text
stringlengths 465
100k
|
|---|
L et's talk about Commander's Arsenal. We announced it at San Diego Comic-Con but didn't really say much about it. The success of our Commander decks has made us realize that we want to do them every year. So starting next year you can begin looking forward to annual Commander decks, until then you get a treasure trove of Commander cards and accessories! This will be a limited print run product, meant for the collectors and the avid Commander players.
On-sale date: Nov. 2, 2012
MSRP: $74.99 *Applies to U.S. Only
Twitter hashtag: #mtgcma
And when you take it all out of the box and strategically arrange it to only show certain cards, it looks like this:
Here's what you're looking at:
18 premium foil cards
cards 10 oversized premium foil cards
cards 120 UltraPRO foil card sleeves
20 double-sided Battle Marks (+ and –)
A life counter that goes up to 99
Yes, that's a foil Sylvan Library and an oversized foil Azusa, Lost but seeking. Observe!
That expansion symbol, when shown close up, looks like this:
And here's a closer look at the life counter! Because it's neat!
We can't show you all the cards. Yet. But here's a piece of art from the set. Speculate away!
You may also want to take a look at MTGCommander.net , the official Commander website, they might have another surprise for you! |
Republicans accused the Hillary Clinton campaign and Obama Justice Department of “collusion” on Tuesday after an email surfaced from the latest WikiLeaks document dump indicating the Clinton camp got a heads-up from the DOJ about one of the former secretary of state’s court cases.
The May 2015 email from Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said, “DOJ folks inform me there is a status hearing in this case this morning, so we could have a window into the judge's thinking about this proposed production schedule as quickly as today.”
The Fallon email apparently pertained to one of the lawsuits seeking the production of Clinton’s emails while at the State Department.
Information about a status hearing likely would have been public anyway – and it’s unclear whether there was any further contact between the DOJ and Clinton campaign.
But the email stoked GOP complaints that they had improper discussions about the former secretary of state’s emails, which the department investigated for months. Fallon happens to be a former spokesman with the Justice Department.
“Today’s report that Clinton’s campaign was in communication with the Obama Department of Justice on the email investigation shows a level of collusion which calls into question the entire investigation into her private server,” Donald Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement.
The Republican National Committee also invoked the controversial tarmac meeting Attorney General Loretta Lynch had with Bill Clinton, before the FBI and Justice Department ultimately decided not to pursue any charges over Hillary Clinton’s personal email use.
“Emails showing the Department of Justice was giving Hillary Clinton’s campaign inside information about an ongoing investigation into her email server is deeply disturbing and raises even more questions about Bill Clinton’s tarmac meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.
Asked Tuesday about the email, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he was not “going to comment directly on the stolen emails of a private citizen” but that “in general” the investigation “was done without any political interference.”
The emails were part of a trove of documents purported to be from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s account.
WikiLeaks has already posted thousands of them, in three phases, and claims to have more.
The Clinton campaign has accused WikiLeaks of working on behalf of the Russian government to boost Trump. |
It is just 10 days until the 2017/18 Premier League season kicks off, and currently the reigning champions have 17 senior players on their books.
Chelsea have just sold Nemanja Matic to rivals Manchester United, leaving their squad looking painfully thin ahead of a campaign which, unlike their last, victorious one, will feature the added pressure of Champions League football.
Here, Sportsmail examines the situation Chelsea find themselves in, and who should take responsibility...
Chelsea were celebrating after winning the Premier League, but things have turned sour since
After selling Nemanja Matic to Manchester United, Chelsea now have only 17 senior players
Antonio Conte has seen several key transfer targets missed, leaving Chelsea looking exposed
What has Chelsea’s business been so far?
Their signings have consisted of Alvaro Morata for £70.6m, Tiemoue Bakayoko for £40m, Antonio Rudiger for £31m and Willy Caballero for free.
Including those they have sent out on loan, Chelsea have let 26 players leave so far this summer, such as Nathan Ake, Kurt Zouma, Asmir Begovic, and, of course, Matic.
Why did they sell Matic to a main rival?
Chelsea clearly think they can do more with £40m than Manchester United can with Matic. That could turn out to be a mistake.
With Matic, who since January 2014 has made more tackles and interceptions than any United or Chelsea midfielder, Paul Pogba has more freedom to push further forward. Jose Mourinho described the 29-year-old as a ‘Jose Mourinho type of player’ for a reason.
After signing Bakayoko to partner N’Golo Kante, there was always talk of it being between Cesc Fabregas and Nemanja Matic for who is sold to make room for the French 22-year-old. Yet to sell to a direct potential Premier League title rival is dangerous and unusual. Would United do the same with them? It is unlikely.
The club record signing of Alvaro Morata has given Chelsea much needed forward options
Has this summer been good or bad for Chelsea?
Chelsea beat Arsenal 3-0 but what stood out were their losses to Bayern Munich and Inter Milan.
All coaches who have European football to cope with want two players fighting for each position. Chelsea don’t have that as it stands. Worse still, Eden Hazard and Bakayoko are injured and will miss the start of the season. Pedro is recovering from the facial fractures he suffered during Chelsea’s defeat of Arsenal.
Diego Costa is unusable, John Terry has left on a free, and their young talent is still being sent out on loan at rapid speed. It is all self-inflicted but worrying.
26 players so far have left Chelsea this summer, including Nathan Ake to Bournemouth
Who does that leave in midfield for the start of the season?
With Nathaniel Chalobah having left for Watford for £5.5m, Ruben Loftus-Cheek gone to Crystal Palace on loan and Bakayoko injured, they have Kante, Fabregas and 22-year-old Lewis Baker.
Now, they are looking at adding Leicester’s Danny Drinkwater to their midfield. To some, that suggests desperate times are calling for desperate measures, though he would add to their quota of English talent.
Defeats to Bayern Munich and Inter Milan in pre-season have exposed Chelsea's problems
Is Antonio Conte unhappy?
He’s probably not as happy as Pep Guardiola, who has passed the £200m mark this summer. Manchester City are well and truly splashing the cash to satisfy their manager.
Conte has not appeared a pleased man on the club’s pre-season tour and the Italian has made several pleas for signings in press conferences.
The latest saw Conte admit he fears becoming the third boss to lose his job after winning the Premier League title, following Mourinho and and Claudio Ranieri. So no, he isn’t the happiest.
Chelsea have been linked with Leicester's Danny Drinkwater as they seek midfield options
What signings have they missed out on?
Chelsea were in the mix for Romelu Lukaku, who opted for Manchester United instead. That winded those behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge.
The champions were also interested in Dani Alves, who then decided the choice was between Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain. The full-back went for the latter.
They now have competition for Renato Sanches, who Bayern Munich are interested in sending out on loan. AC Milan appear to be winning that war so far.
Chelsea were heavily linked to Romelu Lukaku, who opted for Manchester United instead
So who has control of Chelsea’s transfers?
Is it Conte? Is it Michael Emenalo? Is it Marina Granovskaia? Those close like to say it’s the Italian coach, who signed a new two-year contract worth £18m last month.
In Conte’s mind, the Community Shield marks the start of the competitive season. ‘It is not a friendly game,’ he said this week. ‘It is an official game and there is a trophy.’
With the season days away, then, Chelsea aren’t where they want to be. There is work to be done.
Diego Costa looks unlikely to play for Chelsea again after being cast out by Conte
Will they sell anyone else?
We know Costa is not wanted, yet he is stuck in limbo. He wants Atletico Madrid, and they want him too, but he would be unable to play for them until January due to their ban.
Chelsea are still in the market, of course. They are interested in Alex Sandro of Juventus and Antonio Candreva of Inter, two players who were picked out by Conte. Then there is the scramble for Bayern Munich's Sanches. It will be a big month for Chelsea and Conte. |
The EU financial crisis has prompted centralisation of economic and budgetary powers in Brussels, while national parliaments struggle to fulfil their role as democratic watchdogs.
The issue will be highlighted on Wednesday (29 May) when the European Commission publishes detailed budget recommendations for member states, potentially touching on sensitive areas such as wage-setting, pension age or social spending.
"I am worried about the degree of influence of the country-specific recommendations," said Eva Kjer Hansen, head of the Europe committee in the Danish parliament.
"It’s somehow underestimated how much it actually means because you either have to follow them or you have to explain why you are not following them," she added.
The risk for sleepy national parliaments is that if they are not entirely on top of the EU debate then significant economic decisions will be simply be taken without their input.
"We need new tools to stay close to EU decisions," Kjer Hansen noted.
She suggested the recently-introduced European Semester should be mirrored by a "national semester' - something just agreed in Denmark.
The European semester, now in its third year, kicks off at the end of each year with the commission setting EU growth priorities. This is followed by governments submitting national reform programmes and then the commission issuing specific economic policy recommendations.
"It is not sufficient that we just discuss the recommendation afterwards but that we are also involved throughout the year," Kjer Hansen said.
Michiel Servaes, a Dutch MP, agrees.
He noted that the Dutch government last year sent the Netherlands' reform programme to Brussels without it first being debated in parliament.
This was "unacceptable," he said.
Other changes the Dutch have made to open up the process is appointing a rapporteur on the European semester (Servaes himself) and asking EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn to appear before parliament (he will do so in June).
The Dutch are particularly concerned about the process because they are breaching the EU's budget deficit rules - meaning Brussels gets more of a say on economic decisions.
But even in fiscally sound countries, such as Finland, there is potential for difficulty.
Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, chair of the grand committee in the Finnish parliament, notes there could be problems if the commission issues "too concrete" instructions on "grey areas" such as wage policy - an issue not dealt with by politicians but rather by social partners.
She underlined the "big responsibility" that governments have in making sure parliaments are involved, noting that Helsinki last year worked to change wording on the pension age, "the hottest topic" of the recommendations.
"I think we have a feeling in Finland that we know our economy better than the commission does," she said.
Kjer Hansen noted that keeping national deputies involved is the only way to ensure democratic legitimacy.
"To me, there is no doubt that Europe needs this transparency about the European semester to make sure there is an understanding and an acceptance that the EU is taking over in more and more areas," she said.
For his part, Servaes says that while he and his colleagues are "a lot more aware" of the changing nature of EU budget decisions, the same cannot be said of the general public.
"In general people find it really difficult to understand the details of the process," he said. |
The new head of the Bloc Quebecois says he plans to recapture the hearts of Quebec voters by putting a greater emphasis on independence.
Mario Beaulieu, the former head of the nationalist St. Jean Baptiste Society, won a slim victory Saturday over his only opponent in the party's leadership race, Bloc MP Andre Bellavance.
Beaulieu said explaining the benefits of breaking away from Canada will be his top priority.
Story continues below advertisement
"Our adversaries have often announced the death of the independence movement," he told a crowd of supporters at a concert venue in Montreal.
"But I have a surprise for them: we are returning with more determination and energy than ever."
Beaulieu has a difficult task ahead as he tries to rebuild the floundering party.
The Bloc was reduced to just four seats in the Commons in the 2011 election from the 49 it held after the 2008 vote.
Bellavance had the support of the other three Bloc MPs but Beaulieu campaigned on a promise to make sovereignty a priority above all else.
Beaulieu captured 53.5 per cent of the vote.
Some 19,000 party members were eligible to vote and 58.5 per cent of them cast a ballot in the leadership race.
Story continues below advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
The previous Bloc leader, Daniel Paille, resigned last December for health reasons. Paille took over from longtime party head Gilles Duceppe after the 2011 election. |
Brand New Music CEO Rhymer explained the strong warning he gave the Brand New Music trainees before their “Produce 101 Season 2” appearance.
The November 21 episode of MBC Every1’s “Video Star” featured Rhymer, producer Kiggen, rapper Hanhae, and MXM’s Lim Young Min and Kim Dong Hyun.
Wanna One’s Lee Dae Hwi had garnered a lot of attention during Mnet’s “Produce 101 Season 2” after he said, “My CEO said he would end me if I don’t get an A grade.”
Rhymer cleared up the situation, explaining, “I don’t remember saying that. I said [something] with the nuance of ‘You guys are representing Brand New Music so do well.’ I never said I would end them.” He continued, “In my opinion, Lee Dae Hwi has a good sense of how to be fun to watch. While watching the clip of Lee Dae Hwi, I thought, ‘Ah, that kid, he did well.”
However, MXM said they heard Rhymer say, “I’m going to end you if you don’t get an A grade” directly themselves. Lim Young Min and Kim Dong Hyun shared, “What Rhymer said at the end is true, but what we’re saying is true as well. [Rhymer] seemed to think it was important because we were Brand New Music’s first idols, but he did say he was ‘going to end us.”
Rhymer remarked, “Did I really say that?” to which MXM replied that he had. In response, Rhymer apologized with a 90 degree bow, causing the audience to laugh.
Finally, MXM said, “Truthfully, [Rhymer] said it as a joke. We went up in rankings thanks to him. While we said we were over because we weren’t able to receive A grades at the time of filming, Rhymer called us the next day to tell us we did a good job,” revealing the warm relationship between the them.
Meanwhile, “Video Star” airs every Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. KST.
Source (1) |
7 years ago
(CNN) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the leader in national polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but two new surveys, released within 12 hours of each other, indicate that in the first in the nation primary state of New Hampshire Mitt Romney's still way ahead of the rest of the pack.
According to an American Research Group poll released Thursday morning, 30 percent of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters say they support Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts who's making his second bid for president, with Perry a distant second at 13 percent.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who's making his third run for the White House, is at 12 percent, with former Utah Gov. and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman at ten percent, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota at seven percent, and everyone else in the low single digits.
Romney's support is virtually unchanged since ARG's last survey, which was conducted in July. Perry, who launched his campaign in mid-August, is up 11 points, with Huntsman jumping ten points, Paul's up eight points, with Bachmann dropping five points since July.
According to a Suffolk University/7 News poll released late Wednesday night, 41 percent of likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters say they support Romney, with Paul a distant second at 14 percent. Ten percent say they back Huntsman, followed by Perry at eight percent and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at six percent. The GOP's 2008 vice presidential nominee has flirted with a bid for the nomination, but hasn't taken any concrete steps to start up a campaign. The survey indicates that Bachmann is at five percent, with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at four percent, and everyone else in the lower single digits.
Romney has made a few appearances in Iowa this year, but has spent much more time in New Hampshire. Huntsman appears to be putting all his chips into a strong showing in the Granite State, which comes second after Iowa in the primary and caucus calendar. Bachmann is spending much of her time in Iowa.
The American Research Group poll was conducted September 16-21, with 600 likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points.
The Suffolk University/7 News poll was conducted September 18-20, with 400 likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
ALSO SEE:
Poll: Romney overwhelming front-runner in N.H.
Poll: Majority of Americans blame Obama for economy
Poll: Perry on top in Florida but Romney fares better against Obama |
The state of Minnesota could be on the verge of losing a House seat after 2010 — and interestingly enough, it’s been a while since we heard Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) talk about refusing to participate in the Census.
Last year, Bachmann repeatedly said she would defy the Census by not completely filling out the information on the forms, but would instead only give the number of people in her household. She said that Census data was used to conduct the 1940’s Japanese-American internment, and warned that the government was seeking to gather information about people’s mental health. But as far as we can tell, her last anti-Census public statement was in August.
The largest newspaper in Minnesota, the Star-Tribune, is calling on the state’s citizens to vigorously participate in the Census. The key issue here is that according to current population estimates, Minnesota is right on the cusp of losing one of its eight seats in Congress, and will be in a close competition with Missouri, Texas and California for that district. The Strib points out that “Minnesota traditionally has had one big advantage — the cooperation of its civic-minded citizens.”The Star-Tribune says in its editorial over the weekend:
It’s ironic that a Minnesota member of Congress, Republican Michele Bachmann, went so far last summer to declare her intention to only partially complete her census forms, and to suggest reasons for others not to comply with the census law. If Minnesota loses a congressional seat, Bachmann’s populous Sixth District could be carved into pieces. She likely would have to battle another incumbent to hang on to her seat. We’ve noticed that her anticensus rhetoric has lately ceased. We hope she got wise: Census compliance is not only in Minnesota’s best interest, but also her own.
The really fun fact, as I’ve learned from Minnesota experts, is that Bachmann’s district would likely be the first to go if the state lost a seat. The other seats are all fairly regular-shaped, logical districts built around identifiable regions of the state (Minneapolis, St. Paul, the Iron Range, and so on). Bachmann’s district is made of what’s left over after such a process, twisting and turning from a small strip of the Wisconsin border and curving deep into the middle of the state. As such, the obvious course of action if the state loses a seat is to split her district up among its neighbors. |
The following press release was sent to WrestleZone this morning by WWE:
WWE® PET PRODUCT COLLECTION BY PETMATE® IS NOW AVAILABLE AT RETAIL
WWE Fans Can Now Share their Passion with their Pets
(Arlington, TX) September 13, 2016 – WWE fans can now share their passion with their pets as Petmate, the worldwide leader of solutions and excellence in the pet industry providing fun trusted, quality products to enhance the lives of pets and their families, announces the launch of its new collection of WWE pet products available at retailers nationwide. The new collection features iconic pet beds, fan favorite collars and leashes, and assorted rough and tough rubber and plush toys, capturing the excitement of WWE.
Showcasing the brand’s mega-themes and fan-favorite Superstars including WWE Superstars John Cena and The Rock, and WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin, the collection is now on pet store shelves near you and online at PetSmart.com, Amazon.com and Walmart.com. For more information visit Petmate.com.
“There are more than 68 million American families devoted to their pets and you can count WWE fans among those passionate pet lovers,” said Chris Wilson, executive vice president of marketing and new product development for Petmate. “The Superstars and iconic symbols of WWE translate extremely well into these new innovative quality pet products that appeal to all fans.”
Toys
WWE Superstars are brought to life with printed canvas and rugged rubber chew toys. Highlights include:
WWE Championship and Diva Belt Tug – $14.99
WWE Money in the Bank Tug – $10.99 Designed for tough tug play between you and your dog, or for two dogs to wrestle and tug together.
Beds
The WWE World Heavyweight Championship makes an appearance in the shape of a rectangular lounger for your pet to enjoy after a hard day of play. Other pillow beds and loungers feature The Rock, the iconic WWE logo and Divas leopard print. Highlights include:
WWE Pillow Bed with The Rock Logo- $24.99
WWE Diva Pink Leopard Pinch Corner Lounger Bed – $24.99
WWE Championship Rectangular Lounger Bed – $29.99 A wide variety of bedding styles for dogs of all sizes who want to feel like a true Superstar.
Collars & Leashes
WWE collars and leashes feature custom Superstar prints showcasing WWE favorites, such as John Cena, The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
WWE Adjustable Collars – $5.99 – $9.99
o These adjustable dog collars are soft and durable, and feature patterns from your favorite WWE Superstars.
WWE Leashes – $13.99
o Leashes feature custom fan favorite Superstar patterns and coordinate to match WWE adjustable collars. |
Wildebeests have a distinctive look that matches their distinctive name. They have inwardly curving horns atop their heads and long faces that seem to offer a quizzical expression. Their dark-brown fur glistens in the setting sun.
But on Barry York's 2,500-acre spread in South Africa you will find rare wildebeests, which are also called gnus, that are gold-colored.
York hasn't gotten lucky. He expends serious money and effort to produce wildebeests with a rich hue.
It's all about attracting free-spending vacationers. But the tourist-friendly ranches that are York's customers aren't luring people who simply want to admire the wildlife. "Well-heeled marksmen pay nearly $50,000 to take a shot at a golden gnu -- more than 100 times what they pay to shoot a common gnu," writes Bloomberg Business.
Welcome to the weird world of trophy-hunting theme parks, where rifle-wielding millionaires love the idea of shooting freak animals.
The Bloomberg piece is eye-opening. Writer Kevin Crowley points out that breeders are creating animals that are rare in the wild: the gold wildebeests, as well as white lions, copper-colored springboks (African gazelles) and black impalas (the African antelope). All so hunters can fill these unusual animals with holes.
"We breed them because they're different," York admits. "There'll always be a premium paid for highly-adapted, unique, rare animals."
In short, it's "Blade Runner" for wild game. "More human than human" was the motto of Tyrell Corp., the movie's company of the future that created beautiful human "replicants" that often ended up being hunted down. So it goes for these real-life engineered animals.
One conservationist Crowley interviewed calls the animals "Frankenstein freaks of nature. This has nothing to do with conservation and everything to do with profit." The Bloomberg story is well worth reading.
Fake adventure for the super-wealthy has become big business in recent years. South Africa is a leader in the industry.
The Lion Park in Gauteng province, the region's top tourist attraction and a Trip Advisor "Certificate of Excellence" winner, has bred lions specifically to supply prey for well-heeled human hunters, Africa Geographic wrote in December.
Activist Chris Mercer said that "tourists would never visit lion-breeding facilities (like The Lion Park) if they were told upfront that the cubs that were petted today were destined to be sold for canned hunting."
The Lion Park, which guarantees "Super Close Up Views" of lions, has said it's stopped selling animals to hunting outfits. There have been reports that zoos in Germany and other countries have sold lions to South African hunting parks.
Supporters of trophy-hunting parks says that breeding animals "to be killed serves to protect animals in the wild."
-- Douglas Perry |
Looking for news you can trust?
Subscribe to our free newsletters.
Elijah Cummings was angry. The Democratic congressman from Baltimore represents a district that is home to the Afro-American Newspaper, a weekly publication that is in jeopardy of going out of business due to the United States Postal Service’s recent rate hike on small periodicals. Cummings’ testiness showed when a House subcommittee heard testimony on the rate increase from a host of postal officials earlier this week.
“If these small publications go out of business, is that a win-win?” Cummings asked James Miller, chairman of the USPS’s Board of Governors, the entity that approved the rate hikes, during one tense exchange.
“That’s a hypothetical,” Miller protested.
“Nah, nah, nah,” Cummings said. “You got a lot of businesses that put out publications that are saying that this is going to affect them in a negative way…. I’m asking you a simple question. If they go out of business, is it a win-win?”
“I would say if they cannot cover their costs, it is a win-win situation,” said Miller. “Let me tell you why I think that. Because other classes of mail would be covering their costs.” He went on to explain that every American letter writer pays 200 percent of the cost of shipping his or her letter because small magazines and periodicals don’t pay their fair share.
“So your answer is, it’s a win-win for everybody but the people who go out of business,” Cummings retorted.
“Yes, yes,” Miller said, adding, “It’s not that I’m heartless. It’s not that we’re heartless. We have to cover all sides. And I think the fairest thing is for every class of mail to cover the cost directly attributable to carrying their mail.”
The problem is, Miller’s comments muddled the issue, to put it charitably. Since the 1970s, all classes of mail have been required to cover the costs associated with their delivery, what’s called attributable cost. But periodicals, as a class, get favorable treatment: They don’t pay overhead, meaning that they don’t foot the bill for the Postal Service’s infrastructure, employees, and so on.
That’s a tradition that goes back to the origins of the nation. The founding fathers saw the press as the lifeblood of democracy—only informed voters could compose a true democracy, they believed—and thus created a postal system that gave favorable rates to small periodicals. (George Washington actually supported mailing newspapers for free.) For 200 years, small periodicals and journals of opinion were given special treatment.
The 2007 rate hikes, which went into effect this summer, changed that. Now, periodicals are still expected to cover attributable costs and pay no overhead, but because the cost of delivering mail has gone up, rates within the class have gone up as well. In advance of the rate hike, the Postal Service submitted a proposal to the Postal Regulatory Commission that would have raised the rates in the class more or less evenly. The PRC rejected the proposal in favor of a rate package put forward by Time Warner that, unsurprisingly, hands small periodicals much steeper rate hikes than their large counterparts.
Small periodicals in some instances face a rate hike of up to 50 percent. An increase of that size is almost unbearable for periodicals that publish frequently, like the liberal Nation or the conservative National Review, both weeklies. For them, postal expenses make up a massive portion of their budgets. An increased cost of $500,000 per year, which is The Nation‘s estimate, would be devastating. (The rate hike is a smaller burden for Mother Jones, due to the fact that the magazine publishes six times a year. Nevertheless, Mother Jones opposed the rate hike earlier this year.)
Small periodicals and their devotees have been complaining about the rate scheme for months, but without the money for lobbyists and lawyers they’re left only to fight the battle through petitions and rhetoric. Says Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation, “These journals, whose core franchise is public discourse about public affairs, are—like water, national defense, public highways, and public education—a public good and as such it would seem to me ought to be paid for out of public funds.”
That’s not the sort of argument that is going to find sympathetic ears with Miller, who, in a long career in and around public service, has always shown a desire to privatize. In the Reagan Administration, Miller was executive director of a Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and director of the Office of Management and Budget. When Miller left the administration in 1988, President Reagan commended him for playing “a leading role in removing the shackles of excessive regulation from our economy.” Miller later sat on the board of Citizens for a Sound Economy, now called FreedomWorks, whose stated mission is “lower taxes, less government, more freedom.”
Faced with opponents this powerful Navasky and his colleagues can do little, especially considering the rate hikes have already been passed and no one has a plan for undoing them. “I’m just trying to figure out if we’re here wasting our time,” an exasperated Cummings said at the hearing this week. The best the panel of postal authorities could offer was that it was for the sake of “discussion.” For small periodicals, the only discussion is whether or not they’ll have to shut their doors. |
Over 940 million people globally have to defecate outside because they lack access to toilets. In a nomad camp in Pakistan, women tell of how relieving themselves behind bushes or in fields puts them at risk of health problems, harassment and sexual assault every day.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Nasreen Bibi, 27, is busy preparing lunch for her family outside their squalid tent. Ten years ago, poverty drove her and her husband to move their three children and a camel from Sheikhupura, Punjab, to Peshawar in Pakistan to look for work. Since then, they have been living in a tent in a nomad camp in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, selling camel’s milk on the roadside for $2.50 a day. Their makeshift home has no water, electricity or toilets.
“To answer the call of nature, we have to go to nearby fields. Sometimes men try to [watch] us secretly when we defecate in the open,” Bibi says. “In order to ward off harassers, my husband or my son accompany me to the field and stand watch.”
Around 2.4 billion people – roughly one third of the world’s population – don’t have access to toilets, according to a 2015 report by UNICEF and WHO. Among them are over 945 million people who, like Bibi and her family, are forced to defecate in the open. Lack of access to clean, private toilets puts women at risk of infection and disease, say health experts. And as these women suffer the indignity of having to defecate behind bushes or out in a field, every trip to the bathroom makes them vulnerable to harassment, sexual assault or even animal attack.
Going to the fields for defecation is full of danger and I am concerned about the security of my daughters.
“Going to the fields for defecation is full of danger, and I am concerned about the security of my daughters,” says Inayat Mai, 26, a mother of six whose family moved to the camp in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from Muzaffargarh, Punjab, in 2010 when floods washed away their home. “My husband can’t go with me and my daughters every time we go to the field for defecation because he is supposed to earn a living for us.”
But few women are willing to talk about the threats they face when they go outside to relieve themselves. “No one who defecates in the open will disclose that they face harassment because of the taboo associated with it,” says Mai, adding that if a woman complains about the unwanted attention, she is blamed for encouraging it. So, most women, especially in conservative communities, never report the harassment or abuse they endure on a regular basis.
According to WaterAid, one in three women – most of them in the developing world – have nowhere safe to go to the toilet. “Inaccessible toilets and bathrooms make women vulnerable to rape, sexual attacks and other forms of gender-based violence,” says WaterAid Pakistan communications officer Ayesha Javed, adding that women and girls don’t only need toilets for defecation, but also for privacy during menstruation. “And women and girls who defecate in the open, especially in the bushes, also face the risk of animal attacks,” she says.
And there are health consequences to repeatedly going to the toilet outside. Dr. Sultana Barlas, a gynecologist at Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar, says women and children who defecate outdoors are especially at risk of a range of infections and diseases, including Pelvic Inflammatory disease, worm infections, hepatitis, diarrhea, cholera, polio and water-borne diseases.
“Some of these diseases result in the deaths of millions of people, particularly women and children, in the country annually,” she says. Cholera alone kills up to 143,000 people globally, but those figures exclude many cases labeled as “acute watery diarrhea,” which occur mainly in southeastern and central Asia, meaning actual figures could be higher.
A 2016 study by WaterAid suggests that large numbers of people going to the bathroom outside also contributes to stunting, when children are lower than the average height for their age. The study showed that 54 percent of international variation in children’s height can be linked to open defecation, which spreads diseases and makes children more susceptible to diarrheal illness and infection. The study ranks Pakistan third in the world based on the number of children under five suffering from stunted growth, with 9.8 million children shorter than they should be.
In Pakistan’s population of over 190 million, 25 million people practice open defecation, largely in poor rural dwellings and informal urban settlements, putting the country in fifth place for the highest number of open defecators in the world. Of the urban population alone, 16.9 percent are currently living without safe and private toilets.
“Access to improved sanitation facilities, water and decent toilets could save millions of people from being killed by lethal diseases and make women and girls safer from harassment,” says Barlas.
Efforts to help people in Pakistan find alternatives to open defecation are showing promise. With the support of several organizations, including UNICEF, the Pakistani government is making progress in its bid to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for sanitation. Over the past 10 years, the number of open defecators in the country has dropped from 46 million to 25 million, largely thanks to a series of programs in the government-led Pakistan Approach to Total Sanitation.
Parveen Sajjad and her family have been living in the camp for six years, since escaping the floods in Muzaffargarh, Punjab. (Mahwish Qayyum)
And there are improvements at the grassroots, too. ACTED, the humanitarian relief NGO, recently celebrated the results of its Community-Led Total Sanitation program, which encourages communities in North Sindh to analyze the drivers and alternatives to open defecation in their villages. By last year, 12 of the 26 villages in the program had succeeded in eliminating open defecation with a combination of new, low-cost sanitation systems and awareness-raising campaigns.
When they arrived at the camp, Sajjad’s husband cobbled together a makeshift toilet to give the family some privacy. But he still stands outside the toilet to protect Sajjad when she needs to relieve herself. (Mahwish Qayyum)
At the nomad camp in Peshawar, women still have few options but to put themselves and their families at risk of assault or illness every time they need to relieve themselves. When Parveen Sajjad and her family arrived from Muzaffargarh, Punjab after escaping the floods in 2010, her husband tried to give the family some privacy by cobbling together a makeshift toilet out of old clothes and bamboo sticks. But even their homemade toilet isn’t as safe as they would like. “My husband stands guard outside until I relieve myself,” says Sajjad. “My children fetch water from nearby shops so that I can use it in the toilet.”
Even with the need for Sajjad’s husband to protect her while she goes to the bathroom, many women in the camp would consider any kind of privacy a luxury.
“We have to go out to excrete in the open behind bushes or in open bodies of water,” says Mai, the mother of six. “Because of lack of toilet facilities, many women of the tents have to defecate in the open with no dignity or privacy.” |
In this dystopian novel, only 'facts' that show Big Brother in a positive light are allowed to exist. Sound familiar?
View of the crowd on the National Mall at the inaugurations of President Obama, above, on Jan. 20, 2009, and President Trump, below, on Jan. 20, 2017. Both shot shortly before noon. (Photo11: AP)
In George Orwell’s prophetically dystopian novel, 1984, Big Brother’s regime uses a “memory hole” to destroy any facts or documents that become inconvenient to the regime’s preferred narrative. Citizens are then taught alternative facts — and they must forget what they previously knew. Big Brother, they learn, is never wrong. He can do no wrong. Trust the government, not your own eyes or ears. In the end, only “facts” that show Big Brother in a positive light are allowed to exist.
President Trump has brought the memory hole to the United States.
Last week, Trump called on the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate news media outlets for their critical reporting of him. Their crime? Producing well-sourced, credible reporting that paints him in a negative light and is therefore “fake news.”
Unfortunately, Trump’s Orwellian streak is not just rhetorical.
More: Facts you don't like are not fake news
More: Trump's moral failures are shredding America's global reputation
The Federal Emergency Management Agency last Thursday purged two statistics from its website: that 95% of Puerto Rico still lacked electricity and that nearly half the island lacked clean drinking water. Those stats didn’t mesh very well with Trump’s preferred narrative that he was getting “great marks” from Puerto Ricans. Those inconvenient statistics disappeared down the memory hole, while other stats that showed better progress — like the number of gas stations operating — were kept in place. (The statistics are now back up, after news media pressure-shamed the White House into restoring them.)
A week earlier, Trump deleted countless tweets in which he unequivocally endorsed incumbent Sen. “Big Luther” Strange in the Alabama Republican primary. As soon as Strange lost to Roy Moore, the endorsement tweets disappeared as though they had never existed. Big Brother never gets it wrong — and Trump The Winner never backs a loser.
Since taking office, Trump has scrubbed climate change from government websites as though it never existed and was always, as he previously claimed, “was created by and for the Chinese.” The Environmental Protection Agency took down its page dedicated to climate change in April. Researchers have grown fearful that such website deletions are a precursor to deleting or suppressing data.
Already, one group of scientists leaked a climate report for fear that it would be buried by the government. They’re right to be worried; one outspoken climate scientist has been involuntarily reassigned to another role — as an accountant.
Authoritarian governments use memory holes to great effect. In Zambia, I investigated a failed coup d’état attempt that took place in 1997. After foiling the plot, the government told the public that the soldier behind it was simply a drunken fool who got carried away on a night out. It was more convenient for the government to have people believe it was a fool and a drunk rather than a disgruntled member of a splintered military. But when I interviewed the person held at gunpoint during the coup attempt, she told me that the officer was certainly lucid and sober. Nonetheless, the government’s narrative took root. Zambians still believe it was a drunken plot.
There are rumblings of these tactics in Trump’s America. It started with Sean Spicer and the side-by-side inauguration photos. Don’t believe your lying eyes. Period.
The White House again told us not to trust our eyes by claiming that “there was nothing as far as we know that would lead anyone to believe” that the now infamous Donald Trump Jr. meeting at the Trump Tower wasn’t about adoption policy. We’ve seen the emails that prove otherwise.
The administration doesn’t go so far as to airbrush undesirables out of photos as the Soviet Union did. But key Trump surrogate Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s disgraced national security adviser, has now been referred to by the Trump camp as a former campaign volunteer. Paul Manafort, who managed Trump’s campaign for longer than Steve Bannon, has now been referred to as someone who played a “very limited role for a very limited amount of time.”
More: Is Donald Trump a moron? Duh.
POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media
And after Trump’s funding to “build the wall!” was stripped from a budget bill, he claimed victory anyway with some alternative facts: “The WALL, which is already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls, will continue to be built.” Renovation of old, existing patchwork fencing became a new “WALL” that Trump previously claimed would be 30 feet tall and run the length of the border. Big Brother should be taking notes.
Even the job numbers that were phony in the past, when they showed President Obama positively, but are “very real now” when they show Trump positively.
Orwell nailed Trump. Big Brother got away with it because citizens accepted alternative facts and allowed themselves to be manipulated by false or selective information. We must not make the same mistake. Truth still matters, even if our government behaves like it is disposable.
Brian Klaas, a fellow in comparative politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, is author of The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy. Follow him on Twitter @brianklaas.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to [email protected].
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2yTYsNO |
I grew up in a very small, predominately white town. And by small, I mean small. Like, we had one blinking stop light and everyone knew my mama name small. I remember when we built our first Sonic Drive-In and how that was a town wide phenomenon. I went on to work there throughout high school. The name of my home town is . Sweeny had a very tight knit, southern conservative feel to it ― an insulated community. I grew up in a very small, predominately white town. And by small, I mean small. Like, we had one blinking stop light and everyone knew my mama name small. I remember when we built our first Sonic Drive-In and how that was a town wide phenomenon. I went on to work there throughout high school. The name of my home town is Sweeny, Texas Sweeny had a very tight knit, southern conservative feel to it ― an insulated community.
Nearly every elected official, police officer, school teacher, volunteer fire fighter, and business owner I ever encountered was white. As you can imagine, many of my childhood friends and close acquaintances were white as well. We played, went to school, laughed, and even occasionally got in trouble together.
No, Sweeny wasn’t this post-racial utopia where we exchanged customs and cultures. We were eons away from such a place. In fact, Sweeny had a storied reputation for being both insidiously and overtly discriminatory. Which is pretty ironic now that I think about it, our town motto was “A city with pride.” Perhaps “A city with southern pride” would have been more fitting. I had my share of disputes and fist fights for the use of racially charged remarks and slurs.
The first time I was called a nigger was in the third grade at recess. I vividly remember those feelings of anxiety and shame consume me as my eyes filled with tears and my tiny fingers compressed to make a tight fist. I wanted to punch him, but his words pierced my soul. I just stood there paralyzed with pain.
In spite of that, I still maintained my friendships with my white friends. You see, they were different. This is probably because they never used racially charged remarks or slurs. Well, at least not in my presence.
My white friends and I rarely discussed race. We were care free children after all. We were much more concerned with bike riding, mischief and PlayStation. But when we did discuss race, my friends would always reassure me that the casual racism and discrimination I experienced was just the ignorance of a few.
At the time, this made perfect sense. I was very young and the complexities of race was something I simply did not understand at the time. I knew of the blatant instances of racism, but the insidious instances were tough to identify.
As we grew older, my childhood white friends and I began to identify differently. I don’t remember the exact moment when I noticed our growing indifferences, but I believe it was sometime around high school. Our indifferences became our preferences. We were becoming individuals. This in turn led to us to choose different circles of friends.
We still occasionally hung out and talked. We still considered ourselves friends, but things were just a little different now. I don’t believe there was any animosity or tough feelings. In fact, I think we all were a bit happier finding friends to identify with.
After high school, I left Sweeny and went off to college. Some of my childhood friends went off to school as well. While others stayed, hit the workforce and started families of their own. Luckily, we were able to keep in touch via Facebook. We would like each other’s pictures and status updates occasionally. |
When he started guiding students and employees safely across the bustling Euclid Avenue and Adelbert Road intersection, Case Western Reserve University police officer Mark Chavis thought it was just temporary.
At the time, the Euclid Corridor project was taking off, and the police department decided a crossing guard should be stationed at the construction-heavy corner to ensure students’ and employees’ safety.
Now, about six years later, what was once temporary has become permanent—and Chavis has become one of the most well-known figures around campus. There’s even a Facebook page dedicated to him, which has more than 2,300 fans.
The gregarious crossing guard, who’s actually a carpenter by trade, joined Case Western Reserve more than 10 years ago, beginning as a security guard. He moved across campus, from the law school to medical school, from foot patrol to mobile patrol. Then, after he finished his training at the Cleveland Heights Police Academy, he became the “Officer Mark” everyone knows today, taking up post on the corner of Euclid and Adelbert.
