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The company did study the Echo closely when it showed up in 2014, but dismissed its lackluster audio quality and set to working on something that sounded better. Beamforming (which directs sound based on the shape of the environment) was key to that strategy, but the exact shape and components didn't coalesce for a long time.
Then there's the question of priority. Apple appears to have always treated the HomePod as an accessory, rather than a platform like Amazon's Echo line. For Amazon, the Echo was its primary way of getting Alexa (the real star of the show) into your home; for Apple, Siri on the HomePod was just one of the selling points. While it seems like Apple treated Amazon as competition, it just wasn't in a rush to create a living room AI companion.
Whether or not that's a problem isn't clear. Even with the HomePod's delay to 2018 and $349 price, Apple is reportedly expecting to sell 4 million units in the next year. However, the Bloomberg piece suggests that Apple's relative lack of commitment to smart spakers not only kept it from launching the HomePod in a timely fashion, but may have given Amazon (and Google, for that matter) a long-term advantage in AI. If voice assistance becomes a household must-have instead of a luxury, Apple may have to scramble to keep pace. |
Donald Trump says his wife Melania “truly loves” being the first lady, which is the surest sign yet that Melania Trump fucking hates being the first lady.
On Monday, Melania revealed her White House holiday decorations, floating through the East Wing in all white like a distressed spirit trapped between worlds. She glided past a bloodless White House replica done all up in white chocolate, past ballerinas in all white; she hovered down a corridor flanked with long white branches reminiscent of extremities stripped of their flesh, reaching for something both upward and inward. The branches were lit from below as though fleeing subterranean heat, like grasping hands emerging from graves, crops killed instantly in a flash freeze. For the first time in half a century, the creepiest thing about the East Wing wasn’t the gauzy, eerie portrait of Jackie Kennedy.
Christmas at the White House will be both sad and hilarious, as most of Melania’s demonstrative disdain for her job is. Classic Melania!
Vanity Fair ran a piece this weekend claiming that Melania didn’t ever want to be first lady “come Hell or high water,” and that she, like the rest of the world, didn’t think her husband would win the presidential election. That story capped off months of intermittent speculation that the FLOTUS might be miserable, in Newsweek, several times over in Vanity Fair, on the cover of US Weekly (“Melania’s Struggle,” read the hot pink cover line next to one of what must be tens of thousands of sad Melania photos that currently exist). What could it have been that tipped the media off? The constant scowling? The fact that the first lady dragged her feet for five months before moving in with her husband?
Trump responded to the latest “Miserable Melania” story on Twitter, tweeting, “Melania, our great and very hard working first lady, who truly loves what she is doing, always thought that ‘if you run, you will win.’ She would tell everyone that, ‘no doubt, he will win.’ I also felt I would win (or I would not have run) - and Country is doing great!”
Here’s what we know about the president: He lies. He lies about everything, even about things that he has no reason to lie about. He lies about how many Twitter followers he has, he lies about being under investigation for ties to Russia, he lies about whether things he said on videotape were things that he actually said. He lies about observable reality. It wouldn’t be off-brand in the least if he were lying about this too.
Melania has every reason to feel forlorn. Her husband seems to dote on his daughter with the sort of affection normal people reserve for their spouses. He uprooted the life of her and her child in pursuit of the ultimate vanity project gone out of hand, from a gilded penthouse in the New York City sky to a stone prison in a Virginia-Maryland swamp.
And since her husband’s election, most public actions of Melania Trump have been commensurate with her circumstances. They’ve read like a cry for help—the hand slapping, the wincing smile, the sleeves that keep getting crazier and crazier, as if an outward manifestation a human spirit resigned to entropic misery. Who can forget the first couple’s wooden first dance at the inauguration ball, Melania leaning away from her husband with the sort of disdain one might reserve for a sweaty armpit on a crowded subway? Or her face during the inauguration itself, a tragedy mask accessorized with a glamorous powder-blue Jackie O. ensemble?
Melania descending a military plane scowling behind enormous designer sunglasses is the avatar of the great American pall.
The Vanity Fair story that set the president off claims that Melania is settling into her role as first lady. But it might be that America is settling into accepting that we have a first lady who is terribly sad, or that Melania’s resolute blankness is something onto which Americans can project their angst about the state of things. We are Melania. Melania is us.
At the very least, Melania’s corridor of holiday sadness has given us a nice preview of what the world will look like post-nuclear holocaust. God bless us, every one. |
The pyromaniac Stellara. A member of the Aeonyx species, conceived by Alieraah. About this creation
Stellara was an Aeonyx who specialised in creating stars. This work turned into an obsession, with Stellara sometimes spending years crafting a single star until it was "perfect", saying little other than how beautiful the flames would look. While this made her rather inefficient, the other Aeonyx couldn't argue with the results. Her stars were the most brilliant they'd ever seen.
After a while though, Stellara realised she enjoyed destroying stars far more than creating them. She seemed obsessed with supernovas, watching them burn up anything near them. This obsession came to a head when she went on a spree across the galaxy, resulting in the destruction of dozens of stars. For this, she was declared a rogue element, and is now hunted by her fellow Aeonyx...
"You're new. I wonder what colour flame you'd burn with"...
I've been wanting to try my hand at an Aeonyx for a while now. The concept Alieraah came up with really intrigued me, and this pyromaniac character seemed a good fit for their race.
Hope you enjoyed!
Stellara was an Aeonyx who specialised in creating stars. This work turned into an obsession, with Stellara sometimes spending years crafting a single star until it was "perfect", saying little other than how beautiful the flames would look. While this made her rather inefficient, the other Aeonyx couldn't argue with the results. Her stars were the most brilliant they'd ever seen.After a while though, Stellara realised she enjoyed destroying stars far more than creating them. She seemed obsessed with supernovas, watching them burn up anything near them. This obsession came to a head when she went on a spree across the galaxy, resulting in the destruction of dozens of stars. For this, she was declared a rogue element, and is now hunted by her fellow Aeonyx..."You're new. I wonder what colour flame you'd burn with"...I've been wanting to try my hand at an Aeonyx for a while now. The concept Alieraah came up with really intrigued me, and this pyromaniac character seemed a good fit for their race.Hope you enjoyed!
Comments Add a comment
I like it Blizzard - Awesome work! I particularly love the head! I made it Timeline 15 Quoting Blizzard - Awesome work! I particularly love the head! Thanks! Thanks! |
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Room for a peaceful resolution dwindled here as both men who claim to be president hardened their positions amid increasing accounts of political killings and abductions.
Nearly 200 people have been killed in Ivory Coast political violence that must be halted and fully investigated, the United States told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday.
U.N. experts and many others agree that the Ivory Coast is edging closer to a return to the civil war that split the country in 2002. Many Abidjan residents are fearful that Ivory Coast is moving closer to armed conflict.
"War is inevitable. We have to go through a serious confrontation to liberate Ivorians once and for all," said Pierre Noel, an Abidjan-based television producer.
A top opposition figure has called for the international community to use force to oust Laurent Gbagbo from the presidency after the disputed election, though others urge all possible efforts at negotiation must be pursued.
"What we need is a real discussion between the two parties to assure that no more blood is spilled," said local restaurant waiter Beranger Kouassi.
The United States and the United Nations have increased pressure on incumbent Laurent Gbagbo to step down from power. Gbagbo, 65, lost the Nov 28 runoff election but refuses to leave office. Challenger Alassane Ouattara, 68, won the vote and is attempting to run the country from the Golf Hotel in downtown Abidjan.
The United States is looking at ways to strengthen the 9,000 United Nations troops currently in Ivory Coast. The U.S. is discussing ways to increase pressure on Gbagbo with neighboring African countries and France, the former colonial power, said U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley in Washington on Wednesday.
But Gbagbo is defiant. "I'm the president of Ivory Coast,” he said on state broadcasting Tuesday night in his first address to the nation since he had himself sworn in as president earlier this month.
Gbagbo railed against the international recognition of his opponent's victory.
“It's clear that those results are null and void," he said on state television on Tuesday night. "The international community has declared war on Ivory Coast. This is not acceptable and this will not be accepted."
Gbagbo has the support of the army and police. He is also using foreign mercenaries from Liberia and possibly Angola, according to reports by Amnesty International and other human rights experts.
Meanwhile Ouattara's prime minister called for force to be used to bring Gbagbo down. "It is obvious that the only solution to the crisis is the use of force," said Guillaume Soro. "I ask the U.N. Security Council, European Union and ECOWAS (the West African eocnomic community) to consider the use of force."
Fear has gripped ordinary Ivorians who report nightly killings and abductions by Gbagbo's militia. Numerous Abidjan residents report that truckloads of armed men drive through the streets at night, targeting homes of Ouattara supporters. At least 50 have been killed and more are missing, according to U.N. officials.
Neighborhoods have set up their own security system by setting up makeshift roadblocks. Housewifes bang pots and children blow whistles to alert others when they see the Gbagbo militia approaching.
The room for a negotiated compromise is dwindling, according to analysts.
"The question is whether the international community can muster the political will to master this situation very quickly," said Peter Pham, senior vice president at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. "Absent a major attrocity — a headline-grabbing, conscience-shocking event over the holidays — I don't see an international consensus being mustered for military intervention," he said.
"If there's going to be any activity, it's going to have to be in the next two or three weeks. After that is Sudan's referendum," said Pham. "If Gbagbo can manage to hold out that long, he can count on the fact that the international community won't have the stomach for two major situations at once."
One pressure point that hasn't yet been explored, short of military intervention, would be a cocoa embargo, which could have a devestating effect on Ivory Coast, the world's largest producer. But European and American business interests could be severely damaged if their access to 40 percent of world supply of cocoa was cut off. This option, Pham said, "isn't even on the table.
In Washington, the State Department was clear that Gbagbo should leave power.
"President Gbagbo must accept the results of the election," said U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. "From our standpoint this is not negotiable." The U.S. joined the EU in imposing travel sanctions on Gbagbo and his closest associates and is considering further steps such as financial sanctions.
The World Bank Wednesday froze all finance to Gbagbo.
Ouattara is supported by nearly unanimous international support from foreign governments and multinational institutions. Gbagbo, however, remains in control on the ground.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned of a real possibility of civil war on Tuesday. He said that since the contested elections Ivory Coast has seen a proliferation of human rights abuses including kidnappings, arbitrary detentions and extra-judicial killings.
The U.N. certified Ouattara's election victory win, but Gbagbo had Ivory Coast's Constitutional Council throw out more than half a million votes from Ouattara strongholds and declare him the winner.
The U.N. then called on Gbagbo to step down and respect the democratically elected winner of the election. But Gbagbo has adamantly refused to move out of the presidential palace. Instead he has named a prime minister and a cabinet and has started to govern as if it were business as usual.
The situation on the ground in Abidjan and across the country remains tense. The U.N. refugee body has already recorded 6,000 refugees who have fled to neighboring Guinea and Liberia and said they expect 30,000 to arrive in the coming weeks.
Reports of Liberian mercenaries working for Gbagbo were also confirmed by the U.N. this week. Witnesses described English-speaking soliders wearing Gbagbo's uniform during a pro-Ouattara demonstration last week. The pro-Gbagbo forces opened fire on the crowd in several instances killing as many as 30 people, according to some estimates.
France, Canada and Germany have called on all their citizens to leave Ivory Coast and many journalists have fled their homes, sleeping at the office, or in other safe locations.
Gbagbo called on the U.N. peacekeeping force of 9,000 troops to pull out of Ivory Coast over the weekend, accusing them of arming the rebel army allied with Ouattara and providing them with sensitive information.
He charged that the U.N. troops had overstepped the bounds of their mandate and had violated their neutrality and so therefore had to leave Ivory Coast.
But the U.N. fired back on Monday, extending its mission another six months and reiterating reports of human rights abuses and threats of international prosecution against Gbagbo and his entourage.
Gbagbo is also facing financial pressure, as efforts to cut off international funds have begun to bite.
The World Bank, the African Development Bank and the West African economic bloc known as ECOWAS have all suspended any funding to Gbagbo's government.
Ouattara's camp is also working on cutting him off from the state treasury. Ivory Coast shares a common central bank, called the BCEAO, with seven other Francophone west African countries, and Ouattara wrote to ask them to only grant access to his government, as it is internationally recognized.
An apolitical organization, the BCEAO has been sitting on the fence. It has not responded to Ouattara's request and a source at the bank, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not permitted to talk with the media, said that they are hoping the situation will resolve itself to avoid having to pick sides.
Tensions are high at the Golf Hotel, in central Abidjan, where Ouattara and his government is holed up and surrounded by a protective guard of 800 U.N. peacekeepers. Gbabgo's forces blockaded the hotel for five days, not permitting deliveries of food, water or medicine.
But Gbagbo extended an olive branch during his Tuesday speech, when he said deliveries of essentials could resumed. He also called on Ouattara's people to leave the hotel.
“No one will stop you,” he said, “you're free to leave.”
While deliveries of the essentials resumed on Wednesday, no one in Ouattara's camp ventured out from behind the razor wire, afraid of a trap.
Ouattara adviser Amadou Coulibaly, reached by phone, said that the Ouattara camp is suspicious of Gbagbo: “Mice don't trust smiling cats.” |
Airplanes flying through super-cooled clouds around airports can cause condensation that results in more snow and rain nearby, according to a new study.
The correct conditions for this inadvertent weather modification occur about five per cent of the time — but 10-to-15 per cent in winter — according to Andrew J. Heymsfield of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., lead author of the study appearing in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
Aircraft take off into the wind, he noted, so if they are generating extra ice particles upwind of an airport, the result can be snow right on the airport. That might mean planes will require more de-icing, he said, though other researchers weren't so sure.
The team was investigating holes or canals that are sometimes seen drilled in clouds after an airplane has passed through.
Studying six commercial airports, including the one in Yellowknife, they found that increased snow and rainfall occurs in areas where the unusual cloud holes appear, usually within 100 kilometres of the airport. Places farther away from an airport are more likely to be at higher altitudes, above the clouds.
The added rain or snowfall occurred when conditions in the clouds were super-cooled. That means the clouds were made up of water droplets that were colder than freezing, but which had not yet frozen.
Water in the atmosphere can remain liquid at temperatures below freezing if it doesn't have any type of nucleus to freeze onto, such as bits of dust or salt. It will freeze without a nucleus when it gets very cold, however — about -15 C.
Sudden cooling
It turns out, when an airplane passes through one of these clouds the movement of air around the tips of the propeller, or over the wings of a jet, causes a sudden cooling of the air, sometimes down to the critical point where the droplets freeze. They then can fall to earth as snow or rain, depending on whether or not the air is warm enough to melt them on the way down.
But that still did not explain why the holes and canals can be so wide, much larger than the narrow airplane passing through the clouds.
So they used a computer model to study what was happening, and found that heat released when the water freezes warms the air around it, causing the air to move upward at the centre of the hole and spreading out to move downward at the edges.
Chris Westbrook of the University of Reading in England, said what is new in this study is that use of a computer model to study the reaction of the cloud to this process, in particular the effect on the air motion around the hole.
Westbrook, who has done similar research but was not part of this team, said that finding differs from what has been seen in England, "so this is certainly still an area of uncertainty and active study. It may perhaps be that the air circulation reverses in the later stages of the hole's evolution."
Understanding these processes, Westbrook added, can "give us some insight into the basic science of how clouds work, how the microscopic processes of tiny ice crystals and droplets interact with the large-scale air motion which drives the clouds, and how the seeds of precipitation are sown."
Kenneth Sassen, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said the report adds detail to a phenomenon that has been noted before.
"This is an interesting effect of aircraft penetrating super-cooled water clouds, and illustrates the basic result when ice and super-cooled water get mixed together, but I doubt that in more than a handful of cases could airports, or the surrounding areas, experience any problems," said Sassen, who was not part of the research team.
Airports studied by Heymsfield's team were London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Paris Charles De Gaulle, Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago O'Hare and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada; plus Byrd Station in Antarctica. |
THE Conservative work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, is in the headlines for urging British businesses to hire British workers rather than immigrants. Mr Duncan Smith has been praised to the skies by the Daily Mail (front page headline: "Minister who dares to speak the truth") and criticised by business groups who quickly responded that employers were not to blame for the poor skills and bad attitudes of too many young people emerging from the British education system.
Read charitably, Mr Duncan Smith's remarks were less inflammatory than the headlines. After all, he notes that "of course immigration plays a vital role in our economy when it fills a clear gap in skills". Read quickly, and he is merely asking businesses to give British workers the same breaks as foreign workers, and noting that his elaborate welfare-to-work reforms will be undermined if employers shun unemployed British applicants.
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But read Mr Duncan Smith's remarks carefully and they are less neutral than they at first appear (frustratingly, the full speech is not on his department website yet, nor the Conservative website, nor even the website of FAES, the Spanish think tank to which he gave the speech). For all his talk of only seeking a level playing field for native applicants, I think he is hinting that employers are unreasonably shunning Britons. He does not want a level playing field, in short, he wants protectionism (and hang the consequences for struggling British businesses).
Consider these extracts:
Even as our economy starts to pick up again, and jobs are created, there is a real risk that young people in Britain won't get the chances they deserve because businesses will continue to look elsewhere to fill their posts... government cannot do it all. As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance, and not just fall back on labour from abroad... good immigration is managed immigration – it should not be an excuse to import labour to take up posts which could be filled by people already in Britain. That's why we must take tough action on this to tighten the rules on immigration across the major entry routes – work, student visas and family settlement – so that only those who have something clear to offer to the UK are able to come in
That looks neutral enough on first reading. But it is not. Consider that phrase "posts which could be filled by people already in Britain". If the posts could be just as successfully and competitively and productively filled by British applicants, they would be. Instead, British employers complain again and again that they find school-leavers are worse than, say, Polish workers when it comes to punctuality, taking sick leave, numeracy, literacy and customer service skills, and plead with the government to improve schooling. Second, the right "people already in Britain" might be foreign nationals, but I don't think Mr Duncan Smith is using the phrase that way. I think he is implying that British nationals are being pushed to the back of the queue.
It is the same with this call for immigration controls designed so that "only those who have something clear to offer to the UK are able to come in". That sounds reasonable, except that actually he is also cross about immigrants with so much to offer that they routinely outdo British applicants for British jobs. By his own logic, an immigration system that allows in only highly employable foreigners would still not be strict enough.
I have a final beef with this speech. Mr Duncan Smith, being a man who lives in the real world, knows that any number of laws, both European and domestic, prevent British employers from discriminating on grounds of nationality. So he is calling for something that is not going to happen and cannot happen. And yet lots of newspaper readers and viewers of television news are going to come away with the impression that Mr Duncan Smith is saying that this will or should happen: he is after all the work and pensions secretary. When they are inevitably disappointed, their frustration with the political classes can only grow. |
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After Russia and Iran signed a military agreement allowing Russian aircraft to station at the Hamadan Air Base in western Iran, the Russian strategic long-range Tu-22M3 bombers, that took off from the air base, delivered airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria.
“On August 16, 2016, Tu-23M3 long-range bombers and Su-34 bombers, having taken off from their base in Hamadan [Islamic Republic of Iran], carried out group airstrikes against targets belonging to Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups in the provinces of Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor and Idlib,” the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said in a statement.
According to the Russian MoD, the mombers also destroyed 3 militant command centres and training camps in the areas of Serakab, Al-Bab, Aleppo and Deir Ezzor. The air strikes killed “a significant number” of terrorists.
The Russian MoD confirmed on August 16 that Russia had deployed Tu-22M3 bombers and Su-34 strike fighters in Iran. The deployment at the Hamadan Air Base allows the Russian Aerospace Forces to reduce the flying time to terrorist targets in Syria. Previously, Russian strategic bombers delivered air strikes in Syria from a base in Russia’s Mozdok, covering a distance of about 2,000km to get to Syrian airspace. Now the distance is about 700km. Thus, airstrikes can be delivered faster and more cheaply.
The Russian Khmeimim Air Base in Syria’s province of Latakia is not not suitable for the heavy Tu-22M3, now. However, it will be changed as soon as Russia will finish the modernization of the air base for permanent deployment of the Russian Aerospace Forces there.
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The day after Barack Obama was inaugurated on a cold January day in 2009, becoming the nation’s first black president, a young, obese white supremacist named Keith Luke went on a racially motivated one-day rape and killing spree in Brockton, Mass.
Luke, who was 22 and had a history of mental illness, told authorities he decided to kill blacks, Latinos and Jews after reading about “the demise of the white race” on white supremacist websites.
He said he was “fighting for a dying race.”
By the time he was captured after a high-speed chase and shoot-out with police, Luke had killed two people – Selma Concalves, 20, and Arlindo Depina Concalves, 79 – and raped, shot and badly wounded a third, after breaking into her home. The victims were immigrants from the West African archipelago of Cape Verde.
Now 26, Luke will spend the rest of his life paying for his personal race war. On Thursday, according to The Boston Globe, a Plymouth County Superior Court judge ordered Luke to serve two consecutive life sentences without parole after a jury convicted him Thursday afternoon of a long list of offenses in the case that continues to haunt the surviving victim.
“My life has been nothing but a nightmare since Jan. 21, 2009,” the Globe quoted the woman as telling the court Thursday as she gave a victim impact statement. “I’m no longer able to answer a knock on my door from family or friends without fear or memory of this tragic day.”
As she spoke, according to the Globe, Luke, dressed in a white T-shirt and green pants, sat stoically next to his lawyer, who had unsuccessfully tried to convince the jury that his client was insane at the time of his murderous spree. During a hearing in May 2009, Luke walked into the courtroom with a jagged swastika freshly carved into his forehead.
At his sentencing, Luke’s head was shaven and he had lost a considerable amount of weight since his arrest and confinement in a special security unit of a local jail.
The Anti-Defamation League of New England applauded the verdict and sentence, saying in a written statement “our community is safer tonight.”
“Like all perpetrators of hate crimes, Luke was trying to send a message to his victims – and everyone else who shares the victim’s characteristics – that they are not welcome or safe,” the New England league’s interim director, Robert Trestan, said in the statement. “Now that he has been brought to justice, we hope a louder, stronger message resonates: that all people are welcome and safe in Brockton and across Massachusetts.” |
Jenkins' look at an alienated child who struggles as he enters young adulthood is a beautiful, intimate portrait.
“Moonlight” is a deep tragedy that’s told in passing glances. Rich with evocative images and tender exchanges, writer-director Barry Jenkins’ treatment of Tarrell Alvin McCraney’s play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue” is a beautiful drama that manages to be both epic and understated. “Moonlight” explores the plight of a young black man across three eras, searching for his place in the world while struggling with his gay identity under the burdens of class and a broken family. The story’s power comes from the gaps between words — and an ongoing battle to find the right ones.
Although it’s set in and around Miami, “Moonlight” largely takes place within the confines of its young protagonist’s mind. The film opens by tracking petite adolescent Chiron (Alex Hibbert) through his shyest days, when schoolyard bullies dub him “Little.” By its second chapter, Chiron is an alienated teen (Ashton Sanders); in the modern-day finale, he has undergone a dramatic transition into young adulthood and taken on the nickname “Black” (Trevante Rhodes). But he still hasn’t quite figured out how to express his deepest feelings, and therein lies the movie’s greatest source of intrigue. Jenkins and his extraordinary cast generate powerful suspense around questions of when, and how, the repressed character might find emotional liberation.
At age nine, Little finds a prospective surrogate father in Cuban immigrant Juan (Mahershala Ali), a confident drug dealer who takes the child under his wing when he’s neglected by his drug-addled mother (Naomie Harris, ably tackling a role that could easily turn shrill). Juan’s partner Teresa (Janelle Monáe) provides the maternal support Little needs to gain a modicum of confidence, but it’s not enough to overcome problems at his real home — or at school. For that, he turns to classmate Kevin (Jaden Piner), the only boy willing to encourage Little to stand up for himself against bullies — and whose support leads the child to the first hints of sexual attraction.
Jenkins doesn’t overstate the possibility that Little might be gay. In a bracing sequence, Kevin attempts to “train” Little to fight for himself by tussling on the schoolyard, and the look on his face when that act is finished speaks volumes. That’s what faces do in “Moonlight,” where deep feelings simmer just beneath the surface.
For Little, sexuality is an alien impulse he must assess while surrounded by contradictory pressures. From a tense interrogation session, in which Little asks Juan some hard truths, to an abrupt sensual moment on the beach six years later, Chiron’s journey is filled with question marks: In a world of masculine posturing, how can — or should — he blend in?
Jenkins positions that drama within a complex web of cultural references. While never preachy, “Moonlight” offers a mesmerizing, if claustrophobic, vision of black life in America, and the confusion that results. The robust soundtrack (it samples Boris Gardiner’s “Every Nigger is a Star” and Mozart in its opening act) mirrors Chiron’s undulating worldview. His struggles climax in a heartbreaking final act that finds Chiron — now identifying as “Black,” and hiding beneath a thuggish persona replete with shiny grills — tracking down Kevin (now played by a charming André Holland), who is enduring his own isolated adulthood. In the moving climax, the film toys with romanticism as Chiron searches for the only semblance of companionship still available to him through the fog of time.
“Moonlight” synthesizes some of the best American cinema of recent years. Jenkins pairs the melancholic power of the repressed sexuality in “Brokeback Mountain” and “Carol” with the subtle textures of burgeoning masculinity in “Boyhood.” However, the film is primarily in tune with the director’s own debut, 2008’s “Medicine for Melancholy.” A scrappy, black riff on the “Before Sunrise” model that had two young San Francisco characters wandering the city and babbling about gentrification, the movie traded big plot twists for the quieter rhythms of conversation. But where its hyper-literate protagonists ultimately confronted the story’s political dimensions head-on, the marginalized figures in “Moonlight” lack such clarity. Instead, they land on poetic asides. “You just roll into the waves,” 15-year-old Kevin tells Chiron as they gaze out at sea, “just like all the other niggas.”
Indeed: Chrion’s biggest challenge is that his world moves faster than his ability to comprehend anything beyond its borders. He’s trapped by the darker impulses of a violent community, and finds no outlet other than sinking into the dysfunction. Though “Moonlight” lacks the levity to convey every nuance of its characters’ existence, it excels at exploring the need to express genuine affection in environments that smothers the possibility. “Moonlight” is less a gay movie than an embodiment of feeling out of place across pivotal moments in American history. Its backdrop acknowledges everything from the War on Drugs to gangsta rap to the conflicting sentiments of modern times, but Chiron’s world is a solitary one. “I cry so much I could turn into drops,” he admits, and it’s one of the few times when he seems wise beyond his years.
Complemented by cinematographer James Laxton’s smooth camerawork, “Moonlight” captures a series of moods as if they were stanzas: Jenkins finds elegance in shadowy exchanges at late-night street corners bathed in yellow and black, then finds similarly expressive qualities at an all-night diner. His filmmaking is a grab bag of meaningful details, but there’s no doubting the confidence of a storyteller in full control of the material.
Such an eye-opening entry in the ever-neglected arena of black cinema arrives at a critical moment — the tail-end of the Obama era, when diversity has become a keyword and discussions of racial turmoil have reached a fever pitch. “Moonlight” transforms rage and frustration into unadulterated intimacy. In this mesmerizing portrait of a suffocating world, the only potential catharsis lies in acknowledging it as Chiron so deeply wishes he could. Despite the somber tone, “Moonlight” is a beacon of hope for the prospects of speaking up.
Grade: A
“Moonlight” premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. It opens theatrically on October 21.
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I’ve had the honor and pleasure to be asked to read some of the truly greatest books ever in 2014. Thank you to all the authors who asked me to read and review their writing. Below is a selection of the best of the best in no particular order. Thank you to Rangewoman Inc. for her invaluable help with this list and throughout the year.
A Trilogy of Unrelated Shorts by Julie Frayn
Genre: Short stories, contemporary
Read review here.
How to Be Dead by Dave Turner
Genre: Fantasy, humor
Read review here.
The Favorite by Franklyn C. Thomas
Genre: Contemporary
Read review here.
Undone: Excerpts, Short Stories and Other Musings by R.H. Ramsey
Genre: Contemporary
Read review here.
Places in Time by Maxine Schur
Genre: Nonfiction, travel
Read review here.
An Android Dog’s Tale by D.L. Morrese
Genre: science fiction, humor
Read review here.
Magic of the Nile by Veronica Scott
Genre: Historical romance, fantasy
Read review here.
Provoke Not the Children by Michael W. Anderson
Genre: Science fiction
Read review here.
You’ve Got This by Dale Barr
Genre: Nonfiction, self-help
Read review here.
The Expat Diaries: Single in the City by Michele Gorman
Genre: Chick-lit, romance
Read review here.
To Catch a Creeper by Ellie Campbell
Genre: Cozy mystery, humor
Read review here.
The Monitor by Cathy Vasas-Brown
Genre: Thriller
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Seven Beyond by Stella Atrium
Genre: Science fiction
Read review here.
Trophy Target by Allen Mitchum
Genre: Thriller
Read review here.
Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Neil Gaiman
Genre: Nonfiction
Read review here.
Cooper by Tell Cotten
Genre: Western, adventure
Read review here.
The Deadliners by Rachel Medhurst
Genre: fantasy, paranormal
Read review here.
Maize Baby by Julie Frayn
Genre: Contemporary
Read review here.
The Drive-By Wife by Mike Wells
Genre: Thriller
Read review here.
Justice, Inc. by Dale Bridges
Genre: Short stories, fantasy
Read review here.
The Chanel Caper by Ruth Harris
Genre: Mystery, romance, humor
Read review here.
Mission to Mahjundar by Veronica Scott
Genre: Science fiction, romance
Read review here.
Like Shards of Glass by R.H. Ramsey
Genre: Contemporary
Read review here.
Cuffed by Marc Horn
Genre: Thriller
Read review here.
The Assassination of Michael Collins by S.M. Sigerson
Genre: Nonfiction, history, mystery
Read review here.
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From iLCP:
This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. At 1:23am on April 26th, 1986, operators in the control room of Reactor #4 botched a routine safety test, resulting in an explosion, and a fire that burned for 10 days. The radioactive fallout spread over tens of thousands of square miles, driving more than a quarter of a million people permanently from their homes. It remains the world's worst nuclear disaster to date.
Since 1993, renowned National Geographic photographer Gerd Ludwig has visited the site several times, creating an in-depth look at the many consequences of tragedy. The thawing of bureaucratic barriers in Ukraine enabled him to move freely within the Exclusion Zone and delve deeper into contaminated reactor than any other Western still photographer. "I know that my explorations are not without personal risk. However," he says, "I do this on behalf of otherwise voiceless victims who allow me to expose their suffering solely in the hope that tragedies like Chernobyl may be prevented in the future."
This spring, Gerd Ludwig plans to return to the reactor and the areas around it to investigate the state of contamination to the land; to report on the progress of its cleanup; and to examine the health consequences in the fallout regions of Ukraine and Belarus. Harnessing social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, his project entitled The Long Shadow of Chernobyl is funded partially through the crowd-funding website Kickstarter, where individuals can pledge their support for the project.
PHOTO GALLERY Chernobyl
Today, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sits inside a fenced area known as the Exclusion Zone. Radioactive remnants of the failed reactor linger inside the so-called sarcophagus, a 24-story concrete and steel encasement hastily erected after the accident. Leaky and structurally unsound, it now threatens to collapse, shaking loose enough radiation to cause a second disaster of similar magnitude. Work has started on a new encasement, which will slide over the existing sarcophagus to seal in the remaining nuclear fuel - at an estimated cost of 2 billion dollars.
Less than 2 miles away from the reactor, the evacuated town of Pripyat, once inhabited by 50,000 plant workers, is a chilling ghost town still littered with the remnants of its hasty abandonment. Within the Exclusion Zone, in dozens of abandoned villages collapsed houses are disappearing under overgrowth. Ignoring radiation levels, some 400 elderly people have returned to their homes.
From the first day, officials downplayed the damages of the catastrophe and the politics of misinformation continues: A UN report estimates that 4,000 people will eventually succumb to cancer-related illnesses as the result of the accident. But major environmental organizations have accused the report of whitewashing Chernobyl's impact and state that more than 100,000 people have already died as a consequence of the disaster. |
Phyllis Diller, the reigning queen of comedy, died at the age of 95. She earned her title having spent almost 60 years making people laugh.
If laughter really is the best medicine, then Diller helped dispense it for decades. The family said she died peacefully in her sleep in Los Angeles.
"I adored her. She was a wondrous spirit who was great to me," said Barbra Streisand in a statement.
She began her comedy career as a mother of five when she was in her late 30s. Her first husband, Sherwood Diller, was the one who prodded her for two years to get into comedy and give up a successful career as an advertising and radio writer. She first took the stage at San Francisco's famed Purple Onion. Her first TV appearance was opposite "Groucho" Marx on the game show, "You Bet Your Life."
Her husband managed her career until the couple's 25-year marriage fell apart in the 1960s.
Diller was a staple of nightclubs and television from the 1950s when female comics were rare until her retirement in 2002. She built her stand-up act around the persona of the corner-cutting housewife with bizarre looks, a wardrobe to match and a husband named "Fang." She married twice, but "Fang," often the butt of her jokes, was a work of fiction.
"You can have, say, a pulse of 60 at the beginning of a show. When you come off, your pulse can be 120 and you are bursting with endorphins - high as a kite," she once said.
When Diller's comedy career took out, it soared. She appeared in movies, including "Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number" and "Eight on the Lam" with Bob Hope. In 1966-67, she was the star of an ABC sitcom about a society family trying to stave off bankruptcy, "The Pruitts of Southampton," and in 1968, she was host of a short-lived variety series, "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show."
In later years, she made appearances on sitcoms like "The Bold and the Beautiful," and she was the queen in the animated film, "A Bug's Life."
Her face would change over the years - Diller was one the first celebrities to be upfront about having plastic surgery.
In 2002, when she decided to hang-up her wig and retire from stand-up, she summed it all up saying, "I feel I've done a good job. I've done my best, and I've had such fun."
The Associated Press contributed to this story. |
Image caption Claus is being cared for by the Scottish SPCA
An animal charity is hoping to find the owner of a dog which boarded a Glasgow bus in freezing conditions and refused to leave.
The male cairn terrier hopped aboard the bus on Wednesday when it stopped on Dumbarton Road in the city's west end.
The dog, which had icicles attached to its coat, then curled up in a warm spot and refused to move.
The dog, nicknamed Claus, was later taken to the Scottish SPCA's animal rescue and rehoming centre in Glasgow.
Vet check
Centre assistant manager, Anna O'Donnell, said: "Claus is a cheeky wee lad who we think is around eight years old. He isn't micro chipped so we don't know who his owner is.
"The passengers on the bus must have had a real surprise when he jumped on and refused to get off. He was so cold he had icicles attached to his coat so maybe he made a dash for somewhere warmer.
"Even when he arrived here he went straight to a warm spot, curled up and didn't want to move. He's still to have a full vet check though he does seem to be walking gingerly, so he may have arthritis.
"Hopefully his owner will be missing him and will come forward." |
More than 92,000 Kentuckians have signed up for health coverage through the state’s healthcare exchange, Kynect, since it opened in October.
Kynect’s executive director, Carrie Banahan, says that the expansion is result of a growing demand for the health exchange’s services, which shows no signs of slowing down.
“We are seeing about almost 3,000 people a day approved for either Medicaid or a [qualified health plan] here in Kentucky,” Banahan says. “And it started out about two or three weeks ago at a 1,000, then that increased to 2,000, so we’re up to 3,000, so we’re very excited about that response.”
In order to meet the increasing demand, the exchange has expanded operations in its contact center to 150 employees from 100, Banahan says. The contact center, which is supported by a collaboration with the Xerox Corporation, processes questions from consumers as well as applications to the exchange.
About 70,000 of the current enrollees have signed up for Medicaid, of which coverage was expanded according to the specifics of Kentucky’s adoption of the federal health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, she adds.
On Friday, the governor’s office reported a surge in applications to the exchange in the weeks after Thanksgiving.
(Image via Shutterstock) |
Serial fans get it. When I first discovered that The Intercept’s Natasha Vargas-Cooper had landed a sit-down with Jay Wilds, I alerted everyone in my life that they were not to speak to me until I had read and digested the interview. The current-day Mr. Wilds, the star witness whose timeline and testimony comprised essentially the state’s entire case against his former schoolmate and weed customer Adnan Syed, was excruciatingly absent from Serial. While the show relied heavily on tapes of Mr. Wilds’ police interviews and trial testimony, his refusal to speak to the show’s reporter, Sarah Koenig, made it difficult to get a sense of both what his life is like now or why he did what he did then. Until now.
“I had never listened to Serial before,” Ms. Vargas-Cooper told the Observer this afternoon. “And then I got an email from another reporter who works at Rede Globo, which is a Brazilian news outlet. She was friends with Jay’s lawyer and Jay was interested in talking. They were very upset [with the way Jay had been depicted in Serial]. So she had asked around for recommendations of a journalist to turn to and a professor friend of hers who doesn’t know me but knows my work said ‘Talk to Natasha Vargas-Cooper,’ and so they said would you be willing to talk to Anne and Jay.”
According to Ms. Vargas-Cooper, Sarah Koenig had tried to interview Jay’s lawyer, Esther “Anne” Benaroya, and “it was kind of disastrous.”
“Anne told me what she felt were the big issues. I had identified those issues. I told her, ‘Give me a couple of days to listen to Serial and I will get back to Anne.’ So I listened to Serial to see if there was something there and if it’s something I wanted to get involved with and I saw some really huge… I mean just some stuff that I was like – I mean problems, and I don’t mean that necessarily in the ethical sense but it was like … If I were to come to you at the Observer and say I want to write about a case and I don’t have the star witness, I don’t have the victim’s family, I don’t have the detectives, I don’t think you would run it, you know.”
I told Ms. Vargas-Cooper that I absolutely would, assuming I was persuaded that all efforts to get those people had been made. And I am pretty persuaded of that in the case of Serial.
“Oh, totally. I don’t want this to be like I am trying to blow up Sarah Koenig. I don’t want to sling mud at her. She presented a very compelling story with characters who I really wanted to hear from.”
“No, not at all,” I replied. “I think it’s that you’re trying to present a fuller picture. I thought Sarah Koenig showed eight pieces of a ten-piece puzzle, Jay’s stuff is a ninth piece and we may never get the tenth piece.”
“We’re only in the middle of it,” exclaimed Ms. Vargas-Cooper. “We spent about four hours together. We have spent a lot of time on the phone before and since, and I think he’s a really complicated guy and I think I’m dealing with somebody who has like been really traumatized. [This interview] has intensified and further armed the pro-Adnan people, which I feel like at this point anything would. But I think for people who are not as partisan it created a more fleshed out human being. The reason why I cover criminal justice is I’m not really into advocacy, I’m really into human beings in high-stakes situations and the extremes of human behavior and all of that. We got parts of that from Serial, but we didn’t get that with Jay because it wasn’t a part of the story. [My interview] demonstrated that Jay’s a pretty smart guy. He’s a human being and I don’t think there was any way for him to have known that not giving an interview to a journalist would result in huge segment of the population speculating that he committed the murder. Like, for this article, people have asked me to comment and I’m commenting to you. I don’t think it would ever occur to me that if I didn’t comment to a journalist that somehow I would be punished by the internet. To watch somebody grapple with that … He’s like, ‘I’m freaked out.’ Basically, Jay said he and Sarah talked for 20 minutes in his house and when she reported it back it was used to demonize him. So he’s like ‘My fear is that it would have been 50 times worse if I would have talked to her.’”
I asked Ms. Vargas-Cooper what drew her so strongly to this, as someone with a long history of crime reporting but no prior engagement with Serial.
“I’ve reported on a case that involved a friend of mine who was murdered when I was 17. Getting teenagers to testify and testify accurately is a nightmare because they’re afraid of everything. Their parents, their friends, the cops, and we were pretty well-to-do kids. And just recently on a case I’m working on involves marines who committed a murder against another marine, and there were some marines on the base who knew about it and didn’t come forward and didn’t testify. So to me, people who are willing to testify are pretty fascinating and they experience the criminal justice system in a way that most other people don’t. It’s very interesting because … like in The Wire, which all of the delightful white liberals who are creaming over This American Life also adore and cherish. One of the big central moral issues in The Wire is that a state’s witness was killed and if you’re going to step out and like speak a truth about a crime as a state’s witness then you deserve to be protected and respected for that. Hypothetically, everybody seemed to agree with that premise on the show. Now, put into real life they’ve really vilified Jay and I find that reaction pretty fascinating.”
Fascinating, indeed. On Reddit, for example, amateur detectives have leapt into action. This link pins the blame on Jay’s father—how nice—and others link to Jay’s post 1999 brushes with the law for stuff like theft under $500 and possession of drug paraphernalia. It hasn’t been pleasant.
“I mean it’s been terrible for Jay. Like I’ve seen it, their address has been posted. Their kids’ names have been posted. That’s going to be our third part, which is like all the corrupt collateral damage that’s happened. Like people have called his employer. People have showed up at the house to confront them. It’s like horrendous. It’s like the internet showed up at your front door.”
Even Ms. Vargas-Cooper has now come under some fire. People have been tweeting all kinds of crazy stuff at her: “People have been like, ‘How much have you paid Jay?’ which is absurd.”
With Serial finished and having concluded without the “Adnan is indisputably guilty or officially exonerated” moment many were hoping for, fans are left with a gaping hole. Serial’s failure to include today’s Jay was not for lack of effort. Ms. Koenig made clear the lengths to which she went to try to gain his cooperation, including the brief untaped encounter. But the absence of Jay’s hindsight perspective—the absence of ANY perspective from the prosecutor’s side, including the detectives and the prosecutors themselves—did leave a hole in the 12-part series.
On Monday, Ms. Vargas-Cooper poured a dumptruck of Jay into that hole and has at least a couple more coming. It’s incredibly fulfilling to those of us who spent 10 hours listening plus countless more debating and studying maps of the Best Buy and reading Rabia Chaudry’s amazing blog and basically allowing this new medium to consume our lives.
“Well, it might get even better,” Ms. Vargas-Cooper said tantalizingly. “It hasn’t been 100% confirmed, but I do have like two more interviews of people who refused to speak with Sarah who are very big players. … It looks like the prosecutor is going to talk to me and he said he wants to talk about the questions that he would have asked Adnan had he taken the stand.”
Whoa. Waiting for the next Intercept interview is now as torturous as waiting for the next Serial. Worth it! |
Bill Nye discusses the discovery of water on Mars on The Nightly Show.
Water has been found on Mars and Bill Nye is pretty amped about it. Bill Nye, the “Science Guy” was a guest on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. He told the panel that “wherever we've found water on Earth, we have found life.” The other panelists in the discussion, Ricky Velez and Michelle Buteau, both comedians, kept implying that we shouldn't be caring about the discovery so much. Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist was “infuriated,” making an analogy to the classroom saying Nye was, “trying to share [his] wisdom with a bunch of students who don’t give a damn (and have no problem showing it).”
