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Prior to "Decertification"-Litigation-Lockout, perhaps the most polarizing topic in NFL circles was the league's more stringent emphasis on illegal hits in 2010 even if players repeatedly bucked against their enforcement while claiming it remained unclear what constituted a legal vs. an illegal hit.
They better figure it out for the 2011 season (assuming it's played, of course), because flagrant hits will likely be drawing suspensions in addition to those heavy fines.
"Frankly, now that the notice has been given, players and coaches and clubs are very aware of what the emphasis is and we won't have that hesitation," said NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson, who didn't suspend any players in 2010 for illegal hits, on Wednesday.
"Everyone will be very clearly on notice now that a suspension is very viable for us and we will exercise it ... when it comes to illegal hits to the head and neck area and to defenseless players."
Defenseless players will now be classified as:
A quarterback in the act of throwing
A receiver trying to catch a pass
A runner already in the grasp of tacklers and having his forward progress stopped
A player fielding a punt or a kickoff
A kicker or punter during the kick
A quarterback at any time after change of possession
A receiver who receives a blind-side block
A player already on the ground
"We want to be much more clear on what can be a suspendable incident," said Anderson.
"The emphasis is on head and neck hits and what a defenseless player is. And we will work hard that people understand what is a repeat offender and what is a flagrant foul."
The competition committee is also mulling changes to kickoffs and proposes moving them up to the 35-yard line to curb injuries on the play. Other changes -- which will be up for discussion at next week's owners meetings in New Orleans -- could include making all scoring plays reviewable from a booth official without a coach's challenge and the elimination of a third coach's challenge even if he is successful on his first two challenges in a game.
Hat tip: AP |
Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull has a beer and a chat with the Betoota Advocate and talks communism and the WA state election. Courtesy: Betoota Advocate/FB
AUSTRALIA has seen a very different side to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was filmed sipping frothies and having a chinwag with two journalists from the Betoota Advocate in his most bizarre interview yet.
Mr Turnbull met the two journos — who confessed they were feeling a tad hungover before the hilarious interview — at the Old Fitzroy at Woolloomooloo in Sydney.
“We just had a big night out on the wharf with Rusty, we’re feeling a bit dusty,” one of them conceded to the camera.
“We got a line on our leader, Malcolm Turnbull ... he’s a great fan of the paper, has been for a long time, but this is the first time we’re going to be talking to him.”
It was Malcolm in the middle as the Prime Minister sat sipping his beer sandwiched between the two journos, who wore cowboy hats and spoke to the PM as though they were old mates.
No topics were off limits as the conversation strayed from the Communist Manifesto to rugby, Russian hacking, Tony Abbott, sports analogies and kayaking.
At one point during the interview, one of the journos pulled out a so-called copy of the Communist Manifesto, hidden behind him under the couch.
“To Malcolm, great work on Spy Catcher, really really great work. Your friend, Mikhail Gorbachev,” one of the men said.
“Is that in the couch here? Are you trying to say something about inner-city lefties?” the Prime Minister quipped.
The pair also quizzed Mr Turnbull about “possible Russian influence” in the WA election.
Taking the question seriously, the Prime Minister said he wasn’t particularly concerned about hacking as the election was “paper-based”.
“I’m not concerned by it because we’ve got very good protection against cyber hacking and it’s very much a paper-based system,” he said.
Out of nowhere, one of the journos asked: “Does Barnaby know how to use a computer?”
“Barnaby is very, very good at computing ... farmers are some of the most tech-savvy people in the country,” Mr Turnbull said.
The trio were served another pint about midway during the interview, which the Prime Minister didn’t turn down.
Mr Turnbull confessed he was “very mediocre” at rugby and had previously played for the “Dirty Reds” — Drummoyne District.
“ I was the definition of the enthusiastic amateur,” he said.
One of the journos also asked if Mr Turnbull thought Tony Abbott was the equivalent to rugby league hooker Robbie Farrah.
“Would you say Tony Abbott is equivalent to say Robbie Farrah, in that he’s a great clubman, has been there for years — hasn’t done much else — but he can’t get on with whoever’s in charge?
“No,” Mr Turnbull said.
The interview ended when one of the men said he was “going for a dart” and invited Mr Turnbull to join him on the balcony.
The hilarious interview has been trending on social media and had almost 4000 likes on Facebook less than an hour after it was posted.
One user commented: “Skull it for Straya!”
Another said: “This is the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever watched.”
Several comments were made that the Prime Minister should “do a shoey”. |
This article is over 3 years old
Bush criticises Vermont senator’s spending plans and attacks GOP rival for failing to correct a man for saying Barack Obama was ‘not even an American’
Memo to Jeb Bush: denying human-caused global warming is ignorant | Dana Nuccitelli Read more
An energised Jeb Bush has said Bernie Sanders is the “front runner” in the Democratic presidential race as he used a Republican rally to rail against the Vermont senator’s proposals.
Bush told the Mackinac Republican leadership conference Sanders is the leading Democrat in a nod to recent polls showing the senator has taken the lead from Hillary Clinton in the crucial early voting state of Iowa.
It was not all niceties, however. Bush proceeded to lambast the self-declared socialist Democrat.
Sanders has “proposed $18 trillion of new spending” over the next decade “and it’s only September, in the year before the election,” he said, drawing laughter from the room.
Will Ferrell, Red Hot Chili Peppers among Bernie Sanders' celebrity backers Read more
The former Florida governor then summoned the spirit of Dr Evil, the fictional villain in the Austin Powers films, saying “if Dr Evil heard Bernie Sanders was talking about $18 trillion, he’d have a heart attack”.
Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bush also took a shot at Donald Trump, after the billionaire failed to correct a questioner at a campaign event, who stated that president Barack Obama is a Muslim and “not even American”.
“Barack Obama is a talented man,” Bush said. “And by the way, he’s an American, he’s a Christian – his problem isn’t the fact that he was born here, or what his faith is.
“His problem is that he’s a progressive liberal who tears down anybody that disagrees with him.”
The Republican conference is held every two years on Mackinac Island, which is four hours north of Detroit and accessible only by ferry or charter plane.
The Guardian view on Donald Trump: the joker in the pack | Editorial Read more
Michigan governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, delivered the opening remarks on Friday afternoon. The governor declined to offer an endorsement in the race.
Officials say more than 2,000 attendees have registered to attend this year. The results of a straw poll for the Republican presidential nominee will be released on Saturday night.
Five additional presidential candidates are expected to speak on Saturday: US senator Rand Paul, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, Ohio governor John Kasich and Senator Ted Cruz. |
Anthony Logistics for Men shaving cream is the first non-lathering cream that I’ve reviewed. So, needless to say, I tried to lather it just to see what would happen. At first it seemed like a bad idea; just spread around without much lathering going on. Then I submitted the original draft of this review to our fine host mantic59, and he swore that the last time he tried it, it lathered fine. So I went back and tried again; looks like I just hadn’t used enough water.
The tube makes the claim that it’s a fragrance free cream. Which is, quite frankly, a filthy lie. I just discovered as a result of this that the phrase “fragrance free” is completely unregulated. Anyways, what I believe they would have said if they were trying to be remotely honest was “no artificial fragrances”, as there is a fair bit of various oils and extracts in the stuff that are rather strongly scented, the most obvious of which would be the peppermint. The cream smells pretty much like a York Peppermint Pattie. It’s pleasant smelling. Strength-wise, it’s better than average, noticeable but not strongly so when applied to the face, without much in the way of fading.
The cooling sensation provided by the peppermint and other ingredients is a bit of a nice touch, although probably something I’d appreciate more in Summer! When used as intended, without being lathered by a brush, it is quite thick, with a tad less glide than I would have preferred. Which of course, you wouldn’t be able to fiddle with by adjusting the water content. When ignoring the directions and lathering it with a brush anyways (just don’t be stingy!), the added water improves the amount of slickness significantly, and greatly improves the quality of the shave. In both instances, left the face feeling fairly nice and soft / moisturized.
8/10 Scent Pleasantness
8/10 Scent Strength
7/10 Quality of Lather without brush, 9/10 with brush
And, finally, the cost. This 59mL sample was purchased as part of a $25 sample pack from Sephora (a decent deal, includes a coupon for one of the full-sized versions of any of the items being sampled). The regular sized version is available for $16.50 for 170g (I’m not sure why the size is listed in grams instead of mL for the sample versus the full-size).
Again, this is a case where the decision to ignore the directions on the side of the tube and lather it with a brush anyways helps a great deal. If applying the cream directly to the face from the tube, using the before and after weight of the tube, I was averaging a bit over 5 g per pass. At that rate, I figure I’d be lucky to get 9 shaves out of a full-sized tube, so we’re looking at almost $2 a shave. That’s pretty bloody expensive.
However, dumping a bit into a bowl, and lathering up with a brush, well, a little goes a heck of a lot further. I was able to whip up more than enough for a full shave using only about 1 g. Now we’re looking at about 10¢ per shave; which brings it pretty darn close to the “average” price point for creams.
So, needless to say, if you get this stuff, feel free to ignore the recommended usage. It’s a reasonably priced 8/10 if you lather it up all nice-like; if you don’t, it’s a really bloody expensive 7/10. Also, they don’t have their ingredients listed on their website; were I petty, I’d dock another point for making me type out the following:
Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Lauric Acid, Myristic Acid, Palmitic Acid, Aqua, Potassium Hydroxide, Glycerin, PPG-2 Myristyl Ether Propionate, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Goldenseal Extract, Liquorice Extract, Peppermint Leaf Extract, Eucalyptus Globus Leaf Extract, Sodium PCA, Squalane, Tocopheryl Acetate, Retinyl, Palmintate, Ascorbic Acid, Panthenol, Hops Extract, Eucalyptus Globus Leaf Oil, Rosemary Leaf Oil, Peppermint Leaf Oil, Methylparaben, Coconut Acid, Propylparaben, Ethylparaben, Dioctyl-Sodium Sulfosuccinate. |
Alejandro Jodorowsky and ‘Dune’: The Story Of The Greatest Sci-Fi Film Never Made
The long and storied history of cinema is one to be studied, admired, and treasured for the many timeless classic feature films it has brought to our astonished eyes. But beneath that history lies buried a mass grave of unrealized films that were either killed at the treatment or script stage or were permitted to proceed in front of the cameras before being shut down and virtually forgotten about for the remainder of time infinite. In an alternate universe many of those unmade movies completed the journey from random idea to the new release section of your neighborhood Target and irrevocably changed the face of cinema forever.
This is the story of one of those great unmades. This is the story of Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s Dune.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear’s path, and only I will remain.”
I remember a time several years ago when I finally gave up on the Star Wars movies. It was not an easy decision for me to make but I had reached the end of my rope with George Lucas’ little series of overblown B-movie laser blasting adventures among the stars. There were many reasons for this decision: the undeservedly successful prequel trilogy was a miasma of bad storytelling and even worse visual effects; the legacy of the original films were being tainted by cynical marketing ploys and subpar animated follow-ups like the goddamned Clone Wars movie and series (not the hand-drawn animated series of shorts released between Episodes 2 and 3); and worst of all, Lucas’ continued disrespect of his ever loyal fan base by refusing to acknowledge the existence of the non-tampered original editions of the first trilogy, the best entry of which (The Empire Strikes Back) Lucas neither wrote nor directed (Jealous much Georgie?).
Sandworm of Arrakis, as designed by H.R. Giger.
I obviously wasn’t alone in my decision to walk away from Star Wars, and yet the appeal of the Star Wars movies up to a certain age isn’t impossible for me to understand. As kids most of us fantasize about engaging in missions of heroism and foolish aplomb across the galaxy, to battle the villains and win the heart of the universe‘s most beautiful lady all in the grandest way possible. But once you become an adult you find that it’s time to put away childish things and for the first time in your life grow the hell up. You have to expand your mind and embrace new ideas and concepts in the fictional entertainment you devour on a regular basis. You must evolve.
That’s when I discovered Dune.
“The sleeper must awaken.”
Frank Herbert’s sprawling science-fiction adventure was first published in 1965 and the book soon became a favorite of readers and critics. The success of the book guaranteed Hollywood would soon come calling. Arthur P. Jacobs, producer of the Planet of the Apes, was the first to option the rights to Dune and planned an epic production with David Lean, the brilliant maestro whose blockbuster award-winning epics The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia are often cited among the most important films ever made, in the director’s chair and Lean’s frequent collaborator Robert Bolt assuming scripting duties. Those plans fell apart with Jacobs’ untimely death in 1973. The Dune film was now in limbo. Enter Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Pirate ship, as designed by Chris Foss.
Jodorowsky is the Chilean surrealist filmmaker whose first three films can easily surpass, even victory lap it a few times, David Lynch’s Eraserhead when it comes to sheer mind-bending strangeness. His debut Fando & Lis almost got him strung up by his nutsack by a raging mob at the 1968 Acapulco Film Festival. By the time his second film El Topo came along it was embraced by open-minded audiences when savvy theater owners decided to position the film as a midnight movie (an honor Eraserhead would later achieve) the freaks and stoners could enjoy and the critics could almost unanimously praise.
El Topo brought Jodorowsky international acclaim and launched his own prominent filmmaking career and it also brought him into contact with a producer named Allen Klein thanks to John Lennon, a fan of Jodorowsky’s films whose band the Beatles were managed by Klein. Klein purchased El Topo, helped increase its U.S. distribution, and agreed to finance Jodorowsky’s next film The Holy Mountain provided the iconoclastic director would make a film version of the erotic novel The Story of O.
Films like Last Tango in Paris and Emmanuelle were hot button topics at the water cooler and big business at the box office, but Jodorowsky couldn’t see getting himself involved with a creatively-restraining enterprise that would’ve filled his pockets with cash but drained the energy he could be directing at a film he may actually want to make. Thus Jodorowsky refused to make The Story of O and Klein fumed hardcore, pulling both El Topo and The Holy Mountain from theatrical distribution for the next three decades merely to spite the filmmaker.
During that time the home entertainment revolution kicked into high gear but poor quality bootleg copies of the films were the only way anyone could experience the stunningly offbeat film work of Alejandro Jodorowsky. I myself first saw El Topo in 2004 when I rented a badly worn, English-dubbed VHS copy of the film with burned-in Japanese subtitles from a small video store in downtown Richmond that specialized in hard-to-find titles. I found it to be a bizarre yet extremely watchable and wholly unique work of cinematic art that officially made me a convert to the cult of Jodorowsky.
Castle Harkonnen, as designed by H.R. Giger.
Then Alejandro Jodorowsky discovered Dune.
Following the death of Arthur P. Jacobs, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon quickly snapped up the film rights to Dune from Herbert and enticed Jodorowsky, who had proposed the book to Gibon and producer Michel Seydoux (the French distributor of The Holy Mountain) as a potential movie project, to the director’s chair with the promise of total control on the production.
Jodorowsky’s control over Dune extended to completely reinterpreting the book’s characters and themes as he saw fit. “I did not want to respect the novel,” the filmmaker said, “I wanted to recreate it.” He felt no obligation to keep his adaptation faithful to Herbert’s writing because in his view, “Dune did not belong to Herbert as Don Quixote did not belong to Cervantes, nor Edipo with Esquilo.”
The director incorporated many of his own ideas into the narrative, including redefining the spice melange that has multiple applications and is the impetus of the entire story as, in Jodorowsky’s words, “a blue drug with spongy consistency filled with a vegetable-animal life endowed with consciousness, the highest level of consciousness. It does not stop taking all kinds of forms, while stirring up unceasingly. The spice continuously produces the creation of the innumerable universes.”
He also replaced Herbert’s ending with one he had devised that hewed closer to his own style of storytelling. Jodorowsky describes it as such:
“At the end of film, the wife of the Count Fenring leaps towards Paul, who has already become Fremen, and she slices his throat. Paul while dying says: “Too late, one cannot kill me… because… Because, Jessica with the voice of Paul continues, to kill the Kwisatz Haderach, you would have to also have killed me… “And each Fremen, each Atreides speaks now with the voice of Paul: “I am the collective man. He who shows the way.” Reality changes quickly. Three columns of light spout out of the planet. They mix. Plunge in the sand of planet: “I am the Earth which awaits the seed!” the spice is desiccated. The ground trembles. Water drops form a pillar surrounded by fire. Silver filaments emerge from spice. Create a rainbow. They form in a water cloud, produce a red “lava”. Then vapor. Clouds. Rain. Rivers. Grass. Forests. Dune becomes green. A blue ring surrounds planet now. It is divided. It produces more and more rings. Dune is now a world illuminated, which crosses the galaxy, which leaves it, which gives it light – which is Consciousness – to all the universe.”
The filmmaker quickly set about assembling a once-in-a-lifetime creative brain trust of fellow “warriors” (Jodorowsky’s word) to help him realize his vision of Frank Herbert’s novel, which promised to be faithful in tone to the book but radically different in plot and structure: Chris Foss, a British artist famed for drawing the covers for paperback sci-fi novels, would design spaceships that in Jodorowsky’s words were “semi-alive machines which could be metamorphosed with the color of the stones of space… thirsty battleships dying century after century in a star desert awaiting the alive body which will fill their empty tanks of subtle secretions of its heart”; Ron Cobb, a former Disney animator and political cartoonist for the underground newspaper Los Angeles Free Press who worked on the production design for John Carpenter’s feature directorial debut Dark Star (he designed the titular spaceship‘s interior on a Pancake House napkin, so the story goes); Dan O’Bannon, a up-and-coming screenwriter who also got his start on Dark Star, co-writing the film as well as working on the visual effects and playing the role of the goofy Sgt. Pinback, was drafted by Jodorowsky to design special effects on a somewhat higher budget that he had on the Carpenter film; Jean “Moebius” Giraud, a French artist best known for his Blueberry and Airtight Garage comics and his work in Metal Hurlant, the original French version of the magazine Heavy Metal; and H.R. Giger, a Swiss surrealist painter whose visions of deeply sexual, mechanized horrors made him a cult figure in the international art world, would design the depraved visuals of the Harkonnen family and their home planet Giedi Prime.
With the visionary backbone of this massive undertaking in place Jodorowsky began scouting locations and talking up prospective cast members. He planned to cast cult film actor David Carradine as Duke Leto Atreides, British actress Charlotte Rampling (who had come to Jodorowsky’s attention when he saw her in John Boorman’s 1974 sci-fi camp classic Zardoz) as Lady Jessica, Rolling Stone Mick Jagger as Feyd Rautha, German horror star Udo Kier as Piter De Vries, filmmaking outlaw Orson Welles as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, French silver screen icon Alain Delon as Duncan Idaho, American silent movie legend Gloria Swanson as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, the director’s own son Brontis Jodorowsky as the main character Paul Atreides, and the famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali as the villainous Emperor (at a reported salary of $100,000 per hour).
The Emperor of the Galaxy Padishah Shaddam IV, as designed by Jean “Moebius” Giraud.
Jodorowsky desired to film Dune in the Tassili n’Ajjer mountains located in the Algerian section of the Sahara Desert, with the tacit support of the Algerian government. He consulted a South American expert in guerrilla warfare who had fought all over South America to consult on grounding the war between Paul and the underground Fremen army and the Harkonnens in a “martial reality.” To play Paul, Brontis had been training from the age of nine in knife fighting, karate, and archery with the legendary bodyguard Jean-Pierre Vigneau.
Dali, whose deal with Jodorowsky was made when the director gave him a tarot card of the Hanged Man in lieu of a legally-binding contract, wanted his character’s imperial throne to be a toilet made up of two intersecting dolphins – an odd fixture of the artist’s own design. “The tails will form the feet and the two open mouths will be used,” Jodorowsky said, “one to receive the ‘wee,’ the other to receive the ‘excrement.'” Dalí thinks that it is of terrible bad taste to mix the “wee” and the “excrement.” In order to circumvent Dali’s outrageous salary demands the decision was made to film with the artist for seven days, for only one hour a day, and the rest of the time the character of the Emperor would be portrayed by an elaborate robot duplicate.
The soundtrack of Jodorowsky’s Dune would have been provided by the British progressive rock group Pink Floyd, hot off the success of their album Dark Side of the Moon, and the French rock band Magma. Jodorowsky had the idea for the two groups to separately compose different music for each of the four planets on which the story of Dune takes place. Pink Floyd’s involvement was almost scuttled when Jodorowsky arrived in London with Gibon to meet the group at Abbey Road Studios where they were recording new material and was less than enthused by what he saw. “While arriving, I did not see a group of large musicians realizing its masterpiece,” the director recalled, “I see four young people guys devouring steak and chips. Jean-Paul and me, standing in front of them, were to wait until their voracity is satisfied. In the name of Dune I was taken of a holy anger and I left while slamming the door.” Fortunately guitarist David Gilmour caught up with Jodorowsky and the two soon made their amends, thus sealing the deal for Pink Floyd to work on Dune. The band’s soundtrack, upon completion, would be made available to stores as a double album.
However, the production was shut down just as filming was gearing up to begin. Nearly 20% of the film’s allotted $9.5 million budget had already been spent on pre-production costs and it looked like what money remained would not nearly be enough to film Jodorowsky’s ambitious script, which would have translated to a 14-hour film and was described by Frank Herbert as being “the size of a phone book.” Dune fell apart fast and the creative brain trust Jodorowsky had painstakingly assembled was soon disassembled and sent on their way to destinies unknown. It was all not in vain though.
Jodorowsky continued to make films in the years that followeed, although it wasn’t until 1989’s Santa Sangre that he had finally regained creative control behind the camera and was no longer beholden to avaricious producers. The result was a classic of world cinema that showed a master of the moving image back in charge and ready to continue creating on his terms and his alone.
Dan O’Bannon went on to write the script that would become Alien and later made his directorial debut on the cult classic horror-comedy The Return of the Living Dead. The Crohn’s disease that had plagued him throughout his life finally claimed it on December 17, 2009.
Dan O’Bannon discusses his brief involvement in Jodorowsky’s Dune adaptation in a 2003 interview from the Alien Anthology Blu-ray set.
Ron Cobb would hone his artistic skills doing design work for films like Star Wars, Alien, Conan the Barbarian (his first credit as a production designer), The Last Starfighter, Back to the Future, Aliens, The Abyss, Total Recall, and Southland Tales. Chris Foss also worked on designing spaceships for Alien.
H.R. Giger’s original painting “Necronom” would be one of O’Bannon’s inspirations for writing Alien and earned the Swiss artist the job of designing the iconic Xenomorph and the alien planet the crew of the Nostromo make a doomed journey to in the original film.
Moebius has contributed design work to films like Alien, Tron, Masters of the Universe, Willow, The Abyss, and The Fifth Element, and later collaborated with Jodorowsky on a comic series entitled The Incal that is based on many of the original ideas and plot points developed during pre-production on Jodorowsky’s unrealized Dune.
As a final postscript to this chapter in the making of an impossible dream, Jodorowsky and Allen Klein finally ended their three-decade-long feud in 2006 and the following year both El Topo and The Holy Mountain were released to DVD and Blu-ray for the first time with freshly-remastered prints courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment.
In the years since the collapse of his valiant attempt at making Dune into a feature film Jodorowsky would speak in interviews about how his experience on the unmade project ultimately changed his life for the better. Though that pronouncement still doesn’t quite completely dull the pain of knowing that the most unique science-fiction film in the history of cinema almost made it to the screen, at least the preparation that went into this version of Dune that was not meant to be help shape the future of fantastic cinema.
Jodorowsky may not have been able to make his Dune a reality but he did benefit greatly from the wonderful pre-production, and in the end so did we all.
In the meantime a brand new documentary appropriately entitled Jodorowsky’s Dune that purports to tell the entire, uncensored story of the project’s ascension and tragic but highly beneficial downfall recently premiered to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival and will hopefully see a domestic release later this year. |
Christian Bubalovic gave Birkirkara a second-half lead
Hearts were booed off the pitch after being knocked out of the Europa League by Maltese side Birkirkara at Tynecastle.
Second-half goals by Christian Bubalovic and Edward Herrera - against the run of play - stunned the home crowd.
Conor Sammon's header gave Hearts hope, but they could not find a leveller.
Earlier, Prince Buaben missed a first-half penalty while Jamie Walker and Sam Nicholson both hit the woodwork.
Hearts had approached the game full of confidence after drawing the away leg 0-0 last week, not least because Birkirkara had won only two of their previous 23 ties in Europe.
The Maltese team were more adventurous than in their performance at home, though, and their ability to break swiftly and sharply on the counter carried them through to face Krasnodar of Russia in the third qualifying round.
Read more: Hibs knocked out of Europe on penalties by Brondby
Read more: Aberdeen easily through in Europa League
Hearts were frustrated by their own shortcomings. Despite periods of possession, they were ragged in their passing and could not use their width to good effect against well-organised opponents.
There were early scares, with the goalkeeper Jack Hamilton having to block from close range. Hearts knew patience would be required, but wastefulness was their undoing.
Nicholson was the home side's brightest player, and he won a penalty kick when he skipped into the box and was brought down by Cain Attard.
As Buaben prepared to take the spot kick, Birkirkara's manager Josef Mansueto shouted to his players that it would go to the goalkeeper's left and Miroslav Kopric duly heeded the advice, diving to that side to save a weak effort.
Prince Buaben saw his first-half penalty saved
Hearts were unable to create openings, and even when they did they fell short. Walker met a Callum Paterson cross with an acrobatic volley that sent the ball over his shoulder but onto the underside of the bar.
The same fate befell Nicholson after the break, when he skipped infield on the left and sent a shot crashing onto the bar, with the ball bouncing clear. By then, though, Hearts were behind.
Bubalovic was calm and ruthless when the ball dropped to him inside the penalty area after a free-kick wasn't cleared by the Hearts defence, and he struck a shot high and hard into the corner of the net.
Anxiety now hampered Hearts' play as they urgently tried to rescue the tie, and Arnaud Djoum lacked composure as he steered the rebound over after Juanma's shot was blocked by Kopric.
Birkirkara took advantage of that mindset. When one attack broke down, the visitors moved the ball upfield and out to Herrera, who ghosted in from the right of the penalty area and prodded a shot through Hamilton's legs.
Hearts eventually pulled a goal back when Sammon headed Djoum's cross into the net, but the home side had left themselves too much to do. |
Are you worried about the health of Blade & Soul? With any import title, it’s easy to wonder if the game is going to fold unexpectedly in its native land and leave fans without any further development. So the sight of the game’s upcoming Korean patch should be a source of comfort if you weren’t already excited by the though of more story for the game along with a whole new class to play.
The class itself doesn’t appear to have a name at the moment, although it’s meant as a hybrid of the game’s Force Master and Kung Fu Master. You can check out a trailer for the patch (along with a few quick shots of the new class in action) just below; there’s no word on when all of this is coming to the American version of the game, although considering that version hasn’t launched yet, we’d argue smart money would be on “not for a couple of weeks at least.” |
Judges uphold decision to create protected area, which prevents former residents resettling islands where US airbase was built
A government decision to create a controversial marine park in the Indian Ocean has been upheld by the high court.
Former residents of the Chagos Islands who were forced into exile say the move, involving a ban on commercial fishing, was unlawfully aimed at preventing them resettling their former "paradise" homeland.
But Lord Justice Richards and Mr Justice Mitting, sitting in London, ruled that the marine protected area (MPA) was compatible with EU law.
The British expelled the Chagossians between 1965 and 1973 to allow the US to establish an airbase on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago. The expulsion has been described by critics as one of the most shameful episodes in modern British colonial history.
The exiled Chagossians have fought a long series of legal battles for the right of return.
Richards described the challenge to the MPA by the Chagos Refugees Group, led by Louis Bancoult, as "a further chapter in the history of litigation arising out of the removal and subsequent exclusion of the local population from the Chagos archipelago".
The MPA was created by the top British diplomat Colin Roberts in his role as commissioner for the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) on the instructions of David Miliband, then foreign secretary, in April 2010.
Chagossian lawyers said the moved followed British consultations with the US during which the Americans were assured that the use of their base on Diego Garcia would not be adversely affected by the MPA.
Roberts denied under cross-examination at the high court that the marine park was created for the "improper purpose" of keeping the Chagossians out as the US wanted, and said it was for environmental and conservation purposes.
On Tuesday the judges accepted his evidence. Richards said "a truly remarkable set of circumstances" would have to have existed for the case on improper purpose to be right, involving a long-term decision "somewhere deep in government" to frustrate Chagossian ambitions by promoting the MPA.
"Those circumstances would provide an unconvincing plot for a novel. They cannot found a finding for the claimant on this issue," Richards ruled.
Lawyers for the islanders said a classified US government cable leaked by WikiLeaks supported their accusations.
They said Roberts was reported in the cable as telling US diplomats at the US embassy in London in May 2009 that the MPA would keep the Chagossians from resettling the islands and mean "no human footprints" or "Man Fridays" in the BIOT.
Nigel Pleming QC, appearing for the exiled islanders, asked Roberts about the alleged "Man Fridays" comment and suggested to him that it was "a totemic phrase that offends".
Talking generally Roberts said he absolutely agreed and would never have used the phrase in such circumstances, but he refused to answer specific questions about the authenticity and accuracy of the contents of the cable.
Initially the judges ruled that Roberts should answer questions about the cable, and could not rely on a government policy of "neither confirming nor denying" allegations involving matters of national interest.
But further submissions were put by Steven Kovats QC, on behalf of the foreign secretary.
The judges then ruled the Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964, which incorporates the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations into domestic law, meant the alleged cable, or copies of it held by newspapers, were inadmissible in evidence.
On Tuesday the judges explained their decision, saying there was now "a settled principle of public international and municipal law that the inviolability of diplomatic communications requires that judicial authorities of states parties to the 1961 convention should, in the absence of consent by the sending state, exclude illicitly obtained diplomatic documents and correspondence from judicial proceedings". |
Working away at getting the demo gameplay polished and working, still lots to do but I’ve just recently started working out of a dedicated space so that should really improve the pace of development.
The past few weeks have been spent focusing on the game’s dream sequence gameplay as well as adding some visual polish to the early demo gameplay.
New Art for Stanford Executive Office
This is where the demo opens and you get your assignment to head over to Japan. The goal was to go for something that felt slightly oppressive and also gave the player a very clear navigation tutorial (The player only has to walk in one direction and use the ‘interact’ button to progress the sequence). Art is still very early, there will be more clutter and detail added to the office area.
New Art for Shogetsu Grand Hotel Lobby
The Shogetsu Grand hotel is the first environment you visit after your meeting at Stanford Investments. Again, still very work in progress, but I think the overall layout and color scheme is there. I still need to figure out what the centerpiece (The yellow square) is going to be and the perspective on the couches feels off…but perspective rules for the art in the game overall is still a bit wonky.
New Dream Sequence UI
The dream sequence has received a ton of updates over the past two weeks. Mostly I put in placeholder art and animations so I could get a better sense of the gameplay. As well as refining the animation system so it’s more modular and robust.
On top of that, I spent some time working through the dream sequence’s UI layout. Since the game doesn’t have any tutorials it’s really important that the flow of events in the sequence is as fluid and natural as possible. To help with this I drew out maps of where the eye goes during the dream sequence gameplay and then rearranged the layout so that the player’s eye had to move as little as possible to get to the next relevant element gameplay wise.
Eye Flow for Original Layout:
The player’s eye has to travel quite a bit around parts 5 and 6 then again at 9 and 10. This makes the flow of information confusing to the player.
Eye Flow for New Layout:
The player’s eye ends up having to travel much less and the amount of back-tracking have been reduced. The Animations have also been updated to indicate the direction the player’s eye is supposed to move. For example, in step 5 the PWR LVL indicator moves to the right, which is where the player’s eye is supposed to go next.
As a result of these updates the dream sequence fights are feeling much better grounded and less abstract.
For Next Update:
Art for Drinking Sequence
Art for Hotel Bar Environment
Art for Drug Dealer’s Hotel Room
Post dream sequence transition implementation
As much else as possible!
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An unexplained carpet of foamy bubbles filled streets in the centre of the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka in the early hours of Saturday morning – shortly after tremors from a devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.3 shook the town.
Twitter users posted pictures of the mysterious foam, with one calling it “disgusting”.
“I saw it just after the earthquake,” said Kazuki Nabeta, who lives in the busy central district of Tenjin, where the bubbles were found.
Some have speculated that the earthquake may have caused an underground pipe to burst.
“People were posting pictures on Twitter and it was near my house, so I went out to have a look,” said Mr Nabeta.
“There was a fire engine there. There wasn’t anything special about it – it was normal foam.”
Read more… |
Posted September 10, 2015 at 10:20 am
Hey geeks! If the site is loading wonky for you, just refresh. If that doesn't work, clear your cache then refresh. I promise it'll work!
Lately, thanks to the patreons, I've been going back through old comics and updating the votey buttons. I noticed that I used to post much longer, more personal, and at times remarkably stupid blogs. For the last 5 years or so, things have gotten incredibly busy between the growth of SMBC, all the new projects, and the growing family. I'd like to get back to where sometimes I talk about things here. I started saying more stuff on twitter, which is probably not the best place to just sit and talk with people. A comics blog post probably isn't either, but on the plus side, people can't really talk back.
Anyway, I just want to thank you all for reading all these years. I'm amazed that there are people who have stuck with the comic through all its many phases.
Zach
PS: For those asking, we hope to have the mobile version of the site complete in October! |
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News boss 'astonished' by complaints
James Harding faced a barrage of complaints during the general election
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James Harding has admitted to being 'quite astonished by the ferocity and frequency of complaints from all parties' during the BBC's coverage of the general election.
The director of news and current affairs said that often it was a politician saying either 'I want more of me on the BBC' or 'my side of the story is the story'.
He continued: 'And this being my first election at the BBC, I was struck by how many politicians and spokespeople paid lip service to the idea of the BBC's editorial independence but, nonetheless, did think it was their place to say what should be leading the news, what questions should be asked, how they wanted our audiences to be chosen for our programmes.'
The general election was the theme of Harding's keynote speech at a conference organised by the Voice of the Listener and Viewer in London on Tuesday.
Political machines
Speaking to VLV members, the news boss believed the BBC delivered on its responsibilities as a public service broadcaster but that there remain some questions. Among these is whether enough was done 'to hold in check the political machines of each party'.
He pointed out that there were no morning press conferences with the main political parties, but instead a series of embargoed stories released just before the newspapers rolled off the presses and the Ten' O'Clock News went on air. 'Sometimes the result wasn't news, it was messaging,' he concluded.
With the benefit of hindsight, he added, 'we would all have been better off with less discussion of deals and allowed the dissection of policy'.
Yet it was his belief that the BBC did resist political pressure and was 'scrupulously impartial' , even if the broadcaster has occasionally made mistakes.
The mood, Harding explained, is now 'different' since the election ended on May 8. 'The early morning calls, the angry texts, the lengthy letters have stopped.'
But he explained that the process of charter renewal so soon after the election, 'an unhappy coincidence', will raise questions about the independence of BBC News - something which he said mattered more than anything else.
'For people to have confidence in this country's most important news organisation, they must know that its journalists will ask the difficult questions without fear or favour.'
News cuts
Asked about cuts in News amounting to about £50m over two years, Harding said it could be felt in areas such as world affairs, home affairs and religious affairs, while Panorama no longer had dedicated reporters.
He pointed out that the BBC has fewer defence correspondents, for instance, than other big news outlets.
Despite this, it was the director's assessment that News had been treated 'among the best' when it came to Delivering Quality First cuts.
One of the biggest impacts for News, he suggested, was on how much the BBC might be able to innovate on a limited budget.
In his in-tray was an ambition to service more audiences around the world, among them North Korea, Russian and the United States.
Harding also called himself a believer in local news that held politicians to account at a regional level.
And he wanted BBC news to be delivered on a range of mobile devices used by people today.
Peter Fincham - ITV
Following Harding's speech was a question-and-answer session with ITV boss Peter Fincham and former BBC media correspondent Torin Douglas.
The director of television also talked about ITV's coverage of election night, of which he predictably said he was 'proud'. But Douglas asked if anyone actually had watched it. Chuckling, Fincham said that was a good point.
He conceded that ITV would lose the ratings battle to the BBC, but the former is 'richer' if it covered a range of bases and that included news. ITV's commitment to news, he added, was 'unequivocal'.
He pointed out that the BBC and ITV are still the market leaders after 60 years, despite the fact that there are now about 571 television channels - and it's why people still turn to both of them during the general election, he believed.
'It's better that there is plurality in news', Fincham argued, rather than if it came from just one source and 'of course we are part of that ecology'.
He also recalled pitching Never Mind the Buzzcocks to the BBC in 1996 and reading a scathing review in the Daily Mail shortly after it started, judging it to be utterly 'witless'. At the time Fincham thought, 'Well, that's the end of that, then'. But the programme defied a slow start and ran for 19 years. |
16 July 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The sun’s activity could be affecting a key ocean circulation mechanism that plays an important role in regulating Greenland’s climate, according to a new study. The phenomenon could be partially responsible for cool temperatures the island experienced in the late 20th century and potentially lead to increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet in the coming decades, the new research suggests.
Scientists have sought to understand why Greenland cooled during the 1970s through the early 1990s while most of the Northern Hemisphere experienced rising temperatures as a result of greenhouse warming.
The new study suggests high solar activity starting in the 1950s and continuing through the 1980s played a role in slowing down ocean circulation between the South Atlantic and the North Atlantic oceans. Combined with an influx of fresh water from melting glaciers, this slow-down halted warm water and air from reaching Greenland and cooled the island while temperatures rose across the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, according to the new study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
The new research also suggests weak solar activity, like the sun is currently experiencing, could slowly fire up the ocean circulation mechanism, increasing the amount of warm water and air flowing to Greenland.
Starting around 2025, temperatures in Greenland could increase more than anticipated and the island’s ice sheet could melt faster than projected, according to Takuro Kobashi, a climate scientist with the Department of Climate and Environmental Physics at the University of Bern in Switzerland and lead author of the new study.
This unexpected ice loss would compound projected sea-level rise expected to occur as a result of climate change, Kobashi said. The melting Greenland ice sheet accounted for one-third of the 3.2 millimeters (0.13 inches) rise in global sea level every year from 1992 to 2011.
“We need to really consider how solar activity will change in the future,” said Kobashi. “If solar activity becomes really low, as scientists expect, the Greenland ice sheet will melt faster than we expected from the climate model with just greenhouse gas [warming].”
The new study compared past solar activity with historical temperature records to figure out if the cooling Greenland experienced during the late 20th century was part of a long-term pattern.
The team used ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice sheet to reconstruct snow temperatures for the past 2,100 years. A relatively new technique, which measures argon and nitrogen gases trapped in the ice, allowed the scientists to measure small changes in temperature at 10- to 20-year increments.
The ice cores showed that for the past 2,000 years changes in Greenland temperatures have generally followed any temperature shifts occurring in the Northern Hemisphere. The new research found that the change in Greenland temperatures vacillated up and down around the average change in Northern Hemisphere temperatures over time. The vacillations coincided with changes in the sun’s energy output that occurred over multiple decades, according to the new study.
When the sun’s energy output increased, there was a bigger drop in Greenland’s temperature compared to the change in average temperature across the Northern Hemisphere. When the sun’s energy output decreased, there was a larger increase in Greenland’s temperature compared to the change in average temperature that occurred across the Northern Hemisphere.
Climate models showed that changes in solar activity could prompt shifts in ocean and air circulation in the North Atlantic that affect Greenland’s climate, according to the new study.
Shifting circulation patterns
Water circulation in the Atlantic follows a steady pattern of movement, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Warm water flows from the South Atlantic toward the North Atlantic, transferring heat toward Greenland. As the water cools, it sinks to the ocean floor and travels south toward the tropics, completing the circular pattern.
During a period of high solar activity, more energy from the sun reaches Earth and is transferred to tropical waters. When this warmer-than-usual water reaches the North Atlantic, it is not dense enough to sink. With nowhere to go, the water causes a traffic jam and the water circulation pattern slows down.
Changes in solar activity can also alter the atmospheric circulation pattern over the Atlantic, which in turn affects ocean circulation, but how this process works is still unknown, said Kobashi.
In the late 20th century, there also was a compounding problem. Large amounts of freshwater gushed into the North Atlantic as climate change caused increased melting of glaciers, icebergs, and the Greenland ice sheet. Freshwater, being more buoyant than salt water, entered the intersection where cool water drops to the ocean floor and travels south to the tropics. Climate models showed that the water in the intersection became less salty and less likely to sink. Models also showed that additional freshwater came from an increase in rainfall, according to the new study.
The traffic jam worsened and the water circulation pattern that transfers heat from the South Atlantic to the North Atlantic slowed. This slow-down caused the air above Greenland to cool and temperatures there to drop, according to the new study.
Because the oceans take a long time to heat up or cool down, the temperature changes in Greenland lagged 10 to 40 years behind the high solar activity, showing up from the 1970s through the early 1990s, according to the new study.
The new study suggests low solar activity could have the opposite effect and lead to warmer temperatures in Greenland in another decade. When there is less solar energy reaching the Earth, water reaching Greenland easily sinks and returns to the tropics along the ocean floor. The water circulation pattern speeds up, quickly funneling heat toward Greenland and warming the island.
Greenhouse gases versus solar activity
The new study makes a good case that the solar maximum in the 1950s through the 1980s may have played a role in the cooling Greenland saw in the late 20th century, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist with the Department of Meteorology at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the new study.
Another recent study by Mann and his colleagues proposed that trapped greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning caused warming across the Northern Hemisphere and triggered an increase in ice melt. This led to the slowdown in ocean circulation and a cooler Greenland.
Both studies suggest buoyant meltwater from melting glaciers would have interrupted the sinking of the AMOC and its return to the tropics along the bottom of the ocean. But the new research suggests solar activity is the main driver behind the changes to the ocean circulation pattern.
“I’m open-minded that the real answer is more complicated, and it may be a combination of the two hypotheses,” said Mann. “This article paves the way for a more in-depth look at what is going on. The challenge now will be teasing apart the two effects and trying to assess the relative importance of both of them.”
Kobashi contends that solar activity explains the change in ocean circulation and Greenland warming since 1995, which he says cannot be explained by increasing greenhouse gases alone.
###
The American Geophysical Union is dedicated to advancing the Earth and space sciences for the benefit of humanity through its scholarly publications, conferences, and outreach programs. AGU is a not-for-profit, professional, scientific organization representing more than 60,000 members in 139 countries. Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and our other social media channels. |
Two masked men who forced their way into a Dorchester apartment this morning were met by an armed resident who opened fire, killing one and chasing the other out of the building, where police arrested him, Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said today.
“The suspects came into the apartment masked,’’ Evans told reporters at the scene. “The homeowner also had a firearm and shot one of the suspects dead.’’
Police responding to the scene shortly after 9 a.m. saw the second suspect fleeing down Esmond Street, still carrying a gun he had allegedly brandished moments earlier inside the apartment building. He was arrested nearby.
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“Our guys were in the right place at the right time,’’ said Superintendent-in-Chief William Gross. “What’s important here is to note that we have all involved parties accounted for.’’
The surviving home invader is under arrest and may appear in a Boston courtroom later today.
The resident at 85 Esmond St. is also in custody, but has not yet been charged with any crime because police are trying to determine if he was licensed to possess a firearm, according to Evans and Gross.
The invader who was shot ran from the apartment but collapsed on the front steps of the building, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
A motive for the incident is under investigation, but police said they believe the parties were known to each other.
Police notified the Salvation Army’s Children Learning Center on nearby Wales Street about the incident. A staffer there said in a brief telephone interview that the shooting has not impacted their program. “Everything is OK here,’’ the staffer said. “No problem.’’
Police have closed Esmond Street while they investigate.
“We don’t believe anyone is on the loose,’’ Evans said. “It was good work by the officers getting that second suspect and being in the right spot at the right time.’’
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The shooting of the intruder by the resident, while it may not result in homicide charges, was the fourth slaying in Boston so far this year, and the second in less than 24 hours.
Boston police said today that the third homicide had happened at about 5:57 p.m. Tuesday. Police responded to a report of a person shot at 996 Tremont St. When officers arrived, they learned that the victim, a male in his 30s, had been transported from the scene in a personal vehicle. Suffering from apparent gunshot wounds, he was taken to Boston Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.
Police asked for anyone with information on the slaying to contact homicide detectives at 617-343-4470. |
CLOSE The Northern Kentucky city of Crescent Springs planted 660 U.S. flags as a display of shock at the number of U.S. veteran or soldier suicides each month. Community Recorder/Chris Mayhew
Buy Photo Howard Berry set a sign in place stating reasons for planting 660 flags at Crescent Springs Community Park in front of the Northern Kentucky 9/11 Memorial. Berry's son, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Joshua Berry, took his own life in February 2013, after having post-traumatic stress disorder. (Photo: The Community Recorder/Chris Mayhew)Buy Photo
CRESCENT SPRINGS – A Northern Kentucky city planted 660 U.S. flags as a display of shock at the number of U.S. veteran or soldier suicides each month.
Veterans planted flags Thursday evening in front of the Northern Kentucky 9/11 Memorial at Crescent Springs Community Park within view of drivers on busy Buttermilk Pike.
Crescent Springs Mayor Lou Hartfiel, a U.S. Air Force veteran, was shocked when he learned 22 veterans or soldiers commit suicide each day, according to a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs study released in July 2016. Hartfiel read the news about veterans suicides in a March 27 Enquirer story about 660 flags planted on a Mount Adams hillside by a grieving father.
"I was just shocked that there were 660 veterans a month committing suicide," Hartfiel said.
Members of the public need to be informed, the mayor said.
Hartfiel plans to keep the flags flying for at least a month with a sign stating, "These 660 flags represent the number of veterans that die by their own hand every month."
"I didn't realize what was happening," he said. "Maybe we can do something about it," Hartfiel said.
Grieving father Howard Berry, of Sycamore Township, Ohio, in March planted flags in Mount Adams and – at Hartfiel's request – planted the flags in Crescent Springs as well. Berry's son U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Joshua Berry took his life in February 2013 after having post-traumatic stress disorder.
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More adequate and speedy U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) care for veterans with post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues is needed, Berry said.
Howard Berry will plant 660 more flags outside the Cincinnati VA Medical Center May 20. He plans to plant 660 flags near the VA's Fort Thomas location later this year.
Crescent Springs donated all 660 flags for the city's display.
"I'm amazed at the outpouring of support in Northern Kentucky," Berry said.
►YOUR LOCAL LEADERS: Crescent Springs elected officials
Berry started planting flags after years of making phone calls and in-person pleas to congressmen that seemingly netted no results.
"To me each one of these flags represents a human being who volunteered to defend our freedom who is not here," Berry said.
Berry said he speaks with outrage because it's hard to get people to pay attention to the issue.
"We say no soldier left behind," Berry said. "What these folks died from is indifference."
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/2qaj7Mo |
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's offer of a free ride home for visiting European leaders — at a cost of more than $300,000 — is raising eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic.
Already, opposition politicians in Canada have called the use of a Canadian A310 Airbus to ferry the visitors home an "outrageous" waste of taxpayers' money. Now, there are complaints in Europe that the trip violated the European Union's code of conduct, and that the excuses offered for the free ride were bogus.
The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, flew commercial — as they normally do — to visit Ottawa Sept. 26 to mark the end of negotiations toward a free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada.
After a ceremonial welcome in Ottawa and a signing ceremony, they planned to fly commercial back to Brussels that night. However, they were persuaded to stay for a late addition to the schedule — a business reception in Toronto.
It didn't cost a euro for the European taxpayer, that's for sure - Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, European Commission spokeswoman
To get them back to Brussels on schedule, Harper offered the Airbus he normally uses of foreign trips — which costs over $22,500 an hour to run. Officials were told this was necessary so that Van Rompuy and Barroso could get to a planned Saturday meeting.
But in Germany, where the free trade deal is under attack, there are complaints that there actually was no Saturday meeting and no reason for the rush to get home. Jens Geier, a German Social Democrat member of the European Parliament, says the two leaders had no engagements until the following Monday — something confirmed by the European Commission.
Geier also says there were Friday night flights to Europe from Toronto, and that accepting gifts over a value of 150 euros is "untersagt" — forbidden — for EU officials.
'Unusual,' but 'no conflict of interest'
A spokeswoman for the European Commission, Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, agreed that the free flight was "rather unusual," but insisted there was nothing unethical about it.
"It was a practical arrangement offered by the Canadian government," she said, "There is no gift, there is no conflict of interest."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, centre, arrives with with Herman Van Rompuy, left, president of the European Council, and José Manuel Barroso, right, president of the European Commission, in Toronto on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2014. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)
Hansen added that there was no personal benefit to the two leaders — rather, the arrangement saved the EU money.
"This was a flight which was put at their disposal by the Canadian government to the two EU leaders. You know, the cost, that's for them to inform about. It didn't cost a euro for the European taxpayer, that's for sure."
As for the Friday evening reception in Toronto, she said, "The Canadian government very much wanted President Barroso and President Van Rompuy to participate in that event."
