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Two seals in the United Kingdom are keeping their long-distance love alive with the help of FaceTime.Sija and Babyface are two common seals who were separated after seven years of living together, but have reconnected thanks to their iPads, according to ABC New s.Both seals lived in the Cornish Seal Sanctuary and gave birth to two baby seal pups, despite the fact that Sija was taking contraception and Babyface was thought to be too old to breed.Officials decided to split the couple up after Sija's second pregnancy to prevent any future litters.Sija now lives in a female-only enclosure in the Weymouth SEA LIFE Adventure Park , 160 miles away, and is reportedly "thriving and happy" in her new home.Still, zookeepers wondered if she missed her old mate, so they set up iPads to allow the seals to "see" each other through FaceTime."At first the seals were both unsure about approaching the iPad, but once they saw each other they nosed up to it which was really nice to see," Weymouth SEA LIFE Displays Curator Fiona Smith said."It's definitely the most high tech enclosure we have at Weymouth SEA LIFE so we're really pleased that SealTime is a success!" |
Dear AP readers/writers,
I'm a Chiefs fan. My first game was to see Joe Montana take on the 49ers at Arrowhead. My grandfather was a reporter for the Star. He gave up the opportunity to play professional baseball to be part of the sports culture in Kansas City. In High School, volunteered at The Children's Place because of people like Derrick Thomas and Will Shields.
I no longer live in Kansas City. I live in Los Angeles, where I am a filmmaker. But I still call it my home whenever people ask.
This weekend was my lowest moment as a Chiefs fan. Not because of the booes. Not because of record. But because everything that many Chiefs fans have worked hard to do hit rock bottom. We're a town known for heartland hospitality. For dropping everything to help Joplin. For inviting people with Packers jerseys to our tailgate to have a brisket sandwich.
We've spent too much time in the last 24 hours debating : whether 1 person. Or 70,000 people booed or cheered Mr. Cassel's injury. We've spent no to little time wishing Mr. Cassel a safe recovery. We've spent little to no time thinking about his wife and family who had to endure what he did (even if it was from "a small percentage"). We're making headlines. And in the worst way you could imagine.
He's a man. Who is part of our community. Who didn't play the game for himself, but for us. Whether his execution has been Pro Bowl or not, he got hurt as a Chief.
I challenge every one of you, Midwesterner or not. To take this time and think of how small we'd feel if that were us. We've all had moments where we've lost. Where we tried but that wasn't enough. And in those moments are when we need support.
Matt Cassel threw a 1st down pass and got injured. He was trying to win one for the Red & Yellow.
Many of you have webcams, or cameras. For any of you that do care about Mr. Cassel, I challenge you to make a simple video. Post it in here. And wish him a safe recovery.
We're the people that held a vigil for Derrick Thomas the night he died. We're the people that gave Mr. Crennel a second chance at Coaching. We're the small city that knows how to make noise. And takes care of our own.
We can be defensive. Or we can be the better men (and women).
Post it here. My day job is as a filmmaker. (I won KCFF in 2010 with my premiere film Homecoming). My dream project is a love letter to this town, because I want the world to see how beautiful this town and its people are. We sacrifice our own wants before others. I'll edit them together myself. We'll send a copy of the DVD to the Chiefs as well as Cassel's represenative. And place it on youtube.
Best Regards,
Sean Hackett
Chiefs fan since 83
Chiefs fan for Life.
PS: Post it in the comments section. Or e-mail it to me at seanhackett at gmail.com |
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the much anticipated Monsanto v. Bowman case, addressing whether the corporation's patent protections extend past the initial sale and use of their RoundUp-Ready seeds. Unfortunately the justices landed on the side of Monsanto, reaffirming the stranglehold corporations have on seeds — and our food system.
I had hoped the Supreme Court might finally draw a line in the sand, placing a limitation on Monsanto's long string of successful legal suits against farmers. But, following the trend, the justices sided with Monsanto and upheld the $84,456 judgement against farmer Vernon Bowman.
Bowman's crime? The farmer bought seeds from his local co-op and continued to grow and save those seeds even after he discovered they were glyphosate-resistant.
On Monday, the Court ruled that Monsanto's seeds continue to be patent protected even in their second and third generations in the field, and even if the person planting them hasn't bought them knowingly or signed a technology agreement.
Seeds copy themselves
The Court's holding included a complicated standard for seed patents:
.. the authorized sale of a patented article gives the purchaser, or any subsequent owner, a right to use or resell that article. Such a sale, however, does not allow the purchaser to make new copies of the patented invention.
This standard makes sense for a copyrighted DVD - watch it, resell it, just don't burn it onto your laptop and make ten copies of it. The problem with this standard for seeds is that seeds reproduce themselves with every use. That's how seeds work. This standard makes it nearly impossible for farmers to buy cheap soybean seeds that they can use, save, and use again.
The soybean market is dominated by RoundUp Ready. In Indiana, where Bowman bought his second-hand seeds, 94% of soybeans grown contain the glyphosate-resistant gene. So the options are highly limited for farmers who want to buy seeds that they can save from year to year. Buying generic seeds at the local farmers co-op used to be a good option, but this decision from the Supreme Court essentially eliminates that option.
Whose food system?
That said, Monsanto v. Bowman is not a game changer. It's an affirmation of the current balance of power, in which Monsanto, Dupont, and the other agribusiness giants have a secure stranglehold on the seed market. The Big 6 plans to continue fighting for an ever-larger share of the seed market and to continue producing ever-more-expensive seed technologies.
We need more off-ramps for farmers who decide that seed saving and agroecology are a better strategy than paying an ever-higher premium for seeds they can't reuse. How do we transition towards a global food system that prioritizes small farmers and local consumers instead of big agribusiness and that misleading "feed-the-world" philosophy?
It's a good week to sing the praises of our diligent agroecologists and small seed production companies, who are researching and supplying farming solutions designed for local communities around the world. |
The Paris attacks have inspired cartoonist and opinion-haver Scott Adams to reflect on some of the true injustices in the world today.
Specifically, the fact that in the United States, men often pay for dates, yet cannot have sex with women without getting their permission first.
In a blog post that is incoherent even by his standards, Adams compares the male-dominated societies of the Middle East with what he describes as “female-dominated countries” like the US.
In his mind, American men live in a matriarchal dystopia in which women force men to pay for dinner and open car doors for them:
When I go to dinner, I expect the server to take my date’s order first. I expect the server to deliver her meal first. I expect to pay the check. I expect to be the designated driver, or at least manage the transportation for the evening. And on the way out, I will hold the door for her, then open the door to the car.
Weird, because I’ve literally never had a date like that. And even if all this were true, as a general thing, it wouldn’t be proof that the US is “female-dominated.” Chivalry is part of patriarchy, not proof of matriarchy.
When we get home, access to sex is strictly controlled by the woman.
Er, dude, that’s how sex works. Both sex partners have to agree to it, otherwise it’s rape. And men have veto power when it comes to sex just like women do. Women aren’t allowed to force themselves on unwilling partners any more than men are.
If the woman has additional preferences in terms of temperature, beverages, and whatnot, the man generally complies. If I fall in love and want to propose, I am expected to do so on my knees, to set the tone for the rest of the marriage.
What a romantic fellow, proposing to a woman even though she’s some kind of spoiled princess who has preferences about room temperature and refuses to have sex when she doesn’t want to have sex.
Also, Adams wants everyone to know that when he talks over women in meetings, it’s not that he’s a sexist, it’s just that women talk too much.
Women have made an issue of the fact that men talk over women in meetings. In my experience, that’s true. But for full context, I interrupt anyone who talks too long without adding enough value. If most of my victims turn out to be women, I am still assumed to be the problem in this situation, not the talkers.
But really, the problem is that ladies just won’t shut up amirite fellas high five!
The alternative interpretation of the situation – that women are more verbal than men – is never discussed as a contributing factor to interruptions. Can you imagine a situation where – on average – the people who talk the most do NOT get interrupted the most?
Uh, yes. Because that’s not just a hypothetical “situation.” It’s the way the world actually works.
I don’t know if the amount of talking each person does is related to the amount of interrupting they experience, or if there is a gender difference to it, but it seems like a reasonable hypothesis.
Unfortunately for Adams, this is a hypothesis that’s been repeatedly disproved. Men talk more than women in meetings, yet are more likely to interrupt women than women are to interrupt them.
Weird how Adams, who thinks of himself as a rational sciencey guy, didn’t even bother to do the 30 seconds of Googling that would have shown that his “reasonable hypothesis” was a crock.
Speaking of weirdness, Adams goes on to suggest that he might turn to terrorism if no one gives him a hug. Literally.
So if you are wondering how men become cold-blooded killers, it isn’t religion that is doing it. If you put me in that situation, I can say with confidence I would sign up for suicide bomb duty. And I’m not even a believer. Men like hugging better than they like killing. But if you take away my access to hugging, I will probably start killing, just to feel something. I’m designed that way. I’m a normal boy. And I make no apology for it.
NOTE TO SELF: Do not invite Scott Adams to any party without also inviting this dude:
Or maybe don’t invite Adams to any parties at all.
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In a past election cycle, a presidential candidate calling one of the U.S. top’s foreign rivals a better leader than its current president might be met with widespread condemnation. Likewise, if the candidate praised an authoritarian as a “strong leader.” Or if he became enchanted by the air kisses the authoritarian floated his way.
But in the era of Donald Trump, all of the above are happening – repeatedly! – and many GOP senators are simply shrugging it off. A few hardcore Trump supporters try to defend it or explain it away. And some senators, perhaps feeling the acute awkwardness for a party that until recently has portrayed Putin as an existential threat to America, seem to just want the whole thing to go away.
“I am not going to go down that path,” the Senate GOP’s No. 2, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), said Thursday when asked by a reporter if he would say that Obama has been better for America than Putin has been for Russia.
Many GOPers took the route of denying that they’d seen the latest Putin-friendly Trump remarks — made at a presidential town hall on Wednesday — or stating that they wouldn’t comment in general.
“I did not have a chance to see that,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS).
“I didn’t see it so it’s hard for me to comment,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
“I didn’t watch it,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).
“I don’t have a comment,” said Sen. John Boozman (R-AR).
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) – Trump’s last primary rival who notably withheld an endorsement in his GOP convention speech – told reporters to call his press office when the question was posed to him.
Likewise, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said, “Check the office.”
“I don’t know if we’ve put anything out on that or not,” he said.
While those few Republicans on Capitol Hill who have withheld their support from Trump had no problem distancing themselves from the pro-Putin remarks, a few senators –especially Trump’s most ardent supporters – were willing to defend his praise of Putin, which included bringing up the Russian leader’s poll numbers, and calling Putin “far more” a leader than “our president.”
According to Sen. Jeff Session (R-AL), one of Trump’s earliest Senate endorsers, the GOP nominee was not talking about Putin as “a person.”
“But, as playing the cards Putin has, and Obama playing the cards that we have and the abilities and the strengths that the United State has, a lot of people might think that he’s been more effective than President Obama,” Sessions told TPM Thursday. “I think that’s all he meant to say.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said he agreed with Trump’s assessment.
“President Obama has not been leader in things that we believe in the United States of America. Now I don’t agree with the Vladimir Putin on anything, but you can’t say the guy is not a leader. The guy is a leader,” he told TPM.
Not every Trump-supporting Republican was willing to defend Trump’s remark, however.
“I would never rate Putin over one of our presidents. I don’t care who the president is,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said.
To duck out of commenting on the comparison, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) pointed to Hillary Clinton’s challenge to reporters during a press conference Thursday morning to press Republicans whether the agree with Trump’s remarks.
“I am not going to answer questions that Hillary Clinton wants you guys to ask us,” Scott told TPM.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), the chair of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said he didn’t “want to get involved in the rhetoric of a campaign.”
“I don’t want to be the referee” Corker said, before lightly nudging Trump. “We have national interests right now that are very different in many cases than those of Russia, and I think one has to be careful not to succumb to flattery.”
Among the Republicans willing to express disapproval of Trump’s cozying up to the Russian leader were some of the senators who face tough re-election fights in purple states.
“I disagree with Barack Obama on a lot of issues, but Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian. He controls the media. He controls the judiciary. His political opponents end up dead or poisoned or in jail. He’s a thug,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a former Trump primary opponent who is now running to hold on to his Senate seat.
“I don’t think anyone should be praising Mr. Putin,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who is currently polling well ahead of Trump in Ohio in his own re-election campaign.
For the handful of Republicans who have withheld their support of Trump, the latest round of was, in some sense, a validating moment.
“I have made my position known on Donald Trump,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who wrote an op-ed over the summer formally disavowing Trump. “So I am not going to continue to comment on everything that he says.”
Trump critic Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had plenty of criticism of Clinton’s performance at the town hall, but said, “When I hear Trump praise Vladimir Putin, I think, ‘Boy, are you missing the boat here?'”
“Last night was disappointing. I don’t think I have felt so disappointed than in our choices today,” Graham told TPM. “I didn’t see much leadership from her, and when it came to Donald Trump, it was unnerving, his lack of knowledge.”
Lauren Fox contributed to this report. |
Band's new studio effort is released on January 19
Enter Shikari are streaming their new album ‘The Mindsweep’ ahead of its official release.
The album will be released on January 19 and was recorded at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire last spring with producer Dan Weller, who also worked on the group’s last record, 2012’s ‘A Flash Flood Of Colour’.
The tracklisting for ‘The Mindsweep’ is:
‘The Appeal & The Mindsweep I’
‘The One True Colour’
‘Anaesthetist’
‘The Last Garrison’
‘Never Let Go Of The Microscope’
‘Myopia’
‘Torn Apart’
‘Interlude’
‘The Bank Of England’
‘There’s A Price On Your Head
‘Dear Future Historians…’
‘The Appeal & The Mindsweep II’
In support of the album, Enter Shikari will also embark on a UK and European tour throughout January and February. As well as dates across the continent, the quartet will also play nine shows in the UK.
Sharethrough (Mobile)
Enter Shikari will play:
Portsmouth Pyramids (January 16, 2015)
Cardiff Yplas (17)
Wolverhampton Civic (18)
Manchester Academy (20)
Glasgow Barrowlands (21)
Middlesborough Town Hall (22)
Cambridge Corn Exchange (24)
Norwich UEA (25)
London Roundhouse (26)
To check the availability of Enter Shikari tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0844 858 6765. |
It’s been getting harder for me to read things on my phone and my laptop. I’ve caught myself squinting and holding the screen closer to my face. I’ve worried that my eyesight is starting to go. These hurdles have made me grumpier over time, but what pushed me over the edge was when Google’s App Engine console — a page that, as a developer, I use daily — changed its text from legible to illegible. Text that was once crisp and dark was suddenly lightened to a pallid gray. Though age has indeed taken its toll on my eyesight, it turns out that I was suffering from a design trend.
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There’s a widespread movement in design circles to reduce the contrast between text and background, making type harder to read. Apple is guilty. Google is, too. So is Twitter.
Typography may not seem like a crucial design element, but it is. One of the reasons the web has become the default way that we access information is that it makes that information broadly available to everyone. “The power of the Web is in its universality,” wrote Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web consortium. “Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
But if the web is relayed through text that’s difficult to read, it curtails that open access by excluding large swaths of people, such as the elderly, the visually impaired, or those retrieving websites through low-quality screens. And, as we rely on computers not only to retrieve information but also to access and build services that are crucial to our lives, making sure that everyone can see what’s happening becomes increasingly important.
We should be able to build a baseline structure of text in a way that works for most users, regardless of their eyesight. So, as a physicist by training, I started looking for something measurable.
Google’s App Engine console before—old-fashioned but clear.
Google’s App Engine console after — modern, tiny, and pallid.
It wasn’t hard to isolate the biggest obstacle to legible text: contrast, the difference between the foreground and background colors on a page. In 2008, the Web Accessibility Initiative, a group that works to produce guidelines for web developers, introduced a widely accepted ratio for creating easy-to-read webpages.
To translate contrast, it uses a numerical model. If the text and background of a website are the same color, the ratio is 1:1. For black text on white background (or vice versa), the ratio is 21:1. The Initiative set 4.5:1 as the minimum ratio for clear type, while recommending a contrast of at least 7:1, to aid readers with impaired vision. The recommendation was designed as a suggested minimum contrast to designate the boundaries of legibility. Still, designers tend to treat it as as a starting point.
Contrast as modeled in 2008.
For example: Apple’s typography guidelines suggest that developers aim for a 7:1 contrast ratio. But what ratio, you might ask, is the text used to state the guideline? It’s 5.5:1.
Apple’s guidelines for developers.
Google’s guidelines suggest an identical preferred ratio of 7:1. But then they recommend 54 percent opacity for display and caption type, a style guideline that translates to a ratio of 4.6:1.
The typography choices of companies like Apple and Google set the default design of the web. And these two drivers of design are already dancing on the boundaries of legibility.
It wasn’t always like this. At first, text on the web was designed to be clear. The original web browser, built by Berners-Lee in 1989, used crisp black type on a white background, with links in a deep blue. That style became the default settings on the NeXT machine. And though the Mosaic browser launched in 1993 with muddy black-on-gray type, by the time it popularized across the web, Mosaic had flipped to clear black text over white.
When HTML 3.2 launched in 1996, it broadened the options for web design by creating a formal set of colors for a page’s text and background. Yet browser recommendations advised limiting fonts to a group of 216 “web-safe” colors, the most that 8-bit screens could transmit legibly. As 24-bit screens became common, designers moved past the garish recommended colors of the ’90s to make more subtle design choices. Pastel backgrounds and delicate text were now a possibility.
Yet computers were still limited by the narrow choice of fonts already installed on the device. Most of these fonts were solid and easily readable. Because the standard font was crisp, designers began choosing lighter colors for text. By 2009, the floodgates had opened: designers could now download fonts to add to web pages, decreasing dependency on the small set of “web-safe” fonts.
As LCD technology advanced and screens achieved higher resolutions, a fashion for slender letterforms took hold. Apple led the trend when it designated Helvetica Neue Ultralight as its system font in 2013. (Eventually, Apple backed away from the trim font by adding a bold text option.)
As screens have advanced, designers have taken advantage of their increasing resolution by using lighter typeface, lower contrast, and thinner fonts. However, as more of us switch to laptops, mobile phones, and tablets as our main displays, the ideal desktop conditions from design studios are increasingly uncommon in life.
So why are designers resorting to lighter and lighter text? When I asked designers why gray type has become so popular, many pointed me to the Typography Handbook, a reference guide to web design. The handbook warns against too much contrast. It recommends developers build using a very dark gray (#333) instead of pitch black (#000).
The theory espoused by designers is that black text on a white background can strain the eyes. Opting for a softer shade of black text, instead, makes a page more comfortable to read. Adam Schwartz, author of “The Magic of CSS,” reiterates the argument:
The sharp contrast of black on white can create visual artifacts or increase eye strain. (The opposite is also true. This is fairly subjective, but still worth noting.)
Let me call out the shibboleth here: Schwartz himself admits the conclusion is subjective.
Another common justification is that people with dyslexia may find contrast confusing, though studies recommend dimming the background color instead of lightening the type .
Several designers pointed me to Ian Storm Taylor’s article, “Design Tip: Never Use Black.” In it, Taylor argues that pure black is more concept than color. “We see dark things and assume they are black things,” he writes. “When, in reality, it’s very hard to find something that is pure black. Roads aren’t black. Your office chair isn’t black. The sidebar in Sparrow isn’t black. Words on web pages aren’t black.”
Taylor uses the variability of color to argue for subtlety in web design, not increasingly faint text. But Taylor’s point does apply — between ambient light and backlight leakage, by the time a color makes it to a screen, not even plain black (#000) is pure; instead it has become a grayer shade. White coloring is even more variable because operating systems, especially on mobile, constantly shift their brightness and color depending on the time of day and lighting.
This brings us closer to the underlying issue. As Adam Schwartz points out:
A color is a color isn’t a color…
…not to computers…and not to the human eye.
What you see when you fire up a device is dependent on a variety of factors: what browser you use, whether you’re on a mobile phone or a laptop, the quality of your display, the lighting conditions, and, especially, your vision.
When you build a site and ignore what happens afterwards — when the values entered in code are translated into brightness and contrast depending on the settings of a physical screen — you’re avoiding the experience that you create. And when you design in perfect settings, with big, contrast-rich monitors, you blind yourself to users. To arbitrarily throw away contrast based on a fashion that “looks good on my perfect screen in my perfectly lit office” is abdicating designers’ responsibilities to the very people for whom they are designing.
My plea to designers and software engineers: Ignore the fads and go back to the typographic principles of print — keep your type black, and vary weight and font instead of grayness. You’ll be making things better for people who read on smaller, dimmer screens, even if their eyes aren’t aging like mine. It may not be trendy, but it’s time to consider who is being left out by the web’s aesthetic. |
Jessica Yu Li Henwick (玉李; born 30 August 1992) is an English actress who was the first actress of East Asian descent to play the lead role in a British television series, having starred in the children's show Spirit Warriors (2009–2010).[1] She is also known for her roles as Nymeria Sand in HBO series Game of Thrones (2015–2017), X-wing pilot Jessika Pava in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and the character Colleen Wing in Iron Fist (2017–2018), The Defenders (2017) and the second season of Luke Cage (2018).
Early life [ edit ]
Henwick was born and raised in Surrey, the daughter of a Singaporean Chinese mother and Zambian English father.[2][3][4] She trained at Redroofs Theatre School and the National Youth Theatre.[5]
Career [ edit ]
In June 2009, it was announced that Henwick had been cast in the lead role of Bo for the BBC show Spirit Warriors,[6] making her the first actress of East Asian descent to play the lead role in a British television series.[1] For the role, Henwick trained in wushu with martial arts choreographer Jude Poyer.[7] The show was nominated for several awards, including the Broadcast Awards 2011.[8]
In early 2013, Henwick made her professional theatre debut in the international premiere of Running on the Cracks, based on the book by Julia Donaldson. Allan Radcliffe of The Times praised her "excellent" and "understated" performance,[9] while the Guardian wrote, "with tremendous physical presence, Henwick captures the sense of adolescent righteousness, passion and confusion of a girl trying to create order in an unfair universe."[10] Theatre critic Joyce McMillan wrote that Henwick was "outstanding as Leo".[11]
Later that year she was cast as Jane Jeong Trenka in the drama Obsession: Dark Desires, which aired January 2014. The adaptation details Trenka's stalking in Minnesota, 1991, which she details in her book The Language of Blood.[12] Henwick also joined the cast of Silk as new barrister pupil Amy. The series brought in an average of 5 million viewers per episode.[13] She reprised her role for the spin-off radio series Silk: The Clerks' Room[14] and later that year went on to play a young Oxford University student in Inspector Lewis.
In 2015 Henwick joined the cast of the HBO series Game of Thrones in Season 5 as Nymeria Sand, with Oscar-nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes and Rosabell Laurenti Sellers playing her sisters. The process included six months of training to use a traditional bullwhip.[15] She continued performing the role until Season 7, when Sand was killed off in that season's second episode, "Stormborn".[16]
Henwick played the X-wing pilot Jess Pava in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The character's full name is established as Jessika "Testor" Pava in the spin-off novel The Weapon of a Jedi: A Luke Skywalker Adventure, which establishes her as an admirer of Luke Skywalker.[17][18] Despite her limited screen time, the character of Pava has become a fan favorite.[19] Pava later appeared as a supporting character in the comic book series Star Wars: Poe Dameron, which ran from 2016 to 2018.
In 2017, Henwick appeared in the second season of drama series Fortitude, as well as Colleen Wing in the Netflix television series Iron Fist. Although critical reception of Iron Fist was generally negative, Henwick's performance in the series was well received.[20] She reprises the role for the series The Defenders, as well as the second season of Luke Cage.[21]
At the end of 2017, Henwick was listed as one of Variety's Top Breakout Stars of 2017.[22] Henwick's next role is the Fox feature film Underwater.[23] In November 2018, Henwick was cast in Godzilla vs. Kong.[24]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Year Title Role Notes 2014 Balsa Wood Scotty Short film 2015 Dragonfly Paula Reid 2015 Star Wars: The Force Awakens Jessika Pava[25][26] 2016 The Heart of the Forest Akira Short film 2016 The Headhunter Aiko Koo Short film 2017 Rice on White Elena Film 2017 Newness Joanne Film 2018 Yo! My Saint Muse Short film with Kenzo 2018 Baliko Mara Short film 2019 Underwater Emily In post-production 2020 Godzilla vs. Kong TBA Filming
Television [ edit ]
Video games [ edit ]
Year Title Role Notes 2015–2016 Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey Enu
Hanna Roth
Stage [ edit ]
Year Title Role Notes 2013 Running on the Cracks Leo National tour
Radio [ edit ] |
Two years after the Tory government sacked the entire Alberta Health Services board, the province has appointed a new board to take its place.
Health Minister Sarah Hoffman announced the appointments Friday, reassuring the public that board members will not be lavishly compensated, as critics said was the case in the past.
"Nobody will be receiving a six-figure salary," Hoffman said. "There will be compensation. It will be less than the previous board was compensated at.
"We don't have to worry about there being massive salaries."
Former Edmonton Journal publisher Linda Hughes has been hired to chair the new board. She will be paid $50,000 a year and will receive honorariums to attend meetings, with that extra amount capped at $3,000 a month, Hoffman said.
Other board members are:
Dr. Brenda Hemmelgarn (vice-chair)
David Carpenter
Hugh D. Sommerville
Marliss Taylor
Glenda Yeates
Richard Dicerni, deputy minister of Executive Council, will also serve on the board.
Wildrose reacts
Wildrose health critic Drew Barnes said he's disappointed the NDP appears to have reversed itself. During the spring election campaign, he said, the NDP vowed to get rid of AHS and return to local decision-making.
"They're going the opposite way. Here we've created more layers of bureaucracy in a system that is already too non-responsive."
The Wildrose, he said, believes a centralized board cannot properly manage different needs across all parts of the province.
"The best way to do it is to have the government and cabinet become accountable for it. They should provide the oversight. Look at all the scandals we've seen, spending and expense-wise and travel-wise, out of Alberta Health Services over the past three years."
Hoffman said the board will provide a wide range of views, with members bringing expertise in health care, legal issues, leadership and accounting.
The board will report directly to Hoffman.
"I know the buck stops with the minister," she said, "and I'm fine with that."
One the biggest challenges for the board will be controlling costs. For the past decade, annual health-care spending has risen at a rate of six to nine per cent per year.
"That, of course, is not sustainable or ideal moving forward," Hoffman said.
Asked about any possible changes to the way care is delivered in the province, Hoffman said: "Part of our platform was to stop experiments in the privatization of health care. They (board members) are very aware of that."
AHS has been without a board since 2013.
On June 11, 2013, the previous board voted to defy the Tory government and give bonuses to executives, despite wage freezes and staff cuts across the system.
The next day, then-health minister Fred Horne sacked the entire board.
Hoffman said she has met with the grand chiefs of Treaties 6, 7, and 8, as well as Métis representatives, and asked them to put forward names of aboriginal leaders who could be appointed to the board. |
“imitate the superficial exterior of a process or system without having any understanding of the underlying substance” --Wikipedia
During and after WWII, some native south pacific islanders erroneously associated the presence of war related technology with the delivery of highly desirable cargo. When the war ended and the cargo stopped showing up, they built crude facsimiles of runways, control towers, and airplanes in the belief that the presence of war technology caused the delivery of desirable cargo. From our point of view, it looks pretty amusing to see people build fake airplanes, runways and control towers and wait for cargo to fall from the sky.
The question is, how amusing are we?
We have cargo cult science[1], cargo cult management[2], cargo cult programming[3], how about cargo cult system management?
Here’s some common system administration failures that might be ‘cargo cult’:
Failing to understand the difference between necessary and sufficient. A daily backup is necessary, but it may not be sufficient to meet RPO and RTO requirements.
Failing to understand the difference between causation and correlation.[4] Event A may have caused Event B, or some third event may have caused A and B, or the two events may be unrelated and coincidental.
Failing to understand the difference between cause and effect.
Following a security recipe without understanding the risks you are addressing. If you don't understand how hackers infiltrate your systems and ex-filtrate your data, then your DLP, Firewalls, IDS, SEIM, etc. are cargo cult. You've built the superficial exterior of a system without understanding the underlying substance. If you do understand how your systems get infiltrated, then you'll probably consider simple controls like database and file system permissions and auditing as important as expensive, complex packaged products.
Asserting that [Technology O] or [Platform L] or [Methodology A] is inherently superior to all others and blindly applying it to all problems. When you make such claims, are you applying science or religion?
Systematic troubleshooting is one of the hardest parts of system management and often the first to 'go cargo'. Here’s some examples:
Treating symptoms, not causes. A reboot will not solve your problem. It may make the problem go away for a while, but your problem still exists. You've addressed the symptom of the problem (memory fragmentation, for example), not the cause of the problem (a memory leak, for example).
Troubleshooting without a working hypothesis.
Changing more than one thing at a time while troubleshooting. If you make six changes and the problem went away, how will you determine root cause? Or worse, which of the six changes will cause new problems at a future date?
Making random changes while troubleshooting. Suppose you have a problem with an (application|operating system|database) and you hypothesize that changing a parameter will resolve the problem, so you change the parameter. If the problem reoccurs your hypothesis was wrong, right?
Troubleshooting without measurements or data.
Troubleshooting without being able to recreate the problem.
Troubleshooting application performance without a benchmark to compare performance against. If you don’t know what’s normal, how do you know what’s not normal?
Blaming the (network|firewall|storage) without analysis or hypothesis that points to either. One of our application vendors insisted that the 10mbps of traffic on a 100mbps interface was the cause of the slow application, and we needed to upgrade to GigE. We upgraded it (overnight), just to shut them up. Of course it didn't help. Their app was broke.
Blaming the user or the customer, without an analysis or hypothesis that points to them as the root cause. A better plan would be actually find the problem and fix it.
Declaring that the problem is fixed without determining the root cause. If you don't know the root cause, but the problem appears to have gone away, you haven't solved the problem, you've only observed that the problem went away. Don't worry, it'll come back, just after you’ve written an e-mail to management describing how you’ve “fixed” the problem.
It's easy to fall into cargo cult mode.
Just re-boot it, it'll be fine. |
DETROIT - Several Metro Detroit communities are opening warming centers as the region is gripped by below-freezing temperatures.
ClickOnDetroit is compiling a list here:
WAYNE COUNTY
Detroit -- see full details here
-- see full details here Garden City -- Emergency Warming Center at the Maplewood Center (31735 Maplewood Between Merriman and Craig) from 8:45 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Wednesday-Thursday, Friday 8:45 a.m.-8 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Those using the center must enter on the Balmoral side and check with staff at the desk for the designated room.
-- Emergency Warming Center at the Maplewood Center (31735 Maplewood Between Merriman and Craig) from 8:45 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Wednesday-Thursday, Friday 8:45 a.m.-8 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Those using the center must enter on the Balmoral side and check with staff at the desk for the designated room. Westland -- The city of Westland has set up warming centers at the following locations: Jefferson Barnes Community Vitality Center - 32150 Dorsey Tuesday, January 2 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m, Wednesday, January 3 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, January 4 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, January 5 from from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. William P. Faust Public Library - 6123 Central City Parkway Tuesday, January 2 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, January 3 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, January 4 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, January 5 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, January 6 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, January 7 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Westland Friendship Center - 1119 Newburgh Rd. Tuesday, January 2 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, January 3 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, January 4 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, January 5 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
-- The city of Westland has set up warming centers at the following locations:
OAKLAND COUNTY
Farmington Hills -- From Wednesday, Jan. 3 until Sunday, Jan. 7, the Costick Center at 28600 11 Mile Road will be a warming center. The center will be open from 7 a.m.-11 p.m. each day.
-- From Wednesday, Jan. 3 until Sunday, Jan. 7, the Costick Center at 28600 11 Mile Road will be a warming center. The center will be open from 7 a.m.-11 p.m. each day. Oak Park -- Beginning Wednesday, Jan. 3, to Saturday, Jan. 6, the Oak Park Warming Center, located in the City's Community Center at 14300 Oak Park Blvd., Oak Park, will be open to provide warmth and shelter from inclement weather. The Center will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, January 3 and 4. It will also be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, January 5 and 6.
-- Beginning Wednesday, Jan. 3, to Saturday, Jan. 6, the Oak Park Warming Center, located in the City's Community Center at 14300 Oak Park Blvd., Oak Park, will be open to provide warmth and shelter from inclement weather. The Center will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, January 3 and 4. It will also be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, January 5 and 6. Wixom -- Wixom Police Department at 40945 Pontiac Trail
MACOMB COUNTY
Washington Township -- Senior Center in the Washington Township Municipal Building at 57900 Van Dyke, as well as the one at 361 Morton Street will be open until 5 p.m. Friday as a warming center.
MORE: Local News page
Copyright 2018 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved. |
Chemical equation balancer (JavaScript)
Input: Balanced:
Description
This is an easy-to-use, no-nonsense chemical equation balancer. The program calculates the coefficients to balance your given chemical equation. The algorithm used is Gauss-Jordan elimination, slightly modified to operate using only integer coefficients (not fractions). Because the program is entirely client-side JavaScript code, this web page can be saved and used offline.
This program was hand-written in JavaScript in year 2011, received minor feature updates and clarifications and refactorings throughout the years, and was ported to TypeScript in 2018. The source TypeScript code and compiled JavaScript code are available for viewing.
Syntax guide
Feature Input Equation Demo Subscripts N = N2 N → N 2 Compounds H2 + O2 = H2O H 2 + O 2 → H 2 O Groups Mg(OH)2 = MgO + H2O Mg(OH) 2 → MgO + H 2 O Ions H^+ + CO3^2- = H2O + CO2 H+ + CO 3 2− → H 2 O + CO 2 Electrons Fe^3+ + e = Fe Fe3+ + e− → Fe No space A3^-+B2^2+=A5B+e A 3 − + B 2 2+ → A 5 B + e− More space C 3 H 5 ( O H ) 3 + O 2 = H 2 O + C O 2 C 3 H 5 (OH) 3 + O 2 → H 2 O + CO 2 Optional 1 H1^1+ + e = H1^1- H+ + e− → H− Flexible names Foo^5+ + Bar^3- = FooBar2 + FooBar^- Foo5+ + Bar3− → FooBar 2 + FooBar−
Error messages
Syntax error Your input does not describe a proper chemical equation. Check each letter carefully, and follow the examples as a guide to the correct syntax. All-zero solution The only mathematical solution to your equation has all coefficients set to zero, which is a trivial solution for every chemical equation. For example, C → N 2 has no solution because the only solution is 0C → 0N 2 . Multiple independent solutions There exist multiple solutions to your equation that are not simply multiples of each other. Your equation can be considered as two or more independent equations added together. For example, H + O → H 2 + O 2 has no unique solution because two solutions are 2H + 4O → H 2 + 2O 2 and 6H + 2O → 3H 2 + O 2 , which are not multiples of each other. Furthermore, the equation can be separated as H → H 2 and O → O 2 , each of which does have a unique solution. Arithmetic overflow Your equation used numbers that are too big, or a term has an element that occurs too many times, or the internal calculation used numbers that are too big. I don’t expect this error to occur for real-world chemical formulas, only deliberately contrived ones. There is no workaround; the code would need to be rewritten to use bigints. Assertion error The author/programmer made a serious logic mistake. This error should not happen, but if it does please contact me.
Note: For simplicity of implementation, if the equation is successfully balanced but one or more terms have a negative coefficient, the program doesn’t consider this outcome to be an error condition. In this case, each term that has a negative coefficient should be put on the other side of the equation, and its new coefficient should be the absolute value of the negative coefficient.
How it works
Data representation
A raw chemical element is a string of letters that begins with an uppercase letter and is followed by any number of lowercase letters. The regular expression is /[A-Z][a-z]*/ . For example, these are elements: H, Na, Uuq. The exception is that e by itself represents an electron.
An ChemElem object is a chemical element with a positive integer repetition count. For example: Fe, H 2 .
A Group object is a parenthesized list of ChemElem or Group objects, with a positive integer repetition count for the whole group. For example: (H 2 O) 6 , (C(OH) 3 ) 2 .
A Term object is a list of ChemElem or Group objects, with an integer electric charge for the whole term. For example: H 3 O + , S 2− .
An Equation object is a list of Term objects for the left side and a list of Term objects for the right side. For example: C + O 2 → CO 2 .
In the code, this functionality is found in Equation , Term , Group , ChemElem .
Parsing the input
Your text input is parsed by a hand-written tokenizer and a recursive descent parser with one token of look-ahead. The parser takes a lot of code to implement and is ugly, but it is robust. The parsed result is your chemical equation in the internal object representation. In the code, this functionality is found in parseEquation , parseTerm , parseGroup , parseElement , parseCount , and Tokenizer .
Setting up the matrix
The idea is to set up a system of linear equations to represent the balancing problem. Each term in the equation gets a variable. Each different element, and also electric charge, gets an equation. In the code, this functionality is found in buildMatrix , Equation/Term/Group/ChemElem.getElements , Term/Group/ChemElem.countElement .
For example, the equation H 2 + O 2 → H 2 O has 3 terms and 2 elements (H, O). We give a variable to represent the coefficient for each term, and we get a H 2 + b O 2 → c H 2 O. Now we make an equation for each unique element. For H, the equation balances only if 2 a + 0 b = 2 c . In our matrix, we actually represent this equation as 2 a + 0 b − 2 c = 0, using the row of integers [2, 0, −2]. For O, the equation is 0 a + 2 b = 1 c , and we get the matrix row [0, 2, −1]. Even though none of the terms in this example are electrically charged, we always add an equation for electric charge anyway. In this case, the equation is 0 a + 0 b = 0 c .
There is one more step in setting up the matrix. So far, all the equations form a homogeneous linear system. This means setting all the variables to zero is a solution, and each solution multiplied by any real number is also a solution. By convention in chemistry, we want the solution where all the coefficients are the smallest possible positive integers. So we add a (somewhat arbitrary) non-homogeneous equation stating that the first term should have a coefficient of 1, to break the symmetry. The matrix gains a column on the right, initially filled with zeros. Then the matrix gains a row of the form [1, 0, ..., 0, 1].
Solving the matrix
The standard Gauss-Jordan elimination algorithm is used to bring the matrix to reduced row echelon form (RREF), but with an important modification. My algorithm always works with integers (not fractions or floats) and is exact. After each operation, each row in the matrix is put into simplified form, i.e. the GCD of all the numbers in the row is 1 or 0. The final matrix is in quasi-RREF where the leading coefficients need not be 1, but all the zeros are the same as in RREF. The key idea that makes integer-only operation possible is that when eliminating, the two rows involved are brought to a suitable common multiple. For example, to use x = [3, 1, 4, 5] to eliminate the first column from y = [2, 7, 1, 8], we compute 3 y − 2 x = [0, 19, −5, 14]. In the code, this functionality is found in Matrix , Matrix.gaussJordanEliminate .
Extracting the answer
If the chemical equation has n terms and there is a unique solution, then the solved matrix will have n non-zero leading coefficients. From the way the matrix was set up, the solution is normalized so that the first term has a coefficient of 1. But if this results in another term having a fractional coefficient, then all the coefficients are multiplied by the smallest positive integer so that all coefficients are integers. What actually happens in the code is that the lowest common multiple (LCM) of all the leading coefficients is computed, and then the top left n × n of the matrix is made to become the LCM times the n × n identity matrix. In the code, this functionality is found in extractCoefficients .
Displaying the balanced equation
The balanced chemical equation with coefficients for the terms is rendered beautifully in HTML, with proper symbols, subscripts, and superscripts. In the code, this functionality is found in Equation/Term/Group/ChemElem.toHtml .
Exact syntax
To parse the formula, the string is first converted into a sequence of tokens, and then these tokens are parsed into a tree structure.
Tokens
These are the tokens and their definitions in regular expressions:
Space: / +/ (tokenized but filtered out)
(tokenized but filtered out) Name: /[A-Za-z][a-z]*/ (except “e” being a special name that starts with a lowercase letter)
(except “e” being a special name that starts with a lowercase letter) Number: /[0-9]+/
Punctuation: /[+\-−^=()]/ (each letter is a different token, and both - and − mean minus)
Grammar
The following context-free grammar (CFG) describes the set of syntactically correct chemical formulas: |
Carl Menger's methodology describes reality as neatly organized, being constructed additively from strictly regular simple elements called pure types. Such a conception of the world's structure seems to invite mathematical treatment. Yet, his economics is not a mathematical one, and he even explicitly rejected mathematical approach to economics. This apparent puzzle is explained by Menger's failure to deliver in his methodological writings a realistic portrayal of what he was actually doing in his economics. His implicit ambition to retain the full meaning of the natural language concepts while using them simultaneously as theoretical concepts makes his economics dependent on the general human knowledge. Because the latter is mostly non-mathematical, so has to remain the former. This makes his economics both richer as well as fuzzier as compared with mathematical economics. This seems to be the result of a deliberate decision to keep his economic theory more realistic. |
NASA's Curiosity rover had hardly touched down on the surface of Mars on Aug. 5 when its cameras started transmitting images back to Earth of some odd things -- what some were calling UFOs.
In one instance of Martian weirdness, YouTube poster StephenHannardADGUK put a curious Curiosity image through a series of filters, revealing a number of UFO-type objects, or specks or blotches, in the sky above.
Here's an enhanced version of the four alleged UFOs above Mars.
"After watching the video, it is actually quite clear that these are one-pixel sized image anomalies," said video analyst Marc Dantonio, who has studied many UFO videos and created special effects and physical models for U.S. government projects.
"I fully concur at this point that these are dead pixels on the imager," Dantonio told The Huffington Post in an email. "All CCD [cameras] have them, and in a bland atmosphere like that at Mars, they would be very obvious as opposed to an active atmosphere like Earth, where they could end up hidden for a long time before anyone noticed them."
The mysteries began as soon as Curiosity touched down.
Curiosity was lowered onto Mars' surface from the descent module by means of a crane type device and rockets that allowed it to hover until making a soft landing. Once it reached ground, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists sent the descent stage off, so as to not land on top of the rover.
Shortly after Curiosity made its amazing, precise landing in Gale Crater, the rover sent an image to Earth of something that looked like a dust storm in the distance. Approximately 45 minutes later, as seen in the dual image below, another image snapped of the same location by Curiosity showed the dust anomaly was gone.
"If you look at the left image, we believe we've caught what is the descent stage impact on the Martian surface," said NASA engineer Steven Sell.
"The descent stage would have already impacted by the time this picture was taken," Sell told reporters at the JPL in Pasadena, Calif. "But the evidence we have that this is something we caused is the fact that the same image from the same camera taken 45 minutes later -- that artifact is not there anymore."
Here's another Martian mystery.
A film sequence transmitted by Curiosity shows white-colored objects moving near the horizon of the red planet, reports clickorlando.com.
In the following video, a white object can first be seen lifting up from the horizon, followed shortly by another object at the left of the field of view, moving toward the right, slightly above the horizon.
Check out this video of the two white objects.
The Curiosity rover hasn't even set out on its first test drive of the Martian landscape, and there's already a sense of mystery surrounding it.
Here's one more potential enigma to add to the mix.
While looking closely at a panorama image sent to NASA JPL scientists by Curiosity, this reporter happened to notice something odd on the distant horizon. A closer look revealed a solid, circular object just sitting there quite a distance away from the rover.
One man's oddity is another man's boulder. Check out these and other images.
PHOTO GALLERY Martian UFOs: Rocks Or Camera Glitches?
While we're not prone to jumping to any conclusions or wild speculation, it still seemed weird enough to put in a call and to send these images to JPL to see if anyone on the Curiosity team thinks this object is simply a very large, circular rock. |
Consumers are paying sharply higher prices for beef, and other meat, this year, according to the government's consumer price index for March, released April 15, 2014. (Photo11: Jim Cole AP)
Two months of sharp increases in food prices show grocers are starting to pass along their higher wholesale costs to consumers.
Retail food prices rose 0.4% in March, the same as in February and the largest amount since September 2011. By comparison, the prices of all consumer goods rose 0.2% in March and 0.1% the month before, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Beverly Cabellon, 61, of Pleasant Hill, Calif., was taken aback by the $38 price for two steaks at Costco recently, up from the $27 she paid last September. "I will be grilling more vegetables and shrimp this summer," she says, adding that she and her husband will likely eat beef once a month instead of weekly. "And I may switch to pork and chicken."
Beef, pork, poultry, eggs and milk have had the most dramatic price increases as drought, a virus outbreak and rising exports have thinned U.S. supplies.
Overall consumer prices rose 0.2% in March, a bit more rapidly than in recent months, and annual inflation was 1.5%, up from 1.1% in February.
Annual inflation was 1.5% in March, up from 1.1% in February. That's well below the Federal Reserve's 2% target, as falling gasoline prices offset rising food costs.
But higher food bills are squeezing households still struggling with meager wage gains, and could crimp spending just as the recovery is expected to accelerate.
Cheryl Stewart, 38, of Perry Hall, Md., says higher prices for meat and milk have prompted her to drive 10 to 15 miles to grocery stores in low-income areas that carry more obscure brands at lower prices. She also spreads the food shopping for her family among three or four stores to get the best prices.
"Living standards will suffer as a larger percentage of household budgets are spent on grocery store bills, leaving less for discretionary spending," says economist Chris Christopher of IHS Global Insight.
A drought that thinned cattle herds two years ago has driven up wholesale beef prices 23% the past year, according to Sterling Marketing. Meanwhile, a virus outbreak in the hog population has pushed up pork prices by 56%, the firm says.
The California drought is likely to lead to higher prices this year for a variety of fruits and vegetables, such as avocados, lettuce and berries, says Professor Timothy Richards of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
Retailers have absorbed much of the increases. Retail beef and pork prices are up about 7% and 5.3% respectively the past year. But Sterling owner John Nalivka expects sharper hikes of about 10% in 2014.
Andrew Harig, director of government relations for the Food Marketing Institute, which represents supermarkets, said: "(Grocers) held steady (on prices) for as long as they could and now...you're going to see some of these prices going up."
Restaurants are getting creative. Cory Wilk, owner of CityRange Steakhouse Grill, with two outlets in the Greenville, S.C., area, says frugal consumers typically won't tolerate sharply higher prices. Instead, he says he uses smaller and secondary cuts of meat, and combines meat and fish dishes "without compromising quality."
"We had to do some major engineering with our menu," he says.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/QcJLiG |
Vladimir Putin went there—and Oliver Stone gladly went with him.
In the dreadful final installment of Stone's dire Putin Interviews, a quadripartite display of boot-licking by the increasingly deranged director, the Russian president compared American suspicions about Russian interference in the U.S. electoral process to anti-Semitism.
“It feels like hatred for a certain ethnic group, like anti-Semitism,” Putin said of the charges made against Russia and confirmed by American intelligence analyses. “If someone doesn’t know how to do something, if someone turns out to be incapable to address this or that matter, anti-Semites always blame the Jews for their own failure.”
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In this analogy, the Democratic Party and the intelligence community appear to be the anti-Semites. The scapegoat—the Jewish people, in Putin’s formulation—is Russia, an innocent, peace-loving nation that has never meddled in the affairs of a foreign powers and is widely known to respect international law and human rights.
Yes, you are detecting sarcasm.
“These people who have the same attitude towards Russia, they always blame Russia for anything that happens,” Putin continued, growing agitated. Earlier this month, he made a similar comparison to anti-Semitism during a public appearance in his native St. Petersburg (the interview with Stone was filmed at an earlier time).
Stone, looking like he’d recently woken from a nap, jowls sagging like his reputation, listened somberly to this preposterous explanation. Stone has been roundly criticized for treating Putin with adulation and failing to perform the interviewer’s basic task, which is to ask difficult questions. Stone has also been accused of anti-Semitism, though Putin is unlikely to have known that.
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The exchange took place as the two men discussed the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency. While it is not believed that Russian hackers influenced vote tallies in any state, an intelligence assessment declassified by the Director of National Intelligence concluded that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”
Oliver Stone is not among those who believes these conclusions. Like all conspiracy theorists, he knows better—and will happily tell you exactly what he thinks he knows. Earlier in the week, he informed The Nation that he thought the intelligence had been “cooked” by American agencies. The statement would have been astonishing if made by someone with credibility or dignity. Stone has been evidently disburdened of both.
“The influence on the election from the Russians to me is absurd to the naked eye,” Stone said to The Nation. “Israel has far more influence on American elections through AIPAC. Saudi Arabia has influence through money.”
The interview was part of his promotional tour for The Putin Interviews, which has gone about as well as the Titanic’s maiden voyage. Highlights include a crazed appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and an interview with The Guardian in which he complained about his treatment at the hands of critics, seeming to compare it to that of African Americans experiencing racism. “ You work very hard on a movie and sometimes it’s judged more by the person who made it than by what the content is,” Stone said. “I can say I’m a black man in that way.”
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Oliver Stone can say a lot of things.
Yet for all his efforts, Stone has failed to attract an audience, which has been a longstanding problem for Stone. “The overnight ratings have registered little interest in the series,” wrote CNN’s media critic Brian Stelter in Thursday evening’s Reliable Sources newsletter, just as the final episode of The Putin Interviews was made available to those unfortunate Showtime subscribers who had no better plans that night.
“I'm wondering if it'll pick up more attention on-demand,” Stelter wrote.
Prediction: It will not.
More from Newsweek |
Thailand could become the first Asian country to legalize gay marriage, as a draft law is prepared for parliament.
Last year, a same-sex couple from Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai attempted to make their two-decade relationship official by applying for a marriage registration. Nathee Theeraronjanapong (55) and his partner Atthapon Janthawee (38) had their request to marry denied by local officials – who stated that Thailand’s Civil and Commercial Code deemed gay marriage illegal.
The couple fired back at the perceived discrimination by filing official complaints with Thailand’s Parliamentary Human Rights Commission, Administrative Court, and National Human Rights Commission, insisting that the constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. As has been the case in other countries pushing for same-sex marriage, strict wording of what defines a married couple was likely the issue.
“While the constitution says that human rights shall equally be protected irrespective of sex, and that men and women shall enjoy the equal rights, Section 1458 of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code says ‘a marriage can take place only if the man and woman agree to take each other as husband and wife,’” explained Prachatai.
The political storm that followed the couple’s struggle drew national media attention to the issue of same-sex marriage, leading one Thai politician to draft the country’s first civil union bill. Wiratana Kalayasiri, a Democrat parliamentarian from the southern city of Songkhla – who also chairs the nation’s Legal Justice Human Rights Committee – is leading the fight for marriage equality.
While Thailand’s youth are generally accepting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) individuals, older Thais are less open-minded to the idea of same-sex marriage. Kalayasiri’s bill faced strong opposition at its inception, partly due to the fact that most lawmakers in Thailand fall on the other side of the generation gap.
“At first, there was a negative impression, and people were wondering why I was doing this, but as this process went on people started to understand that this is a human right of the Thai people, guaranteed under the constitution. Since then minds have changed,” Kalayasiri told the IPS News Agency.
He continued: “We have held five hearings on the bill at several universities throughout Thailand and in parliament as well. A survey of 200-300 people showed that 78 percent are in favor of allowing same-sex marriage and 10.3 percent are against it.”
Thai LGBT activist Anjana Suvarnananda, co-founder of the country’s first LGBT advocacy group, is a strong supporter of the marriage equality bill. She cited legal protections for married couples as a major factor for pushing the measure through the courts.
“If there is a severe accident or health issue, like if my partner becomes ill, then in the eyes of the law I am no one other than just a friend. This forces us [in the LGBT community] to struggle by ourselves. We want more security,” Suvarnananda said.
Regardless of Kalayasiri’s political campaigning and Suvarnananda’s advocacy, a government survey in 2012 found that 60 percent of Thais are against gay marriage. Faced with these numbers, marriage equality is likely to face a lengthy battle in Thailand’s parliament.
“I can’t say how many years it will take to achieve the final goal. Calm down and don’t be in a hurry,” said Danai Linjongrat, Director of the Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand. |
Over the past decade, there has been a growing fixation among planners and developers alike for a return to the last century’s monocentric cities served by large-scale train systems. And, to be sure, in a handful of older urban regions, mass transit continues to play an important — and even vital — role in getting commuters to downtown jobs. Overall, a remarkable 40 percent of all transit commuting in the United States takes place in the New York metropolitan area — and just six municipalities make up 55 percent of all transit commuting destinations.
But here’s an overlooked fact: Transit now serves about the same number of riders as it did in 1907, when the urban population was barely 15 percent of what it is today. Most urban regions, such as Southern California, are nothing like New York — and they never will be. Downtown Los Angeles may be a better place in which to hang out and eat than in the past, but it sorely lacks the magnetic appeal of a place like Manhattan, or even downtown San Francisco. Manhattan, the world’s second-largest employment center, represents a little more than 20 percent of the New York metropolitan area’s employment. In Los Angeles, by contrast, the downtown area employs just 2 percent.
Transit is failing in Southern California
As we demonstrate in a new report for Chapman University, our urban form does not work well for conventional mass transit. Too many people go to too many locales to work, and, as housing prices have surged, many have moved farther way, which makes trains less practical, given the lack of a dominant job center. But in its desire to emulate places like New York, Los Angeles has spent some $15 billion trying to evolve into what some East Coast enthusiasts call the “next great transit city.”
The rail lines have earned Mayor Eric Garcetti almost endless plaudits from places like the New York Times. Yet, since 1990, transit’s work trip market share has dropped from 5.6 percent to 5.1 percent. MTA system ridership stands at least 15 percent below 1985 levels, when there was only bus service, and the population of Los Angeles County was about 20 percent lower. In some places, like Orange County, the fall has been even more precipitous, down 30 percent since 2008. It is no surprise, then, that, according to a recent USC study, the new lines have done little or nothing to lessen congestion.
This experience is not limited to L.A. Most of the 19 metropolitan areas with new mass transit rail systems — including big cities like Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and even Portland, Ore. — have experienced a decline in transit market share since the systems began operations.
Read the entire piece at The Orange County Register.
Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com. He is the Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book is The Human City: Urbanism for the rest of us. He is also author of The New Class Conflict, The City: A Global History, and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. He lives in Orange County, CA.
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy and demographics firm. He is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism (US), Senior Fellow for Housing Affordability and Municipal Policy for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (Canada), and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University (California). He is co-author of the "Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey" and author of "Demographia World Urban Areas" and "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life." He was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, where he served with the leading city and county leadership as the only non-elected member. He served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.
Photo: Esirgen (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons |
Tip: don’t use esc_url() with wp_remote_get() and other HTTP functions. Use esc_url_raw() instead. #wordpress — Konstantin Kovshenin (@kovshenin) March 13, 2012
This tweet gained some good attention on Twitter, so I thought it would be good to explain why. Then I found a support forums thread where Mark Jaquith pretty much explains it all:
esc_url() is for something like <a href="SANITIZE_THIS">text</a>
So if you’re going to use the URL in your HTML output, like a href attribute for a link, or a src attribute for an image element, you should use esc_url().
esc_url_raw() is for other cases where you want a clean URL, but you don’t want HTML entities to be encoded. So any non-HTML usage (DB, redirect) would use this.