Bill went on trying to blow everyone's mind explaining a secondary thought process to the beginning of human life. “It's Not Crazy to Suggest Life Started on Mars… you and I, fungi….., have Descended from Martians.”
Given that The Nightly Show is on a comedy network after all, the other panelists seemed more interested in making jokes than fawning over the concepts of space discoveries. Whatever may be the case, this does not seem too different from what's happening hundreds in schools and households across the country. When asked about why they are not excited about the discovery, Valez joked that he doesn't know a reason to care about Mars, when there are so many other things to care about here on Earth. "Trump is first in polls right now! Let's defeat ISIS! How about that!" he added. He went on to say that since Trump is so eager to rule a country, let's just send him to Mars. And now since we've found water there, he'll be fine.
Bill Nye staying calm with the rudest panelists ever, they disrespected him, his work and the topic of conversation! https://t.co/pW7EnyRLZP — Taran Matharu (@TaranMatharu1) October 2, 2015
Bill Nye defends Mars from the haters on the 'Nightly Show' http://t.co/x2MAFFQSBt — Patricia Johnson (@johnspatricc) September 30, 2015
When Nye got a little desperate to make the panelists understand how crucial the discovery is, he went on to say that ”it is cool,” and that the discovery was made possible by a very special and small group of people dedicated to working towards a mission.
The discussion that took place may not be Larry Wilmore’s fault, but Mehta does think it is a reflection on the show’s producers for belittling such an important scientific discovery.
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California Gov. Jerry Brown doesn't travel much out of state, but amid intensifying conflict with Washington over health care, climate change, immigration and more, the governor of the nation’s most populous state will head east next week. | AP Photo Jerry Brown heads to D.C., with Schwarzenegger right behind him
California Gov. Jerry Brown doesn't travel much out of state, but amid intensifying conflict with Washington over health care, climate change, immigration and more, the governor of the nation’s most populous state will head east next week — his first trip to the nation's capital since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The visit will come less than a week after Trump released a budget proposal that would cut deeply into social service programs and begin an easing of national vehicle emission standards — both anathema to policies in Brown’s heavily Democratic state. The governor called the environmental action “an unconscionable gift to polluters,” and California officials this week filed a motion in federal court to intervene in a lawsuit automakers brought against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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Brown’s office included only one specific meeting in its announcement of the four-day trip, which begins Monday: a meeting of the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s board of directors, which Brown joined earlier this year. In a statement Saturday, Brown’s office said “additional meetings with government leaders and others will be added to the schedule.”
It's unclear with whom Brown will seek meetings — or if they will include any Trump administration officials. The lack of scheduling is typical of the fourth-term Democrat, who eschews public schedules for the flexibility they deny him.
Brown traveled regularly out of state during his previous time as governor, from 1975 to 1983, and as in his three failed bids for president. Since returning to office in 2011, however, the 78-year-old Brown has largely limited his travel to events related to climate change. He skipped a meeting of the nation’s governors in Washington in February.
But Trump’s first months in office have expanded the range of issues with which California and Washington stand in conflict. On Twitter, Brown described a proposal by Republicans to repeal former President Barack Obama’s landmark health care overhaul as a “harebrained scheme” and “a really dumb idea” that he said would result in widespread suffering.
The state budget relies on more than $105 billion in federal funding. Following Trump’s budget release this week, Brown’s finance director, Michael Cohen, said in a prepared statement that “it’s hard to know where to begin.”
“The President’s Budget proposes a complete withdrawal of the federal government’s commitment to working with states to solve the critical issues of the country - from environmental protection and emergency preparedness to transportation and other infrastructure,” he said.
While Brown prepared to travel to Washington, his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was expected to follow soon after, angered by proposed cuts to after-school programs, a cause of Schwarzenegger’s since before he was governor.
“It looks like I'll be making another trip to Washington,” Schwarzenegger, who appeared on Capitol Hill in 2013 to lobby against proposed cuts to after-school programs, said on Twitter. “We've fought this fight over & over, and we're undefeated.”
White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney on Thursday defended reductions to after-school programs, saying there is no evidence that they are effective.
While Brown has promised to confront Trump on issues ranging from immigration to health care and the environment, he has held out hope that Trump could prove helpful on infrastructure spending.
Brown is seeking to build a high-speed rail system and a $15.5 billion Delta water conveyance. Of Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure proposal, Brown said in his State of the State address in January, “I say, amen to that, man!” |
London start-up which helps people save on household bills will use investment to expand into new markets such as insurance and energy
Ctrlio, a London-based start-up that helps people save on their household bills, has received $1.3m investment in a deal led by former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel, and ex Virgin Media CFO; Robert Gale.
Founded in 2013 by Laurence John and Dominic Strowbridge, Ctrlio helps consumers match tailored deals from mobile providers to their actual usage. The free tool also claims to help comapnies increase brand acquisition and lower advertising costs.
Alongside an earlier Seedcamp funding round, the latest finance will allow the company to expand into new markets and verticals to serve a wider range of customers.
John commented: “Following our success in the mobile market, we are ready to move into new channels, such as insurance and energy. This round of investment will help us continue to build momentum and make the crucial steps to take intention marketing to the masses.”
Gabriel added:
“I got involved in Ctrlio because it’s one of the first businesses to allow people to harvest their own personal data.
“From the perspective of businesses and brands the new fault line appearing is between the ‘push’ – the old advertising model of throwing a ton of stuff in front of everyone and the new ‘pull’ model based around your intentions, that can both be made transparent and understandable.” |
Los Angeles, United States of America - Al-Qaeda may attempt to attack the Guantanamo Bay prison and free the men who are detained there - if the US government is compelled to reveal certain details regarding the genital searches of prisoners, the Justice Department has said in court documents.
In a 13-page brief filed on Friday in federal court in Washington, DC, government lawyers assert that a June 3 declaration signed by Guantanamo prison warden Colonel John Bogdan, which sought to justify the rationale behind the genital search policy , contains details about "operational-security and force-protection procedures" that, if made public, "would better enable our enemies to attack the detention facilities at Guantanamo or undermine security at the facility".
"Protecting these operational-security and force-protection procedures from the public remains critically important, as evidenced by the recent al-Qaeda attacks on prisons at Abu Ghraib and Taji in Iraq," the Justice Department's brief says.
"Those attacks killed 16 Iraqi guards and released hundreds of al-Qaeda prisoners. Of note, Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's leader, identified the [Joint Task Force-Guantanamo] detention facilities as a target during a 22-minute video posted July 31, 2013, stating: 'The terror network will spare no effort to free prisoners held at the US military-run detention centre in Cuba.'"
The government made these claims in response to a motion to intervene filed by this reporter in federal court last month which sought to unseal Bogdan's six-page declaration. Journalists can intervene in court cases and argue for the release of certain materials on the grounds that the public has a right of access to judicial records.
The warden's declaration was submitted by the government - under seal - in response to a lawsuit filed by Guantanamo attorneys, who argued the genital search policy Bogdan enacted at the height of a mass hunger strike in April interfered with prisoners' access to their lawyers. The new procedures required prisoners to agree to have their genitals searched whenever they left their cells to meet with attorneys, and upon return, to ensure they were not transporting "contraband". Rather than submit to the searches, numerous prisoners declined to meet with their lawyers.
Last month, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth banned the searches, calling them "religiously and culturally abhorrent". Lamberth said the protocol Bogdan implemented under the guise of security was actually intended to deter prisoners from meeting with their lawyers. The judge noted the "government is a recidivist when it comes to denying counsel access" to the prisoners.
Three days after Lamberth issued his opinion, this reporter's Washington, DC-based attorney, Jeffrey Light, filed a motion to intervene to unseal Bogdan's declaration. The following week a federal appeals court reversed Lamberth's decision while the government prepared a formal appeal.
Secret, or not secret?
In response to the court filing, the government on Friday released a partially redacted version of Bogdan's declaration, and argued that the blacked-out passages in the document should remain secret - because they contained sensitive "operational-security information" about Guantanamo.
But it appears government lawyers were unaware that another version of Bogdan's declaration - one that contained a different set of redactions - was publicly released last month, in documents filed with the federal appeals court when the government asked Lamberth's decision to be put on hold.
Redacted passages that the government says needs to remain secret are unredacted in the earlier version filed on the public record as part of the government's appeal. At the same time, some unredacted passages in the declaration submitted on Friday are redacted in the public version of Bogdan's declaration filed with the appeals court last month.
Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, told Al Jazeera the two versions of Bogdan's declaration were "a great illustration of the subjective nature of the redaction process".
"Most, if not all, of these decisions to withhold information are judgment calls, not simple questions of right or wrong," Aftergood said. "And depending on who does the redacting, you can often get a different result."
Indeed, in the public version of Bogdan's declaration submitted to the appeals court last month, the following passage is unredacted:
If the detainee would need to use the restroom in Camp 6, the meeting must end and the detainee would need to be moved by guard staff back to his cell.
The same passage, however, appears this way in the version of Bogdan's declaration released on Friday:
If the detainees would need to use the restroom in Camp 6 [redacted] .
Another passage in Bogdan's declaration released on Friday says:
The frisk search that is conducted is to ensure there is nothing concealed between the clothing and the body.
However, the word "frisk" is redacted from the public version of Bogdan's declaration submitted to the appeals court last month. The earlier version also says: "At no time is the detainee's actual groin exposed to the staff," whereas that passage is redacted in its entirety in the version of Bogdan's declaration the government released on Friday.
A passage in the earlier version of Bogdan's declaration says:
Additionally, for security reasons, internal moves could not be conducted in proximity to the attorney visits.
That sentence has been redacted in the version of Bogdan's declaration released on Friday.
Another passage in the most recent version of Bogdan's statement says:
During the brief movement to the camps, detainees are restrained in a manner consistent with standard procedures for military corrections.
However, the last part of that sentence, "in a manner consistent with standard procedures for military corrections", was redacted in the public version of the declaration the government released last month.
In all, the first five pages of Bogdan's declaration released to this reporter on Friday contain redacted passages that appear entirely unredacted in the version of his declaration submitted to the appeals court last month. Meanwhile, the final paragraph of Bogdan's declaration contains many unredacted passages that are redacted in the public version filed with the appeals court.
"Strictly speaking, this declaration was not classified, it was 'For Official Use Only'. But the same phenomenon shows up in the classification process," Aftergood said. "One clever technique used by some [Freedom of Information Act] requesters is to request the same document from different agencies, because the agencies would de-classify it differently, and it was a good way to get more information released."
The seemingly arbitrary nature of whether or not a statement should be concealed from the public has ramifications over the whole nature of the secrecy of government documents, he explained.
"The subjectivity of the classification process is important because it has implications for efforts to combat overclassification," Aftergood added. "If decisions to classify information can be independently reviewed by other 'subjects' who have no self-interest in the classification decision, I think that kind of review process can help to strip away lots of unnecessary classification."
Still, Justice Department lawyers submitted yet another declaration by Bogdan under seal on Friday, explaining why the redacted passages in his June 3 declaration should remain secret, even though most of the same passages, those that government lawyers said - if revealed - would make Guantanamo vulnerable to an attack, are unredacted in the version of his statement the government itself made public in its case with the appeals court last month:
In particular, the June 3, 2013, declaration discusses operational-security information concerning: How and where detainees are moved,
When detainees cannot be moved,
The capabilities and limits of current guard force staffing,
Details about the physical layout of the detention facilities,
Certain risks for introducing contraband into the facility,
The physical details of the vans used for transporting detainees. The declaration also provided precise details of how detainees are now searched for external movements outside their residence camps... These details, if publicly disclosed, would better prepare enemies to attack the detention facility… But were the declaration released, it would reveal to the public specific operational-security measures or force-protection procedures, and thus the limitations of those measures and procedures. This will enable our enemies, foreign or domestic, to better prepare for an assault or operation against [Joint Task Force-Guantanamo], thereby enhancing the risk to national security and endangering United States personnel.
With regard to the way prisoners' genitals are searched, Lamberth disclosed those details in his July 11 order.
He said guards were instructed to search a detainee's genital area "by placing the guard's hand as a wedge between the [detainee's] scrotum and thigh and using [a] flat hand to press against the groin to detect anything foreign attached to the body". Guards use "a flat hand to frisk the detainee's buttocks to ensure no contraband is hidden there".
Moreover, the government's assertion that if secret portions of Bogdan's declaration were unsealed it would reveal "details about the physical layout of the detention facilities" doesn't take into account that satellite images of the camps have long been accessible via Google maps . Nor does the government acknowledge that this reporter and dozens of other journalists have toured the prison and published detailed stories about the facility.
Light, the Washington-based attorney, intends to file a formal response to the government in federal court in the weeks ahead.
Follow Jason Leopold on Twitter: @JasonLeopold |
Credit: Enrico Marini (DC Entertainment/Dargaud)
European cartoonist Enrico Marini is working on two Batman bandes dessinées to be published in a unique partnership between DC Entertainment and the Franco-Belgian publisher Darguad. Marini is best-known for his long-running series Le Scorpion.
“We are thrilled to have Enrico Marini lend his outstanding vision and skills to the project that will bring an original Batman story to a broad European audience of DC fans," said DC Co-Publisher Jim Lee.
The as-yet-untitled Batman books are scheduled to be released on November 3, 2017 and in Spring 2018, respectively.
“I am really proud to take part in this amazing project,” said Enrico Marini. “Batman has been my favorite super hero since my childhood. Having this opportunity to reinterpret his universe and to add my point of view is a great privilege.”
Dargaud has a strong relationship with DC, as its sister company Urban Comics licenses and reprints various DC titles for France. It is unknown if and how Marini's Batman OGNs will be released in North America however, as Dargaud is currently not distributed officially in North America. |
A San Diego teenager who is battling cancer welcomed Captain America, Iron Man and Pepper Potts into his home, just two weeks after his classmates stood behind him in support. NBC 7’s Greg Bledsoe reports. (Published Monday, May 23, 2016)
A San Diego teenager who is battling cancer welcomed Captain America, Iron Man and Pepper Potts into his home, just two weeks after his classmates stood behind him in support.
Ryan Wilcox, 18, is a Grossmont High School student who is also a die-hard "Captain America" and "Avengers" fan.
In a video played at the school May 6, Chris Evans offered Wilcox well wishes and told him to "stay strong."
The clip not only went viral but prompted "Avengers" co-star Gwyneth Paltrow to suggest a trip to San Diego.
The trip became a reality Monday when Paltrow, who plays Pepper Potts in the "Avengers" movies; Evans, who portrays Captain America; and Robert Downey Jr., also known as Iron Man, showed up on the Wilcox family's doorstep.
"I saw this car pull up and I saw them walking. I was just like — what?" Ryan told NBC 7's Greg Bledsoe in an interview Monday.
Hey @robertdowneyjr and #chrisevans, want to take a road trip? I will drive you guys down. #Repost @hizrarejwl with @repostapp. ・・・ This is Ryan Wilcox, he's an 18 year old guy from San Diego battling cancer and he absolutely LOVES Captain America and the Avengers and what we want for Ryan if possible is to meet the actors and actresses of the Avengers, especially Chris Evans who plays Captain America. He isnt doing too well and this would be a major way to boost his spirits and quite frankly be the best moment of his life if he literally got to meet his hero! Please share this to help get the attention of Chris, Robert, Scarlett, and the rest of the Avengers cast and try to make his dream come true! #chrisevans #avengers #makeawish A photo posted by Gwyneth Paltrow (@gwynethpaltrow) on May 7, 2016 at 1:06pm PDT
The stars spent some time with Ryan in his room and even signed his wall. They left behind souveniers and a lot of memories.
"We're all a little numb. I knew for a couple days it was gonna happen but until you see them walk through that door, you don't know how you're going to feel. And they just were awesome. They didn't want cameras, they wanted to do it quietly," said Ryan's mom, Amy Wilcox. "They came into our home, sat on our couches and just visited with us."
She said the trio sat down with the family and just talked.
Chris Evans, Grossmont High School Rally for Cancer-Stricken Student |
How Walter and Rowena Shaw grew Avanti Polar Lipids into the company it is today
By Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay
Avanti Polar Lipids probably would not exist if it hadn’t been for a brother and sister born of incest. The siblings suffered from a genetic disease. A researcher got involved in understanding some of the molecular details of the disease. That researcher was Walter Shaw.
As a series of events unfolded in the 1960s and 1970s, his project spun off into what would become one of the most recognized suppliers of lipid products. Today, Avanti Polar Lipids, which 72-year-old Shaw owns and runs with his wife, Rowena, has 110 employees in Alabaster, Ala.
In 1967, when he was a laboratory director at the Medical College of Virginia, tubes of blood from the brother-sister pair landed in Walter Shaw’s hands. The siblings had type I hyperlipidemia, which meant they couldn’t metabolize fats properly. The brother and sister “would periodically come to the emergency room to be treated for pancreatitis caused by eating a fatty meal,” says Shaw. Shaw’s boss, clinician-researcher William Harlan, had the siblings’ permission to take blood samples for research purposes during their hospital visits.
Harlan already had established that the siblings were missing the adipose tissue lipase commonly called lipoprotein lipase. They had problems with processing neutral triacylglycerols. But the patients had phospholipase activity. What enzyme produced this phospholipase activity? Shaw was tasked with finding that out.
Aerial view of Avanti’s campus. Image courtesy of Walter Shaw.
Shaw and others in Harlan’s group developed an assay to track the phospholipase activity. The mysterious enzyme was very slow and required lots of substrate egg phosphatidylcholine. A single incubation consumed 10 grams of the substrate. Shaw and Peter Jezyk, now a veterinarian in Arizona, were in charge of purifying kilos of phosphatidylcholine from eggs. The researchers soon switched to a radioactive substrate that could be used in smaller amounts, but by then Shaw and Jezyk knew how to purify buckets of egg phosphatidylcholine and happened to have some left over.
When not cracking eggs with Jezyk, Shaw had another project to worry about. He and Harlan were trying to figure out why the red blood cells of severely burned patients looked like spiky balls instead of the usual biconcave disks. It was Shaw’s responsibility to collect the weepage from the victims’ third-degree burns, which covered more than one-third of their bodies. To this day, Shaw says he has horrible flashbacks to the weepage collections.
In trying to understand why the red blood cells of burn victims turned spiky, Shaw needed to learn a purification technique. To learn the method, he had to go to The Ohio State University, where he had earned his master’s degree, to visit a researcher who could teach it to him. While he was in Cleveland, Shaw decided to drop by a company called Grand Island Biological Company. The company is better known today as GIBCO and is now part of Invitrogen. On the Friday he walked into the company’s office, its leaders were grappling with a problem. Their lipid supplier in India had had a facility fire and was unable to deliver materials. When Shaw mentioned he had several kilos of egg phosphatidylcholine handy, “They bought it on the spot,” he says.
L–R: Stephen Burgess, Rowena Shaw, Walt Shaw and Trevor Shaw. Image courtesy of Walter Shaw.
His first sale wasn’t anything to make him rich, says Shaw, but it did land him an annual contract of $12,000 to supply GIBCO with lipids. When he got back to Virginia, he and Jezyk established a company called Laboratory Pure Biochemicals. An assistant professor at the Medical College of Virginia, Joseph Liberti, who later joined Virginia Commonwealth University and passed away in 2009, knew the executives at GIBCO. “He said, ‘If you let me in on this deal, we can sell them millions of dollars' worth of lipids instead of $12,000 a year,’” says Shaw. The trio rented laboratory space from the University of Richmond for the business endeavor.
But first, Liberti, an Italian by blood, objected to the company name. He told his partners that “Laboratory Pure Biochemicals” was terrible and instead suggested “Avanti,” the Italian word that means to go forward.
“I wrote a catalog”
In January 1969, Avanti Biochemicals began business. Shaw, Jezyk and Liberti quickly learned the ropes of making high-quality lipids and began shipping them to GIBCO. But it was arduous. Each day, after doing research at MCV, they drove to their rented space and worked well past midnight making lipids. Despite their hard work, “From January to July, sales of lipids to Grand Island Biological did not increase by leaps and bounds,” says Shaw. “Joe and Pete got tired of this in a hurry.”
That summer, Jezyk and Liberti told Shaw they wanted out of Avanti Biochemicals. Shaw bought each out for $500. At the same time, Harlan informed Shaw that he was going to move to the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He asked if Shaw would like to move with him as a graduate student and do his Ph.D. work on the brother-sister phospholipase activity. Shaw agreed. In September 1969, Walter and Rowena Shaw moved to Alabama with their young children.
For four years at UAB, Walter Shaw did his thesis work, oversaw two university lipid laboratories and ran Avanti, which by then was supplying GIBCO with lipids worth $16,000 a year. “I was a busy guy,” he says.
But it wasn’t smooth sailing. Shaw’s initial thesis project based on the brother-sister project at MCV was to isolate the enzyme responsible for the phospholipase activity. But after a year, “my results hit a stone wall, and my research ground to a halt,” he says.
Alarmed, he began to consider changing projects. But one day, he came across a research article published by W. Virgil Brown’s group at the University of California, San Diego. The paper described a liver enzyme that had triacylglycerol hydrolytic activity. Shaw called Brown “and told him that I had the other half of the story, phospholipase activity,” he recalls. Brown invited Shaw to work with him in California, which Shaw did. They eventually demonstrated that the enzyme, a liver lipase, has both triacylglycerol and phospholipase activity. Shaw says this time was a major turning point in his life and taught him that “research is unpredictable, and hard times are growing experiences.”
In 1973, after Shaw graduated with his Ph.D. from UAB, he suggested to GIBCO that he set up a lipid division for it in Ohio. But GIBCO executives had other plans. “They informed me that lipids had absolutely no future. They didn’t want me to set up a lipid lab for them,” says Shaw. “In fact, they were going to cancel the contract.”
For some reason, GIBCO’s rejection didn’t faze Shaw. “It went right over my head,” he says. He decided instead to rent a 900-square-foot cement-block garage in Pelham, a town outside of Birmingham, change the company name to Avanti Polar Lipids, because that’s all the company was making, and put out a catalog. “I never wrote a résumé after I graduated,” says Shaw. “I wrote a catalog.”
At that time, Shaw thought he was going to sell lipids as standards for thin-layer chromatography. But changes in lipid research were happening. In 1965, Alec Bangham at the Institute of Animal Physiology in the U.K. had discovered liposomes. By the late 1960s, researchers were very interested in recreating these tiny balls of lipids and learning about their properties. After Shaw’s catalog came out, orders started to come in from all over the U.S. so researchers could make liposomes. “Everyone thought this was the best stuff they had ever seen,” says Shaw. “Orders kept progressing.”
John Weinstein at the National Cancer Institute used Avanti lipids to make liposomes that could deliver drugs to solid tumors. The New York Times ran an article about Weinstein’s work in the spring of 1979, and sales of Avanti lipids rose.
At first, it was just the husband-wife team running Avanti. Rowena Shaw worked out of the home basement, making phone calls, taking orders and shipping out materials. Walter Shaw was in the rented garage, purifying lipids and developing new processes to make synthetic ones. Every morning, Rowena Shaw and a helper thoroughly cleaned the garage. “I would cover all the equipment and clean the rafters,” she says.
In 1979, the Shaws hired a 16-year-old high-school student named Stephen Burgess. Burgess’ father was a grocery store manager with whom Walter Shaw grew friendly because he helped Shaw buy 100 pounds of animal brain, liver and heart for lipid purifications every week (see sidebar). Burgess’ father mentioned he had a son who was interested in science. On the day he turned 16, Burgess started to work at Avanti in the afternoons after school.
At first, Burgess washed the laboratory glassware. But as Shaw taught him lipid chemistry, Burgess moved on to synthesizing and purifying lipids. When Shaw asked the teenager what his scientific interests were, Burgess recalls saying “microbiology.” Shaw passed him a batch of Escherichia coli and told him to extract the lipids. As Burgess got to work, he asked Shaw if all microorganisms smelled as bad. Shaw cheerfully told him there were others that smelled worse. Burgess decided to devote his scientific career to lipids and is now the director of research and development at Avanti.
Exosurf
By the early 1980s, Avanti was steadily supplying research-grade lipids. At that time, representatives from the pharmaceutical company Burroughs-Wellcome approached the Shaws. They wanted to know if Avanti could supply pharmaceutical-grade dipalmitylphosphatidylcholine for a drug they were developing. The drug was to be Exosurf Neonatal.
Exosurf is an artificial lung surfactant used to help premature babies breathe. Before Exosurf, premature babies were placed inside hyperbaric chambers to force oxygen into their lungs. But the high-pressure gas also damaged kidneys and optic nerves, so the babies commonly would go blind and suffer renal failure.
Making dipalmitylphosphatidylcholine for Burroughs-Wellcome meant the Avanti team had to learn how to make a synthetic lipid in kilo quantities under the guidelines of good manufacturing practices so that the product would gain the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval. Rowena Shaw says she had misgivings about the venture at first. “I was concerned, because I didn’t think our place might be big enough for [Burroughs-Wellcome’s] needs,” she says, “but they just loved our product.”
When Exosurf went on the market in 1990, it was the first-ever synthetic lipid product and squarely landed Avanti in the pharmaceutical business. Until that point, Avanti had operated out of the Pelham garage, which had passed FDA inspection for the manufacturing of pharmaceutical-grade products. “It was clean for a cement-block garage. Like I said, I cleaned the rafters!” quips Rowena Shaw. But the company needed more space to comfortably supply Burroughs-Wellcome, so in 1990 it moved five miles to Alabaster to a 16,000-square-foot building.
Exosurf ultimately changed neonatal care. Neonatal nurses could now use a dropper to administer the drug into the lungs of a preemie and get the baby to breathe. Shaw says it’s not uncommon for people to come up to him after his lectures to tell him that Exosurf saved their children’s lives.
Exosurf epitomizes Walter Shaw’s attitude toward science, says his wife. He “always wanted to do something for the science community. He didn’t start out just to make a big pile of money. That was never our focus. He wanted to make a difference,” she says.
Business training
Walter Shaw was born and raised in Minerva, a small town in Ohio. His father, Oscar, worked at the local bank, which was so small that it had a cap of $5 million. Shaw credits his father for instilling in him a solid work ethic. “Dad was unbelievable. He worked at the bank, and he kept books for companies at night,” remembers Shaw. Shaw’s mother aspired to be a physician but never got the opportunity. Instead, she instilled in her son that he ought to do something in the biomedical field.
Shaw says he got the best business training in his hometown. Between the ages of 12 and 16, he held a paper route. That required delivering newspapers every day, no matter what the weather brought, to customers who wanted their newspapers to be in specific spots. “If it was not where they wanted it, you got a lot of complaints,” says Shaw. Every Saturday, Shaw had to collect money from his customers to pay the people who gave him the newspapers to sell. “A paper route is a microcosm of a business. You have customers whom you have to satisfy, you have to make a profit, you have to handle the finances,” says Shaw. “You can’t take a Saturday off to go play ball.”
The only difference between his paper route and Avanti, says Shaw, is that as a newspaper delivery boy, he had no control over the quality of the product. But at Avanti, Shaw can ensure the quality of every shipment.
Shaw met his future wife at Asbury College in Kentucky. He was a chemistry major. She majored in music, specializing in piano and voice. Asbury College had a strict rule segregating men and women. But one day, Rowena, a self-described rule-keeper, disobeyed. “I went to hear the boy’s glee club choir in Lexington. I went with a young man who had a car. I don’t know why I did this,” she says. “Walt also happened to be going.”
The group later went out for hamburgers. Rowena didn’t have any money, so she first declined to join the meal. But then Walter offered to pay for her meal, “which was probably 75 cents!” she says with a laugh. The two have been married for 52 years. “He’s the one with the sense of humor,” says Rowena Shaw of their partnership. “I am the very serious one.”
Rowena Shaw was a year ahead of her husband in college, so as he completed his degree, she worked at the University of Kentucky Medical School’s purchasing department as the assistant to the secretary of purchasing. “I took care of emergency purchase orders,” she says. “It taught me a lot for starting up [Avanti], because I created all the paperwork and everything.”
The Shaws then moved so Walter could pursue his master’s degree at The Ohio State University. By the time they got to Virginia so that Walter could take up his laboratory director position, their children were born, so Rowena stayed home to take care of them. In Alabama, she took on running Avanti’s daily operations full-time in 1978 and has been doing it ever since. Rowena is the vice president of the company.
Keeping Avanti ahead
Avanti now has 75,000 square feet of manufacturing and office buildings spread over 25 acres. The Shaws’ son, Trevor, has joined the family business. Their two daughters have chosen other careers.
Walter Shaw says Avanti has been successful because the company makes sure it can stand behind the quality of its products and always listens to its customers. “We used to just make a few simple phospholipids. Now we make a whole host of lipids, from sterols to neutral and biologically active lipids,” says Shaw. “All of these have evolved because the customer has come to us and asked, ‘Can you make this?’”
George Carman of Rutgers University says that, indeed, custom orders for specialized lipids are one of the best services the company offers. Carman was the 2012 recipient of the Avanti Award in Lipids that is given through the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and funded by Avanti.
Both Burgess and Rowena Shaw say Walter Shaw’s commitment to quality is what has helped Avanti earn its good reputation. Rowena Shaw recalls a time when she received inquiries from Europe about making lipids for cosmetics. Although the thought of the revenue was tantalizing, the Shaws decided against going into the cosmetics business, because it would mean making less pure lipids.
Because of Avanti’s commitment to quality and willingness to help customers, lipid researchers view the company as “more of a collaborator than a supplier,” says Daniel Raben of Johns Hopkins University, who heads the ASBMB’s Lipid Research Division. In line with its philosophy of always thinking of customers, says Walter Shaw, Avanti is a generous supporter of the ASBMB because many of his customers are members of the society. Starting in 2013, the ASBMB’s Lipid Research Division will give out a young investigator award in Walter Shaw’s name.
The Shaws with Avanti employees. Image courtesy of Walter Shaw.
The Shaws and Burgess say they are constantly exploring the next frontiers in lipid research. For example, on the side of the research-grade lipid products, the company is working on biologically active lipids, which are emerging as important molecules in cell function. On the pharmaceutical side, the company is exploring the use of lipids as bioactive ingredients in analgesics and anti-inflammatory agents. Since 2003, Avanti has been a licensed supplier of mass spectrometry lipid standards for the multi-institutional initiative called LIPID Metabolites and Pathways Strategy, or LIPID MAPS for short. LIPID MAPS aims to identify and quantitate the majority of lipids in mammalian cells, as well as to quantitate the changes in them in response to environmental and chemical signals.
In telling the story of how Avanti grew into the company it is today, Walter Shaw reflects on the moments that seem insignificant but change life’s course: “Just think, if this brother and sister born of incest hadn’t shown up in the emergency room with stomach cramps, we would have never had their blood to do the study. If I hadn’t been working on the blood of burn victims, went to Cleveland and called up Grand Island Biological, who knows what I would have been doing?”
But Shaw pays the biggest tribute to the moment when he treated a woman to a hamburger. He says, “If I hadn’t married Rowena, I can’t imagine where life would have taken me.”
Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay ([email protected]) is the senior science writer for ASBMB Today and the technical editor for The Journal of Biological Chemistry. Follow her on Twitter (www.twitter.com/rajmukhop). |
Jeff’s post got me thinking, and I thought the results of my research would be appreciated. Enjoy.
MythBusters, when testing “Never Bring a Knife to a Gunfight,” determined that somewhere between 20-16 feet, a person with a knife can run up and stab a person with a handgun before they can draw and fire.
A UK news article claims your average male can jog 8.3 miles per hour (about 12.173333333333 feet per second).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/athletics/9450234/100m-final-how-fast-could-you-run-it.html
S(T) = D Can be used to determine Distance traveled (D), given Speed(S) and Time(T). To get Time we divide both sides by S, which gives us T=D/(S). So let’s plug and chug.
20 feet (12.173333333333 feet/second) ≈ 1.6429353778751 seconds
and
16 feet /(12.173333333333 feet/second) ≈ 1.3143483023001 seconds.
So using Jamie and Adam as our baseline, and assuming casting a spell takes the same time as drawing, cocking and firing a handgun, we have a window of about 1.3143483023001–1.6429353778751 seconds for our response times (for those of you who were wondering that is a gap of 0.3285870755750 seconds or about 1/3 second).
Mr Jeff said,
Beyond ~30 feet, you have to put in a lot more effort to be heard, which the books do not demonstrate happening - Harry and Draco, for example, exchanged threats just fine. Therefore, we can assume that it is reasonable for an experienced duelist to react to their opponent's spell at a distance of ~30 feet.
Using the distance provided by Mr Jeff, that means our curse has (1.3143483023001–1.6429353778751) seconds to travel 30 feet, and hit the corresponding counter curse. Let’s pull up our formula again.
S(T) = D ⇒ S = D/(T) ⇒ D/(T) = S
Let’s plug and chug. 30 feet/(1.3143483023001 seconds) = 22.825 feet/second and 30 feet/(1.6429353778751 seconds) = 18.26 feet/second.
So our spells are traveling somewhere between 18.26 and 22.825 feet per second, or 12.45–15.5625 miles per hour.
That feels slow to me. I mean, it is faster than I can run, but it sounds quite a bit slower than Mr Jeff’s answer.
It might not be fair to compare Jamie and Adam’s reaction times to the reaction times of your average Wizard. After all, wizards in the Harry Potter world spend seven years learning to identify and cast spells. Yes, very few of their classes are taught in battlefield conditions (I’m looking at you Lockhart’s Pixies), but seven years of schooling is a lot of practice. Assuming a 180 day school year (the most common legal minimum in the United States of America) with 8 hours in class a day, times Seven years, 7(180)(8) = 10,080. There is the popular adage “It takes 10,000 hours to become a master.” Admittedly some of these classes (History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Potions, and Muggle Studies to name a few) that, “[contain] no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations . . . .” However, that 10,080 hours also ignores any time learning/practicing spells out of class, and other extracurricular activities that would further hone a student’s reflexes (the Chamber of Secrets and Order of the Phoenix both mention a Dueling Club, and let’s not forget Quidditch). Also the books mention underaged magic in wizarding households is policed by the parents, allowing for more practice. I feel that 10,080 hours by the end of year seven is an educated guess for how many hours of practice your average wizarding student will have.
Let's assume it takes .75 seconds to cast a jinx/curse/hex. I feel like that’s a little bit longer than what they do in the movies, but let’s lowball for safety. How fast can a trained individual recognize an image?
Quite fast is the answer. MIT Researcher Mary Potter (and yes that is the real name of the researcher) says that the eye can recognize images in as little as 13 milliseconds (0.013 seconds). Given the amount of practice/training the students have received this seems reasonable.
http://news.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116
So with 0.013 seconds to recognize the spell and 0.75 seconds to cast the appropriate defense, wizards would have 0.763 seconds to react. That’s about 2/3 of our lower limit, and about half our upper limit from earlier. Lets plug it into our formula from earlier. 30 feet/(0.763 seconds) ≈ 39.3184796854522 feet/second.
Thats 26.8080543309901 miles/hour. World record speed for the 100m dash is 27.8 miles/hour. So if you can dodge Usain Bolt running at you full tilt, you can dodge a spell.
But wait, there are trained professionals who dodge things faster than that all the time. Rodeo Aclowns. The top speed for some breeds of rodeo bulls is 35 miles/hour. Rodeo clowns have the enviable job description of “Lure the angry bull way from the bull rider. Don’t get trampled. Or gored.” And that’s just Monday.
If speed range varies, ranges for the speeds of spells could be 12.45–15.56 miles/hour, 20.45-25.56 miles/hour, or 26.81-35 miles/hour. My guess would be 12.45 being the speed of Hogwarts third years and those who don’t duel. 20.45-26.81 being the range of athletic seventh year students, and the 35 range being the location of Magical Law Enforcement's professionally trained hit wizards. |
(Photo via Anti Gold Greece)
It's been three weeks since 50 masked activists broke into the Skouries forest work site in northern Greece and torched just about every piece of machinery they could. The barrage of Molotov cocktails and environmentalist rage was directed at Canadian company El Dorado and their plans to bulldoze the ancient forest and build a mine there instead.
What started out as a protest from local residents opposing the mine (they claim it will poison the water supply and irreversibly destroy the area's rich environment and the tourism, fishing and farming it provides) has now morphed into a full-blown counter-attack from the massed ranks of state authoritarianism and corporate shitbaggery. Nikos Dendias, the Greek Minister of Citizen Protection, set the bar the day after the attacks by visiting the site and fully living up to his promise to protect Greece's citizens – by demanding that a load of them be arrested.
The Greek police – always happy to oblige – did just that, kidnapping university students, forcefully taking DNA samples and arresting high-school kids without notifying any of their parents. But I suppose all those tactics are fair game when you're talking about a load of pretty arbitrary arrests for an offence that didn't cause any human harm.
Since the attack, locals have spoken of hooded police patrolling the nearby village of Lerissos, arresting people, taking their phones away and interrogating them for hours without notifying anyone of their whereabouts or giving them the option of having a lawyer present. As you can imagine, the atmosphere in the village is now pretty tense, owing in part to the 100 or so riot and counter-terrorism police who turned to conduct a "routine search" last Thursday.
Residents, in protest against the occupying force, blocked the road that leads to the village with burning tyres and surrounded the local police station. The police responded with tear gas in an attempt to disperse the demonstration. Bizarrely, they figured one effective method would be to fire tear gas canisters into the courtyard of a nearby school, where only children were present, leaving four of them in the infirmary with breathing problems, one passed out and another injured after a canister hit her directly on the head.
As if that wasn't enough of a disaster, another story surfaced a couple of days ago: a newborn baby inhaled some of the tear gas chemicals, had to be rushed to the hospital and is now suffering from anaemia. Because it's clearly dumb to admit that you've carelessly harmed children and given a baby a blood deformity, the police initially claimed that no chemicals had been used, before amending their statement to admit that there had been a "limited use". Footage of residents standing in front of a pile of canisters suggested that "limited" might not have been the right word.
One of the arrested high-school students, 15-year-old Konstantina, appeared on national television and recounted her experience: "I was called on my mobile by someone saying they were from the anti-terrorism unit and told I had to go to the precinct and testify. I told them I was 15 and had no idea what they wanted, but they said I should come and that they should notify my parents before I did. I turned up and they asked me a load of irrelevant questions that I'm pretty sure won't help solve the case. I also want to call out the Vice-Minister of Education who publicly denied my questioning, even though I have an official document to prove it. He should be ashamed of himself."
I spoke to Dimitris Tarazas, a local resident who was abducted and questioned for five hours without the presence of a lawyer or the option to contact anyone outside of the police station.
"They arrested two of us in Lerissos and took us to Polygyros [a town just under an hour away], where we were greeted by ten guys from the counter-terrorism unit. Five of them took the other guy to the first floor and the other five took me down to the basement. They started cursing and pushing me – we almost got into a fight. My phone was off and anyone who called was told that I wasn't in the police station, but my mother was outside and had seen me through the window. It was a proper abduction – they forced me to give my prints and a DNA sample then let me go.
"They respect nothing any more, but they haven’t bothered me since because they've got nothing on me. We’ll be forced to leave or revolt, and they've already driven people to extremes. One of the miners, who's deep in debt, showed up the other day and threatened to shoot us, but we disarmed him. If anyone gets killed, it won't be long until the civil war starts, the way they're pushing us."
Arguably more shocking than any of that are the allegations of Greek police torturing those they arrest. I spoke to a source (who wanted to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) who told me about four students who'd been arrested in Thessaloniki on the 28th of February in connection to the case. All four were allegedly taken to the local police headquarters and had their phones confiscated.
The two girls were supposedly released a few hours later, but the boys were taken down to the basement of the building, where one of them claims the police officers put a hood over his head, questioned him for hours and hit him. As standard, he was forced to give a DNA sample, then was also presented with a piece of paper that detailed his movements over the last two weeks, all without showing a warrant or giving a legitimate cause for tracking him. It's like we've reverted back to the dictatorial regime used against dissidents during the military junta of the 70s, only with arguably less of the Nazi sympathisers and more harm caused to children.
It's no surprise that these heavy-handed tactics are being enforced just as Greece's privatisation programme starts to shift its way into full throttle, with the government clearly keen to keep investors – like those keen on building the mine in the Skouries forest – on side. But the attention they're drawing to themselves isn't doing them any favours – new details of the deal are surfacing, exposing the odious character of this “investment”.
In documents sourced by activists from antigoldgreece, we learn that El Dorado will most likely be reimbursed for its initial investment by the state, meaning there's now more financial ground to go back and cover. The stage has been set with abductions, the use of chemical weapons and beatings, and I doubt it's long before those in need of work and desperate for a job in the mine will be pitted against those who oppose it. To see profit, El Dorado are going to have to fight, and they really don't seem bothered by how much blood is spilled.
