
For maximum compatibility, Subsonic is by default transcoding non-mp3 music files to mp3 when streaming to Sonos. However, Sonos natively supports several other audio formats, such as FLAC and OGG. To disable the transcoding in Subsonic, select Settings > Players, select the Sonos player, and then disable the "mp3 audio" transcoding.
Multiple Subsonic servers
Sonos music services are uniquely identified by a "SID" (a number between 240 and 253). By default, Subsonic uses SID 242. If you want to make multiple Subsonic servers on your local network available to Sonos, you have to assign a unique SID to each server. This setting is not available through the web interface, but you can add this line to the subsonic.properties file (located in /var/subsonic, c:/subsonic or /Library/Application Support/Subsonic) to change it.
SonosServiceId=243
Remember to restart Subsonic to make it take effect.
Using a remote Subsonic server
Subsonic automatically configures Sonos players on your local network. If Subsonic and Sonos are not on the same network you can still connect them, using a manual one-time registration procedure. Make sure you have the IP address of the Sonos player and Subsonic server available. You can find the Sonos IP by selecting About my Sonos System in the Sonos controller app.
Open http://SONOS_IP:1400/customsd.htm in a browser. Enter the following values in the web form: SID – Any legal value except 242
– Any legal value except 242 Service Name – Any name, for instance "Subsonic Remote"
– Any name, for instance "Subsonic Remote" Endpoint URL – http:// SUBSONIC_IP :4040/ws/Sonos?ip= SUBSONIC_IP
– http:// :4040/ws/Sonos?ip= Secure Endpoint URL – http:// SUBSONIC_IP :4040/ws/Sonos?ip= SUBSONIC_IP
– http:// :4040/ws/Sonos?ip= Polling Interval – 1200
– 1200 Authentication – Session ID
– Session ID Strings Table – Version: 6, URI: http:// SUBSONIC_IP :4040/sonos/strings.xml
– Version: 6, URI: http:// :4040/sonos/strings.xml Presentation Map – Version: 3, URI: http:// SUBSONIC_IP :4040/sonos/presentationMap.xml
– Version: 3, URI: http:// :4040/sonos/presentationMap.xml Container Type – Music Service
– Music Service Capabilities – Search, Favorites, User Content Playlists, Extended Metadata
Finally, in the Sonos controller, click Add Music Services and select the newly added Subsonic music service.
Disclaimer
Subsonic is not affiliated with Sonos, Inc. Sonos and its product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sonos, Inc. |
My Santa stalked the hell out of me and sent me 4 awesome gifts.
1st - the "real" gift tailored to me, a Tokidoki calendar. Huzzah! 2nd - My santa's fave book, Ender's Shadow. My santa was worried I might not like it and apologized in advance (also if I already had the book). Santa should have stalked me harder because Ender's Game is my all time favourite book. I went to a reading with OSC when Ender's Shadow came out and have copies of my 2 fave OSC books signed by him. So... yes I have read it but I don't think I still have a copy.. maybe hardcover (but my husband has not so thank you anyway! Excellent choice). GO NOVA!
3rd - Justin & Kelly DVD, acting at it's finest, what can I say? I shall study it and learn to be like them. I'll thank you my Oscar speech.
4th (I know right! 4 gifts!!) - I am using my yearly allotment now. an EPIC double feature ...
MEGA SHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS
AND
MEGA PIRANHA
Tonight, we shall watch these.
Thank you Santa you're awesome!!! |
Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo delivered said Thursday that the U.S. will stop WikiLeaks from using “free speech values against us.”
Pompeo was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he focused on the threat of leaks. He mentioned the case of Philip Agee, a former CIA officer who exposed CIA secrets through a magazine.
The CIA director said that now leakers need merely “a smart phone and internet access.” He added that the CIA finds “the celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling.”
In recent weeks, WikiLeaks has been publishing documents which purport to reveal the inner workings of CIA cyber operations.
“It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is — a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” Pompeo said.
He later added: “We have to recognize that we can no longer allow [WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange] and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.”
While Pompeo slammed WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service,” he in fact tweeted out a link last July to a story about the Democratic National Committee email leak. (RELATED: CIA Director: WikiLeaks Is A ‘Non-State, Hostile Intelligence Service’)
During a question-and-answer after his speech, Pompeo was asked about his remark that the U.S. has to stop Assange from using “free speech values against us.” (RELATED: Senator Supports Idea Of Government-Backed Fact Checker)
“Julian Assange has no First Amendment freedoms. He’s sitting in an embassy in London. He’s not a U.S. citizen. So I wasn’t speaking to our Constitution. What I was speaking to is an understanding that these are not reporters doing good work to try to keep you — the American government honest,” Pompeo replied. “These are people who are actively recruiting agents to steal American secrets with the sole intent of destroying the American way of life. That is fundamentally different than a First Amendment activity, as I understand them, and I think as most Americans understand them.”
He added: “We’ve had administrations before that have been squeamish about going after these folks under some concept of this right-to-publish. No one has the right to actively engage in the theft of secrets from America with the intent to do harm to it.” |
Separated in time by eight years, the two speeches are complementary: to consider them in combination is to discover their full importance. As bookends to Eisenhower’s presidency, they form a solemn meditation on the implications—economic, social, political, and moral—of militarizing America.
During Eisenhower’s presidency, few credited him with being a great orator. Yet, as befit a Kansan and a military professional, Ike could speak plainly when he chose to do so. The April 16 speech early in his presidency was such a moment. Delivered in the wake of Joseph Stalin’s death, the speech offered the new Soviet leadership a five-point plan for ending the Cold War. Endorsing the speech as “one of the most notable policy statements of U.S. history,” Time reported with satisfaction that Eisenhower had articulated a broad vision for peace and “left it at the door of the Kremlin for all the world to see.” The likelihood that Stalin’s successors would embrace this vision was nil. An editorial in The New Republic made the essential point: as seen from Russia’s perspective, Eisenhower was “demanding unconditional surrender.” The president’s peace plan quickly vanished without a trace.
Largely overlooked by most commentators was a second theme that Eisenhower had woven into his text. The essence of this theme was simplicity itself: spending on arms and armies is inherently undesirable. Even when seemingly necessary, it constitutes a misappropriation of scarce resources. By diverting social capital from productive to destructive purposes, war and the preparation for war deplete, rather than enhance, a nation’s strength. And while assertions of military necessity might camouflage the costs entailed, they can never negate them altogether.
“Every gun that is made,” Eisenhower told his listeners, “every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Any nation that pours its treasure into the purchase of armaments is spending more than mere money. “It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” To emphasize the point, Eisenhower offered specifics:
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities … We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
Yet in Cold War Washington, Eisenhower’s was a voice crying in the wilderness. As much as they liked Ike, Americans had no intention of choosing between guns and butter: they wanted both. Military Keynesianism—the belief that the production of guns could underwrite an endless supply of butter—was enjoying its heyday.
At the time, the idea that militarizing U.S. policy might yield economic benefits outweighing the costs seemed eminently plausible. The authors of the National Security Council report “NSC-68,” the 1950 blueprint for U.S. rearmament, had made this point explicitly: boosting Pentagon spending would “increase the gross national product by more than the amount being absorbed for additional military and foreign assistance purposes.” Building up the nation’s defenses could serve as a sort of permanent economic stimulus program, putting people to work and money in their pockets. The experience of World War II had apparently validated this theory. Why shouldn’t the same logic apply to the Cold War? |
A Texas Tech police officer was shot and killed by a gunman who was brought into campus police headquarters for questioning on a possible drug offense on Monday, Lubbock, Texas Police confirmed.
Texas Tech, which is located in Lubbock, was placed in a lockdown shortly after 8 p.m. local time. The lockdown was lifted around 9:30 p.m. local time.
The suspect was identified by authorities as Hollis A. Daniels.
After the gunman fled on foot, he was was later captured.
"Earlier this evening, Texas Tech Police made a student welfare check," Lubbock Police said in a statement. "Upon entering the room, officers found evidence of drugs and drug paraphernalia. Officers brought the suspect to the police station for standard debriefing.
"During this time, the suspect pulled a gun and shot an officer in the head. The officer is deceased. The suspect fled on foot and is currently still at-large. Texas Tech University campus is on lock down." |
When do you feel the worst about yourself?
At the gym?
When you check Instagram or Facebook?
When reading gay men’s magazines?
When you’re at a nightclub?
When you log onto Grindr?
When you hang out with certain “friends”?
When watching porn?
Why don’t you….
Change gyms? Or try yoga?
Delete Instagram? Unfollow certain people? Limit your time on Facebook?
Read a book instead of buying a magazine?
Do something different on a Saturday night? Stay in with one person you really like and watch crappy TV?
Delete Grindr? Approach the hot guy in the street?
Stop spending time with people who make you feel bad and make new friends?
Watch an inspiring lecture online instead of porn? Ted.com is a good place to start.
It can be hard to pull yourself away from things that make you feel bad. Some may call it an addiction to pain while others may say it’s a result of self loathing but whatever it may be it’s certainly something that we’ve all experienced. The knowing that you’re making yourself feel worse but being unable to stop yourself. The worse you feel, the more you do it. Does this sound familiar?
Challenge: For one week DO NOT log onto Instagram or Facebook, DO NOT go out to clubs, bars or social venues you frequent regularly (unless they make you happy), DO NOT spend time with anyone who has made you feel bad in the past , DO NOT use Grindr and DO NOT look at porn. I did. And after one week the results were amazing. I felt more relaxed, less anxious and most importantly my self-esteem was lifted. This may sound like a late night infomercial but the only thing I’m selling is an easy approach to increasing your happiness (and it’s free).
There is much scope for discussion on this topic but in the meantime, take an inventory of all the things that lower your self-esteem or make you feel bad about yourself and for one week, just one week, commit to not indulging in any of them. Let me know the outcome.
What makes you feel bad about yourself? Did avoiding these things for a week make you feel any different?
Photo Credit: Baptiste Radufe by Serge Leblon
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A lot of cartoons end up artistically reflecting the way the storyboarders draw in the final result. Not only is Steven Universe no exception, but it’s actively encouraged. @ealipoe made a chart once, but not only is it out of date, it’s also been confirmed to be inaccurate (note: website sometimes has a paywall. at the time I started making this post, the paywall was down, but as of posting the paywall is up and I can’t keep up with the screenshot let’s plays I was following). So I’m going go through and analyze styles, a few boarders at a time. I’m starting with the show’s Big 3: Rebecca Sugar @rebeccasugar, Ian Jones-Quartey @ianjq, and Kat Morris @ghostdigits, all of whom are Story Writers for the show (which means that they all are involved in the conception of episodes and putting ideas that go into the final outlines, which are written by Matt Burnett @matt-burnett and Ben Levin @ben-levin ) and have additional uncredited boards in pretty much every episode. One interesting thing to note is that they all went to SVA (not CalArts) (though Ian appears to have been from an earlier class than Rebecca and Kat)
Post under the cut as to 1: not clog up dashes and 2: allow for edits to be made without rendering reblogs outdated
Rebecca Sugar
The show’s creator, Executive Producer, most prominent song writer (involved in over 50% of the show’s songs so far), and story writer. Rebecca is a former Storyboard Revisionist turned Storyboard Artist (paired with Adam Muto for seasons 2-3 and with Cole Sanchez for seasons 4-5.1) and song writer for Adventure Time. She was a full blown boarder for the early episodes Laser Light Cannon (with Kat), Cheeseburger Backpack (with Ian) and Cat Fingers (with Kat, Ian, and Hillary Florido @hilaryflorido ) (She’s also credited for Together Breakfast, though I can’t really make out any scenes that look like hers and the crew promo doesn’t mention her at all, so I think her involvement is comparable to that of the average episode) and does credited boards for episodes every once in a while (Such as Lion 3, Alone Together, Jail Break, and Keystone Motel).
Her style generally gives steven a slightly “longer” face (like in the shot from mirror gem below): In earlier episodes (like the laser light cannon shot seen above) there’s something almost pilot-y about it
One notable trend (carried over from her adventure time days) is how she often gives characters lines under their eyes. She’s not the only boarder to do so, but the 2nd most common perpetrator of this is Hellen Jo, who’s style is distinct from sugar’s.
Plot wise, the episodes that she does are usually plot relevant and pretty much always emotional. She also usually pops up when Rose is involved.
Ian Jones-Quartey
The Supervising Director for every season 1 episode (I’m kinda thinking that he’s also the supervising director for the season 2 episodes ending with Nightmare Hospital where there’s no supervising director credit), Co-Executive Producer for season 2, co-composer for the Li’l Butler theme (with Rebecca), story writer, and the voice of a lot of bit roles (such as Mr. Queasy), Ian was the Animation Director for seasons 3 and 4 of Venture Bros, a Storyboard Revisionist for season 2 of Adventure Time, Storyboard Artist for Secret Mountain Fort Awesome (specifically the episodes Secret Mountain Fart Awesome, 7002, and Labyrinth), and Storyboard Supervisor for seasons 4-5.1 of Adventure Time (leaving at the same time Rebecca did). Ian’s left the show (though as of the time of the creation of this post his last episode hasn’t aired yet). He was a credited boarder for Cheeseburger Backpack (with Rebecca), Together Breakfast (with Paul Villeco @paulvilleco ), and Cat Fingers (with Kat, Rebecca, and Hillary Florido)
If you saw Cheeseburger Backpack, then you know what Ian’s style looks like. It’s kinda telling that Ian once quoted “If you can tell that it’s the same character, then it’s On-Model”. There’s something very Lakewood Plaza Turbo-y about it
After Cheeseburger Backpack, Ian actually kinda tamed his art though (or at least it seems like it)
Admittedly, most of what I know of Ian’s additional uncredited boards is what’s been confirmed. Honestly a more noticeable barometer is great quality animation (that doesn’t come from Joe or Jeff)
(Peridot’s face courtesy of Rebecca)
Kat Morris
The show’s Storyboard Supervisor, story writer, and the Supervising Director for episodes boarded by Hillary and Lauren (starting with Catch and Release) and Raven and Paul (starting with Sadie’s Song). She was an intern on Superjail, and was a storyboard artist for seasons 1-4 of Regular show (having been partnered with Paul Scarlata, Minty Lewis, Sean Szeles, and James Kim). She’s a credited boarder for Laser Light Cannon (with Rebecca), Cat Fingers (with Ian, Rebecca, and Hillary Florido), and Bubble Buddies (with Aleth Romanillos @aromanillos )
The least well known of the 3 main creative people on SU, Kat Morris’s early stuff looks kinda… off. Though it’s better at some points (like at the end of cat fingers below). I think that it was partially due to just the usual early hang ups that most shows go through, especially since a lot of Rebecca’s boards in Laser Light Cannon (which was the first episode made) look similar to Kat’s boards for that episode, plus Kat’s stuff for Bubble Buddies looks overall better than her stuff for Laser Light Cannon. Plus there’s a lot of the SU stuff on her instagram that looks Rebecca Sugar-y (like you can tell it’s not rebecca’s but it looks similar to Rebecca’s).
Like the other 2, she also has Additional Uncredited Boards in most episodes, but I can’t really tell any examples outside of the image below
and even then I only figured that because she posted it on her tumblr. I am beginning to suspect that one bit in An Indirect Kiss that I thought was done by sugar might’ve been don by Kat (and that’s assuming it wasn’t done by Paul)
[Rebecca Sugar, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris]
[Joe Johnston and Jeff Liu] (coming soon)
[Raven Molisee and Paul Villeco] (coming soon)
[Aleth Romanillos, Lamar Abrams, and Hellen Jo] (coming soon)
[Hillary Florido, Katie Mitroff, and Lauren Zuke] (coming soon)
[Other (Luke Weber, Matt Braly, and any storyboard revisionists that I can recognize)] (coming soon) |
Austin is weird…
And for that, I hate Austin, Texas.
Hear me out before you think I’m jumping to conclusions.
The People
Whether you like a place really comes down to its people.
Unfortunately, almost everyone in Austin is two-faced.
What is that side that you don’t know about? It’s having a huge chip on their shoulder about life. Why they are mad about isn’t clear, but what is clear is the fact that that hatred has built up over a lifetime and isn’t going away anytime soon.
But if you’re a tourist, a college student, or if you have money, there’s a good chance you won’t see too much of it as they try to suppress that side of them (especially in customer service).
However, if you have nothing for them to take (money), their ugly side will come out and they will treat you badly.
You can understand this problem better with something I call…
The Divide
I’ve seen this problem in other cities as well. I call it the divide.
What I mean by that is the rich and the poor. It seems like the stronger the divide is, the stronger the hatred there is in the city.
And here in Austin, there is no middle class.
The rich are rich but still aren’t happy (if anything they tend to be rich because their hatred for life caused them to pursue money with the anger and tenacity that normal people don’t, thinking it’ll cure them, but it still hasn’t made them happy).
And these people tend to treat people poorly (even the help).
Then you have the dysfunctional poor who hate the rich and themselves because they think money will solve all their problems and they don’t have any. (But if that’s true, then why are some of the happiest people I know some of the poorest. These people are just messed up in the head.)
They hate the rich, but they still want their money so they put up with their crap which makes them hate the rich even more.
And if you’re not one of the angry rich, both the bitter poor and the angry rich will take their frustrations out on you.
Ultimately, the hatred and unhappiest comes from everyone thinking the world will solve (or caused) their problems. They’ll never see that it is their thoughts and actions that create their own suffering. These people will never take 100% responsibility for their own actions and their life.
I mean can’t we just love people for who they are, not for how much money is in their wallet? How can people think it’s okay to go around hurting others just because you’re in a bad mood? I mean, that’s how a child thinks.
But since they think that the world (money) will solve their problems, they put themselves in places and chase people who they think have it.
And they chase off people who they think don’t…
(By the way, Austin does not hate transplants. They hate people without money, which just happens to be most transplants as they are often weirdos wanting to brace Austin’s weirdness.)
Weirder Than You Think
So the “The Divide” is clearly dysfunctional, and I guess you can also call it weird, but Austin takes it to a new level compared to other dysfunctional cities (I would name names, but pissing off one city is enough for me).
Austin takes it to a new level by having just, in general, weird people. I’ve never seen so many girls with colored hair (red, green, blue, pink, silver, etc.).
Sure, they look cool (think of your favorite anime), but everyone knows to stay FAR away from girls like that.
It’s like tattoos and piercing, it’s antisocial. But unlike tattoos and piercing, there is no hiding that when you have dyed hair. There is no hiding their antisocial personality.
And I think every antisocial person hates society at some level, as that is pretty much the definition. So there is a good chance that they hate you.
But if it isn’t them, it’s the hipsters. We’ve got a huge hipster scene here. (We can all agree on hating hipsters, right? Or I guess they’re yuppies, here? I don’t know.)
And that’s the problem with Austin, the angry rich and bitter poor who think money is the cause of all of their problems will hate you and the weird antisocial people who probably have no idea what they really stand for or what they are against will also hate you because you aren’t one of them.
But the real problem is misery loves company…
(Back to the transplants. The hipsters hate the transplants who try to bring a modern feel to the city, whether that be a west coast or Dallas feel. Basically, Austin expects you to bring your money and feed their weirdness.)
Taking Their Frustrations Out On You
I don’t know if it’s the Texas heat or what, but, man, these people are looking for the slightest reason to take their frustrations out on you.
If they can’t find one, then they’ll try to create one. For example, they’ll ask you a simple question and if you say “I don’t know”, or if you know the answer and give it but say or act like you aren’t 100% sure about it, they’ll try to punish you for not knowing.
(Even when you are right and they are wrong, they’ll act like they’re right and you’re in the wrong. The stupidity hurts your brain so much it makes you physically sick. Donald Trump anyone?)
They tend to target out of towners (unless you are a college student, business person, or rich). It’s pretty messed up.
I guess it’s just a sign of lower intelligence. Instead of handling their problems other ways, they seem to try to handle their problems using aggression, often subtle aggression.
I say lower intelligence because if everyone is trying to dominate others or if they’re always trying to take their frustrations out on others, then everyone has to have their guard up. No one can ever relax and live in peace. Everyone is beneath someone so everyone gets dominated eventually. It’s a horrible way to live. A smart person would find another way.
And they’ll use the aggressive tactics with you if they feel threatened by you (regardless if you are in the right or wrong). They’ll get in your personal space and be hostile to you in other subtle ways.
It just reminds me of how a little kid would act who was taught bad behavior by their parents.
And I guess that’s how I would describe many people in Austin: Childish.
(Still don’t believe me? Ask someone working in customer service. I’ve worked in customer service before in different cities and they’re right, that’s where people’s true colors come out and you get a good feel for the people in a town.)
Here are some other things I’ve noticed about Austin…
They Hate the Homeless
Yeah, you read that right.
“No, Austin loves the homeless.”
Well, unlike other cities, who bus their homeless to other cities, Austin’s government has decided to not do that (not sure if it’s policy or a law, but that’s how it is). So you’ll see a ton of homeless people begging on the highways.
But everyone is just wallpapering over some rotten drywall here.
Instead of actually helping the homeless the citizens expect the government or non-profits to take care of it. And they all pretty much end up in a homeless shelter on 7th street. Honestly, I’ve seen so many homeless fights there, but the cops usually do nothing about it. Even if they do, the judge will often put them back on the street without jail time anyway.
It’s a broken system that no one really cares about.
They also live under the highway bridges and they destroy the businesses around it. You’ll often find things like human excrement behind the dumpsters. It’s bad.
They just want to look like they care about the homeless so they can be seen as liberal and progressive.
Maybe a few people in Austin do care about the homeless, but they are going about it the wrong way.
Bottom line they hate people without money and that include the homeless. They only use them to further their image.
Traffic
I’m sorry, but traffic isn’t really that bad. Just wanted to point that out.
University of Texas
So I was a student there a long time ago. I only went only for a year.
While the experience wasn’t too bad (I found the professors to be bizarre and lazy compared to other schools I’ve been to), there were a lot of red flags I didn’t recognize until I got older.
Like I said, students get a special exception from how Austin treats most people. I think they know the University is central to providing money to the city (they want their money and they need to protect the reputation of Austin being a great place for students to keep the money flowing).
However, the exception doesn’t apply to student-to-student relationships. And a decent amount of students are local.
It just goes back to the people in Austin having a chip on their shoulder. Just very bizarre and unnecessary hostile behavior. I just found it very consistent across the board.
I’ve been to other universities, and while, sure, you have your jerks, people had more of a live and let live attitude. But with UT, it was like people were trying to dominate others.
I also remember going to the frat parties in Austin while I was in high school. While we all know frat parties have an unhealthy obsession with sex and drugs (and I’ve been to plenty of party schools), Austin takes it to a new level.
Speaking of sex…
Unhealthy Emphasis on Sex
Austin is hypersexual.
It reminds me of Vegas.
Sure, nothing compares to the Strip, but when you look at a medium-sized city, you expect downtown to be almost empty on a Wednesday night if there isn’t an event going on.
But in Austin, during the summer (while there are no college kids there), 6th street is packed on a Wednesday night!!!
Is everyone trying to get laid on a Wednesday night?!?
And, not to mention, 6th street is pretty gross (Rainey street isn’t that much better).
It’s no surprise that Austin has the highest STD rate in the country.
Trust me, it isn’t just the college kids. I think people are trying to self-medicate their issues (anger, depression, or whatever) with sex.
This is proven with Austin having the most Ashley Madison accounts per capita.
And, no, the massive amount of accounts didn’t come from the University of Texas students.
Let’s talk about the strip clubs.
So, the number of strip clubs in Austin is pretty normal. But what isn’t is the mileage and how busy they are.
I’ve lived in several major cities and the strip clubs are pretty dead during the day (actually, it’s kind of enjoyable). Even when it’s busy during the day, it isn’t that busy.
But Austin’s strip clubs are very busy during the day. Very high r-select behavior here.
So in most places, you can’t touch, or if you can touch, it’s expensive and somewhat discrete (you do it in a private place in the club).
But in Austin, a lot of it is high-mileage, cheap, and the touching of everything is done in the middle of the club (everyone could care less). And it was with attractive girls, too.
I guess that’s a good thing if you like strip clubs, but it’s like these women no longer see value in their bodies or their self-worth. Don’t get me wrong, its strippers we’re talking about here, but it’s like Austin’s culture has warped them and brought everyone’s perception of self to as low as possible.
Even if you are an attractive woman, you are taught to devalue your body; that you only have worth if you let someone use your it.
And that’s exactly what a bunch of sex addicted individuals would want women to think.
Austin makes sex seem so cheap. And that makes people’s worth also seem cheap.
Like I said, it’s very r-select in Austin.