What more is there to know about the man we all see day in and day out—the one who greets us with a smile and a high five? Find out now.
1. What are you reading—and how are you reading it (print vs. digital)?
I’m a huge Sports Illustrated and Outdoor Life reader—both in print. I love fishing and other outdoor stuff like that and I’m a sports fanatic, so these are my two big magazines I read. I’m a huge Cleveland fan—whether it be baseball, basketball, football—anything and everything. I always tell everybody that they’re going to win every game…I just don’t bet on them. But I support them 150 percent! I’m a die-hard Cleveland fan.
2. What can’t you live without?
I feel like I shouldn’t say this, but it’s my pastime: television. I can’t live without TV. I love watching reality shows and stuff that’s actually real, not scripted: National Geographic, Weather Channel and sports.
I could, however, live without the Cleveland snow.
3. What’s your favorite spot on campus?
My favorite spot on campus is Adelbert and Euclid. I know that sounds like a typical Officer Mark response, but if I think of where I have the most fun, it’s Euclid and Adelbert. That’s the most happening spot on the Case Western Reserve campus.
4. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
There are two that I always tell the kids, and I stick by them a lot. I think it’s important that these students share their opinions and ideas, regardless of whether they’re nervous or shy or not. So I always tell them, “A closed mouth will never get fed.”
I also tell them, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” I think that’s really important to remember too.
5. What’s your favorite thing about Case Western Reserve University?
The family atmosphere and community, which I really get to enjoy every day on campus. I also follow all my Case athletics. I make sure I keep up with them online, and working on the corner where I do, I make sure I get all the information from all the teams. They keep me up to date on everything. I love being a part of that.
Know someone you’d like to see featured in The Daily‘s “5 questions”? Email [email protected]. |
LATROBE -- Pittsburgh Steelers got to hit each other in full pads with full tackles.
Some of the older Steelers did not though, as they were held out of practice again. The PUP list stayed five-players deep and the team was careful to preserve standout running back Le'Veon Bell on Day 3 of Steelers training camp at St. Vincent College.
Beyond that, you can find most everything you need to know that happened at Steelers camp Day 3 below:
1. Le'Veon Bell and whistles
Bell got three touches in the 11-on-11 periods of practice on Wednesday by my count. Each time he did, though, the whistle was blown quickly before he could be tackled.
When Bell arrived at camp on Saturday he said was close to, but not yet 100 percent recovered from the hyperextended right knee he suffered in Week 17 against the Cincinnati Bengals last season.
He looked plenty explosive and confident in his knee on every play.
2. Ross Ventrone wears a cast
The Steelers reserve safety was on the sidelines with a hard cast. He left Monday's practice on the back of a cart with nothing on his right foot.
He had taken direct contact to his lower-right leg, Mike Tomlin said on Monday.
The head coach said had no update on Ventrone or any other injured players on Wednesday.
3. Heath Miler gets a rest
The veteran tight end didn't suit up in pads on Wednesday. Tomlin said on Monday that he and Matt Spaeth would be saved, giving chances to younger tight ends.
4. The PUP list stayed the same
Maurkice Pouncey, Senquez Golson, Mike Adams, Shawn Lemon and Bruce Gradkowski stayed out of action.
5. Will Allen and James Harrison were also rested
Follow @Jacob_Klinger_ |
To sexually objectify a woman is to focus on her body in terms of how it can provide sexual pleasure rather than viewing her as a complete human being with thoughts and feelings. While objectification has long been considered a problem in the media, how does it affect individual romantic relationships? New research published in Psychology of Women Quarterly, a SAGE journal, finds that more objectification of a female partner's body is related to higher incidents of sexual pressure and coercion.
Researchers Laura R. Ramsey and Tiffany Hoyt surveyed 119 males and 162 females who had been in heterosexual relationships. They found that men who frequently objectify their partner's bodies by excessively focusing on their appearance are more likely to feel shame about the shape and size of their partner's body which in turn is related to increased sexual pressure (i.e., the belief that men expect sex and that it is a woman's role to provide sex for her partner) and sexual coercion, both in general and through violence and manipulation.
"Being more aware of how and when one thinks of their partner as an object, sexually or otherwise, could help relationship partners avoid sexual pressure and coercion and increase communication and respect within their relationship," the researchers wrote.
The data also supported the idea that women internalize objectification from their partners. This internalization is related to feeling shame about their bodies, a decrease in asserting themselves, and a decrease in expressing what they do and do not want to do sexually.
"Acknowledging objectification in their relationships may help women realize when they lack agency and allow them to resist and avoid sexual pressure," the researchers continued. "Furthermore, thinking about objectification in terms of agency and sexual pressure could also have implications for women's relationship satisfaction, both sexual and otherwise. Women who feel that they have no control and who experience sexual pressure from their partner will not be as satisfied as women who feel like they have control over their body and the decisions in the relationship."
The researchers discussed additional ideas for decreasing objectification in heterosexual relationships.
"Activists should continue their work reducing the objectification of women in our culture, such as through the recognition and removal of objectifying images in the media. However, as male objectification of women is more common than female objectification of men, the onus is on men to reduce objectification and sexual violence. It is of utmost importance that activists and educators work with men to reduce the objectification of women, both in general and in the context of romantic relationships." |
Bitcoin enthusiasts, investors and entrepreneurs staged a spirited defence of the cryptocurrency at the Inside Bitcoins conference in Berlin this week.
With Mt. Gox’s malleability issues now affecting popular exchanges Bitstamp and BTC-e, many commentators have been quick to declare this the final nail in bitcoin’s coffin.
This is the “glitch that will help end bitcoin” declared Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsk. He went on to argue that bitcoin is now only propped up by a small number of individuals with too much capital invested to allow the currency to fail completely.
“Not a chance” came the response from bitcoiners at the conference in the German capital.
Oliver Flaskämper, CEO of Bitcoin Germany, kicked off the event by saying that only two things could pose a permanent threat to bitcoin: a major technical issue or global ban – neither of which have happened yet.
The current transaction malleability issue will soon be resolved and bitcoin will come back stronger, he said. And as far as a global ban goes, it would be almost impossible: “Anyone who wants to ban bitcoin will have to ban the Internet,” he said, to applause from the audience.
Blockchain CEO
Bitcoin evangelist and worldwide bitcoin traveller Nicholas Cary, also known as the CEO of Blockchain.info, said he is paying close attention to the ongoing glitches, but remains confident they will be resolved soon. He said:
“Individual service providers are going to have to issue patches and longer term some thinking may evolve of how to best approach this. We will rely on the core development team to give us guidance.”
The conference drew over 300 people from 14 countries for two days of discussions focusing on the future of bitcoin.
A new umbrella organisation was also launched, the Global Bitcoin Alliance – a “bottom-up network of non-for-profit organisations that promote and protect Bitcoin.”
Aaron Koenig of Bitcoin Exchange Berlin is one of the founders of the Alliance. He claims this is the perfect time launch an organization that defends bitcoins against attacks. However, he sees the alliance as a support group rather than a leader in the fight.
“The real work will have to be done on a local level. But we will be there to help provide information and support,” he said.
The death of bitcoin?
So, what is the newly formed alliance’s reaction to the rumours of bitcoin’s demise?
“The death of bitcoin has been announced so many times, but bitcoin is very strong, a very resilient piece of technology that can not so easily be taken down. It will only make bitcoin stronger.”
One conference participant who is a veteran of several bitcoin crises is Bobby Lee, CEO of BTC China and the man who was caught in the middle of China’s regulatory maelstrom back in December 2013.
He was calm about the current crisis, saying only that it will be “worked out soon”. However, he was keen to set the record straight about bitcoin in China.
“Bitcoin in China is not over by any means,” he said. He went on to explain that the sanctions imposed were not as draconian as sometimes reported. What was more of a problem were the verbal warnings the regulators gave financial institutions.
In essence, it was a case of the regulators quietly asking the institutions to stay away from bitcoin rather then imposing laws.
The effect of this is that bitcoin trading is down 80 to 90% in China, and this will probably continue over the next six to 12 months. However, after this cooling off period, bitcoin will be back, Lee said.
“All the goodness of bitcoin has not changed. What have changed are the perceived regulations around bitcoin. It needs a few months to clear out and settle. After that, bitcoin will continue its meteoric rise”
Fighting talk from the bitcoin evangelists – only time will tell if they can prove the skeptics wrong. |
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- I need to take a break from all the gloom in the markets and economy for an Andy Rooney-esque rant. Indulge me.
I don't know about you. But I'm sick of all the Facebook hype.
For the record, I am not on Facebook, and the recent fuss about privacy doesn't affect me -- I'm not a disgruntled user with an axe to grind.
What I don't get is how Facebook has become such a phenomenon. Our sister publication Fortune even recently published a story about the company called "How Facebook is taking over our lives." It's a great story...even though Facebook hasn't taken over my life.
Don't get me wrong. I realize some people swear by Facebook. I understand its addictive charms. My wife is a recent convert and she loves it.
Also, I am by no means a Luddite. I break out into cold sweats if I haven't checked my BlackBerry for more than 10 minutes. I believe that the invention of the DVR is proof that some supreme deity exists. And I even sometimes use my BlackBerry to program my DVR.
But I honestly don't have the time to commit to Facebook. My job, especially since the implosion of Lehman Brothers in September, keeps me insanely busy. And after sitting at a computer typing all day, the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit in front of another computer so I can upload photos to my Wall and read 25 random things about a high school classmate I haven't spoken to in 18 years.
I also don't feel the need to constantly update an entire network of friends about the daily minutiae of my life. My brother recently harassed me over the phone about why I wasn't on Facebook. My response was, "You want my status update? I'm about to hang up on you."
I may be in the minority. The Facebook universe is now 175 million users strong. But how is this company ever going to generate meaningful revenue and post profits from this massive user base?
Popularity's nice, but profits are cooler
In the Fortune story, there is a chart showing how quickly Facebook got to 150 million users compared to other technologies such as the iPod, cellphone and television.
While it's impressive that it took Facebook only 5 years compared with 7 years for Apple to "sell" 150 million iPods, who has the better business model?
Facebook merely signed up people to use their service...for free. Apple sold a product...and a pretty pricey one at that. What's more, Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) makes money when people buy music from iTunes for their iPod.
Facebook board member and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen said on an appearance on PBS' "Charlie Rose" show this week that if it wanted to, Facebook could start monetizing its user base immediately by selling more ads.
But how much money would it really make? The site already has some advertising. But are they effective? I argue that Facebook or any social network can never truly be a major generator of ad revenue. Users of Facebook like the site because it allows them to easily connect and communicate with friends. It's the 21st century version of Ma Bell.
By that very token, how happy would you be if you had to listen to an ad when you picked up the phone before you were able to get a dial tone? Even if users tolerate ads on Facebook, I'm not sure they'd actually click on them.
Why Facebook isn't Google
Facebook is a completely different animal than the other Web wunderkind it is often compared to: Google. The beauty of Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) is that, despite all its efforts to diversify, it really is all about searching for information. If I go to Google to find the best airline fares to Buenos Aires, a sponsored search result may actually be helpful as opposed to being obtrusive.
If I go to Facebook to try and top my friends' best score in Scramble, I'm there to freaking play Scramble. Even a "contextually relevant" ad for Boggle is going to irritate me. Yeah, Facebook may be "stickier" than Google. But I'm not hanging around waiting for an ad.
I'm also skeptical about Facebook's plan, unveiled earlier this month, to offer user information to companies so they can target specific users for online polls. For one, it sounds like another privacy backlash waiting to happen...similar to the Beacon service Facebook launched in 2007.
With Beacon, Facebook partnered with online retailers that would track a users' credit card use. So if you bought something online, friends in your network could see that. Problem was that when Facebook set it up, all users were automatically enrolled in Beacon. Not a smart move. After an unsurprising uproar, Facebook changed it so users had to opt-in.
Also, don't most people hate consumer research polls? When is the last time you decided it was a good idea to waste 15 minutes of your life happily chatting with a telemarketer?
To me, Facebook seems to be growing for growth's sake without a plan for making money. And that's really risky in a recession as bad as this one. Not only is Facebook faced with the prospect of ad spending declining this year; it also has to likely deal with the rising costs to manage the increased amount of data as it signs on more and more users.
So while I applaud Facebook for its ability to attract a loyal base of users, I just don't get how it will ever be a financial success.
The Fortune story closed by saying that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want to sell to Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) because he wants to build the next Microsoft. But Bill Gates didn't become one of the wealthiest men on the planet by giving away operating systems for free now did he? |
Photo: Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Image 1 of 1 San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom chats before an address by US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to US mayors February 20, 2009 in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) less San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom chats before an address by US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to US mayors February 20, 2009 in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. AFP ... more Photo: Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images Newsom, Dellums get Obama's recognition 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
President Obama singled out two Bay Area mayors - including one who is running for governor - in his White House speech Friday to America's mayors.
"I see friends from all over the place," said Obama, as he looked around the crowd. Obama called Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums an "old friend."
The president then noted San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom , praising him for the city's health care reform.
"Instead of talking about health care, mayors like Gavin Newsom in San Francisco have been ensuring that those in need receive it," he said.
"You shouldn't have to succeed despite Washington; you should be succeeding with a hand from Washington, and that's what you're going to get now."
Latest news videos
Mayors, he said, are "on the front lines" and can do a lot on their own to make cities better.
Obama talked up broadband, high-speed rail, education and health care, saying "What I will need from you is unprecedented responsibility and accountability."
He also promised to "call them out" and use the power of his office if any local government officials attempt to waste stimulus money.
He said using the money must be free from politics and personal agenda.
The nod from Obama on health care underscores an issue Newsom has highlighted in his current "town hall" talks around California as he seeks the Democratic nomination for 2010. |
Conservative James O'Keefe during an interview on Fox Business (Screenshot)
Conservative activist James O’Keefe vowed to drop a bomb on CNN this week — but it has very quickly fizzled out.
While O’Keefe had promised to “expose” CNN’s liberal bias against President Donald Trump this week, on Thursday it was revealed that O’Keefe simply has obtained 119 hours’ worth of audio recordings mostly from low-level CNN staffers that were made in 2009.
Politico reports that while O’Keefe initially had some CNN reporters worried that he’d discovered some embarrassing revelations, his first publicized “bombshells” are total duds.
“In Project Veritas’ news release about the tapes, the first highlighted segment are two producers talking about the use of certain polls and why then-CNN polling director (now NH1 News political director and anchor) Paul Steinhauser declined to use a poll by Rasmussen, a group whose polling methods are still not widely accepted,” Politico writes. “Another highlight is of an assignment desk editor saying ‘Fox News is unbearable,’ and a news desk editor talking about how ‘there’s no debate’ about climate change.”
Additionally, O’Keefe admitted that he hasn’t even listened to all the raw tape he has so far — and is calling on volunteers to help him get through it.
When asked to comment on the story by Politico, a CNN spokesperson simply responded by saying, “I don’t think there’s anything to comment on.” |
Last fall, I taught my very first college class—an essay-writing course for freshmen. I was excited, but wary of first-time-teacher pitfalls, and so I asked my professor friends for as much advice as possible. After extensive feedback, I attempted to design my syllabus in such a way that I didn’t risk putting myself in the position of therapist. Other teachers told me that since I was a woman, and one who was younger than most of my students’ other professors (and who looked a bit younger still), I risked being perceived more as a peer or a caretaker than as an authority figure. Since my students would literally be writing their first college papers for me, I was worried that their personal essays in particular would yield an onslaught of pained confessional writing. My concern was that the impersonal demands of expository writing could prove daunting, or worse, for students who might be trying to deal with trauma.
This is not to say I avoided traumatic subjects or texts. I did purposely save Ariel Levy’s beautiful “Thanksgiving in Mongolia,” a devastating essay about the death of her baby almost immediately after his premature birth, for the day the draft of their personal essays was due, thinking that if they read it beforehand they would feel compelled to tackle subjects of similar gravity. During class discussion, I explained that I had guided their personal essays toward subtler, smaller stories rather than major life events, because the emotional nature of such a project often makes revisions more onerous—and possibly excruciating. I joked that I also didn’t want to have to grade “fifteen dead babies,” or their NYU-freshmen equivalents.
The survivor memoir is a fraught subject. It can be highly resistant to critique by virtue of its pathos. I remember vividly the deafening silences of a Literature of the Holocaust class I took as an undergrad (barrel of laughs, that semester), because who is willing to dissect the harrowing canon of Elie Wiesel or Primo Levi? Surely they have their critics, but the carapace of trauma often proves a vexing barrier to the meat of a book.
I see no conflict in discussing the way we talk about sexual assault while also maintaining support for the brave people who come forward to tell their stories.
We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out (Henry Holt, 2016) is an anthology of trauma, an ethnographic study of the all-too-common sexual violence committed against university students. In a stand-alone quote occupying an entire page, survivor Abbi Gatewood best clarifies the philosophy that informs the collection: “To question my intentions in coming forward is to violate me once again. Do not ask me why I’m talking about what happened to me.”
The reasoning behind this overt resistance to interrogation is motivated by a rightful demand for dignity—the sort of dignity that’s often denied to victims of assault. By this measure, it would be most ethical not to review We Believe You at all; these survivors were courageous enough to come forward, so what sort of monsters would we be to dissect their project?
I have no intention of “grading” such a book as a literary project, just as I wouldn’t judge a documentary on the eloquence of its interview subjects. But if questioning the value or purpose of We Believe You can only mean attacking the victims once more, then we are at a critical impasse. Gatewood’s words present the book not so much as a text but as a monument—at times a shrine to a survivor’s spirit, at others a cenotaph dedicated to who a victim was before her assault. As readers, we are mostly encouraged to sit unquestioningly through this act of remembrance, pained and moved by its gut-wrenching reason for being.
I do not believe this approach to reading is productive—it creates a distance between reader and narrator that runs counter to what seems to be the activist aim of the book. I will attempt here to engage critically with the anthology as a project, since I see no conflict in discussing the way we talk about and interpret sexual assault while also maintaining support for the brave people who come forward to tell their stories. Indeed, the egregious failure of reporting that produced Rolling Stone’s since-discredited report of a brutal gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity makes it clear that the personal account can be a fragile foundation on which to build a movement against assault—and that, however intrusive the demands of empiricism may be, they are indispensable in both documenting and remedying the risks of sexual assault on American campuses, and throughout the rest of our society.
The structure of We Believe You is arguably its strongest aspect. The book does not present one complete story after another; rather, it splits each individual’s experience into different time periods, drawing comparisons between the victims’ experiences as they unfold. It’s an artful presentation of stories that, in the spirit of solidarity, manages to unify the disparate experiences of many survivors, and avoids the potentially numbing effect of simply listing victim after victim. (Anticipating just such a dryly recitative structure, a friend and survivor quipped, “Just what we need, a coffee-table book about rape.”)
The first chapter, titled “Before,” is devoted to exposition, allowing survivors to give some brief background on their lives before college. It’s a diverse group, in terms of both demographics and narrative voice. The second chapter (“How It Happened”) covers the assault or assaults themselves, and manages to be candid without graphic detail. It’s been years since these assaults took place, and some of the accounts are incredibly sparse. A woman named Lauren gives an otherwise detailed narrative of the events before and after, but covers the entirety of her assault with “He used force on me. Then he said, ‘Text me,’ and left.” It is both blunt and affecting.
Chapter three (“Trauma and Betrayal”) deals with the aftermath, which in some cases is more horrific than the assaults themselves. Colleges, intentionally or otherwise, often mismanage the assault cases reported to them. Police, prosecutors, and even health-care providers are often terrible. Racism and queer-phobia further extend the trauma in gratuitous and brutal ways. There are decent people, too, and little instances of justices won here and there, but some of the former students are still having difficulty adjusting, while others confess that they’re lost at sea. One woman ends her excerpt with “I do not feel strong.” Another, who dropped out of school afterward, ends with “I feel like I’m missing out. What am I supposed to do?”
The Trauma Club
It is here that the ethics of the project become questionable. Soliciting accounts from assault victims while they’re still clearly reeling from trauma can obviously be exploitative. There is certainly a case to be made for the therapeutic value of the confession, and there is a journalistic imperative to tell painful stories, but We Believe You is not a work of journalism, nor are its editors working in a therapeutic context—this is a book with a rather fuzzy mission statement. Despite the absence of graphic violence, the accounts of women who are still clearly in the midst of bleak depressions are emotionally lurid. The intended audience for such a book is not a bunch of doubting Thomases who deny the phenomenon of campus rape, so what is the purpose of poking at unhealed wounds? Though there may be several worthy reasons, I do not believe the editors offer one here, and I would argue that this is because the book is very much a product of its time.
Editors Annie E. Clark and Andrea L. Pino are no vultures; their book simply reflects the contemporary attitude toward the way we talk about trauma, particularly trauma that disproportionately affects women—meaning, we place a strong emphasis on confession and personal accounts. This is not to say that the female confessional voice is anything new. The feminist and classicist Mary Beard argues in a piece called “The Public Voice of Women” that the anguished woman is an archetype, bred of a history that values women’s voices only when they come from a personal place of pain. “Looking at modern traditions of oratory more generally,” Beard writes, “we also find that same single area of license for women to talk publicly, in support of their own sectional interests, or to parade their victimhood.” But recently, there has been an acceleration and intensification of this tendency, powered by the eager clamor of Internet content machines, who often exploit or work against the interests of those survivors who do speak out.
A recent Gawker article titled “Bustle and the Industrialization of Confession” uncovered the unique hiring practices of the successful “ladyblog” behemoth Bustle.com, which boasted 43.8 million unique visitors over a thirty-day period just a couple months ago. Bustle, known for its enormous output of women-oriented content, had started sending some of its bloggers a rather unconventional “Identity Survey.” Writers for the site were asked (but not required!) to “check all that apply,” from a long list that included:
• I am/was addicted to drugs or alcohol
• I’ve been to rehab
• I’m in a recovery program
• I see a therapist
• I have suffered from depression, or still do
• I’ve had an abortion
• I’ve had a threesome
• I’ve had group sex
• I’ve lost a child
• I grew up poor
• In an open relationship
• I like casual sex
• I don’t like casual sex
• I have been to jail/prison
• I’m a feminist
And, of course
• I have been the victim of sexual assault
Without even addressing the legality (or lack thereof) and horrific labor implications of such a survey (which, yes, also asked about religion and political preference), writer Rich Juzwiak nicely pinpointed the cultural conditions that produced this document:
Cases can be made for and against a survey that distills human experience and outright trauma down to a series of boxes to check, but what is inarguable is that this document is a sign of the times. I would add that it’s a fascinating one. The current media climate demands more life from writers than ever, especially if they aren’t interested in doing actual reporting. The market rewards personal storytelling with attention—the more lurid and specific, the better.
In view of this land rush of confessional female testimony, it’s well worth considering and questioning which voices and stories we favor and why. The confession of trauma is highly gendered. No matter how we may want to quarantine it from public inquiry, it is not apolitical or ahistorical, and the genre itself is well overdue for some critical engagement, though it would not be fair to levy too much of that criticism upon We Believe You, a project far more invested in victims’ welfare than a traffic-mad outlet like Bustle is.
And thankfully, the book’s fourth chapter—“Healing and Everyday Activism”—pivots pragmatically away from the most discomfiting stories in We Believe You. It sketches out some models of recovery and achieves in the process a reassuring turn in tone, while also stressing heartening moments of progress and growth. Chapter five is “Declarations of Independence,” a hodgepodge of testimony and affirmation, and at the end is a sliver of a sixth chapter dedicated to “Rights and Resources”: a few quick notes on whom to contact if you are assaulted—support groups, hotlines, an inexplicable page dedicated to quoting Title IX without elaboration—and a few notes on the fraught subject of “representation.”
The Off-Campus Epidemic
As is de rigueur in these days of intersectional feminism, Clark and Pino have made a valiant effort at “representation”—i.e., giving a platform to women and men, queer and trans people, immigrants, and people of color. It’s an admirable initiative, but the issue of representation also raises a nagging and thorny question that the close-in portraits of disrupted young lives in We Believe You don’t address: Does it clarify or improve the discourse around sexual assault to segregate discussion of campus sexual assault from the sexual assaults of nonstudents—especially when the matriculated are actually less likely to be assaulted than nonstudents?
Guilt, pain, and confusion still linger; there is no exchange of ideas or perspective.
This is not to fault Clark and Pino, who are themselves survivors of campus sexual assaults, for failing to address the entire society-wide scourge of sexual violence against women. At the same time, though, we are now hearing so much about the campus “epidemic” of sexual predation that we risk overlooking the troubling fact that female American college students are graduating into an outside world that’s even less safe for them than their campuses have been—as well as the important point that many more women have been suffering from brutal sexual attacks in that world all along.
In 2014, President Obama launched the “It’s on Us” campaign, which asked “everyone—men and women across America—to make a personal commitment to step off the sidelines and be part of the solution to campus sexual assault.” With such high-profile university-centric appeals, it’s no wonder that many of us now simply assume that college is a premier site of sexual peril. The media has certainly managed to insinuate as much, with reports like a 2015 CNBC article on campus sexual assault, titled “One of the Most Dangerous Places for Women in America.” There is also the constantly repeated, but very misleading, “one in four” statistic, citing results from a nationwide survey supposedly showing that nearly a quarter of women who attend college have been sexually assaulted. The more accurate finding, while still enormously troubling, is that nearly one in four women experience “unwanted sexual contact,” which is defined in the survey cited as anything from touching to kissing to rape. But when some variation of “one in four college women will be sexually assaulted” is repeated by the New York Times, CNN, the Huffington Post, et al, it’s easy for the public to get the impression that no woman is safe on a college campus.
But that’s not the case. In 2014, the Daily Beast was one of a few publications to publish a corrective article, though it didn’t make any appreciable dent in the overall mood of crisis surrounding campus sexual assault. The piece, which bore the blunt title “College Girls Are Less Likely to Be Raped,” argued that the misunderstanding was the result of a failure of both reportage—the women whose assaults are most likely to be believed and reported tend to be college students—and data-gathering:
Women in college are less likely to be victims of any violent crime, according to the [National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)], and women 18 to 24 who don’t go to college were 1.2 times more likely than their college counterparts to become victims of sexual assault. Non-students (65,700 on average per year) were the victim of roughly double the number of rape and sexual assaults as students (31,300). The differences in overall victimization are driven mainly by the incidences of completed rape. Non-students (at 3.1 per 1,000) were 1.5 times more likely to be a victim of a completed rape than students (2.0 per 1,000).
The article goes on to note that one widely cited survey highlighting the risk of campus sexual assault—a 2000 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics titled “The Sexual Victimization of College Women”—used many behaviorally specific questions that compromised the results. The survey asked, for example, “When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever had vaginal sex with you?” (For good measure, the question also proceeded to define, in no uncertain terms, just what constitutes vaginal sex.) Not only is the data from that survey quite dated, but the specificity of such questions also produces higher rates of reporting. Nonstudent women were not surveyed with the same specificity—which renders any statistical comparison between the two groups deeply flawed.
So if college students are indeed safer from violence than their non-matriculating counterparts, why partition their experience from a larger dialogue? As many journalists have noted, there is a matter of privilege at play here: women who go to college enjoy a more elevated social standing than women who don’t, and are therefore more likely to receive media attention. (A similar dynamic plays out in terms of racial privilege, as any casual viewer of the cable-news subgenre of abducted or murdered women can readily attest.)
Of course, no one in We Believe You would argue that an assault on campus is somehow more significant than that of a homeless woman, a sex worker, a woman raped as a crime of war, or any other far more common context for assault. The women who have contributed to We Believe You are likely aware of their privilege, and I doubt any of them would invidiously contrast their experience with that of any woman of lower status. Nevertheless, the class bias is implicit, and feeds into the media’s fixation on allegedly heightened risks of on-campus sexual assault despite data to the contrary.
This is not to say that universities are not a unique space with potentially specific concerns. They’re often home to a large population of relatively cloistered young people who usually have little to no experience navigating bureaucracy; these young people are perhaps more likely to defer to the para-judicial processes of the school administration, who clearly do not always have the victim’s best interest at heart. Then, too, there’s a strong vision of the university as a community in and of itself (which is rather unique to the United States). Much of the activism surrounding campus rape is an appeal to the university administration to create a safer space for students. It is to its credit that the stories collected in We Believe You rather definitively dash the illusion of a benevolent administration acting in loco parentis. Regardless, when a violent crime occurs in the streets or (as is statistically more likely) the home, there is a feeling of disconnect, or perhaps just helplessness. Domestic violence is regarded as too private, too charged, to tackle at the same level of social concern (if you doubt this notion, just see the lumbering way in which our professional-sports leagues have been dragged, kicking and screaming, into addressing the domestic abuse committed by their players), while street violence is addressed as a social ill crying out for immediate remedy via criminal justice. American universities, whether public or private, are somewhat communized and autonomous, and a learning environment that’s also devoted to navigating the social (and sexual) passage into adulthood seems like a natural testing ground for reform. It stands to reason that universities, as organizations supposedly beholden to students and parents, would have both the power and incentive to protect students.
Beyond Confession
These points serve not to indict the book’s decision to zero in on the campus, but only to highlight the unexplored reasons behind this choice. No doubt it arises in significant part from the authors’ simple investment in bringing the issue to light: Clark and Pino’s ambitious national reporting project was the focus of the influential (if also controversial) CNN documentary The Hunting Ground. Again, though, the focus on campuses does, however inadvertently, mislead the audience: a title like The Hunting Ground is exactly the sort of sensationalist language that implies campuses are the problem, as opposed to a largely violent wider world that college administrators don’t appear either capable of, or interested in, protecting their students from.
Unfortunately, the pros and cons of presenting sex crimes in the context of specific cultural backgrounds is not a subject We Believe You ever engages. Beyond the brief note on “representation,” the book rarely zooms out politically, sociologically, or philosophically, save for its own rather decontextualized references to Title IX, the odd statistic, and some praise for Obama’s efforts to highlight the issue of campus rape. It certainly never develops the reasoning behind compartmentalizing sexual assault into a student ethnography—though clearly there are valid justifications for doing so.
Without some broader interpretive framework, the contributions meander and proceed haltingly from entry to entry. The end result is that We Believe You reads like the transcript of a rather mercurial consciousness-raising session, minus the analytical work that second-wave feminists considered part and parcel of any discussion of sexual assault. Interspersed throughout the book are free-form poems and letters to daughters and grandparents that will never be sent. While these acts of public testimony are crucial, and therapeutic, for survivors, readers of We Believe You are curiously left asking much the same question that one of the victims here raises: “What am I supposed to do?”
And the cumulative effect of the material compiled in We Believe You is, unfortunately, a claustral and rather depoliticized reading experience. Guilt, pain, and confusion still linger; there is no exchange of ideas or perspective. The reader is an outside observer, discouraged by the book itself from engaging in any sustained way with the people at the core of the project, yet also unable to glean anything theoretical from the collection. One woman has moved to the wilderness with her support dog. Another now sews her own lingerie. A trans woman says she’d counsel survivors not to call the police. (Indeed, anything approaching real advice throughout We Believe You seems to come with an implicit disclaimer that this is all simply personal preference, and there is no wrong way to handle your assault.)
The book’s preface is a brief quote: “It’s true what a mentor once told me: ‘Being a survivor is being part of a club that nobody wants to join. But once you’re in it, you’re in it for life. And it’s the strongest group of people you could ever imagine.’” To demonstrate this strength, the book oscillates between literary experiment, group therapy, and barely extant empiricism, leaving the reader sympathetic but somewhat directionless.
I would argue that if we are to engage with the trauma of sexual assault and the words of survivors—both as readers and as human beings—it is necessary to dispense with our culture’s perfunctory reverence for confession. Yes, testimony can create solidarity, but it can also isolate us. And efforts to discourage honest inquiry can be still more distancing, compounding the literal isolation of a geographic focus that does not acknowledge a harsher outside world. And yes, testimony can heal, but it can also exacerbate pain, particularly if the subject isn’t ready to talk, or if their story isn’t handled with care and expertise.
We Believe You is an ambitious book with entirely good intentions, but I do not believe it serves the interests of survivors to refrain on principle from interrogating the discourse surrounding sexual assault. As Mary Beard’s “public voice of women” has recently mutated into Bustle’s “industrialized confession,” the sudden profusion of women’s voices can be deceptively encouraging. Still, though, certain speakers and stories are privileged over others. And most troubling of all, the stories themselves are largely processed and packaged to conform to an age-old model of women’s victimhood—one that sells. |
CHP leader says Merkel offered Turkey a ‘bribe’ from EU
Rifat Başaran - SAMSUN
AA photo
Turkey’s main opposition leader has dubbed a plan between Ankara and the European Union aimed at stemming the mass movement of migrants across Europe’s borders a “bribe,” because German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered the country a chance for faster progress in its bid to join the EU in return for cooperation on the refugee issue.“Two million Syrians have come to Turkey. They have proceeded to the West in order to find a better living standard. Here is what Merkel says: ‘Let Syrians stay in Turkey. We will give you money if you keep them there.’ That’s to say, she is openly offering a bribe to Turkey. We definitely disapprove of it. Turkey is not a country where concentration camps of foreigners are built and should not be,” Republican People’s Party (CHP) head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said on Oct. 19, while en route from Ankara to the Black Sea province of Samsun.“The civil war in Syria should end, Syria should be rebuilt in a short time and Syrians should freely return to their country,” Kılıçdaroğlu added.“Now they are begging Merkel, saying, ‘Please release the progress report after the [Nov. 1 snap] elections.Why after the elections? Because there are a lot of issues such as flaws in democracy and human rights, unemployment and corruption in that report,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, in an apparent reference to the caretaker Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.EU officials have denied a link between the postponement of its annual progress report on Turkey, which was planned for Oct. 14 but delayed until an unspecified future date, and the migration action plan on curbing the flow of refugees to Europe which the commission is discussing with Turkey.During a joint press conference following his meeting with visiting Merkel on Oct. 18, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Turkey was ready to work with Germany and the EU on the migration crisis and would take all measures to prevent illegal migration. However, the prime minister noted Ankara was focused on four issues:The opening of EU negotiation chapters, visa liberalization, the transfer of 3 billion euros from the EU to Turkey for migrant support and the invitation of Turkish leaders to EU summits.“If you were a powerful and esteemed country, they would invite you [to the EU] anyhow. There wouldn’t be any need for you to demand [an invitation]. Turkey is degraded as a country which obtrusively gets itself invited. I take this to heart,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, arguing the AKP, in power since 2002, has gradually downgraded the country’s reputation.“In the past, Turkey used to be invited everywhere. Now, it is being excluded from everywhere,” he said.Kılıçdaroğlu also commented on recent remarks by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who lashed out at the opposition for criticizing his gargantuan presidential palace, dubbed the “unregistered palace,” saying they would eventually submissively visit the palace like “lambs.”“Both the main opposition party and other opposition parties tirelessly mention the ‘unregistered palace’ in the face of a president who was elected by popular vote,” Erdoğan said on Oct. 17. Challenging opposition leaders’ decision to avoid visiting the controversial palace in protest, he said, “Sooner or later you will come like lambs.”“It appears that he [Erdoğan] hands the mandate [to the CHP] like lambs. The election results [of Nov. 1] will oblige him to do so. He is trying to lay the ground for that in his own style,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.Erdoğan did not hand the CHP the mandate, hence a chance to form a coalition government, after the failure of talks with the AKP following the June 7 elections. The CHP accused him of violating the constitution. But Erdoğan has snapped back, saying he could not meet Kılıçdaroğlu because the CHP leader refused to set foot in his gigantic presidential palace that opened last year amid huge controversy. |
Image caption An audience was invited to the The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley to witness the event
A project to recreate one of Britain's pioneering computers has reached a key milestone.
The first recreated parts of the re-built Edsac machine have been switched on at The National Museum of Computing.
The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator first ran in 1949 and was created to serve scientists at Cambridge University.
Few parts and plans were left of the original which has made the job of recreating the machine a difficult one.
"We don't have blueprints to follow, so to create an authentic Edsac we have to adopt a 1940s mindset to re-engineer and redesign the machine," said Andrew Herbert, leader of the recreation effort.
Students who worked with Edsac's creators have been helping to guide the project, said Mr Herbert.
"We face the same challenges as those remarkable pioneers who succeeded in building a machine that transformed computing."
Mercury tubes
Designed by Sir Maurice Wilkes, Edsac was the first computer specifically designed to be a computational workhorse. As well as aiding scientists, the machine was copied by cake maker Lyons to create the Leo - which was one of the first widely-used business computers.
The original machine used 3,000 valves arranged in a series of racks to crunch numbers, and fills a floor space 20 square metres large.
Image copyright Cambridge University Image caption Built at Cambridge, Edsac was intended to aid scientific research
The machine is being re-built in public at TNMOC and today saw the official opening of the Edsac exhibit and the switch on of the machine's "clock" that will keep all of Edsac's parts working in harmony. Other computational units of the machine will be added and switched on as work progresses.
One element that will not be duplicated in the modern replica is the system Edsac used as its memory store.
The original used long tubes of mercury to hold data but modern-day health and safety rules do not permit these to be used in the museum. Instead, the recreators are using a memory system based on nickel that was used in many machines that came after Edsac.
The work on the recreated Edsac is due to be finished in late 2015. Once finished, TNMOC said children visiting the museum will be able to write programs to run on the venerable machine.
The project began in 2011 and initially its 20-strong team of volunteers only had photographs of the original to work from.
However, in June this year plans of the original were discovered that are now being used to check and guide the work of the Edsac rebuild team. |
The most successful employees are at risk of isolation, depression and anxiety as they increasingly use the internet to continue to work outside the office, researchers have warned.
A new study suggests workaholics are increasingly logging on after work, becoming addicted to the web and are more likely to suffer from withdrawal symptoms when they switch off.
But researchers warned the dangers are being overlooked by companies because those at the most risk are usually the most successful.
“Compulsive behaviour occurs when workers cross an invisible boundary and their internet use becomes unhealthy,” said Nada Kakabadse Professor of policy, governance and ethics at Henley School of Business.
“They spend increasing amounts of time online, waking up three times in a night to check their emails, eating patterns become irregular, relationships suffer and they become totally absorbed and feel anxious when separated from the computer.
“For overachievers it is worse and they are more likely to burn-out more quickly. They begin to lose judgement and make mistakes.”
Researchers said they had expected to find compulsive internet use among the young and the unemployed who had more time on their hands. But they were surprised to find overachievers were actually the most at risk.
The team found the working excessively was the ‘strongest predictor’ of compulsive internet use.