Follow Yiannis on Twitter: @YiannisBab
More times people have messed with the environment:
A Gang of Greek Activists Torched the Skouries Gold Mine
A Load of Environmentalist Ninjas Are Up a 300ft Tower In Nottinghamshire
Won't Someone Please Think of the Aphids? |
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Reception Edit
Distribution Edit
International Edit Fringe premiered in Canada on CTV simultaneous to its U.S. premiere and was the most watched program in Canada that week.[158] The show would fluctuate between airing on CTV and A during its first two seasons. Beginning with the third season, Fringe was broadcast on City in Canada.[159] A version of the show (edited for time) premiered on the Nine Network in Australia on September 17, 2008. In the season one episode "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones", the opening scene where doctors discover a parasite on Detective Loeb's heart was cut, going straight to the opening credits.[160] Nine Network later dropped the show from its primetime schedule.[161] This was temporary as the show returned during the December to January non-ratings period.[162] The series later moved to Nine's digital multi-channel, GO!, where the last few seasons were played out. The series premiered in the United Kingdom on Sky1 on October 5, 2008.[163] Syndication Edit With 13 episodes in its final season, Fringe has a total of 100 episodes, a critical number for syndication deals for Warner Bros., and considered part of the reason for the show's final renewal. The show premiered in syndication on the Science Network on November 20, 2012.[164][165] Home video releases Edit The first season of Fringe was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on September 8, 2009 in region 1.[166][167] In addition to all the episodes that had been aired, extras include three commentary tracks, unaired scenes, gag reels and behind the scenes features. A "Fringe Pattern Analysis" feature is included on the Blu-ray version as an exclusive. The sets were released on September 28, 2009 in region 2[168] and on September 30, 2009 in region 4.[169] The second season features four commentary tracks, a gag reel, deleted scenes, behind the scenes videos, and the episode "Unearthed", an episode, produced for the first season, which aired out of schedule during the second season. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 14, 2010 in region 1,[170][171] on September 27, 2010 in region 2,[172] and on November 10, 2010 in region 4.[173] The third season features two commentary tracks, a gag reel, behind the scenes videos, and two features exclusive to the Blu-ray version. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 6, 2011 in region 1,[174][175] on September 26, 2011 in region 2,[176] and on October 26, 2011 in region 4.[177] The fourth season includes several special features, including "The Culture of Fringe", a roundtable discussion with series writers and university professors regarding the science featured in the series; features on how the disappearance of Peter affects the timeline, and the role of the Observers; two features covering the Fringe comic series; and a gag reel.[178] It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 4, 2011 in region 1,[179] on September 24, 2012 in region 2,[180] and on October 31, 2012 in region 4.[181] The fifth season includes featurettes titled "A Farewell to Fringe" and "Fringe Panel at Comic-Con 2012", as well audio commentaries and a gag reel. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD on May 7, 2013 in region 1[182] and on May 13, 2013 in region 2.[183] A complete series box set was also released on the same dates of the fifth season release in the respective regions.[184][185]
Other media Edit
Games Edit An alternate reality game, centered on the fictional Massive Dynamic corporation, was introduced during the pilot and featured "strange symbols paired with glowing dots" appearing throughout the episode and an "advertisement" for the company shown at the end with a web address for the game.[186] Books and comics Edit On August 27, 2008, a prequel comic book (leading right up to the moment in the pilot where Olivia 'first' meets Walter) written by Zack Whedon was released by DC Comics under its WildStorm imprint.[187][188] This was to be the first issue of a monthly 6-issue limited series but the others were delayed until January 2009, when monthly publication resumed, with the sixth and final issue scheduled for release on June 17.[189] The Vice President of WildStorm, Hank Kanalz, explained the publication hiatus: "The writers of the show want to make sure the comic book is integrated into the mythology of the Fringe world, so we have decided to refocus the direction of the comic book. Unfortunately, this means that we will have some delays, but will be back in January."[190] On June 23, 2010, the first issue of Tales From the Fringe, the second six-part monthly series, was released, while the final issue was released on November 24, 2010.[191] Additionally, in September 2011, DC released the first issue of Beyond the Fringe comic series. With the first story written by Joshua Jackson titled "Peter and the Machine". The comic issues will alternate with an 'A' story and a 'B' story each. For example, "Peter and the Machine" will take place in issues one, three, and so on until the story is finished and a new 'A' story starts up.[192] An encyclopedia guide, September's Notebook — The Bishop Paradox, written by Tara Bennett and Paul Terry who had previously written the Lost Encyclopedia for Lost, was released in March 2013.[193] A three-part series of prequel novels written by Christa Faust was released throughout 2013 and 2014. Each novel deals with a member of the Fringe team's past. The first is titled The Zodiac Paradox and is about Walter and his discovery of Cortexiphan. The second in the series is titled The Burning Man and is based on Olivia and how she was first exposed to Cortexiphan. The third is titled Sins of the Father and is about Peter's life in 2008 just before the point of time when the series starts.[194] Possible film Edit At San Diego Comic-Con 2012, actor John Noble mentioned that a film could be made further down the line.[195]
Notes Edit
^ ^ Faux, French for false |
ATLANTA -- The Atlanta City Council has passed a proposal that would allow rideshare services at the world's busiest airport.
The ordinance, which passed through the council's transportation committee last week, would allow such as Uber and Lyft to legally service Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Right now, many Uber and Lyft drivers park in the airport's cell phone lot to wait for passengers, which isn't allowed.
As part of the plan, passengers who utilize the rideshare services would have an additional $3.85 added to their tab.
The transportation proposal allocates $2.35 of the $3.85 fee for security related costs. An Uber representative tells 11Alive the rideshare program covers the costs of background screenings for its drivers. The proposed $2.35 fee would go to the airport for its security related expenses.
While an increase, the rate would be less than the upper pickup rates at Chicago-O'Hare at $4 to $5, Los Angeles International at $4, Fort Lauderdale International at $3 to $4.50 and Reagan International at $3 to $4.
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The Atlanta City Council voted 14-1 to approve the plan during Monday's meeting.
Councilwoman Felicia Moore was the only one to vote against the proposal, saying that she wanted the council to get it right, not just get it done. She wanted the city's transportation committee to spend more time working through the ordinance.
The plan will take effect on January 1, 2017. The City will conduct a review of the permit and security fee structure one year after adoption.
According to a statement from Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, highlights of the plan include:
* Transportation providers will be required to apply for an annual permit of $50 per vehicle, up to $100,000 annually.
* Ride-sharing vehicles and taxis will be subject to a seven-year age limit.
* Drivers will wait for customers in a designated ride-sharing area supported by innovative geo-fencing technology.
* All vehicles must display a decal while providing transportation services at the airport.
Uber Atlanta General Manager Luke Marklin issued a statement after the vote saying, "Getting a reliable ride at the tap of a button from the world’s busiest airport just got even more reliable. The City Council passed an agreement for ridesharing at Hartsfield-Jackson that is largely consistent with Georgia’s comprehensive law and ensures travelers will have the access to Uber they have come to expect. While there are some outstanding logistical concerns, we look forward to working with the airport on the details of implementation to ensure a smooth experience for both riders and driver-partners. We thank Mayor Kasim Reed for his leadership, thorough consideration, and commitment to safe transportation options for Atlanta residents and visitors - without which this agreement would not be possible.”
Interim Airport General Manager Roosevelt Council, Jr. said in a statement, "We are pleased with today’s vote and look forward to working with the ride-share companies so they can begin operating at the Airport soon."
11Alive's Joe Henke was at the meeting. Follow his Twitter page for updates. |
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark revives claim of right under 500 year old Udal Law to reclaim sovereignty of Shetland and Orkney Isles.
By Ilaf Maheedaf
AN INDEPENDENT Scotland will have to hand back Shetland and Orkney according to Denmark’s British Ambassador.
In partnership with Norway’s King Harald V, the Danish regent Queen Margrethe II intends reviving the ancient rites of Udal Law which were ratified by the Scottish parliament in 1567.
According to Udal law, the Scottish parliament is legally bound to return the islands to Norway upon repayment of the Kalmar Union dowry following the betrothal of Margaret of Denmark to King James III of Scotland in 1468.
The Danish Queen claims to have in her possession authenticated copies of the 1575-7 Orkney & Shetland Lawbooks which allow the islands to revert to their previous territorial possession under the Kalmar Union.
Every copy of these books were believed destroyed by an agent of the Scottish crown, Patrick Stuart, around 1579.
But acclaimed Danish historian Olaf Gerritupyeson discovered copies of the books in the Soviet wartime archives in Moscow.
He believes the Nazis looted the historical lawbooks after the occupation of Denmark by the Wehrmacht in 1940.
Under the auspice of Udal law the Orkneys and Shetlands will revert back to Denmark and Norway on the repayment of the dowry believed to be around 10,000 Kroner.
It has been calculated that, due to interest rates and inflation, the figure could be as high as $3.7 billion dollars.
Norwegian Finance Minister Sigbjørn Jahnsen has already tabled a motion in Norways’s parliament seeking permission to use monies from Norway’s Oil Fund on behalf of the Norwegian and Danish governments.
He said: “This could be one of the most lucrative and ethical investments we make with our Investment Fund monies.”
Controversially, historian David Starkey helped verify the authenticity of the lawbooks and the constitutional legality of the dowry repayments.
He said: “There is no doubting the wording of the laws contained in these ratified lawbooks. Should Denmark or Norway make the requisite dowry repayment, Scotland must return the sovereign territories – they have no right over the islands in any type of constitutional law.
“The only contentious issue appears to be just how much the 10,000 Kroner would be worth in today’s currency.”
Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslip said: “We are currently seeking alternative views on the legal implications of these laws.
“The Scottish government is sure they wouldn’t stand up to the rigours of modern International advocacy.”
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U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips in Riverside, Calif., ordered the military Tuesday, Oct. 12, to immediately stop enforcing the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, putting a halt to the 17-year-old law. The injunction requires the government “immediately suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge” of service members based on their sexual orientation.
Phillips ruled the 1993 law unconstitutional last month saying it violates service members’ personal lives and freedom of expression and reduces military effectiveness by excluding qualified personnel. She rejected the Obama administration’s request to wait until Congress can act on the issue. The ruling applies to all U.S. military forces worldwide.
The ruling poses a political pickle for the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress that favor repealing the law. The House voted to repeal the law in May, but a Republican-led filibuster blocked a Senate vote last month. Legal experts note the Justice Department is generally obligated to defend laws passed by Congress and the recent ruling would now put the Obama administration in the position of defending a law it opposes.
Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese in a statement said the Obama administration should comply with Phillips’ ruling and “stop enforcing this unconstitutional, unconscionable law that forces brave lesbian and gay Americans to serve in silence.” He added, “The President has said the law harms our national security and we believe it would be a mistake to appeal the decision. Each additional day that this unjust law remains in force is one more day the federal government is complicit in discrimination.”
The Log Cabin Republicans, a group that supports gay rights, led the suit and is advising caution by service members considering coming out because a higher court could reinstate the law. If the law is reinstated gays and lesbians could be discharged based on disclosures they made while the law was suspended, they note.
Since 1993, the military has discharged more than 14,000 people under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which bans the military from asking about service members’ sexual orientation, but requires the discharge of those who say they are gay.
Christian Berle, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, hailed the injunction saying it would make the armed forces stronger. “Lifting the ban on open service will allow our armed forces to recruit the best and brightest and not have their hands tied because of an individual’s sexual orientation,” he said on Sify.com news.
Meanwhile Congress is now in recess until after the midterm elections. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who favors repealing “don’t ask,” has said he wants to bring the issue up during the lame-duck session of Congress after the elections.
Others note waiting for a legislative repeal could be quite difficult during the next congressional term especially with Republicans aimed at making major gains in the upcoming elections.
The Pentagon, supported by the Obama administration, is conducting an internal review due in December focused on repealing the policy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, support ending the measure. The military resisted earlier attempts by Democrats in Congress to pass a temporary moratorium on discharges while a repeal is pending, however.
Gay and lesbian rights supporters say the policy must end now. They add President Obama can permanently end “don’t ask” by simply ordering the Department of Justice not to appeal. The policy is harmful to the military and undermines improving unit cohesion by encouraging gay and lesbian service members to be dishonest, they note.
Dan Woods, lawyer for the Log Cabin Republicans, said he plans to fight any request to block the judge’s order.
“We have patriotic members of our armed forces who happen to be homosexuals, who are fighting and dying for our constitutional rights, while the government is depriving them of theirs,” he said to the San Francisco Chronicle.
In a separate gay-rights case, the Justice Department said it would appeal a ruling in July by a federal judge in Boston that overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. It also denies Social Security and other federal benefits to same-sex couples. The judge said it infringes on the state’s right to define marriage and on citizens’ due process rights.
In both cases the Obama administration has said repealing the measures should be left to Congress, not the courts.
Photo: by JMRosenfeld, cc by 2.0 |
The US Women's Soccer Team, including Lori Chalupny, Christen Press and Julie Johnston, recently became poster children for Equal Pay Day.
Last season, the Chicago Red Stars earned their first playoff berth in the NWSL, on the strength of Women's World Cup gold medalists Christen Press, Lori Chalupny, and Julie Johnston, playing to sellout crowds at Benedictine University/Village of Lisle Sports Complex, their home since 2011.
On December 11, General Manager Alyse LaHue announced the Red Stars are returning to Toyota Park in Bridgeview for the 2016 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) season.
Toyota Park was home to the Red Stars during the 2009 and 2010 Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) campaigns.
Fans of my column will remember Toyota Park as 'The House That Wilt Built.' As in Peter Wilt, whose name is synonymous with professional soccer and Toyota Park. He told me that he supports the move back to Bridgeview:
"Fantastic. Better amenities, better playing surface closer to the city and more well known. Toyota Park adds credibility for the the Red Stars. Great step forward for the team. Can't wait to see the Red Stars back home in Bridgeview." Peter Wilt, Indy Eleven Soccer President and former CEO of the Chicago Red Stars and Chicago Fire
Lahue discussed the Chicago Red Stars' return to the 10-year-old soccer-specific venue with a natural grass pitch.
1) What brought about these conversations to return to Toyota Park? You were drawing well at Benedictine University, which was about 3,000-4,000 capacity.
Benedictine University is a great, intimate sized venue that suited our needs in the first years of the league as we regained our footing playing professionally. Fans had unrivaled access to players there, which is something you won’t see in any other venue in our league, let alone any other pro sports experience. But as part of a professional league we have grown in each year and always had on our horizon a move to an actual soccer-specific pitch. Toyota Park is obviously the best in Chicagoland, so they were our primary target.
2) What brought you back, ultimately? What made this deal right?
(Bridgeview) Mayor Steven Landek (who also serves as an Illinois State Senator,) Toyota Park General Manager Deb Augle, and the rest of the Toyota Park staff really made us feel welcome at the end of the 2015 season when we played our last two home matches there. They were really conducive in helping us make sure it was the right fit this time around to be able to make the leap. And obviously it has to be cost-effective, which they’ve taken great strides to make work for us. With the ongoing turf discussion happening in the women’s game right now, it really was the perfect time and it’s the right choice for our club and our league.
3) There are 20,000 seats to fill at Toyota Park. How are you planning to fill them?
As in 2009 and 2010 when we played at Toyota Park, we won’t be utilizing the entire stadium. We plan to use just half, which will accommodate around 7,000 fans. Obviously that is a major leap from our 4k average this past season, but part of the reason for moving was to hopefully expose our club to new fans, more traditional fans that want that pro experience, and even folks from the city who will have an easier time getting to Bridgeview. Game in and game out fans have an opportunity to see our USWNT World Cup champions at the most cost-effective rate a pro experience can provide in a world class venue, along with free parking, and there’s always players that stay postgame to sign autographs. So for the experience vs the cost, there just isn’t a comparison.
4) You've had some pretty heavy retirements over the past season....goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc, Shannon Boxx, and particularly, Captain Lori Chalupny, who just made it official this week. Who will be stepping up in 2016, and where will you be looking for leadership?
I think that’s a wait-and-see question! We’ve had some losses to retirement and made some big changes this off-season, but we have a core of players that have still been with us for many years like Michelle Lomnicki and Alyssa Mautz. We’ll see our ’next generation' of players start to step up into leadership roles, like third-year pro, and Naperville-native, Vanessa DiBernardo.
5) What kind of amenities/ticket deals do the Chicago Red Stars have in store for 2016? And when is Opening Day?
We’ve done our best to keep season ticket pricing similar to our previous stadium pricing for those returning Season Ticket holders as well as early buyers and those buyers that purchase prior to early January. We worked hard to keep parking free for our regular season matches at Toyota Park in 2016, even though we recognize it’s a tremendous revenue driver and certainly would have benefited the club. We wanted to make sure the transition from Benedictine University to Toyota Park didn’t come with dramatic sticker-shock for our loyal fans but at the same time they’ll recognize it as a fully professional experience see the transformation it has on our club.
The league schedule has not been announced but we can anticipate the league to open in April, as in past seasons.
6) Will you be doing any joint games with the Chicago Fire, as well as any cross-promotion? Is there a 'man vs. woman' game in the future?
I don’t think the coaches would risk the players to put on a match like that although i’m sure fans would find it entertaining! We have done doubleheaders with the Fire the previous two seasons so it would make sense to explore something like that again, but it really depends on both of our schedules, which are done independently and at different times. We are happy to have been able to finally announce our move, which was a major step, now we’ll be heading into our secondary phase which is fan experience and planning as such.
7) What is the allure of Toyota Park? What makes it a perfect place for the Chicago Red Stars?
It’s the best grass pitch in Chicagoland, hands down. It’s a soccer-specific stadium. There is nothing else like it in our city. We wouldn’t mind having a more intimate venue for our crowd-size, something in the 8k-10k range, but it simply doesn’t exist in Chicago yet. |
Perhaps the biggest black mark on the Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff reign of power in TNA over the last couple of years is how their star power and creative input hasn't boosted the company's pay-per-view business. In fact, they've had quite the opposite effect, as TNA's PPV buying audience has significantly contracted under their watch.
However, in January there was a positive sign for once, as Genesis drew between 10,000-12,000 buys, better than usual, thanks to Jeff Hardy challenging for the TNA World Heavyweight title against Robert Roode. So was this the start of a turnaround or just a momentary blip? The booking of the event suggested it would be the latter, as they had one of the cheapest finishes to a PPV in recent memory when Hardy lost by disqualification after Roode kicked the referee in the balls. Moreover, TNA in their infinite wisdom then decided to give away the rematch for free on Impact at the first available opportunity. Fans must have been left wondering why they bought Genesis in the first place when the show was just used to set up the next edition of Impact.
Courtesy of Dave Meltzer in his latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the numbers for TNA's March PPV, Victory Road, are now in and they matched the intuition that TNA had gained no momentum on PPV from the above average buy rate for Genesis:
Based on cable estimates, TNA's Victory Road bombed on PPV doing an estimated 7,000 buys, with the Bobby Roode vs. Sting match. It was less than half of what last year's show with the aborted Sting vs. Jeff Hardy match did. With the exception of Bound for Glory, built around Hulk Hogan, the only time they've even moved the needle slightly on PPV was Roode vs. Jeff Hardy.
Given that Sting wrestles so rarely nowadays and thus every time he steps into the ring should make the PPV event he appears on special, this is an abysmal number and suggests that TNA may be beyond hope, despite just this week extending their existing television deal with Spike TV for another couple of years. Most people now expect Lockdown this month to draw much less than 20,000 buys, despite it being their second biggest PPV of the year and never before dropping below that mark. Sadly, it seems guaranteed that this PPV business slump will continue until TNA undergoes a much needed management shakeup. |
Ann Coulter joined the women of The View on Friday for a conversation about her new book Adios America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third-World Hellhole, the immigration issue at large and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Coulter was explaining the difference between the “settlers” who built the country hundreds of years ago and today’s illegal “immigrants” when co-host Raven-Symoné asked if she could interrupt Coulter to ask a question.
“I have a question. My mom taught me when I was younger, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,'” she said, to the delight of the View audience. “Why do you think that it’s important to mud-sling and have these words that obviously touch the hearts and souls of so many people of America being said, when we’re taught something different as a child? Could you explain that to me? And why do you think your success is based off of that?”
Coulter then pointed out the host’s apparent hypocrisy; on an episode of The View last week, Symoné said she would have no problem discriminating against people with “ghetto” sounding names if she were an employer: “I’m not about to hire you if your name is ‘Watermelondrea.’ It’s just not going to happen. I’m not going to hire you.”
“Well, I’m at least talking about policy,” Coulter told Symoné. “You have a position on what people’s names should be. ‘Watermelondrea!’ You’ll insult people for their names, I’m talking about a government policy that affects all Americans, and immigrants, and people living here, and it’s harming our country. So you don’t follow it.”
The outspoken conservative commentator also discussed Trump’s presidential run, saying she had been “saying all along” that the billionaire could snag the Republican nomination.
“He’s fantastic,” Coulter said. “I think he’s exposing both parties and how much control the donors have. He’s saying things that people have been dying for someone to say, but they won’t because their donors, in the case of immigration, want the cheap labor… It’s Donald Trump and the American people against the political class and the donor class.”
Check out the rest of Coulter’s appearance on The View above (Raven-Symoné shutdown at around the 5:49 mark). |
The 30MW Ardrossan project in Ayrshire is owned by Infinis Energy and uses Vestas 2MW turbines. The incident occurred as the northern half of the UK faced winds of up to 165mph.
In a statement, Infinis confirmed the nacelle had caught fire but was unable to give further details on the cause. It said no one was present when the incident happened, as staff are always evacuated from the site in 55mph+ winds as a precautionary measure.
Infinis said ScottishPower, which operates the local network, had disconnected the wind farm.
The incident comes only a year after Infinis acquired the project from Scottish and Southern Energy. The project was commissioned in 2004 and received a 6MW extension in 2009.
The image of the burning wind turbine, which was sent into the BBC by a member of the public, has been reproduced in the UK press to illustrate the weather conditions. |
Worldwide media coverage (newspapers, magazines, television, web sites, etc.) about our project has been astonishing!
Some of the media covering the project (updated list).
This project is also supported by Franco Zeffirelli, Liliana Cavani, some of the students of the “Stella Adler Studio of Acting” of New York and the young guests of the St. Francis Monastery in Rome.
Franco Zeffirelli, director "Brother Sun, Sister Moon", 1972
Liliana Cavani, director "Francesco", 1989
2 frames from the movies "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" and "Francesco" with Mickey Rourke
Please share this project with all your friends ... on Facebook too !!!
THE RESTORATION
When St. Francis of Assisi used to come to Rome between 1209 and 1223 to meet the Pope, his house was a small "Cell” where he lived and assisted lepers. After eight centuries this place now requires substantial restoration work in order to preserve its priceless spiritual value and its ancient works of art.
Your support of the Cell’s restoration will not only provide free public admission to this historic site, but also the conservation of the works of art which are part of the world’s cultural heritage.
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) is known and loved around the world for his decision to give up his material wealth in favor of the poor, indeed a very brave, difficult and worthy gesture.
Francis was a lover of nature, a pacifist and someone who was tolerant of those who were different. He was actively engaged in social matters and was not held back by the ills of the world but rather fought personally for a more just society.
Francis did not have any social, ethnic or religious prejudices but simply felt that he was the brother of all creatures. We believe that his example is still very much alive because he does not expect others to change but rather to live with them in brotherhood.
Part of the fresco "Sermon to the birds" by Giotto di Bondone and detail of St. Francis' portrait by Margaritone d'Arezzo
THE CELL
St. Francis of Assisi’s first contact with this place was in 1209 when he came to Rome to meet Pope Innocenzo III. During this visit, the Roman noblewoman Jacoba de' Settesoli helped St. Francis to find a place to stay at the monastery-hospital of the Benedictine monks which was located near the banks of the Tiber River.
St. Francis of Assisi was always very fond of this place and stayed here on several occasions during his travels to Rome. After the Saint's death and by order of Pope Gregorio IX, the Benedictine monastery passed over to the Franciscans in 1229.
At the beginning of the 17th century, St. Francis’ Cell was in danger of being demolished during the monastery’s renovation. The current accommodation was completed in 1698. There is an inscription at the entrance of the Cell that recalls the apparition of St. Francis of Assisi in a dream by Cardinal Alessandro Montalto Peretti.
A wooden altar made by the Franciscan cabinet-maker Bernardino da Jesi (17th century) is inside the Cell which displays, in the center, a portrait of St. Francis (tempera painting) by the Tuscan painter Margaritone d'Arezzo (1262-1305).
On the right side of the wall lies the stone upon which St. Francis of Assisi laid his head while he rested, whereas, on the left side, there is a photo of Pope John Paul II on his knees in prayer during his visit there on December 1, 1991.
St. Francis’ Cell is located at the first floor of the Roman church and monastery of San Francesco a Ripa in the ancient Trastevere neighborhood.
Information (in Italian, English, Spanish and Russian) on the history of this church is available on the website www.sanfrancescoaripa.com.
IF I CONTRIBUTE TO THIS PROJECT, WHAT WILL THE MONEY FUND?
THE PROJECT
If the fundraiser reaches US $ 125,000, we will have enough money for all the steps of the project:
- restoration of the Cell: walls, wooden ceiling, floor, decorations, as well as the stone-pillow upon which St. Francis of Assisi laid his head while he rested;
- virtual Cell: a reproduction of the Cell to let it be visited even during the closing for restoration;
- equipment: new electrical installation, new air conditioning system, new overhead projectors;
- rewards: preparation and shipping to all the donors of the gifts conceived, created and manufactured specifically for this project;
- public conference: in order to scientifically explain the restoration work, along with free guided tours to the restored Cell;
- communication campaign: the constant communication and activities with the media in order to let this place be known everywhere and allow a fruitful fundraising around the world;
- social activities of the Monastery of St. Francis in Rome;
- taxes and dues.
We will keep you informed !!!
The restoration work will last five months and will end on September 30, 2014. The official opening of the restored Cell is scheduled for October 4, 2014.
REWARDS
All donors will have their names placed on the memorial panels located at the entrance of the Cell and on the website dedicated to the restoration.
Some of the rewards are the following (see dedicated section for a complete list):
Donation certificate
3D pop-up Kirigami card with the three-dimensional reproduction of the facade St. Francis’ Monastery in Rome with a stamp and a special commemorative postmark
Tau keychain with the latin inscription “Pax et Bonum”
Hand-made wooden pendant in the shape of a “Peace Dove” made by the Clarisse Order of the Albano Monastery
DVD of the film "Brother Sun, Sister Moon", directed by Franco Zeffirelli
Mouse pad with the reproduction of the portrait of St. Francis by Margaritone d'Arezzo (1262-1305)
Commemorative mug with the reproduction of the portrait of St. Francis by Margaritone d'Arezzo (1262-1305)
Cotton t-shirt with the words "Pax et Bonum” and the logo of the restoration
Cotton sweatshirt with the words "Pax et Bonum” and the logo of the restoration
Paperweight with the reproduction of the portrait of St. Francis by Margaritone d'Arezzo (1262-1305)
Donation certificate engraved in a Plexiglas plaque personalized with the name of the donor |
Attorney General Maura Healey has "not yet" cited anyone as part of a stepped up enforcement of the state's assault weapons ban, targeting "copycat" firearms, she said on Monday
Gun rights activists and Republican lawmakers rallied on Beacon Hill Saturday, resisting the attorney general's plans for a crackdown on copycat weapons.
Speaking to reporters at the Philadelphia hotel where the Massachusetts delegates to the Democratic National Convention are staying, Healey said gun sellers had received the message, and a spike in sales that followed last week's announcement has since subsided.
"The action we took was about closing the loophole, making clear that people understood the law, and making clear that people understood that we were going to enforce the law," Healey said. "The good news is that while sales were up the day of the announcement, sales continued to drop precipitously over the next few days. We continue to monitor sales, but I think what's clear is that gun dealers, gun manufacturers, have gotten the message that this subset of weapons cannot be available under existing law. I’m not creating new law. This is under existing law."
Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts Executive Director Jim Wallace said lawmakers have had a chance to add guns to the assault weapons ban.
"These laws were passed in 1998, they were redone in 2004, then they were reviewed in 2014, so the Legislature is already fine with what is going on," Wallace said Wednesday. "What other reason would a person unilaterally decide, I'm going to change the rules overnight?"
Asked about enforcement actions and whether anyone had been cited since the crackdown, Healey said, "Not yet." |
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley says he has rented an apartment in Jefferson City, to end accusations from Democrats that he has been violating state law by commuting from his home in Columbia.
At issue is a phrase in state law that requires the Missouri attorney general to reside “at the seat of government.”
Hawley, a Republican, reiterated Thursday to St. Louis Public Radio that he and his legal team remain convinced he was not breaking any laws, and that Columbia was close enough. He accused Democrats of conducting “a sideshow issue’’ to distract from more important matters.
To put the issue to rest, Hawley said, “I have decided to call the Democrats’ bluff on this," renting a two-bedroom apartment within the Jefferson City limits. He said he plans on using the apartment when he is working late, but the quarters is large enough that his wife and two children can also stay there.
“I will stay there as needed to make it a true personal residence (for legal purposes,)” Hawley said.
He emphasized that his primary home will remain in Columbia, which he added “is 17 minutes away’’ from his office.
Hawley’s predecessor, Democrat Chris Koster, had apartments in Jefferson City and St. Louis.
Assistant House Minority Leader Gina Mitten, D-St. Louis, replied in a statement: “… Hawley said he ‘decided to call Democrats’ bluff on this.’ Hawley has it backwards. He claimed for weeks that the law didn’t apply to him but now he’s complying with it. Somebody blinked here, and it wasn’t us.”
Attorney general revamps, replaces staff
All of the senior staff in the attorney general’s office has been replaced, Hawley said. Koster had retained many people who'd worked for fellow Democrat and the former attorney general, Jay Nixon.
Hawley also said he has revamped operations to set up a new “federalism unit’’ that focuses on federal and regulatory issues. John Sauer will head that unit, in addition to being Hawley’s top staff assistant. Sauer's new title is “state solicitor general.”
Sauer previously had been a clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Hawley said he is hiring several other lawyers for the unit, as well as for other operations in the attorney general’s office.
“We have replaced all of the senior leadership,’’ Hawley said.
The federal unit is overseeing three major federal suits filed so far to challenge federal regulations or mandates that affect Missouri. A number of sections have been merged so that the office now will have two legal divisions — civil and criminal. Darrell Moore, the veteran Greene County prosecutor, will oversee the criminal division, Hawley said.
Follow Jo on Twitter: @jmannies |
Tokyo, Oct 22 (DPA) A government-appointed team found the remains of what appear to be 51 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest battlefields of World War II, news reports said Friday.
The remains were found buried in two locations on the island, officially known as Iwoto Island, in sites similar to those indicated on US documents as group burial sites, the Kyodo News agency reported, citing unnamed government sources.
The Japanese team excavated the two locations, which a US document described as an 'enemy cemetery', Kyodo reported. It was mainly in dugouts that about 8,700 bodies had been found during previous excavation work.
About 22,000 Japanese soldiers perished on Iwoto Island in the closing days of World War II. The team was appointed by the administration of Prime Minister Naoto Kan to recover the remains of the war dead. |
The web is full of headlines today like this one from MacRumors: “MPEG LA Declares H.264 Standard Permanently Royalty-Free”. It would be great if they were accurate, but unfortunately they very much are not.
What MPEG-LA announced is that their current moratorium on charging fees for the transmission of H.264 content, previously extended through 2015 for uses that don’t charge users, is now permanent. You still have to pay for a license for H.264 if you want to make things that create it, consume it, or your business model for distributing it is direct rather than indirect.
What they’ve made permanently free is distribution of content that people have already licensed to encode, and will need a license to decode. This is similar to Nikon announcing that they will not charge you if you put your pictures up on Flickr, or HP promising that they will never charge you additionally if you photocopy something that you printed on a LaserJet. (Nikon and HP are used in the preceding examples without their consent, and to my knowledge have never tried anything as ridiculous as trying to set license terms on what people create with their products.)
H.264 has not become materially more free in the past days. The promise made by the MPEG-LA was already in force until 2015, has no effect on those consuming or producing H.264 content, and is predicated on the notion that they should be controlling mere copying of bits at all! Unfortunately, H.264 is no more suitable as a foundational technology for the open web than it was last year. Perhaps it will become such in the future — Mozilla would very much welcome a real royalty-free promise for H.264 — but only the MPEG-LA can make that happen. |
New TV and production studios will be built near The Shops at Atlas Park mall in Glendale. View Full Caption Queens Economic Development Corporation
QUEENS — Glendale is ready for its close-up.
Broadway Stages, a Greenpoint-based TV and film production company, is planning to build several film studios in the neighborhood, near The Shops at Atlas Park mall, the company said.
The company, as first reported by the Queens Courier, recently purchased the remainder of the Atlas Terminals industrial park, adjacent to the mall, for $19.5 million.
Broadway Stages currently has several studios in Greenpoint, and produces a number TV series, including CBS's "The Good Wife," according to the company's website.
The newly purchased site, at Cooper Avenue and 83rd Street, has a total space of roughly 13 acres.
Broadway Stages also plans to "create rental space for local mom and pop retail businesses" in the new space, said Jackie Kessel, a spokeswoman for Broadway Stages, in a statement.
"We look forward to working with local officials as we develop our plans to draw on all of the energy around Atlas Park, bringing new jobs, business growth and economic development to Queens," Kessel said.
Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, who represents the area, said that she is “excited for the potential jobs and new cultural opportunities that may come as result of this sale.”
TV and production studios can be a draw for other businesses. Kaufman Astoria Studios, which have recently become the center of a newly created arts district, have attracted many restaurants and bars to Astoria.
“While we still do not know all of the details, I will be working diligently to make sure any new development benefits our community," Crowley said in a statement.
Representatives for Broadway Stages did not say when the new studios would open and whether the company is planning to retain its studios in Greenpoint.
The industrial park was built more than 90 years ago and was once home to numerous companies, including General Electric.
It was previously owned by Atco Properties and Management, which foreclosed on the property several years ago. |
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. Former Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News, he is author of the book, 'Midnight in the American Empire,' released in 2013.
Whatever happened to the days when the primary purpose of journalism was to hold our government accountable for its stupid actions, like when the US Navy, for example, strays into the territorial waters of an Islamic nation at the worst possible time?
Just how long and deep America has snorted from the cracked mirror of imperial power, intoxicating the nation with delusions of grandeur and exceptionalism, was nowhere more apparent than this week in the Fox News studios where five pugnacious pundits cheerleaded for a full-blown clash with Iran (the Full Metal Jacket moment starts around the 3:10 mark).
What triggered Fox News to go ballistic against the Islamic Republic? Apparently Tehran committed the unforgivable act of detaining 10 US sailors after their two patrol boats entered Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf either due to mechanical or navigational problems.
Video footage of the American sailors kneeling on the deck of their boat, hands locked behind their heads, as members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard prepared to detain them was simply too much for Fox analyst Andrea Tantaros, who commented with her trademark tenacity as if life were one big happy Rambo movie:
“Again, they were on their knees and they weren’t at their weapons. They should have been at their weapons, not on their hands and knees in submission surrendering.”
So let’s get this straight, Andrea: After less than a dozen US sailors stray into Iran’s territorial waters, you find it incredulous that these men did not act defiant despite being completely in the wrong, not to mention completely surrounded and outgunned. It would have made perfect sense, you think, for them to risk life and limb, not to mention the outbreak of a regional war, over the simple mistake of misreading a nautical map or a malfunctioning motor?
But Tantaros’ epic solo performance does not end there. She proceeded to launch a salvo attack against US Secretary of State John Kerry for “thanking the Iranians for essentially humiliating us.”
“But that’s what the Iranians want, and I just find it to be completely egregious and another failure of... thanking one of our enemies for basically putting out propaganda that embarrasses the United States of America.”
Tantaros then contrasts Kerry's apparently audacious behavior with that of former Republican president Ronald Reagan and how he “handled the Iranians” during the Iran hostage crisis (Nov. 1979 to Jan. 1981) when some 60 US diplomats and civilians were held hostage in Tehran for 444 days.
“Reagan didn’t thank them for taking Americans hostage… he threatened to drop a bomb – a nuke – on downtown Tehran. That is how you handle them. But yet again we see this administration kowtowing to a very dangerous regime and showing signs of weakness. These acts of provocation will continue because of it.”
Tantaros apparently has got her history confused with some other US bombing of a sovereign state for no particularly good reason because Reagan never said he would “nuke” Tehran if they did not hand over the hostages. In any case, hold your fire, Andrea, because the Iranians in last week’s incident were not holding the American sailors “hostage,” but rather were detaining them for questioning – a completely normal protocol under such circumstances – before allowing them to depart in the very same boats they arrived in.
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By conjuring up the insane idea of bombing Tehran over nothing more than a mishap, Tantaros has exposed herself as a smoking gun, a media weapon of mass destruction, proving exactly how lethal and dangerous the Western mainstream media message has become irrespective of the channel. Instead of these media pundits speaking from a position of level-headed neutrality, reasonably weighing issues of enormous gravity in a fair, unbiased and non-hysterical manner, they come out screaming and shooting from the hip. At the same time, allowing any opposing voice to balance the circus act has now become an exception as opposed to the rule.
It may well prove to be the tragedy of our times that the Fourth Estate is actually proving to be more gung-ho about war and conflict than those men and women now serving in the military forces.
Tyler Rogoway, writing in Foxtrot Alpha, responded to Tantaros’ tantrum by asking, “What exactly did they expect the Iranians to do here?”
“Boarding any boat is a risky business, let alone one that is bristling with heavy machine guns, stuffed with small arms, and operated by a country that you have extremely bitter relations with and see as a reasonable foe,” Rogoway wrote. “Are we supposed to believe that the Iranians should not care about the safety of their own crews executing such a dangerous task?
Not just that, but having a crew put their hands up during a boarding action like this is also for their own safety, so that no mistakes or misinterpretations are made that could lead to a massacre."
There were other portions of the Iranian video that have attracted the ire of US pundits. First, the Iranians were seen as behaving hospitable, accommodating and even friendly - exactly the opposite as to how they are regularly portrayed in the Western media. Is that what Tantaros meant when she accused the Iranians of “putting out propaganda that embarrasses the United States of America”? How dare those Iranians act different from our well-established stereotypes!
Indeed, compare the treatment of those 10 (now-freed) Americans with those desperate detainees still locked up inside of Guantanamo Bay detention center.
It may well prove to be the tragedy of our times that the Fourth Estate is actually proving to be more gung-ho about war and conflict than those men and women now serving in the military forces.
And while the US sailors were not exactly treated to bed and breakfast at the Ritz Carlton, they were seen seated on the floor on Persian carpets and pillows, enjoying a local dish of finger food complete with bottled water. Again, not the Ritz, but certainly better than being stuck in the middle of the Persian Gulf with a broken motor.
Navy pic of Riverine boats return to US Destroyer Anzio in Gulf yesterday. SecDef Carter blamed "navigational error" pic.twitter.com/aflukTp2rG — Justin Fishel (@JustinFishelABC) January 14, 2016
Other issues that the mainstream media could not forgive were the apology delivered by the apparent commander of the US group (who also added that conditions provided by the Iranians were “fantastic,” a remark that certainly made Tantaros and friends cringe in horror), and the hijab that a US naval servicewoman was seen donning, in conformity with Islamic tradition. But as the old saying goes, when in Rome - and especially without a visa and invitation - better do as the Romans do.
The real history that Tantaros should have referred her audience to was not some mythical threat of a nuclear strike, an event the world can ill-afford, but rather the Gulf of Tonkin incident – an alleged attack on the USS Maddox by the North Vietnamese on August 2, 1964, which in fact, as former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted years later, “never happened.”
Nevertheless, that much-publicized non-event granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the power to declare war against North Vietnam, thus opening one of the most tragic chapters of American (and Vietnamese) history.
With that cruel history lesson in mind, the uncanny timing of those two US patrol boats straying into Iranian waters may strike some as suspicious. After all, the Iranian nuclear deal was just days away from going into effect, the Iranian people were about to be freed of painful sanctions, and oil promised to flow once again from the Islamic country to international markets.
Although all of that spells a great change of fortune for the Islamic Republic, many US politicians (and certainly just as many Fox pundits) have already declared their extreme dissatisfaction with the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Tehran, going so far as to say they will work to dissolve Obama's diplomatic work once they are in power.
It almost makes one wonder if somebody somewhere in the upper echelons of power was hoping to provoke some sort of clash between the American and Iranian naval forces, thus keeping Washington and Tehran sworn enemies.
After all, as the saying goes, history has a strange way of repeating itself.
@Robert_Bridge
[email protected] |
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Official Royal Navy ceremonies were called off because the crews of two ships had been drinking, it has been claimed.
The crews of HMS Echo, a survey vessel, and the frigate HMS Sutherland reportedly cancelled an evening parade and tourist trips on the Isle of Scilly after a drinking session on Saturday night leaving around 500 people disappointed.
The official explanation for the cancellation of the all visits to HMS Sutherland and the full Royal Navy Sunset Ceremony outside Star Castle Hotel are 'sea conditions'.
However, the crews have been "coming and going all day", one witness said.
"We also saw four crew ashore who raised the standard up at The Star Castle.
"Yet they couldn't be bothered to put a crew ashore for the sunset ceremony."
A regular at The Star Castle Hotel told the Mirror: "After two nights of chaos they've probably been banned from coming ashore.
"They took and crashed a golf buggy last night."
One disgruntled tourist said: "We've trekked to the quay twice for our boat tour and walked up for the sunset procession.
"The only spokesperson was a red-eyed navy guy who looked very sheepish telling us the crew couldn't get ashore as we looked out to flat seas and boats coming and going."
A local boat charter company tweeted: "HMS Echo can land liberty men (sailors allowed to go ashore) but Sutherland can't land sunset party?
"Disappointing."
The Isles of Scilly twitter account had the message: "All visits to HMS Sutherland have been cancelled today due to weather conditions, but Water Carnival and lifeboat visit still going ahead!"
Last night someone released the brake of a golf buggy parked on a street in Hugh Town on St Mary's at approximately 8.30pm, Isles of Scilly Police confirmed.
Police officers are investigating.
A Royal Navy spokesperson said: “Regrettably a ceremony due to take place on the shore was cancelled because sea conditions meant personnel could not be safely transported from the ship.”
There is no suggestion that any Navy personnel are not allowed to relax off duty.
HMS Sutherland, a Type 23 frigate, was due to be open to the public from 10am to 4pm on Sunday and 10am to 2pm on Bank Holiday Monday.
A sunset ceremony was meant to take place outside the Star Castle Hotel from 5.30pm to 6.30pm today. |
Japanese pronouns (or Japanese deictic classifiers) are words in the Japanese language used to address or refer to present people or things, where present means people or things that can be pointed at. The position of things (far away, nearby) and their role in the current interaction (goods, addresser, addressee, bystander) are features of the meaning of those words. The use of pronouns, especially when referring to oneself and speaking in the first person, vary between gender, formality, dialect and region where Japanese is spoken.
Use and etymology [ edit ]
In contrast to present people and things, absent people and things can be referred to only by naming as in Miyazaki, by instantiating a class as in "the house" (in a context where there is only one house) and by presenting things in relation to present, named and sui generis people or things as in "I'm going home", "I'm going to Miyazaki's place", "I'm going to the mayor's place", "I'm going to my mother's place", "I'm going to my mother's friend's place". Functionally, deictic classifiers not only indicate that the referenced person or thing has a spatial position or an interactional role but also classify it to some extent. In addition, Japanese pronouns are restricted by a situation type (register): who is talking to whom, about what, and through which medium (spoken or written, staged or in private). In that sense, when a male is talking to his male friends, the pronoun set that is available to him is different from that which is available when a man of the same age talks to his wife and from that which is available when a woman talks to her husband. These variations in pronoun availability are determined by the register.
In linguistics, generativists and other structuralists suggest that the Japanese language does not have pronouns as such, since, unlike pronouns in most other languages that have them, these words are syntactically and morphologically identical to nouns.[1][2] As functionalists point out, however, these words function as personal references, demonstratives, and reflexives, just as pronouns do in other languages.[3][4]
Japanese has a large number of pronouns, differing in use by formality, gender, age, and relative social status of speaker and audience. Further, pronouns are an open class, with existing nouns being used as new pronouns with some frequency. This is ongoing; a recent example is jibun (自分, self), which is now used by some young men as a casual first-person pronoun.
Pronouns are used less frequently in the Japanese language than in many other languages,[5] mainly because there is no grammatical requirement to include the subject in a sentence. That means that pronouns can seldom be translated from English to Japanese on a one-to-one basis.
