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Story highlights Bone said red cardigan was result of a wardrobe malfunction due to weight gain
He said he favored Trump but is now reconsidering
(CNN) Ken Bone, the charming questioner from Sunday night's presidential debate who achieved instant Internet fame for his smart outfit and articulate question, revealed new details Monday on his wardrobe, politics and viral celebrity.
In an interview with Carol Costello on "CNN Newsroom" -- and sporting the same red cardigan and black-rimmed glasses from the night before -- Bone explained the iconic outfit had only come about as the result of an earlier wardrobe malfunction.
"Apparently I've gained about 30 pounds and when I went to get in my car the morning of the debate I split the seat of my pants all the way open," Bone said. "The red sweater is plan B. I'm glad it worked out."
"I don't see how I could not have worn the red sweater this morning," he added. "It's more famous than me."
Bone's adorable celebrity was sealed after the debate, when he was seen snapping a picture of the debate set... with a disposable camera.
Read More |
Leaving The Escapist
I am no longer the Editor-in-Chief of The Escapist.
Due to budget cuts at Defy Media, the parent company of The Escapist, Game Front, and GameTrailers, a large number of my colleagues have also been let go. This news sucks for everyone, including those left behind to run these publications. My thoughts are with all of you and I hope you bounce back with a new gig soon.
I want to thank the people who made working for The Escapist awesome. I'm especially proud of the team of senior editors I assembled to cover the super-wide spectrum of geekiness out there. We produced a monumental amount of editorials, reviews and columns that were informative and fun-to-read, but, much more importantly, we had each other's support when we needed it most. Thank you for making the last six months bearable.
There is not much more to say right now. I am hanging out playing Disney Skylanders with my kid and I have plans to finally get in shape this winter. I'm excited for the future.
In the meantime, please enjoy my tweets about Civilization, parenting, baseball and beer.
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CLEVELAND — The first sign that something was wrong came when Sen. Ted Cruz told the crowd not to stay home, to go to the polls, and to vote their conscience. That’s when the Quicken Loans Arena — which was finally crowded and energized after two sleepy primetime evenings — started to get restless.
As Cruz told the attendees at the Republican National Convention to vote up and down the ticket, the chants started to ring out: "Go home!" When it became clear that this was as close as Cruz was going to get to an endorsement, the restive audience turned angry: "We want Trump!"
On the stage, Cruz was circling back to a meant-to-be-touching anecdote about the child of a fallen police officer, but from the back of the arena — directly opposite Cruz's face on the massive video screens — it was impossible to hear anything but the boos of the angry crowd.
It was much louder than it had been when other speakers had tried to rile delegates up on purpose, so loud that I couldn’t tell you how the speech ended. Almost everything after Cruz said "vote your conscience" was subsumed in an angry roar.
Where guests and alternates from the California delegation were sitting, people in Make America Great Again hats were booing. A decorous-looking woman with white hair stood up, yelling, waving both her thumbs down. The chants grew louder: "Trump! Trump! Trump!" "Keep your pledge! Keep your pledge!"
Cruz was booed more lustily during his own speech than Hillary Clinton was during Mike Pence’s. From the floor, just in front of the booing crowd, it felt anarchic, as if anything could happen; security reportedly escorted Cruz's wife, Heidi Cruz, from the arena.
After Cruz finished, fans and delegates stormed out from the stands, livid. "It was very disappointing," said California delegate Marion Ashley. "He’d given a pledge to support the nominee. Donald Trump called him Lyin’ Ted, and he proved himself right. People were chanting, ‘Keep your pledge,’ and he thumbed us the nose."
Just past the stands, Deanna Frankowski, an Alabama delegate wearing a hat that said "Trumpette" and carrying pro-Trump signs under her arm, was hoarse. Had she been yelling? She had, throughout the convention but especially tonight. "I’m really mad," she said. "As far as I’m concerned, his political career with me is over." Cruz, she said, "was like a big crybaby … he put himself first."
Frankowski, like other delegates, was particularly incensed by the "vote your conscience" line — a phrase that the NeverTrump movement had used in its unsuccessful quest to allow delegates to vote for whomever they wanted rather than ratifying Trump’s status as the nominee.
"Toward the end, where the other speakers would say, ‘This is why we need Donald Trump,’ he just said, ‘Vote for your conscience,’" said Nancy Weres, a California delegate. "That doesn’t mean anything."
Joan Camera, a guest of a New York delegate, said that Trump hadn’t been her first choice (that was neurosurgeon Ben Carson) or her second (Marco Rubio). But when it became clear Trump was the nominee, Camera, who owns a small business on Long Island, decided to support him enthusiastically. "We’re disappointed Ted Cruz didn’t keep his pledge," she said.
Camera was particularly angered by Cruz telling the convention to vote up and down the ticket. As she understood it, Cruz was telling them to sit out the presidential race if they must, but elect Republicans to other offices. It demonstrated a "lack of respect," she said.
As the next speakers took the stage, the hubbub died down. Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence delivered a speech that sounded as if it were addressing a group of delegates who had not booed a senator off the stage. A chant of "Lock her up!" even got almost as much enthusiasm as "We want Trump!" had while Cruz was speaking. At the end, the music played, the crowd got on its feet for Pence, and the night almost felt normal.
But from the back of the arena, the crowd didn’t sound as loud cheering for Pence as it did booing Cruz. It would take more than a competent speech to erase the division and discord that had truly, finally brought excitement to the convention floor — in all the wrong ways. |
Four Corners: Nigel Scullion apologises for 'horrors' at Don Dale detention centre
Updated
The Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion has apologised for not being aware of what he referred to as the "horrors" at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.
At the Garma Festival in north-east Arnhem Land, Mr Scullion took to the lectern for 30 minutes to make a speech which spanned topics from land rights to education and employment to business development.
As Northern Territory Opposition Leader Michael Gunner had done the day before, Mr Scullion was compelled to firstly address the Four Corners report into abuse of youth detainees in the NT.
He made an apology with a caveat.
"We must all take appropriate responsibility for what's occurred, including myself," Mr Scullion said.
"Now, I'm sorry I wasn't aware of the full circumstances that were exposed this week.
"Clearly I must be better informed about such matters, particularly when the vast majority of youths held in detention in the Northern Territory are Indigenous."
Mr Scullion committed to better monitoring of governments in this field, and said he had written to his government counterparts seeking their advice and support.
He also criticised Northern Territory Attorney-General John Elferink, who was dumped as the minister for corrections after the abuse came to light.
"I'm sorry that I accepted advice indicating that the Northern Territory's minister was responding to the concerns that were previously raised," he said.
Mr Scullion also rubbished media reports which he said accused him of only having watched Four Corners after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull asked him to.
"This is utter nonsense, I had a long-standing engagement of a very important and private matter that I honoured, and I watched the program with horror and outrage when I returned home," he said.
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, youth, government-and-politics, indigenous-policy, federal-government, nt, australia, qld
First posted |
More than 6,500 marijuana plants were seized in a Yamhill County raid near the Willamette River. (Photo: Yamhill County Sheriff's Office)
A massive marijuana grow connected to a Mexican drug trafficking organization was raided early Tuesday morning, resulting in one arrest and the seizure of more than 6,500 plants.
A two-month investigation in Dayton led the Yamhill County Interagency Narcotics Team to the illegal marijuana grow in the wetlands near the Willamette River, according to the Yamhill County Sheriff's Office.
In the early morning darkness, the team, with tactical help from the Oregon State Police SWAT, raided the production site. They discovered thousands of plants valued at more than $9 million.
Officials found a living area and kitchen hidden underneath a tarp within the marijuana gardens. They discovered Manuel Madrigal, 42, hiding in the living area. Deputies detained Madrigal, a resident of San Antonio, Texas, who had previous drug arrests.
Madrigal was arrested on federal charges of drug trafficking and transferred into U.S. Marshal custody in Portland.
Yamhill County Sheriff Tim Svenson said the raid was a good example of the dangers Oregon faces from marijuana, even though it is now legal in certain quantities.
"There is still a profit to be made in marijuana by these illegal organizations," Svenson said. "As long as this continues, we will need to remain diligent in our investigations to keep this money from being routed to other areas of criminal activity."
The grow was the first-large scale drug trafficking organization operation Yamhill County has seen in several years.
"Historically, these grows have been located on public lands in the mountains of western Yamhill County, and were difficult to access due to steep, dangerous terrain," a sheriff's official said in a statement. "This shows a shift in tactics by the drug trafficking organizations."
The sheriff's office said the investigation remained ongoing and encouraged anyone with information about the operation to contact the narcotics team at 503-472-6565.
Email [email protected], call 503-399-6884 or follow on Twitter @wmwoodworth
Read or Share this story: http://stjr.nl/290JZCh |
Islamist militants in the Philippines have executed a German who survived being held for nearly two months by Somali pirates eight years ago, after talks for his release in exchange for a 30 million-peso (S$854,000) ransom collapsed.
A video released by the brutal Abu Sayyaf group on Monday (Feb 27) afternoon showed Mr Jurgen Kantner, 70, a sailing enthusiast, his hands tied behind his back, being beheaded at a jungle clearing.
He could be heard on video saying "Now he'll kill me", before a man began cutting his head off with a large knife.
In a statement, peace adviser and chief hostage negotiator Jesus Dureza said the government "strongly condemns the barbaric beheading".
"Up to the last moment, many sectors... exhausted all efforts to save his life. We all tried our best. But to no avail," he said. He added: "Terrorism has no place in a country like ours and we as a people must confront violent extremism every time it rears its ugly head."
A police report released on Sunday said Mr Kantner was executed at around 3.30pm, on Sunday, in Buanza district, Indanan town, Sulu province, 1,500km south of the capital Manila.
Mr Kantner was beheaded by men under a certain Muammar Askali, alias Abu Rami, purportedly a unit leader of the brutal Abu Sayyaf group, linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Mr Kantner was abducted while he and his wife, Ms Sabine Merz, were cruising a dangerous area of the Philippines, by the Abu Sayyaf, an insurgent group known for kidnapping and ransoming foreigners. Ms Merz was killed, purportedly when she tried to fight back with a shotgun.
The couple have been sailing the oceans for many years aboard their 53-footer, the Rockall.
They were held for 52 days in Somalia in 2008 before their captors freed them, reportedly after a six-figure ransom had been paid.
Philippines Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay, speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, said on Monday Mr Kantner may have been killed because he was sick, Reuters reported. The Philippines was also working with its allies to determine the exact locations of the rest of the hostages held by the group, he said, adding that Manila would also continue to retain its "no ransom" policy. |
Ricky Rubio chats with J.A. Adande on the loss of Flip Saunders and how he pulled through to carry the Wolves to a win over the Lakers on opening night. (1:18)
LOS ANGELES -- You want to believe every single thing the Minnesota Timberwolves said Wednesday night, even the parts that can't be verified. You want to buy the reason Karl-Anthony Towns gave for Lou Williams missing a shot that could have won the game for the Los Angeles Lakers, the ball bouncing harmlessly away to give the Timberwolves a 112-111 victory.
"Nine times out of ten he hits that," Towns said. "I think the one time ... we had a sixth man on the floor."
You want to believe because you want the Timberwolves to have something, anything, to show from the death of their coach and team president, Flip Saunders, at the beginning of the week. Even if it's just a regular-season NBA game.
We can allow them this, can't we? Let them attribute this to that which we can neither quantify nor disprove. There are plenty of facts for the rest of us to chew on.
Ricky Rubio followed the newfound accuracy on his jump shot to 28 points. Watching jumper after jumper drop was so impressive it almost distracted from his 14 assists. Towns, the No. 1 overall pick, had a double-double in his NBA debut with 14 points and 12 rebounds. The Timberwolves overcame a 16-point deficit and hugged and high-fived their way off the purple-and-gold Staples Center court.
Those feelings were real.
"We're elated," Minnesota coach Sam Mitchell. "Coach would be proud of them. I know he's looking down and he's proud of these young guys, the way they fought."
Again, we'll have to take Mitchell's word for it. We want to believe that the end isn't the end, that there's still happiness and even influence beyond.
The Wolves will wear gray shooting shirts with "WE" written in big, block letters and "FLIP" written over the heart for the first month of the season as they mourn coach Flip Saunders. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
The Timberwolves had all sorts of reminders that life goes on for those left behind. Everything from heartbreak to inconveniences (such as the different configuration of the replacement airplane they took to Los Angeles after pushing their departure from Minneapolis back a day.) For a moment they were worried they would face the conflict of being in Denver on Friday while the services for Saunders were to be held, and they inquired with the NBA about the possibility of postponing the game. It turned out the services will be held over the weekend instead; mini-crisis averted.
But the Timberwolves had been so inundated with sorrowful news and difficult decisions that they barely had time for the usual joy or anticipation the start of the season brings. Finally Towns created his own realm of isolation, turning on the shower in his hotel bathroom and sitting alone with his thoughts, absorbing the day of his first NBA game and everything it took to get there.
"I thought about every coach," Towns said "I thought about every wind sprint. I thought all the gyms they played in. I sat there for 20 minutes, water hitting me, thinking about how much work I've put into this moment, just to be here, to be wearing this jersey, to be part of this fraternity."
And when he finally hit the court hours later, he showed it was possible for a man who never coached him in a game to keep coaching him after he was gone.
"I did everything I can to make sure I played as hard for him," Towns said. "I was so emotional at the end of the game. I just remember promising him that I wanted to bring as many wins to this franchise as I can, and as much as this franchise can hold. I started my promise out right tonight."
One victory. One victory that will stick in the minds of Towns and everyone else who contributed, from Kevin Martin's 23 points off the bench to the exhortations of veterans Kevin Garnett, Tayshaun Prince and Andre Miller during the timeouts. The first victory after they lost the man who won 654 NBA games, Flip Saunders.
"Even though he's gone," Rubio said, "he will stay with us."
It's technically impossible. And yet it feels like an absolute fact. |
Average global Internet service speeds grew an impressive 24% annually to 3.9Mbps in the first quarter of 2014, according to the recently released “State of the Internet Report” from Akamai. The United States showed solid improvements as well in terms of Web speeds, with the national average connection rate climbing 31% to 10.5Mbps. While that figure is impressive compared to the global average, and is also up a healthy 9% from the fourth quarter last year, it still lags global leaders by a big margin.
FROM EARLIER: What will the Internet look like in 100 years?
According to Akamai, average Internet service speeds in South Korea jumped a remarkable 145% annually in the first quarter to reach 23.6Mbps. That figure was more than good enough for the No. 1 spot globally, and was 9Mbps faster than Japan’s 14.6Mbps national average in the No. 2 position.
Hong Kong, Switzerland and the Netherlands rounded out the top 5 with average Internet speeds of 13.3Mbps, 12.7Mbps and 12.4Mbps, respectively.
America’s national average of 10.5Mbps placed it in the No. 12 position globally.
Drilling down to the state level, Virginia had the fastest average Internet speeds in the country at 13.7Mbps, which was down sequentially but up 30% compared to the first quarter last year. The East Coast actually managed to secure each of the top 5 spots in the country, as Virginia was followed by Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Washington D.C. in Akamai’s average speed rankings.
“On a year-over-year basis, all of the states in the top 10 saw higher average connection speeds as compared to the first quarter of 2013,” Akamai said in its report. “The smallest change was seen in New Hampshire, where the 6.0% increase was the only one under 10% among the top 10 states, while Michigan had the largest yearly increase, at 42%. Vermont was the only state across the whole country to see a year-over-year decline in its average connection speed — the cause of this decline has been discussed in prior issues of the State of the Internet Report. Year-over-year connection speed increases across the other states ranged from 6.0% in neighboring New Hampshire to an impressive 91% in Kansas (to 8.6 Mbps).”
The firm’s full State of the Internet Report can be downloaded by following the link below in our source section. |
But the most eloquent advocate of smallpox inoculation was Benjamin Franklin .
In 1721, the Puritan minister Cotton Mather promoted inoculation in partnership with a Boston physician named Zabdiel Boylston, who risked life and limb by inoculating his children, his black servants and many of his patients.
Among those opposing Mather’s efforts was Franklin’s brother James , the contrarian publisher of The New England Courant. Aside from the inherent danger of the procedure, James Franklin argued that religious zealots had no business practicing medicine. He was hardly alone; many colonists considered inoculation a breach of the Sixth Commandment (“Thou shalt not kill”).
Inoculation involved lancing open a wound and implanting dried scabs or fresh pus containing variola (the virus that causes smallpox) under the skin of a healthy, uninfected person. Said to have originated in China , it was commonly practiced across the Far East and the Ottoman Empire .
The procedure typically caused a milder form of smallpox and conferred lifelong immunity . Still, many people became ill from it, and not a few died. Moreover, it was feared that the inoculated would infect others.
Yet after an initial silence (perhaps out of fear of enraging his older brother), Benjamin Franklin became one of the colonies’ leading proponents of inoculation, trumpeting his advocacy in the pages of his own newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette.
Photo
Reporting on 72 Bostonians inoculated in March 1730, for example, he noted that only two died while “the rest have recovered perfect health.
“Of those who had it in the common way,” he continued, “ ’tis computed that one in four died.”
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In the following decades Franklin compiled and published quantitative studies on inoculation’s value, working with several physicians at the Pennsylvania Hospital , an institution he helped found, and with the famed British clinician William Heberden. He was also concerned that the high cost of the procedure — more than many colonists’ annual income — made it inaccessible to the poorest Americans. In 1774, to counter this inequity, Franklin established the Society for Inoculating the Poor Gratis.
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Haunting these activities was a very personal ghost: that of Francis Folger Franklin, the younger of his two sons.
Franky, as his parents called him, was born in 1732 — a golden child, his smiles brighter, his babblings more telling and his tricks more magical than all the other infants in the colonies combined. Benjamin advertised for a tutor when the boy was only 2.
When he died of smallpox at age 4, the Franklins were beyond condolence. His tombstone was inscribed, “The delight of all who knew him.”
Rumors abounded that Franky had died from an inoculation gone awry. The gossip led the grieving Franklin to declare that his son had never been inoculated because he was suffering from “flux,” or protracted diarrhea . Franklin insisted that Franky “receiv’d the distemper” — smallpox — “in the common way of infection,” and that “inoculation was a safe and beneficial practice.”
Inoculation was eventually replaced by the far safer method of vaccination, which uses a milder virus to induce immunity. An English country doctor named Edward Jenner made this discovery in 1796 after noting that local milkmaids who contracted the annoying but harmless cowpox infection on their hands remained healthy during lethal smallpox epidemics.
Jenner’s vaccination soon became the major means of preventing smallpox. In 1801 President Thomas Jefferson declared vaccination one of the nation’s first public health priorities. Two years later, he instructed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to take vaccine on their expedition to the Pacific.
Franklin died in 1790 — six years before Jenner’s discovery and 190 years before the World Health Organization announced that vaccination efforts had succeeded in eradicating smallpox from the globe. Yet while composing the final portion of his “Autobiography” in 1788, Franklin reminded his readers about the importance of immunizing their children. His advice is especially useful today when so few Americans have firsthand knowledge of the panoply of once common killers now preventable thanks to safe, reliable vaccines.
“In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way,” he wrote. “I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation.
“This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it, my example showing that the regret may be the same either way and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.” |
Exercise provides many health benefits, including improved metabolism, cardiovascular health, and cognition. We have shown previously that FNDC5, a type I transmembrane protein, and its circulating form, irisin, convey some of these benefits in mice. However, recent reports questioned the existence of circulating human irisin both because human FNDC5 has a non-canonical ATA translation start and because of claims that many human irisin antibodies used in commercial ELISA kits lack required specificity. In this paper we have identified and quantitated human irisin in plasma using mass spectrometry with control peptides enriched with heavy stable isotopes as internal standards. This precise state-of-the-art method shows that human irisin is mainly translated from its non-canonical start codon and circulates at ∼3.6 ng/ml in sedentary individuals; this level is increased to ∼4.3 ng/ml in individuals undergoing aerobic interval training. These data unequivocally demonstrate that human irisin exists, circulates, and is regulated by exercise.
Human FNDC5 has an atypical translation start codon, ATA, in place of the more typical ATG. While it is now known that many eukaryotic mRNAs begin translation with non-ATG start codons (), two recent papers have claimed that this ATA codon in human FNDC5 represents a null mutation and therefore human irisin would not be produced (). These authors argue that if FNDC5 exists in humans, it is translated from a downstream ATG, and hence the irisin polypeptide is a “myth” and does not exist. In addition, these authors claim that the many papers measuring human irisin are all artifacts of poor antibody specificity (); this is despite the fact that Lee et al. had previously detected an irisin peptide in human plasma with mass spectrometry (). In this paper we have investigated the presence of human irisin in blood using quantitative mass spectrometry. As internal standards, we synthesized irisin peptides and included a valine enriched in stable isotopes (sixC atoms). The peptides were used to develop a quantitative platform for the measurement of human irisin; these data should facilitate future studies of this molecule in both mice and humans.
The health benefits of physical activity and exercise are well recognized (). Exercise is the first line of therapy for various metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity, but exercise also improves outcomes in diseases involving other tissues, such as the heart and brain. We recently described a novel polypeptide that is secreted from skeletal muscle and is increased with exercise. Irisin is the shed extracellular domain of a transmembrane protein called FNDC5. FNDC5, when expressed from adenoviral vectors in mice, causes an elevation of irisin in the blood and improved metabolic health in recipient animals (). It also stimulates the expression of a potential neuroprotective gene program in the brain, particularly in the hippocampus (). Several papers have studied the effects of exercise on circulating irisin in humans; positive associations between irisin plasma level and exercise have been observed in some but not all cohorts and modes of exercise (). Data suggest that early sampling after exercise and high-intensity training protocols are particularly effective at raising circulating irisin levels. Most of these studies have relied on commercial antibodies and ELISA assays.
The effects of acute and chronic exercise on PGC-1α, irisin and browning of subcutaneous adipose tissue in humans.
Next, for the quantification of irisin in human plasma by mass spectrometry, albumin- and immunoglobulin-depleted plasma from four sedentary and six aerobically interval-trained subjects was deglycosylated and resolved by SDS-PAGE prior to in-gel trypsin digestion. After this, 12.5 femtomoles of each heavy peptide were spiked into the sample prior to absolute quantification (AQUA) of irisin ( Figure 2 A) (). Of note, often with enzymatic deglycosylation of proteins there is a propensity for deamidation occurring on asparagine residues, increasing the mass of the residue by 0.984 Da and slightly delaying the reverse phase retention (). Therefore, successful identification of human irisin peptides (as for other N-glycosylated plasma proteins) must take into account this mass shift. Deamidation modifications for both endogenous plasma irisin peptides are observed without dramatically changing the MSspectra ( Figure S1 A) nor altering the PRM rank order elution profile ( Figure 2 B). Fragment ions for both peptides were quantified using Skyline version 3.1 (), and comparable levels of quantification for both peptides, downstream of the ATA start codon and the later ATG, suggest irisin is mainly translated from its non-canonical start codon ( Table 1 Figures S1 B and S2 ). We found that irisin levels are present at ∼3.6 ng/ml in sedentary individuals and are significantly increased to ∼4.3 ng/ml in individuals undergoing aerobic interval training ( Figure 2 C, Table 1 ).
Skyline software was used to quantify absolute amounts of irisin peptides from the plasma of sedentary and aerobically trained subjects. The 25 kDa glycosylated bioactive form of irisin was used to calculate its ng/ml concentrations in plasma.
(D) Depicted are several plasma proteins and their circulating concentrations ranging from the μg/ml (red), ng/ml (yellow), and pg/ml (blue) levels. We quantify circulating plasma irisin at a 3–5 ng/ml. See also Figure S2
(C) Irisin levels in plasma from sedentary subjects (Sedentary) or subjects undergoing aerobic interval training (Aerobic). Values are shown as mean ± SEM; n = 4 (Sedentary) and n = 6 (Aerobic). ∗ p = 0.0411 compared to sedentary subject group as determined by unpaired t test, two-tailed.
(B) PRM elution profile for internal tryptic irisin peptide (FIQEVNTTR) using Skyline software found in sedentary subject 1. Top panel is the deamidated asparagine form of the peptide found in the plasma, middle panel is the unmodified peptide found in the plasma, and the bottom panel is 12.5 femtomoles of heavy internal standard (IS) AQUA peptide.
(A) SDS-PAGE separation of 50 μg of plasma from each subject and visualized by Coomassie staining. Molecular mass regions corresponding to completely deglycosylated irisin (10–15 kDa) were excised from six separate gels (300 μg from the original 100 μl plasma) for each subject and digested in-gel in the presence of 12.5 femtomoles of each internal standard AQUA peptide.
Two peptides were chosen as standards for this mass spectrometric analysis. These were both chosen because they are unique to the irisin sequence (FNDC5 ectodomain) and not encoded in any other proteins in the annotated human genome. As shown in Figure 1 A, one peptide represents the most extreme N-terminal 12 amino acids (DSPSAPVNVT) of the processed irisin molecule, coming immediately after the signal peptide ( Figure 1 A). Importantly, this peptide is downstream of the non-canonical ATA codon but upstream of the first ATG codon in the FNDC5 mRNA. Therefore detection of this peptide would demonstrate use of the non-canonical start codon. A second tryptic peptide (FIQENTTTR) was chosen from the central portion of irisin, three amino acids downstream of the ATG. Plasma samples from human volunteers who had undergone aerobic interval training (see Experimental Procedures ) were used to develop this assay. These plasma samples were first treated with a commercial affinity resin to remove the very abundant albumin and immunoglobulins, so that these proteins would not hinder analysis of less abundant proteins (see Experimental Procedures ). Samples were then deglycosylated with the Protein Deglycosylation Mix from New England Biolabs (NEB), which contains PNGase F, O-glycosidase, neuraminidase, β1-4-galactosidase, and β-N-acetylglucosaminidase and results in complete deglycosylation. After electrophoresis, the anti-irisin antibody detected a band running at ∼12 kDa, the predicted size of the irisin polypeptide ( Figure 1 B). To characterize the synthetic heavy irisin, peptides were subjected to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis in both data-dependent and parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) acquisition modes. As shown in Figure 1 C, the intensity of the y ions series from the MSspectra for both peptides corresponds to the rank order elution profile in the PRM acquisition mode ( Figure 1 D), validating that these ions can be used for identification and quantification of irisin.
(D) PRM elution profile for the y-ions for the AQUA peptides using Skyline software. Retention times for each peptide are labeled on the x axis, and y axis represents the relative intensity for each y-ion peak. See also Figure S1
(C) MS 2 spectra acquired using a Q Exactive mass spectrometer for the two synthetic AQUA peptides and their b-, y-ion series m/z values. Mass accuracy values are given in PPMs and “#” denotes the heavy valine residue.
(B) Immunoblotting of irisin plasma samples from three subjects undergoing aerobic interval training with or without deglycosylation enzyme (Protein Deglycosylation Mix [NEB]) and deglycosylated recombinant irisin.
(A) Schematic representation of the FNDC5 protein structure (top) and irisin (bottom). SP, signal peptide; H, hydrophobic domain; C, C-terminal domain. Below is shown the human FNDC5 sequence with corresponding domains colored. Human irisin sequence is underlined as are synthetic AQUA peptides used in this study (red).
Discussion
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et al. A PGC1-alpha-dependent myokine that drives brown-fat-like development of white fat and thermogenesis. We have developed here a quantitative, precise, and unbiased assay for the detection of human irisin in plasma. This assay definitively shows that human irisin circulates and has a very similar or identical architecture to the mouse protein (). Human irisin circulates at a level at or above the levels observed for many other important biological hormones, as shown in Figure 2 D. It confirms earlier reports that have identified a unique peptide in human plasma by untargeted mass spectrometry (), but provides quantitation of the circulating levels of human irisin in an unbiased and antibody-independent manner. Irisin concentrations are present at ∼3.6 ng/ml in sedentary individuals and are significantly increased to ∼4.3 ng/ml in individuals undergoing aerobic interval training. We therefore also confirm our earlier report of irisin being regulated by endurance exercise in humans ().
Albrecht et al., 2015 Albrecht E.
Norheim F.
Thiede B.
Holen T.
Ohashi T.
Schering L.
Lee S.
Brenmoehl J.
Thomas S.
Drevon C.A.
et al. Irisin - a myth rather than an exercise-inducible myokine. Raschke et al., 2013 Raschke S.
Elsen M.
Gassenhuber H.
Sommerfeld M.
Schwahn U.
Brockmann B.
Jung R.
Wisløff U.
Tjønna A.E.
Raastad T.
et al. Evidence against a beneficial effect of irisin in humans. Vanin, 1985 Vanin E.F. Processed pseudogenes: characteristics and evolution. Chang and Wang, 2004 Chang K.J.
Wang C.C. Translation initiation from a naturally occurring non-AUG codon in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Starck et al., 2012 Starck S.R.
Jiang V.
Pavon-Eternod M.
Prasad S.
McCarthy B.
Pan T.
Shastri N. Leucine-tRNA initiates at CUG start codons for protein synthesis and presentation by MHC class I. Several papers have called the start codon of the human FNDC5 gene, which is an ATA, rather than the more common ATG, a mutation. Indeed, these authors concluded that human FNDC5 is a non-coding “pseudogene” or that “the human species has an effective gene knockout of FNDC5” (). This claim was based on a transfection assay expressing human FNDC5 from a CMV-promoter-driven plasmid, which yielded protein levels lower than human FNDC5 expressed with an ATG instead of an ATA from the same plasmid. However, several lines of reasoning stand against that claim. First, the high degree of conservation of the irisin amino acid sequence across most mammalian species (including humans) strongly argues against FNDC5 in humans being a pseudogene. Second, the simple fact that Raschke et al. detect human FNDC5 protein made from the ATA-FNDC5 sequence proves that human FNDC5 is not a pseudogene; these are generally defined as genes that have lost their protein-coding ability (). Third, their conclusion that low protein production from CMV-promoter-driven plasmid expressed in HEK293 cells translates to inefficient FNDC5 translation in vivo is completely speculative, since this experiment did not consider endogenous regulation of human FNDC5 in its native state. Indeed, non-canonical starts of translation are often indicative of complex regulation of translation (). Fourth, as mentioned above, our detection here of equal amounts of peptide 1 and 2 in human plasma demonstrates that human irisin is, in fact, mainly translated from its non-canonical start codon and not the further downstream ATG.
Albrecht et al., 2015 Albrecht E.
Norheim F.
Thiede B.
Holen T.
Ohashi T.
Schering L.
Lee S.
Brenmoehl J.
Thomas S.
Drevon C.A.
et al. Irisin - a myth rather than an exercise-inducible myokine. Wrann et al., 2013 Wrann C.D.
White J.P.
Salogiannnis J.
Laznik-Bogoslavski D.
Wu J.
Ma D.
Lin J.D.
Greenberg M.E.
Spiegelman B.M. Exercise induces hippocampal BDNF through a PGC-1α/FNDC5 pathway. The earlier report () had several serious methodological deficiencies. First, their failure to detect irisin in human serum at 12 kDa by western blotting relied on deglycosylation by only one enzyme, namely PNGase F; however, this leads to only incomplete deglycosylation. PNGase F is an effective enzymatic method for removing almost all N-linked oligosaccharides, but not other oligosaccharides. Hence, with PNGase F, no visible band will appear at 12 kDa and the irisin signal will be diluted across the lane, leading to apparent lower levels. In our previously published method (), we used the Protein Deglycosylation Mix from NEB, which contains, in addition to PNGase F, O-glycosidase, neuraminidase, β1-4-galactosidase, and β-N-acetylglucosaminidase; this leads to complete deglycosylation and the appearance of 12 kDa bands in recombinant mammalian irisin and human plasma by immunoblot ( Figure 1 ).
Albrecht et al., 2015 Albrecht E.
Norheim F.
Thiede B.
Holen T.
Ohashi T.
Schering L.
Lee S.
Brenmoehl J.
Thomas S.
Drevon C.A.
et al. Irisin - a myth rather than an exercise-inducible myokine. Second, these authors () used a method of protein mass spectrometry called “shotgun proteomics,” which randomly samples peptides for detection from all the peptides contained in the sample. While the method has the potential to detect irisin, it would be suboptimal for detection because the peptides of interest can be missed in complex samples due to their low abundance. In these cases targeted proteomics is required. This allows the mass spectrometer to focus on the targeted peptides and ignore signal from co-eluting peptides. AQUA-based quantification concomitantly with PRM produces spectra that are highly specific because all potential product ions of a peptide and elution profile confirm the identity of the peptide.
Kraemer et al., 2014 Kraemer R.R.
Shockett P.
Webb N.D.
Shah U.
Castracane V.D. A transient elevated irisin blood concentration in response to prolonged, moderate aerobic exercise in young men and women. Kurdiova et al., 2014 Kurdiova T.
Balaz M.
Vician M.
Maderova D.
Vlcek M.
Valkovic L.
Srbecky M.
Imrich R.
Kyselovicova O.
Belan V.
et al. Effects of obesity, diabetes and exercise on Fndc5 gene expression and irisin release in human skeletal muscle and adipose tissue: in vivo and in vitro studies. Moraes et al., 2013 Moraes C.
Leal V.O.
Marinho S.M.
Barroso S.G.
Rocha G.S.
Boaventura G.T.
Mafra D. Resistance exercise training does not affect plasma irisin levels of hemodialysis patients. Wang et al., 2015 Wang H.H.
Zhang X.W.
Chen W.K.
Huang Q.X.
Chen Q.Q. Relationship between serum irisin levels and urinary albumin excretion in patients with type 2 diabetes. Zhang et al., 2014 Zhang M.
Chen P.
Chen S.
Sun Q.
Zeng Q.C.
Chen J.Y.
Liu Y.X.
Cao X.H.
Ren M.
Wang J.K. The association of new inflammatory markers with type 2 diabetes mellitus and macrovascular complications: a preliminary study. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the authors report their own detection limits for irisin at about 100 ng/ml. However, many reports of human irisin fall below this level (). Hence it is rather surprising that these authors concluded that human irisin did not exist or was a “myth.”
It is worth noting that limitations of own study include that the AQUA heavy peptides were added to the irisin preparations after the extraction of the proteins from the SDS-PAGE gel; we therefore cannot account for how much irisin protein was lost during the sample preparation (albumin/IgG removal, deglycosylation, and retrieval from the gel band, etc.); the numbers reported here must therefore be considered a slight underestimation of the irisin levels. In our experience, typical losses during sample preparation range between 10% and 30%. In addition, this assay is relatively costly and relies on available mass spectrometry instrumentation and capabilities. However, while this assay is relatively low throughput, it should prove useful for benchmarking more high-throughput assays as they are developed. Taken together, targeted mass spectrometry with the use of heavy irisin AQUA peptides settles the existence, the overall architecture of human irisin in the plasma, and its regulation by exercise. |
An Austrian soldier stands guard outside the OPEC headquarters in Vienna on November 29, 2016. (Joe Klamar/ AFP)
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is known for its massive resources. Last week, British Petroleum (BP) said the group holds 71.5 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. But the 14-member organization is also known for its mistakes.
It is hard to tell a group of the world’s biggest oil producers, which run state-owned companies with hundreds of analysts, that they are wrong. It is even more difficult to hear the group’s officials admitting that its policies are wrong. But behind closed doors and in private discussions, everyone knows what went wrong.
The group has made many mistakes since its inception, despite the instances when it helped to stabilize the market. So what are the mistakes it made since 2014, when oil prices started to crash amid the worst global glut since the 1980s?
First, prior to the fall in prices OPEC had assumed that high oil prices of $100 will remain for a long time and that this was the new accepted level in the market. It is true that there were times when everyone believed that prices will stay high for long and that OPEC will defend this price.
Even after OPEC decided in November 2014 not to cut production to save oil prices from falling further, many outside OPEC, like the oil tycoon, T. Boone Pickens, believed that the group would indeed cut and that prices would get back to $100.
“They did not say they would not cut but OPEC will have to cut and that is what is going to happen. The Saudis are the ones that make the cut. They can take $70 oil and take it out 10 years — they have the cash reserves that allow them to do that. But they cannot do that to the rest of OPEC,” Pickens told CNBC in December 2014.
This illustrates that it was not only OPEC that was driven by that illusion of $100 oil coming back — even people in the industry were driven by the same illusion. However, Pickens was right about one thing — that OPEC would cut. OPEC was also wrong about the demand forecast in 2014. The supply response was wrong and instead of cutting in the summer of 2014, OPEC decided to rollover the 30 million barrels per day (bpd) ceiling.
Second, OPEC’s officials assumed that the cuts in capex and the high break-even price for shale oil producers would help move prices higher. That did not happen, and the cost curve of shale oil producers went down and prices remained lower for longer, amid high levels of supply and oil inventories.
Third, instead of defending their market share of 30 million bpd, OPEC started to increase production in 2015. According to BP’s statistical review, OPEC’s average production at the end of 2015 was 38.1 million bpd on average, from 36.6 million bpd in 2014. So the year ended with an oversaturated market. The market-share strategy would have proved to be a balancing force for the market if OPEC learned how to stick to targets, an issue it is still dealing with today.
Fourth, in 2016, the group was divided and could not reach an agreement to freeze production, even as around 17 ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC countries gathered in Doha in April to sign a deal that would have restored some stability to the market. OPEC could not get its act together and the market lost faith in OPEC until it was finally able to agree in 2016 to cut production.
Fifth, OPEC is still unable to eliminate the glut in the oil market and support prices, even under the current deal with non-OPEC countries to remove 1.8 million bpd from the global market. The old issues of compliance and competition in the export market are still there. Iraq’s compliance rate was 69 percent in May, according to Bloomberg. The country has shipped more oil in recent weeks and that is offsetting cuts in exports made by Saudi Arabia and a few others.
OPEC members are surely aware of many of their mistakes but will they learn not to repeat them?
By Wael Mahdi |
A third mysterious black space object to fall from the sky into rural Spain has caused panic among locals.
The strange-looking black orb was found in the village of Villavieja in Murcia - becoming the latest instance of an increasingly bewildering phenomenon, the Olive Press reported.
It's not yet known what the objects are, though theories range from UFOs to pieces of space debris.
The first instance of the strange phenomenon occurred one week ago, when Spanish goat farmers discovered the strange object, which bears a striking resemblance to the Star Wars torture device, the IT-O Interrogator, in Calasparra, Murcia.
The Civil Guard were called to investigate the black orb and the area was subsequently put under quarantine. Pictured is the second object to be found in the village earlier this week
A local community manager deduced that the object appears to be a composite overwrapped pressure vessel, possibly from a space station
The mysterious orbs (left) bear a resemblance to the Star Wars torture device, the IT-O Interrogator (right)
The men alerted the Civil Guard to investigate and the area was subsequently put under quarantine.
Although the mystery object was not said to be dangerously radioactive or explosive, it was taken away for further analysis.
Local news site El Pais reported that researchers have said that the object may be a pressurised gas container, which fell to earth from space.
The Civil Guard stated the object was an aerospace artefact and pointed to the possibility that it fell from a rocket or a satellite.
However, a few days later a second orb fell from the sky.
According to The Mirror, Jose Velez, the mayor of Calasparra, implored authorities to provide answers to worried residents.
'Where are these objects coming from? Why are they falling here precisely?'
Claiming it was a more concerning issue than the authorities were letting on, he added: 'Citizens have real concerns about what is happening and deserve an explanation.'
The IT-O Interrogator is a droid that made an appearance in a number of Star Wars books and films.
Purposefully intimidating, the orb was used as a device to get information from prisoners using elaborate and scientific torture methods. |
And so it came to pass on Monday, during the House intelligence committee’s hearings, that FBI director James Comey confirmed the veracity of the most-speculated-upon rumor in Washington: The agency is ― as numerous anonymous insiders have insisted to the press over the past few months ― investigating Russian-led efforts to “interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” And what’s more, this probe “includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
Obviously, the mere existence of an investigation hardly proves something nefarious happened, and many Democratic officials have warned it would be unwise to presume a massive scandal is waiting in the wings to swoop in and capture the imagination. As Buzzfeed’s Ali Watkins reported last week, Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee are concerned about “wildly inflated” presumptions concerning what might be uncovered, and have attempted to lower expectations about “evidence of active, informed collusion between the Trump campaign and known Russian intelligence operatives” coming to light.
Nevertheless, we have a president under FBI investigation. How do you like that?
You know, not for nothing, but back in my day (2016) there was a lot of consensus opinion-having that merely being the subject of an FBI probe was a disqualification for serving as the leader of the free world.
Yep, if my dusty memories serve as any guide, then that was, at one point, a whole big thing that lots of people believed. And they especially believed it about then-presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
People such as presidential candidates! Here’s old Jeb Bush, giving “Fox & Friends” his considered opinion on the matter: “All I’m saying is that she’s under investigation by the FBI. Just pause and think about that. That’s not, that’s a pretty uncommon thing for a presidential candidate. And each and every week it just seems like there’s more information.”
Just pause and think about Marco Rubio, talking to voters about what separated the Republican presidential candidates from their Democratic cohorts:
RUBIO: Now look, I’m not here to badmouth the other Republicans, we have a good group of people running. At a minimum I can say this: None of them is a socialist. None of our candidates is under FBI investigation.
Lest you think Rubio was treating the matter as a mere laugh line, it really was something he wanted people to think about seriously.
RUBIO: Obviously, we all understand the importance of this presidential race. I would just ask everybody this: Can this country afford to have a president under investigation by the FBI? Think of the trauma that would do to this country.
Oh, man. Marco Rubio must be pretty traumatized right now.
Presidential candidate and improv comedian Mike Huckabee had thoughts of his own, way back when:
TV news devotes 4x more time to Trump controversies than Hillary’s. Gee, you’d think the guy was under an FBI investigation! — Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) June 20, 2016
Hopefully the coverage ratio is now more to his liking.
Meanwhile, you just know that the people in Donald Trump’s inner circle had some thoughts on the matter!
Running for #POTUS with an FBI investigation. Who else could run for #POTUS w/ such a scandal? Nobody. https://t.co/p1Vh9cQezs — Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) October 14, 2015
@AriMelber not if @HillaryClinton becomes nominee - probably tough to get excited aboutt someone under FBI investigation — Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) February 20, 2016
#Hillary made history today:we've not nominated someone under FBI investigation whom a majority of Americans says not trustworthy not honest — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) June 7, 2016
Most honest people I know are not under FBI investigation, let alone two. https://t.co/UcSmSA5aTj — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) October 29, 2016
Dem voters forced to make an impossible choice between 1 candidate facing FBI investigation & another that’s a self-proclaimed socialist — Reince Priebus (@Reince) February 28, 2016
That last tweet jogs a memory loose. When the FBI announced, late in the campaign, that it was “reopening” the investigation into Clinton’s email server, then-RNC Chair Reince Priebus was very precise: “This alone should be disqualifying for anyone seeking the presidency, a job that is supposed to begin each morning with a top secret intelligence briefing.” As Trump’s White House chief of staff, he must be thinking back over all the intelligence briefings that have transpired, and feeling kind of queasy about them.