We also have a nudist beach (and it’s always packed). Of course, it’s a bunch of gay guys, but I just find it odd since Austin isn’t a coast city. Sure there are a few lakes in America with nudist beaches, but no other major cities with lakes, that I’m aware of, have nude beaches on them other than Austin, Texas.
All this just proves that Austin is hypersexual.
Even allowing toplessness at the Barton Springs pool, a pool owned by the city that kids go to, is just too much.
Spiritual Junkies
You have so many spiritual advisors here in Austin.
And you have these crystal and bead shops here, too. It’s weird.
It’s like people are trying to escape to their fantasy world instead of engaging in reality.
Just how people often escape to religion, a lot of people here escape to card readers to feel better about themselves.
Yeah, and there is a TON of yoga here. And I think that is just part of the spiritual junkie scene, that I’m going to stretch my way out of this depression instead of seeing a professional.
Social Hackers
Probably the most annoying of all is the social hackers.
They use and abuse people’s kindness to their advantage. They also try to use technicalities to mess with you. They use the letter of the law even when it’s against the intent of the law. But it’s not just the law but general human behavior.
Seriously, it makes me think of serial killer Ted Bundy. He would walk around on crutches trying to carry books to take advantage of the women who felt bad for him.
It seems like everyone is playing a game here.
It’s a Swamp
So there are these big rocks (or small boulders) that they use as landscaping around here.
But if you look at them, they are covered in pocket where mold and bacteria grows. It’s gross.
And I think that’s a real microcosm of Austin, Texas. From a distance, it looks like a normal rock, but once you get close you notice significant decay and rot from all the cavities it’s covered in.
Austin is a swamp. It’s humid. It’s sticky. It’s nasty.
That’s Austin for you.
Diamonds in the Rough
Yes, there are a lot of weird people here, but you do find nice people.
I have found a few nice girls here.
But, unfortunately, they tend to either be slutty and/or kind of easy. They don’t throw themselves at you, but they won’t hesitate to have sex with you.
No judgment, but that’s just not my cup of tea.
Again, I think the culture just corrupts them (or, more likely, the culture attracts these kinds of girls).
I could list a few redeeming factors here, but everything I could list would be something you can find in all the other major cities in America. So there really aren’t any redeeming factors here.
Keep Away from Austin
I keep trying to give Austin another shot, but the longer I stay here, the worse the experience gets. I feel like this girl.
I’ve tried to make friends, but it only seems like the slutty (but nice) girls described above are interested in me. Sorry, but that’s just not enough for me to want to stay here when you consider all the bad I just talked about.
Austin is weird, but not the good kind of weird.
There’s the “this is weird, but kind of fun” and then there is the “something ain’t right here” kind of weird. Austin is the latter.
It’s like the clown from the It movie (the original). At first, you’re like, he seems like a regular clown with a bit of an weird bald look to him. Then he opens his mouth and you’re like, “Oh my god! Run for your lives!”
I’m sorry, but Austin is weird. Stay away. |
Checking the Math on the Pentagon’s ISIS Body Counts
The U.S. military has a long habit of quickly forgetting its principled opposition to touting body counts. In 1962, the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) started releasing weekly estimates of Viet Cong killed by U.S. troops, even as senior military and civilian officials doubted their accuracy or pertinence. In March 2002, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, then-chief of U.S. Central Command, declared, “You know we don’t do body counts,” when asked about the number of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan killed in recent airstrikes; they would, in fact, “do” body counts until the policy’s reversal in July 2009. And, in May 2004, the Pentagon started releasing body counts from the Iraq War, just six months after then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed: “We don’t do body counts on other people.”
It’s no secret why military officials tend to overcome their opposition to providing such data: The numbers are influential, at least when it comes to public opinion. A 2006 study by North Carolina State University researchers demonstrates that when Americans hear and read about these numbers, it changes public perceptions of success and progress in war.
It should be no surprise then that President Barack Obama’s administration has been using body counts in the ongoing war against the Islamic State. In January 2015, just 16 days after Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby asserted in a press conference that he wasn’t “getting into an issue of body counts.… It’s simply not a relevant figure,” U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Stuart Jones, unprompted, told an Al Arabiya interviewer that “the airstrikes have now killed more than 6,000 ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq.”
Since that first estimate, the administration has steadily released other figures on combatant deaths. What’s less clear is how well those chosen data points line up with one another.
On March 3, 2015, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, then-commander of Centcom, told the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria had killed 8,500 enemy fighters.
Three months later, that number increased. On June 1, 2015, Air Force Gen. Herbert J. “Hawk” Carlisle, the chief of Air Combat Command, informed reporters at an Air Force Association breakfast: “We’ve taken about 13,000 enemy fighters off the battlefield since the September-October time frame.”
Then, on July 29, 2015, USA Today cited military intelligence estimates, which were confirmed by coalition officials, that “15,000 militants [have been] killed in a U.S.-led airstrike campaign.”
On Oct. 12, 2015, an anonymous “senior military officer” told USA Today: “The U.S.-led bombing campaign has killed an estimated 20,000 Islamic State fighters.” The following day, Army Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), told a reporter about that same figure: “We try to stay away from body counts, generally speaking. I’m not going to argue with those numbers that you just cited.”
The next month, on Nov. 30, 2015, anonymous military officials again told USA Today that “the campaign has killed 23,000 Islamic State fighters.”
On Jan. 6, Warren, who earlier declared his avoidance of body counts, told reporters in prepared remarks: “In December, we estimate approximately 2,500 enemy fighters were killed in coalition airstrikes across Iraq and Syria,” bringing the total to 25,500.
On April 12, the New York Times reported that American airstrikes had killed 25,000 Islamic State fighters, according to unnamed Pentagon officials. CNN’s Jim Sciutto had a slightly higher number from officials, at 26,000.
Finally, on Aug. 10, Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-OIR, claimed that “over the past 11 months we’ve killed about 25,000 enemy fighters.… That’s 45,000 enemies taken off the battlefield.”
If the Obama administration’s latest estimates are accurate, that would mean there was a zero percent increase in the number of Islamic State fighters killed during the first four months of the year, followed by a remarkable 80 percent increase during the past four months. This seems highly unlikely, given that there has been little change in the number of bombs dropped over the past eight months. I asked the OIR spokespeople for some clarification, and they replied:
“We would emphasize that this number, due to ongoing operations and ever changing battlefield conditions, is only an estimate. What’s important is the number of fighters on the front line has diminished in both quantity and quality. We don’t see them operating nearly as effectively as they have in the past. As a result, their attrition has accelerated recently.”
This is certainly possible, given the increased number of U.S. forces that are forward-deployed to help direct strikes against dynamic targets. In addition, the Islamic State’s tried-and-true tactics of cover, concealment, and dispersal might have become less effective as the group faces sustained ground offensives. Or perhaps the methods being used to estimate the number of enemy combatants killed have been changed or refined in some manner recently. There are also likely internal disagreements among various Defense Department agencies: For example, during the height of the Vietnam War, Pentagon analysts often determined that there were a third fewer Viet Cong killed than their compatriots at MACV.
Finally, as I have previously noted, the Pentagon may have a bias, unconscious or not, that leaves it unable to differentiate between combatants and noncombatants killed in its own airstrikes. Although the U.S. military professes that 45,000 Islamic State fighters have been killed, it has acknowledged only 55 civilian fatalities after two years and nearly 15,000 airstrikes, with a few casualty investigations still ongoing. This is simply an unbelievable ratio.
No other country currently bombing Iraq or Syria, of which there are 14 — including Russia and Israel — has provided such granular information. For nearly five months into its intervention on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Russian Ministry of Defense published — in a format that clearly mimicked the Pentagon — near-daily estimates of its own airstrike totals and body counts. But in early February these stopped appearing with no explanation.
The Pentagon deserves partial credit for its limited transparency in comparison to these other militaries, especially for its release of three of its internal investigations into civilian deaths (though it should release all of them). It should also clarify the unexpected jumps in the number of enemies killed, like that announced last week by MacFarland, even if those figures are just estimates. More importantly, it should settle upon its logic for declaring body counts in the first place. If the numbers are a sign of progress, the Defense Department should cease undermining them by declaring them irrelevant — unless that is true, in which case it should stop releasing them entirely.
Photo credit: Rauf Maltas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images |
Let me paraphrase Mitt Romney: Don't hate me for my religion, hate atheists and agnostics for theirs!
This is his JFK speech on religious tolerance? This must be a joke. How is anyone taking this seriously?
Here is the exact quote from Romney's speech:
"It is as if they're intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They're wrong."
How about if I said this:
"It is as if Romney is intent on establishing a new religion in America -- the religion of Mormonism. He is wrong."
Well, actually there would be nothing wrong with that since Mormonism is wrong. Their prophet looked into a magic hat to read magic tablets with his magic glasses. Magic hat? Really?
I'm agnostic. I don't believe in any of the major, organized religions. So, I'm not singling out Mormonism. There are patently absurd parts of all of the religious texts (in fact, most of the texts). I'm always amused by Christians -- who believe the magic man Jesus is going to suck them up into heaven while the rest of us die fiery deaths -- making fun of Mormons for their quizzical beliefs.
But this isn't about legitimate criticism of each other's beliefs. It's one thing to criticize a person's religious beliefs and it's another to do it while pretending to give a speech about religious tolerance.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Romney criticizing atheists or agnostics. I also don't think there's anything wrong with him criticizing the people who set up the "religion" of secularism in this country, namely George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc. |
Scott Weiland, the former frontman of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, has reportedly died at the age of 48.
News of Weiland’s death was first reported by Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, who frequently collaborated with the singer. Weiland’s Facebook page has since confirmed the news.
Weiland was due to play a show with his band the Wildabouts in Hamel, Minnesota, on Thursday night. According to TMZ, his body was discovered inside his tour bus around 9:00 p.m. local time. As of now, the cause of death is unknown. Update – Friday, December 4th at 9:30 a.m.: TMZ reports that Weiland died from cardiac arrest.
Update – Friday, December 4th 12:25 p.m.: Members of Velvet Revolver have issued a statement on Weiland’s passing.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of our old friend and bandmate, Scott Weiland. We experienced a good chunk of life with Scott, and even in his darkest times, we all had hope and love for him. His artistry will live on, of that there is no doubt.
Deepest condolences and sadness are for his children, Noah and Lucy.
We all travelled around this world together on tour; our band, wives, and kids… and we grew to a big family that still remains to this day. It’s just so sad and brutal from any perspective.
Rest in peace, Scott.”
Update – Friday, December 4th at 2:40 p.m.: Weiland’s former bandmates in Stone Temple Pilots have also issued a statement.
“Dear Scott,
Let us start by saying thank you for sharing your life with us.
Together we crafted a legacy of music that has given so many people happiness and great memories.
The memories are many, and they run deep for us. We know amidst the good and the bad you struggled, time and time again.
It’s what made you who you were. You were gifted beyond words, Scott. Part of that gift was part of your curse.
With deep sorrow for you and your family, we are saddened to see you go.
All of our love and respect.
We will miss you brother,
Robert DeLeo, Eric Kretz and Dean DeLeo”
Update – Friday, December 4th at 4:10 p.m.: Scott Weiland’s Wildabouts bandmate Tommy Black has been arrested and charged with fifth degree felony possession of drugs after police found him in possession of a small quantity of cocaine, according to TMZ.
Update – Thursday, December 10th at 3:30 p.m.: According to a search warrant filed by the Bloomington Police Department (via Rolling Stone), two bags of cocaine were found on the tour bus, as were a number of prescription drugs including the sedative Lunesta, anti-anxiety drug Klonopin, Viagra, sedative Dalmane, narcotic Buprenex, and the antipsychotic Geodon. “Located in the bedroom in plain view was an unknown white substance packaged in baggies,” the affidavit reads. “The packaging is common with the way narcotics are packaged.”
As the vocal force behind both Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, Weiland will undoubtedly be remembered as one of alt rock’s greatest yet troubled frontmen. After meeting at a Black Flag concert, he and Robert DeLeo formed STP in 1989. With a lineup rounded out by Dean DeLeo and Eric Kretz, the band emerged amid the early days of post-grunge. Thanks to the success of singles including “Plush”, “Wicked Garden”, and “Creep”, the band’s 1992 debut Core made STP into one of alternative rock’s most promising exports.
STP upped the ante entirely with their sophomore effort, Purple, which would go on to sell six million records. Released in 1994, the record retained its predecessor’s hard rock edge, but was a quantum leap forward in terms of songwriting. “Vasoline”, with its paradiddle-like song structure, is as quirky of a lead single as you’ll likely find anywhere, while “Unglued” brought some of that thunderous crunch that made Core’s heaviest moments so appealing. The band also extended itself into a more pop-centric realm with the singles “Interstate Love Song” and “Big Empty”, helping the band crossover to a broader audience outside of an exclusive grunge or alternative domain. Weiland’s voice continued to be the band’s deadly weapon, a powerful, soulful baritone that gave the band’s music ample heart and conviction.
Despite STP’s commercial success, Weiland struggled with a well-publicized addiction to drugs and alcohol. In 1995, he was caught and convicted of buying crack cocaine and sentenced to one-year probation.
STP soldiered forward despite Weiland’s troubles, releasing Tiny Music…Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop in March of 1996. Musically, the record marked more of a psychedelic detour for the band, but the most jarring difference came in Weiland’s vocals. Gone for the most part was his trademark bellow, which was now replaced with a higher, more strained vocal delivery. The record soared commercially on the strength of singles “Big Bang Baby”, “Lady Picture Show”, and “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart”, but Weiland’s personal problems continued to divide STP. His continued drug use forced the band to cancel touring in support of the record, leaving the rest of the band to briefly perform and record music with Ten Inch Men frontman Dave Coutts under the name Talk Show.
Weiland, meanwhile, went his own way. 12 Bar Blues, released in 1998, marked the singer’s first and best solo effort. In an odd reversal of fate, 12 Bar Blues won favor with critics while being met with a lukewarm response by fans. The album was an eclectic, innovative outing that gave credence to the fact that Weiland, at his best, was an artist of merit, dispelling any suggestion that he had little more to offer the world than a great voice and rock and roll attitude. The record’s cover, an obvious homage to John Coltrane’s legendary Blue Train, profoundly played up Weiland’s public image: sexy and mysterious, cool but distant. It also not so subtly hinted at the singer’s inner turmoil.
As improbable as another STP record seemed after Tiny Music, the band returned with a surprisingly solid effort in 1999’s aptly titled No. 4. A record that squarely fits the “return to form” designation, No. 4 brought the band back full circle to its bulldogish, arena rock origins, even if its biggest splash was the sweet, subdued “Sour Girl”. The record gave fans reason to be cautiously optimistic about the band’s future. When the band gathered for a taping of VH1 Storytellers in 2000 looking happier and more at ease with its proudly sober frontman, STP’s worst days certainly seemed to be behind them. But the band seemed forever burdened to take one step forward only to take two steps back. Tensions in STP continued to flare up, and after the lackluster reception to 2001’s Shangri La Dee Da, STP officially disbanded the following year.
Weiland quickly joined a new band, Velvet Revolver, alongside former Guns N’ Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum. During their six-year existence, the supergroup released two albums, 2004’s Contraband and 2007’s Libertad.
Weiland’s substance abuse issues persisted, and in 2007 he was arrested for DUI. Still, he reunited with Stone Temple Pilots in 2008 for an extensive US tour. The success of the tour led to the recording of a new album, 2010’s Stone Temple Pilots. However, by 2012, Weiland had once again worn out his welcome and was fired from the band, replaced by Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington. His sacking led to a multi-year legal battle with his former bandmates that, as of today, remains unresolved.
Outside of his work with STP and Velvet Revolver, Weiland released two additional solo albums, “Happy” in Galoshes in 2008 and The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, a collection of christmas covers, in 2011. Last year, he formed the Wildabouts for a new LP, Blaster, which was released March of this year.
For his efforts, Weiland won two Grammys: 1994’s Hard Rock Performance for STP’s “Plush” and 2005’s Hard Rock Performance for Velvet Revolver’s “Slither”. His bands have sold more than 45 million records worldwide.
Below, revisit some of Weiland’s greatest hits. |
My father sent this along to me this morning. It seems a very successful alumni of a very small Arkansas high school was scheduled to speak at the graduation. However, he was uninvited because he finds men more attractive than women. He wrote a letter to one of the local news outlets that says it pretty well:
I could just sit back and let this slide, but if I did, the discrimination that has taken place here would go unnoticed like it has so many times in history. Unless my arguments here cause them to reevaluate, nothing will change. But what must change, is the way we treat our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth because, News Flash, the world is changing and it starts in our homes, our schools and yes, even in our places of worship. The suicide rate amongst LGBT teens is staggering. As Superintendent, I hope he is aware that LGBT youth already attend classes on his campus. They are going from class to class with a fear of being outed or being treated horribly by their classmates–so adding educators and mentors to that mix prohibits these teens from thriving. The Board represents them too, and by silencing me, you’re telling those students that it isn’t okay to be who they are.
Upon going to the school district’s web page, it became clear they weren’t on top of things. It appears their website and ethics on gays are both dredged from the 1980s or before.
You know what would be awesome? If we gave the superintendent () the attention he so richly deserves and undoubtedly wants on this issue. Because when you make a moral stand, why make it to just a small battery of people in a tiny town in Arkansas? Why not make it to the world! Let him wear this around his neck like a cross, and just as proudly.
And if that pride evaporates when more eyes get on the issue, well, the Christian should learn that you need to do what’s right even when people aren’t looking.
So let’s all send them emails like, oh, this one my mom sent:
Mr. Walton, What a major fail. I cannot think of anyone who would have been a more qualified speaker and role model to speak at graduation than Bryant Huddleston. I am embarrassed for you. I should think your town should be embarrassed for you. Your state should be embarrassed for you. Your country should be embarrassed for you. Sincerely,
Carol Eberhard
Mountain Home, AR
My mother has brevity down to a science. |
Editor's note: This story is part of a series "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed--Scientific American's Take."
In the new science-bashing movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein and the rest of the filmmakers sincerely and seriously argue that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution paved the way for the Holocaust. By "seriously," I mean that Ben Stein acts grief-stricken and the director juxtaposes quotes from evolutionary biologists with archival newsreel clips from Hitler's Reich. Prepare for an intellectual night at the cinema.
No one could have been more surprised than I when the producers called, unbidden, offering Scientific American's editors a private screening. Given that our magazine's positions on evolution and intelligent design (ID) creationism reflect those of the scientific mainstream (that is, evolution: good science; ID: not science), you have to wonder why they would bother. It's not as though anything in Expelled would have been likely to change our views. And they can't have been looking for a critique of the science in the movie, because there isn't much to speak of.
Rather, it seems a safe bet that the producers hope a whipping from us would be useful for publicity: further proof that any mention of ID outrages the close-minded establishment. (Picture Ben Stein as Jack Nicholson, shouting, "You can't handle the truth!") Knowing this, we could simply ignore the movie—which might also suit their purposes, come to think of it.
Unfortunately, Expelled is a movie not quite harmless enough to be ignored. Shrugging off most of the film's attacks—all recycled from previous pro-ID works—would be easy, but its heavy-handed linkage of modern biology to the Holocaust demands a response for the sake of simple human decency.
Expelled wears its ambitions to be a creationist Fahrenheit 911 openly, in that it apes many of Michael Moore's comic tricks: emphasizing the narrator's hapless everyman qualities by showing him meandering his way to interviews; riposting interviewees' words with ironic old footage and so on. Director Nathan Frankowski is reasonably adept at the techniques, although he is not half the filmmaker Michael Moore is (and yes, I do mean in both senses of the phrase).
The film begins with the triumphant entry of financial columnist, media figure and former Nixon White House speechwriter Ben Stein to a filled college lecture hall. (If this review were styled after the movie, I'd be intercutting clips of Nixon flashing a victory sign with Stein's scenes from Ferris Bueller's Day Off and his eyedrop commercials, but you get the idea.) Stein explains that he is speaking out because he has "lately noticed a dire trend" that threatens the state of our nation: the ascendance of godless, materialist, evolutionary science and an unwillingness among academics to consider more theistic alternatives. A montage of short clips then shows Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and other scientists scorning religion or ID without context. "Freedom is the essence of America!" Stein insists, and he frets that scientists who like their empiricism with a dash of deus ex machina are oppressed. He and Expelled charge that scientists, in their rejection of religious explanations, have become as intolerant as Nazis. Or maybe Stalinists—the film clips were ambiguous on that point.
(The newsreel footage from the old Soviet days kept confusing me. Stein does know that the Stalinists rejected the theory of evolution as a biological rendition of capitalism, doesn't he? And that they replaced it with their own ideologically driven, disastrous theory of Lysenkoism? Does Stein think that moviegoers won't know this?)
I should note that Stein and Expelled rarely refer to "scientists" as I did—they call them Darwinists. Similarly, this review may have already used the word "evolution" about as often as the whole of Expelled does; in the movie, it is always Darwinism. The term is a curious throwback, because in modern biology almost no one relies solely on Darwin's original ideas—most researchers would call themselves neo-Darwinian if they bothered to make the historical connection at all because evolutionary science now encompasses concepts as diverse as symbiosis, kin selection and developmental genetics. Yet the choice of terminology isn't random: Ben Stein wants you to stop thinking of evolution as an actual science supported by verifiable facts and logical arguments and to start thinking of it as a dogmatic, atheistic ideology akin to Marxism.
Expelled then trots out some of the people whom it claims have been persecuted by the Darwinist establishment. First among them is Richard Sternberg*, former editor of the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, who published an article on ID by Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute. Sternberg tells Stein that he subsequently lost his editorship, his old position at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and his original office. Looking a bit smug in his self-martyrdom, Sternberg also reports that a colleague compared him with an "intellectual terrorist."
What most viewers of Expelled may not realize—because the film doesn't even hint at it—is that Sternberg's case is not quite what it sounds. Biologists criticized Sternberg's choice to publish the paper not only because it supported ID but also because Sternberg approved it by himself rather than sending it out for independent expert review. He didn't lose his editorship; he published the paper in what was already scheduled to be his last issue as editor. He didn't lose his job at the Smithsonian; his appointment there as an unpaid research associate had a limited term, and when it was over he was given a new one. His office move was scheduled before the paper ever appeared. [For more details see Ben Stein Launches a Science-free Attack on Darwin by Michael Shermer.]
And so on. These confounding facts are documented in the appendix to the unofficial Congressional report from Rep. Mark Souder's office that the film cites in support of its story. At the very least, the Sternberg affair is considerably more complicated and questionable than Expelled lets on. The movie's one-sided version is either the result of shoddy investigation or deliberate propagandizing—neither of which reflects well on the other information in the film.
So it is with the rest of Expelled's parade of victims. Caroline Crocker, a biology teacher, was allegedly dismissed from her position at George Mason University after merely mentioning ID; the film somehow never reports exactly what she said or why anyone objected to it. Reporter Pamela Winnick was supposedly pilloried and fired after she wrote objectively about evolution and ID; we don't know exactly what she wrote but later we do hear her asserting with disgust that "Darwinism devalues human life." The film forgot to mention that Winnick is the author of the book A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion—a title that suggests her objectivity on the subject might be a bit tarnished.
The movie's unreliable reporting is even more obvious during the scene in which Stein interviews Bruce Chapman, the president of the Discovery Institute, the institutional heart of ID advocacy. Stein asks whether the Discovery Institute has supported the teaching of ID in science classes so avidly because it is trying to sneak religion back into public schools. Chapman says no and the film blithely takes him at his word. No mention is made of the notorious "Wedge" document, a leaked Discovery Institute manifesto that outlined a strategy of opposing evolution and turning the public against scientific materialism as the first step toward making society more politically conservative and theistic. Maybe Ben Stein didn't think it was relevant, but wouldn't an honest film have trusted its audience to judge for itself?
*Note: Richard Sternberg was originally identified as Robert Sternberg. |
Over the years, famed internet critic Jon Jafari has taken down several of his videos, usually due to a lack of production quality, or Jafari just not enjoying the final product in retrospect. Nearly all of these videos, such as "Gaming in Public", "Top 10 Overrated Games", "Goldeneye 007 Wii Review", and the recently removed "The League and I", have resurfaced and/or archived in some manner. However, a video titled "Apples and BREAKS", in which the JonTron character mourns over his broken Nintendo DS, was removed by Jafari in 2012, and has yet to see the light again.