Co-author Dr Cristina Quinones-Garcia of Northampton Business School said: “Internet supports all areas of human interaction. However the omnipresence of this phenomenon could have double-edged sword impact on our lives.
“Those individuals who use technology to enable working beyond office hours tend to be highly successful in their jobs, but are at a high risk of developing problems.”
Researchers have called on companies to issue guidelines on safe internet use outside the workplace which educates about the dangers.
“Organisations seem to focus on the extent to which individuals lose working hours using the Internet for personal purposes,” said Dr Quinones-Garcia
“However those individuals who work long house and use technology to work outside office hours are overlooked mainly due to their success.
“We urge companies not to underestimate the risks involved in encouraging working excessively.
“It could be that higher damage to the companies comes from over-achievers who are somehow encouraged to work long hours.”
The team recruited 516 men and women aged between 18 and 65 both employed and unemployed, to complete questionnaires to measure compulsive internet usage, emotional stability, excessive work, and compulsive work and life satisfaction.
Over 60 per cent of the participants reported compulsive internet use with many using the internet as a coping strategy and exhibiting withdrawal symptoms when not online.
Individuals who report a high level of compulsive use were found to be at a high risk of suffering from isolation, depression and anxiety.
A recent poll found that British workers would rather have no heat and water than lose their Internet connection at home.
The statistics echo the findings of a study on Internet addiction published in the journal PLOS ONE, which found that when heavy Internet users are forced to go offline, they undergo withdrawal symptoms comparable to those experienced by drug addicts.
“Although we do not know exactly what Internet addiction is, our results show that around half of the young people we studied spend so much time on the net that it has negative consequences for the rest of their lives," study author Professor Phil Reed of Swansea University
A 2011 University of Cambridge study found that one in three people are overwhelmed by technology and social media. The study also found that technology-related stress was correlated with increased feelings of life dissatisfaction.
A separate study of found that three quarters of workers are now afraid to open their emails on Monday morning.
Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia found that those surveyed were mostly worried of finding among their emails some orders or commands what were sent during the weekend.
For some it grew so bad that they felt ‘paralysed’ by the volume of messages , said lead author Mare Teichmann.
“Demands have been established to be “always online”, “always ready to react”, and “ready to work” she added.
“Interruptions in non-work time, family, friends, leisure, hobbies etc. have become common and increase the level of occupational stress.”
The internet findings were presented at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology annual conference while the Talinn report is published in the journal Recent Advances in Telecommunications and Circuit Design. |
A guy named Karl started a store, and it essentially gave rise to Houston’s literary community as we know it today.
A guy named Karl started a store, and it essentially gave rise to Houston’s literary community as we know it today. It became such an essential part of the community that when he decided it was time to retire, the community didn’t want to let it go, and so they took it from there.
Hear Karl Kilian’s inspiring story, learn about his literary vision for Houston, and take a trip to the bookstore he opened in this short audio documentary.
Independent Bookstore Day happens on April 30th. To find out how Brazos Bookstore is celebrating the event, go to brazosbookstore.com. Or check out indiebookstoreday.com to find out about events everywhere.
Thanks to Matt Henneman, Ben Rybeck, and Jeanne Blanchard for their help with this piece. Thanks to WindSync for permission to use their music. Thanks to Todd Hulslander for his production work. And for just being Todd.
By the way, to learn more about Karl Kilian, check out this great article from the Houston Chronicle. |
Ever since the reveal of the PlayStation 4, Sony has placed a lot of emphasis on bringing as many games over as they can for their next generation console. One such game is Warframe, a free to play game that is being developed by Digital Extremes, the studio behind 2008’s Dark Sector.
We recently got in touch with Steve Sinclair, the Creative Director of Warframe and asked him a few questions, such as the decision to go with a co-op, free to play game in the first place. As expected it was all related to creative freedom in development.
“Independence! When we pitched the original idea it was too risky for the people we talked to. When we had freed up a few people (almost a decade later!) to work on what was next, we found ourselves coming back to those ideas we had to shelve. Free-to-play was a way we could start small and build something without taking a publishing contract and without losing creative control,” he said.
We then asked him what it was about the PS4, over the PS3, that motivated them to develop Warframe for it, to which he replied:
“PS4 is a powerful console with great connectivity and online features. It lets us bring over our high-end visuals without compromise, with the promise of pushing it even further in the future. The PS3 was a great machine and the SPUs were insanely fast if you customized your code for them – with the PS4 the power increases yet at the same time being more generalized. We got our Warframe engine up and running in just three months on PS4 – it was such a pleasant experience… with Warframe being a ‘new’ franchise, I guess it just made more sense from an intuitive level to look to future platforms,” he added.
Warframe is currently in open beta for the PC and is expected to be released on the PS4 when it’s ready. Stay tuned for our full Warframe interview sometime next week. In the meantime, share your thoughts with us in the comments section below. |
How To Create Facebook Messenger Bots
Posted by: Elan Thomas | On: 29th Aug, 2017 | Uncategorized
Creating Facebook Messenger Bots
A chat-bot synonymous known as talk-bot, chatter-bot, Bot, chatterbox, IM bot, interactive agent, or Artificial Conversational Entity) is a computer program designed to simulate a conversation with human users, especially over the Internet. Chat-bots are often integrated into the dialog system of virtual assistants to give them the ability to engaging in casual conversation unrelated to the scope of their primary expert systems. A chat-bot can be considered as a service that runs on certain rules/AI, with which you can’t interact with a chat interface(FB Messenger/Slack/Telegram/Apple iMessage).
Some of the most common use cases of chat-bots include customer support, sales, personal assistants, concierge etc.
Facebook Messenger bots: How many are there? As per Bot-list, the app store for bots, some of the bots include Trivia Blast, Complex, Operator, theScore, NBA, Hangman, Mealou, Digg, Emoji News, etc. Messenger bots provide endless possibilities and enable users to play hangman and trivia, or you can buy stuff online or seek customer support. Designed to make it easier for the users, Bots also enhances the chat experience.
The Configuration and Setup Process
In order to make things easier for you, we have simplified the whole process in a few steps as given below:
1) Create an FB page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/create
2) Create an FB app – https://developers.facebook.com/apps
3) Install & configure nodejs on your server, if it isn’t already available.
Clone the project – https://github.com/fbsamples/messenger-platform-samples
(nodejs based example).
Follow the instructions to complete the setup – https://github.com/fbsamples/messenger-platform-samples/blob/master/node/README.md
4) Once you have created your app, let’s add messenger to it. Go to the App Dashboard and under Product Settings click “Add Product” and select “Messenger.”
5) Now, link your page with the messenger and get the page access token. The below screenshot gives an idea of this:
6) Set Up webhooks
The below screenshot gives an idea of how webhooks are set up.
In the sample app, this method is defined in app.js:
app.get('/webhook', function(req, res) {
if (req.query['hub.mode'] === 'subscribe' &&
req.query['hub.verify_token'] === ) {
console.log("Validating webhook");
res.status(200).send(req.query['hub.challenge']);
} else {
console.error("Failed validation. Make sure the validation tokens match.");
res.sendStatus(403);
}
});
since FB requires a valid SSL certificate, we need to make some minor changes to the script. before we start, note the path of the SSL files on your server.
Now change the following lines:-
app.listen(app.get('port'), function() {
console.log('Node app is running on port', app.get('port'));
});
to
const fs = require('fs');
var privateKey = fs.readFileSync('path_to_key.pem');
var certificate = fs.readFileSync('path_to_cert.pem');
var certificateAuth = fs.readFileSync('path_to_ca.crt');
var credentials = {
key: privateKey,
cert: certificate,
ca: certificateAuth
};
https.createServer(credentials, app).listen(app.get('port'), function(){
console.log('Node app updated running on port', app.get('port'));
});
This allows FB to verify the SSL issued to your domain (without this change, the setup webhooks step won’t be completed) and hence its mandatory.
7) Subscribe the App to the Page
In the Web-hooks section, subscribe the web-hook for your page. The below screenshot would help you get a clearer picture of how it’s done.
8) The chatbot can now be accessed from the messenger section within your FB profile with the below-mentioned URL,
https://www.facebook.com/messages/t/{FB_PAGE_MSG_ID}
eg:- if your FB page ID is PAGENAME-119052895406724, {FB_PAGE_MSG_ID} would be 119052895406724
9) Now that the configuration is completed, let us listen for incoming messages & echo back the same to the user.
In the sample app, this method is also defined in app.js:-
function receivedMessage(event) {
var senderID = event.sender.id;
var message = event.message;
var messageText = message.text;
sendTextMessage(senderID, messageText);
}
sendTextMessage formats the data in the request:-
function sendTextMessage(recipientId, messageText) {
var messageData = {
recipient: {
id: recipientId
},
message: {
text: messageText
}
};
callSendAPI(messageData);
}
callSendAPI calls the Send API:-
function callSendAPI(messageData) {
request({
uri: 'https://graph.facebook.com/v2.6/me/messages',
qs: { access_token: PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN },
method: 'POST',
json: messageData
}, function (error, response, body) {
if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
var recipientId = body.recipient_id;
var messageId = body.message_id;
console.log("Successfully sent generic message with id %s to recipient %s", messageId, recipientId);
} else {
console.error("Unable to send message.");
console.error(response);
console.error(error);
}
});
}
11) Right now our chat-bot just echoes back whatever the user sends to it. So the next step would be to process the messages received & send back appropriate responses.
api.ai would help us out with this. You can use your Google account to sign up for a new api.ai account:-
https://console.api.ai/api-client/#/login
12) Once your account is ready, use the ‘Create Agent’ link in the dashboard. The below screenshot will give you an idea of the same.
13) Now, go to the settings section of your agent and copy the ‘Client access token’ as shown in the below screenshot.
14) Since intents & Entities form the backbone of the api.ai agent. proper manipulation of these would help in training the agent to handle different types of client queries you would expect for your business.
Since the details of these are beyond the scope of this article. please refer to the docs link for more info:- https://api.ai/docs/getting-started/basics.
15) Besides training our agent, api.ai comes with a set of predefined query/responses. Then navigate to ‘Small Talk’ section in the left menu and enable it.
This would let the agent answer the usual banter with the user (eg:- how are you?/what are you? etc).
16) Next, install the apiai package for nodejs on your server. then add the following lines to app.js –
const apiai = require('apiai');
var srv = apiai(CLIENT_ACCESS_TOKEN);
function receivedMessage(event) {
var senderID = event.sender.id;
var message = event.message;
var messageText = message.text;
var requestAPI = srv.textRequest(messageText, {
sessionId: Math.floor((Math.random() * 100000) + 1)
});
requestAPI.on('response', function(response) {
console.log(response);
//check the response type from api.ai
if(response.result.fulfillment.speech != '') {
sendTextMessage(senderID, response.result.fulfillment.speech);
} else {
sendTextMessage(senderID, "I'm sorry, could you be more specific?");
}
});
requestAPI.on('error', function(error) {
console.log(error);
sendTextMessage(senderID, "Sorry, but I just couldn't figure that out!");
});
requestAPI.end();
}
17) Now that it’s all done, you can head over to your FB Messenger and indulge in some small talk with your chat-bot.
Case Study of FB Messenger & api.ai
Now we will see how FB Messenger would provide us with the chat interface & api.ai would work as the agent to analyze the user input and generate the corresponding responses. The casual messages would be answered by the AI, for other queries, the Bot uses Google’s search API to look it up in stack-overflow & provide some suggestions (so it would be accurate only in case of technical questions, in other cases the answer might not be spot on). The level of interaction can be improved by further training the AI.
Demo
https://www.facebook.com/messages/t/armiachatbot
Click the button below to download the sample code used to create the sample above. You can use it to clone for your purpose
*Note
The chatbot would work out of FB Messenger & is linked to the FB page, so you can’t have it integrated within your website.
You would also need a domain name with SSL provided by any authorized 3rd party (Go-daddy/VeriSign etc) to set up the Messenger back-end.
Conclusion:
Chatbots are immensely used by instant messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Kik, and We-chat for marketing, customer service entertainment purposes. The bots often appear as one among the participants in a group chat or as one of the user’s contacts. Some IM bots are able to connect to outside databases and provide the users with weather reports, movie timings, driving directions, stock quotes, and other details. Renowned eateries like Domino’s, Disney, Yamato’s line, Pizza Hut, nerdify, have launched their own chat-bots to promote user engagement and to promote their services and products, making it easier for customers to order food. In the travel industry, many airlines and agencies took the aid of Messenger and introduced chat-bot services. Using AI, Aeromexico’s sold tickets and answered questions and both KLM’s and Aeroméxico’s provided flight status updates, allowing users to check in for flights, provided hotel recommendations, recreational activities and deliver mobile boarding passes. China is one of the countries who has been providing services via We-chat.
If you want the code sample used to create the bot above, then you can get it for free to start your own or bot or we could design something for you.
You can get in touch with us for more information @ https://www.armia.com |
"Hohenzollern" redirects here. For other uses, see Hohenzollern (disambiguation)
The House of Hohenzollern [ˈhoːəntsɔlɐn] is a German dynasty of former princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire, and Romania. The family arose in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the 11th century and took their name from Hohenzollern Castle.[1] The first ancestors of the Hohenzollerns were mentioned in 1061.
The Hohenzollern family split into two branches, the Catholic Swabian branch and the Protestant Franconian branch,[2] which later became the Brandenburg-Prussian branch. The Swabian branch ruled the principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen until 1849, and also ruled Romania from 1866 to 1947. Members of the Franconian branch became Margrave of Brandenburg in 1415 and Duke of Prussia in 1525.
The Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia were ruled in personal union after 1618 and were called Brandenburg-Prussia. The Kingdom of Prussia was created in 1701, eventually leading to the unification of Germany and the creation of the German Empire in 1871, with the Hohenzollerns as hereditary German Emperors and Kings of Prussia.
Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 led to the German Revolution. The Hohenzollerns were overthrown and the Weimar Republic was established, thus bringing an end to the German monarchy. Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is the current head of the royal Prussian line, while Karl Friedrich, Prince of Hohenzollern is the head of the princely Swabian line.[2]
County of Zollern [ edit ]
Zollern, from 1218 Hohenzollern, was a county of the Holy Roman Empire. Later its capital was Hechingen.
The Hohenzollerns named their estates after Hohenzollern Castle in the Swabian Alps. The Hohenzollern Castle lies on an 855 meters high mountain called Hohenzollern. It still belongs to the family today.
The dynasty was first mentioned in 1061. According to the medieval chronicler Berthold of Reichenau, Burkhard I, Count of Zollern (de Zolorin) was born before 1025 and died in 1061.[3]
In 1095 Count Adalbert of Zollern founded the Benedictine monastery of Alpirsbach, situated in the Black Forest.
The Zollerns received the comital title from Emperor Henry V in 1111.[4]
As loyal vassals of the Swabian Hohenstaufen dynasty, they were able to significantly enlarge their territory. Count Frederick III (c. 1139 – c. 1200) accompanied Emperor Frederick Barbarossa against Henry the Lion in 1180, and through his marriage was granted the Burgraviate of Nuremberg by Emperor Henry VI in 1192. In about 1185 he married Sophia of Raabs, the daughter of Conrad II, Burgrave of Nuremberg.[2] After the death of Conrad II who left no male heirs, Frederick III was granted Nuremberg as Burgrave Frederick I.
In 1218 the burgraviate passed to Frederick's elder son Conrad I, he thereby became the ancestor of the Franconian Hohenzollern branch, which acquired the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1415.[2]
Counts of Zollern (1061–1204) [ edit ]
After Frederick's death, his sons partitioned the family lands between themselves:
Conrad I received the county of Zollern and exchanged it for the burgraviate of Nuremberg with his younger brother Frederick IV in 1218, thereby founding the Franconian branch of the House of Hohenzollern. Members of the Franconian line eventually became the Brandenburg-Prussia branch. The Franconian line later converted to Protestantism.
Frederick IV received the burgraviate of Nuremberg in 1200 from his father and exchanged it for the county of Zollern in 1218 with his brother, thereby founding the Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern. The Swabian line remains Catholic.[2]
Franconian branch [ edit ]
The senior Franconian branch of the House of Hohenzollern was founded by Conrad I, Burgrave of Nuremberg (1186–1261).
The family supported the Hohenstaufen and Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire during the 12th to 15th centuries, being rewarded with several territorial grants. Beginning in the 16th century, this branch of the family became Protestant and decided on expansion through marriage and the purchase of surrounding lands.
In the first phase, the family gradually added to their lands, at first with many small acquisitions in the Franconian region of Germany:
Ansbach in 1331
Kulmbach in 1340
In the second phase, the family expanded their lands further with large acquisitions in the Brandenburg and Prussian regions of Germany and current Poland:
These acquisitions eventually transformed the Franconian Hohenzollerns from a minor German princely family into one of the most important dynasties in Europe.
Burgraves of Nuremberg (1192–1427) [ edit ]
Region of Nuremberg, Ansbach, Kulmbach and Bayreuth ( Franconia
At Frederick V's death on 21 January 1398, his lands were partitioned between his two sons:
After John III/I's death on 11 June 1420, the margraviates of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach were briefly reunited under Frederick VI/I/I. He ruled the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Ansbach after 1398. From 1420, he became Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. From 1411 Frederick VI became governor of Brandenburg and later Elector and Margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I. Upon his death on 21 September 1440, his territories were divided among his sons:
In 1427 Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg sold Nuremberg Castle and his rights as burgrave to the Imperial City of Nuremberg. The territories of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach remained possessions of the family, once parts of the Burgraviate of Nuremberg.
Nuremberg Castle (The Emperor's castle, left, and the Burgrave's castle, right)
Cadolzburg Castle near Nuremberg (from 1260 seat of the Burgraves)
Heilsbronn Abbey, which the Hohenzollerns used as the family burial place.
Margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1398–1791) [ edit ]
On 2 December 1791, Christian II Frederick sold the sovereignty of his principalities to King Frederick William II of Prussia.
Margraves of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1398–1604), later Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1604–1791) [ edit ]
On 2 December 1791, Charles Alexander sold the sovereignty of his principalities to King Frederick William II of Prussia.
From 8 January 1701 the title of Elector of Brandenburg was attached to the title of King in Prussia and, from 13 September 1772, to that of King of Prussia.
Dukes of Jägerndorf (1523–1622) [ edit ]
The Duchy of Jägerndorf (Krnov) was purchased in 1523.
The duchy of Jägerndorf was confiscated by Emperor Ferdinand III in 1622.
Brandenburg-Prussian branch [ edit ]
Margraves of Brandenburg (1415–1619) [ edit ]
In 1411 Frederick VI, Burgrave of Nuremberg was appointed governor of Brandenburg in order to restore order and stability. At the Council of Constance in 1415, King Sigismund elevated Frederick to the rank of Elector and Margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I.
Margraves of Brandenburg-Küstrin (1535–1571) [ edit ]
The short-lived Margraviate of Brandenburg-Küstrin was set up as a secundogeniture of the House of Hohenzollern.
1535–1571: John the Wise, Margrave of Brandenburg-Küstrin (son of Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg. He died without issue. The Margraviate of Brandenburg-Küstrin was absorbed in 1571 into Brandenburg]].
Margraves of Brandenburg-Schwedt (1688–1788) [ edit ]
Although recognised as a branch of the dynasty since 1688, the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Schwedt remained subordinate to the electors, and was never an independent principality.
Dukes of Prussia (1525–1701) [ edit ]
In 1525 the Duchy of Prussia was established as a fief of the King of Poland. Albert of Prussia was the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and the first Duke of Prussia. He belonged to the Ansbach branch of the dynasty. The Duchy of Prussia adopted Protestantism as the official state religion.
From 1701 the title of Duke of Prussia was attached to the title of King in and of Prussia.
Kings in Prussia (1701–1772) [ edit ]
In 1701 the title of King in Prussia was granted, without the Duchy of Prussia being elevated to a Kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire. From 1701 onwards the titles of Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title of King in Prussia. The Duke of Prussia adopted the title of king as Frederick I, establishing his status as a monarch whose royal territory lay outside the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, with the assent of Emperor Leopold I: Frederick could not be "King of Prussia" because part of Prussia's lands were under the suzerainty of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. In the age of absolutism, most monarchs were obsessed with the desire to emulate Louis XIV of France with his luxurious palace at Versailles.
In 1772 the Duchy of Prussia was elevated to a kingdom.
Kings of Prussia (1772–1918) [ edit ]
Expansion of Prussia 1807–1871
Frederick William's successor, Frederick the Great gained Silesia in the Silesian Wars so that Prussia emerged as a great power. The king was strongly influenced by French culture and civilization and preferred the French language.
In 1772 the title King of Prussia was assumed. From 1772 onwards the titles of Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title King of Prussia.
In 1871 the Kingdom of Prussia became a constituent member of the German Empire.
German Emperors (1871–1918) [ edit ]
Prussia in the German Empire 1871–1918
In 1871 the German Empire was proclaimed. With the accession of William I to the newly established imperial German throne, the titles of King of Prussia, Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title of German Emperor.
Prussia's Minister President Otto von Bismarck convinced William that German Emperor instead of Emperor of Germany would be appropriate. He became primus inter pares among other German sovereigns.
William II intended to develop a German navy capable of challenging Britain's Royal Navy. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 set off the chain of events that led to World War I. As a result of the war, the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires ceased to exist.
In 1918 the German empire was abolished and replaced by the Weimar Republic. After the outbreak of the German revolution in 1918, both Emperor Wilhelm II and Crown Prince Wilhelm signed the document of abdication.
Brandenburg-Prussian branch since 1918 abdication [ edit ]
Georg Friedrich, the head of the Prussian Hohenzollerns and his wife
In June 1926, a referendum on expropriating the formerly ruling princes of Germany without compensation failed and as a consequence, the financial situation of the Hohenzollern family improved considerably. A settlement between the state and the family made Cecilienhof property of the state but granted a right of residence to Crown Prince Wilhelm and his wife Cecilie. The family also kept the ownership of Monbijou Palace in Berlin, Oleśnica Castle in Silesia, Rheinsberg Palace, Schwedt Palace and other property until 1945.
Since the abolition of the German monarchy, no Hohenzollern claims to imperial or royal prerogatives are recognised by Germany's Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany of 1949, which guarantees a republic.
The communist government of the Soviet occupation zone depropriated all landowners and industrialists; the House of Hohenzollern lost almost all of its fortune, retaining a few company shares and Hohenzollern Castle in West Germany. The Polish government appropriated the Silesian property and the Dutch government seized Huis Doorn, the Emperor's seat in exile.
After German reunification however, the family was legally able to re-claim their portable property, namely art collections and parts of the interior of their former palaces. Negotiations on the return of or compensation for these assets are not yet completed.
Berlin's Old City Palace is being rebuilt and is scheduled to open in 2019. The Berlin Palace and the Humboldt Forum are located in the middle of Berlin.
Order of succession [ edit ]
The head of the house is the titular King of Prussia and German Emperor. He also bears a historical claim to the title of Prince of Orange. Members of this line style themselves princes of Prussia.
Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, the current head of the royal Prussian House of Hohenzollern, was married to Princess Sophie of Isenburg on 27 August 2011. On 20 January 2013, she gave birth to twin sons, Carl Friedrich Franz Alexander and Louis Ferdinand Christian Albrecht, in Bremen. Carl Friedrich, the elder of the two, is the heir apparent.[6]
Royal House of Hohenzollern table [ edit ]
Table of the Royal Brandenburg-Prussian House of Hohenzollern
Swabian branch [ edit ]
Combined coat of arms of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1849).
The cadet Swabian[7] branch of the House of Hohenzollern was founded by Frederick IV, Count of Zollern. The family ruled three territories with seats at, respectively, Hechingen, Sigmaringen and Haigerloch. The counts were elevated to princes in 1623. The Swabian branch of the Hohenzollerns is Roman Catholic.
Affected by economic problems and internal feuds, the Hohenzollern counts from the 14th century onwards came under pressure by their neighbors, the Counts of Württemberg and the cities of the Swabian League, whose troops besieged and finally destroyed Hohenzollern Castle in 1423. Nevertheless, the Hohenzollerns retained their estates, backed by their Brandenburg cousins and the Imperial House of Habsburg. In 1535, Count Charles I of Hohenzollern (1512–1576) received the counties of Sigmaringen and Veringen as Imperial fiefs.[2]
In 1576, when Charles I, Count of Hohenzollern died, his county was divided to form the three Swabian branches. Eitel Frederick IV took Hohenzollern with the title of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Karl II took Sigmaringen and Veringen, and Christopher got Haigerloch. Christopher's family died out in 1634.
In 1695, the remaining two Swabian branches entered into an agreement with the Margrave of Brandenburg which provided that if both branches became extinct, the principalities should fall to Brandenburg. Because of the Revolutions of 1848, Constantine, Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen abdicated their thrones in December 1849. The principalities were ruled by the Kings of Prussia from December 1849 onward, with the Hechingen and Sigmaringen branches obtaining official treatment as cadets of the Prussian royal family.
The Hohenzollern-Hechingen branch became extinct in 1869. A descendent of this branch was Countess Sophie Chotek, morganatic wife of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este.
Counts of Hohenzollern (1204–1575) [ edit ]
Hohenzollern region, in present-day Baden-Württemberg Germany (red color) and their Prussian cousins' kingdom (light beige)
In 1204, the County of Hohenzollern was established out of the fusion of the County of Zollern and the Burgraviate of Nuremberg. The Swabian branch inherited the county of Zollern and, being descended from Frederick I of Nuremberg, were all named "Friedrich" down through the 11th generation.[8] Each one's numeral is counted from the first Friedrich to rule his branch's appanage.[8]
The most senior of these in the 12th century, Count Frederick VIII (d. 1333), had two sons, the elder of whom became Frederick IX (d. 1379), first Count of Hohenzollern, and fathered Friedrich X who left no sons when he died in 1412.[8]
But the younger son of Friedrich VIII, called Friedrich of Strassburg, uniquely, took no numeral of his own, retaining the old title "Count of Zollern" and pre-deceased his brother in 1364/65.[8] Prince Wilhelm Karl zu Isenburg's 1957 genealogical series, Europäische Stammtafeln, says Friedrich of Strassburg shared, rather, in the rule of Zollern with his elder brother until his premature death.[8]
It appears, but is not stated, that Strassburg's son became the recognized co-ruler of his cousin Friedrich X (as compensation for having received no appanage and/or because of incapacity on the part of Friedrich X) and, as such, assumed (or is, historically, attributed) the designation Frederick XI although he actually pre-deceased Friedrich X, dying in 1401.
Friedrich XI, however, left two sons who jointly succeeded their cousin-once-removed, being Count Frederick XII (d. childless 1443) and Count Eitel Friedrich I (d. 1439), the latter becoming the ancestor of all subsequent branches of the Princes of Hohenzollern.[8]
In the 12th century, a son of Frederick I secured the county of Hohenberg. The county remained in the possession of the family until 1486.
The influence of the Swabian line was weakened by several partitions of its lands. In the 16th century, the situation changed completely when Eitel Frederick II, a friend and adviser of the emperor Maximilian I, received the district of Haigerloch. His grandson Charles I was granted the counties of Sigmaringen and Vehringen by Charles V.
Counts, later Princes of Hohenzollern-Hechingen (1576–1849) [ edit ]
Stetten Abbey church in Hechingen , the burial place of the Swabian line
The County of Hohenzollern-Hechingen was established in 1576 with allodial rights. It included the original County of Zollern, with the Hohenzollern Castle and the monastery at Stetten.
In December 1849, the ruling princes of both Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen abdicated their thrones, and their principalities were incorporated as the Prussian province of Hohenzollern.[2] The Hechingen branch became extinct in dynastic line with Konstantin's death in 1869.
Counts of Hohenzollern-Haigerloch (1576–1634 and 1681–1767) [ edit ]
The County of Hohenzollern-Haigerloch was established in 1576 without allodial rights.
Between 1634 and 1681, the county was temporarily integrated into the principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Upon the death of Francis Christopher Anton in 1767, the Haigerloch territory was incorporated into the principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Counts, later Princes of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1576–1849) [ edit ]
Sigmaringen Castle
The County of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was established in 1576 with allodial rights and a seat at Sigmaringen Castle.
In December 1849, sovereignty over the principality was yielded to the Franconian branch of the family and incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia, which accorded status as cadets of the Prussian Royal Family to the Swabian Hohenzollerns. The last ruling Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Karl Anton, would later serve as Minister President of Prussia between 1858 and 1862.
House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen after 1849 [ edit ]
Map of the Province of Hohenzollern , a de facto province of Prussia after 1850.
The family continued to use the title of Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. After the Hechingen branch became extinct in 1869, the Sigmaringen branch adopted title of Prince of Hohenzollern.
In 1866, Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was chosen prince of Romania, becoming King Carol I of Romania in 1881.
Charles's elder brother, Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, was offered the Spanish throne after a revolt exiled Isabella II in 1870. Although encouraged by Bismarck to accept, Leopold declined in the face of French opposition. Nonetheless, Bismarck altered and then published the Ems telegram to create a casus belli: France declared war, but Bismarck's Germany won the Franco-Prussian War.
The head of the Sigmaringen branch (the only extant line of the Swabian branch of the dynasty) is Karl Friedrich, styled His Serene Highness The Prince of Hohenzollern. His official seat is Sigmaringen Castle.[2]
Kings of the Romanians [ edit ]
Reigning (1866–1947) [ edit ]
Romanian territory.
The Principality of Romania was established in 1862, after the Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia had been united in 1859 under Alexandru Ioan Cuza as Prince of Romania in a personal union. He was deposed in 1866 by the Romanian parliament.
Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was invited to become reigning Prince of Romania in 1866. In 1881 he became Carol I, King of the Romanians. Carol I had an only daughter who died young, so the younger son of his brother Leopold, Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, would succeed his uncle as King of the Romanians in 1914, and his descendants, having converted to the Orthodox Church, continued to reign there until the end of the monarchy in 1947.
Succession since 1947 [ edit ]
In 1947 the Kingdom of Romania was abolished and replaced with the People's Republic of Romania. Michael did not press his claim to the defunct Romanian throne and although he was welcomed back to the country after half a century in exile as a private citizen, with substantial former royal properties being placed at his disposal. However, his dynastic claim was not recognised by post-Communist Romanians.
On 10 May 2011, Michael severed the dynastic ties between the House of Romania and the House of Hohenzollern.[9] After that the branch of the Hohenzollerns was dynastically represented only by the last king Michael, and his daughters. Having no sons, he declared that his dynastic heir, instead of being a male member of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen princely family to which he belongs patrilineally and in accordance with the last Romanian monarchical constitution, should be his eldest daughter Margareta.[10]
The royal house is still very popular[11] and in 2014 Prime Minister Victor Ponta promised a referendum on whether or not to reinstate the monarchy if he were re-elected.[12]
Residences [ edit ]
Palaces of the Prussian Hohenzollerns [ edit ]
Palaces of the Franconian branches [ edit ]
Palaces of the Swabian Hohenzollerns [ edit ]
Coats of arms [ edit ]
Members of the family after abdication [ edit ]
Royal Prussian branch [ edit ]
Princely Swabian branch [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ] |
The Last Jedi has only just premiered in theaters—but those Star Wars lovers eager to know what comes next have a little wait in store before the thrilling conclusion of the latest Skywalker saga. Here’s a roundup of every little thing we know about Episode IX, but be careful. There are, as you might expect, The Last Jedi spoilers galore in the article below. So if you’ve seen the new film and are eager to know what comes next, read on. If not, come back once you’re ready to peer into the future of what will happen in that galaxy far, far away.
WHAT IS THE NEXT MOVIE CALLED?
For now? Simply Episode IX.
WHEN WILL THE SCRIPTS BE DONE?
The Last Jedi started filming only a few months after The Force Awakens was released, meaning that Rian Johnson had his script mostly finished before Episode VII even hit theaters. But the process for Episode IX has been much more fraught. In the wake of Carrie Fisher’s death, Kathleen Kennedy said that Lucasfilm had gone back to the drawing board in order to grapple with Leia’s absence from the franchise. The scripting process was started again after the rather late-in-the-game departure of director Colin Trevorrow in September. The film’s new director, J.J. Abrams, and screenwriter Chris Terrio (Batman v Superman, Justice League) have reportedly been working on a script ever since.
WHEN DOES IT START FILMING, AND WHEN WILL IT BE RELEASED?
With all the behind-the-scenes shuffling, filming on Episode IX has been pushed back to June 2018. The release date has also been pushed back from May to December 20, 2019.
ARE LUKE AND LEIA IN EPISODE IX?
Kennedy has said definitively that Leia is not in Episode IX, and that The Last Jedi gave the character a final send-off. But the door for Luke to reappear in ghost form seems open, doesn’t it?
HOW SOON AFTER THE LAST JEDI WILL EPISODE IX TAKE PLACE?
We don’t know anything definitive yet, but there’s a popular theory that there will be at least some kind of time jump between the two movies. The Last Jedi picks up exactly where The Force Awakens left off—but going back to the original trilogy, six months elapse between The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. We could be looking at a similar gap here. That would be enough time for both the dark side and the light to lick their wounds and regroup for a final showdown. It also leaves time for Fisher’s character to peacefully pass away between films.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE NEXT MOVIE?
Well, since the scripts aren’t done yet, we obviously don’t have a conclusive answer there. But we can expect this potentially to be the concluding chapter in the Skywalker saga. With Luke and Leia gone (in a way), there’s nobody living who still bears the Skywalker name—though Ben Solo certainly has some of their blood. But I’d be extremely surprised if Kylo Ren survives the final installment—and with Rey confirmed to not be part of the Chosen One family, it might be time for the Skywalker legacy to end. Kennedy recently told The Independent: “Whether or not we carry on the Skywalker saga, you know, George [Lucas] always intended nine movies, and whether we continue that or not is something we’re talking about right now.”
But even if this is curtains for the Skywalkers, that doesn’t mean Episode IX will be the end for all the new characters you’ve come to know and love. “We’re sitting down now, we’re talking about the next 10 years of Star Wars stories, and we’re looking at, narratively, where that might go,” Kennedy said last month. That could mean “future stories beyond Episode IX with these new characters—Rey, Poe, Finn, BB-8—but we’re also looking at working with people who are interested in coming into the Star Wars world and taking us places we haven’t been yet. That’s exciting, too, because it’s a vast galaxy far, far away.”
WHICH MYSTERIES WILL BE SOLVED?
It seems like most of the big questions raised by this trilogy are already answered. Rey’s parents, we learn in The Last Jedi, are nobody junkers from Jakku. This doesn’t feel like a fake-out bait and switch—her being “nobody” feels vital to this chapter in the Star Wars legacy. I don’t anticipate Abrams undoing that story beat from Johnson’s script. We also know what happened with Luke and Ben all those years ago and, as it turns out, Snoke’s backstory is completely inconsequential. So even though Abrams has a reputation for “mystery-box” reveals, I don’t think there’s much to be solved in Episode IX—which is something of a relief, and leaves the field wide open for Rey and Kylo to play out their dysfunctional connection.
WHO WILL BE THE BIG BAD?
With Snoke officially out of the way, it looks like Kylo Ren will be the main villain of the final chapter of this Star Wars trilogy. That’s an incredibly exciting prospect because, as compelling as Emperor Palpatine could be, we have never had such a human and deliciously ambiguous “evil” running the dark side of the Star Wars board. We can assume there will be a final battle between Rey and Kylo, and that it will be infused with all the backstory and tension built up between them in episodes VII and VIII. We can also assume Rey’s struggle with the dark side was pretty well conquered in this film. Her refutation of Kylo’s offer felt as firm as can be.
WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE LIGHTSABER?
Episode VIII ends with the blue Skywalker lightsaber—which was first Anakin’s, and then Luke’s—snapped in half, thanks to a Force-enhanced game of tug-of-war between Rey and Kylo Ren. So what, if anything, will Rey use as a weapon to aid the Resistance in Episode IX? There are a few options. The simplest would be her reconstructing the blue saber. The ritual of constructing one’s own lightsaber was once an integral part of Jedi training: when Luke loses the blue weapon at the end of Empire, he builds a green one as part of his journey towards becoming a Jedi Master. Kylo built his red cross-hilt weapon himself as well. Rey doesn’t necessarily know how to build a weapon (and it’s a complicated process involving those kyber crystals we heard so much about in Rogue One), but she’s handy enough and could always get help from a Force ghost or two.
There’s also the question of that green lightsaber. Presumably, Luke abandoned it in the rubble after he and Kylo Ren fought. Could Rey go looking for it in the ruins? Lucasfilm Story Group creative executive Pablo Hidalgo told Vanity Fair that we might see that green lightsaber again: “We take to heart the lesson that Obi-Wan tried to impart to Anakin: ‘This weapon is your life.’ We’re not ones to lose track of lightsabers.”
HOW MANY RESISTANCE FIGHTERS ARE LEFT?
The already-dwindling Resistance is downright decimated by the end of The Last Jedi. Are there, what, only 12 of them left? Not quite. We know Leia sent out a beacon asking for help, and thanks to the Star Wars The Last Jedi the Visual Dictionary, we also know that a number of Resistance pilots from The Force Awakens (including Snap Wexley, played by frequent Abrams collaborator Greg Grunberg), have been “scattered to other evacuation points” or “assigned to other missions”. In other words, it’s not just up to that skeleton crew on the Millennium Falcon to save the day.
SO IS REY THE LAST JEDI, THEN?
Rey will have her hands full either piloting the Falcon, building a new saber, chatting with ghosts, taking down Kylo, or all of the above. But the final moment of The Last Jedi shows a tantalizing shot of that kid with a broom staring up at the stars. (According to Star Wars The Last Jedi the Visual Dictionary, that kid has a name: Temiri Blagg.) We see he has some Force sensitivity, and he’s wielding that broom like a saber. There’s a possibility that Rey could take on a padawan of her own—she did squirrel those Jedi texts away on board the Falcon. Is Rey ready to go from student to master in Episode IX?
Get Vanity Fair’s HWD Newsletter Sign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood. E-mail Address Subscribe |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team earlier this month as part of its Russia probe, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the meeting.
White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner attends bilateral meetings held by U.S. President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn was the prime topic of the conversation between Kushner and Mueller’s team, CNN said, citing one of the sources.
Flynn, who resigned in February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with a Russian diplomat, is under investigation by Mueller’s team, which is looking into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in last year’s presidential election.
The nature of the questioning was principally to make sure Kushner did not have information that exonerated Flynn, CNN said, citing one source.
Kushner spoke with Mueller’s team for less than 90 minutes, CNN said.
“Mr. Kushner has voluntarily cooperated with all relevant inquiries and will continue to do so,” Abbe Lowell, Kushner’s lawyer, told Reuters.