Welly well, what’s Paul Ryan going to do about this? If history is any guide, he is going to immediately send a letter to the director of national intelligence, asking for Trump’s access to classified information to be shut down until we figure out what’s going on.
BREAKING: I formally asked the Director of National Intelligence to deny Sec. Clinton access to classified info. pic.twitter.com/Kk8t00cdJn — Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) July 7, 2016
He can just copy and paste from the letter he sent to DNI James Clapper: “It would send the wrong signal to all those charged with safeguarding our nation’s secrets if you choose to provide her access to this information despite the FBI’s findings ... I firmly believe this is necessary to reassure the public that our nation’s secrets are secure.”
Better safe than sorry!
Unless nobody cited above actually meant any of this, that is.
The Huffington Post
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Jason Linkins edits “Eat The Press” for The Huffington Post and co-hosts the HuffPost Politics podcast “So, That Happened.” Subscribe here, and listen to the latest episode below. |
Last month rumors started spreading that the American Sports Network had met its demise, giving fans of Group of Five programs serious concerns about the availability of sports broadcasts moving forward. The former turned out to be true but not the latter.
This afternoon Sinclair Broadcast Group, Silver Chalice, and 120 Sports announced a gigantic merger of the three companies’ broadcasting forces into a yet-to-be-named conglomerate. The new venture will leverage Sinclair’s linear distribution through their American Sports Network assets while also providing industry-leading online streaming options through the resources of Campus Insiders. 120 Sports enters the picture by bringing “a broad array of post-game highlights, up-to-the-moment news, and original, long-form programming as well as full game archives provided by various partners.”
The merger combines the three companies and aims to create a platform that could eventually outreach that of ESPN. While WatchESPN is currently the industry leader in sports streaming it does require a cable subscription to view. Campus Insiders was completely free to view and it’s safe to assume that trend will continue with their new merger venture. As less and less consumers opt to pay for monthly cable subscriptions the appeal of subscription-less entertainment options such as this new merger increases exponentially.
Fans that prefer to watch their programs through traditional broadcasts will still be able to follow their favorite teams just as they did with the American Sports Network. The merger provides a perfect bridge between current cable consumption habits and an inevitable cordless future as the American Sports Network was broadcasting in millions of homes over the past two years.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the merger will be exactly how 120 Sports fits into the picture. Will they simply provide commentary and in-game coverage or could their presence be expanded to create syndicated programming such as talk shows?
The idea of an “Undisputed” or “SportsCenter” competitor that focuses on the G5 conferences is highly enticing and could do wonders to help the G5 gain much needed exposure.
I was unfamiliar with 120 Sports before this merger was announced but I took a quick look at their website and came away quite impressed. Their video offerings are of very high quality, both in terms of on-air talent as well as the technical specifications of the streams. Here’s a link to a video piece about the potential early signing period for college football as an example.
Per Chris Ripley, President and CEO of Sinclair, the merger will also bring improvements to the future network’s existing television network. "With this incomparable set of strategic partners, we are evolving ASN into a vastly improved network with access to exclusive content and a combined linear and premium OTT offering that is the model for the future of television," Ripley announced in a recent PR release.
The American Sports Network held football broadcasting rights for several conferences including Conference USA, the MAC, and the Sun Belt. Campus Insiders delivered broadcasts for over 500 live sporting events last season and made waves as being the first streaming service to gain broadcasting rights to an FBS bowl game. They have been closely partnered with the Mountain West Conference over the past few years.
Stay tuned, for the following weeks will bring announcements regarding a full programming schedule, new product offerings, network branding, distribution partners, sponsors, and studio details.
While we’ll have to wait for more details to be announced to fully gauge the transition, it’s hard to walk away from this news with anything besides overwhelming excitement for what it could mean for Underdog conferences in both the short and long terms. |
Related Materials The Lessons of Anwar al-Awlaki
Four years after the United States assassinated the radical cleric in a drone strike, his influence on jihadists is greater than ever. Was there a better way to stop him?
The New York Times Magazine, August 27, 2015 About the Book: "Scott Shane has done a masterful job of fleshing out the missing link in the evolution of Al Qaeda."
Lawrence Wright "The writing is riveting, the intelligence sources are impeccable and the book is quietly elegant—echoing the human story told in Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower."
Kai Bird "Scott Shane has written a bracing story about America's most notorious extra-judicial killing."
Mark Bowden "No one has written a better book about Obama's war against terrorists. Shane is a superb reporter and a wonderful story teller."
Peter Bergen "Scott Shane is unsurpassed in shedding clear light on America's darkest secrets, including the gripping human drama behind a drone strike that changed history."
Jane Mayer "Scott Shane’s “Objective Troy” (the title refers to the military’s code name for Awlaki) is a lucid and richly informed account of how these two men came to occupy their respective places in the history of the drone age."
Paul Pillar in the New York Times Sunday Book Review Scott Shane: American Terrorist Killed in Drone Strikes Survives on the Internet watch video on YouTube
Awlaki with the Detroit airplane bomber Abdulmutallab in a martyrdom video made before the bombing attempt (Christmas 2009) but released in 2014. Washington, D.C., September 15, 2015 - Anwar al-Awlaki was an American imam who later became the most influential English-language recruiter for the cause of violent jihad, an ideological journey illuminated by the new book Objective Troy and primary source documents gathered by the author, Scott Shane, and published today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org). Awlaki was also the first United States citizen since the Civil War to be hunted down and killed without trial by his own government. His life poses in particularly acute form a vexing question: How does an intelligent, worldly man decide to devote his last years to trying to kill civilians who are strangers to him? His death raises equally pointedly a companion question: How has the fear of terrorism changed America, prompting the government to abandon long-embraced principles in search of safety? Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 1971 when his father was a student at New Mexico State University, Anwar al-Awlaki spent his early years in the United States and spoke English better than Arabic. At the age of 7, he moved with his family to Yemen, where his father, Nasser al-Awlaki, began a long and distinguished public career, including terms as minister of agriculture and university chancellor. When Anwar was 19, his father sent him back to the United States to study engineering at Colorado State University. He graduated and briefly took an engineering job, but he had developed a deep interest in Islam and discovered a talent for preaching, and he soon took a part-time job as an imam in Denver. His success led to a full-time job at a mosque in San Diego, and then in early 2001 to a far larger and more prominent mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, outside Washington. After the 9/11 attacks, which he publicly and privately condemned, Awlaki quickly came to national attention as a Muslim cleric who could both articulate the grievances of Muslims about American foreign policy and explain the mysteries of Islam to Americans suddenly interested in this unfamiliar religion. But he suddenly left the United States in 2002 after learning that the FBI had followed him on regular visits to prostitutes around Washington and panicking about the possibility that he could be exposed as a hypocrite before his conservative congregation. He moved to London, where he moved in radical circles and took a steadily more intolerant line in his lectures, and then to Yemen, where he was followed by security police and imprisoned for 18 months, at least in part due to the encouragement of the United States.
Awlaki with the Al Qaeda flag calling for death to Americans, March 2010 video. Shortly after his release in late 2007, he moved to his family’s ancestral tribal territory of Shabwah governate, where he eventually joined Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He called on all Muslims to attack America and began to participate in active plotting against the United States, helping to recruit and coach a young Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day in 2009 over Detroit. He also appears to have played an important role in the dispatch in October 2010 of bombs hidden inside printer ink cartridges on cargo planes headed to the United States. A tip from Saudi authorities thwarted that plot. By then, after a legal review, President Obama had added Awlaki to the kill list, authorizing his capture or killing on the basis that he posed an imminent threat to the United States. He was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen in September 2011 along with an American acolyte, Samir Khan, with whom he had published the slick English-language Al Qaeda magazine Inspire. Two weeks later, in another drone strike that American officials said was a mistake, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who had left home to try to find his father, was killed. His death generated far more anti-American anger in Yemen than Anwar al-Awlaki’s death. Awlaki left behind a hugely influential collection of writings, audio recordings and videos that have surfaced again and again in terrorism cases in the West. His fluent American English, his calm eloquence, and his firsthand understanding of the peculiar pressures on Muslims in the West, seem to have given him an unusual ability to connect with young people looking to religion for a cause. The attention he drew from anxious American authorities over many years meant that many government documents shed light on his life, on the government’s view of him at different stages, and on the legal analysis that justified his extrajudicial execution. Many of the documents below were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by J.M. Berger of Intelwire, an author and researcher on terrorism; by the conservative Washington organization Judicial Watch; and by the author in researching his book, Objective Troy: A Terrorist, A President, and the Rise of the Drone, published September 15, 2015 by Tim Duggan Books, a division of Crown. Documents 1) U.S. Agency for International Development certification with incorrect birthplace This form, dated 1990, confirms that Anwar al-Awlaki was qualified for an exchange visa and that USAID was providing “full funding” for his studies at Colorado State University. The document lists Anwar’s birthplace incorrectly as Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, which he later said was a deliberate falsehood offered at the urging of American officials who knew his father so that he could qualify for a scholarship reserved for foreign citizens. In 2002, the inaccuracy would briefly become the basis for an arrest warrant on fraud charges, which prosecutors withdrew. 2a) and 2b) – Awlaki’s San Diego prostitution arrest doc At least twice, in August 1996 and April 1997, Awlaki was arrested for soliciting policewomen posing as prostitutes in areas of San Diego known for streetwalking. He was married and working in his first full-time job as an imam, leading a conservative congregation. It was a habit that he would resume after moving to a bigger mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, in early 2001. 3) Excerpt from the FBI’s 1999 investigation of Awlaki Concerned about Awlaki’s contacts with some people under investigation for terrorist ties, the FBI opened a terrorism investigation of him in June 1999, collecting public records such as these from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. But they found nothing alarming and closed the investigation the next year.
The cover of Inspire, Awlaki's magazine in 2010, with a headline "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom." 4) Awlaki’s application to a Ph.D. program in educational leadership at George Washington University In the summer of 2000, partly in response to pressure from his father, Anwar al-Awlaki left his job at the San Diego mosque and applied for the doctoral program in educational leadership at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. At the same time he was hired as imam at a far larger and more prestigious mosque, Dar al-Hijrah, in Falls Church, Va. His Ph.D. application included his transcripts from undergraduate and graduate studies at Colorado State and San Diego State, as well as references from American and Yemeni professors whose names are redacted. What is notable is that Awlaki omits any mention of his work as a highly successful preacher from his curriculum vita and his personal essay. His Yemeni reference refers to an agreement to hire Awlaki on completion of his doctorate to run a new department of technical education at the University of Sanaa. So the documents suggest that at the age of 29, despite his success as an imam, Awlaki was seriously considering leaving his religious work for an academic job. 5) FBI first interview with Awlaki, September 15, 2001. 6a) and 6b) FBI follow up interviews with Awlaki, September 17 and 19, 2001. Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, FBI agents learned that two of the hijackers had prayed regularly in Awlaki’s mosque in San Diego, and that one of those hijackers and a third hijacker had turned up at his new mosque outside Washington. Worried that he might have some connection to the plotters, F.B.I, agents interviewed Awlaki at least three times in the weeks after 9/11, once with a lawyer present. He recalled a slight acquaintance with one of the hijackers, Nawaz al-Hazmi, from San Diego, who some others in the congregation thought they remembered seeing visiting the imam in his office. Awlaki condemned the attacks but behaved warily, declining to retrieve his passport or to discuss whether he preached about jihad. The FBI would later conclude there was no evidence Awlaki was in on the 9/11 plot, but the decision to put the imam under 24-hour surveillance would have major unintended consequences. 7a), 7b), 7c) -- FBI surveillance logs of Awlaki in DC area Beginning in late September 2001, the FBI placed Awlaki under 24-hour surveillance in an attempt to understand whether he had connections to terrorism. These are a few samples of hundreds of pages of surveillance logs, showing the FBI watchers trailing him and his wife and children to the Natural History Museum and dinner at Phillips Seafood; following Awlaki to the Pentagon, where he was an invited luncheon speaker; and tracking him to George Washington University, where he lectured on Thursday evenings to “UMEMs” – FBI jargon for Unknown Middle Eastern Males – on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, part of his part-time job as the university’s Muslim chaplain. 8) January 2002 notes on FBI agents’ videotaped interview with a prostitute about Awlaki Worried about Awlaki’s contacts with three 9/11 hijackers, the FBI followed him day and night, looking for evidence that he was a terrorist. Instead, agents found that he regularly visited prostitutes in hotels and motels in and around Washington. This paperwork accompanies the videotape of an interview with one prostitute, including an agent’s handwritten notes. The woman reported that Awlaki was a repeat customer who said he was from India and was “very nice.” 9) June 4, 2002 FBI memo about the possibility of a prostitution-related prosecution of Anwar al-Awlaki Awlaki had left the United States more than two months earlier. But the FBI was exploring whether to charge him in connection with the voluminous evidence agents had accumulated of his patronage of prostitutes, summarized here. This lengthy memo from Pasquale D'Amuro, FBI assistant director for the Counterterrorism Division, to James Baker, Department of Justice Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, requests permission to use evidence gathered under the rules governing intelligence-gathering for a different purpose – to criminally prosecute him. Though prostitution is ordinarily charged under state and local laws, this memo argues that Awlaki had violated the Travel Act, 18 USC 1952, by crossing from Virginia into Washington, D.C. and paying for the services of prostitutes. In the end, authorities chose not to pursue charges. 10) May 6, 2003 FBI memo closing terror investigation of Awlaki The bureau Washington Field Office, of WFO, found no evidence that Awlaki was involved in terrorism, so it closed the investigation. But the memo again summarized Awlaki’s patronage of prostitutes and argued that he had violated the Travel Act. 11a) and 11b) -- FBI 2003 email exchange with Awlaki On October 2, 2003, FBI Special Agent Icey Jenkins, whose name is redacted here, was astonished to get a telephone message from Awlaki. She appears to have passed the message to other agents, including Wade Ammerman, who began a months-long exchange of messages with the imam. Awlaki had seen news reports linking him to the 9/11 hijackers and wanted to meet with agents to persuade them he had no knowledge of the plot or other ties to terrorism. An agent, probably Ammerman, responded that the bureau had been looking for him and wanted to talk because “there are a lot of questions and matters that need to be straightened out.” They discussed the possibility of meeting in London in early 2004, but eventually Awlaki stopped replying to emails and the agent and the cleric never met. At the same time, the 9/11 Commission repeatedly sought the FBI’s help in arranging an interview with Awlaki. But no interview took place.
An Al Qaeda video homage "Martyr of Dawaah" to Awlaki after he and (two weeks later in 2011) his son were killed by U.S. drones. 12) Memorandum for the Record, October 16, 2003, interview by 9/11 Commission staff members of FBI Special Agent Wade Ammerman Ammerman had spent months pursuing the Awlaki investigation, and five months after it was closed, he was interviewed by 9/11 Commission staff members. Most significantly, Ammerman revealed the reason Awlaki had suddenly left the United States the previous year. The manager of an escort service used by Awlaki had tipped the cleric off to the FBI’s inquiries about his visits to prostitutes. Afraid that he might be exposed before his conservative congregation as a hypocrite, Awlaki suddenly left his job as an imam and flew to London, to return to the U.S. only one more time, for a visit in October 2002. Ammerman also mentioned that Awlaki had called the FBI in the fall of 2003, asking for a meeting because he “may want to return to the U.S.” The meeting never took place and Awlaki remained overseas, where years later he joined Al Qaeda. Together, documents 11 and 12 suggest that Awlaki, if he had been assured he would not face a prostitution prosecution, might have remained in the United States as a preacher, hinting at a path never taken. 13) December 1, 2006 FBI memo about seeking to interview Awlaki in prison in Yemen Despite closing its terrorism investigation of Awlaki in 2003 for lack of incriminating evidence, the bureau decided it wanted to question him again about the 9/11 hijackers who had worshipped in his mosques and other matters. Awlaki had been arrested in Yemen the previous August, reportedly in connection with a local kidnapping case. But there was also evidence that he might be involved with some foreign militants who knew him as “Abu Atiq.” Eventually two agents visited him in mid-2007 in a prison in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. They do not seem to have gotten any evidence linking him to the 9/11 plot. American officials continued to pressure Yemen to keep Awlaki, an American citizen who had not been charged, in prison. 14) FBI memo noting Awlaki’s release from prison in Yemen A one-page FBI memo, its contents almost entirely redacted, takes note of the news on December 19, 2007, that “AmCit” – American citizen – Awlaki had been released from prison. 15) First Justice Department memorandum from February 2010 arguing that killing Awlaki would be legal On Christmas Day, 2009, a young Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to set off explosives hidden in his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam as it neared Detroit. The bomb fizzled and other passengers subdued Abdulmutallab, who later told FBI agents that Awlaki had helped recruit him and coach him for the assignment, including advising him to make sure he was over American soil when he set the bomb off. President Obama asked for a legal review of the possibility of killing Awlaki, an American citizen. In this secret February 19, 2010, memorandum to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the acting head of the office, David J. Barron, assisted by Martin Lederman, another lawyer in the office, argued that killing Awlaki would be legal. Oddly, they refer to him by the respectful title “Shaykh,” used by his admirers. They maintain that killing Awlaki as an act of self-defense against terrorism would not violate the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment or the executive order prohibiting assassination. 16) Second Justice Department memorandum from July 2010 arguing that killing Awlaki would not violate the ban on “foreign murder” In a second memo addressed to Attorney General Holder, Barron and Lederman addressed an argument omitted from their first opinion: that killing Awlaki might violate 18 USC 1119(b) or 18 USC 956, two statutes governing killings overseas. They concluded that those laws governed “unlawful” killings, and that killing Awlaki would not be unlawful, because it would be approved by “public authority,” as a legitimate police shooting would be.
The State Department's false "Report on the Death of an American Citizen Abroad" listing the cause of death of Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman as "unknown." 17) July 2010 designation of Awlaki as a terrorist In parallel actions in July 2010, the U.S. Treasury Department and the United Nations Security Council added Awlaki to the official list of designated terrorists. Attorneys for Awlaki’s father, Nasser, were preparing to file a lawsuit against the government to try to get Anwar removed from the so-called “kill list,” and they believed the official terrorist designation was timed to interfere with the lawsuit. Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union sued over the matter and the Treasury Department changed the rules to permit the uncompensated legal representation of people on the terrorist list. 18) FBI memo taking note of Awlaki’s latest video calling for attacks on America This November 26, 2010 FBI memo is one example of many over several years taking note of Awlaki’s video and audio messages calling for attacks on the West. In this particular message, delivered in Arabic, Awlaki told his audience that no special religious approval was necessary to justify an attack on the United States. “Fighting the devil does not require a religious edict,” he said. In multiple messages, Awlaki urged followers to devise their own ways of killing Americans and not to await orders from Al Qaeda leaders. 19) NSA note on the drone strike that killed Awlaki This excerpt of a National Security Agency document taken by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept praises the cooperation between the military and the CIA in tracking down Awlaki in Al Jawf, a province in the north of Yemen on the Saudi border. A drone strike on September 30, 2011 killed Awlaki, another American Samir Khan, and two other members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. 20) Death certificate for Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and false State Department claim that cause of death is “unknown” Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed two weeks after his father in a separate American drone strike on October 14, 2011. Abdulrahman, an American citizen born in Denver, had left his grandfather’s home in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, a few weeks before, hoping to find his father. He had no history of militancy, but by some accounts, after learning that an American strike had killed his father, he vowed to join Al Qaeda and try to avenge his father’s death. No American official has publicly discussed his death, but officials have said privately that they were targeting an Al Qaeda figure who turned out not to be present and did not know the teenager was there. The State Department form accompanying the death certificate falsely states that his cause of death was “unknown.” 21) Ruling by Judge Rosemary Collyer dismissing a lawsuit filed by Nasser al-Awlaki and Sarah Khan Nasser al-Awlaki, Anwar’s father, twice went to federal court in an effort, as he saw it, to force the United States to live up to its own principles. The first lawsuit, filed in 2010, sought to have his son removed from the so-called kill list and was dismissed. The second, jointly filed by Dr. Awlaki and Sarah Khan, sought to force the government to reveal information on the killings of Anwar al-Awlaki, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, Sarah’s son. In this April 4, 2014 opinion, United States District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer dismissed the second lawsuit. “In this delicate area of warmaking, national security, and foreign relations,” she wrote, “the judiciary has an exceedingly limited role,” she wrote. 22) Indictment of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the Boston Marathon bombing This June 27, 2013 indictment of the younger of the two Tsarnaev brothers for setting off two bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon is one of many examples of Awlaki's continuing posthumous influence. It notes that Dzhokhar and his older brother, Tamerlan, got their bombmaking instructions from Awlaki's Al Qaeda magazine, Inspire, and that Dzhokhar had downloaded Awlaki's writings. At his trial, prosecutors noted the powerful influence of Awlaki and cited a tweet from Dzhokhar a few weeks before the attacks: “Listen to Anwar al-Awlaki’s ... here after series, “ Dzhokhar wrote, referring to the cleric's lectures on the afterlife, “you will gain an unbelievable amount of knowledge.” Four years after Awlaki was killed, a search for his name on YouTube finds 45,000 videos, and the marathon attack was only one of several dozen plots and attacks in the West in which Awlaki appeared to be an important influence. |
I do, yes. It’s Leviticus 18:22 that I object to. And I only do it when I’m in a hotel room and there’s a Bible in the drawer next to the bed. I don’t want those nasty, homophobic sentences lying within 12 inches of my head. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t write in ink. I only write in pencil so it can be rubbed out. I never turn down the corner of a book. I respect books, but what I don’t respect is that particular little verse. It’s not the whole of the book. … I don’t mind there being injunctions against eating shellfish or the injunctions against wearing cotton and wool clothing. I only get offended when it suggests that men shouldn’t make love to each other.
—Sir Ian McKellan, whose hotel room behavior is slightly above that of Charlie Sheen |
For most of the internet’s history, the important role of assigning domain names has been left to a nonprofit group called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is under contract with the United States government. If the Obama administration has its way, however, that will change prematurely on September 30, when the contract expires and governance of ICANN will transition to a global multistakeholder community. I believe ICANN isn’t ready for this transition.
I have supported the ultimate transition of ICANN, but only after the proper conditions have been met. In 2014, when the intention to make this transition was first announced, Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman John Thune and I sent a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). We laid out what we believed the proper conditions for transition should be, including maintaining the security and stability of the Internet Domain Name System, meeting the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) services, and preserving the openness of the internet.
While the current proposal makes an attempt to meet these conditions, we are not yet certain it will be implemented successfully. Hastily ending the U.S. contract with ICANN could have disturbing consequences for internet freedom. Transitioning these functions to the global multistakeholder community at this time would create an untested governance structure for the internet. It’s far too serious of a move to make without the utmost care and attention, and the current transition plan lacks appropriate accountability and transparency measures.
If this transition happens at the end of this month as planned, ICANN risks falling under the influence of foreign governments and individuals who don’t share the United States’ commitment to a free and open internet. This is why in May I formally urged the NTIA to extend their contract with ICANN so the transition could be tested. I also cosponsored the DOTCOM Act, legislation requiring a 30-day review process and congressional oversight before the transition could occur.
I believe Congress has a responsibility to ensure the internet is not subjected to unnecessary risk. In its short life, the internet has revolutionized every existing industry, created entire new ones, sparked untold billions of dollars in global commerce, and even spread the hope of freedom to countries around the world. It has become a thriving exhibition of the power of free people in a free market to create prosperity and opportunity. It is crucial to the future of our global economy that we preserve the security and openness of the internet, and the governance of ICANN plays a fundamental role in doing exactly that.
While the transition proposal contains many worthwhile and promising provisions, we cannot be sure ICANN will remain transparent and accountable until the plan is tested. There is no reason to rush into this. The U.S. has a responsibility to ensure that a sound, reliable system of governance is in place before we forfeit our control. I urge all of my colleagues in Congress to join me in calling for the current ICANN contract to be extended until the transition to the multistakeholder community can be tested and accountability ensured. |
The Latest: Jury convicts ex-Oklahoma cop of manslaughter
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FILE - In this Friday, Aug. 15, 2014 photo, Josh Mills sits on the porch near where Jeremey Lake was killed in Tulsa, Okla. Former Tulsa police officer Shannon Kepler is charged with murder in the killing of Lake. Mills testified Monday that he ran to Lake after the shooting and that Lake's girlfriend, Lisa Kepler, said her father pulled the trigger. Associated Press
FILE - In this June 30, 2017 file photo, ex-Tulsa police officer Shannon Kepler, left, arrives with his legal team for afternoon testimony in his third trial in Tulsa, Okla. Jurors in the fourth murder trial for Kepler, a white former Oklahoma police officer, heard a 911 call Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017 where his daughter screams to dispatchers that her father had shot her 19-year-old black boyfriend. Associated Press
TULSA, Okla. -- The Latest on the fourth murder trial of a white former Oklahoma police officer charged with killing his daughter's black boyfriend (all times local):
11:45 p.m.
A white former Oklahoma police officer has been convicted of first-degree manslaughter in his fourth trial for the 2014 fatal shooting of his daughter's black boyfriend.
Jurors reached a verdict for a lesser charge late Wednesday in ex-Tulsa officer Shannon Kepler's first-degree murder trial.
Kepler was off-duty when he shot 19-year-old Jeremey Lake. He told investigators he fired because he thought Lake had a gun, but police found no weapon at the scene or on Lake.
Kepler said he was trying to protect his daughter, Lisa Kepler, because she was living in a crime-ridden neighborhood.
Jurors in Kepler's previous three trials deadlocked 11-1, 10-2 and 6-6, forcing the judge to declare mistrials.
Although they couldn't decide on the murder charge, jurors in the first trial convicted Kepler of recklessly using his firearm.
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6:20 p.m.
Jurors in the fourth trial of a white former Oklahoma police officer accused of killing his daughter's black boyfriend are deliberating a verdict.
The jury left a Tulsa County courtroom at 5:20 p.m. Wednesday, shortly after the former officer, 57-year-old Shannon Kepler, testified in his own defense. Kepler doesn't deny shooting 19-year-old Jeremey Lake, but says he did so because he thought he was armed. No weapon was found on or near Lake's body.
In closing arguments, prosecutors said Kepler set out to "hunt" down Lake and picked the time and location of the August 2014 confrontation.
Defense attorney Richard O'Carroll accused prosecutors of pursuing a "political" case against Kepler and says he has been "unequivocal" in three previous trials that he saw Lake armed.
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1 p.m.
A white former Oklahoma police officer on trial for the fourth time in the 2014 killing of his daughter's black boyfriend has told jurors he had no choice but to shoot the young man.
Former Tulsa officer Shannon Kepler was the last witness called in the case. Closing arguments are expected Wednesday afternoon before the case goes to the jury.
Kepler said he saw 19-year-old Jeremey Lake reaching into his waistband for what he believed to be a gun, so Kepler fired. No weapon was found on or near Lake's body.
Lisa Kepler had been in and out of a homeless shelter after her father prohibited her from bringing men into his house.
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8:55 a.m.
A white former Oklahoma police officer on trial for a fourth time in the fatal shooting of his daughter's black boyfriend is expected to testify in his defense.
Ex-Tulsa officer Shannon Kepler is expected to testify Wednesday in the 2014 shooting of Jeremey Lake, the 19-year-old boyfriend of Kepler's daughter, Lisa.
Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday after jurors heard a 911 call where Kepler's daughter screams to dispatchers that her father had shot Lake. Lisa Kepler has testified at each of her father's first-degree murder trials.
Shannon Kepler doesn't deny shooting Lake, but has said he did so because he thought he was armed. No weapon was found on or near Lake's body.
Three previous juries deadlocked 11-1, 10-2 and 6-6, forcing the judge to declare mistrials. |
If LeBron James has an issue with the flagrant foul disparity in the Eastern Conference Finals, Toronto Raptors forward DeMarre Carroll has found an explanation for the discrepancy:
"Maybe because we don't act," Carroll said.
Related: LeBron questions why he rarely draws flagrants
While there were several hard fouls in Game 1, only the Cavaliers earned a flagrant for their physical play. Power forward Kevin Love picked up his first of the postseason after hitting the Raptors' Patrick Patterson with an errant elbow in the third quarter.
Minutes later, James was hit in the face by Toronto's Bismack Biyombo, but was whistled for an offensive foul on DeMar DeRozan.
"I know what it is when it happens to someone else, but I don't know when it involves me," James told ESPN's Dave McMenamin on Wednesday. "I have no idea what a common foul and flagrant foul is."
While LeBron may believe the Raptors got the benefit of the whistle in Game 1, the Cavaliers earned the advantage at the free-throw line, shooting 13 more freebies than their opponents.
Game 2 takes place Thursday at Quicken Loans Arena. |
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Some of my recent time has been devoted to making our boot media more Mac friendly, which has entailed rather a lot of rebooting. This would have been fine, if tedious, except that some number of boots would fall over with either a clearly impossible kernel panic or userspace segfaulting in places that made no sense. Something was clearly wrong. Crashes that shouldn't happen are generally an indication of memory corruption. The question is how that corruption is being triggered. Hunting that down wasn't terribly easy.My first thought was that we were possibly managing to load the kernel over a region used by UEFI code. UEFI defines two types of code - boot services and runtime services. While runtime services code and data must be preserved by the OS, in theory boot services code and data is available to the OS once the firmware has exited. In practice, that's not true . It seemed entirely possible that the kernel might be ending up on top of some of that boot services code or data and getting trodden on. Grub now has code to avoid putting the kernel on boot services , so testing the latest code seemed like a good plan. But no, crashes still happened.That pretty much ruled out the bootloader. My next thought was that executing some of the firmware code was triggering a write to some other memory that contained the kernel. Josh Boyer suggested the next trick, which was to try marking the kernel read-only to see whether anything was hitting it. x86 lets you mark pages as read-only - any attempt to write to them should take a fault. UEFI functions are executed in the context of the kernel, so share the same page tables. That let me rule this out, since everything still went just as wrong and I wasn't taking an extra fault first.However, at this point I was reasonably happy that it wasn't the kernel itself being overwritten - faults were occurring in userspace code as well. That was a pretty strong indication that what was happening was continuing to happen once userspace had started, so it wasn't a direct response to a firmware call. I made sure of that by stubbing out all the calls that could be triggered after kernel initialisation, and saw the same failures. Once all attempts to be clever have failed, it's time to just start using brute force. The kernel lets you reserve areas of RAM by passing arguments liketo blockbytes starting atfrom being used. It took a while, but I finally found a 256MB range that made a difference - reserving it resulted in the machine booting reliably, letting the OS use it resulted in occasional crashes.Definite progress. Comparing that memory range to the EFI memory map was helpful. There were several blocks of UEFI boot services data present there, which really seemed like too much of a coincidence. By reserving each of them in turn, I'd traced it down to a single 31MB region of boot service data - that is, memory reserved by the firmware for use by the UEFI boot services. Per spec, this is available to the OS once the boot environment has been exited. Nothing other than the OS should be touching this after boot, but something clearly was. Tracking down what was far easier than I expected, although the first attempt was a failure. Setting it read-only should have triggered a fault, but didn't. That was rather confusing. But, rather than give up, I patched the kernel to fill the region with 0xff at kernel init. Then I booted the system, read it back and looked for values that weren't 0xff. I got this:That's a lot of 0xffs (around 31MB of them) with one small section that contains an 802.11 probe packet with the SSID of the hospital across the road from my house. Apple support network booting off wireless networks. It seems that the firmware brought up the wireless card, associated with this network (it's the only public one nearby) and then left the card DMAing packets into RAM. The read-only page attribute only applies to CPU-initiated accesses, so it could do this without triggering a page fault. It also explained why it was so random - whether memory corruption occurred would depend on whether a packet appeared between that memory being used by the OS and the kernel reinitialising the wireless card. It certainly explains why I couldn't reproduce it when I left the machine repeatedly rebooting on the bus home.How do we fix this? Unsure. With luck disconnecting the UEFI driver in the bootloader should quiesce the hardware, but without testing I'm not sure of that yet. For now it's just another example of firmware managing to break expectations in deeply strange ways. |
They’re two of the most powerful African-American politicians in the land. And by most accounts, President Obama and Rep. Charles Rangel hate each other.
The most recently revealed salvo in their war of words — Obama’s assertion that Rangel is a “hack,” according to the political tome “Double Down” — is just one element of a long-dysfunctional relationship.
Rangel supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, but the seeds of mutual disdain were planted before that, according to Democratic insiders and staffers for both pols.
“There’s a cultural difference. There was always a pecking order of who [Rangel] perceived as being part of the struggle during the civil-rights movement,” said Vincent Morgan, a Rangel aide from 2001 to 2004 who campaigned for Obama in 2008 and ran against the Harlem congressman in 2010.
“The younger people were constantly reminded that they were the beneficiaries. Every conversation with him was a one-sided conversation. It was like, ‘That’s a good idea, but you haven’t been in the game long enough.’ ”
That worldview, and his loyalty to the Clintons, motivated Rangel, a Korean War veteran who has served in Congress for 44 years, to dismiss Obama in 2008.
“There’s just no question in my mind that Hillary would be in a better position than a freshman senator,” he was quoted as saying in January 2008. “This ain’t no time for a beginner.’’
But once Obama surged ahead of Clinton, Rangel took credit for urging Clinton not to challenge Obama’s nomination. The damage had been done, though, and it wasn’t all about Hillary.
“It’s a little more style than it is politics,” said one Harlem insider and Rangel confidant. “There are members of Congress who backed Hillary who Obama now has a decent relationship with. The thing with Charlie — a lot of it is style. There’s nobody more old-school than Charlie. And Obama is not.”
The result: Rangel didn’t get the kind of access to the president he assumed was his right as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
“You know who’s had more access to the White House than Rangel? Al Sharpton,” the source said. “They went with Al.”
When Rangel faced censure for paying below-market rates on four Harlem apartments and failing to pay taxes on his Dominican Republic cottage, Obama didn’t hesitate to throw him under the bus.
“He’s somebody who’s at the end of his career,’’ Obama told CBS News in July 2010. “I’m sure that what he wants is to be able to end his career with dignity, and my hope is that it happens.’’
Their animus blew up when Obama tried to bar Rangel from a Harlem event in March 2011.
“Remember the $30,000-a-plate fund-raiser Obama had at the Red Rooster a couple of years back,” said one Harlem insider. “Charlie’s people reached out and asked, ‘Where’s Charlie’s complimentary entrée to the event?’ And the answer was, ‘There is no complimentary entrée.’ This is in Harlem — Charlie’s home turf. His office was furious. And what Charlie decided to do was say, ‘I’m coming anyway.’ ”
In recent months, Rangel has been one of Obama’s most prominent Democratic critics. He has railed against Obama’s stance on Syria, IRS reviews of conservative organizations and, perhaps most of all, the rollout of ObamaCare.
“It’s screwed up,” he said. |
Events developed really quickly this evening in Davos. Turkish PM's wife said Israeli president lied in Davos and she bursted into tears. “Everything (Israeli President Simon) Peres said was lie,” Emine Erdogan told reporters in Davos after she burst into tears.
Then, according to AFP, Peres called and apologized to Erdogan.
"Israeli President Shimon Peres apologised by telephone to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Thursday after the latter stormed out of a Davos debate, the Anatolia news agency reported.
"Peres spoke to Erdogan for five minutes and apologised, the news agency said, citing a source close to the Turkish premier."
In a press with Erdogan the organizer and founder of Davos Forum Schwab said "What is more important is I have to pay tribute his role in the Middle East peace process. This role gives us hope. I am very sorry and deeply concerned."
Erdogan said the following.
"In the panel in the evening Ban ki-Moon spoke fore 15 minutes, I spoke for 12 minutes and Mr. Amr Moussa cut his speech short when it reached to 12 minutes.
"On the other hand President Peres spoke for 25 minutes and during the speech he turned and speak at me at a manner that we don't see in Davos. And president Peres raised his voice time to time.
"When I intervened to take the floor the moderator did not allow me to do. And I showed reaction to the moderator and left the meeting. I wanted to express these thoughts so that there would be no misunderstanding. We will talk about this with Mr. Schwab. My reaction here was towards the moderator. Such moderation will cast a shadow over peace efforts.
"I have respect for Mr. Peres therefore I did not raise my voice. Otherwise I would have raised my voice. He doesn't speak truth. History and political science deny him."
The President of Israel Shimon Peres will hold a press conference on Friday to address the incident. However, as we mentioned above he has already called and apologized to Erdogan. He had said that he raised his voice not because he was angry, but to be heard.
Israeli Turkish Realtions Unlikely To Be Hurt
Turkish based Hurriyet writes that "the impacts of Turkish Prime Minister's reaction to leave the stage during the Gaza session in Davos with Israeli president are unlikely to be seen directly but it is expected to have indirect effects.
"Erdogan's reaction unlikely to have direct impact on Turkey-Israel ties. Tayyip Erdogan's reaction sent shockwaves in the Turkish foreign ministry. But it is unlikely Turkey to reduce the level of diplomatic relations such as recalling the ambassador in Tel Aviv, diplomatic sources said." |
Police arrested an attendant and a manger at Red 27 Spa at 289 Seventh Ave. on prostitution charges. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Maya Rajamani
MIDTOWN — A Seventh Avenue spa boasting "sexy," lingerie-clad attendants was busted for selling sex when an undercover officer visited the parlor under the guise of seeking the illicit services.
The operation resulted in the arrest of two spa employees — an attendant who agreed to have sex with the undercover officer for $120 and a spa manager who facilitated the arrangement, police and prosecutors said.
The officer, who works with the Manhattan South Vice Enforcement Squad, came to Red 27 Spa on the second floor of 289 Seventh Ave. between 26th and 27th streets on June 2 around 7:15 p.m. and spoke to a manager sitting behind the front desk, according to a criminal complaint.
The manager led the officer to a small room with a massage table and told him it would be $120 for sex with one of her girls plus an additional $80 fee for the manager herself, the complaint states.
The manager then brought the attendant into the room, who agreed to have sex with the officer for $120, prosecutors said.
The manager, Yi Rong Wang, 43, was arrested and charged with promoting prostitution. She was released on her own recognizance after her arraignment and is due back in court June 13, court records show.
The attendant was arrested and charged by police with prostitution, but was given a desk appearance ticket and is scheduled for arraignment July 31, police said.
Red 27 Spa’s website is stocked with photos of scantily-clad “attendants” with blurred faces. They are billed as “young,” “hot” and sexy,” and descriptions often include their bra cup and waist sizes. Reviews from clients rave about the spa’s “sensuous” services and “good time[s].”
Wang’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment. A woman who answered the phone at Red 27 Spa said she did not speak English then abruptly hung up. A spa employee did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. |
A heart-warming moment captured on camera: A Charles County police officer helps an 81-year old woman with dementia make it back home.
According to a Facebook post by the Charles County Sheriff's Office, the woman's daughter called police Friday after her mother didn't make it back from her morning walk. Five officers arrived on scene, with a K9 partner to search the heavily wooded area. Luckily, she was found only 40 minutes later, and told the officers that she had lost her way. She was led hand-in-hand back home, making small talk with the officers. She even told them her secret to a long life: "Eating good and staying active."
The sweet post has been shared over 11 thousand times on Facebook, with over 15 thousand likes and loves.
For the Charles County Sheriff's, the small encounter is a reminder of why officers go to work each day.
"Officers encounter different situations every day," reads the post."Some good, some not so good. In this case, a frightening situation for the family ended happily. For that, they were
thankful. For us, it's the rewarding part of policing." |
'NBA Live 18' Gameplay: Players Can Build Career in Basketball; Demo Arrives in August
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Electronic Arts just revealed "NBA Live 18" will feature game modes that will let players build their careers in street or league basketball. Meanwhile, the game's demo is expected to arrive in August.
One of the newest features to arrive on "NBA Live 18" is the game's story campaign called The One. On the game's official website, The One is described with: "Your path is defined by the choices you make with the freedom to play how you want, with whom you want, and where the respect you earn in THE STREETS matters just as much as the rings you earn in THE LEAGUE."
While The One is mainly about building a basketball career in the virtual sense, The One stands out for giving players a wide array of options in achieving their goals. For one, they can choose to play street basketball or join the league and play at the most familiar stadiums and arena across the United States.
On another good note, developers explained on the teaser video, "The respect you earned on the streets matters just as much as the rings you earn in the league."
When players choose to play in the league, they will have to build their careers just like how real-life professional basketball players do — play hard in NBA games.
However, what was more interesting is if they opt to play street basketball, gamers will try to climb their way up by performing great in street games. According to the same trailer, "NBA Live 18" players will go up against NBA stars on some of the most famous street basketball courts in the U.S. such as the ones in Venice Beach at Los Angeles and Rucker Park in New York.
As the player's character continues to play, they will improve their basketball skills. As they progress, they will unlock exclusive basketball items such as premium pairs of shoes.
The free game demo of "NBA Live 18's" The One will arrive in August on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Players who will participate in it can have any progress they make carried over to the actual game once they purchase the full title.
EA is yet to announce "NBA Live 18's" release date. |
Kellie is a Canadian Registered Nurse Bscn and author of the “Vaping, The Truth” report.
Kellie, you have supported the MOVE statement; Why?
My opinion on vaping is solely based on my research on THR studies, surveys & articles. The MOVE statement concurs with my opinion on every point. We as healthcare professionals have an ethical responsibility to remain current in credible evidence to provide an informed opinion on matters of health to our communities. I believe that MOVE is adhering to that responsibility
Kellie, you are the author of “Vaping, The Truth”, Why you decided to write this excellent report?
Well thank you for your kind words. As an RN I am trained to identify gaps in knowledge. We are also trained how to facilitate learning to improve health outcomes. I saw a gap in knowledge of THR in the general population, healthcare professionals & politicians. This is concerning because understanding THR is essential to the application. WIthout application the public cannot benefit. So I decided to compile my research into a paper to use as a teaching tool. To appeal to the general population I wrote it in simple language, included lots of colour & kept the content concise. To appeal to healthcare professionals I included several graphs & 52 references to further their learning.
As a nurse you have treated patients suffering for the effects of smoking. Do you think that health authorities should prescribe the eCig as a harm reduction tool? Are the eCig as effective or more than other smoking cessation therapies?
In my opinion the evidence clearly indicates that vaping is an appealing alternative for smokers without the thousands of pathogenic chemicals produced when burning today’s additive laden cigarette tobacco. I do not believe they should be prescribed but should be recommended by healthcare professionals. These products contain pharmaceutical nicotine in controlled dosage just like NRTs. NRTs are OTC products as should be vape products so they are easily accessible to facilitate compliance. Consider that tobacco kills 2 out of 3 users, causes chronic disease, has no dosage of nicotine, does not require a prescription & is available for purchase 24 hours a day.
Controlled clinical trials have concluded that smoking cessation rates with vaporizers more than triples that of NRTs (21% vs 6% at six months). Vaping increases nicotine serum levels resulting in a reduction of craving to smoke tobacco. Furthermore, it uniquely satisfies the ritualistic behaviours & mimics the internal sensations of smoking. Science clearly indicates that the physical action of smoking is a significant aspect of the addiction. Furthermore, those that dual use report a 40% reduction of their tobacco smoking. There is a direct correlation between the number of cigarettes smoked & the risk of lung cancer. I don’t think you need a degree to figure out that a reduction of pathogenic chemicals entering the body reduces the risk of disease.