The video in question, published February 25th of 2011, has been pieced together by accounts of several online forum users. It is said that the video began with the standard Jontron intro, but around three seconds in, the colors invert, and the music slows down, until the video fades to silence. It then cuts to Jon crying in front of a hand held camera. Through his sobs, he is attempting to say that he has broken "it". It then cuts to Jon, camera in hand, moving to his bedroom, where he pulls away the bed covers to find his closed DS, seemingly in tact. He hesitantly opens the DS to reveal that the top half has partially broken off, rendering the device useless. His sobbing intensifies at that moment, until the audio cuts, and a skull and cross-bones icon is edited over the area where the DS has broken, and the "Headshot!" audio clip from the video game Unreal Tournament is heard at the same time. Jon attempts to explain how the DS broke in the first place, claiming he accidentally kneed it while in his bed, unaware that he left the DS under the covers. He also illustrates this with editing, rather crudely, editing in a stock photo knee on top of a clip art of a DS, with the top screen edited to appear cracked down the middle, with the caption "BROKE THE SCREEEEN" (What Jon was currently saying). The video then cuts to the character Jacques (Jafari's pet parrot envisioned as a highly intelligent robot), who then says something along the lines of "It's okay, Jon. You still have me." After Jacques' line, a gray scale montage devoted to the DS occurs, with the caption "2004-2011" at the bottom. "Winds of Change" by the Scorpions accompanies this. T hough it remains unknown what specific song it was . The video presumably ends after the montage, but it also remains unknown whether or not the standard end slate that accompanies the typical Jontron video.
In early December of 2012, Jafari privated the video, rendering it unable to be viewed by the general public. A "hunt" was conducted by the Jontron Subreddit in February of 2014, in which "#RebreakTheApple" was conceived, and began to trend on twitter. The hunt, and the hashtag, were to no avail. In July of 2014, Jafari was a panelist at the "Iron Crafters Panel" at San Diego Comicon, and was asked whether or not he would re-release "Apples and BREAKS", to which he said the following:
"Oh boy...It's gonna follow me forever, isn't it! ...I don't know how to answer your question. There's some of my old videos where I just like, didn't think they really fit on the channel anymore, so I just removed them. If there's SUCH a demand for it...we'll see, we'll see, I'll think about it, but thanks for the interest!"
After the statement "#RebreakTheApple" briefly trended, once again to no avail.
On September 25th of 2014, Jafari conducted a livestream on Twitch, dubbed 'Banjo Kazooie for Charity!" in which Jafari attempted to complete the 1998 RareWare game 'Banjo Kazooie' to raise money for the Teach for America Foundation. The first stretch goal of $25,000, after which Jon would film a cover of Katy Perry's "Firework", was reached. Afterwards, Jafari had mentioned on stream that if an additional $25,000 was reached, he would re upload Apples and Breaks for public viewing. The goal is far from being reached, and Jafari has not commented further on the matter.
UPDATE January 22, 2015: On this day, ficha13 has finally, after so long, re-uploaded "Apples and BREAKS" (without Jafari's permission)! Even though the user said he/she would take down the lost episode if Jafari said so, this is such an incredible discovery that mirrors have been spreading like wildfire. Three cheers for ficha13! |
2016 was a bonanza year for horror fans. From incredible sequels to surprisingly effective shark movies, there was a movie for every type of horror geek. These 13 films had us losing sleep, hiding under blankets, and generally fearing for our well-being—in the best way possible, of course. The following are the best horror movies of 2016.
The Shallows
Photo Credit: Columbia Pictures
Okay, hear us out on this one. When the first trailer for The Shallows came out, we weren’t too impressed. Blake Lively stalked by sharks? Hardly a new concept, and not an actor you think of when you think horror. But we, and many critics, were surprised by just how good The Shallows was. The Shallows smartly executes its scares, while giving Lively’s character, Nancy, enough of a medical background to perform surgery on herself. It’s the perfect amount of gruesome that’ll satisfy any survival movie fan.
By Watch It Now
The Invitation
Photo Credit: Gamechanger Films
The Invitation fell slightly under the radar in 2016 due to its limited release. Thankfully, it was quickly released to video-on-demand where it traumatized viewers who weren’t able to get to the limited release venues. This truly twisty film follows Will and Kira, who, upon going to visit Will’s ex-wife and her new husband, find themselves wrapped up in an incredibly strange invitation to join a cult. This classic ‘dinner party from hell’ plot quickly becomes much, much more.
By Watch It Now
10 Cloverfield Lane
Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures
Only very technically a sequel to 2008’s Cloverfield, this film follows Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as she leaves her home after breaking up with her fiancé. After getting in a car accident, Michelle wakes up to find herself underground, with two men. One of them explains that they can’t leave the bunker because a horrible, unexplained attack has killed everyone else and left behind fallout that could kill them, too. This tense, quickly-moving film will leave you questioning everyone around you.
By Watch It Now
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Hush
Photo Credit: Intrepid Pictures
After a surgery went wrong, Maddie lost her voice and hearing at a young age. Now an author, the young woman lives alone in the woods. One of three fantastic horror films directed by Mike Flanagan that premiered in 2016, Hush blew audiences away with its nearly silent action and its carefully plotted suspense.
By Watch It Now
Don’t Breathe
Photo Credit: Screen Gems
Another film centering around a main character’s disability, Don’t Breathe follows a trio of teen troublemakers after they decide to break into a nearby veteran’s home. They’ve heard the man is sitting on a bunch of cash, and he’s blind to boot. But they soon find out that blind absolutely does not mean helpless.
By Watch It Now
The Witch
Photo Credit: Parts and Labor
It’s nearly impossible to talk about horror in 2016 without talking about The Witch. Robert Eggers’s debut film certainly got people talking—and it utterly terrified a lot of us as well. When a family in Puritan England is banished from their town, they must do their best to survive. The central performance by Anya Taylor-Joy makes this film one to watch, even if there aren’t as many witches as one might think.
By Watch It Now
The Conjuring 2
Photo Credit: New Line Cinema
James Wan’s follow up to 2013’s The Conjuring manages to avoid the sophomore slump. Ed and Lorraine Warren are back, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, investigating a case in London. This time, they’re taking on the Enfield Poltergeist as it possesses a child living in the London suburb.
By Watch It Now
Green Room
Photo Credit: Broad Green Pictures
This 2016 flick had an unusual premise and fantastic reviews, but was stunningly underseen by general audiences. When a punk band accidentally books a gig at a neo-Nazi skinhead bar, things quickly get out of hand. The bassist witnesses a murder and calls the police. The band is then trapped inside the bar and forced to fight their way out.
By Watch It Now
Lights Out
Photo Credit: Atomic Monster
Lights Out was based on the YouTube short that caused a phenomenon in 2013. Adapted as a full-length feature in 2016, this stunning, simple premise resulted in an utterly terrifying film. People in a small town start seeing the silhouette of a violent woman whenever they turn the lights off, but she disappears when the lights are turned back on.
By Watch It Now
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Under the Shadow
Photo Credit: Wigwam Fims
This Iranian horror film has managed to cross over into American audiences thanks to a story that, despite cultural differences, resonates with all. Sometimes likened to The Babadook, Under the Shadow follows a stay-at-home mother who is taking care of a young daughter, Dorsa, when their building is hit by an undetonated missile. Dorsa believes that the missile unleashed djinn, a type of mystical creature, all around them. Set almost entirely in their apartment, this claustrophobic film will have you on edge.
By Watch It Now
Ouija: Origin of Evil
Photo Credit: Blumhouse Productions
Mike Flanagan’s prequel to 2014’s Ouija travels back to the 1960s, as a widow contacts a spirit that she believes is her husband. Of course, the spirit is not her husband. The rare case of a sequel (or prequel, to be more precise) outshining its original, Ouija: Origin of Evil is not to be missed.
By Watch It Now
The Wailing
Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox
A policeman must investigate a number of unexplainable illnesses and murders in South Korea in this foreign horror. When his daughter comes down with the illness, the stakes go way, way up. This film is horrifying in the most visceral way and has pleased audiences around the world.
By Watch It Now
The Neon Demon
Photo Credit: Space Rocket Nation
The Neon Demon is not quite as lofty or intelligent as it thinks it is, but its cast, beautiful visuals, and terrifying gore make it worth the watch anyway. Following a model (Elle Fanning) as she discovers the grotesque reality of modeling, Nicolas Winding Refn’s movie is gorgeous and gore-filled.
By Watch It Now |
Imagine walking into the kitchen of your home and seeing a somewhat large snake descending from your spice cabinet into the carefully arranged basket of eggs on your kitchen counter. What would you do?
This is exactly what happened to Laura Neff of Charlotte, N.C. And Neff and her husband, to the eternal gratefulness of the Internet and her determined snake visitor, took some video proof of the whole thing, and then let the non-venomous snake finish eating the egg.
(Warning: The video has some language, because of course it does.)
Laura Neff of Charlotte, N.C., and her husband captured a non-venomous rat snake bobbing for eggs from a basket on their kitchen counter. (Storyful)
"We were in our living room, when we heard a loud 'bang!' from the kitchen," Neff said in an e-mail to The Washington Post. "We have an open floor plan, so as I walked from the living room through the dining room toward the kitchen, I noticed a cinnamon jar on the floor. That caused my gaze to go up to the spice cabinet, which is when I was VERY shocked to see the [four-foot] black rat snake descending toward the basket of eggs!"
"It was very graceful, actually," she said. "We knew immediately that it was non-venomous and a 'safe' snake, so we weren't concerned for our wellbeing physically," Neff said, "which helped a great deal in being able to watch it, be in a bit of awe and curiosity."
A rat snake is a species of harmless, albeit startlingly large, black snake that is common to many regions of North Carolina. Rat snakes constrict their prey, and are "beneficial due to their penchant for eating rodents and (OUTSIDE) eggs," Neff wrote in the YouTube description of her video. She added that the snake could also be a black racer, another non-venomous snake common to the area that looks very similar to a rat snake.
Fun fact: Rat snakes are also very abundant in other states. Like Maryland. That's where one unfortunate family of humans found a nest of at least eight living in the home they recently purchased.
Neff believes that the snake came in through a hole in their laundry room, "which is now covered by a VERY heavy concrete block and which will soon be permanently plugged," Neff wrote.
After it ate -- a process that took about four or five minutes -- the snake "descended all the way onto the counter," Neff told The Post. "I guess it was looking for a dark corner to curl up in and digest, because it kept trying to go behind our refrigerator."
Neff and her husband Robert decided to stop the snake from crawling there, out of their reach.
"My husband (Robert) had grabbed our brooms, so armed with one each, we kept gently but firmly encouraging it away from the fridge," Neff said. "I had no idea what we were going to do with it, unless it went down to the floor and (if we could keep our cool enough) we got it out the door."
At that point, Neff said, her husband suggested sending the snake out a nearby window instead. "Since the snake was being very gentle, slow and non-aggressive," Neff said, "we felt comfortable opening the window and slowly removing all the knick knacks and counter items away from the sill, and eventually were able to get its bulk on top of our brooms enough to heft it out the window and outside."
[This post has been updated.]
Read More:
Scientists think they know why snakes get two penises and people only get one
Ancient snakes had tiny little hind legs and hunted alongside dinosaurs
A virgin birth has been confirmed in a reticulated python — a first for the species |
With spring training under way, position battles become a big part of baseball's preseason and it appears one veteran outfielder is receiving interest from a team with uncertainty in left field.
The Toronto Blue Jays have been linked to free agent Angel Pagan in recent days, according to Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com.
Chisholm notes, however, that competition in the outfield could deter the club from seriously pursuing Pagan and that a fit would be tricky. The Washington Nationals have also recently shown interest.
As things currently stand, the Blue Jays have a few players battling for the starting left-field job, a group that includes Melvin Upton Jr., Ezequiel Carerra, and Dalton Pompey. Newcomer Steve Pearce is also an option at the corner outfield spot but due to Justin Smoak's early struggles and inconsistency at the plate, he seems destined for an expanded role at first base.
Of the three outfielders mentioned, all of them come with risk. Upton enters his first spring training with the team but is known for his struggles against right-handed pitching. Carerra is likely best served as a bench player, while Pompey has yet to prove his worth at the major-league level and can be sent to minors.
Pagan has experience playing in left field with 202 games at the position throughout his career. The 35-year-old is also a capable switch hitter combining to .286/.339/.412 versus right-handers and .267/.311/.398 against lefties. He hit .277/.331/.418 with a career-high 12 home runs last year with the San Francisco Giants, including 15 stolen bases. |
While it might be convenient to tweak one job to allow for working a second at the same time, delivering methamphetamine while out on the postal route is the kind of thing that gets you arrested. A Texas postal worker attempted that kind of illegal multi-tasking, police say, dropping off drugs while doing his mail rounds.
The 39-year-old veteran mailman is facing felony narcotics charges after state investigators and the Drug Enforcement Administration looked into his doings for the last 10 months, reports the Smoking Gun.
Law enforcement received tips that narcotics was being sold from the mailman’s home as well as from the USPS truck he drove on the job. Investigators say he was in his mailman uniform and driving his route in that vehicle, while they watched him delivering meth as part of their surveillance operations.
A raid on his home last week resulted in police seizing $17,000 worth of meth.
Mailman Charged With Distributing Methamphetamine While On His Texas Delivery Route [The Smoking Gun] |
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday night threatened to walk off Fox News’ Republican presidential debate stage if moderators asked what he deemed to be another “mean question.”
“The last four questions have been Rand, please attack Ted, Jeb, please attack Ted,” Cruz said in reference to his rivals, as the audience booed.
Moderator Chris Wallace cut in to say they were all participating in a “debate,” but Cruz interjected again.
“Gosh, if you guys ask one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage,” he said. “Chris, the most important determination any voter is going to make in this election is who is best prepared to be commander-in-chief.”
“I would suggest let’s stay focused on those issues rather than just attacks directed at each other,” he added.
The back-and-forth began when Wallace refused to allow Cruz to respond to a question directed at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) about whether Cruz or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) were “ready to be commander-in-chief.”
Though Christie’s response focused exclusively on Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and avoided attacking his fellow Republican candidates, Cruz pushed for a chance to respond because he was “mentioned in that question.”
Cruz and Wallace talked over each other for a few moments before Wallace cut him off and directed a question at Jeb Bush.
Rubio received a huge round of applause minutes later for saying, “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving the stage no matter what you ask me.”
Watch below: |
Tribunal had ruled in favour of the occupants but owner takes case to court, arguing that a five-day stay amounts to sub-letting
A landlord who attempted to evict tenants for listing their rental property on Airbnb has taken the case to court, arguing that a five-day stay in the apartment in Melbourne amounted to sub-letting.
Barbara Uecker and Michael Greaves signed a 12-month lease for the two-bedroom apartment in the bayside suburb of St Kilda in August 2015 and later listed it on Airbnb in two advertisements: one offering just the spare room, and one the whole flat.
They refused to leave when their landlord, Catherine Swan, attempted to evict them in January. Swan referred the matter to a state tribunal, arguing that the pair had violated the conditions of their lease by unlawfully subletting the property.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, in a decision handed down in March, found in favour of the tenants, ruling that the Airbnb guests could not be said to have exclusive possession of the property and therefore the legal agreement entered into by tenants and guests was a licence, not a lease.
Modern tribes: the Airbnb host Read more
Swan appealed against the decision in the Victorian supreme court, and on Thursday her counsel, Jason Pizer QC, argued that the tribunal had “failed to do its job properly”.
The legal debate centred on three occasions when Airbnb guests paid for use of the whole flat in Fitzroy Street, when Uecker and Greaves were away. The longest of those stays was five days.
The other arrangement of having guests in the spare bedroom while the tenants remained in the flat was not an issue.
Pizer said the tribunal had inferred that the Airbnb guests did not have exclusive possession of the flat for the duration of their stay because of a clause in the Airbnb agreement that said the host could kick them out if they overstayed their visit, and because it remained the tenants’ principal place of residence.
It then found that because they did not have exclusive possession, and because the Airbnb agreement referred to itself as a “licence”, the arrangement should be legally characterised as a licence and not a lease and was therefore not in violation of the subletting clause in the original property lease.
But Pizer said the factors considered by the tribunal did not amount to exclusive possession, and that the tribunal “either identified the wrong legal test for exclusive possession or applied the right test wrongly”.
Warren Smith, the counsel for Uecker and Greaves, said the expectation of Airbnb users was that it would operate like a hotel booking, not a sublet, so it should be legally characterised as a licence and not a lease.
Judge Clyde Croft played down the significance of the case in a statement directed at the media, and said the case would not determine whether Airbnb was legal or illegal in Victoria.
Airbnb: from homesharing cool to commercial giant Read more
But it was likely to determine whether landlords took action against tenants for listing their home on the website.
Croft was expected to hand down his decision next week.
The Victorian government has promised to introduce a new three-strikes rule to crack down on landlords letting their properties for short-term stays on Airbnb, which the state’s consumer affairs minister, Jane Garrett, said was creating “perpetual party apartments”.
But the proposed regulation does not go into arrangements between landlords and tenants, when the tenant is the one offering the property on Airbnb.
Michael Buxton, from RMIT university in Melbourne, said social problems caused by short-stay guests in residential apartment buildings was a bigger concern than subletting arrangements, but said both should be addressed through better regulation.
Genadi Kazakevitch, an economist at Monash University, likened the legal protests against disruptive services such as Airbnb and Uber to ordering a man with a red flag to walk in front of early automobiles.
“Any new thing should cause concern, it should cause people to protest – just think of the automobile,” he said. “That is the response to disruptive technologies.”
• UK landlords clamp down on the rise of subletting without approval |
Portland, OR —
This afternoon, Chief Judge Ann Aiken of the United States District Court for the State of Oregon handed down a ruling that dismissed entirely oil industry groups' attempts to overturn Oregon’s Clean Fuels Standard.
With the fundamental goal of the Clean Fuels law in mind—“the purpose of the Oregon Program is to reduce GHG emissions”—the court recognized that the law would help Oregon move towards cleaner, more innovative fuels: “On its face, the Oregon Program rewards all investment in innovative fuel production, irrespective of where that innovation occurs.”
Oregon's Clean Fuels Standard reduces pollution from gas and diesel and opens the state’s fuel market to cleaner fuel options made by innovators both inside and out of Oregon. The law requires oil companies to gradually reduce carbon pollution from their gasoline and diesel fuel by 10% over ten years. Oil companies have the option to either blend lower-carbon biofuels or invest directly in electric vehicles, biogas and other clean fuels.
“Over the last year we’ve seen that oil companies will stop at nothing to take away our clean air law in order to benefit their bottom line,” said Andrea Durbin, Executive Director of Oregon Environmental Council, which intervened as a defendant in the case. “The decision today shows that we can do things the Oregon way: reward innovation, protect our clean air and communities and provide drivers with more choices in how they fuel up. Oregon’s laws will not be held hostage.”
The oil industry had argued that the clean fuels program discriminated against out-of-state fuels and violated the U.S. Constitution. The court rejected all of these claims both because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the same industry groups when they made similar challenges to California’s clean fuels standard and because the Oregon program regulates fuels for legitimate reasons based on their climate impacts.
The state of Oregon, joined by Oregon Environmental Council, Climate Solutions and other conservation groups and the states of California and Washington, moved to dismiss the case at the outset because it lacked merit and the district judge agreed.
The court found that “the Oregon Program is not facially discriminatory because it distinguishes among fuels based on lifecycle GHG emissions, not origin or destination” and “Petroleum's higher carbon intensity values exist for a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason,” namely its climate-changing pollution.
Patti Goldman, a managing attorney with Earthjustice who represented the Oregon conservation groups in the case, applauded the result: “Our constitutional system encourages states to take actions to protect their people against health and environmental threats like climate change. The industry is trying to prevent such measures and perpetuate their market share in dirty fuels.”
“Carbon pollution is changing our climate and contributing to more frequent and fiercer forest fires, drought and ocean acidification," said Kristen Sheeran, Climate Solutions’ Oregon Director. "We need to accelerate solutions and this decision means Oregon can keep leading in transitioning from the fossil fuel economy.”
The court declined to hear oral arguments in the case.
Read the legal decision. |
All major global sports events have a distinct look and feel, especially ones that happen only once every four years and travel to a new host country. This is particularly true for the UEFA European Football Championship (EURO 2016), which kicks off on ESPN and ESPN Deportes this Friday (2:30 p.m. ET, France vs Romania).
The month-long tournament (June 10-July 10) will be played in France and will feature 24 of the top 45 national teams in the world. ESPN’s presentation of EURO 2016 will appropriately reflect the host nation – just as ESPN’s 2014 FIFA World Cup coverage represented the look and feel of host country Brazil.
Art Director Tim O’Shaughnessy of ESPN Creative Services discusses the distinctly France-themed creative that his team has prepared for this premier global soccer event.
How long has your team been preparing for this event?
We started the soft planning around Thanksgiving but hit the project with full force right after the College Football National Championship game in January.
How did you create ESPN’s EURO 2016 logo (seen at right, in center)?
Our logo is a three-part callback to the host nation of France. First, we have the Eiffel Tower in negative space tucked into the logo. Secondly, we constructed the Louvre in 3D and put it on the back of the logo. Lastly, the outlining hexagon of our logo is the shape of the French National squad’s crest. That last part is the subtle Easter egg that only true fans will recognize. We also reinforce the hexagon throughout the package.
What else is your group responsible for?
Our job is to design/concept/create everything that you see on air which isn’t a camera feed of our programming or from the UEFA game feed — essentially to design every on-air graphic, animation, country flag animation, team crest design, matchup animation, map, open and logo system that makes up the skeleton of a show. It’s a tall order.
What were your key goals?
We defined our goal as “to make each frame something the viewer would want to rip off of their TV and hang on their wall.” We chose to leverage location and play off specific design crutches that define the aesthetic of the look. Those being: pencil sketch (old street art), glass and refraction (the Louvre), mechanization (French Industrial Revolution), cartography and dimensional paint.
What was the most challenging aspect?
Redefining our brand and breaking away from our previously established look required new thinking. Designing for countries is a rare luxury and we challenged ourselves to be adventurous. But the real test was to create work we’ve never seen before while still having a place within the sports design landscape. |
Almost 30 years after she first entered Downing Street, Professor Richard Vinen considers whether Margaret Thatcher was responsible for the political ideology that carries her name. Conservative grandees, and members of the British establishment in general, were sniffy about Margaret Thatcher. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. When she became leader of her party in 1975, many of them declared that she would never last. Fifteen years later, when she had won three elections and survived as prime minister for over a decade, they often suggested that the serious thinking behind her policies had been done by other people. Nigel Lawson, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989, believed that he himself was the first Conservative to use the term Thatcherism, adding that this was not "whatever Margaret Thatcher herself at any time did or said". Riddled with contradictions Many supported Thatcher's aim of reducing the power of trade unions In one sense, no one was a Thatcherite, because Thatcherism was never a unified idea. A general belief in promoting free markets and in reducing the power of the trade unions pervaded Thatcher's whole period in office, but these beliefs could be found across the whole Conservative party and beyond it - many members of the Social Democratic Party supported Thatcher's trade union laws. On other issues there was inconsistency and division even among Thatcher's closest supporters. As Chancellor of the Exchequer during her first government, Geoffrey Howe was a hardcore Thatcherite in terms of economic policy. But he disliked the views on immigration that helped Thatcher win the 1979 election and he hated the views on Europe that she, and many others who defined themselves as Thatcherites, came to express in the late 1980s. Enemies at home If Thatcherism is so riddled with contradictions, why use the term at all? What made the governments of the 1980s so special? Part of the answer lies with Thatcher's enemies. The term Thatcherism was first used, in a systematic way, by the journal Marxism Today. Thatcherism was as much an attitude as a political stance The sharp turn of the Labour party to the left in the early 1980s helped to create a sense of polarization in British politics that made Thatcherism seem more dramatic. And the use of "monetarism" as a term of abuse made the Tories seem more ideologically coherent than they really were. Even Thatcher's enemies in the Conservative party (Sir Ian Gilmour and Sir Edward Heath) helped. Their attacks on Thatcherism made it seem novel and exciting. Thatcher's associates came to revel in the sense of themselves as a brave minority implementing radical policies. In many ways this adversity defined Thatcherism. This was especially true of the deep economic recession of the early 1980s. The government did not expect or want a downturn, but in an odd way it served their purposes. It lent drama to their first few years in office and it conveyed a sense of purpose. To paraphrase Lady Bracknell: one million unemployed may be misfortune; three million unemployed looks like a policy. Personality politics So what did Thatcher bring to the mix? Partly, she brought practical politics. She had precisely the quality that her opponents accused her of lacking: pragmatism. She knew how to compromise, wait and balance different interests. Despite her image, many of Thatcher's policies were highly pragmatic However, Thatcher's relative caution in terms of what she did went with a remarkable ability to gain electoral advantage through the radicalism of what she said, or sometimes even just through the tone in which she said it. Much of Thatcherism consisted in a certain moral mood music rather than in specific policy commitments. The restoration of hanging, for example, was important to Thatcher's personal image but there was never the faintest chance that the House of Commons would vote to bring it back. By stressing tone rather than policies (or by focusing on policies that no one really expected to see implemented) Thatcher was often able to make herself look like a radical opponent of her own government. The end Eventually tone let her down. Thatcher's combative manner became a hindrance after the big battles of the 1980s had been won. Thatcher herself came to be seen as an electoral liability. Tory canvassers got so used to hearing the words "that bloody woman" that they coined the acronym TBW - until an unkind interviewer enlightened her Thatcher thought that it was a television station. Europe was also important because it undermined the gulf between tone and policy that had previously marked Thatcher's approach. From the late 1980s onwards, she was talking tough on an issue that had conspicuous policy implications. Enoch Powell is an interesting figure in all of this. Some Conservatives liked to imply that it was he who, by defending free-market economics in the 1960s, had really "invented Thatcherism". Right-wing firebrand Enoch Powell could be seen as the first Thatcherite Powell was, unlike Thatcher, an intellectual purist. She once told him that "in strict academic logic, the Right Honourable Gentleman is right. In everything else he is wrong". Powell had left the Conservative party in 1974 but increasingly supported Thatcher after her Bruges speech on Europe in 1988 and in 1990 he wrote to Norman Tebbit, the effective manager of Thatcher's campaign to remain Tory leader, offering to rejoin the party if this would help her chances. Worldly Tories must have realized that Powell's support was a sure sign that Thatcher was finished. Professor Richard Vinen is the author of Thatcher's Britain: The Politics and Social Upheaval of the Thatcher Era
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Report recommends eliminating birdshot as prisoner-control tool
A study recommends state prison system employees stop firing birdshot into the ground during inmate fights and other disturbances.