The backdrop for the complaints seems to be unease in Germany about the so-called investor-state dispute settlement provisions in the CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement), intended to protect investors by allowing foreign corporations to sue governments for actions that hurt their interests.
"It is utterly clear that we reject these investment protection rules," German Economic Affairs Minister Sigmar Gabriel told the German parliament Sept. 25.
It didn't help that, to some German eyes, Barroso went to Canada, dismissed German concerns about the CETA, and simultaneously accepted an expensive ride home from the Canadians.
Barroso told reporters in Ottawa that German complaints would not block the deal. In fact, he said, "The country that is going to benefit the most from this agreement is indeed Germany."
But that's not how it looks from the other side of the Atlantic, said Gregory Thomas, director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
"It's been actually damaging to Canada's position in the negotiations because it's antagonized the Germans," said Thomas.
"Whenever you start throwing money around in the context of trade negotiations, it's never helpful because it undermines public confidence both at home and overseas about the process." |
By John Dodge
CHICAGO (CBS) — Declaring a victory for his health care reform plan, the New Yorker’s latest cover shows President Obama spoon-feeding GOP leaders their medicine.
Obama is dressed in a white doctor’s coat in an exam room, giving Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell some liquid medication, the kind typically reserved for children.
“This whole enterprise was just an elaborate excuse,” Barry Blitt said on the New Yorker website about his cover for this week’s issue. “I enjoyed drawing Ted Cruz, John Boehner, and Michele Bachmann as petulant children—and I especially wanted to draw an open-mouthed Mitch McConnell being spoon-fed his meds.”
The Obama administration declared a milestone victory after about seven million Americans signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. However, the program got off to a horrendous start last fall when the federal Obamacare website crashed and took weeks to fix.
In Illinois, more than 333,000 residents have signed up for health coverage and about a third of those have actually purchased insurance.
Republicans have consistently campaigned against the law, making dozens of attempts to repeal it since it was signed in 2010.
Commentary on Twitter was fast, funny and predictable.
Perhaps the cartoon didn’t go far enough.
@gdebenedetti Such restraint…going with "open wide" instead of "bend over." — xpostfactoid (@xpostfactoid1) April 7, 2014
Bachmann’s press operation quickly spun the story around.
Bachmann Fires Back at New Yorker Cover: They 'Parrot the Administration's Obamacare Talking Points' | Truth Revolt: http://t.co/Rmh2Js35K9 — Truth Revolt (@TruthRevoltOrg) April 7, 2014
“If anybody is an expert in spoon-feeding, it is the liberal media and their disposition to parrot the Administration’s Obamacare talking points and unconfirmed enrollment numbers,” said Dan Kotman, spokesman for Bachmann. “With an ounce of curiosity, they would quickly find that Obamacare is causing premiums to skyrocket and patients to lose their plans and doctors—exactly the opposite of what President Obama promised.”
An unnamed senior GOP congressional aide told TruthRevolt that the cartoon is a “perfect illustration” of the condescending attitude displayed so often by liberals.
“The joke is really on them. The clear goal here was to mock conservatives, but what they’ve given us instead is a perfect illustration of liberal paternalism.” |
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This analysis originally appeared at southfront.org in March, 2017
An Iranian delegation, led by President Hassan Rouhani, arrived in Moscow on Monday for negotiations with their Russian counterparts. Russia and Iran are allies in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and the ongoing negotiations between the Russian and Iranian leadership may be characterized as a peak of their mutual diplomatic activities in the first quarter of 2017.
Earlier this year, the Russian leadership had held consultations and meetings with almost all external and internal players in the Middle East, clarifying their positions towards the situation in Syria. March developments have shown that the many sides have not reached a seamless consensus over the conflict. Furthermore, some positions and opinions became increasingly divergent. Turkey and Israel expanded their support to militant groups and increased their own military involvement in the conflict. This situation forces Moscow and Tehran to adjust their plans for the spring-summer campaign of 2017. Besides this, Russia and Iran have a broad polıtıcal agenda to discuss.
The main reason behind the Russian-Iranian alliance in Syria is a joint concern over security threats from terrorist groups and geopolitical competitors using terrorist groups and western controlled, surrogate regimes for exerting pressure on their perceived opponents.
The current Middle Eastern battleground borders Iran, is located approximately 700 km from the borders of the Russian Federation, and only 450 km from the borders of the former USSR. Syria and Iraq are traditional targets of manipulation by the more powerful and influential players of the globalist international establishment.
Some experts believe that these, once well-known external players, sought to acquire control over the region in several steps, implementing several “controlled chaos” approaches. New types of quasi-state terrorist structures, like ISIS, appeared because of these experiments, which had been enacted in the region, or as a result of a gross dereliction of duty. Regardless, this growing threat of highly organized and ideologically motivated Sunni terrorism led to the creation of the Iranian-Russian military alliance. However, Moscow and Tehran could have different approaches on the operational level. They have different attitudes towards the retention of power by President Bashar al-Assad. Iran stands for maintaining the current status quo while Russia does not rule out a creation of a coalition government representing the interests of different Syrian ethnic and religious groups. Moscow and Tehran have different negotiability in the case of working with other regional players, including Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This situation is determined by a number of ethnic, religious and historical factors. There is a notable difference in the level of pressure that Moscow and Tehran could face from global players. Russia is more vulnerable to various types of pressure than Iran, because of its role in world politics, its ample geographic territory, democratic political system, the multi-ethnic and multi-religious structure of its population, and its involvement in other key conflicts.
Nonetheless, these differences are negotiable and do not influence the general nature of the military and political cooperation between the two powers.
If we want to understand the Iranian and Russian interests in the region, we should attempt a forecast, characterizing the aims and objectives that each side has in 2017.
In diplomatic terms, Russia will likely continue to try to align its policy of solving the Syrian conflict with that of the United States. In particular, Moscow will use opportunities opened through their strategic cooperation with the Kurds. Russia will continue to work with Ankara in order to decrease, if not cease, the flow of arms and munitions from Turkey to the various militant groups in the Syrian province of Idlib. An important issue is the need to separate pro-Turkish militant groups from al-Qaeda-linked organizations. Concerning the Kurdish issue, Russia will contribute to any efforts that create and strengthen confidence and trust between the Damascus government and the Kurdish leadership. The goal is to get a joint vision of the post-war political order in Syria that includes the interests of the Kurds. This must lead to setting up a de-facto alliance between pro-government and Kurdish forces. Russia will also work to expand its role as a mediator in other Middle Eastern conflicts, such as those in Iraq, Palestine and Yemen. This will result in increasing influence on Israel, preventing it from conducting unilateral military actions against Damascus, or at least limiting them.
In military terms, Russia has the following goals for 2017:
decisive defeat of ISIS;
developing its own military infrastructure at the facilities in Tartus and the Khmeimim Air Base;
strengthening of the Syrian Armed Forces;
limiting US expansion in Syria via the expansion of the zone of Syrian government forces’ military operations in the provinces of Raqqah and Deir Ezzor;
limiting Turkish military expansion and continued development of relations with the Kurds.
In turn, Tehran will continue its diplomatic efforts aimed at strengthening of pro-Iranian forces in Syria, including the Assad regime, as a key component of the Shia Crescent. Iran will also focus its efforts on the he stabilization of Iraq, led by the Shia government and defended by the predominantly Shia military forces. Tehran will adopt all possible measures to counteract the actions of the Gulf monarchies, and as a result, those of the United States and Israel, in Yemen, by supporting the Houthis.
Within the framework of the Arab-Israeli confrontation, Iran will further seek to depict itself as the main frontline power working in the interests of the Palestinians. Tehran will contribute military and diplomatic efforts to strengthening the influence of Hezbollah in the region and to assist Hezbollah in gaining international, legal recognition as a legitimate political and military force in the region.
Economic isolation is a major obstacle for Tehran. The Trump administration has intensified cooperation with Israel and sees Iran as a key threat to both the US and Israeli interests in the region. This political reality does not bode well for the chances that sanctions on Iran will be wholly lifted in the near future. Meanwhile, Iranian-EU relations pursue another agenda, and here Tehran could expect an economic breakthrough.
As for Iranian military goals in 2017 in the region, they consist of:
decisive defeat of ISIS;
disintegration of radical Sunni opposition groups in the regions crucial for the survival of the Damascus regime, especially in the Damascus countryside, in the provinces of Homs and Daraa. At the least, Iran will be striving to push these groups to relocate to the province of Idlib;
strengthening of pro-government forces in Syria with special attention to strengthening of Shia and pro-Iranian military formations in the Syrian Armed Forces;
development of Hezbollah’s infrastructure in Syria;
development of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ facilities in Syria.
Thus, we can see that Russia and Iran have joint military goals, and at least there are no irreconcilable differences. As to the political and diplomatic agenda in general, the situation is relatively the same; however, there could be some variance. These differences could appear as a result of different levels of vision of the situation in the region. Iran is a regional player with its own historical agenda, while Russia is a supra-regional player with some links to the region. Economic and energy factors could also play a role. This is why the alliance has to operate in close contact with one another and to respond swiftly to challenges as they materialize. Both sides have to clarify their own vital interests in good faith, to exchange views, and to develop a pragmatic, joint approach in the sphere of regional security.
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We’ve already introduced you to ifttt in a previous post If This Then That: Connect & Automate Any Two Of Your Favorite Web Apps If This Then That: Connect & Automate Any Two Of Your Favorite Web Apps Connect any two of your favorite web apps in creative ways. A sort of "digital duct tape" according to Linden Tibbets, the app's creator, If This Then That (ifttt) lets you find new uses for... Read More and there have been several improvements made and new channels added to the web application since then. Automation and synchronization are two points that have to be stressed if you’re very involved in social web and GTD. ifttt’s ability in allowing the user to automatically associate all interests and priorities to their relevant web-based services is a luxury that will save you a lot of both time and effort.
To save you even more time and effort, I’ve assembled a list of 10 of the best Recipes that are currently available. With more than 5,000 public Recipes to browse through, here are the gems (in no particular order):
If your friends list is anything like mine, you will have noticed a huge response to the recent changes to Facebook How To Enable Facebook's New "Timeline" Profile Right Now Before Anyone Else Gets It How To Enable Facebook's New "Timeline" Profile Right Now Before Anyone Else Gets It Yesterday Facebook announced a host of new features in what was described by industry observers as the biggest shakeup in Facebook's history. Most of these changes are obviously due to the emerging and growing threat... Read More . This Recipe will monitor the official Facebook blog‘s RSS feed and text you whenever there is an update. I made this Recipe and I use it myself, and it worked rather well in immediately informing me of Facebook’s recent iPad release Facebook For iPad Is Finally Here Along With Some Other New Features [News] Facebook For iPad Is Finally Here Along With Some Other New Features [News] Facebook have finally released an update for their Facebook app and it is now officially iPad compatible. Facebook app for iOS has been around for ages, but strangely enough, it was never adjusted for the... Read More .
In the screenshot below, you’ll see (along with weather notifications also from ifttt) the SMS message sent at 4:44 PM EST. The blog post by Facebook was published at 1:31 PM PST, according to their servers. A brief delay like that (three minutes) means you can stay ahead of the curve and be the first to check out cool new Facebook features.
I wasn’t as conscious of Florida’s rainy weather until I activated this. Very simple and straightforward: whenever rainy conditions are forecasted for your ZIP code, you will receive an SMS alert that tells you of the conditions. You can choose between rain, snow, cloudy, and clear alert conditions.
Send Facebook Photos That You Are Tagged In To Dropbox
As Facebook is a little more universal in comparison to Dropbox, this Recipe acts as nothing more than a great method of backup. When you are tagged in someone else’s photo on Facebook, they control the exposure. If it is deleted from their photos, it is deleted from any albums that you’ve placed it in via the tag. This Recipe ensures that any photos attached to your name will be saved and accessible to you through a folder in your Dropbox. Above is a screenshot of that, within Windows Explorer in Windows 7, where you can see that I’ve been tagged in a few app-generated images.
Send Starred Google Reader Entries To Read It Later
This is really great if you read your RSS feeds on the go. You’re able to read just an entry title or sentence, determine if it’s worth further involvement, star it, then keep it moving. There are a lot of RSS reader apps for desktops, tablets, and smartphones that support the Read It Later and Instapaper Manage Your Bookmarks & Reading List with Instapaper Manage Your Bookmarks & Reading List with Instapaper Read More API functionality.
If you’re big on Google and Google Reader especially, you should know that there is a benefit to starring content. Google introduced a “sort by magic” algorithm within Reader that shows you the latest news most relevant to your most targeted interests. Being able to both star and send to Read It Later in a single action is a timesaver just as it is effective.
Receive an Email when New ifttt Channels are Announced
This is a must-have for any ifttt enthusiast. As the web app grows, additional Channels will be added for additional and deeper functionality. Most recently, Boxcar was added. Add this Recipe to your arsenal if you’re truly addicted to the ifttt platform and eager for updates.
Instagram is a great service for any photo junky, but the Facebook community is much more social and involved. This Recipe automates the process of sending your Instagram uploads right to a Facebook album so that your social circle can appreciate all of those photographs you snap.
Twitter is all about the right now, and this is a great way to automate the process of giving your favorite artists recognition on Twitter. Along with the track’s name, a link to the Last.fm song page and image of the album cover will be posted.
Create An Evernote Archive Of Your Tweets
This is another great Recipe if you’re obsessed with backup like I am. Who knows when something horribly wrong is going to happen to your Twitter account? Aside from that, Evernote is a much more orderly storage container for all of your thoughts and happenings. Every tweet you send out on Twitter will be placed within a Note in Evernote.
This Recipe allows you to input any Craigslist URL (including parameters for certain search queries, etc.) that you’d like to watch for updates and Evernote will create an archive of everything new so that you don’t miss a thing. Images will be attached to each Note. Notes are automatically tagged so that things don’t get messy. Looking for a used iPhone on Craigslist? This can definitely help you.
Amazon’s Gold Box deals are the highest discounts you’ll see on a product on Amazon. Every day, a single Gold Box deal is released. You’ll receive one SMS per day by using this Recipe, and it’s worth it. If you’re more of the gamer type and don’t mind receiving up to 15 SMS messages per day, there is also a Recipe available to alert you when Steam games go on sale.
There are hundreds of useful ifttt Recipes that couldn’t make this list, but I’d love to hear your opinions and ideas for others in the comments! |
Nearly two-thirds of Americans give President Donald Trump poor or middling marks for his first 100 days in office, including a plurality who say he's off to a "poor start," according to results from a brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Forty-five percent of respondents in the survey believe Trump is off to a poor start, with an additional 19 percent who say it's been "only a fair start." That's compared with a combined 35 percent who think the president's first three months in office have been either "good" or "great."
Trump's 100th day in office takes place on April 29.
32 PHOTOS Inside President Trump's first 70 days See Gallery Inside President Trump's first 70 days Donald Trump is sworn in as president of the United States on January 20, 2017, outlining his "America first" vision in his inaugural address. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images) (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images) Four million people around the world, including 500,000 in Washington, DC, attend the Women's March on January 21, 2017. (Photo by Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post via Getty Images) (Photo by Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post via Getty Images) Kellyanne Conway coins the term "alternative facts" after the administration made false claims about the number of people who attended Trump's inauguration. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Trump signs an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multilateral trade agreement. (Photo by Ron Sachs/Pool via Bloomberg/Getty Images) Trump orders the government to begin construction of the US-Mexico border wall and pulls federal funds from sanctuary cities. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) Trump signs his first immigration executive order, sparking nationwide protests. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Trump nominates 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. (Photo via REUTERS/Carlos Barria) (Photo via REUTERS/Carlos Barria) Republican donor Betsy DeVos is confirmed as education secretary with a historic tie-breaking vote cast by Mike Pence — one of the most contentious confirmations ever. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Michael Flynn resigns as National Security Adviser amid uproar over his communications with Russian officials. (Photo via REUTERS/Carlos Barria) (Photo via REUTERS/Carlos Barria) Trump announces that "the time for trivial fights is behind us" in a his first address to Congress. (Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via Bloomberg/Getty Images) During his address to Congress, Trump honors Carryn Owens, whose husband, US Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, was killed during a raid in Yemen in January. The US-led attack is estimated to have killed 30 civilians, including 17 women and children, and 14 Al-Qaeda fighters. (Photo via REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque) Canadian PM Justin Trudeau comes to Washington to announce the Canada-US Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu visits White House and Trump says he "can live with either" a one-state or a two-state solution, backing away from historic US support for Palestinian state. (Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images) (Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Trump tweets that the media is "the enemy of the American people," a day after a wide-ranging press briefing during which he lambasted the press for reporting "fake news" about his administration. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) After weeks of mounting pressure, Trump publicly condemns anti-Semitism in response to attacks on Jewish people and institutions across the country. (Photo credit SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo credit SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) The Trump administration cracks down on undocumented immigrants, speeding up deportations. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) Trump announces $54 billion increase in defense spending. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Kellyanne Conway provokes outrage after being photographed sitting casually with her feet on an Oval Office couch. (Photo credit BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo credit BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuses himself from investigations into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia after reports emerge that Sessions did not inform Congress of his meetings with the Russian ambassador during the campaign. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) Trump accuses Obama of secretly wiretapping his phones leading up to the 2016 election. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Trump signs a revised travel ban, scaling back a few of the restrictions, in what Trump calls a "watered down version" of the original executive order. Two federal judges rule against the ban on March 15. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Trump surprises a White House tour and poses with a young visitor in front of a portrait of Hillary Clinton (Photo via REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque) (Photo via REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque) US Attorney Preet Bharara says he was fired by the Trump administration after he refused to resign. Trump, as president-elect, had asked Bharara to stay on. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Trump unveils his federal budget blueprint, proposing cuts to virtually every federal agency besides Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, which would all receive boosts. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits the border of North and South Korea, announcing that the US may take pre-emptive action if the country continues expanding its nuclear weapons capability. In this photo, a North Korean soldier covertly photographs Tillerson from behind. (Photo credit LEE JIN-MAN/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo credit LEE JIN-MAN/AFP/Getty Images) Trump meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss NATO. Trump references reports that Merkel was spied on by Obama in 2013, joking he and Merkel "have something in common, perhaps." (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) FBI Director James Comey confirms an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Trump's campaign's ties to Russian officials. Comey also tells Congress that he has no evidence to support Trump's claims that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) Trump meets with truckers and CEOs at the White House and sits in the front seat of a Mack Truck. (Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) (Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) In a major setback for Trump, House Republicans pull legislation that would have repealed and replaced Obamacare before it can go to a vote. (Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) (Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Trump signs an executive order rolling back key Obama-era climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan. (Photo via REUTERS/Carlos Barria) (Photo via REUTERS/Carlos Barria) Ivanka Trump announces that she will be an official White House employee, taking on an unpaid position as an adviser to her father, after facing criticism from ethics experts for her previously unofficial role. (Photo by Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images) (Photo by Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images) Rep. Devin Nunes announces that he has information that Trump and his associates may have been "incidentally" surveilled by American intelligence agencies, information The New York Times reported was given to him by two White House officials. Nunes says he will continue to chair the committee investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, amid Democrats' protests. (Photo credit NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo credit NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images) Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE
By contrast, in the exact same question from April 2009 NBC/WSJ poll, 54 percent of Americans said that Barack Obama's first 100 days had gotten off to either a good or great start, while 25 percent said they were fair, and 21 percent called them poor.
Trump's overall job-approval rating stands at 40 percent - down four points from February. It's the lowest job-approval rating for a new president at this 100-day stage in the history of the NBC/WSJ poll.
At this same point in time of their presidencies, Obama's overall rating stood at 61 percent in the poll, George W. Bush's was at 56 percent and Bill Clinton's was at 52 percent.
By party, 82 percent of Republicans approve of Trump's job, versus just 7 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents who give the president a thumbs-up.
Forty percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of foreign policy, while 44 percent approve of his economic handling.
Asked if Trump's first 100 days have been more effective or less effective than his predecessors' starts, 44 percent said Trump's beginning has been less effective, and 32 percent said it had been more effective; 22 percent said it's been about as effective.
And 46 percent say that Trump's leadership and plans for the country make them feel more helpful, versus 52 percent who say they make them feel more doubtful.
25 PHOTOS Melania Trump at the Easter Egg Roll See Gallery Melania Trump at the Easter Egg Roll U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron descend a staircase during the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: U.S. first lady Melania Trump prepares to read 'Party Animals' by Kathy Lee Gifford during the 139th Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. The White House said 21,000 people are expected to attend the annual tradition of rolling colored eggs down the White House lawn that was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump walks to the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) U.S. first lady Melania Trump reads the children's book "Party Animals" at the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: First Lady Melania Trump walks toward the Oval Office after reading to children during the 139th White House Easter Egg Roll at The White House on April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/WireImage,) U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. first lady Melania Trump and the their son Barron listen as a military band plays during the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. first lady Melania Trump are pictured at the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY U.S. first lady Melania Trump smiles after reading the children's book "Party Animals" at the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: First Lady Melania Trump walks toward the Oval Office during the 139th White House Easter Egg Roll at The White House on April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/WireImage)) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: U.S. First Lady Melania Trump delivers remarks from the Truman Balcony to guests on the South Lawn during the 139th White House Easter Egg Roll at The White House on April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/WireImage,) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: First Lady Melania Trump walks toward the Oval Office after reading to children during the 139th White House Easter Egg Roll at The White House on April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/WireImage,) Barron Trump (L), US First Lady Melania Trump and US President Donald Trump listen to the US national anthem during the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) US President Donald Trumpa and US First Lady Melania Trump watch as children race during the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump reads a book during the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump reads a book during the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: U.S. first lady Melania Trump reads to children from the book �arty Animals�during the 139th Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. The White House said 21,000 people were expected to attend the annual tradition of rolling colored eggs down the White House lawn that was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: U.S. first lady Melania Trump waves before reading to children from the book �arty Animals�during the 139th Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. The White House said 21,000 people were expected to attend the annual tradition of rolling colored eggs down the White House lawn that was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: U.S. first lady Melania Trump reads 'Party Animals' by Kathy Lee Gifford during the 139th Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. The White House said 21,000 people are expected to attend the annual tradition of rolling colored eggs down the White House lawn that was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: U.S. first lady Melania Trump prepares to read 'Party Animals' by Kathy Lee Gifford during the 139th Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. The White House said 21,000 people are expected to attend the annual tradition of rolling colored eggs down the White House lawn that was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) First Lady Melania Trump attends the 139th White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, April 17, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: U.S. first lady Melania Trump reads 'Party Animals' by Kathy Lee Gifford during the 139th Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. The White House said 21,000 people are expected to attend the annual tradition of rolling colored eggs down the White House lawn that was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump walks off Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, April 16, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump walks off Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, MD, April 16, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) U.S. First Lady Melania Trump arrives at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, U.S., after Easter weekend in Palm Beach, Florida, April 16, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas U.S. President Donald Trump with First Lady Melania Trump and their son Barron (L) arrive at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, U.S., after Easter weekend in Palm Beach, Florida, April 16, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE
That's a significant departure from April 2009, when 64 percent of Americans said that Obama's leadership and plans had made them feel more hopeful, while 30 percent were more doubtful.
The new NBC/WSJ poll also shows an erosion in some of Trump's top perceived qualities, with 50 percent of respondents giving Trump high marks for being firm and decisive in his decision-making - down from the 57 percent who gave him high marks here in February.
Another 39 percent of Americans give him high marks for changing business as usual in Washington - down from 45 percent two months ago.
Thirty-nine percent give him high marks for being effective and getting things done - down from 46 percent who said this back in February.
And only 25 percent give him high marks for being honest and trustworthy - down from 34 percent.
Meanwhile, his standing is mostly unchanged when it comes to his perceived weaknesses: Just 27 percent give him high marks for being knowledgeable and experienced enough to handle the presidency, and only 21 percent give him high marks for having the right temperament.
Sixty-Two percent support Trump's military action in Syria
The best news for President Trump in the poll is on the issue of Syria.
Sixty-two percent of Americans say they support the Trump administration's recent military action in response to the Syrian government's chemical-weapon attack against its own people.
By party, 88 percent of Republicans, 43 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of independents back that recent military action.
And 50 percent of all Americans say they approve of Trump's handling of Syria - 10 points higher than his overall approval rating.
The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted April 17-20 of 900 adults, including more than 400 who were interviewed by cell phone. The poll's overall margin of error is plus-minus 3.3 percentage points.
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By Hector Tobar Los Angeles Times
For some people, Wikipedia is the answer to everything. The always-growing, crowd-sourced encyclopedia is a source of knowledge and trivia used by undergraduates, assorted professional writers and people trying to settle dinner-table arguments about television shows and vaguely remembered news events.
Now a German-based publisher, PediaPress, wants to take that virtual encyclopedia and put all of its articles into print — in one massive, 1,000-volume set of hardcover books of 1,200 pages each.
“We all know that Wikipedia is huge. The English version alone consists of more than 4 million articles,” the organizers of the project say in a pitch for support on the Indiegogo crowd-funding site. “But can you imagine how large Wikipedia really is? We think that the best way to experience the size of Wikipedia is by transforming it into the physical medium of books.”
The single, complete collection would then be exhibited, first at the Wikimania conference in London in August.
PediaPress has created thousands of books from Wikipedia content and is the official print-on-demand partner of the Wikimedia Foundation. Its printed copy of all of Wikipedia would fill a bookcase that’s 32 feet long and 8 feet high.
But not everyone thinks it’s a good idea.
Lee Matthew, a blogger for geek.com, told NPR the project is both unnecessary and a waste of paper. “I understand from an artistic standpoint what they are trying to show,” Matthew said. “I think, though, that the beauty of what Wikipedia is gets lost when you try and print it. … Trying to put something like Wikipedia that is constantly evolving into a print form doesn’t work for me.”
To complete the project, PediaPress is trying to raise $50,000 on Indiegogo. In seven weeks, it has raised a quarter of that, about $12,500.
Wikipedia is at once all-encompassing and notoriously unreliable. This writer once spotted an entry that had him born in the wrong country, and professors and college counselors routinely tell their students not to rely on Wikipedia entries in their course work. Clearly, a $50,000 budget can’t cover fact-checking 4 million articles.
But backers of the project argue such concerns miss the point. Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is the work of 20 million volunteer contributors. And the organizers think of their project as a “period piece,” an artifact that’s meant to commemorate an especially fertile moment in the history of ideas.
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Taylor Ellis was one of seven students asked to write a bio to appear in the Sheridan High School yearbook.
The problem is, at least to the school principal and district superintendent, is that in his profile, Ellis talks about being gay.
The school’s refusal to publish the profile has led to a standoff that resulted in the largest LGBTI rights organization in the US delivering a petition with more than 35,000 to the headquarters of Sheridan School District on Wednesday (19 March).
The petitions were delivered a day after HRC President Chad Griffin appeared with Ellis at a press conference.
The petition calls the actions of Sheridan Superintendent Brenda Haynes and Principal Rodney Williams an ‘act of discriminatory censorship’ that ‘sends a dangerous message to all LGBT students in Sheridan, across Arkansas, and the nation – that they are second-class citizens and their lives are not equally valid.’
It points out that the school officials are ignoring the wishes of fellow students who want Ellis recognized in the yearbook for who he is.
Haynes, who lumped the request into the category of ‘demands by any special interest group,’ explained in a statement this week: ‘We must make decisions that lead in the proper direction for all of our students and for our community.’
None of the seven profiles will appear in the yearbook as a result of Haynes’ decision.
She added: ‘We have reviewed state law, court cases, and our own policies. It is clear that the adults who have the responsibility for the operation of the district have the obligation to make decisions which are consistent with the mission of our school. We have done so.’ |
Haumea: Technique and Rationale
Yesterday’s look at a fast orbiter mission to Haumea raises useful questions. The mission, developed conceptually by Thales Alenia Space and presented at Aosta by Joel Poncy, is particularly demanding because this outer system object has no atmosphere. You can make the case for a Neptune orbiter with associated study of Triton, as several readers have already done, but if you want to orbit Haumea, no aerobraking is possible to ease orbital insertion.
The Haumea mission, in other words, deliberately pushes the state of the art in both propulsion and power generation. Poncy noted in his talk at the Hotel Europe that his team had adapted an in-house software model to optimize the propulsion possibilities. The team considered only electric or magneto-plasma technologies (for the latter, think VASIMR — Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket). They assume a direct trajectory to Haumea with arrival around 2035, when the object is at 49 AU, and they weigh the benefits of a gravity assist by Jupiter to help shorten the journey.
Image: The orbits of Hi`iaka (outer satellite) and Namaka (inner satellite). Namaka’s orbit is nearly edge on as viewed from Earth. Every nine days Namaka passes directly in front of or behind Haumea as seen from Earth. Credit: University of Hawaii/D. Ragozzine.
Taking the hardware to its limits, Poncy and colleagues come up with what looks to be a feasible mission concept, one with a specific impulse of 10000 seconds, a launch mass of 3000 kilograms and a flight time of about 21 years. Says Poncy:
This set of parameters corresponds to what should be achievable in a near future, provided that VASIMR and beta-voltaic technologies are implemented into respectively propulsion and power units by adapting their design and operating point to this class of spacecraft.
A lot is in play here. For one thing, VASIMR is more promise than reality at these levels — will it perform as advertised? For another, Poncy himself notes the problem with generating the power needed to fly this mission. Here’s his thought on that:
…the current technologies would fall short of the needs. The beta-voltaic technology looks promising, as values up to 24W/kg might be within reach in the coming years providing that the packaging design and the battery assembly are adapted to the production of several kW… If we want to go beneath 20 years [flight time], then the industry and the agencies will have either to undertake even more ambitious developments for the power generation, so as to reach about 50W/kg in terms of power density, or find new disruptive technologies.
Yesterday I talked about the scientific value of a Haumea mission, but the second motivation for going to this distant object is to use the mission as a technology driver. Poncy was exactly right when he told the audience at Aosta that if we’re going to get serious about Solar System colonization and, ultimately, interstellar travel, we need to develop the near-term technology to reach and orbit objects in the outer system with less than ten to twenty years of cruise. And don’t forget, these trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are rich in volatiles and organics, interesting places for future robotic or even human outposts.
Image: Haumea and its moons. Credit: NASA GSFC.
Moreover, we’re intent on exploring the moons of the gas giants, which is going to demand developing next generations orbiters, landers and deep-drilling capabilities. A fast journey to an object like Haumea thus becomes a way to extend our science to planetary objects within 100 AU that can at the same time increase our capabilities for reaching Jupiter or Saturn space with the kind of heavy payloads we want to see in operation there. Poncy sees Haumea as a targeting goal for developing the next tools we need as we expand our studies of closer worlds like Europa and Titan.
The paper is Poncy et al., “A Preliminary Assessment of an Orbiter in the Haumean System: How Quickly Can a Planetary Orbiter Reach Such a Distant Target?” It’s in Proceedings of the Sixth IAA Symposium on Realistic Near-Term Advanced Scientific Space Missions, and should therefore pop up in the near future in Acta Astronautica. |
Narcan
Generic Name: naloxone hydrochloride
Dosage Form: nasal spray
Medically reviewed on Jul 1, 2018
Indications and Usage for Narcan
Narcan Nasal Spray is indicated for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose, as manifested by respiratory and/or central nervous system depression.
Narcan Nasal Spray is intended for immediate administration as emergency therapy in settings where opioids may be present.
Narcan Nasal Spray is not a substitute for emergency medical care.
Limitations of Use:
Restrict prescription of Narcan Nasal Spray 2 mg to opioid-dependent patients expected to be at risk for severe opioid withdrawal in situations where there is a low risk for accidental or intentional opioid exposure by household contacts.
Narcan Dosage and Administration
Important Administration Instructions
Narcan Nasal Spray is for intranasal use only.
No additional device assembly is required.
Because treatment of suspected opioid overdose must be performed by someone other than the patient, instruct the prescription recipient to inform those around them about the presence of Narcan Nasal Spray and the Instructions for Use.
Instruct the patient or caregiver to read the Instructions for Use at the time they receive a prescription for Narcan Nasal Spray. Emphasize the following instructions to the patient or caregiver:
Administer Narcan Nasal Spray as quickly as possible because prolonged respiratory depression may result in damage to the central nervous system or death. Since the duration of action of most opioids exceeds that of naloxone hydrochloride and the suspected opioid overdose may occur outside of supervised medical settings, seek immediate emergency medical assistance, keep the patient under continued surveillance until emergency personnel arrive, and administer repeated doses of Narcan Nasal Spray, as necessary. Always seek emergency medical assistance in the event of a suspected, potentially life-threatening opioid emergency after administration of the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray.
Additional doses of Narcan Nasal Spray may be required until emergency medical assistance becomes available.
Do not attempt to reuse Narcan Nasal Spray. Each Narcan Nasal Spray contains a single dose of naloxone and cannot be reused.
Re-administer Narcan Nasal Spray, using a new nasal spray, every 2 to 3 minutes if the patient does not respond or responds and then relapses into respiratory depression.
Administer Narcan Nasal Spray in alternate nostrils with each dose.
Administer Narcan Nasal Spray according to the printed instructions on the device label and the Instructions for Use.
Place the patient in the supine position. Prior to administration, be sure the device nozzle is inserted in either nostril of the patient, and provide support to the back of the neck to allow the head to tilt back. Do not prime or test the device prior to administration.
To administer the dose press firmly on the device plunger.
Remove the device nozzle from the nostril after use.
Turn patient on their side as shown in the InstructionsforUse and call for emergency medical assistance immediately after administration of the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray.
Dosing in Adults and Pediatric Patients
Initial Dosing
The recommended initial dose of Narcan Nasal Spray in adults and pediatric patients is one spray delivered by intranasal administration into one nostril.
Repeat Dosing
Seek emergency medical assistance as soon as possible after administering the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray.
The requirement for repeat doses of Narcan Nasal Spray depends upon the amount, type, and route of administration of the opioid being antagonized.
Administer Narcan Nasal Spray in alternate nostrils with each dose.
If the patient responds to Narcan Nasal Spray and relapses back into respiratory depression before emergency assistance arrives, administer an additional dose of Narcan Nasal Spray using a new Narcan Nasal Spray and continue surveillance of the patient.
If the desired response is not obtained after 2 or 3 minutes, administer an additional dose of Narcan Nasal Spray using a new Narcan Nasal Spray. If there is still no response and additional doses are available, administer additional doses of Narcan Nasal Spray every 2 to 3 minutes using a new Narcan Nasal Spray with each dose until emergency medical assistance arrives.
Additional supportive and/or resuscitative measures may be helpful while awaiting emergency medical assistance.
Dosing Modifications due to Partial Agonists or Mixed Agonist/Antagonists
Reversal of respiratory depression by partial agonists or mixed agonist/antagonists, such as buprenorphine and pentazocine, may be incomplete and require higher doses of naloxone hydrochloride or repeated administration of Narcan Nasal Spray using a new nasal spray [see Warnings and Precautions (5.2)]
Dosage Forms and Strengths
Narcan Nasal Spray is supplied as a single-dose intranasal spray containing 2 mg or 4 mg of naloxone hydrochloride in 0.1 mL.
Contraindications
Narcan Nasal Spray is contraindicated in patients known to be hypersensitive to naloxone hydrochloride or to any of the other ingredients.
Warnings and Precautions
Risk of Recurrent Respiratory and Central Nervous System Depression
The duration of action of most opioids may exceed that of Narcan Nasal Spray resulting in a return of respiratory and/or central nervous system depression after an initial improvement in symptoms. Therefore, it is necessary to seek emergency medical assistance immediately after administration of the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray and to keep the patient under continued surveillance. Administer additional doses of Narcan Nasal Spray if the patient is not adequately responding or responds and then relapses back into respiratory depression, as necessary [see Dosage and Administration (2.2)]. Additional supportive and/or resuscitative measures may be helpful while awaiting emergency medical assistance.
Risk of Limited Efficacy with Partial Agonists or Mixed Agonist/Antagonists
Reversal of respiratory depression by partial agonists or mixed agonist/antagonists such as buprenorphine and pentazocine, may be incomplete. Larger or repeat doses of naloxone hydrochloride may be required to antagonize buprenorphine because the latter has a long duration of action due to its slow rate of binding and subsequent slow dissociation from the opioid receptor [see Dosage and Administration (2.3)]. Buprenorphine antagonism is characterized by a gradual onset of the reversal effects and a decreased duration of action of the normally prolonged respiratory depression.
Precipitation of Severe Opioid Withdrawal
The use of Narcan Nasal Spray in patients who are opioid-dependent may precipitate opioid withdrawal characterized by the following signs and symptoms: body aches, diarrhea, tachycardia, fever, runny nose, sneezing, piloerection, sweating, yawning, nausea or vomiting, nervousness, restlessness or irritability, shivering or trembling, abdominal cramps, weakness, and increased blood pressure. In neonates, opioid withdrawal may be life-threatening if not recognized and properly treated and may include the following signs and symptoms: convulsions, excessive crying, and hyperactive reflexes. Monitor the patient for the development of the signs and symptoms of opioid withdrawal.
There are limited data to inform if the 2 mg dose of Narcan Nasal Spray will avoid precipitation of severe opioid withdrawal in the setting of opioid dependence. However, the 2 mg dose may not provide an adequate and timely reversal in persons who may be exposed to an overdose of a potent or very high dose of opioids.
Abrupt postoperative reversal of opioid depression after using naloxone hydrochloride may result in nausea, vomiting, sweating, tremulousness, tachycardia, hypotension, hypertension, seizures, ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation, pulmonary edema, and cardiac arrest. Death, coma, and encephalopathy have been reported as sequelae of these events. These events have primarily occurred in patients who had pre-existing cardiovascular disorders or received other drugs that may have similar adverse cardiovascular effects. Although a direct cause and effect relationship has not been established, after use of naloxone hydrochloride, monitor patients with pre-existing cardiac disease or patients who have received medications with potential adverse cardiovascular effects for hypotension, ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation, and pulmonary edema in an appropriate healthcare setting. It has been suggested that the pathogenesis of pulmonary edema associated with the use of naloxone hydrochloride is similar to neurogenic pulmonary edema, i.e., a centrally mediated massive catecholamine response leading to a dramatic shift of blood volume into the pulmonary vascular bed resulting in increased hydrostatic pressures.
There may be clinical settings, particularly the postpartum period in neonates with known or suspected exposure to maternal opioid use, where it is preferable to avoid the abrupt precipitation of opioid withdrawal symptoms. In these settings, consider use of an alternative, naloxone-containing product that can be titrated to effect and, where applicable, dosed according to weight. [see Use in Specific Populations (8.4)].
Adverse Reactions
The following serious adverse reactions are discussed elsewhere in the labeling:
Precipitation of Severe Opioid Withdrawal [see Warnings and Precautions (5.3)]
Because clinical studies are conducted under widely varying conditions, adverse reaction rates observed in the clinical studies of a drug cannot be directly compared to the rates in the clinical studies of another drug and may not reflect the rates observed in practice.
The following adverse reactions were observed in a Narcan Nasal Spray clinical study.
In a pharmacokinetic study of 30 healthy adult volunteers exposed to one spray of Narcan Nasal Spray in one nostril or two sprays of Narcan Nasal Spray, one in each nostril, the most common adverse reactions were: increased blood pressure, constipation, toothache, muscle spasms, musculoskeletal pain, headache, nasal dryness, nasal edema, nasal congestion, nasal inflammation, rhinalgia, and xeroderma.
The following adverse reactions have been identified primarily during post-approval use of naloxone hydrochloride in the post-operative setting. Because these reactions are reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequency or establish a causal relationship to drug exposure: Hypotension, hypertension, ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation, dyspnea, pulmonary edema, and cardiac arrest. Death, coma, and encephalopathy have been reported as sequelae of these events. Excessive doses of naloxone hydrochloride in post-operative patients have resulted in significant reversal of analgesia, and have caused agitation.
Abrupt reversal of opioid effects in persons who were physically dependent on opioids has precipitated an acute withdrawal syndrome. Signs and symptoms have included: body aches, fever, sweating, runny nose, sneezing, piloerection, yawning, weakness, shivering or trembling, nervousness, restlessness or irritability, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting, abdominal cramps, increased blood pressure, tachycardia. In some patients, there may be aggressive behavior upon abrupt reversal of an opioid overdose. In the neonate, opioid withdrawal signs and symptoms also included convulsions, excessive crying, and hyperactive reflexes.
USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS
Pregnancy
Risk Summary
The limited available data on naloxone use in pregnant women are not sufficient to inform a drug-associated risk. However, there are clinical considerations [see Clinical Considerations]. In animal reproduction studies, no embryotoxic or teratogenic effects were observed in mice and rats treated with naloxone hydrochloride during the period of organogenesis at doses equivalent to 6-times and 12-times, respectively, a human dose of 8 mg/day (two Narcan Nasal Sprays) based on body surface area comparison [see Data].
The estimated background risk of major birth defects and miscarriage for the indicated population is unknown. In the U.S. general population, the estimated background risk of major birth defects and miscarriage in clinically recognized pregnancies is 2% to 4% and 15% to 20%, respectively.
Clinical Considerations
Fetal/Neonatal adverse reactions
Naloxone hydrochloride crosses the placenta, and may precipitate withdrawal in the fetus, as well as in the opioid-dependent mother [see Warnings and Precautions (5.3)]. The fetus should be evaluated for signs of distress after Narcan Nasal Spray is used. Careful monitoring is needed until the fetus and mother are stabilized.
Data
Animal Data
Naloxone hydrochloride was administered during organogenesis to mice and rats at subcutaneous doses up to 10 mg/kg/day (equivalent to 6-times and 12-times, respectively, a human dose of 8 mg (two Narcan Nasal Sprays)) (based on body surface area comparison). These studies demonstrated no embryotoxic or teratogenic effects due to naloxone hydrochloride.
Pregnant female rats were administered 2 or 10 mg/kg naloxone subcutaneously from Gestation Day 15 to Postnatal day 21. There were no adverse effects on the offspring (up to 12-times a human dose of 8 mg/day (two Narcan Nasal Sprays) based on body surface area comparison).
Lactation
Risk Summary
There is no information regarding the presence of naloxone in human milk, or the effects of naloxone on the breastfed infant or on milk production. Studies in nursing mothers have shown that naloxone does not affect prolactin or oxytocin hormone levels. Naloxone is minimally orally bioavailable.
Pediatric Use
The safety and effectiveness of Narcan Nasal Spray have been established in pediatric patients of all ages for known or suspected opioid overdose as manifested by respiratory and/or central nervous system depression. Use of naloxone hydrochloride in all pediatric patients is supported by adult bioequivalence studies coupled with evidence from the safe and effective use of other naloxone hydrochloride drug products. No pediatric studies were conducted for Narcan Nasal Spray.
Absorption of naloxone hydrochloride following intranasal administration in pediatric patients may be erratic or delayed. Even when the opiate-intoxicated pediatric patient responds appropriately to naloxone hydrochloride, he/she must be carefully monitored for at least 24 hours, as a relapse may occur as naloxone hydrochloride is metabolized.
In opioid-dependent pediatric patients, (including neonates), administration of naloxone hydrochloride may result in an abrupt and complete reversal of opioid effects, precipitating an acute opioid withdrawal syndrome. Neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome, unlike opioid withdrawal syndrome in adults, may be life-threatening, if not recognized, and should be treated according to protocols developed by neonatology experts [see Warnings and Precautions (5.3)].
In settings such as in neonates with known or suspected exposure to maternal opioid use, where it may be preferable to avoid the abrupt precipitation of opioid withdrawal symptoms, consider use of an alternate naloxone-containing product that can be dosed according to weight and titrated to effect.
Also, in situations where the primary concern is for infants at risk for opioid overdose, consider whether the availability of alternate naloxone-containing products may be better suited than Narcan Nasal Spray.
Geriatric Use
Geriatric patients have a greater frequency of decreased hepatic, renal, or cardiac function and of concomitant disease or other drug therapy. Therefore, the systemic exposure of naloxone hydrochloride can be higher in these patients.
Clinical studies of naloxone hydrochloride did not include sufficient numbers of subjects aged 65 and over to determine whether they respond differently from younger subjects. Other reported clinical experience has not identified differences in responses between the elderly and younger patients.
Narcan Description
Narcan (naloxone hydrochloride) Nasal Spray is a pre-filled, single dose intranasal spray. Chemically, naloxone hydrochloride is the hydrochloride salt of 17-Allyl-4,5α-epoxy-3,14-dihydroxymorphinan-6-one hydrochloride with the following structure:
C19H21NO4• HCl
M.W. 363.84
Naloxone hydrochloride, an opioid antagonist, occurs as a white to slightly off-white powder, and is soluble in water, in dilute acids, and in strong alkali; slightly soluble in alcohol; practically insoluble in ether and in chloroform.
Each Narcan Nasal Spray contains a 2 mg or 4 mg single dose of naloxone hydrochloride in a 0.1 mL (100 microliter) aqueous solution.
Inactive ingredients include benzalkonium chloride (preservative), disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate (stabilizer), sodium chloride, hydrochloric acid to adjust pH, and purified water. The pH range is 3.5 to 5.5.
Narcan - Clinical Pharmacology
Mechanism of Action
Naloxone hydrochloride is an opioid antagonist that antagonizes opioid effects by competing for the same receptor sites.
Naloxone hydrochloride reverses the effects of opioids, including respiratory depression, sedation, and hypotension. It can also reverse the psychotomimetic and dysphoric effects of agonist-antagonists such as pentazocine.
Pharmacodynamics
When naloxone hydrochloride is administered intravenously, the onset of action is generally apparent within two minutes. The time to onset of action is shorter for intravenous compared to subcutaneous or intramuscular routes of administration. The duration of action is dependent upon the dose and route of administration of naloxone hydrochloride.
Pharmacokinetics
In a pharmacokinetic study in 30 healthy adult subjects, the relative bioavailability (BA) of one nasal spray in one nostril, consisting of a 2 mg total dose (0.1 mL of 20 mg/mL naloxone hydrochloride solution) and a 4 mg total dose (0.1 mL of 40 mg/mL naloxone hydrochloride solution), and two nasal sprays administered as one nasal spray in each nostril, consisting of a 4 mg total dose (0.1 mL of 20 mg/mL naloxone hydrochloride solution in each nostril) and an 8 mg total dose (0.1 mL of 40 mg/mL naloxone hydrochloride solution in each nostril), were compared to a single dose of 0.4 mg naloxone hydrochloride intramuscular injection. For intranasal administration, the subjects were instructed not to breathe through the nose during administration of the nasal spray, and remained fully supine for approximately one hour post-dose. For intramuscular administration, naloxone was administered as a single injection in the gluteus maximus muscle. The pharmacokinetic parameters obtained in the study are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Mean Pharmacokinetic Parameters (CV%) for Naloxone Following Narcan (Naloxone HCl) Nasal Spray and Intramuscular Injection of Naloxone HCl to Healthy Subjects
Parameter 2 mg– One Nasal Spray in one nostril 20 mg/ml (N=29) 4 mg – Two Nasal Sprays, one in each nostril 20 mg/ml (N=29) 4 mg – One Nasal Spray in one nostril 40 mg/ml (N=29) 8 mg –Two Nasal Sprays, one in each nostril 40 mg/ml (N=29) 0.4 mg Intramuscular Injection (N=29) tmax (h)† 0.33 (0.25, 1.00) 0.33 (0.17, 0.57) 0.50 (0.17, 1.00) 0.33 (0.17, 1.00) 0.38 (0.08, 2.05) Cmax (ng/mL) 2.91 (35) 6.30 (34) 4.83 (43) 9.70 (36) 0.88 (31) AUCt (hr.ng/mL) 4.60 (27) 9.64 (24) 7.87 (37) 15.3 (23) 1.75 (23) AUC0-inf (h*ng/mL) 4.66 (27) 9.74 (24) 7.95 (37) 15.5 (23) 1.79 (23) t½ (h) 1.85 (33) 2.19 (33) 2.08 (30) 2.10 (32) 1.24 (26) Dose normalized Relative BA (%) vs. IM 51.7 (22) 54.0 (23) 44.2 (31)†† 43.1 (24) 100
† tmax reported as median (minimum, maximum)
†† N=28 for Relative BA.
Figure 1 Mean ± SD Plasma Concentration of Naloxone, (a) 0-6 h and (b) 0-1h Following Intranasal Administration and Intramuscular Injection
(a) (b)
The median naloxone tmax after intranasal administration of Narcan Nasal Spray (one nasal spray in one nostril (2 mg or 4 mg) or two nasal sprays as one spray in each nostril (4 mg or 8 mg) was not significantly different compared to the 0.4 mg dose of naloxone hydrochloride intramuscular injection (Table 1).
The dose normalized relative bioavailability of one dose (2 mg or 4 mg) or two doses (4 mg or 8 mg) of Narcan Nasal Spray as compared to the 0.4 mg dose of naloxone hydrochloride administered by intramuscular injection was 52%, 44%, 54%, and 43%, respectively.