Finally, what do you think about the WHO official position and other eCig detractors? Do you think that restrictive policies on electronic cigarettes could long term damage the public health?
I am dismayed with the position of WHO. Like I said earlier, my opinion is based solely on scientific published articles. I, a lone RN, in my home, accessed medical data bases, read the dozens articles & formed an opinion based solely on the science of THR. Quite honestly, after I completed my research & reviewed the positions of WHO, Health Canada, Canadian non-profit organizations & our healthcare agencies I was literally heartbroken. I suppose I was naive to believe that the agencies created long ago to champion for human rights & the application of science to improve population health outcomes were adhering to the ethical standards under which they were created. The efficacy & safety of vaping is overwhelmingly blatant especially when compared to tobacco smoking.
I am afraid for the people of the world. Who will advocate for the greater good of all peoples? What are the actual agendas of those managing these organizations? It is clearly evident that allowing science to guide their decision making processes is questionable at best. I think that once the public understands the truth, for those suppressing this THR strategy, their credibility will come under scrutiny. My hope is that the majority of the people within these agencies, the compassionate, ethical professionals I have the privilege of working with will be able to rectify the current situation. I believe the vast majority of healthcare professionals adhere to our ethical responsibilities of non-maleficence, beneficence, justice & autonomy. There is power in numbers.
Restrictive policies of utilizing vaporizers as a tobacco harm reduction strategy promote harm induction. Period. |
Chad Durbin‘s tenure with the Indians is officially over. The 34-year-old right-hander has reportedly signed a minor-league deal with the Washington Nationals.
After signing a last-minute deal with Cleveland last March, Durbin went 2-2 with a 5.53 ERA and three holds in 56 appearances out of the bullpen for the Tribe in 2011. He struck out 59 batters while allowing 26 walks in 68.1 innings.
There’s some evidence that Durbin’s struggles this year were at least partially due to bad luck. His .339 BABIP was almost 40 points higher than his career mark, and he also suffered from an uncharacteristically high 13 percent HR/FB rate in a down offensive year. As a result, he had a solid 4.26 xFIP and a very good 3.76 SIERA.
This was Durbin’s second go-round with the Tribe, and it was far more successful than the last one. In 2003-4, he went 5-7 with a 6.75 ERA in 60 innings with Cleveland before the Arizona Diamondbacks took him in an August 2004 waiver claim.
Durbin owns a career 38-46 record in 364 appearances (75 starts) across 12 MLB seasons with five teams. Bill James projects him for a 4.56 ERA in 75 innings this year, while RotoChamp has him throwing 50 frames with a 4.32 ERA.
It wasn’t a surprise to see Durbin sign elsewhere—there hadn’t been any rumors about the Indians trying to re-sign him—but now his moving on is official. Best of luck to him in the rest of his MLB career.
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Josh Rivers has been suspended by Gay Times just weeks after his appointment
The editor of Gay Times has been suspended just weeks after his appointment over a string of offensive tweets - including some aimed at members of the LGBTQ community.
Jews, lesbians, straight women, Egyptians, Asians, Chinese, transgender people, obese people, mothers and bus drivers are among the groups of people that Josh Rivers took aim at between 2010 and 2015.
Within hours of the posts being discovered, Mr Rivers had been suspended by Gay Times, and he subsequently issued a grovelling apology over Twitter.
The tweets - which have since been deleted - were shared between 2010 and 2015 and were initially exposed by BuzzFeed News.
One read: 'I wonder if they cast that guy as 'The Jew' because of that f****** ridiculously larger honker of a nose. It must be prosthetic. Must be.'
He is said to have described transgender people as 'tranny', while another reportedly read: 'Long day. How would I type that with Chinese accent? Wong way?'
Others hit out at lesbians and a number of posts abused 'fat' or 'ugly' people.
In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, Gay Times said Rivers's 'past tweets do not align with the values of Gay Times, or any of our employees, in any capacity'.
'Josh has been suspended with immediate effect while we investigate the facts. Appropriate action will be taken in due course.'
In a separate statement, Rivers described his messages as 'horrible', 'hateful' and 'abhorrent'.
He said they came from a place of 'deep self-loathing that I've worked hard to overcome'.
Rivers posted on Twitter: 'To every single person who is hurt, offended and disappointed: I'm sorry.
'I have long taken steps to address the issues that prevented me from treating people with the respect and kindness I value so dearly now.
'It is because of my past and my own awakening that I've since pivoted everything in my life towards supporting and empowering our community.
Within hours of the posts being discovered, Mr Rivers had been suspended by Gay Times, and he subsequently issued a grovelling apology over Twitter
'It is upsetting that the damage I caused before has now resurfaced to cause more pain.'
He added: 'I hope we can use this as an opportunity for growth, for healing, for moving forward. As evidenced by my own example, there is so much work to do.'
Rivers's appointment was announced on October 27, when he told media magazine The Drum he was picked for the role for his 'keen eye for detail, well-honed leadership skills and the ability to execute. |
The backside of 10 Downing Street
Like a plot twist in a sitcom, IT TURNS OUT THERE ARE TWO CHURCHILL BUSTS!!!!! The one in the White House Residence was a gift to the White House from the British Embassy during the Nixon administration. The other one was loaned to President George W. Bush by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Says James Barbour, Press Secretary and Head of Communications for the British Embassy, “The bust of Sir Winston Churchill, by Sir Jacob Epstein, was lent to the George W Bush administration from the UK’s Government Art Collection, for the duration of the Presidency. When that administration came to an end so did the loan; the bust now resides in the British Ambassador’s Residence in Washington DC. The White House collection has its own Epstein bust of Churchill, which President Obama showed to Prime Minister Cameron when he visited the White House in March”
Uh oh, time to get all Nancy Drew up in this thing ... and a third Churchill bust, currently residing in a certain White House bathroom, contains a map showing the location of Lincoln's gold!
The White House is now admitting the error. Or is that just what they want you to think?
As backstory, the controversy around the Churchill Bust is that supposedly Barack Obama let the British have their bust back when the original loan of it had expired in order to pay them back for slavery or calling things "chips" or something, I don't remember the exact details, but yesterday Mitt Romney burnished his foreign policy credentials by telling a London crowd that when he was president, he'd take the Churchill bust back from the British and again display it proudly in the Oval Office (in the process banishing any remaining busts of communists Martin Luther King Jr. and Abe Lincoln, who I again point out were communists).
As a fabulously wealthy man, Mitt knows that returning things after the loan has expired is something only poor people do. Besides, our special relationship with the United Kingdom entitles us to keep all their stuff if we say we want it. |
Tripartite discussions between the South Korea, Japan and the United States are to take place later this week, the Yonhap News Agency has reported, with a focus on increased cooperation in intelligence sharing.
Long touted as a way for the two U.S. allies to form a united front against North Korea, cooperation between South Korea and Japan remains controversial due to Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula. A similar military intelligence-sharing agreement between the two collapsed two years ago due to domestic resistance in South Korea.
The meeting is set to take place on the sidelines of the 13th Asia Security Summit (a.k.a. the Shangri-La Dialogue) including military/security officials and experts from 27 countries.
The talks between South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, his Japanese counterpart Itsunori Onodera and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel are expected to conclude with an acknowledgment of the need for a deal, a South Korean government official told the agency.
The official said that the meeting would likely not conclude with the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the issue and also indicated that it would not mean Seoul is coming closer to joining a U.S. missile defense system aimed at countering China.
Nonetheless, the official said the meeting would be significant, as it would be the first time for officials from the three countries to get together to agree on the need for intelligence sharing.
Washington already has intelligence-sharing agreements with both Japan and South Korea.
Though both have taken a firm line against North Korea, the governments of South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have had little contact, largely due to Abe’s controversial statements about Japan’s actions during colonization. Abe also infuriated Koreans and Chinese with his December visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors those who died in service to the Empire of Japan and includes war criminals.
Experts have warned that, among other things, disunity between Tokyo and Seoul leaves opportunities for Pyongyang to exploit. Japan and North Korea recently concluded a third round of talks on Japanese victims of North Korean abduction in the late 1970s and early ’80s in Sweden.
Picture of Itsunori Onodera: IAEA Imagebank, Flickr Creative Commons |
Image copyright AFP Image caption Hillary Clinton has been keeping a low profile
Hillary Clinton has blamed her defeat in the US presidential election on interventions by the FBI director.
James Comey's announcement of a new inquiry into her use of email while secretary of state shortly before election day had stopped her campaign's momentum, Mrs Clinton said.
The Democratic candidate was speaking to top party donors in a phone call, which was leaked to the media.
Protests are continuing against the victory of her rival, Donald Trump.
In New York, about 2,000 marchers headed for the skyscraper where the president-elect lives, shouting "not my president".
Anti-Trump activists have held daily protests in US cities since his election victory was confirmed on Wednesday.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Anti-Trump protests continue in New York
Mr Trump seems to be rowing back on some of his campaign pledges. Having promised to scrap President Barack Obama's healthcare law dubbed "Obamacare", he now says he is open to leaving intact key parts of the act.
Asked by the Wall Street Journal whether he would implement a promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Mrs Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state, he listed healthcare, jobs, border control and tax reform as greater priorities.
The Republican is due to be sworn in on 20 January, taking over from Mr Obama, who will have completed two terms in office.
'We dropped'
Mrs Clinton, who served as Mr Obama's secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, has been keeping a low profile since conceding victory.
On 28 October, Mr Comey informed Congress that the FBI was examining newly discovered emails sent or received by Mrs Clinton, thus reviving an investigation which had been completed in July.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Donald Trump's supporters saw Clinton's experience and qualifications as huge negatives
Then, on 6 November, two days before the election, Mr Comey announced in a second letter that he was standing by his original assessment - that Mrs Clinton should not face criminal charges.
"There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful," Mrs Clinton told the donors on a farewell conference call on Saturday.
"But our analysis is that Comey's letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum. We dropped, and we had to keep really pushing ahead to regain our advantage."
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mr Comey announced a new FBI inquiry into Mrs Clinton's emails shortly before election day
According to US media, she added that Mr Comey's later recommendation that she should face no charges had energised Mr Trump's supporters.
Her campaign team said that despite Mrs Clinton being cleared of criminal behaviour, the move only revived Mr Trump's claim that the Democratic candidate was being protected by a rigged system.
Clinton FBI probe: What we know
Comey - both hero and villain (again)
Despair and anger
The New York marchers rallied in Union Square Park for the march to Trump Tower, from which the next president has been planning the transition to his inauguration.
One organiser of the New York protest, Kenneth Shelton, told the BBC that it was not an attempt to challenge the legitimacy of Tuesday's election. "We lost," he admitted.
Placards at the demonstration express despair and anger, the BBC's Paul Adams says.
One read "Trump: An American Tragedy" while the message on another read "Now We're Your Nightmare".
Image copyright AFP Image caption Protesters gathered in New York's Union Square
Image copyright @BBCPaulAdams Image caption There have been protests for the past few nights, since Mr Trump was elected
Image copyright @Ryan_spahn Image caption "He made American hate again," read one protester's sign
"We must unite despite our differences to stop HATE from ruling the land," organisers of the New York protest wrote on Facebook. Demonstrations in the city earlier this week drew thousands of people.
Similar demonstrations were also held in Los Angeles and Chicago on Saturday.
On Friday demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, turned violent and one person was shot but most rallies have passed off peacefully. |
A rookie MP from British Columbia tabled a bill Tuesday in the House of Commons aiming to limit the length of federal election campaigns.
Whew, What a Turn Off! read more
Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners ‘Punch to the Gut’ Musical on Residential Schools Returns to Vancouver Children of God has been shaped by intense audience reactions, says director Corey Payette.
What would be even better, said a government watchdog, is laws keeping politicians honest.
New Democrat Alistair MacGregor, who represents Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, told The Tyee last year's election cost Canadian taxpayers an estimated $150 million dollars more than the previous one in 2011 because it ran for twice as long.
"I think that is an outrageous amount of money to spend on a campaign when we really only need a reasonable length to make our decisions," MacGregor said.
The 2015 election campaign was 78 days long, the election in 2011 was less than half the length at 36 days.
Most elections in Canada since the late 1980s have been less than 40 days in length and the 2015 campaign was the second longest in history, according to government records.
The only one longer was in 1872 and was 89 days long from the writ drop to election day.
Draining
When the writ was dropped by the Conservatives last year many analysts said they decided upon an extra-long campaign in an attempt to drain the war chests of their less-moneyed opponents.
It was also suspected the Conservatives were trying to avoid an expected barrage of third-party attack ads throughout in the summer. Once the writ is dropped such ads are not permitted.
If MacGregor's bill passes election lengths will be capped at 46 days, which he said gives plenty of leeway for holidays or other impediments to elections.
But he said it will also take big money out of Canadian politics countering the Fair Elections Act the Conservatives passed in 2014, which allows parties to boost their election spending if a campaign passes 37 days.
It provides a chance for wealthy parties to severely outspend others, according to MacGregor.
"I think money distorts the ability of all people to have an equal voice in an election," he said. "I want to prevent us from sliding down a path to U.S.-style elections where only the large parties who have the very wealthy donor lists can compete."
He said the bill will not likely be debated in the House for at least two years.
Vote for honesty?
Duff Conacher of the government watchdog organization Democracy Watch said capping election limits is a sound idea, though the threat of another lengthy election is minimal and the Liberals have promised new campaign finance limits.
Conacher said parties may now also realize long election campaigns and the accompanying political ads are a waste of money.
"You can spend a bunch of money early on if you have it," he said. "But it just doesn't reach people because they're not paying attention."
But he said a campaign-length limit would be good to have on the books in case a government in the future does see an unfair benefit to holding a long election campaign.
Conacher said if the New Democrats really want to shake up Parliament they should introduce a bill legislating honesty in politics.
"If you want to get the other parties voting against something that would embarrass them it would be voting in favour of dishonesty during elections," he said. |
It is not easy to be a Muslim. Even though I am a practicing Muslim, strive to offer namaz five times a day and read the Holy Quran almost every day.
I never seem to make the cut with the self-appointed minders of Islam because I defy the stereotype of a Muslim. The stereotype of a Muslim woman that exists in their heads.
Read- Why we fight: 5 Muslim women tell their story
I can decipher the "kya aap Musalman hain?" look much before the brain forms the sentence and the tongue delivers it.
In the past, I have been asked to recite the kalma to establish my Muslimness. I have been asked if I am a born-Muslim or if I converted post-marriage. I have been asked the meaning of my name - it's Arabic, but the minders wouldn't know.
The 20-something Muslim driver, who came looking for a job last week because he would have liked to work for a Muslim, mocked me during his trial drive - "aap ne Quran Sharif bhi padha-wada hai ke nahin".
After years of living with guilt I have learnt to stand up and speak out.
I told the driver that I could recite the Quran with Qirat (reciting it slowly, correctly) and that I had the honour of being taught by an Alima from Jamia Hafsa.
Online Onslaught
If the real world was not bad enough, the minders have taken charge of the virtual world too.
Instructing me how to correctly spell Inshallah in English. On where to put the apostrophe in Subhanallah. On why I should say Allah Hafiz and not Khuda Hafiz. Or why when I have to thank people for liking what I had posted I should say "Jazakallah".
There is also plenty of mindless stuff where I am instructed to write "Ameen" and get Allah's blessings.
It is also not odd to receive messages from friends or family on WhatsApp groups asking me to urgently circulate an Islamic message 11 times and experience a life-changing event.
The Disco Hijabis
Just as I was getting used to the online sermons, I saw a Facebook fatwa on women wearing headscarves. Fashionable or otherwise.
The disco-hijabis, as they are called. Those who wear headscarves over a pair of pants or long skirts. Headscarves that are not deemed Islam-grade unless worn with a conventional black burqa.
Also read: Why is Islam's poster boy Zakir Naik taking moderate Muslims back in time?
That the black burqa sits like a second skin does not matter.
Who cares if the men themselves violate the dress code prescribed by Islam?
Islam prescribes a dress code for both men and women, but we never see the minders circulating sketches of men flagging the shortcomings: "Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty..."
"And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty..."
If the intention is to not attract the male or the female gaze - this could be achieved by women by wearing a pair of pants. Or long skirts.
And this could not be achieved by a woman wearing a figure-hugging burqa - vying for the male gaze.
The idea is to conduct oneself well. An unwritten norm that all societies endorse cutting across religions and cultures.
Islam is all about intent - the niyat. But the minders seem to have forgotten that.
Why am I not allowed to stop the Hafiz Sahab when he rushes through the surahs in the namaz during the special Ramzan prayers?
Or the Imam Sahab when he comes home for the reading of the Quran. Why is the symbolism of reading the 30 chapters so important? Why are little children pushed into reading when they don't want to? Isn't a page well read more meaningful?
Dogged by problems
When I got out of the car to feed the dogs on the street, the driver-to-be said, "Kuttey napaak hotey hain" (Dogs are impure).
I live with two dogs and that's a line that I have had to hear many a times. Even though a chapter in the Quran mentions dogs as companions. There is also a hadith wherein a prostitute's sins were forgiven because she gave water to a thirsty dog.
I am not guilty of buying pedigrees. I took home two stray pups off-the-street. One, infected with the deathly parvo virus. The other with mange. I worked hard on them and when they were healthy I didn't have the heart to abandon them. I thought that was a sin.
Read more: Why I never want to marry in a Catholic church
I grew up seeing an Alima (authority on Islamic matters) and perhaps the first woman Unani doctor in India feeding dogs. She ran a madrassa from the campus of a mosque and is credited with educating lakhs of Muslim girls.
The dogs would obediently wait outside her door and she would feed them affectionately suffixing their names with a "Mian".
After years of living with guilt, I had a conversation with the Alima. She told me it is fine to feed dogs and Allah sees the intent.
I narrated the hadith to the driver. That shut him up.
But I failed his test.
More in Catch:
Taking the Sharia to court: 2 Muslim women you should know about
Done & dusted: before Priyanka, another Pak-Indian origin actor existed
#Odd-even alone is useless. We need better urban redesign: Dunu Roy
Big Fat Hindi Films of 2016 |
Story highlights The doctor beat the patient after the patient kicked a nurse, authorities said
The incident occurred December 29 in the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod
(CNN) A doctor faces up to two years in prison for beating a patient who later died, Russian investigators said Saturday.
The man was beaten December 29 at Belgorod's City Hospital No. 2 in southwestern Russia near the border with Ukraine. Officials opened a criminal case the next day, following an autopsy of the patient's body, which revealed the presence of traumatic brain injury, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Belgorod region said in a statement.
The doctor was fired and his actions are classified as negligence, since there is no evidence he intended to kill the patient, the Investigative Committee said.
The incident was captured on surveillance video and went viral on the Internet. The committee said the criminal case was initiated before the video surfacing online.
The patient entered the hospital and, in the course of a procedure, kicked a nurse, the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti reported, citing investigators.
Read More |
“Look What You Made Me Do” makes clear there’s still plenty of bad blood between Taylor Swift and Kanye West, but the pop star is not purposely releasing her upcoming album on the anniversary of West’s mother’s death.
“It is standard practice that releases come out on Fridays and we locked in this release date based on other Universal Music Group releases,” a publicist at Swift’s label tells PEOPLE. “There is no correlation.”
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After Swift, 27, released her single just after midnight on Thursday, fans immediately latched onto several lyrics in the biting song that appears to be about West, 40.
Fans also realized her album release date, Nov. 10, is the 10-year death anniversary of Donda West, who died of heart disease while suffering multiple post-operative factors after plastic surgery.
Some accused Swift of being vindictive, while others stood up for the singer, saying she wouldn’t stoop that low:
Apparently, Taylor Swift is releasing her album on Donda West's (Kanye's mom) death anniversary. Now ain't dat a b*tch pic.twitter.com/B8h8T2yugR — Peachy 🍑 (@bitchboybye) August 25, 2017
I don't know how I feel about the Taylor Swift/Donda West thing but if it's real, it's horrendous, and also I don't understand people who — water? i hardly know her!🌹🖤 (@bornxhowling) August 25, 2017
>Death of Donda West- Nov 10
>Release date of Taylor Swift's Reputation- Nov 10 I dabble in pop culture pettiness for fun but this…… — Tim@🍗🥫🥗U NAAAME IT 🥔🍅🍖 (@T1mco) August 25, 2017
why are ppl acting like taylor swift would intentionally release an album on the anniversary of donda west to get to kanye??? — halfway happy (@betweenjoy) August 25, 2017
That Taylor Swift x donda west conspiracy is such a reach lmfaoo. Y'all giving t-swizzle too much credit when she's not THAT creative — Los (@RichHomieChapo) August 25, 2017
As soon as “Look What You Made Me Do” was released, fans reacted to the specific lyrics “I don’t like your little games / I don’t like your tilted stage,” saying it was a reference to West.
Though Swift doesn’t mention him by name in the song, the rapper used a tilted stage while on his Saint Pablo tour.
The lyrics “I don’t like your kingdom keys / They once belonged to me” could also be a reference to West’s album with JAY-Z, titled Watch the Throne. In a sneak peek of Swift’s music video, she can be seen sitting on a throne with the words “ET TU BRUTE” etched onto the arm.
Last summer, Swift’s feud with West, 40, exploded after Kim Kardashian West, 36, leaked a phone call between the “Shake It Off” singer and her husband on Snapchat. In the edited clips of the call, Swift appeared to give West her blessing over a line referencing her in his song, “Famous.”
However, Swift hit back at the couple afterwards on Instagram, saying West never told her he was going to call Swift “that bitch” in his song. “You don’t get to control someone’s emotional response to being called ‘that bitch’ in front of the entire world,” she captioned her post. “He promised to play the song for me, but he never did.”
Swift and West have had a complicated relationship since 2009, when the rapper interrupted the singer’s best female video acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. The duo appeared to have patched up their differences and were seen buddying up at the Grammy Awards in 2014 before Swift presented an award to West at the MTV VMAs later that year. |
Colin Rutherford, a Canadian national who was kidnapped by the Taliban on accusations of being a spy while visiting Afghanistan in 2011, has been released from captivity after five years. Rutherford was 26 when he went missing in February 2011 and was released with the help of the government of Qatar, according to Stephane Dion, the Canadian foreign minister.
"Canada is very pleased that efforts undertaken to secure the release of Colin Rutherford from captivity have been successful. We look forward to Mr Rutherford being able to return to Canada and reunite with his family and loved ones. We also extend our heartfelt thanks to the government of Qatar for its help," said Dion in a press statement.
There was no sign of Rutherford for weeks until a video emerged in May 2011 by the Taliban showing that he had been captured. In the video, Rutherford said he did not have anything to do with the Canadian government and he was in Afghanistan to see the historical sites, old buildings and shrines.
Rutherford's mother and brother who spoke to CBC in 2011 had said they attempted to make contact with his captors but met with no luck. His mother also maintained that her son was not a spy and chose to go to Afghanistan out of a love for travel and history.
"It's not exactly the place, maybe, most people would want to go to. But he just loves travel. I know he loves to travel, so I would not stop him from following his dreams," she said.
While Qatar's involvement in the release has not been detailed by the Canadian foreign ministry, the Middle Eastern nation has been a mediator between western governments and the Taliban to facilitate such negotiations. In 2014, the Obama administration took Qatar's help in the release of Bowe Bergdahl, a US Army soldier to be captured by the Taliban. |
Of all the harebrained conspiracy theories we’ve heard, we’re putting the one that queries “Are Mexican cartels behind California’s wildfires?” in our top five favorites. Before you get your knickers in a twist and start repeating the headline, let’s examine the facts.
Disaster Capitalism
When disaster strikes, most human beings see tragedy. Those not burdened with character flaws like empathy and integrity see opportunity.
“Disaster capitalism” is the name given to the phenomenon of land speculators flooding a hurricane-stricken area once floodwaters recede to snap up land on the cheap. This is opportunism and obedience to the whims of the free market at its ugliest. But at least you can say these mercenaries operate in a fact-based world.
Exploiters of catastrophe and suffering for political purposes escape even these modest strictures. And do so without much regard for basic fact-gathering practices. They pose questions like “are Mexican cartels behind California’s wildfires?”
Over the past few days, the far-right media has been spreading a rumor about the wildfires raging through Northern California. This is the same group that pushed white nationalism and extreme conservatism inside the gates of the White House.
The worst fires in the state’s history—which have to date killed 41 people and destroyed 6,700 homes and buildings—weren’t caused by faulty power lines as an investigative report and a lawsuit both contend.
No. Evil people with brown skin deliberately set them. In a convenient coincidence, the same bad hombres Donald Trump has been ranting about for years.
Got News?
On Saturday, a right-wing website called GotNews published what it breathlessly advertised as an “exclusive” story.
GotNews’s big get is unsourced speculation asking “are Mexican cartels behind California’s wildfires?”
The article features unnamed federal law enforcement officials and marijuana industry figures. Both groups had (supposedly) begun to suspect that Mexican drug cartels were behind the fires.
“Law enforcement authorities—including senior Department of Homeland Security officials—and key people within the legal marijuana business quickly noticed that the areas hit hardest by the fires are the same places that California’s marijuana industry legally grows cannabis, and are now starting to suspect foul play,” GotNews reported.
They tellingly tagged the story “race.”
“The suspicious timing and sheer destruction of the fires has led them to believe the Mexican drug cartels—infamous for their ruthless tactics—had a hand in starting them,” the post continued. “These cartels, which run a large share of the world’s multi-billion dollar illegal drug trade, certainly have the means to pull of an attack like this.”
The Truth
It’s true that the fires came at the absolute worst time—harvest time—for outdoor marijuana farmers. It’s also true that October is when California is at its driest.
Thus, it’s the time California is most susceptible to fires like this.
It’s also true that these fires will have a minuscule impact on California’s marijuana industry. Total cannabis production in the state exceeds 13 million pounds, according to a report prepared for the state in August.
As for “the cartels,” which are steadily exiting the marijuana game as cannabis legalization spreads?
They may not even have a hand in California cannabis production. In fact, no marijuana grows in California have been connected to a major drug-trafficking organization, a spokesman for the national drug czar’s office told the Los Angeles Times in 2013.
But are Mexican cartels behind California’s wildfires?
Sketchy Speculation
GotNews provided no sourcing for these allegations beyond the above.
Reached for comment by High Times on Wednesday, DHS spokesman David Lapan called the story “highly speculative,” adding “there is no indication anyone [at GotNews] spoke with ‘senior DHS officials’ about this supposition.”
Marijuana industry figures speaking to High Times reacted more authentically.
“It’s total bullshit and a complete distraction from what is important, getting relief to those impacted by the fires,” said Amanda Reiman, the vice-president of community relations at Mendocino County-based Flow Kana. “I have nothing else to say on the topic.”
Undaunted, GotNews followed this vapidity up with another “exclusive” report on Tuesday.
This one at least had sourcing. A Breitbart aggregation of a story published in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, which is the local paper of record in Sonoma County. It’s part of the “lying mainstream media” GotNews abhors.
This story recounted how the police arrested a 29-year-old homeless man at around 3 p.m. on October 8 for starting a fire in a local park. It was about seven hours before the wildfires started. The gentleman in question is a Mexican national. As it does in situations like these, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a detainer hold.
First responders “fully extinguished” the fire, the newspaper reported. But by the time this tidbit reached GotNews, it became yet another “exclusive” that led the same unnamed, anonymous authorities to be “increasingly certain that the cartels are behind the fires.”
Charles Johnson
Here’s a fun fact for the lucky few who are blissfully unaware.
GotNews is the effort of Charles C. “Chuck” Johnson. He’s a 28-year-old archconservative who has achieved a measure of notoriety as a shameless Internet troll.
This is a quality he shares with President Donald Trump.
Since noxious lies on the Internet helped get Trump elected, Johnson, an associate of Stephen Bannon, also wields a measure of influence in today’s fact-adverse conservative political circles. All this despite a C.V. that would send most people into permanent hiding.
Once dubbed the web’s “worst journalist” by Gawker (whom he later sued), Johnson achieved his celebrity by flinging unsubstantiated nonsense around the darker, chthonic corners of the web. The same seedy space occupied by Breitbart, InfoWars and the like.
What’s his record like?
Here are some of his choice “scoops.” He accused Barack Obama of being gay. He also doxxed the wrong person supposedly at the center of Rolling Stone’s notorious UVA rape story. And, finally, Twitter permanently banned him in 2015 for harassment.
Johnson’s fire story is steadily tumbling into that same category. That might not matter if he wasn’t wasting serious peoples’ time by forcing them to address this reactionary coprolite. But it is.
Actual Fake News
This is the age of fake news.
Johnson’s invective was shared enough on social media to compel Snopes.com to publish a story, emphasizing that the allegations are completely unproven.
During a press briefing on Tuesday, Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano attempted to quash the rumor, the first “really crazy” speculation about the wildfires authorities have had to deal with.
“There’s no indication he’s related to these fires at all,” he said, according to the Sacramento Bee. “I wanted to kill that speculation right now, so we didn’t have things running too far out of control.”
When reached for comment, Johnson dismissed the police story and clutched onto the shreds of his shamelessly racist theory even as it disintegrated.
“Your assumptions are wrong. I’m very confident it’s true,” Johnson told High Times. “It’s not the power lines.”
He declined to elaborate further.
Final Hit: Are Mexican Cartels Behind California’s Wildfires?
A real-life federal law enforcement official, speaking to High Times on background, offered that it’s “possible” that Johnson heard from some “reactionary deputy, agent or police chief who felt like talking out their ass.”
At the same time, Johnson has another major problem with his “sourcing.”
Homeland Security isn’t investigating the fires. That’s the job of state officials, meaning that if the GotNews “exclusive” is a total fabrication—as it appears—it’s not even a good one.
“The only people benefiting from Johnson’s theory are his white nationalist readers,” our source said. And the fact-checking industry, which barely had to get out of bed to disregard this latest half-assed racist agitprop as total bunk.
So are Mexican cartels behind California’s wildfires? It’s about as likely as the existance of Donald Trump’s consciense. |
Under regular development conditions, I rarely use perlcritic . Most of my Perl::Critic usage is via Test::Perl::Critic for new code and Test::Perl::Critic::Progressive for existing code.
For code that I release to the CPAN, the Perl::Critic tests are in xt/author so that they don’t get run as part of normal tests that someone installing the modules runs. On someone else’s system, I don’t know what Perl::Critic version or add-on sets of policies they have, so those tests may fail there through no fault of my own.
For non-public code, the Perl::Critic tests are regular tests that get run with all the rest of the tests. I can do this because I control the specific version of Perl::Critic that I’m running and which add-on policies that I’ve got around.
Perl::Critic supports the concept of severity levels for policies and, by default, only applies the most severe ones (severity 5). I effectively ignore the severities by turning Perl::Critic’s strictness all the way to 1. Of course, there are policies that I don’t agree with or cannot use for practical reasons, so I disable those explicitly.
You may have noticed that above I used the word “tests” and not “test”. This is because I run Perl::Critic on my tests as well as my “real” code. The set of policies that I use on tests is different than I use on the rest of my code. Tests have fewer restrictions on them compared to regular code. So I have a test that applies to the contents of lib and bin using one perlcriticrc file and a seperate test that runs on the content of the t and xt directories with a different perlcriticrc . For tests, I disable the POD policies and Subroutines::ProtectPrivateSubs (tests are allowed to peek). Sometimes I also disable ValuesAndExpressions::ProhibitMagicNumbers, though I prefer not to.
(Perl::Critic actually uses three self-compliance tests: one for the regular code, one for the tests, and one that makes an additional pass over the Perl::Critic::Policy subclasses that places some additional requirements on them.)
The sets of add-on policies that I generally use are Perl::Critic::More, Perl::Critic::Bangs, Perl::Critic::Swift, and Perl::Critic::Moose. I’m thinking about starting to use Perl::Critic::Pulp, but I’d have to disable about half the policies in there.
There are a couple of cases in which I do use perlcritic .
First, if I’m surveying a codebase that is new to me, I will run perlcritic --statistics-only over it in order to get an idea of the state of affairs.
Second, presented with a set of code that has a large number of problems that need fixing, after running perlcritic --statistics-only on it, I’ll pick an individual policy that I want to fix violations of and run perlcritic -s policy name on the code. (The long form of -s is --single-policy .) I find it easier to fix one kind of problem across all of the files before moving on to another kind of problem than to fix all the problems in one file before moving on to another file. |
This article attempts to move beyond totalising cynicism, as well as unbridled optimism, towards a more nuanced understanding of fair trade. I explore the contradictions and paradoxes of using consumer practices to build bridges of socio-economic solidarity across core and periphery. More specifically, I want to determine how fair-trade discourse constructs understandings of development, consumerism, and global justice.
Drinking a cup of justice … And Justice can taste outstanding. Advertisement for fairly traded gourmet coffee
A growing number of consumer products in core regions of the global economy are designed and marketed to placate the conscience of the uncomfortable consumer. Everything from ethical mutual funds, to coffee beans, to Nike’s ‘no harm clothing’, are presented as part of ‘alternative’ consumption practices that minimise the exploitation of a globalised economy, and promote principles of ‘fair trade’. Following the wave of ‘environmentally friendly’ products, some fair-trade advocates predict a trend towards greater consumer demand for products produced under fair conditions.
The Fair Trade Federation claims that this provides ‘one of the best alternative models for economically just and sustainable development’. Others suggest that fair trade is simply a marketing coup that has captured a conscientious yuppy consumer niche. One Canadian writer, for example, described the growth of ‘Third World chic’ and alternative trade organisations (ATOs) with utter resignation: ‘Maybe it’s true that the best the world’s poor can hope for is better pimps for their products’.
But can we afford to be so dismissive — especially in an age where neo-liberal globalisation remains largely unchallenged, consumerism prevails as a dominant source of identities, and lifestyle politics stands out as the most prevalent contemporary form of North American resistance?
This article attempts to move beyond totalising cynicism, as well as unbridled optimism, towards a more nuanced understanding of fair trade. I explore the contradictions and paradoxes of using consumer practices to build bridges of socio-economic solidarity across core and periphery. More specifically, I want to determine how fair-trade discourse constructs understandings of development, consumerism, and global justice.
A critical but sympathetic viewpoint is essential here, since many fair-trade projects are well intentioned, and there is evidence to suggest that certain peripheral groups benefit from these connections, such as Third World communities which are provided with access to necessary technologies.
What is fair trade?
Although definitions vary, fair trade is generally presented as an alternative to the global trading system. It promotes trade based on relationships of mutual respect and co-operation rather than profit. Trade is based on a fair price, often defined as providing a ‘living wage’ for producers. In addition, fair-trade organisations usually commit to purchasing directly from small producers, providing access to credit and technical assistance, encouraging sustainable environmental practices, establishing long-term relationships with producers based on mutual respect, and supporting democratically run workers’ co-operatives.
The fair-trade sector has not evolved in a vacuum. To a significant degree, it is a response to a situation where consumerism and corporate power reign supreme. There is an ever-expanding criterion for consumer ‘necessities’, and there is diminished support for public goods and the taxation system, and relatively little criticism of consumerism as a way of life. While environmentalist doomsayers warn of impending ecological catastrophes, the dominant indicators of the good life still tend to prioritise consumer goods over happy families or meaningful work. While income inequality grew in the 1980s and 1990s, consumer aspirations for both the poor and the rich expanded. Virtually everybody wanted more stuff.
Some may argue that consumerism is a more diverse, pleasurable phenomena than I am presenting. I would happily concede that there is personal pleasure and even a sense of empowerment in buying new things. Moreover, I do not deny that products are used in ways not intended by their producers. Recognising microspheres of power within consumer culture is clearly important, but this should not blind us to broader patterns of powerlessness and exploitation.
In consumer societies the dominant modus operandi of identity construction is through our choices as a sovereign consumer. The consumer-sovereignty ideal endorses the general principle underlying market theory: that the pursuit of individual self-interest leads to a greater common good. Each individual, rational consumer looking out for their own interest is not a drain on common resources, but a powerful source of collective good. Under the ideal of consumer sovereignty, when we are poor, it is our choice to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. If our conscience is troubled by our wealth relative to the world’s poor, we have a choice to buy fairly traded products.
So while people strive to express their individuality through ‘sovereign’ decisions over certain products, the whole premise of consumerism as a soul-wrenching, ecologically devastating way of life is not rigorously questioned in the mainstream public sphere. Counter-cultural consumption has come to mean consuming differently — not consuming less. Clearly a dramatic reduction in consumption would be impossible without a serious challenge to the dominance of consumer sovereignty in North America. Consumerism and citizenship may not be readily compatible, unless Western citizens go beyond token efforts to embrace the difficult set of choices involved with a resource-responsible global citizenship.
Bearing this in mind, I want to suggest that an alternative to neo-liberal globalism must fulfil minimum criteria. It must be committed to promoting transnational economic democracy based on economic, political, and cultural equality and autonomy; it must be underpinned by a practice of citizenship based on equal access to resources, cultural identities and democratic projects; and it must be sustainable.
To what extent does fair trade fulfil these criteria for an effective alternative to neo-liberal globalism?
A useful starting point to answer this question is by a careful analysis of the claims of fair-trade organisations themselves. TransFair USA defines its agenda ambitiously as being to ‘redefine the producer-consumer relationship’, claiming that, ‘Fair trade can and will connect issues of global poverty with the negative externalities of American consumerism and produce new, powerful and productive relationships’.
These are clearly good intentions, which seem beyond reproach or criticism. Contradictions arise, however, when these good intentions are translated into appeals to sell fair-trade products in consumer societies like those of North America. There are three particularly troubling contradictions, or themes, that cast doubt on the potential of fair-trade discourse to provide a counter-politics to neo-liberalism. The first is an unquestioned support for consumer sovereignty. The second concerns support for micro-lifestyle politics over politicised, public-sphere awareness. The third relates to the way in which fair trade can sometimes, perhaps unintentionally, normalise underdevelopment and over-consumption. I want to deal with each in turn.
Consumer sovereignty: thirty-two flavours and then some
A focus on individual choice and consumer sovereignty is a persistent theme in fair-trade discourse — a theme that makes for some rather strange bedfellows. Political leaders throughout the industrialised world have been able to use ideals of consumer sovereignty to identify with the feelings of the ‘masses’. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, for example, presented the model of consumer choice as an adequate framework for all forms of citizenship. A similar idea of ‘voting with your dollar’ is heavily emphasised in fair-trade discourse. Fair-trade seminars often end on this inspirational note — ‘You have a vote! It’s right there in your wallet!’ This moral imperative to vote in the market place was not accompanied by discussion, or even recognition of the skewed distribution of ‘votes’ (dollars) in consumer society. The valorisation of consumer sovereignty was also revealed in the emphasis on the range of goods, their convenience, and the assurance of the high quality provided.
The Bridgehead fair-trade catalogue, for example, reported that their ‘goals looking forward’ were to provide consumers with ‘more stores and more selection’. Traditional development goals — eliminating poverty, reducing technological dependence and so forth — are apparently self-evident to Bridgehead catalogue shoppers. TransFair USA stressed that before consumers will buy fairly traded coffee, they have to be shown that there is ‘no compromise in product quality’, and ‘easy availability, that is, no trips to special stores’.
While one might contend that ‘choice’ is a natural part of doing business in a market society, what is interesting in the case of fair trade, a self-declared alternative to exploitative trade relations, is how consumer sovereignty discourse is so thoroughly embraced. In fact, one of the stated goals of fair-trade organisations is to develop relationships with producers to help them adapt to the changing styles, trends, and preferences of First World consumers.
The overall effect is to create a powerful justification for a globalised world where a small elite has the right to choose between the best products that the world’s cultures have to offer. This elite also has the right to change its mind when certain trends and goods become passé. This world is not presented as objectionable, but is ironically given a veneer of morality since ‘choices’ are made in the name of fair trade and development. Although the rhetoric of consumer sovereignty is a realistic sales strategy, it is troublesome at a deeper level.
This emphasis on choice obscures the production side of the commodity equation, and the associated inequalities. Although the very idea of a fair-trade product draws the consumers’ eye to the notion of unfair global production processes, it is possible that most people who buy these products absorb very little information about the production process, perhaps only a short paragraph on the side of a bag of coffee.
The producers of the beautiful, handcrafted items are shown in only a few places in the Bridgehead catalogue, and these depictions are designed to produce minimal anxiety and maximum satisfaction for the consumer choosing between hundreds of products.
The emphasis on the extreme range of choices available to consumers also obscures the paucity of choices available to producers, who are often driven to produce handicrafts when they are forced off their land. It is assumed that the choice for producers is to either remain impoverished, or produce goods for the fair-trade market. Local self-sufficiency, shortening food links, or de-linking from the global economy are not presented as viable choices. The imperative is to produce as quickly and efficiently as possible.
An ideal of consumer-sovereignty naturalised for North American consumers also presents a narrow notion of choice available to would-be citizens. Political action is reduced to a choice between doing nothing, and buying a product. The realm of political action is confined to the market place. The primary choice for potential consumers is between brands. Absent here is the choice of not buying, or engaging in other types of political action. Although they might give the consumer the moral satisfaction of helping a women’s pottery co-operative in India, these purchases do not challenge the practices, or relative power of the high consumption lifestyle.
The greatest ideological abuse of the notion of ‘choice’ is when it obscures the persistence of social inequality. In consumer cultures choice is typically depicted as a great social equaliser, destroying group boundaries and creating a world where everyone has a ‘vote’. The language of ‘mutual-respect’ between ‘equal trading partners’ used in the fair-trade literature has a similar effect, blending together the sharp economic and social differences between the producers and consumers of the products.
Besides obscuring producer–consumer power differentials, the inequality amongst North American consumers is also hidden from view. The commonly used phrase, ‘as consumers, we can make a difference’, paints a picture of a homogenous mass of equal participants in the market place. The ability to pay the fair-trade premium price becomes a matter of individual willpower and morality, instead of the socio-economic issue that it is for less wealthy North American consumers.
This leads us to another problem with the choice metaphor — it has no way of distinguishing degrees of control over choices. The consumer sovereignty ideal presents consumers as either free choosers, or manipulated dupes — not a very sophisticated portrayal of the subtle moral issues involved in political action. What is not recognised within this simplistic perspective are gradations and forms of autonomous choice, such as the language of citizenship and collective action, an issue to which I will now turn.
Lifestyle politics and a diminished public sphere: from boycott to ‘buycott’
Fair-trade literature is also characterised by the absence of reference to discussions of politics, economics, capitalism, and democracy. Like the discourse of the New Right, fair-trade discourse appears to accept the focus on consumer identities over political and public identities as natural and inevitable. The potential of the public sphere as an arena of critical reflection is thus minimised, as public communication is predominantly organised around market transactions.
Calls to ‘action’ frequently begin with phrases like the following: ‘As consumers, our purchasing choices also have a global impact’. On the 10,000 Villages home page, seven suggestions of ‘how you can help’ are listed. Aside from prayer, the suggestions revolve entirely around the retail experience.