Lawyers for Flynn have halted communications with Trump’s legal team, a potentially critical step in Mueller’s probe, sources familiar with the investigation said on Friday.
Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, called John Dowd, Trump’s private lawyer, last week to say the matter had reached a point where the two could no longer could discuss it, two people familiar with the call told Reuters.
It was not clear whether Kelner made the call because he had negotiated a plea agreement with Mueller for Flynn to cooperate in the probe, or because Flynn had decided to engage with Mueller, said two other sources.
The probe has dogged the White House since January, when U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her.
Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election and Trump has said there was no collusion. |
Thousands of lives at risk; rail system could be susceptible to catastrophic hack attacks using the vulnerability in the new rail traffic system
It is a well known fact that any ‘smart’ device can be hacked and every technology has some kind of vulnerability. This is can mean damage and loss of personal information in case of smartphones and PC but when there is a vulnerability in a high-tech train signalling system and it gets hacked, that potentially means a crash and 1000s of human casualties.
A new hi-tech railway signalling system being tested in the United Kingdom could potentially be hacked by cyber criminals to cause oncoming trains to crash into one another at high speeds, Prof David Stupples has warned. His warning comes at a time when the United Kingdom is looking to replace its ageing and old signalling system and is looking to test the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS).
Internet security expert Professor David Stupple told the BBC that plans to replace old railway signal lights with new digital systems could expose the railway network to cyber attack, Prof Stupples believes a hack can cause a “nasty accident” or “major disruption”accident” to involving terrorists and cyber criminals as they could “easily expose the new mainframe.”
“It’s the clever malware that actually alters the way the train will respond,” Stupple said. “So, it will perhaps tell the system the train is slowing down, when [it is] speeding up.”
Commenting on the issue, Piers Wilson, Product Manager of Huntsman Security said that;
“it will be critical for Network Rail to react quickly and effectively when necessary to prevent damage or the harmful effects of faults that are introduced into train control and signalling systems. The challenge will be spotting that the attack has actually happened before the effects (in the real world) are apparent.”
BBC has reported that rail operator, Network Rail, which is in charge of the upgrade has acknowledged the threat. “We know that the risk [of a cyber-attack] will increase as we continue to roll out digital technology across the network,” the Network Rail spokesman told the BBC.
“We work closely with government, the security services, our partners and suppliers in the rail industry and external cybersecurity specialists to understand the threat to our systems and make sure we have the right controls in place.”
The ERTMS which is currently in testing phase will replace the old and ageing signalling system in UK’s busy intercity routes by 2020. Once set up, the ERTMS will control complete rail networking including the speed of trains and their braking times.
The ERTMS is already in use in some parts of Europe and there are no reports of it being hacked or taken over by terrorist thus far.
Professor Stupples, who is an expert in networked electronic and radio systems at City University in London, however is not so sure.“It’s the clever malware that actually alters the way the train will respond,” he explained. “So, it will perhaps tell the system the train is slowing down, when it’s speeding up.” |
In a new study conducted by researchers tasked with studying of the root causes and consequences of terrorism in the U.S. and abroad, the sovereign citizen movement was perceived to be the gravest terrorist threat, rivaling Islamist extremists and militia/patriot groups.
According to National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism —better known as START— sovereign citizens were the top concern of law enforcement, even as a belief that some domestic groups including the KKK, Christian Identity, and neo-Nazis represent less of an actual terrorist threat when compared to a previous study.
The report, complied by START researchers David Carter, Steven Chermak, Jeremy Carter and Jack Drew, is drawn from surveys with more than 364 officers representing 175 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies. Those surveys asked respondents to to gauge their perception on the threat of terrorism, the nature of information-sharing, and their belief as to whether their agencies are prepared to deal with terrorist attacks.
In the report, found here (.pdf), researchers write: “…there is wide variation about what groups are perceived to be a serious terrorist threat. Law enforcement is much more concerned about sovereign citizens, Islamic extremists, and militia/patriot group members compared to the fringe groups of the far right, including Christian Identity believers, reconstructed traditionalists (i.e., Odinists), idiosyncratic sectarians (i.e.,survivalists), and members of doomsday cults.”
Noting that, in the 2006-07 survey, law enforcement’s top concern was Islamic extremists, the report goes on, “The change is interesting as there was significant concern about the resurgence of the radical far right (as evidenced by the 2006 – 07 survey, as well as additional concerns raised after the 2008 election of President Barack Obama), but it appears as though law enforcement is, at present, less concerned about these groups.”
The report adds, “Such changing perceptions about what is a serious terrorist threat is an important finding because identifying and prioritizing a threat is akin to hitting a moving target and evolves as new intelligence, data, and events develop.”
START, which was funded with an initial $12 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate and receives additional funding and support from a variety of Federal agencies, private foundations, and universities. |
Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis discussed his support of Democrat Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Jonesy’s Jukebox earlier this week.
“This cat Bernie Sanders stood out as being honest and likable, and actually human, a human being who cared about other human beings. So right away, we said if we ever get a chance to play a benefit for this guy, we’ll do it. If he’s real, and he makes it that far, we’ll play a show for him. Low and behold, 9 months go by, he needs us to play, so we’re there for him.”
We offered to pay for the rent of the hotel, and Bernie would not accept, he said, ‘No, I can’t take your money. That’s not how I work, I’m not taking those size contributions from any groups or organizations. If I get the nomination, you are able to donate up to $2,700.’ [That is] very unpolitical like of him.
“He’s cute. He’s old and cute.”
“I think in this case I like the dude better. God bless the whole Clinton family. Bill, I like a lot, but I prefer Bernie to Hilary.”
Red Hot Chili Peppers have joined the effort to help elect Bernie Sanders to the presidency. The Los Angeles-based alternative rockers will headline an all-ages show at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Friday, February 5, as part of a FEEL THE BERN political fundraiser. Ticket sales will go toward Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. Click here for tickets.
Tickets to see Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Theatre at Ace Hotel will go on sale Friday, February 5, at 10:00 a.m. for $30.00 to $2,700.00 each plus service fees. Also, there is a presale right now for those of you who want to get your tickets early. Passwords: BERNIE and RCHP.
Drummer Chad Smith recently revealed that Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded a new song in just 4 hours a few days ago. |
RICHMOND, Sept. 20 -- The former director of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and two other former department employees have been charged with misusing state money, according to indictments unsealed Thursday.
The indictments, handed up Sept. 12 by a grand jury in Richmond Circuit Court, follow several investigations into a department that has faced years of accusations of improper spending, questionable travel expenses and retaliation against whistle-blowing employees. Such public corruption indictments are rare in Virginia government.
"These indictments by the grand jury reflect the Commonwealth's continuing commitment to thoroughly investigate the prior financial activities" at the department, Chief Deputy Attorney General William C. Mims said in a statement.
Few details were available about the allegations, which center on former director William L. Woodfin Jr., Terry C. Bradbery, former chief of the agency's law enforcement division, and Michael G. Caison, former assistant chief of the division. The 500-employee department is responsible for the management of inland fisheries, wildlife and recreational boating.
A previously released state audit in 2005 revealed that the three spent more than $11,000 of state money on hunting gear for an African safari. The money has since been repaid.
State Internal Auditor John A. Spooner called the allegations in the audit among the most serious in recent history in Virginia, which has a national reputation as a well-run state.
Spooner, who was hired after the 2005 audit was conducted, said the case is high-profile because it involves department leaders and a substantial amount of money.
After the audit, the department underwent several changes so that state officials would have more control over money, equipment and travel. The attorney general's office also plans to propose legislation during next year's General Assembly session to help safeguard state money.
Woodfin and the agency's former board chairman, Dan Hoffler, a wealthy Virginia Beach developer, resigned in 2005 after the 50-page audit accused department officials of waste, cronyism, misuse of state property and employee retaliation.
Woodfin, Hoffler, Bradbery and Caison went on a two-week African safari in September 2004.
Hoffler paid for the trip, but the audit questioned the purchases made for the trip, totaling $11,532, which were charged to state credit cards.
Hoffler said in a statement Thursday that he was "extremely disappointed" to learn about the indictments, adding: "I have personally cooperated with the Attorney General's investigation and will continue to provide any information they may require. I sincerely hope this does not tarnish the reputation of the department, which is without question one of the best in the nation." |
The NRL today confirmed that the Parramatta Eels will be docked 12 competition points and fined $1 million for breaches of the salary cap dating back to 2013.
In addition, the NRL has cancelled the registration of five officials at the club.
CEO Todd Greenberg said that he had carefully considered the responses from the Parramatta club and five officials to the breach notices issued on May 3.
"While each made points worthy of consideration, there was insufficient information in those responses to warrant any change to the penalties originally proposed in the breach notices," Mr Greenberg said.
"The overall impression that I got from the responses is that no one at the club has taken responsibility for the deliberate, systemic and blatant breaches of the salary cap.
"We have to take a stand to demonstrate that the NRL will not tolerate contraventions of the salary cap which plays such a crucial role in giving us one of the closest competitions in Australian sport."
The NRL has imposed the following penalties:
- The Parramatta Eels will be docked 12 competition points from today. In addition, all differential points (for and against) accumulated by the Eels in the first nine rounds will be revoked
- The club will be fined the maximum penalty of $1 million.
- Five club officials - Chairman Steve Sharp, Deputy Chairman Tom Issa, Director Peter Serrao, CEO John Boulous and Football Manager Daniel Anderson – have had their registrations cancelled.
- The Eels will be stripped of its Auckland Nines title won earlier this year. There will be no official winner for 2016.
Mr Greenberg said he could not be more sympathetic for Eels fans, coach Brad Arthur and especially the players who have performed so well in difficult circumstances this year.
"But we have to take a strong stand to preserve the integrity of the salary cap and the competition," he said.
"We would hope that, in the long term, this will help make the club stronger and ensure there is no repeat of the salary cap breaches which have plagued the club over the last six years.
"The Parramatta club now has one of the biggest decisions it has ever had to make in its 69 year history.
"It can appeal the decision, which is its right, or it can accept this decision and turn Parramatta into the powerhouse club it should be.
"It is my view that it is time for the club to move on and do the right thing by Brad Arthur, the players and the fans."
Mr Greenberg said the review had taken longer than originally expected because it affected the livelihoods and reputations of people in the game.
In particular, the NRL did not take lightly its decision to de-register a club legend like Steve Sharp who had been a long time member of the Parramatta family.
Mr Greenberg said that, with this phase of the investigation completed, the NRL will now focus on improving the governance and operations of the Parramatta club.
He said the NRL was ready to provide any resources and expertise needed by the club.
"We have not intervened in the running of the club during this investigation because our priority was to give everyone involved a fair hearing," Mr Greenberg said.
"But it is imperative that we help rebuild the club so it has a strong Board and strong management into the future.
"We note that there are currently several proposals for extraordinary general meetings at the club and we would urge members to support a Board and management group which is focussed on making the Eels a strong, successful team.
"The time for in-fighting and factionalism is over.
"The members have a chance to clear the decks and rebuild the club and we will be encouraging them to do so." |
My friend Michael Whitney is one of the best feminists and funniest people I know. For Christmas, he wrote a takedown of the Rudolph claymation special that is absolutely brilliant, and I asked if I could share it with you. Hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. Happy holidays!
smooches, kate
12 Fucked Up Things About Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
I just watched the claymation version of Rudolph for the first time in a while the other day, and I can confidently say it’s a tool of a patriarchal capitalist oligarchy.
This is just stupid, mostly, but the more I wrote the angrier I got about how messed up this story is and how laden with capitalist and patriarchal undertones and I kind of hate myself for writing so much about it. But there we were, 6pm Christmas Eve, and I had like 800 words about this.
Sorry.
Here are 12 fucked up things about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
ABLEISM
Plainly, the movie is ableist. A red nose is considered a disability from birth; Rudolph was only given a chance because they could use his nose during a crisis. Christmastown’s root discomfort with Rudolph’s identity remains unresolved. He is only used to further the town’s capitalist endeavors.
1.A red nose is considered a disability from birth; Rudolph was only given a chance because they could use his nose during a crisis. Christmastown’s root discomfort with Rudolph’s identity remains unresolved. He is only used to further the town’s capitalist endeavors.
2. Rudolph is forced into the closet with his red nose, as his father, Donner, attempts to mask his son’s nose with dirt.
reindeer named Fireball with a shock of blonde hair, like he’s also not some kind of misnamed different kind of reindeer.
3. Meanwhile, no one seems to care that there’s a, like he’s also not some kind of misnamed different kind of reindeer.
PATRIARCHY
4. Female reindeer in the cartoon are depicted with lighter fur and without antlers, made to resemble their white-tail deer cousins and stripped of their true reindeer identities.
5. Further, only cis-gendered male reindeer are allowed to fly the sleigh. None of the female reindeer are even given a chance to train.
6. When Donner goes out to find Rudolph, “Mrs. Donner,” who apparently doesn’t have a first name, offers to come with. As told by the narrator, “Mrs. Donner wanted to go along, naturally. But Donner said no, this is man’s work.”
“AYFKM?”
7. After Rudolph saves his family from the Abominable Snow Monster, Donner says they need to “get the women back to Christmas town.”
Motherfucker, you were one of the ones captured by the Bumble and your cast-out son had to save you. Don’t deflect to the women.
~~**~~ INTERMISSION FOR ANOTHER
FUCKED UP CHRISTMAS THING ~~**~~
CAPITALIST DYSTOPIA AND INTRA-CLASS STRUGGLE
8. Hermey the Elf is given the false choice of making toys he doesn’t want to make, or being fired in an economy in which there is only one job function for his species. He is fired, and cast out into the Arctic to fend for himself.
9. Yet Hermey’s motivation for leaving his indentured servitude is to join a bourgeois class, and begins to identify not by his name nor his status as an elf, but as a “dentist” – his aspirational position.
10. The Island of Misfit Toys itself is a place of exile of disabled toys and toys with nontraditional identities. As the origin is all from the elves’ workshop at Christmastown, it is through errors on the workshop floor that the toys became unwanted and then exiled to the Island of Misfit Toys.
Yet when Rudolph and Hermey – two non-toy outcasts from the same place – arrive at the Island, they are only allowed to stay one night because they’re not toys. “How do you like that? Even among misfits you’re a misfit,” said Yukon Cornelius. The trauma and struggle endured by the toys have left them raw and vulnerable and distrustful of those who can be united in solidarity against the oppressors at Christmastown.
11. Hermey extracts the Bumble’s teeth, rendering the native beast powerless and unable to eat on his own. Then Yukon tackles him, and ends up enslaving him to serve the capitalist Christmas enterprise he so despises. Yukon brings the Bumble into Santa’s workshop and forces the defenseless animal to put the star on the tree – representing the cherry on top of the total enslavement of the native in service of the conquering colonialists.
12. Yukon Cornelius, an interloper capitalist explorer, shifts his sights downward in his exploration and mining. When he first meets Rudolph and Hermey, he says he’s looking for gold. He then changes his mind later:
Yukon Cornelius: You’re going to stay with me and we’ll all be rich with the biggest silver strike this side of Hudson Bay. Silverrrrrrr!
But by the end of the movie, he considers peppermint sufficient – and deludes himself that it really is what he’s been looking for:
Yukon Cornelius: Peppermint! What I’ve been searching for all my life! I’ve struck it rich! I’ve got me a peppermint mine! Wahooooo!
Yukon’s degrading aspirations represent the working class’s dwindling prospects at prosperity; his initial search for precious minerals winds up with him settling for a fictitious flavoring that will still end up exploiting the land.
; his initial search for precious minerals winds up with him settling for a fictitious flavoring that will still end up exploiting the land.
~~*~~
Jesus Christ I can’t believe I wrote all of this.
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.
Michael |
Sammy Wilson's view on climate change has angered environmentalists
The Environment Minister Sammy Wilson has angered green campaigners by describing their view on climate change as a "hysterical pseudo-religion".
In an article in the News Letter, Mr Wilson said he believed it occurred naturally and was not man-made.
"Resources should be used to adapt to the consequences of climate change, rather than King Canute-style vainly trying to stop it," said the minister.
Peter Doran of the Green Party said it was a "deeply irresponsible message".
Mr Wilson said he refused to "blindly accept" the need to make significant changes to the economy to stop climate change.
"The tactic used by the 'green gang' is to label anyone who dares disagree with their view of climate change as some kind of nutcase who denies scientific fact," he said.
The minister said he accepted climate change can occur, but did not believe the cause had been identified.
"Reasoned debate must replace the scaremongering of the green climate alarmists."
John Woods of Friends of the Earth said Mr Wilson was "like a cigarette salesman denying that smoking causes cancer".
"Ironically, if we listen to him Northern Ireland will suffer economically as we are left behind by smarter regions who are embracing the low carbon economy of the future."
It is the latest clash between Mr Wilson and green groups since his appointment as environment minister in June. |
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Dallas Braden definitely owns the mound now.
Braden pitched the 19th perfect game in major league history on Sunday, shutting down the majors' hottest team and leading the Oakland Athletics to a 4-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
Braden threw his arms in the air after Gabe Kapler grounded out to shortstop for the final out, his simmering feud with Yankees star Alex Rodriguez merely a footnote to the first perfect game for Oakland in 42 years.
The closest the Rays got to a hit was Jason Bartlett's liner to third leading off the game. Evan Longoria tried to bunt leading off the fifth, drawing boos from the small crowd.
"Pretty cool," Braden said. "I don't know what to think about it just yet. There's definitely a select group. I'd like to have a career more than today."
Before this gem, Braden was best known for his enraged reaction to Rodriguez walking across the mound on April 22. Still angry after the game, he told the slugger "to go do laps in the bullpen" if he wanted to traipse across a mound.
The squabble was still simmering last week. On Friday in Boston, Rodriguez said he didn't want to extend Braden's "extra 15 minutes of fame." |
Polish Military: Crash Site Video Authentic
Investigation of popular Rastych video confirms amateur footage real
censoredbydigg (Translation)
Source: se.pl
Thursday, May 6, 2010
During a recent press conference the Military Prosecutor’s Office informed of new findings in the investigation into the presidential plane crash. It turns out that the amateur video of the crash site is authentic, and onboard the aircraft there could be up to five black boxes.
They have so far claimed four, but five black boxes were on board the TU-154, which crashed on April 10 near Smolensk. The most recently found box is already in Poland, and is being tested by experts from the Institute of Military Technology. We still do not know what time the crash occurred, or what was its cause. The precise time of the Smolensk disaster is still unknown. It is known that fuel was sufficient, and that the investigation has already interviewed sixty witnesses, according to the District Military Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw.
See also: Black Box Reveals the Truth
During a special press conference investigators also confirmed that the video of the crash site was not manipulated, and may also contain authentic audio. We were informed that the Military District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw is continuing the investigation – examining witnesses and analyzing documents related to the flight.
Advertisements |
In the Battle of the Aleutian Islands (June 1942-August 1943) during World War II (1939-45), U.S. troops fought to remove Japanese garrisons established on a pair of U.S.-owned islands west of Alaska. In June 1942, Japan had seized the remote, sparsely inhabited islands of Attu and Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands. It was the only U.S. soil Japan would claim during the war in the Pacific. The maneuver was possibly designed to divert U.S. forces during Japan’s attack on Midway Island (June 4-7, 1942) in the central Pacific. It’s also possible the Japanese believed holding the two islands could prevent the U.S. from invading Japan via the Aleutians. Either way, the Japanese occupation was a blow to American morale. In May 1943, U.S. troops retook Attu and three months later reclaimed Kiska, and in the process gained experience that helped them prepare for the long “island-hopping” battles to come as World War II raged across the Pacific Ocean.
Japan Seizes American Soil
In June 1942, six months after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that drew the U.S. into World War II, the Japanese targeted the Aleutians, an American-owned chain of remote, sparsely inhabited, volcanic islands extending some 1,200 miles west of the Alaskan Peninsula. After reaching the Aleutians, the Japanese conducted air strikes on Dutch Harbor, site of two American military bases, on June 3 and June 4. The Japanese then made landfall at Kiska Island on June 6 and Attu Island, approximately 200 miles away, on June 7. Japanese troops quickly established garrisons, or military bases, on both islands, which had belonged to the U.S. since it purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867.
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
Did you know? The native people of the Aleutian Islands were originally known as the Unangan. Russian fur traders who arrived in the region in the mid-18th century renamed them the Aleuts. In 1942, after the Japanese took Attu, the island’s population of some 40 Aleuts were taken prisoner.
Like the other volcanic islands in the Aleutians, Attu and Kiska appeared to have little military or strategic value because of their barren, mountainous terrain and harsh weather, infamous for its sudden dense fogs, high winds, rains and frequent snow. Some historians believe Japan seized Attu and Kiska mainly to divert the U.S. Pacific Fleet during the Japanese attack on Midway Island (June 4–7, 1942) in the central Pacific. It’s also possible the Japanese believed that holding the two islands could prevent the U.S. from any attempt to invade Japan’s home islands by way of the Aleutian chain.
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
American Reaction to Japanese Occupation
Americans were shocked that Japanese troops had taken over any U.S. soil, no matter how remote or barren. Some also feared that Japan’s occupation of the two islands might be the first step toward an attack against mainland Alaska or even the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Despite nationwide anger, American war planners at first paid relatively little attention to the Japanese garrisons at Attu and Kiska, as they were still reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor and in the process of building up forces in the South Pacific and preparing for war in Europe. In fact, in the initial months after Japan occupied the islands, the U.S. military conducted only occasional bombing raids from nearby Aleutian Islands.
In the meantime, during the months following their occupation, Japanese soldiers learned to acclimate to the extreme conditions on Attu and Kiska, and the Japanese navy kept the soldiers well-supplied. But by January 1943, U.S. Army forces in the Alaska Command had grown to 94,000 soldiers, with several bases recently constructed on other Aleutian Islands. On January 11, troops from the Alaska Command landed on Amchitka Island, only 50 miles from Kiska.
Naval Blockade of Attu and Kiska
By March 1943, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid (1888–1972) had set up a blockade of Attu and Kiska that restricted the flow of supplies to the Japanese occupiers. On March 26, 1943, Japanese ships in the Bering Sea attempted to deliver supplies and reinforcements to Attu; however, they were spotted by U.S. vessels patrolling the area and the two sides soon engaged in what became known as the Battle of the Komandorski Islands. The Japanese fleet outnumbered the U.S. fleet and inflicted more serious damage on the Americans, but after several hours of fighting, the Japanese ships suddenly withdrew. In addition to running low on fuel and ammunition, the Japanese reportedly feared the arrival of U.S. bombers. The Japanese were also unaware of the extent of the damage they’d caused to the U.S. fleet.
Following the battle, the Japanese soldiers on Attu and Kiska, now virtually isolated, were reduced to meager supplies sporadically delivered by submarine. Taking advantage of these conditions, the Americans prepared to land troops for ground combat against the Japanese garrisons.
Battle of Attu: Operation Landgrab
American ships and planes bombed Attu and Kiska for several weeks before the U.S. military began Operation Landgrab on May 11, 1943, landing 11,000 troops on Attu. The Americans expected the operation to take no more than several days, but harsh weather and rugged, muddy terrain extended the combat for more than two weeks. The Japanese troops, greatly outnumbered, had withdrawn to high ground rather than contest the initial landings. However, U.S. soldiers, with uniforms and equipment ill-designed for the harsh weather conditions, suffered more casualties from frostbite, trench foot, gangrene and other illnesses than from enemy fire. Food shortages added to their misery as they crisscrossed the barren island, fighting mostly small but fierce engagements while scouring the rocks and slopes for booby traps, snipers and dug-in enemy troops.
But the fate of the Japanese had been sealed when the Americans established air and naval supremacy over the island, cutting Japanese supply lines and making it unlikely that reinforcements would arrive. By late May, the last remaining Japanese troops were starving and had insufficient ammunition when U.S. troops trapped them in a corner of the island. The Japanese commander, Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki (1891-1943), decided to make a last-ditch frontal charge. Shortly before daybreak on May 29, he and his soldiers began one of the largest banzai charges of the war in the Pacific. Yamasaki’s troops charged wildly into the American lines, sweeping through their combat outposts and penetrating all the way to shocked support troops in the rear of the American camp. But the gambit ultimately failed. After a final attack on May 30, U.S. soldiers counted more than 2,000 Japanese dead, including Yamasaki. The Americans lost some 1,000 men in the retaking of Attu. Within two days, U.S. forces secured the island and the Battle of Attu, the only land battle fought on American soil in World War II, was over.
Battle of Kiska: Operation Cottage
Having learned bitter lessons at Attu, American commanders made certain that their soldiers had better equipment and proper clothing for the assault on Kiska, code-named Operation Cottage, where they expected to encounter several times as many Japanese troops as they’d faced on Attu. However, when U.S. ships arrived at Kiska on August 15, 1943, the weather was strangely clear and the seas quiet, and the approximately 35,000 soldiers landed unopposed. Then, after several days of scouring the island, they discovered that the Japanese had evacuated the entire garrison several weeks earlier, under cover of fog. On August 24, when U.S. troops declared Kiska Island secure, the Battle of the Aleutian Islands ended.
Japan’s Defeat and Repositioning
Following its defeat in the Aleutians, the Japanese navy reassigned some of its Pacific forces to defend Japan’s northern flank against a possible American invasion from the Alaskan Peninsula. This decision removed a significant number of Japanese troops and resources that might otherwise have been committed to resisting U.S. forces in the South Pacific that were then island-hopping toward Japan. To fuel Japan’s perception that it was threatened from the U.S. Northwest, American planes in the Aleutians conducted occasional bombing raids against Japan’s Kuril Islands, which lie between Japan and Alaska.
Two years after the Battle of the Aleutian Islands, Japan formally surrendered to the Allies on September 2, 1945, effectively ending World War II. |
Ever get a stupid idea in your head? The kind of idea that sends you down a path, that even though you know it’s stupid and kind of silly, you just can’t shake it? So you follow this idea, all the while knowing it’s the kind of thing only you’d find funny? But you throw a lot of work and research into it anyway? The kind of idea that makes you stay up late and go to work tired as hell the next day, and risk losing your job? You know those ideas? Well, I’m telling you, in the end, they’re always worth it!
00:00 – Johnny Madcap & the Distractions – Daly City Train (Hooligans United : a Tribute to Rancid ’15)
03:33 – Skaos – Johnny (More Fire ’14)
06:13 – Johnny Socko – Save Yourself (Quatro ’99)
09:55 – MU330 – Johnny Dumbjokes (Chumps on Parade ’96)
12:09 – Infamous Jake & the Pinstripe Mafia – Johnny (This is the Begining of the End ’03)
14:38 – Johnny Nine and the Racers – Why Sleep? (Chin Up ’09)
18:05 – Less Than Jake – Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts (Pezcore ’95)
20:59 – Johnny Too Bad and the Strikeouts – Nineteen Fifty Two (Patchwork Girl ’97)
Show support for the bands by clicking on those links and checking out their websites and music! Show support for the podcast by finding & liking 23min of Ska on facebook as well as follow on twitter. Also, feel free to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Also, feel free to download this episode if you wanna keep it forever.
Another way to support the podcast is to buy some records from our partners in crime over at Grandpa’s Casino Recordings, they carry some great vinyl ska records! |
In hair-raising horror, I watched my then-boyfriend yank two chicken breasts straight out of a sopping wet package, and throw them on the sizzling skillet – without cleaning them!
I gasped in pure terror.
Anyone who grew up in a Caribbean household knows whether it’s fish, chicken, beef, lamb – whatever – you scrub the ever living sh** out of it with fresh lemon or lime so you’re not chomping on too many microbes and whatever nasties are crawling around in that meat.
Then you marinate it in savory, mouthwatering spices (can I get an amen for cayenne pepper!), and then you fry up that bad boy. But my ex-boyfriend, being a Caucasian male, don’t know nothin’ about that.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to clean that?”
He stared at me quizzically.
“Yes, just give me just one second. Let me get some Irish Spring and a loofah. I’ll be right back,” he said sarcastically.
“Ha. Funny,” I said.
I didn’t say anything else. After all, he volunteered to cook for me, which was touchingly sweet, and I certainly didn’t want to ruin the dinner by complaining about microbe-infested, bland fried chicken cutlets. But that situation was one of the many moments I realized that dating outside of my race wasn’t for me. I don’t think I could be with a man that doesn’t clean his chicken! It’s a cultural oddity for some, but for me, it was something I cherished.
You might say, “Girl! You don’t want to date a white man over some damn chicken?” But that wasn’t the only “rude awakening” I had during that relationship, there were many! One day, as a reporter for a college newspaper, I was working on a story about how Black and white people smoke marijuana at similar rates, but men of color are disproportionately arrested for it.
When my ex asked me about the piece I was working on, he said, I kid you not: “That still happens nowadays?!”
What do you mean “still happens nowadays?” What rock have you been living under?
That’s when it hit me. For a dark moment, my thoughts traveled to the far future: I envisioned myself coming home after experiencing a distressing episode of racist microagressions at work and needing someone to console me, someone to understand me, someone to empathize with me. I turn to my white husband, looking for some commiseration, some sense of “I know how you feel, babe,” but all I’d get is “That still happens nowadays?”
I realized that, more than anything, I needed someone who could see the world the way I saw it.
It wasn’t my ex’s fault, though. You can’t truly “see” someone’s plight unless you walk a mile in their shoes. And from his perspective, the words “post-racial society” rang true to him. For me, it was more of a doubtful clank.
Still, while I understood why he was so oblivious to the disadvantages Black men and women face, I couldn’t be bothered to endure a relationship with someone so, for a lack of a better term, not woke.
The last straw in our relationship was when he revealed that he felt “uncomfortable” walking around predominantly Black neighborhoods. I asked, “Why’s that? I walk around your neighborhood all the time and white people are everywhere. What’s the big deal?”
He said, “Black men are scarier.”
Nope! I dumped him, and that was that. When someone shows you a glimpse of who they are, I don’t need to wait until the wolf steps out of his sheep’s clothing to know that it’s my time to bounce! (Translation: I am not waiting ‘til he calls me a n***er before I get the f*** out of this relationship)
There were many, many other shocking moments in our relationship, including one involving a prejudiced family member and him not knowing what the hell Sister, Sister was (how do you not know Tia and Tamera!), but the “Black men are scarier” comment was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Since then I never sought to date a white man. I’ve always gravitated towards men of color, but my ex swept me off my feet with romantic gestures and smooth talk you’d only find in one of those Caucasian romcoms. But I for damn sure won’t do it again. In dating a white man, I learned that there’s a good reason why many people choose to stay with their own cultural group.
To those who do date or marry interracially, I have no qualms against it at all. Live happily ever after and ride off into the sunset, but it’s just not for me. I just want a guy who can clean his chicken.
Kimberly Gedeon is a content creator with nearly 2,000 professional articles published online about everything from beauty and business to politics and pop culture. You can follow her on Twitter @sweetenedcafe or Instagram @kimmiexsweetie. |
Trump's Financial Documents Reveal Hundreds Of Millions Owed To Lenders
As a young man, Trump's father co-signed his loans. Once he became famous, banks rushed to lend him money. But they became skeptical about Trump following his many bankruptcies. So his main lenders became Deutsche Bank and Ladder Capital, but both securitize his debt to spread the risk.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump has sometimes referred to himself as the king of debt. Over the decades, as he built his real estate empire, his relationships with lenders went from good to bad. These days, few firms are willing to lend to him. That is revealed in financial documents that Trump released late Friday. They show his company owes hundreds of millions of dollars. Here's NPR's Jim Zarroli with more.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: When Trump came to Manhattan in the '70s eager to make a splash in real estate, he had a big advantage over his competitors. His father, Fred, a well-connected developer, could help finance his projects.
GWENDA BLAIR: He was the gravitas, the guarantor, the force behind Donald when Donald was still untested enough to need that kind of backing.
ZARROLI: Trump biographer Gwenda Blair says by the '80s, Trump was famous enough that banks came to him. And he went on a spending spree, buying airlines, sports teams and casinos.
BLAIR: The banks were lined up to loan him money, did not really do due diligence. A lot of this was unsecured loans to Donald directly. And the banks were extremely reckless.
ZARROLI: It all came crashing down a few years later with the first of Trump's bankruptcies. There were bitter debates with his creditors. He gave up signature properties like the Plaza Hotel. His bondholders took a hit as well, but by then, Trump had them over a barrel.
BLAIR: Were they going to foreclose on these buildings and knock his name off - no. They wanted his name on the buildings because he still had this kind of allure. He was too big to foreclose on.
ZARROLI: During a debate last summer, Trump dismissed his creditors this way.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: These lenders aren't babies. These are total killers. These are not the nice, sweet, little people that you think, OK?
ZARROLI: Since the bankruptcies, big banks by all accounts have pretty much wanted nothing to do with Trump. NYU's Sam Chandan, an economist who studies commercial real estate, says lenders look askance at borrowers who walk away from debts too quickly.
SAM CHANDAN: The behavior of the borrower in the market's certainly going to impact or influence the underwriting.
ZARROLI: Chandan says lenders also shy away from borrowers whose exploits get too much press.
CHANDAN: When underwriting some of these very large loans with very visible borrowers, there is an element or there's the possibility of headline risk.
ZARROLI: Trump has said that he has enough cash that he doesn't need to borrow. But the updated campaign disclosure forms released Friday say he still owes hundreds of millions of dollars. That includes mortgages of at least $50 million held by Deutsche Bank for the Trump National Doral Miami. He also owes at least as much for two other mortgages held by the small firm Ladder Capital on Trump Tower and another New York office building. Ladder has more flexibility about whom it lends to in part because it cuts loans into securities and sells them to investors, so Trump's debts are spread out among many other investors and financial institutions. Former White House ethics adviser Norm Eisen says any debt represents a conflict of interest for a president.
NORM EISEN: It's so profound that actually when I was working for President Obama, we wouldn't even let him refinance his modest home in Chicago because of the appearance of conflict.
ZARROLI: Eisen says Trump's debts are troubling because he's personally guaranteed part of them and is on the hook if things go wrong. Trump came to office with an especially complicated history with many banks, the same banks that his administration will now regulate. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF GORDON JENKINS' "CARAVAN")
Copyright © 2017 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. |
House Speaker John Boehner's decision to use taxpayer dollars to defend the Defense of Marriage Act after the Obama administration determined it was unconstitutional may go down as the Gettysburg of the Lost Cause of Traditional Marriage on Capitol Hill -- and may have even contributed to DOMA's demise.
The fight will continue in the states, and conservative Republicans may even keep up the fight in Congress, but leadership is ready to throw in the towel. "While I am obviously disappointed in the ruling, it is always critical that we protect our system of checks and balances," Boehner told reporters today after the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. "A robust national debate over marriage will continue in the public square, and it is my hope that states will define marriage as the union between one man and one woman." States, not Congress.
Advertisement:
“It sounds to me that that battle will be moving to the states,” John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said. Eric Cantor hit the same tone, adding, "the marriage debate will continue in the states." "Congressional Republican leaders are speaking with resounding unity: the same-sex marriage fight is ending on Capitol Hill," Politico's Jake Sherman and Ginger Gibson reported today.
The quick capitulation makes Boehner's decision to intervene in DOMA look all the more misguided. When the Department of Justice bowed out of defending DOMA in 2011, House Republicans intervened by hiring super-lawyer Paul Clement to defend the law on behalf of the House's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.
Democrats pointed out the obvious irony of a party crowing about the need to cut government spending hiring a lawyer who typically charges something like $900 an hour. The tab ended up costing taxpayers about $2.3 million, a far cry from the initial $500,000 budget.
If the House hadn't intervened, the court probably would have appointed a lawyer to defend DOMA, just as it appointed Harvard Law professor Vicki Jackson to argue a procedural matter in March. The effect would have been roughly the same -- taxpayer dollars used to to defend DOMA.
But at least in that scenario, Boehner wouldn't end up on the losing side of a court decision that affirmed an opinion held by the majority of Americans just as his party is trying to soften its stance on gay rights. And it may have saved taxpayers money, since few lawyers can charge what Clement does.
And maybe, just maybe, hiring Clement, a former solicitor general who has argued more cases before the Supreme Court since 2000 than any other lawyer in the country, helped push the court to set aside the procedural questions and rule directly on the merits of the law.
Advertisement:
The first question the justices considered in the DOMA case was whether the House even had the right to defend the law, something that's typically the solicitor general's job. But Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote today in his majority opinion, "BLAG’s capable defense ensures that the prudential issues do not cloud the merits question." In other words, by hiring the best Supreme Court lawyer money can buy, Boehner helped ensure that the court ruled squarely on the merits of the law, and thus reject DOMA, instead of getting bogged down in procedural questions and possibly even tossing the case out on standing grounds.
Whether counterproductive or not, we will undoubtedly look back on the defense of DOMA as the high-water mark for anti-marriage equality efforts on Capitol Hill. |
Shanghai Government requests Residents to not wear Pajamas in public
[Netease] “Not going outside wearing pajamas”. This is Shanghai city government’s request for the residents of the city prior to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. However this provoked widespread controversy. On one hand, wearing pajamas does not conform to international etiquette, but there are voices also advocating that if the government makes a rule restricting wearing pajamas, then society loses some of its freedom.
Since late July, committee head Shen Guofang’s (沈国芳) had one more thing on his work list: to persuade the community residents not to wear pajamas when they go outside.
Shen is the “Alley President” of Shanghai Pudong New Area Changlidong road Qiba residential community. At this stage, his work is divided into two parts, one is managing residential district daily affairs, and the second is “Welcoming the World Expo”. The activity of “Not going outside wearing pajamas, become a World Expo civilized person” is one of the elements in the second part.
Everyone has been to Shanghai knows that people of Shanghai have the habit of wearing pajamas in public. They can be seen in the alleys, farmers markets, supermarkets, streets even the famous shopping street Nanjing road. Lady wearing patterned pajamas, and a pair of fairly sophisticated leather shoes, goes to buy a pack of slat in the alley, or with her hair full of pin curls taking out the trash. This is seen as a typical picture of Shanghai culture. However, when the bulldozers run over every alley, people still remember the old way of life, but the remaining pajamas habit suddenly becomes an enemy of “the civilized”.
The upcoming 2010 Shanghai World Expo, an event that represents modern civilization can no longer tolerate the ordinary people’s “bad habits”. Only two or three stops away from the World Expo site, Qiba residential community along with all the Expo areas in Pudong, will be sized up using standards of “modern civility ”.
Shanghai residents must survive the stares of international eyes, “This is an issue of our country’s face.” Shen Guofang said.