The esc_url_raw() function will do pretty much the same as esc_url, but it will not decode entities, meaning it will not replace & with & and so on. As Mark pointed out, it’s safe to use esc_url_raw in database queries, redirects and HTTP functions, such as wp_remote_get .
Oh, there’s now a codex entry for esc_url_raw too! |
The president who began as a champion of the legislature’s prerogative to declare war has morphed into Napoleon.
Asked earlier today how long he expected the bombing of Syria to last, Lieutenant General William C. Mayville Jr. advised reporters to think “in terms of years.” “Last night’s strikes,” Mayville confirmed, “were only the beginning.” A mile or so away, on the White House lawn, Barack Obama struck a similarly defiant note. “We’re going to do what is necessary to take the fight to this terrorist group,” the president explained, before assuring those present that the United States was but one part of a global alliance that stood “shoulder to shoulder . . . on behalf of our common security.” “The strength of this coalition,” Obama added, “makes clear to the world that this is not just America’s fight alone.” This much, at least, was true. Among the nations that have signed on to the attacks are Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates — all vital accomplices in the winning of hearts and minds. And yet, for all the cosmopolitanism, one crucial ally was conspicuously missing from the roster of the willing: the Congress of the United States.
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Since he ordered military action in Libya in 2011, President Obama has argued as a matter of routine that Article II of the U.S. Constitution confers such considerable power upon the commander-in-chief that, in most instances at least, Congress’s role in foreign affairs is limited to that of advice bureau. The political ironies of this development are sufficiently rich to stand without much comment. (Imagine, if you will, trying to explain to an average voter in 2008 that by his second term the Democratic candidate for president would have adopted wholesale an interpretation of the Constitution that was championed by the likes of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and John Yoo.) Less obvious, however, is what this means for America and her future. The bottom line: It’s not good.
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In the course of illustrating why we do not accord presidents unlimited power on the world stage, Obama’s critics have made much of his apparent hypocrisy, charging that a man who once flatly rejected the notion that the White House may do pretty much as it pleases has, while in office, morphed into Napoleon. This does seem to be the case. American chief executives, Obama told the Boston Globe in a 2007 interview, do not enjoy “power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” “In instances of self-defense,” he continued, “the president would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent.” These days, such caution is a distant memory, the White House tersely informing congressional leaders last week that while the president already possessed the “authority he needs to take action” against the Islamic State, he hoped that the legislature would come along anyway — not, of course, to confer legality upon any military action, but because he believed that the “nation is stronger and our efforts more effective when the president and Congress work together.”
Men in all walks of life change their minds from time to time, and they are often left better off for the shift. But there is something rather slippery about the manner in which this president has managed to transpose himself from a champion of the legislature’s prerogative to an uncompromising advocate for the divine right of kings. At no point have we heard a renunciation of his past position; nor, for that matter, has an explanation of his evolution been forthcoming. Instead, the president has engaged in what, ultimately, is a semantic game, holding theoretically to the “self defense” exception of which he spoke so passionately in 2007, but construing it so broadly as to render it operationally meaningless. The effect of this has been a volte-face, for if, in practice, “self-defense” can be held to justify each and every form of unilateral preemption, there is nothing that a president is not able to do without Congress. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States explicitly reserves to the legislative branch the power “to declare war” — a reservation that the document’s primary author, James Madison, considered to be of utmost importance. “In no part of the constitution,” Madison explained in a 1793 letter, “is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department.” Nowhere in the missive, it must be noted, did Madison outline an exception for those executives that display a talent for parsing language, and nor did he include a caveat that this rule was to be considered inoperative should the president elect to play down the language of “war” or to refuse to accept that an armed encounter met the threshold. As George Will noted trenchantly last week, “The Constitution’s text, illuminated by the ratification debates, surely does not empower presidents to wage wars, preventive as well as preemptive, against any nation or other entity whenever he thinks doing so might enhance national security.” Is this principle to be dissolved by linguistic sleight of hand?
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If so, the consequences will be deleterious, for if Obama’s malleable criterion is to be our standard, future presidents will be permitted to act internationally at any point and for any reason without the need for the consent of Congress. This, suffice it to say, has not been how things were done for most of the nation’s history. Why, one has to wonder, if “self-defense” is our all-encompassing arbiter, did President Roosevelt bother to go to Congress after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941? Why, too, given that American ships were routinely sunk by German submarines, did Woodrow Wilson ask for a declaration of war in 1917? And why, one might ask, did George W. Bush, whose supposedly reckless behavior paved the way for Obama’s rapid ascent, ask for authorization before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
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Those hoping for satisfying and consistent answers to these questions will presumably be confounded by the White House’s caprice. Last week, the executive branch considered it necessary to ask for congressional approval before it set about arming the Syrian rebels; this week, the same people are arguing that it does not need approval to send fighter jets to drop bombs. It is standard for those who ask why to be told that the rules in this area are complex. But if we are dealing here with a legal grey area — as all advocates of carte blanche power like to tell us we are — it seems peculiar that the president would consider that a minor arms transfer requires justification but that the launching of ordnance in anger does not. Indeed, if there are any lingering questions whatsoever, prudence should surely dictate that we err on the safe side — especially given that Obama’s own Department of Defense is conceding that the United States will likely be involved in Syria for the long haul. If, as they were instructed to this morning, journalists are expected to conceptualize this battle “in terms of years,” should Washington, D.C., not too? Barack Obama will be out of office in just over two years. Then what?
The truth of this matter, as has so often been the case with this administration, is that the law is playing second-fiddle to cold-blooded political expedience. Simply put, President Obama calculated that he would be able to persuade Congress to acquiesce to one measure but not to the other — or, at the very least, that permitting the legislature to weigh in on the latter question would create political problems that his beleaguered party could at present do without. And so, confined by little more than the scope of his ambition, he invented a new set of rules for the day, making it clear to one and all that if getting his way requires him to adopt the legal theories that he rejected so vehemently just six years ago, then so be it; that if achieving his ends requires further entrenching precedents that he was sent into office to smash, then so be it; that if his team must apply to Syria laws regarding Iraq, and to the Islamic State laws that relate to al-Qaeda, then so be it; and that, internationally as well as at home, if Congress insists upon maintaining a mind of its own, then it will just have to be bypassed, too.
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— Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer at National Review. |
If Billy Beane’s s**t doesn’t work in the postseason, how come the St. Louis Cardinals’ s**t always does?
Seriously. I want someone to explain this to me. Preferably a sabermetrician, but at this point I’ll settle for a witch doctor.
Article continues below ...
Don’t tell me it’s random. Don’t tell me it’s a small sample size. And don’t tell me that baseball is crazy, as Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday did in a postgame interview on Fox Sports 1.
No. Sorry. The Cardinals’ annual October magic is not some accident.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and there is such a thing as Clutch.
The Cardinals are headed to their fourth straight National League Championship Series — and it’s only fitting that they will face the San Francisco Giants, another organization with s**t that works in October.
Actually, not even the Giants can match the Cardinals, seeing as how the current San Francisco run started in 2010 and recurs only in even years.
The Cardinals have won 63 postseason games since 2000, most in the majors. And when they prevailed in four games over the Los Angeles Dollars in the Division Series, concluding with a 3-2 victory Tuesday night, only the foolish among us — OK, me — should have been surprised.
Three late-inning breakthroughs. Two comeback victories over Dollars left-hander Clayton Kershaw. Left-handed hitters crushing left-handed pitching. The improbable turning inevitable, again and again.
The Cardinals lose Albert Pujols. Nothing changes. They lose Tony La Russa. Nothing changes. They lose Chris Carpenter. Nothing changes.
Bernie Miklasz, longtime sports columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, listed a series of classic Cardinals postseason victories after the team rallied from a 6-1 deficit against Kershaw in Game 1:
• Game 6 vs. Astros, 2004 NLCS.
• Game 7 vs. Mets, 2006 NLCS.
• Game 6 vs. Rangers, 2011 World Series.
• Game 5 vs. Nationals, 2012 Division Series.
Now, add the two triumphs over Kershaw to the list.
The Dollars could react violently to the implosion of their record $240 million payroll, perhaps dumping general manager Ned Colletti, who built an expensive but horrific bullpen, and manager Don Mattingly, who had one pitching move after another backfire in part due to his limited options.
The Dollars surely will find some new players, too — and, let’s hope, some new relievers. But whatever they do, they won’t replicate the Cardinals, who beat them with a payroll about half as large and 17 homegrown players on their 25-man Division Series roster.
Right-hander Shelby Miller, the Cardinals’ first-round pick in the 2009 draft, started the Division Series clincher. First baseman Matt Adams, a 23rd-round pick that same year, hit the decisive three-run homer off Kershaw. Closer Trevor Rosenthal, a 21st-round pick in yes, the same freaking ‘09 draft, earned the save.
Oh, it gets better.
Third baseman Matt Carpenter, the unofficial MVP of the DS, was a 13th-round pick in ’09. Right-hander Joe Kelly, half of the homegrown package that helped the Cardinals land Game 3 winner John Lackey, was a third-rounder that year.
Crazy?
No crazier than this series of statistical ditties, compiled and verified by STATS LLC.
• Kershaw had a combined 1.50 ERA in the first six innings of his two starts, a 121.50 ERA in the seventh (nine runs in 2/3 of an inning).
• Adams was the first left-handed hitter to hit a home run off Kershaw’s curveball in Kershaw’s career, including regular season and postseason.
• Carpenter hit two home runs against lefties during the regular season, three in the DS. He and the Cardinals’ other left-handed hitters batted .278 with a .377 slugging percentage against lefties during the regular season, .366 with a .780 OPS in the DS.
• The Cardinals batted .310 with runners in scoring position over four games, .529 (9 for 17) in the seventh inning or later. The Dollars hit .195 with runners in scoring position, .000 (0 for 6) in the seventh inning or later.
I know, I know — small sample size. Well, in the postseason all that matters is a small sample size. And when the results of a small sample size keep repeating, albeit in different ways, it’s a small sample size no more.
Shelby Miller, please explain:
“You know, there’s no doubt the history behind this organization and everything it stands for,” Miller said. “I’ve been with the team for two (full) years and been in three postseasons. And day in and day out they tell us not to take it for granted.”
Matt Adams, please explain:
“Like Shelby said, the mentality is really a never-give-up mentality. I came up with Shelby in the minor leagues. We got to spring training, they hammered it into us that this organization likes to win and knows that they can win. So that was a big thing I picked up on, and that I go by.”
What, you expected the players to provide answers? They’re merely foot soldiers in the Cardinals’ best-of-seven nation army, executing some unknown, mysterious, grander plan.
I want to know what that plan is. First one to explain it to me gets my endorsement for Dollars GM. |
For the past few years, SBPDL has been one of the few sites (and the originator) of publicizing the data the Philadelphia Police Department makes available for all to see that so few dare view... strangely, the Philadelphia Inquirer and local news networks in Philly only showcase information pertaining to racial information of the murder victims.
This leaves an incomplete picture of homicide, because it's vital to know who is collectively responsible for perpetrating the homicides in a city if you want to pass legislation actually making the city safer for productive citizens and long-term growth/viability.
Well, our friends in Philadelphia just recently released the 2016 data (though they left out, curiously, the data for homicide suspects by race).
According to the 2010 US Census, blacks are 43 percent of the population of Philadelphia, while whites make up roughly 36 percent of the population. "Hispanics" (Amerindians) make up roughly 12 percent of the population.
The one beautiful fact of the Philadelphia Police Department data is they break out the racial stats of both victim and suspect for homicides and nonfatal shootings without lumping Amerindians in with whites.
Let's get to the numbers!
There were 277 homicides in Philadelphia in 2016:
78.3 percent of the victims were black
14.4 percent of the victims were Hispanic
6 percent of the victims were white
82.2 percent of the victims were black
12.3 percent of the victims were Hispanic
4 percent of the victims were white
There were 1,279 nonfatal shooting victims in Philadelphia in 2016:Curiously, this year's version leaves out the race of the suspects for 2016 homicides in Philadelphia. Here's the data for 2015 Philadelphia . Here's the data broken down for 2014
Of known suspects, the race of the offenders in the 2015 nonfatal shootings in Philadelphia (representing only 333 of the 1279 cases):
80.3 percent of the suspects were black
15.2 percent of the suspects were Hispanic
3 percent of the suspects were white
To summarize: 96.6 percent of known nonfatal shooting suspects/offenders in 2016 Philadelphia were non-white (the number would be higher if the black community would "snitch"). Roughly 74 percent of nonfatal shooting cases in Philadelphia went unsolved in 2016
The "no snitching" culture runs deep in black/brown Philadelphia, keeping violent black/brown people on the streets to prey on the law-abiding and artificially keep down the already high black/brown crime rates as identified by yearly released Philadelphia Police Department Murder/Shooting Analysis (because almost all of the white crime is domestic disputes easily solved (because the offender is not protected by “community members” ) by detectives).
Gun crime has a color. It isn't white. |
Speaking at Monday's major announcement, FFA CEO David Gallop said he was proud that the blue chip Australian company will be a major supporter of the Socceroos, Matildas and A-League All Stars as well as the A-League, W-League and FFA Cup competitions.
“It gives me great pleasure to announce that Australia’s leading telecommunications and technology company, Telstra, has become a major partner of FFA,” said Gallop.
“Football in Australia is currently experiencing a strong growth period based on the performance of our national teams and the success of our various competitions (the A-League, W-League and FFA Cup).
“We’re delighted Telstra has chosen to increase their involvement in Football in Australia.
“We look forward to working with Telstra as we embark on the next exciting phase in our growth trajectory.”
Telstra’s Director of Digital Media and Content, Adam Good, was equally excited about the new partnership with FFA.
“We’ve been proud to be part of the football family this year through our shirt sponsorship for the Foxtel A-League All Stars and our Thank s Loyalty Program, so this is a terrific next step in a strong partnership,” Good said.
“We’re excited about this opportunity to work even closer with the FFA to connect football fans to the game they love.” |
Project CARS is a motorsport racing simulator video game developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published and distributed by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It was released in May 2015 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Gameplay [ edit ]
Features [ edit ]
There are 74 drivable cars,[2] over 30 unique locations with at least 110 different courses, of which 23 are real, with the remainder being fictional.[3] For licensing reasons, some tracks are codenamed using their geographic location. In addition to real world racing circuits and fictional kart circuits, there are two fictional point-to-point roads inspired by Côte d'Azur and California Pacific Coast,
Physics simulation [ edit ]
Project CARS is intended to represent a realistic driving simulation. In order to differentiate the game from the established industry leaders, Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport, Slightly Mad Studios' aim is a "sandbox" approach that allows the player to choose between a variety of different motorsports paths and grants immediate access to all included tracks and vehicles.[4] Project CARS portrays racing events spanning multiple days, progressing from shakedown and qualifying runs to the race itself, while changes in weather and lighting conditions are simulated dynamically.[5]
The game adopts an improved version of the Madness engine, which was the basis for the Need for Speed: Shift titles.[6] More processing power available in modern computers allows for the introduction of a dynamic tire model named "SETA", rather than the steady-state model based on lookup tables, as seen in previous generation simulations.[7] To accommodate differing skill levels, Slightly Mad Studios offers gamers (with or without a digital wheel) various driver aids and input filtering methods.
Development [ edit ]
Project CARS, which stands for Community Assisted Racing Simulator,[8] was made with a total sum of $5 million.[9] Funding for the game was raised by the community and the developers themselves, without the financial aid of a traditional publisher. Through the purchase of Tool Packs players could contribute to development in roles including content creation, QA, and marketing media. Members gain special perks, depending on their purchased tool pack. Members will receive a share of game sales profits generated within the first three years after launch as compensation for their efforts, to be paid quarterly.[10]
In addition to community feedback, Slightly Mad Studios have acquired the professional services of racing driver and Top Gear's former The Stig, Ben Collins,[11] Clio Cup and European Touring Car Cup racing driver Nicolas Hamilton,[12] and former Formula Renault 3.5 and current WEC driver Oliver Webb. Cars in the console versions of the game are made from 60,000 polygons.[13]
On 26 August 2012 support for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset was announced on the official forums.[14] The announcement stated that at least one Oculus Rift Development Kit has been ordered. Members of the project are able to follow a link referenced in the forum post to read more details.
Sony's PlayStation 4 virtual reality headset PlayStation VR will also be supported.[15]
It was released on 7 May 2015 in Europe and 12 May 2015 in America for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, while the Linux version was first delayed to later in 2015 and eventually cancelled.[16][17] Project CARS was also originally due for release on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U, but it was later announced that these versions had been cancelled.[18] On 18 February 2015 it was announced that Project CARS would be delayed until 2 April 2015 for Europe,[19] and eventually confirmed to be released on 7 May 2015 in Europe and Australia; 8 May 2015 in the UK; and 12 May 2015 in North America.
On 12 May 2016, the game was updated for compatibility with the HTC Vive virtual reality headset.[20]
Cancellation of Wii U version [ edit ]
In May 2015, it was revealed that the Wii U version would be put on hold.[21] Studio boss Ian Bell said that the game's latest build was struggling to run smoothly on Nintendo's platform – at a 720p resolution with a framerate of 23fps, and revealed that they are not allowed to release a game that is running below 30fps, but "finding that extra 25% frame time is currently looking impossible".[22] In the official Forums he adds that the Wii U's market share was not worth the effort of porting.[23] He explained that there was a possibility the game would be pushed for the Nintendo Switch, then known as the project NX.[21] On 21 July 2015, Slightly Mad Studios informed the Nintendo Life news outlet that the Wii U version had been cancelled, with Ian Bell saying that the title was "simply too much" for the Wii U hardware to handle.[24] Distribution partner Bandai Namco reaffirmed the cancellation.[25] Despite Bell wishing to release the game on a Nintendo platform, in November 2016 it was confirmed that there were no plans for a Nintendo Switch port.[26]
Release [ edit ]
Project CARS was released in different editions.
In addition to the standard version of the game, the Project CARS Limited Edition was released at Day One. This edition featured a book called "Project Cars: By Racers 4 Racers" and five extra cars: the Ford GT40 Mk IV, BMW M1 Procar, McLaren F1, Sauber C9 and the Mercedes-Benz AMG C63 Class Coupé DTM.[27]
Moreover, the pre-order version of both Limited and standard edition featured the Modified Car Pack containing three bonus cars: the Ruf CTR3 SMS-R, Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster and the Ariel Atom Mugen.[27]
On 6 May 2016, Slightly Mad Studios released the complete edition of the game, titled Project CARS Game of the Year Edition. This version features all DLCs and free bonus content already released. Moreover, the complete version adds two new cars, the Pagani Zonda Revolución and the Pagani Huayra BC, and the Nürburgring Nordschleife in its 24-hour configuration.[28]
Downloadable content [ edit ]
The game was supported with both paid and free downloadable content (DLC) upon release.[29][30] Project CARS was initially planned to follow the season-pass model[31] but plans for that were replaced with a system called "On-Demand." On-Demand was described as allowing a "commitment to keeping Project CARS up-to-date with the greatest, freshest, and most critical content whilst also allowing players to pick and choose the cars & tracks they want - without being locked in to a pre-paid scheme."[32]
The first DLC was the Limited Edition Upgrade, released in June 2015, which added five cars already featured in the Project CARS Limited Edition.[33] It was followed by the Racing Icons Car Pack, Modified Car Pack (which was also available as bonus content for the pre-order version of the game[34]) and Old vs New Car Pack, all of which added new cars to the game.[35][36][37] Still in 2015, the developers released the Audi Ruapuna Speedway Expansion, Aston Martin Track Expansion and the Classic Lotus Track Expansion which added new cars and four new racetracks: Mike Pero Motorsport Park, the historic version of Hockenheimring and Silverstone, Rouen-Les-Essarts and a fictional track called "Mojave Test Track".[38][39][40] The Japanese Car Pack added new cars from Toyota, Mitsubishi and Scion, while the Renault Sport Car Pack featured five new Renault cars.[41][42] In 2016, Slightly Mad released the Stanceworks Track Expansion, which added a new fictional track called "Bannochbrae"[43] and the US Car Pack, which adds the Chevrolet Corvette C7.R and the Cadillac ATS-V.R GT3, together with the Dallara DW12 and the Ford Fusion stock car.[44] The last DLC released in 2016 was the Pagani Nürburgring Combined Track Expansion. It added the bonus content featured in the Project Cars Game of the Year Edition.[45]
Reception [ edit ]
Critical reception [ edit ]
Project CARS was generally well received upon release. Gaming critic Matthew Kato of Game Informer stated: "The game joins a sim-racing field alongside already-established competitors like Gran Turismo and Forza, but it also does things its own way, challenging the ways of the past." Destructoid's Brett Makedonski praised the graphics and wrote: "One aspect of Project CARS that never fails to impress is its aesthetic. Everything is stunningly gorgeous at all times, even when the sun blinds you as you're trying to corner."[49]
However, some complained of bugs, including PSU.com's Simon Sayers, who said: "During packed starting grids on some courses, they’ll bunch up around the first corner and get tangled up like novices holding up everyone behind them."
Sales [ edit ]
In the first week of physical sales in the UK, Project CARS sold 63 percent of its total on the PlayStation 4 console, with 31 percent on the Xbox One and 6 percent on the PC.[67] By 5 June 2015, the game had sold one million copies.[68] By October 2016, the game had sold 2 million units.[69] The game was made free from February 16 - March 16, 2017 with the Xbox Games with Gold program.
Sequels [ edit ]
The sequel, Project CARS 2, was announced on 22 June 2015. The sequel includes more tracks and modes such as rallycross. There are over 170+ cars at release and 60 locations all featuring Live Track 3.0 and a 24-hour day-night cycle. The sequel was released in 22 September 2017 and features new vehicle types and motorsport classes including Rallycross, IndyCar,[70] and Oval.[71][72][73] In May 2018, Slightly Mad Studios announced the mobile spin-off Project CARS GO, which is being developed by Gamevil. It will feature licensed cars and vehicle customisation.[74] |
Dwane Casey is the all-time winningest coach in Toronto Raptors history.
With Sunday’s 106-87 victory against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Raptors moved to 3-0 on the season while Casey moved to 157-158 as the team’s head coach. His 157th win pushes him past Sam Mitchell on the franchise’s all-time wins list and pushes his winning percentage – also the best mark in franchise history – within one game of .500.
The 3-0 start is the first time a Casey-led Raptors team has opened a season on a three-game winning streak. Last year’s team started 2-1 and picked up steam from there, cruising to a 24-7 mark, while Casey’s prior squads started 6-12, 4-19, and 4-13, working backwards. His first win came in his debut on Dec. 26, 2011, with a 104-96 road victory against the LeBron James-less Cleveland Cavaliers.
On win record: Casey appreciates all of the players who have been here, mentions DeRozan, references Drake + SFTB, says team still building. — Holly MacKenzie (@stackmack) November 2, 2015
/script>
Casey tied Sam Mitchell’s win mark with Friday’s victory against the Boston Celtics, and while he’s downplayed the long-term accomplishment publicly, it’s probably nice to know you’re on your way to being an organization’s “best ever” at something. Where Casey ultimately ranks post-facto will depend a great deal on two related factors: Whether he remains in Toronto beyond 2015-16 and whether he can lead the Raptors to just their second playoff series victory ever. Casey should become the first coach to lead the Raptors to the playoffs in three consecutive seasons, but three consecutive first-round ousters may make it tough for some to give him the nod over the handful of other uninspiring candidates for the mantle of best bench boss.
“I love being here and appreciate being here, but the NBA is about opportunity and I want to do the best I can for this organization,” Casey said ahead of Friday”s game. “In the NBA you’re only as good as your last game. In our business, it’s sad, but nobody appreciates the building, what we started, where we are now. All they remember now is that last game.”
Dwane Casey on being a win away from passing Sam Mitchell: that and 7.50 will get you a drink at Starbucks. #WeTheNorth #rtz — Chris O’Leary (@olearychris) November 1, 2015
That’s never more true than for a coach playing without a contract. General manager Masai Ujiri opted not to extend Casey’s contract this offseason, retaining him on lame-duck status despite protestations from pockets of the fanbase after an embarrassing exit from the postseason. Casey was hired by Ujiri’s predecessor, Bryan Colangelo, and Casey’s job security has been a topic of discussion since the moment Ujiri arrived. It’s generally presumed that a general manager will want “his guy,” but the unexpected success of the Raptors over the last two seasons likely shifted plans, both to tear the team down for a full-scale rebuild and for a change behind the bench. Now Casey’s in limbo, and the direction Ujiri opts to go will hinge almost entirely on how this season plays out.
That’s not an ideal scenario for the coach or the franchise, but given the changes in personnel to a more Casey-preferred core, the overhauling of the defense, and several new assistants, it appears Casey’s probably safe for the season. The franchise has changed coaches mid-season on two occasions in the past, to ill effect. While Ujiri has several assistants who could be considered future head coaching candidates – Nick Nurse, Jesse Murmuys, Andy Greer, and Rex Kalamian, probably in that order – if Ujiri was committed to a change, it probably would have happened in the offseason, with ample time for a new coach to take the team in their own direction. Barring a sustained period of struggle, Casey is probably safe until the summer, when everything will be up for re-evaluation.
Whether Ujiri would risk firing the franchise’s winningest coach coming off of three consecutive playoff berths is a tough question, one that’s a few months premature at this point. Given the franchise’s complete lack of success over 20-plus years,it’s unlikely there’d be any outcry about losing the “best” coach in team history. Sadly .498 is the best clip with which a coach has ever finished his Raptors career. That shouldn’t serve to discredit Casey’s accomplishment any – this is his fifth season with the franchise, and he’s often had odds stacked against him. A sub-.500 winning percentage isn’t great resume fodder – he also went 53-69 as head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves – but considering what this organization’s history, he looks like Red Auberach, comparatively. And again, there have been some circumstances that make his record a little worse than it may have been otherwise.
Casey was hired in late June of 2011, immediately preceding the NBA lockout. That meant his first training camp was an abbreviated one where the team had all of two preseason games to learn Casey’s preferred system, handcuffing him in making wholesale changes. Further complicating matters in his first season was that general manager Bryan Colangelo has admitted to tanking late in the year, with the Raptors pushing for a better draft pick rather than a few additional wins. That’s not something that happens at the coach level, but Casey was working with less than a full deck. The result was a 23-43 season and, unfortunately, Terrence Ross by way of a lost coin flip instead of, say, a Harrison Barnes (coin flip victory) or Damian Lillard (losing the Ben Uzoh Triple-Double Game against the Nets).
Calls for Casey’s job began in his second season at the helm, as the additions of Kyle Lowry and, later, Rudy Gay were expected to push the team forward. The Raptors instead finished 34-48, and when a cold start followed in 2013-14, Ujiri appeared ready to blow things up. He dealt Bargnani (thank you, based Dolan), he found a home for Gay, and rumors had Lowry on the trading block next.
But the strange 2013-14 season began from there, with the team taking off from the Gay trade onward. In another down year for the Toronto Maple Leafs, the likable and unexpectedly successful Raptors caught the city’s attention, storming to a 48-34 record, their first playoff berth since 2007-08, and a new identity by way of the successful (and reportedly pulled ahead) #WeTheNorth marketing campaign. A tough seven-game loss to the Nets was a disappointing ending, but it was an incredible season overall. It’s never easy to find causality in strange seasons like this, but Casey deserves some credit for meshing a lot of new and disparate parts together to find chemistry, even if there are some who still feel the Raptors should have torn down the core for a full rebuild.
The topic of Casey’s employment is a controversial one at Raptors Republic. Several of our writers (present author excluded) are adamant a change has been needed for some time, while we’ve received plenty of feedback from readers who feel the opposite. Personally, I think people look to assign too much blame or credit to Casey in the high and low times, respectively, and he’s generally been good, not great, in his post. The main concern would be that he’s been out-coached in back-to-back playoff series, but the sweep at the hands of Washington wasn’t a slight scheme adjustment or James Johnson sighting from being a seven-gamer; it was a team-wide embarrassment.
Known for his acumen on the defensive end of the floor, the Raptors have been uneven during Casey’s tenure. The tanking Raptors inexplicably ranked 14th in defensive efficiency, seemingly backing up Casey’s reputation, but the team feel to 22nd, rebounded to 10th, and then fell back to 25th last season. The offense has been less volatile, ranking 29th, 13th, 10th, and fourth, but Casey’s rightfully come under fire for a system that lacks creativity and often relies too heavily on the singular shot-making (or foul-drawing) ability of a small handful of players.
The coming season stands as a major litmus test for Casey. He’s been armed with better defensive weapons and urged to make his scheme more conservative in response, while also losing a couple of his relied-upon shot-makers. If the team can return to an above-average defense without too large a resulting drop-off on the offensive end, the Raptors should find themselves safely back in the first round of the playoffs and better equipped to compete in a series.
Returning to the playoffs would make Casey the first Raptors coach ever to make three playoff appearances, and becoming the second to win a playoff series (Lenny Wilkens is the other) would leave little doubt that the noncompetitive mantle of “best Raptors coach ever” belongs to the Kentucky product. Failing to balance the team’s performance and win a playoff series could see Casey set the franchise mark for wins (he needs one more) and games coached (he needs 32) but lose his job in the offseason. |
Yesterday began splendidly for The Intercept, the online news outlet which specializes in leaking the secrets of Western intelligence. They had a genuine bombshell on their hands—a current above-Top Secret document from the National Security Agency, which is that outlet’s preeminent bugbear. Moreover, the intelligence report The Intercept got its hands on deals with the hottest topic in Washington these days: Russian meddling in last year’s election.
Only published by NSA on May 5, after months of analysis, the highly classified report’s wordy title indicates its importance:
Russia/Cybersecurity: Main Intelligence Directorate Cyber Actors [Redacted] Target U.S. Companies and Local U.S. Government Officials Using Voter Registration-Themed Emails, Spoof Election-Related Products and Services, Research Absentee Ballot Email Addresses; August to November 2016 (TS//SI//OC//REL to US, FVEY//FISA)
Translated into normal English, this NSA signals intelligence study of cyber-espionage by the Russian General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU for short) demonstrates that Kremlin agents indeed attempted to covertly influence last year’s presidential election—precisely as Hillary Clinton and her backers have insisted. The political import of this leak is therefore genuinely massive.
The report’s high classification further indicates that this is a special NSA assessment worthy of attention. To translate it:
TS = Top Secret, the highest classification level in the Intelligence Community
SI = Special Intelligence, meaning this information was derived from SIGINT intercepts
OC = Originator Controlled, meaning this report cannot be disseminated or released without NSA’s permission
REL to USA, FVEY = This report can be released to Americans and other members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), assuming those individuals have the appropriate clearances
FISA = This report contains information obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, meaning a classified warrant was issued to spy on American(s)
The substance of what The Intercept reported leaves no doubt that GRU made serious efforts last summer and fall to influence our election. In particular, as part of a coordinated covert campaign against our political system, Kremlin cyber-agents sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before the November 8 election. At a minimum, this NSA assessment establishes that Vladimir Putin’s recent claim that his government “never engaged” in hacking Western elections was a bald-faced lie.
Although the leaked NSA report doesn’t attempt to assess how much influence this GRU operation had on the election of Donald Trump as our 45th president, it leaves little doubt that Kremlin meddling may have tainted the integrity of that election. Small wonder that The Intercept’s SIGINT scoop was the talk of Washington—and social media—by midday Monday.
However, that elation proved short-lived, since yesterday afternoon the Department of Justice issued a press release announcing the arrest of the very person who had leaked the above-Top Secret NSA report which The Intercept had posted only hours before. Here the spy-catchers got Monday’s real bombshell scoop. Although the DoJ press release did not state that the person in custody was the leaker, quick analysis of the case left no room for doubt.
Taken into custody was the improbably named Reality Winner, a 25-year-old defense contractor assigned to what DoJ politely termed “a U.S. Government agency facility in Georgia.” In fact, Winner was assigned to NSA Georgia, an intelligence site administered by the U.S. Army for NSA, located on Fort Gordon in Augusta. This is a major operation, little known to the public, which employs some 4,000 people – military, civilian, and contractors like Winner.
Winner’s motivation in leaking the NSA report hasn’t yet been ascertained, but examination of her social media output reveals a collection of trendy left-wing views plus a loathing for President Trump. A former U.S. Air Force linguist with Top Secret security clearances, she was hired only this February to work for Pluribus International Corporation, a defense contractor which provides workers at numerous Defense Department and Intelligence Community facilities. Here she followed a customary pattern: a young person with intelligence skills and security clearances obtained in uniform accepting a far more lucrative position—often doubling her salary at least—doing essentially the exact same job she did while in the Air Force.
Whatever her motivations for leaking that NSA report, Winner’s tradecraft was thoroughly inept. According to the FBI affidavit, she emailed The Intercept from her NSA unclassified computer system—notwithstanding that such systems are clearly marked with a sticker cautioning users that they consent to employer monitoring by logging on.
On May 9, Winner searched NSA’s internal computer network, which contains highly classified intelligence, and found the just-issued report about GRU cyber shenanigans, printed it off, snuck it out of her office, and mailed it to The Intercept. She thereby left an easily found audit trail, since NSA tracks all printing off classified systems, plus Winner was one of only six people in the whole agency who printed that particular report.
Her downfall came on May 30, when representatives of The Intercept approached NSA, seeking comment on their hot scoop based on a stolen NSA report. The agency, true to form, declined to comment, but by showing NSA the purloined assessment, the inept muckrakers sealed Winner’s fate.
This is because the agency can easily determine exactly where and when a document was printed inside any NSA office worldwide. Quick analysis revealed a very short list of suspects, and Winner was high on it. A search of Winner’s work IT systems by NSA investigators left no doubt that she was the leaker.
Following procedure, NSA counterintelligence informed the FBI that they had caught a leaker, and her case was referred to the Bureau on June 1 for arrest and prosecution. Just two days later, after she was taken into custody at her home in Augusta, Winner confessed to an FBI agent that she had improperly accessed the GRU report, printed if off, then mailed it to The Intercept. Winner’s future is grim, since the charge she faces, 18 U.S. Code § 793 (Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information), can bring up to 10 years in Federal prison.
Many questions arise from her case. Although she was caught with admirable celerity, NSA—and our whole Intelligence Community—must be asked if their security clearance process is functioning properly. Moreover, the “need to know” principle—once sacrosanct among spooks—has failed, yet again. Why was Winner, a linguist specializing in Iran and Afghanistan, able to access an above-Top Secret report on Russian cyber-espionage so effortlessly?
While we’re at it, why are so many IC jobs still being outsourced to pricey contractors, who constitute the lion’s share of our problem with leakers and turncoats of late? While Booz Allen Hamilton must be breathing a sigh of relief since Winner wasn’t their employee—unlike Edward Snowden and Harold Martin, NSA’s other recent miscreants—fundamental questions about overuse of unreliable defense contractors linger.
Regardless, Congress and the public have been energized by Reality Winner’s crime, and GRU cyber-meddling in our 2016 election is an issue which now must be addressed as a core part of KremlinGate. Perhaps that fact will comfort Winner in prison. But the real prize goes to The Intercept, which outed its golden source inside NSA in record time. Nobody in our Intelligence Community has ever been arrested for leaking spy secrets even before the leak goes public. That’s a record which seems likely to stand the test of time.
John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee. |
BUSINESS
Hyundai Group said Sunday it would secure around 3.3 trillion won ($3.1 billion) in emergency funds by selling its three financial units, including Hyundai Securities Co. This is part of its efforts to address the recent liquidity concerns in the market.“Though we have enough cash for the first half of next year, we have taken strong measures to ease the concerns of the market,” a Hyundai spokesman said. “We have repeatedly pondered the sale of financial organizations, which are among Hyundai Group’s mainstays.”By selling off Hyundai Securities Co., Hyundai Asset Management and Hyundai Savings Bank Co., the group is expected to secure around 700 billion won to 1 trillion won.On top of this, Hyundai Group will secure 1.5 trillion won by selling shares for Hyundai Merchant Marine Co.’s port terminal projects, and 480 billion won through sales of its properties, securities and vessels.The conglomerate’s effort to expand capital is expected to continue. It plans to obtain 320 billion won, attracting foreign capital through the sale of shares in Hyundai Merchant Marine Co., Hyundai Elevator’s paid-in capital increase and Hyundai Logistics Co.’s initial public offering. It will also raise 340 billion won by selling off the luxury Banyan Tree Hotel in central Seoul.Hyundai Group said the selloff would proceed by setting up a special purpose company which will transfer assets of financial organizations and discuss procedures with its main creditor bank Korea Development Bank and other financial companies.Under the plan, the group is expected to pay off its debt of around 1.3 trillion won, which will lower the debt ratio of the three main companies ― Hyundai Merchant Marine Co., Hyundai Elevator and Hyundai Logiem Co. ― from 493 percent in the third quarter to about 200 percent, and to secure over 2 trillion won of additional liquidity.By selling off financial businesses, Hyundai Group is expected to shift its focus to four main segments including Hyundai Merchant Marine Co.’s shipping, Hyundai Logiem Co.’s distribution, Hyundai Elevator’s industrial machine and Hyundai Asan Corp.’s inter-Korean business projects.The conglomerate is led by chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, the widow of the late group chairman Chung Mong-hun, a son of Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung. The founder’s eldest son Chung Mong-koo leads Hyundai Automotive Group.By Shin Ji-hye |
• Further 17 wounded in what neighbours believe was case of mistaken identity • Attack adds to 16,000 killings in war between government and drug cartels
A gang of heavily armed men stormed a party inside a house in the border city of Ciudad Juárez killing 13 teenagers in the early hours of yesterday morning. A further 17 young people were injured in the attack, which was apparently a mistaken drugs hit.
The gunmen arrived in a convoy of up to seven 4x4s, according to local reports. While some gunmen closed off surrounding streets, others burst into the party and started shooting to kill.
There were conflicting reports as to whether the victims were celebrating victory in a local American Football championship, or had gathered to watch a boxing match. It was unclear last night as to why they were targeted, but it was immediately assumed the attack was by one of the drug trafficking gangs struggling for supremacy in the city.
"The men were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," a neighbour said.
Army spokesman Enrique Torres said the dead were from 15 to 20 years old, and an additional 17 party-goers were wounded, some critically. "They were about 15 men, they closed off the surrounding streets and began shooting at the house as they moved inside," he said.
Witnesses of the slaughter told the Associated Press they thought those behind the attack were acting on false information.
"It must have been a huge mistake," said Martha Lujan, who lives nearby.
Ciudad Juárez is just across the US border from El Paso in Texas, and is the bloodiest front in the turf wars raging around Mexico, which intensified following a government offensive launched three years ago. More than 16,000 have died since in related violence. Last year, more than 2,000 people were killed in Juárez, about a third of the national total.
The city has also had Mexico's heaviest military presence, with 10,000 soldiers patrolling the streets for most of last year. Last month the government announced it was reducing the number of soldiers present and increasing the number of federal police officers in the city. The killing has continued regardless.
Most victims in Juárez die in ones or twos, often small-time dealers associated with one gang and killed by a rival gang. But the arbitrariness of much of the violence has been underlined by a growing number of deaths with no apparent link to the underworld. There have also been periodic massacres, such as two attacks on drug rehabilitation clinics in September last year which left 28 dead.
Another witness to yesterday's massacre, who only gave his first name, Hector, because he feared retaliation, said he was just outside when the gunfire broke out. He said the party was an innocuous gathering of friends targeted in error. "I think there was some confusion," he said. "We're seeking justice."
The ongoing drug feuds in Juárez are said to be caused by the Sinaloa cartel trying to out-muscle the Juárez cartel at one of the most important points for smuggling drugs into the US. In the 1990s, the Juárez cartel was the most powerful trafficker, but in recent years its influence has waned. The Sinaloa cartel is led by Mexico's most infamous trafficker of the moment, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.
In other drug violence elsewhere yesterday, 20 gunmen attacked a police station in the Pacific port city of Lázaro Cárdenas with grenades and assault rifles, killing a police officer and a mother and her son who were in the building to pay a fine.
Further north, in the city of Navolato, the bodies of three women and two men were found in their vehicle, which was riddled with bulletholes. |
Good morning commuters!
Well, this is it. Centretown traffic hell rises like an angry phoenix on Friday morning.
There are new, additional closures for Wellington, Elgin, Metcalfe, O'Connor, Bank and Queen streets. You can find all of the details here.
If you're looking to avoid southbound Bank, I'd aim for Lyon, which has re-opened to three lanes from Queen to Albert.
My best advice, however, is to avoid Centretown entirely.
Splash scammer
I got an interesting email from audience member Linda who thinks she's onto a scam.
"On the last few rainy days there has been a middle-aged guy on a bicycle at the corner of Somerset East and King Edward that will come up to the driver's window claiming that he was splashed by your car and will demand $20 for dry cleaning.
"If he doesn't get the money he will spit at you. Advice ... do not lower your window! He's wearing a grey hat with brim and is in a dark grey bomber style coat.
"Please note that I am a careful driver and I pay attention to cyclists. However, the guy has tried this tactic on me for three rainy days and there is no way I have splashed the same rider that many times at different hours of the day."
Hmmm.
Have a great day. Happy (early) Canada Day!
Live blog
If there's part of your commute that gets on your nerve, or something you'd like to get off your chest — tell me about it via [email protected]
And remember, you can share what you see on the roads with me on Twitter at @cbcotttraffic. Or give me a ring at 613-288-6900. |
A five-year-old boy has died from head injuries after getting caught in the rotator wall of a spinning restaurant in Atlanta.
The boy became trapped between the rotating floor and wall at the Sun Dial restaurant at the Westin Peachtree Plaza on Friday afternoon (local time), Fox News reports.
The rotating floor reportedly shut off automatically, and Westin hotel staff worked for 30 minutes to free the child.
Staff at the Westin worked for 30 minutes to free the child. (Sun Dial) ()
He suffered critical head injuries and was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, but died soon after.
Atlanta police spokeswoman Officer Stephanie Brown told Fox News the boy had earlier wandered away from his parents, who were seated at a window-side table.
Westin Hotel manager George Reed said investigations into the “tragic accident” were ongoing.
The boy reportedly got trapped after wandering after from his parents, who were seated at a window-side table. (Sun Dial) ()
“We are working with the authorities as they look into this tragic accident and we will continue to assist them in any way we can,” Mr Reed said in an official statement.
“Words cannot express the depths of our sorrow. Our thoughts remain with the family.”
The Sun Dial revolving restaurant and cocktail lounge opened in 1976, and offers 360-panorama views from the 72 stories above street level, according to its website.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2019 |
In my search for fundamental behaviors of sociality, I found examples of dominance, sharing, and privacy in microbes, specifically slime molds. Slime molds are not actually molds. They are single-cell amoebae, but interestingly for parts of their life cycle, they join together to act like a single larger organism. Scientists have been studying slime models for a while. One species of slime mold, called Dictyostelium discoideum is particularly interesting because of its life cycle. Be sure to check out John Bonner’s slime mold movies to get an interesting visual of its behavior.
The following is a simplified description of the life cycle of Dictyostelium discoideum:
Unicellular
In the part of its life cycle called unicellular it lives as many individual amoebae spreading out and searching for food. It’s food source is bacteria. Eventual they run low on bacteria and start to starve. Then they grab the remaining bacteria they can find but don’t eat it. They save a the bacteria for later and start to join together into clumps of amoebae called aggregates.
Aggregation
During the aggregation stage the aggregates eventually form into slimy slug like shapes. Within these slugs a hierarchy forms with different genetic strains of the slime mold forming a stratum from the front of the slug to the back end. If there are more than one strain in one slug they will organize in a strict hierarchical order with the strains always aligning in the same order from front to back The slug then moves around like a real slug does (except much slower) sometimes merging with other slugs reorganizing its hierarchy of strains from back to front again.
Culmination
Then comes the culmination stage when the slug selects a location to stop and sprout a stock. The front of the slug anchors to the ground and back lifts up to form the stock. The stock grows upward pushing the strains of amoebae that were on the back of the slug up to the top. The strain that is on the top of the stock is also at the top of the hierarchy. The food that was saved previously is sent up to these elite amoebae. The elite amoebae form into spores that have a chance to be taken by wind or animal to a new location that will hopefully have more food. The food given to them will hopefully give them a good start in their new location. Only the amoebae that become spores have a chance of survival. The amoebae that form the stalk and the base sacrifice themselves to help the spores have a chance of survival. Once in the new location, the amoeba spread out as individuals in search of food again as already described.
Conclusion
The three main stages of this life cycle, unicellular, aggregation, and culmination correspond to the three principles that Jack Hirshleifer talked about regarding resolving conflict. These principles are dominance, sharing, and privacy. See, Dominance, Sharing, and Privacy, The Three Principles of Sociality. In the unicellular stage, it acts like a rugged individualist and goes out on its own and takes the food it finds and uses it for itself corresponding to privacy. When it starts to starve it begins to act like a sharing communist, gathering the food it can find to bring back and share with the collective. Once it starts the aggregation stage it forms a cast system with strict linear dominance hierarchy. Each strain of the species has a rank in relation to all the other strains and it always has the same rank in relation to all the other strains. When the highest ranking strain is not present the next in line is on the top of this hierarchy, and so on. During culmination, the lower ranking strains altruistically sacrifice themselves to provide the base and the sock that lifts the highest ranking strain high so the elite can form spores and be carried to a new location.
I don’t think Hirshleifer wrote about slime molds but this species of slime mold is a great example of these three principles being used under different conditions to enhance survival. It also hints as to the conditions under which each principle is likely to be successful.
References:
John Bonner’s slime mold movies
Altruism and social cheating in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, by Joan E. Strassmann, Yong Zhu & David C. Queller
A linear dominance hierarchy among clones in chimeras of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum by A. Fortunato, D. C. Queller, J. E. Strassmann |
BENGHAZI, Libya, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Rebels fighting to topple Muammar Gaddafi scorned reports of secret talks with the Libyan leader on Tuesday as their forces fought to secure gains and the United States said Gaddafi’s days were numbered.
EDITOR'S NOTE: PICTURE TAKEN ON A GUIDED GOVERNMENT TOUR. A young man gestures during a pro-Gaddafi rally in Green Square, Tripoli, August 15, 2011. REUTERS/Paul Hackett
After 41 years of supreme power in his oil-rich desert state 69-year-old Gaddafi was isolated in the capital Tripoli, with reinvigorated rebel forces closing in from the West and South.
Libya’s rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), recognized by many of the NATO nations whose air power is supporting their assault, denied any kind of negotiation with Gaddafi to resolve the six-month-old conflict.
“The NTC would like to affirm that there are no negotiations either direct or indirect with the Gaddafi regime or with the special envoy of the United Nations,” said NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil.
Gaddafi must step down and leave Libya, he said. “It is unthinkable to hold any negotiations or talks that disregard this basic principle.”
In Washington, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Gaddafi’s forces had been thrown back onto the defensive, and reports that a senior figure in the Libyan security apparatus had defected indicated the regime was cracking.
“Gaddafi’s forces are weakened and this latest defection is another example of how weak they’ve gotten,” Panetta said.
“I think the sense is that Gaddafi’s days are numbered,” Panetta said at event with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
At a news conference broadcast by Libyan state television, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim dismissed reports that Gaddafi’s forces were on the run but acknowledged fighting in several locations the rebels say they have already captured.
“Be aware of the media campaign which is trying to make the rebels bigger than they are,” he told Libyan reporters. “Some foreign politicians have said this regime’s days are finished and it has weeks left. They have been saying this for six months and we are still here.”
Rebels fighting to topple Gaddafi seized two strategic towns near Tripoli over the past two days, cutting the city off from its supply lines and leaving the Libyan leader with a dwindling set of options if he is to stay in power.
However, pro-Gaddafi forces were mounting a fight-back in Zawiyah, west of Tripoli. Snipers in tall buildings were picking off rebel fighters, and salvos of rockets landed in the town.
OBSOLETE
A long-range Scud missile was used for the first time in the war, launched on Sunday near Gaddafi’s now isolated home town of Sirte 500 km (310 miles) east of Tripoli.
It exploded in the open desert between the rebel-held towns of Brega and Ajdabiyah, injuring no one, said a U.S. official.
Analysts said this was an act of desperation. “It’s an obvious sign that the regime’s back is to the wall,” said Shashank Joshi of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute.
“Gaddafi troops are using his last gun. He’s crazy,” said Mohammad Zawawi, media director for rebel forces. “We’re scared he’ll use chemicals. That’s why we’re trying to end this war and we hope to end it with the least number of casualties.”
Analysts say the rebel strategy is to isolate Tripoli and hope the government collapses, but they say it is also possible Gaddafi will opt to stage a last-ditch fight for the capital.
In a barely audible telephone broadcast by state television early on Monday, Gaddafi, speaking from an undisclosed location, urged followers to liberate Libya from rebels and NATO.
“The blood of martyrs is fuel for the battle,” he said.
As he spoke rebels were making their most dramatic advances in months of fighting, shifting the momentum in a conflict that had been largely static and was testing the patience of NATO.
REBEL ADVANCE
Rebel forces southwest of Tripoli surged forward at the weekend to enter Zawiyah about 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli straddling the main highway linking the capital to Tunisia.
A day later, they said they had taken the crossroads town of Garyan, which controls the highway south from Tripoli linking it to Sabha, a Gaddafi stronghold deep in the desert.
“Gaddafi has been isolated. He has been cut off from the outside world,” a rebel spokesman said.
Tripoli officials deny the rebels control Zawiyah, and say their forces are preparing to drive “armed gangs” from Garyan.
Rebels on the outskirts of Zawiyah said most of Gaddafi’s forces had pulled out of the town, but left behind snipers who made it dangerous for the anti-Gaddafi fighters to move around.
A Reuters reporter saw six soldiers at a makeshift prison. They were blindfolded and made to kneel facing and rebels walked by, shouting at them and slapping them on the head.
Slideshow (18 Images)
“They were firing at us,” said Abdel-Muiz Ramadan, 20, a rebel fighter. “We captured one of them and he gave us the location of the others.”
Medical workers at one of the town’s hospitals said 20 rebel fighters and civilians were killed on Monday.
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Zawiyah, Libya, Phil Stewart in Washington, Missy Ryan in Tripoli, Ulf Laessing in Ras Jdir, Tunisia, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers; William Maclean in London and Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Jon Boyle) |
Is it “the world’s most dangerous book?” The BBC thinks it might be. Esquire has no doubt, declaring it “the most evil book in history.” The Independent wonders, coyly, if it’s “too dangerous for the general public”—a headline guaranteed to bring the general public running.
It’s a quote, it turns out, from a historian at the Bavarian State Library, explaining why timeworn copies of what The Independent calls the “toxic text” are “kept in a secure ‘poison cabinet,’ a literary danger zone in the dark recesses of the vast” library. The book is Mein Kampf, of course. Hitler’s megalomaniacal memoir-cum-genocidal manifesto is in the news again because, on the last day of 2015, it entered the public domain in Germany and, for that matter, the rest of continental Europe. (Contrary to urban legend, owning Hitler’s book was never illegal in Germany; copies could be found in libraries, antiquarian bookshops, and on the black market, in pirated editions produced by neo-Nazi publishers.)
When the copyright lapsed, the Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History, a government-funded body that researches the Nazi era, was quick off the mark with its two-volume “critical edition” in German. And they do mean critical: Hitler, Mein Kampf—Eine Kritische Edition includes nearly 3,500 annotations, swelling Hitler’s already bloated tome from 800 to nearly 2,000 pages. If the constant drizzle of scholarly commentary doesn’t rain on the neo-Nazi parade, the sheer length of the thing—a literary death march, if ever there was one—is calculated to thin the ranks of Hitlerphiles through terminal boredom. (One former Nazi claimed, in all seriousness, that Mein Kampf began as a diversionary tactic, a way of tricking Hitler into giving his jaws—and his long-suffering comrades’ ears—a rest. According to the historian Ian Kershaw, a Party member doing time with Hitler in Landsberg prison for the failed 1923 putsch, had the “’Machiavellian idea’ of suggesting to Hitler that he write his ‘memoirs’ in order to relieve ... the other inmates of having to listen to endless monologues.”)
Hitler’s writing, like his table talk, is pure chloroform. “He can be Führer as much as he likes but he always repeats himself and bores his guests,” groused Joseph Goebbels’s wife, Magda, after one too many lunches listening to the Great Man gassing off. Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, pegged him as “that classic German type known as the Besserwisser, the know-it-all. His mind was cluttered with minor information and misinformation about everything.”
Behind the beer-hall polymath who bored for Deutschland lay a high-school dropout whose reading, in his Vienna flophouse years, consisted largely of gutter lit, apart from the odd bit of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer: “tracts on race theory, anti-Semitic pamphlets, treatises on the Teutons, on racial mysticism and eugenics, as well as popular treatments of Darwin and the philosophy of history,” as Joachim Fest put it in his definitive Hitler.
Written in an overwrought, pseudo-educated style, Mein Kampf screams intellectual insecurity from every page, its pretensions marred by tortured syntax, vulgarities, and mangled metaphors. Speaking of which, Hitler’s howler about the soul-crushing effects of poverty during his Vienna days is a perennial favorite with critics: “Whoever has not himself been on the tentacles of this throttling viper will never know its fangs.” Partei-poopers insist on pointing out that vipers don’t have tentacles and do not, in any event, throttle, and that anyone luckless enough to have the life squeezed out of him by a constrictor will never know its fangs because such snakes, unlike vipers, kill through asphyxiation, not envenomation.
Adolf besieged by grammar Nazis! It iss to laff, nein? But the laughter strangles when we read the chilling passages that prophesy the enslavement and slaughter of as many as 20 million human beings. As Kershaw notes, Hitler had been rousing the rabble for years with his ravings about the “racial tuberculosis” spread by that “causal agent, the Jew.” No one who read Mein Kampf with any care could have missed the marrow-freezing implications of statements like, “The nationalization of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their internal poisoners are exterminated.” Mein Kampf may be the product of a world-class bore and semi-educated crank—the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper called it “a festering heap of refuse—old tins and dead vermin, ashes and eggshells and ordure—the intellectual detritus of centuries”—but its iron dream of a world purged of Jews and other “subhumans” came horrifyingly close to fulfillment, in the ovens and open-pit graves of the Holocaust.
The idea behind Eine Kritische Edition, according to the Institute’s project leader, Christian Hartmann, was to “demythologize” the Satanic Bible of Nazism—to strip it of its mystique through historical scholarship. Even the Critical Edition’s austere packaging seems designed to demythologize: the slipcase is adorned with nothing but black-on-white type, marching around a gray rectangle; the two hardback volumes are bound in gray boards. The design recalls the poured-concrete Brutalism of Nazi architecture, the robot soldiers goose-stepping in formation, the grim functionalism of the concentration camps, the rigidity and repetition of Hitler’s thought.
If the editors and designer are hoping their visual rhetoric and scholarly commentary will serve as antidotes to the nastiest thing in the poison cabinet, they’re conducting a fascinating experiment. Can a critical perspective be woven into the warp and woof of a text? Can a book’s cover immunize us against its ideas, not matter how virulent? Eine Kritische Edition is selling briskly; the publisher has received orders for almost four times the initial print run of 4,000 copies. The Institute’s director, Andreas Wirsching, is confident the annotated edition “unmasks Hitler’s false allegations, his whitewashing, and outright lies.” But what if the reader is sympathetic to the book’s message? Won’t he dismiss the annotations whispering in his ear as the deceits of “international Jewry” or the nitpickings of the feckless professoriate, as Hitler would have?