A report by the Association of State Correctional Administrators on use of force in the prison system also suggests a number of other steps, such as more training for officers and clarifying some regulations.
E.K. McDaniel, interim director of the state Corrections Department, said he agrees with some of the recommendations; that some of the findings are wrong; and that he disagrees with some of the proposals in the 22-page report, released Tuesday.
The prison has instituted an interim measure of using rubber bullets to break up disturbances, McDaniel said.
Officers fire birdshot from shotguns in prison towers, and it can hit inmates not involved in the disturbances, the report found.
“Within the last year, one inmate died in a shooting incident; and in another incident, an uninvolved inmate was blinded as a result of birdshot wounds,” it states. Over the past three years, three staff members and several other inmates who were not involved in fighting were hit, the report found.
It also states that blank shots and birdshots were fired 208 times at state’s the six prisons from 2012 to 2014. It showed 70 percent of the firings were at High Desert State Prison near Las Vegas, where most of the disturbances occur.
All staff members who have contact with inmates should be equipped with handcuffs, the report states. Handcuffs are given to every officer, McDaniel countered.
When inmates fight, officers first deliver a verbal warning, McDaniel said, adding that if that doesn’t work, a blank round is fired. Then a rubber bullet is skipped into the ground. Another verbal warning is issued. If that doesn’t work, birdshot is skipped into the ground near the fighting inmates.
The rubber-bullets strategy began four months ago at some prisons, and McDaniel called it a “good stop measure” to quell disturbances. But it’s too early to tell whether it is fully effective, he said.
The 2015 Legislature approved hiring 100 officers in the next two years to fill in for employees who are sick or absent for other reasons.
Some of the recommendations will be included in policy changes delivered to the Board of State Prison Commissioners at its mid-December meeting, McDaniel said. |
While President Donald Trump opted not to fill out an NCAA tournament bracket, his predecessor, Barack Obama, revealed his picks for both tournaments — men’s and women’s — on Wednesday.
It’s no secret that President Obama is a huge basketball fan. He filled out a bracket with ESPN throughout his two terms in the oval office. This year, in the picks published on his foundation’s website, Obama picked rivals Duke and North Carolina to reach the final with the Tar Heels prevailing.
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Obama didn’t pick too many upsets in his men’s bracket. His biggest upset is Bucknell, the West Region’s No. 13 seed, knocking off No. 4 seed West Virginia. He also has Cincinnati moving past UCLA in the Round of 32 and into the Sweet 16 and Big Ten tournament champions Michigan, the No. 7 seed in the Midwest, advancing all the way to the Elite Eight.
In the women’s bracket, Obama is rolling with UConn, which is once again the overwhelming favorite. Geno Auriemma’s team has won it all four years in a row and are a perfect 32-0 heading into the tourney.
Obama has UConn beating Washington in the Final Four before taking care of Notre Dame in the final.
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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
More on Yahoo Sports:
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• Pat Forde: Missouri, Cuonzo Martin take big gamble on each other
• Dan Wetzel: Coaching lifer finds a home at Florida Gulf Coast |
OAKLAND (CBS SF) — There were the obvious story lines heading in the Oakland Raiders NFL regular season-opener against the Tennessee Titans.
There was the return of quarterback Derek Carr from last year’s season-ending broken leg. If that wasn’t enough, you had Oakland native Marshawn Lynch playing his first game for his hometown team after coming out of retirement.
But on Sunday, the obvious gave way to the unexpected.
A practice-squad journeyman kicker by the name of Giorgio Tavecchio, who grew up in the East Bay and played at Cal, was quickly added to the roster when 18-year veteran Sebastian Janikowski was placed on injured reserve with a bad back.
It would seemed to have been an area of concern for head coach Jack Del Rio heading into the game. But Tavecchio booted those doubts away by hitting on a pair of 52-yard field goals and two others of 20 and 43 yards.
“An outstanding performance by our kicker Giorgio,” Del Rio said. “That was pretty special … I’m proud of him.”
For Tavecchio part, the last week has been a dream come true after struggling to make an NFL roster for several seasons.
“What a last week it has been,” he told KPIX 5. “After the highs and the lows. You dream about these moments and then they come true. You feel like all is lost and then God just kind of works it out and gives you the opportunity. You prepare all those years for the opportunity. I’m just so grateful I got to be a part of it.”
Tavecchio admitted he did not sleep much Saturday night.
“There was no waking up this morning,” he said. “There was no sleep last night.”
Tavecchio said there were butterflies in his stomach when he kicked the first 52-yarder and they never went away.
“I’d rather not say — there are some Italian cuss words aren’t good for the TV,” he said of what was racing through his mind. “You just try to focus on your breathing, stay relaxed and be in the moment.”
“I wanted to stay in the moment and embrace it this weekend. Embrace the butterflies. It is a special moment.” |
Legalise Cannabis in Cyprus for medicinal,industrial,personal use. SAVE THE ISLAND FROM ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
Legaliseit C. started this petition to President Nikos Anastasiadis started this petition to
The island of Cyprus is undergoing a heavy economic austerity measure regime imposed by the IMF .The people of the island are suffering.
Cannabis/Hemp can be a life savior for the economy and the best and fastest solution to total economic recovery. If the experiment of these measures works in cyprus ,they could be imposed worldwide. If they fail,and cannabis can be a catalyst to that, then the implications would have a worldwide wave effect similar to the ones caused by the islands economic collapse .
After todays 29/4/13 anouncements by the president office, any petition with 10,000 votes will become a matter to be put thought the goverment for consideration and decision. A call almost for creative ideas supported by more than 10,000 to help the economic situation.
We know that the island of cyprus has the perfect climate to grow and export the best quality cannabis and hemp products for medicinal,industrial and personal use, to europe and the rest of the world. Due to its geographical position, the island has been a hot spot for trade for centuries
There is also great economic potential through increased tourism too and that would surpass any other income stream that could save the collapsed economy.
There is also great potential for medicinal research that would benefit the humankind, in areas proven that cannabis has great medicinal properties, which now remain marginalised such as cancer research.
We are a group of people, with varied backrounds and social standings ,who wish to see a change on the cannabis laws in cyprus to allow the island to recover from the economic collapse and also ensure a long term sustainable future based on local products and insustrial,medician raw materials.
We hope this example could send waves of change that would sound the signal for change worldwide. |
For three weeks every month, Ray Archuleta captivates audiences with a few handfuls of soil. He begins with two clumps, dropping them into water. The soil from a farm where the soil isn’t tilled holds together, while the tilled soil immediately disperses, indicating poor soil structure. Next, volunteers from the audience — mostly farmers and ranchers — pour water over a soil that grew a variety of crops, and it runs right through. A sample of tilled soil that grew only corn is like a brick, and the water sits on top. Water is the most precious resource for growing crops, and having a soil that is unable to absorb water is crippling for farmers.
The implications of Archuleta’s demonstrations are obvious to food producers, who see the fate of their acres in those clumps of soil. The message is powerful, and producers drive home knowing that soil is alive, that it can be sick or healthy, and that healthy soil can do some pretty amazing things — like make a farm more resilient to drought, sequester enormous amounts of carbon, reduce erosion and support an ecosystem that’s teeming with life.
Archuleta, a conservation agronomist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, popularized these soil health demonstrations that by his estimates have reached more than 100,000 farmers and ranchers in the U.S. alone. He’s a pioneer of a movement that has recently stolen the spotlight from conventional agriculture.
The possibility of a win-win for farmers and the environment is a driving force for the movement.Known as the soil health movement, it is a management philosophy centered around four simple principles: reduce or eliminate tillage, keep plant residues on the soil surface, keep living roots in the ground, and maximize diversity of plants and animals. Some immensely successful farmers have ascended to celebrity status in the agricultural community preaching these principles. They are growing more food while drastically reducing their use of inputs like herbicides and fertilizers, which is the ultimate strategy for becoming more profitable. Benefits on top of profitability include enhancing the health of ecosystems we depend on. The possibility of a win-win for farmers and the environment is a driving force for the movement.
“This whole movement emerged out of desperation,” says Archuleta. Over 10 years ago, he thought of a farmer friend of his and wondered, “Why can’t he make a good living on 600 acres of prime irrigated ground, and why can’t he bring his son into the operation? It starts dawning on me that something is wrong with modern agriculture.”
In many ways, that “something” is that farming has become too expensive. Over the past several decades, farmers have increasingly paid more for inputs like equipment, seeds and chemicals, while commodity prices have remained stagnant or even fallen. Sociologists call this phenomenon the “double squeeze,” as the rising cost of doing business, combined with meager returns, has put pressure on profits. Combined with soils that are deteriorating from centuries of tillage and monoculture, these trends exacerbate the vulnerability of a profession that is already fraught with uncertainty. For farmers, the blend of poor soil and the double squeeze makes it harder to survive an extended drought or bounce back after a few failed crops. On a larger scale, it threatens rural economies, natural resources and food security alike.
But in 2011, Archuleta saw an opportunity to reverse these trends. Jason Weller, then the NRCS chief of staff, had assembled Archuleta and a group of other NRCS employees from around the country in Greensboro, North Carolina to create a plan for the federal agency to engage in the broader sustainable food movement. The soil health movement had been bubbling around the country for two decades. The Greensboro team, and ultimately the NRCS leadership, decided the time was right to scale it up into a coordinated, national effort to advance soil health.
Birth of a Movement
We don’t know who first uttered the term “soil health” in the U.S., but Jay Fuhrer started saying it in the 1990s. As a district conservationist with NRCS in Bismarck, Fuhrer was dismayed by the declining status of the soil in his region. He used to spend his summers building sod waterways on farms in North Dakota.
“We had all this erosion, and we were trying to establish a safe outlet for water coming off a field,” says Fuhrer. “But the question begs, why is the water coming off the field?”
The answer is what Archeluta demonstrates in his presentations today: Degraded soil has a hard time absorbing water. That means much of the water a farmer needs to grow crops runs off and eventually pollutes streams and rivers, taking precious topsoil with it.
“So we got together one day and we kinda looked at each other,” Fuhrer says, recalling a meeting at the field office in the early 1990s. “We asked, ‘how much further can we bring this system down?’ It got pretty quiet in that room. Honestly at that time, we didn’t really know what changes we were going to make, we just knew that what we were doing wasn’t working.”
So Fuhrer and the other NRCS conservationists in Bismarck dubbed themselves the “Soil Health Team.” Fuhrer doesn’t recall why the term “soil health” popped into his head, or where he heard it for the first time, but the team began to educate itself about ways to restore and maintain soil function. They read academic papers and learned from successful producers in the region, and then they brought what they learned to other farmers and ranchers in North Dakota through workshops and farm tours.
Ray Archuleta knew something special was happening in North Dakota. He heard about Gabe Brown, a farmer and rancher, turning his operation around after a few years of failed crops by eliminating tillage, growing diverse mixes of crops and changing how he grazed his cattle to more closely mimic the way bison once grazed the prairie. And he almost completely eliminated his chemical inputs, helping him to become more profitable.
Archuleta watched Fuhrer and Brown start to redefine agriculture in North Dakota. And when they popped into his mind years later in Greensboro, North Carolina, what had been an undercurrent suddenly took a turn toward the mainstream.
Critical Moment
Today, government agencies, food and agribusinesses, universities, and environmental groups are all pivoting to support and capitalize on the possibility of a paradigm shift in agriculture, and they are investing millions of dollars in the process. With thousands of farmers already on board, powerful partnerships have taken on the challenge of filling knowledge gaps in the science and economics of soil health that prevent other producers from taking the plunge. USDA announced a US$72.3 million soil health investment to help farmers adapt to and mitigate climate change. A pledge of US$4 million from the Midwest Row Crop Collaborative, founded by Cargill, the Environmental Defense Fund, General Mills, Kellogg Company, Monsanto, PepsiCo, The Nature Conservancy, Walmart and the World Wildlife Fund, will augment an on-farm study and demonstration effort of soil health practices led by the farmer-led Soil Health Partnership. And the Walton Family Foundation provided a US$626,000 grant to the Soil Health Institute to quantify the economic implications of soil health management systems. Money is coming from all sides to support this movement.
One of the most unexpected outcomes of the soil health movement is that groups that were once fighting each other are now working together to achieve the same goal. One of the most unexpected outcomes of the soil health movement is that groups that were once fighting each other are now working together to achieve the same goal. In the fall of 2013, for example, representatives from Monsanto and the Rodale Institute (“the organic pioneers”), came together with the Walton Family Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, Cornell University, farmers, federal agencies and numerous other stakeholders to draft a strategic plan for advancing soil health as the cornerstone of land use management decisions. This meeting, led by the Farm Foundation and the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, has helped spawn numerous initiatives, like the Soil Health Institute, with the goal of leveraging these powerful relationships to research and spread soil health.
What is the secret of soil health that enables such diverse groups to unite under the same banner?
There has been little analysis of soil health as a movement, but one possible reason for its success is that it nestled right in the middle of a Venn diagram of two ideologies that are so often at odds. To productivists driven by the “feed the world” mentality of agribusiness and yield-maximizing producers, soil health means bigger and healthier plants and animals. But it also jibes with environmentalists’ goals of improving water quality, sequestering more carbon, using less pesticide and herbicide, and providing greater habitat for biodiversity. At least for the moment, it truly seems to be a win-win.
Beyond that, however, the answer — one that can be instructive to other environmental issues — seems to lie in crafting and delivering a message that can be championed by all sides.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the push by NRCS and the research community was to advance “soil quality.” This term worked fine for scientists, because it is easy to define and measure, but farmers didn’t connect with soil quality.
“Health denotes life and function. Quality is like the quality of a couch or something,” says Archuleta. “Farmers intuitively grasp soil health.” That minor turn of phrase made all the difference.
Similarly, soil health is aligned with many of the concepts of agroecology, but agroecology is not a staple of the American farmer’s lexicon. The soil health terminology made it possible for agroecological farming practices to emerge in mainstream American agriculture.
The success of soil health can also be attributed to the way the message is delivered. Demonstrations and conferences are the core infrastructure of the movement. High-profile farmers and ranchers speak and write to thousands of producers around the country every year, sharing stories of how soil health has revolutionized their operations. Inspired by these talks, demonstrations and articles in farming magazines, producers experiment with soil health practices on their own farms. Pockets of formal or informal regional producer networks have popped up all around the country, and they exchange what they’ve learned through experimentation. The movement has taken on a life of its own.
With momentum now spilling into countries around the world, global attention to soil is at an all-time high. The United Nations designated 2015 the International Year of Soils. The race is on to understand soil in all of its complexity and to engage in agriculture that will prepare soil for the tough times ahead. Still in its infancy, the soil health movement will take continued effort and resources from all sides to maintain momentum. But everyone is at the table together, and the table is set for a revolution.
Editor’s note: Steven Rosenzweig produced this feature as a participant in the Ensia Mentor Program. His mentor for the project was Hillary Rosner. |
Uncertainty is killing the global financial markets, but certainty could be even worse
The biggest obstacle standing in the way of the global economic recovery is Europe. Its sovereign debt problems continue to worsen, with Greece slowly inching closer to the edge of the cliff. With each day that passes, its default looks more and more certain. If Greece's fate is essentially determined, then what is Europe waiting for? Why not just allow Greece to default immediately so that banks can take their losses and everyone can move on? While that might provide some certainty to markets, it would mark the beginning -- not the end -- of the crisis.
An Analogy: The U.S. Financial Crisis
In some ways, Europe's situation is comparable to the U.S. banking industry's crisis back in 2008. Just as banks were experiencing serious problems and nearing default, so are several European nations. And just like a few particularly toxic banks threatened to take down the entire industry with them, a few struggling nations could take down the entire European Union.
Like during the financial crisis, contagion is a serious problem. While a handful of big U.S. banks had exposure to toxic mortgage securities that rendered them insolvent (losses would overwhelm their assets), most were experiencing liquidity problems (they merely couldn't roll over their short-term funding). In Europe, solvency could be a problem with Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. But others like Italy and Spain will likely only fail if the fallout from those others triggers their collapse. |
Time to move on. That is the explanation Tony Fadell, a former star executive at Apple known for his aggressive management style, offers for his departure from Nest, a maker of digital versions of household staples like thermostats and smoke detectors that he helped found and sold to Google.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced on Friday that Mr. Fadell was leaving Nest after leading it for six years, including the last two under the ownership of Google, which bought it for $3.2 billion in 2014. His departure comes after months of controversy regarding his leadership.
Mr. Fadell, the company said, will become an adviser to Alphabet and to its chief executive, Larry Page.
In a recent interview in his Palo Alto office, Mr. Fadell, 47, talked about his career. At Apple, he led the engineering team that created the iPod digital music player and worked on the first three versions of the iPhone. In 2010 he founded Nest with Matt Rogers, a young Apple engineer. |
The call comes as President Rodrigo Duterte announces that he plans to set up an independent body to investigate corruption in the Office of the Ombudsman
Published 5:50 PM, October 01, 2017
MANILA, Philippines – A coalition opposing the "abusive" policies of President Rodrigo Duterte called for support for the Office of the Ombudsman, after the President announced he will set up an independent body to probe its alleged corrupt practices.
"Unlike the President who has repeatedly displayed his utter lack of understanding of our Constitution, the Ombudsman understands its role – to safeguard our people from the excesses and abuses of those in power, without fear or favor," Tindig Pilipinas said in a statement on Sunday, October 1.
"He fails to understand that nowhere in our Constitution is the President given the power to investigate the Ombudsman. There are constitutional limits to petty and boorish behavior," added the coalition composed of opposition politicians and several civil society organizations.
Tindig Pilipinas said the public should support the "growing number of institutions and public officials who are beginning to regain their voice."
The coalition also reminded the President that institutions were established to serve the people and not one's "whims."
Also expressing support for Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales was feminist social media movement #EveryWoman, composed of activists and politicians, who slammed Duterte's "toxic machismo."
"Obviously the President needs to be taught the real meaning of courage and integrity. Courage isn't shouting at the top of your lungs and threatening anyone who gets in your way. Integrity is not about silencing people so that your shenanigans can stay hidden and you can strut around like some emperor," the group said.
"Courage is to do your constitutional duty at whatever cost. Integrity is to be transparent in all your dealings because you are accountable and have nothing to hide."
#EveryWoman lauded Morales for being one of the women who wield power with "courage and integrity."
Duterte on Friday, September 29, said in a PTV interview that he will seek subpoena powers from the court to investigate the Ombudsman through an "independent" commission.
This came after the Ombudsman said last week that it was looking into the President's bank accounts due to alleged undeclared wealth.
The Ombudsman launched its probe following the plunder complaint filed by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV against Duterte a few days ahead of the May 2016 elections.
Duterte said on Sunday that he will not cooperate with the Ombudsman's probe. (READ: Duterte to Morales, Sereno: Let's resign, let AFP probe us) – Rappler.com |
Daytona Speedweeks proved to be one of the costliest ever for NASCAR team owners in the Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series.
More than 100 vehicles were damaged in wrecks during races at Daytona International Speedway, including 35 each in the Daytona 500 and the Xfinity race, based on NASCAR reports and information from Racing Insights.
Reasons vary on the cause of the pileups — from aggressive driving to inexperienced drivers to rule changes and the introduction of stages — but Speedweeks 2017 will go down as one of the most wreck-filled weeks in years.
Among the numbers:
There were 106 vehicles involved in accidents in the Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series races during Speedweeks. That includes the Clash and Duels.
There was a 29.2-percent increase in the number of vehicles involved in wrecks during Speedweeks from last year.
Only once in the last 10 years were more vehicles damaged during Speedweeks. There were 122 vehicles in accidents in 2012.
The 35 cars involved in crashes in the Daytona 500, according to Racing Insights, were more than the number of cars that wrecked in the past two Daytona 500s combined (29).
The 35 cars involved in wrecks in the Xfinity race was nearly more than the total for that event for the previous three years combined (38).
The 27 trucks that wrecked in that race were the most since 2012 when 30 trucks were involved in incidents.
One of the reasons for the chaos in the Daytona 500 is where the accidents started. Drivers say they want to be at the front to avoid crashes, but that wasn’t helpful this time.
Consider:
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was leading when Kyle Busch, trying to stay on the lead lap after a green-flag pit stop, had a tire issue and spun in front of Earnhardt. Six cars were collected.
Later, a 17-car crash started after Jimmie Johnson, running third, was hit from behind. Many had nowhere to go.
“That could have been avoided and it wasn’t called for,” Johnson said. “From the minute, I got off of Turn 2 on the entire back straightaway, I kept getting hit, and the rear tires are off the ground. I know there is a lot of energy behind me in the pack, but I didn’t have a chance.”
An 11-car crash started when Jamie McMurray hit the rear of Chase Elliott‘s car shortly after a restart as Elliott was running fourth.
But it wasn’t just the Cup drivers who had such issues.
Saturday’s Xfinity race featured a 20-car wreck that started when Tyler Reddick got hit from behind while running seventh.
A 12-car crash started when Brandon Jones was hit while running fifth after contact among two cars behind him.
“I thought everybody would still be somewhat smart and mindful of not tearing up your equipment early and let’s go after it with three to go,” Darrell Wallace Jr. said after he was eliminated by that accident. “But there are different mentalities out there and that’s what causes chaos.”
There was still more to go. A 16-car crash began when Elliott Sadler, running second, was hit from behind. In the Camping World Truck Series race, Matt Crafton was leading when he was hit in the right side by Ben Rhodes, who had been hit from behind. Crafton went airborne. Twelve trucks were in the accident.
So what caused all the crashes?
Many will blame the introduction of stages and the points that are awarded as a cause, but the only multi-car crash in the Daytona 500 that happened during the first two stages was when Busch’s tire let go.
The 17-car crash and 11-car crash happened after the completion of the second stage.
Daytona 500 winner Kurt Busch told NBC Sports that he thought the field would calm down after the completion of the second stage on Lap 120 since 80 laps remained.
That didn’t happen.
“Excuse my language but there was shit going everywhere,’’ Busch said. “Everyone was going every which way. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.’’
He wasn’t the only to notice the aggressive driving that took place in the 500.
Kevin Harvick, who was involved in the 17-car crash, wasn’t pleased with how some raced.
“We just got some cars up there that didn’t need to be up there and wound up doing more than their car could do,’’ he said.
The result was a Daytona 500 that matched the tenor of Speedweeks and left crews with mangled machines to take back to the race shop.
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Thank you for your support, we are nearly at the 25K stretch goal!
The past few days have been busy at Larkon Studio after meeting up with new designers who joined our team. Because of the growth of our team, we've been working on new graphics and artwork, as well as the Arch-Mage pack, and are going to publish new content and artwork on a regular basis.
This means that we'll be able to improve CivCraft's graphics and sound even at the 50K stretch goal!
Another good news is that we are going to give exclusive interviews to RPGWatch, OneAngryGamer and other gaming news outlets.
In the meanwhile, we've prepared a new summer environment for CivCraft
And, by the request of our backers, we've included the winter environment
As part of the living weapon integration, we've also added some new ancient weapon designs to CivCraft.
And once again, thank you for your support. You are the first followers of CivCraft, and your support help us grow.