The common English personal pronouns, such as "I", "you", and "they", have no other meanings or connotations. However, most Japanese personal pronouns do. Consider for example two words corresponding to the English pronoun "I": 私 (watashi) also means "private" or "personal". 僕 (boku) carries a masculine impression; it is typically used by males, especially those in their youth.[6]
Japanese words that refer to other people are part of the encompassing system of honorific speech and should be understood within that context. Pronoun choice depends on the speaker's social status (as compared to the listener's) as well as the sentence's subjects and objects.
The first-person pronouns (e.g., watashi, 私) and second-person pronouns (e.g., anata, 貴方) are used in formal contexts (However the latter can be considered rude). In many sentences, pronouns that mean "I" and "you" are omitted in Japanese when the meaning is still clear.[3]
When it is required to state the topic of the sentence for clarity, the particle wa (は) is used, but it is not required when the topic can be inferred from context. Also, there are frequently used verbs that can indicate the subject of the sentence in certain contexts: kureru (くれる) means "give" in the sense that "somebody gives something to me or to somebody very close to me." ageru (あげる) also means "give", but in the sense that "someone gives something to someone other than me."[non sequitur]
In sentences comprising a single adjective (often those ending in -shii), it is often assumed that the speaker is the subject. For example, the adjective sabishii (寂しい) can represent a complete sentence that means "I am lonely."
Thus, the first-person pronoun is usually not used unless the speaker wants to put a special stress on the fact that they are referring to themselves or if it is necessary to make it clear. In some contexts, it may be considered uncouth to refer to the listener (second person) by a pronoun. If it is required to state the second person, the listener's surname, suffixed with -san or some other title (like "customer", "teacher", or "boss"), is generally used.
Gender differences in spoken Japanese also create another challenge, as men and women refer to themselves with different pronouns. Social standing also determines how people refer to themselves, as well as how they refer to other people.
List of Japanese personal pronouns [ edit ]
The list is incomplete, as there are numerous Japanese pronoun forms, which vary by region and dialect. This is a list of the most commonly used forms. "It" has no direct equivalent in Japanese[3] (though in some contexts the demonstrative pronoun それ (sore) is translatable as "it"). Also, Japanese does not generally inflect by case, so, I is equivalent to me.
Romaji Hiragana Kanji Level of speech Gender Notes – I/me – watashi わたし 私 formal/informal both In formal or polite contexts, this is gender neutral; in casual speech, it is typically only used by women. Use by men in casual context may be perceived as either stiff or feminine. watakushi わたくし 私 very formal both The most formal personal pronoun.[7][ better source needed ] ware われ 我, 吾 very formal both Used in literary style. Also used as rude second person in western dialects. waga わが 我が very formal both Means "my" or "our". Used in speeches and formalities; 我が社 waga-sha (our company) or 我が国 waga-kuni (our country). ore おれ 俺 informal males Frequently used by men.[8] Establishes a sense of masculinity. Can be seen as rude depending on the context. Emphasizes one's own status when used with peers and with those who are younger or of lesser status. Among close friends or family, its use conveys familiarity rather than masculinity or superiority. It was used by both genders until the late Edo period and still is in some dialects. Also oi in Kyushu dialect. boku ぼく 僕 formal/informal males Used by males of all ages; very often used by boys. Perceived as humble, but can also carry an undertone of "feeling young" when used by males of older age. Also used when casually giving deference; "servant" uses the same kanji (僕 shimobe). Can also be used as a second-person pronoun toward male children (English equivalent – "kid" or "squirt"). washi わし 儂 formal/informal mainly males Often used in western dialects and fictional settings to stereotypically represent characters of old age. Also wai, a slang version of washi in the Kansai dialect. jibun じぶん 自分 formal/informal mainly males Literally "oneself"; used as either reflexive or personal pronoun. Can convey a sense of distance when used in the latter way. Also used as casual second person pronoun in the Kansai dialect. atai あたい very informal females Slang version of あたし atashi.[7] atashi あたし informal females, rarely males (Edo dialect) A feminine pronoun that strains from わたし ("watashi"). Rarely used in written language, but common in conversation, especially among younger women. atakushi あたくし informal females uchi うち 家, 内 informal mostly females Means "one's own". Often used in western dialects especially the Kansai dialect. Generally written in kana. Plural form uchi-ra is used by both genders. Singular form is also used by both sexes when talking about the household, e.g., "uchi no neko" ("my/our cat"), "uchi no chichi-oya" ("my father"); also used in less formal business speech to mean "our company", e.g., "uchi wa sandai no rekkāsha ga aru" ("we (our company) have three tow-trucks"). (own name) informal both Used by small children and young women, considered cute and childish. oira おいら informal males Similar to 俺 ore, but more casual. Evokes a person with a rural background, a "country bumpkin". ora おら informal both Dialect in Kanto and further north. Similar to おいら oira, but more rural. Famous as used by main characters in Dragon Ball and Crayon Shin-chan among children. Also ura in some dialects. wate わて informal both Dated Kansai dialect. Also ate (somewhat feminine). shōsei しょうせい 小生 formal, written males Used among academic colleagues. Lit. "your pupil".[9] – you (singular) – (name and honorific) formality depends on the honorific used both anata あなた 貴方, 貴男, 貴女 formal/informal both The kanji are very rarely used. The only second person pronoun comparable to English "you", yet still not used as often in this universal way by native speakers, as it can be considered having a condescending undertone, especially towards superiors.[3][8][ better source needed ] For expressing "you" in formal contexts, using the person's name with an honorific is more typical. More commonly, anata may be used when having no information about the addressed person; also often used as "you" in commercials, when not referring to a particular person. Furthermore, commonly used by women to address their husband or lover, in a way roughly equivalent to the English "dear". anta あんた informal both Contraction of あなた anata.[7] Can express contempt, anger or familiarity towards a person. Generally seen as rude or uneducated when used in formal contexts. otaku おたく お宅, 御宅 formal, polite both A polite way of saying "your house", also used as a pronoun to address a person with slight sense of distance. Otaku/otakki/ota turned into a slang term referring to a type of geek/obsessive hobbyist, as they often addressed each other as otaku. omae おまえ お前 very informal both (masculine) Similar to anta, but used by men with more frequency.[8] Expresses the speaker's higher status or age, or a very casual relationship among peers. Often used with おれ ore.[8] Very rude if said to elders. Commonly used by men to address their wife or lover, paralleling the female use of "anata". temee, temae てめえ,
てまえ 手前 rude and confrontational[7] mainly males Literal meaning "the one in front of my hand". Temee, a reduction of temae, is more rude. Used when the speaker is very angry. Originally used for a humble first person. The Kanji are seldom used with this meaning, as unrelated to its use as a pronoun, 手前 can also mean "before", "this side", "one's standpoint" or "one's appearance". kisama きさま 貴様 extremely hostile and rude mainly males Historically very formal, but has developed in an ironic sense to show the speaker's extreme hostility / outrage towards the addressee. kimi きみ 君 informal both The kanji means "lord" (archaic) and is also used to write -kun.[10] Informal to subordinates; can also be affectionate; formerly very polite. Among peers typically used with 僕 boku.[8] Often seen as rude or assuming when used with superiors, elders or strangers.[8] kika きか 貴下 informal, to a younger person both kikan きかん 貴官 very formal, used to address government officials, military personnel, etc. both on-sha おんしゃ 御社 formal, used to the listener representing your company both only used in spoken language. ki-sha きしゃ 貴社 formal, similar to onsha both only used in written language as opposed to onsha – he / she – ano kata あのかた あの方 very formal both Sometimes pronounced ano hou, but with the same kanji. ano hito あのひと あの人 formal/informal both Literally "that person". yatsu やつ 奴 informal both A thing (very informal), dude, guy. koitsu, koyatsu こいつ, こやつ 此奴 very informal, implies contempt both Denotes a person or material nearby the speaker. Analogous to "he/she" or "this one". soitsu, soyatsu そいつ, そやつ 其奴 very informal, implies contempt both Denotes a person or material nearby the listener. Analogous to "he/she" or "that one". aitsu, ayatsu あいつ, あやつ 彼奴 very informal, implies contempt both Denotes a person or (less frequently) material far from both the speaker and the listener. Analogous to "he/she" or "that one". – he – kare かれ 彼 formal (neutral) and informal (boyfriend) both Can also mean "boyfriend". Formerly 彼氏 kareshi was its equivalent, but this now always means "boyfriend". – she – kanojo かのじょ 彼女 formal (neutral) and informal (girlfriend) both Originally created from 彼の女 kano on'na "that female" as an equivalent to female pronouns in European languages. Can also mean "girlfriend".[11] – we (see also list of pluralising suffixes, below) – ware-ware われわれ 我々 formal both Mostly used when speaking on behalf of a company or group. ware-ra われら 我等 informal both Used in literary style. ware is never used with -tachi. hei-sha へいしゃ 弊社 formal and humble both Used when representing one's own company. From a Sino-Japanese word meaning "low company" or "humble company". waga-sha わがしゃ 我が社 formal both Used when representing one's own company. – they (see also list of pluralising suffixes, below) – kare-ra かれら 彼等 common in spoken Japanese and writing both
Archaic personal pronouns [ edit ]
Romaji Hiragana Kanji Meaning Level of speech Gender Notes asshi あっし 私 I males Slang version of watashi. From the Edo period. sessha せっしゃ 拙者 I males Used by samurai during the feudal ages (and often also by ninja in fictionalized portrayals). From a Sino-Japanese word meaning "one who is clumsy". wagahai わがはい 我が輩, 吾輩 I males Literally "my fellows; my class; my cohort", but used in a somewhat pompous manner as a first-person singular pronoun. soregashi それがし 某 I males Literally "So-and-so", a nameless expression. Similar to sessha. warawa わらわ 妾 I females Literally "child". Mainly used by women in samurai family. Today, it is used in fictional settings to represent archaic noble female characters. wachiki わちき I females Used by geisha and oiran in Edo period. Also あちき achiki and わっち watchi. yo よ 余, 予 I males Archaic first-person singular pronoun. chin ちん 朕 I males Used only by the emperor, mostly before World War II. maro まろ 麻呂, 麿 I males Used as a universal first-person pronoun in ancient times. Today, it is used in fictional settings to represent Court noble male characters. onore おのれ 己 I or you males The word onore, as well as the kanji used to transcribe it, literally means "oneself". It is humble when used as a first person pronoun and hostile (on the level of てめえ temee or てまえ temae) when used as a second person pronoun. kei けい 卿 you males Second person pronoun, used mostly by males. Used among peers to denote light respect, and by a superior addressing his subjects and retainers in a familiar manner. Like 君 kimi, this can also be used as a honorific (pronounced as きょう kyou), in which case it's equivalent to "lord/lady" or "sir/dame". nanji なんじ 汝, less commonly also 爾 you, often translated as "thou" both Spelled as なむち namuchi in the most ancient texts and later as なんち nanchi or なんぢ nanji. onushi おぬし 御主, お主 you both Used by elders and samurai to talk to people of equal or lower rank, as well as by fictional ninja. Literally means "master". sonata そなた 其方 (rarely used) you both Originally a mesial deictic pronoun meaning "that side; that way; that direction"; used as a lightly respectful second person pronoun in previous eras, but now used when speaking to an inferior in a pompous and old-fashioned tone. sochi そち 其方 (rarely used) you both Similar to そなた sonata. Literally means "that way". (Sochira and kochira, sometimes shortened to sochi and kochi, are still sometimes used to mean roughly "you" and "I, we", e.g. kochira koso in response to thanks or an apology means literally "this side is the one" but idiomatically "no, I (or we) thank/apologize to you"; especially common on the telephone, analogous to phrases like "on this end" and "on your end" in English.)
Suffixes [ edit ]
Suffixes are added to pronouns to make them plural.
Romaji Hiragana Kanji Level of speech Notes tachi たち 達 informal; examples: 私達, watashi-tachi ,
, あなた達, anata-tachi
君達, kimi-tachi Also can be attached to names to indicate that person and the group (s)he is with (Ryuichi-tachi = "Ryuichi and friends"). kata,
gata かた,
がた 方 formal (ex. あなた方, anata-gata) More polite than 達 tachi. gata is the rendaku form. tomo,
domo とも,
ども 共 humble (ex. 私ども, watakushi-domo) Casts some aspersion on the mentioned group, so it can be rude. domo is the rendaku form. ra ら 等 informal (ex. 彼ら, karera. 俺ら, ore-ra. 奴ら, yatsu-ra. あいつら, aitsu-ra) Used with informal pronouns. Frequently used with hostile words. Sometimes used for light humble as domo (ex. 私ら, watashi-ra)
Demonstrative and interrogative pronouns [ edit ]
Demonstrative words, whether functioning as pronouns, adjectives or adverbs, fall into four groups. Words beginning with ko- indicate something close to the speaker (so-called proximal demonstratives). Those beginning with so- indicate separation from the speaker or closeness to the listener (medial), while those beginning with a- indicate greater distance (distal). Interrogative words, used in questions, begin with do-.[3]
Demonstratives are normally written in hiragana.
Romaji Hiragana Kanji Meaning kore これ 此れ this thing / these things (near speaker) sore それ 其れ that thing / those things (near listener) are あれ 彼 that thing / those things (distant from both speaker and listener) dore どれ 何れ which thing(s)? kochira or kotchi こちら / こっち 此方 this / here (near speaker) sochira or sotchi そちら / そっち 其方 that / there (near listener) achira or atchi あちら / あっち 彼方 that / there (distant from both speaker and listener) dochira or dotchi どちら / どっち 何方 what / where
Reflexive [ edit ]
Japanese has only one word corresponding to reflexive pronouns such as myself, yourself, or themselves in English. The word 自分 (jibun) means "one's self" and may be used for human beings or some animals. It is not used for cold-blooded animals or inanimate objects.[3]
See also [ edit ] |
Compositions | SFX Description
"Little Blondies" on Laughlin blues Demo of a pair of 'Little Blondie' microphones on a 1980 Bob Laughlin acoustic 6 string using Elixer nanoweb strings. Organ is a DB-33 RTAS virtual Hammond B3 through a virtual Leslie 147. Recorded into Pro Tools at 48kHz / 24 bit and encoded into a 320 kbps. mp3 using iTunes. No audio editing was performed. Minimal automation on the Leslie speed. ITB audio processing was: 2.5 to 1 compression, slap echo and reverb in an attempt to create a live performance in a small hall.
Pottery Mouth The result of giving myself a creative and technical challenge of creating a complete soundscape from two samples totaling one second in length. All sounds were generated using Kyma and then transferred to Pro Tools for editing and mixing.
6's and 7s Improvisation for tenor mandola, also known as an octave mandolin or Irish bouzouki. Recorded on Bob Laughlin's 6th instrument of this kind shortly after receiving it. I had the good fortune of being able to compare it to his 7th made bouzouki one afternoon and preferred #6. Hence the name 6's & 7's.
Themes from a Non-Existent Slide Show An imaginary train trip with different people of different nationalities joining in a musical conversation. Influenced by Weather Report and Frank Zappa. Synthesizers, acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, percussion and melodic percussion.
Lullaby for Loralyn Composed for my wife Loralyn. For 6 string Acoustic guitar, Hammered dulcimer with MIDI orchestration for backing using a Roland JV1080 with the optional orchestral samples card.
Pitch tracking An electronic piece using a self compositional patch created using the Nord G2 native software. The melody is a Fender Telecaster played into Pro Tools via an API preamp, then auto tuned using Celemony Melodyne which was then output to Kyma via S/PDIF to an oscillator which is tracking the pitch of the guitar. Kyma's output was then transferred via S/PDIF back into Pro Tools. Note, the Telecaster is not directly heard, only Kyma's oscillator.
Mandola improvisation Like 6's & 7's, this was recorded shortly after receiving my new instrument. Unlike guitars which are tuned in fourths, this instrument is tuned in fifths like a violin. Just think of the bottom four strings on a guitar, E/A/D/G but flipped upside down to become G/D/A/E.
Never Alone (Intro) Solo nylon stringed guitar made by luthier Bob Laughlin. Written in 1998 and recorded on tape using a Tascam DA-88. Part of a much longer piece for multiple instruments
Kyma Wash Just a simple little soundscape created in Kyma and transferred into Pro Tools.
That Place Recorded in 1998 on a Tascam DA-88. This piece is dedicated to my late mother and father and features a 1980 6 string acoustic guitar by luthier Bob Laughlin, a 1975 hammered dulcimer by Dennis Dorogi, a 1973 Rickenbacker bass guitar and several MIDI instruments for backing. A video tribute to my father using this piece can be found here
Operating Instructions This came about by restricting myself to only using one MIDI track and one channel with only Note On & Off data plus a loop point. Using an Oberheim Xpander, a Roland MKS-80, a Kurzweil 250 and a Casio CZ-5000. Each voice was programmed to respond differently to the same performance, making it sound like multiple tracks. |
Job seekers at an employment fair
It’s hard to overstate the poor numbers coming out of Wall Street in recent months. But could it be that we’re overstating the gravity of the situation? As job losses have mounted and consumer confidence has plunged, policymakers, news organizations, econo-pundits, and even some of my Slate colleagues have noted that the unemployment rate, which rose to 6.1 percent in September, seems to be at a nonrecessionary, noncatastrophic, low level. The unemployment rate is still below where it was in 2003; and between September 1982 and May 1983, the last very deep recession, it topped 10 percent. (Go here for a chart and historical data).
But maybe the employment data are much worse than they seem. In the past year, the two key measures of employment—the unemployment rate and the payroll jobs figure—have been poor but not awful. The unemployment rate has risen from 4.5 percent a year ago to 6.1 percent. And in the first nine months, 760,000 payroll jobs were lost. This is unwelcome but not catastrophic. So why do things feel so bad? It’s not because, as Phil Gramm suggested, we’re a nation of whiners. And it’s not a matter of columnists and spin doctors shading the numbers to make things look worse.
Rather, these two figures are undermeasuring the weakness in the labor market. By some measures, in fact, the job situation is worse than it has been at any time since 1994.
Here’s why. Back in the 1990s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recognized that in a changing economy, in which outsourcing, self-employment, and contracting were becoming more commonplace, the traditional methods of measuring unemployment and job growth might not accurately portray the economic situation. And it knew its methodology had some quirks—the unemployment rate doesn’t account for people who have given up looking for jobs, or who have taken themselves out of the work force. So since 1994, the BLS has been compiling alternative measures of labor underutilization. There are many different varieties of labor underutilization. There are marginally attached workers: “persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past.” There are discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached crowd, who have “given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job.” There are people who work part-time because they can’t find—or their employer can’t provide—full-time work. There are people who have left the work force entirely. Neither the unemployment rate nor the payroll jobs figure captures the plight of many of these folks.
And the alternative labor underutilization measures show a lot of stress. The data on people not in the work force show the number of people not looking for work because they’re discouraged about finding jobs has risen from 276,000 in September 2007 to 467,000 in September 2008—up 70 percent. The percentage of people unemployed for more than 15 weeks stood at 2.3 percent in September 2008, up from 1.6 percent in September 2007, a rise of nearly 45 percent. But the most troublesome is the U6. The U6 is sort of the summa of job angst, a shorthand tally for the aggregate of job-related frustration. (Moneybox covered some of this terrain back in 2004.) To compile the U6, the BLS takes the number of unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus all of those employed part-time for economic reasons, and then calculates that total as a percentage of the sum of the entire civilian labor force plus marginally attached workers.
The U6 in September rose to 11 percent, its highest level since the data series started in 1994 and significantly higher than it was in the last recession, in 2001. The ratio between the U6 and the official unemployment rate has remained relatively steady over the last several years. But that means that as the unemployment rate has risen, so too has the portion of the population suffering from other types of work deficits. Three years ago, when the unemployment rate was 5.1 percent, an additional 3.9 percent of the labor force fell into one of those other underutilized categories. Last month, with the unemployment rate at 6.1 percent, an additional 4.9 percent of the labor force was underutilized. (See charts comparing the unemployment rate and the U6 rate.) Add it up, and more than 10 percent of American workers are essentially not contributing full-time to their families’ well-being and to that of the economy at large. The unemployment rate may still be historically low, but the underutilization is historically high. |
Image caption Margaret Moran was accused of "flipping" her designated second home.
Ex-Labour Luton MP Margaret Moran falsely claimed more than £53,000 in expenses while in office, a jury has ruled.
The 57-year-old was tried in her absence at Southwark Crown Court after she was deemed unfit to stand trial.
She was accused of 15 counts of false accounting and six of using a false instrument over the claims.
The former Luton South MP, who lives in St Denys, Southampton, served in the Commons between 1997 and 2010.
Jurors were unable to return a guilty verdict because of Moran's illness but in a trial of issue, the jury found that she had committed 15 counts of false accounting and six counts of using a false instrument over the claims for parliamentary expenses.
The court had heard that she was able to make a dry rot claim of £22,500 by "flipping" her two homes - changing which property was her second home and therefore allowing her to claim expenses on it.
Largest expenses case
She also changed dates on invoices for the work so that the money would be paid.
One invoice in August 2007 was for £14,805 - apparently for boiler repairs and work on her conservatory in her constituency home in Luton, when it was actually her home in Southampton, the court heard.
Another fake bill for more than £4,000 used an address for a building firm but the property actually belonged to an elderly couple.
She is presently being treated by psychiatrists at home and that treatment will continue Mr Justice Saunders
She also claimed for three bedroom carpets at her one-bedroom Westminster flat, and £2,000 for a landline phone when it did not have one.
James Sturman QC, defending, said the case represented "a very, very unhappy period for British democracy".
Moran's false expenses claims are the largest amount uncovered in the wake of the MPs' expenses scandal, brought to light by the Daily Telegraph in 2009.
Former Labour minister Elliot Morley was jailed last year for dishonestly claiming more than £30,000 in parliamentary expenses.
Mr Justice Saunders is expected to sentence Moran at a future hearing.
She may be subject to a supervision order, a hospital order or absolute discharge, where no further action is taken against her, he said.
"She is presently being treated by psychiatrists at home and that treatment will continue," Mr Justice Saunders said.
Christmas cards claim
Jurors heard that Moran altered addresses to make it look as if she was making legitimate claims for her second home or constituency office, when they were to cover her personal costs.
Moran "abused the scheme", prosecutors said, going as far as to re-submit expenses claims with different descriptions and supportive invoices if they were initially rejected by parliamentary authorities.
The former Luton South MP tried to claim £47 for printing 50 Christmas cards, but was told that greetings cards were not covered by parliamentary expenses, the court heard.
So she submitted a new invoice for the same amount, but this time for "printing services", jurors were told.
The same thing happened with a claim for birthday cards, which were later described as "surgery cards".
Moran submitted a claim for £22,500 for urgent works for dry rot at her Southampton home in August 2008.
Jurors heard, however, that a builder completed the work between September 2007 and March 2008 before the property became Moran's recognised second home in October 2008.
It had previously been listed as her first home after the sudden death of her sister as she became guardian to her two young children, the court heard. |
It is with a heavy heart and a heavier sigh that I type these words as I know they begin what will be the final Litany post. Litany has kept the Skinny Puppy fan base informed and connected for 17 years. It has become increasingly clear, though, that in a world of corporately owned social media, Litany is outdated and out-priced. We simply cannot keep pace with Facebook as a news outlet and our attempts at data-mining or providing flashy ads or game apps to our users fell short (the Litanyville game is a debacle I choose never to revisit). We're not cool anymore, so, ultimately, what's the point? After much careful consideration and personal introspection, I have decided that it is time to close our doors for good and graceful bow out of the digital landscape.It's been an amazing ride and I thank those who have helped, too numerous to mention. I'd especially like to thank the band for their years of support, when Litany served as their official mouthpiece. Moreover, I'd like to thank the Litany readers and forum members whose participation and enthusiasm fueled this machine for so long. We simply wouldn't have existed without you.Forum users will have until the end of this week to save any content they wish, after which point the forum will be taken offline permanently, and perhaps donated to an academic archive for future study.I am choosing not to be sad about this. Right now, my mind drifts to the many fantastic moments in Litany history, like the adventures of Mish's Dhatt or that time that funny thing happened on the forum. I truly hope that you've enjoyed what Litany has offered. See you soon. |
The Treasurer, Joe Hockey, has engaged lawyers over media reports of a fundraising forum which offered access to the treasurer in exchange for donations of thousands of dollars.
The prime minister, Tony Abbott, has backed Hockey, who said he found the allegations in the Fairfax Media story “offensive and repugnant” and has engaged media litigator Mark O’Brien from Johnson, Winter and Slattery to take legal action.
The North Sydney Forum (NSF) is a fundraising arm of the Liberal party, which is not registered as an entity of the party with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). It touts itself as a group of business and community leaders supporting Hockey but will not reveal who makes up its membership.
“By joining the North Sydney Forum you will have the opportunity to participate in a regular program of events including boardroom lunches with Joe Hockey, focused on key policy areas that are nominated by forum members,” the website says.
It offers memberships ranging from $5,500 per year to $22,000.
Its chairman, John Hart, has not returned calls from Guardian Australia. In a letter on the website, Hart says it is “vital” the business community is active in supporting Hockey.
There are a range of other clubs and forums set up as entities of political parties across Australia which can raise donations that go well into six figures within a financial year. The entities do not have to declare who has made donations unless it is more than $12,001.
In the latest AEC records there is no donation from NSF or the body it is part of, North Sydney FEC, to the federal or NSW Liberal party and neither has submitted a financial declaration as an entity using either name.
There is a $19,898 donation listed as coming from Restaurant & Catering in the latest NSW Liberal financial disclosure. Hart, the NSF chairman, is CEO of the peak industry body of restaurateurs, caterers and cafes.
In March the North Sydney Forum repaid $22,000 in donations from the Obeid-linked Australian Water Holdings, while the Independent Commission Against Corruption was holding hearings into the company.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s headline “Treasurer For Sale” on Monday’s story about Hockey is understood to be a key factor in prompting him to take legal action.
“Accusations made in Fairfax Media today are both offensive and repugnant,” Hockey’s spokeswoman said. “The Treasurer will not let it distract him from the important task of putting the budget together. As the matter is now in the hands of lawyers no further comment can be made.”
Hockey has won the backing of Tony Abbott, who said it was typical for political parties to raise money by having senior members at events where people can meet them.
“The alternative to fundraising in this time-honoured way is taxpayer funding and at a time when we’re talking about a very tough budget indeed, the idea that we should scrap private fundraising and fund political parties through the taxpayer, I think, would be very, very odd,” the prime minister told Channel 9’s Today show.
When asked if he would consider a federal Icac, Abbott replied he would ensure there were no lobbyists in the running of the political party.
“We’re going to maintain the absolute transparency of any gifts that are given to politicians,” he said. “If we keep lobbyists out of political parties and we ensure that anything which is given to an individual in parliament is properly declared – and you can’t actually accept a gift over $500 if you’re a member of a government – that’s the best way to ensure that we stay clean politically.”
Hockey's Liberal colleague Josh Frydenberg called the story “outrageous”, saying Hockey had done nothing wrong.
Labor frontbencher Andrew Leigh attacked Hockey, saying the report proved Hockey’s friendship had a price. Labor’s Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism spokesman, Anthony Albanese, declined to comment, saying he understood lawyers had become involved. |
Behold the first election-year bombshell: Barack Obama's White House will announce this morning that it will unilaterally begin granting work permits to as many as 800,000 illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, graduated from high school, and stayed out of trouble with the law. He's essentially implemented the much-debated DREAM Act, only without the hassle of all that voting in Congress. He should have done this with health care!
According to the Associated Press, the new policy will grant immunity from deportation to "illegal immigrants [who] were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military." It will also allow them to apply for a two-year work permit that can be repeatedly renewed if they stay out of trouble.
Although Obama has already attempted to move his administration's immigration policy in this direction by urging U.S. Attorneys to use "prosecutorial discretion" when pursuing deportation cases—in other words, don't bother deporting kids who aren't doing anything wrong—this shift is formal and massive. Bringing 800,000 people out of the shadows and removing the stigma and fear of being undocumented is no small thing. Too bad they can't vote! Maybe their friends and neighbors can?
Prepare for a lot of talk of "subverting the democratic process" from Republican legislators. Even ones who have supported the DREAM Act will surely oppose Obama's bypassing Congress.
One noted illegal immigrant and DREAM Act supporter who won't be affected by the policy shift is Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jose Antonio Vargas, who came out in the New York Times Magazine one year ago as an undocumented alien. As it happens, Vargas has a piece in this week's Time magazine about how he's managed to avoid deportation despite the notoriety of his case. Unfortunately, at 31 years old, he was born about four months too early to take advantage of Obama's largesse.
[Image via Getty] |
Constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz said it was the right decision for FBI Director James Comey not to criminally prosecute Hillary Clinton and to change the language in his 2016 statement from "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless." If Comey used "grossly negligent," Dershowitz said, it would make people believe Clinton committed a crime.
Dershowitz believes the infamous statement Comey delivered that used the term 'extremely careless' caused Clinton to lose the 2016 presidential election.
Dershowitz also said the Judicial Watch report that Huma Abedin was allowed to keep Hillary Clinton's call logs and schedules during her tenure as Secretary of State is "routine."
From Thursday's broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight:
DERSHOWITZ: Let's look at the big picture. Does anyone want to live under a judicial system where one's freedom depends on whether the conduct was grossly negligent or extremely careless? Those are the vaguest possible terms. If you asked a hundred potential jurors which is worse: being grossly negligent or extremely careless? They'd split 50/50. These rules are absurd the way we criminalize conduct using terms like that that endanger everyone's civil liberties.
Also, let's look at the other big picture. Comey's decision to make this statement, calling her extremely careless, may very well have contributed to her losing the election. Comey was not her friend. Comey was perceived to be somebody who was trying to strike an appropriate balance.
What I think happened here is ultimately Comey, not anybody else, made the decision on balance that she should not be prosecuted. And that's why the words were changed because if he had said that she was grossly negligent, people would say, 'Oh, my God, that's a crime.'
But he had already made the decision based on the fact that nobody had already been prosecuted who was in a position of authority like Hillary Clinton for conduct anyway similar -- that was in his statement. So I do think it was the right decision not to prosecute her criminally and I think the change of the language was designed to simply support that decision. Now look, no decision should ever be made until an investigation is complete. |
This question has often crossed our minds more than once, and we've all debated about it amongst our friends.
What it would have been like for ‘British India’ to have become independent, without partition?
We’ll try to put the big ‘What If’ of modern India’s history into perspective with a few hypothetical scenarios:
No Pakistan or Bangladesh:
There would exist a Pakistan & in turn, there wouldn't be a Bangladesh. We’d be an undivided country in South Asia, ‘Undivided India’.
World’s largest population
As of 2013, the population of Undivided India would be the largest [India (1.25 bn), Pakistan (182 mn) & Bangladesh (156.6 mn)], overtaking China (1.35 bn).
Either the world’s largest armed force Or less defence expenditure
Undivided India would probably have the world’s largest armed force with approximately 2.01 million active military personnel [Indian (1.325 mn), Pakistan (617,000) & Bangladesh (157,000)].
Currently, India & Pakistan have large armed forces due to threat perceptions about each other. Since there wouldn't have been any India-Pakistan wars, maintenance of such a large force would probably be unnecessary in Undivided India. The defence budget would be dramatically reduced.
Excessive burden on the economy due to population
It would have taken longer to kick-start its economy with the added burden of the population of an undivided country.
It is debatable whether India would turn to 'Communism' to generate rapid growth or open up its economy to 'Capitalism' for quick foreign investments.
Welfare-oriented budgets
With lesser defence budgets, the government of Undivided India would prioritize their funds towards strengthening the economy, infrastructure growth & public welfare.
A stronger economy in terms of human capital
After a rather slow start, Undivided India would've been rich in human capital today and would enjoy a strong diaspora across the world.
On the back of strong economic policies, it can be assumed that India would've already been a third-world economic superpower.
A South Asian Union
With stability in Undivided India, the SAARC would be potent. Undivided India would probably pave the way for a ‘South Asian Union’, that could be created on the lines of the European Union.
Imagine, free-trade, visa-free travel across South Asia. Economic institutions like the BRICS & BIMSTEC would be comparatively stronger.
Head-to-head with China
With a strong economy in place and practically no military threats, Undivided India would be an economic force to reckon with. It would be interesting to see the economies of India & China compete with each other.
Secular Undivided India
Partition altered existing demographics leading to the large-scale displacement of people, creating areas with religious majorities in Pakistan & Bangladesh & ghettos with minorities in India.
In Undivided India, demographics would've been evenly balanced leading to a stronger secular society.
Awesome sports teams
This is probably the first thing that would come to our minds, a sensational cricket team full of talented Indians, Pakistanis & Bangladeshis. Apart from cricket, we would have some serious talent in other sports too.
Rich culture amidst stability
With probably no wars fought, an undivided India would've been a chaotic medley of tribal Afghans, Baltis, Gilgitis, Sindhis & Bangladeshis along with the current set of Indians across the country. With less amount of violence and no real wars in the past, we’d have a richer culture from every part of the country.
No Kashmir conflict, No militancy
We come to the most tricky part, the root of the conflict lies in the tug-of-war between India & Pakistan over Kashmir. Since there would be no Pakistan, a conflict would probably not exist, and Kashmir would have either remained an independent kingdom or acceded to Undivided India, later.
Over 5 million people would still be alive
No matter what would have or would not have been if India would remain undivided, what is important is that countless lives would not have been lost. There would be no casualties of war or terrorist strikes or insurgencies.
Of course, an Undivided Indian would have it's own share of problems, but it would've dealt with them. Where the future of an Undivided India would lies, is anybody's guess.
Wherever it may have been, let’s hope peace would prevail & humanity seize the day. |
Thanks so much for all the over-the-top rhetoric about how the Democrats are unlawful fascist tyrants who must be overthrown or killed.
Thanks so much for nodding and winking at the teabaggers who paraded around with firearms and “Time To Water The Tree Of Liberty” t-shirts at Democratic healthcare townhalls.
Thanks so much for denying all responsibility every time some nut goes off and attacks liberals or Democrats, and/or implying that they were perfectly justified.
Thanks so much for fighting so hard to make it easy to buy guns and carry them around everywhere.
I have some questions for you, if you’re not too busy telling us all about how Jared Loughner is a pot-smoking hippie:
1) If all these acts of violence are committed by dangerously disturbed people who are completely apolitical and uninfluenced by your steady drumbeat of “DEMOCRATS ARE TYRANNICAL AND BAD! KILL DEMOCRATS!”, then wouldn’t they be attacking conservatives in roughly equal numbers?
2) If you deplore these violent acts of dangerously disturbed individuals acting completely on their own with no political agenda whatsoever, why do you insist on making it so easy for them to acquire guns? Especially when the law of averages suggests that the next twenty or so Totally Random Apolitical Attacks will be on conservatives?
3) Have you, at long last, no sense of decency? How can you continue to use such recklessly violent language after so much violence? If you had dinner with a family who lost a family member to gun violence, would you be cracking gun jokes all night long or talking about how much you’d like to see some liberal politician taken out and shot?
4) Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people???
(Cross-posted at Multi Medium) |
Last year, Robertson had said that the U.S. economy was in for "a doozy of a recession." He said the reason was the credit situation was worse than anyone had thought.
"Doozy’s a tough one and long one, I think that’s what we’re headed for," said the chairman of Tiger Management.
(Watch the accompanying video for the full interview with Julian Robertson...)
"I don’t mean to imply that this is going to last quite as long as what’s been happening in Japan, but when they went into their decline in 1990, almost 20 years ago, their people were loaded with savings—but [Americans are] all broke," he said. "...If we leave out the home in the calculations, I’d say that 80-85 percent of Americans are broke. So they have to cut back on their spending."
Robertson said that his current favorite trade is the "curve steepener" trade.
"It’s a derivative which pays the movements in the difference between the two-year interest rate on government bonds and the 10-year and 30-year…I think the curve steepener is the best hedge against inflation and I think we’re going to have some inflation."
Robertson was optimistic about "some excellent buys" that investors should consider.
He likes Apple , Microsoft , Baidu , MasterCard and Visa .
"I have a pretty good bet on copper. I think that copper, which is selling so far below its cost of production, is a terrific short," he added. |
Pot smoking Internet addicts rejoice, there’s finally an awards show set to satisfy your weed addictions. Introducing The Munchies, a production of Reddit, to be hosted on April 20.
Reddit general manager Erik Martin announced the awards show last night, writing on Reddit weed haven r/Trees that “The Munchies will not be burned by traditional categories [man], rigid rules [dude], and fake gravitas [muchacho].”
He also added that the awards would be announced via video on that unofficial global smokers day by the one and only Reddit user Here_Comes_The_King AKA Snoop Lion AKA Snoop Dogg AKA Calvin Broadus AKA Snoop D-O-Double-Gazee, who’s no stranger to Reddit’s stoner cypher.
Snoop, who’s been hard at work promoting the April 23 release of his 12th solo album Reincarnated, announced the news on Twitter by writing that he’s “got tha munchies.”
Martin began soliciting award categories immediately, turning to r/Trees’ 435,300 ends for their suggestions on the subject. Below: a ranked list of the most marijuana-enhanced idea for actual awarded distinctions.
Image via Keith Urbowicz/Imgur
Greatest Stoner Engineering Feat
Greatest Epiphany
Best Cottonmouth Cure
4/20 King and Queen – users who embrace the holiday the best
An “In this moment I am euphoric” category
Most Delicious 4/20 blunt
Most colorful Nug
Coolest shape of nose
Stoned cold fox – the sexiest ent. (eyes gotta be red and squinty for proof)
Thickest hotbox (with the dimensions of the room, and before and after pics)
People, lay off the pot for one second, please.
Photo via Snoop Dogg/Facebook |
A few lucky fans at San Diego Comic Con got to hear Brandon Sanderson read from Chapter One of Robert Jordan’s A Memory of Light, the final book in the Wheel of Time series.
In this short excerpt, a wind rises from the Mountains of Mist, traveling east and north across the land, retracing the Dragon Reborn’s steps until it finally blows back the flaps of his tent.
But where does it find Rand al’Thor? And with whom?
We are pleased to reveal the excerpt for all to enjoy. In many ways, it is the beginning of the end.
Chapter One
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Eastward the wind blew, descending from lofty mountains and coursing over desolate hills. It passed into the place known as the Westwood, an area that had once flourished with pine and leatherleaf. Here, the wind found little more than tangled underbrush, thick save around an occasional towering oak. Those looked stricken by disease, bark peeling free, branches drooping. Elsewhere needles had fallen from pines, draping the ground in a brown blanket. None of the skeletal branches of the Westwood put forth buds.
North and eastward the wind blew, across underbrush that crunched and cracked as it shook. It was night, and scrawny foxes picked over the rotting ground, searching in vain for prey or carrion. No spring birds had come to call, and—most telling—the howls of wolves had gone silent across the land.
The wind blew out of the forest and across Taren Ferry. What was left of it. The town had been a fine one, by local standards. Dark buildings, tall above their redstone foundations, a cobbled street, built at the mouth of the land known as the Two Rivers.
The smoke had long since stopped rising from burned buildings, but there was little left of the town to rebuild. Feral dogs hunted through the rubble for meat. They looked up as the wind passed, their eyes hungry.
The wind crossed the river eastward. Here, clusters of refugees carrying torches walked the long road from Baerlon to Whitebridge despite the late hour. They were sorry groups, with heads bowed, shoulders huddled. Some bore the coppery skin of Domani, their work clothing displaying the hardships of crossing the mountains with little in the way of supplies. Others came from farther off. Taraboners with haunted eyes above dirty veils. Farmers and their wives from northern Ghealdan. All had heard rumors that in Andor, there was food. In Andor, there was hope.
So far, they had yet to find either. Eastward the wind blew, along the river that wove between farms without crops. Grasslands without grass. Orchards without fruit.
Abandoned villages. Trees like bones with the flesh picked free. Ravens often clustered in their branches; starveling rabbits and sometimes larger game picked through the dead grass underneath. Above it all, the omnipresent clouds pressed down upon the land. Sometimes, that cloud cover made it impossible to tell if it was day or night.
As the wind approached the grand city of Caemlyn, it turned northward, away from the burning city—orange and red, violent, spewing black smoke toward the hungry clouds above. War had come to Andor in the still of night. The approaching refugees would soon discover that they’d been marching toward danger. It was not surprising. Danger was in all directions. The only way to avoid walking toward it would be to stand still.
As the wind blew northward, it passed people sitting beside roads, alone or in small groups, staring with the eyes of the hopeless. Some lay as they hungered, looking up at those rumbling, boiling clouds. Other people trudged onward, though toward what, they knew not. The Last Battle, to the north, whatever that meant. The Last Battle was not hope. The Last Battle was death. But it was a place to be, a place to go.
In the evening dimness, the wind reached a large gathering far to the north of Caemlyn. This wide field broke the forest-patched landscape, but it was overgrown with tents like fungi on a decaying log. Tens of thousands of soldiers waited beside campfires that were quickly denuding the area of timber.
The wind blew among them, whipping smoke from fires into the faces of soldiers. The people here didn’t display the same sense of hopelessness as the refugees, but there was a dread to them. They could see the sickened land. They could feel the clouds above. They knew.
The world was dying. The soldiers stared at the flames, watching the wood be consumed. Ember by ember, what had once been alive instead turned to dust.
A company of men inspected armor that had begun to rust despite being well oiled. A group of white-robed Aiel gathered water—former warriors who refused to take up weapons again, despite their toh having been served. A cluster of frightened servants, sure that tomorrow would bring war between the White Tower and the Dragon Reborn, organized stores beneath tents shaken by the wind.
Men and women whispered the truth into the night. The end has come. The end has come. All will fall. The end has come.
Laughter broke the air.
Warm light spilled from a large tent at the center of the camp, bursting around the tent flap and from beneath the sides.
Inside that tent, Rand al’Thor—the Dragon Reborn—laughed, head thrown back.
“So what did she do?” Rand asked when his laughter subsided. He poured himself a cup of red wine, then one for Perrin, who blushed at the question.
He’s become harder, Rand thought, but somehow he hasn’t lost that innocence of his. Not completely. To Rand, that seemed a marvelous thing. A wonder, like a pearl discovered in a trout. Perrin was strong, but his strength hadn’t broken him.
“Well,” Perrin said, “you know how Marin is. She somehow manages to look at even Cenn as if he were a child in need of mothering. Finding Faile and me lying there on the floor like two fool youths…well, I think she was torn between laughing at us and sending us into the kitchen to scrub dishes. Separately, to keep us out of trouble.”