The Third Reich is history’s best-branded atrocity exhibition, and Hitler—who gives over several pages in Mein Kampf to his role in designing the party’s notorious symbol—was its brand manager. Battle standards waving in torchlight, peaked caps and glistening jackboots, death’s-head insignias and zigzagging runes on black uniforms, and of course the supercharged logo of the Nazi terror, the swastika: these images still light up the switchboard of the mass unconscious. For those susceptible to the crude seductions of fascism, Mein Kampf borrows some of their dark glamour. It might be dull as one of those lunchtime monologues that bored Frau Goebbels cross-eyed, but such is the power of Nazi branding that Hitler’s book still casts a spell on a certain sort of reader.
Immigrant-bashing xenophobia, racist nationalism, the mob mentality that doesn’t mind escorting protestors out of Trump rallies with a few cuffs and kicks, especially if they’re black: the fascist brand seems to be experiencing one of its periodic revivals, and little Hitlers in Europe and the U.S. are riding the wave of thuggish populism. (Did I mention that Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party keeps its Athens bookstore well-stocked with copies of Mein Kampf? Or that it was the 11th best-selling book in India in 2015, its sales buoyed by the rising tide of Hindu nationalism whose pugnacious face is Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party? Modi’s India-for-Hindus-only demagoguery recalls Trump’s anti-Muslim blather. Speaking of whom, The People’s Choice—at least, among white working-class volk in search of a strongman and a scapegoat—reportedly keeps a copy of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, by his bed.)
Maybe it’s time to fight branding with branding. I asked three acclaimed designers whether it might be possible to design a cover for Mein Kampf that strips it of its evil mystique, rebranding The World’s Most Dangerous Book as the biopsy of a diseased little mind.
Peter Mendelsund, the associate art director of Alfred A. Knopf, has relatives who survived the Holocaust, so there’s no chance in hell he’d design a cover for Hitler’s book (though he supports its publication on free-speech grounds). That said, if he were forced to—“gun to head,” he aptly puts it—he’d probably just use a photograph of some previous edition’s cover in order to create critical distance between us and the book; to force us to recall the role it played in historical events. “I’m suggesting that you treat the book as an artifact by photographing it,” he says. “It’s almost like looking at it under glass, in a museum vitrine. It historically contextualizes it.”
“The Nazis had a very effective approach to graphic design and propaganda,” notes Charles Brock, co-founder of the Bend, Oregon-based design firm Faceout Studio. “Picking up on that would be a good way to proceed. The [mere] sight of Hitler and a swastika make people uncomfortable, which would be a good thing when considering how to position this book ... My approach would be to push [the cover design] in a way that visually communicates the horrors of Hitler.”
Isaac Tobin, who is senior designer at the University of Chicago Press, agrees with Mendelsund that “the main challenge of designing Mein Kampf would be one of framing and contextualizing—making it clear that it is a repugnant piece of hate-speech that has value only as a record of the past, and not as the manifesto/rallying cry it was written as.”
Like Brock, he’s inclined to co-opt the visual language of the Third Reich, using its mesmeric power against it. “The Nazi party had such a strong visual language (one that is particularly appealing to graphic designers, with its white/black/red color scheme and strong geometric shapes) that it would be tempting to go in that direction,” he says.
Then again, “it would be all too easy to end up with a cover that acts like a continuation of the Nazi agenda, presenting Hitler’s text in a format he would recognize and approve of.” A better approach, he speculates, might be to embed the book in its historical context “in a very literal way—wrap the book with photos of the horrors perpetuated by Hitler.” He imagines using a “horrifying historic photo,” perhaps “a stack of corpses in a mass grave” or “records of Mengele’s experiments,” that “would make for an upsetting and disgusting cover that would match the true nature of the text within.”
Yet he worries that this design strategy, too, might backfire, “glamorizing and sensationalizing it in a different way different way: Mein Kampf as death metal album.”
In a sense, Mein Kampf’s cover is irrelevant. “The book is an advertisement for itself,” says Mendelsund. “The people that’ll be eager to buy it, whether as a historical document or to buy into its virulent anti-Semitism or horrific self-mythologizing, don’t need my help to understand what it is. No matter what I would do in terms of framing this thing visually, it will still be read and misread.”
Which brings us to a deeper, darker question: is it even possible, in these ideologically poisoned times, to change the mind of a true believer? Certainly, Hitler, a genius in the dark art of propaganda if nothing else, teaches us that minds can be changed. The bigotry, ignorance, and irrationality he unleashed were always there, to be sure, locked away in the mass unconscious, but Nazism let the German id off its chain. Hitler (and his sorcerer’s apprentice, the propaganda minister Josef Goebbels) turned one of the most literate, cultured countries in Europe into what the political scientist Daniel Goldhagen has called a nation of “willing executioners,” where ordinary citizens willingly, even gleefully joined in the fun of hunting down, torturing, and murdering Jews.
At a moment when the worst are full of passionate intensity and a Trump-ian contempt for “political correctness” is justification for the ugliest bigotry and the nastiest threats, the Enlightenment faith in the rational citizen, responsive to reason, looks a little naïve. An idea, as Morris Berman noted, is something you have; an ideology is something that has you. |
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CAPE CANAVERAL – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) took members of the media on a tour of Launch Complex 40, where the NewSpace firm has successfully launched two of its Falcon 9 rockets and one of its Dragon spacecraft (the first entity other than nations or government bodies to do so). For the media, this tour was an eye-opening experience.
SpaceX had obviously worked long and hard to allow the world to get a grasp what it is that they are doing – while at the same time avoiding International Travel in Arms Regulations (ITAR) related issues. In a well-choreographed affair the tour was split into two separate groups, one checked out the Falcon 9 hangar, while the other group inspected the launch pad that sent last December’s Falcon 9 flight on its date with history.
One enters the hangar and is greeted by the impressive site of nine Merlin engines facing them – the business end of the next Falcon 9 rocket being prepped for launched. Despite the eye-candy on display it is the simple elegance of what is described that sells this place. The horizontally integration system allows the rocket to be extremely mobile (about four people could move one of the rocket’s stages around). The system’s frictionless design is what allows SpaceX such ease of mobility.
“Our concept of operations is unlike anybody else’s that is flying these days with the exception of the Russians and maybe Sea Launch,” said SpaceX’s Director of Mission Assurance and Integration Scott Henderson. “We use horizontal integration, we will build an entire booster here in the hangar so you have the first stage and the interstage are here now, the second stage will arrive, the Dragon and trunk will arrive and we’ll put all that together, test it inside the hangar and then when we are ready to roll out for launch we’ll open this hangar door, you saw the vertical transporter-erector outside, that would lower down on pistons, we’d roll that whole structure…into the hangar drive the transporter-erector beneath the rocket, then roll out to the launch pad and lift it vertical.”
After this segment of the tour wraps up we move outside to the launch pad. The most striking contrast to other launch sites at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is that it isn’t vertically-based. Rather the Falcon 9 rolls out horizontally and is moved into the vertical position much in the same way as the Russian Soyuz and Progress vehicles are. Also, the launch pad has been simplified, this highlights SpaceX’s philosophy as well as helps the company. If something does get damaged during launch, it requires minimal effort to repair and reset the launch pad for the next mission on the horizon. |
North Korea trading executives are bypassing blocks on money transfers in China by taking cash on board trains, a source told South Korea press. Photo by Stephen Shaver | License Photo
SEOUL, March 29 (UPI) -- North Korean trading companies under United Nations Security Council sanctions are secretly bypassing restrictions on money transfers.
A source near the China-North Korea border told South Korean news outlet Daily NK North Korean trading company executives are loading foreign currency on inter-border trains that travel between Beijing and Pyongyang.
U.N. sanctions resolution 2270, which passed in early March, includes provisions that ban foreign financial firms from opening branches in North Korea without approval and forbids North Korean banks from opening offices overseas.
Existing branches of North Korean banks in U.N. member states like China were also ordered closed within 90 days, and China tightened restrictions on remittances to North Korea ahead of sanctions.
According to the source, "As cash flows, transfers of U.S. dollars and Chinese yuan were completely blocked by banking systems, North Korean trading company representatives have been secretly transporting foreign currency by train."
Inspections are less stringent on cross-border trains, according to the source, and the North Koreans take extra precaution to disguise the cash, wrapping the money in packaging that reflects light – which prevents detection.
China is not the only country where North Koreans are smuggling cash back into their country.
Yonhap reported two North Korean nationals were caught while carrying large sums of money, while transferring planes in Sri Lanka.
Daily NK's source said the North Korean executives use tactics that "surpass the common imagination" to take foreign currency back home. |
Position players pitching is one of the most fun parts of baseball, so you can't blame the Phillies for wanting to see a lot of it. Tonight, they brought in Jeff Francoeur, and he started off strong!
It wasn't smooth sailing the whole time, though, and eventually it was time to make a change. There was only one problem.
No seriously. The Phillies bullpen phone was off the hook while Frenchy was on the mound with bases loaded. pic.twitter.com/aStjNtdRtg — Lindsey Adler (@Lahlahlindsey) June 17, 2015
Remember busy signals? The Phillies do. Jeff Francoeur now definitely does. Frenchy ended up throwing 48 pitches, which is kind of a lot. The bench tried everything to get the bullpen's attention. Or maybe they were just trying to give up.
Chase Utley wasn't too happy with how everything played out. |
Credit and finance management platform Credit Karma, known best as the startup that offers free, no-strings-attached credit scores, has made its first acquisition. The company has acquired the makers of the mobile application Snowball, with plans to leverage the team’s expertise in mobile notifications. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the Snowball app will be pulled from the Google Play app store in the near future.
Snowball was founded by Anish Acharya and Jeson Patel, who had sold their first company, a mobile social games publisher SocialDeck, to Google in 2010. They began work on Snowball back in spring 2014. The idea with the original version of Snowball was to offer a way to connect the different mobile messaging apps on users’ Android devices – that is, something of a universal inbox for all your incoming chats.
That app grew to 250,000 downloads, but didn’t really take off the way they hoped. This summer, the team pivoted to building a “priority inbox” for all of Android’s notifications.
Though Snowball’s next version never topped half a million installs, the process of building the app itself was something of a technical feat, as the team figured out how to take over the entire pull-down notifications interface on Android, as well as the full notification swipe itself.
It’s this kind of expertise that Credit Karma is now interested in bringing onto its team as it rolls out further enhancements to its own set of mobile applications in the near future, explains Credit Karma CTO Ryan Graciano.
“We’re seeing a huge movement of consumers toward mobile, particularly in younger demographics. Android is a key platform for us,” says Graciano. “And these guys have really amazing experience on Android, in particular.”
Many of Credit Karma’s over 45 million total users access the service on mobile devices today. But those who do tend to be in the lower to middle credit bands – a demographic group that tends to skew more toward Android, which is why it makes sense for Credit Karma to invest in building out its Android team.
Graciano says that what Credit Karma found particularly interesting about Snowball was how they converted mobile notifications into something actionable – which ties into Credit Karma’s larger plans for mobile.
“We have tens of thousands of data points on a particular customer at any time, so there’s this constant inflow of things we could be telling you,” notes Graciano. “But sorting through all that…is a very tricky thing to do – especially in a way where you’re not overwhelming the user with spurious notifications.”
Five members of Snowball’s team of six will join Credit Karma, including CEO Anish Acharya, who will become Credit Karma’s Senior Director of Product Management.
Acharaya declined to say why Snowball decided to exit, but it’s likely that the product was still not growing at the pace they desired, and that could have impacted the startup’s plans to raise more capital. Snowball had previously raised a $2.3 million seed round from Felicis Ventures, Golden Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Metamorphic Ventures, and Wesley Chan.
Credit Karma, meanwhile, raised $175 million this summer at a $3.5 billion valuation.
“For the Snowball team, it was all about the people and mission. We had a great existing relationship with ex-Googler and Credit Karma CPO Nikhyl Singhal, and as we got to know Ryan and the rest of the leadership team, we were blown away by their caliber, culture and the commitment to the mission,” says Acharya about Snowball’s acquisition.
“As we learned more about the company’s focus on improving people’s financial health at scale, it became apparent this opportunity was a unique combination of meaningful mission, significant scale and a mobile-first product focus. It is the most interesting problem, with the most interesting people, for us to solve next,” he adds.
The acquisition, which is described as an “acqui-hire,” will not involve Credit Karma utilizing any of Snowball’s IP. Instead, the Snowball app will be removed from the Google Play store, but maintained for three months. Afterward, the app will be shut down and all data will be deleted. |
The pressure is mounting on the Boston Bruins, and it's hardly exclusive to the players.
The front office could reportedly see a complete overhaul should the team fail to hang on to their postseason position.
Per Darren Dreger on NBC's first intermission broadcast:
If the Bruins don't qualify for the postseason, then absolutely you could see full front office change in the offseason. We're talking about the dismissal of Peter Chiarelli or the head coach, Claude Julien. Both these guys know the amount of pressure that they're feeling right now. They know it because they're living it.
Dreger adds that the Bruins are desperately working the phones in an effort to hold off the hard-charging Philadelphia Flyers, who now sit seven points back, and more importantly, the Florida Panthers, who are three points behind. |
Klerksdorp – Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries director general, Mike Mlengana, on Monday night said land grabs were not the solution to the country’s land issue.
"Land grabs are not a solution to what the country is working towards. There are land policies and programmes that have been developed by government to ensure that people have access to land and it may not be as fast as people want it to be, but land grabs work against that plan," said Mlengana.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of the Nation in Conversation at Nampo Harvest Day in Klerksdorp, where he was part of a panel of five, which included Roelf Meyer of In Transformation Initiative, Land Banks’ TP Nchocho, 702 Cape Talk’s Stephen Grootes and Bosveld Group’s Milaan Thalwitzer.
Mlengana said: "When we started this thing of proactive acquisition of land, the idea was that we would work over time and title deeds would be given to those that are successful, and that is why the segmentation of commercial and semi-subsistence farmers was very important.
"It makes sense to hand over the title deeds to the guys who are successful so that they can look at the enterprise with responsible eyes. The absence of the title deeds has put a lot of pressure on the recapitalisation of these farms."
On radical transformation, he said the media had presented an idea that the reason why South Africa was not moving forward was because "farmers, especially white commercial farmers, were anti-transformation".
WATCH: Land grabs are not the solution
"I discovered that the process of communication and transparency around the issue has not been reaching the farmers, and as a [consequence] they began to have fear when we started talking about expropriation of farms and how does this affect them when we speak about an inclusive economy.
"They understand that there must be transformation, they understand that there is skewness in the distribution of resources and they want to be part of an inclusive programme of growth."
Mlengana said when he heard that farmers were willing to work with the government to transform the economy, he was surprised.
"What is needed from our side is to be transparent so that others do not feel threatened because of transparency and communication."
He called on South Africans to not be emotional about the land issue.
"There must be criteria before government can hand over a farm. You won’t just get land just because you applied.
"You must have experience in farming, financial viability, legitimacy of all the information that creates security for the product, we need to know that and the capability of this farmer in order to start his initiatives, then the government can come and complement that."
WATCH: Focus on title deeds
He admitted that the current system was not working and that the government needed to go back to the drawing board.
"We cannot continue giving away farms and funding them, we can’t continue like that, there will come a time when the funds run dry and then what are we going to do with all of these farmers? So we need strong criteria, a farmer register that will keep a database of all the farmers.
"So that next time we can look back and say, we have been helping you, putting interventions and you are not successful, it is clear that you are not a farmer, so that we can start placing people on probation."
He said government was aware that there were hundreds of dormant farms and it had started an initiative to change the farms into usable enterprises.
"I am excited because it is no longer about giving money to individuals; it will be giving money to enterprises."
When asked how the government would prevent politicians from owning farms that they could not manage, like in the instance of National Council of Provinces chairperson Thandi Modise, whose livestock were found dead at her farm in Modderfontein, near Potchefstroom in the North West.
'Unfortunate issue'
About 85 live pigs had begun cannibalising 58 dead pigs and were reportedly drinking their own urine. Sheep, geese, goats and ducks were also among the more than 100 dead animals. Many more had to be put down.
It appeared the animals had been without water and food for possibly two weeks. There were no farm workers on the property, no electricity and the water pumps were broken.
"That issue was an unfortunate one," said Mlengana.
"To tell you the honest truth, she went to the Land Bank, borrowed money like any citizen and began to invest, put a manager in and the manager let her down, so her situation was different.
"But going forward, we will continue to be close to the enterprise, we are not going to just give them money and then run away. It is either we get a percentage of the equity share with clear management responsibilities, so no one in future will just get a farm because of their connections, there will be strict criteria."
He said a digital farming register was in the process of being developed. The database will register all the farmers around the country.
"It is no use handing over the land to someone who has no clue what to do with the land… Land is viable when it meets its commercial obligation."
He told the gathering that farming was a calling.
"You are propelled by something inside you that allows you to wake up at 03:00 to tend to the crops."
WATCH: Nampo 2017 - We cannot continue giving away farms
Milaan Thalwitzer of Bosveld Group said white farmers were willing to work with black farmers in ventures that would transfer skills.
Land Bank’s TP Nchocho said the land issue should not be used to divide the country. "The very same point which is meant to be a point of conflict can be treated differently; it should be used as a point of unity."
702 Cape Talk’s Stephen Grootes said there were a lot of politicians making noise about land expropriation.
"There is a lot of noise about land expropriation without compensation and it is difficult to know what is going to happen,” said Grootes. |
Introduction
Have you ever watched professional players easily throw a multitude of grenades in a short period of time, but were wondering how they did it? As it turns out, it's quite simple!
All it takes is a couple of setting adjustments and some quick reflexes. Each time you throw a grenade, there's a small delay before you actually pull out your weapon. This happens because of the throwing animation, which can be canceled with the methods below.
Method 1
The Key Binds
If you don't already, you'll want to bind each of your grenades to a number key. Even though this might seem like something obvious, I've seen people still scrolling through their grenades, even at high ranks. You'll essentially want to use keys that are in a close cluster to your keyboard hand. A good example of this would be keys like "F", "C", "Z", or "X". Again, this all depends on the keys you already have bound to do different things.
All you need to do is go into your mouse settings, scroll down until you see the different grenades, and bind each of them to a desired key. Of course, if you also have a mouse with buttons on the side, such as a Corsair Scimitar, you could also bind those to use grenades, which would make your job even easier by allowing you to keep consistent movement since you would not need to use your keyboard hand to switch grenades.
Chaining Multiple Grenades Together
Now to the fun part. If you want to throw multiple grenades one after another in multiple succession, all you have to do is quickly press the assigned grenade key that we made above, right after the grenade leaves your hand. For example, say you're trying to grow a smoke and then a flash; you would throw the flash, then as soon as the flash leaves your hand, you press the hotkey for your smoke and throw that. To finish the combo, after you throw your last grenade in the chain, you'll want to use your quick switch key (by default, it should be "Q") to switch to your primary weapon as soon as the last grenade leaves your hand, thus cancelling the throw animation.
Chaining Flashes Together
The method above will work for all grenades except for flashbangs. If you attempt the method above when you're trying to double flash a place, you will find that there will still be a few seconds of delay between throws. To fix this, you will want to double tap Q as soon as you throw the first flash, which will quickly switch to your primary and then back to the second flash in your inventory. After this you will want to press Q once more to switch to your primary, and again, cancel the throw animation. Both of these methods can be seen in the video below by HattonGames.
2nd Method
Binding Knife and Grenades Together
Another, less known way to do this is by setting up a bind which pulls out your knife and then pulls out the desired grenade. This does the same thing as the command above except in this bind, pulling out the knife before the grenade cancels out the grenade animation much faster. Your knife will never actually come out since the bind uses the grenade command right after. The only downside to this is that if you run out of the desired grenade, you simply just pull out the knife so this is something that you will need to get used to in the long run. This works especially well when trying to throw 2 flashbangs in quick succession.
The bind looks something like this: "bind "key" use weapon_knife;use weapon_smokegrenade", without the quotation marks before bind and after grenade. To make it even easier on your hands, you could bind the CT incendiary grenade and the molotov by using "bind "key" use weapon_knife;use weapon_incgrenade;use weapon_molotov". The codes for each grenade are as follows: hegrenade (HE Grenade), flashbang (Flash Grenade), smokegrenade (Smoke Grenade), molotov (Molotov Cocktail), incgrenade (Incendiary Grenade), and decoy (Decoy Grenade).
When Should You Use This?
These methods should be used whenever you're rushing a bomb site and you need to blind the enemy quickly. Say you're rushing drop on Cobblestone and you want to double flash it. You wouldn't want to just stand there scrolling through your grenades and throwing them one by one, as in the time it takes to do that somebody could 'nade you or could simply boost up and kill you. Instead, if they're double flashed, they can't do much unless they get a lucky shot while flashed or somebody turns around right before the flash pops.
Conclusion
In conclusion, these are methods you want to use when you're in a bind. (Hey, puntastic!) Whenever the Ts are rushing or you need to get into somewhere fast, these methods will more than likely save your life and the round.
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June 14, 2014
22:40 Congress leader's son shot dead in Amethi: Son of Congress leader Jang Bahadur Singh was today shot dead by unidentified men near Raniganj market in the district, police said. Mahendra Pratap Singh (41) was shot while he was on way to his home in Fatte ka Purwa area in his car late in the evening, said Amethi SP Hira Lal. Son of Congress leader Jang Bahadur Singh was today shot dead by unidentified men near Raniganj market in the district, police said. Mahendra Pratap Singh (41) was shot while he was on way to his home in Fatte ka Purwa area in his car late in the evening, said Amethi SP Hira Lal.
22:40 Ukraine: 49 dead as rebels down military plane: Pro-Russia separatists shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane today, killing all 49 crew and troops aboard in a bloody escalation of the conflict in the country's restive east.
It was a bitter setback for the Ukrainian forces, which have struggled to suppress an armed insurgency by foes of the new government, and came only a week after the new president, billionaire candy magnate Petro Poroshenko, spoke about a peace plan in his inaugural address. Pro-Russia separatists shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane today, killing all 49 crew and troops aboard in a bloody escalation of the conflict in the country's restive east.
22:39 US orders aircraft carrier into Gulf over Iraq crisis: The United States has ordered an aircraft carrier, the USS George H W Bush, into the Gulf in response to the crisis in Iraq, the Pentagon said today. The United States has ordered an aircraft carrier, the USS George H W Bush, into the Gulf in response to the crisis in Iraq, the Pentagon said today.
21:53 Fire in I&B Ministry rooms: A fire broke out at the sixth floor of Shastri Bhavan here this evening, damaging some rooms occupied by officials of the I&B Ministry. According to Delhi Fire Service, they received a call about the blaze around 6:40 pm following which seven fire tenders were rushed to the spot.
The fire has been doused and no one was injured, a fire official said, adding that the cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. A fire broke out at the sixth floor of Shastri Bhavan here this evening, damaging some rooms occupied by officials of the I&B Ministry. According to Delhi Fire Service, they received a call about the blaze around 6:40 pm following which seven fire tenders were rushed to the spot.
21:46 Too early to comment on Modi govt, Narayana Murthy: Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy today said it was "too early" to comment on the government headed by Narendra Modi but expressed hope of seeing 'good days'.
"I think it is too early. It has been elected with such a wonderful majority. Therefore my best wishes are to them and I hope we will see good days," Murthy said in response to a question on the working of the Modi Government. Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy today said it was "too early" to comment on the government headed by Narendra Modi but expressed hope of seeing 'good days'.
21:45 Iraqis answering top Shiite cleric's call to arms: An Iraqi general said Saturday that Baghdad was secure, as hundreds of Iraqis converged on volunteer centers across the capital in response to a call by Iraq's highest Shiite cleric to fight back against a Sunni jihadist group making rapid gains across the north.
Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, speaking on behalf of the armed forces, told reporters in Baghdad that the city was "stable' and that the military was coordinating with forces in Samarra and other areas north of the capital. An Iraqi general said Saturday that Baghdad was secure, as hundreds of Iraqis converged on volunteer centers across the capital in response to a call by Iraq's highest Shiite cleric to fight back against a Sunni jihadist group making rapid gains across the north.
20:31 Iraq conflict: Iran's Rouhani 'ready to help': Iran is ready to assist the Iraqi government in its battle against extremist Sunni insurgents, President Hassan Rouhani has said.
The insurgents - from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) - have seized the cities of Mosul and Tikrit and are moving closer to Baghdad.They regard Iraq's Shia majority as "infidels". But he denied Iran had sent troops into Iraq to help bolster Iraqi government forces' defences. Iran is ready to assist the Iraqi government in its battle against extremist Sunni insurgents, President Hassan Rouhani has said.
20:26 Israeli official says 3 missing teens likely alive: Israel's defence minister today said he believes the three Jewish seminary students who went missing in the West Bank were kidnapped by Palestinian militants and that the military is determined to rescue the teens.
The three disappeared late Thursday in the West Bank, reportedly while hitchhiking. An official has said one is a US citizen. Israel's defence minister today said he believes the three Jewish seminary students who went missing in the West Bank were kidnapped by Palestinian militants and that the military is determined to rescue the teens.
19:58 Missing plane mystery: A hole in the clouds, an empty space on earth: He should have been in Rome this week, with his wife and daughter, marveling at the architectural glory of the Colosseum.
He was about to book airline tickets for their summer vacation when his wife left for a work trip.
But she never returned home.She was one of 239 people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 -- missing now more than three months
Read more He should have been in Rome this week, with his wife and daughter, marveling at the architectural glory of the Colosseum.
19:35 Syria TV says 30 killed in blast near Iraq border: A bomb attack targeting a weapons bazaar in eastern Syria close to the Iraqi border killed 30 "terrorists" today, state television reported. "A big explosion hits a terrorist arms market in Mayadeen, killing 30 terrorists and wounding dozens of others," the television reported. A bomb attack targeting a weapons bazaar in eastern Syria close to the Iraqi border killed 30 "terrorists" today, state television reported. "A big explosion hits a terrorist arms market in Mayadeen, killing 30 terrorists and wounding dozens of others," the television reported.
19:34 Britain providing USD 5m emergency aid to Iraq: Britain today said it would provide USD 5 million of emergency humanitarian assistance to help civilians fleeing the jihadists who have overrun a large chunk of northern Iraq.
The initial support package includes medicine, clean water and sanitation equipment, basic household items and hygiene kits for women. Britain today said it would provide USD 5 million of emergency humanitarian assistance to help civilians fleeing the jihadists who have overrun a large chunk of northern Iraq.
19:19 PM Modi warns of tough measures on economic front: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday warned of "tough decisions" over the next couple of years to improve the country's financial health, which he said may not go down well with some sections, and attacked the way the previous UPA government had handled the economy.
"Taking tough decisions and strong measures in the coming one or two years are needed to bring financial discipline which will restore and boost the country's self-confidence", he said addressing BJP workers in Panaji.
This is the first occasion in less than three weeks since taking over reins of power that Modi has made sharply critical comments on the previous Manmohan Singh government's peformance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday warned of "tough decisions" over the next couple of years to improve the country's financial health, which he said may not go down well with some sections, and attacked the way the previous UPA government had handled the economy.
18:56 Rouhani hopeful of nuclear deal by July 20 deadline: Iran is serious in seeking a comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers despite lingering differences, President Hassan Rouhani said today, insisting negotiations could succeed before a July 20 deadline expires.
But Rouhani added that should Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany not strike a deal next month, the process will continue until all differences are resolved. Iran is serious in seeking a comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers despite lingering differences, President Hassan Rouhani said today, insisting negotiations could succeed before a July 20 deadline expires.
18:27 Explosives found in Varanasi: The police have confirmed that the material found in an abandoned car in Varanasi is an explosive.
Varanasi is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency. TV reports say that 145 kg of ammonium nitrate was found found in a Maruti car near Lanka Gate of the Benaras Hindu University. Three people have been arrested. The police have confirmed that the material found in an abandoned car in Varanasi is an explosive.
17:41 Special task force to search for bodies near Kedarnath: With human skeletal remains still being found in Kedar valley, the Uttarakhand government today constituted a special task force to conduct intensive combing operations in the forests adjoining Kedarnath in search of bodies.
The task force, headed by Inspector General of Police Sanjay Gunjyal, has been set up as per directions of Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar said. With human skeletal remains still being found in Kedar valley, the Uttarakhand government today constituted a special task force to conduct intensive combing operations in the forests adjoining Kedarnath in search of bodies.
17:08 NCW to probe Preity Zinta case: The National Commission for Women has decided to take suo motu cognisance of the allegations of Bollywood actress Preity Zinta against her former boyfriend and businessman Ness Wadia, and will conduct a detailed investigation into the case.
"We will take congisance of Preity Zinta's case and conduct a detailed investigation into the matter on our own," NCW chairperson Mamta Sharma said.
"I have got to know through media reports that Preity used to live together with Ness Wadia till 2009. But it doesn't matter. If Wadia did something wrong as what Zinta is alleging, then we will proceed as per findings of our investigation," Sharma said. The National Commission for Women has decided to take suo motu cognisance of the allegations of Bollywood actress Preity Zinta against her former boyfriend and businessman Ness Wadia, and will conduct a detailed investigation into the case."We will take congisance of Preity Zinta's case and conduct a detailed investigation into the matter on our own," NCW chairperson Mamta Sharma said."I have got to know through media reports that Preity used to live together with Ness Wadia till 2009. But it doesn't matter. If Wadia did something wrong as what Zinta is alleging, then we will proceed as per findings of our investigation," Sharma said.
17:04 India asks its citizens in Thailand to take precautions: India today advised its nationals in Thailand to take usual precautions for their safety and keep track of developments in the crisis-hit country.
The Indian embassy issued a statement asking Indian citizens in the country to take precautions, a day after the military government here lifted curfew across the nation. Certain provisions of martial law will still continue to be in effect, the statement said. India today advised its nationals in Thailand to take usual precautions for their safety and keep track of developments in the crisis-hit country.The Indian embassy issued a statement asking Indian citizens in the country to take precautions, a day after the military government here lifted curfew across the nation. Certain provisions of martial law will still continue to be in effect, the statement said.
16:55 Taking a potshot at the United Progressive Alliance, PM Narendra Modi told BJP workers in Goa, "The government that has exited has left nothing back for us."
16:50 People may stop liking me due to my decisions: PM : Addressing Bharatiya Janata Party workers at Bambolim in Goa, PM Narendra Modi said, "Prasing me BJP won't do any good to the country. People may stop liking me due to my decisions. Though decisions need to be taken to improve India's economy."
Modi met party workers after he inducted INS Vikramaditya in the navy off the Goa coast.
Addressing Bharatiya Janata Party workers at Bambolim in Goa, PM Narendra Modi said, "Prasing me BJP won't do any good to the country. People may stop liking me due to my decisions. Though decisions need to be taken to improve India's economy."Modi met party workers after he inducted INS Vikramaditya in the navy off the Goa coast.
16:02 Iraq crisis: Iran to step in to defend Baghdad : Iran is moving to stop the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from capturing Baghdad and the provinces immediately to the north of the capital, The Independent reports.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is taking a central role in planning and strategy in Baghdad in the wake of the disintegration of the Iraqi army in the country's north, an Iraqi source has told The Independent. Iran is moving to stop the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from capturing Baghdad and the provinces immediately to the north of the capital, Thereports.The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is taking a central role in planning and strategy in Baghdad in the wake of the disintegration of the Iraqi army in the country's north, an Iraqi source has told The Independent.
15:39 Metro services to be extended till Thane: Maharashtra CM: Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan today said the Mumbai Metro would be extended till Thane and the final project report would be available with the government in a month's time.
Replying to a discussion on the calling attention notice for the proposed Thane Metro project at the legislative assembly, Chavan said a metro service within Thane city was not economically feasible.
Considering the prospects of development in Thane city and in Ghodbunder road area, he said earlier the government had proposed a metro service in the Thane city- Teen Haat Naka- Kaapurbavdi- Ghodbunder road sector and had hired firm Consulting Engineering Services to prepare a project report including its economical feasibility. Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan today said the Mumbai Metro would be extended till Thane and the final project report would be available with the government in a month's time.Replying to a discussion on the calling attention notice for the proposed Thane Metro project at the legislative assembly, Chavan said a metro service within Thane city was not economically feasible.Considering the prospects of development in Thane city and in Ghodbunder road area, he said earlier the government had proposed a metro service in the Thane city- Teen Haat Naka- Kaapurbavdi- Ghodbunder road sector and had hired firm Consulting Engineering Services to prepare a project report including its economical feasibility.
15:38 Pak govt challenges court order to lift Musharraf travel ban: Pakistan government today filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against a high court decision to lift travel ban slapped on former military dictator Pervez Musharraf last year.
Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt filed the appeal against the ruling of the Sindh High Court ordering the government to lift the travel ban on 70-year-old Musharraf.
A two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court comprising Justices Mohammad Ali Mazhar and Shahnawaz had issued a brief ruling on Thursday directing the Nawaz Sharif government to remove Musharraf's name from the Exit Control List. The high court had given 15 days to file an appeal against its decision. Pakistan government today filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against a high court decision to lift travel ban slapped on former military dictator Pervez Musharraf last year.Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt filed the appeal against the ruling of the Sindh High Court ordering the government to lift the travel ban on 70-year-old Musharraf.A two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court comprising Justices Mohammad Ali Mazhar and Shahnawaz had issued a brief ruling on Thursday directing the Nawaz Sharif government to remove Musharraf's name from the Exit Control List. The high court had given 15 days to file an appeal against its decision.
15:27 Preity Zinta: I trust police will do their job fairly : As police probe the molestation charges against Ness Wadia, actress Preity Zinta issued a fresh statement on her Facebook page. "Every human being has a limit of how much he can take. In my 15-year-long career I have never faced such humiliation. This time I was left with no option but to take stern action."
"I trust the police will do their job fairly and quickly. I am sure witnesses will speak the truth." As police probe the molestation charges against Ness Wadia, actress Preity Zinta issued a fresh statement on her Facebook page. "Every human being has a limit of how much he can take. In my 15-year-long career I have never faced such humiliation. This time I was left with no option but to take stern action.""I trust the police will do their job fairly and quickly. I am sure witnesses will speak the truth."
14:58 'India has strong foodgrains reserve to tackle rainfall shortage': Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaramtoday said the forecast of below normal monsoon is not"alarming" as of now but the government is keeping a watch.
He said the country has strong foodgrains reserves to tackle any shortfall in production due to erratic rains.
"The Met department prediction shows a little less rain than average. It is not alarming at this point of time but we have to watch. We believe that we have a very strong reserves position," Mayaram told reporters on the sidelines of an even there.
According to official data, state-run Food Corporation of India held a stock of 41.6 million tonnes of wheat and11.4 million tonnes of paddy till June. Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaramtoday said the forecast of below normal monsoon is not"alarming" as of now but the government is keeping a watch.He said the country has strong foodgrains reserves to tackle any shortfall in production due to erratic rains."The Met department prediction shows a little less rain than average. It is not alarming at this point of time but we have to watch. We believe that we have a very strong reserves position," Mayaram told reporters on the sidelines of an even there.According to official data, state-run Food Corporation of India held a stock of 41.6 million tonnes of wheat and11.4 million tonnes of paddy till June.
14:43 Nitish appeals to Lalu ahead of RS polls : Facing stiff challenge to see JD-U candidates through in the coming by-poll for two Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar, Nitish Kumar today appealed to arch rival Lalu Prasad, the Congress and the Communist Party of India to make common cause to "foil the game plan of the BJP to destabilise the government".
"I have talked to Lalu Prasad, Congress state chief Ashok Choudhary, its legislature party leader Sadanand Singh and CPI secretary Rajendra Singh seeking their support for the victory of two JD-U candidates in the by-poll to Rajya Sabha in Bihar," Nitish Kumar told reporters.
The two JD-U nominees -- diplomat-politician Pawan Varmaand Gulam Rasool Balyawi -- are facing stiff challenge from independents -- real estate baron Anil Sharma and Sabir Ali whoare being backed by party rebels and BJP in the June 19 by-poll.
The party leader and former chief minister said he has appealed to the three secular parties to foil BJP's "design of destabilising the Jitan Ram Manjhi government and thrust an early election in Bihar".
Facing stiff challenge to see JD-U candidates through in the coming by-poll for two Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar, Nitish Kumar today appealed to arch rival Lalu Prasad, the Congress and the Communist Party of India to make common cause to "foil the game plan of the BJP to destabilise the government"."I have talked to Lalu Prasad, Congress state chief Ashok Choudhary, its legislature party leader Sadanand Singh and CPI secretary Rajendra Singh seeking their support for the victory of two JD-U candidates in the by-poll to Rajya Sabha in Bihar," Nitish Kumar told reporters.The two JD-U nominees -- diplomat-politician Pawan Varmaand Gulam Rasool Balyawi -- are facing stiff challenge from independents -- real estate baron Anil Sharma and Sabir Ali whoare being backed by party rebels and BJP in the June 19 by-poll.The party leader and former chief minister said he has appealed to the three secular parties to foil BJP's "design of destabilising the Jitan Ram Manjhi government and thrust an early election in Bihar".
14:32 Ex-Goldman director Rajat Gupta to pen his book in prison: India-born former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, who is scheduled to begin his prison term on June 17, hopes to release a book telling his side of the story and visit India once he completes his two-year sentence, according to a media report.
Gupta, 65, lost his final bid to avoid reporting to jail after the US Supreme Court last week denied his application to remain free on bail while his insider trading case is reheard.
While US district judge Jed Rakoff had recommended that Gupta be assigned to a medium-security prison in Otisville, about 70 miles northwest of New York, a report in the New York Times said he has been assigned to the satellite camp at FMC Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, close to where his one-time friend Raj Rajaratnam is jailed for insider trading.
Sri Lanka-born former hedge fund billionaire Rajaratnam is lodged in FMC Devens' federal medical center. He is a diabetic and FMC Devens' medical unit provides dialysis. His facility is next to the satellite camp where Gupta will be. India-born former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, who is scheduled to begin his prison term on June 17, hopes to release a book telling his side of the story and visit India once he completes his two-year sentence, according to a media report.Gupta, 65, lost his final bid to avoid reporting to jail after the US Supreme Court last week denied his application to remain free on bail while his insider trading case is reheard.While US district judge Jed Rakoff had recommended that Gupta be assigned to a medium-security prison in Otisville, about 70 miles northwest of New York, a report in thesaid he has been assigned to the satellite camp at FMC Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, close to where his one-time friend Raj Rajaratnam is jailed for insider trading.Sri Lanka-born former hedge fund billionaire Rajaratnam is lodged in FMC Devens' federal medical center. He is a diabetic and FMC Devens' medical unit provides dialysis. His facility is next to the satellite camp where Gupta will be.
14:30 Sitharaman likely to take Rajya Sabha route from Andhra Pradesh: Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to be elected to Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh in the by-election slated for July 3.
The ruling Telugu Desam Party has decided to allot the lone seat to its alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party.
The by-election was caused due to the death of sitting MP N Janardhana Reddy of the Congress, whose term was originally supposed to end on June 21, 2016.
Since Sitharaman is currently not a member of Parliament, her name is tipped for the Rajya Sabha seat from AP where the TDP-BJP alliance has a comfortable majority of108 members in the 175-member assembly. Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to be elected to Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh in the by-election slated for July 3.The ruling Telugu Desam Party has decided to allot the lone seat to its alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party.The by-election was caused due to the death of sitting MP N Janardhana Reddy of the Congress, whose term was originally supposed to end on June 21, 2016.Since Sitharaman is currently not a member of Parliament, her name is tipped for the Rajya Sabha seat from AP where the TDP-BJP alliance has a comfortable majority of108 members in the 175-member assembly.
14:27 Eight killed as jeep collides with truck in Uttar Pradesh: Eight persons were today killed and six others injured when a jeep they were travelling in collided with a truck in Pali area, police said in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh.
The mishap occurred this morning when their jeep collided with a truck near Thamaria culvert, police said, adding that, victims were returning to Mirzapur district after attending a marriage function. Eight persons were today killed and six others injured when a jeep they were travelling in collided with a truck in Pali area, police said in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh.The mishap occurred this morning when their jeep collided with a truck near Thamaria culvert, police said, adding that, victims were returning to Mirzapur district after attending a marriage function.
13:49 BBCI, IPL officials to be grilled in Preity Zinta molestation case : The Mumbai police are examining the CCTV footage at Mumbai's Wankhede stadium where actress Preity Zinta was allegedly molested by her former boyfriend Ness Wadia after an IPL game.
The police also said that they will question BBCI and IPL officials as eyewitnesses. The Mumbai police are examining the CCTV footage at Mumbai's Wankhede stadium where actress Preity Zinta was allegedly molested by her former boyfriend Ness Wadia after an IPL game.The police also said that they will question BBCI and IPL officials as eyewitnesses.
13:25 'Why can't we send our defence equipment to other nations?': "Why should we import defence equipment? We must be self sufficient. Why can't we send our defence equipment to other nations," said PM Narendra Modi.
"Why should we import defence equipment? We must be self sufficient. Why can't we send our defence equipment to other nations," said PM Narendra Modi.
13:08 This is an important day for our nation: PM aboard INS Vikramaditya : The PM today dedicated INS Vikramaditya to the nation. "This is an important day for our nation," the PM said while addressing naval officers on the warship.
"We need to give immense importance to latest technology. This will help the nation," he said. The PM today dedicatedto the nation. "This is an important day for our nation," the PM said while addressing naval officers on the warship."We need to give immense importance to latest technology. This will help the nation," he said.
13:05 Nitish seeks RJD support for Rajya Sabha polls : Former Bihar CM Nitish Kumar today spoke to Lalu Prasad seeking support for the Janata Dal-United candidates in the coming Rajya Sabha poll in Bihar.
Former Bihar CM Nitish Kumar today spoke to Lalu Prasad seeking support for the Janata Dal-United candidates in the coming Rajya Sabha poll in Bihar.
12:55 Govt will implement one rank one pension soon: PM : Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses navy personnel on board INS Vikramaditya. "INS Vikramaditya is a major force for the navy."
He also announced that a war memorial will be built by the government. "It's a privilege to announce a creation of a war memorial," he said.
"This government will implement one rank one pension soon," he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses navy personnel on board. "INS Vikramaditya is a major force for the navy."He also announced that a war memorial will be built by the government. "It's a privilege to announce a creation of a war memorial," he said."This government will implement one rank one pension soon," he said.
12:20 Defence Minister Jaitley in Srinagar to review security situation: Defence Minister Arun Jaitley today began his two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir during which he will review the security situation with the state government and senior military officials.
Accompanied by Army chief General Bikram Singh, Jaitley arrived in Srinagar on his maiden visit since assuming charge as defence minister last month and will be meeting Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
"The defence minister accompanied by Chief of the Army Staff General Bikram Singh arrived in Srinagar for a two-day visitof Jammu and Kashmir," a defence spokesman said. Defence Minister Arun Jaitley today began his two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir during which he will review the security situation with the state government and senior military officials.Accompanied by Army chief General Bikram Singh, Jaitley arrived in Srinagar on his maiden visit since assuming charge as defence minister last month and will be meeting Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah."The defence minister accompanied by Chief of the Army Staff General Bikram Singh arrived in Srinagar for a two-day visitof Jammu and Kashmir," a defence spokesman said.
12:01 My intention was to protect myself: Preity Zinta : In a statement issued by actress Preity Zinta after she filed a complaint of molestation against former boyfriend and industrialist Ness Wadia, she said, "It's a very difficult time for me and I request the media respects my privacy. My intention is not to hurt anyone but to protect myself." In a statement issued by actress Preity Zinta after she filed a complaint of molestation against former boyfriend and industrialist Ness Wadia, she said, "It's a very difficult time for me and I request the media respects my privacy. My intention is not to hurt anyone but to protect myself."
11:35 Delhi power crisis: Cong leaders detained, water cannons used on protestors: The Congress today continued to protest against the water and power crisis in New Delhi. The police fired water cannons at protesters to control the agitators.
Party leaders A S Lovely, Dr Naresh Kumar and Sajjan Kumar, who were leading the protests, have been detained, reports ANI.
The Congress today continued to protest against the water and power crisis in New Delhi. The police fired water cannons at protesters to control the agitators.Party leaders A S Lovely, Dr Naresh Kumar and Sajjan Kumar, who were leading the protests, have been detained, reports
11:21 Heavy rains force demonstrations to be halted on INS Vikaramaditya: On board INS Vikaramaditya, PM Narendra Modi was watching various manoeuvres and formations. However, the demonstrations of naval vessels has been halted because of heavy rains.
The PM has been taken inside the warship. On board, PM Narendra Modi was watching various
11:12 Rains in Delhi, more expected in next few days: Delhiites woke up to light showers and partly cloudy skies this morning with weatherman predicting some more rain in the next few days.
Minimum temperature was today recorded at 25.5 degree Celsius, which was two notches below normal and maximum is expected to be at around 39 degree Celsius.
According to meteorological official, there would be a partly cloudy sky with light rains and thunderstorms in some parts of the national capital today. The observatory at Safdarjung has recorded 1.3 mm rainfall while Palam Met department recorded 1.6 mm rainfall till 8.30 am today. Delhiites woke up to light showers and partly cloudy skies this morning with weatherman predicting some more rain in the next few days.Minimum temperature was today recorded at 25.5 degree Celsius, which was two notches below normal and maximum is expected to be at around 39 degree Celsius.According to meteorological official, there would be a partly cloudy sky with light rains and thunderstorms in some parts of the national capital today. The observatory at Safdarjung has recorded 1.3 mm rainfall while Palam Met department recorded 1.6 mm rainfall till 8.30 am today.
10:54 Preity Zinta molestation: Police to examine CCTV footage : Actor Preity Zinta has filed a police complaint against her former boyfriend and businessman Ness Wadia, alleging that he molested, abused and threatened her inside Mumbai's Wankhede stadium during an IPL game.
Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria on Saturday said, "Offence has been registered. We are trying to collect evidence like the statements of those involved and CCTV footage." Actor Preity Zinta has filed a police complaint against her former boyfriend and businessman Ness Wadia, alleging that he molested, abused and threatened her inside Mumbai's Wankhede stadium during an IPL game.Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria on Saturday said, "Offence has been registered. We are trying to collect evidence like the statements of those involved and CCTV footage."
10:36 Modi boards fighter jet MiG-29K: Aboard the warship, PM Modi boards fighter jet MiG-29K. He is also briefed to the jet by Indian Navy officers. Aboard the warship, PM Modi boards fighter jet MiG-29K. He is also briefed to the jet by Indian Navy officers.
10:31 Modi onboard INS Vikramaditya: Here is one of the first pictures clicked after Modi arrives on INS Vikramaditya.
Picture: Courtesy ANI/Twitter.
Here is one of the first pictures clicked after Modi arrives on
10:23 From the Dabolim navy base, PM takes a navy chopper to INS Vikramaditya. The PM has arrived on the warship, which he will induct in the navy.
10:06 Guard of honour for PM: PM Modi given a guard of honour before he embarks on INS Vikramaditya. This is his first outing on a military asset. PM Modi given a guard of honour before he embarks on. This is his first outing on a military asset.
09:54 Modi in Goa to induct Vikramaditya in the navy: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived in Panaji, Goa. He will launch India's largest warship INS Vikramaditya. He was received at the naval station by Navy chief R K Dhowan at the Dabolim navy base.
The PM will dedicate the ship to the nation.
The warship is manned by 1600 personnel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived in Panaji, Goa. He will launch India's largest warship. He was received at the naval station by Navy chief R K Dhowan at the Dabolim navy base.The PM will dedicate the ship to the nation.The warship is manned by 1600 personnel.
09:34 Security heightened for PM's INS Vikramaditya trip: Warships, combat aircraft and surveillance planes have been deployed by the navy as it is leaving no stone unturned to provide fool-proof security to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will be on a visit in Panaji today. He is expected to reach there soon.
Warships have been deployed for securing the INS Hansa naval air base where the prime minister will land before taking a chopper ride to aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya in the Arabian Sea, navy sources said.
Sea traffic coming towards the Goa shore are being kept under a watch by surveillance planes, they said. At INS Vikramaditya, which has no air defence system of its own, the warships of the carrier battle group including Talwar class frigates and Delhi class destroyers will look after securing the largest warship from aerial threat, they said. Warships, combat aircraft and surveillance planes have been deployed by the navy as it is leaving no stone unturned to provide fool-proof security to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will be on a visit in Panaji today. He is expected to reach there soon.Warships have been deployed for securing thenaval air base where the prime minister will land before taking a chopper ride to aircraft carrierin the Arabian Sea, navy sources said.Sea traffic coming towards the Goa shore are being kept under a watch by surveillance planes, they said. At I, which has no air defence system of its own, the warships of the carrier battle group including Talwar class frigates and Delhi class destroyers will look after securing the largest warship from aerial threat, they said.
03:32 Iraq conflict: Shia cleric calls people to take up arms: Iraq's most senior Shia cleric has issued a call to arms after Sunni-led insurgents seized more towns. The call by a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani came as the militants widened their grip in the north and east, and threatened to march south, towards Baghdad. The UN says hundreds have been killed - with militants carrying out summary executions of civilians in Mosul. President Barack Obama has said the US is reviewing its options over Iraq. Read more on BBC
00:53 Official: Iran sends forces into Iraq: Emboldened militants, backed by Sunni tribal leaders, pushed toward Baghdad on Friday as Iran sent troops to fight alongside government forces. In Washington, increasingly nervous U.S. officials mulled their limited options to help slow the militants' advance. In recent days, Iran has sent about 500 Revolutionary Guard troops to fight alongside Iraqi government security forces in Diyala province, a senior security official in Baghdad told CNN. Meanwhile, Sunni tribal leaders have lined up behind radical Islamists from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, making their push toward Baghdad easier, a Saudi intelligence official told CNN's Nic Robertson.
Terrorists gain ground in Iraq fighting As Iraq further disintegrated, residents fled Mosul in droves. Militants captured the country's second-largest city this week after soldiers scattered, leaving their uniforms and weapons behind. Read more on CNN
00:42 Preity files 'sexual harrasement case against Ness': NDTV: Actor and Kings XI Punjab owner Preitzy Zinta files sexual harrasement case reportedly against team co-owner Ness Wadia in Mumbai. The case has been filed at the Marine Lines Police Station in South Mumbai, reports suggest. A case under Section 354 of Indian Penal Code has been registered, report adds. |
Google has announced that it’s discontinuing the ‘Chrome to Mobile’ browser extension as of February 2015.
The one time must-have add-on for Android fans everywhere debuted in 2012, riding the crest of Ice Cream Sandwich. It allowed webpages to be quickly and easily sent from desktop Chrome to an Android (and later iOS) phone/tablet running the mobile version.
The extension was particularly useful for its option to send a copy of a webpage for offline viewing.
Times Change, And So Do User Habits
But times, habits and priorities change. As reported by Android Police, Google is to remove the Chrome for Mobile extension from the Chrome Web Store sometime in ‘early February 2015’.
The search giant is advising affected users to switch to Tab Sync for Chrome, a feature that allows webpages open in Chrome on any device to be viewed and accessed from another automatically, without the need to click a button.
The extension required Google Chrome to be installed on a mobile device (it couldn’t be used without it), and since the introduction of Tab Sync offers a similar feature built into both mobile and desktop offerings, the move is far from a shocking, unexpected or illogical one.
On the upside, in retiring support for the add-on Google will be able to remove the unneeded code from the main Chrome codebase. Chromium developers will no longer need to continually check, test and workaround the feature when introducing changes elsewhere.
Google’s older ‘Chrome to Phone’ extension and Android app pairing does not appear to be affected by this planned change.
If you’re one of the 540,000 users still ferrying webpages using Chrome to Mobile none of this will be news to you. Google rolled out an update yo the add-on in question in mid-January to warn of the impending obsolescence — but we’re interested in what you think.
Will you miss Chrome to Mobile? Or do you already get a cross-platform efficiency fix from Tab Sync? Share your thoughts in the comment section below. |
Our favorite Starling City residents are reeling in tonight’s episode of Arrow.
Following the death of Moira in the last new episode, Team Arrow is down for the count in a major way and, according to Paul Blackthorne, experiencing, “a little bit of a shock to the system.” “Lance and Moira obviously weren’t bosom buddies, but there was some respect and their relationship was warming up in recent months,” says the actor. “And, obviously, the effect it has on this daughter — particularly Laurel — is huge for Lance. It’s a sad moment.”
But even in the group’s grief, there’s a major threat to be dealt with, as Slade Wilson is on the run. And while Oliver certainly has his sights set on his nemesis, Det. Lance is on a slightly different — but, unbeknownst to him, related — trail. “Laurel approaches Lance with this news that she thinks Sebastian Blood is involved with it, and sort of painting him as a bad guy — just as she did a few months ago when she was all doo-daddley on the drugs and the drink,” he says. “So for Lance to sort of have faith in her again is a bit of a leap for him, but considering where they’re both at right now between the two of them, she’s in a much cleaner purer, better state than before, he can just sense there’s something going on here and she’s on to it.”
And as the pieces of that evil puzzle come together in the final episodes of the season, Blackthorne says there’s a lot to look forward to in the finale itself, which, as EW reported earlier this week, will feature a big return. “There’s an interesting turn in the relationship between the police department in general and Arrow with Lance as the catalyst in between,” he says. “We all realize there’s a threat in the city and we’re all in this together and we’ve all got to deal with it together.”
In an unrelated (or slightly related) matter, EW asked Blackthorne to play the inaugural game of something we like to call “Laurel or Sara?” — something as simple as it sounds. One scenario. Two daughters. One choice. And he was up for the challenge! Read below:
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Scenario: You’re arrested again. Which daughter would you call first?
PAUL BLACKTHORNE: Without a doubt Laurel because she has a pretty good track record of getting me out of sticky situations. So with the track record she’s got, Laurel all the way.
Helena escapes custody. Who would you call?
I think I have to say Sara on that one. With the way in which Helena operates, I think Sara would be more [able] to deal with her on a physical front.
You get to invite one person with you to grab a free burger at Big Belly Burger. Who’s going?
Felicity.
Nice!
Lance’s got interesting thoughts on Felicity and again, neurotic as ever, but I think Lance would secretly love to sit down and have a burger with Felicity and get to the bottom of who that girl is. But with respect to the game we’re playing, sitting down with Laurel or Sara for a burger? Absolutely, without a doubt, it would have to be both of them. I refuse to make a choice. I’m taking both of my girls to dinner.
Who would you trust to be your matchmaker?
Laurel. [laughs] Again, she’s got some track record on that, hasn’t she? She’s the one who did accommodate the ill-fated dinner with Dinah that one time. She was the one who understand why Lance wanted to give that a go. She got that together. She did a bit of matchmaking on that occasion. So she’s got the history and the track record.
Last one: Who would you want dating Oliver Queen?
No one with the surname Lance.
HAHA!