This is a telling example of the de-politicisation of global inequality, and a fairly typical depiction of political action in the fair-trade literature. When consumers are urged to lobby their government, it is to promote the use of fair-trade coffee in the government coffee shops — not to lobby for political changes that would make Southern producers less vulnerable like lobbying for the reduction of Third World debt or fighting corporate rights agreements like the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, or to make North American governments more accountable to their citizens.
Nevertheless, most of the fair-trade literature is highly ambitious about the scope of change that would occur through fair trade, and about the power of lifestyle politics.
Small changes are presented as making a big difference. TransFair USA states this very specifically, supporting a shift in focus from ‘boycotts’ to ‘buycotts’.
While the focus on individual choice here is clearly a sensible sales pitch, it also tends to minimise the accountability of the state and corporations for the public good. The individual is encouraged to take responsibility for global injustice, but in most cases action is limited to purchasing fair-trade products. Fair trade assuages your conscience, and makes your house appear more hip and worldly. Individual lifestyle politics is key. Forget about challenging larger organisations like governments and corporations. Justice can fit into your daily lifestyle.
The danger here is that fair trade is ripe for corporate co-optation of the public’s genuine desire to see the end of sweatshop labour and other exploitative practices. Nike’s ‘no-harm’ clothing campaign is simply one of the more public, sophisticated variants on this theme. I first became aware of the NO HARM CLOTHING slogan on a trip to Los Angeles in July 1999 where it was used to promote the Beverly Hills Nike World super-store. Reading the fine print beneath the ‘No-Harm’ clothing, however, seemed to indicate only that the clothing would not harm the person wearing it.
Alternatively, fair trade can simply become a superficial brush with the exotic ‘Other’. In the inside of the Bridgehead catalogue, the Managing Director calls on the viewer to take part in a neo-colonial mail-order experience: ‘We invite you to bring the world home’. Although appeals to capture the exotic are not always this literal, the fair-trade goods themselves contain important messages about global inequalities and North American desires to possess a piece of the exotic Other.
What message, for example, is conveyed by owning a hand-dyed indigo duvet cover from India? What lies behind the desire for a ‘Kathmandu Carpet’ from Nepal, or a set of ‘wonderfully ornate maracas’ from Peru? Clearly the consumption of these goods has many meanings, including simple appreciation for an aesthetically pleasing handicraft. However, it also seems clear that beneath the attractive veneer of fair-trade chic there continues a long Western tradition of placing the Other safely within one’s reach, while at the same time maintaining the extreme power differential separating core consumers from peripheral producers.
All of this leads to unanswered questions about the political efficacy of the lifestyle politics of consumerism. When I go to a Third World craft store and buy a Zapatista doll (made by Guatemalans in Mexico city) for US$8.50, what am I really contributing to the plight of impoverished campesinos in Southern Mexico? If anything, the availability of such items creates a false sense of solidarity with life or death struggles, and allows the analytical gaze to wander away from the ways in which my lifestyle and my citizenship are connected to the Zapatista struggles. The North American Free Trade Agreement, the inter-continental arms trade, the pillage of Chiapanecan resources, the degradation of indigenous rights across North America — these important issues are nowhere to be found when I take my Zapatista doll and credit card up to the cash register.
This brings us to a third and final theme of this article — the balance between education and normalisation in fair-trade discourse.
Normalising over-consumption and underdevelopment
Fair-trade discourse offers an important opportunity for education about the complex factors underlying underdevelopment. Although attempts at development education are a key part of fair-trade discourse, the strange juxtaposition of core choice and peripheral poverty works to normalise over-consumption and underdevelopment, stifling the possibilities for critical public discussion on these issues.
Nowhere is this juxtaposition of over-consumption and underdevelopment more evident than in the glossy pages of the Bridgehead fair-trade catalogue. Although Bridgehead will send more details of their projects on request, their major marketing tool is the catalogue. The catalogue is beautifully produced on glossy paper with stunning photographs, and an extensive array of goods. Bridgehead wants to impress upon potential customers the importance of ethical consumption, but it does not want to scare them off either. Your purchases are intended to promote ‘development’, yet the catalogue images do not inspire any sense of the need for urgent action to combat global inequality, the impoverishment of the Fourth World, or over-development in North America. Instead, these images are designed to promote a sense of urgency about buying something.
Besides this visual normalisation, the fair-trade concept itself tends to normalise and give moral legitimacy to the idea that some populations should produce products according to the desires and whims of other populations. The whole notion of what is ‘fair’ is revealing. The meaning of ‘fair’ for Alternative Trade Organisations ranges from ‘mutual respect’, to a ‘living wage’, to the country’s ‘minimum wage’. Nowhere is it suggested that producers should ideally be paid at a level befitting the labour of North American consumers, and nowhere is it suggested that the core consumer should be consuming at the level befitting the producers of the goods. So ‘fair’ in the discourse seems not to imply a global democracy of citizens with equal economic and political rights, but a global trading system of inequality, albeit with a more human face. The goal of fair trade remains confined to helping the poor through fair-trade practices — all without addressing the living conditions of the world’s elite.
Although the fair-trade organisations vary in their presentation of global inequality, the discourse tends to present a sugar-coated liberal vision where everyone has an equal voice, and where global citizenship has already been achieved. Fair trade is a development solution where everybody wins: the First World consumer gets a hand-crafted item along with a clear-conscience, while the producers get an improved standard of living. TransFair USA describes the benefits of fair trade as follows: ‘In a global village, we prosper as our less fortunate neighbors prosper’. Nations become neighbours, and we accept that some nations (‘neighbours’) are naturally more fortunate than others. The causes underlying global inequality, such as imperialism, neo-imperialism, trade advantages and the debt crisis, disappear in this quaint metaphor.
The notion that natural resources are limited, and that the First World neighbours gobble up a disproportionate share of the global commons, is also implicitly accepted.
Respect, and even sustainable development, can be produced with a simple purchase as an equally empowered ‘citizen of the world’. Even though handicraft production is often one of the last options available to landless peasants in dire need of land reform, the Fair Trade Federation defends the production of non-essential items as an important part of developing fair-trade relations:
Clothing, utensils, bowls, baskets, and ritual items are windows into the heart of a culture. As we embrace becoming citizens of the world, our appreciation for cultures other than our own is magnified.
The hopeful vision of global multiculturalism supports diversity with little recognition of inequality. Global consumers perhaps, but not global citizens with equal economic resources or political rights.
This is not to say that efforts at education are not made by fair-trade organisations. Some organisations, such as Equal Exchange, provide a wide variety of informative articles on their web site and in their Java Jive newsletter. In contrast to the glossy images of their catalogues, Bridgehead also produces a photocopied newsletter, Bean Around the Block, which includes inspiring quotations on political action, and even a call for political action protesting militarisation in Chiapas.
But most fair-trade education efforts reflect the contradictions I outlined above: an emphasis on consumer sovereignty, and a focus on fair trade as the most important solution to global inequality. Consumers are to be educated to consume ‘differently’; there is no mention of encouraging consumers to consume less, or to engage in the world as citizens. Education is optional, and ultimately subservient to the goal of consumption.
Opportunities and the public sphere
At the same time as these contradictions emerge, it is important to emphasise that no discourse is homogeneous. The separation between citizens and consumers is not rigid or absolute. There are hopeful instances where the issues behind fair trade are effectively politicised as public issues rather than purely private, lifestyle issues, giving rise to the possibility of an expanded, more informed public sphere.
Some groups, for instance, are taking up the project of radical education in a more profound way, such as the ‘10 days for global justice campaign’ in Canada. Because the organisers are a broad, ecumenical group and not an alternative trade organisation, the goal to educate citizens about development issues remains central and primary, while the lifestyle issues surrounding fair-trade products are presented as a partial solution. One education tool, a page of four post-cards, highlights the possibilities for addressing consumption issues in a more politicised fashion. One post-card is addressed to the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, and calls for an end to sweat-shop conditions. Another card is addressed to ‘myself and my household’, calling on the reader to avoid excessive consumption and to challenge the Canadian government to protect workers’ rights at home and around the world.
Another promising instance of fair trade in the public sphere was the recent resolution by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to declare 8 May as Fair Trade Day in that city. Not only did the resolution declare the city’s opposition to ‘unregulated economic globalisation in its current state’, but it also made a commitment to support ‘fair trade, socially responsible investment, and sustainable and equitable economic development’. In contrast to the emerging globalism, which gives corporations universal rights of entry and access to global markets, the San Francisco resolution reasserted the rights of citizen bodies to set public priorities. To do this, the resolution relied on the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution which allows public entities to ‘place restrictions on the use of public funds’. The fair-trade issue in this case was taken on by a level of government, and transcended the scope of individual shopping decisions.
Another example of positive correlation between fair trade and a democratic public sphere is found in the International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT). IFAT holds biennial conferences for producers and alternative trade organisations to exchange information and viewpoints in a non-commodified context. This venue has hosted important debates on what qualifies as fair trade, creating fair-trade criteria for coffee, and supporting debates around criteria for other products. Instead of working to destroy the competition, alternative trade organisations commit to an alternative co-operative ethic of business based on maximising benefits to producers.
Although these organisations are still minor players in the scheme of global trading, businesses able to defy conventional logic and combine social values with viable business ventures can provide a powerful moral counter-point to the dominant logic of neo-liberalism.
Conclusion: potential and pitfalls of the shopping strategy
Consumer-solidarity strategies based on alternative principles like fair trade have the potential to both challenge and accommodate the dominant ideology and practices of consumerism and neo-liberal globalisation. Fair-trade discourse may also undermine commodity fetishism by forcing consumers to consider factors of production usually shrouded from view. Consideration of production can lead to a questioning of inequitable labour relations, the sustainability of core consumer practices, and can encourage a reorientation away from consumerism and towards socially engaged citizenship.
At the same time, the fair-trade discourse continues within a long-standing mode of regulation within advanced capitalism, and does not perfectly fulfil the criteria for a counter-politics based around collective action outlined above. The discourse of fair trade tends to rely on individualistic notions of choice and consumer sovereignty, obscures the structural linkages between core and periphery in a globalised economy, and belies the collective environmental implications of individual free choice in the market place. Because of its unwillingness to critically assess the consumerism of its customers, fair-trade discourse supports a liberal vision of difference without a serious discussion of inequality, or the emotional and intellectual barriers to sustainability.
Building alternative identities derived from conscientious consumption may be a more realistic strategy than expecting collective identities of citizenship to spontaneously emerge from thin air. Although there is no inevitable transition, conscientious consumption could serve as a conduit to a broader notion of citizenship, where an obsessive focus on individual ‘choice’, is replaced, or at least supplemented with a broader notion of community, sustainability, justice, and democracy.
Josée Johnston is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. This article is an excerpt from a chapter in the book Protest and Globalisation: Prospects for Transnational Solidarity, James Goodman (ed.), to be published in Sydney in February–March 2001 by Pluto Press |
NEWS
We can exclusively reveal that as of Monday May 2 2016 Dutch tech giants Noisia will be changing their name to Nosia.
The revelation came about yesterday in a forthcoming UKF interview with the trio regarding their summer release plans, label movements, studio developments and thoughts on the current state of drum & bass.
In a rare face-to-face chat with all three members of the Dutch group, Thijs, Nik and Martijn explained how consistent spelling errors and confusion over their name have been problematic since they launched in 2003.
“Perhaps because it’s not a real word, I don’t know, but people have always misspelled our name,” explains Thijs. “We’ve seen Nosia printed in two metre high billboards and even had it printed on the cover of a well known dance music magazine.”
“At first we found it quite funny,” Nik develops. “We’ve been calling ourselves Nosia and our Groningen studios have been called Nosia Towers for years! But, just like a good cat meme or silly Twitter beef, the joke has worn thin and, we’ve recently experienced, has actually caused us problems touring.”
The trio explain how the situation escalated as recently as last month when applying for a various international Visas.
“Consulates have to research your validity as touring artists and large question marks came back from the administrators of this particular application regarding the two names,” states Martijn. “There were insinuations that we weren’t being entirely truthful about our details and our Visa was denied! A joke is a joke but the whole situation has made us reconsider our name and overall branding.”
Remixing their existing distinctive logo, the trio wanted to alert fans to the news as soon as possible in order so those of us who can spell it correctly get accustomed to it. Mercifully everything else will remain the same; their music, their DJ sets, their labels, their radio shows and their attitude.
“They always say there’s no ‘i’ in team, but it seems there are too many ‘i’s in Noisia,” laughs Thijs who’s no stranger to subtle name changes, having released music under the name Thys. “We thought about changing our name entirely but using a name that we already accidently have makes a lot more sense and should hopefully avoid any future errors. Plus we’ve recently learnt that Nosia gets more search hits on Google than Noisia does anyway. Put it this way; we’d change it today if we could but there are one or two more legal processes we need to adhere to.”
Noisia is dead, long live Nosia… Expect to see their new name and logo on all Nosia releases, websites, social media accounts and merchandise from Monday May 2 2016. |
Share. Miyazaki confirms it's more than just a myth. Miyazaki confirms it's more than just a myth.
Princess Mononoke creator Hayao Miyazaki has confirmed the urban legend claiming his film was actually about leprosy is in fact true.
According to All Nippon News Network (via Kotaku), Miyazaki revealed that leprosy (Hansen's Disease), and the way in which those who have it are treated, served as the inspiration for his film.
The famed filmmaker decided to finally share the news publicly just ahead of World Leprosy Day, which takes place on January 31 and raises awareness for the disease.
Exit Theatre Mode
"While making Princess Mononoke, I thought I had to depict people who are ill with what’s clearly called an incurable disease, but who are living as best they can," he said. In fact, Miyazaki visited a sanatorium in Tokyo for those with leprosy and met with patients who have been cured, which proved instrumental in the creation of his film.
According to the urban legend, the bandaged-covered characters at the Tatara factory are those afflicted with leprosy. It's also worth noting the original Japanese version of the film uses the word "gyobyo" instead of leprosy, which not only means "incurable disease" but also "suffering the consequences," which is clearly in reference to the discrimination faced by those with the disease.
Exit Theatre Mode
For more on Miyazaki's beloved animated film, read IGN's Princess Mononoke review.
Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter and subscribe to him on YouTube. |
Blame the booze, but Alan Palomo’s third album as Neon Indian, VEGA INTL. Night School almost didn’t happen. Three years ago, on a wild night after the final show of his tour on the back of his most recent collection of pastel-hued synth-pop, 2011’s Era Extraña, a series of “misadventures” led to him drunkenly knocking on the door of his own apartment building at 7:30 a.m. “My roommates were asleep,” he says over the phone from a friend’s place in Los Angeles, sighing. “At some point I just nodded off on my stoop. It was the most Behind the Music moment that’s ever happened to me. But when I came to, someone had swiped my laptop.”
He’d had nearly a full album’s worth of demos recorded at that point, so when he groggily woke on his stoop, two years’ worth of work was gone. “Far more awful things could happen to you when falling asleep outside in New York City,” he says. “I’m glad that I just walked away relatively unscathed — just missing, you know, a couple of hours of music.” Now, four years after his sophomore, he’s finally completed VEGA INTL. Night School, a third widescreen record of psych-inflected keyboard explorations. But since starting from scratch was such a devastating prospect, the 27-year-old songwriter felt the need to take some time off after losing all of that material. He couldn’t just mechanistically crank out another record. “Era Extraña was made a little bit under the gun, Led Zeppelin II-style, on the road,” he explains. “It took a minute to find the love again.”
So he returned to film work, which he studied in college, but abandoned when Neon Indian took off. He wrote a script (a sci-fi/horror idea he’d been kicking around for “a long time”), made an appearance in a yet-to-be-released feature by iconic auteur Terence Malick (an experience he describes as “surreal”), and started doing score work, putting new music largely on the back burner. Eventually he started tinkering again, looking back to his pre-chillwave days as a dance producer under the moniker VEGA as a way to move Neon Indian forward. “When I finally started writing music I initially thought I was going write a VEGA record,” he says. “The intent to make dance music was definitely there, but production components of Neon Indian kept spilling over and vise versa, and I realized it just wasn’t worth splitting hairs anymore.”
As a result, VEGA INTL. Night School, is undoubtedly the most dance floor-friendly collection that Palomo has recorded to date, as the bleary fog of his earliest work parted to reveal an otherworldly club bathed in, well, neon lights. “Slumlord,” one of the record’s advance singles, ambles out of the gate with a woozy ambient intro before settling into a kick drum-heavy shuffle that’ll heave even the most stubborn bodies into movement. But throughout our conversation, he emphasizes the fact that the making of this record was more like making a movie than that of a solitary producer tinkering away on a laptop.
“I mean, like, 17 people are involved in the making of this record start to finish,” Palomo says. “In that sense it was kind of like a film; it was a production. I wanted it to sound like a party, you know?”
That continued through to the album’s completion aboard a cruise liner where his brother was working. It’s an easy and obvious scene for an artist who emerged during the deadbeat summer of chillwave’s finest year, but it’s still so tempting to see the influence of those sun-soaked days of the late ’00s on tracks like “Annie,” which upend the nocturnal album title with breezy influences pulled from tropicália and dub. “It would be almost overly romantic to state that [the album was finished, in part] one magic winter aboard the Carnival Sensation,” he says. “But it did play out like that.”
Even at the full-length’s darkest moments, like the seasick “Smut!,” there’s a sense of buoyancy and narrative progression — a “collage-y” feeling that belies the hapless circumstances that birthed this version of the record. He’s figured out a new pace of working and has emerged on the other side with a deliriously danceable LP and, it seems, a bit of newfound perspective. “[Losing those demos] was as much my fault as anyone else’s,” he says, laughing. “I’d never been that drunk or irresponsible before, and I certainly haven’t been since.” |
Have a seat at the bar and let us bend your ear a while...
"Regular Paintings" is a short film about a directionless guy whose midlife crisis never showed up because he never learned to think ahead. He takes a job working the late shift at a rickety old bar down the street where the paint is peeling and the dust is gathering on the bottles and staff alike. It's a good gig... until closing time when the lights start flickering and the juke acts up and some very strange characters stop by for drinks even though the doors are locked.
"Regular Paintings" is a film for and about the night owls, the folks closing down the bar around the corner - patrons and tenders alike. And it's a good old-fashioned ghost story.
But we can't conjure those ghosts without your help.
"Regular Paintings" is very much a personal film. In my adult life, I've found myself surrounded by outsiders, those individuals on the fringe of the mainstream. Artists to drunks, and everyone in between. It's not just the fringe. At some point, every one of us has taken a step back and thought "I don't fit in here." This film is a love letter to these characters, to the outsider in everyone - those who choose to blaze their own way or just idle on the sidelines and not join in. You can't be made to do anything you don't want to do, and rightly so. You've got but one life to live, and you should fill it with doing whatever you want, even if that's nothing at all. It's alright, and you're going to end up just the same way - alright.
- Justin Francart (writer/director)
We need $10,000 to make this movie and it's not hiding under the couch cushions. We need your help!
We want you to be a part of our production. We think the best audience is an invested audience... literally. We're making this movie for you, and every time someone donates, the stakes get higher. Plus you can snag some cool perks.
Where will your money go? Good question.
1) Location, location, location. No ghost story is complete without the perfect spooky atmosphere. After extensive "research" exploring the bars of Pittsburgh, we've settled on the perfect spot. Problem is, we can't shoot during business hours, so we need some cash to pay for the location.
2) ACTING! Nothing takes you out of a movie faster than poor performances. If anyone screws this movie up, we'd rather it be us and not our actors. And good thespians don't come free.
3) Equipment. We'd love it if we could make this film with our cell phones, but Justin's flip phone won't cut it. We need money to rent lights, cameras, etc.
4) Everything else - costumes, set dressing, food, memory cards when ours crash, batteries, duct tape, and every other little expense that we won't see coming until they rear their ugly little heads.
Who the hell are these guys?
We're Francart & Francart Pictures, the two headed filmmaking monster comprised of cousins Justin and Pat Francart. Our previous short film is "Meet Your Maker," another Kickstarter-funded production. Didn't like that movie? Good, because this one is going to be better.
Justin Francart (writer/director) - He's the guy in the video at the top of the page. Justin is a Pittsburgh-based writer and filmmaker. Select screenplays The Father, The Son and ZomB.C. have been selected as semi-finalists and finalists in film festivals Screamfest L.A. and The New Orleans Horror Film Festival, respectively. His most prized possessions are his Godzilla VHS collection and his haircut.
Pat Francart (cinematographer) - He's the guy who shot the video at the top of the page. Pat is a shooter of motion and still pictures. His still work has been featured in Vice magazine (online, he's not THAT great) and his motion work has played at Film Kitchen, the SoCal International Film Festival, the Big Easy Film Festival and the Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival. He recently got laid off from the production company he worked at, so he's trying to be arty full time now. We'll see how it works for him.
Gregory Neiser (assistant camera) - He's the guy who assistant camera-ed the video at the top of the page. Gregory is a Pittsburgh photographer, cinematographer and ladies man. He works with Pittsburgh photographer Harry Giglio. His photography has been featured in multiple publications and magazines, while his music videos currently have over 8 million hits on You Tube. Can you believe that?
Michael Schatzel (producer) - He's the guy who told everybody to write a script already and show up on time to shoot the video at the top of the page. Michael is a ridiculously good-looking fellow even though he can't really grow a beard. He has worked on the organizational and financial side of films like The Dark Knight Rises, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Beautiful Creatures, The Chair and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Cori Shetter (producer of marketing & distribution) is a Pittsburgh-based actress who works in film production and marketing. Behind the camera, she has worked for Endeavor Media, Sandbar Stories Entertainment and Pittsburgh Filmmakers. She has also worked on commercial campaigns for Those Who Kill and UPMC. When not thinking about movies, she can be found cutting hair and cruising the internet for celebrity cats.
We stand for a return to sincerity, personality and independence in film storytelling. We grew up on classic cinema and respond to its rhythms and purity of purpose. That's a fancy way of saying we're old fashioned. We like exciting stories told without irony, and often with a dose of the fantastic, nay, Fran-tastic.
We want to give you a movie that thrills, chills and engages in the same way as those classic drive-in B-pictures. |
Thousands March Through Zimbabwe's Capital To Urge Mugabe To Step Down
Enlarge this image toggle caption Ben Curtis/AP Ben Curtis/AP
Tens of thousands of euphoric Zimbabweans marched through the country's capital on Saturday to celebrate what may be the near end of President Robert Mugabe's reign.
Mugabe, one of Africa's last living independence leaders, had been in power for nearly four decades, until this week when the military ousted him in what it is describing as a "bloodless correction."
Journalist Jeffrey Barbee tells Weekend Edition the mood on the streets of Harare was "jubilant, not a rock to be thrown ... peaceful but excited."
"People are really excited to see the end of Mugabe," he says.
Crowds of exuberant demonstrators marched toward Mugabe's residence in an act of defiance against his abuse of power, which had been going on for decades. Similar protests took place in other parts of the country and abroad.
Earlier this week, the military seized control in response to a political power struggle over who would rule Zimbabwe after Mugabe, who has led the former British colony since it gained independence in 1980. The 93-year-old president is refusing to step down, saying he should be allowed to finish his term before elections next year.
Reuters reports that Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party is expected to meet on Sunday to devise a path torward to his impeachment and reinstate his recently dismissed vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa. The party will also seek to oust Mugabe's preferred successor, his wife, Grace.
Mugabe had previously pledged to run for re-election in 2018, but his health began to decline, setting off chaos inside his government to determine his successor.
As NPR's Eyder Peralta reported, a sharp divide formed within the ruling party with Grace Mugabe, who is significantly younger than her husband, leading a new guard of party members, while Mnangagwa – a fixture in Mugabe's government for decades – led older members.
Mugabe fired Mnangagwa earlier this month in an attempt to pave the way for his wife to take his place, which prompted the military takeover.
The military insisted the move was not a coup, but an effort to target the people in Mugabe's corner "who are committing crimes." Mugabe has been under house arrest since the military takeover, even as several senior government officials have been detained by the army, according to the BBC.
In his first public appearance since the takeover, Mugabe attended a university graduation ceremony in Harare to deliver a commencement address on Friday. But after giving his speech, he appeared to fall asleep during the remainder of the ceremony.
Mugabe's appearance was likely a failed attempt to convince Zimbabweans he maintained firm control of the country, Barbee says.
"He was trying to sort of enforce the fact that he was still in charge here ... and yet he fell asleep at that commencement," Barbee tells NPR. "And I think that that's a good parable to look at the end of his rule. There was this sort of man sleeping at the helm of a country ready to move on." |
by
Photo by thierry hermann | CC BY 2.0
There is nothing more revealing than passive voice and tortured syntax. One-time left wing icon Angela Davis demonstrated as much when she said she may vote for Hillary Clinton. Her actual words, “I’m not so narcissistic to say that I wouldn’t vote for her,” indicate some embarrassment with a bit of defensiveness thrown in for good measure. If Ms. Davis finds it difficult to be straightforward and say she is voting for Hillary then perhaps she ought to rethink her decision.
Everyone who rejects Hillary Clinton risks being smeared as a narcissist, a nihilist or a Trump loving Putinite. The Democratic party, their friends in the corporate media, and the black misleaders have banded together so well that only those with the strongest convictions will defy the Clinton campaign slogan and announce they are decidedly not “with her.”
It would have been easy for Davis to say that she hadn’t decided yet or that she is ambivalent or to give a reason why she finds Clinton lacking or take the easy way out and use Trump as an excuse. Instead she used a tired argument that ought to be rejected out of hand by a person of her stature. She joined in castigating those who don’t follow the Democrats into an endless loop of betrayal and disappointment. She didn’t use the discredited words lesser evil, but she may as well have.
It is difficult to convey to younger generations what Angela Davis meant to black people and to everyone who fought for liberation. When she was wanted by the FBI and tried for murder in 1972 she was the ultimate hero, one of the last of that era and one of the few to emerge unscathed. The cry, “Free Angela” and her image were ubiquitous as was the demand for her freedom. After her acquittal she did not give an inch. She denounced the United States prison system, then a shell of what it is now, never shrank from calling herself a Marxist and spoke against injustice practiced here and around the world. She twice ran for vice president on the Communist Party USA ticket and could be counted on to fiercely criticize of this nation’s policies.
But Barack Obama seems to have cast the same spell on Davis that he has on the rest of black America. She denounced her own history when she endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and in 2012 she not only supported him again but claimed that he was part of the “black radical tradition.” The lie is so grotesque that it is difficult to know if she was really thinking when she said those words. Nor was that her first foolish remark uttered on behalf of Obama. Her 2010 statement that “Obama won despite the power of money” was equally bizarre. Barack Obama set fund raising records in his presidential campaign. Ms. Davis aided and abetted his marketing ploy which gave the appearance of a people-based movement when in fact he perfected the art of creating a record breaking campaign war chest.
It is sad that Davis continues to devolve politically before our eyes, it is even worse that she attacks those who are still ready to fight back against neo-liberalism and imperialism. If she is willing to vote for Hillary Clinton she should just say so. But she felt compelled to get in her own dig at independent thinkers with the “narcissist” label. She is no better than Democratic party scoundrels who point at Trump’s low hanging racist fruit while simultaneously cutting deals with ruling elites.
Angela Davis has gone down this slippery slope in part because of the weaknesses of the black left. Many who once proudly proclaimed that identity succumbed to the siren song of the black face in the high place or took the path of least resistance out of expediency and rank cynicism.
Fortunately Davis’s words were roundly criticized. Only those who feel a now undeserved loyalty defended the foolishness. Davis was not given a pass by most commentators and that is a good thing. The millions of people who thought seriously and decided not to vote for Hillary Clinton deserve more than to be dismissed with name calling. Their day has arrived. The illogical words coming from a once venerable figure are proof of desperation.
The so-called narcissists have thrown down the gauntlet to the democratic party. Famous former leftists can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The democratic party can no longer depend on silence and fear to keep their former voters in line. They have seen too much and won’t even be intimidated by the thought of a Trump presidency. Angela Davis’s day has passed. The narcissists aren’t listening any more. |
We had [Mark] on our “dance card” for people to find at Maker Faire. But before we could track him down he bumped into us holding the TIQ Probe in one hand and a testing box in the other. TIQ is conceived in the form factor of a traditional logic probe but thanks to the Cypress PSoC 5LP inside it’s much, much smarter than the decades-old bench tools. Sure, it can tell you if that uC pin is a 1 or a 0, but it can also detect what type of signal it’s probing and has built-in protection for over-voltage.
The point of the tool is to bridge the gap between things which would be measured with a DMM and those measured with a proper Oscilloscope. We think he did a pretty good job of including the things that someone just starting out without expensive bench equipment might want. For instance, you can set it to trigger on common data protocols like i2c, and use the probe itself as a rudimentary pulse generator.
The bulk of the details on the probe can be found on its Kickstarter page (which has just a few days left). You may also be interested in his company page. We’re curious about the insides of the test rig he was hauling around. [Mark] is a regular reader so hopefully he’ll leave a comment below with the details of that black box. |
President Vladimir Putin says he’s shared Russian intelligence data on Islamic State financing with his G20 colleagues: the terrorists appear to be financed from 40 countries, including some G20 member states.
During the summit, “I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them,” Putin told the journalists.
Putin also spoke of the urgent need to curb the illegal oil trade by IS.
"I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products," he said.
“The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon," Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems.
It’s not the right time to try and figure out which country is more and which is less effective in the battle with Islamic State, as now a united international effort is needed against the terrorist group, Putin said.
BREAKING: Putin & Obama hold talks on G20 sidelines https://t.co/qhj5hvsKoBpic.twitter.com/VIvpf8wf5n — RT (@RT_com) November 15, 2015
Putin reiterated Russia’s readiness to support armed opposition in Syria in its efforts to fight Islamic State.
"Some armed opposition groups consider it possible to begin active operations against IS with Russia's support. And we are ready to provide such support from the air. If it happens it could become a good basis for the subsequent work on a political settlement,” he said.
“We really need support from the US, European nations, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran,” the president added.
Putin pointed out the change in Washington’s stance on cooperation with Moscow in the fight against the terrorists.
"We need to organize work specifically concentrated on the prevention of terrorist attacks and tackling terrorism on a global scale. We offered to cooperate [with the US] in anti-IS efforts. Unfortunately, our American partners refused. They just sent a written note and it says: ‘we reject your offer’,” Putin said.
“But life is always evolving and at a very fast pace, often teaching us lessons. And I think that now the realization that an effective fight [against terror] can only be staged together is coming to everybody,” the Russian leader said.
BREAKING: Terror intel exchanges between US, Russia need to be enhanced – #CIA head Brennan https://t.co/X8Xup6IypDpic.twitter.com/ZbMvPkuLFd — RT (@RT_com) November 16, 2015
According to Putin, first of all it should be decided which groups in Syria can be considered terrorist organizations and which can be attributed to an armed, but still legitimate part of the Syrian opposition.
“Our efforts must be concentrated on the battle with terrorist organizations.”
Putin also disagreed with Western criticism of Russia’s actions in Syria, where the country has been carrying out a large-scale air campaign against Islamic State and other terror groups since September 30.
“It’s really difficult to criticize us,” he said, adding that Russia has repeatedly asked its foreign partners to provide data on terrorist targets in Syria.
“They’re afraid to inform us on the territories which we shouldn’t strike, fearing that it is precisely where we’ll strike; that we are going to cheat everybody,” the president said.
“Apparently, their opinion of us is based on their own concept of human decency,” he added.
Putin told the media that Russia has already established contact with the Syrian opposition, which has asked Moscow not carry out airstrikes in the territories it controls.
Still no conclusion on what caused Sinai plane crash
It’s too early to make conclusions about the reasons for the crash of the Russian A321 jet over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in late October, as all possible reasons are still being considered by the investigators, Putin said.
“We know about all the possible scenarios, all of the scenarios are being considered. The final conclusion can only be made after the implementation and completion of the inspection,” he stressed.
"If there was an explosion, the traces of explosives would have remained on the liner’s cover and on the belongings of the passengers. It’s inevitable. And we have enough equipment and skilled, world class experts, capable of finding those traces. Only then would it be possible to speak about the reasons for this tragedy," the president added.
With 224 people dying in the crash, Putin said that "it's a huge emotional pain for all of us; for all Russian people, no matter what the cause of the crash was." |
Since launching The Athletic NHL and The Athletic Toronto more than a year ago, I’ve consistently received two different reactions to what The Athletic has started in 15+ markets across North America.
The first response has been very positive. Most people get it, like it and are on-board, with supportive comments, suggestions for great writers to add to our team, and ideas on how we can improve.
We love those people.
The second group?
They usually have a different take, something along the lines of “Paywall? I will NEVER pay for sports content!”
Which is understandable. We’re still relatively new, and a pay-to-read model is still a nascent concept – especially for sports. As I learned writing about analytics on the Maple Leafs beat circa 2012-13, anything new is probably controversial.
So I think it’s worth explaining why we are the way we are.
***
One of the things I’ve made an effort to do the last few years is learn more about the business side of how the media operates. A lot of people in the traditional media feel helpless the way the business is floundering, and my response to that was to get as much information as I could and at least understand the why behind those struggles. I was on audience committees at my former newspaper, used analytics to track how stories performed in terms of engagement and followed industry trends in terms of business models.
What I learned along the way is there is a big disconnect between what the public believes is happening in media and what is actually happening.
Journalists are not losing their jobs because they are bad at what they do. The No. 1 killer of newspapers and websites – and radio and television appear to be next – is ad rates, in print and online. As Facebook and Google corner the ad market, and companies increasingly turn to social avenues to promote themselves, ad rates are dropping, often at exceptional rates.
In the (recent) past, you could attempt to make money online by going for scale – a high number of clicks – but that is becoming increasingly difficult. Even a very high-end website, like the New York Times, has online ad rates of about $8 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Most newspapers and websites are much lower than that – and the number is falling every year.
Even very well read stories for large outlets may only generate $75 or $100 in revenue online. Not enough to pay a writer for a day’s work, let alone add in an editor, or any other costs associated with a large company producing content.
And those are the ones that hit relatively big. Others about more niche subjects, or that require a high level of sophistication, research and time, would generate even less revenue relative to the cost to produce them, in that click-per-penny model.
That, on a basic level, is why newspapers like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Globe and Mail are pursuing a subscription model. They have to in order to produce the content that makes those brands what they are. They have done the math that shows getting even two or three subscribers for a story is worth more than 20,000 hits.
The alternative is to chase web pennies – and bleed millions of dollars a year.
We know that won’t last. We know now many of those outlets will fail.
***
The Athletic is different. We aren’t ESPN or TSN, who can have auto-play video ads and push customers to their cable networks for major sources of revenue. We’re focused on fans who want high quality, in-depth coverage of their teams, content that isn’t designed to service advertisers or clicks. It’s designed solely to be informative and entertaining.
The Athletic would not happen on an ad revenue model. Trust me, I’ve looked into it. So far, we’ve seen that it can work through low-cost subscriptions. By all indications, we’ll be around for a long time.
Many of the writers on The Athletic’s staff were laid off before joining us. They are some of the best writers in the business – reporters like senior writer Dana O’Neil from our Fieldhouse team, lead Raptors writer Eric Koreen, and lead Sixers writer Derek Bodner.
At a time when sports media outlets are either (a) cutting back coverage or (b) making decisions based on number of clicks generated and not quality – The Athletic has brought in the best of the best. Jon Greenberg and Scott Powers, two gifted writers laid off by ESPN, joined in Jan 2016 to start The Athletic’s original location in Chicago. Legends like Ken Rosenthal and Stewart Mandel, made available when Fox Sports pivoted away from writing, now head up premium national baseball and college coverage, respectively.
Long-time newspaper writers like Tim Kawakami, editor-in-chief of The Athletic Bay Area, and Jason Lloyd, editor-in-chief of The Athletic Cleveland, understood the “fragile times of the newspaper industry” and joined the team because they believe this is “direct line, the next step, the evolution of sports writing.”
Without the pressure of generating clicks or meeting arbitrary deadlines, The Athletic’s editorial team is doing the best work of their careers.
***
Canada has lost more than one-third of its journalists in the past six years, and in the U.S., more than half the jobs in the news industry have disappeared in the last 15 years. I would bet that number is even higher in sports, which is often not considered an integral section by the bean counters despite being well read.
Some of the sports sections across North America have closed. Others that employed 25-plus people a decade ago are down to five or six. And there are very few young people getting jobs in this climate. Not so at The Athletic – read our introduction of new A’s beat reporter Julian McWilliams.
While some of the blogs and websites do very good work, their contributors rarely receive a living wage for doing so.
Putting up a paywall is not The Athletic being greedy. We remain very much a start-up and all of the money we receive right now goes to the product. On a basic level, the more that people subscribe, the more we can invest in bringing good sports journalism to other markets and making the product more valuable for subscribers.
I definitely understand that not every sports fan wants to pay for content. Not everyone wants to read Marcus Thompson‘s thought-provoking story on the Warriors trip to San Quentin, or the heart-wrenching coverage by Katie Strang of the reckoning of Larry Nassar at the hands of his victims. Not everyone needs NBA salary cap minutiae, power-play analytics, or video analysis of Jon Gruden’s Raiders offense.
The staff at The Athletic believe in our work. And we believe in this business model – in part because we’ve seen the others fail again and again. We believe we have collectively hit on something which can reverse a brutal trend in our industry, and we are betting our careers on it.
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There are plenty of different strains of kratom depending on the location where the plant is grown, how it is dried and harvested, and its color. Some of the most popular kratom types are the Thai, Maeng Da, Borneo, Indo, Bali, and Malaysian Kratom.
However, these strains can vary significantly dependent on the color of the stem and the leaf vein. If you look closely at a
Mitragyna speciosa leaf, you’ll see that its vein and stem have specific colors. These colors are an indication of most of the effects that the particular kratom type will have on your mind and body.
During the grinding process, veins and stems are removed from the leaf. Then, harvesters use their own methods of drying and fermentation to create the kratom powder users consume. The strain that will provide you with your desired effect will depend greatly on the color.
1. Red Vein Kratom Strains Explained
The leaves with red colored veins and stem are the best-selling among kratom users. These are widely available and sell more than the white and green vein varieties combined.
Red vein kratom plants can be found in Southeast Asia. They are hardier than other trees of the Mitragyna family. According to experts, the substances that create the red color in the veins also ensure the durability of the plant.
Red vein kratom leaves, if bought from a reputable source, are an excellent option for beginners. They have calming effects and provide a feeling of happiness and optimism. Also, red kratom is widely used as a sleep aid for those who suffer from insomnia, as well as a pain relief tool for those who have chronic pain. Some use it as an alternative to painkillers. Finally, the strongest extracts of red kratom are used by patients who are going through withdrawal from opiates.
Based on the dosage and properties of the red veins, users can experience rather different effects. For example, the Red Vein Borneo and the Red Thai strains have more of a sedative effect, while Red Sumatra elevates mood.
2. White Vein Kratom Strains Explained
White vein kratom is a mood enhancer and a simulant. Based on the quality of the drug and your individual tolerance level, the effects can vary. However, it is widely known that white veins are the most euphoric and stimulating strain of all kratom types.
Some take it instead of caffeine to boost their concentration and alertness levels, while others use it for recreation. For a more balanced effect in terms of an energy boost, users often mix the white and red vein strains.
3. Green Vein Kratom Strains Explained
The last strain of kratom can be placed somewhere in between the previous two. In terms of energy-boosting properties, it is mild. People who use this strain have reported that it enhances focus and alertness in a more subtle way. It is also used in the treatment of discomfort and pain, mostly because it does not cause drowsiness as some analgesic pharmaceutical supplements do.
You can mix this strain with either white or red strains for a more sophisticated effect and a rounded flavor. This is a very popular method, since adding green vein to white vein reduces the chance overstimulation, while adding it to the red veins reduces the effect of anesthesia.
The Bottom Line
Now that you’ve had these kratom strains explained to you, the type of strain that’s best for you will depend on your tolerance level and your personal preferences. Strains come in different colors and types, so they can be mixed by manufacturers and sellers. Therefore, you should consider testing different strains before you choose your favorite. |
Top-seeded Zhang Jike beat No. 2 seed Wang Hao on Thursday to give the Chinese two more table tennis medals at the London Olympics.
Zhang knocked off his countryman 4-1 in under an hour for his first Olympic medal.
It was China's fourth medal at these games -- two gold and two silver. On Wednesday, Li Xiaoxia beat No. 1 seed Ding Ning to win the women's table tennis tournament.
Wang won his fourth Olympic table tennis medal and third silver in men's singles.
Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov beat Taiwan's Chuang Chih-Yuan 4-2 in the bronze medal match.
Ovtcharov was bidding to become the first European since Sweden's Jan-Ove Waldner in 1992 to win an Olympic gold medal in table tennis but lost to Zhang 4-1 in the morning semifinals. Wang beat Chuang by the same score in the other semi. |
The mother of four, who subjected her daughter to a "bizarre sex education," has been jailed for four years.
The mother of four, who subjected her daughter to a "bizarre sex education," has been jailed for four years.
An Australian woman has been charged for raping her 11-year-old daughter and filming it.
The mother of four, who subjected her daughter to a "bizarre sex education," has been jailed for four years. The 37-year-old Sunshine Coast mum used her mobile phone to create three films showing her raping her youngest child and exposed her to other sexual activity "in response to repeated questions," the Sunshine Coast Daily reported.
Judge John Robertson said the mother, through her "selfish criminal conduct", had deprived her daughter of the right to "a wholesome and loving relationship with her mother".
He said while sexual offences against children by their own mothers were "rare", the community acting through the courts should denounce "this shocking conduct" with a significant punishment.
Judge Robertson suspended the four-year jail term after the woman has served one year, leaving a three-year jail sentence hanging over her head and ordered her to do three years' probation. |
the store and then shot his wife, an employee, in the leg
A married father-of-three has been shot dead after he tried to stop a gunman who opened fire inside a Walgreens.
Gym owner and ex-Marine Anthony 'TJ' Antell Jr., 35, was gunned down at the Arlington, Texas, store on Monday when he confronted the suspect, 22-year-old Ricci Bradden.
Antell, who ran the CrossFit Abattoir gym, was with his wife Crytsal in the drugstore when the chaos unfolded.
Married father-of-three Anthony 'TJ' Antell Jr. (pictured with his wife Crystal) has been shot dead after he tried to stop a gunman who opened fire inside a Walgreens in Arlington, Texas
The 35-year-old (pictured with his wife and three children) was gunned down at the store on Monday when he confronted the suspect, 22-year-old Ricci Bradden
Antell, who ran the CrossFit Abattoir gym, was with his wife Crystal in the drugstore when the chaos unfolded
Bradden walked into the the store and allegedly shot his wife, who is an employee, in the leg.
He then tried to flee the scene.
As Bradden tried to drive off, Antell when outside to the parking lot and picked up a gun he owned from his car in a bid to stop him, the Dallas Morning News reported.
The suspect then turned around and shot Antell in the head, according to police.
Images taken from above the scene show a white sheet draped over his body.