Distribution
Following parenteral administration, naloxone is distributed in the body and readily crosses the placenta. Plasma protein binding occurs but is relatively weak. Plasma albumin is the major binding constituent, but significant binding of naloxone also occurs to plasma constituents other than albumin. It is not known whether naloxone is excreted into human milk.
Elimination
Following a single intranasal administration of Narcan Nasal Spray (2 mg or 4 mg dose of naloxone hydrochloride), the mean plasma half-life of naloxone in healthy adults was approximately 1.85 (33% CV) hours and 2.08 (30% CV) hours; respectively, which was longer than that observed after administrations of a 0.4 mg naloxone hydrochloride intramuscular injection, where the half-life was 1.24 hours (26% CV). In a neonatal study of naloxone hydrochloride injection, the mean (± SD) plasma half-life was observed to be 3.1 (± 0.5) hours.
Metabolism
Naloxone hydrochloride is metabolized in the liver, primarily by glucuronide conjugation, with naloxone-3-glucoronide as the major metabolite.
Excretion
After an oral or intravenous dose, about 25-40% of naloxone is excreted as metabolites in urine within 6 hours, about 50% in 24 hours, and 60-70% in 72 hours.
Nonclinical Toxicology
Carcinogenesis, Mutagenesis, Impairment of Fertility
Carcinogenesis
Long-term animal studies to evaluate the carcinogenic potential of naloxone have not been completed.
Mutagenesis
Naloxone was weakly positive in the Ames mutagenicity and in the in vitro human lymphocyte chromosome aberration test but was negative in the in vitro Chinese hamster V79 cell HGPRT mutagenicity assay and in the in vivo rat bone marrow chromosome aberration study.
Impairment of Fertility
Male rats were treated with 2 or 10 mg/kg naloxone for 60 days prior to mating. Female rats treated for 14-days prior to mating and throughout gestation with the same doses of naloxone (up to 12-times a human dose of 8 mg/day (two Narcan Nasal Sprays) based on body surface area comparison). There was no adverse effect on fertility.
How Supplied/Storage and Handling
How Supplied
Narcan Nasal Spray 2 mg is supplied as a carton containing four (4) blister packages (NDC 69547-212-04) each with a single spray device and as a carton containing twenty-four (24) blister packages (NDC 69547-212-24) each with a single spray device.
Narcan Nasal Spray 4 mg is supplied as carton containing two (2) blister packages (NDC 69547-353-02) each with a single spray device.
Narcan Nasal Spray is not made with natural rubber latex.
Storage and Handling
Store Narcan Nasal Spray in the blister and cartons provided.
Store at room temperature 59°F to 77°F (15°C to 25°C). Excursions permitted up to 104°F (40°C). Do not freeze. Protect from light.
Patient Counseling Information
Advise the patient and family members or caregivers to read the FDA-approved patient labeling (Patient Information and Instructions for Use).
Recognition of Opioid Overdose
Inform patients and their family members or caregivers about how to recognize the signs and symptoms of an opioid overdose such as the following:
Extreme somnolence - inability to awaken a patient verbally or upon a firm sternal rub.
Respiratory depression - this can range from slow or shallow respiration to no respiration in a patient who is unarousable.
Other signs and symptoms that may accompany somnolence and respiratory depression include the following: Miosis. Bradycardia and/or hypotension.
Risk of Recurrent Respiratory and Central Nervous System Depression
Instruct patients and their family members or caregivers that, since the duration of action of most opioids may exceed that of Narcan Nasal Spray, they must seek immediate emergency medical assistance after the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray and keep the patient under continued surveillance [see Dosage and Administration (2.2), Warnings and Precautions (5.3)].
Limited Efficacy for/with Partial Agonists or Mixed Agonist/Antagonists
Instruct patients and their family members or caregivers that the reversal of respiratory depression caused by partial agonists or mixed agonist/antagonists, such as buprenorphine and pentazocine, may be incomplete and may require higher doses of naloxone hydrochloride or repeated administration of Narcan Nasal Spray, using a new nasal spray each time [see Dosage and Administration (2.3), Warnings and Precautions (5.2)].
Precipitation of Severe Opioid Withdrawal
Instruct patients and their family members or caregivers that the use of Narcan Nasal Spray in patients who are opioid dependent may precipitate opioid withdrawal [see Warnings and Precautions (5.3), Adverse Reactions (6)].
Administration Instructions
Instruct patients and their family members or caregivers to:
Ensure Narcan Nasal Spray is present whenever persons may be intentionally or accidentally exposed to an opioid overdose (i.e., opioid emergencies).
Administer Narcan Nasal Spray as quickly as possible if a patient is unresponsive and an opioid overdose is suspected, even when in doubt, because prolonged respiratory depression may result in damage to the central nervous system or death. Narcan Nasal Spray is not a substitute for emergency medical care [see Dosage and Administration ( 2.1 )] .
Lay the patient on their back and administer Narcan Nasal Spray into one nostril while providing support to the back of the neck to allow the head to tilt back [see Dosage and Administration ( 2.1 )] .
. Use each nasal spray only one time [see Dosage and Administration ( 2.1 )] .
. Turn patient on their side as shown in the Instructions for Use and call for emergency medical assistance immediately after administration of the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray. Additional supportive and/or resuscitative measures may be helpful while awaiting emergency medical assistance [see Dosage and Administration ( 2.1 )].
and call for emergency medical assistance immediately after administration of the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray. Additional supportive and/or resuscitative measures may be helpful while awaiting emergency medical assistance Monitor patients and re-administer Narcan Nasal Spray using a new Narcan Nasal Spray every 2 to 3 minutes, if the patient is not responding or responds and then relapses back into respiratory depression. Administer Narcan Nasal Spray in alternate nostrils with each dose [see Dosage and Administration ( 2.1 )] .
. Replace Narcan Nasal Spray before its expiration date.
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Narcan® is a registered trademark licensed by Adapt Pharma Operations Limited.
Distributed by Adapt Pharma, Inc., Radnor, PA 19087 USA.
PATIENT INFORMATION
PATIENT INFORMATION
Narcan (nar´ kan)
(naloxone hydrochloride)
Nasal Spray
You and your family members or caregivers should read this Patient Information leaflet before an opioid emergency happens. This information does not take the place of talking with your healthcare provider about your medical condition or your treatment.
What is the most important information I should know about Narcan Nasal Spray?
Narcan Nasal Spray is used to temporarily reverse the effects of opioid medicines. The medicine in Narcan Nasal Spray has no effect in people who are not taking opioid medicines. Always carry Narcan Nasal Spray with you in case of an opioid emergency.
1. Use Narcan Nasal Spray right away if you or your caregiver think signs or symptoms of an opioid emergency are present, even if you are not sure, because an opioid emergency can cause severe injury or death. Signs and symptoms of an opioid emergency may include:
• unusual sleepiness and you are not able to awaken the person with a loud voice or by rubbing firmly on the middle of their chest (sternum)
• breathing problems including slow or shallow breathing in someone difficult to awaken or who looks like they are not breathing
• the black circle in the center of the colored part of the eye (pupil) is very small, sometimes called "pinpoint pupils," in someone difficult to awaken
2. Family members, caregivers, or other people who may have to use Narcan Nasal Spray in an opioid emergency should know where Narcan Nasal Spray is stored and how to give Narcan before an opioid emergency happens.
3. Get emergency medical help right away after giving the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray. Rescue breathing or CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) may be given while waiting for emergency medical help.
4. The signs and symptoms of an opioid emergency can return after Narcan Nasal Spray is given. If this happens, give another dose after 2 to 3 minutes using a new Narcan Nasal Spray and watch the person closely until emergency help is received.
What is Narcan Nasal Spray?
• Narcan Nasal Spray is a prescription medicine used for the treatment of an opioid emergency such as an overdose or a possible opioid overdose with signs of breathing problems and severe sleepiness or not being able to respond.
• Narcan Nasal Spray is to be given right away and does not take the place of emergency medical care. Get emergency medical help right away after giving the first dose of Narcan Nasal Spray, even if the person wakes up.
• Narcan Nasal Spray is safe and effective in children for known or suspected opioid overdose.
Who should not use Narcan Nasal Spray?
Do not use Narcan Nasal Spray if you are allergic to naloxone hydrochloride or any of the ingredients in Narcan Nasal Spray. See the end of this leaflet for a complete list of ingredients in Narcan Nasal Spray.
What should I tell my healthcare provider before using Narcan Nasal Spray?
Before using Narcan Nasal Spray, tell your healthcare provider about all of your medical conditions, including if you:
• have heart problems
• are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. Use of Narcan Nasal Spray may cause withdrawal symptoms in your unborn baby. Your unborn baby should be examined by a healthcare provider right away after you use Narcan Nasal Spray.
• are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. It is not known if Narcan Nasal Spray passes into your breast milk.
Tell your healthcare provider about the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements.
How should I use Narcan Nasal Spray?
Read the "Instructions for Use" at the end of this Patient Information leaflet for detailed information about the right way to use Narcan Nasal Spray.
• Use Narcan Nasal Spray exactly as prescribed by your healthcare provider.
• Each Narcan Nasal Spray contains only 1 dose of medicine and cannot be reused.
• Narcan Nasal Spray comes in a 2 mg and 4 mg strength. Your healthcare provider will prescribe the one that is right for you.
• Lay the person on their back. Support their neck with your hand and allow the head to tilt back before giving Narcan Nasal Spray.
• Narcan Nasal Spray should be given into one nostril.
• If additional doses are needed, give Narcan Nasal Spray in the other nostril.
What are the possible side effects of Narcan Nasal Spray?
Narcan Nasal Spray may cause serious side effects, including:
• Sudden opioid withdrawal symptoms. In someone who has been using opioids regularly, opioid withdrawal symptoms can happen suddenly after receiving Narcan Nasal Spray and may include:
o body aches
o diarrhea
o increased heart rate
o fever
o runny nose
o sneezing
o goose bumps
o sweating
o yawning
o nausea or vomiting
o nervousness
o restlessness or irritability
o shivering or trembling
o stomach cramping
o weakness
o increased blood pressure
In infants under 4 weeks old who have been receiving opioids regularly, sudden opioid withdrawal may be life-threatening if not treated the right way. Signs and symptoms include: seizures, crying more than usual, and increased reflexes.
These are not all of the possible side effects of Narcan Nasal Spray. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.
How should I store Narcan Nasal Spray?
• Store Narcan Nasal Spray at room temperature between 59°F to 77°F (15°C to 25°C). Excursions permitted up to 104°F (40°C).
• Do not freeze Narcan Nasal Spray.
• Keep Narcan Nasal Spray in its box until ready to use. Protect from light.
• Replace Narcan Nasal Spray before the expiration date on the box.
Keep Narcan Nasal Spray and all medicines out of the reach of children.
General information about the safe and effective use of Narcan Nasal Spray.
Medicines are sometimes prescribed for purposes other than those listed in a Patient Information leaflet. Do not use Narcan Nasal Spray for a condition for which it was not prescribed. You can ask your pharmacist or healthcare provider for information about Narcan Nasal Spray that is written for health professionals.
What are the ingredients in Narcan Nasal Spray?
Active ingredient: naloxone hydrochloride
Inactive ingredients: benzalkonium chloride (preservative), disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate (stabilizer), sodium chloride, hydrochloric acid to adjust pH and sterile water
Narcan Nasal Spray is not made with natural rubber latex.
Distributed by Adapt Pharma, Inc., Radnor, PA 19087 USA.
For more information, go to www.Narcannasalspray.com or call 1-844-4Narcan (1-844-462-7226).
This Patient Information has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Issued: 02/2017
Instructions for Use
Instructions for Use
Narcan (nar´ kan)
(naloxone hydrochloride)
Nasal Spray
You and your family members or caregivers should read the Instructions for Use that comes with Narcan Nasal Spray before using it. Talk to your healthcare provider if you and your family members or caregivers have any questions about the use of Narcan Nasal Spray.
Use Narcan Nasal Spray for known or suspected opioid overdose in adults and children.
Important: For use in the nose only.
Do not remove or test the Narcan Nasal Spray until ready to use.
Each Narcan Nasal Spray has 1 dose and cannot be reused.
You do not need to prime Narcan Nasal Spray.
Howto use Narcan Nasal Spray:
Step 1. Lay the person on their back to receive a dose of Narcan Nasal Spray.
Step 2. Remove Narcan Nasal Spray from the box. Peel back the tab with the circle to open the Narcan Nasal Spray.
Step 3. Hold the Narcan Nasal Spray with your thumb on the bottom of the plunger and your first and middle fingers on either side of the nozzle.
Step 4. Tilt the person's head back and provide support under the neck with your hand. Gently insert the tip of the nozzle into one nostril until your fingers on either side of the nozzle are against the bottom of the person's nose.
Step 5. Press the plunger firmly to give the dose of Narcan Nasal Spray.
Step 6. Remove the Narcan Nasal Spray from the nostril after giving the dose.
What to do after Narcan Nasal Spray has been used:
Step 7. Get emergency medical help right away.
Move the person on their side (recovery position) after giving Narcan Nasal Spray.
Watch the person closely.
If the person does not respond by waking up, to voice or touch, or breathing normally another dose may be given. Narcan Nasal Spray may be dosed every 2 to 3 minutes, if available.
Repeat Steps 2 through 6 using a new Narcan Nasal Spray to give another dose in the other nostril. If additional Narcan Nasal Sprays are available, Steps 2 through 6 may be repeated every 2 to 3 minutes until the person responds or emergency medical help is received.
Step 8. Put the used Narcan Nasal Spray back into its box.
Step 9. Throw away (dispose of) the used Narcan Nasal Spray in a place that is away from children.
How should I store Narcan Nasal Spray?
Store Narcan Nasal Spray at room temperature between 59°F to 77°F (15°C to 25°C). Narcan Nasal Spray may be stored for short periods up to 104°F (40°C).
Do not freeze Narcan Nasal Spray.
Keep Narcan Nasal Spray in the box until ready to use. Protect from light.
Replace Narcan Nasal Spray before the expiration date on the box.
Keep Narcan Nasal Spray and all medicines out of the reach of children.
This Instructions for Use has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Distributed by Adapt Pharma, Inc. Radnor, PA 19087 USA.
For more information, go to www.Narcannasalspray.com or call 1-844-4Narcan (1-844-462-7226).
Issued: 02/2017
2 mg - 4 pack
NDC 69547-212-04
Blister
Carton Four Pack
2 mg - 24 pack
NDC 69547-212-24
Carton 24 Pack
4 mg - 2 pack
NDC 69547-353-02
Blister
Carton Two Pack
Narcan
naloxone hydrochloride spray Product Information Product Type HUMAN PRESCRIPTION DRUG LABEL Item Code (Source) NDC:69547-212 Route of Administration NASAL DEA Schedule Active Ingredient/Active Moiety Ingredient Name Basis of Strength Strength NALOXONE HYDROCHLORIDE (NALOXONE) NALOXONE HYDROCHLORIDE 2 mg in 0.1 mL Inactive Ingredients Ingredient Name Strength BENZALKONIUM CHLORIDE EDETATE DISODIUM SODIUM CHLORIDE WATER HYDROCHLORIC ACID Packaging # Item Code Package Description 1 NDC:69547-212-04 4 VIAL, SINGLE-DOSE in 1 PACKAGE 1 0.1 mL in 1 VIAL, SINGLE-DOSE 2 NDC:69547-212-24 24 VIAL, SINGLE-DOSE in 1 PACKAGE 2 0.1 mL in 1 VIAL, SINGLE-DOSE Marketing Information Marketing Category Application Number or Monograph Citation Marketing Start Date Marketing End Date NDA NDA208411 01/24/2017 Narcan
naloxone hydrochloride spray Product Information Product Type HUMAN PRESCRIPTION DRUG LABEL Item Code (Source) NDC:69547-353 Route of Administration NASAL DEA Schedule Active Ingredient/Active Moiety Ingredient Name Basis of Strength Strength NALOXONE HYDROCHLORIDE (NALOXONE) NALOXONE HYDROCHLORIDE 4 mg in 0.1 mL Inactive Ingredients Ingredient Name Strength BENZALKONIUM CHLORIDE EDETATE DISODIUM SODIUM CHLORIDE WATER HYDROCHLORIC ACID Packaging # Item Code Package Description 1 NDC:69547-353-02 2 VIAL, SINGLE-DOSE in 1 PACKAGE 1 0.1 mL in 1 VIAL, SINGLE-DOSE Marketing Information Marketing Category Application Number or Monograph Citation Marketing Start Date Marketing End Date NDA NDA208411 01/24/2017 Labeler - Adapt Pharma Inc (079673287)
Adapt Pharma Inc
Medical Disclaimer |
Intel demonstrated the capabilities of the Vulkan API at the recent SIGGRAPH 2015 event. This weekend it made a video available featuring its Stardust graphics demo running on a Windows machine powered by an Intel quad-core processor, comparing the performance when switching from OpenGL to Vulkan APIs. The new API made quite a difference. Vulkan was announced in March this year.
As you can see above, Intel's demo shows both the performance and power saving benefits of Vulkan over OpenGL. First of all a machine was shown running the Stardust demo under OpenGL and you could see on the right hand side of the screen that all the processing was distinctly single threaded. If you look at the top right of the Stardust demo it shows you CPU core usage across the four cores in the processor being used but under OpenGL only one core was running at full throttle. The demo ran about 25fps using this configuration.
Next the demo was switched, on the same machine, to run the Vulkan API. The frame rate counter (bottom left of screen), rose to about 50fps. You could also see the CPU power consumption drop drastically (upper left), and the processing load spread out quite evenly between the four cores of the CPU (upper right). The screenshot above shows what happened when the API was switched to Vulkan. I've highlighted the API switch time with a big white arrow.
Trying a different mode, the demo was switched to 'lock mode' where fps are fixed. This allowed Intel to demo the power usage difference between OpenGL and Vulkan. In this part of the demo, when the API is switched, you simply see a dip in the CPU power usage on the left as fps are locked. The power usage is about half. On the right, again you see the processing load split between the four cores/threads.
Vulkan is designed for not just desktop PCs but also mobiles and tablets. It is based upon some of the pioneering work done with the Mantle API and is fully open source. The initial specs and implementations will be complete this year and Vulkan has wide support in the computing and entertainment industry. Intel plans to use Vulkan in a Linux driver for its integrated HD graphics. |
With YouTube’s brand redesign in August, Google’s video service significantly revamped its web app, while its mobile apps received various tweaks to match. YouTube Music was initially updated with some of this new branding, but this week receives a new icon.
About APK Teardowns: In this ‘APK teardown,’ we’ve decompiled the latest version of an application that was uploaded to the Play Store. When an app (or an APK, to be specific, in the case of Android apps) is decompiled, we’re able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features. Keep in mind that Google may or may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect. With that in mind, read on.
In line with the latest branding, the new Music logo is a simpler red and white design. It drops the black of the vinyl, while adopting a brighter red like the other icons. The layered effect from the previous icon is also gone, with the new logo being a completely flat vinyl record.
This icon is Adaptive on Android 8.0 Oreo and as such, this already circular icon gets placed in another circle on Pixel and other supported devices. This is unsurprising given how that’s the behavior for other YouTube icons, but it seems unfortunate to place a circle within another circle.
Other design changes include how the “Music” text in the app bar is in the newer, tighter font adopted by YouTube.
Previous Current Previous Current
A teardown of version 2.04.5 does not yield any new mentions of YouTube Plus that we saw previously, while there are references to the ability to Fast forward and Rewind, with accompanying icons. However, it is not yet live in the app.
<string name=”accessibility_rewind”>Rewind</string> <string name=”accessibility_fast_forward”>Fast forward</string>
Version 2.04.5 is rolling out now on Android, with these changes also available on iOS.
Dylan contributed to this article
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news: |
Leeds United defender Giuseppe Bellusci is reportedly on the radar of Cagliari and Benevento.
Giuseppe Bellusci’s current contract with Leeds United runs until June 2018, according to Transfermarkt.co.uk, but one should not be surprised if the defender leaves the Championship club in the summer transfer window.
The 27-year-old centre-back has been on the books of Leeds since 2014, but the Italian spent the 2016-17 season on loan at Italian club Empoli.
The former Catania defender featured in 33 Series A matches for Empoli last season, scoring one goal in the process, according to WhoScored.
According to Tuttomercatoweb.com, Cagliari are interested in signing Bellusci from Leeds in the summer transfer window.
It has been reported that the Serie A club are looking for a replacement for Bruno Alves, who has joined Rangers in the Scottish Premiership, and that they have identified the Leeds defender as a replacement.
The report has also claimed that Cagliari will make an offer for Bellusci to Leeds chairman Andrea Radrizzani; Tuttomercatoweb.com has credited Benevento Calcio with interest in the Italian centre-back as well.
Benevento Calcio will play in Serie A next season after winning promotion from Serie B at the end of the 2016-17 campaign. |
Bibiano Fernandes will return to the ONE Championship cage this year.
Fernandes is scheduled to defend his bantamweight tittle against Reece McClaren at ONE Championship's Age of Domination. This title fight will be the second championship fight on the card, as Brandon Vera will defend his heavyweight title against Hideki Sekine in the main event, according to the promotion Tuesday.
This fight also marks Fernandes' second fight in the 2016 calendar. Fernandes' only fight so far this year was a title defense against Kevin Belingon, where he defeated the challenger with a first-round kimura. The Brazilian has only defended his 135-pound belt four times since unifying it with the interim title back in 2013. Fernandes is currently on an 11-fight winning streak with his last loss being in 2010 where he lost his DREAM featherweight belt to Hiroyuki Takaya.
His opponent, McClaren, is 9-3 as a professional fighter and currently finds himself on a four-fight wining streak. McClaren's last loss came to now UFC fighter Ben Nguyen in 2014. The Australian last competed at ONE Championship 41 in April, defeating Muin Gafurov via decision.
ONE: Age of Domination event is set to take place on Dec. 2 at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay, Manila, Philippines. The 10-fight card goes as follows:
Main card
Brandon Vera vs. Hideki Sekine
Bibiano Fernandes vs. Reece McLaren
Mark Striegl vs. Rafael Nunes
Geje Eustaquio vs. Toni Tauru
Honorio Banario vs. Rajinder Singh Meena
Edward Kelly vs. Sunoto
April Osenio vs. Jenny Huang
Danny Kingad vs. Eugene Toquero
Undercard
Liu Peng Shuai vs. Sim Bunsrun
Xie Bin vs. Mario Satya Wirawan |
By an odd coincidence, a number of famous war-related quotations were uttered on the date June 18 .
On June 18, 1757 , at the Battle of Kolin , Prussian King Frederick the Great urged his hesitant troops to attack the larger Austrian army by shouting:
“Rascals, would you live forever?”
Thousands of those rascals didn’t live much longer. The Prussians were defeated and nearly 14,000 were killed or wounded.
On June 18, 1798 , at a dinner in Philadelphia honoring future Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall, a group of U.S. Congressmen were discussing a recent demand made by the government of France.
French vessels had been plundering American ships in a piratical manner. French foreign minister Talleyrand informed American officials that the attacks would be stopped if the United States paid him $250,000 and gave France 50,000 pounds sterling and a $100 million loan.
As toasts were made at the Congressional dinner, South Carolina Congressman Robert Goodloe Harper sent his own defiant reply to the French with this toast:
“Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute.”
Harper’s famous quote is sometimes attributed to South Carolina politician Charles C. Pinckney, who denied saying it.
Seventeen years later, it was a French leader’s turn to utter famous words of defiance.
On June 18, 1815 , French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s Imperial Guard, led by General Pierre Cambronne, was surrounded by combined British and German forces at the
Battle of Waterloo
.
When asked to surrender, Cambronne reportedly replied:
“The Guard dies but never surrenders.”
The French lost at Waterloo, ending Napoleon’s reign as Emperor. And, historians have questioned whether Cambronne actually uttered those famous fighting words. Some reports claimed he simply said “Merde!” (“Shit!”)
On June 18, 1901 , German Emperor and King of Prussia Wilhelm II (dubbed “Kaiser Bill” by British and Americans), gave a rousing speech to the North German Regatta Association .
In that speech, he famously used the phrase “a place in the sun,” a German nationalistic phrase first given notoriety by German Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow. In 1897, von Bulow had defended Germany’s right to a colonial empire by saying that Germans “demand our own place in the sun.”
“Kaiser Bill” consciously echoed those words in his speech on June 18, 1901 , saying:
“We have conquered for ourselves a place in the sun. It will now be my task to see to it that this place in the sun shall remain our undisputed possession.”
Flash forward to World War II, when some other famous fighting words were uttered on June 18th.
In the spring of 1940, Adolph Hitler’s Nazi troops invaded and conquered France , setting up a puppet government under Marshal Philippe Pétain.
French General Charles de Gaulle, and other “Free French” forces refused to recognize Pétain’s “Vichy” government and vowed to fight on.
In exile in London, de Gaulle made a radio address on June 18, 1940 , famously saying:
“France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war!”
On that same day, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave one of his most memorable speeches in the House of Commons.
After discussing the fall of France and the recent evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk, Churchill noted that Hitler now had England in his sights.
“I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin,” Churchill said. “The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
* * * * * * * * * *
Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page . |
The following question was posted recently on a seduction community forum in a thread entitled “What are the best 10 tips to enjoy your life more?” (note that the spelling and grammar are the poster’s own):
You are ready to start enjoying your life? Do you feel like you constantly stressed about things and want something different you can do yourself?
What follows is the reply I posted, with some tidying and a couple of extra points added.
1) Fix posture (tuck chin). Here is some science behind why this is important.
2) Fix diet to remove allergens you may personally suffer from (trial and error, but dairy is a good place to start), and make sure you eat enough of the right foods to get the vitamins you need. Protein seems to be important in my experience.
3) Take measures to deal with any ill health as best you can. If you suspect a medical condition, just get it checked out by a doctor. Additionally, regular exercise, even just 15 minutes a day, will make many health- and mood-related issues disappear.
Physical health is the bedrock of happiness. Without it, all the psychological tricks and methods in the world won’t shift your baseline happiness in a positive direction. Yes, tucking your chin (particularly if you use computers all day) can fix what dozens of self-help books won’t even touch!
4) Cut ties with unsupportive people. Particularly for many younger guys, move out of your parents’ house if the situation is anything less than great.
5) Cultivate relationships with supportive people and mentors. Girlfriend(s) can be a powerful part of your support network, despite the various decrying of this as “neediness” you may experience in the seduction community. For young men, it is also extremely important that you find older male role models (mentors) to learn from and mimic.
Emotional health is the second most important part of happiness. Without this, your higher-level endeavours are pretty much doomed to failure. Emotional health comes from your social network. Sorry, you really can’t go it alone in life, despite our current culture of individualism and (faux) personal empowerment! This is encapsulated well in the phrase “no man is an island.”
6) Focus the mind on things which bring you personal fulfilment (you will figure these out as you go along). Simultaneously move attention away from things which do not bring fulfilment or which bring harm. The message here is move attention from bad to good, rather than fighting bad things (which just feeds them even more).
When you place your attention on something, you get more of it. Fed up with your job? That attention of “being fed up” will actually bring you more of “being fed up”. Instead, just leave things behind.
7) Balance idealism with acceptance of your current reality. This leads to the emergence of pragmatism — perhaps your most vital skill. Pragmatism means pursuing your dreams whilst still having grounding in the knowledge and acceptance of what can/cannot be done. This point is where many guys in the seduction community fail. They dream big (because they’ve been told “anything is possible” by the personal development industry; and because they spend too much time in their own imagination already) then get upset at anything which indicates the dream might not be attainable. They are not grounded in reality. Changing reality is a slow process. This leads to my final point…
8) Take your time! Chew your food more slowly. Wake up earlier. Enjoy your walk to work. Assign time (and lots of it) to each thing you do. Most endeavours take time to bear fruit. Yes, life is short, but by following this simple advice, you can create time (or at least the illusion of more time). Since learning to take my time over everything, via becoming mindful of myself, a year for me now seems to last ten years.
The studious among you may notice a similar structure to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (or even the Eight-Circuit Model of Consciousness for the really avant-garde ) emerging. What I have written was not “designed” to follow either of these models, and is drawn entirely from my personal experience, but the fact it has ended up reflecting these structures does highlight the ubiquity of the human experience, in my eyes.
Finally, I wanted to add one more thing. If you are currently depressed, this may well negatively affect your motivation to the point whereby it is difficult to get any of these things done. In such cases, I fully endorse speaking to a doctor and being prescribed antidepressants for a short time, and using these drugs as a “springboard” off of which to get the other things done.
I am not endorsing being put on antidepressants so you can then sit at home and “feel good” all day (and then not bother doing anything else with your life). That would go against everything this website stands for. I am however recognizing that depression has the tendency to zap motivation completely. Antidepressants in this case may well give you the motivation you require to start exercising, fix your diet, and create new personal relationships — things which are going to serve you positively going forward. |
The White House and Republican congressional leaders made significant progress toward a deal to avert a potentially catastrophic first-ever government default threatened for early next week, according to officials familiar with the talks.
Under a plan negotiated late on Saturday night, the nation's debt limit would rise in two steps by about $US2.4 trillion ($A2.19 trillion) and spending would be cut by a slightly larger amount, the officials said. The first stage - about $US1 trillion ($A911.24 billion) - would take place immediately and the second later in the year.
Congress would be required to vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, but none of the debt limit increase would be contingent on its approval. The officials who described the talks did so on condition of anonymity, citing their sensitive nature.
President Barack Obama is seeking legislation to raise the government's $US14.3 trillion ($A13.03 trillion) debt limit by enough to tide the Treasury over until after the 2012 elections. He has threatened to veto any legislation that would allow a recurrence of the current crisis next year but has agreed to Republican demands that deficits be cut - without tax increases - in exchange for additional US borrowing authority.
Without a compromise in place by Tuesday, administration officials say the Treasury will run out of funds to pay all the nation's bills. The subsequent default could prove catastrophic for the US economy by causing interest rates to rise and financial markets to sink, sending shockwaves around the world, they say. |
When it comes to the “war on voting,” perhaps no state has gone after voting rights with the ferocity of Republican officials in North Carolina, which approved the most sweeping voter-suppression law in the nation earlier this year. Gov. Pat McCrory (R), who spearheaded the fight, put a fascinating twist on his record this morning during an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd.
After dismissing criticisms of a new voter-ID law – he described the policy as “common sense,” despite the fact that it undermines voting and solves a problem that doesn’t exist – the Republican governor bristled in response to a question about early voting.
“We didn’t shorten early voting, we compacted the calendar,” McCrory said . He added, “It’s just the schedule has changed.”
Is that so.
Starting next year, McCrory’s voter-suppression law “ reduces the early voting period from 17 days to 10 days .” The governor can try to put a nice spin on this, but when he “compacted the calendar,” he also took days off the calendar in which North Carolinians could vote.
(The Eagle Forum’s Phyllis Schlafly recently argued the “reduction in the number of days allowed for early voting is particularly important” because it benefits Democrats if more voters can participate in advance of Election Day.)
What’s more, this same law McCrory is so eager to defend also places new restrictions on voter-registration drives, makes it much harder for students to vote, ends same-day registration during the early voting period, and makes it easier for vigilante poll-watchers to challenge eligible voters. All of these measures, according to the state’s own numbers, disproportionately affect African-American voters. |
As you're probably aware, this season's MLB All-Star Game will take place Tuesday at Citi Field. That makes this a good time to look at a recurring All-Star uniform phenomenon that debuted in 1964, the previous time the Mets hosted the Midsummer Classic: the case of the mismatched batting helmet.
Here's the deal: If you're a student of All-Star Game history, you probably know that the National League won the 1964 game when Johnny Callison of the Phillies hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth. What you might not know is that Callison had forgotten to bring his Phillies batting helmet to the game, so he hit that winning shot while wearing a Mets helmet.
That was, to Uni Watch's knowledge, the earliest example of a player wearing another team's helmet in an All-Star Game. In the 48 All-Star Games that have followed, at least a dozen players and one coach have forgotten (or maybe just not bothered) to bring their helmets to the game, forcing them to don whatever headwear happened to fit their noggins. Many of these players were pitchers who probably never expected to take a turn at bat. But the list also includes a surprising number of position players.
There's something undeniably appealing about seeing a player wearing the uniform of one team and the helmet of another. It's a fun novelty -- like, "Whoa, there's something you don't see every day!" And in an increasingly corporate sports world where everything feels calculated, measured and focus-grouped to death, a simple helmet mix-up is a welcome reminder that things don't always go according to the script.
Here's a breakdown of all the post-1964 All-Star Game helmet mix-ups Uni Watch is aware of (although there probably have been more):
As you can see, the golden age of All-Star Game helmet mix-ups was the 1970s and '80s. Why? Probably because the American League began using the DH in 1973 but pitchers still had to hit in the All-Star Game (unless they were pinch-hit for, as they often were). Many of those AL pitchers never had a batting helmet to begin with. MLB began allowing the DH for All-Star Games played in American League parks in 1989, then imposed the DH for all All-Star Games beginning in 2010. It's no surprise that these rule changes have coincided with a decline in helmet follies. Indeed, of all the bad things you could say about the DH, maybe the worst is that it's removed the fun of seeing a player in another team's helmet.
Do you know of additional All-Star Game helmet switcheroos that weren't mentioned in this column? If so, please speak up.
Paul Lukas is rooting hard for lots of uni oddities in next week's MLB All-Star Game. If you liked this column, you'll probably like his daily Uni Watch website, plus you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Want to learn about his Uni Watch Membership Program, be added to his mailing list so you'll always know when a new column has been posted, or just ask him a question? Contact him here. |
On Nov. 21st, the editors of FDD’s Long War Journal were featured as guests on the debut episode of a new podcast from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) titled Foreign Podicy. The show, hosted by FDD president and founder Cliff May, focused on the CIA’s recent monumental release of 407,000 files from the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Editors Bill Roggio and Thomas Joscelyn, who received an exclusive look at the documents, detailed the lessons learned and connections made from sifting through the files.
On the show, Roggio and Joscelyn highlighted the details surrounding Osama bin Laden’s motivations and leadership of Al Qaeda, the revelatory new images of Osama’s son and heir-apparent Hamza bin Laden, the connections found between Al Qaeda and Iran, Pakistan’s devious relationship with extremist groups throughout the region, and what was inside Osama bin Laden’s personal journal.
You can listen to the full Foreign Podicy episode featuring the editors of FDD’s Long War Journal below:
Foreign Podicy is a podcast project by FDD focused on the most consequential foreign policy and national security issues facing the United States today. You can learn more about the show on their web site. You can also subscribe to the show via iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.
Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here. |
HAGÅTÑA — The U.S. Navy’s plan to conduct underwater detonation training in Outer Apra Harbor without soliciting community input has angered Guam residents, who took to social media to voice their concerns.
The underwater detonation was originally scheduled for April 27 and 28, but the Joint Region Marianas or JRM announced that the training has been rescheduled for May 18, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
JRM said the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit will detonate four separate 1.25-pound explosives beneath the water’s surface away from coral and on a sandy bottom.
In an earlier announcement in the Federal Register on Friday, April 21, the Coast Guard acknowledged the “inherent danger” and “potential hazards” associated with underwater detonation. However, it said it would be unable to accommodate public comments due to time constraints.
The Coast Guard said it is authorized to issue a rule without prior notice and opportunity to comment when the agency for good cause finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.”
The announcement prompted a reaction from Sen. Fernando Esteves, who demanded that the underwater detonation training be put off to allow the community to speak up.
“Unilateral decision making and restricting community input is not in the best interests of a mutually beneficial relationship expected in a partnership,” Esteves said in a letter to Rear Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, commander of Joint Region Marianas.
“The people of Guam are not ignorant of the fact…that the Department of Defense has near free rein on Guam’s waters. However, consistent reminders of Guam’s non-status as a non-self-governing territory such as these detonations of explosives are inconsiderate and dismissive to the local community,” the senator added.
Social media have been abuzz with angry comments and questions since the Coast Guard made the announcement.
“What is the purpose of the explosive charges? Has an environmental study been conducted? Has the territorial government granted approval? By what authority do they restrict freedom of movement through our waters? Are these actions regulated by the coral reef protection Act? Since the waters within 3 miles of the high water line are under the jurisdiction of the territorial government, who consented to this and why?” Frank Schacher, general manager at United Fisheries Corp., wrote on Facebook.
Another Facebook user, John Borja, blamed the local leaders for their silence. “All this anti-colonialism rhetoric yet here you have an opportunity to say something and what do you do? You bow to our imperial masters with your silence,” he wrote.
“But why?” Brenda Atalig asked. “Why does this exercise need to happen and so soon that a public hearing is not necessary?”
Roque Rosario of Mangilao urged the people to “to get a life vest, get on a boat and build a human raft over the area of concern to protest.”
In its press release, JRM said the Navy is permitted to routinely conduct underwater detonation training by the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
“The Navy carefully follows mitigation procedures to ensure minimal impact to the environment. For the safety of personnel and marine life, the area will be visually cleared by divers and by a lookout on the surface before, during and after the exercise,” JRM said. “All activity will cease temporarily if a person or marine mammal is seen in the area.” |
Dragon bones? (Photo katieandtommy on Flickr)
In some ways, science is a real buzzkill. Take for instance, dragons. Across countless cultures and endless centuries, humanity has told tales of great and wondrous beasts that hoard gold or breath fire or grow magical horns. Unfortunately science has long since disproved the existence of such creatures as dragons and unicorns (along with goblins, fairies, pegasus, trolls, mermaids, and a whole universe of made-up monsters). But no matter what the facts say, there are still a few places in the world that refuse to let the magic die. Take a look at the remains of three dragons, and a cave that was said to be a unicorn graveyard.
THE DRAGON RIB OF ATESSA
Atessa, Italy
This is a dragon bone. I’m just RIB’n ya! (Photo: Tax Controller on Wikipedia)
For a book that many people insist on reading as non-fiction, the Bible sure has a lot of dragons in it (or did before the NEW King James version edited them into other creatures). In fact, a number of saints and church figures are said to have had run-ins with dragons that needed slaying. Such was the case with the Dragon of Atessa which is said to have been slain by Saint Leucius of Brindisi: As the story goes, the saint was brought in to take care of the beast that was keeping the villages of Ate and Tixa (later joined as Atessa) apart. Leucius faced the dragon in its lair and was able to conquer it using naught but his willpower.
Today the supposed rib of this mythical dragon is still held in the The Cathedral of Saint Leucio in Atessa. The bone is held in a glass-topped case behind iron bars and certainly LOOKS like it could be the rib of a dragon. But with no frame of reference, who is to say.
BRNO DRAGON
Brno, Czech Republic
“Dragon Dundee” just doesn’t have the same ring. (Photo: Don Meliton on Flickr)
Okay, the Brno Dragon is clearly a crocodile. Nonetheless, the legend claims that it was a dragon. The legend states that a dragon was terrorizing the city of Brno (as they are want to do), and as you might expect, they could not figure out how to stop it. Finally, a foreign butcher stopped by the city and came up with a plan. They wrapped a heaping helping of lye in an animal skin and left it out like a big poison burrito. The dragon devoured the offering and promptly died. There was much rejoicing.
Now, the supposed carcass of the creature is hanging in the old Brno Town Hall, but as was previously stated, it is clearly a crocodile corpse. Many people in the city claim that is truly the dragon of the legend, but the more likely scenario is that the hanging taxidermy was a gift from a visiting ambassador.
This is what happens to you when you go around eating mysterious burritos. (Photo: zarco on Wikipedia)
THE BONES OF THE WAWEL DRAGON
Krakow, Poland
No bones about it, those probably aren’t dragon bones. (Photo: Nick Richards on Flickr)
Smok Waweleski was a dragon that is said to have lived beneath Wawel Hill in the days before the founding of Krakow. A villain, like all of his kind, Wawaleski demanded a tribute of a young woman each month, which the nearby villagers dutifully provided. One day, a local apprentice came up with the idea (possibly after talking with the butcher from Brno) to try and feed the creature a poison lamb. Because all dragons are real idiots, Wawaleski housed the whole lamb which made him so thirsty he then went to the river and drank water until he exploded. Sometimes legends are so weird they are amazing.
Apparently someone sifted through the water-logged gore and fished out some souvenirs because the modern Wawel Cathedral claims to display a jumble of the dragon’s bones. Hanging high up against one of the cathedral’s walls, the bones certainly seem big enough to have belonged to a dragon. The more likely explanation is that they are the remains of a mammoth or whale. However the bones have been hanging in the church for centuries, so the truth may never be known.
There are few things more metal in this world than dragon bones held together with black chain. (Photo: Yohan euan o4 on Wikipedia)
UNICORN CAVE
Harz, Germany
That is one grumpy unicorn. (Photo: tracy the astonishing on Flickr)
Located in Germany’s Harz Mountains, Unicorn Cave was first discovered in medieval times when the only logical explanation for all of the bones in the cave were that they belonged to magic horses. The cavern (the largest in the entire mountain range!) was first mentioned in 1541 when a chronicler visited the site and found that the locals were harvesting the rich cache of unicorn bones from the cave floor and crushing them up to make folk medicines. With our smug modern understanding we can of course look back and laugh, secure in the knowledge that they were just eating regular, un-magical animal bones.
Modern excavations have failed to turn up any trace of unicorns, but miraculously, researchers have identified the remains of dozens of other prehistoric animals. Apparently the large cave made for a perfect natural shelter. Unicorn Cave is now open as a show cave, and even has a delightful unicorn skeleton out front. It might not be magic, but it’s close.
Germany is magic. (Photo: Norbert Kaiser on Wikipedia) |
The projects of Ken Burns are designed to illuminate the past and, thereby, illuminate the present. You can’t watch, say, The Civil War and not see the barely papered-over fault lines that still exist in American politics, and a miniseries like Baseball could present a different prism through which to consider what America cares about.
Rating vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark
Many Ken Burns projects are easy to leave in their space — earnest, occasionally dusty chronicles of the past. They reflect the present, but in ways that usually allow us to say, “Well, things have certainly changed since then.” You might find them intensely moving or graceful, but you may not return to them much after you’re done watching. You’ll think of them fondly when you stumble upon them on Netflix or a DVD shelf.
But The Vietnam War, the filmmaker’s latest, which he co-directed with Lynn Novick, reflects the present in ways that can be uncomfortable. It’s about an unpopular president — actually, two unpopular presidents — who stews about unfair treatment from the press and protesters. It’s about a country that seems on the brink of fracturing over very different ideals of what that country should be. And it’s about the rise of a movement that believes “law and order” is more important than any other fundamental right.
I watched all 18 hours of the miniseries (which are spread across 10 parts) way back in July, but I’ve found it returning to my thoughts, often unbidden, ever since. It feels, more than any of Burns’s projects, like a living document, about something that’s not entirely in the past and keeps haunting us.
The Vietnam War is, in some way, about right now, while also being about something else entirely. I don’t know if it’s the best film Burns has ever made, but it’s certainly the one I’ve thought most about.
The Vietnam War should be too much, but it never is
The broader subject of every one of Burns’s films is American history. He’s stated in the past that while he has an interest in the history of other nations, it’s American history where he’s chosen to ply his trade. What’s more, his focus on American history usually starts from the ground up. He’s interested in how regular people reacted to the world-changing events swirling around them, as opposed to how, say, the president reacted. He wants to give us both perspectives, ideally — but he’s far more interested in the unknown people than those we already know well.
This approach has occasionally gotten him in trouble, as when his 2007 World War II documentary The War became so intimately focused on a few core communities that it struggled to incorporate many Americans who had fought in the war (especially Latinos, which led to a minor controversy that Burns addressed before the series aired), allowing its view of the conflict to seem slightly myopic. At the very least, it felt as if the miniseries could have involved the US’s allies more than it did.
This is what makes The Vietnam War so notable. For much of the miniseries, Burns and Novick are balancing the following series of perspectives: American military members, people in the anti-war movement, family members of military members, the American government, the North Vietnamese army, the North Vietnamese government, the South Vietnamese army, the South Vietnamese government, journalists, and various intelligence community members. It’s a lot. It should be too much, really. Yet it somehow never is.
Burns and Novick don’t bury the lede, either. The Vietnam War’s second installment — which sees the US drawn into active military engagement in Vietnam in a sustained way — concludes with a then-secret government study which concluded that the war was likely impossible to win, and even if it could be won, the cost might be too much to bear. Viewers will likely note that it then takes another 10 years for the US to exit the country and conflict.
What lies between that moment and the miniseries’ end (which is 15 hours away at that point) can be a long, brutal slog. Though PBS is offering the series on its website for binge viewers, I can’t imagine watching more than an episode or two at a time. There is something dark and murky and repetitive about the whole enterprise, especially as everyone involved sinks deeper and deeper into the quagmire.
That, of course, also turns the film itself into a sort of metaphor for the Vietnam War. And it’s an open question whether you’ll want to watch an 18-hour miniseries that routinely wanders in circles, gets stuck in the mud, and seems to repeat itself over and over again. The film has unique access to actual film footage from the era, compared to much of the rest of Burns’s filmography, but that footage sometimes seems to show the same things multiple times. What’s more, it uses pop hits of the period to the point of distraction (some very obviously). It would be easy to turn off The Vietnam War in irritation.
But Burns and Novick have a larger point to make, about how easy it is to second-guess history once we know the outcome, and about how hard it is to liberate yourself from destructive cycles, even when you know you’re trapped in them. The US didn’t have to go to Vietnam, but it did. And then it destroyed so many lives because of it.
The miniseries is also generous to its subjects. You’re not going to come away from The Vietnam War thinking that Burns and Novick treated any of their interviewees unfairly. Every single story told by a soldier — on any side — is heart-rending and terrifying, and underlines the slow-building sense that something went very wrong on the parts of those who worked for the various governments, or even just the families back home. Burns and Novick are less interested in scoring political points than they are in the idea that world-changing events look so different when you’re trapped in them. More than in any other Burns miniseries, The Vietnam War lets you feel what it’s like to be crushed under history’s heel.
The Vietnam War debuts Sunday, September 17 at 8 pm Eastern on PBS in most markets. You should, as is always the case with PBS, check your local listings. Further episodes will air through Thursday, September 28, taking Friday, September 22 and Saturday, September 23 off. The first five episodes will be available to stream on PBS’s website on Sunday, September 17, and the last five episodes will be available Sunday, September 24. |
I remember my first pair of good shoes. They were Ralph Lauren penny loafers, which I bought as an undergrad for $125 (on sale, down from $300). That was a lot of money for me back then, and I remember taking them out of the box, slipping them on, and carefully trying them out on carpet.
The first crease you put into good shoes is always the most painful. It feels like you’re permanently damaging something new and beautiful. Not to mention that feeling you get when you first step outside and hear those leather soles grinding on hard concrete. It’s enough to make you wince.
Having owned a couple more pairs of shoes since those loafers, however, I’ve learned that the value of good footwear is all in how they age – much like the value of good, raw denim. In fact, that’s the only reason to spend so much money on shoes. Despite what some people say, Goodyear-welted or Blake-stitched shoes will not save you money in the long run. A decent resoling job alone can be more than a pair of cheaply made kicks.
No, the reason to buy good shoes is because they look better with age. Assuming you take care of them, of course. That means inserting cedar shoe trees when you’re not wearing them, using leather conditioner and shoe polish on a regular basis, and rotating between shoes so you’re not wearing any pair for two days in a row.
If you do that, your shoes will build a patina, like you see above. Covered up scuffs will become light colored accents, highlighting the varying shades of color that have been built up from years of applying shoe polish. Regular treatments of leather conditioner – along with an occasional treatment of wax polish – will also make the leather glow. At that point, you’ll always want to resole your shoes, rather than buy new ones.
(photo via chriscrat) |
Today I found out Simo Häyhä, arguably the greatest sniper to ever live, sniped over 542 invading Soviet soldiers in World War II using nothing but a bolt action rifle that had no scope. He also has the distinction of having recorded the highest known number of confirmed kills by any sniper in any major war; with the runner up being Soviet Ivan Sidorenko with 500 in WWII. In addition to his 542 confirmed sniper kills, he also managed another couple hundred kills with a Suomi 9mm machine gun bringing his total for the “Winter War” to just under 800 kills. Even more amazing is that he did all of this in under 100 days with his personal best sniping 25 Soviet soldiers in one day.
The “Winter War” was a conflict between Russia and Finland beginning on November 30, 1939, three months after the start of WWII, with the Russians invading Finland. The Winter War officially ended on March 13, 1940 with the Soviets having captured most of Finland.