Don't forget to join our ThunderClap campaign if you want to shout out about CivCraft. |
The New York Red Bulls U23s ended their two-match losing skid with a come from behind victory over the Lehigh Valley United Sonic. Playing in front of 300 spectators at the Whitehall High School Soccer Stadium in Whitehall, Pennsylvania, the Baby Bulls scored two goals in two minutes to clinch a 4-3 victory.
Ethan Decker (Red Bulls Academy/Louisville) opened the scoring in the 16th minute off an Alex Muyl (Red Bulls Academy/Georgetown) assist. Lehigh Valley tied the match up at 1-1 before Chris Lema (Red Bulls Academy/Georgetown) put the Baby Bulls up 2-1 going into the half.
Miguel Ross scored two goals for Lehigh Valley in the 60th and 71st minute to put the hosts up 3-2. However, Jared Stroud (PDA/Colgate) and Mael Corboz (Red Bulls Academy/Maryland) scored unassisted goals in the 75th and 77th minutes to put the U23s ahead for good.
Joe Ohaus (PDA/Duke) made 2 saves in the win. Lehigh Valley outshot the Baby Bulls, 14-12, and held a 10-2 advantage on corners.
The Red Bulls U23s are currently in first place in the Premier Development League's Mid Atlantic Division.
The Red Bulls U23s' next match is Sunday, June 14th against Reading United A.C. at 7:00 p.m. at the Red Bull Training Facility in Hanover, New Jersey. Reading are currently in second place in the Mid Atlantic Division.
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STARTING LINEUP: Joe Ohaus; Billy Stevens, Joe Farrell, Antonio Matarazzo, Kevin Politz;Joseph Swenson, Chris Lema, Mael Corboz; Ethan Decker, Alex Muyl, Jared Stroud
SUBSTITUTIONS: Sean Sheridan
UNUSED SUBSTITUTIONS: Brian White, Alex Tejera, Michael Lansing, Evan Louro |
Have you heard the word “sustainable” so often that sometimes you want to be unsustainable just to buck the trend? We can help. Simply implement the steps below and in no time your course will find it necessary to make golf more expensive and less profitable.
Bunkers
The most expensive words in the lexicon of bunker maintenance are “consistency” and “uniformity”. Bunkers are virtual money pits when maintained at the level many golfers have come to expect. To make your bunkers more costly to maintain, do the following:
1) Add more bunkers. When doing so, be sure the bunker faces are extremely steep (more shoveling of sand after rains), and the shape of the bunkers are wildly convoluted (more edging).
2) Rake bunkers on a daily basis. Be sure to rake every bunker whether it needs it or not.
3) Edge all bunkers manually instead of using herbicides.
4) Hand water bunkers to try to keep the moisture of the sand uniform (it can’t be done, but at least you can spend a lot of time and money trying).
Trees
1) Plant more trees. Every tree slows mowing, adds debris and needs trimming.
2) Hand trim around every tree on the course instead of using herbicides.
3) Plant trees near greens to inhibit light and air movement resulting in greater expense on fungicides.
Lakes and Stream Banks
1) Mow and hand trim as close to the water’s edge as possible. This also allows more fertilizer to be washed into the water resulting in more algae and aquatic weed growth, which, in turn, will require more money for aquatic herbicides and manual weed removal.
Ball washers
1) Be sure to have at least one ball washer on every hole. This addition will necessitate the constant cleaning and repair of items that are seldom used and can be effectively replaced by a damp towel carried by the golfer.
Filling fairway divots
1) Have the maintenance staff fill all fairway divots instead of asking golfers to do so.
2) Be sure to buy expensive green sand to increase further the cost of this step.
Blowing debris from fairways and roughs
1) Make sure to blow debrig on a daily basis to ensure golfers never have to learn and implement Rule 23 – Loose Impediments .
Have a multitude of mowing heights
1) Implement complex mowing patterns with as many different mowing heights as possible. Each requires different machinery that also adds to the cost of buying and maintaining equipment.
Walk-mow greens and tees
1) Avoid using labor efficient riding equipment whenever possible. “Surprisingly”, a triplex mower is about three times more efficient than a single cutting unit.
Ornamental flower beds
1) Add flowers everywhere. The constant weeding of the beds and replacement of annual flowers adds up quickly. The cost and labor can be increased further by creating elaborate patterns.
Irrigate non-play areas
1) Water as much of the golf course as possible – even those areas that seldom, if ever, come into play. Years of scientific research has proven that if you water grass it is likely to grow, which requires mowing, weeding, etc.
Overseed turf that would normally go dormant
1) Dormant turf is a wonderful playing surface, but no one likes brown grass. The solution is to overseed the dormant grass with turf that grows most of the winter. Another extensive scientific study revealed that green grass also is likely to grow so it will be necessary to mow all winter.
Make your natural areas unnatural
1) Be sure all “natural” areas are as unnatural looking as possible by using a large amount of labor to manually remove all plants except fescue.
Plant the wrong grasses for your area
1) Plant grasses that will be under stress for long periods of time in your climate. This guarantees huge expenses for water, fungicides, herbicides and, of course, the labor and cost of sod to periodically replace dead grass.
Edge the cart paths frequently
1) Nothing adds more to the playability of a golf course than a well-defined cart path edge – right? Edging cart paths with string trimmers is a great way to increase labor cost and consume labor hours that might otherwise be wasted on producing better putting greens.
Let your irrigation system get too old
1) Few things consume available labor hours like the constant repair of an antiquated irrigation system. In addition to the labor required to fix the system, there is the cost of parts and the replacement of turf damaged by poor irrigation system performance.
Use plenty of signs, stakes and ropes
1) Make liberal use of signs, stakes and ropes in the attempt to prevent carts from being driven too close to green and tee complexes. Courteous golfers don’t need them, and discourteous golfers ignore them, but at least you will significantly slow down mowing operations by forcing the staff to stop mowing to remove and reinstall the obstacles. The staff will surely appreciate the exercise they get by constantly getting on and off the mowers.
2) Bonus tip: to slow down fairway mowing install multiple yardage poles in the fairways for the last remaining golfer who has not purchased a digital measuring device.
These tips are not offered to criticize, but rather to offer advice to those courses that are struggling to remain economically viable. If nothing else, this list illustrates the importance of performing a time and labor analysis on every course to accurately identify where critical resources are expended. It may well be that these resources can be better used to improve the playing quality of the course.
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More than 23,000 people, mostly children, have been infected with measles in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. More than 400 have died, according to United Nations agencies and Doctors Without Borders.
In one village of 500, more than 30 children under age 5 died within two months — a third of all the children in that age group. “Their little graves are still visible in the cemetery,” said Augustin Ngoyi, the response coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.
The epidemic started in February, but as of early this month, the central government in Kinshasa had not acknowledged that it was underway and deaths were not being officially counted, he said.
Doctors Without Borders has vaccinated more than 300,000 children, but it has been difficult. The vaccine must be kept cold, and two shots, weeks apart, are needed for full protection. |
The Chinese renminbi (RMB) depreciated 2.5 percent against the US dollar in 2014. This was the first depreciation since 2005, when Beijing timidly started loosening its tight dollar peg. Recently, the RMB has repeatedly tested the weak side of its daily trading band, despite attempts by the People’s Bank of China (PBC) to signal its preference for a steadier bilateral RMB-USD rate via its daily fixing (Figure 1, left panel). What has led to the changing fortunes of the RMB? What lies ahead for the currency in 2015?
The Chinese renminbi (RMB) depreciated 2.5 percent against the US dollar in 2014. This was the first depreciation since 2005, when Beijing timidly started loosening its tight dollar peg. Recently, the RMB has repeatedly tested the weak side of its daily trading band, despite attempts by the People’s Bank of China (PBC) to signal its preference for a steadier bilateral RMB-USD rate via its daily fixing (Figure 1, left panel). What has led to the changing fortunes of the RMB? What lies ahead for the currency in 2015?
I can think of several possible factors leading to the most recent bout of weakness in the bilateral RMB-USD exchange rate.
The most obvious culprit is the broad strength of the US dollar (Figure 1, right panel). For instance, since start-2014, the euro and yen have weakened by 15 percent against the dollar, respectively. Consequently, the Chinese ‘redback’ has also weakened slightly against the almighty American ‘greenback’, though the RMB is still outperforming most other major and emerging market currencies. According to BIS statistics, the RMB gained some 7 percent in effective terms in 2014 and has remained one of the few strong currencies globally.
The second and related factor is the monetary policy divergence between China and the US. Whereas the US Fed is expected to start raising its policy rate and has already stopped further unconventional (net) bond buying, the PBC has embarked on a cycle of monetary easing. Hence the anticipated interest rate differential between the two currencies is narrowing.
There are now questions about whether the RMB is already fairly valued or even somewhat overvalued.
The third factor concerns the underlying currency valuation. Over the past decade, the RMB has gained 50 percent on a broad real effective basis, a strength few major advanced or emerging market currencies can match. Even allowing for fast Chinese productivity growth, there are now questions about whether the RMB is already fairly valued or even somewhat overvalued. Simply put, the once broad-based market consensus of an undervalued RMB is gone, after its massive cumulative appreciation.
Fourth, more market participants are becoming worried about signs of increased stress in the Chinese financial system. As the exchange rate is one of the most important financial asset prices, how can one expect an ever-stronger RMB on top of a more fragile Chinese financial sector? It makes little sense to dread Chinese shadow banking and to preach meaningful RMB appreciation at the same time.
Finally, the PBC appears to have taken a more hands-off approach towards managing the RMB. Since early 2014, it has intervened less in the FX market and widened the daily trading band. But it has also occasionally stepped in to restore market functioning, disrupting carry trade and successfully injecting some 2-way volatility. A growing offshore RMB market in Hong Kong also adds to its interactions with the onshore RMB market, with risk sentiment possibly playing a bigger role in RMB exchange rate dynamics. We estimate the offshore RMB turnover to have more than doubled in the past two years.
The PBC appears to have taken a more hands-off approach towards managing the RMB.
Hence a mighty US dollar, monetary policy divergence, currency valuation concerns, and less PBC intervention all combine to sway currency expectations, raise volatility and narrow interest rate differentials. Thus the implied Sharpe ratio declines, prompting an increase in Chinese corporate hedging of dollar liabilities, with rising dollar deposits and a more rapid extinguishing of Chinese corporate dollar debts, estimated at more than US$1trillion in 2014. Added to Chinese demand for US dollars have been the growing overseas acquisitions by Chinese companies.
In balance-of-payments terms, the fourth quarter of 2014 saw the largest Chinese capital outflow in 16 years, and official foreign exchange reserves have fallen steadily since mid-2014, though this is in part due to valuation effects. In short, demand for US dollars by Chinese residents has risen, weakening the RMB-USD exchange rate.
What will happen next? It depends a lot on how the PBC will respond to Chinese corporate dollar buying. I envision three possibilities.
First, the PBC could cling more tightly to the dollar peg in ‘stormy weather’, just like it did in the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis. The result will be a heavy deflationary blow to the Chinese economy in an environment of persistent dollar strength, a PBC put on the RMB firmly instilled into market expectations and some brief sense of stability. In this case, the looser dollar peg could tighten again.
Second, the PBC could take a ‘laissez faire’ approach, completely stepping back from the currency market to let it clear itself, perhaps in a wider trading band. This would result in sharp volatility and even some corporate stress unless capital controls were tightened considerably. In this case, the loose dollar peg could vanish fast.
A third and more likely scenario would be for the PBC to let the RMB move more freely against the dollar but prepare to lean against the wind by selling dollars out of its official reserves from time to time while keeping a watchful eye on cross-border capital flows. In this case, the loose dollar peg would start fading gradually.
This last approach makes sense for a number of reasons. In the short term, it would help deliver a warranted Chinese monetary easing by helping stabilise the effective exchange rate and an orderly unwinding of the Chinese corporate carry trade. In the longer term, it would help enhance two-way currency flexibility ahead of fuller interest rate deregulation and greater capital account liberalisation.
The 20-year old but increasingly loose dollar peg has served the Chinese economy well as a simple nominal anchor, but its time is up.
This 20-year old but increasingly loose dollar peg has served the Chinese economy well as a simple nominal anchor, but its time is up. First, as the biggest trading nation and second largest economy on earth, China is simply too big to be anchored to any single currency, even in a loose fashion. Second, a much more flexible RMB is needed before full interest rate liberalisation and substantial capital opening. Third, a dollar peg has often amplified external shocks to the Chinese economy rather than absorbing them, in part because of the dollar’s safe haven role. Finally, the US no longer welcomes a renewed Chinese peg to its currency and yet demands nothing but ‘one-direction flexibility’.
It’s high time the PBC starts seriously letting the aging dollar peg go. |
Advertisement Woman says she was labeled sex predator on her driver's license Tammy Lemasters plans legal action Share Shares Copy Link Copy
An Orlando woman said she is planning legal action after the Department of Motor Vehicles incorrectly labeled her as a sexual predator.Tammy Lemasters recently moved back to Orlando and said when she left the DMV, she didn’t double-check the to bottom right-hand corner of her new license, which labeled her a sexual predator instead of an organ donor.Lemasters said she only noticed the sexual predator label when she went to court over a traffic ticket.“I looked at the license, I looked in the corner, then I (saw) the sexual predator on there," Lemasters said.Also see: Tornado touches down live in Kansas“The state is basically adjudicating people the worst thing you can call someone, a child molester," said Lemasters’ attorney, John Phillips. “It's time to fix what's on that license so it doesn't happen to person after person after person.”Phillips said he knows of three total similar cases.Lemasters, a mother of two, said she has no criminal history and that while she doesn't dispute the need for the sexual predator label for people who qualify, more needs to be done to limit mistakes.“(The DMV needs to) be able to push more than one button to label somebody that. It should be more of a process," Lemasters said."We of course apologized and asked her to come in as we would anyone with an eye color or an address issue -- come in and we'd fix it immediately," DMV office manager Mark O’Keefe said.Lemasters, who received a new license on Thursday, and state officials agreed on one thing: each and every person needs to look at every detail on a newly printed license before walking out with it.Related: Florida counties with most sexual predators |
We have made fun of Green Arrow's Boxing Glove Arrow for too long. Sure, it's easy to laugh at a man firing a boxing glove from his bow, but it's still an arrow meant to knock bad guys out instead of piercing their flesh, and that's genuinely useful. Besides, Green Arrow has had dozens of arrows over the years that are infinitely stupider — here are 16 ridiculous trick arrows that make the Boxing Glove look like the height of sensibility.
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1) Aqua-Lung Arrow
Plenty of superheroes besides Aquaman need to go underwater now and then, so keeping some kind of breathing apparatus on hand just makes sense. What doesn't make sense is attaching a completely functional oxygen mask to the end of an arrow. Having an arrow shaft hanging off your mask seems needlessly unwieldy, but how often are you going to actually need to shoot an oxygen mask at someone? Wouldn't it make infinite more sense to just carry an arrow-less mask around, and then attach the mask to an arrow as needed?
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2) Atomic Warhead Arrow
Oliver Queen has a nuclear bomb. He keeps it on an arrow. As problematic as this is, here's what I want to know: Where the hell does Green Arrow think he's going to shoot a goddamn nuclear bomb arrow from where he won't be instantly incinerated as well?
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3) Mummy Arrow
When Green Arrow wants to ensnare a bunch of criminals at once, he has many options, including a variety of net arrows and even a bola arrow. He also has a Mummy Arrow, which wraps up bad guys with mummy-like bandages, which is kind of ostentatious, but still functional. What makes the Mummy Arrow so ludicrous is that the arrowhead is shaped like a tiny Egyptian sarcophagus. Look, Oliver. Just because you think of it doesn't mean you have to make it.
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4) The Arrow-Bomb
Sounds normal, right? But the Arrow-Bomb is anything but. First off, it's not really a bomb. It's a three-stage rock that fires nine more arrows — three short arrows, then three long arrows, then three more short arrows — making the Morse code for S.O.S. Hoping someone could decipher this ridiculously elaborate message seems risky; because I have to imagine at minimum half the people who saw it wouldn't realize it's an S.O.S. message, but instead think "Oh shit, it's a bunch of arrows." Even if it had a 95% effectiveness rate, how is this nonsense at all better than an arrow bearing a tiny flag with S.O.S. written on it?
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5) Fake Uranium Arrow
For all the times you're fighting bad guys who have Geiger counters and you want them to think they're hanging out in a radioactive area.
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6) Tuning Fork Arrow
What possible use could Green Arrow have for a tuning fork arrow, you ask? Well, he actually managed to use it to destroy a tank by finding the perfect resonance to make it basically shake itself apart. That's actually pretty useful. Here's my question: How did Green Arrow know the exact tone that would destroy the tank? Also, does this means he's carrying hundreds of differently pitched tuning fork arrows, because he never knows which one he'll need? Did he fire dozens of tuning fork arrows uselessly at this thing, until chancing upon the correct one? This can't be an efficient use of quiver space.
7) Acetylene Torch Arrow
Much like an aqua-mask, the Acetylene Torch is another useful item in any superhero's inventory, and also like the Aqua-Mask, there is absolutely no goddamned reason it needs to be attached to an arrow shaft. Just carry a goddamned acetylene torch, Oliver, and on the rare occasion you actually need to fire one at somebody, attach it to an arrow then.
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8) Mind-Reading Arrow
I don't have the faintest clue how this thing works.
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9) Heli-Spotter Arrow
An arrow with some sort of spy camera on it would be incredibly useful. Any arrow that could perform some sort of surveillance, especially one that might not be seen, would be a major asset to an bow-and-arrow-themed superhero. But the Heli-Spotter Arrow is an arrow with three giant, rotating mirrors on it, which leads me to believe it could possibly be spotted. Also, Green Arrow would have to be at a pretty specific angle to be able to look at one of the mirror's arrows and see anything useful. Also, the arrow has a propeller on it, to keep it aloft, which makes me wonder why it needs to be a goddamned arrow in the first place.
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10) Antler Arrow
I don't what's more insane here: 1) that Green Arrow has an arrow specifically designed to combat charging antlered animals, 2) that Green Arrow sees a moose attacking a small child and forgets he has an Antler Arrow, and Speedy has to remind him of it.
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11) Stickum-Shaft Arrow
When I first saw Oliver had something called a "Stickum-Shaft Arrow," I worried that it was some kind of Silver Age, Native American racist caricature arrow. Nope! It's just a long, hard shaft he fires at his eventual lover Black Canary, which covers her in sticky goo. No problems there!
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12) Chimney Sweep Arrow
When Speedy needs some cash, he borrows some of his mentor's arrows and going around town looking for odds jobs. One of these jobs is cleaning out a chimney, which of course is a situation Green Arrow foresaw and created an arrow for. I blame Mary Poppins for this.
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13) Tumbleweed Arrows
Are you an arrow-themed superhero located in a dusty, outdoor environment that needs to obscure the sight of some Old West-themed criminal, and you want to be kind of an asshole about it? Then put away those tired old smokescreen arrows and use a Tumbleweed Arrow instead!
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14) Smog Alert Arrow
Despite its name, the Smog Alert Arrow is what Green Arrow used when he wants to blind his enemies, but also fill their lungs with air pollution.
15) Skeleton Arrow
This is, and I am 100% serious, an arrow with a small skeleton attached to the end of it to scare bad guys. It's basically an arrow with a Halloween keychain on it.
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16) Fake Cat Arrow
HOW DOES HE EVEN GET THAT FUCKING THING IN HIS QUIVER?
[Images via The Arrowcave and Absorbacon] |
Despite rivals’ protestations, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush enjoy the support of their own party’s voters. But the other party’s dynasty candidate? Not a chance
Clinton v Bush: America is getting the dynastic matchup it said it didn't want
The first salvos in the war for the White House were fired in Miami on Monday with the two families most heavily backed by pollsters, bookies and donors officially beginning a dynastic battle unprecedented in American history.
Jeb Bush’s campaign debut: protester showdown met with chants of ‘USA’ Read more
Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton have been their parties’ putative frontrunners for the 2016 presidential election since December 2014, when the former Florida governor surprised many Republicans by announcing his interest in possibly following his brother and father’s footsteps into the Oval Office.
Former secretary of state Clinton confirmed her more widely anticipated second run for the Democratic nomination in April, but it has taken another two months for both candidates to begin competing for votes – and money – in earnest and in the open.
Hillary Clinton rally puts spotlight on inequality and progressive causes Read more
Clinton’s first big speech in New York on Saturday was matched on Monday by a similar launch event in Bush’s adopted hometown of Miami during which he mapped out a conservative approach far removed from her increasingly populist progressive agenda.
Bush told supporters - who chanted “let’s go Jeb” - that the country was on a “very bad” course but pledged: “We will take Washington – the static capital of this dynamic country – out of the business of causing problems. We will get back on the side of free enterprise and free people.”
While his campaign logo just has his first name “Jeb” rather than “Jeb Bush” he certainly mentioned his family in his speech. He said “great things” and the most “improbable things can happen” in the US, adding: “Take that from a guy who met his first president on the day he was born, and his second on the day he was brought home from the hospital.”
Bush also asked the crowd to “say hello to my mom, Barbara Bush” who gave them a wave.
Clinton, in her New York rally two days earlier, was watched by her former president husband, and said she knew exactly what the job required. She portrayed herself as a champion of progressive causes saying she would make the economy work for “every American – for the successful and the struggling”, and attacked the “trickle-down economics” that she said a Republican president would bring.
Despite the early attacks, the two candidates share much else in common. Though Bush faces a much tougher field of Republican rivals and is a far less predictable choice than Clinton, both are favourites of their party establishments and traditional donors.
Both currently lead their primary races, according to national opinion surveys. An average of recent polls calculated by Real Clear Politics shows Bush half a percentage point ahead of his closest rival, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, and Clinton some 40 points up on Vermont leftwinger Bernie Sanders.
The same polling averages place Clinton 5.2 points ahead of Bush if they were to run against each – a scenario that bookmaker William Hill also consider the most likely, with odds of 10-3.
Neither family would be a stranger to the upper echelons of US government. Clinton’s eight years as first lady to husband Bill and four years as President Obama’s secretary of state is matched not only by eight years as president by Jeb’s brother, George W Bush, but four years as president by their father George HW Bush and another eight years as vice-president under Ronald Reagan.
Should either of the present 2016 frontrunners secure a second term in office and serve through 2024, Obama’s current second term with vice-president Joe Biden and secretary of state John Kerry may mark the only time in 44 years – nearly a fifth of US history – that neither a Bush nor a Clinton occupied one of these top three positions in the US executive branch.
The dynastic consequences of such a pairing in November 2016 have not gone unnoticed among many voters and rivals, of course. Bush’s familiar pedigree is already an unspoken part of the message from the more than a dozen serious rivals trying to stop it happening. Clinton has been attacked in similar – but so far polite – terms by less competitive Democratic hopefuls such as Martin O’Malley.
Yet the dislike of another Bush in the West Wing is restricted mostly to Democrats, just as it is Republicans who are most against the idea of Hillary and Bill returning to the White House.
Not another Bush or Clinton: political dynasties reach for 'regular Joe' status Read more
Republican consultants such as former George W Bush adviser Chris Henick point to polling suggesting particularly fond memories for the family among those who Jeb most needs to vote for him in the primary.
A recent poll carried out for CNN at the end of May showed that 78% of Democrats say the fact that Jeb Bush is the son and brother of former presidents makes them less likely to vote for him, and only 14% more likely.
However, among Republicans, there is almost a complete reversal: 48% more likely, and 32% less likely.
Privately, many Clinton supporters would also prefer her to run against Bush than a younger so-called change candidate such as Rand Paul or Marco Rubio, not least because her historic role as the first female president would compare favourably with the prospect of a third man from the same family. A number of Republican rivals such as Paul and Walker poll better against Clinton, though it hasn’t stopped much of the money flowing to the two frontrunners.
Both have also been accused of hiding the extent of their prodigious fundraising from the public: Bush by delaying the start of his legal reporting requirements by holding back his formal declaration, and Clinton by refusing to allow reporters into her many fundraising dinners, as some other candidates and President Obama do.
The lack of transparency has led some commentators to doubt whether Bush’s political action committees will hit their initial aggressive fund raising targets – up to $100m in the first quarter, according to estimates – but those close to him have little doubt the money is flowing.
“He is raising a lot of money,” says Florida lobbyist and fundraiser Van Poole, a former chair of the state’s Republican party. “I am not concerned about that at all. I think he will outraise everybody. He’s got a great base, particularly the business community in this state.”
Henick also agrees that recent legal changes in the way candidates can raise almost unlimited sums from donors to supportive committees makes it inevitable that the money trail is following a different path this cycle.