Having said that, he’s improved in Lance’s mind. Lance has definitely warmed to him somewhat over the last year. And if one of his daughters decided to do that, he’d understand. He’s respect that. But preferably, let’s just find someone else, shall we? |
A minor kerfuffle erupted last week when our friends at The Lost Ogle unearthed a recording of Louis C.K., arguably the best living comedian, talking about how much he hates the crazy rednecks of OKC and finishing with a bombing joke for good measure.
The response predictably fell into two camps: those offended by the joke and those who think no one should ever get offended by jokes, because comedians have to be able to piss people off to do their job. The idea that comedians should never be questioned about the things they say and do has always struck me as inane. All artists should expect people to examine and critique their output. What’s more, most comics recognize that there are lines that they can’t cross without courting risk. Hardly anyone thinks that Michael Richards didn’t get what was due after his career-destroying racist rant, and when Tracy Morgan talked about how he would stab his son if he came out as gay, people were rightly pissed.
The reason these issues are so tricky is that they exist at the intersection between the responsibility of comedians to puncture and lampoon etiquette and the power of words to do real harm to people. People find different things offensive just like they find different things funny, but there is a point at which words can become so personal and so wounding that the recipient feels assaulted. This is why you shouldn’t expect to be able to shout racial epithets in a crowd without getting punched in the face.
To me, the thing that’s offensive about the Louis C.K. bit in question is that it isn’t funny. There is probably a funny OKC bombing joke out there*, but this wasn’t it. It’s a cheap shot at redneck stereotypes capped with a crass “edgy” reference to the bombing. He probably knows it isn’t a good joke, which is why it didn’t make it into his set and is just now being dredged up.
I’m sure Louis C.K, had a perfectly awful time in OKC sometime in the mid-1980s. I had a terrible time in OKC in the mid-1980s, and I was just a little kid. None of that speaks to what the city has become since then, and it sucks that we still have to answer for the shitty, ignorant redneck assholes of decades past. What’s galling to me about this is that the only people here who will hear this, and the only people likely to be offended by it, are the people who are working hard to make OKC a better place. The shitty, ignorant rednecks of today are too busy bow hunting and muddin’ to give two shits about what some lib’rul comedian has to say. For once, we should take a cue from them.
The OKC inferiority complex has gotten stale. It’s no longer necessary to jump down the throat of everyone who says bad shit about us, or alternately, to roll out the red carpet for them, introduce them to the governor, and give them custom cowboy boots. Every city- EVERY CITY- has people who don’t care for it. We aren’t experiencing anything that the people of Charlotte, Indianapolis, San Antonio, and every other mid-sized “emerging city” in a red state hasn’t gone through. You don’t have to apologize for living here.
OKC is about as cool as any other mid-sized, Midwestern city, (which is to say “kinda”.) It’s a livable city with some nice parks, a few cool urban neighborhoods, a nice downtown, a couple good record stores, a good half-time independent radio station, a bunch of Indian casinos, and some nice restaurants and bars. It’s where most of the people I love and care about live, and there are a lot of good people here. A bunch of them were murdered in that building in 1995, and it’s pretty shitty to say they had it coming.
*My friend, local comic Sam Scovill, went on at an open mic after someone made a joke about how the Thunder should have been called the Oklahoma City Bombers.
“Listen, man, my dad worked at the bombing site. He saw the dead bodies pulled from the wreckage, and he has PTSD now. When you tell that joke, you’re disrespecting my father.”
(beat)
“Because he made that exact same joke.”
That’s how you tell a funny Oklahoma City bombing joke. |
June 11, 2015
Paul Fleckenstein , a longtime activist and socialist in Vermont, looks behind the image at the real record of the state's most popular politician--and now presidential candidate.
AS I stood among the 5,000 people in Burlington, Vermont's waterfront park while Bernie Sanders launched his Democratic presidential primary bid late last month, it was odd to hear the repeated claim that Sanders was responsible for rescuing this very parkland from rapacious developers while he was mayor of Burlington in the 1980s.
Actually, in 1985, Sanders partnered with developers to champion a seven-story hotel and 300 mostly upscale condominiums on the land we were standing on. The city was to get a cut of the profits through a tax increment financing (TIF) district.
Fortunately, activists mobilized an opposition to this giveaway of public land to the wealthy, and the plan was defeated in a citywide referendum. That's why there was a beautiful park to serve as the backdrop for Sanders to launch his campaign.
This story is emblematic of Sanders' political history. While he says many good things that socialists support and that attract support from workers, students and the left, his actual political practice is at odds with his image. Setting aside his self-identification as a "socialist," even his claim to be "independent" is dubious once you know about Sanders' accommodations with business and the wealthy and his ongoing collaboration with the Democratic Party.
Bernie Sanders launches his 2016 campaign in Burlington's lakefront park
In one of its articles on the Sanders campaign, two SocialistWorker.org contributors wrote:
[T]he question for us isn't mostly about the "purity" of Sanders' political positions. The crux of our objection is Sanders' decision to run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, and to promise in advance that he will endorse the mainstream Democrat who will all but certainly defeat him.
Such critiques of Sanders focus rightly on the role he will play--indeed, which he has promised, in his own words, to play--within the Democratic Party in the coming year: as the liberal "sheep dog...charged with herding activists and voters back into the Democratic fold," as Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report put it.
But at the same time, anyone who disagrees and thinks that radicals should get involved in the Sanders campaign--or even merely welcome it as an opportunity to build the left--should consider just how "impure" Sanders' record is. Here's what we in Vermont have learned about Bernie Sanders over the years.
Bernie Sanders' political career began as part of the left-wing and antiwar Liberty Union party in 1972, when he ran for U.S. Senate against Vermont's now-ranking Sen. Patrick Leahy.
But after the end of the Vietnam War and the retreat of the antiwar and other social movements of the 1960s, Sanders followed a rightward trajectory into a close relationship with the Democratic Party. He has supported one Democratic presidential candidate after another, starting with Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980. In 1984, he actively campaigned for Carter's former vice president Walter Mondale.
Sanders had quit Liberty Union by the late 1970s, and he won the mayoral election a few years later against a moribund Democratic establishment in Burlington. Sanders' independent campaign, facing off against rear-guard Democrats, was somewhat particular to Vermont politics. In other cities nationally, liberal Democrats carried out much the same agenda that became associated with Sanders in the 1980s.
Early on in his political career, Sanders challenged both parties of the billionaires. But the pull of the Democratic Party was strong. By the time of his 1990 election to Congress, Sanders was backed by Vermont's Democratic Party establishment. He had left any challenge to this capitalist party behind.
As former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, also an aspirant for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, said 10 years ago on the NBC's Meet the Press, "He is basically a liberal Democrat, and he is a Democrat at that--he runs as an Independent because he doesn't like the structure and money that gets involved...The bottom line is that Bernie Sanders votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time."
Based on his unapologetic pro-union politics, Sanders receives considerable labor support in Vermont and nationally. Leading labor officials regularly share the platform with Sanders, who calls for union rights, fair contracts and pro-working class economic policies.
But what does the Sanders campaign offer a new generation of labor activists who want to rebuild a class struggle labor movement? His verbal support for workers is useful, but of secondary importance in rebuilding union power. Whether workers can turn the tide is dependent on their ability to organize on-the-job actions, including shutting down production through strikes, pickets and solidarity.
Last year, Burlington had an excellent example for all of labor: public transit bus drivers won their 18-day strike for safe working conditions, an end to predatory management and driver harassment and protection of full-time jobs.
Toward the end of the strike, Sanders reportedly made calls to management in support of the drivers' demands. But this was only after union members, working together with labor and community activists, organized a strong strike that won widespread public support, including bus riders inconvenienced by the walkout. The political leaders who supported the strike only did so because of the unity of the drivers and solidarity from other working people.
As SocialistWorker.org concluded after the strike: "Appealing to the politicians was last on the list of priorities for the drivers, as the least important, though possibly helpful, source of allies of the drivers."
But whatever credit Sanders deserves for his stance in the bus drivers' strike, it is overshadowed by his allegiance to and collusion with the Vermont Democratic Party as it has carried out attacks on public-sector workers.
Shamefully, Sanders was silent as his ally, Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin, rammed through an austerity budget earlier this year that cuts programs for the most vulnerable, undermines environmental protections and eliminates of hundreds of union jobs through layoffs and early retirement. As the best-known and most popular political figure in Vermont politics, Sanders could have helped to organize a resistance to the cuts. Instead, he was silent.
Sanders is known nationally for opposing austerity policies and decrying declining wages and lack of good union jobs for U.S. workers. His proposals for a national jobs program and expansion of the social safety net are a stark contrast to mainstream Democrats.
But it must be said as well that Sanders' populism is also based on protectionist policies and economic nationalism that are the opposite of internationalism.
">Sanders voted for the Marshall Amendment to the 2007 Homeland Security bill, which funded electronic verification of employment eligibility. He has consistently voted to restrict visas for skilled workers to come into the U.S.--in 2003, he co-sponsored the L-1 Nonimmigrant Reform Act that would have barred corporations from hiring workers from abroad unless they certified that they had not displaced "a U.S. worker." In 2005, he voted for the Goodlatte Amendment to eliminate the visa lottery that distributes 55,000 visas a year to foreign workers on a random basis.
While the left should oppose guest-worker programs designed for U.S. corporations to hire low-wage labor without full legal rights and the capacity to unionize, it's a different matter to argue, on the basis of nationalism, to bar immigrant labor because this harms American workers. International investment knows no bounds, and if the labor movement is to fight effectively, it has to struggle on the basis of cross-border class solidarity, not support for policies that pit workers of different national origins against each other.
Sanders can't look to the Democrats for support for his protectionism. It was the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton that passed North American Free Trade Agreement, established the World Trade Organization and cut big trade deals with China. President Barack Obama is currently pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic agreement with empty promises about how it will benefit U.S. working people.
As a result, Sanders has at times turned to alliances with Republicans on trade and other economic issues. As Ashley Smith wrote for Socialist Worker in 2006:
Ominously, Sanders' economic nationalism has led him to look for allies among Republican right-wingers like Lou Dobbs and Patrick Buchanan, who see China as a rival to U.S. power and are looking for political justification for a new Cold War. In denouncing Permanent Normalized Trade Relations (PNTR) with China, Sanders wrote, "As the greatest democracy on Earth, we must ask why American companies are turning communist China into the new superpower of the 21st century? While Microsoft is 'saving a dollar,' it is helping undermine our economic and military security by gutting our manufacturing and technological infrastructure, and moving it lock, stock, and barrel to one of our major international rivals." Sanders defends his alliances with protectionist Republicans. He told the Nation magazine, "In the sense that we are trying to develop left-right coalitions, we also trying to redefine American politics." Thus, he appeared on a China-bashing panel organized by the Teamsters' Jimmy Hoffa along with Patrick Buchanan in 2000 during a union-sponsored demonstration against PNTR for China.
Like Sanders, the labor movement regularly blames free trade agreements for causing the bulk of job losses in the U.S. According to studies, however, trade policies account for only a portion of manufacturing job losses. More significant has been Corporate America's drive to increase productivity--making fewer workers work harder and produce more. Sanders' nationalist lens and support for protectionism diverts attention from the overwhelming cause of manufacturing job loses--the profits-first priorities of American big business.
Sanders' populism puts him more in alliance with a wing of U.S. capital that seeks advantages through trade and investment restrictions, not the international working class. This is not a socialist position, nor one that can help strengthen the labor movement by working to organize cross-border solidarity.
One of the naked contradictions of Sanders' political development lies in these two facts: In the 1960s, he was a civil rights activist who campaigned against police brutality, among other abuses. But in 1981, when he ran for mayor of Burlington, he won the support of the city's police union.
Sanders' political career has continued to lean in the direction of law and order. Once elected to Congress, he voted for the Violent Crime Control and Enforcement Act in 1994--one of the infamous Clinton crime bills that billions of dollars to states to beef up local police forces and prisons, and that expanded the federal death penalty to include 60 new offenses.
In response to the last year of protests against police terrorism, he has had little to say besides condemning the high rate of Black unemployment. He angered activists in Vermont when he commented on National Public Radio that anti-racist issues were "not my cup of tea"--and when he prefaced his comments on the Baltimore Rebellion by sympathizing with police for having "a very, very difficult job."
An article at Salon.com blamed Sanders' "socialist analysis" for emphasizing class issues over fighting racism. While Sanders' politics, indeed, have little to offer the Black Live Matter movement, his lackluster-at-best attitude to fighting racism is not the product of a "socialist analysis" by any stretch. Socialists support struggles against all oppressions in all their dimensions, social, economic and political. This is a central tenet of Marxism.
In the U.S., fighting racism and its enforcement though the New Jim Crow and police terror must be central to any movement for progressive change. Racism is the main ideological tool used by the U.S. ruling class to justify the neoliberal assault on social welfare programs, austerity and privatization in public education, and public-sector union-busting.
To socialists, the anti-racist struggle--including the fight to defund and disarm police--is crucial to building working-class unity, not only so we stop bigotry and hate, but to fight back against the billionaires and build for a socialist future.
As Sanders makes his way out of Vermont, Iowa, and New Hampshire and onto the national stage, he may follow Hillary Clinton's lead in acknowledging the problem of police violence and mass incarceration, but his politics around race and police violence, while acceptable to the Democratic Party establishment, is a dead end for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Some of the most poignant criticisms of Bernie Sanders have come from opponents of Israeli apartheid. Sanders continues his support for Israel even after the 2013 massacre in Gaza and despite the significant headway made by the international boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) movement in exposing real nature of the Israeli state.
The question Sanders should have to answer is this: Why does solidarity with oppressed workers end at the U.S. border and not extend to, among many others, Palestinians living under the yoke of Israel's apartheid state?
Israel has more and more justified the ethnic cleansing and oppression of Palestinians as part of the global fight against terrorism--both benefitting from and contributing to the U.S. "war on terror" against Arabs and Muslims.
In the same way, Sanders has embraced the whole narrative that justifies the U.S. wars and occupations since 9/11 as a fight against Muslim extremists who represent a threat to the U.S. He began in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, voting to support George Bush's war on Afghanistan with the Authorization for the Use of Military Force.
At the kickoff rally for his Democratic Party presidential campaign, Sanders got the most applause when he repeated that he voted against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This was also one of his most deceptive sound bites.
In 1990, when Sanders was running to be Vermont's sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he addressed a large crowd of antiwar protesters on the eve of the first Gulf War launched by George Bush Sr. While the Bush administration was pursuing its pro-war propaganda offensive to demonize Saddam Hussein, Washington's one-time ally, as a threat to invade the whole region, Sanders told a startled crowd that he deferred to the judgment of the Pentagon on this question.
As Vermont socialist, Veterans for Peace activist and former Sanders supporter Will Miller wrote, "Bernie became an imperialist to get elected in 1990."
After tacitly backing the mobilization for war, which made the invasion inevitable, Sanders voted "no" on the actual congressional resolution to launch the Gulf War. He then went on to support the following decade's military blockade and genocidal sanctions against Iraq, which the United Nations blames for killing more than 1 million Iraqis, including 500,000 children.
Sanders' record of support for U.S. wars and empire is broadly consistent. His House and Senate votes supported the NATO war in ex-Yugoslavia in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and war budgets to finance the occupation of Iraq. There have been some votes here and there to reign in the stupidity of U.S. or Israeli overreach--something that Sanders has in common with the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But Sanders generally embraces a world order in which the U.S. military reigns supreme.
The U.S. government's $1 trillion annual war budgets undermine the possibility of initiating or expanding any of the social and jobs programs that Sanders regularly talks about in his speeches. Simply put, there will be no substantial progress on issues like social welfare, education, jobs and more without a fundamental challenge to the U.S. empire--something Sanders has resisted throughout his national political career.
Even in a local struggle where he could have made a decisive difference, Sanders unconditionally backed the basing of the the boondoggle F-35 bomber at Burlington's airport, despite the devastating effect this will have on surrounding working class communities.
The working class town of Winooski, that sits at the end of the runway, voted by referendum to join a lawsuit against the basing. Despite this and other examples of opposition, Sanders lined up with commercial real estate interests, the military-industrial complex and, of course, Vermont's leading Democrats to back the basing, protecting the state's lucrative pipeline to the Pentagon.
Sanders defenders falsely claim that senator backed the F-35 to protect Air National Guard jobs, but these were never on the line. In reality, Vermont's celebrated "independent" won't buck the state's ruling class when it comes to cutting off a source Pentagon funds, and he won't challenge the U.S. war machine that these bombers will be a part of.
Since the 1990s, Sanders has consistently raised the threat of climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions. In speeches, he talks about the need to transition away from fossil-fuel production to renewable energy sources. Environmental activists look to Sanders as a champion--thus, 350.org's Bill McKibben gave a rousing speech at the Burlington kickoff rally.
But Sanders' championing of the environment seems to only apply on one side of the partisan divide. He relentlessly targets the billionaire Koch brothers, the Republicans and climate-change deniers--but barely mentions the equally culpable role of the Democratic Party.
As exposed by Wikileaks, one of Barack Obama's first significant actions on the issue of climate change as president was to work behind the scenes to undermine the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009--and this was quickly followed by his running political cover for BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
What is the benefit of having a president who, in contrast to his Republican predecessors, stresses the danger of climate change--but then works to obstruct international negotiations on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, while boasting about the record increase in U.S. oil and natural gas productionopening up drilling in the Arctic?
As much as any other crisis, climate change is the inevitable outcome of capitalism's drive for growth and profits. It would have been valuable for a socialist politician to say that--instead of focusing all his criticisms against Republicans and their billionaire supporters, while remaining silent about the Democrats.
This is another issue where Sanders says a lot of the right things, but his actions--and his silences--speak louder than his words.
Bernie Sanders' lengthy political career has followed the rightward arc of many radicals coming out of the 1960s.
Under the weight of the new left's retreat and the nearly four-decades-old ruling-class offensive, many of those inspired to struggle for social change have been pulled by the idea of "political realism" into the Democratic Party and the liberal infrastructure tied to it. The key idea is that progressive change will only come in cooperation with the business and political establishment that rules the U.S.
Sanders' political views are more in keeping with this tame liberalism. If his self-identification with "socialism" is valid at all, it is with what revolutionaries have called "socialism from above," disconnected from the class struggle that Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Sanders' supposed hero Eugene Debs believed was indispensible for a fundamental challenge to the capitalist system and winning a socialist world.
Sanders' history shows what happens when you accept the restrictions and limitations that come with "political realism." The lesson of history is that radicals who attempt to change the system from the inside end up changed themselves. In Sanders' case, this has meant accommodating to U.S. empire and military budgets, silence at best on police violence and the Jim Crow system of mass incarceration, and collaboration with business interests and at least one of their wholly owned political parties.
What the struggles for social change need today is not a liberal outsider running a long-shot campaign in the Democratic presidential primaries, but a clear break from the Democrats on the basis of a left-wing political alternative. There is no shortcut through the party of the billionaires. In this election, like past ones, the place for radicals is building any independent challenges to the two parties of the status quo. |
It's been more than a month on the salads and with our necks in the fruit bowl for the Special Projects Bureau's elite post-pub nosh deathmatch team, following the mealy pudding v migas clash of titans.
We reckon our arteries have recovered sufficiently to make another foray into the calorie-packed world of nourishment designed to mitigate the worst effects of a night on the sauce, so let's get to it.
Our first contender sees a return to north of the border with haggis pakora, which is a highly improbable Indo-Caledonian alliance making use of the Scots' most potent culinary weapons: sheep pluck and deep-fat frying.
Fans of Indian food will need no introduction to the pakora concept - traditionally vegetables, such as spinach, or fresh cheese, fried in a gram flour batter to make palak pakora and paneer pakora, respectively.
We gather the Scottish are a bit fond of pakora, so the haggis variant was an inevitable carnivore-friendly excursion into international fusion cuisine.
Having assembled the necessary ingredients (see below) for this slightly unholy dish, we headed to Bar Almanzor in my local town of El Barco de Avila, where owners Juanjo and Begoña were ready as ever to lend a hand. It's a round of applause for Begoña this time round for doing the actual cooking, freeing Juanjo to prevent inquisitive nippers from dipping their fingers in the chilli powder.
You will need, seen here clockwise from top: 500g or so of Haggis, a handful of chopped coriander, 150g of gram flour, one teaspoon of garlic and ginger paste, half a teaspoon of Garam Masala, a pinch of fenugreek and (centre) half a teaspoon of red chilli powder. You'll also need a teaspoon of salt.
As you'll have noticed, haggis is a bit hard to come by round these parts, so I'm obliged to fellow SPB operative Bill Ray for posting me the tinned variety.
In fact, pretty well everything is hard to come by round these parts, so I was obliged to buy the exotic curry ingredients on the interwebs, as well as substituting parsley for the coriander.*
Haggis pakora should be served with a spicy sauce. Head to your local supermarket for...
...200ml of yoghurt, 150ml of tomato sauce, one teaspoon of mint sauce, quarter of a teaspoon of red chilli and and 50ml of milk. Add one teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt to your list and you're good to go.
First up, the pakora itself, as per our traditional handy photo guide:
Getting the consistency of the batter just right is a matter of trial and error, and you should add the water with caution. If the batter drips off the end of a spoon, you've overdone it. It should hang in the air, without being too thick.
Now the sauce, which is just a matter of throwing the ingredients in a bowl and mixing: |
Yevdokiya Zavaliy was a Soviet nurse, soldier and marine commander who fought in World War 2.
Born in 1924, Zavaliy was raised in a small village in the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine, where she worked on a farm. She was brutally exposed to the outbreak of World War 2 when enemy planes bombed her village and in the aftermath she treated injured soldiers by ripping up bed sheets from her home to make improvised bandages. The event left such an impression on her that she persuaded the commander of a cavalry regiment to take her with them to the front line, claiming to be 18 years old when she was in fact 16.
Zavaliy started serving with the regiment as a nurse, but during this time she learned to shoot rifles, pistols and machine guns. She also became directly involved in conflicts, taking a wound to the abdomen during the retreat at Khortytsia island and saved the life of a wounded officer by dragging him to safety. She was awarded the Order of the Red Star for her bravery, but this was only to be the first decoration she would receive.
One day an officer mistook Zavaliy for a man as she wore soldier's clothes and her head had been shaved to remove lice. The officer ordered her to join a group of soldiers headed to the front line. Zavaliy decided to go along with the mistake and two hours later she took part in a battle near Goryachy Kluch with the 6th Airborne Brigade. She continued to serve in numerous battles under her new male identity and following her capturing of a German officer in combat she was appointed to commander of a reconnaissance squad. When Soviet troops were starving near Mozdok in late 1942, Zavaliy mounted a daring night raid across a river to a German camp, where she stole ammunition and provisions before sailing away on a raft.
The following year Zavaliy was a sergeant serving in the Kuban region when her company was surrounded during a heavy firefight and the company commander was killed. Seeing her fellow soldiers faltering Zavaliy took command, shouting for the men to follow her and leading them in a furious counter-attack which broke the enemy and sent them into retreat. The battle left her seriously injured and during her treatment the doctors discovered that she was a woman. Zavaliy expected to be dismissed and return to nursing, however in light of her many achievements she was allowed to stay in the army and in October 1943 she was promoted to commander of a submachine gunner platoon.
While the men of her platoon were initially reluctant to follow the orders of a teenage girl, Zavaliy quickly won their respect. The platoon was repeatedly deployed to the forefront of the most intense fighting, where Zavaliy led her men in daring attacks on German lines, taking part in the defense of the Caucasus, the battle for Crimea and ultimately the Soviet expansion across Eastern Europe. She became so feared by German soldiers that they nicknamed her 'Frau Black Death'. Twice she was believed to have been killed in combat but both times she returned unscathed. In her military career she was wounded a total of 4 times and received approximately 40 medals of honour.
Zavaliy was eventually discharged from the army in 1947 and traveled to Kiev where she married and had 2 children. She spent much of her life working as the manager of a grocery store but also toured many cities and army bases where she was celebrated as a military hero. She died in Kiev in 2010. |
Major game and app development companies are being approached by Blackberry to submit their apps to a new section on Blackberry World. In the past, Blackberry only accepted apps done using their own proprietary format. In the near future Blackberry will be releasing a new firmware update that will allow users to install Android apps (apk) files directly on their phone. To gear up for this transition, Blackberry will be offering Android apps for direct download in their online app store.
At least four different game development companies at Pepcom and CES confirmed to Good e-Reader that they have been approached by Blackberry to include their productivity and gaming apps into Blackberry World. This basically requires no work on the developers part who have an existing Android app that is compatible on 4-6 inch smartphones. All the studios/developers have to do is make a new profile and submit icons/screenshots and app descriptions. Blackberry owners will be able to download and install them the same way they have been downloading apps since Blackberry 10 was released.
Blackberry is betting big on the 10.3 firmware update that will allow native android apps to work on the Q5, Q10, Z10 and Z30. This will allow your average user to install whatever they want and not be limited. The Good e-Reader labs tested an early build of this update on the Z10 and installed our own Good e-Reader App Store. I was able to install and run every app we had. This is going to be a serious boon for people who have been let down by the dirge of apps until this point on Blackberry World.
There is no estimated date when the new firmware update will be pushed out. Some companies have confirmed that its basically all done, but Blackberry is waiting to have at least 10,000 Android apps in their library before they start a marketing campaign. |
Hamilton police are asking for the public's assistance in an ongoing investigation into four robberies of women at ATM machines over the last two months.
The robberies took place on Nov. 15, Nov. 17, Nov. 24 and Dec. 4. Police believe the events are related.
Detectives are searching for a white male, in his 40s. The man is believed to be five-foot-seven with a heavy build, seen wearing dark clothing in security camera footage.
All incidents involve women who are being approached from behind while withdrawing cash before midnight at ATMs in the area of Upper James Street and Mohawk Road West.
The masked man is believed to be carrying a weapon, which he displays before robbing the women. In all cases, none of the women have reported any injuries.
Police are asking anyone with information about these robberies to contact Det. Jason Sorbara at 905-546-2377, or Detective Kevin Heyink at 905-546-2389, or to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477. |
Small businesses that reimburse employees for the cost of premiums for individual health insurance policies or pay their health costs directly will be fined up to $36,500 a year per employee under a new Internal Revenue Service regulation that takes effect July 1, 2015.
According to the notice, an employer arrangement that reimburses or pays for employee individual health premiums is considered to be a group health plan that is subject to the $100 per-employee per-day penalty. The penalty applies whether the reimbursement is considered a before-tax or after-tax contribution.
“It’s the biggest penalty no one is talking about,” said Kevin Kuhlman, policy director for the National Association of Independent Business. “The penalty for compensating employees for healthcare-related expenses is enough to destroy most small businesses.” You can read more in this NFIB post, “No Kidding: This Week IRS starts Punishing Businesses for Helping Workers Buy Insurance.”
The new IRS penalty is more than 18 times greater than the $2,000 employer-mandate penalty under ObamaCare for not providing qualifying health insurance for employees. And employers with fewer than 50 workers are not exempt, as they are from the employer-mandate penalty.
The rule appears nowhere in the Affordable Care Act but was developed by the Obama administration’s regulation writers at the IRS. The rule punishes small businesses for providing the only health insurance support many can afford – a contribution to help employees pay premiums for their individual or family health insurance policies or to help finance direct payment for medical services.
“Reimbursing employees for the cost of insurance or medical services is a way for small businesses to help their workers without the administrative headaches of setting up a costly group plan,” Kuhlman said. “Most small employers don’t have HR departments or benefits specialists, so this is a simpler, easier way to help their employees.”
No more, says the IRS. If you take the “simpler, easier” route that you can afford, the IRS will slap you with $100-a-day, per-employee fines until you stop.
Rep. Charles Boustany has introduced legislation in the House (H.R. 2911) and Sen. Charles Grassley, in the Senate (S.1697) to remedy the problem. Both bills await congressional action.
“If there’s an opportunity for a bipartisan improvement toward affordable healthcare, this has to be it,” said Kuhlman. “There’s no real justification for penalizing small businesses that do what the law’s strongest supporters claim to want, which is to help employees obtain coverage or pay medical bills. This is a rigid and thoughtless bureaucratic rule that undermines the purpose of the law, and it ought to be repealed immediately.”
The rule covers employers with more than one employee participating in an employer health care/coverage payment arrangement. Employers can exclude workers who 1) have fewer than three years of service to the company; 2) are under age 25; and 3) are part-time or seasonal employees. The $100 a day fine applies for all other employees covered by the payment arrangement. S Corporations are exempt through the end of 2015.
This Market Watch article by Bill Bischoff provides many more details about this outrageous IRS rule that shows the intrusiveness and heavy-handedness of bureaucrats implementing Obamacare.
Also on Forbes: |
SEATTLE, WA - Whitecaps FC fell to a 3-2 defeat against Seattle Sounders with a goal nine minutes from time after recovering from an early goal to lead 2-1 in the first half.
Full match report to follow.
Scoring Summary
9' - SEA - Andy Rose (Lamar Neagle)
10' - VAN - Camilo Sanvezzo (Russell Teibert, Young-Pyo Lee)
26' - VAN - Camilo Sanvezzo (Russell Teibert)
70' - SEA - Servando Carrasco (penalty kick)
81' - SEA - Lamar Neagle (Obafemi Martins, Andy Rose)
Halftime Match Stats
Shots: Seattle 4 - Vancouver 7
Shots on Goal: Seattle 2 - Vancouver 3
Saves: Seattle 1 - Vancouver 1
Fouls: Seattle 6 - Vancouver 6
Offsides: Seattle 0 - Vancouver 0
Corners: Seattle 3 - Vancouver 2
Cautions
52' - SEA - Andy Rose
85' - VAN - Jordan Harvey
Seattle Sounders FC
1.Michael Gspurning; 2.DeAndre Yedlin, 20.Zach Scott, 19.Djimi Traore, 12.Leo Gonzalez; 10.Mauro Rosales (16. David Estrada), 23.Servando Carrasco, 25.Andy Rose, 14.Alex Caskey (8.Marc Burch 61'); 9.Obafemi Martins, 27.Lamar Neagle
Substitutes
24.Marcus Hahnemann, 4.Patrick Ianni, 26.Sammy Ochoa, 32.Phillip Lund, 34.Jhon Kennedy Hurtado
Vancouver Whitecaps FC
18.Brad Knighton; 12.Young-Pyo Lee, 40.Andy O'Brien (32.Greg Klazura 62'), 16.Johnny Leveron, 2.Jordan Harvey; 13.Nigel Reo-Coker, 27.Jun Marques Davidson (23.Kekuta Manneh 83'), 8.Matt Watson (14. Daigo Kobayashi 90'); 31.Russell Teibert, 7.Camilo Sanvezzo, 9.Kenny Miller
Substitutes
1.Joe Cannon, 19.Erik Hurtado, 26.Corey Hertzog, 29.Tommy Heinemann
SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC vs VANCOUVER WHITECAPS FC
CENTURYLINK FIELD, Seattle, Wash.
June 8, 2013 (WEEK 15, MLS Game #132)
7:30 p.m. PT (NBC SN; TSN/RDS2)
Live chat on MLSsoccer.com
Seattle Sounders FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC renew their Cascadia rivalry for the first time this season when the old Pacific Northwest foes meet Saturday evening at CenturyLink Field before an NBC Sports Network audience. Sounders FC rebounded from their heavy defeat to LA last time out, defeating Chivas USA 2-0 on the road. Whitecaps FC rebounded from their Canadian Championship disappointment with a quality victory, winning 2-1 at New York.
REFEREE: Hilario Grajeda. AR1 (bench): Frank Anderson; AR2 (opposite): Paul Scott; 4th: Alejandro Mariscal
MLS Career: 84 games; FC/gm: 24.3; Y/gm: 3.5; R: 15; pens: 11
DISABLED LIST: SEA: Josh Ford
SUSPENDED: SEA: Shalrie Joseph (through June 9)
WARNINGS:
SUSPENDED NEXT YELLOW CARD: SEA: Eddie Johnson
SUSPENDED AFTER TWO YELLOW CARDS: none
INTERNATIONAL ABSENCES: SEA: Eddie Johnson, Brad Evans (both USA); Mario Martinez (Honduras) … VAN: Darren Mattocks (Jamaica)
HEAD-TO-HEAD
ALL-TIME (5 meetings): Sounders FC 2 wins, 9 goals … Whitecaps FC 0 wins, 5 goals … Ties 3
AT SEATTLE (2 meetings): Sounders FC 1 win, 4 goals … Whitecaps FC 0 wins, 2 goals … Ties 1
RETURN MATCHES: 7/6: Vancouver Whitecaps FC vs. Seattle Sounders FC, 8 p.m. PT (NBCSN, TSN, RDS); 10/9: Seattle Sounders FC vs. Vancouver Whitecaps FC, 7 p.m. PT (TSN, RDS2)
LAST YEAR (MLS)
5/19: VAN 2, SEA 2 (Rochat 12; Camilo 82 – Johnson 47; Montero 90)
8/18: SEA 2, VAN 0 (Montero 64; Johnson 87)
9/29: VAN 0, SEA 0
Whitecaps FC have yet to defeat their Cascadia rivals to the south since coming to MLS. Sounders FC have won two of the five meetings all-time, with three draws.
Seattle won 2-0 last Aug. 18 at CenturyLink Field, their first home win vs. Vancouver. Sounders FC have won one of the three meetings in Vancouver, a 3-1 win at Empire Field in 2011. Both meetings at BC Place have ended in draws.
The clubs have a rivalry dating back to 1974 in the old North American Soccer League, and continuing through the A-League and USL First Division.
Coaches record: Sigi Schmid vs. VAN: P5 W2 L0 T3 … Martin Rennie vs. SEA: P3 W0 L1 T2
SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC
Seattle Sounders FC returned to their winning ways in a second game in a week at The Home Depot Center, defeating Chivas USA 2-0 on Saturday evening. Sounders FC are in sixth place in the Western Conference with 18 points from 12 matches.
LAST MATCH
Sounders FC took the lead in the 22nd minute. Lamar Neagle's ball in behind the Chivas defense freed Obafemi Martins all alone on goal, and he scored with a nifty, left-footed chip over Chivas goalkeeper Dan Kennedy from inside the area.
Sounders FC saw their lead doubled 11 minutes later when Mauro Rosales floated in a cross from the right corner, and Chivas defender Mario de Luna headed it directly into his own goal completely uncontested.
Seattle finished the game a man down after Martins was sent off in the 70th minute by referee Ricardo Salazar for a foul on Gabriel Farfan.
Sounders FC head coach Sigi Schmid made four changes to the team that fell 4-0 to the LA Galaxy at The Home Depot Center. Zach Scott came into central defense in place of Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Osvaldo Alonso and Mario Martinez came into the midfield for Shalrie Joseph and Brad Evans, and Lamar Neagle came back in up top in place of Eddie Johnson.
SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC (4-4-2): Michael Gspurning - DeAndre Yedlin, Djimi Traore, Zach Scott, Leo Gonzalez - Mauro Rosales (David Estrada 76), Servando Carrasco, Osvaldo Alonso (Andy Rose 21), Mario Martinez (Marc Burch 77) - Lamar Neagle, Obafemi Martins (sent off 71).
TEAM NEWS
A week after giving up four goals in a loss to the LA Galaxy at The Home Depot Center, Sounders FC returned to Carson and defeated Chivas USA for their fifth victory in the last seven matches.
“We feel good about what we can do,” Sounders FC head coach Sigi Schmid said. “The team is still very confident in their abilities. We know we laid an egg here last week [against the LA Galaxy]. Today, they stepped up and showed their character.”
Said midfielder Mauro Rosales: “It is always important to sum up points when we are on the road. We are a strong team playing at home and we also need to take advantage of that, but yet again, winning points on the road is always something good.”
Obafemi Martins has scored all four of his goals in MLS play during that seven-game stretch for Seattle. Sounders FC will also have Martins now available for the Vancouver match – even after being sent off with 19 minutes to play, his appeal to overturn the red card was upheld by an independent review panel.
“He’s gotten goals for us, for sure. He’s there to finish chances. That’s what you want from your strikers and that’s what he’s giving us,” Schmid said. “ … Getting Oba back is a big plus for us. Oba and Lamar [Neagle] have played together fairly well and to be able to come back with those two is a huge plus and helps us in terms of making our lineup decisions this week.”
Already missing Shalrie Joseph a suspension lengthened to two matches in a decision by the MLS Disciplinary Committee, Osvaldo Alonso had to come off after just 21 minutes with a right quadriceps injury. Alonso had missed the LA match with a strained adductor.
“Obviously, losing Alonso, Andy Rose had to come in and battle and play,” said Schmid. “We made a couple of subs trying to keep our wide players fresh because we knew that they would have to work a lot at the end. The character and the effort were really good.”
Sounders FC will be without both parts of their first-choice strike pair, with Eddie Johnson on international duty, and also without two key midfielders with both Brad Evans (USA) and Mario Martinez (Honduras) also with their respective national teams.
READ: Seattle in talks to keep Mario Martinez longer than expected
VANCOUVER WHITECAPS FC
Vancouver Whitecaps FC won for the first time away from home this season, coming back for a 2-1 win against the New York Red Bulls on Saturday evening at Red Bull Arena. Whitecaps FC sit in seventh place in the Western Conference with 16 points from 12 matches.
LAST MATCH
The Red Bulls took a 51st-minute lead through some good fortune. Jonny Steele was freed on the left side of the area and tried to pull a pass back to the spot, but Greg Klazura redirected the ball into his own net.
Seven minutes later, Whitecaps FC were level. A cross from Lee Young-Pyo wasn't well cleared and Jordan Harvey pounced on the loose ball, rifling it home on the volley.
The Red Bulls went a man down in the 75th minute, when Jamison Olave was shown a second yellow card by referee Jorge Gonzalez after a late foul on Kenny Miller.
The visitors then took advantage in the 83rd as Miller beat a defender to reach a Russell Teibert cross and headed the ball downward past Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles.
Whitecaps FC head coach Martin Rennie made five changes to the team that reached a 2-2 draw with the Portland Timbers at BC Place. Greg Klazura and Johnny Leveron came into the back four for Lee Young-Pyo and Brad Rusin, Matt Watson and Alain Rochat started in midfield for Nigel Reo-Coker and Gershon Koffie, and Kenny Miller came into the side up top in favor of Erik Hurtado.
VANCOUVER WHITECAPS FC (4-1-3-2): Brad Knighton - Greg Klazura (Lee Young-Pyo 57), Johnny Leveron, Andy O'Brien, Jordan Harvey - Jun Marques Davidson - Russell Teibert, Matt Watson, Alain Rochat (Daigo Kobayashi 77) - Camilo Sanvezzo (Kekuta Manneh 87), Kenny Miller.
READ: Following Alain Rochat trade, Martin Rennie hints future moves afoot
TEAM NEWS |
Bump in the Night is an American stop-motion animated series by Danger Productions (later co-produced and distributed by DIC Productions L.P.) that was filmed using stop-motion animation and aired on ABC from 1994 to 1995. It was created and directed by Ken Pontac and David Bleiman. The series was then broadcast on Toon Disney from 1998 to 2001.
Synopsis [ edit ]
Mr. Bumpy is a small green, purple-warted monster living under the bed of a ten-year-old boy, where he eats dirty socks and dust bunnies as if they were delicacies. His best friends are Squishington, a blue monster that lived in the bathroom's toilet tank; and Molly Coddle, a Frankenstein's monster-like rag doll belonging to the boy's sister who acts as the straight man to the other's crazy antics.
Other characters include Destructo, the boy's toy robot who sees himself as a cop and persecutes Mr. Bumpy for his actions. There's also the Closet Monster, who's made up of the boy's pile of clothes and chases after Mr. Bumpy.
Structure [ edit ]
The show was traditionally split into two major parts per half hour (occasionally dedicating a full half hour per show, or sometimes splitting into three parts), and usually if not always had a music video at the end of the episode, starring the three main characters and any minor characters involved in the episode. This musical montage would take clips from the episode itself and reiterate the life lessons learned in the episode.
Cast [ edit ]
Episodes [ edit ]
Season 1: 1994 [ edit ]
Nº Ep Title Original air date 1 1 "Made in Japan / Dr. Coddle, M.D." September 10, 1994 ( ) Made in Japan — Bumpy mails in a cereal box top for a free Turbo-Totro-Noid. A cute little robot arrives, disappointing Bumpy.
— Bumpy mails in a cereal box top for a free Turbo-Totro-Noid. A cute little robot arrives, disappointing Bumpy. Dr. Coddle, M.D. — Molly orders medical instruction books from the Easy-Does-It Doctor Correspondence Course. Bumpy eats the books and replaces them with home improvement manuals.
— Molly orders medical instruction books from the Easy-Does-It Doctor Correspondence Course. Bumpy eats the books and replaces them with home improvement manuals. Karaoke Cafe: "You Gotta Say You're Sorry..." — Sung by Mr. Bumpy and Squishington (Blues) NOTE: Molly makes a cameo in the first part of "Made in Japan". 2 2 "Gum Crazy / Baby Snail" September 17, 1994 ( ) Gum Crazy — Bumpy tries to retrieve undigested bubblegum from his own stomach, resulting in fights with his own heart and brain.
— Bumpy tries to retrieve undigested bubblegum from his own stomach, resulting in fights with his own heart and brain. Baby Snail — Bumpy baby-sits a baby snail, while Squishy looks for Mom.
— Bumpy baby-sits a baby snail, while Squishy looks for Mom. Karaoke Cafe: "Why Do You Like Me?" — Sung by Mr. Bumpy and Squishington (Ballad) NOTE: Molly Coddle doesn't appear in the first segment and the beginning of "Baby Snail". 3 3 "Hide and Go Freak / Better Homes & Garbage" September 24, 1994 ( ) Hide and Go Freak — Bumpy and Squishy teach Molly to play Hide and Go Freak.
— Bumpy and Squishy teach Molly to play Hide and Go Freak. Better Homes & Garbage — Squishington moves in with Bumpy for a few days, testing the limits of their friendship when Squishy is revealed to be a neat freak.
— Squishington moves in with Bumpy for a few days, testing the limits of their friendship when Squishy is revealed to be a neat freak. Karaoke Cafe: Bump in the Night Theme (Alternate version) — Sung by Mr. Bumpy 4 4 "Not of This Boy's Room / To Sleep Perchance to Burp" October 1, 1994 ( ) Not of This Boy's Room — Bumpy gets abducted by space aliens, and he tries to help them take over the Earth.
— Bumpy gets abducted by space aliens, and he tries to help them take over the Earth. To Sleep Perchance to Burp — The Boy can't get to sleep because the monster under the bed makes noise.
— The Boy can't get to sleep because the monster under the bed makes noise. Karaoke Cafe: "Gotta Have It" — Rapped by Mr. Bumpy 5 5 "Danger: Unexploded Squishington / Loss of Face" October 8, 1994 ( ) Danger: Unexploded Squishington — Squishington's stomach is ticking. Bumpy deduces Squishy has eaten a bomb. Mr. Bumpy and Squishy try to get rid of it.
— Squishington's stomach is ticking. Bumpy deduces Squishy has eaten a bomb. Mr. Bumpy and Squishy try to get rid of it. Loss of Face — Squshington tries to clean his face with a bathcloth, but his face rubs off. Then the bathcloth disappears. Bumpy helps Squishy reclaim his face.
— Squshington tries to clean his face with a bathcloth, but his face rubs off. Then the bathcloth disappears. Bumpy helps Squishy reclaim his face. Karaoke Cafe: "Find a New Neighborhood" — Sung by Squishington (Rock) NOTE: Molly Coddle doesn't appear in the first two segments. She doesn't speak in the Karaoke Cafe segment. 6 6 "Sock It to Me / Comforting the Uncomfortable" October 15, 1994 ( ) Sock It to Me — Squishington helps Mr. Bumpy control his appetite for socks.
— Squishington helps Mr. Bumpy control his appetite for socks. Comforting the Uncomfortable — Molly tries to comfort the Closet Monster.
— Molly tries to comfort the Closet Monster. Karaoke Cafe: "You Need a Hug" — Rapped by Molly Coddle 7 7 "Baby Jail / Night of the Living Bread" October 22, 1994 ( ) Baby Jail — Bumpy spends time with babies and learns to understand their hardships.
— Bumpy spends time with babies and learns to understand their hardships. Night of the Living Bread — Bumpy and Squishy save the world from an evil mutant slice of bread.
— Bumpy and Squishy save the world from an evil mutant slice of bread. Karaoke Cafe: "Go Away and Don't Come Back" — Sung by Squishington NOTE: Squishington and Molly Coddle make cameos in "Baby Jail" and the Boy and Little Sister make cameos in "Night of the Living Bread", too. Molly Coddle doesn't in "Night of the Living Bread". She doesn't speak in the Karaoke Cafe. 8 8 "Party Poopers" October 29, 1994 ( ) Party Poopers (double length) — Molly wants to be invited to a Cute Doll party. The cute dolls want to invite the monsters. Squishy can't wait but Bumpy doesn't want to go.
(double length) — Molly wants to be invited to a Cute Doll party. The cute dolls want to invite the monsters. Squishy can't wait but Bumpy doesn't want to go. Karaoke Cafe: "School's Out" by Alice Cooper — Sung by Mr. Bumpy 9 9 "A Sneeze in Time / Hocus Dopus" November 5, 1994 ( ) A Sneeze in Time — Bumpy goes back in time to try to avoid offending Squishington.
— Bumpy goes back in time to try to avoid offending Squishington. Karaoke Cafe: "The Things You Make Me Want to Do" — Sung by Mr. Bumpy (Pop)
— Sung by Mr. Bumpy (Pop) Hocus Dopus — Bumpy tries to pull a rabbit out of a hat for Squishy. NOTE: In "A Sneeze in Time", Mr. Bumpy and Squishington don't appear in this episode (although Mr. Bumpy still appears in the title card) and Molly Coddle makes a cameo. Three Bumpies and two Squishingtons later appear in Karaoke Cafe songs and episodes (archive footage). And in "Hocus Dopus", Molly Coddle doesn't appear and the Yellow Bunny makes a cameo. 10 10 "Adventures in Microbia / Not a Peep!" November 12, 1994 ( ) Adventures In Microbia — Squishy and Bumpy try to fight germs face to protoplasm, but a germ girl captures Squishington's heart.
— Squishy and Bumpy try to fight germs face to protoplasm, but a germ girl captures Squishington's heart. Not a Peep! — Destructo tries to keep Mr. Bumpy from making noise.
— Destructo tries to keep Mr. Bumpy from making noise. Karaoke Cafe: "Picking Up the Pieces When Your Whole World Falls Apart" — Sung by Molly Coddle (Country) NOTE: Molly Coddle, the Cute Dolls, the Yellow Bunny, Squishington, etc., make cameos in "Not a Peep". 11 11 "Penny for Your Thoughts / Farewell 2 Arms" November 19, 1994 ( ) Penny For Your Thoughts — A penny falls each time Mr. Bumpy thinks a thought.
— A penny falls each time Mr. Bumpy thinks a thought. Farewell 2 Arms — Anti-Molly wants to be more powerful and less helpless. She rebuilds herself with powerful limbs.
— Anti-Molly wants to be more powerful and less helpless. She rebuilds herself with powerful limbs. Karaoke Cafe: "Socks – I Love Socks" — Sung by Mr. Bumpy NOTE: In "Farewell 2 Arms", Little Sister, the Cute Dolls and Destructo make cameos. Anti-Molly later appears in Karaoke Cafe songs. 12 12 "I Dream of Silverfish / Story Problems" November 26, 1994 ( ) I Dream of Silverfish — Bumpy and Squishy find a "genie" in a lamp.
— Bumpy and Squishy find a "genie" in a lamp. Story Problems — Bumpy eats The Boy's homework, and then tries to redo it.
— Bumpy eats The Boy's homework, and then tries to redo it. Karaoke Cafe: "Good Golly Miss Molly (You Sweet Comfort Doll)" — Sung by Squishington (50's Rock) NOTE: Molly Coddle doesn't appear in the first two segments. She only appears in the Karaoke Cafe song. 13 13 "All You Need Is Glove / In The Bowl of the Squishy Prince" December 3, 1994 ( ) All You Need Is Glove — Bumpy fights with a glove for a perfect left-foot sock.
— Bumpy fights with a glove for a perfect left-foot sock. In The Bowl of the Squishy Prince — Squishy, needing a boost in self-esteem, tries to find a princess who will kiss him.
— Squishy, needing a boost in self-esteem, tries to find a princess who will kiss him. Karaoke Cafe: "Don't Try This at Home" — Sung by Mr Bumpy (Rock) NOTE: Only one voice (Jim Cummings) in "All You Need Is Glove". Squishington and Molly Coddle don't appear in the first segment.
Season 2: 1995 [ edit ]
Nº Ep Title Original air date 14 1 "Long Long Day / Destructo's Flipside" September 9, 1995 ( ) Long Long Day — Musical skit, set up by Destructo and the Closet Monster fighting over possession of Mr. Bumpy.
— Musical skit, set up by Destructo and the Closet Monster fighting over possession of Mr. Bumpy. Destructo's Flipside — Bumpy puts Destructo's battery in backwards making him friendly and kinder.
— Bumpy puts Destructo's battery in backwards making him friendly and kinder. Karaoke Cafe: "I'm Bigger than You" — Sung by Destructo and Mr. Bumpy (similar to Iron Man by Black Sabbath) 15 2 "Love Stinks / Love's Labor Bumped" September 16, 1995 ( ) Love Stinks — Molly falls into a trash can and attracts the affections of a stinkbug.
— Molly falls into a trash can and attracts the affections of a stinkbug. Love's Labor Bumped — Destructo has a crush on Molly and bumpy tries to win her back so he tricks the big big robot by dressing up as her .
— Destructo has a crush on Molly and bumpy tries to win her back so he tricks the big big robot by dressing up as her . Karaoke Cafe: "Why Do You Like Me?" (Rerun) NOTE: Squishington makes a cameo in "Love Stinks" and Molly Coddle makes a cameo, too, in "Love's Labor Bumped". Squishington's face is also seen in the lawyer card in "Love's Labor Bumped" as F. Lee Squishington and his theme is heard at the end. 16 3 "It Sang from Beyond the Stars / Journey to the Center of the Lungfish" September 23, 1995 ( ) It Sang from Beyond the Stars — Musical skit starring Gloog and Sleemoth as musical invaders.
— Musical skit starring Gloog and Sleemoth as musical invaders. Journey to the Center of the Lungfish — Bumpy, Squishington, and Molly are swallowed by a lungfish and they meet a pirate bug that lives in there.
— Bumpy, Squishington, and Molly are swallowed by a lungfish and they meet a pirate bug that lives in there. Karaoke Cafe: "Find a New Neighborhood" (Rerun) NOTE: Molly Coddle only speaks in the second segment. 17 4 "Auntie Matta / Bumpy the Untrappable" September 30, 1995 ( ) Auntie Matta — Bumpy's scary Aunt visits and she spends half her time scaring everyone and when his friends tell him about her actions bumpy must put an end to it by making her leave.
— Bumpy's scary Aunt visits and she spends half her time scaring everyone and when his friends tell him about her actions bumpy must put an end to it by making her leave. Bumpy the Untrappable — The Boy tries to trap Mr Bumpy but since bumpy,s a quickster shoo in it will be tough to catch him.
— The Boy tries to trap Mr Bumpy but since bumpy,s a quickster shoo in it will be tough to catch him. Karaoke Cafe: "I Was Right and You Were Wrong" — Sung by Mr. Bumpy and Squishington (Polka-ish) 18 5 "It Came from the Closet" October 7, 1995 ( ) It Came from the Closet (And Wouldn't Leave) — The Closet Monster moves under the bed.
— The Closet Monster moves under the bed. All You Need Is Glove (Rerun)
(Rerun) Karaoke Cafe: Bump in the Night Theme (Alternate version) (Rerun) NOTE: Only one voice (Jim Cummings) in the rerun "All You Need Is Glove". The Boy, his mother and one of the Cute Dolls make cameos in "It Came from the Closet (And Wouldn't Leave)". 19 6 "Comfort Schmumfort" October 14, 1995 ( ) Not of This Boy's Room (Rerun)
(Rerun) Comfort Schmumfort — Space aliens abduct Bumpy and Squishy, leaving "harmless" Molly behind and she must go save em.
— Space aliens abduct Bumpy and Squishy, leaving "harmless" Molly behind and she must go save em. Karaoke Cafe: "Comfort Schmumfort" — Sung by Molly Coddle, with Mr. Bumpy and Squishington (Polka-ish) 20 7 "Bump and Roll" October 21, 1995 ( ) Bump and Roll — Musical number
— Musical number Night of the Living Bread (Rerun)
(Rerun) Karaoke Cafe: "Making Music Is Fun" — Sung by Mr. Bumpy, Squishington, and Molly (Latin) NOTE: Molly Coddle doesn't appear in the first two segments. She only appears in the Karaoke Cafe song. 21 8 "I Got Needs / Beauty and the Bump" October 28, 1995 ( ) I Got Needs — Starts with invading Vikings, turns into musical number for Bumpy.
— Starts with invading Vikings, turns into musical number for Bumpy. Beauty and the Bump — Bumpy falls for an antique china doll under glass, who becomes the Princess in his fairy-tale dream.
— Bumpy falls for an antique china doll under glass, who becomes the Princess in his fairy-tale dream. Karaoke Cafe: "It's Mine" — Sung by Mr. Bumpy (rhythm is the approaching-Bumpy's-home soundtrack) 22 9 "When the Music Starts" November 4, 1995 ( ) When the Music Starts — Musical number for Squishington. (Rock)
— Musical number for Squishington. (Rock) Loss of Face (Rerun)
(Rerun) Karaoke Cafe: "Go Away and Don't Come Back" (Rerun) 23 10 "Neat and Clean / Nothing But the Tooth" November 11, 1995 ( ) Neat and Clean — Begins as "Adventures in Microbia", then breaks into song (Squishy, Molly, Destructo, Bumpy, Cute Dolls).
— Begins as "Adventures in Microbia", then breaks into song (Squishy, Molly, Destructo, Bumpy, Cute Dolls). Nothing But the Tooth — Bumpy's teeth turn on him.
— Bumpy's teeth turn on him. Karaoke Cafe: "Picking Up the Pieces When Your Whole World Falls Apart" (Rerun) NOTE: Molly Coddle doesn't talk in this show. She, Yellow Bunny and two of the Cute Dolls make cameos in "Nothing But the Tooth". This show was aired on Veterans Day. 24 11 "Water Way to Go / Cold Turkey" November 18, 1995 ( ) Water Way to Go — Squishington withers when the plumber turns off the water. Musical number for Bumpy, Squishington, and the Cute Dolls. (Soul)
— Squishington withers when the plumber turns off the water. Musical number for Bumpy, Squishington, and the Cute Dolls. (Soul) Cold Turkey — A frozen turkey comes to life and escapes from the freezer.
— A frozen turkey comes to life and escapes from the freezer. Karaoke Cafe: "I Live in the Porcelain" — Sung by Squishington (Reggae) NOTE: Molly Coddle doesn't appear in this show. The turkey later appears in Karaoke Cafe songs, episodes and the Christmas special (archive footage). 25 12 "Made in Japan II" November 25, 1995 ( ) Made in Japan (Rerun)
(Rerun) Made in Japan II (sequel to Made in Japan ) — Little Robot e-mails herself to Squishy to escape destruction.