Simo Häyhä was a member of a group very similar to the old American “Minute Men”. He served his required one year with the military in Finland and went home, back to farming and hunting. When the Soviets invaded he grabbed his standard issue M/28 rifle and gear and reported for duty. He preferred his rifle, which only had an iron site rather than a scope, over Swedish sniper rifles as it allowed him to keep a slightly lower profile over a scoped rifle; the scopes made you raise your head an extra inch or two making a nice target for other snipers. In addition to this, scopes on sniper rifles tended to reflect the sunlight which is how he says he was able to kill so many of the Soviet snipers who were sent to specifically take him out. The really amazing thing about just using the iron sites was that many of his kills were shot at people over 400 yards away.
Simo was assigned to the Kollaa battlefield where an estimated 32 Fins held off over 4000 Soviet Troops at one point and indeed even by the end of the war which the Soviets won, never conceded that particular ground. Temperatures there typically ranged from around -40 F to -4 F. As such, Simo would go out by himself to snipe dressed in white camouflage with nothing but a few clips of ammo and food provisions for a day.
Tired of getting their heads blown off all the time by Simo, the Soviets eventually dispatched a group of snipers and a series of artillery strikes to try to get rid of “Belaya Smert” (“White Death”) as they nicknamed him. He managed to get the best of the snipers sent against him and apparently wasn’t where they thought during the artillery strikes.
He was however finally shot in the jaw with an exploding bullet in a pitched battle against a large group of Russian soldiers. Some of his fellow Finish soldiers pulled him from the battle and he survived even though, as they said, “half his head was missing”. He was then in a coma for nine days, during which Finland lost the war (Coincidence? I think not!). He didn’t regain consciousness until March 13th, the day the war ended (presumably the Soviets heard he woke up and decided to stop trying to take any more of Finland and just ended the war right there). It took Simo a few years to fully recuperate from his wounds, but he went on to live to the ripe old age of 96, dying April 1st, 2002.
During the war, the Soviet army lost close to one million soldiers, close to forty times the number of Finnish casualties.
Simo credited his incredible sniping ability to knowledge of the forests, patience, and practice. He typically liked to snipe from a sitting position, normally not used by snipers due to giving a larger profile to be seen from. However, he was very short (5 foot 3 inches), so he was able to sit and still make a very small profile and he felt it gave him a better platform to shoot from. He would also pack the snow in front of him so that when he shot, none of the snow would waft up giving his position away. In addition to this, to get around the problem of his breath potentially giving away his position in that frigid place, he would breath through his mouth but keep snow in there to keep his breath from showing up in the air.
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Simo Häyhä |
The FBI has been lobbying top internet companies like Yahoo and Google to support a proposal that would force them to provide backdoors for government surveillance, according to CNET.
The Bureau has been quietly meeting with representatives of these companies, as well as Microsoft (which owns Hotmail and Skype), Facebook and others to argue for a legislative proposal, drafted by the FBI, that would require social-networking sites and VoIP, instant messaging and e-mail providers to alter their code to make their products wiretap-friendly.
The FBI has previously complained to Congress about the so-called "Going Dark" problem – the difficulty of doing effective wiretap surveillance as more communications have moved from traditional telephone services to internet service companies.
Under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, passed in 1994, telecommunications providers are required to make their systems wiretap-friendly. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2004 to apply to broadband providers like ISPs and colleges, but web companies are not covered by the law.
CNET reports that in addition to this push from the FBI, the Federal Communications Commission may be looking at reinterpreting CALEA to demand that video and non-telephone-replacement VoIP products such as Skype and Xbox Live be modified to include backdoors that allow FBI surveillance.
The news comes on the heels of another FBI plan that began kicking around in 2010 that would require backdoors in encrypted communication systems. That proposal, which would revisit the encryption wars of the 1990s, has failed to gather administration backing. |
Image caption A fading mural of Bill Cosby still stands near the Richard Allen homes in North Philadelphia
Less than two weeks before Father's Day, the man once affectionately known as America's Dad stepped back into the public spotlight to defend his legacy as he faced one of dozens of sexual assault allegations against him.
Dressed in a dark navy suit, the 79-year-old was supported by the use of a cane and Keisha Knight Pulliam, the woman who played his precocious daughter, Rudy Huxtable, on the landmark television series The Cosby Show.
But his reputation as a fatherly figure has been overshadowed in recent years by the more than 50 women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault.
The actor and comedian is facing three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault stemming from a 2004 incident in which former Temple University employee Andrea Constand claims he drugged and molested her.
He maintains his innocence, though some among the chorus of women who have offered up similar accounts appeared in court in Norristown, Pennsylvania, wearing pins with the words emblazoned: "We stand in truth."
Image copyright Christine Cornell
Stained legacy
Though the allegations have tarnished Mr Cosby's reputation, the actor has long been considered a Hollywood trailblazer for African Americans.
He rose to fame as the first black actor to star in a major drama series, I Spy, in 1965. The role earned him three of his four Emmy awards before he created several shows including the influential The Cosby Show in 1984.
Darnell Hunt, the director of the Ralph J Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, says his depiction of an upwardly mobile African-American family transcended race and broke new ground in an era otherwise criticised for portraying the "ghetto-centric" black stereotypes.
"It showed that black people were American, too, which was sort of Cosby's political philosophy," he said.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Cosby was accompanied by Cosby Show co-star Keshia Knight Pulliam on the trial's first day
"It was and is still one of the most talked about TV shows ever and it certainly had a huge impact on this sort of whole discussion of images of black people and media."
In fact, Mr Cosby enlisted Harvard psychiatrist Dr Alvin Poussaint as a consultant to ensure the scripts underscored a genuine family dynamic.
Which is why it may be difficult for some Americans to separate the career he has made on promoting family values and education from the man Assistant District Attorney Kristin Feden accused of being a sexual predator in court on Monday.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Cosby accuser Lili Bernard speaks out as the trial begins
Racial undertones?
Mr Cosby and one of his daughters have recently suggested race played a role in the allegations against him.
The suggestion sparked outrage among some critics who point to previous comments he made in which he criticised single African-American mothers and young black men.
"Many blacks felt it was him talking down to them and blaming them as opposed to the systemic forces that keep black people subordinated," says Mr Hunt.
Image copyright Christine Cornell
"But the sad reality is race is always a factor in America and that lens will be significant regardless of whether or not the allegations are racially motivated," says Mr Hunt, who wrote OJ Simpson Facts and Fictions, a book on the racial divide and perception of the American footballer's famous trial.
"There is probably a lot of ambivalence in the black community with respect to the meaning of all of this," he added. "People are probably waiting to see how all of this works out with the trial."
Some Philadelphia residents like Rickey A Rivera, who lives in Mr Cosby's childhood neighbourhood, remain convinced the case has racial undertones.
"He can never be who he was and that's what's sad to me," Mr Rivera says.
Fallen idol
Other Philadelphia residents have struggled to reconcile how to talk about the local hero and the allegations against him.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "Bill Cosby was like a hawk looking at a little mouse"
A mural that once stood on Broad Street depicting Mr Cosby and other famed fathers has disappeared, but another still stands amid the housing projects where he grew up in North Philadelphia's Poplar neighbourhood.
William "Buddy" Savin, who owns a funeral home in the area, points out his own partially eroded image on a similar pillar beneath an overpass less than 100ft (30 metres) away from the portrait of Mr Cosby.
Mr Cosby is seen flashing his signature grin, holding his fist in what appears to be a nod to black power as children play in the foreground.
Mr Savin grew up with Mr Cosby in the Richard Allen housing project and spoke to him as recently as last week about the death of a mutual friend and Philadelphia jazz legend, Mickey Roker.
The projects have mostly been torn down and replaced with new rows of town homes, but remnants of a past life - and Mr Cosby's legacy - still exist.
"He was a black person who made it but he never forgot his roots," Mr Savin says. "He always came back to the projects."
Though some residents are cagey when asked about Mr Cosby, everyone seems to have an anecdote about the comedian.
A women standing in her front yard not far from where his house stood explains how she once saw Mr Cosby perform at her high school, but demurs when asked about her feelings on him now.
"I have his autograph," she tells the BBC. "That's all I can say about him."
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption News helicopters hover of the courthouse
But Mr Savin is happy to recount Mr Cosby's community work despite the scandal that has engulfed him over the last few years.
A bespectacled man dressed in a pinstriped suit, he recalls how Mr Cosby returned to the neighbourhood when the new Richard Allen townhomes opened in 2003.
He speaks about Mr Cosby's generous funding for dozens of children's education and his contributions to the nearby Temple University.
The Temple "T" logo stands tall atop a building visible from the Richard Allen homes.
Mr Cosby, one of the Temple's most famous alumni, is often credited with helping to transform Temple from a local school to a nationally recognised university.
The school, just blocks away, is where he met Ms Constand while serving on the school's board of trustees.
In the wake of the allegations, Temple eventually joined a growing number of colleges and universities that revoked the dozens of honorary degrees he received over the years. He was also removed from the board of trustees.
Mr Cosby's presence on campus has mostly been erased, but university students like Olivia Jefferson, 25, remain conflicted.
"He was the ideal black father. He showed this image personally we didn't see in the black community often growing up," she says. "And all these allegations coming out, it's a betrayal." |
PHILADELPHIA – The Democrats continue to have an Israel problem.
On the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention here, Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson reportedly compared Israeli settlers – meaning Jews living in the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem – to termites.
Speaking at a Philadelphia meeting of the US Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation, a group that supports the boycott movement targeting Israel, Johnson made the offensive remarks.
He complained that “there has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming.”
“It has come to the point that occupation, with highways that cut through Palestinian land, with walls that go up, with the inability or the restriction, with the illegality of Palestinians being able to travel on those roads and those roads cutting off Palestinian neighborhoods from each other,” Johnson continued.
“And then with the building of walls and the building of checkpoints that restrict movement of Palestinians. We’ve gotten to the point where the thought of a Palestinian homeland gets further and further removed from reality.”
The Anti-Defamation League reacted on Twitter by calling for Johnson to retract his “offensive, unhelpful characterization.”
.@RepHankJohnson: we call on you to apologize and retract this offensive, unhelpful characterization https://t.co/m4rus9nuqk — ADL (@ADL_National) July 25, 2016
Later on Monday, Johnson’s office released a statement claiming that “Congressman Johnson did not call Israelis termites but did say the settlement policies threaten peace and the two-state solution.”
“Congressman Johnson did not intend to insult or speak derogatorily of the Israelis or the Jewish people,” the statement added. “When using the metaphor of termites, the Congressman was referring to the corrosive process, not the people.”
This is the second Israel-related scandal tied to Georgia Democrats. Over the weekend, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, whom Johnson was elected to replace, came under fire after implying on Twitter that Israel played a role in both the Nice and Munich terror attacks, based on the detail that an Israeli photographer was present at the scene of both incidents.
The report comes at a time the Democratic Party has been facing criticism within liberal pro-Israel circles for Hillary Clinton’s vice president pick, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.
Kaine helped to generate support for the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran by whipping senators into opposing a vote that prevented the Senate from blocking the deal.
Kaine also boycotted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last year warning about the Iran agreement.
The Times of Israel reported on Kaine’s advocacy against Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress in March 2015:
Kaine worked behind the scenes to try to delay the speech, but when that failed, was among the first Democratic senators to announce that they would not attend the address.
In a statement explaining his position, Kaine said that “as a long-time supporter of the US-Israel relationship, I believe the timing of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress — just days before Israeli elections — is highly inappropriate.”
Arguing that holding the speech as planned would give an “appearance of US favoritism in a foreign election,” Kaine complained that “there is no reason to schedule this speech before Israeli voters go to the polls on March 17 and choose their own leadership.”
In an interview with this reporter, Alan Dershowitz, a staunch Democrat and emeritus law professor at Harvard University, stated Kaine boycott of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was a “mark against” the candidate.
Still, Dershowitz maintained that the Clinton-Kaine ticket was “far better for America and for Israel” then the Donald Trump and Mike Pence ticket.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. |
Security has been stepped up around political rallies and meetings in France amid heightened fears of a terror attack with just four days of campaigning until the first round of the fiercely contested presidential election.
The five main candidates have vowed to continue campaigning as it emerged that France’s police and intelligence agencies spent several weeks tracking the two men arrested on Tuesday and suspected of plotting an “imminent and violent attack” in the run-up to Sunday’s vote.
Officials say they are still investigating the men’s possible targets, but claim they were seeking to “have an impact in this [electoral] period” and had amassed an arsenal of weapons and bomb-making equipment, including 3kg of homemade explosive found in the flat where they were staying.
It was reported on Wednesday that Paris’ anti-terror court had opened a preliminary investigation into suspect Mahiedine Merabet, 29, on 5 April, after receiving a tip-off from British intelligence that he had tried to make contact with Islamic State (Isis) in order to send them a video expressing his support for the terrorist group.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Clement Baur, left, and Mahiedine Merabet. Photograph: Handout/AFP/Getty Images
The previous day Merabet had sent his identity card and bank card to the police station near his last known residence in Roubaix, northern France, along with a note, explaining: “Because of you, I can’t use them. I’ll hand myself in soon and we’ll talk. What do you, the police, want with me. Leave me alone, I’ve nothing to say to you.”
French elections: all you need to know Read more
Merabet was already on the security service’s radar after a December 2016 raid on the Roubaix flat, where an Isis flag and propaganda was reportedly found. He disappeared and his flatmate gave a false identity. It was only after talking to Merabet’s family in Marseille that police realised the second man at the flat was Clément Baur, 23, a Muslim convert. The two met in prison where they shared a cell in 2015.
Search warrants were put out for the pair, both on the Fiche-S, a list of those suspected of being a threat to national security.
Police stepped up the search on 12 April after intercepting a video, reportedly filmed in a Marseille apartment, that showed Merabet with an Uzi submachine gun, ammunition, an Isis flag and photographs of children allegedly killed in French and American bombing raids in Syria. The film’s title was: “The Law of Retaliation”, a police source told French journalists.
A copy of Le Monde newspaper with a front-page picture of the presidential candidate François Fillon and dated 16 March was also filmed.
The five main presidential candidates were immediately alerted and advised to increase security, both personal and around their political meetings.
The Paris prosecutor François Molins said the Tuesday the arrests of Merabet and Baur had been the result of “international cooperation”, but admitted investigators were trying to establish their planned targets.
As France’s interior minister announced “exceptional” security measures for the presidential campaign, the five main candidates responded by downplaying the threat and continuing electioneering.
The Socialist party candidate, Benoît Hamon, who polls place last out of the leading five, said he refused to make it a “campaign issue”, the conservative Fillon, currently in joint third place with the hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said the threat would not make him “back down a single squared centimetre”.
A spokesperson for Marine Le Pen, currently heading the polls with the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, said the arrests hours before Le Pen’s rally in Marseilles was “perhaps not a coincidence”.
With one-third of French voters still undecided and many others threatening to abstain, the margin of error in the opinion polls mean any permutation of the four main candidates – Macron, Le Pen, Mélenchon, Fillon – is possible in a second round runoff next month between the top two candidates. |
Judd Apatow tried his hand at stand-up Saturday night delivering a politically-charged set where the director went after President Donald Trump.
Best known for "Knocked Up," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Trainwreck," Apatow did not hold back during his set at the Regent Theater in Los Angeles. He was there to promote his new show on HBO "Crashing."
According to the Daily Beast, Apatow said when Trump was elected he felt like "a person about to get raped, but I didn't know how bad it would be." Now with Trump in office, he said, "I feel like I've just been raped and I just don't know if I'm going to get murdered."
A rep for Apatow did not return Fox News' request for comment.
But Apatow did not stop there. The Daily Beast reports Apatow went on to say he understands why Melania Trump is not living full time in the White House.
"Every day she’s not in the White House is a day she’s not getting f---ed by Donald Trump," the director said.
Apatow also went after Trump's youngest son, 10-year-old Baron.
"[Baron] f---ing gets it," Apatow said. "You see the look his face when Trump's talking?...People are like, 'Is there something wrong with him?’ No! He knows his dad’s a f---ing a--hole!" |
Contents show]
History
At age sixteen, Wendy and her brother, Marvin, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the missing year, Wendy and her brother managed to attain jobs as caretakers of Titans Tower. For the last six months of that year, they re-built Cyborg.
Wendy was attacked by Wonderdog in the Titans Tower. As a result, she was left in coma and was taken to the Gotham General Hospital. Her father, The Calculator learned of her condition and in order to heal her, he decided to gather the fragments of the Anti-Life Equation.[1] However, Wendy recovered without the need of the formula, but the injuries inflicted on her left her paralyzed from waist down.[2]
She was later seen during a night where forty percent of Gotham were turned into techno-zombies controlled in part by the Calculator. Batgirl was pitted against the Batman Family and in the thick of the battle Wendy helped her get out of the fight using Oracle's intercom. Eventually, Wendy came to the rescue in the Batgirl-pod and the two of them fly a plane towards the Suicide Swamp. When Oracle was trapped in the Calculator's mind, Batgirl eventually made it inside to find and rescue Kid Eternity and Oracle. Wendy then crashed the plane she was flying into the maze of a house that belonged to Calculator. She was uninjured and after the feat, she decided to join Oracle under the alias of Proxy. [3]
Proxy would use a similar system to Oracle's to help the Bat-Family fight crime. One day, Batgirl asked Proxy to help her locate a mysterious criminal who stole equipment from WayneTech. Proxy located the headquarters and allowed Batgirl to confront the Insider.[4]
Powers and Abilities
Abilities
Genius-level Intellect
Weaknesses
Restricted Mobility: Wendy is paralyzed from the waist down, and stricken to a wheelchair, after being attacked by Wonderdog.
Trivia
Wendy and her twin brother Marvin are based on the characters of Wendy and Marvin who first appeared on the Super Friends animated TV show. The Wendy and Marvin of Super Friends were not related to each other.
Recommended Reading
Related |
Yesterday, Clemens Gleich brought you Part 1 of his authoritative guide to the Autobahn, due to overwhelming success, today Part 2. If you ask how Clemens became Minister of High-Speed Transport Propaganda – stranger things happened in Deutschland. A formerly leather-clad radical was made Secretary of State, and the province of Daimler and Porsche has a green governor. Expect to be surprised! – BS
2. The Location
Many foreigners think that every Autobahn is basically the same, which can lead to a very unsatisfactory motor vacation, because it is easily possible to spend the whole length of it in absurdly limited sections and road works which means you might as well have stayed at home. There are some passages that not only are unlimited, but also have curvature radii that feel like a straight at 70 mph but tear your face off your skull (or your tires off the asphalt) at 170 mph. The A95 from Munich to Garmisch is a nice example (don’t go there on the weekends, when everybody and their mother will).
You could race down BMWs very own prototype test track: Enter the A92 leaving Munich, turn on the A3 towards Regensburg, at Regensburg go down the A93 towards Ingolstadt and Munich (A9). Rinse, repeat. You will see all those disguised next-gen BMWs and perhaps a few such Audis, too.
If you are looking for competition, visit the Kassel Mountains on the A7 (“Kasseler Berge” will give you Youtube-Clips galore, complete with infos on speed cameras on the limited bits). The Bahn through these hills is so steep that caravanists go a long way to avoid it for fear their underpowered bathrooms will be reduced to 20 mph or to going backwards very fast, disintegrating. This fact alone should tell you everything: few caravans, much competition, good road. To race the Kasseler Berge, follow the A7 from Bad Brückenau towards Kassel until you come to the Autobahndreieck Drammetal (A7 and A38 meet here). Yes, Google Maps is right: There are many miles in that bit.
Bring an amount of horsepower you would consider “too much” at home, otherwise you might leave the A7 a very frustrated man.
For pure, undiluted straight line speed visit the north of Germany where the landscape slowly peters out into the North Sea. A famous example of this experience of American motoring in fast forward is the A27 from Bremen to Bremerhaven: Going straight towards the horizon, towards the sea. Another good stretch are the 50 open km on the A7 from Rendsburg to Flensburg, Germany’s northernmost city, (in)famous for being the home of the points-on-your-licence database. If you don’t manage to max your car on these northern Autobahns, you need a slower one. Or bigger balls.
My personal favorite are the Autobahns of Eastern Germany. The East is a dark forested no man’s land that hasn’t changed since the Dark Ages, which is why it is also known as “Dunkeldeutschland” (“Dark Germany”). During the socialist occupation after the war, people were forced to live there at gunpoint, but when the wall came down, of course everybody with half an ounce of sense and two working legs left. Now, only ancient pensioners still haunt the ghost towns there, the rest has fled to Berlin or to civilized Germany (which funds the whole Berlin island setup).
As is customary, the government didn’t notice this and built infrastructure fit for two Irelands into the empty woods, financed by a special new extra tax cynically called “Solidaritätszuschlag” (solidarity surcharge). The Autobahns they built are gorgeous, empty and give me a feeling of my money well spent. The A2 from Magdeburg to Berlin is especially popular with tourists, because at the end of it, you are somewhere (Berlin) instead of nowhere (the rest of the East).
But my secret tip for you would be the A71 connecting Schweinfurt with Erfurt. It is still quite new, so it hasn’t made its way into the travel guides yet. You can go the whole length of it, the only limits being in the tunnelly bit. The tunnel stretches are a good place for a spot of R&R (relax and refuel), because there are nearly no service stations directly on the A71. Get off at Oberhof, race up an awesome hill course, pit stop, race down the awesome hill course, continue racing the A71. You can hold the pedal to the metal until it rusts into position – if you are brave or underpowered enough to leave it there in the many turns.
Another way of finding a good piece of Autobahn is asking a German who likes driving (i. e. any German) about his favorite segment. These favorites are everywhere, so one will always be near your lodgings.
3. The Rules
In Germany, we love rules. The only thing we love more than making The Rules is explaining The Rules to the ignorant, which I shall do now. Fear not, I will constrain myself to the rules concerning a happy holiday. As always, the rules are split into the official rules of the written law and the unofficial rules “you just know”. As the French expect visitors to know their history and culture and speak their language, the Germans expect you to know the unofficial rules without being told. You just know. Which is why I won’t tell you either.
But I’ll do something better, I’ll explain official rules only you will know, starting with the mysteries of the Kraftfahrstraße: The sign for an Autobahn is a white road on blue ground stretching into the distance, being crossed by a bridge (mnemonics: a big letter “A”). So when you see this but no limit signs, you are allowed to go as fast as you can afford. BUT (and not even many Germans know this) the Autobahn is not the only place in Germany where you can legally do that. Look for a blue sign with a white car front on it, it marks a “Kraftfahrstraße” (mnemonics: translate it literally into “poweerrr drive road”). If it has two lanes per direction OR a bit in the middle (bushes, concrete, doesn’t matter) and there are no limiting signs, you can go as fast as you want here as well.
These open roads residing between a Motorway and an A-Road are unofficially called Yellow Autobahns (“Gelbe Autobahnen”) because of the yellow instead of blue road signs, and you should cherish this information, because you can use it to shut up a German going on about The Rules in the pub at night. You can finish him off by adding that there is a Kraftfahrstraße sign at the entrance of the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
A rule I don’t have to remind the visiting speed tourist of is nonetheless interesting, even heart-warming: In Germany, it is forbidden by law to go so slow that traffic is hampered without a good reason (see §3 Abs. 3 Nr. 3 in our holy traffic bible StVO). Traffic will immediately be hampered the nanosecond you fall below the current speed limit. The law is not often enforced, but when it is, we celebrate like Americans when they have found another terrorist. Pray that the offender doesn’t pay his fine, as this will provide you with the rare opportunity to attend a (public) trial of a Peugeot driver where he will be condemned for his sins of slowness. The memory will last you a lifetime.
On a more serious note, I have encountered tourists having a debate about their alleged whiplash on the leftmost Autobahn lane, our overtaking lane. I’m afraid this is not tolerable behavior in Germany. In fact, it is a criminal offence over here (dangerous intervention into traffic). If you get screamed at by a policeman who kicks you so hard his jackboot will stay stuck between your buttocks and then writes fines full of numbers you didn’t know existed, you will have been very lucky.
If somebody gets seriously hurt because of such stupidity, you will go to prison for “not under one year” and still be a bit lucky because you didn’t get killed by one of the many 2-tonne projectiles you were standing in the way of. You’ll see the wisdom of our legislation as soon as you come across a standing (stupid) obstacle on the overtaking lane while doing 190 mph in your 911 rental. Okay, it might be your last thought, but there are worse last thoughts.
To discuss your fender bender or the finer points of whiplash, you’ll have to leave the Autobahn, as it is completely verboten to stop anywhere on it, including the hard shoulder. The hard shoulder is for real breakdowns and emergencies, of which a spirited whiplash discussion is neither.
To cheer you up again, let me tell you another officially legal and accepted use of the hard shoulder: acceleration. If your vehicle is too feeble to get up to motorway speeds on the acceleration lane, you are not only allowed, but expected to continue your acceleration on the hard shoulder until there is an acceptable velocity to enter the Autobahn like a Gentleman (i.e. fast). But try real acceleration before you resort to this, which rally legend Walter Röhrl describes thusly: “Acceleration happens when the tears of a deeply moved heart roll along horizontally towards the ears.”
4. The Time
The best time to visit our Autobahnen is in the summer, because we’ll all be gone on holiday then. Typically, a German gets 30 days of vacation a year and receives extra payment for this very vacation, so that he may leave his country for a while. It is much easier to love Germany from afar.
You can find tables on the Internet detailing the school holidays of all the German federal states you want to visit for an inkling of the remaining Autobahn traffic you can expect. Warning: At the beginning or the end of these school holidays you can forget to go anywhere fast on the respective Autobahn that provides the fastest way to the German federal state of Mallorca.
There are also many speed limits that are only effective by day. You could for example go from Stuttgart to Munich in well under an hour at night … or so I have heard. And of course you will have the motorway network to yourself during all major football matches with Germany in them.
Concerning the future of our motorways: You might have heard the German Green Party’s efforts to establish a general speed limit on the Autobahns. I can assure all you tourists this is something to yawn on and then forget. These efforts exist since before the Green Party existed. They have never gone anywhere. Green means GO!!!!!
You see, in general, Germans don’t care much about freedom. They will happily trade freedom for more order every time. But the Autobahn is the one exception. The freedom to drive as fast as we want is the only one we are prepared to fight for. To the German, speeding is like owning guns to the American. A general speed limit seems un-German to us, has a socialist stench, maybe even something French about it.
So I’m delighted to say that the unlimited speed of our Autobahns will be there for you as long as we German Autobahn Raser (a majority group) can still hold a weapon to defend your motoring holiday. Don’t worry about the cost: The German government collects nearly a Euro per liter as tax from your petrol bill and as I have said before: You will need A LOT of fuel.
Yours sincerely,
The German Ministry of High Speed Transport Propaganda
ACHTUNG: As our Canadian overlords have put us on a financial starvation diet, which forces me to rent-out my wife into yellow slavery, while Derek takes a night job at Chippendales Toronto, I am unable to pay the Minister of High Speed Transport Propaganda a reasonable, or even an unreasonable amount. Therefore, we did cut a deal: You click here.
In mean, NOW. You are supposed to click, verdammt und zugenaeht! The link leads you (sorry) not to a porn site, but to Amazon, where you can buy the Kindle Edition of “The Traveller’s Guide to the German Autobahn” for a lousy buck eleven. BUY THE DAMN THING!!!!!!
If you do as told (and there is no other vay in Germany), then Clemens might come back. If not, I’ll come after YOU. Bertel |
To anyone who thinks that "Resident Evil VII: Biohazard" would be a cheap rip-off of "Outlast" or even trying to replicate the success of "P.T" or so, Capcom was working on development of this entry years before the runaway success of the previous mentioned game / demo, and it stands on its own in true form. I have a few pros and cons worth noting on this game, but quick capsule review is fans of survival horror should definitely pick this game up. Pros: The game goes back to basics of exploring a mysterious estate and compel the player to be quick on their feet with deciding when to fight and when to run away. The game also scales back (in a good, big way) on the whole global anti-terrorism action that the Resident Evil series was starting to become more and more known for following the success of "Resident Evil 4." I say this was a nice feature because it makes you feel in a more realistic setting in a way, rather than playing as professional government agents armed with devastating weaponry and hardcore fighting skills. The story is genius in its simplicity with titular character Ethan coming to the Baker Plantation to find his wife long thought to be dead. The main antagonists, the Bakers, are also terrifying in their mannerisms and actions - and they are definitely more than meets the eye. What I was also pleasantly surprised at was how the Bakers are also sympathetic and some may even consider it tragic. Weapons in this game aren't too varied but that adds to the realism. Instead of being able to equip rocket launchers and bio-chemical weapons, it's back to simple guns and even homemade weapons that can be completely missable if you don't put the effort in finding and creating them. Ammo and health is also scarce and crafting becomes a necessity which can take up your very limited inventory space and makes you weigh out what the most important things to carry with you are. The fear is also very real: there are a few cheap jump scares (although they do work when they are done, so I do give credit where it is due), but the atmosphere is something that must be commended as even walking the long hallways of the main estate, the dilapidated old house, or the wide open yard make you feel as though anything could pop up at anytime. As I said before, if you enjoy survival horror and have longed to see Resident Evil show that they still know how to create an an intense horror game, this is a must buy. For those looking for a real challenge, there is a mode called 'madhouse', and it more than lives up to the name! Cons: Here's where replay value can be affected - the game is actually fairly short in the scope of open-world games. While I will say that this is by far not an open-world game (I almost thought it would be, given that it looked like it would be a giant mansion with other outer areas to explore beyond the main home), after replaying it about three times now I can see how familiarity can make it seem smaller when going through it again. Apart from the Bakers, there are only TWO main other repeating enemy types and I can see why people will not like that; there are also no zombies and it almost seems like a zombie-less (or other infected human type virus) game doesn't really deserve to be in the same series of RE. With the exception of the very, very end and one other completely missable newspaper, they never even allude to anything from the franchise. It's also worth mentioning that the end can also be a bit of a head scratcher. I still enjoyed it but if your thoughts dwell heavily on it it does seem a little strange. I will admit now that I didn't play "Resident Evil 6", so I may have missed some storylines if they were meant to bleed over into RE7. As I said in the positives, a lot of the global anti-terrorism elements were scaled back, but they definitely not removed completely. I think the game is broken up into two main parts - I won't spoil anything but I will say that up until you make an important decision is where the game's second half begins (in my opinion), and I think the second half is where the story begins to creep back up in that territory of trying a little hard with bio-terror elements. It doesn't go off the rails and it does explain everything that was going on in the first half but it still seems somewhat outrageous. While the cons don't seem to be that much, I know some of these are important to some people. There is also one last thing I wanted to mention regarding the main set of antagonists, but out of respect for people who are deciding on buying the game I'll hold off so as not to spoil anything. Great game, especially if you've been a fan of the franchise since the first one and have stuck with Capcom throughout. Survival horror is back and it is definitely worth all the hype.
Read more |
GUADALAJARA, Mexico -- Pachuca against Chivas on Saturday is the game of the weekend in the Liga MX and for those interested in seeing the production line for Mexico's latest young talent, it is the match of the Clausura regular season.
Pachuca Pachuca Guadalajara Guadalajara 1 1 FT Game Details GameCast
Lineups and Stats
Here are five things to watch for:
1. Battle of youth
When it comes to producing young Mexican talent, Chivas and Pachuca make a strong argument for being the very best in the Liga MX. There is even a healthy fledging rivalry between the institutions running down the Under-20, Under-17 and Under-15 sides.
But it isn't just the strength of the youth systems at work. Both clubs also believe in young players and give them a chance at a time when the Mexican game is flooded by foreigners (each Liga MX team is allowed five) and naturalized Mexican citizens.
For that reason, the eyes of anyone interested in the future of Mexico's national team should be on Estadio Hidalgo on Saturday.
On the Pachuca side, Hirving Lozano, Erick Gutierrez, Rodolfo Pizarro, Victor Guzman are all eligible and likely to be at the Olympics this summer, while all-Mexican side Chivas boast Orbelin Pineda, Carlos Salcedo, Michael Perez, Carlos Cisneros, Raul Lopez, Eduardo "Chofis" Lopez and Angel Zaldivar in the same age category.
The 11 players mentioned are strong candidates to be in Rio de Janeiro come August, highlighting just how much the Mexican soccer federation is benefitting from the solid work at the two clubs.
2. Playoff spots at stake
A victory for Pachuca will guarantee the side from the state of Hidalgo a place in the Clausura liguilla, while Chivas sit in seventh position on 21 points, likely needing a win and a draw from their three remaining regular season matches to get over the line. A loss for Chivas would likely mean they would travel to Santos Laguna in the last match of the regular season knowing they need a result to get into the playoffs.
A win for Chivas would continue the momentum generated from four consecutive wins, following an abysmal start to the Clausura. After that bad start, Chivas could ironically be the team to avoid in the playoffs.
For Pachuca, the undefeated streak at home in the Estadio Hidalgo is on the line. Los Tuzos have picked up 16 of 18 possible points at home this season and scored 19 goals over the six games.
After a rough start, Matias Almeyda has Chivas on track to make the playoffs if its form holds up.
3. Attacking teams with great defenses
It is easy to highlight the attacking side of both teams and the offensive styles of both Pachuca coach Diego Alonso and Chivas coach Matias Almeyda.
Alonso and Almeyda have both sculpted teams that take the game to the opposition, have no real reverse gear and are set up to dominate games. It should make for a humdinger of an encounter on Saturday. There is no chance either side will relent and take a step back and it should be end-to-end. Last time these two met, the score was 4-4.
But for all their attacking intent, Pachuca and Chivas are the teams that have conceded the fewest goals this Clausura. Both have let in just 14 goals over the 14 games so far.
At Chivas, the Jair Pereira-Carlos Salcedo center-back partnership has been crucial, while Pachuca's new-look backline featuring Colombian Oscar Murillo and American Omar Gonzalez has provided instant improvement from last season.
4. Guzman and Cota futures on the line
Pachuca's 21-year-old defensive midfielder Guzman is actually on loan from Chivas, but has pulled no punches in suggesting he is very comfortable at the institution and would like to continue.
On the other side, Chivas goalkeeper Rodolfo Cota is on loan at Chivas from Pachuca. Chivas owner Jorge Vergara has said he would like to keep Cota -- who has been impressing of late -- if at all possible.
It all points to a deal being struck, but it will be interesting to see each of them go up against their former teammates.
5. Bright young South American managers
There is a lot of talk about Mexican coaches not being given the chance to manage Liga MX sides, but when you look at how 41-year-old Alonso and 42-year-old Almeyda have adapted and taken to the Mexican league, it can be difficult to blame owners.
Both coaches share a clear passion for the game, speak concisely in press conferences and play a brand of soccer that gets people into the stadium in anticipation of what they are going to see.
It is rare for managers to leave Mexico's first division and go on to better things in Europe, but if you were to put money on any of the current crop of Liga MX head coaches doing so, Alonso and Almeyda would be top of the list.
Tom Marshall covers Liga MX and the Mexican national team for ESPN FC. Twitter: @MexicoWorldCup. |
Donald Trump leads in several polls of likely Republican voters in California. | AP Photo Fox News poll: Trump up big in California
Donald Trump is leading by wide margins in California, according to a new Fox News poll released on Friday, raising the possibility of securing the nomination outright on June 7.
The billionaire front-runner from New York holds the support of 49 percent of likely Republican primary voters in the state, earning more support than the combined totals of his rivals, Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Cruz received 22 percent in the poll and Kasich 20 percent.
Story Continued Below
Hillary Clinton doesn’t have as large a lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in California. The former secretary of State, with 48 percent support among likely Democratic voters, leads Sanders by two points.
The poll was conducted April 18-21 among 1,206 likely primary voters in California, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Recent polls have shown Trump maintaining a large lead in the state. Results from a Capitol Weekly/Sextant Strategies poll earlier this week showed Trump leading his rivals with 41 percent of the vote. That poll showed him winning in nearly every area of the state.
Californians head to the polls on June 7, with 172 delegates at stake.
Trump also comes out on top in polls of Indiana voters released Friday.
A WTHR/Howey Politics poll released on Friday shows Trump leading in the state with 37 percent, followed by Cruz at 31 percent and Kasich at 22 percent.
In a Fox News poll out Friday, Cruz, who is hoping for a big win in Indiana, trails Trump by eight percentage points. Trump leads 41 percent to Cruz's 33 percent.
Hanna Trudo contributed to this report. |
It’s likely that I first encountered Victor Santos’ work as many of you reading this did: In the pages of Mice Templar, when he replaced co-creator Mike Oeming as the artist on that series. And I imagine that many of your own first reactions mirrored mine when, with but a glance at his work in those first few transitional issues, it was patently obvious that Mike and his creative partner, writer Bryan J. L. Glass, had found in Victor not only the perfect artistic replacement for Mike, but also a vital and valuable creative foil for Bryan. Subsequent issues only confirmed those early impressions, even while Santos’ considerable skills as a visual storyteller enabled him to truly make his own unique mark upon that title.
I also imagine that you shared my delight in learning that Victor had somehow found enough time and energy to create a whole ‘nother unique project of his own. That endeavor, the webcomic Polar, is currently in the midst of its second major story arc, while the first was recently released in print by Dark Horse Comics as Polar: Came from the Cold.
And now there’s yet another reason for fans of great comics everywhere to celebrate. That’s because this month brings the debut of Furious from Victor and Bryan. This new ongoing Dark Horse title marks not only the first creator owned book from team Santos-Glass, but also serves Victor’s debut as a superhero artist.
Sounds like the charmed life, right? And yet, as he reveals below, but for a tragic twist of fate, Furious would have been drawn by another artist entirely.
How would you describe Furious, be it the series or its lead character, to someone who hasn’t encountered either yet?
It’s a superheroes book in a world where she’s the first superhero, (and it deals with) the world of the famous, the reality shows and the social networks. It’s an adult superheroes book in a good way, where “adult” means ambition and feeling like telling a good story in an original way—a story full of adventure, thrills and action but talking about learning, redemption, growing, and how we fall and rise again.
Where’d all this come from, and what role did you play in its creation and development?
Furious was Bryan Glass’s dear project ever since he read Daredevil: Born Again, so I came really late. But I’m a fan of the genre and when, sadly, the artist chosen by Bryan, Josh Medors, passed away, I was offered the chance to draw it.
I joined under the condition of working from zero, and never saw any previous work because of my respect for Josh—despite the fact that, sadly again, I never meet him—and my own freedom. And my task was to add my own point of view about why superheroes can be so cool.
Well, why take on this particular project, and why now? Was it an easy choice to make, to tackle this book, one with such a particularly bloody-minded conceit at its heart—or did you have any initial reservations, professional or even personal, about doing it? And if you did, what helped you overcome that hesitancy?
Well, first I loved the chance of making superhero comics in the US. This is my first superheroes book, and even one graphically created by me, a creator-owned book. I love to play with the visual aspects of storytelling and this genre has infinite possibilities. But after all these years working with Bryan, I have enough familiarity with him that even if, maybe, I wasn’t the suitable artist, I would have respected Bryan’s final rejection.
Of course as an artist I have my doubts and insecurities, because a lot of people have a specific understanding about what is the “correct” way to draw superheroes. I love cartoon style and I’m not an artist of classical anatomical skills. My best efforts are in the areas of composition and storytelling, these are my weapons. So I don’t know how the readers will react, but I know I have my own manner to tell stories, and when I have doubts, I take refuge in it.
What unique challenges does this series offer that you’ve not encountered before?
After decades of superhero books, it’s difficult to portray a new view of a human flying!
I’m trying to show new ways to tell a superhero story, and how to visualize their powers and the fascination they generate. The most important thing is how I keep the action flowing over the page, even if I am drawing a quiet conversation.
I have other challenges, including the reality of US cities, because I’m not an American citizen. Yes, we are globalized, and we buy the same clothes and watch the same movies, but we still have little differences in the quotidian life and I’m always alert. Luckily, with the internet it really is easy to research.
What about the violence that is inherent to the genre? What kind of challenges might that pose?
For instance, I imagine that the question of how to effectively portray that level of physical violence and collateral damage without pandering, being overly staid, or turning it all into an exercise in torture and snuff porn is a concern that you had to give some thought to.
Yeah, I remember that scene of the first story, showing the two abused youngsters chained; maybe it’s the hardest scene because Furious, as our heroine, faces some painfully real challenges.
It was disturbing because it’s a scene where the reader must react with disgust, I worked hard on how to show it, and the final inking, creating dirty textures. It was terrible, because I think the scene works really well graphically, but just because I was using my skills, all my knowledge about creating unease and disgust (in the reader). At the same time, I didn’t want to make a show or take delight in it. It’s really difficult to find a balanced point.
This was a real concern, how to balance the level of violence.
Other than that, and maybe the most important, was to find again a balance, but this time a balance between the real world where Furious lives—our real world—and the epic abstraction of the superheroes genre.
Think on the two extreme points, maybe Kick Ass in one corner and Bruce Timm’s Justice League in the other corner. Trying to follow the spirit and the heart of Bryan’s concept, it was necessary to feel the world of Furious as our world, but as a place where these super heroic miracles can happen.
Are you worried about going too far with your portrayal of that level of violence…and how do you balance that with your need as an artist to push yourself and the medium while exploring this subject visually?
Yes, I’m concerned about how we show violence. In my Polar webcomic series, the violence has a high level. It even has gore scenes, but plays on a different ground, a world of stylized noir design. It’s almost abstract like the lack of realism of a John Woo shoot-out.
Furious happens in our world and the violence must be raw. I must be honest showing it but I don’t want to take delight. At the same time I think a graphic detailed violence doesn’t always work in superheroes book.
One of the graphic solutions I found was showing the blood as a solid color. If you read the book, you will observe tones and degrees in the coloring, but the blood appears as a solid red tone. I think this resource helps to create a slight distance and focuses the attention on the really important things, the story and the character. It works better than if I detail every splodge of blood.
You and Bryan have worked together for the quite a few years on Mice Templar. But I was wondering if there was any particular moment early on when you realized that you two really did complement each other creatively?
I think since the beginning I understood Bryan and I work together really well. He writes very long scripts, with detailed descriptions of how the character feels in every moment of the story, and not only in outstanding moments. You really can see the emotional path of every character. And for an artist this is tremendously useful because you can fix the tone immediately, and this tone is my guide in every stage of the artistic process, from the composition to the coloring.
What are some of the other reasons that you enjoy working with Bryan? What makes him a good creative partner, and what does he bring to the table that really engages your imagination and enthusiasm?
He’s a source of energy! And a motivating guy. I’m very lazy writing email, but he doesn’t care to spend time to explain what he has in mind with the book and the direction of the series. At the same time, he’s a great director and helps a lot with the logistic problems of the book. He knows about composition, lettering, editing, etc. That it makes the process fluid.
How do you usually start working on an issue? Do you sit down and read the entire script through before you put pencil or pen to paper, or do you often start roughing things out and making notes during that first reading?
I receive a complete script, so I print it and read. Meanwhile, I’m drawing stick figures, really rough, explaining to myself what’s happening. I write also little notes, things like “This scene could work with a shadowy inking” or “maybe I could split this panel in two.”
After that, the usual stages are pencils, inks, and in this case, digital coloring, with Bryan, and with (my Dark Horse editor) Jim Gibbons and (assistant editor) Spencer Cushing talking and planning and suggesting, along with my own thoughts, in every phase. We must work quickly, but we don’t advance if we are not satisfied with every destination.
You mentioned that you’re working from detailed scripts with Bryan. Which made me wonder if you had a preference between the two? Why? What about that approach works for you?
Since I began in the US market, I’ve worked mainly with the previously dialoged and page to page/panel to panel script. It works for me because I need to know what they are saying for the facial expressions. But, at the same time, I always had freedom to split or join panels, change a suggested scoop for another, of course always discussing it with the writer and the editor.
What about creating the actual art? What’s your usual approach to creating a page of story?
I must say I don’t like doing the storyboards, I feel like I’m repeating the work. I like to approach the big white board directly and freshly.
I ponder a lot about the storytelling and the composition when I’m doing quotidian tasks, washing the plates or in the line of the supermarket. I try to visualize the page like a unit, thinking on the final effect, with color.
Then, after all this inner process, I jump to the page and I change a lot of things! (Laughs) But this previous process helps me.
How about covers and splashes? Do you use the same mindset and approach to designing and drawing a cover or splash page as when you create a page of storytelling, or do you approach those in completely different ways?
Yeah, it’s different and harder for me. And in the comic-book world, we used to be more conservatives in these aspects, so again I try to find a balance between taking advantage of this space and the legibility and the spirit of the story. In regard to the cover, there is the commercial factor too, so I have a lot of arguing about this because I want to do crazy and wild things! (Laughs)
What do you get from doing Furious that you’ve not gotten from working on Mice Templar or your other projects?
Mice Templar moves in an organic territory—animals, forests, rocks, fur and water. The storytelling is really wild. I never use a ruler for the panels, sometimes I don’t even use traditional panels, the action flows over the page without pause. I have a lot of freedom in the textures and the anatomy, too.
Furious plays with the straight lines of the buildings, the stylized icons of the costume, the screen frames. The inking is cleaner. I try to play with vertical and horizontal panels or repeating square panels, searching for a cadence.
You see Mice Templar from above; meanwhile you see Furious from down below. I find the great aspect of working on such different books is the chance for experimentation.
How about making art, in general? What do you get from doing that?
For me, the most important thing is the search for an exciting way of telling a story. I love to reinvent my own art, to make every series a different experience, for me and for the readers who buy my work. I don’t want to draw by the same way I did five years ago, and I hope to be a different—and better!—artist in five years.
That’s the reason I love artists like Matt Wagner, Frank Miller or Jim Steranko; you have to take their books (on their own merits,) thinking “what he’s going to do now?” (These artists thrive on) giving to every book its own personality and at same time, feeling this look and storytelling are the most appropriate.
What do you hope readers get from Furious? How about your work in general?
I want to encourage to superhero readers to buy Furious and other creator-owner titles. There are new and cool ways to tell a superheroes story. I think this genre has a long life and is a way to tell a great story, and just for this reason we cannot repeat a thousand times the same ways.
I want to surprise the readers, making different things like the Mice Templar, Polar: Came from the Cold or Furious.
Anything else you’d like to add before I let you get back to the boards?
I’m very excited about the variety of projects I’m involved in this year.
I hope to create new Furious stories, because she’s a character who will grow and expand her universe. This is just the beginning. I’d like to thank our readers for their support, and I hope to make new friends with this exciting project.
At the same time, the first season of my noir webcomic Polar has been published by Dark Horse as a graphic novel titled Polar: Came from the Cold, while the second season—both seasons are independent stories—continues with regular updates on the net.
And of course, Mice Templar will finish this year with an epic rising. If you like the sophisticated fantasy genre, even if you’re not a fan of the “funny animals” genre, I’m sure you enjoy these books.
This interview is © 2014 William M.S. Baker. All rights reserved.
Mice Templar, Polar: Came from the Cold and Furious are TM & © 2014 Victor Santos, Bryan J.L. Glass, Michael Avon Oeming or their respective owners. All rights reserved. |
Jeremy Walker/Getty Images
Scientists are warning that the Zika virus is so dangerous, it would be unethical to allow the Rio Olympics to proceed as planned this August.
More than 100 doctors, researchers and health experts from around globe signed an open letter published Friday urging the United Nation's World Health Organization to either move the summer games from Rio de Janeiro or to delay them, saying they are concerned about the virus' potential impact on global health.
"The Brazilian strain of Zika virus harms health in ways that science has not observed before," they wrote. "An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire that strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic. Should that happen to poor, as-yet unaffected places (e.g., most of South Asia and Africa) the suffering can be great. It is unethical to run the risk, just for Games that could proceed anyway, if postponed and/or moved."
The letter listed seven key causes for concern, including Rio's unsuccessful mosquito-killing program (Zika is spread by mosquitoes and by sexual intercourse) and a local health system that's "so severely weakened as to make a last-minute push against Zika impossible."
The Rio Olympics is scheduled to run August 5 to 21, and more than 500,000 foreign tourists are expected to attend the games.
Earlier this month, the WHO issued a statement warning Rio visitors about the Zika virus and encouraging them to follow protocol, such as protecting themselves from mosquito bites, practicing safer sex and staying in air-conditioned accommodations. The statement stopped short, however, of discouraging people from attendingor advising the Olympic Committee to rethink the event.
The scientists cite precedents for postponing the games. World War I prevented the 1916 Olympics, while World War II canceled both the 1940 and 1944 Olympics. According to the letter, major sporting events have also been moved because of diseases, "as Major League Baseball did for Zika, and the Africa Cup of Nations did for Ebola."
Professor Amir Attaran, who signed Friday's letter, published a report earlier this month in the Harvard Public Review arguing that the people returning from the games could escalate the Zika health crisis in Brazil to a "full-blown global health disaster."
Neither the WHO or the International Olympic Committee didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Corrected at 8:36pm PT: The 2016 Rio Olympics will run from August 5 to August 21. |
The lobbying firm where former Borough President James Molinaro works was paid $65,000 by the developers of the controversial Mount Manresa project to lobby the city. Molinaro said he doesn't directly work lobbying for the developers. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Nicholas Rizzi
STATEN ISLAND — The lobbying firm where former Borough President James Molinaro works was paid $65,000 over the past two years to lobby the city on behalf of the controversial Mount Manresa project, records show.