Qiba residential district’s “civilized dress persuasion team” has activities twice a week, each is one to two hours. Shen Guofang said that the persuasion team has 10 volunteers, each wearing a red silk belt. They are dressed neatly and stand at the entrance of the residential community. When they see residents going outside wearing pajamas, volunteers approach the residents and dissuade them from going out like that.
“The volunteers we have chosen are residents who have relatively high awareness, love the residential community and care more about the World Expo.” Shen Guofang said.
“In just over an hour, hundreds of residents already accepted our persuasion, this event was very effective” Qiba’s website recorded the “achievement” of the first day of the activity.
The activity has been carried out for more than two months now, “with good results, the number of people wearing pajamas outside has obviously been reduced.” Shen was satisfied.
For those who turn back the other way once they see the persuasion team, Shen thought that “avoid avoid” also shows improvement, at least they have civilized consciousness.
Around the same time, Pudong new district World Expo site’s neighborhood committees all cracked down on the dress issue. Shanggang community, Chuanxin community and Beicai community and so on, all carried out similar activities.
Su Meizhi (苏美芝) is one of the members of the “civilized dress persuasion team”. She is in charge of the women and family planning (China’s policy of only one child per family) in the neighborhood committee. Prior to engaging in the persuasion work, Su Meizhi said she herself had the habit of wearing pajamas going outside. But after persuasion team training, she paid more attention to her dress code, also persuaded her family not to wear pajamas going outside.
Neighborhood staff have changed their views, and then are persuading more people to change their views as well. However years of habit is not easy to shake. So, Shen Guofang thought of many creative ways.
One of them is to incorporate children to join the volunteer team during summer breaks .
“They hold their uncle and aunt’s hands and say ‘auntie (uncle), you cannot wear pajamas to go out on the street.’ When people hear this they usually are very moved, for even children are persuading them and they feel more embarrassed.”
Second is to emphasize the seriousness and significance of the World Expo in order to achieve a deterrent effect.
“During the World Expo, the foreigners will come out from events holding their cameras into residential areas, it is very possible they will come to our community.” “We are the masters. Even small things when putting on the table become big deal”, we cannot disgrace Shanghai.
Number three, use acquaintances and pay attention to the choice of words.
“If you are too serious when talking to people about this issue, people sometimes cannot accept.” Shen Guofang said. In this regard, his approach is to “sidetrack” and “joke”.
For example, up ahead comes an old acquaintance wearing pajamas, Shen Guofang will go up and say “Hey, where are you going ah?” “To buy food ah?” “Huh, how come you come out wearing these?” “Can’t wear this next time anymore, this clothes doesn’t look good, go back and change.” The tact is based on circling around and then going back to the subject of wearing pajamas.
Su Meizhi even works outside of her hours. For some residents, her first attempts to change their minds would fail, but she would repeatedly talk to them, and reason with them privately; of course, her tone was soft, and her face was with a smile.
“In an international metropolis, the least you can do is to dress well. It’s not that you must wear brand name, but you must be dignified, and make a clear distinction between inside and outside (of your home), this can be an indicator of the quality of the residents.” Su Meizhi said.
What’s been taken off is not pajamas, it’s freedom
“None of your business!”
“You are interfering too much!”
When asked about their views on “not going outside wearing pajamas”, some Shanghai aunties still stumbled their feet.
Although the neighborhood was positive about the work at the present stage but they also accepted the fact that some residents had difficulty to change their habits.
“These things simply do not need to be exaggerated. The World Expo is hosted in every country, what is the point being so excessive!” Across street from Qiba, in Changsi community building number 37, there is a resident woman often complained, her tone mixed with anger and impatience. In the evening, she was dressed in teddy bear pajamas, a pair of leather sandals and went out to buy bread. The street between Qiba community and Changsi community had a small supermarket, bank, clothing store, snack store, restaurants, pharmacy, stationery store and a farmers market etc. Residents only walk a few steps to buy various items required.
Many Shanghainese do not understand, why are they required to change out of their pajamas when going shopping in front of their homes? I remember back the days in the movie “Sleepless Town”, wearing pajamas when going outside showed social status. Let’s imagine: a young lady just going outside to buy a lottery ticket, and she is required to change into her work shirt; a man who works in a state-owned office during his day off, wants to buy the newspaper “Everyone” but discovered it is sold out at the newsstand in front of his house. He forgets he is wearing pajamas, walks 2 more blocks on the street to find newspaper; a middle aged woman wearing a huge hair clip is too lazy to cook for herself, so she walks to the farmers market to get some noodles, (the woman speaks in Shanghainese) “don’t want to change clothes for that.”
There are a wide variety of views, so making Shanghainese taking off their pajamas is like taking off their Shanghai style! Their reasons for going outside wearing pajamas seem to be reasonable: going somewhere not so far, not a formal occasion, not staying outside for too long. Living facilities around the residence are closely integrated, also makes the argument more valid. “If anyone dresses up to go to the vegetable market, they will be the ones who stand out.” In their eyes, lazy nature living is part of the Shanghai Style.
While the habit of wearing pajamas is long and strong, it is a culture label. In the old society, two types of people usually wear pajamas in public. One is rich people, showing off their leisurely lifestyle. The other is people of entertainment, such as dancers, to display charm. After the founding of PRC, pajamas gained more popularity. In the 70’s Shanghai pajamas on the streets became the city scenery, it was a fashionable trend, “pajamas are beautiful;” “pajamas show our more comfortable lives.” These were the thoughts of people who followed the trend at the time.
After the ear of pajamas being trendy, what was left became habit, plus the traditional living space was small, so the convenient pajamas stayed. The most traditional residential buildings in Shanghai were the Shikumen or the alley housing. Alleys crowded with residents are just like what it is described in “72 tenants,” “Rooms were small like the white pigeon holes, it was like the tenants were living in a cage”. Whether you knew each other or not, each household pulled a curtain and declared their own space. There was no clear distinction between public space and private space, therefore people’s clothes were not categorized as such. In Stephen Chow’s movie “Kongfu hustle” the “Pig cage village” is such scene. The landlady played by Yuan Qiu had a head full of perm rollers, and her plump body was wrapped in large oversized pajamas.
That’s right, this is how everyone remembered the most common dress of an auntie in the Shanghai alley.
“Shanghai Online” (www.online.sh.cn) had a survey with the title “Shanghainese love to wear pajamas on the street, what do you think?” (Started at July 20th 2009) survey result showed the most common view was “low class, uncivil”, but only had 42.03% of the votes. “Very normal, not uncivil, it’s just convenient” had 33.95% of the votes, and “Shanghainese wearing pajamas on the street is very normal, if you are not use to looking at it, then stop looking at it.” had 24.02% of the votes. So more than half of the people do not oppose wearing pajamas.
As a native of Shanghai, Li Hoiyan is one of the people who do not oppose wearing pajamas on the street. She lived in the alleys for nearly 14 years. Although Li feels her aunties wearing pajamas outside is a bit indecent, but that familiar and warm feeling also makes her like it. As for the Qiba’s civilized persuasion activities Li Hoiyan thinks that they are making a fuss over nothing, that it’s “a bit silly”, “Do I need someone to manage what I wear?” Also “just because of the World Expo to engage in such activity is a bit fake.”
As for the issue of shame, this native Shanghainese born in the 80’s said “As long as we (people of Shanghai) do not feel ashamed ourselves, then we are not causing anyone to lose face. I guess the people (who made this proposal), experts and officials all are not Shanghainese.”
A number of netizens also opposed the civilized dress persuasion activities. A post on Tianya discussed the Shanghai pajama-wearing custom. Some netizens after watching the news on persuasion activities said, “Manyold grannies were not wearing pajamas, just some loose and relaxed clothes. A gang of neighborhood committee people then surrounded and criticized granny. It was unfair.”
It seems that the Shanghai World Expo modern civility has to face the most powerful opponent: freedom of dress code.
Forcing into shape the citizen’s characters?
This tug of war on the dress issue of Shanghai has been around for a few years now.
A resident at Qiba community named Ju still remembered clearly when the mayor Yu Zhengshen (俞正声) was interviewed by the Hong Kong reporter Wu xiaoli (吴小莉). He recalled the mayor saying, “Organizing the World Expo has three planed programs, in comparison with the plans of restoring city’s appearance and improving city services, the progress on civilizing Shanghai residents was too slow. Wearing pajamas was one of the bad habits Mayor Yu was talking about.
The president of Institute for Social Development, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Yang Xiong (杨雄) in 2006 conducted the “Shanghai Family Survey”, the survey showed that “the phenomena of wearing pajamas outside has not been significantly improved. 16.5% of the people said they or family members often wear pajamas going outside, 25% said sometimes.” The seriousness of the problem of wearing pajamas had been repeatedly mentioned.
After the publication of the report, it has been widely cited in the international media, which makes Yang Xiong feel that Shanghai’s pajamas might damage its international image. A foreign student in Shanghai went to him and said his mother saw this report in England and said she was very surprised “People in Shanghai still wear pajamas going outside”. the mother had said and then showed the newspapers to the foreign student in Shanghai.
“Foreigners think that is very big news, and they are very concerned about it.” Yang Xiong said.
As for another negative aspect of pajamas on the streets, Zhang Nian (张念) from Tongji University, the Institute of Cultural Criticism thinks “the rationality of the citizens is to keep caring about other people’s presence while the relative indifference of this care is reflected in the sense of distance. However, pajamas as a signal abolish the public rational sense of distance, which makes strangers feel discomfort.”
In recent years, with the improvement of living standards, the dress issue in the city has gradually evolved into the issue of civility. Shanghai media and all levels of government propaganda have never laid to rest on the issue of pajamas. But the persuasion work driven by World Expo, the intensity was significantly greater than in the past, but the disputes were also much more vigorous.
Although the neighborhood committees are not as strict as the police catching drivers running a red light, in the eyes of the scholars, grassroots persuasion activities organized by the government are still very forceful.
In Yang Xiong’s view, wearing pajamas on the streets is inconsistent with international etiquette and it should be changed. “But it also cannot be said to be a moral issue, not even to be said as an issue with people’s civility in Shanghai. Sometimes we amplify the problems.”
Hu Shoujun (胡守钧) a professor of Sociology at Fudan University said, “Neighborhood committee can advocate not wearing pajamas to go outside, but they have no rights to prohibit or disguise their prohibition activities as persuasion. Although he himself is strongly opposed to wearing pajamas outside, he is also opposed to the mandatory or quasi-mandatory banning of pajamas on the street. “For example, back then the Down to the Countryside Movement was not mandatory. But ‘I advise you to go, go to classes, learn about Chairman Mao’s works….’ After repeated nagging, we agreed to go. I think it is bad If we follow these kind of things.”
Zhang Nian thinks that traditional liberalism defines freedom on two fronts for individual rights: one is that it is voluntary, and second, that it does not constitute harm to others. The “others” here can also be the public. From these two fronts, the danger of wearing pajamas on the street is not significant. “The government agencies should be models of public characters, rather than forcing citizens to shape the public characters.”
“The World Expo will be in a more satisfactory state if on one hand, the efficiency and the level of governance according to the law is improved, and on the other hand the self-awareness of the residents is improved. The government should not control too much, too detailed, too small of issues and try to do everything, or else the autonomous sense of community will disappear. We must utilize the enthusiasm of each resident to be proud to participate in the World Expo.” Hu Shoujun (胡守钧) said.
Approximately one or two hours away from the Expo area, Rixing residence in Hongkou district as early as end of last year’s 500 day countdown to World Expo in Shanghai, already took the initiative to dissuade the wearing of pajamas in public. Today, the neighborhood committee has been reluctant to talk about this matter. “This is not the main task at hand anymore, every 100 days there is a new initiative, we are following the plan, now we are at the sage of stopping people from running the red light.”
The sign “Don’t go outside wearing pajamas, be a World Expo civilized person” is still standing in front of Qiba residential community. The security room staff said: this sign will stay through the winter, it will be taken down only when there are no more pajamas in public. |
The Nightly Show feels both necessary and obvious.
Photo by Stephen Lovekin
One week in, The Nightly Show, the new Comedy Central news series hosted by Larry Wilmore, feels both necessary and obvious—a fix for the enormous hole in the roof that’s been leaking into your living room for years and years. Wilmore, the longtime “Senior Black Correspondent” on The Daily Show, took over Stephen Colbert’s time slot on Monday night, seated in front of a map of the world turned upside down. Each episode of The Nightly Show has a theme: the state of black protest, Bill Cosby, Obama’s State of the Union, and Cuba filled out the opening week. Wilmore begins with a Daily Show/Colbert Report-style comedic monologue on the central subject, before segueing into a Politically Incorrect-style panel discussion on the same topic, with guests like (so far) Cory Booker, Talib Kweli, David Remnick, plus a handful of comedians to keep things punchy. The panelists then stick around to participate in the show’s final segment “Keep It 100”— as in “keep it 100 percent real.” Wilmore asks them to truthfully answer a tough question, or otherwise be showered in “weak tea,” a highly entertaining exchange that bears some resemblance to “Plead the Fifth,” a recurring bit on Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live.
As a host, Wilmore positions himself as a straight talker. Keeping it 100 is the goal of every part of every episode. Wilmore says exactly what he means, wringing humor not so much from jokes as from honesty. Monologuing about Bill Cosby, Wilmore concluded: “That motherfucker did it!” Speaking about the State of the Union, Wilmore’s take away was that Obama “doesn’t give a fuck.” Though stated with rare force, these positions are not in and of themselves unique. (The assertion that Obama has no more fucks to give was a widespread Twitter consensus on Tuesday night, 24 hours before The Nightly Show aired its take.) And yet there has previously been no black perspective on late night to take these subjects on with such matter-of-fact vigor.
The panel discussions have been rowdier and more rambunctious than the monologues, which will have to get more intricate with time. The four panelists, a mix of writers and comedians, tend to include one dissident—a Cosby defender, an Obama hater—that leads to the beginnings of spirited conversation. Wilmore is more at ease here than he is behind the desk, adept at staying funny and including everyone. If the opening bits can feel a little one-note, the panels are brimming with substantive conversations there’s not quite time enough to have, follow up questions that can’t be asked.
The panelists stick around to “Keep It 100,” a deliciously naughty segment. Wilmore’s questions have been good and tough, appealingly troublemaking. “Do you want to be president?” he asked Booker. Booker prevaricated, and ended up with some weak tea. Wilmore asked the comedian Godfrey if, before the election, he saw Obama murder someone, would he still have voted for the black guy? Godfrey would have. “Keep It 100” makes for a lively bit of theater: It’s fun to watch public figures make instant calculations about what they should or should not say, whether or not they come to overly cautious conclusions.
But what distinguishes The Nightly Show from other late-night shows, of course, is not any particular segment, but its combination of subject matter and host—a black man hosting a late-night show dedicated, largely, to race. Both series devoted to racial themes and series hosted by black men are rare, especially on late night. This rareness is evident in how fresh The Nightly Show can feel, despite being extremely straightforward: It doesn’t have, or need, any gimmicks. Talking about race on television under the supervision of a black man is gimmick enough. |
Men's Casual Shoes: Step Up Your Everyday Style
Do you spend all day on your feet? Whether you're working, running errands or taking care of the kids–or are just looking for some fashionable new kicks to sport on the weekend–you'll find a large selection of quality footwear in the men's casual shoes collection at DICK'S Sporting Goods.
Choose a great pair of shoes from incredible styles, including:
Sporty looking sneakers
Hip boat shoes
Comfortable slip-on shoes
Versatile earth tone designs
Go for the modern look or rediscover classic sneaker designs, inspired by the fashions of the 60s and 70s. Find comfortable casual shoes for men to fit your wardrobe and personality. Browse industry leading brands. With a new pair of shoes from DICK'S Sporting Goods, you know you'll be getting an expertly designed and quality made product.
Want more options? Check out the full collection of men's shoes at DICK'S Sporting Goods. |
"Smart!" That's what President Trump or one of his aides wrote on Facebook a few days ago, linking to a story by a Middle Eastern blogging site.
The headline on the Albawaba story said "Kuwait Issues Its Own Trump-esque Visa Ban for Muslim-Majority Countries."
But the anonymously-sourced story is unproven. Multiple governments have denied it. It's the kind of story that the president might decry as "fake news," were it not beneficial to him.
The Facebook post went up on Trump's official page last Thursday. It gained more attention from fact-checkers over the weekend.
As of Monday afternoon, the link is still there, gaining "likes" and comments on Facebook. It has not attracted the attention of Facebook's recent effort to flag disputed stories with a warning label.
Related: Facebook's new "warning labels" for hoax stories
This idea about some sort of Muslim "travel ban" by Kuwait has been a popular rumor for a while. But Kuwait, through one of its official news agencies, "categorically denied media reports" about it last Friday.
Albawaba specifically claimed that "Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, Pakistanis and Afghans will not be able to obtain visit, tourism or trade Kuwaiti visas."
But there is no evidence of any effort to block those travelers. To the contrary, Pakistani news outlets have reported that it is untrue, citing local embassy officials.
Some web sites have sought to correct the record. One of the Russian government's news sites, Sputnik News, initially jumped on the rumor and posted a story that said "Kuwait has ripped a page from the playbook of U.S. President Donald Trump."
But Sputnik later added a correction: "The following news article proved to be untrue."
On Facebook, the president's post has received 250,000 reactions, most of them in the form of "likes" and "hearts." A couple hundred people posted tearful emojis as their reaction.
Nearly 70,000 people have shared the post, spreading it through their personal social networks.
And the post has 14,000 comments. Most were largely positive at first, but now many users are writing "fake news" on the post. |
According to latest info from DreamHack and FACEIT, previously VAC-banned players - namely Anil "cLy" Gülec and Robin "robiin" Sjögren - will not be allowed to take part in the DreamHack Winter 2014 European Closed Qualifier later today.
Two days ago in the second of FACEIT's pre-qualifiers, German EPS champions Planetkey Dynamics clinched a spot for the main qualifier of the $250,000 DreamHack Winter 2014 tournament while having the previously VAC-banned Anil "cLy" Gülec on the roster.
A similar situation was then brought up concerning FlipSid3's member Robin "robiin" Sjögren who also has a CS:GO VAC ban on record from May 2013.
A debate arose in the community whether a VAC-banned player is allowed to compete in a Valve-funded tournament, and today DreamHack and FACEIT have come out with an explanation.
cLy will not be playing in tonight's DreamHack Winter qualifier
DreamHack indicated that all CS:GO VAC-banned players were never supposed to be allowed to be involved in any team in the first place, but the organizers of the qualifier, FACEIT, weren't aware of the fact due to miscommunication.
The outcome is - cLy and robiin will not be allowed to participate any further, but as the transgression already happened and the info wasn't made clear to the teams ahead of start, Planetkey and FlipSid3 will not be disqualified, but will be forced to use substitutes for the banned members.
Also worth mentioning is a change in schedule and format for this evening – the qualifier will keep the single elimination mode, but the first round will be best-of-three maps instead of best-of-one:
Tuesday, October 21st 18:00 Round of 16, matches 1-4 (Bo3) 20:00 Round of 16, matches 5-8 (Bo3) 22:30 Quarter-finals (Bo3) - winners secure a spot at DH Winter 2014
Losers of the quarter-final matches will still have a chance in the 5th place battle for the final European spot, which will take place on Wednesday, October 22nd.
The bracket has still not been announced, but you can expect hot matches to pop up on our site as soon as it is. |
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Sunday that Russia’s efforts to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not succeed in keeping him in power .
Jubeir told a press conference in Riyadh that previous efforts to prop up Assad, including by Iran, had “failed”.
“Now, (Assad) has sought the help of Russia, which will fail to save him,” he said, urging Moscow to “end its air operations against the moderate Syrian opposition.”
Russia, Assad’s closest ally alongside Iran, began conducting airstrikes in September, targeting mainly rebels backed by the West, according to US officials.
Analysts believe that Russia’s military intervention in Syria has given Assad a new lease of life and has also deeply alarmed the West.
But Jubeir, whose country is among the main Syrian opposition backers, said that “it is impossible for a man behind the killing of 300,000 innocent people… to remain” in power.
Assad’s departure “is a matter of time… sooner or later, this regime will fall, opening the way for building a new Syria without Bashar al-Assad,” said Jubeir.
He urged the Syrian regime to “immediately allow the entry of humanitarian assistance to all parts of Syria, end military attacks on innocent civilians… (and) begin a political transition in Syria.”
A 17-nation Syria Support Group, co-chaired by Russia and the United States, agreed on Friday to seek a “cessation of hostilities” within a week and dramatically ramp up humanitarian access to besieged towns.
Critics have said the deal is hobbled by the fact it does not include “terrorist” groups such as the Islamic State group and the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra, leaving room for Russia to continue attacks by claiming it is targeting jihadists.
The agreement followed a major offensive by Syrian government forces, backed by heavy Russian bombing and Iranian troops, on the rebel stronghold of Aleppo.
YAHOO NEWS /AFP |
At The Grandest Stage of Them All -- WrestleMania -- few WWE Superstars have accomplished as much, and impressed the WWE Universe more, than Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker. A perennial provider of classic and unforgettable matches, Michaels has been aptly dubbed "Mr. WrestleMania," while The Undertaker's undefeated streak at ‘Mania is one of the greatest feats in the history of WWE.
Although The Undertaker's record at WrestleMania heading into his match at the 25th anniversary of the event stood at an incredible 16-0, The Phenom was forced to take a leap of faith in order to keep his record intact against the biggest threat to the streak in history, Michaels, a man he had never beaten before. The incredible lengths to which The Deadman had to undergo earn him the No. 6 spot on WWE.com's Great Leaps of Faith.
Midway through this historic encounter, the action spilled to the outside of the ring. Michaels attempted to cause serious damage to The Undertaker by executing a moonsault from the top rope, however, The Deadman evaded HBK, leaving Michaels laid out on the floor. With more than 72,000 members of the WWE Universe cheering him on, The Undertaker then attempted an aerial assault of his own.
Climbing back into the ring, The Phenom took a running start, and leaped head first at Michaels -- clear over the top rope -- risking life and limb to preserve what he had worked his entire career to obtain. However, by this time Michaels had recovered and, in one fluid motion, dodged The Deadman's mid-air attack and pushed a nearby cameraman into the path of The Undertaker. The unfortunate camera man was decimated by The Phenom, the collision leaving them both incapacitated. Although Michaels urged the referee to count out The Undertaker, The Deadman rose from the ashes of his risky assault, and made his way back into the ring before the count of 10, allowing this classic match to continue.
The Undertaker would go on to defeat Shawn Michaels in the match, improving his record at WrestleMania to an unrivaled 17-0. His leap over the top rope personifies the effort and determination The Phenom has put into his entire WrestleMania career, whose record will likely never be equaled. |
Thirteen officers and one protester were injured as police used water cannons and pepper spray against far-right demonstrators who gathered in the western city of Cologne from across Germany to rally against Islamist extremism.
About 2,000 far-right and neo-Nazi protesters gathered in the center of Cologne to protest against Islamic extremism on Sunday, according to the German media. Some media reports suggested that at least 4,000 demonstrators gathered for the rally.
The demonstration was organized by the “Hooligans against Salafists" group also known as Ho.Ge.Sa. Salafism is a radical movement of Islam which has been growing in Germany, where it is represented by around 4,000 adherents.
Anti-immigration demonstrators including Ho.Ge.Sa members took to the streets reportedly chanting “foreigners out.”
Violent clashes broke out between the anti-immigration groups when they were met by thousands of anti-fascist demonstrators.
The protests turned violent as the demonstrators threw bottles and incendiary devices, reports said.
Riot police were deployed at the scene with some reports suggesting that at least one thousand police officers were present.
Law enforcement responded with pepper spray, batons and water cannons. Footage from the scene showed a police vehicle which was overturned in the unrest.
Thirteen officers and one protester were injured, said police spokesman Andre Fassbender. He added that six people were detained.
The protest was organized with the help of Facebook, where the moderator of the Ho.Ge.Sa. posted a call for a “peaceful, unmasked” demonstration “without rioting.”
"On 26.10.2014 in Cologne, we will significantly increase this number of participants," he wrote.
The Ho.Ge.Sa. began on Facebook where anti-Islam soccer fans and neo-Nazi activists found mutual understanding. |
Shahbaz Taseer, before abduction.
In August 2011, the son of assassinated Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was abducted in Lahore. Three days later he was transferred to Mir Ali in North Waziristan tribal agency.
He would remain in captivity for the next four and a half years.
In an exclusive for Images on Sunday, Shahbaz Taseer recounts his first day in his new prison.
It is my first day in Mir Ali.
It is amazing how, given time, a human being can adjust to even the most vile and abnormal situations and circumstances.
Today my struggle to adapt begins.
A struggle to get used to the hunger, the pain, the fears and the mental and verbal abuse — the only scheduled contents of the days ahead.
I realise that if I am to somehow survive what my captors have in store for me, I will have to fight back all that I know or expect to be normal.
My captors constantly bark instructions or insults at me.
I don’t know which, but I think they are actually incensed by my inability, as an infidel, to understand a language I am hearing for the first time in my life.
I am in a very dark room and the only ray of light creeps in from a tiny hole in the ceiling which will be used to put the heater’s exhaust pipe through in winter. The first assault on my senses is the stench.
Eid is approaching and I am locked in a room which was previously used to hold the sheep.
The reek of the soiled floor and the smell of the filthy room burns my nostrils. I also smell awful. I don’t think I have ever smelt as bad even after hours of playing football in the sweltering Lahori summer.
I am sitting on the damp muddy floor.
I think of the comfort of my bed back home.
I raise my hands and look at the rusted metal chains on my wrists; how different from the beautifully crafted and caressing bracelet of my favourite Rolex.
I am trying to ignore the gnawing and grumbling vacuum of hunger in my belly.
I am aware of only pain and fear.
Will I survive today? Will I be alive by the end of the week?
I think about the faces of my captors, the monsters who will torture and mutilate me for money for the next four and a half years, in a hope to get their brothers released.
Taseer after release -Photos provided by the writer
I am looking my body over, searching for any signs of strength in my spoilt, elitist, upper-class, luxury-ridden, ‘infidel’s’ limbs.
I am thinking about my identity in this joint. I have ceased to be Shahbaz. Ceased to be someone’s child, brother, husband or friend.
Here I am only a prisoner, a kedi, a bandi.
I am almost offended by the thought, not yet knowing that for the years to come, these will be the kindest words used to refer to me.
They can call me anything they want.
I am free. I am free. I am free. I am free.
Today begins my internal battle to hold on to all the scattered and broken pieces of myself.
I will hold myself together, I will find strength and patience somehow.
It is truly amazing what the human body and mind can endure in order to survive.
I am groggy from all the drugs injected into my system and every pore and bone in my body is screaming in pain… unbelievable pain and all at once! Ribs, legs, hands, face. I have a cut underneath my eye which is still bleeding. The chains are burning and biting into my wrists and ankles.
It is simmering hot, something that I have never experienced before.
A realisation slowly creeps in: I will never be even remotely close to the vicinity of being comfortable … regardless of the weather.
There is a red bucket in my cell and I think it is my toilet.
I also get one ‘lota’ of water which is supposed to last the entire day — for wuzu, drinking and using the toilet.
I don’t know this and so I put the lota to my mouth and guzzle it down my parched mouth.
I will only learn the hard way and will soon know better to ration my supply of water.
I am distracted from the thirst only by mosquitoes that are having a field day with my flesh.
The sound of mosquitos and jets will forever haunt me.
For breakfast I am given black tea without sugar or milk and a mouldy slice of bread which is inedible even though I am starving.
In a few days I will learn to let the tea cool down and add it to my supply of water.
My one meal of the day consists of instant noodles, which I too break down into two portions: one for lunch, and one cold rubbery portion for dinner.
The most ridiculous mistake I will make is to inform my captors that I can’t eat instant noodles on a daily basis.
They will oblige my request by changing the daily meal plan to a piece of animal fat which I will learn to gulp down every day for the next whole year and more.
Fear can be explained.
So can pain with much effort.
Loneliness, however, is something that can never be explained.
I am lucky I have my own company and humour, or at least, so I think.
I try to smile regardless of the situation.
A year and half later I will be severely injured in a drone strike and moved to my kidnapper’s house, and his two-year-old Uzbeki son will hobble over towards me and make a face of bewilderment which will make me crack up.
This will be the first time in years that I will laugh.
I’ll laugh not recalling a funny situation or figment from memory, but because of an actual human being in the cold reality of my bleak days.
Smiling and laughing will recede to some inner recesses of my being along with many other emotions that I had previously taken for granted.
My cell guard actually seems nice and friendly the first day.
I will soon learn first-hand that where the wrath of the Taliban ends, begins the mercy of an Uzbeki.
After my first day in this cell, all will change.
I will become a different person.
I will learn to retire all the emotions, comforts and luxuries that I had taken for granted in an attempt to forge a will to survive.
I will find comfort and superhuman strength in my faith.
Comfort and the most precious gift of hope — a hope to see the dear faces and places that are slowly fading.
I think about my father and something that I learnt from him over the years.
Perseverance.
I tell myself that someday I will look back and smile at all of this, and this thought gives me some strength.
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 25th, 2016 |
Watch out print books: ebooks just got a whole lot more interesting. George R.R. Martin, in collaboration with Apple, has released an interactive Game of Thrones book. Anybody familiar with the story knows how incredibly difficult it is to keep track of all the people, locations, and events. These ‘enchanced editions’ will work like a Wikipedia page, except the reader never has to leave the text for deeper research on the topic that’s confusing them.
A Game of Thrones: Enhanced edition is the first book in the series to receive the illustration upgrade which will include everything from, “interactive character maps to detailed annotations, character journeys and timelines, family trees and audio clips” according to a recent Guardian article. This is HarperCollins’s way of celebrating the 20 year anniversary of such a legendary books series. In time, each book will turn into an illustrated version: A Clash of Kings is scheduled to be released on October 27th, and A Storm of Swords on December 15th. You can see Martin’s promotional video here:
This is not only a milestone for the Game of Thrones series, it marks a whole new way we think about ebooks. Martin himself even proclaimed: “We’re now entering a new period in the history of publishing…It’s an amazing next step in the world of books.”
Will print books be able to compete with the in-depth backgrounds e-books will be able to provide in the future? Nobody knows, so for now, cherish your print books while you can! A whole new generation of e-reading may just wash over us.
Featured image courtesy of http://bit.ly/2dcK0c7 |
Washington punter Tress Way has invented the next trivia game you will want at your party - The Comeback
Risks and challenges
From the beginning, our vision has been clear: to bring others the same joy and passion that we found playing What’s Your Bid.
We want What’s Your Bid to become the best, most loved trivia game ever.
The biggest risk we’ve faced is that we’re a new company. Starting a business from scratch comes with many challenges, and we have learned to navigate those as a team. One question and the conversation it inspired, ignited this entire project. That one question has now expanded to five hundred. We’ve cleared the hurdle of finding factual, multiple answer questions that are engaging enough for everyone to play, but that pursuit must continue for the game to remain viable. Going forward, we plan to expand game delivery platforms beyond our initial board game format, which will require persistent development efforts, research and test marketing. Acquiring copyright protection for both our product and its content is critical to our beginning and future progress, and has been achieved.
Game concept, design and production presented unique challenges for this, our first project. We dedicated considerable time to allowing potential users to experience the game firsthand, and listened carefully to their feedback, steadily improving the game along the way. That process helped refine our game design - its look and feel - and most important, the way the game plays. All future development will require the same thorough research and testing. We are proud of our product and refuse to stop until it’s perfect. |
In the United States, Democrats have long insisted that women should vote for Democrats, because abortion was the most important issue.
Abortion is not really an issue any more. It was allowed by states prior to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and has been the law of the land for 40 years. In cases where someone tries to run on abortion, it fails. But marketing scholars say global warming has replaced abortion as the litmus test for why women should be Democrats - if women care about long-term consequences of their actions, that is.
Jeff Joireman, associate professor of marketing at Washington State University, says in the Journal of Environmental Psychology that "future-oriented" women - and who doesn't want to be called that? - are the voting bloc most likely to be fine with higher taxes and more regulations.
Previous surveys have found that women and those with liberal viewpoints are more likely to claim to want to protect the environment than men - and also more than female conservatives. Their reasoning may not be sound, since it was also found that their belief in global warming is positively linked to outdoor temperatures. During hot weeks, people think more about climate change, so Democrats are hoping for a heat wave or a Super Storm, or something that will get future-oriented liberal women to the polls in November.
This year's political contests are also heated, with environmental ads surging to record levels. Over 125,000 political spots cite energy, climate change and the environment, which is a solid third place, behind ads about the lingering unemployment problem and health care costs - according to an analysis by Kantar Media/CMAG. But while voters may take the environment seriously, political candidates do not. In California's 8th Congressional District, both the Democratic incumbent Ami Bera and his Republican challenger Doug Ose invoke science in their advertising, but neither will go on record outlining what their positions are.
For their paper, the authors confirmed their belief in global warming psyche using a rather subjective personality trait called "consideration of future consequences."
Those who score high on the scale were considered to be very worried about the future impacts of their actions, while those with lower scores are more concerned with immediate consequences. Joireman and his team polled 299 U.S. residents, ages 18 to 75. 52% percent of the respondents were male and 80 percent were Caucasian.
On their "consideration of future consequences" scale, women who scored high on 'future consequences were more liberal, had more environmental values, belief in global warming, and willingness to pay more for energy and food to reduce global warming. Women scored lower than men on liberal political orientation and willingness to pay when their concern with future consequences was low.
Joireman says future-oriented women are more politically liberal and liberals are more likely to claim to value the environment, though when it comes to actual conservation and recycling there is no difference between global warming belief and denial. These effects lead to a willingness to pay more in goods, services and extra taxes to help mitigate climate change, though since most of the respondents were college students, and don't even have to pay for health insurance until they are 26, they don't actually realize what higher costs mean.
"Future-oriented women, for example, might be more willing to pay higher prices for fuel-efficient cars, alternative forms of transportation and energy efficient appliances. They might also eat less meat, all to help lower greenhouse gas emissions," Joireman
said. |
Booming West African cities such as Lagos, Abuja and Accra have received a great deal of attention and FDI over the past decade in response to their population growth, economic growth, dynamism and promise. While we expect to see these cities continue as primary investment destinations, domestic and foreign investors alike are always looking for the next big thing – those up-and-coming cities that will rise to prominence ten years from now.
We have accordingly identified three cities that have started their ascendancy and we think investors should keep a particularly keen eye on…
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Ouagadougou, or Ouaga for short, in landlocked Burkina Faso, is a city to watch. The country’s largest city, with a population of more than 1,086,000, it is the nation’s economic, administrative, cultural and communications centre. While it has many hurdles to overcome – such as unemployment and an infrastructure deficit in telecoms, transport and utilities – the feeling is that its promise is weightier than all of this.
Burkina currently has the fastest growing gold economy in Africa, and operating costs in the country are low. The flat savannah landscape makes exploration easy. The country is underexplored and its gold deposits as yet largely untapped. The political environment is considered reasonably stable, and the legislative framework enacted in the early 2000s has established a relatively transparent business environment conducive to increased investments.
Download economic snapshots and Fiscal Guides here.
Dakar, Senegal
Dakar is on many investors’ radar, and rightly so. It is a true gateway city, strategically located in terms of sea, road and rail links. It has one of the largest deep-water seaports along the West African coast.The port’s location at the extreme western point of Africa, at the crossroad of the major sea-lanes linking Europe to South America, makes it a natural port of call for shipping companies. Dakar is also linked to numerous African cities by air, and daily flights go to Europe.
The system of roads in Senegal is extensive by West African standards, with paved roads reaching each corner of the country and all major towns. Dakar is the endpoint of three routes in the Trans-African Highway network: the Cairo-Dakar Highway, the Dakar-Ndjamena Highway, and the Dakar-Lagos Highway.
Dakar, the country’s capital, offers investors a relatively stable political environment, democratic institutions, two-day business registration, a relatively robust telecommunications infrastructure, a stable regional currency (the CFA), easy repatriation of capital and income, and abundant semi-skilled and unskilled labour. The city’s population is in excess of 1 million.
The country’s key export industries at present are phosphate mining, fertiliser production, and commercial fishing. It is also working on iron ore and oil exploration projects.
Download economic snapshots and Fiscal Guides for Senegal here.
Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire
Abidjan is modern, pretty, has a high concentration of wealthy individuals, and is the economic heartbeat of Cote d’Ivoire. Located in the southeast of the country on the Ébrié Lagoon, with bridges connecting the various peninsulas and islands, it is the second most populous West African city after Lagos. It also has the third-largest French-speaking population in the world, and the largest in Africa. It is considered a cultural hub, having a wide range of hotels, restaurants, places of interest, and nightlife spots.
The civil conflict that erupted earlier this century and lasted a decade naturally hurt the city’s prospects, but Abidjanais are working hard to re-establish the city’s former good reputation and it is finally re-emerging as Francophone Africa’s top investment hub.
Cote d’Ivoire in general has much going for it, and Abidjan, being the economic hub and lying on the coast, is the obvious investment destination to serve as the base for many operations. The country is the largest producer of cocoa in the world, supplying about 41% of global output; rubber production is showing strong growth; there is relatively low and stable consumer price inflation; its port infrastructure is amongst the best in Africa; the Government, with help from multilateral organisations, is increasing thermal and hydroelectric production capacity; and the country has relatively high stock of foreign exchange reserves. France continues to be overwhelmingly the most prominent foreign investor in Abidjan and the rest of the country.
The National Development Plan (2012-15) aims to reduce poverty significantly and to transform the Cote d’Ivoire into an emerging economy by 2020. The government plans to increase public investment from 3% of GDP in recent years to 9.7% of GDP by 2015. Furthermore, the World Bank approved the First Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC-1), which will support reforms aimed at strengthening public-sector governance and administration and facilitating private-sector led growth.
Download economic snapshots and Fiscal Guides for Cote d’Ivoire here. |
Police in Florida are investigating the deadly shooting of a Delray Beach city employee. Corey Jones had car trouble early Sunday morning and was waiting for assistance when he was approached by an unmarked squad car and shot by a plainclothes officer, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller.
Family members say they knew something was wrong when Jones didn't show up for Sunday church services.
"Anything you need, Corey would be right there," said Jones's aunt, Dale Banks. "If you needed his shirt, he would give you his shirt. He would be cold just to keep you warm."
They say the 31 year-old had a rhythm all his own. He played drums at the Bible Church of God in Boynton Beach, where his grandfather serves as bishop. Jones is also the first cousin of San Francisco 49er receiver Anquan Boldin.