(sequel to ) — Little Robot e-mails herself to Squishy to escape destruction. Karaoke Cafe: "What Goes Up Must Come Down" — Sung by Mr. Bumpy and Albert Einstein (Hip Hop) NOTE: Molly Coddle makes a cameo in "Made in Japan". "Made in Japan II" was located in San Francisco, California. 26 13 "Not a Leg to Stand On" December 2, 1995 ( ) Not a Leg to Stand On — Bumpy is accused of stealing Molly's feet.
— Bumpy is accused of stealing Molly's feet. Hide and Go Freak (Rerun)
(Rerun) Karaoke Cafe: "You Gotta Say You're Sorry..." (Rerun)
Christmas special: 1995 [ edit ]
Nº Title Original air date 27 "Twas the Night Before Bumpy" December 9, 1995 ( ) Movie, 64 min: Molly Coddle takes over as a pageant director while Mr. Bumpy and Squishington enter the North Pole.
NOTE: Various characters don't speak in this special.
Awards [ edit ]
Jim Cummings (Mr. Bumpy) was nominated for an Emmy for Voice Acting in the Field of Animation in 1995
Releases [ edit ]
In April 2010, Shout! Factory released Bump In The Night: The Complete Series on DVD.[1]
VHS [ edit ]
Molly: Tales from the Toy Chest
Squishington: Tales from the Tank
Mr. Bumpy: Tales from Under the Bed
The Hubbish About Rubbish
Hocus-Pocus, Pranks and Play
Monsters on a Mission
Dreams and Dilemmas
Night of the Living Bread
Mr. Bumpy's Karaoke Cafe
'Twas The Night Before Bumpy (Christmas special, 63 minutes. Originally split into 3 episodes)
DVD [ edit ]
Night of the Living Bread (Original September 23, 2003. Re-Released August 21, 2007)
(Original September 23, 2003. Re-Released August 21, 2007) Twas The Night Before Bumpy (October 23, 2007)
(October 23, 2007) Bump in the Night-The Complete Series (Shout Factory! release, April 20, 2010; Out of Print as of late 2012)
On February 16, 2016, Mill Creek Entertainment re-released Bump in the Night- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.[2] The 2-disc set contains all 26 episodes of the series as well as the Christmas special 'Twas the Night Before Bumpy'.
Notes [ edit ]
The development of the series began as a series of ad bumpers for ABC's Saturday morning lineup in 1993. |
Credit: Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics has provided Newsarama an exclusive early look at August's Superior Spider-Man #15 & 16's solicitations, in advance of their release of their full August solicitations next week. And if you think you've seen ALL of Ock-Spidey's new costume ... well ... check out the cover of issue #15.
Credit: Marvel Comics
SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #15
DAN SLOTT (W) • HUMBERTO RAMOS (A/C)
“Run, Goblin, Run!” Part 1 of 2
• What’s it like to be a villain in the Marvel Universe...once the Superior Spider-Man sets his sights on you?
• Find out, from Phil Urich’s point of view, in what might be the final days of the Hobgoblin.
• Plus, what is the secret of “The Tinkerer’s Apprentice”? Who’s been helping the Terrible Tinkerer? And how is he, of all people, the reason everything in Spider-Man’s life will be changed forever?!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
Credit: Marvel Comics
SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #16
DAN SLOTT (W) • HUMBERTO RAMOS (A/C)
“Run, Goblin, Run!” Part 2 of 2
• How has the Hobgoblin evaded the Superior Spider-Man for so long? And does that hold the key to the Superior Spider-Man’s greatest success -- or greatest failure? It’s the end of the line for Hobgoblin, and possibly an end for a big chapter in the history of Spider-Man.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
Credit: Marvel Comics
Credit: Marvel Comics
Marvel.com has also revealed a special Superior Spider-Man/Scarlet Spider August crossover/team-up in the pages of Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #2 and Scarlet Spider #20. Check out the link for more information or you can check out the covers right here. |
With Recall Vote Days Away – New Study Shows Walker’s Reform Saved Wisconsin $1 Billion
Democrats had such high hopes just weeks ago that they would recall Governor Scott Walker and oust him from office. But their dreams are fading fast. With just two weeks to go before the election, Governor Walker holds a six point lead in the latest Marquette poll. This past weekend the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, by no means a conservative paper, endorsed Scott Walker in the governor’s race.
Last February, THOUSANDS of Tea Party Patriots turned out in Madison, Wisconsin, to support Republican Governor Scott Walker. The tea party still supports Scott Walker.
And, there is more good news for Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin. The reforms passed by Governor Walker and Wisconsin Republican lawmakers saved the state one billion dollars.
This comes from the Wisconsin Reporter:
While a lightning rod for controversy and recall, Wisconsin’s Act 10 has paid significant dividends to taxpayers, according to a new analysis by the Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research, at Suffolk University in Boston. Act 10, which curbed collective bargaining for most unionized public employees, in the whole has saved taxpayers more than $1 billion, according to The Economic Impacts of the Wisconsin Budget Repair Act. The study is slated for release this week by Beacon Hill Institute, a prominent free market think tank. What the analysis found is that without the law, which in part requires covered public employees to contribute more to their benefits and holds wage increases to the rate of inflation, Badger State governments would have been forced to raise taxes or make deep job cuts to meet budget expenses. As it was, Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Legislature pushed through reforms and reductions that filled a $3.6 billion budget shortfall, although organized labor asserts Republicans balanced the budget on the backs of public employees. The measure drew the ire of organized labor and the Democratic Party, with tens of thousands of protesters packing the Capitol. Ultimately, it was the Walker-led reforms that launched a recall campaign in which the governor in two weeks must defend his term at the polls, facing Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in a historic gubernatorial recall election. The Beacon Institute analysis argues the law may have been controversial, even divisive, but there’s no disputing its benefit to taxpayers.
The vote is two weeks away.
Let’s all do what we can to help move Wisconsin forward.
Update: Below is a graph from I Stand With Scott Walker‘s Facebook page – an impressive image of the fiscal effectiveness of Governor Walker’s reforms compared to the three previous Wisconsin governors. Governor Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature balanced the budget.
This was cross posted at FreedomWorks. |
AVQ&A Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences.
This week’s question comes from reader Elna McIntosh:
Recently, I watched Nightcrawler, which I loved, and was somehow inspired to immediately re-watch the first teaser trailer for it, which I had remembered as being great. Seeing it again, it was. It really communicated the tone and atmosphere of the movie, without giving away crucial details. What do you think makes a great trailer, and which trailer would you consider an embodiment of that element?
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Alex McCown
As a huge fan of Hal Douglas, Don LaFontaine, and the movie trailer voice-over in general, I do mourn the days—which don’t seem to be returning anytime soon—when a perfect timbre would tell you what you were in for. So instead, I want to stump for trailers that don’t give you anything except footage from the film. No intertitles, no hand-holding, just a smartly assembled montage that conveys everything to get you excited for a film without a single, “Don was a guy unlucky in love,” in 80-point font, or whatever. By that measure, Cloverfield has one hell of a trailer. Consisting of a few well-edited shots from the film’s first 10 minutes, it brilliantly sells its found-footage monster movie conceit without feeling the need to explain everything. J.J. Abrams rightly gets a lot of shit for his over-reliance on the puzzle box conceit, but for a trailer, it’s a killer hook when done right.
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Cameron Scheetz
Trailers for sci-fi movies and films with fantastical elements always have the added pressure of acclimating audiences to the altered rules of their world, while still hinting at the plots and characters driving the narrative. This can be a lot to juggle, as some trailers prove, eschewing any sort of explanation for whizzbang effects and the dramatic “BRAAAAHM,” all too common in post-Inception cinema. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (literally) approaches this head-on by having Tom Wilkinson’s Dr. Mierzwiak speak directly to the camera in a faux commercial for Lacuna Inc., introducing the film’s fictional memory-erasing procedure. It’s a cheeky bit of exposition that hooks the viewer and then launches them straight into a bouncy montage of some of Michel Gondry’s more striking visuals, accompanied by Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky” (which is always welcome in my book). While I appreciate the art of a tasteful teaser, sometimes I just want to be told exactly what the hell is going on.
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Sam Barsanti
My answer happens to be the opposite of Cameron’s: I like a trailer that doesn’t tell me anything about what’s going on, but teases some of a movie’s coolest or most interesting moments without context. I’m talking about stuff like the Hulkbuster reveal in one of the Avengers: Age Of Ultron trailers. Why is Iron Man fighting the Hulk? We have no idea, but it looks great. The best example of this, though, comes from a different superhero movie, and it’s a trailer that actually doesn’t show anything but a familiar logo: the initial teaser for The Dark Knight. It’s very simple but very powerful, and it’s all because it spoils one of the movie’s greatest lines: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” In less than a minute it establishes the tone of the movie and Heath Ledger’s Joker, all without a glimpse of the cape and cowl or a purple suit.
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Katie Rife
I’m a huge fan of those vintage exploitation trailer compilations—42nd Street Forever forever—largely out of respect for the old-fashioned art of carny hucksterism, whose inelegant bluntness is downright refreshing compared to the more insidious machinations of viral marketing. Like all advertising, it’s all icing and no cake. But at least these guys are up front about it. Ergo, my favorite trailer of all time: A fake TV news spot advertising the drive-in double feature of I Dismember Mama and The Blood-Spattered Bride. The trailer has little to nothing to do with either of the films, an inept proto-slasher (the former) and a sleazy Spanish vampire movie (the latter). Instead, the trailer takes the form of a fake news broadcast, as an “anchor” describes the mayhem at a local theater after a local man was driven insane by the double feature in question. It’s a beautiful symphony of Noo Yawk accents, early ’70s fashions, and corny character work. And did I mention the upchuck cup available to patrons who get sick from all the violence on screen? That’s some tasty icing.
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Zack Handlen
I’m big on mood. By now, most trailers have established such routine beats that they tend to wash over me in a wave: “Oh, here’s the hero, there’s some conflict, there’s the big triumphant song, there’s the haunting/mysterious/inspiring closer.” So I prefer my trailers to give me something that pulls me in without relying on obvious tricks, like playing rousing music over scenes of someone doing something exciting (it works on me, but I resent it). I didn’t see the trailer for the original Alien in theaters, but it does an amazing job of selling exactly what the movie feels like without ever falling back on plot summary or cliché. I especially like the way the trailer shows brief clips from the movie out of sequence, constructing a new narrative from them that conveys just how fucking terrifying Ridley Scott’s masterpiece is without offering any reassuring story beats or obvious protagonists. It’s just a nightmare, pure and simple.
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Becca James
Unlike Zach, I’m all for the obvious tricks of trailers, especially the “big triumphant song” part, which is why I’m never late to a movie. This does make it difficult to pin down a favorite trailer, though, as I’m equally excited by most of them. I do have an especial fondness for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette trailer, and a lot of that is owed to its inclusion of New Order’s Ceremony. Follow up that memorable bass line with a heartstring tugging voice-over of Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) saying, “Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness,” and I’m instantly transported back to 2006, a time when trailer clichés were gaining traction with me, a recently licensed driver ready to hit the theaters without much in the way of critical discernment.
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Joshua Alston
The trailer for Todd Field’s Little Children remains one of my all-time favorites because of how well it uses unorthodox sound design to its advantage. Not much actually happens in the trailer, though it’s clear Patrick Wilson’s character is having an affair with Kate Winslet’s and there’s at least one scene involving a child’s craft project. Paired with music, it wouldn’t be effective at all. But the ominous sound of a speeding freight train creates incredible tension, especially coupled with the innocuous image of Wilson’s character and his son racing toy trains toward an inevitable collision. The trailer sells a dramatic conflict that it barely offers glimpses of, a trick most trailers attempt but very few actually pull off.
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Erik Adams
This is an odd thing to ask of something with audio and moving pictures, but I love a trailer that makes me read. Onscreen text that isn’t a title or a credit is a rarity in contemporary full-length trailers; these days, you’re more likely to see it in teasers, where a tell-more-than-you’re-showing strategy pays off. Riffing on the screaming headlines of vintage Hollywood advertisements, Pablo Ferro reduced the hard sell to its basic components in trailers for Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange, stringing brief flashes of single words into explanations and illustrations, juxtapositions and obfuscations. His Strangelove triumph is especially impressive considering the number of punchlines it reveals, from Major Kong’s fateful ride to General Ripper’s obsession with “precious bodily fluids.” Ferro probably figured that moviegoers were too busy puzzling out the chopped-up ad copy to notice.
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Will Harris
You almost never see this sort of trailer in theaters anymore (although you’ll sometimes see films doing them for YouTube now as part of an online marketing campaign), but I love trailers that are their own entity. By that, I mean that they don’t actually feature footage from the film but instead involve someone—either an unseen narrator or, more likely, someone from the cast of the film—trying to sell you on seeing it all by themselves. To my mind, no one does this better than Albert Brooks, and of the occasions that he’s used this tactic, my favorite is definitely Real Life: You may not have any real idea what the film is about by the time the trailer is over, but you know that Brooks is hilarious, and you know that he directed, co-wrote, and co-stars in the film, which is going to be enough for most people to say, “All right, I’m sold.” And isn’t that what a good trailer’s supposed to do?
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Mike Vago
This is specific to franchise movies, but I’m a sucker for repurposing old dialogue. Who among you didn’t get chills when you heard Luke Skywalker solemnly intone “The Force is strong in my family…” over footage from The Force Awakens? (And it should have been the first sign of trouble that the trailer for The Phantom Menace started with anything other than Alec Guinness recalling, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times… before the Empire.”) Likewise, while the film itself didn’t live up to expectations, who could help but be excited by the trailer for Superman Returns, with Marlon Brando speaking from beyond the grave as Jor-El (also speaking from beyond the grave), as we got our first glimpses of Superman on a movie screen in nearly 20 years. The archival voice-over serves two purposes. For one, it allows the filmmakers to show off visuals from the new film without revealing any new dialogue, generating excitement without giving away a shred of plot. It also sends a message to the audience: You know those original movies you loved? This new movie hasn’t forgotten about why you loved them.
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William Hughes
A great trailer isn’t just an ad for a movie; it’s its own beautiful short film. Like any good short, then, the key to building a successful trailer is pacing, which is what makes the preview for Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2009 film A Serious Man so God damned good. Underscored by the bass drum beat of cosmic plaything Larry Gopnik slamming into a chalkboard over and over again, the trailer deploys a series of rapid, rhythmic cuts to rush viewers through its world of mid-’60s Jewish unease. Scenes repeat, cars slam into each other, and rabbi’s “Bah!” as the relentless pounding drives the tension to a point of almost complete unbearableness. Then, just as a film-assisted panic attack sets in, the mounting collage of anxiety abruptly falls away, and the trailer delivers its quiet, laconic punchline. The audience has half a second to let the contrast fizzle through their minds, then Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody To Love” comes blaring out, speeding the whole thing to its surprisingly triumphant end.
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Caroline Siede
Trailers rely on clichés even more so than the films they promote; after all, they have to condense a lot of information into a very short window. But set those clichés to a surprising music choice and the whole thing suddenly feels fresh. “Hooked On A Feeling” instantly set the Guardians Of The Galaxy trailer apart from every other superhero preview in recent memory. And that choral cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” gave The Social Network trailer both gravitas and a certain cool je ne sais quoi. It even goes so far as to make the film’s horribly cheesy tagline—“You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”—feel like a thoughtful commentary on an epic battle of wills.
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Jesse Hassenger
Piggybacking on Caroline’s answer, I’m especially fond of trailers that are able to use their short running time and lack of storytelling objectives to experiment with things we don’t often see in mainstream movies, like several minutes on end dominated by music rather than dialogue, as in the original trailer for Kill Bill (released prior to the decision to split the movie in two). Obviously plenty of movies—Quentin Tarantino’s included—make great, extended use of music, and obviously I’m not especially pining for a Tarantino movie without his distinctive dialogue writing. But for a couple of minutes, the Kill Bill trailer feels as much like pure cinema as any of the individual and brilliant sequences in the movie itself, especially for the way it’s really cut to the music—again, something movies can do outside of trailers, but rarely for such a sustained period. Trailers like this are another reason I feel disappointed when they explain a movie beat by beat; not only does it drain some sense of surprise out of the actual moviegoing experience, but it means the filmmakers (or advertisers or whoever) are ditching the opportunity to create something more distinctive and cinematic that can, at its best, be as beautiful as the movie itself.
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LaToya Ferguson
As much as I love a good trailer that packs so much in you can’t help but wonder what’s left in the movie (Wolf Of Wall Street and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation come to mind as recent examples), sometimes all you really need is a good teaser for a hook. 1998’s I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but its teaser trailer is definitely the scariest (and best) thing about it and possibly both movies. I Know What You Did Last Summer was a fun ’90s teen slasher film (the type you’ll watch if it’s on TNT and nothing else is on) that paled in comparison to Scream, but teaser trailer for its sequel somehow managed to elevate the material and actually argue why a sequel could or should even exist. A major part of that is that, it’s basically what the sequel probably should have been—a movie factoring in Julie’s (Jennifer Love Hewitt) PTSD—and what it completely ended up not being. A teaser trailer that actually does its job and gets you psyched to see a movie (especially one you wouldn’t be excited for otherwise) isn’t as simple as one would think (the laziest ones are the teaser trailers for Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, go figure), but this one gets it, even if the actual movie doesn’t. |
The expansion of airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) into Syria announced yesterday by US President Barack Obama marks a predictable, if necessary, escalation of coalition operations against the jihadist insurgent group. Debates over the wisdom of the operation aside, any military campaign aiming to cripple IS (also known as ISIL or ISIS) as an organisation must target its core logistical and command and control hubs. Most of these appear still to be based in Syria’s east.
The Syrian government, however, remains understandably suspicious of coalition intentions in its backyard. A senior minister in the Assad government, Ali Haidar, warned that any action undertaken without the approval of Damascus would be considered “an aggression against Syria”.
Haidar’s statement reflects a common concern among Assad loyalists. They view the prospect of any coalition activity inside Syria proper as a potential precursor to direct intervention and regime change. But after three-and-a-half gruelling years of war, is the Syrian regime still in a position to resist outside aerial encroachment and threaten coalition operations?
Down but not out
The simple answer is yes. The civil war has taken a heavy toll on the ground troops and air power of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces (SAAF), but its air defences have remained largely unaffected. While not the most advanced in the world, Syrian anti-air systems still pose a considerable threat.
According to the annual defence report of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Damascus has access to modern Russian platforms. These include the Pantsir-S1, the Strela-10 and the likely culprit in the MH17 tragedy, the Buk/Buk-M2. Despite repeated discussions over the potential deployment of the formidable theatre-level S-300 system, its status in Syrian hands remains ambiguous.
Such weapons were responsible for the downing of a Turkish warplane along the Syrian periphery in 2012, sparking a minor diplomatic crisis. Closer to home and several decades earlier in 1983, the SAAF used similar platforms to down two US Navy aircraft in Lebanese airspace, much to the consternation of the Reagan administration. Last year, Israel had concerns over the deployment of the Buk in southern Syria and its potential transfer to Lebanese Hezbollah. The IDF launched a devastating airstrike near Damascus to destroy the weapons before they could reach their destination.
EPA/Syrian News Agency
The Syrian regime couldn’t hope to fend off a direct assault by the US and its partners. However, it could disrupt an operation against IS. This could have severe political consequences and lead to a rapid escalation and regionalisation of the conflict.
Given IS’ positioning inside Syria, coalition air strikes will likely be centred on the eastern city of Raqqah, where the group has made a serious effort to establish itself. While SAAF forces have lost considerable ground since 2011, they nevertheless hold territory within 50 kilometres of the city. This counts much of the government arsenal out, but still leaves systems like the Buk as a credible threat to coalition aircraft.
As the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia showed, even the stealthiest of aircraft can be downed by relatively low-grade Russian and Soviet equipment.
Dealing with the devil
Until now, the US and its allies have been able to engage IS in Iraq with impunity. The greatest threats they face have been pilot error and equipment failure. Syria is not Iraq, however, and the replication of such invulnerability in Levantine airspace is predicated on an understanding between the Assad government and intervening forces.
Given that much of the coalition has spent the past three years calling for the regime’s immediate dissolution and has just committed to expanding support for its opposition, this is a daunting task on both sides of the aisle.
Some may bank on the regime simply taking a step back and allowing one enemy to kill another. It seems to have been more than happy to employ this strategy against warring factions in the opposition. Yet not securing some form of information-sharing relationship between Washington and Damascus leaves far greater room for mishap.
With a considerable portion of the international community now committed to direct involvement in the Syrian conflict, the possible ramifications of such avoidable errors are dire. |
Here is a brief summary of happenings concerning Greg Schiano, second-year Buccaneers head coach.
- After Tampa Bay started 0-4 this season:
Schiano said to season ticket holders this morning this "situation needed Greg Schiano." — Pewter Report (@PewterReport) October 3, 2013
- Schiano has insisted his players jump the line when the opposing team kneels the ball to end the game, and members of the Buccaneers have felt the need to apologize to their opponents afterward. This absurd behavior compelled Eagles coach Chip Kelly to run the victory formation out of the shotgun.
- After franchise quarterback Josh Freeman lost his title of team captain in a locker-room vote, rumors spread that Schiano had rigged said vote. Schiano denied the rumors, which are of questionable veracity. Shortly thereafter, it was leaked that Freeman voluntarily enrolled in the league's substance abuse program to manage his Adderall use. Schiano denied that he was the leak, but the NFL Players' Association said otherwise. At any rate, Freeman is off the team.
- Retired Buccaneer Dexter Jackson commonly takes local elementary-school kids to watch game practices as part of his case work. Schiano told Jackson and his kids not to come back because they were a distraction. "If they’re a distraction," said Jackson, "I’m worried about fans during away games. How can that be a distraction?"
Heading into Thursday night's game against the Panthers, Schiano's Bucs are 0-6, and his job is likely in some jeopardy. Something must be done, but it must be a something that holds true to Mr. Schiano's game philosophy.
Schiano has a special term for players who fit his mold: "Schiano men." I imagine that he knows more about coaching than I do, and that if the Bucs are failing, it's because their men are inadequately Schiano.
So this is what we're going to do. Credit for this idea goes to Twitter.com user Tim Cottrell.
@jon_bois I still think you need to have the bucs play with 22 schianos at some point tho, since what their situation needs is Greg schiano. — Tim Cottrell (@timcottrell7782) October 8, 2013
22? Eh, let's double it.
I. CREATE 44 GREG SCHIANOS.
I released every single real-world member of the Buccaneers from the team, and replaced them with 44 identical copies of Greg Schiano. I'm pretty happy, I'll have you know, with how my virtual Schianos turned out.
In what is perhaps my favorite video game Easter egg since Portal's "the cake is a lie," I found that mug as one of the game's pre-set faces. It bears such striking resemblance that I'm seriously wondering whether the folks at Electronic Arts just straight-up used Schiano's face. Everything's there, even the perma-frown.
While setting these Schianos' abilities, I tried not to go crazy. In fact, I tried my best to honestly assess what a 47-year-old Greg Schiano would look like on the gridiron. All 44 of our Gregs Schiano possess the following player ratings:
I'm ballparking Mr. Schiano at about six feet tall and 220 pounds heavy. He looks fairly well-built, and would realistically figure to fare better than most head coaches, though a 47-year-old's physical abilities certainly pale in comparison to those of any NFL player. His real talents lie in his football IQ -- awareness, play recognition, route running, et cetera. As a noted disciplinarian who emphasizes fundamentals and hard work, he has those attributes on lock.
I'll have you know that creating 44 Greg Schianos took me about 11 straight hours of staring at menu screens. He does not believe in half-measures, and neither do I.
II. FILL THE OPPOSING DEFENSIVE LINE WITH NON-SCHIANO MEN.
The Panthers' defense is one of the very best in the NFL this season, but for the purposes of this experience, I wanted to ensure that these Schiano men were playing against categorically non-Schiano men. As usual, I recruited them on Twitter.
if you would like to be in the next Breaking Madden, please tell me why Greg Schiano kicked you off the team — Jon Bois (@jon_bois) October 21, 2013
Y'all folks submitted nearly 800 responses, and I had a whale of a time narrowing them down to just seven. Please welcome the newest 7-foot, 400-pounds, flawless additions to the Carolina defensive unit:
Left end: Tomas Rios (@TheTomasRios)
Don't bring any work of literature around Greg Schiano that isn't authored by Tom Clancy or Stephen King. And if it's Stephen King, make sure it's not that book with the fella holdin' the flower on the cover. Flowers are what happens when grass gets cute.
Defensive tackle: Rivers McCown (@FO_RiversMcCown)
If you don't shave with a giant dagger, don't shave at all. Blood is nature's shaving cream.
Defensive tackle: Eric T. (@BSH_EricT)
After looking it up, I think Greg Schiano might have the most profoundly anagrammable name in existence. Check these out:
- Cashier Gong
- Caging Heros
- Aching Ogres
- Narc Shoe Gig
- Ginger Chaos
- Raging Echos
- Hag Cosigner
- Acne Hog Rigs
I could keep going and going. Try it. It's a treasure.
Middle linebacker: Chris Heller (@c_heller)
It's just as well, dude. If someone starts jamming that, he'll start singing the lyrics. "Yo! What up? It is crime time in the city. It is time for the Sopranos. Watch out for James Soprano, he is a number one criminal. I am Greg Schiano and welcome to my song, idiots. Get out of my song! Get out of my song! The Sopra-nooooooooos."
Right outside linebacker: Caleb Leach (@caleb_leach)
He became angry with you, friend, because he knows that the wood-chopping game has been taken over by folks rich enough to go camping and live in cabins on purpose, and he'll be damned if the lower class takes that away from 'em.
Left outside linebacker: Chad Markulics (@Chad_BSD)
I don't get all of that, but I get part of it, especially if you were dining in the solarium. The window's curved! You can see out of the ceiling! Are you in a restaurant or a greenhouse or a spaceship? The exotic lighting contributes to a general reality-warping disarray. I once walked in with some fries and a large chili, and walked out pulling a wooden wagon full of glowing scrolls containing language I didn't understand. I tell people I am 31 years old to be polite, but I am actually 37,814. That's Dave's way.
Right end: Adam (@awake11492)
When I was 16 I participated in a church scavenger hunt. We scoured yard sales and friends' garages to come up with the strangest stuff we could possibly find. Upon returning to the church, this kid on my team was beyond excited. "Come here, dude," he said. "You gotta see this."
It was an old microwave with the door missing. "See! Look!" He turned it on and stuck his head inside, and was rather annoyed with me after I frantically ran over and unplugged it from the wall. Church kids, man. The Bible lacks a Microwave Testament, and sorely.
THE GAME.
With Madden's default rosters, the Buccaneers possess an overall team rating of 81, which is rather good. Let's check in on their rating after gutting their roster in favor of 44 identical Gregs Schiano.
Oh goodness gracious. This was my first clear indication that things might proceed more horribly and wrongly than Breaking Madden has ever seen.
This time around, I played as the Panthers for every single offensive, defensive, and special-teams snap. I never took control of the Buccaneers, because I wanted our Schianos to make every decision of their own volition.
I called a lot of man coverages, and I blitzed on nearly every play. Quarterback Greg Schiano had about ...
... 1.2 seconds available between receiving the ball, and having a non-Schiano man all over him. To his credit, Greg Schiano did find a few open targets, namely Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, and Greg Schiano. They were all short gains, though, and the Bucs never managed a first down.
Holy Hell, did Schiano take a beating.
That looks to me like a Stone Cold Stunner. If you'd like to offer more informed insight in the comments, please do.
After a while, my dudes appeared to grow bored with conventional tackling, and started trying to earn style points. Here is Tomas Rios recording a sack using nothing but one of his arms.
Not to be outdone, Rivers McCown elected to sack Schiano with zero of his arms.
These were not anomalies. I've never seen such a suffocating defensive performances. The Panthers finished with 38 sacks -- thirty eight! -- and perhaps this GIF can help to illustrate how that happened.
There's surely a Football Explanation for what happens here, but I prefer to imagine that these Schiano men finally learned the meaning of the word "quit." Look at Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, and Greg Schiano. In unison, they flock to the bench in the middle of the play, and they only turn around upon realizing that they are running toward the wrong bench. Meanwhile, quarterback Greg Schiano sees the Panthers' line descend upon him like an avalanche, and Caleb Leach runs in the abandoned football for an easy touchdown.
I'm not gonna spoil the final score just yet, but know this: the Panthers' defense scored 12 touchdowns all by itself. As in, 72 points before the PAT. These monster lineman had a remarkably easy time forcing fumbles, picking up the ball, and running in for six.
Eventually, though, even this can get boring, and their interests eventually drifted to other things. Look, here's Chris Heller trying to give Tomas Rios a piggyback ride.
That was too brief, and beautiful while it lasted. To borrow from Robert Frost, nothing gold can stay.
Okey-doke, let's check in on the Bucs' defensive efforts:
This game took me about five hours to simulate from start to finish, because nearly all the plays were scores, changes of possession, or injury timeouts that stopped the clock. That's an awfully long time to subject virtual mortals to such a nightmare. These Schiano Men eventually abandoned their Schiano ethics entirely: observe No. 26 (Greg Schiano) above as he goes after the ball carrier by a) turning the wrong way and b) flopping.
This GIF neatly sums up the nature of the Tampa Bay defense. Those are Jonathan Stewart's legs, and that is a Buccaneer being rolled out before them like a red carpet:
I elected to run the ball most of the time, since Stewart and Cam Newton were more than capable of scoring with their feet on just about every play. But when I did throw with Cam, it was really something.
Schiano men lead. They do not pursue.
By the end, Greg Schiano and his teammates were just ... broken.
Schiano men play possum after conflict. Never before. They are curious in that way.
THE RESULTS.
Not making this up:
PANTHERS 412, BUCCANEERS 0.
Now, according to the game's scoreboard, I had only won 292-0, and scored zero points in the fourth quarter.
I wish I could offer substantial proof that I did indeed score 412 points. The thing is, the game just stopped counting. The scoreboard was stuck. I had to start counting manually, and in so doing, I think I really may have approached the ceiling of how many points can possibly be scored in a 60-minute football game.
I'd imagine that the ceiling is probably closer to 700, and only if the team receiving every kickoff dropped the ball in the end zone and stared at it until an opponent took it and scored. Between two teams that are actually trying -- real or virtual -- this might be around the max.
Stats of interest:
Panthers offense: 571 yards, 5:40 time of possession
Buccaneers offense: Negative-231 yards, 21 turnovers, 54:20 time of possession
Panthers defense: 38 sacks, 25 forced fumbles, 19 fumble recoveries, 5 safeties, 12 defensive touchdowns
Key cogs of the Buccaneers' offense: Greg Schiano (22/55 passing, 129 yards, 2 INT), Greg Schiano (18 rushes, 24 yards), Greg Schiano (10 attempts, -8 yards), Greg Schiano (7 attempts, -4 yards), Greg Schiano (5 attempts, -8 yards), Greg Schiano (1 attempt, -1 yard)
Head coach Greg Schiano tried everything. He even tried rushing once with his punter, Greg Schiano. Nothing mattered. By the end of the game, the Bucs had suffered injuries to Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, and Greg Schiano.
This is the single most terrible, terrifying episode in the history of Breaking Madden. Take it away, Slint.
Music: "Washer" by Slint
For more awful adventures in football video gaming, check out the rest of our episodes of Breaking Madden. |
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Three customers who were upset that the McDonald's ice cream machine was down for maintenance charged behind the counter and attacked an employee, according to the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.
An employee told deputies that three females, including two juveniles, went through the drive through of the McDonald's on West International Speedway around 8 p.m. Sunday and tried to order ice cream, according to the incident report.
The employee told the customers that the ice cream machine was down for maintenance, so she was unable to sell it to them, deputies said.
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Deputies said the customers then went into the restaurant and saw another customer with ice cream, so they began arguing with the employee.
The employee told deputies that one of the juveniles then threatened to go behind the counter and hit her before the women went behind the counter and charged the employee, hitting her and pulling her hair, according to the report.
Deputies said the employee was not injured during the incident.
A manager at the restaurant said she witnessed the incident and called 911 for help.
The employee said she believes the women could have been related to another employee at the restaurant, but did not provide further information to authorities, according to the report.
[LISTEN: McDonald's manager calls 911 to report battery over ice cream machine]
Deputies said the females left the area in a red sedan, but they are still waiting for McDonald's to hand over surveillance video so they can get a better description.
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McDonald's released a statement about the incident:
“The safety of our customers and employees is one of our top priorities. As this is an ongoing investigation, all inquiries are being directed to the Daytona Beach Police Department."
Copyright 2017 by WKMG ClickOrlando - All rights reserved. |
LONDON (AP) — Two London-based chefs with roots in Jerusalem one day. The next, poster boys for peace.
Such has been the reaction to “Jerusalem,” a bestselling cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi, an Israeli, and Sami Tamimi, a Palestinian, built on their memories of a shared city and its delicious food.
“Regardless of all the trouble, food is always there,” Tamimi said.
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The men run gourmet delis and restaurants in London and have written an earlier cookbook together. They were known not for politics, but for saving some chic London neighborhoods from culinary boredom with Mediterranean-based recipes infused with fresh, exotic flavors.
That changed with the publication of “Jerusalem,” as observers took note of their unusual partnership.
‘We didn’t go out there declaring a political stance. All we did is say, this is the food that we like.’
An Anglican minister used the chefs as an example of interfaith dialogue in a commentary on the BBC’s influential Today program. The New Yorker piled on with a profile titled “The Philosopher Chef.” Britain’s Daily Telegraph featured the partners on its news pages — no recipes attached.
Suddenly it wasn’t just about how much garlic goes into hummus. It was about them.
“We’ve been very successful at attracting (attention),” Ottolenghi said. “We didn’t go out there declaring a political stance. All we did is say, this is the food that we like.”
The book contains a mixture of Palestinian and Jewish food, and the authors occasionally discuss what bothers them about their hometown, with its largely Jewish west and predominantly Arab east.
“We would both like to see the city divided more equally between its peoples so it’s not a one-sided story as it is at the moment,” Ottolenghi said. “And it’s controversial. People can be offended or upset. But I don’t think they are, and I don’t think (they) should be.”
Their lucrative collaboration, built around five establishments carrying the Ottolenghi name, would have been harder to pull off in the city that gives the book its title. There is little social interaction between Jews and Palestinians in Jerusalem, and business partnerships are very rare.
London was a different story. Perhaps largely because of its postwar history of appalling cuisine, the city was ready for them. Unlike other European countries that find it hard to stray from celebrated local specialties, London has long been willing to experiment, offering a welcoming home to this political odd couple.
Their establishments quickly gained attention with a high-flying crowd that wanted the staff to know their names when they picked up their cappuccino in the morning or their seared tuna at night.
They don’t prepare comfort food in the traditional sense, but it is certainly comfortable to those whose food horizons are open to offerings such as roasted eggplant with feta yogurt, caramelized onions, crispy kale, sumac and lemon zest or chargrilled fillet of English beef with sweet coriander-mustard sauce
The company now employs some 200 people, a dozen of whom were beavering away recently at their London test kitchen and bakery tucked into the arches that form the base of a railroad bridge in the borough of Camden. While trains rumbled overhead, flour-covered bakers stacked pastry circles and rolled out breadsticks one by one under a corrugated steel roof.
Ottolenghi moved to London in the late 1990s after escaping a career path to academia and began to work as a pastry chef. In 1999, while riding his scooter, he happened upon the elegant deli Baker & Spice, and found all the things he loved: Fresh greens, rotisserie chicken and a California feel.
Tamimi had created the concept, and the two bonded over their love of food. Ottolenghi ended up working there, and when he started his own place in 2002, he asked Tamimi to join him.
No Mousakhan, no problem
The men, both 44, never met in Jerusalem, but they have shared interests. Their recipes trace their adventures, like the time Tamimi and a childhood friend crept onto the roof of his friend’s house to snatch the figs laid out to dry. The roasted sweet potato and fresh fig salad recipe evokes this memory.
Joan Nathan, author of “Jewish Cooking in America,” says she was drawn to the book’s personal touch. The book isn’t the definitive work on the region’s cuisine, she says, pointing out for example that the famed Palestinian chicken dish Mousakhan is not included. But she says that doesn’t hurt its appeal. Nathan, who lived in Jerusalem in the 1970s, likes the way the book encompasses both east and west.
“It struck a chord with me,” she said.
Though the two men stress their book is about food, they expected people to talk about its context. Politics touches everything in — and about — Jerusalem. Even food is contentious. There have long been arguments, with political overtones, about the origin of that Middle Eastern staple, hummus, with both Arabs and Jews claiming credit.
The chefs would prefer to prepare and enjoy hummus rather than analyze its history. But they know it’s impossible to avoid politics.
“It’s always in the background,” Tamimi said. “You can’t really ignore it.” |
Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump has cast himself as both an anti-Wall Street populist and a straight shooter fed up with the waffling and equivocating that dominates business and politics. He disdains “crooked” Hillary Clinton, as he calls her, but the blunt-talking Trump is no stranger to the art of the lawyered caveat. In one of his most significant court battles, Trump protected his business empire with carefully parsed fine print — a “perfect prospectus” that secured a landmark ruling helping to insulate Wall Street from charges of fraud.
According to hundreds of pages of court documents reviewed by International Business Times, Trump notched a victory for himself and the financial industry by convincing judges that his own fine print warnings meant he had not deceived investors when he lured them to bet — and ultimately lose — hundreds of millions of dollars on one of his riskiest development projects. The real estate mogul known for his litigiousness helped Corporate America secure a ruling making it harder for investors to file lawsuits. Unlike his other past business moves that appeared to affect only Trump’s business partners, vendors and customers, this Trump case helped set a court precedent that was soon codified into law.
Trump is now asking voters to invest in his vision for America. But after reviewing the case about his fine print disclaimers, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Clinton supporter, told IBT that Americans should take note.
“The pattern is pretty clear: He dodges his taxes, cheats his workers, scams students and misleads investors — all to line his own pockets,” said Sen. Warren, a former law professor who has raised concerns about weak investor protections and risk-disclosure requirements. “Donald Trump plays by his own set of rules, and he looks out for only one person: Donald Trump."
The Trump campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment by IBT.
The Trump case culminated in 1993, when the real estate mogul was a defendant in a case before future Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who had once worked for Trump’s sister. Sixty miles east of Alito’s Philadelphia courtroom, the centerpiece of Trump’s casino empire — Atlantic City’s Taj Mahal — was in financial turmoil. The case revolved around that doomed project: A group of investors alleged that Trump had misled them about the dangers involved with betting their money on the boardwalk casino.
Bond prospectuses obtained by IBT show that Trump in 1988 pitched potential investors on his plan to build a colossus “of luxurious grandeur in an East Indian motif.” He said it would draw “high-end gaming patrons” with “a luxurious environment” and provide event facilities that would give the Taj an “added ability to attract customers that most other casino/hotels in Atlantic City do not have.” Soon after the bonds sold, though, Trump declared bankruptcy. Investors argued that in order to entice them, Trump overstated his net worth, omitted key cautionary information and used fantastical revenue estimates — a situation they said set them up to get fleeced.
Trump did not explicitly challenge the plaintiffs’ allegations that his prospectus contained misleading or inaccurate information. Instead, his lawyer argued that “the cautionary language in this prospectus was so complete, so repetitive, so obvious and so well designed” that it could not have misled investors. The court concurred.
“Cautionary language, if sufficient, renders the alleged omissions or misrepresentations immaterial as a matter of law,” wrote Judge Edward Becker, who then dismissed the case before it could be heard by a jury.
That ruling helped solidify the “bespeaks caution” doctrine which allows companies to make financial predictions, but also shields them from securities fraud lawsuits if they include enough fine print warnings about risks. Trump’s case was soon cited as a model in subsequent Republican legislation designed to limit financial firms’ liability in securities fraud cases.
In practice, say legal experts, the doctrine today allows judges to short circuit lawsuits’ discovery phase, which is the key time when plaintiffs can use subpoenas to force companies to disclose what they knew.
“It is troubling that some courts throw out cases before discovery based upon the bespeaks caution doctrine,” said Jordan Thomas, a former Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement official who now represents corporate whistleblowers. “That denies injured parties the ability to establish that there was actual knowledge or recklessness when a company makes false forward-looking statements.”
For their part, Trump’s lawyers said financial firms needed and deserved the doctrine’s protection from securities fraud lawsuits.
“What are the investment bankers and what are people who are worried about capital formation going to do if they're going to raise money for a project such as this one?” Trump attorney Richard Posen asked in oral arguments. “There must be, if people are going to be able to issue prospectuses, sell bonds and stock in this society under the regulatory and statutory framework with which we live, a way that you can accurately write what you mean and not be sued because the bonds declined in value.”
‘Investors Needed To Be Told More, Not To Be Sold More’
“Before ‘bespeaks caution,’ if you could establish that there was a misstatement in a prospectus, there was strict liability, but then the smart guys came up with bespeaks caution,” Robert Schachter, one of the plaintiffs in the Trump case, told IBT. “It was important — the shift gave smart lawyers a way to stick all this cautionary language in documents to get a safe haven.”
Just as the doctrine was being cemented in the courts during the late 1980s, Trump and his lawyers were crafting the Taj’s bond offerings into what Trump’s lawyer would later boast was a “perfect prospectus.”
The document — which sought to attract investors to the Trump project — expounded on plans for a lavish state-of-the-art facility that would be backed by a powerful “marketing strategy to actively promote the Taj Mahal not only as a first class casino hotel, but also as a convention site and destination resort facility.”
Though the casino would be twice the size of the largest one ever constructed in Atlantic City — and would cost $805 million to complete — Trump said that the project would be finished in less than three years, and that management “believes that funds generated from the operation of the Taj Mahal will be sufficient to cover all of its debt." It also reassured prospective investors that Trump was worth a half-billion dollars — an assertion that Trump was simultaneously playing up in national media profiles.
Though marketing a junk bond, the “perfect prospectus” got the job done: It convinced outside investors to pony up $675 million — or 83 percent of the total cost of the casino — while obligating Trump to put up only $75 million for his own project. Even more important for Trump, when his business empire declared bankruptcy only a few years after the rosy projections helped get the bonds sold, the fine print in the prospectus made sure investors absorbed most of the losses.
When Trump’s bankruptcy exposed the financial calamity behind his empire’s gilded facade, bondholders said they were the victims of outright fraud. In a lawsuit, their lawyers asserted that Trump officials “intentionally, recklessly, or negligently, overstated and misrepresented the financial and operating condition and prospects of Donald and his empire, including the Taj Mahal, intending to deceive [the] investing public.”
As proof they had been defrauded, the plaintiffs asserted that while Trump said he believed the revenue projections were solid, he actually knew otherwise. The amount of daily revenue the Taj would have to take in to merely break even, the plaintiffs said, would need to be five times that of the average Atlantic City casino — and therefore, they argued, Trump knew it was impossible to achieve. While a well-respected casino analyst raised this concern before the casino was operational, Trump's team ignored his report — which turned out to be true.
“Investors needed to be told more, not to be sold more — they needed to be told more about the risks that were inherent in buying the bonds and less about how spectacular the investment was going to be,” Mark Rifkin, one of the lead plaintiffs attorneys, told IBT. "If investors had been told more about the risks of investing in the bonds, some of them would have decided not to invest.”
The complaint suggested that Trump had based projections on his own overly optimistic appraisal report — and ignored a more sober independent appraisal report that had already been conducted, but was not included in the prospectus. They also said Trump had understated his financial obligations and publicly overstated his own personal net worth — a situation they said harmed them because “the success of the Taj Mahal depended on the strength of Donald's name, financial position, personal liquidity, and business reputation.”
None of that seemed to matter to Trump’s legal team, and they did not explicitly dispute the veracity of the allegations. Instead, they became the first to go all-in on the bespeaks caution defense in New Jersey’s powerful federal court: They bet the house on the argument that as long as the bond proposal included explicit, fine print warnings that his projections could fall through, Trump and his business empire were immune from legal liability.
The crux of the defense rested on the sheer number of warnings in the prospectus. It mentions “risk” over a dozen times and its predictions are couched with numerous qualifiers: “The project cost could increase,” it warns. “Competition in the Atlantic City casino/hotel market is intense,” it explains, and “no assurance can be given that, once opened, the Taj Mahal will be profitable or that it will generate cash flow sufficient to provide for the payment of the debt service.”
From the beginning, the court recognized that the Trump team’s argument would carry implications far beyond the casino case. During the court proceedings, the judge asked Trump’s lawyer whether the bespeaks caution concept conflicted with “the principle that misrepresentations are normally actionable and that statements made without a reasonable basis are deemed untrue.” Posen acknowledged that “there is a tension between those doctrines,” but argued that because warnings were included, “the text of the prospectus itself is a complete defense.”
The court agreed. Even if Trump forecast preposterous earnings, omitted negative information about his personal finances, or buried inconvenient appraisals that contradicted his braggadocious narrative about the Taj Mahal — these were legal irrelevancies, so long as his prospectus “bespoke caution.”
“Adequate cautionary language in a prospectus is the equivalent of full disclosure,” wrote New Jersey District Court Judge John F. Gerry, an influential jurist who was chairing the executive committee of the group that oversees the federal judiciary. Of Trump’s alleged omissions of inconvenient facts, Gerry ruled that firms are not required to publish a prospectus that “disparages the very viability of that investment,” nor are they “required to apply pejorative or derogatory descriptors to the investment” — even if investors believe they are entitled to such disclosures. He then dismissed the case, ruling that the well-crafted disclaimers were “relieving defendants of securities fraud liability.”
Though Trump was the most famous business icon to use the fine print defense, he was not the first. Fifteen years before his Taj Majal case, a federal court in Missouri first mentioned the phrase “bespeaks caution” in the footnote of a case about an aviation firm that investors said wrongly told them it had contracts lined up to cover its costs. The court ruled that since since the company used words like “expected” and “possible,” it had “bespoke caution in outlook” and therefore investors couldn’t sue for their money back.
In 1985 and 1986, the federal court in New York pulled the “bespeaks caution” language out the footnotes and began fashioning it into a formal theory. In the latter case, judges threw out a lawsuit alleging, among other things, that a Manhattan developer wooed investors by promising to rent out condos in a building that, unbeknownst to the investors, legally could not be zoned residential. It didn’t matter whether the firm knew the building would never be converted into condos, the court ruled, as long as it included fine print warnings when communicating with investors.
Then in a 1991 case about a bankrupted retirement community, a Missouri court threw out a securities fraud case where investors claimed they’d been duped by a feasibility study that made “misrepresentations, omitted material facts and made economic predictions with reckless disregard for their validity.” It didn’t matter if the statements in question were indeed false, the court found, since the firm’s documents “contained a number of risk statements, detailed cautionary language and disclosures” that immunized it from punishment.
The legal shift underway was significant. After the stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression, landmark statutes in 1933 created strict and seemingly straightforward rules about how firms could — and could not — market financial products. Under those laws, securities dealers were legally liable if their bond prospectus “includes an untrue statement of a material fact or omits to state a material fact.”
But with more conservative, business-friendly jurists getting judicial appointments during the Reagan era — and with Wall Street looking to reduce a growing number of securities fraud suits — the cases interpreting and applying those laws to corporate fine print were reshaping financial jurisprudence.
Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Trump’s defense against his investors — strengthened by emerging case law — helped turn fine print into a legal firewall. The dismissal of the Taj Mahal case in New Jersey was appealed to Alito’s court in Philadelphia, and there, federal judges sided with Trump in the highest-profile case bolstering the “bespeaks caution” doctrine.
“‘Bespeaks caution’ is essentially shorthand,” the court reasoned, “that a statement or omission must be considered in context, so that accompanying statements may render it immaterial as a matter of law.”
‘Investors Shouldn’t Have Had To Take That Risk’
The ruling was a big win for financial firms and moguls like Trump — and Trump’s team appeared to recognize its larger significance beyond absolving their client.
"It is a synthesis of an emerging doctrine of law," Trump attorney Posen told the New York Times. He said the opinion "will serve to discipline the worst of the plaintiffs' class-action cases, which essentially say: 'I bought the stock. It went down. Someone gypped me.'”
Three years after a federal court first ratified Trump’s argument, congressional Republicans did the same. Fresh off their takeover of Congress in 1994, GOP lawmakers passed a far-reaching measure designed to shield corporations from lawsuits, and statutorily affirming the spirit of the bespeaks caution doctrine. In congressional reports accompanying the legislation — known as the Private Securities Litigation Act — lawmakers explicitly pointed to the Trump case for inspiration. Citing the Taj Mahal lawsuit, the Senate report said a key provision in the bill “protects from liability certain ‘forward-looking’ statements that are accompanied by sufficient cautionary language.”
President Bill Clinton vetoed the measure in 1995, saying the bill would “have the effect of closing the courthouse door on investors who have legitimate claims.” Congress overrode the veto.
To be sure, Trump was not solely responsible for the bespeaks caution doctrine — both the congressional legislation and rulings from other courts have independently affirmed it. Trump’s case, though, remains a key reference point not only in case law, but also among corporate law firms advising clients about how they can protect themselves against aggrieved investors who claim they were ripped off.
“The ‘bespeaks caution’ doctrine has become an important weapon in securities defendants' arsenals,” wrote one prominent law firm in an emblematic article calling the doctrine “a useful tool for early dismissal” and touting the Trump suit as “one of the leading bespeaks caution cases.” Another major firm more recently published an article advising clients that the Trump case means that “if a statement has been rendered immaterial by cautionary language, it remains immaterial, even if known to be false when made.” A partner at Posen’s own firm boasted that the Trump case “gave the clearest and broadest articulation” of a doctrine that “dramatically strengthens an important defense” for corporations. “That's bad news for plaintiffs and their attorneys,” he said, but “good news for accountants.”
During the Trump case, the judge worried aloud about “the troubling possibility that the ‘bespeaks caution’ doctrine will encourage management to conceal deliberate misrepresentations beneath the mantle of broad cautionary language.” More than 20 years after those concerns were raised, there remains a debate over the merits of the doctrine.
University of Virginia law professor Andrew Vollmer, who served as the SEC’s deputy general counsel, defended the doctrine, telling IBT: “Companies were getting sued all the time for predicting their revenues and the like — the plaintiffs bar would sue them for any variation from their predictions.” By contrast, Thomas, the former SEC regulator, asserted that while the doctrine encourages fine print warnings, “The problem with many companies’ risk disclosures today is that they are not tailored and they do not enumerate the assumptions built into their projections. In cases where you have these generalized, cookie cutter disclosures, companies shouldn’t be able to shield themselves from liability.”
The number of securities fraud cases has declined in recent years — and courts continue to fine tune the fine print doctrine that rescued Trump. Since 2006, the “bespeaks caution” principle has been invoked in cases involving major Wall Street banks, high-frequency traders and — perhaps most famously — the MF Global hedge fund that lost investors billions. Former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt told IBT that for the most part, the prospects for investors have worsened since Trump’s Taj Mahal case helped establish the precedent.
“The standards of liability have made it much more difficult to bring cases against wrongdoers,” said Levitt, who raised concerns about the 1995 legislation that cited the Trump case in codifying the bespeaks caution doctrine. “Congress and the judiciary have made it more difficult to bring private rights of action and investors are obviously less well protected today than they were 25 years ago — and I think that is unfortunate.”
Two decades after plaintiffs charged Trump with making unrealistic promises, he is again making bold predictions — this time about America’s future prosperity under a Trump presidency. As voters decide whether to bet on that vision, the Taj Mahal bondholders’ experience may bespeak caution.
“Investors are taking a risk that the casino may not be doing as well as Trump hoped it would do,” plaintiffs’ attorney Schachter told IBT. “The economy could be bad; real estate could be bad — that’s a risk that reasonable investors take,” he said. “The risk of not being told the complete truth by Trump? Investors shouldn’t have had to take that risk.”
John Osborne contributed research to this report. |
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Paul Scholes has delivered a withering verdict of Manchester United under Louis van Gaal - suggesting the Dutch manager is inhibiting his players.
The Old Trafford legend was scathing of his former side, who needed an Anthony Martial header to secure a 1-1 draw with CSKA Moscow on Wednesday.
Scholes, who has not held back in his criticism of United since Van Gaal took charge, said on BT Sport: “You look at the United team, there is no quality, no movement. People are not running.
“Is it the way they are told to play?
“It’s all safety playing across the pitch. I can’t remember a pass in to Wayne Rooney. There is no movement.
“You’ve got midfield players who can run - Ander Herrera, Jesse Lingaard, Anthony Martial - stick the ball in to Rooney and run, but there’s not one of them even thinking of running.”
Scholes described United as ‘miserable’ earlier this year.
But Van Gaal avoided a war of words with the ex midfielder, saying: “I don’t worry about that. Paul Scholes is one of the fans and fans can criticise us.”
Scholes added on Wednesday night: “Before the game you take the point but when you watch Manchester United you expect them to be better.
More Manchester United stories
“You expect them to be more creative. You expect players to run with pace and penetration.