The Savo Brothers — under the name Mount Builders LLC — hired Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin LLC, of which Molinaro is a senior managing director, in 2014 to lobby the Department of Buildings, according to the Office of the City Clerk.
Molinaro, who was borough president when the 103-year-old Jesuit retreat house was sold for $15 million to be turned into townhouses despite huge protest, said he doesn't directly lobby for the Savo Brothers and didn't think there was anything wrong with his group working for them.
"I was the borough president. It was a piece of land for sale. It was legit. What should I be ashamed of?" Molinaro said.
"People are mad at me for a lot reasons. You can't be loved from everyone, you can't be hated from everywhere."
Lawyers for the group mentioned a "former borough president of Staten Island" in court documents filed this week to block current Borough President James Oddo's attempt to label the streets in the development with names inspired by "greed."
"The former borough president I spoke to confirmed that in all of his years of experience, he has never heard of an applicant not receiving a street name that he proposed and a borough president substituting his own suggestion as the final street name," lawyer Richard Leland wrote in his filing.
The Savo Brothers did not respond to a request for comment.
Molinaro confirmed he was asked by the group about the borough president's power to name streets, but said he was just giving them background information about his experience.
"They asked me if, when I was borough president, did I ever change a street name. I said ‘yes,’ I would not accept a name that was already existing," Molinaro said.
"That was the only thing. It was not a matter of interference, it was referencing."
Molinaro said that while he told developers to pick new names if an existing street already had the same one, he never picked them himself.
"His involvement with the firm, and being specifically named in these court documents, prompts the questions as to whether Molinaro honored the requirements of the city's ethics laws," said Dick Dadey, executive director of the Citizens Union.
Conflicts of Interest Board rules require elected officials not to give up confidential information and not to communicate with the executive branch of government for one year after leaving office.
Officials are also not allowed to directly work on any matter that was dealt with while they were in office — but that does not stop their firms from being involved.
Molinaro is not mentioned by name as a principal or additional lobbyist in city records for Mount Builders LLC.
He served as borough president from 2002 until 2013, during the time the controversial plans to redevelop Mount Manresa were approved.
While other elected officials spoke out against the project at the time, Molinaro said that the deal was completely legitimate and nothing improper was done, to his knowledge.
He left office in December 2013 and a month later took a job at the high-powered Pitta Bishop Del Giorno and Giblin LLC, which has been one of the city's top 10 lobby firms for the past several years.
Mount Builders hired the group in July 2014 to lobby the Department of Buildings for the project and paid it $25,000 for its work, according to city records.
So far this year, the developers paid Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin LLC $40,000 to continue lobbying the DOB.
Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin LLC, which formed in 2008, came under scrutiny by good government groups earlier this year for its ties to helping City Council members get elected and their high success rate in getting bills passed, the New York Post reported.
During the time Mount Builders was represented by the firm, construction crews for the project were hit with $67,000 in fines after they filed reports claiming there was no asbestos in demolished buildings, despite city inspectors later finding traces of the potentially deadly material.
Asbestos inspectors for the property Gaspare Santoro, 75, and his son Paul Santoro, 36, were arrested and hit with a 36-count indictment this year for lying about the material's presence. |
Image copyright Rex Features
Despite the No vote in Scotland's referendum, there are still questions to be resolved about British identity, writes Richard Weight.
The UK will never be the same again.
The Union has held together - just, but almost half of the Scottish electorate have said they no longer wish to belong to the UK, on a record turnout of 84.6%.
That has long-term consequences for the way the country functions and - just as important - how its people see themselves.
Oil revenues will still flow south to the British treasury, nuclear submarines will still dock on the Clyde, institutions like the BBC and the NHS will not be broken up.
There will be no passport control at Berwick and the Queen will continue to enjoy summers at Balmoral without feeling she is just an honoured guest.
However, a "devolution revolution" is now certain, giving the Scottish Parliament tax-raising powers and with them, a degree of fiscal autonomy that will enable the Scots to shape their future as never before in the democratic age.
This is likely to be the implementation of the Scots' left of centre vision of a "fairer society" that will go far beyond free university tuition.
Can Scotland afford it? That is beside the point in identity politics and the Union's future will not be secured by fiscal frighteners alone.
Image copyright PA Image caption Scotland's founding first minister, Donald Dewar, and the Queen at the 1999 opening of the Scottish parliament
Many Scots found the unionist parties' bombardment of scare stories about rising prices and job losses deeply patronising.
The metaphor of Anglo-Scottish marriage has become a tired one but some will say that the tone of the "No" campaign can be characterised not as "we're better together" but "you're nothing without us".
It's often said - recently by Irvine Welsh - that one cause of Scottish discontent has been the arrogant tendency for the English to see Britain as virtually synonymous with their own country.
Far from being a recent phenomenon, resentment about English arrogance kick-started the nationalist movement just after World War Two.
Patriotic unity in the face of Nazi onslaught was one of the high points of the Union and the creation of the National Health Service in 1948 added to the pantheon of British institutions to which the Scots gave their allegiance.
But just a year later, the Scottish Covenant movement was started, calling for Home Rule with a separate parliament under the Crown. By 1950, almost two million Scots - two-thirds of the electorate - had signed a petition in support of Home Rule.
When new postboxes appeared on the accession of the Queen in 1952 with the initials EIIR (when she was only Elizabeth I of Scotland), some of them were set alight. Winston Churchill was so angry that he declared: "If I think of the greatness and splendour of Scotland and her wonderful part in the history not only of this island but of the whole world, I really think they ought to keep their silliest people in order."
But Churchill was concerned enough to set up a royal commission on the Union that reported in 1954.
Known as the Balfour Report after its chairman, it achieved little except to implement a modest increase in the powers of the Scottish Office.
But Balfour offered a warning that politicians should heed today: "A harmonious relationship does not depend only upon efficient administration."
He said there was in Scotland an "emotional dissatisfaction" due to the "thoughtlessness, lack of tact and disregard of sentiment" of the English, with the result that:
The Treaty of 1707 is no longer remembered as the voluntary union of two proud people each with their own distinctive cultural characteristics and traditions but rather as the absorption of Scotland by England.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Scottish fans invade the pitch after their team beats England at Wembley, 1977
Over the next 20 years larger trends eroded the economic and cultural bonds that had forged Britishness in the 18th and 19th Centuries, gradually alchemising discontent into political nationalism.
Protestant Christianity, with which Britons of all classes from the Gorbals to Guildford had indentified themselves, was eroded by secularisation - a trend that accelerated in the 1960s (by 2007, 69% of Britons never attended a religious service, up from 26% in 1964).
Only in Northern Ireland did it remain intact.
The monarchy (still today the constitutional guarantor of Protestantism) remained popular enough for the Scottish National Party to be happy to keep the Crown.
But by the time the Queen opened the Scottish Parliament in 1999, royalism had become a matter of respectful indifference for most Scots rather than love of an institution which fired their hearts and bound them to the English.
During a Silver Jubilee address to parliament, the Queen urged the Scots to remember "the benefits which union has conferred".
The fact that she did not comment officially during the 2014 campaign may testify to her awareness of the relative fragility of monarchism north of the border.
The end of empire also removed much of the Union's appeal, for empire not only enriched Scotland - it also provided the Scots with professional opportunities around the world and a global status that bound them to their larger neighbour.
This loss was compounded by the decline of Scotland's industrial base and by Margaret Thatcher's painful restructuring of the British economy in the 1980s.
Roadtesting the poll tax on the Scots was the final straw, completing the decimation of the Tory vote in Scotland in 1992.
Despite Thatcher's worship of Adam Smith, monetarism hastened the reformation of Scottish identity - from the 18th Century idea of being entrepreneurial "North Britons" into that of being a fairer people than the more conservative English. (This was a bit cheeky - given that the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 only applied to England and Wales - because of opposition from Scottish Protestants and Catholics, it was not adopted north of the border until 1980.)
From this fertile ground the Scottish National Party grew. Founded in 1934 by intellectuals like the fiercely anti-English, republican poet, Hugh MacDiarmid, it gained little traction until the mid 1970s.
As the bonds of Britishness frayed, North Sea oil came ashore, enabling the SNP to reassure many who feared the cost of separation that "black gold" would lubricate the engines of independence.
Privately, the British government admitted as much - when the subject was discussed at the Queen's weekly audience with Prime Minister Edward Heath in 1973, it was placed on the agenda as "Scottish oil".
Hugh MacDiarmid 1892-1978
Image copyright PA Image caption Poet and Scottish nationalist Hugh MacDiarmid
Poet, cultural and political commentator, Hugh McDiarmid was one of the most significant and controversial figures in 20th Century Scottish literature
Born Christopher Murray Grieve in border town of Langholm; served in WW1 before returning to Scotland to work as journalist
Published his most famous poem, "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle" in 1925
Founding member of the National Party of Scotland - forerunner to the SNP; in 1964, stood as Communist Party candidate against the then prime minister, Sir Alex Douglas-Home
BBC: Hugh MacDiarmid
For most of its existence the SNP hadn't gained more than 5% of the Scottish vote but it won 30% in October 1974.
Playing the "race card" also helped.
A post-imperial espousal of "civic nationalism" gained the SNP support from many Asian Scots, the main ethnic minority north of the border.
This distinguishes it from other nationalist parties like UKIP whose appeal rests partly on white English antipathy to multiculturalism and to a European Union that many Scots support as an alternative to the Union with England and Wales.
Yet Home Rule still appeared ridiculous to most English people in the 1970s and 80s.
The devolution referendum offered by the Labour government of Jim Callaghan in 1979 ended in defeat with 33% of Scots for and 31% against (and a third not voting).
A Labour amendment that ruled 40% of the entire electorate had to vote Yes provoked SNP complaints that the goalposts had been moved.
What characterised Scottish discontent with the English was the broken goalposts of Wembley Stadium in 1977, when a jubilant Tartan Army celebrated victory over the England football team by invading and trashing the pitch.
Hence the fact that when the Scottish Parliament finally came, it came as a bit of a shock south of the border.
In 1997, the Scots voted by three to one in favour of a parliament - 74.3% of the votes cast on a turnout of 60.4%.
From the time that the Scottish Office was set up in 1885, until it was replaced by the Scottish Parliament in 1999, devolution had largely been a strategic tool of the British Establishment to dent the appeal of independence.
And in all that time it has merely led to the incremental increase of Scottish and Welsh autonomy, and with it the creation of a lopsided British polity.
That's because it is not a straightforward question of money and power but of the long term decline of Britishness as a national identity.
According to a study by Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1997, the numbers of people whose Britishness was described by themselves as weak or non-existent had risen from a minority in each country to 66% of Scots, 43% of the Welsh and 26% of the English.
A decade later, another survey (cited by Varun Uberoi and Iain McLean in Britishness: A Role for the State?) found that the number had risen to 47% in England.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Home rule campaigner, 1952
Image copyright AP Image caption North Sea oil first started to flow ashore in 1975
Image copyright PA Image caption Scotland's Stone of Scone was returned to the country in 1996
Today's unionist elite face a problem their predecessors did not - the revival of a distinct English identity.
It's been reawakened by resentment about Scottish powers that English MPs do not have over English affairs, by subsidies piped north through the Barnett Formula, and by a belated awareness that Britain and England are not the same thing (the fact that England football fans only began flying the George Cross rather than the Union Jack in 1996 is an obvious example of this).
Empire, the Nazis and God are not coming back to rescue British national identity - nor will generic pieties about our love of "fair play".
Among those who still feel British there is a generation gap over what constitutes Britishness.
According to a YouGov poll in 2005 - (cited by Peter Kellner in What Britishness Means to the British) - Britons over 55 were much more likely than under-35s to think that parliamentary democracy was "very important" to being British (60% to 39%).
The same was true of British justice (63% to 37%) and their belief in a "sense of fairness" as a national characteristic (63% to 43%).
History of Britannia
Image copyright Thinkstock
Roman frieze discovered in 1980 shows female warrior labelled "Britannia", writhing in agony under the heel of the Roman emperor
Figure appeared on coins issued under emperor Hadrian, as a more regal-looking female figure, similar in appearance to the goddess Minerva
Pageants featuring the character of Britannia "under the shape of a fair and beautiful nymph" were held in early 17th Century to celebrate James VI of Scotland's ascent to the English throne
British coins begin to feature the figure of Britannia from 1672 onwards; this continued until 2008
One practical answer to the erosion of Britishness all round might be "Home Rule All Round", starting with another royal commission to examine the state of the Union.
The federal reconstitution of the UK, with parliaments for all four nations and a British one sitting at Westminster, was first mooted by radical Liberals in the 1880s as part of William Gladstone's aborted solution to "the Irish Question".
Ironically, the young Winston Churchill was a supporter of federalism in the 1900s before his later contempt for the "silliest" Scots in the 1950s.
Many Conservative MPs now favour this solution too.
The Labour Party is not keen, fearing that a Conservative-dominated English parliament will erode its power base at Westminster by stealth as surely as Scottish independence would have done so at a stroke.
Their preferred option of English regional assemblies, tried by Tony Blair in the 1990s, remains an unpopular non-starter.
Labour's opposition to Home Rule All Round is ironic because it was one of the Liberal policies that the party adopted when it replaced the Liberals as the main progressive party in Britain in the interwar period.
Home Rule All Round was party policy from 1929 until 1945, when Labour leaders abandoned it as they eyed the prize of a landslide victory and a centralised state with which to implement their "New Jerusalem".
The ghost of Thatcher may hover over the rise of Scottish nationalism but it is the ghost of Gladstone who now hovers over the future of the Union.
There is no simple solution to the erosion of Britishness.
National identities are forms of culture that, like rock formations, take centuries to evolve.
History teaches that the demand for Scottish independence has never entirely disappeared since the Union was founded in 1707.
The Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders now scrambling to say thank you to the Scots with parcels of gold and power should take note. The story of the United Kingdom is not over, but neither is the story of Scottish nationalism.
Richard Weight is a historian and broadcaster and the author of Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940-2000
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Given the success of other accent lighting smart home products, LIFX is now throwing its hat into the ring with its latest smartphone-enabled lighting system. Deemed the LIFX Tile, the new system brings a fully customizable wall-mounted LED lighting system with HomeKit support to the company’s lineup of smart home gear.
This isn’t the first time we’ve taken note of a wall-mounted lighting system. About a year ago we went hands-on with Nanoleaf’s Triangular Aurora lighting kit which offers mood lighting in the form of rearrangeable multi-color panels. Now LIFX is following suit and expanding its lineup of lights to include its very own customizable accent lighting solution.
The recently unveiled Tile Kit is based around 5 square reconfigurable lighting panels that connect to a controller and power supply. Each panel has 64 independent zones for color control and supports the same array of up to 16 million colors as other lights from the company. This means that a single tile can display multiple colors at the same time, something the Aurora panels cannot. Much like LIFX’s line of A19 light bulbs, Tile isn’t dependent on a hub for control either.
LIFX’s square tiles are a little under 8-inches wide and are fairly lightweight at just 1.3-pounds. They aren’t as large compared to Nanoleaf’s triangular panels, but do in fact offer more lighting surface area per tile. Each panel outputs 420 lumens which adds up to 2100 for the whole unit. As of now there’s no details on how LIFX has opted to attach the panels to your walls, but will most likely use some form of 3M tape or a similar adhesive solution.
Tile is controlled through the same LIFX companion iOS and Android app the rest of its lights are. The true power comes from Tile’s integration with 3rd party standards like HomeKit, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. These allow you to control the lighting panels with the rest of your smart home accessories, respond to voice commands and more.
The kit is set to retail at $249.99 and includes 5 tiles alongside the controller and power supply. Unlike Nanoleaf’s Aurora system which supports up to 30 tiles per controller, LIFX’s new option maxes out at 5. So if you’re looking to fill a wall with lighting panels it’d be smarter to opt for Nanoleaf’s triangle panels. LIFX’s Tile kit is now available for preorder over on its site and will be shipping just in time for the holidays in November.
LIFX Tile is amazing for living areas, bedrooms and can be placed to create unique experiences almost anywhere in your home. Connects to your Wi-Fi without a hub and enjoy the LIFX experience that you love anywhere, anytime. Using apps like IFTTT and more, be notified of emails and messages with the flash of a Tile. Check out our connects with page for many amazing integrations including voice with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
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THE phrase "animal lover" might bring up images of people with a lot of pets, volunteering at a rescue centre.
GETTY FLUFFY FUN: The furry fandom is one with many dimensions
However, in one community, it means something completely different. Members of the furry fandom, or furries, are so obsessed with humanoid animal characters they go to conventions to celebrate them, get suits made up to look like one and can even be sexually interested in them. The furry fandom is a community of people who love "humanoid animals" – or anthropomorphic animals and are also interested in animals with human qualities. This could range from a more conventional liking for ladies wearing cat ears or bunny tails – to bombarding the Frosties mascot with declarations of love. Although the following began in the 80s it blew up when Disney released their version of Robin Hood – with a very human fox as Robin. After the recent release of film Zootopia this year has seen a new wave of people converting to the fandom. Furries can come in a wide variety of different forms.
GETTY HUGS: Furries in suits at the Eurofurence 2015
“None of these are sexualised 'animals'. These are sexualised 'anthro-animals'” Jonathan Thurston, author in the furry community At one end of the spectrum, there are those who prefer to simply draw or create art dedicated to human-like animals. But at the other extreme, there are furries who pay thousands of pounds for custom-made suits, have their own "fursona" and even like to have sex in character. A "fursona" is a persona created by a furry – one they believe reflects who they truly are inside and they have a lot of fun in character as the animal. This can go as far as having a custom-made suit built, which costs around £2,000 in total, creating Twitter accounts for their "fursona" and going about their day to day business dressed as the animal. There are companies which thrive purely from making costumes for members of the furry fandom. In some cases, being a furry fan can go even further than that. Some members of the fandom even get sexual kicks out of having sex in character and there are plenty of porn sites dedicated to giving some furries their kicks. "The furry fandom spreads far and wide," said one furry, who didn't want to be named. "A lot of furries feel like their animal fursona is truly part of them and when they put the suit on, they become truly who they are.
TWITTER FURSUIT: Making the human-sized suits are not an easy or cheap job
"A fursona is an animal identity created by the person. You can be whatever species you like, whatever gender you like, have whatever traits you want. It is completely down to you." He added that his personal "fursona" is a fox crossed with a cat because he wanted to create one that reflected his true personality. "I personally got into the fandom when I was quite young, and felt like a bit of a misfit in my every day life. I couldn't really explain why I got into it, but it just happened. "I think the web has helped a lot with bringing the furry fandom together. We all tend to have Twitter accounts set up for our fursonas, and it's a forum where we can truly be who we want. "There's a big following on Tumblr, too, which is a bit of a home for people with kinks." And although this furry claims he isn't part of the fandom for sex, he does know of plenty of people who are.
DS LINGO: Different words bandied about in the fandom
"We often act differently when we are all together – we act more freely like animals sometimes. "This can include scratching each other, nuzzling each other, hugging and petting each other – but that isn't necessarily sexual. "I do know a lot of people who feel sex is an important aspect of their furry lives. For some, it is freeing to have sex in character. I think this is true for a lot of people, getting dressed up for their partners. "But I know that furries will not usually have sex in their fur suits. They are hot, heavy and also very expensive. They wouldn't want to risk staining or ruining them and also, that isn't really part of it." The sexual side of the furry fandom came into the media spotlight earlier this year, when it was revealed that Tony the Tiger, character of Frosties cereal, was being harassed on Twitter by horny furries. It emerged the character was being bombarded with lewd tweets and images from furry fans idolising him. When the account begged fans to stop, they found a new idol in Chester Cheetah, the Cheetos ambassador.
Furries are keen to reiterate that they aren't attracted to animals, however – only animals with human qualities, or humans with animal qualities. "It's not beastiality. It's not about having sex with cats or dogs," the anonymous furry told Daily Star Online. There are "fur-cons" all over the world where fans can meet up and have fun with each other – and some of the proceeds from the events even go to charity. Plenty of books and studies have been done on the furry community, and there was even a furries newspaper until 2010, when the internet began to take over. Another member of the fandom who has written books on the topic, said: "The media tend to portray furries as sexual deviants, who either have sex with animals or who have sex in animal costumes. "To contest that, however, fursuits are personally made. They can easily cost $3,000 (£2,000) and having them custom made for sex purposes is laughable to most of the fandom.
Real life furries A furry is someone who has an interest (small or large) of anthropomorphic animals (animals who have a human qualities be it simply talking or having a human-like body). 1 / 10 Getty Images A Furry enthusiast drinks a cocktail in Berlin |
Following is the letter of resignation sent last week by former President George Bush to the National Rifle Association: May 3, 1995
Dear Mr. Washington,
I was outraged when, even in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy, Mr. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of N.R.A., defended his attack on federal agents as "jack-booted thugs." To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as "wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms" wanting to "attack law abiding citizens" is a vicious slander on good people.
Al Whicher, who served on my [ United States Secret Service ] detail when I was Vice President and President, was killed in Oklahoma City. He was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country -- and serve it well he did.
In 1993, I attended the wake for A.T.F. agent Steve Willis, another dedicated officer who did his duty. I can assure you that this honorable man, killed by weird cultists, was no Nazi.
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John Magaw, who used to head the U.S.S.S. and now heads A.T.F., is one of the most principled, decent men I have ever known. He would be the last to condone the kind of illegal behavior your ugly letter charges. The same is true for the F.B.I.'s able Director Louis Freeh. I appointed Mr. Freeh to the Federal Bench. His integrity and honor are beyond question.
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Both John Magaw and Judge Freeh were in office when I was President. They both now serve in the current administration. They both have badges. Neither of them would ever give the government's "go ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law abiding citizens." (Your words) |
A Philadelphia day care owner is accused of sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy. NBC10's Drew Smith speaks to residents who know the owner, identified by police as Duncan Round.
The longtime owner of a day care center in the Bella Vista section of Philadelphia has been charged with allegedly sexually assaulting two children on multiple occasions.
Duncan Round, 53, of Medford Lakes, New Jersey, was arrested Wednesday and arraigned in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas early Thursday morning. He was released after paying 10 percent of the $200,000 bail.
His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 15.
Round is charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, unlawful contact with a minor, statutory sexual assault, sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor and indecent exposure.
Day Care Owner Accused of Sexually Assaulting Two Kids
Duncan Round, the owner of Sprouts Daycare Center in Queen Village, is now charged with sexually assaulting two kids. NBC10's Aundrea Cline-Thomas has the story. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017)
Police say the investigation began on July 25 when the Department of Human Services responded to a report of sexual abuse at the Sprouts Childrens Center, located inside the Philly Kids Gym on 604 South 9th Street. After conducting several interviews, investigators determined Round, the owner of Sprouts, sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy multiple times inside the day care.
Round, who police say has owned the day care for approximately ten years, surrendered to police Wednesday.
Parents went to Sprouts Wednesday evening after learning about the allegations against Round.
"This is beyond repair," said George Tadross, a parent of a child who attended the day care. "I don't care what they do. I will never send my kids there."
A former employee at Sprouts told NBC10 she quit working at the day care after feeling uncomfortable. Another woman said she was disturbed by Round's behavior during a tour of the day care center.
Some parents defended Round however and suggested that the allegations against him are not true.
2 Kids Sexually Assaulted at Day Care Center
The owner of a Philadelphia day care center is in custody after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017)
"Duncan is a great guy," said Steven O'Toole. "He loves kids. This is a great place. You feel like family here and it's all just a shame."
A DHS spokesperson told NBC10 the department began the process of an emergency removal order as soon as they learned of Round's arrest. DHS staff were at the day care Thursday and informed parents of the order before closing the facility. They are currently working with parents to help them find different childcare options.
Police are investigating whether Round sexually assaulted other children at the day care. If you believe your child was a victim, call Philadelphia Police. |
Statistics show that 70 per cent of children who are uncertain about their gender are subject to bullying, 88 per cent of transgender employees experience discrimination or harassment in their workplace and a recent rise in hate crime against transgender people of 14 per cent.
The plan addresses some of the obstacles faced by transgender people in every aspect of public life, as well as identifying wider cultural issues. It provides a framework for communities to work with the government to challenge and overcome persisting inequalities.
Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone said:
‘Too many transgender people still face prejudice at every stage of their lives, from playground bullying, to being overlooked for jobs or targeted for crime.
’ I am proud to announce the first government strategy to tackle the specific barriers facing transgender people.
‘like everyone else, transgender people have the right to be accepted, to live their lives free of harassment, and to be free to achieve any ambition they choose.’
The announcement follows extensive engagement by the government with the transgender community, public bodies, practitioners and the voluntary sector, which identified a number of issues which the Plan aims to address. Among other things it commits to:
reform Health services to ensure greater consistency in commissioning gender identity services
publish a clear and concise guide for health practitioners, including GPs and Primary Care Trusts, on the treatment and care available
amend the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to raise the starting point for murders motivated by hostility towards a transgender person from 15 to 30 years.
Lynne Featherstone added:
‘Today is an important step, but I recognise that government can only go so far. So we will be working with schools, businesses and communities so that together, we can drive change and help consign transphobia to the past.’
April Ashley, who in 1960 became the first Briton to undergo sex-change surgery, said:
‘I think there are so many support groups out there unlike when I did my transition 52 years ago when there was no help at all. Today’s announcement shows we are moving forward to breaking down barriers and educating people.’
Jay Stewart, co founder of Gendered Intelligence, which works to tackle transphobic bullying in schools and across communities, said:
‘The transgender action plan demonstrates a commitment across government to ensure fair treatment to transgender people. It’s fantastic news for our community. We must now work together to educate people about what it means to be transgendered.
‘The plan came about through working with the trans community, and this includes young trans people. I am delighted that Gendered Intelligence has played its part and that the voices of our young people have also been heard.’
Notes to editors
1. Advancing Gender Equality: A Plan for Action is available here -
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/equalities/lgbt-equality-publications/transgender-action-plan
2. Working for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equality: Moving Forward. Was published in March 2011 - http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/equalities/lgbt-equality-publications/lgbt-action-plan
3. The Home Office has carried out a series of surveys over the past year to gather evidence over the barriers faced by transgender people, published here - http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/equalities/lgbt-equality-publications/transgender-survey
4. The 14% rise in hate crime is based on Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) figures, released on 8 September 2011. |
After the first ever example of Mac ransomware was found in the wild earlier this year, Bitdefender Labs has found what it tells us is only the second example of true Mac malware to enter circulation this year, which it has dubbed Backdoor.MAC.Elanor. The malware application was available on a number of (formerly?) reputable download sites such as MacUpdate.
The backdoor is embedded into a fake file converter application that is accessible online on reputable sites offering Mac applications and software. The EasyDoc Converter.app poses as a drag-and-drop file converter, but has no real functionality – it simply downloads a malicious script. This is a nasty backdoor that can steal data, execute remote code and access the webcam, among other things …
NordVPN
Bitdefender explains that the malware that was discovered within the application titled EasyDoc Converter would install a Tor hidden service, a web service, and a Pastebin agent to each infected system. Technical lead Tiberius Axinte says that there is no real limit to what the Backdoor.MAC.Elanor malware can do.
This type of malware is particularly dangerous as it’s hard to detect and offers the attacker full control of the compromised system. For instance, someone can lock you out of your laptop, threaten to blackmail you to restore your private files or transform your laptop into a botnet to attack other devices. The possibilities are endless.
The good news is that the malicious app is not signed by an Apple Developer ID, so as long as you have your Mac set only to open apps from the Mac App Store or known developers, it won’t open. It does, though, emphasize the importance of exercising caution even when downloading apps from reputable sites.
Bitfender has promised more technical details of the malware later this morning. The full report from Bitdefender is available now.
Update 07/06/2016 11:00 AM PDT: |
2016 was an incredible year for Heroes of the Storm. We introduced of tons of new Heroes, features, events, mounts, skins, and even more to the Nexus, but just in case you missed it, you can check out the video below that recaps all the epic content we added to the game last year. To kick off 2017, celebrate everything that has happened in the past year, as well as everything we have planned for the year to come, we’re inviting everyone to enjoy three days of a completely full Hero roster from January 13–17!
Players in all regions will be able to log in to Heroes of the Storm from January 13–17 and enjoy playing any Hero on the roster for free!
The event begins at 10 a.m. on January 13 and ends at 10 a.m. on January 17.
Now is the time to hop in and find a new favorite Hero, check out some new team compositions with friends, and celebrate the new year in the Nexus! |
A 12-volume report into the invasion of Iraq has issued a damning indictment of the decision to go to war, saying it was based on false information and laid the groundwork for much of the turmoil that plagues the region today.
Britain's Iraq Inquiry spent seven years examining whether it was necessary to invade Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein and whether Britain and its allies should have been better prepared for the aftermath.
The report, released Wednesday, concluded there were other options to war and that the legal basis for invading was "far from satisfactory." It also said the planning for a postwar Iraq was woefully inadequate and that the resulting instability resulted in the death of at least 150,000 Iraqis "and probably many more."
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"The evidence is there for all to see. It is an account of an intervention which went badly wrong, with consequences to this day," said inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot. "Military action at that time was not a last resort."
The report has reopened a long-simmering debate about Britain's role in Iraq, the conduct of former prime minister Tony Blair and the country's standing in the world. And it comes amid rising violence in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the region that many say can be traced back to the 2003 invasion and the failure of the U.S. and Britain to rebuild Iraq and support the country's fledgling administration.
Mr. Blair spent two hours on Wednesday defending his actions. He said he regretted the lost lives and acknowledged mistakes were made, but insisted he made the right call to invade.
"Please stop saying I was lying or I had some dishonest or underhand motive," Mr. Blair said. "I had to decide. I thought of Saddam and his record, the character of his regime. I thought of our alliance with America and its importance to us in the post-9/11 world and I weighed it carefully with the heaviest of hearts."
He added that he had no regrets about backing up then U.S. president George W. Bush, saying Britain has to work in coalitions and the U.S. is the country's most important ally.
"The inquiry claims that military action was not a last resort, but it also says that it might have been necessary later. With respect, I didn't have the option of that delay," Mr. Blair said. "I took this decision because I believed it was the right thing to do based upon the information I had and the threats I perceived."
Family members of British soldiers who died in Iraq heaped scorn on Mr. Blair and threatened to sue.
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"There's one terrorist in this world, that the world needs to be aware of, and his name is Tony Blair," said Sarah O'Connor, whose brother, Sergeant Bob O'Connor, died in 2005 when the helicopter he was in was shot down.
"My son died in vain," said Roger Bacon, who lost his son, Major Matthew Bacon, during the war.
Rose Gentle, whose son, Gordon, died in a roadside bomb blast in 2004, said she wanted to look Mr. Blair in the eye and ask him: "Why did you kill my son?"
The inquiry's conclusions will deepen the political divisions in Britain, particularly in the Labour Party where leader Jeremy Corbyn has been a fierce critic of Mr. Blair, a Labour prime minister for 10 years, and is battling a revolt by so-called Blairites within the party.
The report examined the period immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. up to 2009 when British troops left Iraq.
Documents released by the inquiry, including dozens of personal notes between Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush, reveal that from the start Mr. Blair was keen to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the U.S.
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"I will be with you, whatever," Mr. Blair said in a note to Mr. Bush in July, 2002. In several notes Mr. Blair expressed concern about the aftermath of the war and at one point he raised the possibility of installing another dictator until order could be restored.
The two men developed an extremely close working relationship, with Mr. Blair frequently sending the president detailed reports and injecting his views on major issues of the day. Mr. Bush, the report said, "encouraged that dialogue and listened to Mr. Blair's opinions."
Mr. Blair "had a habit of writing notes, both internally and to President [Bill] Clinton and President Bush on all sorts of subjects," Jonathan Powell, Mr. Blair's chief of staff, told the inquiry.
Britain was eager to back the U.S. immediately after the 9/11 attacks in part because it feared that vital areas of co-operation would be damaged unless it gave the Americans full support, the report found. The British government also thought that it could best influence U.S. policy by committing full support and seeking to persuade policy-makers from the inside.
"The issue of influencing the U.S., both at the strategic and at the operational level, was a constant preoccupation at all levels of the U.K. government," the report said.
However, the report concluded that while British arguments at times made a difference in shaping U.S. policy "the relationship between the two is unequal." And it noted that countries like Germany and France opposed invading Iraq and that "does not appear to have had a lasting impact on the relationships of those countries with the U.S., despite the bitterness at the time."
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The report also goes into detail about the drafting of a dossier Mr. Blair presented to Parliament in September, 2002, which claimed the "assessed intelligence" had "established beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein had "continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and that he had been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile program."
The dossier had been based on information from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) which the inquiry said had not come to those conclusions at all. The JIC had found that Iraq had produced chemical and biological agents, and that the country had the means to deliver chemical weapons but "it did not say that Iraq had continued to produce weapons." It also made clear that as long as sanctions remained effective "Iraq could not produce a nuclear weapon." However the report said the JIC did not press its case with Mr. Blair, allowing him to come to his own conclusions.
The report said Mr. Blair had also been warned by his officials that military action would increase the threat from al-Qaeda and that an invasion of Iraq might lead to Iraq's weapons and capabilities being transferred into the hands of terrorists.
"It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged, and they should have been," Sir John said.
The widespread perception that the dossier overstated the evidence in order to influence public opinion "has produced a damaging legacy, including undermining the trust and confidence in government statements, particularly those which rely on intelligence which cannot be independently verified," the report concluded.
The report said the British military was ill-prepared for the 2003 invasion, lacked proper equipment and there was scant planning for postwar Iraq.
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"The government's preparations failed to take account of the magnitude of the task of stabilizing, administering and reconstructing Iraq, and of the responsibilities which were likely to fall to the U.K.," the report said. |
BEIRUT, Lebanon, and DAMASCUS, Syria — He’s got multiple cell phones and pseudonyms, a dangerous addiction to nicotine and when his laptop is open, which it always is, his fingers dance across the touch pad in a mad ballet of digital information sharing.
“That was AP calling,” said Syrian cyber activist Rami Nakhle, about the international news agency whose competitor Reuters was recently expelled from Damascus for reporting on the Syrian uprising. “They wanted us to confirm with video. Confirm with video? Not yet! I mean, come on!”
Known as Malath Omran until his real identity was made public last week by the Syrian secret police, Nakhle is one hub of a growing and impressively organized network of activists using social media to break the bonds of Syria’s police state and publish news and images of the unprecedented protest movement against the regime.
Having fled Syria after a tip off that he was about to be arrested, Nakhle now lives across the border in a safe house in Beirut. Despite concerns for his family, Nakhle said he is unable to return home. On his Facebook wall, the activist recently received a threat he believes came from Syrian security warning that if he did not renounce his support for the uprising, his sister would be arrested and his family targeted.
During last Friday’s protests, tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets to demand freedom in cities across the country, many calling for the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has ruled the country for 40 years. At least 26 protestors were killed by Syrian security forces in the southern city of Deraa. On Wednesday, the protest movement appeared to be spreading to more Syrian cities, including Aleppo, the country's second largest.
Along with further deaths at funerals over the weekend, the total number of Syrians killed in three weeks of mostly peaceful protests now numbers more than 200, according to Syria’s National Organization for Human Rights.
Nakhle’s job is to use social media and technology to link the protestors on the street, shooting video on their mobiles, with the outside world. Many of the cities where protests have taken place are now under a military lockdown, with mobile phone and internet cut, and access restricted. Foreign media have been barred from Syria and dozens of journalists, local and foreign, arrested or expelled. In their place, Syria’s cyber activists are making sure reporting still gets out.
Nakhle’s flat looks just like what it is: A bunker in wartime. Huge packs of Arabic flat bread lie half-eaten beside an oversized jar of Nescafe and enough drinking water for a fortnight. In the kitchen, pizza boxes stack up beside a sink full of used matte leaves, the fortifying Latin American tea loved by Syrians.
Every 10 minutes or so Nakhle’s laptop chirps with the sound of incoming Skype calls: CNN, Mediterranean International Radio from Morocco, the BBC, Human Rights Watch.
The internet phone system allows for anonymous users and its encryption is complicated enough to make it almost impossible for authorities to listen in on.
As Nakhle fields calls, his “Tweet Deck,” a platform for advanced Twitter users that looks something like a pilot’s navigation system, is humming and pulsing with messages from colleagues inside Syria.
The loose-knit team is divided into those who report and those who publish, the ground crew and the computer crew. Activists on the street in Syria’s major cities — Damascus, Homs, Aleppo, Lattakia and Deraa, where the protest movement began — gather testimony from eyewitnesses and feed it back to the computer crew who work to cross reference the information with other sources before sending out updates on Facebook or Twitter.
“Confirmed: Kurds in Qamishli chanting, ‘We want freedom, not citizenship’,” says Nakhle, without looking up. “Confirmed: demonstrations in Ras al-Ein.” Then, for the benefit of a confused journalist: “That’s on the border between Syria, Turkey and Iraq.”
He laughs and for a moment sits back on the sofa with a flash of his striking green eyes.
“‘Did you start to use Pampers yet?’” he reads from the screen. A Twitter follower of his by the name of “I Love Syria 2011” has been sending Nakhle regular taunts, this one inquiring if the 26-year-old activist is scared enough to suffer an involuntary bowel movement.
“That’s what he Tweets me!” Nakhle laughed.
But the smile soon disappears with updates from Duma, a suburb of Damascus that has been a center of the protest movement. “Some martyrs fell in Duma,” says Nakhle, holding his face in his hands. “Now there’s a call for doctors.”
Syria’s online activists are a varied bunch, including all the nation’s major communities from Sunnis to Christians to Druze to Alawites.
Those directly involved in the activist network are generally young, in their 20s and 30s, tech-savvy, highly motivated and adept in English. Some are journalists with training in international standards of reporting. Some are professionals: lawyers, doctors, engineers.
Some are either banned or fear arrest in Syria and so continue their work in Beirut, Washington, London, Paris and elsewhere. Many are in Syrian prisons, but many have still to be caught and so use their time on the street to gather the images and reports that the regime does its best to make sure no one ever sees.
Yet for all their motivation, Syrian activists agree on one thing: The protest movement in Syria would be nowhere without the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.
“I didn’t know the meaning of freedom of speech until I saw the cyber activists in Egypt and Tunisia,” said a 26-year-old Syrian activist based in Damascus who uploads YouTube footage shot on mobile phones or hidden cameras during each protest.
Reporters Without Borders lists Syria as one of 10 countries that are active “Internet Enemies.” Hundreds of websites remain blocked, the majority of them run by political movements perceived to be opposed to the regime in Damascus.
Until last month, Syria held one of the eldest and the youngest political prisoners in the world, 82-year-old Haithem Maleh, a veteran human rights campaigner who was released, and 19-year-old student blogger Tal al-Mallouhi, who remains behind bars.
“Many of my friends were arrested in the last few days, especially the activists behind the computers,” said Razan Zeitouna, a lawyer and human rights researcher who has played a key role inside Syria connecting activists with the media outside. She’s been interrogated many times by the secret police. “Each time they tell me, ‘This is the last time you get out. Next time you’ll never see the sun again.’”
But, like other activists, Zeitouna insists the fear she feels is not for her own life but for the life of the historic movement she has played a part in driving forward.
“We lost 150 youths. I cannot deal with losing so many in our mission,” she said, pausing for a moment. “The thought of us not achieving our goals would mean it had all been for nothing. That’s what makes us scared.”
A second GlobalPost reporter, who cannot be named for security reasons, contributed to this article from Damascus. |
PUBLIC HEALTH MINISTER Rajata Rajatanavin yesterday dismissed reports on social media that more cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) had been found in the provinces.
“It is not true and people should not believe unconfirmed reports that may cause the public to panic,’’ he said.
He said people could continue their normal life because the virus has not spread in the country. The first and only MERS patient was found to have been only mildly infected and it was unlikely that 175 people suspected to have come in contact with him would be affected, the minister said.
Rajata spoke at Bamrasnaradura Infectious Diseases Institute after visiting the country’s first MERS case and his three relatives, who were in the Airborne Infection Isolation Room.
He said the patient’s condition had improved but he still needed to be under close watch. His three relatives had no fever and they no longer coughed.
The Public Health Ministry, in its newsletter, urged members of the public not to believe rumours spread through different channels. It said anyone who has questions about MERS should call the ministry’s hotline, 1422, at any time.
Surachet Satitramai, caretaker permanent secretary at the Public Health Ministry, said two of the three relatives had tested negative for MERS and the test results on one other relative would be available today.
He said some of the 175 people who came in contact with the country’s first MERS patient had been put in quarantine for 14 days for the possible incubation period.
The person who sat next to the patient on the same airline had been identified and found on Friday, as well as the taxi driver.
He said 10 private hospitals popular among people from the Middle East for medical treatments were invited on Friday to discuss disease surveillance systems. He said international airlines would not allow sick patients to travel on their flights, which would help screen patients at one level.
More than 100 clinics and other private hospitals would also be invited to discuss disease control tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Nakhon Ratchasima’s Public Health chief officer Dr Wichai Khattiyawittayakul said three people – two women and a six-year-old boy – who sat near the Middle Eastern man with MERS had been located. The boy had flu symptoms. They were brought under close medical surveillance and their blood samples were sent for tests in Bangkok. The results would come out today, he said.
Surachet insisted that Thailand had only one MERS patient and asked the media to respect the patient’s rights and refrain from taking pictures of him and his family or his home, saying it was illegal.
All international airports in the country would provide special lanes for people travelling from the Middle East and South Korea to undergo disease screening before passing through immigration, he said.
Dr Chariya Saengsajja, director of the Bamrasnaradura Infectious Diseases Institute, said the country’s first MERS patient was able to eat food by himself and was able to communicate, thanks to an interpreter from Oman. She said the patient was regarded as a high-risk patient because he was elderly with chronic diseases.
Dr Prasit Wattanapa, dean of Mahidol University’s Faculty of Medicine, denied reports that Siriraj Hospital has MERS cases or suspected cases. He said the pictures of medical personnel wearing special suits were taken during some training sessions to brace for any emergency situation.
Professor Dr Theerawat Hemachuta of Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, rejected reports that amoxycillin was effective in treating respiratory diseases. He said the medicine was for treating bacterial infection not viruses.
He said there was no medicine yet for MERS. He added that test results showed all 38 travellers from South Korea and the Middle East had tested negative for MERS.
Dr Rungruang Kijpati, a director of the Health Ministry’s Disease Control Department, said a Buri Ram woman who sat next to the Middle East man infected with MERS in the same flight was not infected. He warned Buri Ram people not to panic about the disease supposedly spreading in the province.
Buri Ram health officials had put the Buri Ram woman in quarantine and may keep a watch on her for 14 days.
Bangkok Deputy City Clerk Dr Peerapong Saichua said that the city administration would adopt the same measures used with other communicable diseases such as Ebola, Sars and bird flu.
He said the city administration had 76 specialist teams keeping an eye on the disease. They would campaign to ensure city people are aware about the disease. They would also investigate, follow and monitor two groups of people – Thais returning from their Haj pilgrimage and foreigners who went on the pilgrimage and came to Thailand. |
Chris Rock Bigger And Blacker Script - Dialogue Transcript
Swing on back to Drew's Script-O-Rama afterwards for more free movie scripts!