Rand smiled, trying to picture it. Perrin—burly, solid Perrin—so weak he could barely walk. It was an incongruous image. Rand wanted to assume his friend was exaggerating, but Perrin didn’t have a dishonest hair on his head. Strange, how much about a man could change while his core remained exactly the same
“Anyway,” Perrin said after taking a drink of wine, “Faile picked me up off the floor and set me on my horse, and the two of us pranced about looking important. I didn’t do much, Rand. The fighting was accomplished by the others—I’d have had trouble lifting a cup to my lips.” He stopped, his golden eyes growing distant. “You should be proud of them, Rand. Without Dannil, your father and Mat’s father, without all of them, I’d wouldn’t have managed half what I did. No, not a tenth.”
“I believe it,” Rand regarding his wine. Lews Therin had loved wine. A part of Rand—that distant part, the memories of a man he had been—was displeased by the poor vintage. Few grapes in the current world could match the favored wines of the Age of Legends.
He took a small drink, then set the wine aside. Min still slumbered in another part of the tent, sectioned off with a curtain. Events in Rand’s dreams had awakened him. He had been glad for Perrin’s arrival to distract him from what he had seen.
A Memory of Light copyright © 2012 by The Bandersnatch Group, Inc. |
Since President Obama’s reelection Tuesday night, Republicans’ reflections on their embarrassing loss, ironically, have been a reflection of the exact reasons why they lost. In the aftermath, the $400,000,000 question is this: Who lost the election? Conservamoderate Mitt Romney or the Party itself?
First, I feel compelled to disabuse the premise. Barack Obama won the Presidential election. His campaign reached out to the people it needed to reach, and The People (I use this term broadly because, literally, it was every group except white men) responded. And you have to appreciate that they didn’t have to. I learned Wednesday night that one of my good friends sat it out this election. “Just not feelin’ politics right now,” he said. So folks could have stayed home, could’ve checked out altogether, but they didn’t. In fact, in some states, voters showed up in even greater numbers than in 2008. Barack Obama won 50.5% of the popular vote, compared to Mitt Romney’s 48% (wouldn’t it have been poetic justice if that figure was 47%?). Make no mistake, President Obama wasn’t the winner by default. He got chosen.
Toward the end of the campaign, amid sure signs of an improving economy and mounting evidence of the President’s consistently rational and well-intentioned leadership, GOP narratives about the President’s “failures” began to unravel. It took just under 4 years to expose the flaws in today’s Grand Old Party and about 3 weeks after the first debate to expose Mitt Romney as a fraud. In the end, I think it was clear that the Republican Party, embodied in the candidate it nominated for President, was out of touch and unfit to occupy the Oval Office.
So, who lost the election? Both Romney and Republicans did. On Wednesday, Bill O’Reilly sagely opined that the Tea Party backed Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, would have been the better candidate to defeat Barack Obama, proving that they don’t get it what had happened the night before. Republicans still think they can simply match minority for minority and no one will be the wiser. Run Rubio and Latinos won’t notice thatDREAMers can pay in-state tuition for college but still won’t have access toaffordable healthcare. Or, run Susana Martinez and women won’t notice that she represents a party who wishes to end their right to choose, but give equal protection rights to their unborn fetuses. Republicans have a policy problem, and trotting out token minorities to champion bad policies won’t make the policies themselves less bad.
Mitt Romney never convincingly stood up to his party’s nonsense. Instead he was opportunist about it, and reveled in misleading low information voters with base tactics. For Romney, if it meant he would win 50.1% of the electorate, the end would justify the means. Yet, social issues (which are also economic issues, for the record) alone didn’t spell Romney’s demise. President Obama also defeated conservative budgetary philosophy by winning the argument on taxes and “fairness*.” The writing on the wall read that “job creators” prospered in this environment, but they ain’t create no jobs. In terms of domestic economic policy, Mitt Romney’s economic plan offered more of the same. There was no bold new idea, and changing things back to the way they were before they caused calamity isn’t exactly “change” as I understand it.
Thing is, President Obama’s detractors have always underestimated him. They dismiss him as a novelty deliverer of pretty speeches with few real accomplishments. But in the end, it was they who were undone by the soft bigotry of low expectations. It was Republicans who were exposed as one-dimensional, race-baiting, and small-minded. And Americans soundly rejected that vision for our future. Republicans lost both on demographics and on policy. Their nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ that never were engendered them to a view of the world that just isn’t real. Americans are not all Christian, and we’re not all straight, we don’t all have disposable income or access to good schools, and we don’t all live and die by the same traditions. But we all want the same thing: to be validated by our government, and visible to the people who represent us. If Republicans intend to be a relevent party going forward, they have to do more than practice the aesthetics of diversity. The People need substance too.
Finally, I don’t usually like to gloat because everybody with the courage to play, loses at some point. But there are times when winning really is the sweetest revenge. Indeed, revenge for the foul and failed campaign that Republicans ran this election year warrants a little irreverence for their discomfort at this trying time. I promise not to wallow in their misery. But I will share this hilarious tumblr posting, and delight in it.
This is for the John Sununus and the New Gingriches and the Donald Trumps of the campaign. Click here and enjoy, if you can: White People Mourning Romney**
*I guess Occupy Wall Street wasn’t just a gathering of pissed off hippies after all, eh?
**Seriously, there were, like, NO non-white people at that victory rally in Boston. It is what it is. |
Lead image: screenshot via YouTube
If you've ever gone down a Youtube rabbit hole, you've heard it at least a dozen times. Within the first minute of the video, usually after a flashy graphic letting you know what channel you're watching—an overly enthusiastic voice shouts at you, "HEEEY GUUUUUYS!" or possibly, "What's up YOU TUUUBE!!!" You can probably hear it in your head right now, it's so omnipresent it may not even annoy you anymore.
Over the last decade YouTube has existed, vloggers have been finding new and exciting ways to enter your home and talk about themselves, the things they like, what they're wearing or what they purchased. In our dystopian present, vloggers are now legitimate celebrities who make millions of dollars a year and travel the world. Toronto's own Lilly Singh, who started vlogging in 2010 is now a millionaire, making $2.5 million a year. But even as vloggers cross over into channels that more resemble the home shopping network, one thing remained the same—the YouTube voice.
Still don't know what I'm talking about? With over 10 million subscribers and millions of views on almost all her images, Bethany Mota is one of YouTube's biggest and most successful stars. In almost every video, within thirty seconds Mota begins by yelling, "Hey guys! It's Beth here" to her viewers.
Mota isn't the only popular YouTuber to adopt the voice. Makeup artists like Manny MUA, Jaclyn Hill, and Jeffree Star who are some of the most popular makeup vloggers all usually begin their videos in a similar way.
Regardless of what you think of the YouTube voice, the very distinct way of speaking makes sense. YouTube is a relatively new medium and not unlike news anchors, they've adopted a way to speak that means you understand exactly what they're saying. Toronto-based speech pathologist and PhD candidate Erin Hall says it can be compared to both news anchors and how we use different voices for different forms of communication. "Basically there are two things going on," Hall explains. "One is the actual segments they're using—the vowels and consonants. They're over-enunciating compared to casual speech which is something newscasters or radio personalities do." Not unlike your phone voice (we all have one), Hall explains that it's like how we enunciate our vowels and consonants more than we would in our regular speech.
According to Hall, however, it does go a bit beyond what we notice with news anchors, only because engagement is so important when vlogging. For a YouTuber, rhythm and cadence is a huge factor. "They're trying to keep it more casual, even if what they're saying is standard adding a different kind of intonation makes it more engaging to listen to."
This all goes back to having to show excitement and enthusiasm. To Emily Blamire, a PhD student, YouTubers are trying to entertain us and keep their audience engaged. "We see it from the very start of a video," Blamire explains, "In those first ten seconds or so, they're very similar in that regard in that there's the, 'hey guys' they're almost half yelling at you." Mixing the shouting, unbridled enthusiasm (and for many women, uptalk) is when we usually get the YouTube voice we all know and love (or loathe).
So it's pretty easy to identify "the voice," but where did it all begin? Did a bunch of YouTubers gather at a conference and decide to annoy their parents? According to both Blamire and Hill, there hasn't been much academic research on the subject. Hill believes this type of trend in speech happens naturally when you're trying to make people understand you. "Just the reflex of taking a video of yourself, you'd probably automatically do some of those things." Linguists suggest early YouTubers who found success with these intonations may have simply inspired others to make more of the same.
Obviously, not all YouTubers use the voice—and for many not falling into the trap is a conscious choice. For Jon Aitken, a YouTuber with nearly five thousand subscribers who regularly vlogs from his channel Jonbehere, it's all performative and avoidable. "It's performative in that you take on and change yourself to become something that you think people will want to watch." However, to Aitken the shouting is used as more than just a way to get engagement. "I think that's a way of disguising their videos are shit. When people yell it's overwhelming and masks the lack of thought that goes into the video."
We're so used to the voice, that it's almost hard to imagine a future in which this isn't the norm. Aitken—who is well acquainted with YouTubers who have millions of subscribers—believes the specific cadence is on its way out. While it's easy for the Bethany Motas of YouTube to maintain their subscription level by speaking in the way they have since starting out, Aitken thinks it's not the case for the newbies starting up. "In the current YouTube landscape it's more about standing out and if you can't stand out effectively then you can't get big." According to Aitken, the YouTube voice is generally a no-no between other YouTubers. "There are certain qualities that are looked down on by the community because they're designed to get a lot of views and be as likeable as possible."
This far into YouTube's existence, the voice is synonymous with vlogging as an entertainment medium. And while people like Aitken want it to stop, you probably won't see other vloggers calling out the voice anytime soon. "The more subscribers you have, the more careful you are about maintaining relationships in the YouTube community," he said. "You realize how profitable it is to not burn bridges."
Follow Sarah Hagi on Twitter. |
By Zhou Qian and Steven Elsinga
With its unique culture, vast geographic size, and fast-growing economy, China has long held a special appeal for foreign visitors. For more than twenty years, the last of these reasons has drawn a wave of foreign job seekers to China to start or continue their careers. Being a foreign employee in China, however, is not always smooth nor easy, especially considering the country’s fast-changing markets and regulatory system. Here we provide a quick sketch of China’s expat demographics, with the next article excerpted from our December magazine focusing on work visa procedures.
Overview of expats working in China
There can be no doubt that in recent years, China’s expatriate make-up has been changing. With the country’s domestic work force steadily maturing, managerial positions are increasingly being taken on by Chinese talent, often with foreign degrees in hand and without the cultural disconnect of previous generations. The role of expats is changing as well. Where multinationals once came to China mostly for manufacturing and exporting, they are now increasingly here to access the Chinese consumer market, and are shifting their focus to logistics, warehousing and distribution accordingly.
The overall number of expats working in China has increased dramatically since the launch of “reform and opening-up” (in 1978). According to China’s most recent National Census held in 2010 – the first to record the number of foreigners residing in China – there are at least 600,000 expats working or living in cities throughout the country, broken down by nationality in the chart below.
In our next article in this series, we describe in detail the laws governing employing foreign nationals in China, including expat hiring quotas, different visa types and their respective uses, and the procedure for obtaining documentation for foreign works in your company. For China-specific visa services and human resources advisory, please contact [email protected].
This article is an excerpt from the December issue of China Briefing Magazine, titled “Employing Foreign Nationals in China“. In this issue of China Briefing, we have set out to produce a guide to employing foreign nationals in China, from the initial step of applying for work visas, to more advanced subjects such as determining IIT liability and optimizing employee income packages for tax efficiency. Lastly, recognizing that few foreigners immigrate to China on a permanent basis, we provide an overview of methods for remitting RMB abroad.
Adapting Your China WFOE to Service China’s Consumers
In this issue of China Briefing Magazine, we look at the challenges posed to manufacturers amidst China’s rising labor costs and stricter environmental regulations. Manufacturing WFOEs in China should adapt by expanding their business scope to include distribution and determine suitable supply chain solutions. In this regard, we will take a look at the opportunities in China’s domestic consumer market and forecast the sectors that are set to boom in the coming years.
Industry Specific Licenses and Certifications in China
In this issue of China Briefing, we provide an overview of the licensing schemes for industrial products; food production, distribution and catering services; and advertising. We also introduce two important types of certification in China: the CCC and the China Energy Label (CEL). This issue will provide you with an understanding of the requirements for selling your products or services in China.
China Retail Industry Report 2014
In this special edition of China Briefing, we provide an overview of the retail industry in China and the procedures for setting up a retail shop, focusing specifically on brick-and-mortar physical retail stores. Further, we have invited our partner Direct HR to offer some insights on the talent landscape in the retail industry, as well as tips for recruiting retail personnel in China. |
The Ashes: Australia secures fifth Test victory by an innings and 46 runs as England celebrates series win at The Oval
Updated
Australia has eventually secured victory on day four of the fifth and final Ashes Test at The Oval, defeating England by an innings and 46 runs.
With Australia battling England's lower order and an ever-fluctuating weather forecast, there was an urgency to the bowling with fear rain could bring the draw back into the equation.
It was the right-arm swing and seam of Peter Siddle (4 for 35) and Mitchell Marsh (2 for 56) that did the damage instead of the pacey left-armers Mitchell Johnson (1 for 65) and Mitchell Starc (0 for 40).
Retiring Australian captain Michael Clarke said the match summed up the series on the whole, which has fluctuated wildly from Test to Test.
"I think it probably sums up the series - both teams have had that rollercoaster ride," Clarke told Grandstand.
"We showed in two Test matches how we need to play in England consistently if we want to beat England in their own backyard.
"Obviously, England deserve congratulations and a lot of credit, they've won the Ashes, but I was really pleased and proud of the way the boys came out and did as I asked.
"This was a test of our character and we showed our character in this Test match that's for sure."
Rain delays Australian win, but England has last laugh
Mark Wood (6) came in as a nightwatchman late on day three and failed to hang around for long, given out lbw off the bowling of Siddle after a successful Australian review.
Jos Buttler had impressed in the evening session on day three but threw his wicket away in the softest fashion, meekly chipping Marsh to Starc at cover for 42.
But the weather would soon intervene, with a thick band of rain engulfing southern London and taking the players off the field for a frustrating two and a half hours.
The break only delayed the inevitable though, and as the clouds cleared and play resumed it took Australia only a further half an hour to wrap up the match.
Stuart Broad was knocked over by Siddle's second ball after the resumption for 11, before Moeen Ali's stubborn innings of 35 was broken by an edge, again from Siddle, through to wicketkeeper Peter Nevill.
Steve Smith took man-of-the-match honours at The Oval, having scored 143 to put Australia on track for a comfortable victory.
Smith was also the leading run-scorer of the series, having become the first Australian to score over 500 runs in an away Ashes since Matthew Elliott in 1997.
"I like batting in London, it's been good here," Smith said, having registered his maiden double-century in the second Test at Lord's.
"It was disappointing for us to play the way we did in the other Test matches ... but credit to England."
Bittersweet farewell for Rogers
While a fitting farewell for Clarke and Chris Rogers, it was England that was left celebrating the hardest after finally getting its hands on the Ashes after winning the series 3-2.
Joe Root was named man of the series in recognition of his two match-winning Ashes tons, with 134 in Cardiff and 130 at Trent Bridge.
Rogers said he was pleased to be going out of the game as a winner, but acknowledges the disappointment of the series loss is still there.
"It's certainly bittersweet," Rogers said.
"I think we showed when we play well, we're easily good enough but equally we didn't put in enough good performances and that counted against us so it's disappointing.
"It's nice to win today, but we'll look back at this and think 'what if'."
England captain Alastair Cook too expressed disappointment at his team's performance at The Oval, but said the the result would not take the shine off England's Ashes triumph.
It's certainly bittersweet. It's nice to win today, but we'll look back at this and think 'what if'. Chris Rogers
"The last four days hasn't quite gone to plan, and we're disappointed about that but I think at the beginning of the series, no one really gave us a chance of winning," Cook said.
"So to be 3-1 up going to The Oval, yeah it's disappointing to lose, but we can't let that take the gloss off a very special summer.
"It wasn't complacency. Just probably emotionally, coming from such a high at Trent Bridge and to do something so special there, to get yourself up again and be 100 per cent on it, which you have to do against a world class side, it was very hard to do."
ABC / AAP
Topics: ashes, cricket, sport, england, united-kingdom
First posted |
Ted Cruz blasts Democrats and Republicans in bold Las Vegas speech
Ted Cruz, the firebrand GOP presidential candidate who’s campaigning on promises to cut government spending, pitched himself as a Washington outsider and promised to reform federal taxes during a speech at Red Rock Resort today.
Cruz, 44, channeled the conservative outrage with the federal government by telling tales of his battles against politicians while vowing to implement a flat tax, eliminate agricultural subsidies for corn and sugar, reform health care and end a system of federally backed business loans for purchasing overseas goods.
Cruz, known for his filibusters to protest hikes in government borrowing caps, brought his brand of chutzpah to Las Vegas, saying that if elected president he would veto bills laden with corporate welfare and political cronyism — panning establishment politicians as part of a “Washington cartel.”
Cruz is a polished orator with slicked-back hair and spoke with calculated moxie to more than 400 attendees at an event sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative grassroots group that has more than 41,000 activists who sign petitions, knock on doors and mobilize voters in the state.
Cruz has made multiple trips this year to Nevada in an effort to win the GOP presidential nomination. He spoke in Henderson earlier today and will be in Northern Nevada on Saturday for a campaign event with Attorney General Adam Laxalt. Cruz is one of 17 GOP candidates looking for the nod and is lagging behind Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Ben Carson and others in polls.
Cruz wooed the crowd with comedic blasts about bureaucrats and Democrats, but tax reform was the crux of the policy platform he pitched to the crowd.
If elected president, Cruz said he would fight for a flat tax rate that can be done “on the back of a post card."
To a raucous cheer, Cruz ended his tax pitch by saying, “We should abolish the IRS.”
He expressed dismay about Republicans who didn’t fight to limit government borrowing or cut spending for Planned Parenthood.
“It’s been eight months since we’ve had a Republican majority in both houses. What the heck have we done with it,” Cruz said. “... Which of those decisions is one iota different than if Harry Reid and Democrats were in control.”
Cruz finished up by saying what he would do with the Affordable Care Act, the federal health care law that’s provided more than 16 million Americans with health insurance.
He said premiums and out-of-pocket costs have “skyrocketed.”
“If I am elected president, we are going to appeal every word,” he said.
The crowd went wild. |
Kelly Gneiting, a hospital statistician and sumo wrestler from Arizona, will secure the official world record if he completes the Los Angeles marathon in California on Sunday.
Mr Gneiting, 40, said he wanted to run the 26-mile race as an inspiration to "people who are overweight, have low self-esteem and think they can't achieve things".
"I have high self-esteem and believe I can do anything," he told the Daily Telegraph. "I'm big, but I feel like I have a talent for this." Mr Gneiting, who is originally from Idaho, is 6ft tall and has a 5ft waist. He is a three-time American sumo champion and has represented the US at the world championships.
He said that his size made running uncomfortable. "It's hard on my feet, my thighs and under my armpits," he said. He plans to wear slick black Lycra leggings to prevent friction.
Mr Gneiting took up wrestling as a young man of average size, but began to gain weight. "Food is a bit of a weakness," he said.
After exceeding the 265-pound limit for regular wrestlers, he started sumo.
He completed the LA marathon in 2008 but was not in contact with the Guinness World Record authorities. They stipulate that he must be filmed for the entire race and weighed before and after.
The current record for the heaviest marathon runner is just under 20 stone.
Mr Gneiting, who last time took 11 hours, 45 minutes, is aiming to finish in less than nine hours.
"I'm going to run as fast as I can," he said. "So I can show all my critics". |
Will Donald Trump hold the line against gun-control efforts, or look for a way to cut another “big deal” with his political opposition? It only took hours for gun-control advocates to ramp up the pressure on Republicans after the Las Vegas mass shooting, with Hollywood and a few Democrats accusing the GOP of complicity in the deaths of dozens of concertgoers. If Trump values legislative wins over ideology, the circumstances here seem to line up for a bipartisan bill that would loop in moderates within his own party and offer a rare win for Democrats on gun control.
Axios’ Jonathan Swan asked former White House adviser Steve Bannon whether Trump’s base would allow that. Bannon replied that the reaction would be “actually worse” than the response to the DACA negotiations, and would mean “the end of everything”:
President Trump may say he’s a defender of gun ownership rights, but with all the gun control pressure he’ll be under after Las Vegas, how do we know he’ll resist it — especially after the debt limit deal with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, and his flirtation with a deal on DACA? Bottom line: Trump’s allies, both inside and out of the White House, are mostly sure he’ll resist because he owes too much to the NRA and its supporters — but even some of them aren’t 100 percent sure. … I asked Steve Bannon whether he could imagine Trump pivoting to the left on guns after the Las Vegas massacre. “Impossible: will be the end of everything,” Bannon texted. When asked whether Trump’s base would react worse to this than they would if he supported an immigration amnesty bill, Bannon replied: “as hard as it is to believe actually worse.”
Well, maybe. Prior to Trump’s dance with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, it seemed unthinkable that Trump’s base would tolerate his cooperation with the DREAM Act too, but here we are, and without even a hint of the border wall in return. Trump’s core supporters care about Trump more than they do ideology, or perhaps more specifically, Trump’s general attitude more than his policy decisions. If he turns around and pushes gun control, most of them will call Trump a pragmatist, blame “the swamp,” and cast Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell as the villains.
We should ask ourselves what matters to Trump rather than his base, though. What he values most is loyalty, and few organizations have been as loyal to Trump — and for as long — as the NRA, Swan points out:
“POTUS (correctly) believes he doesn’t owe anything to most traditional Republican outside groups, because they didn’t lift a finger to help him in the election,” said a Trump administration source. “NRA is very much the exception. They stayed loyal through it all and kept spending.” We’re told Trump feels a personal connection to the NRA and is close to the NRA’s top lobbyist, Chris Cox.
Don’t expect a complete flip on gun rights, in other words. That still leaves room for Trump to throw a few bones to Democrats and moderates in his own party, however. The NRA had lobbied hard for a bill to relax restrictions on suppressors, which have nothing to do with the shooting in Las Vegas, but the massacre will almost certainly make it politically toxic. Ditto for national carry-permit reciprocity, but that bill will likely make a comeback sooner than the suppressor bill, as there are better reasons for it. Trump could also encourage Congress to ban “bump stocks,” accessories that essentially convert semi-automatic rifles into full auto output. Neither of these have any particular critical use for gun owners, and at least the latter was used in the shooting.
Will that satisfy the the gun control crowd? Of course not. Neither will it endear Trump to Democrats, or make them less likely to call him Hitler. But Trump may need to learn that lesson the hard way. |
Theresa May tells conference that party is prepared to withdraw from European convention 'if that is what it takes to fix law'
The Conservative party is prepared to withdraw from the European convention on human rights (ECHR) after the next election, the home secretary Theresa May has said, as she detailed a fresh drive to curb the appeal rights of 70,000 people who face deportation every year.
"The next Conservative manifesto will promise to scrap the Human Rights Act. It's why Chris Grayling is leading a review of our relationship with the European court [of human rights]," she told the party's conference. "And it's why the Conservative position is clear – if leaving the European convention is what it takes to fix our human rights laws, that is what we should do," she said to applause.
May was followed by the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, who set out a timetable for the development of their policy for a radical reform of human rights law. He said the Conservatives would publish a document in 2014 "setting out what we will do, when we will do it, and how we will do it", followed by a draft bill setting out the legal detail later in the year.
May's explicit statement followed David Cameron's hint on Sunday that the Tories were openly considering the "nuclear option" of withdrawing from the ECHR, despite warnings from the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, and others, of the damage to Britain's international standing.
May also used her conference speech to confirm that illegal migrants, criminal foreign nationals and others facing deportation will have their rights to appeal severely restricted. The number of grounds on which they could appeal will be reduced from 17 to four, and the extent to which a fresh appeal could halt a deportation is to be limited.
She said unless there was a "risk of severe and irreversible harm" foreign criminals should be deported first and their appeals heard later. The moves are to be included in the new immigration bill, which will be published next month, and are intended to cut the 70,000 annual appeals by more than half.
The home secretary said the immigration bill would also put into primary legislation guidance that had already gone to judges to ensure that illegal migrants and others cannot abuse article 8 – "the right to a family life" – to prevent their deportation from Britain.
"Some judges chose to ignore parliament so I am sending a very clear message to those judges," said May. "Parliament wants the law on people's side, the public wants the law on the people's side and the Conservatives in government will put the law on the people's side once and for all."
The home secretary, speaking in a hall with posters boasting that the Conservatives had cut immigration, claimed only her party could be trusted on immigration. She said the annual number of overseas student visas issued had been cut by more than 115,000.
But May admitted frustration with her Liberal Democrat coalition partners over her proposal to introduce a £3,000 visa bond that visitors would forfeit if they failed to leave the country in time. She said that despite being a Conservative manifesto commitment, the Lib Dems had first claimed it as their idea, then backed it, then blocked it. She confirmed that the proposal remained deadlocked in coalition talks.
May said the government would push through a fresh drive against human trafficking with the publication soon of a "modern slavery bill". She said the legislation would bring together a confusing array of human trafficking offences into a single act, giving police and prosecutors the power to investigate, prosecute and punish "modern-day slavedrivers". The legislation is expected to introduce a lifetime ban on those convicted of human trafficking offences from working as "gangmasters" employing migrant labour.
Grayling also hinted at frustration with coalition politics as he confirmed his weekend announcement to end the use of cautions for serious violent and sexual offences. However, he could only say that his aim of ending automatic release for prisoners serving determinate sentences of four years or less was next on his "task list" – presumably subject to negotiation with the Lib Dems. |
Killing the Colorado The Water Crisis in the West
Wedged between Arizona and Utah, less than 20 miles up river from the Grand Canyon, a soaring concrete wall nearly the height of two football fields blocks the flow of the Colorado River. There, at Glen Canyon Dam, the river is turned back on itself, drowning more than 200 miles of plasma-red gorges and replacing the Colorado’s free-spirited rapids with an immense lake of flat, still water called Lake Powell, the nation’s second largest reserve.
When Glen Canyon Dam was built — in the middle of the last century — giant dams were championed as a silver bullet promising to elevate the American West above its greatest handicap — a perennial shortage of water. These monolithic wonders of engineering would bring wild rivers to heel, produce cheap, clean power, and stockpile water necessary to grow a thriving economy in the middle of the desert. And because they were often remotely located they were rarely questioned.
We built the Hoover Dam, creating Lake Mead, Glen Canyon Dam and more than 300 other dams and reservoirs at a cost of more than $100 billion. Such was the nation’s enthusiasm for capturing its water that even the lower part of the Grand Canyon seemed, for a time, worth flooding. Two more towering walls of concrete were proposed there, and would have backed up water well into the nation’s most famous national park.
But today, there are signs that the promise of the great dam has run its course.
Climate change is fundamentally altering the environment, making the West hotter and drier. There is less water to store, and few remaining good sites for new dams.
Many of the existing dams, meanwhile, have proven far less efficient — and less effective — than their champions had hoped. They have altered ecosystems and disrupted fisheries. They have left taxpayers saddled with debt.
And, in what is perhaps the most egregious failure for a system intended to conserve water, many of them lose hundreds of billions of gallons of precious water each year to evaporation and, sometimes, to leakage underground. These losses increasingly undercut the longstanding benefits of damming big rivers like the Colorado, and may now be making the West’s water crisis worse.
In no place is this lesson more acute than at Glen Canyon.
And yet even as these consequences come into focus, four states on the Colorado River are developing plans to build new dams and river diversions in an effort to seize a larger share of dwindling water supplies for themselves before that water flows downstream.
The projects, coupled with perhaps the most severe water shortages the region has ever seen, have reignited a debate about whether 20th century solutions can address the challenges of an epochal 21st century drought, with a growing chorus of prominent former officials saying the plans fly in the face of a new climate reality.
“The Colorado River system is changing rapidly,” says Daniel Beard, a former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees all of the federal government’s dams in the West. “We have a responsibility to reassess the fundamental precepts of how we have managed the river.”
That reassessment — Beard and others say — demands that even as new projects are debated, it’s time to decommission one of the grandest dams of them all, Glen Canyon.
Glen Canyon Dam was erected as a political and environmental compromise, an evolution of the earliest water wars on the Colorado River.
In 1922 seven states — California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming — signed a compact agreement dividing the Colorado between them, and, later, with Mexico. The northern states agreed to send an annual quota of water downstream to California, Nevada and Arizona, and the dam building began. But the faster those states grew the more water they used, and by mid-century Colorado, Wyoming and the rest of the upper basin feared it was only a matter of time before the south laid claim to the entire river. The northern states sought their own mega-dam — one which could give them control over the flow of the river and provide a gate through which they could mete out exactly how much of it was sent downstream. Their political jockeying in Congress eventually won the promise that the federal government would build more dams in the north too.
In 1956 the Colorado River Storage Project Act paved the way for the construction of four more large power-generating dams in the upper basin of the Colorado River. In its planning, the federal Bureau of Reclamation had zeroed in on a dam site on a tributary in northwestern Colorado called the Green River. But the reservoir it proposed to create would submerge a tract of treasured, fossil-laden parkland called Dinosaur National Monument. Environmentalists, led by legendary Sierra Club executive director David Brower in one of the nation’s early epic conservation battles, fought passionately to preserve the monument.
Killing the Colorado The river that sustains 40 million Americans is dying — and man, not nature, is to blame. See our coverage.
All sides agreed instead to proceed at a remote spot in southern Utah called Glen Canyon, in a region far from highways, about 200 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Glen Canyon Dam would help normalize the erratic flows of the Colorado, and flood a no-man’s land of barren sandstone domes and inaccessible dendritic canyons — transforming them into a surreal oasis called Lake Powell.
Damming rivers this way is as old as civilization itself, stretching back some 8,000 years to the foothills of Mesopotamia. From the start, the idea was to stem the risk of devastating floods by creating a catchment for the unpredictable torrents that rattle down from upstream. Once a river was restrained, its domesticated waters could be guided through ditches and canals to irrigate land for agriculture, and to use the force of gravity to power its delivery over great distances. For desert regions that got little rain, but watch seasonal snowmelt sluice by during the spring rush, dams became a way to capture that water and hold it until the time of year it was needed most.
With time, dams were developed especially for their ability to generate power. And since force is not just a function of the amount of water flowing, but of the mass of water held behind the dam, the dams grew broader. In 1942 the Bureau of Reclamation completed the low-slung Grand Coulee dam, a butchy mass of concrete more massive than the Pyramid at Giza, stretching for nearly a mile across Washington’s Columbia River. It is still today the single largest hydropower producer in the country.
Glen Canyon Dam is of a different sort — a tall, elegant, sweeping structure engineered in an arch bowing against the pressure of the water, enabling a relatively thin sheet of concrete to withstand unfathomable forces behind it. Arch dams like these were perfectly suited for the Colorado’s narrow chasms, and Glen Canyon — like the Hoover Dam — created a reservoir so deep that the sheer height of the water behind it promised to generate enormous currents of power. By all measures, its completion was a feat.
But it took 17 years for the reservoir to fill, and just 19 years after that, it began a steady decline. Today its potential has been severely undercut by its own inefficiencies. Thanks to the steady overuse of the Colorado River system — which provides water to one in eight Americans and supports one seventh of the nation’s crops — Lake Powell has been drained to less than half of its capacity as less water has flowed into it than has been routinely taken out. That relative puddle is no longer capable of generating the amount of power the dam’s builders originally planned, and so the power has become more expensive for the government to deliver, with the burden increasingly falling on the nation’s taxpayers. Since the dam’s power sales are relied on to pay for the operations of other smaller dams and reservoirs used for irrigation in the West, as Glen Canyon financially crumbles, so might the system that depends on it.
But it’s not just the reservoir’s overuse that is causing it to drain, it’s the very site and concept chosen for Lake Powell itself: the reservoir loses an extraordinary amount of its precious water. When a dam is built in the desert, its water is spread over a wide area under hot sun and wind, leading to massive evaporation. More than 160 billion gallons of water evaporate off of Lake Powell’s surface every year, enough to lower the reservoir by four inches each month. Another 120 billion gallons are believed to leak out of the bottom of the canyon into fissures in the earth, — a loss that if tallied up over the life of the dam amounts to more than a year’s flow of the entire Colorado River. According to the environmental group Colorado Riverkeeper, if the lost water were sold, it would generate some $350 million each year.
Aerial view of Glen Canyon Dam and Wahweap Basin of Lake Powell. (Bureau of Reclamation)
Cumulatively these debits, Beard says, amount to “the largest loss of water on the Colorado River,” — an amount equal to six percent of its total flow and enough to supply some nine million people each year.
Not every dam site shares Glen Canyon’s problems. Each dam serves a unique purpose — whether it’s power generation or water storage — and every region has different needs.
But Glen Canyon is far from the only project to fall out of favor — major projects are being decommissioned or reevaluated across the country. In some places there isn’t enough water to justify the environmental and economic costs of blocking a river. In others the dams have turned out to block the flow of sediment, stop fish migration, or threaten endangered species in ways that weren’t anticipated in the middle of the last century.
The Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead, which Wednesday fell to its lowest level ever, 145 feet below capacity, also loses hundreds of billions of gallons of water to evaporation and is just 37 percent full. The reservoir behind Arizona’s Coolidge Dam, one of the first major projects in Western water development and one of Arizona’s largest reservoirs, is virtually empty.
And dams are coming down. Six Western dams were deconstructed in 2015 alone. Just last month California and Oregon agreed to dismantle four more power-generating dams on the Klamath River, having realized that the facilities were crippling native salmon fisheries, which also have enormous economic value. “This is a good exercise of humankind correcting some of the mistakes that it’s made in the past,” California Gov. Jerry Brown said when announcing the plan. And in early May a federal judge in Oregon ruled that — because of extensive ecological damage — the system of dams on the Snake and Columbia Rivers “cries out for a major overhaul.”
Still, on the Colorado, today’s water managers refute the notion that it’s time for a change.
Glen Canyon Dam may be past its prime, says Michael Connor, the deputy secretary of the Interior and a former Commissioner of Reclamation, but its not past its usefulness. Though he calls the amount of water lost to evaporation and leakage “incredibly significant,” Connor credits Glen Canyon with numbing the pain of the recent drought. “Look at the last 15 years,” he says. “It’s the lowest inflow in history and there’s been no shortages on the Colorado River and that’s because of Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell and Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.”
There is also a political tide to be reckoned with; the delicate peace struck between the seven competing states and Mexico — and the fear that they’d never again be able to reach an agreement the likes of which they all signed in 1922. “Getting rid of Lake Powell… it would basically make the compact stand on its head,” said Bronson Mack, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas, pointing to the role that Lake Powell plays in guaranteeing the northern states have enough water to deliver to Nevada and the south each year. “We’ve always said cracking open the compact is going to land seven states in decades of litigation, so there has not been an appetite for it.”
Decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam, however, could offer a solution that politicians cannot afford to ignore — a cheap, immediate, and significant new source of water where it is most desperately needed.
The idea is this: Since two of the nation’s largest reservoirs — just more than 300 miles apart — depend on the same dwindling water source but are each less than half full, they should be combined into one. Lake Mead would be deeper, and its evaporative losses would increase. But the surface area of Lake Powell would be dramatically reduced, and the evaporated water from there would be saved. Furthermore, moving the water out of Glen Canyon would move it from a valley that leaks like a sieve, into one that is watertight. The ongoing losses in Mead — according to proponents of the plan — would be more than offset by the immense savings at Lake Powell.
In all, according to Tom Myers, a hydrologist who was commissioned to research the implications of the plan for the Glen Canyon Institute, an environmental group advocating for combining the two reservoirs, about 179 billion gallons of water would be saved each year — more than enough to supply the population of the city of Los Angeles.
The argument has logical weight because both reservoirs have been struggling to remain half full, and may not ever refill. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego gave Lake Mead a 50 percent chance of running dry by 2021. The federal Bureau of Reclamation itself forecasts that the amount of water runoff will decrease another 9 percent by 2050 in the Colorado River basin, as temperatures increase. And last year a group of academic researchers declared that the Colorado River basin — already in its 16th year of drought, may be headed toward the worst water crisis in 1,000 years.
Meanwhile the Bureau predicts that demand will continue to increase on the river so much that by 2060 the region will run short by a trillion gallons each year.
“They all show a huge deficit and they all show the reservoirs will likely never fill again,” said Eric Balken, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute. “So let’s rethink the game plan here.”
According to the proposal the Glen Canyon Dam itself would not be removed. Rather, its gates would be opened, and the water behind it allowed to pass through, restoring the natural flows through into the Grand Canyon just below it, draining the Lake Powell reservoir, and allowing the legendarily scenic landscape of Glen Canyon to be resurrected.
The water would not be lost. It would simply flow down through the Grand Canyon and be recaptured behind the Hoover Dam in Lake Mead.
“To me it is a no brainer,” said David Wegner, who studied Glen Canyon as a scientist with the Department of Interior for more than 20 years, and later advised the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources on management of Western water issues. “You’ve got very few options.”
According to Balken, the process could unfold in stages, and it wouldn’t take much. For a while, the water from the lake would simply drain through the dam, as if the plug were pulled from a giant bathtub. The lake levels — already nearly 100 feet below their peak now — would be allowed to drop another 100 feet, until they reach the intakes for the dam’s generators. One option would be to maintain the lake levels there, allowing minimal power production. Just that incremental shift would allow vast tracts of land now submerged to be restored.
A second stage of drawdown could lower the levels further, to a set of release pipes about 200 feet above the foot of the dam. The dam’s power plant would be shut down, saving tens of millions of dollars in operating costs. It would also dramatically alter water flows through the Grand Canyon, and would have to be carefully coordinated with water levels in Lake Mead, downriver. For the Colorado to be truly restored to its natural riverbed, a third stage, in which bypass tunnels would have to be drilled to allow the water to circumvent the concrete footing of the dam, would have to be pursued.
But proponents of the plan — which they call “fill Mead first” — say the lake may not need to be completely drained. Every vertical foot the waters drop reveals whole stretches of long-drowned desert wilderness. Much of the Glen Canyon valley has already been resurrected, as the lake levels have receded, and several of Powell’s recreational boat launches now hang above the shoreline, dry.
As the waters fall further, broad swaths of river pinned between vertical canyon walls would be transformed into remote wilderness valleys, their floors once again inviting to explore on horseback or on foot. Dozens of archeological sites, their walls covered in petroglyphs, would be revealed. For a while parts of these lands would be covered in a heavy silt, the result of decades of fine mud settling at the bottom of the lake. But vegetation would quickly root in the fertile soils, and heavy storms would flush the mud out the bottom of the canyon, scouring the sandstone clean. Eventually, perhaps after a few decades, even the white watermarks painted across the sides of the valley — telltale signs of the manmade flood — would begin to disappear.
As the silt gets washed downstream, a cloudy stew would course through the Grand Canyon, temporarily disrupting the gentle ecology of that part of the river. But that silt has been sorely missed, and it would soon settle, restoring beaches long ago deprived of sediment. The flow of the river through the Grand Canyon would once again be defined mainly by the amount of precipitation gathered by the mountains upstream. Four native endangered species of fish would presumably thrive in their restored waters.
Restoring the land of Glen Canyon this way has long been the campaign of ardent environmentalists. Brower — who mounted an intense effort to save Glen Canyon almost as soon as he’d agreed to allow it to be drowned — called the reservoir his greatest regret, and the Glen Canyon Dam has been a potent symbol of the desecration of wild places ever since. Now the shortages on the river, and the promise that climate change are certain to make them worse, have breathed new, pragmatic life into their arguments.
Whether the “Fill Mead First” argument pencils out for its benefit to the water supply depends on whether Myers’ assumptions about the amount of water that leaks out of the bottom of Lake Powell are accurate. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has long said that water that seeps into the ground eventually returns to the river. Myers studied the fault patterns in the rock bed, and the direction of groundwater flow, and concluded that much of the water seeps away never to come back — an amount that adds up to about 124 billion gallons each year. His research was published in the Journal of The American Water Resources Association in 2013.
Still, the river’s water managers believe his models are flawed. “We don’t agree with the fundamental assumptions that this water is being lost permanently,” said Colby Pellegrino, the Colorado River Programs Manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Pellegrino’s office ran its own numbers to see if combining the reservoirs would save water, and said the math worked out as a wash.
“This is an attempt to find a water supply rationale which supports their recreational focus and narrow view of what the river should look like,” she said.
From a viewpoint above Glen Canyon Dam, a placid lake stretches in one direction, and a tangle of electrical wires in the other. The dam’s power station is a nest of infrastructure locked behind a razor wire fence at the top of a vertiginous cliff, and it’s capable of sending 1,320 megawatts of electric power shooting out across the moon-like landscape of southern Utah, toward millions of homes.
Glen Canyon Dam’s staunchest defenders say its power output is clean, affordable, and vital. Moreover, they say those who think climate change has doomed the traditional ways of managing the Colorado’s water underestimate the political complexities of doing away with the power dams generate.
“The questions that are being asked are very legitimate questions,” Connor says. “But you’ve got to have some political support… and that just doesn’t exist.”
The government relies on Glen Canyon Dam to produce power — and not only to produce it, but to sell it, in order to repay the U.S. Treasury for a big chunk of the cost of Glen Canyon’s construction and infrastructure upgrades, and to fund water conservation initiatives across Western states.
From the start, Glen Canyon was conceived as a giant hydroelectric generating plant, one so large its planners boasted that the sale of its power would not only pay for the dam’s construction, but finance smaller dams across the West. Today Glen Canyon is the largest facility run by the Western Area Power Administration, the federal energy agency that sells wholesale, federally generated hydropower onto the Western electrical grid.
The dam’s power reaches 3.2 million customers from California to New Mexico, according to a recent analysis commissioned by the Glen Canyon Institute. And while much of the power is resold at retail rates, its greatest dependents are Native American tribes and the U.S. Department of Defense — which are accustomed to getting their power wholesale, at a government-subsidized price that Glen Canyon Institute’s consultants calculated was a little more than one third market rates.
Were Glen Canyon to stop operating, its defenders say, those who rely on its power would face astronomical price hikes — or perhaps lose their access to electrical entirely.
That may eventually happen, however, whether the river’s managers agree to dismantle Glen Canyon or not.
The lower the lake level drops, the less power the dam can generate, and the less power WAPA has to sell. Researchers in the northern Colorado River basin states have even begun considering when Lake Powell’s lake levels might reach “dead pool,” or the level at which the turbines can no longer produce any power at all.
Already, the lake’s levels have dropped more than 90 feet since 1999. If they drop another 100 feet or so, the dam’s turbines begin sucking air. Glen Canyon has been generating at roughly 43 percent of its capacity. Some experts predict in the future that nest of wires will convey, on average, about 600 megawatts of power.