After he left a gig in Jupiter, Florida, Jones's SUV broke down on an Interstate 95 exit ramp. He called a band mate for help, and the band mate then called roadside assistance.
Police officer Nouman Raja arrived just after 3 a.m.
In a statement on Facebook, the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department said, "Nouman Raja, on duty in a plain clothes capacity, in an unmarked police vehicle, stopped to investigate what he believed to be an abandoned vehicle. As the officer exited his vehicle, he was suddenly confronted by an armed subject. As a result of the confrontation, the officer discharged his firearm, resulting in the death of the subject."
Thirty-eight-year-old Raja, who joined the force in April, was not wearing a body camera, and none of the department's squad cars are fitted with dashboard cameras.
Jones was a graduate of the University of Akron in Ohio and worked for the Delray Beach Housing Authority.
"It's a big blow, a big blow. It hurts man, it hurts so bad," said Jones's cousin, Sylvester "Tre" Banks III.
With no cameras and no witnesses, the family wants answers.
"He grew up on the drums over there. We taught him a few things about life and about being a gentleman. We really just need to get more information," said Jones's uncle, Kenneth Terry Banks.
Palm Beach Gardens police have not said what type of weapon Jones allegedly had. Relatives said they don't think he owned a gun.
Officer Raja has been placed on paid administrative leave, in keeping with following departmental policy. |
Onion tomato raita recipe, how to make onion tomato raita.with step by step pictures - an easy andThis raita stands out because of the ease at which it can be made with the (most common) two main ingredients easily available - Onions and tomatoes.brings in nostalgic memories as a new bride and a novice cook myself about 20 years back; those days there was no internet and even phone calls were not easy as it was now, living in the remotest village near Munnar hill station. My mother in law had once mentioned briefly that Homey loves this onion tomato raita so much that he does not need any extra curry withand boy! this raita was a life saver for me those days.Living in far off hill station where you get the freshest of the fresh tomatoes this raita recipe was a keeper and yes, over the years it has graced many meals and the recipe passed on.The mustard seeds and the whole red chilies crackling in the oil gives it the punch needed to make it a stunning raita. No need for extra ingredients like rock salt or chat masala which was not so easily available in those days, but yes; if you have a flare for North Indian Cuisine you can add them; if it is available in your pantry. But let me tell you, Homey and I love this raita without them, and I am sure you would too.Chop the tomatoes and onion.Lightly beat curd/yogurt with salt and add the chopped tomatoes and onion and mix lightly.Heat a tadka pan with oil, add in the mustard seeds.Once the mustard seeds starts to crack, add in the broken whole Kashmiri red chilies. Pour this over the prepared raita.Transfer to a serving bowl and serve withor |
Photo
This article is by Eric Schmitt, Somini Sengupta and Jane Perlez.
WASHINGTON — American and Indian authorities said Tuesday that there was now little doubt that militants inside Pakistan had directed the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Indian officials said they had identified three or four masterminds of the deadly assault, stepping up pressure on Pakistan to act against the perpetrators of one of the worst terrorist attacks in India’s history.
The emerging consensus came as the Bush administration increased its diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan over the attacks, dispatching the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, to the region. He is to join Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday morning.
Both officials are expected to issue stern warnings to the government of Pakistan to crack down on militant groups in Pakistan near its borders with Indian-administered Kashmir and with Afghanistan, top American aides said.
Two senior American officials said Tuesday that the United States had warned India in mid-October of possible terrorist attacks against “touristy areas frequented by Westerners” in Mumbai, but that the information was not specific. Nonetheless, the officials said, the warning echoed other general alerts this year by India’s intelligence agency, raising questions about the adequacy of India’s counterterrorism measures.
Details of the attack planners also became clearer on Tuesday. The only gunman captured by the police told his interrogators that one of the main plotters was a fugitive known to Indian authorities: Yusuf Muzammil, a leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to a senior Indian police official and a Western official.
The group, though officially banned and once focused primarily on Indian claims to disputed Kashmir, maintains its leadership in Pakistan and is believed to have moved its militant networks to Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Mr. Muzammil, who is the right-hand man to Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakvhi, the operational commander of the group, talked by satellite phone to the attackers from Pakistan when the gunmen were in the Taj and Oberoi hotels, the Western official said.
The attackers also used the cellphones of people they killed to call back to Mr. Muzammil somewhere in Pakistan, the official said.
The mounting evidence increased the pressure on the United States to find a way to resolve the tensions between Pakistan and India, two nuclear-armed neighbors. The officials said there was still no evidence that Pakistan’s government had a hand in the operation, although investigators were still searching for clues of outside support for the terrorists.
“There’s very little doubt that L.-e.-T. is responsible, but beyond that we need to learn more,” said a senior American official, who was briefed on the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, citing its continuing nature.
Indian officials sidestepped questions on the prospects of a military standoff and obliquely suggested that New Delhi may suspend peace talks with Pakistan, under way for nearly five years.
The Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said he could not comment on military options available to his government, except to say that “every sovereign country has its right to protect its territorial integrity.”
Senior Bush administration officials sought to tamp down tensions. “It’s important for there to be restraint on both sides and — but it’s also important to find out who was responsible,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.
Fresh information about the attacks, which hit two luxury hotels, a train station and other targets and killed 173 people, spilled forward Tuesday, even as the Indian police acknowledged that it would take longer to get to the bottom of the gunmen’s identities.
The 10 heavily armed young men had all been trained by former army officers, the Mumbai police chief, Hassan Gafoor, told reporters. Though he refused to specify, the implication was that the army officers were Pakistani.
The attackers came on a three-day journey by sea from Karachi, he said. The one suspect in custody said he was from Pakistan, and the authorities were verifying the identities of nine others who were killed.
Though the suspect in their custody has given no more than aliases for his nine partners, the Mumbai police insisted that all were Pakistanis. And all had been trained at the same place, the authorities said, and were on a suicide mission.
The investigation has not yet turned up any links to organized crime figures or local collaborators, Mr. Gafoor said, though it was clear that the attackers had tried to pass themselves off as Indians and had wrapped their campaign in local grievances.
They carried Indian college student identification cards, the police said. They called an Indian television station early on in their three-day standoff to broadcast what are common complaints of Indian Muslims, including the 2002 attacks on Muslims by Hindus in western Gujarat State, which left nearly 1,000 dead.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
And in one of the most chilling accounts from last week, when a diner at the Kandahar restaurant at the Oberoi Hotel asked his tormentors, “What have we done?” a gunman retorted: “What was done in Godhra?” Godhra is the town in Gujarat where the sectarian violence began. Then, the gunman shot the diner, according to a witness who survived.
“Their main intention is to say this is local homegrown terrorism,” Rakesh Maria, the city’s joint commissioner of police, who is heading up the investigation, said late Tuesday night. He said that the confessions of the suspect in his custody had put to rest those claims.
On Monday, the Indian Foreign Ministry summoned Pakistan’s high commissioner and handed him a list of some 20 suspects wanted in connection with terrorist attacks and pending criminal cases. The Pakistani information minister, Sherry Rehman, said the government would “have to look at it formally.”
Pakistani leaders appeared to be waiting for the arrival of Admiral Mullen, who has met with the Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in Washington and Islamabad, Pakistan, on many occasions. Secretary Rice is scheduled to land in Islamabad on Thursday.
Among those on the list of 20, Indian and American officials said, is an organized-crime boss, Dawood Ibrahim, who was implicated in serial bombings in Mumbai in 1993.
Another is Masood Azhar, head of the banned Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistan-based militant group, who was freed in 1999 in exchange for hostages on a hijacked Indian Airlines plane in Kandahar.
Yet another, the Pakistani news media reported, was Haffiz Mohammed Saeed, the leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Mr. Saeed lives in Lahore. After Lashkar-e-Taiba was banned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2002, it formed again under a new name, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, led by Mr. Saeed.
In an interview with Geo television on Tuesday, Mr. Saeed denied that he had been involved in the Mumbai attacks or that he had given approval for them. “India has always accused me without any evidence,” he said.
The new group, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, is organized as a charity and Mr. Saeed is now recognized as the “acceptable face of fundamentalism” in Pakistan, according to Ahmed Rashid, an expert on Pakistani Islamic groups and author of a recent book on Pakistan, “Descent Into Chaos.”
At a meeting at Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, foreign diplomats urged Pakistani officials on Tuesday to take firm action against terrorism suspects, according to two diplomats who were there.
The diplomats also emphasized that the Mumbai attacks were not just a Pakistan-India matter but were of international proportions and involved the deaths of a number of foreigners, one diplomat said.
The Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, made a short televised statement on Tuesday saying that Pakistan was offering to establish a “joint investigating mechanism and joint commission” with India.
But pressure for Pakistani action against militant groups, or an Indian response, has mounted with each gory detail emerging from the Mumbai attacks.
Ashok Pawar, a local police constable who arrived at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel shortly after the gunmen lay siege to it, said he could see their carefully scripted tableau in the closed-circuit TV cameras in the hotel’s second floor security room.
In two teams of two, the gunmen kicked down hotel room doors, forced guests to come out into the hallway, tied the men’s hands behind their backs, usually with a bedsheet, and herded their captives into one room. During the operation, Mr. Pawar said, the gunmen made several long phone calls.
Mr. Gafoor, the police chief, said their phone records were still being investigated. But the Western official said it was now clear that many of those calls were going to the attacks’ organizers.
The gunmen soon realized they were being watched, and so they smashed the cameras, lobbed a grenade and started firing at Mr. Pawar and his colleagues in the security room. One of them was shot in the neck. Mr. Pawar managed to escape. |
You can never take too much away from the Spring Game. It is a glorified scrimmage and coaches put little emphasis on it when they evaluate players. I'm looking for larger trends and evaluating things like athleticism and decision making.
First thing to say is that the crowd showed up. Lower bowl of the stadium was pretty much full and the 50,500 number isn't an exaggeration and the numbers were way better than USCjr numbers.
Lets start with the Ugly, get it out of the way.
Special Teams
Umm...weren't we supposed to be working on this phase of the game? Yes, I know the teams were divided up and Dabo said that some walk-ons were on the field to just play teams, but still it was ugly. Alex Spence did not have a good day. Started with the kick out of bounds and shanked an easy FG around 30 yards. He doesn't have accuracy or leg strength. Huegel isn't much better on kickoffs. Average starting distance was around the 10-15 yard line. That is unacceptable and it is the reason Clemson is looking for another walk-on kicker this summer. Goodness.
Scott has some nice returns but they were the result of low line drive kicks straight to the returner. That was some of the worst punting I have seen in a long time. No distance and no air time. If you are going to do rugby style kicks (which is what they looked like because the kicks were so bad), they should be angled and delayed so the coverage team can get further down field. How about we have an exchange with the Utah special teams staff, go grab an Aussie or two in the future.
RayRay McCloud showed you why he is still not gaining the complete trust and confidence of the staff yet. He has all the talent in the world and had over a hundred yards receiving, but on the punt that he fielded inside the 5 yard line where he fell down he made a mental error. You never field a line drive punt headed straight for the endzone inside the 10, let alone the 5. RayRay is still one of my breakout candidates though for this year. Made some great grabs and consistently makes guys miss.
Artavis Scott being in the game late in the third quarter and slightly tweaking his knee. Seemed fine afterward, but that was certainly scary.
Dexter Lawrence is filthy--the good kind of ugly. He was double teamed pretty much every single play and was everything we heard he would be.
Positives
Deshaun Watson plays in his first Spring Game and he was incredibly sharp.
Hunter Renfrow was too good.
No fumbles that I remember seeing.
Not a ton of mental busts on the offensive line. Sure guys were getting beat but I didn't see a lot of complete busts--need to rewatch Oline specifically, but felt like they generally had a good day for both teams. QBs had time in the pocket and were able to step up in the pocket to make some throws. RBs had some clear lanes. Good to see a guy like walk-on Logan Tisch #72 getting some good minutes. Only guy who I saw struggle a bit was Maverick Morris at times.
Wayne Gallman looks about 5 pounds heavier and has the same burst. He should have a special season. I liked what I saw from Adam Choice who showed a nice burst and Dye and Fuller were also fine. I think Choice is going to be the backup but Dye shouldn't be counted out. Coaches like Fuller's overall skill set (blocking, catching, etc.)--Swinney said as much in his broadcast.
Seth Ryan definitely won the Paul Macko Spring Standout award. Made some great catches. I was impressed with Scott's burst but he still needs to be more dominant on jump balls down the field (this is why I can't wait for Mike Williams and Deon Cain to be back).
Jordan Leggett looked dominant and then got out of the game. Important with all the guys behind him needing reps. Well executed, should have been the same for Scott.
Nick Schuessslerrrr had himself a game. That is the best I have seen him throw the ball down the field in a scrimmage setting probably ever. Threw with accuracy and zip, even stepped up in the pocket. Also showed his craftiness with the zone read and deceptive speed. Folks Bryant is the better runner than Deshaun and truly elite as a runner but Schuessler will not be counted out. Impressive game.
On defense I thought Austin Bryant had a fantastic game. He got off the ball but showed great awareness and batted down two balls. Looks to have fully healed after have some minor injuries during Spring practice.
Kendall Joseph was all over the field and has definitely secured his spot next to Boulware as the starter at MLB. I liked what I saw from Shaq Smith and Tre Lamar. Lamar is such a hard tackler, he puts people on the ground. They both missed some gaps and need the game to slow down but they should both contribute this year. Dorian O'Daniel played well and didn't get burned much in pass coverage.
Richard Yeargin had a nice day as well. Good motor and pursuit. Hard to judge the pass rush because we get the ball out so quickly.
Bad-ish (Nothing was really that bad)
No caused fumbles that I remember seeing.
Pump the brakes on the Kelly Bryant hating. He isn't able to run the way he normally would. That is taking away his strength. He continues to struggle with some of his decision making but he is way ahead of where he was last year at the same time. Started making good throws and having confidence, but made some bad decisions and didn't rebound as strongly. He will be fine.
Trevion Thompson showed why he is still in a reserve role. Made some great catches but was inconsistent and dropped some catchable balls. He still has time to continue to develop, but right now is lacking that focus and consistency--needs to switch gloves with Seth Ryan.
Christian Wilkins looked fine on the outside but I want to really watch the tape before wanting this to be more than a situational thing. Pagano, Watkins and Dexter give you a winning grade but I thought Huggins started out great but then got pushed around more as the game wore on and Robinson still isn't where you want him to be with regards to core strength. Cervenka and Johnson are still going to need time. I liked what I saw from Pinkney actually more than those two.
Chris Register is a project out there at DE. Clelin Ferrell looks the part and had some great plays early but wasn't as dominant as the game continued it seemed--need to see the tape.
Main problem is in the secondary. Just a lot of inconsistency. Safeties aren't always in position. Van Smith made some nice plays (almost picked off Bryant) but also missed some tackles and assignments. You saw with Mark Fields that he has the athleticism and almost the full package, but isn't a lockdown corner yet. Inconsistency. Guys have the talent but need more seasoning. I think Jadar Johnson and Smith will be fine and Tank and Carter/Fields will also be alright. You hope Edmond can step up, great interception but then got burned by RayRay. That will be a slightly above average secondary but if anyone gets injured then it gets scary.
Denzel Johnson is a sure tackler but he and Tanner Muse still have a ways to go before they can be relied on in a game situation. Jalen Williams got embarrassed by Hunter Renfrow. Not a great day for him.
Amir Trapp looks very short.
Overall I loved watching how our offensive scheme put so much pressure on the entire defense. Ball gets out quick, defense gets tired and then you hit them over the top after punching them in the mouth. Fix the special teams and improve in the secondary and this will be a special team if healthy. |
A pregame prayer will be returning to Bell County High School football games this season.
Four years ago, the "Freedom from Religion Foundation" sent the school a letter, complaining about the prayer.
State attorneys told the school then, that continuing the prayer would be unconstitutional.
However, recently the "First Priority" christian group, made up of teachers and students at the school, got approval from the school board to bring back prayer before games.
"We'll have several of our First Priority students, so it will be student-led, those who are interested in leading the prayer. It's not an organized prayer. It will happen sometime before the game, probably over the loud speaker," Samantha Johnson, a Bell County teacher said.
In a statement, the ACLU of Kentucky said it wants more detailed information about the school's decision and the organization plans to monitor how it is implemented. |
FBI Director James Comey says he allowed the producers of a new television series to have access to the bureau's New York offices in hopes of boosting the agency's image.
“We have to care what people think of us,” Comey said at a preview of the new series, "Inside the FBI: New York," during an interview at the Newseum in Washington.
“The faith and confidence of the American people is the bedrock."
The documentary series is by Dick Wolf, the creator of the popular "Law & Order" series on NBC, and Marc Levin, the documentarian behind the Peabody-winning "Brick City" TV series.
“I worry sometimes that people don’t know us,” Comey said in explaining why he approved cooperation with the series.
“We did a lot last year that confused people," he added.
Comey was referring to last year's FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE's handling of classified information via a private email server. Comey concluded in July that Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee, was "extremely careless" with State Department emails but did not recommend charges.
Then, 11 days before Election Day, Comey announced the bureau had uncovered new material possibly relevant to the Clinton investigation, which some Democrats believe played a big role in her stunning loss to Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE.
Comey has also come under fire from Republicans for the FBI's investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, whom intelligence agencies have concluded attempted to influence the presidential election in Trump's favor.
The FBI director suggested partisan politics skew people's perspective on what his agency does.
“Because they are seeing the world ... they see the world through sides,” Comey said. “If you see the world through sides, the FBI doesn’t make a lot of sense to you.
“We are not on anybody’s side. We really don’t care."
Wolf and Levin's production staff filmed at the New York FBI offices for an entire year, from September 2015 to September 2016.
"Inside the FBI: New York" premieres April 27 on USA Network. |
On one wall a photograph of Adams shaking hands with Nick Saban hangs above a signed picture of Richard Nixon. In the pantry, Adams had a urinal installed. Then there are all the televisions, squeezed together like puzzle pieces around every corner. His friends say there is no better sports bar in Memphis.
On a recent afternoon, the Shelby County mayor was a guest. Romaro Miller, who played quarterback at Mississippi before Eli Manning, was there. So were Bobby Ray Franklin, the quarterback who led Ole Miss to a share of the 1959 national championship, and Ron Gust, who played for Tennessee in the 1950s.
On fall Saturdays, two cooks arrive at Adams’s home at 7 a.m. to prepare a menu of more than 30 dishes in an industrial-size kitchen Adams had installed several years ago. He offers a buffet that ranges from sushi to fried chicken cooked in a vat on the back patio. Adams said he spends around $1,500 each weekend on the spread.
On this afternoon, Adams’s beloved Tennessee visited Florida. As a flood of guests arrived before kickoff, Adams bellowed gleefully, “No Democrats or Florida fans allowed!”
Image Roy Adams’s home in Memphis has 36 big-screen televisions, game rooms and a trove of University of Tennessee memorabilia. Credit Lance Murphey for The New York Times
Many of the guests are former college players and beneficiaries of Adams’s generosity, creating an eclectic mix of boosters, former jocks and current high school coaches from around the area. Most SEC teams are represented among the crowd. An Arkansas fan chided Volunteer supporters about the hillbillies in east Tennessee. Female Ole Miss students were the butt of another joke.
Adams hurried from room to room, making sure the food was just so and each guest properly attended to. Stories tumbled out of his mouth in between sips from an old-fashioned. “Nobody’s wife would ever let them do this,” he said. “I’m a bachelor, so I can.”
Adams recalls his bending of the N.C.A.A. rules with a wistful smile. He described players lining up outside his Knoxville hotel room knowing he would happily slip them a few bucks. Players at Arkansas State, Memphis and Ole Miss have also been the recipients of his generosity and hospitality. |
Mikhail Semyonovich Tsvet (Михаил Семёнович Цвет, also spelled Tsvett, Tswett, Tswet, Zwet, and Cvet; 14 May 1872 – 26 June 1919) was a Russian-Italian botanist who invented adsorption chromatography. His last name is Russian for both "colour" and "flowering."
Biography [ edit ]
Mikhail Tsvet was born 14 May 1872 in Asti, Italy. His mother was Italian, and his father was a Russian official. His mother died soon after his birth, and he was raised in Geneva, Switzerland. He received his BS degree from the Department of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Geneva in 1893. However, he decided to dedicate himself to botany and received his PhD degree in 1896 for his work on cell physiology. He moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1896 because his father was recalled from the foreign service. There he started to work at the Biological Laboratory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His Geneva degrees were not recognized in Russia, and he had to earn Russian degrees. In 1897 he became a teacher of botany courses for women. In 1902 he became a laboratory assistant at the Institute of Plant Physiology of the Warsaw University in Poland. In 1903 he became an assistant professor and taught also at other Warsaw universities. After the beginning of World War I the Warsaw University of Technology was evacuated to Moscow, Russia, and in 1916 again to Gorki near Moscow. In 1917 he became a Professor of Botany and the director of the botanical gardens at the University of Tartu (Yuryev) in Estonia. In 1918 when German troops occupied the city, the university was evacuated to Voronezh, a large city in the south of Central Russia. Tsvet died of a chronic inflammation of the throat on 26 June 1919 at the age of 47.
Grave of Tsvet with the inscription: "He invented chromatography, separating molecules but uniting peoples."
Chromatography [ edit ]
Mikhail Tsvet invented chromatography in 1900 during his research on plant pigments. He used liquid-adsorption column chromatography with calcium carbonate as adsorbent and petrol ether/ethanol mixtures as eluent to separate chlorophylls and carotenoids. The method was described on 30 December 1901 at the XI Congress of Naturalists and Physicians (XI съезд естествоиспытателей и врачей) in St. Petersburg. The first printed description was in 1905, in the Proceedings of the Warsaw Society of Naturalists, biology section.[1] He first used the term "chromatography" in print in 1906 in his two papers about chlorophyll in the German botanical journal, Berichte der Deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft.[2][3] In 1907 he demonstrated his chromatograph for the German Botanical Society.
For several reasons, Tsvet's work was long ignored:[4] the violent political upheaval in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, the fact that Tsvet originally published only in Russian (making his results largely inaccessible to western scientists), and an article denying Tsvet's findings. Richard Willstätter and Arthur Stoll tried to repeat Tsvet's experiments, but because they used an overly aggressive adsorbent (destroying the chlorophyll), were not able to do so.[5] They published their results and Tsvet's chromatography method fell into obscurity. It was revived 10 years after his death thanks to Austrian biochemist Richard Kuhn and his student, German scientist Edgar Lederer[6][7][8][9] as well as the work of A. J. Martin and R. L. Synge.[10]
Botanical author abbreviation [ edit ]
The standard botanical author abbreviation Tswett is applied to plants that he described. |
Large areas of this city, home to some 300,000 people before the militants seized control, were spared damage from airstrikes. But Islamic State fighters fleeing Falluja when it was retaken last year laid bombs , complicating the rebuilding efforts.
This tactic, Ms. Nassif said, was used by the group in several Iraqi cities once under its control. The bombs, often improvised explosive devices, have delayed the return of displaced residents and caused death and destruction even after the militants were rooted out. American officials warned of the same problem in Raqqa.
“There has been such a large demining effort,” Ms. Nassif said, “and it is going to be a major focus in some communities. There are a lot of I.E.D.s that are still present, and people are concerned about returning to their neighborhoods and homes.”
The Interpreter Newsletter Understand the world with sharp insight and commentary on the major news stories of the week. Sign Up Thank you for subscribing. View all New York Times newsletters. See Sample
Privacy Policy
Opt out or contact us anytime
There are other concerns, as well. Ms. Nassif said that some of the displaced residents in Iraq feared there might be clashes between rival groups when they return to the communities they left amid the upheaval.
“They are worried about retribution,” she said. “Unfortunately, in some situations, problems that were not faced before the takeover by insurgents have not necessarily been addressed and tensions may still exist.”
Ramadi, Iraq |
Baseball fandom can be weird. Most people fall into their rooting interests due to geography or family. We’ve done it a bit different in the Calcaterra household, however, and it has led to unexpected results.
While I started out as a Tigers fan due to geography, that changed to the Braves when I was 12 or 13 when I moved away from Michigan and the only team I could watch on a regular basis was the Atlanta Braves. I have explained all of that before.
My kids are another story. Despite what I do for a living, I’ve never pushed sports on them. Far from it, actually. There were some efforts at soccer by my son, but he got bored. My daughter has danced and recently has started riding horses, but sports are really not a part of their lives. Like, at all. Especially team sports. They watch baseball games with me sometimes, but most of my baseball watching happens later in the evening when they’re doing other things. For the most part we’re a pretty non-sporty family, and I have done nothing to force or even encourage rooting interests of any kind.
But, I suppose inevitably given all of the baseball I watch and talk about and all of the baseball stuff I have around my house, they have started to become baseball fans. Those occasional games we watch together are becoming more frequent. And over the past couple of years it’s been interesting to watch some level of baseball fandom develop in my kids.
They have some affinity for the Columbus Clippers, because those local Triple-A games were the first games they ever saw. But they also, eventually, came to realize that “minor leagues” are in some important ways “inferior leagues” so the fandom can only go so deep.
Their first major league game was a San Diego Padres-Texas Rangers matchup while we were on vacation, and for that reason they have good feelings about them too, but that’s more about that vacation and visiting their uncle Curt and stuff like that. It’s not like they knew anyone on the Padres besides Jason Marquis, who pitched the night we went to Petco. And who cares about Jason Marquis?
Local rooting? That’s straight out for them. We’re over 100 miles from Cincinnati and even farther from Cleveland. Unlike what may have been the case until recently, they’re not tied to local broadcasts. Indeed, with MLB.tv and Extra Innings it’s actually easier to get broadcasts from outside of Ohio rather than inside (great job, MLB!). And even if that wasn’t the case, I have already taught them that Chief Wahoo is racist garbage, so they’re never going to care for the Tribe, which cuts their chances of being Ohio baseball fans in half.
But something has happened over the past year or two that has made my kids — particularly my son — Los Angeles Dodgers fans.
A good bit of this is my fault, of course. At some point over the past two years they started asking me a lot of questions about “who’s the best” at this and that. Pitching fascinates them quite a bit, and as a result they are very clearly aware that, at this moment in time, Clayton Kershaw is the best. The idea of who the best hitter is hasn’t stuck with them as much, probably because I’ve differentiated more when it comes to answering their hitting questions. Sometimes we talk about power hitters, sometimes guys who hit for average. Often times — because they recognize historical hitters’ names like Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds — we talk about old retired dudes. There’s no real idea in their head about the best hitter like there is about Clayton Kershaw: best pitcher. So they like him.
But the real game-changer, particularly with my son, was Yasiel Puig. At some point in the past two years he heard me saying something about Puig. Maybe while doing a radio spot, maybe while just talking, but he knows that I talk about Puig differently than I talk about other players. He asked me why that was one time and I explained how Puig is different than a lot of other guys for many reasons.
For one thing, he’s Cuban. My son LOVES the idea of Cuban baseball players because of what I’ve told him about how they risked their lives to get here to play (Aroldis Chapman is a favorite of his too). That’s some heroic stuff to anyone, but it really hits home with a nine-year-old boy who has lived a pretty sheltered life and loves tales of danger and adventure.
More generally, however, he absolutely loved it when I told him that Puig is a guy some people don’t much care for. Eventually, as I explained why, he boiled it down to “old grouchy men don’t like Yasiel Puig because he’s too damn much fun.” Hey, he’s my kid. He’s going to come by his contrarianism and love of chaos honestly. So between the origin story, the anti-hero stuff and seeing this insanely muscular yet insanely fast and insanely animated man crush baseballs, my boy has decided that Puig is basically Superman. If Superman annoyed old people in ways which really make my boy giggle. And make his dad giggle too.
This love of Puig led to him getting a Puig shirsey, which he wears all the time. That led to his teacher calling him “Yasiel,” which has sort of stuck with his friends. My boy loves it. He plays Minecraft a lot and has a pet pig in the game named Yasiel Pig. Add in some other random factors — both of my kids have it in their heads, based on one visit, that California is some sort of paradise, Los Angeles is glamorous and the only time I’ve ever really let them stay up super late to watch baseball was when Vin Scully was broadcasting a 10pm Eastern Dodgers game or two last year — and there are number of small bricks in that Dodger Blue wall. When you’re a blank slate as a baseball fan it’s pretty easy to create your own fandom story
Last year when the Dodgers came to Cincinnati we went and saw a game, my son and I in our Puig shirseys (I own one for trolling purposes and for solidarity with my kids purposes) and my daughter in her Kershaw shirt. We cheered for the Dodgers and Yasiel Puig and had extra fun doing it in enemy territory. Last week, when I asked my kids what sort of souvenirs they wanted from Arizona, they both asked for Dodgers stuff. T-shirts and pennants. Just today, when I asked my son about whether he’s going to watch more baseball with me this season he asked if it’d be OK if we recorded Dodgers games and watched them the next day since they came on so late.
Last night, instead of reading in bed, my son asked me if he could write and draw. I found this in his room this morning:
Some of that — like the dubious “established 1958” — is just copied from Dodgers junk around the house (I have explained Brooklyn to him and he gets it). Some of it is stuff he asked me, like how many titles they won. Some of it is pure fantasy like the scoreboard which has the Dodgers beating one of the New York teams infinity to zero. Which, whatever you think of the Dodgers, is a nice touch.
All of this is so strange to me. What are the odds of these Ohio kids with a Braves fan dad becoming Dodgers fans? What are the odds that this fandom sticks? Are they old enough for me to taunt when the Dodgers play the Braves and we watch the game together? Most importantly, if what they say about baseball being a thing between parents and their children is true, can it go in both directions? Because I’ll be honest: while I’ll always be a Braves fan, I’ve enjoyed Dodgers stuff way, way more in the past couple of years precisely because my kids enjoys it so much. It’s as if they’re passing it on to me rather than the other way around. Am I a Dodgers fan now too? Maybe in some ways I am.
I guess what strikes me the most about all of this is a realization of how the more traditional modes of familial baseball fandom — the tired cliches of fathers and sons and things being passed down — are sort of random to begin with. They’re accidents of geography and birth, even if we accept them as the norm. So it probably doesn’t matter much that my kids’ Dodgers fandom is rather random too.
I suppose that probably annoys some grouchy old men. But as it is with Yasiel Puig, that’s not criticism to anyone in my family. That’s a selling point. |
Loading ... Loading ...
Antidepressants commonly prescribed for children and adolescents are no more effective than a placebo for treating major depression — and in some cases, can be downright harmful, according to a landmark new study.
Published in the Lancet, the research denotes the “first comprehensive comparison of commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs so far.” Medical researchers analyzed 34 pharmaceutical trials involving 5,260 participants ranging in average age from 9 to 18 years.
Of 14 common antidepressants studied, only fluoxetine — best known under the brand name, Prozac — proved marginally more effective in treating major depression than a placebo. Alarmingly, venlafaxine, brand name Effexor, “was linked with an increased risk of engaging in suicidal thoughts or attempts” when compared to both placebo and five other medications.
“The balance of risks and benefits of antidepressants for the treatment of major depression does not seem to offer a clear advantage in children and teenagers, with probably only the exception of fluoxetine,” summarized Prof. Peng Xie, study co-author from The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, China. “We recommend that children and adolescents taking antidepressants should be monitored closely, regardless of the antidepressant chosen, particularly at the beginning of treatment.”
However, despite such damning revelations, study authors also rebuked the pharmaceutical industry for making unbiased and thorough data available for research using the shield of patient privacy to invoke intellectual property rights.
“Without access to individual-level data it is difficult to get accurate effect estimates and we can’t be completely confident about the accuracy of the information contained in published and unpublished trials,” warned study lead author, Dr. Andrea Cipriani of the University of Oxford, U.K. “It has been widely argued that there needs to be a transformation of existing scientific culture to one where responsible data sharing should be the norm.”
Diagnosed major depressive disorder affects a statistically striking number of young people — 3 percent of children between 6 and 12 years of age and 6 percent of teens between 13- and 18-years-old. Accuracy of diagnostic methods or possible over-diagnosis were not covered by this study.
For this massive project, the authors analyzed data from all randomized trials — both published and unpublished — of the 14 most common antidepressants. Efficacy of medication, how well subjects tolerated any side effects, whether subjects discontinued treatment for any reason, and risk of actual harm, such as suicidal thoughts, were all taken into account.
In addition to venlafaxine, imipramine (brand name, Tofranil) and duloxetine (Cymbalta) were least tolerated by patients and resulted in the highest discontinuation rates.
Study authors admonished Big Pharma for seemingly skewed information and gaps in data from the lack of individual patient information. As noted in a ‘linked’ comment on the study, Dr. Jon Jureidini from the University of Adelaide noted the potential ‘suicidal events’ to be unaccounted for:
“The effects of misreporting is that antidepressants, possibly including fluoxetine, are likely to be more dangerous and less effective treatments than has been previously recognised, so there is little reason to think that any antidepressant is better than nothing for young people … Patients who take part in randomised controlled trials have a right to expect that maximum benefit will come from the data they generate.”
He added that doctors and researchers “are failing” patients because such data from individuals remains unavailable, and successful understanding of antidepressants will only come when patient-level data can be obtained for analysis.
“Patients’ privacy must be guaranteed by adequate policies and technological measures, but delay in implementing responsible data sharing policies has negative consequences for medical research and patient outcomes, as demonstrated by this study,” said Dr. Cipriani. “Access to raw clinical trial data provides the unique opportunity not only for validation and replication of results but also the in-depth study of specific factors that may affect treatment outcome at the individual patient level.”
Removing barriers from patient information is imperative to the accurate study of antidepressants, but more so to increase patient safety. As noted by study authors, despite the issuance by the FDA in 2004 of a black box warning to not prescribe antidepressants in youth up to age 24, since 2005, the number of prescriptions written to those aged 0 to 19 years actually increased from 1.3 percent to 1.6 percent in the U.S.
Authors remain concerned about their findings — particularly the potentially harmful effects hidden by the glaring dearth of information. As Dr. Jureidini advised,
“Claims that appropriate access to such data is incompatible with intellectual property constraints and patient privacy must be strongly resisted.”
Source: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/landmark-study-shows-antidepressants-effective-placebo-suicide/
Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World. |
Hospital in Tamil Nadu, India
Aravind Eye Hospitals is a hospital chain in India. It was founded by Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy (popularly known as Dr.V) at Madurai, Tamil Nadu in 1976. It has grown into a network of eye hospitals and has had a major impact in eradicating cataract related blindness in India.[2][3][4] As of 2012, Aravind has treated nearly 32 million patients and performed 4 million surgeries. The model of Aravind Eye Care hospitals has been applauded and has become a subject for numerous case studies across the world.[5][6][7]
History [ edit ]
Cataracts are a major source of blindness in India, with at least 4 million cases reported every year, contributing to nearly to a quarter of the world’s blind. Cataract related blindness can be avoided by timely intervention and surgery.[8]
The Aravind Model [ edit ]
Dr. Venkataswamy's vision was to eradicate needless blindness in India. Dr. Venkataswamy. wanted to emulate the service efficiency of McDonald's fast food and sought to adapt it to the eye care system to cope with increasing the numbers of patients treated. Aravind began performing surgeries on a large scale with treatment being free or heavily subsidized for the poor cross subsidized by the paying patients.[9] Aravind established an outreach program wherein doctors reach out to remote villages to conduct eye camps, some times, in association with various organizations.[10] The organizations take care of the costs of the camp, transporting the patients to surgery and their rehabilitation while Aravind does the surgery free of cost. Aravind started performing 5 times the number of cataract surgeries that were performed in the entire country and 16 times more than that of the entire U.S.[11]
Aravind focused on rotating doctors between free and paid wards, concentrating on efficiency and hygiene thus eliminating differences between the surgeries done for paid and non-paid patients. The rate of infection in Aravind was about four per thousand surgeries which was significantly lower than the international norm of six per thousand surgeries.[12]
Hospitals and facilities [ edit ]
Aravind Hospital started in 1976 as an 11-bed hospital in Madurai. Aravind opened a hospital in Theni in 1985 and Tirunelveli in 1988. The hospital at Coimbatore was founded in 1997. Aravind later expanded to five more cities in Tamil Nadu including Tirupur, Salem, Dindigul, Thoothukudi, Udumalaipettai and neighboring Pondicherry. Aravind is setting up a hospital in Chennai at a cost of INR 1.4 billion with a capacity to perform 60,000 surgeries a year. The group also has four partnership projects — with the Rajiv Gandhi Chairtable Trust in Amethi, another in Lucknow, Birla Corporation in Kolkata and Shanghvi Trust in Amreli, Gujarat. Aravind is also setting up its first overseas venture in Nigeria in partnership with Chanrai Group which is expected to be the largest eye-care facility in Africa when it goes operational in 2015 with a capacity to perform 10,000 surgeries annually.[13]
LAICO [ edit ]
Aravind established Lions Aravind Institute of Community Ophthalmology (LAICO) in association with Lions International in 1992. The institute offers training for hospital administrators, hospital operations managers and other management professionals.[14]
Aurolab [ edit ]
The intraocular lens (IOL) implanted during cataract surgery improves visual outcomes and, thereby, quality of life. However, the high cost threatened Aravind’s ability to provide IOLs to its poorer patients in the late 1980s. This led to Aravind establishing [15]Aurolab, a manufacturing facility, which introduced IOLs at $10 while others were selling them at $60-$100. Aurolab now manufactures a little more than two million lenses annually and exports to 160 countries. About 60% of Aurolab’s sales go to non-profit organizations. Aurolab now produces high quality IOLs, sutures, blades, pharmaceuticals and equipment at a fraction of their cost in the west, enabling Aravind and other providers to maintain quality and equity in care. Aurolab now meets over 10% of developing countries’ needs.
Aravind Eyebank [ edit ]
Aravind has established four eye banks viz. Rotary Aravind International Eye Bank in Madurai in association with Rotary International (1998), Aravind – IOB Eye bank in Coimbatore in association with Indian Overseas Bank (1998), Rotary Aravind Eye Bank in Tirunelveli in association with Rotary International (2004) and Aravind Eye Bank Association in Puducherry (2005).[16]
Awards and recognition [ edit ] |
A senior Iranian official says the Islamic Republic supports the establishment of a balanced and just ceasefire in Syria.
“Negotiations to solve the Syria crisis must be held among the Syrian government and opposition groups and the war must finally end,” Ali Akbar Velayati, the senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, told reporters after a meeting with former Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in Tehran on Tuesday.
He added that any ceasefire in Syria must safeguard the country’s territorial integrity, recognize its legitimate government and put an end to interference by foreigners, including reactionary states in the Middle East, the US and the Israeli regime.