Chris Rock Bigger And Blacker Script
Ladies and gentlemen... live from the world-famous Apollo Theater... in Harlem, New York. Are you ready? Please welcome Mr. Chris Rock! What's up... New York? There's Brooklyn in the house. Well, l'm from Brooklyn. Shit, look at this. White people are up top tonight. You know, l was just in my hotel, a little while ago, on my way here... and l got in the elevator, right? l'm getting in the elevator... and these two high-school white boys try to get on with me... and l just dove off. l said, ''Y'all ain't killing me!'' l am scared of young white boys. lf you white and under l am running for the hills. What the hell is wrong with these white kids shooting up the school? They don't even wait till : either. Killing people in the morning. That ain't right. The Trenchcoat Mafia. ''No one will play with us. ''We have no friends. We're the Trenchcoat Mafia.'' Hey, l saw the yearbook pictures. lt was six of them. l didn't have six friends in high school. l don't got six friends now. Shit, that's three-on-three with a half court. What the hell is wrong with these kids? l got people telling me, ''Come on, Chris. Come up to a school. Talk to the kids.'' l'm like, ''Fuck the kids! ''Do you got a vest? Maybe l'll think about it.'' Everybody wants to know what the kids was listening to. What kind of music was they listening to? Or what kind of movies was they watching? Who gives a fuck what they was watching? Whatever happened to crazy? What happened to crazy? What, you can't be crazy no more? Did we eliminate ''crazy'' from the dictionary? Fuck the records. Fuck the movies. Crazy! When l was a kid, they used to separate the crazy kids from everybody. When l was a kid, the crazy kids went to school in a little-ass bus. They had a class at the end of the school... and they used to get out of school at : . Just in case they went crazy... they would only hurt other crazy kids. And we was all safe. We was all safe. Damn, the world's coming to an end. You'll have little white kids saying: ''l want to go to a black school where it's safe.'' That's right, man. And everybody's talking about gun control, got to get rid of the guns. Fuck that. l like guns. You got a gun, you don't have to work out. l ain't working out. l ain't jogging. You got pecs, l got Tecs. Fuck that shit. You don't need no gun control. You know what you need? We need some bullet control. Man, we need to control the bullets, that's right. l think all bullets should cost $ . $ for a bullet. You know why? 'Cause if a bullet costs $ there'd be no more innocent bystanders. That'd be it. Every time someone gets shot, people will be like, ''Damn, he must have did something. ''Shit, they put $ worth of bullets in his ass.'' People would think before they killed somebody, if a bullet cost $ . ''Man, l would blow your fucking head off, if l could afford it. ''l'm gonna get me another job, l'm gonna start saving some money... ''and you're a dead man. ''You better hope l can't get no bullets on layaway.'' So even if you get shot by a stray bullet... you won't have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back. ''l believe you got my property.'' That's right, man. See, everybody blames the kids as fucking crazy. Everybody wants to be mad at the kids for shooting up the school. What about the parents? The parents. The parents is really fucked up, man. Their damn parents need to go to jail for some of this fucking shit, man. 'Cause everybody knows that crazy-ass kid that went to jail. You go, ''Man, he ain't never had a chance. ''lf you'd known his mama, you'd know he gonna be there.'' l was at the club the other night, down at Life, chilling at the club. l'm chilling with this girl. She was dancing. lt was about : a.m. l'm talking to her, and realized she had two kids at home. l don't mind the two kids at home, that's all good. But l'm like, ''What the fuck are you doing in a club... ''at : in the fucking morning on a Wednesday night? ''What the fuck are you doing here? ''ls it your birthday? ''Did you get a raise? ''Well, you got to get the fuck out. ''You go. l'm kicking you the fuck out. Yes, bye! ''Go take care of them kids before they rob me in years.'' You got to get your kid on or your groove on. You can't get both on at the same time. l'm tired of this shit. And a bunch of girls are like: ''You don't need no man to help you raise no child.'' Shut the fuck up with the bullshit. Yeah, you can do it without a man but that don't mean it's to be done. Shit, you could drive a car with your feet if you want to. That don't make it a good fucking idea. l don't give a fuck. You could be the baddest mama on earth. l don't give a fuck how good you are. Ain't nothing you can say more powerful than, ''l'm gonna tell your daddy.'' Can't fuck with it. Can't come close to, ''l'm gonna tell your daddy.'' You can have a gun at the kid's head, ''l'll blow your fucking head off.'' -''So what?'' -''l'll tell your daddy.'' ''Okay, okay.'' Can't fuck with it, man. l'm tired of bumping into these girls at the club... all late on a fucking weeknight. l got a little cousin who got left back in the first grade. Left back in the first grade... 'cause his mama's out getting the groove on. You know how dumb you got to be... to get left back in the first grade? ''What's four plus four?'' ''Jell-O.'' But that ain't his fault. That's the mama's fault. That's the mama's fucking fault. That's right. l'm telling my cousin, ''Tina, talk to your fucking kid. ''Talk to him, teach him some shit. ''lf you said more words to him than, 'Mommy be back'... ''he might know something.'' That's right. And it's real easy to tell who kids are gonna be fucked up. lt don't take no scientist to tell who's gonna have some fucked-up kids. lf the kid calls his grandmamma ''Mommy''... and his mama ''Pam,'' he's going to jail. You ain't saving no college money, you saving bail money. That money's going to Johnnie Cochran. That's right. lf the kid can't read, that's Mama's fault. That is Mama's fucking fault. Now, if the kid can't read 'cause there ain't no lights in the house... that's Daddy's fault. You got this shit down? See, nobody gives a fuck about Daddy. There's some real daddies out there. l'm not talking about the guy that fucked you and left. Fuck him, okay? l'm talking about the real daddies. There's still some motherfuckers out there that handle their business. Motherfuckers wanna act like brothers.... There's some brothers that handle their business. 'Cause people don't give a fuck.... Nobody gives a fuck about Daddy. Everybody takes Daddy for granted. Just listen to the radio. Everything's ''Mama. Dear Mama. Always loved my Mama.'' What's the Daddy song? Papa was a Rollin' Stone. Nobody gives a fuck. Nobody appreciates Daddy. Now, Mama's got the roughest job. l ain't gonna front. But at least people appreciate Mama. Every time Mama do something right, Mama gets a compliment... 'cause women need to hear compliments all the time. Women need food, water, and compliments. That's right. And an occasional pair of shoes. That's right. Women got to hear it all the time, or they lose their minds. And get Daddy to make sure you thank your mama for everything. ''Tell your mama how good the food is. Tell her how nice the house looks. ''Tell your mama how nice her hair looks. ''Did you tell your mama? You better go in there and tell your mama.'' That's right! ''Tell your mama.'' Nobody ever tells Daddy shit. l'm talking about the real daddies that handle their fucking business. Nobody ever says, ''Hey, Daddy, thanks for knocking out this rent.'' ''Hey, Daddy, l sure love this hot water.'' ''Hey, Daddy, this is easy to read with all this light.'' Nobody gives a fuck about Daddy. l'm talking about a daddy that handles his business. Nobody gives a fuck about Daddy. Think about everything that the real daddy does: pay the bills, buy the food, put a fucking roof over your head. Everything you could ever ask for. Make your world a better, safer place. And what does Daddy get for all his work? The big piece of chicken. That's all Daddy gets... is the big piece of chicken. That's right. And some women don't want to give up the big piece of chicken. ''Who the fuck is you... ''to keep the big piece of chicken? ''How dare you keep the big piece of chicken!'' A man can't work hours and come home to a wing. When l was a kid, my mama would lose her mind... if one of us ate the big piece of chicken by accident. ''What the fuck! You ate the big piece of chicken? ''Oh, Lord! No, no. ''Now l got to take some chicken and sew it up and shit. ''Get me two wings and a pork chop. Daddy'll never know the difference.'' Just can't do it. Can't do it. l don't know, man. The world's nuts. lt's all good for Clinton. Any time something bad happens, it's good for Bill Clinton. Just gets people off his ass. ''Stop thinking about me. Good. Kids got shot. Good. ''Good. People are not thinking about me. ''Tornadoes. Good. ''People ain't thinking about me.'' Clinton damn near got impeached, for what? For what? Lied about a blowjob so his wife wouldn't find out. ls that against the law? Do you need the Supreme Court for that one? You could have took that one to The People's Court! Could have took that one to Judge Judy. She'd have knocked it out in a half hour, plus commercials. What the fuck did Clinton do? They was charging him with shit l didn't even know was crimes. ''You got her some gifts.'' So what he got her gifts? That's his friend. You can't buy your friend a gift? ''Tried to get her a job.'' You can't get your friend a job? Shit, % of the people in this room got their job... because a friend recommended them. lt's against the law to get your friend a job? Shit, she blew him for a couple of months. The least he could do is give her a recommendation! lt's the least he could do. See, people... everybody expects this holy behavior 'cause he's the President. Expect him to behave this holy way. He's just the President. He ain't Rev. Clinton. lt ain't Pastor Clinton. lt ain't Maharajah Clinton. lt is just Bill Clinton. He's just a man. A man's gonna be a man. A man is basically as faithful as his options. That's how faithful a man is, no more, no less. You see all these fat Republican guys going: ''l would never do such a thing. This is a travesty.'' l'm like, ''Nobody's trying to blow you.'' Ain't no -year-old girls trying to blow Orrin Hatch. Ain't nobody trying to give Newt Gingrich some. l don't give a fuck, you ain't never gonna hear Newt Gingrich go: ''Man, l wish these hoes would back up off me. ''l wish they would just back the fuck up off me.'' Let a player play, shit! That's right. lt's damn near impossible for a man to turn down sex. lt's hard for a man to turn down sex. We can stop chasing it, and even that requires some rehab. But it's hard for a man to stop. lf it chase us, we can't run that fast. lt's gonna catch us, we're like: ''Shit, pulled a hamstring. You got me.'' You can't run that fast. See, it's easy for women to turn down sex. lt ain't shit for y'all to turn down sex. lt ain't no thing for y'all to turn down sex. Y'all like, ''Why can't you turn it down? l do it all the time. ''Why can't you say no? l say no.'' See, it's easy for y'all. You know why? 'Cause every woman in here, ever since you were ... every guy you met has been trying to fuck you. That's right. Women are offered dick every day. Every woman in here... gets offered dick at least three times a week. Three times a day, shit! That's right, every time a man's being nice to you... all he's doing is offering dick. That's all it is. ''Can l get that for you? How about some dick?'' ''Could l help you with that? Could l help you to some dick? ''Do you need some dick?'' Nobody offers us shit. We got to fend for ourselves. We can't believe it when we get an offer. We're like, ''Damn, this is my lucky day.'' That's right, man. See, this whole Monica Lewinsky scandal, a lot of this shit is Hillary's fault. That's right, l said it. l said it. lt had to be said. Somebody got to say it. Everybody's like, ''Hillary's a hero.'' No, she ain't. Aquaman's a hero. He can talk to the fishes. What the fuck can Hillary do? A lot of this shit is Hillary's fault, 'cause, ladies, you know your man. You know your man better than he knows himself. You know what kind of man you got. You know if you got the crazy, need-a-blowjob-all-the-time man. So sometimes you gotta save your man from himself. So you know what happens if he don't get his medicine. So Hillary Clinton put us all in danger. She put the security of the free world in jeopardy... and she needs to suffer the consequences for her actions. That's right, she's the First Lady. She's supposed to be the first one on her knees to suck his dick! Shit! That's right. Monica Lewinsky shouldn't have even stood a chance. Hillary's supposed to already be down there like, ''Hey, l got it. ''l've got it. l got the dick. ''Tickle his ass, or something. ''Yeah, grab a ball, make yourself useful.'' And they always been on Clinton. Before any of this happened, they was on Clinton. What was they on him for? Gays in the military. Everybody says, ''Don't let them in.'' lf they wanna fight, let them fight, 'cause l ain't fighting. l wouldn't give a fuck if l saw a Russian tank rolling down Flatbush Avenue. l ain't shooting nobody. So call me a faggot. When the war is over, l'll be the faggot with two legs, thank you. You know what's fucked up? Everybody gets so homophobic. People, we need to cut that shit out... 'cause everybody in this room got at least a gay cousin. Every last one of you got a gay cousin. You knew he was gay when y'all was kids. You was playing ball, he was jumping rope. He didn't turn gay, he was gay then. He just didn't have nobody to be gay with. Shit, l got a gay uncle. Call him Aunt Tom. Every Christmas, he comes over with his ''friend.'' See, it don't make no sense to hate nobody. lt don't make no sense to be a racist, sexist, or nothing, but.... lt don't. lt doesn't. lt don't make no sense... 'cause whoever you hate will end up in your family. That's right, you don't like gays, you're gonna have a gay son. You don't like Puerto Ricans? Your daughter's gonna come home with ''Livin' la vida loca!'' Don't you just love that shit? That's a catchy-ass song. You just want to jump up on shit. ''Livin' la vida loca! ''Come on!'' l feel that shit. l'll be driving, ''Livin' la vida loca!'' l love that shit. That ain't going nowhere. That's gonna be out a long time. That shit is like the Puerto Rican Whoomp! (There It Is)! l was talking about my gay uncle. See, your uncles prepare you for life. lf you got enough uncles, they'll prepare you for life... 'cause you got every type of uncle. You got your gay uncle, you got your alcoholic uncle. You got your stealing uncle. You got your molester uncle. Everybody's got that one molester uncle. Your mama's like, ''Where them kids at?'' -''They're with Johnny.'' -''Get them kids! ''Hurry up, get them kids! Don't leave them with your Uncle Johnny!'' Later on, you get molested, your mama get mad at you. ''That's what you get. ''Hanging around fucking Johnny. l told you about that shit! ''Now walk it off!'' That's your family. l don't know. Let's talk about Clinton. One thing Clinton did l didn't like, raise taxes. Taxes all high and shit. You know what's fucked-up about taxes? You don't even pay taxes. They take tax. You get your check, money gone. That ain't a payment, that's a jack. Got all these taxes: city tax, state tax, Social Security tax. You don't get the money until you're . Meanwhile, the average black man dies at . Shit, we should get Social Security at ! What the fuck, man? We don't live that long. Hypertension, high blood pressure, NYPD, something will get you. What the fuck is up with the police? My God! l am scared. l didn't get rid of no guns. Fuck that shit. And l had a cop pull me over the other day, scared me so bad... made me think l stole my own car. ''Get out the car, get out the fucking car! You stole this car!'' l'm like, ''Damn, maybe l did. ''Oh, Lord, l done stole a car.'' You know what's worse than taxes? What's worse than tax is insurance. You got to have some insurance. They shouldn't even call it insurance. They just should call it ''in case shit.'' l give a company some money in case shit happens. Now, if shit don't happen, shouldn't l get my money back? That's right, man, you better have some medical insurance, or you gonna die. That's right, everybody. You got to eat right and exercise. No, you don't, you need some coverage. Coverage will save your life. That's right, we all gonna die, but at least if you got some coverage... you will die on a mattress. That's right. When l was a kid, we didn't have no insurance. We didn't have a damn thing. You had to be damn near dead to see the doctor. You had to be way past Robitussin. That's all we had when l was a kid: Robitussin. No matter what you got, Robitussin better handle it. -''Daddy, l got asthma.'' -''Robitussin.'' -''l got cancer.'' -''Robitussin.'' l broke my leg, Daddy poured Robitussin on it. ''Yeah, boy, let that 'tussin get in there. ''Yeah, boy, let that 'tussin get on down to the bone. ''The 'tussin ought to straighten out the bone. lt's good. ''lf you run out of 'tussin, put some water in the jar, shake it up, more 'tussin. ''More 'tussin!'' Y'all like doctors 'cause they don't cure shit. They don't cure nothing. Same diseases been hanging out since l was a kid, man. What's the last shit a doctor cured? Polio. You know how long ago polio was? That's like the first season of Lucy. Shit, Fred had an Afro with finger waves! Have you ever met anybody with polio? Anybody feel a little 'poly around you? No. That's right, they don't cure shit. The same diseases been hanging out since l was a kid: AlDS, sickle cell, tuberculosis, cancer, Jerry's kids still limping around. l've been watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon... for probably about or years now. Not one stitch of progress whatsoever. Come on, man. Lie to me, Jerry! What the fuck you doing, Jerry? Put a stick in the kid's back, prop him up or some shit! Come on, call Steven Spielberg. Get some special effects on this shit! Get George Lucas on the case! CGl, motherfucker! What the fuck! Tie some string around him, make a cripple puppet or some shit. Lie to me! Where the fuck's the money going? What, to keep Jerry's hair black? Where's the money going? Think about it. Frank Sinatra: dead. Dean Martin: dead. Sammy Davis: dead. Jerry Lewis got a full head of black hair. And if you ain't gonna cure the disease, cut the kids a check! That's right, you know the little boy who's getting ready to die? Get him a table dance. Get him a table dance, for Christ's sake! l'm sure the Make-A-Wish people hear that request every now and then. Get the boy a table dance. ''What do you want, Jimmy? You're dying. Wanna meet Jim Carrey?'' ''No, l want some big titties in my face. ''lt's my last wish, come on.'' That's right, man. That's right, we got AlDS out there. You think they're gonna cure AlDS? No, they can't even cure athlete's foot. They ain't curing AlDS. Shit, they ain't never curing AlDS. Don't even think about that shit. They ain't curing it, 'cause there ain't no money in the cure. The money's in the medicine. That's how you get paid, on the comeback. That's how a drug dealer makes his money, on the comeback. That's all the government is: a bunch of motherfucking drug dealers, on the comeback. They ain't curing no AlDS. That's all it is. You think they're gonna cure AlDS? They're still mad at all the money they lost on polio! Curing AlDS? Shit, that's like Cadillac making a car that lasts for years. And you know they can do it... but they ain't gonna do nothing that fucking dumb. Shit, they got metal on the space shuttle that can go around the moon... and withstand temperatures of up to degrees. You mean to tell me you don't think they can make an Eldorado... where the fucking bumper don't fall off? They can, but they won't. So what they will do with AlDS is the same thing they do with everything else. They will figure out a way for you to live with it. They don't cure shit, they just patch it up. Get you to the next stop, so they can get more of your money. They ain't gonna cure it. Hopefully, in our lifetime, you're gonna see somebody go: ''Yo, man, you weren't at work yesterday. What's up?'' ''My AlDS is acting up. ''You know, when the weather get like this, my AlDS just pop up. ''But l took some Robitussin. l'm fine now!'' That's right, man. AlDS is scary, man. l took my AlDS test, passed it, got . You know what's scary about the AlDS test? What's scary is you don't get the results back for five days. Five days, that's a long time. And you know what happens in those five days? You start reflecting. You start thinking about every nasty, skank-ass... questionable piece of sex you ever had... and everybody got a few. And you're like, ''God, what the fuck was l thinking? '' . She didn't even have teeth! ''Oh, God! ''What the fuck was on my mind?'' lt's like the movie Scrooge, and the Ghost of Pussy Past comes. ''Remember me? l'm ltchy, the stripper from Miami.'' You know what else happens after you take an AlDS test? You start calling up people to see if they're alive. -''Hello, can l speak to Lisa?'' -''This is Lisa.'' -''Hello, can l speak to Tammy?'' -''Tammy dead.'' ''What happened?'' ''She got hit by a bus.'' ''Thank the Lord! Yes! ''Go Greyhound! ''Yeah, she got hit by a bus!'' ''Livin' la vida loca!'' At least they're still working on AlDS. At least they're trying to get rid of AlDS. Some diseases, they just gave up on. There's some diseases, if you get them, you on your own. They ain't gonna have no telethon for you... R. Kelly ain't singing no song. You just got this shit, that's right. You get paralyzed, they don't got shit for you. Look at Christopher Reeve, paralyzed. Superman can't walk. What kind of sorry-ass shit is that? Superman can't walk. What's next? What the fuck! Aquaman gonna drown in the tub? What the fuck kind of injustice is this? Superman can't walk. The Hulk gonna get the gout? What the fuck! Superman can't walk. Now you go tell a doctor you paralyzed, they don't got shit for you. ''Doc, l'm paralyzed. What you got?'' ''Why don't you take this chair and roll your ass around town?'' ''ls that all the fuck you got is a goddamn chair? ''Where do l take this prescription, to a furniture store, motherfucker? ''l gotta go to lKEA? What the fuck is this shit? ''l said l can't walk. l didn't say l can't sit!'' That's right. And if you go blind, they don't got shit for you. Look at Stevie Wonder, been blind for -something years... got all the money in the world. Don't know if he got hundreds or ones! lt's just a stack to Stevie. They don't got.... Stevie can't see shit. Can't see the day, the night, the shadow, the shade, can't even get a peek! Just a peek. Can we help Stevie get a peek? Get a fucking peek! The man wrote Songs in the Key of Life, Talking Book, Innervisions. Can we get this brother a peek? Just a fucking peek! ls that asking for too much? Just a.... That's it. You tell the doctor you're blind, he don't got shit for you. ''Doc, l'm blind. What you got?'' ''Why don't you take this dog and have the dog drag your blind ass around town?'' ''That's all the fuck you got, is a damn dog? Man, if l could see, l would whup your ass! ''A fucking dog! What the fuck is wrong with you? ''Come on, give me a midget or something!'' That's right, blind people should get midgets. All blind people should get midgets. lt's hard enough living life when you're blind. Now they gotta learn how to talk dog. What kind of shit is that? You can't see, so you can't read the dog's lips. You just listen. ''What, my shoelace untied? What?'' ''ls it cold outside? What?'' ''ls somebody at the door? What, motherfucker?'' Just give blind people midgets. And if you're a midget, it's already hard enough to get a job. Just have the midget tell the blind man where to go. Be a seeing-eye man. Just walk in front of the blind man like, ''Yo, man, you gotta make a left. ''Just make a left, brother.'' Racism everywhere, everybody pissed off. Black people yelling, ''Racism.'' White people yelling, ''Reverse racism.'' Chinese people yelling, ''Sideways racism!'' And the lndians ain't yelling shit 'cause they dead. So everybody bitch about how bad their people got it. Nobody got it worse than the American lndian. Everybody need to calm the fuck down. lndians got it bad. lndians got it the worst. You know how bad the lndians got it? When's the last time you met two lndians? You ain't never met two lndians. Shit, l have seen a polar bear ride a fucking tricycle in my lifetime. l have never seen an lndian family that's chilling out at Red Lobster. Never seen it. Everybody wanna save the environment. Shit, l see trees every fucking day! l don't never see no lndians. l went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this year. They didn't have enough lndians for that shit. They had a bunch of Pilgrims. When it came time for the lndians, they had three real lndians... and the rest was a bunch of Puerto Ricans with feathers in their hair. What the fuck! Shit, l know Puerto Ricans when l see them. You can't slip a Puerto Rican by me. That's not Pocahontas, that's Jennifer Lopez! Racism everywhere. Who's the maddest people? White people. Not y'all. Y'all all right. You paid money to see me, we cool. The feud is over. No, you watch the TV, watch Minutes. You see white people pissed off, man. Man, the white man thinks he's losing the country. You watch the news: ''We're losing everything. We're fucking losing. ''Affirmative action, and illegal aliens... ''and we're fucking losing the country.'' Losing? Shut the fuck up. White people ain't losing shit. lf y'all losing, who's winning? lt ain't us. lt ain't us. Have you driven around this motherfucker? lt ain't us. Shit, there ain't a white man in this room that would change places with me. None of you would change places with me. And l'm rich! That's how good it is to be white. There's a white, one-legged busboy in here right now... that won't change places with my black ass. He's going, ''No, man, l don't wanna switch. l wanna ride this white thing out. ''See where it takes me.'' That's right, 'cause when you white, the sky's the limit. When you black, the limit's the sky! That's right, man. Now, when it comes to racism... do you know who the most racist people are for real, the real most racist people? Old black men. You find a brother over .... l know you white people know an old black man. You go, ''Willie at the job, he's so nice.'' Willie hates your guts. There's nothing more racist than an old black man. You know why? 'Cause an old black man went through some real racism. He didn't go through that l-can't-get-a-cab shit. He was the cab. A white man just jump on his back, ''Main Street. ''Left, nigger! ''Left, you fucking nigger!'' You know what's wild about the old black men? An old black man, he ain't gonna let you fuck up his money. Whenever an old black man sees an old white man... the old black man always kisses the old white man's ass. ''How you doing, sir? Pleased to meet you. Whatever l can get you, you let me know.'' As soon as the white man get out of sight, he's like: ''Cracker-ass cracker! ''l'll put my foot in the crack of your ass, cracker-ass cracker! ''l wish that cracker would've said some shit to me, saltine-assed, motherfucking cracker! ''Cracker, kiss my ass, you fucking cracker!'' The white man come back. ''Howdy, sir?'' l got an uncle real crazy. My uncle B., years old, hates the white people, married to a white lady. And he sits around going, ''These crackers ain't shit, except for Susie.'' He tried to explain the whole thing to me one day. He said, ''Yeah, l got a white wife. l love her, she love me. That's all that matters. ''But l'll tell you this: if the revolution ever come, l'll kill her first... ''just to show these crackers l mean business! ''Motherfucker, cracker-ass, motherfucker cracker! Shit, cracker, motherfucker! ''Hi, honey. ''Motherfucker cracker. l'll kill my cracker kids, too!'' That's right, man. l don't know, black.... What do we need, y'all? l think we need a new leader. We ain't had a black leader in a while. ln a long time. Somebody that moves you. You know, we had Martin Luther King, Malcolm X... and ever since then, a bunch of substitute teachers. We ain't had the real thing. l want a motherfucker to move me. Who we got? Let me break everybody down. We got Al Sharpton, all right. Al Sharpton's all right. He ain't Malcolm or Martin... but if you get your ass whupped by the cops, he's the guy to call. Of course, Al kind of looks like Bookman from Good Times... but don't let that fuck you up. Who else we got? Jesse Jackson. Jesse's all right. Jesse went over there, Jesse got them hostages. l don't know how the hell he did that shit. He went over there with no money, no sweet potato pie. What the fuck did Jesse say? Jesse must've been, like: ''Do you want the United States to really be mad at you? ''Give the hostages to me.'' That's what he said, you know. What else we got? Farrakhan? Farrakhan got everybody together for the Million Man March and everything. But Farrakhan don't like the Jews, which is bugged. l get my hair cut on Dekalb Avenue. l never been in a barbershop... and heard a bunch of brothers talking about Jews. Black people don't hate Jews. Black people hate white people! We don't got time to dice white people up into little groups. ''l hate everybody! l don't care if you just got here.'' -''Hey, l'm Romanian.'' -''You Romanian cracker!'' We need a fucking leader, man. When we got no leaders, when something happens... we make the shit bigger than it is. lt's big, but don't make it bigger than it is. l'm watching the news, and like, ''Tupac Shakur was assassinated. ''Biggie Smalls, assassinated. Struck down by assassin's bullets.'' l'm like, ''No, they wasn't!'' Martin Luther King was assassinated. Malcolm X was assassinated. John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Them two niggers got shot. Shit, l love Tupac, l love Biggie, but school will be open on their birthday. l don't think you'll see their pictures hanging up... in your grandmamma's living room. ''That's Abraham, Martin, and Pac. ''And right here, l got one of Jesus and Biggie on the seesaw. ''Jesus always in the air.'' We need a leader. You know who l think the black leader should be? -Who l think the black leader should be? -Who? Pat Riley. Coach Pat Riley. No man has led more black men to the promised land... than Coach Pat Riley. He may not get us to the mountaintop, but he'll get us to the playoffs. And that's all we want. We got a lot of women here tonight. Love the women. You know who my favorite women are? Big, fat, black women. Give me a sister about pounds. The best people in the whole world. You know why? 'Cause we live in a society where nobody likes who the fuck they are. Everybody's on Prozac, or some shit. Everybody's getting cosmetic surgery. Nobody likes who the fuck they are except fat, black women. Fat, black women don't give a fuck what you think. She's going out on Friday night. She got an outfit on. That shit match. She got the pumps on, and the pump fat coming out the pump. That's right. lt looks like they baking bread in her shoe. ''Baby, your foot ready yet? l'll just sprinkle some cinnamon on it.'' That's right. She got an anklet on, and that anklet's holding on for dear life. Black women don't give a fuck. She's like, ''l'm sexy. ''l am sexy, yes, l am! ''l am the sexiest motherfucker here tonight! ''Yeah, l got a gut. There's some good pussy under this gut!'' That's right. You want some of this so you can ''livin' la vida loca!'' Love the women, man. Women, women. What the fuck do y'all want? Do you know what you want? Do you know where you're going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you? Do you know? What the fuck do women want? l know what you want: everything. That's every woman's answer: ''Everything.'' Women want every fucking thing. Women act like life was just a big sale, or shit. ''l want to get the most shit before things close down.'' That's what fucking life is to a woman: everything. You know what men want? Food, sex, silence. That's it. Food, sex, silence. ''Feed me, fuck me, shut the fuck up!'' Our goals seem very attainable, don't they? Women, it's hard to figure women out. lt's hard being a guy. We always think we can buy sex. ''lf l take her here, she'll give me some. lf l buy her this, she'll give me some.'' Nothing get you nothing. A woman knows if she's gonna fuck you within the first five minutes of meeting you. Women know right away. They're shaking hands like, ''l'm gonna fuck him. ''l hope he don't say nothing too stupid.'' That's right, fellas, don't say nothing too stupid... because women are all about the mood. lf she's in the mood to fuck you, shut up and let it happen. 'Cause if you say the wrong thing, them panties are coming up mighty fast. ''What'd you say?'' She be on the phone with a girlfriend, ''Yeah, l was gonna give him some... ''but he just started talking. ''l hate a yakking man, child.'' That's right, man. Relationships: easy to get into, hard to maintain. Why are they so hard to maintain? Because it's hard to keep up the lie. 'Cause you can't get nobody being you. You got to lie to get somebody. You can't get nobody looking like you look, acting like you act... sounding like you sound. When you meet somebody for the first time, you're not meeting them. You're meeting their representative. That's right. Who are the biggest liars, men or women? -Men! -Women! Men lie the most, women tell the biggest lies. Men, we lie all the time. We lie so much, it's damn near a language. lt's like, to call a man out for lying... is like playing basketball with a retarded kid and calling him for double dribble. You gotta let some shit slide. Men, we lie all the time. You know what a man's lie is like? A man's lie is like, ''l was at Tony's house. ''l'm at Kenny's house.'' That's a man's lie. A women's lie is like, ''lt's your baby.'' We've all heard that one. -''lt don't even look like me.'' -''He's got your hat.'' That's right. Who the biggest liars? Women the biggest liars. Look at you, all of you. You're a fucking liar. You! You're a liar! You're all liars. All of you are fucking liars! Masters of the lie, the visual lie. Look at you. You got on heels, you ain't that tall. You got on makeup, your face don't look like that. You got a weave, your hair ain't that long. You got a Wonderbra on, your titties ain't that big. Everything about you is a lie, and you expect me to tell the truth? Fuck you! Men lie, we live lies. That's why we so crazy. Every now and then, we catch ourselves living a lie. We create a whole lie-world around us. For instance, every man in this room is hiding some porno in his house. Every man in here got a pornography stash in the crib. That's right. Not an illegal amount, just enough to get you by. Thank you. And when we hide porno, we go all out. lt ain't behind the refrigerator or under the bed. No, we become Batman when it's time to hide some porno. That's right, you hit the light switch, the whole bookshelf shifts to the side. You go down two flights of stairs into your porno cellar. Janet Jackme, Kobe Tai, Jenna Jameson, that's right. But women always find the porno. But they don't find it in the porno hiding place. Oh, no. Where do women find the porno at? ln the VCR. And fellas are like, ''Damn, how can l be so dumb to leave it in the VCR?'' l'll tell you why. 'Cause when you're jerking off, you ain't in your right state of mind. Your brain's all cloudy and foggy. l'll tell you exactly what happened. One day, your woman left early. You had the whole house to yourself. So you said, ''Let me get a little jerk before work.'' So you in the house, getting your jerk on. Nice good jerk, too. You know, that ain't-nobody-in-the-house jerk. That's a good jerk. lt ain't like that somebody-in-the-next-room jerk. That's a bad jerk. That's like, ''Who's that?'' l don't like that jerk. l'm talking about the good jerk, that nobody-ain't-home jerk. So you get the Vaseline ready... and you just look at your dick and go: ''Scream if you want to. No one's gonna hear.'' And right then, your relationship's in trouble. That's right. 'Cause if you can't share what you're like, you'll have problems. When you love somebody, you got to love everything about them. You got to love the crust of a motherfucker. You can't just love the white part of the bread. You gotta love the crust, the crumbs, the tiny crumbs at the bottom of the toaster. That's what the real motherfucker is. Whatever you into, your woman gotta be into, too, and vice versa... or the shit ain't gonna work. lt ain't gonna work. That's right. lf you born-again, your woman gotta be born-again, too. lf you a crackhead, your woman gotta be a crackhead, too... or the shit won't work. You can't be like, ''l'm going to church, where you going?'' ''Hit the pipe!'' That relationship ain't going nowhere. Two crackheads can stay together forever. That's right, what's gonna happen? They're gonna stop fucking, that's right. They'll stop talking, stop fucking. You ever been in bed with your woman, both talking dirty, and you go too far? You ever say some shit that gets you kicked out of bed? And the woman's like, ''Fuck me, harder! Fuck me, Daddy, spank me!'' -''All right, you ho.'' -''Who you calling a ho? ''Who the fuck are you calling a ho? ''Untie me!'' l ain't no expert or no shit, but, fellas, if you're gonna talk dirty to your woman... you got to talk with authority. You can get a woman to do any nasty little thing you want. You say that shit like a man, make a little eye contact... put a little bass in your voice, she will do that shit. She wants to do that shit. She's dying to do that shit. Your woman is nastier than you ever imagined. But you gotta come correct... because anything you mumble ain't getting done. You can't be in bed all unsure, like, ''Excuse me.... ''Excuse me, l was wondering.... ''Ma'am, l have a request. Could you lick my balls?'' ''l ain't licking nothing. Lick your own balls!'' See, if you just said it right, you'd been in there. Now you got dry balls. That's right, confidence always wins. Do you realize, it is some women still don't give head? Ninety-fucking-nine. Whenever l meet a girl that doesn't give head... l look at them like a damn Betamax, ''They still make you?'' And when it comes to head, there's three types of women: A: Women that don't give head. Bye, leave, see you. B: Women that give you just enough head to shut you up. You ever meet them women? They're like, ''You okay?'' l hate them women! And number three, my favorite woman: the woman that likes nothing better than to suck a dick. That's right, God bless all of you! That's right, you make the world a better place to live in. l want you to suck my dick like you think the antidote's in it! Like you trying to get some Robitussin out of that motherfucker! That's right. Relationships: easy to get into, hard to maintain. Why are they so hard to maintain? 'Cause at some point you just stop talking. That's right, everybody stops talking after a while. You know how it is. You come home and you start nodding. ''Yeah, we cool. ''l'm gonna get a little something to eat.'' Why do you stop talking? 'Cause at some point, you have heard everything this person has to say... and it makes you sick to your stomach. You know what they're gonna say before it even comes out their mouth... and you just wanna stab them in the neck with a pencil! Your can't take the shit no more! And they're like, ''Remember that time?'' ''Yeah, l remember that time!'' -''l ever tell you about--'' -''Yeah, you told me about that time! ''Stop telling me the same shit over and over again! ''Why don't you go out and get kidnapped, have some new shit happen to you?'' That's right. Fellas, you gotta talk. That's women's biggest complaint: ''You don't talk. ''You need to talk, let's talk. You don't talk.'' That's right. Women love to talk. lf they had talking in the Olympics, a man wouldn't stand a chance. Women love to talk, but they wanna talk to you. They wanna talk to their man. But women don't want you to talk-talk. Women just want you to listen-listen. All a woman really wants you to do is ask her the correct questions... that will allow her to run her fucking mouth! You set her up, she'll knock them down. Fellas, you want your woman to be happy? All you got to say is, ''How was your day? ''Honey, how was your day?'' Know why? 'Cause ''How was your day?'' is a -minute conversation to a woman. And as a man, you don't really gotta talk. You gotta just act like you're talking. ''Get out of here. Go on! l don't believe it. ''You don't say! Really? Get out of here! ''Go on. l don't believe it. You don't say? Get out of here. ''l told you that bitch crazy!'' You gotta throw in, ''l told you that bitch crazy.'' You know why? 'Cause every woman's got another woman at her job that she can't stand. Women, y'all exaggerate everything. You turn it into some Dynasty shit, like: ''She's trying to destroy me!'' What the fuck are you talking about? You wrap up bags at J.C. Penney's! What's she doing, ripping up your paper? Fellas, you gotta talk. Women, exact opposite. Y'all gotta learn when not to talk. That's right. You ever notice how no man comes home straight from work? No man comes home straight from work. A man get off work, he got to go somewhere. He got to drink something, he got to smoke something... he got to watch the game, he got to hang with his boys... he got to take a drive. He got to do something that will mentally prepare him... for all the talking he gonna hear when he get home. Ladies, it ain't that you talk too much. You just talk too much as soon as we get in the fucking door. Let a man get situated. We don't need to hear everything right away. Soon as you take one step in, ''You're not gonna believe this....'' Let me get my other foot in the fucking door! Let me get something to eat! Let me get something to drink! Let me take a shit! Go in the fucking kitchen and get me my big piece of chicken! l'm out of here. Thank you, New York! |
Google may be the biggest search engine in the world, but it’s also been on a content kick lately. It started when the company rebranded the Android Marketplace to the Google Play store.
It then became even more apparent with its latest forays in content streaming, first with the mostly-defunct Google TV and then with Chromecast.
Now, Google’s bringing iOS users into the fold with the Google Play TV & Movies app. The app works on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad devices, but you can’t browse the Google Play store directly from it.
Instead, you’ll have to add content to your queue from the Google Play site on your browser, and then you can watch them on your device of choice. Google writes that you can even use Chromecast to watch Google Play movies and TV shows, though there’s no support for Apple TV.
You can check out the Google Play Movies & TV app in the iTunes App Store.
This story, "iOS users now have access to Google Play content" was originally published by TechHive . |
A few months ago, I was talking to my godson, Andrew, about the forthcoming referendum. He’s a lovely lad; in his thirties, he works in the care of adults with severe learning disabilities. He and his partner, a nurse, have the most beautiful two year old daughter, a smiley, happy, sweet child who charms everyone she meets. They both work punishing shifts for not much more than a combined living wage: Andrew frequently has to walk four miles to catch a bus that’ll take him to work.
He was going to vote No. Astonished, I asked him why. “Well,” he said, “look at me. I haven’t had a pay rise for over five years, and prices just keep going up and up. I’ll never be able to afford to buy my own home. I don’t even see how I’ll be able to buy a car. I rely on my mum for childcare because it’s so expensive, and holidays are a non-starter. If we go independent, how do I know it won’t get much, much worse?”
We live in a society that is crippled by fear. Ordinary working people live on the cliff edge of robbing Peter to pay Paul every month to meet the debt commitments they are blamed for having in our recession economy; deunionised, they are forced to accept derisory wage rises that are in effect cuts in living standards when the price rises in commodity-traded food and fuel that puts billions into the already groaning coffers of multi-national corporations are taken into account; they are labelled scroungers when they turn to the state for help, while their bosses in both the public and the private sectors pay each other handsomely over the odds because they have defined themselves as somehow ‘indispensable’ to the machine; they are conned into believing that they, the people at the bottom, are somehow to blame for all of this, and that despite the overwhelming evidence that the problems lie at the top on the desks of money-laundering, rate-fixing, tax-avoiding, mis-selling big banks and hedge funds, the status quo is the only way to go.
I remember growing up in the 60s and 70s, when optimism for the future was all the rage. Yes, we worried about nuclear weapons and knew that there was a huge problem with hunger and war in the Developing World; but, for ourselves, we felt that life was on the up, and never did any of us consider in 1973 that, in 40 years time, families would be worse off in real terms. But then the neoliberal Thatcher agenda came along and put paid to all of that, and the dismantling of the great public goods of the post-War period – gas, electricity, the railways, steel, mining and, especially, social housing – saw the beginning of what Naomi Klein calls the “great sacking”, the siphoning off of what we once all owned into the hands of a rapacious few who buy it with promises of consultancies and seats on the board to the appropriate career politicians.
And we have been made afraid. Our governments have become adept at getting their own way using it; I remember my parents were truly convinced that Sadaam Hussein could drop a nuclear weapon on us within 45 minutes. The discourse has become one of fear, one which reached its nadir last week with the unedifying sight of a UK Cabinet minister of Scottish origin, Jo Swinson, scaremongering against a Yes vote because it could entail higher mobile phone roaming charges and mean the end of Saturday letter deliveries.
I don’t know about you, but I reckon senior politicians have a duty of care to the electorate. They are meant to lead, to provide visions for the future, to reassure, to sound the voice of reason, to refute sensationalism, to think big. But just consider this: we are being asked to accept that we are not competent to run our national affairs because a mobile phone company might charge a few quid more if we do. The insult represents a preposterous infantilisation of the Scottish people, especially when Swinson neglected to add that the EU is likely to outlaw roaming charges anyway.
And Ms Swinson tells us that Royal Mail services will be cut if we make decisions for ourselves while at the same time a Cabinet she is a member of is pushing through the neoliberal sale of Royal Mail to already bloated hedge funds, organisations intent not on the social good of a postal service that delivers to isolated people come rain or shine but on the bottom line. We know what happens during privatisation: “efficiency” is bought on the backs of the customers and, especially, the ordinary workers, who find their conditions of employment ripped up to fund the additional burdens of a profit margin and the retirement packages of chief executives. Does Ms Swinson really believe that a vote by Scottish people is a greater threat to mail deliveries in Scotland than Goldman Sachs?
All over the world, we see sporadic instances of unrest at this gross perversion of human economic activity: The Occupy movement; riots in Greece, Brazil, London, Sweden and, ten years ago, Argentina; the Arab Spring movement. But all these offer only a fleeting glimpse of a brave alternative and, against the structures that have taken root in our politics, are pretty much doomed to failure. “If you want to change something,” protestors are told, “work from within.”
And that’s why I’m voting Yes. We have a legal, peaceful, constitutional means to say “Enough is enough; these are not our values.” We can reject an economic system that allows the South East of England to suck the rest of the UK dry to fund its stratospheric salaries and eye-watering house prices and its super car lifestyle. We can reject a social system that has been engaged in brutal social engineering for forty years and is now accelerating, with the whole of London becoming the largest gated community in the world, the poor made unwelcome by property prices and the bedroom tax, shipped out to be shipped back in on a daily basis to clean the offices and keep the wine bars staffed on a High Speed Rail line that Scotland will pay £4.5 billion pounds towards but will stop at Manchester. We can reject a political system that moves the centre of power out of reach of the ordinary man and deposits it amongst the voices of the rich, influential and corrupt where it cannot help but be seduced. And we can do all this at the mere stroke of a pen. No violence. No upheaval. Just one little cross in a box and the world changes.
I agree with Patrick Harvie when he says it’s not going to be hugely different the day after we vote Yes. We may find ourselves a little poorer (I doubt it) or a little richer (probably more likely), but the sun will not shine brighter, the air will not taste sweeter and birds will not fly in our windows to make our breakfasts. But what I do believe is that a Yes vote will send a message out to the rest of the world, and it’s a message of hope that we don’t have to accept the political, economic and social structures that have been used for so long to make us afraid.
I laid it on the line for Andrew. I told him it seemed that he had been conditioned to believe that his life was miserable, and that it would only ever get more miserable if he tried to take charge of it for himself. At a time of his life when he should be feeling the most hopeful ever – a loving partner, a beautiful baby – he has been disempowered, emasculated, hobbled by fear that any change he initiates in his life will make matters worse. When he should be growing in confidence and capacity, he has been told to stand still, to stay put, to accept what his betters have decided and, most of all, to shut up.
That’s not good enough for him. It’s not good enough for his daughter. And it certainly isn’t good enough for Scotland.
Raymond Soltysek
www.soltysek.com
National Collective |
It has been more than a month since Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger landed his stricken US Airways jet in the Hudson River, but gamers and geeks are still churning out impressive animations recreating the miraculous water landing.
Most of them are using sims like Microsoft's Flight Simulator to navigate the virtual skies over New York, and some of these wannabe pilots are going so far as to use recordings of the conversations between the flight crew and air traffic controllers to recreate the five minutes and 40 seconds of US Airways Flight 1549 with eerie accuracy.
One of our favorites, by Scene Systems, is shown above. Here are four more we really like.
This video, by YouTube user lake2407, shows a combo exterior view/cockpit perspective and includes instrument voice notifications:
Cockpit view by YouTube user sevendst:
This one from boozho.com includes a map that shows 1549's trajectory from above, and points out the little-reported fact that Flight 1549 came dangerously close to colliding with another plane:
This one by YouTube user flightsimulationguru is a little jerkier, has a weird soundtrack, slathers the plane in the wrong color scheme and gets the flight number wrong, but...
Most of the simulations were made with off-the-shelf products like Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is one of the most popular flight sims.
POST UPDATED 8:15 p.m. Eastern to identify the creators of each vid.
See Also: |
Guest Post by Kip Hansen
Science is a wonderful thing. As time moves on, in a single direction, Science, as an endeavor, discovers new things and improves our lives.
With a “hat tip” to the inestimable Jane Brody, health journalist at the NY Times who covers the story here, we are reminded of the study [free .pdf] from Antonio Gasparrini et al. which was published in The Lancet, July 25, 2015, with the [way too long] title: “Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study”.
The bottom-line finding, the take home message, might surprise even readers here at WUWT, quoted in the side-bar of the journal article:
Interpretation:
We report that non-optimum ambient temperature is responsible for substantial excess in mortality, with important differences between countries. Although most previous research has focused on heat-related effects, most of the attributable deaths were caused by cold temperatures. Despite the attention given to extreme weather events, most of the effect happened on moderately hot and moderately cold days, especially moderately cold days. This evidence is important for improvements to public health policies aimed at prevention of temperature-related health consequences, and provides a platform to extend predictions on future effects in climate-change scenarios. [extra emphasis mine – kh]
It is not extreme weather, not extreme temperatures, neither hot or cold, that cause the most temperature-related deaths:
“The underlying physiopathological mechanisms that link exposure to non-optimum temperature and mortality risk have not been completely elucidated. Heat stroke on hot days and hypothermia on cold days only account for small proportions of excess deaths.
“Discussion
Our findings show that temperature is responsible for advancing a substantial fraction of deaths, corresponding to 7.71% of mortality in the selected countries within the study period. Most of this mortality burden was caused by days colder than the optimum temperature (7.29%), compared with days warmer than the optimum temperature (0.42%). Furthermore, most deaths were caused by exposure to moderately hot and cold temperatures, and the contribution of extreme days was comparatively low, despite increased RRs [relative risks].
Our results suggest that public-health policies and adaptation measures should be extended and refocused to take account of the whole range of effects associated with temperature…”
The oft-repeated mantra of “global warming will cause more heat waves, extremely high temperature days, which kill more people” is simply not true — heat waves are not the big killer. Rather, cold days are the big killer – but not extremely cold days, as we intuitively think, but moderately cold days are responsible for the highest percentage of excess deaths due to ambient temperature. Equally true, it is not the extremely hot days that cause the bulk of high ambient temperature related deaths, but moderately hot days.
Read the study, [corrected now, h/t Griff and Les Johnson] it is short and accessible.
# # # # #
Anthony: I’ve updated the title and I thought it important to display this graph of results, thanks to reader “Greg”. From the paper:
More temperature-attributable deaths were caused by cold (7·29%, 7·02–7·49) than by heat (0·42%, ·39–0·44). Extreme cold and hot temperatures were responsible for 0·86% (0·84–0·87) of total mortality.
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I don’t like threads. They are brittle and dangerous… Even when the languages being used have good thread support (Java and Microsoft C++, for example), even when used by senior developers, and even when used for quite simple “fire off this worker thread so the UI will still be live while a long job runs” tasks. I’ve seen them go wrong in too many ways in the hands of good developers with plenty of multi-threading experience.
The Trouble With Threads
One of my rules when I was a dev team lead was “no threads”. They were simply too easy to get wrong and too hard to debug. You haven’t really lived until you’ve had a debugger attached to several threads simultaneously, single-stepping through each, trying to figure out the logic of a rare race condition or deadlock in someone else’s poorly documented code.
Furthermore, there are usually cleaner single-threaded ways to do many of the things threads are used for, particularly maintaining liveness. Most GUI toolkits these days provide some kind of “yield” functionality that allows events to be processed now and then, for example. These frameworks may well be multi-threaded underneath, but they are also well-tested and will rarely go wrong in ways that impact the end user.
Threads in most other languages start with the most powerful primitives–mutexes, semaphores, condition variables–and build up libraries of less generally dangerous types. Once upon a time during the Dot Com boom a Java developer in an organization I worked for attempted to replace all function calls in his code with threads. So instead of calling a function he created a thread object whose entry point executed the code that would have been in the function call had he called a function, then set up code to join the thread when the “function” call was complete. The powerful Java threading primitives made it easy to do this. They did not make it easy to do it right, though, and after he “moved on to other opportunities” my team spent weeks turning his code back into something that worked and could be reasoned about.
That was a worst case, but I’ve also debugged a multi-threaded Java application that crashed randomly. The bug was written by a senior developer whose work I respect a lot. But there they created a worker thread in the middle of a block of other code–because Java lets you do that, and it was encouraged back in the day–and the developer had mixed up the close braces, so a crucial line of code that should have been the last in the worker thread was in fact in the main thread. Oops. This kind of bug happens all the time in single-threaded code, but in that case it is deterministic and easy to catch. In this case, what happened depended on what the worker thread was doing when control was returned to the main thread and that line was run. Nine times out of ten it was all OK… But ten percent of the time the application crashed. It took me weeks off-and-on testing, static analysis and instrumenting the code to figure out why.
It isn’t easy to avoid pitfalls of that nature in multi-threaded code in most languages.
Untangling The Threads With Tcl
Those experiences were from back in the days when two CPUs was a lot, though, and in the modern world of low-end machines with a lot more than two cores, threads offer advantages that are hard to ignore.
If only there was a language that made it really, really hard to do threads wrong.
And it happens there is: Tcl.
Tcl’s thread module, in contrast, has native primitives that make it really easy to do simple and powerful things with threads, which at the very least reduces the temptation that developers have to do complex and dangerous things with them. Tcl threads by default have (almost) no shared data. Communication is done by passing messages that send events to other thread’s event loops. The content of these events is Tcl scripts for the interpreter in the other thread to execute. Most importantly, if you must share data, there are inherently thread-safe data-types supplied at the language level. Mutexes exist if you must have them, but almost all uses of them are eliminated by the other primitives.
A big part of what makes this possible is that every Tcl thread has its own interpreter. This means that every thread is running in an isolated sandbox that can most easily communicate with other threads via message-passing.
The benefits of this are hard to over-emphasise. Unlike Python, say, where “threads” are all run within a single interpreter and the Global Interpreter Lock chains everything down on the sacrificial altar of the process, which makes it impossible for Python threads to take advantage of multi-core machines, Tcl threads are naturally friendly to multi-core architectures. They are not managed at the interpreter level, but are true OS-level threads each running a Tcl interpreter of their own. This is a good design choice in part because of how lightweight the Tcl interpreter is.
The way Tcl implements threads is sometimes called the “apartment model” of threads, in contrast to the “green threads” which are managed by the interpreter and never get to use multiple cores because of that. Where terminology like “apartment model” and “green threads” came from is not clear.
Even with one-interpreter-per-thread there is still some shared global state because there is still only one process: the current working directory, for example, is a process-level datum, so it should not be relied upon whenever there is more than one thread active. A simple workaround–keeping a local copy of cwd or other global data that is set prior to any threads being spawned–can be used to fix these cases.
Getting Started With Tcl Threads
A good starting point for the Tcl thread package can be found in this chapter from “Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, 4th ed” by Brent Welch, Ken Jones:http://www.beedub.com/book/4th/Threads.pdf.
The thread package is pleasingly minimal. It supports thread creation and termination, configuring threads, and sending messages to them. It also supports joining threads (waiting for a thread to terminate) which is the only really dangerous operation–if the thread being joined fails to complete, a join operation will wait forever. This potentially hangs the whole application, so it still requires some care.
Sending Messages
Sending messages to threads is also asynchronous by default, which is a bit odd, but probably has some design logic behind it that escapes me, as the people who created it have almost certainly thought more about the problem than I have.
Each thread has its own event loop, which is a foundational part of Tcl, and by calling thread::send one thread can send a script as a message to another thread’s event loop for evaluation, as in this simple example that creates two threads, sends them scripts to be evaluated, and then waits on the result:
set t1 [thread::create] set t2 [thread::create] thread::send -async $t1 "set a 1" result thread::send -async $t2 "set b 2" result for {set i 0} {$i < 2} {incr i} { vwait result }
As described in the ActiveTcl docs this results in the two threads doing their work asynchronously, and the result of each thread being put into the variable result , which we wait on twice to ensure both threads have completed their work.
Shared state is supported via thread-shared variables in the tsv package. This is as if C had two types of every data type, thread-safe and unsafe, so we could declare:
safe_int mysafeint;
and just use it as a variable shared between threads rather than having to declare an ordinary int and protect it by hand with a mutex any time any thread accessed it.
This is a big deal: non-atomic access to basic data types like int is a significant source of bugs in multi-threaded code, because control can be swapped between threads almost anywhere. Junior developers shouldn’t be allowed to write multi-threaded code in most languages because it is way too easy for them to miss this kind of detail, much less catch larger structural and timing issues. However, in Tcl it would be relatively safe for them to do so.
Thread Pools
There is also a Tcl module for creating and managing thread pools. A thread pool is a group of threads that are created together. A typical application is in a server context a bunch of server threads are created at start-up and wait to serve requests as they come in.
I was going to run through a simple example here, but in searching around I found there is already a nice example in a previous ActiveState blog. Setting up a multi-threaded server in Tcl: /blog/2010/05/concurreny-tcl-weaving-threads.
Threading For Fallible Developers
People make mistakes. I know I do. It is a mark of a mature mind to recognize this and take reasonable steps to avoid situations where mistakes are likely. And this is the important thing about the Tcl thread package: it is the first time in twenty years that I’ve seen threads done in such a way that I would allow a fallible developer to use them on a routine project without being worried that I’d be chasing race conditions and deadlocks throughout the life of the codebase. Whereas for threads in C or C++ or Java I would want an extremely senior developer working on the multi-threaded parts of the code, especially at the design level, with Tcl threads I could say to an intermediate developer, “Do this with threads, don’t use mutexes or thread-shared variables” and I would be reasonably confident that fairly maintainable code would result.