“With Citizens United [the supreme court ruling that changed the face of campaign donation] and how the landscape has changed financially, what you do now is so different from what you used to do in the past,” he says. “A lot of people have criticised him but I think he’s played it like a Stradivarius.” |
Ever donated blood only to be treated like a pin cushion, being stuck a dozen times as the red-faced needle jockey tells you, “you’ve got hard-to-find veins”? Well the Red Cross are trialling new near infra-red technology that visualises your veins and projects them onto your skin, making everyone’s veins easy to find.
“Donor Centre staff have found the technology particularly useful in cases where the vein is not visible to the naked eye,” said senior researcher Dr Dan Waller.
The study will take place at the Red Cross Blood Services in Chatswood and Elizabeth Street in Sydney, with 300 first-time and 600 return donors aged between 18 and 30 to be assessed. The aim is to reduce anxiety and thus increase the rate of repeat donors.
“We are keen to retain our young donors, and it is important to test if this technology may help us do that,” said Dr Waller.
Techly spoke to Dr Waller about the new technology, its focus on youth, and whether hard-to-find veins is an actual medical condition.
Techly: How does the technology work? Will it work on anyone? And what information is required to make the visualisation?
Dr Waller: Vein visualisation technology uses near infrared technology to project an image of the vein onto the skin. Veins have a lot of deoxygenated haemoglobin that absorbs near infrared light and the device is able to use this information to project the image. The machines have settings to manage individual differences.
Is there a medical reason some people have hard-to-find veins? Or is it just a case of bad luck?
There is great variability in anatomy from person to person. Some people have very easy to find veins where as others have difficult to find veins. In the case of most blood donors, it really is luck of the draw.
There is a focus on the trial getting young people in – is that to try and create life-long donors?
It is important for the Blood Service to recruit young donors in order to have a sustainable blood supply for the future. We are interested to see if this technology improves the donation experience in young people and whether that increases their likelihood to return to make repeat donations.
If it’s a success, what’s the next step? How far off are we from seeing the technology roll out across donor sites nation-wide? And is it financially feasible to do so?
The study will help the Blood Service to decide on whether the technology should be rolled out for use. There are a number of factors that need to be considered such as the safety and efficacy of the devices, their impact on donor retention, and the cost of the technology. When the study is completed we will have a lot more information to guide these decisions.
Does the Red Cross own the technology, and would it therefore be in a position to monetise it by leasing it out?
No the Blood Service doesn’t own the technology. We are trialling two different devices available from Australian providers. |
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Two Tory MPs are accused of “abusing the rules” after they camped out in Parliament to flood it with more than SEVENTY proposed laws.
Peter Bone and Christopher Chope took turns camping in the Palace of Westminster for four nights to “take advantage” of a bizarre system for MPs to change the law of the land.
Their 73 ideas - which include privatising the BBC, scrapping the foreign aid department and making Brexit Day a bank holiday - will now get their first mention in the House of Commons before other MPs’ reforms.
Bills currently behind theirs in the running order include one to stop poor kids starving over summer and another to legalise medicinal cannabis.
Mr Bone flatly denied abusing the system - and said all MPs had the same chance to queue up.
But Labour MP Paul Flynn, whose bid to change cannabis law is only due its first Commons mention in October, said he was “sure” the pair want to block Bills like his.
"They are not the two most progressive MPs and most of their Bills, if not all of them, have not a hope of getting on the statute book,” he told the Mirror.
"Parliament has got to act against that. It’s an abuse of the Parliamentary rules. They’ve taken advantage of the fact the parliamentary rules have not set a limit.”
Work and Pensions Committee chair Frank Field’s Bill aimed to extend free school meals to children during the summer holidays to cut child poverty.
But it will only be read out and given a date for debate after Mr Chope's and Mr Bone's Bills on September 5.
Mr Field said MPs should not be able to “dominate” proceedings adding: "I think this should be the last year in which they're able to do it.”
He and Mr Flynn both called for a limit of two Bills per MP.
(Image: REUTERS)
Also behind the pair in the queue was Tory MP Fiona Bruce, who wants to let the High Court refer findings of genocide in countries like Syria to the International Criminal Court.
She said: "It is essential this action is taken without further delay whilst as much evidence as possible can still be gathered, presented to, and considered by the ICC."
The row revolves around Presentation Bills - slim and obscure chances for backbench MPs to change the law.
To put one forward, MPs had to queue up before a deadline of 10am last Thursday - but could then name as many as they liked.
Mr Chope and Mr Bone queued for four days, guaranteeing themselves first place, then gave notice of an astonishing 73 planned laws.
All 73 will be allotted a future debating time in the House of Commons on September 5, the first day back after summer.
But there are only currently 13 days between now and November 2018 available for debating any type of Private Member’s Bill (PMB).
(Image: Universal Images Group Editorial)
That suggests Mr Bone and Mr Chope will be free to spread their Bills across all 13 days if they want.
The only PMBs currently guaranteed to be debated before theirs are 20 which were drawn in a random ballot.
Despite their actions, neither Mr Chope nor Mr Bone backed a Labour bid earlier this month to double the time for debating backbench Bills.
Mr Chope, who proposed 47 Bills in one go, did not return a request for comment.
Mr Bone, who proposed the other 26, claimed: "It's not an abuse of the system.
"You have to say whether the system is right, that's another issue. I wouldn't do it this way myself, I would have a different system.”
He added: "I would like the whole of the Private Member's Bill system looked at and changed. There are things that we could do that would improve the situation. It is not a sensible way of deciding time by queuing up for Bills. But on the other hand if that's the system, that's the system.”
(Image: Newcastle Chronicle)
Mr Bone - who was filmed camping out in the same way with Mr Chope in a 2015 TV documentary - said it was "a tradition that's been going back now many many years”.
He added: "I had an air bed and Chris had, I don't know what his one was, but it's not the same bed. It was one very large room, we had separate things. We took it in turns to sleep over."
Asked if he was trying to keep other MPs off the list, Mr Bone replied: "Anyone can apply for a Bill and of course anyone can queue up. Obviously if other people queue up they would get their Bills on as well."
Asked if he felt sorry for MPs like Mr Field or Ms Bruce, Mr Bone replied: "They could have queued up as well."
Presentation Bills already have meagre odds of victory because they are placed behind the 20 drawn in a ballot.
Even if they are given time for debate, they fail if an MP is still debating them in the Commons chamber at a cut-off point of 2.30pm on a Friday.
That loophole has seen Tory MPs accused of filibustering to stop laws including free hospital parking for carers and first aid training for school children.
But some PMBs do still become law - 295 out of 2,824 proposed between 1983 and 2010.
Of that number, 186 won the ballot, 41 were Presentation Bills, 12 were under the separate Ten Minute Rule system and 56 began in the House of Lords. |
Suddenly, Islamic State just can’t fall fast enough. All summer, the press has been saying IS will soon be accepting the keys to every city on earth, an unstoppable jihadi juggernaut.
And now, after six weeks stalled out against a local militia in Kobane and going exactly nowhere in the over-hyped drive on Baghdad, even the mainstream press, represented by America’s paper of record, the New York Times, is saying what I said months ago: IS is just a Sunni Arab militia that will never take serious turf from the other powerful groups in the region, the Kurds of the north or the Shia of the south. Or, in the more measured tones of the NYT:
ISIS thrives in poor, Sunni Arab areas…But after months of steady expansion, the Islamic State has taken most of these areas in Iraq while failing to seize areas with non-Sunni populations.
After being shown up in Kobane, IS has now been truly humiliated by US airstrikes that hit a meeting on the Syria/Iraq border and a big convoy near Mosul.
One of the strikes hit Al Qa’im, a Euphrates River town right on the Iraq/Syria border.
If you were scripting this as a cheesy revenge movie, you couldn’t have picked a better spot to kill off the leadership of Islamic State. IS always used the Euphrates River as its key line, flowing back and forth across the Iraq/Syria border along that river “like a seesaw,” as I said months ago, moving away from enemy pressure and towards politico-military vacuums.
And now, it seems like some unlucky staff officer convinced the IS leadership that this way-too-allegorical locale would be a good place to meet up and discuss strategy. IS definitely needed an urgent meeting, because after its Summer-us Mirabilis, it’s having an Autumn from Hell, humiliated by an outnumbered and outgunned local militia in Kobane, pinned down and decimated by constant USAF swoops, and even dealing with rebellion by the Abu Nimr clan, the most bedrock Sunni-Arab clan in Anbar. If a Sunni-Arab jihad group can’t please the Abu Nimr, something is very wrong. It’s definitely time for a big meeting, with personnel changes, heads rolling—literally or otherwise—and a whole new focus for the public relations department.
But the self-proclaimed Caliph of IS, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, now officially “Caliph Ibrahim,” didn’t get a chance to set a new policy line, because the planes found him. Air control grinds slowly, like the old saying goes, but it does, if continued long and resolutely enough, grind pretty damn small, small enough to require DNA analysis of whatever bloody scraps of black cloth can be found in the wreckage of the caliph’s SUV. In the days after the Normandy landing, the surviving leadership of the Wehrmacht found that it was pretty much a death sentence to be ordered to a face-to-face meeting anywhere in Northern France, what with the Typhoons zooming along those narrow roads like hungry hawks, looking for anything that ran on internal combustion on the theory that if you had a car and enough pull to get fuel for it, Hell, you were probably some kind of quasi-Nazi and a legitimate target.
The US strikes in Iraq now are much less indiscriminate than they were back then; in fact, one of the big ironies lost on the typical dumb-ass war fan is that WWII, the “Good War,” was characterized by atrocities on a scale unimaginable now—and I’m talking about our side here, the official good guys. But though the strikes are much more carefully limited now, they’re also far more precise. As one of the Kurds defending Kobane said after watching what the first US strikes did to IS positions in the town, “If the Americans wanted to put a rocket in someone’s eye, even from hundreds of meters in the air, they could.”
So when the target is accurately identified—which it seems to have been in this Al Qa’im strike—it’s possible to destroy the whole convoy without leveling the town around it.
I don’t know if Al Baghdadi was hit at all in these strikes. It will take days, maybe weeks, before us chumps in the general public know. Stories about the death of any insurgent leader are worthless. You know that line, “The coward dies a thousand deaths”? Well, the coward ain’t got nuthin’ on the insurgent leader, who tends to die two or three thousand times before his final demise.
Remember Al Zarqawi, that vastly overrated Mister Big of the Iraq Insurgency? He was reported dead over and over, before he finally got blasted and stayed that way. And Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram? When he’s reported dead, the Nigerian press—a cynical lot at the best of times—just makes another joke about how Boko must’ve cloned its grinning nutcase of a leader, because he keeps making new videos after being killed.
Does it matter, in fact, whether Al Baghdadi was killed? Again, we won’t know until we see his replacement in action. I’ve talked about the logic of assassination before.
Basically, it’s kind of like management theory applied to a hostile firm; the idea is to kill the irreplaceable talent, if any. So, if a superior replacement is standing by, you kill the potential replacement, not the current occupant.
We don’t know if Al Baghdadi was, or is, a unique talent, but he may be. Or “may have been”—it’s tough, not knowing which verb form you should be discussing someone in: the present indicative, or past extra-crispy.
But he created the first really effective Sunni-Arab militia to operate across the Iraq/Syria border, eliminated hundreds of competing Sunni militias, and scared the Iraqi Army out of the western desert. So either he, or some nameless cadre working with him, had serious organizational talent. Now—if he really was hurt or killed—we’ll see how deep that talent goes.
Whoever the brains of Islamic State may be, or “have been,” they had one clear talent: Grabbing the opportunity, taking the big risk, going big where others might have played it slow and safe. Most Sunni militias were happy to stay local; Al Baghdadi made a famous remark that was about as anti-local as you can get: “Syria does not belong to the Syrians, and Iraq does not belong to the Iraqis.”
Now that, folks, is someone who has decided to swing for the fences. In jihadi terms, that meant going for pure universalism—and the universal group in charge of this universal jihad was going to be Islamic State, with no other groups allowed to get in the way. Early in 2013, Al Baghdadi demanded that Jabhat al Nusra, the other big Syrian jihadist militia, become part of Islamic State.
This wasn’t a proposed merger so much as a hostile takeover; JaN would simply be absorbed in IS, and its leader, Al Golani, would be just another jihadi under the leadership of Al Baghdadi. But Al Golani begged to differ, and Zawahiri himself, the old Godfather of Al Qaeda, had to be called in from this Pakistani hideout to tell the boys to quit with the schoolyard shit and get on with fighting the Crusaders.
But Al Baghdadi wasn’t going to be told, not even by an O.G. like Zawahiri. He had clarity, if nothing else. When Al Qaeda sent a mediator, Abu Khaled Al Suri, to sort it out between JaN and IS, Al Baghdadi sent a suicide bomber, who killed Al Suri and everyone around him.
Al Baghdadi had clarity to spare, and anyone who tried to blur his vision got whacked pretty quickly. The goal of his vision was simple: A Caliphate, with himself as Caliph. He made it official, declaring himself Caliph, in June 2014. And as usual, his message was pure universalism, no room for local customs, or in fact for any authority other than his own. Al Baghdadi made that very clear in his acceptance speech:
"The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organisations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas…Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day."
So much for poor old Zawahiri, and all the other would-be caliphs hoping to run their little gangs into something bigger.
The announcement of a Caliphate thrilled jihadis the way a new Rolling Stones tour thrills America’s retirement communities. They’d been waiting for this for so long, the promised unification of the whole Ummah, or community of believers, under a single just God-Ordained ruler. It’s a long, convoluted history, but…OK, you read Dune, right? OK, well, Herbert got all that out of the whole Caliphate tradition. So just think Dune, only with a lot more squabbling among the Fremen.
It always gets messy when someone declares himself caliph. Universalism is a nice idea, but it actually makes an insurgent group more vulnerable in many ways. A “disorganized” rebellion can be stronger than a top-heavy, centralized one, especially in terms of propaganda and legend. If the rebellion becomes incarnated in one person, then the rebellion is two bullets in the torso away from collapse.
Two bullets, or one airstrike. But it’s not just the physical vulnerability of the Great Leader that makes these God-Emperor-of-Dune systems so easy to topple. When one man (and it’s usually a man) assumes a God-given leader role, he tends to want all the trappings of God-Emperor-ness. It just kind of goes with the territory. What do you expect, the God-Emperor to drive around in a ratty VW Bug like that weird old man who’s president of Uruguay? That’s Uruguay; it’s not even on the notional maps of the Caliphate that include the whole planet; nobody cares what he drives. A Caliph wants some dignity.
And that means one thing, in military terms: Conventional war. That’s what IS has been pursuing, with initial success, over the past few months. After being brilliantly successful doing classic urban-guerrilla operations like mass prison breakouts during its rise in 2013, Islamic State changed styles after the announcement of the Caliphate, taking territory, administering cities, setting up headquarters in the cities it took, playing the “state,” and bragging about it, with dozens of excited, dumb-as-rocks jihad groupies posting tweets every time IS hung out a new sign offering “Islamic DMV Services” in another neighborhood of Ar-Raqqa. These “offices” were kind of sad, really; there’s so much humiliation behind the notion of jihad, so many generations of defeat…it gets me down, actually. Yes, a lot of those defeats are self-inflicted; and yeah, none of those defeats justify taking it out on the Kurds or the Yazidi, who’ve suffered more than anyone; but even so, there’s a grudging kind of pity that comes over you after you’ve spent a day looking at foolish twitter feeds by people who actually think that a new Islamic State storefront in some little Syrian town is a sure sign that the reign of a universal, triumphant caliphate is nigh.
What all those trappings of a conventional state, and all that territory-grabbing as a conventional military force, really meant for Islamic State was…doom. Inevitable doom. Mao could’ve told them—if these sectarian dupes were willing to listen to an old atheist like Mao. He laid it out in his own simple, clear style, long ago:
“Lose land—land can be retaken. Lose people—land and people both lost.”
There’s one other example of a recent movement that was very successful as an irregular group, fighting via suicide bombings in the enemy’s cities, and a rural guerrilla force in the countryside…and then lost everything by shifting to conventional tactics, thanks to the huge ego of its leader, and its people’s premature appetite to look and act like a state, imitating the big boys when it needed to lay low, hunker down and be patient like Mao would have ordered.
I’m talking, of course, about LTTE, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, one of the most amazing, messed-up groups ever to rise and fall on the crazed ambitions of one would-be God-Emperor. The LTTE was a fearsome power in Sri Lanka at one time, before the ego of their generalissimo, Prabhakaran, led them to duke it out with the Sri Lankan Army, mano-a-mano. Prabhakaran wasn’t particularly devout, but it’s not the religion that matters with these generalissimo types, it’s the ego, and he had ego to spare. He wanted to be a ruler in the conventional manner, with a palace and a capital and visits from various stuffed shirts off the evening news. To create that cheesy lifestyle for himself, Prabhakaran ordered his soldiers—who were superb at irregular warfare, both in Sri Lanka’s cities and in the countryside—into static, conventional warfare, taking territory and holding it while they were blasted from the air and by artillery.
And that was how they managed to lose everything. Whenever your glorious leader tells you he’s decided you need to fight the enemy old-school style, your small arms against his CAS planes and ZSU-4 tracks, it’s time to go home to the village and see how the crops are getting along. You’ll hear all about it on the news, without having to be one of the bodies the Nordic forensic teams are brought in to identify from dental records:
“Ja, eet ees another sücker.”
The parallels between IS and the LTTE stand up in spite of the obvious religious/ethnic difference. LTTE claimed to be fighting for all the Tamils, a huge group with a world-wide diaspora. In that sense, it was unlucky enough to become the repository of hopes for millions of people who weren’t on the ground in Sri Lanka’s northeast, where LTTE’s fighters were actually dying to keep those distant supporters’ impractical dreams of a “Tamil homeland” alive. Those hopes combined with Prabhakaran’s huge ego to stake LTTE’s best troops out in the open, where they were blasted to shreds.
Something very similar has been happening to Islamic State’s troops over the last few months. Instead of preserving their core strength—a few thousand international fighters who’ve lived through dozens of ambushes—they’ve sent their men to hide from laser-guided American munitions in the rubble of Kobane, or play office in an easily-targeted HQ in Raqqah. Mao is probably laughing, if he’s still around (in which case the laugh is on him, atheism-wise).
Even without nonstop decimation via air attack, a universal caliphate is a doomed, dumb idea. Remember what Al Baghdadi said: “Syria does not belong to the Syrians, and Iraq does not belong to the Iraqis”? You know who would beg to differ? The Syrians. And the Iraqis. And it’s not even that simple, because the territories in which this war is being fought are fractal as sci-fi dream scenes, which means that “Syrians” devolves into dozens, maybe hundreds, of groups that hate each other and will fight to the death for their local turf. Kobane is a part of one turf, “Rojava” or Syrian Kurdistan; but it’s also a local turf on its own, and you can bet that the Kobane people have a few stereotypes of their Kurdish neighbors in the other evolving cantons like Afrin. You can bet that not all of Assad’s Alawites are fond of each other, either, even if they’re forced to stick together now against the Sunni who want to annihilate them. And those Sunni have never managed to make common cause for any length of time, even against a common enemy.
So the dream that powered Islamic State to its ephemeral victories last summer was the same one that will bring it down. You get that in war. That Hitler guy, for one—had a great plan up through 1940, but the same amphetamine-fueled can-do spirit that got him his free tour of Paris brought him up against Stalingrad a little while later. One reason great leaders are so rare is that they have to pivot, at exactly the right moment, from wild-eyed gambler to cunning, cautious miser. Not many can manage that, and there’s absolutely no sign that the men who run Islamic State have that kind of discipline. They’re going to keep pushing their luck, and they’re already losing.
It’s possible, of course, that if Al Baghdadi is dead—which I doubt—he’ll be replaced by a cautious, disciplined guy. In which case, this will be a disastrous assassination. But most likely, he’s alive, and hasn’t learned a thing. In fact, that’s the advantage of having a religious imperative backing your overconfidence: He can’t even allow himself to doubt or hedge his bets. His divine backer demands that he over-extend his reach. And it’s not hard to see how that will come out.
Islamic State will fall, but that won’t really end anything, because like the LTTE, the militia is one of a long series that have been set up by the ethnic group. Tamils in Sri Lanka are still around, even though the LTTE is dead-dead-deadsky, and the Sunni Arabs of Syria/Iraq aren’t going to go away, or turn all Bahai-nice, just because IS overreaches and falls.
But no matter who died or didn’t die in that airstrike, we’ve seen the high-water mark of Islamic State.
[Illustration by Brad Jonas for Pando] |
The Chicago Bears released their unofficial 53-man roster Wednesday morning. While there were no glaring roster spots that stood out, the fact that rookie Tarik Cohen is listed as the second-string running back is something that is hard to not admire.
Cohen was selected in the fourth round of this past NFL Draft by the Bears out of North Carolina A&T (gonna go out on a limb and say more than half of you, my self included, don’t know what the A&T stands for) and had a pretty solid preseason performance, rushing for 121 yards on 19 carries. Obviously the Bears are going to heavily revolve their offense around star running back Jordan Howard, but there is plenty of room for Cohen to contribute and shine, especially since Chicago just recently cut running back Jeremy Langford. Cohen will serve as a great change-of-pace back, especially in passing situations, and will bring a unique dynamic to the Bears offense. I know, he’s 5’6, real tiny dude in NFL-running back standards, but the kid can flat out run the ball. He ran for over 5,500 yards in college and was the MEAC’s most valuable player this past year. While many are only speaking about him because of his height and comparisons to NFL veteran Darren Sproles (because they’re both short), many should be talking about him because of what he can do on the field, and the potential he has to be a big time player in the league. Even as a 5’6 rookie, I feel as if Jordan Howard were to go down for whatever reason, Cohen would be able to carry the load and prosper under the role. Enough from me, I’ll let The Human Joystick’s highlights speak for themselves:
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A female Politico reporter was targeted by a Donald Trump supporter with a vile, anti-Semitic death threat on Twitter, just the latest incident in an election season marred by the harassment of female journalists and rampant racism.
Hadas Gold, a reporter who runs Politico's On the Media blog, was sent an edited picture of herself with a bullet hole in her head and a Star of David on her chest.
"Don't mess with our boy Trump or you'll be first in line for the camp," @HeatherBrownfl3 sent Gold through direct message. "Aliyah or line up by the wall, your choice."
This is a death threat by Trump supporters against Politico reporter @Hadas_Gold. This is not trolling. This person should be in jail:
According to BuzzFeed, the threat was reported and the account was suspended.
"Politico notified Twitter of the threatening and vile tweets, and Twitter acted promptly to suspend the account. There were many more tweets and emails, some even more vile if that is imaginable. A police report is in the process of being filed," a spokesperson for Politico told BuzzFeed.
The threat to Gold is, unfortunately, not unusual. Supporters of Trump, white supremacists and the alt-right have used Twitter, Reddit and 4chan to harass and coordinate virtual attacks on journalists, Jews and people of color using a series of memes and coded language.
Women in the media are particularly vulnerable to harassment and sexism, as evidenced by the vitriol faced by Mic reporter Melanie Ehrenkranz when she tweeted about the leaked audio of the Republican presidential nominee boasting about sexually harassing women.
The harassment and violent rhetoric is unlikely to wane, as Trump continues to incite supporters with claims that the election is being rigged by the media and Democrats.
While the account that threatened Gold has been suspended, there are hundreds of similar ones still active, continuing to harass people online. |
The Mozilla Foundation is coming to the rescue of Tim Berners-Lee's sanity.
The Firefox shop is this year throwing itself at walled gardens from Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft: armed with a device-neutral and API-neutral app store and a "web platform".
Mozilla's building a Marketplace for Apps that will open in June and serve web-ified apps to smartphones, tables and desktops regardless of hardware, operating system or maker.
That's the promise at least.
Announcing its 2012 roadmap, here, Mozilla said: "Through this Marketplace, developers will be able to distribute and monetize their apps. Users will be able to find, install and use their Apps across all of their devices, regardless of the underlying device/OS platforms."
Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and Apple's iOS are all being targeted, although the grand Mozilla vision for how the web is being siloed can be seen here and below.
Mozilla's always subscribed to the idea of the "free" web, both from a technological and cultural perspective, and sees itself on a mission to keep things open.
Mozilla's view of hardware-app-store web lock-in
When you don't own an operating system, search engine or enjoy a hardware hegemony, freedom is an easy cause to follow.
Mozilla's philosophy runs counter to the current push among tech companies, begun by Apple and amplified by Facebook, to lock people's data in to proprietary formats, behind closed walls or using proprietary links. Apple links data – both media and apps – to its own hardware, an idea monster online retailer Amazon is now following with the Kindle and which Microsoft is running to embrace with marketplaces for Windows 8 and Windows phones.