That has left WAPA — and the Department of Interior — in a bind. The agency has long-term contracts to deliver power, and it can’t simply come up short. When there’s not enough water WAPA has to purchase the power it can’t make itself in order to meet its obligations. WAPA spent $62 million on extra power to fulfill its contracts in its fiscal 2014, and, after managing its water to bring the water levels in Lake Powell back up, $22 million for its 2015 operations, the vast majority of which was to make up for shortfalls at Glen Canyon.
The shortfalls — like falling dominoes — could eventually leave the region’s broader dam and water infrastructure system in the lurch, as smaller dams and reservoirs that rely on money from Glen Canyon’s power sales may have to do without.
For example the Dolores Water Conservancy District, a small utility in southern Colorado which operates the McPhee Dam, recently used $7 million in power-revenues from the Colorado River Storage Project to pay for pump upgrades at its facilities. If Glen Canyon Dam wasn’t generating power, that upgrade might never have happened. “Without the basin power funds the viability of our project becomes a lot more challenging,” says the district’s general manager, Mike Preston. “I don’t know how we would do it frankly.”
Meanwhile nature is weaning the West off its power subsidies all on its own. As WAPA’s costs increase, the economic benefit of the dam has already decreased. If production drops further, the conservation programs paid for by the dam’s slush fund will go unfunded.
Power consultants hired by the Glen Canyon Institute to analyze the impact of shutting down the dam found that western power consumers have already reduced their reliance on Glen Canyon power, and that power constitutes less than one percent of western supply. There are end users that rely on Glen Canyon for all of their power — the Navajo Tribe, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico — and these few groups would expect large cost increases as their subsidies disappear. But the vast majority of residential consumers would see their bills jump nominally, by just eight cents per month, should Glen Canyon shut down.
Still — as the Glen Canyon Institute report points out — if Lake Mead and Lake Powell were combined, that worst-case blow would likely be blunted. With the added mass of water behind the Hoover Dam — another federal hydropower facility — generators there would produce more power than they do now, and that surplus, according to the Glen Canyon Institute, could replace about 17 percent of what Glen Canyon produces today.
The amount of water in Lake Powell, of course, depends on the amount of water that flows into it. But even as the region scrambles to save its reservoir — and its river — projects are being planned which would take large additional amounts of water out of the Colorado before it can even fill Powell or fuel the Glen Canyon Dam.
Colorado is planning to build a new reservoir at a place called Windy Gap, and to more than triple the capacity of its Gross Reservoir by raising the height of the dam there. Wyoming is considering an expansion of its Fontenelle Dam on the Green River. Utah just filed an application to build a 140-mile pipeline to divert water out of Lake Powell. The planned new projects would divert another 83 billion gallons of water away from Glen Canyon Dam each year
Downriver, New Mexico is preparing to spend close to one billion dollars to build a new dam and reservoir on the Gila River — a river mostly spoken for. The project promises to capture water only in years when there is so much extra that Arizona right-holders downstream can’t use it all, and to do so despite science which forecasts the Gila will have less and less water in the future. Furthermore, like Lake Powell, the reservoir site in New Mexico also promises to leak, so much so that builders now want to line the entire reservoir valley with rubber before it’s filled, an undertaking that will cost more than construction of the dam itself.
“Every supplier in the basin is trying to build anything they can to get as much water as they can,” said Gary Wockner, the executive director of the environmental organization Save the Colorado, “trying to get the last legally allowed drop that they can before the red flag goes up.”
That every drop of water on the Colorado counts is undisputed. Last month the lower basin states announced they were close to a historic, and difficult, agreement to voluntarily cede a small share of their water, just to keep the reservoirs functioning. An ambitious, multi-million effort to buy even small amounts of water off of Colorado farmers and send it to fill Lake Powell has, after two years, failed to garner more than a few million gallons. It appears that stakeholders are ready to do whatever it takes, including re-envisioning the use of dams.
“I think it’s questionable whether you can build a lot more reservoirs in hot, arid environments,” the Interior department’s Connor told ProPublica.
Still, the proposal to “Fill Mead First” appears to be a step too far.
Ultimately the decision to drain Lake Powell — or perhaps to forgo any of the other new dam and water projects now in the works on the river — comes down to a question of whether the seven states and Mexico that share the Colorado river really need the water badly enough.
When they do, abandoning parochial concerns about how the river is supposed to work, and changing the status quo, however uncomfortable or complicated, will begin to seem worth it.
"There’s just a lot that’s built on this scheme of management and the existence of Glen Canyon Dam,” said Jim Lochhead, the chief executive of Denver’s water utility and a former Colorado state negotiator on Colorado River matters. Lochhead says the change would likely require an act of Congress, plus an agreement between seven state legislatures and a revised treaty with Mexico, and a multi-year federal environmental impact analysis.
“A half a million acre feet sounds like a lot of water,” he said, referring to the amount that would be saved by combining the Powell and Mead reservoirs, “but I don’t think it’s significant enough, frankly, to justify going through all of that.” |
French economist Thomas Piketty poses with his book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century." (Charles Platiau/Reuters)
Thomas Piketty thinks the Financial Times knows nothing of his technical work.
That's the Cliff Notes version of his 4,400-word response to the criticisms the Financial Times leveled against the data in his best-selling book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century." Piketty says that even though he expects people to improve on his work in the future, he still stands by it today, and the mistakes the Financial Times thinks it's found aren't actually mistakes — and that they'd know this if they'd read the appendices he put online.
Now, to recap, these alleged — emphasis here — errors fall into three categories: 1) transcription mistakes, 2) unexplained data tweaks and 3) in the case of Britain, incorrect data. But the problem with these problems, as I pointed out, is that they aren't ones. They're questions. How did Piketty choose which source to use when they told different stories? How did he adjust them? And how much did his big-picture results depend on these decisions? All good questions — but still just questions.
Well, now that Piketty has answered the FT's criticisms, let's go through them one by one.
1) Skinny finger? The smallest and most straightforward mistake that Chris Giles of the Financial Times says he found is a transcription error. Specifically, it appears that Piketty fell victim to a "fat finger" by accidentally entering Swedish wealth data for 1908 instead of for 1920 like he should have.
But Piketty explains that he was making an adjustment, not a data-entry error. Sweden has estate tax data for before 1908 and wealth tax data for after, which give different estimates for the same amount of inequality. But since these series overlap in 1908, we can see how much they differ, and use that to try to harmonize them. It's rough, but it's reasonable — and it's what Piketty did.
2) Mysterious Excel formulas? Economics is the least exact science, and compiling wealth data might be the least exact part of it. There aren't many sources, and wealth is much harder to measure than income. Not only that, but the few wealth data sources that do exist have their own biases that need to be accounted for. You have to make judgment calls about which ones to use and how to splice them together, when appropriate.
Or how to construct them. See, sometimes there isn't enough data to give a detailed description of wealth inequality, but there is enough to give a rough sketch — which, because we only care about the long-term trend, can still be useful.
Piketty, for example, has numbers for the top 1 percent's wealth in late 1800s Britain, but not for the next 9 percent. But since we know that inequality tends to follow a Pareto distribution — that is, it's heavily skewed towards the top — we can make some educated guesses for the rest. Now, Piketty's book should better indicate where he's interpolating data like this, and better explain his rationales. But as he points out now, most of the Financial Times's problems with his work come down to these kind of technical adjustments.
3) Inequality in the U.K.? The most significant, and, it seemed, on-point criticism is about Piketty's British wealth data the past few decades. But Giles is wrong here for the same reason he is right to raise concerns about the U.S. numbers. Here's why.
It didn't get as much attention, but Giles points out that Piketty's U.S. sources are less reliable than the rest. For the U.S., there isn't as much of the estate tax data that Piketty likes to use, so he has to combine what there is with the results from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) survey.
Now, as Paul Krugman explains, survey data tend to underestimate top-end inequality, because it's hard to get the rich to respond to a voluntary questionnaire about just how rich they are. The SCF, economist Gabriel Zucman told me, is better than most, because it does a better job over-sampling the top to try to correct for this bias, and it has a higher response rate. But it still needs to be adjusted if you're going to combine it with tax data.
Piketty does this, but he admits it has its limitations. He prefers to highlights more recent work by Saez and Zucman that doesn't mix and match tax and survey data, but rather uses capital income flows to construct a consistent picture of U.S. wealth inequality. This is a much more definitive account, and it shows U.S. wealth inequality rising even more than Piketty did.
The problem is Giles does with Britain what he criticizes Piketty for doing with the U.S. Specifically, Giles mixes and matches old tax data with new survey data — but unlike Piketty, he doesn't try to adjust for the survey's downward bias. This all but guarantees that it will look like inequality has been falling recently no matter the reality.
Piketty, in contrast, only uses tax data to generate his British numbers. Now, that data isn't always the best-suited, but it's still better than raw survey results. And it's why Piketty finds that the top 10 percent hold 71 percent of the wealth in Britain, while the survey that Giles touts says it's just 44 percent.
Ask yourself, as Piketty does, whether you think modern-day Britain is "one of the most egalitarian countries in history in terms of wealth distribution." That's what you'd have to believe if you take those survey results at face value.
***
One final point. I'm all in favor of journalists challenging economists's claims. And I think Giles has done admirable work digging into Piketty's Excel sheets when nobody else did. But throughout this, Giles has assumed the worst without waiting for a full response. For example, he points out that, for the U.S., Piketty takes the top 1 percent's wealth share and adds two to it in 1970. But without knowing anything about why Piketty makes this adjustment, Giles tells us that the numbers "didn't seem to fit what [Piketty] wanted to show, so he just added two to it." That's over the top innuendo.
In the end, he's done what he accused Piketty of: making claims that the data don't support. |
The 1978–79 Scottish Cup was the 94th staging of Scotland's most prestigious football knockout competition. The Cup was won by Rangers who defeated Hibernian in the twice replayed final.
First round [ edit ]
Replays [ edit ]
Second round [ edit ]
Replays [ edit ]
Home team Score Away team Dunfermline Athletic 1 – 0 Stranraer Alloa Athletic 2 – 0 Cowdenbeath
Third round [ edit ]
Replays [ edit ]
Fourth round [ edit ]
Replays [ edit ]
Home team Score Away team Greenock Morton 0 – 1 Hearts Kilmarnock 0 – 1 Rangers
Home team Score Away team Aberdeen 1 – 1 Celtic Dumbarton 0 – 1 Partick Thistle Hibernian 2 – 1 Hearts Rangers 6 – 3 Dundee
Replay [ edit ]
Home team Score Away team Celtic 1 – 2 Aberdeen
Replay [ edit ]
Final [ edit ]
Replay [ edit ]
Second Replay [ edit ]
Events [ edit ]
Inverness Thistle's match against Falkirk became famous in Scotland due to the fact that the game was postponed 29 times, It was originally supposed to be played on January 6 in Inverness at Kingsmills Park due to ice and snow, and was eventually played on February 22 once it was deemed suitable, where Falkirk won the game 4-0, and were eventually put out by Dundee 3 days later.,[1] though it was a few postponements short of beating the record of 33 games by Airdrieonians and Stranraer set 16 years earlier due to similar circumstances during the Winter of 1962–63 in the United Kingdom where football matches were called off due to snowstorms.
See also [ edit ] |
Back in 1983, media was controlled by more than 50 different companies. Today power and control over the mainstream media has been condensed to a mere 6 giant corporations working behind the scenes to distract Americans from our countries real problems!
The alarming reality we live in is that 6 corporations (soon to be 5) including News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, and Comcast decide what news is delivered to the public, and what level of truth is behind that news. They control everything we watch, read, and hear in regards to the news.
This is a troubling problem because it’s creating a public filled with ill-informed people.
Some are suggesting that by constantly feeding us biased news carefully crafted by these corporations, the public is becoming brainwashed to think the way they want us to think. We’re being brainwashed to only care and discuss the topics they want us to care about and discuss.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that there’s been little discussion about the damaging effects “free trade” has on our economy. None of the major news networks has published anything about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is set to encompass nearly 40% of the world economy. Instead, news agencies are reporting on issues which are not relevant to our economy.
There are so many things wrong with America and many Americans are sufferring because our government refuses to protect us. Our current presidential administration and the media simply aren’t telling us what we need to know about the issues that really matter. This is because if they did, the U.S. public would be protesting in the streets and questioning the economic decisions of our leaders
Even though 70% of Americans are against “free trade,” corporations support it because they make a lot of money from “free trade” agreements while the rest of the country suffers. That’s why the media doesn’t report when Americans gather to protest “free trade” agreements, they simply ignore it. They feed the public a slew of distractions to direct attention off of the real problems.
The media does this on purpose, because having an oblivious flock of “sheeple” mindlessly following them is exactly what President Obama and other prominent government figures, lobbyists and multinational corporations want. Having an oblivious public means those currently causing America harm with “free trade” agreements can continue to suck the life from this great country while simultaneously selling away the wealth of future generations to countries like China.
Because of the consolidation of the major media outlets, damaging agreements like President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) aren’t being talked about. The media is ensuring the public doesn’t find out President Obama is negotiating the TPP and TTIP in secret, because if we knew what was in the agreements, as Representative Alan Grayson has said, we’d surely protest.
Contact your Congressional representative and urge them to stand up to media bias and the corrupt leadership in Washington. Send this to five of your friends and have them do the same. |
AUSTRALIA has ruled out any further military deployment to the troubled Middle East despite the call from the United States for coalition forces to “intensify and accelerate” the fight against Islamic State.
Defence ministers from some of the 40 nations actively confronting ISIS in Iraq and or Syria will meet in Brussels this week (from February 8 onwards) to look at strategies to halt the jihadists’ advance, particularly into Libya.
No major military offensive is planned for Libya, at least until it has its own stable government that can authorise foreign fighters on their soil, but the US has called for an intensification of hostilities against ISIS to “curb their global ambitions”.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said while Australian defence chiefs were constantly reviewing its commitment to the war, the country was already the second largest contributor of troops on the ground in Iraq and the contribution had been recognised.
“The Iraqi government has not asked for an expansion of that contribution,” she said.
She said Secretary of State John Kerry’s call to intensify the fight was directed at countries with a more direct interest in Iraq and the region and the Australian Government had already made an assessment and decided its contribution with air strikes and ground forces was significant enough.
“There was a request for all nations — 40 nations in the coalition — to provide more troops and Australia considered that at the time and in the context of the contribution it was already making and fact that the coalition was very grateful and acknowledge the significance of the contribution and it remains as it is and we’ve not been asked since that time either by US or Iraq to (do more),” Ms Bishop said.
Australia has contributed to the more than 10,000 coalition air strikes on militant targets in the region.
Ms Bishop on Thursday defended Australia’s $25 million pledge to assist Syria and Iraq after other nations promised vastly bigger sums.
Ms Bishop told world leaders and delegations from 70 nations at a Syria donors’ conference in London that Australia would commit another $25 million on top of the $40 million she had offered the previous year.
She said the overall contribution was the nation’s largest ever, totalling $233 million since 2011. Australia would also contribute $400 million to the fight against ISIS this year and $830 million over four years to refugee resettlement. |
SRK, who will be busy with multiple projects next year, denies that they have any plans for the 'Ra.One' sequel anytime soon.
No sooner that a film clicks at the box-office these days that the people associated with it announce of its sequel. At times even before it's released! Same was the case with Shah Rukh Khan 's Ra.One and rumours were rife that there would be a sequel to it.However the producer and actor of Ra.One, Shah Rukh Khan himself has confirmed that there is no such development on the anvil. Is it because the superhero film has received a mixed response at the box-office? All that SRK says is that he is busy with other projects lined up as of now which include a film with Yash Chopra, Rohit Shetty and Vishal Bhardwaj each that will keep him busy for quite some time."If we get a story that's worthy enough for the sequel, we shall think of it", claims Shah Rukh. But there's absolutely no such plan for a Ra.One 2 as of now! |
Galois is currently seeking software engineering and research interns at all educational levels. We are committed to matching interns with exciting and engaging engineering work that fits their particular interests, creating lasting value for interns, Galois, and our community. A Galois internship is a chance to tackle cutting-edge, meaningful problems in a uniquely collaborative environment with world-leading researchers.
Roles may include technology research and development, requirements gathering, implementation, testing, formal verification, and infrastructure development. Past interns have integrated formal methods tools into larger projects, built comprehensive validation suites, synthesized high-performance cryptographic algorithms, written autopilots for quad-copters, designed the syntax and semantics of scripting languages, and researched type system extensions for academic publication.
We deeply believe in providing comprehensive support and mentorship to all of our employees, particularly interns. We provide our employees with a steward who regularly checks in to ensure that they feel welcome and safe in the Galois community while gaining real value from their experiences.
Applications accepted year round
Internships typically last 12 weeks
Internship period is flexible. Please specify in your application the dates you are available.
About Galois
Our mission is to create trustworthiness in critical systems. We’re in the business of taking blue-sky ideas and turning them into real-world technology solutions. We’ve been developing real-world systems for over ten years using functional programming, language design, and formal methods.
Galois values diversity. We believe that differing viewpoints and experiences are essential to the process of innovation. We look broadly, including outside of established communities, to deliver innovation. For more on our organizational structure, visit Life at Galois.
How to Prepare
An internship is an opportunity for learning and growth as an engineer. To make the most of the opportunity, we ask that candidates have experience reading, writing, and maintaining code in a realistic project. Many university courses involve multi-week collaborative projects that provide this type of experience.
Most of our projects use the Haskell programming language and the git version control system. These tools aren’t often taught in computer science classes, but there are many free resources available that we recommend for learning:
Qualifications
The ability to be geographically located in Portland, OR, or Arlington, VA during the internship
Experience reading, writing, and maintaining code in a project as described above
Proficiency in software development practices such as design, documentation, testing, and the use of version control
Well-developed verbal and written communication skills; comfort in a collaborative team environment
The following skills are not required, but may be relevant to a particular project.
Proficiency in Haskell or other programming languages with rich type systems (eg., OCaml, Standard ML, Scala)
Experience using C and assembly languages for low-level systems programming
Development experience in high assurance systems or security software
Specific experience in an area of Galois’ expertise, such as: Assured information sharing Software modeling and formal verification Cyber-physical systems and control systems Operating systems, virtualization and secure platforms Networking technology Cyber defense systems Scientific computing Program analysis and software evaluation
Logistics
The length and start date of the internship are negotiable: starting any time in the year is acceptable, but an intern must be at Galois for at least three continuous months. The internship is paid competitively, and interns are responsible for living arrangements (although we can certainly help you find arrangements). The Portland office is located in the heart of downtown with multiple public transportation options available and world-class bicycle infrastructure. Our Arlington office is in the Ballston area and has great public transportation options as well.
Interested in Applying?
We’re looking for people who can invent, learn, think, and inspire. We reward creativity and thrive on collaboration. If you are interested, please send your cover letter and resume to us via this link. |
In two earlier posts, this one and this, I predicted that Donald Trump would resign of his own accord by July 15th, and no later than August 18th of this year.
Either by resignation, impeachment, or invocation of the 25th Amendment (allowing for a president to be replaced if he is mentally unfit to serve), this prophecy appears to be coming true.
But when the Groper in Chief does disappear, who should fill the void?
Below I make the eminently defensible case that it should not be Vice-President Mike Pence, as the Constitution would suggest, but rather the woman from whom the election was stolen in the first place, Hillary Clinton.
Here is a 14-point justification for swearing in the most qualified presidential candidate in history:
Donald Trump became president with the aid of a hostile foreign power. He stole the election. That is a “high crime” and a felony under the Logan Act of 1799. He is an illegitimate and indictable president. A vulgar criminal who has no business occupying the Oval Office. Hillary won the popular vote. She was the people’s choice by more than three million votes. Trump’s catastrophic, treasonous presidency only affirms and underlines the legitimacy of her win.
“I am enjoying your generous gift of the American presidency, Vlad. Now what can I do for you?” (Credit: The New York Times)
3. Donald Trump cheated his way to the presidency. If a team cheats in an athletic competition, the “B” team (in this case, Pence) does not automatically earn the win and get the medal. The victory goes to the opponent. That’s fair and equitable. The cheats take the defeat.
4. Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, knew about Russia’s collusion, influence, and interference in our election. Yet, he never blew the whistle or objected. Therefore, he is equally culpable. He is not entitled to be commander in chief when he is already the commander in cheat.
5. Elevating Hillary Clinton, the “runner-up” in the 2016 election, to president after Trumplethinskin leaves would be unprecedented in American history. But the way Donald Trump became president, colluding with the enemy to snatch victory, is also unprecedented. Therefore, a solution must fit the exceptional nature of the crime — it must be novel, dramatic, and also exceptional, so this never happens again. The heretofore anemic Democratic members of Congress must immediately propose Amendment 28 to the Constitution, prohibiting this exact sort of election thievery and punishing it in the severest of ways — by expelling the cheaters from the Oval Office and restoring the losing party to power. That would end this Trump style of election criminality permanently. Otherwise it will happen again.
6. We now know the election was rigged in favor of Donald Trump. Only in a banana republic, with a ruling oligarchy (in this case, the Trump family monarchy) that thinks it is above the law, and where there is a corrupt alliance between big government and big business (think of Trump’s many billionaire cabinets members and advisers) do incompetent dictators retain power. America must RESIST this breakdown of our defining democratic principles. We must dump Trump and instate Clinton.
7. The man who would be king is destroying America’s reputation globally. He, and the entire Republican party that refuses to stand up to him, are doing irreparable damage to our country. President Psycho and his degenerate Gestapo must go. Hillary Clinton is respected abroad and has the best chance to rebuild America’s damaged reputation overseas — especially with our disillusioned allies. This is so critical, we must stand with her again.
The King must go and he needs to take Sir SixPence along with him. (Credit: Channel 28 News)
8. Mike “Not At My Expense” Pence is already plotting to take over when Trump resigns or is impeached. He clearly has no confidence in his boss because he knows Trump’s many offenses are impeachable and that they will be his downfall. Pence also knew this during the campaign, but stayed on the ticket calculating that even if it was determined later on that Trump took the election fraudulently, he would become president. America can’t let this scheming, ruthless flunky become it’s next commander in chief. One woman was born to lead — and must.
9. Hillary Clinton is not a golfer. Therefore, unlike SCROTUS, we can expect her to work for America on weekends, and not fly, at the taxpayers’ expense, to Mar-A-GoGo every five days.
10. Once called a “rock star diplomat” by the New York Times Magazine, Hillary Clinton is a brilliant politician and seasoned stateswoman. She knows Washington and the world. She is not a novice. Or a boob. Or a dimwit. We’ve had seven months of an unqualified person in power and if it goes on much longer, he might get us all killed. When the political dust settles, and Daddy Warbucks is far, far away, we need a political savvy president at the helm to get us back on course — not Mike “Just Pray To Jesus” Pence.
11. Donald Trump would start a nuclear war simply as a way to divert attention from his many crimes and those of his corrupt cronies. He is that egotistical, that reckless, and that desperate to retain power. Mike Pence is cut from the same cretinesque cloth, with a pinch of religious fanatic thrown in. Once nuclear winter blows in, you don’t get another chance to get it right. So you can pillory Hillary all you want, but she won’t get us blown up simply because someone called her a nasty name. And that’s the best reason to install her immediately upon Trump’s removal.
12. An intimate understanding of the Constitution of the United States is mandatory for any presidential office holder. Hillary Clinton has read it and understands it. We know for certain that Donald Trump doesn’t read and has zero curiosity about the Constitution — his only interest in it would be its value at a Christie’s auction. Mike Pence knows only one provision of this historic document — again, it’s the 25th Amendment, regarding succession by the vice-president to the presidency. Well, step away from the door, Mike, because it’s not yours to take.
13. Women in America comprise 51% of the population. A majority. Yet, in this Trump presidency, that majority has almost no representation — no women in the White House fighting for women’s rights (Ivanka doesn’t count, I’m speaking of elected, credentialed, appointed, female career politicians), virtually none in the cabinet, and very few in the Republican Senate. On top of that, this president has a horrendous reputation for demeaning and degrading women in the worst kind of language. I will be accused of relitigating that Hillary is best for American women issue here, but yes I am, and yes she is. Plus, it’s about damn time!
14. Let’s review: Donald Trump is only president because he broke the law and cheated his way to the White House. He is, and has always been, a crook, swindler, charlatan, double-crosser, fake, and dishonest con man. He’s apoplectic that no one considers him a real president, because he knows better than anyone that he is a complete fraud. We all know, even Republicans, that it’s time for him to go. The only question that remains is, who’s next? Mike Pence, the man who is complicit in the treasonous crimes of Benedict Donald? Or Hillary Clinton, the woman who nine months ago had her presidential victory stolen by Russian President Vladimir Putin, his pinhead puppet Donald Trump, and the Republican Party leadership that was happy to turn the other way as treachery and betrayal were being committed against America right under their noses?
****
Thanks to all the many readers, fans, followers, and even my frenemies, for reading and commenting on my posts throughout the year as I continue my commitment to post every day, 7-days-a-week until the Orange Accident is no more.
Remember, I read every comment. And I try to answer.
Thank you.
–AI |
Last week I wrote about a man called Bob, a YouTuber whose channel is dedicated to him interviewing cardboard cutouts of Lana Del Rey. Given Bob's slightly unorthodox hobby, I made some pretty juvenile assumptions about his character in the article. In fact, they were downright unpleasant and it wasn't on.
Now I sometimes forget that Don't Panic is actually a moderately popular website (thanks readers!), because when I emailed Bob asking if he'd be game for an interview, he had already seen the piece. And, understandably, he was a bit offended.
It's a bad habit of online journalists to criticise others without ever acknowledging their own flaws, and it's something I was guilty of with regard to Bob. I guess it's the security provided by hiding behind a screen. Whatever I may have thought of Bob at first, at least he wasn't the one cussing out strangers online. And for that, I apologise.
Plus the fact he took the time to answer my questions, despite all I said about him, really proves he's one of the good guys.
On that note, here's what Bob had to say to me.
Hi Bob, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I'm 58 years old and live in Massachusetts. Aside from Lana I like to ski and golf! I am not married but blessed with wonderful family and friends.
I've got to ask - why did you start interviewing cardboard cutouts of Lana Del Rey?
I was inspired by YouTuber CaliforniaLuv84. She made a great video called 'I Survived Lana Del Rey Concert'. It is from a concert in San Francisco in 2014. You should definitely watch it. A real document in time of how hardcore Lana's fans are. She also has a very popular YouTube channel so I communicated with her and I got inspired I guess. I had an idea of me talking to Lana but I didn't know how it would really look. But when I had my first 'Lana' printed I was so pleased with how it came out that I knew I was on to something. I saw David Bowie in 1973 as Ziggy at Radio City in New York and I became a hardcore Bowie fan for many years. That fandom has been reborn in Lana I guess.
CaliforniaLuv84's video.
When did you first discover Lana?
I think I had read a little about her before Saturday Night Live, but my real awareness came right after SNL. I didn't see it live but read all the backlash. When I listened to 'Video Games' and then 'Blue Jeans' there was this addictive quality that kept me listening over and over. In fact back then it was quite common for people to use the word addicting in YouTube comments. There is something about her voice. I also have always been someone who wants to help the underdog, so I kind of jumped in her camp. I knew she had talent and would be vindicated one day. There are lots of people who still have no idea who she is but she really has become an international star.
What do you like about her music?
I guess it starts with her voice - something about it touches me. I never associated Born to Die with depression or suicide. I read that that's what a lot of other people felt, younger people mostly I guess. So I love her music but I was also caught up in the ever-growing Lana saga.
Bob's latest video.
Do your friends, family, or co-workers know about your channel? If yes, what do they think of it?
Excellent question!
Truthfully no. My good friend that I grew up with has a daughter who goes to college in Boston near me, she is 18 and I told her but I haven't told her Dad. She laughed at the one I showed her. But friends, family and co-workers don't know. I posted on Facebook when I was going to see her in concert but that's about it. You may say it's strange that someone would put something on YouTube but not want anyone to know!
My friends all know my sense of humour and the people I grew up with know I was Bowie obsessed. I know they would get a good laugh. I think it comes down to the fact that Lana has so much internet baggage that I don't have the emotional energy to follow all the stuff they might google about her - without ever listening to her sing. That's why I was floored when I saw your web page. People may find out eventually and I am sure they will love me just the same!
Bob's first video.
What do you think Lana would make of your channel?
I think she would laugh. Some are very silly and some are more straight forward, like the one's I did about seeing her in LA and Boston. Unfortunately, every famous or near famous person has to deal with some people who are mentally ill, or who have some illusion that they have a 'connection' to the person. I would be sad if she got that idea about me. Some people have written some sick things in the comments about me but hey, it's the internet! She has nothing to fear from me - nobody does actually. I had one video that talked about the upcoming Boston show and someone wrote, "He is going to the Boston show and I live in Massachusetts, I'm scared." I was laughing about that one.
What would you ask the real Lana if you met her?
If I ever met her it would probably be in the same circumstance as other fans, after a show or at a signing. Probably good for a hug, a selfie and a memory. I don't think we will ever have lunch together. I actually almost met her when I saw her at the El Rey in Los Angeles around three years ago. I waited outside with everyone and saw her signing things but I didn't have a camera or smartphone so I just watched. There is footage on YouTube of that and I can see myself!
Thanks for speaking to us, Bob! |
With just under two months to go until the federal election, the three-way race is getting tighter.
The New Democrats have been on a steady rise since May, but a new Abacus poll for Maclean’s magazine says support for the NDP has dropped four percentage points in the last two weeks to 31 per cent.
The Conservatives were up one percentage to 30 per cent, followed by the Liberals who went up two points to 28 per cent.
National voter support for the NDP, Conservatives and Liberals from January to August of 2015. ABACUS DATA
Last week, a Forum Research poll suggested the NDP were possibly in line to form a majority government, but the Abacus numbers show the party falling in Ontario.
Maclean’s magazine’ Ottawa bureau chief John Geddes said the story isn’t that the NDP is losing support, it’s that they’re losing support in the key battle ground of Ontario.
“That is the darkest part of this poll result for the NDP I would think,” Geddes told 680 NEWS.
“Over the last two weeks, Abacus has them down six percentage points in Ontario, which has to be a really worrying drop.”
Voter support in Ontario for the NDP, Conservatives and Liberals from January to August of 2015. ABACUS DATA
All parties are within three percentage points, which means it’s a virtual tie.
The latest poll puts the NDP in a position where they have to make up ground, especially in Ontario, Geddes said, which is not good news for what had been a projected “orange crush” in the province.
“For Mulcair, the most worrying number has to be a six-point drop in NDP support over two weeks in Ontario – that unignorable battleground, accounting as it does for for 121 ridings out of the 338 seats in the House of Commons,” Geddes writes in Maclean’s.
Listen to the interview with 680 NEWS political affairs specialist John Stall below:
The poll, which was conducted Aug. 26-28, surveyed 1,500 voters, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Canadians head to the polls on Oct. 19.
With files from Cormac MacSweeney |
Administration Grants FBI More Raw Access To NSA Data Just As FBI Claims To Be Implementing New Minimization Procedures
from the offsetting-fouls? dept
Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian was the first to report the news -- what there was of it -- that the FBI's rules governing its access to data collected by the NSA have changed. To what exactly, no one knows. Neither agency is offering any details.
The classified revisions were accepted by the secret US court that governs surveillance, during its annual recertification of the agencies’ broad surveillance powers. The new rules affect a set of powers colloquially known as Section 702, the portion of the law that authorizes the NSA’s sweeping “Prism” program to collect internet data. Section 702 falls under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), and is a provision set to expire in 2017.
A government civil liberties watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Group (PCLOB), alluded to the change in its recent overview of ongoing surveillance practices.
[T]he PCLOB’s new compliance report, released last month, found that the administration has submitted “revised FBI minimization procedures” that address at least some of the group’s concerns about “many” FBI agents who use NSA-gathered data.
“Changes have been implemented based on PCLOB recommendations, but we cannot comment further due to classification,” said Christopher Allen, a spokesman for the FBI.
The Obama administration is on the verge of permitting the National Security Agency to share more of the private communications it intercepts with other American intelligence agencies without first applying any privacy protections to them, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
The change would relax longstanding restrictions on access to the contents of the phone calls and email the security agency vacuums up around the world, including bulk collection of satellite transmissions, communications between foreigners as they cross network switches in the United States, and messages acquired overseas or provided by allies.
What does this rule change mean for you? In short, domestic law enforcement officials now have access to huge troves of American communications, obtained without warrants, that they can use to put people in cages. FBI agents don’t need to have any “national security” related reason to plug your name, email address, phone number, or other “selector” into the NSA’s gargantuan data trove. They can simply poke around in your private information in the course of totally routine investigations. And if they find something that suggests, say, involvement in illegal drug activity, they can send that information to local or state police. That means information the NSA collects for purposes of so-called “national security” will be used by police to lock up ordinary Americans for routine crimes. And we don’t have to guess who’s going to suffer this unconstitutional indignity the most brutally. It’ll be Black, Brown, poor, immigrant, Muslim, and dissident Americans: the same people who are always targeted by law enforcement for extra “special” attention.
As of 2014, there were few limits to the FBI's access to NSA data. The PCLOB expressed its concerns at that time. Apparently, things have improved, but no one's willing to detail the additional restrictions. We're just expected to believe they're in place.Other spokespeople had similar nods of "yes, more restrictions" to add and even hinted that these new limits may be made public at some point. Heartening news… perhaps. We don't know how expansive the data-sharing was prior to the new guidelines and we still don't know how scaled back it will be post-restrictions.For that matter, it seems as though the new limits will be largely offset by the administration's earlier announcement that the FBI would have more access to NSA data So, on one hand, the FBI is claiming that its backdoor search permissions have been dialed back, but that comes roughly two weeksthe administration announced its plans for expanded data sharing. What's being scooped up under national security authority is being used for plain vanilla law enforcement. Not only can the FBI access the NSA's collections (and it has been ... for several years now), but it can pass info it finds down the line to local law enforcement agencies. Any minimization procedures put in place by the FBI at the suggestion of the PCLOB may still be there, but the agency itself will be given unminimized access to NSA data hauls The rule change will basically codify the FBI's backdoor searches , making it that much tougher to challenge in court. Not only that, but the NSA's overwatch of the data lends everything collected just enough "national security" interest to make evidence collected unavailable to defendants and will encourage even more parallel construction by law enforcement agencies.The "incidental" collection of Americans' communications and data will no longer be just a regrettable part of the "collect it all" approach. It will be a feature, rather than a bug. Local law enforcement agencies can't do much to pursue overseas suspects but they will be very interested in anything pulled from NSA haystacks that falls into their jurisdictions. If the FBI has actually beefed up its minimization policies -- as the Guardian's article suggests -- then it will have nothing to pass along. The agency may actually have more restrictive policies now, but the administration's proposal would effectively give the FBI a reason to ignore them.Furthermore, theexpansion of sharing actually does very little todomestic law enforcement use of NSA collections. The FBI has been able to do this since 2002, when the FISA Court granted the Bush administration its request for expanded sharing. The Bush team expanded this again in 2008 and the Obama administration has been at work on the logistical framework and codification of ongoing domestic surveillance.The FBI may have new minimization procedures but they only kick init's already helped itself to the NSA's raw data. Since it has the permission to pass information along for law enforcement purposes, the only entities that may seeminimized data will be much further down the line.
Filed Under: data, minimization, nsa, surveillance, white house |
Every NBA team starts a home game the same way: by announcing the visiting team’s starting lineup, then turning out the lights and cranking a song that’s either hip-hop happy or gratuitously goose-bumpish (like Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”). Within seconds, a JumboTron highlight-video launches with a dopey slogan like “Our Time Is Now” or “Rise Up.” It’s crammed with awkward close-ups, dunks and alley-oops, as well as players muttering things like, “This is our city” and “Let’s do this.” The video almost always ends with the team’s best player staring into the camera and screaming, “AHHHHHHHHHHH!” or “LEMME HEAR IT!!!!!!!!” Then, the lights turn back on and they introduce their starting five.
How did this become the blueprint for starting an NBA game? I have no idea. But any franchise lacking a good-enough “LEMME HEAR IT!!!!!!!!” guy needs to decide something: Should it finish the video with a barrage of dunks, or with its by-default best player screaming as the closer even though he’s not really a star? Deep down, the team knows this decision symbolizes everything. You can’t win without a legitimate “LEMME HEAR IT!!!!!!!!” guy; pointing this out in the opening video is almost counterproductive. That’s what made it so interesting when, on Opening Night against the Celtics last October, the Cavaliers embraced their LeBron-less plight. Their video ended with Mo Williams screaming incoherently and turning into a fireball. The subtext?
This is our best player. It’s Mo Williams. We just wanted to prepare you guys now.
In Hollywood, that Mo Williams dilemma hangs over everything. They make too many movies and don’t have nearly enough stars. That’s a problem. Their solution is to “create” stars, leading to a bigger problem: They’re effectively forcing actors like Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds down our throats like big clumps of broccoli. Why not worry about finding quality scripts and making quality movies instead? That would require real work and real ingenuity. It’s much easier to make superhero movies, sequels, anything with aliens, anything with the world about to blow up, and anything that could carry “3D” in the title. That’s how we arrived to a point in which the following two facts are indisputable.
Fact: People believe Will Smith is the world’s biggest movie star (even though he doesn’t make great movies).
Fact: People believe Ryan Reynolds is a movie star (even though he isn’t).
That’s all you need to know about Hollywood right now. Everyone is complaining about the quality of this summer’s movies (probably the worst ever), this year’s Oscar race (potentially the most ghastly in years) and a general lack of imagination by the studios (it honestly feels like they gave up), but really, everything comes back to Will Smith and Ryan Reynolds.
Let’s tackle Reynolds first. When Green Lantern badly underperformed last weekend, it shouldn’t have been surprising, because Reynolds isn’t a movie star (despite Hollywood’s best efforts to convince us otherwise). You know how I know this? We just spent the past 10 years compiling evidence that said, emphatically, “Ryan Reynolds can’t carry a bad movie.” Or, really, any movie.
Don’t worry, this won’t turn into an “I hate Ryan Reynolds” rant. I actually like Ryan Reynolds. This isn’t his fault. Other than his dreadful “Amityville Horror” remake, I can’t remember watching a Reynolds movie and thinking it failed specifically because of him (you know, the opposite of how I feel during every Luke Wilson movie). Compared to his peers in the secretly valuable Matthew McConaughey All-Stars — a.k.a. guys who star in movies that are guaranteed to end up showing on an airplane, whether it’s a generic action romp, a gross-out comedy that’s neither gross nor funny, or any type of romantic comedy involving a career-driven woman who lies to everyone around her to find herself a man —I would take Reynolds over Ashton Kutcher, Patrick Dempsey and Aaron Eckhart. He’s the most versatile half-decent actor out there, and I swear that wasn’t a backhanded compliment.
A case could be made that Reynolds simply had bad luck, a bad agent, or both. Switch him with Cooper in The Hangover and what happens? It’s the exact same movie, only with Reynolds getting the subsequent career bump instead of Cooper. His best performance happened as part of an ensemble cast in 2009’s Adventureland, a quality dramedy that tanked despite excellent reviews. His most successful movie was 2009’s The Proposal, a Sandra Bullock vehicle from beginning to end (and the one that established her as the Nolan Ryan of rom-coms). He’s never carried a quality movie that succeeded unless you want to count the aptly named Definitely, Maybe, which was well-received but made barely enough money to cover its budget.
Reynolds has three things going for him: he’s likable and handsome; he dated and married Scarlett Johansson at the peak of her buxom powers (getting a nice Us Weekly career boost out of it); and he works in an industry that doesn’t have nearly enough leading men. The third point matters the most. I’d compare the “leading man” position to the NFL’s quarterback position — we need 32 starting QBs every year regardless of whether we actually have 32 good ones, just like we need 40 to 45 leading men every year regardless of whether we have 40 to 45 good ones. That makes Reynolds someone like Alex Smith: He’s a no. 1 draft pick, he has all the tools, you can easily talk yourself into him being good … and then, six games into the season, you realize that you’re not making the Super Bowl with Alex Smith.
Here’s where sports and Hollywood diverge: In sports, we’re constantly assessing everything from both a small-picture and big-picture standpoint. Success is measured through wins and losses, playoff games, conventional statistics and advanced metrics that become more complicated every month. If you believe Jose Bautista is having a better 2011 season than Adrian Gonzalez, and I believe the opposite, there’s a really good chance we can figure out an answer. In Hollywood, success is defined by awards shows, box office grosses, word of mouth and the fee for your next movie. That’s it. You can’t assess Reynolds by saying, “Wow, look at his OPS, it’s a shit show!” or “Do you realize that Reynolds has been in the league for 12 years and he’s NEVER made the playoffs?” Those measures aren’t in place. We only have IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, yet there’s no real impetus to visit those sites unless you’re a movie junkie or you’re figuring out who just got naked in True Blood.
And then there’s this …
Any sports fan knows he or she will be in situations (at a wedding, at a bar, at work, wherever) in which they’ll get into friendly arguments about things like “The Lakers should trade everyone but Kobe for Dwight Howard” and they’ll sound like a fool if they’re not prepared. That’s the real reason we suffer through talking-head shows, sports radio and all the crap online — not just because we’re addicted to being sports fans, but because we’re trying to learn material to use later for our own benefit. Being a movie fan doesn’t work that way. For example, I had an argument recently with my friend Lewis about whether Jim Carrey was still a movie star. Lewis said, adamantly, no effing way. I disagreed.
“You’re wrong,” Lewis said. “Look up his IMDb.”
Uh-oh. Jim Carrey’s past five movies were Fun With Dick & Jane, The Number 23, Yes Man, I Love You Philip Morris and this summer’s Mr. Popper’s Penguins. That’s a six-year stretch of forgettability. I’m not less of a movie fan because it never dawned on me that Carrey had stopped being a movie star; by contrast, I WOULD be less of a baseball fan if I didn’t realize that Derek Jeter had stopped being a baseball star. Not knowing about Jeter’s struggles would embarrass me in any sports conversation, which can’t happen, because dammit, that’s how men communicate. Not knowing the ins and outs of Carrey’s IMDb page? Who cares? When would that ever come back to haunt me?
Hollywood knows we’re not paying attention, so they try to manipulate us into thinking Carrey is still a movie star by inundating us with billboards and commercials featuring his mug. After all, he still looks like Jim Carrey, right? Even if we reject the assault by skipping the movie in droves, the movie would have to bomb more brutally than the Situation at the Trump Roast for the star’s career to be threatened. (A good example: Mike Myers after The Love Guru.) The truth is, most people don’t know how to define a “movie star.” Take Tobey Maguire: Unless his next movie has “Spider-Man” in the title, are people going out of their way to see it? Of course not. That means he’s not a movie star. Jamie Foxx won an Oscar for Ray, but that didn’t make him a movie star; he’s just a famous person who acts and sings. Bruce Willis can’t be a movie star anymore unless the words “Die” and “Hard” are involved. And yet, if you asked the average person if Carrey, Maguire, Foxx and Willis were movie stars, they would invariably say yes.