“There is a lack of creativity. You would think that with (Bastian) Schweinsteiger and (Ander) Herrera the quality should be there.” |
By common consent, the three founders of the modern analytic tradition of philosophy are, in chronological order, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The biggest project in my professional life has been to write biographies of the second and third of these men. But of the three, it is Frege who is—100 years on from his retirement—held in the greatest esteem by the philosophers of today. His essay “On Sense and Reference” (1892) offered a philosophical account of linguistic meaning that broke new ground in sophistication and rigour, and it is still required reading for anyone who wants to understand contemporary philosophy of language. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that he invented modern logic: he developed the basic ideas (if not the symbols now in use) of predicate logic, considered by most analytic philosophers to be an essential tool of their trade and a required part of almost every philosophy undergraduate degree programme. His book The Foundations of Arithmetic (1884) is still hailed as a paradigm of the kind of crisp, rigorous prose to which every analytic philosopher should aspire. Frege’s insights have been influential outside philosophy, in areas including cognitive science, linguistics and computer science. Among the public, however, he is almost completely unknown, especially when put beside Wittgenstein and Russell. Most people have some idea who Russell was. Many have seen clips of his frequent appearances on television, can picture his bird-like features crowned with his mane of white hair, and recognise his unique voice, high-pitched, precise and aristocratic in an impossibly old-fashioned way (one imagines that no-one has spoken like that since the Regency). Even better known is Wittgenstein, the subject of a Derek Jarman movie and several poems, whose name is dropped by journalists, novelists and playwrights, confident that their audiences will have some idea who he is. But Frege? How many people know anything about him? Even to professional philosophers, Frege is a shadowy figure. Apart from the fact that he was a professor of mathematics at the University of Jena, and—as we shall see, held some decidedly unsavoury political views—almost everything known about him arises out of his connections with other philosophers, most notably Wittgenstein and Russell. It is, for example, widely known among philosophers that Wittgenstein used to tell his friends about how, when his interest in philosophy was first aroused, he travelled to Jena to discuss his ideas with Frege, who “had wiped the floor” with him. Throughout his life, Wittgenstein would talk about how much he admired Frege, even going so far on occasion as describing himself as a “disciple.” In the preface to his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in 1921, Wittgenstein acknowledges that he owes the stimulation of his thoughts to “the great works of Frege and the writings of my friend Bertrand Russell.” In my life of Wittgenstein, I describe how anxious he was to receive Frege’s reaction to the book and the efforts which he made, from a prisoner of war camp, to ensure he got the manuscript to his “great” inspiration. Russell, for his part, never met Frege, but also took every opportunity he could to record his admiration for him. Most strikingly, when in 1962 he was asked for permission to reprint his correspondence with Frege, Russell wrote: “As I think about acts of integrity and grace, I realise that there is nothing in my knowledge to compare with Frege’s dedication to truth.” The particular act of integrity and grace that Russell had in mind was Frege’s reaction to a letter that Russell sent him in 1902 pointing out a fundamental problem in the theory to which he had dedicated his whole career. As Russell tells the story: “His entire life’s work was on the verge of completion… his second volume was about to be published, and upon finding that his fundamental assumption was in error, he responded with intellectual pleasure clearly submerging any feelings of disappointment. It was almost superhuman and a telling indication of that of which men are capable if their dedication is to creative work and knowledge instead of cruder efforts to dominate and be known.” Actually, Russell is over-egging it here. The exchange he is referring to concerns what has become known to all philosophers, logicians, mathematicians and computer scientists as “Russell’s Paradox.” It takes some effort to grasp this paradox, but, as its discovery was one of the pivotal moments in the intellectual history of the 20th century, it is, I think, worth the effort. The backdrop was that both Frege and Russell were committed to a project known as “logicism,” which aimed to establish that mathematics, properly understood, is a branch of logic. They saw this as important because they thought it was obvious that logic was objective, whereas many philosophers at that time followed Kant in regarding mathematics as essentially subjective, a construction of the human mind rather than a body of objective truths. Hear Ray Monk discuss the life of Gottlob Frege with Prospect editor Tom Clark on the Headspace podcast In 1900, Russell was convinced that he was on the cusp of success. At the root of his approach, was a means of defining numbers as classes. The notion of “class” is a logical one, closely connected to the idea, used by logicians since Aristotle, of a proposition—a statement that is either true or false. Building on this, Russell developed the idea of a “propositional function,” which is a proposition with a variable instead of a name. So, “Aristotle is wise” and “Plato is wise” are propositions, but “x is wise” is a propositional function. All the people whose names can replace the variable x to form a true proposition (Aristotle or Plato, for example) form the class of wise people. Russell’s theory of mathematics centred on the idea that numbers are classes, thus bringing arithmetic into the domain of logic. As Russell discovered in 1902, almost the very same theory had been put forward many years earlier by Frege. In The Foundations of Arithmetic, Frege provided the philosophical case for logicism, and then in the first volume of the Basic Laws of Arithmetic (1893), he began the mathematical task of proving the laws of arithmetic, beginning with logical axioms. But by the time he discovered that he had been anticipated by Frege, Russell had discovered a major problem in the theory he and Frege had both, independently, arrived at. Russell’s Paradox strikes at the heart of the very notion of a class. Here is how it arises—and do, please, bear with me on this. Consider the “class of all classes.” It has an unusual property: it is a member of itself. Most “ordinary” classes are not; the class of tables, for example, is not itself a table. So, some classes belong to themselves and others do not. It should be possible to form “the class of all classes that do not belong to themselves” (the class of tables and the class of chairs, for example). But, now, consider that class: is it a member of itself or not? Either way we answer that question, we seem trapped in a contradiction. If it is a member of itself, we have a contradiction, because it is the class of all classes that are not members of themselves, but if it is not a member of itself, we also have a contradiction, because it is supposed to be the class of all classes that are not members of themselves. This is such baffling stuff that Russell felt obliged to develop a more intuitively intelligible analogy to get the point across. Imagine a barber who shaves all men, and only those men, who do not shave themselves. The question is—does he shave himself? If he does so, he breaks his own rule about only shaving men who don’t shave themselves; but if he doesn’t, then he joins the ranks of the non-self-shavers, and becomes obliged to shave himself. Neither position can hold, and we have our paradox. Moving back from barbers to classes in general, what does this paradox mean? The upshot is that it is not true that to every propositional function there corresponds a class. For there cannot be, on pain of contradiction, any class corresponding to the propositional function “x is a class that does not belong to itself.” And so class—the basic idea upon which logicism was built—turned out not to be the simple, basic, universal concept that it had seemed. The effect was to pull the rug from under the entire theory. Russell’s letter to Frege explaining the paradox came as a bitter blow, because until then Frege’s work had received very little attention. Thus, one of the first people to appreciate Frege’s work was also the person who showed it to be fundamentally mistaken. Frege’s response does not quite live up to Russell’s description of it, though it is admittedly impressive. Far from “clearly submerging any feelings of disappointment,” Frege told Russell that the paradox had left him feeling “thunderstruck,” having “rocked the ground on which I meant to build arithmetic.” As for taking intellectual pleasure in the paradox, the nearest thing to that in Frege’s letter is his acknowledgement that Russell’s discovery “is at any rate a very remarkable one” that “may perhaps lead to a great advance in logic, undesirable as it may seem at first sight.” The paradox did indeed lead to advances in logic, and it has intrigued and inspired a great number of gifted people, including Wittgenstein, who abandoned his studies in aeronautics to concentrate on philosophy after becoming completely obsessed with it. Alas, though, for Frege, whatever intellectual pleasure he took in the paradox was overshadowed by the melancholic feeling that his life’s work had come to nothing. Towards the end of his days, he confided to his diary: “My efforts to get clear about what we mean by number have resulted in failure.” Despite this, however, one thing that did come out of Russell’s discovery of the paradox was a growing appreciation among philosophers and mathematicians of Frege’s greatness. When Russell’s own book, The Principles of Mathematics, was published in 1903, it introduced Frege to a generation that had previously ignored him, and when, after the publication of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1921, Wittgenstein became the most influential philosopher of his age, Frege’s reputation soared to new heights. By the 1950s, his place as one of the founding fathers of the analytic tradition was secure. Philosophy at Oxford was then going through a golden period, and its leading practitioners—including Gilbert Ryle, Peter Strawson and AJ Ayer—were unanimous in their acknowledgement of Frege’s importance, even if they were, for the most part, in the dark about the man himself, who had, at this time, been alive a mere generation ago. *** But there was one Oxford philosopher who made a particularly thorough study of Frege’s work and held an especially strong admiration for him. This was Michael Dummett, who would in time become a knight, the Wykeham Professor of Logic and one of Britain’s most influential 20th century thinkers. But while still in his twenties, in 1954, Dummett travelled to Germany to study what had survived of Frege’s Nachlass—that is, his papers—and made what for him was an extremely unpleasant discovery: the man he so revered, the man whose “superhuman” grace and integrity Russell had lauded, had in fact been an anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, racist right-winger, with a love of unreasoning patriotism. This was especially unsettling for Dummett, since he was throughout his life an active campaigner against racism—his knighthood would in time be awarded for services “to racial justice” as well as philosophy. On his return to England, Dummett wrote to Russell (then in his eighties and more interested in the threat of nuclear weapons than in philosophy) to tell him that among the things he had studied was “a copy of a diary Frege kept in the last year of his life, mostly about politics. His political opinions were—at least at that time—very distasteful; he was a strong nationalist, a Bismarckian conservative who believed that Bismarck’s one mistake was the introduction of parliamentarianism into Germany, and worst, of all, an anti-Semite.” Russell was comparatively untroubled by this discovery, but it continued to gnaw away at Dummett, and when he finally published his book Frege: Philosophy of Language in 1973, he felt obliged to say something in its “Introduction:” There is some irony for me in the fact that the man about whose philosophical views I have devoted, over years, a great deal of time to thinking about, was, at least at the end of his life, a virulent racist, specifically, an anti-Semite. This fact is revealed by a fragment of a diary which survives among Frege’s Nachlass, but which was not published with the rest by professor Han Hermes in Frege’s nachgelassene Schriten. The diary shows Frege to have been a man of extreme right-wing opinions, bitterly opposed to the parliamentary system, democrats, liberals, Catholics, the French and, above all, Jews, who he thought ought to be deprived of political rights and, preferably, expelled from Germany. When I read that diary, many years ago, I was deeply shocked, because I had revered Frege as an absolutely rational man, if, perhaps, not a particularly likeable one. I regret that the editors of Frege’s Nachlass chose to suppress that particular item. The editors of the Nachlass have denied that they tried to suppress the diary. It was not included in the volume of posthumous writings to which Dummett refers, they say, because that volume was confined to philosophical work. Their intention had been to publish the diary as an appendix to the biography of Frege that was then being prepared by the Leipzig philosopher Lothar Kreiser. Kreiser’s book was long delayed, however (eventually published in 2001) and so the diary was published in a German journal in 1994, an English translation following in 1996. Dummett’s characterisation of its contents is entirely accurate. Frege repeatedly heaps praise on Bismarck, pours scorn on social democrats, gives vent to anti-Semitic feelings. He died several years before the Nazis took power, so one can do no more than speculate about how he would have reacted as their murderous rule unfolded, but it is nonetheless striking that he mentions his agreement with the views of the putschist ultra-nationalist General Ludendorff, and indeed Hitler himself. “One can acknowledge that there are Jews of the highest respectability,” runs one typical remark, “and yet regard it as a misfortune that there are so many Jews in Germany, and that they have complete equality of political rights with citizens of Aryan descent.” The single thing I can imagine Russell finding most shocking would be Frege’s endorsement of patriotism as an unreasoning prejudice. The absence of political insight characteristic of his times, Frege says, is due to “a complete lack of patriotism.” He acknowledges that patriotism involves prejudice rather than impartial thought, but he thinks that is a good thing: “Only Feeling participates, not Reason, and it speaks freely, without having spoken to Reason beforehand for counsel. And yet, at times, it appears that such a participation of Feeling is needed to be able to make sound, rational judgments in political matters.” These are surely surprising views for “an absolutely rational man” to express. The man who wanted to set mathematics on surer logical foundations, was content for politics to be based on emotional spasms. When Frege’s adoptive son Alfred sent a transcription of the diary to the editors of the Nachlass, he remarked in an accompanying letter that it would help to “complete the character sketch of my father.” In fact, frustratingly for those of us who want to get some sense of Frege’s character, this fragment of a diary does not “complete” the picture; it more or less is the picture, there being precious little else to go on. When the biography that Lothar Kreiser was working on in 1970s finally appeared in 2001, it was a huge disappointment. It ran to over 600 pages but, by general agreement, added very little to our understanding of the man. There are two chief reasons for this. One is the scarcity of truly personal documents. His original papers were destroyed by enemy action in the Second World War (what Dummett consulted were copies that had been made before the war, almost exclusively of philosophical, rather than personal, documents), and very little of any biographical significance has come to light in the papers of other people. Aside from the correspondence with Russell regarding the collapse of logicism, Frege’s replies to Wittgenstein’s urgent dispatch of the manuscript of the Tractatus stands out as another rare example of a letter that tells us something of the man, albeit of a rather negative sort. Frege quibbled in decidedly pedantic ways with the first couple of sentences, and gives little sign of engaging much beyond this. Certainly, he was entirely blind to the aesthetic ambitions of the book, which has an intricate architecture of interlocking propositions. He suggested that Wittgenstein might instead publish it as a series of papers. This suggests a definite narrowness of mind, at least by contrast with Russell, who cheerfully passed the book as a Cambridge PhD doctorate, even as its author clapped him on the shoulder and said “Don’t worry, I know you will never understand it.” The second reason however, beyond the dearth of documents, lies in the nature of Frege’s personality, which seems to have left curiously little mark not only on paper, but also on those around him. This is in stark contrast to Wittgenstein and Russell, who were such memorable and charismatic characters that countless memoirs of them were written by their relatives, friends and even casual acquaintances. As I remarked in the introduction to my biography of Wittgenstein, recollections of him have been published by, among others, the lady who taught him Russian, the man who delivered peat to his cottage in Ireland, and the man who happened to take the last photographs of him. Something similar is true of Russell. But where are the memoirs of Frege? Poor Kreiser, then, was unable to quote from letters in which Frege’s personality shines forth, or from recollections in which we see the impression he made on others. His book, entitled (with a presumably unconsciously revealing use of hyphens, drawing attention, as they do, to the lack of connections between Frege’s life, work and times) Gottlob Frege: Leben—Werke—Zeit, has more Werke and Zeit in it than Leben. Long discussions of Frege’s books and articles are interspersed with official documents from the University of Jena and the recitation of publicly available facts about, for example, how much tax Frege paid and the changing price of wheat in 19th-century Germany. Meanwhile, Frege himself remains unseen and unheard. *** Quentin Bell, in discussing the curious elusiveness of the central character in Virginia Woolf’s novel, Jacob’s Room, writes: “Imagine a figure made of clay and encased in a mould of Italian plaster. Suppose the clay is destroyed. The plaster remains: it looks utterly unlike the clay figure but it encloses a void, the room that was occupied by the clay.” This describes perfectly what Kreiser has given us. It is “Gottlob’s Room.” And perhaps that is all we will ever have—a placeholder for the man that housed a great mind, an unknown “x,” as it were, in the propositional function. We know the externals of Frege’s life. We know that he was born in 1848 in the Baltic port of Wismar in northern Germany, that he studied mathematics at Jena and Göttingen, that he taught mathematics at Jena from 1874 until his retirement in 1917, and that he died in 1925 in Bad Kleinen, close to where he had been born. He married in 1887 and the marriage was childless, though he and his wife adopted Alfred. Apart from that, despite the many years of research pursued by Lothar Kreiser, we know very little that adds anything to that decidedly unappealing diary fragment of 1924 and to the hints about his personality contained in his philosophical writing. One is reminded of the words with which Martin Heidegger (a philosopher whose personal standing would in time be battered because of his very public Nazi leanings) is said to have begun his lectures on Aristotle: “Regarding the personality of a philosopher, our only interest is that he was born at a certain time, that he worked, and that he died.” And, actually, in the case of Frege, we can drop the pretence that there is any interest in the unremarkable facts about his birth and death. That just leaves us with his work, which, apart from his poisonous but private remarks about the politics of 1920s Germany (which remain difficult to connect to anything else he said or wrote), is all that survives of the man. And yet that is sufficient to establish him as one of the most enduringly influential philosophers of the 19th century. As a biographer, it pains me to say this, but: so much for biography. Now read
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I must say that I’m impressed with what Waytools is trying to do here. Frustrated with the delays and lack of product, but impressed none-the-less. Yes, I’m in the TREG group, but nothing below is any special news. I’m not trying to be speculative, or overtly support Waytools in a particular way, but rather to provide my personal views on what this technology is all about. I am interpreting a bit from the call that I had with Mark Knighton, but not much.
First, consider the humble keyboard. Basic arrangement has been around since 1870s. Lots of tweaking on the key arrangement, but not much more. What’s interesting is that a keyboard serves hands that have a huge variation. Large hands, small hands (no politics intended). If you care to read a lot of geeky detail, you can find an interesting paper about the variations in hand size here: Patterns of Hand Variation – New Data on a Sardinian Sample
http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/43148
The gist of the report is that the human hand varies substantially. Finger lengths are different male to female and left- to right-handedness. The index finger may vary in length (+/- 3 SD) by +/- 10mm within each group, more across groups. And this is just for adults. Perhaps very young children won’t be using a Textblade, but I could imagine children would be using one by age 8 or so, maybe sooner. The new straight-line layout will also change how people type.
Another thing about this keyboard is that it needs to be able to sense the finger position even though the finger isn’t touching the sensor. The sensor element is in the base (below the butterfly mechanism). The keys do not contain sensor elements. In order to determine which key is pressed, the sensors need to understand where the finger is when the key goes down. You know those non-mechanical buttons that sense when you touch them? Like a Magic Mouse or perhaps track pad or elevator button? They use capacitance to determine the presence of a finger. The Textblade must sense the position by capacitance as well. So consider the capacitance of the human body. The capacitance of a typical human body varies by 60%
See this article: http://home.mit.bme.hu/~kollar/IMEKO-procfiles-for-web/tc4/TC4-15th-Iasi-2007/Final_Papers/F191.pdf
This is a pretty large variation in how the sensors need to determine the finger locations. There must be a complex dance in how the finger positions are read out and the depth that the key needs to be pressed in order for the finger to read as present, but not the letter below it… for example. And the capacitance of my body will shift from day to day and perhaps hour to hour based on how much water I drink, what the room temp/humidity is like, etc.
So, these two elements of pretty extreme variation in how the human body interacts with the keyboard must have something to do with how difficult it is to make this thing work correctly. I imagine that there are many more elements such as timing, battery life, bluetooth communication and such that go into making all this function the way that Waytools expects. Of course, much of this is covered by WT’s patents, I’m sure.
All this is why the instrumentation software is so necessary to responding to customer-reported conditions where the keys aren’t read correctly.
I have more written about why this is an argument that they should release early units, but l realize it just becomes an echo chamber. Let's keep this topic about the technology. |
Farage’s September 2012 remarks contrast with Ukip’s new claims that it is opposed to privatisation of health service
Nigel Farage has been caught on camera telling Ukip supporters that the state-funded NHS should move towards an insurance-based system run by private companies.
The recording shows Farage saying he believes the marketplace could deliver better value for money when it comes to spending on the NHS.
Farage’s remarks, made in September 2012 on his Common Sense tour of the UK, contrast with Ukip’s new claims that it is opposed to privatisation of the NHS.
The Guardian examined videos of Farage touring the country in an effort to establish some of the Ukip leader’s views on issues other than immigration or Europe.
Other footage showed him proposing that the BBC should not be completely dismantled but slimmed down to concentrate on radio rather than television, with a licence fee slashed to £40 or £50. He also suggested that benefit claimants could be made to clean up litter after six months, and that there was a big problem with employee rights and protections such as maternity leave for small firms.
However, his comments about the NHS were the most striking, leading Labour to claim it was now “plain for all to see that a vote for Ukip is a vote for the privatisation of the NHS”.
Speaking at a meeting in East Sussex, Farage said: “I think we’re going to have to think about healthcare very, very differently. I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.
“Frankly, I would feel more comfortable that my money would return value if I was able to do that through the market place of an insurance company than just us trustingly giving £100bn a year to central government and expecting them to organise the healthcare service from cradle to grave for us.
“I just feel with the whole healthcare service – one promise Blair did keep is that he would increase expenditure; we’ve doubled expenditure on the NHS in 15 years – and we haven’t got frankly double the return.
“If I had a magic answer, I could glibly say, don’t give the EU £50m a day and spend it on British pensioners. That would get a clap round the audience but actually even that would not be sufficient to deal with the scale of this problem. That is me being completely honest with you.”
Andy Burnham MP, the shadow health secretary, said: “Nigel Farage poses as a man of the people, but his views on the NHS are out of step with 99% of the public.
“Farage can drink as many pints as he likes, but he’ll never be able to distance himself from these views that would go down like a lead balloon in pubs and clubs across the land.
“It is now plain for all to see that a vote for Ukip is a vote for the privatisation of the NHS.”
But a Ukip spokesman said the NHS was an area where the party’s policy has developed the most over the past few years and Farage’s comments in East Sussex no longer represented his views.
“Obviously things have moved on significantly since then. That was then and this is now. It doesn’t stand up to say that’s still his view.”
The Ukip spokesman said there was some truth in the idea that something has got to give in the NHS but it would be reckless and impractical to go that way in the foreseeable future. He also pointed out Ukip had taken the radical step of aligning with the trade unions to oppose TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) – a US-EU trade deal that its opponents say could allow American private health firms into the NHS.
“We have people in the party who know significantly more about the NHS than we did at that time,” the spokesman said.
The NHS has become a huge battleground in byelections between Labour and Ukip, which is trying to appeal to the disillusioned left.
Farage’s party fought the Heywood & Middleton byelection and is battling to win Rochester & Strood next week on a platform of protecting the NHS.
However, Labour has pointed out in its leaflets that Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall posted a letter on his website a few years ago praising the coalition for bringing a “whiff of privatisation to the NHS”.
Farage has also got into hot water previously for telling the Telegraph that he thought a big businessman could be better at running the NHS than its current officials.
The idea of an insurance-based system, where people would not pay for the NHS through taxes but medical insurance, was not contained in Ukip’s 2010 policy manifesto, which Farage has since disowned and said he did not properly read.
However, there was at one point a proposal on its website for the party to do a cost-benefit analysis of a “co-insurance” medical system, which now appears to have been abandoned. |
Two dozen workers whose wages were withheld have received a $2.35 million settlement. The New York City comptroller's office said Monday that workers were cheated out of wages and benefits for work done at city sites.
If the country is in a recession, someone better tell Virginia.
A new report says average wages in the state went up again last year, to $17.83 and hour.
That's 11 percent above the national average and the eighth highest in the country.
The report is by the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis based in Richmond, described as a left-leaning think tank.
Weird News Photos: Holiday Edition
The group found the median household income in Virginia held steady at $60,674 last year and that college educated workers continued to be paid higher wages.
Among the study's other findings, the wage gap between the highest and lowest earners has reached a 30-year high.
The group found the top 10 percent of wage earners make at least 5.7 times more than those in the bottom 10 percent.
Pro Athletes' Wives & Girlfriends
The group says that gap is second to only New Jersey. |
MINNEAPOLIS—There is a nearly 1,200-mile-wide desert of abortion providers stretching from the western border of Idaho to the eastern borders of North and South Dakota. Across this five-state expanse, the total number of cities that offer any form of abortion access can be counted on just two hands. Montana used to be an oasis in that abortion desert, with four clinics in four different cities offering both surgical and medication abortion options, but not anymore.
Last month, an apparent pro-life vandal destroyed the abortion clinic in Kalispell, Montana. Now, the state has just two clinics providing surgical abortions, in Billings and Missoula. This crisis of access affects not just Montana residents but thousands of women in neighboring states, too.
Vandalism or Terrorism?
Susan Cahill, a physician’s assistant, provided abortions in Montana for decades, through fire-bombings and lawsuits, but is now no longer practicing. After learning that the building that housed her clinic had been bought and her lease was not being renewed, Cahill moved to a new building this February. Three weeks later, that new clinic was broken into and vandalized beyond repair.
Michelle Reimer, executive director of Hope Pregnancy Ministries, a local crisis pregnancy center, was soon revealed as the owner who forced Cahill out of her old office. Reimer makes no bones about the fact that her intention was to stop Cahill from performing abortions in the city, telling Democracy Now: “We made a stand for the pro-life position in a legal, peaceful and non-confrontational way, purchasing the building in order to advance the cause of life.”
The vandalism, on the other hand, was a destructive act of aggression and malice, according to those who saw the clinic after the attack. Maggie Moran, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Montana told the Billings Gazette, “Equipment, records, the plumbing and heating system—all destroyed. And all of her personal things were maliciously torn and stabbed.”
The suspect in the case, Zachary Jordan Klundt, is the son of Twyla Klundt, a board member of Hope Pregnancy Ministries. Klundt has pled not guilty, although documents from the office were found in his home and his shoe treads match those found at the scene. His mother, meanwhile, resigned from the board.
Eliminating Choice
Whether the destruction of the clinic is confirmed as a deliberate attempt to stop abortion in Kalispell or simply a random act of violence, the result is the same. In just under one year, Montana has gone from a state with four non-medication abortion providers to a state with only two. Dr. Susan Wicklund, a long-time champion of abortion rights and access, retired and closed her Livingston clinic in the fall of 2013. Meanwhile, its ability to offer medication abortions in a few other clinics is completely dependent on the day of the week and the availability of a provider to administer the medication.
Closing abortion clinics has become a primary goal for anti-abortion activists, who have used bills requiring expensive clinic renovations or medically unnecessary transfer agreements to force clinics that can’t meet requirements to shut their doors. The reasoning is simple: If abortion can’t be outlawed, closing off clinics is the next best thing.
The gambit has been highly successful: between 2010 and 2013, one in 10 clinics closed across the country—and that was before Texas’s HB 2 began to go into effect, which will close another 20. For states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Wisconsin, the only thing standing between losing most or all of their clinics are court orders blocking bills from being enforced.
Planned Parenthood in Billings and Blue Mountain Clinic Family Practice in Missoula have become the primary locations for abortions. Billings, in central Montana, is often the nearest location for pregnant people in western North and South Dakota or much of Wyoming, three states that not only have just one provider each but, in some cases have waiting periods ranging from 24 to 72 hours.
For Blue Mountain, the situation is a reminder of why they started. “Blue Mountain Clinic was founded as a response to this lack of providers in the West,” said Emily Likins, the clinic’s communications director. “We’ve always had patients who have been coming to us from far away. I have been a counselor at the clinic for two years, and not a week has gone by that I haven’t had a patient who has traveled 12 hours to get to us here.”
“We are busy here, and so overbooked,” said Likins. “We are short on equipment, short on space, short on providers and short on nurses.”
Being overbooked also means prioritizing patients, which Likins regrets. “We hate having to tell women that we can’t get them in this week. ‘We’re sorry, but we can’t get you in this week, and you’re only 9 weeks so we can wait until you are 10.’ We hate doing that. We don’t want to force people to walk around pregnant when they don’t want to be.”
Desperate Measures?
While more than 100 bills limiting access to abortion providers have passed in multiple states since 2011 Montana has been an exception: it’s only legislative move was to try to increase parental consent.
With legislators doing little to stop access in the state, could frustrated anti-abortion activists have taken matters into their own hands to force a clinic closure in Kalispell? Likins of Blue Mountain believes so.
“This wasn’t a random act of violence,” she said. “This wasn’t just one nut job going in and destroying a clinic. This was a calculated, specific act of terrorism where an entire group of people repeatedly pushed an abortion provider out of a place where she had been working for decades. When people get desperate, they get violent.”
The situation in Montana is a reminder that in the abortion provider desert you are just one retirement or one clinic closure away from a state with no legal abortion whatsoever. “When you live in such a small state and there are so few providers, each individual story becomes a much bigger one, especially when it comes to providers,” said NARAL’s Maggie Moran. “With the retirement of Wicklund, and then the clinic destruction in Kalispell, two completely unrelated incidents have now had a massive impact on our state.”
Now, the question becomes how to reverse this trend and bring more care and choices back to the state. For advocates like Likins, the question isn’t will Montana have more access, just how soon it will come about.
“We’ll get a new clinic open,” vowed Likins. “It will happen. It’s only a matter of time. We will have a new clinic in Montana.” |
Smash Brothers: Basically Confirmed For The Switch
A game that many know from over the years, and has brought Nintendo years of success, is Smash Brothers. It’s a title that has one new version made for every new system the company has had since the N64. That said, it was hardly surprising to hear that Nintendo of America’s president Reggie Fils-Aime ‘suggested’ during an interview that there would be a new title of the game coming to the Nintendo Switch.
Reggie told Katie Linendoll, during a facebook livestream interview, that “Smash is obviously one of our best-selling franchises….the philosophy that Nintendo has from a development standpoint is that for every platform, we want to have at least one [each] of our classic franchises.” He went on to state that, “There’s gonna be one great Super Mario experience, there’s gonna be great Zelda experience, so you can expect, you can anticipate at some point in the future, who knows when, that all of our franchises will be addressed. We know that the fans love these games, love this content, so stay tuned”. This seems to more or less just confirm that Nintendo will be coming forward with the fan favourite at some point in the future.
The admission is hardly huge, as many would expect the title. The real wonder on this gamers mind is when Nintendo will start coming up with ‘new’ material. That isn’t to say that I won’t pick up a Smash Brothers game should it drop, but rather, how long does Nintendo plan to rest on the success of old games as oppose to creating new successful franchises. Even as a huge Nintendo fan, I feel that as of late they have let down my expectations and I can only hope that they will restore my faith with some new blood in the water in the immediate future.
Let us know in the comments whether or not you’ll be picking up a Smash Brothers title should it drop, and whether you feel the same way I do about Nintendo’s gaming lineup.
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Their exploits have turned the inky-blue waters of the Indian Ocean into a perilous gantlet for ships and an unlikely security challenge for world leaders. But behind the bare brick walls of a desolate former British colonial prison here, five jailed Somali pirates didn't seem very fearsome at all.
One looked to be in his late 40s, his brambly hair stained a deep henna orange, his milky eyes staring into the middle distance. A slightly younger man clutched a faded sarong to his matchstick waist and spoke in barely a whisper.
The leader of the pirate crew, 38-year-old Farah Ismail Eid, wore such a hungry look that a visiting government official, unsolicited, folded a pale $10 bill into his sandpaper palm.
That a few hundred men like these have wreaked so much havoc in the seas off of East Africa is a testament to the sheer power of guts and greed. It's also a stark illustration of the all-consuming anarchy ashore in Somalia, where, after 18 years of conflict, jobs are scarce, guns are plentiful, men will risk everything for a payday — and their government is too weak and corrupt to stop them.
The men behind bars, however, offered another explanation for piracy.
Their story is also rooted in greed — not of their brazen colleagues with the million-dollar ransoms, they say, but of foreign companies that they say have profited from Somalia's lawlessness by fishing illegally in their waters since the 1990s.
In a long interview with McClatchy at the jailhouse in Mandhera, an austere desert fortress in the autonomous northern region of Somaliland, where British forces held Italian POWs during World War II, Eid related what amounts to the pirates' creation myth, in which overfishing by European and Asian trawlers drove Somalia's coastal communities to ruin and forced local fishermen to fight for their livelihoods.
"Now the international community is shouting about piracy. But long before this, we were shouting to the world about our problems," said Eid, a bony-cheeked former lobsterman with a bushy goatee. "No one listened."
Of course, the pirates' journey from vigilante coast guard to firing automatic weapons at cruise ships — as one band did over the weekend — is a reminder that good intentions don't last long in desperate Somalia.
In 1991, Eid was scavenging for lobsters along the craggy shores of central Somalia, saving to start a fishing company, when the government and its security forces were swallowed up in a coup. The country's endless coastline — at nearly 2,000 miles, it's longer than the U.S. West Coast — suddenly became an unguarded supermarket of tuna, mackerel and other fish.
When huge foreign trawlers suddenly began appearing, the local fishermen who plied their trade with simple nets and small fiberglass boats were wiped out, Eid said.
"They fished everything — sharks, lobsters, eggs," he recalled. "They collided with our boats. They came with giant nets and swept everything out of the sea."
At the outset, fishermen in the ramshackle ports of Puntland, Somaliland's rowdy neighbor, re-branded themselves as "coast guards." The first hijackings that Eid remembered came in 1997, when pirates from the port of Hobyo seized a Chinese fishing vessel and then held a Kenyan ship for a $500,000 ransom.
"When I heard about this," Eid said, "I was happy."
Eid had sunk his savings into three boats. In 2005, with catches all too rare and a wife and two children to support, he traded his fishing equipment for a couple of Kalashnikov rifles and rocket launchers in a market in the wild-west port of Bossasso.
He and five other fishermen, swathed in camouflage, piled into a motorized skiff and set off from the village of Garacad. But their motor was too feeble to catch up to any of the ships they spotted, so after five sweltering days they returned to shore.
The next year Eid tried with a stronger engine, a German one imported from Dubai. This time, the novice pirates caught up to a cargo ship and came face to face with its European crew. But Eid's men couldn't prop their heavy metal ladder up against the freighter's hull quickly enough to board the ship. The vessel escaped unmolested.
Global Witness, a London-based group that investigates natural resource exploitation, agrees that vessels from countries such as France, Spain, Indonesia, and South Korea gobbled up hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of fish from Somali waters without licenses.
However, experts say that the foreign fishing wasn't necessarily illegal because the Somali government, even before the coup, didn't delineate its territorial waters, as international maritime laws require.
"In the early to mid-1990s there was some fishing in those waters that, if Somalia had a government that was performing its job, would have demanded licensing fees for," said J. Peter Pham, a piracy expert at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. "But the Somalis never got around to declaring what was legal and illegal."
Somali officials don't argue with the pirates' version of events — only with their tactics.
"We know they have their grievances," said Abdillahi Mohamed Duale, the foreign minister of Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991. "But the problem of overfishing has always been there, in the Caribbean, Latin America and the Indian Ocean. It doesn't mean that you take the law into your own hands."
Entering this week, there'd been 93 hijack attempts off the coast in 2009, according to the International Maritime Bureau in London — 17 fewer than in all of last year. After a tense, five-day standoff this month ended with U.S. Navy sharpshooters killing three pirates and rescuing an American ship captain they'd taken hostage, countries pledged $213 million to bolster the Somali security forces.
In Puntland, the pirates have a comfortably chaotic haven. Markets carry everything from automatic weapons to spare batteries for satellite phones, standard equipment for any seagoing bandit. A regional government claims to rule the area, but many suspect that the president, Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, is on the take from pirates, which Farole denies.
According to Eid and others, some officers from Somalia's erstwhile marine corps and coast guard, which patrolled the shores skillfully until the civil war, are training pirate groups in navigation and other seafaring techniques.
"If 20 pirate groups go to sea, one will succeed" in capturing a ship, Eid said. "Nineteen will fail, but they'll keep trying. They have all the equipment and support they need."
Somaliland says it's cracking down on pirates. Four groups of pirates — 26 men in all — have been arrested, and three of the groups are serving 15- to 20-year prison sentences.
Last August, Somaliland authorities raided a seaside guesthouse and captured Eid, who'd moved there and was posing as a mechanic. He and four others were charged with weapons possession and plotting a hijacking, and swiftly sentenced to 15-year prison terms despite having never carried out an attack.
"We are afraid this piracy could spread to Somaliland," said Youssef Essa, Somaliland's vice minister of justice. "That's why we have to give harsh sentences."
Nevertheless, Essa, a former high school teacher, seemed impressed with Eid's story. After listening for over an hour, he rose to shake the younger man's hand and handed him $10. Afterward, he and the silver-haired warden agreed that Eid probably would spend the money on khat, a narcotic leaf that Somali men chew to get high.
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Decision to fire on pirates came quickly after five-day standoff
'No cowards': How ship's crew fought off Somali pirates
Give us more money and we'll fight the pirates, Somalia says |
Ministers of the 12 countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations agreed Sunday to uphold a basic rule on tariff eliminations to wrap up their three-day meeting on Bali and pursue a deal by the end of the year.
As they sought to compile work plans for advancing talks on contentious areas, the ministers held market access talks covering tariff elimination rules and intellectual property rights, among other issues, despite the existence of sensitive products in each country.
A member of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party sent to keep track of developments at the talks told reporters afterward that the situation is tough, and the LDP is now looking into the possibility of eliminating tariffs on items once considered untouchable, including rice.
“We need to consider whether we can remove them (from protection) or not,” said Koya Nishikawa, head of the LDP’s TPP committee. But that, he emphasized, doesn’t necessarily mean the ruling party has tariff removal in mind, he claimed.
“If it doesn’t hurt (Japanese agriculture), it would be up to the government to negotiate” and hammer out the policies, he said.
Japan is under strong pressure from its farmers to keep tariffs in place for five items: imported rice, wheat, beef and pork, dairy products and sugar. The latest development, however, could undermine their efforts.
To speed up talks already more than 3 years old, the members plan to hold a ministerial meeting in December, negotiation sources said at the Indonesian island resort.
The work plans, compiled as a report, will be submitted to the political leaders who are coming to participate in the TPP summit on Tuesday, despite the absence of U.S. President Barack Obama, who was forced to cancel by the partial government shutdown brought on by the budget impasse in Congress, officials said.
Before the ministerial meeting began, TPP minister Akira Amari told reporters that members were making progress and that Obama’s absence will not affect their plans to reach a deal this year.
“We were shocked that President Obama could not make it, but we quickly decided that we will maintain the momentum” of the negotiations, Amari said.
Amari said the talks have been “moving forward steadily” and said “We will make last-minute adjustments between the ministers so that (the meeting) will be a great step forward toward achieving the year-end conclusion.”
The ministerial meeting began Thursday and held a second session on Friday. The meeting, together with the preceding meeting of the chief negotiators and the summit, is being held on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Once the political leaders get the report, they are expected to announce that the TPP members’ work on the trade deal is essentially finished, the sources said.
The ministerial report will be announced together with the leaders’ statement at the end of the TPP summit.
The 12 TPP countries — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam — have been aiming to reach a broad agreement this month. |
As many of you will have spotted, this was in fact an April Fool's story. Though winglets and aerodynamics are a major issue in MotoGP, we are far from reaching a solution which is acceptable to all parties. With Ducati implacable on one side, and Honda not keen on the other, agreement will be very hard to reach. When there is some kind of genuine agreement, we will report on it, but I doubt that Airbus will be involved. For another year at least, all of the stories on the website will be as accurate as possible. Normal service has now been resumed...
Winglets are to be made compulsory in MotoGP from 2017, MotoMatters.com can exclusively reveal, using a spec design to be implemented much along the lines of the current unified software introduced this year in the premier class.
The decision was taken in response to concerns over costs spiraling out of control should all of the factories become engaged in a winglet war. The marginal gains to be had from increased spending on CFD computer modeling and wind tunnel work were a red flag for Dorna, who have spent the last seven seasons since the start of the Global Financial Crisis tweaking the rules to reduce costs and raise grid numbers. With the grid now healthy, and set to rise to 24 in 2017, Dorna and the FIM feared all their hard work could be undone, and teams would once again be forced out of racing by rising costs.
Though Ducati was strongly opposed to any form of intervention - which went against an agreement by Dorna not to interfere with the technical regulations for the next five season, the length of the current commercial agreements with the factories - they eventually gave in when the proposal for a spec winglet design by committee was put to them. Under the proposal, leaked to MotoMatters.com, the spec winglet would be designed using input from all of the factories in MotoGP. Those proposals would then be forwarded to a technology partner, who would test and refine them, based on the factories' design parameters.
It was the identity of the technology partner which persuaded Ducati. Dorna has struck a landmark deal with European aircraft manufacturer Airbus to design and test the winglets, ensuring a generic design which will work with all of the bikes in MotoGP. The deal includes access to time in the wind tunnel Airbus uses at Filton, which is also less than an hour from Rassau, Ebbw Vale, part of the new Circuit of Wales project. The prospect of being able to test designs in the wind tunnel, then take the bike for a short trip across the Severn estuary to try it in practice at the Circuit of Wales was too tempting to resist.
The deal offers Airbus technology advantages as well. Aircraft, like motorcycles, are dynamic vehicles, with a wide range of motion in three axes. While managing airflow at altitude is more straightforward, the problems come during landing and take off, the most dangerous part of any flight. MotoGP bikes bear an unsuspected resemblance to a landing aircraft: they are traveling at comparable speeds with varying attitudes. This in turn affects airflow between the body and wings of the plane and the ground, just as the changing shape of a motorcycle during cornering radically changes airflow. Airbus believes this could provide valuable data towards helping make plane landings smoother and safer.
The deal was originally meant to stay secret until Silverstone, with a spectacular display at the former airfield to include the landing of an Airbus along the appropriately named Hangar Straight before the start of the MotoGP race. This leak puts an end to that.
As many of you will have spotted, this was in fact an April Fool's story. Though winglets and aerodynamics are a major issue in MotoGP, we are far from reaching a solution which is acceptable to all parties. With Ducati implacable on one side, and Honda not keen on the other, agreement will be very hard to reach. When there is some kind of genuine agreement, we will report on it, but I doubt that Airbus will be involved. For another year at least, all of the stories on the website will be as accurate as possible. Normal service has now been resumed... |
Public radio and television broadcasters are girding for battle after the Trump administration proposed a drastic cutback that they have long dreaded: the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The potential elimination of about $445 million in annual funding, which helps local TV and radio stations subscribe to NPR and Public Broadcasting Service programming, could be devastating for affiliates in smaller markets that already operate on a shoestring budget.
Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s president, warned in a statement on Thursday that the Trump budget proposal, if enacted, could cause “the collapse of the public media system itself.”
But the power players in public broadcasting — big-city staples like WNYC in New York City — would be well-equipped to weather any cuts. Major stations typically receive only a sliver of their annual budget from the federal government, thanks to listener contributions and corporate underwriters. Podcasts and other digital offshoots have also become significant sources of revenue. |
Tributes paid to pugnacious former mayor of Canada’s largest city who has died after fighting cancer, his family confirms
Rob Ford, the pugnacious former mayor of Toronto who gained international notoriety after he admitted smoking crack while in office, died on Tuesday after an 18-month battle with cancer. He was 46.
“With heavy hearts and profound sadness, the Ford family announces the passing of their beloved son, brother, husband and father,” his family said in a statement. “A dedicated man of the people, Councillor Ford spent his life serving the citizens of Toronto.”
The political brilliance of Rob Ford | Hadley Freeman Read more
A divisive figure in the politics of Canada’s largest city, Ford was adored by many who pointed to his common touch and straight talk on slashing spending. Ford was a popular city councillor for 10 years, becoming known for his brash political style and conservative policies, and celebrated for his habit of handing out his home phone number and personally returning constituents’ calls about potholes and broken water pipes.
He became mayor in 2010, tapping into the simmering resentment held by suburban residents of Toronto with promises to end what he described as “the war on the car” and to “stop the gravy train” of government spending.
But in May 2013, Ford became fodder for headlines around the world, after reports emerged of a video showing the politician inhaling from a crack pipe. Ford initially denied the allegations but backtracked when the recording was located by the Toronto police months later.
“Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine,” he told reporters. “But, no, do I? Am I an addict? No. Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago.”
He refused to resign. His statements and actions became nightly fodder for American late-night TV hosts such as David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart.
But his popularity continued. Hundreds of people lined up for bobblehead dolls of the mayor, signed by Ford himself. Ford spent countless hours taking pictures with residents eager to be photographed with an international celebrity while “Ford Nation”, the name given to his most dedicated supporters, continued to grow.
His outlandish behaviour continued, casting an image sharply at odds with Canada’s reputation for sedate, unpretentious politics. He drew gasps when he used crude language on live television to deny telling a staffer he wanted to have oral sex. The father of two school-age children said he was “happily married” and added he “has more than enough to eat at home”.
A barrage of scandals followed: ,another video emerged in which Ford staggered around a room, ranting about killing someone, a third showed him calling the city police chief a derogatory name and attempting a Jamaican accent. Eventually, the city council stripped him of most of his powers and reduced his role to one of figurehead.
Ford was repeatedly videotaped and photographed while intoxicated in public. After a second video emerged in 2014 that appeared to show Ford smoking crack, Ford acknowledged his struggles with addiction and announced he was entering rehab.
In the fall of 2014, Ford was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of cancer called liposarcoma. The diagnosis, which came as he was running for a second term as mayor, forced him to withdraw from the race.
Between rounds of chemotherapy, Ford campaigned for his old city council seat, winning it by a landslide. He promised to run again for mayor in 2018, if his health permitted.
Rob Ford obituary: flamboyant Toronto mayor Read more
Ford declared himself cancer free in September and campaigned alongside Stephen Harper during the federal election campaign, but the former mayor was hospitalised again in October. His brother later said two tumours had been found on his bladder.
In recent days, amid reports of Ford’s worsening health, more than 6,400 people shared their thoughts and prayers for Ford’s recovery on a website set up by his family.
On Tuesday, tributes poured in for the late politician. John Tory, the mayor of Toronto, said the city was reeling from the news. “His time in City Hall included moments of kindness, of generosity to his council colleagues and real efforts to do what he thought was best for Toronto. He was, above all else, a profoundly human guy whose presence in our city will be missed,” Tory said in a statement.
By mid-afternoon, a long queue of Ford supporters had gathered outside Toronto’s city hall, where the flag flew at half-mast, to sign a book of condolences.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, offered his condolences to Ford’s family. “Rob Ford fought cancer with courage and determination,” he wrote on Twitter.
Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, also paid tribute to Ford on Twitter. “Rob was a fighter throughout life & dedicated public servant who will be remembered for his courage, love for Toronto & his family,” he tweeted.
The youngest of four children, Rob Ford grew up in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, the youngest child of millionaire business owner and former conservative provincial politician Doug Ford Sr. He dropped out of university after a year and worked at the family business.
Ford met his wife, Renata, in high school, and they were married in 2000. One of Renata Ford’s few forays into the media spotlight came in 2008 after a widely reported domestic dispute with her husband. Rob Ford was charged with assault and threatening death, but prosecutors withdrew the charges, citing inconsistencies in Renata Ford’s statements.
Ford is survived by his wife and two children, Stephanie and Douglas.
This report includes material from the Associated Press |
KABUL—2012 proved to be just another in a succession of landmark years for the Taliban, as the influential Islamic fundamentalist organization continued its awe-inspiring push toward unprecedented expansion.
Even following a decade marked with some difficulties, the devoted members of the Afghani cultural and political movement have proven consistently successful in their trailblazing efforts to continue the Taliban’s constant recruiting of talented and diverse young insurgents and building its thriving base of support from politicians and citizens alike to over 30 times that of a decade ago.
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“It was our goal in the beginning of 2012 to make sure we never stayed too complacent and continued working to spread our message internationally,” said Taliban leader Mohammed Omar, who has worked tirelessly to ensure that the movement would not just attain the same level of progress from years past, but also move far beyond it. “We want our program to have its message heard in local communities in countries across the world. Whether it’s Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Iran, our group firmly believes there are future Taliban leaders everywhere.”
“Still, we never forget our roots as a local political organization,” Omar continued. “That core mission has always been essential to us.”
Strongly dedicated to the group’s 34-year commitment to the strict interpretation of Sharia law, Omar and other Taliban leaders have been unrelenting in their push to embrace technology and multimedia trends, a shift that has helped the Taliban quickly become the fastest-growing Islamic fundamentalist organization in the world.
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Additionally, the movement also remains a proud sponsor of a variety of international social and humanitarian initiatives related to poverty, illiteracy, and animal abuse.
“Taliban leaders have long been in our village and I do not believe their influence will ever sway,” said resident Qari Shahzada, one of the millions of Afghani citizens who have been inspired by the growing social and cultural renaissance spurred by the political movement. “As far as my family and I know, the Taliban leaders could very likely be maintaining control of our homes until the day we die.”
In the wake of the Taliban’s recent unparalleled years of expansion, including new local bases in Ghazi, Sheberghan, Farah, and Taloqan, international business leaders say they can only speculate on what is sure to be “yet another groundbreaking decade for the movement.”
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“When any sort of group maintains the level of diligence and perseverance that the Taliban has in the past decade, it is only too certain they will flourish,” said American publishing magnate T. Herman Zweibel. “Within the next year, I suspect the world will come to regard the Taliban as among the world’s foremost political movements. It is only inevitable.”
“They’ve also proven their worth as a more than willing business partner,” Zweibel added.
For more information on the Taliban, visit the movement’s website at www.taliban.com or contact publicist Rachel Eberstein at [email protected] |
Following Liam Reddy's Herculean performance in goals against Melbourne City on Tuesday www.perthglory.com.au have composed this cheeky list of things they believe their goalkeeper could save.
The Glory shot-stopper was in vintage form between the posts at AAMI Park, saving two penalties and seven shots to help his side secure a 3-3 draw in a match that was heralded as one of the season's best.
City, Glory share spoils in Hyundai A-League classic
The performance rightfully earned Reddy player-of-the-match honours and Glory have taken their appreciation to the next level with this tribute to their No.1.
1. Mufasa in The Lion King
The worst part of everyones childhood! If only our big #33 could've been there for Mufasa.
2. Lizard in the valley of snakes
In one of the viral videos of the year, this scaley little fella makes an epic dash out of trouble in a valley of venomous snakes. Maybe Liam could've plucked him out of there earlier!
3. The world famous Kangaroo punch
A safe hand could've saved our national animal from a little knock on the face!
4. Jack & Rose on the Titanic
There was definitely room on that door Rose!
5. Ned Stark in Game of Thrones
Everyone's favourite king, Reddy could've come to the rescue in Season 1 of Game of Thrones!
6. Kevin Muscat from John Kosmina
One of the iconic images of the Hyundai A-League.
7. Hand of God in the 1986 FIFA World Cup
Would the ref work it out this time though?
8. Steph Curry from downtown
Could Reddy do it from defence against Golden State?
9. That Leo Barry mark
A moment to forget for many West Coast Eagles fans, just needed one palm up there to save the day!
10. Shannon Noll on Australian Idol in 2003
The infamous Australian Idol series that launched enough memes to revive Shannon Noll's career! Would have Nollsy won if Reddy came to the rescue?
11. Michael Turnbull on the Bachelorette
He came third in the hunt for Sam Frost's heart, could have Liam got Micky T over the line? #GoalkeepersUnion
12. Usain Bolt on the home stretch
The safest hand to pass the baton on the home stretch.
13. House of Cards' Frank Underwood as Secretary of State
Cheated from a big position in the White House, we think Reddy could've swayed President Walker's mind!
14. Nachos at Mad Mex
Extra guacamole, sour cream and you're Reddy to go!
15. Neil Kilkenny
He looked to be in some pain against the Reds! |
E-sports has provided no shortage of controversy of late, most notably with CS:GO's match-fixing scandals and one League of Legends tournament's bizarre attempt at equality. League of Legends pro team Meet Your Makers is now under the spotlight, thanks to the revelations of LCS player Marcin "Kori" Wolski—who recently returned to the team after a mysterious two-week departure.
The Daily Dot report that Wolski left the team due to a dispute involving months of pay owed by his former team Supa Hot Crew—a team linked to MYM through the company AK3 GmbH. A number of current and former MYM staff are employees of AK3, and Wolski said he was worried about similar issues with his new team.
More dramatic is what happened afterwards. Wolski recorded a call between himself and MYM manager Sebastian "Falli" Rotterdam. During the call—published by The Daily Dot's Richard Lewis—Rotterdam pleads with Wolski. Later in the call, Rotterdam threatens Wolski's mother—saying that, because she signed Wolski's contract, he would ensure that she lost her house.
Following the call, Wolski contacted Riot, and Rotterdam issued the following statement to TDD:
"I admit I made a big mistake with saying this to kori. This Situation was crazy. A Player is leaving the Team one day before LCS starts. I was stressed in this situation and i agree i should not say something like this. I never said such stuff before to a player. I will offer MYM to leave the Organisation and step down from my job. The MYM Management was not aware of me saying this. I wanted to protect the other players cause the situation was looking bad for them and i made a huge mistake. MYM is not working like that it was me making a big mistake! I would like to Apologize to Kori and his mother at this point. Big Sorry!”
As for Wolski's return, the player learned that if he left, he would be unable to play for any other team for the duration of his contract—essentially removing him from the scene until January 2016. As such, he re-appeared as part of MYM's starting line-up last week.
You can see more statements from all parties over at The Daily Dot's full report. |
Johnson joined Birmingham from Cardiff in 2009
Wolverhampton Wanderers have completed the signing of defender Roger Johnson from Birmingham for an undisclosed fee.
Johnson, 28, has signed a four-year deal at Molineux and Wanderers manager Mick McCarthy is delighted to get his man at the second attempt.
McCarthy lost out to Birmingham in the race to sign him from Cardiff in 2009.
"He was my first choice then and he was the first choice this time. I'm delighted we've finally signed him," McCarthy said.
"I saw something in Roger a couple of years ago. But two years is a bit too long to wait really.
"We've had a lot of players step up from the Championship as well and you just don't know how they will do when they come up.
I want to be in the Premier League, that's the end of it. It's been a long road to get here Roger Johnson
"I always thought he would be a success in the Premier League. He was better than anyone thought.
"Fair play to [then Birmingham manager] Alex McLeish, who took him to Birmingham and he has had two great years."
Johnson, who started his career at Wycombe, admitted the lure of staying in the Premier League was too great for him to turn down.
He said: "I made some great friends there [at Birmingham]. It was a difficult decision to leave but I want to be in the Premier League, that's the end of it.
"I'm sure a few people will be disappointed I've not stuck it out, but I'm 28 and I want to be in the Premier League for as long as I can.
"Nothing against Birmingham, I had some great times there, the fans were great for me. But for me this feels right.
"It's been a long road to get here and I don't want it to end."
BIG-MONEY SIGNINGS Wolves' previous record buys £7m Steven Fletcher (Burnley, 2010) £6.5m Kevin Doyle (Reading, 2009) £3.5m Ade Akinbiyi (Bristol C, 1999)
McCarthy had initially targeted Reading defender Matt Mills this summer but a £3m bid was rejected and he moved to Leicester last week instead.
Johnson moved to St Andrew's from Cardiff in 2009 on a three-year contract and formed a formidable defensive partnership with Scott Dann in his first season in the Premier League, helping the club to a ninth-placed finish.
Johnson made 88 appearances for Birmingham, scoring three goals, and was a member of the side which won the Carling Cup in February, beating Arsenal 2-1 in the final. |
Some languages including C, C++ support pointers. Other languages including C++, Java, Python, Ruby, Perl and PHP all support references. On the surface both references and pointers are very similar, both are used to have one variable provide access to another. With both providing a lot of the same capabilities, it’s often unclear what is different between these different mechanisms. In this article I will illustrate the difference between pointers and references.
Why does this matter
Pointers are at the very core of effective Go. Most programmers are learning Go with a foundation in one of the languages mentioned above. Consequently understanding the difference between pointers and references is critical to understanding Go. Even if you are coming from a language that uses pointers, Go’s implementation of pointers differs from C and C++ in that it retains some of the nice properties of references while retaining the power of pointers.
The remainder of this article is written with the intent of speaking broadly about the concept of references rather than about a specific implementation. We will be using Go as the reference implementation for pointers.
What is the difference?
A pointer is a variable which stores the address of another variable.
A reference is a variable which refers to another variable.
To illustrate our point, use the following example in C++ which supports both pointers and references.
int i = 3; int *ptr = &i; int &ref = i;
The first line simply defines a variable. The second defines a pointer to that variable’s memory address. The third defines a reference to the first variable.
Not only are the operators different, but you use the differently as well. With pointers must use the * operator to dereference it. With a reference no operator is required. It is understood that you are intending to work with the referred variable.
Continuing with our example, the following two lines will both change the value of i to 13.
*ptr = 13; ref = 13;
You may be asking, what happens if I try to access the ptr directly without dereferencing first. This takes us to our second critical difference between pointers and references. Pointers can be reassigned while references cannot. In other words, a pointer can be assigned to a different address.
Consider the following example in Go:
package main import "fmt" var ap *int func main() { a := 1 // define int b := 2 // define int ap = &a // set ap to address of a (&a) // ap address: 0x2101f1018 // ap value : 1 *ap = 3 // change the value at address &a to 3 // ap address: 0x2101f1018 // ap value : 3 a = 4 // change the value of a to 4 // ap address: 0x2101f1018 // ap value : 4 ap = &b // set ap to the address of b (&b) // ap address: 0x2101f1020 // ap value : 2 }
So far you could do all of the above in a reasonably similar manner using references, and often with a simpler syntax.
Stay with me, the following example will illustrate why pointers are more powerful than references.