It's all so different to the 1990s view of how we thought the web should – and would – be, when all you needed was a browser and a website... and it's enough to make Tim Berners-Lee weep. Berners-Lee wrote the world's first WWW server, Httpd, and client, WorldWideWeb, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) hypertext browser/editor that ran in the NeXTStep environment.
In 2010 Berners-Lee wrote at length about how walled and proprietary web gardens such as Apple's iTunes are killing the ubiquitous web. He called for continued open standards.
Mozilla seems to buy into this. Announcing its 2012 plans this week, Mozilla said: "Mozilla believes that the web is the platform and the entire web should be your marketplace. To this end, we are building products and services across three different threads." |
Glyph Beta Program April 28, 2016
Hey there! We thought we’d let you all in on a little Beta program for our Glyph Client. It’s completely optional, and while it’s not as exciting as testing a new game, your help is appreciated in making the Glyph client the best it can be for all players!
What’s it all about?
Glyph Beta is available via opt-in for players to receive Glyph updates before they are released to the general community. These players will see (and test) early access to new Glyph features as they become available!
For us, the Glyph Beta option is a way for us to push new builds to a small subset of volunteer testers without disrupting the stability of external build available to the general public.
I love testing stuff! How do I opt-in?
There is a new option located in the Advanced section of the Glyph Client settings window. To participate just check the box next to Glyph Beta Opt-In. Once selected, you can close and reopen your client. At this point, Glyph will update automatically to the new Beta version of Glyph.
How do I submit feedback?
All feedback or concerns can be emailed to [email protected].
Please include the version number (located in the General Settings Section of Glyph) plus a copy of the GlyphClient.0.log file located in the AppData folder ( …\AppData\Local\Glyph\Logs).
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Donald Trump brags about how well his businesses have fared in bankruptcy. And in fact, no major U.S. company has filed for Chapter 11 more than Trump's casino empire in the last 30 years.
"I have used the laws of this country ... the [bankruptcy] chapter laws, to do a great job for my company, for myself, for my employees, for my family," he said during the first Republican presidential debate on August 6.
Trump claims that successful businesses file for bankruptcy all the time. At the debate he said "virtually every person that you read about on the front page of the business sections, they've used the [bankruptcy] law."
But the facts don't back that comment up.
Despite high profile examples, including General Motors (GM), Lehman Brothers and most of the nation's major airlines, fewer than 20% of public companies with assets of $1 billion or more have filed for bankruptcy in the last 30 years, according to data from Bankruptcy.com and S&P Capital IQ.
Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy. But he has filed four business bankruptcies, which Bankruptcy.com says makes Trump the top filer in recent decades. All of them were centered around casinos he used to own in Atlantic City. They were all Chapter 11 restructurings, which lets a company stay in business while shedding debt it owes to banks, employees and suppliers.
Related: Trump - Tax the rich more
He makes no apologies for having much of his debt wiped out. "These lenders aren't babies. These are total killers," he said at the debate. "These are not the nice, sweet little people."
Here's a look at Trump's bankruptcy track record.
1. Trump Taj Mahal, 1991
Trump's first bankruptcy filing was probably the most personally painful for him. To come up with the funds he needed, he sold a 282-foot yacht, as well as the Trump Shuttle, the airline he operated at the time that flew between Washington, D.C., New York and Boston, according to media reports at the time. He had to give up half of his ownership stake in the Trump Taj Mahal, but he did retain control of the property. His largest creditor was financier Carl Icahn, who held $400 million in bonds. Now Icahn is Trump's pick for Treasury secretary should he be elected.
2. Trump Castle Associates, 1992
In less than a year he was back in bankruptcy court for his other Atlantic City casinos. This bankruptcy included the Trump Plaza Hotel in New York, the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City as well as the Trump Castle Casino Resort. He gave up half his interest in the New York Plaza to Citibank, but retained his stake in the casinos.
3. Trump Hotel & Casino Resorts, 2004
Trump didn't go back to bankruptcy court again until November 2004, when he filed to shed debt at his various Atlantic City casinos and a riverboat in Indiana. It was another quick trip through bankruptcy court; the company shed $500 million in debt and emerged from bankruptcy the following May. Trump turned over majority control of the company to his bondholders but remained the largest single shareholder, and he once again kept control of the casinos.
4. Trump Entertainment Resorts, 2009
His most recent bankruptcy came in 2009, after the company missed a $53.1 million bond payment. That was pretty much the end of the road for Trump in Atlantic City. While his name remained on three casinos, he resigned from the board and gave up his remaining stake in the company.
"I had the good sense, and I've gotten a lot of credit in the financial pages, seven years ago I left Atlantic City before it totally cratered," he said during the debate.
The two Atlantic City casinos that still had the Trump name filed for bankruptcy yet again in 2014. At the time Trump made sure people knew he was no longer running the company, and sued to have his name removed. |
DALLAS – In our town, small groups are forming to oppose local government cuts and layoffs. It’s probably happening all over the nation.
On July 31, I attended a local Friends of the Library meeting to oppose a 50 percent layoff of library staff. On Aug. 3, I joined a group of community activists in the Fair Budget Campaign. In between, on Aug. 1 at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, all the children in the city experienced a cut of their own. Their public swimming pools were closed for the year.
Other groups that are meeting to fight cuts include the district attorney’s office, the unionized civilian city employees, the subcontracted trash haulers, the Friends of the Parks, the police, the firemen, retirees bracing for new attacks on Social Security, and of course the public school teachers who are expected a horrible slap from the state legislature. Those are just the ones I know about.
On the bright side, it is wonderful that these groups are forming and are talking seriously about the economic crisis that is sucking us down its voracious throat.
The downside, though, is that they are largely working against each other. When one group of economic victims says, “Don’t cut us!” they are implicitly saying, “It’s OK to cut somebody else!” It’s the bosses’ game when we fight one another.
At the national level, some excellent programs exist. The Communist Party’s Economics Commission has a fine presentation, the AFL-CIO has a good one, and Jobs with Justice has a good one. In one way or another, all of them call for increasing government revenues by taxing the rich. Our progressive income taxes have been flattened, capital gains taxes were slashed, inheritance taxes were diminished, and luxury sales taxes have disappeared. The most regressive taxes – sales and property taxes – have increased along with hard-to-define local government “fees” that hit the poorest hardest.
Now, after 30 years of tax abatements, government handouts and corporate welfare, major organizations are asking that we return to progressive taxation and let everybody pay their fair share. The problem is that these national programs do not translate easily into local programs. And it’s in local communities where people are just beginning the necessary dialogue that will, eventually, lead to a mass movement that might make real solutions possible.
Local groups need programs that will bring them together into stronger and larger organizations. My Friends of the Library group drew a good crowd of intelligent activists, but their “Don’t cut us” program left me sad and depressed. My Fair Budget Campaign meeting was much better. It was no surprise that their entire group came from the progressive civil rights movement. Their program calls for a “modest” increase in property taxes. I argued for a graduated taxation scheme that would save local government services without adding to the burdens of the poor. I also argued for a campaign to pass resolutions supporting the progressive national programs. I don’t think I won any converts, but my ideas were received cordially among the many suggestions for immediate and radical action against all local government cuts.
These disparate groups, with strong programs or weak programs, are the new body cells of a strong new fighting giant, just being born, but with all the history-making potential in the world! We have to be with them!
Photo: Civil rights and Fair Budget Campaign leaders Ernest McMillan and Diane Ragsdale. (PW/Jim Lane) |
Urgent:
ObamaCare Is About to Strike — Are You Prepared?
As a number of Republican governors continue to say “no” to Obamacare, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) on Wednesday acknowledged that the president’s signature healthcare law is racking up twice the costs to set up the all-important insurance exchanges.HHS more than doubled its previous cost estimate of $2 billion for the amount it expects to spend to help states set up insurance exchanges, which is a central component of Obamacare.The agency now expects to spend $4.4 billion by the end of the year, reports The Hill. Despite the projection overruns, the department is "determined to make them work," said HHS Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources Ellen Murray of the exchanges, when asked to comment on the possibility that Congress might deny the funding request, according to the publication.As Newsmax reported in February, the federal government must play an even bigger role in Obamacare than anticipated because of the health exchanges it must operate for states declining to set up their own.Exchanges were envisioned as places where private consumers, who aren’t necessarily covered by an employer healthcare program, can compare and purchase healthcare coverage.Since a number of Republican governors have opted out of the new law, HHS will be responsible for running exchanges in those states that choose not to participate, according to The Hill, which notes that only 17 states and the District of Columbia have been approved to run exchanges.HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters on Wednesday that the implementation funding is an "ongoing conversation with Congress" and "I'm hoping Congress will see that this is the law of the land.” |
IIPA Wants Canada And Spain On The 'Naughty' Special 301 List Even Though They Brought In Tough New Copyright Laws
from the base-ingratitude dept
Here on Techdirt, one of the things we look forward to each year is the comedy production known as the 301 Report, where the US makes the world line up in a row, and then names and shames all the naughty countries whose intellectual monopoly laws aren't outrageous enough. In advance of the official naughty list, there are helpful suggestions from the fans of monopoly maximalism, including the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which has just released its 2013 demands. Mostly it's the usual suspects -- China, India, Russia etc. But there's an interesting change from the previous year's list: Canada has moved from the really naughty "Priority Watch List" to the only slightly naughty "Watch List".
As Michael Geist points out, far from being good news, that's outrageous: Those that thought passing Bill C-11 -- the Canadian copyright reform bill that contained some of the most restrictive digital lock rules in the world -- would satisfy U.S. groups will be disappointed. The IIPA wants Canada back on the piracy watch list, one notch below the Special Watch List (where the US placed Canada last year).
Despite the praise for Bill C-11 last year, the groups are right back in criticism mode and demanding reforms. The IIPA is now unsure if the enabler provision will help stop sites that facilitate infringement (despite the fact that its members have yet to use the provision) and concerned with the prospect of new exceptions to the digital lock rules. In fact, its criticisms of the rules for Internet providers (it wants a notice-and-takedown system, tougher rules on search engines that link to infringing content, and new rules to target repeat infringers) are so strong that the organization implausibly claims possible non-compliance with the WIPO Internet treaties. Nor is Canada the only country that might be surprised to find itself on the naughty step again. As Mike explained last year, Spain was removed from the official Special 301 list for being an obedient little vassal state and bringing in the punitive Ley Sinde, as instructed, despite huge public and business opposition. And now, guess what? The IIPA already wants Spain back on the list for not doing enough in this area (pdf): Contrary to the expectations surrounding the implementation of ley Sinde that led to Spain's removal from the Special 301 Watch List last year, Spain saw no positive developments in 2012. Let's hope Canada and Spain -- and everyone else -- draw the obvious conclusion from the IIPA's latest calls: that no matter what countries do, no matter what legislation they bring in, and no matter what disproportionately harsh punishments they inflict on their own people, it will never, ever be enough, and there will always be further demands, and further threats to put them back on the naughty lists. The only solution is to stand up to this blackmail once and for all, and to treat the Special 301 list with the contempt it deserves.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Filed Under: 301, canada, copyright, new laws, spain, special 301 report
Companies: iipa |
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 | 10:07 AM
(Cross-posted with the Google Voice Blog)
A little over a year ago, we released an early preview of Google Voice, our web-based platform for managing your communications. We introduced one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more—the only catch was you had to request and receive an invite to try it out. Today, after lots of testing and tweaking, we’re excited to open up Google Voice to the public, no invitation required.
Over the past year, we’ve introduced a mobile web app, an integrated voicemail player in Gmail, the ability to use Google Voice with your existing number and more. Over a million of you are now actively using Google Voice, and many of the features released over the past year (like SMS to email and our Chrome extension) came as a result of your suggestions, so thanks!
If you haven’t yet tried Google Voice, we can’t wait for you to try it out and let us know what you think. Check out our revamped features page to learn about everything Google Voice can do, and if you haven’t seen it yet, this video provides a good overview in less than two minutes:
We’re proud of the progress we’ve made with Google Voice over the last few years, and we’re still just scratching the surface of what’s possible when you combine your regular phone service with the latest web technology. It’s even more amazing to think about how far communication has come over the last couple hundred years. To put things in context, we created this infographic to visualize some recent history of human communication and how Google Voice uses the web to help people communicate in more ways than ever before (click the image for a larger version):
Update 10:55 am: Just to clarify, though we've opened up sign-ups, Google Voice is still limited to everyone in the U.S. for now.
Posted by Craig Walker & Vincent Paquet, Google Voice Product Managers |
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Florida — For the first responders who found her lifeless body one October morning, 24-year-old Alison Flory was yet another casualty of addiction here on the front line of Florida's opioid crisis.
To her family, she was a daughter, a beloved sister, a goofy bookworm who made them laugh and a young woman they desperately hoped would get help. She had arrived in South Florida from Illinois just more than a year before she died, seeking treatment for her addiction. Her parents believe it is that treatment, paid for by her family's excellent insurance, that ultimately got her killed.
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"It haunts me," said Scott Weber, Alison's stepfather. "She trusted in people that she shouldn't have trusted in."
"And we told her to trust those people," said her mother, Jennifer Flory.
The Rehab Capital of America
Palm Beach County can feel like paradise. The ocean laps on soft-sand beaches and the wind rustles through tall palms. Maseratis cruise the roads and mansions rise behind gilded gates. On the wealthiest stretch of waterfront sits Mar-a-Lago, President Trump's winter White House. In its backyard is one of the rehab capitals of America.
Alison Flory's stepfather and mother, Scott Weber and Jennifer Flory NBC News
Related: How to Find a Good Drug Treatment Program and Avoid the Bad Ones
Thousands of addicts arrive here each year from Ohio and West Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, hoping that at one of South Florida's many drug treatment centers, they'll find recovery. And some do.
But an investigation by NBC News has found that many of these vulnerable patients have become grist in an insurance fraud mill. Crooked treatment centers partner with "body brokers" and operators of so-called "sober homes" to find patients with good health insurance. Brokers and sober home owners offer those trying to get clean free rent and grocery store gift cards, cigarettes and manicures in exchange for going to a specific treatment center, which pays kickbacks for every client.
Related: Death Race: Florida's First Responders Race To Save A Steady Stream of Overdose Victims
Once they've reeled patients in, these treatment centers bill their insurance tens of thousands of dollars for often questionable counseling, costly and potentially unnecessary drug screens, and exotic laboratory tests. Some treatment centers not only overlook drug use — they encourage it. To Florida's worst operators, relapse doesn't mean failure. It means profit.
Alison Flory with her little sister in 2013. Courtesy of Jennifer Flory
"This is an entire industry that's been corrupted by easy money," said Palm Beach County's top prosecutor, State Attorney Dave Aronberg. "Unscrupulous actors have taken advantage of well-intended federal law, and a lack of any good law at the state level, to profit off people at the lowest stages of their lives."
That law is the Affordable Care Act, which along with the federal Mental Health Parity Act passed in 2008, was meant to ensure people suffering from addiction could get the care they needed. Together they required insurers to cover substance abuse treatment, barred companies from rejecting those with preexisting conditions, and allowed young people to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26. But this broader coverage met with little oversight.
Those looking to make cash found the country's opioid epidemic had provided them with a trove of desperate people, many young and hooked on pills or heroin, and access to a deep pool of insurance dollars. Everyone got in on the business. Substance abuse treatment in Palm Beach County used to consist largely of a scrappy network of treatment centers and sober homes that just scraped by. In the past few years it's become a $1 billion business, according to the Palm Beach Post's calculations.
A street in Delray Beach, Florida. NBC News
"It's a total scam," said Aronberg. "Not only are taxpayers footing the bill, but people are dying unnecessarily because of this."
The scammers have made it difficult for the ethical, and sorely needed, treatment centers and sober homes to survive, said John Lehman, the director of the Florida Association of Recovery Residences, an industry group that oversees sober homes.
"The broad brush of bad actions and illegal activity is painting across everybody," said Lehman. "So the good guys are having trouble keeping their beds full. And the bad guys are saying you want to shoot dope in the bathroom, go ahead."
Three Moms Send Their Daughters to Florida
Alison Flory was a teenager who loved to be in love. She loved trips to the bookstore in Sugar Grove, a Chicago suburb, Star Wars, ice cream, and when she was 17, she fell for a boy. He was artsy, and moody, and loved her back, so much that when she said she wanted to break up, he threatened to kill himself. Her mother thought it was teenage stuff. "I said, 'That's ridiculous,'" Jennifer Flory said.
Alison Flory with her siblings at the beach. Courtesy of Jennifer Flory
He called Alison one night after they split. She didn't answer. On the voicemail, she could hear as he jumped in front of a train. Alison was beside him at the hospital when he died.
"She felt like it was her fault," said Flory. "I felt like it was my fault. We all felt like it was our fault."
Alison started with prescription pills to dull the pain. Her parents read the signs — moodiness, languishing in bed — as grief. And they were. But she was also sinking into substance abuse. Flory's smart, ambitious daughter made it less than a year through college, dropped out, and sank deeper. She did a month of rehab in Illinois, and Flory thought she'd get her smiling daughter back. But when Alison got out, her parents said a boy Alison met in rehab introduced her to heroin. Jennifer didn't know exactly what was wrong with her daughter. In 2015, when Alison was 23, Flory knew she needed help.
Related: Moms Unleash Anger on Corrupt Rehab Owner
That was the same year that Michelle Curran decided that rehab was going to be the difference between life and death for her daughter, Mikaya Feucht. Mikaya first used pills after a surgery while she was still in high school outside of Columbus, Ohio, a state that routinely leads the nation in deadly overdoses. By the time Feucht was 23, she had two little boys she loved fiercely, but the pull of heroin threatened to tear them apart.
Mikaya Feucht died of an overdose in 2016. Michelle Curran
Across the state in Troy, Sandra Hinkle was at work as a 911 dispatcher the day in April 2015 when the call came in that her 22-year-old daughter Kaitlyn Cruea had overdosed on heroin. Cruea had a little boy, too. Hinkle wanted Cruea to live to see her son Karter grow up. To get her well, Hinkle felt she had to get her daughter out of town.
These mothers discovered that Florida was happy to help. They found the state's flourishing recovery industry through an internet search, word of mouth, and the help of an Illinois man working as a marketer for a Florida treatment center. Their daughters each started at a different treatment center, but the pattern is the same.
Someone checked their insurance, asked a few questions, bought their daughters a plane ticket to South Florida — a potentially illegal marketing practice. The mothers were told their insurance would cover the care and that everything was going to be okay.
“ I felt like it was my fault. We all felt like it was our fault.”
"I felt hopeful, more than I had ever felt," said Jennifer Flory. "I didn't know. I thought going to this treatment program was going somewhere special."
Within a few months, each mother began to suspect something was wrong. Their daughters would call every few weeks to tell them they had moved to a new sober home. And when they did, the names of the treatment centers on the bills that kept arriving changed too.
Envelopes from their insurance company arrived almost daily, detailing thousands of dollars in treatment and thousands more in laboratory tests. There were bills from chiropractors and bills from counselors and bills for DNA testing.
Kaitlyn Cruea at Christmas with her son Karter. Courtesy of Sandra Hinkle
Dizzied, the mothers tried to track from afar where their daughters were and who was helping them get sober. Sometimes, when they called, a counselor on the other end of the line would offer updates, or explain charges. Others never even picked up.
As their girls hopped from house to house, the envelopes from the insurance companies mounted. But the mothers didn't realize the scope of the problem, because no one ever came to collect. Treatment centers routinely, and illegally, waive co-pays and deductibles, according to prosecutors, telling patients and parents insurance covers everything.
Treatment centers and labs rack up sky-high bills, sometimes collecting only a fraction of the money charged for a $5,000 urine test or a $1,800 counseling session. What they don't get paid, they write off, said Aronberg. Flory, Curran and Hinkle said they never got calls from debt collectors, so it took time to realize what was unfolding.
Curran's insurance would be charged more than $600,000 by the seven treatment centers Mikaya attended between January and June of 2016. Flory's was charged about $1.2 million during the 15 months Alison bounced between nine different facilities in South Florida. At least three of the facilities the girls attended have been raided by law enforcement and shuttered. All of the facilities declined requests for comment by NBC News.
Sam Petulla
Hinkle hasn't tallied up everything yet, but she keeps coming back to that one month when she said she got billed for more than 172 different charges.
"How did I not see this? I should have known," said Hinkle. "You just want to believe they're in the right place, that they're getting the help that you sent them for."
How the Florida Model Was Born
In 2015, the year these mothers first sought help, nearly 52,500 people lost their lives to an overdose in the U.S, up nearly 40 percent from 2010. About 33,000 of those deaths were due to opioids, more than any year on record. Overdoses now kill more people than car accidents, more than guns.
Treatment is not always within reach. Waitlists for beds at state-run facilities across the country can run weeks or months. Many private rehabs don't take insurance, and their fees can run $10,000 or more a month.
For these problems, the Sunshine State had an answer.
The "Florida model" was born with good intentions. In a traditional, 28-day inpatient program, patients are cloistered, then return to the community.
Alison Flory overdosed and died at this sober home in 2016 NBC News
In many South Florida programs, clients first attend inpatient detox, then do more intensive rehab and outpatient treatment while living in the community. The idea was that this would better develop their ability to live on their own. It also kept costs lower, so some insurance companies would cover treatment longer.
"Sober homes" became key to this model. Patients would pay rent to live in the group homes, sleeping and eating there, then report to nearby drug treatment centers staffed with counselors and doctors. At their best, these homes provide structure, rules and a community to lean on in the early stages of recovery. But unscrupulous operators began to realize these homes could be a way to reel in vulnerable addicts.
Some sober homes offered addicts free or discounted rent, cash, and other perks in exchange for attending a specific treatment center, which law enforcement officials said violates Florida laws barring kickbacks and insurance fraud. Those in the shuffle are more blunt.
"It's like hustling humans," said Drew, a 21-year-old from West Virginia who was living in a sober home in Delray Beach last February. "They'll take extra insurance money and pay you to live there and just let you get high because the owner's making bank."
Colin (R) and Drew on the street in Delray Beach, Florida. Both came south for drug treatment. NBC News
Delray Beach Mayor Cary Glickstein estimates that his city of 66,000 has about 700 sober homes that house up to 7,000 people in recovery. Nearby Lake Worth, Boynton Beach and West Palm Beach likely hold hundreds more. Exactly how many is hard to know, because sober homes operate without any kind of oversight — and the bad homes, he said, are crowding out the good.
"These kids are just cycled through different houses," said Glickstein. "There's no supervision. Many times they're supervised by convicted felons, people that are trafficking drugs while they're supposed to be supervising kids in recovery."
This is an unintended consequence of federal disability and housing laws that bar municipalities from discriminating against those with physical or mental disabilities, including addiction. Cities that have tried to limit sober homes have been successfully sued for discrimination. But because the treatment isn't technically being provided within the homes, they can't regulate them as they would drug treatment centers either.
Within these homes, people are dying. Palm Beach County's overdose deaths have quadrupled in the past four years, hitting almost 600 in 2016, as the number of treatment centers and sober homes has grown. The rise of the synthetic opioid fentanyl is exacerbating the problem, making batches of heroin stronger, and more deadly.
"It's a tragedy on so many levels," said Glickstein. "The desperate parents in Ohio and Kentucky and Michigan that are being lured through deceptive websites with palm trees have no idea what their kids are getting into when they get down here."
MIkaya Feucht and her children. Michelle Curran
Palm Beach County has started to crack down. Last year it launched a task force, headed up by State Attorney Aronberg, which has made 30 arrests for so-called "patient brokering" since last July.
In May, Gov. Rick Scott officially declared Florida's opioid crisis a state of emergency. Legislators recently passed a bill that would increase penalties for brokering. It will give prosecutors sharper tools to crack down on what a grand jury last December found was rampant brokering and fraud across the industry.
"The legitimate players, the good guys, are far outweighed by the corrupt," said Aronberg. "This is not a case where a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch. This is a case where most of the apples are spoiled."
Among those to see gold in addiction was a man who became one of South Florida's most notorious treatment center owners. All three of the girls from the Midwest, Alison, Mikaya and Kaitlyn, would get wrapped up in his network. His name was Kenneth Chatman.
'He Sees A Dollar Sign'
Rehab was not the first way Chatman tried to make a buck in Florida. In 2008, Chatman, a transplant from New York, pleaded guilty to federal charges for running a credit card fraud scheme. After that, he founded a car dealership that didn't go far. Then he had a gym, where, according to an account he posted online, he got interested in the journey to recovery.
In 2012, while he was still on federal probation, he became what's known in South Florida as a "body broker." He rented houses in the area and began to operate them as sober homes under the name Stay'n Alive. He stepped into a game already hot throughout South Florida. He partnered with local drug treatment centers, offering to send them his residents in exchange for kickbacks.