A good way to think about it: You know how 24 players make the NBA All-Star game every year? Those are the stars for that season. Just because Richard Hamilton made the 2008 All-Star team doesn’t make him an All-Star in 2011. Things change. Careers go up. Careers go down. You pick another All-Star team. It’s really that simple.
Of course, Hollywood can be confusing because someone can feel like an All-Star without ever having a good “season.” Reynolds is the best example. His movie career started in 2001 with Finder’s Fee, a straight-to-DVD thriller he made while starring in Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place on ABC … a show that was more successful than you remember, staying on the air even after they jettisoned the pizza place and renamed it Two Guys and a Girl. In 2002, he landed his first starring role, in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder. The good news: It made money, earned decent Rotten Tomatoes audience reviews (78 percent!) and spawned an eventual sequel that nobody saw. The bad news: It wasn’t that funny and ended up being sentenced to a lifetime of heavy edits on Comedy Central.
Our next five Reynolds movies: a supporting role in 2003’s The In-Laws (a remake of the Alan Arkin/Peter Falk classic that never should have happened); a starring role in 2003’s Foolproof (key words: “Canadian” and “straight to DVD”); a charming cameo in 2004’s Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (overshadowed by Neil Patrick Harris’s career-rejuvenating cameo); a supporting role in Blade: Trinity (the last time anyone’s seen Wesley Snipes in public); and then a starring role in a 2005 TV movie called School of Life (created to fool anyone flipping channels into thinking it was School of Rock).
By 2005, Hollywood liked Reynolds just enough that it gave him not one, not two, but THREE starring roles: the Amityville Horror remake (21 percent approval rating from the Rotten Tomatoes top critics); Waiting, an ensemble comedy about twentysomething waiters that desperately wanted to be a Dazed and Confused–like cult movie but never made it (24 percent); and Just Friends, which was basically Fat Harry Meets Sally (37 percent) and featured Reynolds wearing a fat suit on the poster.
To recap: Reynolds’s “breakout” year featured him playing an obese guy, a waiter and a possessed husband. Jeez, how did that not work out? The big mistake was The Amityville Horror, which made money because it came out during the horror boom … but still, explain to me how it’s a good career move for The Likable And Handsome Ryan Reynolds to become possessed by a satanic house? That same role submarined James Brolin’s career! Brolin ended up starring on Hotel and becoming Mr. Barbra Streisand because nobody could see him without thinking about him staring into a fire and fighting off the urge to chop up his family with an ax. And Reynolds’s agent thought it was a GOOD idea to remake that movie?
Things didn’t improve for Reynolds with 2006’s release of Smoking Aces, a failed attempt to headline a Tarantino-like action movie featuring a cadre of name actors who thought they had signed up for that decade’s Reservoir Dogs (and never saw the mushroom cloud coming). His next three movies grossed a combined $300,000 in America: The Nines ($63k), Chaos Theory ($237k) and Fireflies in the Garden (straight to DVD). Yikes.
Just when Reynolds’s return to TV in Two Guys, a Girl and a Baby seemed imminent, his relationship with Scarlett heated up and reignited the whole “Ryan Reynolds is a movie star” story line, because if he’s appearing in Us Weekly every other week, then dammit, that means he’s a star. He quickly rolled off the best stretch of his career: Definitely, Maybe (a decently reviewed rom-com), Adventureland (his only movie that ever topped 70 percent with Rotten Tomatoes’ top critics), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (made $179 million, although he was the fifth lead and critics savaged the film), an indie bomb called Paper Man (let’s move on) and The Proposal (a smash hit for a rom-com). Again, that was the best stretch of his career.
Now, you’re sitting there saying, “Wait a second, there has to be more. That couldn’t have been the entire list of Ryan Reynolds movies.” And you’d be right: In 2010, he released a movie about a truck driver being trapped in a coffin in Iraq called Buried. (It became a Sundance hit, but that’s it.) That was followed by the Green Lantern Stinkbomb, with one more summer flick coming: The Change-Up, in which Reynolds and Jason Bateman switch bodies, with Bateman becoming a ladies’ man and Reynolds becoming a family man, only both of them realize they had it better the old way, and Good God Almighty, I can’t believe they’re still making body-switch movies.
All in all, Reynolds starred in 20 movies over the past 10 years. Four went straight to DVD or premiered on TV. Another four made little to no money whatsoever. Of his 16 movies that were eligible for a “top critics” approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, nine dipped lower than 30 percent; only three rose above 50 percent; and his average score was 36.3. These are the best “advanced metrics” we have for Hollywood, and really, we didn’t need them to bang home the point that Ryan Reynolds isn’t actually a movie star.
In his defense, you could say that about practically anyone. I believe there are 24 male movie stars right now, a funny number since that takes the NBA All-Star analogy full circle. But here’s the list: Smith and Leo; Depp and Cruise; Clooney, Damon and Pitt; Downey and Bale; Hanks and Denzel; Stiller and Sandler; Crowe and Bridges; Carell, Rogen, Ferrell and Galifianakis; Wahlberg and Affleck; Gyllenhaal (it kills me to put him on here, but there’s just no way to avoid it); Justin Timberlake (who became a movie star simply by being so famous that he brainwashed us); and amazingly, Kevin James. All of them can open any movie in their wheelhouse that’s half-decent; if it’s a well-reviewed movie, even better.
Look, I like Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin, James Franco and Jesse Eisenberg. I really like Paul Rudd. None of them are movie stars … at least not yet. And neither is Ryan Reynolds. But you knew that already.
None other than the great William Goldman disagrees with me. He believes that we have one movie star right now and only one: Will Smith. I find this depressing since these were Smith’s past eight movies …
Men In Black II
Bad Boys II
I, Robot
Hitch
The Pursuit of Happyness
I Am Legend
Hancock
Seven Pounds
That’s nine years of work: one alien sequel, one buddy-cop sequel, two futuristic/apocalyptic action movies, one superhero movie, one romantic comedy and two overly sappy dramas. My favorite of those efforts, by default, was The Pursuit of Happyness. I’m a sucker for “father and son hit rock-bottom, bond, then eventually turn things around” movies dating back to Kramer vs. Kramer, and only because my parents got divorced and I spent two years living with my father in a Boston apartment, sleeping on a sofa bed, eating grilled cheeses and going to Celtics games. Throw an alien in there and I think I’d have the plot for Will Smith’s next movie.
Goldman’s argument is simple: He believes Smith is our only movie star because every one of his movies makes money. Lots and lots of money. If you trade for LeBron, you’re guaranteed 82 games, 26 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and 50 percent shooting for every regular-season game, followed by a mysterious collapse in a huge playoff series. If you fund a Will Smith movie, you’re guaranteed a $150 million worldwide gross … minimum. It’s impossible NOT to make money from Will Smith. He’s a sure thing. He’s foolproof.
Not even Leo DiCaprio can say that: Back in 2008, Leo released Body of Lies, a decently reviewed action movie with Russell Crowe that tanked at the box office ($70 million budget, $39 million U.S. gross). That was his next movie after The Departed and Blood Diamond, two critical and commercial hits that had seemingly vaulted him to Smith’s level of bankability. Nope. If you swapped Will Smith for Leo in Body of Lies, the movie would have made at least $150 million worldwide. You know how I know this? Because I, Robot made $347 million, Seven Pounds made $168 million and I Am Legend made $256 million. Those movies all stunk. If I gave you those three Blu-rays for Christmas, you would regift them to someone you didn’t like. Doesn’t matter. Will Smith’s movies make money.
The big question: Do his movies make money because he’s Will Smith (and people simply enjoy seeing him on a big screen), or because he figured out some loophole in the Star System? His career choices these past two decades were, for lack of a better word, creepy. As if a computer program spit them out.
(Oh, wait … that’s basically what happened!)
True story: When Smith was trapped on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air set in the early ’90s, dreaming of starring in movies instead of selling Alfonso Ribeiro’s jokes, Smith and his manager, James Lassiter, studied a list of the top 10 grossing films ever. Here’s what Smith told Time Magazine in 2007: “We looked at (the list) and said, O.K., what are the patterns? We realized that 10 out of 10 had special effects. Nine out of 10 had special effects with creatures. Eight out of 10 had special effects with creatures and a love story.”
Pretty shrewd. Smith established himself as bankable with 1994’s Bad Boys, then went right after that top-10 list, starring in 1996’s Independence Day and Men in Black one year later. Those two films grossed nearly $1.4 billion worldwide. Will Smith was right. In a perfect world, Smith would have used that success to create the career that we would have wanted him to have. You know, a little like how DiCaprio does it: go make a big-ass movie in which you get to be a movie star (Blood Diamond), then an action movie (Body of Lies), then an artsy one (Revolutionary Road), then a weird one (Shutter Island), then a super-ambitious one (Inception), and the whole time, you’re stretching yourself as an actor, working with talented directors and keeping your fans on their toes.
Will Smith had no interest in “stretching himself,” just printing money. After those alien movies, he spent the next 12 years running the Hollywood equivalent of Dean Smith’s “Four Corners” offense. He made an “action hero who gets framed and has to spend most of the movie sprinting” choice (Enemy of the State), another wacky science fiction choice (the excruciating Wild Wild West), a sappy period choice (Legend of Bagger Vance, also excruciating), then a calculated “I had to get in incredible shape for this biopic” choice (Ali, which should have been great but never got there, although I blame Michael Mann more than Smith). That was followed by Men in Black II and everything else above.
In that 2007 Time Magazine feature, he freely admitted to studying box office patterns much like Theo Epstein studies XFIP and BABIP, saying that he and Lassiter got together every Monday morning to look at “what happened last weekend, and what are the things that happened the last 10, 20, 30 weekends.” Later in the feature, he unwittingly describes why the movie industry sucks so much:
“Movie stars are made with worldwide box office. You put a movie out in the U.S., and let’s say it breaks even. Then the studio needs you to go around the world and get profit. Being able to get $30 mil in England, 37 in Japan, 15 in Germany is what makes the studio support your movies differently than they support other actors’ movies.”
Again, totally logical … and totally depressing. Will Smith hasn’t taken a chance since 1993’s Six Degrees of Separation — his first major movie, by the way — and only because it doesn’t make sense for him to take chances. He studied a system that spit out a certain outcome, then rigged his career to benefit from that outcome. Even in real life, he plays a character of sorts: Will Smith, the happy family man who handles the media spectacularly, doesn’t flaunt his wealth, never says anything controversial and lacks any personal demons (at least none that we know about). If you were picking him apart, maybe you’d point to his Scientology connection (fair or unfair, there’s a stigma that goes with it) and how he turned his children into self-sufficient brands (although he’s not the first to do so). Neither damaged his career in any way. At least not yet.
When a Soho neighborhood rebelled against his monstrosity of a trailer this spring, Smith’s reaction was fascinating: basically, “I thought you’d love having me here! I’m Will Smith! I can’t believe this!” It’s the way you would react if you believed your approval rating was unassailable. Which might be true.
See, people like Will Smith because he’s never given them a reason not to like him. He would never play an evil cop like Denzel did (Training Day); he doesn’t want us to see Evil Will Smith. He would never play someone trapped in a damaging 1950s marriage like Leo did (Revolutionary Road); he doesn’t want us to think about Bad Husband Will Smith. Remember when Cruise released Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut back-to-back, two of his rawest performances and the two single weirdest movies he ever made? Smith would never take a chance like that, much like Starbucks would never add grills to their stores and start flipping burgers and hot dogs. What’s the point?
Just last month, a story circulated around Hollywood that Quentin Tarantino was desperately pursuing Smith as the lead for his next movie, Django Unchained, in which a freed slave teams up with a German bounty hunter to find his wife and ends up killing a bunch of plantation owners along the way. Supposedly the script is incredible. Supposedly Smith’s agents at CAA, and even his manager, begged him to play Django. And supposedly, Smith turned it down. He didn’t want to risk what he had. He didn’t want people to meet Angry Slave Will Smith. He didn’t want to mess with a sure thing.
So yeah, Will Smith might be our only movie star right now, but that says more about Hollywood’s faults than anything else. Goldman once wrote that, in Hollywood, nobody knows anything. He was wrong. Will Smith figured out where Hollywood was going well before anyone else did. These days, it’s all about making alien movies, superhero movies and sequels. Will Smith beat everybody there. He could see the future … and the future sucked. You can’t call him a failure because he accomplished exactly what he wanted to accomplish. But shouldn’t his career have been better? Didn’t he have a responsibility to push himself? Isn’t that what good actors are supposed to do?
I keep coming back to Six Degrees of Separation, the biggest gamble he ever made, when everyone doubted that the “Fresh Prince” could pull off a gay con artist in an indie movie. He pulled it off. Within that movie, Smith hits a couple of places that he hasn’t hit since: It’s a really good performance, a little like Leo in This Boy’s Life (same year, by the way) in that you left the theater feeling like you just watched the seeds planted for a meaningful movie career.
Of course, there was a moment in the script when Smith’s character had to kiss Anthony Michael Hall’s character, only Smith refused. They edited the movie so that, as Smith leans in for the “kiss,” we’re seeing him from behind and hear a smooch … only it never actually happened. Even at 25 years old, Will Smith was thinking ahead. He didn’t want to film a scene that could be thrown back in his face later. Or, he was afraid to kiss a dude. Or, he knew he couldn’t play anyone other than himself — as the past two decades have pretty much backed up — so kissing another man in a movie was impossible because he’s Will Smith and Will Smith doesn’t kiss guys. It’s a totally inauthentic moment in a performance that, otherwise, was totally authentic.
If you think Pursuit of Happyness or Ali is Will Smith’s defining performance, you would be wrong. It’s Six Degrees of Separation. Everything is on display: his once-in-a-generation charisma, his acting chops, his sense of humor, his sense of the moment … and, most of all, his self-awareness. He made Six Degrees to prove he wasn’t just a rapper-turned-sitcom star, that he could actually act, that he cared about his craft. You know, as long as he didn’t have to kiss another dude. It was a chance, but a calculated one. He never took another one. Now he’s our one and only movie star, according to William Goldman. There’s a lesson here.
Bill Simmons is the Editor in Chief of Grantland and the author of the recent New York Times no. 1 best-seller The Book of Basketball, now out in paperback with new material and a revised Hall of Fame Pyramid. For every Simmons column and podcast, log on to Grantland. Follow him on Twitter and check out his new home on Facebook. |
A United Nations (UN) representative undertaking a weeklong visit to the Philippines expressed her opposition to the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) as she concluded her mission to evaluate the country’s food problems.
At a news conference in Makati, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Hilal Elver said a number of questions remain unanswered about the GMO approach, including long-term health effects and the business models practiced by multinational seed companies.
“GMOs are a huge thing and there is a huge discussion on it. I am against GMOs for several reasons… We don’t know the health impacts of GMO in the long term,” Ms. Elver told reporters.
She added that the aggressive defense of seed patents by multinationals has led to small farmers being accused of infringing on their intellectual property.
“They take away the farmers’ seeds from them and the corporations make a business from it,” she said.
For these reasons, “the use of GMOs should be carefully studied, and, I’m not sure if it should be accepted,” she said.
The UN representative, who is part of the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, launched her visit on Feb. 20. The final report of her findings, Ms. Elver said, will be sent to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2016.
Read full, original article: UN official says questions remain on GMO health impact, business practices |
They can laugh about it now that their Indian food restaurant is open, patrons are starting to flow in, functions are booked and they've settled into a new house in Stoney Creek.
But for the past 10 months or so the Narulas found little amusing in the process to buy the former Olympia restaurant at 1162 Barton Street East, across from the Centre on Barton.
"There were so many sleepless nights," said Amandeep Narula.
Those sleepless nights are tied to the complicated and troubled past of the 14,000 square-foot- restaurant.
We want to change what this building means to the city. Amandeep Narula Restaurant owners
The Olympia Banquet Centre was closed in December, 2011 and left to fall into arrears in taxes owing to the city and in mortgage payments owed to the Business Development Bank of Canada totalling more than $1 million.
Last summer, the BDC put the building up under power of sale, with the city owed about $240,000 dating from 2007 including the assessment in 2013. The BDC sold the property for $507,500, with a $139,407 share going to the city — of that $39,407 went toward the province's education portion of the taxes.
The building was sold "as is" and was structurally sound and in a good location. But the Narulas said once they took possession last October, they realized the building was stripped bare of any interior items of value, including 700 light bulbs and bathroom and kitchen taps filed off the pipes.
"It was a little crazy," said Navdeep Narula, Amandeep's husband and chef of Narula's Indian Restaurant and banquet centre.
Then, the same day the deal was closing, they discovered the parking lot with 30 spaces adjacent to the restaurant was not included in the deal, even though it was listed as such. The parking lot was to be sold off by the city at auction. No parking lot equalled no viable restaurant.
There was no going back — they'd already sold their 16-seat restaurant business in Mississauga three months earlier. |
Rascal's Steakhouse on Thursday, Nov 16, 2016, at Crossgates in Guilderland, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union) Rascal's Steakhouse on Thursday, Nov 16, 2016, at Crossgates in Guilderland, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union) Photo: Cindy Schultz Buy photo Photo: Cindy Schultz Image 1 of / 104 Caption Close Status uncertain for Rascals at Crossgates 1 / 104 Back to Gallery
Rascals, the huge steakhouse and entertainment venue open for less than seven months at Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, is closed temporarily and its future is uncertain, according to several employees and others with knowledge of its status.
Employees I contacted this afternoon said restaurant management has told them little beyond that the venue is closed for now and may not reopen. Local music promoters that had scheduled bands for upcoming shows at Rascals tell me they were advised by Crossgates management to find alternative venues; bookers for area clubs report fielding inquiries from bands and managers who have been told Rascals is closed.
Read more and get the latest restaurant news on the Table Hopping blog. |
Homer Simpson predicted the mass of the Higgs boson in a 1998 episode of The Simpsons , according to a science writer.
In The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace episode, Homer is shown in front of a blackboard working on an equation.
Twelve years later, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider discovered the Higgs boson.
Simon Singh, author of The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets, told a literary festival audience that the series is staffed by writers with an interest in maths.
"The Simpsons is the most mathematical TV show on prime-time television in history. A lot of the writers on The Simpsons are mathematicians," he said.
"That equation predicts the mass of the Higgs boson. If you work it out, you get the mass of a Higgs boson that's only a bit larger than the nano-mass of a Higgs boson actually is.
"It's kind of amazing as Homer makes this prediction 14 years before it was discovered."
The Simpsons may "encourage and nourish" maths lovers, Singh said, adding that he hoped teenagers would be inspierd by the fact the show's creators shared their interests.
For more stories, like the Telegraph's Facebook page by clicking on the link below |
Labour MP Jack Dromey wants to ban Donald Trump from the UK - but beyond that he’s pretty chill about who gets let in.
GMB presenter Piers Morgan this morning offered Dromey a sort-of top trumps of despots to take or leave.
On Russian president
Vladimir Putin, coined a "ruthless dictator" by former foreign secretary David Miliband, Dromey said:
“No I wouldn’t [ban him]… His views on homosexuals stink. They stink.”
On chief head-chopper,
King Salman of Saudi Arabia, Dromey said:
“Utterly grotesque… No, I wouldn’t ban him.”
On freedom-of-speech-hating
President Xi Jinping of China, Dromey said:
“The president of China has also got an appalling record on human rights.” But he was upset last October when Xi failed to visit Birmingham.
And asked whether he would ban corruption magnate and
President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, Dromey simply said:
“No.”
The Birmingham Erdington MP added: “I’m a great believer in freedom of speech.” |
After losing the presidential election ten months ago, Hillary Clinton is still on the blame game tour, this time to promote her election memoir What Happened, which was released today, September 12. She continued the whining and pointing of fingers during her appearance on the liberal podcast, “Pod Save America,” which is hosted by former speechwriters for President Obama.
Specifically, Clinton called out the media for putting Democrats at a “disadvantage” saying the media played a “false equivalency” with her and Trump in their reporting. Clinton also blamed right wing media outlets for not giving Democrats a fair advantage (because supposedly there is no left wing media outlets, right?)
Right off the bat, the liberal interviewers were out for the cheap shots against the right. Jon Favreau, Obama’s former speechwriter, began by asking Clinton what advice she had for future female presidential candidates, but colored his question with charges of sexism:
“What advice would you give them about how to grapple with the kind of sexism that you grappled with during the campaign?” he asked.
“I’m so glad you started with that Jon,” Clinton happily obliged. “We have to deal with” these issues, she explained, “so they won’t have the same impact on the next election, and the one after that.” She added that she wrote a whole chapter on the topic of sexism in politics, and of course complained about Trump, the sexist. “We can’t allow ourselves to go backwards,” she lamented.
The second question focused on Democratic party. Clinton blamed Bernie Sanders for not immediately endorsing her as the candidate, before shifting the blame to right wing media “propaganda channels” as the real problem Democrats face:
I think we face a number of obstacles. The other side has dedicated propaganda channels.That’s what I call Fox News. It has outlets like Breitbart, and you know crazy InfoWars and things like that. In this particular election, it was aided and abetted by Russians and the role that Facebook and other platforms played. We are late to that.We did not understand how a reality TV campaign would so dominate the media environment. I think the Democrats can do a lot, but they're still going to face a very difficult media environment. And we've got to figure out how we're going to break through.I mean obviously more podcasts, more other ways of communicating so voices can be heard and real positions can be understood is part of it.
"But we're still at a disadvantage," she whined.
After some more questions about the Democrat party, Clinton brought up the right’s alleged “media advantage” yet again:
The new threat that’s coming from Sinclair broadcasting. 72%+ of the homes in America being given a steady diet of right-wing Republican politics. Fox doesn’t even pretend anymore. They don’t even cover stuff that’s not going to promote the Trump agenda, so you’ve got billions and billions of dollars coming at you from the other direction, and literally you’re trying to keep your head above water, and it’s not easy.
Clinton added that had she been in office, she would’ve gone after the Republicans' “media monopolization:”
“I would really be taking all of that on, and I fear it’s only going to get worse,” she complained. “We’re really at a disadvantage,” she repeated again.
Later on, she said that the left needed to invest in it’s own media, because of the threat of right wing “propaganda” and a mainstream media “that engages in false equivalency:”
Well, I don't understand why people who share our views aren't more willing to invest in media that can be competitive. Because what you've got is a right-wing advocacy propaganda and you've got a kind of mainstream media that engages in false equivalency. And it's tough if you are a Democrat trying to navigate through that, to get the coverage that is really going to reflect the reality that you're facing out there on the campaign.
Lest Clinton need reminding, the media coverage of her opponent was not even close to balanced. In the 12 weeks after Trump was announced as the Republican nominee, he received 91% hostile media coverage, on the three major networks. Yet just 38% of Clinton’s airtime during that period focused on her scandals. While Clinton complains the media engaged in false equivalencies, Donald Trump’s comments about women in the leaked Access Hollywood tape received far more coverage than any of her scandals, such as the Clinton Foundation’s spending, which earned less than 5 minutes of coverage from January to May in 2016.
You can listen to entire 47 minute long interview through this mp3 stream, or find it on Itunes.
H/T Free Beacon, which also uploaded a 1-minute clip from the 47 minute interview onto Youtube, below: |
JOHN HEILEMANN (HOST): Let's just say this first of all, when Trump does what he did in that Tapper interview, and he did it over and over again, he kept calling Curiel a Mexican, right? It is not even dog whistle politics. It is just pure racial politics.
MARK HALPERIN (HOST): No, it’s not racial.
HEILEMANN: It’s racial politics. It is.
HALPERIN: Mexico isn’t a race.
HEILEMANN: It doesn't matter whether Mexico is a race, it’s stirring up racial animus about people who don’t like Hispanics, and illegal immigrants coming across the border. That’s what he’s doing. He’s ringing the bell for them every time he does it. He’s not Mexican. He was born in Indiana. And eventually you can get Trump to acknowledge that he’s Mexican-American, it’s his heritage that’s what he’s doing here right? Then on top of that he is a potential president of the United States who has issued, over the course of the last week, vague threats, saying that the judge should be investigated. It is wildly inappropriate and yes, of course there are no political benefits to this and I’m sure that his team is beating it’s head against tables as they watch him blow news cycles behaving in this way that is again, I think racially tinged and also really wildly inappropriate things to say about a federal judge by someone who could be president of the United States.
HALPERIN: It’s certainly racially tinged. I just want to make the point that Mexico is not – Mexican is not a race.
HEILEMANN: I am fully aware that Mexico is not a race, but you can invoke things like that to stir up racial animus regardless of whether or not Mexico is a race or not. |
Mark Shuttleworth is not your average IT manager. A few weeks ago, he posted a question on an Ubuntu list. Not an order. Not a policy decision. A question: "Should we think about...?" he asked. Collaboration, community and teamwork are part of his personal style.
Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth
Yet Shuttleworth, who founded the Ubuntu project in 2004 and is still an active member of its technical board and community council, has plenty of experience in technology leadership. In 1999, he sold Thawte, his company specializing in digital certificates and Internet privacy to VeriSign, and founded HBD Venture Capital and The Shuttleworth Foundation. He was the second self-funded space tourist; in April 2002 Shuttleworth was a cosmonaut member of the crew of Soyuz mission TM34 to the International Space Station.
His open-source contributions are laudatory. He was a developer of the Debian operating system in the 1990s, and in 2004 funded the development of Ubuntu, a Linux distribution based on Debian, through his company Canonical Ltd. According to the latest Evans Data Open Source report, 38% of open source developers use the Ubuntu distribution today.
Shuttleworth has personally made significant technology achievements and also has inspired volunteers to contribute to a community that's trying to make a difference in the world. Here's the lessons he's learned about what it takes to get people to change.
There are limits to the wisdom of crowds.
The crowd can easily turn into a herd. When companies adopt the same tools, the same practices and the same suppliers as their competitors, it becomes more difficult for them to stand out from the crowd, and it introduces the risk that everybody assumes somebody else did the analysis to determine that they are on the optimal course.
Organizations with a clear idea of what they do differently, and why, are in a better position to pull away from the crowd. The current financial crisis clearly demonstrates the risk in simply following without being willing to question the fundamental value of an approach or an offering. Everyone assumes, "Somebody must have thought about this," when perhaps no one did.
In other words, if you do the same thing as everyone else, you are going to get the same result as everyone else. You won't stand out. Be conscious of the things you do differently.
It is necessary to harness both individualism and teams.
Many of the best ideas, concepts, prototypes and innovations come from a single person's insight. You get these amazing bits of work from inspired individuals who have the freedom to act, when they have the tools and knowledge they need.
But to scale any operation takes the work of teams, and more often than not, teams of teams. Leaders inspire that flash of genius and also make those individuals want to work together. Great teamwork is a real skill.
Finding a way to nurture individual passion and pride while at the same time creating a spirit of teamwork is a hallmark of the leaders I admire most. Pulling off both of those in the same organization is magical but essential.
Tough times are good.
The scale of economic and financial challenges we face today should not be underestimated, and the effect on individual's lives can be devastating. But disruptive events and periods are also an opportunity to re-evaluate and change.
Austerity creates pressure to innovate; necessity is truly the mother of invention. During hard times, we try to get more out of what we have and we assess investments with a different eye. Rather than simply doing "more of the same, faster," we ask whether we can do things differently, and we create the opportunity for long-term improvements. Plus, innovators can use their slack time to work on new ideas (since some of them are laid off and living on their severance packages, or simply with more idle time at the office).
The survivors today will thrive tomorrow. They will have less competition, and they will have proven their agility and their efficiency.
Large changes are only possible when they have the potential to deliver radical improvements.
To persuade people to make changes, you have to offer them compelling and dramatic improvements. If you are asking people to change the way they work, it isn't enough for a product to be slightly cheaper or slightly faster or slightly newer. One needs to deliver a 50 percent saving in cost and improved reliability (or efficiency or functionality) to create space for one's product in a crowded marketplace. You have to be 50 percent, 100 percent better. Not just ten percent.
The earth from space is the most beautiful thing most people never get to see.
We forget the fragility of the Earth. It's the only one we have, and we have an obligation to protect it.
From space, I was struck by one thing: there's no buffer. On Earth, we see so much sky. But space is empty and dark and it can't support us. When you see the planet as if it's the size of a basketball, the atmosphere is thinner than your fingernail.
It's also a small place, which we have to share, so it's worth taking time to figure out how we can live together here more peacefully. |
EXCLUSIVE: The second season of Insecure ended last month on HBO but star and co-creator Issa Rae looks to just be getting started with the premium cabler.
With a third season of the acclaimed comedy in the works, the Golden Globe nominee is now also developing a drama with HBO, I’ve learned. With Rae set to executive produce and set in Los Angeles in the early and turbulent 1990s, the project will center on an African-American family dealing with the events of the time. National Book Award finalist and The Turner House author Angela Flournoy will write and EP the still untitled project.
“I’m so thrilled to be working with Angela,” Rae told Deadline. “I was a huge fan of The Turner House and we feel so lucky to bring her beautiful storytelling to HBO,” the actor added of the 2015 first-time novel from the NAACP Image Award nominee who was also shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize.
Bridging those later Reagan Era and early Clinton years, the drama will center on the marriage of Sheryl and Jackson, with the former an envelope bounds-pushing real estate agent and the latter a conflicted LAPD anti-gang task force recruit. The potential series will also feature the couples’ teen daughter and son, Ebony and Les.
Along with Rae and Flournoy, Dave Becky & Jonathan Berry at 3 Arts and Montrel McKay at Apex Content Ventures will executive produce too.
The Insecure co-creator is repped by UTA, 3 Arts Entertainment and attorney John v. Meigs Jr. Flournoy is repped by 3 Arts and attorneys Grace Kallis and Lev Ginsburg. |
Selena killer's time begins with isolation
Death threats reason for protection
By PATTY REINERT Copyright 1995 Houston Chronicle
8:10 PM 10/27/1995
Yolanda Saldivar, who has received numerous death threats since she killed Tejano star Selena last March, will begin her life prison sentence in isolation, leaving her cell for only an hour a day to walk the grounds alone, a prison official said Friday. Saldivar, the former fan club president and employee Selena affectionately called "Buffy," returned to Corpus Christi Friday morning. She was transferred to the Nueces County Jail a day after a Houston jury gave her the maximum sentence for the singer's March 31 slaying outside a Corpus Christi motel.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman David Nunnelee said Saldivar soon will be moved to the state prison reception center in Gatesville, near Waco, for processing. During her first seven to 10 days there, she will be photographed and fingerprinted, and will receive physical and psychological exams before being assigned to a unit. She likely will remain at the Gatesville prison, Nunnelee said, because it has segregated units to separate disruptive prisoners and those who, like Saldivar, need to be protected from other inmates.
"There have been threats made against her. We realize that," Nunnelee said. Saldivar's attorney, Doug Tinker, said he and his client have received death threats from a prison gang, the Mexican Mafia, as well as others, and Saldivar is terrified she will be hurt or killed. "She is scared to death that she will be harmed wherever she goes," he said after the sentence was read Thursday afternoon. "But isolation is not a blessing. It's cruel in itself --having almost no contact with any other person. I think if it were me, I'd rather take my chances."
Tinker, who plans to appeal Saldivar's murder conviction and sentence, said he is hopeful she will eventually be allowed contact with other prisoners and will be able to use her skills as a registered nurse while behind bars. But Nunnelee said, "She won't have a work assignment because she'll be locked up in her cell most of the time." Unless her conviction is thrown out on appeal, Saldivar, 35, will have to spend at least 30 years in prison before being eligible for parole.
While in isolation, she will spend nearly 23 hours a day alone in her 9-by-6 foot cell, leaving only to shower and to exercise outside or watch television by herself, Nunnelee said. She will eat her meals in her cell and will have virtually no contact with other prisoners, he said. She can purchase a radio from the prison commissary, and will be allowed a two-hour visit with family or friends a week, he added. Saldivar could eventually be moved into the general population of the prison, although that is not likely anytime soon. "It's hard to say (when) at this point," Nunnelee said. "I guess it depends on people's memories." |
The aim of the present study was to further investigate the psychological mechanisms underlying the ayahuasca experience, and specifically whether ayahuasca acutely affects creative thinking. It was shown that during the acute inebriation, ayahuasca caused a decrease in conventional convergent thinking and enhanced creative divergent thinking, as measured by the PCT. All dependent variables associated with the PLMT remained unaffected.
The ayahuasca-induced enhancement of divergent thinking could potentially be linked to the effects ayahuasca exerts on brain regions involved in creativity. Three core networks, i.e., the default mode network (DMN), including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortices, the central executive network (CEN), including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortices, and the salience network (SN), including dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula, interact during divergent thinking via corticostriatal-thalamocortical loops (Chávez-Eakle et al. 2007; de Manzano et al. 2010; Fink et al. 2009; Geyer and Vollenweider 2008; Jung et al. 2013; Pinho et al. 2015). The thalamus feeds information into the SN which in turn coordinates the other mentioned networks (Beaty et al. 2016; Uddin 2015). The SN monitors events occurring outside of the body as well as internal consciousness and is able to direct attention to whatever is more important at a certain moment in time. It is suggested that especially these shifts between these externally (CEN) and internally (DMN) oriented cognitive networks are very important in creative divergent thinking (Jung et al. 2013; Perlovsky and Levine 2012). Interestingly, previous research has shown that ayahuasca reduced thalamic gating of sensory and cognitive information (Riba et al. 2002). Taking into account the neuronal pathways previously described, this could lead to an increase in information fed into the salience network. Consistent with this line of thinking is the fact that Riba and colleagues (2006) showed an increase in blood perfusion in the SN after ayahuasca ingestion. Previously, other imaging studies with psychedelics also showed increased blood perfusion or a higher metabolic rate of glucose in the frontal and paralimbic areas during (e.g., anterior insula, anterior cingulate) psilocybin and mescaline (Gouzoulis-Mayfrank et al. 1999a, b; Hermle et al. 1992; Riba et al. 2006; Vollenweider et al. 1997). In addition, Alonso et al. (2015) found broad-band power decrements in the EEG signal after ayahuasca compared to placebo. Based on the knowledge about negative correlations between EEG and BOLD (Moosmann et al. 2003), this was interpreted as reflecting increased activation of areas involved in visual processing and in the cognitive-emotional processing anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), an area that is central to the SN.
Alonso et al. (2015) also showed a temporary induced disruption of neural hierarchies by ayahuasca, i.e., by reducing top-down control and increasing bottom-up information transfer in the human brain (Alonso et al. 2015). It was suggested that the higher excitability of posterior regions in combination with the loosening of the cognitive grip exerted by frontal regions responsible for executive control may underlie the associations and insights that emerge during the experience (Alonso et al. 2015). Palhano-Fontes and colleagues (2015) also found other parts of these networks to be influenced by ayahuasca, i.e., they showed a decrement in the functional connectivity in parts of the DMN after ayahuasca ingestion (Palhano-Fontes et al. 2015). It was suggested that this could result in more cognitive flexibility and consequently potentially enhanced divergent thinking (Carhart-Harris et al. 2014). However, Petri et al. (2014) suggest that the picture is more complex as they showed that the brain does not become a random system after psilocybin administration but still has stable connections which are different from the placebo state and only present in the psychedelic state (Petri et al. 2014). Likewise, Roseman et al. (2014) showed an increase in between-network resting state functional connectivity under psilocybin across normally distinct brain networks (Roseman et al. 2014). This increased integration between cortical areas could give rise to more associations (Petri et al. 2014) and an increased influence of imagination on visual perception (Roseman et al. 2014). Still, the precise neurobiological underpinning of how psychedelics may enhance divergent creative thinking remains largely unknown, and further research is warranted.
Convergent thinking can be seen as the second phase in the creative thinking process, i.e., focused on narrowing possibilities to a workable solution after the ideas have been generated through divergent thinking (Hennessey and Amabile 2009). Studies have shown this phase to be associated with an increase in CEN activity (Sowden et al. 2015). In the present study, ayahuasca caused deterioration in convergent thinking. Palhano-Fontes and colleagues (2015) found that ayahuasca only influenced activity in the DMN without changing the connection between DMN and CEN (Palhano-Fontes et al. 2015). The absence of ayahuasca enhancing effects on the CEN, together with the decrease in thalamic gating and loosened cognitive control described by Alonso and colleagues (2015), could explain the negative effect of ayahuasca on convergent thinking (Alonso et al. 2015). However, research with other psychedelics, e.g., psilocybin, showed an increase in functional connectivity between the DMN and the task-positive network or CEN (Carhart-Harris et al. 2013; Roseman et al. 2014).
Ayahuasca selectively affected performance in the PCT and not in the PLMT. Anecdotal reports from participants suggest that the stimuli of the PCT elicited more novel thoughts due to their more complex and colorful nature. In contrast, the stimuli in the PLMT contrast were very simple black-and-white line drawings. The latter probably gave less input into the system involved in the generation of new ideas. Another point to be mentioned is the quasi-experimental design of this study which potentially limits the conclusions that can be drawn from it. It could be argued that because ayahuasca sessions always followed the baseline session, and as it is known that ideas can get more creative over time (Beaty and Silvia 2012), a potential order effect could have influenced the results. However, besides the fact that parallel versions of tasks were used in a randomized order to counter potential order effects, the double dissociation, i.e., improvement of divergent thinking and impairment of convergent thinking, suggests that results were not subjected to the serial order effect.
Previously, it has been shown that the connection between divergent thinking and mood is particularly strong and positive (Baas et al. 2008; Davis 2009), i.e., more positive mood improves divergent thinking. In contrast, convergent thinking and mood are related in a negative way: more positive mood lowers convergent thinking. Mood of participants in the present study was generally very positive, which may have contributed to their openness to creative ideas. Mood ratings were only taken after drinking ayahuasca and could not be compared to mood states before drinking; nonetheless, they differed statistically from 0. In the future, placebo-controlled studies including measures of mood could test whether mood changes are a moderator in the effects of ayahuasca. Another point which could be addressed in future research is the usefulness of ideas generated in the divergent thinking task as this is part of the definition of divergent creative thinking. By including for example a task in which this quality can be assessed, e.g., the “alternate uses task,” it can be tested whether ayahuasca also improves this aspect of divergent thinking.
It would be interesting and important in the light of potential clinical applications of ayahuasca to investigate whether the effects are stable or also vary in time. It is known that ayahuasca induces an intense modified state of consciousness, starting between 35 and 40 min after administration and lasting approximately 4 h (Frecska et al. 2016). We showed that during this period, divergent thinking was enhanced and convergent thinking distorted. Soler et al. (2015) demonstrated that 24 h after ayahuasca intake, mindfulness-related capacities were enhanced (Soler et al. 2015). Mindfulness, a state of nonjudgmental, sustained, and alert awareness which improves people’s cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal functioning, has been shown to be linked with convergent thinking and less with divergent thinking (Lebuda et al. 2016). Based on these findings, it could be interesting to see whether convergent thinking is recovered 24 h after ayahuasca administration. It is suggested, based on a study of Bouso et al. (2008) on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in post-traumatic stress disorder, that the potential effect pattern of ayahuasca would make it suited for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. The increase in divergent thinking during the acute phase could help patients relive events, recalling various associations without feeling inhibited (Bouso et al. 2008; Frecska et al. 2012, 2016). The sub-acute effects could then be suited in a second, “integration” session in which patients discuss the experiences they had on ayahuasca and find strategies that help them cope with intensive emotions. Future studies should therefore not only focus on either the acute or sub-acute phase but also take both stages into account.
In the past decade, a renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics has emerged (Anderson 2012; McKenna 2004; Sessa and Johnson 2015). The present study has shown that ayahuasca promotes divergent thinking, an ability which has been shown to be an important aspect in cognitive therapy (Forgeard and Elstein 2014). It can therefore be suggested that ayahuasca possesses qualities that can promote a therapeutic process. However, since convergent thinking is also a critical aspect in therapy, and the current findings show that ayahuasca impairs this facet during the acute phase, future studies have to investigate whether this effect profile changes over time. Additional research utilizing a placebo-controlled experimental design, including additional creativity measures, is warranted, before results can be generalized. |
he constellation, Ophiuchus, has been known since ancient times, and is better known as Serpentarius, the Serpent Holder. It is included in the list of 48 constellations described by Ptolemy. Ophiuchus is depicted as a man handling a serpent; his body dividing the large snake into two parts, giving way to the symbol used today as an Asclepius - the medical staff. Astrologers have not included Ophiuchus in the wheel of Astrological signs because the Sun spends only about nineteen days in this 13th sign of the Mazzaroth. Not that there wasn't a 13th sign in the Heavens, but as far as Astrologers were concerned, the Sun traveled from the constellation 'Scorpius' and then proceeded directly into the sign of Sagittarius. In reality, this was not the case. The Sun, for 19 days of the year, travels through the star constellation 'Ophiuchus' before entering Sagittarius from Scorpius - see chart below. thus The sign of Ophiuchus is patterned after the original 'Serpent Holder', Enki, a Sumerian god. he signs of the Zodiac are for the most part, the highway, or path on which the Sun takes it's yearly journey across the heavens - as it would appear to Earthlings. These signs are actually star constellations occupying space in which the Sun appears to travels in an earth year. The original twelve signs/constellations: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces are quite familiar to everyone, however, the thirteenth sign and constellation, [Ophiuchus], is in fact, not well known. To acknowledge a 13th sign now would seem awkward for astrologers, who like the tidiness of 12 signs that rule over the 12 houses of the Zodiac. The heavens are alive and they do change after a few thousand years and the astrologer who wants to maintain accuracy must change along with the signs in the heavens.
he constellation of Ophiuchus is the only sign of the Zodiac which is linked to a real man. This man lived in ancient Egypt around the 27th century BCE , and his name was Imhotep [again patterned after Enki]. Many of the same attributes of Imhotep can also be found in the Biblical Hebrew man Joseph, son of Jacob - [see comparison chart for these two men in separate article]. Imhotep is credited with many accomplishments including the knowledge and use of medicine. It is said of Imhotep that he brought the art of healing to mankind. The symbol of a serpent [or snake], which is still widely used today to represent the medical profession, was used to represent Imhotep. Imhotep was also known as 'Aesclepius' to the ancient Greeks, but by any name the attributes are still all the same. The attributes listed below describe the Serpent Holder, Imhotep, i.e. the Hebrew Joseph, and Aesclepius.