Bradden has since turned himself in to the police. His wife has not been identified by police.
She has been treated for non-life threatening injuries in hospital.
Arlington Police Lt. Chris Cook praised Antell for his actions and described him as a Good Samaritan.
He told Fox 4: 'Very terrifying for people that had to watch and see, especially the Good Samaritan being shot and killed just trying to help out trying to keep the suspect from leaving.'
Ricci Bradden, 23, walked into the the store and allegedly shot his wife, who is an employee, in the leg. He then tried to flee the scene |
According to reports, the late singer wanted a giant Jackson robot to roam the Nevada desert as an advertisement for a 2005 comeback that never was
Years before Michael Jackson agreed to a 50-date residency at London's O2 Arena, the singer was considering a similar run of shows in Las Vegas. According to reports this week, Jackson was working with artists not just on costumes, sets and an accompanying hotel – but on a gigantic Michael Jackson robot roaming the Nevada desert.
Plans for the Las Vegas concerts began in October 2005, just months after the King of Pop was acquitted on child-molestation charges. Fashion designer André van Pier, a long-time friend of both Jackson and Princess Diana, led the work. According to PageSix, his costume designs included "space-age", solar-powered fabric that changed colour in reaction to stage lights.
The team's sci-fi ambitions didn't stop there. Van Pier, partner Michael Luckman and artist Timothy Patterson made plans for a towering Michael Jackson robot, 50ft high and visible from Las Vegas's McCarran airport. The robot would wander in the desert as an advertisement for Jackson's show. "Michael's looked at the sketches and liked them," Luckman told the New York Daily News in 2007.
Funding, however, was a problem. Fresh from his controversial trial, Jackson had trouble securing investors. Though he met with moguls including casino owner Steve Wynne, "he just couldn't raise enough money," Luckman told MTV News.
Eventually, Jackson and his team scaled down their grand ambitions. Instead of a roaming robot, they conceived of a Jackson-themed hotel and casino – with an android at the entrance. "Michael really liked the initial designs and wanted to use them somehow," Luckman said. Patterson described the looming techno-Michael that would have dominated the hotel's proposed facade: "The face would move, shooting laser-beam-looking lights. The whole building would be covered with spotlights."
Money, however, continued to be a problem. Jackson, who had been living in Nevada, moved away. Van Pier died in August 2008, and finally Jackson announced the London concerts in March 2009 – scuppering plans for a Las Vegas run. Though Luckman, Patterson and Jackson were scheduled to have a meeting in November, Jackson died in June.
There are currently no public plans to build the hotel, casino, or the lonely, moonwalking, robot. |
Tensions are still running high around a Tajik enclave in southern Kyrgyzstan after border troops clashed on January 11. While frictions are common on the complex borders that run through the Ferghana Valley, this latest incident stands out because it escalated into a full-scale diplomatic row.
Kyrgyzstan recalled its ambassador from Dushanbe for consultations, and the country’s border protection service issued an angry statement after its Tajik counterparts turned up for talks on the ground in full combat gear. The January 14 statement said Kyrgyzstan’s frontier guards were coordinating with other parts of the security services and were ready for anything, even to “repel a possible armed attack”.
A later press release the same day sounded a more conciliatory note. It said the heads of the two countries’ border services had talked by phone and “resolved” the immediate crisis. The Kyrgyz received assurances that Tajikistan was seeking to deal with the dispute through diplomatic channels and was keen to avoid any further escalation of tensions.
The January 11 incident took place on the outskirts of Vorukh, an island of Tajik territory entirely enclosed within Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region. It is home to around 40,000 ethnic Tajiks, and Kyrgyz residents living on either side of it used to have to drive through it to get to different parts of Batken, To avoid the occasional frictions this caused, the Kyrgyz authorities are building a road intended to bypass the enclave completely. (See Tajiks, Kyrgyz Grapple With Frontier Issues on a clash that occurred last year.)
Trouble broke out when Tajik frontier guards stationed in Vorukh confronted workers laying a section of the road running through an area whose sovereignty is disputed.
In the ensuing standoff, Kyrgyz and Tajik border forces fired shots – each later accused the other of starting it – and two of the former and three of the latter were injured.
While firearms have been used in past incidents, this is the first time the deployment of heavier weapons has been reported. The Kyrgyz border service alleged that the Tajiks fired mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades, a claim Dushanbe has not responded to.
The Tajik and Kyrgyz governments generally enjoy good relations, in stark contrast to either’s relations with Uzbekistan, which also has common borders and enclaves within Batken. (See Enclave Issues Challenge Uzbek, Kyrgyz Leaders on this issue.) That means they often act together to defuse tensions on the ground.
On this occasion, however, both sides took a stand. Tajikistan’s foreign ministry insisted its troops had every right to block work on the contested stretch of road. The Kyrgyz authorities issued two protest notes, closed frontier crossings and said they planned to press on with the highway regardless. Both countries sent regular army units up to their respective borders.
ROAD SEEN AS LIFELINE BY KYRGYZ VILLAGERS
In administrative terms, Vorukh comes under Isfara district, part of the Soghd region of northern Tajikistan. Murtazo Egamov, a local member of the People’s Democratic Party, told IWPR that Soghd’s deputy governor, Jumaboy Sanginov, met residents to pass on a message from central government that “Tajikistan is not going to compromise on even a centimetre of its territory”.
A spokesperson for Kyrgyzstan’s border service, Gulmira Borubaeva, told IWPR that only half of the 970-kilometre-long boundary with Tajikistan had been agreed and properly marked out.
“Unfortunately, border delimitation is a very complex issue which requires both sides to be willing to step back and make compromises,” she said.
“We believe the Tajiks are categorically against the bypass as they fears that one of the Tajik villages [within Vorukh] will be cut off, even though we have offered assurances that we will not let that happen.”
Razia Osorova, the local government head in Kok-Tash, a Kyrgyz village close to Vorukh, told IWPR that the highway was an essential lifeline for people living in either part of Batken, who are currently separated by the enclave.
“This bypass is very important to us. It would allow free movement to other parts of the country for residents of four villages,” she said, adding that the far eastern part of Batken risked turning into a kind of enclave. “That’s exactly what the Tajiks want, so they’re opposed to the road being built.”
“We would rather die than leave our land,” she added.
Osorova said residents of Kok-Tash and the nearby settlement of Aksay no longer felt safe.
“At least five or six conflicts of various kinds occur on a monthly basis. The Tajiks outnumber us several times over. Sometimes they block the road, sometimes they start a fight or harass our women,” she said.
“WE’RE TIRED OF LIVING LIKE THIS”
Akyl, who lives in another Kyrgyz village, Bozadyr agreed that driving through Vorukh could be dangerous, as people sometimes got assaulted by local residents.
Relations between the two communities were not always bad, Akyl said, attributing the deterioration to disputes about the border.
“The Tajiks say this is their ancestral land, hence it is their’s. The Kyrgyz say, ‘No, it’s our land.’ It’s a source of constant conflict,” he said.
Things are made worse by a demographic imbalance, Akyl said.
“They [Tajiks] feel an acute shortage of land, so they stake claims on our side. They move out half a metre and plant a tree or divert water,” he said. “We’ve tried to ignore it all. It’s only been in recent years that we’ve started standing up for ourselves. The disagreements used to be about access to pasture land and water, but now the road has added to the tensions.
“Frankly speaking, we’re tired of living like this,” he concluded. Officials came and went and made promises but nothing ever got done. “The only thing we want is for someone to come and resolve our border problems,” he said.
In Dushanbe, Saifullo Safarov, deputy director of the Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank affiliated with the Tajik president's office, claimed that the conflict was being fuelled by businessmen in Kyrgyzstan who had vested interests in building the bypass.
“This group of businessmen are pursuing their own financial interests… There was no need for this road. It’s only now that they are saying it’s vitally necessary to build it,” Safarov said.
On the allegations that Kyrgyz nationals are harassed when they go through Vorukh, Safarov pointed out that traders from Kyrgyzstan were a common sight in Tajikistan.
“The Kyrgyz don’t feel uncomfortable at our markets,” he said.
Nemat Mirsaidov, a political analyst in northern Tajikistan, said the authorities had been doing their best to defuse the sense of frustration among Vorukh residents.
“But tolerance has its limits, too,” he said.
Mirsaidov said it was important to hold onto the disputed areas of land that lay between Vorukh and nearby Kyrgyz settlements.
“If we now give up those territories and hand them over to our neighbours, we’ll face economic as well as cultural losses,” he said. “What’s needed is for the presidents of both countries to come to the area to see with their eyes what’s happening here and how people live. We need them to intervene,” Mirsaidov said.
COMMON INTEREST IN MAINTAINING TRANSIT LINKS
A Dushanbe-based analyst who asked to remain anonymous said escalating tensions was not in the interests of either Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. Both have a troubled relationship with Uzbekistan, which routinely obstructs traffic heading to Tajikistan.
“Since 2010, when Uzbekistan refused to allow its railway to be used by trains going to [Tajikistan’s] southern Hatlon region, all freight goes through Kyrgyz territory,” he said. “It [Kyrgyzstan] is an important transit route for bringing construction materials and food stuffs to Tajikistan from Russia via Kazakstan,” the analyst said.
Salamat Alamanov, an expert on border issues in Kyrgyzstan, pointed to wider problems with the way local disputes were dealt with.
“They resort to force when things could be resolved through negotiations. It’s an emotional response, not an intelligent one,” Alamanov said. “Until the border is demarcated, conflicts will continue to happen.”
Timur Toktonaliev is an IWPR contributor in Bishkek. Lola Olimova is IWPR Tajikistan editor. Nazarali Pirnazarov is a correspondent for the CA-news agency in Tajikistan. |
The game is over. Real Madrid has won La Decima. Allegedly, Sergio Ramos has not dropped the trophy. Thus, as per the actual game, there’s not a lot to write home about. Atletico defended with numbers and score off a setpiece/goalie error. Madrid switched formations (pushing Ronaldo up as a striker and Di Maria wide as a winger) and then made some key positive subs (Isco for Khedira, Marcelo for Coentrao) to turn the momentum, tie the game, and dominate in extra time.
But still, Atletico had a wonderful season. They won La Liga. They reached the Champions League final. They sold Falcao last summer, yet only improved. If they sell Diego Costa this summer and improve by the same increment, they will win every trophy imaginable (and probably some made up ones). Yet just how has Atletico done it?
Many have ideas. They are almost all at odds.
First off, the agreed upon points: Atletico plays a version of a 4-4-2, they do not press high up the pitch, they counter attack, and they drop deep to defend. From those accepted premises, smart people have come up with vastly different explanations. Michael Caley at the Washington Post claims that the counter-attacking, sit deep style is less physically demanding on Atletico’s midfielders. Hence, despite having a smaller roster, Simeone’s team has competed with the big boys.
This argument though is a bit odd. On the one hand, I agree that balls-to-the-wall pressing like FC Barcelona under Pep Guardiola is physically taxing. However, so is playing defense, which requires quite a bit of running. Also, Michael Cox of Zonal Marking has claimed that the key to Atletico’s success is that the two forwards, Villa and Costa, both drop deep near the holding midfielder and run their tails off.
Of course, both these claims could be true: perhaps Villa and Costa run their tails off, allowing the midfielders to rest more than most. However, Daniel Taylor originally reported for the Guardian that, at half-time of the Champions League final, Koke, Gabi, Tiago, and Raul Garcia had all ran further than any Real Madrid player. This cite has since been omitted/airbrushed from the site with no explanation. If true, it puts a dent in the “sit back and defend” theory. Also, Diego Costa’s injuries near the season’s end also prove Cox more right than wrong.
Thus, even though his players have called Simeone “a god”, is he just a Mou, a coach who found a good Starting XI and ran them into the ground? Of course, this is still a skill – Mou’s treble at Inter was anything but easy. However, it’s not a recipe for sustained success. On the other hand, when you coach at a “selling club”, you can’t wait forever for tomorrow. You really can’t blame Simeone for throwing the kitchen sink at winning everything this year.
So, alas, we end in disagreement or indeterminacy. Is Atletico defensive and that lets the midfielders relax? Is Atletico defensive and the forwards run their tails off? I tried to track down miles ran/heatmaps for the game, but with no luck. Regardless, Simeone’s approach got Atletico to a La Liga title (felicidades) and within two minutes of the Champions League. If I were a colchonero, I wouldn’t hold my breath dreaming of 2014-15, but still enjoy the present. It’s going fast. |
(CNN) The grisly cutting of a fetus from a woman began with a Craigslist ad about baby clothes for sale.
Michelle Wilkins, a 26-year-old woman who was seven months pregnant, arrived at the seller's home just before noon Wednesday in Longmont, Colorado.
To announce her arrival, she texted the seller, a woman who went by "D," according to a narrative provided by a police report, interviews and a 911 tape.
The seller was later identified as Dynel Lane, 34, a former nurse aide, who was ordered held on $2 million bail Thursday while prosecutors weigh charges against her, including whether to accuse her of killing a fetus.
Lane is accused of stabbing Wilkins and removing the fetus.
The fetus died, but the mother survived and has a "very optimistic" prognosis, authorities said Thursday.
Authorities' version of events was unlike anything the local district attorney has seen in his 32 years practicing law.
Dynel Lane
'I'm pregnant'
Stabbed in the stomach and bleeding, the victim called 911.
"She cut me," she told the operator.
"Who cut you?" the operator asked.
"I don't know," the victim said.
Then came the revelation.
"She cut you in your stomach?" the operator asked.
"Uh-huh. I'm pregnant," the victim said.
Responding police heard a woman's cry for help inside the home and found her on a bed, going in and out of consciousness, just barely able to speak. A knife with a 3-inch blade was found under the bed.
'Covered in blood'
Searching the split-level home, police found several bloody towels being laundered in the washing machine.
David Ridley, the 35-year-old husband of Dynel Lane, told police he had returned home earlier after leaving work to meet his wife.
As the husband walked downstairs toward the basement, his wife walked around the corner "covered in blood," the police report said.
"She told David she just miscarried and the baby was in the bathtub upstairs," the police report said.
A baby in the bathtub
After Ridley saw his bloody wife, he ran to the bathroom and found "a small baby lying in the bathtub," the police report said.
"He rubbed the baby slightly then rolled it over to ... see it take a gasping breath," the report said.
Ridley wrapped the baby in a towel, and apparently unaware that its mother was still bleeding inside the house, drove the baby and his wife to the emergency room of Longmont United Hospital, police said.
A 'well performed' incision
Wilkins was later taken for treatment at the same hospital, police said.
The emergency room surgeon noticed the victim had an incision on her abdomen that "appeared to be well performed," the report said.
The doctor observed that "the person who did the incision would have to have researched the subject of cesarean births in books or online to achieve the level of accuracy," the police report said.
Lane was a certified nurse aide starting July 1, 2010, and her license expired on January 31, 2012, with no history of discipline or board actions, according to records with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. At that time, she lived in Pueblo, Colorado, the records showed.
No signs of giving birth
While at the hospital with Lane, a police investigator "saw no visual signs of vaginal bleeding coming from Dynel or any signs of having recently given birth," police said.
Lane refused to allow hospital staff to examine her vaginally, according to police.
"Dynel admitted to Detective Stacey Graham that she cut abdomen open to remove [the victim's] baby," according to the police report.
The hospital told police "the baby was approximately 7 months old and would have been viable," the report said.
Police then obtained a warrant to search Lane's body. The findings of that search weren't revealed Thursday.
Suggestions of another lost pregnancy
Lane had told her family months earlier that she was pregnant, even showing them an ultrasound photo of a boy in December.
Her husband's early departure from work was to take her to a prenatal appointment, police said.
But one of Lane's two teenage daughters later told investigators that "she could not tell Dynel was pregnant and [she] was very petite."
When asked Thursday whether Lane may have earlier lost a pregnancy, prosecutors said they couldn't comment.
"I can tell you we're looking very thoroughly at Ms. Lane's history, and the police are investigating every aspect," Boulder County District Attorney Stanley L. Garnett said.
In July 2002, Lane was apparently in another marriage and lost a 19-month-old son to accidental drowning in a decorative pond, said Pueblo County Coroner Brian Cotter. The parents of Michael Alexander Cruz were listed as Jason and Dynel Cruz.
A murder?
Prosecutors are weighing whether to file a murder charge against Lane, who won't face any formal charges until next week at the earliest, Garnett said.
The prosecutor described the difficulty in determining charges.
"The issue of whether or not murder charges are appropriate involving a case involving the death of a fetus or a late-term pregnancy is always a difficult issue," Garnett said.
"Under Colorado law, essentially, there's no way murder charges can be brought if it's not established that the fetus lived as a child outside the body of the mother for some period of time. I don't know the answer yet as to whether that can be established, what our facts are here," Garnett said.
That information will be a key part of the investigation, Garnett said.
Dozens of officers are working the case and awaiting medical information from an autopsy, Garnett added.
The definition of "lived as a child" is difficult, too, and whether that means one breath or one hour, Garnett said.
"The Supreme Court and the court of appeals will get to tell us that eventually. The law is not, as in many areas, terribly clear in terms of that," Garnett said.
A case unlike any other
Lane was arrested on accusations of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and child abuse knowingly/recklessly resulting in death, Longmont Police Cmdr. Jeff Satur said.
Longmont Police are asking anyone who may have responded to a Craigslist ad for baby clothes, posted by "D" or "Dynel," or who perhaps traveled to her home on Green Place in Longmont, to call (303) 651-8523.
Garnett said he's never seen such a case in his 32 years as an attorney.
"I've never quite seen this fact pattern before," he said. |
Jakarta floods leave hundreds of thousands homeless
Updated
Indonesian disaster authorities have lost count of the number of people who have been left homeless in widespread flooding, but say it could reach the hundreds of thousands.
The centre of Jakarta, including the Presidential Palace, is awash and parts of the Indonesian capital that have never seen flooding before are now underwater.
Yesterday 10,000 people had to flee their homes but hours of heavy downpours overnight and rivers bursting their banks, have added to the problem.
Three people have been killed so far in the seasonal chaos and the National Disaster Management Centre says it could affect as many as 350,000 as it did six years ago.
"My home is destroyed - all of it. It's in chaotic piles of mess," resident Umar Dani said through a translator.
He said the flood reached the roof of his house.
The National Disaster Management Centre spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said a child was among the two victims swept away in the floods overnight.
"Days of heavy downpours caused the rivers to overflow and triggered floods up to three metres," he said through a translator, adding that rivers in Jakarta had a low capacity to contain the monsoonal rain.
In 2007, major floods forced 350,000 people to leave their homes and authorities are preparing for the same impact this year.
It's serious because this is the capital of Indonesia and flooding can affect the economy locally and nationally. National Disaster Management Centre spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho
However, they say it is hard to predict how bad things will get.
Mr Nugroho says the 2007 floods caused nearly $500 million of damage in Jakarta alone.
"It's serious because this is the capital of Indonesia and flooding can affect the economy locally and nationally," he said.
Indonesia is regularly afflicted by deadly floods and landslides during its wet season, which lasts around half the year, and many in the capital live beside rivers that periodically overflow.
At least 11 people were killed and seven missing in November after flash floods triggered by heavy rain hit a village on Indonesia's Sulawesi island.
There is more than two months of the wet season to go.
ABC/AFP
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Thousands flee from Jakarta floods (ABC News)
Topics: floods, indonesia, asia
First posted |
1 killed, 1 injured as plane crashes into home near Woodinville
An airplane is seen on its side partially into a house between Woodinville and Duvall. (Photo courtesy King County Sherrif's Office) An airplane is seen on its side partially into a house between Woodinville and Duvall. (Photo courtesy King County Sherrif's Office) Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close 1 killed, 1 injured as plane crashes into home near Woodinville 1 / 3 Back to Gallery
A small plane crashed into a home Saturday near Woodinville, killing one of the two men aboard and critically injuring the other, police said.
Firefighters and police responded to the scene, near Northeast 144th Street and 232rd Avenue Northeast, at about 3 p.m. after receiving a report of a plane crash into a single-family home.
Two men were aboard the plane. One was found dead at the scene and the other was rushed to the hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.
Two teens were inside the home at the time of the crash. They were not harmed.
They told KOMO News that they heard a loud crash and the whole house shook. They then saw the wing of a plane inside the home.
Other witnesses who live in the neighborhood say they heard sputtering and looked up. They saw the propeller on the plane stop and the aircraft flipped upside down, crashing into the home.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration registry, the fixed-wing single engine plane is registered in Redmond and it seats four people.
It was not immediately known where the plane was coming from or where it was headed. |
One was alienated and increasingly drawn to Islam. The other was a skateboarding dope smoker. A complex picture is emerging of the Boston bombers
The behaviour of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston marathon bombing, was not what might have been expected from America's most wanted man, nor from a jihadi determined to perish fighting the United States.
For the first three days of last week, the 19-year-old attended the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth, where he was studying. He worked out at the gym, and on the Wednesday night he slept in his room. According to friends, he attended a party with friends from his football team. "He was just relaxed," one witness said.
A day later, his elder brother, Tamerlan, 26, who on Friday would die from the wounds sustained in a gun battle with police, was also not keeping the lowest of profiles. The brothers' uncle Ruslan Tsarni, 42 – who called them "losers" who had failed to fit in – told the media that, on the night before he was killed, Tamerlan had called Ruslan's older brother, the boys' father. "He said to my brother the usual rubbish, talking about God again, that whatever wrong he had done on his behalf, he would like to be forgiven," adding, "I guess he knew what he had done."
Within 24 hours of that call, the two young men, ethnic Chechens born in Dagestan who had spent the last decade in the US, were being hunted through Boston, with the whole city ordered to take shelter behind closed doors after they had been identified by video from security cameras as they apparently planted their bombs.
Their behaviour in the period between the detonation of the bombs, which killed three people and injured almost 200 more, and the denouement of the hunt that led to Dzhokhar's capture – hiding wounded in a boat in a backyard – seems as baffling as the motives for their attack in the first place.
For while Tamerlan – in some respects at least – appears to have fitted the profile of an alienated young man who had drifted towards an ever-more fundamentalist version of Islam, his skateboarding, dope-smoking younger brother seemed the antithesis of that image. It is this that has led many analysts already to suggest that the actions of the Tsarnaev brothers has more in common with alienated and unhappy "school shooters" – caught up in their own narcissistic drama – than typical Islamist extremists.
One acquaintance of Dzhokhar – known to friends as "Jahar" – who emailed the blog of well-known US commentator Andrew Sullivan, speculated he had fallen under his brother's influence. "I graduated a year before … Jahar, and while I wasn't very close with him, I knew him fairly well. While it seems like every time this happens people say I can't believe this happened, this truly is a case where the personality and the behaviour don't seem to match up. Jahar was quiet, but fairly social. He came to parties, smoked weed with me and many of my friends and was always cheerful.
"My feeling is that the reason that Jahar was involved has entirely to do with his brother ... Given that his brother essentially raised him, I think this is an awful case of evil being perpetuated because of the trust and love Jahar had for his brother."
The Twitter account of Dzhokhar over the last few months provides, if not clues to his mindset, at least some suggestions. He was growing tired of America and missed Dagestan. In January he wrote: "I don't argue with fools who say Islam is terrorism it's not worth a thing, let an idiot remain an idiot."
Those who trained with Tamerlan, a talented young boxer known to them as "Tom", seemed as surprised as his brother's friends were that he had emerged as prime suspect in the bombing.
"In the ring, he could knock a man out with one punch,'' Gene McCarthy, founder of the Somerville Boxing Club, told the Boston Globe. "But when he sat at a piano, he could play classical music like you wouldn't believe. The Tom I knew was a sweetheart.''
That Tamerlan changed in recent years is clear. "He was not devout, practising. But about three years ago he began praying five times a day," his aunt Maret Tsarnaeva told CNN.
And although Tamerlan had once embraced life in the US, even hoping to box for his adopted country at one stage, more recently he had seemed unhappy in America.
"I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them," he was quoted as saying in a photo package that appeared in a Boston University student magazine in 2010.
He identified himself then as a Muslim and said he did not drink or smoke: "God said no alcohol."
Albrecht Ammon, 18, who lived directly below the flat shared by the brothers, said he recently saw Tamerlan in a pizzeria, where they argued about religion and US foreign policy. Tsarnaev argued that many US wars are based on the Bible, used as "an excuse for invading other countries". But even then he added he had nothing against the American people.
Video believed posted on YouTube by Tamerlan – including links to radical Islamist material – told a darker story still, as did the fact that the FBI had interviewed Tamerlan at the request of a "foreign government" – believed to be Russia – over suspected Islamist extremist views but found nothing to be alarmed by.
Whatever finally emerges as the underlying cause which persuaded the two young men to launch their murderous attacks – a sense of alienation, jihadi motivation or obsession forged in the midst of the their fraternal relationship or a combination of all three – by Friday night, Tamerlan would be dead and Dzhokhar surrounded in the town of Watertown.
They had been tracked down as much because of the efforts of a 58-year-old electrical engineer named Bob Leonard who, when the first fuzzy images of the brothers appeared, realised he had clear pictures of their faces at the marathon which he gave to the FBI – images that would be all over US television the following morning. They were the pictures that would shatter the sense of surreal calm and outward normality of the brothers' existence in the period immediately after the marathon bombings.
The photographs, and an accompanying video of the bombing suspects walking through the marathon crowd carrying dark rucksacks, quickly went viral.
Their behaviour indicates that the brothers knew that the thousands of FBI agents and police officers hunting them were closing in. But as they set off on a journey that would end with the elder brother dead, the younger brother bloodied but alive – after an extraordinary 24 hours of mayhem – their acts betrayed the same puzzling combination of brutal planning and casual insouciance that they had showed earlier in the week.
The brutality came first. At about 10.30pm on Thursday, just five hours after their images were released by the FBI, the Tsarnaev brothers are believed to have jumped a police officer on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sean Collier, 26, had answered reports of a disturbance at MIT and had parked his police cruiser outside the Stata Center. Details are sketchy about what happened next, but it appears the suspects attacked Collier unprovoked in what was described as an ambush. He died on arrival at hospital.
They carjacked a Mercedes SUV and forced the owner to drive them west along Memorial Drive, heading out of town. But instead of killing him with the same lack of compunction they had shown Collier, they let him go at a petrol station, even giving him an instruction: "Tell the police that we did the bombing." It was as though they wanted to bring it on.
As they drove along Memorial Drive, at some point they stopped alongside another car and spent some time transferring objects out of it into the stolen Mercedes. The objects included several pipe bombs as well as guns.
The owner of the Mercedes duly followed orders and called the police, sparking a massive car chase that ended in that hail of gunfire in Laurel Street in the heart of the quiet suburb of Watertown. When they came to make their final stand, the siblings displayed a notable, and perhaps important, contrast in behaviour.
Tamerlan went down fighting, hit by police bullets. According to the police he was wearing a suicide vest. Martyrdom appeared to be his chosen option.
Not so the younger Dzhokhar, who made his escape hijacking another car and driving away from the fire fight before fleeing on foot. As if to underline the difference, as he sped away Dzhokhar drove over his stricken elder brother.
On Friday the residents of Watertown had been on lockdown for most of the day – like much of Boston – as Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick urged people to stay in their homes. Ringed-off by police tape, its boundary was patrolled by state police troopers. Inside the deserted police zone, armoured Humvees could be seen in the streets, while every shop, cafe and restaurant was closed. There were no civilians walking the streets, no cars on the road. The only signs of life were sporadic police checkpoints, state troopers stood beside their cars. In a day devoid of information and full of confusion, they knew as little as anyone else.
With no sign of Dzhokhar, Watertown residents were finally told they could come outside just after 6pm. Among them was Sara Zirolla who decided, with her mother Emilia, to go for a walk round the neighbourhood. They had got one block, walking past the end of Franklin Street when they heard gunfire close by.
"[There were] Many, many, many shots," said Emilia Zirolla, 52. "More than 15."
The Zirollas ended up standing with 50 other locals behind police tape, craning their necks for a glimpse of what might be happening. Swat teams arrived, as did police and Watertown firefighters. Several ambulances arrived on the scene.
As this unscheduled neighbourhood gathering continued, at least nine loud bangs were heard at around 8pm, stun grenades being thrown at the boat where Dzhokar was taking shelter, injured in the stern under a tarpaulin.
What is now clear – as the FBI and police entered this final stage of an extraordinary week-long manhunt – is that their priorities noticeably shifted. If up to that point their focus had been on public safety, going to unprecedented lengths to avoid further loss of life by putting the whole of Boston into virtual lockdown, now they knew that Dzhokhar was their best hope in helping them tackle some of the unanswered questions of this most baffling of weeks. What the Zirollas heard was officers, under fire from Dzhokar hiding in a boat, responding with non-lethal bullets and flash grenades designed to daze him into submission. All the while a helicopter buzzed overhead equipped with infrared technology to detect what the teenager was doing underneath the tarpaulin; hostage negotiators were used to persuade him that he was in need of urgent medical attention. Finally, an FBI hostage rescue team was sent in, entering the boat and taking Dzhokhar alive.
Governor Patrick explained the imperative to take him alive at a press conference on Thursday.
"I hope very deeply he survives those wounds," Patrick said as Dzhokhar was being rushed to hospital. "Because I've got a lot of questions and I know investigators have a lot of questions for him."
"I used to warn Dzhokhar that Tamerlan was up to no good," Zaur Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old cousin from Makhachkala, Russia, where the brothers briefly lived, told the Boston Globe. "[Tamerlan] was always getting in trouble. He was never happy, never cheering, never smiling. He used to strike his girlfriend … He was not a nice man." |
Family of Michael O’Sullivan, who killed himself after losing his incapacity benefit, say Work Capability Assessment process is broken and unsafe
Michael O’ Sullivan was a family man who wanted to do the right thing. A builder, from Highgate in north London, he worked hard for his family until severe mental health problems made it impossible. But despite being signed off work by his GP after he was diagnosed with depression, O’Sullivan was ruled fit for work at the age of 60 by Department for Work and Pensions assessors. He killed himself on 24 September 2013.
O’Sullivan’s case caused outrage in September after it emerged a coroner had ruled his suicide was triggered by intense anxiety caused by his experience with the controversial work capability assessment (WCA) process.
On Wednesday, O’Sullivan’s case was highlighted once again, in parliament at prime minister’s questions by the SNP MP Angus Robertson, as one of 60 suicides that may have been linked to benefit changes. But the O’Sullivan family are still waiting for answers.
His daughter, Anne-Marie O’ Sullivan, has spoken to the Guardian about the events that led up to his death and called for WCAs to be halted.
“Even two years on, the pain we feel is still immeasurable,” she said. “That void will remain with us always.” The significance of the coroner’s finding was, she said, “traumatic and heart-wrenching” for her and her family.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A protest against work capability assessments in 2013. Photograph: Peter Marshall/Demotix/Corbis
Her father had suffered from low self-esteem, anxiety and depression all his life, she said, but he managed to work. “He was very practical,” said Anne-Marie. “On building sites, they’d say Micky O’ Sullivan would always find a solution.
“Depression had always been a part of him. We grew up with it as children. He was always very nervous and shy, socially awkward. But he was tall, dark and handsome and he was very kind. He would do lots of decorating and gardening jobs for my older brother, Declan, and I.”
But in 2000 his mental health problems grew worse and he had to stop work and moved on to sickness benefit. He remained very much a part of the family.
Anne-Marie, who was very close to her father, noticed a big downturn in his mood from August 2012, around the time he was first ruled fit for work after a work capability assessment. O’Sullivan’s incapacity benefit was stopped, he was put on jobseeker’s allowance, told to attend Kentish Town job centre, to write his CV and send it out to employers. After the assessment, O’Sullivan became anxious about the future.
“If you look at builders now, they are strong, young lads. You don’t see many builders at the age of 60,” Anne-Marie said.
“He was afraid his house would be taken away. He would say: ‘I won’t survive on the streets.’ My brother and I would never let it get to that. We loved him very much, we would do anything we needed to do to care for him. But he was very independent.”
In November 2012, he agreed to go on a training programme to get his CSCS, a certificate that is now necessary to work on a building site.
“Dad was sent to a college in Tottenham. There were 60 or 70 kids in his group, all young. He said they mocked him and called him names. That’s just how young kids are, but for someone like dad, who had really low self-esteem, he was in a terrible state about it. Being around young ones, he was out of his depth. He had real fears he wouldn’t find work at the end of the placement.”
After a week of the course, O’ Sullivan tried to kill himself, Anne-Marie said.
After the failed attempt, O’Sullivan’s GP signed him off work for six months, and he was given a place on a mental health treatment programme, which included cognitive behavioural therapy. Tragically, delays meant the first appointment came in October 2012, two days after his funeral.
O’Sullivan appealed against the WCA decision that found him fit for work, but he was called to a second WCA assessment a few months later, in March 2013.
Anne-Marie said her father became increasingly low after his second assessment. O’Sullivan mentioned his thoughts of suicide on his Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) form, and that should have prompted a call for further medical evidence, but his assessor did not ask him about it. A psychiatrist had diagnosed him with recurrent depression and a panic disorder associated with agoraphobia, and a clinical psychologist had assessed him as anxious and depressed. Though O’ Sullivan had a GP note signing him off work for six months following his suicide attempt, he was not asked for it.
Nevertheless, his incapacity benefit was taken away, at which point he was put on jobseeker’s allowance and once again told to find work.
“Imagine sending your CV off, countless times and getting no response. It added to that worthless feeling,” said Anne-Marie. “He was mindful that he had received the support of the benefits for 12 years. He was grateful. But he’d say, ‘It can’t go on forever.’”
Anne-Marie and her father used to go out together, to take walks on Hampstead heath, which reminded him of home in southern Ireland, she said. But he stopped going outside and grew increasingly more anxious. He struggled with wanting to work, with a feeling of worthlessness, she said.
“He seemed determined to get back to work,” she said, “but he had been locked away on his own for 10 years. He felt this pressure to leave his safe space.”
Two or three weeks before his death, O’Sullivan lost interest in everything he loved to do, according to his daughter. He never listened to the news and would sit in the cold, afraid to heat his flat.
The night her father died, Anne-Marie found five immaculately pressed shirts, a hard hat and brand new steel-capped work boots behind his bedroom door. He had been preparing to attend a four-week work placement that had been found for him.
She believes the WCA process is unsafe and should be halted, until a “fairer and more transparent” system is found.
At the inquest into her father’s death, the doctor who assessed him admitted he did not ask him whether he had thoughts of suicide, despite the fact that O’ Sullivan had written it on his DWP assessment form.
Anne-Marie said: “Under oath at the inquest, the doctor said he did not ask him if he had any ideas of self-harm.
“This is a doctor who has failed to ask the question, yet he has noted ‘no ideas of self-harm’ on his form in three different places. Not just once. That feels criminal. And yet they made him feel like he was a criminal, like he was a bad person.”
Giving her narrative verdict in January 2014, Mary Hassell, the senior coroner at O’Sullivan’s inquest in north London said: “[His] anxiety and depression were long-term problems but the intense anxiety that triggered his suicide was caused by his recent assessment by the [DWP] as being fit for work, and his view of the likely consequences of that.”
In a separate prevention of future deaths report, Hassell added: “I found that the trigger for Mr O’Sullivan’s suicide was his recent assessment by a DWP doctor as being fit for work.
“In my opinion, there is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken.”
In its response to Hassell’s concerns, the DWP claimed that its policy on seeking further evidence when those being assessed mentioned suicide “regrettably was not followed in this case”.
Anne-Marie’s interview comes as it emerged that a UN inquiry is investigating alleged violations of disabled people’s human rights as a result of welfare reforms.
Distraught at the loss of her adored father, she said she had been unable to move on and believed that the DWP should stop WCAs for vulnerable people.
She said: “Despite the DWP admitting to ‘regrettable mistakes’, our understanding is that the WCA system is still unsafe, so why have ministers taken no action, more than two years after dad died?
“These people have to be held accountable. I’d like them to apologise, not to me or my brother but to my mum for what they put her through. I want them to stop this treatment of vulnerable people. It’s brutal treatment. I don’t want another family to lose a loved one the way we have, to go through the suffering we have.
“Dad was one of 60-odd cases where suicide has been linked to benefit changes. That’s way too many lives.
“This assessment process is broken and unsafe and I urge the government to halt the WCA immediately until a more transparent and fairer system can be found.” |
The SoldatenKaffee ("The Soldiers' Cafe") opened its doors in the western Javanese city of Bandung in 2011, named after the popular hangout for soldiers in Germany and occupied Paris during World War II.
Eerier than the gas mask canisters and battle flags bearing swastikas is the more than two years' silence that has followed the café's grand launch.
When the café opened no one voiced offence at the waiters and guests dressed as Nazi soldiers -- the Holocaust is weak on the radar in Indonesia, home to the world's biggest Muslim population, where the Jewish community numbers a mere 20 people.
But a recent report about SoldatenKaffee in the English-language Jakarta Globe newspaper triggered angry responses online and prompted Bandung deputy mayor Ayi Vivananda to summon the owner for a meeting.
"We need to ask him first in detail what his real intentions are. But what is clear is that Bandung city will not allow anyone here inciting racial hatred," he said on Thursday.
The café's creator and owner, Henry Mulyana, said he did not intend to bring back memories of the Holocaust but was not surprised to be branded a "bad guy".
"I don't idolize Hitler, I simply adore the soldiers' paraphernalia," Mulyana, a Christian who likes playing with air rifles, told AFP at the café on Tuesday.
His collection is on display for diners and includes a water canteen, bayonet, goggles and a lantern, most of them bought online.
"The ones with swastikas on them are worth more," he said.
The restaurant had only ever received positive press before the recent exposure in English-language media and receives a regular stream of customers.
"We're living in Indonesia and Indonesians weren't tortured in the Holocaust, so we don't really care," said mining company employee Arya Setya, eating a plate of spaghetti at the cafe with his girlfriend.
But now that news of the cafe's existence has reached a wider audience, it has sparked outrage among Jewish communities in other parts of the world.
"The Simon Wiesenthal Center is reaching out to senior Indonesian diplomats to express on behalf of our 400,000 members and victims of the Nazi Holocaust our outrage and disgust," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, from the Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group, told AFP by email.
"We expect that all appropriate measures will be taken to close down this business celebrating a genocidal ideology that at its core denigrates people of colour and all non-Aryans," he wrote.
Under Indonesian law, anyone who deliberately shows hatred towards others based on race or ethnicity can be jailed for up to five years.
But such vilification usually goes unchecked, with hardline Muslim groups carrying out violent attacks on religious minorities with near impunity in recent years.
Mulyana said that his café has also attracted Western guests, including Germans, with one photographed on its Facebook page wearing a red swastika T-shirt along with several Indonesians in the same clothes.
He revealed he plans to set up an even bigger café on the resort island of Bali, which attracts throngs of foreign tourists each year.
"I'll certainly display Hitler's image, as well as Winston Churchill's, and paraphernalia from American and Japanese soldiers from World War II," he said.
His café could not contrast more deeply with attitudes in Europe, where several countries have criminalized the promotion of Nazi ideology and the denial of the Holocaust.
While Mulyana does not deny the Holocaust happened, he said making the tragedy taboo was hypocritical.
"If we want to speak up about humanity, why don't they stop wars in this world now, like in Afghanistan? War always claims so many lives," he said.
However, when contacted by AFP on Saturday Mulyana said he had decided to close down the café temporarily, refusing to give further details.
Indonesia, where 90 percent of the population of 240 million identify themselves as Muslim, does not recognise Judaism among its six official religions.
The country has no diplomatic relations with Israel and vocally advocates for the state of Palestine, although it has quietly engaged in economic and military ties.
Today just one synagogue exists in the country, in the city of Manado. A century-old synagogue in the city of Surabaya was shut down by extremists protesting against the 2008-9 war in Gaza.
Other Indonesians in Manado are believed to have Jewish roots, some hiding their heritage for safety fears.
A lack of sensitivity towards the Holocaust has also been shown in other parts of Asia.
Thailand's prestigious Chulalongkorn University was forced to apologise on Monday after its students created a mural depicting Hitler among comic book superheroes during graduation celebrations.
And in 2006, an Indian restaurateur outraged the country's small Jewish community by opening "Hitler's Cross". He was forced to change the name days later.
Historian Asvi Warman Adam from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences blames Indonesia's education system and schools for a lack of awareness about the Holocaust and world wars.
"We don't hear a lot of criticism against the Nazis and fascism in Indonesia," Adam said.
"Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf' is banned in many countries, but it's freely distributed here. It's translated into Indonesian and is quite often sold out," he said.
He said the school curriculum was focused on national history and trying to legitimise Indonesia's 32-year Suharto dictatorship, which saw the slaughter of at least 500,000 communists, Chinese and alleged sympathisers.
Islamic hardliners, who are the most vocal when it comes to blasphemy against Islam, are unlikely to make any noise about the cafe, Adam said.
"But if a Jewish-themed cafe opened, they would most likely stage a protest," he said.
AFP/The Local/pvs |
The government's drug advisers are to consider next week whether to ban Spice Gold, a herbal smoking mixture that is as strong as some strains of skunk cannabis, and other "legal highs".
Spice is sold on the internet and in "head shops" as a herbal high and a nicotine-free smoke, and even advertised as an "aromatic potpourri". It comes packaged in small sealed pouches holding 3g (less than an eighth of an ounce).
But the former head of the Forensic Science Service's drugs intelligence unit, Les King, yesterday told a European drugs conference in Lisbon: "Just a few months ago, it was found that a smoking mixture known as Spice was not the innocuous material it purported to be. The claimed constituents, namely various herbs, were a Trojan horse."
He said that the substance's real psychoactive constituents were synthetic additives, such as ones that mimic the effects of some of the more powerful active ingredients in cannabis.
King told the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction conference that the Spice Gold smoking mixture had been imported first from China and had been around since 2006. It mostly contained an unidentified herbal matter, sold at about £15.50 for 3g and produced a "cannabis-like" effect. There was also a more powerful type, Spice Diamond, on the market, and similar substances were sold as Yucatan Fire.
King is to give a presentation next week in London to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, where his colleagues will debate whether to recommend that Spice be banned in Britain.
The move follows a request from the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, to look at the availability and harmfulness of a series of "legal highs" including the herb Salvia divinorum, commonly referred to as magic mint or Mexican sage, which has a naturally occurring psychoactive ingredient. But the advisory council, of which King is a member, will consider Spice first.
The "Trojan horse" properties of Spice were identified only last December by the THC Pharma laboratory in Germany, which is developing medicinal cannabis as synthetic imitations of the plant's active ingredients. Its research led to Germany and Austria banning Spice in January this year. France decided to take the same action in February.
The first batches of Spice were seized in 2006 in Sweden and Jersey, but analysis failed to find any banned substances within them. Early last year the European monitoring centre's early warning system, which links police, customs officials and drug specialists around the EU, identified a dozen online distributors – half based in Britain and a third in the Netherlands – who were promoting Spice.