Extending the function above:
... ap2 := ap // set ap2 to the address in ap // ap address: 0x2101f1020 // ap value : 2 // ap2 address: 0x2101f1020 // ap2 value : 2 *ap = 5 // change the value at the address &b to 5 // ap address: 0x2101f1020 // ap value : 5 // ap2 address: 0x2101f1020 // ap2 value : 5 // If this was a reference ap & ap2 would now // have different values ap = &a // change ap to address of a (&a) // ap address: 0x2101f1018 // ap value : 4 // ap2 address: 0x2101f1020 // ap2 value : 5 // Since we've changed the address of ap, it now // has a different value then ap2 }
You can experiment and play yourself at go play: http://play.golang.org/p/XJtdLxFoeO
The key to understanding the difference is in the second example.
If we were working with references we would not be able to change the value of b through *ap and have that reflected in *ap2. This is because once you make a copy of a reference they are now independent. While they may be referring to the same variable, when you manipulate the reference it will change what it refers to, rather than the referring value.
The final example demonstrates the behavior when you change the assignment of one of the pointers to point to a new address. Due to the limitations of references this is the only operation available.
Stay tuned… Next post will feature another property exclusively available to pointers, the pointer pointer.
For more information on pointers I’ve found the following resources helpful |
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace published by Harper and Brothers on November 12, 1880, and considered "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century".[1] It became a best-selling American novel, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in sales. The book also inspired other novels with biblical settings and was adapted for the stage and motion picture productions. Ben-Hur remained at the top of the US all-time bestseller list until the publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1936). The 1959 MGM film adaptation of Ben-Hur is considered one of the greatest films ever made and was seen by tens of millions, going on to win a record 11 Academy Awards in 1960, after which the book's sales increased and it surpassed Gone with the Wind.[2] It was blessed by Pope Leo XIII, the first novel ever to receive such praise.[3] The success of the novel and its stage and film adaptations also helped it to become a popular cultural icon that was used to promote numerous commercial products.
The story recounts the adventures of Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince from Jerusalem, who is enslaved by the Romans at the beginning of the first century and becomes a charioteer and a Christian. Running in parallel with Judah's narrative is the unfolding story of Jesus, from the same region and around the same age. The novel reflects themes of betrayal, conviction, and redemption, with a revenge plot that leads to a story of love and compassion.
Plot summary [ edit ]
Ben-Hur is a story of a fictional hero named Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish nobleman who was falsely accused of an attempted assassination and enslaved by the Romans. He becomes a successful charioteer.[4][5] The story's revenge plot becomes a story of compassion and forgiveness.[6]
The novel is divided into eight books, or parts, each with its own subchapters. Book one opens with the story of the three magi, who arrive in Bethlehem to hear the news of Christ’s birth. Readers meet the fictional character of Judah for the first time in book two, when his childhood friend Messala, also a fictional character, returns to Jerusalem as an ambitious commanding officer of the Roman legions. The teen-aged boys come to realize that they have changed and hold very different views and aspirations. When a loose tile is accidentally dislodged from the roof of Judah's house during a military parade and strikes the Roman governor, knocking him from his horse, Messala falsely accuses Judah of attempted assassination. Although Judah is not guilty and receives no trial, he is sent to the Roman galleys for life; his mother and sister are imprisoned in a Roman jail, where they contract leprosy; and all the family property is confiscated. Judah first encounters Jesus, who offers him a drink of water and encouragement, as Judah is being marched to a galley to be a slave. Their lives continue to intersect as the story unfolds.[6]
In book three, Judah survives his ordeal as a galley slave through good fortune, which includes befriending and saving the commander of his ship, who later adopts him. Judah goes on to become a trained soldier and charioteer. In books four and five, Judah returns home to Jerusalem to seek revenge and redemption for his family.
After witnessing the Crucifixion, Judah recognizes that Christ's life stands for a goal quite different from revenge. Judah becomes Christian, inspired by love and the talk of keys to a kingdom greater than any on Earth. The novel concludes with Judah's decision to finance the Catacomb of San Calixto in Rome, where Christian martyrs are to be buried and venerated.[6][7]
Detailed synopsis [ edit ]
Part One
Biblical references: Matt. 2:1–12, Luke 2:1–20
Three magi have come from the East. Balthasar, an Egyptian, sets up a tent in the desert, where he is joined by Melchior, a Hindu, and Gaspar, a Greek. They discover they have been brought together by their common goal. They see a bright star shining over the region, and take it as a sign to leave, following it through the desert toward the province of Judaea.
At the Joppa Gate in Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph pass through on their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. They stop at the inn at the entrance to the city, but it has no room. Mary is pregnant and, as labor begins, they head to a cave on a nearby hillside, where Jesus is born. In the pastures outside the city, a group of seven shepherds watches their flocks. Angels announce the Christ's birth. The shepherds hurry towards the city and enter the cave on the hillside to worship the Christ. They spread the news of the Christ's birth and many come to see him.
The magi arrive in Jerusalem and inquire for news of the Christ. Herod the Great is angry to hear of another king challenging his rule and asks the Sanhedrin to find information for him. The Sanhedrin delivers a prophecy written by Micah, telling of a ruler to come from Bethlehem Ephrathah, which they interpret to signify the Christ's birthplace.
Part Two [ edit ]
Biblical references: Luke 2:51–52
Judah Ben-Hur, son of Ithamar, is a prince descended from a royal family of Judaea. Messala, his closest childhood friend and the son of a Roman tax collector, leaves home for five years of education in Rome. He returns as a proud Roman. He mocks Judah and his religion and the two become enemies. As a result, Judah decides to go to Rome for military training to use his acquired skills to fight the Roman Empire.
Valerius Gratus, the fourth Roman prefect of Judaea, passes by Judah's house.[8] As Judah watches the procession from his rooftop, a loose roof tile happens to fall and hit the governor. Messala betrays Judah, who is quickly captured and accused of attempting to murder Gratus. No trial is held; Judah's entire family is secretly imprisoned in the Antonia Fortress and all their property is seized. As he is taken away, Judah vows vengeance against the Romans. He is sent as a slave to work aboard a Roman warship. On the journey to the ship, he meets a young carpenter named Jesus, who offers him water, which deeply moves Judah and strengthens his resolve to survive.
Part Three [ edit ]
In Italy, Greek pirate ships have been looting Roman vessels in the Aegean Sea. The prefect Sejanus orders the Roman Quintus Arrius to take warships to combat the pirates. Chained on one of the warships, Judah has survived three hard years as a Roman slave, kept alive by his passion for vengeance. Arrius is impressed by Judah and decides to question him about his life and his story. He is stunned to learn of Judah's former status as a son of Hur. In battle, the ship is damaged and starts to sink. Arrius unlocks Judah's chains so he has a chance to survive, and Judah ends up saving the Roman from drowning. They share a plank as a makeshift raft until being rescued by a Roman ship, whereupon they learn that the Romans were victorious in the battle; Arrius is lauded as a hero. They return to Misenum, where Arrius adopts Judah as his son, making him a freedman and a Roman citizen.
Part Four [ edit ]
Judah Ben-Hur trains in wrestling for five years in the Palaestra in Rome before becoming the heir of Arrius after his death. While traveling to Antioch on state business, Judah learns that his real father's chief servant, the slave Simonides, lives in a house in this city, and has the trust of Judah's father's possessions, which he has invested so well that he is now wealthy. Judah visits Simonides, who listens to his story, but demands more proof of his identity. Ben-Hur says he has no proof, but asks if Simonides knows of the fate of Judah's mother and sister. He says he knows nothing and Judah leaves the house. Simonides sends his servant Malluch to spy on Judah to see if his story is true and to learn more about him. Shortly afterwards, Malluch meets and befriends Judah in the Grove of Daphne, and they go to the games stadium together. There, Ben-Hur finds his old rival Messala racing one of the chariots, preparing for a tournament.
The Sheik Ilderim announces that he is looking for a chariot driver to race his team in the coming tournament. Judah, wanting revenge, offers to drive the sheik's chariot, as he intends to defeat Messala and humiliate him before the Roman Empire. Balthasar and his daughter Iras are sitting at a fountain in the stadium. Messala's chariot nearly hits them, but Judah intervenes. Balthasar thanks Ben-Hur and presents him with a gift. Judah heads to Sheik Ilderim's tent. The servant Malluch accompanies him, and they talk about the Christ; Malluch relates Balthasar's story of the magi. They realize that Judah saved the man who saw the Christ soon after his birth.
Simonides, his daughter Esther, and Malluch talk together, and conclude that Judah is who he claims to be, and that he is on their side in the fight against Rome. Messala realizes that Judah Ben-Hur has been adopted into a Roman home and his honor has been restored. He threatens to take revenge. Meanwhile, Balthasar and his daughter Iras arrive at the Sheik's tent. With Judah they discuss how the Christ, approaching the age of 30, is ready to enter public leadership. Judah takes increasing interest in the beautiful Iras.
Part Five [ edit ]
Messala sends a letter to Valerius Gratus about his discovery of Judah, but Sheik Ilderim intercepts the letter and shares it with Judah. He discovers that his mother and sister were imprisoned in a cell at the Antonia Fortress, and Messala has been spying on him. Meanwhile, Ilderim is deeply impressed with Judah's skills with his racing horses, and accepts him as his charioteer.
Simonides comes to Judah and offers him the accumulated fortune of the Hur family business, of which the merchant has been steward. Judah Ben-Hur accepts only the original amount of money, leaving property and the rest to the loyal merchant. They each agree to do their part to fight for the Christ, whom they believe to be a political savior from Roman authority.
A day before the race, Ilderim prepares his horses. Judah appoints Malluch to organize his support campaign for him. Meanwhile, Messala organizes his own huge campaign, revealing Judah Ben-Hur's former identity to the community as an outcast and convict. Malluch challenges Messala and his cronies to a large wager, which, if the Roman loses, would bankrupt him.
The day of the race comes. During the race, Messala and Judah become the clear leaders. Judah deliberately scrapes his chariot wheel against Messala's and Messala's chariot breaks apart, causing him to be trampled by other racers' horses. Judah is crowned the winner and showered with prizes, claiming his first strike against Rome. Messala is left with a broken body and the loss of his wealth.
After the race, Judah Ben-Hur receives a letter from Iras asking him to go to the Roman palace of Idernee. When he arrives, he sees that he has been tricked. Thord, a Saxon hired by Messala, comes to kill Judah. They duel, and Ben-Hur offers Thord 4000 sestertii to let him live. Thord returns to Messala claiming to have killed Judah, so collects money from them both. Supposedly dead, Judah Ben-Hur goes to the desert with Ilderim to plan a secret campaign.
Part Six [ edit ]
For Ben-Hur, Simonides bribes Sejanus to remove the prefect Valerius Gratus from his post; Valerius is succeeded by Pontius Pilate. Ben-Hur sets out for Jerusalem to find his mother and sister. Pilate's review of the prison records reveals great injustice, and he notes Gratus concealed a walled-up cell. Pilate's troops reopen the cell to find two women, Judah's long-lost mother and sister, suffering from leprosy. Pilate releases them, and they go to the old Hur house, which is vacant. Finding Judah asleep on the steps, they give thanks to God that he is alive, but do not wake him. As lepers, they are considered less than human. Banished from the city, they leave in the morning.
Amrah, the Egyptian maid who once served the Hur house, discovers Ben-Hur and wakes him. She reveals that she has stayed in the Hur house for all these years. Keeping touch with Simonides, she discouraged many potential buyers of the house by acting as a ghost. They pledge to find out more about the lost family. Judah discovers an official Roman report about the release of two leprous women. Amrah hears rumors of the mother and sister's fate.
Romans make plans to use funds from the corban treasury, of the Temple in Jerusalem, to build a new aqueduct. The Jewish people petition Pilate to veto the plan. Pilate sends his soldiers in disguise to mingle with the crowd, who at an appointed time, begin to massacre the protesters. Judah kills a Roman guard in a duel, and becomes a hero in the eyes of a group of Galilean protesters.
Part Seven [ edit ]
Biblical references: John 1:29–34
At a meeting in Bethany, Ben-Hur and his Galilean followers organize a resistance force to revolt against Rome. Gaining help from Simonides and Ilderim, he sets up a training base in Ilderim's territory in the desert. After some time, Malluch writes announcing the appearance of a prophet believed to be a herald for the Christ. Judah journeys to the Jordan to see the prophet, meeting Balthasar and Iras traveling for the same purpose. They reach Bethabara, where a group has gathered to hear John the Baptist preach. A man walks up to John, and asks to be baptized. Judah recognizes Him as the man who gave him water at the well in Nazareth many years before. Balthasar worships Him as the Christ.
Part Eight [ edit ]
Biblical references: Matthew 27:48–51, Mark 11:9–11, 14:51–52, Luke 23:26–46, John 12:12–18, 18:2–19:30
During the next three years, that Man, Jesus, preaches his gospel around Galilee, and Ben-Hur becomes one of his followers. He notices that Jesus chooses fishermen, farmers, and similar people, considered "lowly", as apostles. Judah has seen Jesus perform miracles, and is now convinced that the Christ really had come.
During this time, Malluch has bought the old Hur house and renovated it. He invites Simonides and Balthasar, with their daughters, to live in the house with him. Judah Ben-Hur seldom visits, but the day before Jesus plans to enter Jerusalem and proclaim himself, Judah returns. He tells all who are in the house of what he has learned while following Jesus. Amrah realizes that Judah's mother and sister could be healed, and brings them from a cave where they are living. The next day, the three await Jesus by the side of a road and seek his healing. Amid the celebration of his Triumphal Entry, Jesus heals the women. When they are cured, they reunite with Judah.
Several days later, Iras talks with Judah, saying he has trusted in a false hope, for Jesus had not started the expected revolution. She says that it is all over between them, saying she loves Messala. Ben-Hur remembers the "invitation of Iras" that led to the incident with Thord, and accuses Iras of betraying him. That night, he resolves to go to Esther.
While lost in thought, he notices a parade in the street and falls in with it. He notices that Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus' disciples, is leading the parade, and many of the temple priests and Roman soldiers are marching together. They go to the olive grove of Gethsemane, and he sees Jesus walking out to meet the crowd. Understanding the betrayal, Ben-Hur is spotted by a priest who tries to take him into custody; he breaks away and flees. When morning comes, Ben-Hur learns that the Jewish priests have tried Jesus before Pilate. Although originally acquitted, Jesus has been sentenced to crucifixion at the crowd's demand. Ben-Hur is shocked at how his supporters have deserted Christ in his time of need. They head to Calvary, and Ben-Hur resigns himself to watch the crucifixion of Jesus. The sky darkens. Ben-Hur offers Jesus wine vinegar to return Jesus' favor to him, and soon after that Jesus utters his last cry. Judah and his friends commit their lives to Jesus, realizing He was not an earthly king, but a heavenly King and a Savior of mankind.
Five years after the crucifixion, Ben-Hur and Esther have married and had children. The family lives in Misenum. Iras visits Esther and tells her she has killed Messala, discovering that the Romans were brutes. She also implies that she will attempt suicide. After Esther tells Ben-Hur of the visit, he tries unsuccessfully to find Iras. A Samaritan uprising in Judaea is harshly suppressed by Pontius Pilate, and he is ordered back to Rome a decade after authorizing the crucifixion of Jesus.
In the 10th year of Emperor Nero's reign, Ben-Hur is staying with Simonides, whose business has been extremely successful. With Ben-Hur, the two men have given most of the fortunes to the church of Antioch. Now, as an old man, Simonides has sold all his ships but one, and that one has returned for probably its final voyage. Learning that the Christians in Rome are suffering at the hands of Emperor Nero, Ben-Hur and his friends decide to help. Ben-Hur, Esther, and Malluch sail to Rome, where they decided to build an underground church. It will survive through the ages and comes to be known as the Catacomb of Callixtus.
Characters [ edit ]
Major themes [ edit ]
Ben-Hur is the romantic story of a fictional nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur, who tries to save his family from misfortune and restore honor to the family name, while earning the love of a modest female Jew named Esther. It is also a tale of vengeance and spiritual forgiveness that includes themes of Christian redemption and God's benevolence through the compassion of strangers. A popular theme with readers during Gilded Age America, when the novel was first published, was the idea of achieving prosperity through piety. In Ben-Hur, this is portrayed through Judah's rise from poverty to great wealth, the challenges he faces to his virtuous nature, and the rich rewards he receives, both materially and spiritually, for his efforts.[6]
Style [ edit ]
Wallace's adventure story is told from the perspective of Judah Ben-Hur.[4] On occasion, the author speaks directly to his readers.[6] Wallace understood that Christians would be skeptical of a fictional story on Christ's life, so he was careful not to offend them in his writing. Ben-Hur "maintains a respect for the underlying principles of Judaism and Christianity".[1] In his memoirs, Wallace wrote:
The Christian world would not tolerate a novel with Jesus Christ its hero, and I knew it ... He should not be present as an actor in any scene of my creation. The giving a cup of water to Ben-Hur at the well near Nazareth is the only violation of this rule ... I would be religiously careful that every word He uttered should be a literal quotation from one of His sainted biographers.[1][34]
Wallace only used dialogue from the King James Bible for Jesus's words. He also created realistic scenes involving Jesus and the main fictional character of Judah, and included a detailed physical description of the Christ, which was not typical of 19th-century biblical fiction.[6] In Wallace's story, Judah "saw a face he never forgot ... the face of a boy about his own age, shaded by locks of yellowish bright chestnut hair; a face lighted by dark-blue eyes, at the time so soft, so appealing, so full of love and holy purpose, that they had all the power of command and will."[35]
The historical novel is filled with romantic and heroic action, including meticulously detailed and realistic descriptions of its landscapes and characters. Wallace strove for accuracy in his descriptions, including several memorable action scenes, the most famous of which was the chariot race at Antioch.[1] Wallace devoted four pages of the novel to a detailed description of the Antioch arena.[36] Wallace's novel depicts Judah as the aggressive competitor who wrecks Messala's chariot from behind and leaves him to be trampled by horses, in contrast to the 1959 film adaptation of Ben-Hur, where Messala is a villain who cheats by adding spikes to the wheels of his chariot.[6] Wallace's novel explains that the crowd "had not seen the cunning touch of the reins by which, turning a little to the left, he caught Messala’s wheel with the iron-shod point of his axle, and crushed it".[37]
Background [ edit ]
By the time of Ben-Hur's publication in 1880, Wallace had already published his first novel, The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins (1873), and Commodus: An Historical Play (1876) that was never produced. He went on to publish several more novels and biographies, including The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893), a biography of President Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), but Ben-Hur remained his most significant work and best-known novel.[38][39] Humanities editor Amy Lifson named Ben-Hur as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century, while others have identified it as one of the best-selling novels of all time.[1][40] Carl Van Doren wrote that Ben-Hur was, along with Uncle Tom's Cabin, the first fiction many Americans read.[6] Wallace's original plan was to write a story of the biblical magi as a magazine serial, which he began in 1873, but he had changed its focus by 1874.[41] Ben-Hur begins with the story of the magi, but the remainder of the novel connects the story of Christ with the adventures of Wallace's fictional character, Judah Ben-Hur.[4][5]
Influences [ edit ]
Wallace cited one inspiration for Ben-Hur, recounting his life-changing journey and talk with Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, a well-known agnostic and public speaker, whom he met on a train when the two were bound for Indianapolis on September 19, 1876. Ingersoll invited Wallace to join him in his railroad compartment during the trip. The two men debated religious ideology, and Wallace left the discussion realizing how little he knew about Christianity. He became determined to do his own research to write about the history of Christ.[42] Wallace explained: "I was ashamed of myself, and make haste now to declare that the mortification of pride I then endured… ended in a resolution to study the whole matter, if only for the gratification there might be in having convictions of one kind or another."[1][43] When Wallace decided to write a novel based on the life of Christ is not known for certain, but he had already written the manuscript for a magazine serial about the three magi at least two years before his discussions with Ingersoll.[44][45] Researching and writing about Christianity helped Wallace become clear about his own ideas and beliefs. He developed the novel from his own exploration of the subject.[46]
Ben-Hur was also inspired in part by Wallace's love of romantic novels, including those written by Sir Walter Scott and Jane Porter,[6] and The Count of Monte Cristo (1846) by Alexandre Dumas, père. The Dumas novel was based on the memoirs of an early 19th-century French shoemaker who was unjustly imprisoned and spent the rest of his life seeking revenge.[47] Wallace could relate to the character's isolation of imprisonment. He explained in his autobiography that, while he was writing Ben-Hur, "the Count of Monte Cristo in his dungeon of stone was not more lost to the world."[48]
Other writers have viewed Ben-Hur within the context of Wallace's own life. Historian Victor Davis Hanson argues that the novel drew from Wallace's experiences as a division commander during the American Civil War under General Ulysses S. Grant. Hanson compares Wallace's real-life experience in battle, battle tactics, combat leadership, and jealousies among American Civil War military commanders to those of Wallace's fictional character of Judah, whose unintentional injury to a high-ranking military commander leads to further tragedy and suffering for the Ben-Hur family. Wallace made some controversial command decisions, and he delayed in arriving on the battlefield during the first day of the battle of Shiloh, when Grant's Union army sustained heavy casualties. This created a furor in the North, damaged Wallace's military reputation, and drew accusations of incompetence.[49]
John Swansburg, deputy editor of Slate, suggests that the chariot race between the characters of Judah and Messala may have been based on a horse race which Wallace reportedly ran and won against Grant some time after the battle of Shiloh.[6] The Judah character's superior horsemanship helped him beat Messala in a chariot race that earned Judah great wealth. F. Farrand Tuttle Jr., a Wallace family friend, reported the story of the horse race between Grant and Wallace in the Denver News on February 19, 1905, but Wallace never wrote about it. The event may have been a Wallace family legend, but the novel which includes the action-packed chariot race made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author and sought-after speaker.[6][50]
Research [ edit ]
Wallace was determined to make the novel historically accurate and did extensive research on the Middle East that related to the time period covered in his novel. However, he did not travel to Rome or the Holy Land until after its publication.[51][52] Wallace began research for the story in 1873 at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and made several additional research trips to Washington, Boston, and New York.[6][51]
To establish an authentic background for his story, Wallace gathered references on Roman history, as well as the geography, culture, language, customs, architecture, and daily life in the ancient world from libraries across the United States. He also studied the Bible. Wallace intended to identify the plants, birds, names, architectural practices, and other details. He later wrote: "I examined catalogues of books and maps, and sent for everything likely to be useful. I wrote with a chart always before my eyes—a German publication showing the towns and villages, all sacred places, the heights, the depressions, the passes, trails, and distances."[53] Wallace also recounted traveling to Boston and Washington, DC, to research the exact proportions for the oars of a Roman trireme.[51] Wallace found that his estimations were accurate in the mid-1880s, during a visit to the Holy Land after Ben-Hur was published, and that he could "find no reason for making a single change in the text of the book."[1][54]
An example of Wallace's attention to detail is his description of the fictional chariot race and its setting at the arena in Antioch. Using a literary style that addressed his audience directly, Wallace wrote:
Let the reader try to fancy it; let him first look down on the arena, and see it glistening in its frame of dull-gray granite walls; let him then, in this perfect field, see the chariots, light of wheel, very graceful, and ornate as paint and burnishing can make them ... let the reader see the accompanying shadows fly; and, with such distinctness as the picture comes, he may share the satisfaction and deeper pleasure of those to whom it was a thrilling fact, not a feeble fancy.[1][55]
Wallace's religious beliefs [ edit ]
It is ironic that an acclaimed biblical novel,[56] one that would rival the Bible in popularity during the Gilded Age, was inspired by a discussion with a noted agnostic and written by an author who was never a member of any church.[6] Its publication prompted speculation about Wallace's faith. Wallace claimed that when he began writing Ben-Hur, he was not "in the least influenced by religious sentiment" and "had no convictions about God or Christ",[41][56] but he was fascinated by the biblical story of the three magi's journey to find Jesus, king of the Jews. After extensive studies of the Bible and the Holy Land, and well before he had completed the novel, Wallace became a believer in God and Christ.[48][56][57] In his autobiography, Wallace acknowledged:
In the very beginning, before distractions overtake me, I wish to say that I believe absolutely in the Christian conception of God. As far as it goes, this confession is broad and unqualified, and it ought and would be sufficient were it not that books of mine—Ben-Hur and The Prince of India—have led many persons to speculate concerning my creed ... I am not a member of any church or denomination, nor have I ever been. Not that churches are objectionable to me, but simply because my freedom is enjoyable, and I do not think myself good enough to be a communicant.[1][58]
Composition and publication history [ edit ]
Most of the book was written during Wallace's spare time in the evening, while traveling, and at home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he often wrote outdoors during the summer, sitting under a favorite beech tree near his home. (The tree has since that time been called the Ben-Hur Beech.)[6][59] Wallace moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico after his appointment as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881.[60] He completed Ben-Hur in 1880 at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe.[61] Wallace wrote mostly at night after his formal duties had concluded, in a room in the palace that was once described in tours as the birthplace of Ben-Hur.[62] In his memoirs, Wallace recalled how he composed the climactic scenes of the Crucifixion by lantern light: "The ghosts, if they were about, did not disturb me; yet in the midst of that gloomy harborage I beheld the Crucifixion, and strove to write what I beheld."[48]
In March 1880, Wallace copied the final manuscript of Ben-Hur in purple ink as a tribute to the Christian season of Lent. He took a leave of absence from his post as New Mexico's territorial governor and traveled to New York City to deliver it to his publisher. On April 20, Wallace personally presented the manuscript to Joseph Henry Harper of Harper and Brothers, who accepted it for publication.[63][64]
At the time of Ben-Hur's publication, the idea of presenting Christ and the Crucifixion in a fictional novel was a sensitive issue. Wallace's depiction of Christ could have been considered by some as blasphemy, but the quality of his manuscript and his assurances that he had not intended to offend Christians with his writing overcame the publisher's reservations.[65] Harper praised it as "the most beautiful manuscript that has ever come into this house. A bold experiment to make Christ a hero that has been often tried and always failed."[1][66] Harper and Brothers offered Wallace a contract that would earn him 10% in royalties, and published Ben-Hur on November 12, 1880. It initially sold for $1.50 per copy, an expensive price when compared to other popular novels published at the time.[65][67][68]
Initial publication [ edit ]
When Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ first appeared in 1880, it was bound in a cadet blue-gray cloth with floral decorations on the front cover, spine, and back cover.
It was copyrighted October 12, 1880, and published November 12th (as noted in a letter to Wallace from Harper dated November 13, 1880). The earliest autographed copy noted bears Wallace's inscription dated November 17, 1880, in the collection of the Indiana Historical Society Library. The first printed review appeared in The New York Times, November 14, 1880, and noted that it is "printed and in the hands of book dealers."
According to Russo and Sullivan, Mrs. Wallace objected to the floral decorative cloth. She wrote to Harper on January 3, 1885, in answer to a question about the true first edition: "I incline to the belief that the volume seen was one of the first issue of Ben-Hur, which would explain the gay binding." (Original letter is in the Eagle Crest Library.) Further, the Harpers Literary Gossip printed an article, "How the First 'Ben-Hur' Was Bound": "Inquiries have reached the Harpers concerning the binding of the first edition of Ben-Hur, which appeared in 1880. The first edition was issued in a series which the Harpers were then publishing. It was 16mo form, bound in cadet-blue cloth, and decorated with clusters of flowers in red, blue, and green on the front cover and a vase of flowers in the same colors on the back cover. The lettering on the cover is black." (Excerpt in the Eagle Crest Library.)
Harpers apparently retaliated at Susan Wallace's objections over the binding. In the next two binding states (all first editions), the text was bound in drab, brown mesh cloth (seen occasionally today as a faded gray) over beveled boards [Binding State 2] and brown pebbled cloth over beveled boards [Binding State 3].
The book is dedicated "To the Wife of My Youth". This dedication appears in the first printing run of about 5,000 copies, all either in the first edition, first state binding, or in two alternate bindings. In an 1887 printing of Ben-Hur at the Rare Books Department of the Cincinnati Public Library, Lew Wallace wrote to Alexander Hill: "My Dear Friend Hill—When Ben-Hur was finished, I told my wife it was to be dedicated to her, and that she must furnish the inscription. She wrote 'To the Wife of My Youth' / The book became popular; then I began to receive letters of sympathy and enquiries as to when and of what poor Mrs. Wallace died. I laughed at first, but the condolences multiplied until finally I told the good woman that having got me into the trouble she must now get me out, which she did by adding the words--'Who still abides with me.' / The device was perfect." Wallace apparently also received many marriage proposals due to the misunderstanding.[69]
Sales and subsequent publication [ edit ]
Initial sales of Ben-Hur were slow, only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months, but within two years, the book had become popular among readers.[70] At the beginning of its third year, 750 copies were sold each month, and by 1885, the monthly average was 1,200 copies.[67] By 1886, the book was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties, a substantial amount at the time, and began to sell, on average, an estimated 50,000 copies per year.[50][71][72] By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies.[40][73] Ten years after its initial publication, the book had reached sustained sales of 4,500 per month.[67] A study conducted in 1893 of American public library book loans found that Ben-Hur had the highest percentage (83%) of loans among contemporary novels.[6] In addition to the publication of the complete novel, two parts were published as separate volumes: The First Christmas (1899) and The Chariot Race (1912).[72]
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.[74][75] By that time it had been printed in 36 English-language editions and translated into 20 other languages, including Indonesian and Braille.[76] Literary historian James D. Hart explained that by the turn of the century, "If every American did not read the novel, almost everyone was aware of it."[67] Between 1880 and 1912, an estimated one million copies of the book were sold, and in 1913, Sears Roebuck ordered another one million copies, at that time the largest single-year print edition in American history, and sold them for 39 cents apiece.[2][72]
Within 20 years of its publication, Ben-Hur was "second only to the Bible as the best-selling book in America", and remained in second position until Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1936) surpassed it.[1][5] A 1946 edition of Ben-Hur published by Grosset and Dunlap boasted that 26 million copies of the novel were in print.[72] With the release of the 1959 film adaptation of the book, Ben-Hur returned to the top of the bestseller lists in the 1960s. At the time of the book's 100th anniversary in 1980, Ben-Hur had never been out of print and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.[77]
Reception [ edit ]
Ben-Hur was popular in its own day despite slow initial sales and mixed reviews from contemporary literary critics, who "found its romanticism passé and its action pulpy".[6] Century magazine called it an "anachronism" and The Atlantic panned its descriptions as "too lavish".[67] For its readers, however, the book "resonated with some of the most significant issues in late Victorian culture: gender and family; slavery and freedom; ethnicity and empire; and nationhood and citizenship".[5] With the chariot race as its central attraction and the character of Judah emerging as a "heroic action figure",[5] Ben-Hur enjoyed a wide popularity among readers, similar to the dime novels of its day;[6] however, its continued appearance on popular lists of great American literature remained a source of frustration for many literary critics over the years.[76]
The novel had millions of fans, including several influential men in politics. U.S. president and American Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. president James Garfield, and Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederate States of America, were enthusiastic fans.[6] Garfield was so impressed that he appointed Wallace as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire, based in Constantinople, Turkey. Wallace served in this diplomatic post from 1881 to 1885.[78]
Ben-Hur was published at time when the United States was moving away from war and reconstruction.[6] One scholar argues that Ben-Hur became so popular that it "helped to reunite the nation in the years following Reconstruction".[5] It has been suggested that the Southerners' positive reception of a book written by Wallace, a former Union general, was his message of compassion overcoming vengeance and his sympathetic description of slaveholders.[6] Poet, editor and Confederate veteran Paul Hamilton Hayne described Ben-Hur as "simple, straightforward, but eloquent".[6][79]
Critics point to problems such as flat characters and dialogue, unlikely coincidences driving the plot, and tedious and lengthy descriptions of settings, but others note its well-structured plot and exciting story,[76] with its unusual mix of romanticism, spiritual piety, action, and adventure.[46] A New York Times review in 1905 referred to Ben-Hur as Wallace's masterwork, further noting it "appealed to the unsophisticated and unliterary. People who read much else of worth rarely read Ben-Hur".[80]
Popular novels of Christ's life, such as Reverend J. H. Ingraham's The Prince of the House of David (1855), preceded Wallace's novel, while others such as Charles M. Shedon's "In His Steps": What Would Jesus Do? (1897) followed it, but Ben-Hur was among the first to make Jesus a major character in a novel.[6] Members of the clergy and others praised Wallace's detailed description of the Middle East during Jesus's lifetime and encouraged their congregations to read the book at home and during Sunday School.[81] One Roman Catholic priest wrote to Wallace: "The messiah appears before us as I always wished him depicted".[6]
Readers also credited Wallace's novel with making Jesus's story more believable by providing vivid descriptions of the Holy Land and inserting his own character of Judah into scenes from the gospels. One former alcoholic, George Parrish from Kewanee, Illinois, wrote the author a letter crediting Ben-Hur with causing him to reject alcohol and find religion. Parrish remarked: "It seemed to bring Christ home to me as nothing else could".[6] Others who were inspired by the novel dedicated themselves to Christian service and became missionaries, some of them helping to translate Ben-Hur into other languages.[81] This kind of religious support helped Ben-Hur become one of the best-selling novels of its time. It not only reduced lingering American resistance to the novel as a literary form, but also later adaptations were instrumental in introducing some Christian audiences to theater and film.[6][46]
Adaptations [ edit ]
Stage [ edit ]
A 1901 poster for a production of the play at the Illinois Theatre, Chicago
After the novel's publication in 1880, Wallace was deluged with requests to dramatize it as a stage play, but he resisted, arguing that no one could accurately portray Christ on stage or recreate a realistic chariot race.[82] Dramatist William Young suggested a solution to represent Jesus with a beam of light, which impressed Wallace. In 1899, Wallace entered into an agreement with theatrical producers Marc Klaw and Abraham Erlanger to turn his novel into a stage adaptation. The resulting play opened at the Broadway Theater in New York City on November 29, 1899. Critics gave it mixed reviews, but the audience packed each performance, many of them first-time theater-goers. It became a hit, selling 25,000 tickets per week.[72][83] From 1899 until its last performance in 1921, the show played in large venues in U.S. cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Baltimore, and traveled internationally to London and Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. The stage adaptation was seen by an estimated 20 million people,[83] and William Jennings Bryan claimed it was "the greatest play on stage when measured by its religious tone and more effect."[6] Its popularity introduced the theater to a new audience, "many of them devout churchgoers who’d previously been suspicious of the stage."[6]
The key spectacle of the show recreated the chariot race with live horses and real chariots running on treadmills with a rotating backdrop.[84] Its elaborate set and staging came at a time "when theatre was yearning to be cinema."[85][86] After Wallace saw the elaborate stage sets, he exclaimed, "My God. Did I set all of this in motion?"[6]
When the play was produced in London in 1902, The Era's drama critic described how the chariot race was achieved with "four great cradles" 20 feet (6.1 m) long and 14 feet (4.3 m) wide, that moved "back and front on railways", while horses secured with invisible steel cable traces galloped on treadmills towards the audience. The horses also drove the movement of a vast cyclorama backdrop, which revolved in the opposite direction to create an illusion of rapid speed. Electric rubber rollers spun the chariot wheels, while fans created clouds of dust. The production had imported 30 tons of stage equipment from the United States, employed a cast of more than 100, and featured sets with fountains, palm trees, and the sinking of a Roman galley.[86] A critic for The Illustrated London News described the London production in 1902 as "a marvel of stage-illusion" that was "memorable beyond all else", while The Sketch's critic called it "thrilling and realistic ... enough to make the fortune of any play" and noted that "the stage, which has to bear 30 tons' weight of chariots and horses, besides huge crowds, has had to be expressly strengthened and shored up."[1][86]
In 2009, Ben Hur Live was staged at the O2 arena on the Greenwich peninsula in London. It featured a live chariot race, gladiatorial combat, and a sea battle. The production used 46 horses, 500 tons of special sand, and 400 cast and crew. All of the show's dialogue was in Latin and Aramaic of the period, with voiceover narration. However, despite its massive staging, a critic for The Guardian remarked that it lacked the theatrical spectacle to inspire the imagination of its audience.[87] In contrast, London's Battersea Arts Centre staged a lower-key version of Ben-Hur in 2002 that featured a limited cast of 10 and the chariot race.[85]
Film, radio, and television [ edit ]
The development of the cinema following the novel's publication brought film adaptations in 1907, 1925, 1959, 2003, and 2016, as well as a North American TV miniseries in 2010.[88]
In 1907, Sidney Olcott and Frank Oakes Ross directed a short film for the Kalem Company that was based on the book, but it did not have the Wallace heirs' or the book publisher's permissions.[72][89] The author's son Henry Wallace, stage producers Klaw and Erlanger, and the book's publisher Harper and Brothers sued the film's producers for violating U.S. copyright laws. The landmark case Kalem Co. v. Harper Brothers (1911) [222 U.S. 55 (1911)] went to the U.S. Supreme Court and set a legal precedent for motion picture rights in adaptations of literary and theatrical works. The court's ruling required the film company to pay $25,000 in damages plus expenses.[83][89]
Wallace's son continued to receive offers to sell the film rights to the book after his father's death. Henry refused all offers until 1915, when he changed his mind and entered into an agreement with Erlanger for $600,000. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer later obtained the film rights.[90] The 1925 film adaptation of Ben-Hur under director Fred Niblo starred Ramon Novarro as Ben-Hur and Francis X. Bushman as Messala.[91] Filming began in Italy and was completed in the United States. It cost MGM $3.9 million, "making it the most expensive silent film in history."[90] The film premiered on December 20, 1925, at the George M. Cohan Theater in New York City. It received positive reviews[90] and became a top-grossing silent film of the era.[92]
In 1955, MGM began planning for a new version of the film with William Wyler as its director, who had worked as an assistant director of the chariot race in the 1925 film.[1] The 1959 film adaptation of Ben-Hur starred Charlton Heston as Judah, with Stephen Boyd as Messala. It was shot on location in Rome. Filming wrapped up on January 7, 1959,[93] at a cost of an estimated $12.5 to $15 million; it became the most expensive motion picture made up to that time. It was also among the most successful films ever made.[93] The film premiered at Loews State Theater in New York City on November 18, 1959. It earned more than $40 million at the box office and an estimated $20 million more in merchandising revenues.[92][94]
Wallace's novel was eclipsed by the popularity of Wyler's 1959 film adaptation, a "blockbuster hit for MGM", that won a record 11 Academy awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and became the top-grossing film of 1960.[88] Heston won the Oscar for Best Actor, and called it his "best film work";[95] Wyler won the Academy's award for Best Director. In 1998, the American Film Institute named Wyler's film one of the 100 best American films of all time.[95] The screenplay is credited solely to Karl Tunberg. Christopher Fry and Gore Vidal also made significant contributions during production. Vidal stated that he had added a homoerotic subtext, a claim disputed by Heston.[87]
A BBC Radio 4 dramatization of the book in four parts was first broadcast in the United Kingdom in March–April, 1995,[96] starring Jamie Glover as Ben-Hur, with a cast that included Samuel West and Michael Gambon.[97]
Selected film and stage adaptations [ edit ]
Books [ edit ]
Ben-Hur's success encouraged the publication of other historical romance stories of the ancient world, including G. J. Whyte-Melville's The Gladiators: A Tale of Rome and Judea (1870), Marie Corelli's Barabbas (1901), and Florence Morse Kingsley's Titus, A Comrade of the Cross (1897).[67] Other novels adapted Wallace's story: Herman M. Bien's Ben-Beor (1891), J. O. A. Clark's Esther: A Sequel to Ben-Hur (1892), Miles Gerald Keon's Dion and Sibyls (1898), and J. Breckenridge Ellis's Adnah (1902).[101] Esther and other unauthorized uses of Wallace's characters led to court cases initiated by Wallace and his son Henry, to protect authors' copyrights.
At least eight translations of the book into Hebrew were made between 1959 and 1990. Some of these versions have involved wholesale restructuring of the narrative, including changes to character, dropping of Christian themes, and plot.[102]
In 2016, Wallace's great-great-granddaughter, Carol Wallace, published a version of Ben-Hur which was released to coincide with the new film version, using prose for 21st century readers.[103]
In popular culture [ edit ]
Ben-Hur's success also led to its popularity as a promotional tool and a prototype for popular culture merchandising.[92] It was not the only novel to have related popular culture products, but Wallace and his publisher were the first to legally protect and successfully promote the use of their literary work for commercial purposes.[104] In the decades following its publication, Ben-Hur and its famous chariot race became well-established in popular culture as a "respected, alluring, and memorable" brand name and a recognizable icon that had mass market appeal.[105]
The novel was linked to commercial products that included Ben-Hur flour, produced by the Royal Milling Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a line of Ben-Hur toiletries, including Ben-Hur perfume from the Andrew Jergens Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.[106] Other consumer goods included Ben-Hur bicycles, cigars, automobiles, clocks, and hair products. The Ben-Hur name and images also appeared in magazine advertisements for Honeywell, Ford, and Green Giant products.[104] After MGM released the 1959 film adaptation of the novel, the studio licensed hundreds of companies to create related products, including Ben-Hur-related clothing, household goods, jewelry, food products, crafts, and action figures.[107]
In Alfred Bester's short story "Disappearing Act" (1953), one of the characters, an apparent time traveler, has Ben Hur among her lovers, which serves as one of the hints the "time travel" is actually a form of reality manipulation.
Tributes [ edit ]
More than one tribute to Wallace's most famous book and its fictional hero have been erected near Wallace's home in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The General Lew Wallace Study and Museum honors the character of Judah Ben-Hur with a limestone frieze of his imagined face installed over the entrance to the study.[1] Wallace's grave marker at the cemetery in Crawfordsville includes a line from the Balthazar character in Ben-Hur: "I would not give one hour of life as a soul for a thousand years of life as a man."[6]
See also [ edit ]
Tribe of Ben-Hur – fraternal organization based on the book, known some time later as the Ben-Hur Life Association, an insurance company
References [ edit ] |
Wilfried Zaha is wanted Tottenham in January. (Getty Images)
Tottenham are weighing up a January bid for Crystal Palace’s £25 million-rated winger Wilfried Zaha, according to reports.
Squawka claim that the 24-year-old wants to leave Selhurst Park and his ideal destination would be to Spurs, who have retained their interest since the summer.
It’s claimed that Zaha spoke with Mauricio Pochettino in the summer, but Tottenham’s £21m offer was turned down by Palace.
Pochettino is looking to bolster his attacking options in January with a new winger and Zaha fits the profile of player he is looking for.
Zaha has been in excellent form this season, scoring three goals and registering six assists in 14 Premier League appearances.
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MORE: Jose Mourinho admits £27m signing ‘must improve’ at Manchester United
MORE: Jurgen Klopp predicts when Chelsea’s ‘problems’ in the title race will begin |
Los Angeles: Human colonies on Mars could be built within our lifetime, according to SpaceX chief executive officer (CEO) Elon Musk who has outlined his vision for a self-sustaining city on the red planet in a new study.
In the study, Musk explored the planetary options for expanding to a space-bearing civilisation and described the advantages Mars offers. He provided a comprehensive review of a system architecture required for a rocket and spaceship capable of transporting people and supplies to Mars, comparing possible vehicle designs and performance features.
A major challenge facing engineers and scientists at present is the need to reduce the cost per tonne of transporting materials to Mars by five million per cent.
“By talking about the SpaceX Mars architecture, I want to make Mars seem possible—make it seem as though it is something that we can do in our lifetime. There really is a way that anyone could go if they wanted to," said Musk, founder of the US-based space transport services company.
“History is going to bifurcate along two directions. One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event," he said.
“I do not have an immediate doomsday prophecy, but eventually, history suggests, there will be some doomsday event," he added.
“The alternative is to become a space-bearing civilisation and a multi-planetary species, which I hope you would agree is the right way to go," Musk said in the study published in the journal New Space. |
Former Nigeria captain Daniel Amokachi has said the practice of local coaches being bribed to invite players onto the country's national teams is endemic.
Despite no one being found guilty of the accusation, there have long been suspicions it happens in Nigeria.
"Agents always come to give money for their players to be invited to camp," said Amokachi. "Does it have to be so?"
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has asked Amokachi to produce evidence to support his claims.
If Amokachi has evidence of what he has said, he should bring it forward and we will take it up Mohammed Sanusi, NFF General Secretary
The 43-year-old, who won the Africa Cup of Nations as a player in 1994, says it is time people spoke up about an issue that he says has long bedevilled the Nigerian game.
"We know this thing has been going on for a while but we have to voice it," the current manager of Finnish second tier side JS Hercules told BBC Sport.
Previously, Amokachi worked as an assistant to former Super Eagles coaches Stephen Keshi (2011-15), Shaibu Amodu (2008-10) and Austin Eguavoen (2005-2007).
He says that all three used to complain about the practice.
"Every time Amodu would tell me: 'Can you listen to these useless agents that are calling me? They want to give me US$10,000, $20,000 and $30,000 to bring their players in.'"
"But he's a man of integrity and wouldn't take it. I worked with Keshi and it was the same scenario. With Eguavoen, it was the same.
"If these three names mentioned had not had integrity, definitely they would have fallen victim."
Amokachi says former Nigeria coach Amodu complained about being offered money to pick players
Mohammed Sanusi, the NFF General Secretary, rejected Amokachi's allegations while also calling on him to furnish the organisation with more information.
"I think it is unfair to make such allegations and not mention the names of those involved," Sanusi told BBC Sport.
"It would be fair if he mentions the names of those who have either approached him or approached some people to give them money. He should also mention people who he knew collected money.
"I think that will be the best way to go about it.
"I have not heard of this issue from any quarter and I can tell you that the NFF will not tolerate this kind of behaviour. If Amokachi has evidence of what he has said he should bring it forward and we will take it up."
The former international, who enjoyed a fruitful career in Europe with Anderlecht (Belgium), Everton (England) and Besiktas (Turkey), says he has been inspired to speak out after being accused of the practice himself.
Coaches will confirm people bring money but they will not say it Daniel Amokachi, Former Nigeria captain
It came after Nigeria, African champions in 2013, failed to qualify for next month's Nations Cup in Gabon.
"Someone accused me lately, (saying) 'the reason Nigeria did not qualify is because all you coaches demand bribes.'"
"You understand? I felt the pain."
"So if he is painting me as a bad egg among a few, then somebody like me cannot be quiet about it."
"Coaches will confirm people bring money but they will not say it.
"Players will confess, even assistant coaches will confirm this thing is going on, but the system does not allow you because a lot of us are hungry and afraid that 'when I say this, I will never be near that office again.'"
In October, Amokachi asked the national anti-graft agency to investigate high-level corruption blighting football in Nigeria - but has yet to hear back.
As a player, the former striker contested the 1994 and 1998 World Cups and won Olympic gold with his home nation in 1996. |
It was the last hour of the last night of a week’s worth of work. I had rolled out of bed, cleaned up, straightened up, and was making coffee. A week off beckoned. In my mind, I was already on the boat.
Alert tones sounded across all three radios in our quarters.
“Crap.”
I listened to the scene-flight assignment, and told the comm-center I would check weather. I didn’t want to go, but the ceiling and visibility weren’t bad enough to get out of the flight. The forecast was okay. No mention of fog, but we had a conjoined temperature and dewpoint.
“Base, LifeStar responding.”
My nurse that morning was Jillian. She is a veteran of trauma-centers in South Africa. Real trauma centers. Don was the medic. We had worked together for a couple of years. I had helped him work on dead people, who then proceeded to be undead. We had a bond of trust. He had skills. I had skills. We liked each other.
We headed northwest from Savannah into the country. Once you cross I-95, it’s a different Georgia. Rural. Two-lane roads. Pastures and plows and pine trees. Daylight was fresh upon the world, and the air was still and heavy. The vents for the air conditioning were streaming a cool, moist fog; the system in a BK117 cools the air, but doesn’t remove moisture. The air outside was saturated, but still clear. Heavy gray clouds hung low overhead. “At least it’s daylight…”
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Thirty miles northwest and we came to our scene, a country crossroad at which a truck and car had arrived simultaneously, neither stopping. The truck won. I got the landing zone briefing over the radio, did a recon, and landed in a field. My crew tromped off to get the victim. I started working on forms.
Don came back.
“Can we take two?”
“What’s their total weight?”
“400.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, it’s going to take a few minutes — the lady is entrapped pretty badly. These people are circling the drain.”
“Roger that.” I set up the GPS, and entered frequencies into radios. I called the comm-center and advised “two patients, both trauma-alerts.” After a 20-minute delay, the procession headed to the helicopter: firefighters, medics, and my crew — one per patient. We loaded with the engines running, and after the helpers were clear I advanced throttles and asked for the before takeoff checklist.
Don called off the checks. I responded and asked him to clear us left, right, and overhead.
We blasted off.
As soon as I cleared the trees, I could see tendrils of mist coming up out of them. The atmosphere had become sufficiently saturated to produce fog, and it was happening rapidly.
I was now in a race.
I could hear Don and Jill working, talking about what to work on first. Blood was coming from multiple injuries. They were very busy. I gave a short report to the comm-center and said that the crew might be too busy to call. “Please have help at the heliport.” As we neared the coast, the visibility got worse. I began to feel the gut-ache of pressure. I heard a Delta pilot tell Savannah that he needed to hold west of the airport for some weather.
“Crap.”
I called Savannah approach, used “Lifeguard,” and asked for direct routing to the hospital. The weather got worse. The patients got worse too. I could hear fatalism in the crew’s voices.
Then the voices in my head started. “Go faster. Faster. You have to get them to the hospital — now!” This was countered with, “The weather is going south. You need to stop somewhere — now.”
We rolled across I-95, and I changed to the tower frequency. The tower controller announced two miles of visibility and said, “What are your intentions, LifeStar?”
“I need a special VFR clearance across the airport at 500 feet, I have two crash victims on board. I am trying to get them to Memorial.”
I was totally caught up in the drama. Patients dying. Not enough weather. Not enough time. No good choices. What to do, what to do, what to do?
I was in a “naturalistic environment.” These require “naturalistic decision making.” Making choices when a lack of time to think is coupled with extremely high consequence is hard. It’s excruciating.
My crew and I and those two dying patients? We were between a rock and a hard place. I could sense that I wasn’t making good decisions.
Human factors were working against me.
We blew across the runways at Savannah International. A safe landing was right there for the taking. My head said, “Land! Call for an ambulance. Stop!”
My heart said, “They will die.” I was very uncomfortable. I called the comm-center to update them. Jill could hear the anxiety in my voice. She said, with her accent, “Daaan, you are doing a wonderful job…”
I didn’t feel wonderful. Another pilot flying a helicopter 10 miles ahead came on the frequency and advised that the weather was much better where he was.
The runways disappeared behind us.
I was down to 300 feet. Only five miles to go. I was thinking aloud, “Okay, where are the towers between the airport and the hospital. Don’t hit a tower. Don’t hit a tower.” I was leaning forward, almost to the glare-shield. The visibility was getting worse and worse. I could see the ground below me, but not much to the front. I had taken us into the clouds in a visual flight rules (VFR) helicopter without an instrument flight rules (IFR) clearance.
“Man. What a mess.”
I wasn’t worried about flying in the clouds, because I did that frequently both in military service, and while flying for Penn State and Geisinger’s IFR flight programs. I was, however, acutely worried about hitting something. I knew I could climb and get a clearance and shoot an approach. A part of me wanted to. But that would take time. And blood.
The pressure was like a piano on my back.
But it was all in my head. The entire situation was something that my cognitive and emotional selves had concocted, but that my behavioral self was having a hard time resolving. I was taking my crew and those two patients further and further into an untenable situation. Why?
Good helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) pilots don’t earn their pay for always saying yes. Good HEMS pilots earn their pay for having the wisdom and courage to say no. And we can say no (further) at any stage of a flight. We don’t have to press on. The fact that the patient might die is not a valid justification for us all to die. Or to accept undue risk. It’s okay to stop. It’s a harsh truth, but truth it is… even if there is a kid involved.
I know this now. I learned that lesson that day. I lived because of dumb luck. I didn’t hit a tower by sheer chance. I flew by a crowd of them. I stumbled across a military airfield near the hospital and finally came to my senses.
“Tower, LifeStar declaring an emergency, landing at Hunter Base Ops.”
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“Comm-center, send two ambulances to Hunter Base Ops please. I am landing for weather.”
I shut down, climbed out, and felt horrible. What a mess. I opened the clamshells and the back of the aircraft looked like a combat hospital. Blood dripped off the floor onto the cement. Jill and Don were both sweating, working, trying.
The ambulances arrived with reinforcements. Grim faces.
Both of those patients died. They would have died no matter what I did, and I could have killed us all trying to save them. This is a hard lesson. It’s okay and understandable to feel compassion for our patients. But our prime directive is to save the crew. Every decision we make should be with an eye to that end — that our crew goes home safe at the end of their shift. Save the crew. Let the crew save the patient. They can work toward this either in the air or on the ground. You don’t have to keep going.
In an excellent old U.S. Air Force training film Ejection Decision – A Second Too Late (available on YouTube), the Air Force explored the phenomenon of fighter pilots waiting too long to eject from a crippled jet. This happens less often in combat environments, perhaps due to less worry about destroying an aircraft. They show graphic images of planes crashing, sometimes accompanied by a blossoming parachute, sometimes not. The message is clear. When the jet fails, you should eject. Don’t wait. Don’t try to sort things out. Remove yourself from that situation. There isn’t time for reflection. There is too much pressure.
There is too heavy a price for hesitation.
More than one pilot being interviewed stated that his decision to eject wasn’t made in the heat of the moment. The decision was made years before, in training, after careful thought. “If I encounter these conditions, I will take this action.” These guys made their decision early. When they encountered the conditions they acted. Without thought. Without hesitation.
If you are a HEMS pilot, you should to make your “decision to eject” now. Before you are sitting in the hot seat with someone dying next to you. Weather, maintenance, fuel state? It is going to happen to you. And if you hesitate, you may not be as lucky as I was that morning, all those years ago.
HEMS flight teams: When a patient is on board, are the crew absolved of any obligation to monitor the man-machine-environment? What could/should the crew have done when they heard the obvious anxiety in my voice and saw the low altitude I was flying at to avoid the clouds? It is easy for a team to become so focused on the objective that they accommodate to excessive risk, as one. When this is happening, someone must think and speak rationally — it may have to be you. |
BIG RAPIDS, MI -- Police are looking for two men suspected of breaking into a house in Big Rapids Wednesday and throwing a potato at a woman before leaving the residence, according to 9and10news.com
Police say a pair of men believed to be in their early 20s made their way into the house on Woodward Avenue around 3 a.m. Wednesday, August 24, 2016. When the woman woke up and found the men in the house, she yelled at them to leave. The duo eventually left the house, but not before throwing a potato at her. One of the suspects had longer blonde hair, khaki pants, bad teeth and a gold watch. The other had short blonde hair, basketball shorts and grey athletic shoes. Detectives from the Big Rapids Police Department could not be reached for comment. |
Viacom v Internet: round one to Internet
Google's won the first round of the enormous lawsuit Viacom brought against it. Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion for not having copyright lawyers inspect all the videos that get uploaded to YouTube before they're made live (they're also asking that Google eliminate private videos because these movies -- often of personal moments in YouTubers' lives -- can't be inspected by Viacom's copyright enforcers).