The keyword descriptions seen below originated with Betty Rhodes and are the attributes for the 13th sign of the Zodiac - Ophiuchus:
LIST OF KEY WORDS DESCRIBING THE SIGN OF OPHIUCHUS
Interpreter of dreams, vivid premonitions,
Attracts good luck and fruitful blessings,
Serpent holder, lofty ideals,
A seeker of peace and harmony,
Doctor of medicine or science, natural-pathic,
Adds, increases, joins, or gathers together
Poetical, inventive nature, expanding qualities,
Seeks higher education and wisdom,
Overseer, supervisor of work,
Fame - either grand, or completely misunderstood,
Longevity, aspirations of healing the ills of man,
Architect, builder, reaches for the stars, figuratively and literally,
Tax assessor, or levys taxes,
Astrological talents, intuitive,
Large family indicated, but apt to be separated from them when young,
The number twelve holds great significance,
Foresight and good fortune to benefit from hard times,
Has secret enemies in family or close associations,
Many jealous of this subject,
Notable father, apple of father's eye when young,
High position in life expected [depending on aspects] highest fame and legend comes after death
Feelings of grandeur, wise, a genius mentality,
Likes to wear clothing of vibrant colors, tartans and plaids in particular,
Receives the favor of those in authority.
ACTUAL TRUE ZODIAC
AS OF 2000 AD
ARIES = APRIL 19 - MAY 13 TAURUS = MAY 14 - JUNE 19 GEMINI = JUNE 20 - JULY 20 CANCER = JULY 21 - AUG 9 LEO = AUGUST 10 - SEPTEMBER 15 VIRGO = SEPTEMBER 16 - OCTOBER 30 LIBRA = OCTOBER 31 - NOVEMBER 22 SCORPIO = NOVEMBER 23 - NOVEMBER 29 OPHIUCHUS = NOVEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 17 SAGITTARIUS = DECEMBER 18 - JANUARY 18 CAPRICORN = JANUARY 19 - FEBRUARY 15 AQUARIUS = FEBRUARY 16 - MARCH 11 PISCES = MARCH 12 - APRIL 18
Of the sign Ophiuchus:
"Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt." GEN 41:40-44
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE 'SNAKE' IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, THE 'SNAKES' OF IRELAND, AND THE ASSOCIATION WITH THE MEDICAL PROFESSION, READ:
"Keeper of the Celtic Secrets" by Betty Rhodes - see http://the-red-thread.net for info.
Caduceus vs the Staff of Asclepius
The Caduceus [left] depicts two entwined snakes set upon a rod, and was the ancient symbol of Hermes, the Greek god of merchants. Today it is a common and popular symbol of the medical and allied professions. If you have ever sat in waiting room chairs of a doctor's room reading a medical journal, then you have come across the Caduceus.
Asclepius (an ancient greek physician who was deified as the god of medicine) is traditionally depicted as a bearded man wearing a robe that leaves his chest uncovered and holding a staff with his sacred single serpent coiled around it symbolizing renewal of youth as the serpent casts off its skin. The single serpent staff also appears on a Sumerian vase of c. 2000 B.C. representing the healing god Ningishita, the prototype of the Greek Asklepios.
The probable medical origin of the single serpent around a rod: In ancient times infection by parasitic worms was common. The filarial worm Dracunculus medinensis aka "the fiery serpent", aka "the dragon of Medina" aka "the guinea worm" crawled around the victim's body, just under the skin. Physicians treated this infection by cutting a slit in the patient's skin, just in front of the worm's path. As the worm crawled out the cut, the physician carefully wound the pest around a stick until the entire animal had been removed. It is believed that because this type of infection was so common, physicians advertised their services by displaying a sign with the worm on a stick.
see: Imhotep as Joseph for additional Ophiuchus description
To read more on the 13th sign of the Zodiac - Ophiuchus use these links:
http://www.eastbayastro.org/articles/lore/ophiuchus.htm
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As we have noted before, when the president says “it bypasses the United States,” he leaves out a very important step. The crude oil would travel to the Gulf Coast, where it would be refined into products such as motor gasoline and diesel fuel (known as a distillate fuel in the trade). Current trends suggest that only about half of that refined product would be exported, and it could easily be lower. (snip)
Finally, note that Obama said Keystone was just for Canadian oil, and “we should be focusing on American infrastructure for American jobs and American producers.” But actually, Keystone would help U.S. oil producers in North Dakota and Montana. TransCanada, the builder of the pipeline, has signed contracts to move 65,000 barrels a day from the Bakken area –and hopes to build that to 100,000. That’s nearly 10 percent of the region’s production. (snip)
The president’s latest remarks pushes this assertion into the Four Pinocchios column. If he disagrees with the State Department’s findings, he should begin to make the case why it is wrong, rather than assert the opposite, without any factual basis. Moreover, by telling North Dakota listeners that the pipeline has no benefit for Americans, he is again being misleading, given that producers in the region have signed contracts to transport some of their production through the pipeline. |
April 19, 2014 — andyextance
Sometimes when I blow my nose and – inevitably – look into my handkerchief, I see that my snot is black. It doesn’t happen when I’m at home, in the small English city of Exeter, only when I’m in London. It’s a clear sign of the extra pollution I’m inhaling when I’m in the capital – one backed up by data published last week by Public Health England. Its striking report says that in 2010 73 deaths per thousand in the London borough of Waltham Forest, where my girlfriend’s sister lives, could be put down to grimy air. For Exeter, the figure was just 42 per 1000. Across the whole of England, pollution killed 25,002 people in 2010, or 56 of every 1000 deaths nationwide.
But wherever you live, air pollution will become even more important as the climate changes, while fighting this scourge could also help the world bring global warming under control. “There’s more than enough rationale for controlling emissions based on the health effects and the benefits that we get as a society from getting off of fossil fuels,” New York University’s George Thurston told me. “Those are the benefits that are going to accrue to the people who do the clean-up – locally and immediately, not fifty years from now.”
Public Health England is trying to draw attention to ‘particulate matter’, or dust, less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter, too small to see with our naked eye. You won’t find this ‘PM 2.5 ’ pollution listed as people’s cause of death – it’s likely to be down as a heart attack or lung cancer. George has run huge studies in the US to help work out exactly how much such dust worsens people’s health. One study for the American Cancer Society followed 1.2 million men and women originally enrolled in 1982. Another, started in 1995, tracked over 500,000 US retirees over the following decade. And he was also a part of a worldwide project that last year showed ‘global particulate matter pollution is a major avoidable risk to the health of humankind’.
It does particularly matter
By closely scrutinising people’s lifestyles, where they lived and when they died, George and his colleagues could tease out the consequences of higher pollution levels. “Most of the deaths have cardiovascular causes,” he said. “Heart disease is already a big problem, and if you do something that increases the risk of that, then it adds up to a lot of deaths.”
Seemingly tiny amounts of fine particle muck, measured in micrograms – millionths of a gram – per cubic metre (µg/m3), can therefore have far more serious effects than just colouring snot. George and his colleagues had found that just a 10 µg/m3 increase in fine particle concentrations was linked to a one-tenth to one-fifth increase in risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Bodies like Public Health England can then use such figures to work out what proportion of all deaths were down to air pollution, and in turn how many people it’s killed.
Meanwhile, although they’re not greenhouse gases black, sooty carbon particles often produced at the same time as PM 2.5 pollution warm the atmosphere by intercepting and absorbing sunlight. Black carbon has been called ‘the second most important individual climate-warming agent after CO2’. Burning fossil fuels – for example in power stations or vehicles – is a major source of both CO2 and black carbon. Bringing black carbon into consideration therefore makes reducing our reliance on fossil fuels even more desirable.
By using climate models, researchers at Environment Canada showed in 2012 that a future scenario that brings climate change under control by 2100 would also cut PM 2.5 levels. Looking across North America, they found climate change alone would increase PM 2.5 pollution by more than 0.2 µg/m3 between the two periods 1997-2006 and 2041-2050. Over much of the eastern US and the Hudson Bay in northern Canada, levels grew by 0.5-1 µg/m3. But the relatively modest emission cuts that they modelled would generally reduce PM 2.5 by as much as 10 µg/m3 in some areas.
Getting the message through the smog
As well as showing the benefits of cleaning up our fuel supplies, that paper also hints at how climate change would likely worsen the health impact of air pollution. This effect comes because the climate helps determine how pollutants move through and are removed from the air. Likewise, another group of scientists at Stanford University, California, found in 2012 that one likely impact of a warmer world would be more days with stagnant air conditions.
The air would be more stagnant in some regions thanks to decreases in wind and rainfall, which then lets pollution linger, the Stanford team found. In a scenario where CO2 emissions peak around 2050, the eastern US was particularly sensitive to this problem, as were Mediterranean Europe and eastern China. By the end of the 21st century, they project, stagnant days in industrial regions will be an eighth to a quarter more common than at the end of the 20th century.
With even bodies like Public Health England trying to draw attention to air pollution, you’d think the chances were good that something would be done. But here in the UK, we scarcely talked about it until pollution hit the highest level used by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) earlier this month. Then, dust clouds blown in from the Sahara desert were partly blamed for the air getting a 10/10 ranking for dirtiness, with DEFRA advising the sick and people experiencing sore eyes or throats to limit what they do outside. But that level’s been achieved five times a year on average for the past five years, with DEFRA making hardly any effort to get its warnings out.
Such failures are part of the reason George highlights that we need greater action to get fossil fuel particles out of our noses, lungs, and our health overall. He adds that doctors and climate researchers should combine in pushing our governments to recognise the multiple benefits reducing emissions would provide. “I don’t think the politicians are really going to do this without scientists and physicians stepping forward and saying we need to clean up the air for health reasons as well as climate change reasons,” he said. He also stresses that the health benefits of any cuts would be effectively immediate. “Lowering fossil fuel combustion, changing over our energy use, would cause a reduction in the number of people dying every year,” George emphasises.
Journal references:
Pope, C. (2003). Cardiovascular Mortality and Long-Term Exposure to Particulate Air Pollution: Epidemiological Evidence of General Pathophysiological Pathways of Disease Circulation, 109 (1), 71-77 DOI: 10.1161/01.CIR.0000108927.80044.7F
Smith, K., Jerrett, M., Anderson, H., Burnett, R., Stone, V., Derwent, R., Atkinson, R., Cohen, A., Shonkoff, S., Krewski, D., Pope, C., Thun, M., & Thurston, G. (2009). Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: health implications of short-lived greenhouse pollutants The Lancet, 374 (9707), 2091-2103 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61716-5
Horton, D., Harshvardhan, ., & Diffenbaugh, N. (2012). Response of air stagnation frequency to anthropogenically enhanced radiative forcing Environmental Research Letters, 7 (4) DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/044034
Kelly, J., Makar, P., & Plummer, D. (2012). Projections of mid-century summer air-quality for North America: effects of changes in climate and precursor emissions Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, 12 (2), 3875-3940 DOI: 10.5194/acpd-12-3875-2012
Thurston, G. (2013). Mitigation policy: Health co-benefits Nature Climate Change, 3 (10), 863-864 DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2013
Rice, M., Thurston, G., Balmes, J., & Pinkerton, K. (2014). Climate Change. A Global Threat to Cardiopulmonary Health American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 189 (5), 512-519 DOI: 10.1164/rccm.201310-1924PP
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Some people have trouble losing weight because of their metabolism. (Photo: Katye Martens, USA TODAY)
It's like bureaucratic fat-shaming: New Zealand has informed a chef who moved there from South Africa that he is too heavy to stay in the country, reports the BBC.
Albert Buitenhuis weighs about 285 pounds, and the government deems the 50-year-old too much of a health risk. (It should know: New Zealand has the third highest rate of obesity in the world, behind the U.S. and Mexico, notes AFP.)
But now the weird part: When Buitenhuis moved to New Zealand in 2007 with his wife, he weighed about 350 pounds—meaning he's been slimming down all the while.
NEWSER: We can now identify each wolf by its howl
"The irony is that at the moment he weighs less than he [did] when we first arrived in New Zealand," his wife tells Stuff.co.nz. The government didn't blink at his weight then or in subsequent years as the couple renewed their work visas, but this is year is different.
They're appealing, but neither has been able to work since the May decision. An immigration spokesman said Buitenhuis no longer has "an acceptable standard of health," but officials won't move to deport him until the appeal is heard.
Newser is a USA TODAY content partner providing general news, commentary and coverage from around the Web. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1e2doId |
Image: Jessica Mann was denied a tubal ligation by her Catholic hospital (Screen capture)
A pregnant Michigan woman told her hospital that she would like to have her tubes tied after she delivered her third child because of a tumor in her brain.
However, according to the Washington Post, her Catholic hospital has refused to perform the procedure citing religious laws against reproductive sterilization.
Jessica Mann is 33. Her doctor suggested that due to the risk from an inoperable tumor in her brain, she should take pains to prevent future pregnancies after the birth of this baby, who is due next month. Mann decided to have a tubal ligation while under anesthesia during the upcoming birth.
Her hospital, however — Genesys Regional Medical Center — has refused to allow the procedure to take place on its premises.
“I was surprised and upset,” said Mann. “And there was anger at the fact that they can disregard medical issues for their religious beliefs.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contacted the hospital on Mann’s behalf saying that her medical condition warrants the procedure in spite of the hospital’s religious objections.
The University of Illinois’ Robin Wilson explained to the Post that religious institutions like Catholic hospitals have “iron-clad” legal protections against being forced to perform abortions, vasectomies or tubal ligations. There are other, more limited protections in place against other procedures they deem to be morally objectionable, but they are obliged to provide care in emergency situations.
Catholic hospitals are taking up a growing portion of the U.S. market share as provider networks grow and absorb other hospitals. According to a study by the ACLU and public advocacy group MergerWatch, the number of Catholic hospitals increased by 16 percent even as the overall number of hospitals in the country declined.
“By 2011, the report found, 10 percent of all acute-care hospitals were Catholic-sponsored or -affiliated, representing about 1 in 9 hospital beds in the country,” wrote the Post‘s Sandhya Somashekhar.
The ACLU said that Mann’s case is not covered under current statutes and argued that these types of faith-based restrictions inordinately impact the type of care available to women.
“These ethical and religious directives single out women and care that women need,” said ACLU staff attorney Brigitte Amiri.
Mann was diagnosed ten years ago with two benign brain tumors called pilocytic astrocytomas. These types of tumors can ultimately grow large enough to cause blindness, paralysis and other neurological impairments. Mann had one tumor removed and continues to monitor the other for signs of growth or sudden changes.
Because of the tumor, Mann has to be fully sedated for delivery. After her second child, her doctor recommended that the next baby be her last.
“You know, it’s never easy to hear that. But I have accepted it,” said Mann. “I talked it over with my husband. We want me to be around. That’s the biggest thing.”
The family is trying to find a new hospital and attending physician for the birth, which Mann admits is stressful at this late point in her pregnancy. Genesys administrators suggested that she have the baby now and a second procedure for the tubal ligation at another hospital.
Mann countered that the very reason she is having her tubes tied is because another full sedation is the exact medical circumstance her doctor has warned her against.
“The feeling of the unknown is stressful and disheartening,” said Mann. “But I have the support of my husband and my doctor, so I can’t let it affect me too much.”
Watch video about this story, embedded below: |
LGBT Pride Month, observed in June, is celebrated around the U.S. with parades and activism events. At the same time, many people do not know Pride Month's origin, which honors the 1969 Stonewall riots--a demonstration which blazed the trail for activists across the country.
In 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. There has been a lot of progress since then, but LGBT advocates are still working toward a future without discrimination in the workplace and beyond.
Here are some powerful quotes from changemakers who are have contributed to the movement for LGBT equality:
"Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it's a good place to start."--Jason Collins, first openly gay athlete in U.S. pro sports "When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free."--Barack Obama "The only queer people are those who don't love anybody."--Rita Mae Brown "This world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another."--Ellen Page "Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"--Author Ernest J. Gaines "I hate the word homophobia. It's not a phobia. You're not scared. You're an asshole."--Morgan Freeman "I believe that no one should ever have to choose between a career we love and living our lives with authenticity and integrity"--Out & Equal Executive Director Selisse Berry "It takes some intelligence and insight to figure out you're gay and then a tremendous amount of balls to live it and live it proudly."--Jason Bateman "Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."--Writer/actor Bob Paris "All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more - and no less - heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century; and the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century. We are ordinary people, living our lives, and trying as civil-rights activist Dorothy Cotton said, to 'fix what ain't right' in our society."--Senator Tammy Baldwin "I'm living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay."--Portia DeRossi "I think being gay is a blessing, and it's something I am thankful for every single day."--Anderson Cooper "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."--Harvey Fierstein "The beauty of standing up for your rights is others see you standing and stand up as well."--Advice columnist Cassandra Duffy "I've been embraced by a new community. That's what happens when youre finally honest about who you are; you find others like you."--Chaz Bono "Somebody, your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour--and in the oddest places!--for the lack of it."--Author James Baldwin "We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity."--George Takei |
Lindsey Graham Commits Huge Gaffe: Shows Complete Lack of Understanding on the Budget
The Post neglected to point out that Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican often cited on budget issues, is apparently badly confused about the basics of the budget. A Post piece quoted Graham as saying:
"This offer doesn’t remotely deal with entitlement reform in a way to save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from imminent bankruptcy."
This statement is absurd on its face. Medicaid is paid out of general revenue, it makes no more sense to say that Medicaid faces bankruptcy than to say that the Commerce Department faces bankruptcy. While the same is true of Medicare Part B and Part D, the Hospital Insurance portion of the program (Part A) is funded by a trust fund with a designated revenue source that is first projected to face a shortfall in 2024. If the projections prove correct, at that point it would lack sufficient revenue to pay full benefits.
While this would be a problem, it is worth noting that, contrary to the criticisms made by Graham in the piece, President Obama's reforms have extended the projected solvency of the program from 2016 to 2024. They have also eliminated more than two-thirds of the projected 75-year shortfall.
In the case of Social Security, the projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that the program can pay all scheduled benefits through the year 2035 with no changes whatsoever. Even after that date it would be able to pay close to 80 percent of scheduled benefits for the rest of the century, leaving future beneficiaries with benefits that considerably exceed those of current retirees.
The Post should have pointed out that what Graham asserted was nonsense, since many readers may not have recognized this fact. Actually, this astounding gaffe should have been the focus of the piece, since Graham is often treated by the media as an expert on the budget. It is probably worth noting that Graham typically presents views on the budget that are similar to the Post's editors. |
Former leader of the Conservative party Colin Craig, accompanied by his wife Helen, has admitted "inappropriate" conduct in his relationship with his former press secretary Rachel MacGregor but denied claims he sexually harassed her.
Colin Craig's former press secretary has accused him of trying to "frame" her "like a mistress", and has asked to be released from a confidentiality agreement so she can go public.
Craig, who on Monday, stood with his wife at his side to rebut swirling allegations of sexual harassment involving Rachel MacGregor, said he was open to it and was discussing it with his lawyers today.
He resigned as Conservative Party leader on Friday, after some members of the board tried to confront him over the allegations.
SUPPLIED Former Conservative Party press secretary Rachel MacGregor.
After days of publicly denying any knowledge of the allegations, Craig admitted "inappropriate" conduct in his relationship with MacGregor but denied claims he sexually harassed her.
He also rejected claims of a secret financial settlement with MacGregor but detailed payments including the settlement of an outstanding $50,000 invoice. He said both parties eventually agreed on a figure of $16,000.
Craig also said he and his wife Helen gave MacGregor a personal loan of $20,000 to settle significant credit card debt, which he later forgave.
Lawrence Smith Former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig and his wife Helen at a press conference in Auckland.
"In hindsight, on some occasions our conduct was inappropriate and we have acknowledged that so that we can both move on," Craig said at a press conference he attended with his wife, Helen.
After Monday's press conference, MacGregor broke her silence via a statement from her lawyer, accusing Craig of "clear factual inaccuracies", which she was happy to address, should he release her from a confidentiality agreement.
She later posted on Twitter: "Colin Craig is trying to frame me as a mistress. There was never a sexual relationship..."
Lawrence Smith Former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig and his wife Helen at a press conference in Auckland.
He and MacGregor have confirmed there was a mediated settlement. MacGregor said it was with the Human Rights Commission, under which they were both bound by confidentiality.
But Craig said he was speaking publicly in response to some of the allegations that had been made against him.
He said that in hindsight on some occasions he had engaged in "inappropriate" conduct with MacGregor.
DAVID WHITE/Fairfax NZ Former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig says he might be open to releasing Rachel MacGregor from a confidentiality agreement, but would need to discuss it with lawyers.
"Let me make it clear that I have never sexually harassed anyone and allegations to the contrary are wrong."
MacGregor said his comments amounted to a breach of their agreement, but she was still bound to honour it.
"Colin Craig's statement [yesterday], along with other public statements in recent days, breach a confidentially agreement that Mr Craig and I reached during a Human Rights Commission mediation," she said.
"Despite Mr Craig's public comments I have been advised by my lawyers that I am still bound by the confidentiality agreement.
"I am therefore unable to correct the clear factual inaccuracies contained in the statement Mr Craig made today without jeopardising my legal position."
MacGregor said she was willing to correct the statements and brief the Conservative Party board, if Craig promised he would not take legal action against her.
Craig said he would need to discuss MacGregor's request to be released from the confidentiality agreement with his lawyers. He was not ruling it out.
"She's offered the opportunity to perhaps lift some confidentiality and we might not be opposed to that."
On Radio New Zealand's Morning Report, Craig said his lawyers had confirmed her offer was genuine.
"My preference, if we're going to lift confidentiality, is that it's lifted entirely, that both parties are free to speak and all information is out in the public domain."
On MacGregor's statement about inaccuracies, Craig said he had received no correspondence "that anything I've said is inaccurate".
"That may be where we start, we invite her to explain to us what inaccuracies she thinks exist and maybe we go from there."
Party chief executive Christine Rankin said she was considering cutting all ties with the party in light of the "embarrassing" political fallout.
"I felt just awful about the way it was conducted. I don't think that's the whole story and there's more to come," she told Radio NZ.
Rankin is still making up her mind whether to quit the party altogether after losing confidence in Craig some time ago.
"I want to be part of the decision making of what happens but I don't know what the future is beyond that."
Meanwhile, Craig confirmed he would be writing to the party's grassroots in what appears to be a bid to save his political career.
Craig said he had apologised to his wife, who made a statement of her own.
Helen Craig said: "I choose to stand with my husband here today in full love and support of him whom I believe has been falsely accused."
Speculation about her husband related to "allegations already withdrawn," she said.
Board member John Stringer claimed that Craig had treated both his own wife and MacGregor "very poorly".
"It's sad to see Helen up there, Colin should have been protecting her, not the other way around."
Comments Craig made about MacGregor's finances were "despicable", Stringer said.
MacGregor abruptly resigned two days out from the 2014 election.
Craig has poured $4 million of his own money into the party he founded in 2011. |
I just finished two days of binge-watching Jessica Jones, going against my better instincts to read the comics first and spread the episodes out over at least the course of the week.
I regret nothing.
The show is great, with fantastic chemistry between the leads of Jessica (Krysten Ritter) and Trish (Rachel Taylor), and an absolutely sublime performance by David Tennant as the evil-yet-weirdly-sympathetic Killgrave.
But this is not a review of the show. Rather, I want to discuss how Jessica Jones relates to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or rather doesn’t relate, and how it makes me question the point of Marvel’s grand master plan.
For those who don’t know, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Marvel/Disney’s roadmap to have everything in Marvel media, both movies and TV, be part of the same “universe.” This was originally supposed to be how three separate superhero films (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America) combined into The Avengers, when at the time, there was nothing quite like that in movie history (and really there still isn’t, until Dawn of Justice gets here).
But that was supposed to expand into TV as well, first with the trial run of Agents of SHIELD, and now with a quartet of show on Netflix , Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist.
This actually worked pretty well for a while. Agents of SHIELD had a masterful late-season turn in which SHIELD itself was essentially dismantled by the Captain America: Winter Soldier revelation that Hydra was running most of it. That included showcasing that one of the core members of the cast was a member of Hydra this whole time, which was both shocking and fit perfectly into the movie-created lore.
And yet, nothing has happened to that extreme since, with SHIELD reduced to at best pulling cameos from some third-string member of Thor for a guest spot, but largely having nothing to do with The Avengers at all, despite how close Phil Coulson used to be to the group. It’s not clear if anyone ever even let The Avengers know that Phil Coulson came back from the dead, when he was essentially their coach for so long. Now the show just references the “big leagues” every so often by saying things like “everything changed when that city got dropped out of the sky” (referencing the events of Avengers 2). But that’s really it.
Enter Jessica Jones, which now seems so far removed from the world of The Avengers, it might as well not be in the same universe at all. Not only that, but it’s also weirdly disconnected from its own sister show as well, Daredevil.
Jessica Jones is so scared of association with the films, it drops quite literally like, two references to the Avengers in 13 episodes, and refuses to even refer to them by name, calling them “those guys” or referring to Hulk and Captain America as “the green guy and the flag-waver.” The entire plot is based around trying to prove in court that a man has the power to mind-control people when aliens just invaded the world like last year, and a sentient robot tried to destroy the world with a city-meteor shortly after.
But what’s even weirder is how Jessica Jones almost refuses to acknowledge Daredevil at all, despite the fact that it’s supposed to be sharing at least this little corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with it.
For example, a major character in Jessica Jones is Jeri Hogarth, a big time lawyer. And yet, despite the fact that Daredevil revolved around two competing law firms, and small one and a big one, from what I could tell, neither were brought up, even in casual conversation. And the same goes for “the vigilante,” the masked man who was going around beating up criminals in Hell’s Kitchen, where Jessica Jones and Luke Cage reside. No mention of him or his burough-controlling adversary Wilson Fisk at all.
I had a theory for this as the episodes went on, that Jessica Jones was actually a prequel to Daredevil, taking place before the events of that show. And yet, as you head into the final episode, Jessica Jones (very, very minor spoilers) does finally make a direct connection to Daredevil at long last, not with the hero himself, but at least with one of the characters from the show. But there you learn that these stories have been happening in parallel with each other, which makes the complete lack of cross-reference until that point really strange.
My question is, what’s the point of the Marvel Cinematic Universe having all characters occupy the same space when they’re not even allowed to say the names of the most popular heroes in the world, nor are they allowed to even have cursory references to their own companion shows when the events of each are supposed to be happening right down the street from each other?
I know that as time goes on, Jessica Jones/Luke Cage and Daredevil will intersect more, but for now, outside of a singular episode where they share a character, I would never have had any idea they were taking place on the same few blocks of New York. It’s just weird.
I also understand that everything in the Marvel Universe is trying to “be its own thing” and stand on its own two feet, but so far, it seems like the movies have a huge, huge priority, while TV sort of gets to pick up the scraps. The third Captain America movie gets Tony Stark returning for it and Thor gets The Hulk. Jessica Jones gets…a little kid running around in a Captain America Halloween costume.
This is where I think DC is actually doing a somewhat better job of things, keeping its TV and movie universes separate. The Flash and Arrow are much more well connected than anything we’ve seen from Marvel so far, and they’re even essentially merging to form a third show, Legends of Tomorrow, using beloved characters from each. I’ve speculated that DC may be poaching villains from shows like Arrow and Gotham to protect its films, but generally, they seem to be given pretty free reign to do what they want.
But the Marvel Cinematic Universe is just weird. It’s why if I hear something like “Marvel says Deadpool is part of the MCU!” that starts to mean less and less to me. So now, what, Ant-Man will show up in a two second cameo in that movie or something? Outside of The Avengers, there’s just so, so little interconnection between elements of the MCU, and in TV especially it’s particularly noticeable.
I really like these new Netflix shows, and I don’t have a problem with the MCU generally, but I also really don’t understand the point of it if they’re going to keep everything within it separated off in these little boxes where cross-referencing seems borderline illegal. If it’s going to be a living, breathing, connected universe, they have to make it feel that way. Otherwise, why bother at all?
Follow me on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Tumblr. Pick up my sci-fi novels, The Last Exodus and The Exiled Earthborn, which are now in print and online.
Why do people still love The Walking Dead? |
Two more women have come forward with sexual misconduct accusations againstSen. Al Franken(D-Minn.).
The seventh woman, a former Democratic congressional aide,told Politico in a report published Wednesdaythat Franken tried to forcibly kiss her during a taping of a radio show in 2006, before he was elected to the Senate. The eighth, columnist Tina DuPuy,wrote in The Atlantic that Franken groped herat a party in 2009.
The seventh accuser said Franken approached her after her boss left the studio, and she had to “duck” to avoid the radio host’s lips.
The woman, whom Politico did not name, said that Franken told her the unwanted advance was his “right as an entertainer.” Franken had stood between her and the door, she said.
“It was very quick and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like ‘Wait, what is happening?’” she told Politico. “But I knew whatever was happening was not right and I ducked.”
The Politico story notes that “two former colleagues of the woman independently corroborated her version of events, including Franken telling her he had the right to try to kiss her because he was ‘an entertainer.’”
In a statement provided to HuffPost, Franken said the story was “categorically not true” and “the idea that I would claim this as my right as an entertainer is preposterous.”
“I look forward to fully cooperating with the ongoing ethics committee investigation,” he said.
The Senate Ethics Committeeannounced last weekit plans to investigate the mounting sexual misconduct allegations against Franken, who was elected to the Senate in 2008. A corresponding committee in the House had opened an investigation against Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), who abruptly announced his retirement on Tuesday amid numerous sexual harassment accusations.
DuPuy, the eighth accuser, said that Franken, then a senator, squeezed her waist while she posed for a picture with him. The gesture was “inappropriate and unwanted,” she wrote.
The women’s stories follow half a dozen similar reports about Franken’s alleged behavior that have been made public over the past month.
A U.S. Army veteran told CNN that Franken had cupped her breastwhile she posed for a photowith him in 2003. Another woman, an unnamed former elected official, said Franken tried to give her a “wet, open-mouthed kiss”during an event in 2006. Two more women told HuffPost that Frankengroped their backsides in separate incidents, one of which allegedly occurred at an event honoring women.
Previously, Lindsay Menzaccused Franken of groping her at the 2010 Minnesota State Fair after radio host Leeann Tweedenwrote in an essay that Franken had kissed and groped her during a USO tour in 2006.
Although he swiftly apologized to Tweeden, Franken has taken a different approach with other women’s accusations. He told CNN that hedid not remembermeeting Menz, and, in a statement issued days later, apologized for making “some women feel badly” over the course of his career.
More than 20 Democratic senatorsand the chairman of the Democratic National Committee called for Franken to resign on Wednesday.
This story has been updated to include Tina DuPuy’s accusation.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost. |
April 20, 2019|11-3 p.m.
Location: Birmingham Botanical Gardens-Blount Plaza & Gerlach Plant Information Center
Free and open to the public
From marigolds and dia de los muertos to picking the right flower and color to express exactly how you feel about a loved one. Join The Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens as we encourage a love for plants, gardens, and the environment to blossom by celebrating flowers and our cultural ties to them at our 22nd annual Earth Day Celebration. The free event will promote healthy communities, sustainable living and human wellness through educational dialogue, informational displays and outdoor activities. Exhibitors representing organizations advocating for strengthened community bonds, environmental awareness, community education, improved waste management, and the physical and psychological benefits of our natural environment.
Is your organization interested in being a part of Earth Day at The Gardens? Learn more about how to become an exhibitor or vendor and complete the application form today.
Request more information from Education Activities Specialist Dawn Coleman Lee at [email protected].
Volunteer at Earth Day at The Gardens!
Interested in being a part of Earth Day at The Gardens? While it's free and open to the public, Earth Day is made possible due to hours of behind the scenes work from staff and volunteers. We have many positions ranging from set-up to hospitality to assisting exhibitors. To learn more about the opportunities, contact Alice Moore, volunteer coordinator, at 205.414.3962 or [email protected].
bbgardens.volunteerhub.com |
Aug 27 (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton on Saturday received her first national security briefing since accepting her party's nomination for the presidency last month.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, attended the meeting alone, according to a pool report.
The meeting was held at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's field office in White Plains, New York, not far from the Chappaqua, New York, residence she shares with her husband, former President Bill Clinton. It lasted a little over two hours.
Clinton's Republican rival, New York businessman Donald Trump, recently received his first briefing, as well.
The two are vying for the White House in the Nov. 8 general election, which has grown increasingly contentious as they have traded barbs about racism and minority voters.
(Reporting by Amanda Becker in Washington; Writing by Luciana Lopez; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. |
Iran is targeting German companies in its bid to advance its missile program, in possible violation of an international agreement, and at least on occasion with the aid of a Chinese company, according to a damning recent report from a German intelligence agency.
The 181-page report, published last month and released Tuesday by officials from the heavily industrialized southern German state of Baden-Württemberg, warned that Iran is actively seeking “products and scientific know-how for the field of developing weapons of mass destruction as well missile technology.” The Islamic Republic is targeting German companies through various fronts, according to the report.
“[Iran is seeking] products and scientific know-how for the field of developing weapons of mass destruction as well missile technology.” — German intel report
In one case, Iran allegedly worked through a Chinese front company to seek “complex metal-producing machines” from a German engineering firm. German intelligence officials blocked the sale when they told the engineering firm the merchandise was slated to be unlawfully routed to Iran.
“This case shows that so-called indirect deliveries across third countries is still Iran’s procurement strategy,” wrote the intelligence officials.
Another report, released this week by Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), found the deal brokered by the Obama administration to limit Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons resulted in little or no decrease in the Islamic Republic’s efforts to gain technology for missiles capable of carrying warheads. But it noted that the agreement was aimed at restricting nuclear technology, not missile technology.
"The amount of evidence found for attempts to acquire proliferation-sensitive material for missile technology/the missile program, which is not covered by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, remained about the same," the report said.
The U.S. and other world powers -- including France, China, Russia and the United Kingdom -- reached an agreement with Iran in July 2015, the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to restrict Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. |
In Connecticut, prosecutors are beta-testing a new legal doctrine: That a person can be held criminally responsible for the actions of other people.
The case at issue (see here) involves two teenage boys who were out drinking with their friend, 17-year-old Jane Modlesky. After some hearty partying, the teens parted ways. Modlesky dropped the boys off at home and drove off in a 2008 Honda Pilot – and subsequently, drove into a tree. She was killed – and the boys have been charged with being accomplices to drunk and reckless driving. Another teen was charged for throwing the party at which the alcohol was served.
It is not alleged that the boys forced Modlesky to drink – nor to drive. The crux of the case seems to be the assertion that the boys had a positive obligation to prevent Modlesky from driving. In the words of James Kennedy of the Glastonbury, CT Police Department: “They very well knew that she was intoxicated and should not have been driving.” He does not complete the sentence, which – if logic follows – would be: “And they had a duty to keep her from driving.”
A legally enforceable duty.
It is an odd doctrine, to say the least. If the boys had attempted to forcibly restrain Modlesky – had put their hands on her – would they not have placed themselves in peril of being charged with criminal assault/battery? Perhaps sexual assault? Keep in mind – they are boys (plural) and Modlesky, a girl (singular). No boy in possession of his senses – drunk or not – puts his hands on a girl unwilling.
Not these days.
And two boys forcibly restraining a girl? Holding her down, locking her in a room? Rifling her pockets and purse to get her keys away from her? Imagine they forgot to get her cell phone. And that she had called the cops. Told them – tearfully – she has just been attacked by two boys, who have locked her up in a room. Cue the SWAT team.
If not restraint – what? The boys were obligated to call the cops? To narc on their friend?
This is a Soviet doctrine.
Imagine if it becomes accepted doctrine.
Instead of Big Brother watching you, everyone will be watching you. If you go out drinking with your buddies, your buddies will be eying you all night long (and you, they) for signs of potential (as well as actual) law-breaking. Keep in mind that the Modlesky case presumes the boys not only knew their friend was drunk but also that they knew she was going to drive recklessly.
Not that she might.
It follows, therefore, that you will be legally obligated to know just how much is too much, insofar as your friends’ drinking is concerned – and also (put your wizard hat on) what they’re going to do subsequently. Any possible criminal act they may commit becomes a de jure actual act – and you’re responsible for not preventing it!
This sounds crazy but in fact, it’s already the law.
Bartenders, for instance, are legally obliged to keep track of how much patrons are drinking – and to cut them of when they’ve had “enough.” If not – and the patron subsequently drives and wrecks, the bartender (and the owner of the bar) can be held legally responsible. Criminally as well as civilly.
How, exactly, a bartender is supposed to keep track of dozens of people in a dimly lit room – much less know who’s had “enough” (what constitutes “enough” for a 110 pound female may be a lot less than “enough” for a 200 pound male) is never spelled out. Because – short of Breathalyzing (or better yet, blood-drawing) every patron every hour and having them perform various tests to determine whether they’ve had “enough” – there is no objective way to quantify “enough.” It is a completely subjective standard. The barkeep can’t win – so we lose. He cuts everyone off after two or three drinks, just to be safe. This is exactly what the airlines do, too. You’re allowed two in-flight cocktails. No more.
We’re all in loco parentis.
But the real hairiness is this business about being held criminally responsible for what others might do. This is even worse than being held responsible for what they actually do do.
The boys in the Modlesky case had no way of knowing that their friend would drive recklessly – and into a tree. It was possible, certainly. But the old-fashioned notion that only actualities count is to be tossed into the dumpster of history – along with the equally anachronistic notion that each of us is responsible for our actions, but not for the actions of other people.
Now – if the principle is embraced – we are truly to become our brother’s keeper. By force, if need be. It will be in our self-interest to narc one another out.
And that’s probably exactly what they want.
Throw it in the Woods?
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Image caption Moldova's Valentina Nafornita was a pop singer before she discovered opera
Soprano Valentina Nafornita from Moldova has triumphed in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2011 competition.
The 24-year-old also won the audience prize, voted for by listeners and TV viewers.
She was among five finalists performing before a jury at St David's Hall in Cardiff on Sunday.
Afterwards, the singer said: "I am so happy, I feel I'm in heaven right now. It is everything to me."
Meeta Raval from England, Olesya Petrova from Russia, Hye Jung Lee from South Korea and Andrei Bondarenko from Ukraine also competed fro the £15,000 main prize.
Baritone Bondarenko was the winner of the international competition's second award, the Song prize, on Friday in which Nafornita also sang.
Dame Joan Sutherland prize
Nafornita performed a programme of composers Donizetti, Dvorak and Gounod to win over the panel of judges.
The judges for the competition included Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Russian-born conductor Alexander Polianichko, Lorenzo Mariani the artistic director at Palermo Opera House in Italy, mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, tenor Dennis O'Neill and baritone Hakan Hagegard.
As well as the main prize, the audience prize of £2,000, was also awarded to Ms Nafornita.
It is chosen by a public telephone vote and has been renamed the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize in honour of the soprano's long association with the competition.
Dame Joan was the patron of the competition until her death last year.
Six hundred opera and concert singers auditioned for a place in the competition.
Twenty singers from around the world took part in the week-long biennial contest last week.
The event was established in 1983 by BBC Cymru Wales. Past winners include Karita Mattila, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Ekaterina Scherbachenko. |
I’ve played a lot of WWII shooters in my lifetime. They’re not as popular now as they used to be, replaced mostly by zombies and an obsession with the post-apocalypse, but I must have killed millions of digital Nazis over the years. But what I haven’t done much of yet, surprisingly, is visit that era from inside a VR headset — a topic the Front Defense series aims to rectify.
Most of the VR shooters we’ve seen so far focus on either zombies or try to take a futuristic sci-fi spin on things, but that’s not the case with Front Defense: Heroes. Instead, it’s a throwback of sorts to the days of Axis vs. Allies and MP40s. After spending some time with Front Defense: Heroes we don’t think it will have much trouble finding a market for itself despite some glaring flaws.
Check out a bunch of gameplay footage here:
What Front Defense: Heroes lacks in terms of original content it makes up for in its mechanics. Aiming down the sights of a rifle or the scope of a sniper feels great, as does ejecting and reloading a magazine in the heat of battle. Once you’ve got the rhythm down and you can effortlessly snag a new clip from your belt without even needing to look down, you’ll know the sense of presence is strong.
And then that’s when the awkward movement system that no one asked for, known as V-Move, rears its ugly head. I understand that a lot of people do still experience motion sickness when trying to use smooth movement in VR, but for a game such as Front Defense: Heroes, anything other than full, smooth locomotion cripples the entire experience.
The V-Move system works by having you press a direction on the left trackpad and then you watch as your character moves in third-person. When you let go of the trackpad you resume control in the first-person view again. It’s just like the comfort setting in From Other Suns. The result is a quite literally stop-and-go experience that throttles the action and forces you to master an obtuse mechanic before you can actually enjoy the game.
To be clear: the developers have told me that a full, smooth locomotion system will be added, but as of the time of this writing that has not happened, multiple weeks after launch. It gets the job done for what it is in its current state, but it’s far from a real solution for a game like this. In Front Defense: Heroes I want to move and shoot at the same time such as I would in Call of Duty, Battlefield, or even Onward. With V-Move that’s impossible.
Looking beyond the strange movement system decision, the rest of the game has promise. It’s a bare bones multiplayer affair for the most part and feels like an early 2000s multiplayer shooter got VR support, but given the nature of the technology it doesn’t feel out of place.
I got to play both Team Deathmatch and an Attack vs. Defend game mode. The latter game mode tasked my team, the Defenders, with preventing the Attacking team from laying explosive down on tanks. If we prevented them from blowing up all three before the time ran out then we won. Fantahorn and Vive Studios have also mentioned there should be a Capture the Flag mode at launch too.
Games support up to 5v5 but we only ever were able to do 3v3 for the testing session. Between pistols, automatic rifles, single shot rifles, rocket launchers, snipers, grenades, and more there was plenty to do in each match. The game is very likely going to open up dramatically once we get the chance to try it with smooth locomotion.
Perhaps most impressively of all though is the way in which HTC is planning to distribute this title. Like the lackluster, stationary wave shooter before it, Front Defense, this new title, Front Defense: Heroes, is a Vive Studios game, which means it has support from HTC behind it.
The game launched at a discounted price of only $4.99 and will be given away for free to anyone that already owns Front Defense. Plus, you can buy both games in a bundle right now for $9.99 and Front Defense: Heroes will be added to the Viveport Subscription service. The powers that be really want everyone with a Vive to play this game.
Final Score: 6/10 – Decent
Front Defense: Heroes is certainly much better than its poorly conceived wave shooter sibling, Front Defense, but it still feels a bit unfinished. It’s a shame it still doesn’t have smooth locomotion, but even in its current form it scratches a bit of an itch for VR shooter fans by delivering something a bit more casual and arcadey in design than its competitors.
You can find Front Defense: Heroes on both Viveport and Steam for HTC Vive with a special launch price of only $4.95. You can read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrive at our review scores.
[Editor’s Note] – This was originally a review in progress on December 8th, 2017, but has since been updated with additional context throughout the article and with a final score on December 22nd, 2017.
Tagged with: Fantahorn, Front Defense, Front Defense: Heroes, vive studios |
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