King, in a paper entitled New Drugs Coming Our Way delivered to the monitoring centre's conference, said that many "designer drugs" had been discovered across the EU since the early 1990s. These were psychotropic substances related to amphetamine and MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, and were predominantly stimulants or hallucinogens. As some of the drugs were banned in some EU states but not others, new law enforcement problems arose until a European-wide "joint action" on new synthetic drugs was developed in 1997 and expanded in 2005.
"The term 'new' referred to 'newly misused' as in almost all cases the substances had been first synthesised many years ago, often as potential therapeutic agents," said King. "Since 1997, over 80 substances have been reported via the early warning system."
He added that in the past few years a much more diverse range of substances had appeared, many of them MDMA-like, or stimulants, or, less commonly, hallucinogens. They included plant products such as Hawaiian Baby Woodrose, Kava and Kratom, unusual stimulants, ecstasy-style drugs such as BZP, which is now banned in four EU countries, and misused medicinal products. They even included Fluorotropacocaine, the first designer drug based on cocaine.
King, who is the UK correspondent for the EU's early warning system for new drugs, predicted that synthetic drugs would continue to dominate the "legal highs" market and that herbal products would remain relatively uncommon. He suggested the emergence of these novel substances raised questions about how well placed the European authorities were to detect them. "Event the best-equipped laboratories in the EU can struggle to identify new substances, particularly if, as so often happens, neither pure reference materials nor analytical data are available. We must ask whether we are forever doomed to be reactive. Can new substances be anticipated?"
He told delegates the answer to his question was that it should be possible to anticipate new substances given a knowledge of the literature and the use of rules.
• This article was amended on Thursday 17 September 2009. We said that 3g was less than an ounce. 3g is in fact less than an eighth of an ounce. This has been corrected. |
The Stockport bike shop above which Shane Sutton used to live rent-free has sold thousands of pounds’ worth of official team kit and equipment online
It is an unassuming little bike shop in an anonymous Greater Manchester suburb. But Will’s Wheels in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, has found itself caught up in British Cycling’s investigation into how so much team kit ended up for sale on the open market during Shane Sutton’s controversial tenure.
UK Sport asks British Cycling to investigate claims equipment was sold online Read more
For 13 years Will’s Wheels has been selling more than 2,200 pieces of genuine British Cycling team kit on its eBay page: 2XL bib shorts to accommodate thighs as big as Sir Chris Hoy’s (£49.95), tiny jerseys to fit Laura Trott and the women’s team pursuiters (£44.95), super-tight skinsuits (£54.95), winter jackets (£37.50), rain jackets (£65), caps (£10) and socks (three pairs for £12.95). On other corners of the internet it has also been selling former British Cycling track bikes and parts.
During much of this time Sutton, the now former technical director of British Cycling, lived rent-free in the two-bedroom flat above the shop, which is five miles south of the National Cycling Centre. In A Year In Yellow, a documentary about Sir Bradley Wiggins’s path to Tour de France triumph, Sutton was interviewed in the rather shabby flat (scroll to 5min 30sec). In one scene the filmmaker expresses surprise that a man with an OBE would be living in such humble environs. Sutton says he has “never owned” anywhere and puts his honour down to the hard work of others.
Sutton moved out around three years ago after about 10 years as a non-paying tenant, according to Will Wright, the shop owner. Jan van Eijden, a former German national track champion who now trains the Olympic track squad, has moved in instead, also rent-free. “It’s a mate’s thing,” said Wright. “They’re hardly ever here because they’re on the road so much.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shane Sutton filmed in Will’s Wheels during a 2012 documentary about Sir Bradley Wiggins. Photograph: BskyB
On Tuesday night, when Sutton was suspended but had not yet resigned, Will’s Wheels was offering 11 different pieces of unworn British Cycling team kit – an old design - for sale on eBay. On Thursday morning, the day after Sutton’s resignation, the listings had all disappeared. Shortly after the Guardian phoned the shop and noted they had been taken down, they reappeared. Nothing strange about that, said Wright.
“Our listings are only up for a week before the sales are listed to finish. The sales you saw must have been programmed to end.” He has set up the online store so that he has to relist things manually to check they are still in stock, he added. “That’s why they must have reappeared this morning.”
Sutton was Wright’s coach in the 1990s, when he rode for the Welsh national team, and they have remained close friends. “I was expecting to get calls when I heard Shane had stepped down,” said Wright over the phone on Thursday.
Multiple sources within British Cycling had suggested there was something unconventional about the relationship between British Cycling and Will’s Wheels. One current senior British Cycling staff member said the organisation must be able to account for how so much kit ended up being sold on the shop’s eBay site. “We change kit every year and inevitably there will be some kit left over but they need to account for where it has gone. This is government money, so British Cycling should bloody well show where it’s gone. There should be a paper trail. It’s ridiculous.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Will’s Wheels also acts as a reserve repair shop for British Cycling. Photograph: Jon Super for the Guardian
Wright said there was nothing suspicious about his online kit sales. “We’ve been selling genuine British Cycling team kit since about 2003,” he said. “Initially it was stuff we purchased from the GB Stores [the in-house kit caretakers] when they changed sponsors and the old kit was no longer useable. We got quite a sizeable batch 18 months to two years ago in January when there was a jumble sale at British Cycling.” Wright would pick up items for £10-15 a piece, he added. All profits from the eBay sales go to Will’s Wheels, he insisted.
Will’s Wheels also acts as British Cycling’s reserve repair shop, said Wright, which is how he has come to sell “used and damaged track bikes” belonging to the national team. Sometimes he is paid in kit, bikes or components in lieu of cash, he said.
“One of our biggest customers has been British Cycling, on the mechanical side. When there’s an overflow at British Cycling and the mechanics are rushed we do all the bike building for them. I’m quite proud to say that.”
He added: “We invoice British Cycling for the labour and sometimes we get team kit or frames or handlebars in return. Sometimes a broken wheel: stuff we know we can repair.”
Despite his ongoing friendship with Sutton, Wright said he did not deal with him directly regarding these arrangements. “We don’t deal with Shane. He was my coach when I rode for Wales but he’s a little bit higher up in the pecking order: we deal with the guys in the bike store mostly and the mechanics.”
Wright said Sutton did not deserve to lose his job. “He is definitely not a bully. If you ever felt down and you needed someone to pat you on the back and pick you up, it’s him, whatever time of day.”
British Cycling said none of the equipment paid for by UK Sport has “ever been given away or sold on for profit or has even left the National Cycling Centre in Manchester”. UK Sport funds the high-performance skinsuits and bikes created in British Cycling’s Secret Squirrel club originally set up by Chris Boardman.
The Adidas-sponsored team kit and second‑hand Pinarello frames sold by Will’s Wheels are provided free by sponsors, a spokesman said.
He added: “Non-current, unworn kit is also occasionally sold at cycle jumbles – in cases where consent is provided by the commercial partner involved – and the money raised from these sales is then used to further support the Great Britain cycling team. Once sold, we are obviously unable to guarantee what individual buyers will do with the kit they have purchased.
“In addition British Cycling also has a long-standing relationship with an independent bicycle dealership who perform mechanic services for the Great Britain cycling team. They have received payment in kind with equipment which is no longer of use to the team.”
But the spokesman did confirm the Will’s Wheels connection would form part of the organisation’s investigation – ordered by UK Sport on Thursday – into whether team kit and bikes had been sold on, contrary to its own rules. |
It's more than 40 years since a bunch of young protesters broke into a government bunker and published the documents about the state's secret preparations for the possibility of nuclear war they found there. The Spies for Peace, as they called themselves, were cheered on by many in the press and in the peace movement. As they included my late father, I grew up knowing their identities - although none of them broke cover while they were alive. When I wrote about them in the past, I mused on whether they had actually achieved anything. What I concluded was that, although they and other protesters of the 60s never achieved all they had set out to do, they did help to change the culture. The difference, politically, between the pre-60s generation and the post-60s generation was partly a shift from deference to intransigence.
Civil liberties - such as the rights to liberty and assembly and freedom of speech - are ancient rights enshrined in common law as well as modern rights enshrined in international human rights legislation. But if they are not to be eroded by the political class whose desire is always to acquire greater power then people need to remain vigilant. In the 60s, the cultural direction suggested that any attempt by the government to increase its power over the people would automatically be challenged. Many ordinary people decided they were no longer going to bend the knee automatically to the government.
Now we have changed direction. Despite a pervasive air of cynicism about our political masters, there is little challenge to the secretive and authoritarian bent of those who rule us. As Helena Kennedy neatly put it last year: "What we have forgotten is that the state is there courtesy of us and we are not here courtesy of the state." Although sporadic resistance flares up, the rights and liberties of ordinary people are increasingly under threat. There is, most famously, the curtailment of the right to peaceful protest. The government has used powers contained in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 to prevent "unauthorised" demonstrations within a kilometre of parliament. The 1997 Protection From Harassment Act, updated in the 2005 act, has been used in attempts to shut down protests against militarism and climate change.
Powers such as these, or those conferred on the police by the Terrorism Act 2000 to stop and search in a "designated" area even without "reasonable grounds", are generally accepted as the price we must pay for our safety in an increasingly hostile world, even though their use goes way beyond the needs of security. Similarly, the growing powers of the government to hold information about us, including the power to keep a permanent database of the DNA of everyone who has ever been arrested - even if not guilty - are rarely challenged.
It is partly our paranoia about terrorism that has contributed to our lethargic acquiescence in such authoritarian behaviour by the state. There are still definitely limits to this acquiescence. It is cheering to see that new attempts by the government to extend the period of detention without charge from 28 to 42 days have come in for such concerted opposition from other parties and commentators of all political backgrounds.
Yet the reason there is not more forceful opposition to other aspects of the government's authoritarian behaviour is, shamingly, partly down to the fact that many of us do not feel these measures directly affect us and we cannot be bothered to think our way into the minds of those who are most affected. The most powerful arguments for civil liberties are those that remind us that "we" have the right to keep the state in line. But when those most heavily affected do not look like "us", we are less likely to protest. When the poetry and reading habits - however nasty - of a young woman can be used to secure her conviction for possessing materials "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism", then we feel the control of the state tightening. But because Samina Malik is hardly someone that most British people could sympathise with, it is fatally easy for her rights to free expression to be downgraded.
The terror suspects who have experienced the most freakish curtailments of their liberty are people such as Mustapha Taleb, one of the cleared suspects in the ricin trial, whom I met last year when he was living under the most intensely onerous bail conditions. These meant that he could only move around a small designated area and could not use mobile phones or the internet. Taleb has since had to experience continued detention while awaiting the results of secret hearings of secret evidence to which his own lawyer does not have access. If few people have bothered to listen to his frustration with the maze in which he finds himself, I think that's because we are reluctant to extend to alien immigrants - even though he had legal status here as a refugee - the same right to justice we believe is due to us.
The rights to liberty and a fair legal hearing are being routinely denied not just to terror suspects. Our asylum system, so tortuous and Kafkaesque that it defeats trained lawyers, let alone frightened victims of persecution who have just arrived on our shores, condemns many genuine asylum seekers to a paperless limbo or to arbitrary detention. While MPs and journalists debate whether suspected terrorists should be detained for more than 28 days without charge, for instance, a young girl of 13 can be held in Yarl's Wood detention centre for three months.
Meltem Avcil, a Turkish Kurdish girl whom I met during her lengthy incarceration, briefly became a cause celebre among campaigners when she and her mother resisted deportation. An innocent, bright teenager who has been living in this country for six years was held in prison conditions that were a terrifying ordeal for her and her mother. "I wish I had died and never seen that day," she said of the day she was taken into detention.
But she is hardly alone. Immigration detention centres in the UK are stuffed with people whose detention has been arbitrary and prolonged. Many of them have been unable to access competent - or sometimes any - legal representation. This is only set to worsen with the cuts to legal aid now coming into force. Although the government says it only detains children or victims of torture under exceptional circumstances, today I could take you to meet children who have been locked up for weeks, and women who bear the marks of torture on their bodies and in their minds - with no idea when they will be released or deported - sitting in fear in these detention centres. Such people are silenced. They are pushed to the margins of all our debates, and when we talk about "our" civil liberties and our human rights these people, who are not "us", hardly seem to figure.
Once upon a time people protested vehemently that the government should not act secretly and repressively against its own people. It is vital to continue that tradition, but it is just as vital to state clearly that our government should not act secretly and repressively against any individual in this country. Civil liberties must be for everyone, or we will find one day that they are for nobody.
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Andre Santos is set to join forces with Robert Pires in the Indian Super League after the Brazilian left-back signed for the Frenchman’s new side, FC Goa.
Santos, 31, left the Emirates on a permanent basis in 2013 after a roller coaster couple of years that saw him better remembered for a speeding fine than anything approaching consistent defending.
Signed as part of the fabled post-United 8-2 hammering spending spree of August deadline day 2011, he was initially viewed as a popular figure with his rotundity making him just a bit too cuddly to dislike and because he scored in the 5-3 win against Chelsea.
After an ill-advised half time shirt swap with Old Trafford’s Dutch Skunk the terrace good favour seemed to desert the samba star as quickly as his form and a lengthy spell on the sidelines preceded a loan move to Gremio. The return home appeared to do Santos some good, he even won back a place in the Brazilian national team, only for a decisive penalty miss in the Campeanato Gaucho Cup semi-final to further knock his confidence.
In July last year Santos earned a permanent move to Flamengo on a two-year contract, but again it didn’t go well. Left in hospital after an attack by his own fans following a poor performance in a 4-0 defeat to Internacional he had his contract terminated in August by mutual consent and has since been a free agent.
It’s not known if ‘swoontastic’ Pires recommended Santos to his new club – managed by Zico – although the 40-year-old ‘Invincible’ did train with the player during regular returns to London Colney.
It’ll be interesting to see how the pair get on together ahead of FC Goa’s first ever competitive fixture; they play Mikael Silvestre’s Chennaiyin FC at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Fatorda, Margao, on 15 October. Arseblog News will be keeping its fingers crossed for a tweet of ‘verry good win gays’ proportions.
Ex-Gunners Freddie Ljungberg and Nicolas Anelka, both signed by Mumbai City, are also preparing for the new season as are the likes of Luis Garcia (Atletico de Kolkata), Alessandro Del Piero (Delhi Dynamos), David Trezeguet (FC Pune City) and David James (Kerala Blasters). |
User:Diikiw/Wiikid, formerly Wikiid, is an article that was created on the web site Wikipedia in 2008. It is notable in its attempt to become the first Wikipedia page to gain notoriety solely for the fact that it was a page on Wikipedia; this was intended to spark a debate as to whether or not Wikipedia could be considered a source notable enough to allow a page’s permanent entry on the site. It can be looked at both as metahumor and as a piece of postmodern art.
History [ edit ]
Wikiid was created on April 7, 2008. It included no external links to any web site beyond Wikipedia; its creator - who put up the page under a pseudonym - said that this was to prevent any suspicions of the page’s being a promotion or advertisement of any kind.[1]
Wikiid was created partly as a lighthearted challenge to Wikipedia’s notability requirements. However, its creator also stated that he wished the page to stand on its own merits as a Wikipedia article, both well-written and notable in its own right. [2]
Notability [ edit ]
Upon creation, the article anticipated a debate over its relevance as an actual article, and offered several claims as to its relevance. First, it stated that as an article, it was entirely factual: because it was, in effect, an article about itself, any statements it made were verifiable by the page itself.
More importantly for Wikipedia's article requirements, Wikiid claimed that it was both a unique, and therefore notable, event in Wikipedia's history, as well as an important one: it marked the first time that an article on Wikipedia managed to create original content while at the same time following Wikipedia's requirements that every article must be factual and cite its sources.
Wikiid's creator also made a defense as to the article's artistic merit: it was the only piece of work ever created that managed to be perfectly compliant in every way to Wikipedia's requirements, while simultaneously being a commentary on the nature of Wikipedia (and, therefore, on the nature of user-generated content online). Its creator stated that its many joking citations to itself, rather than being sloppy editorial work, were attempts to make Wikiid as involved a piece of work as possible, using all of Wikipedia's various features to create an original piece of work.[3]
The article's original claims as to its notability ended with the reminder that far from being a publicity stunt, the article went out of its way to avoid promoting its creator, and therefore was more believably an attempt at pure art.
Deletion [ edit ]
Upon its creation, Wikiid was nominated for speedy deletion. It was removed entirely shortly after. At the request of the author, it was reinstated
Content [ edit ]
The page was originally created in two drafts: one containing the bulk of the page, and a second draft adding a link to the page's first draft. The original intent was to upload an image of the article itself as a screenshot, but the newly-created site account was unable to upload images.
Structure [ edit ]
Wikiid in its original state was split largely into two subsections: the History subsection, which detailed both the history of the article itself and the intentions of the author in creating the page, and Content, which discussed the particular details put into the page. The entire article was written in the third person, to conform to Wikipedia’s standards, and with attempts made to keep a neutral point of view. For instance, the article at no point attempts to make a definitive claim that it is a notable subject: it merely provides a rationale as to why it might be considered one.
Metahumor [ edit ]
A great deal of Wikiid involves metahumor on the part of the article itself: this includes making references to other parts of the article as valid citations,[4] linking several times to the article in various states, and commenting on its own existence, albeit in a neutral, factual manner.
Easter Eggs [ edit ]
Upon creation, Wikiid included several easter eggs meant to be preserved in the first draft of the page alone: these easter eggs were then erased upon the creation of the page’s second draft. In the first draft, the phrase “second draft” was replaced in all instances with a set of stars (****** *****) to keep the page from seeming infactual. Rather than having a link to the first draft at the bottom of the page, Wikiid contained the following message: “This link wiollen haven been permanently in existence within minutes.” This is a reference to a joke from The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, a novel by Douglas Adams.
When it was reinstated as User:Diikiw/Wikiid, the article was posted in its second draft. The third draft, posted November 12, 2008, commented on these losses and noted that such loss is common in art (possibly tongue-in-cheek).
Citations [ edit ]
In another example of metahumor, the article made several claims that used itself as a citation point.[5] This is both another poke at Wikipedia’s strict policy regarding citing sources and an attempt, as performance art, to create a sort of art that could not be easily mimicked in another medium.
Wikiid’s See Also subsection included, among other topics, a link to itself as an article. Similarly, the only link it provided was the link to its original display on the site.
See Also [ edit ]
User:Diikiw/Wikiid
Wikiid - currently defunct
Metahumor
Postmodernism |
~Trusted and used by Special Operations
The Rainier Arms MARS (Magazine Advanced Release System) for Glock, designed by Battleline Industries, is a drop in release which is compatible with all GEN 4 Glock pistols in calibers 9mm, 40 S&W, and .357 SIG. The MARS is made of 6061-T6 aircraft grade aluminum, with a Type III Class 2 MIL-SPEC hard coat anodizing finish and stainless steel hardware for maximum corrosion resistance and durability. The MARS control surfaces are slightly extended and feature an aggressive texture for a faster reload and positive control.
The MARS is COMPLETELY ambidextrous, giving both left and right hand shooters as well as competitors, a tactical advantage with the ability to release the magazine using the index finger from either side. The MARS is a force multiplier in a combative situation, enabling the left and right hand shooter better options to manipulate magazine changes with speed and efficiency without disturbing the proper firing grip and allowing for more accurate follow up shots.
Specs:
Material: 6061-T6 Aircraft grade aluminum & Delrin
Screw: 17-4 heat treated stainless steel
Spring: Flat Wire 302 Stainless Steel
Finish: Type III Class 2 MIL-A-8625 Hard coat anodizing |
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Income inequality in America is has spiked in the past three decades, and has only worsened since the recession. But that’s not the only factor contributing to the deepening divide between the rich and poor. Recent research has shown that Americans enjoy less social mobility than people in other industrialized countries—in other words, American kids are less likely than foreign kids to grow up to make more money than their parents. A new study by a team of economists at Harvard and University of California–Berkeley provides the most detailed look yet at patterns of upward mobility in the US, shedding light on why it’s not so easy to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in the US of A.
The study’s findings, which were first reported in the New York Times on Monday, are based on millions of earnings records. Researchers found that children born into the poorest 20 percent of households are least likely to end up in the top 20 percent of income earners (more than $70,000 by age 30) in the Southeast and the industrial Midwest. Upward mobility is particularly lacking in Memphis, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Columbus. Poor children are most likely to be able to work their way to an upper-income life in the Northeast, Great Plains and the West, including in cites such as New York, Boston, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and Seattle. Here’s what that looks like, via the Times:
The researchers were surprised that what most contributed to social mobility wasn’t heftier tax breaks for the poor or a stronger safety net. The difference between high-mobility and low-mobility communities has more to do with early education, family structure, and the physical geography of metropolitan areas. The Times explains:
The researchers concluded that larger tax credits for the poor and higher taxes on the affluent seemed to improve income mobility only slightly. The economists also found only modest or no correlation between mobility and the number of local colleges and their tuition rates or between mobility and the amount of extreme wealth in a region. But the researchers identified four broad factors that appeared to affect income mobility, including the size and dispersion of the local middle class. All else being equal, upward mobility tended to be higher in metropolitan areas where poor families were more dispersed among mixed-income neighborhoods. Income mobility was also higher in areas with more two-parent households, better elementary schools and high schools, and more civic engagement, including membership in religious and community groups. Regions with larger black populations had lower upward-mobility rates. But the researchers’ analysis suggested that this was not primarily because of their race. Both white and black residents of Atlanta have low upward mobility, for instance.
…
The comparison of metropolitan areas allows researchers to consider local factors that previous mobility studies could not—including a region’s geography. And in Atlanta, the most common lament seems to be precisely that concentrated poverty, extensive traffic and a weak public-transit system make it difficult to get to the job opportunities. “When poor communities are segregated,” said Cindia Cameron, an organizer for 9 to 5, a women’s rights group, “everything about life is harder.”
Although location has a lot to do with whether poor kids in Indianapolis or Montgomery will be able to live better than their parents, for rich kids, geography doesn’t really matter. The study found that the chance rich kids will grow up to be rich is pretty much the same across metropolitan areas around the country. Of kids who grew up one-percenters, for example, one out of three will be making at least $100,000 by the time they turn 30. |
HGTV decided to flip the switch. The cable network announced Wednesday, May 7, that it has canceled upcoming reality show, Flip It Forward, after an extensive online report revealed the controversial views of its stars, twin brothers David and Jason Benham.
PHOTOS: Biggest talk show controversies ever
"HGTV has decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers' series," the network tweeted. Their decision comes after a controversial, in-depth report on one of the hosts was published on Tuesday, May 6, by Right Wing Watch. The website detailed the anti-gay and anti-choice viewpoints of David, who along with his brother are the sons of right-wing activist Flip Benham. (As MSNBC points out, Flip is the director of Operation Save America, which arranges abortion clinic protests).
PHOTOS: Reality TV's breakout stars
The report, titled "HGTV Picks Anti-Gay, Anti-Choice Extremist For New Reality TV Show," revealed David protested outside of an abortion clinic last year. A year before that, the father of five protested outside of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. In a radio interview with conservative host Janet Mefferd, David said his DNC protest had a missive to stop "homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation."
PHOTOS: Celebrity LGBT allies
The Benham brothers, both former pro-baseball players, have turned a hobby of flipping houses for profit into a thriving business in the last decade. On their new show, the siblings would help a family buy a home and "transform it into their forever home—with a healthy dose of sibling rivalry between the brothers along the way," HGTV said in April.
Disappointed, the Benham brothers issued a statement Thursday, May 8, and said they were "saddened" by the network's decision to cancel Flip It Forward. "With all of the grotesque things that can be seen and heard on television today you would think there would be room for two twin brothers who are faithful to our families, committed to biblical principles, and dedicated professionals," read the statement, via USA Today. "If our faith costs us a television show, then so be it."
PHOTOS: Duck Dynasty in their pre-beard days
The brothers added: "The first and last thought on our minds as we begin and end each day is: have we shined Christ's light today? Our faith is the fundamental calling in our lives, and the centerpiece of who we are. As Christians we are called to love our fellow man. Anyone who suggests that we hate homosexuals or people of other faiths is either misinformed or lying. Over the last decade, we've sold thousands of homes with the guiding principle of producing value and breathing life into each family that has crossed our path, and we do not, nor will we ever discriminate against people who do not share our views."
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“You can’t save Medicare by raising taxes,” says Ezra Klein:
The problem with health-care costs is that they rise faster than wages, GDP or most anything else. That’s why balancing Medicare and Medicaid’s books through straight cost-shifting, as Ryan does, entails such savage cuts in care, and why balancing their books through straight tax increases, as Egan suggests, would be such a disaster. You wouldn’t just need to raise taxes. You’d need to raise them again and again and again, because every tax increase would soon be outpaced by Medicare’s growth.
This is true. You can, if you want, save Social Security by raising taxes. That’s because the cost of Social Security is projected to rise for a couple of decades and then plateau at 6% of GDP forever, so one option for saving it is to simply raise payroll taxes to 6% of GDP. Problem solved. You can also save discretionary programs by raising taxes. That’s because discretionary spending has been pretty flat for decades, is projected to remain pretty flat in the decades to come, and can be funded by simply raising enough money to cover that cost. You might not want to do it this way, but it could be done.
But Medicare is different. Its cost trajectory is so steep that it’s impossible to keep raising taxes forever to cover it. At some point, you have to take serious steps to level out those costs. That level will certainly be higher than it is today, since in the future there will be more elderly people to take care of, but it can’t be too much higher.
So how do we rein in that cost growth? Paul Ryan says: don’t bother. Just refuse to pay those rising bills and tell the elderly they’re on their own. It’s up to them to buy insurance, and if it’s too expensive because the Ryancare voucher is too small, that’s tough. See you on the other side.
That’s really not a serious solution. We need something instead that genuinely has an effect on healthcare costs. Something that reduces the amount we pay doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies. Something that provides incentives for difficult end-of-life decisions. Something that makes credible tradeoffs between the cost of new treatments and the likely benefits. And something that gives taxpayers and patients alike a reason to care about all this.
There are both liberal and conservative ideas that can help us with this. Unfortunately, we’re not quite grown up enough yet to really start talking about them. Maybe someday. |
Apple revealed the iPhone 5 yesterday and I was saddened to see that everything we saw was leaked out prior to the event and there was nothing surprising or magical revealed by Apple. Of course Apple will sell millions of iPhone 5 devices in the first week and it will be a success with current iPhone 4 owners purchasing the device. However, for the first time in my history I will not be buying the new iPhone and think Microsoft, Nokia, and HTC have a real opportunity to gain market share by revealing more details of Windows Phone 8.
A couple weeks ago Samsung simply showed the hardware of the ATIV S without ever showing the device turned on. The next week Nokia showed off the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 while showing select pieces of Windows Phone 8. HTC has an event in New York on 19 September and sent invites to Windows Phone and Android site editors so the speculation is we will see more about Windows Phone 8. HTC may be able to show a few more details than Nokia, but it sounds like there is more work to be done by Microsoft and we may not see all the details of Windows Phone 8 until the Build event at the end of October. We cannot say Windows Phone 8 is late since they have not yet revealed any firm timeline for release. I admit I was disappointed the Nokia wasn't able to show more about Windows Phone 8 last week, but it may pay off now that Apple played their hand and didn't show much.
Given the incremental and expected updates in the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, the innovations we have seen from Nokia and Microsoft in Windows Phone 8 may be compelling enough to generate the excitement and sales that Microsoft and its OEMs need to gain significant market share in the mobile space. I know I am MUCH more excited about Windows Phone 8 than I am about iOS 6 and the iPhone 5. I will be buying a Nokia Lumia 920 with the advanced display technology, enhanced camera, wireless charging functionality, and more.
The iPhone 5 increases the screen size by making the iPhone longer, but they also made it thinner and lighter. I personally like a phone with some "heft" to it and doubt I would like a lighter iPhone 4 since that weight seems just about right. The use of nanoSIM isn't helpful for enthusiasts like me that swap phones a lot as adapters just cannot be relied upon to work in all devices. Apple had an opportunity to present NFC to the world and make it useful, but now that ball is in Microsoft's court to make their Wallet hub a serious contender in the mobile payment and financial management space. I was going to buy an iPhone 5 if Apple had revealed something "magical and unique" and am disappointed nothing new was revealed yesterday. What are your plans for the fall?
Related ZDNet content |
Oakland Tribune crime reporter David DeBolt still remembers when his paper got the call from the Oakland Police Department. They wanted local reporters like him to come to police headquarters to watch police body camera footage of two recent officer-involved shootings.
“It sort of set a precedent. There hasn’t been a department in the Bay Area that’s released body camera footage. I mean, these devices are rather new,” DeBolt says.
Oakland police have had body cameras since 2010, but the agency still hasn’t worked out a policy for what to show the public. The reason they called DeBolt in this time was that they had misinformation to correct. There were rumors that Nate Wilks, who had been shot and killed by police, was shot in the back.
Police said that wasn’t true. Then there was the case of Richard Linyard, who died while wedged between two buildings.
“There were questions about force, about whether police had done anything that caused his death,” DeBolt explains.
Police eventually released these videos to the public, but at the time, they were still private. So DeBolt gathered with about 10 other local reporters in the Oakland Police Department headquarters to watch the videos.
The death of Nate Wilks
DeBolt remembers that the first video showed Nate Wilks, running, and the police officers yelling, “Drop the gun, drop the gun.” It’s a hazy, chaotic scene.
“If you can imagine holding a camera on your shoulder and running, it's very choppy footage,” says DeBolt. “The camera kind of bobbed up and down and up and down, and these three officers were running. It was a foot chase.”
So that the reporters could get a clearer view, the police lieutenant slowed down the crucial moment: the moment where the officers shot Wilks. Then he stopped the video and zoomed in on the image of Wilks holding something.
“I have not held it in my hand and examined it, but it appears to be a gun,” DeBolt says.
The death of Richard Linyard
Then, DeBolt says, they moved on to footage of Richard Linyard. In the footage, he’s on the run. He hops a fence, and then he’s gone.
“They stop the chase, and they start the search,” DeBolt remembers.
Then the camera stops rolling for about 20 minutes. When the camera comes back on, it shows police performing CPR on Linyard’s lifeless body. Some, including Linyard’s mother, still believe he was murdered by police during those 20 missing minutes. DeBolt says he couldn’t determine that.
“It’s not my job to determine if a shooting is justified or not,” he says. “I just lay out the facts.”
Better behavior?
Beyond these two cases, there’s the bigger question of why these two videos are the only ones police have released. Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent says he doesn’t want to release footage that can jeopardize an investigation, but he wants to keep the public safe.
“I have a desire to prevent a riot from occurring,” he says. “If correcting misinformation does help in that regard, then we have to consider it. I don’t believe we’ve worked this out entirely. I don’t believe across the state there’s any kind of uniformity at all.”
Whent says the biggest impact of the cameras has been how officers and citizens react, just knowing they’re being watched. The cameras, resting on the officers’ shoulders, are neon green, and they glow. Over the last four years, the department has seen a 70% reduction of use of force.
“I wouldn’t credit it all to the body-worn camera, but I think the body camera has a civilizing effect on both ends,” says Whent. “I think the officers behave better, and the people they’re dealing with behave better.”
“I can’t breathe”
But when something does go wrong, Oakland’s body cameras don’t always tell the whole story. Take, for example, the footage released earlier this year that showed the officer-involved death of Hernan Jaramillo outside his East Oakland home. In the video, Jaramillo is on the sidewalk outside his house. Officers are holding him to the ground and telling him to calm down. In the video, you can hear him plead for his sister, Ana Biocini, to help, while officers reassure him he’s not in danger.
Biocini remembers that night. She says she heard loud sounds from her brother’s room, so she called the cops. They mistook Jaramillo for an intruder. Officers say he resisted when they tried to detain him. But Biocini and her family say the cops should have called for medical help sooner.
“The video is life,” Biocini says. “It tells exactly what happened. It shows you the truth about that night.”
Grey shadows and a lack of certainty
That footage wasn’t released to the public until Biocini and her family settled a wrongful-death lawsuit for $450,000. After her family in Colombia saw the footage, they decided to reverse the settlement. Now they think they’ve got a shot in court. To them, the proof is in her brother’s screams for help. But that’s also part of the trouble; the screams might be loud and clear, but the images, Biocini admits, are dark and blurry.
“In the video you cannot see very much,” Biocini says. “You can see dark shadows, grey shadows.”
John Burris is Biocini’s attorney. He says the footage alone isn’t enough to prove the officers’ actions caused her brother’s death. The city claims Jaramillo died as a result of cocaine in his system, and the video footage doesn’t rule this possibility out. Burris’s view is that the officers prevented Jaramillo from breathing, and the footage doesn’t rule that out either.
“At the end of the day, you have to fill it in,” Burris says.
Still, he says that without the footage, people would have to rely mostly on the police officer’s version of events. Body cameras are like an extra witness.
“The police have a tremendous media machine that is designed to present the police in a positive light at all times, regardless of what they’ve done,” says Burris. “The video camera is one mechanism to undercut that.”
The media machine and the code of silence
Officer Albie Esparza works for what Burris calls the media machine. He’s the San Francisco Police Department’s Public Information Officer, and he knows firsthand how body cameras, and cell phone footage, have changed policing in San Francisco and nationwide.
“In the past, people thought there was a thin, blue code of silence,” Esparza says. “That doesn’t exist anymore.”
The most recent shooting to come to light is the death of Mario Woods, who was shot by police in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood last year.
Since then, there’s been widespread protest, as well as investigations from the U.S. Department of Justice. But recently the San Francisco city attorney ruled that the police who shot and killed Mario Woods acted lawfully to protect themselves and bystanders from a man who was armed with a knife. Esparza says he understands how that could make people angry.
“No one wants to see someone shot and killed, regardless of the circumstances,” Esparza says. “It’s an upsetting video.”
Since the shooting, activists have called for the resignation of San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr.
Transparency vs. privacy
The lingering question of what images the public should and shouldn’t see is one of the reasons it’s taken the San Francisco Police Department so long to come up with a body camera policy.
“Police officers conduct investigations, sexual assault investigations, domestic violence situations. We go into people's homes,” Esparza says. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘What's our policy, what do we release, what can we release?’”
In December, the San Francisco Police Commission voted to restrict officers from seeing footage after a critical incident, like an officer-involved shooting. Police watchdogs are worried that if officers see the footage, their memories will be tainted, or they’ll change their version of events. Officers are worried that without watching the footage, they’ll get the story wrong.
“If officers were not allowed to view what they experienced in the incident, they’re basically writing a report blind, if you will, just by memory,” Esparza says. “Sometimes you might leave out critical information or critical details.”
And, Esparza says, that could put officers in a position of appearing dishonest when their memory fails them, or their vision proves inadequate compared to the view of a body camera. That’s not the impact Esparza wants.
The future of body cameras
“As technology gets more advanced, I can see smaller cameras on officers that capture everything. With more officers on the scene it would capture different angles,” Esparza says. “Hopefully it does answer lots of questions and does provide community with some kind of increased confidence in their police department.”
Last month, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr announced that he plans to have all his patrol officers equipped with body cameras by the end of the year. |
Revealed: 'Voter from Devon' featured in Ukip's new election manifesto is actually the party's events manager
Lizzy Vaid poses as a voter from Devon but works for Ukip in London
Farage says the fact she is ‘half-Indian and works for us’ is a non-issue
Also challenged about whether his German wife has cost a Brit a job
Row over manifesto emerged as Ukip launches new campaign
Millionaire ex-Tory donor Paul Sykes is funding new controversial adverts
They claim 'British workers are hit hard by unlimited foreign labour'
Critics compared language those by the far-right British National Party
Voters will got to the polls to elect MEPs on May 22, with Ukip tipped to win
Nigel Farage was today forced to deny Ukip’s new election campaign is racist, as it emerged a woman posing as a voter in the party’s manifesto works for him.
Lizzy Vaid appears in a full-page photograph as a voter from Devon, but is actually Ukip’s events manager and an assistant to the party leader.
Mr Farage claimed the fact that Miss Vaid is ‘half-Indian and works for us’ is a non-issue, as the party became embroiled in a row about a series of provocative anti-immigration posters.
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Lizzy Vaid appears as a voter from Devon in the new Ukip manifesto, but actually works for the party and is an assistant to leader Nigel Farage Miss Vaid has previously defended her party against claims of racism Mr Farage appears in the manifesto, boasting that his party is being honest Mr Farage launched Ukip’s campaign for the European Parliament elections on May 22 in Sheffield today.
It includes a controversial £1.5million poster campaign which urges voters: ‘Take back control of our country.’
The 2014 Ukip manifesto – titled ‘Create an earthquake’ – declares: ‘We want our country back. Don’t you?’
It features a full-page picture of Miss Vaid, with a large quote stating: ‘I’ll be voting Ukip because they’re the only party listening to what people want.’
However, she works in London and on her Twitter account she describes herself as ‘UKIP Events Manager and Assistant to Nigel Farage, as well as a lover of social occasions’.
It also emerged that Miss Vaid appeared on another leaflet earlier this year aimed at voters in the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election.
Embarrassingly, only last week she tweeted a link to a story about Labour ‘distributing false leaflets about Ukip’.
Controversial: Ukip's new posters are being funded by £1.5m of funding from millionaire ex-Tory donor Paul Skyes to launch its biggest ever publicity drive ahead of the European Parliament elections in May
Adverts: Under the slogan 'take back control of our country', the party complain that 75 per cent of British laws are made in Brussels and that UK taxpayers fund the 'celebrity lifestyle' of EU bureaucrats Mr Farage faced difficult questions about the apparent attempt to use a member of Ukip staff to pose as a voter. ‘I don’t think you’d ask this question of the Labour party, the Lib Dems or the Conservatives who often have group pictures,’ he told Sky News. ‘You know, the leader with 25 people standing behind them. And you never ask to see the CV of any of those.’ He went on: ‘The fact that Lizzie Laid is half-Indian and works for us is as far as we are concerned a non-issue. ‘She is somebody in our promotional material who is going to vote Ukip. She joined Ukip, she got a job with Ukip because she believes in what we stand for. What on earth is wrong with that?’
'IS YOUR GERMAN WIFE TAKING SOMEONE'S JOB?' BBC MAN ASKS FARAGE
Ukip leader Nigel Farage was put on the spot today about whether his German wife had taken a job which could have gone to a Brit. BBC political editor Nick Robinson challenged him to explain why he employed Kirsten as a secretary on a taxpayer-funded salary from Brussels. Mr Farage insisted that 'nobody else could do that job', which included checking emails for him at midnight. ‘She came here as a highly skilled person earning a high salary paying a very large amount of tax,’ the UKIP leader insisted. ‘I don’t think anybody else would want to be in my house at midnight going through emails and getting me briefed for the next day. It’s a very different situation to a mass of hundreds of thousands of people coming in and flooding the lower end of the labour market.’ Asked whether a British person could take the position as his secretary, Mr Farage insisted: ‘Nobody else could do that job, not unless they were married to me.’ Mr Farage said his wife earned a ‘very modest’ wage and worked ‘extremely unsociable hours’ for ‘up to’ seven days a week.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage contrasted the dinner at Chequers with his own trip to Sheffield today to launch his controversial posters
Mr Farage told MailOnline voters on May 22 could deliver a 'severe shock and maybe even a political earthquake'
CAMERON INVITES VAN ROMPUY FOR DINNER AND A SLEEPOVER
David Cameron is hosting arch-Eurocrat Herman Van Rompuy for dinner at Chequers tonight, just weeks before crucial European elections. The Tory leader will dine with the President of the European Council, who is also due to stay the night at the Prime Minister’s official rural retreat. Nigel Farage said the timing of Mr Cameron’s intimate meal with the Brussels bureaucrat ‘could not be better’ as Ukip prepared to unveil a £1.5million poster campaign attacking immigration from the EU. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'This is one of a number of meetings that President Van Rompuy is having with heads of government around Europe. 'It is an opporunity to talk around the future direction of the next European Commission and EU reform priorities. 'Also I am sure they will discuss the latest on the situation in Ukraine. It is a working dinner.' The spokesman confirmed Mr Van Rompuy would also be staying the night: 'If someone is coming for dinner in the evening, it is polite to ask them to stay the night.' However, he refused to be drawn on whether he would be served a continental breakfast tomorrow morning.
Asked why Miss Vaid is not described as a Ukip staff member in the manifesto, Mr Farage replied: ‘I don’t see the need. You’re going down this media route, do you want us to say the religion of all our candidates?
‘Or do you want us to say we are living in the United Kingdom, wherever we come from, whatever religion we are, we are part of this country and we are all in this together. You seem to be wanting to segment people out.
‘I can't really win with you, can I? On the one hand you're saying that we are talking about a white working class in Britain, and secondly, when I tell you that working directly for me is a girl who is half-Indian, you've got a problem with that too? Just make your mind up. I don't mind being criticised, but do make your mind up what the criticism is...’
The interview with Sky News presenter Kay Burley divided opinion, with many viewers complain that it had been unfair on Mr Farage.
Mr Farage also denied the new poster campaign is racist. The party has paid for billboards across the country to be emblazoned with messages such as: ‘26million people in Europe are looking for work. And whose jobs are they after?’
Another has a picture of a construction worker begging on the street, with the slogan: ‘EU policy at work. British workers are hit hard by unlimited cheap labour.’
‘It is the job of the British government firstly to defend the realm, and secondly to put the interests of the people that live in this country first.
‘That's what we should be doing, and I'm afraid we've turned our backs on that over the course of the last few years which has led to much, much unhappiness among millions of families.’
He told ITV News: ‘The Westminster political elite have opened up our borders to levels of immigration Britain's never seen and they decry anybody that wants to talk about it as racist.
‘They've done it for years. They've tried to sweep this whole issue under the carpet and we're talking about it openly and honestly.’
All the posters call on voters to ‘Take Back Control of Our Country’ by backing Ukip in the European elections.
Tory MP Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, wrote on Twitter: ‘At a time when our country really needs to come together, the Ukip advertising campaign is deeply divisive, offensive and ignorant.’
Labour frontbencher Jon Ashworth said: ‘UKIP would have us believe they stand for working people but the truth is very different - they're even more right wing than the Tories.
‘A vote for UKIP is a vote for higher taxes for working families, charges to see your GP, huge tax giveaways for the rich and even deeper cuts to public services. Only Labour can make Britain better off.’ |
I also feel sorry for myself, not just little kids who won’t be able to grow up to be doctors, firefighters, scientists or teachers unless we straighten our acts up and fly right.
There’s Hard Work and Then There’s …
The September 2014 report prepared by Palantir on the Clinton Global Initiative’s ‘work’ between 2005 and 2013. Palantir states they focus on Big Data analysis. One would hope this report is atypical of the company’s actual Big Data analysis.
Sample page from Palantir CGI program report. No you are not dumb if you think “What?” Your guess is as good as mine and Palantir’s as to what this is supposed to mean. Yes, the section header really is 36 words long. Yes it is representative of the entire report.
As I reported in the initial article, the Clinton Foundation/Clinton Global Initiative doesn’t do much on its own. Almost 100% of its “outcomes” in any of its stated areas of focus are based on “Commitments to Action.” These “Commitments” resemble “Memoranda of Understanding” (MOU) some may be familiar with from local and regional nonprofit work. I’m sure attorneys much smarter than me may point out that these commitments are in no way enforceable.