In this world of increasingly scarce development resources and increasingly multi-core environments, this makes Tcl a language worth considering for a much wider range of projects than one might have otherwise thought. |
3RD UPDATE 4:02 P.M. ET U.S.A. The “Achieve Community,” an 800-percent ROI Ponzi-board “program” apparently hamstrung by problems with payment processors, now is serving up a spectacle in which confusion and delay are the only consistent themes.
BehindMLM.com reported late last night (or early today, depending on your time zone) that the office of Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette had confirmed an “open investigation” into Achieve involving the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division.
The PP Blog this morning sought comment from Schuette’s office.
“We don’t comment on investigations,” said Andrea Bitely, the Attorney General’s communications director and press secretary.
The response appears to confirm the report on BehindMLM.com that Achieve is under investigation in Michigan.
Because the Colorado Division of Securities has confirmed a probe into Achieve, the PP Blog sought comment yesterday from Michigan’s Corporations, Securities & Commercial Licensing bureau on whether Achieve was under investigation in that state. The bureau referred the Blog to the communications division of its parent agency, the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA).
A LARA spokeswoman said only that the bureau neither confirms nor denies investigations.
But if the bureau is working with the Attorney General’s office, it would mean that Achieve might have two types of trouble in Michigan: consumer fraud and securities fraud — and at the same time it faces the Colorado investigation.
Given information on two websites linked to Achieve, the “program” appears to operate through a Delaware corporation known as Work With Troy Barnes Inc. Barnes is a Michigan resident, and the two websites linked to Achieve list a Riverview, Mich., address for the “program.” Although Work With Troy Barnes Inc. appears in Delaware records as a company domiciled in that state, there appears to be no corresponding registration as a foreign corporation in Michigan.
Precisely how Achieve is operating through Work With Troy Barnes is unclear. The two Achieve websites — ReadyToAchieve.com and The Achieve Community.com — have Korean lettering near the bottom. IP addresses for the web properties resolve to Iceland.
Any number of Achieve members have shown blind faith in Achieve. Some “defenders” of the “program” have spoken of faith in God and Jesus Christ. Achieve, though, appears repeatedly to have encountered struggles with payment processors after reportedly losing its ability to do business through Payoneer in late October or early November.
And this brings us to today . . .
Instructional Video Goes Missing
Barnes — along with Kristi Johnson of the Denver area — are the purported operators of Achieve.
At some point yesterday (Feb. 12), a Barnes-narrated video appeared on YouTube. The 11:06 video was titled “Thursday Update 2 12.” The video provided Achieve members instructions on how to register for a purported new payment processor.
This video now mysteriously has gone missing, amid concerns expressed by some Achievers that even registering for the processor might open the door to identity theft. What’s more, the identity of the processor itself, how it is operating and where it is operating from are murky.
The narration by Barnes was disjointed, at once advising members they had to submit all information requested in the information fields but backtracking to insist certain information was optional.
In the video, fields requesting standard identification such as name and address were shown. But there also was a field that requested the submission of notarized color copies of a passport or driver’s license with a signature, “OR an un-notarized copy of one of the previous AND a copy front and back of a valid credit card OR another type of government issued picture identification which shows a signature and birth date.”
There also were fields that solicited information on income and a letter from the employer of an Achieve member addressed “To Whom it May Concern” to verify employment.
With respect to the field soliciting an employment-verification letter, Barnes said this: “Don’t even worry about this. You don’t need it, all right. This is going to disappear off of here. For now, it’s there. Don’t worry about it.”
Despite those words, Barnes also said, “Remember: When you submit, everything’s gotta be filled out. Everything.”
He also said, “If you have a PO Box and you’re in the United States, so, you’re [going to] need to go to the bank. Take your driver’s license. Any bank will do this. Tell them you [want to] get your driver’s license notarized. They’ll take it and make a copy of your driver’s license. I understand your mail may go to a PO Box, but your address should have your driver’s license on it [sic]. And that’s it. Just upload it here, and you’re all set.”
About a field soliciting address verification, Barnes said this: Address verification is “very important. A utility bill. Anything that has your address on it that you’re billed for. You need to upload that here.”
Barnes described a field soliciting information on estimated annual total deposits in this fashion: “You know: What do you think you’re gonna make [through Achieve?] Put whatever you want. It doesn’t matter. You know, for me, I put a hundred thousand. So, put whatever.”
At a minimum, the video suggested Achievers who successfully submitted information would receive some sort of debit card to offload profits — perhaps in a couple of weeks. Achieve appears not have have made a payout for more than three months while at once engaging in payment-processor roulette.
The FBI has warned for years that certain types of debit cards and shell companies can be used for the purposes of money-laundering, handing economic strength to criminals or worse.
Some Achievers have joined other Ponzi-board schemes and published YouTube promos for the schemes. |
(Reuters) - Three people were killed and a dozen wounded in Los Angeles early on Saturday after an argument at a party resulted in gunfire, a police spokesman said on Saturday.
A man and a woman are in custody over the shooting, which occurred shortly after midnight in southwest Los Angeles, a police spokesman, Officer Mike Lopez, said. The two people being held were not identified.
Conditions of the wounded range from critical to stable but serious, Lopez said.
The shooting took place at a party being held at a home that was serving as a makeshift restaurant. A man and woman left the party after an argument, then returned and gunfire erupted, Lopez said.
“From what I understand, they’re the ones responsible for the shooting,” Lopez said. Three men died at the scene, and both men and women were wounded.
A firearm was recovered at the scene, he said. |
One of the best things about traveling is being exposed to opportunities that can help your business.
Over the past 12 years, I’ve spent a lot of time in South East Asia. It’s an amazing region, and more than ever before, I’m seeing heaps of talented individuals moving here for lifestyle reasons – not money reasons.
The great weather, food, fast internet, low cost of living (compared to the west) and the huge surge of great co-working spaces in the region are all big draws.
But there’s a problem for talented outsiders: finding work – outside of teaching – is really difficult here.
Companies often face restrictions on how many foreigners they can employ. Getting employees work permits and visas is often a hassle. And many countries in the region have minimum salary requirements that are vastly different for a foreign worker versus a local worker.
But this represents a huge opportunity.
With so much talent moving to South East Asia for lifestyle reasons, many are turning to tech startups to find work they can do remotely.
And while this is somewhat of a gray area right now, some countries in the region have started to understand how big this market will become. For example, it wasn’t long ago there were reports of Thailand introducing a “Digital Nomad” visa.
So how can you take advantage of this opportunity?
Simply put, get comfortable hiring remote workers. And if you want to stretch your runway further, get good at finding and retaining skilled workers who want to live in South East Asia.
Some Tips
I’ve not only hired talent in South East Asia myself, but I’ve also helped friends hire many talented folks here and what follows is some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
1. Understand the cost of living a great lifestyle varies vastly depending on what city/country you live in. For example in South East Asia, you can have a 2 bedroom apartment with a part-time maid and eat out 3 times per day from $1,000 per month. I’ve never been to San Fran, but I’m guessing you’d need to 10x this cost in order to live the same lifestyle.
2. Teaching here is the only reliable source of employment for foreigners who want to live in the region (there are obviously exceptions). But here’s the kicker – most schools are horrible to work at. I’ve never met a teacher here who loves their teaching job – and most are just doing it for the $$$ (which presents a worrying topic I’ll save for another day).
3. Most teaching gigs in the region pay between $1,000-$2,000 per month. And it’s safe to say most expats here would jump at the chance of working remotely from home or at coffee shops for the same salary, or less.
4. The best places to find talent in the region are the local CraigsList boards and specific Facebook Groups. Here are a few to get you started:
5. When you’re in the interviewing stage, ask candidates to complete a simple task when applying for the position. For example, you could request candidates to use a specific subject line and introduce themselves in exactly 3 paragraphs. You’ll find 90% of applicants won’t follow these simple instructions – which are not only red flags – but also give you the opportunity to focus on the 10% who can.
6. Read this guide on how Automattic (the team who run WordPress) hires remotely. I’ve shared this guide more than any other over the past few years as it’s so good.
7. Once you’ve narrowed your potential hires down to a small list, give each of them a paid project to work on. For example, if you’re hiring a copywriter to update your blog, pay them to write a 1,000-word article. Not only will you be able to evaluate their writing skills, but you’ll also be able to see if they can keep to deadlines and access their ability to communicate.
8. Understand becoming successful at hiring remote team members is 99% communication. If there’s a failure somewhere, there’s a good chance it’s your fault for not communicating properly.
I hope the above helps. If there’s something I missed, please let me know on Twitter.
Every week I share 7 things I’ve recently discovered or I’m thinking about around business, crypto, tech, product development, travel and most importantly; living a more fulfilling life. It’s short, sponsor free, and you can always unsubscribe with one click: |
We did it!
Hundreds Got High In Front of the White House To Protest Weed … Hundreds of people got high in front of The White House to protest the federal government's policies on weed
PUBLIC NOTICE : Due to popular demand, we’re rescheduling 4/20 this year to 4/2 because Obama’s been a BIG ZER0 on cannabis reform.
President Obama has the power to use his authority to reschedule cannabis. But recent reports have shown that he has no plans to change the status quo and, frankly, that is just pitiful.
While we have been able to drastically reduce arrests for marijuana possession in the District of Columbia, millions of Americans across the United States are not so lucky. As long as cannabis is treated in the same category of drugs as heroin, with no accepted medical use, police will continue to arrest & lockup our brothers and sisters.
We will gather outside the White House at 2:00pm on Saturday, April 2 and have speakers from DCMJ and other cannabis advocacy groups. At 4:20pm there will be a mass-consumption* of cannabis. We will not be seeking any type of permit from the National Park Police because it is our constitutional right to peacefully gather and demand Obama stop being hypocrite. He smoked cannabis and became the president of the United States, and while he might think cannabis is a bad habit, does he seriously think it’s on par with heroin, nicotine, or alcohol?
Some people think we should not protest President Obama in an election year. But if not now when? Let’s make the rescheduling of cannabis a campaign issue now!
This is a challenge to the frontrunners. Will Donald Trump federal legalization? Has Hillary evolved long enough on the issue of cannabis to support federal legalization? Will Bernie Sanders take a national legalization approach instead of a state by state approach? But most importantly, does Obama want a legacy of being the president who finally ended the failed war on drugs? We’re rescheduling 4/20 this year to find out. Join us!
What you can do:
Click “Going” and invite your friends on Facebook!
Tweet with the hashtag #Reschedule420 & follow us @DCMJ2014
Call national cannabis advocacy organizations and ask them to endorse #Reschedule420
Share this webpage with your friends!
Volunteer with DCMJ to help the protest grow in size
* A 4:20pm Mass-Consumption of cannabis includes smoking, vaping, but also eating. Do you think the National Park Service will go after your brownies, gummies, rice crispy treats, or cookies? Doubtful. As we #Reschedule420 this year, we encourage people who do not want to smoke or vape their cannabis to eat it as a form of protest. So in the misquoted words of Marie Antoinette, LET THEM EAT CAKE!
Did you see yesterday’s Washington Post? The 51 foot joint was on the front page of the Metro Section! What does that mean? We have the opportunity to show America an amazingly positive display of non-violent civil disobedience. It also means we need to ensure that everyone knows EXACTLY what is going down before we’re lighting up.
We are meeting at the corner of 15th & Pennsylvania Ave NW at 1:45pm and walking Cesar Maxit’s 51 foot joint a half a block down Pennsylvania Ave. At 2pm our curated open mic begins and will be lead by MC Adam Eidinger. We have various speakers from different movements confirmed to show up but we encourage everyone reading this to consider making brief remarks if their is time. At around 4:15pm we will make announcements about the civil disobedience. At 4:20pm there will be a blessing and many of us will engage in civil disobedience by consuming cannabis. Shortly afterwards, we’ll part ways, go home, and watch ourselves on the evening news…. SEE YOU THERE!
Possible Civil Disobedience Scenarios at 4:21pm:
1) NO ARRESTS – After consuming cannabis as an act of civil disobedience, we march down Pennsylvania Ave. toward 17th Street for a victory lap!
2) ARRESTS OCCUR AND PEOPLE ARE RELEASED QUICKLY – After paying a small fine ($100 or less) people are released Saturday evening.
3) ARRESTS OCCUR AND PEOPLE ARE DETAINED UNTIL MONDAY – After going before a judge, you are released Monday afternoon and will likely have to return to court at a later date.
Demonstration DOs & DON’Ts
DO – Invite your friends!
DON’T – Consume cannabis (smoke, vape, eat, etc.) until 4:20pm. The fastest way to get arrested is to be the only person using cannabis. If you see someone consuming cannabis, politely suggest they relocate to a different area or refrain until 4:20pm.
DO – Help hold the 51 foot joint! You know that you want to take a selfie holding the biggest joint ever brought to the White House!
DON’T – Swear or say offensive things to the general public.
DO – Listen to the various speakers. You will hear some amazing stories about how cannabis has impacted the lives of your fellow Americans. Please show speakers respect by engaging in discussions away from the sound system.
DON’T – Be rude to tourists, strangers, or other cannabis activists. One of our biggest strengths is that we are united in the belief that the federal laws related to cannabis need to be changed. You may meet people who have different political viewpoints than yours and it’s important that you know how to agree to disagree.
DO – Bring your government-issued ID. In case anything happens, it’s always good to be able to prove who you are.
DON’T – Be disrespectful to the police! Treat them like you would like to be treated yourself. Do not call them names! If you engage in civil disobedience and the police arrest you, do not fight back or you might end up with a assault charge.
DO – Be peaceful! Have fun! Know that you are making history! Don’t let the detractors who think doing nothing will somehow change something.
DON’T – Forget that the area around the White House is federal property where Ballot Initiative 71 does not apply. So don’t bring large amounts of any “illegal” substances or paraphernalia such as chillums, bowls, dugouts, bongs, etc. We recommend joints, vapes, and edibles for those who are engaging in civil disobedience.
DO – Bring $50 to $100 cash if you plan on engaging in civil disobedience. Often the police offer a “Post and Forfeit” option, where you may simultaneously post and forfeit an amount as collateral (which otherwise would serve as security upon release to ensure the arrestee’s appearance at trial) and thereby obtain a full and final resolution of the criminal charge. Since there are so many arrests in DC every year for civil disobedience, the post & forfeit option is very common, so bring extra cash with you.
DON’T – Resist arrest if you are engaging in civil disobedience. Resisting Arrest is defined as:
– fleeing a police officer while being arrested
– threatening a police officer with physical violence while being arrested
– physically struggling to free oneself from being restrained
– attacking a police officer while being arrested
– providing an officer with false identification
DO – Be educated on why you are demonstrating. You may be asked by a reporter for your comments. Do you have something ready to say? It’s OKAY to say nothing! But it’s best to read up on why the Controlled Substances Act needs to be changed in regards to cannabis.
DON’T – Act like a fool! We expect national & international media to be present, so do your best to represent cannabis community.
DO – Understand that if you choose to engage in civil disobedience, you might be in DC jail until Monday.
DON’T – Try to find parking nearby! Take the Metro, Bus, ride your bike, or walk! But there is garages & metered parking nearby, but it’s going to cost you a lot!
DO – Know that it is YOUR RIGHT TO PEACEFULLY ASSEMBLE! You are not risking arrest by showing up, rather you risk arrest by engaging in civil disobedience.
DON’T – Expect the world to change over night.
DO – Bring your prescription medications if you plan to engage in civil disobedience. The last thing we want is for you to get sick in a DC jail! Make sure your prescription medication has your name on it! REMEMBER: Medical marijuana is not recognized by the federal government (this is one of the reasons why we are demonstrating!)
DON’T – Forget to write 202-733-4640 with a permanent marker on your arm. If you engage in civil disobedience and get arrested, call 202-733-4640 when you are at the jail. We’ll have someone helping with jail support. We want to know who you is arrested and when they are getting out.
MOST IMPORTANT DO – BE COOL!! Always stay calm. Change happens at the speed of protest, so know that after the demonstration, our efforts will go on!
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The University of Virginia recently received a donation from the famous comedian and his wife, Evelyn McGee Colbert, who graduated from the college in 1985.
(Comedian Stephen T. Colbert and his wife, Evelyn Colbert. )
Evelyn Colbert told the university she predicts the program will create a bonded group of artists who can help each other navigate the college experience and remind each other, “Don't give up your passion.”
And it is possible to have a successful and fulfilling career with an arts degree, according to The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, based at the Indiana University. The group recently surveyed 13,581 alumni of 154 arts programs and found that 92 percent who wish to work found a job soon after graduating — and two-thirds said their first job was a close match to the kind of work they wanted, (Read more about findings they released today.)
U-Va. students who decide to major or minor in an arts field can receive a Colbert Arts Scholars Award between their third and fourth years — up to $3,000 to spend on an intensive art-related project. (Similar grants in the past have allowed students to study with a New York City dance company or travel to Ghana.)
Bruce Holsinger, associate dean for the arts and humanities, said in a statement that he hopes the program will allow U-Va. to “recruit, retain and educate some of the most exceptional young artists and artist-scholars.”
Evelyn Colbert, who double-majored in drama and English, said the university is the perfect choice for students who want a strong academic experience in addition to an arts one: “At U-Va. you don't have to give up anything in order to also have a great arts experience.”
Can’t get enough Campus Overload? You can also fan the blog on Facebook and follow Jenna on Twitter. And if you are gearing up for a summer internship, check out The Post’s Intern City. |
Nicole Claveloux's comics come across as odd, mind-bending "What If's." The kind of imaginary comics one would expect only to exist in Hicksville's lighthouse in Dylan Horrocks's eponymous graphic novel. Symbolist comics evoking internal states, giving fantastic flight to common emotions in colors and landscapes that border on the surreal. They are glimpses of a road not taken on which comics evolved differently, sending their green shoots off into modalities that I would be loath outright to call feminine, but from which comics would certainly have benefited had more women been attracted to and accommodated within the form at an earlier stage in its history.
As it happens, French comics have historically been just as unaccommodating of female creators as America's. Claveloux (b. 1940) only spent about a decade, in the '70s and early '80s, working in the form before seeking other avenues of expression, as a painter and illustrator and in writing and drawing children’s books. Her main comics effort was a quirky comic for young readers, Grabote, which ran in the popular children’s magazine Okapi between 1973–'82. Sadly this charming, lightly philosophical strip in the tradition of Herriman's Krazy Kat by way of F'Murrr's parable-like humor comics about sheep, is largely forgotten today. The Green Hand and Other Stories, newly released by New York Review Comics, might help stimulate new interest, however (and for those eager to make Grabote's acquaintance, the entire run is available in the original language here).
For a few brief years, Claveloux also contributed short comics to the legendary magazine Métal Hurlant – several of which were published in English in its counterpart Heavy Metal – as well as its offshoot Ah! Nana (1976–'78), which featured women creators exclusively. For the longer of these stories, she collaborated with the writer Edith Zha. The Green Hand collects most of this meager output between nifty hard covers, sensitively translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith and hand-lettered in imitation of the original by Dustin Harbin. It will hopefully be followed by a new edition of their feature-length comics album Morte-saison (1979).
The title story, signed Claveloux and Zha, is the main draw here. Published in five installments in Métal Hurlant in 1977, and in Heavy Metal the following year, it is a technicolor dreamscape drawn from life clocking in at just over forty pages. An almost elegiac portrait of the unbearableness of being. There is no great crisis detailed in its vivid narrative of attempted escape from things as they are, just crushing inevitability as the couple at its center finally submerge themselves in an inky ocean under a neon sunset.
They are a woman, the protagonist, and the bird she lives with in a small, crusty apartment. Drawn as something like a scruffy, stocky, and wheezing marabou stork, he is depressed and quietly destructive, his affliction hatching multiples from eggs around him as he stares bleary-eyed through the window at the outside. She brings home a happy, loving potted plant and paints her hand green to tend it—in French a green thumb is the whole hand—but the bird quickly takes the wind out of its sails, withering it willfully with cigarette butts and a feather off his head.
This prompts her to leave and we follow her as she floats through walls naked, encountering a neighbor, cowering under writhing creeper vines, and then as she relocates from her job at a waxworks to a hotel surrounded by angry woods and haunted by people seeking to connect with something: their food, their sexuality, the divine, her. Effigies to their desires loom outside their rooms. Hers is a moth, wings unfolded, proboscis curled up—perhaps because she shares with this insect her means of celestial navigation, triangulating her course from the negative gravitational pull of her mate. He, in the meantime, talks to a stranger who might be the devil, and futilely seeks a makeover at a fun fair.
Claveloux's pen hatching is fulsome, gathering modeled presence on the paper; her colors are bright, clashing gouache, layered in separate blotches, often defining form through a secondary, contourless outlines. Backgrounds are frequently sprayed on in gradients with airbrush. These hand-fashioned transitions lend to her horizons a kind of psychic intensity that reminds the reader of that these are internal projections.
There is an undeniable glow to it that belies the stories’ bleak outlook, a sense that our mental decay is somehow also beautiful. So although “The Green Hand” rivals such comics as Joshua Cotter's oppressive cartography in Driven by Lemons or Tsuge Yoshiharu's subversively realistic Muno no hito in its unrelenting portrayal of depression, it strikes a more cosmic note.
The rest of the volume is made up of shorter stories in similar or parallel veins, created by Claveloux on her own. Most are from Ah Nana!, short black-and-white parables of desire, anxiety, and struggle, and variously successful. She trades in a kid of magical realism rooted in very ordinary life, a richer, internal counterpart to her contemporary’s Caza’s virile alchemical mixture of social realism and fantastic metaphor in the great Scènes de la vie de banlieue ('Scenes from Life in the Suburbs', 1977–79).
Plant metaphors flourish in Claveloux's comics, for example in "The Little Vegetable Who Dreamed He Was a Panther"—about a stout, rooted being dreaming about unfettered movement—or in the lush, oneiric "A Little Girl Always in a Dream", which channels childhood memories of your first period. Themes of family also recur, often emphasizing its discontents—the funniest is "Underground Chatter" with its subway anecdote of contrasting savant and monkey babies unsettling a commuting mother-to-be, while "No Family" is a picture-book-style story about relatives murdering each other, rendered in a harsh, very '80s commercial chic. A little too on the nose.
We learn from the interview with the two authors in the back of the book, that Métal Hurlant editor Jean-Pierre Dionnet called these comics "Marguerite Duras in comic form," which does not seem far off. I am unfamiliar with that distinguished author and filmmaker's prose, but Claveloux's comics certainly possess some of the otherworldly, pensive, and melancholy lyricism of her films. Perhaps appropriately for comics, however, they are funnier and more irrepressible. Fairy tales clearly form the substrate of Claveloux's approach, and some of her best stories retain their vernacular punch. Most successful is this regard is “The Tale of Blondie, Dearest Doe, and Fat Kitty Cat”—a tightly rendered gothic tale of a baby fleeing her evil stepmother queen to shack up with a cat in the forest. Its affluent, fervid preadolescent symbolism recalls Alice in Wonderland, which Claveloux—surely not coincidentally—had illustrated with inspired Heinz Edelmann-like inflections of John Tenniel in 1974.
I am not sufficiently familiar with Claveloux's subsequent work properly to assess where The Green Hand belongs in her broader oeuvre, but judging by examples online of her more recent, rather over-baked paintings, it would seem the period in which she committed to comics was not only a particularly propitious one for French comics, but also for her as an artist. The work, certainly, has that air of being created at an inspired moment, with “The Green Hand” in particular presenting as a little-recognized masterpiece. |
Christian was slouched in a chair in Bradford psychiatric unit. He was, seemingly, only half-conscious, half alive. He could hardly speak, let alone raise his head. Christian had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Two days before, in a haze of paranoia, he had punched a colleague of mine at a day centre. So Christian was sectioned and medicated, heavily, with neuroleptic drugs.
Most people, on seeing Christian, would have described him as being so whacked out he was a dribbling wreck. The drug-advisory body, the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) would say the neuroleptic treatment had successfully "calmed" Christian, in preparation for treating the "underlying psychiatric condition".
Neuroleptics - such as Clozapine, Olanzapine, Risperidone and Seroquel - are the "primary treatment" for psychosis, particularly schizophrenia. Indeed, 98%-100% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia inside our psychiatric units - and 90% living in the community - are on neuroleptics, also called antipsychotics. Nice's guidelines for the treatment of schizophrenia say: "There is well established evidence for the efficacy of antipsychotic drugs."
A similar efficacy used to be claimed for Prozac and other SSRIs in the treatment of depression. But a study published last Tuesday could well have pulled the plug on Prozac.
And now a London NHS psychiatrist, Joanna Moncrieff, has similarly endeavoured to expose the "myth" of antipsychotics. Whereas Moncrieff has already highlighted antidepressant non-effectiveness, it is her research on antipsychotics that is more shocking. The evidence shows, she says, that antipsychotics not only do not work long-term they also cause brain damage - a fact which is being "fatally" overlooked. Plus, because of a cocktail of vicious side-effects, antipsychotics almost triple a person's risk of dying prematurely.
Moncrieff particularly strikes out at her own profession, psychiatry, claiming it is ignoring the negative evidence for antipsychotics. In her book, The Myth of The Chemical Cure, Moncrieff argues, effectively, that psychiatry is guilty of gross scientific misconduct.
Having examined decades of clinical trials, Moncrieff's first point is that once variables such as placebo and drug withdrawal effects are accounted for, there is no concrete evidence for antipsychotic long-term effectiveness. This is a radically different interpretation of the meta-analyses and trials Nice used to arrive at its opposite conclusion. But Moncrieff is confident her scrutiny of the evidence is valid.
At the heart of years of dissent against psychiatry through the ages has been its use of drugs, particularly antipsychotics, to treat distress. Do such drugs actually target any "psychiatric condition"? Or are they chemical control - a socially-useful reduction of the paranoid, deluded, distressed, bizarre and odd into semi-vegetative zombies?
Historically, whatever dissenters thought has been ignored. So, it appears, have new studies which indicate that antipsychotics do not work long-term. For example, a US study last year in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease reported that people diagnosed with schizophrenia and not taking antipsychotics are more likely to recover than those on the drugs. The study was on 145 patients, and researchers reported that, after 15 years, 65% of patients on antipsychotics were psychotic, whereas only 28% of those not on medication were psychotic. A staggering finding, surely? So where were the mainstream media yelps of "breakthrough in schizophrenia treatment". Not a squeak.
Moncrieff's second point is that the psychiatric establishment, underpinned by the pharmaceutical industry, has glossed over studies showing that antipsychotics cause extensive damage - the most startling being permanent brain atrophy (brain damage) or tardive dyskinesia. As in Parkinson's Disease, patients suffer involuntary, repetitive movements, memory loss and behaviour changes. Antipsychotics cause atrophy within a year, Moncrieff says. She accuses her colleagues of risking creating an "epidemic of iatrogenic brain damage".
Moncrieff is a hard-nosed scientist, so she is respectfully reserved. But gross scientific misconduct is her accusation. "It is as if the psychiatric community can not bear to acknowledge its own published findings," she writes.
How worrying it is, then that the Healthcare Commission should report last year that almost 40% of people with psychosis are on levels of antipsychotics exceeding recommended limits. Such levels cause heart attacks. Indeed, the National Patient Safety Agency claims heart failure from antipsychotics is a likely cause for some of the 40 average annual "unexplained" deaths of patients on British mental health wards. Other effects of antipsychotics include massive weight gain (metabolic impairment) and increased risk of diabetes.
Two years ago, The British Journal of Psychiatry - Britain's most respected psychiatry journal - published a study reporting that people on antipsychotics were 2.5 times more likely to die prematurely. The researchers warned there was an "urgent need" to investigate whether this was due to antipsychotics. But so ingrained is the medication culture in mental health that many psychiatrists feel that not medicating early with antipsychotics amounts to negligence, Moncrieff notes.
Moncrieff does acknowledge there is evidence for the short-term effectiveness of antipsychotics. But again Moncrieff asks psychiatry to be honest. Moncrieff points out that when antipsychotics, such as chlorpromazine, were first used in the 1950s they were "major tranquillisers". Why? Because that's an accurate description of their effect, particularly short term. They sedate, or tranquillise, the emotions, so reducing the anxiety of paranoia and delusions. Any person on antipsychotics is likely to verify this (go to askapatient.com). Now, however, these drugs are referred to as "antipsychotics". For Moncrieff, this is a wheeze because there's no evidence that antipsychotics act directly on the "symptoms" - paranoia, delusions, hallucinations - of those diagnosed with psychosis. There's nothing antipsychotic about antipsychotics.
So what are the alternatives? Moncrieff - like her fellow psychiatrists in a group called the Critical Psychiatry Network - asks services to look seriously at non-drug approaches, such as the Soteria Network in America. She believes psychiatrists such as herself should no longer have unparalleled powers to forcibly detain and treat patients. Instead, they should be "pharmaceutical advisers" engaging in "democratic drug treatment" with patients.
Psychiatrists should be involved in "shared decision-making" with patients, and would have to go to civil courts to argue their case for compulsory treatment. "Psychiatry would be a more modest enterprise," writes Moncrieff, "no longer claiming to be able to alter the underlying course of psychological disturbance, but thereby avoiding some of the damage associated with the untrammelled use of imaginary chemical cures."
The mental health establishment should learn from the Prozac story and pay attention. It's about time. |
A man pulled a gun hidden in a beach umbrella and opened fire at a packed Tunisian holiday resort Friday, massacring 37 people in the country's worst attack in recent history.
Witnesses described scenes of panic after the shooting at the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel on the outskirts of Sousse, about 140 kilometers (87 miles) south of Tunis.
The shooting was the worst in modern-day Tunisia and followed a March attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis that killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the Bardo attack, although Tunisia says it was carried out by an Algerian militant.
Gary Pine, a British holidaymaker, said Friday's shooting happened at around midday (1100 GMT) when the beach was thronged.
In October 2013, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a botched attack on a beach in Sousse while security forces foiled another planned attack nearby.
The tourism sector, which accounts for seven percent of Tunisia's GDP and almost 400,000 direct and indirect jobs, had already been rattled by political instability and rising Islamist violence.
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The police officer who was cleared on Thursday of killing Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests has been repeatedly accused of using excessive force against members of the public, it can be reported following the end of his trial.
Details of PC Simon Harwood's disciplinary history, disclosed at pre-inquest hearings and pre-trial hearings, include allegations that he punched, throttled, kneed, threatened and unlawfully arrested people. They show he avoided likely disciplinary proceedings by the Metropolitan police over an alleged road rage incident by resigning owing to ill health. He later joined another force before moving back to the Met.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigated Tomlinson's death, said it had "grave concerns" over the failure of the Met's vetting procedures. Its inquiries established that disciplinary proceedings brought against Harwood included "unlawful arrest, abuse of authority and discreditable conduct".
Most of the complaints, contained in five lever-arch files relating to Harwood's disciplinary history, were unproven. Lawyers for Tomlinson's family first presented them before the inquest into his death last year, but the presiding judge ruled they should not be disclosed. Judge Peter Thornton QC said the complaints, the first of which was lodged two years after he joined the Met in 1995, were not relevant and risked prejudicing the inquest jurors. "Would it help the jury in deciding the core issues to know about unproven allegations?" he said. "The simple answer must be no."
The Tomlinson family lawyers argued that the files shed light on Harwood's credibility as a witness and propensity to commit violence when angry. Even if unproven, they said, the complaints suggested he knowingly evaded disciplinary hearings, and showed flaws in police vetting procedures that could have prevented him from being on duty the day Tomlinson died at the G20 summit protests three years ago. "This is a rogue officer who should have faced disciplinary charges and if he had done, the likely probability is that he would not have been in that situation on 1 April 2009," said Matthew Ryder QC, counsel for Tomlinson's family at the inquest.
Prosecutors at Harwood's trial for manslaughter sought to have the jury hear evidence about two incidents involving alleged brutality by the officer. However, Mr Justice Fulford ruled that this would, in effect, mean the jury having to "conduct three trials". He said: "I have no doubt that those matters would have such an effect on the fairness of proceedings that the court ought not to admit them." Both sets of evidence can now be reported, after the end of the court case.
A pre-inquest hearing heard that the first case involved a "road rage" incident in April 2000 in which Harwood, off duty at the time, had a minor car collision and then became involved in an argument with the man driving the other vehicle.
When senior officers investigated the case, Harwood told them the other driver was the aggressor. However, independent witnesses backed the other man, who said Harwood ran at him aggressively, knocking him over and forcing him over his car door. The witnesses said Harwood identified himself as a police officer and tried to arrest the other driver for common assault.
An officer who attended the scene later noticed how Harwood amended his notes to seek to justify the arrest, which was unlawful.
The Met settled out of court with the man and paid compensation. More than a year later the force lodged disciplinary charges against Harwood. Chief Inspector Les Jones, who investigated the case, provisionally concluded that Harwood's behaviour fell "well below that expected of a police officer". Jones made it clear Harwood could face dismissal if disciplinary charges were upheld, adding in the case file: "I believe there is clear evidence that PC Harwood became involved in a situation of road rage and then abused his position as a police officer by making an unlawful arrest. I also note he has attempted now to alter his notes."
However, weeks before the misconduct hearing was due to be heard, Harwood applied to be medically retired from the Met, citing injuries he had suffered in a motorbike accident more than three years earlier. His last day at the force was 14 September 2001. But his absence did not last long – just three days later, Harwood was taken on by the same force as a civilian employee.
Within 18 months he had successfully applied to become a uniformed officer with the neighbouring Surrey police force.
In January 2004, he was again accused of using excessive force, in a complaint lodged by a fellow officer in a raid on a flat. Two officers said they saw Harwood grab a suspect by the throat, punch him twice in the face and push him into a table, causing it to break.
The arrested suspect, referred to as BE in documents cited during legal argument before the Tomlinson inquest last year, injured another officer, named as PC Newman. But despite his own injuries, Newman was reported to have said he was so shocked at Harwood's behaviour he insisted on lodging a complaint, which prompted a disciplinary investigation.
Newman told investigators that BE shouted to Harwood: "I'll fucking have you." Harwood was said to have replied: "Go on then, I'll do you all over again." According to Newman, Harwood had acted unlawfully. According to the papers cited during the pre-inquest legal arguments, he told his seniors: "I know BE is an arsehole, but I would say he was merely defending himself."
When they asked if he wanted the complaint to be pursued, Newman replied: "Yes, I agree it needs to be sorted out. I am still quite shocked, to be honest with you."
In November 2004, Harwood applied for a transfer – this time back to the Met, rejoining the force a few months later. The incident involving BE was recorded as "unsubstantiated against PC Harwood", although Ryder said the file was "woefully silent" about how the matter was dealt with.
Once back with the London force Harwood became a member of the territorial support group (TSG), which specialises in public order policing. An IPCC commissioner, Deborah Glass, said it was "alarming" that a police officer could have avoided disciplinary proceedings by retiring, and later rejoining the force.
She said the Met would need to "account for [Harwood's] re-engagement as a constable and his deployment to one of the most critical units, the TSG, given his previous record." Harwood was the subject of a number of unproven complaints after joining the TSG, including from a member of the public who said they saw him knee a suspect in the chest in Streatham High Road, south London.
The incident, in May 2005, was one of two prosecutors also sought to raise at the manslaughter trial. At a pre-trial hearing they said an independent witness reported seeing Harwood knee a man in the kidney as he lay on the ground in handcuffs.
This case was dealt by "local resolution", as was another in which Harwood was alleged to have threatened a father and daughter, telling them he would burn down their house. The allegation was recorded as involving "assault and racial abuse".
The second case raised by prosecutors at the criminal trial came in November 2008, when Harwood allegedly twisted handcuffs placed on an AA patrolman whose vehicle he had stopped.
At the inquest, Harwood's lawyers argued all the complaints against him were unproven, except for the most recent, six months before the G20 protests, in which he unlawfully accessed the police national computer.
Harwood accepted that he searched the database to find details of a driver who had been involved in a car accident with his wife.
He conceded that a fellow officer had warned him that what he was about to do was wrong. He said: "I ignored this warning, as I was of the opinion that the person was trying to make a joke of the situation I was dealing with."
Harwood told his seniors that he wanted to find details of the other motorist after speaking to his wife on the phone about the accident. He said the conversation sent him into "red mist mode".
At a hearing before Harwood's manslaughter trial his defence barrister, Patrick Gibbs QC, successfully argued that it would be wrong to put the prior disciplinary matters before the jury.
He said: "To have been able to drag up events where they occurred, one from 2005 relating to an arrest in the street and one to a stop of a motor vehicle that appeared to be speeding in 2008, in support of what we say is a rather more serious matter falls short of a pattern." |
Fox News’ Ed Henry took White House spokesman Josh Earnest to task over hysteria from Harvard professors in the wake of reports of rising health-care costs.
The rising health-care costs, reported initially by The New York Times, are caused in part by the Affordable Care Act, which many on the Harvard faculty heartily supported.
Henry asked Earnest specifically if the Harvard professors are being “a little hypocritical,” given their prior support for the bill.
Earnest dodged Henry’s inquiry, instead repeating administration talking points, telling Henry that Harvard professors can benefit from the ACA because it allows their children to remain on their insurance until age 26 and because no one with a pre-existing condition can be denied coverage.
HENRY: “A long story in The New York Times saying that large segments of the faculty at Harvard University, where the president went to Harvard Law School, is sort of up in arms about the fact that the professor are going to have to bear a larger share of their own health-care costs under the president’s new law. Here are some of the same professors who were advisers to the president’s first campaign in 2008, advocated the Affordable Care Act. And they basically said this is a great deal for America, but now that they have to pay more, they’re up in arms about it. Isn’t that a little bit hypocritical that some of the president’s supporters at Harvard are saying this is a great deal for America, but when I’ve gotta pay more, it’s terrible, it’s awful?”
EARNEST: “I can only imagine the question you’d be asking if The New York Times reported that the faculty at Harvard was getting a great deal.”
HENRY: “Harvard also put out a statement, by the way, saying they are doing this because the trend of health-care costs, including some driven by health-care reform itself. Yesterday when we talked about this, you said, and there are stats backing up that health-care costs are coming down in some respects. But Harvard is citing that the law itself is raising health-care costs. Isn’t that the opposite of what the White House said?”
EARNEST: “Well, I haven’t seen exactly what Harvard has said. But I do think as a general matter that the results that we’ve seen so far, they’re early, but the early results speak to the enormous benefits that the Affordable Care Act has paid to middle-class families across the country, to small business owners, to the government’s bottom line, and to the success that we’ve had in lowering health-care costs, or at least slowing the growth of health-care costs for people all across the country.”
HENRY: “Is the president disappointed that professors at his alma mater just don’t see those benefits?”
EARNEST: “Well, let’s be clear: there are some important benefits that they do see under the Affordable Care Act. That there are a number of patient protections that apply to everybody. So that everybody who’s on the Harvard faculty can get a free annual check-up from their doctor. And, again that’s thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Nobody at Harvard who has a pre-existing condition can never be discriminated against again because of that pre-existing condition, and every Harvard professor that has an old child can keep that child on their quality Harvard insurance up to age 26. And those are the kinds of patient protections that don’t just benefit those at the bottom of the income scale, they actually benefit everybody, including the esteemed academics at Harvard University.” |
They all decided they wanted to become preachers and enrolled in seminary to learn how to spread the Gospel. They chose one of the most prominent evangelical seminaries in the country.
Yet here they were, these four young preachers-in-training from the Midwest, the South and the Northwest, hanging around after listening to sermons in class. They were debating whether they wanted to be the one thing Fuller Theological Seminary is known for: evangelicals.
"It's still a painful identity for me, coming from this election," said Paul Johnson, one of the students at Fuller.
Discomfort with the term "evangelical" began in some quarters with the Moral Majority in the Reagan years, which helped make "evangelical" synonymous with the Republican Party. Ever since, evangelicals have disagreed with each other about mixing faith and politics.
Such debates intensified last year when President Trump was elected with the overwhelming support of white evangelical voters after a vitriolic campaign that alienated many Americans. Most recently, after Senate candidate Roy Moore drew strong majorities of white evangelicals in Alabama despite reports of his pursuit of teenage girls when he was in his 30s, some Christians across the country said they weren't sure they wanted to be associated with the word anymore.
Even two of the grandchildren of Billy Graham, the famed evangelist who helped popularize the term, are abandoning the word. "The term has come to represent white Republicans and . . . sometimes close-mindedness and superiority," said granddaughter Jerushah Armfield, a writer and pastor's wife in South Carolina.
President Donald Trump, left, and Jerry Falwell Jr., President of Liberty University, pose for photos with members of gospel choir Lu Praise during a commencement at Liberty University May 13, 2017 in Lynchburg, Virginia. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Jen Hatmaker, a Texas-based author with a large evangelical following, sees "a mass exodus" from the label in her community. "The term feels irreversibly tainted, and those of us who don't align with the currently understood description are distancing ourselves to preserve our consciences," she said.
At Princeton University, a campus group changed its decades-old name this year from "Princeton Evangelical Fellowship" to simply "Princeton Christian Fellowship."
For years, believers have debated whether Republican politics and culture-war battles have diluted the essence of their label "evangelical" — which means spreading the Gospel.
The term "evangelical" became popular decades ago as a way to tamp down differences, emphasizing that all people under its umbrella, regardless of denomination, agree to embrace the Bible and spread its word. But politicians such as Trump and Moore have shown how elusive shared faith and values are today.
Evangelicals make up a huge portion of the American population — about one-quarter of the country. An increasing number of Hispanic Christians have come to describe themselves as evangelical in the past decade. While white evangelicals' numbers have been shrinking — with surveys suggesting a decline of between 2 percent and 6 percent over the past decade — it's too soon to say from demographic data to what degree a Trump effect may have changed the number of people who identify as evangelical.
But on Fuller Seminary's palm-tree-lined campus, as in other major evangelical institutions across the country, debate over the term has bubbled to the forefront, especially among younger members of the faith.
"When I say that I'm an evangelical now, I always qualify it," Johnson said. "Reports that 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for [Trump], that's an offensive statistic for me and something I feel obligated to apologize for. I don't want to be connected to that."
Johnson and the other students hanging out after homiletics class found themselves discussing the four-part definition of evangelical faith, articulated by historian David Bebbington: obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority, belief in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as the source of salvation, the necessity of a personal "born-again" conversion experience, and work to spread the Gospel.
Historically, that definition has helped to distinguish many evangelical churches from more theologically liberal mainline Protestant churches, as well as from stricter fundamentalist churches. But in practice, many evangelicals don't fully embrace those four tenets, and many people who do would never call themselves evangelical. The differences often come down to cultural factors for self-described evangelicals — such as personal piety or beliefs on sexuality. Or race, for black Christians who share those fourfold beliefs but often don't use the term "evangelical" to describe themselves because of its historical and modern association with racism and the Republican Party.
"I think when we start throwing around terms like 'evangelical' to the outside, it can be really ostracizing," said Peter Heilman, a 29-year-old pastor-to-be leaning his tattooed elbows on his ripped blue jeans. He grew up labeling himself lots of ways: conservative, Republican, evangelical. But interning in a more politically and racially diverse church has convinced him to drop those words — he's concerned people won't listen to him preach if they disagree with his politics.
"You have to understand the people you're speaking to and what's going to allow them to keep open ears," he said. "When it comes down to it, labels can be a dangerous thing."
His classmate Savannah Sturgeon, a 24-year-old Nashville native, replied, "I'm not ready to give up the term 'evangelical,' " and Heilman asked, "Why do you need the name if it has a negative connotation?"
"It's biblical. We didn't make it up," Sturgeon said. "To abandon it now is to say this decade has ruined it for us."
But many fear that the association between evangelicals and Trump, a historically unpopular first-year president, has deeply damaged the reputation of evangelicals.
In recent years, Americans have expressed more positive feelings toward nearly all religious groups, except for evangelicals. In a 2017 Pew Research Center poll, Americans expressed greater approval than in 2014 for every religious group — Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, Mormons, Muslims, atheists and more — except for evangelicals, who stayed flat at a 61 percent approval rating.
In the past, "evangelical" was a useful marker of theological and cultural similarities across denominations — a word providing something broader than "Southern Baptist" but more specific than "Christian."
The term "evangelical" has helped parents comb through book catalogues, choose schools for their children and decide what charities to support. Ministries such as World Vision and Samaritan's Purse receive the bulk of their donations from evangelicals. Book publishers such as Zondervan and InterVarsity Press publish primarily for evangelicals. Institutions such as Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and Wheaton College draw primarily from evangelical students.
"Shorthands have always been helpful," said Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton, in Illinois. "The question is, 'Do I want to be affiliated with that?' when terms have been redefined, either when it's been hijacked or misunderstood."
American evangelicals have never been unanimous on social and political issues, dating back centuries, when evangelical leaders split over their views of slavery. "To throw out the term because of some problems in the past several years is so shortsighted," said Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty, which once described itself as a fundamentalist school but has shifted to call itself evangelical.
Unlike the Catholic Church, evangelicals have no centralized hierarchy or leader, which Prior fears could make them more vulnerable to collapse than other religious traditions.
White evangelicals tend to strongly oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, but they don't necessarily agree on issues such as climate change or tax policy. "The political environment hasn't caused the divisions among evangelicals, but it's highlighted the divisions that were already there," said Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, who was an early supporter of Trump. "Christians are going to have to decide what's foundational to their faith."
In the 1960s and 1970s, there was evangelical momentum behind progressive causes and candidates, including Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who described himself using the evangelical term "born again." But with the rise of the religious right in the 1980s, the ties between white evangelicalism and the Republican Party strengthened.
Support for Trump is not a departure from the past several decades of evangelical political behavior, said Heath Carter, a historian at Valparaiso University. "The reality is that evangelicals have always been willing to look past, if not outright embrace, questionable behaviors and tactics in the candidates they support," he said, pointing to evangelical support for Ronald Reagan, who was divorced and didn't attend church.
Emmett Price, a professor who focuses on African American studies at the prominent evangelical seminary Gordon-Conwell in Massachusetts, said he worries that white Christians who are abandoning the term are only looking to avoid the negative associations, not to reform their communities. If they're concerned that politics have tarred evangelicals as racist, he said, they ought to be focused on making evangelical churches less racist — not on calling themselves something else.
"There's a desire to detach from the political landscape right now. If one wanted to go and essentially fight somewhere for inclusivity, one would stay in that space and invite others in," he said. "Ditching a term is simply ditching a term."
At Fuller, seminary president Mark Labberton said his students used to be more willing to stay within the broad tent of evangelicalism and hash out their differences.
"You could say, 'I'm an evangelical, and I'm part of the religious right,' or, 'I'm evangelical, and I'm not part of the religious right,' " he said. "In the Reagan era . . . people would have understood that those two things are separate. I think that really changed with the" 80 percent of white evangelicals who voted for Trump.
Now students are rethinking how they identify. "Am I part of a movement that identifies with things I actually think are personally and theologically repellent to me?" he hears them asking. "If somehow I've gotten caught up in a movement like that . . . I could try to endlessly unpack it, or I could just abandon it."
For his part, he thinks the label still has value, as he tries to sum up the theology that people from many different denominations who gather on Fuller's campus have in common.
"What word do you put in its place? There's no adequate or obviously adequate word to do that," he said. "I'm 'an orthodox Christian who cares deeply about being a follower of Jesus and wants to live with an open posture of engagement with culture.' That's not as tidy as simply saying, 'evangelical.' "
He's editing a book that compiles essays from theologically conservative Christians across a political spectrum. The book's title: "Still Evangelical?"
This story has been updated. |
Orlando City’s defensive leader, Jonathan Spector, left training early Tuesday due to injury.
Spector appeared to injure his knee during a routine drill, according to a spokesman for the club. He sat on bleachers off to the side for the rest of the session and later was driven off the field in a golf cart.
He underwent multiple tests with the club’s medical staff on Wednesday. Results of those tests and an update on his status is expected Thursday.
Spector is widely credited for helping turn around a back line that conceded the most goals in the league last year.
Aside from goalkeeper Joe Bendik, who has started and played 90 minutes in all 23 of Orlando City’s games this season, Spector leads the team in minutes played with 1,890 across 21 games. The two May matches he missed — a 4-0 loss to Houston and a 1-1 draw in San Jose — were due to a slight ankle injury and roster rotation during a tough stretch of games.
Orlando City has multiple options at centerback. Spector has started recently alongside José Aja. United States Under-20 national team defender Tommy Redding also is available and full recovered from a bout of plantar fasciitis. Young Brazilian Leo Pereira also has appeared at the position for the Lions this season.
Striking pair
After Orlando City’s 2-1 loss in Montreal over the weekend, Lions coach Jason Kreis seemed to question the team’s new attacking duo of Cyle Larin and Dom Dwyer.