Kenneth Chatman walks to the Reflections Treatment Center on December 10, 2015 in Margate, Florida. Richard Graulich / The Palm Beach Post via ZUMA Press
More than 100 pages of police reports obtained by NBC News through an open records request show that his homes were chaotic from their earliest days. One address was visited by the police 15 times in a year.
Sometimes Chatman called the cops to deal with an unruly resident. Sometimes the residents called to complain about Chatman — for kicking them out, refusing to give them back a phone, or in one woman's case, trying to block her from leaving.
There were also rumors of Chatman trafficking his female clients. In 2013, a woman reported that her god-daughter was living in one of Chatman's houses. She told police he had called her to demand money, and that she had heard Chatman was prostituting women under his care.
In 2017, he would plead guilty to a multi-million dollar conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, and to sex trafficking, for prostituting his female clients.
But at the time, those rumors didn't hinder him. In fact, Chatman worked his way up from brokering patients out of his sober homes to running the drug treatment centers themselves.
In Florida, nearly anyone can open a treatment center, as long as they have a little cash, find a doctor to write prescriptions, and a clinical director to oversee treatment. The exceptions are those, like Chatman, with felony convictions. To dodge that, his wife, Laura, became the official owner. Reflections Treatment Center launched in late 2013.
The empire rose quickly. One arm of it oversaw the sober homes, some of which Chatman continued to run himself. He also recruited a network of other homes to funnel bodies to his treatment center. He has since admitted to giving $500-a-week kickbacks to sober home operators who brought him insured clients. All told, court papers show Chatman paid out at least $640,000 to three sober home operators who sent people his way.
Reflections Treatment Center in Margate, Florida. NBC News
In exchange for free rent, addicts boarded vans — "druggie buggies" as locals call them — three to six mornings a week, bound for Reflections. Chatman, fit and nattily dressed, put up a good front. He posted videos of success stories, and made a brand of t-shirts his clients wore that read DOPELESS HOPE FIEND.
But behind the blackened windows of the treatment center in a Margate, Florida strip mall, former clients and employees said treatment wasn't the priority.
"I walked right into the group room and I could easily spot that at least 90 percent were getting high," said Jack, who attended Reflections in 2015. He said Chatman made it clear clients could use as long as he could bill their insurance. "When he looks at a client, he doesn't see a human being," said Jack. "He sees a dollar sign."
But the real dollars didn't come from sitting kids down for treatment. It was in getting them to pee in a cup.
A $10,600 Bill for a Drug Test
In the spring of 2016, the incessant bills Michelle Curran received in the mail began to make her wonder. She called her insurance company, Cigna, but she said no one ever called her back. (Cigna said it could not comment directly on Curran's case for privacy reasons, but said it has since contacted Curran and is addressing fraud issues in Florida).
One day on the phone with her daughter Mikaya Feucht, Curran started to try to get to the bottom of things.
Mikaya Feucht died of an overdose after six months in at least seven rehabs in South Florida, including Reflections, a facility whose owner has pleaded guilty to health care fraud and sex trafficking. Her mother, Michelle Curran, provided NBC News with a copy of a bill showing the total charges submitted to Mikaya's insurer, Cigna.
"I'm like, 'I didn't know you saw your therapist every single day,'" Curran remembered. Feucht said she most certainly did not. "So I said, 'Are they doing drug tests every day too? I have a bill here for $10,600." And she goes, 'Mom, I've' — and these were her words — 'I've peed in a cup twice this week.'"
Random drug screens have long been a key piece of recovery. Treatment centers and sober homes used to depend on dipstick tests, the kind anyone can do, which can run as low as $5 apiece. If staffers got what they thought was a false result, they'd send it over to a lab for "confirmatory" tests to make sure the results were right.
Chatman was among a group of treatment center operators who realized laboratories could become the financial fuel of the rehab industry.
They made deals with labs, or started up their own, so they could take a slice of every test billed. Particularly lucrative were young people from out of state like Feucht, Flory and Cruea, because their insurance could be charged at sky-high out-of-network rates. One tally by an industry group found 75 percent of the young people in treatment in Florida are from out of state.
Doctors at treatment centers would put in "standing orders" for near-daily drug screens, along with genetic and allergy tests that could run thousands of dollars.
Mikaya Feucht's mother, Michelle Curran NBC News
To maximize profits, some treatment centers retest samples or double-test patients. When Chatman didn't have enough clients in treatment to hit his lab numbers, he had employees submit their own saliva and urine to keep the money flowing, according to court documents.
Chatman teamed up with at least five different labs, according to the federal indictment filed against him in 2016. Kickbacks were so common that he allegedly complained to one laboratory rep when he wasn't offered money or wined and dined.
One unnamed lab wrote Chatman at least $160,000 in kickback checks between December 2014 and May 2015, court papers show. Another allegedly had a driver go to the Florida Keys to cash checks and deliver thousands of dollars to Chatman each week.
“ I've peed in a cup twice this week.”
Chatman went to great lengths to keep a hold on people. Former clients and court documents describe how he nailed the windows of houses shut, and locked them in from the outside. He confiscated and never returned their cell phones. He took their money and then plied them with drugs so they would relapse, trigging another round of insurance-funded treatment.
Curran said that in May 2016, she learned a man named Kenny had allegedly provided her daughter drugs so she would relapse. When Feucht overdosed, he allegedly left her on a sober home lawn for the first responders to find.
When some parents called Reflections to ask about stories they were hearing from their kids, Chatman convinced the parents their kids were lying, according to one former employee, because that's what addicts do. But his most effective tool may have been that he always provided a home of last resort.
"Even though he mistreated a lot of them, he had this hold over them," said a woman who worked at Reflections in 2014. "A lot of people had been cut off by their parents. He always took you back in."
Kenneth Chatman walks to the Reflections Treatment Center on December 10, 2015 in Margate, Florida. Richard Graulich / The Palm Beach Post via ZUMA Press
Former employees said they tried to raise flags. Three said they asked the state's Department of Children and Families, which regulates treatment centers, to do a surprise inspection. In an email sent to DCF in February 2015 and provided to NBC News, one person who had worked there told the agency that despite the fact that Chatman's wife Laura was on the paperwork, Chatman was actually in charge. The email also said patient applications had been forged, and that there were rumors Chatman was prostituting his clients.
DCF told NBC News that the agency did not have authority to screen personnel or spouses not listed in certain leadership roles on licensure applications. The agency did not respond specifically to NBC News' questions about warnings employees said they submitted about Chatman.
Two months later, in April 2015, a woman contacted the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. She told police that Chatman ran flophouses, using one as a "staging home for women who are addicts," according to her account in a police report obtained by NBC News. She charged that he kept her and other women "in a state of impairment in order to pimp them out," placing ads for them on a local escort site.
Local police turned the investigation over to the FBI. Police reports show the agency already had an active investigation going on Chatman.
But that didn't hinder Chatman from growing his business. In September 2015, DCF gave Reflections a permanent license to run both intensive rehab and outpatient treatment. A year later, Laura Chatman applied to open a second treatment center, Journey to Recovery. The application, obtained by NBC News, shows that while the center was opened under Laura's name, Kenny Chatman is listed as a signatory to its bank account. It was approved.
Sam Petulla
The same month, he and Laura bought a $1.1 million home in Reflections' name. Chatman posed for photos at charity events, where he gave away large checks to support kids' football games and unwed mothers.
Chatman relied on this image as a pillar of the community in December, when the Palm Beach Post published a scathing expose, which included details from the report of the woman who said she had been prostituted. Chatman denied everything, telling the paper in a statement, "I would never, knowingly put any of the clients of Reflections Treatment Center or any other vulnerable young person in harm's way."
In the wake of Chatman's arrest, DCF said it has accepted the surrender of both licenses for his treatment centers. The agency said it refers complaints that are beyond its authority to law enforcement, and coordinates with those groups to hold individuals accountable. It has also supported recent legislation to beef up standards for substance abuse in the state.
"The alleged practices of those who have been accused of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals are shameful and sickening and DCF has no tolerance for this type of behavior," the agency said in a statement.
Chatman's attorney Saam Zanganeh said that his client was a small fish in an industry where fraud and kickbacks run rampant. "Everybody's looking for a scapegoat," Zanganeh said in May, when a judge sentenced Chatman to spend the next 27 years in federal prison. Zanganeh said his client had fully cooperated with federal authorities, and criticized the judge for overruling the "miraculous" plea deal of 14 years Zanganeh had negotiated.
Laura Chatman pleaded guilty to two felony counts for letting her husband use her name on the paperwork for the treatment centers they opened. Her attorney, Christopher Lyons of the Miami-based firm Mase Tinelli, said that she had been kept in the dark about her husband's business. "She is sincerely remorseful for her role in the offense and causing so much pain to the victims and their families," he said.
Two sober home operators, a mental health counselor and a doctor have also pleaded to fraud charges. A third doctor has pleaded not guilty, and is taking his case to trial.
The First To Die
Katie Cruea was the first of the three Midwestern girls to move into Chatman's houses, and she was the first to die.
She'd been living in sober homes linked to Chatman for about two months when her mother, Sandra Hinkle, bought her a ticket to come back to Ohio for the holidays. She arrived at noon on Christmas Day 2015, and left a few days before New Year's. At the airport, Cruea begged Hinkle not to make her go back. Hinkle thought her daughter was just getting cold feet, doing that addict thing.
"She said, 'Mom please don't make me go, I'm afraid I'm never going to see you again,'" Hinkle remembered. "I gave her a hug, and said 'You will absolutely see me again, I'll never let anything happen to you. I'm your mom.'"
But Hinkle never did see her daughter again. Cruea overdosed on February 24, 2016. She was found in a local motel, dead of an overdose of cocaine mixed with the synthetic opioid carfentanil. "It was almost like she was giving me a warning, like she knew," Hinkle said.
Sandra Hinkle holds a picture of her daughter, Kaitlyn Cruea, who died of an overdose. Courtesy of Sandra Hinkle
Five months later, Mikaya Feucht, who had been shuffling through the same network of Chatman-linked houses since March, got kicked out of her sober home after her boyfriend got in a fight with the manager. In the middle of the night, Feucht, her boyfriend and bags holding all of their belongings were dumped at a motel in Boynton Beach.
Curran was in touch with Feucht that night and most of the following two days, trying to figure out a plan to get her daughter stabilized. Then the phone went quiet. At 3:07 on the morning of July 31, two sheriff's officers knocked at the door of Curran's house in Ohio, where Feucht's two boys slept tight.
Curran sat on the couch, tired and confused. It wasn't until an officer knelt on the floor next to her that it clicked. Curran said he told her, "'We had a detective from Florida get ahold of us.' And I knew. I said, 'What happened to my daughter?' They told me she was found in that hotel."
“ I'll never let anything happen to you. I'm your mom.”
Local police have responded to 17 overdoses at that motel since 2010, at least five of them deadly. For many addicts caught in the South Florida shuffle, motels are the last stop.
Alison Flory was still living in her sober home the day she died. Things seemed to be going well. Alison would call back to Illinois to talk to her younger siblings for long stretches, chatting about movies or counseling her brother on how to navigate the bullies at school. "She was their idol, just the fact that she was in Florida was breaking their heart," Flory said. "She was really feeling a bond with family, she was trying to make things right."
Jennifer Flory (left) and her daughter Alison Flory. Courtesy of Jennifer Flory
October 13, the last day of Alison's life, was like many before it. She got up, she went to treatment at Reflections, she sat in group therapy, she peed in a cup. Then she went back to her sober home, a yellow bungalow where she and her boyfriend were living with at least three other couples. Shamar Brooks, the 24-year-old "manager" who rented and operated the home, lived in the green house next door.
The 911 call came from Brooks at 8:35 the next morning. When he entered the house to wake everyone up to go to Reflections, he told responders, he found Alison wasn't breathing. He couldn't feel a pulse. She was declared dead at 9:09 a.m.
Flory said she never got a call from Brooks, or from Chatman at Reflections. "No condolences," said Flory. "There was nothing." It was a roommate of Alison's who called to tell Flory her daughter had died. Brooks told NBC News he considered Alison a friend, and declined further comment.
On May 17, Hinkle, Curran and Flory traveled to Florida for Chatman's sentencing. Each took a turn, along with nine other people, standing before a federal judge in Palm Beach County to tell him what Chatman and the South Florida shuffle had done to their families.
"He had such influence — why didn't he use that influence to help people?" Flory told the judge as Chatman sat, shackled at the waist and nearly motionless at the table behind her.
Like the other mothers, Flory wanted justice. But above all, she wanted Alison's death to bring change, to save someone else's life.
"There's no sentence that will bring my daughter back," Flory added. "She didn't deserve to die." |
Photos courtesy of Elzhi
Not long before New Year's, the Detroit rapper Elzhi got some strange news: Someone online was threatening to bring a class action lawsuit against him on behalf of his Kickstarter backers on the grounds that he had failed to deliver the album he promised. His first reaction was to treat it as routine online trolling. But the concern that people might take it seriously was real.
Elzhi announced the album in November 2013 and took fan donations to the tune of $37,000. A look at the page for his campaign shows mixed reactions. Some are angry that he's touring Europe while they've never seen the product promised. Others plead patience. One common theme emerges: Can't we just get some updates?
He acknowledges he could have done better. But he decided to look on the bright side. People care. “It was almost like it was right on time,” he said over the phone from Paris recently. “Now people are talking, now people are getting interested again, right when we’re starting to campaign. So I felt like this could’ve been the best thing that could’ve happened to me.”
Whether the threat was serious or not, it was a moot point. Lead Poison is ready to be shown to the world. When it comes out in March, it will be his first official album since 2011’s Elmatic, his tribute to Nas’s classic Illmatic. Lead Poison is his recovery record, a project he threw himself into to fight off what he calls the cloud. It's an album looking inward, seeking purpose and peace of mind. El claims he's found it, says he's in the right place now. “I’m almost feeling close to 100 percent,” he says. A new surge of productivity is on the way. “Writing is a lot easier. The writer’s block isn’t how it was, contributing to the fact that it took me so long, because of the things I had to deal with. I had to deal with myself.”
Listen to the exclusive premiere of "coSIGN":
Noisey: Would you say you’re trying to turn this Kickstarter lawsuit thing into a net positive?
Elzhi: Yeah, it may appear to be negative on the surface, but what us human beings or us spiritual beings in human bodies have to realize that anything that gets thrown our way is to benefit us. Every obstacle is an opportunity, and pretty much that’s what the record is about.
I’ve been away for awhile, and one of the reasons why I’ve been gone is because I’ve been getting chased by this fucking black cloud that I can’t seem to shake. The cloud has been so crazy that it’s made me look at things in ways where, you know my perception is pretty much negative. At the end of the day, the people that knew what was going on—like the people who knew that the record existed, because they heard the record—they was excited. If someone’s trying to say that I scammed them, that’s only because they don’t know and don’t have the information that we have.
One of the things I’ve seen people say is “we don’t care if it takes a long time, we just want more updates,” and I’m just curious is that something you wish you had done differently?
I’m a perfectionist, like cut and dry. We did some updates. I did a couple of audio updates, and I did a couple of video updates. And when I look back on it, man, I just feel like this shit is wack. They wasn’t the type of tunes that I would’ve liked to put out for my fan base.
In that moment in time, when I was doing that, I was embarrassed to let my fans know where I was at in life at that time. Because I was going through a lot of shit I had to deal with. I just look at those videos, and I felt like I was faking it til I’m making it, but then I had to think about it like, “What happens when you don’t make it, you just fake it?” So I felt like I was being false and felt embarrassed and, yo I don’t want my people to see me like this. But I do wish that I could’ve done more and I wish it could’ve looked the way I would’ve liked it to look.
Lead Poison album art
Do you feel like there’s a disconnect between artists and listeners in terms of what it takes to actually get from point A to a finished product?
Yeah, it’s the lack of information, pretty much. And I put that all on me. I was trying to act like everything was okay, so I was writing music that way too.
Like I say, perception is a motherfucker. Because on one hand, they like to say that El don’t care about his fans. El didn’t give his fans any updates and he don’t really care about his fan base if he’s not letting them know what’s happening in his life. That’s one way to look at it.
But the way that I look at it and just being myself and who I am and what I stand for, I think I care too motherfucking much. I don’t want to just slap some shit on a piece of paper and go in a booth and spit phlegm or whatever and then just throw it out there like, “OK, it’s an album.” I want to put my heart and my soul into a project. I want to stand behind it. If I don’t stand behind it, it’s not coming out, simple as that. And I know it’s the perfectionist in me, but at the same time, I care too much. I care about the people that listen to my music.
You get the sense that you are a lover of the album as art form.
With the record I was trying to channel like, Tim Burton, Shel Silverstein, and Larry David. I was trying to channel that energy but still be myself. Like I say, man, it’s the realest shit I ever wrote. Anything that the fans want to know from when I disappeared out of the spotlight is in the record. And that was another thing I had on my mind, too. I’m not saying that it was cool, I’m not saying it was the right thing to do or anything, but one thing I had in the back of my mind was like you know, if someone was to hear the record, they would have some kind of clue about what was going on when they didn’t see me, when I was out of the picture. ‘Cause a lot of shit happened, and it was all due to that fucking cloud.
It always comes around and drenches me in rain drops and that’s part of the reason why it took a long time for me to do what I had to do. I knew what I had to do was instead of being safe, I had to be real and I had to take all the stress and depression and all the things I considered to be negative inside of me and get it out the only way I knew how to get it out, through writing. ‘Cause I felt like when that stuff is inside of me and you consume it, and you conceal it, it can become poisonous and it can be poison into your heart, your mind, your body, your soul. So whatever it is, I’m just encouraging anybody, like if anyone has ever felt the way that I’ve just explained, I’m encouraging anybody to find like an outlet. Whatever it is, basketball, drawing, whatever. You get it out of you, but I got it out the only way that I knew how, through my writing.
Is the cloud something you’ve dealt with for a long time or something more recent?
It’s always been there, but I couldn’t see it because I was moving around a lot. And when you moving around a lot and you doing a lot of things, a lot of stuff gets pushed to the back. Things that you need to deal with you push it to the background. It’s almost like trying to put a band-aid on a bullet wound, like it never really fully heals. Like you never really got to the core of what the problem was, of where the pain was at. And so it happened when I finally sat my ass down, and wasn’t doing anything but sitting down and thinking things over and everything just started rushing at me at the same time like everything. It felt like my world was caving in and it’s been this way for at least like four years. Even with Elmatic, being on tour with the band and doing these shows, I couldn’t even really live inside of that moment because of what I was going through. And people didn’t know it. I was acting like everything was okay.
Do you feel like specifically in hip-hop that there’s a reluctance to talk about depression and mental health issues and things like that?
Definitely. When hip-hop started, it started with the dozens. You know: Who’s the most witty, who’s the most clever, entertaining? And that spirit remains in hip-hop. You look at people talking about how much money they got, how many corks they popped, how many whips they drove—hip-hop is about being on top of your game. When you get in the game or when you’re striving to get inside of the game you just want the women to love you, you want the male fan base or the men to want to be like you. It’s about being the best, it’s about wearing the crown, and because everybody wants to hold the crown like that, it’s a competitive sport.
It’s really different in this era because everyone wants everybody else to feel like they’ve got their shit together with social media. I had to really look at that. At first, I felt something in the pit of my stomach, you know like, “Aww, do I reveal this?” But I had to, for my personal health I had to put that out there. And for the people, I feel like I owe it to my fans, to let them know what’s going on. I feel like I can’t be fake to my fan base. They gotta know I’m just like them. I just chose an occupation to write rhymes because it was a God given gift that was given to me. But I’m just like everybody else.
Follow Todd Olmstead on Twitter. |
Friday Facts #75 - False hopes
Posted by Tomas on 2015-02-27, all posts
Hi everyone,
today we had a bit of misunderstanding about who will write the regular update so we are coming with the news later than usual. But it is still Friday here (around 10 pm) so still it can be called the Friday Facts :)
Skiing
Kovarex went skiing last week but he fell and hurt his shoulder. In the beginning of this week he went to see the doctor and actually got a kind of bondage for his left arm. It was not broken but he was advised to keep it very relaxed for a while. But after two days he was so frustrated from not being able to write the code (really difficult with just one hand) that he just took the thing off and went back to regular coding. Dedication :)
Multiplayer refactoring
We have been fixing issues in the multiplayer for quite some time. But now after all that effort we decided it would be great fun to throw a lot of that code out of the window and rewrite it. The thing is that there were often errors when the game would just stop and not react or crash during strange connecting / disconnecting situations. This was because the code taking care of internal state logic has been growing incrementally for a long time without us revisiting the whole concept. So this revisit is what we did for the 0.11.17.
Actually I was so excited about the changes that I spent most of the last weekend working on them. And then surprisingly it worked much better than expected. After a bit of tweaking the tests were passing and all the tricky connection / disconnection situations from before seem to be handled rather well. So we are eager to see how these changes will stand the player test. For the technically curious: the refactorign was in the tricky logic called Map Align (you will see this a lot around in the logs). That is when all the peers have to synchronize and make sure that they have the map in the same tick with the input actions from everyone else. This happens for instance before a new peer connects or existing one disconnects or is dropped. There is a lot of state transitions and exceptional cases going on and before refactoring it was rather a mess.
False hopes
The bug queue has consistently been getting shorter over the week so we had good hopes of releasing the 0.11.17 today. However from the very morning we were looking into a tricky desync issue and then kept discovering one problem after another (a lot of them in the Lua binding). This is somewhat so typical that there probably is a Murphy's law for that. We are patiently working throughout the week towards the release and then on the last day the whole structure just collapses. Afterwards over the weekend many new bugs are discovered and we can start again the next monday. Game development applied :) We even have an internal kind of joke for this: "Moments of expectation are replaced by moments of disappointment".
Albert's greetings from Minorca
Albert took the opportunity to leave winter Prague for a week or two. He is now back in Mediterranean with his girlfriend and family. This hasn't stopped him from making more sketches of the entities that will come for the endgame. Below you can see some first proposals for the platform engines. The idea is that they would be powered by a hydrogen fuel compound.
The forum post is ready for whatever you might want to share. |
Huma Abedin, top aide to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, asked a speechwriter to shorten a potential statement to reporters because Clinton would not deliver it at a podium, according to the latest Wikileaks release of messages from John Podesta’s email accounts.
Dan Schwerin, Direct of Speechwriting for Clinton’s campaign, sent a draft of a “post-game statement [Hillary] could make to press” after she testified before the House Benghazi Committee in October 2015. The statement, at 253 words, would take the average speaker less than two minutes to deliver.
“I would make it shorter only because it’s a bank of Mics and no podium,” Abedin replied.
Based on contemporaneous news reports, Clinton’s team appears to have scrapped a “post-game” statement altogether — since Clinton ultimately sat and talked for 11 hours over the course of the hearing. During that time, Clinton suffered a coughing fit for several minutes while answering questions from Rep. Elijah Cummings.
Schwerin’s email is time stamped 5:48 PM on the day that Clinton testified. While the time zone is not specified, Clinton’s hearing adjourned around 9:00 PM eastern; Schwerin’s message, at the earliest, would have come near the end of its seventh hour. Abedin responded at 7:49 PM.
In a sit-down interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow the next day, Clinton said that after the hearing, “I had my whole team come over to my house and we sat around eating Indian food and drinking wine and beer” and talked about TV shows.
Clinton appeared to deliver a condensed version of Schwerin’s draft to an early question in the Maddow interview:
I said I would do it and I did it because if there is anything new, which is unlikely after the eight prior investigations that have been held, we should know about it because the point is, what are we going to do to both honor the people that we lost and try to make sure this doesn’t happen again? And as I said yesterday, we have had horrific incidents. We lost so many Americans in Beirut for a bombing of our embassy, then a bombing of the Marine barracks. We lost so many Americans in Beirut, first a bombing of our embassy, then a bombing of the Marine barracks. We lost Americans in the Al-Qaeda bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. We had more than a hundred attacks on our facilities around the world since 2001. So we live in a complicated, dangerous world. And so we do want to have a, a good conversation where people come to the table ready to actually learn about what we can do. I’m afraid that’s, you know, not necessarily what this particular committee is doing, but we have learned a lot from our previous investigations, and I’m certainly, you know, committed to doing all I can to make sure we do save lives.
Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump has questioned whether she possesses enough “stamina” to perform her duties as president. This week, Trump’s campaign released an attack ad with footage of Clinton’s security detail dragging her into a van during a medical episode she experienced on September 11th, 2016.
A statement from Clinton’s physician Lisa Bardack said that the candidate had been diagnosed with pneumonia several days before the incident. |
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