You may have heard of Trump University, and also separate for-profit schools with ties to the Clinton Foundation. In addition, there is a Clinton Global Initiative University. Like everything else about the Clinton Foundation, it is based on “Commitments to Action.” They give you a roadmap for these “Commitments” too.
I kind of had to put this picture, it’s so special. Is Clinton Global Initiative University “free” of charge? What do you think? Up to 70 universities have “pledged” $800,000 to fund it and supposedly they give up to $10K per campus to “pay”.
CGI-U, like everything else related to the Clinton Foundation is not really an organization, has no real location, and its only activity is an annual star-studded gala event. This year the event was held over a three-day period in April at UC Berkeley.
Tony Robbins may offer more impact and lasting value. His events are 3 1/2 days. Plus you get to walk through fire.
I’m sure they have an explanation for this.
But back to the Palantir report! This report was announced and presented as a series of mind-numbing slides at their meeting in October, 2014. There is an equally boring, nonsensical video narrated by Chelsea Clinton.
What I would like to do, since the report, the slides, the video, all of it, is gobbledygook, is ask a basic question that should have been asked and answered years ago:
HOW IS ANY OF THIS A QUALIFIED TAX EXEMPT CHARITABLE ACTIVITY?
oh it’s just like the Carter Foundation
Not.
Am I writing this because I’m part of the “vast right wing conspiracy”? Of course not! I supported Bernie Sanders until yesterday for the sole reason of (see my biography). Now I am a registered member of the Green Party.
The emerging businesses I would typically work with are struggling because of our poor economy and fiscalism. I cannot get my publishing company off the ground because I foolishly selected to work with real authors who’ve written work that might have some social and cultural merit as opposed to promoting fake charity efforts for Johnson & Johnson. I’m not a lobbyist, I don’t specialize in government grants for no good purpose, and I know how to build actual affordable housing, not lie about it. Nobody is hiring in the nonprofit world because of our poor economy.
So therefore I have free time and no worries about overeating due to lack of funds to purchase food. Obviously this is because I am not smart enough to think up something like the Clinton Foundation.
I confess, I don’t understand why no one in any official position except for Charity Navigator’s oblique assessment that it cannot “rate” the Clinton Foundation due to its “business model” has not questioned this “business model” as being tax exempt. Tony Robbins seems more eligible for nonprofit status, as at least he provides products like books, tapes and seminars, and he might even make more of a social impact!
All the organization does is hold meetings for which it charges the attendees and takes sponsorship money from companies and CEOS — and I quote from the Clinton Foundation “FAQ”
“Sponsorship revenue for CGI is up over last year, and more than half of the 30 companies listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are current CGI members or sponsors …”
So let’s walk through it together.
New language added 8 June 2016 which seems to go at the end toward Civil Rights, community and neighborhood improvement, eliminating prejudice, and related activities.
This is about how the IRS is supposed to determine whether or not a corporation should pay taxes on the revenue it receives or not. As previously noted, here’s what they received in 2014 and the prior year.
In 2014, they took in more than $242 million, and spent more than $217 million in “program services.”
They note 486 employees on their form 990 for 2014. If that $217 million was spent exclusively on salaries that’s an average of $447,958 per employee. (PS: “experts” out there — it makes this ratio even worse if you factor in 100% of their expenses, not “better”). Their net assets increased by more than $100 million between 2013 and 2014. It looks like they permanently designated an endowment. So all their extra now goes into that. Just in case.
If I were a corporate sponsor paying for the Clinton Global Initiative meetings, I would dial Donna Shalala up and ask, “What ROI are you going to give us for the contribution?”
And as to the individuals paying to attend the conferences, I would call up and ask, “Why do I have to pay? Can’t you afford at least to fly me here and put me up?”
A person who teaches accounting compared the Foundation to the Carter Foundation in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. (*Note: The nonprofit sector in the US is in horrible shape: There are 19 total jobs in the nonprofit sector listed within 150 miles of downtown Los Angeles — a distance that would encompass all of LA, Orange, San Bernardino/Riverside,Ventura and San Diego counties, a population area of roughly 20 million people).
What an Insult
It is true, the Carter Foundation has some of the same donors, including Middle Eastern and Asian countries. It is equally true that the Carter Center conducts actual programs, pays employees, and actually works with people internationally over time to provide the health and economic benefits that are its mission. Fiscally it is extremely transparent and its accounting is done conjointly with Emory University.
That said, here is an example of just one of the Carter Center’s programs in international health, its effort to eliminate river blindness.
The Clinton Foundation “negotiates drug discounts” and gives grossly inaccurate figures regarding the diseases it states it combats.
The Carter Foundation distributes donated medication and keeps meticulous records of everything it does.
The Carter Center is extremely specific about where it is able to provide medication, treatment and education for each disease focus. You will find records dating back to the start of every Carter Center health or other program including specific areas served, original targets for each health or other problem, and annual records of progress made. There are dozens of different, specific programs all highly focused, meticulously recorded and available to the public. You will find a long list of donors to the Carter Center’s health and peace programs. As noted in the previous article, it is bizarre for any large multinational charitable organization to conceal its donors, or to create a weird dropdown menu of giving levels over the course of a number of years.
Guinea Worms and Election Monitoring
The beginning page of the Carter Center’s Annual Report, listing on the left, elections monitored and on the right, year by year, reduction in Guinea Worm cases, one of its main emphases in world health. I am not the only person who wished they had been monitoring US elections in recent months.
The first ‘page’ of Clinton Foundation 2015 Online Annual Report (not a printed document) — referring to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a separate organization, not funded by the Clinton Foundation.
Page 2, referring to “access to training, better seeds and fertilizer, and stronger markets for 105,000 farmers in East Africa.”
Page 7 of 2014 printed Annual Report referring to “more than 36,000 smallholder farmers” and “more than 350,000 people.” Less — more — where — what?
From page 16 of 2014 Clinton Foundation Annual Report — as pointed out to me by people more knowledgeable about climate change, the 33,500 tons of reduced greenhouse gas emissions are negligible (approx. 22,300 vegans account for the same savings) especially compared to an estimated 30 billion metric tons of CO2 released annually. Not to mention: it’s the same 33,500 tons. Over and over and over again. I don’t think I need to remind people of the massive, earthshattering significance of a single 100KW solar project.
Employer sponsored energy efficiency program? Your guess is as good as mine on that one, but this apparently represents the 33,500 tons of annual CO2 savings.
Hey, who funds those energy efficiency programs?
Not only are these report numbers at variance with Clinton Foundation statements, we have those hundreds of millions of dollars in program expenditure. With that much money they need $500,000 from the U.S. Government?
Life Affected Ratio
I’m really not sure what this means. But even if it’s supposed to mean something, it’s terrible.
I truly think that Palantir report on the Clinton Global Initiative “commitments to action” is one of the worst things I’ve ever tried to read, and I feel really sorry for the people who were asked to try to quantify these “Commitments to Action”.
They came up with some type of ratio based on the number of people supposedly “affected” by the “Commitments to Action” as compared to the amounts the completely-unrelated-to-the-Clinton-Foundation governments or other organizations said they had spent on the forms they may or may not send to the Clinton Foundation.
So look!
If you were in Kenya, this clusterf**k would have given you an extra $4.50. I think.
Cannot Keep Track of the Bull
Clinton Foundation has reduced global CO2 by 33,500 metric tons or —
Who wants to take bets that the farmers BUY THE TREES and never get their credits?
This information is present in the 2015 online and the 2014 printed paper version of the Clinton Foundation annual report. As you can see, 200,000 tons of C02 was somehow missed by them.
However, for those people who feel this is an American problem, and that the irresponsible whatever-it-is this organization is doing only damages Americans, denigrating the charitable sector, downgrading morale and removing cash from the economy that could be better spent on actual work, productivity or charitable purposes, I have some information.
2004 Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai (she died in 2011, founder of the Green Belt Movement in Africa).
I would like to introduce you to someone you may not have heard of before, one of the world’s finest. The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize recipient was Wangari Maathai, who was the first woman from east or central Africa to earn a Ph.D. Her Green Belt Movement, to date, has planted 51 million trees. Yes, Wangari did serve on the “advisory board” of the Clinton Global Initiative prior to her death in 2011. One of their many press releases says she “committed to establishing the Wangari Maathai Institute.” Heaven knows if she was even aware of them taking credit for her unbelievable, courageous, world-changing life work. She is the world’s first terraformer. Recognizing that cutting down trees was causing horrible devastation, helping women to replant trees reduced erosion and gave hope and a chance to live for starving people.
The Green Belt Movement she founded in Kenya did survive her death from ovarian cancer. Yes — the same disease that is associated with Johnson & Johnson talcum products.
Portion of annual report for Green Belt Movement in Kenya for 2014. Amounts given are in Kenyan shillings, current exchange rate .0099 to 1.0 USD
So for $1.29 million or .05% of the Clinton Foundation’s bloated budget, the Green Belt Movement outplanted those Trees of Hope folks by 50 times. |
An agent working for Germany's answer to MI5 was at the scene of one of the 10 murders carried out by neo-Nazi terrorists, the domestic intelligence agency has confirmed, fuelling speculation that the killers' movements were known to the authorities during their 13 years on the run.
The undercover officer was in an internet cafe in the central city of Kassel in Hessen when a 21-year-old Turk was shot at point blank range on 6 April 2006, a spokesman for the Hessen branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said on Tuesday.
The admission has added yet more controversy to an already contentious case, which the chancellor, Angela Merkel, has described as "mortifying" for Germany.
The investigation into the activities of the so-called National Socialist Underground was broadened on Tuesday to take in previously unsolved crimes across the country, amid fears that a network of supporters may have helped them carry out further attacks.
These include suspected terror attacks in Cologne and Düsseldorf from 2000 to 2004 that injured more than 30 people, most of them foreigners, and the attempted 2008 murder of a Bavarian police chief who was stabbed by a masked assailant who yelled: "Greetings from the national resistance!".
Critics say German authorities have played down the existence of rightwing extremism, concentrating instead on the threats posed by leftwing terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists. Whether they deliberately turned a blind eye or genuinely did not have a handle on the violence being wrought by neo-Nazis is open to interpretation.
Authorities in the state of Thuringia, where the three key members of the terror cell all come from, admit they have 24 ringbinders full of intelligence on the trio.
"The intelligence service has completely failed," said Hans-Christian Ströbele, a member of the parliamentary committee which monitors Germany's secret service agencies, following an emergency meeting on Tuesday. "It's probably the biggest secret service cock-up since German reunification," said the Berliner Zeitung newspaper in an editorial.
The scandal has gripped Germany for days as the country struggles to understand how the rightwing terror cell managed to evade capture for so long despite being apparently responsible for 10 murders, including the death of a policewoman, at least 14 bank robberies and two vicious nail bomb attacks between 2000 and 2007. The group has been dubbed the Brown Army Faction, a reference to the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader Meinhof gang, a leftwing terrorist group that committed a series of murders in the 1970s and 80s. In Germany, brown remains a colour inextricably linked with the Nazi uniform.
The case came to light earlier this month when two known neo-Nazis, Uwe Mundlos, 38, and Uwe Böhnhardt, 34, were found shot dead in a burnt out campervan in what appeared to be a twin suicide pact. Hours later, their flat in the quiet suburbs of the east German town of Zwickau was blown up, an explosion detonated by alleged accomplice Beate Zschäpe, 36, who turned herself into police days later.
When investigators searched the charred remains of the van and the house, they found a number of highly incriminating pieces of evidence, including the gun carried by Michele Kiesewetter, the 22-year-old police officer believed to have been shot dead in Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg in 2007. They also discovered a bizarre Pink Panther-inspired homemade DVD gloating that the National Socialist Underground was responsible for a series of unsolved murders known as the Döner Killings, which targeted mostly Turkish immigrants in Germany, some of whom worked in fast food stalls, between 2000 and 2006.
Until now, German detectives have suggested that foreign gangs, probably from Turkey, were responsible for the murders: their investigation was even codenamed Operation Bosphorus.
Relatives of the victims say the reputations of the dead men were besmirched by investigators. Kerim Simsek, whose father Enver was shot down on 9 September 2000, claimed police said his father "was mixed up with the mafia and smuggled drugs – no one even mentioned a rightwing extremist motive," he told Bild.
Ströbele said Germany's elite had totally underestimated the threat of rightwing terrorism. "They have been determined to play it down. Just a few weeks ago, Hans-Peter Friedrich, the interior minister, was saying there was no rightwing terrorism in Germany," he said. "They are always very quick to jump to conclusions if they think leftwing terrorists or Islamist fundamentalists are responsible for a crime and yet they didn't want to believe there could be a serious problem with neo-Nazis."
Ströbele said that 160 officers worked on Operation Bosphorus, investigating 11,000 people "Why didn't they follow the trail to rightwing radicals?" he said, as he called for a thorough investigation to discover how the terror cell managed to evade capture. More information was needed to establish how and why the secret service agent was in the Kassel internet cafe when the shots were fired in 2006, he said. Until now, the agent has insisted it was an unhappy coincidence he was at the crime scene "either during the murder or within a minute or two of it", said Ströbele.
The agent was arrested after other witnesses noticed he was the only customer who failed to call the police. After being questioned as a suspect, he confessed his identity and no charges were brought. A spokesman for Hessen's BfV said he was subsequently moved out of intelligence work and into a less sensitive department of Hessen's regional council.
The national BfV continues to deny any contact with the three suspects or any knowledge of their whereabouts since 1998, when a warrant was issued for their arrest following the discovery of a bomb-making factory in a garage rented by Zschäpe. The Hessen branch said it had found no evidence that its agents were in contact with Mundlos, Böhnhardt and Zschäpe.
Germans try to make sense of scandal
Germany has been gripped by the scandal unfolding around the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground. But so much of what has emerged so far does not quite make sense. Here are some questions ordinary Germans would like answering:
1. Why did Beate Zschäpe decide to turn herself in to the police? Is she hoping to turn supergrass and give state's evidence in return for a shorter sentence?
2. Did Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt really kill themselves? One man was shot in the head; another in the chest (the latter is an unusual form of suicide). Could Zschäpe have murdered them both? Did they set fire to their campervan before killing themselves or did someone else light the match afterwards?
3. Why did the two men burn the money they had apparently stolen from a Zwickauer bank that day rather than give it to Zschäpe?
4. How did the Pink Panther confession DVDs survive flames in the trio's Zwickau flat despite temperatures being so hot that investigators say they found melted guns?
5. How did the National Socialist Underground choose their victims? Were they all chosen at random?
6. Can the group be linked to any other unsolved crimes?
7. Did the authorities have any contact with the group during their 13 years on the run?
8. Why did investigators looking into the nine so-called Doner Killings blame foreign mafia rather than properly investigating rightwing hatred as a motive, considering that all the victims were immigrants? |
The Look
Dad Jokes With Mr Jerry Seinfeld
The legendary comedian on how to be a better parent and why his kids are his toughest audience
Words by Mr Dan Rookwood, US Editor, MR PORTER
Photography by Mr Mark Seliger
Styling by Mr Mitchell Belk
In Seinfeld, the show that made his name and his fortune, Mr Jerry Seinfeld played a character infamous for his commitment issues. He didn’t want to settle down, didn’t want to get married, never thought about kids. This, it turns out, wasn’t too far off reality. Throughout his thirties and early forties, Mr Seinfeld was solely focused on co-creating and starring in the most successful, most syndicated sitcom series of all time. (Now 63, he is the world’s wealthiest comedian with an estimated net worth in excess of $900m, according to Forbes.)
Enough, eventually, was enough, though. Mr Seinfeld reportedly turned down an offer of $100m, or $5m an episode, to make a 10th series, in order finally to concentrate on his personal life. Within a few months of the show wrapping in 1998, he met and fell in love with Ms Jessica Sklar. They married the following year and now have three children – a 16-year-old daughter Sascha, and two sons, Julian, 14, and Shepherd, 12.
When his first child was born, Mr Seinfeld was 46, and soon found babies come with lots of stuff. Ms Seinfeld had the bright idea of setting up an organisation called Baby Buggy to re-distribute essentials such as cribs, strollers/prams and high chairs to support struggling families. The charity has evolved over the years and is now called GOOD+ Foundation. “I have always been involved in Jessica’s work but it wasn’t until the organisation started focusing on the importance of fathers a few years ago that this work became very personal to me,” he says. Of the families they support across the US, 63 per cent live in a home with no father. Mr Seinfeld now leads the GOOD+ Foundation’s Fatherhood Leadership Council, made up of nearly 60 fathers, to help raise awareness and funds on initiatives that focus on engaging fathers with their children.
But it isn’t just parenthood and the charity that have kept Mr Seinfeld active since the end of his eponymous sitcom: following a much-hyped return to stand up in the late 1990s, he has kept his toe in, with semi-regular tours. He’s also made numerous special appearances and cameos, including with Seinfeld co-creator Mr Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm and a lead role in the 2007 animation Bee Movie (you could say he’s been a busy bee). In 2012, he began the web series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, which has seen Mr Seinfeld chat with the likes of Mr Steve Martin in a 1966 Ford Mustang, Mr Jim Carrey in a 1976 Lamborghini Countach and President Barack Obama (a US president rather than a comedian, although the lines are increasingly blurry) in a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. This award-winning show has just been snapped up by Netflix in a reported $100m deal that also includes two stand-up specials.
We’re sitting having coffee, inevitably, overlooking the Hudson River in New York on the roof terrace above Vanity Fair photographer Mr Mark Seliger’s studio. Mr Seinfeld has changed back into his civvies of a New York Mets tracksuit top, blue jeans and white Nike Shox. But you’ll note that in the portraits that accompany this interview, Mr Seinfeld is wearing a simple white shirt. MR PORTER is proud to support GOOD+ Foundation this year by launching our “White Shirt Campaign” to donate the profits from a curated selection of white shirts sold on the site between now and Father’s Day on 18 June – shop the collection here. To make a direct donation, visit goodplusfoundation.org.
What kind of father would you say you are? I’m not that involved in their school stuff. I’m not involved in their social stuff. I am just always around them and I’m very good at drawing them out, you know? I think some fathers struggle with, “My kid doesn’t want to talk to me,” or, “I can’t get them to engage with me in conversations,” especially as they get into the teen years. I’m always able to get that conversation going. If you start asking them: “What’s going on? What’d you do today?” Nothing – they’re not going to give you anything from that. You need to get in there and I’m good at that. You know, “Did you laugh today? What did you laugh at today?” I’ll ask them a better question than, “What happened at school today?”
What kind of father would your children say you are? I never lose it around them. The one time I really, really got upset was when my daughter was watching the Kardashians on her phone in her bed and I could not take that scene. For someone who for their whole life, television was the Olympics of being a comedian. It was only for the very best. You had to have everything. You had to go through all the different hierarchies of your career to get to television. I’m offended by reality television on many levels and that show of course is the premier example of reality television. These people are not doing anything interesting. I lost my temper with that one.
How naturally did parenting come to you? Not naturally. There really needs to be better instructions. For relationships and for parenting. There’s a lot of very basic things that you could tell any guy who’s getting married. I would say it wasn’t until I was married 10 years that I really could put out a nice short manual that I would clip to your sleeve. Here’s what you do, here’s what you don’t do. Wifeology needs to be taught. And Dadism needs to be taught.
What advice would you offer, then? Number one, as often as you can, say to your wife, “What can I help you with?” Until she tells you that you’re saying it too much. This is a good father and a good husband. Because you don’t know what needs doing, but there’s something. So ask. A second tip? Anything she’s holding, grab it. Take it. Obviously [if it’s] heavy. Not a phone or her glass of wine. “Right, give me that!” And don’t look for fairness.
What do you think makes a great dad? It’s about: “I’m going to take care of you in a way you’re not even going to understand till I’m probably dead.” That to me is what being a great dad is. Just dealing with everything you have to deal with, to hang in there. You’re not going to understand your father till way, way deep in your life. You’re not going to understand what he did, the value of what he did.
“I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. I don’t want quality time – I want the garbage time”
As a father now, what piece of advice would you like to have given yourself as a child? I’m big on: “You figure it out.”
What’s Father’s Day like for you? Do you have any Festivus-like (that’s a Seinfeld reference, for the unintiated) traditions? I don’t need any special days. I mean they’re all special. We spend a lot of time together and I enjoy every second of it. Again, I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about “quality time” – I always find that a little sad when they say, “We have quality time.” I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.
And what’s the deal with fathers and “dad jokes”? There’s this freedom of fatherhood. Somehow the more annoying I am or the more disturbing I am to my child, they’re still my child and I’m still their dad. You’re not going to sever this relationship over a bad joke. Whereas you can with a friend or a partner. If you show that you have a horrible sense of humour, that relationship is suddenly in jeopardy. But not with your kid. There’s something fun about the resilience of that relationship. It’s going to survive this.
You keep your act clean. As a father, is that important to you – to keep the tone elevated? Yes, very much. I know everybody’s going to learn the words and everyone’s going to use the words, but in this house around your parents, there’s going to be a respect – for yourself and your comportment and your manner.
Is that something you learnt from your father growing up? No, I did not. My parents did not emphasise that. But it was kind of normal growing up in the 1960s. Nobody cursed in the house in the 1960s unless you really had really crazy hippy parents.
I understand your father passed away more than 30 years ago. What are your memories of him? He was a great appreciator of life, which I am as well. I absorbed that from him and that’s very annoying to my kids. “I know, Dad. This is the best bagel. I know, Dad. You love breakfast more than anything…” You know I’m always over-appreciating. [But] I don’t think you can really ever over-appreciate. I’m a big proponent of revelling in the mundane and the ordinary. This is my favourite area to revel in.
“The more annoying I am to my child, they’re still my child and I’m still their dad. You’re not going to sever this relationship over a bad joke”
How was your relationship with your dad? It was good, it was fun. In those days when I grew up, your dad wouldn’t ever take you anywhere or do anything that was for you. That just suited me so well. My parents were not focused on me at all. I was so comfortable with that and I wouldn’t have wanted to be focused on. Now it’s the other way around.
What characteristics did you inherit from your father? Humour and joy of life. He was very funny.
Is it true he used to transcribe jokes? He had a joke file, yes. As do I.
What did he say when you told him that you were going to do that for a living? Loved it. He said, “I wish I could have done that. I never had the opportunity.”
Do your kids find you funny? Yes, although they can be a tough audience. I had this joke the other day that I tried on them that I thought was really funny which was: “Here’s a statement never heard in the history of New York City: ‘Hey why don’t we get a new awning?’” They just looked at me and they went, “Dad, that’s not funny at all.” They were wrong. I tried it at a nightclub and it got a huge laugh.
Do they ever watch Seinfeld? My daughter did and I’d watch her watching it, but I don’t know what she thought of it. And I don’t know if my sons have watched it. I’m really trying to give them just a little bit of the privacy that I had as a child. My parents had no idea what I was up to, ever. I think that’s good. They should have their own life that I don’t know anything about.
You famously collect vintage Porsches, but what’s the family car? The family car is a Mercedes G-Class, which is used by 75 different militaries around the globe because it’s the most indestructible automobile. So it’s perfect for New York.
“When your mission is to control a large group of people, the suit is the ultimate tool that you must have in your arsenal”
Does what you’re wearing for when you’re performing stand-up affect your delivery? Yes. I think it affects everything. The structure of a good suit kind of structures the attention of the audience. When your mission is to control a large group of people at your whim and will, the suit is the ultimate tool that you must have in your arsenal. You can’t think that you’re going to talk and people are going to listen. It’s like, “We better listen to this guy – his jackets and pants match.”
Who makes a good shirt, in your view? Prada white shirts for suits, and I like a Ralph Lauren button-down with a sports jacket, because I don’t like wondering, “Where is that collar now?” The button-down: I really like the way it stands up against the lapel of a sports jacket.
You’ve said: “A man is judged by his wife, his car and his shoes.” What do yours say about you? “Nothing but the best!”
How can you spot a father by what he’s wearing? What is it about “dad style”? Well, they think they’re off the market and it doesn’t matter anymore, and they couldn’t be more wrong. It always matters. Flip-flops and tank tops on planes, for example, are just so offensive. I always wear a sports jacket on a plane. Always. And I cannot walk into a hotel lobby without a sports jacket. I just don’t feel good.
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about fatherhood? How completely worldview-changing some of these small moments can be. Like, my son is learning to play the Superman theme song on the piano as a present for my birthday. Catching him doing that, that completely changes your life. He knows I love Superman so he decided he’s going to do that as a present. Tonight I think is the performance. We’re celebrating my birthday tonight.
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Monday night wasn’t the first time Trump shrugged when it came to Russia’s role in the cyberattack. When Matt Lauer asked Trump about his relationship with Putin, pointing out that Russia is “probably … the main suspect for the hacking of the DNC computers,” Trump replied: “Well, nobody knows that for a fact.” (In July, on the other hand, Trump encouraged Russia to “find” emails sent to and from Clinton’s private email account.)
In cyberwar, attribution matters. The Justice Department has increasingly brought formal charges against them and hanging up their photos in the FBI’s gallery of most-wanted cybercriminals. Blaming another country for cyberattacks can make it harder for a country to justify sponsoring further intrusions, or can bolster public support for retaliation, Bruce Schneier, a computer-security expert, has argued.
It’s not like Trump waffled onstage because he truly didn’t have the information that Clinton had. A U.S. intelligence officials told Time that the government’s confidence in Russia’s involvement in the DNC hack was covered in one of Trump’s intelligence briefings.
“I do not comment on information I receive in intelligence briefings,” Trump responded in a statement to the magazine. “However, nobody knows with definitive certainty that this was in fact Russia.” But Trump doesn’t have a particularly stellar track record of keeping details from his classified briefings to himself. Earlier this month, he said intelligence officials in one briefing seemed displeased with the Obama Administration, based on their body language. (His comments were criticized by former intelligence officials, who say agents who deliver briefings are trained never to betray emotion or display a preference for one policy over another.)
Instead, Trump’s statement during the debate came across as another manifestation of his apparent willingness to cozy up with Russia. As The Washington Post pointed out earlier this week, the way Trump discussed the DNC attack mirrors how Russian President Vladimir Putin tends to talk about it: first, a demurral about the identity of the attackers—It’s complicated! We may never know!—and then, a pivot to the information that the hackers leaked, which was damaging to the Democratic Party.
On one hand, it certainly doesn’t appear that repeatedly pointing fingers at Russia for election-related cyberattacks has convinced Putin to lay off the hacking. But on the other hand, refusing to lay blame on the culprit at all could potentially be more dangerous: It allows state-sponsored hackers an additional layer of safety in anonymity, which may embolden them to keep attacking. |
MILWAUKEE, WI – August 4, 2016 – The Alexander Company and the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee announced today that it will lead a team of local organizations to rehabilitate and restore six buildings at the Milwaukee VA Soldiers Home (Soldiers Home), a National Historic Landmark District, located on the grounds of the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center. The buildings will be restored to their original purpose – the service of veterans. Under the proposal, the buildings – including Old Main (Building 2), the most prominent and recognizable building on the campus, the Administration Building (Building 1), the Catholic Chaplain’s Quarters (Building 14) and three duplexes (Buildings 18, 19 and 62) – will be renovated into a total of 100 housing units with supportive services for veterans and their families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
“The Milwaukee Soldiers Home represents our nation’s commitment to care for our veterans,” said Joseph Alexander, President of The Alexander Company. “Our team is honored to have the opportunity to work with these historic buildings and we are proud that through our work, we will be able to return them to the veterans they were built to serve.”
The project is made possible through an Enhanced Use Lease (EUL) program with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Through an EUL, six buildings in the District will be leased out long term to The Alexander Company, who will take on the cost of rehabilitation. The law authorizing EULs requires that the buildings be used to provide housing for veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The VA selected The Alexander Company and the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee’s proposal after a competitive RFP process earlier this year. The development plan will be finalized in the coming months.
“Our mission is to serve veterans,” said Gary Kunich, Public Affairs Officer at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center. “This project will allow us to preserve a significant piece of local and national history while doing what we do best – helping veterans.”
The redevelopment partnership includes the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM), which will operate the buildings after they have been renovated. Since 2005, HACM has provided housing to homeless veterans on the VA grounds at the historic Surgeon’s Quarters building, which HACM remediated and restored into an award-winning single room occupancy facility.
“The Soldiers Home is a local and national treasure,” said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. “This partnership and project is a perfect way to preserve the history of the Soldiers Home while meeting the needs of today’s veterans.”
“This project is a tangible way we can support our troops every day,” said, HACM Secretary-Executive Director. “We are honored to be part of a team that will increase services to veterans while preserving the historic nature of the VA grounds.”
The Alexander Company is Wisconsin-based and has over 30 years of experience in historic preservation and adaptive reuse developments. Project architecture will be led by Uihlein Wilson Architects, with Quorum Architects designing Building 1. Together, the firms bring a combined 60 years of architectural experience in historic preservation. Beyer Construction will manage construction of all structures. Upon project completion, the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee will manage the housing units. Supportive services will be managed by the Center for Veterans Issues (CVI), and include onsite education, job training, financial assistance, counseling and transportation services.
Planned financing for the anticipated $40 million project includes Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Federal and State Historic Tax Credits, grants, fundraised dollars and additional soft financing. Work is anticipated to begin in fall 2017, with all buildings completed by April 2019. For more information about the project and to view site plans, visit: http://alexandercompany.com/projects/the-soldiers-home/.
Old Main
About The Alexander Company
For more than 30 years, The Alexander Company has specialized in urban infill development, urban revitalization, and historic preservation. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, The Alexander Company gives new life to historically significant buildings and downtown neighborhoods nationwide.
About the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM)
Founded in 1944, HACM provides high-quality, housing options to over 10,000 households in Milwaukee. HACM’s award-winning programs foster strong and inclusive communities that support self-sufficiency, good quality of life and the opportunity to thrive.
About The Milwaukee Soldiers Home
A month before his assassination, President Lincoln signed legislation to create a national system of homes for disabled veterans. Established in 1867, the Milwaukee VA Soldiers Home (Soldiers Home) is one of the three original Soldiers Homes in the country. The 90-plus acre district rests on the grounds of the Clement J. Zablocki Medical Center and was designed to be a place of refuge for Civil War soldiers and help ease their transition back to civilian life. One of only 43 National Historic Landmarks in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Soldiers Home contains some of the oldest and most historic buildings in the VA system. |
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Bucareli | Jacobo Zabludovsky
Periodista y licenciado en Derecho por la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Inició sus actividades period� ...
Mario Moreno fue mi amigo. Cantinflas una ilusión. Mario, la realidad inolvidable. Cantinflas, la realidad imaginada. Mario debió haberle dicho a Cantinflas: “Tú no existes fuera de mí”
Lunes 15 de agosto de 2011
De todos aquellos quedamos cuatro, convocados el viernes por su recuerdo para celebrar el día en que hubiera cumplido un siglo.
Cuando fue el hombre más popular y querido de México y el mexicano vivo más famoso en el mundo, se confundían en la aclamación méndigos y mendigos, lambiscones y fanáticos, estafadores y devotos, cuates y crápulas, envidiosos y farsantes, sanguijuelas y amigos. De estos últimos quedamos cuatro.
Fui amigo de Mario Moreno, creador de una ficción deslumbrante llamada Cantinflas. Un personaje que al ser inventado adquirió su existencia, como Augusto, el de Niebla de Miguel de Unamuno, quien decidido a suicidarse es enfrentado por su creador que le dice: “No puedes matarte porque no existes, no eres más que un personaje de novela”. Augusto revira : “Mire usted bien, no sea, don Miguel, que sea usted el ente de ficción”. “Tú eres una creación mía”, le dice el escritor. “Sí”, contesta Augusto, “pero ya estoy creado, no puedo estar sujeto a su capricho, no puede impedirme que me suicide”.
Mucho espacio hubo de ceder Mario ante la magnitud de Cantinflas. A él, a su criatura, le agradeció algunas alegrías y las más de sus desilusiones. Cuántos amaneceres nos sorprendieron hablando de eso, solos a la cabecera de la mesa de 40 sillas, dándole la última mordida a una torta del Biarritz traída a Reforma tres mil y pico desde Insurgentes y Chilpancingo. No había alcohol en esas veladas, ningún estímulo fuera de la conversación.
“Venga a echarse un taco”, decía Mario cualquier noche de tantas inesperadas. No acababa de colgar el teléfono cuando ya estaba camino de su casa. Una casa grande hasta para una embajada, recostada en un barranco con asador, cine, biblioteca, frontón, gimnasio, peluquería, patios y cocheras insuficientes para tantos coches. Ahí vivía con su esposa Valentina y su suegra que solo hablaba ruso. Mario cuidó de ella como si fuera su madre hasta que muy anciana murió años después que su hija.
Cantinflas era uno y Mario era otro totalmente distinto. Cantinflas no dejaba espacios a Mario. En la soledad, a la sombra de su obra, el autor mantenía su discreción y bajo perfil. Mario Moreno no padecía el síndrome tan frecuente y repugnante en el cómico profesional: no era chistoso de tiempo completo. Ingenioso, oportuno, vivo, inteligente, informado, gustaba de los temas políticos, los acontecimientos de actualidad. Ejercía su sentido crítico, discutía lecturas recientes, respondía con prudencia a las críticas sobre su oficio.
Él no recordaba haber salido de marinero la primera vez que lo vi desde la gayola del Follies. Sí de cuando entró por el pasillo central del teatro “Esperanza Iris” gritándole insultos a ese enorme artista que fue Miguel de Molina, interrumpiendo la función. “No te mediste esa noche, yo estuve ahí”, le dije. “Estábamos creando el sindicato de actores, habíamos ordenado un paro teatral y usaban a Molina como esquirol, puede que sin su conocimiento; tuve que hacerlo, táctica de lucha”, murmuró el fundador de la Asociación Nacional de Actores.
“Quiero que trabajes en mi próxima película”, me dijo un día. “No soy actor”. “No vas a actuar, vas a ser periodista, a hacer lo que haces cada noche en televisión. La película se va a llamar Conserje en condominio. Secuestran a un inquilino rico. Yo, Úrsulo, soy conserje y sospechan de mí. Tú me entrevistas en tu noticiero”. El productor Jacques Gelman me preguntó cuánto cobraría. “Si me pagan no trabajo”. Memoricé mi diálogo. Toma uno. Corte. Cantinflas cantinfleaba, se salía del texto a propósito y cada vez de otra manera. Toma nueve. Corte. Se acerca el director Miguel M. Delgado y me regaña: “Usted no tiene que reírse”. “Pues dígale a este señor que no me haga reír”.
Salíamos a comer a restaurantes donde su presencia no fuera tan notoria. La última vez llegamos al Altamira. Me puse un reloj que nunca usaba por miedo a perderlo. Recordamos el día, años antes, en que se lo quitó de la muñeca izquierda y me dijo “te lo regalo”. No nos volvimos a ver.
Mario Moreno fue mi amigo. Cantinflas una ilusión. Mario la realidad inolvidable. Cantinflas la realidad imaginada. Algún día, todavía a tiempo, Mario debió haberle dicho a Cantinflas lo que Unamuno a Augusto: “Tú no existes fuera de mí. No debes ni puedes hacer sino lo que a mí me dé la gana”. Cantinflas no acepta, ya está creado: “Porque usted, mi creador, no es más que otro ente novelesco. Lo mismo que yo, su víctima. El que crea se crea y el que se crea se muere. Morirá usted y morirán todos los que me piensen”.
El diálogo y el capítulo (XXXI) terminan con un lamento de Unamuno: “Yo me enjugué una lágrima”.
Yo también. |
Looking at this picture is a trip. Every baseball fan knows that Pete Rose never played for the Padres, so why the hell is Charlie Hustle wearing a Padres cap? Just one day after I posted about the history of the Padres “Taco Bell” hat, out comes Pete Rose rockin’ it. So, what’s the story? I stumbled upon the pic on 90 Feet of Perfection. I guess the description of the picture said Rose “had to wear the cap for sizing during a portrait.” I don’t even know what the hell that means. A portrait? Sizing? He didn’t know his hat size at that point in his career? Is there an archive somewhere with gobs of MLB players all wearing Padres hats even though they never played for them? This photo looks to date in the late 1970’s, and we know Rose was on the Reds, or possibly the Phillies if it was 1979. Here’s a fun fact for you… Pete Rose did play for the Padres…kind of.
“Rose almost DID play for the Padres while they were still a PCL team in 1962. This is due to the fact that the Padres were an affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds from 1962 to 1965. Rose was actually featured in the official program for the 1962 season while wearing a Padres cap. I assume he was expected to play for the team that year? I scanned a photo of it scanned from Bill Swank’s incredible book “Baseball In San Diego – From The Padres To Petco” which is the 2nd volume he wrote that chronicles the history of the game in the city of San Diego.”
Pretty cool little bit about Rose and the Padres, right? Even though I’d never seen those above pics, I’ve always associated him with the Padres. Here’s why: On September 11, 1985, Pete Rose passed Ty Cobb’s career hit record and officially became “The Hit King.” A sellout crowd at Riverfront Stadium and a national television audience watched Rose hit a first inning line drive on a 2-1 slider from Eric Show for hit No. 4,192…and there’s Garvey, all smiles. Ready to get personal? Thanks to my boy, JayDub, who got that Pete Rose “hit king” picture above autographed for me at a show in Vegas. It’s up on the wall in my home office. JayDub called me to ask if I wanted him to write anything on it. I immediately told him what I wanted. So there it sits on my wall: “Brady, Keep Hustling”. Get it? Charlie Hustle? A gambling hustler? Brilliant. Horrible glare on the picture below, but you get the idea. Love it.
***UPDATE: The Pete Rose and the Padres Mystery is Solved Here***
-bp |
Anyone familiar with this blog and our work on energy issues will not be surprised by my sincere support of nuclear power as the only realistic solution to climate change in the electricity (and possibly transport and industrial heat) arena. I’ve laid my cards on the table in the peer-reviewed literature (e.g., see here, here, here, here, here & here) and the standard media, and I’ve even joined the board of a new environmental NGO that supports nuclear.
And there is hope, despite the ever-increasing human population, rising consumerism, dwindling resources, and the ubiquity of ideologically driven and ethically compromised politicians. I am hopeful for several reasons, including rising safety and reliability standards of modern nuclear technology, the continued momentum of building new fission reactors in many countries, and even the beginnings of real conversations about nuclear power (or at least, the first steps toward this) in countries where nuclear energy is currently banned (e.g., Australia). I’m also heartened by the fact that nearly every conservation scientists with whom I speak is generally supportive, or at least non-resistant, to the idea of nuclear power as part of the climate change solution. An open letter by our colleagues attests to this. In fact, every day that passes brings new evidence that we cannot ignore this solution any longer.
Even despite the evidence in support of implementing a strong nuclear component into climate change-mitigation strategies, one of the most frequent arguments for not doing so is that society can achieve all of its energy needs and simultaneously combat climate change by constructing 100% renewable-energy pathways. While it is an easy mantra to repeat because it feels right intrinsically to nearly everyone with an environmental conscience, as a scientist I also had to ask if such a monumental task is even technically feasible.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m a huge fan of renewable energy and its development, purchase, and installation, but only if (and that’s a whopping, great if) it displaces electricity generation from fossil fuels. Therein lies the rub — while this can be achieved up to a certain point (a point that is entirely dependent on a region’s specific set of environmental, geographic, political, demographic, and economic conditions), it tends to fall apart when renewable penetrations become high. The main reason for this is the dispatchability limitations and storage requirements of renewables-generated electricity.
An energy source that is dispatchable is able to be called-up or withdrawn at any time in response to demand changes, which means that it has to be able to provide electricity at a moment’s notice in response to variable demand. While battery technology is improving and making this easier, better batteries alone are not the solution, especially from an environmental viewpoint.
But the plot thickens when one examines the entire breadth of feasibility1 requirements for renewable energy, which is exactly what we’ve just done in a new, comprehensive review of 100% renewable studies from around the world.
Led by my soon-to-be-completed PhD student, Benjamin Heard, we have just published the first empirical assessment of the feasibility of existing 100% renewable-energy plans from around the world. As we had originally suspected, the news is not good for the faithful of a 100% renewable future.
Conservation biologists will probably not wish me to go over every single detail of this rather technical review, but I will summarise the main criteria that we used to judge the studies. We required studies to demonstrate four essential criteria to be considered feasible: (1) capable of tracking realistic projections of demand, (2) electricity must be supplied to match demand at a fine temporal scale, (3) transmission must be able to deliver the electricity generated, (4) ancillary services (e.g., frequency control) must be maintained.
In short, not one of the 24 studies we examined met all criteria, and most failed the basic feasibility test so badly that even being generous didn’t improve their purported reality. More specifically from a conservation perspective, it turns out that most of the studies also relied on an insane amount of hydro and/or biomass sources to meet even their unrealistic projections. We know collectively as a conservation community that both of these sources are disastrous for species conservation, mainly in terms of habitat destruction (see et alia key studies on hydro, and biomass). In short, even if these studies hadn’t failed to meet the main feasibility criteria, we as conservation biologists should be highly dubious regardless based on the reliance of these destructive practices.
The result is a stark wake-up call to the sustainability community about how we can achieve sensible climate-change mitigation policies fast enough to combat our almost out-of-control climate disruption. It’s also another reason that I continue to solidify my support for next-generation nuclear technology as part of the mix. While I want to see renewables implemented, we cannot rely on them alone.
Instead of the ‘100% renewables‘ mantra, we should instead be chanting ‘0% carbon‘.
—
1We differentiate feasibility and viability: feasible means ‘possible within the constraints of the physical universe’, so a demonstration of feasibility requires that evidence is presented that a proposed system will work with current or near-current technology at a specified reliability. On the other hand, viable means that the system is not only feasible, but realistic within the socio-economic constraints of society. Unless something is first established as feasible, there is no point in assessing its viability.
CJA Bradshaw |
China has changed the way it talks about its actions in the South China Sea, signalling a shift in the way it thinks.
The Philippines released photos of China’s construction and land reclamation activities in the South China Sea, on May 15, 2014, a day after Manila accused Beijing of violating the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea by carrying out such construction. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying was asked about the photographs in her regular press conference on May 15. Here’s her response, in full:
China has indisputable sovereignty over Nansha [Spratly] Islands including Chigua Reef [Johnson South Reef] and the contiguous waters. Whatever construction China carries out in the Chigua Reef is completely within China’s sovereignty.
That response did not evolve much over the next ten months. In March 2015, Hua was still defending China’s construction with terse proclamations: “China’s normal construction activities on our own islands and in our own waters are lawful, reasonable and justifiable.”
Over the last four months, however, we’ve seen a major change in the way China talks about its activities in the South China Sea – first a clarification of the purposes of the construction, then an announcement that land reclamation will soon be coming to a halt. As others have pointed out, China’s change in rhetoric does not accompany a change in behavior – it still plans to finish all its previously-started construction, for example. Nonetheless, the shift in tone is important.