Kreis said, “The question would be are they too similar? … Can they figure it out?”
After training Wednesday, the Lions’ coach seemed much more optimistic about the forwards’ progress.
“I felt like in the second half of the Montreal game, we started to really see some decent combination play,” Kreis said. “They linked up with each other for a breakaway chance for Cyle. So, I think that situation is improving in my opinion.”
In response to a separate question during media availability after training, Kreis said he doesn’t handle losing and poor performances well.
“I take a ton of responsibility for them, I honestly do,” h said. “In a lot of ways, I feel like first and foremost it’s my fault if the team doesn’t play well and it’s my fault if we lose. That’s the way I’ve always been. I was the same way as a player, actually. It does make life a little difficult sometimes, and you need people around you to remind you there’s more to life than that as well. You still have a family and a lot of things that should mean a whole lot to you.”
Pre-sale
Tickets for the United States men’s national team World Cup qualifier against Panama that will be held at Orlando City Stadium Oct. 6 went on pre-sale Wednesday morning.
Early access to the tickets is available on Ticketmaster using the offer code H5GOAL.
The pre-sale event ends at 8 a.m. Aug. 10, four hours before tickets go on sale to the public via ussoccer.com.
The club sent out important information regarding stadium seating for that match with the pre-sale announcement. Sections 113-117 of the stadium will have access to the club lounge during the match but will not include food and beverage. Those sections will be “a la carte only.” Also, sections 13-17 will not be considered club sections so will not have access to the lounge for the qualifier.
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If newly-minted free agent Alistair Overeem wants an upgrade over his last UFC deal, it's safe to say he's about to get paid. Overeem handily led the field at UFC on FOX 17, scoring a $542,857 payday for an upset win over Junior dos Santos in the final fight of the Dutchman's Zuffa contract, according to figures released to MMA Fighting on Monday by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
Overeem knocked out dos Santos ($400,000) with a vicious second-round volley of strikes in the night's heavyweight co-main event, which took place Dec. 19 and aired live on FOX. UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos ($300,000) defended his belt with a 66-second win over Donald Cerrone ($79,000) in the night's main event.
UFC on FOX 17 was held at the Amway Center in Orlando, FL. The show marked the final note on an extremely successful 2015 campaign for the UFC.
Notably, lightweight contender Nate Diaz took home just $40,000 for his entertaining main card victory over Michael Johnson ($30,000), tying him with C.B. Dollaway for eighth on the event's earnings list. Diaz, a popular fighter whose relationship with the UFC has appeared strained at times, has fought 21 times for the promotion since debuting in 2007, winning 13 of those bouts.
In addition to their commission-reported salaries, dos Anjos, Diaz, Johnson, and undercard winner Vicente Luque all scored $50,000 fight night bonuses for their performances.
A complete list of the UFC on FOX 17 salaries can be seen below. As always, these figures do not represent a fighter's total earnings, as certain sponsorship incomes, contract clauses, or discretionary post-fight bonuses are not publicly disclosed.
Main Card (FOX)
Rafael dos Anjos ($300,000 + no win bonus = $300,000) def. Donald Cerrone ($79,000)
Alistair Overeem ($342,857 + $200,000 = $542,857) def. Junior dos Santos ($400,000)
Nate Diaz ($20,000 + $20,000 = $40,000) def. Michael Johnson ($30,000)
Karolina Kowalkiewicz ($13,000 + $13,000 = $26,000) def. Randa Markos ($12,000)
Preliminary Card (FOX Sports 1)
Charles Oliveira ($29,600* + $37,000 = $66,600) def. Myles Jury ($30,000)
Nate Marquardt ($49,000 + $49,000 = $98,000) def. C.B. Dollaway ($40,000)
Valentina Shevchenko ($12,000 + $12,000 = $24,000) def. Sarah Kaufman ($22,000)
Tamdan McCrory ($12,000 + $12,000 = $24,000) def. Josh Samman ($10,000)
Nik Lentz ($35,000 + $35,000 = $70,000) def. Danny Castillo ($39,000)
Cole Miller ($33,000) vs. Jim Alers ($10,000) ruled a no contest
Preliminary Card (UFC Fight Pass)
Kamaru Usman ($12,000 + $12,000 = $24,000) def. Leon Edwards ($15,000)
Vicente Luque ($10,000 + $10,000 = $20,000) def. Hayder Hassan ($10,000)
Francis Ngannou ($10,000 + $10,000 = $20,000) def. Luiz Henrique ($10,000)
*Forfeited 20-percent of show purse for missing weight |
Tuesday, on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” Michael Ritrovato spoke at length about his friend, suspected Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis. After expressing his condolences to the victims and their families, Ritrovato then expressed his shock over the actions of a man he described as being “like a brother to me” and a “good-natured guy.”
Ritrovato went on to explain that two of them had a close relationship based in part on their differences, specifically race and politics. Alexis was black, Ritrovato is white. Ritrovato described himself as conservative and Alexis is “more of a liberal type” who supported Barack Obama:
I would say things like, ‘You know, you are my brother from another mother.’ And he would say things like, ‘You’re my Italian mafia guy from New York.’ So we had things we joked about: Aaron wasn’t conservative like I am. He was more of a liberal type; he wasn’t happy with the former [Bush] administration. He was more happy with this [the Obama] administration — as far as presidential administrations.
Ritrovato said he hadn’t seen Alexis in a while. The last time they spoke was by phone, when Alexis talked about his frustration with the company he worked for. Apparently, the company was “slow to pay.” There have been other media reports about Alexis being upset with his company regarding some expenses incurred during a trip to Japan.
Ritrovato said that Alexis’ fondness for “violent video games” was the only red flag he saw in retrospect.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC |
As I have previously noted, the police, without any act of parliament and through the College of Policing have decided, in 2014, that they will no longer be the preferred authority to investigate bank fraud (“financial crime”) but that the regulators should deal with it. However, they have gone one step further and have decided, with Home Office approval, to outsource investigation of financial crime to private practice lawyers:
Herbert Smith Freehills act for HSBC, this announcement from Herbert Smith is dated June 2016:
I have of course reported HSBC fraud to the City of London Police on many occasions. But it gets worse. The Financial Conduct Authority has an “independent” committee which decides which cases require regulatory action, the Regulations Decisions Committee and in January 2016 the FCA appointed Tim Parkes, of Herbert Smith, Chairman of the committee:
Should you be thinking, oh well, there’s always the Serious Fraud Office to prosecute bank fraud, think again. At the same time as the College of Policing decided fraud was not for them, the SFO announced that they would take advantage of the US model of Deferred Prosecution Agreements, whereby individual bank staff are not prosecuted, but a fine is imposed with a promise of good behaviour in the future: |
Over the years, radical feminism has been attempting to demonize any display of testosterone. The slightest aggressive behavior is taken to the ultimate extreme and used to portray males as abusers. Their goal clearly is to wimpify maleness.
When I was serving on the board of our local YMCA, a national touring team of Christian strongmen/bodybuilders wanted to make a presentation to our youths. Through various exciting, well-choreographed displays of strength (chopping through cinder blocks with their bare hands, etc.), the ministers taught kids Christian values and principles. Our female chairperson of the board rejected their proposal. She said their display struck her as promoting violence. I thought, Give me a break. Since when did any hint of maleness become a bad thing?
Whether feminists like it or not, boys are designed to display strength and power, as well as to bond with other males. This is why so many fatherless boys join gangs. While I assume some kids truly are hyperactive, I wonder: How many boys are being drugged simply for acting like boys?
When I was a kid, I saw the movie A Flower Drum Song. One of the songs was called "I Enjoy Being a Girl." Well, I proudly proclaim, "I enjoy being a guy." As a kid, I wanted to grow up to become an artist. But even more than that, I wanted to grow up to be a man: brave, strong, and always attempting to do the right thing. I know that sounds a bit corny. Blame it on my dad, because this is the image my four younger siblings (three brothers, one sister) and I had of him.
In the early sixties, we black kids were bused to a newly integrated, mostly white junior/senior high school. I was a short kid in seventh grade. Brutus was in the ninth grade, six feet tall and on the school's basketball and football teams. He demanded my seat next to Barbara Jean on our school bus ride home.
Had Brutus asked me to give up my seat, I would have. But even at my young age, I knew allowing myself to be bullied would damage my manhood. Knowing Brutus would probably kick my butt, I determined my manhood was worth it. I told Brutus, "No!"
When the bus came to my stop, I dashed off running for my life. The long-legged, gifted athlete caught me and proceeded to pound me into the gravel road. Only the sight of my mom yelling and running towards us forced the giant to flee.
Surprisingly, Brutus and I later became friends. I believe he respected my courage.
Even fatherhood is no longer honored and respected. I find it difficult to enjoy sitcoms and movies where the kids totally disrespect the father. They say whatever they want to him. The message is clear: "Dad is an idiot." It's a far cry from the classic TV show, Father Knows Best.
To a certain degree, radical feminists have been successful in their quest to wimpify American men. You see it in everything from the way news stories are covered to national political issues. We are overly concerned with feelings rather than doing the right thing.
I saw a great old movie, based on a true story, titled Lifeboat. After a shipwreck, a young captain attempted to save as many survivors as possible who were crammed well over capacity in a lifeboat. The captain was forced to make extremely difficult decisions, like rationing food and water and dumping the almost dead overboard. A weak leader who refused to do what needed to be done would have caused the deaths of everyone. Despite strong criticism and mutiny by some, the courageous young captain took responsibility and made painful decisions which saved the lives of most of the survivors. Upon their rescue, everyone in the lifeboat was overwhelmingly grateful to the brave captain, even calling him a hero. Once they were safe and secure on dry land, however, they called him a murderer. How typical. Eagles fly alone. Where are America's great men?
America needs politicians of character and strength who will say "no" to entitlement/redistribution programs. Such counterproductive programs become law when we are seduced by characterless politicians. These scoundrels skillfully appeal to our lower nature by playing the class envy card. Like perfect suckers, we clamor, "Let's get those rich SOBs who have succeeded on the backs of the poor!" It is also time we say no to our Oprah-ized society, where everything is about feelings and everyone is a victim.
American men have a perfect example of strength and taking a stand for what is right to emulate. Ironically, it is a woman from Alaska.
A 1992 TIME Magazine cover read,"Why Are Men and Women Different?" Amazingly, this simple obvious truth was reported as a major scientific discovery.
Whether in athletics, business, or government, controlled, well-placed, and appropriate amounts of testosterone are a good thing. Boldly say "no" to tyranny and evil. Radical feminism is a perversion. It is not representative of the desires of most men and women.
Men should take pride in and honor their maleness. This in no way diminishes women. On the contrary, real men are not threatened by women with healthy self-images. They even enjoy such women.
So look out, radical feminists: We American men are back! Wow, writing this article has me feeling pretty macho. I'm fighting an urge to pound my chest and provide meat for my family. "Honey, get dressed! I'm taking you to dinner at our favorite steakhouse! Afterwards, we'll rent a movie. How about Tarzan, KING of the Jungle?" |
Have you ever gotten a traffic ticket? If so, then you’ve likely contributed to a multi-billion dollar industry according to the National Motorists Association. While no one knows exactly how many traffic tickets are actually issued, a study done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that an average of 112,000 people per day receive a speeding ticket.
However, many of the driving-related laws that still stand today are based on ancient rulings that date back further than the invention of modern cars. Some of these laws are so outrageous that you can’t help but to laugh. Others surely have an interesting story behind them.
While not all are actively upheld, they’re still on the books. The graphic below outlines the most outrageous driving laws that exist in the United States of America.
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While the wildest laws may prohibit us from hiding bears or gorillas in our cars, when it comes time to transport your vehicle itself, you can trust J&S Transportation to make sure it gets there in a law-abiding manner. Get an instant quote from us to find out how much it costs to ship a car or contact us with any questions. |
SRI International is developing a process that combines coal and natural gas to produce liquid transportation fuels that are substantially cleaner and cheaper to make than existing synthetic fuels.
Hot injector: This injector simultaneously blasts methane preheated to 600°C, and coal, into a gasification reactor, thereby enabling CO2-free production of synthetic fuel.
SRI claims its process addresses three liabilities that have slowed the commercialization of the technology. By blending some natural gas into the conventional coal-to-liquids (CTL) process, the private research lab, based in Menlo Park, California, claims to have eliminated CTL’s carbon footprint, slashed water consumption by over 70 percent, and more than halved its capital cost.
Chan Park, a gasification and synthetic fuels expert at the University of California, Riverside’s Center for Environmental Research & Technology, cautions that SRI’s work is at an early stage. But Park says the process “could be really exciting” as a domestic alternative to petroleum fuel in coal and gas-rich countries such as the U.S.—if it can be demonstrated at pilot scale.
SRI’s process is the fruit of a 2008 solicitation by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) seeking a cheap, carbon-free CTL process for producing jet fuel. DARPA awarded SRI $1,612,905 to pursue a novel concept: using methane from natural gas as a hydrogen source instead of water in a new CTL process.
Conventional CTL plants blend pure oxygen, steam, and coal at high temperatures and pressures, generating carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas that can be catalytically combined to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels. The gasification also generates carbon dioxide, partly from the combustion of some coal with the pure oxygen, and partly through undesirable reactions between water and carbon.
In SRI’s process, methane preheated to 600 °C displaces much of the water required, thus reducing the unwanted reaction with the coal. The methane also reduces the amount of heat absorbed by the gasification process, eliminating the need for oxygen and combustion to maintain the 1,400 to 1,500 °C temperatures the process requires. As a result SRI says it can eliminate the use of oxygen-fired combustion that the process requires, making do with zero-carbon renewable or nuclear power instead.
Skipping oxygen not only eliminates a source of carbon dioxide, but contributes substantial cost savings by eliminating the need for an oxygen plant. Further savings are achieved through more efficient fuel synthesis.
SRI estimates that its zero-carbon process will generate jet fuel for $2.82 per gallon, which is under DARPA’s $3 target. SRI’s projected capital cost for a 100,000 barrel/day plant—$3.2 billion—is well below the $6 billion cost of a CTL plant, but still well above DARPA’s $1.5 billion target.
Park says SRI needs to prove its process beyond its “bench-scale” demonstrations in order to provide such cost estimates with any degree of certainty. Based on experience with his own oxygen-less gasification scheme—which is being developed for waste-to-energy plants by Riverside-based spinoff Viresco Energy—Park is skeptical that electrical heating will prove feasible at larger scale.
Eric Larson, a research engineer with Princeton University’s Energy Systems Analysis Group, says SRI’s zero-carbon process could prove to be “technically doable” and still suffer from a critical flaw: producing a carbon-based fuel that will release carbon dioxide when it is burned. “On a life-cycle basis, the fuel is no better than petroleum fuel on greenhouse-gas emissions,” says Larson. |
All work and no play The ability to juggle family, work and personal time affects our individual well-being. It also impacts those in our household and how much time we have to give back to our community. A significant factor in work-life balance is the amount of time we spend at work. Evidence suggests that spending too much time at work can impair our health, jeopardise our safety and increase stress. In Australia, approximately 14% of employees work very long hours, one of the highest rates in the OECD. Interestingly, Australian users of the Better Life Index consistently give work-life balance top priority. Policy makers can help address the issue by encouraging supportive and flexible working practices. The Australia Institute (TAI) has been conducting research since 2001, and in 2009 it launched “National Go Home on Time Day” as a light-hearted way to start a conversation with Australians about the importance of having work-life balance and the consequences it can have on physical and mental health, relationships and communities. Do you have an example of a better policy at work in your community?
Share it with us at: [email protected]
Making happiness count Asking people how they feel can tell us a lot about their health, their education, their income, their personal fulfilment and their social conditions, and in time, help to identify inequalities before they take root. One of the most common indicators used is life satisfaction, which measures how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings. Since the launch of the Better Life Index in 2011, life satisfaction has been among the top well-being priorities expressed by citizens, even in countries where material conditions such as income, jobs and housing may be very poor. Clearly, being satisfied with one’s life matters; so how can we improve policies to take it into account? In the region of Southern Denmark, a metric of “Good Life” has been developed to monitor well-being in the region. Once a year, citizens are asked to assess their own level of well-being, both in general and in terms of different well-being dimensions (such as health, relationships, etc.). The initiative gives policy makers an opportunity to explore the link between objective conditions and individual perceptions of life in different places. It has also brought new perspectives to the Danish growth debate. Do you have an example of a better policy at work in your community?
Share it with us at: [email protected] |
ESPN’s College GameDay is making its way to Salt Lake City this weekend for the upcoming game between No. 5 Utah and No. 23 Cal. This is GameDay’s first visit to Utah since 2010.
The show airs Saturday morning from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., and while signs are welcome, they may not be on sticks. Fans are also not permitted to bring any of the following: projectiles, food, drink, backpacks, purses.
Fans can start to camp out on Presidents Circle Friday night at 6 p.m., but all camping gear must be put away by 4 a.m. Saturday morning. They will then be ushered into the GameDay location at 4:30 a.m. and the first 300 people in line will get to be in the pit located next to the set.
Fans should arrive at 5 a.m. when the live hits will begin.
Events get underway Friday morning in Presidents Circle where ESPN will be broadcasting shows from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. This also includes a live 30 minute segment beginning at 12 p.m. Throughout the day, there will be several sponsors offering food samples, promotional items, games and there will be a sign making competition.
Free parking will be offered in the Merrill Engineering lot Saturday morning.
[email protected]
@kbrenneisen |
Op-Ed: America Needs A Larger Congress
Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010 by arguing for smaller government. But Northwestern University's Jacqueline Stevens says the House itself is too small, and that it's time to add more representatives to the legislative body.
NEAL CONAN, host:
And now, "The Opinion Page." Tomorrow night, President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress for his State of the Union address. That includes 435 members of the House of Representatives, one for about every 700,000 of us. That ratio used to be a lot smaller. While the population of the United States continues to grow, the number of representatives in the House has not changed since 1912.
Over the weekend, an op-ed in the New York Times argued it's high time to expand it again. More representatives from smaller districts would enlist more citizen legislators and reduce the influence of special interests, and end the two-party system - was the argument.
Do you feel represented enough by your congressman or woman? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, [email protected]. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Joining us now from her office at Northwestern University is Jacqueline Stevens, a professor of political science, and co-author of the op-ed piece with NYU professor Dalton Conley.
Nice to have you with us today.
Professor JACQUELINE STEVENS (Department of Political Science, Northwestern University): Hi, nice to be with you.
CONAN: And isn't the size of congressional districts - or the number of people represented by members of Congress - isn't that in the Constitution?
Prof. STEVENS: Well, no. As you mentioned at the beginning, the requirement in the Constitution simply states that there can be no more than one member for every 30,000 inhabitants in the United States. And at this point, we're up to one for - as you mentioned - every 700,000 inhabitants in the United States.
CONAN: Thirty thousand is about the size of a legislative district in the state of New York.
Prof. STEVENS: That's about right. And so you are - the argument that professor Conley and I make is that that's a good size for our congressional districts, and will allow for more members, more representation and, especially important, more citizen control and oversight of federal agencies.
CONAN: So how - you're arguing 30,000 is a good number as opposed to 700. That's a lot of new members of Congress.
Prof. STEVENS: Well, 30,000 is the number that's in the Constitution for the citizens that were represented in 1787 who were part of the electorate. In fact, the inhabitants who were elected per member were 60,000 because women couldn't vote, and slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportionment. We're not saying that there's, you know, it has to be a fixed number of one per every 30,000. But we're using that number to encourage discussion, given the vast disparity between that number and what we have now.
CONAN: So how often was it changed before, as you suggest, the last change in 1912?
Prof. STEVENS: Well, the require - the Constitution requires the census for the purpose of reapportioning Congress. And that reapportionment, we now understand, is part of moving members around, and we talk about the distribution from - you know - blue states to red states, and so forth.
But until 1910, Congress also used the census to regularly increase the size of the membership. So the first Congress that met in 1787 had 65 members. After the 1790 census, that went up. And it went up every 10 years, fairly regularly, until 1910. And the number that we have now is the number that was set following the legislation that was passed in 1910.
CONAN: There have been more than a few states admitted to the Union since 1910.
Prof. STEVENS: That's correct. The number of seats was redistributed among the additional states. It went up temporarily to 437 members -briefly - when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted because the Constitution also requires that each state have a minimum of one representative. So it went up briefly to 437 before reverting back to 435.
CONAN: And...
Prof. STEVENS: The one exemption to the reapportionment - this is, interestingly enough, the period at which the changes stopped - was following the 1920 census. After the 1920 census was taken, the results indicated for the first time that more people were living in urban than rural areas. And the members actually violated the requirement of the Constitution to reapportion within three years of the census and simply failed to do so, because there was a lot of concern - mostly on the part of nativists - that so-called foreigners would be, you know, seizing control of the United States government. And so they simply, you know, violated that requirement of the Constitution.
CONAN: Foreigners meaning Germans, Italians, Irish...
Prof. STEVENS: Meaning recent immigrants into the United States who were, you know, presumably voting members of the population and therefore, were causing some consternation among the current representatives.
CONAN: Well, if 435 is not enough, and if one per 30,000 is probably too many, what's a reasonable number, do you think?
Prof. STEVENS: Well, you know, it's not obvious that there's any problem, actually, with even one per every 30,000. The numbers that we throw out in the piece are 1,500 if we were to return to the level that people had in 1912.
CONAN: That's about one - well, I can't do the math that quickly in my head.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. STEVENS: Right. That's about one for every 200,000 people.
CONAN: OK.
Prof. STEVENS: And just to give, you know, the audience a sense of the -where the United States fits in the context of other representative democracies, Canada right now has a population of 33 million people. And they have 308 members in their parliament, which works out to one for every 190 sorry, one for every 109,000 inhabitants. England has a population of 61 million people, with 650 members in their parliament. And that's actually one for every 78,000 inhabitants.
CONAN: And you also argue that this would have a number of beneficial effects - that in fact, it would encourage more citizen legislators. Why do you think that?
Prof. STEVENS: Well, the smaller the size of the district, the easier it is for people to campaign on the basis of, you know, personal networks and face-to-face contacts. And the less reliant people would be on money in order to reach larger audiences.
So if you had, you know, a district that was - say, you know, somewhere between 30 and 60,000 people, that's the size of a large university campus - or as you were mentioning, you know, a legislative district for a state assembly. And it's fairly easy for people to establish personal contacts. So that would mean that there would be less reliance on people having to depend on lobbyists and other narrow, special interests for financial contributions in order to be elected.
CONAN: To take out TV advertising and that sort of thing.
Prof. STEVENS: Exactly.
CONAN: And you also say it would be the end of the two-party monopoly.
Prof. STEVENS: Well, yes. I mean, if you think about the implications of smaller districts, there - that means that there are more - there's a possibility that you could have - say, you know, a Green Party member from Cambridge; a Libertarian from, you know, a portion of Orange County. And there would be more, you know, representation of different points of view - something that I think is desired by various constituencies across the political spectrum.
CONAN: All right. Let's see if we get some callers in on the conversation. Jacqueline Stevens is with us on "The Opinion Page" this week; a professor of political science at Northeastern - excuse me, Northwestern University.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. STEVENS: That's right, that's right - along with my colleague Dalton Conley, from New York University.
CONAN: And their opinion is that the House of Representatives ought to be expanded considerably. And they argue it would have any number of beneficial effects. Do you feel represented properly or underrepresented: 800-989-8255. Email: [email protected].
Let's start with Phil(ph), Phil with us from Cincinnati.
PHIL (Caller): Thanks, Neal. Yeah. I just had a couple, quick points to make, and I do feel underrepresented. But I think there's two bigger issues, systemic issues at play here. And that's the influence of gerrymandering and special interests.
You know, even if you increase the number of representatives, which would create - you know - more representatives that might, you know, have third parties like the Green Party or the Libertarians. The problem is, you're still going to have these hyperpartisan districts, and I think that we see that going on. And the other problem is, without fixing campaign finance, you might have more members of the House of Representatives, but you still have an equal opportunity for them to be beholden to the special interests, even if there's less money involved in each, individual race. I think that without public financing, we still run into that problem.
CONAN: All right. Why don't we take this one at a time. Jacqueline Stevens, gerrymandering, district lines are drawn up by state legislatures, which are often highly partisan in that process.
Prof. STEVENS: Right. Well, I mean, it's easy to be - to talk about partisanship in a two-party system, where it's just one or other. But once you have smaller districts, even if gerrymandering is a possibility and you get the Libertarians in on it and the Socialists in on it, and the Green Parties in on it, the fact that you'd have more diversity would still mean more representation. So I think it actually would diminish that problem.
Whereas, under the current gerrymandering - you know, under the current system, gerrymandering means that people have their narrow interests completely ignored because they're subsumed into these larger districts.
CONAN: And Phil's other point about special interests: If there are more but smaller congressional districts, wouldn't the price necessarily -any individual member of Congress might be less influential, but might be cheaper to buy.
Prof. STEVENS: Well, I mean, I'm not quite sure what the evidence of that would be. If you have a smaller district, it would seem to follow that there would be less reliance on money. I mean, we do have to, you know, rely on elections and accountability for our electorates. And so it's not clear that - and actually, the evidence from political science would suggest that just having a lot of money doesn't buy you an election.
And in fact, in our recent cycle, we've seen a number of candidates who are absolutely the richest people, and they lose. So I'm not quite sure that there's the evidence for that argument. That's not to say that public financing is a terrible idea. But I don't know that that would be the argument for it.
CONAN: Let's go next to Chris(ph), and Chris calling from Miami.
CHRIS (Caller): Hi. Good afternoon. I think this is a terrible idea. We spend $20 billion, give or take a billion here or there, on the operation of the Congress as it is. We spend $4 billion on elections. I don't think anyone out here in mainstream America really thinks more government is the idea that we're looking for. I think the entire reason that the Tea Party did so well was that people want less government.
Prof. STEVENS: I'm so glad you raise this point. Well, I think that if you're concerned about high expenditures on the part of the federal government, you should actually love this idea, not hate it. The reason that I say this is that a lot of the expenditures that you're referring specifically on Congress, would be for congressional staff. And what we're proposing is that members of Congress take on the responsibilities currently undertaken by unaccountable staffs who are appointed bureaucrats.
There's two kinds of benefits to that. The first is that there's more direct control by people who are accountable to their constituents. And the second is that that control would mean better oversight over the vastly increased federal government. I'm sorry, go ahead.
CHRIS: But there's no impetus for that to happen. The driving force is always, every congressman wants staffers. There's benefits for lobbyists and for knowledge outside. There's no reason to expect that, you know, if you had 3,000 congressmen, that they each wouldn't, over time, accrete their own staff members, accrete their own additional. We don't have -show any history, over the last 200 years of government, of showing government getting smaller. It's always a one-sided direction of government getting larger.
Prof. STEVENS: Well, I don't think that's exactly true. I mean, you know, up until the 1930s, the typical congressional staff was one or two people. And so it's true that in the 1940s, they increased the size of their staff, but that was actually following the increase in the size of the federal government.
The last time there was a serious discussion about increasing the size of the House of Representatives this was in the late 1920s - the committee actually contemplated increasing the size to 485. And the reason for that was the increasing size of the federal government. And the purpose of increasing the size of Congress was to increase control of that.
If you look at the extent of, you know, corruption and fraud and so forth that's committed in, you know, by contractors with the federal government, it would seem that one would find it very cost-effective to have people who are incentivized by accountability to their constituents, to directly intercede in the oversight and hold people's feet to the fire as opposed to, you know, staff members who, as we've seen, have not been so successful in doing that.
CONAN: You could find a link to the op-ed by Jacqueline Stevens and the her co-author, Dalton Conley, at our website. Go to npr.org. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
And let's go next to Buzz(ph), and Buzz with us from Basalt in Colorado.
BUZZ (Caller): Thank you so much. By the way, it's amazing this woman is thought of as a, by NPR, as a - expert. States that discourage illegal immigration lose representation. The Constitution says every person will be counted so every time they count an illegal - like in California - or even a regular immigrant, like in California, other states lose their representation. It's a travesty, and it's ridiculous. And I would like to hear what she has to say.
Prof. STEVENS: I'm not quite how this is a question about the distribution of members of Congress, or the size. It seems that this particular caller would have a problem with the apportionment regardless of the size. If there were 100 members of Congress, that point would be the same one.
I mean, I have other disagreements about the characterization of undocumented people living in the United States and, you know, the relevance - sorry, their ability to have representation, but I'm not quite sure that that's on point for this particular conversation.
CONAN: There is, however, an interesting point which you do raise in the piece, that the only people who can authorize this in other words, it does not require a constitutional amendment to do it; it requires a vote by members of Congress to reduce their influence.
Prof. STEVENS: Right - and as has occurred historically every 10 years, until 1910. So it's not without precedent, but it would require...
CONAN: It's beyond the living memory, let's put it that way.
Prof. STEVENS: There you go. Right. And so that would be that is the main obstacle. It would require grassroot mobilization and which would begin with the awareness of this possibility in order to pressure Congress to change the law. But just to be clear, as you - you know, mentioned in the opening segment, this is merely a law. It's a statute just like the, you know, federal requirements for the, you know, national highway speed limits. And it can be changed with a majority of both the House and the Senate.
CONAN: And the president's signature.
Prof. STEVENS: And the president's signature, yes.
CONAN: Jacqueline Stevens, thank you very much for your time today. We appreciate it.
Prof. STEVENS: Thank you so much.
CONAN: Jacqueline Stevens is a professor of political science at Northwestern University; co-author of a New York Time's op-ed with NYU professor Dalton Conley, on expansion of the House of Representatives. Professor Stevens joined us from her office in Chicago.
Again, you can find a link to that piece at our website. That's at npr.org.
Copyright © 2011 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. |
SANTA ROSA (CBS SF) – A dog’s water bowl was being blamed for starting a fire at its owner’s Santa Rosa home, according to fire officials.
North Bay firefighters called it is one of the most unusual fire calls they’ve ever had.
Perry and Shay Weisbrich said they had to call 9-1-1 after their dog Toby’s metal bowl reflected a concentrated beam of sunlight onto the side of their house — a beam so powerful, the wood started to burn.
“I just looked outside a minute and saw what i thought was steam.” said Shay Weisbrich. “A big plume of it through the glass door.. So I went over there thinking, ‘that’s not right, not normal.’ And it was smoke!”
The Bennett Valley Fire Department responded before the fire got out of control.
As for Toby, the Weisbrichs said he’s getting a new dish: a plastic bowl.
(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) |
So first year of RedditSanta. I did the international option, thinking you know, why not?
The retrieval day came, and I waited for my Santa to pull up my information. They didn't. A few days later, I checked my email and saw something from RedditSanta, addressed "You have a new message!". I thought it was the person I was gifting to. Fear not, it wasn't, it was the person who got me. Yay! Basically, my notes were bland, I said I'm a techy guy who loves electronics and Apple. My person messaged and said, I can't send that stuff, a little out of my price range. I was completely fine, I mean it is their choice and also it's my first time doing this so I might as well get used to what happens! We exchanged messages for a few days and then came the "Your item shipped" email. My Santa had messaged and said I'm sending you American Food, and a home made gift. I was like okay, something different, I'm from Australia and never really had much American food (I've only been twice - but never got to taste much!)
So I kept checking my tracking everyday, it got to the point where it just stopped in Chicago. I saw nothing since. Just "Arrived at USPS Facility" CHICAGO, IL. I thought okay, I will wait. Few days passed, saw no update. Got worried. Maybe Customs thought of something else? So I rang USPS. Boy, their Automated Service sucks. Australia's post here, you get ahold of someone without doing much (although it does take longer to get ahold of them). I did track item blah blah spoke out my Tracking - "sorry that isn't trackable." So I said Customer Service "no you cannot do this". Hung up, messaged on Twitter, a rep messaged back a few minutes later and said hang tight.
So, today, I was sitting at home. Mum said there's a parcel coming for her, okay. The contractor came to the door had 2 big boxes and a small one. I was like, okay one is for me (the small box) "nope there's two for you". I knew it was my Secret Santa. (The tracking still by the way says Chicago - nothing about delivered.)
Eager to open. I got into it. When i opened everything was bubble wrapped. A few food items and something home made.
Thank you Santa, even though I only know your real name and not your reddit name, thank you! I'll be eating it all over Christmas, well the food that is. Here's everything in pictures. The homemade gift, rather peculiar, I don't mind at all! I'll (hopefully) do this again next year! |
While partisans try to diminish the role radical Islam plays in fueling global terrorism, a new report released by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) finds that "The most prolific religious terrorist groups are almost exclusively Islamic."
The IEP's 2012 Global Terrorism Index rates 158 countries related to terrorism from 2001-11 using data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which is collected and collated by the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).
START is directly affiliated with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
"The rise of religious extremism is well-documented," the report says, with Islamic groups being the most prolific. It notes a decrease in attacks from nationalist/separatist groups since 2008, but adds that some Islamist groups like "the Taliban or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) have nationalist/ separatist aspirations."
The nationalist characteristics of such Islamic terror groups do not, however, negate their violent Islamist nature.
For such Islamist/nationalist groups, "'True' Islam only exists when it is the primary source of governance, manifest today by the implementation of a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law," the report says. "It supersedes tribe, or nationality today, it is to be defended everywhere it exists, and when it exists it is an ascendant force. According to this logic, in the current moment of extended crisis Muslims are duty-bound to follow the example of the Prophet and emigrate from places of persecution to a place where they can fight on behalf of 'true' Islam. If they cannot make that journey, they are to fight where they live."
The report ranks 158 countries by the terrorist violence it suffered, both the raw number of attacks and the resulting casualties. The top 5 are Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Yemen.
It is a refreshingly candid, data-driven assessment from a group which describes itself as a "non-profit research organization dedicated to shifting the world's focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress." |
Today LG launched another salvo in the war against giant ugly televisions with the announcement of the ProBeam laser projector. It's rare to find a projector this bright that's small enough to hold in one hand — and this one runs webOS. Unlike most projectors, LG's ProBeam HF80J is long-and-tall instead of short-and-wide, and looks like it stepped off an art deco boardwalk. Better yet, it's rated at 2,000 lumens which is bright enough to be used during the day in most living room setups. But at just 2.1kg (4.6 pounds), it's small enough to take anywhere.
This projector is smart
Best of all, webOS makes this projector smart. While we normally turn our noses up at smart televisions, smart projectors let you take this giant display anywhere. I've taken my Android-powered projector to the beach and rooftop after-parties, for example, where I streamed Netflix and live football games over Wi-Fi or via a tether to my smartphone. And my projector's only capable of 700 lumens -- not 2,000 like the LG.
The ProBeam includes something called "Sound Sync Adjustment" for pairing with Bluetooth speakers or headphones which hopefully helps it avoid the lag sometimes introduced by wireless audio. And its wide-ranging keystone corrections mean you can project a perfect parallelogram even when placed at extreme angles from the wall or screen.
LG hasn't provided a price or date of availability yet but we should learn more at the big CES tech show starting the first week of January. |
TORONTO -- Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says a government grant of up to $85.8 million to Fiat Chrysler to support production of a plug-in hybrid electric minivan is not "corporate welfare."
Wynne made the announcement today at the Fiat Chrysler Automotive Research and Development Centre in Windsor.
The government says the investment for the Chrysler Pacifica will safeguard the Windsor assembly plant, where Chrysler added 1,200 new jobs on top of 4,000 existing positions to produce the minivan.
Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid says Chrysler will have to submit invoices to the provinces of investments they have made in order to get the grant money.
Wynne says her government made the decision to "partner" with the auto industry, a critical sector in Ontario, but that doesn't make it "corporate welfare."
Ontario's Liberal government has a long history of providing money to automakers, and teamed up with the federal government in 2009 to contribute $10.6 billion to Chrysler Canada and GM Canada to keep them afloat during the recession.
When Ontario sold its GM and Chrysler shares, it gained about $1.1 billion on its original $4.8-billion bailout package to the two automakers.
Wynne is set to meet later Wednesday in Detroit with Ford Motor Company executive vice president Joseph Hinrichs and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. |
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It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for the horror haul, our weekly round-up and one-stop-shop for all things horror. This week in horror, Blumhouse is officially moving forward on the long-discussed The Purge TV series with a new independent television studio where franchise creator James DeMonaco will shepherd the series for USA and Syfy. Jason Statham talked up his upcoming primordial shark adventure Meg, saying the film is a Jaws and Jurassic Park hybrid, which sounds like quite possibly the most marketable movie of all time.
Elsewhere, Billie Lourd joins American Horror Story Season 7, Demien Bichir boards The Conjuring spinoff, The Nun, festival hit Hounds of Love gets a new poster, and Don Coscarelli offers updates on the possibility of Phantasm 6, a film that would be tricky to pull off without the late Angus Scrimm, but isn’t out of the question. Plus, a trailer for the Phantasm Collection, the kickass Phantasm DVD box that drops next week.
For all the horror news we’ve already covered on the site, you can click through the links below. Then, check out other genre highlights from the week and finish it all up with a rundown of the week in horror movie trailers. Thanks for tuning in, and sound off in the comments with your thoughts, questions, and other horror musings.
News:
Interviews:
Reviews: |
3D-CQU system, Providence region. On the 16th of April at 20:00 EVE Standard Time, Providence Bloc and Spectre Fleet forces collided in the system in a battle that saw a surprising turn of events.
The Spectre Fleet force, estimated at 107 pilots in Omen Navy Issue cruisers, formed a scheduled fleet in order to roam the Providence region and provoke a fight from its inhabitants. After scouring the region for a while, skirmishing with a few fleets but overall not getting the fight its commanders wanted, the force reached the main staging system of Providence Bloc, F-YH5B, where it settled on the 8P9-BM gate, camping it in order to provoke a response.
Providence Bloc obliged, and formed a mixed armor fleet comprised of battleships, strategic cruisers and heavy assault cruisers. All told the fleet had approximately 70 pilots, including 2 triage carriers held in reserve. The fleet did not engage Spectre Fleet head on over the 8P9-BM gate, instead choosing to set up in the adjacent 3D-CQU system, anchoring up on the F-YH5B gate.
Spectre Fleet allowed the Providence Bloc force to set up before warping to the 3D-CQU gate, jumping in and engaging the Providence Bloc fleet, starting the battle proper.
With Spectre Fleet forces jumping in, Providence Bloc quickly jumped its two triage carriers to the field and opened fire. Spectre Fleet swiftly anchored up, and decided to engage Providence Bloc at close range, the two fleets tangling up as the battle became a close quarters brawl.
From the start Providence Bloc was having troubles. Spectre Fleet was able to destroy a few of its logistics cruisers in the opening volleys, before switching off and concentrating on support battleships instead, whose energy neutralizers and stasis webifiers proved dangerous to the Omen Navy Issue cruisers. Even with the triage carriers on the field, Providence Bloc was unable to tank the incoming damage, and the heavy beam laser batteries of Spectre Fleet cut a bloody swathe across the enemy fleet.
Returning fire, Providence Bloc was able to inflict damage on the intruders, but was trading terribly, losing 4-5 mainline ships for each one of the enemy it downed. As the battle progressed, this trade only became more and more one sided as losses mounted on the Providence Bloc side, allowing Spectre Fleet to tank the incoming damage with ease and only losing fragile support ships in the ordeal.
Realizing it had enough firepower on the field to ignore Providence Bloc’s logistics wing in its entirety, the Spectre Fleet force settled into a comfortable pace, concentrating first on battleships and heavy assault cruisers before hitting the much tougher strategic cruisers. At a rapid rate, Providence Bloc’s mainline ships caved in to the onslaught, the fleet’s ranks dwindling fast before only the logistics wing with its two carriers remained.
Having broken the Providence Bloc fleet, Spectre Fleet forces easily dispatched the remaining ships, leaving the two carriers for last. Once the two capitals were felled by the combined might of the Omen Navy Issue cruiser fleet it departed the region, extracting safely and putting an end to the fighting.
Battle report for the 3D-CQU system can be found here.
All told the battle lasted 17 minutes, with Time Dilation not reported and the system estimated to hold 230 pilots at the height of the fighting.
Spectre Fleet forces suffered light casualties, losing 13 ships including 6 cruisers for a total of 979.58 million ISK damage.
In contrast, Providence Bloc lost the majority of its fleet, losing 50 ships including 2 carriers, 8 battleships, 6 heavy assault cruisers and 15 strategic cruisers for a total of 19.47 billion ISK damage.
Salivan Harddin is a member of Reikoku, Pandemic Legion, and covers battles across New Eden |
This Friday, Seattle’s Deep Sea Diver will release their new album, Secrets, via their own High Beam Records. Ahead of the release, the record is streaming in full below.
Band mastermind Jessica Dobson has a plentiful resumé all of her own as a touring member of The Shins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Beck’s band. Secrets, however, is the effort that will solidify Deep Sea Diver as a formidable project in its own right. Unlike past EPs and their 2012 History Speaks full-length debut, this new album is propelled forward by Dobson’s newly ferocious guitar work.
“I tried to take a step in the direction of having — I don’t know if ‘jarring’ is the right word, but more in-your-face guitar tones,” Dobson told The Stranger in an interview. It was a little scary for me at first. It felt untamed. Even rehearsing — it has taken me a lot more time to be able to sing them and play those parts at the same time. On the first record, it felt very manageable and safe. This one isn’t.”
But don’t take her word for it — or even ours. Underneath the stream, read a track-by-track review by some of Deep Sea Diver’s musician friends including Spoon’s Britt Daniel, The Shins’ James Mercer, Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, Delta Spirit’s Matthew Logan Vasquez, Blake Mills, Delicate Steve, and more.
Ben Von Wildenhaus on “Notice Me”:
“Notice Me” sounds like a lost track from Rumors played by King Crimson. They put a smooth 6/8 blues guitar riff into some kind of meat grinder that churns out quantized robotic staccato riffagery. It’s 6/8 against 4/4, sure, but it doesn’t hurt your brain. At its heart still beats a Bob Welchian west coast groover under the leathery skin of a Steve Howeian scorcher. This kind of pop song deconstruction is something “the Diver” does well. They turn muscular, brainy riffs into accessible, catchy songs. It’s prog dorkery that elevates, rather than destroys, traditional pop song craft. But at the end of the day I’m mostly offended there’s no raging sax jam.
Matthew Logan Vasquez (Delta Spirit) on “Wide Awake”:
No matter how well they record this song (and they recorded it beautifully), it will never compare to how noisy and fun this track is going to be live. Tonally and rhythmically, it harkens to LCD Soundsystem’s best moments. It’s hard for me to not imagine the band smashing their instruments with joy at the end of the song. I would love to hear “Wide Awake” in a John Claude Van Damme movie while he’s working out and getting better at something like kung fu or mind control.
Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) on “Creatures of Comfort”:
I’ve been sitting in from my computer for the better part of an hour listening to Deep Sea Diver’s wonderful new track, “Creatures of Comfort.” The page has been blank until about 30 seconds ago when I wrote the preceding sentence. It has been through this exercise that I’ve learned there’s a reason I became a songwriter and not a music journalist; I seem to completely lack the ability to write eloquently about such a beautiful song.
It’s by no means Jessica Dobson’s fault. She certainly fulfilled her end of the bargain by constructing a soaring chorus I find myself singing acapella to no one in particular through the streets of Capitol Hill. I keep saying to myself, “damn, this song fucking rules!” but that’s not the kind of thing one can write into a track review. You gotta come with something far less caveman that that.
But I’m afraid that’s going to have to do today because it’s the most honest statement I can muster about “Creatures of Comfort”. Sometimes loving a song is just that simple; You put it on repeat and completely fall into it until there’s no thinking, just experiencing. Over and over. Tearing us apart with our own two, own two arms.
Delicate Steve on “Secrets”:
“Secrets” has some guitar parts that remind me of clouds. The bass reminds me of an ant colony. There are even some guitar parts that remind me of ants. I listen to Secrets and I hear clouds and ants. And I am happy.
James Mercer (The Shins) on “Great Light”:
Well, the thing about “Great Light” is that it’s so fucking gorgeous you want to cry. That doesn’t happen often. At times it no longer seems to be a goal deemed worth striving for in the pop world. But that’s a tangent I don’t want to go down. I’m honored to have been asked to communicate something meaningful about this gorgeous work but it’s really too much to ask.
It’s a song that touches a listener with profound sadness. The melancholy that comes from recognizing some universal, perpetual desire. Musically and lyrically it’s just fantastic. You’ll just have to buy the damn record.
Britt Daniel (Spoon) on “See These Eyes”:
Jessica Dobson is pure rock and roll but you can feel heaps of elements coming together on a song like “See These Eyes”. Is it gonna be a fun ride? The introductory organ swell and synth riff might make you think that’s where this is headed til you get to the vocal, which goes for serious depth. Is it a confession? Is it a condemnation? Is it a rock song? Is it for dancing? You listen and you tell me. Truthfully I don’t know and I like it that way. The troopers in Deep Sea Diver have been kicking around in the corners of the public’s awareness for a bit now, here’s hoping this record gets them on some front pages soon.
Pure Bathing Culture on “Always Waiting”:
Sarah Versprille: Rose quartz, white christmas lights in a backyard, 1996, driving at night in western NY state in the winter, the part of your heart that cocks it’s head to the side to ask you a question when you look straight at it.
Daniel Hindman: Sick bass playing.
Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) on “It Takes a Moment”:
Full disclosure: I like anything that has an overlarge hi-hat sound and anyone who pronounces a schwa as though it were the letter i, as in “momint.” I like sections of songs where it’s just a melody with no chords but the melody had better be good which luckily this one is. I like it when you’re sure you like a song because of its rawness and its ugly lo-fi guitar and then as your thought is finishing up you realize the song actually has a lush string orchestra on it. But I predict you will like it too.
Brian Blade on “Body on the Tracks”:
There is this feeling of entering a dream sequence from the first sounds of “Body on the Tracks”. Unable to judge what year it might be and the sonic invitation that stirs my curiosity. What comes next? The beautiful questions that might not have answers or that only time will tell by continuing to listen. The rhythm keeps you swaying side to side and back and forth until the motions become a circle, actively surrendering to the moment. I am inspired and challenged by the lyrics, “I’m holding on to the one I love/ Quit trying to wait for some day that never comes.”
There are some things that remain secrets between me and God or between me and the one I love, but I won’t be keeping the songs from this album to myself. I think that music lives outside of time, just sweeping through the air, descending at the perfect moment for the ones with an open ear and an open heart to receive the secrets. I should go now and make a mixtape that intertwines John Coltrane and the Beatles and Giuseppe Verdi and Deep Sea Diver.
Blake Mills on “New Day”:
When piano becomes it’s own accompaniment in verse two, I smile with a feeling of relief. Up until then, the song’s quarter-note frame belies its underlying complexity. With almost kora-like 32nd notes, the piano anthropomorphizes, and becomes decidedly more self-sufficient than in the first verse.
Another satisfying juxtaposition is in the lyrics of “New Day”, which succinctly convey this person’s complicated emotional world. The lines, “There’s always a reason to forget you ever crossed my mind … I know it’s a new day though nothing has changed” hit inside cleanly and keep resonating for a good while after. It’s precise music. |
DIALYSIS is not as bad as dying, but it is pretty unpleasant, nonetheless. It involves being hooked up to a huge machine, three times a week, in order to have your blood cleansed of waste that would normally be voided, via the kidneys, as urine. To make matters worse, three times a week does not appear to be enough. Research now suggests that daily dialysis is better. But who wants to tied to a machine—often in a hospital or a clinic—for hours every day for the rest of his life?
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Victor Gura, of the University of California, Los Angeles, hopes to solve this problem with an invention that is now undergoing clinical trials. By going back to basics, he has come up with a completely new sort of dialyser—one you can wear.
A traditional dialyser uses around 120 litres of water to clean an individual's blood. This water flows past one side of a membrane while blood is pumped past the other side. The membrane is impermeable to blood cells and large molecules such as proteins, but small ones can get through it. Substances such as urea (a leftover from protein metabolism) and excess phosphate ions therefore flow from the blood to the water. The good stuff, such as sodium and chloride ions, stays in the blood because the cleansing water has these substances dissolved in it as well, and so does not absorb more of them.
Both water and blood require a lot of pumping. Those pumps are heavy and need electrical power. The first thing Dr Gura did, therefore, was dispose of them. The reason for using big pumps is to keep dialysis sessions short. If machines are portable that matters less. So Dr Gura replaced the 10kg pumps of a traditional machine with small ones weighing only 380 grams. Besides being light, these smaller pumps use less power. That means batteries can be employed instead of mains electricity—and modern lithium-ion batteries, the ones Dr Gura chose, are also light, and thus portable.
To reduce the other source of weight, the water, Dr Gura and his team designed disposable cartridges containing materials that capture toxins from the cleansing water, so that it can be recycled. The upshot is a device that weighs around 5kg and can be strapped to a user's waist. Indeed, at a recent demonstration in London, one patient was able to dance while wearing the dialyser—for joy, presumably, at no longer having to go to hospital so often. |
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