The lawsuit has been a circus. Filings in the case reveal that Viacom paid dozens of marketing companies to clandestinely upload its videos to YouTube (sometimes "roughing them up" to make them look like pirate-chic leaks). Viacom uploaded so much of its content to YouTube that it actually lost track of which videos were "really" pirated, and which ones it had put there, and sent legal threats to Google over videos it had placed itself.
Other filings reveal profanity-laced email exchanges between different Viacom execs debating who will get to run YouTube when Viacom destroys it with lawsuits, and execs who express their desire to sue YouTube because they can't afford to buy the company and can't replicate its success on their own.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that YouTube was protected from liability for copyright infringement by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA has a "safe harbor" provision that exempts service providers from copyright liability if they expeditiously remove material on notice that it is infringing. Viacom's unique interpretation of this statute held that online service providers should review all material before it went live. If they're right, you can kiss every message-board, Twitter-feed, photo-hosting service, and blogging platform goodbye -- even if it was worth someone's time to pay a lawyer $500/hour to look at Twitter and approve tweets before they went live, there just aren't enough lawyers in the universe to scratch the surface of these surfaces. For example, YouTube alone gets over 29 hours' worth of video per minute.
Viacom has vowed to appeal.
In dismissing the lawsuit before a trial, Stanton noted that Viacom had spent several months accumulating about 100,000 videos violating its copyright and then sent a mass takedown notice on Feb. 2, 2007. By the next business day, Stanton said, YouTube had removed virtually all of them. Stanton said there's no dispute that "when YouTube was given the (takedown) notices, it removed the material." Calling Stanton's reasoning "fundamentally flawed," Viacom said it was looking forward to challenging the decision in appeals court.
Judge sides with Google in $1B Viacom lawsuit
(Thanks, Mike P!)
(Image: Viacom, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (2.0) image from mag3737's photostream -- used with permission) |
Aleksandr Dugin, otherwise known as “ Putin's Rasputin," has endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States.
Aleksandr Dugin is a key theorist of the ideological underpinnings of Putinism. His " Eurasianism" seeks to provide a basis for uniting not only Russia, but all the world's anti freedom forces, under Moscow's banner against the West.
What Russia needs, says Dugin, is a "genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism." On the other hand, "Liberalism, is an absolute evil. . . .Only a global crusade against the U.S., the West, globalization, and their political-ideological expression, liberalism, is capable of becoming an adequate response. . . . The American empire should be destroyed."
Now, in an article entitled "Trump is the Real America" published on the website of the Kremlin-backed Katehon think tank, Dugin says "Trump...is a sensation. … The Republicans, as well as the Democrats, are the representatives of the US ruling elites. It is a special part of society, being quite far from the ordinary Americans. …The American elite is not even American. Thus, there is Donald Trump, who is tough, rough, says what he thinks, rude, emotional and, apparently, candid. The fact that he is a billionaire doesn't matter. He is different. He is an extremely successful ordinary American. …
"Maybe, that redhead rude Yankee from the saloon will get back to the problems inside the country and will leave humanity alone, which is tired of American hegemony and its destructive policy of chaos, bloody rivers and color revolutions? Trump is a leader…
"Vote for Trump, and see what will happen."
Dugin's endorsement of Trump is noteworthy, particularly in view of the fact that he has been given the role or organizing Eurasianist fifth columns supporting the Putin regime in western countries. In May 2014, as Putin was ramping up his war against Ukraine, Dugin held a secret meeting in Vienna with leaders of most of the ultranationalist parties of continental Europe, ranging from small fringe groups to the powerful French National Front, to organize support for the invasion. This subversive effort has been bearing fruit, as evidenced by the fact, reported by the February 19 Moscow Times that French National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who received $13 million from the Kremlin in 2014, is currently negotiating with Putin for another $30 million (equivalent in France to about $200 million in U.S. political terms) to finance future support.
Trump and Marine Le Pen offer similar political profiles, combining xenophobic demagoguery, anti-Atlanticism, socialistic and protectionist policies, and open admiration and apologetics for Vladimir Putin. The founder of the French National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, recently endorsed Trump. Marine Le Pen supported the Russian takeover of Crimea, and is being openly bankrolled out of Moscow. Trump supports Russia's actions in Syria, and has reportedly had many questionable business dealings with elements of Russian organized crime.
Trump has been praised by Putin, and rather than reject such praise, has returned it, calling the Russian dictator "a real leader" and dismissing his many murders of political opponents at home and abroad as " unproven." Last month, a British court found that Putin had ordered the murder by Polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB agent who revealed that the 1999 apartment buildings bombings in Moscow that Putin used to seize dictatorial power were the work of Putin's FSB itself. Apparently the billionaire is fine with that too.
Now Trump has been warmly endorsed by the Kremlin's foremost ideological champion against America.
Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Energy of Lakewood, Colo., and the author of The Case for Mars . The paperback edition of his latest book, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism, was recently published by Encounter Books. |
Authorities are desperately looking for motives to help them find the suspected arsonists behind at least eight of 11 church fires in central and east Texas since the beginning of this year.
But a chief investigator of the Alabama church burnings in 2006 has some advice for his Texas counterparts: Go slow, tune out the public din, and let the evidentiary crumbs lead the way.
“It’s like the old saying, expectation is greater than the realization,” says Alabama State Fire Marshal Ed Paulk, who was the case manager during the investigation into the burning of nine Baptist churches in Alabama in 2006. “Iinvestigators] try to keep an open mind and allow evidence to steer where we go and what we look at … whereas the public tends to sensationalize what they perceive to be motive.”
In the Alabama case, because several of the churches belonged to black congregations – a sensitive issue in the state, where church bombings were common during the civil rights era – it was widely assumed that white supremacists were responsible.
Instead, three white college students from the Birmingham suburbs were found to be behind the fires. Officials said the fires were a “joke” that spun out of control during their deer hunting trips. All three have nine more years left on their prison sentences.
No pattern to Texas arsons
So far, the apparent theft of nonreligious items from several of the Texas churches has given investigators from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) some clues as to motive. ATF spokesman Thomas Crowley has also told news outlets that there’s evidence that the fires were set by a group of people, not a single person.
And while the affected churches have been mostly in small towns, not all the fires were in out-of-the-way locales, Mr. Crowley said. (See map of suspicious fires here.)
The arsonists have no set pattern, targeting a variety of different congregations, including Methodist, Baptist, Christian Scientist, and nondenominational churches.
"[I] would characterize the mood of our people as perplexed," Randy Daniels, mayor of Athens, Texas, a town of about 12,000 that has seen three of the church fires, told CNN. “Most people consider it just incomprehensible and unconscionable that somebody could and would be doing this."
“Some blame Muslims for the east Texas church fires. Some blame Palin-hating liberals,” writes The Dallas Morning News’ Brooks Egerton.
Church arson motives vary widely
But perpetrators of church arson, when finally apprehended, often don’t fit the expected profiles, as shown by more than 1,000 church arson investigations conducted nationally since 1996, when the National Church Arson Task Force was established.
“We’ve had situations where the motivation was covering up burglaries and theft, ... where it was acting out against people in revenge, and we’ve had cases where it had to do with the occult, and cases where people are just making poor judgments,” says Mr. Paulk, the Alabama fire marshal.
Racism, religious hatred, insurance fraud, and thrill-seeking are less common reasons for church arson, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
Whatever the motive, church burnings affect Americans deeply. “Our nation was built around religious freedom and any time someone damages a building relating to the faith of any group it tears at the fabric of our society,” says Paulk.
---
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Claire Camera, 60, crashed her car into a rock barrier on Meisner Avenue on New Year's Day, then told police she didn't know how she got there, prosecutors said. View Full Caption Shutterstock
LIGHTHOUSE HILL — A woman crashed her car into a rock barrier on Meisner Avenue while driving drunk on New Year's Day then told police "I don't know where I am," prosecutors said.
Claire Camera, 60, was driving her 2012 Ford sedan around 1:58 a.m. on New Year's Day when she hit the front of her car into the wall near 59 Meisner Ave., according to court papers.
When police arrived, Camera admitted she was driving from a party, but didn't know how she ended up on the Lighthouse Hill block, court papers read.
"I don't know where I am," Camera told officers, according to court papers. "How did I end up here? I was drinking at the party. I usually don't drink, but I was drinking tonight."
Camera had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and smelled of alcohol, but refused a breathalyzer test, according to court papers.
She was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated and driving while impaired at her arraignment on Thursday, according to the Staten Island District Attorney's office.
Camera was released without bail and is due back in court on March 18.
Her lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other recent crimes on Staten Island include:
► A man was arrested for selling heroin stamped "GOYA" to an undercover officer three times in December and January, prosecutors said.
Kevin Smith, 23, first sold heroin to the officer on Dec. 11, 2014 in front of 18 Opal Lane, then two other times, according to court papers.
On Jan. 1, 2015, officers issued a search warrant at Smith's Bloomingdale Road home and found one glassine of heroin and 50 glassines with heroin residue inside all stamped with "GOYA."
Police found Smith on the corner of Bloomingdale Road and Idaho Avenue with two drug-filled packets in his pocket, according to court papers.
Smith was charged with criminal possession and sale of a controlled substance and is being held on $10,000 bond, $5,000 cash bail, according to the District Attorney's office. He's due back in court on March 12.
His lawyer could not be reached for comment.
► A man sold several bags of heroin stamped "Happy Hour" to another man on New Year's Day in Port Richmond, prosecutors said.
Police saw Kshawn Lewis, 26, sell heroin to Christopher Barone, 32, who was in a white car parked in front of Lewis' Park Avenue home around 5:22 p.m. on Jan. 1, according to court papers. They found three glassine bags inside Barone's car and another one in his sock, court papers read.
Shortly after, police searched Lewis' home and found another four packets of heroin stamped "Happy Hour" on a computer desk in his living room, court papers read.
Lewis was charged with criminal sale and possession of a controlled substance and had a bail of $1,000 bond, $500 cash set at his arraignment. He's due back in court on March 6.
His lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Barone was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and was released without bail. He's due back in court on Jan. 21.
His lawyer did not immediately respond to request for comment. |
S.F. summit looks at lesbian health issues SAN FRANCISCO
The first problem surfaced when Dulce Garcia went to a San Francisco clinic two years ago for her annual physical. As she filled out the intake form, all the questions assumed she was straight.
Then in the examining room, a nurse repeatedly offered her a pregnancy test and birth control.
"She kept telling me Latino women have a high risk of pregnancy," said Garcia, a health educator who teaches youths about disease prevention. "I had to out myself right there and then. The nurse seemed shocked that I wasn't heterosexual. Even here in San Francisco, this kind of thing happens."
The health concerns of lesbians, from interpersonal difficulties in doctors' offices to the high prevalence of risk factors for heart disease and many cancers, will be highlighted at a national summit this weekend in San Francisco.
"This conversation is long overdue," said Dr. Sandra Hernandez, chief executive of the San Francisco Foundation and an assistant clinical professor at UCSF. "This is the first summit to bring together clinicians, scientists, leaders in their communities to discuss these issues.
"The summit will call for more research into lesbian health, and more funding for research."
Women's health has become a focal point of medical study relatively recently.
"For research purposes, women used to be thought of as smaller men," said Diane Sabin, executive director of the Lesbian Health & Research Center at UCSF. "We were once outside the research structure, our body chemistry was viewed as too complex to be able to isolate individual variables for a research focus."
The subset of lesbians has emerged even more recently as a field of medical research, she said.
"One thing we still need to do are more studies on resiliency - to learn why so many lesbians not only function but thrive despite having so many health obstacles."
For reasons that are not yet well understood, studies show that lesbians weigh more than their heterosexual counterparts, smoke more, drink more, abuse drugs more often, and have more fat around their midsections, putting them at a higher risk of heart disease, said Dr. Katherine O'Hanlan, a Bay Area gynecologic cancer surgeon and healthy policy advocate.
"The health profile of lesbians is significantly more unhealthy," she said. "Lesbians have a higher concentration of risk factors for cancer, heart disease and stroke than heterosexual women."
Research has shown that lesbians undergo fewer mammograms than heterosexual women and perhaps as a consequence, may suffer higher rates of breast cancer, she said.
Additionally, they may have a higher risk for ovarian and uterine carcinomas due to "less frequent use of oral contraceptives, combined with higher rates of obesity and endometriosis," O'Hanlan wrote in an article published three years ago in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
She said many lesbians fail to get Pap tests, believing they don't need them, despite having had prior sexual relations with men.
In general, lesbians don't go to the doctor as much as they should, O'Hanlan said.
"They think they don't need to if they don't have aches and pains and they don't need contraception," she said.
As a result, though, they may be diagnosed at a later stage in the course of a disease, she said.
Influencing many lesbian health issues is their experience with societal discrimination and a resulting lack of self-esteem, said Dr. Caitlin Ryan, a clinical social worker at San Francisco State University and director of the Family Acceptance Project.
Ryan, who has spent more than 30 years studying lesbian health, published a groundbreaking study in January documenting serious health consequences to lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents due to family rejection. The youths were at greater risk for HIV infections, depression, illegal drug use and suicide attempts, the research found.
"Social stress has an enormous impact on their health," said Ryan. "Many avoid going to doctors - a significant portion of lesbians have had negative experiences with health providers who didn't want to work with them or provided rough or inappropriate care. As a result, the women avoid medical care until their health problems become very serious." |
OVERVIEW
This updated advisory is a follow-up to the updated advisory titled ICSA-14-353-01B Network Time Protocol Vulnerabilities that was published February 4, 2015, on the NCCIC/ICS-CERT web site.
Google Security Team researchers Neel Mehta and Stephen Roettger have coordinated multiple vulnerabilities with CERT/CC concerning the Network Time Protocol (NTP). As NTP is widely used within operational industrial control systems deployments, ICS-CERT is providing this information for US critical infrastructure asset owners and operators for awareness and to identify mitigations for affected devices. ICS-CERT may release updates as additional information becomes available.
These vulnerabilities could be exploited remotely.
Products using NTP service prior to ntp-4.2.8p1 are affected. This is an open source protocol.
--------- Begin Update C Part 1 of 1 --------
ICS-CERT sent out a query to vendors we have collaborated with in the past to develop a list of known impacted products. Over 20 vendors have responded back with information regarding if their products are affected by this NTP vulnerability. ICS-CERT has created a supplement to this advisory that contains vendor-supplied affected product information, which will be updated as new information is received, without updating this advisory. This supplement can be found at the following web location: https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/advisories/ICSA-14-353-01-Supplement.
--------- End Update C Part 1 of 1 ----------
IMPACT
Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the ntpd process.
Impact to individual organizations depends on many factors that are unique to each organization. ICS-CERT recommends that organizations evaluate the impact of this vulnerability based on their operational environment, architecture, and product implementation.
BACKGROUND
NTP is described in RFC 958, 1305, and 5905 ; IETF Standards documents that describe the protocol and algorithms used to synchronize time over a network. The reference implementation of these Standards comes from the open source project via the University of Delaware and Network Time Foundation, and is in wide use.
VULNERABILITY CHARACTERIZATION
VULNERABILITY OVERVIEW
INSUFFICIENT ENTROPY
If the authentication key is not set in the configuration file, ntpd will generate a weak random key with insufficient entropy.
This vulnerability was resolved with NTP-dev4.2.7p11 on January 28, 2010.
CVE-2014-9293 has been assigned by CERT/CC to this vulnerability. A CVSS v2 base score of 7.3 has been assigned by CERT/CC; the CVSS vector string is (AV:N/AC:L/Au:M/C:P/I:P/A:C).
USE OF CRYPTOGRAPHICALLY WEAK PRNG
Prior to NTP-4.2.7p230, ntp-keygen used a weak seed to prepare a random number generator. The random numbers produced were then used to generate symmetric keys.
This vulnerability was resolved with NTP-dev4.2.7p230 on November 1, 2010.
CVE-2014-9294 has been assigned by CERT/CC to this vulnerability. A CVSS v2 base score of 7.3 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:N/AC:L/Au:M/C:P/I:P/A:C).
STACK-BASED BUFFER OVERFLOWS
A remote attacker can send a carefully crafted packet that can overflow a stack buffer and potentially allow malicious code to be executed with the privilege level of the ntpd process. All NTP4 releases before 4.2.8 are vulnerable.
This vulnerability is resolved with NTP-stable4.2.8 on December 19, 2014.
CVE-2014-9295 has been assigned by CERT/CC to this vulnerability. A CVSS v2 base score of 7.5 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P).
MISSING RETURN ON ERROR
In the NTP code, a section of code is missing a return, and the resulting error indicates processing did not stop. This indicated a specific rare error occurred, which does not appear to affect system integrity. All NTP Version 4 releases before Version 4.2.8 are vulnerable.
This vulnerability is resolved with NTP-stable4.2.8 on December 19, 2014.
CVE-2014-9296 has been assigned by CERT/CC to this vulnerability. A CVSS v2 base score of 5.0 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P).
AUTHENTICATION BYPASS BY SPOOFING
The IPv6 address ::1 can be spoofed, allowing an attacker to bypass access control lists (ACLs) based on ::1. All NTP4 releases before 4.2.8 are vulnerable. Linux and slightly older Mac OSX kernels are vulnerable, but other tested OSes are not vulnerable to the ::1 spoofing. Proper firewall rulings can mitigate this problem. As this issue may be a kernel issue, rather than NTPD, source-IP based ACLs may be vulnerable as well.
This vulnerability is resolved with NTP-stable4.2.8p1 on February 04, 2014.
CVE-2014-9297 has been assigned by CERT/CC to this vulnerability. A CVSS v2 base score of 9.0 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:C).
IMPROPER CHECK FOR UNUSUAL OR EXCEPTIONAL CONDITIONS
The length value in extension field pointers is not properly validated, allowing information leaks. All NTP Version 4 releases before Version 4.2.8 are vulnerable.
This vulnerability is resolved with NTP-stable4.2.8p1 on February 04, 2015.
CVE-2014-9298 has been assigned by CERT/CC to this vulnerability. A CVSS v2 base score of 7.5 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P).
VULNERABILITY DETAILS
EXPLOITABILITY
These vulnerabilities could be exploited remotely.
EXISTENCE OF EXPLOIT
No known public exploits specifically target these vulnerabilities.
DIFFICULTY
An attacker with a low skill and an exploit script would be able to exploit these vulnerabilities. However, a higher-level of skill would be necessary to craft usable exploit scripts.
MITIGATION
All NTP Version 4 releases, prior to Version 4.2.8p1, are vulnerable and need to be updated to Version 4.2.8p1.
ICS-CERT strongly encourages CIKR users to backup current operational ICS configurations, and thoroughly test the updated software for system compatibility on a test system before attempting deployment on operational systems.
CERT/CC has published a Vulnerability Note at the following URL:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/852879
ICS-CERT would like to thank Network Time Foundations’ NTP Project for coordinating with the Google Security Team Researchers.
The latest NTP security information and software releases can be accessed at:
http://support.ntp.org/Main/SecurityNotice
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Main/SoftwareDownloads.
The NTP project recommends updating firewall rules to disallow ::1 packets from incoming physical Ethernet ports (mitigation for CVE-2014-9297).
ICS-CERT also encourages asset owners to take additional defensive measures to protect against this and other cybersecurity risks.
Minimize network exposure for all control system devices and/or systems, and ensure that they are not accessible from the Internet.
Locate control system networks and remote devices behind firewalls, and isolate them from the business network.
When remote access is required, use secure methods, such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), recognizing that VPNs may have vulnerabilities and should be updated to the most current version available. Also recognize that VPN is only as secure as the connected devices.
Additional mitigation guidance and recommended practices are publicly available in the following two publications:
Best Practices for Improved Robustness of Time and Frequency Source in Fixed Locations, that is available for download from the ICS-CERT web site https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/Other-Reports ).
ICS‑CERT Technical Information Paper, ICS-TIP-12-146-01B--Targeted Cyber Intrusion Detection and Mitigation Strategies, that is available for download from the ICS-CERT web site (http://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/).
ICS-CERT also provides a section for control systems security recommended practices on the ICS-CERT web page at: http://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/content/recommended-practices. Several recommended practices are available for reading and download, including Improving Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity with Defense-in-Depth Strategies. ICS-CERT reminds organizations to perform proper impact analysis and risk assessment prior to deploying defensive measures.
Organizations observing any suspected malicious activity should follow their established internal procedures and report their findings to ICS-CERT for tracking and correlation against other incidents. |
Mignola reveals Hellboy reboot was originally tied to Del Toro movies
The news of a Hellboy reboot took many fans by surprise, since it meant director Gullermo del Toro would never complete his planned trilogy. Speaking with Nerdist, the character’s creator, Mike Mignola (and co-writer of the upcoming film), revealed they originally thought about keeping the movie in the same universe as the previous two.
“We originally started trying to tie it to the del Toro universe and continue those movies. But once we had Neil Marshall, we thought, ‘Why are we going to try and continue that universe?’ Because a del Toro movie is a del Toro movie, and you don’t want to try and hand a del Toro movie to someone else. Especially someone as great as Neil Marshall. So that’s when it went from being this continuation to being a reboot. It’s exciting to have another director. It’s exciting to take another path, to take that material and give it another leaning.”
RELATED: Hellboy Reboot Director Talks Effects and R Rating
Mignola isn’t the only one excited, as he revealed star David Harbour is getting into the role at all hours of the day.
“[David] is super excited about being Hellboy and he wants to make sure he gets it right. He’s texting me Hellboy questions about his history, about what the character would think about this or about that. It’s really exciting to be back and see this thing come together.”
Lionsgate is in final talks to distribute the upcoming reboot, which is titled Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen. David Harbour of Stranger Things will star as the titular hero, with Neil Marshall (The Descent, Game of Thrones) set to direct from a script from Andrew Cosby (Eureka), Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola. Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin will produce with Mike Richardson of Dark Horse Entertainment. |
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For reasons spelled out below, the poet Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington, which, coincidentally or not, takes place September 24, the day of an antiwar mobilization in the capital. Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the festival’s White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War (“Mr. Feiffer Regrets,” November 11, 2002). We suggest that invitees to this year’s event consider following their example.–The Editors Ad Policy
Laura Bush
First Lady
The White House
Dear Mrs. Bush,
I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.
In one way, it’s a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents–all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.
And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women’s prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and their students–long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.
When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit–and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person’s unique story and song.
So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to invade another culture and another country–with the resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their home terrain–did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made “at the top” and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism–the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.
I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness–as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing–against this undeclared and devastating war.
But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting “extraordinary rendition”: flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.
So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.
Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS |
An educational event for video game design students at the University of Southern California was canceled after administrators decided that the event’s all-male panel was not diverse enough.
An event called “Legends of the Gaming Industry” planned for April 20 was canceled by USC Games Director Tracy Fullerton after the school’s administrators decided that the all-male panel “didn’t reflect the diversity within the USC community and within the gaming industry at large.”
The purpose of the event was for students to not only have the chance to hear from prominent figures in the video game industry, but also to showcase some of their own work to the experts.
USC Games has a diverse student body, half of which is made up by females. Columnist Tiana Lowe of USC’s student newspaper, The Daily Trojan, accused the administration of prioritizing the demands of a few regressive leftists over a “valuable academic opportunity to advance the intellectual development for male and female students alike.” She claimed the administration ironically deprived female students from advancing their own education and networking opportunities by canceling the event in the name of feminism.
The scheduled panelists included prominent members of the video game industry, such as Blizzard Entertainment Design VP Jeff Kaplan and the Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck.
“There was no perfect choice here,” USC Games’ Director Tracy Fullerton claimed. “There was only the choice to stand for one set of values or another. So, I chose the path I believe in. You all are free to disagree, but I think it is the right side of history.”
Writing in The Daily Trojan, Lowe branded the behavior of her university’s administration as concerning:
This is the new dystopia, in which visual representation is more important than the actual progress of women and men alike, in which a word, “diversity,” is valued over real learning and in which snowflake culture has actually manifested itself as a direct adversary of progress. As a woman in a STEM field, but much, much more importantly, as an individual, to this new regressive standard, I say, “no, thank you.” I’ll take progress over preposterousness every time.
Tom Ciccotta writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or on Facebook. You can email him at [email protected] |
Scheduling plays a huge role in the outcome of every NFL season. So the Athlon NFL editors will spend the next month dissecting each and every week of the 2012 slate for all 32 teams in the league.
Dallas Cowboys 2012 Schedule:
Week 1: at New York Giants (Wed.)
Week 2: at Seattle
Week 3: Tampa Bay
Week 4: Chicago (Mon.)
Week 5: BYE
Week 6: at Baltimore
Week 7: at Carolina
Week 8: New York Giants
Week 9: at Atlanta
Week 10: at Philadelphia
Week 11: Cleveland
Week 12: Washington (Thur.)
Week 13: Philadelphia
Week 14: at Cincinnati
Week 15: Pittsburgh
Week 16: New Orleans
Week 17: at Washington
Order your 2012 Dallas Cowboys Athlon Sports NFL Preview magazine
- The season will get started with a bang as Dallas visits the defending champs on Wednesday night in the New Meadowlands. Itâs a return to the scene of the 2011 season finale where the Giants crushed the Cowboys' postseason hopes in a 31-14 dismantling that eventually propelled the G-Men to a Super Bowl championship.
- The home and road splits for the Cowboys might be the most intriguing of any team in the league for 2012. First, Dallas will start with back-to-back road games over 3,000 miles apart. Of course, having the 11 days between games helps. Second, from Week 6 to Week 10, the Cowboys will play four road games in five weeks, including road trips to Baltimore, Atlanta and Phily. In fact, of Dallasâ first nine games, six will be played away from Cowboys Stadium.
- The script will be flipped in the second half, however, as Dallas gets plenty of home cooking after Week 9. The Cowboys will play five of their final seven games in Jerryâs Palace in Arlington. This slate includes brutal playoff-type games against Pittsburgh, New Orleans and Philadelphia as well as two rivalry games with Washington. This lopsided home-road slate seems unique to the Cowboys. Can we start the Roger Goodell is trying to get Dallas into the playoffs conspiracy talk?
- Within the NFC, the East will square-off with the South. Road trips to Carolina and Atlanta will be intriguing tests as both feature stellar quarterback play. Getting the Saints at home in Week 16 could easily decide a Wild Card spot as both should be fighting for a playoff berth. Tampa at home in Week 3 will be a welcome sight as it will be the home opener in 2012.
- In crossover play with the AFC, the Cowboys â and the rest of the East â catch no breaks by facing the AFC North. Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are all playoff teams from a year ago and Cleveland should be improved. The road trip to Baltimore in early October follows the bye and could be a classic bout while heading north to Cincinnati in December is always tricky. After surviving the elements in Cincy, the Cowboys welcome perennial Super Bowl contender Pittsburgh to town.
- The bye week, while possibly earlier than most coaches would prefer in Week 5, offers a perfect two-week prep time for one of the nastiest five-week stretches in all of the NFL. Dallas will play four road games in five weeks immediately following the off week. Oh, and the lone home game in that stretch? A visit from the defending Super Bowl Champion New York Giants.
- The two floating games will be the road trip to Seattle and a primetime Monday night affair with Chicago. The Bears game could have long-reaching Wild Card implications while the road trip to Seattle will be a rematch of that infamous Tony Romo botched field goal.
Fantasy Focus: The home-road schedule is easily the biggest thing that stands out about the Cowboys' 2012 slate. If the 'Boys struggle in the first half, don't be scared to buy low as five of the final six games of the fantasy season (not counting Week 17) will be played on the fast track of Cowboys Stadium.
Follow @bradengall
2012 Athlon Sports NFL team-by-team schedule analysis:
AFC East
Buffalo Bills
Miami Dolphins
New England Patriots
New York Jets
AFC North
Baltimore Ravens
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Pittsburgh Steelers
AFC South
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville Jaguars
Tennessee Titans
AFC West
Denver Broncos
Kansas City Chiefs
Oakland Raiders
San Diego Chargers
NFC East
Dallas Cowboys
New York Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Washington Redskins
NFC North
Chicago Bears
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers
Minnesota Vikings
NFC South
Atlanta Falcons
Carolina Panthers
New Orleans Saints
Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
Over the past few years, enough complaints have come Google's way claiming it games its search results to rank competitors lower that the company felt compelled to post a FAQ, "Facts about Google and Competition." In response to its self-posed question "Does Google have a monopoly on search?", the company says: "No. On the Internet, competition is one click away."
For federal regulators, that answer might not be good enough anymore.
According to reports late Friday, the feds are getting ready to pull the trigger on an antitrust lawsuit against Google for allegedly using its massive scale to squash competition and keep online advertising prices high.
Based on a wide-reaching investigation that began more than a year ago, Federal Trade Commission staff are readying to recommend that a suit be brought against the search giant, according to the New York Times. If the commission decides to bring a case, it would be the largest anti-trust suit brought by the FTC since a similar legal case took on Microsoft in the late ‘90s. Microsoft lost, but the ultimate resolution dragged on for years. Google did not immediately respond to a Wired inquiry seeking a statement on the FTC's possible move.
As with Microsoft, the Google investigation has poked into virtually every part of Google’s business. The gist is that as Google has expanded beyond its core search business, into things like online shopping and smartphones, it is using its muscle to favor Google products over competitors. So rather than showing results from say, another shopping engine or restaurant recommendation service, it favors Google’s own versions of those products. In the mobile world, the FTC is looking at whether handset makers have the freedom to pick and choose the Google products they want if they choose to use Google’s free Android mobile operating system.
Even if the final recommendation of FTC staff is to sue Google, that doesn’t mean it will necessarily happen. Bringing a formal suit requires three of five FTC commissioners to vote in support of legal action. In September, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said a decision on whether to sue would be made by the end of the year. In Europe, a similar antitrust investigation into Google is already moving forward as European regulators look to lessen Google’s grip on the Internet.
In a settlement recently pitched to European Union antitrust regulators Google reportedly proposed to clearly brand all links to Google services returned in a search to mark them as distinct from "neutral" search results. The Texas attorney general's office has also been investigating Google's search practices for the past two years.
Google has long denied any anti-competitive practices, and for its part had this to say: “We are happy to answer any questions that regulators have about our business.” The FTC did not immediately respond to a Wired message seeking comment.
If some websites have problems with how they turn up in Google's search rankings, web users themselves don't seem to find Google's results wanting. Last month in the U.S., a full two-thirds of all web searches were made using Google, with Microsoft's Bing a very distant second and Yahoo coming in third, according to comScore. With numbers like that, it's easy to see why other sites that don't fare well on Google would claim that a low ranking equals internet invisibility. But it's hard to believe that any settlement the company reaches in the event of FTC action could do much to harm its own rank as the world's de facto default search engine. |
The Detroit Red Wings are in a good position to explore trades because of the depth within the organization, general manager Ken Holland said in a story published by MLive.com on Monday.
In addition to young talent, the Red Wings have five picks in the 2015 NHL Draft, which will be held June 26-27 at BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla.
"We're probably in a better position to explore trades than we were at any point in time because of the depth of our organization," Holland said. "But I don't want anyone to think, 'They're making trades,' because the trades have got to make sense."
The Red Wings will hold their pro scouting meetings starting Tuesday and making a trade to fill some of their holes, among them a right-shot top-four defenseman and a second-line center, is possible.
Among the trade chips that could be used by Holland is forward Anthony Mantha, the Red Wings' first-round pick (No. 20) at the 2013 NHL Draft. Mantha had 15 goals and 33 points in 62 regular-season games with Grand Rapids in the American Hockey League and two goals and four points in 16 AHL playoff games. He missed time at the beginning of the season because of a broken leg sustained during the Traverse City Prospects Tournament in September.
In 2013-14, his final season of junior hockey, Mantha was named Canadian Hockey League Player of the Year after he had 57 goals and 120 points in 57 games with the Val-d'Or Foreurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
"In order to explore what's out there we got to be able to consider parting with some people," Holland said. "I'm not going to tell you where Mantha fits in with that until we explore the trade market."
Holland said new coach Jeff Blashill will have a say in any decisions that are made this offseason.
"My management philosophy is we're all in it together," Holland said. "And at the end of the day, the head coach has to have a voice as we head into the offseason as we make decisions."
Hired as coach June 9 to replace Mike Babcock, Blashill is familiar with almost the entire Red Wings roster, either as coach with Grand Rapids or as an assistant coach on Babcock's staff in 2011-12.
"[Blashill] is going to have a perspective about the young players down there," Holland said. "[Xavier] Ouellet, [Nick] Jensen; he coached Dylan Larkin for two weeks; Teemu Pulkkinen. He's going to have a perspective on being with those guys on an everyday basis as we plan.
"We're trying to go younger. We're trying to get better. And sometimes when you're dealing with younger people you got to have patience and you believe the patience is going to reward you somewhere down the line."
Blashill won the Calder Cup in 2013, his first AHL season, was 2014 AHL coach of the year, and reached the conference finals this season. He knows how the players will react in tough situations.
"If your best [players] aren't competitive workers that lead the way, I don't think you have a chance to win at the highest level," Blashill said. "I've seen it first-hand that our best players come to work every single day. I know guys that have been traded here are like, 'Wow, I can't believe how hard [Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk] work every day.' That's what I'm most excited about." |
Associated Press
If you were hiking through the woods just off Palmetto Drive in Mascotte, Florida, at any point between 2003 and 2009, you had to beware of flying footballs.
The footballs in question were launched toward the tree line over and over again, hour after hour, by adolescent kicking sensation Roberto Aguayo and his younger brother, Ricky.
The brothers would take turns kicking and shagging the few balls they owned, aiming between the makeshift field-goal uprights their father, Roberto Sr., had constructed using PVC pipes and a soccer goal at the boundary of the family's Lake County property.
This came before Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule—which posits that it typically requires 10,000 hours of practice to master a craft—had been popularized. But even as a preteen unaware of such a notion, Roberto was a perfectionist. He was intent on mastering the craft of kicking by banking hours in that yard.
When Roberto became a teenager and outgrew that space, he and Ricky would routinely pester Roberto's high school coach, Walter Banks, to unlock the gates at the varsity field so that they could sneak on and practice. If Banks wasn't available, the brothers would jump the fence.
"I'd go into the office on Sunday and I'd see them out there kicking," recalled Banks. "Both of those guys just love football. They're perfectionists and they love what they do."
This Generation's Janikowski?
About a half-dozen years later, Roberto Aguayo is the kicker to watch at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, which gets underway Wednesday, primarily because the 21-year-old is the first placekicker in 16 years to declare early for the draft.
Highest drafted kickers in modern NFL history Year Kicker Team Round Pick 1978 Steve Little Cardinals 1 15 2000 Sebastian Janikowski Raiders 1 17 1986 John Lee Cardinals 2 32 1972 Chester Marcol Packers 2 34 2005 Mike Nugent Jets 2 47 1976 Chris Bahr Bengals 2 51 1988 Chip Lohmiller Redskins 2 55 1992 Jason Hanson Lions 2 56 1972 Bill McClard Chargers 3 61 2004 Nate Kaeding Chargers 3 65 Post-1970 AFL-NFL merger
Leaving school early isn't something specialists do, but Aguayo has proved to be an especially special specialist. The Florida State product won the Lou Groza Award, which goes to the top college football placekicker, in his redshirt freshman season, and he walks away from the Seminoles as the most accurate kicker in NCAA history.
"I felt like I had accomplished everything that I needed to accomplish," Aguayo told Bleacher Report before the combine. "I went to school for four years, got my degree, won a national championship with my team, won a Groza Award, so I felt like it was the right time to take my talents to the next level."
Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press
The last kicker to declare early—Sebastian Janikowski, who also played at the kicker factory that is Florida State—was also the last kicker to be picked in the first round. That was in 2000. The world was very different. The Houston Texans didn't exist, you could bring shampoo on an airplane and nobody had heard of Justin Bieber.
Janikowski's NCAA field-goal success rate was 79.5 percent, and he made 126 of 129 extra points.
Aguayo: 88.5 percent, 198 of 198.
"His body of work at the collegiate level might be as good as anybody that's ever played," said Jamie Kohl, a renowned special teams expert and the director of Kohl's Kicking, Punting and Snapping Camps. "That's talking field-goal percentage, pressure kicks, the types of field goals he made, the consistency and height of the field goals—it was all tremendous throughout his whole career."
In fact, Aguayo, who redshirted under now-Washington Redskins kicker Dustin Hopkins during his first year at FSU, might have been good enough to declare when he first became eligible last year. The man missed just four of 52 field-goal attempts during his first two active seasons and was already a permanent captain.
"He did not have a lot to prove after two years of fully competing at the collegiate level," said Kohl. "He couldn't statistically do a lot better."
John Bazemore/Associated Press
"I had a lot of people tell me, 'You need to go to the NFL, what else is there to do in college? Go and get your degree later,'" recalled Aguayo, who ultimately opted to stick around and get his criminology degree.
Aguayo said FSU head coach Jimbo Fisher told him last year that he'd benefit from one more year of maturation at school. Of course, Fisher had skin in the game. But Kohl agrees, citing how Aguayo's kickoffs became stronger in 2015.
Born to Kick
His kickoff power is actually what put Aguayo on the scouting and recruitment map, but before he had a chance to dazzle scouts and recruiters in high school and college, the kid had started logging those hours.
A lot of the game's top kickers didn't start establishing themselves at that position until they reached high school, but as a soccer-playing son of a Mexican emigrant (Roberto Sr.) and a Texan with Mexican roots (his mother, Martina, was born to Mexican parents), the young Roberto Aguayo was typecast as a kicker from Day 1.
Provided by the Aguayo family
At Aguayo's first Pop Warner Junior Pee Wee practice, the coach lined up every player on the team to have them attempt kicks. A 9-year-old Roberto volunteered to go first.
"I didn't think anything of it," he recalled. "I thought, 'I play soccer, so I'll just hit it like a soccer ball.' And I was the only one who was consistently making them, so I was the kicker."
"Dad, I'm going to need you to make a goal post outside," Ricky Aguayo remembers his brother telling Roberto Sr. after that practice.
"Ever since when we were young, Roberto had that urge to get better and perfect himself," Ricky added.
So Roberto Sr. added pipes to an old soccer net, with the woods behind his home serving as a backdrop. Six-year-old Ricky would kick from 15 yards out, while Roberto took each of the 35 yards available to him before running out of yard space.
Before long, the boys were losing footballs so deep in the woods that their father raised a net. But it didn't take long before they were drilling field goals above that, too.
"We outgrew that net pretty quick," said Roberto.
That's when they started hopping the fence at South Lake High School. It's also when Banks realized he had a potential star on his hands.
Right-Footed Prodigy
In Pop Warner, Aguayo continued to focus on kicking along with his "real positions," linebacker and tight end. But when he got to South Lake, he was asked to join the varsity team right away and drop everything but special teams.
"I didn't play any other positions," said Aguayo, noting that Banks—among many others—saw something in him as a kicker. "He knew what I was capable of doing and he didn't want me to get hurt."
He reluctantly played soccer that spring, but after suffering a bad bone bruise on his kicking knee in his very first high school soccer match—an injury that would put him out of commission for three months—a 15-year-old Aguayo wasn't taking any more chances.
No more linebacker, no more tight end, no more footy.
And that's exactly when he began to make his mark nationally, starting at a local Kohl's Camp in West Palm Beach, where he remembers being awestruck by Jupiter product Cody Parkey, who at the time was the top-ranked high school kicker in the United States.
"Dad, that's the No. 1 kicker in the country," he remembers telling Roberto Sr. "How cool is that?"
Parkey, a 17-year-old soon-to-be senior who had already committed to Auburn, blew Aguayo and the rest of the onlookers away with an 80-yard kickoff.
Then the 15-year-old Aguayo stepped up and drilled one 79 yards. Again blown away and under the impression he must have been older, fellow participants began asking him which schools were recruiting him and whether he'd committed somewhere.
"I was like, 'Honestly, I didn't know I was this good,'" Roberto said.
That performance caused enough buzz to grant him an invite to the Kohl's National Invitational Scholarship Camp in Wisconsin, where he was by far the youngest of several hundred participants, many of whom went on to play Division I and/or in the NFL.
"Roberto beat all of their tails on kickoffs, and you could see that fire," recalled Kohl. "When it was time to compete, he stepped up his game. I'll never forget that he has that natural ability to be able to compete. And that's a special gift. He was very talented obviously, but here's this little guy beating guys who are a year or two years older."
Aguayo obviously has a lot of natural talent, but it always goes back to that ambition, that competitiveness and, by extension, those hours he spent in the yard.
"It was my first time seeing a kicker with that type of drive," said Banks. "He was outworking our running backs and defensive guys."
When Aguayo returned to Florida, he was the the No. 1 kicker in the 2012 class.
In fact, Kohl recalls telling then-FSU special teams coach Eddie Gran that Aguayo was "the best high school sophomore I've ever seen."
How Valuable is Roberto Aguayo?
Now here he is at the combine, trying to put a cherry on top of one of the most promising kicking resumes in NFL draft history.
Few expect Aguayo to become the first Round 1 kicker since Janikowski because that was a highly criticized, aberrational move from the Oakland Raiders. Since the 1970 merger, only one other kicker has been drafted in the first round (Steve Little, 1978).
But Aguayo says he's been told he'll be a second- or third-round pick, which is still quite a big deal considering a kicker hasn't been selected that early since the New York Jets took Mike Nugent in the second round in 2005.
Mark Wallheiser/Associated Press
This game is about touchdowns, not field goals, and there's a feeling among some that drafting a steady kicker is a luxury many teams can't afford. Plus, it's arguably easier to pay proven veterans at the position, especially since none make eight figures and some of the best in the game come from nowhere.
Aguayo realizes that. He knows he might slide.
"At the end of the day, it's just projections," he said. "It's up to the teams to decide. I'm not worried about that, I'm worried about being the best version of Roberto Aguayo I can be, and hopefully a team falls in love with me."
In the meantime, he'll continue to train at IMG Academy in Bradenton, where he's adding to those 10,000 hours while working to adjust the trajectory on his kickoffs—Florida State had him skying kicks to the goal line, whereas NFL teams will want him to drill them through the end zone—and bolstering his strength with a weight regimen.
One thing he doesn't have to worry about is the short stuff. The thing about Aguayo is he simply doesn't miss anything resembling a gimme. At FSU, he was a perfect 49-for-49 inside 40 yards. Combine that with his PATs, and he made every single one of the 247 kicks he attempted from that range.
You might be able to chalk that up to the fact he spent his youth pounding kick after kick from about 35 yards, over that net and into those woods, making Roberto Sr. as much of a hero as his oldest son.
And considering that NFL extra points have become at least slightly more challenging now that they're 33 yards instead of 20, it's possible that Aguayo's remarkable steadiness from that distance could boost his stock just a little bit higher.
"Some extra points from the 20 you can mishit and still make," he said, "so you've got to be on your 'A' game now on all extra points. It's no longer a chip shot. You get back to a 33-yard kick and that's a good distance. It's hard, and I think that works out for me."
This Generation's Gramaticas?
"Many of the greats never accomplished that in college," said Aguayo of his field-goal percentage record. "But eventually, one day, someone's going to come in and break it."
In a perfectly awesome and ironic world, that someone would be Ricky Aguayo, who has already enrolled at Florida State and might even accomplish something his big brother failed to do right off the bat by starting as a true freshman in the fall.
Star kickers from Florida State Year Kicker Drafted by Round Pick 1970 Grant Guthrie Bills 6 135 1981 Bill Capece Oilers 12 324 1991 Richie Andrews Lions 6 151 2000 Sebastian Janikowski Raiders 1 17 2009 Graham Gano Redskins N/A UDFA 2013 Dustin Hopkins Bills 6 177 2016 Roberto Aguayo ? ? ? Pro Football Reference
"If I would have left a year earlier, the coaching staff would have had to bring in a kicker in 2015," said Roberto, listing another reason for his decision to stick around last season. Now, instead, a four-year gap has been fully bridged.
"I think he's going to be just as good as me or even better," big bro added. "He has that potential."
Provided by the Aguayo family
Ricky, who is as big and athletic as his brother, believes he can earn that starting job by the time fall arrives. It doesn't hurt that he's already on campus as the Seminoles prepare for spring football, or that Kohl's has him ranked as the third-best kicker in the 2016 high school class.
Both have heard the comparisons to famous kicking families. The Gogolak brothers made 225 combined field goals in the NFL, the Bahrs made 541 and Martin and Bill Gramatica made 192. Are the Aguayos next?
One thing the rest of those brothers never did is face each other in a Super Bowl, something Roberto says he already imagines. Ricky, meanwhile, would prefer to take on his brother in the Pro Bowl, where it's all celebration and no devastation.
If they do make either scenario happen, they'll defy some major odds, even with help from the 10,000-hour rule, which—eerily/coincidentally—draws inspiration from research conducted by Florida State professor and expertise researcher K. Anders Ericsson.
Hockey great Wayne Gretzky is classically associated with said rule, mainly because he and his brothers grew up playing hockey endlessly on a frozen ice rink their father had created for them in their backyard, giving them a chance to master their craft.
Sound familiar?
Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.
Follow @Brad_Gagnon |
Nearly two months after devastating blizzards hit parts of South Dakota and Wyoming, farmers are still recovering from the loss of cattle and the effect on their businesses.
The week before the storm, it had been wet and mild and the prairies of the Great Plains were deep in mud.
Then, the first winter snow came early and unexpectedly in an icy blast from the north-west.
Trapped in the mud, 30,000 cattle suffocated and froze to death. They were buried in 20ft (6m) snow drifts, entombed in ice in what ranchers call the "breaks and draws" - the slopes and valleys - of the rolling prairie hills.
Larry Stomprud is a tall, thin cowboy wearing a black leather waistcoat and slim-cut blue jeans. Grey hair peeps from beneath his brown cowboy hat.
He is a tough rancher who has spent half a century herding cattle. But his voice falters and there are tears in his eyes as he describes the devastation on his ranch.
"I looked at my grandfather's records," he says quietly. "It was the worst storm for 150 years." His throat is strangled with anguish and with sadness as he says: "God entrusted us with the care of these animals and we failed them."
From Our Own Correspondent Insight and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world Broadcast on Radio 4 and BBC World Service Listen to the programme Download the programme
At Lone Tree Ranch, in Meade County, 3,000ft (910m) up in the undulating hills that stretch out over the prairie like giant sand dunes, Larry Reinhold shows me Costello Point where nearly a hundred of his horses perished. In cash terms his losses will run to around $250,000 (£153,000).
"It is not the money," he says. "These animals were our friends. It is heartbreaking." Larry runs ranch holidays for children from all over America and his business is now in jeopardy.
In the community of Box Elder, Monty and Bobby Jo Williams lost 200 Angus beef cattle but they did find one small calf buried in the snow and still alive 17 days after the storm.
"We have to trust that things will be OK," says Larry, holding his two-year-old daughter. "Our little girl has kept us going. We have to think of the future."
The situation has been made worse for South Dakota's ranchers, because the blizzard hit while politicians in Washington were doing their own wrangling over budgets in the US government shutdown.
In a state guarded by the rocky faces of the four great American presidents carved into Mount Rushmore, the farmers have no government aid package and no hope of help until Congress agrees on a new US Farm Bill - which is not expected any time soon.
But ranch folk help each other and in an inspiring act of charity, Ty Linger, a young Christian rancher from Montana, has created Heifers For South Dakota - a sort of Cattle Aid for farmers who have lost livestock.
"My inspiration is Galatians 6:10," he beams, saluting me with his cowboy hat and wearing a jaunty red silk scarf tied at his neck.
Those lines from the Bible say if you have the chance, do some good - and Ty's leap of faith has seen farmers from neighbouring states donate 650 cattle to ranchers in need.
We meet in a yard teeming with tons of prime beef. Cowboys and cowgirls are herding the animals on to waiting trucks as the recipient farmers shake the donors' hands with tearful gratitude.
"I thought if I got just one cow it would help someone," shouts Ty standing on the wooden rails of the corral. "But they just keep coming," he laughs.
On Sunday, the white clapperboard Foothills Community Church gleams in the bright winter sunshine under a big, blue prairie sky as families arrive in pick-up trucks for the morning service.
It is the Sunday before Thanksgiving and the pastor Brian Carpenter - a huge, bearded man in a grey T-shirt and slacks - welcomes me with a hug and invites me for lunch.
"Smoked beef brisket. You won't get that back in Britain," says Brian. He talks of his fondness for the BBC - he listens on the internet - as he strides around his cosy little church, taking his place at the lectern.
Ty Linger from Heifers For South Dakota is invited up to the front and there are quiet tears as he is presented with a donation from the Foothills Church.
The congregation sings Count Your Blessings, and Brian's sermon has a Thanksgiving theme. "Be thankful in all circumstances, even when times are tough," he urges.
Outside he shakes my hand, saying quietly that South Dakota's ranchers have God to thank for their survival after the storm - not the government.
How to listen to From Our Own Correspondent:
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Description: ...
We're reading the reviews from your roast set.
There's a difference in opinion from Twitter
and those over at /r/TACSdiscussion.
It's almost unanimously agreed on Twitter that you bombed terribly,
but there are some on /r/TACSdiscussion who are defending you.
What about /r/opieandanthony?
I'm still liked over there, correct?
Ant Hills,
They--
They agree almost unanimously it was uncomfortable to watch.
They say it was just not funny.
Everyone leave the room except Keith, Garret, Rat and Big A.
What the fuck went wrong!?
You said my jokes were funny. What went wrong!?
All the people that I let use The Compound told me that the jokes were good!
Dani Brand laughed so hard at them.
Are you telling me she doesn't know funny?
We worked on those jokes for 2 days!
I even made up jokes on the spot!
I spent half the roast writing new stuff on my phone.
Most comics wrote material beforehand so they could practi--
I practiced on the way over! You were all laughing in the car!
Ant Hills, we will laugh for you 'til the day you die.
Then why doesn't everyone else do the same!?
It doesn't make sense!
Joke after joke about
how black people haven't contributed to society and can't think for themselves,
but they looked at me as if I were an out-of-touch, old fool!
I made solid references to things from the '50s and '60s,
in a room full of young comedy fans... How does that go wrong?
I made SO MANY inside jokes,
but the audience reacted like they weren't there for me ...but for Big Jay!?
Yes, I stumbled a few times.
But, I'm not a comedian, I have no experience with live audiences.
I will never admit that I bombed!
But, if i did bomb...
It's because the audience wasn't mic'ed, and they were all against me,
...AND DeRosa didn't show, so half my jokes were irrelevant.
I probably shouldn't have done them at all.
But you all laughed at them and told me to do them!
I blame all of you, and that annoying little cunt!
Don't worry, you'll be too old for him soon.
Perhaps, I should listen to my critics...
Perhaps, they have some good feedback I could benefit from.
Perhaps not...
Perhaps, I need to be more racist.
I need to appease the few fans left who agree with me,
and discard the many, many others who disagree.
Someone get me a Guinness. |
Indiana Pacers forward Paul George during shoot around against the Miami Heat before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals inside AmericanAirlines Arena, Friday, May 30, 2014, in Miami. (Photo: Brent Drinkut/The Star)
A woman in New York is seeking sole custody of a child she said was fathered by Indiana Pacers All-Star Paul George, according to court documents.
In a previously sealed petition, the lawyer for Daniela Rajic states that George "is not capable of care of the child as the child's custodial parent due to, among other things, his profesional obligations, his lifestyle and his residency away from the child. ... (George) is in a travel status during the season and during the off-season."
The petition also seeks testing to determine George is the father. The child, Olivia George, was born May 1, 2014.
According to the documents, George has acknowledged that he is the father "verbally and in writing and, upon request, paid various medical and other expenses in relation to pregnancy." A prenatal paternity test indicated "99.9 percent probability (George) is the biological father."
George acknowledged a relationship with Rajic in February and said he if there was legal confirmation he was the father he would "embrace it."
A spokesman for George emailed the following statement to The Star: "This is a routine paternity case, but perhaps some people find it unusual that a high profile athlete is willing to accept responsibility and provide emotional and financial support for a child once it is legally determined to be his." |
PETA will be villifying this in their next ad campaign.
Photo by brusspup, from the video
Kirk: Scotty, you’re as good as your word.
Scotty: Aye, sir. The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.
— Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Our brains are massively complex machines, constantly processing huge amounts of data from our senses. Our eyes provide most of that input; they send a huge amount of information to the brain, and it’s actually rather astonishing we can figure anything out from it. Given that, our ability to detect motion is pretty amazing. Despite all that noise, if something moves, something changes, our brain targets right on it.
To see motion, you need at least two objects, so that one can move relative to the other. Sometimes, one of those objects is you. If you turn your head, the room you’re sitting in looks like it’s turning the other way. But our brain compensates for that; it “knows” it’s moving, so you perceive the room as motionless.
But this works the other way, too: You can make the brain think something is moving even when it’s not. That’s the principle behind this wonderful optical illusion video created by brusspup:
Isn’t that great? Your brain will swear those drawings are moving, even when you can see they are not. Even the cat was fooled!
This video looks fantastically complicated, but the way it works is actually pretty simple. Basically, it’s fooling your brain into ignoring the thing that is moving, and making it look like the motionless thing is what’s doing the moving.
To understand this, let’s simplify. Here’s a diagonal line:
Now imagine you can only see a little bit of that line at one time… say, but putting an opaque piece of paper over it that has a narrow, vertical slit in it. If you placed the slit on the left of the line, all you’ll see is a bit of the line to the upper left:
Move the paper to the right a bit, and you see the part of the diagonal line that’s lower:
And more:
The thing is, if you move the paper smoothly to the right, your brain ignores that motion (it’s easy, since the background is a dull smooth field), and instead incorrectly perceives the diagonal line as a square (well, a tiny parallelogram in this case) moving downwards.
Now let’s say you have two lines intersecting in an X.
As the slit moves, your brain will see the top square moving down, and the bottom square moving up.
First this:
Then this:
It’s hard to see this from my static picture, but you can prove it for yourself! It only takes a minute to make a piece of paper with a slit in it (or to tape some paper together to do the same thing). Grab another sheet, draw stuff on it, and then start tricking your brain. You’ll get the picture (hahaha! Ha!).
If you add more slits, the motion gets more complicated. You’ll some parts moving in one direction while others move in another. Change the shape of the lines behind the slits, and you can get fairly complex animations.
That’s really all there is to this. For the video, the series of parallel lines are just lots of slits, and the squiggles behind it drawn so that as the slits move, the squiggles appear to make a coherent, moving image. Our eyes track the moving slits, so we perceive them as not moving! And because the slits are evenly spaced, the motion repeats as the next slit in line moves over the same part of the drawing behind it. Your brain sees a cyclical animation, even though the drawing isn’t moving at all.
The genius of brusspup is to take this simple idea and create complex, engaging motion that coalesces into a coherent scene. That makes it even easier to fool our brains; it loves a good story, and focuses on it. We see those circles moving, the Pac-Man eating the drops, the skull rotating. He has another video with more examples, too.
My favorite part of all of this is that it shows us that what we think is happening is rarely what is really happening. Everything around us gets filtered through our senses and then totally bollixed up by our brain. It’s a complete mess, but we’re used to it. We’ve adapted to it (just as it’s been adapted by evolution), so even though it works to keep us alive and aware of what’s going on around us, it can be quite easily fooled.
That’s something your brain needs to know about itself.
Tip o’ the Necker cube to Gizmodo. |
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