This shift signals that China realizes the damage being done to its soft power in the region by sticking to a because-I-said-so attitude (ie, our construction is “lawful, reasonable, and justifiable” simply because we said so). In its new statements, China is actively trying to convince listeners (most prominently, the governments of ASEAN countries and the United States) that it does not pose a threat – clear proof that Beijing does, indeed, care about its image.
The change began on April 9, when, for the first time, Hua (speaking for China’s Foreign Ministry) provided a detailed explanation of the purposes for China’s construction on disputed islands. In her remarks, Hua framed the construction as an example of China upholding its “international responsibility and obligation” by providing new facilities to assist with “maritime search and rescue, disaster prevention and mitigation, marine science and research, meteorological observation, environmental protection, navigation safety, fishery production service and other areas.” Beijing wants to flip accusations of irresponsibility on their head, arguing that China (as the region’s major power) has not only the right but the responsibility to construct facilities in the South China Sea.
In later comments, Beijing expanded on this by suggesting that other countries would also be welcome to use the new outposts. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) released a statement outlining its plan for the South China Sea reefs, including the construction of “large-scale lighthouses”; wireless navigation facilities; base stations for maritime security and communications; emergency rescue stations; moorings for fishermen to shelter from storms or replenish supplies; and weather stations, oceanic observation platforms, and scientific research centers.
Beijing also announced on June 16 that its land reclamation activities would finish “in the upcoming days,” although Chinese officials have declined to provide a concrete timeline. Construction on the reclaimed land will continue, however, as China builds up facilities on newly-created islands. Foreign Ministry Lu Kang made that clear in the initial announcement: “After the land reclamation, we will start the building of facilities to meet relevant functional requirements.”
Experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies note that, prior to the announcement, China had already finished land reclamation on Johnson South Reef and Fiery Cross Reef and is nearly done in other places. “[T]his recent announcement appears only to confirm what analysts already knew: Beijing has almost finished its planned land reclamation activities in the Spratlys,” CSIS experts concluded. They categorize the announcement as “a change in message, not in policy.”
Very true, but the change in message is important nonetheless. Compared to a year – or even four months – ago, China’s rhetoric on the South China Sea issue is almost unrecognizable. Instead of beginning and ending the conversation with proclamations of China’s “indisputable” sovereign rights, we’re seeing a genuine attempt at putting some China-friendly ‘spin’on these construction projects. That these new proclamations are unlikely to convince China’s critics is beside the point. The attempt itself is new, and noteworthy in the sense that it signals a level of recognition of how China’s actions appear through other’s eyes.
As Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholar Xue Li recently pointed out in a piece for The Diplomat, the South China Sea disputes could jeopardize the success of Beijing’s top foreign policy priority: implementing the “Belt and Road” projects. The Maritime Silk Road in particular will require cooperation and buy-in from China’s neighbors in ASEAN. If the South China Sea disputes cause problems for the “Belt and Road” (as Xue argues is likely to happen), Xue suggest that China “adjust its South China Sea strategy and policies.”
The shift in messaging may be the first stage in this adjustment. As my colleague Prashanth has noted before, China’s South China Sea strategy involves both asserting sovereignty in the region and maintaining adequately friendly ties with rival claimants, largely based on economic relations. As China itself put it in its military strategy white paper, Beijing must strike a balance between “rights protection” (defending China’s claims) and “stability maintenance” (making sure tensions in the region do not get out of hand).
China’s “Belt and Road” project was announced in fall of 2013, during a larger ‘charm offensive’ that accompanied Xi Jinping’s tour of Southeast Asia. But the fruit of that labor (including the Belt and Road) withered away during the tensions of 2014 and 2015. The policy fell out of balance, tipping too far toward the side of “right protection” at the expense of “stability maintenance.” China seems to have woken up to that fact and is adjusting its messaging accordingly.
There are limits to this shift, of course — most notably that China has changed rhetoric but not behavior. Beijing has repeatedly stated it will not give up an inch of its territory, including the nine-dash line in the South China Sea; that policy will remain the bedrock of its maneuvering in the disputed area. In addition, though Beijing has provided a lengthy list of civilian functions for the island outposts, it has not been similarly upfront about its plans for militarizing the islands, although officials have confirmed that the new facilities will be used for defensive purposes, including “better safeguarding territorial sovereignty.” That means the area that most concerns other claimants – newly militarized Chinese outposts in the South China Sea – remains a black box. |
Malcolm Turnbull has moved to clarify his comments in a speech widely interpreted as having a shot at disgruntled conservatives in the Liberal Party such as Tony Abbott.
In the speech to the centre right think tank Policy Exchange in London, Mr Turnbull questioned the use of labels "conservative" and "liberal".
But he noted Liberal founder Sir Robert Menzies "went to great pains not to call his new political party, consolidating the centre right of Australian politics, 'conservative' - but rather the Liberal Party which he firmly anchored in the centre of Australian politics".'
The comments have come at a time of tension between Liberal conservative MPs and moderates, especially over issues such as same-sex marriage and climate policy.
Mr Abbott, who is understood to be on leave overseas, recently vowed to be a strong conservative voice and former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi split earlier this year to set up his own Australian Conservatives party.
Liberal conservative Eric Abetz called for mutual respect between party conservatives and "small-l liberals".
"The Liberal party is and has always been a train running on small-l liberal and conservative tracks - unless both are tended to the whole train will derail," he said in a statement.
Senator Bernadi's Australian Conservatives and One Nation's Pauline Hanson have used the comments to launch recruitment campaigns as the "true" conservative parties.
Mr Turnbull clarified his comments in the wake of media reports of a leaked copy of his speech and a torrent of social media outrage.
He noted he had deliberately used the phrase "sensible centre" coined by Tony Abbott in the speech and believed most Liberal Party members - including himself - embraced both the the terms liberal and conservative.
"They are brought together and indeed they are shared by most of us, we share both traditions, they are not exclusive," Mr Turnbull said.
"But the focus has got to be on delivering for the people you represent ... not ideology and politics."
Mr Shorten said the Liberal party was in crisis.
"It's getting to a point where I think when it comes down to the fight between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, one of them has got to go," he said.
Liberal campaign guru Lynton Crosby said Mr Turnbull was right to put an end to labels.
"It's who you govern for rather than what you call yourself that's most important of all," Sir Lynton told a luncheon in Sydney.
Meanwhile, the prime minister will have an audience with the Queen at Buckingham Palace today .
The meeting will be the final formal event for the prime minister before he heads home.
Mr Turnbull will meet with business leaders to discuss trade and investment, as well as hold a roundtable discussion on education and innovation.
© AAP 2019 |
All donations are tax deductible. We are faced with anofin the bank to continue and vet bills of more than $10000. We haveuntil we can pay these bills.Behind Rabbit Runaway Orphanage isInglis, struggling to care for the stray, dumped and unwanted pet rabbits across the state, with the help of a. It is awith sleepless nights worrying about the animals and challenging days managing their care. We receivehad a condition called floppy bunny syndrome and was paralised and could not move for days. We hand feed her every few hours day and night and raised her babies until she recovered and was able to take over her litter of 9 babies.Over the 2016 Christmas holiday period, when our vets were closed, many of the rabbits in our foster program ended up in. As business resumes these bills have now been forwarded to us. We have overand most of these bunnies are now in permanent loving homes. These rabbits came to us with existing conditions andif they ended up inThefor these rabbits.Lia has dental issues and Berlin is blind in one eye.Little Lavender struggled to survive and spent many nights at Animal EmergencyHarold, Madge, Phillip and John. John lost his battle to survive after many trips to the vet. His sister and brothers have survived with emergency care.We also were faced with a huge number of pet rabbits coming in to us as. Most of theseas there was no one there to care for them over the holiday period,We do not rehome any rabbits until their vet care is completed,was frail and underweight and was having seizures and nearly died. He has dental issuesDewy was surrendered with her newborn babies.In August 2016 we rescued, the result of an irresponsible owner allowing them to breed and populate the streets.The numberwhich included the offspring. We still have 12 of these babies to desex, vaccinate and microchip as they mature at a cost of $3600.are two survivors from the Seaford rescueLife is precious and these costs allow many buns to lead quality lives in loving homes.These bunnies and many others are the ones you are helping and bunny hugs to you all for your generous support of our charity. |
Spectrolab produces higher efficiency space solar cell
by Staff Writers
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 02, 2016
Boeing subsidiary Spectrolab has begun manufacturing a higher-efficiency space solar cell providing new opportunities for the aerospace industry to develop lighter and less expensive spacecraft.
The new solar cell, known as XTJ Prime, has achieved an energy efficiency of 30.7%, which is higher than any other comparable model currently available.
Solar cell efficiency refers to how much sunlight a cell can convert into usable energy. First delivery of the higher efficiency XTJ Prime cells is expected later this year.
"As space has become more accessible to private companies and countries, competition to provide the highest-powered spacecraft at the lowest cost has intensified," said Tony Mueller, president of Spectrolab, during a celebration of Spectrolab's 60th anniversary.
"The increased efficiency of the XTJ Prime solar cell drives a lower-dollar- per-watt solution, meaning spacecraft using this new cell will be lighter and less expensive to build and launch, and more powerful once in space."
Spectrolab, the leading provider of space solar cells and solar panels, provides products to the commercial satellite industry, the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, and domestic and global aerospace companies.
Earlier this year, Spectrolab's space solar cells helped set a new record as NASA's interplanetary probe, Juno, traveled farther from the sun than any other solar-powered spacecraft, reaching more than 517 million miles on its way to Jupiter. |
Most of the media we have presented about the Terrorist group Daesh, detailing their small arms inventory, has come from the group themselves in propaganda and news reports. However recently, courtesy of VICE News, we have a completely unfiltered view from one of their own fighters, in an engagement against the Kurds. The news agency was able to obtain this footage from the helmet camera of one of the slain terrorists. It depicts a mobile element going into battle against a Kurdish YPG position in northern Syria. The truck where the fighter with the camera is in suffers a mobility kill, and the crew in the armored bucket in the back have to bail out and egress to the rear. Much can be said about the tactics of these guys that just plain suck. From rolling on the ground instead of low crawling, to not being aware of their RPG back blast area at all, to horrible communication throughout the vehicles and between the individual fighters in the back of the Mad Max like armored trucks.
As for small arms, we see some interesting developments, namely the 7.62x51mm MG3 (it could possibly be an MG42 from a number of World War Two weapons caches that were unearthed in Syria), to a DIY rifle mounted grenade launcher, set off by a blank round, gingerly lit like a Molotov cocktail. I will give them credit for referring to the types of RPG rockets by Anti-Personal and Anti-Tank, with the personal ones shaped like a solid rod, and the Anti-Tank ones with the bulbous warhead that the RPG is much more commonly seen with. We also see the use of M16s and RPK light machine guns. |
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and senior BJP leader L K Advani at BJP Parliamentary party meeting at Parliament in New Delhi on Tuesday. (PTI Photo)
Veteran BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani is considered to be one of the front-runners to succeed Pranab Mukherjee as the next President of India. Some media reports had earlier claimed that Prime Miniter Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah proposed the name of Advani for India’s top post during a party meet at Somnath on March 8.
However, the revival of the Babri-Masjid demolition case threatens to dent Advani’s chances. On Wednesday, Supreme Court of India had scheduled to examine whether the conspiracy charges in the Babri Masjid demolition incident against BJP leaders like Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and others should be revived or not. These leaders were at the forefront of Ram Janmbhumi movement in the late 1980s and the early 1990s that made BJP a formidable political force in Indian polity.
The case dates back to December 6, 1992 when kar sevaks of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) demolished Babri Masjid, a centuries-old Islamic structure in Ayodhya. The incident triggered communal riots across the country, claiming lives of over 3000 people.
The site of the mosque was disputed as many Hindus believed, and continue to believe now, that it is the birthplace of Lord Ram.
Advani along with others was booked by the CBI for allegedly hatching a criminal conspiracy to demolish the mosque, leading to riots. However, they were later discharged by the Allahabad High Court.
The criminal cases in the Babri demolition incident were first registered under two crime files. While one file (197) had FIR against lakhs of kar sevaks who were involved in the actual demolition of the mosque. The case pertaining to the first file was heard by a court in Lucknow, which dropped conspiracy charges against 13 leaders including Advani and Joshi.
ALSO READ: Hukumdev Narain Yadav to be new Vice-President? Watch him taking on Rahul Gandhi, making Narendra Modi laugh
The second FIR (file 198) in the case was registered against 12 people including names like late Ashok Singhal, Advani, Joshi, Vinay Katiyar and Uma Bharti. These leaders were reportedly present at the site when the mosque was being demolished. This case is still pending in a court in Rae Bareli. The CBI had filed combined chargesheet in the case.
In the Supreme court, the CBI has challenged the trial court’s decision that dropped conspiracy charges against Advani and others. On Wednesday, the matter was adjourned as one of the judges of a division bench was absent.
ALSO READ: Has PM Narendra Modi proposed LK Advani’s name for next President of India?
Justice PC Ghose and Justice Rohinton Nariman will now examine the CBI plea on Thursday. Earlier on March 6, Justice Nariman had talked about starting a debate on reopening the criminal conspiracy charge against the BJP leader.
If the case reopens, Advani’s chance of becoming the President will be almost over and the government would not be able to justify Advani’s candidature for the post, as he would be facing criminal cases.
Advani had earlier failed to become the Prime Minister of India in 2009 General Elections. |
NewsPolitics - U.S.
NEW YORK, August 10, 2016 (PriestsforLife) — Priests for Life released a side-by-side comparison of the Republican and Democratic party platforms that shows stark differences when it comes to the rights of the unborn, religious liberty, marriage and the family and respect for the U.S. Constitution. The guide is legally qualified to be distributed in Churches.
“We talk about voting with a clear conscience, which means you can’t vote against your values," said Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life. "But to vote with a clear conscience, one must consider that elections not only put individual candidates into power; they put political parties into power.
“The same questions you ask about the candidates’ positions on issues have to be asked of the party's positions. The party platform expresses its philosophy, and its policy preferences. If that party comes into power, what people will they assign to committees, and what bills will they allow to come for a vote? What type of people will be in the administration and on the staff of the elected official; what kind of appointments will that individual make?
"Even if an individual candidate is weak on a particular issue, the party platform signals the direction in which he or she will be guided and influenced by staff and advisers, and by constituents. And in the case of a President, the party platform gives a clear signal of the type of philosophy that will prevail, under that President, at the Department of Health and Human Services, at the Department of Justice, in the Surgeon General's office, in the federal courts, in the Supreme Court, and in thousands of other positions in many federal agencies.
"The US Catholic bishops have written, 'We urge our fellow citizens to choose their political leaders based on principle, not on party affiliation or mere self-interest' (Living the Gospel of Life, n.34). Many vote for candidates because of loyalty to a party, without examining the party platform. Our moral duty requires us to look deeper, and our comparison of the Democratic and Republican platforms will help voters do exactly that."
To download a copy of the party platform comparison, go to www.politicalresponsibility.com |
Though an global Accenture study [via Green Car Congress] found that up to 68% of respondents would consider a plug-in electric vehicle for their next purchase, the issue of range continues to be the great unknown. And unfortunately for all the models and predictions of future EV sales, the issue of range points to some severely irrational consumer behavior. Namely, there’s a giant disconnect (nearly ten-fold in fact) between the actual number of kilometers driven each day and the range expectations for future EV purchases. Meanwhile, 62% of respondents rejected battery swapping, the most credible current solution for range anxiety, for reasons that are not immediately clear. In short, Energy Secretary Chu had beeter be right when he says EV range will triple and costs will be reduced over the next six years… otherwise, EVs will die a quick death at the hand of consumers’ outsized range expectations.
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Islamic State fighters hid behind 50,000 civilian hostages as Iraqi forces blitzed Fallujah.
The jihadis used the human shield as efforts to retake the terrorist stronghold, which kicked off under a US-led coalition on May 22, intensified.
Some 70 fanatics have been killed in airstrikes in the past five days in Iraq and Syria, including Maher al-Bilawi, IS’s leader in Fallujah.
Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for the US-led coalition , said the terrorists “are holding the civilian population captive so that they can hide behind them”. In a weekly update of operations, he added: “We’ve killed more than 70 enemy fighters, including Al-Bilawi.”
(Image: Getty)
Fallujah, along with Mosul, is one of IS’s final bastions in Iraq.
The Iraqi defence ministry claims to have isolated the city, which fell to terrorist control in January 2014.
Brigadier Rasool Yahya said: “We are advancing. The presence of civilians in the city could delay us. The enemy left the outskirts and stationed itself inside Fallujah.”
Read more:
According to the UN, up to 800 people have escaped the fighting over the past week – but mostly from the outskirts of the city where IS has been largely pushed out. Of the civilians fleeing, 50,000 were captured and are being held by the remaining 1,700 IS fighters.
Concern had been growing among humanitarian groups for months that the population was being deliberately starved under IS.
But some of Fallujah’s mainly Sunni residents claim to prefer the city under IS control compared with supposed marginalisation under the Shia-dominated government. |
Larch Mountain Road is CLOSED at the snow gate near milepost 10 due to concerns related to 2017's Eagle Creek fire. It is now expected to reopen in late spring 2019, but this depends on weather and other conditions. The US Forest Service and Multnomah County Sheriff's Office must approve the reopening.
About Larch Mountain Road
Larch Mountain Road is the highest road in Multnomah County’s jurisdiction, reaching an altitude of 4055 feet in east county.
In winter, the county closes public access to recreation areas off upper Larch Mountain Road by installing a snow gate near milepost 10. The gate prevents drivers from getting stuck in the snow at upper elevations and reduces snow removal costs in this non-residential area. Due to the Eagle Creek Fire, the road is currently closed near the milepost 10 snow gate. Offroad areas near Larch Mountain Road are also closed due to the fire. The upper portion of the road is closed due to environmental damage and safety risks related to the fire.
Normally, the upper section of the road reopens for recreational users in late spring at the end of the snow season. Reopening the gate provides vehicle access all the way to the view parking lot at milepost 14.5 and the walking trail to Sherrard Point.
Additional Information
Some areas of the Columbia River Gorge, including Larch Mountain trails, remain closed due to damage from the Eagle Creek Fire in 2017. Areas are reopening to the public throughout the year. Check these websites for current information: |
Yesterday DOJ sent a letter to 29 sanctuary jurisdictions that received law enforcement grants under the Byrne/Justice Assistance Grants program in 2016, warning them that they appear to be in violation of federal law and may have to repay the funds. In addition, they could be barred from receiving funds in 2017. Collectively, these jurisdictions received more than $16.7 million last year.
Our sanctuary cities maps are updated to reflect this development.
Under rules imposed in 2016 by previous Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the insistence of House appropriator John Culberson (R-Texas), all applicants for these grants must attest that they are in compliance with all federal laws, especially including 8 USC 1373. That law, passed in 1996, says that no state or local government can have a policy that in any way restricts communication or exchange of information about immigration status between local officials and federal immigration authorities.
Lynch's DOJ initiated an investigation into 10 sanctuaries that received $96.1 million from two DOJ funding programs in 2016. New Attorney General Jeff Sessions continued the process of notifying the jurisdictions, allowing them time to change their policies, and determining if they still qualify for the grants. Four of the original 10 jurisdictions either changed their policies or were able to convince DOJ that they are not now sanctuaries (Miami-Dade County; Clark County, Nev.; state of Connecticut; Milwaukee County). Five are now presumably facing a loss of funds (New York City; Chicago; Philadelphia; Cook County, Ill.; and Orleans Parish, La.). DOJ has not announced its decision on the state of California, which recently enacted a new state law that is even more egregiously restrictive in mandating non-cooperation than the law that DOJ was investigating.
Rather than change, several of the sanctuaries have filed lawsuits to try to force DOJ to back off. So far, three judges have ruled in favor of the sanctuaries, in northern California, Chicago, and, most recently, Philadelphia. All of the judges found that, despite the sanctuaries' claims that DOJ was overstepping its authority and attempting to illegally coerce them to cooperate, it was permissible for DOJ to withhold funds based on illegal sanctuary policies. Nevertheless, all of the judges found other reasons to block DOJ from actually doing it. For example, the Philadelphia judge decided that Philadelphia was not a sanctuary. As a result of the litigation, DOJ has had to delay disbursing all of the 2017 grants.
The following table lists the sanctuary jurisdictions that received warning letters and the amount of funding currently at risk.
List of Byrne/JAG Grants to Sanctuary Jurisdictions Receiving DOJ Warning Letters Jurisdiction State 2016 Byrne/JAG Grant Berkeley Calif. $37,509 City and County of San Francisco Calif. $522,943 City of Los Angeles Calif. $1,870,503 County of Santa Clara Calif. $72,612 Contra Costa County Calif. $194,562 Fremont Calif. $21,872 Monterey County Calif. $17,607 Riverside County Calif. $54,551 Sacramento County Calif. $241,650 Santa Ana Calif. $99,109 Sonoma County Calif. $48,287 Watsonville City Calif. $20,115 City and County of Denver/Denver Police Colo. $426,590 Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants D.C. $1,476,400 City of West Palm Beach Fla. $61,115 Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority Ill. $6,742,363 Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government Ky. $598,104 Lawrence City Mass. $71,811 Jackson City Miss. $260,499 City of Newark Police Dept N.J. $525,446 Middlesex County N.J. $17,862 Bernalillo County N.M. $63,236 Albany – Dept of Public Safety N.Y. $65,738 Multnomah County Ore. $173,088 Oregon Criminal Justice Commission Ore. $2,080,047 City of Burlington Vt. $39,945 City of Seattle Wash. $673,166 King County Wash. $203,065
In June, the House of Representatives passed the No Sanctuary For Criminals Act, sponsored by Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), in order to clarify that local jurisdictions may not impose sanctuary policies, stipulate additional grants that can be withheld from sanctuaries, affirm ICE's authority to request detention of criminal aliens, require the detention of certain criminal aliens, protect local law enforcement agencies that cooperate with ICE, and allow victims of very serious crimes enabled by sanctuary policies to sue those jurisdictions. The bill has not been taken up in the Senate.
Earlier this week, Sessions appeared before the House Judiciary committee, and while most of the hearing focused on other issues, two members expressed strong support for the DOJ moves against sanctuaries.
Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said:
Mr. Attorney General, first of all I want to thank you for all of your efforts to restore the rule of law. Nothing could be more important to our justice system and nothing could be more important to protecting the lives of Americans, and frankly not just protecting their lives but keeping all Americans safe. In particular, many of us appreciate your efforts to crank down on sanctuary cities that blatantly ignore federal immigration laws. ... I have been waiting 20 years for a President and an administration that would enforce current immigration laws. It so happens that I introduced a bill in 1996 for Senator Al Simpson that, among other things, outlawed sanctuary cities. So the law is there and I want to thank you for being willing to enforce that law which will protect many innocent Americans from harm and perhaps save their lives.
Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) asked specifically about the new grant conditions:
Representing and speaking for the sheriffs across the country and chiefs of police as well, one of the issues that I know that they have a great deal of concern about is through your grant process if you could just have someone look at the situation where non-relevant criteria are placed on grants to require agencies to meet some performance criteria. ... Have you had any issues with that?
Sessions replied:
Well the statute Congress passed for the grant program allows the Department of Justice to place special conditions on grants. The one we placed that deals with the future sanctuary cities is minimal, it simply requires a cooperative relationship where federal officials can go the jail and that the people at the jail can communicate with the federal law enforcement officers, it does not require the states to go arrest people or hold them past their release date, none of those things. We think it's a very reasonable thing… that's the one I think we have added to it.
Rutherford answered, "Well I can tell you that's not the one I'm concerned about. In fact the Sheriffs and Chiefs support that wholeheartedly." |
Almost all reactions to the Kurds’ plan for an independence referendum on September 25 have been soft and non-threatening compared to the harsh language and saber-rattling we used to receive every time there was the slightest mention of Kurdish statehood. Our neighbors such as Iran and Turkey and even Iraq itself urge the Kurds to reconsider their plan and rather seek a settlement to all disputes with Baghdad instead of separation.
But the United States has taken a completely different stance and that is asking the Kurds to change the chosen date of the referendum from September to sometime after Iraq’s parliamentary elections of 2018. Their argument is that they want Iraq’s next elections to go smoothly and in a way that Shia hardliners cannot use the Kurdish breakaway against the current moderate Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
The Kurds have long acknowledged the importance of the United States and very much hope Washington throws its weight behind the referendum and subsequently recognize the newborn Kurdish state. And they would readily postpone the referendum if there were clear and written guarantees that the next date they choose will be nonnegotiable.
But the Kurds are not getting such guarantees and many other promises they received from Washington in the past in return for staying and working with Iraq were all broken and never mentioned again.
In 2003 when the US toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime the Kurds were asked to join the political process in Baghdad and help Iraq get back to its feet, which the Kurds did by heading to the capital and filling government and military posts assigned to them. They also ran in all Iraqi elections in order to make free vote a successful tradition in the new Iraq.
They were promised by the Americans that they if supported the transitional law the US itself will oversee the implementation of Article 58 that would solve the issue of all disputed territories between Erbil and Baghdad. In 2005 they once again pleaded with the Kurds vote for the Iraqi constitution that promised Article 140 will solve the issue and that Washington itself will ensure that it is done.
Many such promises have been given the Kurds since 2003, most recently urging them to form a joint military command with the Iraqi army for the liberation of Mosul, which the Kurds did.
So now that the Kurds have finally picked a date for the referendum and seem determined to go ahead with it, the US should stand by their side instead of working to cancel or delay it. American leaders have been saying, since they came to Iraq in 2003, that they are here to create a stable and democratic Iraq that could become a model for the rest of the Middle East. Well, that dream was dashed and has never been farther from reality.
Everything that is happening on the ground today is the opposite of a stable and democratic Iraq with strong institutions. The country is more militarized now than ever before, with multiple militia groups sidelining the army and their leaders gearing up for government and parliamentary positions in the next elections. Several years of sectarian war ethnically cleansed the capital Baghdad and three years of war with ISIS finished the job of ethnically cleansing many other parts of the country.
It is impossible to create the beacon of hope that Washington has been trying to make out of Iraq, but a living and a smaller example of it already exists in the Kurdistan Region which the world should help preserve. Iraq as a state has failed its people. Thousand-years-old communities have been uprooted from their land and those, such as the Sunnis, have been marginalized to the point of continuous rebellion. These actions are in sharp contrast of what is expected of a responsible state and nothing like what the Americans had in mind when their tanks rolled into Iraq.
This state failure has now compelled the Kurds to let go of years of investment in Iraq and instead seek a better future for themselves. The US has been giving Iraq one chance after another to no avail; why not give the Kurds just one chance.
This article was first published on July 22, 2017.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw. |
Etris Kitchen & Bar open in Roswell
Etris Kitchen & Bar has opened on Etris Road in the once-rural Sweet Apple Village section of Roswell, focusing on “farm to fork” cooking in a wood-burning oven and over an open-flame grill. The team includes Massi Mekhmoukh, a former general manager at Salt Factory and Inc. Street Food, and former personal chef David Guilford. On the lunch and dinner menus, look for the likes of deli sandwiches, brick oven pizzas, garlic rosemary-rubbed rack of lamb and cedar plank salmon, plus vegetarian entrees, such as broccoli rabe with fresh pasta, roasted garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. 12020 Etris Road, Roswell. 770-545-8650, etriskitchen.com.
Park’s Edge closed, Victory opening
Park’s Edge on Bernina Avenue in Inman Park has closed, but will reopen soon in a new Midtown location, according to Eater Atlanta. Victory Sandwich Bar, which lost its original Inman Park location to the 280 Elizabeth mixed-use development, is set to open in the Park’s Edge space in the spring. In 2011, Park’s Edge had the odd distinction of undergoing a Gordon Ramsay “Kitchen Nightmares” makeover, then failing its health inspection. In early 2013, Victory opened its second location in Decatur, and shortly after added Paper Plane to the mix. 340 Church St. N.E., Decatur. 404-377-9300, vicsandwich.com.
Pitmaster Rodney Scott at Gunshow
After a fire destroyed his pit house, Rodney Scott, the acclaimed whole hog barbecue master from Hemingway, S.C., decided to take his show on the road, sponsored by members of the Fatback Collective. Scott will land at Gunshow in Atlanta on Jan. 20, hosted by Kevin Gillespie and Angie Mosier. Sandwiches and plates will be served 11 a.m.-6 p.m. At 7 p.m., there will be a $100 multicourse dinner with all proceeds going to help Scott rebuild. Reservations: 404-380-1886. Tour info: thefatbackcollective.tumblr.com/?og=1.
Sweetwater brew for Giving Kitchen
Sweetwater Brewing has been collaborating with the Giving Kitchen to create a limited release specialty beer to raise awareness and help fund the nonprofit’s mission to provide crisis grants to members of Atlanta’s restaurant community. Chef Ryan Hidinger, whose cancer diagnosis spawned the cause, helped create the recipe for Second Helping IPA, which will be distributed later this month in Georgia in 22-ounce bottles, with all profits from the beer donated to TGK by Sweetwater and United Distributors. thegivingkitchen.org. |
For as long as I’ve done this column (saying column makes me want to adjust my monocle), I’ve mostly focused on things I watched growing up and therefore can’t be blamed for the intense reactions I had to them as a child.
Well, today we’re changing all that because I just saw Frozen. Does that mean nothing I’ve seen as an adult has ruined my life? Absolutely not. Breaking Bad I’ve obviously only seen as an adult. Ditto Her, ditto, everything, really. I still consume movies and TV shows with the same, excuse me, gusto, as I did as a child but usually I keep my wits about me a little more. Enter Frozen. I mean, I’m a sucker for a ton of things but some of these things include: Kristen Bell, musicals and Disney movies. So I was pretty much set up for life ruining with this movie (despite the fact that neither of the girls are brunettes!).
Let’s explore the five ways Frozen has ruined my life:
1. Suddenly Desperate to be an Ice Queen
Sure there are tons of downsides to Elsa’s powers but it’s still pretty cool to be able to create ice and snow. Once she figures out how to control it and not be ashamed by it and hide away, she gets to be awesome. Obviously, there’s loads of symbolism to this like, “accept yourself” and “don’t close yourself off to love” and “you don’t have to hide if you have magical powers” or something.
The point is, controlling the weather would be a super cool power to have and Elsa’s whole appearance changes when she “lets it go” because SHE IS FINALLY COOL WITH HERSELF, YOU GUYS.
Ugh, I love Frozen.
2. Want a Talking Snowman Friend
When I say, “I couldn’t stop laughing once Olaf showed up.” I mean that LITERALLY. When he asks who the funny-looking donkey is and then “who’s the reindeer?” I DIED. And then the entire sequence of him meeting Kristoff’s family when they were still in rock form? Amazing.
When I saw him I thought I’d hate him because he’s designed a little weird (since, duh, I get it, kids made him) but he just made me laugh the entire time and I can’t handle thinking about his whispered asides to Anna to run away.
3. Anything Involving Un-Freezing a Heart With Love Will Make Me Cry
My PHYSICAL reaction to Anna being told her heart could only be un-frozen by an act of true love was to yelp, and then start crying.
I’m 29 years old, I’ve watched a ton of movies, I knew what was going to happen when she got struck in the chest. But NONE OF THAT MATTERED WHEN I HEARD THAT LINE. It still hit me right in my own frozen hearthole and I couldn’t handle it.
This is a lesson we all need to remember and like, maybe I’m just in a weird emotional state right now but everything in this movie is IMPORTANT with a capital IMP.
4. DEFINITELY Can’t Trust ANYONE Named Hans Now
As a die hard Die Hard fan, I already am well-versed in the trusting of people named Hans. In that, you shouldn’t.
But Hans in Frozen seems so great! He says sandwiches with her and he’s helpful when she’s leaves him in charge! But he’s actually evil. Ugh.
Classic youngest-of-13-brothers behavior if you ask me.
5. SHE SAVED HERSELF WITH HER EXPRESSION OF LOVE TOWARDS HER SISTER
UGH JUST KILL ME RIGHT NOW.
Also, so sorry most of this is in caps. Sigh.
I LOST MY MIND (whoops) when Anna runs to save Elsa and her body freezes. I could not handle it. Would Kristoff kissing her have saved her? Yes. But then Elsa would have died. Anna loved her sister unconditionally her entire life and when she saved her she saved herself as well. Sisters!
I’ve never wanted a sister more than watching this movie.
(Main image via, poster via, Olaf via, Elsa and Anna via)
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A recently published book published by the British Library charts the evolution of iconic sea serpents, mermaids and other mythical creatures found on world maps from the 10 th century through to medieval and Renaissance times. Despite their wild appearance, most of the creatures were based on true encounters with sea animals, shedding light on how mythology and folklore can evolve from real events.
Chet Van Duzer's " Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps" (British Library, 2013) depict a range of ‘sea monsters’ which cartographers used to illustrate mysterious, unexplored regions of the globe and the possible dangers of seafaring. Many have assumed that these mythical creatures were the results of illustrators having a bit of fun or exerting their imagination in their work. However, many of the ocean’s creatures, including whales, walruses and squid were rarely seen and were considered monsters in medieval and Renaissance times.
"The creatures look purely fantastic. They all look like they were just made up," Van Duzer, a map historian at the Library of Congress, said in a talk about his book. "But, in fact, a lot of them come from what were considered, at the time, scientific sources." For example, it was quite usual for the encyclopedias of the time to contain reference to strange looking terrestrial-aquatic-hybrid animals and mapmakers just took some poetic license in depicting them.
One example of a real sea creature being transformed into a legendary beast is that of the Kraken is a giant sea creature in Scandinavian mythology which was said to be 1 mile long. It was depicted as great beast that would attack ships and was so huge that its body could be mistaken for an island. It is first mentioned in the Örvar-Oddr, a 13th century Icelandic saga.
The Kraken was also mentioned in the first edition of Systema Naturae [1735], a taxonomic classification of living organisms by the Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist Carolus Linnaeus. He classified the Kraken as a cephalopod, designating the scientific name Microcosmus marinus.
The myth of the Kraken is believed by historians and scientists to relate to the giant squid, which can reach 18 meters in length and has been rarely seen by humans as it lives the very depths of the ocean.
By tracing the depictions of sea monsters throughout the centuries, Van Duzer presented an evolution from a world full of dangers lurking in distant oceans where gigantic octopuses and whales drag ships and sailors into the sea, to 17 th century maps showing ships exerting dominion over the beasts of the ocean. Eventually, the beasts disappeared from maps altogether.
The important message to take from Van Duzer’s fascinating depiction of sea monsters is that mythological stories and legends of the past are unlikely to be purely fanciful stories stemming from overly imaginative minds. Rather, it seems clear that most, if not all, the stories from our ancient ancestors evolved from real events that were portrayed according to the understanding and knowledge of the time.
By April Holloway |
When you bring a dog home from a shelter or adopt one from a rescue, you’re doing a noble thing. You’re taking a dog whose days might be numbered, and giving him a new lease on life. Perhaps the dog immediately takes to your family, fits right in, and never displays major behavioral problems. Good for you! But, unfortunately, that’s not the way it goes for everyone. Many of us who rescue or adopt dogs have adopted challenges along with them that must be worked through. It’s not something you’ll see on those tug-at-your-heartstrings commercials, but it’s the truth.
In addition to having been a canine behavior specialist for close to the last quarter century, I’ve always been involved in rescue. There have been the dogs I rescued personally, the ones I worked with in Los Angeles city shelters, and the wolves and wolfdogs at the rescue center I co-ran—three of whom I ended up bringing home. The road has not always been an easy one. Over the years, as I’ve dealt with various behavior issues with my own dogs, I’ve discussed them openly in my books and blogs. Dog owners and even other trainers seem to appreciate hearing about the struggles and problem solving, rather than just reading about how wonderful things are. And so, in the spirit of honest sharing, I offer a few excerpts from my latest book, Hit by a Flying Wolf: True Tales of Rescue, Rehabilitation and Real Life with Wolves and Dogs.
My husband and I rescued Bodhi, a malamute mix, and Sierra, a husky mix, from separate shelters. Not only did they each have behavior problems—and believe me, Bodhi had enough for five dogs—but at the start, there were conflicts between them:
There were periods when I’d have a few minutes or even a few hours where I felt more optimistic about Bodhi—and then something else would happen. Two weeks after we brought him home, I was taking a much-needed break from the book I was writing about separation anxiety. I was lying on the living room couch reading, with a box of peanut butter crackers wedged between my body and the back of the couch. Sierra came walking up through the narrow corridor formed by the couch and the coffee table. She sniffed the air and then the couch. I patiently explained that although peanut butter was indeed one of the world’s finest inventions, the crackers weren’t for her. Just then Bodhi approached from the opposite direction. Now the dogs were nose to nose in a very small space, with me in the middle. Before you could say “Not good,” a snarkfest broke out. Jaws clacked and snarls filled the air as the dogs lunged at each other. I wedged the book between them (now, there’s one advantage of a solid book over a Kindle) and simultaneously sprang up, employing reflexes I didn’t know I still possessed. Sierra seemed scared, while Bodhi just looked puzzled. I calmed the dogs down, put the crackers away, and made a mental note that the Fear of Clacking Jaws Diet could be quite the effective deterrent against late afternoon couch snacking.
Dogs aren’t the only ones who come with issues. For years I co-ran Villalobos Rescue Center with my friend Tia Torres—this was years before Pit Bulls & Parolees came along, when the center was dedicated to rescuing only wolves and wolfdogs. Amongst other duties, I went out on house calls to assist owners so they could keep their animals, transported wolves to the rescue, and did socialization and training with the residents. Then, for reasons explained in the book, I brought three of them home to live with me. As you might imagine, wolves aren’t exactly like dogs, and they presented some serious challenges. That they hadn’t had the best start in life didn’t make things any easier, either. Like so many rescue dogs, Heyoka, a mostly-wolf, had an intense fear of people; it took a long time for me to even be able to touch him. As you might imagine, veterinary visits weren’t the easiest….
This particular veterinary office had seen a lot of the rescue’s animals over the years. None had ever fazed the burly gang members-turned-vet-techs. These guys had wrangled huge Pit Bulls, wolves, and everything in between. But they hadn’t met Heyoka. C.C. and I watched from the waiting room as a dark-haired, twenty-something tech strode confidently toward the holding area in the back. Ten minutes later, he emerged covered in a thin film of sweat, and called for another tech to assist him. The two disappeared. Fifteen minutes later they both reappeared looking sweaty, disheveled, and with a distinct deficiency in the swagger department. “We need the catch pole,” one panted to a third tech, who looked at them and asked, “You wrestling alligators back there or what?” Three techs and thirty minutes later, Heyoka was safely back in the crate.
I don’t mean to give the impression that life with the wolves and dogs has been nothing but difficulties. The love, trust, moments of bonding and affection, and near-magical turnarounds in behavior and spirit are more than worth all of the time and effort. My goal in writing Hit by a Flying Wolf is, beyond simply offering what is hopefully a fascinating read, to inspire owners to not only feel better about the struggles they’re having with their own dogs, but to hang in there and keep trying, even when behavior problems cause disruption, frustration, and challenges. Sometimes true change can take months, or even years. But when we take animals into our homes and families, in the end, the effort is always worthwhile. Just ask Bodhi, the dog I thought I’d never bond with; he’s lying quietly by my side as I type this, and I absolutely love him. That’s the truth about rescue.
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BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Chances are, a lot of you are winding down your holiday weekend and getting ready for a road trip back home.
Adam May reports AAA says that drive might be quicker than last year but it will cost you more money.
Labor Day weekend is one of the busiest travel times of the year and 600,000 Marylanders were projected to take a road trip for the holiday.
“We recommend drivers build in enough time to get to their destinations. The roads will be congested,” said Christine Delise, AAA.
But not as bad as last year. Travel is expected to be down more than two and a half percent, due in part to high gas prices. It’s a dollar more a gallon compared to Labor Day 2010.
“Either the gas stations or gas companies are ripping us off because we know we have to have it,” said one driver.
History says relief should be slight.
“Typically after Labor Day, gas prices start to decline due to a lack of demand and also refinery switch to less expensive winter fuel brands,” Delise said.
But AAA says this year could be different. Tropical Storm Lee in the Gulf of Mexico prompted the evacuation of oil platforms, temporarily reducing production by 60 percent.
“Any disruption in oil production could allow for a spike in gas prices at the pump,” Delise said.
And this hurricane season—predicted to be active—isn’t over until Nov. 30.
A few hours ago, inspections began on some oil platforms in the Gulf. So far, there have been no reports of damage. |
By Tom Feilden
Today programme
Imagine the scene - you're standing in the deserted street of a ramshackle wild west town, Colt 45 strapped to your thigh, the music of Ennio Morricone floating on the air. Somewhere off to the right a shutter bangs in the wind. Tumbleweed skitters by. Up ahead a grim-faced man dressed all in black (if it's a poncho you're in real trouble) stands ready to draw his six-shooter. What happens next will decide whether you live or die. Should you go for your gun, or wait for him to make the first move? Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. We all know Hollywood's answer: In the movies the hero always waits for the man in the black hat to move first, securing the moral high ground, before beating him with superior quick-fire skills. But in the real world, logic dictates that the gunslinger who draws first has a clear advantage. In a duel to the death, where every second counts, a head start should make all the difference. If only everything in life was so simple. New research from the University of Birmingham suggests the best strategy may actually be to wait for the other guy to make his move. In a series of "laboratory gunfights" - with pistols replaced by electronic pressure pads - researchers found that participants who reacted to their opponent's movement were on average 21 milliseconds faster to the draw. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Professor Andrew Welchman, who lead the research, puts this down to the "quick and dirty" nature of instinctive responses. Reacting to your opponent's movement turns out to be significantly faster than the conscious decision-making process involved in choosing to draw your gun. "In our everyday lives some of the movements we make come about because we decide to make them, while others are forced upon us by reacting to events," he says. As a general strategy for survival, these reactive responses seem pretty useful, he says. "It could mean the difference between life and death when you are trying to avoid an oncoming bus." Twelve Bohr But the Birmingham team, whose research is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society 'B', are not the first to make this journey. Physicist Niels Bohr - not a man to take on in a gunfight It turns out that the celebrated Danish physicist and Nobel laureate, Niels Bohr, liked to take time off from figuring out the structure of the universe by watching westerns. Bohr noticed that the man who drew first invariably got shot, and speculated that the intentional act of drawing and shooting was slower to execute than the action in response. Here was a hypothesis that could be tested, and with the aid of cap guns hastily purchased in a Copenhagen toyshop, duly proved it. In a series of mock gunfights with colleagues Bohr always drew second and always won. According to Manjit Kumar, the author of Quantum, Bohr's prowess as a gunslinger was such that his victims wrote a ditty about him. On pistols and lead, now Bohr had to prove
The defendant is quickest to move.
Bohr accepted the challenge without a frown
He drew when we drew, and shot each one of us down.
This tale has a moral, tho' we knew it before.
It's foolish to question the wisdom of Bohr. In developing his theory of the shootout Bohr went on to suggest that the logical conclusion was a negotiated settlement. Since neither protagonist would want to draw first, there was nothing to do but talk.
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