He emphasized that those countries that have dispatched their forces to Syria without the Syrian government’s permission must stop their meddlesome moves.
The Syrian army troops and allied fighters have been fighting against different terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the Middle Eastern country since 2011, and have made sweeping gains against the Takfiri elements across the country.
A militant walks with his weapon on the outskirts of the northern Syrian town of al-Bab, January 26, 2017. (Photos by Reuters)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on January 31 hailed the will of his countrymen as one of the major factors helping the Arab country survive a foreign-sponsored conflict over the past six years.
Read more:
A nationwide ceasefire, brokered by Russia and Turkey with the support of Iran, has been largely holding in Syria since December 2016.
Velayati also reaffirmed the Islamic Republic’s support for the Iraqi government and nation in their fight against terrorism.
An independent and strong Iraq and a powerful Iran are two links in the chain of resistance against the Zionists and reactionary states in the region, he said, adding that the two countries play a key role in regional resistance. |
Homaro Cantu, whose creative blending of science and fine dining garnered international attention for his West Loop restaurant Moto, was found dead Tuesday afternoon on the Northwest Side, according to authorities and a business partner.
The 38-year-old chef appeared to die of hanging, and his death was being investigated as a suicide, police sources said.
Cantu was found about 1 p.m. in a building in the 4400 block of West Montrose Avenue where he had planned to open a brewery, according to investigators. The Cook County medical examiner's office said an autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday.
“I'm saddened, I'm broken up,” said Trevor Rose-Hamblin, Cantu's brewer and former Moto general manager. “This guy was my best friend. He was going to be my business partner.”
Cantu wowed diners with his edible menus, carbonated fruit and a fish preparation that cooked before your eyes in a tabletop polymer box, but his ambitions went beyond culinary pleasures. Citing as inspiration his family’s homelessness while growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Cantu presented food and science as a way to solve the world’s problems, particularly hunger.
His now-shuttered restaurant iNG and recently opened coffee shop Berrista emphasized the miracle berry, a fruit that makes sour foods taste sweet and could, in his mind, eliminate the need for sugar while making previously unpalatable ingredients palatable. He started an aeroponic farm in Moto’s basement and attempted lab work that might lead to the creation of synthetic meat and a vegan egg.
“I was just taught very early that if I didn't solve problems, I was headed for a very dark path,” Cantu told the Tribune in 2012. “Problems were everywhere. Now even if there are no problems, I look for problems. I'm like, you know what? I don't like the way this spoon works. I want to design a new spoon. Or I don't like the way my phone integrates with my desktop. ... I want to come in and talk to my computer.”
Cantu, whose friends called him “Omar,” worked in acclaimed chef Charlie Trotter’s kitchen for four years (1999-2003) before becoming Moto’s opening chef in 2004 and later an owner. Moto has been honored with one Michelin star since the 2012 guide.
He met his wife, Katie McGowan, when she was a guest chef in Trotter’s kitchen. They were married in 2003.
Cantu spoke with the enthusiasm of a geeky evangelist, often exclaiming “boom” to punctuate his descriptions of such visions as creating hangover-free beer or liquefying citrus from the inside to create packageless juice.
Coroner confirms Homaro Cantu died from hanging, services scheduled for Friday, April 17, 2015. (WGN) Coroner confirms Homaro Cantu died from hanging, services scheduled for Friday, April 17, 2015. (WGN) SEE MORE VIDEOS
“I think (I’m) a product developer first and foremost now,” he told the Tribune in 2012.
After Trotter died in November 2013, Cantu worked with the late chef’s family members and fellow alumni of the famed restaurant to launch The Trotter Project last June. This effort aimed to provide culinary and nutritional education particularly to students and neighborhoods in need, to create an as-yet-unlaunched restaurant online ratings system and to host culinary events in the tradition of its namesake. Its website currently seeks donations for “a three-year capital campaign to carry on the vision and values of Chef Charlie Trotter.”
In August he announced that his long-gestating brewery/brewpub had a name, Crooked Fork, but it has yet to open.
“I'm devastated,” Jeff Linnemeyer, a business partner with Cantu, said outside the planned brewery Tuesday afternoon.
Phillip Foss, chef of the renowned EL Ideas restaurant on the Southwest Side, collaborated with Cantu on a ’90s themed dinner on March 25. That was the same day Foss learned about Moto's chef de cuisine departing, as well as the lawsuit against Cantu going public.
“It showed a great character that he even showed up, given what happened that day. He told me, 'What are you gonna do? I'm going to work through it,’ ” Foss said. “But he definitely wasn't in the happiest spirit. There was a somber note to him for sure.”
Last month, Cantu was sued by an investor in Moto and another restaurant, iNG, that has closed. Alexander Espalin claimed Cantu used Moto’s business bank account for personal use, including trips, meals and personal business such as the development of patented products.
In the lawsuit filed in Chancery Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County on March 19, Espalin said Cantu failed to pay him profits owed him for his investment in iNG and Moto.
Espalin said he invested $100,000 in iNG at the start of the operation and later an additional $50,000 to help what he said was a failing restaurant, and that he had a 15 percent ownership stake in Moto.
But Espalin said in the lawsuit that Cantu commingled the accounts for the restaurants, using Moto’s profits to prop up iNG, which he said was failing and which he urged Cantu to close.
Espalin said that Cantu cut off contact with him in September 2012, after which he said in the lawsuit that he learned Cantu was using a “business bank account for personal matters,” including trips, meals, legal fees, and Cantu’s cookbook and personal ventures.
Espalin also alleged in the suit that Cantu’s cookbook, “The Miracle Berry Diet Cookbook,” used a featured item on iNG's menu, but that Cantu kept all profits from the cookbook for himself, and used restaurant funds to pay for the promotion of the book.
Chicago Tribune’s Kevin Pang, Tony Briscoe and Lauren Zumbach contributed.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected] |
The chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee incorrectly claimed Thursday that the only people who have to worry about rising costs under Republicans’ health bill are the “very tiny segment of the country” that “waits until they’re sick to buy insurance.”
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) made that claim in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday; his characterization of the bill is shaky at best.
Walden correctly said that the removal of Obamacare’s pricing protections would only apply to states that opt out of the protections, called “community rating.” He correctly said that those states would have to attempt to cover people with pre-existing conditions in order to opt out. And he correctly said that technically only individuals who do not “have continuous health insurance coverage” would lose that protection against medical underwriting, or charging higher premiums based on health status.
However, far more people would be affected than those who wait until they are sick to buy insurance.
The Meadows-MacArthur amendment to Republicans’ bill specifies that anyone without insurance for longer than 63 days during the previous 12 months would lose those protections — that includes unemployed people who used to be covered by their employer, or individuals in the marketplace who could no longer afford coverage for that time.
Even individuals who maintain continuous coverage could face higher premium costs. The loss of community rating encourages separate markets for healthy and sick people, with the former taking advantage of the loss of community rating in order to receive lower-cost care, and the latter bearing the financial burden.
Watch Walden’s claim below: |
"At least I didn't spray bug goop."
Thanks to 's idea that Flurry Heart would be Alistair's main babysitter Turns out taking care of a baby alicorn-changeling (changelicorn?) isn't exactly what she expected--there's the usual magical outbursts, but paired with explosive insect fluids, and hiding in plain sight via transforming into every other foal he saw all day. When away from his parents Alistair was a troublemaker Despite this, he and Flurry get along well when he's older--never best friends, but friends enough. Oh, and as you can see, baby Ali didn't have the appearance of a changeling grub, having a live birth and being fully formed as infant.
Oh, and here's my older Twilight design! The horn gradient is the biggest difference. Flurry isn't an adult here, she's probably fourteen, so she'll be taller than her aunt eventually.
Background vector
Cutie mark vector |
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside's Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CERT) are developing a new way of boosting fuel efficiency by as much as 30 percent without changing a car's powertrain at all.
Their secret? Finding ways to change our behavior so we're more attuned to maximizing their mileage while behind the wheel.
Sure, it may sound easier than reducing vehicle weight or adding batteries or developing some new engine technology, but it's a daunting task. It's relatively easy for engineers to tinker with a car, but even Sammy Hagar knows that people tend to resist efforts to change their behavior.
With a $1.2 million grant from the Department of Energy, the research team is in the very first stage of developing their study. Researcher Kanok Boriboonsomsin said he's studying ways cars with network connectivity might offer a fuel-saving route on a GPS system, and how infotainment systems can provide real-time feedback on fuel economy without distracting or annoying drivers.
"When you get in the car, you have the vehicle recommend the route you could take based on traffic conditions on the route, and on the way if there's anything wrong with your driving it may provide some feedback to you to adjust your driving behavior," Boriboonsomsin said.
That's key, because, as any hypermiler will tell you, the best way to increase fuel efficiency is to adjust the nut holding the steering wheel. Snarky, yes, but CERT's research could help automakers help us improve our fuel economy without spending a dime on powertrain engineering. But first, the researchers at CERT have to find the best way to change driver behavior. That means creating a system that immediately emphasizes the benefits of efficient driving without creating a needless distraction or aggravation.
The Nut Holding The Wheel
The team at CERT is hardly the first to try changing drivers' habits to improve fuel economy. They were, however, the first to prove that drivers presented with real-time feedback about their fuel economy turned into instant hypermilers – reducing their fuel consumption by six percent on average by coasting to stoplights, laying off the gas while accelerating and upshifting as soon as possible.
It's getting easier for drivers to know how their driving affects their gas mileage. Many modern internal combustion – and every EV and hybrid we've ever driven – features a dashboard display showing real-time and average fuel economy. Ford's is among the best, encouraging drivers to embrace their inner hypermiler through an LCD display that turns lush and verdant when you're cruising nicely at 55 but withers and dies during an impromptu stoplight drag race.
We've experienced this first-hand using the engaging and intuitive SmartGauge (shown above) in the Ford Fusion Hybrid and Lincoln MKZ Hybrid, and the very impressive energy management systems in the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt. In every case, the real-time info made us much more vigilant about our behavior and, yes, improved our fuel economy.
Fiat has gone so far as to give drivers extremely detailed report cards of how to improve their fuel economy. All Fiat 500s have Eco:Drive, a system that saves vehicle diagnostic data on a USB drive. Plug it into a computer, and the Eco:Drive software will generate a progress report that analyzes CO2 emissions and fuel consumption in terms of driving style. It'll also compare you to all Fiat owners who use the program – about 66,000 people.
"Even though our cars are fuel efficient, we don't want that to stop at the factory," said Fiat brand manager Andrew Waterhouse. "We want people to continue to be mindful of how they're driving and how to improve their driving."
No Time Like The Present
Cliff Nass, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and author of The Man Who Lied To His Laptop, said there's one problem with telling drivers how to improve their fuel economy after they're out of the car: People learn best when they're being coached in the moment. It's called just-in-time learning, and it's crucial to developing new skills.
"When you're not driving, you're not thinking about driving," he said. "When you get this feedback and analysis, you're not in the car. That's one of the problems with these systems: When you can't act on the problem right away, it's not as effective."
The only thing harder than teaching old drivers new tricks when they're not driving is teaching old drivers new tricks while they are driving.
"When your car is moving, especially at reasonably high speeds or in cities where there's lots of stop and go, that's the wrong time to try to transmit messages to people. Their brains are elsewhere," Nass said.
It's a problem that Boriboonsomsin knows well.
"If a vehicle provides too much feedback, a driver could be overwhelmed," he said, suggesting that audio feedback may be less distracting than visual prompts. Additionally, feedback must be nuanced and positive so it doesn't become a source of irritation.
"The way we provide the feedback could turn off the driver if it's too aggressive or commanding," he said.
Don't Tread On My Lead Foot
Cars that actively try to change a driver's behavior inherently run the risk of making a fast enemy of the driver. Take, for example, Nissan's Eco-Pedal, a system that makes it increasingly difficult to press the accelerator pedal in a way that would waste fuel. We once drove an M56 equipped with the feature, and immediately became exasperated with its nagging before turning it off 30 seconds later.
The Eco-Pedal certainly is effective at providing just-in-time learning, Nass said, but it's useless if it's always off.
"Not shockingly, people don't like to be nagged," he said. "The reward for not pressing the gas is it doesn't nag you. Well, the sensation of a negative is not a positive. So people get angry and resentful and turn it off."
Cars with "eco" modes are just as ineffective, said Nass, because they usually require drivers to flip a switch to engage them. They don't provide any immediate benefit to the driver – people don't think things through and realize saving gas saves them money – but they do give a noticeable drawback in the form of decreased throttle response. That's why Fiat made its most fuel-efficient throttle mapping (and fastest upshifts in the automatic gearbox) the default mode. Drivers must "opt-in" to a more responsive, and less fuel-efficient, sport mode.
Even passive feedback systems, like fuel economy displays, may not be terribly effective if they force drivers to think in the abstract. Nass said the public good of "helping the environment," as represented by an LCD pictogram of a growing vine, isn't nearly so strong a motivator as saving money. For that reason, it might be far more effective if the LCD display showed dollar bills flying away as the driver laid on the gas.
"It's an issue of people doing better understanding consequences for themselves," he said.
Boriboonsomsin said the financial reward of fuel-friendly driving is a powerful motivator, as we so often see when fuel prices spike and sales of small cars increase.
"If gas is cheap, there's not much incentive for them to change their behavior," Boriboonsomsin said. But as fuel prices rise, "they may be more willing to change their driving behavior."
Accentuate The Positive
Boriboonsomsin said a large aspect of driver feedback research will focus on connecting cars to intelligent transportation networks that determine the best routes for fuel economy. Such a system could help drivers avoid congested road – and therefore spare them from idling in gridlock – or direct them toward routes free of stop-and-go traffic. He calls this "completing the loop," using real-time driving data to create useful strategies that keep drivers from wasting fuel.
Nass said that kind of feedback, the kind that encourages positive behavior such as, "make a right to avoid unnecessary idling at a stoplight," is sorely missing in current dashboard displays and meddling gas pedals.
"The problem is, the negatives in these systems are much bigger than the positives, and that's a mistake," he said.
Another powerful motivator? Getting fired for lead-footing or getting a bonus for saving fuel. That's why fleets are especially interested in changing driver behavior to reduce fuel bills.
"In a fleet system, you have someone else who can penalize you or reward you," said Nass.
He said a fleet driver's corollary to the abstract goal of "saving the environment" may be helping the company's share price, which has little effect on the individual driver. However, getting a bonus for having the lowest overall fuel consumption directly impacts the individual.
"The key in fleet is there are direct consequences," he said.
Driver's Ed
Cars already can tell us how to save fuel, but they can't effectively convince us to change the way we drive with a happy tree, a report card or a dashboard display.
They may, however, help us save fuel with a smartphone app that can detect stoplights. The SignalGuru project, from researchers at MIT and Princeton, uses a smartphone camera and traffic signal data to tell drivers whether they should start slowing down to avoid waiting at an upcoming traffic light. In trials on the streets of Cambridge and Singapore, drivers using SignalGuru have been able to cut fuel consumption by 20 percent.
Thanks to researchers like those at MIT, Princeton and CERT, the cars we drive in the not-so-distant future may become better teachers, subtly guiding us to fuel-efficient driving patterns. Connected with an intelligent transit network, they'll help us save money, showing us more fuel-efficient ways to get to work, gently reminding us to lay off the gas pedal and allowing us to make decisions on engine programming based on our own historical driving patterns.
And instead of people redesigning cars, cars of the future will change the people who drive them.
Photo: The Honda CR-Z hybrid, being driven somewhat less than fuel-efficiently. Jim Merithew/Wired.com |
Sentiment has been thrown out by the British and Irish Lions with iconic centre Brian O'Driscoll sacked for the series-deciding third Test against the Wallabies in Sydney on Saturday.
The veteran of four Lions tours has been sensationally left out of the side altogether after many expected him to captain in his final hurrah in the red jersey.
Instead, coach Warren Gatland has played a powerful emotional card by selecting Welsh lock Alun Wyn Jones as captain.
It puts Jones directly up against Australian skipper James Horwill, the man cleared twice of the alleged stomping on the Welshman's face in the first Test of the series in Brisbane.
Bulldozing Welsh centre Jamie Roberts has beaten a hamstring injury to win a place at inside centre in one of six changes to a Lions side beaten by a single point last Saturday night in Melbourne.
Jones, 27, has captained Wales previously and has the experience of the big stage with the Lions having been a Test player on their 2009 tour of South Africa.
O'Driscoll, 34, has never previously been dropped before in a career spanning 133 Tests for Ireland and the Lions.
"There are always close calls. For us, we have a few back from injury (Roberts, prop Alex Corbisiero and halfback Mike Phillips) and quite a few of the positions were toss-up decisions," Lions coach Warren Gatland said.
"It was quite a lively meeting with the coaches (on Tuesday night) in terms of final selections. It was tough but I think we have come up with a team good enough to do the job on Saturday."
Gatland delivered the news personally to O'Driscoll before the team was named publically.
Obviously totally gutted at being left out for deciding Test but all efforts go into preparing the boys to see it through. #seaofred — Brian O'Driscoll (@BrianODriscoll) July 3, 2013
"Obviously he was as disappointed as anyone. He appreciated the fact he was spoken to before the announcement," Gatland said.
"It is the first time any coach has had that decision with him in 15 years of rugby.
"It was not easy for that to be the first time.
"Jamie is back fit. He has been given the nod in terms of his partnership in midfield with Jon Davies.
"Still, Brian is going to be very important for us over the next 72 hours in terms of leadership and experience."
The Lions were beaten 16-15 loss in Melbourne last weekend when the strong lineout of Brisbane a week earlier coughed up a key ball in the pulsating final minutes and the scrum was disrupted.
Jones said the captaincy of the Lions was a great honour but performing meant more to him as the Lions hunt their first series win since 1997.
"Hopefully I was picked for the way I play not necessarily the way I lead," Jones said.
"I started the tour wanting to be selected for the first Test and now to be there for the final Test is a special moment for me personally. But, there is still a job to do."
Gatland made clear exactly what that needed to be.
"He is part of that engine room that needs to fire for us on the weekend," said Gatland who has made four changes to the pack.
Irish flanker Sean O'Brien has come in for injured Sam Warburton, Toby Faletau is the new No.8 and the front-row has been stiffened by the inclusion of hooker Richard Hibbard and prop Corbisiero.
Lions team for third Test
Leigh Halfpenny, Tommy Bowe, Jonathan Davies, Jamie Roberts, George North, Jonny Sexton, Mike Phillips, Toby Faletau, Sean O'Brien, Dan Lydiate, Alun Wyn Jones (c), Geoff Parling, Adam Jones, Richard Hibbard, Alex Corbisiero. Replacements: Tom Youngs, Dan Cole, Mako Vunipola, Richie Gray, Justin Tipuric, Conor Murray, Owen Farrell, Manu Tuilagi. |
Hollywood star Jeniffer Lawrence has called the mass leak of nude celebrity photos “a sex crime” as the Oscar winner spoke out for the first time since the first release of private pictures exposed dozens of people.
“It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime,” she said. “It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these websites are responsible,” Lawrence told Vanity Fair magazine.
The 24-year-old actress also believes that everyone, who looked at the photos are also to blame as they “perpetuated a sexual offense.”
Just another example of how badass Jennifer Lawrence is. I have the utmost respect for her. @voguemagazine@vanityfair http://t.co/F1SbWhPEGP — Alison Sudol (@AlisonSudol) October 8, 2014
On August 31, unidentified hackers released the first batch of nude celebrity pictures. Culprits allegedly broke into iCloud accounts and stole private photos of hundreds of people. The images of Lawrence and many of her colleagues were then made available to the general public via 4Chan online forum.
The Hunger Games star’s publicist at the time said that the leak was “a flagrant violation of privacy,” adding that “anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence” will be prosecuted.
Lawrence decided not to issue a statement over the incident “every single thing that I tried to write made me cry or get angry,” she said.
“Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this. It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world,” the actress said.
Besides Lawrence, such stars as Mary-Kate Olsen Kate Bosworth, Selena Gomez, Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst, were exposed in the initial leak.
Several weeks later, a second wave of naked images saw photos of the likes of Kim Kardashian and Rihanna emerging online. The “third round” of nude photo leaks late September added top model Cara Delevingne, actress Anna Kendrick and more of Jennifer Lawrence to the mix.
The fourth round of leaks added the first male celebrity to the list of the victims of the ongoing scandal. Photos of 24yo Nick Hogan, the son of the pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan, were released among pictures of Victoria’s Secret model Erin Heatherton, actress Winona Ryder and singer Ingrid Michaelson. Hogan however says the photos are fake.
The FBI and Apple, which provides the iCloud service, are both conducting investigations into the leaks. Apple however cannot be directly blamed, as the only criticism of iCloud is its vulnerability to a brute force-hacking problem where the culprit could have infinite number of tries to guess a user’s password. |
The Uber-Wayo trial, in which the Google unit is suing Uber over the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets in connection with Google’s self-driving car initiative, had an explosive day yesterday that put Uber in serious hot water. Uber withheld considerable, critical, and directly relevant evidence from discovery and appears to have engaged in a systematic program of hiding and possibly destroying evidence. It also looks close to certain that some Uber executives, at a minimum its associate general counsel Angela Padilla, perjured themselves in depositions.
These revelations weaken Uber’s odds of success in the Waymo trial and have the potential to put Uber in a world of legal hurt on other fronts. It isn’t just, as the understandably furious judge, William Alsup, said that he can no longer trust Uber’s attorneys and that he has delayed the trial, which was supposed to start next week, to allow Waymo to do more discovery. It’s that under the principle of spoilage of evidence, judges in some jurisdictions can instruct juries to assume that the evidence was destroyed or withheld to hide bad conduct. They can also use spoilage to bar some types of evidence from being presented. And that’s before you get to the fact that the content of the revelations are damaging and open up new paths of investigation that could be very helpful to Waymo.
To put it more simply: Uber is facing a jury trial. Juries do not like liars. Based just on the information revealed today, it will not be hard to get a jury to see Uber as a pathologically dishonest company.
Specifically, the hearing yesterday also revealed that Uber had a competitive espionage unit that sought to steal trade secrets from competitors. While any large company gathers competitor intelligence, there is a big difference between obtaining public information and misappropriating internal information. Moreover, Uber set up this unit (and one has to wonder if other units were organized along similar lines) on servers separate from Uber’s regular servers, making as heavy use as possible of communication services that did not retain message content. Uber astonishingly took the position that nothing on this parallel system was subject to disclosure.
Even more surprisingly, these revelations came about because the US attorney that has an ongoing criminal investigation into Uber tossed a letter of its own, plus a 37-page letter from the attorney for a former Uber employee, Richard Jacobs, to Judge Alsup. It is unheard of for a prosecutor to provide information from a not-completed investigation into a somewhat-related civil trial. The most logical reason is that the US attorney thought the gambit would increase pressure on Uber.
The most complete press report I have read thus far on what happened in court comes from the New York Times, which appears to have had a reporter at the hearing. I have also embedded. Even with what little you can infer, it’s devastating. But the testimony by the former employee Jacobs was also a stunner.
Jacobs was fired by Uber in April 2017 yet curiously received a $4.5 million settlement which included payouts as a consultant for his help on a supposed ongoing internal investigation. Needless to say, this is a hell of a lot of hush money. It turns out that the 37-page letter from Jacob’s attorney to Uber about what Jacobs had learned about Uber’s so-called Market Analytics group was what triggered the settlement.
From the Financial Times:
Uber has been accused of operating a sophisticated unit dedicated to “stealing trade secrets”…. Mr Jacobs, who split from Uber earlier this year and reached a confidential settlement with the company, described sophisticated techniques that Uber used to evade current and future legal discovery requests… Mr Jacobs said he was aware that an intelligence unit at Uber was implementing “encrypted and ephemeral communications intended to both protect and destroy communications that might be considered sensitive”, and that employees were instructed to make “phone calls or video calls”, treating email as “a last resort”. Mr Jacobs alleged that the legal director for Uber’s threat operations team had “described the need to protect sensitive information and ensure we didn’t create a paper trail that could come back to haunt the company in any potential criminal or civil litigation”. He said that devices that could not be tied back to their users were used by the security team to communicate with third party vendors providing information about competitors, without having to store it on Uber’s network, as well as information about “protest groups and threat actors”. Judge Alsup told Uber’s lawyer: “It turns out that the server is only for the dummies and the real stuff goes on the shadow system . . . You should have come clean with this long ago.“
More juicy detail from the New York Times:
In discussions with other Uber employees, Mr. Jacobs testified, he learned of an internal organization that gathered trade secrets, code and other information about its competitors. It was called the “marketplace analytics team,” according to the letter, which had been redacted by Uber. The group frequented the code-sharing site GitHub, searching for private material that may have been accidentally revealed by competitors. This Uber team also led efforts “to evade, impede, obstruct, influence several ongoing lawsuits against Uber,” according to the letter. The team also tried to find out what other companies were doing. And in 2016, Uber hired a man named Ed Russo to help recruit employees of competitors to steal trade secrets, according to the letter. This group relied on “anonymous” servers separate from the rest of the Uber network, and some employees were expected to rely on devices that encrypted or automatically deleted messages after a certain amount of time, Mr. Jacobs testified. Email was a last resort.
Remember that Jacobs is still a consultant to Uber, which also paid for his travel costs to appear at the trial. Quartz describes how Jacobs tried to discredit what his attorney had previously written:
A Waymo attorney asked Jacobs under oath: “Your lawyer sent letter that you approved alleging that Market Analytics exists solely to acquire code and trade secrets from competitors, yes?” according to McPherson. Jacobs reportedly responded: “I disagree with this now. I have no firsthand knowledge. No knowledge at all.”
And from the Times:
Mr. Jacobs said this effort focused solely on overseas competitors and that he was not aware of the unit obtaining trade secrets from Waymo or other competitors in the United States. That contradicted an assertion in his letter, which said he was aware that this team had at least stolen trade secrets from Waymo… The letter from Mr. Jacobs’s lawyer, parts of which were read in court, also said three Uber employees had gone to Pittsburgh to instruct the company’s autonomous vehicle group, which is testing self-driving cars in the city.
Now why might Jacobs be so eager to say he wasn’t on board with what his attorney had written, which clearly had to be based on what Jacobs had told him, and Uber must have recognized as credible, otherwise they never would have made such a hefty payout? As one commentor at ars technica pointed out, “Accepting money in exchange for silence and/or perjury related to criminal activity is textbook conspiracy.” The New York Times pointed out that the FBI is investigating Uber’s conduct in its program to steal drivers from Lyft, and that the systems Jacobs described sounded similar to those used to try to sabotage Lyft.
Contrast Jacobs’ testimony with this section of Waymo’s letter about the Jacobs and US attorney letters:
Sure looks like perjury to me. And as you will see from the embedded letter, Waymo’s attorneys want to re-depose a pretty long list of people, staring with Travis Kalanick, along with other individuals whose names are redacted.
You can see that at spots, the document itemizes discovery requests, presumably ones that it is now clear were not satisfied, with big redacted sections following, and in some cases, phrases like “concealing information” are exposed.
The implications of these bombshells go beyond shifting the odds of success in this case in favor of Waymo. If the new revelations are firmed up to be facts, they have the potential to open new cans of worms other criminal and civil actions against Uber, and could even provide grounds for re-litigating old cases.
Uber’s lawyers are also in hot water. It looks like they withheld information from the court that was required to be disclosed in a big way. Unless they can persuade the court that Uber kept them in the dark, they may face sanctions, which could include disbarment.
Pass the popcorn. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch. |
This small house in the town of Konan, in Kobe, Japan, sits in a quiet neighborhood and was designed for a couple and their child by the Osaka-based firm, Coo Planning. Built of reinforced concrete and wood, the residence is minimal with the needed space spread throughout four layers.
Despite its small size, the house is smartly laid out and manages to fit all the living space the couple needed, including a garage, a deck, and a study loft above the kitchen.
The floor directly above the garage houses the home’s entrance, a tatami room, a bathroom, and bedroom.
The third floor is the family’s communal area with an open kitchen and living room.
The space is completely open from the front of the house to the back, making it appear really large.
The living room has an entire wall of windows at the front of the house making the space super bright.
The ladder takes you to the study room loft that’s open to the living room and kitchen below it.
Photos by Yuko Tada, Coo Planning. |
In addition to Koch, signers will include retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Report: David Koch to sign amicus brief supporting gay marriage
David Koch, the big money political donor and liberal boogeyman, has agreed to sign onto to an amicus brief supporting same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The brief he will reportedly sign in DeBoer v. Snyder, a case that could afford same-sex couples a constitutional right to marry, will host a number of other prominent conservative signatories, including retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former Reagan White House chief of staff Ken Duberstein and former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman. News of the brief was first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post.
Story Continued Below
An attorney for Koch Industries told the Free Beacon that Koch will join the brief in a personal capacity, indicating his support for gay marriage does not necessarily indicate a larger message from the Koch network of donors.
In 2012, Koch, the Libertarian Party’s 1980 vice presidential candidate, told POLITICO that he supported gay marriage, despite backing Mitt Romney and a host of other conservative candidates who favored varieties of same-sex marriage bans.
The brief will argue that providing marriage licenses to same-sex couples ultimately strengthens the institution of marriage and that the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should prohibit state bans on same-sex marriage.
“Over the past two decades, the arguments presented by proponents of [same-sex marriage bans] have been discredited by social science, rejected by courts, and contradicted by amici’s personal experience with same-sex couples,” a portion of the brief, provided to The Washington Post, read.
“Such bans impede family formation, harm children, and discourage fidelity, responsibility, and stability.” |
Is getting off the field on third down important? After much study and analysis, I've reached a conclusion-- actually, it's more like a discovery-- hell, it's a freakin' revelation:
Teams just aren't punting on 1st and 2nd down.
Snark aside, the meaningful implication here is that preventing third down conversions is not the absolute measure of a defense's ability to get off the field. They can force a turnover on an earlier down and still be good; they can give up a string of conversions on earlier downs and still be bad. It's just that the treacherous valley of third down tends to lie astride the golden path leading to the promised land of fourth down, so it gets a lot of notice.
And subjectively, when a defense reaches that (allegedly) critical third down, we think "here's their chance!" It's like watching an offense reach the red zone with an opportunity to score a touchdown. C'mon guys, you've made it this far, punch it in / punch 'em out.
More objectively, if your opponent gets a first down, you've failed to stop him and he now has three more chances to move the ball downfield.
But let's try wrapping our minds around a warped and twisted perspective: When your opponent gets a first down, they failed to score points and you have 10 more yards of opportunity to force a punt.
Turning that perspective into a strategy requires that you force your opponent to slog along a few yards at a time, so that they rarely advance the ball into scoring range before you manage to force a punt or a turnover. And, wonder of wonders, getting off the field is nowhere to be found on Pete Carroll's list of defensive priorities. Bullet point #1 is "Eliminate giving up the big play". Bullet point #3 is "Get the ball".
Are the Seahawks actually playing like this? Is it working?
Stat time!
OFI: The on-field index
We'll begin by trying to measure what, for lack of a better term, I'll call get-off-the-fieldness. (Seriously, there is no better term. I like hyphens.) The total number of defensive plays per drive is meaningful, but the real crux of the matter is how many first downs you allow. So the index is weighted as follows:
Plays per drive + 2.5 x first downs per drive
That ratio is consistent with league averages of first downs per play. It also produces a result which almost always gives a higher total number to a drive with more first downs, even if it includes fewer plays. For example, 8 plays + 2 first downs yields on "OFI" of 13. Six plays + 3 first downs yields an "OFI" of 13.5.
And just to tighten things up:
"Adjusted 1st downs" adds all touchdowns allowed (by the defense) to the number of first downs allowed. Technically, allowing a touchdown brings the drive to a halt and gets you back the ball. But it's still a success in making the line-to-gain and will be predictive (and descriptive) of a team's ability to make or stop first downs.
"Adjusted plays" simply throws out the first play of the drive, because that one was guaranteed. Subsequent plays are likely, but can be denied if there is a turnover.
ON-FIELD INDEX, STATS per DEFENSIVE DRIVE
Team Adj 1st downs Adj plays OFI Kansas City Chiefs 1.32 3.92 7.23 Baltimore Ravens 1.41 4.14 7.66 San Francisco 49ers 1.57 4.05 7.98 New York Jets 1.49 4.32 8.04 Buffalo Bills 1.69 4.33 8.55 Houston Texans 1.69 4.41 8.65 Denver Broncos 1.83 4.24 8.81 New Orleans Saints 1.80 4.33 8.83 Detroit Lions 1.83 4.36 8.92 Tennessee Titans 1.80 4.44 8.93 Arizona Cardinals 1.81 4.43 8.95 New England Patriots 1.72 4.66 8.96 Green Bay Packers 1.80 4.59 9.09 Carolina Panthers 1.71 4.83 9.11 Seattle Seahawks 1.79 4.76 9.24 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 1.88 4.61 9.30 Cleveland Browns 1.84 4.74 9.34 Washington Redskins 2.04 4.26 9.36 Indianapolis Colts 1.88 4.79 9.48 Pittsburgh Steelers 1.82 4.94 9.48 Cincinnati Bengals 1.84 5.03 9.62 St. Louis Rams 2.06 4.64 9.80 New York Giants 2.01 4.79 9.81 Miami Dolphins 1.92 5.03 9.82 Oakland Raiders 2.03 4.84 9.91 Atlanta Falcons 2.02 4.94 9.98 Minnesota Vikings 2.13 4.75 10.08 Dallas Cowboys 2.11 4.87 10.14 Jacksonville Jaguars 2.19 4.67 10.14 Chicago Bears 2.13 4.85 10.17 Philadelphia Eagles 2.22 5.01 10.56 San Diego Chargers 2.19 5.32 10.79
The Seahawks rank a below-average 20th in plays/drive. They're a respectable 9th in adjusted 1st downs/drive, but both numbers (and their OFI) are a far cry from the team's perceived defensive quality.
VIX: The value index
Next question, then: What have opposing offenses actually produced?
League-wide, defenses are giving up 16.635 yards for every point they allow. So to weight points and yards equally, we would add the total yards allowed and 16.635 x points allowed.
But we don't want exactly that. Ostensibly, we want to measure whether the Seahawks (as compared to other teams) are playing successful all-around defense by allowing small gains. We want to identify defenses which give their team the ball back with good field position. And most importantly, we don't want to over-measure red zone defense. There's already a "bendability" index floating around cyberspace for that.
So, arbitrarily, I've selected a ratio of 3:2 in favor of measuring yards. Which makes the base index:
Yards allowed + 11.09 x points allowed
Also, we want a number that we can directly compare to the OFI. Yardage is a bigger number than first downs. So, after a little math, it was determined that the indices differed by a factor of 5.27056. We simply redefine our value index, keeping yards and points in proportion thusly:
yards allowed/5.27056 + points x 2.1041
Finally, we want to make sure that points allowed measures only the defensive effort. So I used the average starting field position of each team (on defense) and computed the variance from the league-average of the 27.79 yard line. Any extra help (or extra hurt) provided by field position was then converted to points (at 16.635 yards per) and subtracted from (or added to) the points allowed. (No adjustment is made for yards allowed. Points allowed is directly affected by field position, but yards allowed is already measured independently).
VALUE INDEX, STATS per DEFENSIVE DRIVE
Team Yards Adj points VIX Kansas City Chiefs 22.92 1.19 6.85 New York Jets 23.53 1.42 7.46 Seattle Seahawks 25.32 1.38 7.71 Baltimore Ravens 26.38 1.40 7.95 San Francisco 49ers 25.09 1.56 8.04 Carolina Panthers 27.76 1.37 8.15 Buffalo Bills 26.90 1.55 8.36 Cleveland Browns 25.36 1.73 8.45 New England Patriots 27.74 1.53 8.48 Tennessee Titans 28.08 1.55 8.58 Cincinnati Bengals 29.25 1.45 8.60 Houston Texans 24.99 1.94 8.83 Pittsburgh Steelers 28.32 1.65 8.85 New York Giants 28.70 1.62 8.86 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 28.89 1.67 8.99 Arizona Cardinals 27.51 1.79 8.99 New Orleans Saints 29.39 1.62 8.99 Green Bay Packers 29.64 1.73 9.27 Indianapolis Colts 30.69 1.76 9.52 Oakland Raiders 30.45 1.84 9.64 Miami Dolphins 31.01 1.82 9.71 Minnesota Vikings 30.48 1.95 9.88 Denver Broncos 29.88 2.09 10.06 Washington Redskins 31.54 1.94 10.07 Dallas Cowboys 32.44 1.92 10.19 Philadelphia Eagles 33.21 1.88 10.26 Detroit Lions 32.33 2.02 10.39 St. Louis Rams 32.27 2.05 10.44 Jacksonville Jaguars 32.24 2.23 10.80 Atlanta Falcons 33.30 2.44 11.45 Chicago Bears 35.09 2.34 11.57 San Diego Chargers 38.41 2.07 11.64
The Seahawks rank 5th in yards/drive and 3rd in adjusted points/drive.
Putting it Together: The "Slog Factor"
Note that the VIX is pretty unambiguous. It measures yards and points given up. Teams with a low VIX are playing good defense.
The OFI, on the other hand, is really just a hint. We can't be sure that giving up more plays and more first downs indicates poor defensive play, but we can expect a strong correlation.
So the "slog factor" (I'm assuming that inventing a statistic is like describing a new species, granting the discoverer/creator the privilege of naming it) is simply the VIX minus the OFI. Thanks to the normalized indices, an average slog factor should be around zero. Teams with a positive slog factor are allowing opposing offenses to gain more points and yards with fewer plays and first downs. Teams with a negative slog factor are making their opponents slog, producing fewer points and yards in relationship to the number of first downs gained and plays ran.
I suppose I could've just measured "yards per first down" or "points per play", but neither is quite as comprehensive. And it also wouldn't afford the same opportunity to compare where each team ranks in the league.
DEFENSIVE SLOG FACTOR
Team OFI OFI rank VIX VIX rank Slog Factor Seattle Seahawks 9.24 15 7.71 3 -1.54 Cincinnati Bengals 9.62 21 8.60 11 -1.02 New York Giants 9.81 23 8.86 14 -0.95 Carolina Panthers 9.11 14 8.15 6 -0.95 Cleveland Browns 9.34 17 8.45 8 -0.89 Pittsburgh Steelers 9.48 20 8.85 13 -0.63 New York Jets 8.04 4 7.46 2 -0.59 New England Patriots 8.96 12 8.48 9 -0.48 Kansas City Chiefs 7.23 1 6.85 1 -0.38 Tennessee Titans 8.93 10 8.58 10 -0.35 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9.30 16 8.99 15 -0.32 Philadelphia Eagles 10.56 31 10.26 26 -0.30 Oakland Raiders 9.91 25 9.64 20 -0.27 Minnesota Vikings 10.08 27 9.88 22 -0.20 Buffalo Bills 8.55 5 8.36 7 -0.19 Miami Dolphins 9.82 24 9.71 21 -0.11 Arizona Cardinals 8.95 11 8.99 16 0.04 Indianapolis Colts 9.48 19 9.52 19 0.04 San Francisco 49ers 7.98 3 8.04 5 0.05 Dallas Cowboys 10.14 28 10.19 25 0.06 New Orleans Saints 8.83 8 8.99 17 0.16 Green Bay Packers 9.09 13 9.27 18 0.18 Houston Texans 8.65 6 8.83 12 0.19 Baltimore Ravens 7.66 2 7.95 4 0.29 St. Louis Rams 9.80 22 10.44 28 0.65 Jacksonville Jaguars 10.14 29 10.80 29 0.66 Washington Redskins 9.36 18 10.07 24 0.71 San Diego Chargers 10.79 32 11.64 32 0.85 Denver Broncos 8.81 7 10.06 23 1.25 Chicago Bears 10.17 30 11.57 31 1.41 Detroit Lions 8.92 9 10.39 27 1.46 Atlanta Falcons 9.98 26 11.45 30 1.47
This is a fun stat. I mean, all stats are fun, but this is like that time when the square root of 2 and pi showed up to a party as part of the same complex number.
I say that because a high/low slog factor is not inherently good or bad. It's a measure of strategic emphasis, which has to be considered alongside other information.
For teams that rank poorly in both OFI and VIX, such as the Chargers, Jaguars, and Bears, there is probably a snowball effect. Forced to play a lot of snaps, these defenses get worn down and cannot stop their opponents from piling on the points. So it's no surprise that they have the highest slog factors, and the poor defensive performance shouldn't necessarily be blamed on over-aggressive play.
(Note that one could argue that the slog factor measures nothing more than the difference between quality of run defense and quality of pass defense. But I would call one wrong. The top 12 teams in offensive DVOA collectively run the ball 43.7% of the time, versus a league average of 42.2%. Ten of the top 11 in points per drive run the ball at least 39% of the time. The top 10 teams in pass percentage (ranging from 62%-68%) collectively have fewer points per drive and fewer yards per play than league average.
If your pass defense is significantly worse than your run defense, you're over-playing the run. And possibly the short pass.)
The Texans, Saints, Redskins and Lions are all giving up too many points and yards. Detroit has the league's 9th-best OFI (meaning they get off the field well) but the second-highest slog factor. They are clearly playing too aggressively.
The Ravens' slog factor is higher than average, suggesting that perhaps they are not exploiting their excellent OFI to full effect. But given that they have an excellent VIX, the strategy seems to be working. The numbers say that the defense is giving up some extra yards and points by playing aggressively, but they're keeping themselves fresh to stay effective throughout the game.
And what of Denver? The raw numbers say that their defense is putting way too much emphasis on getting off the field. On the other hand, the Broncos' opponents are probably playing aggressively themselves, often down by multiple touchdowns and heaving the ball deep.
The Eagles, Vikings and Raiders might benefit from playing more aggressively. Their low slog factor combined with a high VIX suggests that they may be giving up points because they can't get off the field.
Further up the list we find the Bengals, Panthers, Browns, Patriots and Jets among the lowest 8 in slog factor. These teams are clamping down on both yards and points, despite giving up first downs. It's possible that these teams could benefit from focusing more on the down marker, but each is in the top 11 VIX, so it's more likely that their strategy of stopping big plays is working.
For Seattle, the slog factor is nothing short of remarkable. The proof is in the pudding, namely, the league's 3rd-best VIX. More than any other defense, the Seahawks just aren't paying a lot of attention to that first down marker. They defend the whole field on every play, knowing that someone will make a drive-killing play on defense (or a mistake on offense) before much territory is surrendered.
(A note for the curious: If we plug in the numbers for Seattle's offense, they have 4.63 adjusted plays/drive, 1.99 adjusted 1st downs per drive, and an OFI of 9.633. Their adjusted points/drive is 1.93 and yards/drive is 31.08, equaling a VIX of 9.97 and a slog factor of 0.33. I don't have offensive figures for the whole league, but the positive slog factor indicates a good proportion of explosive plays for a team that runs the ball as frequently as Seattle.)
EDIT: Here's a scatter plot with OFI on the x-axis and VIX on the y-axis: |
The Minnesota Timberwolves have told consensus number 1 pick Karl-Anthony Towns that they indeed will be selecting him first overall in the 2015 NBA Draft, according to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv. This comes on the heels of Towns travelling to Minnesota and working out for the team. While there Towns also met with Wolves owner Glen Taylor as well as head coach and President of Basketball Operations Flip Saunders.
While Towns being selected first is far from a surprise, this is the first report that has surfaced claiming that the Wolves have made it official and notified the young Kentucky big man. The Wolves were also rumored to be considering Jahlil Okafor, Kristaps Porzingis, and D'Angelo Russell.
If the report is accurate, Towns would be joining a Minnesota team with plenty of athletic young talent, such as last year's number 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins, Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio, and 2014-2015 slam dunk champion Zach LaVine.
For the Lakers the fact that Towns will be off the board has to be a something of a disappointment, as they were reportedly hoping that he would fall to them. However, Los Angeles will still have plenty of very good players to choose from, with D'Angelo Russell being worthy of consideration and Emanuel Mudiay challenging him for the title of top point guard in the draft. Kristaps Porzingis could also be a possibility, although his fit with the Lakers is questionable.
The odds-on favorite though has to be Jahlil Okafor, the talented Duke big man who was on top of most draft boards for the majority of the college season but was knocked down as spot after a strong run from Towns. Okafor would certainly be an exciting addition to the purple and gold, and shouldn't be looked at as a consolation prize.
With just 3 days until the draft arrives the first few picks are beginning to come into focus, but the great thing about the NBA Draft is that there are always surprises. Who will jump up in the draft? Who will slide down? And will there be any blockbuster trades? Keep checking in here at SS&R for all of the latest Lakers draft news and analysis!
Update 6:53 pm Monday-----
Towns denied he has a promise from the Timberwolves to select him first overall:
"If I had a promise, I would go start eating ice cream and getting fat," [Towns] joked to [the Associated Press]. "There is absolutely no promise at all. Right now I'm just trying to see where I'll be playing. I have no idea."
Stay tuned for more coverage of this and more in the lead up to Thursday night. |
In Utah, 'Book Of Mormon' Strikes A Chord
The Tony Award-winning musical, The Book of Mormon, opened in Salt Lake City last week. The sendup of missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is getting a rousing reception.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Tony award-winning musical "The Book Of Mormon" is an irreverent sendup of missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This past week, four years after its Broadway debut, the show opened in the heart of Mormon America, Salt Lake City, Utah. Andrea Smardon of member station KUER sampled audience reaction.
ANDREA SMARDON, BYLINE: Maybe it goes without saying, but the people of Salt Lake City have strong feelings about "The Book Of Mormon." After the show, a lot of people described it like a homecoming party.
(APPLAUSE)
DIANA KARRENBERG: I was born and raised here. So this is kind of fun, to watch the audience's reaction and my own reaction.
BYRON RUSSELL: When they scream, Salt Lake City, the audience goes ballistic. I don't think they do that in New York.
WENDY HAUPT: I think there's just a lot of subtle humor with "The Book Of Mormon" that we understand that other people don't quite get around the country just because we've been around the culture.
SMARDON: That was Diana Karrenberg, Byron Russell, and Wendy Haupt, who identified as either non-Mormon, ex-Mormon or even half-Mormon. People in those categories said they thoroughly enjoyed the show. But the devout, practicing Mormons - well, there were fewer of them in the audience. But for those who did go, it's complicated.
TIMOTHY EMERY: I'm deeply Mormon, was raised in the church, really terribly offended by this play.
SMARDON: That's Timothy Emery standing outside during intermission.
EMERY: I might leave, yeah - except that I keep laughing. And that bothers me because it's so funny. So my outsides are telling me, don't go forward. Don't see it. But my insides are telling me, this is really funny. So I'm very conflicted at this point.
SMARDON: Emery did in fact go back in for the second half. Another member of the LDS church, G.K. Risser, went earlier in the week. He was also disturbed.
G.K. RISSER: When I left, I said, I feel like I was molested in more ways than one.
SMARDON: Risser is from California. And when he moved to Salt Lake City, he was surprised to encounter animosity towards Mormons. It's a city literally divided 50-50 between members of the LDS church and nonmembers.
RISSER: When everybody laughed together, it was really great. And that was typically when they were lampooning Mormon culture, you know, human foible.
SMARDON: But at times, Risser says, the audience reaction was more of a release for anti-Mormon sentiment.
RISSER: When they ridiculed Mormon doctrine, that's just when it, like, lit a fire of some kind. And people - their reactions were just disturbing.
SMARDON: Risser feels most of the audience was jumping at the chance to mock the Mormon church.
RISSER: The people next to me would freeze up. And the people on the other side of me would stand up and scream and hoot. But it didn't feel like it was a joyful hoot. It was more like a shout, you know? That was more offensive at times than the show itself, I felt like.
SMARDON: As for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it's running ads in the playbill promoting the actual Book of Mormon. You've seen the play, one ad says; now read the book. For NPR News, I'm Andrea Smardon in Salt Lake City.
Copyright © 2015 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. |
Comparable Companies Analysis
On February 8th, Whole Foods’ revenue growth looked highly attractive when compared to its publicly traded peer group: Ingles Markets, Incorporated (NasdaqGS:IMKTA), The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR), SUPERVALU Inc. (NYSE:SVU) and Weis Markets, Inc. (NYSE:WMK). Wall Street was projecting Whole Foods’ revenues to grow at an annual rate of 5.3% which was above its entire peer group: IMKTA (2.2%), KR (4.3%), SVU (5.2%), and WMK (2.0%).
However, Whole Foods` projected five year revenue growth rate has since come down to 2.6% which is only slightly above IMKTA (2.2%), WMK (2.3%) and below KR (4.2%) and SVU (10.7%).
In addition, the company’s EBITDA growth also looked compelling when compared to this same peer group. On February 8th, Wall Street was projecting Whole Foods’ EBITDA to grow at an annual rate of 5.0% which was also above its entire peer group except for SVU (+20%).
Again, the supermarket’s projected five year EBITDA growth rate has come down to 1.9% and is now below all of the comparable companies: IMKTA (3.5%), KR (4.8%), SVU (32.3%) and WMK (2.1%).
The reason the company’s outlook has come down is because management has stated that it is abandoning its goal to open 1,200-plus stores. The grocer also said that it will close nine outlets in the second quarter and incur a $30 million charge in relation to the closings.
Typically, lower growth stocks will trade at lower multiples of EBITDA but this isn’t the case for Whole Foods. The company’s multiples are currently trading at a premium to its comparable company group as illustrated in the chart below.
Since February 8th, Whole Foods’ LTM EBITDA multiple has expanded from 7.0x to 9.0x and is now trading above all its comparable companies: IMKTA (7.4x), KR (6.8x), SVU (5.5x) and WMK (8.7x). |
Metro’s Silver Line moved a step closer to its first passengers Friday when the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, responsible for building the rail extension, said its contractor has reached “substantial completion” and is ready to turn the project over to Metro.
There is still no official opening date for the rail extension, which will run from Falls Church to Reston’s Wiehle Avenue.
“Dulles Transit Partners (DTP), the contractor building Phase 1 of the Silver Line, took an important step today in construction of the project,” MWAA said in a statement. “DTP has made the determination that they have reached substantial completion. The declaration of substantial completion by DTP means they believe they have satisfied the terms of their contract and are ready to turn the project over to MWAA and WMATA for final testing and preparation for operations of the line.”
MWAA and Metro will now be in a 15-day review period, then MWAA can hand off the project. Metro has up to 90 days to complete final testing, but Metro has previously said it probably would not need the full 90 days.
The review will include: delivery of all spare parts and maintenance manuals; evidence supporting successful completion of all tests, all regulatory approvals; as-built final drawings, safety certifications documents; Certificates of Occupancy and remaining punch list items with completion schedule, MWAA said.
So barring big problems, the first riders of the Silver Line to Reston should finally be aboard this spring. The Silver Line’s terminus will be at Wiehle-Reston East for the next five years.
Phase 2 of the project will have stops at Reston Parkway, Herndon Monroe, Route 28, Dulles International Airport and Ashburn. That is expected to open in 2018.
The project, which reportedly loses $2 million each month the rail is not open, has already had significant delays. MWAA officials originally estimated at December 2013 opening based on an August handoff. Last summer, that was extended to early in 2014. In November, it was discovered that tracking software needed to be re-tested. That software was retested two weeks ago.
Patty Nicoson, President of the Dullles Corridor Rail Association, called the news “kind of thrilling we are getting one step closer to the goal post.”
“It is my understanding they shouldn’t need the full 90 days,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if it were open for baseball season?” |
Striker Jozy Altidore, who has been sidelined with a strained hamstring since the United States' 2-1 win over Ghana on June 16, joined the U.S. team on Monday for a workout in Salvador, and is fit and ready to go, according to U.S. Soccer.
Belgium Belgium United States United States 2 1 FT Match 56 Game Details GameCast
Lineups and Stats
Altidore has spent the past week jogging separately, but on Monday he warmed up with the team for a portion of training. The U.S. plays Belgium on Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET (ESPN/WatchESPN).
"We are very optimistic," Klinsmann said last week when asked whether Altidore might be ready to play Tuesday. "Every day is a big step forward for Jozy. It's 11 days now [since he got injured] and it's looking better every day, so we're optimistic to have him being part of the Belgium game."
Omar Gonzalez, who replaced Geoff Cameron in central defense for the United States' 1-0 loss to Germany, said Altidore's absence has been felt.
"Jozy's a great striker, especially when he's up there with Clint [Dempsey]," Gonzalez said. "Both can create chances, and with Jozy going out early, it's been a lot of work for Clint. He's done a great job up there. Hopefully we can see Jozy come back pretty soon, and if that's the case, it's going to be a tough task for the defenders that have to mark them."
Gonzalez said he felt the team could shoulder through should Altidore not be ready to return on Tuesday.
"We've got the guys who can come in and get the job done, can come in and add another threat," he said. |
During the past days, the contested town of Sheikh Meskin in the countryside of Daraa has witnessed fierce urban combat as both Islamist rebels and the Syrian Arab Army refuse to retreat. Momentarily, clashes are ongoing in the southern districts as the Syrian Army has secured and entrenched the roundabout in the southeastern part of the city. Effectively, government troops now control 70 % of the city according to military source.
In an attempt to reduce casualties, government troops are increasingly relying on artillery and Russian airstrikes to dislodge dug in rebels. Meanwhile, militants fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army have abandoned the town while Jabhat al-Nusra has called in reinforcements from the Daraa countryside and reportedly doubled their local manpower.
Sheikh Meskin holds enormous strategical significance which explains why both parties refuse to give up control of the city. Sheikh Meskin, which has been largely bombed out, is known as the ‘crossroad of the south’ as it connects both Damascus with Daraa and Sweida with Quneitra which effectively explains why Syrian Arab Army commanders insist on recapturing the city.
Advertisements |
The Dark Trilogy is a modpack built by myself over the past couple of months. It is an on going project and still in a beta state so expect frequent updates and changes. At this point I have, for the most part, completed the mod list for the pack. Worlds started with the latest version should not require a world reset due to changes with the modpack. Updates will just include bug fixes and mod updates. This mod pack does not support adding or removing mods...IT will break. There are tons of custom recipes which mostly are cross mod.
The Dark Trilogy (TDT) is a modpack composed of three tiers of mods; technology, magic & nature. Balance was a key element in the development of TDT with lasting game play a priority. Custom recipes have been added to bring mods of each tier together with the overall goal of leaving no mods left un-played. However the three tiers are mostly separated, so for example if you want to only advance with the tech side of things magic will never be forced upon you. Only very end-game and OP items require two sometimes all three of the tiers of the pack to be played.TDT is a great modpack for servers since it brings all different types of players together similar to the way FTB Ultimate/Unleashed/Monster did in the past. But instead of just having 100-150 mods with most players never touching half of them I wanted that to change. Most players are skeptic to try new mods but with TDT you find yourself playing and building with mods you are unfamiliar with just to progress, which makes learning those mods that much more fun. NEI is your best friend in this pack, it will contain almost all the information you will need to advance.Modlist and change logs can be found here |
Its not a secret that I’ve been working on sandboxed desktop applications recently. In fact, I recently gave a talk at devconf.cz about it. However, up until now I’ve mainly been focusing on the bundling and deployment aspects of the problem. I’ve been running applications in their own environment, but having pretty open access to the system.
Now that the basics are working it’s time to start looking at how to create a real sandbox. This is going to require a lot of changes to the Linux stack. For instance, we have to use Wayland instead of X11, because X11 is impossible to secure. We also need to use kdbus to allow desktop integration that is properly filtered at the kernel level.
Recently Wayland has made some pretty big strides though, and we now have working Wayland sessions in Fedora 21. This means we can start testing real sandboxing for simple applications. To get something running I chose to focus on a game, because they require very little interaction with the system. Here is a video I made of Neverball, running in a minimal sandbox:
In this example we’re running a regular build of neverball in an environment which:
Is independent of the host distribution
Has no access to any system or user files other than the ones from the runtime and application itself
Has no access to any hardware devices, other than DRI (for GL rendering)
Has no network access
Can’t see any other processes in the system
Can only get input via Wayland
Can only show graphics via Wayland
Can only output audio via PulseAudio
… plus more sandboxing details
Yet the application is still simple to install and integrates nicely with the desktop. If you want to test it yourself, just follow the instructions on the project page and install org.neverball.Neverball.
Of course, there are still a lot to do here. For instance, PulseAudio doesn’t protect clients from each other, and for more complex applications we need to add new APIs to safely grant access to things like user files and devices. The sandbox details page has a more detailed list of what has to be done.
The road is long, but at least we have now started our journey! |
The Mile High Club has just been one-upped. When porn star and weekend skydiving instructor Alex Torres (a.k.a Voodoo) decided to film himself and Skydive Taft receptionist Hope Howell doing the deed at thousands of feet above ground, it seemed like they had covered all the bases. According to KGET, they filmed the stunt in the very early morning where no one could be disturbed and no public nudity complaints could be thrown their way.
But now the Taft Police Department is involved and this stunt all of a sudden seems a lot less fun. Both the Taft Police and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) are investigating whether the pilot of the plane should get some serious heat for allowing this to happen. While it is technically legal to have sex in a private plane, The Sacramento Bee reports that "FAA spokesman Ian Gregor says any activity that could distract the pilot while he's flying could be a violation of federal regulations." The skydiving sweethearts are reported to having started the act on the plane and then continued once they jumped out in tandem into the air.
NBC adds that Skydive Taft owner David Chrouch has fired Alex Torres but hasn't decided yet if he will fire the company's receptionist, Hope Howell. Authorities have also reported that Torres had the video on his blog but removed it as of Monday. At this time, no criminal charges are pending.
Authorities say Torres had posted the video on his blog but removed it on Monday. |
(CNN) The anti-Trump protests outside Downing Street were lively and vocal. The chants ranged from the expletive-ridden to the direct: "No State Visit!" was a popular one.
The demonstration was part of a fierce backlash in the UK to the announcement last week by Prime Minister Theresa May that US President Donald Trump had accepted an invitation conveyed from the Queen for a state visit later this year.
The number of signatories on a petition calling for Trump's state visit to be cancelled has soared past 1.7 million -- and the issue will now be debated in Parliamen t. Among those to have signed it are Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour party, and Ruth Davidson, the leader of May's Conservative party in Scotland.
Anger has intensified over Trump's decision to impose a 90-day ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority nations and to restrict refugee arrivals -- enacted in an executive order signed hours after May left the White House.
All this has left the Queen at the centre of a political firestorm -- not a comfortable place for a constitutional monarch.
In a letter to Tuesday's Times newspaper, the respected former head of the Foreign Office, Peter Ricketts, said May had put The Queen in a "very difficult position" and should protect her by downgrading Trump's invitation to an "official visit". Such a trip would be shorn of the ceremonial hoop-la that The President is currently expecting, involving only talks with the Prime Minister and a low-profile courtesy call on the monarch.
May is in a precarious position. If she bows to pressure and downgrades the trip she risks more than losing face: it could cost her a crucial trade deal she's been working on with President Trump.
It could also test relations with Buckingham Palace: Ricketts noted in his letter to the Times that the government's role in protecting the monarch from political controversy was being "put under strain because of the ill-urged advice to the Queen to rush out an invitation to President Trump".
As Ricketts' letter made clear, the Queen doesn't actually have a say on who is invited on a state visit to Britain. Instead, she acts on the advice of the Foreign Office in consultation with Downing Street. May has the ultimate sign-off and only she can alter or withdraw the invitation.
So far the Prime Minister is resolute: the invitation stands, she said at a press conference with the Irish prime minister on Monday evening.
State visits are a powerful diplomatic tool for British governments and they are used unashamedly. Who can resist a sleepover and state banquet at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the Queen, with the pomp and pageantry of a horse-drawn carriage procession thrown in? If anyone can out-bling Donald Trump, it's Elizabeth Windsor -- and we already know Trump's mother was a fan
Whether The Queen is a fan of the President is a different matter and, not to put too fine a point on it, irrelevant. Her role is to stay above politics and over the decades she has hosted all sorts of controversial figures from Nicolae Ceaucescu of Romania to Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Never have we heard a public utterance of her personal feelings about any of her official guests -- she's a stickler for protocol.
The government has its own reasons for wanting to improve relations with the guests, and whether or not the Queen relishes the idea of hosting President Trump, she will oblige, as is her duty.
We don't know how Trump would react to a downgraded invitation but he's unlikely to welcome it and at worst it could be taken as an insult and cause a diplomatic rift.
The Queen no doubt eagerly awaits the guidance from her ministers. |
CNN is reporting that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) office wrote a loophole into the House version of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK) exempting Congress members’ spouses and children from having to report stock market transactions over $1,000 in a timely manner.
The Senate version of the bill requires these transactions be reported within 45 days by both its members and their families. But a memo from the Office of Government Ethics, which oversees all federal executive branch employees, used the House version, telling them spouses and children were not subject to the rule.
Neither of the bill’s Senate co-sponsors, Scott Brown (R-MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), knew about the discrepancy.
“I mean, bottom line, we’re supposed to have that level of transparency and have us be treated like every other member of the United States,” Brown told CNN’s Dana Bash. “Bottom line, if we can’t do it, then — sorry, if they can’t do it — then we shouldn’t be able to do it as well.”
The law, which bars members of Congress from trading stocks based on information they get for work purposes and requires them to register any stock transactions over $1,000 within 45 days, was signed into effect in April, and was praised at the time for being a bipartisan effort.
But Cantor had drawn criticism for introducing a House version of the bill that stripped provisions requiring political intelligence consultants to register as lobbyists and stripping pension benefits from members found to be corrupt.
A spokesperson for Cantor’s office confirmed it made the changes to the bill, but would now seek ways to remedy the situation.
“It was not the intention of the House to differ with the Senate-passed bill with respect to application to spouses and dependent children. We did not believe at the time that we had differed from what the Senate had done,” spokesman Doug Heye said. “Since new information has been brought to our attention with respect to this discrepancy, we are reviewing our options regarding transaction reports in the House of Representatives.”
Watch Dana Dash’s report on CNN, aired July 19, below: |
Scientists have unearthed the fossil of a pregnant reptile from the time of the dinosaurs. It’s a wild find, because the embryo found inside the 240-million-year-old fossil was not inside an egg, according to a study published today in Nature Communications. That means that, unlike most reptiles and all birds today, this ancient marine reptile didn’t lay eggs but evolved to give birth to live young, just like we do.
Called Dinocephalosaurus, the reptile was a relative of dinosaurs, and a distant ancestor of modern-day crocodiles and birds. These predatory animals lived in the water and grew to at least 13 feet long, with their necks making up nearly half of that length. (Scientists think that the reptiles contracted, then straightened their snakelike necks to create a vacuum — sucking in water and unsuspecting fish.)
“I was not sure if the embryonic specimen is the last lunch of the mother or its unborn baby.”
This latest Dinocephalosaurus fossil comes from inside a big chunk of limestone in Southwest China first excavated in 2008. Scientists led by Jun Liu, a paleontologist at the Hefei University of Technology in China, chipped away at the stone encasing the skeleton. And they realized there was something unusual inside the adult: a tiny, fossilized embryo. “I became very excited,” Liu told The Verge in an email. “I was not sure if the embryonic specimen is the last lunch of the mother or its unborn baby.”
Because no soft tissue was preserved in the fossil, it was actually hard to tell whether the adult was gestating or digesting the embryo. But Liu and his team think that it was the adult’s unborn progeny for a few reasons.
The tiny skeleton inside the adult reptile was fossilized in the fetal position
For one thing, reptiles like Dinocephalosaurus usually gulped their food down head first, facing backward, Liu says. But the tiny skeleton inside the adult reptile is fossilized in the canonical fetal position — curled up and facing forward. In fact, there’s a partially digested fish inside this reptile, too, and its head was facing the opposite direction. Also, there were no egg shells found inside or around the adult skeleton, meaning that the adult probably didn’t chow down on her own, or someone else’s, eggs.
If the Dinocephalosaurus specimen were really pregnant, that would be an amazing finding, and the first for its kind. Even today, most other reptiles and all birds lay eggs — although some snakes and lizards have evolved to pop out live young.In Dinocephalosaurus’ case, giving birth to babies rather than laying eggs would have had an evolutionary advantage.
The marine reptile’s body, with its long, unwieldy neck, probably made the animal awkward and vulnerable on land. In other words, going ashore to lay its eggs, like turtles do, wouldn’t have worked in its favor. Laying eggs underwater was also not an option, because reptile embryos need to breathe oxygen through the shell. Evolving to give live birth would have been highly adaptive, the authors write. Just, maybe not as pleasant for momma Dinocephalosaurus. |
70 years of Tove Jansson’s Moomins and we still cannot get enough. Now with Moomins on the Riviera out this weekend, we share our favourite quotations from this Finnish book series, which has captured the imagination of thousands of children and adults around the world
'Oh, what happiness!' - 10 best Moomins quotes ever
If ever there was a year for literary celebrations, this is it. Last month we shared our top 10 quotations from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. We’re now back with more pearls of wisdom for The Moomins’ 70th anniversary.
The first Moomins book (Moomins and the Great Flood) was published in Swedish in 1945, at the end of the second world war. But Jansson’s books about these four incomparable fluffy creatures didn’t meet real success until later titles, where more characters were introduced.
Growing up in a liberal family of artists, her upbringing is said to have inspired the Moomin characters. Moominpapa, Moominmama and Moomintroll are a family whose diverse friends (Sniff, Snork, Snufkin and others) often visit, accompanying them through different adventures and discoveries about life.
From this nine-book microcosm Tove Jansson’s fantastical realm has blended with reality, thanks to venues such as Moominworld – a Moomin-themed park located in the city of Naantali in Finland. The Moomins are a landmark of Scandinavian literature, but they’re also an international phenomenon, having been translated worldwide and adapted into various formats (including the recent Moomins On the Riviera film).
Facebook Twitter Pinterest We’ve been mad about Moomins for 70 years! Illustration: Tove Jansson
Today we revel in Jansson’s unique voice as a writer and illustrator with our favourite quotations!
“There’s no need to imagine that you’re a wondrous beauty, because that’s what you are.”
(Moominsummer Madness)
“I do not understand why the heroine in the book is always prettier than the one at home.”
(Tales from Moominvalley)
“That’s most extraordinary, but I’m so used to your doing extraordinary things that nothing surprises me. Besides I’m feeling melancholy just now.”
(Finn Family Moomintroll)
“They were indescribably beautiful, and they seemed to be aware of it. They danced coquettishly, freely and openly, for themselves, for each other, for the island, for the sea – it seemed to be all the same to them.
(Moominpappa at Sea)
I had now found my first friend, and so my life was truly begun. (The Exploits of Moominpappa)
“But one needs a change sometimes. We take everything too much for granted, including each other.”
(Moominpappa at Sea)
“One has to discover everything for oneself. And get over it all alone.”
(Moominland Midwinter)
“I have every respect for your deductions, but you are wrong, completely and absolutely, and without any doubt.”
(Finn Family Moomintroll)
“You must go on a long journey before you can really find out how wonderful home is.”
(Comet in Moominland)
Our final quotation isn’t from the Moomins, but was too wonderful to leave out!
“The thing about God, she thought, is that He usually does help, but not until you’ve made an effort on your own.”
(The Summer Book)
Let us know if we’ve missed out on other great Moomins quotations by emailing [email protected] or on Twitter @GdnChildrensBks.
Veep (@PrincessofVP) But what about "All nice things are good for you" as Moominmama said, @GdnChildrensBks https://t.co/w4VxORzE0N
David, by email
From The Exploits of Moominpappa:
“’Courage!’ I cried. ‘The Moomins are coming! There’s something rotten in
a country that allows its Grokes to eat the citizens!”
James, by email
“All nice things are good for you” – Moominmamma
SF Said (@whatSFSaid) “All things are so very uncertain, and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured.” – Moominland Midwinter #MoominQuotes @GdnChildrensBks
Elena, on email
“I only want to live in peace and plant potatoes and dream!” - Moomintroll (from the comic strip).
Sugar Down Bakery (@settledown) @GdnChildrensBks "Who will comfort Toffle and remind him that a song is better than a suitcase when the road is hard and long" #moomins
Aliisa, on email
“Do you know the difference between the first and the last love? One always holds the first one for the last one and the last again for the first one...”, from the German Moomin comic strip.
Martin, on email
“Life is short, the world is enormous.” |
Dawgs247 has learned that Georgia offensive lineman Jake Edwards will be transferring from the team. While his transfer destination is unclear at this time, the redshirt sophomore made the decision to seek more playing time according to persons with knowledge of the situation.
At 6-foot-4, 284-pound Franklin native’s career got off to an unfortunate start in Athens with a torn ACL during conditioning workouts soon after he arrived to campus. That forced him to miss all of the 2014 season where he took a redshirt.
A year removed from the injury, Edwards served on the scout team during the 2015 season, as The Bulldogs returned a veteran group up front. During spring drills Edwards spent some time with The Bulldogs’ third offensive line during media viewing periods.
(What's next for the Bulldogs? Make sure you're in the loop -- take a few moments to sign up for our FREE Bulldogs Newsletter!)
The former three-star prospect earned an offer from UGA during a standout performance at a summer camp in June of 2013. He committed to The Bulldogs shortly after receiving that offer.
Despite the loss of Edwards, Georgia returns strong numbers on the interior of the offensive line with Dyshon Sims, Lamont Gaillard, Ben Cleveland, and Sam Madden ticketed for guard. Solomon Kindley will enter the mix in June. Either Isaiah Wynn or Greg Pyke could also move back inside if Rhode Island transfer offensive lineman Tyler Catalina earns the starting nod at either tackle position. |
On the Saturday before the tournament, Keeney and his partners led youth soccer players and their parents on a mission to the neighborhood soccer fields. They parked the FC Tucson van (donated by a sponsor) beside an ice cream truck and went to work canvassing the crowd. Then it was on to the nearby Food City to slip fliers under windshield wipers and make a pit stop at the Sonoran-style hotdog vendor in the parking lot.
"FC Tucson will go as far as the community takes it," Keeney says. "We want to create an atmosphere that's like a 2,000 person block-party where a soccer game happens to break out."
Yet even community soccer has at times been a source of tension for Tucson. The population here is more than 40 percent Latino, with thousands concentrated in low-income neighborhoods where teams have lacked access to the same training and equipment as their white counterparts in wealthier areas of the city. While Tucson has a strong link with Hermosillo, Sonora across the border, recent state legislation requiring immigrants to carry identification at all times has offended many Latinos here and in Mexico. A 2010 bill that banned all public school curricula of which "race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes," led to the dismantling of Tucson USD's celebrated Mexican-American Studies program despite months of fervent protest, and a state-funded audit that concluded the program should be expanded.
"Right now there's a lot of distrust in the Latino community in regards to the laws that have been created here in recent years," says Jose Gonzalez, a curriculum specialist in the Mexican-American Studies program at TUSD. "The message being sent is: 'You're not appreciated here. The language you speak is in question. You being here is in question.'"
It's a message that's causing headaches for those who rely on Tucson's idyllic winter climate to generate tourism dollars. Businessmen here speak in terms of putting "butts in seats" and "heads in beds," filling local stadiums, restaurants, and hotels. A 2007 study found that more than 22 million visitors from Mexico pass through the community each year (legally, officials are quick to add), pumping nearly $1 billion into the economy. Arizona's Republican-sponsored legislation has caused "a perception problem," according to a representative from the Convention and Visitors Bureau's "Vamos a Tucson!" program, which aims to foster positive relationships with Sonorans. "Mexicans think they are unwelcome in the U.S., just like U.S. tourists see Mexico as being unsafe."
Last month, Tucson sent a soccer delegation across the border to Hermosillo, where fans agonize over the lack of a Division I soccer team. MLS Executive Vice President Nelson Rodriguez joined the coalition in an ongoing effort to "export the league," visiting Mexican media and school sports directors to whet the region's appetite for MLS soccer. "They welcomed us with open arms and invited us back," Rodriguez says. "It's a symbol of the success of the work that FC Tucson has done locally, and that MLS is doing globally." |
This scan of a pencil drawing I sketched features Fluttershy fromlooking directly at the viewer while wearing Aperture Science Long Fall Boots and holding an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.Before drawing, I inquired into Fluttershy's hand dominance. Almost all sources were speculation, but I got the impression that both pony Fluttershy and human Fluttershy prefer their left side. Consider how pony Fluttershy opens the bag in "Putting Your Hoof Down" and holds the lance in "Hearth's Warming Eve," and consider how human Fluttershy holds the spoon in the cafeteria while she and Twilight eat. Given the speculated left-handed dominance, I had her hold the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device in a manner that I thought someone dominant with the left hand would. This involved looking at images of Chell holding the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, imagining how I would hold the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (I write with my left, but do "laborious" tasks with my right) and then asking someone both in what hand he was dominant and how he would hold an entity shaped like an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.I plan on making some changes (as one of several examples, there is a clear problem between how the left Aperture Science Long Fall Boot is designed and how the right Aperture Science Long Fall Boot is designed) before I begin vectoring a final product, but feel free to create your own derivative of this work!You are free to use this sketch under the terms of the specified Creative Commons license, with the additional understanding that you may contact me via DeviantArt to ask for other freedoms (e.g. to request use without attribution).Please note that thebrand and all associated brands and products, including but not limited to, and the names and likenesses of features of those copyrighted works, are copyrights of Hasbro, Inc. I amsponsored by, affiliated with, or otherwise associated with Hasbro, Inc.Please note further thatandand all associated brands and products are copyrights of Valve Corporation. I amsponsored by, affiliated with, or otherwise associated with Valve Corporation. I am permitted by Section 2D of the Steam Subscriber Agreement , to which I agreed and am bound, to incorporate content from Valve games into my fan art in a solely non-commercial basis. |
Image credit: YouTube
In an amusing viral marketing video, Microsoft has gone on the offensive, attacking Google Docs, the search giant's collaborative, online word processing tools.
The video offensive is an effort to promote its own Office 365 service.
In the video, Googen Apperson, a Google Docs salesman, tries to convince an executive to use the software in her organization.
But she points out alleged flaws in the Docs service, including how it doesn't work when you don't have an Internet connection. She is interrupted when an R&B singer breaks into song about how Google killed off a number of services.
"Google killed of Gears and Wave, they buried Buzz the same way. If Google Apps meets its grave, your business is hosed," he sings.
Microsoft calls it Googlighting and explains in its accompanying blog post that it is "what happens when the world's largest advertising business tries to sell productivity software on the side."
"If these concerns and current revelations about Google's privacy policies have you troubled, this may be a great time to check out Office 365, the online collaboration solution for businesses who don't want their documents and mail read," the blog states states.
Just this week Microsoft has also called out Google for circumventing privacy policies. Google did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment on the new video, which you can watch below. |
Ryan Flanagan, CTV Kitchener
A reproduction of a Homer Watson painting was stolen while on display at the main branch of the Waterloo Public Library.
Named ‘Ice Break on the Grand River,’ the reproduction belongs to the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.
It was installed outside the Albert Street library as part of a pop-up gallery, showing off items from the gallery’s collection.
Gallery officials say they discovered the theft Monday night.
“We are asking anyone who may have witnessed the act, or know of anyone trying to sell a Homer Watson reproduction or have it in their homes to contact the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery,” the gallery posted on its Facebook page.
“This project was produced solely for public enjoyment and it is a shame to see this happen to a project meant to engage and inspire.”
Because the piece is a reproduction, it has little monetary value.
Born in 1855 in what is now Kitchener, Homer Watson was one of Waterloo Region’s most renowned artists. He is known particularly for his work with landscapes. |
Deshazor Everett hits Philadelphiarunning back Darren Sproles, who was preparing to return a punt. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
Redskins safety Deshazor Everett will not receive a suspension from the NFL for his vicious hit on Philadelphia Eagles running back Darren Sproles, a person with knowledge of the situation said. It’s expected that Everett will, however, receive a fine later this week.
Everett, a second-year pro out of Texas A&M, knocked Sproles out of the game when he leveled the 12th-year veteran as he tried to field a punt in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game.
Everett raced downfield and hit Sproles, who hadn’t signaled for a fair catch. But the ball hadn’t gotten to Sproles. It hit Everett in the shoulder while the safety plowed into Sproles.
Everett, who had an interception earlier in the game, said that he didn’t realize that Sproles hadn’t caught the ball.
“If I could have taken that split second back, I definitely would,” Everett said. “It’s too late. You can’t take it back. You can’t rewind. It’s not a video game. You make choices out there on the field, and you’ve just got to live with it. Unfortunately, it was a bad hit.”
Sproles left the game and didn’t return. He was diagnosed as having sustained a concussion.
Said Redskins coach Jay Gruden: “He just mistimed it. He wasn’t trying to injure [Sproles], and that’s an unfortunate deal. He was apologetic about it. But I love his energy. He plays hard, he plays fast. Special teams, he has made his mark. He got an opportunity to play at safety and cover the tight end and made a big interception for us. Hopefully that role will continue to expand a little bit because he is fast and he can hit and he’s showed that he can cover.” |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.